The lectionary reading for Easter 7, the last Sunday of the Easter Season before Pentecost, is the first part of the ‘great prayer’ of Jesus in John 17.1–11. The lectionary divides the chapter into three parts over Years A, B and C, which either assumes that preachers and people have a good memory from year to year, or perhaps suggests that we think about the whole passage, but only read one section each year.
(The epistle is the two passages from 1 Peter 4.12–14 and 5.6–11; the video discussion of that passage is here and linked below, and the video discussion of John 17 is here and also linked below.)
Our chapter divisions do, for once, follow the logic of the narrative; the end of chapter 16 concludes the farewell discourse that began in John 13.31, and John 17.1 highlights this, as John turns from the disciples to speak to his Heavenly Father. (The phrase ‘he lifted up his eyes to heaven’ is a standard indicator of prayer directed to God.) But this part of the discourse, though formally directed to God, otherwise continues the form and style of the previous discourse. There continue to be abrupt changes of subject, and a kind of circling around from one subject to another, with summary apophthegms along the way. And the prayer is marked by a distinctive mix of past and future, so that things that, within the narrative, are future are referred to in the past tense:
- ‘I have overcome the world’ (John 16.33)
- ‘I have brought you glory…by finishing the work…’ (John 17.4)
- ‘They have obeyed your word…they know everything’ (John 17.6–7)
- ‘They knew with certainty…they believed’ (John 17.8)
- ‘I remain in the world no longer’ (John 17.11)
It is clear that none of these things are actually past: Jesus only overcomes the world in his death and resurrection; his work is only finished in the cry of completion from the cross (John 19.30); the disciples clearly do not yet understand, and have not yet believed until later in chapter 20; and Jesus is still in the world!
This kind of folding over of narrative time has been a feature of the Fourth Gospel earlier in the story, so that we are introduced to Lazarus, Mary and Martha by means of an event (the anointing of Jesus) that has not actually yet been related (John 11.2). But this effect has been intensified as we approach the Farewell Discourse, so that in John 12.23 we read that ‘the hour has now come’, we hear language that belongs in Gethsemane (‘My soul is troubled’ John 12.27), and Jesus declares that ‘the ruler of this world has been cast out’ (John 12.31—compare Rev 12.9–10, using a cognate verb).
There is a sense in which this makes the gospel easier to read for us, reading from the future and knowing how the story unfolds (the gospel appears to assume that we have already read Mark). But it creates a strange narrative dynamic, where Jesus, in contrast to the other characters, is all-knowing, and operates with a different sense of time. Mark Stibbe (John: Readings Commentary 1993) comments:
We are confronted again with a frequent paradox of the farewell discourses: the remembrance of things hoped for…
Throughout John, there is a powerful sense of the presence of the eschatological future. Though the last day is still anticipated as a future event, many of the characteristics of that future day (resurrection of the dead, judgement, the giving of eternal life) are dispensed to a needy humanity in and through the ministry of Jesus. The realities of God’s tomorrow are present in the today of Jesus’ life…
The eternal has entered history…and, as such, Jesus can speak of future actions as past realities. Jesus can revel in temporal paradoxes because he perceives history always from the perspective of eternity (p 177).
The whole of the farewell section has a chiastic structure, that is, a symmetry that revolves around the central section of chapter 15. (You can see a detailed sequence of parallels between chapter 14 and 16, as pointed out by Raymond Brown in his 1966 commentary.) Here we see some clear parallels between the beginning of chapter 13 and the opening verses of chapter 17:
| John 13 | John 17 |
| 1 Jesus knew the hour had come… | 1 ‘Father, the hour has come.’ |
| 3 Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power. | 2 ‘You granted him [the Son] authority over all people’. |
| 1 He loved them to the end (telos) | 4 ‘I have brought you glory on earth by completing (teleioo) the work you gave me to do.’ |
The parallels here, and the repetition of themes in the prayer, remind us that Jesus is not so much petitioning the Father as declaring things to him; it is a prayer (as was the prayer in John 11.41–42) intended to be overheard, and as such it continues to be part of Jesus’ teaching to his disciples, as well as to us who also overhear it.
There are varying views on the structure of the prayer overall, which arise because of the recurrence and repetition of themes. But, broadly speaking, we see:
- a focus on Jesus and the Father (verses 1 to 6)
- the petition for the disciples, for their protection and sanctification (verses 6 to 19)
- prayer for ‘those who will believe’, for their unity in the truth of Jesus’ words (verses 20 to 26)
The lectionary division cuts across this, so that we read the first section and the beginning of Jesus’ prayer for protection for the disciples.
