Tagged: Bible Study

John 1:14-18 Part 1 – Excursus: Exodus 32-34

We have already seen some parallels and use of the Old Testament in John’s Prologue. It seems to me that these uses of the OT get stronger in the last 5 verses of the Prologue. As such, I have decided to breakdown the analysis into two parts starting in this study with an excursus into Exodus 32-34 and then analyzing John’s text in the next study having already looked at a potential background. This one is a long one but it is a good story so I hope you’ll be captivated.

Exodus Context

Chapters 32-34 of the book of Exodus take us back to approximately 1400 B.C. The book begins its story where Genesis left off. Joseph is now dead (1:6) and many generations have passed since his time. The Israelites had become a large group of people (1:7) and were now under a new king that did not look favourably on Joseph as in the past (1:8). They were oppressed by slave masters and were put through hard labour (1:11).

It is in this time that God raises up Moses. He was raised in Pharaoh’s household (2:5-10) and when he was grown up (2:11) he found himself killing an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew (2:11-12). When it was found out (2:14-15) his life was sought by the Pharaoh and so he escaped to Midian (2:15). A long time passes, the king of Egypt dies, and Moses grows old (2:23).

God then appears to Moses at the burning bush and calls him to go to Pharaoh to seek the release of the Israelites from bondage (Chs. 3-4). Not without a fight Moses ends up going to Pharaoh with Aaron and they seek the release of the Lord’s people. Through several plagues placed on the Egyptians God has the Israelites released into the wilderness (Chs. 5-11) by lastly killing all the firstborns of Egypt culminating in the first Passover (Ch. 12). The Israelites leave Egypt (Ch. 12) and head for the promised land through the desert.

With much grumbling the Israelites continually despise Moses and his leadership since the conditions of the wilderness appear to them to be worse than when they were under slave masters in Egypt. It is in this context that our story in chapters 32-34 take place.

Chapters 32-34

Moses was up the mountain speaking with God and receiving the law. But due to this delay, the people called on Aaron to make from them gods who would go before them (32:1). Aaron tells them to give them their gold and he fashioned it into the shape of an idol, declaring, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt” (32:4). They build an altar, call for a festival, and the next day sacrifice burnt offerings and present fellowship offerings, then drinking and indulging in revelry (32:5-6).

This blatant idolatry angers the Lord who tells Moses to go down to his people who have become corrupt (32:7-8). He says to Moses, “I have seen these people… and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”

But Moses seeks God’s favour and entreats God to not destroy the people (32:11-13). He cites the promises God had made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, their forefathers, to make their descendants a great nation (32:13) and God relents (32:14).

Moses then went down the mountain, sees the Israelites wickedness, is fuming angry and so he threw the tablets containing the 10 commandments to the ground and proceeded to burn the calf in the fire, grind it to a powder, scatter it over the water and make the Israelites drink it (32:15-20).

Aaron tries to pass the buck (32:22-24) and Moses then tells all who are on the side of the Lord to rally to him. The Levites rallied to him (32:26) and then they kill about 3000 that day (32:28).

Moses goes back to speak to the Lord and seeks forgiveness for their sin (32:31-32). The Lord says he will blot out of the book those who have sinned against him (32:33) and then tells Moses to lead the people to where they were going in the first place and he would send his angel before them (32:34). But God makes clear that he himself will not go with them since he would have to destroy them on the way due to their wickedness (33:3).

Along the way Moses meets with the Lord at the “tent of meeting” where he would speak to the Lord “face to face, as one speaks to a friend” (33:11). He uses this friendship to entreat the Lord, saying, “You have been telling me, ‘Lead these people.’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me…. If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favour with you. Remember that this nation is your people” (33:12-13).

God answers by assuring him that his presence will go with him and he will give him rest (33:14). Moses responds by saying that if God’s presence doesn’t go with them he doesn’t want to be sent: “How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?” (33:15-16)

Then Moses asks to see the Lord’s glory (33:18) and the Lord responds by saying he will cause all his goodness to pass in front of him and proclaim his name, the LORD, in his presence (33:19). But, the Lord goes on to say, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live” (33:20).

