Commentary on John (Commentary on the New Testament Book #4)

Robert H. Gundry

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781441237613
• eBook ISBN: 9781441237613
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Commentary

Delve Deeper into God's Word

In this verse-by-verse commentary, Robert Gundry offers a fresh, literal translation and a reliable exposition of Scripture for today's readers.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus appears as God's preexistent Son who carried out the will of God his Father completely, took full charge even of his own death and resurrection, and thus demands and deserves to be believed.

Pastors, Sunday school teachers, small group leaders, and laypeople will welcome Gundry's nontechnical explanations and clarifications. And Bible students at all levels will appreciate his sparkling interpretations.

This selection is from Gundry's Commentary on the New Testament.

John

In this Gospel Jesus appears as God’s preexistent Son and agent of creation who therefore, on becoming a human being, carried out the will of God his Father completely, took full charge even of his own death and resurrection, and thus demands and deserves belief in him.

A PROLOGUE ON JESUS AS THE WORD
John 1:1–18

1:1: In the beginning was the Word. So starts the Fourth Gospel. Mark started his Gospel, the earliest one, with the phrase, “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ” (Mark 1:1), and proceeded to the ministry of John the baptizer (from here on, “the Baptist” to distinguish him from John the evangelist, who wrote the Fourth Gospel, though the evangelist never calls him the Baptist). Matthew started with Jesus’ genealogy and nativity; proceeded to the Baptist’s ministry, Jesus’ baptism, temptation, and move from Nazareth to Capernaum; and wrote, “From then on Jesus began preaching and saying, ‘Repent, for the reign of heaven has drawn near’ ” (Matthew 4:17). In the prologue to his Gospel, Luke refers to “those who from the beginning became eyewitnesses and assistants of the word” (Luke 1:2). For Mark, then, the beginning consists in the Baptist’s preaching and baptizing; for Matthew, in Jesus’ preaching; and for Luke, in the ministry of eyewitnesses to Jesus’ life on earth. Each of these beginnings came a little later in time: Jesus after the Baptist, and eyewitnesses after Jesus. John, who wrote last, breaks this pattern. His phrase, “In the beginning,” echoes Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” and so takes us all the way back to creation rather than marking another, still later beginning than those in the other Gospels.

But “created” is a verb of action in Genesis 1:1, just as Mark, Matthew, and Luke used verbs of action, such as the verbs of baptizing and preaching. In contrast, John uses the past tense of a verb of existence: “was.” That is to say, in the beginning the Word already existed, because he himself had no beginning—or, as we read in Revelation 21:6; 22:13, “I am . . . the beginning.” The Word preexisted. Because of the echo of Genesis 1:1 we expect the subject of John’s first sentence to be God: “In the beginning was God.” As we’ve seen, though, Luke’s prologue referred to “those who from the beginning became eyewitnesses and assistants of the word [that is, the oral gospel].” So John picks up this term, “the word,” and—capitalizing it, so to speak—substitutes it for “God.” But we don’t yet know who this Word was, and if reading John’s prologue for the first time we won’t know for quite a while. John keeps us in suspense. In the meantime he’ll describe the Word without identifying the Word personally. On to that description, then.

And the Word was with God. Now the God of Genesis 1:1 comes into view. The Word and God preexisted together. In the beginning they were already there, both of them. “With God” distinguishes the Word from God and indicates a close, face-to-face relation with him. How close? And the Word was God. So close that the Word was identical with God at the same time as distinguishable from him. In other words, within himself—not just in relation to us, for neither human beings nor any other creatures existed already in the beginning—God was, is, and always will be a social being. (Add the Holy Spirit from later in John’s Gospel [1:32–33 and following] and we get the Trinity.) But note the singular of “God.” Despite the distinction between the Word and God we don’t have “gods” (plural) even though God and the Word are both God. What we do have is plurality within singularity, and singularity pervading plurality.