There are clearly features in the prayer which are distinctive to the Fourth Gospel—but we should not let that push us into thinking the differences with the Synoptics are greater than they really are. Jesus’ address of God as ‘Father’ is prominent in this gospel—but it is also prominent in Matthew, where Jesus describes God as [heavenly] Father no fewer than 45 times. And there is a very Johannine-sounding description of the unity of Father and Son in Matt 11.27, including the statement that ‘all things have been given to me’, an idea repeated throughout this prayer (‘those you gave me’ John 17.6).
The mention of ‘glory’ comes at the beginning and end of this subsection, and is characteristic of the second half of the gospel, sometimes called the Book of Glory (in contrast to the ‘Book of Signs’ that constitutes the first half of the gospel) from the introduction of the idea in John 12.23. The mutual action of bringing glory to one another between the Father and the Son has some parallels in God’s relationship with Israel in the prophet Isaiah (see, for example, Is 44.23, 46.13, 55.5, and all through chapter 60). But the shared glory ‘before the world began’ reminds us of the Prologue to the gospel, when the Word was ‘with God in the beginning’ (John 1.2) as well as the Pauline expression of Jesus ‘equality with God’ in Phil 2.6.
The granting of Jesus ‘authority over all humanity’ places Jesus alongside God, who is the only one with authority over the world in Jewish thought. But again it reminds us of Matthew’s gospel, which reaches its climax in Jesus’ statement that ‘all authority has been given to me’ (Matt 28.18) and Paul’s understanding of all things being put in submission to Jesus (1 Cor 15.27). The granting of ‘eternal life’ again echoes the Prologue, where Jesus is ‘the life who is the light of all…to those who did receive him, he gave the right to become children of God’.
There is here a close relationship between understanding and relationship; eternal life is to ‘know you…and Jesus Christ’, the only time in the gospel where Christos (‘messiah’) is used as a kind of title. This ‘knowledge’ is not merely factual, as is the case in later ‘gnostic’ developments, but relational. Yet this relationship also includes knowledge and understanding, as the later emphasis on ‘knowing’ and ‘the word’ demonstrate.
Jesus’ prayer for his disciples demonstrate both the solidarity and mutual sharing between Father and Son; the disciples belong to the Father and have been given to the Son, and the Son now offers them back in prayer to the Father. The word of the Father has been passed on to them faithfully by the Son, and they have received the words of Jesus and have kept them.
The prayer also demonstrates the radical disjunction between the disciples and ‘the world’. Throughout this gospel, ‘the world’ has an ambiguous status. On the one hand, it was created by God through Jesus (the Word) and so owes its very existence to him. And this world is the constant object of God’s love. Yet this world has not received him, and so stands in judgement (John 3.17), and because of that also stands in opposition to Jesus’ followers (John 16.33). Just as Jesus has been in the world but is not of the world, the same is true of the disciples as they find their true home in him. Thus Jesus’ prayer is not that the disciples will be taken from the world, but that they will be protected in it. The language of ‘protect’ (or ‘keep’) resurfaces repeatedly in this next section.
Although it is not part of our lectionary reading this year, it is worth looking ahead to the final part of the prayer, since this is often taken out of context and understood as a concern for unity separated from other issues.
Jesus’ key concern is for the protection of the disciples in the midst of the world in which they remain but to which they do not belong. ‘Make them holy in the truth; your word is truth’ (John 17.17) The language of truth goes to the heart of a key theme in John; as Andrew Lincoln and Mark Stibbe have pointed out, the whole of John can be understood as a form of trial narrative, with witnesses called to testify to the truth of Jesus’ claims and identity, and the Father even called to the witness stand (John 8.18). That is why the conflict is so sharp with the ‘leaders of the Jews’ in chapters 5 to 8, because they are the prosecuting counsel, and that is why John’s account of the crucifixion naturally includes the extended dialogue with Pilate (conveyed to us by one of the servants there) which is not included in the synoptics.
‘Your word’ here cannot refer to Jesus himself, even within the ‘logos’ Christology of John, not least because Jesus has already talked of the cleansing and sanctifying work of his words, that is, his teaching of truth, in relation to abiding in the vine (John 15.3). To be holy involves remaining in the person and work of Jesus, and remaining in his teaching which reveals the truth about us, God and the world. It is into this context that Jesus then longs for the unity of his people. The parallel with the unity between Jesus and the Father cannot be exact, not least with the hindsight we have following the Nicene expressions of our understanding of the Trinity. But it is about the unity of commitment, will and understanding; just as Jesus does the will and work of the Father, and just as the Father’s testimony is completely unified with the testimony of Jesus, so his disciples are to have that one commitment to true testimony which reveals the truth of God—and which will then lead many who have not themselves been witnesses of Jesus also to believe (John 20.31). There is no sense here that the unity of the believers in and of itself, disconnected to the truth, plays any role in the conviction of the world.
