John 18

Introduction

• The Johannine Passion Narrative (JPN; John 18-19) is the most intricate of the four passion narratives, both in theological symbolism and literary terminology.
• The JPN is held together by an inclusio, a literary device that builds a frame around similar material. It is also called an “envelope structure.”
  a. 18:1—Jesus goes to pray in a garden and is eventually arrested.
  b. 19:41—Jesus will be buried in a garden tomb.

John 18:1-14

• 18:1—The stream in the Kidron Valley was dry except during the rainy season.
• 18:2—Judas was familiar with the Garden because Jesus often prayed there with His disciples. Where is your secret place to meet with Jesus?
• 18:3—It appears that Judas is guiding two groups:
  a. Temple police who were sent to arrest Jesus.
  b. Roman soldiers who were sent for riot control. A “detachment” was around 600 men, although it is unlikely that all of them came.
• 18:4—Jesus is not caught off guard, whether He knows the final act or not (Morris, p. 658).
• 18:5; cf., Exodus 3:16—Jesus says, “I am he,” to identify Himself. Is a double-meaning here?
  a. 18:6—The soldiers, both Jewish and Roman, are amazed at the statement.
  b. 18:8-9; cf., 6:39, 10:11—Jesus, confronting armed soldiers, asks that the disciples be released, just as a good shepherd would do when trying to protect his flock.
• 18:10—Peter seeks to stop Jesus’ arrest. While his actions are rash, Peter is certainly not a coward.
• 18:11 and 36—Some use this as supporting pacifism.
• 18:12—Annas was high priest from AD 6-15.
  a. Luke 3:2—Caiaphas (AD 18-36) was Annas’ son-in-law, and it appears that they ruled together.
  b. John 18:14; cf., 11:49-52—Caiaphas said that it was better “to have one man die for the people.”

John 18:15-27

• 18:15—Who is this disciple?
  a. He was someone known to the high priest.
  b. Floyd Filson says that this is another reference to Lazarus because he was influential and loved by Jesus.
• 18:17—Peter’ first denial was only a short time after cutting an ear off.
  a. Jesus will confess three times and Peter will deny being a disciple three times.
  b. 18:18—Peter is standing with the same crowd that arrested Jesus.
  c. 18:5—This is the same crowd that Judas guided.
• 18:19-24—Jesus is questioned by Annas.
  a. 18:23—Jesus says, “Produce witnesses!”
  b. Deuteronomy 13:1-10—God forbade Israel from listening to those who would teach in secret.
• 18:25-27—Peter’s second and third denials.
  a. 18:25—He is still with the crowd that arrested Jesus.
  b. 18:27—With the crowing of the rooster, Peter’s world falls apart; he is now lost and without direction.
  c. We most often deny or fail Jesus when we follow at a distance or get caught up in being “comfortable.”

John 18:28-32

• 18:28-32—Jesus’ trial before Pilate.
  a. 18:28a—Romans went to work around 6 a.m.
  b. 18:28b—What is inconsistent about the religious leaders’ concern about entering Pilate’s palace and their present course of action?
  i. The irony is that the Jewish leaders have already performed an illegal trial.
  ii. Where do we see this in our own lives?
  c. If Jesus is to be lifted up, it will be by Roman hands.
  d. How do we answer the charges of John being anti-Semitic? He has gone to great lengths to distinguish between the religious leaders and the crowds.

John 18:33-40

• 18:33-38a—Dodd says that neither one of these people wants to be here (p. 427).
  a. Pilate knows that Rome has made special concessions with the Jews and he wants to avoid any theological (or political) debates.
  b. 18:36—Did Jesus intend on establishing an earthly kingdom? What does this mean to our understanding of how the Church functions and is to function?
  c. 18:38a—Pilate’s only encounter with the Truth is standing before him and he dismisses Him. Pilate says he lives in an expedient world where he has no time for this discussion.
• 18:38b-40—Pilate releases Barabbas, a “bandit.”
  a. 18:39; cf., Mark 15:6—This appears to be a custom of Pilate’s alone (Morris, p. 683).
  b. Barabbas means “son of Abba (or, “son of the father”). Is there any irony in this?
  c. 10:8—The people choose a false shepherd.
  d. 18:38b—Brown says that John lessens Rome’s guilt, although it appears worse because it is Rome that ultimately dismisses Jesus (1970, p. 871-872).
  e. The world is on trial because Rome and the Jewish leaders wind up in bed together.

References

Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John XIII-XXI, Anchor Bible 29a (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970).

C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1953).

Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, rev. ed., New International Commentary on the New Testament 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).

John 19

John 19:1-16a

• 19:1—This flogging was the most severe type of flogging, where someone was beaten to the bone.
• 19:4—Pilate says three times that he finds no guilt in Jesus.
  a. 12:34—The people did not know the Light.
  b. 19:5—The irony is that here stands the Man.
  c. 19:11—Judas, Caiaphas and the soldiers are really the Evil One.
• 19:13—The Greek is unclear who sat down on the Judgment Seat (Morris, p. 707).
  a. This place has been discovered within the last century.
  b. What is clear is that Pilate and the crowd are on trial (Brown, 1970, p. 893-896).
• 19:14—Noon was the time of day when work ceased, when the leaven was prepared, and when the animals were slaughtered (Talbert, p. 250).
• 19:15—This is a renunciation of their identity as God’s people.

John 19:16b-25a

• Additions and subtractions from the Johannine Passion Narrative (JPN):
  a. Additional Material:
  i. Scripture quotations.
  ii. Care of Jesus’ mother to the Beloved Disciple.
  iii. “It is finished” statement.
  iv. The piercing of Jesus’ side.
  b. Subtracted Material:
  i. The cry of dereliction.
  ii. The tearing of the Temple curtain.
  iii. The centurion’s confession.
• 19:19-20—This was likely to goad the Jews as Pilate gets his revenge through falling back onto his role as governor (Morris, p. 713-714).
  a. Whether or not this is to get the people to change their minds, Pilate is saying that Rome will not be manipulated.
  b. The irony is that Pilate puts “The King of the Jews” up for all the world to see and refuses to change the inscription.
• 19:23—The seamless robe woven from the top is a symbol for the Church, which will not be torn by Rome (Morris, p. 715).

John 19:25b-30

• 19:25—How many women were present?
• 19:26—Longstanding Roman Catholic tradition says that when Mary was commended into the care of the Beloved Disciple, she became the mother of all disciples (and, thus, the Church).
  a. This gives way to the tradition of Mary becoming the new Eve (Brown, 1970, p. 924-925).
  b. How far do we push the symbolism of Jesus commending the care of His mother?
• 19:28; cf., 4:7—This is a reflection on the Samaritan Woman narrative.
  a. 19:29; cf., 2:9-10—Was this is a demonstration of kindness or was it an aggravation? Is there any symbolism in the “sour wine?”
  b. The hyssop was used to brush the blood over the door mantle during the original Passover.
  c. 19:30—Jesus accomplishes His mission and gives up His pneuma (“spirit”). He is trusting and obedient, and Adam and God at the same time (Brown, 1970, p. 930-931).

John 19:31-37

• 19:35; cf., 1:14—This is the eyewitness Apostolic account.
  a. 19:34; cf., 7:38-39; 1 John 5:6-7—Although some will see Eucharistic and baptismal themes in this verse, Brown sees the physical life being given up by Jesus and the eternal life He gives through His death (1970, p. 952).
  b. This text connects Jesus to the Old Testament prophecies.

John 19:38-42

• 19:39—This is the third cameo appearance by Nicodemus. This is the first of a cascade of people pledging their allegiance to Christ.
• 19:41—Since He was executed as a capital criminal, Jesus could not just be thrown into a common grave.
  a. Jesus is buried in a new tomb.
  b. Jesus is anointed with a lavish amount of spices, meaning the women did not need to return.
  c. Jesus’ tomb is well-known, meaning the disciples would not have gotten confused or lost.

References

Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John XXXI-XXI, Anchor Bible 29a (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970).

Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, rev. ed., New International Commentary on the New Testament 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).

Charles H. Talbert, Reading John: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles, rev. ed., Reading the New Testament (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2005).

John 20

John 20:1-10

• 20:2; cf., Matthew 28:9—Who are the “we”?
• 20:3—This equates “the disciple Jesus loved” and “the other disciple” (Brown, 1970, p. 1004-1007).
  a. The testimony of women would not have been regarded as valid in the ancient world.
  b. 20:6-7—Are they there because the body passed through the burial clothes or have they been properly removed (Talbert, p. 259)?
  i. Matthew 28:11-15—The religious leaders devised a scheme to accuse Jesus’ disciples of stealing His body.
  ii. Both Justin Martyr and Tertullian confront this accusation.
  c. 20:8—What did the other disciple believe?
  d. 20:9; cf., 1 Corinthians 15:4—What Scriptures are being referred to here? How would the early Church understand this?

John 20:11-18

• 20:12—Angels appear to Mary Magdalene.
  a. The angels serve as the symbol that reality is different.
  b. It appears that Mary mourns for two reasons (Morris, p. 739-740):
  i. Her own personal grief over Jesus’ death.
  ii. The concern about one having a proper burial.
  c. 20:16-17—Jesus stops Mary Magdalene from embracing Him, although it is not clear if He stops her before and after she embraces Him (Barnett, p. 470). Why would Jesus do this?
  d. 20:17—Jesus is present with the Church although He is not present in the flesh. This is the first reference to the disciples being referred to as “brothers.”
  e. 20:18—Why is it told this way, since it does come across as somewhat embarrassing?
  i. Celsus says that this was nothing more than a hallucination by “a hysterical woman” (Origen, Against Celsus 2.55; MacDonald, p. 1-7).
  ii. There is more emphasis on her experience with the risen Christ than on the accuracy of what He said to her (Morris, p. 744).
  iii. It was written this way so that we would believe!
• Talbert notes the following about this text (p. 260):
  a. 20:16; cf., 19:25—The One she encounters is the same One she saw crucified.
  b. 20:17—The One who can pass through burial clothes (20:5-7) and doors (20:19 and 26) is still physical.
  c. 20:17—The Ascension follows the Resurrection.
  i. It was a popular Gnostic teaching to say that Christ ascended before the Crucifixion (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 1.26.1).
  ii. 2 John 7-9—One of the most destructive false teachings is to deny that Jesus rose from the grave in human form (Hughes, p. 382).

