“I AM COMING TO YOU” The Johannine Witness
John 1:1—21:25 John 16:13-15: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”
INTRODUCTION
With Easter behind us and Pentecost on the horizon, the time is at hand to give attention to the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church, to us, his people.
I had great hopes in 1996 when When Jesus Said Goodbye: John’s Witness to the Holy Spirit was published. I was encouraged to think so by the folk at the Nazarene Publishing House at the time. I thought it was my best work. But it did not sell well! The first year was OK—1,007 copies sold. But the next year, only 213! From then on the picture was sad—14, 32, 9 per year. The book is now available used on Amazon.com for as little as $0.90; the Nazarene Publishing House, however, is still asking $16.99 new!
Apparently, there were two reasons for the soon fizzle. One was on the part of the Nazarene Publishing House. At that time an editor at the heart of its book publishing efforts told me in person that the book had fallen through the cracks! The copyright was reassigned to me in May 1999. In my disappointment, I asked President Bob Brower about it in June 1999, for he was head of NPH at that time. His response:
Part of the situation with the book was the transition that was occurring in those years as we moved the publishing program from being Book Committee driven to a more directed and marketing approach through Beacon Hill. I believe that the result was a lack of adequate marketing during the transition time. Unfortunately, your book was released during that period.
On further thought, I believe there was a reason beyond circulation failure--the book did not connect well with the intended reader! A good friend who had taught here at the college community and a fellow minister complained that he found it hard to understand and therefore to read. It was too theologically phrased, or perhaps better, too abstract--one can never be too theological! The cookie shelf was in some way out of reach for many; the book did not come across as enticingly readable to those with whom I wanted to share the witness of John to the Holy Spirit.
The book in my judgement does not necessarily need more research, but calls for more prayerful thought—more listening with the heart to the witness of the Spirit of Truth as it spoke and speaks through the apostle John. So now in my more mature years I want to look at the book for a time or two with you. After all I was only 66-67 years old when I wrote it!
So I share some first pages at least to see how it flies—an experiment! We begin with the
PREFACE
Many Johannine interpreters have appealed to the poetry of Robert Browning:
Which were first guessed as points, I now knew stars, And named them in the Gospel I have writ. Browning’s lines characterize the Fourth Gospel as one not so much one of "points" as one of "stars." This Gospel appeals to us as much in what it evokes as in what it clearly states. Amos Wilder, then at Harvard University, described it as "a sacred oratorio in which the minute particulars of a one-time moment of history have been sublimated . . . into a world-volume in whose flying leaves the fates of heaven and earth are portrayed.
In the words of the famous pioneer New Testament scholar, B. F. Westcott from the late 19th century, the Gospel of John is "a personal witness" by one who through the ministry of the Spirit experienced a profound personal fellowship with the living Christ. John’s initial faith in the Jesus he knew in the flesh was unfolding itself in his mind and heart within the post-Pentecost life of the Christian community. Taught by the Spirit the evangelist in his Gospel presents a transfigured understanding of the risen Jesus to the Church in his day. As the Gospel flows from his pen, its true content becomes "indistinguishable from its form: the medium is the message.”
The aim of the present study is to explore the Johannine witness to the Holy Spirit in the life of the Church of John’s day. At the same time the Gospel presents us with the writer's Spirit informed witness to "Jesus . . . the Messiah, the Son of God" (20:31). What does John's narrative tell us about the person and work of the Holy Spirit in relation both to Jesus and to us today?
The witness intended, however, is not only that of John the evangelist. More than forty years ago, while recruiting students for Pasadena College in Ridgecrest, California, I was asked on a Saturday night to teach all the adult Sunday School classes gathered together the next day. Searching my Bible early that Sunday morning in a desperate effort to find a lesson, the inspiration came to simply read aloud the Comforter or "Paraclete" passages in John chapters 14-16 with appropriate interpretive comments. It appeared to work!
