Bibliotheca
Sacra 120 (Oct. 1963) 300-308.
Copyright © 1963 by
III. LITERARY KEYS TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL
The Old Testament
and
the Fourth Gospel
Merrill
C. Tenney
BETWEEN
the revelations of the Old and New Testaments a
strong bond of unity exists. Augustine's little
couplet,
"The
New is in the Old concealed; the Old is by the New re-
vealed," expresses the
relationship quite accurately. Apart
from the New Testament the Hebrew canon is a
truncated
cone, solid but incomplete, its lines pointing to an
apex yet
unrealized. Without the Old Testament the new revelation
is
devoid of an adequate foundation, for its
presuppositions are
left unexplained and its place in the total purpose
of God is
undefined.
According to the record, the Old
Testament was the basis
for preaching the new message. The earliest sermons
of the
apostles recorded in Acts are filled with
excerpts from the law,
the prophets, and the psalms, which, they said,
were prophetic
of Christ (Acts 2:16-21, 25-31; 3:22; 10:43;
13:32-38). The
Gospels
substantiate this practice, both by Jesus' own use of
Scripture and by the Evangelists' procedure. Mark com-
mences his narrative with a
double quotation from Malachi
3:1
and Isaiah 40:3, but does not thereafter quote directly
except when reproducing the discourses of Jesus. Luke
and
Matthew
employ more Scripture in the body of their text.
Matthew,
being concerned especially with the fulfillment of
prophecy, introduces frequently the formula,
"that it might
be fulfilled which was spoken by the
prophet," or some similar
expression (Matt. 1:22; 2:5, 15, 17, 23; 3:3; 4:14;
8:17;
12:17;
13:14, 35; 21:4; 27:9). The epistles and Revelation are
THE
OLD TESTAMENT AND THE FOURTH' GOSPEL 301
permeated with Old Testament language and
teaching. Reve-
lation alone contains nearly three
hundred quotations or
allusions.
Identification of quotations is not
always easy. Seldom did
the authors give the exact derivation of the texts
that they
quoted, and still less often did they quote verbatim.
Very fre-
quently they made only a casual
allusion, so that one may not
always be certain whether the writer intended to
recall a
specific passage or whether he were simply using
general
Biblical language that had become part of
ordinary parlance.
Scriptural
references can be generally classified under three
heads: citations,
which are almost exact verbally and which
are definitely referred to a given author; quotations, which
are sufficiently close to the original to leave no
doubt con-
cerning their derivation, but
which are not attributed explic-
itly to a definite source;
and allusions, which are often so
loosely constructed that only one or two words
out of a sen-
tence parallel the Biblical
text.
The exact number of references to
the Old Testament in
John
is debatable, for it is occasionally difficult to determine
what is a reference and what is not. Some are direct
citations;
many are indisputably quotations or clear allusions;
but in
other instances the language is general, or else is
so indefinite
that one cannot be sure of the exact source. In at
least one
case a text is attributed to Scripture which cannot
be pre-
cisely located (John 7:38).
The purpose of this study is not
to identify and expound each text presumably taken
from the
Old
Testament, but to discuss the influence of the Hebrew
Bible on the teaching of John.
A survey discloses forty-seven
references to the Old Testa-
ment. Three of these are
positive citations, all taken from
Isaiah;
fifteen are quotations, fourteen of which can be readily
identified, and one of which has not been located;
eighteen are
allusions that can be traced satisfactorily,
though the text is
not quoted verbatim. In addition there are eleven
general
references which imply a background that cannot be
assigned
definitely. The total quantity indicates, however,
that Old
Testament
concepts were basic in the message of the Evange-
list, and that his teaching was intended to be an interpreta-
tion of them.
302 BIBLIOTHECA
SACRA October, 1963
The appearance of these references
is evenly distributed
through the Gospel, except that there seem to be
few direct
connections with the Old Testament in the farewell
discourses
of chapters 14 through 17. Five quotations,
introduced by the
phrase, "that the scripture may be
fulfilled," or one similar,
occur in the account of the last days of Jesus' life
(13:18,
15:25;
19 :24, 28, 29, 36, 37). These emphasize the relation
of the suffering of Christ to the prophetic
Messianic picture.
