The Gospel of John

Theological-Ecumenical Readings

Raith

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781532601279
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The Gospel of John: Theological-Ecumenical Readings brings together leading Catholic, Orthodox, and Evangelical theologians to read and interpret John's Gospel from within their ecclesial tradition, while simultaneously engaging one another in critical dialogue. Combining both theological exegesis and ecumenical dialogue, each chapter is uniquely structured with a main essay by a Catholic, Orthodox, or Evangelical theologian on a section of John's Gospel, followed by two responses from theologians of the other two traditions. The chapter concludes with a final response from the main author. Readers are thus provided with not only a deep and engaging reading of the Gospel of John but also the unfolding of a rich theological-ecumenical dialogue centered on an authority for all Christians, namely, the Gospel of John.

Chapter 1

Knowing the Gift of God

John 4:1–26 and the Living Water

Edith Humphrey (Orthodox)

To read the fourth chapter of the gospel of John is to be embarrassed, or at least overwhelmed, by riches. In a passage such as this we see with clarity the characteristics of Scripture that led St. John Chrysostom to exult:

Reading the Holy Scriptures is like a treasure. With a treasure, you see, anyone able to find a tiny nugget gains for himself great wealth; likewise, in the case of Sacred Scripture, you can get from a small phrase a great wealth of thought and immense riches. The Word of God is not only like a treasure, but is also like a spring gushing with overflowing waters in a mighty flood . . . great is the yield of this treasure and the flow of this spiritual fountain. Don’t be surprised if we have experienced this: our forebears drank from these waters to the limit of their capacity, and those who come after us will try to do likewise, without risk of exhausting them; instead the flood will increase and the streams will be multiplied.8

We might be tempted to repeat the Jewish reflection for Passover—Dayenu! (“That would have been enough for us!”) Indeed, we might think it more than enough to drink deeply of the waters of the Scripture. Yet the waters of John 4 do not signify merely Scripture, but the gift of God himself, to which Scriptures point: the construction “gift of God” is clearly meant, in this passage, to be the objective genitive, that gift who is God, not merely a gift divinely given. If reading Scripture is like trying to drink from a fire hose, how much more exhilarating is the reception of the very Spirit of God? God’s plan is not to make us people of the written Word, but people resembling the Incarnate Word, God himself. Theōsis is a daunting calling, but not beyond the purview of the One who calls into existence the things that are not, and who says, “Be holy, as I am holy!” We find in this passage a luminous narrative that shows how delicately God brings us to the water and nourishes us: “The Gospel leads its readers and hearers progressively into a greater understanding . . . by initiating them step by step . . .”9 As Jesus gently leads the Samaritan woman—known to us in the Eastern church as St. Photini, the illumined one—so the Holy Spirit leads his people in a characteristic way. So the blessed Augustine advises us: “In that woman, then, let us hear ourselves, and in her acknowledge ourselves and in her give thanks to God . . .”10

If I were to follow the usual pastoral method of the fathers in commenting upon this passage, I would allow its narrative to unfold sequentially. However, only certain branches of the tree can be followed in such a procedure, and I assume that this audience knows the story well, so I will structure our discussion in a different manner, following the cue of St. John Cassian11 and the blessed Augustine,12 with a little modification. We will first consider the passage in terms of what we can call a “general reading”—that is, a reading that is patent to any careful inquirer, and that attends to the literary and historical context of the passage. Then, we will move on to a “creedal reading,” considering the Christological and Trinitarian aspects. This will be followed by a “practical reading,” in which we will see the moral and ethical implications, the guide for Christian living offered here. Finally, we will engage in what I will call a “theotic reading,” looking for the transforming, illumining qualities of the narrative and its interconnection with the sacramental and spiritual life to which St. Photini (and we!) are called. The astute will have realized that these four approaches roughly correspond to the literal, allegorical, tropological and anagogic senses employed from the time of St. John Cassian on, but which he argues were known even by the NT authors. I present these as heuristic and intertwined categories, not as a rigid schema and, true to my Antiochian context, will insist that the first strategy of reading is not expendable, nor must it be suppressed by the three others. I see the first general reading as an opening up of the conversation to any welcome hearer of the Scriptures, the second creedal reading as what makes the engagement Christian (for in the passage we discern the regula fidei or the canon of truth), the third practical reading as receiving the passage in its incarnational and ecclesial power, and the fourth theotic reading as fulfilling all those other approaches, bringing the general, creedal and practical to the end that God has designed. All four approaches are important in understanding and receiving “the gift of God” to which Jesus refers.

