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John’s work is a rather different animal. There is little in terms of explicit and specific exhortations about discipleship (though what is present is therefore especially important). John seems to frontload his descriptions of Christology in order to make it bear the weight of most of the substance of discipleship. For John, the situation is with Jesus as it is with his disciples: he does (action) what he is (being). This fact comports with the statement in the prologue (John 1:1–14) that he is the Word of God. He is the Incarnate Word of God who proclaims the word about himself. Many of the “I am” statements also have this same effect in their contexts of showing that Jesus is the bread of life who gives bread—especially his own flesh—for life; the light of the world who gives light; the resurrection and the life who gives life, raises the dead, and will ultimately resurrect himself and others; the way, the truth, and the life who proclaims the way, the truth, and the life; and the vine who enables the “branches” to abide in him through his commandments and the provision of the Holy Spirit (John 6:35; 8:12; 10:9, 11; 11:24–25; 14:6; 15:1). Because of this kind of link between being and action as well as the volume of christological statements and images, John’s Christology is arguably the densest and most complex Christology of the Gospels.1 This analysis can do little more than do as John has done in essentially taking snapshots of the tip of an iceberg.
In his identification with God (1:1–3), Jesus is the one to whom disciples must listen to know the will of God and the one from whom they must learn what it means to live truly in alignment with the purposes of God. As one with God, he also defines the meaning and content of the image of God, which means that he defines what it means to be human and what it means to be God (a point that garners reinforcement in the statement that the Word became flesh in 1:14). As the Creator and Redeemer, he is the source of life (1:3–4; 3:15–16, 36; 4:14, 36; 5:21, 24–26, 29, 39–40; 6:27, 33, 35, 40, 47–51, 53–54, 57–58, 63, 68; 8:12, 51; 10:10, 28; 11:25–26; 12:25, 50; 14:6, 19; 17:2–3; 20:31). He is the light of the world who reveals the truth about God and about the world, providing light that overcomes the darkness of sin in the world in salvation and judgment (1:4–5, 9; 3:19–21; 8:12; 9:4–5; 11:9–10; 12:35–36, 46). Because he is from heaven, being sent from the Father, he has a unique testimony and revelation to give the world, especially through the work of the Holy Spirit (1:12–14, 18, 51; 2:18–22; 3:11–15, 32–36; 4:44; 5:31–38; 6:46–51; 7:7, 16–18, 28–29; 8:14–19, 30, 38, 54–56, 58; 10:15, 25–30; 12:49–50; 14:6–7, 9–14, 20–21; 15:26–27; 16:7–11; 17:6–8; 18:37). Indeed, he is the revelation of God’s glory in his incarnation, but especially in his death, resurrection, and exaltation (1:14; 5:41, 44; 7:18, 39; 8:50, 54; 11:4, 40; 12:16, 23, 28, 41, 43; 13:31–32; 15:8; 17:1–2, 4–5, 10, 22, 24). He is able to give power for humans to become adopted children of God to whoever believes in him (1:12–13, 44–50; 3:15–21, 36; 4:21–24; 5:24–29, 37–38, 45–47; 6:29–30, 39–40, 69; 7:37–39; 8:24, 39–47; 9:35–39; 10:1–5, 25–27, 37–38; 11:25–27, 42; 12:36, 44–47; 13:19–20; 14:1, 10–14, 19, 20, 29; 16:27; 17:8, 20; 20:8, 20–22, 27–29, 31). Finally, he is the one who is the superior revelation to the Torah, the one who fulfills and replaces it as the supreme and authoritative revelation, the one who fulfills all of Scripture (1:17, 45; 2:22; 3:14; 5:39, 45–47; 6:14, 31–33, 45, 49–51; 7:19, 22–29, 38, 42; 8:17; 9:28–29; 10:34–35; 12:13–16, 34; 13:18; 15:25; 17:12; 19:24, 28, 36–37; 20:9).
How does discipleship look in the context of this enormous christological landscape? One of the primary functions of disciples in John is to serve as witnesses to testify to the truth of who Jesus is and what he has done in unison with the Spirit, the Scriptures, and Jesus’s own deeds (on the larger motif, see 1:6–8, 14–15, 29–34; 3:26–30; 4:39–42; 5:33–35, 39, 45–47; 9:8–34; 12:17; 15:26–27; 16:7–11; 19:35; 20:17–18; 21:24). At the center of the disciple’s life and work is the one greater than the disciple, the one to whom the disciple must point (3:30). Through the act of witness, disciples become participants in the truth to which they testify, that is, of everlasting life, revelatory light, and the fulfillment of Scripture. But disciples can only be witnesses if they have faith. The faith John references as the proper response to Jesus is more than cognitive assent; it is belief in truth enacted and embodied in allegiance (i.e., faithfulness as the supreme expression of faith).
As in Luke, the one who enables this belief and participation—the one who makes believers “abide” in Jesus—is the Holy Spirit (1:32–33; 3:3–8, 34; 4:23–24; 5:38; 6:56, 63; 7:39; 14:16–18, 23–24, 26; 15:1–11, 16, 26; 16:7–11, 13; 20:22). The Spirit connects to the word of God so that the one who testifies in speaking the words of God also serves as the medium of the Spirit. The Spirit connects to belief so that the one who believes the word has the word abiding in him/her (conversely, he/she also abides in God). The Spirit connects to truth and to the act of enabling believers to testify to the truth. Finally, the Spirit is at the foundation of true worship, the orientation and submission of one’s entire being to God without reference to a particular location (especially since Jesus himself—and his worshippers by extension—constitutes the new temple in which the presence of God dwells). The Spirit is essential to every aspect of discipleship.
The primary practical implementation of this vision of discipleship that John references is a generally defined “love” (8:31; 13:34–35; 14:15, 21, 23–24, 28; 15:9–10, 12–17; 17:26). Jesus does not explain the content of this love, but uses image-association to magnify it. It is possible that this love is general because it is a foundational norm that John’s implied audience—probably a group of people who have been Christians for a significant time—knows and simply needs a reminder of.2 Even so, Witherington observes the powerful challenge in this simple norm, “Perhaps in the end it was enough of an ethical challenge to call the audience to love as Jesus loved. One could spend a lifetime trying to live out of and up to that challenge, and if all behavior was normed by it, then Jesus would be exemplified in human conduct and God would be glorified.”3
There is no greater demonstration of belief, witness, and abidance in Jesus than to have a love for God and for one another rooted in the love of God—expressed supremely in the life, death, resurrection, and exaltation of Jesus—which created the community of disciples in the first place (3:16, 35; 5:20, 42; 8:42; 10:17; 13:1; 14:31; 15:9–10, 12; 16:27; 17:23–26). Love is embodied in faithfulness to keeping the commandments Jesus has given and participation in his victory over darkness and death by participation in the love with which he conquered.
For expansions on what follows, see, among many others, George R. Beasley-Murray, John, WBC 36 (Waco, TX: Word, 1987), 8–10; Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel of John, AB 29 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966), cxxii–cxxv; Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003), 338–55; Witherington, Indelible Image, 1:548–58, 561, 588–89.
Witherington, Indelible Image, 2:553.
Witherington, Indelible Image, 2:553.