St John the Evangelist, the Defender of the Authentic Christology against Heresies

Imagine, if St. John the Apostle, son of Zebedee, had not written his Gospel. Imagine, if he had not written his three epistles.

This is more than a question of faith: whether or not believe in Jesus as the Christ. It is rather a profound theological, doctrinal, to be more specific, a Christological question to address the nature of Jesus the Christ. It is about who Jesus really is in terms of divinity and humanity, as well as, in terms of his relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit.

This also touches the question: Why God has been incarnated and been born in a human figure, Jesus, of Mary the Blessed Virgin, the Immaculate Conception.

In regard to this strain of Christological questions of Jesus, there have been so many heresies and controversies, as early Church leaders had various different views on Jesus’s divinity and humanity, on his relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit, also debating on what it means to have been born of Mary.

Jesus wants us to know and understand who he really is. And our accurate Christological knowledge and understanding in regard to who Jesus really is of essence in our faith.

So, Jesus asked his disciples who they think he is, when they were in Caesarea Philippi (e.g. Matthew 16:15).

With a help from the Father in heaven, Peter proclaimed him as the Messiah, the Son of the living God (Matthew 16:16-17).

And Jesus can further ask us: what do you mean by saying that I am the Messiah (Christ), the Son of the living God?  And he may further ask us, why he has Mary as his mother. Then how will you answer these questions on who Jesus really is? In answering, what will you reference to? Which Gospel do you find more helpful, then?

In terms of addressing such Christological questions on Jesus, the Gospel of John can be the most helpful reference, while the Synoptic Gospels: the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke are also important. And, the Letter to the Hebrews is another important reference, as well.

So, why John’s Gospel?

A reason for this question has something to do with a motive for John to write his Gospel, believed to be at least not until 90 AD, even though Mark first wrote his Gospel upon the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD, then, Matthew wrote his and Luke wrote his, as both of them used Mark’s Gospel, as well as, another source, known as “Q” (Quelle, which means “source”) to compose their respective Gospels. This is known as the “two-source hypothesis” of the Synoptic Gospels. Mark’s Gospel is believed to have been written as the first Gospel, based on what Mark witnessed from Paul’s evangelization. By the time Mark wrote his Gospel, Paul’s epistles were written (and Paul was martyred in Rome, along with Peter, in 64AD). And, it is believed that Matthew wrote his Gospel for Greek-speaking Jews and Luke wrote his for all Greek-speaking people, including Gentiles, in the Greco-Roman world by 85 AD.

By the time John began penning his Gospel, as in spired and guided by the Holy Spirit, the Apostles had been evangelizing from Jerusalem to the Hellenized areas in the Roman Empire, upon Pentecost, as Luke chronicled in the Acts of the Apostles. It means that Christianity was already wide spread beyond Judea, Galilee, Syria, and Egypt. It has been evangelized widely throughout the Greco-Roman world, to the Jews and the Gentiles. And Paul’s epistles had been written, and the Synoptic Gospel has been written and already circulated. So, why John had to write another Gospel?

It is believed that John needed to write his Gospel because heresies among believers were also emerging, despite the Pauline epistles and the Synoptic Gospels had been circulated among them, by 90AD.  To combat emerging heretical views on Christ, especially gnostic Docetism, John wrote his Gospel and three epistles. And St. Irenaeus wrote on this matter:

John, the disciple of the Lord, preaches this faith, and seeks, by the proclamation of the Gospel, to remove that error which by Cerinthus had been disseminated among men, and a long time previously by those termed Nicolaitans, who are an offset of that knowledge falsely so called, that he might confound them, and persuade them that there is but one God, who made all things by His Word; and not, as they allege, that the Creator was one, but the Father of the Lord another; and that the Son of the Creator was, forsooth, one, but the Christ from above another, who also continued impassible, descending upon Jesus, the Son of the Creator, and flew back again into His Pleroma; and that Monogenes was the beginning, but Logos was the true son of Monogenes; and that this creation to which we belong was not made by the primary God, but by some power lying far below Him, and shut off from communion with the things invisible and ineffable. The disciple of the Lord therefore desiring to put an end to all such doctrines, and to establish the rule of truth in the Church, that there is one Almighty God, who made all things by His Word, both visible and invisible; showing at the same time, that by the Word, through whom God made the creation, He also bestowed salvation on the men included in the creation; thus commenced His teaching in the Gospel: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.   “Against Heresies”, III, 11.

