Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 70:2 (NA 2019)
Article: A Theology Of Facing Persecution In The Gospel Of John
Author: Chee-Chiew Lee

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A Theology Of Facing Persecution In The Gospel Of John

Chee-Chiew Lee1

([email protected])

Summary

This article examines how John crafts the narratives and discourses to address the issue of fear and secrecy and to guide his audience/readers on how to face persecution. It is proposed that: first, John uses dualistic language with the rhetorical purpose of bringing across ironies, exposing underlying motives of characters, and heightening the impossibility of a middle ground; second, he deliberately portrays a few characters ambiguously to reflect the complexities of life – one cannot and should not easily classify everyone neatly into dualistic categories; and, third, John has a distinctive emphasis on divine providence with regard to facing persecution.

1. Introduction

Although scholars have written on the persecution faced by the Johannine community and whether such experiences were reflected anachronistically in the Gospel,2 this article takes a different approach

TynBull 70:2 (2019) p. 186

by examining how John deliberately crafts the narratives and discourses to guide his audience/readers on how to face persecution. We will begin by defining key terms used in the Gospel pertaining to this article and by stating the scope and method of our study. Subsequently, we will attempt to understand John’s theology of facing persecution by examining: (1) his characterisation of responses to ‘the fear of the Jews’; and (2) the texts pertaining to persecution in Jesus’ farewell discourse. As the Gospel is replete with dualistic language, we will also attempt to see how John uses the dualistic framework of the Gospel in his theology of persecution and the rhetorical effect it might achieve.3

2. Definitions, Scope, And Method

The Gospel of John is well known for its frequent use of opposite terms, such as ‘light/darkness’, ‘above/below’, ‘truth/lie’, ‘life/death’, etc., and the use of such terms carries special theological significance. Although scholars usually describe this phenomenon as ‘dualism’,4 Bauckham distinguishes between the concepts of ‘duality’ and ‘dualism’, and correlates them as follows:

It may be useful to reserve the term ‘dualism’ for the various forms that the polarity of good and evil takes in Jewish and Christian literature and to use the term ‘duality’ for forms of thinking that divide reality into two contrasting, but not opposed, categories, su...