Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

The Soteriology Of John

human responsibility

Whatever is made of John’s emphasis on election (infra), many elements conspire to convince the reader that John holds men responsible for their plight.

1. Universal sinfulness and its crippling effect

Sin in the fourth Gospel has often been treated in a reductionist fashion which identifies it, without remainder, with unbelief. The root of sin is the failure to recognise God as God, in particular the refusal to acknowledge and receive the logos (1:10). But it is more than simple unbelief. It manifests itself in profanation of the Temple (2:13ff.), wicked deeds (3:19f.), adultery (4:16–18), sin which brings illness (5:14), self-complacency in the matter of pleasing God (5:44), gross materialism (6:26), fickleness (6:66), treachery (6:71, etc.), hypocritical ‘justice’ (7:23f.), murderous intent (7:30; 8:59; 11:48ff.), tyrannous bondage (8:21, 24, 32–6), lying and murder (8:44), rejection of light (9:41), theft (12:6), corruption (12:10f; 19:12f.), religious hypocrisy (18:28), physical violence (18:22; 19:1–3). The lack of detailed ethical discussion is no sufficient index of the scope of the johannine view of sin, ‘because the Fourth Gospel does assert the ethical seriousness of Jesus quite as strongly as Matthew, albeit in its own way.’ Sin is something with the most ominous consequences (3:36; 5:14, 29), something which the Lamb of God must take away, even while men must give it up, if they are to be free (5:14; 8:21ff., and the weakly attested 8:11). The constant threat of judgment (e.g. 3:18, 36; 12:47f.) demands repentance, even if the word itself is not used.

Another indication of John’s view of sin is his use of kosmos, ‘world’. Some writers attempt to divide John’s uses of the word into three categories: positive, neutral, and negative. On such a basis, for example, N. H. Cassem finds that all the positive references are in John 1–12, and that 1 John was written to counteract any suggestion that the kosmos could have positive features. His position will not stand close scrutiny. All references designated ‘positive’ do not give a rosy hue to kosmos, but to God and his salvific purposes. The best value that can ever be assigned to kosmos is ‘neutral’ (e.g. at 12:19; 16:21; 11:9; 17:5, 25; 21:25), and even some apparently neutral usages (e.g. ‘He was in the world, and the world was made through him’, 1:10), simply pave the way for mention of the heinous crime of unbelief (‘yet the world knew him not’). If the logos is the true light which comes into the kosmos (1:9), it is because the kosmos is characterised by darkness. If God sent Christ so that the kosmos might be saved by him (3:17), it is because the kosmos is lost without him. Similarly, 1:29 says a great deal for the Lamb of God, but not much for the kosmos. In short, the kosmos hates (7:7). In particular it hates Jesus, because he lays bare the horror of its evil, which exposure it tries to shun (3:20).

Jesus’ charge to his attackers, that not one of them keeps the law (7:19), is both inclusive and particularised. Sins characterise all those ‘from below’ (8:21, 23f.), and surely lead to ‘death in sins’ apart from belief in Jesus. Jesus’ condemnation of them is broken up by their interruptions (8:22, 25), which suggest the people are oblivious to their sin, ignoring it in favour of questioning him. Even when many ‘trusted in his name’, Jesus ‘would not entrust himself to them’ (2:23–5, niv), precisely because he knew what was in all men. This negative universalism, to give it a label, is a repeated feature of John (cf. 1:10f.; 2:23–5; 3:19f., 32; 4:48; 6:26f.; 12:39–41). The fact that it is in each case relieved by reference to some who do respond, however inadequately, does not suggest that such people are intrinsically less sinful, but only that they have come out of this background.

Contrary to first impressions, John 15:21–4 likewise presupposed guilt before the coming of Jesus. The world (15:18ff.) has not become guilty of sin in an absolute sense, because Jesus came, as if Jesus’ coming induced sin in an otherwise pure world. The clause ‘If I had not come’ (15:22) is not co-ordinate with ‘and spoken to them’. This is an instance of the Semitic tendency to co-ordinate what is logically subordinate (a point supported by 15:24 where the notion of ‘coming’ is absent). Equally important is the context. Jesus has been outlining the reasons for the world’s persecution of believers (15:18–21): the world acts this way because it does not recognise Jesus’ authority (his ‘name’) nor know the one who sent him (cf. also 16:3). If, having come, Jesus had not spoken to them (i.e., to the members of the world), they would not be guilty of the sin in question, viz. persecuting Jesus and his disciples. But Jesus’ word and works do not induce sin, so much as show the world up for what it is. The world has never been confronted quite this way before; and now Jesus’ words and work simultaneously arouse the animosity of the kosmos and rob it of all excuse.

This universal sinfulness manifests itself in an unwillingness to come to Jesus (5:40). It presupposes a self-love which makes men morally incapable of belief (5:44). Jesus’ opponents do not really love God in their hearts (5:42). The demonstration of this is found in the next verse: ‘I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me.’ One might have expected Jesus to continue, ‘If I had come in my own name, you would have received me.’ He does not do so, precisely because he is so much at one with the Father it is inconceivable that he could do other than please him (8:29). Thus it is God’s authoritative revelation that is being rejected. But if another person comes in his own name, he will be received, because he does not come with final and ultimate authority which demands instant submission and obedience. As long as the Jews are willing to receive glory from one another (and, implicitly, to give glory to one another), they cannot believe any divine revelation which lifts their eyes Godward to make them strive for the glory that comes from the only God (5:44).

This inability to believe is moral, not metaphysical; but it is real inability none the less. It is symbolised in John 9 by blindness from birth: ‘The human condition of being born in sin (9:34) is equivalent to being (spiritually) blind from birth (9:1).’ The man is healed at Siloam or Apestalmenos (9:7); and since Jesus is the ‘Sent One’ the ‘blindness is removed with reference to and with the aid of the “sent”.’ The inability of man in the spiritual sphere may also be pictured by dead Lazarus, whose response to Jesus’ loud call (11:43) is due solely to Jesus’ power. Faith is not a condition for this resurrection to take place: John 11:40 says rather that faith is a condition for seeing the glory of God. This way of phrasing it prepares the reader for the fact that of those who saw the miracle, some believed (11:45) and thus saw the glory, while others did not (11:46). Lazarus’ resurrection is as sovereignly effected as will be the resurrection of the last day (11:23f.), and therefore invites belief (11:14f.) in the one who is himself the resurrection and the life (11:25).

Again, if men do not understand Jesus’ lalia, his spoken communication, it is because they ou dynatai akouein ton logon autou, they cannot hear his word, his message (not, as in rsv, that they ‘cannot bear to hear’ his word; 8:43). This is shocking: Jesus does not say they fail to grasp his message because they cannot follow his spoken word, his idiom, but that they fail to understand his idiom precisely because they cannot ‘hear’ his message. The Jews remain responsible for their own ‘cannot’, which, far from resulting from divine fiat, is determined by their own desire (thelousin) to perform the lusts (tas epithymias) of the devil (8:44). This ‘cannot’, this slavery to sin (8:34), itself stems from personal sin. Sin enslaves.

The reason the Jews hold they have never been enslaved (8:33) is not that they are oblivious to history’s painful facts, but that they regard subjection to God as freedom in the highest sense. That they are thus subject to God is linked in their mind with racial privilege from Abraham. But Jesus, after insisting that the slavery with which he is concerned is bondage to sin (8:34), changes the slave metaphor slightly in order to reject their dependence on race (we may translate, ‘the slave has no permanent place in the family’, 8:35), and introduce the Son who alone has the authority to set slaves free (8:36). Thus, although they are implicitly invited to (and made responsible to) keep Jesus’ word (8:51), their moral evil coupled with this false confidence in their racial heritage renders them so obtuse that ‘they can no more believe the truth than they can come to the light (3:19).’ Indeed, because Jesus speaks the truth, they do not believe (8:45). If a man reacts negatively because he hears the truth (not merely although), what hope is there for him, unless God takes action for him? In precisely the same way, the world cannot receive the Spirit/Paraclete (14:17), because it fails to recognise (theōrein) him, fails to know (ginōskein) him (cf. 1 Cor. 2:14). On the other hand, the disciples do receive the Spirit, not because they recognise and know him, but because he abides with them and will be (is?) in them. ‘Therefore to know and to have are so conjoined, that not to know is the cause of not having, and to have is the cause of knowing.’ Failure to recognise the Paraclete is man’s fault, while human recognition of the Paraclete owes its cause to the Paraclete’s ministry.

Two conclusions are to be drawn. Since all at one time belonged to the world (15:9; 17:6; which verses explain the shift from 7:7 to 17:16), and the world is morally incapable of recognising and accepting God’s salvation, then (1) it follows that no one can come to Jesus unless that coming is granted to him (6:44, 65); and moreover, (2) for John responsibility does not turn on an absolute power to contrary. The world chooses, but by itself it cannot (because it will not) choose the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Responsibility depends more on reasonable obligation than on absolute freedom. Therefore, in a sense, the first step the world must take is to admit its blindness (9:41), without which admission there is only continued guilt. This strikes at the very root of merit theology.

