Transcript
Transcript (from audio):
My paper this morning is part of a two-part presentation, and if I run out of answering time for questions, there should be adequate time tomorrow. So bear with us. You may have questions that we don’t get to today.
Always great to be with the GES group and to see so many familiar faces, as well as friendly faces. And over here to my right is Dan Hoi, who has graciously volunteered, in case I get stuck on a question, to answer it for me. So we may be turning to him later in the session.
My talk this morning is “In the Upper Room with Jesus the Christ.” John 13–17 contains a special body of material that is unique to the Fourth Gospel. In popular communication, it is often called “The Upper Room Discourse.” This is not precisely accurate. John 14:31 indicates the point at which Jesus and His disciples left the upper room. Jesus says, “Arise, let us go from here.”
But John 15–16 continues the discourse, and the prayer of John 17 concludes it. Most writers now refer to John 13–17 as “the last discourse.” The material in these chapters is unique to John’s Gospel. By contrast, the Synoptic Gospels are relatively brief in describing our Lord’s final encounter with His eleven disciples.
For many reasons, we need to pay closer attention to the last discourse. We need to examine again the actual role that it has in the Gospel of John.
Part One: A Fundamental Premise
A fundamental premise of my paper today is that the purpose of the Gospel of John is evangelistic. I think this purpose is quite clearly stated in John 20:30–31. Nevertheless, I am well aware that the subject of John’s purpose is debated in the current technical literature.
During the twentieth century, Raymond E. Brown was probably the premier Johannine scholar in the English-speaking world. He was a lifelong Roman Catholic and an ordained priest, and he was of moderately liberal persuasion. His magisterial two-volume commentary on John remains a goldmine for all students of the Fourth Gospel.
He passed away suddenly on August 8, 1998. The year before his death, Brown published a massive volume, over nine hundred pages, entitled An Introduction to the New Testament. It distilled his enormous scholarly knowledge. In that volume he comments on the issue of John’s purpose, and I quote him:
“Luke explains his purpose at the beginning of his gospel, but John saves his statement of purpose till the end. In selecting material to be included in the gospel, his goal has been to have people come to faith, or increase in faith—disputed reading—in Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God, and through this faith to possess eternal life in His name.”
This pretty well reflects the state of affairs even a decade later. Brown rightly locates the center of the discussion in the textual problem found in John 20:31. The problem concerns the presence or absence of a single letter, a sigma, in the phrase “that you might believe,” either *pisteusēte* or *pisteuēte*. With it, the verb is aorist. Without it, present.
Those who deny the evangelistic purpose of John’s Gospel typically depend heavily on the present tense. They think that the present suggests the idea, “that you may continue to believe.” The twenty-seventh edition of the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament indicates that the present tense is found in three old manuscripts and a few others. The rest support the aorist.
Actually, it makes no difference at all which reading is accepted. The view that the present tense supports the idea of “continue to believe” is a semantic fallacy. This was pointed out as long ago as 1975 by Johannes P. Louw. As some of you may know, Louw was the co-editor, with Eugene Nida, of the Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based on Semantic Domains.
In 1975 Louw published an article, “Verbal Aspect in the First Letter of John,” in the journal Neotestamentica. Louw states this, and I quote: “The Greek present”—he uses the Latin there—“is actually neutral or unmarked. It is a zero tense. It may be used if the context suggests linear or habitual occurrence, and often verbs denoting processes give the impression that the present signifies duration, though the present itself merely states the occurrence of a fact.”
On the next page he adds, “It is a zero tense of factual actuality.” I know, of course, that this is not what was taught in Greek classrooms for the last several generations. Most scholars were weaned on the idea that the present tense expressed ongoing or continuous action. But this idea is a semantic fallacy.
If you read your New Testament with the same facility you do your English New Testament, you can easily see for yourself that Louw’s position is a slam dunk. I’m sorry to say this, but you can get a reputation as a Greek scholar without reading the Greek New Testament easily. That’s because the field of New Testament Greek is loaded to the max with helpful tools—lexicons, grammars, word studies, commentaries, the whole nine yards. You don’t need to know very much to use all these tools.
