A Journal Journey with Brad Jersak’s “Different” Jesus – Day 71

 

Examining "A More Christlike Word" by Brad Jersak

Day 71

“For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.” (Paul’s concern from 2 Corinthians 11:4)

The False Filter	The Biblical Filter
The word OR the Word	The Word THROUGH the word

   Chapter 11 - Training Emmaus Readers: Prefigurement in Melito of Sardis (p. 153).

   Okay, BJ begins this chapter with the words “We’ve now seen how…” and then follows by a bunch of things we have NOT “seen how” because exploring things for ourselves showed quite a different story from what he was claiming. So, I will just present some reminders of what BJ is trying to peddle, and then see if there are any specific statements that need challenging.

   For starters, this is where Scripture places “inspiration”, a summary word indicating the words breathed out by God into the writing of Scripture. It gives us God’s word without the error of fallible man messing things up.

   On the other hand, BJ twists the meanings of these words so that “inspiration” is not what happened between God and the writers, but what supposedly happens between the Scripture and the reader.

   Because BJ changes where “inspiration” happens, his version of the Bible is a hybrid mix between what God tried to say and what we ended up with by the time fallible man messed it up. It is now open to whatever corrections the BJs imagine need to be made.

   However, because BJ is changing Scripture from the breathed-out words of God to the hybridized collection of God’s thoughts messed up by men, we end up with what Paul calls the “another Jesus”, the “different spirit”, and the “different gospel” that cannot save anyone no matter how many ingredients appear to be from the original recipe for God’s word.

   We are now on divergent paths where BJ wants us to believe that the whole Bible is allegorical and connections to Christ and salvation may be made anywhere anyone pleases, while the Historical-Grammatical sense of Scripture calls us to let every passage of Scripture speak for itself, treat each genre as clearly as it is presented, and test everything by the context of whatever we are reading.

   Before skimming through this chapter for glaring falsehoods, I will just leave this reminder of what pendulum-extreme BJ is pushing so that I don’t need to keep repeating where and how he is doing this.

BJ’s Literal Sense	The Historical-Grammatical Sense	BJ’s Literalism
Claims “literal” but means “tropological” (moral of the story), his “different gospel” (from outside of the Scriptures), and “typological” (allegorical), none of which mean "literal".	The grammatical-historical method means reading the Bible in a plain manner, respecting grammar, word meanings, and other factors with an emphasis on context, Context, CONTEXT.	BJ puts people here who ascribe to the plain meaning of Scripture as if they are stifling the Holy Spirit and missing the point of the divine and human authors.

 

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“Through Melito, we see that using typology or allegory is not a flaky method” (p. 158).

False. Using typology where none is presented, or calling things allegory when they are history, is beyond flaky. Treating the whole Bible like it is allegorical, or even the whole of the gospel of John like it is allegorical, is a mishandling of Scripture. It sets the stage for anything to be treated as having meanings that aren’t there, and to deny meanings that are there by claiming it is just an allegory. Where allegory and other figures of speech are used by God in his word, we interpret them as the Scriptures teach us to do, but we do not see them under every bush, so to speak.

 

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“we’ve not really read the Bible as the gospel until we’ve read it the Emmaus Way” (p. 158).

The wrong way. Our focus is to read the Bible as the breathed-out words of God in Scripture form first (not as gospel), and then to take God’s words as meaning what they say so that we can understand whatever he is saying, including what he says about the true gospel. Because we know that the BJs deny clear Scriptures about what Jesus suffered for us which are central to the gospel, and they believe in “universal inclusion”, which is a denial of the gospel, we clearly do not want to follow their version of the Emmaus Way.

 

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

On page 159 BJ gives some suggested questions. I won’t list them because that’s too much typing. However, they all add up to the same thing.

I will simply say that BJ’s questions are conditioned by the wrong path he is on. Because he sees allegory everywhere, his questions demand imposing it even where it doesn’t exist. Instead of readers coming to the word of God to find out what God is saying, the BJs’ disciples come demanding that God say things according to their questions. The questions are all “loaded”, meaning, they are all preconditioned to find something whether it is there or not. So I won’t deal with each question here because they are all the kinds of questions people ask when they do not believe God’s word is authoritative and they do not want to begin with nothing and find out what God teaches them.

   Okay, I’ve got some wonderful news. After finishing the above writing yesterday, this morning was an exercise day, so I continued listening to the Bible being read to me. Part of this reading included the history of Moses delivering Israel out of Egypt. You can find the whole account in the book of Exodus.

   However, to show that even the BJs do not use the questions BJ just gave us (p. 159) without prejudice, let me use those questions to describe how to apply Israel’s deliverance out of Egypt, and then see if the BJs agree with me on my interpretation and application based on BJ's questions.

   In this paragraph in question, BJ counsels, “As an exercise, why not think of a story or symbol from the Old Testament”. Okay, so let’s go with the one that was read to me this morning, Israel’s deliverance out of Egypt.

   BJ continues, “…and ask yourself which of these three categories it falls into:” Yes, let’s do that:

1.     “Is it a trial?” Yes, it is a trial filled with trials for the people of God.

2.    “Is it… an injustice?” Yes, it is an injustice filled with injustices.

3.    “Is it… a victory?” Yes, one victory after another leading to the  ultimate victory of Israel’s deliverance out of Egypt and the destruction of the Egyptian army.

   BJ then follows this with some more questions for us to answer:

1.     “How does this story prefigure Christ?” We could say that it prefigures Christ as the ultimate deliverer of his people out of their sin, or as Paul said it, that Jesus would deliver us out of the domain of darkness and transfer us into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son (Colossians 1:13-14) just as Moses delivered Israel out of Egypt and led them to the Promised Land (completed under Joshua). It also prefigures the Great White Throne Judgment of Jesus Christ our Lord where he separates the sheep from the goats, leading his sheep into the presence of eternal life while casting the goats into the place of judgment. This is seen clearly as the pillar of cloud and fire was hope to the Israelites and hell to the Egyptians, and that the same Sea that was parted for Israel’s deliverance was turned back on the Egyptian army for their destruction. Yes, that is the way we see Yahweh doing things through Moses, and it is the way we will see Yahweh doing things through his Son in the judgment. He delivers and he destroys because justice requires both.

