| |
Key Questions in Johannine Theology
(from Maloney/Brown, An Introduction to the Gospel of John, pp 221-267; footnotes omitted)
In the first edition (1955) of his great commentary on John, C. K. Barrett dared to call the fourth evangelist "perhaps the greatest theologian in all the history of the Church." A quarter-century later (1978), with greater caution, in the second edition he rephrased "perhaps, after Paul." Yet something may be said for the exuberance of the' more youthful insight; for Paul was recognized as ho apostolos ("the apostle"), while it was John who was hailed as ho theologos ("the theologian" or more quaintly "the divine " stemming from those gracious days when theologians were called divines). This Introduction does not give scope for an exhaustive treatment of Johannine theology but a brief examination of certain disputed questions in Johannine theology adds to what has already been said concerning one's whole outlook on the purpose and composition of the Gospel.
Ecclesiology
In the excursus on Johannine Community history, theories of the history of that community were discussed; but here there is a different concern: whether there is a theology of church in John. For Bultmann, the evangelist was a converted Gnostic and one of the basic sources of the Gospel was Gnostic; therefore the Fourth Gospel cannot be expected to show a real sense of tradition, church order, salvation history, or the sacraments. This approach would see the Johannine church as a collection of individuals joined by personal faith to Jesus, rather than the people of God descended from Israel (4:23). It would detect no stress in John on the organic unity of the church. Schweizer does not share Bultmann's f Gnostic preoccupations, but his conclusions about Johannine ecclesiology are not very different. Kasemann sees the Johannine community as a heretical group opposed to the concept of ecclesiastical life and church order in the mainstream church. Similarly, those who regard the Johannine community as a sect do not tend to find a theology of church in John. On the other hand, for Barrett the fourth evangelist is more aware than any other evangelist of the existence of the church. Cullmann vigorously challenges Bultmann's contention that John has lost the perspective of salvation history.
Methodology
The argument from silence (i.e., an argument based on significant omission) plays an important role in the minimal views of Johannine ecclesiology. A tacit principle seems to be that what John does not mention,
John rejects, or at least considers of minimal importance. Such a presupposition is not without its dangers."
As a first example of the problematic argument from silence, I mention the claim that many ecclesial terms are not found in John. D'Aragon observes that we do not find in John descriptions of the Christian community as "church," or as "people of God," or as "body of Christ." There is no imagery of the community as a building. Other ecclesial terms occur seldom, e.g., "bride" (3:29) and "kingdom of God" (3:3, 5). But how is such silence to be evaluated? The terms cited are NT ecclesial terms; but, with the exception of "kingdom of God," they are not really Gospel terms. A tacit assumption seems to be that if John were interested in the church, he would be just as free as the Pauline Epistles in the use of later ecclesial vocabulary. However, if John was dependent on a historical or, at least, early tradition of the words of Jesus, then there were limits imposed on the vocabulary used in the Gospel.
Certainly, Johannine thought represents a development and an expansion beyond what Jesus had taught during his ministry, but the format of a Gospel may have made it imperative to express this development in a way that was reasonably faithful to the vocabulary of Jesus. We cannot expect to find the evangelist placing flagrant anachronisms on the lips of Jesus - for example, to find the Johannine Jesus talking about his body that is the church. Moreover, John has extended treatments in ch. 10 of the flock of believers (including the idea that there are other sheep who are not of this fold) and in ch. 15 of the vine and the branches - imagery showing a strong concept of collectivity or community. Flock and vine are OT images for Israel, and offer reason to think that God is calling a people in Jesus Christ. Entrance to that people, however, is through faith not through natural birth, so there is a Johannine emphasis on the obligation of individual belief. Those who believe will be one with one another and with Jesus and the Father (17:21,23).
The second methodological consideration about the argument from silence concerns comparisons made between John and the other Gospels. It is noted that John fails to record some of the ecclesial expressions and scenes recorded in the Synoptic Gospels. For instance, Schweizer says of John: "He does not mention either the election (Mark 3:13 ff.) or the sending forth of the disciples (Mark 6:7 ff.)." As we shall see below, other scholars characterize John as nonsacramentalist because the Fourth Gospel omits the scenes pertaining to the eucharist and baptism found in the Synoptics. Yet the selection of scenes to be reported in Gospels was very much determined by the respective purpose of the evangelist, and it is not to be expected that all the Gospels would express their ecclesiology in the same way. Does John really ignore the election and sending forth of the disciples? True, John gives no list of the Twelve and has no scene by the Sea of Galilee where the disciples are called to leave their fishing and follow Jesus. But is not the scene in 1:35-50 the Johannine equivalent of the election of disciples? This election is presupposed in 6:70; 13:18; and 15:16, as is the existence of the Twelve in 6:67, 70; 20:24. A mission of the disciples is reflected in 4:38; 15:16; 17:18; 20:21, and is acted out in 21:1 - 11." Similarly, it would not be true to state that John had no sense of a covenant with a new people of God because John failed to record the words of Jesus about the blood of the covenant (Mark 14:24). The covenant theme appears in another form in John 20:17, "I am ascending ... to my God and your God." This saying adapts to the new Christian situation the covenant formula of Lev 26:12 and Exod 6:7: "I will be your God."
Third, at times the argument from silence can be turned around; for it may be that certain things are not mentioned in John, not because they did not exist in Johannine community life but because the evangelist would modify elements in them. If the Gospel was written to show the Christians that their life in the church was rooted in Jesus' own ministry, then, quite logically, we may suspect that the evangelist was presupposing the existence of ecclesiastical community.
If the evangelist stressed the individual's union with Jesus, this need not have been because the evangelist was opposed to the church and the sacraments, but perhaps because he was opposed to the formalism that is the inevitable danger of established institutions and practices. There is no way of knowing with certitude whether there were figures called apostles, prophets, and teachers in the Johannine community. But by constantly stressing disciples (78 times) John shows that priority is not to be placed on roles (or offices) toward or over others but on relationship to Jesus and receiving life from him.
There is no overt attack or disparagement of ecclesiastical institutions in John (with the possible exception of 10:1 if that is aimed at Christian shepherds); his ecclesiology is marked by what he emphasizes, and from that one may deduce a stress on meaningfulness. His may not have been a disdain of the church institution but a fear that the church would gradually come to be thought of as an entity independent of Jesus. Thus, one must be extremely careful in inferring the evangelist's motive or adversarial attitude from his silence.
In particular, Bultmann's approach to the Gospel leaves itself open to methodological objections on the question of ecclesiology (and of the sacraments). Bultmann recognizes that in the Gospel as it now stands there are clear references to the sacraments and to salvation history, but he regards these as the additions of the Ecclesiastical Redactor who imposed ecclesiology on the original Gospel. Sometimes there are solid re drawn from literary criticism for attributing such passages to the redaction of the Gospel; but in other instances passages (e.g., 19:34, “blood and water”) often attributed to the redactor precisely because they are sacramer a circular reasoning. Moreover, as I have insisted, the concept of the r tor as one who corrects the evangelist's theology is far from proved, think of the redactor as a disciple of the BD and thus a fellow disci] the evangelist, then the ecclesiology of scenes added by the redactoi be a clarification and amplification of the evangelist's own outlook adaptation to a new situation.
This leads to a final methodological observation. Just as Acts is along with the Gospel of Luke in a study of Lucan theology, so also must the other works of the Johannine school, the Epistles, be consulted before generalizing about the Johannine view of the church. Feuillet and Schnackenburg have done this in their studies; and their interpretation of Johannine ecclesiology is, in my opinion, more satisfactory than those scholars who seem to posit a necessary opposition among these Johannine works, even though they have so much in common by way of ideology, and terminology. The limitations imposed on a Gospel by its format and purpose warn us that a Gospel will necessarily be an imcomplete index to its author's thoughts. Quite often the Johannine Epistles, especially 1 John with its stress on what was from the beginning, should be able to help us fill in points in Johannine theology on which the Gospel has been silent. Recourse to other Johannine works is in many instances far less risky than speculative reconstructions based on what evangelist did not say.
Disputed Points in Johannine Ecclesiology
THE QUESTION OF CHURCH/COMMUNITY
Does the stress in John on an individual relationship with Jesus obviate a concept of community that is essential to ecclesiology? For instance, it has been claimed that the fourth evangelist took the vineyard, the OT symbol for the nation of Israel, and adapted it to the figure of a vine representing Jesus and branches representing believers who remain in Jesus. Not collectivity but dependence on Jesus is now the thrust of the symbol. However, the symbolism of the vine and the branches is not that simple. The symbol does not lose its collectivity when it is employed to stress individual relationship to Jesus. The LXX in Ps 80:14-15 had already identified the vine with the "son of man," so the identification of the vine as Jesus may have had roots in an older tradition. The fact that in Dan 7:13 a "son of man" is a human figure representing the whole of God's people warns us against too facilely cataloging the Johannine use of the vine and the branches as exclusively individualistic. A symbol need not lose its collective force when it is expanded to stress individual relationship to Jesus.
