Preface
I have read John’s Gospel devotionally as part of my Christian discipleship since committing my life to Christ at university in the early 1970’s. I am not a Biblical scholar, however in 2012 having completed a personal book review on the New Testament book of Romans for my own benefit, I felt inclined to carry out a similar review on John’s Gospel. When undertaking my review on the book of Romans, I had separated out thoughts not directly relating to the text and headed these sections ‘food for thought.’ I then added a ‘challenge’ relating to each section. I have sought to use a similar style in the subject review on John’s Gospel.
John’s Gospel (unlike Romans) presented problems as to who exactly wrote the Gospel. Some early Church Fathers apparently supposed that the Gospel derived from a disciple named John and was completed by his disciples following his death. However scholars are divided as to which disciple named John this may have been, since it is known that a disciple styled ‘John the Elder’ was a bishop during the latter part of the first century, however other late second century Fathers had believed that the Apostle John was the source of the Gospel. I have done my best to think through some of the evidence and decide for myself how I think the Gospel may have been produced. What I have written is not a scholarly study and does not therefore constitute a formal commentary, but I think could be classified as a book review. In writing this review I have encouraged myself in the Christian faith and I hope anyone who cares to read it will also be encouraged.
I have included extracts from the New Living Translation (NLT), second edition (unless otherwise denoted) and occasionally I have added minor clarifications in brackets to suit context. The scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004 and used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
Quotes in italics are my own paraphrases. The word Spirit with a capital ‘S’ denotes the ‘Spirit of God’ or the person of God that the Bible may otherwise describe as ‘God the Holy Spirit’.
mikereflects Sept 2012
Foreword
It might be asked by some what the difference is between a ‘book review’, ‘devotional aid’ and a ‘commentary’ when it comes to such well known literature as the Bible. Commentaries are generally written by scholars whose aim is to present the meaning of Holy Scripture in the context of the day that the text was written without offering too much by way of how the meaning of that text might be legitimately applied in the modern era. While giving a guide to the original context, a devotional aid is intended to apply Scripture in a modern context to both challenge and encourage the user. Book reviews are generally written in a modern context with the aim of providing potential readers of a book with a particular critical overview. The subject text is intended primarily as a book review, but also provides a devotional challenge; it is not a commentary.
To write a Biblical book review might be seen by some as challenging the sacredness of a Scriptural text. I would ask such critics to reflect on the nature of Holy Scripture. What does it really say about itself? Is Holy Scripture intended to be so ‘sacred’ that it should not be critically assessed? When St Paul states that ‘all Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realise what is wrong in our lives’ (2Tim.3v.16), he did not state that the Scriptures were dictated by God (that would imply they are without error) nor that God ensured that they didn’t reflect any factual ignorance on the part of the original authors – so Scripture can be both God inspired and useful to teach us at the same time as containing some factual errors and human judgements that may legitimately be challenged by subsequent generations of Christian believers.
Keith Ward writes in his book (‘What the Bible really teaches’, SPCK, 2004), ‘What the Church was doing in framing a canon of Scripture was to declare those writings are truly inspired by the Spirit, and that they were suitable, taken together, to frame a normative rule for Christian believing. But it was taken for granted that the Scriptures were hard to interpret, requiring discernment and judgement, and that they expressed human responses to disclosures of the divine in and through Jesus, responses which could continue to be built on and extended and complemented by subsequent human experience.’
‘When Jesus said, “when he, the Spirit of truth, comes he will guide you into all truth” (Jn.16v.13), he did not add, “But only for a short time”. Jesus said, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear” (Jn.16 v.12). The implication is that Jesus did not give even his closest disciples a full and final revelation of the truth. There is more to be learned, and the Spirit has more to teach.’ Keith Ward goes on to helpfully expound the principles of interpretation that should be employed by any serious student of the Biblical text.
In the subject review of John’s Gospel, I intend to take a critical lay view of the subject matter and to consider how the underlying truth of the sacred text can be applied in a modern context.
A plain man’s twenty first century reflections on St. John’s Gospel with ‘critical review’, ‘food for thought’ and ‘challenge’ sections.
Contents of Part One
1 The Authorship and Purpose of John’s Gospel
The Authorship of John’s Gospel
The Intended Readership of John’s Gospel
2 God’s Logos has come to Humanity.
John 1 v 1-5 ~ (Revelation of the God Logos)
John 1 v 6-9 ~ (Opening of the Gospel)
John 1 v 10 ~ (God in Jesus not recognised by the world)
John 1 v 11-13 ~ (Jesus was rejected by the Jewish Nation)
John 1 v 14-18 ~ (The loving-kindness of God in Jesus)
John 1 v 19 to 34 ~ (John the Baptist’s message)
John 1 v 35 to 51 ~ (the first disciples of Jesus)
John 2 v 1-12 ~ (Building the house of faith)
John 2 v.13 to 22 ~ (Jesus Cleanses the Temple)
John 2 v.23 to 25 ~ (Jesus understood human nature)
3 God’s logos brings Spiritual New Birth
John 3 v. 1 to 21 ~ (Nicodemus and Spiritual New Birth)
John 3 v.22 to 36 ~ (The Evangelist & Baptist exalt Jesus)
John 4 v 1-30; v 39-42 ~ (Jesus & the Samaritans)
John 4 v 30-38 ~ (Jesus and the spiritual harvest)
John 4 v 43-53 ~ (Jesus Returns to Cana in Galilee)
Authorship, Readership and Purpose of John’s Gospel
The Authorship of John’s Gospel
‘J21v24This disciple is the one who testifies to these events...And we all know that his account of these things is accurate.’
Knowledge about the authorship of any work is important to us because we like to know what we might expect if we commit to reading it. Will it be worth our while? We seldom read a book without first having some notion of whether or not we would want to read a book written by that particular author – the work or author may have been recommended to us by someone we trust, or we may have read one of the author’s books before and found it agreeable, or we may happen know the author and want to read what she/he has to say, or again it may be a publication produced by an organization we trust and we need to acquire the knowledge they offer.
The Gospel of John itself does not state who the author is (even though it has been traditionally ascribed to ‘John’), nor since it was evidently written later than any other New Testament work, is there any New Testament reference to the book. It also appears that much of the content is, or is presented as that of a particular eyewitness of Jesus ministry. The book does not obviously draw material from the earlier Synoptic Gospels, though it probably draws material from the apostolic oral tradition as well as from an eyewitness.
As I have indicated, when we have publications where the authorship or the group from which it derives is unclear we can have a problem in knowing how to relate to it. However if we know something about either the author or the group from which the work derives, we are better able to relate to its contents. We can happily relate to a work known to derive from a particular group or organisation without knowing who the specific individual author is; this is because we accept that although the work could have several authors or editors, it authentically derives from that particular group.
Thus without knowing who the particular compiler-author of John’s gospel was, we could still happily accept the content, if we are able to accept that it derives from one or more eyewitness accounts and/or accounts that the earliest Christian leaders held to be true and as deriving from the life and teachings of Jesus. There are many scholarly works analysing the origins of the New Testament, but the precise origin of John’s Gospel is lost to history. However for Christian believers at least, the Gospel displays through its message the stamp of the inspiration of the risen Christ.
For the purposes of this review I am assuming the gospel was authored by a literate complier (or group) who for simplicity I shall call the John the Evangelist. I have included some of my arguments in support of this position together with other data relating to the origins of the New Testament in Appendix 1. I take it that the author used one or more eye-witness accounts, but particularly accounts deriving from the Apostle John (son of Zebedee, brother of James and one of Jesus inner circle) together with the apostolic oral traditions which contained derivations of, and/or the original teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is also apparent that the author had access to significant eyewitness (or derivative) sources not used by the Synoptic Gospel writers.
It is also important to note when the book was written. It is apparent that John’s Gospel was written after the fall of Jerusalem to the Roman armies in 70 CE during the first Jewish-Roman war (68 CE-73 CE) in which over a million Jews were killed (manly at Jewish hands) and a further million dispersed either as slaves or fugitives throughout the empire (i.e. a large part of the population of Judea at that time had been decimated). The author consequently may have had good reason to show Christianity as different and superior to Judaism. Jesus is portrayed as castigating the Jewish religious leaders, and, for example there is no mention of the transfiguration where according the earlier Synoptic Gospel writers Jesus appeared with Moses and Elijah. John’s Gospel is one of the last New Testament books to be written and post-dates the Synoptic Gospels by some 20 to 30 years.
