3. Jesus, the Man
JOHN TELLS US THAT THE “SIGNS” WE HAVE BEEN looking at were done by “Jesus”, and that human name is important. In this Gospel we are reading about a man, an unusual man indeed and one who did all sorts of things that other men have not been able to do. But unless we see that John is writing about a real man, one who knows our human limitations because he has experienced them all himself, we miss an important part of what he is saying. John’s concern for the “signs” Jesus did and for his all-important connection with the heavenly Father, together with some unusual features of his manner of living, leads many writers these days to hold the view that John does not really write about a human Jesus. His concern, it is said, is with a heavenly being in much the same way as quite a few authors of antiquity who told anecdotes about celestial visitants to this earthly scene. John was so concerned with the heavenly Jesus, they argue, that he found little or no place for an earthly Jesus.
Perhaps no one in recent times has denied the real humanity of the Johannine Jesus more forcefully and more cogently than Ernst Käsemann. I do not consider his case compelling, but it is certainly an interesting one. In this chapter I plan to concentrate on it, for if we look at the case Käsemann makes out and the objections that are brought against it, we will, I think, cover most of the ground. A few years back I wrote an appraisal of Käsemann’s view for the Festschrift presented to George E. Ladd, and for the most part I reproduce that article (though with some updating).
“From the historical viewpoint, the Church committed an error when it declared the Gospel to be orthodox”, Käsemann says forthrightly about the Fourth Gospel.1 He, of course, sees a wide diversity in the teachings of the various parts of the New Testament. Probably no one in recent years has done more to emphasize the variety of teaching in the New Testament than he. He has argued that “early Catholicism” is to be found in writings like the Gospel of Luke and the Pastoral Epistles, and that this must be set in opposition to the teaching of Paul. He is quite ready to accept the concept of a canon within the canon, accepting Pauline teaching as essential Christianity and rejecting the early Catholicism that he sees as in opposition to it. In Johannine studies he has argued forcefully that John cannot be thought of as in essential agreement with other early Christians, and in the sentence I have quoted he gives it as his opinion that John’s Gospel is not “orthodox”. Such views are, of course, not uncontested. G. E. Ladd, for example, stresses the unity in the New Testament, though he recognizes that there is diversity there too: “Our thesis is that the unity of New Testament theology is found in the fact that the several strata share a common view of God, who visits man in history to effect the salvation of both man, the world, and history; and that diversity exists in the several interpretations of this one redemptive event.”2
Käsemann’s position opens up many issues, but the one with which we are concerned here is his view that John has a docetic Christology and that this is central to his Gospel. Käsemann says things like “John changes the Galilean teacher into the God who goes about on earth.”3 More than once he refers to John’s “naive docetism”,4 and he can speak of “my key word, unreflected docetism”.5 Several times he repeats the statement that this Christology is of central importance.6 Obviously, this is a key point. If the Jesus of Saint John is a real man, living under all the limitations that we know so well, that is one thing. If he is a docetic figure, who is not genuinely human but only appears to conform to human limitations, that is quite another. It is worth looking into the evidence.
Käsemann has argued his case convincingly, and we may take his statement as the normative case for regarding the Johannine Christ as a docetic figure. He gives us an excellent summary of the kind of thing that impresses him and leads to his verdict of docetism when he says we must ask,
In what sense is he flesh, who walks on the water and through closed doors, who cannot be captured by his enemies, who at the well of Samaria is tired and desires a drink, yet has no need of drink and has food different from that which his disciples seek? He cannot be deceived by men, because he knows their innermost thoughts even before they speak. He debates with them from the vantage point of the infinite difference between heaven and earth. He has need neither of the witness of Moses nor of the Baptist. He dissociates himself from the Jews, as if they were not his own people, and he meets his mother as the one who is her Lord. He permits Lazarus to lie in the grave for four days in order that the miracle of his resurrection may be more impressive. And in the end the Johannine Christ goes victoriously to his death of his own accord. Almost superfluously the Evangelist notes that this Jesus at all times lies on the bosom of the Father and that to him who is one with the Father the angels descend and from him they again ascend. He who has eyes to see and ears to hear can see and hear his glory. Not merely from the prologue and from the mouth of Thomas, but from the whole Gospel he perceives the confession, “My Lord and my God”. How does all this agree with the understanding of a realistic incarnation?7
The answer to Käsemann’s last question must be, “It does not agree at all.” But we must go on to ask whether the evidence is quite as uniform as Käsemann says it is. When we look at the entire teaching of the Fourth Gospel, this does seem a lop-sided summary, and indeed Käsemann himself concedes that there are some other features.
I am not interested in completely denying features of the lowliness of the earthly Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. But do they characterize John’s christology in such a manner that through them the “true man” of later incarnational theology becomes believable? Or do not those features of his lowliness rather represent the absolute minimum of the costume designed for the one who dwelt for a little while among men, appearing to be one of them, yet without himself being subjected to earthly conditions?8
This time we must answer his question with a resounding “No!” We must take a hard look at questions like “Are these other features as unimportant as Käsemann says they are?” and “Is the evidence for docetism as weighty as he says it is?” He argues as though the evidence is clear and straightforward and that only the reluctance of Christians to face its implications has kept them from seeing that John does depict a docetic Christ. Yet every item on his list is contestable, and some are certainly erroneous. Since his position is complex, we should be on our guard against attempts at oversimplification. Let us look first at the evidence Käsemann adduces for docetism.
Evidence for Docetism
He begins by telling us that Jesus “walks on the water”. This gives impression that in the Fourth Gospel Jesus habitually engages in the practice. Yet there is only one possible instance in John, and even here there is nothing to match the plain statements of the Synoptists (who, Käsemann agrees, picture Jesus as a man). The question concerns the right understanding of the statement that the disciples saw Jesus walking epi tēs thalassēs (6:19). In my opinion Käsemann is right in seeing a reference to walking on the water, but he might have noticed that this is not beyond all doubt and that in any case there is what Raymond E. Brown calls John’s “lack of emphasis on the miraculous.”9 The identical expression is found in John 21:1, where the meaning is “by the sea” and not “on the sea”. Indeed, some exegetes think that in the present passage John means no more than that the disciples saw Jesus walking on the shore.10 They point to the statement in the next verse, “immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.” If John’s Christ was docetic, would he have left any doubt?
