In my previous post, I pointed out that there is some debate about the number of ‘signs’ Jesus does in the Gospel–while I began this series convinced that there are seven signs in John, I am no longer as sure as I once was. What we do know is that specific signs are written ‘so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God” (20:31). In other words, they authenticate Jesus’s divinne authority.
It is this ‘divine authority’ that is the issue of the book of John. While the ‘signs’ authenticate his authority, the concept of ‘bearing witness’ in John seems to refer to a spoken testimony about Jesus’s authority. It is to this concept of ‘witness’ that I’ll turn next.
John the Baptist occupies a curious position in John’s Gospel. While many scholars think that John is writing for a primarily greek audience, John seems insistent in the first chapter to deny that John the Baptist is ‘the Christ’ (see 1:8, 20). This, combined with the pervasive presence of other Jewish imagery, traditions, and interaction suggest that John might have a more Jewish audience in mind than most scholars think (such an audience would still need to see Jesus interacting with Gentiles, as in John 4, in order to understand the inclusive nature of the covenant). Regardless, John emphasizes that John the Baptist’s purpose is to “bear witness of the light.”
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