The number of skilled semanticists like Louw is quite small. I once heard some lectures by his co-editor, Eugene Nida, reputed to be a linguistic genius. I suspect that Louw is not too far behind.
Of course, not everyone has fallen into the tense trap. You can find a competent conservative defense of John’s evangelistic purpose in Carson, Moo, and Morris’s An Introduction to the New Testament.
What’s the bottom line? It is simply this. Neither in John 20:30–31, nor elsewhere in the Fourth Gospel, as far as I can tell, does John employ the present tense of the verb *pisteuō*, believe, with any suggestion of continuous action. The idea that John’s purpose was to get people to continue to believe does not have a shred of linguistic evidence. It is based on a zero tense, and it has zero probability.
Part Two: The Historical Purpose of the Last Discourse
Before we can consider the literary purpose of the last discourse in John’s Gospel, we must think about its historical purpose. Naturally, I assume the historicity and unity of the discourse as presented in the Fourth Gospel. It is not a potpourri of Jesus’ sayings drawn from here and there.
In fact, the discourse has a geographical starting point and a geographical end point. It begins in the upper room. But John 14:31 shows that Jesus and His disciples left the upper room after 14:30 was spoken. The discourse continued as they made their way through the streets of Jerusalem. John 15 and 16 continue the discourse. The discourse was concluded by Jesus’ prayer in John 17.
Following His prayer, John 18:1 states this: “When Jesus had spoken these words, He went out with His disciples over the brook Kidron, where there was a garden, which He and His disciples entered.” The words “went out,” *exēlthen* in Greek, cannot mean that He went out of the upper room. They had left there some time ago. It can only mean that now they went out of Jerusalem itself on their way to the Garden of Gethsemane.
There is no real problem here. As Craig Blomberg points out, peripatetic rabbis and philosophers regularly taught and discoursed with their followers as they walked. There is no reason why John needs to say specifically that the group left after 14:31. I think that’s obvious.
The last discourse, therefore, is a unity in terms of the historical situation. Its purpose is very clear. Let me say first what it is not. The last discourse is not an exposition of the Christian life. True, we can learn a great deal about the Christian life from this discourse, but this benefit is not the reason for the discourse.
Plainly, the last discourse was designed to prepare the disciples for the events that lay immediately ahead. In other words, it was designed to prepare them for Jesus’ crucifixion, resurrection, and return to heaven. If we pay attention to the text, this purpose has high visibility, and it is inescapable.
Permit me to list here a series of statements by Jesus that disclose this purpose beyond doubt. I’m going to quote a series of passages.
John 13:18–19: I do not speak concerning all of you. I know whom I have chosen. But that the Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘He who eats bread with Me has lifted up his heel against Me.’ Now I tell you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe that I am He.
John 13:33: Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek Me, and as I said to the Jews, ‘Where I am going you cannot come,’ so now I say to you.
John 13:36: Simon Peter said to Him, ‘Lord, where are You going?’ Jesus answered him, ‘Where I am going you cannot follow Me now, but you shall follow Me afterwards.’
John 14:1–4: Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.
John 14:16, and verses 18 and 19: And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also.
John 14:29: And now I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe.
John 15:20b–21: If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.
John 16:1: These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble.
John 16:4: But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them. And these things I did not say to you from the beginning, because I was with you.
John 16:16: A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me, because I go to the Father.
John 16:20: Most assuredly, I say to you that you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. And you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy.
John 16:28: I came forth from the Father and have come into the world. Again, I leave the world and go to the Father.
John 16:32: Indeed the hour is coming, yes, has now come, that you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone. And yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.
John 17:4–5, speaking to the Father: I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.
John 17:11a: Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to You.
John 17:13: But now I come to You, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves.
I rest my case. The historical purpose of the last discourse was this: to prepare the disciples for the events that would begin that very night and would lead to the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus Christ.
Part Three: The Literary Purpose of the Last Discourse
Only if we see clearly the historical purpose of the last discourse are we prepared to see the literary purpose of this discourse in the Fourth Gospel. In an inspired document, we expect a literary purpose that is fully consistent with the historical purpose.
As we have just said, the last discourse is not an exposition of the Christian life. It is certainly useful for Christian living, but this was not the historical purpose. What, then, is the literary purpose within the framework of John’s Gospel?
