The History of Christian Theology

Lecture 5: The Gospel of John

for the doctrine of the Incarnation, John says, “And the Word became À esh.”

In a crucial passage for Christian soteriology (the doctrine of salvation),

John says, “To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave the

authority to become children of God.” The Prologue is an example of John’s

high Christology, his insistence on the exalted nature of Jesus from the

beginning. To receive Jesus, in the Gospel of John, is to believe that he came

from heaven and was sent by the

Father into the world as Light

and Life.

The miraculous signs Jesus

performs have a meaning

pointing to who he is. He feeds

a huge crowd with a few loaves

of bread and ¿ sh, and then

describes himself as the bread

of life. He gives sight to a man

born blind, then condemns the

Pharisees for their blindness.

The “book of signs” culminates

with Jesus raising Lazarus from

the dead. When Jesus gets news

of Lazarus’s illness, he delays

coming, knowing he will die.

Lazarus’s sister Martha goes

out to meet him, and he tells

her “I am the Resurrection and

the Life.” Instead of Peter, it is

Martha who confesses, “You are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus weeps—

probably not for Lazarus’s death, which he knows he will undo, but for

the unbelief of people like Mary, Martha’s sister. As John tells it, it is this

miracle, rather than the cleansing of the temple, that precipitates the plot to

kill Jesus.

Jesus’s controversies with his opponents are especially intense in the Gospel

of John. His opponents are often called “the Jews,” but this is more accurately

Art depicting Jesus as he raises Lazarus

from his tomb.

© Photos.com/Thinkstock.