John, Gospel Of (II. Contents)
John, Gospel Of (II. Contents)
JOHN, GOSPEL OF (II.: Contents).
1. Character of the Gospel.The interesting fragment of Eusebius (Historia Ecclesiastica vi. 14), quoted from the lost Outlines of Clement of Alexandria, gives us the earliest view which was taken of the Fourth Gospel. John, last, having observed that the bodily things had been set forth in the [earlier] Gospels, and exhorted thereto by his friends, and inspired by the Spirit, produced a spiritual Gospel. The word spiritual, or pneumatic, is here, as usually with the Alexandrians, opposed to bodily, or somatic. And what the difference was, as regards the records of the past, is shown admirably by Origens comment on Joh 2:12. He says that if all the four Gospels are to be believed, the truth of them cannot be in their bodily characters, but in their spiritual meaning. The Gospels, he says elsewhere (de Prine. 4), contain many things which are said to have happened, but which did not happen literally; and in one place of his Commentary on St. John he says that when the writers of Holy Scripture were unable to speak the truth at once spiritually and bodily (i.e. at once literally and with a deeper symbolical or allegorical meaning), it was their practice to prefer the spiritual to the corporeal, the true spiritual meaning being often preserved in the corporeal falsehood ( ). So Epiphanius says of St. Johns Gospel: most of the things spoken by him were spiritual, the fleshly things having been already attested (Haer. li. 19).
These passages are very important for the study of the Fourth Gospel. They are evidence, not, of course, for the authors method of composition, but for what was thought of the Gospel in the latter part of the 2nd cent. and the first half of the 3rd, that is to say, as soon as it was widely known. It was accepted as a spiritual Gospel, and by spiritual was meant, not devotional, ethical, and philosophical, but allegorical as opposed to barely historical.
The distinction between the two modes of treatment was familiar at Alexandria, and had been familiar long before the Fourth Gospel was written. Philo compares the literal meaning to the body, and the spiritual to the soul. He applies this exegetical principle to the OT narratives with great thoroughness. To the literal truth of ancient sacred history he is very indifferent. Particular events are important only in proportion to their universal significance. To grasp the truth of a narrative is to see its relation to universal spiritual law or fact. He would have considered the laborious investigation of historical detail to be merely learned trifling, worthy only of a grammarian or a pedant. Moral edification and gnosis were the only objects for which it was at all worth while to trouble about the records of the past.
We have, of course, no right to assume that the 2nd cent. was right in classing the Fourth Gospel as a spiritual work. We shall have to consider its allegorism in detail before we can pronounce on its relation to history. But it should be perfectly obvious that its author did not mean it to be studied as a plain historical narrative. He would probably have said that he had a higher aim than to record trivial details, some of which had no spiritual meaning. The Gospel is, and claims to be, an interpretation of our Lords Person and ministry, an ideal construction which aims at producing a certain impression about the Person of Christ. This impression is to be the true interpretation of the historical Jesusthe author is infinitely anxious about this. He is writing no mere historical romance, like the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, which was afterwards concocted as a rival to the Gospels. He is no Docetist, as is shown by several passages in the Gospel, and more categorically in 1 John, which, if not by the same author, is in closest connexion with the Gospel. But a very slight critical investigation is enough to show that he allows himself a free hand in manipulating the facts on which he is working. It is perfectly honest history, as history was understood by the ancients. But even the most scientific of ancient historians did not scruple to put his own views of the political situation into the mouths of the chief characters in his period; and among the Jews the composer of a haggdah had no fear of being branded as a romancer or a forger.
The plan of the Gospel is clearly stated in Joh 20:30-31, an impressive passage which was intended to be the conclusion of the book, and was so until the appendix was added. The object here avowed is strictly adhered to throughout. No other book of the NT is so entirely dominated by one conception. The theology of the Incarnation, taught in the form of a historical narrative, with an underlying framework of symbolism and allegory, which, though never obtruded, determines the whole arrangement and selection of incidentsthis is the topic of the Fourth Gospel. And unless it is read in the light of this purpose, and with a due recognition of the peculiar method, the seven seals of the Apocalypse will remain set upon the spiritual Gospel.
Different opinions have been held as to the readers whom the writer has mainly in view. Rville thinks that the author has wished to prove to his contemporaries who had remained in the liberal and philosophical Judaism of the Diaspora, that, in Jesus Christ, the revelation of the Logos, admitted by them in the OT, has its full and definitive fulfilment. But the Gospel is not an apologia written for the Jews. The extremely unconciliatory tone, used throughout in speaking of them, is enough to disprove this hypothesis. There is a subordinate element of apologetic, but the main object is clearly to edify and teach the faithful, not to convert the unbeliever. The author never descends to his opponents ground, but remains throughout on his own. His aim is didactic, but not exactly dogmatic. He wishes, not to prove a theological thesis, but to confirm and perfect the believer in his adhesion to Christ as the Incarnate Word, the principle of spiritual regeneration, and the nourishment of eternal life. This is the foundation of his own faith, and the characteristic Johannine ideas are the intellectual form of this faith, which is centred in the unio mystica. There is no sign of a polemic against Docetism, Ebionism, or against Cerinthus. Still less is he writing against liberalized Judaism, as Rville seems to suggest. Whatever was his attitude towards Philo (and the question is not an easy one to answer), it was not one of conscious antagonism.
The author, then, is writing for Christians. But for what Christians? It has often been maintained or assumed that his object is to teach a philosophy of religionthat he is, in fact, the author of the formula Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah of the Jews, is the Incarnate Logos of God. But this view is untenable. There is no systematic philosophy in the Gospelnot even in the Prologue. And besides, the Logos theology was not new. It is not propounded as new in the Gospel; and it exists in substance in St. Pauls Epistles, as well as in the Hebrews. There can be little doubt that Apollos, the learned Jew of Alexandria, made this identification in his preaching, which was so mightily convincing. For at this time Logos was as familiar a term to all educated persons as Evolution is to our own generation.
The Gospel is not a philosophical treatise. Is it, then, an attempt to mediate between two parties in the Church, between the advocates of Faith and Knowledge, of Gnosis and Pistis? The conflict between these two parties was acute at the end of the 2nd cent., as we see from the caution imposed upon Clement of Alexandria by conservative prejudice, and on the other side by the diatribes of the obscurantist Tertullian against philosophy? At that period Gnosticism had gained a footing within the Church, and orthodoxy had become alive to the dangers which threatened the Christian religion from this side. The intellectualists were even strong enough to drive Montanism out of the Church. During the first quarter of the 2nd cent. the great Gnostics were outside the Church, and the chief danger was that the party of , ignorant and superstitious, with materialistic notions of religion and hopes of a coming reign of the saints, might make the position of the Christian philosopher impossible, and drive him into the arms of the Gnostics. Moreover, at the time when the Gospel was written, the inadequacy of both presentations of Christianity was becoming apparent. The primitive revivalism was decaying; the hopes of a Parousia were growing faint; while, on the other hand, Docetism and the fantastic schemes of the Gnostic party were visibly tending to discard the Gospel in favour of a barbarized Platonism. The author of this Gospel interposed his powerful influence to save Christianity from being either swamped in a mythology or sublimated into a theosophy. The Jews demanded miracles, the Greeks a philosophy; this Gospel, like St. Paul, presents both with Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God (1Co 1:22-24). The author addresses himself chiefly to the Faith-party, who most needed teaching. He tries to recall them to real history, by subtly spiritualizing the miraculous narratives, to which they attributed too much importance, and bringing out their ethical and spiritual significance. He never makes the slightest attempt to rationalize a miracle.on the contrary, the miracles which he records are more startling than anything in the Synoptics,but no stress is laid on any physical portent as momentous in and for itself, or as evidence, apart from its symbolical value as a type of the Person, work, and office of Christ. This design of spiritualizing the tradition is kept in view throughout; but it is carried out so subtly and quietly that it has often been overlooked.
