Notes on Galatians 5:1-12

More study notes by me for the sermon prep:

In verse 1, Paul is drawing on the idea that the Law with its Jewish particulars was one of the things that enslaved the Jews in a sense (along with sin and death), separating them from other peoples until the time of Christ (3:23-25), and cursing them for violation of the covenant with God.  Christ, then, provided rescue from this curse and deliverance from sin and the division between Jew and Gentile.  Jesus gave freedom – a new exodus, deliverance, or rescue of Israel from its exile/curse of the Law, something promised in the Old Testament to bring with it the ingathering of the nations (i.e., the Gentiles) into God’s one family.  This freedom from sin, death, Jewish-Gentile division, and the Law’s curse on Israel, then, belongs to those who truly belong to God’s one promised family – as chapter 4 has it, they are the children of God’s promise to Abraham – the Sarah people, not the Hagar people still under bondage to sin, death, division, and curse. 

In other words, Jesus came to fulfill God’s promise to Abraham of a single family of all nations on earth by bringing God’s salvation to the ends of the earth beginning with his exhaustion of Israel’s curse which it had acquired for covenant disobedience.  This sets up verses 2-4, as this is precisely what the agitators are, in effect, denying by forcing Gentiles to become circumcised – God’s family, in their thinking, was supposed to be restricted to one nation, the Jews alone.  They in effect deny the work of Christ in bringing about God’s promises.  So to go back to the old use of the Law in dividing Jew from Gentile (as opposed to Jesus’ and Paul’s use) is to reject what Christ has already done, to deny his work on the cross in bringing redemption and reconciliation between the nations. 

Paul’s point in verse 3, then, is that since being Jewish means, for the agitators, following all the Law’s Jewish particulars, Gentiles who obey the agitators (to become Jewish in order to become part of God’s people) are not done there – Gentiles being Jewish will have to go all the way and add to circumcision food laws, and so forth.  This is not about circumcision itself per se but the motives and theology behind why these Gentiles were becoming circumcised (Paul circumcised Timothy and would not say these things in 2-4 about Timothy).  Unfortunately, for centuries Gentile Christians became a version of these agitators themselves when they used this verse to deny that Jews could be Christians unless they became Gentiles first, thus again denying the work of Christ.  Even today, Christians unfortunately use terms like “Jew” or “Jewish” as contraries of “Christian”, further pushing the un-Pauline view that one cannot remain a Jew and be a true Christian.

In 5 and 6, Paul turns to the true marks of God’s family.  What sets them apart are not whether they are Jewish or not but whether they have faith, which is itself expressed outwardly in love, not necessarily in works of the Law (circumcision, etc.) – a love which by its very nature welcomes both Jews and Gentiles.  On the basis of this life led in faith, led by the Holy Spirit (associated with freedom from sin, etc. – see, e.g., II Cor 3:17) who is the sign that the new time of faith and Israel’s rescue has come, believers may now hope for the completion of God’s work in us, fully bringing his kingdom and establishing his new people in his new creation, even among Gentiles. 

In verses 7-9, Paul turns from Christ’s work to that of the agitators.  These agitators are basically trying to counteract Christ’s work in bringing together a family of both Jews and Gentiles, free from enslavement.  And what grieves Paul most is that it seems to be working at least somewhat!  False teaching, if not checked, can easily poison the church and cause people to stumble when they are easily swayed not to attend to the truth.  It takes only a few bad influences to start affecting the life of the whole church if they are allowed to continue.  In verse 10, Paul is, however, confident in the Galatians’ case that they will ultimately side with him over the agitators, no matter what is going wrong at the moment, since it is ultimately the agitators themselves who are to blame for this mess. 

The false teaching, hinted at in verse 11, was that Paul had kept back part of the gospel and of the full Christian life from the Galatians – the part about having to become a Jew in order to be a Christian.  The position was that Paul agreed with their version of the gospel but had been too stingy and had not given the Galatians the whole thing.  Summing up his self-defense so far, Paul makes it clear that he does not agree with the agitators’ version of the gospel and he certainly has not left out what they wanted to put in since it was never a part of the gospel in the first place.  If he had agreed with them that Gentiles had to become Jews, he would not be persecuted by his fellow Jews (who thought he was betraying God and Moses with his message).

Paul concludes then in this section that cutting off part of your body (like in circumcision) does not matter since both Jew and Gentile are now accepted equally into a single family – why not just go all the way and be castrated rather than stop at circumcision?  According to Paul, there is no significant religious difference.  The irony here, of course, is that to be castrated would, by the stipulations of the Law, bar one from the religious assembly of Israel.  Only the time of Israel’s rescue and the ingathering of the Gentiles, as foretold by Isaiah, would break down that barrier and allow eunuchs in on equal footing with others – precisely the work of Christ that these agitators who think they are in a privileged religious position are now denying.  Paul is therefore being even cleverer here than it seems on first glance!

Some More In-Depth Notes on Galatians 3:1-18

Basically, this is a revised, more in-depth version of parts of this previous post, this time focusing in on the first 18 verses of Galatians 3 and with some other applications:

To understand what’s going on in this passage (and much of the book), we have to understand the Old Testament background – the basic narrative of the people of God – that Paul, in line with other Jewish writers of the time, would have been presupposing as he writes.  As the narrative goes, Adam and Eve messed up and sin entered the world.  God then chooses Abraham to begin his rescue operation – to defeat sin and death and create a new humanity, a loving family, out of all the nations on earth.  The means will be through Abraham’s descendants – they will be the beginning of that family, through which others will also join into it, and sin will be taken care of.  Once Abraham’s descendants are many, God, in order to proceed with the rescue operation, redeems them and gives them a covenant with instructions as to how to live within that covenant (the law) so as to bring others into the family.  But these descendants, Israel, fail in their vocation and suffer the consequences of violation of the covenant – the curse of the law, which is exile and suffering.  The prophets foretell that return from exile, the lifting of the curse, is coming and that this will usher in the completion of God’s rescue operation (the age to come/kingdom of God/restoration of all things as it gets variously called) – Israel’s vocation will be completed, the Spirit poured out on God’s people, sin and death defeated, and all nations will join together in one family along with Israel.  Yet, when they return to the land geographically, they are forced to acknowledge that the prophecies have not been completely fulfilled – they are still in spiritual exile, not fully restored, and God’s rescue operation has not been completed.  Here the Old Testament ends.  Now enter Jesus, who Paul and other early Christians saw as the one who completed Israel’s vocation – as the true king and earthly representative of his people (the True Israel), he took their plight and their mission upon himself, suffering and completing their curse and exile in his own person and thus bringing about the promised restoration, thus paving the way for the Spirit and opening the way for all nations to come into the family as prophesied. 

