In order for someone to be able to write a satisfactory article on the theology of Saint John the Evangelist, they should read at least a small part of the vast theological literature dedicated to this wonderful man, known in tradition also as the “beloved disciple,” the “apostle of love,” or, more popularly, as
Saint John the Theologian. I will confess at the outset that I have not read much about this saint. In addition to the Fourth Gospel, the three Catholic Epistles, and the Revelation, I can add a few introductions to these biblical books, some general commentaries on the New Testament, a few encyclopedic articles, and a few studies on this topic. I could also add the Life of Saint John the Evangelist, as it appears in the collections of lives of saints, according to the Orthodox tradition. Thus, this article cannot claim to be more than a simple essay emphasizing the unitary theology of the Evangelist John in all five of his New Testament writings: the Fourth Gospel, the three Ecumenical Epistles, and the Revelation.
There is a special point to be made regarding the Saint’s epithet. There are not many saints in the Church calendar who bear the title “The Theologian.” In fact, there are only three: John, the author of the biblical books mentioned above; Gregory of Nazianzus (329-390), Archbishop of Constantinople, deposed from the throne of the imperial city during the Second Ecumenical Council (381) and author of the well-known “Five Theological Discourses” against the Arians; and Symeon “the New Theologian” (949-1022), a monk at the Studion, the famous elite monastery in Constantinople. It should be noted that the last of them was initially called the “New Theologian” only ironically, because of the style of his mystical writings, which were not very well regarded by his contemporaries. What unites these three theologians of the Church is their special connection with the Person and teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ. Saint John wrote exceptionally about the God of love Who became incarnate and came into the world to save people, His beloved children, from death and corruption. Saint Gregory arrived in Constantinople as a rather symbolic bishop, as the shepherd of a small Nicene community, the only one in the city, which held its services at that time in the Chapel of the Resurrection, while all the other Christians of the capital were Arians, denying Jesus Christ as God and Son consubstantial with the Father. It is known from tradition that Saint Gregory spoke so beautifully about the Lord Jesus Christ that at the end of his episcopal ministry in the imperial city (which lasted only 3 years!), only one Arian community remained in Constantinople, the others having accepted the truth of the Orthodox faith, which was established after the Second Ecumenical Council. And Saint Symeon wrote several treatises on the divine light and, against the rationalist current of his era, promoted the Jesus of hearts, not wanting to speak philosophically about the divine Word of Life.
But let us return to Saint John, “one of the disciples whom Jesus loved” (John 13:23). Today, in the Western theological world, there are numerous doubts about the fact that this disciple is one and the same person as the author of the Gospel traditionally attributed to him. The fact that the original Greek manuscripts attest the Gospel as being "according to John," without mentioning anything about his status (disciple, apostle, elder, etc.), has led some modern commentators to doubt that this is John the Apostle, son of Zebedee. The number of arguments in favor of this doubt increases every year, but this is not the place to delve into this subject. The doubts are even greater regarding the Epistles, and his authorship of the Apocalypse is almost universally denied in the Western Churches, especially in scholarly circles. In this situation, it would be difficult to have anything left of the only disciple who witnessed the crucifixion of his Teacher and Master (in John 19:26 he is called once again “the disciple whom [Jesus] loved”) and, probably, His burial, being at the same time one of the first to learn, together with Peter, of the empty tomb (in John 20:2 he is called “the other disciple whom Jesus loved”, and in John 20:8, “the other disciple”). Of course, I do not share the reservations of the Western theologians mentioned above, for several reasons that may seem subjective in the eyes of some rationalists or unnecessary in the eyes of strict traditionalists.
The Gospel of John
The author of the Fourth Gospel wrote the well-known Prologue that begins with: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God… All things were made through Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made,” an incredible parallel to the Book of Genesis: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth…” (Genesis 1:1). In fact, the author of the Gospel rewrites Genesis or, better said, completes the text in the way that Jewish rabbis used to write biblical commentaries known as Midrash and Targum. The Fourth Gospel intends to convey to readers, from the very beginning, that Jesus Christ is not only the expected Messiah, but the Word of God, co-existent with God, timeless and aspatial as His Father, the Almighty. The Word of God is the One in whom there is “life,” and this life is “the light of men” (John 1:4), who “shines in the darkness,” being impossible for darkness to comprehend (John 1:5), and the One “who enlightens every man who comes into the world” (John 1:9). This complex description of the divine Logos, beyond all that is created, but not alien to creation, reveals a profound theologian who knows very well what the knowledge of God, knowledge beyond reason, means for him and for all humanity. I wonder who could understand so well the depths of God – who reveals Himself in the world in the light within each human being – if not precisely “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 19:26), with whom the Lord could share such a mysterious teaching about a crazy God, Who decided to die for His people? The author of the Gospel is one of those – probably not so many, not at the beginning – who received the Word and to whom the divine Word “gave power to become sons of God, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:12-13).
