Catholic Commentary on John
Table of Contents
In this post I will be quoting from Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture: The Gospel of John, by Francis Martin and William M. Wright IV, published by BakerAcademic, a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan, and published in 2015. All emphasis will be mine.
Authorship
The Gospel does not explicitly name its author, and so it is necessary to engage in guesswork based upon evidence from the Gospel itself and from early Christian tradition.
All discussions of this Gospel’s authorship involve the anonymous figure called “the disciple whom Jesus loved” 21:7, usually referred to as the Beloved Disciple. The Gospel says that he was an eyewitness to Jesus’ life 19:26, 35, and his testimony has been preserved in the Gospel 21:24–25 by himself or a secretary. He first appears at the Last Supper, as the one reclining next to Jesus 13:23, and is then depicted in three other scenes: with Jesus’ mother at the foot of the cross 19:25–27, with Peter at the empty tomb 20:2–10, and at Jesus’ resurrection appearance in Galilee 21:1–23. He could be “the other disciple” with Peter at Annas’s house after Jesus’ arrest 18:15–16; if so, he has ties to the Jerusalem priesthood. Some have argued that he is the unnamed disciple who first comes to Jesus with Andrew after having followed John the Baptist 1:35, 40. The Gospel contains evidence that its author knew the geography of the Holy Land, especially Jerusalem, before the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 4:3– 6; 5:2; 8:20; 9:7; 10:23 and was very familiar with Jewish religious practices, liturgies, and traditions of biblical interpretation 2:6; 7:37–39; 8:12.
There are two major theories about this disciple’s identity.2 The major opinion from Christian antiquity until the nineteenth century was that the Beloved Disciple was John the Apostle, son of Zebedee.3 This well-known member of the Twelve is named in the †Synoptics (e.g., Mark 1:19–20; 3:16–17; 9:2), Acts 3–4, and Paul Gal 2:9, but he is never mentioned explicitly in the Fourth Gospel, although there is a mention of “Zebedee’s sons” in 21:2. Strong evidence for identifying the Beloved Disciple with John the Apostle is the agreement on this point among second-century Christians. For instance, St. Irenaeus, who wrote in the 180s, stated that John, “the Lord’s disciple who had also rested on [Jesus’] breast, issued the Gospel while living at Ephesus of Asia.”4 Irenaeus learned about John from St. Polycarp, a bishop who knew and was taught by John the Apostle.5 Recent scholarship has located the attribution of the Fourth Gospel with John the Apostle in the “traditions of the presbyters,” or elders, which date to the late first or early second century.6
Many scholars today are not inclined to assign much historical weight to second century traditions about Gospel authorship. The major scholarly opinion today is that the Beloved Disciple was not a member of the Twelve Apostles. In this view, the author was another disciple of Jesus during his ministry, likely a former follower of John the Baptist (the anonymous disciple in 1:35, 40), and who may also be John the Elder, the author of 2–3 John (on the relation of the Gospel to the Letters of John, see below).7 Those who take this position point out that the Gospel does not record any of the Synoptic stories that feature John the Apostle, such as the transfiguration. The Gospel also sets the Beloved Disciple alongside Peter in order to showcase his special status: only the Beloved Disciple knows the identity of Jesus’ betrayer 13:24–26; he is present at the cross whereas Peter denied Jesus 18:17, 25–27; 19:25–27; he outruns Peter to the empty tomb and first arrives at some degree of Easter faith 20:2–8; he first recognizes the risen Jesus speaking to the disciples from the seashore 21:7. If he is the other disciple in 18:15–16, he obtains access to the high priest’s house and then has Peter admitted. This highlighting of the Beloved Disciple’s role leads some scholars to infer that he was an outsider to the Twelve.8 This theory, however, requires an explanation as to why this Gospel would have been wrongly associated with John the Apostle at such an early date and by people who claim to have known him personally (e.g., Polycarp). Whoever the Beloved Disciple was, he may not have been the only person involved in the composition of this Gospel. Internal tensions in the text suggest that the Gospel may have been composed over time, with multiple hands involved in the process. John 3:22 says that Jesus and his disciples were involved in baptizing, but 4:2 says that Jesus himself was not doing the baptizing. In John 16:5, Jesus says, “Not one of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’” Yet Peter asked this very question in 13:36. Moreover, John 21:22–23 refutes a mistaken belief, circulating among some Christians, that the Beloved Disciple would survive to see the †Parousia, and the need to refute such a belief may have been occasioned by the fact that the Beloved Disciple had died by the time of the Gospel’s final editing. Like other ancient writers, New Testament authors sometimes employed secretaries who did the actual writing of a composition (see Rom 16:22; 1 Pet 5:12). It is possible that the Beloved Disciple was the authoritative teacher, whose testimony has been recorded in the Gospel by one or more of his disciples.
