The Use Of Incarnation In The Gospel Of John

The Gospel of John stands out as one who has been appointed by God who testifies about the life and ministry of Jesus. The study of John allows one to see the Jesus as our entry way for salvation. The authorship of John allows one to understand Jesus by an actual and reliable witness to the origins of Jesus ministry, death and resurrection. This extraordinary piece of work is also reflected by the early church fathers. The attempt of this paper will assert that the evidence for authorship of John is more convincing that discrediting.

While numerous scholars say that John is the Gospel to the world (and Matthew to the Jews, Mark to the Romans, and Luke to the Greeks), a Jewish scholar such as Israel Abrahams might very well believe that the Gospel of John is the most Jewish Gospel of the four by the way it reflects Jewish traditions and symbolisms. According to David Wenham[i], there is more attention given to Jesus as the Messiah in the Gospel of John than in any of other Gospels. In John, from chapter one onwards people are directly talking about Jesus as Messiah, and then there is intense public debate about whether Jesus is Messiah or not in John 7:25-31, 41-44[ii], which indicates that John is quite mindful of Jewish issues.

John the Apostle is not only the author of Revelation, but also of the gospel of John. John contains themes that are similar to Revelation and reveals just why God came to earth for man, and the significance of accepting him for eternal life. Both books focus on God’s love for mankind. There are some disputes that Revelation is written by a different John than John the Apostle because the style of the two books are different, but most christians agree that the book of John and Revelation are both written by John the Apostle because “some typical words occurred in both books but not in others, like ‘the Word, the Lamb, the Victory…’ also the word ‘truth’ was repeated in both books” (Malaty 4). Both of these books are vital in the bible and help

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.

The term that is used in St. John’s Gospel to describe the second person of the Blessed Trinity is “Word”

By calling Jesus ‘the Word,’ John calls him the embodiment of all God’s revelation in the Scriptures and thus declares that only those who accept Jesus honor the law, fully (1:17). Jewish

Miraculously, John was born to an old priest Zachariah and a pious, old, barren mother named Elizabeth (Luke 1:5-7, 57). Indeed, John’s birth indicated the inception of God’s promised program to redeem His people. At last, God sent the last of the Old Testament prophet to Israel to break the four hundred years of silence. As God promised, John appeared in the role of a prophet proclaiming the coming Messiah, but he was introduced as John the Baptist. John’s ministry was associated with baptism, so baptism became his identifying sign and caused John to be known as John the

Their Christology was influenced by the ambient Hellenistic cosmology according to which the cosmic reality consisted of heaven, earth and the underworld (Cf. Phil 2:5-10). This influence results in the threefold division of Jesus’ existence being, his pre-existence (v.6), his becoming flesh in the incarnation (vv.7-8) and his final exaltation following his death and resurrection (vv.9-10). From the Gospel of John the Son of man was portrayed as “ the one who descended from heaven” ( Cf. Jn. 3:13). The proper name for Jesus and the Son of God to this community took on a higher meaning and the title Lord became central in addressing Jesus. With their Greek background, Christ was confessed as the eternal Logos who the author of the Gospel of

The central theme of the Book of John is “Jesus is the divine Son of God who reveals the Father, providing eternal life to all who believe in him” (Strauss, 2011, 6749). John highly emphasizes Jesus’ identity by providing extensive reports of Jesus’

In addition, John claims Jesus to be God’s Son making him equal to God. However, there are other titles and identities that John subscribes to Jesus. Firstly, and quite famously, John refers to Jesus as “the word” (Jn. 1:1). Words are used to communicate, so Jesus is God’s communication with people.

In comparison to many of the initially accepted books of the Biblical canon, John’s book of Revelation was written decades later, around 96 CE, and was forced to address the failure of the kingdom’s arrival. Many earlier Biblical books argued that God’s kingdom was imminent and would arrive swiftly, but the passing of time may have led to a gradual decrease in this sense of urgency and, by extension of this, religious faith in Jesus and his teachings. In response to this, John’s contemporaries faced him with a unique challenge to renew their eschatological beliefs and answer the mystery behind the delayed coming of the kingdom of God. Within the book of Revelation, John encourages his readers to strengthen their belief in the urgency behind

The theme of John in writing his Gospel is the manifestation of Christ’s glory. To accomplish his purpose the apostle selects some of those things in the life and work of Christ that exhibit most clearly his true character and mission (Vaughn, 1965). John explicitly said in his purpose statement (John 20:30-31) that the aim of his Gospel is to present Jesus as the promised Messiah of the Old Testament Scriptures and the unique Son of God. John’s primary means of revealing Jesus as the divine Messiah is the seven sign-miracles and their attendant contexts of teaching, all of which are recorded in the first twelve chapters (Kim, 2010).

Most people with a general understanding of the Bible know that the first four books of the New Testament are called the Gospels. Most people also understand on a broad level that the Gospel seach tell the story of Jesus Christ -- His birth, ministry, teachings, miracles, death, and returning from the dead. What many people don't know, however, is that there's a striking difference between the first three Gospels -- Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which are known together as the Synoptic Gospels --and the Gospel of John. In fact, the Gospel of John is so (like nothing else in the world) that 90 percent of the material it contains (related to/looking at/thinking about) Jesus' life cannot be found in the other Gospels.

“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

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