Exegesis and Exposition of First John 5.5-6.doc

This paper aims to show that John’s purpose statement (John 20:30-31) answers the Christological identity question of “Who is the Messiah?” Furthermore it demonstrates that the Johannine portrait of the messiah underwent a dramatic transformation from merely a royal Davidic figure to a transcendent “Son of God” (viz. “the Christ” is grammatically equivalent to “Son of God” in John 20:31). The paper will review the history of interpretative questions related to the purpose statement including: textual critical, grammatical-syntactical, discourse, and Christological. The syntactical case will made for reading John 20:31 as “the Christ, the Son of God, is Jesus” in contradiction to all modern English translations. The implication for John’s purpose will be considered including a missional purpose of John’s Gospel based upon the syntactical evidence found in John 20:31 (i.e. the subject of the copulative verb in John 20:31 is not ‘Jesus’ but “the Christ, the Son of God.”) This paper calls on English translators to alter their reading of John 20:31, and also to recast the portrait of John’s messiah as a transcendent figure so that the term “Christ” Or “Messiah” should best be understood as the Divine Messiah.

1998