The Father And Son In The Fourth Gospel: Johannine Subordination Revisited -- By: Christopher W. Cowan

Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 49:1 (Mar 2006)
Article: The Father And Son In The Fourth Gospel: Johannine Subordination Revisited
Author: Christopher W. Cowan


The Father And Son In The Fourth Gospel:
Johannine Subordination Revisited

Christopher Cowan

Christopher Cowan is a Ph.D. student in New Testament at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2825 Lexington Road, Louisville, KY 40280.

Thematic tension is a concept by no means foreign to the Fourth Gospel. The apparent presence of contending themes such as divine sovereignty and human responsibility, the divinity and humanity of Jesus, and future and realized eschatology has been a frequent topic of discussion in Johannine scholarship.1 It would not necessarily be surprising, then, to find similar tension in the Gospel’s presentation of the relationship between God and Jesus, or, using the predominant Johannine terminology, between the “Father” and the “Son.”2

Numerous modern commentators understand John to ascribe deity to Jesus, though not as a challenge to Jewish monotheism. Rather, they interpret the Evangelist as portraying the Father and Son, who are distinct, as having the same divine “nature,” “essence,” or “being.” Commenting on John 1:1, Barrett writes, “θεός ... is predicative and describes the nature of the Word. The absence of the article indicates that the Word is God, but is not the only being of whom this is true. .. The deeds and words of Jesus are the deeds and words of God; if this be not true the book is blasphemous.”3

According to Schnackenburg, Jesus “is the only true Son of God, one with the Father not only in what he does, but also in his being.”4 Elsewhere he avers that the Son “in origin and essence is equal to the Father.”5 Beasley-Murray contends that the predication of 9soc; for the Logos “denotes God in his nature, as truly God as he with whom he ‘was,’ yet without exhausting the being of God.”6 For Bruce, “What is meant is that the Word shared the nature and being of God.”7 Also referring to John 1:1, Westcott asserts, “No idea of inferiority of nature is suggested by the form of expression, which simply affirms the true deity of the Word.. .. Thus we are led to conceive that the divine nature is essentially in the Son, and. .. that the Son can be regarded, according to t...

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