Signs of the Messiah

An Introduction to John's Gospel

Andreas Köstenberger

• Publisher: Lexham Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781683594567
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

That you may believeHave you ever asked God for a sign? Throughout Scripture, God gave signs to his people, whether mighty acts during the exodus or miracles through Elijah and Elisha. Jesus was also asked for a sign. Yet despite giving seven remarkable signs, his people refused to believe him.
In Signs of the Messiah, Andreas Köstenberger--veteran New Testament scholar and expert on the Gospel of John--guides readers through John and highlights its plot and message. John's Gospel is written to inspire faith in Jesus. By keeping the Gospel's big picture in view, readers will see Jesus' mighty signs and be compelled to trust more fully in the Messiah.
Readers will have a deeper grasp of John's message and intent through this short and accessible introduction.

PART 1

AUTHORSHIP, PROLOGUE, and CANA CYCLE

(JOHN 1–4)

1

AUTHORSHIP AND JOHN’S PROLOGUE

Thank you for joining me as we set out on a journey to explore the theology of John, especially in his Gospel. I love the Gospel of John because John is profoundly theological and has such a deep grasp of who Jesus is. However, talking about John’s theology and his Gospel raises some important questions: Who was John? And what was his relationship with Jesus?

In this chapter, I’ll first discuss the authorship of John’s Gospel, and then I’ll move into a discussion of John’s prologue, the first eighteen verses of the Gospel. The next two chapters will be devoted to a close examination of the so-called “Cana Cycle” (John 2–4), which includes Jesus’ initial sign—the turning of water into wine—as well as the temple clearing, his conversations with Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman, and the healing of the gentile centurion’s son.

I believe introductory matters are vital for the study of a given book of Scripture: authorship, date, provenance, destination, occasion, and purpose.1 These topics are not merely something you determine and then leave behind as you go on to study a passage in a given book. Rather, you need to constantly keep the author’s identity in mind as you try to discern the authorial intent underlying that passage.

It’s also important to use a sound hermeneutical method. In what follows, I am presupposing what I call the “hermeneutical triad”—that is, we’ll be looking at the interpretation of John’s Gospel through the trifocal lens of history, literature, and theology.2 We’ll try to keep in mind any relevant historical-cultural background issues. We’ll also be mindful of literary devices such as chiasm or inclusio and narrative features such as plot or characterization. When it comes to theology, we’ll try to discern any Old Testament usage, whether by way of direct quotation, allusion, or typology, and we’ll remember that John is the “spiritual Gospel.” By that I meant that he focuses primarily on Christology, the true identity of the Lord Jesus Christ as Messiah and Son of God, in keeping with his purpose statement (20:30–31).

I hope to help you build a solid foundation as you study, preach, or teach John’s Gospel, and by extension, other books of the Bible. I’ll try to model sound exegesis and hermeneutics in breaking down the Gospel unit by unit and to discern the central message in each unit within the scope of the entire Gospel. In this way, I hope you’ll be thoroughly equipped to grasp for yourself and communicate to others the amazing spiritual truths contained in John’s Gospel.

WHO WROTE JOHN’S GOSPEL?

Let’s first turn our attention to the question of who wrote John’s Gospel. Many critical scholars today don’t believe the apostle John wrote the Gospel that bears his name. Some contend that another person named John, perhaps someone commonly called “John the elder,” wrote the Gospel. Others argue that a so-called “Johannine community,” which traced its roots to the apostle, wrote the Gospel sometime after John’s death. Yet others say someone else wrote the Gospel, such as Lazarus.

I believe this is not merely an academic squabble. It is important to determine who the author of John’s Gospel is and what his relationship to Jesus is because the credibility of a given writing largely depends on the credibility of its author. If the apostle John, one of the twelve apostles—and one of only three in Jesus’ inner circle—wrote the Gospel, this would make the Gospel highly authoritative, as John is one of the most important eyewitnesses of Jesus.

If, on the other hand, a community of John’s followers wrote the Gospel based on some Johannine traditions after the apostle had already died, the connection would be a lot more indirect, and the Gospel would therefore be less credible and authoritative. At best, it would reflect indirect rather than direct eyewitness testimony. At worst, it would project the history of such a Johannine community onto the life and times of Jesus, as J. Louis Martyn, Raymond Brown, and others have argued.3 So, the authority of John’s Gospel hinges to a significant extent on the identity of its author.4

How, then, do we determine the author of John’s Gospel? There are two main avenues: internal and external evidence. Sometimes people start with the external evidence—meaning they examine who Christians in the early centuries of the church identified as the author of John’s Gospel. I, however, prefer to start with the internal evidence, meaning I examine clues in the text itself that identify its author. So, let’s start there.

INTERNAL EVIDENCE

Formally, like all the Gospels, John’s Gospel is anonymous. Unlike the New Testament letters, it doesn’t start out by saying, for example, “I, the apostle John, wrote this Gospel.” That’s because a Gospel is not person-to-person or person-to-group communication like an epistle is. Rather, as Richard Bauckham and others have argued in The Gospels for All Christians, a Gospel is a universal document that sets forth the story of Jesus more broadly to a wide-reading public.5

The “Disciple Whom Jesus Loved”

While the Gospel of John does not explicitly identify its author, when we investigate it for clues regarding its authorship, we find several important internal pieces of information. To begin with, we notice several references to a person called “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” He is first mentioned in the account of the upper room, where we read that “one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at table at Jesus’s side” (13:23). Later, the same disciple reappears at the high priest’s courtyard after Jesus’ arrest (18:15–16), at the scene of the crucifixion (19:35), and at the empty tomb (20:2, 8–9). In these passages this disciple is referred to as “another disciple” (18:15), “he who saw this” (19:35), “the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved” (20:2), and “the other disciple” (20:8).

