Christology as Theology: The Johannine Approach as a Challenge Then and Now

first of all I would express my sincerest thanks for the honor of being invited to deliver the 2018 Scheffer lectures here at the Yale Divinity School it's a great honor for me to appear in the series of distinguished scholars presenting some aspects of what has become the task of my life interpreting the Gospel of John um you have heard the list of predecessors of from my home country and I'm deeply humbly humbled to appear in that list and I'm also grateful to the dear colleagues and friends here for the invitation and preparation of this event theology and history in the fourth gospel exactly 50 years ago in 1968 Jerry Martin published his famous study on history and theology in the fourth gospel this small book is a landmark study together with Ray Browns material commentary that was published in the same period it has changed the views about the fourth gospel in North American scholarship and beyond expanded in his second edition Martin's book opened up new paths to understanding the fourth gospel beyond the classical interpretations of word of Bultmann and CH dot the champions of johanan studies in the mid 20th century in contrast with Bultmann and dots explanation of John from a Hellenistic or Gnostic context Martin explained the gospel from a Jewish or Jewish Christian background he addressed the challenge posed by the polemic against the Jews as uttered by the Johanna and Jesus a problem that made reading John so troublesome particularly after the show the hostility between Jesus and the Diary is historically explained as a result of the tragic history of the Jordan community and the separation between Jewish Jesus followers at the synagogue consequently these polemical passages are definitely not words of the history of the of the Jesus of history but rather triggered by the history and situation of the Evangelist and his community with regard to this dark side of John it is obvious that the fourth gospel needs a critical interpretation which could not be established as long as scholars continued to derive its legacy from an eyewitness testimony and defend its historical accuracy all the substantial authenticity of the words of the Johanna and Jesus from today's perspective 50 years later Martin's landmark study fits into a period of scholarship which was quite optimistic in reconstructing the literary history of the fourth gospel and the development of the Johanna and community after the primarily theological interpretations by Bultmann and dot scholars in the 1960s gradually returned to the to historical issues they started about thinking about the Johanna and community about the historical situation and its development but their optimism about reconstructing sources or redaction or layers was probably overstated as we come came to discover in the 1980s through the observations of Allan Culpepper and others concerning John's narrative design therefore Martin's story of the history of the German community from its Jewish Christian origins through the separation from the synagogue until the elaboration of its high Christology appears all to novelistic in his details in particular the key event suggested by Martin a general expulsion of the Jewish Jesus followers from the synagogue by the so called synod of none Jamia and the rabbinic rephrasing of the bill cut hominem the curse of the heretics has been decisively questioned by specialists in Jewish literature and history finally Martin stimulating idea that the gospel is actually a two-level drama was certainly overstated went on I narrates that jesus heals a man born blind we cannot assume that this is actually mirroring a similar event in the German community such as the healing of a blind man through a quest and charismatic or preacher it is still the history of the earthly Jesus that is narrated in John even though the image of the Jews and the Pharisees and also the expressions of Christology and faith are obviously shaped by insights and experiences from the post Easter period of the German community on the other hand Martin's image of the two lever drama is quite perceptive and stimulating there are indeed two levels in John's narration of the Jesus story the level of the history of the earthly Jesus and the level of the situation of the community of addressees but how are these two or more levels connected in the joinin texts can we still separate them figuring out what is historical true and what is mere interpretation or theology or are they connected to an almost inseparable unity so that the insights and fears of the community of addressees are introduced into the narration of the history of Jesus and consequently the earthly Jesus is presented in the light of later Christological insights as a divine being and if this is true what is the function of that fusion of horizons which makes John and his representation of the history of Jesus so unique among the Gospels these are the questions to be considered in the present series of lectures and it's no coincidence that I have reversed Martin's title Martin started from history to explain the theology of the gospel John's - Sala G was explained as a product of an answer true the separation of Johanna in Jewish Christians from the synagogue but what if the reconstruction of the history and in particular the history of thought development is fragile and questionable while acknowledging and actually presupposing a number of fundamental insights from Martin I will make my inquiry in the reverse from theology to history how can we investigate the history behind John's gospel if the priority is theology or rather Christology our theology how can turn on theology explain the unique representation of the history of Jesus in this gospel and how could we still discover historical traditions or splinters of historical information in John in this reverse perspective I will critically discuss more recent tendencies of looking for historiography or historically valid traditions in John and asked about the character of the history we can find in the Gospel I will therefore depart from the inside of more recent scholarship in which the gospel is primary read as a coherent narrative unity and kept together by a dense web of metaphors I intend to do this without ignoring the task of the interpreter to ask about the historical issues and their possible value and to understand how and why the Evangelist adopted reshaped rearranged and interpreted his materials in ancient Christianity the Apostle John considered to be the author of the fourth gospel the three epistles and revelation was not only considered the Eagle evangelist who saw two particular spiritual hates but was also given the honorary title the theologian hotel logos this term attested already in origin and used in Orthodox theology until today does not point to theology in the modern sense of the world world as a particularly rational talk about God but to the fact that it is John who most clearly expresses the divinity of Christ here not only the primordial lagers