The point of Galatians 3:1-14, then, is all about what time it is – it is not the time before the coming of the restoration/kingdom of God, for Christ has changed everything and it is now the prophesied time of the ingathering of the nations into God’s people.  The Spirit of God is a gift of the kingdom and associated with Christ’s time, made available by his crucifixion, and not the previous time.  If it is the eschatological gift of the age to come, then it is not associated with being a Jew (“works of the law”), which would instead associate it with the previous epoch.  The promise to Abraham was blessing for all nations as those nations, not as Jews – a promise of a single family made of Jews and all other nations.  Since this promise has been and has begun to be fulfilled by Jesus in his crucifixion, being a Jew and doing the works of the law cannot be tied necessarily to the reception of the Spirit.  Instead, it is trust and faithfulness to God that marks one out as a member of God’s people, not one’s ethnicity since the family is to be from every ethnicity on earth. 

Paul contrasts in this passage those who are “out of faith” (ek pisteos) and those who are “out of works of the law” (ex ergon nomou).  For Paul, who are the ones who are “out of works of the law”? Israel, of course – they are the ones to whom God gave the works of the law and who would be living with their identity marked out by the law.  However, by putting its faith in Christ, ethnic Israel is able to become part of those who are “out of faith” – whose identity is determined by faith, not by ethnicity.  This begins to make sense of verses 10-14, then, since the idea here is not an individualistic focus but one on Israel as an ethnic group.  In 3:10, we find that Israel is under a curse – the curse of the law, the exile which the Old Testament and Second Temple Jewish writings all declare to have ended geographically but not spiritually or in regards to the full restoration of God’s blessings and the ingathering of the Gentiles which was to come from this.  Israel has not been restored or come out from God’s wrath for its failure to abide by its covenant as enshrined in the law.  The quote from Deuteronomy is, in its original context, part of a broader set of passages about Israel’s disobedience and the predicted result of exile.  In other words, 3:10 gives us the following reasoning: if Israel fails to abide by the law, it is cursed/under exile; Israel has in fact failed in that regard (as Leviticus and Deuteronomy predict and Joshua-II Kings (and the prophets) repeat over and over); hence, as the Old Testament affirms, Israel has been cursed/under exile. 

In 3:11, Paul quotes from Habakkuk.  In its original context, this quote comes again in the context of exile.  Habakkuk begins with lamenting over the deplorable state of God’s people, to which God replies that Babylon will come and basically destroy them (Babylon took them into exile).  Habakkuk then laments over this and God replies that Babylon will itself receive judgment, thus presenting a glimmer of hope.  In the midst of this, we find the quote noting that the identity of the true Israelite, the one who is right with God, by contrast with the Babylonians, will be one founded on faith.  In other words, for Paul, coming out from the curse will involve a new era of faith-based identity. 

The Law belongs to the old era, however, as Paul emphasizes in 3:12.  In 3:13-14 Paul says that that era is past – the new era has come through Christ.  Christ brought a new exodus (note the Exodus word “redemption” here) – a return or restoration from the curse of the law/Israel’s exile suffered by Israel (“us” here refers to Paul and his fellow Jewish Christians).  The blessing to the nations, which was to flow from Abraham’s descendants, had been blocked by their own sin, which brought the curse.  But now that Christ has exhausted the curse in his own self, taking Israel’s exile/curse onto himself on their behalf, that has opened the way now for the blessing to come to the Gentiles as well.  In other words, the restoration of Israel, the time of faith-based identity, and hence the gathering in of the Gentiles into a single people of God (and the pouring out of the Spirit) has come, and this has been fulfilled through Christ’s sacrificial death on behalf of Israel. 

3:15-18 is basically about how there was meant to be a single people made of both Jews and Gentiles, not just Jews, and that one should not misread the purpose of the law as if it was meant forever to exclude Gentiles and thus cancel the promise.  The earlier promise of a single people out of both takes precedence and is fulfilled in Christ, who takes on the role of the single people (Abraham’s seed) as their representative and king and hence all who are in him are part of that seed, whether Jew or Gentile (3:29 – which says that we are Abraham’s seed).  That is, God promised Abraham a single family, the promised seed, which begins with Israel.  Jesus takes on Israel’s destiny as the true Israel/seed, so that those who have him as their representative also take on that identity as part of the people of God.  This shows that the ethnic-specific aspects of the law were never meant for God’s whole people forever.

In other words, Christ’s roles as promised seed and as curse breaker are really the same – he is being the true Israel, taking on both Israel’s punishment and its mission in himself and fulfilling both so that all nations could have a place in him – that is, in his family with himself as head and representative so that what is true of him may be true of us.  We are to follow his example, bringing people from all nations into God’s family and not excluding or ignoring based on irrelevant factors like culture, preferred worship style, etc.  It is Christ’s faithfulness, formed now in us as our own faithfulness to God, that provides us with our identity as part of God’s people, not any of those other things.  And as Christ took on responsibility for his people even when he did not himself sin, so we too can follow his example and take responsibility for the sins of our own groups, whether racial, ethnic, religious, or any other kind of group we may belong to.  This may involve apologizing or trying to make repairs for something we were not involved in (e.g., the legacy of slavery and racism, crusades, past misdeeds of the US, etc.), but it is what Jesus himself modeled for us with his own ethnic and religious group. 

Some Notes on Galatians 3

I wrote these up for the pastor doing sermon prep at my church and then discussed some of this during the weekly sermon-prep study group thing that happens at our church.  Obviously, not all of this is uncontroversial (what in Galatians interpretation isn't?!), but it's the best sense I could make of the text after a long time spent wrestling through it.  Perceptive readers will probably note a lot of influence from N.T. Wright and other narrative-oriented scholars here, though the interpretation at the end of the day is still my own. 

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The general idea of Galatians 3, in my opinion, is this: What time is it?  Prior to Christ, the Law had an old function but this was only to prepare for Christ.  Now that Christ has come, the old function is completed and in the past.  The Galatians, however, are treating the old function as still in play, as if Christ had not come.  This is hence tantamount to a denial that Christ has come and brought the kingdom, fulfilling God’s promises to bring blessing through his people to all nations – a denial of the gospel.  The old function was necessary and needed prior to Christ but that time is past!

In other words, this does not say that the Law is bad or that its rules were overburdensome or bad or that the Law did not reveal God’s will or that there is no function left to the Law in governing Christian conduct or that Christians should not have rules to follow – no first century Jew, least of all Paul, would agree with any of that (Paul over and over endorses many rules and even says that both Christ and believers do fulfill the Law, which in its current function he calls the “law of Christ”), though these are “lessons” Christians often get from taking Galatians out of context.  Nor is this about legalism or earning salvation – it is about whether we live in acknowledgment of Christ and his work or instead live as if it has not yet happened, as if the kingdom had not been begun by Christ on earth and the promises of God fulfilled in him.  For the Judaizers this meant ignoring that Christ had come to make a single people out of Gentiles and Jews in fulfillment of the promise to Abraham, requiring that the people be confined to Jews only.  Again, this was not about rules but about ethnicity and about one’s place in salvation history – the Judaizers were placing themselves and the Galatians in the wrong act of the play, so to speak.