A glance at one of the old-fashioned Harmonies of the four Evangelists makes us realize how few of the events of our Lords life, before the last few days, are recorded by the Synoptists and also by St. John. And even the few common elements are employed differently, and in different settings. There are notable and irreconcilable differences in the chronology, including, as is well known, a discrepancy as to the date of the Crucifixion. The development of Christs mission is differently conceived, the Johannine Christ making the most exalted claims to equality with the Father near the beginning of His career, and in the presence of His enemies ( 2:19, 6:40, 8:58 etc.), whereas in the Synoptics the question and answer at Caesarea Philippi are clearly intended to be of crucial importance (Mat 16:13 ff. ||). The form and substance of the discourses are also very different, the Christ of the Synoptics speaking as a man to men, as a Jew to Jews; conveying His message in pithy aphorisms, easily understood and remembered, and in homely parables, adapted to the comprehension of country folk. These discourses are directed rather to bringing men to the Father, and to righteousness and consistency of life, than to inculcating any doctrines about His own Person; sometimes He expresses His attachment to the Law, and repudiates any intention of abrogating it. Our Evangelist, on the other hand, represents Jesus as taking part in long polemical disputations with the Jews, who are as much His enemies as they were the enemies of the Christian Church 80 years later; the parables have disappeared, and their place is taken by proverbs or symbolic language; and, above all, His whole teaching is centred upon faith in and devotion to Himself. The emphatic occurs 15 times in St. Matthew, 117 times in St. John. Many facts to which our Evangelist attaches great importance are completely strange to the Synoptic tradition. Such are: the marriage in Cana of Galilee, with which the public ministry opens; the conversation with the Samaritan woman; the healing of the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda; the incident of the man born blind; the raising of Lazarus, which in St. Johns Gospel appears to have been the immediate cause of the plot against the life of Jesus; the washing of the disciples feet at the Last Supper; the conversation with Pilate at the trial; the presence of the beloved disciple and Mary at the Cross; the appearance to Thomas after the Resurrection. On the other hand, the writer of the Fourth Gospel omits the genealogy and the birth from a virgin, because it could be of no interest to him to prove that Jesus (or rather Joseph) was descended from king David, and the Incarnation of the Logos is a far grander conception than a miraculous birth by the operation of the Holy Ghost; he omits the Baptism of Jesus, of which notwithstanding he shows knowledge, because, again, the true Baptism is the Incarnation of the Logos in Jesus, and also partly, perhaps, because he is anxious to discountenance the Adoptionist views of the Person of Christ which were prevalent at the time when he wrote; he omits the Temptation, because it is no part of his plan to exhibit Jesus as experiencing any temptation or weakness; he omits the Transfiguration, because in his view the whole life of Christ on earth is a manifestation of His glory, not by visible light but to the spiritual eye; he omits the institution of the Eucharist, because he has already given his sacramental doctrine in his discourse about the Bread of Life (Joh 6:26 ff.), following the miracle of the 5000, and does not wish the truth of the mystical union to be bound up too closely with the participation in an ecclesiastical rite; he omits the Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, and the cry, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, because the impression which he wishes to convey of the complete voluntariness of Christs sufferings and death, and of the glory which was manifested by His humiliation as well as by His triumph over death, might be impaired by incidents which seem to indicate human weakness and hesitation; and, lastly, he omits the Ascension and the descent of the Paraclete, because he does not wish the withdrawal of Christs bodily presence, and the continuation of the Incarnation in another more spiritual form, to be associated with physical portents, or to be assigned to particular days.
There can be no question that these omissions are deliberate, and not the result of ignorance. Those who wish to discredit any of the narratives which appear in the Synoptics, cannot rightly draw any inferences from St. Johns silence. Such features of the Christian tradition as the Birth at Bethlehem and the Ascension must have been well known by any well-instructed Christian at the beginning of the 2nd cent., and there are no signs that our Evangelist wishes to correct his predecessors from the standpoint of one who has had access to better information. Not only are incidents like the Baptism referred to incidentally (Joh 1:32), but an attempt is made to provide substitutes for several of the omitted narratives. Instead of the Davidic ancestry of Joseph, we have the eternal generation of the ; instead of the Lords Prayer, taught to the disciples, we have the High-Priestly prayer of ch. 17, in which almost every clause of the Lords Prayer is represented, though in each case, except the last (Deliver us from the evil one), the petition is changed into a statement that the work has been done, the boon conferred. The institution of Baptism is represented by the discourses with Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman; that of the Eucharist by the miracle in ch. 6 and the discourse on the Bread of Life which follows it. The Transfiguration is represented by the voice from heaven in Joh 12:7; Joh 12:28; while the preceding verse (which should be printed as a question, Shall I say, Father, save me from this hour?) is intended to compensate us for the loss of the Agony in the Garden. Lastly, the words to Thomas in Joh 20:29the last beatitudemore than reconcile us to the loss of any description of the Ascension.
The number of miracles is much reduced; but those which are given are representative, and in some cases are more tremendous than those of the Synoptics. The healing of the son of Herods official (Joh 4:46 ff.) is the only miracle which has the true Synoptic ring; in the others no faith is required in those who are to benefit by the sign, and the object seems to be to manifest some aspect of Christs Person and work. In the marriage at Cana, the feeding of the multitude, the healing of the blind man, and the raising of Lazarus, the Evangelist himself tells us the spiritual meaning of the miracle, in words spoken either by the Lord Himself or by some one else.
There is, however, a great deal of symbolism in the Gospel which is unexplained by the author, and unnoticed by the large majority of his readers. The method is strange to us, and we do not look out for allegories which would be at once understood by Alexandrians in the 2nd century. A few examples are necessary, to justify the view here taken that symbolism or allegorism pervades the whole Gospel. In Joh 1:29 John the Baptist designates Christ the Lamb of God, with clear reference to the Paschal sacrifice. The prophetic type of the Paschal lamb dominates the whole of the Passion narrative in St. John. Even the date, it would appear, is altered, in order that Christ may die on the day when the Paschal lambs were killed. The change of the reed of the Synoptics to hyssop seems to have been made with the same object, when we remember the ritual use of hyssop at the Passover. The Gospel abounds in enigmatic utterances, such as Thou hast kept the good wine until now (Joh 2:10); It is expedient that one man should die for the people (Joh 11:50); Judas went immediately out, and it was night (Joh 13:30); in which the reader is plainly meant to see a double meaning. The symbolism is often in three stages. The text presents an apparent sense, which is in figure a second, which in turn points to a third and still deeper signification. Especially in the narrative, a prophetic utterance quoted from the OT is sometimes the intermediate stage in this allegorical construction. The type of the Paschal lamb comes as it were between the literal feeding of the 5000 and the idea that Christ gives His life to take away the sin of the world, and that He may be our spiritual food and sustenance. The words quoted from the Psalms, the zeal of thy house shall eat me up, come in like manner between the cleansing of the Temple at Jerusalem and the idea of the glorification of Jesus as the building of the true Temple, the body of Christ, the Church. There are, we might venture to say, three temples in the mind of the Evangelistthe material temple built by Herod, the temple of Christs natural body, which was to be destroyed and raised up in three days, and the temple which is the spiritual body of Christnamely, the Church. Similarly, in Joh 7:38, the quotation, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water, comes, as it were, between the thrust of the lance and the effusion of the Holy Spirit on the disciples and the Church.