Above I have stressed that there was no sharp distinction between community and personal union with Jesus. The foundation of community is the response of individuals to Jesus as the revealer of God and the unique way to God, but those individuals form a unity. It is interesting that at Qumran, for instance, the word yahad, "oneness," which is the name for the community, emphasizes the unity of the members. A very important factor in this unity was the acceptance of a particular interpretation of the Law. Mutatis mutandis, the same idea would be applicable to the Christian community and the adherence of the members to Jesus. One of the lessons of the symbol of the vine and the branches is that if one is to remain as a branch on the vine, one must remain in the love of Jesus (15:9). Yet this love must be expressed in love for one's fellow believer (15:12). No Gospel stresses more than John that Christian love is a love of fellow disciples, and thus a love within the Christian community. There is strong emphasis in 17:22-23 that those who are given by the Father to Jesus must be brought to completion as one.
Nor is the vine the only metaphor in the Gospel relevant to the Johannine concept of community. There is also the imagery of the flock and the sheepfold in ch. 10. Some have objected that in this parable "fold" or "sheep herd" is mentioned only once (10:16). But running throughout is the imagery of the flock that is also symbolic of community, and again oneness with the shepherd is stressed. It is true that in the Fourth Gospel there is no stress on blood continuity with Israel, a problem that bothered Paul. For John the true Israelite is Nathanael (1:47) who believes in Jesus. True Israelites are not born of carnal lineage (1:13) but begotten of water and Spirit (3:5); they are children of God because they are believers (1:12). But thereby they have the obligation to attract others who will believe. These believers are knit into community through faith in Jesus and their love for one another, and they are gathered from the whole world into one (11:52). In the larger body of Johannine literature, 1 John 2:19 describes Antichrists as those who have cut themselves off from the community.
THE QUESTION OF CHURCH ORDER
The Johannine figure of the vine is often contrasted with the Pauline ecclesial imagery of the body. While both figures portray Jesus as the source of life, there is no emphasis in John's symbol on the different functions of the various members of the community. For John what is important is that all members are united to Jesus, and there is no emphasis that some branches are the channels through which life passes from Jesus to others. By an argument from silence, this might imply that there is no sense of church order in John. My cautions above about the argument from silence apply here. From the symbolism of the vine and the branches, all that one may conclude is that the evangelist wishes to stress union with Jesus. Such an emphasis fits the purpose of the Gospel.
Better information comes from combining John and the Johannine Epistles. If one thinks of figures titled apostles, prophets, and teachers (1 Cor 12:29; Acts 13:1; Eph 3:5), one has good evidence that this was not the the structure in the Johannine church. None of these Johannine writings refers to people titled apostles (although the Twelve are known); and the one use of apostolos (13:16) reflects on the function of being sent as a messenger, applicable to any disciple. The only prophets mentioned are false prophets (1 John 4:1), and 1 John 2:27 states, "You have no need for anyone to teach you." Authority was centered in Jesus (John 13:14) and his Paraclete replacement (16:13). However, that Paraclete has produced a "Johannine School" of writers and witness-bearers (15:26-27; 21:24; 1 John 1:2-4) that had an authoritative role in transmitting the tradition. The Presbyter of 2-3 John does not hesitate to give directives, even if he is not always listened to (3 John 9). If more formal structure developed late in Johannine community history, the redactor of John 21:15-17 found a way to combine it successfully with Johannine ideals.
THE QUESTION OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD
The omission in John of the formula basileia tou theou, "kingdom of God [or of heaven]," except for 3:3, 5, is a difficult problem, although not so formidable an obstacle to Johannine ecclesiology as it might first seem.
The Synoptic emphasis on the basileia making itself felt in Jesus' activity seems to have become in John an emphasis on Jesus who is basileus ("king") and who reigns. John refers to Jesus as king fifteen times, almost double the number of times that this reference occurs in any of the other Gospels. Moreover, the parables that the Synoptics associate with the basileia seem to give way in John to figurative speech centered about the person of Jesus. If the Synoptic basileia is like leaven working in a mass of dough, the Johannine Jesus is the bread of life. If there is a Synoptic parable of the shepherd and the lost sheep, the Johannine Jesus is the model shepherd. If the Synoptics record a parable where the basileia is like the vineyard that shall be handed over to others (Matt 21:43), the Johannine Jesus is the vine.
This change of emphasis means that in John there is less apparent reference to collectivity than there is in the Synoptic concept of basileia. But we must not exaggerate. If the Johannine Jesus is "the King of Israel" (1:49), he has an Israel of believers to rule over; if Jesus is the shepherd, he has a flock that has to be gathered; if Jesus is the vine, there are branches on the vine. Moreover, in comparing the symbolism of the Synoptics and of John on this point, we must have a precise understanding of what is meant in the Synoptic Gospels by basileia tou theou. Most often the primary stress in this phrase is on God's reign or rule, and not on realm or kingdom - something active is meant, not something static; not a place or institution, but the exercise of God's power over people's lives. Thus, the basileia tou theou is not simply the church, and the rarity of the phrase in John does not necessarily reflect a lack of appreciation for community. In stressing the reign/role of Jesus as basileus and in applying the parabolic language to Jesus himself (rather than to "the reign of God"), John brings out more clearly than do the Synoptics the role of Jesus in the basileia tou theou. Such a clarification is quite understandable in terms of the purpose of the Gospel.
Sacramentalism
In my original commentary, I listed a group of Johannine scholars, both Protestant (Cullmann, Corell) and Roman Catholic (Bouyer, Vawter, Niewalda, Stanley), who find many references to the sacraments in John. In general, the British commentaries by Hoskyns, Lightfoot, and Barrett also showed themselves decidedly favorable to Johannine sacra-mentalism. One would now have to add Becker, Boismard-Lamouille, Lindars, Schnackenburg, Schneider, Schulz, Moloney, to those favorable to the recognition of sacraments. In general, John's theology of a divine Word who comes from a heavenly world and expresses himself in the language of this world is a highly sacramental approach if sacraments are understood as external signs that give God's grace. Beyond that these scholars tend to see symbolic references to baptism in Johannine passages that mention water, and to the eucharist in Johannine passages dealing with meals, bread, wine, and vine. An even broader range of sacramental reference has been proposed by Roman Catholic writers, for example, to matrimony at Cana, and to anointing of the sick in the scene of the anointing of the feet (12:1-8).
In 1962, I listed twenty-five proposed sacramental references in John! Almost all these proposed sacramental references are by way of symbolism. Why the evangelist presented the sacraments through symbolism has been explained through this principle: the recognition that OT prophecy had a fulfillment in the NT created a Christian sensitivity to typology; therefore, it was intelligible to present Jesus' words and actions as prophetic types of the church's sacraments. To that, one may add the fact that John treats Jesus' miracles as "signs" through which one must see Jesus' christological import - an outlook that would facilitate further representative possibilities as signs pointing to sacraments. Cullmann stresses that baptism and the eucharist were familiar to the early Christian communities, and that therefore symbolic references to them would be easily recognized. By associating baptism and the eucharist with Jesus' own words and actions, John would be once more trying to show the roots of church life in Jesus himself.
Another group of Johannine scholars sees no references to the sacraments in John. For some of these, the original Gospel was even anti-sacramental. Among those who take a minimal view of Johannine sacramentality one may list Bultmann, Haenchen, Lohse, and Schweizer, noting however that their views vary widely. In general, they base their case on the lack of overt references to baptism and the eucharist in John which narrates neither the eucharistic action of Jesus at the Last Supper nor an explicit baptismal command like Matt 28:19. Moreover, some would insist that in centering salvation on personal acceptance of Jesus as the one sent by God, John has created a theological atmosphere that would obviate material intermediaries like the sacraments. The emphasis in John is on word, not on sacrament. We have already seen Bultmann's attribution to the Ecclesiastical Redactor of what he considers the three clear sacramental references in the Gospel. As for the symbolic references to the sacraments, these scholars of the nonsacramentalist school would simply regard the uncovering of much of this symbolism as eisegesis.
How is one to judge such radically opposed views? Sacramentalism is no longer the most divisive point of Johannine theology. I would now judge that most scholars recognize some form of sacramentalism. Let me begin with the more explicit Johannine references to the sacraments, those relegated by Bultmann to the Ecclesiastical Redactor. There are good reasons for thinking that 6:51-58 were added to ch. 6. By not considering the literary arguments for such a view, some sacramentalist interpreters of John have weakened their case. But even if a more explicit reference to a sacrament, like 6:51-58, is an addition, was this addition designed to correct the evangelist's theology or to make his thought more explicit? H. Koester is perfectly correct, for instance, in insisting that there was already a cultic and sacramental element present in ch. 6, even without w. 51-58. Therefore, the recognition that some of the explicit
sacramental references belong to the final redaction does not mean that the original Gospel was nonsacramental or anti-sacramental. It may be a question of seeing different degrees of sacramentality in the work of the evangelist and that of the final redactor.
