John

Kanagaraj

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781621898689
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

In this commentary Kanagaraj examines how John projects the church as God's new covenant community, which, is characterized by two virtues: love and obedience. Impossible to exhibit under the old covenant based on Moses' Law, these qualities became possible by the initiative grace and faithfulness of God revealed in Jesus and demonstrated by the power of the Spirit.God's new community is an inclusive and progressive community because its witness to Jesus in a world that hates and persecutes it has the power to bring in all people so that they may become one flock under one shepherd. Kanagaraj argues that the idea of founding and nurturing a new community was in God's heart even before the time of creation and not just at the time of incarnation.

John 1

The Origin of Jesus and of the New Community

Prologue (1:1–18)

The Gospel of John commences with the prologue (1:1–18), which, by virtue of major themes it covers, is called the “window” through which the whole Gospel may be read.1 The structure of the prologue betrays a Jewish poem or hymn rather than “rhythmical prose” with at least six strophes (1:1–3, 3–5, 10–11, 12–13, 14–16, 17–18), with the author’s insertion of verses 6–8 and 15.2 The prologue serves as a “poetic preamble” to John’s Gospel, composed by the author himself, perhaps by using the hymn on Wisdom.

Pre-Existence of Christ as the Word (1:1–5)

John’s opening statement, “In the beginning was the Word,” takes us not only to the existence of the Word (logos in Greek) before creation, but also sets God’s redemptive work in the context of the eternal existence of the Logos. The phrase “in the beginning,” unlike that in Genesis 1:1, speaks of the time before the genesis (cf. Prov 8:23). The word Logos here is a title used in an absolute sense.

By referring to the Logos, John uses a term that was familiar to all sections of the society in the first century CE (see the excursus below). The Logos was in existence as a personal being and the sphere of his existence was God himself, as the assertion “the Logos was with God” (1:1b) shows. The phrase “with God” does not have the sense of “motion towards God” but the sense of “being from God” (6:46) or “living in communion with God.” That is, the Logos was living so close to God that he was sharing in the very life of God. The Logos and God, as two personalities, were living so close with one another that they cannot be separated one from the other. Such union means an active partnership or a reciprocal indwelling between two personalities.3

The Word’s mutual indwelling and life in oneness with God are eternal, as the statement “the Word was God” (1:1c) shows. Like Philo, John also identifies the pre-existent Logos with God without the definite article, for in 1:1c the Logos, as God, is differentiated from “the God.” Otherwise, 1:1c will contradict what is expressed in 1:1b–2 and 14:28. Therefore it is needless to translate “divine (in essence) was the Logos.”4 While “the God” points to “the one true God,” the Father, “God,” in this context, can only indicate the Logos as the manifestation of that God. “The God” refers to God in his transcendence, while “God” implies the revelation and immanence of that one God. This does not mean that the Logos was the “second God.” The Logos is the self-manifestation of God precisely because he exists eternally in oneness with God, the Father. This is reiterated in 1:2.

John describes also the role of the pre-existent Logos in creation: “all things” came into being through him and “not even one that has come into being” came without him (1:3). That is, the totality of creation came into existence through the Logos. This does not mean that the Logos was merely an “instrumental cause” (Philo) in creation. The creative activity of the Logos was the creative activity of God. The Logos and Wisdom are parallels, for Wisdom too pre-existed with God and was engaged in God’s creative activity (Prov 3:19–20; 8:22–31; Sir 1:1–10). All things in heaven and on earth were created through Christ and for Christ (1 Cor 8:6b; Col 1:16–17; Heb 1:2; Rev 3:14).

God’s creation was community oriented (Gen 1–2), for God created “all things” as families according to their kinds (Gen 1:21, 24–25). John, therefore, begins his Gospel by disclosing the community motif embedded in creation. The whole creation constitutes one household of God. All creatures came to life by God’s word, but human beings by God’s breath (Gen 2:7; 1:26–27). Since life flows from God to the total creation, John categorically states, “In him was life” (1:4a). The Genesis story connects light with life. So also John presents divine life and light together by writing, “And the life was the Light of humankind” (1:4b). The life of Logos derived from the Father and the Light projected from it are essentially the same and they were one in existence eternally.

While narrating creation, John’s special attention falls on “humankind” (1:4), God’s main focus in creation. The community he envisaged is a community of human beings, while other creatures were subject to them (Gen 1:28–30; Rom 8:19–22). As Light, the life in the Logos is the guiding principle for human life (cf. Ps 27:1; Ps 36:9; Hos 10:12 LXX; Wis 7:26, 27; Sir 17:11). For John the essence of the Logos is life, which gives light to human beings enabling them to experience end-time salvation both now and in future. This idea anticipates the later reference to Jesus as the Light and life (8:12).

