Johannine Studies
Lecture 1 Study Notes – January 29, 2008
Printable Version
1. What are the Gospels? (see 1 Corinthians 15 as definition of the Gospel)
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have been called the four witnesses. (“The Four Witnesses” by Robin Griffith-Jones). Together, they give us the greatest story ever told. Yet, the Gospels don’t always include the same material or the same versions of the same material. They often describe strikingly different versions of the same events. Each one offers a little different answer to the question Jesus asked Peter, “Who do you say that I am?”
Griffith-Jones sees Mark as portraying Jesus as a Rebel, Matthew as a Jewish teacher-Rabbi, Luke as Chronicler, and John as the Mystic. Each one like an artist trying to paint a portrait of Jesus—not necessarily contradicting one another, but trying to express how the historical Jesus was meeting the needs of their community.
We know that every community and every church didn’t have access to all of the Gospels after they were written. They were written by different communities at different times.
It is unbelievable how diverse the early Christians were. We think we are diverse in denominations, non-denominations and our screwed-up beliefs, but in my opinion, we are mildly confused compared to early Christendom. During the early years, say the first three or four hundred years before there was a Cannon as we know it, we could not always agree on the number of Gods; whether Jesus was human, divine, or both; who created the world; whether the Jewish scriptures were inspired by God or an evil god (“Lost Christianities” by Bart D. Ehrman).
Matthew, Mark and Luke are called the synoptic Gospels because they are thought to be similar. In other words, they seem to have the same approach to the life and the ministry of Jesus and contain similar material (Similarity of wording—Matthew 19:13-15; Mark 10:13-16; Luke 18:15-17; Order—Matthew 16:13-20:34, Mark 8:27-10,52; Luke 9:18-51,18:15-43; Parenthetical material/Biblical quotations—page 785, Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels).
2. How did the Gospels come about?
No one really knows for sure, but we are certain the Bible and the Gospels did not drop down from heaven into hands of the authors like the Moslems believe the Koran did. It was written by human beings under the inspiration and leadership of the Holy Spirit. I believe that each Gospel was written to needs and edification of each writer’s community of believers having had their concerns and needs in mind—much like Paul’s letters were written to his churches with their problems and concerns in mind.
3. Timeline of Gospel formation and oral tradition (see handout):
Stage 1 - Composition (Timothy Johnson’s Stages of Canonization – “Jesus and the Gospels” vol. 3)
After the Christ event, there was a period of 30-50 years in which we believe the four canonical Gospels were written. Jesus’ life and ministry were kept alive by stories of what He did—handed down to different communities, person by person—oral tradition. Once the Apostles began to die out, and Jesus tarried in His second coming (they believed that he would return in their lifetime. See 1 Corinthians 15: 50-51; 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18), realized the need of something to preserve their tradition. The results were the Gospels, not just our Canonical Gospels (canonical meaning inside the church, official church writings), but Apocryphal (meaning simply non-canonical).
Apocryphal writings were not necessarily bad (unless folks were misled into believing that they were equal to scripture or orthodoxy), but not regarded as early or authoritative gospels. Some apocryphal writings were very popular, especially the Infancy Gospel (see books of Eden) which told about the early life of Jesus. Some scholars have likened them to “early Christian fiction,” stories which filled in the gaps and maybe even entertained rather than inspired. One thing most scholars believe is that there was no hidden conspiracy to keep these books from being canonical (such as The DaVinci Code would suggest), but a very hard long process of canonization. According to Timothy Johnson, no historian has ever been able to say that our four Gospels were not the earliest copies of any gospel found… which was one criteria that was used for canonization (“Jesus and the Gospels” page 11 vol. 3).
Stage 2 – Exchange
One community begins to share writings with other communities. We find a trace of this in Paul’s letters where Paul writes to the Colossians, and he says: “After this letter has been read to you, see that it is also read in the church of the Laodiceans and that you in turn read the letter from Laodicea” (Colossians 4:16). This is the shift from local writings to universal writings and very important because more people begin to recognize and accept the local writings as authoritative. For example, we know that Matthew and Luke used Mark, assuming Mark was the oldest by the material shared by all three. This couldn’t have happened unless communities of faith began to share with other communities of faith. In addition, it was the time in which there was a shift from historical to nominative. In other words, what was once said to the Corinthians in the past is going to be useful for all Christians in every generation.