2.    “What aspect of the gospel does it signify?” If we include the whole history of God delivering Israel out of Egypt and taking them into the Promised Land, then it signifies the whole gospel of God taking us out of our sin and bringing us into the kingdom of God. As he destroyed Pharaoh with the plagues and the Red Sea, Jesus came into the world to destroy the works of the devil. As a covenant was given to lead the people in their relationship with God in the earthly nation of Israel, a covenant was given to lead the people of God in the spiritual kingdom of God. This is really summarized by John 3:16-18 where we see the same deliverance and destruction described:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

3.    “How does reading this story as gospel (the spiritual sense) address and transform my life (the moral sense)?” When we follow all the parallels between Israel’s deliverance out of Egypt and into the Promised Land, it transforms our lives as we learn to live as children of light instead of children of darkness. As we see how many times God warned and prepared Pharaoh for what he would do, we see how we must become ambassadors of reconciliation warning people of the wrath to come and magnifying Jesus Christ for providing our only hope of salvation. Because we know that there is a separation between the sheep and the goats, we take seriously the Great Commission and seek to make disciples, baptize disciples, and teach disciples to walk in the obedience of faith. Because the deliverance was out of Egypt and into the Promised Land, we seek to live worthy of the calling we have received in Jesus Christ, walking in the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, being filled with the Spirit, having nothing to do with the deeds of darkness, using our spiritual gifts to serve one another in love, and wrapping the church in the whole armor of God so we can help everyone stand against the schemes of the devil (like BJ’s false teachings).

   I wish I had more time to elaborate, but those are some good ideas of what it would look like to use BJ’s questions. I still think they are loaded and not the way to start meditating on God’s word, but guess what we find as we answer those questions just with the passage God put on the path today? We find things that BJ has already said aren’t true!!!

   BJ has already said that there is no wrath of God against his enemies, so how can we apply his wrath against Pharaoh and the Egyptians to the gospel? I mean, Jesus did. And John the Baptist did. And the apostles did. They all continued speaking of the day of wrath that is coming at the end of the age. And it is certainly prefigured in God’s defeat of the Egyptian king, and his defeat of the enemy nations of Israel.

   I consider this morning’s journey through Exodus to be a breath of fresh air along BJ’s garden path of false teachings. I don’t need to say that every passage of Scripture in the Old Testament is an allegory of Jesus, or the gospel, although the whole history of the Old Testament leads us to Christ. But the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt, including the destruction of the Egyptian king and his army, is very picturesque in illustrating so many aspects of Jesus delivering us out of the domain of darkness, transferring us into his kingdom, and sending us into the world as light in the darkness in the hope of saving some who will then escape the coming wrath.

   I will close with BJ’s closing claim:

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“For John and Melito, this is the point – this is the Emmaus Way. We’re not merely free to go there. We must, if we’re to read the Bible as gospel” (p. 159).

For Melito? I can only say it is possible but we only have BJ’s word for it. For John? No, BJ has misrepresented him for sure. No, we are not free to interpret the whole Bible in an allegorical way based on the false gospel of the BJs. And no, there is no “must” in reading the Bible after the allegorical gospel of the BJs because it is presenting “another Jesus”, “a different spirit”, and “a different gospel”, and Paul lamented that people in the church were putting up with it easily enough.

   If you haven’t been convinced yet, it is time to call BJ’s gospel a false one, and we must reject using his unbiblical gospel as the measure of Scripture. Instead, we use Scripture as the breathed-out words of God telling us what to believe about whatever we read, including what it tells us about the gospel, and then we take just as seriously all its warnings that “all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (II Timothy 3:12-13).

   The BJs are the people Paul was warning Timothy about. Because they are going around “deceiving” people, and because they are “being deceived” by the evil one themselves, we are to treat them as the “evil people and impostors” they are.

   At the same time, Paul’s counsel to Timothy is full of wisdom and revelation:

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. (II Timothy 3:14-15). 

How fascinating that Paul spoke of the Old Testament Scriptures as “the sacred writings” and connected them to the New Testament Scriptures as they all make us “wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus”. The BJs were sent to steal the true gospel and salvation from us, and we must hold fast to what we are given in the Scriptures.

   And it just so happens that the very next thing Paul said was, 

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” (II Timothy 3:16-17).

   Again, the Scriptures we have in the Bible are already breathed out by God. They are as authoritative as he is. The Bible is the handbook Jesus has left the church until his return. It does have authority over everything we think, believe, and do because it is the word of God, the word of Christ, taught to us by the Spirit of the living God.

   And God continues to say, “But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word” (Isaiah 66:2).

 

 

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

A More Christlike Word © 2021 by Bradley Jersak Whitaker House 1030 Hunt Valley Circle • New Kensington, PA 15068 www.whitakerhouse.com

Jersak, Bradley. A More Christlike Word: Reading Scripture the Emmaus Way. Whitaker House. Kindle Edition.

Definitions from the Bible Sense Lexicon (BSL) in Logos Bible Systems

 

A Journal Journey with Brad Jersak’s “Different” Jesus – Day 70

 

Examining "A More Christlike Word" by Brad Jersak

Day 70

“For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.” (Paul’s concern from 2 Corinthians 11:4)

The False Filter	The Biblical Filter
The word OR the Word	The Word THROUGH the word

Water-to-Wine Hermeneutics (p. 148).

   We are continuing to look at how BJ is trying (and failing) to show that the gospel of John was written as “historical allegory”. His attempt to use C.S. Lewis to make his point failed since Lewis admitted to being no authority on the subject of biblical genres, and his description of “true myth” did not fit “allegorical”, but real history at the level of the awe-inspiring realities of the spiritual and material realms.

