John

The Gospel of Belief: An Analytic Study of the Text

Merrill C. Tenney

• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781467451239
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Commentaire biblique

Originally published in 1948, this now-classic study by Merrill Tenney treats the Gospel of John as a literary unit and provides a straightforward analysis of the text. Tenney first outlines the structure of the Gospel, then offers a careful exposition of John’s text according to six major periods of Christ’s life, and finally presents a topical analysis of the Gospel. 

Not a critical commentary but, rather, a well-organized guidebook complemented by helpful charts and diagrams, Tenney’s  John: The Gospel of Belief, reissued in this new format, will continue helping pastors, teachers, students, and other Bible readers grasp the aim and major themes of John.

Part I

THE STRUCTURE OF THE GOSPEL

CHAPTER 1

The Internal Evidence of Structure

GRANTING that the existing text of the Fourth Gospel is substantially identical in content and arrangement with that which its author originally committed to manuscript, the chief clue to the interpretation of the book is its structure. This structure is discernible from three angles: (1) a formal statement of purpose and method made by the author; (2) the patent divisions of the book, whether logical, chronological, or geographical; and (3) the use of repeated terms in the vocabulary which may, by the frequency and distribution of their occurrence, reveal the shift of interest from one topic to another.

The Formal Statement of the Author

In John 20:30, 31 there is a clear declaration of the author’s intention in writing the book. Following as it does the climactic confession of Thomas, this assertion closes the main narrative and makes the final appeal to the reader. A grammatical analysis of this section should, therefore, reveal what the author had in mind when he composed the work. This process of investigation is similar to the old-fashioned method of diagramming sentences. For example,

30 Many other signs therefore did Jesus

	in the presence of the disciples,
which are not written
	in this book:

31 But these are written,

that ye may believe
	that Jesus is the Christ,
		the Son of God;
and believing
that./........ye may have life in his name.

The sentence divides naturally into two coordinate clauses, “many other signs did Jesus . . .” and “but these are written . . .” These clauses, each of which makes a main statement, are placed at the extreme left-hand margin of the page. Modifying phrases, such as “in the presence of the disciples,” and subordinate clauses, such as “that ye may believe . . .” are written directly beneath the words which they modify or on which they depend. This purely mechanical arrangement reveals at a glance what are the main statements of the passage, and what are the secondary ones. A summary of the main statements yields the following at once: (1) Jesus performed many signs which are unrecorded in this book; (2) those that are recorded are written for a definite purpose. The two points give the information that the author knew more than he wrote, but that what he did write was intended to fulfill a particular purpose.

Furthermore, in these two main sentences there are three outstanding words: signs, believe, life. These three are pivots of thought, and deserve definition.

Signs is the English translation of the Greek semeia, the plural of semeion, which is the characteristic Johannine word for miracle. Three other words are used in the New Testament with much the same meaning. Teras appears in Acts 2:19 and elsewhere, is translated wonder, and emphasizes the character of the miracle as a portent or prodigy, something outside the usual course of events. Dunamis is the root of the English word dynamite, stresses the power revealed in the performance of the miracle, and implies the spiritual energy which produced it. It is frequently used by Matthew, as in 11:20, 21, 23, etc. Paradoxon, in English, paradox, pictures the contradictory nature of the miracle, its incongruity with the order of the natural world, and its strangeness to the usual current of thought. Semeion, however, when applied to a miracle, usually implies that the deed is an indication of some power or meaning behind it to which it is secondary in importance. For instance, in Luke 2:12, the angel said by way of instructing the shepherds: “And this is the sign unto you: Ye shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger.” The fact that the child was wrapped in a certain type of garment was proof that it was the one of which the angel had spoken, and was called sign.¹ While the use of this term as applied to a miracle is not confined to JOHN, it is the only word used for miracle in that Gospel. JOHN, then, presented the miracles not merely as supernatural deeds nor as manifestations of supernatural power, nor even as exceptions to the usual current of events, but definitely as material witnesses to underlying spiritual truth. The teaching attached to each miracle is designed to bring out its spiritual significance, and, conversely, the miracle is the concrete demonstration of the power discussed in the teaching.

If the initial sentence of this key be interpreted in the light of the given definition, the meaning becomes plain that the central events of the history of JOHN are certain signs which the author has selected from a larger group that Jesus performed. The casual way in which he stated that “many other signs therefore did Jesus” conveys the impression that he had no difficulty whatsoever in finding enough of them to make convincing evidence. He was careful to tell that they were performed “in the presence of his disciples.” These occurrences were adequately attested by the witness of those who saw them performed. There was a tacit assumption that appeal could be made to these witnesses in case of doubt; or, if the witnesses were not surviving, at least there were witnesses. The signs were not the products of the writer’s personal imagination. Certain deeds performed by Jesus of Nazareth were so startling that they deserved special notice, and called for explanation. Furthermore, these deeds bespoke something unusual in Christ’s personality, and were themselves signposts pointing in the direction of something new.

What were these signs?

Since discussion of them will be undertaken in the main body of the exposition, no lengthy analysis will be attempted here. There are seven in all, exclusive of the resurrection and the draught of fishes recorded in the twenty-first chapter. The resurrection differs from the others because the act itself did not take place in public sight and because it was not performed on someone or something apart from Jesus Himself. The draught of fishes is in the Epilogue, which is not a part of the main body of the Gospel.

Each of these seven signs revealed some specific characteristic of Jesus’ power and person. They are in order:

The Changing of Water into Wine 2:1-11

In this first miracle of His ministry, Jesus revealed Himself as the master of quality by effecting instantaneously the change that the vine produces over a period of months.

The Healing of the Nobleman’s Son 4:46-54

By healing the boy who was more than twenty miles distant from Him, Jesus showed Himself the master of distance, or space.

The Healing of the Impotent Man 5:1-9

The longer a disease afflicts a man, the more difficult it is to cure. Jesus, by curing instantly an affliction of thirty-eight years’ standing, became the master of time.

The Feeding of the Five Thousand 6:1-14

By multiplying the five flat loaves and two small fishes of one boy’s lunch into enough to feed five thousand men, besides women and children, Jesus showed Himself to be the master of quantity.

The Walking on the Water 6:16-21

This miracle demonstrated His mastery over natural law.

The Healing of the Man Born Blind 9:1-12 (41)

The point of this miracle is not so much the fact that Jesus healed a difficult case as that He did so in answer to the question as to why this man should have been so afflicted. Thereby Christ showed that He was the master of misfortune.

The Raising of Lazarus 11:1-46

This miracle indicated that Jesus incontrovertibly was the master of death.

These seven miracles, then, are preeminently signs because they point to those aspects of Jesus’ ministry in which He demonstrated His transcendent control over the factors of life with which man is unable to cope. Quality, space, time, quantity, natural law, misfortune, and death circumscribe humanity’s world. Daily existence is a struggle against their limitations. Christ’s superiority over them as revealed by these events called signs was proof of His deity and a clue to understanding what the writer desired to say about Him.

To return to the structure of this key, the writer was not content only to describe his main approach, but he stated also the purpose for it. “These [signs] are w...