Turning to the implicit, symbolic Johannine references to the sacraments, I would judge that many of the sacramentalist interpreters have not used truly scientific criteria in determining the presence of sacramental symbols. Their guiding principle seems to be that since a passage can be understood sacramentally, it was intended sacramentally. Not only Bultmann, but more conservative scholars like Michaelis and Schnackenburg have detected the danger of eisegesis here. For some of the sacramental references proposed by Cullmann and Niewalda, there is no evidence in the context that the evangelist so intended the passage. Faced with this difficulty, Niewalda has thrown aside as impractical the search for internal indications of the author's sacramental intent. He falls back on external evidence, namely, an indication in the early centuries that a passage, of John was understood as a symbolic reference to a sacrament. For this purpose he consults the patristic writings, the liturgy, catacomb art, etc.
In my article "Sacramentary," I presented a detailed exposition of what I regarded as solid criteria for accepting symbolic sacramental references in John. In brief, I would accept the external evidence proposed Niewalda as a negative criterion. If there is no evidence in the ea church that a passage of John was understood sacramentally, then one should be suspicious of modern attempts to introduce a sacramental interpretation. Behind this is a fundamental supposition that the evangelist intended his implicit references to the sacraments to be understood, and that some trace of that understanding would probably have survived in the early Christian use of the Gospel. The sacraments of baptism and the eucharist were popular themes among Christian writers and artists, and it is unlikely that they would have overlooked a Gospel passage that was generally understood to be a sacramental reference.
However, external evidence alone is insufficient as a positive criterion of sacramental reference. Many of the early Christian writers were not exegeting the Gospel but employing it freely as a catechetical tool. Therefore, even though they may use a Johannine story, like that of the healing in ch. 5, as an illustration of Christian baptism, this is not a sufficient guarantee that the evangelist so intended the story. Often a considerable period of time separates the Gospel from the pertinent liturgical, literary, and artistic reference that would find a sacramental use for a passage of the Gospel. In that time, a symbolism may have developed that was not part of the original Gospel.
And so, in addition to the negative check supplied by external evidence, we must have a positive indication within the text itself that the evangelist intended a reference to the sacraments. In determining what constitutes a positive indication, exegetes will disagree. Michaelis, for instance, in rejecting virtually all of Cullmann's examples, seems to demand from the evangelist the type of indication that we might expect from a twentieth-century writer. This is to be overcritical, for the symbolism taken for granted in the first century may not seem at all obvious to a modern mind much less attuned to symbolism. Who would have dared to see in the lifting up of the bronze serpent on the pole a symbol of the crucified Jesus if the evangelist himself had not indicated this (3:14)? From the symbols identified in the Johannine tradition itself (see also 21:18-19), it is obvious that the evangelist's mentality was not at all the same as our modern mentality.
Thus, the necessary criterion for recognizing symbolic references to the sacraments is found in the combination of internal, textual indication and external, early Christian allusion. This criterion is not foolproof, but it does reduce considerably the dangers of eisegesis, while not exposing the Gospel to a minimalist exegesis. Using this criterion of combined evidence, I would find that, in addition to the more explicit references to the sacraments (some of which may come from the final redactor), there is in the very substance of the Gospel a broad sacramental interest; and in this respect John is quite in harmony with the church at large.
What then of the omission in John of sacramental passages found in the Synoptics? The absence of the scene often thought to represent the institution of baptism (Matt 28:19) is not really a problem, since that scene is not found in Mark or Luke either. The omission of the eucharistic scene at the Last Supper is more difficult; but echoes of the Johannine form of this scene have been incorporated into 6:51-58. When one compares John's treatment of baptism and the eucharist with similar material in the Synoptics, this Gospel does not associate these sacraments with a single, all-important saying of Jesus uttered at the end of his life as part of his departing instructions to his disciples. The Johannine references to these two sacraments, both the more explicit references and those that are symbolic, are scattered in scenes throughout the ministry. This seems to fit in with the Gospel's intention to show how the institutions of the Christian life are rooted in what Jesus said and did during his life.
Moreover, among the four Gospels it is to John most of all that we owe the deep Christian understanding of the purpose of baptism and the eucharist. It is John who tells us that through baptismal water God: begets children unto himself and pours forth upon them his Spirit (3:5; 7:37-39). Thus baptism becomes a source of eternal life (4:13-14), and the eucharist is the necessary food of that life (6:57). Finally, in>a dramatic scene (19:34), John shows symbolically that both of these! sacraments, baptismal water and eucharistic blood, have the source bf their existence and power in the death of Jesus. This Johannine sacramental-ism is neither merely antidocetic nor peripheral, but reflects the essential connection between the sacramental way of receiving life within the church at the end of the first century and the way in which life was offered to those who heard Jesus in Palestine. If symbolism is used, it is because only through symbolism could the evangelist teach his sacramental theology and still remain faithful to the literary form of Gospel in which he was writing. He could not interpolate sacramental theology into the Gospel story by anachronistic and extraneous additions, but he could show the sacramental undertones of the words arid works of Jesus that were already part of the Gospel tradition.
Eschatology
As we shall see, eschatology touches on many topics in Johannine thought (e.g., life, faith, Son of Man, Paraclete/Spirit, judgment, union with God, the hour, parousia, the Prince of this world), so there is an enormous body of literature dealing with this topic both in the NT and in John. Almost every point about eschatology is disputed, including its definition; and the problem is so complicated that here I can touch lightly only the ramifications of the problem in John. By way of background, the OT offers a picture of an initial paradise from which humanity has fallen, and a God who does not abandon creation but intervenes (especially in the patriarchs and the history of Israel) to bring people closer to him. There developed a hope/expectation that in a later or final period God would intervene definitively and bring about an idyllic situation (almost duplicating paradise), with a diversity as to whether the fulfillment of that expectation would take place on the present earth or would involve bliss in heaven above or a recreated earth. The adherents of Jesus recognized in him and especially in his resurrection that divine intervention; however, since no visible idyllic situation resulted, they believed that Jesus had enabled them (as individuals and/or as a community) to participate in eschatological bliss in heaven above and/or that it would come at the end of time. Accordingly we can conveniently approach Johannine eschatology under two headings.
The "Vertical" and the "Horizontal" Views of God's Salvific Action
To use spatial terminology, we may characterize the dominant biblical view of salvation as "horizontal," for while God acts from above, God acts in and through the sequence of history. From the time of creation God has guided the world with its population inexorably forward to a climax, a climax that is often seen in terms of divine intervention in the linear course of history. Thus, salvation lies either in history or as a climax to history. Counterpoised to this is a "vertical" view that sees two worlds coexistent, one heavenly, one earthly; and the earthly world is but a shadow of the heavenly - not primarily a world to come but a world above that already exists. Earthly existence is fallen existence, and history is a prolongation of the meaningless. Salvation is made possible through escape to the heavenly world, and this can occur only when someone or something comes down from the heavenly world to set people free from earthly existence. This latter view is often identified (too easily) as Gnostic. Toward which of these views of history and salvation (which I have simplified) does the Fourth Gospel incline?
In many ways, John betrays a vertical approach to salvation, catalyzed by the incarnation. The Son of Man has come down from heaven (3:13), the Word has become flesh (1:14), with the purpose of offering salvation. The culmination of his career is when he is lifted up toward heaven in death and resurrection to draw all to himself (12:32). There is a constant contrast in John between two worlds: one above, the other below (3:3,31; 8:23), a contrast that is not merely spatial but qualitative; a sphere that belongs to Spirit, and a sphere that belongs to flesh (3:6; 6:63). Jesus brings the life of the other world, "eternal life," to the people of this world, and death has no power over this life (11:25). Jesus' gifts are "real" gifts, that is, heavenly gifts: the real water of life, as contrasted with ordinary water (4:10-14); the real bread of life, as contrasted with perishable bread (6:27); he is the real: light that has come into the world (3:19). These characteristics betraying an atemporal and vertical approach to salvation have constituted one of Bultmann's main arguments for advancing the hypothesis of Gnostic influence on John, and Dodd's stress on Platonic similarities.