It is a strange assertion that Jesus walks “through closed doors”. There is no example of this at all during his entire earthly life. Presumably Käsemann is referring to the post-resurrection appearances, but the Synoptists are just as definite as John that Jesus’ resurrection body was not subject to the limitations that characterized the pre-resurrection body. We cannot argue from the one body to the other. Jesus did not walk through closed doors on earth. There is not one example during the whole period of the incarnation.
Käsemann’s next point is that Jesus “cannot be captured by his enemies”. Why then does John say that he “walked in Galilee, for he would not walk in Judea, because the Jews were trying to kill him” (7:1;11 cf. 11:53–54)? In using these words John is clearly saying that Jesus’ enemies could have captured him, and that it was to avoid this that he went to Galilee. It is true that on one occasion John says that a band of men failed to arrest Jesus, but there is no indication in the narrative that this was because Jesus was immune to capture. As John tells it, the arresting posse gave as their reason that they were impressed by Jesus’ teaching (7:45–46) and the Pharisees that these officers were “deceived” (7:47). In John’s account there is no hint of anything docetic. On other occasions the Evangelist tells us that no one laid hands on Jesus “because his hour was not yet come” (7:30; 8:20). But these passages surely do not mean that Jesus was immune from arrest. They simply affirm the operation of divine providence. Jesus would not die before his time. Indeed, John Calvin sees here an illustration of “a general doctrine … though we live unto the day, the hour of every man’s death has nevertheless been fixed by God … we are safe from all dangers until God wishes to call us away.”12 Is John really saying anything more than this?
Jesus “desires a drink, yet has no need of drink”. Is there any evidence of this at all? Käsemann cites none. In the context of his request for a drink made to the woman at the well it is explicitly said that Jesus was “wearied (kekopiakōs) from his journey” (4:6), which does not read as though it referred to someone who had no physical needs and no physical problems. When he hung on the cross Jesus said in set terms, “I am thirsty” (19:28), and he drank some wine when it was brought to his lips (an incident, by the way, which the Synoptists do not record). Where does Käsemann get his idea that Jesus “had no need of drink”? Certainly not from the evidence.
Again, Käsemann tells us that Jesus’ food is “different from that which his disciples seek.” The reference is surely to 4:32, where Jesus was sustained during his counselling of the Samaritan woman. But is this really so strange? Everett F. Harrison sees the words as meaning that “Christ had lost for the time the desire for food in the consuming joy of pointing a needy soul to the place of forgiveness and rest.”13 Do John’s words mean more? And cannot many of us testify to something of the same experience? When we have been actively engaged in doing the Lord’s work we have known what it is not to feel hunger. There is no docetism here. Moreover, it should not be overlooked that the disciples lived with Jesus, and there is nothing in the record to show that his food was different from theirs. On this occasion they could think only that someone had given Jesus something to eat (v. 33). This was a misunderstanding, but we should not miss the point that, as John sees it, those who were closest to Jesus took it for granted that the food Jesus would eat would be the ordinary food that sustained them. If there was a docetic Christ they knew nothing about him.
“He cannot be deceived by men, because he knows their innermost thoughts even before they speak.” I do not know whether this is true of the Johannine Christ or not, but I suspect it is not.14 It is a pity that Käsemann cites no evidence, and accordingly we do not know precisely what passage he has in mind. He may be referring to 2:24–25, but this simply means that Jesus was not deceived by facile protestations of belief. He knew people better than that. There is no reference to people’s thoughts. It is, of course, the case that John does ascribe unusual knowledge to Jesus. As I have written elsewhere, “John clearly regards Jesus as possessed of a knowledge that is more than human, but just as clearly he does not regard this as vitiating His real humanity. Jesus’ knowledge is derived from His close communion with the Father (8:28, 38; 14:10).”15 John makes it plain that Jesus had all the knowledge he needed to fulfil his mission, and that this knowledge came from God. But this is not the knowledge of omniscience. It is the outworking of the Father’s commission when he sent Jesus.
And is there any evidence that Jesus knew people’s thoughts before they spoke? I know of none. But there is certainly evidence that John saw Jesus as subject to human limitation. For example, he had to “find” the man he had cured of blindness (9:35) after he had heard that he had been put out of the synagogue (he also “found” the man he cured of lameness, 5:14). After the feeding of the multitude, Jesus “came to know” (gnous) that the mob wanted to make a king out of him—apparently he did not know it intuitively. To avoid this he withdrew to the mountain: he did not perform some miracle. He did not know where the tomb of Lazarus was and asked a question to find out (11:34). Indeed, in this Gospel Jesus constantly asks questions (see 1:50; 3:10, 12; 5:6, 47; 6:5, 67; 7:19, 23; 8:43, 46; 11:34; 16:31; 18:4, 7, 21, 23, 34). Some of these prove nothing, being the kind of questions asked when one knows the answer and is not seeking information. For example, Jesus asked his audience, “Why do you not understand my language?” and answered, “Because you cannot comprehend my thought” (8:43; Rieu’s translation). The rhetorical question simply drives the point home. But other questions are different, such as that seeking the whereabouts of the tomb of Lazarus, or the one that Jesus put to Pilate, “Do you say this of yourself, or did others tell you about me?” (18:34). It is plain that in some matters Jesus was ignorant just as in others he had unusual knowledge.16
As to Jesus’ debating “from the vantage point of the infinite difference between heaven and earth,” this appears to be a private opinion of Käsemann’s. F. C. Burkitt had a very different estimate with his well-known objection to the authenticity of the teaching John ascribes to Jesus: “It is quite inconceivable that the historical Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels could have argued and quibbled with his opponents, as He is represented to have done in the Fourth Gospel.”17 We do not have to agree with Burkitt to understand that he is drawing attention to aspects of Jesus’ teaching that have apparently escaped Käsemann’s notice. The measure of truth in what Käsemann says is that John sees Jesus as living closer to the Father than other men do, and as speaking out of the enlightenment that that gave him. But in some measure it is true of every great saint that he speaks “from the vantage point of the infinite difference between heaven and earth.” That is what distinguishes him from the worldly-minded. John sees this as true in especial measure of Jesus, but he does not depict it as a nonhuman trait.
