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In this episode I discuss the gospel according to John with the author of a unique commentary on it, one which focuses on the rhetoric and arguments which feature so prominently in the book.
In this first part of our conversation we discuss dating, authorship, why the book is so different from Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the popular thesis that christology developed in a “high” direction over the course of the second half of the first Christian century, the danger of anachronistic interpretations, attempts to find “the deity of Christ” in the first three gospels, and what I call “the fulfillment fallacy” (although I don’t call it that here).
Links for this episode:
- Dr. Brant’s homepage
- John (Paideia: Commentaries on the New Testament
- Dialogue and Drama: Elements of Greek Tragedy in the Fourth Gospel
- Dr. Brant in Goshen College’s Bulletin
- Seven questions with…Jo-Ann Brant @ The Mennonite
- on the fulfillment fallacy: the Bible on another previous life of Jesus
- Do the Gospels disagree about Jesus and God? Part 1 – Three Options
- podcast 70 – The one God and his Son according to John
- This week’s thinking music is “The Jewel and Me” by Little Glass Men.
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"Divine Deception" Defended
Hello Dale. I am not getting email notifications about new posts.
“In my opinion the Gospel of John was meant to explain the nature of Christ.” That is a majority view. However, John himself tells us the purpose of the Gospel. It is that we might believe that Jesus is the Messiah of Israel, and that believing we might have life. John 20.31. The Messiah is a word for the king of Israel in the OT and the New, it is not the name of a God. God promised to redeem Israel by means of David’s heir, not by his own personal actions in taking on humanity.
Morning. It is not obvious to me that John is so very different from the so-called synoptics. A Socinian reading of John 1 sees a very similar literary structure to Luke 1, and an identical explanation of the appearing of the Christ, the king of the age to come. John 1 alternates between short accounts of Christ and John the Baptiser. For example, In the beginning was the word, then to John bearing witness, back to the word as a man/flesh, back to John, and then to Jesus. Luke 1 does the same thing, starting with John, to Jesus back to John, then to Jesus. John the Baptiser and Jesus are connected very closely in the way the accounts of the two are paralleled, and in their explanation. GJohn explains that the word, the message from God, was a man, and Luke records Mary’s inspired explanation that Christ’s appearing is God remembering the covenant he made with Abraham. Same idea, slightly different words. Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, explains that John’s appearing is God remembering the oath that he swore to our father Abraham. In other words, the oath was made flesh. I think that the trinitarian tradition and mindset has introduced a glaring anachronism into GJohn 1, making it hard to see the Abrahamic covenantal assumptions that were obvious to the first Jewish readers. Mark 1 has the same alternation between Christ and John the Baptiser, so much so that it can be argued that Matthew is the odd Gospel out, and the other three are the true synoptics.
interesting topic but to me, it seems like Jesus is greater than a mere man and greater than any angel. As Paul says and this obvious in the Gospels he is greater than any angel and they even worship him. Why would an angel worship someone other than their creator God? Jesus also claims authority over heaven and earth so?
Paul clearly says Jesus is greater than the angels of God… and that the Angels worship the Son. Why would angels worship a man other than their creator?
Jesus says he has authority over heaven and earth who can claim that except God alone?
Paul says Jesus’s name is exalted above all why would any name besides God be exalted above all?
Paul says every knee in heaven and earth will bow to him yet only God has this power how can Jesus?
John says without the Word(Jesus) nothing would have been made yet Jesus is not God?
Jesus claims he was pre-existent in Johns’s Gospel Paul also affirms this in his Gospel.
Paul says to be saved we need to believe in Jesus why would I need to believe in Jesus to be saved?
Who do the Angels of God worship and serve God alone so why do they also Worship and serve Jesus?
Why baptize in a name other than the Father?
Why bow down to anyone but God?
Im honestly not sure what to think
The Lord Jesus is not a “mere man”. He is the exact image of God, in whom the fulness of God dwells bodily, and who is the supreme ruler of the kings of the earth and of heaven – under God. He is the perfect, glorified, man.
I’m honestly confused if he is not just a man, but he’s greater than the angels as they worship him, but he’s not God what is He? Can’t be a second God. Who is he?
Why would God give authority of heavens and earth to some one other than God?
Why would Jesus say he is pre-existent?
Who is Jesus?
Who is he? The man whom God has appointed to execute all judgement, and to raise the dead to life or shame. He is David’s greater son, who has inherited his throne for ever, and who rules over the kings of the earth at the right hand of the Father. See John 5, it is all there. He has been raised with the power of an indestructible life, and he lives for ever more. I suspect that to you the word, worship, means divine honours, but it is the usual word for the honour given to rulers, whether human or God himself. It literally means to kiss the foot.
What does fullness of God dwells In Him mean?
I feel like that’s kind of saying he is God.
Why would God give someone other than himself authority?
Can’t be more than One God, yet Jesus is in a sense “second most divine.” Obviously greater than humans and angels but less that God what does that make him.
I think based on the scriptures he is and always has been united to the father one in essence. He is pre existence. The Father and His Word Glorified each other before all creation. United together in one essence.
This is what I have been grasping with.