Food for thought: Every Biblical book has a human author or authors since no part of the Bible ever came down from heaven on printed golden tablets or was ever literally dictated from heaven (as is claimed respectively for the Book of Mormon and the Holy Koran). Even where a text might claim that ‘these are God’s words’, nevertheless we have to accept that the text is written by means of a human brain with its limitations of both wit and understanding and recorded by means of a human hand and language with inherent limitations.
Challenge:- Rather than blindly accepting a Biblical text as literally God’s Word to be thoughtlessly obeyed, are you prepared to ask God’s Spirit to use the text to speak into you that which God creatively desires to speak into your life to enrich and encourage you in faith, commitment and creative service?
The Intended Readership of John’s Gospel
The Author does not state who his intended readership is, and so we will need to lean on scholarship and tradition. My limited understanding of these matters is that the Gospel may have been written in three stages, the final stage of which followed the death of John the Elder c.95 and was undertaken by his disciples. The final chapter ties in with this view since it gives reason for mention of Jesus words (Jn.21 v.23). There was likely to have been a lingering hope amongst local Christian believers that Christ would return within the life time of the last remaining disciple of Jesus (albeit not one of the Twelve), so the disciples of John the Elder would have reason to pen verse 23 following the Elders’ death.
The canonical Gospel was finally commissioned by the bishops of Asia Minor (at the end of the first century CE) to strengthen the faith of the Christians in that region who were facing increasing pressure especially from those who denied that Jesus Christ was fully human. The Gospel was written in Greek, but the author was probably a Jewish Christian writing in the first place to Jewish converts (inclusive of the many who had fled Judea following the devastation wrought by the Jewish freedom fighters and the Roman armies). This is evidenced by John 20 v.30-31, where he states he is writing to encourage his hearers to continue to believe that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah: however the fact that the Gospel starts with its bold prologue declaring as it does that God’s Word (Logos) became flesh and blood in the person of Jesus may indicate that the author was intending to address both a Jewish and Greek readership.
Food for thought: FF Bruce points out that a Jewish Christian readership (including the author) would have understood the meaning of the word ‘logos’ differently to the way a Greek Christian readership would have done. The Jewish author would have understood the phrase ‘logos of God’ to mean ‘the creator God’s action revealed amongst us,’ whereas for Greek people the phrase would have implied ‘the creator God’s (passive) universal reason and message revealed to us.’ We must accept that given our different cultural context, we are most likely to understand any ancient text differently from how the author or his immediate readership would have understood it, and that translation and time have also had their effects on distorting the original.
Challenge: Are you prepared to spend time finding and thinking about many alternative views and interpretations of the Biblical text so as to find its relevance for today?
The Purpose of John’s Gospel ~ (John 20 v.30-31)
Though the authorship of John’s Gospel is un-certain, the Evangelist makes his purpose in writing the Gospel abundantly clear. He states, These (signs from God) are written so that you may continue to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you will have life by the power of his name (Jn.20 v.31).
The purpose of a book relates to the intended readership. A novel is intended for sale to the general public so that they can escape the reality of their humdrum experience; a scholarly paper is intended for scholars to review and appraise and so further a collective understanding of a subject. A Biblical Gospel was intended for those who had already heard about Jesus Christ and responded in faith, but who then needed to be strengthened in that faith (ref. Jn.20 v.31 & Luke 1 v.3).
The Evangelist states his expectation that the ‘signs’ he records will affirm the Christians’ faith that Jesus is the Jewish ‘Messiah, the Son of God (Jn.20 v.31).’ It is interesting that although John refers to Jesus Christ as God’s ‘Logos’ with its strong Greek meaning different to its Jewish meaning), he reverts to a solely Jewish conceptual framework using the word ‘Messiah’ by chapter 20 where he describes his Gospel purpose. Although he is writing to mainly Jewish converts to Christianity, his appeal is also to Greek Christian converts.
The Greek conception of the words ‘one and only Son of God’ (chapter 1 v.18) would have been understood in terms of a ‘literal’ son as in the legends of the Greek gods, whereas the Jewish conception of the term ‘Son of God’ (ref. Chapter 20 v.31) would have been that of a ‘Vassal king’ acting on earth with the direct authority of God (An emperor referred to his subordinate as his ‘son’ and the vassal king referred to the emperor as his ‘father’ ~ FF Bruce New Bible Dictionary, IVF). Jesus then acted with the authority of his spiritual Father (God). In both these concepts and in the understanding of the hearers, the ‘one and only Son’ and the ‘Messiah’ would have been thought of as a unique person: this, despite there being other ‘anointed’ people referred to in Scripture (such as the Old Testament describes the Emperor Darius).
The Evangelist’s purpose was that Christians believe and continue to give witness to the following facts:-
In Jesus of Nazareth, God had acted with power to bring us salvation.
God’s message for all human kind (regardless of religion) was uniquely worked out in Jesus life, death and resurrection.
The Gospel is a message about the need for and means of relationship with God and the power thereby to live a Godly life.
Since the Evangelist is writing at a time of severe Jewish dispersion (Jerusalem has been sacked by the Roman armies and the authority of the Chief Priests shown to be vacant), it is my belief that the author has selected the particular miraculous signs (and their teaching counterparts) that he has done, so as to particularly strengthen the Christian believers in their ability to present the Gospel to the dispersed and disillusioned Jewish nation.
(N.B. I return to this consideration of the author’s purpose again under chapter 20 - to go forward ref: John 20 v.30 )
Food for thought: (a) What convinced John the Evangelist that Jesus is God’s Christ? : In his Gospel, the Evangelist records an instance as Jesus contemplates his death (John 12 v.27-33), when those present experienced a sign of God speaking to Jesus and confirming he was glorifying his name in the outworking of Jesus life as God's son/Messiah. For the Evangelist it seems that the events that proved Jesus to be God's son, i.e., Messiah, were related to his baptism, his life and his sacrificial death and the spiritual awaking of believers.
For the Evangelist, the essentials that prove Jesus to be God’s Christ are the truths that, (1) Jesus was fully human (Jn.1v.14; 4 v. 6; 11 v.35; 19 v.26; 2 Jn.v7), (2) John the Baptist witnessed powerfully to Jesus being the Christ, (3) God was powerfully encountered in all of Christ Jesus’ life, (4) Jesus as God’s sacrificial lamb died on a Roman cross to bring God’s forgiveness of sin for all humanity (John 1 v.36) and (5) those who hear the (spiritual) ‘voice of Christ’ are ‘awakened’ from spiritual death (John 5 v.25).
Under the Food for thought relating to John 2 v.23 to 25, I discuss further how the first three of these ‘essential signs’ were probably seen in a different light in the ancient world to that in which they are read today and I discuss how the particular ‘miraculous signs’ relate to convincing Jews in particular of the supremacy of Jesus Christ over the Jewish religion.
Under the Food for thought relating to John 12 v.20-36, I discuss the last two essential signs.
(b) What convinces modern Christians that Jesus is God’s Christ? By enlarge it is Christian testimony to the reality of Christ changing someone’s life round (from self centeredness to Christ centeredness) with the work of God’s Spirit convincing that person of their need to accept Christ into their lives, that motivates people to become Christians. It is not the miraculous per se that convinces them, but the evidence of spiritual power. Christians then tend to believe the Gospel records inclusive of their miraculous content since these records point to the risen Christ who has become their Lord and saviour.
Challenge: Do you believe that God was uniquely at work in Jesus and that he is God’s vital and unique message for everyone?
God’s Logos has come to Humanity.
John 1 v 1-5 ~ (Revelation of the God ‘Logos’)
‘In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God and the Word was God. ...God created everything through him...The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought life to everyone...The light shines in the darkness.
(ex. Jn.1v1-5 TLB)’
The Evangelist opens his Gospel with a glorious insight as he takes the Greek concept of ‘logos’ (translated ‘Word’ in TLB) and applies it to God’s creative action. ‘The Gospel of John identifies the Logos, through which all things are made, as divine, and further identifies Jesus as the incarnation of the Logos (Wiki Aug 11)’. In the first five verses however John is focusing on the logos of God, or ‘God logos,’ prior to identifying this concept with the man Jesus Christ (v. 9-18). So what do the first five verses aim to tell us about God?