The question may legitimately be
raised whether these
citations, quotations, and allusions are used for
the purpose
of illustration or of argumentation. Did the
Evangelist desire
to ornament his narrative with appropriate
quotations from
sacred literature only to enhance his concept of
Jesus? On the
other hand, was he attempting to record the
completion of a
revelation that had been begun in the past, but
that had been
left unfinished? In the Prologue (1:1-18) he
introduced the
person of Christ by declaring that He was "in the
beginning,"
eternal and coeval with God at the creation of
the world (1:1).
When
He became flesh He "tabernacled" (Gr. eskenosen)
among us, as the presence of Jehovah appeared in the
cloud
of fire over the tabernacle in the wilderness (Ex.
40:34-35).
He
compared Jesus with Moses as the agent of a fuller reve-
lation: "For the law was
given through Moses; grace and
truth came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17).
When John
the Baptist introduced Jesus to his disciples, he
proclaimed
Him
as "The Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin
of the
world" (1:29). The term that he used (Gr. amnos) appears
only four times in the New Testament, twice here
(1:29, 36),
and in two other places where it clearly refers to
a sacrificial
lamb (Acts 8 :32; 1 Pet. 1:19). "Lamb" is
drawn directly from
Isaiah
53, and connotes the total background of its source, the
suffering "Servant of God." The title,
"Son of God," which the
Baptist
applied to Jesus, is an allusion to Psalm 2:7: "Jehovah
said unto me, Thou art my son; this day have I
begotten thee."
The
connection between the Testaments is vital, not accidental.
The
Gospel expands and implements the promises and types
of the earlier dispensation.
In comparison with the other
Gospels, John uses the Old
Testament extensively. Because of the
difficulty in establish-
ing a fixed criterion for
quotation, it is impossible to estimate
THE
OLD TESTAMENT AND THE FOURTH GOSPEL 303
accurately the ratio of usage. Scroggie
attributes 63 refer-
ences to Mark, 129 to Matthew,
90 to Luke, and 124 to John.1
The
latter figure seems high, but it is safe to say that John is
second only to Matthew in the frequency of his
allusions to
the Old Testament. A statistical count, however
accurate, does
not always afford a complete test of importance;
the influence
of Old Testament concepts and predictions on the
thought of
the Gospel provides a more valid standard.
The influence of the Scriptures has
numerous facets. Cer-
tain books are quoted more
than others. Isaiah's prophecy is
mentioned at least six times, with a possible
seventh allusion.
John
the Baptist identified himself (John 1:23) as "the voice
of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the
way of the
Lord"
(Isa. 40:3). He connected himself with the Messianic
theme of the prophet, and equated the person of Jesus
with
the Jehovah of the Old Testament, whose way he had
come to
prepare. His presentation of "the Lamb of
God" identified
Jesus
with the "Servant" of Isaiah, who became the bearer of
"Fear
not, daughter of
on an ass's colt," is taken from Zechariah
9:9, but the words,
"Fear
not," seem to be derived from Isaiah 40:9, which an-
nounces the coming of Jehovah
as the Shepherd of Israel. Two
more excerpts from Isaiah appear in close succession
in John's
final estimate of Jesus' public ministry (2:37-40).
The first of
these, "Lord, who hath believed our report . .
.," taken from
Isaiah
53:1, identifies Jesus with the "servant of the Lord,"
confirming the initial proclamation of John the
Baptist. The
second excerpt, beginning, "He hath blinded their
eyes, and
he hardened their hearts . . ." explaining
the unbelief of the
people, is quoted from Isaiah 6:9, with the comment,
"These
things said Isaiah, because he saw his glory; and he spake of
him" (12:41).
The "glory" mentioned in
Isaiah 6 is ascribed to Jehovah
of hosts; according to John it is attributed to
Jesus. The allu-
sion to Isaiah 66:14 in John
16:22 contains a parallelism in
the words, "your heart shall rejoice,"
but the resemblance is
not strong enough to possess interpretative value.
Except for the Psalms, Isaiah seems
to have been more
1 William G. Scroggie, A Guide to the Gospels,
pp. 190, 270, 363, 426.
304 BIBLIOTHECA
SACRA October, 1963
familiar to the writer of the Gospel than any
other book.
John's
use is not exceptional, for the other Gospels also refer
to it frequently, and it appears also in the
sermons reproduced
in Acts. The Evangelist is witness that Isaiah
must have been
regarded by the early church as prophetic both in
its revela-
tion of the nature of
Christ, and in its prediction of His
mission.
