BibleProject - Jesus' Identity in John's Gospel - God E20

Episode Date: December 10, 2018

This episode continues our series on the portrayal of God as a character in the Bible. Today Tim and Jon dive into the Gospel of John and how it portrays the relationship between God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. In part one (0:00-13:30), Tim says that reading John is similar to watching a remake of a movie, only with a different director. The Gospel of John was the Gospel that was written the latest, and John himself seems to have been the last living disciple of the original twelve. Tim says that John feels like a reflective retelling of the story of Jesus. This means the language used in the book is slightly different than in other Gospels and books in the Bible. Tim says that John specifically hones in on using the language of “oneness.” It echoes the Shema. For example, Tim cites Richard Baukum, saying that in John 5:16 (Healing the crippled man on the Sabbath): “For this reason, the Jews were persecuting Jesus because He was doing these things on the Sabbath. But He answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.” For this reason, therefore, the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God." Or again in John 10:30-31: “'I and the Father are one.' The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him.” And again in John 14:10: “Philip, do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.” Tim says that the point is that John has reflected the Jewish Shema in Jesus and God the Father’s relationship intentionally. In part two (13:30-23:30), Tim and John look at the divine name. John 8:56-59" “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” So the Jews said to Him, 'You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?' Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.' Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him.” Tim says that this is taken directly from Exodus 3:14. In part three (23:30-28:10), the guys look at John 17. Tim calls this chapter the climatic summary of the themes in the book. John 17:1-3: “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." Tim says to notice the Daniel 7 echoes: Son, authority over all flesh, etc. John 17:5: “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” Tim says that Jesus was the pre-existent word and wisdom of God and the embodiment of his divine glory. In part four (28:10-end), Tim shares John 17:11. "Holy Father, keep them in your name, the name which you have given me, that they may be one even as we are one.” Tim says that Jesus and the Father bear “the name” showing that they are one. John 17:20-26: “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that also they may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as we are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in one-ness, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me; and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” Tim says that the true nature of God the Father’s relationship with Jesus is mirrored in how people relate with each other through love. Tim shares a quote from scholar Larry Hurtado: “The Gospel of John draws on a rich, almost interchangeable association of God and God’s name to express a uniquely intimate relationship between Jesus and the Father. Indeed, for the author of the Gospel of John, for whom the biblical traditions provided the authoritative store of vocabulary, images, and themes by which to express the significance of Jesus, this divine-name tradition constituted the most profound way to portray the relationship of the “son” to the “father.” To speak of Jesus as invested with the divine name, as given the name, as manifesting God’s name in his own words and actions, as coming with and in the name of God, was to portray Jesus as bearing and exhibiting God in the most direct way possible in the conceptual categories of the biblical tradition and within the monotheistic commitment of that tradition. In the centuries following the Gospel of John, Christians began using terms and conceptual categories from Greek philosophical traditions (words like: being, essence, person). But it’s important to see that the use of the divine-name tradition in John is on it own terms an equally radical and direct claim about the relationship between Jesus and God.” -- Larry Hurtado, The Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Early Christianity. Jon comments that the Gospel of John seems to be the most Jewish of all the Gospels. Tim says he agrees. John speaks directly to all of the Old Testament Jewish “shelves” of who God is. All these shelves are difficult for many modern people to fully understand without learning how an ancient Jew would have thought and acted. Jon says there are not only other languages to deal with when reading the Bible (Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, English etc) but also foreign ways of thinking. Ancient people thought differently than modern western people. Thank you to all of our supporters! Show Resources: Larry Hurtado, The Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Early Christianity. Richard Baukum Our video on God: https://bit.ly/2Pr6qpJ Show Music: Defender Instrumental, Tents Tae the Producer, Praise Through The Valley Tae the Producer, Another Chance Tae the Producer, He’s Always There Show Produced By: Dan Gummel, Jon Collins, Matthew Halbert-Howen.

Hey, this is Cooper at Bible Project. I produce the podcast in Classroom. We've been exploring a theme called the City, and it's a pretty big theme. So we decided to do two separate Q and R episodes about it. We're currently taking questions for the second Q and R and we'd love to hear from you. Just record your question by July 21st

and send it to us at infoatbiboproject.com. Let us know your name and where you're from, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds and please transcribe your question when you email it in, try to keep your question to about 20 seconds, and please transcribe your question when you email it in. That's a huge help to our team. We're excited to hear from you. Here's the episode.

There are four gospels in the Bible. All of them tell about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. One of these gospels stands out as different than the rest. Gospel, John. And so why is it that the gospel of John feels so different? It feels like a retelling of the Jesus story with a level of reflection. And it's the same base it claims that Paul and the other Matthew Mark and Luke are making. But the way Jesus talks in John and the way the narrative's voice talks about Jesus, it feels like you're in a different movie.