According to the “hypothetical John the Evangelist” – whoever he was, but certainly the author of this wonderful theological treatise also known as the “Prologue of John” – those who believe in the mission of the divine Word Who “became flesh and dwelt among us […] full of grace and truth” (John 1:14) – who else but Love itself could dwell among His creatures? – these fools who believe in the crucified God, are no longer born as natural beings, but as supernatural beings, destined to become sons of God.
The God of John the Evangelist offers His body to be eaten and His blood to be drunk; moreover, He tells His somewhat conservative listeners that “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53), thus speaking to them about the future Mystery of Holy Communion, the miraculous possibility through which even we today, after 2000 years, can share in the divinity in such a profound way.
The God of John the Evangelist weeps when His people die, even though He knows that the Resurrection will come soon. He knows what it means to learn about the death of a friend (John 11:35: “And Jesus wept”), an image that is wonderfully complemented by Jesus’ attitude towards the death of a son (Luke 7:11-17) or a daughter (Matthew 9:18-26, Mark 5:22-43 and Luke 8:41-56).
The Jesus described by the Evangelist John is the One who receives, out of love, the profound reverence of Mary who anointed the feet of the Teacher (John 12:3), without her even knowing that he was prophesying the future death of the incarnate Divine Logos.
John mentions countless times that Jesus is the embodiment of divine Love. After the Resurrection, Jesus asks his disciple, Peter, three times if he loves Him, and he answers in the affirmative. After being urged to follow his Master, Peter “saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following him, the one who had leaned back on his chest at the supper…” and asked him what would happen to him. Jesus gave him an evasive answer: “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!” (John 21:20-22). Finally, the author of the Gospel reveals himself to be the mysterious disciple himself: “This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true…” (John 21:24).
The Epistles of John
The three Epistles of John are written in the same style as the Gospel of John and have the same theme, namely, to present Jesus Christ as God and as Love incarnate in the world, the One who abides among us, if we follow the commandment to love one another. The prologue of the first Epistle is striking in its similarity to that of the Gospel: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life; and the Life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and bear witness…” (1 John 1:1-2). The same opposition between light and darkness as in the Gospel is presented here even more strongly: “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” and “if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin” (verses 5 and 7). The importance of the Eucharistic communion is affirmed here as in the Gospel. Once again, just as the Gospel shows that the world did not know Him (John 1:10), the same formula is repeated in the first epistle (1 John 3:1). There are other similar ideas, such as the opposition to God of the sons of the devil and the followers of the antichrist (John 8:37-45; 1 John 2:16-18; 2 John 1:7 and 3 John 1:11, respectively), the importance of love between brothers (John 13:35 and John 15:12 and 17, respectively 1 John 3:14, 16 and 23, or 2 John 1:6), the exhortation to abide in the Lord, as the only way by which the Lord abides in us (John 15:4 and 1 John 3:24, respectively). Despite the fact that we know God as Love and Light, Who died for us and Who remains in us if we ask Him to do so (John 15:7, respectively 1 John 4:10), the Holy Evangelist also states that “no one has ever seen God” (John 1:18, respectively 1 John 4:12).
Therefore, the “priest” (or, in the original Greek, “elder”) who addresses the entire Church in 2 John 1:1, respectively to Gaius in 3 John 1:1, the author of these Epistles, cannot be anyone other than John himself, the “Apostle of Love,” the author of the Fourth Gospel.
REVELATION
As for the Revelation, the purpose of such a book is clearly different from that of the Gospel and the Epistles. The difference in style, ideas, and even vocabulary is quite normal. A prophetic book would use images and situations in a completely new way, so if we were to try to draw a parallel between the Revelation and the Gospel of John, we would notice more differences than similarities. But this does not necessarily mean that they are two different authors.