Stage 3 - Collection (around 95 to 120 AD)
A good example of this stage is 1 Clement, written around 95 AD, in which Clement refers to 1 Corinthians, to the letter of Hebrews, and to the letter of James.
Ignatius of Antioch, writing around 110 AD, refers to 1 Corinthians, Romans, and Ephesians.
Polycarp, writing around the year 130 AD, refers to Galatians and the pastoral letters of Paul.
Some scholars see II Peter as being written sometime around the end of the first and the beginning of the second century. It is seen as the last of the New Testament to be written. See 2 Peter 3:16 as referenced to Paul’s letters and their collection as Scripture. The dating of 2 Peter as 60-64 AD is much too early, especially for Paul’s letters to be thought of as Scripture.
What about the Gospels? They are harder to find quoted. Clement does talk about the words our Lord. According to Timothy Johnson, when Clement quotes Jesus, it appears closer to Matthew than the others. Polycarp does mention sayings that might have come from John and Matthew. So, we have not so much stories of Jesus as sayings of Jesus being quoted by the early Christian writers. What is interesting is, according to Johnson (“Jesus and the Gospels” page 13 vol. 3), “in all of these writings there is no quotation of Jesus from any other source, nor is there any other Gospel referred to as authoritative, so these seem to be the only gospels at the beginning of the 2nd century.”
Stage 4 – Selection
This is the most critical stage of the process, starting in the middle of the 2nd century and continuing on until the Cannon was agreed on around the 4th—325 AD Council of Nicea called by Emperor Constantine to help unite the Empire. The long stage of selection is brought about by a crisis of identity. Every group of people, really every person, has to test and develop their own identity usually brought on by a crisis. In this instance, it was a crisis of the community’s beliefs. The crisis of identity in most of these writings was brought about by competing notions and ideals of the Christian faith.
One was the notion of contraction. These ideals were expressed in additional writings that began to surface in the 2nd Century. According to Timothy Johnson, Tacian, writing around the year 170 AD, thought that the Four Gospels were too many so he composed a writing called the Diatessaron, which in effect was the first harmonization of the Gospels. This is interesting because it speaks to the growing popularity of the Four Gospels as authoritative for certain groups of Christians. Marcion, the famous and very popular heretic of the 2nd century, believed that there were two distinct gods, the God who created the world who was not very good, and the good God who was the true spiritual deity represented by Jesus. Marcion held that only 10 of Paul’s letters and one Gospel (Luke) were authoritative. Everything else was thought to have too much Jewish influence in them and rejected.
The other side of the coin was the notion of expansion. This challenge to the Gospels was new compositions claiming to be the authority of divine revelation. Gnosticism was the big attraction here along with an assortment of other Apocryphal Gospels.
What is Gnosticism? The word Gnostic means knowledge or to know. This knowledge is based on certain assumptions:
One, while there is just one main God, he or she is quite unknowable.
Two, the god of the Old Testament is a lesser deity who created the world. This lesser god has made a flawed creation, therefore is flawed or evil himself.
Three, as human beings, we are trapped in this world and the only way we can escape this world and its evil influences is to receive the knowledge given to us by Jesus—a Jesus who gave this special knowledge by this unknowable higher spiritual reality that had nothing to with this evil world.
The Gospel of John was also a favorite of these folks because it was thought, and is still thought, of having Gnostic leanings. The best to illustrate this is to compare it to the Gospel of Matthew. Look at Matthew 5:17-20. Clearly Matthew underscores Jesus’ allegiance to the Law, but John never has this kind of saying. Instead, for Jesus in John, the greatest works someone can do is believe in Him. There is an emphasis on knowledge and believing in John that there is not in the Synoptics. But clearly, numerous writers other than John made sure that there was no shortage of full blown Gnostic literature to be called scripture (see handouts).
Johannine Studies
Lecture 2 Study Notes – February 3, 2008
Printable Version
What is the relationship between the Synoptic Gospels and the Fourth Gospel?
