Publisher's Synopsis
It is the thesis of this book that John's hybrid Gospel synthesizes many of the leading theological ideas of Paul - most significantly, 1st Corinthians 15 - with the meta-structure of Matthew, combining many of the major features of the Synoptic template with John's unique, extended, explanatory "table talk" section - important pre-resurrectional talk between the apostles and Christ (chapters 13-17). In relation to Matthew's Gospel, Luke and Mark are parallel accounts which are sometimes complementary. John is a complementary account which is sometimes parallel. This book also attempts to show that 1st John is written shortly after John's Gospel, pushing much further out in support of Paul's controversial thesis concerning the relationship between faith and works, spelled out so forcefully in Romans, and that 2nd John confirms circumstantial evidence surrounding the production of John's Gospel and his first epistle - that John's audience has been the now neglected church of Corinth, and evinces a continuing interdependency between John and Paul. It is also maintained that 3rd John displays considerable evidence that Timothy is in consultation with Paul concerning John's attempt to salvage the church of Corinth and that 2nd Timothy was written in part to assist this project.It is also the thesis of the book that John, an antitype of Caleb, consciously steps into the gap of leadership due to Paul's imprisonment in order to encourage the people of Paul's diocese to abide in Christ. But in so doing, he becomes the catalyst for the theological awakening of Timothy, who is beginning to assume his role as heir to the Pauline Bishopric. This also, in turn, transforms Paul's thinking, and ultimately leads to the argument of Hebrews, which utterly destroys the theological battlements of Judaism, puts to flight the Judaizing party, and blows the trumpet to inaugurate a completely new, independent physical Church and a confident and restful spirituality in Christ which neither the law nor Pauline theology alone could give. Visions do not happen to men who have posted mind guards at every point through which they might enter. As John's work catalyzed Timothy's theology, which results in the writing of Hebrews (see "From Exodus to Eisodus" by the same author); Hebrews, in turn, fed back into the mind of John. Timothy is the first to come upon the rock of the New Covenant which has been laid in Zion in the 31st chapter of Jeremiah: Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel. Timothy then appears to fully open his mind to the typological theology of Matthew, and he is apparently stunned to find that the historiography of Israel can only be understood as a grand parable written for all nations by Christ himself. Under the influence of Timothy's argument in Hebrews, John would have then begun to see something far, far beyond his own comprehension. With renewed awareness of Jeremiah, he begins to understand that Egypt, Sodom and Babylon are themselves typological of death, spiritual seduction and bondage. As John opens his mind to the full implication of these ideas, it is flooded with the Apocalypse. With Paul and possibly with Timothy also dead, the Ephesian diocese of Paul falls to John. The seven letters of the Apocalypse begin with Ephesus.