2. Men are challenged to desire, believe, obey, come, etc.—and do so

Men are not unthinking puppets in the fourth Gospel. Within the dramatic presentation, the interplay of personalities is obvious. There are coherent requests and semi-rhetorical questions (e.g. 12:21; 19:38). The one who responds positively to Jesus is repeatedly designated ho pisteuōn, ‘he who believes’, or the like (e.g. 1:7, 12; 3:15–18, 36; 7:39; 11:25). Similarly, everyone who drinks the water Jesus gives, has eternal life (4:13f.). The one who really does come to Jesus (6:35f.)1 will never be hungry; the one who believes has everlasting life (6:47). Again, the one who eats Christ’s flesh and drinks Christ’s blood, is the one who abides in him and never perishes (6:53, 56). The one who keeps Jesus’ word, who believes the one who sent Jesus, shall never see death (8:51; 5:24). ‘Eternal life’ is for the one who does not love his psychē, but hates it (the love-hate contrast is a semitism). As Jesus gave his life, like a kokkos, so his followers must die to all self-interest; and those who thus serve Christ will be honoured by the Father (12:24–6). The promised blessing is contingent upon loyal obedience. The same stress on the necessity of obedience is found at the end of a structurally similar passage (13:18), and again in 3:36. The privilege of being granted the power to become God’s children depends on receiving the Logos (1:12); and, after he has ascended, it depends on receiving the witnesses (13:20).

It might be argued that these demands primarily describe the recipients of salvation without much reflection on the question of their responsibility, let alone their ability, to conform. In some passages, that contention has some weight: e.g. 5:29f.; 12:44. But there are two factors which make the suggestion impossible. (1) It ignores the fact that ‘the Gospel of St. John is par excellence the Gospel of appeals, or rather one immense appeal from one end to the other’1 (cf. 20:30f.). The descriptive ho pisteuōn phrases, for example, are themselves conditions that must be met, and as such they are implicit invitations, not less insistent than the explicit invitation of 7:37f. The constant alternatives, promised blessing or threatened condemnation, make no sense if this book is not evangelistic. (2) People are not only invited to believe, obey, etc.; they actually do so. On the basis of evidence, whether signs of testimonies or the message of Jesus, men believe, waver, reject (e.g. 1:41, 49f.; 2:11, 22; 4:39, 41f.; 6:66, 69; 8:30f.; 10:37f.; 11:40; 20:8, 28f.). Men take steps of conscious faith. The classic example is Thomas (20:25–8), but there are others. John 9:35–8 pictures the once blind man coming to deeper faith, on the basis of Jesus’ self-identification of himself as the Son of man. The man already believed Jesus to be a prophet (9:17), and his question (9:36), whether it betrays puzzlement at the title ‘Son of man’, or simply asks for positive identification (cf. 12:34f.), indicates he is eager to believe, eager to see spiritually: the hina, ‘that’, (9:36) is elliptical and has telic force. Jesus’ answer, when it comes, evokes belief and worship. No matter what emphasis there is in the fourth Gospel on election, men come, see, believe; and ‘the seeing is real seeing, the coming real coming, and the believing real believing, man’s seeing, man’s coming, man’s believing.’1  

But if man’s responsibility in these matters is unambiguous in John, the question of his autonomous ability is less so. John nowhere follows the example of much intertestamental literature in tying together responsibility and absolute free will in the sense of power to contrary (cf. T. Jud. 20.1–3; 2 En. 30.15; Ps. Sol. 9:7; Ab. 3.16; B. Ber. 33b; B. Nidd. 16b; Philo, Post. 10f.; Quod Deus 45–50; Conf. 177f.; Spec. Leg. i, 227). He writes of the need for men to want to do God’s will if they are to discover whether or not Jesus’ teaching is from God (7:17), and this challenge is both an invitation and an accusation;1 but it is not metaphysical speculation about the extent of human freedom.1 Men must seek the praise that comes from God (5:44), and work for the food that endures to eternal life (6:27); but it is also called a gift from the Son of man (cf. 4:10). And when the crowd replies with a question which shows they expect to perform works (plural) in a way which will earn merits (6:28), Jesus replies that the work (singular) of God is to believe in the one God has sent (6:29). The passage thus becomes equivalent to the demand for faith.

3. Further responsibilities

The responsibilities emphasised by John reflect a rich diversity of type. The demand for faith does not require a mere contentless dass, but belief in the highest christological propositions.1 In a similar vein, men are obligated to interpret the Old Testament Scripture christocentrically (1:45; 5:39f., 45–7): Moses wrote of Christ. Nicodemus, the teacher of Israel (a title?), should have known what the new birth entailed (3:10), apparently from the Old Testament. (Perhaps we are to think of such passages as Ps. 51:10; Isa. 44:3; Ezek. 11:19f.; 18:31f.; 36:26; 37:14; 39:29; or, with gentle irony, Eccles. 11:5. Alternatively, Nicodemus should have been prepared for the idea of the direct hand of God in salvation.) Those who come to faith are required to persevere, and, just as they have accepted the various witnesses that point to Christ, so they in turn must bear witness to him (4:35–8; 15:26f.; and possibly 20:23). In this task, examples have been set by the Samaritan woman (4:39), and especially by John the Baptist (1:6f., 20, 31–4).1 Prayer by Christians is presupposed (14:13f.; 16:23–6). They live under a new commandment (13:34f.) to love one another. It is remarkable that the responsibility to love the brothers is repeatedly presented in the form of commandment: cf. 15:12, 17—although in 13:34f.; 15:12, the responsibility to obey is enhanced by Jesus’ example. In both cases, the combination of present and aorist tenses of agapan, ‘to love’, suggests that the believers are to love each other continually as Christ in his death/exaltation loved them supremely (cf. Eph. 5:2). Implicitly, these and other responsibilities are enjoined on every reader of this Gospel.

The emphasis on obedience to Christ, exemplified by the obedience of Christ (15:10), is not in the least mitigated by the change in the disciples’ status from slaves1 to friends (15:14f.). To the modern mind, perhaps the chief characteristic of the slave is that he must obey; but this characteristic remains intact when the disciples become Jesus’ ‘friends’.1 The difference between the two categories in 15:15 turns on knowledge of what the master is doing, not on obedience. Indeed, this new knowledge increases the responsibility of the one who thus becomes a friend of Jesus, for the title can be kept only as long as obedience under this new revelatory stance is maintained. The comparison is not between unbelievers and believers, but between believers who had less knowledge and those who enjoy more (cf. Gal. 4:1–9). Thus, a friend of Jesus (1) has had things revealed to him by Jesus, (2) must obey Jesus, and (3) has been chosen by Jesus. None of these things can be predicated of Jesus with respect to the disciples: the ‘friendship’ is not reciprocal. Neither God nor Jesus is designated a ‘friend’ of man. (Of course, neither of them is ‘un-friend’: cf. John 3:16; 15:9; etc.; but neither of them is a ‘friend’ in the sense used here.) If God is sovereign and autonomous, and men are responsible to him (and therefore to Jesus as well), it is axiomatic that reciprocal ‘friendship’ is out of the question. The highest possibility for man is that he be a friend of God, a friend of Jesus. Of course, the title itself invites obedience not so much on the basis of authority as on the basis of Jesus’ love in conferring the honour; but the demand for obedience is not less urgent for that. The title hitherto had been given only to the most privileged and intimate of God’s servants (Abraham, Isa. 41:8; 2 Chr. 20:7; cf. Jas. 2:23; Moses, cf. Exod. 33:11), usually within a context associated with election (Isa. 41:8; cf. 2 Chr. 20:7) or special revelation (Exod. 33:11).

The new commandment, as we have seen, connects obedience to Christ with love for believers: obedience entails the responsibility to love. John 14:15, 21, 23f. connect love for Christ with obedience: love for Christ entails the responsibility to be obedient. All three of these verses in John 14 are connected with the promise that God will manifest himself to the loving and therefore obedient believer.1 The first verse (14:15) specified that this divine manifestation is the promised Spirit/Paraclete. Now elsewhere it is made clear that the coming of the Paraclete is dependent on Jesus’ ‘going away’ (16:7; cf. 7:39). John 14:15, 21, 23f. do not so much put in doubt this coming (14:15ff.), this manifestation of Jesus and the Father (14:21, 23f.), as they do the genuineness of the disciples’ love, and therefore of their discipleship itself. The question to be raised by John’s reader is not, therefore, ‘Has Jesus manifested himself, and sent the Paraclete?’ but rather, ‘Do I love Jesus in such a manner as to obey his commandments, that I may be among those to whom this personal revelation is given?’

John 16:27 goes farther: ‘The Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from the Father.’ Does this mean that the believer’s love precedes the Father’s love, and is in some way the ground of it? The suggestion runs counter to the entire johannine emphasis, in which God is the one who loves the world so much he sends his Son—even this world which refuses to acknowledge him. Nor does Barrett’s attempt to resolve the problem by referring to a ‘circle of love’, with the Father at the centre, really help.2 Two contextual features provide a clue that resolves the difficulty. (1) The preceding two verses (16:25f.) show that the point at issue is not the difference between the believer and the unbeliever, as if the evangelist were trying to assign to the believer’s love the ultimate credit for this distinction; but rather, as in 15:14f. (supra), John is making a distinction between the disciples’ relation to the Father now and in that day, i.e. after the hour. The succeeding verse (16:28) shows that hitherto Jesus has exercised a mediating role in the revelation of the Father. But now, with Jesus’ glorification, and the bestowal of the Spirit/Paraclete (16:13f.), there is new intimacy between the believers and the Father himself (16:27). The mediating mission of Jesus has thus been successful. (2) The aspect of this new intimacy with which the evangelist is here concerned is prayer.