Jesus finishes the prayer with an inclusio return to the theme of glory, but does so with a unique address to God as ‘righteous Father’—only the third time John uses the term ‘righteous’ (after John 5.30 and 7.24) and the only time in the New Testament that God is described in this way.
So Jesus’ prayer for unity is tightly bound with concerns for the truth, for holiness, for the distinctive testimony of his people over against the world to which they do not belong, leading to the revelation of the glory of God and by which, through faithful testimony, many in the world will come to believe that Jesus is the only true revelation of the Father who loves them and draws them to himself.
Although this is often described as Jesus’ ‘High Priestly Prayer’, perhaps by conflation with the idea of Jesus offering continual intercession for us in Hebrew 4.14, prophets were also known for their intercession for Israel. More than that, Jesus’ prayer appears to be closely connected with his promise of what the Spirit will do when he comes, in chapters 14 and 16. It might therefore be more accurate to consider this to be ‘Jesus’ prayer as Paraclete’; the things he prayers for as our Advocate before the Father (protection, glory, unity in the truth, holding onto his words) are all things that the Spirit will effect amongst Jesus’ followers—both the disciples, and those who come to believe through their testimony.
Join James and Ian as they explore all these issues and their implications for preaching here:
and they discussion 1 Peter 4 and 5 here:
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Perhaps a servant did indeed relate the dialog with Pilate. But it seems just as plausible that Christ Himself related it to John after the Resurrection – perhaps along with an answer to that great hanging question of Pilate. I’ve been intrigued about that for a long time. The question “what is truth?” is put, no answer is recorded, yet it seems odd that if it was put cynically, the very next verse should be Pilate haggling with the Jews to release Jesus. There’s a possibility that Christ answered Pilate in a way to precipitate the immediate haggling, and that Jesus forbade the evangelist from recording what was said.
Knowing (which I do not) the full meaning of the Greek verb John used for “Pilate answered” would help. Some translations use “retorted”, which would connote a cynical answer after all.
Personally I find it hard to imagine Jesus, following his resurrection, saying to his disciples do you want to know what Pilate said to me? Perhaps, but it seems quite natural that an eyewitness remembered the gist of what was said given Pilate would not have been left alone with him.
If God can inspire (influence) what the Evangelists wrote, he could also dictate verbatim some of what they wrote. How did Matthew learn of the conversation between the high priest and the soldiers who had been guarding the tomb? A snitch told him or God revealed it? The same could be true for the conversation between Jesus and Pilate.
Why search for a non-supernatural explanation for this small mystery when you accept supernatural explanations for much bigger mysteries?
“The granting of Jesus ‘authority over all humanity’ places Jesus alongside God, who is the only one with authority over the world in Jewish thought. But again it reminds us of Matthew’s gospel, which reaches its climax in Jesus’ statement that ‘all authority has been given to me’ (Matt 28.18) and Paul’s understanding of all things being put in submission to Jesus (1 Cor 15.27). The granting of ‘eternal life’ again echoes the Prologue, where Jesus is ‘the life who is the light of all…to those who did receive him, he gave the right to become children of God’.”
Why would God grant Jesus authority over all humanity if Jesus is God? Why would God give all authority to Jesus when Jesus is already God? Why would Jesus need everything placed in submission to Him if He is God? The concept of the Trinity is certainly a mystery.
The right questions to ask, and they include within them the obvious answers. Scripture does not teach the ‘Trinity’ – three gods in one – and in its light Tradition proves false. The idea of an ‘eternally begotten’ son is arrant nonsense – alas not the only nonsense in the Nicene Creed – yet no one questions it for fear of being thought heretical.
The New Testament reveals mysteries so that one can understand them. The semi-pagan Church calls the Trinity a mystery because, it argues, we are not meant to understand it.
John 17: “You [the ‘Father’, ‘the only true God’] have given him [the Son] authority over all flesh [authority he did not have before, unless, again violating logic, we say it was eternally given]. … Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you [as your Son] before the world existed [Jesus has to ask, because it comes from the Father, cf. Mark 8:38]. … I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. … Everything that you have given me is from you. … You sent me. … Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one [i.e. at one], even as we are one. … I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. [Note that prayer is from the lesser to the greater – the Son prays to the Father, not ever the other way round.] … Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. … The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one [in the resurrection we too will partake in the divine glory, we too will be sons of God]. … Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”
Well said. However, if God works in mysterious ways, as the Scriptures most definitely state, the Trinity can still be true regardless of the blatantly obvious, common sense interpretation of the above passages.