But there is also much of the horizontal approach to salvation in John. The Prologue, which describes the descent of the Word into human flesh, does not deny a salvation history that began with creation; it recognizes that "the Law was a gift through Moses" (1:17). If the coming of Jesus
represents the era of the dominance of Spirit over flesh,
so that all can worship God in Spirit, Israel's history has been the preparation for this climactic era: "Salvation is from the Jews" (4:21-23). The whole of the Scriptures that record salvation history points to Jesus (5:39). The "hour" of which we hear so much in John (2:4; 8:20; 12:23, etc.), the hour ol Jesus' passion, death, resurrection, and ascension, is the culminating hour in the long history of God's dealings, bringing "the Scripture to its complete fulfillment1' (19:28). Jewish customs, feasts, and religious institutions also find their fulfillment in Jesus. Nor does the story stop with this hour. John's problem is not whether there will be an ongoing community, but how it can be related to Jesus. John presupposes missionary activity (4:35-38), a conflict of Christians with the world (16:8; 17:14), an influx of those who will come to believe through the preaching of the word (17:20), and a gathering of them into a flock to be shepherded (11:52; 10:16; 21:15-17). The last chapter of John, probably the contribution of the redactor, has the risen Jesus speak of coming again (21:22).
Thus, the Johannine view of salvation is both vertical and horizontal. The dominant vertical aspect expresses the uniqueness of the divine intervention in Jesus; the horizontal aspect establishes a relationship between this intervention and what has gone before and what follows. This is why a Gnostic interpretation of the Fourth Gospel cannot do justice to
its full teaching. The blending of the vertical and the horizontal has been said (often too facilely) to represent a blending of the Hellenistic and the Hebrew approaches to salvation, but such a blending occurred long before the Fourth Gospel was written. For instance, it was already present in the deuterocanonical Book of Wisdom. Dodd has shown that early rabbinic thought reflects two different aspects of the "future life." One borders on the horizontal, for it posits two ages in which the life of the age to come replaces the life of the present age; the other borders on the vertical, for its posits a life beyond the grave, differing from the life of people upon this earth. Christian theology has made a similar synthesis of the vertical and the horizontal in positing immortality of the soul as well as the final resurrection of the dead.
Realized Eschatology and Future Eschatology
Let us look at eschatology under another modality. In the Synoptic Jesus' preaching about the basileia tou theou and in his attitude)toward his own ministry, there is clearly an eschatological outlook, for he presents himself as in some way having introduced the definitive moment in human existence. But in what precise way?
On the one hand, advocates of final or apocalyptic eschatology (e.g., A. Schweitzer) maintain that in speaking of the coming of the basileia, Jesus was speaking of that dramatic intervention of God that would bring history to a conclusion. He would have taken over this expectation from the Jewish apocalypticism of the last centuries B.C. In this interpretation, Jesus expected the final divine intervention in his own ministry qr in the immediate future so that it would come about through his death. When his hopes were disappointed and the basileia did not come, the church eventually solved the problem by projecting the final coming of Jesus into the distant future. On the other hand, advocates of realized eschatology (e.g., C. H. Dodd) maintain that Jesus proclaimed the presence of the basileia within his own ministry, but without the apocalyptic trimmings usually associated with the event. His presence among people was the one and only coming of God. But his followers were the heirs of an apocalyptic tradition that spoke of a coming in might and majesty, so they could not believe that all had been realized in Jesus' ministry. To satisfy their expectations they projected a second, more glorious coming in the future - at first, in the near future; then, in the distant future.
Between those extreme views of Gospel eschatology there is a whole range of intermediate views. A view, once common, is now losing popularity, namely, that the basileia tou theou established as the result of Jesus' ministry was the church. Perhaps the most widely accepted intermediate view is that the eschatological reign of God was present and operative in the ministry of Jesus, but in a provisional way. The establishment or realization of the basileia is yet to come, and the church is oriented toward that future basileia.
In many ways, John is the best NT example of realized eschatology. God has been revealed in Jesus in a definitive form. If one points to OT passages that seem to imply a coming of God in glory, the Prologue (1:14) answers, "We have seen his glory." If one asks where is the judgment that marks God's final intervention, John 3:19 answers, "Now the judgment is this: the light has come into the world." In a figurative way, Matt 25:31-46 describes the apocalyptic Son of Man coming in glory and sitting on the throne of judgment to separate the good and the bad. But for John the presence of Jesus in the world as the light separates people into those who are walking in darkness, hating the light, and those who come to the light. All through the Gospel, Jesus provokes self-judgment as people line up for or against him; truly his coming is a crisis in the root sense of that word, where it reflects the Greek krisis or "judgment." Those who refuse to believe are already condemned (3:18), while those who have faith do not come under condemnation (5:24). Even the reward is realized. For the Synoptics, "eternal life" is something that one receives at the final judgment or in a future age (Mark 10:30; Matt 18:8-9), but for John it is a present possibility: "The one who hears my words and has faith in Him who sent me possesses eternal life ... he has passed from death to life" (5:24). For Luke (6:35; 20:36) divine sonship is a reward of the future life; for John (1:12) it is a gift granted here on earth.
A few passages have the peculiar combination: "an hour is coming and is now" (4:23; 5:25; see 16:32). That cannot simply be regarded as an awkward correction of future eschatology to present eschatology. More plausibly, it reflects a Johannine liking for joined contraries, e.g., believers may die or never die at all (11:25-26); God has been glorified and will be glorified (12:28; 13:31).
There are more passages in John that seem to reflect a purely future element in their eschatology. We may distinguish between those that are simply futuristic and those that are apocalyptic. For instance, one prominent futuristic element is the wide-ranging gift of life that comes after Jesus' resurrection. When Jesus speaks of a present opportunity to receive life, we should realize that, whatever may have been offered in Jesus' earthly lifetime, in the intention of the evangelist Jesus is speaking through the pages of the Gospel to a postresurrectional. Christian audience. These Christians have the chance to obtain life through faith in Jesus, through baptism (3:5), and through the eucharistic food (6:54) that is a future gift from the viewpoint of the public ministry (6:27, 51). The life-giving factor is the Spirit (6:63; 7:38-39), and that Spirit is active for believers only after; Jesus is glorified by being lifted up to the Father (7:39; 16:7; 19:30; 20:22). It is after the resurrection that Thomas sets an example by confessing Jesus as Lord and God (20:28), the full understanding of what Jesus means when he says, "I AM" (8:28). There is another futuristic element in Jesus' attitude toward what happens after a person's death. Although Jesus insists that "eternal life" is offered here below, he recognizes that physical death will still intervene (11:25). This death cannot destroy eternal life, but there must be an pleteness to eternal life after death that is lacking in those who have yet to pass through physical death. Another indication of future reward is the statement that Jesus passes through death and resurrection so that he may prepare dwelling places in his Father's house to which he will bring those who believe in him (14:2-3). If people see the glory of Jesus on this earth, there is a future vision of glory to be granted when they shall join Jesus in the Father's presence (17:24; see 1 John 3:2).
Most scholars recognize the futuristic elements mentioned thus far, even if sometimes they reinterpret them according to a theory of totally
realized eschatology. A major problem concerns apocalyptic elements in the eschatology of John. Is there to be a second coming, a resurrection of the dead at the end of time, and a final judgment? There are clear passages that speak in this manner (5:28-29; 6:39-40, 44, 54; 12:48). How are these passages to be treated and reconciled with what we have seen of realized eschatology? For Bultmann, they are the additions of the Ecclesiastical Redactor, adapting Johannine theology to the theology of the church at large. That this is not a satisfactory view even on purely literary grounds has often been remarked, for some of the passages do not seem to be additions. On the other hand, even if one believes that there is a strain of apocalyptic eschatology in genuine Johannine thought, there is little doubt that Van Hartingsveld's attempt to refute Bultmann by putting the emphasis in John on future eschatology swings the pendulum too much in the opposite direction. Stauffer has suggested that the evangelist is a reformer in the sense that by his emphasis on realized eschatology and the hidden Messiah he is stripping off the vulgar apocalyptic elements that have entered Christian thought since the death of Jesus. His view is not far from Dodd's contention that Johannine realized eschatology is close to Jesus' original thought. Boismard, however, thinks that the passages dealing with final apocalyptic are the earlier passages in the development of Johannine thought, and those dealing with realized eschatology represent later insight.
Without attempting to discuss all the suggestions, I shall first offer a hypothesis about the development of NT eschatology, and then comment on Johannine present and future eschatology.