From these two observations, it must be concluded that verse 27 is not so much interested in assigning ultimate credit as in pointing out that the believer’s relationship to the Father, and his effectiveness in prayer, depend on his continued love for and belief in Jesus. And this is his responsibility.

John 3:19–21 likewise comes short of ascribing ultimate credit to man, even while it lays heavy responsibility on him. The light has come (perfect tense) into the world, and this is a perpetual challenge to believe. But with the light has come a verdict of guilty2 (3:18f., 36). This makes the case urgent, but not hopeless: it persists only as long as there is unbelief (cf. 8:24). The reason for the unbelief, the preference for darkness, is moral: the practice of evil. The reason evil deeds prevent belief is because the one who does evil does not want his deeds exposed and rebuked,2 and therefore avoids the light. Now at this point, we might have expected in 3:21 the converse thought that the one who does what is true does come to the light in order to show that his deeds are good, and be vindicated. Instead, the evangelist refuses to complete the parallelism, and says instead that this man comes ‘that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been wrought in God’ (en theō). Barrett, not observing this distinction, sees men divided into two classes before they are confronted by the light:

Men are divided into two classes, those who do evil and those who do the truth. The former will inevitably reject Christ and are rejected; the latter as inevitably accept him. The disjunction between the two groups appears to exist before they are confronted with Christ himself; there seems to be no question of those who do evil being changed into men who will do the truth.2  

Similarly Schnackenburg2 uses 3:31 and 8:23 to argue that John means that those who reject God’s messenger and his words are a different type of being. But 3:31 contrasts Jesus not just with unbelievers but with everyone (cf. also 3:13), and 8:23b is true of a person only as long as he disbelieves (cf. 8:24). The exceptive clause in 8:24 makes all the difference (contrast the irreversible judgment on the prince of this world, 12:31). To accept the rigid dualism of Barrett and Schnackenburg would mean that those who come to the light do so because of their own intrinsic superiority. But the evangelist balks at completing the antithetic parallelism and introduces a new ingredient, the idea of works done ‘in God’. The expression is found in the johannine corpus only here and in 1 John 4:15f. Whether it means that the believer’s works ‘are wrought in virtue of his fellowship with God’,2 or, better, ‘done in fellowship with God’ (Lindars points to 3:15, en autō, almost certainly to be construed with echē),2 the works are not done without reference to God, by the man alone. John uses this ambiguous expression to reinforce human culpability without supporting human pride, to assert that the one who does evil is morally responsible for his unbelief without allowing that the one who does what is true may take the credit for his belief. Verse 20 unambiguously assigns blame; verse 21, more phenomenological a description, does not assign merit, but obliquely points toward God.

4. The ‘cosmic’ sweep of God’s saving purposes

A major strand of thought in the fourth Gospel pictures God’s stance toward the world as both positive and all-embracing. God loved the world so much he sent his unique Son (3:16). The kosmos loved by God is not morally neutral, as we have seen; nor will the more subtle approach of Schnackenburg carry conviction:

Here, as wherever the mission of the Son is spoken of, the notion of ‘world’ is neither quite neutral nor quite negative. The ‘world’ is not simply the place where men live, but sinful mankind which has turned away from God. Still, it is not the specific term for mankind in so far as it rejects the divine envoy and pursues him with enmity and hatred. It is the ‘world’ far from God and yet profoundly longing for him and sensing its need of redemption, the ‘world’ which is the object of God’s infinite mercy and love.2  

But is the world ever portrayed as ‘profoundly longing’ for Christ in John’s Gospel?! If Jesus is the Saviour of the world (4:42; 1 John 4:14), it is because the world needs saving, not because some receptive part of the world is in view. Similar remarks pertain to 1:29; 6:33, 51. Thus, ‘world’ in 3:16 refers primarily neither to the greatness of the number of the people nor to those who seek Christ. It is the dark world that loves evil and hates light. God loved the world despite what the world was;2 and that is the measure of his love, which is the ground of his commission to the Son. The expressions ‘loved’, ‘gave’, and ‘only’ all have emotive force, and simultaneously enhance the implicit invitation and magnify the reprehensibility of rejection. God’s purposes toward the world in sending his Son were salvific (3:17); but the world is promptly divided up into those who believe and are not condemned, and those who do not believe and already stand condemned (3:18).2 The same division recurs in 8:12, where, although Jesus is ‘the light of the world’, only the believer is promised ‘the light of life’. (Cf. also 1:9–11.)

Rigid interpretations which make ‘world’ refer to specific people bristle with difficulties. The possibilities seem to be: (1) ‘World’ means every person without exception, and therefore all will ultimately be saved. This theoretical possibility is not a real possibility, as far as John is concerned. The world divides into those who believe and those who do not. (Cf. also 17:9.) (2) ‘World’ means every person without exception, and therefore God’s purposes must inevitably be frustrated, since some will not believe. But such a position cannot be squared with either the emphasis on the certainty of the accomplishment of God’s purposes, nor with predestinarian passages such as 6:44, 65; 17:9. (3) ‘World’ here refers to the elect, all those whom the Father has given to the Son. But there is no warrant for taking the word that way, which sounds like a starker form of Schnackenburg’s subtlety (supra).

It is possible that ‘world’, in addition to bearing its connotations of evil, means something like ‘all men without distinction’ rather than ‘all men without exception’. If so, it would be a slap at Jewish racial exclusiveness, and would have important implications for the Gospel’s Sitz im Leben. This approach might find support in the use of ‘all’ in 1:7, 9; 12:32. John the Baptist was a man sent from God, and therefore in bearing witness so that all might believe he was reflecting God’s benevolence toward the human race. Jesus reinforced John’s credibility for the same reason: so that his hearers might be saved (8:33f.). John’s primary mission was to Israel (1:29–31), but his witness was given so that all men—i.e. who came across it—might believe: he, like Abel, although dead, is still speaking. To push the language to make it refer to every man without exception would be silly. Similarly, if 1:9 does refer to the incarnation, the ‘every man’ on which the light shines is qualified by 1:10f. (cf. on 8:12, supra). Similarly in 12:32: the ‘all’ whom Jesus will draw, and the drawing itself, cannot both be taken absolutely, because in the succeeding verses it becomes clear that not all are saved (12:35–41). In the context of the arrival of the Greeks (12:20–22), to whose request for an audience Jesus has not so far responded, the ‘all’ appears to mean ‘all’ as opposed to Jews only: Jesus does not talk to the Greeks because that which will draw all men is the climactic event of his own death/exaltation.

Although there are some helpful insights in this approach, it is probably inadequate by itself. The evangelist seems rather to present God’s stance toward the whole world in much the same way as the pre-exilic prophets presented God’s stance toward the wayward Israelites: he punishes reluctantly, loves graciously, and finds no pleasure in the death of the wicked (Isa. 30:18; 65:2; Lam. 3:31–6; Ezek. 18:3–32; 33:11; Hos. 11:7ff.). The primary purpose for which God sent the Son into the world, the primary purpose why the Son came, was to save the world (3:17; 8:15; 12:47), for ‘the already condemned world needed no further condemnation, it needed saving.’3 Moreover, each of these statements not only reveals God’s graciousness, but functions as an implicit invitation and a way of laying blame squarely on those who reject God’s invitation. But it is untrue to the fourth Gospel (as it is to the Old Testament) to deduce from this evidence that election is ruled out, or that absolute universalism is taught, or that there is no room for a special relationship between God and some part of the world (cf. 17:9), or again that God is frustrated if all the world is not saved. The passages in John which deal with the ‘cosmic’ sweep of God’s purposes not only have contexts which eliminate such interpretations, but function in such a way as to increase human responsibility in the light of God’s gracious and available salvation.

5. Final observations

Each of the factors that go into the Old Testament’s picture of human responsibility has re-surfaced in the fourth Gospel. Emphases may be a little different—e.g. men are not so much described as seeking the Lord, as exhorted to do so; and God’s pleas for repentance now find their most eloquent expression in the incarnation and death/exaltation—but the same ingredients are there.

In addition, several facts have repeatedly come to light: (1) Unlike much intertestamental literature, John does not tie human responsibility to freedom (in the sense of absolute power to contrary). Freedom, for John, is freedom from sin, i.e. the performing of God’s will. (2) Human responsibility for John is not incompatible with inability, provided it is moral inability.3 (3) There is no unambiguous evidence for merit theology in the fourth Gospel.

faith and external evidence

On what, then, is true faith based in the fourth Gospel? What or who receives ultimate credit when X believes and Y does not? What part does the evidence provided by signs, testimonies (of Jesus and of others), and the Scriptures play in convincing men? How are we to understand John’s apparently ambivalent attitudes to the value of external evidence in providing a ground for faith?