Well, no, you're in a movie that's about the same person, but that has a really different director. So today on the podcast, Tim and I discuss the identity of Jesus in the Gospel of John. We're going to look at a lot of amazing passages, including this one in John 17, where Jesus prays for his disciples. And he says, holy Father, keep them in your name, the name which you have given me,

that they may be one even as we are. This is so beautiful. The thing that Jesus and his Father have had going for eternity that defines what God means to a Christian. That God is a community of love. And that oneness and unity of love, inner oneness, is mirrored by Jesus' followers when they show unity and oneness with each other by acts of loving service and sacrifice.

I'm John Collins. This is the Bible Project Podcast and today how John talks about the identity of Jesus in relationship with Yahweh, the God of the Bible. Thanks for joining us. Here we go. So we're talking about the identity of God in the Bible and been all over the Bible and then in this episode we're looking at the Gospel of John

and how John has had the most time to reflect on the identity of Jesus as it relates to God has formed vocabulary and phrases and ways to think about it, it's marinated. Yeah, for the most amount of time. That's right. And so his gospel is very unique in its tone and language because of that.

But it's not because he's saying anything different than Paul and the other apostles and their gospels, it's that he's crafted and poetic and purposeful in the way he's saying things. Yeah. And he's had decades. We can tell from the letters of John, you know, he's planted a number of churches. And there have been controversies in those churches about the identity of Jesus. Read first John.

That's what it, there was a group that split off because they didn't believe Jesus was fully human. Yeah. Yeah, when you have to explain something over and over, you eventually learn the way to explain it that hits home, the best, that lands hits home. Correct. The bass. Yeah. That lands really well. Yeah, man, that's totally, personally, that's one of the great gifts of having spent so many years just teaching and preaching on a regular basis. And still just being in a classroom, being a Bible teacher, because you're just constantly

every time that issue or that passage or that text is on the table, it's not brand new to my mind, but it is to all these other people. And so the question is they're asking me, oh, yeah, I shouldn't say it that way. I shouldn't say it this way. So John's had decades longer than any of the other apostles to hone his language about the identity of Jesus. Yeah, you can say it in a way and you look at how the person's responding. Is it lighting up in their eyes?

Are they confused? Yeah. And then you go, oh, that worked. That didn't work. Yeah. And John has the unique privilege of being the last of the living apostles. Hmm. As the Trish goes, he was, he lived somewhere into like the 90s, A.D.

He had a few decades more than any of the other apostles who it seems were all murdered or killed. But he lived and seems to have died at a ripe old age according to the gospel. According to the gospel? Within the gospel that he longed out lived Peter and all the other apostles. In the last chapter of John 21. So he also had the privilege of his mind and heart. Developing the longest. Being able to just reflect.

So the gospel of John feels like that. It feels like a retelling of the Jesus story with a level of reflection. And it's the same base it claims that Paul and the gospel, the other Matthew Mark and Luke are making, but you can tell it's, he's chewed on it. I thought about it and and that the spirit employed that reflection in the composition of the book. Which means it's more the language he uses is slightly different. It's different, it's unique. Yeah, yeah, the way Jesus talks in John and the way the narrative's voice talks about Jesus, it feels like you're in a different movie.

Well, no, you're in a movie that's about the same person, but that has a really different director. Yeah, well, okay, right. Then I'd be like, yeah, you could probably find analogy like a remake. Yeah. You know, it was done analogy like a remake. Yeah. You know, it was done by two different directors.

Yeah. Usually it doesn't go well. That's right. And movies. That's a good point. Whereas in the story of Jesus, I think it went excellent. It went excellent. John did a great job.

Yeah. With the reboot. That's right. So he's reordered parts of the story. You know, the most famous example is Jesus' prophetic protest in the temple, returns over the tables. In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, that's at that end. And it makes sense. It's the culminating event, the stunt that he pulled that... Gets everyone bummed out.

Put the final, put them in the crosshairs. Or the Jerusalem leaders. Whereas John has reordered the events, so it's at the beginning of the story in chapter two. And it's because of what Jesus says in that exchange, he talks about himself being the temple, which is something that John's introduced in chapter one. And he just wants to keep her all in the same place. He wants to keep that theme going to develop it, so he's reordered the chronology according to his theological, thematic ideas that are developing.

So anyway, the gospel of John is mind blowing. It's so amazing. So there you go. Another thing going on, a thread you can follow through the gospel of John, is the way he echoes the shema in different stories or in different things that Jesus says. Actually, this is interesting. Richard Bauchem, who's one of my favorite New Testament scholars,

he's written a lot on John, and I was just listening to a lecture that he gave on one in the Gospel of John. The word one appears 12 times. Oh, that's interesting. Six times, it refers to the oneness or the unity of the people of God. And there it's echoing some passage in the prophets about God's people being unified after the exile. But then there's a whole bunch of passages that either the word one is used to talk about Jesus and the Father, or that use the concept of oneness, or equality, unity, between. And his whole point is that these are stories and saying, so that are using the concept of the Shema. We have one Lord and God. So here's just three examples.

