I can’t get enough of the Gospel of John.
That doesn’t make me an expert on the Gospel. And it certainly doesn’t mean that some of the ideas I have about the Gospel mean that those ideas are right.
But the more I read it the more I am convinced that the dominant theme of the Gospel is the theme of kingship. However this isn’t as obvious to others as it is to me. Many of those others are people, whose theological opinions in general, and reflections on John’s Gospel in particular, I have the greatest respect.
I have a habit of getting offside with people over third and fourth tier theological issues – people whose theological nous I have the highest regard for. When I suggested that the theme of kingship in John is just as prominent, or more so, than in any of the other Gospels, a man for whom I have the greatest admiration theologically shut me down in a public forum with the swiftest of verbal shoulder charges.
Explicit references to Kingship
But I held my ground. I began with the explicit material about the kingship of Jesus in the Gospel:
• I sought to show that Nathanael declared Jesus to be the ‘Son of God’ and the ‘King of Israel’ as early as Chapter 1, Verse 49.
• I followed this up by referring to John Chapter 6 where Jesus feeds 5,000 plus with a small boy’s lunch of tuna sandwiches. The crowds, seeing a direct parallel between this astonishing miracle and God providing the supernatural food for His people in the desert, try to forcefully make Jesus their king. Jesus will, of course, have nothing to do with their crass earth-bound ideas of kingship or pander to their political motives. He seeks the solitude of the mountains.
• I pointed out that when Jesus entered Jerusalem in the week preceding his death he was welcomed by the adoring crowds and welcomed as their king. “Blessed is the king of Israel,” they cried (John 12:13). He not only does nothing to dampen their expectations but he does everything to heighten them by riding on a donkey in fulfilment of Zechariah 9:9, “Do not be afraid, O Daughter of Zion; see your king is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt (John 12:15).”
• I concluded by going to John Chapters 18 and 19. In Chapter 18:28-40 Jesus has a long and sustained discussion with Pilate about the nature of his kingship, without a doubt the most detailed discussion and assertion about his kingship, and its nature, on record. Then in Chapter 19 Pilate calls the shots by demeaning Jesus and taunting the Jews by insisting that Jesus be treated, in a humiliating way, like a king he claims to be (John 19:1-22).
I was exhausted by the end of this and then, suddenly, the discussion took another turn as they often do with seven or eight strongly opinionated wannabe theologians. But what I presented in this discussion were just the direct references to His Kingship.
Implicit references to Kingship
I could cite a further range of material in John’s Gospel to demonstrate implicit references to kingship with titles such as Messiah (Christ), Lord, Master and God.
I have long argued that the best rendering of the title ‘Christ’ in English, though a bit wordy and clumsy, means ‘God’s long promised rescuer/king.’
John tells us that the reason why he wrote the Gospel (John 20:30-31) is to birth the belief that Jesus is the Christ – that Jesus is God’s long promised rescuer/king. Or, according to Carson, that the Christ is Jesus.
Which takes me back to Chapter Three of the Gospel where Jesus is locked in discussion, not with the Roman Governor, but with a Jewish theologian. Nicodemus is put on notice that this belief, the birth of this belief, to ‘see’ (verses 3) and ‘enter’ (verse 5) ‘the kingdom of God’ is the gracious supernatural work of the Spirit of God.
My guess is that the reason why most theologians overlook kingship as the, or even a, major theme of the Gospel has to do with the total absence of Jesus proclamation of the ‘kingdom of God’ and the ‘kingdom of heaven’ especially in the telling of parables that are so much a feature of the Synoptics (notwithstanding John 3:3 and 5 mentioned above)
But let me return to everyone’s short prologue (John 1:1-18) and my long prologue (John 1:1-51). Do we find the theme of kingship in either the shorter or the longer prologue? Is the prologue to John, which is universally thought to put the reader of the Gospel on notice of all the great themes that will be developed in the Gospel, devoid of implicit and/or explicit kingship themes?
We read in verse 10 that he (the true light of verse 9) came in the world that was made through him but he wasn’t recognised. John continues that he came to his own people who rejected him (verse 11). But John tells us that some did receive him and believe in his name (the Christ?) and he gave them power to become God’s children (verses 12-13). Could these be any less implicit references to Sovereign Kingship, themes that will unfold from Chapter 2?
And if we take the longer view of the prologue we come once again to Nathanael’s explicit reference to Jesus as King (John 1:49). This, in my view, is further evidence that the prologue to John’s Gospel is the whole of Chapter One.
We share the same Bible, so you decide. But whatever you conclude about the boundaries of the introduction to the Gospel, this we can agree on - Jesus is its King!
