The following is taken from:
Dan Lioy, Jesus as Torah in John 1-12 (Eugene, Oreg.: Wipf and Stock, 2007), 6-10
Recognizing Jesus as Torah in the Fourth Gospel
In the previous section, the Lord Jesus was referred to as the divine, incarnate Torah. Casselli helps establish the rationale for this designation noting that in the Fourth Gospel, the Evangelist presented the Messiah “in a way that is consistent with the Judaisms of his day.” The depiction one encounters is “profoundly Torah centered.” (Casselli, “Jesus as eschatological Torah,” 16) Furthermore, in keeping with the Evangelist’s end-time theological perspective, he portrayed the Son as the “eschatological Torah itself.” In point of fact, the entire “scope of Jewish theology” is re-read “through the lens” of the Savior’s “death, resurrection, and ascension.” (Casselli, Jesus as eschatological Torah,” 17) Likewise, the “interpretive traditions” that form the historical and cultural backdrop of the Fourth Gospel must be viewed through the Torah-fulfillment prism of Jesus’ redemptive mission. (Casselli, “Jesus as eschatological Torah,” 18)
According to Keener, Jesus as the perfection of the gift of the Torah is a recurrent theme first introduced in John 1:1-18 and reiterated throughout the Fourth Gospel. [23] While there are other conceptions of God—including those of Wisdom [24] and the Word [25]—none of these eclipses that of Torah to convey the “thought of one who was divine yet distinct from the Father.” [26]
With the advent of the Son, the Father did not just break His “prophetic silence” and speak again. More importantly, the incarnation of the divine torah “means that all God had already spoken was contained in Jesus, the ultimate embodiment of all God’s Word.” (Keener, John, 1:361) In short, Jesus as Torah functions as dominant leitmotif (together with Logos) to conceptualize the totality of the person and work of the Son. Moreover, it is a powerful Christological symbol that illumines all the other major themes appearing in the Fourth Gospel. Jesus as Torah is the center from which the divine plan of redemption, as conveyed in John’s Gospel, is fulfilled.
Notes for the Above
[23] Keener, John, 1:278. He explains that the “prologue presents Jesus as Torah, greater than Moses” (1:51). Also, the role the Son plays in the Fourth Gospel mirrors that of the Torah “in contemporary Judaism” (1;361). With respect to the latter, Jaffee (“Torah,” 13:9231) states that “in Judaism,” the word tôrâ was “the quintessential symbol.” In like manner, Sanders (“Torah and Christ,” 381) notes that by the first century of the common era, the “Torah was . . . the symbol par excellence, incomparable, indestructible, and incorruptible, of Judaism.” Indeed, the Torah “meant Judaism’s identity and way of life” (cf. Sir 45:5; John 5:39; Rom 7:10; Gal 3:21). Marshall (“Johannine theology,” 2:1085) adds that “rabbinic Judaism” spoke of the Torah “in personal terms,” declared it to be “preexistent and an agent in creation,” and referred to the Torah as “the giver of light and life” to humanity. In the view of Davies (Torah, 93), the Fourth Gospel epitomizes Jesus as “the personalized Torah” of Judaism.
[24] Reed (“How Semitic was John”), based on his study of the Old Testament Apocrypha, concludes that an “amalgamation evolved between the Greek sophia (wisdom) and the Greek logos (word)” in which the two terms were viewed as “synonymous” (716; cf. Wis 9:1-2; 2 Enoch 3:8). Over time, “the rabbis parted with wisdom and settled for Torah, or law” (719). Correspondingly, Glasson’s examination of the rabbinic writings from the Second Temple period of Judaism suggests that Wisdom was believed to have its source in the Torah (cf. Sir 15:1; 19:20; 39:1). In addition, Wisdom was so identified with the Torah that there was a transference to the Torah of what had been ascribed to Wisdom (Moses, 87-88; cf. Bar 3:29-4:1; Gab Rab. 17;5; 31:5; 44:17; Lev Rab 11:3; 19:1; 4 Macc 1:16-17; Sir 24:1, 23-24; 34:8; Wis 18:15). Carson (John, 1:354) proposes that the Evangelist favored “Logos because ‘Word’ had broader OT connotations more apt to conjure up the image of Torah,” yet “without excluding the common nuances his readers would have associated with Wisdom.” Also cf. Beyler, Torah, 127-30; Coloe, God dwells with us, 62, 214; Epp, “Wisdom, Torah, Word,” 132-33, 135; Evans, Word and glory, 130; Heschel, Heavenly Torah, 681-82; Lincoln, John, 96; McGrath, John’s apologetic Christology, 151-52, 154, 177; Sidebottom, The Christ of the Fourth Gospel, 34; Thompson, God of the Gospel of John, 130-133; Whitacre, John.