Some people have assumed that John’s gospel was the last one to be written and that it was written to complement the others. However, there is no hint that the Fourth Gospel was either complementing or correcting the other three. What is clear is that the other three can easily be set along side of each other and compared while John’s gospel does not really permit such point by point, or verse by verse comparisons. (Synopsis of the Four Gospels by Kurt Aland, p. 793)
There are major differences between the Synoptic Gospels and the Fourth Gospel.
1. In Synoptic accounts of Jesus’ ministry, He was only in Jerusalem the week of the Passover, at which time he was arrested, tried and put to death.
2. According to some scholars there are hints that a primary source of John’s Gospel is of a person living in Judea during the ministry of Jesus and the story is being written from the viewpoint of one dwelling in Jerusalem (John 18:15-16). The account of the Triumphal Entry of Jesus into Jerusalem is told from the viewpoint of one in the city (John 12:9-18) in contrast to the Synoptics, which describe the event from the viewpoint of the Galileans entering the city (Mark 11:1-11).
3. There are chronological differences as well. Whereas in the Synoptic Gospels, the ministry of Jesus and the call of the first disciples is set after the imprisonment of John the Baptist (Mark 1:14-20). In John’s Gospel, Jesus begins his ministry in Judea during the period of John’s work, and his earliest disciples appear to be disciples of the Baptist (John 1:35-51). (Synopsis of the Four Gospels by Kurt Aland, p. 793)
4. The Synoptics give only one solitary trip to Jerusalem, while John mentions Jesus and three Passovers (John 2:13; 6:4; 12:1), which suggest that Jesus’ ministry could have extended over two or three years. Journeys to Jerusalem in John are found:
a. first cycle (John 1:19-3:36)
b. second cycle (John 4:1-5:47)
c. third cycle (John 6:1-10: 42)
d. fourth and final cycle (John 11:1-17:26)
5. The cleansing of the Temple—the Synoptic Gospels tell us that it occurs as Jesus visits Jerusalem before the Passover, while John sets it at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry after turning water into wine at the party of Cana (John 2:13-22). Where there two cleansings?
6. The date of the Last Supper is different as well. The Synoptics state that the last meal of Jesus with his disciples was a Passover celebration (Mark 14:12; Luke 22:15). John states the meal took place on the eve of the Passover (John 13:1; 18:28) and that Jesus died immediately prior to the Passover (John 19:31).
7. Notice that in John there is not a single exorcism. Instead, John calls Jesus’ miracles signs and there are just 7 in John. (Three of them have to with nature miracles: water to wine in John 2, multiplication of loaves in John 6, and the walking on water in chapter 6. Then we have three healings: chapters 4, 5 and 9, with resurrection of Lazarus from the dead in chapter 11).
8. The teaching style of Jesus in John is different than in the Synoptics. In the Synoptics, Jesus uses the parables to get his teaching across. In John, there are fewer parables and the Evangelist uses his own language to represent what Jesus is trying to convey to his followers. (see The Gospel and Epistles of John: A Concise Commentary by Raymond Brown, pages 17-19)
9. John also has a different understanding of the Judgment, or eschatology, than the Synoptic Gospels. In the Synoptics, God’s judgment is entirely in the future. “The Son of man will come on the clouds of heaven and receive dominion. Matthew 25 has the Son of Man sitting upon the throne and judging all nations in the future (This is future Eschatology). In John, there are some references to what will happen in the future (John 5:28-29), but John sees God’s judgment taking place not so much in the future, but in the ministry of Jesus itself. “He is the light that come into world, and that light reveals who is in the light and who is in darkness so that His first coming is already a crisis or a judgment.” (Jesus and Gospels Vol. 2 p.125; see handout of the in-between times; see the Realized and Future Eschatology handouts)
10. The supreme theme of the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels is summarized in Mark 1:15. John’s Gospel has one saying about the kingdom (John 3:3, 3:5) and an oblique reference before Pilate (John 18:36-37). Yet it underlines everything that John tries to say. The purpose of John’s Gospel, according to the Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, is that its readers might receive and be established in the life of the kingdom of God (John 20:31). Hence for John, his Gospel and his epistles deal a lot with light, “life”, and eternal life. But the purpose of John seems best to be described in John 20:30-31. Notice also how many references there are to believing in the Father or in Himself in the Gospel. The purpose is to encourage his readers to believe.