   We have seen that “in the beginning” matches Genesis 1:1, not some allegorical reference to principalities and powers. And we have seen that Jesus as the Logos/Word, while richer in wonder-filled meaning than the garden path has ventured, is expressive of the realities of his relationship to his Father that is every bit as ultimately real as Lewis meant by his “true myth”.

   BJ is presently trying to twist the miracle of Jesus turning water into wine into an allegorical principle rather than a historical event that revealed his glory to his disciples. However, I concluded my previous day’s Journal Journey with a list of the fanciful things people imagine finding in John 2:1-11 and this observation, “But all of these seem to press the symbolism beyond the clear meaning of the text and the principle of sanctified restraint.”[1] That is where I pick up today’s garden path journey, believing that BJ is imagining symbolism where the Bible itself does nothing to support this. Let’s continue into this next section and see what we find.

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“This water-to-wine analogy applies to Jesus’s transformation of both the Jewish faith and of individual lives – but it also signifies the transfiguration of our hermeneutics” (p. 148).

First, the water-to-wine isn’t an analogy. It was a real “true myth” “ultimate reality” event, a miracle, a sign, a wonder. Second, nothing is stated that it was teaching us about how Jesus would fulfill the Jewish history with the realities of the kingdom of God. It was teaching his disciples that Jesus was able to do miracles, signs, and wonders, the things God would use to reveal Jesus’ glory to the disciples first, and to all disciples for the rest of time. Third, nothing in this description gives us a hermeneutic that can now apply to how we interpret the Bible. However, with good hermeneutics, like the Historical-Grammatical Sense, we see that the turning water into wine event was historical, and following good grammar we can see that the purpose of the sign/miracle was for Jesus to begin revealing his glory to the disciples.

 

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“As Jesus’s grounding sign was water turned to wine, so also reading by ‘the letter’ (literalism) became ‘reading by the Spirit,’ so that all Scripture directs our eyes to Christ and his mission to make all things new” (p. 148).

No, it wasn’t his “grounding” sign, but his “beginning” sign. John had introduced the theme of how the disciples had seen Jesus’ glory. For him to show how that unfolded, something was the first step. Switching “beginning” to “grounding” changes the meaning (which is BJ’s forte), but there is no justification for doing so. BJ is also continuing to present a conflict between the “literal” reading of Scripture and reading by the Spirit. He can have his two pendulum extremes. However, reading Scripture by the Spirit does not exclude understanding when an event is literally what the Spirit carried the writer along to write down as the breathed-out words of God. The fact that the Scriptures lead us to Christ does not in the least bit require allegorizing historical events. I will also state that, even though there is some truth to what it means that Jesus will make all things new (“Behold, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:5), I am on guard against BJ pushing his universal inclusion poison into the mix one seed at a time, so I reserve the right to disagree with what BJ means without disagreeing with what the Scripture means.

 

BJ’s Claim	Monte’s Response
“Immediately after that story, we encounter three examples of water-to-wine or letter-to-spirit interpretation” (p. 149).	I’m sticking with John’s words that he is giving testimony to how Jesus revealed his glory to them, and that all his works continued to do this. No conflict with what the “letter” of Scripture has written, or what the Spirit teaches and reminds when applying those Scriptures to our hearts.

 

BJ’s Claim	Monte’s Response
About “The Temple” example, BJ speaks of the, “in three days”, followed by “(note the symbolism again)” (p. 149).	There is no “again”. The three days in reference to Jesus and the disciples traveling to Cana wasn’t symbolism. It’s how long it took them to walk that far. We know Jesus was speaking symbolically with his temple illustration since it is clearly revealed as such. The symbolism in the temple reference does not prove symbolism in the Cana reference.

 

BJ’s Claim	Monte’s Response
About the “born again” reference, BJ claims that “Nicodemus needs to overcome his literalism if he hopes to become a disciple” (p. 149).	Again, this does not support “historical allegory”. That Jesus used metaphors is not in question. But that John’s whole gospel is historical allegory is misleading. Nicodemus did not need to overcome reading Scripture as literally meaning what it says. But he did need to learn from Jesus how to understand spiritual truth as well.

 

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

In Jesus’ visit with the Samaritan woman, BJ points out some of the figures of speech Jesus used. However, he claims that, “And so it goes, with sign after sign, in conversation after conversation, John replays this water-to-wine, letter-to-spirit hermeneutic. In virtually every chapter, Jesus’s acts and speeches are typological windows, drawn from familiar stories and images, unpacked as types, and then applied to Christ” (p. 150).

BJ is again speaking of Jesus using figures of speech in explaining things to people as proof that the gospel of John is “typological”, or “historical allegory”, which just ain’t so. Jesus included metaphors, similes, and other figures of speech (I was so thankful to learn what hyperbole meant!) to impress spiritual truth over physical realities. The event is true history, but the historical record includes the figures of speech Jesus used to teach the Samaritan woman the good news of the kingdom of God. The record of this in John 4 is history, not allegory.

                                                                                                     

BJ’s Claim	Monte’s Response
“Jesus’s actual life, corroborated by eyewitness testimonies, is so packed with meaning that the Gospels become historical allegory, and the early church read them that way” (p. 151).	That Jesus’ literal life is jam-packed with meaning is beyond dispute. However, that does NOT lead to the conclusion that “the Gospels become historical allegory”. Just as having a car in the garage does not make the garage a car, so having allegory and other figures of speech in the gospels does not make the gospels allegory.

 

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“This dual reality of history and allegory is what Lewis meant by ‘true myth’” (p. 151).