In many places John makes it clear that the external evidence, of which the signs are most prominent, does indeed have the purpose of evoking faith. The witness of John the Baptist (1:7), Jesus’ questioning and self-revelation to the once blind man (9:35ff.), the eyewitness testimony of Jesus’ death (19:35; cf. 21:24), the writing of the Gospel itself (20:30f.),3 all have the avowed goal of engendering faith. Jesus takes pains to foretell his betrayal and death/exaltation so that these events, far from destroying the disciples’ faith, will establish it (13:19; 14:29). He is glad he is not in Bethany when Lazarus is taken ill, so that the disciples may believe by virtue of a sign greater than healing (11:15). Even his public prayer (more accurately, his thanksgiving) at Lazarus’ tomb is given for the purpose of evoking faith (11:41f.), as is the voice from heaven (12:28). Again, the Father shows ever greater works to the Son, who performs them, so that the disciples may marvel (5:20). The last public discourse ends with a plea to believe if not Jesus, at least his works (10:37f.), an injunction repeated to the disciples in private (14:11). In other words, men are responsible not only to believe Jesus’ words, but to believe because of the signs; and unbelief brings condemnation from both (12:47; 15:24).

On the other hand, some very negative things are said about signs. The people are excoriated for their dependence on signs and wonders (4:48), and indeed regularly manifest precisely that attitude which is here condemned: they want Jesus to perform signs which authenticate him, by virtue of their spectacular display (2:18; 6:30; 7:31; cf. Matt. 16:1; Mark 8:11f.; Luke 11:16), as genuinely from God (John 9:16, 31f.; 10:21). The people thronged to see Jesus because they heard of Lazarus’ resurrection (12:18), and this upset the Pharisees (12:19) because Jesus’ signs were drawing off the people (11:47f.); yet this movement of the people seems to reflect their love of the sensational, rather than serving as an index of true faith. Did the people believe in signs, then, or not?

John 7:5 provides a clue. Jesus’ brothers ‘did not believe in him’, even though they did believe he could perform his miracles (7:3f.). But belief that Jesus could and did perform ‘signs’ does not entail understanding of what the signs really point to. The belief is not authentic faith. Thus the crowd in John 6 had seen Jesus’ signs in one sense (6:2, 26), but in another sense had failed so miserably to see them that they asked for another (6:30). The people believed the other signs had actually taken place; but their belief was not authentic faith. In the nature of the case, therefore, signs by themselves cannot guarantee such faith.3 Although the people had seen in one sense, they had not seen in the other (6:36;3 cf. 12:37), a failure for which they are clearly responsible. John 11:40–47 neatly preserves the ambiguity: although many saw the sign-miracle, only those who believed really saw the sign-glory of God.

Other types of external evidence evoke results just as ambiguous. The Jews diligently study the Scriptures but do not see that their witness points to Christ (5:39f., 45–47). They would have concurred that the Scripture cannot be broken (10:35), even though they are accused of not believing what Moses wrote (5:46f.). That is why Jesus can refer witheringly to ‘your law’ (8:17; 10:34)—not to disassociate himself from it, but to magnify the responsibility of the people to interpret it aright—and yet at the same time lay considerable stress on Scripture and its christocentric fulfilment. This is analogous to the relationship between his negative statement about signs and wonders (4:48), and his own positive use of signs and wonders to engender faith. Similarly, Jesus’ self-testimony is given to evoke faith, but is repeatedly not believed (e.g. 3:11, 32f.; 5:37–40). The voice of 12:28f., though for the sake of the crowd, was ‘interpreted by the materialists as a clap of thunder and nothing more, and by the more spiritually-minded as an angelic utterance.’3 The evidence itself could be variously interpreted. The only difference between signs and this kind of testimonial evidence is that the former have the added disadvantage of attracting sensation seekers. But no external evidence is sufficient to guarantee faith (cf. Luke 16:30f.).

If such evidence is insufficient to guarantee faith in all before whom such evidence is presented, is it sufficient by itself to engender faith in some people? If so, why only in some and not in others? Of whom is the ‘some’ made up? For example, when we read that some believed in Jesus because of John’s testimony (even without a confirming sign, 10:40–42!),3 while others enjoyed John’s light only for a while (5:35), what stands at the root of the different response?

Faith in the fourth Gospel does indeed seem to spring from evidence, whether signs (2:11, 23; 4:53; 6:14), another’s testimony (4:39; 10:40–42), Jesus’ own testimony (4:41f.; 8:30; 9:37f.), his physical appearance after the resurrection (especially 20:27–9), or, apparently, the unspecified pattern of events (12:42f.). On closer inspection, some of these cases must be summarily dismissed, because there is some contextual caveat. John 2:23 is followed by the rejection implicit in 2:24f. The first steps of faith in 6:14 are followed by 6:15, 36, 66. The Jews who apparently put their faith in Jesus in 8:30 are dismissed in 8:37–44, 55.3 But even so, on the face of it, the instances in 2:11; 4:39; 41f., 53; 8:37f. are clear examples of faith grounded on evidence.

But again, some doubts must be cast up, two in particular. (1) In 6:66–70 when many disciples turn back and no longer follow Jesus, the Twelve are prepared to stay, because they believe that Jesus is the Holy One of God; but Jesus, although he asks them if they want to stay, insists that he chose them—including the one who is a ‘devil’. In other words, when the question is raised why some ‘disciples’ (6:66) turn back, and others persevere, the answer has more to do with election than with evidence. (2) Again, in 16:29f., in response to Jesus’ speech en parrēsia, the disciples declare that by this their faith that Jesus came from God is established. But Jesus openly questions their faith, because he knows the ‘hour’ has come, and they will be scattered (16:31f.). They will all therefore come to faith in a deeper sense only after the resurrection. Authentic faith is reserved for the period introduced by the eschatological hour. The evangelist thus casts doubt on the faith of the Twelve prior to the death/exaltation (16:31f.), and accentuates faith in the risen Lord (20:8, 18, 20, 25, 27–9). This renders coherent the claims to greater insight after the resurrection (2:22; 12:16; cf. 14:26).

John is again wrestling with the problem of the best way to present his theological summary of Jesus’ life in the most telling evangelistic fashion. He portrays people coming to faith (not only the Twelve but also those in 4:39, 41f., 53; 9:37f.) during Jesus’ ministry, but he reserves authentic faith for the new age. Therefore there is reason to suspect that even those instances of faith prior to the death/exaltation, which betray in themselves no mitigating caveats (viz. 4:39, 41f., 53; 9:37f.) are to be understood within the framework of his theological presentation of redemptive history. The evangelist includes these narratives of coming-to-faith, because had he not done so his Gospel could not have had so extensive an evangelistic impact, since the three cases touch Jews (9:37f.), Samaritans (4:39, 41f.) and (possibly) Gentiles (4:53—if he is a military man, likely a pagan: An xvii.198).

The faith in John 20 is directly dependent on the climactic evidence of the resurrection; and, although Jesus implies it is not the best sort of faith (20:29), he nevertheless willingly offers the evidence in order to convince Thomas (20:27). But the resurrection appearances are restricted to those who already belong to Jesus, those he has kept, those the Father has given him (e.g. 4:19f.; 17:6, 12). In this they differ from the public nature of most of the (other) signs. The evidence of the resurrection evokes faith in those who are already in some sense peculiarly Christ’s.

The fourth Gospel, then, clearly holds men responsible to believe on the basis of the signs, and, having come to some level of faith, to cling to Jesus’ teaching (e.g. 8:31). But it is equally clear that external evidence, no matter how splendid, does not guarantee that someone will come to faith and persevere in that faith; and it seems it cannot even receive sole credit for engendering faith in those who do believe. If the Jews do not believe the signs because they are not of Jesus’ flock (10:25f.), while those in Jesus’ flock, his own sheep, hear his voice and follow him (10:27), then the question of who responds positively to the signs is pushed back to the prior question of who belongs to Jesus’ flock.

None of this must be taken to mean that for John the evidence is irrelevant, the signs unimportant, the Scripture fulfilment incidental.3 Quite the reverse: the signs, for example, in addition to whatever compelling incentive to faith they provide, help to establish the content of that faith. They point beyond themselves, as does so much in John’s Gospel. In the miracle at Cana, the sign suggests the old religion is being turned into the new order of the gospel. The episode of the cleansing of the temple promises that a new ‘temple’ will arise. Chapters 3 and 4 promise new birth and new worship respectively. The miraculous healings of 4:46–5:47 reveal the power of Jesus’ word both to give new life and to grant forgiveness. The feeding of the five thousand demonstrates that Jesus himself is the bread of life. Similarly for the rest of the Gospel: the ‘evidential’ elements in John are not designed merely to help people come to faith, but also to establish the factual substance in which faith is to be exercised. On reflection, any putative revelation which comes through the medium of history (as opposed to a-historical mysticism) must set down its roots in certain historical events and their interpretation. This is the overwhelming reason why signs, fulfilment statements and the like are important in the fourth Gospel—not because of some presupposition concerning the relationship between external evidence and faith.