If we take ‘logos’ to mean ‘revelation’ or ‘message’ or the outworking of ‘universal reason’ (as it would have meant to Greek speaking Christians), then the passage identifies God’s revelation/ message/ universal reason with himself: ‘The Word was with God and the Word was God’ (John 1 v1). To Jewish Christians the sense would have been that ‘God’s logos’ became active through the creation of the universe, so John is initially proclaiming that the universe is a revelation of God (Greek sense) and that God in his logos is involved in universal creation of all that we know exists (Jewish sense). We can see this as the Un-created God (Essence/Mind/Spirit) freely choosing to create the temporal universe (to reveal his divine purpose) and thereby becoming active or entering into that creation (to effect his plans). Whether or not you hold a Monist or Dualist world view will further determine how you may understand these concepts.
‘The Word gave life to everything that was created’ (John 1 v.4a) has a double meaning in that John is telling us on the one hand that the logos gives life or expression to everything that exists, and on the other hand he is also aiming to tell us (by verses 9 and 10) that the logos was coming into the world, the very world the God logos had created, and had come as a human being!
In the first sense (from an ideal Monist perspective at least), the material universe is an expression of God – so the verse means that the Wisdom of God created the material expression of God’s purpose (which includes both the inanimate and evolved animate life). On earth the most complete expression of this purpose is the evolution of humankind with our ability to share and relate to God’s essence through our temporal consciousness. Thus the material world we experience is a particular created expression of whatever the nature of God is, that we can now but dimly perceive as the mind of God (how the eternal mind of God can be expressed in temporal material energy and matter is unexplained, but remains logically possible since the nature of the uncreated God or Mind, though un-known, remains consistent). Under this philosophy, when the temporal body dies, the non-temporal component of the human mind still exists as a component of the Mind of God.
From a Dualist perspective the first sense of the meaning of verse 4a would be that the material universe inclusive of living things is created by God from nothing (the logic of which is un-explained) and that God has somehow given two natures to human beings (one with access to his entirely other divine essence, and the other of which does not). Hence by this philosophy part of the human mind is created to exist independently of, but temporally attached to the human body (see footnote for problems for this perspective). When the body dies some part of the mind can’t die – it is somehow essentially linked to the eternal Mind of God!
The second sense of meaning of verse 4a is that God’s Wisdom has entered our material world, and this is confirmed by the words, ‘his life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness (John 1 v 4b, 5),’ where the Evangelist’s thoughts are clearly moving on to identify the logos of God with the coming of Christ as God’s ultimate revelation.
Food for thought: The concepts ‘creator God’ and ‘God logos’ are concepts that are both independently reasonable to human minds even though we can’t fully comprehend them. However the notion that a universal ‘creator’ can become the ‘created’ is meaningless to us, but the notion that the ‘God logos’ or God ‘reason/message’ might be incarnated in a human person is much more comprehensible. The difference is subtle in that we associate someone assuming a new identity as the whole person assuming that identity (without necessarily losing their other identities), so if someone says ‘God became man’ we think the person is speaking riddles since we understand literally that the creator simply can’t become the created: however if someone says, ‘the purpose or wisdom of the creator became a man so as to better identify with the creation’, we take that as somewhat comprehensible because in order to create, the creator has to have a purpose or wisdom which becomes expressed in what is created.
Hence for a material example, the creator of a ship might finally hand over a ship’s manual to the ship operator as it sails, and in a similar sense it might be said that the universal creator has handed over a creation manual to humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. When the ship is at sea, the designer is not usually present, but the manual is and it represents the designer’s authority; so Christians may claim that Jesus Christ represents God’s purpose and authority to humanity.
Challenge: Do you rejoice in seeing the universe as God revealing himself and that the coming of the Logos in human flesh is the ultimate expression of this revelation?
John 1 v. 6-9 ~ (Opening of the Gospel)
‘God sent a man, John the Baptist, to tell about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony (Jn. 1 v. 6).’
Here the Evangelist is identifying the God logos/ God’s Light with the man to whom John the Baptist gives testimony, viz. Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ of God. John the Evangelist was probably Jewish, but in writing his Gospel he is addressing a mixed Greek and Jewish (and ultimately world-wide) audience, hence for example he starts his Gospel by using the Greek word ‘logos’ (with its cultural meaning) in preference to using the Jewish word ‘Messiah’ (the word that describes the long expected coming amongst the Jews of God’s earthly representative). In using ‘logos’ to describe the person he believes is God’s Messiah, John is deliberately choosing a broader and deeper concept than Messiah conveys (i.e. even in Jewish thought).
However the Evangelist is nevertheless writing as a Jew and so when for example he uses the word ‘light’ in chapter one (verse 6) to describe the coming of God’s logos to humanity as the spiritual light for the whole world, he is nevertheless thinking of the Jewish Messiah, for example as in Isaiah’s prophecy, ‘The people who walk in darkness will see a great light (Isa.9v2).’ This refers to the coming of the Messiah to those who lived in ‘Galilee of the Gentiles’ (Isa.9 v1 where the word ‘Gentiles’ refers generically to all the rest of the non-Jewish world population). Again the Evangelist is thinking of the fulfilment of Isaiah’s prophesy, where God tells his coming Messiah that he ‘will do more than restore the people of Israel to me. I will make you a light to the Gentiles, and you will bring my salvation to the ends of the earth! (Isa.49 v.6)’
Food for thought: The Christian church in the centuries following the completion of the New Testament has gone further than claiming that Jesus Christ represents God’s purpose and authority to humanity: the Creeds claim that Jesus Christ is not only God, but is the second person of the Trinity God. However we must be clear that John was not formulating an ontological creed such as the Doctrine of the Trinity and we should not read such an understanding into his Gospel message. The creeds were formulated by the Christian church in the centuries after John was writing. According to Biblical scholar FF Bruce, the doctrine of the Trinity would have been meaningless to Jesus Christ.
He writes,
‘To ask if Jesus knew himself as the Second Person of the Trinity is to try to formulate his inner consciousness in the vocabulary of a later age, which for the Jesus of history would have had no meaning. We may choose to express our understanding of his person in that language, but for Jesus himself it is sufficient to say that he knew himself to be the Father’s dear Son, responding to the Father’s love with a full response of obedient love.’
The doctrine of the Trinity as rendered in English (and as used in the 2nd millennium) has a subtly different and somewhat misleading meaning compared to when it was formulated by the Church Fathers in response to the ever growing questions asked by Christians (especially Greek Christians) during the second century as to who exactly Jesus was and what was his real relationship with God. In the first millennium, various factions arose in the Christian church and basic doctrinal answers were hammered out by theologians and philosophers over several centuries. The doctrines and creeds (initially written in Greek) were completed in the sixth century and were created to counter those alternatives that were proclaimed to be heresies.
The doctrines and creeds were indirectly derived from passages like John’s prologue. But to state that in essence ‘the eternal wisdom of God became a man in Jesus, or that the eternal God was alive and active in Jesus Christ so as to identify with humankind and to bring us to God’, is a ‘functional’ description and is not the same as stating that the ‘fully human man Jesus eternally equals God’, even if this is what the Christian church has come to believe in the succeeding centuries. (A full discussion on this and how the doctrine of Trinity God has developed in the 2nd and 3rd centuries is included in Appendix 4)
Some may reasonably ask why it is that St. Paul stated plainly to the Corinthian church, ‘When all things are under his authority, the Son (viz. Jesus Christ) will put himself under God’s authority, so that God, who gave the Son his authority, will be utterly supreme over everything everywhere (1 Corinthians 15 v.28).’ If Jesus inherently was possessed (as God) with the authority of the eternal God, then why would God need to invest his authority in Jesus and then for Jesus to re-invest it in God his Father? This distinction of roles is further clarified by the Evangelist in John 1 v.10 which I will review in the next section.
Challenge: Do you rejoice that God’s heart is ultimately revealed to us in Christ Jesus?
John 1 v.10 ~ (God in Jesus not recognised by the world at large)
‘He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognise him (Jn.1v10).’
Most people think of God as the creator of the universe and that is how the Bible puts it. More subtly, John states that God’s Logos was with God and that by God’s logos the universe was created. He then identifies God’s logos with Jesus Christ. John does not tell us how this can be. Succeeding generations of theologians have tried to spell this out, but leaving such paradigms aside, what might John’s words have meant to his contemporaries? If we take the meaning of logos as God’s Wisdom (Greek concept) then Greek thinking Christians would have identified Jesus with God’s Wisdom incarnate. And indeed we can rightly see the Gospel as God’s wisdom by which we are brought into God’s kingdom. There is sufficient meat in this allegory to fully satisfy the meaning of this passage.