For us today this might involve denying the power of God and the presence of the kingdom in our lives or denying that we too have been granted the Spirit of God in accordance with his promises.  We act as if we have not been redeemed or as if we do not have the resources of God in our daily lives.  We act as if the kingdom has not begun in Christ and in us and hence put it into the future and do not take responsibility for our part in it.  Or, like the Judaizers, we deny that Christ came to make a single family of all the families of the earth, and require that everyone look like, act like, or talk like us.

Paul in Galatians wants the Galatians to understand what time it is and not to live as if it was a previous time.  The Spirit of God is a gift of the kingdom and associated with Christ’s time, made available by his crucifixion, and not the previous time, something Paul emphasizes in 3:1-14.  If it is the eschatological gift of the age to come, then it is not associated with being a Jew (“works of the law”), which would instead associate it with the previous epoch.  The promise to Abraham was blessing for all nations as those nations, not as Jews – a promise of a single family made of Jews and all other nations.  Since this promise has been and has begun to be fulfilled by Jesus in his crucifixion, being a Jew and doing the works of the law cannot be tied necessarily to the reception of the Spirit.  Instead, it is trust and faithfulness to God that marks one out as a member of God’s people, not one’s ethnicity since the family is to be from every ethnicity on earth. 

Paul contrasts in this passage those who are “out of faith” and those who are “out of works of the law”.  These phrases get translated in English various ways – “rely on the works of the law”, “take their identity from works of the law”, etc. are various alternatives in the translations of “out of works of the law”.  These are fine as long as “rely on” is not taken to mean “rely on for salvation” or “rely on to earn salvation” since that would be an over-interpretation and does not actually fit the context, where – if we want to speak of “relying on” at all – it is a matter of people relying on works of the law to display their identity as God’s people (in other words, relying on their ethnicity to show that they are members of God’s people).  For Paul, who are the ones who are “out of works of the law”? Israel, of course – they are the ones to whom God gave the works of the law.  However, by putting its faith in Christ, ethnic Israel is able to become part of those who are “out of faith” – whose identity is determined by faith, not by ethnicity. 

This begins to make sense of verses 10-14, then, since the idea here is not an individualistic focus but one on Israel as an ethnic group.  In 3:10, we find that Israel is under a curse – the curse of the law, the exile which the Old Testament and Second Temple Jewish writings all declare to have ended geographically but not spiritually or in regards to the full restoration of God’s blessings and the ingathering of the Gentiles which was to come from this.  Israel has not been restored or come out from God’s wrath for its failure to abide by its covenant as enshrined in the Law.  In other words, if Israel fails to abide by the Law, it is cursed; Israel has in fact failed in that regard (as Joshua-II Kings repeat over and over); hence, as the Old Testament affirms, Israel has been cursed.  The quote from Habakkuk comes in the context of Israel’s unrighteousness and subsequent exile and the future need for a new identity based on faith.  So coming out from the curse will involve a new era of faith-based identity. 

The Law belongs to the old era, however, as Paul emphasizes in 3:12.  In 3:13-14 Paul says that that era is past – the new era has come through Christ.  Christ brought a new exodus (note the Exodus word “redemption” here) – a return or restoration from the curse of the law/Israel’s exile suffered by Israel (“us” here refers to Paul and his fellow Jewish Christians).  The blessing to the nations, which was to flow from Abraham’s descendants, had been blocked by their own sin, which brought the curse.  But now that Christ has exhausted the curse in his own self, taking Israel’s exile/curse onto himself on their behalf, that has opened the way now for the blessing to come to the Gentiles as well.  In other words, the restoration of Israel, the time of faith-based identity, and hence the gathering in of the Gentiles into a single people of God (and the pouring out of the Spirit) has come, and this has been fulfilled through Christ’s sacrificial death on behalf of Israel. 

3:15-18 is basically about how there was meant to be a single people made of both Jews and Gentiles, not just Jews, and that one should not misread the purpose of the law as if it was meant forever to exclude Gentiles and thus cancel the promise.  The earlier promise of a single people out of both takes precedence and is fulfilled in Christ, who takes on the role of the single people (Abraham’s seed) as their representative and king and hence all who are in him are part of that seed, whether Jew or Gentile (3:29).  This shows that the ethnic-specific aspects of the law were never meant for God’s whole people forever.

In 3:19-29 Paul tells us that the law did have a legitimate function prior to Christ but that the time for that function is over.  3:19 says that the law was added “because of transgressions”.  This cannot mean that it was to restrain transgression since, as Paul states in Romans, there is no transgression without the law (since transgression = sin + law).  Instead, the law creates transgression, it turns sin into law-breaking by making Israel aware of that sin as against God’s will and turns it into explicit rebellion against God.  In the words of Romans, it makes sin “utterly sinful”.  Paul picks up more on what this means a bit further on, but maintains that this function was meant to continue until Christ and the single people of God had come.  The law came via Moses as a mediator.  Verse 20 is difficult but should read something like N.T. Wright’s translation: “He, however, is not the mediator of the ‘one’ – but God is one!”  In other words there is only one God and hence he desires one single people – but Moses was not the mediator of that one single people since that people was still to come. 

The law, however, is not contrary to the establishment of that single family, despite all Paul has said so far.  The bringing in of righteousness and the establishment of God’s promises – the law could not bring these about because of sin.  Instead, the law both condemns and incubates Israel so that, as a result of exhausting the curse laid on Israel by the law, Christ, through his faithfulness to the covenant in doing what Israel could not because of the sin which blocked it (3:22, in the Greek, says “the promise by the faithfulness of Jesus Christ”, not, as in most 20^th-century translations, “the promise by faith in Jesus Christ”), brought the promise of a single family to fulfillment, a family marked out by faith, not ethnicity.  Prior to that time, as verse 23 indicates (that is, prior to Christ, not prior to an individual’s reception of faith – that is too individualistic of a reading here and out of context), Israel (note the “we” here again referring to Paul and his fellow Jews) was kept incubated or quarantined by the law.  The law made sin into transgression but also taught the people God’s will (and actually turned sin into even more sinful transgression precisely by teaching this) and helped to keep them separate from other nations. 

