From Rudolf Bultmann to C. H. Dodd to the Jesus Seminar, Johannine scholarship has emphasized the Greek background of the Fourth Gospel. In doing so, Mandaean gnosticism, hermetic literature, and cynicism have been postulated as likely paradigms into which the Johannine Jesus may be fitted. These contentions, however, run aground the now almost universal recognition that Jesus must foremost of all be understood in terms of his Jewish cultural context, a conclusion aided decisively by the terminological and theological affinity between the Fourth Gospel and the Qumran writings. But usually it is the Synoptic Gospels that are used to elucidate this view. The Johannine Jesus, on the other hand, is often understood in terms of the Fourth Gospel’s emphasis on Christ’s deity, especially as portrayed in the Prologue. Works such as Marianne Thompson’s The Humanity of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, however, have countered the arguments of Käsemann and others that John portrays Jesus in docetic terms, that is, as a divine rather than an earthly human figure.

In this debate, with its matrices of Jewish/Greek and human/divine, one important aspect of John’s presentation of Jesus has been neglected in recent discussion: the evangelist’s portrayal of Jesus as a Jewish rabbi. This may in part be due to the influence of M. Hengel, who, in his significant work The Charismatic Leader and His Followers, flatly states that “Jesus was not a ‘rabbi.’” While acknowledging that “Jesus was doubtless addressed as ‘Rabbi,’” Hengel

contends that this expression did not necessarily carry the connotation of teacher but may merely have functioned as a term of respect. He himself considers Jesus primarily as an “eschatological charismatic,” the focus of whose message was no longer the OT. For Hengel, Jesus “stood outside any discoverable uniform teaching tradition of Judaism,” so that he concludes, with G. Friedrich, that “there was between him [Jesus] and the rabbis not a difference in degree as between two different teachers, but a difference in principle. He taught as someone specially authorized by God, so that his Word was God’s Word, which men could not evade.” For this reason Hengel suggests that “we should desist altogether from the description of Jesus as a ‘rabbi.’”

In recent years, however, Hengel’s treatment has been eclipsed by the magisterial work of R. Riesner on Jesus as a teacher. While Riesner focuses primarily on the Synoptic Gospels, his argument remains valid that Jesus operated within the Palestinian framework of a Jewish religious teacher. Nevertheless, Riesner’s work remains to be supplemented by an equivalent study on Jesus as a rabbi in the Fourth Gospel. C. Evans’s discussion of rabbinic terms and methods as well as targumic and midrashic traditions in John likewise is most helpful but is conducted primarily on the level of the fourth evangelist rather than that of Jesus. The present study is thus designed to provide a corrective to the current debate regarding the historical Jesus as well as a modest supplement to Riesner’s work by studying John’s presentation of Jesus as a teacher in the Fourth Gospel. It is not argued here that this is the major, or even a major, aspect of Johannine Christology. Rather, as will be seen, John reflects the common perception of Jesus among his contemporaries, friends and foes alike: that Jesus was, perhaps more, but certainly no less, than a rabbi.

It is not surprising that this aspect of Johannine Christology has not been given much attention.16 Too striking are the more dominant aspects of John’s portrayal of Jesus. Jesus is cast as Son of God (1:34, 39; 5:25; 10:36; 11:4, 27; 20:31), the eschatological Son of Man (1:51; 3:13, 14; 5:27; 6:27, 53, 62; 8:28; 9:35; 12:23, 24; 13:31), and the Christ (1:17, 20, 25, 41; 3:28; 4:25, 29; 7:26, 27, 31,

Let’s be honest: one of the fun things about Christmas is getting presents. Some people get very few, some get too many. But most people get something. This past year I got some books (yay), clothes (meh), a Nintendo Wii (it was, er, for the kids), and a John Calvin bobblehead doll (priceless). All in all, a decent haul.

Think about your favorite gift, not just from Christmas, but the best ever. It’s hard to beat an engagement ring for long-term impact. But what if I told you of a gift that provided a surer, longer-lasting promise than marriage? Money might be your favorite. After all, you can wield a lot of influence and do a lot of fun things with money. But what if I told you of a gift that provided more life-changing power, more world-transforming influence, than wealth? Maybe you are the sentimental type and your most treasured gifts are old photographs given by friends and family. Well, what if I you told of a gift that provided more than a picture of your beloved; it gave you his very presence with you for all time?

