The Gospel of John John
John
People used to say that John gave us the “divine” Jesus while the other gospels gave us the “human” Jesus. But this is clearly wrong, since the others also see Jesus as embodying the one God, and John sees Jesus weeping, troubled in spirit, thirsting and dying, and, still more importantly, playing the role in the divine purposes that was marked out for humans from the start. Perhaps a better way to express the difference might be to say that John has put into the first paragraph of his book what the others want their readers to work out step by step.
Certainly John’s first paragraph (1.1–18) is one of the most visionary short pieces in the whole history of Christian writing. “In the beginning was the Word . . . and the Word became flesh.” What does John think he is doing?
He is writing a new Genesis. His whole book is about how the world’s creator has come at last to remake that world: chapter 20 is about Jesus’ resurrection, but every sentence breathes the life of “the first day of the week,” the start of new creation. But if John’s Prologue is a new Genesis 1, then the equivalent of the climax of that great chapter, the creation of humans in the divine image, is precisely the Word becoming flesh. John 1.14 corresponds to Genesis 1.26–28: the one through whom the world was made now becoming the one through whom the world is rescued and remade. This theme runs throughout the gospel, reaching its own climax in 19.5 when Pilate declares “Here’s the man!”
But John is also writing a new Exodus—and this provides the other major clue to his book. Moses led the people out of Egypt and gave them the Torah, to prepare them for God coming in person to dwell with them, in the Tabernacle, and lead them to their inheritance. Now “the Word became flesh and [literally] ‘tabernacled in our midst’ ” (1.14). Jesus is the place where the one God has come to dwell among us and to reveal his true glory. The whole gospel resonates with this Temple-theme, reaching a climax in the “Farewell Discourses” (chapters 13—17) when Jesus’ followers, too, become Temple-people by the promise of the indwelling spirit.
John’s gospel divides neatly into two. The first twelve chapters offer a mixture of “signs” and discourses; the two go together, leading the eye up to the raising of Lazarus in chapter 11 and then the dramatic statement of purpose in chapter 12: Jesus, going to the cross, is going to pass judgment on “this world’s ruler” and rescue the captives from all the nations (12.23–33). This then leads to the second half, which opens with a statement as important as the Prologue itself: Jesus “had always loved his own people in the world; now he loved them right through to the end” (13.1). The divine glory and the divine love turn out to be two ways of saying the same thing. Jesus explains to his disciples what it all means, how they in turn must be people of love and unity; then he goes to face the ruler of the world and bear witness to the reality of God’s kingdom, the real truth, and the ultimate power (18.33—19.16). Jesus’ last words, “It’s all done” (19.30), echo the “finished” of Genesis 2.1–2. Creation has been rescued. New creation can now begin.
Nobody knows when John’s gospel was written. Scholars have suggested dates as late as AD 120 and as early as the middle 30s. It doesn’t matter. The revelation of divine love and glory in the true Man, Jesus, continues to evoke faith and life, as John intended that it should (20.31).
The Gospel of John
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a. The New Testament for Everyone, Third Edition. Copyright © 2011, 2018, 2019 by
Nicholas Thomas Wright, The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. All rights reserved. Published by Zondervan, 2023.
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