All I can say to that is, that’s not what I got from Lewis’s own explanation of true myth. “Myth” did not refer to allegory, but to the awe-inspiring focus of belief. As action hero movies of our day portray awe-inspiring feats on the part of the heroes and villains, so the gods of mythologies portrayed awe-inspiring acts on the parts of their friends and foes. It was that aspect of dealing with great and wonderful themes of life that Lewis labelled as myth. And that is why he could say that all the world’s myths were not true, but what we have in the Bible is true myth, or the genuine article in dealing with all the grand and glorious realities of the spiritual and material words with all the spiritual and human beings interacting on the stage of history. And, even if I missed something regarding Lewis’s understanding of myth, he admitted that he was not well-read regarding the genres of the Bible, so he isn’t an authority on these matters anyway.

   Because BJ has already shown us a propensity to mishandle Scripture, and he has already distorted what Paul meant by all Scripture being breathed-out by God, I must distinguish between his claim that the whole of John’s gospel account is “historical allegory”, and the sense that John gospel account is history which includes many examples of figures of speech including allegory.

   Why deny that the whole of John’s gospel is “historical allegory” and emphasize that John’s gospel is history that includes Jesus’ use of allegory?

   Answer: because when the whole of John’s gospel is treated as “historical allegory”, it means every part of it can be taken to have a different meaning than what is written. It can also set the stage for saying that something doesn’t really mean what the words say. This is why BJ has dissed the “plain reading” of Scripture. Not because the plain reading is unbiblical, but because it doesn’t allow for twisting things into whatever the BJs want Scripture to say.

   However, when the whole of John’s gospel is treated as history with various figures of speech and word pictures used to illustrate spiritual points, we can then accept what John is writing of what Jesus did and taught, and delight in the wonders of the word pictures and figures of speech as gifts of God to help us understand complex spiritual truths in simpler ways.

   The bottom line for me is that all four gospels are real descriptions of the history of Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and teaching. We take them as written, believe Jesus did what God’s word says he did and taught what he taught. But we are mindful to not go beyond what is written, so we do not turn something into any kind of figure of speech without some indication that one is being used.

   I will again refer readers to better resources than BJ’s books. I say better because they show integrity in representing Scripture the way God presented it to us, not twisted into every pretzel collection of words that can be peddled along the garden path. Here are some glimpses into a handful of articles (that was a metaphor) that are all reasonably short and to the point.

   In the article, Does the Bible contain allegory?, Got Questions concludes,

Allegory is a beautifully artistic way of explaining spiritual matters in easily understood terms. Through the Bible’s allegories, God helps us understand difficult concepts through a more relatable context. He also reveals Himself as the Great Storyteller, working through history to foreshadow and carry out His plan. We can rejoice that we have a God who addresses us in ways we can understand and who has given us symbols and allegories to remind us of Himself.[2]

   I smiled when I saw that the suggested links to other articles included this one, What is biblical literalism?[3] This is significant because BJ has totally strawmanned the word “literalism” to mean the pendulum-extreme of people holding so “literally” to the words of Scripture that they do not let the Spirit do his work. However, true “biblical literalism” accepts everything the Bible says, including the genres used to say it, and what it teaches of the necessity of the Spirit to teach us and remind us of all things. I much prefer the honest description of biblical literalism to the dishonest view of BJ’s lying!

   Got Questions begins,

Biblical literalism is the method of interpreting Scripture that holds that, except in places where the text is obviously allegorical, poetic, or figurative, it should be taken literally. Biblical literalism is the position of most evangelicals and Christian fundamentalists. It is the position of Got Questions Ministries as well. (See “Can/Should we interpret the Bible as literal?”)

   They explain the sense of literalism in everyday usage,

Biblical literalism is an extension of the literalism that we all use in everyday communication. If someone enters a room and says, “The building is on fire,” we don’t start searching for figurative meanings; we start evacuating. No one stops to ponder whether the reference to “fire” is metaphorical or if the “building” is an oblique reference to 21st-century socio-economic theories. Similarly, when we open the Bible and read, “The Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left” (Exodus 14:22), we shouldn’t look for figurative meanings for sea, dry ground, or wall of water; we should believe the miracle.

   That should be a point very well taken, that we distinguish between the literal and metaphorical meanings of words all the time, and we don’t need the BJs telling us that parts of the Bible are allegorical when our own reading of them has them sounding very much like literal descriptions of historical events.

   I like the very real questions the article asks because they are the same ones I have about BJ’s push to treat him as the authority on what in the Bible is allegorical. “If we deny biblical literalism and try to interpret Scripture figuratively, how are the figures to be interpreted? And who decides what is and is not a figure?” Of course, it is clear that the BJs want to be the ones who decide since it isn’t the Bible saying what BJ has been writing in his book!

   Continuing, “If biblical literalism is discarded, language becomes meaningless.” And, “More importantly, if words can mean anything we assign to them, there are no genuine promises in the Bible.” The article explains this in more detail, but that is the sense of buying into what the BJs are peddling, that words have no meanings since the readers assign whatever meanings they prefer rather than seeking to understand what God really said and meant.

   Their conclusion is,

“We follow the rules of language. We are alert to metaphors and the signals of similes, like and as. But unless a text is clearly intended to be figurative, we take it literally. God’s Word was designed to communicate, and communication requires a literal understanding of the words used.”

   The next one that came up was, “How can I recognize and understand biblical symbolism?”[4] I like this clarification,

Note that a literal interpretation of the Bible allows for figurative language. Here’s a simple rule: if the literal meaning of a passage leads to obvious absurdity, but a figurative meaning yields clarity, then the passage is probably using symbols. For example, in Exodus 19:4, God tells Israel, “I carried you on eagles’ wings.” A literal reading of this statement would lead to absurdity—God did not use real eagles to airlift His people out of Egypt. The statement is obviously symbolic; God is emphasizing the speed and strength with which He delivered Israel. This leads to another rule of biblical interpretation: a symbol will have a non-symbolic meaning. In other words, there is something real (a real person, a real historical event, a real trait) behind every figure of speech.

   After giving many examples of symbols in the Bible, they conclude,

We interpret the Bible literally, but this does not mean we ignore symbols and metaphorical language. God’s written communication to the world is a richly textured literary masterpiece and makes full use of the tools of language, including symbolism, metaphor, simile, and motif.

