The Signs of Jesus' Deity in the Gospel of John

Audience Background
Preconceived ideas and beliefs are often shaped and rooted in the historical setting of one’s surroundings and background experiences. Such was the case for the audience during the time of Christ’s miracles and the early and latter church. Today we have a vast number of theologians who have written about the historic background of the audience during the time of Jesus Christ, as well as the Johannine community during the first and second century after Christ. Factors involving the social-political climate as well as the religious background of the Jews could all potentially impact the audience’s decision concerning the signs. Edersheim contends that the Holy Land was “a country of mixed and hostile races, of divided interests, where close by the side of the narrowest and most punctilious Pharisaism heathen temples rose, and heathen rites and customs openly prevailed.”
The influx of heathen beliefs and values seem to push their way throughout the community to the extent that even the Israelites’ primary language of Hebrew was changed to an “Aramaean dialect except in the public worship and in the learned academies of theological doctors. Such words and names in the gospels as Raka, Abba, Golgotha, Gabbatha, Akel-Dama, Bartholomaios, Barabbas, Bar-Jesus, and the various verbal quotations, are all Aramæan.” The Jesus of Nazareth was a Jew who spoke Aramaean, as opposed to Greek, with an initial focus of His ministry toward the Jews. It is reasonable to conclude that His Aramaean language would be able to touch the Jews’ intellectual and religious consciousness in regard to understanding while spiritually expanding His teaching for all humankind. Witherington suggests that John’s audience was primarily Gentile based upon many explanatory remarks within the gospel, and he concludes that John preached to a primarily Gentile audience that needed explanation of various terms. Keener disagrees with Witherington’s position and argues that the Diaspora Jews two decades after the temple’s destruction, alone with the Gentiles, would need explanatory remarks. The explanatory remarks by John do not necessitate a specific audience type in terms of Jew versus Gentile but could simply be the result of John’s writing style and factors within his environment. In John 4:36–37, Jesus spoke of the Samaritans coming to Him by using a metaphor of the harvest season. John’s explanatory comments could just as easily have been word prompts to assist the early church in understanding the events described.
Smith advocates Hellenism and Gnosticism (salvation through knowledge, primarily knowledge of one’s heavenly origin) as influencing factors within the Johannine community for acceptance or rejection of the Jesus of Nazareth. Keener concurs that Hellenistic influence greatly impacted the culture of early Judaism. There seems to be an integration of Judaic and Hellenistic cultures within the audience, and their preconceptions and doctrinal beliefs could possibly weigh on the decision to recognize the miracles as signs of the deity of Jesus Christ. The religious beliefs also significantly helped shape the audience’s opinion of the signs performed by Jesus. The predominance of the Pharisees’ influence characterized this period to the extent that the people were required to not just adhere to the precepts of the scriptural Torah but also obey the oral law, which included innumerable details that the common person was mandated to observe in order to achieve salvation. Schurer states that “this exaggerated legalism had obtained such an absolute ascendency over the minds of the people, that all other tendencies were put entirely in the background.” When we combine this zealousness for the law alongside the anticipation of a Messiah, we cannot help but imagine the mind-set of the audience while Jesus is performing these miracles. On one hand, the Jewish leaders persecuted Jesus because of His noncompliance to the Sabbath Day (John 5:16, 9:16), but on the other hand, the common people elevated Jesus to being a prophet and king (John 6:14–15, 7:40–41). This study will investigate some specific factors that influenced and shaped the decision of the audience in respect to acceptance or rejection of Jesus and whether these signs were sufficient to justify faith in the deity of Jesus Christ.