Philip found Nathanael and told him, "We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote--Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph."--John 1:45.
"The Law," of course, refers to the Law of Moses. It is the body of teaching revealed to Moses which constituted the foundation for the entire social and religious life and thought of Israel. It is the body of divine revelation given to Moses. In a broader context in the Gospel of John, however,"the Law" refers not only to the five books of Moses but also includes the Psalms and the prophetic books of the Old Testament and, indeed, the entire Old Testament itself. For example: "Jesus answered them, 'Is it not written in your Law, "I have said you are gods"?'" (John 10:34; cf. Ps. 82:6). And again: "But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: 'They hated me without reason.'" (John 15:25; cf. Ps. 35:19; 69:4).
In some Johannine passages the expression "the Law" may refer to the Law of Moses in the sense of a specific commandment. Thus:
"Has not Moses given you the law? Yet not one of you keeps the law. Why are you trying to kill me?" --John 7:19.
"Now if a child can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing the whole man on the Sabbath?"--John 7:23.
In still other situations the term "the Law" has the specific meaning of a legal ordinance:
Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he is doing?--John 7:51.
But whenever the term "the Law" is used in the Gospel of John, it always refers to the Old Testament Law known as the Jewish Torah. John teaches that this Law of Moses points to Christ. It is a prophecy of Christ. When the Jews confronted Jesus and charged him with breaking the Law by healing on the Sabbath day, they pronounced him a sinner before the Law and then tried to kill him. In doing this, John points out that the Jews were unfaithful to the Law (see John 7:19). Furthermore, John shows that Moses, who was the Law personified, testified of Christ. If the Jews had been faithful to the Law, they would have embraced Jesus as their Messiah and Saviour rather than attempting to kill him (John 7).
John also teaches that the Law not only points to Christ; it is not only a prophecy of Christ; but the Law is replaced or superseded by Jesus Christ. This thought is woven throughout the book of John but is especially presented in the prologue--John 1:1-18:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men ....
No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known. --John 1:1-4, 18, RSV.
Scholars have discovered that this Johannine prologue is derived from a pre-Christian hymn composed by rabbinic poets in praise of the Jewish Torah. The rabbis said that the Torah was the Law, wisdom, word. They said that the Torah was with God from the beginning and was the instrument by which God made the world. It was God's treasure, his firstborn. The Torah lay in God's bosom from the beginning. It was full of grace and truth. John deliberately takes this pre-Christian hymn in praise of the Torah and transfers the honor from the Law to Christ. Jesus Christ replaces the Torah; he supersedes it.
Elsewhere in the book of John expressions such as light of the world, water of life, bread of life, good shepherd, way, truth and life, which rabbinic teaching ascribed to the Jewish Law, are now transferred to Jesus Christ. Christ is the One to whom the Law points, the One who is the fulfillment of the Law, the One who now replaces the Law and supersedes the Law as the final revelation of the will of God. Because Christ has now come, the Law cannot have the same value, the same meaning to John or to the Christian community that it has to an unbelieving Jewish community. The revelation of God is no longer in Moses, but the supreme revelation of God has now been given in his Son. For this reason the supreme rule of life to the Christian community cannot be the old Torah; it must be the word that comes directly from God to his Son in the commandments of Jesus.
It is significant that the book of John presents the Law as the Law of the Jews. On the lips of Jesus in the Gospel of John, the Law invariably becomes your Law, their Law--namely, the Law of the Jews. Thus:
In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two men is valid.--John 8:17.
Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your Law, 'I have said you are gods'?"--John 10:34.
"But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: 'They hated me without reason.' "--John 15:25.
John puts similar words in the mouth of Pilate, of Nicodemus and of the Jews:
Pilate said, "Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law."--John 18:31.
"Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he is doing?"--John 7:51.
The Jews insisted, "We have a law, and according to that law he must die."--John 19:7.
From the evidence in the fourth Gospel, Pancaro has concluded that "the Law is quite consistently characterized as 'the Law of the Jews'."3 In commenting on this further, Pancaro says that John, writing near the close of the Christian dispensation, reflects the same view of the Law as did Jesus. As John takes the expressions, "your Law," "their Law," "our Law," and places them in the mouth of Jesus, of Nicodemus, of Pilate and of the Jews, "One has the distinct impression of a certain distance--that the Law is being looked upon as associated in some special way with the Jews, that it means more or at least something else to them than it does to Jesus and to the evangelist.''4 Therefore, to consider the Law as the revelation of God and the way of life after Christ's coming means to have misunderstood it or never to have understood it at all.
In John the Law is not used as a rule of life for the Christian community, because Christ, to whom the Law pointed, has come. He has superseded the Law as a revelation of God. All the titles of honor that rabbinic Judaism gave to the Law, John ascribes to the very person of Christ, so that the Law has now become "your Law," "their Law," "the Law of Moses," the Law of the Jews. While the Law is valuable because it has prophetically pointed to Christ, John can no longer value it as a Jew values it. To him devotion to the Law no longer characterizes the children of God. Rather, the Christian community is now characterized by devotion to the Christ.