This is why things are so much easier if one is Roman Catholic. The final interpretation of Holy Scripture is not left to the individual believer, his university education, or his common sense. The final interpretation of Holy Scripture is the sole domain of the Magisterium of the Holy Mother Church. Which as an institution, was invested with the keys of heaven and all its secrets from Jesus Christ himself. And the Magisterium proclaimed the doctrine of the Trinity as unquestioned fact in the 4th century, specifically finalized at the First Council of Nicaea in 325 AD and the Council of Constantinople in 381 AD.
This is why the rationality of the concept of a trinity should not be questioned. It has nothing to do with how intelligent you are, how educated your are, or how well you read and understand ancient Greek. The Church says it is true, and therefore it is.
But He isnt ‘just’ God. He is also uniquely a man, and the Son of Man. Had a unique role.
I agree the Trinity is a mystery, why would it be otherwise? Perhaps an indication that no human made up the very nature of God given that no human can fully explain it…
Hi Gary,
Yes I agree, the doctrine trinity of the trinity is hard to understand and it is hard to engage with thoughtful questions in a comments section. I’d be happy to correspond privately if our host is willing and able to pass on my email address to you.
As a starting off point, I think these questions blend into christology. The passages you allude to are either spoken by or about Jesus after his resurrection, or allude to it. So we are not just dealing with the divine nature of the Son, but divine nature which has taken up human nature and restored it. Jesus, as to his divine nature, is coeternal with the father and coreigns with the father. But as to his human nature, he first had to complete his work of redemption on the cross before being exalted and pronounced Lord of all things.
Happy to discuss more in private correspondence if you are.
Hi Pete,
I love discussing the truth claims of Christianity. It is a fascinating topic. Yes, come to my blog and we can discuss in more detail.
Gary, Escaping Christian Fundamentalism blog
Thank you Garry, I have messaged you through your blogs contact page.
The Trinity is a mystery of religion We are over estimating our ability to understand everything because we have spent 5 minutes on the moon. We must trust in the mystery of the “light of all ” because in the end that is all we have… that is all there is.
When I was a Lutheran I was taught that infant baptism and the Trinity are both mysterious concepts; divine concepts which humans can never comprehend with human reasoning. What is odd is that all Trinitarian Christians accept the mystery aspect of the Trinity, but many Protestants reject the mystery aspect of infant baptism. How can an infant “believe and be baptized”, a Baptist or Mennonite will ask?
Lutherans: God gifts belief to the child. Salvation is God’s act, not man’s. Just as three beings can be one, an infant only hours old can believe.
It is a mystery.
Felix Manz, Conrad Grebel, and George Blaurock (Swiss Anabaptists) decided in circa 1523-1525 that the worldwide Christian Church (not just the Catholic Church) had a problem. Christians should stop baptizing infants. Why? Answer: Common sense. A baby cannot make a conscious decision to believe and follow Jesus as his Lord and Savior. To believe he can is silly, nonsensical, and irrational. So a sacrament which had been provided to everyone in the household, first performed by Paul and Silas in Philippi, was now restricted to adults.
Baptizing babies is irrational. Believing that three beings can be one god is not. What is going on here?
Gary – ah ha – so you were formerly a Lutheran. Well, Ingemar Bergman springs to mind. He dumped the Lutheran religion, even though his father was a Lutheran priest. My Swedish teacher (when I was working in Sweden) told me that she had been baptised by Ingemar Bergman’s father. She also told me that, despite Ingemar Bergman’s portrayal of his father in some of his later movies (the very austere Bishop of Uppsala from Fanny and Alexander is allegedly based on him), I.B.’s father was actually very liberal theologically and also a thoroughly nice guy. Nevertheless, there was something that I.B. found absolutely oppressive about the whole shooting match and somewhere he described the sense of relief, when making ‘Nattvardsgäster’ (Communion Guests – in English the movie has the title Winter Light) when he felt total release from the whole thing – and from then on was a convinced atheist. That’s the movie in which Gunnar Bjornstrand plays the part of a useless pastor – whose pastoring skills are so bad that Max von Sydow commits suicide shortly after discussing his difficulties-of-life with the pastor ….
Gary – I somehow don’t think that your difficulties with the Christian faith are connected with esoteric points such as efficacy of baptism or what is meant by the Trinity – and is much more connected with rejection of the fact that you need a redeemer.
