Johannine Literature Julian Zugg
TITLE PAGE
MAB 414
Johannine Literature: A Literary and Theological Study of John’s Writings
Rev. Dr. Julian Michael Zugg LLB (Hons) Barrister, M.Div., D.Min.
Miami International Seminary
Covenant PCA, Houston, Texas
CONTACT DETAILS:
OUTLINE
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION
LESSON ONE: John in History, Literature, and Theology
LESSON TWO: The Theology of John’s Gospel
LESSON THREE: The Prologue (1:1-18) and Introduction (1:19-51)
LESSON FOUR: The Book of Signs (Part 1 ~ The Canna Cycle)
LESSON FIVE: The Book of Signs (Part 2 ~ The Greater Public Ministry)
LESSON SIX: The Farewell Discourse
LESSON SEVEN: The Nature of the Cross and the Resurrection
LESSON EIGHT: An Introduction to 1,2,3 John
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL
INTRODUCTION
In this course we will consider John’s contribution to the history and theology of the New Testament. We will consider John’s Gospel as well as John’s three letters. This course omits an analysis of the Revelation due to time constraints. The objective is to give students the tools to understand John thereby making it easier to read and understand John’s works.
COURSE CONTENT
The course is divided into eight lessons. It begins with the foundational material necessary for us to understand John’s Gospel. After laying this foundation it offers a line by line commentary of John’s prologue, Jesus’ public ministry, and His farewell discourse. In Lesson Seven we return to a thematic treatment of the atonement and Jesus’ death and resurrection. In Lesson Eight we consider 1,2,3 John.
COURSE MATERIALS
The lecture notes are a full exposition for this course. The students are required to read them thoroughly along with the Scriptures. Students are also required to read the following MINTS courses by Julian Zugg: John 1-12, John 13-31, and the Book of Revelation. If student wish they can substitute the same material written by Don Ritzman for these courses.
COURSE OBJECTIVES
To study Johannine Theology with other students;
To acquire a detailed knowledge of the history, literature, and theology of John;
To develop a deeper understanding of God’s work in this world;
To grow in knowledge of how God deals with His children;
To master Johannine theology in order to use it in preaching, teaching, and pastoral counseling;
To master Johannine theology in order to gain an understanding of the historical background of John’s letters
STRUCTURE OF THE COURSE
This course has been organized into eight consecutive lessons. The lessons follow a distinct order and therefore they should be studied in order.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
1. Participate in fifteen hours of common teaching time.
2. Complete the Bible study exercises as contained in the eight lessons.
3. Read the additional course material.
4. Write a sermon or study lesson plan on a theme from John’s Gospel of ten to twelve pages at the Master’s level.
5. Complete theexams included in the course on Johannine Theology which are based upon the questions at the end of the lessons.
COURSE EVALUATION
1. Student Participation (15%): One point may be given for each class hour attended.
2. Student Homework (40%): Five points will be given for completing the questions at the end of each lesson.
3. Student Readings (10%): Students will be given credit for completing the required reading.
4. Student Paper (15%): Students will prepare exegetical notes for a sermon/teaching.
5. Student Exam (20%): Students will be examined by two exams drawn from the questions at the end of each lesson.
BENEFITS OF THIS COURSE
The course will ground students in the New Testament. It will show them the glory of God revealed in Christ in the gospel and letters of John.
Lesson One: John in History, Literature, and Theology
John presents Christ in a unique way. The church father, Clement of Alexander called John the spiritual gospel. He wrote, “But that John, last of all, conscious that the outward facts had been set forth in the gospels, was urged by his disciples, and divinely moved, by the Spirit, composed the spiritual gospel”. [1].In calling John a spiritual gospel, Clement did not mean that the work was not historical; rather, Clement understood that, unlike Luke, John was not principally concerned with establishing a historic, chronological record of Jesus’ life. John’s aim was to develop certain key aspects in the life and ministry of Jesus in order to assist the church in her battle with certain errors and to represent Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God.
John is a spiritual gospel in the sense that in the physical revelation of Jesus, God, who is Spirit, has been made known to men. God is Spirit and so: No one has ever seen God (1 John 4:12), but now in Jesus, He who dwelt with the Father has entered into the creation in human form, in the flesh, in order to reveal Him (John 1:14,18):
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth…. (18) No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.