Just so you can kind of see the principle that we're... First ones in chapter 5, John chapter 5 where John, excuse me, where Jesus is just healed that paralyzed man by the pool, by that pool of water, and it was Sabbath day. So a number of Jewish leaders are there, they get angry because the guy's carrying his mat on the Sabbath. That's breaking the rules. Because yeah, what's doing this on the Sabbath? So this is John chapter 5 or 16. For this reason, the Jews, and here he doesn't mean all of the Jews because everybody there's Jewish. And it's just a handful of people persecuting Jesus because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. So he answered them, my father is working unto this moment.

So my father is working on the Sabbath, and I myself am working. For this reason, the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, not only because he was breaking the Sabbath, but because he was calling God his own father, making himself one with God equal with God. So when they see Jesus doing something and then saying, oh, that's my father, doing it. God's doing it. And I'm doing it with him. God's doing it and I'm doing it with them God's doing it and I'm doing it and they see what he's getting out

So that's a good example where the word one doesn't occur but the concept of Jesus claiming oneness with God that what if you see me doing something you see God doing it It's one and the same and they pick up his point immediately. Yeah It's one and the same. And they pick up his point immediately. So there's another story in John chapter 10, it's at the feast of dedication, or Hanukkah, where Jesus is in Jerusalem, and he's giving a speech, he just gave the I'm the good shepherd, speech in chapter 10. And then the culmination of that speech and these debates that he's in with Jewish leaders

is he says, I and the Father are one. Right. So just... It's a classic Jesus phrase that I've learned. So think about how Paul said it. Remember, we looked at that passage. Paul says, for us, the fathers of Jesus, there is only one God. Yeah, and one Lord.

The one God, namely the Father, who created all things. And Jesus Messiah, through whom all things are created. So he's taken the Shema and in the place of God is the Father and the Son together are the One God. This is Jesus doing exactly the same thing. I and the Father are the One God, R1. And this is closely related to a phrase. We'll look at it more, but this is the first time

we get used. In John 14, where Jesus is talking to the disciples in secret, not a room, and he's talking to Philip, and he says, Philip, don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me. The words I say, I don't speak on my own, it's the Father abiding or dwelling in me doing His work. So these are all together. When you see Jesus at work, you see the Father at work. It's such a funny phrase, I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Yes, yes. Like physically, 3D space, How can something be in something? That's right.

That's also, I can't be in something and have that thing inside me too. Oh, right. Yes, if I am inside a room, the room can't be inside of me. Right. And if a nut is inside my mouth, the... You're not inside the nut. My mouth is not inside the nut.

That's right. It's just physically impossible. Correct. The only way it's possible is if it's the same thing. Exactly. My mouth is the night. Yeah, I'm sure there's lots of puns and riddles where you could do that.

Probably. Yeah, it would be like what? What is simultaneously inside you and you are inside of it? Yeah, and you are inside of it. Air. Ruh. Ruh. Yes.

So what Bakum said, this was helpful. He said, essentially, he thinks this I am in and it is in me, is another way of trying to put language to this... Oneness thing. That is a human being, one with the Father. That when you see Jesus at work, you're seeing the Father at work, our 3D spatial imagery only gets us so far.

Because he's talking about unity there, you can get two things and merge them closely together and say that they're one. So you can do that. But then this mutual inness is another spatial metaphor that actually doesn't make literal sense, but conceptually it's talking about the closest unity you can possibly imagine. You could also say it of water when you're swimming.

I'm in the water. I'm in the water and the water is in me. Is it in you? Well, it's in you. If you're to say water, this is what I see. This is Bokum's point, that this is John reflecting on the Shema, reflecting on his years with Jesus and what he believes about Jesus

based on what Jesus said and did. Yeah. And the Gospel of John has language in that shows that years of mature reflection. And he's retelling the stories and teachings of Jesus in light of that reflection. And so you have this oneness and I am in, and it's in me, it's in him. It's cool. For me, it kind of opened up these passages that use this language as

getting to the limits of what language can do to make a claim about Jesus. So what we're going to look at now is another example where it's a phrase about the name, the divine name in the Gospel of John. And we saw this in Paul's letters, how Jesus will take Old Testament passages that have the divine name Yahweh. Oh. And which got rendered in Degree as Lord. And then he put Jesus into the slot, the Lord slot.