   In, “How should the different genres of the Bible impact how we interpret the Bible?”[5], Got Questions explains the different genres. Their conclusion is another breath of fresh air to the toxic verbiage of BJ’s garden path.

An understanding of the genres of Scripture is vital to the Bible student. If the wrong genre is assumed for a passage, it can easily be misunderstood or misconstrued, leading to an incomplete and fallacious understanding of what God desires to communicate. God is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33), and He wants us to “correctly [handle] the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15). Also, God wants us to know His plan for the world and for us as individuals. How fulfilling it is to come to “grasp how wide and long and high and deep” (Ephesians 3:18) is the love of God for us!

   I will conclude with this one because it addresses directly “What is wrong with the allegorical interpretation method?”[6] They even address Origen’s fanciful explanation of the Good Samaritan! I will let their conclusion be mine as well:

There will always be some disagreement about whether certain texts are to be taken literally or figuratively and to what degree, as evidenced by disagreements over the book of Revelation, even among those who have high regard for Scripture. For a text to be interpreted allegorically or figuratively, there needs to be justification in the text itself or something in the cultural background of the original readers that would have led them to understand the text symbolically. The goal of every interpreter who has a high view of Scripture is to discover the intended meaning of the text. If the intended meaning is simply the literal communication of a historical fact or the straightforward explanation of a theological truth, then that is the inspired meaning. If the intended meaning is allegorical/typological/symbolic/figurative, then the interpreter should find some justification for it in the text and in the culture of the original hearers/readers.

 

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

A More Christlike Word © 2021 by Bradley Jersak Whitaker House 1030 Hunt Valley Circle • New Kensington, PA 15068 www.whitakerhouse.com

Jersak, Bradley. A More Christlike Word: Reading Scripture the Emmaus Way. Whitaker House. Kindle Edition.

Definitions from the Bible Sense Lexicon (BSL) in Logos Bible Systems

 

---

[1] Borchert, G. L. (1996). John 1–11 (Vol. 25A, pp. 158–159). Broadman & Holman Publishers.

[2] https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-allegory.html

[3] https://www.gotquestions.org/biblical-literalism.html

[4] https://www.gotquestions.org/biblical-symbolism.html

[5] https://www.gotquestions.org/Bible-genres.html

[6] https://www.gotquestions.org/allegorical-interpretation.html

A Journal Journey with Brad Jersak’s “Different” Jesus – Day 69

Examining "A More Christlike Word" by Brad Jersak

Day 69

“For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.” (Paul’s concern from 2 Corinthians 11:4)

The False Filter	The Biblical Filter
The word OR the Word	The Word THROUGH the word

   As I complained in my previous post, my initial thought to just give a summary response to this whole section was replaced by the awareness that I need to continue dissecting the poison-in-the-pudding so people can see for themselves that what BJ claims doesn’t add up. We saw that what he quoted of Lewis was misleading because Lewis’s idea about “true myth” did nothing to support an allegorical view of Scripture, and Lewis openly admitted that he was not well-read in the area of the inerrancy of Scripture. At best, not a voice of authority on the point BJ was trying to prove.

   What is interesting about my extra time at the “true myth” viewpoint is that what Lewis was saying was totally new to me and I first thought he was agreeing with BJ. It was a good education for me to discover what Lewis meant by “true myth”, and that I could agree with the sense of what he said, including how different “true myth” is from mythological/fable myth. I summarized Lewis’s view about true myth as, “the awe-inspiring nature of ultimate reality”. The fable mythologies addressed these issues, so in that sense, they were appealing to the incredibleness of the spiritual world, but nothing was true, so it was not actually showing ultimate reality.

   However, in the Bible, we have the “awe-inspiring” focus on the spiritual world of God and man, but presented in the way of “ultimate reality” so that it is “true myth”, or the true account of the awe-inspiring realities of everything.

   With that as a segue from that day’s journal journey to today, I am forced to slog through BJ’s claims about the gospel of John as allegory. I know John’s gospel contains allegorical illustrations, and John’s writing is fascinating with its beautiful imageries and revelations of God’s thoughts being so much higher than our own.

   I actually feel like BJ is sitting me down to tell me that a good friend isn’t who I thought he was, and that there are hidden things about him that are quite different from what I believed I knew. Hmmm… was I just being allegorical? Or was that just a simple simile? Or a generic word-picture? Fascinating.

   John’s Historical Allegory (p. 145).

   Since I’m examining the domino thoughts that are supposed to tell everyone that John’s gospel was written as allegory, let’s begin with the opening claim:

BJ’s Claim	Monte’s Response
“The Gospel according to John is our densest biblical example of the literal, moral, and spiritual sense on full display” (P. 146).	No, not by BJ’s pendulum-extreme version of what those words mean.

   BJ tackles the opening words of John’s gospel, first with “in the beginning”. His mentor claimed that this was not a reference to time and that it really spoke of “the guardians or magistrates of city-states such as Athens” (p. 146). I’m looking for some sense of what that would mean, but we’ll just have to leave that here with an open question to its definition, and how in the world the Logos would be in the guardians!

BJ’s Claim	Monte’s Response
“Connected to this sense of governance, arche is not a temporal ‘beginning’ but includes the idea of ‘origin’ or ‘source’ or ‘ground of being” (p. 146).	This is a claim, so I will look to see what I find when I look up the meaning of “in the beginning” in my resources. I will step outside the box so I have more room to expand my examples.

   First, the Bible Sense Lexicon defines “arche” as, “beginning of world n. — the temporal beginning of the universe.” Strike one against the BJs.

   Second, Gerald Brochert writes, “This statement asserts that the Logos existed before creation began. John confirms this assertion in the two following verses.”[1] Strike two against the BJs.

   Third, Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown write, “In the beginning—of all time and created existence, for this Word gave it being (Jn 1:3, 10); therefore, ‘before the world was’ (Jn 17:5, 24); or, from all eternity.”[2] Strike three against the BJs.

