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On Theology and History in the Gospel of John
When it comes to the study of the historical Jesus, there has long been a noticeable bias against the Gospel of John. While the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) are generally regarded as the primary sources for reconstructing the life and ministry of Jesus, the Fourth Gospel has often been treated with considerably greater suspicion because of its overt theological concerns. The assumption seems to be that because John is more explicitly theological, he must therefore be less historically reliable. Indeed, this tendency has led some scholars to call for a so-called “Fourth Quest” for the historical Jesus that takes the historical value of John more seriously. Nevertheless, the assumption that a more theological Gospel must necessarily be a less historical Gospel deserves to be challenged. Such an assumption depends upon a questionable distinction between historical reporting and theological interpretation. The simple fact of the matter is that all historical writing involves selection, organization, and interpretation according to the understanding and purposes of its author, and the Gospels are no different. In the Gospels, theology frequently consists of history interpreted in light of its ultimate significance, but interpreted history is still history. In this post, therefore, I will argue that John’s theological presentation of Jesus does not undermine the historical character of his Gospel; rather, John’s theology represents his interpretation of historical events whose significance he seeks to explain. But before making that case, we must first consider why theological interpretation should be regarded as historical distortion in the first place.
Let me be clear from the outset: there simply is no such thing as completely “neutral” history. No historian simply reproduces the past in a purely objective or uninterpreted manner. Every writer of history selects events, arranges material, emphasizes particular details, interprets their significance, and writes for particular purposes, and the author of the Fourth Gospel is no different. In John 20:30–31, he writes, “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” John openly acknowledges that Jesus performed many other signs, but that he has deliberately selected certain signs in order to demonstrate that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. (On Messianic Sonship in the Fourth Gospel, see my post here.) In other words, John tells his readers both what happened and why he has chosen to record it. His theological purpose could hardly be more explicit, but theological selection does not equal historical fabrication. Indeed, John presents the events he selects as signs actually performed by Jesus “in the presence of his disciples.” The events are historical; their selection and presentation are theological. Or, to put it somewhat differently, selectivity is not the enemy of historicity; it is an unavoidable feature of historical writing.
More importantly, John’s theology is grounded in historical claims. Throughout his narrative, Jesus attends identifiable Jewish festivals, travels between Galilee and Jerusalem, visits particular locations, and interacts with identifiable people. In other words, John presents the life and ministry of Jesus as events occurring within the concrete realities of first-century history. This historical grounding is essential because, as John declares at the beginning of his Gospel, “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). The eternal Logos entered into human history, meaning that John’s theology is fundamentally incarnational. It reflects the historical reality of the Word made flesh and therefore cannot be reduced to a collection of timeless spiritual ideals. Indeed, John explicitly grounds his narrative in eyewitness testimony: “He who saw this has testified so that you also may believe. His testimony is true, and he knows he is telling the truth” (John 19:35; cf. 21:24). John thus presents his theology as arising from testimony concerning things that actually happened. The point of all this is that John’s theological claims depend upon his historical claims; the two cannot simply be separated. If the Word did not actually become flesh, if Jesus did not die upon the cross, and if he did not rise again, then John’s entire theology collapses. Far from diminishing the importance of history, therefore, John’s theology depends upon it.
What I am suggesting, then, is that theological interpretation does not necessarily mean historical invention. Of course, John interprets the actions and words of Jesus, but interpretation is inherent to historical writing. He does not merely give us a transcript of Jesus’s life; rather, he seeks to explain what Jesus’s actions mean. For example, when Jesus feeds the five thousand, John presents him as the Bread of Life. When Jesus heals the blind man, he reveals himself as the Light of the World. When he raises Lazarus from the dead, Jesus declares that he is the Resurrection and the Life. When Jesus washes the disciples’ feet, the event reveals the nature of Christlike service and love. Even the crucifixion is paradoxically presented as the glorification and exaltation of the Son. In each of these instances, John takes events from the life and ministry of Jesus and unfolds their deeper theological significance. John does not merely ask, “What happened?” He also asks, “What did what happened mean?” The simple fact of the matter is that two people can describe the same historical event, with one explaining its significance much more deeply than the other, without the more interpretive account thereby becoming historically false. Interpretation and invention are simply not the same thing. John’s theological interpretation of the life of Jesus therefore need not be understood as the creation of a theological Jesus; rather, it represents his attempt to explain the true significance of the historical Jesus whom he presents to his readers.
In fact, John explicitly tells us that the disciples did not fully understand the actions and words of Jesus until after his resurrection and glorification. Reflecting upon Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem, John writes, “His disciples did not understand these things at first. However, when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and that they had done these things to him” (John 12:16; cf. 2:22). Notice the progression. The disciples first experienced the historical events, later remembered what they had seen and heard, and then came to understand their deeper significance in light of Jesus’s resurrection and glorification. Moreover, Jesus himself promises that the Holy Spirit “will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you” (John 14:26). Thus, the resurrection and the coming of the Spirit did not require the disciples to invent a different Jesus; rather, they enabled them to understand more fully the Jesus they had already known. John’s Gospel therefore reflects both eyewitness memory and mature theological reflection upon that memory. His theological interpretation is retrospective, but retrospective interpretation need not entail historical fabrication. John’s mature Christology represents his retrospective understanding of Jesus, not necessarily a retrospective creation of Jesus. Indeed, by John’s own account, history came first and theological understanding followed as the disciples reflected upon what they had witnessed in light of the resurrection.
