In the previous chapter we examined John’s genre, rhetoric, and basic plot. This chapter builds on these observations by exploring several additional narrative elements in the Gospel of John. As a story, the Gospel has a narrator, a specific point of view, a pacing of narrative time, and presentations of various characters. In his Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel, R. Alan Culpepper devotes individual chapters to each of these elements.Footnote 1 He then concludes with a chapter on the implied readers to discuss the Gospel’s use of irony, misunderstanding, and symbolism. I do not have the space for such a detailed analysis in the present chapter, but these aspects are nevertheless crucial to our study of the Gospel’s theology and provide foundational language and perspectives for the thematic chapters that follow. After defining and briefly exploring these narrative elements, this chapter ends with a short overview of theological themes that will occupy our attention in Part II of the book. As we will see, John’s narrative form is not incidental, but central to its theology of a God who invites audiences into a story that began at creation, reaches its climax with Jesus, and continues in the lives of later believers through the Holy Spirit.
Narrative Elements: How the Gospel Tells Its Story
Narrator and Point of View
Although Culpepper divides the narrative elements into distinct chapters, he also notes their overlap. For example, the omniscient third person narrator of John’s Gospel is another hint at the Gospel’s genre since biographies and histories also portrayed knowledgeable narrators guiding their audiences to see the truth. When instructing his readers in his How to Write History, Lucian of Samosata writes for historians to be “like Zeus in Homer” giving an omnipresent, balanced, and truthful report of events. He writes:
[The historian] has to make of his brain a mirror, unclouded, bright, and true of surface; then he will reflect events as they presented themselves to him, neither distorted, discolored, nor variable. Historians are not writing fancy school essays; what they have to say is before them, and will get itself said somehow, being solid fact; their task is to arrange and put it into words; they have not to consider what to say, but how to say it.Footnote 2
Reading this summary from Lucian points to similarities and differences between John’s narrator and Lucian’s ideal historian. Certainly, John presents its narrator as omnipresent and largely omniscient, at least knowing as much as Jesus does and blending their voices together on occasion (3:22–36; 12:34–51). Moreover, John emphasizes the truthfulness of this story, even indicating eyewitness testimony at 19:35 and 21:24. John’s tendency to blend genres and the Gospel’s goal of eliciting belief in Jesus as God’s Son means it does not completely align with Lucian’s description. Nevertheless, other narratives that present themselves as an accurate report of events (even fictionalized ones) likewise mimic this type of narrator and dominant point of view.Footnote 3
Narrative Time
The narrator’s exalted point of view also relates to the Gospel’s manipulation of time. Overall, the Gospel is told from a post-Easter perspective to audiences living in post-Easter contexts. In fact, there are explicit references to later audiences remembering (mimnēskomai) Jesus’s teachings and interpreting them, which contrasts with the confusion Jesus caused characters in the Gospel narrative. These statements bracket Jesus’s public ministry in John 2:17 and 12:16, but also resonate with Jesus’s instructions for later believers to “remember” with the aid of the Holy Spirit in the FD (15:20–16:15). Yet, the Gospel also regularly employs the present tense to tell its stories and emphasizes the passing of time with references to Jesus’s age, his “hour” (hōra), and repeated notes on days and Jewish festivals.Footnote 4 The description of time in 10:22–23 offers a good example: “Then the Festival of Dedication happened in Jerusalem, it was winter, and Jesus walks in the temple, in the portico of Solomon.” These contrasting temporal perspectives are further complicated by Jesus’s divine awareness. Jesus, connected as he is to God’s will and hour, operates with a different view of time. Rather than being fearful of an unknown future like other characters, Jesus acts with certitude of God’s eternal perspective and control of all that was, is, and is to come.
For this reason, following narrative time in the Gospel of John often rests on identifications of internal and external foreshadows (prolepses) and flashbacks (analepses). Such discussion again originates with Culpepper, who incorporated the work of literary theorist Gérard Genette to aid his analysis.Footnote 5 Table 3.1 briefly explains these terms.