In polytheistic religions the gods and goddesses engage one another in competition, jealousies, rivalries, battles, adulteries, murders, deceit, and so on. Since we seek to become like what we worship (as in the current “worship” of celebrities, called “stars” and “idols,” in popular culture), the worship of those gods and goddesses encourages such behaviors instead of discouraging them. On the other hand, a god who alone is god and is only singular, who within himself is nonsocial—that kind of god tends toward sheer power untempered by what we call social graces. He becomes, in short, a despot. So when his worshipers gain power, they tend toward despotism. By way of contrast the God of John’s Gospel, being within himself social as well as singular, is both the God of love (“God loved the world” [3:16]) and the God of unity (“that they [the disciples] may be one just as we [the Word and God] are one” [17:22]).

1:2–4: This one [referring to the Word] was in the beginning with God repeats the thought of 1:1 to reecho Genesis 1:1 in preparation for introducing the creation, about which that Old Testament text goes on to speak. 3All things came into existence through him [the Word], and apart from him there came into existence not even one thing that did come into existence. In Genesis God spoke things into existence. For example, “Then God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light” (Genesis 1:3). So John turns God’s speaking into God’s Word as the agent of creation. The “all things” that came into being through the Word include not only inanimate objects but also living creatures, human beings at their head according to Genesis 1:26–30. 4In him [the Word] was life. But what kind of life is John writing about? The life that the Word conveyed to living creatures at the beginning? Probably not, because elsewhere in John “life” usually means eternal life for those who believe in the Word. This life is eternal because it’s the very life of the eternal Word who was in the beginning with God. And the life was the light of human beings. God created light first (Genesis 1:3). But in John the light is the uncreated Word, God’s agent in the creation of light along with everything else. The equation of life with light rests on some cultural background. Before the invention of matches, light bulbs, and the like, people had to keep a lamp burning if they wanted to avoid borrowing fire from a neighbor or laboriously rekindling fire by friction or percussion every time darkness fell. But when a living person wasn’t present to keep the lamp burning, it went out, so that the going out of a lamp came to represent death, as in Job 18:5–6: “Indeed, the light of the wicked goes out and the flame of his fire gives no light. The light in his tent is darkened and his lamp goes out above him.” On the other hand, life meant that the light of a lamp was kept burning.

John doesn’t say that the Word was the light of human beings. Rather, “the life was the light of human beings.” We get a hint that “the life” is not only life that was in the Word. More than that, the life is another way of referring to the Word himself. Later in John, as a matter of fact, the Word will say, “I am . . . the life” (11:25; 14:6; compare 1 John 1:1–2: “What was from the beginning, what we’ve heard, what we’ve seen with our eyes, what we’ve observed and our hands felt—[we’re writing] about the Word of life, and the life was manifested, and we’ve seen [the life] and are testifying to [the life] and announcing to you the eternal life, who as such was with the Father and was manifested to us”). But when was the life the light of human beings? At the dawn of creation and ever since? Some have thought so. But 1:9 will talk about the light’s coming into the world, and this coming is mentioned subsequent to the mention of the Baptist’s testimony in 1:6–8. Furthermore, in 9:5 the Word says, “Whenever I’m in the world, I am the light of the world.” In 12:46, “I’ve come into the world as light.” And in 12:35, “the light is among you” for only “a little while yet.” So 1:4 has skipped from creation “in the beginning” all the way to the Word’s shining among human beings in the first century.

1:5: And the light is shining in the darkness . . . . Just as “the life” is a way of referring to the Word himself, so also “the light” is a way of referring to the Word himself (compare 8:12: “I am the light of the world”). But the light was going to be withdrawn with the Word’s return to the Father after staying “a little while” in the world (see 12:35 again [compare 9:4–5]). So how should we take the present tense of “is shining”? It’s what we call a “vivid historical present,” the use of the present tense to emphasize a past event as though it were happening right now. In other words, the light shone intensely, brightly.