A Workable Hypothesis about the General Development of NT Eschatology
Within Jesus' own message there was a tension between realized and final eschatology. In his ministry, the reign of God was becoming manifest among people: Jesus spoke about the revelation and definitive realization. Yet, as heir of an apocalyptic tradition, Jesus also spoke of a final manifestation of divine power yet to come - as "Our Father ... may your kingdom come" indicates, the kingdom was in God's control. The obscurity of the Gospel references would indicate that, even though the overall impression is of "soonness," Jesus had no clear teaching on how or precisely when this final manifestation would take place. There are some statements that seem to refer to its coming in the very near future (Mark 9:1; 13:30; Matt 10:23; 26:64); others seem to suppose a lapse of time (Luke 17:22) and no fixed date (Mark 13:32-33). It is a dubious procedure to excise one or the other group of statements in order to reconstruct a consistent eschatological view held by Jesus. The recognition that there were both realized and final elements in Jesus' own eschatology means that in the subsequent developments seen below, the JNT writers were not creating ex nihilo theories of realized or of final eschatology, but were applying to a particular situation one or the other strain already present in Jesus' thought. It may be added that there were strains of both types of eschatology in the Judaism contemporary with Jesus. The War Scroll (1QM) shows Qumran's expectations of final divine intervention. Yet at the same time the sectarians believed that they already shared in God's heavenly gifts, were delivered from judgment, and enjoyed the companionship of the angels.
Ambivalence about eschatology is a mark of early Christian thought. Acts 2:17ff. portrays Peter as proclaiming that the last day has arrived in the resurrection of Jesus and the outpouring of the Spirit. From that one might judge that the first emphasis in eschatological expectation seems to have been that all things were accomplished by and in Jesus Christ and that only a short interim would be granted by God to allow the eschatological proclamation to be made to people. The rejection of this proclamation by many would have brought to the fore another strain of Jesus' tradition that spoke of a coming of the Son of Man in judgment on the wicked, a picture that was naturally colored by apocalyptic elements from the preachers' own background. The gradual passing of the years raised more acutely the problem of how soon this coming would take place, a problem that caused anguish in the Pauline correspondence with the Thessalonians and Corinthians.
The destruction of Jerusalem in 70 was a watershed in the development of NT eschatological thought. One can deduce from passages like Luke 21:20 and Rev 4-9 that some theologians saw the destruction of Jerusalem as the (partial) fulfillment of Jesus' words describing the coming of the Son of Man in wrath to punish the wicked. But what of the glorious establishment of the basileia? Some seem to have kept their hopes of an immediate parousia alive as long as there was a representative of the apostolic generation still among them. The reactions to the passing of this last tangible sign of immediate parousia are found in the cynicism that is the target of 2 Pet 3:4 and the disappointment that is the target of John 21:22-23. Others turned toward a more positive answer. Leaving aside the question of when Jesus would return, they emphasized what the Christians had already received in Jesus Christ. There need be no excessive worry about final judgment, for the reaction of people to Jesus in faith or in disbelief was already a judgment. There need be no excessive longing for the blessings that the parousia would bring, for divine son-ship and eternal life, the two greatest gifts, were already in the possession of Christians through faith in Jesus and through baptism and the eu-charist. For those who died in Jesus there was no indefinite agony of waiting till the last day and the resurrection of the dead, for after death there was a continuation of the eternal life that they already possessed - a
continuation that death could not affect and a continuation that constituted even closer union with Jesus and his Father. From time to time persecution and trial would revive the passionate yearning for the immediate return of Jesus and divine deliverance. We see this in Revelation 12-22 where Roman persecution acts as a catalyst for apocalyptic hopes. But the ordinary Christian teaching was more and more phrased in terms of realized eschatology. This combination of a dominant realized eschatology with admixtures of apocalyptic expectation has continued as a standard Christian outlook even until the present day.
Many other factors would have to be taken into account in evaluating the theory just described and applying it to John. For instance, the destruction of Jerusalem may have had less significance for emphasizing future eschatology than some local event that touched the Johannine community more directly, e.g., ejection from the synagogues, the death of the BD.
Interpreting John's Present and Future Eschatology
De Jonge in several articles has pointed out that, despite its peculiar emphases, Johannine eschatology has significant similarities to Synoptic eschatology. Yet, even if eschatological concepts were derived from the OT and from the Jesus tradition, there could have been extraneous influences in the Christian development of them. As I have mentioned, some would trace the heavy emphasis on realized eschatology to Gnosticism. Yet the theory of Gnostic influence is very disputed, and one can appeal to strains of realized eschatology in Jewish Wisdom Literature and at Qumran.
If one posits a long development in the composition of the Fourth Gospel from the stage of historical tradition about Jesus until the stage of final redaction, a priori one may expect to find in John traces of swinging to-and-fro of eschatological expectation in the first century. Undoubtedly such varying emphasis would have been related to developments in Johannine Community history; but given scholarly disputes about that history, it is perilous to relate exactly a particular type of eschatology to a particular stage in that history. Moreover, the witness of the Johannine Epistles would also have to be brought into the picture; though most scholars date them to after the Gospel, and they put strong emphasis on the final eschatology (I John 2:28; 3:2-23; 4:17), 1 John seems to be recalling what was held from the beginning, so that first chatology may have been early.
Bultmann, Dodd, and Blank are correct in insisting that the main emphasis in the Gospel is on realized eschatology. One of the purpc the Gospel was to teach Christians what a gift they had received in who was the source and basis of their life. The Gospel very clearly regards the coming of Jesus as an eschatological event that marked the change of the aeons. If the Gospel begins with "In the beginning," it is because the coming of Jesus will be presented as a new and definitive creation, his breathing on the disciples in 20:22 as he communicates to them the life-giving Spirit is like God's breathing on the dust in the original creation of the human being (Gen 2:7), but now through Jesus' Spirit God has created people as his own children (1:12-13).
The passages in John that treat of apocalyptic eschatology may represent (with development) a remembrance that this theme was found in Jesus' own preaching. They would have come to the fore at a period of development of Johannine thought when final eschatology was an important motif. Was this an early period as Boismard thinks, or a late period as Bultmann and Schmithals think, or even both? It is impossible to answer that question, but the following observations are pertinent.
The final eschatology passages are often doublets of other passages where the same words of Jesus are interpreted in terms of realized eschatology; for example, compare 5:26-30 (apocalyptic) with 5:19-25 (realized). In such instances, Bultmann would attribute the addition of the passage with final eschatology to the redactor, added in an attempt to make the Gospel more orthodox and acceptable to the larger church. That interpretation is not a necessary part of the redactional approach. The redactor may have been trying to make the Gospel as complete a collection of Johannine tradition as possible, including material pertaining to final eschatology that was not included in the evangelist's edition. What was added to the Gospel was not necessarily late material; moreover "the larger church"-position on eschatology was not so uniform that such additions would have been required.
While some final eschatology passages could have been later additions to the evangelist's work, that solution is overly artificial when applied to all passages. In my original Commentary, I was attracted by the logic that the same person would scarcely have combined the two eschatologies as John's Gospel does, but now I recognize that this needs to be queried. Differing from Bultmann, Stahlin maintained that Johannine eschatology expressed its truth only in contradictory sentences. Iiideed, even in the hypothesis of later addition, a final redactor did not deem it illogical to set the two eschatologies side by side. Moreover, the reading audience to which the Gospel is directed (20:30-31) can scarcely have been expected to read the eschatological statements through the light of different stages in community history or different writers. Therefore a perspective must be sought from and in which the diverse eschatology of John as it now stands makes sense -- a perspective involving some form of complementarity rather than correction.
One does not know the context in which the Gospel was read/ heard and it is possible that cult supplied the perspective (Aune) for combinining present and future eschatology, since cult is a present anticipation of future participation with God. Unfortunately we have little hard evidence in the Johannine writings about cult, but Aune suggests that cult is not mentioned because it is presupposed. With or without a cultic setting the readers are to read not only Jesus' promises for the future but also his words and signs during the ministry as addressed to them.
The perspective for the present/future combination may have been supplied by Johannine thought and/or style of presentation. It is probably too simple to say that the ministry of Jesus was looked on as a first stage followed by the second stage of postresurrectional experience that completed it. Was the whole account of the ministry written from a postresurrectional stance (Bornkamm)? Or is it more accurate to speak of a form of compenetration, e.g., already in Jesus' ministry the dead come forth from the tombs, but only after this death and glorification comes the Spirit (7:39)? How does the Paraclete as the presence of Jesus after his return to the Father fit into this issue? Is the sorrow of those at the Last Supper facing Jesus' departure and absence shared by postresurrectional believers who, despite the gift of the Paraclete, still must wait to join Jesus in the presence of the Father? Is such compenetration made more intelligible when we consider John's approach to signs?
One way or another in the Johannine narrative there is a blending of horizons: the ministry of Jesus and his dealings therein with his disciples; the time of the community where the Paraclete dwells in each believer; the ultimate joining of believers with Jesus and the Father in the heavenly realm above."