So the phrase Jesus is Lord is a very Jewish way of saying Jesus is Yahweh. So John, again, same idea, but he's marinated. The idea has marinated. He has a marinated. Well, maybe the idea is in him and he's in the idea. So this thing about the divine name reverberates all throughout the gospel. Here's one example. It's in John chapter 8. Jesus is in a dispute with a number of Jewish leaders and Bible teachers. And they're making accusations actually trying to undermine his credibility, talking about how he's of unknown origin or that he's possessed by evil spirits. So what he says actually is, listen, I'm actually the fulfillment of our scriptures and all of our hopes. And he has this famous line where he says, listen, Abraham, your father Abraham,

rejoice to see my day, meaning the promise that God gave to Abraham that through your seed, blessing would go to all the nations. Here it is. I'm the seed. I'm the seed. I'm the seed. And Abraham would be so stoked to see me right now, but you guys, you say you're the seed of Abraham, but man, you're not acting like it. So then, his, what do you say, his debate opponents?

The Jews say to him, what's up? What do you, oh well, it says says Abraham rejoiced to see my day, and he saw it. He saw and was glad. And was glad. You said he would be glad. Oh, that's true. That's a good point.

Yeah, this is a common motif in second temple Jewish literature because in the narrative arc of the Hebrew Bible, Isaac Abraham giving birth to the one and only Isaac, even though he had Ishmael before, becomes a first step of the realizing of the seed to bless all nations. And so he saw it. And because as a reader, you can see through the whole narrative, Isaac is the first arrival, down payment, right, of the thing leading all the way up to the line of David and so on. To read it as a unified story means the joy that Abraham had over Isaac is the joy

over the arrival of the Messianic seed of David. Got it. It shows that Jesus read his Bible as one unified story. So Abraham rejoiced and the Jews said to him, wait, you're not even like 50 years old and you're saying you've seen Abraham. But he didn't say he saw Abraham. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day.

But the way you described it was, well, he saw the down payment. That's a great idea. Oh, got it. I'm saying that's the way of reflecting why Jesus says something like that. Okay. But then they take it as like. They take it to mean like, wait, you've seen Abraham? What are you talking about?

Yeah. This is a big motif in the Gospel of John. That's called the motif of misunderstanding. Jesus says something. It's a weird misunderstanding. Wait, you've seen Abraham? It's like, of course not, guys. What are you talking about?

Totally. But it's kind of like, you've maybe had moments where you say something, somebody responds, and it's exactly the response you were hoping for. Say the next thing you say. Right. And so the Gospel of John is full of these moments where people misunderstand Jesus. For the perfect set up.

But it perfectly sets him up to say that's the thing that's supposed to be said. Got it. So Jesus says, listen, I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I am. And then they picked up stones to throw at him. So that's pretty familiar. I think most people, you don't even need to know Greek or Hebrew to pick up on this.

Yeah, this was the go-to verse story to defend the deity of Jesus. Oh, God. For me. Oh, God. Yeah. Even as like a clearist. A Gentile.

A Gentile. A Gentile. English-speaking. Yeah. 2000 years later, this made sense to you. Well, yeah, because how it was explained was, he's using the divine name I am. Yeah.

And he's saying he was around before Abraham. Yeah. Who was this guy? Yeah. He's not just a human, and he's not just was around before Abraham. Who is this guy? He's not just a human, and he's not just a demigod. He is Yahweh himself, I am. There it is. There it is. This is a great example. I think the point here is that it fits into a wider pattern

of asserting Jesus' oneness with the God of Israel. But yeah, your instinct was right. You know who we'd have to have the conversations with the most. Do you have a witnesses? Oh, sure. People have other kind of brand. Because they're really familiar. You would never talk to an atheist and pull out this verse.

Yeah, they don't care. Because they don't care. They don't care. But people who care about the Bible. I must remember being on a bus. That's right. A number of times, different scenarios. And it's like, Bible's cracked open. And we're arguing about what this verse means.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, well, you know, I mean, you can see why. This language of father and Son and of Firstborn has in the history of the Church, multiple times, caused some interpreters to see that as claiming that Jesus is a created being. Born, created. And is the preeminent human, but that he's a created being. and is the preeminent human, but that he's a created being. And yeah, Jehovah's Witnesses, one example of that. And so that makes sense of that particular way of phrasing it, the Sun, image, but what that doesn't account for

is all these other patterns where Jesus is fully identified with Yahweh or with the Father that would make you go back and say, oh, perhaps that born language is, or first born, is metaphor about Jesus' status, not that he came into existence. So in Greek, the way he says this, is it sound as unnatural as it is rendered here in English? Yeah, that's kind of the point.

I say to you before Abraham was born. Before Abraham was born, and correct English would be I was. I was, yeah. And that, even that sounds a little awkward. And even that sounds awkward. I was. You would say something like, I've been around before Abraham. That's right. Before Abraham was born, I was around.

Yeah. I existed. I existed. Yeah. And in English it would be, before Abraham was born, I exist present tense. And so the grab of that present tense is that for Jesus to claim to be one with the father means, and to be with God, and God in the beginning means that his relationship to time is fundamentally different than a creature. I think that's what the language would mean here.

He's present to every moment. Something like that. So, Yahweh, I am the one who is. In Greek is a go in me. Mm-hmm. I am the one who is. In the Greek Transsepto agent translation, the Hebrew phrase, I will be who or what I will be. That's the Hebrew phrase.