Part A: The Audience of John’s Gospel
Before we address the literary purpose of the Fourth Gospel, we should ask about its audience. Who were they? Ancient tradition points in one direction only. According to Irenaeus, “John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned upon His breast, published a gospel during his stay at Ephesus.”
Eusebius, the fourth-century church historian, reports the following: “Meanwhile, the holy apostles of our Savior were scattered across the world. Thomas, according to tradition, was allotted Parthia; Andrew, Scythia; and John, Asia, where he stayed until his death.” Later in his history Eusebius quotes the statement of Irenaeus to which I’ve just referred.
Despite the many debates about this evidence, there is no good reason for rejecting it. Both writers are likely to have known more than we do. The internal evidence of the Gospel is consistent with the view that the fundamental audience was Jewish and living outside of Palestine. It was also Greek-speaking and very literate.
During the days, now long past, when Rudolf Bultmann was the towering figure in New Testament scholarship, it was popular to describe John as a piece of Hellenistic literature that was only marginally Jewish, as compared with the Synoptic Gospels. This view now deserves to be laughed at. The Qumran discoveries not only indicate the fundamental Jewishness of John’s Gospel, they also have led to the equally extreme suggestion that John is the most Jewish of all the Gospels.
I pause to say this with tongue in cheek. It would be fun to write a soap opera about the many convolutions through which New Testament scholarship has passed. I’ve been around for seven decades. We could call it As the Scholarly World Turns.
But despite the obvious Jewish character of John’s Gospel, John still translates certain Semitic words. For example, “Rabbi,” “Messias,” “Kephas,” “Gabbatha.” The audience could not be presumed to understand these Semitic words.
Furthermore, the audience must necessarily have been quite literate. In Roman times, you did not write a twenty-one-chapter book for the man in the street. Perhaps I should say for the man in the marketplace, the agora. A long book of this nature presupposes a high educational level for its readers.
Keep in mind that Greek-speaking Jews were a fruitful evangelistic field in New Testament times. The Hellenists referred to in Acts, *hellēnistai*, are best understood as Greek-speaking Jews. Their widows alone made up a significant portion of the Christian widows in the early church. As is often pointed out, the six deacons chosen to resolve the problem all had Greek names: Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas.
After his conversion, Paul sought to evangelize the Hellenists of Jerusalem, who responded by trying to kill him, Acts 9:29. The Hellenists were also the object of evangelism in Antioch of Syria, Acts 11:20.
The Hellenists must have been ripe targets in the city of Ephesus. There was a synagogue there where Paul evangelized, Acts 18:19 and 19:8. And for all we know, there may have been several. In a commercial center like Ephesus, we should expect a substantial Jewish population and a significant number of successful Jewish entrepreneurs.
In New Testament times, Ephesus was a large and prosperous port city located on the western coast of Anatolia, that is, of modern Turkey. In the centuries that followed, the port silted up, and the site of Roman Ephesus is now an inland site. It contained a huge outdoor theater, the one referred to in Acts 19, which could accommodate about twenty-four thousand spectators.
Years ago I actually sat down briefly in the ruins of that theater during a Bible lands tour conducted by my friend and colleague at Dallas Seminary, Dr. Bruce Waltke. Cornell and Matthews, in their lavishly illustrated Atlas of the Roman World, tell us this: “The life of Roman Ephesus is revealed not only by the extensive archaeological remains, but by the inscriptions which show the munificence of the leading families and its rivalries with Smyrna for the title ‘First City of Asia.’”
You can still see today the ruins along a colonnaded road at Ephesus, once lined with shops leading from the harbor to the theater. Of special interest to us right now is the famous Library of Celsus. Archaeologists have excavated the remains of this library that was dedicated in the early second century to the Roman governor of the province of Asia. His name was Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus.
The construction of such a memorial to the governor shortly after the close of the first Christian century is eloquent. It is a powerful testimony to the high level of literary life in first-century Roman Ephesus. Thus, when John published the Gospel at Ephesus, he could anticipate a significant readership.