   Fourth, William Hendriksen writes, “In the beginning—when the heavens and the earth were created (Gen. 1:1)—the Word already existed. This is another way of saying that he existed from all eternity. He was not what certain heretics claimed him to be, a created being.”[3] Strike four against the BJs.

   Fifth, Marvin R. Vincent in his Word Studies in the New Testament writes,

In the beginning was (ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν). With evident allusion to the first word of Genesis. But John elevates the phrase from its reference to a point of time, the beginning of creation, to the time of absolute pre-existence before any creation, which is not mentioned until ver. 3. This beginning had no beginning (compare ver. 3; 17:5; 1 Ep. 1:1; Eph. 4:4; Prov. 8:23; Ps. 90:2).[4]

   Quoting Milligan and Moulton, Vincent continues,

In Gen. 1:1, the sacred historian starts from the beginning and comes downward, thus keeping us in the course of time. Here he starts from the same point, but goes upward, thus taking us into the eternity preceding time” (Milligan and Moulton).

   Next, Vincent explains “in the beginning” in reference to “the word”,

This notion of “beginning” is still further heightened by the subsequent statement of the relation of the Logos to the eternal God. The ἀρχή must refer to the creation—the primal beginning of things; but if, in this beginning, the Logos already was, then he belonged to the order of eternity.

 This clearly continues the theme of “in the beginning” meaning “from all eternity”, the Logos existing before the beginning of space, time, matter, and energy. Strike five for the BJs.

   Sixth, Bryant and Krause in their commentary on John write,

The words “In the beginning” echo Genesis 1:1, especially to Jewish Christians; however, these words in John 1:1 do not refer to the act of creating but to the one who existed and who was present when creation took place, that is, the Word.[5]

Again, the “beginning” is understood as creation, but the Word existed in eternity because he was already there in the beginning of creation, and, as we see in the next few verses, is the one who brought the beginning to its beginning! Strike six for the BJs.

   Seventh, in the commentary on John 1:1 with www.preceptsaustin.org, we read,

In the beginning (en arche) - What beginning? When is the beginning? Does he mean the beginning of eternity? Of course not, as eternity by its very nature has no beginning and no end, a truth no finite mind can fully grasp. What John is saying could be paraphrased "Before even time began was the Word." And so beginning refers to the inception of creation. When the creation came into existent, Jesus was already there. No matter how far back we believe the beginning to be, we will find Jesus, the pre-existent Word.[6]

This makes it clear that John’s focus was not on some allegorical illustration, but on the fact of history that before the beginning of history was eternity, and in that eternity was the Word, and the Word brought history to its beginning in creation. Strike seven against the BJs view on the matter.

   Eighth, our Got Questions ministry adds this,

John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The Gospel of John begins much like Genesis, the “book of beginnings.” The account of creation in Genesis begins with the phrase In the beginning (Genesis 1:1), which is translated from the Hebrew word bereshit. In the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament), which shares the same language as the Gospel of John, the words used in Genesis 1:1a are identical with John 1:1a: en arche, or “in the beginning.”[7]

   How interesting that BJ does not refer to the Septuagint for this one! The Septuagint treats Genesis 1:1 to mean the same thing as John 1:1, clearly speaking of something that happened “in the beginning”. Which would make this a resounding strike eight for the BJs!

   Ninth, Matthew Henry explains “the beginning” like this,

1. His existence in the beginning: In the beginning was the Word. This bespeaks his existence, not only before his incarnation, but before all time. The beginning of time, in which all creatures were produced and brought into being, found this eternal Word in being. The world was from the beginning, but the Word was in the beginning.[8]

Again, the meaning of the beginning refers to creation. The world began from there, the Word was already there. Real history, not allegory.

   I will go for a tenth example here (as I’m finding them on my Logos Bible Systems software). This is from the New Bible Commentary: 21^st Century Edition. The simple statement is, “The Word that now is was in existence before the world began.”[9]

   That is the tenth strike for the BJs. Every commentary I have looked at speaks of “the beginning” as referencing creation, the very next thing John speaks about in his gospel. First, he speaks of the Word who existed in eternity “prior” to the beginning. Then he shows the Word creating the beginning. And then he shows the Word becoming flesh and entering the creation.

   While the concept of “the Word” is saturated with meaning, nothing John describes here is allegorical. The beginning of creation was as concrete as we can get as the very substance, time, space, and energy of the material realm was spoken into existence by Jesus Christ our Lord. As usual, BJ has given us no reason to believe his claim that John was referring to some kind of guardians or gatekeepers in writing about “the beginning”.

   So, with that lesson in “the beginning” contradicting BJ’s claim, let’s see how he handles “the Logos” as “the Word”.

   I tried letting BJ explain what he learned, but I’m not yet sure where he’s taking things so I will step in where he makes this false statement about the logos, or “Word” in the first verses of John’s gospel:

BJ’s Claim	Monte’s Response
“This logos is also present before God and is God” (p. 147).	That’s not what the text says even if you’re trying to make logos fit the non-literal Literal Sense as mentioned earlier. There is nothing that was present before God because God always existed. Plus, that is not what John wrote!

   The Beginning of Signs (p. 147)

   The first thing I see is so many claims to “metaphors”. And when BJ does that, we know he has an agenda. It is not to show how one real historical event in the Scriptures can be interpreted allegorically as an illustration of something else, but to claim that the original pictures themselves were allegorical, not real.

   Why does BJ keep doing this? Because he wants to steal, kill, and destroy our faith in the authority of what God has written in his word. As the serpent asked, “Did God actually say…?”, the BJs want us to doubt that what is written has the authority of the words that God himself breathed out. I’m not sure I can address every claim to a metaphor, but I would challenge the reader to ask and answer honestly whether BJ’s claim that something is a metaphor because the Bible treats it like a metaphor, or because BJ is again acting like the authority who can tell us what the Bible says and means.