I will be. It's a future. Future tense. They go on me. And then in the Septuagint, it got translated as present tense. I am. Hebrew, it's future tense. Hebrew, it's future and Greek, it's present.

I am. I am. The one who is. That's right. And if you always will be the one who will be. Then tense doesn't matter. Then you are also, you are the one who is. And you were the one who was. And you were the one who was. That's right. Yeah, you can say it in any three. You can say it in present or future. And you are being the one you are being. So this is great because it's not just the word, he doesn't ever say, use the word name, but he is picking up on the very meaning of the divine name, namely the one who is.

And he asserts that about himself. Because the name of God being a divine attribute that was personified as well. Yeah, remember that phrase that we looked at, the name is... I will put my name in him. I will put my name in the temple. Yeah. And then in the angel too.

And then in the angel, the angel that goes with you, I will put my name in him. Yeah. Yeah. And so here's Jesus saying that he is the divine name as a human, then there are going to be other passages when you finally get to John chapter 17.

I'm setting the ground here. When you get to John 17, this name... Our minds will explode. The name is gonna go off the charts. John 17, yeah. Yeah. So dense. You want to do it right now? Let's do it right now.

Sure, let's do it. Let's go down to the, this is the climactic summary. Then we'll come back to John in the spirit. Okay. All right, so all these things we've talked about, the Word, the Wisdom, the glory, the name, they all come crashing into each other in Jesus' prayer, this climactic prayer. And then he goes on from here and gets arrested. So he opens up, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, even as you gave him authority over all flesh,

a human given authority over all flesh. Yeah, the Son of Man. That's Daniel 7, Son of Man, stuff. The glorification of the persecuted Son of Man who got trampled by the beast. So that's why he's saying glorify, because we've already established that he is the glory of God. Yeah, that's right.

Yes, but there isn't an hour of glory that's yet to come. And that's the Son of Man being seated at the right hand given a thought of the overall. Yes, that's right. So the whole story of Jesus is viewed now as kind of one thing. The human one rejected and trampled by the beast, but that trampling is actually the means by which he's exalted to the glorious share in God's reign overall, things. So he's picking up on the Daniel 7 and the suffering in glory, things that are there at work in Daniel and in Isaiah.

So that to everyone that you have given him, he's talking about himself and third person. So Father, everyone you have given him, the Son, may have eternal life. This is eternal life that they may know you, the one, the only true God. And Jesus, Messiah whom you've sent. Wait, so is eternal life about knowing God,

or is it about knowing Jesus? And of course, the point is, yes. And what does that mean that eternal life is knowing something? Oh, yeah, dude. Right, so this is a really important passage to help people who see the phrase eternal life referring only to the thing that happens after you die. That's

explicitly not what it means. Eternal life is when you move from a state of being a zombie among the living dead and you move to a place of being reconnected in covenant relationship to your creator, which is the father and the son. And so yeah, knowing, relational, covenantal knowing, your eternal life begins now, because thing is very powerful. He goes on, now, father, glorify me together with yourself, with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. Is this the kind of like the emptying kind of thing that what's the

Paul? Oh the Paul? The fancy word yeah Paul talks about it. Oh yeah. It's a Greek word conosis. Conosis. Emptying. Is this a sense of like okay Jesus was with God and was God and was full of glory, but somehow by taking on flesh, he emptied himself. It seems like what he's saying is like, he has this new reality right now where he doesn't experience a glory he had experienced before. Yes, yeah, in a sense, but remember in chapter one, John said, the word became flesh and we saw his glory. But throughout the gospel of John,

the whole narrative tension is, some people see it. Some people see Jesus as the glory of God become human, other people don't. But there's coming a moment, the hour has come when Jesus will be glorified with the glory that he had before the world began. So there is a sense in which Jesus' life before his crucifixion and resurrection was a hidden glory, or a glory that wasn't fully revealed.

And here in the Hebrew Bible, what exists in the beginning with God? Well, it's the word and wisdom. And so that's in the beginning with God. Well, it's the word and wisdom. And so that's in the glory. Cool. 1 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 個 Go down to verse 11, John 17, 11. He begins to pray for the disciples and he says, holy Father, keep them in your name, the name which you have given me. So that they may be one as we are one. What is that? I am the father of the father of me and you are in us. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. But now it's the name, the name. Yeah. And this is actually first time this is really registered for me, thinking of the name being the divine attribute. The one and only name. Yes. And so to keep them in your name, it's basically another way to say, keep them in you.

Yeah. But who is you? What's your name? Oh, it's me. It's me, that's right. Yes, yeah, that's it. Yeah. That's it. So that they may be one as we are one.

Now, already, that's clearly working on the level of analogy. This is not saying that Jesus followers. Become God, become the pre-annabeless. Are in each other. That's actually, it's interesting. Jesus' disciples are never in another. They are in the Father and they are in Jesus. But they're never in the Father and in each other.

