Semeia 85: God the Father in the Gospel of John

SEMEIA 85

God the Father in the Gospel of John

Editor: Adele Reinhartz

© 1999 by the Society of Biblical Literature

Published Quarterly by THE SOCIETY OF BIBLICAL LITERATURE 825 Houston Mill Road Atlanta, GA 30329

Printed in the United States of America on acid free paper

CONTENTS Contributors to this Issue......................................................................................v Introduction: “Father” As Metaphor in the Fourth Gospel Adele Reinhartz ....................................................................................1 1.

“Show Us the Father, and We Will Be Satisfied” (John 14:8) Gail R. O’Day ......................................................................................11

2.

“The Living Father” Marianne Meye Thompson................................................................19

3.

The Having-Sent-Me Father: Aspects of Agency, Encounter, and Irony in the Johannine Father-Son Relationship Paul N. Anderson ................................................................................33

4.

Intimating Deity in the Gospel of John: Theological Language and “Father” in “Prayers of Jesus” Mary Rose D’Angelo ..........................................................................59

5.

“And the Word Was Begotten”: Divine Epigenesis in the Gospel of John Adele Reinhartz ..................................................................................83

6.

The Fathers on the Father in the Gospel of John Peter Widdicombe ............................................................................105

7.

Disseminations: An Autobiographical Midrash on Fatherhood in John’s Gospel Jeffrey L. Staley ..................................................................................127

8.

The Soul of the Father and the Son: A Psychological (yet Playful and Poetic) Approach to the Father-Son Language in the Fourth Gospel Michael Willett Newheart ................................................................155

RESPONSES: 9.

The Symbol of Divine Fatherhood Dorothy Ann Lee ..............................................................................177

10. Reading Back, Reading Forward Sharon H. Ringe ................................................................................189 11. The Fatherhood of God at the Turn of Another Millennium Pamela Dickey Young ......................................................................195

CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE

Paul Anderson George Fox College Newberg, OR 97132 Mary Rose D’Angelo Department of Theology University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN 46556 Dorothy Ann Lee United Faculty of Theology Queen‘s College Parkville, Victoria 3052 AUSTRALIA Gail R. O’Day Candler School of Theology Emory University Atlanta, GA 30322 Adele Reinhartz Department of Religious Studies McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4K1 CANADA Sharon H. Ringe Wesley Theological Seminary 4500 Massachusetts Ave. NW Washington, DC 20016

Jeffrey L. Staley Department of Theology and Religious Studies Seattle University 900 Broadway Seattle, WA 98122-4340 Marianne Meye Thompson Fuller Theological Seminary Box O Pasadena, CA 91182 Peter Widdicombe Department of Religious Studies McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario L8S 4K1 CANADA Michael Willett Newheart Howard University School of Divinity 1400 Shepherd St. NE Washington, DC 20017 Pamela Dickey Young Queen’s Theological College Kingston, Ontario, K7L 3N6 CANADA

INTRODUCTION: “FATHER” AS METAPHOR IN THE FOURTH GOSPEL Adele Reinhartz McMaster University

The image of God as father is deeply entrenched in Jewish and Christian scriptures. God frequently calls Israel God’s son (Hos 1:10) or God’s firstborn son (Exod 4:22). God is referred to explicitly as Israel’s father, as in Isa 63:16: “For you are our father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us; you, O Lord, are our father; our Redeemer from of old is your name.” The relationship between God and Israel is often described in analogy to a human father and son, as in Deut 8:5: “Know then in your heart that as a parent disciplines a child so the Lord your God disciplines you”; and Ps 103:13: “As a father has compassion for his children, so the Lord has compassion for those who fear him.” The usage is also frequent in the Gospels, as in the words of Jesus in Mark 8:38: “Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels,” and, perhaps most famously, in Jesus’ cry to his father in Mark 14:36: “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.” The use of “father” for God is particularly well attested in the Gospel of John. God is referred to as father approximately 118 times in the Fourth Gospel, primarily in the discourse materials that develop the Gospel’s distinctive theology and christology. This usage has not gone unnoticed in the many thousands of works that have been written on this Gospel over the centuries. As new scholarly methods appear, new insights brought to bear, and new questions asked, the traditional approaches to and interpretation of the image of God as father too are called into question. This volume of essays is intended to explore the metaphor of God as father in the Fourth Gospel from a variety of perspectives and to invite its readers to reconsider the image in light of their own interactions with the Gospel of John. The impetus for a volume on this topic was a session of the Johannine Literature Section at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in 1998, at which several of the papers in this volume were presented in draft form (D’Angelo, O’Day, Reinhartz, Widdicombe). Other papers were then solicited to broaden the purview (Anderson, Willett Newheart, Staley, Thompson), and several respondents drafted (Lee, Ringe, Young). These essays do not cover the field in a comprehensive way, nor do

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they have a common point of departure. Their interests range from concerns with the original meanings of the metaphor in the Greco-Roman and Jewish contexts of the first century C.E. through to the ways in which the metaphor can be used in self-understanding in the twenty-first century. Their common focus uncovers the complexity of the Johannine use of paternal Godlanguage and suggests some ways in which its ancient and contemporary uses might be understood. This introduction will address three issues. The first is the context of these essays in the larger scholarly discussion of God as father in the Fourth Gospel. The second concerns the approaches to and assumptions about “father” as a key metaphor in the Gospel. The third traces briefly some directions for further research. Context in Johannine Scholarship Gail O’Day’s essay, “‘Show Us the Father, and We Will Be Satisfied’ (John 14:8),” outlines the contours of the question in Johannine scholarship. Interest in the image of God as father in the Fourth Gospel runs high in four areas of research. 1. Historical Jesus studies consider whether or not Jesus himself referred to God as his father. Of particular interest is the relationship between the Johannine Jesus’ prominent use of “father” to address God, and the synoptic Jesus’ invocation of God as “abba,” the Aramaic and familiar form of address to one’s father (Mark 14:36). 2. Feminist criticism wrestles with the implications of using paternal terminology to refer to God. Especially difficult is the question of whether such language is necessarily and utterly patriarchal and hence to be discarded, or whether paternal language might support alternate readings, including a critique of patriarchy. As Janet Martin Soskice notes, the question is: “Can a feminist be at home in a religion where ‘father’ is a central divine title, if not necessarily in current usage, then certainly in the foundational texts and the subsequent history to which these have given rise?” (1992:15). 3. Studies in early Christian doctrine examine the development of this metaphor from its biblical usage to its place in more systematic theological discourses. 4. Narrative critical studies look at the characterization of God and the ways in which the paternal language figures in the development of Jesus’ characterization as well as that of God. These approaches do not exhaust the potential of the topic for Johannine studies. O’Day points out that the majority of the Johannine occurrences of the