The final set of references to the “disciple whom Jesus loved” occur in the accounts of Jesus’ third and last resurrection appearance to his disciples (21:7) and Jesus’ conversation with the disciple and Peter about their respective future callings (21:20–23). We find the clincher in the penultimate verse of the Gospel: “This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true” (21:24). Here we are told (in the third-person singular and then first-person plural) that “the disciple whom Jesus loved” and the author of the Gospel, “the disciple who is bearing witness about these things,” are one and the same. The Gospel closes with a highly unusual (for a Gospel) first-person reference: “Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (21:25, emphasis added). Upon investigating similar references in ancient literature, I have concluded that this is an epithet of authorial modesty on John’s part.6

So, the internal evidence from the Gospel itself indicates that it was written by a disciple (1) who was at Jesus’ side at the Last Supper (and hence was one of the Twelve); (2) who was at the scene of Jesus’ arrest and trial; and (3) who witnessed Jesus’ crucifixion and saw Jesus following his resurrection. What an incredible claim the Gospel stakes regarding its author! The seats on either side of Jesus at the Last Supper would have been places of high honor reserved for Jesus’ two closest associates—and the author of this Gospel was seated in one of them.

If we were to compare the Gospel of John to a biography of a U.S. president, it wouldn’t be something written by a journalist who knows about events in the figure’s life only through secondhand accounts or hearsay; it would be written by the president’s chief of staff, closest confidant, or another trusted advisor—someone who was by his side at all the major junctures of his presidency.

The “Disciple Whom Jesus Loved” and Peter

There are a few other interesting pieces of information we can gain from the internal evidence. One fascinating datum relates to the numerous passages in John’s Gospel where the “disciple whom Jesus loved” appears in close conjunction with Peter.7 Virtually every time where the “disciple whom Jesus loved” is mentioned in the second half of John’s Gospel, Peter is mentioned as well.

⬩Both are present in the upper room when Peter asks the “disciple whom Jesus loved” to ask about the identity of the betrayer (13:23–24).

⬩Both are there in the high priest’s courtyard; in fact, the “disciple whom Jesus loved” gives Peter access to this courtyard because he is acquainted with the high priest (18:15–16).

⬩Both visit the empty tomb following Jesus’ resurrection; in fact, they run there together. The “disciple whom Jesus loved” (who apparently was the younger of the two) outruns Peter but then respectfully waits for Peter and allows him to peer into the tomb first before he, too, looks inside and sees that the tomb is empty (20:2–9).

⬩Both are there at the Sea of Galilee, where they see the risen Jesus at the shore. It is only when the “disciple whom Jesus loved” exclaims, “It is the Lord!” that Peter jumps into the lake and swims excitedly toward Jesus (21:7).

⬩Finally, as mentioned previously, Jesus speaks with Peter and the “disciple whom Jesus loved” at the very end of the Gospel (21:20–23).

Why do we see this consistent parallel characterization of Peter and the “disciple Jesus loved”? And who is the person who best fits this description historically? According to the witness of the other Gospels, the book of Acts, and even Paul’s writings, the person who is most closely connected to Peter is the apostle John.

John and Peter, together with John’s brother James, make up the inner circle of three who alone witness the raising of Jairus’ daughter (Mark 5:37; Luke 8:51), accompany Jesus on the mount of transfiguration (Matt 17:1; Mark 9:2; Luke 9:28), and are taken with him to the garden of Gethsemane (Matt 26:37; Mark 14:33).

In Acts 3, we see Peter and John go to the temple together at the hour of prayer; in Acts 4 both bear witness to the Sanhedrin; and in Acts 8:14–25 they travel together to Samaria to certify the genuineness of Samaritan conversions there. And in Galatians 2:9, Paul calls James (the half-brother of Jesus), Peter (called “Cephas”), and John “pillars” of the church.

So, we see that Peter and John are linked closely in the other Gospels, the book of Acts, and even in Paul’s first letter. Therefore, there can be little doubt that in the Fourth Gospel, when Peter is linked consistently with “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” that disciple is none other than the apostle John.

Why “Disciple Whom Jesus Loved”?

But why does the apostle John use the unusual phrase “the disciple whom Jesus loved” to identify himself in the Gospel? There are probably multiple reasons. It is likely that he does so to avoid confusion, since there is another person named John featured in this Gospel: John the Baptist. By calling himself simply “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” the author reserves the name John for John the Baptist. Thus, when the author first introduces John the Baptist in the Gospel, he simply writes, “There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to bear witness about the light …” (1:6).

We can observe the same phenomenon with regard to another common name, “Mary.” Richard Bauckham, who has engaged in an extensive study of personal names in first-century Palestine, conjectures that close to 30 percent of all girls at that time were named either Mary or Salome, with Mary being the most common name.8 The author of John’s Gospel never calls Jesus’ mother by the name Mary but instead simply refers to her as “the mother of Jesus” (e.g., 2:1–11). In this way, in John’s Gospel, the name Mary is reserved for Mary Magdalene, to whom the author usually refers simply as Mary (e.g., 20:11, 16; cf. 20:18: “Mary Magdalene”).

In addition, the phrase “the disciple whom Jesus loved” expresses the important truth that John knew himself to be deeply loved by Jesus. This aligns with his theology and ethic of love, which we can see not only at the footwashing (13:1–20) but also in John’s signature verse, John 3:16: “God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have...