Of course, part of the confusion stems from the fact that the Fourth Gospel is noticeably different from the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). The Synoptics primarily focus on Jesus’s Galilean ministry, his parables, his proclamation of the kingdom of God, and his shorter sayings, while John gives considerably more attention to his ministry in Judea and Jerusalem, his identity and relationship with the Father, extended discourses, and signs. However, in my view, these differences are sometimes overplayed. There are significant points of continuity between the four Gospels, including but not limited to the ministry of John the Baptist, the calling of the disciples, the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus’s conflict with the religious authorities, his entry into Jerusalem, and the basic contours of the passion and resurrection narratives. Even where their emphases differ, they remain centered upon the same fundamental story of Jesus’s ministry, death, and resurrection. Moreover, we should hardly expect four different authors, writing for different audiences and emphasizing different theological concerns, to tell that story in precisely the same way. Difference in selection and emphasis does not necessarily amount to contradiction, any more than theological distinctiveness necessarily amounts to historical unreliability. John is not telling a different story; he is telling the same story from a distinct theological perspective. The Synoptics and John need not be flattened into identical accounts in order to be historically complementary.
In the final analysis, then, the relative marginalization of the Gospel of John in the study of the historical Jesus is unwarranted. John is both historical and theological. More to the point, John is theological because he believes that certain things actually happened. The Word became flesh. Jesus performed signs. Jesus died upon the cross. The tomb was empty. Jesus appeared alive. The disciples witnessed these events, and John’s theology represents his explanation of their significance. Of course, John writes with an explicitly theological purpose, namely that his readers “may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing [they] may have life in his name” (John 20:31). John does not conceal his purpose; he wants his readers to believe. But the faith he seeks to produce rests upon eyewitness testimony concerning the actions and teachings of Jesus. His theology therefore does not replace history but interprets it. The question is not whether John gives us history or theology. He gives us theological history: testimony concerning real events interpreted in light of the identity of the One who stood at their center. John’s theology does not require us to abandon the Jesus of history; it invites us to recognize who the Jesus of history truly was.
For further study, see also
On the Jesus of History and the Christ of Faith
On the Johannine Pentecost
On the Narrative Logic of John 21
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On the Narrative Logic of John 21
The twentieth chapter of John’s Gospel is full of climactic moments. Not only does it record the resurrection of Jesus and his interaction with Mary in the garden, but it also tells the story of Jesus’s appearance to his disciples in the upper room (On the Johannine Pentecost) and the climactic confession of Thomas a week later. The chapter ends with a clear purpose statement when John writes, “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.” (20.30-31) To many, these verses sound like an appropriate conclusion to John’s Gospel; for this reason, many scholars (and some readers) treat John 21 as a kind of appendix or addendum or afterthought. Although there is no manuscript evidence to support this claim, it is often argued that if chapter 20 brings the Gospel to its climactic conclusion, then why would John write chapter 21? It seems unnecessary. From a narrative perspective, John 21 is not an awkward appendix but the necessary completion of the Gospel’s story. It resolves tensions left intentionally open in chapter 20 and brings the Gospel’s themes — discipleship, love, witness, and mission — to their proper conclusion.
As I noted above, John 20 is the clear climax of John’s Gospel. Jesus is resurrected, the disciples are commissioned, and Thomas confesses Jesus as “My Lord and my God.” (20.28) This confession serves as a kind of bookend in the book that points the reader back to John’s opening where he affirms that Jesus is the Word that was with God and was God and was made flesh and dwelt among us. (1.1, 14) Following these climactic moments, it only makes sense that John’s purpose statement in verses 30-31 would bring the Gospel to its logical conclusion. This chapter proves that Jesus is the Christ of God, and that faith in Him as the resurrected one results in eternal life. The end. Or so one would think. Not only is there no manuscript evidence that John’s Gospel should end in chapter 20 (as there is with Mark’s ending, on which see here), but if John were to end his gospel with chapter 20, then there would be many narrative threads that would remain unresolved. What becomes of Peter after his denial? What becomes of the beloved disciple? What becomes of the disciples’ mission? Yes, chapter 20 concludes the narrative arc of Jesus’s identity, but chapter 21 goes on to explain what that revelation now means for the followers of Jesus.