As Graham Shipley has stated in his very thorough volume The Greek World after Alexander: “A helpful definition of literature might be the circulated written works of a social elite, read or performed for enjoyment. It is important, however, to define one’s elite. In this book, science, philosophy, and literature are treated separately, but for many practical purposes they were parts of the same set of social activities carried out by the same individuals from the upper wealth levels of society and their protégés, who devoted their leisure to their chosen mode of cultural creation.”
The original recipients of the Fourth Gospel could well have been an upper-class Jewish social circle, or a guild composed of educated Jewish artisans or other professionals. Or the Fourth Gospel could have gone first to a large extended Jewish family, many of whose members were educated readers. The possibilities are numerous. We just don’t know which possibility is correct.
In any case, John intended to evangelize the original readers.
Part B: The Literary Character of the Last Discourse
We come finally to the issue of the literary purpose of the last discourse. Since time is running out on us today, we can only lay out to you the basic premise. If the Lord permits, we will pick up the discussion tomorrow at the point where we leave it today.
As we just saw, Ephesus was a good place to publish a book because it apparently had many readers at the highest echelons of society. Strikingly, the first librarian of the famous library in Alexandria, Egypt, was an Ephesian. His name was Zenodotus, who took that position about 248 B.C. The Greek students in my audience may be interested to learn that Zenodotus invented the original Greek accents, which were tonal accents in his day. He came from Ephesus.
Therefore, I propose that a cultured, literary Jewish circle in Ephesus was the original intended audience of the Fourth Gospel. How, then, would the last discourse in John 13–17 strike these original non-Christian readers?
I may surprise you by my answer to that question. My answer is this: it would remind some of them, perhaps most of them, of a famous dialogue of Plato called the Phaedo. Plato lived from about 429 to 347 B.C. and, as you know, left behind a large number of dialogues. A modern writer has said, “These dialogues were written 2300 years ago, and the thought of the ancient world, the Renaissance, and that of contemporary times have all come under their influence.”
And although Socrates is a familiar figure in the Platonic dialogues, there are only three dialogues that focus on the character and personality of Socrates. And these three are the Apology, the Crito, and the Phaedo.
The Apology, of course, records Socrates’ defense before the Athenian jury. They condemned him to death. The Crito reports the effort by Socrates’ disciple Crito to persuade him to accept the aid of his disciples to escape his impending execution by poison. Socrates refuses.
Interesting as these dialogues are, right now I am concerned with the Phaedo. Needless to say, Plato’s writings would be among the classics available at Ephesus. They would be of special interest there because Ephesus was situated in the Aegean Basin, in territory originally colonized by the Greeks and known to them as Ionia.
I do not know of any piece of ancient literature to which the last discourse bears a stronger resemblance than it does to the Phaedo. The setting of the Phaedo is the last day of Socrates’ life, as he sits in his prison quarters awaiting the delivery of the poison with which he will die. There Socrates is surrounded by his disciples.
The form of the Phaedo, as we have said, is a dialogue. His disciples participate by asking or answering questions. This in itself is reminiscent of the last discourse in John’s Gospel. The main content of the Phaedo consists of the words of Socrates himself.
The topic under discussion between Socrates and his disciples, quite naturally, is the subject of the immortality of the soul. Socrates himself believes in the soul’s immortality, but realizes he only has logical arguments for it. In the final analysis, he is not sure what comes after death.
The Phaedo is introduced by an exchange between a certain Echecrates, probably a Pythagorean, and Phaedo, a disciple of Socrates. I’m using, for what follows, the translation of Hugh Tredennick as found in The Collected Dialogues of Plato, including the Letters, edited by the famous classicist Edith Hamilton and by Huntington Cairns.
The Phaedo begins as follows: “Were you there with Socrates himself, Phaedo, when he was executed, or did you hear about it from somebody else?” Phaedo: “No, I was there myself.” Echecrates: “What then did the master say before he died, and how did he meet his end? I should very much like to know.”
Let me pause to point out that the words rendered “how did he meet his end,” in the Greek of Plato’s text, are not an inquiry about the method of execution, since Echecrates would have known that it was by poison. Instead, this is a question that means, how did he face death? How did he behave? In antiquity, that was an important consideration, as we shall see tomorrow.
