The Gospel of John and Christian Origins (28 page)

Study of the sonship and prophet motifs in the Gospel reveals that Jesus is sometimes seen as subordinate to God and sometimes as God’s equal. In an earlier essay I had already argued that the consequent ambiguity was bridged by an angelic Christology,
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suggesting too that the bridge was “probably connected with the more prominent bridge that leads back to the Danielic Son of Man.” I ended by saying that the purpose of the essay was “to inquire into certain possibilities of the new religion [i.e., of Christianity], not to offer a causal explanation of its actual genesis.” After investigating the more prominent bridge, I have felt able to take this extra step.

The title of this chapter is “Human or Divine?” Perhaps, though, the “or” is misleading. I have pointed to three avenues in the Gospel, three different ways of seeing Jesus’ entry into the world, three well-established Jewish traditions that have been exploited to good effect by the evangelist. The first is the prophetic tradition, whereby the prophet sent by God speaks the words of God—never, as Jesus says repeatedly throughout the Gospel, on his own account, but yet bringing him so close to the one who sent him that he can say, “I and the Father are one,” and “he who has seen me has seen the Father.” The second is the wisdom tradition absorbed into the Prologue: the Word was made flesh: God’s divine plan for the world is embodied in the person of Jesus Christ. The third is the Danielic Son of Man tradition, whose use by the fourth evangelist is widely misunderstood, but probably depends on the concept of angelic transformation.

The evangelist’s imaginative exploitation of all these traditions leaves his readers with the impression of a divine Christ, and before concluding his Gospel he reinforces that impression in a climactic scene, one of the most memorable episodes in the whole Bible. The second character in this episode (it is the last of those little dialogues in which Jesus freshly reveals himself) is universally known as “doubting Thomas.” but the scene culminates in Thomas’s fervent profession of faith: “my Lord and my God!” Deliberately placed where it is, as the Gospel is about to end, can one even conceive of a stronger declaration? Maybe not, but it is worth reflecting that what I have called Thomas’s “profession of faith” depended in his case on his seeing Jesus physically present in front of him—as he is reminded: “Have you believed because you have seen me?”

This may prompt us to take a fresh look at some of the other passages in the Gospel in which the sight of God is in question, including the amazing opening, where after the Word has been identified as “the Light that enlightens every man,” it is announced that he was himself an object of contemplation: “we have gazed upon his glory.” But then follows the stern reminder: “no one has ever seen God”—except, of course, those who have gazed upon the Incarnate Word (who, as is asserted in the very first verse, was with God, and was God). So a few privileged people, among whom the writer includes himself (“we”), have actually witnessed God’s theophanic appearance in the form of the Incarnate Word.

All this has somehow to be reconciled with certain of Jesus’ declarations in the Gospel that follows, especially the passage in which an exception is made to the categorical denial that anyone has ever seen God: “Not that anyone has seen the Father
except him who is from God
; he has seen the Father” (6:46). The original denial (1:18) was almost certainly directed primarily against Moses, who was set over in the preceding verse against Jesus Christ. But although the new saying in which the exception is made must be given full value (no one at all except Jesus himself), this idea too had already been challenged in the first edition of the Gospel: “Philip said to him, ‘Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip?
He who has seen me has seen the Father
; how can you say, ‘show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me?’ ” (14:8-10). At one point he even says of the Jews (though without naming them) that “they have seen and hated both me and my Father” (15:24).

Earlier Jesus had told them: “if you knew me, you would know my Father also” (8:19). For the Jews to whom he addressed these words this was out of the question, because, as he told them immediately afterwards, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world” (8:23). But the same was not true of Jesus’ disciples: in his prayer to his Father he said of them that “they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (17:16). Wondering why Philip’s long acquaintance with Jesus (he was after all one of the five very first disciples) did not bring with it the full knowledge required of him, we might think that Jesus was quite right to rebuke him. Yet this would be to forget the unvarying principle we discussed at length in chapter 3—that there is no full understanding of Jesus’ words until he has risen from the dead.

When this full understanding comes, with the help of the Paraclete, it involves not just a knowledge of Jesus himself, but also of the Father. It will remain true that no one has seen the Father directly except Jesus himself. But indirectly, Philip and all the other disciples (though they are not yet aware of it) have already seen the Father, simply because they have seen Jesus. Indeed all that ever had been or could ever be seen of God had already been revealed in the words and deeds of Jesus (watched by his disciples from the beginning to the end of his public career), now enshrined in the Gospel—although the reader will soon learn that even more could have been told. Not an apocalyptic revelation in the strict sense but still a revealed truth, and one that superseded anything that had gone before.

In the final scene of the Gospel the situation has changed, because Jesus has now risen from the dead. Philip had asked to be shown the Father; Thomas had asked to be shown the print of the nails and expressed a wish to place his hand in Jesus’ side (20:25). When he sees Jesus all his doubts fall away, because sight is now sufficient. Jesus, however, still has something to teach him, and rubs it in: “Put your finger here, and place your hand in my side.” In his response Thomas shows that he has already learned Philip’s lesson: seeing Jesus, he knows that in him he is also seeing the Father, and he bursts out: “My Lord and my God!” Into these few words the evangelist has compressed the essence of all he has come to think about Jesus’ relationship with God. He nowhere uses the term εἰκών, “image,” but few terms would be better suited to encapsulate his belief about the relationship between Jesus and the Father. Although any direct vision of the Father is now excluded, in this final scene the equivalent was there in the person of Jesus, as Thomas fully recognizes.

Yet there is one further lesson to be taught, and this concerns the crucial difference between vision and faith. Thomas, who, as one of the Twelve, is one of the last people to see the risen Jesus, believes because he has seen him physically present and has come close enough to put his hand in his side. Yet the very last words that Jesus addresses to him make it paradoxically plain that this unmediated vision is not to be thought of as a privilege: “Blessed are those who have
not
seen, and yet believe.”
How
those who have not seen may come to believe is indicated in the closing sentence of the whole Gospel, addressed to the evangelist’s readers. In a saying in which the reference of the word
signs
is extended to include the passion and resurrection stories he has just told, he announces that “these [signs] are written that you may believe.” Scholars have argued endlessly whether all the prospective readers of the Gospel already stand within the circle of believers (in which case the Gospel must have been written to strengthen their already existing belief) or whether John was targeting others, pagans or Jews, in the hope that they too would come to believe. The evangelist unquestionably had the members of his own community in mind. So much is clear from the message of reassurance in the Farewell Discourse. Yet anyone who thinks, as I do, that he also hoped to reach other readers outside his own community, can hardly fail to be struck by the enormity of his ambitions. For these other readers, he appears to be saying, the path to faith is his own book! Powerful as his work undoubtedly is, is it compelling enough to persuade readers hitherto unfamiliar with the story of Jesus that in and through this little book they can find God?

The Gospel remains a puzzle full of mysteries. There are mysteries for the believer, and mysteries for the scholar too. For the scholar, I now think, the biggest mystery of all is the Johannine portrait of Jesus himself, sublimely confident and self-assured, constantly disclosing new and fascinating elements of a personality unlike any other in history or in literature. In the next and final chapter I will make some attempt to explain why this should be so.