2026/07/27

258. The Gospel of John and the Priesthood of the New Covenant: Chapter 5 of the Gospel of John

From Chapter 5 onwards, the Gospel of John depicts how Jesus—who was born as the "enmity God has placed" (cf. Lk 2:34–35)—begins to confront "human information" in earnest. The Gospel of John contains a far greater number of instances of the term "Jews," compared to the other Gospels. A deep sense of regret must have accompanied the Gospel writer's fervent affection for his fellow countrymen towards those who would not accept Jesus nor believe in his name. This was because he realised that the underlying current of the priesthood of the New Covenant, running through the Gospel of John, served to fulfil the Old Covenant priesthood—whose source lies in the story of Genesis—and to bring God’s plan to fruition. From the very beginning of Chapter 1, the Gospel of John sets out these thoughts in a manner reminiscent of Genesis (cf. Jn 1:1–18).

In Genesis, after God expelled humankind from the Garden of Eden and barred the way to the Tree of Life, He left the "enmity God has placed" to work within the depths of the human heart to safeguard their "human knowledge." At the same time, He sought out those who were pleasing in His eyes and entrusted them with a mission, guiding the people to maintain their relationship with Him. Thus, the people who came together as one nation have upheld the name of God, the priesthood and the Law given to them in the time of Moses. Even after the era of David and Solomon, and despite enduring the hardships of Exile, they continued to uphold these things to the very end. Just as the construction of the Second Temple continued even after the birth of Jesus, so too was there a single-minded devotion of the people to the Temple. However, when the Son, who bore the will of God the Father, appeared on earth as Jesus, their minds were no longer aligned with God's will.

Chapter 5 of the Gospel of John records the incident in which Jesus first healed a sick man at the Pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath. It states that, as a result of this incident, "And this was why the Jews persecuted Jesus " (Jn 5:16). Jesus replied to them, "My Father is working still, and I am working" (5:17). Then the Gospel states: "This was why the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath but also called God his Father, making himself equal with God" (5:18). This shows that their attitude shifted from "the Jews persecuted Jesus" to "the Jews sought all the more to kill him," and draws attention to the fact that the turning point lay in the fact that He "called God his Father, making himself equal with God." As we have examined many times in this blog, a structural problem lies hidden here.

This incident illustrates that, for the Jews of that time, Jesus' declaration that God was his Father came as a great shock. They were well aware of the history in which, despite God's promise to David concerning his son Solomon—"I will be his father, and he shall be my son" (2 Sam 7:14)—this promise was not fulfilled because Solomon turned away from God (cf. 1 Kgs 11:1–10). The Gospel of John continues, "Jesus said to them, 'Truly, truly, I say to you’" (5:19), and records the words with which Jesus spoke in strong terms about the relationship between the Father and the Son right through to the end of chapter 5. This is because they had such a problem that Jesus could not help but bear witness to.

From a young age, the Jewish people were raised in an environment where they learnt the Psalms by ear and memorised the Old Testament. Within this context, the idea of likening God and Israel to a bridegroom and bride, or husband and wife, had already emerged and developed as far back as the time of Solomon. Later, the tradition of reading the Song of Songs as an expression of the love between God and Israel also became entrenched. This must surely have been a desperate measure for a people who were unable to establish a parent-child relationship with God. However, applying the image of marriage—bridegroom and bride, husband and wife—to the relationship between God and His people carried great risk. This is because the notion of being on an equal footing with God would secretly take root there. Even under a patriarchal system, on the day of the wedding, the bride was congratulated alongside the bridegroom and could feel that she was in an equal relationship with him. In this way, understanding the relationship with God as analogous to a marriage between a man and a woman becomes a motive for those presiding over worship, whilst worshipping God, to divert the people's gaze—which ought to be directed towards God—towards themselves (cf. Mat 23:1–39). They become ensnared by the illusion that they are equal to God.

In this way, we can see that the sentiments of the Jews recorded in the Gospels—"because he ... called God his Father, making himself equal with God"—were imbued with a twofold anger. One was anger at being confronted with their own reality—that they failed to enter into a relationship between father and son with God, and had not been recognised as children of God; the other was anger that the fictional world in which God loved them as His equals—within the mystery of marriage, where God’s love for His people is likened to the love of a bridegroom for his bride or a husband for his wife—had been shattered. These emotions were so intense that they drove them to the point of wanting to kill Jesus. From the Psalms and the texts of the Old Testament with which they were so familiar, they had developed a theology coloured by a kind of nuptial mysticism. As a result, the Old Covenant priesthood, which had continued since the time of Moses, had gradually changed its nature through the eras of David and Solomon. And by the time Jesus began his public ministry, it had become something incapable of connecting with the priesthood of the New Covenant.

I believe that John the Evangelist, who, despite chanting the Psalms and being well-versed in the Old Testament just like his fellow Jews, had come to understand the priesthood of the New Covenant, imbued the term "Jews" with his sense of regret towards them. That sentiment must also have been shared by Jesus, who brought about the priesthood of the New Covenant to fulfil the priesthood foreshadowed in Adam (cf. Gen 3:19) and to realise the hope given to David (cf. 2 Sam 7:14). It was undoubtedly also a sense of regret felt by Jesus, who came as a descendant of David and received the same education as the Israelites. John first realised that these problems, into which the Jewish people—among whom he himself was born and raised—had become entangled, were utterly incompatible with the priesthood of the New Covenant brought by Jesus. They had become so fundamentally distinct that one might even describe them as an "Old Covenant-dominated mindset" and a "New Covenant-inspired mindset."

Maria K. M.