If we take a more Jewish understanding of logos (active word of God), then Jewish Christians might have identified Jesus directly with the Creator God: John may be saying that Jesus was and is the Creator God. Such a claim would have been blasphemy to the Jewish mind and indeed the NT records that Jesus enemies did accuse him of blasphemy ‘because he made himself equal with God.’
However thoughtful Jewish Christians may have pondered as to precisely what John could have meant by this passage. For example, how does it make sense to describe the man Jesus as the Creator God? Is this plain nonsense? Is John deluded? Was it blasphemy? They may have thought of the following possible alternative meanings to John’s text, for example,
- Jesus of Nazareth came into the world that the man Jesus had created.
- The (personalised) Word of God came into the world (in the human person, Jesus of Nazareth) that God’s creative Word had created.
- The God Messiah came into the world (in the human person, Jesus of Nazareth) that he had created.
- Jesus of Nazareth was the incarnation of one of three closely related but separate eternal God-personages who created the universe
Which is the most likely alternative the first Jewish Christians would have arrived at? The first possible meaning is highly unlikely since John has claimed that Jesus of Nazareth was a real human being and as far as the Gospels tell us Jesus always spoke of the creator God as his heavenly father and never once claimed in his personhood to replace the creator God. So although John clearly means us to identify Jesus with God, he doesn’t go so far in this passage as to state that the human Jesus was identical to the creator God. That is to say John is not claiming here that the creator God (in totality) became Jesus of Nazareth (a later ‘Modal’ heresy). (Later in the Gospel, John tells us that Jesus used the ‘I am’ words in ways that the Jews took him as claiming identification with God, but we will think about that in context.)
The second possible meaning fits the sense of God’s personalised creative word (akin to the Biblical Wisdom literature). In this sense the statement refers to God as, ‘in and by his Word’ creating the universe and who subsequently ‘in and by his Word’ now relates to humanity ‘in and by’ the man Jesus of Nazareth. This is parallel to the more Greek understanding. That is to say John may be claiming that ‘the word of God was incarnated in the human Jesus.’ It must be noted that this would not necessarily obviate the need for Jesus to pray to his spiritual Father.
The third possible meaning relates to the notion that the uncreated creator God could only create and exist in the created universe if God as it were has transmuted himself with that creative action (inherent love to practical love, timeless to time, non-actor to actor, etc.). Hence God in creating the universe is the Creator Messiah (Christ) and Jesus of Nazareth was a human manifestation of the ‘God Messiah’ fulfilling his redemptive purpose of bringing humanity into everlasting relationship with himself and as prophesied in the O.T. Such a meaning maybe paralleled in Hebrews 1 v.3.
The fourth possibility of three separate god persons (however closely integrated) would have been instantly dismissed by all faithful Jewish disciples. God is one and there is no multiplication! This would have been blasphemy!
I have shown that the first meaning is both illogical and more obviously wrong to a Jewish Christian mind and that there is no thought here of more than one God personage (though in Hebrews there maybe), so which of the other two possible meanings would have fitted the context best? I think it more likely that John’s Jewish Christian hearers would have taken the second sense as John’s meaning (viz., the word of God was incarnate in Jesus). I think it unlikely they would have come to the third possible (Modal?) conclusion, but it is conceivable.
Food for Thought: The third alternative meaning (viz., the eternal Christ came into the world that the Creator Messiah God had created, by choosing for himself a human person-hood/ body) was however prophesied according to Heb.10 v. 5, and that this incarnation was the human fleshly person of Jesus of Nazareth, and so I believe it is worth exploring further. The logic of this is attempted in the later doctrine of the Trinity. I have briefly tackled this together with the (post-Apostolic) second century concept of God in Trinity and its subsequent development in the second & third millennia as Appendix 4 to the subject book review.
Challenge: Whatever the exact nature of God, do you acknowledge and draw on the reality of God’s saving grace offered to us in and through Jesus of Nazareth?
John 1 v. 11-13 ~ (Jesus was rejected by the Jewish Nation)
“He came to his own people, but even they rejected him. But to all who accepted him, he gave the right to become the children of God. They are re-born – not with a physical birth..., but a birth that comes from God (Jn.1v11-13).”
Here the Evangelist acknowledged that at the time of his writing, God’s Messiah had been largely rejected by the Jewish nation, but he claimed that all who had accepted him (as well as all those future believers who would do) are spiritually re-born. This is an important theme of the Gospel and is intimately linked to Jesus being the one who will baptise people with the Holy Spirit (v.32).
The Evangelist develops this theme of ‘new birth’ further in chapter 3 where Jesus addresses the Jewish leader Nicodemus, who came to him one evening to hold a private conversation.
Food for thought: The Gospel writers speak of Jesus as one who was in tune with God from his birth. As such Jesus would not have experienced spiritual ‘new birth’ as an event, since he would have grown in this spiritual relationship with God as he grew up from childhood (Refer to Luke 2 v.52 and Isaiah 53 v. 2). And there are those today who have grown up responsive to God from early childhood, who also aware of their spiritual relationship with God, but can’t name the time of their ‘new birth.’
Challenge: Have you experienced and/or are you experiencing the spiritual ‘new birth’ that Jesus spoke about?
John 1 v.14-18 ~ (The gracious loving-kindness of God is revealed in Jesus Christ)
‘He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only son (Jn.1v.14).’
The Evangelist goes on to emphasise (1 v.17) that it was God’s unfailing love and faithfulness that came (to the world) through Jesus Christ. This fact experienced at that time by the few (those who met Jesus) contains a promise for the many (all who hear of it down the centuries), and it is that promise that is the Gospel or Good News that the church is commissioned to proclaim.
It is surely Jesus’ humanity, graciousness and stature that the world admires, and even those who have rejected Christ’s church will speak of their admiration for the person of Jesus portrayed in the New Testament. John 1 v.18 may be best read as, ‘No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son, who is nearest to the Father’s heart, who has made him known (TJB).’
Food for thought: John declares Jesus (as the God Logos in human flesh) to be the unique revealer of God (Spiritual father of the universe) to mankind. How should we understand this in terms of the records we have? The New Testament records that Jesus both taught and prophesied, and so when we find contradictory New Testament teaching or prophesy that did not literally come true (e.g. that Jesus’ second coming would be within the life time of some of his hearers) , what should we make of it?
There are four possibilities, viz.
1. When Jesus spoke he did not know everything that God the Father has since allowed us to come to know, i.e. Jesus knowledge was limited.
2. The record of what Jesus spoke and did is not absolutely accurate (the compilers may have got it wrong on occasions by current standards).
3. Other New Testament teachers and Christians in general have since got it wrong, and what Jesus said should over-ride all other scripture.
When Jesus spoke he always intended that his church under the guidance of God (Holy Spirit influence) would sublimate (i.e. reinterpret a statement or an event with a spiritual meaning different from the literal sense) those of his statements or actions that God (Holy Spirit) would later lead them to do. This can be supported by the text of John 16 v.12-15, viz., ‘The Holy Spirit will guide you into all truth...he will tell you whatever he receives from me’. There is nothing about this verse to limit its application to the time of the Twelve Apostles as some Christians (erroneously) teach.
To give some flesh to this, consider a random example of teaching and an example of prophesy that the church no longer takes as literally true, e.g.:-
- Women should always have their heads covered in public (St Paul does not cite culture to back this command, instead he cites the Angels of God who were and are culturally free!). However the church today generally does not agree with St. Paul on this issue. We have sublimated Paul’s instruction to mean that ‘Our life and witness (inclusive of worship) should be by faith in Christ and should reflect our relationship with him.’
- Jesus foretold that the majority of his disciples would not die before he returned in glory even though he had acknowledged that neither he nor anyone could know in advance precisely when this would be, but he encouraged his disciples to read the signs of the times and be ready. History has proved that what is recorded as Jesus’ plain understanding on this matter, proved to have turned out wrong. Clearly by the time John’s Gospel was written the author recognised that some back-peddling might be needed (hence his reference in chapter 21!).
It seems to me that although any of the explanations I have outlined might explain those contradictions people have seen in the biblical text, Jesus words at the Last Supper indicate that the church under the guidance of God’s Spirit has authority to sublimate the literal meaning of any text so as to remove contradictions that arise. This would not however entitle scribes or translators to add to NT text (as has happened occasionally).
