subtly, Jesus’s fulfillment of priestly mediation is suggested by the fact that Luke chooses to begin and end his gospel in the temple (Luke 1:8, 24:52). This appears to mean that the entire story of Jesus has been bounded by and therefore finds its meaning in the temple. It also strongly implies that Jesus has fulfilled and taken over the function of the temple. This interpretation makes a great deal of sense in light of the data that we have earlier examined that suggests that Luke views Jesus as the returning kavod, as well as a final universal sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins. Through Word and sacrament, Jesus mediates God’s presence, holiness, and the forgiveness of sins to the Church.
John’s Gospel and Letters301
Much like Mark’s gospel, John’s gospel is one of glory and humiliation. John, nonetheless, works with these themes differently than Mark. As we observed earlier, Mark reveals Jesus’s glory and humiliation through a pattern of alternation. John is much more comfortable describing Jesus’s glory in a pattern of paradoxical disclosure and hiddenness. John describes Jesus as the one who makes his power and glory known by his act of humiliation. His humiliation is the very act of his exaltation. His veiling is the unveiling of his revelation.
John begins his gospel by telling his audience that Jesus is the true divine Word who spoke forth the original creation (John 1:1–4). Jesus is also the true glory of God. His light has shown in the darkness and triumphed over it (1:5). This also seems to suggest John’s identification of Jesus with the Servant of Isaiah 49:6 who is a “light to the nations” in that he is “true light, which enlightens everyone, and is coming into the world” (1:9).302
As Rudolf Schnackernburg observes, John posits that Jesus is greater than Moses. Whereas Moses desired to see God, but was only allowed to do so indirectly, Jesus is God himself come in the flesh.303 Indeed, as Charles Gieschen adds, Moses’s revelation is of a lesser variety than that of Jesus, because Jesus has directly seen the Father as no one else has.304 Whereas Moses only ascended to Sinai, Jesus has descended from heaven and will ascend there again: “no one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man” (3:13). As the true kavod himself, Jesus himself is the source of all glory. Moses’s face merely reflected glory, but Jesus is the glory of God in person. Throughout his book, John reinforces Jesus’s identity with the hypostatized kavod present in the Old Testament. At one point in the gospel, Jesus also chides the Jews for not listening to his voice (5:17–47) in the same manner that they would not listen to him when he spoke to their forefathers in the cloud on Sinai (Exod 20).305
John identifies himself as a true witness to this glory, just as Moses was on Sinai: “we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).306 Looking upon God in the flesh, the apostles have gained the same revelation as Moses. In seeing Jesus, Nathaniel is called a “true Israelite” (1:47) because the etymology of “Israel” in the first century among many Hellenistic Jews was “one who sees God.”307 Indeed, because the disciples have seen Jesus, they have also “seen the Father” (14:7). Since Jesus’s revelation fulfills God’s revelation to Moses, one might say that their revelation is of a greater variety: “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (1:17–18).
Jesus reveals his glory through his prophetic Word. This Word reveals Jesus’s true identity in the midst of his outwardly humble form. Jesus testifies that he will be “lifted up” (3:14) and be glorified (17:1), both of which refer to his passion. Dying, Jesus will reveal his divine power to save and to condemn: “Father, the hour has come [of his passion]; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you” (17:1). His actions not only reveal his own glory as the sole agent of redemption, but also glorify his Father: “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed” (17:4–5).
At the hour of his death, Jesus’s identity is paradoxically revealed. The inscription over his cross declares his true identity: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” As Craig Koester correctly observes, this inscription stands as a prophetic proclamation in all three major languages of the Roman world (19:19).308 This echoes Isaiah’s insistence that the glory of the Lord would be seen by all flesh (Isa 40:5).309 The paradox, that such glory is hidden, nevertheless remains. Such glory can only be perceived by those who believe the Word of God concerning Jesus: “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” (John 11:40, emphasis added).310 It is, indeed, true that John does often talk about “seeing” the glory of revelation. But as the passages cited above demonstrate, this seeing is a spiritual seeing that is mediated through the auditory faculties. In point of fact, such spiritual seeing frequently stands in contradiction to ordinary physical vision: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (20:29).
Jesus’s identity does not merely testify to the truth, but is the truth. For John, truth is a person, and not an abstract proposition. The truth is the content of Jesus’s revelation. As the inscription above the cross makes clear, this truth is that Jesus is the true Messiah king who has come to redeem the world from sin, death, and the devil: “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth” (18:37). Jesus’s kingship is tied up in his prophetic ministry of conquest through the Word. By his prophetic Word of truth he has come to destroy the devil who is the “prince of this world” and one whom he will make certain is “driven out” (12:31). The devil is a “liar” and a “murderer” (8:44) whom Christ counters with his “truth” (1:17) and “life” (v. 4). By this prophetic Word of salvation, he will ultimately redeem humanity and bring it to the Father.311 This truth brings the freedom of the gospel: “you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (8:32).
Jesus’s Word of redemption triumphs over Satan and the mangled old narrative of creation by enacting a new creation story. Just as he spoke forth the original creation, his prophetic Word of redemption will actualize the new creation. N. T. Wright observes: “John confronts his readers with a strange new Genesis.”312 Later, Wright argues that the pattern of John’s gospel corresponds to the works and days of creation, and therefore the book represents a new narrative of creation:
The large-scale outworking of this [Jesus’s renewal of creation] can be seen in John’s deliberate sequence of “signs.” I believe that John intends his readers to follow a sequence of seven signs, with the water-into-wine story at Cana as the first and the crucifixion as the seventh. The resurrection of Jesus takes place, he is careful to tell us twice, “on the first day of the week,” and I believe this is best interpreted as the start of God’s new creation. On the Friday, the sixth day of the week, Jesus stands before Pilate, who declares “behold the man!” (19:5), echoing the creation of humankind on the sixth day of creation. On the cross Jesus finishes the work the Father has given him to do (17:4), ending with the shout of triumph (tetelestai, “it is accomplished,” 19:30), corresponding the completion of creation itself. There follows, as in Genesis, a day of rest, a Sabbath day. . . . [therefore] Jesus’ public career is to be understood as the completion of the original creation, with the resurrection as the start of the new.313
This act of recreation through the Word is also tied up with Jesus’s identity as the fulfillment of the temple. As we saw in the previous chapter, the Old Testament authors saw creation as a vast temple dedicated to the worship of God. In the same manner, the Israelite cult was a restoration of the original creation. This means that Jesus’s enactment of a “strange new Genesis” cannot be divided from his fulfillment of the temple and its sacrificial worship. Jesus’s role as the fulfillment and re-creator of the cult/creation fits not only with his reality as the “Word made flesh,” but also makes him the true son of David. As we should remember, God promised David that the Messiah would build the house for his Name (2 Sam 7:14).314 Jesus’s re-creation of the world was not only prefigured in Solomon’s