John 21 returns the reader to the Sea of Tiberias, aka the Sea of Galilee. Narratively, this is a return to where it all began. Not only did Jesus begin his public ministry in Galilee, but he also called the first four disciples after a night of fishing on the Sea of Galilee. The scene intentionally echoes the earlier calling narrative familiar from Luke 5. After a night of fruitless labor, Jesus shows up and tells them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat. They haul in a catch that is nearly too large, and Jesus commissions them to discipleship and mission. Many interpret this scene as a regression for the disciples, a return to the life and vocation before Christ. However, in light of this parallel, this scene should be understood not as a regression, but as narrative symmetry. John intentionally returns his readers to the beginning to show that the resurrection does not erase vocation — it redefines it. Vocation that is engaged apart from radical dependence on the risen Christ is utterly futile, but when vocation is entered into from a position of dependence and obedience to the risen Christ, then it is abundantly fruitful. When we submit our vocation to the mission of Jesus, then we will reap abundant fruit and reward. Even so, the real center of John 21 is not fish, it is Peter.
Of course, all four Gospels record Peter’s three denials of Jesus on the night of Jesus’s arrest, but John is the only one who records Peter’s restoration. (Luke hints at the idea when Jesus tells him that after returning, he will encourage his brothers.) John deliberately connects the scene in John 21 back to the denial scene by noting that Jesus prepared a “charcoal fire” and the threefold repetition of the question “Peter, do you love me?” matching Peter’s three denials. Some tend to make a big deal out of the various words that are used for love in Peter’s answers, but this is overplayed. Not only were the words basically synonymous in the first century, but the idea that Peter’s love did not rise to some divine standard is wholly alien to the logic of the text. This is a threefold public restoration that corresponds to Peter’s threefold public failure. Moreover, it reveals the pastoral tenderness of Jesus. Jesus does not scold Peter; he does not call him out over his failures. He doesn’t berate or condemn him. He graciously restores Peter to ecclesial service. “Feed my lambs. Shepherd my sheep. Feed my sheep.” This commission is not merely personal therapy for Peter; it is an ecclesial necessity. John cannot end his Gospel with Peter in unresolved failure. The shepherd of the disciple group must be restored if the flock is to endure. But Peter is not the only disciple in view here either.
After his restoration, Peter noticed the disciple whom Jesus loved and he asks Jesus, “Lord, what about him?”, and Jesus responds, “What is that to you? As for you, follow me.” (21.20-22) Jesus’s point is that he has different callings for each of his followers, and that following Christ is more important than comparing callings. Peter’s calling was to shepherding and martyrdom; the beloved disciple’s calling was to abiding ministry and public/written testimony. As he writes in 21.24, “This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true.” Not only is this important for establishing the credibility and reliability of John’s Gospel, but it is also a fundamental component of John’s understanding of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. To put it another way, John 21 grounds the authority of the Gospel in eyewitness testimony while clarifying that discipleship does not look identical for all. We all serve the risen Christ, but we all serve him in different and varied ways. These verses are not just random narrative details added on to the end of the story; they are essential for completing John’s theology of discipleship.
In other words, for John, discipleship is a life that is characterized by following Jesus, loving Jesus, abiding in Jesus, and witnessing to the truth about Jesus. When we confess Christ (chapter 20), he commissions us to a life of embodied mission (chapter 21). If we truly believe that Jesus is the risen Christ (and he is), then we will follow him in whatever calling he has placed on our lives. Put differently, discipleship is the vocation of following Jesus. The risen Christ is not merely to be believed in — he is to be followed. If we say we love Christ, we will commit ourselves to and give ourselves for the care of his people. Moreover, John hints at the fact that discipleship can involve suffering. In 21.18, Jesus tells Peter, “when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will tie you and carry you where you don’t want to go.”, and John explains that “He said this to indicate by what kind of death Peter would glorify God.” (21.19) This is part of the vocation of discipleship, too. We must be willing to follow Jesus wherever he leads; this is the kind of discipleship that Jesus is calling us all too.
However, returning to my thesis, without John 21, Peter’s denial remains unresolved, the beloved disciple’s authority is unexplained, and the future of the community of Jesus followers is unclear. In terms of John’s narrative, John ends his gospel not with spectacle but with discipleship as vocation. Chapter 20 concludes the revelation of Jesus’s identity, and chapter 21 concludes the formation of Jesus’s community. Or to put it another way, John 20 answers the question “Who is Jesus?”, and John 21 answers the question “What now?” Without this pastoral and ecclesial resolution, John’s Gospel would be incomplete. John does not end his Gospel in private mystical belief. He ends it with shepherding, witness, martyrdom, and mission. And he leaves the end of the story open when he writes, “And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which, if every one of them were written down, I suppose not even the world itself could contain the books that would be written.” In other words, the story is ongoing, and all the things that the risen Jesus will do have not yet been completed even two thousand years later. John 21 is not a loose epilogue. It brings the Gospel to its proper end — not merely with a confession of Christ, but with the commissioning of those who will testify to him. The risen Lord restores the fallen, distinguishes callings, anchors testimony, and sends his followers into a future shaped by love and sacrifice. That is not an afterthought. That is narrative completion. And it poses the question to the reader, “Will you follow Jesus?”
Faith seeking Understanding 