[25] Reed (“How Semitic was John”) points out that “several times the LXX uses logos (word) to refer to the Torah either literally or in an abstract form” (cf. Exod 35:1; Deut 1;1; Ps 119:105). He suggests that “some Jewish writers and translators had no qualms about replacing logos with nomos.” In effect, the “two terms became synonymous in Jewish thought” (718). In like manner, Casselli (“Jesus as eschatological Torah”) argues that when the Evangelist employed the Greek noun logos (cf. John 1:1, 14), he was thinking of the Old Testament phrase rendered “the word of the Lord” (25). In light of the connections between the Fourth Gospel and the “Pentateuchal tradition,” it is quite probable that the Evangelist considered logos to be “basically interchangeable with Torah” (26). This supposition is confirmed by the Septuagint referenced to the Ten Commandments (which the Lord gave to Moses on Mount Sinai) as tous deka logous or the “ten words” (Exod 34:28; Deut 10:4; cf. Exod 24:3; Deut 32:47). Further confirmation is found when the Septuagint version of the following Old Testament verses are considered: Isaiah h1:10, in which logon kyriou (“word of the Lord”) and nomon theou (“law of God”) are used in synonymous parallelism; Isaiah 2:3 and Micah 4:2, in which nomos (“law”) and logos kyriou (“word of the Lord”) are used in synonymus parallelism; Isaiah 5:24, in which nomos kyriou (“law of the Lord”) and logion (“word”) are used in synonymous parallelism; and Jeremiah 6:19, in which logion (“words”) and nomon (“law”) are used in synonymous parallelism; and Jeremiah 6:19, in which logon (“words”) and nomon (“law”) are used in synonymous parallelism; cf. Beyler, Torah, 121-22. There is enough precedent to conclude that both logos and nomos denote “the “independent personified expression of God” (Danker, Greek-English lexicon, 610).
[26] Keener, John, 1:281. He proposes that the Evangelist addressed a “community of predominately Jewish Christians” who, due to their “faith in Jesus,” had been “rejected by most of their non-Christian Jewish communities.” One can imagine the religious elite of the day making the following claims: (1) Judaism is a “religion of Torah”; and 92) the “prophetic, messianic Jesus movement has departed from proper observance of God’s Word (particularly from orthodox monotheism)” (1:364). The Evangelist responded in the Fourth Gospel with these counterclaims: (1) the Messiah is the “full embodiment of Torah” and completes “what was partial (but actually present) I Torah”; (2) the Son “embodies the hope of Judaism” (1:417); (3) the decision to become a follower of the savior “entails true observance of Torah”; and 94) because “Jesus himself is God’s Word,” no person is able to “genuinely observe Torah without following Jesus” (1:364). Keener’s proposal helps us explain why, as Whitacre (Johannine polemic, 29) observes, “every explicit dispute in John makes reference to Moses and/or the Law” (cf. 1:17, 45; 2:22; 5:39, 45-47; 6:32; 7:19, 22-28; 8:17; 9:28-29; 10:34-35; 12:34; 13:18; 15:25; 17:12; 19:24, 28, 36-37; 20:9). Also, cf. Ellis, Genius of John, 4-6; Evans, Word and glory, 184-86; Lincoln, John, 77-78; Whitacre, Johannine polemic, 1-2, 5-6, 10-11.
Further Reading:
