Salvation and Forgiveness in the Gospel of John
In my previous post, I considered a large number of passages in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) referring to salvation and forgiveness, and I closed out that post with the following conclusions. When it comes to forgiveness, Jesus demonstrated and taught the following things:
- Everyone who asks for forgiveness gets it.
- Many people who don’t ask for it get it anyway.
- Those who reject it don’t get it.
- Those who withhold it don’t get it.
Before I dig into the examples from John, I want to mention a couple of things.
First of all, my second point above, that many people who don’t ask for forgiveness get it anyway, is an observation regarding what’s actually recorded in the gospels. Of course, the gospels also indicate that Jesus knows people’s hearts, so he can know if a person is “asking” for forgiveness whether those words come out of the person’s mouth or not. Jesus can see repentance in the heart of a person even if the repentance isn’t visible to us. Nevertheless, it’s important for us to say the statement as I did because we don’t know people’s hearts nor do we know all of Jesus’s reasons for offering forgiveness. We only know his example, and his example was that he offered forgiveness many times without people asking for it.
Secondly, nothing in the previous study addressed the wrath of God against people and their sinfulness. This is a major theme of modern evangelicalism and I did mention it at the beginning of my last post, but we didn’t address it. Don’t worry, I’ll circle back to it at the end. Jesus definitely talks about judgment and who is eligible for it. In fact, we’ll begin to consider it now as we look at what John wrote about salvation, and then in the next post, we’ll circle back to what the synoptics had to say about it.
John’s Purpose
At the end of his gospel, John tells us exactly why he’s writing what he’s writing:
Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
John 20:30-31 NIV
John tells us that his gospel was written specifically so that the readers would “believe” that Jesus is the real Messiah / Christ, that he is the real Son of God, and that through belief, the reader would have “life” in his name.
John wanted his readers to put their faith in Jesus so they could experience the full life Jesus promised both in the here and now and also in eternity. John’s purpose was to point people to Jesus as the source of true salvation and forgiveness. It’s no wonder salvation is a major theme of his book.
Jesus & Nicodemus
In one of the most famous passages on salvation, Jesus is talking to a man named Nicodemus. The encounter goes like this:
Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. ”
“How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”
Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.
“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
John 3:1-18 NIV
Once again, we have an important, perhaps rich, man coming to Jesus and bringing some flattering comments, but once again, we have Jesus immediately shift the conversation to something away from flattery. In this case, he uses a metaphor that takes the man off guard: being “born again.”
Nicodemus doesn’t understand, but the only explanation Jesus gives is that there’s a “spiritual” kind of birth that people need.
Nicodemus still doesn’t understand so then Jesus effectively says, “It’s not because you don’t understand; it’s because you don’t believe.” But then, Jesus really puts it out there. In just a few more words he says this:
- I am the only human who has come from heaven.
- I will be lifted up, and people who believe in me will have eternal life.
Now, we don’t know exactly when the quotation of Jesus ends and the commentary of John begins. Ancient Greek had no punctuation (or lower-case letters, or even spaces for that matter). However, whether the next few words came from Jesus to Nicodemus or whether they came from John after the fact, they communicate two more truths about Jesus.
- It’s because Jesus has been sent to the world to save it.
- And that’s because without him, the people of this world stand condemned.
Now, we are getting into familiar evangelical territory. All people start out as unbelievers, therefore, all people start out condemned, destined to “perish” but Jesus came to “save the world” and by believing in him, a person is “born from above” or “born again” and is given “eternal life.”
This is the fundamental definition of the evangelical gospel I outlined in the previous post, and you can see it explicitly taught here by Jesus. But there’s something else I want you to see. Pay close attention. What does Jesus tell Nicodemus to do?
It’s a strange question isn’t it?
If you are familiar with John 3, you probably get that Jesus is telling Nicodemus to believe in him, but don’t run ahead of the text. Jesus doesn’t tell Nicodemus, “You should believe in me” Instead, Jesus just teaches Nicodemus, “People should believe in me.”
Why?
Jesus could have poked at Nicodemus’s flaws. “You are ignorant of the Scripture.” “You are intentionally hard-hearted against me.” “You are rejecting the minister of God in your midst.” “You only come out to me under the cover of darkness.”
Jesus could have flattered Nicodemus. “You are brave coming to learn from me.” “You are wise to ask such insightful questions.”
He did neither.