This would be some gift—a gift of promise, of power, of presence. And millions all around the world have received it. Or received him, I should say. For the gift, as you may have guessed, is the Holy Spirit. No other possession is as precious, helpful, dynamic, strong, and loving as the Spirit who dwells in those who belong to God through Christ (1 Cor. 3:16).

The Holy Spirit in All the Bible

The word for “spirit” is ruach in Hebrew and pneuma in Greek. The former is used roughly ninety times for the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. The latter is employed more than 250 times as a reference to the Spirit in the New Testament. Both words can refer to wind or breath. The general idea is the same: ruach and pneuma express energy, motion, life, activity. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit set apart, belonging to God. He is God’s power and presence among his people.

The Holy Spirit, though more “visible” in the New Testament, was also at work in the Old. He was present at creation, hovering over the face of the waters, poised to order and complete what the Father had purposed and planned (Gen. 1:2). The Holy Spirit was instrumental in the exodus (Isa. 64:7–14). He gifted God’s people for service, equipping Bezalel and Oholiab not just with artistic excellence but with the Spirit’s power to reshape a kind of heaven on earth (Ex. 35:30–35). We see frequently how the Spirit in the Old Testament rested on individuals like Balaam, Gideon, Jephthah, Samson, and Azariah for special acts of speaking or acting (Num. 24:2; Judges 6:34; 11:29; 13:25; 14:6, 19; 15:14; 2 Chron. 15:1). The Spirit could also come on people for a time and then depart, as Saul experienced (1 Sam. 16:14) and David feared (Ps. 51:11).

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Picture the scene: An accused criminal stands before an impartial judge to receive his just sentence. The legal proceedings begin with a court official reciting the laws of the kingdom. As he listens, the criminal starts to realize that he is doomed to be condemned, for it turns out that he has violated every single law in the book. Whatever the charge, he is certain to be found guilty. When the judge finally turns to the defendant and asks how he pleads, the man is speechless. He stands before the judge in mute terror, unable to utter anything in his defense.

The Need for Justification: Universal and Desperate

This is the desperate legal predicament described in the opening chapters of Romans. Humanity stands in the dock. The religious and the irreligious, Jews and Gentiles, believers and atheists—everyone must appear before God’s throne for judgment. The standard for justice is God’s perfect law. By that standard, everyone deserves to be condemned, “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23); “There is no one righteous, not even one” (Rom. 3:10; cf. Ps. 14:3).

When the law is read, therefore, every commandment is an accusation. There is nothing we can say in our defense: “Whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin” (Rom. 3:19–20).

The problem of humanity is sin, plain and simple. We are guilty sinners who deserve nothing except God’s wrath. Nor is there anything we can do to save ourselves. God’s righteous requirements cannot save us; they can only condemn us because we cannot keep them. Therefore, when we stand before God for judgment, there is not the slightest chance that we can be accepted on the basis of

anything that we have done. This is not a trial in which we are innocent until proven guilty; instead, it is a trial in which we have already been proven guilty and must remain guilty until we are declared righteous.

It is only when we recognize how desperate our situation is from the legal standpoint that we can begin to understand the biblical doctrine of justification. A powerful example of a sinner’s desperation comes from the life of Donald Smarto. While studying for the priesthood, Smarto performed the role of the cardinal in a religious play. To help him look the part, his monastery had arranged for him to borrow ornate robes from his diocese. “I was excited by this,” Smarto writes in his autobiography, “and when they arrived, I went to my room, locked the door and carefully removed the scarlet cassock and sash and cape from the suit bag."

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Christians intuitively agree that there is a necessary and deeply interpenetrating relationship between Scripture and the gospel of Jesus Christ. The exact nature of that relationship is a more challenging matter. While many lines of connection could be (and have been) productively explored, this chapter suggests and unpacks two particular connections between Scripture and the gospel: the gospel is a cause of scriptural revelation, and the gospel is an effect of scriptural revelation. In other words, God’s great, eternal purpose of redemption (what is expressed in the gospel) gives rise to the Bible, and the Bible serves to accomplish God’s purpose in the gospel.