But now the time of faith has arrived – the Law, which watched over Israel until Christ (it does not say “to lead us to Christ” – “lead us” is not in the Greek but is read in as an individualistic, subjective reading) has reached its goal not in marking out God’s people by ethnicity but by faith.  And with faith comes the end of the old function of the law in keeping Israel separate to prepare for Christ.  All, Jews and Gentiles, are God’s people marked out by faith since it is now the time of the kingdom as foretold.  Christ, the one seed, the fulfiller of all the promises, is our representative and hence we are inheritors of those promises, the fulfillers of them – in Christ, there is a single people of God as God intended there to be.  Being Jewish or Gentile does not matter – all are equally part of God’s family – to which, Paul also adds that gender and social status are not determinative either.  There is one people, Abraham’s seed, marked out by faith alone – not by denomination, not by how we decide to use the word “justification”, not by race or ethnicity or gender or social status, not by culture or label, but by faith pure and simple.  The gospel is that Jesus is Lord – he has brought the kingdom of God, the new coming age, and we should not deny that in word or action.

Is John Anti-Jewish?

Another paper:


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THE JEWS, THE WORLD, AND THE UNIVERSAL PEOPLE OF GOD

The goal of this paper is to examine the role of the Jews in the Gospel of John, particularly their relation to the people of God given to Jesus in the Gospel.  Contrary to some “anti-Judaic” interpretations, I intend to argue that, at a literary level, we can read the Gospel not as creating a strict dichotomy between Jews and followers of Christ but rather that the Jews, like all peoples, are presented as part of the world which is joined against Christ yet that they, like all peoples, can take part in the people of God which transcends ethnic distinctions, a people composed of believers chosen out of the world from amongst all of humanity.

While such a reading will no doubt deal with some questions relating to the issue of supposed anti-Judaism or anti-Semitism in John, it is not intended to deal with every problem.  In fact, rather than an exhaustive demonstration, the present paper aims merely to show the plausibility of reading the Gospel in the way being proposed; I will not argue that this is the only legitimate way of reading it nor that my own reading solves all problems related to the possibility or plausibility of an anti-Judaic or anti-Semitic reading.  Nor will I say very much about the effect of various possible historical reconstructions concerning the background of the Gospel when these are allowed to interact with my proposed reading.  Dealing with the foregoing issues would require a much more extensive examination and adjudication of the evidence – and a certainty beyond what is achieved here – than is possible in the scope of the current paper, if such a project were to succeed at all.  Because of the limited scope of the present paper and its nature as treating of a particular theme in the Gospel rather than detailed exegesis of a single pericope, treatment of many passages will be necessarily cursory (although, hopefully generally sufficient).  The purpose here is merely to propose a reading that makes some sense of a variety of evidence, not one that solves all the problems or successfully deals exhaustively with every verse.

The present paper will be divided into two main parts.  Part I will focus on the universality of Jesus’ mission, which includes but is not limited to the Jews.  Part II will then examine the role of the Jews vis-à-vis Christians in light of that mission – they are part of the world against Jesus yet Jesus has died for them so as to bring them into a universal flock which transcends the boundary between Jew and non-Jew.  The conclusion will follow from these two parts.

Part I: The Universality of Christ’s Significance

In the current section I will argue that the Gospel tends to partly qualify the divinely privileged status of the Jews and their particular practices by placing them in the context of God’s broader, more primal plan of bringing salvation and restoration from sin and death to all peoples, Jews and non-Jews alike.  This thus works to place the role of the Jews in a more universal perspective.

Universal and Particular in General

The prologue of the Gospel in 1:1-18 sets the stage for the rest of the Gospel, already establishing its universal scope and setting the Jews within that scope.  It does this by going back to the very beginning in the first few verses, reaching back to creation itself rather than the more specific creation of Israel as could have been done, even before Abraham (cf. John 8:58).  Instead, it begins with a universal scope before narrowing down to one particular group, the Jews (who, further befitting the universal scope of the prologue, are not even actually named here in the prologue).  1:9-10 specifies that Jesus’ divine mission is for the benefit of the whole world, but the world did not know him.  It then narrows the scope, giving what seems to be one particular instance of this – his own (οἱ ἴδιοι), presumably the Jews, did not receive him. 

This movement between universal and particular – including both universalizing the particular and using the particular as an example or instance of the universal – happens throughout the Gospel of John, as Lars Kierspel has convincingly shown.  Indeed, merely looking at the distribution of the Greek words for world (κόσμος) and Jews (Ἰουδαῖοι), respectively, one sees an alternation in the larger sections of the Gospel between a more universal and a more particular focus, so that the following chapters, with more occurrences of κόσμος than Ἰουδαῖοι, have a more universal scope: John 1, 13-17, 21.  Meanwhile, the other chapters – John 2-12, 18-20 – have a more particular scope.[1] 

Part of the explanation for the alternating emphases derives from the fact that, whereas Jesus’ speech has a marked tendency towards the universal, the narrator tends on the other hand more often to focus on particulars.  As Kierspel shows, eighty-two percent of all occurrences of the word κόσμος, for instance, appear on the lips of Jesus (sixty-four occurrences), whereas eighty-three percent of all occurrences of the word Ἰουδαῖοι appear in the narration proper (fifty-nine occurrences).  Jesus, meanwhile, uses Ἰουδαῖοι only four times (4:22, 13:33, 18:20, 18:36), and whether any of these is used negatively may be up for debate.[2]

Even when Jews are his opponents, Jesus tends to use only pronouns to refer to his opponents or to speak more broadly of the κόσμος instead.  And whereas the narrator uses place names quite often, Jesus more often simply speaks of his coming into the world.  In general, Jesus’ speech throughout the Gospel seems to function in terms of universalizing based on the local particulars present in the narrative.[3]  Indeed, Kierspel notes how 18:20, as the first time where both the world and the Jews show up in the mouth of a single speaker, “seems to indicate that the ministry of Jesus transcends the originally Jewish context.”[4]  In particular, we can see in Jesus’ farewell discourses a universalized picture of the passion, the following narrative focusing on certain Jews as the particular historical opponents of Jesus whereas Jesus’ speech takes the opposition in a universal sense.[5]

The effect of this is that while the Jews in the Gospel seem to be Jesus’ most prominent particular opponents during his earthly life, it is yet the universal significance of Jesus, his work, belief in him, and opposition to him that is at stake here.  The Jews function as a representative sample of the world; they, as we will see, oppose Jesus yet Jesus died for them and they may yet believe.  The question to be considered next is how this works in terms of the Jews’ status as possessors of the sacred tradition of Israel and, one would think, the rightful people of God to whom Christ was to come.