but also the incarnate Jesus is said to be chaos God even the true God who is one with a father unlike mark where scholars could find a Maasai anak secret John presents Christ from the very beginning in his divine glory which is said to be revealed in his science therefore the Gospel of John became the most important biblical source for the later development of the doctrines about the Trinity and about the two nature's in Christ to be sure John is not the only New Testament order to express the divinity of Christ such a divine dignity of Jesus is also expressed in other late writing with New Testament such as the past roles second Peter or revelation and likewise the Apostolic fathers although these writings focus on the exalted Christ not on the Incarnate one or on his earthly ministry in earlier New Testament writings things are somewhat more difficult and Hebrews 1:8 the predication that God is only from a biblical quotation from $0.45 legend and in the disputed passage in Romans 9:5 the predication is taken from a doxology when it was most probably referring to the one God of Israel accordingly these two writings cannot be counted as a testimony for a direct reference to Jesus as God although recent scholarship has increasingly supposed that a high Christology would consider of Jesus to be a super human or divine being developed from a Jewish paradigm quite early within the Jesus Movement it is obvious that it took a certain amount of time until Jesus followers could dare talk about Jesus explicitly as God Mark's Gospel already expresses Jesus divine dignity and power in narrative terms in the stilling of the storm and presents a heavenly prologue in which God or at least the Scriptures already addressed Jesus as a pre-existent one before his earthly appearance and his baptism but mark still avoids the predicate to us as do Luke and Matthew who still limit the tame to us to the one God of Israel in John this has changed Jesus not only the pre-existent one but also the Incarnate one is called the monoghan ace the son and even explicitly tells and thomas confesses Jesus divinity when he sees the marks of the nails on his hands that is to say in you of the encouraged and crucified one in John Christology is expressed as theology on the other hand theology is inseparably linked with Christology that is just as the invisible God is exclusively disclosed in his only image in the earthly figure of Jesus of Nazareth in and through whom the father can be seen so also the human figure of Jesus of Nazareth whose father and mother are well known is presented as God from the beginning of the gospel until the end of the narrative we can hardly imagine the challenge of that a flame to regard as divine a human being who lived and acted in the flesh and even died the death of an accursed criminal by means of Roman crucifixion while the idealistic reading of the Gospel from Bauer talked a sermon undervalued and downplayed the relevance of Jesus real humanity in John these aspects are consistently retained he is the word that became flesh and not merely appeared in an epiphany he's a Jew has a father and a mother and acts with a precise in a precisely defined region and named places and at a particular time he is even tired and thirsty weeps and has zeal and ultimately dies a human death one that is far from being a noble death but is instead a shameful death the crucified one is mocked and beaten by the soldiers and is exposed by having his last shirt stripped off Jesus divinity is not accomplished by a reduction of his humanity the paradox of the oath of portrayal of Jesus through human flesh emotion suffering and death one at the same time depicting him in divine colors and even calling him God constitute the strongest theological challenge of the fourth gospel this presentation is not only the exalted but also the in current earthly Jesus as God meant to fold challenge for John's contemporaries Greco Romans and Jewish readers alike within a greco-roman pattern of thought it was commonly presupposed that gods are immortal and that a person who read has really died cannot be truly considered a god thus if the Nagas and also the incarnate Jesus truly was a heavenly Divine Being greco-roman readers had immense difficulties in understanding his true humanity his human nature his human emotions suffering or even death interpreters in the second century developed a large variety of strategies to negotiate those problems some inserted as distinction between the truly divine logos and the one that actually created or shaped the material world or distinguish between a heavenly Christ who stayed in heaven and another one who appeared on earth ever felt the need to reconsider the nature of Jesus speculating about the material quality of his body or whether he actually left footprints on the ground most scandalous for the church were interpretations according to which the divine power departed from the human Jesus prior to his crucifixion all these readings somewhat imprecisely labeled as the ascetic only point of the challenge the paradox of the Incarnation and the death of the divine being necessarily meant for most of greco-roman particular platonic readers of Johnny and although we cannot prove that it was already necessary for the Evangelist to react to some kind of desert ism the wording of John 1:14 suggests that he was well aware of the challenge implied by in the idea that the truly divine eternal world did not merely appear but became flesh in the human figure of Jesus who died on the cross the abstract idea of incarnation is only slightly illustrated in John by the adoption of the biblical concept of God's dwelling among his people the world the world became flesh and dwelt among us but as his tabernacling of the logos is considered not only a temporal epiphany but a permanent presence even in the death of Jesus the challenge of God a scatological presence in a mortal human being is by no means removed even more obviously John's highest ology provided the challenge for contemporary Jewish readers compared with greco-roman thought the biblical and Jewish tradition felt much more obliged to observe the line of demarkation between gods and humans or rather between the one God and his creatures while in greco-roman tradition gods could appear on earth and humans could eventually become heroes or receive a share in the divine nature biblical monotheism as distinctive for contemporary diaspora Judaism excludes the veneration of any being apart from the One God there is no idea of a real incarnation of God the creator or one of his agents angels and archangels lady wisdom or his logos even if some text speak about enthroned party arcs principal angels are mandatory all figures giving a clue to understanding the Jewish origins and early development of high Christology the most widespread view about the Messiah was that he is a basically human figure owning a few texts do messianic oh if CAD illogical figures adopt superhuman traits in any case the veneration of Jesus as a God could only be rejected by the vast majority