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8. "The Farewell Discourses"

 

Advanced Religious Studies – Reid G and Tyler S (Philip Allan Updates, 2002)

‘ The Farewell Discourses' pages 390-397  © Advanced Religious Studies, Gordon Reid and Sarah Tyler, 2002, Philip Allan Updates

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All that follows here comes from John's Gospel

    

Content

2.1 The Last Supper

2.2 The Holy Spirit – Paraclete

2.3 ‘I am the way, the truth and the life' (14:1—14)

2.4 ‘I am the true vine' (15:1—11)

2.5 The disciples' future role

2.6 The High Priestly Prayer

2.1 The Last Supper

The Meal clarified in John

•  The final part of Jesus' ministry begins with a supper. In the Synoptic Gospels , this supper is depicted as the Passover meal.
•  The Fourth Gospel suggests that this is not so, and the meal is eaten a day before Passover. There seem to be two reasons for this:
  •  Peter is later seen carrying a sword, which was not permitted at Passover, and,
  •  the following day, the priests refuse to enter the palace of the Roman governor because it would defile them before Passover ( 18:28 ).

•  However, the theological significance is more important still:
  •  by moving the final meal forward by a day, the Fourth Evangelist ensures that Jesus dies at the moment that the Passover lambs are being slaughtered.
  •  Jesus himself is, of course, the perfect Passover lamb.

The Foot Washing Lesson & Implications

•  The supper begins with Jesus washing the disciples' feet : he has come as a humble servant. Peter protests,
  •  showing the false pride of a sinner who resists the need for divine help,
  •  but also responding as a disciple who cannot accept that Jesus is going to die.
•  Jesus rebukes him — the believer must accept Christ's offer of service, which is embodied in his sacrificial death, for otherwise there can be no true relationship of salvation.
•   Equally, Christ's followers will themselves have to serve others humbly: ‘I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him ' ( 13:15 -16).

•  The Fourth Evangelist appears to have substituted the well-known synoptic institution of the Lord's Supper with the foot-washing, but he does not leave the final meal free of sacramental overtones.
•  The foot-washing is a model of baptism, symbolising the immersion into Jesus' death that the disciples must accept and the washing in his blood that will be accomplished on the cross.

Jesus & Judas

•  As the supper goes on, Jesus is clearly troubled as the final battle between good and evil draws closer.
•  Though he knows that Judas will be his betrayer, in an act of love and peace he performs the custom whereby the host offers the bread to the most honoured guest, offering it to Judas (13:26).
•  Judas then goes out into the night, leaving the true light.
•  It seems that only the Beloved Disciple, introduced here for the first time, has any notion of what Jesus' words to Judas mean, as ironically, the others believe that Judas is leaving the gathering to buy something for the feast.
•  Indeed, he leaves to ensure that the true Passover lamb will be offered at the fitting time!

More Teaching

•  With Judas gone, Jesus speaks directly to the disciples, telling them that he is soon to leave them.
•   But he gives them fresh hope: ‘A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples ' (13:34 —5).

Jesus & Peter

•  In a burst of well-intentioned enthusiasm, Peter vainly offers to lay down his life for Christ (13:37), although he does not really understand what Jesus is saying, or the implications of his own offer.
•  Jesus calmly tells him: ‘I tell you the truth, before the cock crows, you will disown me three times! ' (13:38).
•   After the resurrection Jesus echoes Peter's bold claim with his own prediction of Peter's death: ‘“When you are old, you will stretch out your hands and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go.” This he said to show by what death he was to glorify God ' (21:18 —19).

2.2 The Holy Spirit — Paraclete

The concept of the Paraclete is a stroke of genius… It gave the Christians a distinctive way of thinking about the presence of God, answered the nagging question of the delay of the Parousia, and solved the problem of the growing temporal separation from the historical revelation . (Kysar, 1993)

Added Understanding of the Holy Spirit

•  Previously John has already dealt in some depth with the role that the Spirit plays in salvation and the life of the disciple.
•  It is not until the farewell discourses that a new dimension to his teaching on the HS is revealed.
•  Kysar observes that for the Johannine community,
  •  there was clearly something about the simple title of Spirit that was unsatisfactory, and
  •  they needed a distinctive title which would express, especially in situations of conflict and uncertainty, the special reality of the living presence of God in their midst two and three generations after the death of Jesus.
•  The concept adds a crucial dimension to the community's understanding of eschatology.
•  So valuable was the presence of the Spirit in their midst, that they were able to claim that the future blessings had already become a present reality to them.