Since the Psalms were the hymnbook
of the Hebrew
people, it is natural that they should be the best
known of the
sacred writings. Probably they had saturated the
speech of
the devout Jews who would remember the lines that
they had
sung whether they had studied the law and the
prophets ex-
tensively or not. Out of twelve
parallels with the Psalms given
(in John), nine (Psalms 69:9; 78:24; 82:6; 118:25; 41:9;
35:19;
22:18; 69:21, 34:20) are either exact quotations or so
nearly exact that there can be no doubt about their
origin,
and the remaining three are somewhat uncertain.
Five can be
called predictive: the prophecy of Jehovah's messenger
com-
ing to
ous friend (41:10), the
division of the garments (22:18), the
draught of vinegar (69:22), and the preservation
of the bones
of the righteous (34:20).
Every book of the Pentateuch is
represented in the Fourth
Gospel,
and the prophets Daniel (12:2), Malachi (4:5), and
Zechariah
(9:9; 12:10), as well as Isaiah, appear in quota-
tions or allusions. All three
divisions of the Old Testament
canon, the law, the prophets, and the Psalms, were
utilized in
interpreting the work of Christ.
Three aspects of the influence of
the Old Testament are
apparent. The first of these is predictive prophecy. Jesus Him-
self endorsed the predictive use of the Old
Testament by His
statement that the Scriptures bore witness of Him
(John
5:39).
Not every event of His career was outlined in advance,
but the categorical use of the phrase, "that
it might be ful-
filled" (13:18; 19:24, 28, 29, 36), and the
general statement
that Scripture had foretold His resurrection (20:9)
are suffi-
cient to warrant the
conclusion that the New Testament
specifically fulfills the Old. John
consciously related his writ-
ing to prophecy, and taught
that the Messianic element of
Jesus'
ministry was the logical outcome of the revealed pur-
THE
OLD TESTAMENT AND THE FOURTH GOSPEL 305
pose of God.
Allied to predictive prophecy is
typology, which finds in
the biography or ritual of the Old Testament foreshadowings
of the person of Christ. Although the typical
significance of
the lives of the patriarchs or the kings, or of the
structure and
worship of the tabernacle can be exaggerated,
the study of
typology is still a legitimate discipline in
Biblical research.
There
are indications that Jesus recognized the symbolical
meaning of Old Testament events, and that He
utilized them
in His teaching.
In His short conversation with Nathanael He alluded to
the experience of Jacob, who dreamed of a ladder
reaching
unto heaven, over which the messengers of God
ascended to
Him
with their reports and petitions, and returned with His
replies (Gen. 28:12). The vision was the means
of transmit-
ting to Jacob a renewal of God's promise to his
forefathers,
and a fresh promise of blessing for him. Jesus
informed
Nathanael that he would receive a revelation of
God through
the Son of man, who would be a much more adequate
link
between heaven and earth than the ministry of
angels (John
1:50-51).
The parallel that Jesus drew between
the revelation to
Jacob
through a vision and the revelation to Nathanael
through His person can be expanded to include
the entire
history of the Exodus. When the Jews, forgetful
of the Egyp-
tian bondage, told Jesus
that they were Abraham's descend-
ants, and had never been in bondage to any man
(8:33), He
reminded them that He could make them truly free
from the
more deadly slavery of sin (8:35). He became the
sacrificial
Lamb
of God whose blood brought a greater deliverance than
the first Passover.
Another example of typology was the
manner with which
God
fed the Israelites during their wilderness wanderings.
Jesus
accepted the historical fact, but assured the people that
Moses
did not provide the real bread from heaven (6:32-33)
which afforded spiritual nourishment. "Your
fathers," He
said, "ate the manna in the wilderness, and
they died. This is
the true bread which cometh down out of heaven,
that a man
may eat thereof and not die" (6:49-50).
Jesus drew a comparison between
Himself and the brazen
306 BIBLIOTHECA
SACRA October, 1963
serpent that Moses erected in the wilderness
(Num. 21:5-9).
The
point of analogy centered in the act of faith. Just as
looking upon the serpent in response to the
divine command
brought healing, so trust in the uplifted Christ
will result in
eternal life. The verb "lifted up" (Gd. hypsoo)
is used in this
Gospel
only of the cross (3:14; 8:28; 12:32, 34), and implies
that as the deadly serpents were representatively
judged in
the bronze image transfixed on a pole or
banner-staff, so the
Son
of man must be publicly exhibited in death, bearing the
judgment of sin. The bronze serpent was an
antidote to the
poisonous death that rebellion had caused; Jesus
became the
antidote to the sin of a world.