“He has need neither of the witness of Moses nor of the Baptist.” But what does this mean? Surely that Jesus had the deep-seated conviction that the Father was bearing witness to him in the works he was doing (5:36–37) and that therefore he needed nothing more.18 Is not this a perfectly human trait? Is it not true of all of us that in the last resort we rely on the conviction that what we are doing is right in the sight of God, not necessarily that it is attested by Moses or the Baptist or Luther or Calvin or whoever? And if Jesus did not rely on Moses or the Baptist, he was clear that both did bear witness that agreed with what he was doing (5:33, 46).
“He dissociates himself from the Jews, as if they were not his own people.” What then are we to make of the words, “You worship you know not what; we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews” (4:22)? Quite early John assures us that the Baptist saw the manifesting of Jesus “to Israel” as the purpose of his baptizing (1:31). And we should not forget that Jesus’ greeting to Nathanael was, “Look, truly an Israelite” (1:47), nor that he was not denigrating Nicodemus when he called him “the teacher of Israel” (3:10). He insisted that Moses, the great lawgiver of the Jews, wrote about him (5:46) and that Abraham, the progenitor of the Jewish nation, rejoiced to see his day (8:56; cf. 8:39–40). He constantly appealed to the Jewish scriptures. John twice records the use of the title “King of Israel” (1:49; 12:13), and he puts some emphasis on the fact that Jesus was crucified as “King of the Jews” (19:19–22).
There is anger against “the Jews” in this Gospel, and there is upbraiding of those who profess to be God’s people and are not. But that does not mean that Jesus dissociates himself from the nation. On the contrary. To the very end he remains a faithful Jew, worshipping in the temple and observing the Jewish feasts. Käsemann does not notice that in this Gospel the expression “the Jews” often refers to a part of the nation only, as when the parents of the man born blind, who were clearly Jews themselves, are differentiated from “the Jews” (9:22). Nor that Jesus’ sheep are of the “fold” of the Jews in the first place, even though there will be others “not of this fold” (10:16). Nils Dahl points out that “the Jews who do not believe because they are ‘of the world’ have never been true children of Abraham.”19 True Jews belong to Jesus, and this is an important part of the Fourth Gospel. Dahl also sees significance in the early disciples’ reference to Jesus as “him of whom Moses and the prophets wrote” and their “we have found the Messiah.”20 Such sayings affirm a continuity with Israel, not a separation from it. It should not be overlooked that other ways of understanding “the Jews” have been accepted. Thus some have understood the expression to mean “Judaeans as opposed to Galileans.”21 O. Cullmann holds that “the way in which the Gospel speaks in so many places of ‘the Jews’ as a collective enemy could derive from the terminology which heterodox communities applied to official Judaism.”22 And there are other possibilities.
That “he meets his mother as the one who is her Lord” does not address the real question, namely, “Was he her Lord?” If he was, there is no problem. If he was not, then not only John but all the other New Testament writers as well have been led astray and John has no special position.
Jesus and Death
“He permits Lazarus to lie in the grave for four days in order that the miracle of his resurrection may be more impressive.” This is obviously wrong. Neither Jesus nor John says that the delay was to make the miracle more impressive. This has to be read into the narrative. As John tells it, Jesus could not possibly have reached Bethany in time to save Lazarus from death. It was a day’s journey from that village to the place where he was in trans-Jordan. The four days John mentions will be taken up with one day for the journey of the messengers, the two days Jesus remained where he was, and one more day for Jesus’ journey. Putting all this together, John is saying that Lazarus must have died shortly after the messengers left Bethany. He must have been dead well before the messengers reached Jesus. Jesus could not possibly have gotten there in less than two days after the death, and we can only conjecture as to why he waited two more days. The journey undoubtedly involved danger (11:8, 16), and Jesus may have taken time to be sure that it was the right thing to do.23 If so, the delay was certainly due to a very human reason. Or the delay may have been connected with John’s picture of Jesus as moving in his own time and not as he is advised by others.24 Or there may have been some other reason. It is better to admit our ignorance than to assert dogmatically that John depicts Jesus as allowing his friends to suffer the grief of bereavement for four days simply to enhance a miracle. That would be quite out of character.
“And in the end the Johannine Christ goes victoriously to his death of his own accord.” I am more in agreement with this than with what Käsemann has said previously. John does depict Jesus as sovereign in the way he went to his death, but this is no more than a matter of emphasis. The Synoptists are just as definite that Jesus knew what lay ahead of him, but went forward to meet it. They tell of Gethsemane, which means that Jesus knew what was coming and had time to flee but did not. In the Synoptists, too, he went to death of his own accord. Moreover, it is quite possible for one who is no more than a man to approach death in the manner of a conqueror. Ignatius is an early example that springs to mind, and he is all the more important in that he owed his attitude to what Jesus had done for him. If the follower could choose a death he saw as victorious, why could not the leader?
In his conviction that the death of the Johannine Christ is victorious Käsemann does not stop to notice that death is not a docetic feature. When the docetists in due time made their appearance they held that Jesus did not really die, but that he “seemed” to die or that the divine Christ left Jesus before the moment of death. John has no such teaching. Like the other Gospels, John’s Gospel comes to its climax with the passion narrative. And John is not making a conventional gesture to the Savior’s death, for he includes a number of items like the spear thrust and the coming out of water and blood that are certainly not docetic. The harsh reality of the death of Jesus must always be taken into account when we are facing the question of a docetic Christ.25
The Father and the Angels
“Almost superfluously the Evangelist notes that this Jesus at all times lies on the bosom of the Father and that to him who is one with the Father the angels descend and from him they again ascend.” Two sentences later Käsemann says that the Godhead is seen “Not merely from the prologue and from the mouth of Thomas.” But where is there a reference to the Father’s bosom other than in the Prologue? And Käsemann has heightened even this reference by inserting an “at all times” of his own, and making it “lies on” instead of the simple “is in” (1:18). In his Prologue John is saying that Jesus, from his close communion with the Father, has been able to declare him to all people. But it is a far cry from this to the assertion that, in this Gospel, Jesus is “at all times” lying on the Father’s bosom. In fact, there are some who deny that the words as used in this Gospel have any reference to the earthly life of Jesus. Thus T. C. De Kruijf writes, “this must mean the present situation, the situation of the glorified Christ after the resurrection. It is not a metaphorical statement.”26 It is not necessary to agree with this to realize that Käsemann’s is not the only possible interpretation of the words.
