What Does I Am The Door Mean In The Book Of John

Here are the three insights that I discovered when reading our textbook and the book of John. My first insight: The fact that critical Scholars question if John who wrote the fourth Gospel was John the son of Zebedee. Although the early church fathers believed that the original disciple John

Introduction In the book by Christopher J.H. Wright, Knowing Jesus Through the Old Testament, the author argues the very existence of Jesus Christ in the New Testament is portrayed within the Old Testament. Wright writes, “the deeper you go into understanding the Old Testament, the closer you will come to the heart of Jesus” (ix). Wright explains many Christians love Jesus, but do not know much about the Scriptures that He read. This is the author’s intention of the book, bringing the readers to a deep understanding of the Old Testament and gaining a greater understanding of Jesus. The purpose of this review is to summarize and critique Wright’s work along with presenting the strengths and weaknesses of the book.

Throughout the Gospel of John the term “belief” is used in multiple ways for different reasons. Belief is employed as a means to give the reader motivation to believe in Jesus and God which will bring them to eternal glory and happiness. This belief can be rewarded with eternal life,

John presents a very different Jesus compared to the synoptic gospels. It is clear that for John Jesus has many complex elements to his personality and without all of these the picture is not complete. The above quote by Käsemann suggests that in the gospel of John Jesus’ divinity is definite and his presence is felt on the entire world through his words and actions. This allows for the human Jesus but implies the divine Jesus is imperative.

As briefly stated in the previous section of this paper, John was writing to both Jewish and Gentile Christians, post the First Jewish-Roman war. The era of his writing and the audience to which he was writing greatly affected what he was communicating with this passage of Scripture. The logos in the 90’s CE would have been understood by Greeks through a Platonic and Stoic worldview as a mediatory means between the divine and human realms or as the “reason”, the force by which the universe was structured. Philo, a first-century philosopher combined this understanding of the logos with the Jewish conception of “wisdom personified.” Before the writings of John’s Gospel, the Jewish writings personified Wisdom as a divine mediator of God’s person and intent (see Proverbs 8:27; 29-30; 35-36). One can see how language like this shapes and forms the understanding of Jesus that John wanted to convey to his audience. The Hellenistic audience, influenced by Plato would see Jesus as the mediating agent between heaven and earth, which was confirmed by Jesus in John 1:51, while Jewish readers would understand the Word of God through an Old Testament worldview as God in action, specifically in creation, revelation and deliverance. Craig Keener talks of John’s usage of logos in this way,

“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1 KJV). This familiar passage of scripture recorded in the Gospel of John indicates the deity and or preexistence of Jesus Christ prior to time as we know it and before the creation of earth. The strongest proof that the Lord Jesus Christ is God are the divine attributes, divine names, divine works, divine worship, divine claims and divine relationship ascribed to Him.

Throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus continued to get himself into trouble with Jewish leaders and authorities, bringing heavy persecution upon himself. The root of these misunderstandings was his self-proclaimed connection to God, a level of divinity that the religious leaders could not comprehend. Throughout this paper, the deity or

This statement to “walk in the Light” would seem to suggest that it is not something that we can be as it would probably be written “be the light.” John recognizes that one cannot be the light so he is exhorting the readers to walk in the light which is the sphere in which God resides (Walvoord and Zuck 885). To do this action would be to no longer merely “say” but to do. Walking in the Light is what will restore and keep fellowship with God as Darkness has no place in Him.

The next section tucked in between part one and two is very different stylistically and most likely written by a different author than the one who wrote the majority of the prologue, this section is written more like a historical retelling opposed to the poetic style used in most of the prologue. During this section, John the Baptist emerges. In the fourth gospel, John the Baptist has an important role in being a witness for Jesus, and leading the way for Jesus into the world. John the Baptist’s role was to prepare the world for Jesus and to testify to him being the light. The author also makes a very intentional point to remind the reader the John the Baptist was not the light, he came only to testify to the light, not be the light. While reading this gospel as a two part drama, this section is very important. The author seems to go out of his way to try to clarify John the Baptist’s purpose. The author’s intention to specify that John the Baptist was not the messiah and only a witness to the messiah, could have likely been a technique to influence the surrounding groups at the time who believed that John the Baptist was the messiah. This could be used to present John the Baptist in a different way than they had seen before, and written in a way that would help show them who John the Baptist really was, and what his purpose truly was.

The Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John are quite different. They are chronologically dissimilar and follow a different order (Harris, 2015). The apostle John did not include the different miracles or exorcisms Jesus performed in his ministry, but they were written in the Synoptic Gospels. John describes Jesus as being the Word of God incarnate, or in flesh form, and therefore imparts knowledge that is not given in the other gospels. While Mark describes Jesus' crucifixion as a humiliating event, John explains it is the manner in which the Saviour of Man returns to heaven and therefore is a glorious occasion. John also states that although Jesus ascends into heaven, he informs readers that Jesus is always with them in the form of the

Difference between Gospel of John and Synoptic Gospels The gospel of John does not have the birth story of Jesus as it is documented in the Synoptic gospels instead refers Christ as eternal word which became flesh. Gospel of John lacks records of Jesus’ Baptism by John the Baptist but instead records his baptism activities hence contradicting role of John the Baptist in Jesus’ Baptism. Another difference of gospel of John from the synoptic gospels is that there is no indication of temptation of Jesus by Satan but records that Jesus could not be tempted because of his unity with the Father. John indicates that Jesus taught without parables something contradicts synoptic gospels. There is no accounts of apocalypse in the gospel of John but instead indicates that Jesus completed his messianic role (Harris, 2014).

“The gospel gives away more to as who Jesus was as person and telling of his teachings in the ministry. John takes us behind Jesus’s ministry, where we get a glimpse of what it means to believe in Jesus as flesh of the eternal and living God, as the source of light and life, and for a believer to be a ‘Son of God.” (Sparknotes

John as we know today was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus. He was also the brother of James, who was also an apostle. John was the son of Zeebee and of Salome. His father was a fisherman while living in Bethsaida in Galilee on the border of the lake Gennesareth. John's mother was one of many women who gave to the maintenance of Jesus Christ. John's parents were very good people, they loved God and his son. It is said that john and his brother James were fishing when Jesus came and chose them. They were soon known as the fishers of men. The John of whom I am talking about is John the Evangelist.

Johannine literature truly portrays Jesus as God, with the theme of His deity interwoven throughout numerous passages. In this respect, John’s style differs from the other four gospels, as Bickel & Jantz (1998) point out that the other three had been written prior to John’s gospel, therefore, “he wasn’t interested in just retelling the events” (p. 222). Since Jesus is the focal point of Scripture, a scholar of the New Testament with uncertainty concerning Jesus’ oneness with God will fail to perceive the crux of Christianity. Therefore, in spite of its importance, John does not focus on Jesus’ entrance into the

The Gospels of Mathew, Mark and Luke, are called the Synoptic Gospels. The Gospel of John differs in many key areas to the Synoptics,and I will address some differing lines of thought.