for itself, as the teaching of Jesus as a whole and the various types of apostolic doctrine in their genetic connection with that teaching and their successive evolution. For the purposes of the theology of the New Testament in general it is necessary to separate the discourses and sayings of Jesus from the parts which emanate from the author, difficult as it is to do this in any satisfactory manner. This is the method adopted by Beyschlag 1 and by Bovon,2 and is that which will be followed in this volume. For reasons. which have already been stated, I shall not deem it necessary — as, indeed, I do not think it practicable to try to separate completely the objective from the subjective in the fourth Gospel. The discourses, for example, may with perfect propriety be used as secondary sources for illustrating the Johannine theology, while, primarily, they will be treated as a source of the teaching of Jesus.

1 In his New Testament Theology.

2 In his Théologie du Nouveau Testament.

CHAPTER II

THE IDEA OF GOD

THE doctrine of God which the fourth Gospel ascribes to Jesus is in no essential respect different from that which we have found in the Synoptics. It is, indeed, expressed to a considerable extent in different words and phrases; Jesus speaks more of the special relation and intimacy between God and himself; several statements concerning God's nature and action are found which are more abstract than any which we meet with in the first three Gospels; yet even in these respects the difference is one of form and emphasis rather than of substance. In general, God is represented in John's report of our Lord's teaching, just as he is by the Synoptics, as the heavenly Father who loves and blesses all, but who confers special spiritual benefits upon the fulfilment of appropriate spiritual conditions.

The clearest reference in our source to what moderns would call the metaphysical nature of God is that word of Jesus to the Samaritan woman: "God is spirit" (πveûμа ὁ θεός, iv. 24). The emphatic position of πνεῦμα and the course of thought in the context show that the passage should be thus rendered, and not, as in both our English versions: "God is a Spirit." It is not the personality so much as the nature of God which the saying is intended to emphasize. The disputes between the Samaritans and the Jews as to the place where God ought to be worshipped proceeded as if he were a local divinity; as if his presence and power were limited or could only be fully manifested in some particular place. Jesus penetrates beneath all such inadequate ideas of God in his assertion that God can be worshipped with equal advantage anywhere because he is not limited in space — because his nature is spiritual.

Hence what is required in the worshipper is a devout and sincere heart, not resort to some special locality. The purport of the saying is strictly practical. Both the Jew and the Samaritan would theoretically admit its truth. It was the basal principle of the religion of both. But it was often obscured and practically forgotten. The aim of Jesus was to direct attention to the nature of God as a spiritual Being who is everywhere present with his sincere worshippers, in order that he might emphasize the relative unimportance of the outward form and accompaniments of divine worship in comparison with its sincerity and spirituality. While no similar saying is reported in the Synoptics, the same conception of God and of his worship underlies the expression which, in some form, he doubtless employed, that he would build a "temple made without hands," that is, set up a purely spiritual worship (Mk. xiv. 58).1

Since God is spirit he reveals himself in ways appropriate to his nature. He does not manifest himself to the senses; no one has seen the Father, except in the revelation which he has made of himself in his Son (vi. 46); "he that hath seen me," said Jesus, "hath seen the Father" (xiv. 9). But it is a spiritual vision of God which is thus obtained; it is an interpretation of his nature and character which is derived from the life of Christ. Those who are incapable of this spiritual perception neither truly see God in his progressive self-disclosure in Jewish history nor in his consummate revelation in Christ. The spiritually blinded Jews of our Lord's time were incapable of hearing that voice of God which had so long been speaking in their own history or of discerning the divine form which had so long been moving amidst the

1 They were, indeed, "false witnesses" who testified that he said: "I will destroy this temple," etc., but the alleged saying doubtless had some basis of fact. The falseness might well consist in the form into which his actual saying had been cast, e.g. in the revolutionary assertion ascribed to him that he himself would destroy the temple and build another in its place. What he probably did say that he would constitute a spiritual worship— emerges quite clearly through the false interpretation which his enemies had given to his words,

prophetic ideals of the nation; and the reason for this was that the outer word of God was not for them also an inner word. Hence they continued to search their sacred writings, vainly seeking to find eternal life in them because they had lost the key to their true meaning and power (vi. 37-39). What is this but the doctrine found in the Synoptics that men must be morally akin to God in order to know him; that it is only the pure in heart who see God (Mt. v. 8)?

In the fourth Gospel we find the same ethical monotheism which we met with in the Synoptics. Both forms of the gospel tradition have the same Old Testament basis. The God of both is the God of Israel. He is "the only God" (v. 44), "the only true God" (xvii. 3), the one Being who in reality corresponds to the true idea of God. This is the basal truth of Israel's religion on which, according to Mark (xii. 29, 30), quite in agreement with the Old Testament (Deut. vi. 4, 5), Jesus based his great commandments of love to God and man.

But in John, as in the Synoptics, the most characteristic designation of God is "Father." We saw that the content of God's fatherhood, as presented in the first three Gospels, is gracious and universal love. We saw that God's fatherhood designated, in the first instance, a unique relation to his Son, and also a special fellowship between God and the disciples of Jesus, involving a disposition of complaisance towards them on God's part corresponding to their obedience and love. But we also found that God was spoken of as being the Father of all men in the sense that he loves and blesses all men, who are by nature akin to himself. The same conceptions meet us in John. In relation to Christ, God is the Father in a unique sense. The Father's love to the Son is grounded upon an original, eternal relation. The Father loved him before the foundation of the world (xvii. 24). In consequence of that relation of love which exists between them, God has given to his Son all authority and power (iii. 35). "He showeth him all things that himself doeth" (v. 20). A historic reason is also given for this love of the Father to the Son, namely, the Son's willing

ness to lay down his life for mankind (x. 17), and it is the archetype of Christ's own love to his disciples (xv. 9).·

The complaisant love of the Father to the filial and obedient, that is, to Christ's disciples, is several times emphasized. The Father specially loves those who love Christ and keep his word (xiv. 23). He regards with particular approval those who love the Son and believe in his divine mission (xvi. 27); indeed, this special loving favor of God to the believing and obedient is likened to the love which the Father has to the Son himself (xvii. 23). This representation corresponds to the usage of the Synoptists who, when speaking of the relation between God and man, apply the terms “fatherhood" and "sonship” by preference to the fellowship which exists between God and the trustful and obedient. The relation which these words, when so used, denote is a reciprocal one, and can only be perfectly realized when man fulfils by obedience and love his side of the relation. To the numerous Synoptic passages which speak of God as the Father of Christians, correspond these Johannine references to the special love and favor with which he regards those who accept the mission and work of his Son. But neither of these representations limits his fatherhood and love to one portion of mankind. All men are still ideally his sons by virtue of their native kinship to him, and he loves all in his unceasing and boundless benevolence.

The supreme proof of God's love to the whole world is seen in his sending his Son to save it (iii. 16). If love is the essence of the divine fatherhood, then must it follow that if God loves all men, he is the Father of all. We accordingly find that Jesus designates him as "the Father" without qualification (iv. 23; xv. 16; xvi. 23). It may, indeed, be claimed that in these passages God is spoken of as "the Father" with reference to his relation to Christ himself. But it appears to me quite impossible to impose this limitation upon the title. In the first of the passages just cited Jesus is speaking of God as an object of worship by his creatures and not of God's relation to himself. The Father desires sincere and rational worship, he says. In