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“father” figure of speech as well as its most substantive development within the Gospel occur in the discourse material. She urges a closer look at the role of the “father” image in shaping Jesus’ discourses and, by extension, in Johannine theology as a whole. Important in this regard is a focus not only on the meaning of the “father” figure as such, but on its interrelationships with other images and its formative role within the larger contexts in which it is embedded. O’Day’s fourfold categorization of the field also provides a conceptual framework for this volume. The essays contribute to all of the areas that O’Day mentions and extend the current discussion in a number of ways. 1. Historical issues are addressed in several of the contributions. Mary Rose D’Angelo’s paper, “Intimating Deity in the Gospel of John: Theological Language and ‘Father’ in ‘Prayers of Jesus,’ ” intends to dislodge readings of “father” in the Fourth Gospel from theories about Jesus’ “abba” experience that have been based to a large extent on the work of Joachim Jeremias. She argues that, pace Jeremias, Jesus’ use of “father” was not unique. Rather, it was closely paralleled in Jewish communities. Its very currency in the common parlance of early Jewish piety and resistance made it likely that it was used by the historical Jesus for similar purposes. Historical-critical approaches to the “father” language focus not only on the possibility that Jesus used this designation but also speak to the role that it may have played in the Johannine community in its Greco-Roman context. Some articles look to the use of the term in Jewish and Greco-Roman texts to explicate as well as to fill in the background to the Johannine usage. Marianne Meye Thompson’s essay, “The Living Father,” points out the presence of this term in the Hebrew Bible, and even more so in the writings of Philo and Josephus, which convey a view of God as the source of creation and the one who gives life. Paul Anderson’s study of “The Having-Sent-Me Father” argues that the Johannine Christians would have heard the Johannine construction of the relationship between God and Jesus against the background of Deut 18:15–22, which promises the return of a prophet like Moses. Anderson links up the usage of “father” language with various stages in the history of the Johannine community. My article, “‘And the Word Was Begotten’: Divine Epigenesis in the Gospel of John,” suggests that Greco-Roman theories about the male role in procreation may have influenced the Johannine presentation of the relationship between God and Jesus. 2. Feminist concerns are prominent in two of the articles and in all three of the responses. D’Angelo examines the context of pater in Roman patriarchy as a social system and concludes that patriarchal ideology is deeply embedded in the Johannine usage of the “father” metaphor. My article supports this conclusion by suggesting that the Johannine usage draws on Aristotle’s theory of epigenesis, which dominated the Greco-Roman understanding of

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the process of generation. Epigenesis attributed the formative aspect of the generative process to the male. If the Fourth Gospel drew on this theory, then it may be virtually impossible to disentangle the Johannine use of the metaphor from a fundamentally gendered understanding of God as malelike in his role as the source of life. The three respondents reflect on the essays in light of the contemporary feminist grappling with the “father” image. Pamela Dickey Young suggests that wisdom theology provides a way to counter the patriarchal effects of the language of divine fatherhood. The presence of both “father” and “wisdom” imagery in the prologue (John 1:1–18) allows the latter to supplement or perhaps even to displace the former in a feminist reading of the Fourth Gospel. Dorothy Ann Lee is less sanguine about feminist possibilities. She advocates reading against the grain of the Gospel. She cautions, however, that while “de-patriarchalizing” the Johannine father may challenge the male world, it ultimately fails to embrace fully the female world. This is so despite the prominent and inclusive way in which female characters are dramatized in the Johannine narrative. Sharon Ringe challenges us to consider carefully the use of the “God as father” metaphor today. As Ringe points out, the image of God as father may repel not only women who feel excluded from a community that expresses its theology in male metaphors, but also those children, women, and men whose experience of fathers is negative, violent, or abusive. 3. The development of the father metaphor in early Christian doctrine is the focus of Peter Widdicombe’s essay, “The Fathers on the Father in the Gospel of John.” Widdicombe looks at the ways in which Origen and Athanasius developed the concept of fatherhood and drew on the Fourth Gospel to do so. He shows that the “father” metaphor is used by both Christian Fathers to explore theology, christology, and soteriology but with rather different outcomes. Dorothy Lee discusses the views of two figures of the fourth century C.E., Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Nazianzus. Whereas some ancient writers, such as Gregory of Nyssa, could concede that “mother” can replace “father” as the name for God, since “there is neither male nor female in the divine,” a number of recent neoconservative theologians argue that “father” is the literal and exclusive name for God. 4. Narrative critical concerns emerge in most of the essays, particularly with respect to the Johannine characterization of God and of the relationship between God and Jesus. For example, in Anderson’s view, God is portrayed in the Fourth Gospel primarily as the one who sends Jesus into the world. For Thompson, the most important element of the divine father’s characterization is that he gives life. They both support their conclusions from the discourse and the narrative material in the Gospel, that is, from the ways in

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which Jesus and the narrator speak about God and the narrative portrays the relationship between Jesus and God. The essays thus fit handily into the four categories that O’Day has discerned in previous scholarly treatments of this topic. They also heed her call to consider the ways in which the paternal language has shaped the theological discourse in this Gospel. As already noted, Thompson and Anderson both discuss the central role played by the “father” in Johannine theology and christology. Anderson maps the Johannine discourses onto the Deuteronomic prophet-like-Moses motif to argue that Deuteronomy 18 has structured the language and theology of the Gospel as well as its characterization of God and Jesus. Thompson acknowledges the presence and importance of the sending and agency motifs but argues that God’s role as the source of life is the fundamental structuring device of the discourses. For this reason, this role, which emphasizes the “father” metaphor as such, is the most important vehicle for Johannine theology. My article shares Thompson’s focus on “father” as the one who gives life but takes the argument in a different direction by suggesting that the language of biological generation shapes Johannine theological discourse, including christology as well as soteriology. Jesus as the Son of God does his father’s works and embodies his words precisely because he has been generated by the father’s logos and form. By following the son, others too can enter into this filial relationship with God. D’Angelo draws attention to the irony of the dialogues and discourse and argues that, from the Johannine perspective, Jesus is not in fact the only son of God. Rather, Johannine irony can work only on the basis of an assumption of a shared sonship. Both Jesus and his Jewish sparring partners are sons of God; the deity is the father of Jesus just as he is the father of others. This shared relationship becomes the foundation for the theological strategy at work in the text. Two of the essays exemplify new approaches within New Testament studies, namely, autobiographical, psychological, and cultural criticism. Jeffrey Staley describes his article, “Disseminations,” as “An Autobiographical Midrash on Fatherhood in John’s Gospel.” Staley moves back and forth between the Gospel and his own life, using the Gospel’s utterances about God as father as a way of thinking about the experience of fathering and of being fathered. Also brought into play is the Beatles’ song, “I Am the Walrus.” Readers would be well-advised to have a copy of the lyrics handy when reading Staley’s essay, better to appreciate the intertextual play around which the essay revolves. Michael Willett Newheart’s contribution, “The Soul of the Father and the Son” is “A Psychological (yet Playful and Poetic) Approach to the Father-Son Language in the Fourth Gospel.” It combines psychology, intertextual readings from the African American experience, and autobiography to reflect on the father-son language. His readings illumine the text

