The Cradle, the Cross, and the Crown (75 page)

The New Covenant Community and John's Portrayal of “the Jews”
A primary goal of Jesus' messianic mission in John is the formation of a new messianic community. Like his portrait of Jesus, John's presentation of this community follows a salvation-historical pattern.
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In keeping with OT typology, believers are described as a “flock” (10:1–20) and
as “branches” of the vine (15:1–8). Yet John did not teach that the church replaced Israel. Instead, he identified
Jesus
as Israel's replacement:
he
is God's “vine” who takes the place of Israel, God's OT “vineyard” (Isaiah 5). John acknowledged that “salvation comes from the Jews” (4:22), yet he portrayed Israel as part of the unbelieving world that rejected Jesus. Jesus' “own”—the Jews—did not receive him (1:11), and in their place the Twelve (except for Judas), who are now “his own,” are the recipients of his love (13:1; see chap. 17). The Jewish leaders, on the other hand, never did belong to Jesus' flock (10:26).

Jesus' replacement of Israel raises the question of the new messianic community's relationship with the Jewish people. It has at times been alleged that John is anti-Semitic, since he seems to use the term “the Jews” (
Ioudaioi
) predominantly in a negative sense. But of the 68 times he uses the expression, many of them mean either “Judeans” (as opposed to Galileans; 1:19) or “Jewish leaders” (see 19:7, 12). Frequently, the phrase refers to the majority of the Jewish people or the Jewish nation as a whole that rejected Jesus (10:33).
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Thus John did not mean to suggest that the Jews are now shut out from God's salvation-historical program—especially since “salvation is from the Jews” (4:22)—but that they, like everyone else, must come to Jesus
in faith
rather than presuming upon their Jewishness.

Once someone has been incorporated into the new messianic community by Jesus through faith, that person's standing is secure. Believers are given to Jesus by God, and he will not lose any of them (6:39). Moreover, no one can snatch them out of Jesus' hand because the Father, who gave them to Jesus, is greater than all (10:29). Even Jesus' 12 disciples did not choose him, but he chose them (15:16). Only the betrayer, Judas Iscariot, was doomed to destruction “so that the Scripture would be fulfilled” (17:12).

The chosen ones in the community, however, must “remain” in Jesus and “bear fruit” for him (15:4–8). Anyone who does not remain in Jesus will be thrown aside like a withered branch fit only to be burned (an emblem of divine judgment). Such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned (15:6). Election and perseverance, however, are but two sides of the same coin, as John indicates elsewhere: “They went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. However, they went out so that it might be made clear that none of them belongs to us” (1 John 2:19).
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The community is formally constituted in the commissioning narrative where Jesus “breathed” on his gathered disciples and brought into being a “new creation” (20:22), recalling the creation of the first human being, Adam (Gen 2:7). Jesus' parting preparation of his followers comes in terms reminiscent of Moses' Deuteronomic farewell discourse, another instance of John's drawing on OT antecedents.
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At this salvation-historical juncture, however, it was not Israel but believers in Jesus who represent the core group through which God would pursue his redemptive purposes. In this, Jesus' dependent and obedient relationship to his sender, the Father, is made the paradigm for the disciples' relationship with their sender, Jesus.
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Thus the Father sent his Son, the Messiah, to establish his new messianic community, and he commissioned his new messianic community, whose mission it is to believe, remain in, and proclaim the message of Jesus the Messiah.

Something to Think About: No Partiality with God

J
ewish rabbis in Jesus' day typically avoided women and stayed away from Samaritans. Thus the Samaritan woman who came to the well in Sychar had at least two strikes against her. Add to this her immoral lifestyle, and Jesus had every reason to evade contact with this woman. Even the woman herself was surprised that Jesus was talking to her: “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” (4:9). John added, “For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.” Jesus' disciples, upon their return from grocery shopping in town, also “were amazed that he was talking with a woman” (4:27).

By contrast, everyone in Jesus' day would have been honored to engage in conversation with Nicodemus, a member of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish ruling council. Jesus called him “Israel's teacher” (3:10 NIV). This teacher visited Jesus by night to inquire tacitly as to the nature of his teaching. Similarly, the Jewish authorities had looked into John the Baptist's activities (1:19). Later, the high priest asked Jesus about his disciples and his teaching at the Jewish trial preceding Jesus' crucifixion (18:19). Yet when Nicodemus showed up on Jesus' doorstep, Jesus was not intimidated. To the contrary, he challenged him to be born again.

