In John 14 we enter the longest conversational monologue of Jesus in the New Testament. I describe it as a conversational monologue simply because there is very little back and forth dialogue between individuals. It is conversational only to the extent that certain individuals periodically ask Jesus questions to move Jesus's monologue along. There is no debate or argumentation as we saw in John 13, between Peter and Jesus. That is not the point of this literature. This is not about Jesus reasoning with his disciples. It's about them believing what Jesus is telling them.
As always I need to be clear about where I'm coming from. In my opinion, John is, in actuality, a unique theological work deliberately designed to put forth one of the early church's doctrinal statements on the nature of Christ.
It is my personal belief that Jesus actually said none of the things he's quoted as saying in John. I do not believe the writers of John were trying to be deceitful or devious in using this approach. In fact, I'm personally impressed by the innovative way they presented their theological message.
The fact is that what these next four chapters has Jesus saying about himself and his disciples has greatly shaped Christianity as we know it today and is why I consider them to be the central thesis of Johannine theology. From John 1 through John 12 the writers of John rewrite the ancient Hebrew narrative of creation and redemption as being a precursor to the true story of creation and salvation which is rooted in Christ. Story after story in these early chapters emphasize the difference between the Judaic community and the Christian community in the attempt to establish Christianity as its own religion.
Now the narrative turns to what it means to be Christian, to find oneself in an intimate relationship, not with just a religious community, but with God.
John 13 ends with Jesus telling Peter that he would deny him. John 14 begins by reshaping the conversation that Peter didn't understand what Jesus meant when he said he was going away to telling the disciples not to worry about this - that all they need to do is believe in God and believe in what Jesus is going tell them about himself and them in John 14.
BELIEVING IS KNOWING
Some of my regular readers may wonder why I translate the Greek verb form of πίστις as believe in the Gospel of John when I was so insistent that it be translated as faith, an act of faith, or faithfulness, elsewhere and; in particular, when used by the apostle Paul. The simple answer is context.
As I have mentioned in past post on John, intellectual assent to the Truth portrayed in John is essential to Johannine theology. It is knowing what is true as opposed to trusting God without knowing, as we see faith used in the writings of Paul, "For now we know in part..." (1Corinthians 13:9) or "We walk by faith not by sight." (2 Corinthian 5:7) and so on. In John we are dealing with believing a Truth that is enfleshed in Jesus as the Christ. There is no gray area or room for doubt.
So when it comes to translating the verb form of πίστις as intellectual assent in John, it is because there is no single English word that comes close enough to its contextual use other than belief which has its own etymology rooted in Germanic languages.
For a further look into the etymology of belief click here.
In fact, I would argue that faith as belief is rooted in Johannine theology which has evolved theologically throughout the centuries until the two words have became synonymous. Belief in John is equated with the intellectual property of knowing as in John 14:7, "If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him." (KJV).
The author of John 14 rephrases what Jesus says in John 13:36 which is, "Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards" to what is written in John 14:4, "And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know." Instead of Peter's bold statement about defending Jesus to the death, we have Thomas asking the question, John wants asked in the next verse, "Lord, we know not wither thou goest; and how can we know the way?"
Thus John has set the stage for the central thesis of this gospel which comes in verse 6 with John having Jesus say,
"I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."
For those of us who are Christian, we need to stop and think about this statement and consider the impact it has had on our collective psyche for the past two thousand years.
I emphasized the last part of John's claim about Jesus to give us pause. I grew up with this statement and recognize it as one of the earliest bible verses drilled into my childhood memories about Jesus:
Only Jesus is the way to heaven. Only Jesus... Only Jesus!
No one can know God or can come to God except through Jesus.
And if you have been following my posts on John or simply have read the Gospel of John on your own, this is exactly what John means. There is no fudging on this. It is central to Johannine theology and it is central to orthodox Christian theology.
Why I don't believe this was said by Jesus is because it stands in stark contrast to almost everything else Jesus is reported to have said in the synoptic gospels and in Paul's undisputed writings.
This Jesus is not the Jesus who marveled at the faith of the Syrophoenecian woman in Mark 7or the Roman centurion in Matthew 8 neither of whom were Jewish and, more importantly, knew nothing about Jesus and approached him simply out of πίστις - trusting faith in an unknown rather than being in possession of an intellectual ability to believe in the Jesus as the Truth. For them, Jesus was a man of God at best; not the Son of God or the only-begotten Son of God, much less God enfleshed.