One other piece of evidence confirms that this is the direction of John’s thought. Many commentators see no necessary connection between Nicodemus’s remark about signs (3:2) and Jesus’ reply (3:3). Alternatively, it is suggested that a question is implied, such as ‘What must I do to inherit the age to come?’ (cf. Luke 18:18). It is better to see Nicodemus approaching Christ with the claim that he detects something of God’s expected reign in the one who can do ‘these signs’ (3:2). But Jesus replies that no one can ‘see’ God’s reign unless he is born (or begotten) from above. E. Haenchen is even prepared to translate 3:3 as ‘Unless one is begotten from above, he cannot see the works (sic; not ‘kingdom’) of God.’3 Nicodemus can obviously ‘see’ the signs in one sense; but he cannot ‘see’ them in another: he cannot really see the kingdom of God (cf. 11:40). Jesus’ reply is not framed in terms of what Nicodemus must do to see the kingdom, but in terms of what must happen to him. The point is made both by the nature of the demanded transformation (a man neither begets nor bears himself) and by the passive mood of the verb. ‘For rebirth means—and this is precisely the point made by Nicodemus’ misunderstanding—something more than in improvement in man; it means that man receives a new origin, and this is manifestly something he cannot give himself’.4 This approach runs counter to the suggestion that 3:3, 5 is simply a johannine version of the dominical saying recorded in Matt. 18:3. In addition to completely different contexts, both the form (hōs is essential in Matt. 18:3f., and absent from John 3:3, 5) and the purpose of the two logia differ. Matthew’s logion is concerned with man’s repentance, man’s humbling of himself, man’s conversion, while John 3:3, 5, 7 deal with God’s action on man.

The answer Jesus gives to Nicodemus’s claim to some knowledge is thus designed to deflate all such personal claims. This phenomenon occurs elsewhere in John (e.g. 6:70; 9:41; 16:31), and has the effect of laying an axe to the root of merit theology. Thus, the opposition to merit theology is leading back inexorably to God’s sovereign election.

election

Several factors have already pointed towards some form of soteriological predestination in the fourth Gospel. God’s sweeping sovereignty has entered this world and introduced the new age. This vertical step has exposed God’s direct action in salvation and judgment to greater view. Man and world are presented negatively, as morally unable as in the DS (especially Hodayoth) and with the same result: salvation must come from God. God’s stance toward the world is salvific: but when someone raises the question who is actually saved, it becomes clear that ultimately salvation turns neither on personal merits nor on external evidence. Individuals become believers neither because they are intrinsically better and therefore able to choose aright, nor because the evidence is somehow itself more convincing in their cases. Who then is saved?

1. New birth and sonship

The consideration of Nicodemus at the end of the last section leads naturally to the broader question of new birth and sonship in the fourth Gospel. The first explicit reference is 1:12f. Accepting the plural reading ‘who were born’,4 it is not immediately clear what is the precise relationship between ‘all who received him’, (1:12) and ‘who were born … of God’ (1:13). Some see receiving Christ as the prerequisite of the new birth: ‘This birth is conditional upon receiving Christ and believing on his name. The aorist is not pluperfect in tense.’4 Others take the opposite view. Holtzmann sees this generation by God as ‘the root and presupposition’4 of faith. And Lindars says: ‘Man cannot gain his end by any property of his own nature as man, nor by wishing for it with all his soul, nor by any practical steps which his own mind and reason may suggest, because man is not equal with God. Only God himself can raise man to sonship.’4 Clearly, precisely the same people are referred to by ‘all who receive him’ as by ‘who were born … of God’. It is true that no one is born from God who does not receive Christ and believe on his name; but it is equally true that no one receives Christ and believes on his name, who is not born of God. Even though no causal relationship is made explicit, to read 1:12 without 1:13 is to obtain the impression that sonship is the result of faith. But it is possible to take 1:13 as a careful rejection of this view, and this for four reasons: (1) Even though the three negations of 1:13 appear to describe procreation in the categories of ancient times, they seem unnecessarily extravagant if their sole purpose is to contrast natural and spiritual birth without making some reference to human inability in spiritual birth. (2) There may be an implicit rejection of the sufficiency of racial descent. It is not enough to be Abraham’s (racial) descendants (8:33f.; cf. Matt. 3:9). (3) The form of 1:12f.—emphasis on human responsibility, followed by an accent on divine sovereignty which lays waste human pretensions—is found elsewhere in John (e.g. 6:40–45; 6:66–70). (4) For what it is worth, the tenses and the context of 1 John 5:1 strongly argue that faith, like love (1 John 4:8) is the evidence of the new birth, not its cause.

The evidence for the priority of the new birth in 1:12f. is not conclusive, but it is very strong. Accepting it, however, does not mean adopting the view that the evangelist is primarily interested in the intricacies of predestination per se. Rather, he combats human pretensions as to who are children of God. This is confirmed by the progress of the debate between Jesus and Nicodemus. Jesus’ statement (3:3) evokes a double misunderstanding on the part of Nicodemus (3:4). Nicodemus is thinking on a purely physical plane: hence his first question. But he further misses the point by making man the active agent: hence his second question. Jesus answers these objections in reverse order. In 3:5f. Jesus insists that this birth is supernatural, on the principle that like produces like. In 3:7f. Jesus answers the first objection. If Nicodemus accepts the sound and effect of the pneuma=wind without knowing the details of its movement and origins, why should he question the movement and origins of the pneuma=spirit in the generation of new life? He should not be surprised that even the rulers4 of the Jews must be thus born from above.

A. Augustinović avoids any suggestion of predestinatory references in new birth and sonship passages by reducing them to a purely moral sphere. According to him, there is simply a correspondence (convenientia) between God’s action and those of his sons.4 Augustinović is largely correct as far as John 8 is concerned: there the sonship relationship is primarily moral (cf. especially 8:38f., 42, 44), especially so since sonship to the devil is also possible. But sonship to God and sonship to the devil are not symmetrically related. There is no suggestion that man may be ‘born of the devil’. Moreover, even the moral emphasis on the sonship does not preclude something more metaphysical: after all, Jesus admits that the Jews are children of Abraham in the literal sense (8:37) while denying them the title on moral grounds (8:39). This confirms that John 8 is primarily concerned with the evidence which identifies paternity (cf. 1 John 3:7–10), not with the ontological status of that paternity, nor with the way that paternity may be changed. So even here, Augustinović is stretching the evidence; and he is much less believable on 1:12f. and 3:3ff. Again, the reference to ‘the children of God who are scattered abroad’ in 11:52 suggests that Christ’s death/exaltation effects the gathering together of those destined to become the children of God (cf. 10:16). P. Benoit’s criticism of Augustinović’s oversimplification is just:

The thought of St John is certainly much more profound! It is not the act of faith per se, nor our acts of love, which constitute us children of God; rather, if we are able to believe and to love, it is because we have received within us a seed [un germe] of divine life, and because the holy Spirit inhabits, lives and operates in us. The act of faith does not constitute our divine sonship; rather, it is either the occasional cause (in the philosophical sense) or the sign of sonship. Some cannot believe that God can act within us in such a fashion, while simultaneously leaving us free; but many theologians think the two perspectives are patient of reconciliation.4  

2. Coming to Jesus

In John 6 the coming-to-Jesus language moves unambiguously within a context of predestination. Coming to Jesus is equivalent to believing in Jesus (6:35). That Jesus’ opponents have seen him and yet have not believed (6:36) is no reason for pessimism about the prospect of more conversions, for all whom4 the Father has given to the Son will come to him (6:37). To avoid the conclusion that predestination is here assumed, J. H. Charlesworth notes the text does not say that some are not given to Jesus.4 However, if all are given to Jesus, then all will surely come to him, according to this text; and the logically entailed absolute universalism contradicts both the tenor of the fourth Gospel and those explicit passages which make it clear that only some of the world is given to Jesus (cf. 17:9). The context demands that Jesus is repudiating any idea that the Father has sent the Son forth on a mission which could fail because of the unbelief of the people.

The second clause of 6:37 is frequently taken as a strong litotes meaning that Jesus will welcome and not reject the one who comes to him, often cast in a form which stresses human responsibility and thereby balances the emphasis on predestination in 6:37a. But this interpretation is excluded by two observations: (1) The verb ‘cast out’ (ekballō), wherever it is used in John (2:15; 6:37; 9:34f.; 10:4; 12:31), implies the ‘casting out’ of something or someone already ‘in’. The strong litotes in 6:37f., therefore, does not mean ‘I will certainly receive the one who comes’, but ‘I will certainly preserve, keep in, the one who comes’; while the identity of the ‘one who comes’ is established by the preceding clause. (2) The causal hoti and telic hina in 6:38 give the reason for this keeping action by Jesus, in terms of the will of the Father, viz. that Jesus should not lose one of those given to him (6:38f.). In other words, 6:37 argues not only that the ones given to Jesus will inevitably come to him, but that Jesus will keep them individually (ton erchomenon as opposed to pan ho) once there.5  

Comparing 6:39 and 6:40, it is obvious that ‘all that he has given me’ refers to the same people as ‘everyone who sees the Son and believes in him’, while ‘that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me’ parallels ‘that everyone … should have eternal life’. Those whom the Father has given to the Son may equally be described as those who see and believe the Son, even though the predestinatory ‘given’ precedes and enables (cf. on 6:44, 65, infra) the faith. These parallels militate against the expression ‘irresistible grace’ frequently used by theologians of the Reformed traditions. The expression is misleading, because it suggests what the theologians themselves usually seek to avoid, viz. the idea that the inevitability of the coming-to-Jesus by those given to Jesus means they do so against their will, squealing and kicking as it were. God’s election works behind and through the ‘seeing’ and ‘believing’ of those who come to Jesus.