Jewish Particulars in the Context of Christocentric Universals

How do Jewish particularities fit into the universal significance of Jesus in the Gospel?  What we find is that the Jews in the Gospel, as seen in 1:9-10, are still Jesus’ own in some sense – they are descended from Abraham (8:33, 37), they have the Law (7:19), and so on.  But like in the writings of some of the Old Testament prophets, this will not guarantee their staying truly Jesus’ own or being part of God’s people – behavior and unbelief can disqualify some from truly belonging and no ethnic privilege can guarantee otherwise (3:36; 8:43-47; 10:24-30; 15:2).  One can, that is, break the covenant and place oneself outside the covenant people of God.  As R. Alan Culpepper puts it, “the Gospel of John does not say that God has abrogated the covenants but that the Jews have broken the covenants and therefore do not recognize Jesus as the son of God.”[6]  For the world and “his own” who do not do know Jesus, there is no true belonging to Christ.  The whole world, Jews included, has opposed Christ and failed to receive salvation.[7]  Indeed, in 19:15 the Jews who reject Jesus decisively disown their own heritage, siding instead with the world and accepting Caesar rather than God or Jesus as king.[8]  They are indeed the descendants or seed (σπέρμα) of Abraham and should therefore be the ones who accept Jesus but, not doing so, they fail to be children (τέκνα) of him or God (8:33-47).[9] 

Instead, as seen in 1:12-13, what sets one apart as belonging to God is not one’s ethnic origin but rather receiving Jesus and believing in his name.  For those who do believe, whether Jewish or not, there is belonging (see 10:4, 13:1, 15:19) – judgment has come to the world and to Israel (3:18, 36; 12:31, 48; 16:11) but a remnant[10] of both have received salvation, being gathered into one people of God.  Jesus has died for the Jewish people as well as for the whole world, to bring both Jews and non-Jews together in unity (11:50-52).   In this unity, the Jewish particulars of the Law and Jewish customs in general are transcended in that such particulars were given to and are for the Jews yet the flock contains both Jews and Gentiles. 

In John it is not so much, after all, the Law or Jewish custom which represents the world’s greatest need but grace and truth, which comes from Christ (1:17).  The latter is needed by both Jews and Gentiles and hence represents what, in Christ’s death, unites God’s people from a diversity of ethnic backgrounds.  What the entire world, Jews included, need is salvation from sin and death and the rulership of the devil (1:29; 6:49-50, 58; 8:24, 70; 11:25-26; 12:31; 13:2; 16:11).  The Jews are not exempt from this need, despite being possession of divinely given Scriptures and practices.  Their fathers died in the desert from their sin (6:49), but Jesus is here to deal with the problem of sin and death once and for all for Israel and all others.  Sin may lead to death, enslavement, or exile, but Christ is the means of exodus, of restoration from the exile of sin and death under which Israel suffers (see 3:14; John 10 in connection with Ezekiel 34; John 11:25, 52 – especially 11:25 in light of the connection of resurrection with restoration of Israel in Ezekiel 37).[11]  All humanity alike is portrayed as under sin, under the rulership of Satan, and the Jews not exempted from this – all are in need of the cleansing of Christ and his victory.  All are part of the sinful world which is in darkness, in need of light.  Such a universal problem requires a universal solution, not just a particular one for one particular people.

The Jewish Scriptures, however, are not abandoned in John nor is the Law necessarily set wholly by the wayside.  John still recognizes the authority of Scripture and of Moses and the Law; the authority of these is implicitly recognized in frequent citations, allusions, and appeals to them as authorities by both Jesus and narrator (e.g., 5:45-47, 7:19-24, 12:37-41, 13:18, 15:25, 17:12, 19:24; 20:9).  Yet in the new situation of the inclusion of both Jew and Gentile in Jesus’ flock, their role becomes different; Jewish particularities are universalized for the sake of a universal people of God and the Jewish Scriptures take on a key role as witness to Jesus, who fulfills the Scriptures.  The significance of things such as the Jewish feasts or temple correspondingly is universalized as they tend to be understood Christologically.  In 4:19-24, for instance, temple worship is universalized into worship for all since, having now the Spirit and truth which are present in Christ, God’s people now have that temple presence of God wherever they are and whoever they are – as 2:13-22 emphasizes, Jesus’ body takes on the role of the temple in housing God’s presence and as place of worship; at his glorification, this becomes available to all everywhere.  The significance of each of the various temple-oriented festivals therefore finds its end also in Jesus as well (see, e.g., the focus on the Passover in John 6, Tabernacles in 7-10, and Dedication in 10-12).  In a post-70 era, such a message would have been more important than ever to the Johannine community in the absence of a physical temple and would thus present the Christian faith as the proper continuation of the Israelite tradition, here embodied in the temple, in contrast to the differing efforts of non-Christian Jews to see that tradition forward.[12]

In other words, John presents the divinely-given Jewish particularities as fulfilled in Christ.  So much is fairly uncontroversial.  One might emphasize Jesus’ fulfillment, however, as a matter of the strict replacement of the temple and other Jewish particularities.  I would propose reading John, however, as portraying Jesus not so much in terms of a replacement but rather as the culmination of these particularities.  Whatever other main purpose the Scriptures or other Jewish things might have had in God’s plan, they are preparatory for Christ.  John’s emphasis on the divine plan surrounding Christ’s telos, which involves his glorification on the cross, resurrection, and bringing together Jew and non-Jew in the people of God (3:14; 4:34; 5:36; 11:51-52; 12:23-33; 13:1; 17:1-5, 23; 19:28, 30) and the constant connection of Christ to the fulfillment of Scripture and other Jewish things (e.g., 2:13-22; 4:19-24; 5:45-47; 6:32-35, 44-58; 8:56-58; 11:25-26; 12:37-41; 13:18; 15:1, 5, 25; 17:12; 19:24; 20:9) all seem to point to Christ and his mission as the culmination, completion, end, or goal of all these particularities rather than a mere replacement.  Even Christ’s own words become words to fulfill, being treated themselves like Scripture (18:8-9, 31-32).  Indeed, we can therefore see God’s particular plan for the Jews as part of his general plan for the world, with Jesus as culmination of that plan both for Israel and the world.[13]  Jesus thus brings out of historical Israel blessings for the whole world, Israel included, uniting all in one people of God. 

The pattern of qualifying terms related, usually, to the Jews and their history with the adjective ἀληθινός (true) points in the general direction already emphasized – Jesus is the culmination of the people’s history and the significance of their divinely-given particularities (e.g., 1:9; 4:23; 6:32; 15:1 – compare also 2:10 as well as the use of καλός in 10:11[14]).  Here, “true” is generally not opposed to “false”[15] – Jesus is not saying in 6:30-33, for instance, that the old bread from heaven was fake – but rather seems to be meant in the sense just given, of culmination or fulfillment, of completion of significance.  Jesus’ statement that a certain saying is ἀληθινός in 4:37 seems to have a parallel idea in mind – that is, that the saying is being fulfilled or instantiated in its full significance. 