The ancient evidence is complex and ambiguous, and it prevents us from arriving at definitive conclusions about the Beloved Disciple’s identity or the Gospel’s authorship. An intriguing possibility, proposed by C. K. Barrett and developed by John Painter, is that the Beloved Disciple is John the Apostle, the son of Zebedee, whose traditions and work were shaped into the Fourth Gospel by one of his disciples.9 This hypothesis accounts for the ancient traditions about authorship while also accounting for the evidence that the Gospel underwent some editing in its composition history. For the Gospel’s author, “John,” what is ultimately important is not his own personality but the risen Lord to whom he bears witness through his Gospel, and “his testimony is true” 21:24.
John’s Trinitarian Christology
There is a special power in the words with which John begins his Gospel. What makes this hymnlike Prologue to the Fourth Gospel so profound is John’s vision of the Word of God, in relation to whom all creation and history exist and have meaning (see Col 1:15– 17). The divine Word was with God the Father from all eternity, was at work in creation and in the history of Israel, and then became †incarnate in Jesus.
The Prologue is thus a summary of God’s dealings with the world before and in the incarnation of the Word, Jesus. The Prologue begins with the eternity of God 1:1–2 and moves to the creation of the world 1:3–5. John then recounts the divine Word’s activity in the world and particularly in the history of his people Israel 1:6–13. We are then given to contemplate the incarnation: the Word of God becomes a human being in Jesus without loss of his divinity. The incarnate Word completes the Father’s plan of salvation when, through his cross and resurrection, he fully reveals the Father and opens the way for humanity to enter eternal life with God 1:14–18. The rest of the Gospel plays out these themes introduced in the Prologue.
The opening lines of the Gospel present the ineffable mystery of God: In the beginning was the Word. Throughout the Old Testament, we find many passages about God’s word. In the book of Isaiah, the Lord says,
[1:1–2]
Just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down And do not return there till they have watered the earth,... So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; It shall not return to me empty, but shall do what pleases me, achieving the end for which I sent it. (Isa 55:10–11)
The prophet Jeremiah speaks of his call: “The word of the LORD came to me: / Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jer 1:4–5). In Genesis, God creates the world by speaking (Gen 1:1–5), and other texts present God as creating through his word: “By the LORD’s word the heavens were made; / by the breath of his mouth all their host” (Ps 33:6).
The Word also came to be identified with God’s wisdom: “Lord of mercy, / you who have made all things by your word / And in your wisdom have established humankind” (Wis 9:1–2). Some biblical texts personify God’s wisdom as a heavenly figure who was present when God created (Prov 8:27–31; Wis 9:4). John invites us to have creation in mind by beginning his Gospel with the same words that opened the creation account in Gen 1: “In the beginning.”
Shortly before Jesus’ birth, many Jewish holy people and mystics reflected on the Lord in light of his creating and governing the world, actions that can be regarded as “the footprints” God leaves in the world.1 The Jews knew the Lord (†YHWH) as God, the creator and ruler of all, and they fiercely defended his uniqueness as the only one worthy of worship. Biblical texts cited above also display thinking about God’s Word: the divine Word can instruct a prophet, be sent on a mission, or be involved in creation. And yet, God’s Word is not a creature, like an angel or servant. In the Old Testament, the Word is greater than these, but not a separate deity. We could say that the word shares God’s unique identity (who God is) in such a way that God’s unity is not compromised.2
When the full reality of Jesus’ identity is revealed, first through his own claims and then definitively through his resurrection and outpouring of the Holy Spirit, all becomes clear. What was variously attributed to God’s Word, wisdom, or †Torah (law) in the Old Testament and Jewish thought now comes to be seen as attributable to the divine Word, who is one with and yet also distinct from God the Father.
