Progressive Christianity

[JustifiedByFaith]

Originally Posted by Dondi

I've been thinking about the words of Jesus in John 14:6:

"...I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

legei autw [o] ihsouV, egw eimi h odoV kai h alhqeia kai h zwh: oudeiV ercetai proV ton patera ei mh di emou.

Many have used this verse to prove the exclusivity of the Christian faith. I'd admit that it seems like one cannot get around it. But in a closer observation of the verse, one could see a three-fold path: the Way, the Truth, the Life.

Way - hodos {hod-os'}
1) properly

a) a way
1) a travelled way, road
b) a travellers way, journey, travelling
2) metaph.
a) a course of conduct b) a way (i.e. manner) of thinking, feeling, deciding

Truth - aletheia {al-ay'-thi-a}

1) objectively

a) what is true in any matter under consideration
1) truly, in truth, according to truth
2) of a truth, in reality, in fact, certainly
b) what is true in things appertaining to God and the duties of man, moral and religious truth
1) in the greatest latitude
2) the true notions of God which are open to human reason without his supernatural intervention
c) the truth as taught in the Christian religion, respecting God and the execution of his purposes through Christ, and respecting the duties of man, opposing alike to the superstitions of the Gentiles and the inventions of the Jews, and the corrupt opinions and precepts of false teachers even among Christians
2) subjectively
a) truth as a personal excellence 1) that candour of mind which is free from affection, pretence, simulation, falsehood, deceit


Life - zoe {dzo-ay'}


1) life
a) the state of one who is possessed of vitality or is animate
b) every living soul
2) life
a) of the absolute fulness of life, both essential and ethical, which belongs to God, and through him both to the hypostatic "logos" and to Christ in whom the "logos" put on human nature b) life real and genuine, a life active and vigorous, devoted to God, blessed, in the portion even in this world of those who put their trust in Christ, but after the resurrection to be consummated by new accessions (among them a more perfect body), and to last for ever.
For Synonyms see entry 5821

When we look at the Strong's definitions for each of these terms, we have broadened out perspective haven't we.

What if we have a choice between these three? And what if they each represent Christ in a different aspect of salvation?

Your thoughts?

Dear Dondi,

Interesting breakdown of words. I find the no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me to be the part that needs no further interpretation.

Thank God for Strong's! It's awesome how we can "truely" understand what they "meant" by what they said back then isn't it?

[wil]

Originally Posted by JustifiedByFaith

Interesting breakdown of words. I find the no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me to be the part that needs no further interpretation.

Thank God for Strong's! It's awesome how we can "truely" understand what they "meant" by what they said back then isn't it?

Namaste JBF, and welcome.

Or at least it is awesome to truly understand what Strong's thinks or prefers to think they meant...it is what interpretation is all about.

I = Jesus
I am = G-d
Jesus + Father = One

"...I am the way, the truth, and the life:

I = the way
I = the truth
I = the life

no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

in this case this one line we consider further...

I = Jesus = me = Father

man cometh onto Father or Me, by Me....

I = Jesus = me = way, truth, or life

no man cometh unto (me or father) but by (the way, truth or life)

no man cometh unto (the way, truth or life) but by (the way, truth or life)

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by wil

no man cometh unto (me or father) but by (the way, truth or life)

no man cometh unto (the way, truth or life) but by (the way, truth or life)

That's an interesting rendition, Wil.

[Caimanson]

Originally Posted by wil

I = Jesus = me = Father

man cometh onto Father or Me, by Me....

I = Jesus = me = way, truth, or life

no man cometh unto (me or father) but by (the way, truth or life)

no man cometh unto (the way, truth or life) but by (the way, truth or life)

So, are you guys saying the "I" is as if Jesus was speaking for the Father, or refering to himself as an archetype for us to follow?

Playing the devil's advocate here, I cannot see how you can escape the centrality of Jesus in John 14, unless of course one takes some of the assumptions above, that somehow Jesus is not literally talking about himself.

Does anybody know any interesting theological or historical fact about the book of John that may help to put it in perspective?

Alvaro

[Abogado del Diablo]

Originally Posted by Caimanson

Does anybody know any interesting theological or historical fact about the book of John that may help to put it in perspective?

Alvaro

We'll probably never know, but this excerpt from the page about the Gospel of John from Early Christian Writings (quoting Randall Helms, mainly) may shed some light on things (or maybe not)

The external evidence fixes the terminus ad quem for the Gospel of John. Irenaeus of Lyons made use of John (c. 180), and Tatian included the Gospel of John in his harmony (c. 170). The Gospel of John is also mentioned in the Muratorian Canon (c. 170-200). Justin Martyr (c. 150-160) and the Epistula Apostolorum (c. 140-150) may have made use of the Gospel of John. But the earliest known usage of John is among Gnostic circles. These include the Naassene Fragment quoted by Hippolytus Ref. 5.7.2-9 (c. 120-140), the Valentinian texts cited in Clement of Alexandria's Excerpta ex Theodotou (c. 140-160), a Valentinian Exposition to the Prologue of the Gospel of John quoted in Irenaeus' Adv. Haer. 1.8.5-6 (c. 140-160), and the commentary of Heracleon on John (c. 150-180, quoted in Origen's own commentary). The oldest fragment of the New Testament, known as p52 or the John Rylands fragment, attests to canonical John and is dated paleographically c. 120-130 CE . . .