of contemporary Jews this is confirmed by the gospel itself John's narrative provides evidence that contemporary Jews actually consider the denying claims about Jesus blasphemy Jesus is accused of making himself equal with God and his most certainly reflects debates from the time of the evangelists furthermore John repeatedly narrates that the Jews attempt to kill Jesus well he makes claims about him acting or being in unity with God finally the Jewish authorities decide to kill him immediately after the greatest demonstration of His divine life-giving power the raising of Lazarus and their reason for demanding the death sentence from Pilate is precisely that he has made himself God's Son these claims and artists clearly come not from the time of the earthly Jesus but mirror later debates from the time of the Johanna and community and the gospel the - illogical views of the John Hanke community were rejected by the contemporary synagogue and the gospel narrative reflects this rejection the decisive question however is not whether the gospel claims divine authority and dignity for Jesus this is clear and all the attempts to reduce these claims for the sake of some political correctness are mistaken the issue between the Johanna and community and if contemporaries is only whether or not this claim is true while the Jewish authorities accused Jesus for unduly asserting divine origin and divine honors and therefore demand his death the gospel claims that he truly is from above that he is the son in unity with the father and even that he is fierce but contrary to his Jewish contemporaries the Evangelist does not consider this a denial of the monetarist e confession Jesus divine honors are not in competition with the uniqueness of the One God of Israel because according to the Johanna knew the father has given the son his unique authority to give life and enact judgment God's love for the son is said to originate even before the creation of the world and therefore John can write that the father and the son are one within this tight relationship between the father and the son there is of course a slight element of subordination as a relationship between the father and son cannot be reversed the father is indeed greater than Jesus but this does not mean that Jesus is only God like when John uses to us as a designation for Jesus there is no reduction in meaning in 1 John 5:20 he even is called the true God just that the father is called the true God in John 17:3 so the Evangelist and his community would respond to the accusation of unduly claiming divine honors for a mere you with a simple point that he is God and that a father has bestowed divine authority on him we can therefore imagine that for the majority of contemporary Jews the Jonin community and its leaders had abundant true monotheism advocated for a heresy a teaching about as later all of us would call it two powers in heaven thus it is quite conceivable that the diaspora synagogue was no longer willing to consider that heretics as Jews even if some of them had tools origins and even if the Johanna and community felt it was still based on the Scriptures there is no need to ascribe such a rejection to a decision of the rabbis in Palestine as Martin had suggested but it's quite plausible that the aspera synagogues were in the position to reject such a divide divide groups which could bring Jesus followers into considerable legal troubles especially in the time after 70 CE such troubles might may be reflected in John's hints and an exclusion from the synagogue that made even cause the death of some Jesus followers John 16 we cannot develop these aspects further here but it's clear that while contemporary Jews could accuse Johanna and Jesus followers of blasphemy the Johanna in community was conceived convinced that the true insights into Jesus divine dignity was not an unauthorized demonization of a human but part of the teaching received from his spirit in post Easter times the statements of high Christology are marked by the predications to us the Sun the lovers and also Jesus's ego eimi sayings these elements provide the frame that determines the understanding of the whole and from which all the other christological predications have to be interpreted this is an important methodological decision all the scholarly attempts to interpret John and Christology from one of the lower christological publications such as Messiah the prophet or the motive of the messenger not do justice to the Johanna in concept there's Coralie confidence that we might be able to historical reconstruct an early johanna and still basically jewish sending prophet or Messiah Christology has been decisively questioned so there is no real possibility to get an earlier Johan source or layer by just subtract subtracting the traits of John's high Christology now the patterns of Community Development as introduced by Lou Martin and Ray Brown have lost the textual basis John's Christology can no longer be explained from such an alleged development from an earlier job drawn in lower level to the high level of the Evangelist of even further on of the reduction or the epistles rather it would be explained within the given context and within the framework of the tous predication but of course the other Christological titles and predications are not unimportant they show that the Evangelist is aware of a wide variety of methane equations when he adopts in part adopts part of his narrative and integrates into his comprehensive high Christology already the opening of the met narrative after the prologue provides a considerable range of physiological predications the stronger one the Lamb of God the one who baptizes in the spirit god's chosen one the Messiah the king of Israel the son of god the son of men from the beginning of the narrative jesus is linked with almost all the christological predications there is no myth I an execute in John but Jesus's dignity is openly declared revealed in his acts and confessed by his followers moreover the readers are already informed from the prologue that Jesus is God making it possible for them to draw or a deeper knowledge and we can presuppose for the characters within the text the readers know more than the characters in the text he is the eternal lovers who is God he is the one in whom the divine glory is present and who makes known the invisible father from here the readers can even perceive whether the characters within the text come close to the true insights as presented in the prologue whether they still stay behind that knowledge or even stumble about with inappropriate expectations before Jesus's first appearance John the Baptist rejects the most common Metheny categories of the Messiah Elijah and the Prophet and with his triple negation I am NOT he subtly prepares Jesus's a.m. which becomes so characteristic in John's Gospel Jesus truly is what to be baptized of denies himself to be and of course he is much more but the baptizes negative testimony also shows that John indeed adopts and utilizes the traditions of Jewish messianism