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and show how the paternal God language in John can be read intertextually with African American poetry and as a vehicle for self-analysis and reflection. These autobiographical essays illustrate movingly some of the ways in which the divine father metaphor can be appropriated for self-understanding. Their appropriation of this male image, however, may exclude women readers just as the Johannine God-father metaphor may exclude them from the Gospel itself. This possibility is explored in the responses of Pamela Dickey Young and Sharon Ringe. Although Staley’s and Willett Newheart’s autobiographical approaches have been profoundly influenced by feminism, their embrace of the father image in John and their focus on their own experience of fathering might indeed shut out those who by definition cannot be fathers. I confess that my own reaction is quite different. Rather than being excluded, I feel invited to experience, however partially and vicariously, the experience of fathering that will never be my own. I also found many echoes of my own life experience in these essays. Although fathering is a gendered experience, being fathered is not; while Willett Newheart’s and Staley’s experiences of being fathered are very different from my own, their comments were a spur to my own thinking about this fundamental human relationship. Further, the essays resonate strongly with my own sense of myself as a parent and as someone who cares deeply about children, my own and others. The nurturing of young children, whether by mothers, fathers, teachers, or others, raises the same or similar fundamental issues, questions, and vulnerabilities. One example is the fear of failing the children in one’s life, including, as Ringe describes, the young children of our society and indeed of the world for whom, in my view, we have some responsibility whether we acknowledge it or not. Finally, those of us who are not and cannot be fathers nevertheless can rejoice in the care and the joy that these fathers take in their fathering. The autobiographical appropriation of the father image thus calls forth different responses from different readers. In this way, it mirrors the diversity of responses to the divine father image itself, from a life-giving metaphor that has ongoing meaning for all to a patriarchal expression that excludes and demeans women, and many points in between. Father As Metaphor One point upon which all interpreters agree is that “father” is a metaphor for the divine in this Gospel. Janet Martin Soskice notes that philosophers and literary critics through the years have proposed over 125 definitions of metaphor (1985:15), with no consensus in sight. Soskice’s study, however, can guide us to some of the basic issues that may prove helpful in reading the essays in this volume. Metaphors are figures of speech; that is, they are linguistic in nature. Metaphors provide a way of speaking about one thing that is suggestive of another. To use the word “father” as a

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metaphor for God is therefore to speak of a familiar being—a father—in such a way as to suggest the unfamiliar and indeed the unspeakable—God. According to Soskice, theories of metaphor fall into three different categories: those that view metaphor as a substitution for the thing itself, that is, as a decorative way of saying what could be said literally; those that consider metaphor to be primarily emotive in that its originality lies not in what it says but in its affective impact; and those that see metaphor as a unique cognitive vehicle that enables us to say that which can be said in no other way (Soskice, 1985:24). For Soskice, the latter definition is the richest and most apt, particularly for a consideration of “father” as a metaphor for the divine. In her view, metaphors permit an “intercourse” of thoughts and compel new possibilities of vision (1985:57). That is, through the metaphor of “father” one is able to come to an enriched understanding of the nature of God. Some metaphors become models. According to Sallie McFague, a model is “a dominant metaphor, a metaphor with staying power” (23). Models are similar to metaphors “in that they are images which retain the tension of the ‘is and is not’ and, like religious and poetic metaphors, they have emotional appeal insofar as they suggest ways of understanding our being in the world” (23). One metaphor that has become a model is “God as father.” McFague continues: As a model it not only retains characteristics of metaphor but also reaches toward qualities of conceptual thought. It suggests a comprehensive, ordering structure with impressive interpretive potential. As a rich model with many associated commonplaces as well as a host of supporting metaphors, an entire theology can be worked out from this model. Thus, if God is understood on the model of “father,” human beings are understood as “children,” sin is rebellion against the “father,” redemption is sacrifice by the “elder son” on behalf of the “brothers and sisters” for the guilt against the “father” and so on. (32)

Christians typically have not taken models like “God is the father” or “the kingdom of God” as “evaluative phenomena or redescriptions of human experience,” but as ways of speaking, however obliquely, about states and relations that they do not fully understand but that they take to be more than simply human (Soskice, 1985:107). Some metaphors, on the other hand, do not become or remain models but rather lose their original force and associations. These “dead metaphors” become commonplaces that we use without thinking very much about their content. Everyday speech is replete with dead metaphors; think, for example, of the “leaves” of a book, the “stem” of a glass (Soskice, 1985:71). One way to distinguish a dead metaphor from a living metaphor lies in the relationship between metaphor and model. “An originally vital metaphor calls to mind, directly or indirectly, a model or models. . . . As the metaphor becomes commonplace, its initial web of implications becomes, if not entirely

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lost, then difficult to recall” (Soskice, 1985:73). It must be stressed that “living” and “dead” are not evaluative terms when it comes to assessing metaphors. A live metaphor, particularly one that has become a model, provides a rich web of associations that allow us to speak of the unspeakable. A dead metaphor has a different but nevertheless important function in that it provides an image that is free from the control of the associations of the original metaphor and can be used in new and creative ways. Gail O’Day’s reflections on the degree to which the “father” motif has been taken for granted in New Testament scholarship and Christian theology suggests that for many it has long been a dead metaphor; that is, it is simply a substitute, name, or title for “God.” But many studies that focus on the Johannine usage of paternal God-language frequently imply the former. By reflecting on whether Jesus is the source of the metaphor or whether he adopted it from his environment, on the development of God as father in early Christian texts, on the negative impact or positive potential of paternal God-language for women, and on the role of the “father” image in the Gospel’s narrative and theology, scholars implicitly affirm the vitality of the metaphor in the New Testament period and beyond. Although the studies in this volume do not address the question explicitly, they do contribute to the discussion of whether the father metaphor is an active model or a dead metaphor. Some imply that “father” was no longer a live metaphor at the time of the Fourth Evangelist. Anderson’s essay argues that the controlling feature of the father is his role as the one who sends the son. That is, the controlling motif is not one that is inherent in either the biological or social elements of the “father” image. In privileging the father as sender over the father as creator, Anderson implies that for the Fourth Evangelist, the metaphor’s content and primary referent is less important than the use of it to describe God as agent. This suggests that the image was already deeply embedded in the ways in which the original audiences would have understood God and that every reference to God as father does not necessarily evoke the original terms of the metaphor. In other words, “father” was already a dead, or dying, metaphor. As such, it could be used to explore other models, in this case the prophet-like-Moses typology of Deuteronomy 18. D’Angelo argues that the “father” metaphor was not unique to Jesus but rather had already become a substitute for the divine name by Jesus’ day. Although the origin of the metaphor emphasizes generation, alliance, commitment, and intimacy, its importance for Jesus’ usage was precisely its banal and commonplace nature. For this reason, the most important element of the father-son relationship was not intimacy but rather its potential for a theological strategy that allows the Johannine Jesus to assert his superiority over others who also claim a special relationship to the divine. Not only contemporary commentators but also the church fathers differed in their implicit assessment of the vitality of the “father” metaphor.

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Peter Widdicombe indicates that for Justin Martyr, God the father was in fact a dead metaphor; the description of God as father appears to have had no conceptual importance for his thought. Origen, on the other hand, explicitly looked at paternal language as a model that explores the relationship between Jesus and God regarding the generation of the son and found a place in the model for believers. Similarly, Athanasius used the model to support the uniqueness of the son’s generation; he argued that the others can become sons, but only by adoption. For Thompson, however, the vital nature of the “father” metaphor, and its extension into an important model for theology and christology, are fundamental. This is evident in her emphasis on God as the source of life and her analysis of the ways in which this understanding of God as father shapes the Gospel’s discourses. My own article begins with the assumption that the father metaphor was indeed a vibrant and rich model that extended beyond its role as a paradigm for the social, affective, and salvific relationship between the father and the son back to the process of generation itself. The papers by Staley and Willett Newheart similarly assume the ongoing vitality of the father metaphor and use it in its Johannine configuration as a model through which to think through other texts as well as their own experiences. These papers take the metaphor back home, so to speak. That is, Staley and Willett Newheart take a human concept such as father, as it has been used metaphorically to describe God, and then bring those associations back to consider their own human roles as fathers and sons. The readings in this volume therefore exemplify not only a variety of approaches to the “God as father” metaphor but also the diverse assessments of its content and function with the Fourth Gospel and in Christian theology. Future Research As Sharon Ringe notes in her response, this volume does not solve or resolve the “problem” of paternal God-language in this Gospel. It is likely that solutions or resolutions are not possible in any definitive sense; there are no doubt some readers of the Fourth Gospel for whom it does not constitute a problem at all; those troubled by the “father” metaphor, whether on feminist or other grounds, will not all be satisfied by the same solutions. It is my hope that this volume will be helpful for those who wish to think more about the range of issues raised by the use of paternal God-language in this Gospel. If it does not offer definitive solutions, the volume does illustrate some of the directions that research and thinking about this topic might take. Some of these articles themselves are parts of larger studies that have been or soon will be published (Widdicombe, Anderson, Willett Newheart, Staley, Thompson). Perhaps these essays will spur additional research, for example, on the Jewish and Greco-Roman background to the “father” metaphor, in