John 20:19-23

• 20:19—This may have been because the religious leaders wanted to stomp out Jesus’ movement.
  a. 20:20—Ignatius says that Jesus maintains the marks of the Crucifixion in order to confirm His identity (Epistle to the Smyrneans 3:1-2; Talbert, p. 262).
  b. 20:21-22—Jesus brings a new eschatological peace not only to the disciples but to the Church (Morris, p. 746-748).
  c. 20:23—This is the establishment of the ability to forgive sins (Brown, 1970, p. 1030-1031).
  i. This is the establishment of the office of confessor.
  ii. This is a statement about the preaching of the Gospel.

John 20:24-31

• 20:24-29—Jesus appears to Thomas.
  a. This is why we remember Thomas as a doubter and a coward. What does Thomas have in common with us (before seeing Jesus)?
  b. 11:16—Thomas said that they should go and die with Jesus.
  c. 20:26—Why keep mentioning what day it is?
  i. It appears that the Church met with an anticipation that Jesus would return on Sunday.
  ii. Luke 24:35—The Church gathers on Sunday to break bread and remember the Resurrection.
  d. John 20:28—We do not read that Thomas touched Jesus, yet he believed it was Him.
  i. 4:53—The nobleman believed the words of Jesus.
  ii. There is an old rabbinical proverb that says that proselytes are closer to God than those Jews who were at Sinai (Barrett, p. 478).
• 20:30-31—Is this the end?
  a. This was a common way to conclude an ancient biography (1 Maccabees 9:22; Lucian, Life of Demonax 67; Talbert, p. 268).
  b. We are invited to find our place in the story.
  c. Brown says that the purpose of this statement is “to deepen the faith of those who are already Christians so that they would appreciate Jesus’ unique relation to the Father” (1970, p. 1060).

References

C. K. Barnett, The Gospel According to St. John (London: SPCK, 1958).

Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John XIII-XXI, Anchor Bible 29a (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970).

Philip Edgcumbe Hughes, The True Image (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989).

Margaret Y. MacDonald, Early Christian Women and Pagan Opinion: The Power of the Hysterical Woman (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, rev. ed., New International Commentary on the New Testament 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).

Charles H. Talbert, Reading John: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles, rev. ed., Reading the New Testament (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2005).

John 21

Introduction

• 20:30-31—This looks like the end of the Gospel.
• No manuscript that has ever circulated has done so without chapter 21, although there are some differences.
  a. This chapter contains 28 words that are unique to John’s Gospel, and it contains grammatical and syntactical differences that cannot be dismissed.
  b. Would the original writer water down the impact of chapter 20 or the commissioning of the disciples by showing them returning to their original occupations in chapter 21?
  c. 21:24 appears to reference the writer of the Gospel as a whole, yet distinguishes him from the writer of this chapter. Some suggest that the occasion for this addition is seen in 21:20-23.
  d. Additional objectives of this chapter:
  i. To provide a restoration of Peter.
  ii. To provide clarification on the relationship between Peter and John.
  iii. To encourage the post-Apostolic Church following the death of John.
  iv. To provide a Galilean setting.
• This chapter might be the result of an editor, through the work of the Paraclete, who is clarifying the theological misunderstandings.

John 21:1-8

• 21:1, 14—This section contains an inclusio, where Jesus reveals Himself in 21:1 and is revealed in 21:14.
• 21:2; cf. 17:11—This is a fascinating trick because he leaves two disciples unnamed. The idea, however, is that the disciples are together as a community (Talbert, p. 269).
• 21:3—Brown says that Peter is expressing more than “momentary intention: Peter is going back to his earlier way of life and will stay with it” (1970, p. 1069).

John 21:9-14

• 21:9; cf., 18:18—John points out that Jesus has stated a “charcoal fire.”
• 21:11—This is the same language as when Jesus talked about drawing all men unto Himself.
  a. The number 153 (12 squared + 3 squared) is symbolic for a universal catch of fish, which makes this an image of the Church’s mission to the world.
  i. Jerome says that “Greek zoologists had recorded 153 different kinds of fish,” and Augustine says that 153 is the “sum of all numbers from 1 to 17 (Brown, 1970, p. 1074).
  ii. Morris, however, says that “must confess to being completely unimpressed” with any interpretation and decides “to view the number as a fisherman’s record of a fact” (p. 765; cf., Robinson, p. 164).
  b. The untorn net reflects back onto the untorn robe of Jesus, and serves as a symbol for the Church (Bruce, p. 402-404; Talbert, p. 270).
• 21:12—The resurrected Jesus invites the Church to “come and eat.”
  a. There does appear to be Eucharistic language at work here (Cullman, 1978, p. 15-17).
  b. Without Acts, we would still have Jesus standing on the shore directing the mission of the Church.
  c. If we commit ourselves to full-time ministry, then God will provide for us. If we commit ourselves to maintaining our security, then we will never find peace and contentment.

John 21:15-19

• It appears that John uses agapao and phileo interchangeably for “love” in the dialogue between Jesus and Peter.
• 21:18; cf., 13:36-38—The phrase “stretch out your hands” was symbolic for being crucified
• Legend of Peter’s death by crucifixion in Rome (Quo Vadis, Domini? legend—Acts of Peter 35-40).

John 21:20-25

• 21:20-23—Was there a question about John being immortal?
• 21:24-25—This positions us to stand within the Apostolic tradition and allows us to hold fast to the truth. The Gnostics claimed to have a true oral tradition, however it was Irenaeus who said that the ecclesiastical community has the true tradition because it was written down for us (Against Heresies 3.3.1).

References

Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John XIII-XXI, Anchor Bible 29a (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970).

F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John: Introduction, Exposition, and Notes (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1994).

Oscar Cullmann, Early Christian Worship, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978).

Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, rev. ed., New International Commentary on the New Testament 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).

John A. T. Robinson, The Priority of Jesus (New York: HarperCollins, 1987).

Charles H. Talbert, Reading John: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles, rev. ed., Reading the New Testament (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2005).

John 13

Introduction

• By eliminating any reference to the Twelve, Jesus is continually with the Church.
• By not mentioning the Eucharist specifically, John makes the pint that Jesus’ entire life is communal.
• 14:31 and 18:1—Some scholars will say that we have two versions of the “Farewell Discourse.”
  a. The Paraclete is sent to guide the Church in remembering the things that Jesus said, thus these words are actually the words of the resurrected Jesus within the Church. This is a standard literary form for the last will and testament of Jesus as recorded by the Church (Kasemann, p. 59).
  b. It appears that John has inserted eucharistic language within the feeding of chapter 6 to highlight the communal nature of the Christian community and to emphasize that the Eucharist is not a one-time event.
  c. John does not include an account of the Ascension because Jesus is still with the Church, directing its mission and fellowshipping with us.
  d. It is not that John contradicts the other Gospels but that the Enlightenment taught us how to argue the validity of Scripture.
  i. Luke says that he gave us an “orderly account,” although it does have a theological purpose.
  ii. John gives us an orderly account, only with a different theological purpose.

John 13:1-11

• 13:1; cf., 18:28—John’s Passover appears to be a day early.
  a. 1:29—John wants Jesus to die on the Day of Preparation.
  b. 13:23—Beasley-Murray says the Essenes used a different calendar than the mainline Jews. He also says that it was uncommon during evening meals to recline, although it was mandatory for formal meals such as the Passover (p. 327-328).
• 13:2—Jesus is now in a confined space where evil is present (Brown, 1970, p. 563-564).
  a. 13:3—This is similar imagery to the Good Shepherd laying down His life for His sheep.
  b. 13:5—This was a menial task for the lowest servant in the household.
  c. Cullmann sees liturgical connections to the use of water and the Passover celebration (1978, p. 30-32).
  d. Michael Weed (AGST) sees this cleansing as a reference to the redemptive nature of the Cross.
  e. Continuous bragging about one’s self is a sure sign of insecurity. Jesus, however, feels no threat to Himself (cf., 1 Peter 2:23).
  f. 13:10—Some churches look at this proverb for the cleansing nature of baptism and the saving nature of confession.

John 13:12-20

• 13:12-17—This is a word not only to the original disciples but also to the Church.
  a. This is still practiced by those denominations that celebrate Easter liturgically.
  b. 13:17; cf., 1 John 2:18-23; 2 John 7-9—Could this be a defense against incipient Gnosticism or Docetism?
• 13:18—The phrase “to life the heel” means “to strike a low blow.”
  a. Jesus washed Judas’ feet. Love is not based on worthiness, but on need.
  b. The disciples are more concerned with what they are not going to do than with what Jesus was going through.
• 13:20—The disciples will be required to represent the story of Jesus in their lives (Morris, p. 553-554).

John 13:21-30

• The most self-expending and glorious action of Jesus is the Cross. It is here that the Church says, “There is a God!”
• 13:21—The humanity of Jesus comes through.
  a. 13:22—This is a ominous note that they are not prepared for.
  b. 13:23—The author makes himself know.
• 13:26—The incident will occur after the bread (psomion) of the Eucharist is given to Judas (Brown, 1970, p. 575; Morris, p. 557).
• 13:29—This is another reference to this event being before Passover.
• 13:30—Notice that the time of day is mentioned.
  a. This is another piece of Filson’s puzzle for Lazarus being the Gospel’s author.
  b. 1 Corinthians 11:23-31—One of Paul’s traditions is that the betrayer was one of us, thus we should examine ourselves.

John 13:31-38

• 13:31—This glorifies God because Jesus’ being lifted up on the Cross will draw all men to Him.
• 13:33—This is the hero image of ancient literature (Talbert, p. 207-209).
  a. 13:34—However, this is not a new command.
  b. Leviticus 19:18—This was the original social command for God’s people.
  c. This command is founded on a new act within a new order.
  i. Grace was seen in the Prologue to the Decalogue, however now it will take a new form through the revelation of the Cross, what Sittler calls “the shape of the engendering deed” (p. 24-26).
  ii. This is not about raising the bar, but about the new life we receive through the Paraclete, something the previous exodus did not offer.
  d. “Love one another” is the symbol of God’s nature. It is an action, not a feeling!
  i. Perhaps is was a problem in the Johannine community.
  ii. It is best represented in a community that reciprocates that love (Holladay, p. 90).
• 13:36-38—This is not bravado on Peter’s part, only dedication, although he “was not really ready” (Morris, p. 564).