particular the three forms of Messianic interpretation and expectation the Royal Davidic Messiah the prophetic figure of the returning Elijah and the eschatological figure of the prophet like Moses here with John obviously wants to address the totality of contemporary Jews expectations with Jesus's claim to fulfill and even surpass in his divine authority this is clear for the expectations of Elijah in contrast with the Synoptics kneel of the Baptist know Jesus is positively linked with the expectation of the coming Elijah instead the Baptist openly rejects such a link and quite properly the image of the Baptist in John is not shaped according to prophetic traits but changed from that of a prophet of doom and repentance to that of a first witness of Jesus's identity and saving function things are more complicated with a figure of the Prophet as Jesus is actually called a prophet in several instances the Samaritan woman caught the Judean stranger a prophet when he talks to her about her life and situation and so she asks him for religious instruction but in the same context the term is later excelled by the messiah and the savior of the world similarly after the healing of the man born blind the initial confession he is a prophet is later outperformed by the title son of men and the veneration of Jesus the predication messiah and if translation Christos is much more crucial since yazoo estas is the core confession of Jesus followers from the very beginning interestingly John is the only gospel over who presents the Greek transcription Macias and even translates the term for his readers first with the anointed one and then with Christos obviously the Evangelist wants to point to the Palestinian Jewish background of the term and to the related expectations the predication is also clearly rejected by the Baptizer in his initial questioning but unlike the terms Elijah or the Prophet it is attributed to Jesus without any constraint the first disciples claimed to have found the Messiah which is an explained by the phrase of whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote Jesus actually is the Messiah and the expectation of the Samaritan woman I know that the Messiah comes is confirmed by Jesus I am he that is speaking to you John also adopts aspects of the inner Jewish debates about the Messiah his Providence is hidden hidden origin the science he is expected to perform or the idea that he should stay forever but in those debates the Messianic knowledge of the Jews does not lead to a positive confession instead jesus' contemporaries stumble about his Providence from Nazareth his early parent earthly parents or the idea of his departure thus the evangelists actually cast some doubts on at least some messianic beliefs of the Jewish tradition it is clear that John's crystal ocular concept goes far beyond what could have been known or said about the Messiah there is some modification in the full in John 12:27 martyrs confession links the terms Christos and Son of God and the same connection is presented in the closure of the book in John 20:31 readers should believe that Jesus is the Christos and son of God and the combination might imply clay climax the aim of the gospel is not simply to lead Jewish readers to believe in Jesus as the Messiah but rather to deepen the view of readers of the Christ the Christ Jesus in terms of a higher christological dignity before turning to higher predications we have to reflect on the sending motive Jesus is the one sent by the father and he reveals the father who has sent him in scholarship the sending motive has often been explained as derived from a gnostic redeemer myth but since such an explanation is too anachronistic and in the Redeemer movies of that type cannot be found before the rise of Manichaeism scholars have pointed to the culture and legal phenomenon of commissioning which can be described from the ancient orient down to the remaining period according to those cultural legal conventions the messenger acts in the authority of the one who has sent him but is also totally dependent on the center and obliged to act according to his commission but this does not mean that the motive is to be interpreted as an element of a sub odd Machinist lower Christology thus Jesus represents God's divine authority and as he testifies to what he has seen and heard above he is a unique revealer of the Father the sending motif cannot be contrasted with a higher Christological titles but must be interpreted within the high Christology as presented in the prologue and the other predications the sending motive is also closely connected to the use of the terms son of god and of the largely johanna an absolute term the son the term is introduced in 149 together with king of Israel as an interpretation and heightening to the title Messiah in John 3:16 and 18 it is over linked with mono kinase which emphasizes the uniqueness of Jesus's Sanjib his relationship with God as his father is strictly distinguished from the relationship of the disciples and as the children of God with God as their father they are being children of God is strictly mediated through Jesus and his unique sonship so the predication son of God fundamentally distinguishes Jesus from all other humans and assigns him to the side of God so the Jews interpret his claims to be God's Son as a crime worthy of receiving the punishment of death wherever Johanna and Jesus in his bold exegesis of Psalm 82 use is the biblical address to Israel I said you are gods of 82 to legitimize his claim as God's Son in John God son is already understood as a divine being and therefore the belief in the Christ the Son of God is more than just a belief in Jesus as a messiah it is a fully valid expression of John's view of Jesus Christ as a divine being consist consistently the son is determined by his relationship with a father he is loved by the father both work together in unity the father is visible in the son for the son is in the father and a father in the Sun in a farewell prayer the father-son motive is ultimately linked with the sending motive here in the concluding dialogue between the son and the father who has sent him and to him whom the son will now return the unity between the two comes to its climactic expression here we can see how the fourth evangelist understands the son although he adopts son of God as a traditional predication which is linked with messianic traditions the term has now become much more in his unity with the father the son is himself God this is also confirmed by the use of the Son of Man title which is especially connected with a heavenly dimension and Jesus's heavenly origin whereas in the Synoptics the term is used as an enigmatic term in a variety of applications the Johanna usage is more consistent the term is introduced in the climax of the opening chapter in 151 where it's used in a subtle transformation of the Jacob Bethel episode the son of man which readers will understand as the earthly Jesus is presented as the place of the divine presence on earth from which the Angels claim up and down in