Jesus Is the Christ: the Messianic Testimony of the Gospels by Bird Michael F.;

Author:Bird, Michael F.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL067040, book
ISBN: 4572978
Publisher: Authentic Media
Published: 2012-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

The Signs of the Messiah

Unlike Mark, appearance of the word occurs mainly in the first half of the Gospel of John (see 1:17,20,25,41; 3:28; 4:25,29; 7:26–27,31,41–42; 9:22; 10:24; 11:27; 12:34; the exceptions are 17:3; 20:31). By sheer linguistic statistics the ‘messianic question’ dominates the first half of the Gospel. Even so, in this section it is not simply titles that indicate who Jesus is, but it is also Jesus’ teachings, confrontations, interaction with others, tensions in the plot, Old Testament allusions, and internal dialogue among the crowd that provide pieces to the puzzle of who this elusive figure is. This first half of the Gospel, John 1 – 12, is often called the Book of Signs. In this section, specifically 1:19 – 12:50, Jesus’ miracles and encounters with several persons demonstrate his messianic work and validate his unity with the Father. The ‘signs’ function as an additional witness alongside John the Baptist and the Scriptures to indicate Jesus’ unique role as God’s agent of revelation and salvation (5:31–47). The purpose of these signs is to explicate Jesus’ identity as the heaven-sent Messiah who reveals the Father’s glory.18 Unlike Jesus’ mighty deeds in the Synoptic Gospels, which are primarily demonstrations of the in-breaking kingdom, the signs in the Fourth Gospel contain a heightened christological focus. The signs foster division over Jesus’ person as they demand a response of either faith or rejection. At a crucial point the people in the crowd ask of themselves, ‘When the Messiah comes, will he perform more signs than this man?’ (7:31). The ‘signs’ are analogous to Matthew’s ‘deeds of the Messiah’ (Matt. 11:2), in that the Johannine signs bring a crisis of messianic belief in the audience, in Jesus’ own day and among John’s contemporaries, as the work of Jesus forces individuals to decide who he is.

Could this be the Messiah? (John 1:19–51)

John 1:19–51 constitutes a prelude to Jesus’ public ministry that features the witness of the Baptist (1:19–34) and the calling of the first disciples (1:35–51). Importantly both subsections hinge on Jesus’ messianic identity, which is the core of the Baptist’s testimony, and the amazing news that magnetically attracts the disciples to Jesus. In this section we find the beginning of the ‘Quest for the Messiah’, which starts with John pointing his interlocutors to Jesus, whom the disciples soon find.19

The Baptist was explicitly nominated as a marturi/a (‘witness’) to Jesus in the prologue (1:7) and now he undertakes to flesh out that witness further. When confronted with a delegation of Jerusalem priests and Levites concerned to know who he is, the Baptist immediately responds, ‘I am not the Messiah’ (1:20). The Messiah here is the royal Davidic Messiah as he is elsewhere in the Gospel (see John 7:42). The Baptist also denies being ‘the Prophet’ or ‘Elijah’ (1:21). The ‘Prophet’ is obviously the eschatological prophet like Moses (Deut. 18:15–19), and the evangelist also believes that this designation is true of Jesus, not the Baptist (4:19; esp. 6:14; 7:40,52; 9:17). The expectation of the return of the prophet Elijah is based on Mal.

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