A little later we have this exchange in the Phaedo. Echecrates: “But what about the actual circumstances of his death? What was said and done? And which of the master’s companions were with him? Or did the authorities refuse them admission, so that he passed away without a friend at his side?” Phaedo: “Oh no, some of them were there, quite a number in fact.”
Echecrates: “I wish you would be kind enough to give us a really detailed account, unless you are pressed for time.” Phaedo: “No, not at all. I will try to describe it for you. Nothing gives me more pleasure than recalling the memory of Socrates, either by talking myself or by listening to someone else.” Echecrates: “Well, Phaedo, you will find that your audience feels the same about it. Now try to describe every detail as carefully as you can.”
This is the way the Phaedo begins. What, then, did Plato hope to accomplish through the account that Phaedo now unfolds in great detail? This becomes apparent toward the end of the dialogue, when the jailer comes in and speaks as follows to Socrates: “Socrates,” he said, “at any rate I shall not have to find fault with you as I do with others for getting angry with me and cursing when I tell them to drink the poison, carrying out government orders. I have come to know during this time that you are the noblest and the gentlest and the bravest of all men that have ever come here. And now especially I am sure that you are not angry with me but with them, because I know who are responsible. So now you know what I have come to say. Goodbye, and try to bear what must be as easily as you can.” As he spoke, he burst into tears and, turning around, went away. Socrates looked up at him and said, “Goodbye to you too. We will do as you say.”
Very touching, right? What a cool character, Socrates. But just to make sure that the reader doesn’t miss this point, here is how Plato ends the Phaedo, with Phaedo’s final words to Echecrates: “Such, Echecrates, was the end of our comrade, who was, we may fairly say, of all those we knew in our time, the bravest and also the wisest and most upright man.”
The last words of this statement, which are the last words of the Phaedo, are a very euphonic series of superlative forms in Greek. This is a nice rhetorical climax. The literary genre of the Phaedo, therefore, is that of an encomium in dialogic form. That is to say, it is an extended tribute to a worthy man who died worthily.
So what about the last discourse? What is its literary purpose in John’s Gospel? The answer is that the purpose is essentially the same as the purpose of the Phaedo, but with far weightier subject matter. No one ever faced death the way that Jesus did, and the way that He faced death is an argument that He is in fact the Christ.
Let’s get precise here. Exactly what does John expect his readers to learn about Jesus in chapters 13 to 17? We are not left to guess. He tells us in John 13:1:
Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.
Two things appear here. Number one, Jesus has perfect knowledge of what lies ahead and where He is going. Number two, in His last hours He loves His followers right up to the end of His life.
If you read chapters 13 to 17 carefully, you will find that both these themes emerge repeatedly. First of all, nothing catches Jesus by surprise. Early on, He announces that one of His inner circle will betray Him, and He gives Judas the sop. Judas leaves, with only Jesus realizing what he is going to do.
Moreover, Jesus knew that His separation by death from His disciples would be quite brief. “A little while, and you shall not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me, because I go to the Father.” Note the repeated emphasis on this theme: 13:33, 14:19, and 16:19. As with the betrayal by Judas, the disciples don’t pick up on this idea either. Jesus knows. The disciples don’t. Jesus has supernatural knowledge.
As John will remind us in the garden scene, 18:4:
Jesus therefore, knowing all things that would come upon Him, went forth and said to them, ‘Whom are you seeking?’
The second major theme is Jesus’ love for His own right up to the end of His life. This is every bit as impressive as His supernatural foreknowledge. Here is a man who knows full well that He is about to be arrested, physically abused, tried and condemned unfairly, and then subjected to a cruel and painful death by crucifixion. And yet in His final discourse with His followers, and even in His prayer to God, there is not the slightest trace of self-concern or self-pity.
His whole concern is that His disciples should be able to weather this severe shock to their faith that would begin only too soon. In John’s Gospel there is no Gethsemane, no sweat falling to the ground like great drops of blood. That would have confused John’s unconverted readers and distracted from the point that John was making.
Jesus knew what lay ahead, and during this discourse He is totally focused on the needs of His disciples in the coming hours and days, and even beyond that into their time of witness for Him. They could look forward to the arrival of another Helper when this present Helper returned to the Father.