In that narrative with its blended horizons, eschatology would be only one of several intermingled factors. For instance, one cannot appreciate John's eschatology without factoring in John's Christology. Ricca rightly
states, "The Johannine Christology is completely centered and comprehended in the person of the pre-existent, incarnate, crucified, resurrected Christ living in heaven and represented on earth by his alter ego, the Spirit." That Christology affected individual believers and their relation to one another as branches on the vine, thus bringing ecclesiology into the picture.
Christology
There can be no doubt about the importance of Christology in Johannine thought. The evangelist is clear: "These (signs) have been reco so that you may have faith that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God that through this faith you may have life in his name." Modern commentators have recognized that by speaking of Christology as the central heartbeat of John's thought, to the point where Christology is spoken of as the gospel message. Nevertheless a number of comments are necessary.
Theocentrism
The Gospel is focused on Jesus for several reasons: it is he whc brought God's life, and he became the object of synagogue rejection. Nevertheless, there is a presupposition that Jesus leads believers to Jesus is supremely important because whoever has seen him has seen the Father (14:9), and the Father and he are one (10:30). Even though one may see Jesus as arrogantly making himself God (10:33) and equal to God (5:18), he also says "the Father is greater than I" (14:31). There is a sense in which the Johannine Jesus replaces the God of Israel who had traditionally been confessed as one: "Eternal life consists in this: that know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ, the one whom you sent” (17:3). The last warning in 1 John (5:21) is, "Guard yourselves against idols." Jesus is angry at people in the Temple precincts because they are turning his Father's house into a market place. The themes of the feasts of Israel are reinterpreted to relate to Jesus, but the worship of God involved in those feasts is preserved. Thus Johannine Christology never replaces theology.
Conflicting statements
Part of the difficulty in analyzing Johannine Christology (or even the broader theology) is that the Gospel contains statements that seem to have opposing views:
* See the preceding paragraph for statements of equality and subordination in relation to the Father. That begins already in 1:1 where the Word is both in God's presence (toward God) and is God.
* See the previous subsection for statements of realized and final eschatology.
* There are statements that seem to indicate predestination of those who come to Jesus (10:3, 26; 17:6) and statements that indicate choice (3:19-21). A particular instance of this is seen in the implications of the varied patterns, "Everyone who has or has not been begotten from God does or does not..." (3:3, 5; 1 John 3-9; 5:4a, 18), and "Everyone who does or does not... has or has not been begotten by God" (1:12-13; 1 John 2:29; 4:7; 5:1).
* There are statements where Jesus offers eternal life to (those he encounters during his public ministry (4:10; 5:24) and statements where life will be given after he is lifted up (3:14 - 15).
* There are statements capable of being read as Gnostic Christology (17:16: Jesus does not belong to this world) and others that would cause trouble for Gnostics (1:14: The Word became flesh).
How can these be explained? Several different solutions have been proposed. A number of scholars think the statements are irreconcilable, and attribute one set of statements to an earlier stage of Johannine writing and another set to a later stage. For instance, to the putative source versus the evangelist, or to the evangelist versus the redactor. Even then, there is not agreement in how to read the evangelist. Bultmann, for instance, thinks the source was Gnostic, but the evangelist corrected the material in a non-Gnostic way by stressing the authentic human existence of Jesus. There was a demythologizing of the miracles to signs, and no literal understanding of having come down from heaven. Kasemann, however would see the evangelist as naively docetic, so that he pictures Jesus as a god marching triumphantly across the world and working miracles manifestation of divine power.
Other scholars question the irreconcilability of the statements and warn against exaggerating the apparent import. They would insist that since the conflicting statements appear in the same document, they not seem contradictory to the Johannine writer(s) and that their different thrust shows the complexity of Johannine thought.
Still other scholars would combine these views. There is some truth in the first approach, for there may well have been a different thrust in Johannine thought in the three different Stages discussed above. Yet statements reflecting these differences could be joined because they are not truly irreconcilable. The later Stage was not primarily correcting the earlier but complementing it. Thus the second view is correct in appreciating the complexity of the final thought expressed in the Gospel. My own position is harmonious with this combined approach.
Words and Motifs as Keys
Scholars have chosen various designations, portrayals, and titles as aids to understanding Johannine Christology:
* Jesus as the divine Logos (Word) become flesh.
* The Father's sending of Jesus into this world, especially with the mission of revealing the Father.
* Jesus as God's only Son - a theme often combined with the preceding.
* Jesus as the descending/ascending Son of Man.
* The special use of "I am," which may be the name that the Father has given to Jesus.
* A portrayal of Jesus heavily influenced by the OT picture of personified Wisdom, especially in the books written in the Hellenistic period (Sirach, Wisdom).
* Jesus as the prophet-like-Moses and/or the prophet of the end-time.
* Jesus and the Paraclete/Spirit functioning sequentially.
* A portrayal of Jesus influenced by Samaritan thought.
It is very difficult to rank these suggestions according to importance, especially if one is proposed as the key. Some may be more frequent than others; but they seem to be woven together by the evangelist into a larger picture. In a well-reasoned book, Loader describes a central structure of Johannine Christology that catches many of the motifs in a complementary manner:
The Father sends and authorises the Son, who knows the Father, comes from the Father, makes the Father known, brings light and life and truth, completes his Father's work, returns to the Father, exalted, glorified, ascended, sends the disciples and sends the Spirit to enable greater understanding, to equip for mission, and to build up the community of faith.
A number of these motifs have been comprehensively covered in my earlier commentary. It may be useful to have special treatments of the Johannine use of Son of Man and Wisdom motifs, two issues that have been covered comprehensively since the publication of the Introduction to Brown's 1966-70 Commentary on John.
Son of Man
This title of Jesus, although puzzling, is very importart. Oscar Cullmann states, "It embraces the total work of Jesus as does almost no other idea."
By way of statistics," [the] Son of Man" appears some eighty times Gospels, in all but two of which (Mark 2:10; John 12:34) as a self-designation by Jesus. Outside the Gospels the phrase occurs only very few times. If the use of this title did not come from Jesus, why was it so massively retrojected, being placed on Jesus' lips on a scale far outdistancing the retrojection of "the Messiah," "the Son of God," and "the Lord" if this title was first fashioned by the early church, why has it left almost no traces in non-Gospel NT literature, something not true of the other titles? Yet there are curious features about the title: no person addresses Jesus by this title, and Jesus never explains its meaning. When the question comes up as to who Jesus is, "the Son of Man" is never suggested by others as an identification of him.
We do not know how it became a title. In the Synoptics there are three groups of Son of Man sayings: (1) those that refer to the earthly actions of the Son of Man (eating, dwelling, saving the lost); (2) those that point to the suffering of the Son of Man; (3) those that refer to the future coming and parousia of the Son of Man in judgment. Some would attribute only the last to the historical Jesus. The usual Gospel phrase ho huios tou anthropou (with two definite articles) is unknown in secular Greek and makes as little sense in Greek as "the son of the man" would make as a title in English conversation. As for its use in the Synoptic Gospels, some trace it terminologically to Semitic origins. The divine voice that spoke to Ezekiel addresses him over ninety times as "son of man" (= "O human being"), a term that highlights the contrast between the heavenly message and the mortal recipient. More pertinently, in the Aramaic of Dan 7:13 "one like a son of man" (contrasted to the beasts used as symbols of the pagan powers) enters the discussion - a human being who is a symbol of Israel and given dominion, glory, and kingdom (basileia). There is a long debate whether this passage may have prompted the development of a title, especially since it is one of the few sections of the OT that features the kingdom of God, another motif associated with Jesus. Similarly debated is whether there could be influence from the Son of Man passages in the "Parables" (Similitudes) of I Enoch (37-71) where a preexistent figure who seems also to be called the Messiah is seated on a throne of glory. Although this section is missing from the copies of I Enoch found among the DSS, there is reason to think it was in existence in the early first century A.D. Thus many think there was a Jewish concept of the Son of Man on which Jesus drew. Others deny that and appeal to a background in Gnosticism with its portrayal of a revealer who comes to enlighten the chosen ones or to what was purportedly a widespread notion in the ancient Near East of a preexistent primal man (sometimes royal) living in heaven who comes to earth at the end of time.
This debate is interesting
but inconclusive. Moreover, the answer does not necessarily cover John's use of “the Son of Man."