In the intervening years in Bible studies, sermons, and the college classroom, I have continued to give heart and mind to John's witness to the Spirit in the Church. It is our prayer that this study will present a helpful understanding of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, accurate to the Johannine witness to Jesus and the Spirit, and authentic to my own witness to life in the Spirit. May that witness continue to you the reader.
In this process I felt the truth of Clement of Alexandria’s famous observation concerning the four gospels: “Finally John, recognizing that the ‘bodily facts’ had been treated in the (synoptic) gospels, . . . inspired by the Spirit, wrote a ‘spiritual’ gospel.” As a truly "spiritual gospel” John’s gospel is more than history, and even more than theology—and it surely is both. This Gospel’s witness deals profoundly with the spiritual life in an ever-deepening understanding of the heart and in relationship with the Holy Spirit, “the Spirit of Truth” who “will guide you into all the truth (16:13).
1. "Peace I Leave with You" John 14:26-27; 16:33; 20:21-22
“But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
“I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution. But take courage: I have conquered the world.”
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
"My 'peace' is my gift to you,' were the words of Jesus as he imparted the gift of the Holy Spirit to his disciples. As his death drew near he made them a promise:
the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid (14:26-27).
Jesus' farewell gift to his disciples was his peace: "Peace I leave with you; my peace . . ." Jesus’ peace was and is a peace not as “the world” is able to give. An encouraging word described this peace to his waiting companions: “I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face tribulation. But take courage; I have conquered the world” (16:33). Jesus’ parting word to his bereft disciples after his crucifixion and resurrection was
"Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you." When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit" (20:21-22).
The Greek word for peace, eirene, reflects the Old Testament Hebrew shalom. Shalom is "well-being" in a comprehensive sense: physical health, material prosperity, and spiritual blessing--a holistic salvation, and all a gift from God! "Shalom" 0r "Peace" was both the normal greeting and farewell in Jesus' day. It is still the everyday "Hello" and "Good-bye" in modern Israel. Shalom to you! In the New Testament, “Peace" appears as either an initial greeting or a parting wish like the Hawaiian “Aloha.'' Worshipers in churches across our land greet one another with the rich biblical blessing of "The peace of the Lord be always with you."
When Jesus said, "Peace I leave with you," and "Peace be with you," he was saying his earthly "Good-bye" to his friends. His farewell was not like the Spanish Adios with no thought for tomorrow, but more like its Hasta luego, the French Au revoir and the German Auf Wiedersehen--"I will see you later"--and that hopefully soon! As such Jesus' farewell was neither flippant nor simply conventional. With it came a depth of meaning, a reality concrete and rich. It expressed the sure and exhilarating promise of a continuing relationship with the risen Jesus.
When Jesus breathed on his disciples with the invitation, "Receive the Holy Spirit," his gift of peace reached back to the prophetic hope of God's final peace among humankind—a peace so desperately needed in our day. The blessings of the future kingdom of God, present in Jesus, were now knocking at the door of his hearer’s hearts. Far beyond its common use, the Hebrew shalom" is filled with a richness staggering human conception.
And now, as one so powerfully phrased it, "never had that 'common word' been so filled with meaning as when Jesus uttered it on Easter evening.” Like Jesus’ “it is finished” (19:30) uttered on the cross, “the peace of reconciliation and life from God is now imparted.” Yet, this peace of Jesus, his good-bye to His disciples, presupposes a most difficult question for human minds, one that leads to an answer possible only to faith.
The question of Jesus 13:31-38; 16:17-20
From the perspective of history, we ask about Jesus' departure from His disciples. This question appears at the heart of the farewell discourses in the Gospel (13:1--17:26). These discourses partake of a common literary form in the Hellenistic world of Jesus’ day. In secular use leaders used them as their last opportunity to provide for the future needs of their followers. Here, Jesus’ farewell discourses interpret for the reader the narratives that follow (18:1—20:29).
When Judas had disappeared into the night after the Last Supper (13:30) and Jesus had announced his soon glorification (vv. 31-35), Peter asked anxiously, "Lord, where are you going?" Jesus replied, "Where I am going, you cannot follow me now; but you will follow afterward" (v. 36) and Peter responded with "Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for you" (v. 37).