While John is certainly thinking of God’s Word in the Jewish tradition, his Greek word for “Word,” logos, had an established history in Greek philosophical thinking.3 Plato and Aristotle used the term logos for thought and speech that was rational.4 For the Stoics, logos was the part of the universe that made it reasonable and thus understandable by humans. Combining elements from Greek philosophy and Jewish religion, the Jewish theologian Philo of Alexandria, a contemporary of the New Testament authors, wrote of God’s Logos as an intermediary between the material world and God, who is absolutely beyond the world.
Evoking creation in Gen 1, John tells us that the Word already was. In effect, John is saying, “No matter when the beginning of all creation was, at that point the Word already was. He is eternal like God. He existed before all created things.”5 John expresses the relationship between God and the Word as one of distinction and unity.6 On the one hand, the Word was with God; literally, the Word was “toward God.” In the beginning, there was this relationship, an unimaginable fire of love, between God and his Word: the Word was turned “toward” God’s face, and this turning toward was reciprocated. So there are two. On the other hand, there is a unity: the Word was God. Everything that God is, the Word is: they are one—and yet they are two. Once again displaying the mystery of the divine communion, John concludes, the Word was in the beginning with God.
[1:3]
The divine Word is the agent by which God created everything:
All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be (Wis 9:1; 1 Cor 8:6; Col 1:16; Heb 1:2).
The expression “through him” suggests cooperation in the act of creation.7 God the Father gazes on his Word, who is his perfect expression, “the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15), “the refulgence of his glory, the very imprint of his being” (Heb 1:3). The Word perfectly reflects all that the Father is, expressing all that can ever be created. God the Father creates what he sees imaged in his Word, and thus nothing came to be without the Word.
[1:3c–4]
What came to be through him was life. There are different levels of life in the world: plants, animals, humans, and angels. While human life has some things in common with animals, we are created “in the image of God” (Gen 1:27). Human beings are animated by the light of the Logos, so that we have a soul with the capacity to be in relationship with God by knowing and loving him: this life was the light of the human race. 8 The imagery of light appears throughout Scripture to refer to God’s radiant splendor (Exod 13:21; Ps 4:7; 36:10; Isa 60:19–20) and his instructions for living (Ps 119:105, 130). John’s Gospel employs light symbolism to present Jesus as “the light of the world” (8:12; 9:5), who reveals the Father and his will and offers the gift of eternal life.
[1:14]
John presents the heart of the Christian mystery and the cause of our becoming “children of God”: the Word became flesh. It is the mystery of the †incarnation: the divine Word, who from all eternity is turned toward God and is himself God, has become completely human in Jesus.18 God, the creator and ruler of all things, has now become part of creation. The divine Word, who was “in the form of God,... emptied himself, taking the form of a slave” (Phil 2:6–7).
In the incarnation, the divine Word made his dwelling among us. The phrase “made his dwelling” (Greek skēnoō) evokes the language used to designate God’s “dwelling” among his people in the Old Testament (†LXX skēnē). God dwelt with his people in the wilderness tabernacle (Exod 25:8–9) and in the first Jerusalem temple, built by King Solomon (1 Kings 8:10–13). God’s wisdom made a home in Israel (Sir 24:8), and Ezekiel spoke of a future temple to be established in connection with God’s end-time, or †eschatological, act of salvation (Ezek 37:27–28; 48:10). Thus God dwelt among his people in earlier times, but now he does so in a previously unimaginable way: he dwells among us as a man, Jesus of Nazareth.