I think Fanny and Alexander is very heavily autobiographical.
Christopher – yes, it probably is – so where does this Jekyll and Hyde discrepancy come from (I.B. seemed to see his father as an oppressive tyrannical monster, while his congregants saw him as a charming fellow, somewhat liberal and tolerant)?
I suspect that if we have the answer, then we’ll find in it Gary’s perception of Lutheranism and the reasons why he junked it.
Good question, Jock.
I abandoned Evangelicalism for Lutheranism because I came to see that Lutheranism represented the faith of the apostles and Evangelicalism represented a sixteenth century Enlightenment-influenced distortion of that faith. I abandoned Lutheranism years later (with a broken heart) after I engaged in an in depth objective examination of the evidence for the Resurrection, and found it very unsatisfactory.
Jock: Gary – I somehow don’t think that your difficulties with the Christian faith are connected with esoteric points such as efficacy of baptism or what is meant by the Trinity – and is much more connected with rejection of the fact that you need a redeemer.
Gary: Yes. That is exactly what I said to atheist skeptics when I was still a believer and a Christian blogger. “My cherished religious beliefs (superstitions) just can’t be wrong, so that leaves only one explanation for the skeptic’s criticisms: The skeptic is evil; Satan controls his thoughts.
It is much easier to ignore a critic when one assigns ulterior motives for his positions instead of seriously examining his criticisms.
Gary – the problem is that there is something in your approach that doesn’t add up. When people come to faith, it is to meet a moral need – and I didn’t see anything of that when you said that first you became an evangelical and then a Lutheran, then junked the whole thing.
For the Trinity, we firstly have God the father – who is creator of all things – and in particular the moral order of the universe. From great antiquity (e.g. Job), people of faith have understood the need of a redeemer (as Christians, we understand that this was Jesus) and they have also understood that we need something to go on our way in the strength of the Lord (which as Christians, we understand as the Holy Spirit). Note that these things were always the basis of faith long before Christ came and long before Trinitarian concepts were formally introduced.
You yourself pointed out that the formal doctrine of the Trinity seems to have been something that intellectuals introduced in the 4th century (Athanasius and that crowd). Athanasius introduced an understanding of the Trinity that I feel comfortable with and have adopted and which I find helpful – clearly it doesn’t suit Steven Robinson – who comes across as a fine Christian gentleman, who can’t stomach this Trinitarian formalism.
But a rejection of the Athanasian understanding of the Trinity seems no reason to throw the baby out with the bath water, as they say. From the earliest antiquity (going right back to Genesis – also the book of Job) there have always been the components of the Trinity in some sense.
I’m also intrigued by what you mean by ‘evangelical’ as opposed to ‘Lutheran’, since I always thought that the basic ‘evangelical’ doctrines were contained in Luther’s Lectures on Romans, which he wrote while he was a Catholic. He didn’t get kicked out of the Church of Rome for that work; he got kicked out later when he questioned the authority of the Pope. His basic doctrines were accommodated – and it was only later that the Church of Rome decided on clear lines which excluded these doctrines.
So I have difficulties seeing (a) the difference between ‘evangelical’ and ‘Lutheran’ and (b) why you think that ‘evangelical’ was a 16th century construct. I also wonder why you became an ‘evangelical’. Was it really in response to your own personal moral crisis? Was it really because you wanted to repent and came to the conclusion that you needed a redeemer?
Jock: Gary – the problem is that there is something in your approach that doesn’t add up. When people come to faith, it is to meet a moral need…
Gary: Does that apply to persons coming to faith in Allah? Do people only convert to Islam out of moral need? Or, does your standard for “coming to faith” only apply to people choosing to believe in Jesus?
Jock: I’m also intrigued by what you mean by ‘evangelical’ as opposed to ‘Lutheran’, since I always thought that the basic ‘evangelical’ doctrines were contained in Luther’s Lectures on Romans, which he wrote while he was a Catholic.
Gary: Luther always believe that he had been “saved” in his infant baptism. That never changed. Do you know any modern Christians who identify as evangelicals who believe that salvation occurs in infant baptism?
Jock: I also wonder why you became an ‘evangelical’. Was it really in response to your own personal moral crisis? Was it really because you wanted to repent and came to the conclusion that you needed a redeemer?
Gary: I was nine years old when I prayed to Jesus to forgive me of all my sins and to be my Lord and Savior. Was I secretly holding out a pet sin? Not that I know of. Why do you ask?
