Through Jesus’ interactions with different individuals and also his public ministries many people believed in him. The Gospel reveals the scope and quality of the new community Jesus is forming through the narratives. This fact raises some questions. What is the difference between those believers and ‘the Twelve’? Are they all disciples? Was the contemporary discipleship community a community of many nations, including the Samaritans? What is the role of ‘the Twelve’, then? The answers will provide a perspective on how to understand these interactions of Jesus in terms of the discipleship community. To answer those questions, how the Gospel uses the term ‘disciple’ or ‘disciples’ needs to be examined.
As Bennema (2009a, 119) points out, ‘the phrase “his [Jesus’] disciples” occurs frequently and mostly refers to Jesus’ twelve disciples, or at least includes them (2:2, 11-12, 17, 22; 3:22; 4:2, 8, 27; 6:3, 8, 12, 16-17; 9:2; 12:16; 16:17, 29; 18:1; 20:26; cf 11:7, 54; 13:5)’. There are a few exceptions in the Gospel. Joseph of Arimathea is introduced as ‘a disciple of Jesus’ (19:38) even though he is not one of ‘the Twelve’. The Gospel says that ‘many of his [Jesus’] disciples turned back and no longer followed him’ (6:66). In this usage, the twelve disciples are not included in the ‘many of his disciples’. Rather, the twelve disciples are distinguished from those other disciples by the following question of Jesus to them: ‘“You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the Twelve’ (6:67). The Evangelist’s use of the term ‘disciple’ could be divided into three categories: those who turned back, those who are not included in ‘the Twelve’ like Joseph of Arimathea, and ‘the Twelve’ (οἱ δώδεκα).51
It is worth noting that the Evangelist calls all of them ‘disciples’, rather than distinguishing between just followers and disciples. By using the term ‘disciple’ for all of the followers of Jesus including ‘the Twelve’, the Evangelist emphasizes that the distinctive feature of ‘disciple’ is not in the term itself but in its essence. The essence of disciple is introduced by one of the important themes of the Gospel, μένω (to remain). It is revealed by what Jesus says to the Jews who believe in him: ‘If you hold (μένω) to my teaching, you are really my disciples’ (8:31). A true disciple defined by the Gospel is not the one who simply believes in Jesus but the one who believes in him and remains in his word. Carson (1991, 300) points this out as follows:
At the most elementary level, a disciple is someone who is at that point following Jesus, either literally by joining the group that pursued him from place to place, or metaphorically in regarding him as the authoritative teacher. Such a ‘disciple’ is not necessarily a ‘Christian’, someone who has savingly trusted Jesus and sworn allegiance to him, given by the Father to the Son, drawn by the Father and born again by the Spirit, Jesus will make it clear in due course that only those who continue in his word are truly his disciples (8:31).
Considering the content regarding ‘disciple’ emphasized in the Gospel, Jesus’ interactions with those different individuals should be understood more as revealing the scope and quality of the new community he is desiring to build through his disciples than as his own efforts to build a contemporary multi-ethnic discipleship community. The disciples who believe in Jesus and remain in his word are represented by ‘the Twelve’ in the Gospel. This affirms that one of the purposes of Jesus’ encounters with the Jews and his interactions with different individuals, including the signs among them, is to equip his discipleship community as a missional community when he sends them into the world.
4.6 Chapter Summary
I have read the second part of the Gospel (2:13-12:50) with two aspects in mind. One is Jesus’ encounters with the Jews, and the other is his interactions with different individuals. The Evangelist uses the term οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι to describe the ‘Law-centred’ Jews who come to the temple in Jerusalem for various feasts. They believe themselves to be the people of God as descendants of Abraham and try their best to keep the Law given through Moses, thus recognizing their identity as God’s people in the world. The Gospel, however, shows that they are misunderstanding the identity of God’s people by failing to understand the essence of the Law and failing to link the Law with the Messiah who came into the world, the one in whom the Law has been completed. The Messiah as the lens for reading the Hebrew Bible has two essential aspects.
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First, the Jews fail to link the Law and the Jewish traditions with the redemptive aspect of the Messiah. Through the encounters with the Jews, Jesus keeps pointing out that the Law has been replaced in terms of form or place, and fulfilled in terms of its meaning by himself, the redemptive Messiah. He reveals that he is the true temple (2:21), the real paschal lamb (6:54) and the fulfilment of the redemptive meaning of all the feasts. Furthermore, he is the Law-giver (8:6-11), light-giver (9:5-7; cf 8:12), and life-giver (11:43-44).
Secondly, the Jews fail to connect the Law and the Jewish traditions with the missional aspect of the Messiah. The true temple, Jesus, is built not only for the Jews but also for other nations. This Messiah-for-all meets not only a Jew (Nicodemus) but also Samaritans (4:7, 40) and Gentiles (4:47) for their salvation. In particular, the Messiah bypasses the Sheep Gate of the temple to go to Bethesda and heals a man who has been sick for thirty-eight years (5:1-9). The narrative contrasts what the Jews are and do with what the Jews should be and should do as a missional community.