The Lord has Moses return to him in the morning and he then passes in front of Moses and declares his name: “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children from the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation” (34:6-7).

Moses responds by bowing and worshipping the Lord. He says, “if I have found favor in your eyes, then let the LORD go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our wickedness and our sin, and take us as your inheritance” (34:8-9). The Lord then makes a covenant with Moses and tells Moses that those he lives among will see how awesome the Lord is (34:10).

When Moses returns from the mountain, his face is radiant from speaking with the Lord (34:29).

Summary

This passage of Scripture shows the grace of God in not wiping out his people though he had ample reason to do so. The Israelites were called to trust in the one true God but they continually went astray earning them the moniker, a stiff-necked people. Moses as the one who had found favour in God interceded on their behalf and God was pleased to honour his own promises to their forefathers through these actions.

A glimpse of his glory is also seen here as the climax of the story comes in 34:6-7. God reveals himself as “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.” His grace, love and faithfulness would continue on throughout the entire Old Testament period.

This has now set the background for us to evaluate better John 1:14-18 in the next study.

*all direct quotations are from the TNIV

John 1:9-13 – Rejecting and Receiving

Verses 6-8 talked about John the Baptist’s witness to the light and now in verse 9 the light is made the subject again. Here the text also qualifies the light as the true light. Jesus is said to be true in the sense of ‘ultimate.’ Whatever one thought of ‘light’ in the first place, this here is the true light (cf. Carson, Gospel of John, 122; Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament, 166). And this true light, which gives light to all people, was coming into the world.

In fact, verse 10 tell us that the light was in the world (this earthly realm) now bringing focus to the Word and the Light as actually in space/time history. When verses 1-5 talk about the Word it is in his relationship to God and his relationship to creation. But only here does it begin to outline that the true light actually was in the world, a historical fact that could be looked back on from the time of John’s writing. The first 5 verses could be uttered at any time post-creation.

The second clause of verse 10 reiterates what we already know: the world was made through him, but the next clause tells us that the world did not know him, that is, it did not recognize him. Verse 11 goes on to specify this world even further as his own. He came to his own and his own did not receive him. Shockingly, even though the world was made through the Word, the world collectively has not acknowledged the Word’s entrance into space/time history.

But, this isn’t the whole story. The Word would not be rejected in total. There is a group that the author can refer to as receiving the Word. And to those who did receive him, to those believing in his name, he gave the right to become children of God! Though we start out separated from God, receiving God’s divine self-disclosure (Jesus) results in being adopted into God’s own family as children. This adoption is not the result of bloodlines, it is not the result of the will of the flesh, nor the result of the will of a husband, but rather it is being born of God. And this born of God language will return in chapter 3 in an exciting exchange between Jesus and Nicodemus.

But there it is, the result of receiving Jesus is to be born of God, adopted into his very family, something greater than we can ever achieve or have simply through natural relationships. Being born into a certain family, whether Jewish or Christian or any other will not ensure you are born of God, only receiving Jesus will ensure it, something that transcends natural bonds.

John 1:6-8 – Why John the Baptist Came

The study for John 1:1-5 on the “Word” can be found here.

In verse 6, a new participant is introduced, a man sent from God whose name was John. This John is not the author of the book, the apostle, but rather John the Baptist. But the first glimpse into his ministry in this Gospel is not a narrative of what he was doing (as will come after John’s Prologue and we see in Matthew chapter 3 and Mark chapter 1), nor is it to do with his forecasted birth (as in Luke’s Gospel), but simply with his purpose in coming.

Why was John sent from God? He came as a witness to bear witness to the light, so that all might believe through him. Notice the purpose clauses: he came as a witness in order to bear witness to the light and the reason given for this bearing witness is in order that all might believe through him.