Christian faith obligates us to do the will of God, not as revealed in the Law, but as revealed in the person of Christ. The revelation that came through Moses was a mediated revelation. It did not come directly from God, because even Moses could not see God. "No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known" (John 1:18, RSV). Throughout his writings John claims that the revelation through Jesus Christ is superior to Moses because Christ is directly taught of God. He is indeed the Word of God incarnate. In the words of Jesus the will of God which we are obligated to do or to keep is not "the Law"; it is the "command" or the "commandment.''
First, it is the Father's own command to Jesus to lay down his life for the sheep and then to take it up again:
"No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father."
John 10:18."For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. I know that his command leads to eternal life."
John 12:49, 50."But the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me."
John 14:31."If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love."
John 15:10.Thus, the commandment of the Father that Jesus keeps is not the Law of Moses; it is the commandment to lay down his life, to give his life a ransom for many and then to take it up again.
Second, the word "commandment" has the meaning not only of the Father's commandment to Jesus, but also of Jesus' commandment to his disciples:
"A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another."John 13:34.
"If you love me, you will obey what I command." John 14:15.
"Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me." John 14:21.
"If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love."John 15:10.
"My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you." John 15:12.
"You are my friends if you do what I command." John 15:14.
Jesus' command is that we "love each other as I have loved you." The expression "I have loved you" is what the Father commanded, so that, for the disciples, keeping the commandment is to reflect the love of the Father's commandment in Christ.
Thus, in summary we recognize that John distinguishes the Law that came through Moses from the commandment that comes through Jesus Christ. John avoids using the term 'law" or "new law" for the will of God that comes to us through Jesus Christ. Instead, he uses the word "command" or "commandment." John does not use the expression "law" at all in his epistles or in the book of Revelation. It seems that he abandons the term "law" when trying to express our obligation to do the will of God because of its tendency to become depersonalized and legalistic. Such a connotation cannot do justice to the goal of love to God and neighbor which Jesus set forth as the center of God's will for his children. It therefore seems desirable to use some term other than "law" to describe God's will for the Christian life. In John Jesus does not define a new code of regulations for the Christian community. And unlike Paul, John amazingly does not give any detail on Christian ethics. His teaching is deeply spiritual. It is centered in the very person of Christ. John emphasizes that the believer lives out of him who kept the Father's commandment and that the believer keeps Christ's command, his commandment, his word by reflecting that same kind of sacrificial love in relation to others.
Notes and References
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the New International Version.
LETTERS
Thoughts on the Atonement of Christ
The unique and pivotal claim of Christianity is that Jesus, the Christ, is the only Savior of mankind. How God "in Christ" actually accomplishes this deliverance of "Jew and Gentile sinners" naturally lies very close to the heart of Christianity. It consequently comes as a surprise to discover that although many have sought to explain the atonement, their explanations have been largely colored by the thought-worlds of the exegetes.
Together with the early Greek and Semitic fathers of the church, Irenaeus (c. 130-200) belonged to a world governed by "principalities and powers in heavenly places," the "elemental spirits of the universe." To those cultures the world was encapsuled in aeons superintended by angelic mediators, and it was not easy to escape this existence to bliss. Jesus Christ, it was heavenly believed, overcame this soteriological difficulty by making a deal with the devil. Irenaeus assumed there was a mystical solidarity between Adam and the entire human race, so that Adam's disobedience resulted in mankind's enslavement to the devil. According to the Bishop of Lyons, Christ therefore allowed himself to become a ransom for those led into captivity.
Origen (c. 185-254) believed that God's justice allowed him to meet trickery with trickery, so that the ransom was paid to the evil one, who "could not bear the torment of holding it." Similarly, Gregory of Nyssa (c. 330-390) utilized the symbol of fishing or, more particularly, that of "bait and hook." In his explanation the Son of God was suspended in the dark waters of the human race, "His divine virtue acting as the hook, His human flesh the bait. Attracted by our Lord's humanity, the devourer was wounded by His divinity; excited by His open infirmity, the spoiler was pierced through the jaw by His hidden virtue." Thus, the devil made the mistake of thinking that the Nazarene miracle-worker was a mere man. But the devil was outwitted and caught when he discovered that he could not contain the Godhead of the Christ.
Even the great Augustine (354-430) believed that the devil accepted the price of Christ's blood, only to become caught as a "mouse in a trap." Contrary to Augustine, however, the Latin West, beginning with Tertullian (c. 160-225), preferred the symbol of "satisfaction" to explain the atoning work of the Christ. "Satisfaction" can only be appreciated in the context of Roman law--that all-embracing system which with time became the foundation of both the medieval and modern worlds. This legal psyche even encompassed the entire domain of animate and inanimate nature.
In this world-view "sin" was an element of disharmony and imbalance. As a lawyer, Tertullian believed that "every sin is discharged either by pardon or penalty, pardon as the result of chastisement, penalty as the result of condemnation.'' "Satisfaction," therefore, must be made in order that harmony might be restored, and only the God-man could perform the meritorious works of chastisement and condemnation to achieve the pardon of an entire race.