In response to the Jews’ murmuring, Jesus puts the matter more strongly: No one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws him (6:44). ‘The Father does not merely beckon or advise, he draws!’5 This, indeed, is what the context demands; but those who see no soteriological predestination in John are quick to point to John’s use of the same verb in 12:32: Jesus’ death/exaltation draws all men. Many commentators try to govern the meaning of 6:44 by appeal to 12:32. But the verb alone is not determinative. John 12:32, as we have observed, occurs in a context where the arrival of the ‘hour’ and the request of the Greeks are evoking statements about the universal significance of Jesus’ death/exaltation. Jesus draws all men, not just Jews; his stance toward the ‘world’ is a salvific one, one that draws. It is precarious to read more into 12:32 than that. By contrast, 6:44 occurs in a context in which (1) men have arrogantly tried to bring in the kingdom by force (6:15), and yet (2) have turned away unbelieving from the revelation given (6:36, 41f., 60, 64). The predestinatory passages in John 6 (especially vv.37–40, 44f., 64f.) speak to both of these problems: (1) Men cannot bring in the kingdom. Not only is the kingdom not political, but men must learn that salvation is by God’s action (6:44f., 65).5 (2) On the other hand, rejection by men does not spell defeat for God’s saving purposes, but victory; for all given to Jesus will come (6:37), and Jesus himself knew from the beginning who would believe (6:64). Thus, the presentation of soteriological predestination, far from being an end in itself, is part of the framework which provides assurance concerning the inevitability of the fulfilment of God’s plan of salvation, while emphasising the gratuity of grace. Both of these factors came together in 6:64f. Even Jesus’ so-called disciples (6:60f., 66) were turning from him: their faith had been without hearing and learning from the Father (6:45). As in 6:44f., Jesus answers the problem of unbelief by appeal to the necessity of divine action (6:65). ‘Faith in Christ is not merely difficult; apart from God it is impossible (cf. Mark 10:27). Coming to Jesus is not a matter of free human decision.’5 But in addition to solving the enigma of unbelief, this answer, by stressing that no one comes to Jesus unless it is given to him by the Father to do so, awakens echoes of the life-imparting power of the Spirit (6:63). Human self-congratulation is thus effectively precluded.

3. Taught by God

It is surprising how often the reference to Isa. 54:13 (or perhaps Jer. 31:34) in John 6:45 is taken to mean that all men without exception will be taught by God, and therefore that the ‘drawing’ in the previous verse must also be extended to everyone. But 6:45 is adduced to explain something of the nature of the ‘drawing’ in 6:44. The ‘all’ does not mean ‘all without exception’ but ‘all the people of God’ (cf. 11:52), all those given to the Son (6:37, 39), drawn by the Father (6:44, 65). This is special ‘teaching’ which all believers, but only believers, enjoy (cf. 1 John 2:27). Outward evidence, like signs and testimonies, is not enough. No one can come to the Father unless the Father draws him, as the prophets themselves said: there must be ‘teaching’ from God. Everyone thus taught must be identified with everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him: all of these come to Jesus.

4. Given to Jesus

The idea that some men have been given by the Father to the Son is first enunciated, as has been noted, in 6:37, 39, 65. The same thought occurs again in 10:29(?); 17:2, 6, 9, 24; 18:9. Apart from the occurrences in 10:29 and 18:9, which are best considered later, there is a concentration of them in John 17.

The verb ‘to give’ (didonai) occurs in John 17 no less than seventeen times. In thirteen of these occurrences, the Father is the subject. To the Son, he gives men (17:2, 6, 9, 24), all things (17:7), words (17:8), the divine name (17:11f.), and glory (17:22, 24). In the other four occurrences, Jesus is the subject. To men, he gives eternal life (17:2), words or word (17:8, 14), and glory (17:22).

In 17:2, the hina is certainly telic in force; but even so, two meanings are possible. (1) The hina may be co-ordinate with hina in 17:1. In that case the opening clause of 17:2 is parenthetical. The granting of eternal life to those whom God has given to the Son is part of the purpose of the Son’s glorification. (2) Alternatively, hina in 17:2 is not co-ordinate with hina in 17:1, and depends, not on doxason (‘glorify’, 17:1) but on edōkas (‘thou hast given’, 17:2). In this case, the granting of eternal life to those whom God has given to the Son is the purpose of the universal authority over ‘all flesh’. Brown thinks both meanings are true.5 But in any case it is clear that the giving by the Father of certain men to the Son precedes their reception of eternal life, and governs the purpose of the Son’s mission. There is no way to escape the implicit election.

The same is equally true of 17:6–9. Jesus has revealed God’s name (cf. 17:26) to those God gave him out of the world, to those who (already) were God’s. Therefore Jesus prays for them in distinction from the world (17:9). The words ‘for they are thine’ (17:9) are merely an extension of ‘thine they were’ (17:6). The priority of God’s election is thus vigorously affirmed. That these people can also be described in terms of their receptivity and obedience to God’s word (17:7f.) does not mitigate the absoluteness of that election. Rather, they may be described, shall we say, phenomenologically, as well as in the terms of the prior divine possession and gift.5  

Christ’s prayer is not for the believers alone, but also for those who will become such through their witness (17:20f.). These too will believe in Jesus. There is an inescapable note of certainty: Jesus is praying for the elect who are not yet demonstrably such (cf. Acts 18:10). All believers, those presently such and those who will become such, constitute those given by the Father to Jesus (17:24), and will see Jesus’ glory. Despite this particularism, however, the unity among believers for which Jesus prays has as its aim that the ‘world’ may believe and know (17:21, 23; cf. 13:35; 14:30f.).5 This is not an instance of ‘apparent universalism’5 because in johannine thought if the ‘world’ believed it would no longer be the ‘world’. Rather, it reflects God’s salvific stance through the believers toward the world, in the same way that passages like 1:29; 3:16 and 12:32 reflect that stance before there are any believers (in the full eschatological sense). To put it another way, 17:20f., 23 gives us the manner in which God’s electing purposes are effected, viz., through the witness and love of the believing community. Hence in the last two verses (17:25f.), although the world has not known the Father, yet Jesus has; and now his own know him, because Jesus has revealed the Father’s name to them. Jesus’ continued revelation of the Father to them (17:26) will bind them in the love (and therefore implicitly the witness) for which he has prayed.

By way of final observations on John 17, it is important to note that this heavy emphasis on soteriological predestination comes within a context in which: (1) the special relationship between Jesus and his Father is stressed (first because John 17 is in the form of a prayer; second, because the crucial opening petition is that Jesus may be glorified with the glory he once had; and third, because of the repeated reference to Jesus’ fulfilment of the Father’s will) and therefore one might expect the divine perspective in salvation to be at the fore; and (2) there is special emphasis on encouraging the believers (cf. 16:31ff.).

5. Belonging to Jesus

Those who are given to Jesus must in some sense peculiarly belong to him. The connection is made for us in 17:9f.: those the Father gives to Jesus are God’s, and all that belongs to Jesus belongs to God and vice-versa. Theoretically, belonging to Jesus could describe the believer’s position after coming to faith. However, as with the idea of being given to Jesus, John more commonly speaks of a prior belonging that is unequivocally predestinatory. This idea is expressed in several different passages in the fourth Gospel, but nowhere more forcefully than in John 10.

No chapter in John (except perhaps John 6) has been the subject of such wide-ranging debate. With regret, I must overcome the temptation to discuss the secondary literature here. For the purpose of establishing the theology of the fourth Gospel, there is not sufficient reason for doing other than accepting the extended metaphor of 10:1ff. as mixed, and working with the chapter as it stands.

It is frequently insisted that the tableau of John 10 pictures several flocks, and the anarthrous poimēn (‘shepherd’) of 10:2 refers to a shepherd among many: Jesus as the shepherd, it is said, has not yet been introduced. That poimēn is anarthrous, however, in itself proves nothing. In this chapter, Jesus is the only shepherd, and all the sheep mentioned are his sheep. That he calls them by name, and they respond to his voice (10:3) is part of the parabolic colour; but the figure of speech (10:6) should not be made to run on all fours by imagining a separation of sheep from sheep. The division is rather between aulē (‘fold’) and poimnē (‘flock’) The former is probably Judaism; the latter is made up of Jesus’ sheep, which come both from the ‘fold’ and from outside it (10:16).