Rather, Jesus spoke words of doctrine to a man who was steeped in doctrine. He referenced a story to a man who knew that story. But in the metaphor of being “born again” he did something brilliant. He let Nicodemus know that there was something more to his spiritual awareness up to that point, and that message, I’m sure, would have made a Pharisee salivate. “You mean, there’s a deeper spirituality than what I already know? There’s a new life open to me?”
Pay attention to what is said and what is not, and you see the following elements in play:
- Someone comes to Jesus and he welcomes it.
- The man is flawed, but Jesus doesn’t poke at it.
- Rather, Jesus teaches the teacher something insightful and inspiring.
- No accusation, command, or even invitation is expressed, although the need for faith is strongly implied.
Oh, and one more thing. The word “save” only shows up in this passage toward the end, and it’s not about an individual salvation at all. It’s about a work of salvation Jesus is doing somehow for the whole world. Nicodemus needs to be “born again” but for whatever reason, Jesus didn’t tell him how to do it other than to talk about faith in him. Nicodemus asks, “How?” but Jesus didn’t give him a recipe.
The Woman at the Well
This is one of my favorite passages in the book of John, but I’ll try to do my best to make the analysis brief.
(4) Now he had to go through Samaria. (5) So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. (6) Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.
(7) When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (8) (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
(9) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans. )
(10) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
I have to pause here because I think you probably already know this story, and therefore, I think you probably already have thoughts and expectations about it. So I’m pausing here to highlight something. Right now, the first thing Jesus says to the woman is: “Give me a drink” (asking her to serve him), and the second thing he says to the woman is this: “If you knew me, you’d ask me for the drink and I would give you living water.”
Doesn’t the first question seem a bit facetious in light of the second statement? It seems that maybe Jesus is asking for a drink specifically because he wants to make the point that she should ask him for water!
Once again, a person approaches Jesus and he instantly subverts expectations.
But I’m going on a tangent. Let’s keep the main thing the main thing. Jesus just made a promise to the woman: If you ask me for it, I will give you living water.
(11) “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? (12) Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”
Again, I stop because this is hilarious to me. “Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well”? What a hilarious question! Yes! A thousand times yes! Jesus is so much greater than Jacob! Jesus invented the water in the well, the dirt around the well, and the hands that dug the well! She has no idea!
(13) Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, (14) but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
(15) The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
Another stop.
I know you know what’s coming next.
So, I’ll just add a few lines here.
And here.
To push the text a bit away from your eyes.
So I can remind you of what Jesus had promised her:
“If you ask me for it, I will give you living water.”
And to highlight what she just said:
“Sir, give me this water.”
What is the expected next thing in the story?
Don’t you expect Jesus to give her some living water?
(16) He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
(17) “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. (18) The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
This.
Right here.
So many people from so many church traditions read this in so many ways because it doesn’t seem to make sense.
- Some people think Jesus is calling out the woman’s sin. He’s gone through all this niceness so far, making her promises and such, but this was the plan all along. He needed to somehow make her feel exposed and shamed and guilty. These people think the first step of getting living water is to feel guilt over your sin, and so Jesus has to make her feel like a sinner before he can offer salvation.
- Other people think Jesus is speaking words of implied grace. Sure he’s pointing out her sin, but he’s been so nice up to this point, and maybe he had a loving look on his face as if to say, “I know how bad of a sinner you are, but look at me, being nice to you.” These people think that Jesus’s presence and words are an act of grace that coincides with his identification of her sin. These people also feel like pointing out a person’s sin is a prerequisite to salvation, but they attempt to point out that sin more nicely perhaps than the people in the first group.
- Other people have recognized rightly that back in that society, a woman who had been divorced 5 times was either terrible to live with, or had been abused and violated by a lot of men, or both. What if these 5 former husbands had not divorced her but died instead? Maybe then, the town would have seen her as a curse to men. Maybe that’s why this 6th guy hasn’t had the guts to marry her. No matter how you slice it, she’s an outcast. Maybe that’s why she’s at the well in the heat of the day instead of in the morning when all the other women would be there. Bottom line, she already knows she’s messed up and she doesn’t need anyone else to point it out, but when Jesus says the word “husband” that must’ve stung even so.
All three of these perspectives have Jesus speaking words of accusation toward her.
But there’s another option.
What if Jesus were keeping his promise.
He promised her to give her living water if she asked for it.
She asked for it.
He told her to get someone else.
What if a person “gets” the living water in the process of “going” to “get” someone else?
File that away for a moment.
There’s also one last thing to notice about this little encounter. Jesus says words of truth to the woman, but he doesn’t call her a sinner.