Gary – with the greatest respect, I’d say you were nit-picking here. Yes, Luther did have a doctrine of infant baptism which seemed incompatible with his main contribution (which was thoroughly evangelical) – but I don’t think anybody – not even his greatest opponents on the infant baptism issue – would deny that his own baptism – as an infant – was very important to him and, furthermore, that God used his baptism (when Luther was going through periods of doubt and wasn’t sure of anything else, he reminded himself ‘I was baptised’). But I now understand why you moved from ‘evangelical’ to ‘Lutheran’ – it was over the issue of infant versus believer Baptism, wasn’t it?
As far as the Muslim religion goes – and faith in Allah – I don’ know much about it – except that I suspect that it has had rather a bad press, much worse than it deserves. Sure, the Muslim faith does have its headbangers; as far as I can see, most of the random shootings that one gets in American High schools come from the headbanger wing of the so-called ‘Christians’ and pretty much most of the Muslims who I have had dealings with seem to be decent, quiet, unassuming people whose lives are commensurate with a search for the moral ‘good’. As I said, though, I’m pretty much ignorant of it.
I am intrigued as to what you actually believed in the first place – because the reasons why you junked it don’t seem to add up.
So you are saying that my discovery that the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is very poor and based primarily upon assumption after assumption is not a valid reason to abandon Christianity?
Gary – I sure would like to know what you have discovered – since I’d say that the evidence that Jesus was raised from the dead is actually very strong. I recently read two books by James Denney: ‘The Death of Christ’ and ‘Jesus and the Gospels’ – in both of which he argues (convincingly) that (a) the Jesus portrayed in the gospels is true to the real Jesus (and not simply something made up by ‘the church’ at a later date to endow the man with its theology) and (b) that the resurrection narratives are convincing.
He was arguing against the 19th century constructs by people like Strauss.
Anyway, it seems to me that the opposite view (that the gospels were literary fiction and that Jesus wasn’t raised from the dead) is the one that has the poorer evidence. So you haven’t really elucidated at all what you have actually discovered to discredit the evidence of the gospels that Jesus was raised from the dead.
Thank you for your clarification, Jock.
I am not a mythicist. I am not a mythicist because I believe mythicists fail to use good critical thinking skills. That the man Jesus of Nazareth existed in the early first century; that he was an apocalyptic preacher; that he ran afoul of the Jewish authorities of his day; that he was crucified by the Romans; that at some point after his death some of his followers believed he appeared to them in some fashion; is accepted historical fact by the overwhelming majority of historians. I believe that for non-historians to reject this expert consensus is irrational and most probably motivated by bias and not evidence.
However, when one critically analyzes the evidence for WHAT exactly these early Christians claimed appeared to them, that is a different matter altogether. Did groups of eyewitnesses, at one time and place, see a walking, talking, back from brain death, reanimated corpse? THAT is where the quality of the evidence provided by Christians false short.
I think that Gary does not have a platform to air his views.
hence he joins this one in the hope that people will give him oxygen
Just saying.
I love debating the truth claims of the largest supernatural belief system on the planet. The topic of this post is Jesus conversation with the Father. I am asking why God would say to God, “Not my will but thy will be done”. If they are the same God this statement makes no sense.
I then asked why some Christians accept the mystery of the Trinity, a doctrine not declared official until the fourth century, but reject the mystery of the salvation of infants in the sacrament of baptism, an established practice of the Church since the days of the Apostles.
Do you have a logical answer?
is quantum mechanics ‘logical’? It is certainly not intuitive, yet it appears to reflect reality.
Why not answer a simple question with a simple answer, Peter? Is it because you know that an honest, simple answer is embarrassing for your position?
Gary, thanks for your questions, which do deserve a good response. I confess that I have been disappointed with the responses you have been given, so I would not be surprised if you were too.
I will try to engage, but have been busy and travelling, so apologise for not responding personally to you.
My background is mathematics and logic, so for me, Christian faith needs to be true affectively, at a personal level, but also make intellectual sense—hence the name of my blog (did you read the About section?)
Hi Ian. Do not feel obligated to respond to my questions unless one is of interest to you. No, I have not read the About section but I will do that today. Have a nice day!
Hello Gary,
You are seeking to engage in dialogue on wide range of scriptural and theological matters, on a format ( the comments section of Biblical blog) that is altogether unsuited to one full and comprehensive essay, but one book on the Holy Trinity for you to engage with is, ‘The Holy Trinity in Scripture, History, Theology and Worship’ by Robert Letham.
There are also books on apologetics, of which you will be aware, one of which is, ‘The Reason for God’ by Tim Keller.