But the most remarkable part of the allegoric method is that connected with numbers. There can be no doubt, in the opinion of the present writer, that the Philonic method of playing with numbers had a strong fascination for our Evangelist. The examples are far too numerous to be accidental. The number 7 recurs in the number of the miracles (omitting ch. 21 from our calculations), in the number of solemn declarations beginning I am; in the number of witnesses borne to Christ, and perhaps in other places. The officers son is healed at the seventh hour; the paralytic on the seventh day. It is thoroughly in accordance with the method of the Evangelist, that he avoids the word , just as he avoids the two crucial words and , which had become watchwords of parties. As for the number 3, perhaps too much ingenuity has been shown in cutting up the whole Gospel into arrangements of 3; but unquestionably the book does lend itself very readily to such classification, and the fact that it is concealed rather than obtruded is in accordance with what seems to have been the method and design of the writer. With regard to higher numbers, the extreme precision of the Evangelist must excite suspicion of an allegorical motive; and when we find that 38, 46, and 153 can be plausibly explained on Philonic principles, the suspicion becomes almost a certainty. For example, the 153 fish may be the fulfilment of 10+7; 1 + 2 + 3 + + 17 = 153; or, as Bishop Wordsworth suggests, it may be the square of 12 + the square of 3. It is said that 200 (Peter is 200 cubits from the land) signifies, in the Philonian lore, repentance. The forty-six years since the beginning of the building of the Temple may possibly be connected with the age assigned to Jesus (not yet fifty years old); it has been suggested that the Evangelist wishes to make Him seven times seven years old at the Crucifixion; but this is very doubtful. The frequent use of number-symbolism in the Gospel is more certain than the correctness of particular interpretations. These interpretations would occur readily to the Gnostic of the 2nd cent.; to us they must be guesswork.
Some critics, such as Renan, have objected to this discovery of allegorism in the Fourth Gospel, that the allegorist always tries to attract attention to his symbols, whereas St. John clearly does not, but conceals them so carefully that the large majority of his readers do not even suspect their existence. This sounds plausible. But the question really is whether the Evangelist has not done all that he need have done in order to be understood by those among his first readers who knew his method. It is not suggested that the Johannine symbolism was meant for all to understand. There is abundant evidence that those who valued the Gnosis were agreed that it must not be profaned by being explained to all. We find this conviction in Philo, and very strongly in Clement of Alexandria, who, as a Christian, is important evidence. He says that to put the spiritual exegesis before the common people is like giving a sword to a child to play with. He will not write all that he knows, because of the danger that it may get into wrong hands. There are some religious truths which can only be safely imparted orally. There is reason to think that he abandoned his project of putting the coping-stone on his theological works by a book of an esoteric character, because a published treatise cannot be confined to those who ought to read it. Since, then, the existence of the symbolic method, and the obligation of concealing it from the ordinary reader, are both proved, there is nothing strange in the veiled symbolism which we have found to characterize this Gospel.
The Evangelist writes throughout for two classes of readersfor the simpliciores, who would be satisfied by the narrative in its plain sense, and for the Gnostic, who could read between the lines without difficulty. And yet he wishes all his readers to rise towards a spiritual understanding. Again and again he puts the key in the lockin such solemn utterances as I am the Bread of Lifethe Light of the Worldthe Resurrection and the Life. His own word for the allegoric method is proverb (). Up to the end of the last discourse, Jesus has spoken to His disciples in proverbs; but the time was coming (after the withdrawal of His bodily presence) in which, through the medium of the Paraclete, He should no more speak to them in proverbs, but should show them plainly of the Father. The proverb is different from the Synoptic , which is a story with a religious and moral applicationa story which has a complete sense in itself, apart from the lesson, which is generally conveyed by the story as a whole, and not by the details. St. John, however, tries to keep the historical parabolic form in which Jesus actually taught. Yet, in spite of himself, he half substitutes the Alexandrian and Philonic allegory for the Synoptic parable. The double sense runs all through the narrative. Whenever the Johannine Christ begins to teachwhether His words are addressed to Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman, the Jews, or His own disciplesHe nearly always begins by enunciating a proposition which contains, under a sensible and symbolic image, a religious truth. The auditor regularly misunderstands Him, interpreting literally what should have been easily perceived to be a metaphor. This gives Jesus an opportunity to develop His allegory, and, in so doing, to instruct the reader, if not the original hearer of the discourse, whom once or twice (as in ch. 3) the Evangelist seems to have quite forgotten. The Johannine Christ loves words which, at any rate in Greek, have a double sense, such as , , (cf. esp. Joh 10:31-38). Whether the very numerous cases where a verb may be indicative or imperative are intentionally ambiguous, it is not easy to say. The symbolism reaches its height in some of the discourses to the Jews; the last discourses to the disciples are more plain, and in ch. 17, which is the climax of the teaching of the Gospel, the mystical union is expounded with much directness.
One of the most difficult problems in connexion with the classes of readers for whom the Gospel was intended is presented by certain explanations introduced by the Evangelist. The chief of these are Joh 2:21, Joh 6:64-65, Joh 7:38, Joh 8:27, Joh 12:33, Joh 18:9. These explanations seem to us at times superficial and unworthy of their context. We cannot be surprised that they have given force to partition-theories like that of Wendt, who maintains that the discourses are on a higher intellectual and spiritual level than could he within the compass of the author of parts of the narrative. The difficulties in the way of partition-theories seem to be insuperable. A more plausible hypothesis is that the Evangelist deliberately introduced these childlike observations for the benefit of the simpliciores, trusting to the educated reader being able to divine his purpose. But this theory is not very satisfactory. We have seen that St. John is able to see as many as three meanings in a simple occurrence. And so he may have felt that the Temple might mean Christs natural body as well as the stone building and the Church of Christ, which last must have been mainly in his mind when he foresaw the downfall of the Jewish sanctuary and all which it represented.
The style of the Fourth Gospel is as different from that of the Synoptics as the matter. Instead of the variety which we find in them, we have a small number of essential thoughts repeated again and again under a small number of images. From this results a strange impressiveness, common in mystical writings, which often share this peculiarity, though to some readers the monotony appears tedious and inartistic. The discourses of Christ have a sweet and melancholy charm, with an indescribable dignity and grandeur; over them all hangs the luminous haze of mysticism, in which mystery seems clear, and clearness itself is mysterious. The phraseology is Hebraic, not Greek; in the Prologue we have a species of rhythm which recalls the old prophets, and in many places we find the parallelism of Hebrew poetry. The arrangement is that of the writers own thought, not chronological. The appearance of detailed accuracy is not, as has often been seriously argued, a proof of first-hand knowledge, but is due to the vividness of the Evangelists mental images. The numbers, as has been said, seem often to have a symbolic meaning; the figures, such as Nicodemus and the Greeks who asked for an introduction to Jesus, disappear from the writers mind as soon as the point is made. No difference can he detected between the style of the various speakers, or between the discourses of Christ and the Evangelists own comments.
2. Theology of the Gospel.The first question which meets us is the relation of the Prologue to the rest of the Gospel. Harnack, whose antipathy to the Logos theology apparently influences his judgment, suggests that the Prologue was merely prefixed to the narrative in order to predispose the Greeks in favour of the views which the author was about to propound, views which do not really at all correspond with the Logos philosophy as they understood it.