In fact, what if Jesus meant it when he said “husband”? What if Jesus intentionally chose to call man #6 her “husband” even though that man never made the commitment legal? What if Jesus had chosen to give that woman in that relationship more dignity than she gave it herself? Yes, yes, I know that she wasn’t legally married to the man, Jesus concedes as much too, but you need to remember that Adam and Eve never had a ceremony either. No law endorsed the marriage between Isaac and Rebekah either. Abraham slept with the slave Hagar once and a couple places in the story refer to her as his “wife.”
What if Jesus were giving more dignity to her relationship than she was willing to give it herself?
And what if he was authentically saying, “For you to get the living water, you need to bring someone else to me”?
Is that possible?
Whatever the case, the woman is clearly not offended by what Jesus said.
(19) “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. (20) Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
(21) “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. (22) You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. (23) Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. (24) God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”
There’s our word… salvation… and it is from the Jews… from the Jews, not for the Jews. The time is here for people outside the Jewish nation to receive salvation… somehow.
(25) The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
(26) Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.”
Boom. This is the very first time Jesus directly admitted that he was the Messiah, and that’s super important, but his grammar was also a bit weird when he said it. You see, this, like many other places in the gospel of John contains the Greek phrase, “ego eimi” which means, “I am he” but doesn’t actually contain the pronoun “he.” In fact, this is the phrase used in the Greek versions of the Old Testament when Moses asks God to speak his name and God says, “I Am.” In Greek, this phrase means “I am he” but it is also the only way to translate the Hebrew words, “I Am.” For anyone familiar with the public reading of Scripture back in that day, Jesus’ use of the phrase would have made them think back to the burning bush. And here, Jesus is revealing that part of himself, for the first time ever, to this Samaritan woman.
Let’s just finish the passage. If I keep stopping us, we’ll never get to the end!
(27) Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
(28) Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, (29) “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” (30) They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
(31) Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
(32) But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
(33) Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”
(34) “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work. (35) Don’t you have a saying, ‘It’s still four months until harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest. (36) Even now the one who reaps draws a wage and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. (37) Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true. (38) I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”
(39) Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” (40) So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. (41) And because of his words many more became believers.
(42) They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”
John 4:4-42 NIV
The end of the story really tells us something, doesn’t it. The same Jesus who starts the story tired, hungry, and thirsty ends the story filled because he is satisfied by doing the will of the Father which involved telling the truth about him to a woman at a well.
The woman, likewise, came to the well at exactly the right time to avoid people, but ended up leaving her jar at the well and running back to get everyone’s attention, and she effectively becomes a town hero.
The disciples went into the town to buy food, but at the end of the story, the “harvest” is coming out of the town to them!
I think the narrative is pretty clear. Whether you call it “living water” or “food to eat that you know nothing about” the ultimate sustaining power is in doing the work of God, and the work of God involves these things:
- Jesus is approached by someone.
- He initiates relationship with that person through humility and a shocking but hopeful claim.
- He avoids accusation and invites the person to join the work even before offering any truth.
- He clearly declares two unfathomable truths:
- Salvation (here, a relationship with God) is open to anyone (Savior of the world).
- Jesus himself is Messiah and Lord (Savior of the world).
- He demonstrates that participation along with belief is central to the blessing.
People may debate me on #3 because it’s very tempting to see in this story an accusation of someone’s sin followed by an invitation of grace and forgiveness, but I’ll make the point once again if it wasn’t clear:
Not only does Jesus never call the woman a sinner, he also never mentions forgiveness, and he never invites her to repent.
Good Shepherd
It’s not a story of a gospel presentation or a person turning their life around, but the passage where Jesus says he is the Good Shepherd is worth a look:
Therefore Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. The hired hand is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep. So when he sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
“I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”
The Jews who heard these words were again divided. Many of them said, “He is demon-possessed and raving mad. Why listen to him?”
John 10:7-20 NIV
This passage is incredibly metaphorical, but there are a few things we should notice:
- Jesus claims that those who “enter through [him] will be saved.” Clearly, he’s claiming that he himself is the entry point to salvation. Somehow, salvation depends on a connection to him.
- Jesus claims that his sheep “know him” and are also known by him. That is, the sign of the sheep is that it listens to the shepherd’s voice and follows.
- Jesus claims that his own death is somehow connected to all this.
- Many people who heard the words of Jesus rejected what they heard.
The overall point of this story is clear to me. Jesus is saying that he is the only way for a person to enter into eternal life/salvation. He’s saying that his death makes it happen somehow. And he’s saying that the real sheep are the ones who follow him. Then, as fulfillment of the very words he just said, many people rejected his words.