In John 15:1-8, calling on Old Testament imagery of Israel as vine or vineyard[16], Jesus calls himself the true vine (ἡ ἄμπελος ἡ ἀληθινή).  This seems to emphasize Christ as representative and the one who binds together God’s people – to be truly part of Israel or God’s people is to abide in Christ and those who do not are cut off, a point already mentioned above with regard to those who rejected Christ.  Christ is the fulfillment, the end, the culmination and representative of Israel and Israel’s history and, (reading this passage in light of the rest of the Gospel) dying for his people, he has cleansed them, uniting them together in him.  As 10:14-18[17] and 11:50-52 emphasize, Israel is not rejected or replaced but rather others are brought in to join them through Jesus’ death.  Yet there is still the threat of being cut off for those who do not believe, as we have seen; being part of Israel and therefore the people of God in John is a matter of a proper relationship with Christ.[18]  Hence, Nathanael, who is chosen as one of Christ’s first disciples, is called in 1:47 “truly an Israelite [ἀληθῶς Ἰσραηλίτης] in whom there is no deceit” – deceit, the opposite of truth, is absent from him and, as a new follower of Christ, who is the truth, he is a true member of God’s people.  As we have seen, then, God’s particular plan for the Jews is portrayed as part of his general plan for the world and Jesus is the culmination of each together, both Jews and Gentiles participating positively in the divine design through acceptance of him.

Part II: Jewish or Christian but not both?

In Part I, I proposed we read John not as rejecting or replacing the Jewish people but rather as engaging in a kind of prophetic refinement, with only a remnant turning to God, the rest remaining in their sin, and believing Gentiles being added to them as part of the culmination of the nation’s history and institutions.  The question remains, however, as to whether John allows that one remains a Jew if one successfully follows Christ.  Are these identities mutually compatible or is John’s picture of the Jews instead wholly negative, so that to become a Christian is to cease to be a Jew?  It would obviously count against the readings proposed in Part I if the latter were to hold, so the burden of the present part of the paper will be to briefly propose a preliminary answer to such questions. 

According to Raimo Hakola, the Jews in John are cast in a universally negative light, the enemies of Christ and Christians, and being Jewish is seen in John as no longer compatible with being part of the Johannine community – after all, no model followers of Jesus, he contends, are ever called Jews.[19]  I will deal with the issue of the portrayal of the Jews first.  As Kierspel has indicated, what we find in John is a more complex portrayal of those referred to as Ἰουδαῖοι than might otherwise appear when focusing one-sidedly on the negative uses of Ἰουδαῖοι in the controversies with Jesus in the Gospel.[20]  The Jews are more divided than might otherwise seem from Hakola’s work: In the story of Lazarus in chapter 11, for instance, they are mostly portrayed positively and many even believe (though some do not and instead play the role of opponents (see especially 11:45-46)).  Then in 12:9-11, again, many Jews come to believe in Jesus. 

Although scholars differ slightly in their lists as to which occurrences of Ἰουδαῖοι fail to be negative, the following verses contain occurrences of the term which many consider to be (perhaps) positive or at least neutral in tone: 2:6, 13, 16; 3:1, 22; 4:9, 22; 5:1; 6:4, 41, 52; 7:2, 11, 15, 35; 8:22; 11:19, 31, 33, 34, 36, 37, 45, 54, 55; 12:9, 11, 12, 13; 13:33; 18:12, 14, 20, 35; 19:20, 21, 30, 38, 39, 40, 42.[21]  Most positively of all, Jesus himself is explicitly labeled a Jew in 4:9, 20, a label he does not reject but rather accepts in 4:22, explicitly associating the Jews with the coming of salvation (cf. 2:16; 5:1; 18:33-35).  Meanwhile, the term Israel (Ἰσραήλ) and its cognates are used in John generally without any negativity (1:31, 47, 49; 3:10; 12:13).[22] 

Divisions between those Jews who oppose Jesus and ones who do not, meanwhile, occur in 9:16 (called Pharisees here, rather than Jews); 10:19-21.  Probably merely superficial faith, meanwhile, is said to be attributed to Jews in 2:23-25; 8:30-31; 9:16, 40-41; 10:19-21; 12:42-43.[23]  As James D. G. Dunn emphasizes, one can see in John a process of sifting and division among the Jews, particularly in 7-12 (see the uses of κρίσις or σχίσμα in 3:19; 5:22, 27, 29, 30; 7:24, 43; 8:16; 9:16; 10:19; 12:31).[24]  Given what was seen in Part I of the paper, this should not be surprising since it simply represents the Old Testament pattern of the sifting out of a remnant from Israel as the legitimate and faithful continuer of its life and tradition. 

As was also seen in Part I, however, the Jews as a people are part of the world, which is hostile to Jesus and under bondage to darkness.  The non-Jewish peoples, however, are all also in the same boat.  For instance, despite what many see as attempts to move some of the burden of blame for the crucifixion off of Pilate onto the Jews, Pilate is still portrayed as solidly on the side of the world – he is not on the side of truth, does not know or recognize Jesus, and willingly gives Jesus over for crucifixion (see especially 18:33-19:16).  The Jews are simply the most salient people of the world to confront Jesus during his lifetime since they were his own people.  Yet they are themselves but one of the peoples who are together in the darkness of the world and in need of the light offered by Jesus.  Pilate is but one example showing up in John that the world opposing Jesus and under Satan’s rule goes beyond just the Jews and extends to the Gentile peoples as well.[25] 

John, then, does not portray the Jews overwhelmingly negatively or as incapable of good.  Indeed, the fact that John portrays Jesus as a Jew should itself provide a good bit of evidence against Hakola’s reading according to which Christians in the Johannine community are thought of as no longer Jews.  Hakola is correct, of course, that John does have a tendency not to call any model followers of Jesus Jews (although Jesus does call Nathanael an Israelite).  As can be seen in some of the verses already listed several paragraphs above, although the term Ἰουδαῖοι is used of persons when they come to know Jesus, it is generally used of those who are already said to believe only when that belief is defective in some way. 

What is not noticed, however, is that the very few times other ethnic labels show up in John, the usage is similar to that noted for Ἰουδαῖοι.  On the two occasions, for instance,  when the term referring to Greeks (Ἕλληνες) occurs (7:35, 12:20), it is only used of those who have yet to or are in the process of coming to Jesus, not of anyone after they have already done so.  Similar things could be said for references to the Samaritans (Σαμαρῖται) in John 4 (even more negatively, see the one occurrence of Ῥωμαῖοι in 11:48). 

 In the above paragraph we have admittedly a very small sample, but it is instructive that in the Gospel of John no ethnic term is ever applied to any model follower of Jesus (1:47 may count as an exception) although Jesus himself is affirmed in his own ethnicity as a Jew.  Given the reading of John in Part I, I would suggest that in that light we see this phenomenon as part of the universalizing tendency of this Gospel.  In other words, the ethnicity of true believers is purposefully not emphasized since Jesus’ flock is intended to be universal, united in an identity in Jesus that transcends mere ethnic distinctions, but without thereby abolishing such distinctions (Jesus, after all, is still a Jew and salvation is from the Jews).  By de-emphasizing the ethnicity of model believers, John is better able to portray a people which is also universal and which is therefore inviting to non-Jews as well as Jews.  No matter their ethnicity, they too can join with Israel in the people God, joining thereby, as seen in Part I, the “true” Israelites (1:47). 