The Prologue brings in conceptions which were familiar to the Greeks, and enters into these more deeply than is justified by the presentation which follows; for the notion of the incarnate Logos is by no means the dominant one in the Gospel. Though faint echoes of this idea may possibly be met with here and there in the Gospel,I confess I do not notice them,the predominating thought is essentially that of Christ as the Son of God, who obediently executes what the Father has shown and appointed Him (ZThK [Note: ThK Zeitschrift f. Theologie u. Kirche.] ii. 189 ff.).
This strangely perverse judgment has evoked protests from several critics who understand the Gospel better than Harnack, among others from Rville, who has certainly no bias in favour of traditional views. It would be easy to show that every one of the dogmatic statements in the Prologue is reasserted in the body of the Gospel. For the pre-existence of the Logos, beyond time, in personal relation to, and in essential union with, God, cf. Joh 6:62, Joh 8:58, Joh 14:10, Joh 17:5; Joh 17:24. For the Logos as the Agent in creation, and its life-giving and sustaining principle, cf. Joh 5:26, Joh 8:12, Joh 9:5. (From the nature of the subject-matter, there is not much cosmological teaching in the Gospel; but what there is, is in full accordance with the Prologue). For manifestations of the Logos before the Incarnation, by revelations and by His immanent presence, cf. Joh 8:56 and Joh 9:5, whenever I am in the world, etc. There is thus chapter and verse in the Gospel, and in Christs own words, for every statement in the Prologue; and though Jesus never calls Himself the Logos, this sublime conception of His personality pervades the whole narrative. The stumbling-block to Harnack and others has been what some critics (e.g. Beyschlag and Rville) have called the contradictory double theology of the Gospel. By the side of a conception of Christs Person which seems to class the Evangelist as a speculative mystic or Gnostic, we have statements which seem to belong to the school of Christianity which was dominated by Jewish positivism. Such doctrines are the actual becoming flesh of the Logos, as opposed to a theophany under human form; and the repeated mention of the Last Day, a conception with which, as Reuss says, mystical theology has no concern. But the Evangelist does not write or think as a philosopher. The supreme merit of his book as a Gospel is that he does not write the life of Christ as a Christian Platonist might have been tempted to write it, but keeps a firm hold on the historical Jesus, and on the concrete facts in His teaching. There is, undoubtedly, a double thread of the kind indicated. In some parts of the narrative we feel that tabernacled among us is a truer description of the character of the Johannine Christ than became flesh. There is an aloofness, a solitary grandeur, about the central figure which prevents Him from seeming fully human; while in other places there is an approximation to the Synoptic portrait. But it is only to the minute critic that these difficulties become apparent. To the religious consciousness of Christendom there has never been any hesitation in recognizing the profound agreement between the Synoptic and the Johannine presentations of Jesus Christ. See, further, art. Logos.
The intense ethical dualism of the Fourth Gospel is another perplexing phenomenon to those who look for philosophical consistency in a religious treatise. Christian Platonism, into which the Logos theology passed as its most important ingredient, seems to leave no room for a personal devil, or for human beings who are children of the devil. It seems rather to favour the conception of evil as mere privatio boni. St. John, however, is quite unconscious of any such difficulty. Although the Logos is the immanent cause of all life, so that without him nothing whatever came into being, the darkness in which the light shines is no mere absence of colour, but a positive malignant thing, a rival kingdom which has its own subjects and its own sphere. Some critics have even been reminded of the metaphysical dualism of Manichaean speculation. This last, however, is in too flagrant contradiction with the Logos theology to effect a lodgment in the Evangelists mind. The Logos is the true light which lighteth every man as it comes into the world. But since the philosophical problem is not present to the mind of the writer, he is not careful to draw the line between the ethical dualism which was part of his religious experience, and the metaphysical dualism which would have subverted the foundations of his intellectual system. The sources of this ethical dualism may be found partly in the spiritual struggles of an intensely devout nature, but to a greater extent, probably, in the furious antagonism of Judaism to nascent Christianity, a hostility which, to a Christian, must have seemed really diabolical. The temper of his own age was unconsciously transferred to the ministry of Jesus, who certainly could not have adopted the attitude of uncompromising antagonism to the Jews which we find in this Gospel. But it is worthy of note that some of the devotional literature of later times, which shows the closest affinity with Johannine ideas,the Theologia Germanica is a particularly good example,displays the same extreme ethical dualism as the Gospel. Stckl, in criticising the Theologia Germanica from the standpoint of modern Romanism, finds in it the Gnostic dualism which, with equal justice, he might have detected in parts of the Fourth Gospel. In neither the one nor the other does the distinction correspond with the Gnostic division of mankind into pneumatic and psychic, with an impassable gulf between them. Compare, e.g., the Evangelists use of the world in Joh 15:19.
(1) Doctrine of God the Father.According to the logic of the system, it has often been said, God should always manifest Himself through the Logos. No man hath seen or heard God at any time (Joh 1:18, Joh 5:37, Joh 6:46). So Philo holds that there can be no immediate communication between God, who is transcendent and unknowable, and the world. Nevertheless, it is impossible to impose this philosophical idea upon St. John. His God is not the unknowable One of the later Platonism. He is Spirit (Joh 4:24), that is, on the negative side, He is non-material, not appreciable by sense, spaceless and timeless. Yet He is not darkness, but Light; and light includes the ideas of radiation and illumination. Further yet, He is Love. He loves the world. As loving the world, He is the principle of action, the principle of the activity of the Logos. He is the Father, who draws men to Himself. Several other passages (e.g. Joh 5:7; Joh 5:21, Joh 9:29) imply independent direct action by the Father. Still, we must not over-emphasize this as a proof of the Evangelists disagreement with Philo. Philo, no doubt, could not acknowledge an Incarnation; but the idea of theophanies was naturally very familiar to him from his OT studies. There is nothing un-Philonic in the voice from heaven (Joh 12:38). Philo, too, speaks of a voice formed in the air, not coming from any animate body.
(2) Doctrine of the Holy Spirit.The dualism of Flesh and Spirit in St. John is one expression of the ethical dualism of which we have spoken above. It is very clearly set forth in the conversation with Nicodemus, when Christ says that no one can see the Kingdom of God unless he be born from above (or afresh). This He explains by repeating that unless a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is horn of the Spirit is spirit. This regeneration by water and the Spirit is the birth from above, not a simple moral renovation, but a real communication of the Divine Spirit. Natural generation is only a feeble image of this supernatural generation, which, says Loisy (perhaps too boldly, in the absence of any expression of this thought in the Gospel), is attached to the same order as the Incarnation of the Word. St. John does not draw this comparison; but he says of the elect that they were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God (Joh 1:13). The sphere of the Spirit forms a world absolutely opposed to the world of the flesh. What, then, is the content of this world of the Spirit? Since God is Spirit, the world of Spirit is the world of God, and partakes of the Divine attributes. It is absolute and indestructible; the Father hath life in himself, and has given this absolute life to the Son also. Even so the Son can transmit it, quickening whom he will. The Spirit quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing: it was to communicate to men a life which they have not naturally, that the Word became incarnate. This gift of spiritual life is figured as the bread from heaven and the living water, symbols which, as the Evangelist was far from forgetting, are the outward and visible signs in the two great Sacraments. The Divine gift is also typified as Light and Truth, words which imply an illumination of the intellect. So in Joh 17:3 life eternal is defined as the knowledge of (or rather, the process of knowing) the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom He sent. This advancing knowledge is the highest form of life. Those who are of the truth listen to the words of Christ; but the contemptuous or careless question of Pilate, What is truth? receives no answer. The truth also makes us free; it breaks the yoke of sin. In opposition to this higher world, St. John develops the idea of the cosmos, which is the direct opposite of the Spirit. It has only the appearance of life; he who has been redeemed from it has passed from death into life (Joh 5:24). It is therefore possible to call the devil the prince of this world; although the passage from the kingdom of the world to that of the Spirit is open (Joh 3:17; Joh 3:17). Jesus Christ, who has full possession of the Spirit, is come to raise men from the sphere of the world into that of the Spirit. Thus, the Johannine soteriology contemplates an enrichment, not a restoration, of human nature. The Evangelist regards sin as essentially a failure to recognize the Divine in the world. Those to whom the light has not been brought are blind, but not guilty: those to whom it has appeared, and who turn their backs upon it, are the typical sinners. From henceforth, these lovers of darkness are doomed to destruction (), when Jesus shall overcome the world as a triumphant conqueror.