Challenge: Do you seek to be full of God’s loving kindness in your dealings all other people that God loves?
John 1 v 19 to 34 ~ (John the Baptist’s message)
“I am a voice shouting in the wilderness, ‘Clear the way for the Lord’s coming.’ (Jn.1 v.23)”
The Jewish Scriptures foretold that God would prepare the way for the coming Messiah by sending a special prophet, and John the Evangelist picks this up in stating that God called and appointed John the Baptist to prepare the way and to announce the good news that God’s promise to all humanity given to Abraham, was literally being fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The Baptist called the Jewish nation to repent and then baptised people in the Jordan as a sign of that repentance.
There is no evidence that the Baptist’s message went any deeper than calling Jews to turn back to the way of righteousness set out in the Jewish Scriptures. This is supported by other New Testament writings, for example in Acts we find that Paul came across a group of disciples baptised into John’s baptism who knew nothing about the baptism in the Holy Spirit that according to the New Testament God gave and will continue to give to ‘born again’ disciples of Jesus. Acts reports that this group of the Baptist’s disciples had never even heard of a Holy Spirit (re. Acts 19 v.1-7).
The Old Testament is full of references to God’s Spirit coming on people and enabling them to prophesy for example or to achieve great feats. Joel prophesies that God will pour out his Spirit on everyone (men, women and children alike) in a believing and faithful people context. However there are no Old Testament prophesies to my knowledge that specifically indicate that the Christ would baptise believers with the Holy Spirit of God. Such a notion commences in the New Testament from the lips of Jesus and is central to the Christian Gospel.
Both Matthew and John state that the Baptist declared that God had showed him that the Messiah (Jesus) would (metaphorically) baptise people in the Holy Spirit. Both these gospels were however written after Jesus resurrection and were derived from a core of early church teachings. In the light of this it is possible that either both authors are using a literary device practiced in ancient times in adding their own ‘Christian’ message to the Baptist’s mouth, or it may be that the early church oral teaching had already incorporated a Christian interpretation that the Baptist spoke about Jesus baptising with the Holy Spirit (see food for thought below for further discussion on this point).
Nevertheless the passage conveys two important truths, viz. (1) God called the Baptist to point people to Jesus being the fulfilment of all Messianic prophecy and (2) God baptises anyone with His Spirit when they believe that Jesus is the Christ of God and commit to living out that faith in their daily life.
Food for thought: According to Bauckham (Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, page 209) authors such as Josephus of the ancient world were not averse to extensively re-quoting their sources, by which I mean that even while claiming not to be altering a source, an author would nevertheless enhance their sourced quotation so as to convey the subject author’s intentions. Such a literary device is taboo in the modern era: today authors are strongly encouraged to carefully cross reference their sources so that their readers can check that the quotation is correct and not enhanced.
I can only surmise that although readers in the ancient world were keen to hear eye witness testimony (such as is claimed for Papias, refer Bauckham, ch.9), they were apparently not fazed by authors re-quoting what others wrote. However we do not need to assume this literary device here if we assume as more likely, that some blending has occurred of an original eyewitness tradition with post-resurrection Christian interpretation and that such interpretation became indistinguishable from the original eyewitness account.
If such blending has occurred or even ancient literary devices employed by the authors of Scripture, we should also not be fazed. In my opinion Bible translators today could consider correcting for the possibility of wrong impressions that might be given to modern readers by the literal translation of ancient text, even though such a practice might challenge the modern ethos.
The Baptist undoubtedly pointed to Jesus as God’s Messiah and most likely as the ‘Lamb of God’, and God probably gave the Baptist a ‘sign’ that his cousin Jesus really was the promised Jewish Messiah, but in my opinion the Baptist is unlikely to have spoken about Jesus being the ‘baptiser with God’s Spirit (as stated in verses 32 & 33) which I take to be a specifically post-resurrection Christian Gospel interpretation.
Written in the modern era, verses 32 & 33 might have read as, ‘The Baptist testified to his cousin Jesus of Nazareth being the Christ of God: however God gave the Baptist a specific sign to recognise that God’s Spirit had anointed and empowered Jesus to be God’s Messiah. We know Jesus was not only filled with God’s Spirit, but since his death and resurrection has become the touchstone by which God now baptises every believer with his Holy Spirit.’
Challenge: Have you committed yourself to faith in Jesus as God’s Christ and have you received the promise of God’s Spirit to enable you to live by that faith?
John 1 v 35 to 51 ~ (the first disciples of Jesus)
36As Jesus walked by, John (Baptist) looked at him and declared, “Look! There is the Lamb of God!” 37When John’s two disciples heard this, they followed Jesus... 41Andrew went to find his brother, Simon, and told him, “We have found the Messiah.”
51Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, you will all see heaven open and the angels of God going up and down on the Son of Man...”
In this passage the Evangelist describes how Jesus chose his first disciples. Two of them came from the Baptist and apparently at his recommendation. We are told one of these two was named Andrew, but we aren’t told the name of the other. It is probable that the other first disciple was John Bar-Zebedee (JBZ) and that the reason he is not named is because the Evangelist is using JBZ’s eye-witness testimony and wants to style his work to reflect this without claiming either himself or John-Bar-Zebedee as the author of the whole book.
The Evangelist describes how following Jesus baptism, Jesus soon collects a small following. The Evangelist names a few of these disciples, viz., Andrew and his brother Peter, Philip and his friend Nathanael, but he doesn’t name any others at this point although we know from the Synoptic gospels that there were others including both JBZ and his brother James. We also know the disciples included several women and the Evangelist names some of them later in his Gospel.
The account describes how Nathanael on meeting Jesus for the first time believed and proclaimed Jesus to be God’s Christ as a result of Jesus prophetic words to him. The Evangelist then quotes Jesus as effectively prophesying that all his disciples will come to recognise him as the bridge between earth and heaven, i.e. as God’s means for their salvation (i.e. of entering into an eternal relationship with God).
Food for thought: The author uses an illustration (in v.51) drawn from Jacob’s dream in the wilderness when Jacob saw angels going up and down to heaven on a staircase and recognised the dream as an encounter with God. Whether Jesus taught his disciples at this point or at some later time that the staircase in Jacob’ dream was an illustration of himself being God’s means of salvation, we don’t know, but it is a powerful illustration.
Challenge: Does your faith in Jesus bring you into a living relationship with God by means of God’s Spirit?
John 2 v1-12 ~ (Building the house of faith)
1The next day there was a wedding celebration in the village of Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, 2and Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the celebration. 3The swine supply ran out during the festivities, so Jesus mother told him, “They have no more wine.”
Why has the Evangelist included this storey of Jesus turning water into wine, and why has he included it here at the beginning of Jesus ministry? It does not appear to be inserted as a prelude to and illustration for a teaching purpose (as the other signs are in his book), but simply to record that the event was ‘the first time Jesus revealed his glory to his disciples (v.11).’ However this statement is not strictly accurate since John has already told us in Chapter one of Nathanael’s calling where Jesus reveals some insight into what Nathanael was thinking or even praying about when he was alone just before Philip found him and brought him to Jesus (Jn.1 v.48): and as a result of this revelation, Nathanael believed Jesus to be the Son of God, the Messiah. This event evidently happened prior to the Cana wedding. It is also clear that John-bar-Zebedee believed Jesus to be the Lamb of God and the Messiah (Jn.1v.34); otherwise he would not have left John the Baptist to become a disciple of Jesus. This too was prior to the Cana wedding.
It seems to me that the Evangelist picks this storey from the oral tradition as one illustration (not previously recorded) among several to show the variety of Jesus impact on the early disciples that reinforced their faith in him as God’s Word (Messiah) and is included here to reinforce the faith of the scattered Christians. In the second half of the same chapter the Evangelist inserts the storey of the clearing of the temple in order to remind the Christians that the early disciples had heard Jesus foretell his death and resurrection and that this had also strengthened their faith after those events.
As I see it this initial variety pack of stories is intended to show the breadth of impact and of leadership that Jesus had on his early disciples.
For example:
1. Jesus impact on his mother that she fully trusted that her son would fix this (and any other) human situation
2. Jesus impact on his wider family through the provision of wine at this local wedding (this impact would later be visible to the church when Jesus brother James became a disciple and an Apostle)
3. Jesus impact on his disciples by foretelling his own murder by the Jewish leaders and by foretelling his resurrection
4. Jesus impact in helping a religious leader, culturally at the top of the ladder, to humbly come to faith
5. Jesus impact on an acknowledged prophet of God, when John the Baptist publically declared his faith in Jesus as the Christ.