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“Do the details of the story mean something more-than-literal to John?” (p. 147).

This is simple: does the Bible treat any given text as having a meaning beyond the literal description at hand? For example, the wedding at Cana is described as a real event. It is given in details of what took place. It is not a metaphor, or an allegory, or a parable. It is one of the many scenes of history in the gospels. Now, since BJ is weaving words together to make it sound like John was written as an allegory, let’s step outside the box and consider what we see here for real.

   The miracle at Cana is described as “the first of his signs,” whereby Jesus “manifested his glory”, with the result that “his disciples believed in him” (John 2:11). This means that the event was real, not metaphorical or allegorical. It is now (in the breathed-out words of God in John’s gospel) identified as a “sign”. It was clearly the first miracle Jesus did to manifest the glory John already introduced in 1:14 when he declared, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John is now recounting (while being carried along by the Holy Spirit to write what he was given by God, not what he determined by his own will) the ways that Jesus showed his glory so that John could say that the disciples saw it.

   This is rather magnificent, actually. We have BJ exposing himself as a fraud in trying to downplay John’s gospel into allegory (I know, I know, while trying to convince us that allegorical means better than real), while John is using the real-life events of the life of Jesus Christ to show how Jesus showed his glory to everyone at a wedding, but especially to his new disciples who were trying to understand who he was.

   BJ wants us to start imagining metaphorical/allegorical meanings in the text where none are stated. My response is simple: if the Bible presents an allegorical interpretation (as Paul did in Galatians) then we can treat a genuinely historical event as an illustration of greater things.

   HOWEVER!!!

   Here’s a different side to the “third day” reference: that it is one of the details in this account that shows it was NOT allegorical, but was identified in one reference after another that meant one thing and not another. For example, “on the third day” references when it was. “A wedding” references what it was. “At Cana in Galilee” references where it was. “The mother of Jesus was there” references who it was. “They have no wine” identifies the problem that came up. Identifying that Jesus’ mother was in focus only means that she was involved as his mother telling her son to help solve the problem.

   Everything else is one literal (real) detail after another. And by the time we get to “This, the first of his signs”, and that this “manifested his glory”, it is clear that it was the miracle of turning water into the best of wine that gave the disciples their first manifestation of his glory so that they believed in him.

   This would be a good time to include this reminder: “I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favor of one against another” (I Corinthians 4:6). Paul was warning about people claiming to find things in Scripture that aren’t stated. They go beyond what is written with their ideas. Because they are making up their own additions, it requires people to take their word for it that it is there since it is not clearly stated. This makes people choose between speakers/authors they prefer rather than honoring all the men who proclaim the whole counsel of God without going beyond what is written.

   My point is that, unless it is written that the miracle at Cana meant something more than what John wrote, it means what John wrote, not what BJ claims. Anything else we get from this in a metaphorical way is without authority.

BJ’s Claim	Monte’s Response
In reference to “the third day”, BJ claims, “For John, it’s an all-too-obvious pointer to the resurrection ‘on the third day.’”	No, this is not “for John”, but “for BJ”. And saying the words “it’s an all-too-obvious” pointer to the resurrection doesn’t put clothes on the Emperor, if you know what I mean.

   Okay, so we are coming into another one of those viewpoints on the trail where BJ puts up the signpost of something that is there and… well… it ISN’T!

   In this case, his signpost on the viewpoint is that John is writing in “historical allegory”. But that is clearly not what we see when we look at the view!

   To preface BJ’s next claim, he uses the NASB translation to make sure something stands out: “This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him” (p. 148). Now, here’s the point:

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“John says this is the arche – the beginning, the ground – of the semeion (signs) that Jesus produced to reveal his glory” (p. 148).

Here we see why it is necessary to take our time exploring the words BJ is using (myth, guardians, etc) because once he sells a wrong definition, he can keep pulling up those words and reusing them with people believing they mean what he says they mean. In this case, we saw that “arche” referred to the beginning of time. When time began, the Word was already there. Existing in eternity. What we have here is the same word now speaking of “the beginning” of something else, in this case, the time when Jesus began to reveal his glory through signs. In one case, the Word existed before the beginning. In this case, turning water into wine was the beginning of Jesus revealing himself through signs. No guardians. No fanfare. Just a time indicator of the first of others, which we know is seven in total in John’s gospel.

 

BJ’s Claim	Monte’s Response
“So rather than reading this as ‘Jesus’s first miracle,’ we have Jesus grounding all his signs in this sign – third day, water-to-wine, transformation – and in this way” (p. 148).	If BJ was indeed the authority he makes himself out to be, that’s clearly the point he wants us to believe. However, that’s not what the text says. The text says this was the first of Jesus' signs, the beginning of him revealing himself through signs, and it is not given any special status besides that. No “historical allegory”. Just a very real sign of very real glory.

 

BJ’s Claim	Monte’s Response
“In effect, John identifies his guiding hermeneutic from this point as historical allegory” (p. 148).	Nope. He does not. Rather, John identifies a theme in his gospel account, that Jesus revealed himself to his disciples with these signs. This was the beginning of that series. Historical? Yes. Allegory? No.

 

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“That is, the ‘signs’ of John are unlike the ‘miracles’ of the Synoptic Gospels” (p. 148).

They might have a slightly different nuance in emphasizing sign instead of miracle, but no, they are not unlike the miracles, and the word is translated as both signs and miracles. Sign: “miracle ⇔ sign n. — a marvelous event manifesting a supernatural act of a divine agent; often with an emphasis on communicating a message” (Bible Sense Lexicon). “The term is used more often by John than by the other Gospel-writers. It indicates a miracle viewed as a proof of divine authority and majesty.”[10] So, no, there is no need to make a big distinction between signs and miracles since the Bible does not.

 

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“Whereas the Synoptic miracles were performed by Jesus of Nazareth (and his apostles) as a human dependent on and anointed with the power of the Spirit, John’s ‘signs’ are manifestations of Christ’s glory” (p. 148).