But, lest someone mistake John for the light or give him more credit than is due, verse 8 reminds us that he was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light. John the author again uses a repetition in the negative as he did for creation and the Word in verse 3.

John’s entire ministry can be summed up here: to bear witness to the light and thereby see people believe in the light. And in this text, the light is not simply an abstract notion (though it ties into the abstract notion used throughout the Gospel) but is the Word introduced in the first few verses that we were told is the light of all people: the second person of the trinity, God’s divine self-expression, the revelation of God, Jesus himself. John was sent by God to testify about Jesus so that people would believe in him.

How he does this will be the subject of 1:15 and 1:19ff. in a few studies time.

John 1:1-5 – The Word (Logos)

The first eighteen verses of John’s Gospel are usually referred to as the prologue to the work. I am choosing to focus on the first five verses to keep the study manageable and since the participant introduced in verse 6 is different from verse 1, it provides us with a good break in the text to separate into more than one study.

The Text

The focus of these first five verses is the Word. The Word (logos) is introduced in verse 1 with three clauses that each tell us something about this new and first participant in the book.

In the beginning was the Word,
And the Word was with God
And the Word was God.

The first clause tells us that the Word existed in the beginning, “in the beginning was the Word.” The biblically literate person may hear an allusion back to the very beginning of the Bible where the exact same words are used, “in the beginning.” Here, in John’s opening, it is asserted that this Word was, in some respect not yet defined, “in the beginning.” What beginning John has in mind will be better understood as the verses unfold.

The second clause tells us that this Word was with God, or in some sense face to face with God or toward God. It posits a separation between God and the Word, the nature of the relationship as of yet also undefined.

The third clause is, to me, the most shocking in light of the second clause. The second clause posited some sort of differentiation between the Word and God but this clause says that the Word was God. Different and yet the same? How can this be? Time will tell.

Verse 2 then reiterates what was claimed in verse 1, connecting the ideas of the first clause and second clause above: “This one (the Word), was with God in the beginning.”

Verses 3 to 5 then continue the discussion of the Word, using pronouns and participant chains to refer back to “it” (we will refine who the Word is as the text unfolds).

All things were created through him… nothing was made that has been made without him… In him was life… The life was the light of all people… The light shines in the darkness… The darkness has not overcome it….

The Word remains the focus while other subjects are introduced to talk about the Word and flesh out who this Word is. Verse 3 brings up creation, helping us justify seeing an allusion to Genesis 1:1 in John 1:1 and helping us to read the first clause of the first verse as, “in the beginning of all things, the Word existed.” It says that everything that has ever had existence was made through the Word. In fact, it strengthens it by saying it again in the negative: nothing that has come into being was made without him. This Word has some participation in the very act of bringing all things into existence and so helps to show that this Word is itself uncreated. At this point we see that the Word existed in the beginning of all things, is different from God in some respect and yet is itself God, and has been at least a participant in bringing all things into existence, justifying the thought that the Word itself is uncreated.

Verses 4 and 5 continue to have the Word as the focus (argued above) but now bring new categories to bear upon it. The text says that “life was in him,” and that this “life was the light of all people.” The text goes on to say that the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. Not much will be said on these two verses at this point as I believe the Gospel itself will begin to expound these life and light/darkness categories throughout. Be on the look out for them.

The Word

So, what is this Word? There are of course many prior associations with the use of logos that a first century reader might have since logos was not a newly invented term by John (see especially Craig Keener’s The Gospel of John commentary for a thorough look at all the possible backgrounds), but it is important to see how John defines this logos as we move throughout the book, noting simply for now that the word logos in Greek “can be summarized under the two heads of inward thought, and the outward expression of thought in speech” (Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John, 152), suggesting John has in mind that the Word is the divine self-expression. In this text the logos is personified and so we have a personal divine self-expression. Jesus, who is the Word, is God’s self-expression, his revelation. This is significant because it points out that Jesus is the revelation, he does not just bring revelation from God.