In verses 3f., the sheep are referred to as ta idia, ‘his own’, the shepherd’s own sheep (contrast 10:12). In the Prologue, when Jesus comes to ta idia (‘his own home’, rsv), hoi idioi (‘his own people’, rsv) do not receive him. There (in 1:11), the reference to ta idia means the world which he created (or less likely, his own nation): in short, he came ‘home’ (cf. 19:27). But his own people (either the people he created or the people of his race) did not receive him. But this does not mean that he has no people of his own in a special sense, for his own sheep do indeed hear his voice. These will not (emphatic ou mē) follow anyone else (10:15). ‘Those who truly are Christ’s elect sheep cannot be deceived by the pretenders of v.l.’5  

It is important to observe that in the explanation which follows, Jesus and the sheep are set over against robbers, hirelings, and wolves. Jesus is himself the gate (10:7). In the mixed metaphor, John can also say that Jesus as the shepherd enters by the gate (10:2). But whoever else enters does so through him, and will be saved (10:9). The alternative is not to stay outside, but to attempt entry as a thief (10:1, 10), bent on theft, killing and destruction. Nor is the alternative to become another shepherd, for all who came before Jesus5 are thieves and robbers (10:8), or at best faint-hearted hirelings (10:11–13). Whatever the specific referent of the words ‘all who ever came before me’, the effect is to reduce all pretensions of spiritual leadership to the dust. The antithesis, therefore, is total. One either belongs to Christ and his sheep, or one is lumped together with wolves, thieves, hirelings and a rejected fold. The only desirable thing is to belong to Jesus’ flock.

Already in verses 3 and 5 Jesus spells out the peculiar sensitivity his sheep have toward their shepherd’s voice. It could be argued that they acquire this sensitivity after in some way ‘becoming’ his sheep. However, verses 14–16 militate against such an interpretation, and verse 26 positively excludes it. Jesus has other sheep, not of this (Jewish?) fold, and these also he must bring (10:16). They have not yet been brought to his one flock, but because they are in some sense already his sheep, they will listen to his voice (cf. Acts 18:10). Verse 26 is clearer still. Jesus does not say that his opponents are not among his sheep because they do not believe, but that they do not believe because they are not among his sheep. No quantity of evidence suffices to produce faith in the one who does not already belong to Christ’s sheep (10:26), belong to God (8:47), belong to the truth (18:37).

To tell the truth, the entire allegory (sic) runs like this: the sheep recognise their shepherd as soon as he presents himself to them, because even before that moment they already belong to him. Jesus recognises them, because they had been given to him by the Father to be his disciples, and they recognise Jesus because he had been sent to them by the Father to be their shepherd.6  

What is in view is not so much an enunciated doctrine of reprobation, as an unambiguous rejection of self-sufficiency in the matter of belonging among the sheep. This is confirmed by 10:27. Where we might have expected ‘and they know me’, we find ‘and I know them’. Christ’s knowledge of the sheep, his recognition that they are his, is the determinative thing. Within this context, it is scarcely surprising to read that the shepherd lays down his life for his sheep (10:15; cf. 11:50–52) and gives them eternal life (10:28): the ‘world’ is no longer in view.

One other passage clearly marks this special love of Jesus for his own. John 13:1 stands at the beginning of the Gospel’s second main division, which as a whole is far more interested in the authentic disciples than in the world. Some scholars take the temporal phrase ‘before the feast of the Passover’ (13:1) to refer not the whole sentence but to eidōs, ‘when (Jesus) knew’ (i.e. Jesus was aware before Passover), because, they say, to date Jesus’ love would be absurd. But grammatically the phrase should be construed with the main verb. Far from dating Jesus’ love, it points to a concrete act of love, viz. the death of Jesus (including the footwashing which symbolizes it).6 This special love, ‘to the end’ (13:1),6 is reserved for ‘his own’.6  

6. Chosen by Jesus

In four passages the fact that Jesus chose the disciples is stressed. In the first (6:70), Jesus by his rhetorical question modifies, if he does not actually contradict, Peter’s confident assertion (6:69). He, not they, did the choosing. Jesus’ answer therefore serves as a gentle put-down to over-confidence. That Judas should be included among the Twelve whom Jesus has chosen suggests: (1) that Jesus’ choice of men is not necessarily for salvation: it may be for other purposes, the way God had his ‘other servants’ in the Old Testament; (2) that Jesus is already assuring his disciples (and the evangelist his readers) that the impending betrayal, far from being outside the sphere of God’s purposes, was planned and executed under his own control.

The second occurrence (13:18) is similarly concerned to show that the inclusion of Judas Iscariot is not a divine oversight.

The third occurrence (15:16), however, is broader in its implications. The clause ouch hymeis me exelexasthe negates the ‘you’: ‘It was not you who chose me, but I chose you’, etc. This confirms that the nature of the ‘friend’-relationship in the preceding verses (15:14f.), previously discussed, is one which makes Jesus supreme and the disciples responsible for obedience. The disciples cannot even legitimately boast that they are believers on the ground that they, unlike others, wisely made the right choice. On the contrary: Jesus chose them. Merit theology is thus totally savaged. On the other hand, that Jesus chose them does not entail a robot-like stance on the part of the disciples, but increased responsibility—responsibility to produce enduring fruit (15:16), to pray (15:16b), to love each other (15:17). Election entails both privilege and responsibility.

The final occurrence of an explicit mention of election (15:19) is presented as the reason why authentic believers are not ‘of the world’ any longer. The result of Jesus’ election as far as these believers is concerned, far from being undiluted bliss, is persecution from the world out of which they have been chosen. Election therefore functions in this passage as an incentive to bear the brunt of opposition courageously because the one who chose them passed this way himself (15:20f.).

7. Concluding remarks

It is not clear how Jesus’ choice of some men out of the ‘world’ (15:19), and the Father’s gift of these men out of the ‘world’ (17:6) fit together; but in any case, the soteriological predestination is uncompromising. Moreover, the repeated stress on the fact that the authentic disciples were once part of the ‘world’ has an important implication for the passages which speak of belonging to God before actual belief, viz.: this belonging pertains to the mind and purposes of God, and not to the nature of those who so belong. They are Christ’s sheep in his salvific purposes before they are his sheep in obedient practice.

How then can this strong emphasis on predestination be reconciled with all the passages which speak of man’s belief and man’s obedience? It is difficult to better the statement of A. Vanhoye, who says that the evidence enables us to see that

when God effects his work [of faith] in us, he does not do so without us, but by us. Certainly he does not simply give it to us to accomplish, as the Jews thought. That would be to demand the impossible. But in giving it to us to accomplish, he gives us at the same time the wherewithal to accomplish it [’Mais nous la donnant à réaliser, il nous donne en même temps de la realiser’], on the condition, naturally, that we do not claim that we ourselves are sufficient.’6  

kept by god, and persevering

We have already observed that the purpose of Jesus’ mission is phrased in John 6:37–40 in terms of his preservation of those given him by his Father. Does this mean that those ‘given’ people cannot fall away?

Whatever is meant by Jesus’ keeping power, it is clear that men do not remain disciples without conscious effort. On those who had taken first steps of faith, soon to be repudiated, Jesus enjoined perseverance in holding to his teaching (8:31, 51; cf. 5:38). Only thus would they know the truth that sets men free (8:32). Elsewhere, Jesus’ exhortation to ‘walk in the light’ (12:35f.) gains particular urgency because the light will not always be with them. The warning probably refers primarily to Jesus’ departure in death/exaltation, but with overtones for John’s readers of the general danger of procrastination in the matter of coming to stable faith (not unlike Heb. 2:7ff.).

In each of these cases, it is not at all clear that Jesus is addressing the elect, i.e. those he has chosen, those whom the Father has given him. However, no such easy escape is possible in 16:1. There, Jesus assures the eleven (certainly among the elect!) that what he has told them has been with the express design of preventing them from falling away. The envisaged lapse could conceivably be temporary, but it must be a real danger or it seems a pointless warning. Before concluding that such falling away is indeed possible, however, it is important to recognise that the warning is not given to foster speculation about dark, theoretical possibilities, but functions rather so as to prevent them from occurring (cf. 16:1–4).

What then of John 15, where the need to persevere, ‘to abide in the vine’, is most emphatically underscored? Jesus is the true vine, and his Father is the vinedresser. The believer is the branch. Unproductive branches are removed; productive ones are pruned. The paronomasia (airei … kathairei … katharoi) is not accidental: the use of kathairein, which apparently was not a viticultural term at the time of composition,6 indicates that the real interest lies in people and purity, not in vines and wine. The question is: Can true branches be cut off? Morris replies negatively: ‘We should not regard this as proof that true believers may fall away. It is part of the viticultural picture, and the point could not be made without it. The emphasis is on the bearing of fruit. Pruning is resorted to ensure that this takes place.6  

There is wisdom in refusing to make the metaphor run on all fours; but the stress on ‘abiding in the vine lest’, and perhaps the threat of 15:16 (cf. 3:36; 5:29), serve to make Morris’s negation less certain.

Some points are unambiguous. First, the responsibility to abide in Christ (= Jesus’ words abiding in the believer, 15:7; = abiding in Jesus’ love, 15:9f.),6 is laid squarely on the believer, however 15:4 is construed. Second, despite this responsibility, it is emphatically maintained that the ‘cleanliness’ of the disciples is attributed, not to their abiding in the vine, but to the word of Jesus (15:3).6 Merit theology is excluded (cf. also 15:16). Third, as if further to disabuse the branches of residual desires for independence, Jesus insists that fruitbearing is only possible as long as the branches abide in the vine (15:4f.). Fourth, fruitbearing branches are contrasted with dead branches to be removed: there is total antithesis.6 Thus, a case could be made for authentic branches versus inauthentic branches. It could be argued that only the former represent authentic believers. These only pray successfully (15:7) and bring glory to the Father (15:8—whichever vario lectio is followed).