11. Given the differences in the Synoptics and the Fourth Gospel, many people don’t see a direct connection between John and the other three. It is argued that John didn’t use the Synoptics as one of his sources, yet it is also clear that John’s Gospel didn’t take shape in isolation either. Therefore, we shouldn’t ignore the other Gospels in interpreting John because John must have dipped into the same oral traditions or the same stuff that were used by the Synoptics.
12. The Fourth Gospel is often seen as having a supplemental relationship with the other three. Meaning that John has three years to put what he does in his Gospel, while the rest have just one. So John gives the readers supplement or additional material that the other three simply don’t have.
13. Luke Timothy Johnson sees John’s purpose in writing as making explicit what is implicit in the Synoptic tradition (Jesus and Gospels Vol. 2 p. 127). The claims that Jesus makes in the other Gospels are put on the table and John says, “Here they are, this is really what Jesus meant.” For example, in feeding of the 5000 which is in all the Gospels (How about the feeding of the 4000; is it in all the Gospels? No, not Luke and John. See Kurt Aland handout), it is only John who has Jesus to go on and say: “I am the bread of life; this is the bread that has come down from heaven.” John raises the implicit teachings of Jesus to explicit and direct statements about whom and what He is meant to do. Therefore, John, more so than the other Gospels, is meant to be theology of Jesus and his teachings.
1. Discuss the 8 major literary characteristics of John’s Gospel according to Raymond Brown in the handout. Show scripture references for each major type.
2. Canonical Challenges of the Four Gospels and Epistles
Review: The word cannon comes from the Greek word kannon which originally meant reed. The reed was used by carpenters as a ruler or a way of measure. It gradually took on the meaning of a listing of rules, ordinances, and principles in which we might live by. In talking about scripture, writings were not considered to be scripture and to be read in public worship unless it was canonical, or on the list. According to the Mercer Dictionary of the Bible, the formal designation of scripture as being Cannon was not used until around 350 when Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, referred to it in a summary of the Decrees of the Synod of Nicaea.
3. Theological Challenges
See Culpepper page 288. Note especially the challenge of Gaius on page 288, 289. Note that Irenaus was the first, as far as we know, to establish the Apostle John as the writer living in Ephesus. After Irenaus, the authority of the Gospel was not challenged.
4. Historical Challenges
Most notably was the 19th century in which the document was challenged because of the differences between it and the Synoptics. See Culpepper quote on page 291. In addition, see Mercer Dictionary article on “Cannon” quote of Tertullian on page 133.
5. Ethnical Challenges
Is the Gospel anti-Jewish? John is not by any means in danger of being kicked out of the Cannon, but there is a lot of criticism directed at Christianity in general and John, in particular, as being anti-semantic. I had a teacher at a Methodist seminary who once told her class she had almost become Jewish because of anti-Semitism in Christianity and that she no longer considered John as part of her Bible. Notice “the Jews” references in the Gospel… I’ve always seen such references as not anti-Jewish but anti-religious authority in which some Jews stood for. But in the question that scholars have been debating for some years is, in light of the Holocaust, how can we help prepare the future church to never use John or any other Christian scripture for roots of anti-Semitism? Is John inherently anti-Semitic?
What are the theological issues and themes in John’s writings (see syllabus)? The Gospel is thoroughly Christological. The major theological issues, therefore, will arise around the many facets of Jesus’ person and our relationship to him.
According to John, Jesus provides the solution to the human condition; therefore, how one understands that condition determines in large measure how Jesus’ role will be understood. We will begin with John’s depiction of the human condition apart from God.