The relations of the Spirit to the Logos are difficult to define. What, for example, was the office of the Spirit in the world before the Incarnation? Life, as we know, was immanent in the Logos: there seems to be no room for another . The descent of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus at His baptism is referred to in St. John, but not described. To him, the Baptism could have no such importance as it appears to have in the Synoptic record. The Spirit was given to Christ without measure from the first.
During the ministry we do not hear much of the Spirit. St. John tells us bluntly (Joh 7:39) that There was as yet no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified. Instead of the Spirit, we have a quasi-independent power ascribed to the words of the Lord Jesus, which are spoken of in the same sort of way in which Philo speaks of the and . Jesus insists that the words are not His own, but come from God (Joh 3:34 and several other places). The words are, of course, inoperative, unless they are received and taken into the heart: but if they are so received, they will abide in the heart as a living and spiritual principle (Joh 15:7, Joh 6:63). He that keepeth my words shall never see death, says Jesus (Joh 8:51); and St. Peter exclaims, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life (Joh 6:68): that is to say, not words about eternal life, but words which confer eternal life, as in Joh 8:51. Of the disobedient, He says, The word which I have spoken will judge him at the last day (Joh 12:48): and to His disciples, He that heareth my words hath passed from death unto life (Joh 5:24); Now ye are clean through the word that I have spoken unto you (Joh 15:3). The word or words would thus seem to exercise all the functions of the Paraclete. But they must not be identified; for the words were addressed to all who heard them; the Paraclete was given only to the faithful disciples. Moreover, the ministry of the Spirit, properly speaking, begins only after the glorification of Jesus Christ. Remembering that the Johannine theology implies a Trinitarian doctrine of equality and oneness between the three Persons of the Trinity, we may still say that the office of the Son, during the period of His sojourn on earth, was to reveal the Father, while the office of the Holy Spirit was, and is, to reveal the Son.
St. John takes no interest in purely speculative or dogmatic questions, and therefore he does not trouble himself about such questions as the office of the Holy Spirit, as distinguished from that of the Logos, before the Incarnation. From the practical point of view it is possible to say, as he does, that there was as yet no Spirit before Jesus was glorified. After this glorification, although the action of the Holy Spirit is often represented as that of Christ Himself returning to His own, there is a difference between the mode of action of the Incarnate Christ and that of the Holy Spirit. Not only is the former external, the latter internal; but the Incarnate Christ addressed Himself to all who came into contact with Him, and was obliged to adapt His teaching to the limited intelligence of His auditors. The Paraclete is a principle of spiritual life in the hearts of believers, on whom He acts directly and without intermediary. His work consists in glorifying Christ, bearing witness to Him and continuing His work of revelation. It is quite useless to ask whether, for St. John, the Paraclete is a distinct hypostasis in the Godhead. The category of personality is quite foreign to the Evangelist, as to his whole school, and no answer to such a question can be drawn from his words. The Evangelist does not speculate about the relation of the Spirit to the Father, who sends Him. The expression God is Spirit (not the Spirit) expresses, so to speak, the quality of the Divine nature; it does not assert the identity of the Father and the Holy Ghost, any more than in the Prologue asserts such an identity between the First and Second Persons. The Evangelist is much more concerned with the relation of the Paraclete to Christ. This indeed is one of the dominating thoughts of the Fourth Gospel. Jesus baptizes with the Holy Ghost (Joh 1:33); that is to say, the gift of the Holy Ghost is an end of the ministry of Jesus. A very important passage is Joh 14:17, in which Jesus says that the world cannot receive the Paraclete because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; because he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. The words dwelleth with you must refer to the presence of Jesus Himself, who has received the Spirit in absolutely full measure, in the midst of His disciples: after His departure the Spirit shall be in you, a condition which did not yet exist at the time when the words were spoken. This gift was, in a manner, communicated when, after the Resurrection, Jesus breathed on the disciples and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. But it would be quite foreign to the thought of the Gospel to attach importance to the physical insufflation as the vehicle of the gift of the Holy Ghost. The gift would follow in response to the prayer of Christ (Joh 14:16). He would be sent in Christs name (Joh 14:26). Jesus Himself will send Him (Joh 15:26). After the gift has come, when the disciples have entered into the sphere of the Spirit, they will still look to Christ as the principle of their life. He will still be the true Vine, of which they are the branches. It is even possible for Him to promise, I will see you againcertainly not with reference to the appearances after the Resurrection, but to the spiritual vision which has nothing to do with bodily presence (Joh 16:16-23). So when He says, I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it (Joh 17:26), the intention does not refer to any future discourses with the disciples on earth, before or after His Passion, but to the relations which will exist between Him and them under the dispensation of the Spirit. The expressions we will come unto him, and make our abode with him (Joh 14:23); and I will come again and receive you unto myself (Joh 14:3), have the same meaning, though in the latter passage there may be a special reference to the coming of Christ at the death of each believer. There is no reference in St. John to such a picture as that drawn by St. Paul in 1 Corinthians 15. In Joh 16:13 f. there is a remarkable statement about the Paraclete, that he shall not speak of himself he shall take of mine and shall show it unto you. The relation of the Paraclete to Christ is thus exactly the same as that between Christ and the Father (cf. Joh 5:30, Joh 6:38 etc.).
But the special office of the Spirit in the world begins with Christs departure from earth. The death of Christ, in St. John, has not the same significance as in the Pauline theology. St. John even shrinks from the idea of death in connexion with the incarnate Logos. The death of Christ, says Reuss, in the Johannine theology, is an exaltation, not an abasement. The end of the ministry of Christ, says Rville, is not, properly speaking, His death. His death is in reality a deliverance. The redemptive element in the death of Christ is not His suffering, but His glorification. And yet we must not forget that the idea of sacrifice, and of Christ as the true Paschal Lamb, is frequently in the mind of the Evangelist. It appears not only in the testimony of John the Baptist (Joh 1:29; Joh 1:36), but in the High-Priestly prayer, where the words for their sakes I consecrate myself (Joh 17:19), have a definitely sacrificial meaning. This doctrine was part of the Christian tradition, which St. John accepts heartily without attempting to bring it into line with his own dominant ideas. It is, however, true to say that it is by His life, and not by His death, that the Johannine Christ gives life to the world. Because I live, ye shall live also (Joh 14:19). The principle of life within them will be the Holy Spirit. As Paraclete, He will be their defender and helper against all adversaries, ghostly and bodily. He will also be their Comforter (we cannot wonder that some have defended this meaning of Paraclete); He will change their sorrow into joy, as a grain of wheat dies only to live again, or as a woman, when she is in travail, exchanges her pain for joy that a man is born into the world; He will guide them into all trutha word which in St. John has a predominantly moral significance. His action on the unbelieving world is one of conviction (, Joh 16:8), a Philonic expression, of somewhat obscure meaning. St. John does not seem to contemplate any direct action of the Holy Spirit, except in the hearts of the faithful: the office assigned to Him in the Anglican Catechism, as the sanctifier of all the elect people of God, is quite Johannine; but indirectly He will show in their true colours, and condemn, those who are the enemies of Jesus Christ. See, further, art. Holy Spirit, 14 (b).