The Gospel as Both Cause and Effect of Scriptural Revelation

Cause

If we think of the gospel, broadly speaking, as God’s eternal good purpose to redeem a people for himself (1 Pet. 2:9) and to restore his fallen creation (Rom. 8:19–21), then this “good news” precedes and gives rise to biblical revelation. All of Scripture is marked by this sense of being born out of some great divine initiative. In this sense, the gospel is a cause of biblical revelation. While Scripture itself is not the gospel, all Scripture is related to the gospel, and the gospel is Scripture’s reason for being. The gospel is the Bible’s main and unifying message.

God’s purposes in revelation can never be separated from his purposes in redemption. In eternity past God planned to redeem a people for himself:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. (Eph. 1:3–6)

God’s plan lies behind and brings into being his spoken communication to humans, which is preserved in Scripture.

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The well-known Bible teacher James Montgomery Boice was once traveling by plane when the woman seated next to him discovered that he was a Christian minister. She responded by bringing out all of her objections to the Christian faith. First, she spoke against original sin, how it made no sense and how she would not accept it. Boice listened to her and then replied, “I see, but is it true?”

Next, she went on to the idea of judgment and hell, saying how uncivilized and amoral all of it was. “I see how you feel,” Boice answered, “but is it true?”

Finally, she erupted with her great distaste for virtually everything taught in the Bible, how it wasn’t modern or appealing to her way of thinking. As Boice began to open his mouth one last time, she interrupted, “Oh, I know, I know, none of that matters! ‘Is it true?’ you are going to say!”

That conversation took place around the year 1990. I suspect that had it taken place in the year 2010, the ending might well have been somewhat different. Instead of the woman conceding the point that truth is what matters, she likely would have taken the conversation in another direction: “How can you claim that your beliefs are true? No one can really know the truth, so what I feel about it is really all that matters.”

The point is that if Christians are to communicate the gospel truth to today’s postmodern generations, we will likely have to do more than simply state the truth. In many cases, it will not suffice to hold forth our Bible and walk friends down the famous “Romans Road” series of evangelistic verses. In addition, and often beforehand, we will need to answer questions such as, “Why should I accept that the Bible is true?” and, “That may be true for you, but why should it be true for anyone else?” These are questions concerning epistemology, that is, our beliefs and assumptions about knowledge and truth. Prior to giving our witness to Christian truth, we will often have to present clear Christian views about truth itself.

An evangelical approach to the knowledge of truth will need to incorporate our biblical convictions regarding God, mankind, sin, salvation, and more. Some might object that beginning with our beliefs injects subjectivity into the question, since our theory of truth presupposes certain truths. Our answer is that as Christians we cannot avoid the realities of who and what we are through our relationship to Jesus Christ.

The purpose of this booklet, then, is not to present an objective epistemology that anyone—Christian or not—would adopt. Rather, this presents a stance toward the knowledge of truth that reflects the core beliefs of our gospel faith and validates our experience as Christian believers. In other words, this chapter presents how we as Christians answer questions regarding the knowledge of truth.

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Something is severely wrong with humans and their world. People of all religious and nonreligious persuasions recognize this. For example, while humans in the modern era have achieved massive technological and medical breakthroughs, they have also created a terrible mess. An estimated 188 million people died by war and oppression alone in the twentieth century,1 and many of them were raped, mutilated, or tortured before dying. Christopher Wright reports:

The world was horrified by the attack on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001, in which some three thousand people died. Africa suffers the equivalent of two 9/11s every day. . . . The tsunami in the Indian Ocean in December 2004 carried off some 300,000 people in a single day. HIV/AIDs inflicts the equivalent of a tsunami on Africa every month.

What exactly is wrong with humans?

Answering the Human Predicament

Many people—including leaders in science, education, politics, and religion—analyze the human predicament while assuming that the theory of naturalistic evolution is true. This theory concludes that evil is part of the original cloth from which human history is woven. For example, Paul Ricoeur, a French philosopher, wrote:

We sense that evil itself is part of the economy of superabundance. . . . We must therefore have the courage to incorporate evil into the epic of hope. In a way that we know not, evil itself cooperates, works toward, the advancement of the Kingdom of God. . . . Faith justifies the man of the Aufklarung [Enlightenment], for whom, in the great romance of culture, evil is a factor in the education of the human race, rather than the puritan, who never succeeds in taking the step from condemnation to mercy.