1. One of the distinctive characteristics of John’s thinking and writing is dualism (see Culpepper p. 89). John is making things very explicit in his Gospel and, in doing so, takes out a lot of gray areas. To him everything is black or white, good or evil, resulting in dualism. As Culpepper says, every category is accentuated by its opposite: good—evil (3:20), Christ—the devil, light—darkness (8:12), love—hate (15:18ff) , and above—below. The world is very much under the influence of the “ruler of the world” so the dualism is between earth and heaven—this world and that. (see 12:31;14:30; 16:11) (8:44; 13:2; 13:27) John’s use of the Greek word, kosmos, world. (See Culpepper p. 89)
2. Sin (separation from God) in John is a matter of unbelief; unbelief that is characterized by rejection of Jesus. (9: 35-41;16: 8-9; 8: 21,24, 34;15: 22, 24) It is so closely related to the rejection of revelation of God in Jesus that Jesus says: “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin…(15: 22, 24) In John, Jesus has a similar function to the Law in Paul’s writings—to bring sin to our awareness. Hence, the dualism of seeing and not seeing (9:39 “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see (or think they see) will become blind.” How hard is it to people who are blind, to see? And the more we think we can see, the harder it is to really see the truth. Church folks that have been indoctrinated in the wrong way for a long time are really hard to get to see the truth. (Pew-sitters are hard to change. Why? Because they sit under the gospel preaching for a long time, and have been comfortable doing nothing. People who are comfortable in doing nothing are really hard to budge.)
3. Closely related to spiritual blindness in the Gospel is the use of darkness as a symbol for the human condition apart from God. Apart from God, the world and the people in it lay in darkness. (1:5) Sin, therefore, involves the love of darkness. (see 3:19) Why do they reject the revelation of Jesus? Their love is false—they love darkness.
4. Culpepper gives us two false loves that characterize people who reject Jesus’ revelation.
a. Their false love is a love of the glory and praise of others rather than the glory of God (5:41). Belief in Jesus is blocked when we seek the approval and the glory of one another rather than God (5:44). They cannot believe because belief is not an intellectual assent to certain theological principles, but an opening of oneself to the knowledge and glory of God revealed in Jesus.
b. Their false love is characterized by loving one’s own life rather than seeking eternal life (11: 25-26;12:25) Therefore, sin is associated with darkness and characterized by false love and death.
5. Next is the revelation in Christ. The revelation of Christ is John’s Christology. Culpepper gives us four facets of His Christology. The following are the four:
a. The Word. See sermon on John 1:1-14 for history of the term Logos. Nowhere in the Gospels or the New Testament is “The Word” referred to as in John 1. It contains the highest claims (Christology) that Christians have made for Christ (reference high and low Christology). The thrust of the passage is that the Divine Logos has somehow become a person. He is a person who was the agent of divine creation. John begins by saying that the Word was with God and was God. He introduces us to a divine paradox: How can there be individuality and oneness at the same time? (see Kysar page 43)
According to Kysar, the divine Logos is the expressing dimension of God’s personality. It is God’s revealing, outward directing activity in His creation. According to Kysar, a person might be able to have two sides or more to their person. One side is a person’s being that expresses who she or he is. In actions and words to friends and loved ones, one reveals who he or she is. But there may be another side to us that is secretive or hidden, that no one may know except ourselves and sometimes we are ignorant of that part of ourselves. Well, God knows himself clearly and perfectly, but the Logos is that facet of God that He has chosen to express Himself for the comprehension of human beings. The other side of God’s personality is a mystery. The danger in most preaching I hear today is that we tend to make God too small. For example, I really don’t like to hear people refer to God as being the “Man upstairs.” To me God is “not the man upstairs.” He is much more than that—He is God!!
