look, a text which highlights the spirit’s miracle as the precise reason for the begotten child being called the Son of God. Irons continues by citing John 1:1–3 as proof that the Word was a “divine being distinct from God.” In addition to again raising the question of monotheism, this definition of the Word goes beyond anything taught within the Hebrew Bible, where God’s davar is never described as a separate divine being.59 Irons brings a straightforward reading to the “came or descended from heaven” references, a reading which ignores the Jewish idiom (Jas 1:17; 3:15, 17), misses that Jesus’ “flesh” is what descended (John 6:51), and fails to grasp the figurative nature of the dialogue which is pervasive. Jesus unquestionably was sent from God (John 7:29), but so was John the Baptist (John 1:6). I invite Irons to interact with the argument which I detailed regarding John 8:58 and 17:5 in my response to Dixon, particularly where I demonstrated that Jews often spoke of preexistence within God’s plan. It is certainly true that Jesus was consecrated before his birth (John 10:36), but is this really so different than the beginning of Jeremiah’s commissioning (Jer 1:5)?
Irons further argues that John 16:28 is indicative of three phases of Jesus’ existence. However, this suggestion fails to take seriously the chiastic structure of the verse:
I came forth from the Father (A)
and have come into the world (B)
I am leaving the world again (B1)
and going to the Father (A1)
This seems, rather than teaching three phases, to indicate two phases. At the end of this section, he suggests that these disputed passages in John’s Gospel need to be interpreted as “straightforward vignettes.” Yet I feel the need to ask, “straightforward to whom?” To us as twenty-first century Westerners, who are nearly two millennia detached from the culture, context, idioms, and customs of the first-century-Jewish world? Does not Jesus characteristically speak in metaphor, parable, and typology within the Fourth Gospel? I respectfully suggest that the Judaism out of which the Fourth Gospel was composed needs to be accounted for before we assume that such statements need to be read with such wooden literalism.
Irons objects to a theology of two stages of Christology which eliminates preexistence. He argues this reconstruction would result in a human being exalted to a position of honor which is inconsistent with his “ontological nature.” In other words, Irons assumes that Jesus has to be ontologically divine in order to make sense of his exaltation. In response, I wish to bring to the discussion texts within Judaism where human figures are described as greatly exalted (without any reservation given by the authors). The Testament of Abraham depicts a glorified human figure (revealed to be Adam) seated upon a golden throne overseeing the judgment of souls (T. Abr. 11.4–12). The same document depicts Abel, a human judge, exalted to a position of enthronement after his death (T. Ab. 12.4–11; 13.1–4). Fourth Ezra has Ezra receiving the promise of exaltation to live with God’s son (4 Ezra 14.9). The second-century-BCE document, the Exagōgē of Ezekiel the Tragedian, drawing on the vision of the throne chariot in Ezek 1, portrays Moses as a man seated upon a heavenly throne ruling and governing humanity (Ezek. Trag. 68–86). Some of the speculation about the location of the elusive Elijah crystallized in Sirach, who describes him as exalted (“taken up”) without dying (Sir 48:9–10). Similarly, the book of 1 Enoch testifies about the speculation of the figure by the same name who was promoted to heaven apart from death (1 Enoch 12.4). Are Adam, Abel, Ezra, Moses, and Enoch being given divine honors representing their ontological nature? I would be eager to hear how Irons feels about these passages, about which James Dunn summarizes, “this raises the possibility that even within the monotheistic Judaism of the first century that thought of a great human figure being exalted to heavenly status, and thus receiving honor due to such a one, was not so far from being admissible.”60 Irons is making a rather bold claim to assert that the (omnipotent) Father is unable to exalt a human being.
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