Even after John wrote his Gospel and epistles, heresies continued to emerge and doctrinal controversies kept bubbling up within the nascent Church was still throughout the Apostolic age and beyond.

So, shortly after the Romanization of Christianity by Constantine, the first ecumenical council to discuss doctrinal heresies and controversies was assembled in Nicaea by Roman Emperor, who legalized Christianity in his Empire, known as the Nicene Council in the year of 325 AD, condemning Arius’ heresy. Arius argued: If the Father begat the Son, then he who was begotten had a beginning in existence, and from this it follows there was a time when the Son was not. Against this, St. Athanasius of Alexandria argued with the homoousion nature of Jesus the Christ with the Father, as John quote Jesus identifying himself as such in John 10:30, 38. Thus, the council resolved the Arian controversy of Christology, rejecting Arius’ heretical Christology because it denied the consubstantiality of Jesus the Christ the Son and the Father, contradicting John 10:30, 38.

Our Christological doctrine was pretty much cemented during the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD, impacted by St. Leo the Great’s Christological Toma, which upheld the dyophysite Christology of Cyril of Alexandria, with Leo’s papal authority, declaring as the Church’s official Christological doctrine, the dual nature (dyophysitism – not to be confused with “miaphysitism”) of Jesus fully divine and fully human as a distinct being in consubstantial hypostatic union with the Father and the Holy Spirit in Trinity.  Thus, Eutyches’ monophysitism heretic Christology (Eutychianism) was rejected. And all of this was made possible by John’s Gospel and epistles.

Tracing how the early Church combatted various heresies and safeguarded the authentic Christological doctrine, from the Council of Nicaea in 325 to the Council of Chalcedon in 451, we can see John’s Gospel played significant role – more than the Synoptic Gospels. This is especially true in regard to the authentic Christology of Jesus with the dual nature: in the context of the Trinity.

The First Reading for the Feast of Saint John, Apostle and evangelist, on December 27 (1 John 1:1-4) echoes the Gospel Reading for Christmas Dauty Mass, on December 25 (John 1:1-18). These Scriptural texts basically address the same theme: the physicality of Christ due to his incarnation.

So, why do we reflect the incarnation of Christ, therefore, the physicality of Christ, which makes him visible and tangible to us, on the feast of St. John the Apostle and evangelist?

It is because of John doctrinally fought against gnostic heresies, especially a faulty belief to deny the physicality of Christ. This gnostic heresy grew into Docetism by the 2^nd century, arguing that Christ in Jesus only “appeared” to have the body but he did not. The word, “Docetism” traces its etymological roots in this Greek word,  δοκεῖν (dokein), the verb to mean, “to appear”, “to seem”. It is like how Protestants view the Eucharist as merely a symbol of Corporis et Sanguinis Christi, while Catholics believe and see it as the very Corporis et Sanguinis Christi, appears in the species of bread and wine, due to transubstantiation.

To correct this heresy that denies the physicality of Christ, and consequently, that denies the incarnation and Mary’s importance for the incarnation and giving birth to the incarnated Christ, John wrote his Gospel and 3 letters, toward the end of the first century, though the Synoptic Gospel had been written and already widely circulated. John’s powerful anti-gnosticism teaching inspired more early leaders of the Church, such as, St. Ignatius of Antioch and St. Irenaeus, who continued to fight against Docetism and other heresies.