This "legal-satisfaction" model was adopted and expanded by Anselm (1033-1109), who viewed the atonement through the eyes of the laws relating to feudal society. Man, he said, owed God honor (service and worship), even as a freeman or serf toward the lord of the manor. However, "sin" had dishonored God; and all mankind, from serf to knight, was in "weight" or "debt" to God. Furthermore, no matter how much mankind might devote itself to prayer, fasting and service, it can never make up or get out of its "debt" to God. Christ's flesh, being loyal and obedient, rendered "satisfaction" to God's honor and returned to God what had been taken from him.
In Anselm's legal framework--which belonged primarily to Roman civil law and to medieval feudal law and which used such terms as debt, liability, compensation, satisfaction, honor, price, payment and merit--there was no hint of an angry God. Later, John Calvin's (1509-1564) so-called "penal" theory of atonement, however, reflected the early modern era. It was based on criminal law and employed such terms as punishment, death, curse, wrath, substitution, surety and imputation, with the definite implication of an angry God.
Calvin believed God's law to be so universal and inviolable that he was unable to set aside injustice, even as contemporary sixteenth-century jurisprudence inexorably demanded retribution upon the criminal. As mankind stands at the judgment bar, it is guilty of an infinite quantity of "sin" (for it was committed against an infinite God), which in turn demands an infinitely severe punishment. God, however, is not only "just" but merciful, and he has provided a substitute of infinite nature--man's substitute and surety. Jesus, the Christ, so completely identified himself with us that God regarded him as a sinner who consequently bore the full weight of divine vengeance and suffered all the tortures of the damned. God's satisfaction was therein achieved.
In this theory of atonement Calvin combined the substitutionary, cultic imagery of the Old Testament's sacrificial ceremonies (which instruct of appeasement, propitiation and "satisfaction") with the forensic world-view of his day. All this we now judge to be sadly limiting of God, for the God of the New Testament clearly does not demand "satisfaction" in punishment before he can forgive. The God who commands to forgive "seventy times seven," as "your Father in heaven"; who rebukes his intolerant disciples with "You know not what manner of spirit you are of"; who in agony of mind and body cries out, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do"; manifestly does not demand "satisfaction" before extending his gracious forgiveness. The crucifixion of the Christ is certainly a climactic and unique insight into the heart of God, but God has ever been actively concerned for others more than for himself. The cross was not inconsistent with God's character--it did not change him or his government of mankind, but it most clearly portrayed the extent of his self-denying concern for the "children" who had chosen to "leave home." God's love is indeed "substitutionary," but in the sense of a true parent's willingly preferring to suffer in the child's stead.
Further, contrary to the "penal" theory developed in Protestant systematic theology, the New Testament nowhere affirms that Jesus, the Christ, kept the "law" (i.e., the Ten Commandments) on our behalf so that such a "righteousness" might be "imputed" to our account. Rather, in Semitic and biblical culture, to "impute" had the sense of "to think, deem, consider." And the "righteous life" that is thus thoughtfully given to us is the resurrection or eternal life of the Christ. Thus, in the intellectual and social consciousness of the Semitic culture (for which even the heroic Paul belonged) "imputed righteousness" is understood in terms of such passages as John 3:16.
Augustine's explanation of how the "One" could legitimately save the "all" involved a blend of at least four theories of atonement--the "physical," "ransom," "sacrificial-satisfaction" and "exemplary" theories. In the latter, Augustine held that the spectacle of love, presented in the Christ-event, ought to have the effect of inciting us to love God and to thus become reconciled to him. This so-called "moral-influence" theory of the atonement was developed by Peter Abelard (1079-1142), whose rationalistic and humanistic leanings interpreted the cross of Christ as the most appealing exhibition of God's love. That is, when we contemplate the voluntary and vulnerable nature of our Lord's mission, we become ashamed of our selfishness and folly, so that Calvary becomes the school of penitence for the human family. In other words, "we love him because he first loved us."
More recently, Gustaf Aulen has reminded us of the "dramatic" theory of atonement, held by Luther and the early church fathers, in which Christ as king conquered the real enemies of sin, suffering, Satan and death. Aulen has been criticized for presuming to state that this "dramatic" theory is the "classic" interpretation of the reconciliation effected by the God-man, but Aulen does not seem to take an exclusivistic stance. The "dramatic" theory has also been accused of tending toward unconditional salvation and universalism and of failing to explain why the defeated powers continue to war so vigorously.
Today historical theology manifests literally hundreds of atonement theories. All of these theories, however, are not only inadequate but were and are invariably conditioned by contemporary ideas. In earlier times the ideas of conquering enemies, warfare, malign demons, ransom, slavery, lordship, and law and order were common. Then the "isms" of rationalism, humanism (both classical and modern), feudalism, evolutionism, socialism and existentialism, with many other "isms," colored the spectacles through which many genuine believers in the Christ beheld the same wondrous and incomprehensible event.
But no theory of the atonement is adequate or altogether biblical, and at least to some extent, all theories have misrepresented the true heart and government of the God "who was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself."
John Polglase
Australia