Again, Käsemann scarcely seems to be dealing fairly with the reference to the angels. He makes it sound as though the heavenly train was constantly waiting on the heavenly visitant to earth in order to serve him and to manifest his glory. But the Jesus of John’s Gospel does not say that “to him who is one with the Father the angels descend.…” He says to Nathanael, “You (plural) will see heaven opened, and God’s angels going up and going down on the Son of man” (1:51). The words are not an abstract statement about the nature of Jesus. They are words of encouragement to a new believer and an assurance that Jesus will bring him (and others) into further knowledge of heavenly realities. “The wide open heaven, and the ascending and descending angels symbolize the whole power and love of God, now available for man, in the Son of man.”27 At the very least, these words of R. H. Strachan are a possible understanding of the words, so that Käsemann’s assumption that his is the only view must be rejected. And in my judgment Strachan’s view is not only different, it is better. That is surely what Jesus is saying. We should also notice that nothing in the text corresponds to Käsemann’s “to him who is one with the Father”, and that the reference to angels does not necessarily point to deity, as is evident from the fact that there is a strand of rabbinic interpretation of Genesis 28:12 which sees angels as ascending and descending on Jacob.28 I do not believe that this is the right understanding of the Genesis passage, nor do I think that John is saying that Jesus was no more than Jacob. But the existence of that exegesis is a fact, and it shows that Käsemann’s claim about the angels is exaggerated.
Glory
It is one of Käsemann’s contentions that John 1:14 has been misunderstood. People have put their emphasis on “the Word was made flesh”, whereas they should have seen that John is emphasizing “we beheld his glory”. He finds the rest of the Gospel full of the thought that the glory of God is revealed. But it may be doubted whether Käsemann is doing justice to either half of the statement.
Let us look at the “glory” that matters so much to him. And let me say immediately that I agree that there is glory throughout this Gospel. But there is a paradox which Käsemann does not mention, the paradox that real glory is to be seen in lowliness rather than in a display of majesty. There is what Origen long ago called “humble glory”.29 The Johannine Christ does not seek glory for himself but for the Father (7:18; 8:50). The glory he has is not self-derived but given him (8:54). We see something of the complexity of the idea of glory in this Gospel when we look at the raising of Lazarus. That man’s sickness was “not with a view to death but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified through it” (11:4). There is to be no doubt about the glory. The glories of both the Father and the Son are involved, and these two glories are intimately connected. What makes for the glory of the One makes for the glory of the Other. The outcome of the miracle in which the glory is manifested is twofold. First, as a result of the raising of the dead man, many believed (11:45). This is what we immediately recognize as glory. Jesus is seen as the wonderful being he is, and people believe. But John puts little stress on this. He goes on to point out that another result of the miracle was that events were set in train that would lead to the cross (11:50). There is glory there, too. We should overlook neither aspect if we are to understand John’s view of glory.
As we have seen, the glory of the Father is closely linked with that of the Son. This is shown in a number of places, but we might profitably notice the prayer Jesus offered with the cross in immediate prospect: “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son, so that the Son may glorify you” (17:1). There can be no question but that he has the cross in mind. That is “the hour” to which everything in this Gospel leads up. And in the cross will be seen, not only the glory of the Son but that of the Father too. The two are not to be separated.
Throughout the Fourth Gospel Jesus takes a lowly place, and it is one of John’s great paradoxes that the true glory is to be seen in this lowly service and especially in Jesus’ death on the cross (12:23–24; 13:31). Käsemann finds references to glory, but incredibly he does not notice the paradox.30 Even when the paradox is not stressed, as for example when Jesus’ glory is shown in miracles, the glory may be perceived only by a restricted circle. Thus, at the wedding in Cana of Galilee the disciples saw Jesus’ glory and believed (2:11). But John says nothing of any effect on the ruler of the feast or the guests, or even on the servants who knew that what had been taken to the ruler of the feast was water (v. 9). It is quite a different picture in Acts 14:8–18, where the people of Lystra thought themselves the recipients of a divine visitation. They saw glory in the healing of the lame man and immediately hailed Barnabas and Paul as gods. They brought bulls and garlands in order to offer sacrifice to them. That is the kind of thing that may be expected when the gods come to earth. There is no equivalent in John. He is writing about something quite different.
There is an interesting note about glory in 12:39–43. Here the Evangelist quotes a prophecy of Isaiah which explains why many people did not believe in Jesus: their eyes were blinded, their hearts were hardened, and so forth. Then John adds, “Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory.” We might have expected “because he saw his rejection” or the like. But for John there was glory in Jesus’ acceptance of the way of rejection and suffering, and it is glory that he links with the prophecy of rejection.
And if Käsemann does not do justice to John’s paradoxical view of glory, neither does he give sufficient weight to the Evangelist’s declaration that “the Word was made flesh”.31 Even if Käsemann were right in seeing the emphasis on the reference to glory (and we have just seen that this is debatable), these other words must be given their due meaning, and it must be recognized that sarx is a strong term that puts emphasis on the physical reality of the incarnate Jesus. John does not say, “the Word became man”, or even, “the Word took a body”. He uses the forceful, almost crude, word “flesh”. There should be no denying the physical reality of one of whom this can be said. The word “expresses that which is earth-bound (3:6), transient and perishable (6:63), the typically human mode of being, as it were, in contrast to all that is divine and spiritual.”32 Schnackenburg notes that there was a widespread idea at the time that divine beings might appear on earth.
But after the affirmation of the Incarnation in 1:14 the Christian teaching on the Son of God made man cannot be reduced to one variety among others: it can only be understood as a protest against all other religions of redemption in Hellenism and Gnosticism. It is a new and profoundly original way of confessing the Saviour who has come “palpably” (1 Jn 1:1) in history as a unique, personal human being, who has manifested himself in the reality of the “flesh”.33
The verb egeneto is also significant. It indicates a change (whether we translate “was made” or “became”), and it seems impossible to reconcile the use of this verb with the view that the divine Christ remained as he was, in all his glory. Du Toit maintains that the verb “bridges the enormous distance between the divine Logos and the sarx”, that it “states the solid, the ‘crude’ fact of the incarnation”, and that it “entirely cuts off the possibility of any docetic misinterpretation.”