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order to continue reflection on Jesus’ own use of the title and how it might have resonated with the early audiences of the Gospel of John. Also of value would be additional studies of the ways in which the “father” image is read in a number of interpretive communities, such as Latin American, Asian, Asian American, African, Caribbean, and African American. Finally, the conversation regarding feminist theological approaches to and evaluations of the “father” metaphor is not yet concluded. How, for example, might a woman interact with this image in autobiographical reflections? The fact that paternal God-language is so intertwined with many aspects of Christian theology ensures that the investigation of its meanings and functions is by no means at an end. Two technical points must be mentioned. First, translations of biblical material are from the New Revised Standard Version (1989) unless otherwise noted. Secondly, attentive readers will notice that the volume has not imposed uniformity on the use of “father” or “Father.” In the process of editing, it seemed to me that this topic presents us with a case of orthography as theology. For some authors, “Father” clearly functions as a divine title, at least as it is used in the Gospel of John. Others retain the lowercase “f” to emphasize its metaphoric nature. I have followed the practice of each author and attempted to ensure that the usage is internally consistent within each essay while accepting inconsistency in the volume as a whole.

WORKS CONSULTED McFague, Sallie Metaphorical Theology: Models of God in Religious Language. 1982 Philadelphia: Fortress. Soskice, Janet Martin 1985 Metaphor and Religious Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1992

“Can a Feminist Call God ‘Father’?” Pp. 15–29 in Women’s Voices: Essays in Contemporary Feminist Theology. Ed. Teresa Elwes. London: Marshall Pickering.

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“SHOW US THE FATHER, WE WILL BE SATISFIED” (JOHN 14:8) Gail R. O’Day Candler School of Theology, Emory University

abstract This paper reviews four dominant approaches to the study of God as “Father” in John: historical Jesus research, feminist inquiry, the relationship of John to early Christian doctrine, narrative critical studies of God as character. Despite the differences in these approaches, they have in common the tendency to isolate “Father” from the dynamics of the larger Gospel narrative in which it resides. The fundamental role played by “Father” in shaping the Gospel’s many discourses still remains largely unexamined.

The brief conversation between Philip and Jesus at the start of the Farewell Discourse (14:8–9) provides a useful beginning point for thinking about the state of critical inquiry into “Father” in the Gospel of John. Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”

Philip’s request is met by Jesus with a response that borders on astonishment, that Philip, so long into his relationship with Jesus, could continue to ask for something that has already been amply demonstrated. The mere mention of the topic “Father in John” in contemporary scholarship is apt to evoke a comparable response from one’s listeners: “Have you been studying so long and you still do not know? How can you say, ‘Show us the Father?’” Indeed, the well-known and frequently cited lexical statistic that “Father” occurs approximately 118 times in the Fourth Gospel suggests that the terrain in which any quest for “God as Father” in John is to be undertaken is already well mapped. The very frequency of the noun “Father” in reference to God has led interpreters to traverse the Fourth Gospel landscape in well-worn paths. With the aid of such clearly recognizable road markers, one begins to assume with some certainty what the vista at the next turn of the path will be. Indeed, these 118 references are so taken for granted by most readings of the Fourth Gospel that they are passed by unnoticed, no longer viewed as a variable part of the landscape.

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This is nowhere more obvious than in the centuries of critical commentaries on the Fourth Gospel. The noun “Father” (pathvr) first occurs at two crucial junctures in the prologue: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (1:14); and “It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known” (1:18). While commentaries devote considerable space to the discussion of lovgoı, savrx, skhnovw, dovxa, and monogenhvı, the noun pathvr does not receive comparable attention. John Calvin, for example, provides detailed exegetical comment on “the Word became flesh,” “flesh,” “and dwelt among us,” “And we beheld his glory,” “as of,” “the only begotten,” “full of grace,” and “the bosom of the Father,” but leaves pathvr without comment (19–22, 25–26). Bultmann devotes pages to savrx and dovxa, but not a word to pathvr (66–72). So, too, Hoskyns, Barrett, Brown, Beasley-Murray, Schnackenburg—none devotes exegetical space to the noun pathvr itself. “Father” is most frequently accepted as a straightforward descriptive noun that requires no comment.1 Commentators do not stop to question or examine the choice of the metaphor “Father” to speak of God here but simply receive it as a given in the text.2 “God as Father” in John becomes a focused topic of inquiry in four main areas of New Testament research: historical Jesus research, feminist inquiry, study of the relationship between John and later Christian doctrine, and narrative critical studies of God as character. Even in these more focused inquiries, however, the 118 easily identifiable lexical road markers and the attendant assumptions about the familiarity of the terrain may again mask the complexity and variety of the landscape. In historical Jesus research, to begin with, “Father” is primarily investigated for what it has to say about the prayer language of the historical Jesus and Jesus’ mode of addressing God. The defining treatment of this is the work of Jeremias (1966, 1967), whose primary concern was to sift through the layers of gospel tradition to arrive at the authentic sayings of Jesus. For Jeremias, it was beyond dispute that the address of God in prayer as ajbbav (Abba) was an authentic word of Jesus and that this Aramaic word should always translate the Greek vocative, pavter, whenever it was used by Jesus in prayer. Jeremias based his claim on the appearance of ajbbav at Mark 14:36 and extrapolated from there to Jesus’ prayers in all the Gospels (1967:54–57).

1 One notable exception is the commentary of B. F. Westcott, whose observation on “Father” at 1:18 is densely textured (15). 2 It was with much fear and trembling that I turned to my own commentary on John and discovered that I, too, had done the same thing—let the choice of the metaphor “Father” pass without comment in the prologue, while nonetheless commenting upon its function within vv. 14 and 18 (523). My first comment on the choice of the metaphor does not occur until a discussion of 5:19ff. (584).