The other fact about this statement is that every brand of "orthodox" Christian takes this statement literally; including, Christian universalists, progressive Christians, mainstream Christians, evangelical Christians and fundamentalist Christians.
How they interpret it may vary, but they all take it literally.
For Christian universalists and progressives, the interpretation is that God loves everyone, and as Christians, we firmly believe in a God who will ultimately save his entire creation because of the love of God in Christ Jesus is for everyone, regardless of one's religious affiliation or non-affiliation.
So Yes! Everyone is saved because Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life and all are claimed to be God's own because of what Jesus did, which is to say they have mitigated John's message with a tinge of Pauline theology.
The problem this poses, however, is that it denigrates other religions as being saved in spite of themselves; suggesting that they are in some way flawed or are using different language to express the same understanding of God.
For many mainstream, evangelical, and fundamentalist Christians, it means just what it implies; that no one is saved unless they believe in Jesus as only way, the only truth and the only life as the only-begotten Son of God who died to save us from our sins.
The fact is, those in mainstream, evangelical and fundamentalist churches who believe that Jesus is the only way to salvation and the true knowledge of God are in good stead with Johannine theology and with what the Gospel of John is actually saying.
Dispensationalism is alive and well in orthodoxy because the Gospel of John was given the final word in the gospels on who Jesus is. From a dispensationalist point of view the argument against my referencing the stories of the Syrophoenecian woman and the Roman centurion is that depiction of Jesus was who Jesus was before the resurrection and John is telling us about Jesus after the resurrection, as he is now, the revealed only-begotten Son of God. I cannot argue with that position from a literalist point of view except to point out that it is unlikely that Jesus said any of the things he is recorded as having said in this gospel.
On an evololving theological scale, this I AM statement, more than perhaps any other in the Gospel of John, is the catalyst that set Christianity on a new footing from which doctrinal orthodoxy evolved as the fittest and most resilient form of Christianity that has lasted to the present.
At the time this was written, I believe it was meant to shore up the beliefs of a Jewish Christian that identified with Jesus's disciple, John who may have founded this Christian community. As I have contended throughout this commentary, the Gospel of John is presented in a format of an initiation rite for those coming into the early church.
As such both John 13 and 14 serve to illustrate wrong and right approaches to what is being taught about Jesus. The reasoning intellect of Judas will lead to betrayal and the thoughtless zeal of Peter will lead to denial while the sincere enquiry of Thomas will put one on the path to knowledge; to know the truth and to know fullness of life in Jesus as the risen Christ
What is also noteworthy is that up until this point it has always been God who chooses the followers of Jesus; that no one can understand Jesus unless selected by God to believe. Here we see an important shift. John is having Jesus say no one can know God unless they believe in Jesus, which brings us to Philip's question
BELIEVING IS SEEING
Philip asks Jesus to show the disciples the Father so that they will be satisfied. Satisfaction, in this context, is related to their sense of being comforted and not troubled by Jesus's departure. It's an odd request, but it affords this writer of John the opportunity to address a peculiar problem that the Christian communities of the late first century faced.
Jesus's departure created a crisis of faith for his disciples. Similarly, as the church began to age, when the expected return of Jesus is not happening as soon as most thought, and those who may have known Jesus personally or who knew Jesus's disciples and their associates are dying, it was becoming harder to walk by faith and not by sight. None of Jesus's disciples make it including John. I can hear some of you saying, but doesn't John end with Jesus telling the disciple John that he would not die ? All I can say, is "Wait for it." I will get to that.
The early church was entering a new era that was completely void of anyone who personally knew Jesus or his disciples. So what John has Thomas and Philip asking Jesus is relevant to the Christian community at the time John is being written.
As such we see a theological transition in John from πίστις as faith that knows in part and needs no sight to πίστις, as belief which knows and sees in full. We see this in Jesus's response to Philip, "...he that hath seen me hath seen the Father." John 14:9b (KJV) Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me... ." John 14:11a (KJV).