6. Jesus impact on a sinful Samaritan woman (culturally the lowest of the low) coming to faith in Jesus as the Messiah and then his impact on the Samaritan men (possibly including the woman’s former lovers) with their subsequently coming to faith.
Where did this storey of the wedding at Cana come from? It is reasonable to assume that Jesus mother Mary could have been the most likely initial source, since it records a private conversation she had with her son. It could be that after Jesus resurrection, Mary who was in John’s care recounted something of her part in the storey to John, but certainly Luke (writing in about 50AD) didn’t record the incident at all, whereas he records as much if not more detail about Mary than the Evangelist does. Nor do any of the other Synoptic Gospel writers record the storey. It is apparent that Mary lived well beyond the average life expectancy of the time since she witnessed her son’s death in about 33AD when she was aged about 54, but in my opinion she had died before the Synoptic Gospels were written.
My speculation derives from the text of Luke’s unique record of Mary’s part in Jesus birth, which bears the stamp of a source near to an eye-witness, rather than directly of an eye-witness. Luke states in his Gospel that he took care to seek out accounts derived from eye-witnesses and so if Mary had been alive, I believe he would have made the effort to interview her directly. Luke probably would have spoken with John bar Zebedee if he could have done so.
Thus it would seem that Luke either deliberately chose not to record the Wedding in Cana storey or it was just not in circulation in the early church until long after Mary’ death and after the Synoptic Gospels were written. However since none of the Synoptic writers include the storey (Mark’s Gospel is thought to derive from the eye-witness Apostle Peter), I think it is more likely that the storey was not in circulation rather than it being thought to be insignificant by the Synoptic writers. John the Evangelist however must have considered the story significant to the faith of Jesus close disciples (including Peter and John) and so included the account in his Gospel and does so without using it to illustrate any teaching.
It seems most likely that the storey was not in circulation in the early church until the period after about 60AD and so it may have only been in circulation for less than 30 years before it was recorded in the Gospel of John and only after Mary’s death. Nor is the style of the storey in the Gospel that of a direct eye-witness account. As I have said the storey beautifully illustrates God’s concern for everyday life, but I think we can’t discount that it may be apocryphal. Nevertheless miracles can and do happen, and the Evangelist (or an editor) selected seven miracle accounts mostly from the oral tradition (this being the first) that he believed Jesus had performed prior to his crucifixion in order to convince his disciples that he was truly God’s Messiah.
Food for thought: The story is a beautiful storey and gives us a wonderful insight into Jesus’ humanity as well as of God’s concern for ordinary everyday life. Even though the author doesn’t bring out the point, it should encourage us to view our hum-drum lives as those that God wants to impact by his love permeating our lives.
Even if it were an apocryphal storey (whatever the historical basis for it arising may have been) the author or an early editor of the Gospel decided to include it to show the breadth of impact Jesus ministry had on his followers from the start. Whatever, the fact remains it is a powerful illustration of God’s concern for and relevance to our everyday lives. For further discussion on miracles see Appendix.
Challenge: How careful are we when giving testimony to be accurate and to qualify our statements about what we have taken as God’s guidance with the words, ‘I think God has been showing me ..,’ rather than proclaiming, ‘God told me ...’ Masking over the level of our doubt, does not magnify our faith; it rather diminishes it.
John 2 v.13 to 22 ~ (Jesus Cleanses the Temple)
‘15Jesus made a whip from some ropes and chased them (the merchants) all out of the Temple. He drove out the sheep and cattle, scattered the money changers’ coins over the floor, and turned over their tables. 16...he told them “Stop making my Father’s house into a marketplace!”...18But the Jewish leaders demanded, “What are you doing? If God gave you authority to do this, show us a miraculous sign to prove it.” “19All right,” Jesus replied, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”...21But when Jesus said ‘this temple’ he meant his own body. 22After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered he had said this and they believed both the Scriptures and what Jesus had said.
In this passage the author recounts Jesus clearing the temple courtyard of the merchants and their stalls, set up to resource the many pilgrims needing to purchase Passover offerings at that time of year. Jesus accused them of profiteering at the expense of the poor and doing that within God’s House (the temple grounds). Local temple officials then challenged his authority for doing this.
Some commentators suggest that this incident of temple cleansing was not the same cleansing of the temple as we can read about in the Synoptic Gospels which record the event as following Jesus’ triumphant procession into Jerusalem shortly before his crucifixion. But as I explain later (Jn.12 v.12-18), it is unlikely that there were two incidents and that the Synoptic Gospel timing is most likely to be correct.
The evangelist has placed this incident here at the front of his Gospel because he wants his readers to know that not only did his first disciples believe him to be the Messiah prior to his crucifixion, but also that Jesus as the Messiah was concerned to cleanse God’s temple and to bring good news to the poor. The Gospel message is directed not so much to the socially poor (in financial terms) but to the spiritually poor (those who recognise their need for God’s cleansing and healing power).
The Evangelist records (Jn.2 v22) that following Jesus resurrection the disciples (twelve of whom then became known Apostles) recalled him responding to the Jewish leaders who questioned his authority to cleanse the temple with the enigmatic words, ‘Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up! (v.19)’ The Apostles applied the meaning to Jesus’ own body and his resurrection, but at Jesus trial malcontents had applied the meaning literally to the sacred temple building.
Food for thought: The Evangelist states that after Jesus’ resurrection the Apostles remembered he had made this enigmatic prophesy to some Jewish leaders and states this helped the Apostles to believe both the Scriptures and what Jesus had said (v.22), however the author doesn’t tell us which particular Scriptures the Apostles had come to believe. In the passage the author quotes one prophesy, viz. ‘Passion (Zeal) for God’s house will consume me (or, ‘will be my undoing’ NLT v.17),’ but this is unlikely to be the Scriptures the he was referring to in verse 22.
If the Evangelist was referring merely to that specific prophesy, then we would read his meaning as, ‘It was passion for the temple (viz. God’s house) that led to Jesus crucifixion as had been prophesied in Scripture (viz. in Psalm 69 v.9).’ However the Evangelist is more likely to have meant that the Apostles came to believe a wider range of prophesy such as Luke records was recounted by the risen Christ to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24 v.25-26). Luke refers to such wider range of prophesy and he records Jesus saying, ‘Wasn’t it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer these things before entering his glory?’
On this interpretation we could read John as meaning, ‘When the Apostles remembered that Jesus had predicted his own crucifixion and resurrection, their faith in the Scriptures and in Jesus being the Messiah was strengthened, because his cruel suffering and death prior to entering God’s glory had been prophesied in Scripture (as in Isaiah 53).’ The evangelist indicates that the disciples were not really aware prior to the resurrection that Jesus was fulfilling Scriptural prophesies in his lifetime. It is also apparent from the Gospels that although Jesus was fully aware of fulfilling prophesy, he did not generally explain this to his disciples at the time.
Challenge: In the temple Jesus showed he had come to defend God’s honour in respect of the poor and in his first sermon in Nazareth, he proclaimed that he had come to bring good news to the poor in fulfilment of prophesy (Luke 4 v.16-20). How much care do you show for both the socially and spiritually poor?
John 2 v.23 to 25 ~ (Jesus understood human nature)
23Because of the miraculous signs Jesus did in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration, many began to trust in him. 24But Jesus did not trust them, because he knew human nature.
The Evangelist concludes this passage with the statement that many of the ordinary people had begun to trust in Jesus for his teachings, however he comments that Jesus knew that their hearts were fickle (e.g. some of them may have later been calling for his death) and so he didn’t trust them, i.e. he didn’t call them to discipleship at that time.
Food for thought: I previously discussed the essential signs that I believe the author thinks of as pointing to Jesus being the Son of God (refer Purpose of John’s Gospel; Food for thought section). These signs are (1) Jesus was fully human, (2) The Baptist witnessed powerfully to Jesus being the Christ, (3) God was powerfully encountered in all of Jesus Christ’s life, (4) Jesus as God’s sacrificial lamb died on a Roman cross to bring God’s forgiveness of sin for all humanity (John 1 v.36) and (5) those who hear the (spiritual) ‘voice of Christ’ are ‘awakened’ from spiritual death (John 5 v.25).