And while you seek retrospective evidence, of the scientific kind, that is but a philosophical persuit and persuasion, with the objective of proving a negative: that god doesn’t exist.
And Gary, what is eternal life? It is knowing God as Father, as Son through God the Holy Spirit in experiential spiritual Union. It is not arguing till the cows come home, not searching the scriptures except that they are all about Jesus.
It is the person of Jesus who has to be encountered, who is to be welcomed, embraced, dismissed, then as now.
What have you done with Jesus, Gary? Was he ever in your life? Ever been born again, from above? Or are you seeking to justify apostacy, or skepticism, as you put it.
Over the years following David Robertson’s blog, your motives appear to be to seek to promote atheism, even deconversion, if that is what your description of your church life is.
My motive is the promotion of good critical thinking skills, in particular, in regards to supernatural-based beliefs. Formally, it is called the Socratic Method.
“It is the person of Jesus who has to be encountered, who is to be welcomed, embraced, dismissed, then as now.”
How does one encounter a person who died 2,000 years ago? If you say he is now a spirit, how does one encounter a spirit who is invisible and mute?
Geoff, I don’t see how your answers here are going to help someone who is honestly seeking answers with critical responsibility.
Thanks Geoff,
Very much, says a great deal.
Ian seems willing to give him the benefit of his doubts.
Ian,
I could be mistaken, but over the years I’ve come to doubt Gary’s stated motives in the comments. He was one of three people who were in determined, implacable, atheist opposition to Christianity, on the coat-tails of the new atheist movement on David Robertson’s blog.
And that is his enjoyment.
He has been here, on your comments section, a few years ago and has resurfaced.
But if you think Gary is genuine in his questioning, none of which is new, it is over to you to respond with answers.
His last comment is confirmation and typical in not answering questions asked of him so far as his stated earlier church life.
Gary has an anti-supernatural, closed- material- world-view.
Over to you Ian.
Indeed, he refuses to accept the answers and arguments provided as reasonable. Ian will do no better.
I seek the truth, Peter, whatever that truth may be. Give me good evidence for your position and I will accept it and admit my error. But I will only accept good evidence and rational reasoning (the use of good critical thinking skills). I will not accept any truth claim by blind faith or by appeals to “feeling it in my heart”.
Gary – I’d say you have already rejected ‘good evidence’ and I find your position somewhat incomprehensible. You have already indicated that you believe that the gospels are reasonably ‘close to source’ (i.e. documents that weren’t mucked about with substantially by the early church in order to project their faith onto Jesus), by people who accurately portrayed Jesus and who he claimed to be (i.e. the object of faith and not simply a ‘good man’), that the gospel writers were sincere and lucid people (at least sufficiently lucid and coherent to actually write their accounts). However, you seem to think that they were all seriously deluded by the accounts of Jesus raised from the dead when he actually spoke to people.
This simply doesn’t add up. The nineteenth century theologians whom Denney was arguing against all put the difficulties much earlier – by suggesting that, at the very least, the texts were heavily edited to impose upon Jesus the faith of the early church.
If one goes as far as you do in accepting that the gospels were reasonably early and do, in fact, portray Jesus and his teaching accurately (his claims to be the Son of God) then the evidence (based on this) that he actually was raised from the dead (and that the gospel writers and the witnesses weren’t deluded on this point) is pretty strong.
Geoff (elsewhere) conjectured that your main sticking point is the ‘supernatural’. I’d suggest that Christianity actually limits the supernatural quite strongly. As Christians, we believe in a creator God who created nature – and the laws of nature – and who wouldn’t intervene lightly. You personally have also conceded that there is a fundamental crisis of radical evil, so that the world needs saving – also each of us individually needs saving. This does require a supernatural intervention. The once-for-all act, where God meets history, at the lowest point in history ‘crucified under Pontius Pilate’ and is raised from the dead – is God’s (supernatural) answer to the problem of sin.
Jock: You have already indicated that you believe that the gospels are reasonably ‘close to source’ (i.e. documents that weren’t mucked about with substantially by the early church in order to project their faith onto Jesus), by people who accurately portrayed Jesus and who he claimed to be (i.e. the object of faith and not simply a ‘good man’), that the gospel writers were sincere and lucid people (at least sufficiently lucid and coherent to actually write their accounts).
Gary: Where did I ever say anything remotely close to that??? Was I in a state of delirium or are you putting words in my mouth, my Christian friend? I believe that the Gospels were most likely written by non-eyewitnesses one or more generations removed from the disciples who were writing Greco-Roman biographies about the leader of their new religious sect, a man none of them had ever met but only heard about, writing many decades after his death, in a genre of literature that allowed for extensive embellishments (fiction). However, unlike most Greco-Roman biographies, these books were written for the primary purpose of theological instruction and evangelization, not to record history. Why do I believe this? Answer: Because that is the consensus of almost all *critical* scholars (which by definition does not include evangelicals).
