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In a previous podcast, episode #7,
called Jesus is the Beginning of God’s New Creation, we saw that the literary
context of the Gospel of John requires that we understand John’s prologue to be
introducing the ministry and life of Jesus. In our last podcast, episode #15,
called More New Creation in the Gospel of John we saw how the Old
Testament scriptures anticipated a New Creation, and how language, events and
the miracles recorded in John’s Gospel declare the New Creation coming with
Jesus the Messiah. This is further evidence that John’s introduction, the
prologue to his Gospel, should be understood in a New Creation, or New
Beginning context.
In this podcast we will take a closer
look at the historical context in which 1st century readers
of John’s Gospel would have understood this Gospel to be about a new beginning.
We will also see how other New Testament authors saw in Jesus a new beginning,
the beginning of God’s new creation. Finally, we will note one big problem with
the typical “deity of Christ” interpretation of John 1:1.
Now let’s consider the
Gospel of John in its Historical
Context: How the Gospel of John was understood by 1st century
readers
Let me start by quoting from an
article called, Creation’s
Renewal in the Gospel of John, written by
Dr. Jeannine Brown, who is an evangelical Professor of New Testament at Bethel
Seminary, which has campuses in St. Paul, MN, and San Diego, CA.
Dr. Brown says in her article Creation’s Renewal in the Gospel of
John:
“The notion of re-creation, supported by
echoes of Genesis 1-2, would not only have been understandable to
John and his audience but would have fit well a first-century
Jewish frame of reference, especially in relation to Jewish eschatological
views” (emphasis mine).
This Protestant evangelical author recognizes
that 1st century readers, especially Jews and
Gentiles who had a biblically informed world view, would have readily identified
John’s Gospel as a description of how God, through Jesus, is beginning creation
renewal. Creation renewal is a biblical, Hebraic hope that a pious Hebrew
expected to accompany the coming of the Messiah. As we saw in our last podcast:
creation renewal is anticipated by the Old Testament Hebrew prophets.
Let me read the quote again: “The
notion of re-creation, supported by echoes of Genesis 1-2, would not only have
been understandable to John and his audience but would have fit
well a first-century Jewish frame of reference, especially in relation
to Jewish eschatological views” (emphasis mine).
1st century readers knew God’s
promise in the Scriptures about a new beginning. Readers knew or learned about
what Paul called “the hope of Israel” (Acts 23:6, 24:21, 28:20). The “hope of
Israel” is the resurrection of the dead and the age to come. Readers would have
“got the message” of John’s Gospel. “Messiah has come! The New has, or is coming!”
The Hebrew Scriptures and cultural heritage infused into Jews an eschatological
expectation of a renewed humanity on a renewed earth, of new history, referred
to as the “age to come”, or the “kingdom of God”, which involved resurrection
from the dead, restoration to health, the restoration of God’s covenant people,
the meek inheriting and ruling the earth, world peace, and life in fullness and
abundance as God intended.
It was only beginning in the 2nd
century, that is, in the century after Jesus, that Hellenist thinking Gentile
“church fathers” began to mis-interpret John’s prologue by postulating the
existence of some subordinate lesser god called the Logos, the Greek word for “Word”
in John 1:1. Adapting John’s first words
about the Logos or Word to Greek philosophy, these Greek thinking church
fathers began to postulate that somehow a second divine person was involved in
the Genesis creation. But these Gentile church fathers ignored or missed the
biblical, Hebraic setting of the life of Jesus and the writing of John’s
Gospel. They weren’t familiar with, or ignored, or intentionally rejected
Hebraic thought, theology and language.
The Greek philosophical background
of the church fathers’ caused them to misunderstand John’s opening words. In
addition, Greek philosophical thinking promoted the escape of the
“soul” from the body and this world. This “escape” philosophy prevented the
church fathers from understanding God’s work of redemption of the
body and redemption of this physical world (Rom. 8:23). Let me
emphasize this: these church fathers, influenced by Greek philosophy emphasized
escape from the body and the physical world rather than the biblical redemption
of the whole human person and redemption of the physical world. These Gentile
theologians have caused no small amount of confusion as to the meaning of
John’s introductory verses and entire Gospel.
As we think about the historical
context of the writing of a Gospel like John, consider for a moment the
apostles’ question to Jesus just before Jesus was taken into heaven as recorded
in Acts 1:6:
"Lord, will you at this time
restore the kingdom to Israel?"