The incarnation means, according to verse 14, that the divine Logos substituted his heavenly way of existence for the frail, broken, earthly, human way of existence. This human existence of the Word is not to be understood in a docetic way, a mere being “in the flesh,” but as a “becoming flesh,” and yet without sacrificing his essential being as Logos.34
The combination of the verb egeneto and the noun sarx points irresistibly to a genuine incarnation, with all that that means. It conveys the thought that Jesus did not play at becoming man; he really became man and accepted all the limitations and suffering and so on that that involves.
Jesus, the Man
The reality of Jesus’ manhood might be deduced also from the repeated references to him as a man; see 4:29; 5:12; 7:46, 51; 8:40; 9:11, 16 (bis); 10:33; 11:47, 50; 18:14, 17, 29; 19:5. Of these we might notice particularly 8:40, where Jesus himself says, “you are trying to kill me, a man who has spoken the truth to you”, and 10:33, where the Jews say, “We are not stoning you for a good work but for blasphemy, and because you, being a man, make yourself God.” The former gives Jesus’ own claim as John sees it, and in the latter the Jews call Jesus a man at the very same time as they recognize that he claims to be something more. The claim carries no conviction to them because, whatever else he was, he was certainly a man, and that for them had implications. John’s repeated use of “man” in reference to Jesus gives food for thought. If he was trying to depict a docetic Christ, why this repeated stress on his real humanity? It makes no sense.35
Käsemann seems to undervalue the passion narrative. Convinced as he is that John portrays a docetic Christ, he can make nothing of the narrative of Jesus’ death other than a reluctant acceptance of a tradition too firmly held to be dismissed. He regards it as “a mere postscript which had to be included.”36 We are tempted to retort, “Some postscript!” This is a full and absorbing narrative. It cannot be said that John has skimped on this part of his story; his inclusion of details found nowhere else indicates an interest in the subject.
R. T. Fortna has another objection when he says that “all the themes pervading the gospel and coming to a climax in the crucifixion—most notably, Jesus’ ‘hour’, his ‘glorification’, and the completion (telein) of his work—are plainly Johannine insertions into the older narrative material.”37 I am not persuaded that these are “insertions”, but they are certainly there, and they tell us something of what John is about. In any case, Fortna’s view ought to be considered and Käsemann does not consider it. Fortna makes another (and in my judgment a better) point when he says, “in the present gospel it is no longer the resurrection as such that carries the greater weight but Jesus’ glorification on the cross, by which he draws all men to himself (xii.32).”38 The whole Gospel emphasizes the cross. “Even before Jesus appears his mission is summarized as tragic (i.10f.).”39 When he comes to the story of the actual death of Jesus, John seems to go out of his way to emphasize its physical aspects. He tells us of Jesus’ thirst (19:28). He alone tells of the spear thrust and the water and the blood (19:34–35). There seems to be an opposition to anything docetic in his insistence that there is a witness who can bear testimony to the fact that water and blood flowed from the side of the crucified Jesus. There are mysteries here, but at the very least there is emphatic testimony to a dead body. One does not write thus about a docetic being.
As we saw earlier, Käsemann says that he is “not interested in completely denying features of the lowliness of the earthly Jesus in the Fourth Gospel” but holds that these do not picture Jesus as “true man”. He asks, “do not those features of his lowliness rather represent the absolute minimum of the costume designed for the one who dwelt for a little while among men, appearing to be one of them, yet without himself being subject to earthly conditions?”40 This immediately raises the question of whether Käsemann has done justice to Jesus’ dependence on God. The Johannine Jesus says plainly, “the Father is greater than I” (14:28),41 and the Gospel is filled with the thought that he cannot act by himself. “The Son can do nothing of himself,” Jesus says, “but only what he sees the Father doing” (5:19).
Dependence on God
This aspect of Johannine teaching is emphasized by J. Ernest Davey, who devotes 67 pages (far and away the longest chapter in his book) to “The Dependence of Christ as presented in John”.42 He speaks of Jesus as dependent on the Father for power (“I can do nothing by myself”, 5:30), for knowledge (“my judgment is true, because I am not alone, but I and he that sent me”, 8:16), for his mission and message (“My food is to do the will of him who sent me and accomplish his work”, 4:34), for his being, nature, and destiny (the Father “has given to the Son to have life in himself”, 5:26; “I live through the Father”, 6:57; “the cup which the Father has given me”, 18:11), for authority and office (“as thou hast given him authority”, 17:2; the Father gave him authority to judge, 5:22, 27, and to lay down his life, 10:18), for love (3:16; 17:24–26), and for glory and honor (God “will immediately glorify him”, 13:32; “my glory, which thou hast given me”, 17:24; the Father has given all judgment to the Son “so that all may honor the Son”, 5:23). Christ is pictured as obedient to the Father (his food is to do the Father’s will, 4:34), as dependent on him for his disciples (“all that the Father gives me will come to me”, 6:37, and negatively, “no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him”, 6:44; “the men whom thou gavest me out of the world”, 17:6). He depends on the Father for testimony (“If I bear witness about myself, my witness is not true; there is another who bears witness about me”; “the Father who sent me has borne witness about me”, 5:31, 37), for the Spirit (who descends on him at baptism, 1:33, and whom the Father gives him without measure, 3:34), for guidance (Davey sees this as the meaning of passages like “if anyone walks in the day he does not stumble because he sees the light of this world [i.e., God]”, 11:9; “Here mystical guidance is clearly expressed”). Jesus’ dependence is seen in his relationships with God (“he who sent me is with me, he has not left me alone”, 8:29) and men (“you will know that I am in the Father and you in me and I in you”, 14:20), and is illustrated by his prayers (chap. 17) and by his titles (there are 22 in the Gospel and 1 John, and most imply dependence, e.g., “Son” depends on “Father”, “Lamb of God” probably points to “the victim offered by and sent from God”, etc.).