General Reading: “Let any who thirst come!”

Attention to the historical and literary context of the passage brings us immediately into conflict with many commentators who have reduced the Lord’s conversation with Photini to a pretext for timeless truths. Ernest Renan is the most blatant in his promulgation of this reductionism:

Le jour où il prononça cetter parole, il fut vraiment fils de Dieu. Il dit pour la première fois l’édifice sur lequel reposersa la religion éternelle. Il fonda le culte pur, sans date, sans patrie, celui qui pratiqueront toutes les âmes élevées jusqu’ à la fin des temps. Non seuelment sa religion fut ce jour-là bonne religion de l’humanité, mais, ce fut la religion absolue. Et si d’utres planets ont des habitant doués de raison et de moralité, leur religion ne peut être different de celle que Jésus a proclamé près du puits de Jacob.13

The “saying” to which Renan refers is, of course, that word found in verse 24: “God is Spirit and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and in Truth.” Renan is not so much wrong about what he affirms but about what he denies—though, of course, to say that Jesus “became” the Son of God by uttering these words is damning the Almighty with faint praise. His modernist idea of religious developmentalism is further complicated by his concentration upon Jesus’s “religion” as “eternal,” “pure,” “timeless,” “without nationality,” and “absolute.” This is such an odd conclusion to draw from a passage that focusses upon history (Jacob’s well), upon the distinction between Samaritans and Jews made by both Photini and Jesus (4:9; 4:20; 4:22), upon the historical coming of Messiah (4:25), and upon the patrimony of Israel: “salvation is from the Jews” (4:22)! Of course, some readers both ancient and contemporary have done their best to soften Jesus’s unequivocal statement about the origin of salvation, with the most egregious examples occurring during the Nazi terror, when two German churches actually expunged Jesus’s offensive statement from Bibles.14 Mutatis matandis, under the specter of “supersessionism,” the passage continues to be snubbed by those engaged in ecumenical dialogue. As Richard Neuhaus puts it, “our passage has not been treated kindly by Christian commentators.”15

Faithful and perspicuous readers have not, however, banished the historical from this passage, nor seen the eschatological light of true worship as rendering the temporal dimensions irrelevant. Renan’s move from history to the abstract is not God’s story of salvation, but a human construct, what C. S. Lewis calls “one of those sensible synthetic religions which are so strongly recommended today.”16 Instead, the historical details of the earlier chapters of the story are key, and preparatory for what N. T. Wright has aptly called “the climax of the covenant”—one covenant, in reality, though in two parts! The particularity of the earlier chapters of that divine narrative and their continuing significance are drawn out by St. John Chrysostom, the blessed Augustine, St. Cyril of Alexandria, and St. Caesarea of Arles, to name a few. Some may be astonished at the care with which the Golden-Mouthed depicts the context of John 4, explaining the psychology of Jesus’s departure from Judaea (not to reject but to soften his enemies), the history of Northern Israel and the Samaritans, and the origin of Jacob’s well.17 The well of Old Testament wisdom is, indeed, “deep,” as Origen remarks, associating this well with the OT Scriptures.18 St. Cyril of Alexandria also points out the ongoing significance of this ancient wisdom, declaring that our Lord, in turning to the Samaritans (who typify those Gentiles who will join God’s people), continues to show reverence...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Knowing the Gift of God: John 4:1–26 and the Living Water—Edith M. Humphrey (Orthodox)
• Chapter 2: John 8:1–11: Revisiting the Pericope Adulterae—David L. Jeffrey (Evangelical)
• Chapter 3: John 11:1–44: God Who Raises the Dead—Timothy George (Evangelical)
• Chapter 4: John 17: A Theological Reading for an Ecumenical Audience—R. R. Reno (Catholic)
• Chapter 5: John 18:28—19:16: Witnessing Truth—Fr. John Behr (Orthodox)
• Chapter 6: John 21: Peter, John, and Jesus On the Beach—Michael Root (Catholic)
• Bibliography