There are thirteen Son-of-Man passages in John, all but one in the Book of Signs. There are parallels with the Synoptic usage, so that Higgins, Maddox, Schnackenburg, and Moloney, among others, posit that many of the Johannine and Synoptic sayings came from a similar type of tradition and developed in a similar manner. Yet there are different aspects that make John's use of "the Son of Man" special. The Johannine sayings overlap the three Synoptic groups; they lack strong apocalyptic trappings, the element of realized eschatology dominates; and only in John does the Son of Man descend. That descent means that during his ministry he can offer life to those who believe in him (6:27,53), a partial similarity to Synoptic group 1. Probably too 1:51, which has the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man, refers to the union of the Son of Man with heaven during his earthly existence. Three of the Johannine Son-of-Man passages concern his being "lifted up" (3:14; 8:28; 12:34), an expression that refers both to the crucifixion and to the return to the Father's presence in heaven - thus passages that touch on Synoptic groups 2 and 3. Similarly, John 3:13 states that no one has gone up into heaven except the one who came down from heaven, and 12:23; 13:31-32 speak of the glorification of the Son of Man in relation to his death and resurrection. The power to pass judgment that has been given by God to Jesus "because he is Son of Man" (5:27; only time in the Gospels there is no definite article before either noun) is probably exercised both during Jesus' life on earth and after his ascension at the end of time (see
5:28-29). Twice in John's account (9:35-36; 12:34) people are not fazed by Jesus' references to the Son of Man (as if they were familiar with the ti tle) but want to know who he is. This would give the impression of an existing Jewish concept. Particularly important is John 9:35 where, in what may be an echo of the Johannine baptismal confession, the man born blind is asked, "Do you believe in the Son of Man?"
That last passage raises the issue of the relation of the Son of Man designation to the frequently used "Son" (twenty times in John, eighteen of which are in the Book of Signs or first half of the Gospel) and "Son of God" (eight times, six of which are in the Book of Signs), for in other
churches the latter functioned creedally (Rom 1:3-4). Moloney, Son of Man, would argue that "Son of God" is used by John to describe Jesus' relationship with the Father before, during, and after his incarnation, while "Son of Man" is limited to the earthly career of Jesus (and perhaps, one might add, to his relation to human beings). Moloney would also contend that "Son of Man" corrected any attempt to picture Jesus, on the one hand, simply as a traditional Jewish Messiah, and, on the other hand, as a second God. Others do not see so sharp a distinction between Son of Man and Son of God in terms of divine origin. Significantly, in 1:51 Jesus uses "the Son of Man" as a deepening improvement of the title given him by his disciples throughout the chapter (Messiah, the one described in the Mosaic Law and the prophets, Son of God, King of Israel - but none of those titles is repudiated.
A great deal of discussion has been centered on whether the preexistent and descending/ ascending aspect of the Johannine Son of Man can be derived from the Jewish apocalyptic background - a question that needs to be answered even if one thinks (as I do) that John shares background with some of the Synoptic usage and that usage drew on Jewish apocalyptic.
Higgins speaks of a Synoptic Son of Man overlapped by a non-Synoptic Son of Man. The appeal to an Oriental Gnostic myth reconstructed from later Mandaean and Manichaean texts (Bultmann), or to a primal Man prototype (Cullmann) or to a royal man myth (Borsch) has more following here than it has for the Synoptic imagery, but both the lateness of the sources and the difficulty of explaining how such diverse sources gave rise to a unified notion remain a formidable obstacle. Appeals to a Hellenistic heavenly man invoke Philo (commenting on Gen 1:26) and the Hermetic tract Poimandres. But the Philonic "man" is a Platonic ideal that does not really descend into this world, while Poimandres' man does not antedate creation and is not a redeemer.
Those who opt for a biblical background for the Johannine descent motif frequently suggest two OT possibilities (either or both of which can be combined with a more general ambience for non-Johannine features of the Son of Man in Jewish apocalyptic). Borgen is a particularly strong proponent of a parallelism with the descent of Moses from the presence of God on Sinai with divine revelation embodied in the Law, and indeed from the very beginning John 1:17 tells us of the centrality of the Moses/Jesus comparison. That really does not cover the preexistence motif. The other proposed OT background is the career of personified divine Wisdom. These points are shared by the Johannine Son of Man and Wisdom: preexistence with God, coming from heaven into the world, communication of revelation or divine knowledge, offer of actual food, producing division or self-judgment when some people believe and others refuse. Some think that the Son-of-Man and Wisdom terms were joined in pre-Christian Judaism (F.-M. Braun, Moeller) or in Christian tradition prior to John (Schnackenburg, Maddox, Moloney); some think John made the union (Dion, Meeks), at times invoking an identification of the Word with Wisdom. As a caution, however, one should note with M. Scott that no Johannine writing mentions Wisdom (perhaps because Jesus is male?) and that the exact vocabulary of ascend/ascend is not applied in the OT to Wisdom (when there is complementary appeal to Moses and Sinai). Beyond its relationship to the Son-of-Man portrayal, however, Wisdom is so frequently invc discussions of Johannine theology that it deserves a special subsection.
Wisdom Motifs
The fourth Gospel stands apart from the other Gospels in its presentation of Jesus as incarnate revelation descended from on high, from another world, to offer people light and truth. In discourses of quasi-poetic solemnity, Jesus proclaims himself with the famous I am formula, and his divine and celestial origins are apparent both in what he says and in the way he says it. Otherworldliness is visible in the ways he can treat with majestic disdain the plots against him and the attempt to arrest him. In his own words, he is "in the world but not of it." In painting this portrait of Jesus, plausibly John has capitalized on an identification of Jesus with personified divine Wisdom as described in the Old Testament, as NT writers found in Jesus the anti-type of elements in the historical books of the OT (e.g., of the Exodus, Moses, David) and the fulnllrj the words of the prophets, so also the fourth evangelist saw in Jesus the culmination of a tradition that runs through the Wisdom Literature of the OT.
The Wisdom Literature covers a wide spectrum of material and is one of the most cosmopolitan sections of the OT, sharing much in common with the writings of sages in Egypt, Sumer, and Babylon. This ecumenism of the wisdom movement showed itself in a later period in the openness of the biblical sages to Hellenistic influence, for it was in works like Ecclesiastes and the Wisdom of Solomon that Greek philosophic thought and vocabulary made their greatest inroads into the Bible. Almost half the deuterocanonical literature, preserved in the canon of Alexandria, is of a sapiential character. The blend of Oriental mysticism and mythology with Greek philosophy, found in the Wisdom Literature, had an influence that continued even after the biblical period, and traces of it can be found in Egyptian Gnosticism and Hermeticism.
In the NT, James represents a Christian wisdom book, illustrating that part of sapiential writing dealing with practical ethics. Some of the more mystical trends in wisdom thought had ramifications in Colossians and Ephesians. The Gospel of John, supposedly from the same section of the world as that addressed in these two epistles, also betrays this influence. The concept of the "Word" or logos finds some of its background in the Wisdom Literature, but here I shall be more concerned with the Johannine portrait of Jesus.
References to personified divine Wisdom (a female figure, since the Hebrew word for wisdom, hokma, and the Greek word sophia are feminine) are scattered widely in the OT; but our chief sources here will be the poems dedicated to Wisdom, e.g., Job 28; Prov 1-9; Baruch 3:S Sirachl; 4:11-19; 6:18-31; 14:20-15:10; 24; Wisdom 6-10.
According to these descriptions, Wisdom came forth from the mouth of the Most High (Sirach 24:3) and existed with God from the beginning even before there was an earth (Prov 8:22-23; Sirach 24:9; Wisdom 6:22) - so also the Johannine Jesus is the Word who was in the beginning (1:1) and was the Father before the world existed (17:5). Wisdom is said to be an emanation of the glory of the Almighty (Wisdom 7:25), and those hold her fast inherit glory (Sirach 4:13) - so also Jesus had glory with the Father before the world was created and then manifests the Father's glory to human beings (1:14; 8:50; 11:4; 17:5,22,24). Wisdom is said to be the reflection of the everlasting light of God (Wisdom 7:26); and in lighting the path for people (Sirach 1:29), she is to be preferred to any other light (Wisdom 7:10,29) - in Johannine thought God is light (1 John and Jesus, who comes forth from God, is the light of the world ( 1:4-5; 8:12; 9:5).
Wisdom is described as having descended from heaven to dwell with human beings (Prov 8:31; Sirach 24:8; Baruch 3:37; Wisdom 9:10; Jn 3:15) - so also Jesus is the Son of Man who has descended from heaven to earth (John 1:14; 3:31; 6:38; 16:28). In particular, John 3:13 is very close to Baruch 3:29 and Wisdom 9:16-17. Wisdom worked signs to deliver God’s holy people and guided them along a marvelous way (Wisdom 10:15-17), while Jesus worked signs and constituted the way (John 14:6). The ultimate return of Wisdom to heaven (I Enoch 42:2) offers a parallel to Jesus' return to his Father.
The function of Wisdom is to teach people about the things that are above (Job 11:6-7; Wisdom 9:16-18), to utter truth (Prov 8:7; Wisdom 6:22), to give instructions as to what pleases God and how to do God's will (Wisdom 8:4; 9:9-10), and thus to lead people to life (Prov 4:13; 8:32-35; Sirach 4:12; Baruch 4:1) and immortality (Wisdom 6:18-19).