Davey agrees that there are aspects of the Johannine presentation which might be taken in a docetic sense.43 He denies, however, that these give us the typical Johannine view. That is rather dependence. “Few persons who have not studied the Fourth Gospel with care in this regard can have any conception of the extent to which this idea of dependence is emphasized in it as the chief constituent in Christ’s experience of God the Father; one might indeed call this dependence the ruling element in John’s portrait of Christ.”44
There is then in John a strong and important stress on Jesus’ dependence. But there is more: the whole of Jesus’ life is human. We might start with the name itself, for John uses the human name “Jesus” 237 times (Matthew has this name 150 times, Mark 81 times, and Luke 89 times), more than a quarter of the total in the entire New Testament (905 times). “Jesus Christ” is found twice only, while the title “Christ” occurs 19 times (in accordance with John’s declared aim of showing Jesus to be the Christ, 20:31). This human Jesus seems to have enjoyed normal family relations (2:12). He went to a wedding with his mother (2:1). He had brothers who told him what he ought to do in a manner which anyone who has grown up with brothers will immediately recognize (7:3–5). He was concerned for his mother, even as he hung on the cross (19:26–27). He loved his friends, Martha, Mary, and Lazarus (11:5).
Jesus was troubled at the prospect of his death and wondered whether he should pray to be delivered from it (12:27). He could be tired and thirsty (4:6, 7); he could be ignorant and ask questions. He could shed tears (11:35) and be troubled in spirit (11:33). John twice uses of Jesus the unusual verb embrimaomai (11:33, 38), which is properly applied to the snorting of horses.45 It is a very down-to-earth word. There is dispute among commentators as to whether we should take it in John 11 to refer to anger or some other deep feeling, but none about the very human quality of the emotion it denotes. Jesus could not prevent some of his followers from falling away from him (6:66), and one of them from betraying him. On one occasion he said, “Now my soul is troubled (hē psychē mou tetaraktai)” (12:27), and John tells us that in the upper room Jesus “was troubled in spirit (etarachthē tōi pneumati)” as he contemplated the betrayal (13:21). All this is part of the evidence and points to a real humanity.46
There are also a few passages in which the view that Jesus is simply God on earth appears to be denied. Thus in the Prologue we read that “no one has ever seen God” but that Jesus has set him forth (1:18), which distinguishes between Jesus and the God he set forth. This is reinforced when Jesus later says of God, “you have neither heard his voice nor seen his form” (5:37), and again, “Not that anyone has seen the Father” (6:46). In each case the position is somewhat complex. In the Prologue Jesus appears to be called monogenēs theos; in chapter 5 he claims that he has intimate knowledge of the Father; and in 6:46 he goes on to differentiate himself from those who have not seen the Father by claiming that he has done just this. I am not arguing that any of these passages is simple, but rather that Käsemann is oversimplifying by not considering the implications of such words. If, as he claims, Jesus was simply “the God who walks on the face of the earth”,47 then many people had seen God and heard his voice. But that is not what John is saying. His emphatic words to the contrary should not be overlooked.
Again, we should bear in mind that the Gospel of John does not stand alone. It is one of five writings which together make up the Johannine literature. Whether any one author wrote more than one of these books is hotly disputed, but it is undeniable that the Gospel and 1 John, if not from the same pen (though many do hold to unity of authorship), are clearly from the same circle and the same basic situation. There is no doubt that 1 John opposes teachings of a docetic kind with its stress on handling as well as seeing and hearing the word of life (1 John 1:1), its insistence on confessing that Jesus Christ has come “in the flesh” with its counterpart that to deny this is to manifest the spirit of the antichrist (1 John 4:2–3; cf. 2:22), its stress on seeing Jesus as the Son of God (1 John 4:15) and as the Christ (1 John 5:1), and its emphasis on the importance of Jesus’ coming “not in the water only, but in the water and in the blood” (1 John 5:6). It is not easy to see how and why the Gospel should be setting forth a teaching which the Letter combats so vigorously.48
Oversimplifying
From all this it is clear that Käsemann is oversimplifying. That is my quarrel with his whole book. I have spent many years in the study of the Fourth Gospel and have reached the highly unoriginal conclusion that it is a complex and difficult book. I am at a loss to understand why Käsemann makes it all sound so simple. On his view we have nothing more complicated than a picture of “one who dwelt for a little while among men, appearing to be one of them, yet without himself being subjected to earthly conditions.”49 This seems to me to be nothing less than a refusal to face the problems of the Fourth Gospel (incidentally, a favorite accusation of Käsemann’s against the generality of Johannine scholars). It results from a selective reading of the evidence, ignoring or minimizing the force of all that does not fit into the desired picture. For the fact is that the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel is at one and the same time both supremely great and very lowly. He is fully God, certainly. Käsemann sees this with crystal clarity. But he is also fully man, and that should not be overlooked.
Others do recognize the complexity of the problem. For example, G. E. Ladd writes, “We may conclude that John portrays Jesus in a twofold light without reflection or speculation. He is equal to God; he is indeed God in the flesh; yet he is fully human.”50 That is the conclusion to which the evidence points us. Raymond E. Brown has also looked at the problem and is unimpressed by the view that this Gospel was written to refute docetists of some kind. He finds features that are anti-docetic, but they are not prominent enough to give us the main motive for composing the book. He sums up with, “An honest judgment would be that an anti-docetic motif is possible and even probable in the Gospel, but it has no great prominence.”51 Brown wrote before Käsemann’s book appeared, so he is not directly dealing with his contentions, but his judgment has relevance all the same. A survey of the evidence convinces him that not a docetic thrust but an anti-docetic thrust is probable.
Nils Dahl is another who finds John opposed to docetism. He thinks that a docetic Christology “may have been supported by allegorical interpretations of the Old Testament. Over against such tendencies, John bears witness to the true humanity of Jesus and to the reality of his death (6:41–42, 61; 19:35).”52
Herman Ridderbos has given attention to the Prologue and surveys a number of views of its composition and significance.53 From his study he concludes,
The Gospel, therefore, is not in the first place a witness of the faith, but of that which has been seen and heard and handled with the hands. And, therefore, whoever asserts that the background of the faith of the evangelist is another than that of the events which he narrates, attacks not only the narrative, but also the Kerygma of the evangelist at its very heart.54
The genuine humanity of Jesus in this Gospel, his becoming flesh, is at the heart of the matter as Ridderbos sees it.
From the evidence, then, it seems that Käsemann is oversimplifying. No one who studies John’s Gospel will want to deny that Jesus is there depicted as divine. He is the very Son of God sent to earth to bring about our salvation. But to say that therefore he is not also very man is to overlook a great proportion of the evidence. There seems no doubt whatever that those scholars are right who discover a balance in John between the deity and the humanity. For all its brilliance, nothing in Käsemann’s study disturbs this conclusion.
