Johannine Theology by Rainbow Paul A. & Paul A

Author:Rainbow, Paul A. & Paul A. [Paul A. Rainbow]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Inter-Varsity Press
Published: 2014-10-03T04:00:00+00:00

Divine Qualities of the Church

In the Johannine thought world the church is, to be sure, a congeries of unworthy sinners whom the Lamb ransomed for God, whose sins are forgiven. But more than that, God invites them into the fellowship of the trinitarian life, takes them up into cooperation with him, and has sent them into the world to carry on the work of the sent one in the power of the other Paraclete.54 The church, which is of the creation and, unlike the Father and the Son, has no life in itself, participates in moral and spiritual qualities of God. This elevated view of the church, of which we see glimmers throughout the Johannine corpus, appears with special clarity in the last prayer of Jesus (Jn 17:6-26).

In general terms, the people whom God gave the Son out of the world exist “in” God’s “name” (Jn 17:11-12), even as Jesus came in his Father’s name (Jn 5:43; 12:13; cf. 17:6, 26) and did works in his Father’s name (Jn 10:25). In the Apocalypse the name of the Lamb and of his Father is inscribed on the foreheads of the 144,000 (Apoc 14:1; 22:4), and the risen Christ promises to write these names forever on anyone who conquers (Apoc 3:12). Besides a share in God’s name, Christ gives the church a share in God’s glory (Jn 17:22), in Christ’s other­worldly origin and character (“they are not of the world” [Jn 17:14, 16]) and final destiny (“that they also . . . may be with me where I am” [Jn 17:24]).55 To this end God keeps them as they traverse their earthly path (Jn 17:11-12, 15; 1 Jn 5:18; Apoc 1:10). The church is more than a merely human society; it represents God to other human beings.

To be specific, the church as John understands it embodies the divine virtues of truth, love, unity and universality. Of these, truth and love are prominent in John’s Epistles, love and unity in the Gospel, and universality in all John’s writings.

Truth in doctrine. Jesus prayed that his followers might be consecrated in the truth, which is God’s word (Jn 17:17, 19). The word of the one who spoke the world into being is not judged according to reality, for it configures and judges reality. Christians, distinct from the world in which they they live, are set apart to address the world in God’s name and with his authority. Even as prophets spoke to Israel on God’s behalf, so Christ’s church is the mouthpiece by which God addresses the world until by his fiat he makes it new. The Spirit-Paraclete “will bear witness to me; and you also are witnesses” (Jn 15:26b-27).

That the church has a prophetic role in the world is developed in John’s Epistle and in the Apocalypse. The Epistles are set against a social background in which people purporting to be apostles, prophets or teachers would travel from town to town offering messages from God for the edification of Christian assemblies and receiving hospitality from them in return (Eph 4:11; 3 Jn 5-6; Did.

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