Some members of the Johannine community departed, became a rival sect, over the question of the 'flesh' of Jesus Christ, an event that leads the author of I John to the certainty that 'this is the last hour.' We do not know for sure who these secessionists were, but as Raymond Brown notes, they were 'not detectably outsiders to the Johannine community but the offspring of Johannine thought itself, justifying their position by the Johannine Gospel and its implications' (1979, 107). This seems likely, until we reflect on the oddity of people who purportedly deny that 'Jesus Christ came in the flesh' citing a gospel that declares 'the Word became flesh,' and 'whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood possesses eternal life.' Brown's argument founders on his insistence that 'John exactly as we have it' (108, his italics) was the text used by those who left the Johannine community. Brown refuses to 'exclude certain passages from the Fourth Gospel on the grounds that they were probably not in the tradition known to the secessionists but were added by the redactor (either later or as anti-secessionist revision)' (1979, 109). He admits that many accept that John 1:14 - 'The Word became flesh' - was 'added by the redactor as an attack on the opponents of I John' (1979, 109) but continues to write as if there were no revision of the Fourth Gospel.

Helms states, "we need to note that part of the purpose of Irenaeus was to attack the teachings of Cerinthus, a gnostic Christian teacher who lived in Ephesus at the end of the first century" (op. cit., p. 162). Cerinthus was "educated in the wisdom of the Egyptians, taught that the world was not made by a primary God, but by a certain Power far separated from him...Moreover, after [Jesus'] baptism, Christ descended upon him in the form of a dove from the Supreme Ruler, and that then he proclaimed the unknown Father, and performed miracles. But at last Christ departed from Jesus, and that then Jesus suffered and rose again, while Christ remained impassible, inasmuch as he was a spiritual being" (1.26.1). Irenaeus stated that the purpose of John at Ephesus was as follows:

by the proclamation of the Gospel, to remove that error which by Cerinthus had been disseminated among men, and a long time previously by those termed Nicolaitans, who are an offset of that 'knowledge' [gnosis] falsely so called, that he might confound them, and persuade them that there is but one God, who made all things by His Word; and not, as they allege, that the Creator was one, but the Father and the Lord another; and that the Son of the Creator was, forsooth, one, but the Christ from above another (3.11.1)

Helms argues: "So the gospel attributed, late in the second century, to John at Ephesus was viewed as an anti-gnostic, anti-Cerinthean work. But, very strangely, Epiphanius, in his book against the heretics, argues against those who actually believed that it was Cerinthus himself who wrote the Gospel of John! (Adv. Haer. 51.3.6). How could it be that the Fourth Gospel was at one time in its history regarded as the product of an Egyptian-trained gnostic, and at another time in its history regarded as composed for the very purpose of attacking this same gnostic? I think the answer is plausible that in an early, now-lost version, the Fourth Gospel could well have been read in a Cerinthean, gnostic fashion, but that at Ephesus a revision of it was produced (we now call it the Gospel of John) that put this gospel back into the Christian mainstream."

Or into a proto-version of what would eventually come to call itself the Christian "mainstream."

[Caimanson]

Originally Posted by Abogado del Diablo

Or into a proto-version of what would eventually come to call itself the Christian "mainstream."

Gracias Abogado, very interesting theory.
It is strange that the favourite gospel while deep and full of spiritual mysticism, on the other hand retiterate time and time again Jesus' place in the trinity.


Alvaro

[flowperson]

Thanks Abogado:

I had always learned that John was the most Jewish and mystical of the cannon gospels. I was unaware of its possible Greek-Gnostic roots, but if Irenaeus attacked some of those responsible for its early delineation, then that's probably a sound theory. It's also interesting that Cerinthus, the seemingly key figure in understanding this process, was from Ephesus, the center of the Asian world in ancient times when it came to the worship of Aphrodite, and I believe, Apollo also.

The reference to Egyptian teachings was also noteworthy in that the only fully functioning Jewish Temple outside of Jerusalem was on the Elephantine Island in the middle of the Nile River in Egypt. It would make sense that mysticism regarding Jesus' story could have emerged from followers of Judaism there. The Coptic church in Egypt also preserves the oldest forms of Orthodox ritual in the Christian Faith. And of course the Nag Hammadi library of Gnostic scriptures were preserved there very early on in church history.

Thanks again for your post. I don't get much of a chance these days to research source materials, and it is always an avenue to fresh understandings for me.

flow....

[wil]

Namaste Caimanson,

Originally Posted by Caimanson

So, are you guys saying the "I" is as if Jesus was speaking for the Father, or refering to himself as an archetype for us to follow?

Playing the devil's advocate here, I cannot see how you can escape the centrality of Jesus in John 14, unless of course one takes some of the assumptions above, that somehow Jesus is not literally talking about himself.

Does anybody know any interesting theological or historical fact about the book of John that may help to put it in perspective?

Alvaro

No 'guys' here, this is just my contemplation, expanding on anothers... I was just sort of utilizing math... Jesus/Trinity/Father, I and the Father are one, Jesus is G-d incarnate. These are all statements I hear and understand to be true. So I thought what was written before was a logical step, and I took the next logical step...

Of course most feel where I go illogical is my understanding that G-d keeps begetting the only begotten...ie we are all children of G-d, all expressions of G-d in this incarnatin, in the image after all... we are one.

peace and blessings