Again, says who? Question, is there any commentary on this in the Bible that denies any distinction between Jesus as revealed in each of the four gospel accounts? Yes, it is this: “Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—” (Acts 2:22). Peter did not differentiate. Jesus was “attested” to everyone “by God” with all the “mighty works and wonders and signs”, with that understanding “that God did (these) through him (through Jesus)”. There is nothing in the Bible that claims that Jesus did his miracles one way in three accounts and in a different way in John. All of them were the same God working through the same Son in the same power of God to make the glory of the Son known so the Son could give glory to the Father in all he did.

 

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“Or, as Ron put it, ‘the signs’ are portals to a typological reading” (p. 148).

No, the signs are historical events revealing concrete realities of the glory of Jesus Christ. I should also not that BJ has twisted the meaning of “typological” from its original sense of some earlier events of history being a “type” of something that was fulfilled in Christ to treating the original events as allegorical instead of real. His wording is deceptive, but there is nothing about recognizing the “types” of the Old Testament that requires treating history as allegory.

   However, BJ tries to clarify:

BJ’s Claim

Monte’s Response

“They actually occur, but they also mean something. They act as allegories in time” (p. 148).

If it wasn’t for the fact that BJ has already written off significant parts of the Scriptures as allegories that did NOT “actually occur”, we might be okay with what he is saying here. I would simply leave this with the sense that an allegorical meaning would have to be true to the context, and BJ has a really bad track record of that not being the case! And because he is trying to use this to prove that John was written as “historical allegory”, I am on guard against this point being used to support that when it does not.

   As we have reached a break in the narrative, I will conclude with a clarification from outside the BJ’s group of peddlers. G.L. Borchert in his commentary on John 1-11 writes,

Some have thought that the jars represented for the evangelist the Jewish religion and that John was signaling by this story a transition, the abandoning of Jewish rituals. Some have viewed the wedding celebration as a prediction of the marriage feast of the Lamb. Some have seen in the abundance of the wine an indication of the overflowing abundance expected in the messianic Year of Jubilee and the lack of wine before the act of Jesus as a commentary on the empty state of Jewish worship. Some have seen in the linking of this Cana story and the sign of bread in chap. 6 a symbol of the Eucharist or Lord’s Supper. But all of these seem to press the symbolism beyond the clear meaning of the text and the principle of sanctified restraint.[11]

   We could definitely use some sanctified restraint in the BJs’ circle. The unsanctified imagination is deadly. However, I will close with this Christ-exalting spotlight on our Savior:

Whether in any particular passage the term sign has this deep meaning—namely, a physical illustration of a spiritual principle—will have to be determined by the context. One thing, however, is certain: the sign points away from itself to the One who performed it.[12]

   And, since the context of John’s gospel does not present any of the signs as “historical allegory”, or “allegorical history”, or anything resembling turning real history into whatever lessons people want to imagine, we will keep the focus on what the texts tell us in God’s own words.

BJ’s Literal Sense	The Historical-Grammatical Sense	BJ’s Literalism
Claims “literal” but means “tropological” (moral of the story), his “different gospel” (from outside of the Scriptures), and “typological” (allegorical), none of which mean "literal".	The grammatical-historical method means reading the Bible in a plain manner, respecting grammar, word meanings, and other factors with an emphasis on context, Context, CONTEXT.	BJ puts people here who ascribe to the plain meaning of Scripture as if they are stifling the Holy Spirit and missing the point of the divine and human authors.

   I’m just pointing out that BJ’s non-literal Literal Sense is not getting any support from what we have looked at thus far in this chapter. His strawman of Literalism obviously isn’t even part of the picture. But the Historical-Grammatical sense is clearly doing its work as the grammar of the passage and the history it describes taken in the context of the chapter and the gospel point to real events that continue to manifest Jesus’ real glory to us today as clearly as they did in… well… the BEGINNING!

 

© 2024 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

A More Christlike Word © 2021 by Bradley Jersak Whitaker House 1030 Hunt Valley Circle • New Kensington, PA 15068 www.whitakerhouse.com

Jersak, Bradley. A More Christlike Word: Reading Scripture the Emmaus Way. Whitaker House. Kindle Edition.

Definitions from the Bible Sense Lexicon (BSL) in Logos Bible Systems

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[1] Borchert, G. L. (1996). John 1–11 (Vol. 25A, p. 102). Broadman & Holman Publishers.

[2] Jamieson, R., Fausset, A. R., & Brown, D. (1997). Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (Vol. 2, p. 127). Logos Research Systems, Inc.

[3] Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S. J. (1953–2001). Exposition of the Gospel According to John (Vol. 1, pp. 68–69). Baker Book House.

[4] Vincent, M. R. (1887). Word studies in the New Testament (Vol. 2, pp. 24–25). Charles Scribner’s Sons.

[5] Bryant, B. H., & Krause, M. S. (1998). John (Jn 1:1). College Press Pub. Co.

[6] https://www.preceptaustin.org/john-1-commentary#1:1

[7] https://www.gotquestions.org/the-Word-was-in-the-beginning.html

[8] Henry, M. (1994). Matthew Henry’s commentary on the whole Bible: complete and unabridged in one volume (p. 1915). Hendrickson.

[9] Guthrie, D. (1994). John. In D. A. Carson, R. T. France, J. A. Motyer, & G. J. Wenham (Eds.), New Bible commentary: 21st century edition (4th ed., p. 1025). Inter-Varsity Press.

[10] Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S. J. (1953–2001). Exposition of the Gospel According to John (Vol. 1, p. 117). Baker Book House.

[11] Borchert, G. L. (1996). John 1–11 (Vol. 25A, pp. 158–159). Broadman & Holman Publishers.

[12] Hendriksen, W., & Kistemaker, S. J. (1953–2001). Exposition of the Gospel According to John (Vol. 1, p. 117). Baker Book House.