Despite these qualifications, both 16:1 and 15:1ff. sound like warnings of potentially real dangers. But before attempting to draw firm conclusions about the possibility of authentic believers falling away, it is best to survey passages which stress how the disciples are preserved. John 6:37–40 has already been discussed. Equally important is 17:11b–12, 14f., which distinguishes between Jesus’ action in keeping those the Father has given him, and the action of the Father who succeeds to the task now that Jesus’ departure from the world is imminent. Jesus’ explicit petition is that the disciples be kept from the evil one (17:15). Now they are no longer ‘of the world’, they must bear the brunt of the world’s hatred (17:14). But the ultimate purpose of keeping them is ‘that they may be one’ (17:11). Instead of saying that the neuter ‘one’ (hen) means the disciples are to be kept by God not as units but as unity, it is more accurate to say that they are to be kept individually (not one was lost, 17:12) for the purpose of unity. That they have been kept thus far is credited solely to Jesus’ guarding activity (17:12).

The exception is Judas Iscariot; but John always makes it clear that Judas is not really an exception after all (cf. 6:64f., 70; 13:18; and here). Jesus not only knew what was going to happen, but was in control of it. Equally, at the scene of the arrest, Jesus is portrayed fulfilling his word about not losing one of those given him (18:8f.).

There is one other passage where the security of Christ’s sheep is unequivocally affirmed, viz. 10:27–9. No one can snatch them from Jesus’ hand, nor yet out of his Father’s hand (10:29). If from the notorious nest of variant readings in 10:29 we may accept the reading, ‘What my Father has given me is greater than all,’ there remains an ambiguity as to what the Father has given Jesus; but whatever alternative is adopted, Christ’s sheep are secure.

How, then, is the tension between such warm assurance and such threatening potential for apostasy to be explained? The function of both sides of the argument provides a clue. The threats without exception are designed to foster persevering endurance; the assurances are designed to remove fears, increase faith, and remove all the posturings of self-sufficiency. The pattern therefore sounds much like what is made explicit in 1 John 2:19; Heb. 3:14; Matt. 24:13; Col. 1:21–3; and elsewhere in the New Testament. Men must hold themselves responsible to persevere, but if they do so, it is God’s grace upholding them; while if they fall away they demonstrate that they were not true disciples in the first place. From the perspective of a pastor, John’s maintenance of this tension provides stable balance.

reprobation

The question to be raised is whether God’s sovereignty stands behind the unrepentant in precisely the same way as it stands behind the elect. Are election and reprobation symmetrically disposed under divine sovereignty? To these questions, John 12:37ff. speaks.

Despite Jesus’ signs, the people did not believe (ouk episteuon) in him (12:37), the imperfect tense being significant: ‘They might give occasional evidence of a transitory belief, but that is not saving faith.’7 But this state of affairs came about to fulfil the words of Isaiah. The first quotation (12:38), quoted verbatim from the LX (Isa. 53:1), tells of the fact of unbelief. ‘The unbelief of the Jews is not a problem; it is the precise fulfilment of prophecy (cf. Isa. 42:19–25; Jer. 5:31–9; Ezek. 12:2–16).’7 The reason for the unbelief is given in the second quotation (John 12:40), which seems to be a modification of M Isa. 6:10. In the M , the verbs are imperatival: God commissions the prophet to harden the people as a punishment for their previous sin. The LX uses the passive. John 12:39f. apparently makes God the active agent of the hardening of heart of the people.

Various efforts have been made to avoid the most obvious meaning. Among modern writers, J. Blank and J. Painter think the ‘He’ who blinds the eyes of the people is the devil, the god of this world (cf. 2 Cor. 4:4), to be distinguished from the ‘I’ who heals.7 Others argue unconvincingly that ‘they could not’ (12:39) should be softened to ‘they would not’.7 Efforts to take ‘lest’ (hina mē; 12:40) as causal (‘because they did not see’) also fail.7 Brown tries to soften the passage by stigmatising it as ‘primitive thought’ which shows ‘no theoretical awareness of secondary causality or divine permissiveness as regards what is related to salvation.’7 But later thought categories are no solution to the sovereignty-responsibility tension, as we shall see. At best they provide helpful models around which the diverse elements of the tension may be arrayed.

Nevertheless, it would be premature to conclude that reprobation is the symmetrical antithesis of election. John nowhere states that Jesus chose men to be condemned; rather, he chose some out of the ‘world’. The primary mission of the Son is to save (3:17; 12:47), and this mission springs from God’s love (3:16). This love comes to transform men who constitute the ‘world’ into men who do not. Jesus does not come to assign some neutral men to life and other neutral men to condemnation. He comes rather to a world already condemned (3:36) and proceeds to save.

How then are we to understand 12:39f? Isaiah 6:9f. is quoted elsewhere in the New Testament (Matt. 13:14d.; Mark 4:12; Luke 8:10; Acts 28:26f.). Acts 28:26f. makes use of the prophecy on the plane of salvation history, to explain the mission to the Gentiles; but this element is not made explicit in the fourth Gospel. Closer to John’s thought is Mark 4:12.7 It is clear in both Mark and John that those condemned are in any case justly condemned, i.e. they are rightly accountable for their unbelief (in John, cf. surrounding verses, especially 12:35–7, 44ff.). They are not forced into an unbelief they do not themselves want. When it is also remembered that the ‘world’ to which Jesus comes is already condemned, then the language of 12:37–43 need not be taken as reprobation on a par with election, but as realised eschatology of condemnation. As in 2 Thessalonians 2:10f., men who do not receive the love of truth are rewarded by God-sent delusion so that they will believe only lies. For these men the eschatological verdict has already come. For this reason they cannot believe. For them it is now too late.

Evangelistically, this approach functions so as to underline the urgency of coming to faith. Moreover it assures believers that the phenomenon of unbelief, far from arguing that God has lost control, is rather a sign that God is active in judgment as well as in salvation. Since they themselves were once of the ‘world’, they must respond with gratitude that they have been received and not condemned, and be wary of lingering unbelief in their own lives.

concluding observations

All of the conclusions have emerged from or been anticipated by the exegesis. It remains to draw together a few points that might escape notice.

The sovereignty-responsibility tension in the fourth Gospel embraces two different conceptions of the scope and perhaps the objects of divine love. There is a sense in which God’s love is directed toward the ‘world’ per se; but to absolutise the passages where this is enunciated is to fail to recognise the even more numerous passages in which the divine love is restricted to the elect, while unbelievers sit under wrath and judgment. However, granted that election is present in the fourth Gospel, the tension between the two descriptions of the scope of divine love is better than either of the other theoretically possible alternatives, viz: (1) God loves everyone without exception equally—which would make election logically absurd; (2) God loves only the elect and hates the rest—which would destroy the evangelistic thrust and the emotive incentive to believe based on God’s love for the ‘world’, a love which sent the Son of God on his saving mission and robs the ‘world’ of excuse.7 Moreover, John also relates God’s special love to the obedience of men (e.g. 14:21; 16:27). Even if that obedience is not the ultimate cause of God’s special love, the formulation of the relationship in this way designedly dispels fatalism and indolence.

The exegesis has drawn repeated attention to the function of various concepts within johannine theology. Negatively, John does not use man’s responsibility to formulate a doctrine of free will (as absolute power to contrary); neither does he deduce from God’s sovereignty that men are robots. The horribleness of the so-called decretum horribile largely disappears if men remain responsible for their sins and choices. The positive use to which John puts his teaching maximises human responsibility and God’s sovereignty and grace, providing both warning and comfort. God’s salvific stance toward the ‘world’, the piling up of evidence (including signs), the promise of final judgment (5:29), the danger of falling away, and the urgency of decision, all serve to underscore the human responsibility to believe, the heinousness of rejecting Christ and his words, the necessity for absolute obedience, and the enormity of the issues hanging in the balance. On the other hand, election serves to deflate personal claims, ensures that the saving mission cannot fail (e.g. 6:37–40), and guarantees the security of genuine believers without permitting spiritual lethargy. It thus encourages the believer to bear with tribulation and persecution (e.g. 15:18ff.). Some are already judged and rejected (12:37ff.), but the warning that this can happen makes conversion the more urgent. That faith itself is seen as a grace most clearly in those contexts which explain unbelief is one of the strongest pieces of evidence that the sovereignty of God in election functions primarily as the johannine antidote to merit theology.7 If good works per se are being claimed as the means to salvation, John’s answer is his description of the darkness of the world. If great claims are made, claims to be by heritage closer to God than are others (John 4 and 8) or claims to interpret Scripture in other than christocentric fashion (John 5) or even claims to have chosen Christ (6:69), John’s answer is unambiguous: God’s gracious sovereignty, mediated by Christ, is the exclusive ultimate ground of any man’s salvation. Therefore, membership in the community of believers cannot serve as an occasion for personal boasting.

The sovereignty-responsibility tension in John serves to magnify man’s sin and God’s grace. The Prologue has already said it all: from the fullness of Christ we receive charin anti charitos, grace upon grace (1:16). ‘Christian life is based at all points upon grace; as it proceeds one grace is exchanged only for another.’7  

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