As the new, unparalleled place of God’s dwelling, the incarnate Word is the fullness of God’s revelation. John makes this claim with his statement, We saw his glory. The Scripture speaks of the Lord’s “glory” as a perceptible manifestation of his awesome presence. By seeing his glory, John refers to a sensible revelation of God himself in Jesus, the incarnate Word.
The Glory of the Lord
Scripture often speaks of “the glory of the LORD,” a perceptible and utterly awesome manifestation of God. The glory is “God himself insofar as he is revealed in His majesty, His power, the glow of His holiness, the dynamism of His being.”a The “glory” was an overpowering spectacle; the Hebrew word for “glory” (kabod) is related to the verb for heaping weight on something (kabad). The glory of the Lord often appeared in the form of fire and cloud at places of God’s dwelling. The glory was manifested at Mount Sinai (Exod 24:17), and when the wilderness tabernacle was finished, “the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle” (40:34). When King Solomon built the Jerusalem temple, “the glory of the LORD had filled” it (1 Kings 8:11). Ezekiel had a vision of the glory of the Lord leaving Solomon’s temple before it was destroyed (Ezek 10:18–19; 11:22–23) and a vision of the Lord’s glory returning to dwell in a new temple in the end times (Ezek 43:1–5).
a. Donatien Mollat, “Glory,” in Dictionary of Biblical Theology, ed. Xavier Léon–Dufour, 2nd ed. (Gaithersburg, MD: Word Among Us; Boston: St. Paul’s Books and Media, 1995), 202.
[1:18]
No one has ever seen God, “who dwells in unapproachable light, and whom no human being has seen or can see” (1 Tim 6:16). Even Moses, after he prayed that he might be allowed to see God (Exod 33:18), was granted only a fleeting glimpse of his “back” (33:23), for God declared, “You cannot see my face, for no one can see me and live” (33:20). God is so awesome and magnificent that the direct sight of him would so overwhelm us that we would die. But now, the only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side, has revealed him. The Son, who is God’s Word and Wisdom, has become a human being in Jesus of Nazareth without any loss of his divinity. In Jesus, people can see, hear, and touch God himself directly. As Pope St. John Paul II taught, in Jesus we see “the human face of God.”19 By receiving his revelation, we can begin to know the truth of Jesus’ words: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (14:9).
Reflection and Application (1:1–18)
John’s Prologue presents the mystery of the incarnation: God became human in Jesus. This mystery infinitely surpasses human comprehension. The history of Christianity offers many instances of intellectual and spiritual shipwrecks that occurred when the mystery was not respected. In the early Church, on the one hand, some were so taken with the divinity of the Word that they minimized or denied the genuineness of Jesus’ humanity. These gnostics (who have modern New Age successors) attempted to spiritualize Jesus and make of him some sort of benign force in the universe, thus denying his real humanity. On the other hand, some have not accepted Jesus’ divinity but considered him a good man, a great religious teacher among many others.
In order to hold on to both the divinity and the humanity of Jesus, we need to become better acquainted with his living reality as he is present in our everyday lives. We can strengthen our grasp of his incarnation and deepen the experiential dimension of our faith by taking a few simple steps. First, we can spend time in prayer every day and during that time read the Bible (praying John’s Prologue is a great place to start). Second, we can guard our minds from the busyness and anxiety that distract us by making time for silence in our day. Reducing our consumption of mass media helps us to avoid the excess of information that only confuses the mind and paralyzes the will. Third, we can open ourselves up to the will of God, for as St. Paul declares,
“This is the will of God, your holiness” (1 Thess 4:3).
Fourth, we can live a life that takes the incarnation of our God seriously by attending Mass, frequenting the sacraments, and finding a way to care for the poor, for they are Christ among us in a special way:
“Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me” (Matt 25:40).
[4:26]
In response, Jesus openly declares his identity, revealing not only his messianic vocation but much more: I am he, the one who is speaking with you. The expression “I am he” renders a Greek phrase (egō eimi) that is literally “I am.” Jesus is not only acknowledging his messiahship; he is also identifying himself with the divine name.