Throughout the wilderness journey
the Israelites were led
by the pillar of cloud and fire that settled over
the tabernacle
wherever they camped. John says that the Word
"tabernacled"
among us, and manifested His glory to the disciples
(1:14).
In
Christ God found a more perfect medium for contact with
men than in the material structure of the Old
Testament
tabernacle, and in the nature of the living person
He embodied
both the perfection of revelation and the essence of
true
worship. The entire Exodus was the expression of
God's con-
descension and intervention on
behalf of the chosen nation
(Ex.
3:7-8); the salvation of men depends on the fact that
the Son of man descended from heaven to dwell with
human-
ity (John 1:14; 3:13;
6:38). Christ is the epitome of God's
revelation, manifested in personal relationship
rather than in
historical experience.
The spiritual significance of the
Hebrew ritual is perfected
in Christ. In His person the various elements of
ceremonial
worship are unified and integrated. He is the
Lamb of God,
or the sacrifice on the altar (1:29), the bread of
life that
excels the shewbread (6:51),
the light of the world that out-
shines the golden candelabrum (8:12), the medium of
inter-
cession through whom more effectual prayer can
be offered
than at the golden altar (16:23-24), and the final
revelation
of God, in whom divine law and divine life become
more
accessible to men than they were through the ark of
the cove-
nant (1:18). Christ is the
antitype of the symbolism and
progress of the tabernacle worship.
The chronological scheme of John's
Gospel is organized by
THE
OLD TESTAMENT AND THE FOURTH GOSPEL 307
the sequence of the Jewish ritual year. Each of the major
sections is related to some religious feast
celebrated by the
Jews
at
with the appearance of Christ at these feasts. His
initial pres-
entation to the people of
(2:13),
and was accompanied by "signs" and numerous con-
fessions of belief (2:23). The
controversy over His claims that
evoked His declaration of divine origin and
prerogatives
followed at an unnamed feast, which may have been
a second
Passover
(5:1). The feeding of the five thousand and the dis-
closure in the synagogue at
the watershed of His public ministry, occurred at
the Passover
season (6:4). Within the following year the Feast of
Taber-
nacles was the occasion of His
last great popular appeal and
His rejection by the national leaders (7:2, 37,
38, 43, 44).
At
the Feast of the Dedication in the winter His enemies
attempted to stone Him (10:31-39), and drove Him
into
retirement (10:40).
Jesus' death and resurrection took
place at the Passover
(11:55; 13:1; 18:28). The long conference
with the disciples
in the upper room was directly preparatory for the
events
which would enable them to understand, as Paul did
later, that
"our passover also hath been
sacrificed, even Christ" (1 Cor.
5:7).
The Evangelist himself asserts this truth by writing in
his record that "these things were done that
the scripture
might be fulfilled, A bone of him shall not be
broken" (19:36).
The
quotation finds a counterpart in the regulation for the
Passover
sacrifice: "neither shall ye break a bone thereof"
(Ex.
12:46). John recognized the prophetic meaning of the
Old
Testament ritual, and consequently drew the comparison
between the slain lamb and Christ.
The connection of the trends and
teachings of the law and
the prophets with the incarnation of Christ does
not depend
upon casual deductions, but is confirmed by His
explicit testi-
mony. He accepted the title
of Messiah from others (1:49-50)
and applied it to Himself (4:25-26). In the early
controversy
between Himself and the Jews He declared that
the Scripture
was a witness to Him, and that Moses wrote of Him
(5:39,
46).
In the light of this statement it is legitimate to conclude
that the apostolic affirmations concerning His
fulfillment of
308 BIBLIOTHECA
SACRA October, 1963
prophecy are founded on His authority.
The Fourth Gospel draws its
organization, some of its
imagery, and its fundamental theological
concepts from the
Old Testament. On the other hand, the
revelation of Christ,
the living Word, transcends the symbols and ordinances
of
the law. "The law was given through Moses;
grace and truth
came through Jesus Christ" (1:17). The God who
descended
in clouds and thunder on Sinai, who spoke to
Elijah in the still
small voice, and who uttered His counsel through the mouths
of the prophets had remained personally
inaccessible. He was
real, but external to His people. In Christ God has
made per-
sonal contact with man. His
grace and truth have been ex-
emplified, and His redemptive
purpose has been accomplished.
The
symbolic ritual and regulative ethic have found their
ultimate fulfillment.
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