Week #51 - John 12-21, 1st, 2nd, & 3rd John

Week # 51 Study Page

John 12-21
1st, 2nd, & 3rd John

Suggested Daily Reading Breakdown

Sunday: John 12-13
Monday: John 14-15
Tuesday: John 16-17
Wednesday: John 18-19
Thursday: John 20-21
Friday: 1st John 1-3
Saturday: 1st John 4-5, 2nd & 3rd John

Degree of Difficulty: 7 out of 10. This week’s reading is average according to word count, but once again it will be difficult to read with the same pace that you did in Ezekiel or even in a synoptic Gospel. Johanine literature has a depth and profundity that will naturally slow your pace and have you considering the implications of the words that you are reading. We read about all of Jesus’ traveling in chapters 1-11 last week. Chapter 12 begins with Jesus in Bethany, just two miles outside of Jerusalem, and those are the only two cities where Jesus will be for the next 9 chapters. Our reading begins on the eve of Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem, just 6 days before he will be crucified. While chapters 1-11 cover three years of ministry, Chapters 12-20.5 cover just 1 week’s time. The majority of this week’s reading is the words of Jesus spoken to his disciples in preparation for what they would soon face when their Rabbi/Savior is crucified, and take the position of leadership among His followers. The Johanine epistles (1st, 2nd, & 3rd John) bear a stark resemblance to that vocabulary and literary style of the Gospel of John. They are fun and easy to read.

About the Book(s)

John

Date of Authorship: D.A. Carson and Doug Moo note that there are good arguments for dating this book anywhere from 55 AD to as late as 95 AD. However after considering the external witness of the Early Church fathers, and the internal textual evidence in John they conclude that it was likely written from 80-85. (Carson and Moo, An Introduction to the New Testament, Zondervan Press, this resource will be used repeatedly in the notes that follow)

This is a new video - not a repeat of last week

Author: John, the Apostle, the son of Zebedee, and the brother of James. While John does not tell us that he (by name) is the author of the book, this was the nearly univocal belief of the Early Church, and it appears that the character referred to in the Gospel as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” is the apostle John - and this disciple does* claim to have written the account. Additionally, there is a certain and convincing shared language, theology, and style between this gospel and the Johanine epistles (esp. 1st John) which we will be reading next.

Audience: Carson and Moo believe (in accordance with the tradition of the Early Church) that John wrote this Gospel in Ephesus (western modern-day turkey) to Hellenistic (Greek-speaking) Jews and gentiles. You’ll notice that John provides the meaning or translation for many Hebrew words, events, and traditions, but also makes frequent references and allusions to the Old Testament. It is safe to assume that while John’s intended audience was not Hebraic Jews, they were very Biblically literate, similar to the gentile audiences for Paul’s epistles.

Purpose: John tells us the purpose of his Gospel directly, at the very end of this book:

30 Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (John 20)

1st, 2nd, & 3rd John

Date of Authorship:  There is little internal (belonging to the text) material that we can use to date the text of these three epistles. Carson and Moo (reference above) see’s 1st John as a response to some proto-gnostic heresy that had misread some of the material in his Gospel. Gnosticism was a religious system with some elements of Judaism, Christianity, and Greek mythology that was highly spiritualistic and dualistic - regarding the physical realm as mostly evil and turning instead to a transcendental spiritualism that reached its peak in the 2nd century AD (an Early Church father, Irenaeus devotes most of his writing to describing and confronting this heresy around 200 AD). This understanding of 1st John, combined with the belief that his Gospel was written in 80-85 AD, and consideration of a reasonable lifespan for the apostle lead Carson and Moo to date the book tentatively to 90 AD. 2nd and 3rd John can best be dated anywhere from the authorship of John’s gospel in (as early as) 80 AD to shortly after the authorship of 1st John in roughly 90 AD.

Author: John is the author of these three epistles. 1st John does not describe its author in any way, while 2nd and 3rd John refer to the author as the Elder. The best support for Johanine authorship is the striking similarity in vocabulary and literary style between these letters and the fourth Gospel, authored by “the disciple whom Jesus loved.”

Purpose: In 1st John 2:18-19, John indicates that the audience for his letters has seen some secession from the faith by a particular group of heretics. Their heresy centered around the denial that Jesus was the Christ (2:22). If 1st John is a confrontation of proto-gnosticism as theorized above, the heretics would be denying that the human (physical/fleshy) Jesus could have been the Christ, insisting instead that he may have been temporarily possessed with the spirit of the Christ, who would have departed before his death or some other style of separation/distinction between the human Jesus and the spiritual Christ. John stresses the truth that Jesus is Christ come in the flesh and that genuine belief in this Jesus works itself out on obedience to the commands of God and in love for God’s people. The purpose of 2nd John is primarily to warn a congregation or house Church against admitting traveling teachers who espouse such false teaching. 3rd John is nothing other than an apostolic warning against someone who is attempting to appropriate all local authority and is causing disunity.