“Why would God give someone other than himself authority?” This is what God has done from the beginning. Adam was given authority to rule over the creation. Abraham was made the head of the redeemed. Moses was given authority over Pharaoh and Israel. The Judges were given authority over Israel until kings Saul and David, who ruled with God’s authority. Paul teaches that all rulers are there by God’s authority, and must therefore be obeyed. God always rules through the appointed men. Now he has appointed the Lord Jesus to be the supreme ruler over men and angels.
“that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father, who sent him.”
Angles worship the one who created them. They worship God Almighty. Why do they worship Jesus alongside the Father?
If Jesus is not God why would I honor him just as I honor the Father?
Its hard for me to understand who Christ is. Whether he is God or not.
I still think he is pre-exsistence he himself says he was
“I think based on the scriptures he is and always has been united to the father one in essence. He is pre existence. The Father and His Word Glorified each other before all creation.” I believed that for thirty six years until I began to read John 1 without the English translations’ extensive mistranslations, complete with fake capitalisations of pronouns and changing the Greek word, was, into made and became. The trinitarian renderings of John 1 are actually not translations but interpretations. This is all done in good faith on their part, but they are reading the pre-existence of Christ into the text not because it is there, but because they think it is there. It is a classic case of seeing what you have been taught to see, not what is actually on the page. We all do it, and it takes reading and study to learn to read the text on its own terms. This website has many podcasts of the two alternative readings of John 1. I commend them to you.
What translation do you recommend?
Early church fathers seem to also call him Word of God. I know one of the greatest new testament scholars Bruce Metzger also believed Jesus was God.
I use a variety of translations, but I also use the Greek alongside it on my computer with Accordance software. You put the cursor over a word in English and it highlights the word in a column with the Greek text, and shows you a breakdown of the word in English. I understand that Logos does the same thing. I studied the language at College. A translation is always a translation.
The Lord Jesus is absolutely the word of God in the flesh. The question is, What does it mean? It means that the word of God, the message of salvation and judgement, is fulfilled and performed by the Lord Jesus. God promised the fathers that he would bless and judge, and now he is carrying out that promise through Christ Jesus. John 5. In the OT the word of God is always a message of some kind, connected to Israel’s election and future. The Lord Jesus is God’s word in this sense, but that is not the same thing as being God the Word.
Thanks for the comment I’ll take a look at it.
I’ve been reading some things written by Bruce metzger probably the most popular New Testament scholar of 20th century seems to believe Christ was God. But doesn’t mean much
I’ve been reading works written by Irenaeus against heresies take a look at it it’s free on Google Books. In chapter LII he calls the word of God God.
Thanks for the suggestions. I have read both men, and have some of Metzger’s books. John’s Gospel calls Jesus God in the famous first verse. The thing is that the word, God, is not reserved exclusively for the Creator in the Bible. God himself said to Moses that he had made him god to Pharaoh. Exodus 7.1. In the Psalms the angels are named elohim, gods. Psalm 8.5. In Psalm 82, God speaking, calls the rulers of Israel gods. “You are gods, all of you, you are sons of the most High.” Jesus referenced this very Psalm in John 10 when he replied to the accusation of the Jews that he made himself equal with God by calling him his Father. The irony is that God himself calls men gods, those to whom the word of God came. This is Jesus’ own teaching. Jesus is called God, no doubt about it, but in the same sense as in these biblical examples, created beings who have special favour with God the Creator, and have authority to rule. They are lesser gods, but they are by no means the Creator.
Hi Roger,
Thanks for your comment. I can’t seem to find one solid stance on Ireanus Christology but from what I’ve read he does seem to think Jesus is God. So does Ignatius of Antioch. I’ve been using an app Catena(online bible) which gives early church fathers view on a verse.
For example John 1:3 he attacks those who say the Son was a creature and created.
“that wills all things which are according to the love of Jesus Christ our God ”
I pray for your happiness forever in our God, Jesus Christ, by whom continue ye in the unity and under the protection of God
“There is only one physician, who is both flesh and spirit, born and unborn, God in man, true life in death, both from Mary and from God, the first subject to suffering and then beyond it, Jesus Christ our Lord”
Theophilus of Antioch Christology is very interesting as well.
I believed he also thought Christ as God but I’m not too sure
Morning. These early fathers were not trinitarians, but binitarians of a sort. The held to a platonic idea that Jesus before his birth to Mary was a divine Logos, a heavenly craftsman through whom God created all things. What they meant was that the High God is too holy to dirty his hands with creating the earth, so he caused a divine being to emanate from him for that job. They said that this divine emanation is not equal to the Father, but he is divine because he emanated from his substance, so he is a lesser god, a second God, subordinate to the Father. Later on they used the language of eternal generation, which cannot be found in the Bible. Origen admitted that the ordinary Christians resisted this teaching of theirs, that they disliked the talk of a lesser or second god, but his view was that the educated men like him who were familiar with philosophy knew better.
Bear this in mind when you read them speaking of Christ as God.