Activity of the Spirit

•  The central function of the Paraclete is
  •  to communicate the revelation of God given by Christ and
  •  to lead believers into a radically new life.
•  However, that role is complex and involves the Paraclete in a range of activities in relation to the disciples, the church and the world.

•  Furthermore, there are four primary ways of translating Paraclete:
  •  An advocate — one called to the side of another to assist.
  •  A defence counsel — one who intercedes for another.
  •  A comforter — one who comforts and consoles.
  •  A proclaimer — one who exhorts and encourages.

•  Evidently, the word was rich in meaning for the evangelist and his readers and there is no reason to assume that he did not choose it for this very reason.

The Spirit is the Indwelling Counsellor of Truth

•  Assuring the disciples that he would not leave them alone, Jesus promises that to enable them to carry on his work, the Father will send the Holy Spirit to the disciples.
•  The Spirit will be a Counsellor, who will equip them to bring the good news to all people: ‘But the Counsellor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you' (14:25—6).
•  The Counsellor, or Spirit of Truth, will be of equal stature to Christ himself and will enable the disciples to grasp fully the truth.
•  He will live within the disciples (14:17).

•  Moreover, Jesus assures the disciples that anything they ask for in his name will be given to them: ‘And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask for anything in my name, and I will do it ' (14:13 —14).
•  He tells the disciples to obey his words and trust in God ( 14:23 ) and not to be afraid (14:27), despite the fact that the ordeal of the passion is near and he must now obey the Father: ‘The prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me, but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me ' (14:30 —1).

The Spirit is the presence of Jesus when he is absent

•  The promise of the Paraclete has run throughout the Gospel since John the Witness saw the Holy Spirit descend on Jesus and remain on him at 1:32—4.
•  The term pneuma has served to describe the role and function of the spirit throughout Jesus' ministry, but now the evangelist uses his distinctive term, paracletos.
•  The primary characteristic of the Paraclete is that he will be ‘another' like Jesus (14:16) and will fulfil the roles and functions that Jesus performed when he was on earth — hence Raymond Brown's famous description of the Paraclete as ‘ the presence of Jesus when he is absent '.
•  The Paraclete spirit will be the living presence of Jesus amongst believers, not merely an instrument of power to wield.
•  It will dwell in the disciples just as Jesus himself does, and as such, the world, dependent on the tangible and the rational, will not be able to accept it (14:17).
•  The relationship between the Spirit and the disciples is one that the world will be unable to comprehend, but for the believer it will intercede, guide and teach — leading them into a deeper knowledge of Jesus' own words.
•  Just as the evangelist has made clear throughout the Gospel that Jesus is one with the Father, inseparable from him in every way (10:30), when he introduces the Paraclete he makes clear that he too is sent in God's name and with his authority, as Jesus was sent, and hence his message and his work cannot be understood separately from that of the Father and the Son.

The Spirit is part of Salvation to enable relationship

•  The Paraclete will be part of the process of salvation for believers.
•  Because only those who have believed in Jesus can receive it, it is a characteristic that separates them from the world and singles them out as those who have passed from death to life.
•  Indwelling of the Spirit is a necessary part of the life of discipleship, bearing witness in the disciple's life to the truth of Jesus and his words.
•  Luke depicts the Spirit as the directing force of the Apostles' ministry in Acts;
•  The Fourth Evangelist describes it in terms of the personal relationship that the believer has with the Father and the Son, which will be the means by which they continue to abide in the vine (15:1-11).

The Spirit's role of judging (convicting)

•  In chapter 16 the evangelist presents the Paraclete as being integral in the eschatological judgment of the world: ‘And when he comes he will convince (convict?) the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment ' (16:8).
•  In this role the Paraclete clearly plays the part of the prosecuting counsel, exposing the world's sin and calling it to account.
•  Bultmann (1971) suggests that the lawsuit that the Paraclete will conduct is ‘one of cosmic dimensions'
•  The essential reason for the Paraclete's judgment

• of the world and
• ‘ the ruler of this world ' (Satan)

  will be for the sin of rejecting Jesus.

•  Furthermore, the Paraclete will not just prosecute but judge the world, anticipating the last judgment and bringing into the present the eschatological activity which it will ultimately face at the end times.

The Spirit is Jesus back and working

•  This brings into focus the other central function of the Paraclete for the Fourth Evangelist: it is the Johannine church's solution to the problem of the delay of the Parousia.
•  Rather than look to the future, he urges them to look to the present and see that Jesus is already among them and that the Parousia has occurred already — not a distant event which most will not live to enjoy, but something which can be realised in the here and now.