The apostles, and rightly so, knew
that the kingdom of God, with Israel playing a key role, would be established
on this earth. But Jesus told the apostles that the time for establishing that
kingdom was up to God. In other words, Jesus told them there would be a passage
of time until the kingdom was established. The kingdom of God was not to be
realized on earth immediately.
That the kingdom of God, and the
rule of God’s Messiah was not immediately established at the time that Jesus was
on earth brings up two Jewish objections to Jesus being the Messiah.
1. First,
if you tell a Jewish person today that Jesus is Messiah, they will tell you
that “Messiah is not God.” Jews are right about this. The so-called “deity of Christ”
or “deity of Messiah” is a totally foreign concept to Scripture and was never an
issue until beginning in the AD 2nd century, when Hellenized Gentile
“Christians” began to postulate some kind of literal pre-existence of Jesus. Discussions
about or objections to the “pre-existence or deity of Christ” are totally
absent from the New Testament, for instance, in the Book of Acts,
because the apostles never claimed the “pre-existence” or the “deity of Christ”.
In the Book of Acts, there is no presentation of the “deity of Christ”, and there
is no opposition to such a claim, simply because the claim came later, in a
century after Jesus; and I might add, from a land that Jesus did not live in.
In contrast, in the Book of Acts, the apostles preached the crucified, risen,
exalted, human Messiah (e.g. Acts 2:22-36) The question that the 1st
century world was confronted with was “Is Jesus the Messiah?” not “Is Jesus God?”
2.
Another
main Jewish objection to Jesus being the Messiah is this: “Jesus can’t be the
Messiah, because we know that when Messiah comes, he will usher in the Kingdom of
God, including renewal and resurrection. But c’mon, get real, take
a look around. There is still sickness, suffering, death, war, and injustice on
earth. And Israel still awaits redemption. When Messiah comes these things will
be done away, or change”.
This second objection, “the kingdom
hasn’t come, so Jesus can’t be Messiah”, could be used by unbelievers starting
from about the time that Jesus was put in a tomb. Much of the New Testament,
including the Gospel of John, answers this second objection. It was a question
raised even by disciples of Jesus when they thought Jesus was dead. A few days
after the crucifixion two sad disciples on the way to Emmaus said: “We had
hoped he was the one to redeem Israel” (Luke 24:21). But Jesus had been killed,
and the Kingdom had not come. He couldn’t be Messiah.
This objection “where is the
Kingdom” is related to what Paul called “a stumbling block to the Jews, and
folly to Gentiles”. To Paul, the stumbling block to the Jews was not the
“deity of Christ”, but it was the death of Messiah, and that by crucifixion.
“We preach Messiah crucified” Paul says
(1 Cor. 1:23, 2:2, cf. Acts 2:36).
The years and even decades following the death of Jesus passed on. John’s
Gospel was most likely written when many of the eye-witnesses to Jesus’s resurrection had
themselves died and the author of the gospel was either dead or close to death
(21:23). The problem of “if Jesus is the Messiah, where is the Kingdom, where
is the new beginning?” became more and more acute as each day and each year
passed. Throw in no small amount of persecution against those who followed
Jesus, and some early Christians and others who heard of Jesus no doubt wondered, “Is it all true? How could he be Messiah? Shall we look for another?”
The Gospel of John is an answer to their
questions. John writes: “…these are written so that you may believe that Jesus
is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his
name” (John 20:31).
The ministry and life of Jesus, the
miraculous signs of renewal and restoration recorded by John, (again, we looked
at some in our previous podcast, episode #15, like water to wine, the lame
healed, blind seeing, the dead raised) and the ultimate sign, that God raised Jesus
from the dead to newness of life, are evidences that Jesus is
the Messiah through whom God restores creation, and brings in the new Kingdom.
However - and yes this is a big
“however”; so far, we have in Jesus only a down-payment, a sample, a taste, or
evidence, of the promised renewal and recreation. Jesus is “only” the beginning
of God’s (new) creation (Rev. 3:14, 21:5). But the evidence through and in
Jesus is overwhelming, and is a sure and steadfast anchor of hope.
The Jews are correct - the Messiah
ushers in creation’s renewal, including the resurrection. Have you ever
wondered about how Matthew records (Matt. 27:52-53) that after the resurrection
of Jesus the tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen
asleep were raised, and were seen by many?
This is a sign, a sample that the resurrection from the dead comes
through Jesus.
What many people didn’t understand
is that Messiah would suffer and die first, indeed die by crucifixion at the
hands of Jewish leaders and Gentile overlords, before entering glory. And, many
people could not understand that even after Messiah came, there was to be a
period of time of the co-existence of good and evil, as Peter said in the Book
of Acts, “until the time for establishing all that God spoke…” (Acts
3:19).