Later in the discourses we read,
Then some of His disciples said to one another, "What does he mean by saying to us, ‘A little while, and you will no longer see me; and again a
little while, and you will see me’; and, ‘because I am going to the Father'?" (16:17).
Aware of their confusion, Jesus said to them:
”Are you discussing among yourselves what I meant, . . . “Very truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn in to joy” (16:19-20).
Jesus' disciples were deeply troubled; the very thought of his departure left them bewildered. It stirred up profound anxieties about what was coming; it left them wondering about their own situation as those who had left all to follow the man from Galilee. What vacuums, what problems would Jesus’ absence create for them? What hostilities would await them without his leadership and presence?
The disciples' lives were torn apart by discouragement; the object of their hope was slipping out of their grasp--“We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel" (Luke 24:21). A dark haunting sense of a thick dark cloud blotting out their sun enveloped them as they conversed with Jesus. Such days, such experiences, inevitably come to all disciples of Jesus along the way.
As Mary Magdalene stood weeping at the empty tomb she becomes a picture of the disciples' situation following the death of Jesus (20:11-18). Mary’s understanding was limited to her relationship to him as her earthly friend and teacher. When Jesus stood before her and called her by name, she recognized him and sought to continue the physical relationship as before. She desired to cling to him, we would say, to hug him. Jesus, however, said to her, "Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’" (v. 17).
Mary could not follow Jesus in the old familiar ways. A new kind, a previously unknown quality of relationship was being forged for her by his departure to the Father. Jesus’ death became crucial for his continuing relationship to his disciples, a consequence they were slow to perceive until after Jesus’ resurrection. Mary’s old relationships, even with the other disciples, are now relegated to history.
With Mary and the first disciples, Christians today, you and I, face this question as well--a world without the physical presence of Jesus. This is indeed the great question of the Christian faith! Biblical scholars in their research continue to question and questing disciples are still concerned—which scholars do they trust?
How do we follow in person one whom the finality of physical death has taken from us? Although we bring their names to lip and pen, we do not follow Martin Luther, Teresa of Avila, John Calvin, or even John Wesley as we would follow Jesus. We may remember them with admiration, we may confess their theologies, and we may even attempt to re-create their vision for the Church in our day—and in our own lives, but they are no longer with us as they were.
Jesus is no longer here to see or hear, to touch and hug. Go to Israel and look around. Many ornate shrines are erected where Jesus may have been. He is nowhere to be seen in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, divided inside among rival Christian groups, or walking the streets of a Jerusalem apportioned into four sectors where hatred and violence crop up almost daily. With human eyes we can no longer discover Jesus sailing the Sea of Galilee, or climbing the hills of Zion and the Mount of Olives as he once did.
The question remains a valid one that confronts our faith: How do we of the 21st century, follow the Jesus who made his century the 1st century? As Christians we seek to follow him daily who in a flesh and blood like ours belongs to a time and to a place and to a culture far removed from our everyday routines.
E-Mail June 10, 1999. Robert Browning, "A Death in a Desert," in Dramatis Personae (Boston Ticknor and Fields, 1864), 110. Amos N. Wilder, Early Christian Rhetoric: The Language of the Gospel, in New Testament Library (London: SCM Press, 1964), 128. B. F . Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John (London John Murray, 1882), xxiii. John Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 553. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, VI, 14, 7. Eusebius’ dates were A. D. 150-215. Clement’s were A. D. 155-220. This translation of John 14:27a is that of Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John, vols. 29 and 29A of The Anchor Bible (Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday and Co., 1970), 649. Since the two volumes are paginated consecutively, the volumes will be cited by page numbers only. As a greeting see Luke 10:5; 24:36, KJV; John 20:19; Rom. 1:7. As a parting wish see Mark 5:34; John 14:27; 20:21. George R. Beasley-Murray, John, in Word Biblical Commentary (Waco, Tex.: Word Books Publisher, 1987), 36:378-79. Subsequent citations will not list the volume number, only the page numbers.
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