John 3:13 and 662 the idea of Jesus heavenly origin and his descend and essent is linked with the title and now the poverties is linked in Johanna and terms with the idea of his exaltation and glorification finally the Titus particularly linked with a motive of Jesus's authorization in John 527 the view that God has given to Jesus the authority to have life in himself to give life and also to act in act the judgment is explained by an allusion to Daniel 7:14 for he is without article son of men here the apocalyptic background of the title and it's reference to a heavenly figure is most clearly stressed as the son of man Jesus is a representative of the father in whom humans not only encounter God's eschatological agent but even God himself thus in John the title is an expression of Haifa Stahl adji linked with other titles the Sun the lavas and God we can see therefore that the high Christological expressions that frame the gospel Jesus as a divine primordial logos the word and even God is a framework within all the other predications higher and the lower ones have to be interpreted it is a perspective from which the narrative episodes of Jesus's ministry are also to be read despite such high Christological framework we should not forget that Jesus true humanity is nowhere questioned in John Jesus is divine identity and authority is not only presented in christological titles also in the Johanna narratives and discourses of Jesus a mountains narratives the science episodes in particular Jesus is said to have well Jesus is said to have revealed his glory and the Johanna and miracle stories are so characteristically shaped with a distinctive modification of the literary genre of miracle stories taught a multi-layered form of narration enriched by interspersed references to the deeper dimension of the event or to its meaning within the whole of the gospel this is a kind of job Harry's Jorah bending in in the miracle stories in all the Johanna and miracle narratives we can discover a structure in which apart from the narration of the miracle certain textual elements refer to other passages in the gospel these references open up symbolic aspects of meaning and direct the reader to the full significance of the Christ event and to the salvation affected by Jesus death and resurrection in the first Cana episode for example these pointers include the hint to the third day the enigmatic mention of the hour of Jesus the unnecessary hint to the purification practice of the Jews and in the closer and a statement that the bridegroom or rather Jesus has not acted like every human in the second sign of John for the stress on the phrase your son lives and the reference to the hour since when he got better the hour of the healing point the reader beyond the individual narrative and to the events of Jesus hour in which real life originates typically Johanna and design helps to establish the connection with what is signified and thus only makes the narrated event or rather than the narration itself a sign in the reading of each individual sign negative readers are directed to the whole of the Christ event and to the salvation based on his cross and resurrection due to this characteristic literary technique the Johanna and sign narratives can function as a means that not only causes admiration of Jesus miraculous power but awakens faith in Jesus true nature as the Son of God and the divine giver of life as a true significant and the dignity of Jesus could only be perceived in a post Easter time through the remembrance of the Spirit it is clear that only from this perspective can Jesus his deeds be narrated and understood as a revelation of his true glory consequently the glory revealed in Jesus science is not as planned or visible visible to physical eyes or to a perception as well that was already accessible to Jesus contemporaries it is rather the glory that was bestowed on Jesus in his hour and disclosed to the disciples only later through the remembrance of the Spirit that caused it inside into Jesus true dignity that ordering christological development in the post Easter period a good example of this is the extensive dialogical narration of the healing of the man born blind in John 9 it was Martin's chief paradigm and his interpretation of John as a two-level drama and relating the gospel narrative to the so called parting of the ways the extensive episode goes far beyond the short duration of the miracle in the first seven verses it's a well-structured 17 episode wherein the themes at rest or in first verses are discussed in various groups it would be ought to explain this well-crafted extensive text from a totally speculative reconstruction of a hypothetical science source or even earlier and short of eventual miracle story not only the interpretive dialogues but already the brief narration of the miracle itself are shaped by distinctively johanan elements in contrast with the synoptic feelings of the blind the blind man is blind from birth making the miracle greater than those in all the parallels Jesus does not answer request from the blind man or from above but takes the initiative when he sees the man enter finally the miracle is not performed openly but only discovered and discussed in retrospect when the blind man comes back from washing himself in the pool testifying to various groups about his healing and the one who caused it in the subsequent debates the man comes to increasingly clearer confessions of faith calling Jesus first a prophet then saying he comes from God and finally after the introduction of the term son of men even he worships him in the course of his this trial he presents himself as a disciple of Jesus and is so consequently expelled from the synagogue of the disciples of Moses in the end Jesus pronounces his verdict about verdict about the Pharisees who have been blinded by the light in their encounter with light where the blind man has come to receive physical and spiritual light so the core themes of the story are sin and belief and the works of Jesus who as the light of the world gives light to the blind and blinds those who claim to see or know thus the episode functions as an illustration to jesus' earlier self predication as the light of the world in john 8 it is embedded in a symbolic framework in which washing oneself in the pool of the one being sent becomes an image for the pure cage provocation of by Jesus or the purification from sins similarly healing from blindness is a symbol for the pure process of coming to belief seeing and blindness coming to light and staying in darkness even life and death are presented as a consequences of jesus's entire sending and ministry this episode is deliberately designed as an exemplary and paradigmatic narrative that cannot be read merely on the level of Jesus's past ministry but serves as a paradigm of the saving works of God in general historically the mention of the Pharisees and the expulsion from the synagogue refer to processes that happened to the Torah and could in later times likewise the Christological inside expressed in the