According to the
halakhic rules the sender had to authorize the agent by transferring his own
rights and the property concerned to the agent. The will of the sender, the
Father, in John 6, 39, makes just this transfer clear: “This is the will of him
who sent me, that all that he has given me (παν ο δεδωκεν μοι, cf. v. 37) . . . “
The transfer is even more pointedly stated in John 17, 6: “thine they were, and
thou gavest them to me” (σοι ησαν καμοι αυτους εδωκας).
Thus it
may be said that the Father takes possession of his belongings (through the Son
as agent), or that the Son acquires the property for himself in a lawsuit.
These two aspects are expressed in 6, 44 and 12, 32, respectively. John 6, 44
runs: “No one can come to me (i.e. the agent) unless the Father who sent me (ο πεμψας με, i.e. the sender)
draws (ελκυση) him.” John
12, 32, on the other hand, says: “and I [i.e. the Son] . . . will draw (ελκυσω) all men to myself.”
In both places the verb ελκυειν, to draw or drag, occurs in juridical
contexts. It renders with all probability the Hebrew משך, to draw, pull, seize. The LXX frequently translates משך by ελκυειν (Deut. 21:3; Neh. 9, 30; Ps. 9, 30 [10, 9];
Eccl. 2, 3; Cant. 1, 4, etc). In the judicial terminology of Judaism משך has received the technical meaning of “to
take possession of” (by drawing or seizing an object) (Baba Metzia 4, 2; Baba
Metzia 47a; 48a; 49a. Cf. Mishnayoth [Ph. Blackman] IV, p. 579).
Against his background, John 6,
44 says that only those of whom the sender (through the agent) takes the actual
possession are received by the agent and nobody else. In 12, 32, then, the
aspect of transfer of the object is brought fully to the surface, so that the
agent, after winning the lawsuit, takes the possession of the property for
himself (ελκυσω προς εμαυτον). The
halakhic statement about agency in Baba Qamma 70a closely resembles this
thought of John 12, 32: “Go forth and take legal action . . . and secure the
claim for yourself” לנפשך).
Although John says that the
Father, through His agent, the Son, takes possession of those who belong to Him,
he nevertheless holds that this thought is linked to the idea of a wiling
response on their part. The response is evident in the phrase “he who believes
in me”, etc., John 6, 35.40.47. This phrase occurs with slight variation
frequently in John and 1 John and is a stereotyped term, although the
combinations and contexts vary (John 2, 11; 4, 39; 7, 5, 5.31.38.39.47; 8, 30,
etc; cf. 1 John 5, 10. See especially John 3, [15].16.36; 11, 25.26, etc). The Johannine
literature has here only promoted a common Christian phrase into a fixed and favorite
term, since close parallels are found elsewhere in the New Testament (see Matt.
18, 6; Acts 10, 43; Phil 1, 29. Cf. Acts 14, 23; 19, 4; Rom. 10, 14; Gal. 2,
16; 1 Pet. 1, 8).
In the Johannine context of
agency the concept of believing means to have confidence and trust in the Son,
based on an acceptance of the claims made for his person. It means, therefore,
to accept the fact that the Son is the agent of the Father and is authorized to
take the possession of those who belong to Him and believe. (Peder Borgen, Bread
from Heaven: An Exegetical Study of the Concept of Manna in the Gospel of John and
the Writings of Philo [2d ed.; The Johannine Monograph Series 4; Leiden:
Brill, 1981; repr., Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf and Stock, 2017], 160-61)