Jesus’ words express His love and His concern for them, not for Himself. As you know, the last discourse begins with that humble act of love that only John reports, the washing of His disciples’ feet. Over and over in the discourse Jesus speaks of His love for them and about their need to replicate that love among themselves. The discourse closes with His request to the Father that “the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”
God willing, we will say more about these things tomorrow. But let me repeat: this unit of material shows a person whose approach to His own death is unique beyond all human experience. Let me repeat that. This unit of material shows a person whose approach to His own death is unique beyond all human experience.
Compared to this person, Socrates himself was a poor, frail mortal who had no assurance about what lay beyond him in death. By contrast, Jesus the Christ is on His way to the eternal Father.
Before I make my final statements, thanks for bearing with me. I’m recovering from a cold, as you may have noticed. But I’ve made it to the end of the line today, so hopefully, by the grace of God, we can do that tomorrow morning.
But let me close in this way. The bottom line is simply this. The last discourse in John 13–17 is a skilled portrait of Jesus in the hours before His death. This portrait invites the readers to believe that He is who the Gospel says He is. Jesus is the Christ.
In other words, here’s my bottom line. The last discourse is a brilliant and effective evangelistic tool. Thank you.
Yes, that would be nice. Okay. Is this hot? Is this on? Okay. It says, “Given the niche audience, and especially an elite and literate audience, how can we argue that John’s Gospel should be our basis for evangelism to all kinds of people?”
“Except you be converted and become as little children, you shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven.” The gospel is the same and simple for the most erudite person and for the youngest child. So a gospel message written for the erudite is also good for children. And I have used this Gospel many times with children.
The question says, “What are some ways we could use John 13–17 to share the gospel?” I think we could use it just as we’ve suggested here, that this is more than a man who is preparing for death. This is somebody with supernatural knowledge who knows what is beyond death and where He’s going and what the future of His disciples will be. We could use all those factors as indicators that Jesus is indeed the Christ.
Also, “Was John’s Gospel written before or after John’s exile to Patmos?” I think the evidence points to the fact that all of the Gospels were written before A.D. 70, before the destruction of Jerusalem. That would put it well before his exile to Patmos. Yes, I would say in the sixties somewhere.
Okay. “How does the last discourse fit with John 20:30 and 31, especially in reference to these signs, because there doesn’t appear to be any signs in John 13–17?” I’m glad they asked that, because that’s my subject tomorrow. Come back tomorrow, and I will answer that.
All right, here’s another question. Well, this is a little bit off-topic. “Do you want to answer a question about the present tense in Greek?” I’ll be happy to try. Okay. It says, “There is too much unwarranted consensus among Greek scholars that the present tense carries a continual aspect. Do you know of any recent scholars who are writing in opposition to this position?”
Well, of course Louw is still living, and you will find now in the scholarly literature that a number of the scholars are backing off of the extreme statements here, and they are modifying their previous position, and they’re saying, in fact, we can’t really decide on the basis of the tense what the action is. But let’s admit that the conclusions reached by Louw have not yet filtered down to the, let’s call it, the riffraff. And, okay, I guess I have to include myself in that number.
Okay, here’s one: “Was, before Judas left, was Jesus giving Judas one last opportunity to come to faith?” They told us before we started teaching seminary that the most useful three words in the English language were “I don’t know.” I don’t know. But it wouldn’t surprise me if that were so. I don’t think it’s John’s intention to communicate that.
Okay, one final one. And this says, “Why, absent any evangelistic verse in John 13–17”—I guess they mean any explicit statement like we find in John 3:16, which we find a lot in chapters 1–12—“why not some kind of a statement like that in John 13–17?”
Well, actually, you would be surprised at the number of times the word “believe” is used in the so-called upper room discourse, the last discourse. And particularly that first quotation that I gave you: “that when it happens you may believe that I am He.” That’s what He said to the unbelieving Jews: “If you do not believe that I am He, you shall die in your sins.” And then He goes on to say that the one who receives Me receives the One who sent Me. I’m God’s representative here. That’s a pretty good clear statement, I think.
Very good. Hang on before you go. Let’s give him a hand. And I’ve got a something else.