episode mirrors the high priest ology developed in the Jahan community in post-easter times and the climactic confession of faith and veneration of Jesus finally point to his divine authority as should be perceived from the generation the most impressive demonstration of Jesus's divine life giving power is the river vacation of Lazarus here jesus' eschatological authority is presented in narrative mode in john this demonstration of divine authority causes the jewish leaders to sentence him to death the draw an interpretation of the sign is not presented in a subsequent discourse but in the ego amazing at the center of the pericope even before the miracle is narrated Jesus is the resurrection and the life even in view of physical death this is the densest expression of the claim that in Jesus God and his creative life-giving power has become present the eschatology is implied as a consequence of the Christology the resurrection of the Dead and the Last Judgement which were traditionally expected for the endtime are now present in Jesus and for the post Easter period in his world the whole episode shows elements of characteristically Johanna and design estas the narration of the miracle it is Jesus who caused the dead men from the grave as promised in John 5:20 about the Son of Man he acts in silent company with a father who earns us even before a prayer is pronounced finally the miracle excels any of the other biblical resurrection stories Jesus calls back to life a corpse that stinks it has there is one that is already in the process of decay and so even in the view of ancient readers there was no hope of return left that's the narrative with the prominent example of John's technique of increasing the synoptic miracles and modifying the jaw in accordance with his christological intention to present Jesus as God and it is textual furred Mattox it seems to push readers to a correction of their Christological presuppositions and to deepen the views of the identity and function of Jesus within the episode there is an increasing perception of the motive of death and life for instance when learning about later Lazarus illness Jesus statement sounds almost cynical nevertheless it marks a program of the whole episode this illness does not lead to death rather it is for God's glory so that the Son of God may be glorified through it while the reality of Lazarus death is expressed with growing clarity Jesus power of life is also increasingly presented during the episode the idea is established that Jesus on his way to raise Lazarus also approaches his own death which is decided upon after his mighty deed on the other hand he is the resurrection only as a recent one and thus he calls out Lazarus as a consequence of his own death and resurrection at times the time levels are revolving here the eternal life he gives is ultimately rooted in laying down his own life for the sake of the people thus the narration of the miracle are even the narrated miracle itself is based on Jesus's whole significant Astari the resurrection of Lazarus is an illustration of the life given to those who believe in him and is eschatologically speaking a foreshadowing of the resurrection expected in the case of physical death within the Johanna and discourses Jesus's divine authority is most distinctive Lee expressed in the ego imme sayings in John the I am formula is used both absolutely and in connection with metaphorical predications such as bread light shepherd and wine as well as in related forms these various forms are interconnected and to be interpreted as a coherent language device that distinctly distinctively occurs in the words of Jesus in his linguistic form it adopts a formula of divine revelation from the Scriptures that has been rendered in the Septuagint by the expression a go a me the Jesus laughs Jesus speaks with the words of God's revelation at the burning bush of this divine self presentations in a tech hill and due to Isaiah there is no better means to present Jesus as the Incarnate Word of God and having him speak out the divine self presentation of the revelation fabula when used absolutely the issue is not a mere recognition but the comforting on terrifying inside that in Jesus God Himself is encountered in his saving and judging action this is most openly demonstrated when in the scene of Jesus's arrest after the three times repeated ago AME the armband of Jewish and Roman soldiers draws back and falls to the ground before Jesus the grotesque of this unvoluntary prostration most demonstrates the divine power in Jesus's words this is also confirmed by a brief explanation following Jesus self presentation as the light of the world in John 816 the formula is unfolded in an almost exegetical manner I am NOT alone but I and the father who sent me in Jesus's I am also in its metaphorically expanded form the unity of the father and the son comes to its defenses expression Jesus speaks not merely with his own authority but with divine authority Jesus's divinity is not only presented in his science and discourses but also in a paradoxical manner in his hour that is in his trial and crucifixion it also seems that John's ultimate intention is that the readers do not stumble on Jesus departure and death but rightly see him in the light of Easter as the glorified crucified one John's particular interest is the interpretation of the death it's already evident from the sheer space he devotes to the passion narrative including the fairness causes there is also a dense web of anticipatory interpretations from the very beginning of the gospel which provides the reader with interpretive categories in advance thus the Evangelist conveys the categories of the theological interpretation of Jesus death and introduces categories of exaltation and glorification that seemed to be totally unfitting to the event of a crucifixion but constitute the paradoxical interpretation of the events in Jesus hour the serpent episode from memory is taking at the visual imagination of the uplifting of the Son of man and in John 12:23 Jesus proclaims the hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified but unlike the suggestion of some scholars this is not a euphemistic downplaying of the cruelty of Jesus death but an interpretation taken from the scriptures were said that God's servant will be lifted up and greatly glorified isaiah 52:13 in seclusion for john the deeper true understanding of jesus passion and death is based on the scriptures and mediated by the teaching of the post-easter spirit this is also adopted in John's design of the passion story from the very beginning the story is designed according to the idea that Jesus consciously and willfully enters his passion he is not the victim of vicious intrigues rather in every act of his passion he is the active part acting in unity with the father therefore the idea of escaping the hour or not drinking the cup of death is Jack Lewis rejected and Jesus last word cannot be the cry of God forsaken s but only the triumph of fulfillment is fulfilled the paradox is obvious Jesus was put to