Prolepses and analepses can be made by any character (whether knowingly or not) as well as by the narrator. Jesus and the narrator most often provide knowing references, again emphasizing their connection to God’s will. In this way, Jesus and the narrator take on an eternal point of view that both elevates them above the conflicts of the text and unites them with later Gospel audiences with their foresight.
Characters
In the last decade, studies on the characters and characterization in John’s Gospel have multiplied.Footnote 6 This is in part because of the exploration of John as a biography as described in Chapter 2. If John is focused on Jesus as the subject of a biography, it makes sense that Jesus’s characterization would be important for understanding the Gospel. Thus, it is not surprising that the Gospel provides information about Jesus that reflects most of the commonplaces found in Greco-Roman biographies.Footnote 7 John’s Gospel, however, is full of other characters as well. Both individuals and groups that act as a character (e.g., “the Jews,” “the crowd,” etc.) meet Jesus, witness his signs, and speak with him. Indeed, looking at Table 2.1 (“Plot outline of John 2:1–10:42”) from the last chapter, we saw how many of these encounters drive John’s plot forward. As Culpepper notes, plot and character are intimately linked in this Gospel.Footnote 8
Yet, the characters often struggle to recognize Jesus, or believe in him, even after receiving a sign from him; Jesus’s identity is beyond their ability to understand. Unlike the Gospel audiences, characters within the story only learn snippets about Jesus’s identity and his actions often contrast with their expectations. Many scholars have suggested these characters act as representatives for audience members to evaluate their own responses to Jesus.Footnote 9 In this way, audiences hear themselves, or other people, in these scenes and reflect on their beliefs and behaviors. More recent scholarship, however, has pushed interpreters to see the ambiguity and development of characters in John, particularly those who appear in multiple scenes, such as Nicodemus, the Jews, and the disciples.Footnote 10 While we may initially place any of these characters in a category of belief or disbelief, their actual behavior toward Jesus shifts throughout the course of the narrative. In this way, Gospel audiences can empathize with the characters and recognize how assumptions, contexts, and revelation impact one’s belief throughout life. Belief is not static, and neither are many of John’s characters. Furthermore, the elevation of the audience’s perspective throughout the story enables them to feel “blessed” even though they have never seen Jesus in person. Audiences benefit from the telling of the entire Gospel story that fleshes out Jesus’s character, even though he has returned to the Father and is no longer physically with them (20:29).
Imagery and Symbolism
The Gospel of John is full of imagery and symbolism, often created by double meanings. The images and symbols intensify the Gospel’s irony, where the limited knowledge of characters within the story contrasts with the greater knowledge of Gospel audiences. The audience is elevated at the outset of the Gospel with the Prologue, which provides extensive background on the Word’s incarnation as Jesus Christ (1:1–18). With this foundation established, the audience listening to the Gospel expects Jesus to behave and speak like the Word of God become flesh. Fitting later audiences’ expectations, then, Jesus has more knowledge than other characters, acts in complete accord with God’s will, and operates in light of God’s eternal perspective. In contrast, characters in the story are regularly confounded by Jesus’s behavior and his words. Rather than clarifying his statements, Jesus often doubles down on imagery, leaving the narrator to explain the Christological implications to the Gospel audience (cf. 2:13–22; 5:19–47; 6:42–58).