Jesus goes on to tell his disciples that he will always remain active in the life of the church; that they too will do great or greater works; that anything asked of God in his name will be granted. Whereas faith acts in trust without seeing or knowing, belief is itself knowing and seeing that conjures the power of God's to act on one's behalf. Jesus consistently claims, throughout John, that he is not acting of his own will, but that everything he does is done in accord to Father's will so that the Father will be glorified. Jesus knows this because he and the Father are one and John is telling the community that they too have access to this unitive power if they believe and adhere to what Jesus is telling them.
John's appeal to Christian community being addressed is that they are being offered certainty in an uncertain time and it sticks. We hear it echoed today in Christians who claim "to know and accept" Jesus as their "personal Lord and Savior."
BELIEVING BECOMES BE-LOVING
If you checked out the etymology of belief, you will notice that it's various meanings in other languages dovetails nicely to the notion of loving something deeply. Believing is almost synonymous with be-loving and it may be why translators consistently translate πίστις as believing in John. In John 14, the dialogue shifts from believing to loving. In John believing, in its own right, is a mental action that I have been calling assent. In John 13, Jesus gives his disciples "a new commandment" that they love each other as Jesus loved them.
The reality is that Jesus didn't show a whole lot of active love in John or even talked about it until now. It is in these final chapters that we see Jesus talking about a deep spiritual love that makes John considered by many, the Gospel of Love.
As the focus in John changes from the differentiation between Christianity and Judaism to divine unification of those who love Jesus, believing increasingly becomes associated with be-loving. I use the term be-loving as opposed to loving to emphasize it as a mental activity, much like believing.
Jesus doesn't explain what loving one another consists of and the use of the Greek verb form of the word love, αγάπε, eliminates a sense of familial love or the brotherly love of friendship, much less the erotic or obsessive forms of love. It is a love on a higher plane.
In the Christian world, αγάπε is God's love and it is the verb form of this love that is used throughout John. The question that is never fully answered in the New Testament is how we mortals do that.
John hints at it as being something esoteric. The love of God is unitive. Jesus explains that those who love him and keep his commandments will find that they are one with him, and if one with him, they are one with God and the fullness of Jesus will be revealed to them.
Judas or Jude asks why Jesus just doesn't reveal himself to the world. True to Johannine, this is an excellent question, but Jesus glosses over it and at the end of this chapter indicates that the "Prince of this world" (another term for Satan) has a job to do - indicating that Jesus can't intervene. It seems to be a weak argument, but we have no other choice but to take John's word for it. In other words, this is how John addresses tough questions there isn't a good answer for - just believe.
THE CONDITIONS OF LOVE
Unconditional love is frequently touted as God's love, αγάπε. John has Jesus giving a twist to the common under standing of αγάπε. Jesus says in verse 15 that if his disciples love him, they will keep his commandments.
Up till now Jesus has only specified one commandment in John - that they love one another as he loved them. So what is meant by commandments?
It could refer to things said about loving one's neighbours and enemies as oneself that Jesus talked about in the Synoptic Gospels, but it's not clear. What is clear is that love is conditional in John.
[Compare Johannine understanding of love to the Pauline understanding of love in 1Corinthians 13 which has become the standard definition of unconditional love in Christianity.]
In John 14 love is a test that, if passed, would result in Jesus asking his Father to send the Holy Spirit to be with them, reside in them, and who would teach them everything they need to know and remind them of what Jesus has taught. John defines the role of the Holy Spirit as an advocate, as one who stands by someone do defend and, in this case, to offer comfort.
GET UP AND GO
John 14 has an odd ending. John has Jesus saying in the last verse (to paraphrase the Greek), "Let's get up and go." The problem is they don't, at least as far as the Gospel of John is concerned. There are three more chapters of Jesus's table teachings.
Once again, this oddity points to the composite nature of John being composed of several different accounts. What strikes me as even more odd is that, as editorialized as John is at times, the editors leave some of these little details slip by.
Is there a purpose to them? Perhaps, but I am hard pressed to fine one in this case.
If one flips to chapter 18, one can see how this ending easily connects to verse one of chapter 18. It is possible and perhaps likely that chapters which follow John 14 were inserted at a later time, and perhaps hastily so that this odd ending to chapter 14 remained. What this oddity also suggests is the sacrosanctity the Gospel of John was and is held in; that it couldn't be changed after a certain point.
Until next time, stay faithful.
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