This is precisely the function of Jesus, the revealer portrayed in numerous passages in John. In accomplishing her task, Wisdom speaks in the first person in long discourses addressed to her hearers (Prov 8:3-36; Sirach 24) - so also Jesus takes his stand and addresses people with his discourses, often beginning with "I am." For the instruction that she offers, Wisdom uses symbols like food (bread) and drink (water, wine); and she invites people to eat and drink (Prov 9:2-5; Sirach 24:19-21; Isa 55:1-3 [God offering his instruction]) - so also Jesus uses these symbols for his revelation (6:35,51ff.; 4:13-14).
Wisdom is not satisfied simply to offer her gifts to those who come; she roams the streets seeking people and crying out to them (Prov 1:20-21; 8:1-4; Wisdom 6:16) - so also the Johannine Jesus walks along, encountering those who will follow him (1:36-38, 43), searching out people (5:14; 9:35), and crying out his invitation in public places (7:28, 37; 12:44). One of the most important tasks that Wisdom undertakes is to instruct disciples (Wisdom 6:17-19) who are her children (Prov 8:32-33; Sirach 4:11; 6:18) - so also in John those disciples who are gathered around Jesus are called his little children (13:33). Wisdom tests her disciples and forms them (Sirach 6:20-26) until they love her (Prov 8:17; Sirach 4:12; Wisdom 6:17-18), and they become friends of God (Wisdom 7:14,27) - so also Jesus purifies and sanctifies his disciples with his word and truth (15:3; 17:17) and tests them (6:67) until he can call them his beloved friends (15:15,16:27). On the other hand, there are those who reject Wisdom (Prov 1:24-25; Baruch 3:12; I Enoch 42:2) - so also we see in John many who will not listen when Jesus offers them the truth (8:46; 10:25). For those who reject Wisdom, death is inevitable; truth is unattainable; and their pleasure in the things of life is transitory. The coming of Wisdom provokes a division: some seek and find (Sirach 6:27; Wisdom 6:12); others do not seek and when they change their minds, it will be too late (Prov 1:28). The same language in John describes the effect of Jesus upon people (7:34; 8:21; 13:33).
Besides these comparisons between the career of Wisdom and the ministry of the Johannine Jesus, another parallel to Wisdom is found in the Spirit-Paraclete who teaches people to understand what Jesus told them. Also the postresurrectional inhabitation of Jesus within those who believe in him (14:23) may be compared to Wisdom's power to penetrate people (Wisdom 7:24,27).
This short treatment should help to support the contention that Wisdom Literature offers better parallels for the Johannine picture of Jesus than do the later Gnostic, Mandaean, or Hermetic passages, as sometimes suggested. However, John has noticeably modified details in the representation of Wisdom by introducing a much sharper historical perspective than is found in the OT poems. Wisdom was a poetic personification; Jesus was a living historical figure. If Jesus was incarnate Wisdom, the incarnation occurred at a particular place and time, once and for all. Demythologizing the Wisdom concept by incorporating it into salvation history is not totally new, for one encounters the same tendency in very late Wisdom Literature. Sirach 24:23 and Baruch 4:1 would link Wisdom with the Law given on Sinai, and Wisdom 10 illustrates the activity of Wisdom in the lives of the patriarchs from Adam to Moses. It is interesting to note that John's references to the OT are largely to figures like Abraham, Moses, and Isaiah who have given testimony to Jesus and foreseen his days, and thus have been witnesses of divine wisdom (Jn 8:56; 12:41). John carries this further by seeing in Jesus the supreme example of divine Wisdom active in history, and indeed as divine Wisdom itself.
Is the presentation of Jesus as divine Wisdom a peculiarly Johannine development, or can it be traced back into the early tradition known by the other Gospels? In them, Jesus manifested certain characteristics of the wisdom teacher. The Marcan Jesus was addressed as "Teacher." He gathered disciples; he answered questions about the Law; he spoke in proverbs and parables. Matthew and Luke generalize sayings of Jesus once directed to a particular situation and make them wisdom sayings with a universal application. Scholars differ as to how much of this sapiential character was found in "Q" (the source common to Matthew and Luke), but the fact that "Q" has at least some wisdom features means that the sapiential emphasis goes back to a relatively early stage in the formation of the Gospel tradition. However, one must note that in general the sapiential strain in the Synoptic tradition does not develop in exactly the same way that it develops in John. In the Synoptics, Jesus' teaching shows a certain continuity with the ethical and moral teachings of the sages of the Wisdom Litera ture; in John, Jesus is personified Wisdom. However, there are a few passages in the Synoptics that are much closer to the sapiential strain in John. In Luke 21:15, Jesus promises to give his disciples wisdom that will enable them to speak. In Luke 11:49, a saying is attributed to "the Wisdom of God," which Matt 23:34 attributes to Jesus himself. The enigmatic saying, "Wisdom is justified by [all] her children [or deeds]," is found in both Matt 11:19 and Luke 7:35 in a context that might lead the reader to identify Jesus as the "Wisdom" of the saying. In another "Q" passage (Luke 11:31; Matt 12:42) Jesus is exalted over the wisdom of Solomon. In Mark 10:24 Jesus addresses his disciples as "Children," a form of address that, as we saw above, both personified Wisdom and the Johannine Jesus employ. The theme of Jesus coming to call people is found in all three Synoptics (Mark 2:17 and par.). In Luke 6:47 (but not in Matt 7:24) Jesus refers to: "Everyone who comes to me and hears my words" - a saying in the style of personified Wisdom and typical of the Johannine Jesus (5:40; 6:35,45).
The most important passage in the Synoptic Gospels reflecting the theme of personified Wisdom is the "Johannine logion" (Matt 11:25-27; Luke 10:21-22), a "Q" saying:
"I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and foolish and revealed them to babes - yes Father, for so was it pleasing to you. All things have been given over to me by my Father; and no one knows (who is) the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him."
Davies suggests that the original emphasis in this revelation may have been more eschatological than sapiential. Nevertheless, we have here a saying of a markedly Johannine type that goes back to early tradition. The saying that follows it in Matt 11:28-30, wherein Jesus invites people to come to him to find rest, closely echoes the appeals of Wisdom in Sirach 24:19 and 51:23-27.
The Synoptic evidence is not overwhelming, but there is enough of it to make one suspect that the identification of Jesus with personified Wisdom was not the original creation of the Fourth Gospel. Probably here, as with other Johannine themes like "the hour," and the "I am" sayings, John has capitalized on and developed a theme that was already in the primitive tradition.
Summary
By way of evaluation, then, how are we to estimate the place of Johannine theology in the spectrum of NT theology? Little credence can be given to the older view that placed the Synoptics, Paul, and John in a Hegelian sequence of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. In reaction to such artificially smooth sequences, the more recent tendency has been to treat Johannine theology as if it stood out of sequence - either in the sense that the evangelist stood so far apart from orthodox Christian thought that his work needed censorship in order to be accepted, or in the sense that he was an unconscious prophet of an existential approach to Jesus who cut through the externalism of church and sacraments and placed each Christian in a direct "I-thou" relationship to Jesus. Still another suggestion is that John represents thought that circulated in a "backwater" community, cut off from the church at large.
Personally, I find no major difficulty in fitting John into the mainstream of Christian thought; it is another facet of the manifold understanding of Jesus. John's theology is not the same as that of Paul, or that of James, or that of any of the Synoptic writers. Although the writers of all these works shared an essential unity in faith that made them Christians, they also exhibited a notable diversity in theological approach and emphasis. Such diversity is well illustrated in the various NT treatments of the problems just discussed: ecclesiology, sacraments, and eschatology. It can also be claimed, in my opinion, for the Johannine Son of Man. am not convinced that any NT writer regarded the church, the sacraments, the parousia, much less its Christology, as irrelevant. But the writers expressed very differently the relevance of these topics, and this expression was greatly guided by factors of time, place, and individual understanding. Through comparison we can find traces of development and sequence, but there is no all-embracing linear development in NT thought. Recognizing this makes more understandable the place of highly individual theological thought like John's.
That John has much in common with other NT works has been emphasized in comparative articles. Besides the studies of optics mentioned in Chapter Three, there have been similarities between Johannine and Pauline thought, despite the very different articulation. The Prologue, a seemingly unique Johannine hymn, has definite parallels with the Pauline hymns in Colossians and Philippians.
Spicq's exhaustive commentary on Hebrews devotes a very interesting study to some sixteen parallels in thought between John that epistle. A long list of parallels between John and the Catholic letters, especially 1 Peter, could also be drawn up. The honor paid to the fourth evangelist by acknowledging him as "the theologian" (or even as "the divine") is justified, but that does not mean that he was as solitary or out-of-step as some would have us believe.
|
|
These Courses