The nature of light is to constantly shine and stand against “darkness” (1:5). Light and darkness in John are symbols of good and bad qualities of life, respectively, and they engage in combat against each other. Where there is light there is no darkness and vice versa. Such dualism is reflected in Qumran writings written in the second and first centuries BCE (e.g., 1QS 3.19–22; 1QM 13.5–6, 14–15). These writings use “day” figuratively with “light,” and “night” with “darkness” (1QS 10.1–2), and so also John. The nature of the Light in 1:5 is in the present tense, “shines,” but that of darkness is in the past tense, “did not overcome.” This means that the Light keeps on shining. It exposes evil, guides human beings, illuminates and transforms human life, and judges human works (3:19–21). The nature of darkness, however, is to strive to overcome the Light, but the Light won over darkness once and for all.

Witness of John the Baptist to the Logos (1:6–8, 15)

Following the pre-existence of the Logos-Light, John traces the beginning of salvation history in John the Baptist, who was sent by God to bear witness to the Light (1:6–8; cf. Mark 1:1–5; Acts 1:22; 10:37; 13:23–25).

The Greek verb egeneto introduces the Baptist in the statement, “There was a man,” and the same word is used to introduce the Word who “became” flesh (1:14a). This sets both Jesus and John the Baptist in the same mission of bringing God’s salvation to humankind. The task of John the Baptist, however, is limited only to bearing witness to Jesus so that people may believe in Jesus as the Light. The task of bearing witness to the Logos-Light is repeated in 1:8 with an emphatic denial that John the Baptist himself was the Light. The Baptist was only a lamp whose witness was temporary (5:35). This is to rebut communities that regarded the Baptist toward the end of the first century as the Redeemer sent by God (cf. Luke 3:15) or even as the Light.

The Baptist’s testimony prepares the way for the Logos to come in flesh to reveal God’s character and to offer eternal life for those who believe. The Baptist confirms that Christ was pre-existent and that he is greater than the Baptist in status and rank (1:15). In fact, 1:15 does not interrupt the flow of thought between 1:14 and 1:16–18. Whereas 1:14 narrates the witness of the believing community to the glory revealed in the Logos-Son, 1:15 expresses the witness of the Baptist to the same glory, which was pre-existing as the Logos, even though temporally the Logos became flesh after the Baptist was born (cf. 1:26–27, 29–30; Matt 3:11 par.).

New humanity Enlightened by the Light (1:9–13)

The third section of the prologue introduces the Logos as “the true Light.” That is, he is the “genuine” or “authentic” Light, surpassing any other lights, which are “obsolete, defective, and unreliable.”5 He was coming into the world, the realm of human affairs, to enlighten every human being (1:9). “Enlightenment” means not just the attainment of intellectual knowledge but the insight one may get about God and his purpose for human beings. It is an illumination that transforms people from their evil nature to do good works. The universal implication of this mission is known from the word “every human.”

Even though the Light in the Logos came into the world, the world failed to know him (1:10). “Knowing” is a key word used in the Gospel to mean not so much the Hellenistic and Gnostic notion of intellectual perception as an active relationship between God and his people (see Amos 3:2 for God knowing his people in terms of choosing them and caring for them, and Jer 31:33–34 for the humans to know God in terms of their humble obedience and trust in him). The word “world” in John refers mainly to those who reject Jesus and his followers because of their hostility towards them (e.g., 15:18–19; 17:14). God’s provision to humankind to become children of God and the world’s rejection are prefigured in the prologue (1:9–10).

The Logos-Light was rejected, notably, by his own people. In John, the term “my own” denotes the people chosen by Jesus (or those given by God to Jesus) to be his followers (17:6, 10). The parallel phrase “his own people” (1:11b) confirms that those who did not receive the Light were Jesus’ own people, the Jews. It is noteworthy that only those who keep the covenant made by God are his “treasured possession” (Exod 19:5). However, the Jews who received God’s covenant belonged to the old and fallen humanity, and therefore they could not perceive the Logos-Light as the Messiah. John, in contrast, will declare in his Gospel that it is the people of God, under the new covenant, who will be “his own possession” (cf. 1:12).

In spite of the world’s rejection, God offered opportunity to the Jews and Gentiles to receive the Logos and to become his children. “Receiving” is the receptive aspect of believing. The object of faith is “his name.” In the OT, God manifests his character and work by revealing, or sometimes by concealing, his name, YHWH or “I am that I am” (e.g., Gen 32:27–30; Exod 3:13–14; 6:2–3; Isa 42:8). The Johannine Jesus bears this name so that he may manifest it to those who believe in him (17:6, 26). By revealing God’s name, Jesus reveals God himself. This powerful name of God enables those who receive him and believe in his name to be born in the family of God as his children, that is, to become members of n...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• John 1
• John 2
• John 3
• John 4
• John 5
• John 6
• John 7
• John 8
• John 9
• John 10
• John 11
• John 12
• John 13
• John 14
• John 15
• John 16
• John 17
• John 18
• John 19
• John 20
• John 21
• Bibliography