The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown (74 page)

While the community's cleansing served as a preamble to Jesus' Farewell Discourse, his parting prayer (17:1–26) provided a postlude. Jesus first prayed for himself (17:1–5); then for his disciples (17:6–19); and finally for all those who were going to believe on account of his disciples' proclamation (17:20–26). This provided a fitting conclusion to the Farewell Discourse and a suitable introduction to the events of the Passion Narrative that ensued in rapid order.

B. The Passion Narrative (18–19)
After praying, Jesus, knowing what was about to happen to him (18:4), was arrested by a group of soldiers aided by Judas the betrayer under the cover of night. Johannine irony thickens as the passion events unfold. From the world's perspective, the high priest's questioning of Jesus (18:19–24), Peter's denials (18:15–18, 25–27), and Pilate's sentencing (18:28–19:16) revealed the misfortunes of a Jewish pretender who sought to mislead his followers by claiming to be the long-awaited
Messiah. From John's perspective, however, Jesus was the otherworldly king who had come to this world as a witness to the truth; he was the one who would one day serve as its Judge but who now was to give his life for the sins of the world; and he was the crucified, buried, and risen Messiah, whose resurrection constituted the final act of the “elusive Christ” who had continued to evade the world's grasp.
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As the Fourth Evangelist made clear, all of these final events in Jesus' earthly ministry unfold according to the predetermined, sovereign plan of God (12:37–41; 13:1–3; 18:4), a perspective that is particularly evident throughout the Passion Narrative (see esp. the fulfillment quotations in 19:24,28,36–37).
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At the trial and crucifixion, the Jews are shown to join the world in its unbelief and rejection of the Messiah. The carefully planned structure of an oscillating pattern of outdoor and indoor scenes of Jesus before Pilate (18:28–19:16a)
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is intended “to exhibit the paradoxical outcome of the whole process—how they [Pilate and the Jewish leaders] found each other in a single unprincipled alliance against Jesus.”
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Their alliance led to Jesus' crucifixion and the apparent success of Jesus' foes (19:16b–42).

C. Jesus' Resurrection and Appearances and Commissioning the Disciples (20)
Jesus' resurrection and resurrection appearances provide the conclusion to the Passion Narrative and the penultimate conclusion to the entire Gospel. The empty tomb offered the first hopeful glimmer of the return that Jesus promised in the Farewell Discourse (20:1–10). This glimmer of hope reached its initial fruition in Jesus' first postburial encounter with Mary Magdalene (20:11–18). Appearances continued to the disciples without Thomas (20:19–23) and then with him (20:24–29).

Climaxing the “sending” motif in this Gospel, Jesus commissioned his disciples (“As the Father has sent Me, I also send you”; 20:21), breathing on them and, in a symbolic gesture, conferring on them the Holy Spirit (20:22) and a message of forgiveness (20:23).
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Jesus' appearance to Thomas concluded with the latter's climactic confession, “My Lord and my God!” (20:28), which recalled the opening identification of Jesus as God in the prologue (1:1,18).

D. Concluding Purpose Statement (20:30–31)
The concluding purpose statement in 20:30–31 features virtually every major theme from the preceding narrative: (1) certain selected signs; (2) the necessity of believing that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God; and (3) the promise of life, both present and eternal.
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Table 7.4: The Seven Words of Jesus at the Cross

IV. Epilogue: The Complementary Roles of Peter and the Beloved Disciple (21)

At a first glance it seems that John's Gospel should have come to an end with the concluding purpose statement in 20:30–31 and that the epilogue was most likely added by a later writer subsequent to John's death. On the contrary, however, most likely the epilogue serves as the closing bookend that corresponds to the opening bookend of the prologue. The epilogue resolves the relationship between Peter and the “disciple Jesus loved” in terms of noncompetition and resolves the identity of Johannine authorship. Thus the epilogue most likely came from John's hand: its language and style are similar to chaps. 1–20; no textual evidence exists that John's Gospel ever circulated without it. Therefore, John's epilogue appears to be part of John's overall literary plan.
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A. Jesus' Third Appearance (21:1–4)
After appearing to the disciples without Thomas and then with him (see above), Jesus showed himself to them a third time, further validating his resurrection.
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The disciples returned to the Sea of Tiberias (the Sea of Galilee; see 6:1, 23) to fish, Peter's former profession (see Matt 4:18).
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When Jesus called to them from the shore, they failed to recognize him (21:4). Yet after he instructed them on where to cast their net, the “disciple Jesus loved” did recognize the “Lord,” prompting Peter to plunge into the water to swim ashore. The disciples' fishing trip introduced the next two important sections of the epilogue by providing the context for these subsequent events.