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The Fourth Gospel presents two major problems for the thesis advocated by Jeremias and that still holds sway in many readings of “Father” in John. First, the vocative case of Father (pavter) occurs infrequently in John. The noun occurs most frequently in the nominative and accusative cases and is found in Jesus’ speech about, not to, God. Jeremias eliminates this problem by maintaining that the use of “Father” as a title for God does not belong to the authentic words of Jesus but was introduced by later writers in a traditioning process that is most evident in the Fourth Gospel. Thus the preponderance of nonvocative uses of “Father” in John is by definition excluded from consideration. Second, the specific contours of the vocative when it is used in John are also largely overlooked. Of the nine occurrences of the vocative in John, two are modified by adjectives—holy (17:11), righteous (17:25)—that are quite common in the Hebrew Bible as divine attributes (e.g., 1 Sam 2:2; Pss 5:18; 11:7; 89:14, 16, 18; 97:6, 12; 99:5, 9; 111:3, 9; 119:137). Jesus’ use of these adjectives in his prayer to God suggests that pavter is not necessarily and always the unique and intimate form of address that Jeremias claims (1967:57–63). These serious problems notwithstanding, much scholarly and popular discussion of “Father” in John continues to be refracted through the dominant lens of ajbbav and the Lord’s Prayer. The distinctive and dominant role of “Father” in the Fourth Gospel’s portrayal of God and Jesus becomes a simple variant (aberration?) of the synoptic norm of address to God in prayer.3 Yet “Father” belongs primarily to the language of discourse and debate in John, not prayer. To understand Father in the Johannine sayings of Jesus, this discursive language, not the prayer language of the synoptic tradition, must be the starting point of investigation. The 118 occurrences of pathvr in John also have been significant road markers for feminist scholars who attempt to traverse the Fourth Gospel terrain. John provides much raw material for biblical scholars and theologians who struggle with issues of the gender of God and the blatant and latent patriarchal assumptions that accompany the use of “Father” language to speak of God. Not surprisingly, the primary focus of such investigations is not on the function of “Father” in John per se, but on the broader horizons of Christian theological language, ethics, and often church governance and politics (e.g., Schneiders, Johnson).

3 See, for example, the representative comment in Robert Hamerton-Kelly, God the Father: Theology and Patriarchy in the Teaching of Jesus, “The synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are our primary written sources, John being so heavily freighted with community interpretation as to make the task of sifting impossible” (52). Yet, John 5 and 17 are part of Hamerton-Kelly’s argument to support his sense of the trajectory of the treatment of “Father” in later traditions about Jesus (94–97).

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A recent article, “Beyond Suspicion? The Fatherhood of God in the Fourth Gospel” (Lee) is a good example of an attempt to merge the broader feminist conversations and Fourth Gospel studies. As the title suggests, Lee reads “Father” in John with a hermeneutic of suspicion and notes the patriarchal assumptions at work in the context out of which the Fourth Gospel emerged. Lee proposes to take a hermeneutic of suspicion one step further by suggesting that the use of “Father” in John is itself a suspicious reading of its own patriarchal context. For Lee, the Fourth Gospel challenges the patriarchal projections that seem to be inherent in the noun “Father” and inverts their conventional meanings. Patriarchal “power” in John comes from giving away, not keeping, and the Father/Son relationship models the intimacy necessary for full human personhood (147–51). Lee’s reading has in its favor that it deals with “Father” principally in its Johannine context and attempts to understand its functions in the theological and social world constructed and communicated by the Fourth Gospel. Her reading represents a type of feminist reading in which patriarchal images are not rejected as antithetical to feminist interests but are reinterpreted as supportive of the most basic feminist values. Yet Lee also tends to follow the well-trodden paths of “God as Father” in John.4 Note, for example, that Lee states explicitly what most commentators tend to assume implicitly: qeovı and pathvr are interchangeable in John (145). This type of feminist approach, then, like commentary that simply accepts the use of “Father” as a given, also offers limited access to the distinctive Johannine rhetoric for God. “Father” in John also assumes prominence in conversations about the relationship of New Testament texts and early Christian doctrine, particularly the early creeds. For example, the phrase from the Apostles’ Creed, “God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth” was the impetus for Juel and Keifert to study the doctrine of God in the Fourth Gospel (1990). The two authors are explicit about the pointed and potentially offensive Father language for God in John (44) and struggle to make sense of this language in light of the other affirmations about God in the creed. They recognize “Father” as the metaphor that is “most appropriate” for God in this Gospel because “it focuses on the single issue on which everything else depends—God’s relationship to Jesus” (52). They conclude that together the two creedal affirmations about “Father” and “Maker of heaven and earth” capture the heart of Johannine theology: for John, the creator of the world, that is, Israel’s God, and the Father—the one who is in relationship with the Son—can only be one and the same God (52).

4 Lee refers to the 118 occurrences of [pathvr] in John in the opening pages of the article (146)!

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As soon as the rhetoric of “Father” and “Maker of heaven and earth” are equated, however, the specificity of the Johannine Father language begins to wane in influence on the theological conversation that follows. Despite their careful concordance work,5 Juel and Keifert assume that “Father” is simply a synonym for God. For example, they write that “Jesus is the sole way to God” (52), when the Fourth Gospel speaks of “the Father” in that context (14:6). They also take the frequency with which Jesus speaks about God in John to show that “God is clearly a participant in the drama recounted by the evangelist” (44). They do not, however, reflect on the difference between being talked about and being given one’s own speaking part—something that occurs rarely, if ever, for God in John (perhaps only at 12:29). In order to understand the place of “Father” in John, one needs to linger inside the Gospel’s theological rhetoric. Narrative critical studies is another arena where “Father” now receives focused attention, in particular, in literary critical studies of characterization. This approach has tended to focus on God as a character in the Johannine narrative (e.g., Thompson, Tolmie) and on “Father” as one, if not the main, clue to God’s character. The operative approach of narrative critical study is to attend to the textual details of the Fourth Gospel narrative. One does not begin with external constructions about God—whether those be derived from the synoptic tradition, feminism, or early Christian doctrine—but instead one works to surface the Fourth Gospel’s own narrative and theological constructions. Thompson, in her careful analysis, notes that “Father” is the most significant designation of God in John. She also notes that this designation appears solely in the words of others, most notably Jesus, and never in any direct speech of God. Moreover, she notes that the Fourth Gospel lacks any explicit description of God and God’s actions, in striking contrast to much of the biblical witness. She therefore concludes that it is Jesus’ prerogative to identify God as “Father” and that the significance of the identification lies in the familial relationship it establishes (189, 194–96). Studies of God as character rightly highlight the near absence of any nonmediated presence of God in the Fourth Gospel (mediated either by the words of the narrator or the words and deeds of Jesus), but rarely use this observation to ponder the appropriateness of applying the narrative critical category of “character.” The “Father” is talked about by Jesus more frequently than the “Father” appears as a visible, independent, active agent in the story line. This pattern drives one back to struggle with the discourses of the Gospel. Yet the literary critical questions that are most often brought to bear are more suited to story than to theological exposition and debate.

5

The lexical statistic of 118 occurrences is cited on p. 49.

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Each of the four lines of inquiry briefly traced above suggests that studies of “Father” in John tend to look at pathvr as a category unto itself in the Fourth Gospel. As a result, “Father” can lose its dynamic connection to the unfolding of the Gospel in which it resides. Its 118 occurrences give pathvr prominence on the Fourth Gospel landscape, but much of the study of “Father” seems to have heeded the markers without heeding the variety and texture of the terrain in which the markers are placed. In particular, the fundamental role played by “Father” in giving shape and substance to the Gospel’s many discourses needs to move to the forefront of scholarly attention. “Father” is not simply the Gospel’s preferred name for God; it is the Gospel’s primary metaphor for shaping theological discourse. This larger role of “Father” needs to be examined throughout the Gospel. To arrive at even a hint of satisfaction in the quest to “see the Father,” broad observations about the 118 occurrences of “Father” need to be set aside in favor of concentrated attention on the complex interrelationship of “Father” and its specific Gospel contexts.