death because he made himself or rather was God son and it is death he uplift and his road to rain as a true King the narrative design of Jon's passion account aims at suggesting such a change of perspective to its readers so that they are able to recognize the divine glory even in particular in the Crucified one the Gospel as a whole in its narrative and Theological design is shaped to evoke that perspective in its readers to deepen the views of Jesus and to foster a true understanding of his death and departure according to the advanced spiritual insight whereas such an insight come from how did it evolve which circumstances could contribute to the unique John and view of Jesus divine authority and true kingship the groundbreaking approaches of North American scholarship wrestled with these questions and looked for explanations in relation to the parting of the ways between the John and community and synagogue or Judaism according to Lou Martin's groundbreaking approach the full elaboration of John's high priest ology could be imagined only as a consequence of the distancing from synagogue and thus as a tendentially unjú ish element but this does not do justice to the drama and conviction that in his high Christology the truth of the oneness of the biblical God is not endangered for John the father and the son are still one God not to and this monitor istic of finitary and unity is circumscribed by the neuter hen not the masculine haze Ray Brown instead he pathetically reckoned with the influence of heterodox temper critical Jewish and Samaritan groups that triggered the christological development that ultimately resulted in the split from the orthodoxy of the synagogue but if we are unable to reconstruct the earlier stages of Johanna and Christology still within a Jewish synagogue context such a speculation is also unfounded in my view the Christian Christological impulse should not be underestimated if the drone on view did not develop in a sectarian segregation but an open discussion with other early Christian Jews especially mark John and Christology can only be understood as phrasing the ultimate consequences of the view that as a messiah jesus brings eschatological salvation and eternal life of course John was not the first to voice his conviction although it's expressed in particularly pointed form here already in mark Jesus has the authority to forgive sins and already in pole Jesus could be presented as a messenger from the divine realm and mentioned on the same level with one God in 1 Corinthians 8:6 all these expressions could appear offensive or even blasphemic to some contemporary Jews in my view the precise development cannot be reconstructed in detail anymore but the reason given in for in John's Gospel should be taken seriously according to John it is a spirit who guided the disciples in the post Easter period to deeper insights thus authoring the image of the Johanna and Christology the prose is described as a remembrance of the Jesus story in light of the Scriptures passages such as Isaiah 53 with the terms who saw all and dogs that so may have been central in communicating these categories but ultimately the Jonin view is a result of the thorough reconsideration of the fact that eschatological salvation is based on the death and resurrection of Jesus and mediated through believed in him if the if could logical relevance of Jesus if thought radically it is unavoidable to focus on his authority and identity entities to describe it not only functionally but also in ontological terms yet divine categories from the eschatological reverence of Jesus or the reaction of humans to his appearance it appears necessary to ask about the ultimate reason of such significance or even about the ultimate season of salvation located in Jesus's unity with the father and the primordial will of God his love for his creatures Jonah and hi Christology have a challenge for contemporary theology John presents Christology as theology and theology eschatology this is a challenge not only for ancient leaders but also for modern theological invitation first the challenge is to identify an appropriate Christian concept of God if the Crucified one is ultimately God the Father is not untouched by the death of the son of raised differently the Living God does not stay on the side of the Immortals but embraces human death and all the depth of human history thus through the death of the son of God the image of God the Father is significantly reconstituted and structurally changed if this is the biblical God there is a market contrast with all the ideas of philosophical theology furthermore God emphatically the biblical God is now freshly and ultimately defined by his exclusive relationship to the son who makes him known in his ministry and images him so that the one who sees Jesus sees the father thus the invisible God who cannot be represented by any image has in Christ and ever since the history of Christ an image by which alone his true nature can be known the hermeneutical challenge can also be expressed with regard to Christology what does it mean to call Jesus God in a post on the logical error could say Jesus is God so what how can we ensure that this does not question his true humanity can we just repeat also be briefly rephrase the Christology of the two nature's in Christ in my view we not deny that the evangelists had a view of Jesus as ontological II different from all humans but he was also aware that Jesus true glory could not be perceived with the physical eyes of his contemporaries but was only revealed to the disciples in the post Easter period in which the understanding of the Cross as glorification was developed this implies that in his narrative depiction of the Jesus story the Evangelist was have a neutrally aware that he did not simply draw a picture of the Jesus of history as he was but shaped the memory of the Jesus story under the preposition of the Paschal light and the teaching of the Spirit this means that the glory which overflows the path of the earth that Jesus was perceived and also inserted in retrospect the glory revealed in Jesus signs is actually the glory revealed by the narrative text written in the light of the post-easter insights even more so the idea of the primordial glory of Jesus and of his incarnation are consequences of the Easter revelation rather than the presupposition of Jesus earthly ministry Christian dogmatix has quickly adopted the logical and temporal priority of pre-existence and incarnation but historically and as I assume also in the awareness of the Johanna an order the priority is in the East experiences and in the post Easter spirit that inspired the remembrance of the earthly Jesus and ultimately reshaped the image in the gospel narrative this is the only interpretation that can make sure that Jesus's humanity is not endangered by his depiction as divine therefore an ontological understanding of the divinity of Jesus seems to be unwarranted even though the evangelists probably shared it this being conceded a functional understanding of Jesus divine