In John 10, (implicitly) during the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus famously tells a parable (paroimia) of a shepherd and his flock of sheep in which he curiously identifies himself both as the gate by which the sheep enter the fold, and the "good" shepherd himself, who leads them out to pastures and ironically "saves" them by laying down his "life" (psychē) for their benefit (hyper) (John 10:1-13). Later, at the Feast of Hanukkah, in response to the crowd's request to tell them "plainly" (parrēsiai) whether or not he was the Messiah (10:24), he tells them that he already had done so―and he had indeed, precisely by his claim to be the Davidic Good Shepherd promised in Ezekiel 34 (10:25; see my earlier post here). He then turned the screws by asserting that their (implicit) unbelief was manifestation of their not truly being his sheep, a deliberately offensive response to people whose self-image, as God's covenant people, entailed being God's flock waiting for the promised shepherd.
At this point, Jesus explicitly refers back to the parable and makes some extraordinary theological claims:
My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else,* and no one can snatch it out of the Father's hand. I and the Father are one. (John 10:27-30, NRSV [alt. JRM]).
This text is significant, both in what it says about the "eternal life" (zōē aiōnios)** given to the sheep by Jesus and in the Christological basis for the confidence he has in that certain future. This "life," secured by virtue of his "laying his own psychē down for them" (John 10:11, 14, 17-18) and "taking it up again" (cf. palin labein autēn, vv. 17-18) in resurrection,*** is ineradicable: as Jesus says, "they will by no means perish … ever" (ou mē apolōntai eis ton aiōna). The use of the double negative with the subjunctive mood here is what Greek grammarians refer to as a "subjunctive of emphatic negation;" what is denied isn't simply the fact of something, but its very possibility of ever happening. Thus the Johannine Jesus plainly asserts that aspect of the Calvinist doctrine of the perseverance/preservation of the saints commonly referred to as "eternal security."****
What is important, however, is the Christology on which this security is based. The foundation of the sheep's security lies in their having been gifted to Jesus by the one he calls his "Father." In this connection, in his original Sukkoth Good Shepherd Discourse, Jesus claims that no one had the ability to take his life from him―hence attempts to do so were foiled because it was not yet his "hour" to die/be exalted (cf. John 7:30, 44; 8:20, 59; 10:39)―because he alone had the authority to both lay down and take his life up again (John 10:18). How so? Because, as he claimed earlier, he had been given "life" (zōē) "in himself" from the Father, the very life the Father possesses (John 5:26). Nevertheless, he would in fact lay his life down in obedience to the Father's will ("I received this commandment from the Father"), because of which the Father "loves" him" (10:17). It is this obedient-yet-willing death that is the basis for the "eternal life" given by Jesus to the sheep gifted to him by the Father. And this is a life they cannot lose, forfeit, or have snatched forcibly (oudeis dynatai harpazein) from them because of the double, invincible grip of the Son and the Father. Indeed, as Jesus concludes his response, "I and my Father are one" (10:30).*****
This text, of course, has been the focus of study and controversy throughout church history. The salient point is that the word "one" (hen) is neuter, not masculine (heis); hence the "oneness" between them denotes a singularity, not of personhood―sorry, Sabellius!―but of authority and operation. Just as Jesus claims an exclusive, reciprocal knowledge of the Father (John 10:15), and, even more outrageously, claims that he and the Father have a mutual indwelling ("perichoresis,"10:38), so, despite an "economic" subordinationism of Jesus to the will of the Father,****** they work together as one in the activity of guarding and protecting the sheep Jesus came to save. In case someone might be inclined to deduce a sort of ontological subordinationism here, note that John certainly didn't intend it this way. As was the case in John 5:18, the "Jews" were incensed and picked up stones to stone him because they rightly understood this as a claim to be God (John 10:32-33).
The title "Son of God" was, of course, in keeping with 2 Samuel 7:14 and (especially) Psalm 2:7, used as an honorific for the king of Israel and the hoped-for Davidic Messiah, both in Second Temple Judaism (cf., from Qumran, 4Q174.1-10) and in the New Testament (e.g., Mark 1:1; Matthew 16:16; Romans 1:3-4). One sees a reflection of this in John's Gospel as well, most notably in the parallelism of Nathanael's initial confession: "You are the son of God; you are the king of Israel" (John 1:49). What stands out in John's Gospel, however, is the stunning absolute use of the title "Son" in conjunction with God being referenced as the "Father." While not entirely absent in the Synoptic tradition, most notably the so-called "Johannine thunderbolt" found in the Q tradition recorded in Matthew 11:27//Luke 10:22, the absolute "Son" recurs repeatedly in John.******* Moreover, he is famously called God's "one and only" or "unique" (monogenēs) Son in John 3:16, and simply "monogenēs" in apposition to the noun theos (hence, "The one and only, himself God")******** in John 1:18.