One of the important “signs” that John, the author of the Revelation, could be a different John from the one of the Gospel is the fact that he does not call himself “apostle,” “disciple,” “evangelist,” but “I John, your brother and fellow sharer in the suffering and kingdom and patience in Jesus…” (Revelation 1:9). But who can be a sharer in all this, if not the beloved disciple of the Lord himself? In support of the Johannine identity, let us note the parallel – ideational, if not lexical – between the prologue of the first Epistle, quoted above, and that of the Revelation: “John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, which he saw” (Revelation 1:1-2). The “Son of Man” – an allusion to the prophetic book of Daniel – is always surrounded by such a light, almost impossible to see (Revelation 1:13-16), as happens in the Gospel and even more so in the first Epistle. The entire book of Revelation is presented as a struggle of those (not so many) who confess the Lord against the forces of evil, against the antichrist, the beast (dragon) and the devil himself, something that is quite familiar also in the Gospel, but especially in the Epistles.
Udo Schnelle, a contemporary German specialist in the study of the New Testament, mentions in his work Einleitung in das Neue Testament (5th edition, Vandehoeck, Göttingen, 2005, p. 617) that the author of the Revelation has two main sources, namely the books of the Old Testament (especially the Prophets and the Psalms), and the Holy Liturgy, since John makes numerous allusions to Sunday, the altar, rituals, and the Eucharist. The Revelation contains texts composed as antiphonic hymns, doxologies, trisagions, "axios" acclamations, and prayers of thanksgiving. But even more important than the sources used by the author of the Revelation is the fact that everything refers to the Kingdom of God that is to come, a concept present in the Gospel of John, twice in connection with the Baptism (John 3:3; 3:5) and once in connection with the Passion of Jesus (John 18:36). The image of the Lamb so often invoked in the Apocalypse is present in the confession of the same John the Baptist about Jesus: “Behold the Lamb of God” (John 1:36), with the special mention that the Gospel uses for this image the Greek word “amnos”, a synonym of the term “arneion”, as it appears in the Apocalypse. The two different terms that designate the Lamb have constituted for others a sign of the alleged different paternity of the two works. In any case, the Lamb Who Gives Himself for the Life of the World constitutes an image equally present in the Gospel and in the Apocalypse of John. And the idea of brotherly love, omnipresent in the Gospel and in the Epistles, marks a parallel with the idea of brotherly communion in the Church, according to the Apocalypse (19:4 and 9; 22:3).
There is one more aspect to emphasize regarding the Apocalypse. If the Gospel seeks to establish a parallel with the book of Genesis, the Revelation ends in the same way, presenting the New Jerusalem as the new Paradise of the Lord, from which specific elements cannot be missing: the wonderful river (Revelation 22:1 cf. Genesis 2:10), trees (among which the Tree of Life, Revelation 22:2, cf. Genesis 2:9), precious stones (Revelation 21:11 and 18-21 cf. Genesis 2:11), people as kings (Revelation 21:24 cf. Genesis 2:8 and 19), the presence of God (Revelation 21:23, cf. Genesis 3:8), angels (Revelation 21:12 cf. Genesis 3:24), peace and innocence (Revelation 21:1-6, cf. Genesis 2:25), etc.
Theology of divine love
The theological ideas in the book of Revelation would deserve a separate study. One could support the opinion of many modern Western commentators that there are numerous differences between this book and the Gospel, but also similarities. It all depends on the position that each of us adopts. I opt with conviction for the traditional one, according to which the Revelation and the fourth Gospel are of the same Johannine inspiration. I would view the differences between them in a completely positive way, as complementary and caused by their different intention and type of communication. These books of the New Testament together form an original and complete picture of the theology of the Apostle John, a man interested in what divine love means, in how we, mortals, can participate in the endless divine love and in that light that is usually beyond our power of knowledge. An Apostle interested in how the world was created and how it will end, who built a complete picture of the cosmos, restored at the end in a way that was altogether more glorious than it was at the beginning. An Apostle interested in how it was possible for the divine Word to become flesh, to suffer and die for us, but also to rise and reign in His Kingdom, expecting us to follow Him. The Apostle described this form of waiting as an active one: God gives Himself in His Body and Blood, to make the source of the living Water accessible to us. The same God loves us and expects from us the same love directed not only towards Him, but also towards all living creatures. In short, this man cannot be other than the Apostle of Love, John, the son of Thunder.
Protoss. Ioan Dumitru Popoiu
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