Having summarized the Synoptic account (ch. 3), Cremer now turns to the issue of the Fourth Gospel (ch. 4). Harnack, in line with liberal theology in general, considers the Gospel of John to have little historical value, reflecting not the words of Jesus himself but the theology of the later church retrojected back into an account alleging historicity. The high Christology of the Fourth Gospel can thus be safely set aside as secondary on this view. While the Synoptic Gospels also contain much that is a creation of the later church, they at least can be subjected to the kernel-husk process to arrive at the kernel of the so-called historical Jesus. The Gospel of John, by contrast, is almost all chaff.
Liberals thus drive a wedge between the Synoptic Gospels and the Fourth Gospel. In the Synoptics, Jesus is Israel's messiah or king; in John, he is the eternal Word or Son of God who became man. In the Synoptics, Jesus calls people to have faith in God; in John, he is presented as calling people to faith in himself. In the Synoptics, Jesus preaches the coming of the kingdom of God as his central theme; in John, the kingdom is mentioned in only two passages and the central them is rather that of eternal life. If there are any traces of a high Christology in the Synoptic Gospels, these can be eliminated as the later church's retrojection and as not historical.
This is the basic argument to which Cremer must respond. The setting aside of John is a central plank in the critical reconstruction of the historical Jesus. Cremer answers these arguments by making several points:
First, the differences between the Synoptics and John are differences in emphasis, not in substance. In fact, the differences are no greater than the differences between Jesus himself and the preaching of the apostles as found in Acts and the epistles. Paul and the other apostles only incidentally mention "the kingdom of God," yet they do mention it, thus showing that they are well acquainted with it.
We may thus understand how it is that we meet a difference between the Johannean account and that of the synoptists, which is similar to the difference that appears between the apostolic account and that of Christ Himself. Only incidentally do the apostles speak of the Kingdom of God, with the idea of which, however, they are well acquainted. Instead of it they proclaim the King of this Kingdom, Jesus the Messiah, the Anointed. They speak of all the good and great things which we owe to Him. For after the resurrection, through which God has certified His claims, His person and the Kinghood of His person stand in the foreground; with His person the whole matter is given: Jesus the King or the Anointed saves, judges, gives eternal life; and thus the Kingdom of God exists wherever the Kinghood of Jesus is believed and experienced. (pp. 62-63)
The language may be different, but the content is the same. Jesus speaks of the kingdom, of entering the kingdom. John speaks of having eternal life through faith in Christ.
Second, with regard to Christology, the Synoptic emphasis on Jesus as messiah or king is congruent with John's emphasis on Jesus' divine sonship. In fact, the titles "Christ" and "Son of God" are mutually interpreting and related to one another. To say that Jesus is the "Christ" is to say that he is God's anointed King. But to be God's anointed King in the ultimate sense is to be God's Son, to have an intimate relationship with God as Father that is unique and which transcends anything the prior kings of Israel ever knew.
To John the designation Son of God in the synoptics is nothing else than the designation of the Messiah expressing the unique relation to Him of God, who had chosen Him to be His anointed, the King of His Kingdom. (p. 66) ... Only an understanding of the reality of the Messiah could unfold the whole meaning and purport of the designation, "The Son of God." (p. 67)
Ever since the destruction of the Jewish kingdom, the Jews had been waiting for a messiah, an anointed king, who would deliver them with an eternal deliverance, who would establish the kingdom of God forever in an eschatological and enduring sense. The salvation of Israel would even become the occasion for the salvation of the Gentiles and the physical creation itself. Thus, Israel's hope for a messiah was a hope for one who would not be merely a son of God, like Solomon (2 Sam 7:14), but the Son of God, one whose relation to God would "transcend every human measure" (p. 67). The Gospel of John thus delves more deeply into the ontological nature of this Messiah as the eternal Word who became flesh.
John's history is the shadowing forth of Him in whom from eternity everything unites what God has to tell to the world. On this account He is called the Word, and, as this Word, He is God. For everything which God is and will be for us He is, and everything is comprised and terminated in Him .... And as God in Him made Himself actually present with us, we beheld His glory -- glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. (p. 69) ... [John] speaks of the eternal life which He gives, and which those who believe in Him may find and have -- the same gift which the synoptists name as the gift of salvation, for the sake of which the Kingdom of God is to be desired. (p. 70) ... We also understand that from the beginning he put everything under the aspect that regards Him as the eternal Son of God, incarnated for our sakes .... John discloses the deepest ground of history which his readers can comprehend. (p. 72)
Third, therefore, the Gospel of John and the Synoptic Gospels are both right and do not preclude one another. They are mutually interpreting, complementary apostolic witnesses to Jesus Christ.
In neither of these accounts does Jesus appear as a founder of religion, as a man who, through the fulness and accuracy of His knowledge of God, His unshaken faithfulness and sincerity, and the plenitude of His religio-ethical doctrine, had become the author of that religion that consists of true union with God, which alone is the true religion .... According to all the extant accounts -- according to all, that is, which we learn about Him from the mouth and from the service of His disciples and His first believers -- He is not the subject but the object of religion. He teaches us to know the Father, He shows us the way to the Father -- yes, He is the way, and also the truth, which one can trust forever, and He is the life. He who has Him and holds to Him is free from death, judgment, and perdition. He is the center of the Gospel. He brings in the Kingdom of God, and He brings that Kingdom to us. He not only proclaims the forgiveness of sin, He actually forgives sin. "As many as received Him, to them gave He the right to become children of God, even to them that believe in His name." (pp. 74-75)
This is how Cremer answers the liberal attempt to drive a wedge between the Synoptics and John. This is the key to the whole debate. The Holy Spirit gave us four Gospels for a reason. We must interpret the person and message of Jesus in light of all four, not using a truncated canon within the canon that would eliminate the Fourth Gospel and parts of the Synoptic Gospels, leaving us a merely human messiah who, because he is merely human, cannot give us the forgiveness of sins and eternal life, and who cannot reveal the Father.
And among other things, the canon-truncators would have to cut out the very opening verse of the supposedly least theological Gospel of Mark.
Posted by: Keith | 12/18/2009 at 04:10 AM