B. Jesus and Peter (21:15–19)
Earlier Peter had openly denied knowing Jesus three times (18:15–18, 25–27). Now, correspondingly, Jesus openly affirmed and commissioned Peter before his fellow disciples. Despite his failure, Peter would become the leader of the
church (see Matt 16:16–19; Acts 1–12) and glorify God by dying a death similar to that of his Lord (21:18–19; the phrase “stretch out your hands” was a common ancient euphemism for Crucifixion).

C. Jesus and the Disciple Jesus Loved (21:20–25)
The Fourth Evangelist concluded his Gospel with an interchange between Jesus, Peter, and the “disciple Jesus loved.” The rumor was dispelled that this disciple would not die prior to Jesus' return (21:23), and the “disciple Jesus loved” was identified as the author of the Gospel (21:24; see 21:20; 13:23; cf. “Author” above). As noted, this brings proper closure to the Gospel by resolving the relationship between Peter and “the disciple Jesus loved” in terms of noncompetition and by revealing the identity of the Gospel's author.

Finally, the concluding hyperbole recalls similar concluding statements in Greco-Roman and Jewish writings (21:24–25; cf. Eccl 12:9–12;
Soperim
6.8). As one commentator noted, “John's hyperbole…extols neither the books people write nor the wisdom people acquire, but rather the deeds Jesus performed. Taken together with the prologue's stress on Jesus' person, the epilogue's reference to his works renders John's christological portrait not exhaustively comprehensive but sufficiently complete.”
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THEOLOGY

Theological Themes
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Jesus as the Word, the Lamb of God, and the Messianic Son of God
John's Gospel concludes the Gospels portion of the NT canon by stating that the whole world could not contain the books that would need to be written if everything Jesus had done and said were recorded (21:25). This statement serves as a fitting conclusion to both John's Gospel and to all four Gospels in their entirety. With its presentation of Jesus as the preexistent Word who was with God in the beginning and who was himself God (1:1), yet who was made flesh (1:14) and as the “Lamb of God” provided substitutionary atonement for sin (1:29, 36), John's Gospel makes an indispensable contribution to the NT canon.

Indeed, Jesus is at the heart of the Johannine narrative. John presented Jesus as both divine (1:1; 8:58; 12:41; 17:5; 20:28) and human (4:6–7; 11:33, 35; 19:28).
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It is not possible to explore the full depth of John's depiction of Jesus here. The following survey briefly discusses the following interrelated aspects of John's Christology: Jesus as the Word
(Logos)
; Jesus as the Son of God; Jesus as the Lamb of God; and Jesus' signs and their relation to faith.
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At the outset John's account is based on the “Old Testament understanding that God sends his Word (see 1:1:
logos)
to accomplish his purposes (see Isa 55:10–11).”
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This squarely places John's Christology within the framework of OT salvation history. The opening phrase “in the beginning” recalls the first words of Genesis, which recount the creation of the world (1:1; see 1:3). According to John, the coming of the Word into the world and his being made flesh in Jesus constitute an event of comparable magnitude (1:1,14). Jesus is presented as the Word sent from heaven to accomplish a mission and, once the mission had been accomplished, to return to the place from which he came (1:1,14; 13:1–3; 16:28; see Isa 55:11).

People must believe that God sent Jesus not only as the king of Israel (1:49) but also as the “Lamb of God” (1:29, 36). In his Gospel, John echoed OT theology and typology by alluding to the sacrificial Passover lamb. John was the only evangelist to call Jesus “the Lamb of God,” and he said that Jesus “takes away the sin of the world” (1: 29). This provides the remedy for people's sin (see 8:24,34), which is ultimately the sin of unbelief in Jesus (16:9). The sacrificial and substitutionary nature of Jesus' death is also highlighted in references to Jesus as “the bread of life” given for the life of the world (6:31–59) and as the “good shepherd” who gives his life for his sheep (10:11–17). A vital part of Jesus' mission, therefore, is the sacrificial removal of sin.