Jock: If one goes as far as you do in accepting that the gospels were reasonably early and do, in fact, portray Jesus and his teaching accurately (his claims to be the Son of God) then the evidence (based on this) that he actually was raised from the dead (and that the gospel writers and the witnesses weren’t deluded on this point) is pretty strong.
Gary: Again, where in the world are you getting this?? We have no idea how accurate the Gospels are in recording the life of Jesus because we don’t know who wrote these books! Even NT Wright says, and I quote, “I don’t know who wrote the Gospels and neither does anyone else”.
One thing is for sure, I personally doubt Jesus ever claimed, explicitly or implicitly, to be God. Why? Answer: He would have been stoned to death on the spot! And if they missed him in one town, they would have started throwing stones in the next, and the next. Yet, we are asked to believe that this man, claiming to be Yahweh, waltzed into Jerusalem to a crowd of cheering Jews while the Sanhedrin hid in the shadows? No way. Any Jew claiming to be Yahweh, God the Almighty, would have been strung up for blasphemy the very second he uttered the words “Thy sins are forgiven”. Give me a break. Jesus never said any such thing.
The evidence indicates that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah. Not God. The Messiah in Jewish theology is referred to as the son of God. Why? Because “messiah” means anointed one. And who was anointed in ancient Judaism? Answer: the King. All kings of Israel were referred to as “the son of God”, so referring to himself as the son of God, the messiah, would not have been a problem. What got Jesus into trouble with the Jewish authorities was most likely his behavior in the Temple. The Temple was the last domain of authority for the Jews. They were not going to let some Galilean messiah-pretender give the Romans an excuse to take over the Temple. He didn’t get arrested because he was claiming to be Yahweh. He wasn’t that stupid. Delusional, probably, but not stupid.
Here is a question which I think you really should think hard about, Jock: Why is it that the alleged post-execution/post-burial sightings of Jesus by large groups of people are not listed in any public university history textbooks as facts? There is nothing supernatural about groups of people claiming to see someone. Even if critics dismiss these sightings as cases of mistaken identity or illusions, if good evidence existed for these sighting claims, they should be mentioned in history textbooks, right along with the other facts about Jesus. But they are not. Why? These alleged group sightings of Jesus are not mentioned in public university history textbooks because the evidence for these claims is soooo poor.
Seriously, a man personally arrested by the chief priest, tried by the entire Sanhedrin in the middle of the night, then tried and condemned by Pilate, the Roman governor himself, starts making appearances all over Judea and Galilee to huge crowds (up to 500 people at once) within three days of his execution but not ONE single non-Christian records these spectacular sightings????
Come on, guys. It isn’t a case of “all true” or “all fiction”. You must examine each claim with good critical thinking skills, just as you would for any other historical claim.
Gary – apologies – I read too much into one or two of the things you wrote. For example, you do agree that Jesus claimed to be the Messiah in his own lifetime. I therefore inferred that you took the gospels to be written by people who had a pretty shrewd idea (from one source or another) what Jesus actually said.
The ‘liberal’ theologians whom James Denney argued against don’t do that – the whole business (for them) is a later construct to conform Jesus to the religion that the early church was trying to promulgate.
Well, the whole business convinces me, but if you take the view that we have absolutely no clue as to who wrote the gospels, then you could probably develop a nice career path for yourself as a theologian writing very humble books, along the lines of: ‘everybody for the last 2000 years has misunderstood Paul. I have the answer and can tell you what he really said’ (with the subtext that Luther was wrong). Woops – perhaps that has already been done so perhaps there isn’t any mileage
for you there.
I find the evidence from Scripture that Jesus was raised from the dead convincing (and, frankly, I can’t see how this could have been invented and taken seriously at a later stage). I’d say it’s your job to find better arguments if you want to convince people like me and Peter Parker.
Jock: I find the evidence from Scripture that Jesus was raised from the dead convincing (and, frankly, I can’t see how this could have been invented and taken seriously at a later stage). I’d say it’s your job to find better arguments if you want to convince people like me and Peter Parker.
Gary: Ok. How about this. Please provide one undisputed eyewitness statement in which the eyewitness explicitly identifies himself, and, explicitly states that he or she saw, touched, and communicated with the resurrected BODY of Jesus of Nazareth.
Seems to me two peas in a pod Geoff.