As we will see in the next chapter, much of the Gospel’s imagery comes in the form of allusions to OT events and figures, as well as wider Second Temple Jewish contexts. Jesus calls himself the “bread from heaven” (6:35) and the “light of the world” (8:12) and even compares himself to the bronze serpent lifted up by Moses (3:14; Num 21:4–9). Jesus emphasizes these images in his conversations, adding vivid details such as the need to “chomp” or “chew” (trōgō) his flesh in John 6:54–58. Culpepper suggests these symbols invite audiences into the act of interpretation as they rely on the “implicit commentary” provided by the story.Footnote 11 Craig Koester argues the Gospel’s symbolism is “concentric, with Jesus at its heart.”Footnote 12 Once readers understand the symbols, they understand Jesus and, therefore, God more clearly. As Dorothy Lee notes, the symbols, metaphors, and icons in the Gospel seek to connect humans to the transcendent, despite our limitations.Footnote 13 It is not surprising, then, that symbols in John often connect to one another, creating a more complex image of Jesus as well as of God, as the story progresses.Footnote 14
Implied Author and Audiences
Although narrative readings often acknowledge the importance of historical context for NT writings, they also acknowledge the impossibility of fully recovering the exact historical circumstances of a writing’s composition and reception. Thus, while many scholars debate the identity of the real author of John, narrative critics focus on the implied author. While the actual author/s of a writing might be irrecoverable, every writing conveys an “implied” or “ideal” author who is constructed by the writing itself.Footnote 15 This author is not explicitly described but is implied, or inferred, by the story. In the case of the Gospel of John, the implied author has access to stories of Jesus’s life, death, and resurrection and includes eyewitness testimony to emphasize the accuracy of this account (19:35; 21:24–25; cf. 1:14, 16). Yet, the implied author is not limited to such sources; this author is also inspired.Footnote 16 The Gospel’s pneumatology depicts the Holy Spirit being involved in the composition of this story since it is this second Paraclete (meaning advocate and comforter) who comes and reminds the disciples of Jesus’s words, teaching them and convicting the world in which they live of Jesus’s revelation and identity (2:22; 12:16; 16:6–11). The implied author of John’s Gospel, therefore, has access to eyewitness accounts of Jesus’s ministry and is connected to the Spirit who enables them to interpret Jesus’s words for later “blessed” audiences (20:29–31).
Writings also have implied audiences. Culpepper refers here to the work of Peter Rabinowitz who argues that there are four audiences to any narrative: actual (i.e., real or historical); authorial (the one that the real author imagined); narrative (the one who accepts the world of the story); and the ideal narrative audience.Footnote 17 This last audience is the most conforming audience, it accepts the story world and “believes the narrator, accepts his judgments, and appreciates his irony.”Footnote 18 This audience understands when characters in the story do not, accepts the narrator’s interpretations of events, appreciates the evidence and scriptural connections made, and is thoroughly compelled by the story. For Adele Reinhartz, this audience is the “compliant” audience who is crafted into a community through the Gospel’s rhetoric.Footnote 19 “The Gospel,” she writes, “offers its audience rebirth into a new family, the family of God, using a range of strategies that together constitute a rhetoric of affiliation.” At the same time, for this affiliation to coalesce, the Gospel also offers a “rhetoric of disaffiliation” which “insists that members of God’s family enjoy exclusive access to the Father’s scriptures and God’s house.”Footnote 20 For Reinhartz, this means the implied audience cannot be both believers and Jews (Ioudaioi). For other scholars, however, the line is blurry: Jewish ideas, Scriptures, and traditions are crucial, but are interpreted through a distinctly Christological lens. Whether or not this requires disassociation with actual Jews, or identifying oneself as a Jew, is a matter of debate, not least because the discussion takes us back into the realm of real audiences, who are not altogether recoverable. As suggested in Chapter 1, the Gospel does emphasize Jesus as the superior means of accessing God, suggesting that believers would at least differentiate themselves from other Jews who did not agree with such a claim. John 19:35 and 20:30–31 seem to depict an implied audience of believers – ones who will “continue believing” (pisteuēte) – rather than new converts.Footnote 21 As a story meant to be read and re-read, interpreted and reinterpreted with the help of the Holy Spirit, the Gospel of John tells not only the life of Jesus, but also the birth of a new family of God.Footnote 22
John’s Theological Story: Foundational Elements Moving Forward
The overview provided in these past two chapters is inevitably brief; a full narrative analysis of the Gospel is beyond the scope of this present book. The key narrative components outlined here, however, help us begin exploring John’s profoundly theological story. John’s story is grounded in beliefs about who God is and how God acts, particularly through the person and work of Jesus Christ, but also through the Holy Spirit who teaches, and the community who remains connected to the Son. The narrative form of the Gospel is not incidental, but crucial to our understanding of its theology because humans form meaning through story. John’s Gospel offers meaning through its story and invites audience members to participate in this meaning as well. From the brief narrative analysis of Chapters 2 and 3, we can identify the following theological components of John’s story.