3. Scheme of the Fourth Gospel.After the Prologue begins a section of the Gospel which may be called The Testimony. We have first the testimony of John the Baptist, then of the disciples, then of signsthe miracle at Cana. The Evangelist next describes how Jesus manifests Himself, first in Judaea, then in Samaria, and thirdly in Galilee. But another thread seems to run through these chapters, which also lends itself to the arrangement in triplets. We might call these first chapters the doctrine of Water. First we have the water of the Law superseded by the wine of the Gospel, typified by the changing of the water into wine at the marriage-feast; next we have the water of purification mentioned in the discourse with Nicodemus; and thirdly, the water of life, the nature of which is expounded in the dialogue with the woman of Samaria. In ch. 5 begins the second of the three great divisions of the book, which should be called the Conflict or . After two more signs a prolonged controversy with the Jews is described, in which the divergence between Christ and the hierarchy becomes more and more acute, till the final catastrophe is seen to be inevitable. The tension comes to breaking point after the final sign, and the end of Christs public ministry. It is at this point that the unstable multitude quits the scene with the significant question, unanswered like that of Pilate, Who is this Son of Man? (Joh 12:34). In these chapters also a subordinate thread may be discovered in the doctrine of Bread (ch. 6), the doctrine of Light (ch. 8), and the doctrine of Life, (the transit through death into life a spiritual law). The third part of the Gospel may be called the Glorification (). Jesus reveals Himself to His disciples in a series of esoteric discourses, addressed to them only, in view of His approaching departure from them. This section culminates in the High-Priestly prayer (ch. 17). Then follows the narrative of the Passion, conceived throughout as the glorification of Christ through self-chosen suffering. The humiliation and sacrifice, no less than the triumph of death, are part of the . This part of the Gospel ends with the appearance to Thomas, and the last beatitude. Ch. 21 is an epilogue.
4. Characteristic Words in the Fourth Gospel.
(1) Life ().In the Prologue an interesting and rather important question of punctuation arises in connexion with this word. Ought we to read with Authorized Version . , or, with ACD and nearly all the Ante-Nicene Fathers who comment on it, should we put the full stop at ? The former view, which is supported by Chrysostom, has prevailed in modern times, though several authorities, such as WH [Note: H Westcott and Horts text.] , put the stop at . The latter theory seems to give a richer and deeper meaning, and one more completely in accordance with the religious philosophy of the Gospel. All things were made by Him (as the Instrument), and without Him nothing came into being. That which has come into being was, in Him, life. The Logos is the vital principle from whom all that lives derives its life. Whatever life exists in the world was, eternally, timelessly, in Him. To have life in Himself is an eternal attribute of God the Son; all that appears on this fleeting scene exists, so far as it exists, by participation in His life. In short, the Logos, as life, is a cosmic principle. The idea that all things preexisted eternally in the mind of God, and are, as it were, unrolled as the ages go on, was familiar to Jewish thought. But St. Johns doctrine is more Greekthat the things of time derive whatever reality they possess from a sphere of higher reality beyond time and place. With this accord the other passages in the Gospel where Life is mentioned. In Joh 6:33-56 Christ is declared to be the Bread of God which cometh down from heaven to give life to the world. Whoso eateth His flesh and drinketh His blood hath eternal life. He who is closely united to Christwho makes the life of Christ his ownhas the principle of life within him. In Joh 17:3 the knowledge of the Father and of the Son is said to constitute eternal life. This knowledge can be possessed only through the indwelling of Him who is the principle of life. The same idea recurs in Joh 11:25, and in Joh 14:6 Christ, in whom all things consist, as St. Paul says (Col 1:17), is Himself the Resurrection and the Life, and the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Accordingly, the Life is a present possession rather than a future hope. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life (Joh 3:36, Joh 5:24). Christ came that we might have life, and have it abundantly (Joh 10:10). See Life.
(2) Truth ().St. Johns use of this word cannot be paralleled in the Synoptics, but it occurs in the Epistles of St. James, St. Peter, and St. Paul. Typical examples of the use of the word in this Gospel are Joh 1:17 grace and truth came by Jesus Christ; Joh 8:32 the truth shall make you free; Joh 14:6 I am the truth; Joh 16:13 the Spirit of truth shall guide you into all truth; Joh 17:17 thy word is truth. Christ, however, came to bear witness to the truth (Joh 18:37), so that it must have been in the world before the Incarnation. Those that are of the truth heard and accepted Him. From these passages we gather that the truth is all that really exists in every sphere, and this is why Jesus Christ, as the Logos, calls Himself the Truth (cf. Scotus Erigena: certius cognoscas Verbum naturam omnium esse). Recognition of this brings freedom, because truth corresponds with the law of our being. For those who have eyes to see, all experience is a commentary on, and witness to, Christs religion. But the children of the evil one, who was a liar from the beginning, cannot hear the words of truth (Joh 8:44 f.).
(3) Closely akin to Truth is Witness (). This idea is never absent from St. Johns mind, particularly in the earlier part of his Gospel. Every event in history, every experience, is valuable as a witness to the truth. Christ is the centre, to whose Person and claims everything testifies. The Father bears witness concerning Christ. Christ bears, and yet does not bear, witness concerning Himself (Joh 5:31 contrasted with Joh 8:14); the Spirit will bear witness concerning Him (Joh 15:26; cf. 1Jn 5:6 it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth); John the Baptist and the disciples bear witness (Joh 1:7, Joh 15:27); especially the Evangelist himself (Joh 19:35, Joh 21:24); the Scriptures bear witness (Joh 5:39-40); and lastly, the works of Christ bear witness (Joh 10:25, Joh 14:11). The witness, therefore, is found in every avenue through which the truth can reach us. Converging from all sides upon the Person of Christ, it is the means of progressive initiation ( , Joh 10:38) into the whole truththat is to say, into the knowledge and love of Christ. The contradiction in Joh 5:31 and Joh 8:14 is only partially explained. Christ makes a unique claim for Himself (in Joh 8:14), as having full knowledge of past, present, and future.
(4) Light ().When the First Epistle, putting into terse and definite phrases the teaching of the Gospel, says that God is light (1Jn 1:5), it means, in modern language, that it is the nature of God to communicate Himself. This self-communication is effected through the Logos as the principle of life. The life was the light of men (Joh 1:4). Christ is the true light which lighteth every man as it comes into the world. There is not much room for doubt that this is the right translation of Joh 1:9. The coming is repeated or continues; cf. Joh 9:5 whenever () I am in the world, I am the light of the world. The Evangelist certainly asserts that there were earlier partial Christophanies, as there will be later and even greater Christophanies through the Spirit. And yet there is a sense in which Jesus could say, Yet a little while is the light with you (Joh 12:35).