The Spirit enables an ongoing relationship with Jesus

•  The second problem for the church that the Paraclete solves is how those who were never able to meet the earthly Jesus face to face can still have a relationship with him.
•  The Paraclete bridges the temporal gap between the Johannine community and the historical Jesus, and thus the evangelist stresses that the Paraclete does not teach new things, but reminds the church of Jesus ' own words, consolidating and illuminating them for each new generation of believers.
•  In this way all believers have as direct access to Jesus as the first disciples, and the Paraclete keeps alive the revelation of God in Christ so it is available to all.
•  It is for this reason that Sören Kierkegaard writes: There is no disciple at second hand. The first and the last are essentially on the same plane, only that a later generation finds its occasion in the testimony of a contemporary generation, while the contemporary generation finds the occasions in its own immediate contemporaneity, and in so far, owes nothing to any other generation . (Cited in Aston, 1991)

2.3 ‘I am the way, the truth and the life' (14:1—14)

Jesus reassures the confused disciples

•  Jesus reassures his disciples, telling them that soon all will become clear and that they are to trust in God.
•  He highlights his unique role with the Father:
  • ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me ' (14:6).
  • He tells them plainly that he and the Father are one and that they have to keep their faith in the confidence that ‘I am in the Father, and the Father is in me' (14:10).
•  This ‘I am' saying is made in response to Thomas's anxious question: ‘Lord, we do not know where you are going, so how can we know the way?' (14:5).
•  Jesus' reassurance to the disciples that he is going to prepare them a place makes little difference to their fear and ignorance of his destiny and fate.
•  Interestingly, the disciples are as much at a loss as the Jews were earlier in the narrative when they naively asked, ‘Where does this man intend to go that we cannot find him? ' (7:35), but Thomas's question suggests that the disciples are keen to know so that they truly might follow and learn from him.

Jesus, the revelation of God

•  Just as Jesus has described himself earlier as the bread and the one who gives it, and as both door and shepherd who leads the sheep through it, so too he provides the way to the Father by going that way himself.
•  Jesus is the way, and the Fourth Evangelist makes no apologies for his exclusivism.
•  Barrett (1975) observes, ‘ there is no access to God independent of him ',
•  Jesus makes clear that he is the fullest revelation of God available to humanity (compare 1:18).
•  But once on the road, the disciple needs directions and the means to reach his or her goal, and Jesus provides these too: the truth and the life.
•  Both concepts have been vital in the Gospel from the Prologue, and the evangelist has made crystal clear that only Jesus is the truth and offers the true way to know the Father.
•  The discourses with Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman exposed the need to accept that knowing a) Jesus and b) the truth of his words is the only way in which humanity can be born anew and receive eternal life,
•  Yet even now the disciples demand: ‘Show us the Father and we will be satisfied ' (14:8).
•  The reader has already grasped so much more than the inner circle, who still stumble with misunderstanding.

   

Truth and life are inextricable,

•  Without following the way of truth the disciples will never reach the goal of life.
•  The quest they are to undertake is the same that the Old Testament writers sought after.
•  The Psalmist wrote, ‘Teach me thy way O Lord that I may walk in thy truth ' (Psalm 86:11) and ‘ Make me know thy way O Lord.' (Psalm 25:4), and, of course, for him it was the Law which was ‘a light to my feet and a lamp to my path ' (Psalm 119:105).
•  Jesus replaces the Law as the way to salvation and fellowship with God and although subsequent discourse makes it clear that it will not be an easy way to follow, it is the only way for the disciple who truly wants to know God. 

2.4 ‘I am the true vine' (15:1—11)

Israel a vine without fruit

•  When Jesus declares himself to be the true vine, he uses one of the richest symbols in the Old Testament, where the figure of the vine was used to symbolise the nation of Israel.
•  Chosen, set aside and planted by Yahweh, Israel was given everything necessary to flourish, and yet, ‘The more his fruit increased, the more altars he built ' (Hosea 10:1b), and God's people became a corrupt, wild vine ' (Jeremiah 2:21).
•  Whilst the fruit of the old Israel might initially have been evident in its prosperity and political strength, it soon became valueless, as the people drifted into paganism and apostasy.
•  The most important passage is clearly Isaiah 5:1—7, which condemns Israel for failing to produce the fruit that God had hoped they would, i.e. the taking of his word to all peoples.