A God Who Creates
First and foremost, John’s story is grounded in God’s larger story of ongoing creation and God’s people, Israel. Echoing the story of Genesis, the God of John’s Gospel not only created life and light but sustains that life and light through the gift of the Word, even though the world (kosmos) resists it. God’s will for life is equated with “love” in the Gospel of John (3:16). It is this love that motivates God to act again in the giving of his Son, the one and only Jesus Christ. While interpreters of John, therefore, have rightly noted this Gospel’s special emphasis on Jesus’s identity, we are short-sighted if we do not see where this emphasis originates. The source for everything in this Gospel is God alone.
This fact remains significant in the chapters that follow. In Chapter 4, we examine the Gospel’s use of Scripture. John does not use quotations in the same way as Matthew or Luke, but the Fourth Gospel is full of Scripture and likewise uses of fulfillment formulae, although they are limited to the Passion narrative (12:38; 13:18; 15:25; 17:12; 19:24–36). Furthermore, the Gospel of John ties Jesus’s ministry closely to the Jewish liturgical calendar, itself a retelling and re-enactment of God’s saving actions for Israel throughout its history. Jesus’s actions and words repeatedly interpret Scripture, often creating conflict with other religious authorities who interpret differently than him. According to the Gospel, however, Jesus is not doing anything new. Rather, as the Word made flesh, he is the continued and culminating expression of God’s will, part of which is found in Israel’s sacred writings and worship.
A Son Who Conveys
Jesus is the unique Son of God, the Christ, and God’s Word become flesh. As a biographical story, John’s Gospel focuses much of its energy describing his life, teachings, death, and resurrection. Jesus’s very identity, however, means that he does not do any of these things because of his own will alone; in fact, he says he is never alone (8:29). In Chapter 5 we will examine Jesus’s identity in more detail and discover what it means for Jesus to be the incarnate Word. Yet, we have already seen how Jesus repeatedly aligns his will with God’s own. In this way, he reflects his initial characterization in 1:18, “No one has seen God before; Unique God (monogenēs theos), who is in the Father’s bosom, that one made him known.” As a reflection of his Father, Jesus conveys God’s life-giving love to the world. As he says in 5:26, “For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.” This does not mean that Jesus does not also choose to obey; John’s Gospel emphasizes this is his consistent choice. In this way, Jesus’s obedience is further proof of his identity as outlined in the Gospel’s Prologue: he is the Word, God’s very will, become flesh (8:54–55).
The confusion wrought by the incarnation of God’s Word, however, is profound. Indeed, this is one of the key conflicts driving the Gospel’s plot forward. In Chapter 6, we will turn to the topic of “the world” and its rescue through Jesus’s incarnation, death, resurrection, and gift of the Spirit. Although often described as God’s primary antagonist, the world is the object of God’s love and in need of deliverance from a demonic foe. The world is possessed by the actual antagonist of the Gospel, “the Ruler of this world,” the devil, or Satan who inspires fear and causes death (8:44; 12:31; 13:2; 14:30; 16:11). God’s plan of rescue is embodied in Jesus, whose holy presence exorcizes the demonic from those who recognize it, purifying them so that they can receive the Holy Spirit. If people in the world recognize Jesus, they experience the eternal life he offers them, freed from the false Ruler. If they reject him, however, they remain in the darkness that cannot “grasp” the light (1:5).
A Spirit of Rebirth and Teaching
As we saw in the discussion of genre, the Gospel is not just a biography about Jesus. Instead, it blends and bends a variety of genres to persuade and encourage its audiences who live long after Jesus’s death, which it depicts as his “going to the Father” (14:28; 16:10). The Gospel is narrated by an omniscient, third person narrator, whose views and voice often merge with that of Jesus. At the same time, however, this narrator’s point of view is also solidly post-Easter. The mixing of genre elements, therefore, is only one example of the Gospel’s blending; it also shifts different temporal perspectives throughout even as the entire Gospel is told from a post-Easter lens. Moreover, the Gospel is sometimes ambiguous in its depiction of a future eschatology, which we will discuss in Chapter 7.