This word then disappears from the rest of the book as a referent for Jesus after the prologue. Perhaps this word was the best word to encapsulate all that John wanted to say of Jesus. Jesus is God’s self-expression, his divine revelation.

The peculiar language of verse 1, and really this whole text, begins our journey into the theme of the relationship of the Father and Son, though the terms do net yet arise in the text. It will form the basis of discussion of the trinity throughout.

Interview: Stanley E. Porter

I am excited for this inaugural interview here on the blog. Dr. Stanley E. Porter is President, Dean, and Professor of New Testament at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. He is recognized as an expert in many areas of research, especially in linguistics and Greek grammar. His publishing record is second to none and more can be read about him on his faculty page here.

Dr. Porter is also now a blogger! I highly recommend following his blog which can be found here.

As a student of his it is an immense pleasure to get to interview him for this and continue to learn from him. Since the current thrust of the blog is to work through the Gospel of John, I have tailored a number of my questions to this topic. I trust you will find it as interesting and helpful as I have.

AR: You’ve spent a good deal of your career studying and writing on linguistics and Greek grammar. What does the discipline of linguistics and the study of Greek contribute to our interpreting the Bible?

SP: Study of the Bible is first and foremost a language-based discipline. I know that there are those who are heavily promoting the so-called theological interpretation of Scripture and other attempts to ground interpretation in social backgrounds and various types of other criticisms–and some of these are very important and helpful–but at its heart when we read the Bible we are at the least engaged in a linguistic interpretive exercise, or at least first we are doing so. As a result, it stands to reason that we need to bring to bear the most important and recent advances in linguistic thought. I firmly believe that most of our interpretive difficulties have been caused by language and can only be solved by the interpretation of language, so we need to invest our efforts in such linguistic matters. I often get frustrated to see how neglectful contemporary biblical scholarship is of matters linguistic, whether this means making linguistic judgments (i.e. statements about language and how it functions) on the basis of no determinable linguistic basis, or simply invoking grammatical works now long superseded. Many of these works may well have been excellent for their day, but we have made significant advances in our linguistic thinking, and appealing to traditional grammar or some earlier paradigm is no longer sufficient–especially as some of these earlier models are incommensurable with our current understandings. In other words, to offer a short answer, I think that linguistics is fundamental to interpreting the Bible, and a necessary starting point for everything else we do, including responsible theologizing.

AR: Does understanding the genre of the Gospels help us interpret them? What can we say is the genre of John’s Gospel?

That is a very difficult question, as there is, I think, a lot of misunderstanding regarding the notion of genre. Genres tend to be treated as static, fixed and absolute, when they are essentially social-linguistic constructs that are useful for labeling and categorizing works from various time periods. So, in the sense that there is a set number of genres to invoke, no I don’t think such a concept is that useful. There is a tendency in biblical studies–and this has been demonstrated in a number of basic interpretive works–to use generic categories as the starting point of interpretation, and then impose them upon various works as if this holds the key to interpretation. We see this in books that break the Bible down into such genres as Gospel, letter, apocalypse, etc., and say that you would not want to read a letter the same way you would read an apocalypse, etc. This begs numerous questions, not least how one knows that any given work fits within the category that is being imposed. In order to use the notion of genre, I think that we need to qualify it and use it cautiously, by recognizing at least the following factors–that genres vary from language to language, time to time, culture to culture, and that they are not fixed; genres need to be seen as the relative, culturally based constructs that they are; genres must be seen in comparison and contrast to other genres within that particular socio-linguistic milieu; and one must always take into account how given works of literature are complexes that encompass what most would identify as multiple genres.
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I prefer to use a bottom-up rather than a top-down approach in interpretation. Whereas a genre approach is top-down, I think that we should build our interpretive framework on the basis of strata of linguistic substance, and then formulate larger generalizations and patterns as we proceed. If we do this, then I think that we can generalize that there are some general literary or textual types grounded in the use of language. These would include narrative and non-narrative as a basis. Non-narrative would include expositional and perhaps poetic material. Beyond that, I am not sure how much you can say, without needing to move into a much more complex cultural specific analysis.
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As for John’s Gospel, it is clearly for the most part narrative, or at least it utilizes a narrative framework, but within it, there are non-narrative sections, and there is a movement among these. However, I think that at this point a much more fruitful avenue for exploration, rather than typical genre analysis, might be register analysis from systemic-functional linguistics. I believe that register analysis is a useful means of creating a linguistic profile of a discourse, or even of sub-discourses within a discourse. These may be typical registers, but I think we also need to be open to individualized registers based upon the linguistic evidence.
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This does not answer the question of the genre of John’s Gospel directly. However, let me give you a brief idea of how I would discuss that. Having done the kind of literary type and register analysis I indicate above, I would probably want to say that John’s narrative needs to be seen in relation to other types of narrative found in the Greco-Roman world. It clearly has many similarities to, as well as some differences from, the other Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), as well as a number of other narratives in the ancient world. Many of these are related to the “lives” category of writing. This is not the same as saying that John’s Gospel is simply an ancient biography, although that might be the best reductionistic answer.