Remember John the Baptist’s question
when the Baptist saw injustice and wickedness persisting. The Baptist sent
messengers to Jesus from prison and asked: “Shall we look for another?” Like
Jesus’s answer to that question, the Gospel of John is telling us there is no
need to look for another. The re-creation has begun in Jesus, and is coming
through Jesus. He is the beginning. We have the sure evidence, the sure
down-payment, the reliable eye-witnesses. The lame walk. The blind see. The
dead are raised. We’ve got evidence. But this is only the beginning. Just wait
for the completion.
Summary so far: Interpreting John’s
Gospel, including his prologue, as a declaration of Recreation fits the Historical
Context of the 1st Century AD.
Creation renewal was and is a biblical,
Hebraic expectation, which was and is to be ushered in with the coming of the
Messiah. The message that Jesus is the beginning of the new was fitting and
understandable for readers of John’s Gospel in the 1st century. Jesus,
as the beginning of God’s creation, is the real-life paradigm of the good
things to come.
But all is not set straight yet. The
kingdom has not yet been restored to Israel. But the life of Jesus is evidence
that times of refreshing will come from God. Through Jesus, God will
establish all that He spoke through His prophets. John’s Gospel tells us that
the new creation has so far through Jesus only come in sample and symbol as
evidence of its eventual coming in fullness and completeness.
New
Creation in other New Testament texts – an Inter-textual study
In a previous podcast, called “More
New Creation in the Gospel of John” we saw how the Old Testament Hebrew
Scriptures predicted or anticipated God’s work of New Creation. Now I want to
look at some additional New Testament texts to see that interpreting John’s
Gospel as declaring the promised new beginning in Jesus is in agreement with the
whole of the New Testament. That is, other New Testament texts also present
God’s work of re-creation being done through and in
the Lord Messiah Jesus. Jesus is never referred to as the creator, but is the
channel through and in and for whom God recreates.
This inter-textual study is
important since we will see that the Gospel of John is in agreement with other
biblical writings. Rather than trying to interpret John’s Gospel through the
lens of non-biblical literature, we will gain a better understanding of John’s
Gospel by comparing it with other New Testament literature.
Let’s look at some other texts in
the New Testament that are consistent with interpreting John’s Gospel in the
context of new beginning, or new creation.
We have already noted in
episode #7, called Jesus is the Beginning of God’s New Creation, how the
phase “the beginning” in John’s Gospel relates to the beginning of Jesus’
ministry, and that the Epistles of John and the Book of Revelation present
Jesus as a new beginning (e.g., 1 John 1:1:1, Rev. 3:14). In that same
podcast, we also noted that the other three Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, like
the Gospel of John, all have a beginning or Genesis associated
with the person and ministry of Jesus.
Here I’ll note just a few of the many other
references from the synoptic Gospels that anticipate a renewed earth and renewed
life for humankind:
In Matthew 19:28, after Jesus told a
rich young ruler to sell his possessions, Peter asked what will be given to the
apostles who had left everything. Jesus said to his apostles, "Truly, I
say to you, in the new world when the Son of man shall sit on his
glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones,
judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” The word that Jesus used a very interesting word here,
in Greek, παλιγγενεσίᾳ, which means rebirth, regeneration, renewal, or renovation). Modern Hebrew versions of the New Testament translate the word as "the renewal of creation". Paul used the same word in Titus 3:5 to mean rebirth, regeneration.
In Mark 10:30 and Luke 18:30, Jesus
said that those who have given up much to follow him will receive “…in the age
to come eternal life.”
Now let’s move on to the apostle
Paul. Again, comparing the Gospel of John with other biblical literature should
give a better understanding than if we compare John with other supposed
parallels in other non-biblical literature.
One of the apostle Paul’s ways to
describe Jesus as a new beginning or new creation is to refer to Jesus as the second
Adam (Romans 5:12, 15, 17-19, 21; 1 Cor. 15:45, 47). Paul’s
second Adam is really the counterpart to the Gospel of John 1:14, “and the Word
was flesh” (that is, a human being). To Paul, the first man Adam
was the channel through whom all human life and society came to be, beginning
at the Genesis Creation. The second man Jesus is the channel
through whom all human life and society comes to be in the New Creation. Let me
read one of Paul’s examples of the “second man”, in Romans 5:15: “But the free
gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's
trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of
that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many.”