1. The Testament of Jesus (London, 1968), p. 76. He thinks that this Gospel’s “acceptance into the Church’s canon took place through man’s error and God’s providence” (ibid., p. 75).
2. The Pattern of New Testament Truth (Grand Rapids, 1968), p. 41; see also pp. 108–11. Stephen S. Smalley argues similarly with regard to this Gospel, “Diversity and Development in John”, NTS 17 (1970–71), pp. 276–92.
3. Testament, p. 27.
4. Ibid., pp. 26, 45, 70.
5. Ibid., p. 66. There are some who object to the use of such designations as “docetism”. For example, George T. Montague says, “to apply to Jn the later categories which developed as a result of isolating and emphasizing certain Johannine tendencies seems to err by reading back into the Gospel a historical situation that is post-Johannine, as one might accuse Mt of Ebionitism or Paul of Marcionism” (CBQ 31, 1969, p. 438).
6. Käsemann, Testament, pp. 42, 50, 58, etc. Perhaps we should notice that some see the emphasis otherwise. Thus F. V. Filson holds that the author of this Gospel makes “the theme of life so central that the Gospel is rightly called the Gospel of Life” (“The Gospel of Life, A Study of the Gospel of John”, in Current Issues in New Testament Interpretation: Essays in Honor of Otto Piper, eds. W. Klassen and G. Snyder, New York, 1962, p. 123). We should not miss either R. Schnackenburg’s point that John’s Christology “is completely orientated towards soteriology” (The Gospel acording to St. John, I, New York, 1968, p. 548). But others support Käsemann. Thus W. Nicol writes, “This intense concentration on Jesus alone is the primary characteristic of the Fourth Gospel. The Synoptic Gospels place Jesus in the frame of the Kingdom and Paul of the eschatology, but the fourth Evangelist brings Jesus alone on the stage with all lights on Him” (Neotestamentica 6, 1972, p. 17).
7. Testament, p. 9.
8. Ibid., p. 10.
9. The Gospel according to John, I (New York, 1966), p. 254.
10. J. H. Bernard, for example, thinks that if we had only John’s account “we should have no reason to suppose that he intended to record any ‘miracle.’ … It is probable that he means here that when the boat got into the shallow water near the western shore, the disciples saw Jesus in the uncertain light walking by the lake, and were frightened, not being sure what they saw” (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to St. John, Edinburgh, 1928, p. 185). W. Barclay is another who sees no miracle, and A. M. Hunter holds that “it is far from certain that John 6:16–21 implies a miracle: the crucial phrase peripatounta epi tēs thalassēs would naturally mean ‘walking by the sea’ ” (According to John, London, 1968, p. 66). Later he says that in this narrative John “appears to ‘de-miraculize’ the miraculous” (ibid., p. 71). R. Bultmann cites B. Weiss as another who sees no miracle here.
11. C. K. Barrett comments, “the Jewish opposition had been fierce. The step taken in v. 10 was therefore both dangerous and decisive” (The Gospel according to St. John,2 Philadelphia, 1978, p. 310).
12. The Gospel according to St. John 1–10 (Grand Rapids, 1959), p. 193.
13. John: The Gospel of Faith (Chicago, 1962), p. 34.
14. J. H. Bernard agrees that knowledge like this is possessed by God and that the Old Testament makes this clear. “But it is also, in its measure, a prerogative of human genius; and (with the possible exception of 148) it is not clear that Jn. means us to understand that the insight of Jesus into other men’s motives and characters was different in kind from that exhibited by other great masters of mankind” (John, p. 99).
15. The Gospel according to John (Grand Rapids, 1971), p. 207, n. 99.
16. The questions asked by the risen Christ (20:15; 21:5, 15, 16, 17, 22) are not relevant to our subject, since on any showing the risen Lord was in some respects significantly different from the earthly Jesus.
17. The Gospel History and its Transmission (Edinburgh, 1907), p. 228.
18. Cf. C. K. Barrett, “Jesus, who knows the witness of the ‘Other’, is independent of human witness” (John, pp. 264–65).
19. “The Johannine Church and History”, in Current Issues, p. 138.
20. Ibid., p. 136.
21. G. J. Cuming, ET 60 (1948–49), p. 292. He thinks that the way John uses the term “strongly suggests that the Evangelist was a Galilean” (ibid.).
22. The Johannine Circle (London, 1976), p. 38.
23. Cf. A. Henderson, “It was not that he made up his mind not to go to Bethany for two days; but that for those two days he waited for light, which he was sure would come, as to his Father’s will. When it came he set out, doubting and fearing nothing” (quoted by T. E. Pollard, SE, VI, p. 438).
24. Barrett rejects the view that Jesus waited for Lazarus to die “in order that a more glorious miracle might be effected”, and thinks it more probable “that John wished to underline the fact that Jesus’ movement towards Jerusalem, and so to his death, was entirely self-determined” (John, p. 391).
25. C. K. Barrett speaks of “the alleged docetism of the Gospel”, and holds that there is “artificiality” in some of John’s references to Jesus’ humanity. He goes on, “though it must also be recognized that there is no artificiality about death, and that the Johannine Jesus shares with mankind the human property of dying” (Essays on John, London, 1982, p. 11).
26. “The Glory of the Only Son”, in Studies in John Presented to Prof. Dr. J. N. Sevenster on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday (Leiden, 1970), p. 121. Bernard sees the words as expressing “the intimate relationship of love between the Son and the Father” (John, p. 32).
27. R. H. Strachan, The Fourth Gospel (London, 1955), p. 11.
28. The relevant passage is quoted in H. Odeberg, The Fourth Gospel (Amsterdam, 1968), pp. 33–34. See also the notes in the commentaries of Bernard and Barrett.
29. Cited in M. F. Wiles, The Spiritual Gospel (Cambridge, 1960), p. 82.
30. As C. K. Barrett, for example, does: “the story of Jesus can be told in terms of glory—he has laid aside but will resume the glory he had with the Father before creation; he seeks not his own glory but the glory of the Father, yet in his voluntary humiliation and obedience, and pre-eminently in the disgrace of the cross, he is glorified, and manifests his glory.… There is a characteristic Johannine paradox here” (“The Theological Vocabulary of the Fourth Gospel and of the Gospel of Truth”, Current Issues, pp. 211–12). Vincent Taylor could write, “There could be no vainer controversy than the dispute whether in these passages (i.e. 3:14; 8:28; 12:32) the crucifixion or the exaltation is meant. The death is the exaltation” (The Atonement in New Testament Teaching, London, 1946, p. 147).