AR: Do you have an opinion on when the 4th Gospel was written?

SP: I don’t have a firm opinion on when it was written, although I hope to have a firmer idea once I have written a major commentary that I am wishing to write in the next few years or so. At this time, I am convinced of several things, however. One of these is that developmental or evolutionary models of interpretation have had far too important a role to play in determining the date of John’s Gospel and its relationship to the other Gospels. Hence, many say John must be late because it has a more developed Christology than the other Gospels, or it must be late because it seems to have developed further material found in the Synoptics, or whatever. I think these developmental models assume far too much. I also think that John’s Gospel is related to the Synoptics as probably availing itself of common tradition. Other issues that push for a late date of John’s Gospel (such as synagogue expulsion, John 9) are not necessarily indicative of this when one considers other evidence. Many dates typically used for New Testament documents are less about firm evidence than creating compromises regarding supposed extreme positions (the date of Acts is a classic in this regard), so I want to rethink these. As a result, John may be relatively late (e.g. around 90), but I am very much open to it being much earlier as well, even before AD 70 and the fall of Jerusalem.

AR: What advice would you have for a reader of John’s Gospel in the 21st century church?

SP: I would recommend that a reader of John’s Gospel pay attention to the text, worry less about how John’s Gospel may “sound different” than the Synoptics, and observe and listen closely to Jesus as he speaks and acts throughout the book. John’s Gospel is a phenomenal narrative and exposition of the life and ministry and teachings of Jesus. Though the author used a restricted number of vocabulary items–in my mind because he chose to limit his lexical repertoire, not because of any personal linguistic shortcoming–he has created an expansive and inspiring portrait of Jesus as God’s divine son, from beginning to end. In many ways, there is no other account of Jesus that can compare with John’s Gospel. I think if you approach the text from this angle, questions of meaning and significance, then and now, etc., tend to dissolve into the direct presence of Jesus.

AR: Are there any books (commentaries/monographs/light studies/etc.) that readers of John’s Gospel might find helpful as they read along?

SP: Most commentaries today, I believe, are generally unsatisfying. They are often highly neglectful of linguistic matters (such as Michaels), and too often are simply compendia of other previous commentators’ thoughts (there are too many to mention here). This is a real problem in commentary writing–the commentary writer has to say something about everything, but that is an impossibility, so they often say something about what others have said before them. I think most commentary writers would be better served by spending much more time with their text than they have, and not write until they believe they have something new and fresh and insightful to say. Of course, publishers would hate this, because they need to sell books. But I think that there would be much better (and perhaps fewer) commentaries. For which we could all be thankful.
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As for a book on John’s Gospel, I would recommend Ruth Edwards’ Discovering John (London: SPCK, 2003). I also have a forthcoming book, tentatively entitled John’s Gospel: A Public Gospel that should be coming out in the next year or so, and which covers many of the major issues in recent interpretation of John.