References

G. R. Beasley-Murray, John, Word Biblical Commentary 36 (Waco, TX: Word, 1987).

Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John XIII-XXI, Anchor Bible 29a (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970).

Oscar Cullmann, Early Christian Worship, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978).

Tom Holladay, The Relationship Principles of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2008).

Ernest Kasemann, The Testament of Jesus: A Study of the Gospel of John in Light of Chapter 17, trans. Gerhard Krodel (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1968).

Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, rev. ed., New International Commentary on the New Testament 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).

Joseph Sittler, The Structure of Christian Ethics (Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1958).

Charles H. Talbert, Reading John: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles, rev. ed., Reading the New Testament (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2005).

John 14

John 14:1-11

• The idea of “remaining” (mone) is very prevalent in this passage (Brown, 1970, p. 618-619).
  a. 14:2—monai—“dwelling place,” Greek; root comes from the word meno (“to dwell”).
  b. The work of Jesus is to display the love of God so that people will come to God and remain in Him.
• 14:6—On a scale of 1 to 10, evaluate your level of belief in this statement.
  a. Quote from Bono about Jesus' exclusive claims (Assayas, p. 204-205).
  b. What are the views regarding Jesus’ claim (Grudem, p. 55)?
  i. Inclusivist—All religious people will receive salvation.
  ii. Universalist—Everyone will receive salvation.
  iii. Exclusivist—Only adherents to a particular religion will receive salvation.

John 14:12-21

• 14:12—The “greater works” will be extending the mission of Jesus beyond Palestine (Morris, p. 573-574).
• 14:13-14—This probably refers to those issues that will arise in the life of the Church.
  a. 1 John 5:14-15—John is reminding the Church of this teaching and illustrates it with intercessory prayer.
  b. This is the energy for the Church’s prayer life.
• 14:15—What is the relationship between love and obedience (cf., 1 John 5:3)?
  a. It is difficult to be a “contagious Christian” when we make Christianity look difficult.
  b. “Knight’s Oath” from Kingdom of Heaven (2005).
  c. Matthew 22:36-40—The essence of our faith is wrapped up in love for God and for each other.

John 14:22-31

• What the Incarnation brings about is the presence of the Father and the Son within the Church through the Paraclete.
• 14:26—The Western Church inserted the Latin word filioque (“and the Son”) into the Greek-worded confession to say that the Paraclete comes from both the Father and the Son, while the Eastern Church wants to maintain the doctrine that the Father sent both the Son and the Paraclete (Cairns, p. 129).
  a. 16:7—Jesus will personally send the Paraclete when He returns to Heaven.
  b. The practical application is the testing of the Spirit and the actions brought about by the Spirit: Do they reflect the work of Jesus, and do they build up the Church?
• The function of the Paraclete is to guide the Church and help the Church remember the teachings of Jesus.
• 14:27-31—This is a word of eschatological peace and a word of encouragement that the Church will not be abandoned (Talbert, p. 216).

References

Michka Assayas, Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas (New York: Riverhead Books/ Penguin, 2005).

Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John XIII-XXI, Anchor Bible 29a (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970).

Earle E. Cairns, Christianity through the Centuries: A History of the Christian Church, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996).

Wayne A. Grudem, Biblical Doctrine: Essential Teachings of the Christian Faith, ed. Jeff Purswell (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1999).

Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, rev. ed., New International Commentary on the New Testament 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).

Charles H. Talbert, Reading John: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles, rev. ed., Reading the New Testament (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2005).

John 15

Introduction

• We see “remain” language (mone) appear twelve times in this chapter.
  a. 14:10—The idea of indwelling is in the background of chapter 15.
  b. Isaiah 5:1-7, 27:2-6; Hosea 10:1-2; Jeremiah 2:21; Ezekiel 15:1-8, 19:10-14—The vine was a regular symbol for Israel, both positive and negative.
  c. Jesus is now the way of contact with God because He remains with the disciples through the Paraclete.

John 15:1-8

• 15:1-2—What is meant behind this idea of pruning?
  a. Katharizo—“to cleanse,” Greek
  b. 1 John 2:4—Those who claim to love God but do not actually follow Him are liars (Rudolph, p. 306).
  i. Colossians 2:8—There was a concern about false teaching in Colossae.
  ii. Colossians 1:6-14—Loyalty to God is evident in the “fruit” we produce (Melick, p. 203-204).
• 15:3-4—This is language of the Cross that compels us to remain in Christ so that we may be faithful.
  a. The Cross is the place where God’s nature becomes clear in human history.
  b. 20:19-23—That nature is received in Christ breathing the Paraclete into His disciples.
• 15:5; cf., 5:19 and 30; 2 Corinthians 3:5—The Church can do nothing apart from Christ just as Christ can do nothing apart from God.
  a. 15:6; cf., 1 John 2:18-19—Those who do not remain in the Church destroy the Church (Beasley-Murray, p. 273)!
  b. Does this mean that persecution could be a form of “pruning?”
  c. 15:7-8; cf., 14:12-14—This is not a “blank check” for prayer, but a word about mission.
  i. To John, love for one another and a desire for mission are inseparable (Talbert, p. 222).
  ii. The “remaining” that glorifies God is continuing in the character, nature, and mission of God.
  iii. Some say that our love for one another has been watered down into neighbor love, but this love is mutual and reciprocated.

John 15:9-17

• 15:9-12—Jesus is not one of power but of trust because the giving up of His psuche led to the receiving of His zoe (Brown, 1970, p. 681-682).
  a. Matt. 26:29; Mark 14:25; 1 Cor. 10:16-17—Eucharistic references to the vine and its fruit.
  i. Is the Eucharist linked to the “love command?”
  ii. There is an Old Testament-era idea that we should be thankful for God giving us the fruit of the vine (Brown, 1970, p. 672-674).
  b. 15:13; cf., 10:11; 13:4—This is similar to Jesus laying down His cloak and the Good Shepherd laying down His life.
• 15:14-15; 1:16-18—Friends have intimate access to one another, thus the revelation of God has been made complete through the Incarnation.
• 15:16—This is another reference to mission.
• 15:17—There is nothing here about hiring ad agencies; it is a call to trust God as we preach the message of the Cross.
  a. The Cross is not a tactic; it is the revelation of God’s nature and is the message for the Church (Forde, p. 2-4).
  b. Carl Holladay (Emory University) says, “Whenever the message of caring is separated from the message of preaching, both suffer.”

John 15:18-27

• Matthew 5:10-12, 10:22, 24:9—Persecution validates the Church’s mission!
• John 15:21—People who do not know the One who sent Jesus will hate Him. Thus, if there do not know Jesus, they will hate His disciples.
• 15:22—This does not say that God ignores our sins (Morris, p. 604).
• 15:23—One cannot reject Jesus and still love God.
• 15:25—This was a crafted indictment against those who expelled Jewish Christians from the synagogue.
• 15:26-27—A word about our Advocate.
  a. The filioque controversy finds its roots in this passage.
  b. 14:26—The work of the Paraclete is closely linked with the work of the Son in that the Paraclete will provide memories of insights into the life and teachings of Jesus.

References

G. R. Beasley-Murray, John, Word Biblical Commentary 36 (Waco, TX: Word, 1987).

Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John XIII-XXI, Anchor Bible 29a (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970).

Gerhard O. Forde, On Being a Theologian of the Cross (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1997).

Richard R. Melick, Jr., Philippians, Colossians, Philemon, New American Commentary, vol. 32 (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1991).

Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, rev. ed., New International Commentary on the New Testament 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).

Kurt Rudoplh, Gnosis: The Nature and History of Gnosticism (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1983).

Charles H. Talbert, Reading John: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles, rev. ed., Reading the New Testament (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2005).

John 16

Introduction

• What would be your concern if you had only a few months to live?
• It was once said that “Disappointment is the distance between our expectations and our experience.”
• What is our “misery index” (Devine, p. 43-48)?

John 16:1-11

• 16:1—Jesus warns them about these things so that they will not be “shaken” (Brown, 1970, p. 701).
  a. 16:2—We are dealing with a largely Jewish community that has been ripped from the synagogue because of the scandal of the Cross.
  i. Being put out of the synagogue would be like being accused of treason.
  ii. The irony is that Jesus’ mission was to restore the Sabbath and the community that worships on that day.
  b. 16:3-4—Those who are not “in the know” will lead the persecution. This word is to remind the disciples that they are not alone.
  c. 1 John 1:15, 2:24, 3:8 and 11—The Church is connected to the events of the Incarnation through the Paraclete.
  d. 14:30-31—Dodd says that this is an exhortation to move against the “prince of this world” (p. 408-409).
• 16:5-6; 13:36, 14:5—But they have asked where He is going? Could this be a reference to a feeling of a failed parousia (or Jesus’ return)?
• 16:7—The Son says that He will send the Paraclete, thus supporting the doctrine of the “economic Trinity” (Brown, 1970, 1139-1141).
  a. 16:8—Augustine avoided this passage and Thomas Aquinas danced around it.
  b. 14:17—It does not appear that the world can receive anything from the Spirit.
  c. It appears that as long as the Church is in the world, there will always be an encounter between light and darkness. The question is, has it happened yet?
  i. The world can be convicted of sin yet still not be persuaded to accept salvation.
  ii. The Church is the place where this conviction is played out, and the Church sees the world for what it is—a place of sin that stands judged.
  iii. 7:7 and 24—The world is a contradiction to the Church and its message.
  iv. Implicit in the Christian confession of kurious Christos (“Christ is Lord”) is ouk Kaisar (“not Caesar”).
  d. 2 Timothy 3:16—Although Jesus is unjustly convicted, He is vindicated by the Resurrection.
  e. John 16:11—The worldview of most people is faulty.
  i. 19:13—This passage is left ambiguous because Rome is actually on trial and is guilty of a whole host of sins (Rauschenbusch, p. 240-259).
  ii. 16:9-11—This may not be about convincing the world as convicting the world.
  iii. 12:31—The defeat of the “prince of this world” will not be a public display but the Church eluding his clutch.