As You Read Notes:

John 12:16

John is much different in form, style, and even content from the other three Gospels. One wonderful way in which this is true is how explicit John is about the nature of Jesus the Messiah throughout the Gospel story. The other three Gospels use their narrative to show you who Jesus is. John on the other hand is telling you the story of Jesus ministry while he is simultaneously interjecting with complete and full disclosures of who Jesus was and the cosmic significance of what He was doing. It is very likely that John had read and was familiar with the other three gospels, all of which were written more than a decade before his. John may very well have consciously written his Gospel in a contrasting style to the other three for the purpose of instruction and producing belief (as mentioned in chapter 20). Consciousness of this distinction may have led to the explainer that we get here in John 12:16:

At first his disciples did not understand all this. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that these things had been done to him.

John stipulates that these statements about Jesus identity and the cosmic significance of his work were not a part of his original experience of following Jesus (as shown more clearly by the mystery themes in other Gospels, especially Mark) but that he came to know them after Jesus was glorified (resurrected and ascended).

John 13:34 / 1st John 2:7: New Command / Old Command

Jesus gives his disciples a new command in John 13:34:

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 

Its true that this command is at-least a little novel. The closest parallel we have in the old testament is the command to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). This command comes in the upper room just after the moment when Jesus had washed his disciples feet which serves as a perfect companion to this instruction. Love is a central theme of John’s literature, and is featured prominently in his Gospel. John returns to this subject again in his first epistle:

7 Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. 8 Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and in you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.9 Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. 10 Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble. (1st John 2)

By the time that John is writing this letter the command to love one another is both new and old. New because it belongs to the light that Jesus brought into the world (see John 1:4-5). Old because this command belongs with the proclamation of the Gospel which John’s readers have already received (i.e. they should already know this, because the Gospel has been proclaimed to them).

John 14: the holy spirit and the scriptures

If you were raised in Sunday school classes where you were told (correctly) that the Bible is God’s word, it can be disorienting to focus on the fact that each world of the Bible was written by a human author who had a particular cultural/historical context, reasons for writing, and literary licence to communicate in their preferred way. In John’s gospel, he gives us an inside-baseball look at how the truth of God’s word came to the apostles, and why we can trust it:

15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth….
25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. (John 14)

Jesus makes a similar remark about the Holy Spirit in John 16:

7 But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment:

One clearly delineated role of the Holy Spirit in the scriptures was the revelation of the truth to the apostles, the same apostles who wrote the words of the New Testament. We can trust these words that we read in the Bible because John (as inspired by the Holy Spirit) recounts this promise of Jesus to send the Advocate who will teach them all things and remind them of everything that Jesus had said to them. Trusting God to have accurately provided and preserved his truthful Word (Scriptures) by the Holy Spirit working through human authors is an essential and basic element of the Christian faith. While archaeological research and study related to the text of the New Testament is essential and good, we may also trust that the same Advocate (Holy Spirit) who gave the words of truth to the disciples has taken care to ensure that God’s word has been correctly compiled, and preserved through the centuries of the Church.

John 18: Which High Priest?

There is more than one high priest in the account of Jesus trial. I have found an article that does a good job of describing the dynamic/relationship of Anna and Caiaphas, and why Jesus appeared before both of them before he was crucified. you can read it here

Here is a picture of the actual ossuary being described. It is housed in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

https://www.christiancourier.com/articles/664-caiaphas-official-at-the-trial-of-jesus

here is a fun archaeological note from the bottom of the article:

In 1990, just south of Jerusalem, a Jewish burial cave was accidentally discovered. When the cave was finally entered, archaeologists found several limestone ossuaries (boxes containing bones). One of these contained the remnants of several persons, including those of a man about sixty years of age. The box was elaborately decorated, suggesting that it housed the remains of someone important.
On the exterior were these words, “Joseph, son of Caiaphas,” or, as scholars suggest the meaning may be, “Joseph of the family of Caiaphas.” “Caiaphas” was apparently a family nickname. According to Josephus, the high priest who succeeded Annas was “Joseph Caiaphas” (Antiquities, 18.2.2; 18.4.3).
Ronny Reich, of the Israel Antiquities Authority, suggests that these bones are “in all probability” the bones of that same high priest who prosecuted Jesus Christ (30). Now, he awaits judgment!

John 20-21: REsurrection Appearances

Keep this timeline in mind when reading the resurrection appearances in John, no one Biblical author provides a complete list of every resurrection appearance by Jesus, and none of their accounts claim to be entirely comprehensive. It is entirely possible that Jesus made resurrection appearances that are not recorded in the Bible. However, because of what we discussed in the note above about the Holy Spirit’s role in the inspiration of scripture, we can trust that we know about all of the resurrection appearances that God wants us to read about from the 27 books of the New Testament :

1st John 3:21: confidence

Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God (1st John 3:21)

Can you imagine having confidence before God? John depicts this reality as an achievable goal. In fact the prospect of possessing this confidence is the reason he writes the epistle:

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. 14 This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. (1st John 5:13)

Our confidence comes not from our own righteousness, but from understanding the power of Christ to redeem us and present us as God’s children. You may have heard a song lyric that goes something like:

Surrounded by your glory
What will my heart feel?
Will I dance for you, Jesus,
Or in awe of you be still?

Will I stand in your presence
Or to my knees will I fall?
Will I sing hallelujah?
Will I be able to speak at all?

John tells us that we can have confidence before God, and i fear that the words of this song may mislead some into believe that we will not. If you fear God’s presence, you don’t know, or haven’t fully accepted the power of Christ to remove your guilt and sin. If you’ve been given new life in Jesus Christ, you can have confidence before God