Jesus the vine, believers the branches

•  In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus depicts himself as the true vine — ‘I am the true vine and my Father is the gardener ' (15:1) — that will produce fruit and so all nations will know God.
•  Marsh (1968) observes: ‘ … it was natural that, as the one in whom was embodied the new beginning of the life of God's people, Jesus should use such an Old Testament figure to make plain to his Israelite contemporaries what his nature and functions were ' .
•  Believers in Jesus will be the branches of the vine, receiving life from the vine and bearing fruit.
•  Like all vines, they will need pruning and cutting back, and this highlights the importance of a close relationship with God, for a branch cannot bear fruit on its own, and neither can a believer unless they abide in the love of Jesus: ‘No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me ' (9:4).

Jesus the fruitful vine replaces Israel the unfruitful vine

•  In this saying, the Fourth Evangelist subtly conveys the depth of his replacement theology.
•  Jesus has already indicated that he replaces and fulfils the Law, the festivals and the rites of Judaism.
•  Now he replaces Israel as a whole.
•  Where they were apostate and faithless, Jesus and his disciples (in the widest sense of all believers in Christ) will be the faithful vine, giving glory to the Father through its faithfulness.
•  Old Israel has passed away and the new community, rooted in an intimate relationship with the Father and the Son, is now the bearer of the promises of Israel.
•  That community does, of course, include some members of the old Israel , but they can only share in it by coming to the light and accepting the witness of Jesus.

Disciples abide in the Vine

•  Abiding in the vine (15:7) is the heart of fruitfulness, and it brings with it the promise of answered prayer.
•  The intimacy suggested by abiding in the vine is, of course, characteristic of the Gospel as a whole.
•  Jesus invites his disciples to eat his flesh and drink his blood, and the symbolism of the foot-washing conveys the intimate union that Jesus and the believer enter through his death.
•  Only a deep, abiding and ongoing relationship with Jesus can bring the disciple abundant life, rooted in love and obedience (15:9-10).
•  The call to obedience, implicit in all these sayings, marks the beginning of a new relationship between God and his people — which will finally eclipse the failures of previous generations.

2.5 The disciples' future role

The Nature of Discipleship

•  The saying of the vine leads directly to some of Jesus' most important teaching concerning the nature of discipleship.
•  To remain in Jesus meant obedience to his words and teachings.
•  The relationship of the believer to Christ should be one of love.
• So, too, must believers love each other: ‘My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends' (15:12 —13).
•  Jesus tells the disciples that, not only are they his friends, but also they have been especially chosen by him: ‘You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit — fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name' (15:16).

Discipleship involves Opposition but the Spirit will Help

•  Jesus warns the disciples that life will not be easy, for the world will hate them because they will no longer be part of it, but will be part of a new way (15:19).
•  They will suffer persecution, as he has — but it will not really be a hatred of them, rather a hatred of Christ, born out of sin: ‘If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first' (15:1). However, their task is not impossible, for the Holy Spirit will be with them.
•  Jesus warns the disciples about persecution in order to prepare them properly, so they will not give up and abandon their work.
•  The Holy Spirit will help them in three ways:

• He will show people that they are sinners and that Christ died for them (15:8).

• He will show the world the love and righteousness of God (15:9-10).

• He will show the world that judgment is to come and that the ‘prince of this world' has been condemned (15:11).

•  The Holy Spirit will not bring new truths, but will declare what he was told by God.
•  He will bring the disciples into a greater understanding of Jesus' death and resurrection and the salvation of the world.
•  Moreover, the disciples have been given a high position.
•  Just as God's love was in Christ, so too it was in them.
•  The Father loves them because of their love and belief in the Son.
•  Therefore, after the resurrection, they will be able to ask the Father in their own right (15:23).
•  Finally, Jesus warns them that they will initially be scattered, but Jesus will not be alone, for the Father will be with him.
•  The disciples will not need to despair: ‘I have told you these things, so that you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world ' (15:33).