Ever since NT times, the church has had trouble treating the rich and the poor alike. Paul and James both exhorted believers not to give preferential treatment to the wealthy (1 Tim 6:17–19; Jas 2:1–7). By not showing partiality, Jesus exhibited a divine trait, for God is no respecter of persons. You and I should not think that because of our status—say, as a seminary professor or as an upright citizen of our community—we will be treated by God any differently than anyone else. As God told Samuel, “THE LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (1 Sam 16:7 NIV).

God the Father
As mentioned, God in John's Gospel is preeminently the Father (5:17–23) and sender of Jesus Christ (5:37; see 10:30–39). John referred to God the Father as many as 120 times in his Gospel. The Father is thus ubiquitous in the Gospel; however, John's focus is not primarily on God in his own right but on God as the Father and sender of Jesus. The reason for this is that John's audience, including Jewish people
and Gentile God-fearers and proselytes, already believed in God (see 14:1). John's purpose was to lead them from the common belief in God to faith in Jesus as the God-sent Messiah and Son of God (20:30–31). Nevertheless, God's existence in John's Gospel is pervasively present and unequivocally assumed.
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The unequivocal identification of Jesus as God
(theos)
in John's Gospel (1:1, 18; 20:28; see 5:18; 10:30) led to the Jewish charge of blasphemy, ultimately resulting in Jesus' crucifixion (5:18; 19:5). Jesus' contemporaries alleged that his claim of deity clashed with the Jewish belief in one God (monotheism), which was rooted in the Deuteronomistic confession of God as “one” (Deut 6:4) and enshrined in the first two of the Ten Commandments (Exod 20:2–6; Deut 5:6–10), distinguishing Israel from the other surrounding nations (see 8:41). This apparent ditheism (belief in “two gods”) was an objection Jesus himself addressed with reference to Ps 82:6 in John 10:34–38.

By claiming unity with God the Father in both his works and his essence (see esp. 5:19–20; 10:30; 14:9–11), Jesus expanded the horizons of Jewish monotheism by showing that there was indeed one God, yet that this God included two, and in fact, three Persons (including the Holy Spirit), who sustained an exceedingly intimate relationship of love and cooperated in God's plan in salvation-history (see 14:15–26, where the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are all said to come to reside in believers). In this demonstration of Jesus' deity as compatible with Jewish monotheistic beliefs, John provided an indispensable apologetic for the viability of Christianity for his Jewish readers and those attracted to the Jewish faith.
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Salvation and Substitutionary Atonement
According to John, God's purpose in sending Jesus was the salvation of the world, resulting in eternal life (see 3:16–17). In fact, the giving of life may be the most consistently stated purpose of Jesus' mission in John's Gospel (see 6:57; 10:10; 17:2; cf. 5:24).
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Salvation comes only through Jesus (14:6) and is offered to everyone who believes (3:16). As the “Savior of the world” (4:42), Jesus provided substitutionary atonement, a concept some allege is missing in John. Instead, they argue that, for John, salvation came through mere revelation.
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This argument assumes that John understood salvation like his gnostic counterparts, who believed salvation came through knowledge of divine revelation and mystical experience.

