The Cross in the Johannine Writings

Morgan-Wynne

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781498269964
• Topic: Théologie et religion
• Subtopic: Religion

This book offers a rigorous analysis of the theme of the cross in the Johannine literature. After reviewing previous scholarship on the issue, Morgan-Wynne examines evidence that prima facie suggests that the evangelist, while maintaining the role of Jesus as revealer of the Father in his incarnate ministry, also saw something decisive for the salvation of human beings happening in the cross. Having established this, the work looks at John's understanding of sin and his concept of the purpose shared by the Father and Jesus, before reflecting on themes associated with the meaning of the cross. Of special importance is John 12, which connects the cross to the judgment of the world, the ejection of Satan, and the drawing of all to Jesus. The author examines what John considers to have been objectively achieved at the cross. A further section examines the meaning of the death of Jesus in the Epistle of 1 John, seen as the work of someone different from the evangelist but belonging to the same Johannine circle. The similarities and differences between Letter and Gospel are explored.

PART I

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

1

The Significance of “the Cross in the Fourth Gospel” in New Testament Scholarship from Bultmann to the Present1

A. Review of Scholarly Approaches to

the Cross in John’s Gospel

1. The Death of Jesus has No Special Significance. Salvation is by Revelation in the Incarnate Ministry

This, in a nutshell, is the interpretation of Rudolph Bultmann who set out his views on Johannine Theology conveniently in Volume 2 of his Theology of the New Testament.2 Bultmann believed that in John the death of Jesus is subordinate to the incarnation (52): it has no special importance for salvation, but simply marks the accomplishment of the “work” which began with the incarnation (52, 55)—it is the last demonstration of the obedience which governs Jesus’ whole life (14, 31). The common Christian interpretation of Jesus’ death as an atonement for sins does not determine John’s view of it (53–54). Salvation in John comes through Jesus’ word or the truth mediated by Jesus’ word (55. See John 8:32; 15:3; 17:17).

Even when Bultmann says that John has subsumed Jesus’ death under his idea of revelation, what he means is that in his death Jesus is acting as the revealer and is not the passive object of a divine process of salvation (53). The Johannine passion story shows us Jesus not really suffering death but rather choosing it, not as the passive victim but as the active conqueror (53). Bultmann believed that John 1:29 applies to the whole ministry rather than only Jesus’ death (53–54) and that John 6:51b–58 is an insertion by an ecclesiastical editor, as is also 19:34b which aimed to ground baptism and the Lord’s Supper on Jesus’ death (54).

In the end, Jesus—as the revealer of God—reveals nothing but that he is the Revealer (62, 66).3 This revelation creates a crisis and demands a decision (38–39, 46–47). People must decide whether they will remain in the cosmos—the perversion of creation, which is existence in bondage (26–32)—or whether they will live from God, abandoning their self-created security and existing in creaturely dependence on God (75).

Around the time Bultmann published his commentary, the British scholar, Vincent Taylor, was producing a trilogy on the meaning of the death of Jesus. The second of these, The Atonement in New Testament Teaching (1945), has a section on the distinctive teaching of John (Taylor accepted the common authorship of Gospel and First Epistle). Taylor considered that John’s “apprehension of the meaning of the Cross is much less profound” than Paul’s (156) and speaks of “serious” or “notable limitations” in it (157, 159). “The evangelist never gives expression to the idea of the One great Sacrifice . . . no description of a self-offering of Christ for sinners with which they can identify themselves in their approach to God for pardon, reconciliation and peace other than the statement that He sanctifies Himself for His own that they too may be sanctified in truth (17:19) . . . From the negative point of view the Johannine writings are an impressive warning of the attenuated conceptions of the significance of the death of Christ which inevitably follow when the Incarnation is thought of predominantly in terms of revelation, of life and of knowledge” (159–60).

Although Taylor does say that “the death is itself a part, and indeed the crowning moment in the revelation in the Son” (153), it is in fact by no means clear that his exposition justifies the use of “crowning moment.” Taylor does not engage in discussion with Bultmann, but it is clear that he is close to Bultmann’s fundamental position of salvation-by-revelation.

Bultmann’s view that Jesus’ death was of no significance for salvation continued to be reiterated by scholars. S. Schultz, who was the author of two monographs on John’s Gospel together with a commentary on the Gospel (1975), firmly asserted that while the fourth evangelist knew theological statements about Jesus’ atoning death, he did not develop any pronounced theological interpretation of the cross. The cross is not expounded with the help of atonement motifs but is the redeemer’s exit from the alien world (237–38). Jesus’ cross has no special saving significance, and the Pauline theology of the cross must not be imported into John.

Also in 1975, U. B. Müller published an article on the meaning of Jesus’ death on the cross in John’s Gospel,4 in Kerygma und Dogma 21 (1975). He asserted emphatically that salvation in John is not decided at the cross (59–60): there is no concept of the cross as constitutive for salvation in the Gospel (57, 60). Statements like 1:29; 10:11, 15 are dismissed as “tradition” and not specifically Johannine, those in 10:11,15 being modified in any case by 10:17,18 (63–64). Müller goes so far as to link John in with the same theological spectrum as Paul’s Corinthian opponents (69).

W. Loader, The Christology of the Fourth Gospel: Structure and Issues, is concerned with the saving event in John’s theology. At its simplest, Jesus’ death is a return to the Father, which authenticates his claim (John 16:10). Vicarious atonement is present, but only in an incidental manner (94–102). His death brings to a climax the issues of Jesus’ life (revelation and judgment): it reveals the character of the relationship between the Father and the Son and of the Son’s love for his friends and it reveals the world in all its lostness as it finally rejects Jesus. The dominant model of salvation in John’s Gospel is the Son as the Father’s envoy bearing revelation-information and making a relationship with the Father possible through encounter with himself (136, 206). The death and return only ensure the continuing and greater accessibility of the offer (16, 121).

It is indicative of how dominant Bultmann’s approach has been that J. Ashton in his monumental and brilliant work, Understanding the Fourth Gospel (1991), did not engage in any discussion with representatives of viewpoints other than that of Bultmann and Käsemann. For Ashton, John’s theology is first and foremost a theology of revelation (497, 545) and the idea of Jesus’ death as atonement for sin is not central (491). The crucifixion is the re-ascent of the Son of Man to his true home in heaven (496), a departure, an exaltation, an ascent (545–46). Ashton discusses five summary passages (3:31–32; 3:16–21; 7:33–36; 8:21–27; 12:44–50)—in which significantly, in his opinion, the death of Jesus is not mentioned—to illustrate how in John revelation is delivered by the divine envoy and how its effect is divisive, leading to new life or to judgment (531–45).

In the vo...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Part One: The Gospel of John
• Chapter 1: The Significance of “the Cross in the Fourth Gospel” in New Testament Scholarship from Bultmann to the Present
• Chapter 2: An Examination of the Case that Salvation in the Fourth Gospel is by Revelation
• Chapter 3: The Johannine Doctrine of Sin
• Chapter 4: Jesus’ Ministry up to the Cross in the Fourth Gospel
• Chapter 5: The Cross in the Fourth Gospel
• Chapter 6: Appropriation of What Is Accomplished in the Cross
• Chapter 7: “The Death of Jesus in the Johannine Letters” in New Testament Scholarship From Bultman to Painter
• Chapter 8: The Situation Behind the Johannine Letters
• Chapter 9: The Meaning of the Death of Jesus in the Johnannine Letters
• Chapter 10: Final Summary and Conclusions
• Select Bibliography