I believe that these signs need to be understood in their first century context. Greek culture led many ancients to believe that deities could mingle with ordinary people in a human form. Hence the first century Christians may easily have conceived of Jesus as God in human form without his being fully human and restrained by the limitations of the flesh. Indeed such a misconception was quite possible for anyone living in the pre-scientific era. And so John’s first essential for true faith is to state that Jesus was fully human.
The second essential relates to John the Baptist witness to God confirming Jesus to be his spiritual Son (the Messiah). And the third essential relates to Jesus ministry and the miraculous signs (John 20 v.30-31) that the Evangelist records in his Gospel. Since the records attest that Jesus lived in close communion with God, it is reasonable to suppose that he moved in perfect timing with God’s Spirit: thus events that his contemporary followers witnessed reflected to them the presence of God in the person of Jesus and were seen by them as miraculous signs that brought people to faith in God.
Jesus performing ‘miraculous signs’ needs to be seen its first century context. Unlike us in the 21st century, ancient people had no precise definition of a miracle. To them an event that we might dismiss as having a scientifically rational explanation would still have been a miracle. The proof of this is simple: the ancients had no scientific understanding and so any event that they could not otherwise have understood as ‘normal’ would reasonably be attested as a miracle if it was perceived that the event had a supernatural purpose.
Today Christians freely attest the timing of events in their lives as miraculous when they see otherwise unexpected events falling into place as a result of their prayers. A contemporary sceptic may reasonably dismiss the same event as a coincidence, but for those who are experienced in the reality of prayer, coincidences are often for them God instances. Modern believers are undoubtedly influenced by the modern scientific world view and so will inevitably hold a harder definition of what is or is not miraculous than would have been the case for believers in the ancient world. When we read the Biblical text, I believe that we inevitably hold a more precise concept of what is recorded as a miraculous sign than that which the ancient readers and authors would have held.
Nevertheless miracles can and do happen (even though much less frequently than modern claims would make out) and can be rationally defended in the modern world as CS Lewis has done in his book of that title.
I will comment on the third and fourth essential signs that I think John believes in under a later ‘food for thought’ entry (John 12 v.20-36).
Challenge: Trusting Jesus teaching is not enough, we also need to commit to being his disciples. Are you a follower totally committed to the God Christ, or just an admirer?
God’s logos brings Spiritual New Birth
John 3 v. 1 to 21 ~ (Nicodemus and need for Spiritual New Birth)
2”Rabbi,” Nicodemus said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.” 3Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”...
One of the Jewish religious ruling councillors called Nicodemus came under cover of darkness to consult with Jesus. He acknowledged Jesus had God’s authority to teach the people, evidenced by the miraculous signs that Jesus undoubtedly displayed. Nicodemus, an intelligent and educated leader, was effectively stating his allegiance to Rabbi Jesus. However Jesus immediately points him to a greater requirement for all religious disciples and for any true worshipper of God, viz., the need for spiritual birth. Jesus taught this is not part of our natural birth: we are not born spiritually alive. 5”I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. 6Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.”
Jesus words here apply to all human kind and to all religions and none. The Gospel writer does not perceive any restriction to the application of Jesus words. In fact he goes on to state in verse 16, that ‘God loved the world so much that (God) gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.’ The Evangelist is stating that to spiritually belong to the creator God and to be spiritually in submission to God, each and every one of us needs to receive God’s message that is in Jesus Christ and to receive the spiritual birth that God gives to all who do receive this message (refer John 3 v.18-21 & v.3-7).
Food for thought: ‘The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit (Jn.3 v.8).’ God’s Spirit can just as easily breathe spiritual life into a small child as he/she responds to the message of God’s love, as God can bring new spiritual birth to a grown woman or man as they respond to the message of Christ.
Challenge: Are you experiencing the spiritual new life of God’s Holy Spirit that Jesus spoke about to Nicodemus?
John 3 v.22 to 36 ~ (The Evangelist & John the Baptist exalt Jesus)
John’s disciples came to him and said, “Rabbi, the man you met on the other side of the river, the one you identified as the Messiah, is also baptising people. And everyone is going to him instead of coming to us.” John replied, “No one can receive anything unless God gives it from heaven... I plainly told you I am not the Messiah. I am only here to prepare the way for him... Therefore I am filled with joy at his success. Jn.3 v.26-29”
At this point in his Gospel the author pans back to John the Baptist who we left (chapter 1) at the river Jordan as he pointed two of his disciples to Jesus as the sacrificial ‘Lamb of God’ and they left the Baptist to follow Jesus. The author tells us the Baptist has now moved to ‘Aenon (on the river Jordan), because there was plenty of water there and people kept coming to him for baptism (v.23).’
The Evangelist then adds some early church teaching, viz.:
‘The Father loves his Son and has put everything into his hands. And anyone who believes in God’s son has eternal life! Jn.3 v.35-36a’
These are the Evangelist’s words (as are verses 31 to 36) rather than the actual words spoken by the Baptist: the reason for this is apparent from other New Testament passages such as Matt. 11 v1-12 where from what Jesus says it is clear the Baptist did not know such a full Gospel message. The Baptist would not have preached a Gospel message that proclaimed ‘anyone who believes in God’s Son has eternal life.’ But this is clearly what the early Christians believed and taught and the Evangelist inserts it here following the storey of Nicodemus to further underline the teaching in that passage (viz.:- ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. Jn.3 v.16’)
Immediately following Christ’s resurrection the early church was essentially a Jewish sect who believed and proclaimed Jesus was the promised Jewish Messiah and that through faith in him God was bringing in a New Covenant by which people would start to live out God’s laws from the heart: this new covenant relationship was more powerful than the Old Covenant which still remained as effective as it ever had been.
It was rather like the relationship between John the Baptist and Jesus. They worked alongside each other, but the one baptism was more powerful than the other, the one man would need to decrease and the other to increase! So Jesus had not come to abolish the Old Covenant, but rather to fulfil its promise!
By the time the Evangelist is writing John’s Gospel, the early church had developed the counterpart to the notion that Jesus baptises with the Holy Spirit and thereby brings believers into eternal life, viz. that:
‘Anyone who doesn’t obey the Son will never experience eternal life but remains under God’s judgement. Jn.3 v.36b’
This statement is quite extreme and represents a portion of the Christian church (main stream?) that has clearly moved away from being a Christian Jewish sect into a Christianity that is independent of the Jewish Old Covenant relationship with God. This portion of the early church is now stating that anyone who does not obey Jesus Christ, i.e. who does not submit to the Gospel message (inclusive of all Jews however righteous they may be) will not experience eternal life. This would have been contradictory to a Jewish Christian view that was supported by Jesus teaching for example in the parable of Dives and Lazarus, that God’s judgement is based on faith and deeds and that salvation was not exclusive to Christians.
The statement also appears to conflict with other New Testament passages where we are taught for example that God loves all the people of the world and so gave Christ for us all, and that God’s desire is that all should turn to him and be saved to eternal life. Thus it is reasonable to surmise (and with good Scriptural support), that God will always be open to anyone (however they much they have rejected Christ) if and when they turn back in repentance and embrace God’s love and receive the relationship that Christ promises.
Many Christians believe that physical death is the last chance for anyone to turn to God perhaps basing their view on such notions as ‘after death comes judgement,’ but none of us can have any real idea about what time exists for us in God’s spiritual economy following death, and I am sure that Scripture can only speak in metaphors about this. Authors such as CS Lewis and K Ward have written well on this subject expounding on such parables as Jesus has provided in the New Testament.
Food for thought:- I have previously discussed the first two of the essential signs that I believe the author thinks of as pointing to Jesus being the Son of God (refer ‘The Purpose of John’s Gospel,’ Food for thought section and John 2 v.13-20 section).
These signs are:-
(1) Jesus was fully human,
(2) God gave witness (as experienced by the eye-witness) to Jesus being God’s spiritual ‘son with whom he is well pleased,’
(3) Jesus as God’s sacrificial lamb died on a Roman cross to bring God’s forgiveness of sin for all humanity (John 1 v.36) and
(4) All those who hear the (spiritual) ‘voice of Christ’ are ‘awakened’ from spiritual death (John 5 v.25).