But the disciples are never in each other. The way that the disciples show their oneness with each other is love. This is how the world will know. Your followers of the one who is in the Father and the Father is in me. How do you know one? A love each other. So, the act of love is so beautiful.

We're getting to it, dude. We're getting to the sweet core of the thing that John wants to share with us is that the thing that Jesus and his Father have had going for eternity that defines what God means to a Christian, that God is a community of love, and that oneness and unity of love, inner oneness, is mirrored by Jesus' followers when they show unity and oneness with each other by acts of loving service and sacrifice. So there's something about when I, right, when I disadvantage myself to benefit you

as an act of selfless, sacrificial love. That we are uniting in some way. That's creating creates a bond between humans. And when family members do it for another, that's powerful. Yeah. When friends do it for another, one another, that's powerful, but it's almost more powerful, because there's less of a natural bond. And when strangers do it for each other, or when people, or enemies, or enemies do it

for each other, that's a powerful symbolic statement about you and me as fellow humans. And the oneness of love between the father and the son is most closely mirrored or illustrated when two humans show love to each other. That's where this whole thing's going. There you go. Does anyone ever done like a sociological, philosophical study on what culture would be like, what societies would be like if everyone acted selflessly? Surely there's some novel

that's been written or movie that's been made, I don't know. Yes, some fiction, like, but beyond fiction. Clearly fiction. Well, beyond fiction, I mean, know. Yeah, some fiction, like, but beyond fiction. Clearly fiction. Well, beyond fiction, I mean, kind of like, I think what people typically say is, hey, doesn't work because someone is going to be a bad apple and that bad apple, if everyone's acting selflessly is going to eventually get up a hand on everything. And the wolf and sheep's clothing. And so you can't actually act that way. It doesn't actually work.

But I'm wondering if anyone's ever really thought through that, like, is that the case? Or if most people were acting selflessly, and there were these sheep, or wolf and sheep's clothing, and they came up sporadically. Would they eventually be converted to the way of love? And this is the power paradox.

Remember that book we're talking about? Yes. Which is like, how do you gain power? How do you really gain and keep power? And his whole point was you don't do it through these Machavillion ways. And that, I guess he's the one that's written about it. Anyway, sorry, that was total aside. It's all right.

Let's go down to verse 20. It gets better. This is the climax right here. It's the prayer and it's where all the stuff your head starts spinning, it's not already. Then Jesus moves on from praying from the disciples like the he hung out with to say, I'm not asking in prayer on behalf of just these, the disciples I know, but also for those who will

believe in me through their word, the future generations of the Jesus movement. I ask that they may all be one, even as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may know, or may believe that you sent me. So you see now, me and you and you and me is another way of saying one, that they may believe, the glory that you have given me, I've given to them, that they may be one, just as we are one. I in them and you in me, that they may be perfected in one-ness or unity, I think is how it gets translated.

There's my translation, but I think a unity is how it usually gets translated. So that the world may know that you sent me and that they may know that you loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I desire that they also, the ones that you've given me, may be with me where I am, so that they may see my glory which you have given me. For you loved me before the foundation of the world. Mmm.

Oh, righteous father, the world hasn't known you, but I've known you. And these now know that you sent me, I have made your name known to them, and I will make it known so that the love with which you loved me may be in them, and I in them. Oh, come. The love which you have loved me may be in them and I in them. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, gosh, there's almost, I've tried to draw different pictures throughout the years to help me. But the claim is that Jesus and the Father, and as we're going to see through the Spirit, are a community of eternal love. What was God doing before creation? Is having a snack, I don't know.

Loving each other. You loved me before the foundation of the world, Jesus says. Like when Jesus wants to talk about the essence of God's eternal nature and existence, it was... I get that in the abstract, but I mean, if there isn't anything that exists in what ways are they loving each other, or serving each other. Well, yeah, okay. Who knows? How can we even really know what we're talking about here? But this is the claim being made is the only way a human can show love is if there's another human. Love is a relational, others centered experience.

And the claim of the story of Jesus is that at the center of the universe is a beautiful mind who is a community of love, a one and more than one community of love. Because what does it mean to say love except that there must be another to love? So God's a community of lovers and that you and I, that the universe exists as the outflow or the overflow of God's love. That the universe is a testament to the fact that God wanted to share life and love with more than just the community of God's own self. We're being invited into a whole new dimension in this prayer.

And so he made multi organisms, what are we, what are we, multi anyways? Yeah. So he made us. Yeah. Okay, so let me draw this at least. Multi cellular organisms. That's too close.

Multi-cellular organisms. Yeah, beings that are one, but also more than one. Right? Is that the history of the cell? Yeah, totally. Replicating itself. Yeah, we are a bunch of different cells and working together. On one level to make one organism. Humans are one thing. Yeah. One species. Many, One organism. The humans are one thing. Yeah. One species. Many, many things.