John 16:12-22

• 16:12-13a—This could be a reference to the continual function of the Paraclete.
  a. 15:26—The Paraclete will bring to memory the life and teachings of Jesus. His mission, then, is linked to the Incarnation.
  b. 1 John 4:1-3—John encourages the Church to test what comes in because of the emergence of Docetism and Gnosticism (Talbert, p. 35-36).
  c. The Paraclete will “flesh out” the true teachings for the Church.
  i. Some see the Paraclete as replacing the Son as the guide for the Church, yet John says that He is the revelatory force behind understanding the Son.
  ii. The Paraclete’s office is to continue what Jesus has already said and done, not to bring a new revelation.
  d. The Holy Spirit guides in two ways—preaching (2 Timothy 3:16) and revelation (2 Peter 1:21).
  e. John 16:13b—The events could possibly be the further events of John’s Gospel.
• 16:21—The necessary pains of childbirth are linked to the joy of bringing a child into the world (Morris, p. 626).
  a. Does this speak to the feeling of a failed or delayed parousia?
  b. Does it refer to their sorrow over His leaving?

John 16:23-33

• 16:22-24; cf., 15:15-16; Hebrews 4:6-9—Jesus’ departure will be the event that draws the disciples into the circle of love shared by the Father and the Son.
• 16:25-28—His departure will be to return to the Father. The Paraclete can only come when the Son is fully revealed.
• 16:29-30—The problem is that they do not yet fully understand because Jesus has not yet been fully revealed. This is John’s message that Jesus’ whole life is parabolic.
• 16:31-33—The disciples will not only have peace but will no longer feel sorrow.
  a. Daniel 12:1; Zephaniah 1:14-15; Habakkuk 3:16—In the Septuagint, each of these passages uses the same Greek word for “distress” (thlipsis).
  b. Colossians 1:24—Paul links his message to the messianic woes by saying that suffering is necessary as history turns on its hinge because more suffering is coming through preaching.

References

Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John XIII-XXI, Anchor Bible 29a (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970).

Edward T. Devine, Misery and Its Causes (New York: Macmillan, 1909).

C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1953).

Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, rev. ed., New International Commentary on the New Testament 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).

Walter Rauschenbusch, A Theology for the Social Gospel, Library of Theological Ethics (Reprint: 1917. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1997).

Charles H. Talbert, Reading John: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles, rev. ed., Reading the New Testament (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2005).

John 17

Introduction

• B. F. Westcott calls this the “Prayer of Consecration” (p. 280) and Ernst Kasemann (p. 5) says it parallels Jewish farewell addresses.
  a. Deuteronomy 32-33—Moses’ farewell address.
  b. Apocryphal writings—4 Ezra 8:19ff; Baruch 48; Jubilees of Moses 1; Jubilees of Abraham 20-22; Jubilees of Isaac 36.
  c. The 2nd-century Hermetic writing Poimandres also shows some similarities (e.g., 1:31ff).
• The “History of Religions” school in Germany felt that the Christian movement appropriated pieces of secular and heretical teaching in order to gain access to the pagan world (Moule, p 44-47).
• Did John construct this prayer from other prayers not explicitly recorded?
  a. It appears to be both prospective in terms of future believers (17:20-21) and retrospective in terms of His mission (17:4).
  b. It serves as a report about His mission and as support for His obedience to die.
  c. Some of the Church Fathers, looking back at 11:41-42, refer to this as a “teaching prayer.”
  d. Dodd’s breakdown of the prayer (p. 417-418):
  i. 17:1-5—Praying for Himself.
  ii. 17:6-19—Praying for His disciples.
  iii. 17:20-24—Praying for His future believers.
  iv. 17:25-26—Results of His mission.
  e. 17:5; cf. 1:3 and 10—“World” is used 14 times.
  i. 1 John 2:15-17—The “world” here refers to the organized reality that is set against God.
  ii. John 3:16-17—The concern of the salvific event is the particular point to which the Christian faith is attached (Kierkegaard’s “scandal of particularity” theory).

John 17:1-8

• 17:1; cf. 2:4—The timetable has come to fruition.
• 17:1-2; cf., Luke 9:31-32—“Glorified,” in the Gospels, means that Jesus is being seen for who He really is.
• 17:2—The zoe here is the character of life, not the duration of life (Morris, p. 636-637).
• 17:3—It is through the Cross that the Father and the Son are ultimately revealed.
• 17:4-5—The Cross is not a tactic to attract attention; it is the revelation of God’s true nature.
  a. The Incarnation is the eternal disclosure of God’s goodness (Kung, 1984, p. 437-440).
  b. For some, the Cross is a singular event, where God showed some compassion. For others, the Cross is the ultimate expression of God’s love.
• 17:6-8—The irony is that they do not see and they do not believe, meaning this could have been written in retrospect.

John 17:9-19

• 17:9-10—The disciples are taken into the divine community through the Cross and will become the new Incarnation through the Church (Brown, 1970, p. 763).
• 17:13-15—This “world” is that structure of resistance that is alienated from God (Buber, 1970, p. 143).
  a. Martin Luther says that when the shepherds saw Jesus, they did not build a monastery but returned to their flocks.
  b. This prayer is armor for the early Church against Docetism.

John 17:20-26

• 10:17-18; cf., Hebrews 2:18—Jesus did not have a moral edge over us; He trusts that God would return His life to Him.
• Does knowing the “sign of Jonah,” something He would have learned at synagogue school, mean Jesus knew He would be raised?
  a. When did Jesus know that He was the “Son of Man” and the “Warrior Messiah” (Cullmann, 1963, p. 105-107)?
  b. It is not as if Jesus is following a script but more of playing a role (Wright, 1996, p. 645).
• 17:20-21; cf. 13:34—The “oneness” of the Father and the Son is a “community of love,” which is embodied in the Christian community (Rensberger, p. 147; cf., Talbert, p. 236).
• 17:22-23—The “glory” is to embody the selfless nature of God.
• 17:24—The full disclosure of God will only come through the Cross.
• 17:21-23; cf., 17:11—Unity is instrumental in continuing the tension between the light and the darkness. One of the weaknesses of the Church is that, even early on, it has fragmented into smaller pieces (Morris, p. 649-651; Wright, 2004, p. 99-100).
• What is in competition with God for our adoration and worship?
• 17:25-26—It is not that every Christian thinks alike or confesses the exact same thing, or that we all just get along in love regardless of our differences.
  a. Peter Berger says that ecumenical conversations should only be held between those who practice the faith daily, even if they do not agree with one another (p. 143-145).
  b. H. Richard Niebuhr says that we cannot attack a view until we can argue it as well as those who hold it (p. 1-3).

References

Peter Berger, The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1967).

Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John XIII-XXI, Anchor Bible 29a (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970).

Martin Buber, I and Thou (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1970).

Oscar Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament, rev. ed., New Testament Library (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963).

C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (London: Cambridge University Press, 1953).

Ernst Kasemann, The Testament of Jesus: A Study of John in Light of Chapter 17 (London: SCM Press, 1968).

Hans Kung, On Being a Christian (New York: Image Books/Doubleday, 1984).

Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, rev. ed., New International Commentary on the New Testament 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).

C. F. D. Moule, The Phenomenon of the New Testament, Studies in Biblical Theology, 2nd series, vol. 1 (London: SCM Press, 1967).

H. Richard Niebuhr, Christ and Culture (New York: Harper and Row, 1951).

David Rensberger, Johannine Faith and Liberating Community (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1988).

Charles H. Talbert, Reading John: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Fourth Gospel and Johannine Epistles, rev. ed., Reading the New Testament (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2005).

B. F. Westcott, Introduction to the Study of the Gospels (New York: Macmillan, 1882).

N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, Christian Origins and the Question of God, vol. 2 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996).

N. T. Wright, John for Everyone, Part Two (Chapters 11-21), 2nd ed., For Everyone Series (London/Louisville: SPCK/Westminster/John Knox Press, 2004).

John 11

Living By Faith

The book A Voice in the Wind (1993) is about a young Jewish slave girl named Hadassah who is thrown to the lions when she does not confess Caesar as Lord. Although she is mauled, she rejoices in being chosen to be persecuted for her faith.

Every Good Story Needs a Villain

• According the Mishnah, a sanhedrin (means “sitting together” and is used as a legal term, thus “council”) was to be comprised of a “community” of 23 judges.
  a. Numbers 14:27—The minimum size of a Jewish “community” is 10.
  b. Numbers 35:24-25—The purpose of this “community” was to vote for conviction and exoneration in criminal cases. Thus, ten would vote for conviction and 10 for exoneration.
  c. Exodus 23:2—An additional person would be needed to reach a majority (11-10). However, a simple majority could not convict, thus, an additional judge would be added to one side (12-10).
  d. Finally, one more judge would be added in order to prevent deadlocks, thus 23 members.
• The Grand Sanhedrin met in the Hall of Hewn Stones, which was located inside the Temple in Jerusalem.
  a. It was comprised of 71 members:
  i. The Nasi, or chief judge (which could have also been the High Priest),
  ii. The Av Beit Din, or vice chief judge,
  iii. An additional 69 general members.
  b. They convened everyday, with the exception of festival days and the Sabbath.
  c. The Sanhedrin was dissolved in AD 358 with the adoption of the Hebrew calendar.

John 11:1-16

• Many see this narrative as the crux of the Gospel because it appears to point to Jesus’ death and resurrection and also includes the Sanhedrin's plot to kill Jesus.
• This passage is where Floyd Filson develops his theory that Lazarus is the author of the Gospel because who else would love Jesus more than one who had been raised from the dead by Jesus.
• 11:2—This is evidence of the familiarity the early Church has with these characters and stories (Morris, p. 478).
• 11:4—The Son of God will receive glory from Lazarus, yet His full divinity will only be revealed through His own death and resurrection.
• 11:5-7—It was a rabbinic tradition that one’s soul did not fully abandon the body until three days after death. Jesus’ reluctance to go establishes the fact that Lazarus is dead (Brown, 1966, p. 424; Talbert, p. 177).
• 11:9—Is Jesus saying that anytime they go is appropriate because the Light is always with them?
• 11:12—They do not want to go because of what almost happened to them last time.
• 11:16—Some say this is the stuff of heroism because it is better to die with Jesus than to live without Him.
  a. Thomas is typically remembered for his doubting that Jesus had risen from the grave, yet here he shows a tremendous amount of faith.
  b. Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die” (p. 89).