Names and the Divine Name
Throughout the Bible, a person’s name was more than a means of reference. It expressed a person’s identity and role in a profound way. When God revealed his name to Moses on Mount Sinai, it was a profound, personal revelation of himself.a God reveals his name to be “I am who I am” (Exod 3:14), which is linguistically related to the proper name “Yahweh” (or †YHWH).b There are cases where God identifies himself as “I am YHWH,” and these are usually translated as “I am the LORD” (Exod 6:2–8; Lev 19:10). There are places in Isaiah where God identifies himself with the simple Hebrew formula ’ani hu’ (“I am he” or “I am”) as a title (Isa 43:10; 52:6).
When the Greek translation called the †Septuagint was produced around 200 BC, the Hebrew name YHWH was rendered into Greek as kyrios (“Lord”), and God’s words in reference to himself in Exod 3:14 (“I am who I am”) and the title ’ani hu’ were both rendered as egō eimi (“I am”). Several times in John’s Gospel, Jesus identifies himself with this simple formula “I AM” (egō eimi).c When Jesus identifies himself as “I am” or when Christians call him “Lord” (kyrios), there is an identification made between Jesus and YHWH, the God of Israel.d
a. Catechism 446.
b. Both “I am who I am” and †YHWH are based in the Hebrew verb hayah, meaning “to be.”
c. As in John 4:26; 6:20; 8:24, 28, 58; 13:19; 18:5–6, 8. NABRE sometimes capitalizes “AM” in these “I am” statements of Jesus to indicate that he is employing a divine self-reference by allusion to the divine “I am” statements in the Old Testament. Similarly, English translations traditionally render Hebrew †YHWH as LORD in capital letters. For discussion, see Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Gospel according to St. John, vol. 2, Commentary on Chapters 5–12, trans. Cecily Hastings, Francis McDonagh, David Smith, and Richard Foley, SJ (New York: Seabury, 1980), 79–89.
d. Catechism 590.
[5:17–18]
My Father is at work until now, so I am at work
Jesus responds to the authorities’ charge with an even stronger claim: My Father is at work until now, so I am at work. Jewish reflection on the nature of God’s sabbath rest (Gen 2:2–3) led to the conclusion that God continued to perform two major activities on the sabbath: giving life and passing judgment on the dead, as seemed evident from the fact that people are born and die on the sabbath. This background sheds light on Jesus’ response. Jesus has healed a paralyzed man and declares that he can work on the sabbath, in this case, to give life. Jesus is thus exercising a power that belongs only to God and does not cease on the sabbath. The authorities understand the seriousness of this claim: He also called God his own father, making himself equal to God. In the authorities’ eyes, Jesus is a mere man who is claiming to be God, a claim they regard as blasphemy. Since blasphemy is a capital crime (Lev 24:10–23), the Jews tried all the more to kill him.
Jesus’ actions on the sabbath have provoked a legal controversy. The authorities think Jesus has violated the sabbath and blasphemed, and the atmosphere is that of a courtroom. Jesus responds to these charges with a discourse (5:19–47), defending his words and deeds on the basis of his identity as the Son. Jesus explains that his healing the paralyzed man on the sabbath is a †sign, which reveals that he possesses the unique divine powers to give life and judge—the two powers that God does not cease to exercise on the sabbath.