This last text points to the key to understanding John's Father-Son dynamic. Simply stated, John's Christology must be understood under the controlling rubric of the Prologue's Logos ("Word") Christology (John 1:1-18). Jesus, throughout the Gospel, is to be understood by the reader as the incarnate "Word," the one who was himself God by nature and therefore existed "in the beginning" with God and was the instrument through which the universe came into being. His incarnation marked the fulfillment of the promise of a new Temple, the eschatological "meeting place" between God and humanity where God's glory is made visible. As the "one and only one/Son" he is the very self-expression of the invisible God (cf. Colossians 1:15). Thus understood, Jesus' identification as "the Son" simpliciter is, in the words of James D. G. Dunn, "an elaboration of the initial explicit identification of Jesus as the incarnate Wisdom/Logos―an identification taken over certainly from earlier Christian tradition, but expounded in John's distinctive fashion."*********
It is as the Incarnate Word that Jesus the Son, the uttered Logos, both reveals the Father and works with him to secure and guarantee the ultimate salvation of the sheep the Father had entrusted to his care. That is where our security lies. Soli Deo Gloria!
* The textual tradition here is hopelessly confused. There is variation both in word order and the gender of the relative pronoun (masculine hos or neuter ho?) and the comparative adjective (masculine meizōn or neuter meizon?). The NRSV translation reflects the N-A 28 text, which, following the 4th century uncial B, reads both as neuters: ho dedōken moi pantōn meizon estin. External evidence (both Aleph and D also read the neuter pronoun; P66 reads the masculine) clearly supports this reading, and it is incontrovertible that such is the "harder" reading, best explaining the resulting textual confusion. The only question concerns whether or not the neuter readings make tolerable sense. C. K. Barrett (The Gospel according to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text, 2d ed. [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978] en loc.) is representative of those who deem it intolerable and opt, reluctantly, for the Majority Text reading (followed, inter alia, by Marianne Meye Thompson, John: A Commentary (NTL; Louisville, Ky.: WestminsterJohnKnox, 2015), en loc.; cf. also the NIV: "My Father, who is greater than all …"). Fortunately, one needn't make a definitive decision; in both cases, the "gift" (dedōken) given by the Father to Jesus consists of the sheep to whom he gives eternal life.
**See the discussion of "eternal life" in John's Gospel found in my earlier post here.
***Seldom appreciated is that John has Jesus claiming that he lays his life down in death in order to (hina) take it up again. A Jesus, whose dead body lay rotting in the tomb, would be of no use in granting zōē to any putative sheep.
****Note, however, that the basis of this security is located, not in some supposed notion of the effectualness of a once-for-all human "decision" of believing, but in Christology (cf. the discussion infra), and that the response of genuine sheep doesn't consist simply of having believed once―and thus effective for all time―but of hearing their shepherd's voice and following him (akolouthousin moi).
*****What Jesus says here is said earlier in that remarkable passage in John 6:35-43, the one text in the New Testament, as I have always said, in which all of the infamous so-called "Five Points of Calvinism" may be found articulated explicitly (and which also shows, it must not be forgotten, that these mysterious ideas fit snugly together with a robust understanding of the human responsibility to believe, not to mention the implicit responsibility of Jesus-followers to proclaim Christ and commend faith in him to the world). Most important, for our present purposes, are verses 37-39: "Everything that the Father gives to me will come to me; and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away (ou mē ekbalō); for I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day." Jesus here claims that his mission was to secure the salvation of those the Father had given him, and that this mission will succeed and result in their resurrection to glory on the last day.
******It should go without saying, but unfortunately needs to be said, that the attempt of some latter-day theologians to attribute this "economic," ad extra subordination to the eternal, ab intra Trinitarian relations between the Father and Son (usually with an eye toward weaponizing this supposed subordination in the interest of the patriarchal subordination of women in the home and church) is an illegitimate abstraction not supported by classic, orthodox Trinitarian theology.
*******Cf. John 3:16-17, 35-36; 5:19-23, 26; 6:40; 8:36; 10: 15, 18, 25, 29-30; 14:13. For God as his "Father" who "sent" him, cf. John 4:34; 5:23-24, 30, 37; 6:38-39, 44; 7:16, 18, 28, 33; 7:16, 18, 28, 33; 8:16, 18, 26, 29; 9:4; 12:44-45, 49; 13:20; 14:24; 15:21; 16:5.
********The text here is likewise uncertain. The old King James version reads "the only begotten Son" here, following the Majority Text, which includes the noun huios, almost certainly under the influence of John 3:16. Lacking huios, thus making monogenēs a substantival adjective, are P66, Aleph, B, C, and Fathers such as Origen and Didymus. It is thus to be preferred on both internal and external grounds. Cf. Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (London: United Bible Societies, 1975) 198.
*********James D. G. Dunn, "Let John Be John―A Gospel for Its Time," in Das Evangelium und die Evangelien, ed. Peter Stuhlmacher (WUNT 28; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1983) 331. Dunn's entire discussion in Neither Jew Nor Greek: A Contested Identity (Christianity in the Making, vol. 3; Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2015) 346-56, especially 352-53, can hardly be bettered.
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