The failure of the Jews in the Gospel to understand their missional identity in the world as God’s people is due to several reasons. First, the ‘Law-centred’ Jews focus on the rules themselves rather than reflecting on the meaning of the rules. As Jesus points out (5:39), they ‘diligently study the Scriptures’ but do not realize that the Scriptures testify about Jesus. By sticking to the form of the Law, they fail to recognize the essence of it, the Messiah. Secondly, the Jews as ‘Abraham’s descendants’ focus on themselves exclusively. Their exclusive understanding as God’s people is based on the lineage of human beings. Of course, there is an exclusive aspect of God’s people, but it is not based on ancestry; it is based on ‘believing in him’. Furthermore, the exclusiveness of the discipleship community exists because of the inclusiveness for all people, which is missional.
What Jesus rejects is not the Jews, the people themselves, but their distorted understanding of the Law and of their identity as God’s people. The new community that Jesus is building includes the Jews who believe in him. The Gospel shows this fact by the progressive change in Nicodemus and also in many other Jews who believe in him including the Jewish leaders. At the same time, the Gospel reveals that the new community includes other people, those who cannot be God’s people from the traditional Jewish point of view. They are Samaritans and Gentiles in terms of ethnicity, and marginalised people in terms of social class. Throughout Jesus’ interactions with different individuals in this part, two things need to be highlighted. One is that Jesus is
‘the Saviour of the world’ (4:42), as the Samaritans confess. The other is that Jesus crosses many socio-religious barriers to meet those individuals. Jesus is accomplishing the work of God through these encounters and interactions. However, Jesus focuses on the disciples, ‘the Twelve’ in particular.52 They represent the Johannine disciples, those
who believe in him and μένω (to remain) in his word. The above two things, ‘the Saviour of the world’ and ‘breaking socio-religious impossibility’, would be important aspects for the discipleship community to embrace in order to continue the ministries given them.
This second part contributes to a biblical understanding of mission by clarifying who the missional community of God is. The Johannine discipleship community is not limited to any particular ethnic group but consists of people who believe and follow Jesus. Furthermore, they are not merely those who follow but those who remain in Jesus and his word. It shows that the process of being a disciple and being a missional community go together. Jesus’ shaping and equipping of the disciples as a missional community is the same process as that of shaping and equipping them to be true disciples. Jesus’ encounters with the Law-centred Jews and his interactions with individuals in this part reveals to the accompanying disciples, the contemporary readers of the Gospel and the church today the importance of being a true disciple, participating in the mission of God. As God is missional, the discipleship community is also missional. This conclusion naturally opens the next part, Jesus’ intimate interaction with his disciples, ‘the Twelve’ in particular. The narrative in the third part of the Gospel will demonstrate the characteristics of a discipleship community, thus of a missional community.
52 Jesus says, ‘one of you is a devil’ (6:70) indicating Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. Nevertheless, the
CHAPTER FIVE
EQUIPPING THE DISCIPLESHIP COMMUNITY (13:1-17:26)
5.1 Introduction
I have divided the Fourth Gospel into four parts. In the second part (2:13-12:50),1 I have
discussed how Jesus encountered the Jews mainly in Jerusalem and Judea, and also how he interacted with different individuals. Those encounters and interactions have been described in the setting of various Jewish feasts, and have fulfilled dual purposes. One was to point out to the Jews, the previous sent community of God into the world, how the missional identity of the community had been distorted, losing the meaning of the Law given to them from God. The other was to reveal that the new community he is building includes all people who believe and remain in him. Those ministries of Jesus serve to equip the new discipleship community before Jesus sends them into the world. The disciples have watched the ministry of Jesus, including the signs, encounters and discourses, and have thus learnt who Jesus was and what Jesus desired for them.
Now, Jesus starts his direct discourse to his disciples. The third part of the Gospel (13:1-17:26) focusses on Jesus’ interactions with his close disciples on the evening before his arrest. The Evangelist divided the narrative at this point. In the previous part (2:13-12:50), the Evangelist introduced many different arguments between Jesus and the Jews using the word Ἰουδαῖος 44 times in that part alone. The word only appears once in the third part,2 and then reappears in the last part of the Gospel. As the
Evangelist comments at the beginning of the narrative, ‘[h]aving loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end’ (13:1b), Jesus spares these last hours of his life before the passion for his beloved disciples. The fact that Jesus performs and talks to his disciples exclusively3 in the narrative signifies that Jesus’ primary concern before
he ‘leave[s] this world and go[es] to the Father’ (13:1) is for his discipleship community. The Evangelist highlights the primary concern of Jesus by devoting five chapters (13-17) of the narrative to the disciples. Since the third part is located between Jesus’
1 See Chapter 3.
2 Even in the case, Jesus is just referring to the Jews when he talks to his disciples: ‘just as I told the Jews,
so I tell you [the disciples] now’ (13:13).
3 The prayer of Jesus is not exclusive to the disciples but certainly wider, yet it extends from the disciples
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encounters with the Jews and the passion narrative in the Gospel, it naturally functions as a conclusion of the preceding public ministry of Jesus and at the same time reveals the purpose of Jesus’ ministry on earth, in the sense that he speaks to his disciples just before his death on the cross. In other words, we can see why this discipleship community was created through this encounter. The narrative includes Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, his discourse and also his prayer for the disciples.
This third part will show the characteristics of the discipleship community as a missioanl community. Since those characteristics reveal a Johannine perspective on the nature of God’s mission and also on the equipping and comissioning of the discipleship community, they will provide important aspects toward a biblical understanding of mission.