John’s account of the story of Jesus can be classified as a combination of history, literature, and theology;therefore, we will consider John under those headings.[2]John’s Gospel is rooted in history; his foundation is his own eyewitness testimony. John shapes the material. Through various literary techniques, he emphasizesspecific themes in order to drive home his main theological points. Through selection and literary techniques, John is able to focus the reader on the main theological points in the gospel.
John as History: The gospel is John’s eyewitness account of Jesus’ historical life on earth. It is reported to us by “the disciple whom Jesus loved”, the one who had seen and heard His voice. These are the truths that were revealed to men in history, time, and space.
It is a selective history, John wrote the gospel in the late 80’s, after the other gospels had been written, and John selected his material to address certain themes that the other gospels had not developed. John tells us thatHe did not try to record everything Jesus did. He writes,Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written (John 21:25).
John as Literature: In presenting the material, John usesdistinct literary techniques in order to emphasize the message, including his use of seven signs, his above and below contrast, his use of opposites, and his use of symbolic language. The better the reader understands John’stechniques, the better he or she will understand the message.
John as Theology: John’s ultimate aim is theological. His key themes include Jesus’ signs, the mission of God, the revelation of the Trinity, and the forming of a new community that will continue Jesus’ works with the aid of the Spirit. John’s purpose is for us toknow that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and thatby believing we might have life in His name (John 20:31). The facts and literature all combine to proclaim this great purpose: eternal life.
In summary, John’s Gospel is rooted in history and uses a distinct literary structure in order to assist the reader to understand the deep spiritual truths (theology) he wants the reader to learn. His is a theological biography. [3]
1. The Historical Background of John
The gospel was written at a certain time, by a particular author,and for a specific reason. The gospel has a distinct history. John’s Gospel is eyewitness testimony; hedescribes actual events in Jesus’ life. Jesus could be seen, touched, and heard as the eternal Son of God came in the flesh. In turn, the disciples bore witness of Jesus to the church. John stresses the historical, eyewitness nature of his writings in the introduction to 1 John. He does not report what someone else taught only what he and other disciples personally observed or experienced.[4]
That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life ---(2) the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us ---(1 John 1:1,2).
An example of this eyewitness testimony is John’s record of Jesus and “Doubting Thomas” (John 20:19-29). Thomas was a disciple, one who accompanied Jesus. After being told of the resurrection, Thomas would not believe unless, as Thomas says, he actually saw, touched, and handled Jesus. Jesus appeared to him later, showing ThomasHis resurrection body. Thomas then saw and believed. In this story we have an eyewitness account of the evidence of the physical resurrection, the evidence of eternal life, in order that those who read might believe. Thomas’ eyewitness experience led to one of the great theological declarations of the gospel:My Lord and my God! (John 20:28).
1.1. Author
Within the gospel’s text there is no mention of the author’s name or an explicit claim to its authorship. The traditional witness of the church holdsthat the apostle John is the author. This traditional approach to John’s Gospel, his letters, and the book of Revelation, is as follows: Peter, James, and John were the inner circle. John is linked to Peter in Acts and Peter, James, and John form the pillars of the early church (Gal. 2:9). James was martyred (Acts 12, in ca. AD 44). Peter was martyred in Rome (circa AD 64). John moved to Ephesus around the time of Jewish wars (AD 66-74), working there for many years and wrote 1, 2, and 3 John to churches in Asia under his care. Later the apostle was exiled to Island of Patmos, where he received the final revelation from God, the book of Revelation. John died in exile on Patmos, bringing the apostolic era to a close.[5]
In order to ascertain authorship we will consider internal and external evidence. The internal evidence is what the book of John says about the author. The external evidence is the early church’s understanding of who wrote John.
Internal Evidence:
The internal evidence points to the apostle John as the author. The gospel is an eyewitness account of the life of Jesus. The author says we saw His glory (1:14) and was one of the disciples present at Jesus’ first miracle in Cana (2:11). Further, we know that the eyewitness author/disciple remained with Jesus until the end of His ministry. The author refers to himself as the disciple whom Jesus loved in John 21:20, and he says that he wrote the gospel as a witness in John 21:24.
The disciple whom Jesus loved is never named in the gospel. The author is referred to asone of the twelve. The phrase is repeated in a number of places: he was one of the twelve who sat with Jesus, and he was told to care for Jesus’ mother (19:26,27). He was at the empty tomb (20:2,3,8). He was one of the seven who was at Galilee and was closely associated with Peter, both at the empty tomb and when Jesus gave His final instructions (21).