John 11:17-27

• 11:17—This affirms the fact that Lazarus is dead.
  a. 11:18-19—Lazarus must have been a man of some wealth. The mourning period was usually 40 days.
  b. 11:21—This is an example of belief in a bodily resurrection in pre-Christians.
• 11:25-26—What is Jesus asking here?
  a. Cullmann says that John’s Gospel carries several liturgical meanings, and this is an example of an early Christian confession (1978, p. 53-55).
  b. Although Lazarus will die again, Martha receives eternal life through her confession.

John 11:28-37

• 11:28—Martha refers to Jesus as “the Teacher.” Women were not allowed to be taught by the rabbis, however Jesus taught all who were open to His mission (Morris, p. 491).
• 11:34—This is the only time we see the phrase, “Come and see,” on the lips of the Jewish leaders. Ironically, they are leading Jesus to see death.
  a. 11:33—What is He “moved” by? Talbert offers four ideas (p. 179-180):
  i. It is a reflection of Jesus’ humanity.
  ii. It is a reflection of Jesus’ grief over sin or lack of faith.
  iii. It is a reflection of Jesus’ anger over:
  a) The intense emotion arising within Him.
  b) The unbelief of the Jews and Mary’s reluctance.
  c) The hypocritical sorrow of the mourners.
  iv. It is a correction regarding the Stoic philosophy about detachment from “the disrupting aspects of human nature.
  b. 11:36-37—The crowd is still divided over Jesus.

John 11:38-46

• 11:40—This is an anticipation of Jesus’ own resurrection.
• 11:41-42—This is not a prayer, but an exacerbation or a mini-lecture. When did Jesus say anything?
  a. 11:43—This is another reference to the voice, the agency of Life.
  b. 11:44—Even though he is bound, Lazarus is brought out by the eternal Word. Is this a commission to help raise people to new life?

John 11:47-57

• 11:48—The presumption is that Jesus is a political revolutionary who is destabilizing the crowd.
  a. This is a major problem for the religious leaders because it is their job to hold things together.
  b. John writes them as not really investigating these incidents.
• The Jews were afraid of losing their “place” (which could also be translated “temple”), meaning they were afraid of losing the little freedom the Romans allowed them.
• Josephus, the noted general and historian, wrote that the Sadducees were extremely rude (p. 135 [20.9.1]).
• 11:49-52—The irony of Caiaphas’ statement is that he did not know what he was saying because he was inspired to speak with a double meaning.
  a. Caiaphas reveals that his intentions are political.
  b. Ironically, the Romans will still destroy Jerusalem in AD 70, and the Sadducee order will vanish forever.

References

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (Reprint: 1959. New York: Touchstone Books/Simon and Schuster, 1995).

Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John I-XII, Anchor Bible 29 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966).

Oscar Cullmann, Early Christian Worship, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1978).

Flavius Josephus, The Works of Flavius Josephus, Part 2, ed. William Whitson (Whitefish, MT: Kessigner Publishing, 2003).

Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, rev. ed., New International Commentary on the New Testament 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).

Francine Rivers, A Voice in the Wind, Mark of the Lion Series 1 (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1993).

Charles H. Talbert, Reading John: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles, rev. ed., Reading the New Testament (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2005).

John 12

John 12:1-8

• Matthew 26:6-13; Mark 14:1-10—This appears to be a parallel to the Synoptic story of an immoral woman washing Jesus’ feet.
  a. All of the disciples rebuke her, not only Judas.
  b. Jesus defends her and says that her kind act will be part of the “good news.”
  c. Mark 14:10—This is where Judas decides to betray Jesus.
• 12:2—This may have been a celebratory dinner for Lazarus.
• 12:3—The term used to describe Mary’s gift is pistikos, from the root word pistos (which means “faith”), although it is difficult to know exactly what this term means or how it relates to the story (Morris, p. 511-512).
• How do we feel when someone “out serves” us?
• 12:6—We do not have this aside on Judas’ character in the Synoptics? Do you find this interesting?
• 12:8—This is not to stop helping the poor, only to speak about Jesus’ burial (Lindars, p. 418-419).

John 12:9-12

• 12:10—Joining the community of faith can be dangerous.
• 12:13—Quote from Psalm 118:25-26
  a. The palm branch is the national symbol of Israel.
  b. “Hosanna” literally means “Oh, save [us]!”
• 12:15—Quote from Zechariah 9:9—"Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is he, humble and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey" (NRSV).
• 12:16; cf. 14:26—The Paraclete will bring remembrance of and insight about these events.
• 12:17-19—The two groups of people are becoming even more divided about Jesus.

John 12:20-26

• 12:21—Philip was a Greek-speaking, Diaspora disciple.
• 12:23—With the coming of these Diaspora Jews, Jesus realizes that the time for His death is quickly approaching (Brown, 1966, p. 470). Yet they will not see Jesus until they see Him in the missionaries who will preach about the Cross.

John 12:27-36

• 12:30—Jesus does not need the assurance, yet the disciples do.
• 12:32; cf. 1:50-51—Jesus will be honored and revered through His death and resurrection.
• 12:34—Despite all that they have seen and heard, the crowd still wants to debate.
  a. This is an abrasive break with the crowd in which Jesus says, “No more talking!”
  b. Soren Kierkegaard compares this to someone debating about what should be done as the ship races toward the waterfall (1973, p. 374-375).
• 19:5—Pilate will present Jesus as the new Adam.

John 12:37-43

• How many of us are “people-pleasers”?
• 12:36-37—This is the official end of Jesus’ public ministry in John’s Gospel.
  a. 12:36—We are reminded that Jesus will sacrifice Himself on His time.
  b. 12:38—Ultimately is the unbelief of the people that brings about Jesus’ death by fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah 53:1 (Morris, p. 536).

John 12:44-50

• Jesus’ motivation for Faith
  a. 12:44—Belief in Jesus is belief in God.
  b. 12:46—Belief in Jesus frees us from spiritual distress.
  c. 12:47—Hearing Jesus’ words means a responsibility to keep them.
• 12:45—Whoever “sees” Jesus understand who He really is.
• 12:50; cf. Deuteronomy 32:45-47—These are parallel passages about receiving instructions that give life.

References

Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John I-XII, Anchor Bible 29 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966).

Soren Kierkegaard, A Kierkegaard Anthology, Robert Bretall, ed. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973).

Barnabas Lindars, The Gospel of John, New Century Bible Commentary (Greenwood, SC: Attic Press, 1972).

Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, rev. ed., New International Commentary on the New Testament 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).

John 9

What Is "Retribution Theology?"

• There is a Jewish proverb that says “There is no suffering without sin?”
  a. Psalm 32:3-5—The poet says that, as long as he ignored his sin, God’s “hand was heavy upon” him.
  b. What is the relationship between sin and suffering?
• Is there any validity to this theological concept?
  a. Does God punish people with suffering because of their sin or the sin of their family members?
  b. Sherwin describes this concept as an effort “to determine whether it is ‘cost effective’ to maintain us” (p. 65).

John 9:1-12

• 9:4-5—What is the symbolism here?
  a. “Day” is a symbol for the time allowed to work.
  b. “Night” is a symbol for death (also, suffering or distress; cf., Psalm 30:5).
• 9:7—Information on the Pool of Siloam.
  a. It is Greek for “sent” (cf., Hebrews 11:1).
  b. It is located on the southern end of the Lower City, near the Water Gate. It was fed by the Gihon spring that flowed through an underground tunnel built by Hezekiah (2 Kings 20:20).
• What are the connections between this “sign” and the “sign” in chapter 5?
  1. 9:7; cf., 5:2—Both are performed at a pool.
  2. 9:14; cf. 5:9—Both are performed on the Sabbath.
  3. 9:15; cf., 5:16—Both provoke the Pharisees.
• In describing this situation, Wright writes, "The chaos and misery of this present world is, it seems, the raw material out of which the loving, wise and just God is making his new creation. . . .A new chaos is on the way-the 'night', the darkness, when Jesus will be killed and the world will seem to plunge back into primal confusion. But at the moment he is establishing the new world of light and healing. After the chaos of Good Friday and Holy Saturday, he will bring the new creation itself into being with the light of the first Easter Day (John 20.1)" (p. 134-135).

John 9:13-23

• 9:22—The man’s parents are afraid that they will be “put out of the synagogue.”
  a. What this means is that they will be forbidden from worshipping in that synagogue. In the Jewish system, this means that they will no place in the community, that they will be outcasts.
  b. 9:34—The Jews “drove [the man] out.”
  i. In a sense, they excommunicated the man (Cullmann, 1978, p. 104-105).
  ii. Is this representative of what is occurring in John’s time of writing this Gospel?

John 9:24-34

• 9:24—Is there not a bit of irony in this question?
  a. “Give glory to God!” literally means “Promise before God that you will tell the truth” (cf., Joshua 7:19; Talbert, p. 165).
  b. There appears to be a real emphasis on the dichotomy between light (salvation) and darkness (sin) in this passage. The one who has been healed of his physical blindness (“enlightened”) becomes a missionary to those who are shackled with spiritual blindness (Brown, 1966, p. 379; Cullmann, 1978, p. 103).
• 9:27—By posing this question to the Pharisees, the man is declaring himself to be a disciple of Jesus (Morris, p. 437; Talbert, p. 165).
  a. The man was not expecting them to answer positively to his question.
  b. 9:28-29—They are speaking boastfully out of an assumption, thus further solidifying John’s point that they are in darkness.

John 9:35-41

• 9:35-38—Hearing that the man has been cast out of the synagogue, Jesus returns to him and “helps the process of the man’s faith along” (Talbert, p. 167).
  a. 9:36—It appears that the man is genuinely interested in knowing who healed him.
  b. 9:38—This is the only reference in John to anyone worshipping Jesus.
• 9:39-41—Jesus is condemning the Pharisees because they have the necessary knowledge yet are unwilling to use it (Morris, p. 442).