In Romans 8:18-23, Paul describes
how all creation waits for redemption and renewal. Paul says that the biblical
hope for man is not a dis-embodied escape to “heaven”, but an expectation of
physical resurrection to the renewed earth in which righteousness dwells.
Indeed, the resurrection of human
beings is a confirmation of the goodness of God’s creation. To desire a
dis-embodied, ethereal existence is tantamount to telling God that His creation
is evil, or to blame God for our circumstances. Declaring that a dis-embodied
soul has gone to heaven and is in a “better place” is kind of like turning your
back on God and telling Him “I don’t like or want your creation that you made
for me”, and denying that God can remedy our situation. Believers in Christ
should not want to escape the earth that God created for man. Rather, they
should want, and wait to inherit the renewed earth in righteousness and life
everlasting. Paul says “The creation waits with eager longing … because the
creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay” and that we wait
for “the redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:23, cf. Psa. 37:9, Matt. 5:5, 6:10).
There is much more about New
Creation in Paul. In 2 Corinthians 5:17 Paul says, “Therefore, if anyone is in
Christ -- new creation!; the old has passed away, behold, the new has
come.”
Galatians 6:15, “For neither
circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.”
Ephesians 2:10 “For we are his
workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God
prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
Note: we are created in
Christ Jesus, not by Christ Jesus (cf. Eph. 4:24, Col. 3:9-10)
Colossians
1:15 “He (Jesus) is the image of the
invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” If Jesus is God, as
“deity of Christ” theology insists, how can Jesus be the “firstborn of all
creation” as Paul proclaims? The answer is simple. “Deity of Christ” proponents
are wrong, and Jesus, by virtue of his being raised from the dead by God, is
the firstborn of the new creation.
Colossians 1:16 …for in him
all were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether
thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities -- all were created through
him and for him.
Colossians 1:18 He is the
beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might
be preeminent.
Like Paul, other New Testament
writers join the New Creation choir:
2 Peter 3:12 describes a divine
purging of the current heavens and earth and then 2 Peter 3:13 says, “But
according to His promise we wait for new heavens and a new earth
in which righteousness dwells.”
The author of the Book of Hebrews
says, in Hebrews 1:2 “…in these last days has spoken to us in a Son, whom He
appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the ages.”
Hebrews 2:5. “Now it was not to
angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking.”
It is human beings who inherit the age, or world to come.
Hebrews 6:5. “…and have tasted the
goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come.”
And remember, in the Book of Revelation
1:5, Jesus is “the first-born from the dead”. Resurrection is new creation.
In Revelation 3:14 Jesus is “the
faithful and true Witness, the beginning of the creation of God”.
The New Testament practically closes
with this declaration, in Revelation 21:5 “He who sat upon the throne said,
"Behold, I make all things new."
(cf. Revelation 3:12 and 21:2, the New
Jerusalem).
I’ve done this survey of other New
Testament literature to show that interpreting the 1st chapter of
the Gospel of John, indeed all of John’s Gospel, in the context of New Creation
is consistent with other New Testament literature. Indeed, interpreting John’s
Gospel as consistent with other New Testament literature yields better results
than interpreting John through the lens of other, non-biblical literature. New
beginning, new creation is a central theme of both the Old and New Testaments,
and that new creation comes through Jesus is chiefly evidenced by his flesh and
bone resurrection from the dead.
The “deity of Christ” interpretation
of John 1 ignores the New Creation theme and has choked good exegetical
interpretation of John 1. Passages like Colossians 1:12-18 and Hebrews
1:2-3; 2:5. John 1, Colossians 1 and Hebrews 1 are telling us that the creation
renewal is done by God, in, through and for Jesus, to
whom God has subjected all power and authority. But keep in mind, Jesus is
“only” the beginning of God’s new creation, the first-born from the dead. All
creation waits for renewal.
There is one more topic I’d like to
address in this podcast.
There is No “Tension” between the
Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament regarding who the Creator is: the One God
who Created (Life) in Genesis, is the One God who is renewing creation (Life)
through Jesus.
Trinitarians sometimes say that there
is a “tension” between the Old and New Testaments. “Yes”, they acknowledge, “the
God who is described as the Creator in the Old Testament appears to be one
individual.”
But then, they say, “in the New Testament, Jesus the Son of God, the Messiah is
creator, or at least somehow participated in creation.” I heard one pastor say
on a nationally televised broadcast, “Jesus said he created the universe”.