In Genesis 1:4–5, “God separated the light from the darkness” and “called the light day and the darkness . . . night.” But here in John “the light is shining in the darkness” to set up a confrontation between the two. And according to Genesis 1:4 “God saw that the light was good.” Darkness didn’t get the same description. So it’s natural to associate light not only with life but also with goodness, and darkness not only with death but also with evil, as 3:19 will do: “the light has come into the world; and the human beings [who make up ‘the world’] loved the darkness rather than the light, for their deeds were evil.” We have then a confrontation between good and evil, but not in the abstract—rather, in concrete, personal terms. The good light is the Word who was with God and was God. Correspondingly, the darkness is the human beings whose works were evil. So John continues: and the darkness [that is, those human beings] didn’t apprehend it [the light]. The verb “apprehend” carries two meanings: (1) take into custody, arrest, overpower and (2) take hold of mentally, perceive, understand, comprehend. Throughout the rest of John the human beings who make up the darkness constantly fail to understand. In fact they misunderstand, as in 2:20–21: “Therefore the Jews said, ‘For forty-six years this temple has been a-building, and you—will you raise it in three days?’ But that one [the Word] was talking about the temple [consisting] of his body.” Neither do they overpower the light. They don’t even take the light into custody—not really. He will volunteer himself for arrest. Only then will they “take him along” (so a literal translation of 18:12 [contrast earlier, failed attempts to “seize” him in 7:30, 32, 44–46; 8:20; 10:39; 11:57]). How could the light be overpowered by the darkness if the light is none other than the Word who was God?

1:6–7: There came on the scene a human being sent from God. He had the name John [the Baptist]. 7This one came for the purpose of a testimony, [that is,] in order that he might testify concerning the light, [and what was the purpose of his testifying?] in order that all might believe through him. In Mark the Baptist is primarily a baptizer. In Matthew he’s equally a baptizer and a preacher of repentance. In Luke, primarily a preacher of repentance. In John, the Baptist is primarily a witness who bears testimony to the light. In the other Gospels he talks a little about “the coming one.” But in this Gospel he actually points him out. He sees him coming toward him and says, “Look! The lamb of God that takes away the world’s sin!” (1:29). His testimony has the purpose of getting people to believe in the light. So we can look at the whole of the Fourth Gospel as portraying a legal dispute in which various witnesses, like the Baptist, testify on behalf of the light while others accuse the light.

A negative statement balances a positive one in 1:8: That one [the Baptist] wasn’t the light; rather, [he came] that he might testify concerning the light. The negative suggests that some people at the time this Gospel was written still hadn’t transferred their allegiance from the Baptist to the light. All the Gospels mention disciples of the Baptist who hadn’t made the switch during the shining of the light in the world (Mark 2:18; Matthew 9:14; 11:2; Luke 5:33; 7:18–19, 24; John 3:25). Later, too, the Apostle Paul discovered twelve such disciples in Ephesus, far away in Asia Minor (Acts 19:1–7). He baptized them in the name of Jesus, so that they received the Holy Spirit (compare the early church tradition that the Fourth Gospel emanated from that city in the country now called Turkey). An ancient though probably unrelated sect of Baptist-followers, called Mandeans, still exists in Iraq.

There are several possible translations of 1:9:

• He [the light who is the life who in turn is the Word] was the true light that enlightens every human being who comes into the world.
• He was the true light that by coming into the world enlightens every human being.
• The true light that enlightens every human being was coming into the world.

The main meaning is pretty clear, though. First, the description of the light as “true” not only keeps us from mistaking the Baptist for the light. It also associates the light with truth, which will become a major theme in this Gospel, as in 14:6, “I am . . . the truth,” and 18:38, where the Roman governor Pontius Pilate asks, “What is truth?” when the truth is standing right in front of him. Second, although the people who make up the darkness don’t come to the light because their deeds are evil (3:19–20), the light enlightens all human beings in the sense that he shines on all of them. Astronomically speaking, the sun is the light of the world; and it shines on the righteous and unrighteous alike (Matthew 5:45). So also this divine light is the light of the world in that he exposes human evil but brings the light of life to all who believe. Third, since elsewhere in John’s Gospel coming into the world refers to the incarnation of the Word, here in 1:9 “coming into the world” probably relates not to “every human being” but to “the true light” and explains how that light shines. He shines by coming into the world. As the Word the light was with God in the beginning. But the Word became the light for human beings not till he left God and came into the world.

And what is this “world” he entered? 1:10: He was in the world, and the world came into existence through him. So far, all we have to think of is the planet Earth. But the verse finishes with this statement...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• John
• Notes
• Back Cover