References

Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John I-XII, Anchor Bible 29 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966).

Oscar Cullmann, Early Christian Worship, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978).

Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, rev. ed., New International Commentary on the New Testament 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).

Byron L. Sherwin, Studies in Jewish Theology: Reflections in the Mirror of Tradition (Portland, OR: Vallentine Mitchell, 2007).

Charles H. Talbert, Reading John: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles, rev. ed., Reading the New Testament (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2005).

N. T. Wright, John for Everyone, Part One (Chapters 1-10), 2nd ed., For Everyone Series (London/Louisville: SPCK/Westminster/John Knox Press, 2004).

John 10

What No Parables?

• Alyce McKenzie writes, “Parables are short narrative fictions that seek to make us evaluate our lives. While we think we are interpreting them, they are actually interpreting us” (p. 1)!
  a. Parables, according to McKenzie, help us answer two questions (p. 2-3):
  i. What is the kingdom of God like?
  ii. How am I to respond to the reign of God?
  b. Parables offer four answers to the first question (p. 3):
  1) The kingdom of God is not under our control.
  2) The kingdom of God shows up when we least expect it.
  3) The kingdom of God disrupts business as usual.
  4) The kingdom of God is a reign of justice and forgiveness.
  c. Parables also offer us four responses to the second question (p. 3-4):
  1) We divest ourselves of our need for control.
  2) We discern the presence of God among the details of daily life.
  3) We accept the disruption that God brings to our complacent values, attitudes, and assumptions.
  4) We set ourselves in the destination of the kingdom that brings and will bring justice and forgiveness.
• The Synoptic Gospels contain over 100 proverbs and 40 parables that deal with McKenzie’s two questions.
• However, John’s Gospel contains only one reference to the Kingdom of God (3:5), and “Jesus’ teachings take the form of a series of explanations of his identity and mission that are often called the ‘I am’ sayings” (McKenzie, p. 7; cf., Metzger,2003, p. 113-114).
• Brian Stiller offers seven characteristics which are common to the parables in the Synoptics (p. 15-17):
  1. The parables are “earthy” (McKenzie calls them “paradoxical”, p. 23).
  2. The parables do not require previous learning.
  3. The parables are direct and concise.
  4. The parables have a unique structure with a major and some minor points.
  5. The parables use repetition.
  6. The parables offer a conclusion, although it is an affective conclusion rather than an informative conclusion (McKenzie refers to this as the “open-ended quality”, p. 26).
  7. The parables use a surprise element of a reversal of expectation.
• Although the word parabole is not used in John’s Gospel, this is the nearest example of a parable. This illustration may be more akin to the Hebrew mashal, which also includes analogy and parallelism.
  a. 10:6; cf. 16:25—The word that is used here is paroimian (or “figure of speech”), a technique that compares two worlds in order to draw the physical world into the spiritual world.
  b. The implication is that Jesus’ entire life is a parable, which is the basis for John’s “come and see” theology.

John 10:1-10

• 10:1—A “sheep pen” was a court surrounded by walls, yet open to the sky and with only one entrance.
• 10:1-3—The legitimacy of Jesus is set against those who are false or malicious teachers.
  a. 10:2-3—The image is of a communal sheep pen where each shepherd has a call for his specific group of sheep (Brown, 1966, p. 385).
  b. 3 John 15—John asks that his personal greetings be given.
  c. The voice the sheep hear is the voice of the Creator.
  d. John 10:5—Some connect this to the Blind Man narrative (9:1-12) because he responds to the voice of the Shepherd while the religious leaders, who can see Jesus, do not respond to Him.
• 10:6-10—Some did not understand what Jesus was talking about.
  a. 10:9—Those who go in and out of the gate are led by the Shepherd.
  b. 10:10a—This may be a reference to some form of incipient Gnosticism.
  c. 10:10b; 5:22-26—The “life” that is mentioned here is zoe not bios.

John 10:11-18

• 10:11—The Good Shepherd will lay down His psuche (“life”) for His sheep.
  a. The worthy shepherd will always put his life in front of danger to protect the flock.
  b. 10:12-13—The hired hand, who may be a church worker or a false teacher, will not defend the sheep (i.e., the Church).
  c. The idea behind the use of psuche is His personality as the Good Shepherd, Savior and Messiah (Cullmann, 1963, p. 58).
• Isaiah 56:9-12—God had given responsibility of guiding the people to the religious leaders, yet they had failed.
• Characteristics of a “Good Shepherd”:
  a. Caretaker
  b. Personal-“calls them by name”
  c. Loyal
  d. 10:4—Salvation
  e. Leader
  f. Calls
• 10:16—Is this the Samaritan group or the Gentile mission?
  a. 10:19—Those opposed to Jesus are not a solid opposition against Jesus.
  b. The “background music” of this reality is the sheep listening to the true voice and others only hearing the voice (Jeff Peterson, AGST).
  c. Schisma—“tear, rip,” Greek
• The relinquishing of one’s life is the very essence of zoe.
  a. Some see the Incarnation as a one-time deal where Jesus gets everything back in spades when He returns to Heaven. However, we must remember that the Cross is a continual action (Morris, p. 456-457).
  b. Jesus does not take up His psuche again. He will receive His life again from the God who always sustains the faithful.
• 10:18; cf. Philippians 2:6-7—Jesus is not saying that He has an ace up His sleeve. He is saying that He trusts that He is doing what God has asked Him to do.
  a. The fullest expression of self-expending love (agape) is giving up one’s life (Ballie, 1948). b. Luther wants us to cling to the Cross and ignore the dark mystery of God’s wrath, yet the Cross swallows God’s wrath because the Cross becomes His essence.
  c. 13:34-35—Our loving one another as Christ has loved us continues the love seen through the Cross (Grenz, p. 194-195).
  d. 17:21—This love is then made flesh through mission.

John 10:19-30

• 1 Maccabees 4:8-9—In 164 BC, Judas Maccabees cleanses the Temple of Antiochus Epiphanes IV’s abominations. The memorial festival becomes known as Hanukkah, or the Feast of Dedication, which is held in winter.
• 10:22—Could this reference to “winter” be a time of discontent with the religious leaders?
  a. 10:23—Solomon’s Porch was a place where one could stand to stay out of the harsh December winds.
  b. 10:24—“How long will You continue to provoke us?”
• 10:25-30—How much more proof do they need? According to Talbert, Jesus provides two answers to thie question (p. 174):
  a. 10:25—Jesus has and will continue to perform signs that reveal His true identity.
  b. 10:28-29—The religious leaders will attempt to tear Jesus’ followers away from Him.

John 10:31-42

• 10:31-39—This is another possible example of the “replacement motif.”
  a. The Lamb is again standing in the Temple courtyard.
  b. 10:38—This is more of a call for faith.
• 10:40-41—The people revered John the Baptizer.

References

Donald Ballie, God Was In Christ: An Essay on Incarnation and Atonement (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1948).

Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John I-XII, Anchor Bible 29 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966).

Oscar Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament, rev. ed., New Testament Library (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963).

Stanley J. Grenz, Created for Community: Connecting Christian Belief with Christian Living, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: BridgePoint Books/ Baker 1998).

Alyce M. McKenzie, The Parables for Today, For Today Series (Louisville/London: Westminster/ John Knox Press, 2007).

Bruce M. Metzger, The New Testament: Its Background, Growth, and Content, 3rd ed. (Nashville: Abingdon, 2003).

Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, rev. ed., New International Commentary on the New Testament 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).

Brian C. Stiller, Preaching Parables to Postmoderns, Fortress Resources for Preaching (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005).

Charles H. Talbert, Reading John: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles, rev. ed., Reading the New Testament (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2005).

John 7

Some Questions to Ponder

• Does familiarity breed contempt?
• Is it possible to take the evidence of God’s existence for granted?
• How do we keep our faith in God fresh and vibrant?
• Can we be inoculated against faith?

What is the "Feast of Tabernacles?"

• Leviticus 23:26—To remember the wandering in the desert.
• Thanksgiving for the growing season.
• Zechariah 14:17—Prayer for future rain and harvest.
• Anticipation of the prophecy in Zechariah 14:8: "On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea; it shall continue in summer as in winter."

John 7:1-9

• 7:4—John uses krupto (Greek, “secret”).
  a. His brothers are challenging Jesus to show how powerful He really is and to stop being a secret.
  b. 7:6—Jesus is running on a different timetable. His calendar is a spiritual one.
  c. 7:8—The revelation of who Jesus really is will come at a different time (cf. 2:4).

John 7:10-18

• This passage is central to Kierkegaard’s “hidden revealer” theory.
• 7:12—There was a great deal of complaining and murmuring (goggusmos) about Jesus among the crowd (Morris, p. 356-357).
  a. This is intentionally symbolic of the Exodus narrative.
  b. This crowd is divided because of Jesus and will later be divided over His words.
  c. Yet the people were not speaking openly because they were afraid of the Jewish religious leadership.
• 7:15—The idea behind this phrase is literally “to know letters,” meaning to study under a rabbi (Brown, 1966, p. 312).
• 7:16—Jesus says that His teaching comes from God:
  a. Wisdom of Solomon 7:12—Anyone who wants to know God’s wisdom will find it.
  b. John 5:44—Those who want to receive their own glory will receive it, but this glory is imperfect and not from God.
• Three Aspects of Jesus’ Teaching (Shawn Daggett, Harding University):
  1. 7:15—It was not academic (‘faking it”).
  2. 7:16—It was inspired by God (“feeling it”).
  3. 7:18—It was not self-serving (“frauding it”).

John 7:19-30

• 7:19—Is this a general statement or is Jesus being specific about the Law of Moses?
• 7:22—Sabbath is a reminder that God wants His world to flourish and heal itself with a day of rest.
• 7:24—Only those whose feet are grounded in reality can judge truthfully.
  a. 7:27—One cannot judge on appearances alone. The people think they know from where the Messiah will come.
  b. 7:28—We do not have any specific examples of Jesus’ teachings in John’s Gospel, only spin-offs controversies.
  c. 7:28-29—They know who Jesus is in human form, but His true identity as God’s emissary has been hidden from them.
  d. 1:15 and 19-23—It appears that John the Baptizer’s ministry was to evoke “the hidden revealer,” but he did not know exactly who it would be.
  e. 7:30—Jesus is mysteriously protected from being arrested prematurely.

