Teaching Team
Common Objections: John 1:17
As we begin to explore the study and lifestyle of the Torah, many passages come to mind throughout the Gospels and Apostolic Scriptures that appear to speak against the Torah and its observance. In these blog posts we will explore some of these objections and try to answer them.
The Torah opens with the phrase "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." This passage is alluded to in the prologue of the Gospel of John, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The parallelism is so strong that it may even be that John 1:1 was a common interpretation of Genesis 1:1 in the first century CE.[1]
In fact we see some similarities in the Targums (Aramaic paraphrases):
From the beginning, with wisdom the Word of the LORD created and perfected the heavens and the earth. ... And the Word of the LORD said: "Let there be light"; and there was light by his Word. (Targum Neofati Yerushalmi Genesis 1:1-3)
The theme continues in John's prologue with the allusions to creation and darkness and light.
In the midst of John's prologue is a verse which has troubled many believers who have sought to begin a Torah life.
For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Yeshua the Messiah. (John 1:17, NKJV)
The above quotation is taken from the New King James Version because it, like a lot of translations, contains the word "but" in the middle of the two statements. Reading this passage in this way, it appears that Yeshua and grace are in opposition to the Law of Moses. Therefore Messiah does away with or replaces the Torah. Yet, the word "but" is not in the original Greek of this verse but has been added by English translators. Here is a literal rendering of the verse:
For the law through Moses was given, the grace and the truth through Yeshua the Messiah did come. (John 1:1, Young's Literal Translation)
The first statement implies that the Torah was given to Moses, i.e. it was a gift to Israel and not a burden. This idea is echoed in rabbinic literature, "Moses received the Torah at Sinai."[2] The second statement reads that Yeshua came to reveal grace and truth. These two statements are not in opposition to one another but rather complement one another. This verse is like Hebrew poetry (or parallelism), where the second line rephrases the first. Here's a great example of this from the Prophets:
The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD is avenging and wrathful; the LORD takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. (Nahum 1:2)
One line parallels and illuminates the pervious. So rather than Yeshua being placed in opposition of Moses, they work together towards the same task. What is that task? For the answer to this we must look at the context of the passage.
New Testament scholar Raymond Brown has suggested that, "It is perhaps best to see verse 17 as an editorial explanation of 16."[3] Verse 16 states, "For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace." The word grace is used here twice indicating that both Messiah and Torah are examples of grace. Bruce Moore writes, "The repetition is not for emphasis, but to indicate an increasing quantity."[4] Grace increases when we add in Messiah but that grace is built upon the Torah.
The Torah and Yeshua work together for the expressed purposes of revealing God's grace. Grace in Hebrew is the word chesed which translates as "loving-kindness". Grace is not just about God overlooking our mistakes. God gave us his Torah to show us love by governing our lives and then in turn so we might reveal that love to the world. Messiah works hand in hand with the Torah to make this even more possible. Paul enforces the idea that faith in Messiah does not do away with the Torah.
Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means! On the contrary, we uphold the law (Romans 3:31)
So is John 1:17 saying that Torah is no longer valid? May it never be!
[1] Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John I-XII: A New Translation with Commentary (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1966), 4.
[2] m.Avot 1:1.
[3] Brown, The Gospel According to John I-XII, 16.
[4] Bruce Moore, Doublets in the New Testament (Dallas, TX: Summer Institute of Linguistics, 1993), 34.
Search in Blogs...
Browse through Blogs
Feeds
Use this RSS feed to track our blogs in your favorite reader.
The FFOZ Blogs RSS Feed
Blogs by Category
- Back Office
- Events and Administration
- Founder’s Blog
- Guest Authors
- Lessons from the Land
- Levertoff Documentary
- Mishlei Musings
- Publications
- Road Trip 09
- Shalom Tour
- Teaching Team
- The Siddur Project
- Torah Club
- Video Blogs
- Site Info Blog
Blogs by Author
- Aaron Eby
- Boaz Michael
- D. Thomas Lancaster
- FFOZ Staff
- Guest Authors
- Media Staff
- Hope Egan
- Seth Dralle
- Toby Janicki
More Recent Posts
- Asarah BeTevet: The Fast of the 10th of Tevet
- The Ninth of Tevet: Simon Peter's Yahrzeit
- Some Religious Predictions for 2012
- Is New Year's Pagan?
- Priestly Seal Discovered
- Five Reasons To Celebrate Hanukkah
- Jeremiah 10 and the Christmas Tree
- A Kosher Christmas Tree?
- This is the Torah
- Rosh Hashanah & Admonishing the Idle
Visitor Feedback:
This is good, but it still focuses on the English of our passage. I've done extensive research on this over the past year+ and believe that if we don't look at the underlying Hebrew of this passage we totally miss it. In Hebrew "grace & truth" is a common phrase - "chesed v'emet." If we look at the many times it is used throughout the Tanach we can easily see that this has nothing to do with the literal words, but is an expression of the fulfillment of an obligation of faithfulness, as can be seen in its first use by Jacob to Joseph in his final days:
Virtually all English translations translate this phrase idiomatically, because they understand the Hebrew. Unfortunately, our English translations of the Apostolic Writings are still looking at the Greek behind the words.
Darren Huckey | January 31, 2010 11:15 AM
This is also discussed in the new HaYesod class. Some of my class were amazed when we talked about words being added to the English to "make it more readable", when they actually change the understanding of the passage.
Bill Beyer | January 31, 2010 4:49 PM
...the law came through Moses, grace and truth came through Yeshua. The primary subject of the sentence is the law (noun) which came through Moses; grace and truth (adjectives, describing the subject of the sentence, the law) came through Yeshua. The law came through Moses, grace and truth (of the law) came through Yeshua.
Johnie Kemp | February 5, 2010 7:35 AM
Great article Toby.
Jason Hess | February 14, 2010 4:49 PM
@Bill - We had the same reaction in our HaYesod class. Even when had people have trouble understanding it when the "but" was removed. That interpretation has been ingrained into folks and it is hard to read it any other way. It brought about a good discussion. Sometimes we need to look harder instead of only at the surface, cursory reading. It encourages people to examine scripture in context, so it's a great topic and was handled really well in HaYesod.
Good job Toby!
Jeff | February 16, 2010 10:28 AM
It is a very important teaching. Thank you.
Vladislav Nagirner, Ukraine
Vladislav | February 19, 2010 8:47 AM