WORKS CONSULTED Barrett, C. K. 1978 The Gospel according to St. John. 2d ed. Philadelphia: Westminster. Beasley-Murray, George R. 1987 John. WBC 36. Waco, Tex.: Word. Brown, Raymond E. 1966–70 The Gospel according to John. AB 29 and 29A. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday. Bultmann, Rudolf 1971 The Gospel of John. Trans. G. R. Beasley-Murray, R. W. N. Hoare and J. K. Riches. Philadelphia: Westminster. Calvin, John 1959 The Gospel according to St. John 1–10. Trans. T. H. L. Parker. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd. Hamerton-Kelly, Robert 1979 God the Father: Theology and Patriarchy in the Teaching of Jesus. Philadelphia: Fortress. Hoskyns, E. C. 1947 The Fourth Gospel. Ed. F. N. Davey. London: Faber & Faber. Jeremias, Joachim 1966 Abba. Studien zur neutestamentlichen Theologie und Zeitgeschichte. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

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The Prayers of Jesus. Trans. John Bowden. London: SCM.

Johnson, Elizabeth A. 1992 She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse. New York: Crossroad. Juel, Donald, and Patrick Keifert 1990 “‘I Believe in God’: A Johannine Perspective.” Horizons in Biblical Theology 12:39–60. Lee, Dorothy 1995 “Beyond Suspicion? The Fatherhood of God in the Fourth Gospel.” Pacifica 8:140–54. O’Day, Gail R. 1995 The Gospel of John. NIB 9. Nashville: Abingdon. Schnackenburg, Rudolf 1982 The Gospel according to St. John. 3 vols. New York: Seabury. Schneiders, Sandra A. 1986 Women and the Word: The Gender of God in the New Testament and the Spirituality of Women. New York: Paulist. Thompson, Marianne Meye 1993 “‘God’s Voice You Have Never Heard, God’s Form You Have Never Seen’: The Characterization of God in the Gospel of John.” Semeia 63:177–204. Tolmie, D. Francois 1998 “The Characterization of God in the Fourth Gospel.” JSNT 69:57–75. Westcott, B. F. 1908 The Gospel according to St. John. London: John Murray.

“THE LIVING FATHER” Marianne Meye Thompson Fuller Theological Seminary

abstract The primary understanding of God as Father in John comes to expression in John 5:26: “Just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.” In the Gospel of John, Jesus is the unique Son, the one heir of the Father, who receives life from the Father and in turn gives it to others. This familial relationship, construed in terms of the father’s life-giving role, defines the relationship of Jesus to God, and further becomes the basis for a number of claims made for Jesus, including his authority to judge, to give life, to mediate knowledge of the Father and to reveal him, to do the works and will of the Father, and therefore to receive honor, as even the Father does. The view of God as the Father of Jesus also goes a long way towards accounting for the Johannine emphasis on “life.”

The most common designation for God in John is “Father.” John uses “Father” about 120 times, more often than all the other Gospels combined. By comparison, “God” (qeovı) appears in John 108 times. But the pattern of the references is even more revealing of the significance of “Father” in John. The first references to God as Father are found in the prologue, where God is specifically depicted as the Father of the only Son, Jesus (1:14, 18). In both passages the term monogenhvı (only, unique) emphasizes that Jesus is the only Son of the Father. Subsequent references to God as Father occur in the Gospel almost exclusively in the words of Jesus. Jesus refers to God as “my Father,” or as “the Father,” and most distinctively as “the Father who sent me.” A few references to God as Father are found in editorial comments, where again Jesus’ unique sonship is in view. For example, in John 5:18, the author states that Jesus was charged with calling “God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God” (5:18; cf. 8:27). John also exemplifies the pattern, found in the Synoptic Gospels as well, that not only do almost all the references to God as Father occur in sayings of Jesus, but it is only Jesus who addresses God as father. Over 85 times we have simply “the Father” in the words of Jesus in John. Jesus speaks of “my Father” about two dozen times, and he addresses God simply as “Father” nine times (once, “holy Father”). Once he speaks to his disciples of God as “your Father” (20:17). Nowhere in the Gospel does Jesus speak of God as “our Father” in a way that includes the disciples with him in such a designation, or in a form of

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address commended to the disciples as their own. There are but two exceptions to this pattern. In John 8, “the Jews” argue that they have God as father (8:41), but this is a claim that Jesus disputes (8:42). Apparently, then, only Jesus may properly speak of and to God as “Father.” Given the frequency of the term “Father” in the Gospel of John, one might naturally conclude that it has simply become a substitute for “God,” functioning as do a variety of epithets for God, such as “the Blessed” or “the Most High” or “the Almighty” in other New Testament texts, as well as in the literature of Judaism. And yet this is not the case. “God” and “Father” are not simply interchangeable. For example, formulations that refer to the Son as being “sent” belong primarily to the Gospel’s “Father” terminology. It is the Father who sends the Son. Likewise, Jesus is said not to do “the will of God,” but the “will of the Father.” Thus there are distinct patterns of usage that illumine the meaning of “Father” in the Gospel and suggest why it has become the most important term, other than qeovı (God) itself, to refer to God. It is these patterns of usage, the particular formulations and contexts in which “Father” appears, that give shape and content to God’s fatherhood in the Gospel of John. Particularly telling is the way in which God’s actions as Father are focused on Jesus himself. It is Jesus who speaks of, and addresses, God as Father. Jesus speaks but rarely even to his own disciples of God as their father, and then only after the resurrection. In short, according to the Gospel it is the prerogative of Jesus to address God as Father and to speak of God in these terms. Hence, to understand God as Father in John demands a concentrated focus on the relationship of the Son and Father. The primary understanding of God as Father in John comes to expression in John 5:26: “Just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.” In the Gospel of John, Jesus is the Son who receives life from the Father and in turn gives it to others. This fundamental relationship, this “kinship” of God and Jesus as Father and Son, becomes the basis for a number of claims made for Jesus. These claims include his authority to judge, to give life, to mediate knowledge of the Father and to reveal him, to do the works and will of the Father, and therefore to receive honor, as even the Father does. Such assertions depend on the unity and love between the Father and Son, unity and love that are construed in terms of kinship. It is this basic relationship, the relationship of parent and child, father and son, and not any specific characteristic behavior or obligation of a father, which forms the basis for delineating the relationship of Jesus and God in the Fourth Gospel. That is, in John it is not a particular characteristic or attribute of God that shapes understanding of him as Father, but rather the fundamental reality that a father’s relationship to his children consists first in terms simply of giving them life. What it means to be a father is to be the origin or source of the life of one’s children. For John, this pertains to the