Islam, in some sense, also sees evil as a natural and inevitable part of human progress. This was expressed by Nomanul Haq:

The human exit from the Garden, then, was . . . akin to natural birth—a baby coming out of a mother’s womb, a bird breaking out of an egg, or a bud sprouting forth from a branch. Indeed, like nature, Adam had to evolve, morally, spiritually, intellectually—just as a baby grows into adulthood, and a seed grows into a lofty tree.

Thus the human condition in Islam does not involve the recovery from a fall so as to regain some original state of glory, but rather entails the fulfilling of a set of obligations given by God in the Qur ’an.

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The events that led to his arrest had been years in the making. When he was growing up, the polite phrase our family used to describe my brother’s mental capability was, “He has a harder time learning than most.” Though his mind stayed undeveloped, David became increasingly strong in body and will as my parents aged. Stresses of dealing with him, as well as with their own issues, led to their separation and to greater difficulties with my brother. As an adult, David’s desire for independence and his developmental disabilities were constant concerns. For friendship and thrills, he developed relationships that spelled trouble. The obvious resulted.

His arrest and confinement were more than his mind could process. He knew only the overwhelming fear that someone with a young child’s mental ability would experience in a jail cell. He huddled in a corner and trembled.

My brother’s obvious fear rekindled something in the heart of another man in that cell. And despite his own difficulties, he shared with David the message of God’s mercy: “Jesus can help you. Trust him.”

The truths of Sunday school lessons in special-needs classes that David had attended as a child rushed back to him. He prayed for God to forgive him and trusted in Jesus as his Savior.

David will be in jail for a long time. He will also be with Jesus forever—forgiven, restored, treasured, and transformed. This is the gospel for my brother and for all who trust in Jesus.

Gospel simply means “good news.” The Bible uses the term to refer to the message that God has fulfilled his promise to send a Savior to rescue broken people, restore creation’s glory, and rule over all with compassion and justice. That’s why a good summary of the gospel is “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15).

God’s rescue, restoration, and rule apply to our spiritual condition but are not limited to spiritual realities. Through Jesus Christ, our God delivers his people from the eternal consequences of human sin that have touched everything. Our salvation includes us, but it’s also bigger than we are.

Before we further explore these amazing truths, we need to recognize that the Bible does not trumpet them just to dazzle us. God reveals these truths so that sinners such as David and you and me can forever be free of the guilt and power of sin by trusting the good news that Jesus is the Lord who comes to save us. Following are key aspects of that good news.

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This is sermon #44 in the Hebrews series. In this sermon on Hebrews 12:1-3 I preach on perseverance, the sufficiency of Jesus and dealing with spiritual depression.

 

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This Systematic Theology follows more or less the traditional Trinitarian plan of organization, though I have interspersed other subjects between the main discussions of the Trinitarian persons. The main Trinitarian pattern can be traced through part 3, “The Doctrine of God,” part 8, “The Doctrine of Christ,” and now part 9, “The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit.”

As I have indicated, the general distinction between the three persons in the works of creation and redemption is that the Father plans, the Son accomplishes, and the Spirit applies. So orthodox theologians typically place the ordo salutis, or the application of redemption, under the discussion of the Holy Spirit. At points this decision leads to inaccuracies. Effectual calling, as we will see, though it is an element of the traditional ordo salutis, is better described as a work of the Father than of the Spirit. The same is true of justification. These are reasons to rethink the traditional ordo salutis and the order of topics that normally accompanies it. But I will not attempt to come up with a better organizational structure in this volume.

In this chapter, however, I will discuss the Holy Spirit in a more direct way, before passing on to the events associated with him in the application of redemption. As we considered the person and work of Christ, we will, in this chapter, consider in general terms the person and work of the Holy Spirit.

Who Is the Spirit?

First, as I indicated in chapter 21, the Spirit is God, like the Father and the Son. He stands alongside them as an object of worship. We baptize people in the threefold divine name, which includes the Spirit (Matt. 28:19). And the apostolic blessing, too, places the threefold name of God on the people: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 13:14).

We also saw that biblical writers coordinate the Spirit with the Father and Son when they write about the source of spiritual blessing. See how Paul in Ephesians 2:21–22 coordinates the three persons. He speaks of Christ, “in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” Cf. also Rom. 15:19; Eph. 4:4–6; Phil. 3:3; Rev. 1:4–5; 2:7.

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This is sermon #43 in the Hebrews series. In this sermon on Hebrews 11:30-40 I preach on the promises of God, purpose of trials and the nature of faith.

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