On Line Bible Study - For the Week July 29 - August 4, 2013

Lesson 569

As with last week, you may want to pull up the Gospel Parallels for consultation and comparison. In this lesson we wind up some general statements about the theology which is central to the evangelists, focusing in this lesson on the Gospel of John. 

Remember all those lessons in which we focused on the extended section dealing with the 'last supper' in the Gospel of John?  By comparison, look at what John offers by way of description of Jesus' time of prayer in the garden - a scant one sentence!

John's gospel offers up a more intense sense of the acrimony between Jesus and the religious authorities of his day.  Recall, for example, that the Sanhedrin (or "Council") has already made up its mind in John 11:  46 But some of them went to the Pharisees and told them what Jesus had done. 47 Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.

“What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many signs. 48 If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation.”

49 Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! 50 You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”

51 He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, 52 and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. 53 So from that day on they plotted to take his life.

This decision on the part of the religious authorities comes on the heels of Jesus having raised Lazarus from the dead.  The irony is intentional.

And Jesus manifests more of a sense of control in John - notice, for example,  

following the incident when Simon Peter (identified only in John) drew his sword, Jesus underscores the sense in which what is about to happen is the will of his Father, a will he obediently and knowingly submits to.
Much earlier in the Gospel, in John 10, Jesus says:  17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again.18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”
In John 19, an exchange recorded only in John, we hear Jesus tell Pilate: 11 Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.
Notice what they say to Pilate in John 19 at the end of verse 15:  “We have no king but Caesar.”  What did Jesus represent for them that they would relinquish their messianic hope for a king to come - a savior for their people?  The acknowledgement that they had 'no king but Caesar' is, in a sense, to have lost all faith in the possibility of salvation.
Was Jesus in control?  Why is there no record of his suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane in the Gospel of John?  We will have more to say about that as we make our way through the story of the Passion.