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fact that the Father has given life to the Son and through the Son mediated life to others, who become “children of God” (1:12; 11:52; see 1 John 3:1–2). This view of God as Father is closely linked with the understanding of a father as the head of a clan or family, and hence the “ancestor” who gives life and bequeaths an inheritance to his heirs. In the Hebrew Bible God is the Father of Israel as its founder, the ancestor of the “clan” of the Israelite nation insofar as he called it into being (Jer 31:9; Deut 32:4–6; cf. Deut 32:18; Isa 64:8–9) (Mason: 52; Jeremias: 13). Just as a human father provides an inheritance to his firstborn son (Zech 12:10; Mic 6:7; Gen 49:3; Exod 13:15), so God provides Israel, God’s “firstborn,” with an inheritance (Jer 3:19; 31:9; Isa 61:7–10; 63:16; Zech 9:12). The inheritance is passed down from father to son—to one son—as an exclusive birthright. In the Gospel of John, it is to this one Son that the Father gives life; that Son becomes the Father’s exclusive heir. The Son in turn may bestow what he has received from the Father to others. In order to flesh out this understanding of God as Father in John, we will turn first to look very briefly at the understanding of God as “the living God” in the Hebrew Bible, as well as in a few first-century Jewish writers. The basic view of God as the one who lives eternally and so is the only source of life for the world fits integrally with John’s view of God as the lifegiving Father, crystallized in the phrase “the living Father.” After that, we shall examine a few key passages in John in which this view of the relationship of Father and Son comes to expression. “The Living Father” Although “Father” often tends to stand on its own, it is modified once by the adjective “holy” (17:11), a number of times by the personal pronoun “my” (5:17; 6:32, 40; 8:19, 38, 49, 54; 10:18, 29, 37; 14:7, 20, 21, 23; 15:1, 8, 15, 23, 24; 20:17), frequently by the relative clause “who sent me” (5:37; 6:44; 8:18; 12:49), and only once, but tellingly, by the adjective “living” (6:57). God is “the living Father.” This phrase mirrors the common designation of God as “the living God,” which had become quite common by the first century. The phrase occurs about a dozen times in the New Testament. It is found, for example, in Matthew’s version of Peter’s confession of Jesus: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matt 16:16; see also 26:63; Acts 14:15; Rom 9:26; 2 Cor 3:3; 6:16; 1 Thess 1:9; 3:15; 1 Tim 4:10; Heb 3:12; 9:14; 10:31; 12:22). In the polemic of the Hebrew Bible, the epithet “living God” contrasts the Lord who creates, with “dead idols” made by human hands (1 Sam 17:26, 36; 2 Kgs 19:4, 16; Jer 23:36; Deut 5:26; Josh 3:10; Pss 42:3; 84:3; Isa 40:18–20; 41:21–24; 44:9–20, 24; 45:16–22; 46:5–7). “[Idols] are the work of the artisan and of the hands of the goldsmith. . . . they are all the product of skilled workers. But the LORD is the true God; he is the living God and the everlasting King” (Jer 10:9–10). The contrast thus also emphasizes

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that the living God is not a created artifact, but rather the creator and source of life (Ps 36:9; Jer 2:13; Ezek 37:1–4). This designation of God as “the living God” serves in later Jewish monotheistic polemic to underscore the unity and uniqueness of God. One of the clear corollaries of belief in the uniqueness of the living God, or in God’s eternal existence, is the affirmation of God as creator of the world. Consequently, where some variation of the phrase “living God” or “everlasting God” is absent, one often finds instead a description of God as Creator, or as the source of all life. Sirach explicitly joins God’s eternal existence with God’s creation of the world: “He who lives forever created the whole universe” (18:1). For Philo, of course, God’s eternity is the self-evident truth about God; God is “the one who is” (oJ w“n). God is the sole uncreated—hence eternal— being, and so necessarily the source of the life of the world (Her. 42.206); Creator and Maker (Spec. 1.30; Somn. 1.76; Mut. 29; Decal. 61); planter of the world (Conf. 196); Father;1 Parent (Spec. 2.197); “Cause of all things” (Somn. 1.67);2 Fountain of life (Fug. 198).3 That God creates all that is rests on the assumption that God is the only ungenerated being. For Philo, in other words, God is the “unmoved mover.” Eternal existence and creation go together. To be sure, Philo has interpreted these biblical themes in light of his Platonism, but nevertheless they are tenets that he both affirms and develops. Similar views are found throughout Josephus’s writings. Josephus writes that God is “the beginning and middle and end of all things,” who created the world “not with hands, not with toil, not with assistants of whom He had no need” (Ag. Ap. 2.190–92; cf. Ant. 8.280, “the beginning and end of all”). In fact, Josephus argues that the etymology of the Greek word Zeus “shows” the proper understanding of deity, for the name comes from the fact that “he breathes life (zh'n) into all creatures” (Ant. 12.22). Once Josephus asserts that “the only true God is oJ w“n” (“the one who is”; Ant. 8.350). Josephus likewise assumes that the God of Israel is “the God who made heaven and earth and sea” (Ag. Ap. 2.121, 190–91).4 In describing the zealous piety of the Essenes, Josephus states that they pray before and after meals in order “to do homage to God as the bountiful giver of life” (B. J., 2.131). One could easily multiply texts that assume God’s eternity, and particularly, God’s creation of all that is, to show that for Jewish authors of the

1 The Father: Spec. 2.197; Opif. 74, 76; Mut. 29; “Father of all things, for he begat them,” Cher. 49; “Father and Maker,” Opif. 77; “Father and Maker of all,” Decal. 51. 2 See Decal. 52: “The transcendent source of all that exists is God.” 3 “God is the most ancient of all fountains. . . . God alone is the cause of animation and of that life which is in union with prudence; for the matter is dead. But God is something more than life; he is, as he himself has said, the everlasting fountain of living.” 4 See also Jdt 9:12; Jub. 2:31–32; 12:19; 16:26–27; 22:5, 66–67; 2 Macc 1:24; 7:28.

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period, the uniqueness of Israel’s God was lodged in God’s creation of all the world. God is “the Lord God who gives life to all things” (Jos. Asen. 8:4), the “Creator of all things” who, in his mercy, gives “life and breath” (2 Macc 1:24; 7:23). Precisely in this life-giving activity, God is unique. Echoing the words of Isaiah, one of the scrolls from Qumran reads, “You are the living God, you alone, and there is no other besides you” (4Q504 = Words of the Luminariesa V, 9). Hence the corollary of monotheism, of belief in one God, is belief that this God is the creator of all that is. There is only one God who, in contrast to idols and false gods, is the living God; and that living God is the source of all life. The phrase “the living God” does not occur in the Gospel of John. But the interesting variation, “the living Father,” does occur. The occurrence of the phrase “living Father,” rather than “living God,” is not simply an incidental variant. Rather, the epithet embodies within it the conviction that as the eternally existent, living God, God alone is the source of all life. But since life is bestowed by the Father through the Son, the life-giving aspect of God’s activity is illumined by an image drawn from the human sphere of paternal relationship. The affirmation that God is “Father” cannot be separated from the affirmation that God is the source of life, nor from the conviction that the life of the Father has been given to, and comes to human beings through, the Son. Consequently, within the Gospel of John, the commonplace that God is the living God appears within polemic contexts (chs. 5 and 6) precisely as the warrant for the claims about the life-giving work of Jesus, the Son. Indeed, the Johannine emphasis on God as “the living Father” goes a long way towards explaining the prominence of the theme of life in the Gospel.5 Taken together, the ideas of God as “Father,” and hence the source of life, and of God as the living God, the creator of all that is, account for the belief that God gives life through the Son who derives his life from the Father. A father gives life to his son; indeed, a son by definition is one who has life from his father. So also, the Father gives life to his Son; the Son by definition has life from his Father. And therefore through him life can be given to others as well; through the Son others become children of God. These virtually tautologous statements can be unpacked by looking briefly at the fundamental assertion that the Son has life even as the Father has it and that through faith in the Son one has life in the present.