To reach its implied audience, therefore, the Gospel of John describes God’s continued presence among believers in the form of “another Paraclete”: the Holy Spirit (14:16). According to John’s Gospel, God’s Spirit descends and “remains” on Jesus at the outset of his ministry (1:32). John (the Baptist) reports this vision of the descending Spirit as well as God’s promise: “The one upon whom you see the Spirit descend and remain upon him, this one is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit” (1:33). From the outset of the Gospel, then, the Spirit is connected to Jesus, who will eventually baptize his disciples with the Spirit in 20:22. Throughout the Gospel, however, the Spirit is repeatedly promised to believers and is famously described as part of a believer’s being “born again” or “born from above” (anōthen) in 3:3–9, and providing “rivers of living water” in 7:37–39. In the FD, Jesus says that the Spirit continues this work by comforting believers, testifying on their behalf, and reminding and teaching them about Jesus’s words (14:15–17, 25–26; 15:26; 16:7–11). Jesus encourages his disciples (and Gospel audiences) to remain and obey his commands. Rather than “orphans,” the newly birthed disciples are animated and enlivened by God’s Spirit who continues to live, and give life, in their midst (14:18–31). The Spirit connects these believers to Jesus and to God despite Jesus’s physical departure. As an articulation of the Spirit’s reminding and teaching work, the Gospel itself acts as evidence of God’s ongoing love and ultimate victory regardless of the opposition believers may face.Footnote 23
A Community Who Lives Out Love
The discussion of the Holy Spirit is closely related to the Gospel’s presentation of believers, which will be the focus of Chapter 7. By the term “community,” I am not entering into the debates over the historical audiences of the Gospel, but rather describing the implied audience. The audience is a “community” insofar as the Gospel envisions a group of Jesus-believers rather than isolated individuals (13:34–35). Having been convinced and encouraged by the Gospel story, this community identify themselves as God’s children (1:12–13) who are part of God’s household, present and future (8:35–36; 14:2–3). Having been reborn, these children are connected to God through Jesus, and to Jesus through the Holy Spirit. Moreover, this family mimics Jesus’s ministry by following his example of love and obedience. Expanding on his command in 13:34–35, Jesus uses the imagery of the vine in 15:1–11 to illustrate how loving one another is the means for continued connection to Jesus and the Father. Obeying Jesus’s command to love, the disciples remain connected to Jesus, their true vine, and thus to the Father who cultivates them. Moreover, the disciples are branches that produce fruit by continuing to share Jesus’s words in the world (15:8; 17:14–19; 20:22–23).
Moving Forward
These foundational elements form the basis of the theological themes explored in Part II of this book, summarized below:
Chapter 4: God’s Life-Giving Will: Israel’s Story and the Gospel
Chapter 5: Jesus’s Unique Identity: Revealing the Father
Chapter 6: The World in Need of Rescue: Purification and Exorcism
Chapter 7: The Family of God: Believers, the Spirit, and Time
These themes help us to see that John’s Gospel offers more than just an extensive Christological portrayal of Jesus. The Gospel of John’s theo-centricity is communicated by means of its Christology: God initiates everything that happens in John’s story, beginning with creation. When John’s Gospel starts “in the beginning,” it claims to tell the story of the whole world, created and beloved of God, rather than just the story of Jesus the Christ.
The richness of John’s theology, therefore, emerges from its narrative form. The story it tells helps form meaning out of the past, beginning from the moment of creation, through Israel’s stories and Jesus’s ministry, to the multiple contexts of actual audiences both ancient and contemporary. Because humans make meaning and find purpose through stories, this form of theological communication connects to audiences and invites their participation. In this way, John’s theological story does not remain in the past, but joins with the stories of its audience members who are encouraged to retell their own stories in light of John’s story world. As we turn to investigate the theological themes identified above in Part II, we will continue to see how John’s narrative form impacts and assists its theological communication.