And also many things. Yeah. We're weird. Yes. Yeah, these are those moments where I don't know what other phrase. I remember when I first saw the Wizard of Oz as a child. I was so, so like weirded out. It was such a strange story.

Yeah. I mean, I probably saw it when I was like eight or something. I had no categories for it. And it was also from older era films. Yeah. And so it was this weird other world. I don't know the motifs and categories being, it was just completely other to me.

And so now I feel like every day I wake up and I'm convinced and experience reality as more strange than what I remember that stress. So I just say it's like reality is stranger than us. Totally. We've been lulled into this. We get used to it. We're just used to it.

What are we doing here? We're just like, oh yeah, this is normal. Flying space rock. On the side. Made up of. I went to Amsy, Oregon, Museum of Science and Industry, here in Portland, and they were having, oh, really cool exibement, Pompeii.

It was really, really neat. But then we went to the Earth Science Exploration Center or whatever, and they had this whole thing on gas and the atmosphere. And so my sons had moved on to the next thing but I was sitting there staring at this exhibit about the atmosphere and about how the only thing keeping all of our water and oxygen from being sucked out into space is a layer of invisible gas that formed by heat coming off of the forming H2O molecules and the water and that eventually that thing formed from all the like the single cell organisms are floating in the ocean. That's right. Yes. Yes. yes, that's right. They're, whatever. Knitting? Yeah, admissions.

Yeah. Into the atmosphere of form that ozone layer such as the motor. But that's it. And then I'm just like, it was just one of those moments. Like we're on the flying space rock. Space. Space rock.

We're on the flying space rock. The sun is a powerful laser. Sun's a powerful laser. And the only thing sustaining all of us, well there's many things, but one of the main things is this invisible gas layer that could just not be there and then we would not be here. What is happening? So the Christian story comes along and is telling a version of the flying space rock story and saying there's a person at the center of this whole thing and the the the moments you know that you're in touch with the meaning of the universe

is when you experience love from another and when I give out love to another and that that itself is just a shadow of the reality of the heart and character of the being who generated this whole thing. That's the claim being made by this story. And is this why also then John and his epistle can say God is love? He'll just say God is love. Which is important because for John, God isn't first and foremost creator and ruler. He is those things as a being of love. If an eternal community of other centeredness

is the very definition of the Christian God, then what it means for that being to create will be very different than what it means for a solitary divine being to create. And the way the divine community of love rules the world will be very different than how the solitary lone deity rule would rule the world will be very different than how, you know, the solitary loan deity rule rules the world. And talking about this eternal community of love that is one is Trinitarian theology. Correct. Is the phrase? That's it, yeah. People use. That's right. So that's

the phrase that later Christian thinkers and leaders gave to this thing that's happening all through the New Testament that is itself a way of talking about Jesus built on language that comes right from the Jewish scriptures themselves. Right. And we'll make a five minute video that explains all that. Here's a long quote from Larry Hurtado, one of my favorite New Testament nerds. He wraps this up. He says,

The Gospel of John draws on a rich, almost interchangeable association between God and God's name. It expresses a uniquely intimate relationship between Jesus and the Father. Indeed, for the author of the Gospel of John, for whom the biblical traditions, he means the Hebrew scriptures, they provided the authoritative store of vocabulary and images and themes by which to express the significance of Jesus. For him, this divine name tradition constituted the most profound way to talk about the relationship of the Son and the Father.

To say, you have the one and only name, and that name is given to me as my name. So to speak of Jesus as invested with a divine name, or as given the name, or manifesting God's name and His words and actions, coming with the name, or coming in the name of God, these are all phrases from John. This is to portray Jesus as bearing and exhibiting God in the most direct way possible, in the conceptual categories of the biblical tradition, and within the monotheistic commitment of that tradition. Now, there's what he's saying is this is the most Jewish way possible to unify Jesus and the God of Israel as one. In the centuries to follow,

Christians started using terms and conceptual categories from, say, Greek philosophical traditions. And this is where you start getting words like, the Father and the Son are of one being or of one essence, or two many distinct persons but one essence. But it's important to see that the use of the divine name tradition in John is on its own terms equally radical and a direct claim about the relationship between Jesus and God. So there's a Greek way to talk about it.

The church is mostly, and the church has mostly kind of used that. Blombed onto that. Because the way we think really comes more directly from grief thought and from Jewish thought. Yeah, that's right. So the reason it's important is what it means is that the trinity and father, son, is spirit, persons who are of one essence. Those are later language and categories,

but they're describing the same exact reality that the New Testament is trying to get out from beginning to end, but the New Testament is doing it with categories and language from the Hebrew scriptures. Yeah. And but they're making the same radical claim about Jesus and and many of the disputes about is the Trinity of a later idea or as it imposed on the Bible. And that's just a fundamental category mistake. Or it's usually just that we don't know

how the Hebrew Bible works or talks. Well, if all you've ever talked about in terms of God's complex unity is Greek paradigms. And Greek vocabulary. And then you say, hey, cool, show me where that's in the Bible. And then you go to the Bible and it's not using Greek paradigms. It's not using Greek vocabulary.