authority and identity is still a valuable hermeneutical action Jesus is God as he is the only one in whom eschatological Life is granted he can be characterized as divine since it is in his ministry and narrated history that the invisible God is made known in relation with other humans as everlasting love thank you for your patience [Applause] alright I'll start okay okay if Jesus can only be understood by reflecting back how important is it that the events be historical events that is if there's an affirmation that there is a historical Jesus that there is a embodied person he's not denying that he's a human being but is it important that the events that are chosen by the Evangelist to interpret this divine being this God in flesh is it important that these be tied to a historical person or can they simply be can he make them up can they be completely fictional that's a question whether the Christ story is could be totally a myth the Christ muth as some interpreters at the at least at the beginning of the 20th century have tried to phrase it in my view in the in the concept of the fourth gospel there is a very strong focus on the eschatological event in the hour of Jesus in his death resurrection complex which is encompassed as a kind of integrated in there in the term of the hour of Jesus so there is a strong focus that this event and of course Jesus's death is the certain event of his life that's clear that in this event everything is is put together and now we have different stories different episodes which are more or less many times less able to be historically substantiated so it is always difficult for the single episode to make up the historical basis of that even if we will deal with that thirsty even if we have a source let's say mark is dependent on the source other sources I can only be very brief very fragmentarily reconstructed so all those events are in some way relevant as events as if as they are related to the central and to the pivotal event of Jesus's hour his death interpreted in the light of the Easter experience so it's clear that the Gospel of John wants to tell the history of a precise person in a certain region at a certain time so it's an earthly story and earthly history and not a myth but of course it is our problem our problem of the possibility of reconstructing history from our perspective that we get some events perhaps clearer and many hours we get have to leave in well disturbing unclarity Harry thank you you're a wonderful lecturer and I agree with so much of what you said but you lead me to reflect in the following way and I want to reflect a little bit and then throw a question at you so you are resisting the notion that Johanna in theology and Christology can be explained or reduced to the social circumstances of the generation of the gospel amen you then seem to suggest that this at the heart of the Johanna and Theological program there's a claim about a category mistake that is to think about the divinity of Jesus as lots of people might have been doing in ontological terms is inappropriate one must think about the divinity of Jesus in mmm should we say what epistemological terms maybe I'm paraphrasing you incorrectly but I think you are positing an intellectual environment for the Gospel of John that's claiming something about how God language works and I'm just wondering whether there is such an environment whether you can point to people in the first century Jews pagan philosophers whatever who are analyzing theological language in that way or is John the Evangelist whoever he is in creating this narrative doing something radically different from anything that's in his environment well if you refer to the last paragraph of my paper of course I switched from New Testament interpretation to a systematic theologian question and in the end I didn't speak it out but in the end I gave some credit for ability to to Bultmann because at that point I think he has a nice functional interpretation of John Lyon Christology there is this is a hermeneutical option for our time when we have difficulties with ontological categories although we cannot escape the conclusion that the author of the fourth gospel thought ontologically about Jesus being a super human divine being the question is how intellectual and how high we can we can imagine the climate in which the Gospel of John grew and of course we are not in the Alexandria of Clement at the end of the second century I do think that there is a lot of theological reflection in a well-educated and also philosophically not an educated circle I reckon with a Ephesus and with an urban context there and in any case the Evangelist must have been aware what he did when changing traditions and rewriting earlier stuff and even claiming that to be the truth so the process I we can describe on the basis of the observation of the development of literary or theological processes these observations are clear the question is how can we imagine the awareness or the self-awareness of the circle of the Evangelist of course our possibilities are limited we do not even know the person's behind the draw a circle we have claims about the ministry of the spirit and remembrance and so on and so we can we can at least and I will try to substantiate this in third lectures we can at least say from some elements in the parakeet sayings that there were discussions about what are you doing with the image of Jesus that's the Paraclete that's a spirit take things from its his own does it is an unwarranted and unauthorized interpretation of the traditional image and then the claim is in John 6 16 he does not take from his own but from that was is related to me the question is what does that mean so it's in my view what Jonah and tradition and the Torah and school does is keeping the Jesus story just on the on a border between an interpretation that could go very far a progressive interpretation which is necessary for a new situation and new generation and on the other hand linking it back and still keep it linked back to the story of the earthly Jesus when we compare it with texts of the second century apocalypse of James from la comédie and so on we see that in some texts the reference to the earthly story of Jesus gets superfluous and John still when explaining and when positing his explanation in the Ferrill discourse just at the in Jesus hour at the border of his death he keeps this and he keeps he still stays on the border between the pre Easter and opposing your time and that's that's the challenge and author day I think that the great achievement of the fourth gospel were second century all of partly fall back and on the other hand maybe if you if you take the other extreme in could interpret the end of math you keep everything what I have told you other kind of verbal representation that is not the way John goes

Channel: Yale Divinity School

Views: 9,194

Keywords: theology, christianity, bible, new testament, john, book of john, christology

Id: e-XapdFQauQ

Length: 71min 43sec (4303 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 26 2018