5 John Ashton (219) calls “life” the core or central symbol around which all other symbols cluster.

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We may turn, then, to look briefly at those verses that I earlier suggested provide the foundation for understanding God as Father in John: “Very truly, I tell you, the hour is coming and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself” (John 5:25–26). According to these verses, those who hear the voice of the Son of God will live, because the Son “has life in himself” even as the Father does. The parallel clauses in these verses assert life-giving prerogatives of both the Father and the Son. These predications are striking for, as already noted, in biblical thought and later developments, the power to give life is attributed to God alone. As C. K. Barrett comments, “This expression, denoting exact parallelism between the Father and the Son, is the keynote of this paragraph” (1978:260). But the question remains wherein this “exact parallelism” consists. Barrett himself explicates it as “the complete continuity between the work of the Father and the work of the Son.” Hence the emphasis is on the functional unity of Father and Son. Raymond Brown asserts that the life in view is not the inner life of the Godhead but rather the “creative lifegiving power” exercised toward human beings (215). On this view, the Gospel is not addressing the nature of the relationship or the unity of Father and Son, but rather is characterizing the unity of their work. The Father’s work and prerogative are to grant life, and because he grants this prerogative to the Son, the Son participates in the Father’s work. This interpretation of the relationship of Father and Son has much to commend it. The Gospel does indeed argue that the work of the Son is the very work of the Father and that the Father does his work through the Son. Hence the most famous of all the Johannine assertions regarding the unity of the Father and Son, namely, “I and the Father are one” (10:30), actually refers in context to Jesus’ promise that the Father and Son are one in the work of preserving the sheep of the fold from loss or harm. “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand” (10:28–29 RSV). But these remarkable verses regarding the parallel life-giving powers of Father and Son in the Fourth Gospel press further. The life-giving prerogative does not remain external to the Son. He does not receive it merely as a mission to be undertaken. It is not simply some power he has been given. Rather, the Son partakes of the very life of the Father: the Son has life in himself. Therefore, when Jesus confers life on those who believe, they also participate in and have to do with the life of the Father, because the Father has given the Son to have life in himself, even as he has it (Grayston: 51). Such predications assume and are dependent upon the conviction that there is but

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one God, one source of life. Jesus is not a second deity, not a second source of life, standing alongside the Father. Rather, the Son confers the Father’s life, which he has in himself.6 Hence the formulation assumes the unity of the lifegiving work of Father and Son, but it also predicates a remarkable status of the Son, one that is not made of any other creature or entity. The Son “has life in himself.” Yet it is important to note that this statement does not stand on its own. The Son has life in himself because “the Father has granted it” to him. Precisely in holding together the affirmations that the Son has “life in himself” with the affirmation that he has “been given” such life by the Father, we find the uniquely Johannine characterization of the relationship of the Father and the Son. The Father does not give the Son some thing, power, or gift; the Father gives the Son life. Therefore, the Son has the power to confer life. This power is attributed in the Fourth Gospel to Jesus’ words (5:25; 6:63) and to his signs, which are God’s life-giving work effected through him (10:38; 14:11). God’s fatherhood, God’s life-giving power, is effected through and in the work of the Son. It is as the one who gives life that God is Father. Through the work and words of the Son, the Father’s life-giving power becomes embodied, rather than remaining merely a cipher or idea, and thus God’s identity as Father is concretely realized. The one verse in John that uses the phrase “the living Father” reads as follows: “As the living Father sent me, and I live because of (diav) the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of (diav) me” (6:57). Here again the Father is described as the one who gives life, and the Son is the one who receives it. Unless Jesus’ life were granted to him from the Father, he would have no life; unless he came from the “living Father,” he would be unable to confer life. Both verses (5:26; 6:57) do speak of Jesus’ power and authority to give life to others. In chapter 5, Jesus says that those who “hear the voice of the Son of God ... will live.” In the “bread of life” discourse in chapter 6, Jesus states that “whoever eats me will live because of me.” These two verses make it clear that Jesus confers the life he has from the Father on others. While there is an analogy between the way in which God gives life to Jesus and Jesus in turn confers it on others, there is not perfect parallelism. On the one hand, there is analogy: Just as the Father has life and gives life to the Son, so the Son has life and gives life to those who have faith (Haenchen: 296).7 Jesus lives because of

6 “Just as the Father as Creator and Consummator possesses life, he has given that possession also to the Son, not merely as the executor of incidental assignments but in the absolute sense of sharing in the Father’s power” (Ridderbos: 198). 7 Bultmann (236) translates, “As (i.e., correspondingly as) I have life because of the Father, so too he who eats me will live through me,” thus effacing the parallelism.

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the Father’s determination that he should have life in himself (cf. 5:21, 24–27), even as believers live because of Jesus’ determination that they should have life. And yet there is a difference, a breach of the parallelism as well (Carson: 299). Believers always have mediated life, never “life in themselves.” They cannot pass on their “life” to others; they have no offspring or heirs. If others live, it is because they receive the Father’s life through the Son. These differences are expressed in terminological distinctions: those who have faith are children of God (tevkna), but Jesus is the Son (uiJoıv ), indeed the “only” Son (monogenhvı). Furthermore, Jesus is not “born of God” or “born from above,” as are those who have faith in him. Rather, he is from God; he comes from above. He has life in himself, just as the Father does. The scope of these assertions encompasses God’s life-giving work from creation to resurrection. God is the living and life-giving Creator, who exercises sovereignty over all life. The work of creation, the universal sovereignty over creation, and its expected final redemption are all carried on in the Gospel through the Son and are all expressed in terms of life. At the very outset of the Gospel, we read this affirmation, “All things were made through [the Logos], and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life” (1:3–4 RSV). These verses underscore the presence and agency of the Logos in creation. That same word “became flesh” in Jesus of Nazareth, to whom has been given the power to give life in works and words. Jesus acts and speaks, and the dead come forth from their tombs (5:28–29). His words are “spirit and life” (6:63); in fact, he is life (11:25; 14:6). And Jesus’ life-giving works also anticipate the final resurrection at the last day, which he himself effects (6:39, 40, 44, 54; 7:37; 11:24; 12:48). In short, the life-giving work of the Father in the Son does not refer to a single event but to the all-encompassing creative and sustaining work of God, which has past, present, and future reference points. “The Father Who Sent Me” On the lips of Jesus, God is repeatedly designated not only as Father but as “the Father who sent me.” This description underscores the distinctiveness of Jesus’ relationship to God as “Father” in several ways. First, the expression highlights the unique way in which God is the Father of Jesus. God is “the Father who sent me.” When John the Baptist is said to be “sent by God” the designation “Father” is conspicuous by its absence. The only other figure sent by the Father is the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit.8 Second, the very use of the relative clause, in Greek a participial form (oJ pevmyaı me pathvr),

8

Of the other Gospels, Luke particularly stresses that the Spirit is the gift of the Father.

thompson: “the living father”

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designates the Father as the one who sends. It makes the Father the subject and initiator of the Son’s activity (Fennema: 4), and thus the participial phrase identifies the Father by means of his action with respect to the Son. Third, the emphasis on God as the Father who has “sent” the Son introduces a new element into the description of the relationship of Father and Son. Not only is God “Father,” but God is “the Father who sent me.” The language of sending reflects a view of the Son as an emissary or agent who is sent by another to carry out a task or fulfill a commission. Indeed, the Son is identified primarily in terms of the one sent to carry out that mission, and the Father as the one who sends the Son. Because of the prominence of “sending” language, John’s christology is often understood against the background of the role of the “agent.”9 This refers to a business or legal relationship or role, rather than to a specifically “religious” function or figure, like a prophet. In the rabbinic writings, one often finds this statement: “The one who is sent is like the one who sent him” (m. Ber. 5:5; b. B. Meßi