But John made clear that Jesus indeed provided substitutionary atonement. First, John the Baptist referred to Jesus as “the Lamb of God” (1:29, 36), which is reminiscent of the substitutionary role of the sacrificial lamb in the OT. Second, Caiaphas unwittingly prophesied that Jesus would die “for the people,” indicating the vicarious nature of Jesus' death (11:49–52). Third, John referred to Jesus' sacrificial, vicarious death in the “bread of
life” and “good shepherd” passages (6:51; 10:15–18). While John did stress the revelatory aspect of Jesus' mission, he did not echo the gnostic notion that knowledge of revelation by itself equals salvation. Rather, he taught that God's love was savingly revealed in the “lifting up” of Jesus on the cross, and it is only by believing in Jesus' substitutionary, vicarious death that people receive eternal life (3:16).
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The Holy Spirit
John's teaching regarding the Holy Spirit is significant, especially in the second half of his Gospel.
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In the first half of the Gospel, reference is made to the Spirit in only a few passages. The Baptist testified that the Spirit rested on Jesus during his earthly ministry (1:32–33) and did so to an unlimited degree (3:34). Jesus noted that his words are life-giving and Spirit infused (6:63), and the evangelist told his readers that the Spirit was to be given only subsequent to Jesus' earthly ministry (7:39). Other possible references to the Spirit turn out at closer scrutiny more likely to be generic references to spirit in contrast to flesh (that is, the material contrasted with the spiritual realm; 3:5–8) and identifying God as spirit (that is, he is a spiritual being; 4:23–24).
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The primary impetus for the teaching about the Spirit in the second half of the Gospel is Jesus' imminent departure, the occasion for the Farewell Discourse. The purpose for the teaching on the Spirit is to ensure the “continuity between Jesus' teaching and the Holy Spirit's mission of explaining that teaching.”
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Once Jesus has been exalted with the Father subsequent to his resurrection, the Holy Spirit will come and take his place with his followers as the “other Counselor” (14:16). However, this does not mean that Jesus will disappear from the scene. To the contrary, from his exalted position with the Father, he will continue to direct the disciples' mission, answering prayer directed to God in his name (14:12–13; see Acts 1:1).

In the Farewell Discourse, the Spirit is presented as the connecting link between the believer, Jesus, and God, who served as an abiding presence in believers (14:17); who taught and reminded them of Jesus' teaching (14:26); bore witness to him (15:26); convicted the world (16:7); guided believers into all truth (16:13); and declared things to come (16:13). This latter function included the formation of the NT canon as apostolic testimony to Jesus. In all of this, the Spirit did not act independently of God or Jesus. Rather, he depended on them and their mission while being one with them.
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The Holy Spirit is also prominently featured in the Johannine commissioning scene, where Jesus is shown to impart the Spirit to his disciples, constituting them as his new covenant community
(20:22).
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Thus only in the power of the Spirit will they be able to fulfill their mission, which is patterned after Jesus' own sending from the Father.

Jesus' Fulfillment of Typology Inherent in Jewish Feasts, Sacred Space
The first half of John's Gospel, and here especially chaps. 5–10, revolve around Jesus' fulfillment of the symbolism inherent in Jewish religious festivals and other institutions. This includes Passover
(6:4;
Jesus is “the bread of life,” 6:48) and Tabernacles (7:2; Jesus is the “light of the world,” 8:12; 9:5). In these cases, Jesus is shown by the evangelist to embody and fulfill the symbolism and typology inherent in these antecedent Jewish religious festivals, which adds to his portrait of Jesus as Messiah, along with his performance of signs and his self-identification as the divine “I am.”

Along similar lines, John also shows Jesus as embodying sacred space. In an allusion to the OT tabernacle, John said that Jesus “took up residence” (literally “pitched his tent,”
skenoō)
among God's people (1:14). John's Gospel also features Jesus' prediction to the Jewish authorities that the temple would be destroyed and rebuilt in three days, a veiled reference to his crucifixion and resurrection, which John interpreted with reference to “the sanctuary of His body” (2:21; see vv. 19–20). This shows that the old covenant sanctuary, the Jerusalem temple, was soon to be obsolete; in fact, it was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70.
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In its place, proper worship should be directed to Jesus, the crucified and risen Savior of the world and Messiah of the Jews.

Similarly, when asked by the Samaritan woman regarding the proper place of worship, whether Mount Gerizim (the Samaritan sanctuary) or Jerusalem, Jesus responded that proper worship must be offered to the Father “in spirit and truth,” for “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (4:23–24). Taken together with the previous reference to Jesus' body replacing the temple as the proper “sacred space” for worship, this worship “in spirit and truth” involves worship of Jesus as the divinely sent, crucified, and risen Son of God, who is himself God. In fact, this was Thomas's conclusion in the climactic Christological confession at the end of John's Gospel, when he worshipped Jesus and exclaimed, “My Lord and my God!” (20:28; see also the response of the healed man who had been born blind in 9:38).