[6:20]
The reason why the sight of Jesus walking upon the sea provokes fear is found in Jesus’ words: It is I—literally, “I am.” Jesus’ use of “I am” here probably has the same strong meaning as it does elsewhere in John where Jesus identifies himself with the divine name (see sidebar on p. 89). By identifying himself as “I am,” Jesus reveals himself to the disciples as the Lord.6 His walking on the sea is a †theophany. That the scene is to be understood as a theophany is corroborated by several details. First, the disciples’ response to seeing Jesus is fear, and biblical theophanies often provoke fear because people behold God’s awesome, overwhelming magnificence (Exod 3:6; 20:18). Second, Jesus exhorts them, Do not be afraid, and the reassurance not to fear is often the first thing spoken to human beings in a theophany (see Gen 15:1; 26:24; Dan 10:11–12; Rev 1:17). Third, in addition to identifying himself as the Lord with the “I am,” Jesus is “walking on the sea”—an allusion to Job, which describes †YHWH, “who walks upon the sea” (Job 9:8 LXX, our translation).7
[8:56]
Building on 8:52–53, Jesus elaborates on his relationship with Abraham: Abraham your father rejoiced to see my day; he saw it and was glad (see 8:40). Jesus alludes to the †theophanies to Abraham in Gen 15 and 17. In Gen 17:17, Abraham laughed at God’s words that he and Sarah would conceive a child in their old age. The verb “rejoiced” in John’s Gospel interprets Abraham’s laughter as joy rather than astonishment. In Gen 15:13–16, God appeared to Abraham and revealed the future events of the exodus to him. Some ancient Jews interpreted God’s revelation of the future to Abraham as containing more than just the exodus, and John 8:56 seems to imply that this revelation to Abraham included the knowledge that the †Messiah would be his descendant.22
[8:57]
Jesus’ opponents find this claim absolutely unbelievable, and they point to Jesus’ age to show it: You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham? Once again, they think about Jesus in completely earthly terms and do not realize that there is more to him than his human origins, namely, his divinity.
[8:58–59] The debate comes to a thunderous end with Jesus’ solemn pronouncement: Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I AM. By using the divine name, I AM, Jesus identifies himself with the God of Israel. Jesus can say that he existed before Abraham because he is the divine Word who “was in the beginning with God” (1:2).23 Jesus’ identity as I AM is fundamental to all the claims in the entire debate: his affiliation with the Father, his speaking the Father’s words, and his saving people from spiritual death. After much misunderstanding, Jesus’ opponents recognize the meaning of this claim. They think he is just a human being and not the God of Israel walking on earth as a man. Thus they think he commits blasphemy by making such a claim. According to Lev 24:16, blasphemy against God’s name was a capital crime, which carried the penalty of death by stoning. Consequently, they picked up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid and went out of the temple area.
23. Some ancient Christian interpreters read Gen 17 as †theophany of the divine Word to Abraham; see Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.7.1–4; Tertullian, Against Praxeas 22.
[12:41]
These texts from Isaiah speak about Jesus’ ministry because the prophet saw his glory and spoke about him. John refers to the call of Isaiah in which the prophet received a vision of †YHWH and declared, “My eyes have seen, the King, the LORD of hosts” (Isa 6:5). When John says that Isaiah saw “his glory,” “his” refers to the divine Word, who possessed divine glory with the Father “before the world began” (John 17:5). As the Prologue teaches, the divine Word was present and working in biblical history before his †incarnation in Jesus (1:9–13).17 Thus Isaiah saw the divine Word at his call and spoke prophetically about him.
[12:44–45]
Whoever believes in me believes not only in me but also in the one who sent me.
Throughout his ministry Jesus has constantly spoken about his identity and work in terms of his relationship with the Father. The divine Word, who was with the Father from all eternity (1:1), has come down from heaven (3:13) and become †incarnate in Jesus. Jesus is the Son of the Father (5:19–23; 11:4), and he and the Father “are one” (10:30), as they both possess the divine power over life and death and the power to judge (5:21–23). Jesus is the Father’s perfect envoy, and thus a response to Jesus is a response to the Father (5:30, 36–37). Since he perfectly reveals the Father and does his saving work, Jesus can say, Whoever sees me sees the one who sent me. He and the Father are so united that to believe in Jesus means recognizing him as the Son, sent by the Father to do his saving work.