Perhaps most pervasively, John's Gospel presents Jesus as the Son sent by the Father (3:17, 35–36; 5:19–26; 6:40; 8:35–36; 14:13; 17:1). This metaphor is taken from the Jewish concept of the
šālîah
, according to which the sent one is like the sender himself, faithfully pursuing the sender's interests (see 13:16,20). Jesus' messianic mission thus derives from God and is thoroughly grounded in Jewish forms of thought. Yet Jesus is not just any messenger; he is the messianic Son of God (20:30–31), the One and Only Son from the Father, who has come to give a full account of him (1:14, 18; 3:16, 18).

The Signs
The Significance of the signs in John's Gospel can hardly be overstated. Jesus' performance of selected messianic signs dominates the first half of John's Gospel (chaps. 1–12) as it builds inexorably to its first climax, the Jewish rejection of Jesus as Messiah (12:36b–41). Notably, Jesus' performance of messianic signs culminates in the raising of Lazarus, anticipating his own resurrection. Overall it appears that John's selection of particular acts of Jesus as signs proceeded on the criterion of particularly startling or stunning displays of Jesus' messianic power. In each case this is made clear by specific references provided by the evangelist, often involving (large) numbers.

In the case of Jesus' turning water into wine, John noted the large quantity of water that was turned into wine (2: 6). In the clearing of the temple, the long time span that had elapsed since the completion of the temple is contrasted with the short time span in which Jesus' body, the “new temple,” would be raised up (2:19–20). Jesus' healing of the centurion's son is a hard long-distance miracle (note that attention is drawn to the perfect
coincidence between when Jesus spoke the word and when the healing took place (i.e., 1:00 p.m.; 4:52–53). The lame man healed by Jesus had been in that condition for 38 years (5:38). In the feeding of the multitude the evangelist noted the large amount of leftovers, 12 basketsful (6:13). The blind man healed by Jesus had been blind from birth (9:1). Finally, Lazarus was not only dead when Jesus arrived on the scene; he had been dead for four days and was already decomposing (11:39).

All of these features underscore the amazing nature of Jesus' displays of his messianic identity, which rendered Jewish unbelief all the more inexcusable (a function of John's theodicy, showing God to be just in condemning unbelief).
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The Significance of the signs in John's Gospel is further highlighted by the strategic references to Jesus' signs at the end of the first half of John's Gospel (12:36–40) and in the purpose statement at the end of the Gospel proper (20:30–31). This shows that, for John, the signs were both a key Christological motif and a structural component of his Gospel.

Similar to the sending motif in John's Gospel, the signs concept is deeply grounded in Jewish thought.
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The trajectory of antecedent OT theology reaches back all the way to the signs and wonders performed by Moses at the exodus. Building upon this trajectory, Jesus' signs point to a new exodus and deliverance for God's people from their sins (see Luke 9:31). Hence, in this Gospel, more so than in the Synoptic accounts, the supernatural nature of Jesus' works—his “miracles” (Gk.
dynamis
), a term used consistently in the Synoptics but not in John, which used the equivalent
sēmeion
—is placed within the larger framework of their prophetic and messianic symbolism. Jesus' miracles are not only powerful works; they showed him to be the Messiah.

Similar to the signs performed by Moses and later prophets (cf. Isa 20:3), Jesus' signs thus served primarily to authenticate the one who performed them as God's true representative. People are severely criticized for demanding spectacular evidence of Jesus' authority (4:48); at the same time, signs are offered as an aid to faith (10: 38). And while blessing is pronounced on “those who believe without seeing” (20:29), Jesus' signs are clearly designed to elicit faith from his audience, and when they fail to do so, people are held responsible. The desired outcome of Jesus' mission is that people would believe in him as the Messiah. His signs, then, serve as evidence for his identity and as an aid to lead unbelievers to faith.