While the Synoptic Gospels: Gospel of Matthew, Gospel of Mark, and Gospel of Luke are written more of chronological order of the incarnated Christ’s life and ministry, Gospel of John focuses on Paschal Mystery of Christ. Rather than writing another Gospel like the Synoptic Gospels, John chose to write his Gospel much later primarily to clarify misunderstanding and misinterpretation of who Christ is, namely, to fight for the authenticity of the Christological doctrine of the Church and to fight against gnostic heresies, especially a false thought that denied the incarnation and the physicality of Christ. This is why the beginning narratives of both John’s Gospel and his letters address Christ’s physicality through the incarnation. In the First Reading for St. John’s feast (1 John 1:1-4), compared to the Gospel Reading for Christmas Day Mass (John 1:1-18), John describes the incarnation and the physicality of Christ more subtly. In the First Reading (1 John 1:1-4), he writes about the physicality of Christ as what he and other apostles actually witnessed and experienced personally, with a “we” subject statement. And he also addresses the fellowship that he and other apostles enjoyed with the incarnated Christ, which reflects Christ’s fellowship with the Father (1 John 1:3). In other words, in the First Reading (1 John 1:1-4), we read John’s personal testimony to the incarnated Christ and the fellowship with him.

The Gospel Reading for the feast of St. John the Apostle and evangelist (John 20:1a, 2-8), which describes how Peter and John (the other disciple whom Jesus loved, John 20:2) responded to Mary Magdalene’s report on Jesus’ tomb being empty in the early morning of the third day from his death and burial. When they learned about the empty tomb from Mary Magdalene, they did not know why Jesus’ tomb became empty.  So, Peter and John ran to the tomb. Perhaps, it had something to do with Peter’s advanced age, compare John’s youth, that John ran faster than Peter. But it is because of Peter was more anxious about confronting the empty tomb of Jesus as he had betrayed Jesus three times before the cock crows (John 18:15-18, 25-27), as foretold by Jesus (John 13:38) . Peter was too anxious to run as fast as John, wondering what if Jesus, whom he betrayed, was alive, then, if he would punish him.

Though John arrived at the tomb first, Peter first bent down and looked inside the tomb and saw Jesus’ burial clothes there, the one covered his head and his body in separate places. But, Peter did not get himself into the tomb. Then, John enter into the tomb and saw what Peter saw from the outside of the tomb and believed that Jesus had risen from the death (John 20:8) , as he had foretold multiple times (e.g. Matthew 16:21–23; 17:22-23;20:17-19), to fulfill the scriptures (Psalm 16:10-11; Isaiah 53:10-12)– though neither Peter nor John understood how it happened (John 20:9).

An important point of the Gospel Reading (John 20:1a, 2-8) is that John believed that Christ was risen with his body, even though he did not yet see the risen Christ in his physical eyes, based on what he saw, such as Jesus’ burial clothes, in the empty tomb, even though he did not quite understand the Paschal Mystery of the resurrection yet. 

A lesson from the Gospel Reading (John 20:1a, 2-8) on believing without seeing its physicality of the risen Christ, exemplified by John makes a contrast to the John’s Christological emphasis on the visible and tangible physicality of Christ in the First Reading (1 John 1:1-4).

For someone as skeptical as Thomas (John 20:24-29), the physicality of Christ, from his incarnation (John 1:1, 14) by the power of the Holy Spirit applied to Mary’s  womb (Luke 1:35; Matthew 1:20) on and beyond his death and resurrection, is necessary to believe. But to those who can believe without seeing and necessarily understanding, like John, Jesus has said:

Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed (John 20:29).

From John’s Gospel, which is believed to have been written sometime between 90AD and 100 AD, to Council of Nicaea in 325 AD, to the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD, and beyond, we as the Church, have been safeguarding the authentic dyophysite Christ in homoousic hypostatic union with the Father and the Holy Spirit in the Trinity. And this is the nature of our Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God the Father, sent to us by His love (John 3:16), the Theos-Logos (John 1:1), incarnated to dwell among us (John 1:14), by the power of the Holy Spirit (Luke 1:35; Matthew 1:20), conceived in the womb of Mary (Luke 1:31-33), born of her (Luke 2:7).  And this is reflected in the First Reading (1 John 1:1-4).