The disciple is one of the seven in Galilee at the end of the gospel (21:2). In this list three, Simon Peter, Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee are explicitly mentioned. That leaves four others. Because the author is never named in the gospel, he must be one of these four unnamed disciples. The four include the two sonsof Zebedee, and two other unnamed disciples. In other gospels the two sons of Zebedee are identified as James and John. The author cannot be James,becauseHerod martyred him in AD 42 before the gospel was written. Therefore the writes is then either John or one of the other two unnamed disciples. We are now left with the following possibilities, Matthew, Simon the zealot, and James,the son of Alpheus. Matthew wrote a gospel, and there is no evidence that the other two wrote anything. Thereforethe writer of the gospel must be John.
The conclusion that John wrote the gospel is consistent with the general witness of Scripture. In Acts 3:4, 8:14-25, and Galatians 2:9, Peter is always associated with John. Similarly in this gospel,Peter is always with the disciple whom Jesus loved, indicating that this disciple was John.
External Evidence
The universal testimony of the early church was that the apostle John wrote the gospel that bears his name. This is supported by the fact that Polycarp, John’s disciple, told Ireneaus that John was the author. The witness is JohnPolycarp Ireneaus. Also, Eusebiusof Caesarea records Clement of Alexandria’s saying John wrote the spiritual gospel.[6]This has therefore been the traditional view in the church for centuries.
There have been some challenges to this traditional view. One argument is that an unknown elder named John wrote the gospel and the three letters. Another view is that the book is a collection of writings from a Johannine community,and this group wrote “John’s” works to deal with issues that arose in 2nd century. Neither position is sustainable:we have no evidence that there was an elder called John, and because he was not one of the twelve, he could not have been an eyewitness or part of the inner circle. The same criticism is true of the Johannine community hypothesis; therefore,we accept the historic teaching of the church.
We do not know why John did not explicitly tell us he was the author. We do find the disciple whom Jesus lovedfeatured highly in the account. He was an eyewitness and a part of Jesus’ inner circle, so he saw things that the other disciples did not. John wants us to know that we can trust this account, while at the same time he deliberately tries not to draw attention to himself. The issue of authorship applies equally to the other Johannine writings. The traditional position in the church has always been that the same author wrote all of John’s letters and the book of Revelation, thus creating a single literary body or corpus. This also will be the assumption of this course.[7]
1.2. Place and Time
According to Clement the gospel was written in Ephesus. We have no reason to dispute this.
Precisely when the gospel, the letters, and Revelation were written is not clear. The Gospel could not have been written before Peter’s martyrdom, which occurred circa AD 64-65. At the time when John writes, he includes a story of Jesus telling Peter that he will be killed (John 21:19). Peter’s martyrdom was well know.Some have tried to date John in relation to the destruction of the temple, but the relationship of the gospel to this event is unclear. Most say that it is unlikely that the gospel was written before the destruction of the temple in AD 70. In John’s Gospel,the author seems to imply that the temple had already been destroyed having been replaced through Jesus’ death and resurrection. Others try to link the date of writing to Thomas’ climactic confession that Jesus is my Lord and my God (John 20:28). In AD 81-96 the emperor Domitian commanded the people to confess that hewas god, and so some argue that John’s use of Thomas’s confession that Jesus is my Lord and My God was written to emphasize that Jesus, not the emperor, is God. If this is correct, the statement is a strong affirmation of Jesus and a direct rejection of the emperor Domitian. It would also mean that the Gospel was written sometime during his rule, between AD 81 and AD 90. [8]
2. John as Literature
The gospels are a distinct literary genre: a historical record written for a particular purpose. In developing his message, John uses certain literary techniques in order to drive home his principal point.
John is a Jew and he writes about the life of Jesus as He was revealed to the Jews in history, a very Jewish context. Because many of John’s audience were gentiles, he does give some simple explanations of Jewish terms,but the overall structure and thinking is still very Jewish. We will consider the Jewish background in the following lesson.
These two important factors influence how we understand John today.
2.1. Material Selection
John selects and structures his materialaround (seven) signs through which Jesus reveals His glory to the Jews and to the world.
John tells us that Jesus did many signs, so numerous that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written (John 21:25) about them. From all these signs John selected seven as a public witness, a testimony to Israel that Jesus is the Christ, in order that they might believe.In the conclusion of his work, John summarizes the reason why he wrote the gospel:
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; (31) but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name (John 20:30,31).