The trinitarians of the fourth century strongly disagreed with these Logos theorists that the second god was a lesser god, so they invented the idea that the Logos is equal to the Father in every way, but that he chose freely to become man and die on the cross, and although he looks subordinate in scripture, he isn’t so in his deity, but only in his humanity, and then only because he agreed to it. You will look in vain for these ideas in scripture.
They added to this the idea that the Holy Spirit is a third divine person, which was a radically new idea at the time. The Holy Spirit had until then been understood to be God’s power at work, not an actual person.
The vast majority of Christians and Bishops were against the trinitarians, because these were all new ideas, but the Emperor was persuaded, and he made strict laws punishing dissent.
Dale has many podcasts on the development of trinity theories on this site. They are well worth listening to.
Hi Roger,
Yes some believed about the lesser God i thought this was honestly a strange Christology seems to go against monotheism. But at the same time, Ireanus and Ignatius saw the Word as there was not a time when He did not exist.
Irenaeus also saw the Word as uncreated, “He indeed who made all things can alone, together with His Word, properly be termed God and Lord: but the things which have been made cannot have this term applied to them, neither should they justly assume that appellation which belongs to the Creator.”
“there is one God, who has manifested Himself by Jesus Christ His Son, who is His eternal Word, not proceeding forth from silence.”
Hello again. These Logos theorists said the Logos was eternal, not created, but it still meant that he was a lesser god because the Father was his source. This is obviously contradictory, but there you go.
Paul clearly says Jesus is greater than the angels of God… and that the Angels worship the Son. Why would angels worship a man other than their creator?
Jesus says he has authority over heaven and earth who can claim that except God alone?
Paul says Jesus’s name is exalted above all why would any name besides God be exalted above all?
Paul says every knee in heaven and earth will bow to him yet only God has this power how can Jesus?
John says without the Word(Jesus) nothing would have been made yet Jesus is not God?
Jesus claims he was pre-existent in Johns’s Gospel Paul also affirms this in his Gospel.
Paul says to be saved we need to believe in Jesus why would I need to believe in Jesus to be saved?
Who do the Angels of God worship and serve God alone so why do they also Worship and serve Jesus?
Why baptize in a name other than the Father?
Why bow down to anyone but God?
Jesus was pre-creation but how could anyone but god be pre-creation?
In my opinion the Gospel of John was meant to explain the nature of Christ.
To me the Gospel of John clearly affirms the Divinity of Christ.
I just don’t understand why afford someone who is not God this much authority why confess his name, bow down to him, serve him to be saved if He is not God?
Intresting topic!
Paul clearly says Jesus is greater than the angels of God… and that the Angels worship the Son. Why would angels worship a man other than their creator?
The biblical concept of worship is to bow in humility, exalting the object of worship. This is not done exclusively to God, but to anyone in recognition of a superior status. The man Jesus is appointed as Lord & Christ, made superior to angels (Heb 1:4). He is deserving of worship due to his death (Php 2, Rev 5).
Jesus says he has authority over heaven and earth who can claim that except God alone?
Jesus was given authority; it is not inherent to him.
God cannot be given authority.
reminiscient to Adam being given dominion over all the earth. The second Adam given all authority.
Paul says Jesus’s name is exalted above all why would any name besides God be exalted above all?
Paul says every knee in heaven and earth will bow to him yet only God has this power how can Jesus?
God has the perogative to exalt a man in this manner. Why do you presume and deny God his perogative?
Why is it surpising for a son to inherit his father’s name and authority?
John says without the Word(Jesus) nothing would have been made yet Jesus is not God?
God created by his word (divine utterance). The Father’s word is manifested in the man Jesus thus the word was made flesh.
Jesus claims he was pre-existent in Johns’s Gospel Paul also affirms this in his Gospel.
We must be careful of the use of proleptic language in John. Jesus used “pre-existent” language for his disciple’s disciples (John 17:22).
Are we to think ourselves as pre-existent as well? Certainly not! Neither is Jesus.
Paul says to be saved we need to believe in Jesus why would I need to believe in Jesus to be saved?
Because only by believing in the Son whom the Father sent, can one believe in the Father.
Who do the Angels of God worship and serve God alone so why do they also Worship and serve Jesus?
Who says they worship and serve God alone? They worship whomever God says and serves humanity as well.
Why baptize in a name other than the Father?
Because God works thru intermediaries. Jesus is his chosen agent thru whom he delegated authority (name) to.
Why bow down to anyone but God?
Because God commanded so (Php 2). Also, it is only right to accord proper respect to Jesus, our Lord by bowing down to him.
Jesus was pre-creation but how could anyone but god be pre-creation?
Jesus was not pre-creation. Nevertheless, angels were already present before Genesis creation (Job 38:4).
In my opinion the Gospel of John was meant to explain the nature of Christ.
To me the Gospel of John clearly affirms the Divinity of Christ.
See John 20:31. It was to explain Jesus’ identity: the Christ, the Son of God.
I just don’t understand why afford someone who is not God this much authority why confess his name, bow down to him, serve him to be saved if He is not God?
Let go of traditional philosophy and permit God his perogative to exalt and sit a man on his throne.
This is not just any man but his unique son who loved and obeyed him completely, doing his will and giving even his life.
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