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JESUS the Word according to JOHN the
Sectarian
Robert H. Gundry, Eerdmans, 2002, 137p
Ray Hoekzema
An unusual title? It is an extraordinary book! Consisting of only three
chapters confined to 94 pages of text, it includes no less than 231
footnotes, some of them quite extensive. It also has an extraordinary
bibliography. Gundry draws ‘wisdom’ from 250 authors, some with multiple
publications adding a further 90 titles, the majority of them published
in the last decade.
The subject of the book arose primarily out of Gundry delivering the
Annual Lecture at the 30th Anniversary Meeting of the Institute for
Biblical Research. In addition, out of his annoyance aroused by
listening to what he calls a tirade against propositional truth under
the worn-out slogan, “Truth is personal, not propositional.” This made
Gundry think about the Word (John 1:1) and the rest of the prologue to
John’s Gospel.
So in the first chapter, Jesus the Word according to John, Gundry aims
to prove that the prologue was not an afterthought as some scholars
allege. He sets out to show that a Christology of the Word dominates the
whole of John’s Gospel. Right through we find that Jesus’ speech and
word, already equated with the truth which He Himself is, equates also
with the words of God. He is God’s words as well as His own word, for as
the Word He was God in the beginning. Don Carson says: “Jesus’ speech is
a reflection of His person. Not only is what Jesus says just what the
Father has told Him to say, but He himself is the Word of God, God’s
self-expression.”
So much is Jesus the Word that even after going back to the Father, the
Holy Spirit teaches the disciples all things and reminds them of all
Jesus told them. The words that the Father has given to speak deal
almost entirely with Jesus Himself, nearly to the exclusion of the theme
of God’s kingdom. The proclaimer and the proclaimed have also become one
and the same. In John, Jesus is what is spoken even as He does the
speaking.
In another chapter, Gundry draws attention to a strong sectarianism in
John. The sharpness of the Johannine distinction between the elect and
the non-elect arises out of sectarianism. The Gospel of John is
countercultural and sectarian for, says Benton Johnson, “a sect is a
religious group that rejects the social environment in which it exists.”
Or as Ronald Johnstone pictures it “as a fellowship of the elect – i.e.,
an embodiment of true believers.” Willi Marxsen adds the perspective
that “loving one another takes place in a circle that is closed but not
closed-off.”
Gundry states that since the Christology of Jesus as the Word who,
though not of the world, speaks volubly to it, John’s sectarianism has
sharpened the evangelistic thrust and usefulness - even today – of the
Fourth Gospel.
Finally, concerned with the unreflective way evangelicals relate – and
acquiesce – to their social and cultural milieu, Gundry says that the
current trends in North American evangelism (Australian no less) call
for a strong dose of John’s logocentric sectarianism. No wonder Gundry
titles his final chapter A Paleofundamentalist Manifesto for
contemporary evangelicalism. Christian Smith says that evangelicalism
thrives on distinction, engagement, tension, conflict, and threat.
There’s no doubt that without these, evangelicalism would lose its
identity and purpose.
Since postmoderns are audiovisually oriented, there is a shift to
liturgy and sacrament at the expense of biblical, theological, and
rhetorical quality of most preaching. In the larger culture we have an
insinuation of a whole range of reversals, e.g. religious syncretism
brought on by multiculturalism; religious pluralism; dominance of
tolerance. It is common to consider that ‘all truth is subjective, only
feelings are authentic’. “Evangelicalism has accommodated to the
subjectivism in the larger culture” says James Hunter.
Instead, summarises Gundry, we need to be culturally engaged with the
world enough to be critical rather than so culturally secluded as to be
mute, morally separate from the world but not spatially cloistered from
it, and unashamedly expressive of historic (paleofundamental) Christian
essentials but not quarrelsome over non-essentials.
The book being highly technical and having a fair sprinkling of Greek,
makes it unattractive to the average reader but profitable for the
bigger-picture ‘theologian’.
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