Jesus never said any such thing, and the pastor will be accountable for putting
words into Jesus’s mouth. Probably what happened is that the pastor thinks
passages like John 1:1-4, Colossian 1:15-18, and Hebrews 1:2-3 describe Jesus
as the Genesis creator. So in the pastor’s mind he has made Jesus say, “I
created the universe”.
But that leads “deity of Christ”
proponents into a dilemma. Who is creator, the One God, Yahweh of the Hebrew
Scriptures, or Jesus of the New Testament? So, deity of Christ proponents say there
is a “tension” between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old
Testament says that YHVH God, the Father, is the one Creator, but the New
Testament says that also Jesus is creator. But deity of Christ theologians
should be honest with themselves and with others and quit claiming that they
believe there is a “tension” between the Old and New Testaments. “Tension” is a
disingenuous word, a kind of weasel word. What they are really saying is that
they believe there is a contradiction between the Hebrew Scriptures and the New
Testament.
But there is no contradiction or
tension between the Old and New Testaments. It is only deity of Christ theology
that has created the contradiction. “Deity of Christ” followers wrongly assume scriptures
like John 1, Colossians 1:15-18 and Hebrews 1:2-3 to be describing Jesus’s role
as the creator of the universe in Genesis. Because of their deity of Christ
presuppositions, they fail to see that the one God YHVH of the Old Testament is
bringing about the new creation in and through the human
Messiah, Jesus (cf. Eph. 1:17-21).
John’s Gospel sees God at work in
renewal and recreation. Jesus is not the creator or even the re-creator, but he
is the firstborn of the recreation and the channel through and in
whom God recreates all. John describes the life of Jesus with actual historical
events, but wants readers to understand and believe that the life of Jesus is
evidence of the new creation work that God is performing in and through
Jesus. The climax of the book is the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
Resurrection is new creation.
New Testament passages never mention
Jesus as the Creator. Instead, God’s work of new creation is done in
and through Jesus. Jesus has a role in bringing about the new creation,
but it is a subordinate role to the One God YHVH the Father who makes
everything. Jesus is the channel through whom God brings about
the recreation, the beginning of eternal life. Similarly, the one man Adam was
the one man through whom God created all human life in Genesis.
Noah was the one man through whom human life started again.
Abraham was the one man through whom God established a covenant
community and brings blessing upon the world.
It can be said that life is
the theme of the original creation in Genesis (Gen. 2:7, 3:20; cf. 1:20, 21,
24, 28, 2:19). It is not a coincidence that resurrection life, renewal
of life, everlasting life is the theme of the new creation of John’s
Gospel (John 1:4, 12-13, 3:16, 17:3, 20:31).
“For God (not the Trinity) so loved
the world, that He gave his unique Son, that whoever believes in him should not
perish, but have everlasting life” (John 3:16).
Jesus prayed “Father…this is eternal
life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus the Messiah whom
you have sent” (John 17:1-3).
Conclusion
To conclude, having understood from
this podcast and our previous introductory podcasts on the Gospel of John that:
The Gospel of John was not written to tell us that Jesus is God, but rather
that Jesus is the Messiah, the human Son of God, and that life is available in
him, and that “the beginning” of John
1:1 is not a direct reference to the Genesis creation, but echoes the Genesis
creation because the same God who created in Genesis is beginning a
renewal of that creation in and through His word, Jesus the
Messiah, and,
that the literary context of the
prologue of John’s gospel should be understood as an introduction to the
subject at hand, and the subject at hand is the ministry of Jesus, not the
Genesis creation, and,
that understanding John’s Gospel as
a proclamation of a new beginning fits the historical context of 1st
century AD Judaism. Creation renewal was a biblical, Hebraic expectation of the
prophets and people of Israel which was to be ushered in with the coming of the
Messiah. And,
that the message of a new beginning
and creation renewal is evidenced by the miraculous deeds of Jesus, like
changing water to wine, the healing of the lame and the blind, and especially
by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead (cf. Matt. 27:52-53). Jesus, as the
beginning of God’s creation, is the real-life paradigm of the good things to
come. And,
that many other New Testament texts agree
that Jesus is a new beginning, the beginning of God’s new creation, and,
that Jesus was not some kind of
co-creator with the Father in Genesis 1, but is rather the human channel
through whom God brings about creation renewal -
We now have a better framework from
which we can interpret some of the more difficult verses in John’s prologue. What
did the author of the Gospel mean when he wrote that “the Word was with God,
and the Word was God” and “the Word was flesh”? We hope to examine these and
other aspects of the first 18 verses of John’s Gospel in a future podcast.
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