31. S. Smalley holds that “It is possible to expound” this expression “in the manner of either Bultmann or Käsemann only if violence is done to the balance between humanity and divinity, humiliation and glory, that are an inescapable part of the Johannine perspective” (SE, VI, p. 498).
32. R. Schnackenburg, John, I, p. 267. He goes on to notice that what Bultmann calls “the language of mythology” “takes the utmost pains to avoid the term sarx and it never speaks of ‘becoming flesh’ ” (ibid., p. 268). A. B. du Toit thinks sarx points to “the typical human mode of existence in all its frailty, brokenness and defectiveness in contrast to the heavenly, divine mode of existence” (Neotestamentica 2, 1968, p. 15). R. Bultmann sees sarx as referring in John “to the sphere of the human and the worldly as opposed to the divine, i.e. the sphere of the pneuma, 3.6; 6.63 … but whereas skotos refers to the worldly sphere in its enmity towards God, sarx stresses its transitoriness, helplessness and vanity (3.6; 6.63).” He holds that “the Revealer is nothing but a man” and that “the offence of the gospel is brought out as strongly as possible by ho logos sarx egeneto” (The Gospel of John: A Commentary, Oxford, 1971, pp. 62, 63).
33. John, I, p. 268.
34. Neotestamentica 15–16, pp. 16–18.
35. Cf. the essay by G. Sevenster, “Remarks on the Humanity of Jesus in the Gospel and Letters of John”, in Studies in John, pp. 185–93. He gives particular attention to John 19:5.
36. Testament, p. 7.
37. “Christology in the Fourth Gospel: Redaction-Critical Perspectives” (NTS 21, 1974–75, p. 497). Barnabas Lindars holds that Käsemann “relies almost exclusively on the later strands of the gospel from the point of view of literary criticism (the Prologue, the Supper Discourses, the Prayer), which represent the mature reflection of the evangelist rather than his original impetus; and that the exegesis is so heavily worked into the categories of contemporary German thought that it constitutes a creative theology rather than an exposition” (Theology 72, 1969, p. 157).
38. “Christology”, p. 497.
39. Ibid., p. 502.
40. Testament, p. 10.
41. C. K. Barrett has a thought-provoking article in the Schnackenburg Festschrift entitled “ ‘The Father is greater than I’ (Jo 14,28): Subordinationist Christology in the New Testament.” He argues that John has an important strand of teaching in which he depicts the Christ as subordinate to the Father. There is an element of paradox here: “It is natural, and not in the end wrong, to describe the result in the language of paradox: one speaks of majesty veiled in humility” (Neues Testament und Kirche, ed. J. Gnilka, Freiburg-Basel-Wien, 1974, p. 158; Barrett refers to Hoskyns and Davey). There is a problem, and Barrett does not claim to have solved it, but we do not get rid of it by denying one element in the paradox, which is what Käsemann seems to do. John has something more in mind than God walking on earth.
42. The Jesus of St. John (London, 1958), pp. 90–157. Similarly Leonard Hodgson draws attention to passages such as Jesus’ declaration that he has completed the work the Father gave him to do and proceeds: “The more one studies the Fourth Gospel on these lines the more curious it appears that the portrayal of our Lord in it should be thought to be one in which His humanity is minimised and emphasis laid on His own personal claims to divinity. Of all the Gospels it is the one in which the keynote of our Lord’s thought is dependence, dependence on the Father” (And Was Made Man, London, 1933, p. 198).
43. Ibid., pp. 18, 85, 133, 186.
44. Ibid., p. 77. He goes on to refer to the view that John portrays a Christ “who is omniscient, omnipotent, self-determining and independent” as “a myth”. He thinks that theologically the Synoptists emphasize the deity of Christ and the Fourth Gospel the humanity, though, of course, both elements are found in all four Gospels (ibid., p. 170). A. M. Hunter accepts Davey’s argument (According to John, p. 115).
45. Cf. the definition in G. Abbott-Smith, A Manual Greek Lexicon of the New Testament (Edinburgh, 1954), s.v.: “to snort in (of horses, Aesch.), hence, to speak or act with deep feeling” (here he sees the meaning, “to be moved with anger”).
46. Franz Mussner points out that in this Gospel “The believer in the act of knowing sees, of course, just as ‘the world’ does, Jesus in his sheer humanity”, and goes on to maintain that this “sheer humanity” does not become “transfigured even for the believer and knower but is radically maintained” (The Historical Jesus in the Gospel of St. John, New York, 1967, p. 28).
47. Testament, p. 66.
48. C. F. D. Moule criticizes Käsemann for “detaching the Gospel from the First Epistle in an unjustifiable way” (Studies in John, p. 158). Elsewhere he refers to “a motive which runs right through the Gospel and the Johannine Epistles—that of affirming the reality of the incarnation as against ‘docetist’ theories” (Worship in the New Testament, London, 1961, p. 34, n. 2). Hoskyns paid a good deal of attention to 1 John in setting forth his view that the Fourth Gospel opposes docetism (E. Hoskyns, The Fourth Gospel, London, 1950, pp. 48–57).
49. Testament, p. 10.
50. A Theology of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, 1974), p. 252.
51. John, I, pp. lxxvi-lxxvii.
52. “The Johannine Church,” Current Issues, p. 142. In the same volume Markus Barth, writing on Hebrews, says, “No other book of the New Testament (except the Fourth Gospel) puts the real deity and true humanity of Jesus Christ so clearly side by side” (“The Old Testament in Hebrews, An Essay in Biblical Hermeneutics”, p. 58). O. Cullmann more than once says that in this Gospel there is at least an implicit opposition to docetism (The Johannine Circle, pp. 17, 58, 61). See also R. H. Strachan, John, pp. 44–45; T. W. Manson, On Paul and John (London, 1963), pp. 156–57, etc.; R. Kysar, The Fourth Evangelist and His Gospel (Minneapolis, 1975), pp. 157–59.
53. “The Structure and Scope of the Prologue to the Gospel of John” (NovT 8, 1966, pp. 180–201).
54. Ibid., p. 200.