Chapter 5: The Gospel of John
The Temple of His Body
§16 “COME AND SEE
John as Interpreter of Scripture
Phillip tells Nathaniel to “come and see” if Jesus is what Phillip says he is. “That summons, “Come and see,” functions also as an invitation to the reader of the Fourth Gospel, an invitation to discern, among other things, whether the Jesus they will meet in this story is in fact prefigured by Moses and the prophets.”
“And so in John’s Gospel, just as in Luke’s, there is a call for a retrospective rereading of Israel’s Scripture, a reading backwards that reinterprets Scripture in light of a new revelation imparted by Jesus and focused on the person of Jesus himself.”
“If Luke is the master of the deft, fleeting allusion, John is the master of the carefully framed, luminous image that shines brilliantly against a dark canvas and lingers in the imagination.”
§17 “SALVATION IS FROM THE JEWS”
Israel’s story in John’s narrative.
As a result of John’s focus on the person Jesus Christ, his use of OT texts is limited and must be carefully interpreted.
- Retrospective references to characters in Israel’s story. John expects his readers to know OT characters. A few examples of John’s references.
—Abraham.
—Jacob. Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at a well echo the time when Jacob found his wife at a well.|—Moses. John references Moses many times, but the reader is expected to know the stories.
—Elijah. His appearance is John the Baptist denying that he is the Elijah that the Jews expected before the Messiah.
—Isaiah. Isaiah has a more central role.
—David. - “We worship what we know … .”
- The role of the law in John’s Gospel. John believes the law (in his case law is broadly interpreted) points to Jesus. There is no suggestion that the law is wrong or deficient.
- Israel’s festivals. John, more than the other gospel writers, sets his narrative in the festivals. Passover (three) Sukkoth, and others.
- Resistance of the Ioudaioi (the term Jesus uses for his opponent—translated the Jews). When Jesus uses this term, he is not referring to all Jews of his time and certainly not all Jews in the future. It seems to be associated with the Pharisees. Hays will use the Hebrew to avoid issues of misidentifying the target.
§18 JESUS AS THE TEMPLE
- Jesus as Word and Wisdom. John identities Jesus as both wisdom and Logos (Word), but focuses on Logos.
- Remembering Scripture and Jesus’ word. "“Thus, John 2:13-22 is of great importance. We are informed here that right interpretation of Scripture and of the traditions about Jesus could be done only retrospectively after the resurrection; John also instructs his readers to read figurally; and the link between the temple and Jesus’ body is made explicit, providing a hermeneutical key for John’s symbolism throughout the narrative. Jesus now takes over the temple’s function as a place of mediation between God and human beings."
- Jesus as embodiment of Sukkoth and Passover. “Therefore, when Jesus cries out80 on the last day of the festival of Sukkoth, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink” (John 7:37-38; cf. 7:2) and—on the same occasion81—“I am the light of the world” (8:12), he is taking onto himself the symbolism of the occasion, implicitly claiming both to fulfill and to supplant it.” “The reader who recalls the beginning of the Evangelist’s story will now be able to read backwards and interpret this epithet: for John the Evangelist, Jesus, “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world,” embodies in his death the true signification of the Passover and Exodus events.”
- The Good Shepherd at the Feast of Dedication. “So, on that winter day in the temple, Jesus is not talking about politics as usual. He is promising the redemption of the world on the other side of death and resurrection. And in John’s narrative world, that promise is valid only because Jesus is the truth to which the Festival of Dedication points, through a glass darkly: he is the personal presence of the God of Israel, come at last to rescue his people, to heal and bind up, to feed them with justice.”
- Bread from heaven. After feeding the crowd and them following him around the lake, Jesus chastises about why they are so ardent. “Jesus … gives them a dramatic answer similar to the answer he gave the woman: “I am (ἐγώ εἰμι)—I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty”. So, by giving himself bodily, Jesus gives life to the world. Jesus himself is the true bread from heaven, the bread toward which Israel’s desire—indeed, the desire of all humanity—should be directed; he is the true meaning of the manna story.”
- Other Christological designations.
—King. John uses the word king four times. They all can be traded back to OT references, but John does not provide them. He expects his readers to understand through their “implicit cultural encyclopedia”.
—Messiah/Christ. While John identifies in key places Jesus as Messiah, he does not try to show it from OT texts.
—Son of God.
—Son of Man. “It would appear that John has performed an astonishing intertextual fusion of Daniel 7:13-14, Numbers 21, and Isaiah 52:13. The intertextual fusion occurs entirely in the hidden realms of allusion and echo, without any explicit quotations of these three Old Testament textual precursors. Yet the theological result of this fusion is explosive: it generates an interpretation of Jesus’ death on a cross as the triumphant exaltation of the Son of Man.”
§19THE VINE AND THE BRANCHES
The Church’s Oneness in John’s Narrative
John never specifically mentions how the new believers are to relate to wider world. But, he offers a few echoes of Scripture that relate to this topic.
- The vine and the branches.
- Other sheep not of this field. “According to John’s Gospel, then, the power of the church’s testimony to the world hinges for John on the oneness of the community of Jesus’ followers, which serves as an outward and visible sign of their union with Jesus and through him with the Father. All this is conveyed through two key images: the branches that abide in the Vine, and the one flock gathered from among the nations to follow the one Good Shepherd.”
§20 THE FIGURAL WEB
John’s Scriptural Hermeneutics
“For John the Evangelist, therefore, all of Israel’s Scripture is a figural web woven with latent prefigurations of the One without whom not one thing came into being. Thus, to take the example that John sets forth as a hermeneutical key near the beginning of his story, Jesus is not only the temple—the place where we meet God—but also the God who meets us and rescues us by gathering us into union with him. For that reason, reading Scripture figurally—reading backwards in light of the story of Jesus—is an essential means of discerning the anticipatory traces of God the Word in his self-revelation to the world.”
Quotes from: Richard B. Hays. “Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/echoes-of-scripture-in-the-gospels/id1136901922