And it's not using the vocabulary you've used to define the whole thing. Then you're going to be like, oh, it seems like you just made this up. Yeah. That's right. But if you go looking for the Jewish ways to talk about this, and the Jewish vocabulary, that's all over. Yeah. We haven't carried on the tradition of using that vocabulary.

That's right. Even though that is the biblical language. I know that is biblical language. That's so interesting. I mean, it's kind of like, you know, we can appreciate foreign language. Like, I don't know Greek. I don't know French. So if I'm in a room with someone speaking it, I don't know it.

You get to translate it in English. But in the same way, there's as foreign languages, there's just foreign ways of thinking. That's right. There's foreign categories of thought. Yeah. Language is inseparable from culture and worldview. Yeah. And so the way that a Greek person, like a first century Greek person thought, was different than the way a first century Jewish person thought. And a first century Jewish person talking in Greek. Yeah, that's right. It's still thinking. Yeah, yeah. Like a Jewish person, just using Greek language. Yeah, that's what we call the New Testament. And that's what we call New Testament. Yeah. And I never really thought of it that way.

Yeah, yeah. And I always think of it as it's Greek, you know? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Not intentionally. And they are using, I mean, the fact that they're using the Greek language means that there's already a step of cultural translation happening.

Right. But the author who does that the most is Paul. And it's because he had a way more diverse education. It seems than any of the other apostles. So he kind of was bilingual. So he can talk about. He can buy thought. That's right. He can speak in Hebrew Bible style Greek. Yeah. And think that way. And he can think in Greek philosophy Greek. Greek. And his letters often show him in both modes sometimes simultaneously. Whereas for John, it's way more just the fabric of the themes and the language is right from the Jewish scriptures. Yeah. Yeah, this is the way it's being

patient with the Bible, or rather the Bible has been patient with us. And has allowed us to not hear what it's saying. For me, what's one of the things? I hope that for the video it's allowing or helping people hear the claims of the New Testament about Jesus but on their own terms. And to do that we have to create a map, a conceptual map of how the you have to create, we've been called them shelves, you have to create all these

shelves. That's right. That we don't have that are Jewish shelves. Yeah. So that then when we get to these claims, you go, oh, that goes on that. That's right. That conceptual shelf. Yeah. And that's so much. That's we've never had to do that so much in any Theme in any theme video it's create so many shelves. That's right and not only are we creating shelves We're creating very confusing shelves And yeah, specifically like one really confusing thing is this whole difference between Son of Man and Son of God. Yeah Super yeah counterintuitive.uitive. You actually have to know

the particular narratives underneath each of us terms. And while doing that, you have to rip the concept free of the mental model we have that you are then let it reshape. And that's in and of itself is a massive endeavor and There was another one we were talking about that was like. Oh, yeah, that's a big misunderstanding That I feel like we're gonna have to be careful with and these are all just to create the shelves Yeah, that's right. So then we can then go cool now How does the Bible talk about the identity of God as it relates to Jesus? Yeah, yeah, and then we out even so timeless spirit. So much.

Right. Well, we didn't Paul. We didn't Paul. And that's what we can do next in John. We've got some work cut out for us. We do. Yeah. This is why I've been thinking this is not a 5 minute video.

Totally. I'm down. We're finding a new way to a different kind of video than we've made up to this point. Yeah. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Bible Project Podcast. We have just two more episodes left in the God series. It's been our longest series to date. We're grateful for you to hang in there with us. After this series,

we are going to begin a shorter discussion on a new theme, the theme of the Son of Man. Today's episode was edited and produced by Dan Gummel, music by Tay the producer, and theme music by the band Tents. If you'd like to learn more about our organization, you can go to thebibletproject.com. We have videos on themes through the Bible and videos on the literary structure of every book of the Bible. We have videos on how to read the Bible.

We have some word study videos to get you familiar with Greek and Hebrew words. All of this is for free. There's study notes. There's other resources. Check it out. We're a nonprofit animation studio in Portland, Oregon. We believe the Bible is a unified story that leads to Jesus and has wisdom for the modern world. Thanks for being a part of this with us. My name is Amber and I am from Miami, Florida.

I use the Bible project so often in my everyday life just to kind of deepen my revelation of the Bible. What I love about the Bible project so much is that it gets all these different people together to use their spiritual talents, to extend the message of the Bible to everyone else in the world that may not understand it the way that it already is presented. We believe the Bible project is a unified story

that leads to Jesus. We are a crowd-funded project by people like me. Find free videos, podcasts, study notes, and more at thebiboproject.com. you