(5) The Light converges upon one point, where it shines forth as Glory (), another very characteristic word. Christ was in glory with the Father before the world was (Joh 17:5); an important passage as negativing the pantheistic conception that the Word is only the life and light of the world-that the world is the complete and only expression of His being. He was incarnate to glorify the Father on the earth (Joh 17:5), and thereby was also glorified Himself (Joh 13:31, Joh 14:13). The Spirit, too, will glorify Christ by making Him more fully known (Joh 16:14). It has been said that in St. John the universe is the poem of the Word to the glory of the Father.
(6) Judgment ().As at the creation God divided the light from the darkness, so the Incarnation necessarily and naturally divided mankind, condemning those who would not receive the light. This is the judgment (Joh 3:19). With regard to Christs own function as Judge, we have another formal contradiction (cf. Joh 12:48, Joh 3:17, Joh 12:47 with Joh 5:22; Joh 5:27, Joh 9:39, Joh 5:30). The contrast is striking, but the Evangelists meaning is clear. The coming of Christ disclosed an actual relation; He made no new, more severe laws; He only revealed, in all its unfathomable depth, the gulf that yawns between God and the devil, and between their respective servants. The one that seeketh and judgeth (Joh 8:50) is the eternal power of righteousness which is symbolized in the Law (Joh 5:45), and expressed in the Gospel (Joh 12:48 f.). At the same time, the judgment is a personal one, and is committed to Christ as a son of man (Joh 5:27). Mankind is judged by a human standard, though by the standard of humanity at its best.
(7) World ().It is remarkable that St. John uses , while the Synoptics use . The former is the Greek, the latter the Jewish way of envisaging reality; for the Greeks pictured it more readily under the form of space, the Jews under that of time. The world is the sum-total of existence viewed (by abstraction) without the spiritual world. It is the things below (Joh 8:23), as I opposed to the things above. The concept is therefore an abstraction for certain purposes, and has no real existence, for the world is upheld in being only by the Logos, who is not of the world. It comprises all that belongs to the categories of time and place. Christ came into the world at His incarnation, and He is in the world till His death and glorification. He prays not that His disciples may be taken out of the world, but that they may be kept from the evil. From this idea comes that of the world as human society as it organizes itself apart from God, hence the severe judgments passed upon the world; e.g. 1Jn 5:19 the whole world lieth in the wicked one, and similar phrases in the Gospel. Thus the world is that which is external, transitory, and corrupt. The Evangelist, it need hardly be said, does not follow up the thought of the unreality of the world apart from God, into acosmistic speculations. Thinkers who have done so have been driven into a purely negative conception of evil, and have often drifted into a dreamy pantheism. But St. John, as we have seen, presents us with an intense ethical dualism, including a belief in a personal or quasi-personal devil, who is the de facto prince of this world.
(8) To believe ().This, and not the substantive , is St. Johns chosen expression. The verb has two constructions: (1) with the dative (Joh 5:24, Joh 8:31, both mistranslated in Authorized Version ), to believe a person or statementaccept the veracity of the former, or the truth of the latter; and (2) . a construction characteristically Johannine, which occurs only once in the Synoptics (Mat 18:6 = Mar 9:42). In the Synoptics generally faith is relative to a particular objectthe condition of obtaining some special miraculous benefit. But in St. John faith is allegiance to Jesus Christ, and, as such, a condition of eternal life (Joh 1:12, Joh 6:40), which is also a progressive state, depending on knowledge (Joh 17:3) as well as faith. The Evangelist studiously avoids as well as , using in both cases the verbs only.
(9) Love ().This is the new commandment (Joh 13:34). Love is the bond which unites the Son to the Father, the disciples to the Son, and the disciples to each other. As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you (Joh 15:9). That the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. The virtue of love is no vague sentiment, but shows itself necessarily in action. He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me (Joh 14:21; Joh 14:23). Love is not to be sharply distinguished from faith, though the former is a state mainly of the affections, the latter of the will and the intellect. Theologians who developed the Johannine ideas further, like Clement of Alexandria, agree that faith is the beginning, love the crown, of the spiritual life. Faith and love are both simple states, and, as Clement says, are not taught. The soul passes out of the simplicity of faith, through the multiplicity of strenuous interests in the life of duty, into a second and more Divine simplicity, and immediacy of intercourse with God. St. Johns teaching about love culminates in ch. 17, in which our Lord seems to imply that the name of the Father, which He has declared to His disciples, is Love.
5. The miracles of the Fourth Gospel.The miracles in St. John are either signs (), in which case their abnormal and also their symbolic character is emphasized, or works (), in which case no distinction between natural and supernatural is thought of, and the works are only component parts of the one work, to do which Jesus came into the world. The Johannine Christ does not wish faith in His person to rest on the signs, though He allows them a legitimate weight in fortifying a weak faith. It is better to believe for the sake of the words than of the works, He implies in Joh 14:11; and the last beatitude (Joh 20:29) is a reproof of Thomas, who believed only when he had ocular testimony to the Resurrection. The seven miracles selected by the Evangelist have the value of acted parables, and in some cases the symbolical significance is clearly indicated.
(1) The miracle at Cana in Galilee (Joh 2:1 ff.).Christ is represented as beginning His public ministry at a wedding. Unlike the Essenes, and unlike John the Baptist, Jesus was not personally an ascetic. He drank wine, and ate what was put before Him. There was, indeed, a special appropriateness in this festivity at the beginning of His ministry, when He had just called together His family of Apostles, whom He loved to compare to a bridal party (cf. Mat 9:15 ||). The miracle may have taken place on the last of the seven days usually given up to bridal festivities. The occasion gives Christ an opportunity to assert the superior sacredness of His mission to any family ties (His words to His mother convey an unmistakable rebuke), and also (through the mouth of the master of the ceremonies) to indicate symbolically the supersession of the water of the Law by the good wine of the Gospel.
(2) The healing of the officials son (Joh 4:46 ff.).The miracle of healing, performed for the benefit of a court official () of Herod Antipas, is the only sign of the Synoptic type recorded in St. John. The miracle is conditioned by the faith of the father; it is a work of mercy, pure and simple, and no symbolic meaning can easily be detected in it.
(3) The paralytic at Bethesda (Joh 5:1 ff.).This work of healing at first sight resembles the last, and it introduces the situation, familiar in the Synoptics, of a quarrel with the strict legalists about Sabbath observance. But the Evangelist has a deeper lesson to convey by this work of healing on the Sabbath, one which profoundly modifies the whole conception of the way in which that day should be kept. My Father worketh hitherto, and I work (Joh 5:17). That is to say, the Sabbath rest of God is unimpeded activity, and that is the true notion of rest, as opposed to inertia. It follows that a mere negative abstinence from exertion of every kind is not an intelligent or acceptable mode of honouring God. The verse is also theologically important, as separating the Christian idea of God the Father from the Neo-Platonic Absolute, and from the God of such speculative mystics as Eckhart and Silesius. Lastly, by co-ordinating His own activity with that of the Father, Jesus claims to be Himself Divine.