As before, we can see Jesus promising people that if they come to him and heed his words, they will receive eternal life.
However, also as before, we don’t see anything about sin here. Jesus mentions his death, but he doesn’t say anything more than that his death will be for the protection of his sheep. Although other passages connect his death to our forgiveness, this one doesn’t. For sure, if you expand the context and read the surrounding passages, you will see Jesus talking about judgment and sin, but if you look closely, his words of judgment are reserved exclusively for the Pharisees, the religious people who claimed they didn’t need any forgiveness.
As an example, consider this.
Jesus said, “For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.”
Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?”
Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.
John 9:39-41 NIV
This encounter happens right after the blind man Jesus healed was cast out of the synagogue and Jesus finds him to have a conversation. In the encounter, Jesus says he will bring judgment, that his judgment will not match the expectations of people, and then, in the most stark statement of all, he declares that the Pharisees are guilty of sin because they claim to see, but the ignorant people are not guilty!
I’m not going to build a theology on this yet. After all, back in John 3, Jesus said that all people stand condemned before God for their sin, so he doesn’t mean ignorance absolves you from sin. Nevertheless, he’s definitely accusing the Pharisees of sin while not accusing the blind man of sin.
About Forgiveness
As I did in the previous article, I also want to consider the ways John uses the word “forgiveness.” We’ve seen many times when he could have brought up forgiveness but didn’t. What about those times when he actually teaches something about it?
Well, would you be surprised to know that the word for “forgive” or “forgiveness” or “forgiven” only shows up in one single verse in the entire Gospel of John? Here it is:
If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
John 20:23 NIV
This one is worth a deeper look. Here it is in context:
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.
Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
John 20:19-23 NIV
This is the Great Commission as recorded by John.
“As the Father has sent me, I am sending you,” says Jesus.
Then, he gives them the Holy Spirit.
Then he gives them the charge: “If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”
I don’t know about you, but for me that line feels pretty heavy.
If we don’t forgive someone’s sins, they are not forgiven!
If we do forgive someone’s sin, they are forgiven!
If Jesus is telling the truth, then you and I, as followers of Jesus, literally hold the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven and eternity, and according to Jesus’ words right here, the determining factor between whether they get in or not, whether they have forgiveness or not, is whether we forgive them.
Once again, I don’t want to build a whole theology off this one verse (no matter how much it syncs up with what the other Gospels say about binding and loosing and holding the keys to the Kingdom).
I’d be too nervous to assert that you have the power to get someone into heaven by merely forgiving them.
But it sure sounds like Jesus is saying something like that doesn’t it?
Conclusion
The evangelical framework for evangelism has worked well for a couple hundred years:
- Help a person understand their sin.
- Help the person understand the consequences of their sin.
- Help them understand how Jesus solves the problem.
- Promise them eternal life if they repent of sin, receive the message of Jesus, and follow him.
- Give them an invitation.
However, nowhere in the Gospels do we see that happening. Parts of this framework show up. Jesus tells Nicodemus that he needs to be born again, but doesn’t say it’s because of sin. Jesus calls people to repent and follow him, promising eternal life, but doesn’t preface it with a discussion of sin or how his death solves the sin problem.
We also see parts of this framework in the rest of the New Testament. Paul will tell the people of Athens that God in the past overlooked their sin but has now appointed his ultimate Judge, the risen Christ, and they will be accountable to him, but even in that sermon, he won’t call their idol worship “sin.” Peter on the day of Pentecost, will also call people to repent, but the only sin he will mention will be the fact that the people of Jerusalem killed Jesus.
The real problem is that the normal evangelical framework is just too easy, too comfortable, too formulaic. It makes too much sense, and is too useful. Because it’s so convenient, we assume it must be right or at least the best, but it’s a problem because it’s not strictly biblical.
Sure, every part of it is biblical, Romans 3:23 (All have sinned), Romans 6:23 (sin brings death), Romans 5:8 (God in love sent Jesus to die for us), Romans 8:1 (in Christ, we are forgiven) & Romans 10:9-10 (salvation is applied to your life when you believe it). But at the same time, we must assemble this formula verse by verse, piece by piece.
I’m not going to stop using the formula.
However, I wonder if Jesus might just want us to put grace and forgiveness closer to the front of our conversation. Perhaps Jesus’ method really works. Perhaps we don’t need to get people lost before they get saved. Perhaps an early offer of forgiveness could do just the same. Perhaps we just need to show them the authentic Jesus—Grace, Truth, Death, Resurrection, Exclusivity and coming Judgment—and perhaps we should remember which one comes first.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14 NIV
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