Similar things can be said for the ubiquitous use in the mouth of Jesus of “your own” or “their”, in reference to the Jews, to modify “the Law” (νόμος – see 7:19, 23; 8:17; 10:34; 15:25; cf. 7:22, 51; 18:31; 19:7).  As seen in Part I, the universal nature of the people of God due to the death of Christ drawing in all peoples (in addition to the Jews) lends a universalizing tendency to John – the Law in all of its Jewish particulars does not apply to the people of God qua people of God since it is universal and overflows the boundaries of the Jewish people.  Jews were still given the Law by God but now those who were not so given are part of God’s people as well.[26]  Hence, John tends often not to ascribe the Law to Jesus and his followers, again so as to better portray the universality of God’s people in Christ.  There is no strict dichotomy in John, then, between being a Christian and being a Jew, or being a Christian and belonging to any other ethnicity for that matter.

Conclusion

Rather than hating the world and the Jews along with it, John portrays God’s love for the world and his desire for the world, Jews included, to believe in his Son (1:29; 3:16-20; 11:47-53; 12:30-33; 14:30-31; 17:20-23).  God wants to draw all to himself through the death of Jesus and hence Jesus died for the Jewish people as well as others.  As Udo Schnelle has noted, the world as a whole in John is represented with a similar complexity to that of the Jews.[27]  Both are hostile to Jesus, but the people of the world also go after Jesus and become his disciples.  In 12:18-19, for instance, we hear of both the Jews and the world going after Jesus.  With qualifications then (see 4:19-24), the Jews are presented as in some sense on par with the rest of the world – they do not have exclusive rights to a standing before God vis-à-vis the other peoples of the world nor is their birth a matter of automatic belonging to God if they do not believe.  Both Jew and Gentile, instead, belong to Christ in the people of God on the same basis, that of the work of Christ in his glorification on the cross, where ethnic differences are thereby transcended in the King of the Jews (19:19-20).[28]  In Christ, this is the ultimate culmination of God’s plan, in which both Jews and others play their own parts, the wider, more universal scope within which, for John, the story of Israel must be understood. 

If the historical hypotheses of people like J. Louis Martyn[29] are correct, then, given my reading of John, the non-Christian Jews who ejected the Johannine Christians from the synagogue would be, on a Johannine view, by definition still allied with the world in its opposition to Jesus; they have failed to be faithful to their heritage and believe in Jesus and hence stand opposed to God in Christ, right along with the pagans.  And though all are under the rulership of Satan, Christ has overcome Satan and the world in their opposition to him, a fact which would give comfort to the Johannine community.  But since Jesus also died for the world, Jews included, there is therefore on this reading perhaps some hope for the Johannine community to see their onetime opponents, whether Jew or Gentile, see the truth and join the universal people of God alongside them.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ashton, John. Studying John: Approaches to the Fourth Gospel. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Barrett, C. K. The Gospel according to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text. Second Edition. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978.

Brown, Raymond E. The Gospel according to John I-XII: Introduction, Translation, and Notes. AB. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1966.

_____.  The Gospel according to John XXIII-XXI. AB. Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1970.

Culpepper, R. Alan. Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983.

_____.  “Anti-Judaism in the Fourth Gospel as a Theological Problem for Christian Interpreters.” In Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel: Papers of the Leuven Colloquium, 2000, edited by R. Bieringer, D. Pollefeyt, and F. Vandecasteele-Vanneuville, 68-91. Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2001.

de Boer, M. C. “The Depiction of ‘the Jews’ in John’s Gospel: Matters of Behavior and Identity.” In Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel: Papers of the Leuven Colloquium, 2000, edited by R. Bieringer, D. Pollefeyt, and F. Vandecasteele-Vanneuville, 260-280. Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2001.

Dunn, James D. G. “The Embarrassment of History: Reflection on the Problem of ‘Anti-Judaism’ in the Fourth Gospel.” In Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel: Papers of the Leuven Colloquium, 2000, edited by R. Bieringer, D. Pollefeyt, and F. Vandecasteele-Vanneuville, 47-67. Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2001.

Hakola, Raimo. Identity Matters: John, the Jews and Jewishness. NovTSup. Leiden: Brill, 2005.

Keener, Craig S. The Gospel of John: A Commentary, Volume I. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 2003.

_____.  The Gospel of John: A Commentary, Volume II. Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 2003.

Kierspel, Lars. The Jews and the World in the Fourth Gospel: Parallelism, Function, and Context.  WUNT.  Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006.

Martyn, J. Louis. History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel. Third Edition. NTL. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox, 2003.

Motyer, Stephen. Your Father the Devil? A New Approach to John and ‘the Jews’. Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 1997.

_____. “The Fourth Gospel and the Salvation of Israel: An Appeal for a New Start.” In Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel: Papers of the Leuven Colloquium, 2000, edited by R. Bieringer, D. Pollefeyt, and F. Vandecasteele-Vanneuville, 92-110. Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2001.

Pansaro, Severino. “‘People of God’ in St John’s Gospel?” New Testament Studies 16 (1969-1970): 114-129.

Reinhartz, Adele. “‘Jews’ and Jews in the Fourth Gospel.” In Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel: Papers of the Leuven Colloquium, 2000, edited by R. Bieringer, D. Pollefeyt, and F. Vandecasteele-Vanneuville, 341-356. Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2001.

Ridderbos, Herman N. The Gospel according to John: A Theological Commentary, translated by John Vriend. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1997.

Schnackenburg, Rudolf. The Gospel according to St John, Volume Two: Commentary on Chapters 5-12, translated by C. Hastings, F. McDonagh, D. Smith, and R. Foley. New York: Crossroad, 1982.

_____.  The Gospel according to St John, Volume Three: Commentary on Chapters 13-21, translated by D. Smith and G A. Kon. New York: Crossroad, 1982.

Schnelle, Udo. “Antijudaismus im Johannesevangelium?  Ein Gesprächsbeitrag.” In “Nun steht aber die Sache im Evangelium…” Zur Frage nach den Anfängen des christlichen Antijudaismus. Second Edition, edited by R. Kampling, 217-230. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1999.

von Wahlde, U. C. “The Johannine ‘Jews’: A Critical Survey.” New Testament Studies 28 (1982): 33-60.

Witherington, Ben, III. John’s Wisdom: A Commentary on the Fourth Gospel. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox, 1995.

Zumstein, Jean. “The Farewell Discourses (John 13:31-16:33).” In Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel: Papers of the Leuven Colloquium, 2000, edited by R. Bieringer, D. Pollefeyt, and F. Vandecasteele-Vanneuville, 461-478. Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2001, 475.