The third essential to the Evangelist’s mind needs to be seen in the context of the ancient Hebrew (Old Testament) tradition. The concept of Jesus as God’s sacrificial lamb is almost meaningless if it is divorced from the Hebrew understanding of how God relates to humanity. The concept that ‘all have sinned against a holy God’ and no one is able to attain a right relationship with God apart from his mercy and apart from God’s own initiative on their behalf, is the vital basis of Old Testament faith and it is also vital to the New Testament understanding of Jesus Christ’s sacrificial life. The Evangelist proclaims this with his gospel.
The final essential to the Evangelist that proves Jesus to be God’s Christ is the evidence of believers experiencing and exhibiting the ‘new birth’ that Jesus spoke of in John ch.3. Constructive observers variously describe this evidence as ‘people who commit themselves to Jesus (as God’s Christ) exhibit the equivalent of falling in love with God’, or ‘They are born-again believers’, or ‘They are noticeably changed, exhibiting a new love for other people’, or ‘They become bold in proclaiming the faith and exhibit abilities they did not previously exhibit.’ This last essential also needs to be understood in the wider New Testament context, viz. that Jesus claimed to be the one who baptises believers with the Holy Spirit of God (as in Jn.1 v.33; Jn.15 v.13 & Jn.20 v.22).
Challenge: Have you accepted Jesus sacrifice works to bring you God’s forgiveness and to bring you into new birth and relationship by God’s Spirit?
John 4 v 1-30; v 39-42 ~ (Jesus, the Samaritan Woman & her village)
Jesus came to the Samaritan village of Sychar.. Jacob’s well was there; and Jesus tired from the long walk sat wearily beside the well about noontime. Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said, “Please give me a drink.” He was alone at the time because his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food. The woman was surprised ... She said to Jesus, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman! Why are you asking me for a drink?” Jesus replied, “If only you knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me and I would give you living water.” “But, sir, you don’t have a rope or a bucket..,” she said, “From where would you get this living water?” Jesus replied, “Anyone drinking this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life. (extracted Jn.4 v.5-14).”
Jesus recognised that this attractive foreign lady was avoiding the fraternity of the other Samaritan village women by drawing daily water at midday rather than in the early morning when the others would have gathered to draw water and natter, and he had the prophetic insight to know how many of the village men she had had affairs with. Nevertheless he chose not to avoid speaking to her as would have been the normal Jewish racist attitude, nor did he choose to speak to her in any flirtatious manner, but rather to gently draw her to face her moral dilemma and point her to the good news God had for her.
Jesus chose to ask her to draw water for him to drink since she had a bucket and he did not, which surprised her since she did not expect a Jewish man to speak to her let alone ask for help from a woman! The ensuing conversation is a classic demonstration of how to bring someone into a life changing spiritual experience.
In exposing his vulnerability by asking for water, Jesus started on a level playing field with the lady. In the exchange that follows Jesus turns her sarcasm round from the possible suspicion that Jesus was on to her, to the possibility that she was vulnerably missing something of eternal value. She is hooked, ‘how can you offer me better water than I can offer you?’ Jesus states his metaphorical water is a spiritual joy that leads to eternal life, and she immediately realises that she wants it and asks him for such water.
Now it is the lady who is vulnerable, since such spiritual water comes with a price tag of honesty. She needs to face up to her moral dilemma, so Jesus tells her she needs to go to the village and return with her husband. ‘But I don’t have a husband!’ she retorts. ‘Too true,’ Jesus responds, ‘you have had affairs with five different men you never married and the man you currently sleep with isn’t your husband either!’
The lady deflects this painful moral exposure by exclaiming, ‘I see you are a prophet! Explain to me then the religious disagreement between Jews and Samaritans.’ Here Jesus is being asked to enter into apologetics to explain a problem relating to worshiping God, rather than being asked to mend her broken relationship with God. However Jesus graciously answers her question, but not in a way she would have expected. He provides her with an overview that exposes the religious spat between Jews and Samaritans as insignificant in the light of God’s promised Messiah and points her directly to the fulfilment of that promise in his own person. She has faith and goes and does what Jesus previously asked of her – she goes and spreads the news in the village and the men folk come out and welcome Jesus and his disciples to come and stay with them. They come to believe in Jesus as the Messiah for themselves.
Food for thought: This passage should destroy any modern misinformed claim that Jesus was either sexist or racist; quite the reverse! Any racist or sexist attitudes shown by the Christian church do not reflect the practice or teaching of its founder.
Could it be that those critics of God who feel the most morally vulnerable are those who vigorously hide behind religious problems and the criticise believers, whereas those critics of God who do not feel so morally vulnerable are more likely to show indifference to all religion until such time as they may be challenged by the moral courage and example of those who practice their faith?
Challenge: Do we know how to give sound reason for our beliefs as well as know how to point enquirers to the one who we believe is God’s answer for moral failure and the invitation to spiritual relationship, viz. Jesus Christ?
John 4 v 30-38 (Jesus and the spiritual harvest)
Jesus appetite for lunch evaporates as he anticipates the Samaritan villagers’ response to his new convert telling them that she has found the promised Messiah. Jesus speaks to his disciples about the ‘spiritual food’ of winning people into God’s kingdom and he is acutely aware of the harvest that is crying out to be gathered before it is spoiled.
‘Wake up and look around you. The fields are ripe for harvest. The harvesters are paid good wages, and the fruit they harvest is people brought to eternal life. What joy awaits planter and harvester alike! (Jn.4 v.35-37)’
These verses provide us a glimpse into Jesus’ very human mental processes; it shows the typical increased tension that we would feel when committed to deliver to others (e.g. a presentation/ a speech/ a formal meeting, etc.). The evangelist also includes here a time when Jesus quoted a harvesting proverb that highlights the enigma when people harvest what they did not plant. Quite often many more people are needed to help with harvesting than those few who toiled to plant a crop. The point being that those who delight to harvest should remember and be grateful for those who toiled long and hard before the harvest was ready. Jesus applies this proverb to harvesting people into God’s kingdom, with the words, ‘I sent you to reap a harvest you had not worked for. Others worked for it; and you have come into the rewards for their trouble (JB).’ Jesus then proceeded to reap the harvest that the Samaritan woman had helped to plant.
Food for thought: There may well have been several occasions that Jesus spoke in terms of harvesting people into God’s kingdom. The Evangelist includes this authentic saying of Jesus about reaping where others had sowed here since it was on his mind and relates to the context; however the tenses used would seem to apply the timing of this saying better to the occasion recorded in the Synoptic gospels where Jesus had sent his disciples out to preach in all the towns and villages and they had returned rejoicing at the harvest. As recorded by Matthew, prior to sending seventy of his disciples out on mission, Jesus told them, ‘”The harvest is great, but the workers are few. So pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest; ask him to send more workers into his fields.” Jesus called his disciples together and gave them authority to cast out evil spirits and to heal (Mat.9 v.37-10 v1).’ When they returned Jesus cautioned them against pride and told them to merely rejoice that they had proved themselves to be God’s children. In that context the words of John 4, ‘I sent you to reap a harvest you had not worked for. Others worked for it; and you have come into the rewards for their trouble (JB),’ seem to be most appropriate.
Challenge: Do you remain grateful to those who toiled for you in the past, who helped you to develop your faith and character?
John 4 v 43-53 (Jesus Returns to Cana in Galilee)
There was a government official in nearby Capernaum whose son was very sick. He went and begged Jesus to come and heal his son, who was about to die. Jesus told him, “Go back home: your son will live!” The man believed what Jesus said and started home. While the man was on his way, some of his servants met him with the news that his son was alive and well. He asked them what time the boy had begun to get better, and they replied, “Yesterday afternoon at 1 o’clock the fever suddenly left him!” Then the father realised that was the very time Jesus had told him his son would live. He and his entire household believed in Jesus (Jn.4 v.43-54).
Jesus undoubtedly performed many miracles especially works of healing and the Gospel records indicate that God was with him in a powerful way. Even his enemies acknowledged these works and sought hard to detract from their significance. These miraculous signs pointed people to pay attention to his message. The potential for spiritual re-birth from God was being offered to them as Jesus travelled about healing the sick and teaching them about God’s kingdom. Some, such as this official and his household (including his servants) came to believe that Jesus was the Messiah and they would have experienced the new birth that Jesus taught.
Food for thought: If we can accept that God is in all of life it follows that those who walk in step with God’s Spirit, will see many miraculous signs that others will never notice. God moves in a mysterious way his wonder to perform!
Challenge: Have you taken up God’s offer of new birth through putting your faith in Jesus as the Christ of God?
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