John 7:31-39

• Is there a spiritual battle occurring here?
• 7:31—These people are not operating out of the world of light.
  a. They merely see the signs but do not grasp the meaning behind the signs. This is not a true faith but one based on a quantity of works (“sign faith”).
  b. 7:32—The crowd is being redefined and repositioned because of the Word and Light. They are taking a new stance towards Jesus.
  c. Proverbs 1:28—Wisdom would be searched for but not found because Man was not searching correctly. This is now being applied by Jesus to Himself.
  d. John 7:35-36—The Jewish leaders do not have a clue about what Jesus is saying.
  i. Jesus is not talking about going to the Gentiles, yet that is exactly what will happen during the time of the Early Church.
  ii. But then again, this could have been a derogatory comment regarding Jesus’ apparent lack of success with the Jews.
• 7:37—Jesus promises living water.
  a. Isaiah 12:3—On the last day of the festival, a priestly procession would bring water from the Pool of Siloam, chanting this passage as they marched.
  b. John 7:37-38—Jesus pops up and proclaims that He will replace earthly water with living water. He appropriates the symbol of the festival to Himself (“replacement motif”; Carson, p. 253-256).
  i. See Talbert, p. 154-155.
  ii. The practice of drawing water from Siloam began ca. 200 BC, and continued until AD 70.
  iii. Water would be drawn for 7 days, however only prayer was offered on the eighth day.

John 7:40-52

• 7:40—There is an expectation for the Messiah, yet it has been unclear what that expectation really is.
• 7:43—The crowd is torn (schisma) because of what Jesus has said.
• 7:47-49—The Pharisees are the shepherds of the Jewish crowds, yet they are neglecting their pastoral role.
• 7:52—The irony is that the Pharisees challenge Nicodemus to search the Scriptures, when, in fact, Nicodemus has started to come into the light because he has searched the Scriptures.

References

Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John I-XII, Anchor Bible 29 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966).

D. A. Carson and H. G. M. Williamson, ed., It is Written: Scripture Citing Scripture: Essays in Honor of Barnabas Lindars (Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, rev. ed., New International Commentary on the New Testament 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).

Charles H. Talbert, Reading John: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles, rev. ed., Reading the New Testament (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2005).

John 7:53-8:11--Pericope de Adulterae

John 7:53-8:11

• This passage did not appear in any Greek manuscripts until ca. AD 900, although it was known to 4th and 5th century Latin Church Fathers such as Jerome, Ambrose and Augustine.
  a. Some manuscripts place this narrative after Luke 21:38.
  b. This is the only account of scribes and elders being mentioned in John’s narrative.
  c. Some apocryphal gospels contain narratives that are similar to this story (e.g., Gospel of the Hebrews).
  d. Eusebius (H.E., 3.39) states that a story similar to this one is recorded in the writings of Papias (d. ca. AD 125), although it is not certain “that Papias knew this story in precisely this form, inasmuch as it now appears that at least two independent stories about Jesus and a sinful woman circulated among Christians in the first two centuries of the church” (Holmes, p. 304).

• Bruce Metzger is adamant that this passage could not be original with John based on the following reasons:
  1. It is absent from many early manuscripts.
  2. The style and vocabulary are noticeably different from the remainder of the Gospel.
  3. It interrupts the flow of events from 7:52 to 8:12.
  4. There appears to be several “amplified” statements in this passage (p. 187-190).

• Zane Hodges states that this passage was part of the original narrative based on some of the same reasons:
  1. The style of the passage is similar to that of the narrative as a whole.
  2. The details of the encounter fit well into the surrounding context.
  3. The appearance of the passage in a majority of manuscripts, if not the oldest ones, proves that it is an authentic passage (p. 318-332).

• 8:6—This sounds very Synoptic because the Pharisees already have blasphemy and stirring up the crowd on Jesus.
  a. The Greek term katagrapho means “to write” or “to draw characters.” Is there any meaning in this reference?
  b. 8:8—What was Jesus writing? Their names? Their sins? Some manuscripts add in the statement “the sins of every one of them” (Metzger, p. 190).

John 7:53-8:11--Jesus' Postures

1. Sitting (8:2)—Taught

2. Standing (8:3)—Accusation

3. Bending Down (8:6)—Servant

4. Standing (8:7)—Advocate

5. Bending Down (8:8)—Servant

6. Standing (8:10)—Encouragement

References

Zane C. Hodges, “Problem Passages in the Gospel of John Part 8: The Woman taken in Adultery (John 7:53-8:11) : The Text,” Biblica Sacra 136 (1979): 318-332.

Michael W. Holmes, The Apostolic Fathers in English (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006).

Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart, Germany: German Bible Society, 1994).

John 8:12-59

Three Questions to Ask

• How do we size up others?
• How does God size us up?
• How do we size up with God?

John 8:12-20

• 8:14-18—Jesus says that His claims are valid because He knows where He comes from, even if the priests do not. Jesus brings light, not judgment.
  a. But the flip side to bringing light into the world is that some will reject the light and thus be judged because of their rejection.
  b. It is not that they are ignorant, but that they are not open to the light.
  c. 8:19-20—They are still on a biography level and do not see Jesus for who He really is.

John 8:21-29

• 8:21—Again, Jesus says that He is going where they cannot follow.
  a. 8:22—They ask if Jesus is going to commit suicide. How does this reflect their misunderstanding of His identity?
  b. 8:23-24—Jesus is the Word who has become flesh and exegetes the Father because Jesus is the ego eimi.
  c. 8:28-30—We understand this mean the Cross.
  i. The Cross is the ultimate display of who God is. The Son, in an act of supreme selflessness, becomes the ego eimi and the very essence of God.
  ii. Hans Kung says that the very reason why God even created us is love. God chooses not to be alone solely out of His nature (p. 78).
  iii. Everyone wants a God who is big and strong, yet in the Cross we see a God who is selfless. The Resurrection is the defining moment of God’s nature and the Son’s work.
  iv. The Incarnation is God taking our humanity into Himself. The scars on the resurrected Jesus seal a permanent relationship between God and His creation (Pannenberg, p. 396-397).

John 8:30-47

• 8:31-32—Jesus says that if they believe in Him, then they will truly be free.
  a. 8:30—Is this faith that will stick around?
  b. 8:33—The people have forgotten their past and do not truly believe.
• 8:34-40—Jesus offers a discourse in response to their reaction in v. 33.
  a. 8:34-36—First, Jesus says that anyone “who commits a sin is a slave to sin” (cf., Rom. 6:12-18).
  i. Talbert reminds us that sin is both an “orientation” and an “action” (p. 160).
  ii. Augustine once wrote, “An evil conscience flees not from itself; it has no place to go to; it follows itself. Yea, he cannot withdraw from himself, for the sin he commits is within...The pleasure passes away; the sin remains. What delighted is gone; the sting has remained behind. Evil bondage” (p. 231 [41.4]).
  iii. It is Jesus’ position as “the Son” that affords His the power to provide forgiveness (Morris, p. 407).
  b. 8:37-40—Second, Jesus challenges their heritage by saying that they are not acting in a way that honors Abraham.
  i. 8:41—The response by the Jews is meant to be an attack on Jesus’ patronage, that He is illegitimate.
  ii. Jesus’ response to them, however, is that they are no different than their fathers who failed to listen to the prophets.
  iii. Philo once said, “Kinship is not measured only by blood, but by similarity of conduct ad pursuit of the same objects” (On the Virtues 195).

John 8:48-59

• 8:48—The Jewish leaders are attempting to discredit Jesus (Talbert, p. 162).
• 8:51—Jesus, of course is speaking of the spiritual death, although the Jewish leaders assume He is talking about physical death.
• 8:59—Taking His proclamation of divinity in v. 58 as blasphemy, the Jewish leaders seek to purge the world of what they assume is an unholy abomination, thus proving they are no different than their fathers (cf., Leviticus 24:16; Brown, p. 367).

References

Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John I-XII, Anchor Bible 29 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966).

Hans Kung, On Being a Christian (New York: Image Books/Doubleday, 1984).

Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, rev. ed., New International Commentary on the New Testament 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).

Wolfhart Pannenberg, Jesus: God and Man, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977).

Charles H. Talbert, Reading John: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles, rev. ed., Reading the New Testament (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2005).

John 5

John 5:1-9a

• This narrative (5:1-18) was often associated with the sacrament of baptism in the early Church (Cullmann, 1978, p. 84-85).
• 5:3b-4—Talbert informs us that this section of the text is missing from several early manuscripts, such as p66 (ca. AD 200) and Vaticanus (ca. AD 350), thus it does “not belong in the text of the story” (p. 128).
• 5:7—This man had been an invalid for 38 years and had become consumed by self-pity, what is often referred to as “victim mentality.”

John 5:9b-18

• How would we read this story after a terrorist attack?
• 5:10-13—This man was caught between good and evil! Every good story has a well-crafted villain.
• 5:14-16—The connection between healing and the forgiveness of sins is typically a Synoptic concept (cf., Mark 2:1-12). However, John appears to be pointing to the sacrament of baptism by saying that we find healing and forgiveness in water (Cullmann, 1978, p. 87).
• 5:17—Jesus continues to work without rest “God’s saving work has not yet reached the Sabbath rest” (Cullmann, 1963, p. 300).

John 5:19-29

• 5:19-20—Jesus denies the charge that He has blasphemed (lit., “denied the existence of God”) by making Himself equal to God.
  a. Jesus’ argument, then, is based on His identity.
  b. Jesus does not claim to be independent from God, however He is equal to God.
• 5:22-23—To dishonor Jesus (i.e., not accept His message) is to dishonor the One who sent Him (Morris, p. 279).

John 5:30-38

• Who/What witness about Jesus:
  1. 5:35—John the Baptizer.
  2. 5:36—Jesus’ own works (not just the signs, but His whole ministry and personhood).
  3. 5:37-38—God Himself in the presence of the Holy Spirit working in their conscience and faith.
  4. 5:39-40—The Scriptures, properly understood.
• Once all of this evidence is put forth, “the jury is out—on the hearers, not on Jesus himself” (Wright, p.67).