[13:19]
Jesus informs the disciples of this treachery before it happens, so that when it happens, it might confirm, and not undermine, their faith. John has emphasized that Jesus “knew that his †hour” had come (13:1) and was “fully aware” of his power over these events (13:3). By hinting at Judas’s impending betrayal, Jesus demonstrates his divine knowledge both of his disciples and of God’s plan given in Scripture. Elsewhere in the Farewell Discourse, Jesus similarly predicts bad things that will happen to the disciples (14:29; 16:1–4), but again the very fact that he predicts these things is meant to increase their faith and confidence in him. By revealing that he has knowledge that only God can have, Jesus invites his disciples to believe that I AM, that he is the God of Israel. Jesus’ words here recall those of the Lord in Isa 43:9–10 †LXX: “Who announces these things or who announces to you the things from the beginning?... Be my witnesses, as I am a witness,... that you may know and believe and understand that I AM.”5
[18:5–6]
The arrest party seeks Jesus the Nazorean, and Jesus identifies himself with the divine name: I AM (see sidebar on p. 89). Jesus’ self-identification as “I AM” appears three times in the arrest account (18:5–6, 8) to reaffirm Jesus’ identity as the Lord. The response of Judas and the arrest party to Jesus’ declaration is the typical response to a †theophany: they turned away and fell to the ground. By pronouncing his divine name, Jesus displays his divine identity and sovereignty, before which his opponents are utterly powerless.5 Thus the psalmist prays, “The voice of the LORD is power” (29:4). Similarly, St. Paul writes, “At the name of Jesus / every knee should bend, / of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth” (Phil 2:10; see Isa 45:22–24).
[20:21–22]
After repeating his words of Peace, Jesus draws the disciples into his own mission: As the Father has sent me, so I send you. The Gospel has frequently spoken of Jesus as the envoy of the Father, sent to reveal him and accomplish his saving work (e.g., 12:44–50). Now the risen Jesus commissions the disciples as his envoys and sends them into the world (see 17:18). The fellowship of Jesus’ disciples, the Church, is an extension of the work of the Father and the Son in the world.
In order to be an extension of Jesus’ work, the disciples need to be united to him, as branches to the vine (15:4–5), and receive his divine assistance and power (see Luke 24:49). Accordingly, Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the holy Spirit.” This scene is John’s presentation of the reality of Pentecost: the risen Jesus sending the Holy Spirit upon his disciples (see Acts 2:1–4, 33).
As Raymond Brown observes, the Holy Spirit “consecrates” the disciples for their mission, as Jesus himself was “consecrated and sent into the world” by the Father (10:36).18 Through the Spirit, the disciples are united to the risen Jesus and receive a share in his own life, and thus in the divine communion. The indwelling Holy Spirit is a sign of their having a share in God’s eschatological salvation, for the Spirit makes the disciples a “new creation” (see sidebar on p. 47). The Greek verb for “breathed” recalls Gen 2:7 and Ezek 37:9, which speak of God breathing life into his creatures at the first creation and in the eschatological new creation.
[20:23]
The risen Jesus connects the Holy Spirit with Church’s power to forgive sins: Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained. Jesus was first hailed in the Gospel as “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (1:29). He declared that his saving work liberates humanity from slavery to the power of sin (8:34–36). By incorporating the disciples into his own mission, Jesus also gives them the authority to take away people’s sins, that is, to administer God’s mercy, through the power of the Holy Spirit. As discussed previously (at 20:7), the passive voice (“forgiven,” “retained”) suggests that here God is acting through his Church. Thus the forgiveness administered by the Church on earth stands in heaven (see Matt 18:18).
[20:28]
The risen Jesus has completed the work of his †hour and has returned to the Father in glory.19 Thomas’s profession recalls the Gospel’s opening verse, which declares “the Word was God” (1:1). Before he came to his hour, Jesus prayed, “Glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began” (17:5). However, it is crucial to recognize that Jesus’ glorification in his hour is not a straightforward return to his preexistent glory as the Word, because “the Word became flesh” (1:14). The glorification of Jesus in his hour is the glorification of his humanity. The glorified humanity of Jesus provides the way for his disciples, who will come to share in his resurrection, to enter the “Father’s house” (14:2). Thomas makes this profession of faith because he recognizes the wounds on the glorified body of Jesus as a †sign, a disclosure of his divinity through his glorified humanity.
Further Reading
Answering Islam – Sam Shamoun Theology Newsletter
Join the newsletter to receive the latest updates in your inbox.