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[1] Lars Kierspel, The Jews and the World in the Fourth Gospel: Parallelism, Function, and Context (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 77.  Contra, e.g., John Ashton, Studying John: Approaches to the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 61-63, where the world and the Jews are equated without remainder.  See Kierspel, The Jews and the World, 31-50.

[2] Kierspel, The Jews and the World, 92.

[3] See Kierspel, The Jews and the World, 93, 102, 103, 144, 148.

[4] Kierspel, The Jews and the World, 108.

[5] Kierspel, The Jews and the World, 127.  Cf. Herman N. Ridderbos, The Gospel according to John: A Theological Commentary, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1997), 45, 328.

[6] R. Alan Culpepper, “Anti-Judaism in the Fourth Gospel as a Theological Problem for Christian Interpreters,” in Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel: Papers of the Leuven Colloquium, 2000, ed. R. Bieringer, D. Pollefeyt, and F. Vandecasteele-Vanneuville (Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2001), 85.

[7] Culpepper, “Anti-Judaism,” 86;  Adele Reinhartz, “‘Jews’ and Jews in the Fourth Gospel,” in Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel: Papers of the Leuven Colloquium, 2000, ed. R. Bieringer, D. Pollefeyt, and F. Vandecasteele-Vanneuville (Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2001), 345; Jean Zumstein, “The Farewell Discourses (John 13:31-16:33),” in Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel: Papers of the Leuven Colloquium, 2000, ed. R. Bieringer, D. Pollefeyt, and F. Vandecasteele-Vanneuville (Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2001), 475.

[8] Cf. R. Alan Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 169; Zumstein, “Farewell Discourses,” 475.

[9] Cf. Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, Volume I (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 2003), 764; Severino Pansaro, “‘People of God’ in St John’s Gospel?” New Testament Studies 16 (1969-1970): 116; Ridderbos, John, 312-313, 317; Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Gospel according to St John, Volume Two: Commentary on Chapters 5-12, trans. C. Hastings, F. McDonagh, D. Smith, and R. Foley (New York: Crossroad, 1982), 210; Ben Witherington III, John’s Wisdom: A Commentary on the Fourth Gospel (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 178.

[10] Cf. Keener, John I (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 2003), 398.

[11] Cf. Stephen Motyer, Your Father the Devil? A New Approach to John and ‘the Jews’ (Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 1997), 129, 136-140.

[12] See Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel, 169; Hakola, Identity Matters, 22; Motyer, Your Father the Devil?, 140, 195; “The Fourth Gospel and the Salvation of Israel: An Appeal for a New Start,” in Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel: Papers of the Leuven Colloquium, 2000, ed. R. Bieringer, D. Pollefeyt, and F. Vandecasteele-Vanneuville (Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2001), 98-102.  Cf. Raimo Hakola, Identity Matters: John, the Jews and Jewishness (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 87, 93-94.

[13] Cf. Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel according to John I-XII: Introduction, Translation, and Notes (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1966), lxxiii; Zumstein, “The Farewell Discourses,” 475.

[14] Cf. Witherington, John’s Wisdom, 256.

[15] See Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, Volume II (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 2003), 993; Ridderbos, John, 515; Witherington, John’s Wisdom, 256.  Similarly, see Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel according to John XXIII-XXI (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1970), 669, although ibid, 674 entertains the possibility that in 15:1-8 there may also be a historical contrast here between the true vine and the synagogue as false.

[16] Such imagery appears in various places such as Psalm 80:8-16; Isaiah 5:1-7; 27:2-6; Jeremiah 2:21; 5:10; 6:9; 12:10-11; Ezekiel 15:1-6; 17:5-10; 19:10-14; Hosea 10:1; 14:8(7); outside the Hebrew Bible, also in II Baruch 39:7; II Baruch 1:2; II Esdras 5:23; IV Ezra 5:23; in the New Testament, also in Matthew 20:1-16; 21:28-32; Mark 12:1-11; Luke 13:6-9.  See Brown, John XII-XXI, 669; Keener, John II, 988-993; Ridderbos, John, 515.  Against other backgrounds to this passage, see Brown, John XIII-XXI, 669; Keener, John II, 990-993; Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Gospel according to St John, Volume Three: Commentary on Chapters 13-21, trans. D. Smith and G A. Kon (New York: Crossroad, 1982), 104-106.  For a slightly different point of view, emphasizing the vine as wisdom imagery drawn from, e.g., Sirach 24, see Witherington, John’s Wisdom, 255-256.  Cf. Schnackenburg, John 13-21, 107.

[17] Cf. Barrett, John, 376; Keener, John I, 818-819; Ridderbos, John, 362-363; contra the replacement reading of Schnackenburg, John 5-12, 300, 350.  Compare Brown, John I-XII, 387, 396. 

[18] Cf. C. K. Barrett, The Gospel according to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text, Second Edition (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), 406-407; Brown, John I-XII, 442-443; Keener, John II, 992.

[19] Hakola, Identity Matters, 229-230.  Similarly, Reinhartz, “‘Jews’ and Jews,” 353.  A good formulation of the problem, but set in a slightly different dialectical context, can be found in M. C. de Boer, “The Depiction of ‘the Jews’ in John’s Gospel: Matters of Behavior and Identity,” in Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel: Papers of the Leuven Colloquium, 2000, ed. R. Bieringer, D. Pollefeyt, and F. Vandecasteele-Vanneuville (Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2001), 270.

[20] Kierspel, The Jews and the World, 55.

[21] James D. G. Dunn, “The Embarrassment of History: Reflection on the Problem of ‘Anti-Judaism’ in the Fourth Gospel,” in Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel: Papers of the Leuven Colloquium, 2000, ed. R. Bieringer, D. Pollefeyt, and F. Vandecasteele-Vanneuville (Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2001), 56; Kierspel, Jews and the World, 63; Motyer, “The Fourth Gospel,” 105.  For an idea of which of these others have argued have a negative function, see Culpepper, “Anti-Judaism,” 72; U. C. von Wahlde, “The Johannine ‘Jews’: A Critical Survey,” New Testament Studies 28 (1982): 33-60.

[22] Cf. Kierspel, The Jews and the World, 63-64.

[23] Barrett, John, 344; Kierspel, The Jews and the World, 74; Motyer, “The Fourth Gospel,” 107.

[24] Dunn, “The Embarrassment of History,” 56-57.

[25] Cf. Kierspel, The Jews and the World, 127-130.

[26] Cf. Brown, John I-XII, lxii.

[27] Udo Schnelle, “Antijudaismus im Johannesevangelium?  Ein Gesprächsbeitrag,” in “Nun steht aber die Sache im Evangelium…” Zur Frage nach den Anfängen des christlichen Antijudaismus, Second Edition, ed. R. Kampling (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1999), 225.  For discussion, see Kierspel, The Jews and the World, 57-58.

[28] Cf. Witherington, John’s Wisdom, 256.

[29] See especially J. Louis Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, Third Edition (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox, 2003).