1. As I said in the previous lecture: “In John the Logos constitutes one of the highest claims Christians have made for Christ: he existed from the beginning. Let’s look at the prologue itself. What does the passage affirm about Logos (see handout from Kysar, page 41)? Agent of creation: So fundamental to the sense and purpose is the revelation in Christ that he must be conceived as the shaping force in the very beginning of existence, and indeed still holds things together (Colossians 1: 16-17). The Logos has power over creation: Jesus continued to have power over creation by turning water into wine in chapter 2. According to one ancient poet, “the water recognized its creator and blushed.” (see Culpepper p. 93 for more examples) (also see signs and their meaning handout)
2. How did Jesus get to be the Messiah or Christ? Three views: adoptionistic, agency, and incarnational. (John: The Maverick Gospel by Robert Kysar page 44-46)
3. Adoptionistic Christology- It begins by saying that Jesus was a man who, because of His obedience to God, was adopted as God’s Messiah. This adoption may have taken place at His Baptism (Ebionites) or at any other time in His ministry, but more likely at the death and resurrection. No pre-existence of Christ or divine birth but in living an obedient life He was made the Messiah. According to some it was faintly present in some of the New Testament literature (Maybe Acts 2:36; 3:13; Romans 1:3-4).
4. Agency Christology- Declares that God took the initiative to send a personal representative to perform the revelatory and saving function of the Father. So, in short, it just means that Jesus is “sent” like a prophet to save his people. According to Kysar (p. 44) the birth narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke are essentially expressions of a form of Agency Christology. In my opinion, such views or interpretations are our way of seeing the partial truth of who and what Jesus is compared to complete picture of His nature. In other words, our language and our concepts just don’t embrace everything that Jesus came to represent.
5. Incarnational Christology- Represents the boldest claims of who Christ is thought of being. Some form of prior existence is asserted. In Incarnational Christology, the divine Logos has become human. It also claims that prior to the very beginnig Jesus was divine, and at no point in time in his life and ministry did He become divine. This all took place before creation was ever conceived in the mind of God. John’s prologue is the poster child scripture for Incarnational Christology, with Colossians 1:15-20 and Philippians 2:6-11 speaking to it as well.
6. The heart of the Christian message, according to Kysar, is that the Logos is on a journey and camps out (dwells 1:14) among human beings for a while in order to do the will of the father.
7. Christological Titles in 1:18-51 (a summary of the major labels/facets of the rare and beautiful diamond of Christ) which explicates its understanding of Christ.
8. The Revealer- Jesus’ role from the very beginning is to reveal God (1:18 ). As revealer, Jesus does what He sees the Father doing (5:19,30) and what the Father has taught Him (8:28). Therefore, whoever has seen Jesus has seen the Father (12:45; 14:9). John doesn’t mention redemption, instead it is the revelation of God that is our redemption according to John. According to Culpepper, eternal life consists in coming to know God through this revelation and living in response to this knowledge of God. It is what it means to believe. ( Page 94)
9. Lamb of God- is found on the lips of John the Baptist (vs. 29) and one of the disciples (vs. 36). The reference to the “Lamb of God” can have many meanings:
a. Jesus is the new symbol of the Passover, the new liberation from bondage, offered by God.
b. The innocent victim whose suffering and death gain the removal of human sin.
c. The figure who appears at the end of time to overcome all the evil in the world (see Revelation 5).
d. The servant of God whose suffering atones for the sins of the world (explain expiation and propitiation; see Paul handout)
These meanings are certainly in John, but maybe John wanted us to see the liberating function of the Lamb of God in a broader sense such as: the lamb of God is the liberating revealer of God. His freeing function occurs not strictly through his suffering and death but through his very person. To know Jesus is to be freed. It is through Jesus that folks found real freedom (8:31-32). He freed people from the ruler of this world (12:31 14:30; 16:11). Redemption takes place primarily through the response of faith in Jesus as the revealer. (see my notes on Paul’s theology of redemption page 72)
10. Messiah- God’s chosen one (1:41). This is reference to the special agent of God who is to come with the expectation of an ideal king who will rule justly and conquer Israel’s enemies. However, according Kysar, by Jesus’ day all the messianic titles (and there where many) were suggestive of a political ruler. Someone who would rescue the poor and oppressed; who would correct religious falsehoods; who would destroy the forces of evil in the world; and who was thought of in various ways like a man, extra-ordinary human being, and even an angelic type of divine creature. Therefore, in using the Messianic titles, John wanted us to know without shadow of doubt that Jesus was the fulfillment of the whole body of expectation related to Savior figure. What are some of them:
11. The Son, Son of God (vs. 34, 49), Son of Man (vs.51) (Culpepper, p. 95). John uses “Son” 18 times, Son of God 9 times, and Son of Man 15 times to describe Jesus. The first reference to the Sonship of God is 1:14, 18, especially in verse 18 when Jesus is referred to by His father’s side (I wonder how much of Jesus’ teachings about God the Father comes from His own childhood with His relationship to Joseph). John 1:34 speaks of the Son of God as testified by John the Baptist. Many scriptures follow that speak of Jesus as being the unique Son—by unique we mean different from beings like ourselves who have been created by God.