John 5:39-47

• Jesus draws a huge contrast between the way His opponents read the Scriptures and the way the Scriptures were intended to be read.
• Carson says that “there is nothing intrinsically life-giving about studying the Scriptures, if one fails to discern their true content and purpose” (p. 263).
• Is it possible to know the Bible without knowing God?

References

D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (Leicester, England/Grand Rapids, MI: Apollos/Eerdmans, 1991).

Oscar Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament, rev. ed., New Testament Library (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963).

Oscar Cullmann, Early Christian Worship, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978).

Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, rev. ed., New International Commentary on the New Testament 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).

Charles H. Talbert, Reading John: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles, rev. ed., Reading the New Testament (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2004).

N. T. Wright, John for Everyone, Part One (Chapters 1-10), For Everyone Series (London/Louisville: SPCK/ Westminster/John Knox Press, 2004).

John 6 (new material added)

John 6:1-15

• 6:2—Notice that the crowds are following Jesus “because they saw the signs he was doing for the sick.”
  a. 6:4—Although “the Passover…was near,” the crowds are out in the wilderness wandering after Jesus.
  b. Dodd suggests that John is hinting at “the eucharistic significance of the narrative which follows” (p. 333).
  c. 6:14; cf. Deut. 18:15-19—What is the response from the crowd to the sign?

John 6:16-25

• The Jewish people were not necessarily sea-savvy people, often associating the “sea” with the existence of Chaos.
  a. God’s power over the sea was a common theme in Psalms (e.g., 74:13, 93:3-4, 104:25).
  b. 6:20—A further connection is made between this event and the Passover/ Exodus in Jesus walking on water, a sign that can only be interpreted “by the divine name ‘I am’” (Brown, 1966, p. 255).

John 6:26-59

• 6:26—Jesus rebukes the crowd because they are only interested in being fed. They are not even interested in signs at this point.
  a. Has God ever sent His best gifts in the “wrong” package?
  b. There was an expectation that the Messiah would provide a never-ending supply of bread (Apocalypse of Baruch 29:8; Cullmann, 1978, p. 96-97).
  c. They have traded their “sign faith” for “crass materialism” (Morris, p. 317).
• 6:33—Jesus not only reveals who God is but is, in fact, the revealed God in our presence.
  a. 6:27 and 53—The “Son of Man” is “the exalted Lord of the Church, who in the present gives the bread of life in the sacrament of the eucharist” (Cullmann, 1963, p. 186).
  b. The bread, then, serves as a symbol of the redemptive and satisfying nature of our relationship with God (Cullmann, 1978, p. 95).
• John describes the institution of the Eucharist in spiritual terms with this story.
  a. In Matthew and Mark, the Eucharist is a re-enactment of the Cross.
  b. In Luke, the Eucharist is a fellowship meal in which disciples enter into a relationship with Jesus.
  c. In John, the Eucharist is a continuation of the Incarnation. When we partake of Jesus’ body and blood, He becomes present with us and in us.

John 6:60-71

• 6:60-65—Jesus “wants to ‘scandalize’ his hearers so that “they will attend to what is important” about their faith (Cullmann, 1978, p. 100).
• The Ascension directly relates to the Eucharist because it means that the Spirit is now at work among the Church as we watch and wait for Christ’s return (Talbert, p. 146).

"I AM" Statements

• In His use of “I AM” (Greek, ego eimi), Jesus connects Himself to God
  a. Exodus 3:13-15—Moses is to say that the “I AM that I AM” sent him to Israel.
  b. Each use of ego eimi “brings home an important aspect of the person and the ministry of Jesus” (Morris, p. 323-324).
  c. In using ego eimi, Jesus is demanding that we recognize Him as God in the flesh and respond to Him as such. Kysar writes that “to assert the divinity of the founder of his faith. . .[John] uses it to claim that, when Christ speaks, it is God who speaks. . . .The words of Christ are God’s words. The actions of Christ are God’s actions. The human response to Christ is the response to God” (p. 44).

1. 6:35—“I am the bread of life.”
2. 8:12–“I am the light of the world.”
3. 10:9—“I am the door.”
4. 10:11-14–“I am the good shepherd.”
5. 11:25–“I am the resurrection, and the life.”
6. 14:6–“I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
7. 15:1–“I am the vine.”

Application Questions

• How would we look if our physical condition matched our spiritual condition?
• Where would you be if you had not accepted Christ into your life?
• What would become of your life if you gave up your relationship with God?
• Have there been a time when you have felt God’s presence in your life during a crisis? Have there been a time you felt that God was not with you?

References

Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John, I-XII, Anchor Bible 29 (New York: Doubleday, 1966).

Oscar Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament, rev. ed., New Testament Library (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1963).

Oscar Cullmann, Early Christian Worship, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978).

C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953).

Robert Kysar, John, the Maverick Gospel (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1976).

Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, rev. ed., New International Commentary on the New Testament 4 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1995).

Charles H. Talbert, Reading John: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles, rev. ed., Reading the New Testament (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2004).

John 4

John 4:1-15

• The Samaritans were descendants of the Jews who married those who were resettled in Israel by the Assyrians in 722 BC.
• They built a temple on Mt. Gerizim in 400 BC, but it was destroyed by John Hyrcanus, a member of the Maccabeean family and governor of Palestine, in 108 BC.
• 4:2—This is an interesting side-note.
• 4:4—This affirms a Synoptic affirmation that Jesus did not go to Samaria on purpose, per se.
• Oscar Cullmann says that this text is the beginning of an isolated group of Samaritan Christians.
  a. He says that the reference to “other sheep” in John 10 refers to these Samaritan disciples and John winds up leading this community until he disappears in Acts 8.
  b. Could these passages be the “family memories” of people who were cast out of the Temple and isolated from the Christian synagogues in Palestine (1976)?
• 4:6—Soren Kierkegaard says that God has chosen to reveal Himself in particular people at particular times and now time has collapsed back on itself in the person of Jesus (“scandal of particularity” theory) (p. 94ff; Gouwens, p. 130-131).
• 4:9—This provides background material for the Gentile reader.
• Different Images of Water:
  1. 4:6—Jesus is sitting next to a spring.
  2. 4:11-12—The woman identifies it as a cistern.
  3. 4:13-14—Jesus says His water comes from “a living spring.”
  4. 4:15—She understands better than Nicodemus, yet she does not completely understand. She is willing to trust Him so that her life may be easier.

John 4:16-26

• Some scholars have suggested that her first five husbands represent the books of the Pentateuch.
  a. She is not just an immoral woman who is changing the subject; she has picked up on something important because she realizes who Jesus is.
  b. 4:19—She is trying to get deeper into the conversation with Jesus.
  c. 4:21-24—This is crisis time as a new reality will soon be revealed by God. This is not talking about being visible or accurate but about being in the new reality.
  d. 4:26—The One speaking is not only the Messiah but also the “I AM” (God).
• Deuteronomy 12:5—God would choose where people would seek Him.
  a. Eventually that place was Jerusalem, however the Samaritans did not know this.
  b. They were only familiar with the Pentateuch.
• 4:27—The disciples are shocked that Jesus is speaking openly with a woman.
  a. 4:29; cf. 1:46—She says, “Come and see.”
  b. The woman left her jar because she had moved from her earthly concern into a greater spiritual reality. She is placed into the role of midwife missionary, although she is still uncertain of Jesus’ identity.
  c. 4:33—The disciples, the “in” group, are just as dense as everyone else.
  d. 4:34-38—Food and mission are redefined.
  i. 4:35—Perhaps is was C. H. Dodd who said that Jesus motions across a flat plain to a group on oncoming Samaritans.
  ii. 4:37-38—Oscar Cullmann labored over the meaning of this passage (1963, p. 183-184):
  1) Does this refer to the Samaritans?
  2) Or does it refer to a looking back with the Gentile Christians accepting Christ?
• 4:39-42—The Samaritans ask Jesus to stay and He remains with them for two days.
  a. The presence of the Holy Spirit also remains with them.
  b. 4:42—They believe, not because of the woman’s chatter (lalain), but because they have heard the Word of God for themselves.
• Our faith needs to be based on our own experience in seeking the truth, rather than through being spoon-fed facts or hollow emotionalism.

John's View of Mission (from Dr. Stepp)

1. Jesus is God’s agent, sent by God to do God’s work by revealing what He has seen of God (1:18, 5:30-38, etc.).
2. Jesus passes part of this task on to his disciples (4:38, 17:18).
3. The disciples are to lead people to Jesus, yet the saving activity is God’s work (1:40-49, 4:29-42, 17:20.

John's Pattern of Conversion

1. 4:39; cf., 1:35-36—Someone bears witness to Jesus.
2. 4:40; cf., 1:37-39—Seekers come to Jesus.
3. 4:40; cf., 1:39—A decision to “abide with” or “dwell with” Jesus is made.
4. 4:42; cf., 1:41—The seeker becomes a disciple through confessing Jesus as “Savior of the world” (Talbert, p. 124).

John 4:43-54

• 4:43-45—Does this passage make any sense?
  a. Could the “country” be the Jewish nation as a whole?
  b. 4:45—The Galileans, Jesus’ own people, gladly receive Him.
  c. Remember that many were believing in His signs without seeing to whom the signs were pointing (“sign faith”).
• 4:46—An official, most likely a Gentile, asks Jesus to heal his son.
  a. 4:48—The “you” is plural, possibly being directed toward the Galilean crowd.
  b. 4:50—This is the first example of someone believing, coming to faith, without needing anything else in John’s narrative.
• Some literary critics would say that we move from an impersonal to an intimate identification of the official:
  a. 4:49—The official is the first to come to Jesus desperately.
  b. The woman may have shunned the Light at first, but she come to understand who Jesus is. Yet the official understands only the brevity of life.
  c. 4:53—The Word evokes faith in someone, and he is the first person to be commended for his faith.

References

Oscar Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament, rev. ed., New Testament Library (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1963).

Oscar Cullmann, The Johnannine Circle (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976).

David J. Gouwens, Kierkegaard as Religious Thinker (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

Soren Kierkegaard, Practice in Christianity, Kierkegaard’s Writings, vol. 20, Trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991).

Charles H. Talbert, Reading John: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles, rev. ed., Reading the New Testament (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2005).