2.6 The High Priestly Prayer

Context & Purpose of the Prayer

•  Chapter 17, which concludes the farewell discourses, is written in the form of a long prayer, divided into three parts.
•  Its origin is uncertain, although Smalley (1978) suggests that despite it clearly being a ‘ literary composition ' (i.e. freely composed by the evangelist), the origin of its ideas and themes may well lie in the upper room and the last meal between Jesus and his disciples.
•  It is commonly called the High Priestly Prayer or the Prayer of Consecration, which asks for God's blessing on that which is to be offered as a sacrifice.
•  The sacrifice, which, in Judaism, was offered by the High Priest, must be consecrated, that is, made holy and acceptable to God.
•  In this prayer, Jesus is both the priest praying for consecration and the sacrifice to be consecrated.
•  He (recent past) has prepared the disciples for his death and warned them of what lies ahead once they are without the security of his physical presence.
•  There is still (future) much to learn, but the Paraclete will be their teacher when they are ready to receive it.
•  Now (present) Jesus must leave the disciples to continue his witness, but he is sharply aware of the difficulties they will face.
•  These difficulties have been implicit in the good shepherd discourse: it would not be necessary for the good shepherd to protect the flock if discipleship did not present dangers.
•  These difficulties become all the more apparent after Jesus' physical departure, and the High Priestly Prayer serves therefore not only to dedicate Jesus to his death — the good shepherd's death — but to provide a blanket of protection for the disciples.

PART 1: Jesus' Two Requests

•  In the first part (17:1—5), Jesus prepares and prays for himself. He makes two requests:

  i) That he will be used by the Father for the full and final display of their mutual love in sacrifice.

  ii) That the hour of his death will be a time of glory.

•   He speaks to the Father of their relationship and their communion together. God had given Jesus authority over all creation and now Jesus will exercise that authority and then return to the Father's side: ‘Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him ' (17:2).

Disciple Aware

•  Although Jesus is praying for himself, the disciples are still firmly in view.
•  His ministry has been for the purpose of giving ‘eternal life to all whom you have given him ' (17:2) and the work Jesus has done, soon to be fulfilled on the cross, is for their benefit.
•  We know already that those who have accepted the offer of eternal life have passed from death to life (5:24).
•  Even Jesus' pre-existence — ‘the glory that I had in your presence before the world was made ' (17:5) — is relevant to the disciples who, Jesus prays, ‘ may be with me where I am, to see my glory which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world ' (17:24, compare 14:2).

PART 2: Concern for the Disciples

•  In the second part (17:6—19), Jesus prays specifically for the disciples .
•  He asks God to bless them, to keep them strong in faith and to make the new church secure.
•  He asks that they be kept safe and be filled with the truth and made ready for their mission: ‘Sanctify them by the truth: your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world ' (17:18).
•  Jesus' earthly ministry is a time during which he has led those who believe him into a true knowledge of God (17:6).
•  They have enjoyed his divine protection, having been chosen by the Father and set apart from the world.
•  Jesus must pray for them specifically, not because he does not love the world ( 3:16 ), but because at this stage he must focus on those he leaves behind.
•  They are no longer of the world, but must continue to be in it ( 17:16 ), as he himself was: this is true of disciples in all ages.
•  It is necessary to be in the world if any witness is to be accomplished, but in order to remain effective, the disciple must be uncorrupted by the world.
•  Judas is already lost (17:12), but Jesus' prayer that none of the others shall be lost is fulfilled in the garden at the moment of his arrest (18:9).
•  The links with the good shepherd discourse are apparent once again: ‘I give them eternal life and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand ' (10:28).
•  Jesus' protection of his sheep is guaranteed, and in the garden he lays down his life for the disciples, even before the salvific act on the cross.

PART 3: Concern for Future Believers 

•  In the third part (17:20 —26), the scope of the prayer is widened as Jesus prays for future believers.
•  He asks that all who come to believe will share the same love and fellowship that he shares with the Father.
•  The future believers need protecting as well as the disciples: ‘I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you ' (17:20-1).
•  Jesus envisions a community united in love and witness, which lies beyond the life and ministry of the inner circle.
•  Separated as they are from the world, unity is not just desirable; it is essential for their survival.
•  It will be the most influential way in which they can show the world something of the love and reflected glory between the Father and the Son (17:21,23) and the best way they can be effective in their ministry.
•  During his earthly ministry, the source of Jesus' strength was his unity with the Father, and the work he accomplished was made possible only by his dependence on him — ‘My food is to do the will of him who sent me, and to accomplish his work' (4:34).
•  In the same way, future believers will only be effective in the world whilst they remain a) united and b) dependent on the Father and the Son.
•  Disciples who attempt to operate outside this dependent unity will fail and, like the fruitless branches, they will be stripped away.

Future Possibilities 

•  Through future believers, Jesus will continue to make known the love of the Father and to draw all of humanity into the love he shares with him.
•  Thus the vision of chapter 17 is far-reaching indeed.
•  There are many ‘greater works' (14:12) that will be accomplished and it is clear that discipleship is not a passive relationship between the believer and Jesus.
•  Rather, the unity between them opens it up to limitless possibilities as ‘the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them ' (17:26).