(4) The feeding of the five thousand (Joh 6:5 ff.).This miracle is also recorded by the Synoptists, but St. John tells it with a very different purpose. In no other miracle is the didactic purpose, referred to by St. Augustine, more apparent. Interrogemus ipsa miracula quid nobis loquantur de Christo; habent enim, si intellegantur, linguam suam. Nam quia ipse Christus Verbum Dei est, etiam factum Verbi verbum nobis est. How much this miracle is an acted parable is shown by Joh 6:30, where, in answer to the challenge of the Jews, Christ does not make any appeal to the miracle as a sign. His answer is, My Father giveth you the true bread from heavennot only in one miraculous act, but always. In Joh 6:34 the metaphor is misunderstood by the hearers (a favourite literary device of the Evangelist), and then comes the great saying in Joh 6:35. The device recurs in Joh 6:52-54. The discourse on the Bread of Life does not refer directly to the Eucharist, which had not yet been instituted; but the Evangelist undoubtedly wishes, by narrating it, to spiritualize and generalize the Eucharistic doctrine current when he wrote, and to check the tendency to formality and materialism (cf. esp. Joh 6:63). In Joh 6:51 ff. there is clearly an allusion to the Paschal lamb, the blood of which was sprinkled on the lintels and doorposts; and therefore the thought of sacrifice was already in the mind of Jesus. But the leading idea is that of identifying ourselves with the life of Christ, being reborn into His spirit: this union constitutes eternal life. Christ is Himself the gift which He brings; even through apparent failure He fulfils His work (Joh 6:34-38). A spiritual preparation is needed to understand how a man can thus unite earth and heaven (Joh 6:43-44); but in part the question is answered in the OT (Joh 6:45-46), and in part the believer must co-operate (Joh 6:47-50). Man lives only by participation in the virtues of Christs life and death, which brings with it a personal union between the believer and Christ (Joh 6:53-56). The whole discourse (, not saying, Joh 6:60) seemed harsh () to those who heard it: it pointed to self-devotion, and surrender even to death. Accordingly, many even of His disciples left Him. Christ thereupon said (Joh 6:61), Does this offend you? What if ye shall see the Son of Man ascend where he was before? When the bodily presence is withdrawn, and the flesh entirely disappears, the meaning of the harsh discourse will be made manifestviz. that the union with Christ is spiritual, and therefore a truth for all times and places. Unlike the eating of manna by the fathers, which only nourished their bodily frames for a few hours, the bread from heaven confers eternal life. The flesh profiteth nothing; the words which He spoke to them were spirit and life. This language would bring great comfort to the disciples of the Evangelists own day, when the hope deferred of the Second Coming was making many hearts sick. It can hardly be an accident that the designation of the traitor, which in the Synoptics occurs at the same hour as the institution of the Eucharist, in this Gospel follows immediately the discourse on the bread of life The whole passage represents, under another form, the narrative of the Last Supper.
(5) The walking on the sea (Joh 6:16 f.) is closely connected with the more important miracle, and merely illustrates the power of Christ over another element.
(6) The man born blind (ch. 9).The disciples are confronted by one of the most perplexing problems of lifethat of a vie manque. A beggar lies before them, who has been blind from his birth. Was this crippling infirmity a punishment for his own sins, either in a previous state of existence or in anticipation of those which he was going to commit, or for the sins of his parents? Jesus says that neither explanation is the right one; the reason is that the works of God might be made manifest in him. He adds that for all alike the night cometh, when no man can work. The moral difficulty about the justice of human suffering receives no direct answer. The most significant verses in the discourse about the Light of the world are 25, 39, 41. Jesus has come into the world for judgment, not only for a discernment of good and bad people, but (as a necessary result) to procure for the first eternal life, and to pardon the last. The blind man typifies humanity converted to Christianity, coming out of darkness and made to see by Christ; while the representatives of Judaism, proud of their enlightenment, are struck with blindnessblind leaders of the blind.
(7) The raising of Lazarus (ch. 11).The narrative of this, the last and greatest of the seven signs, contains several characteristic features. The suggestion implied in Joh 11:3 does not induce Jesus to hurry His action at all. He deliberately waits two days before starting for Judaea. Similarly in Joh 11:3 f. the Evangelist is anxious to show that He did not act upon His mothers suggestion. Still more instructive is the misunderstanding of Christs words in Joh 11:12, and the conversation of Martha (Joh 1:21 ff.). She makes a half request, which she does not dare to put directly (Joh 11:22), to which Christ answers: Thy brother shall rise again. Martha misunderstands this to refer to the resurrection at the last day. But Christ did not mean either this or that He intended to bring Lazarus to life again. Just as in ch. 6 He refuses to mention the miracle, in reply to the question What sign showest thou? (Joh 6:30), but gives as the sign the declaration, I am the bread of life; so here He does not invite attention to what He is about to do, but to His own Person. I am the resurrection and the life. The deep significance of this is often missed. If the words referred only to the approaching miracle, they would convey but hollow comfort to the Christian mourner, for whom no miracles are wrought; if we take them to refer to the future resurrection at the last day, we are forgetting that the words were spoken as a correction of that thought. The words bid us concentrate our thoughts upon the Person of Christ. He that believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he live; and he that liveth and believeth on me shall never die. This is not a promise of resurrection; it is a denial of death. The resurrection is a personal communication of the Lord Himself, not a gift to be obtained from another. Martha had spoken of a gift to be obtained from God and dispensed by Christ. Jesus answers that He Himself is (not will give or procure) the Resurrection and the Life. By taking humanity upon Himself He has revealed the permanence of mans individuality and its indestructibility. The Incarnation brought life and immortality to light. Death is abolished; the grave has been robbed of its victory by the fact that Christ lives, and is the life of the individual believer. In Him all that belongs to the completeness of personal being finds its permanence and consummation. Because He is the Life, He must also be the Resurrection; in other words, our true life is hid with Him in God. The dead in Christ are alive, in virtue of their union with Him who is the Resurrection and the Life. After this sublime lesson, the physical miracle seems almost an anti-climax, a thing to be half regretted, like the restitution of Jobs large fortune and his flourishing family by his second marriage. But not only is the miracle a parallel in act to the verbal revelation which precedes it, but it emphasizes the very deep lesson that though life in its highest sense is indestructible, we must pass through the gate of death in order to reach it. This is one of the profoundest and most characteristic doctrines of Christianity. Those who have found in the maxim Die to live the kernel of Christs religion, have penetrated a large part at least of His secret. This, and the lesson that it is the Person of Christ Himself, revealed as the Resurrection and the Life, rather than the hopes of a gift to be one day conferred by Him, that should be the truest consolation for mourners, are the two main points in the narrative of the raising of Lazarus.
Conclusion.The Fourth Gospel gives us an answer to the question, What think ye of Christ? Moreover, it maintains that the answer to this question is the dividing-line between light and darkness. To know Christ is to know the Father; and no man cometh to the Father except by Him. The Christ whom to know is to live is not, of course, merely the human Jesus, but the eternal Word who tabernacled among us in human form. The Evangelist would have accepted Bengels dictum, that conversio fit ad Dominum ut Spiritum. But he regards the identification of this spiritual power with Jesus of Nazareth as essential. The vigorous words of 1 John (1Jn 1:1-3; 1Jn 4:1-3) unquestionably express the Christological position of the author of the Gospel, even if some doubts exist as to the common authorship of the two books. It is the peculiarity of the Johannine theology that we pass backwards and forwards between the universal and the particular, between time and eternity, present and future, outward and inward. To the philosopher this oscillation is most perplexing; but it is the true normal pulsation of the spiritual and moral life, in which we may always trace a double movement of expansion and concentration. On the one hand, we must lose our souls in order to find them, we must die daily in order to live. We must continually pass out of ourselves, forget ourselves, and identify ourselves with interests of which we are not the centre. We must enlarge our life till there is nothing selfish, personal, or limited about it. And, on the other hand, exactly in proportion as we succeed in doing this, we shall enrich our lives and become more keenly conscious of the worth and value of our own souls in Gods sight. There will be no blurring of individual distinctions, no Buddhist absorption in the Infinite, but a growing sense that the soul of man is the throne of the Godhead, and his body the temple of the Holy Ghost.
Literature.See at end of preceding article.
W. R. Inge.