12. Unique meaning that His home is the heavenly realm with God (John 3: 13-15; 6: 62; 16:28). All this means is He doesn’t belong to the world. His origin is somewhere else—it is divine.
13. Therefore the Son has been sent by the Father from Heavenly home (3:34; 4:34; 8:26; 9:4, and 17:3). Like a cosmic prophet or divine prophet, the Son is sent forth in our world to represent God and speak for Him.
14. Then the Son of Man will be “lifted up” and ascend into heaven.
a. It is Jesus speaking of His “glorification.” His death is His glorification (12:23) and that honoring Him is honoring the Father (13:31). The irony of all of this is that He will die, and this death (which is the world’s shameful way of dealing with him) is His glorification.
b. Three times Jesus speaks of His being “lifted up” (3: 13-15; 8:28; 12:32). This can mean the act of crucifying; it can also mean exaltation or honoring a person. When He is lifted up, then His true identity will become clear (8:28) and His departure to this heavenly home (12:34-36).
15. The theme of being “lifted up” is the Johannine theology of the Cross in a nutshell (Kysar page 53). Because, through the Gospel it emphasized that Jesus’ death is the revelation of His identity (8:28). It is honoring Jesus for who He really is, which is a King going to His coronation. If Jesus seems to be humiliated, it is a humiliation that is part of the process of exaltation. But in truth, the Son of Man cannot be humiliated!! In truth, in John: “the crucifixion and the resurrection are bound together, and cannot be separated.”
16. The functions of the Son are the functions of God. C.H. Dodd sees a parable of the Sonship of God behind John 5:19-20 as Jesus the son of a carpenter. Again, the ideal of a son watching his father practicing his trade and doing everything that the father is doing (this might make a good Father’s Day sermon). Jesus says in 8:28 that He does only what the Father has taught Him. So much so that the Son is proud of the Father, as the Father is proud of the Son. The Son wants to do only what the Father has taught Him, because He admires and loves the Father. And the Father could have no better Son. As an earthly son shares in the character of the earthy father (for better or worse) so do Jesus and the Father share their character and nature (always for the better).
17. The Son carries the full authority of the Father. The Father has placed the divine seal on the Son (6:27). This matter of divine authority resting on the Son is probably the meaning of Jesus’ statement in 1:51.
18. Therefore, Jesus says: “The Father and I are one” in John 10:30. But what does this mean? They are “one” but that doesn’t necessarily mean one in every way, does it? No, the Bible says that husband and wife are meant to be one, but does that mean there are no differences. It means that there is a special bond, a closeness and oneness that is marriage; that there is in no other of our relationships. But again, there are distinct differences. Look at John 14:28. Jesus Himself even admits that the Father is greater. Greater in what way? You are really talking about the limitations of Jesus, by the fact that God was made flesh. One way is that Jesus couldn’t be everywhere at one time. Another way is in knowledge: only the Father knows when Jesus will return. Yet, still another way is as an earthly son obeys his father so does the Son obey the Heavenly Father, an apprentice carpenter only does what the master carpenter tells him to do (see 4:34; 14: 31). And just as an earthly son wants to please his earthly father because he loves his father, so does Jesus want to please His heavenly father because He loves Him (vs.31). How do we talk about Jesus and God being the same, being one, but yet Jesus prays to the Father? Is that like praying to Himself? On the subject of the Trinity, do we need to compartmentalize the function of the Trinity in our thinking? Does Paul? Sometimes, but he uses the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit interchangeably.
19. The evangelist calls Jesus the “only Son.” (3:16) “one of its kind.”
20. To respond to Jesus, the Son, is to respond to God, the Father (5:23).