Psalm 82 and John 17: The Prayer for Oneness as a Prayer
for Theosis
Psalm 82
helps make narrative connections between the theological, christological, and
ecclesial overtones of oneness in John 17. In John 19, the word ‘one’ becomes
freighted with all three connotations: the ‘one flock, one Shepherd’ formula
succinctly expresses the ecclesial and christological; the phrase ‘I and the Father
are one’ expresses the christological and theological. By appealing to Psalm
82, a deification text linked to the Sinai tradition that seems to have been
readily available in the first century, Jesus answers the accusation of blasphemy
by including a wider social entity within the sphere of divinity: ‘gods’ in the
plural. Though Jesus is included within the divinity identity and thus superior
to any other ‘god’ (1:1, 18; 10:30), the use of Psalm 82 suggests the formation
of a new Israel deified through receiving him as the ultimate revelation of
God. The plural ‘gods’ indicates that divinity is to some degree inclusive and
open to the wider community of Jesus’ recipients. In anticipation of the
triadic coordination of ecclesiology, Christology, and theology in John 17, the
use of Psalm 82 presses for a more open and inclusive conceptualization of
divinity, allowing the possibility for mortals to be called ‘gods’. In fact,
the two distinctive qualifications Jesus provides for himself in his citation of
Psalm 82—that he is consecrated and sent by the father—are both used to quality
the believers who are made ‘one’ with the father and Son in John 17: (see also
1 Jn. 3:3.)
ὃν ὁ πατὴρ ἡγίασεν
καὶ ἀπέστειλεν εἰς τὸν κόσμον (10:36) (‘whom the Father consecrated and
sent into the world . . .')
ἁγίασον αὐτοὺς ἐν τῇ ἀληθείᾳ· ὁ λόγος ὁ σὸς ἀλήθειά ἐστιν.
καθὼς ἐμὲ ἀπέστειλας εἰς τὸν κόσμον, κἀγὼ ἀπέστειλα αὐτοὺς εἰς τὸν
κόσμον·καὶ ὑπὲρ αὐτῶν ἐγὼ ἁγιάζω ἐμαυτόν, ἵνα ὦσιν καὶ αὐτοὶ ἡγιασμένοι
ἐν ἀληθείᾳ. (17:17-19) (‘Consecrate them
in truth; your word is truth. Just as you sent me into the world, I also have
sent them into the world; and on behalf of them I consecrate myself, in order
that they may also be consecrated in truth.’)
Jesus’ ‘god’-status
in John 10:34-36 is characterized by his being consecrated and sent into the world
by God. These same characteristics are extended to the believers in John 17.
Jesus sends them into the world and consecrates himself that they may be
consecrated. So, being ‘one’ with God (10:30), Jesus is also the Word of God—consecrated
and sent into the world—whose reception results in deification (10:34-36). In
John 17, this divine ‘oneness’ is expanded to include the faithful recipients
who are themselves consecrated and sent into the world (17:11, 17-19, 21-23).
For the Fourth Gospel, oneness means deification.
The claim
that oneness with God means to be deified is further affirmed by Jesus’ prayer
for the disciples to share in his divine glory. In 17:4, Jesus attests that he
has glorified God, having completed the work assigned to him during his earthly
ministry. In v. 5 he asks that God glorify him ‘with yourself’ in the heavenly
glory he shared with God in his preexistence. The prayer for oneness in 17:22
includes the imparting of this heavenly, preexistent glory to the disciples: καγω την δοξαν ην δεδωκας μοι δεδωκα αυτοις, ινα ωσιν εν καθως ημεις εν (‘and the glory which you have given
to me, I have given to them in order that they may be one, just as we are one’).
Though he acknowledges that the heavenly, preexistent glory fitting for
divinity is in view in 17:5, Herman Ridderbos assumes that the glory given to
the disciples in 17:22 is of a different sort, that of a functional glory of
Jesus’ mission and work. The text, however, does not delineate between two
types of glory, one exclusive to divinity (and thus unshareable with the disciples)
and one merely functional or associative (which is shareable with the
disciples). There is no distinction made in the prayer between a heavenly glory
of preexistence and a functional glory of divine activity in the world. The
glory befitting divinity that Isaiah saw clothing the preexistent Christ (John
12:41) is bestowed on the deified believers who are one with the one God of Israel.
Because Jesus’s glory is so closely associated with his death on the cross,
however, Käsemann’s claim reference above, namely that Johannine theosis envisions
an ecclesiology of heavenly participation of such a (naïvely) docetic nature
that bodily life is disparaged cannot be maintained. For the Fourth Gospel,
divine glory is most prominently manifested not in Isaiah’s glorious vision but
in the scene on Golgotha where the embodied Word was crucified and through
which eternal life was granted. The prayer for oneness is precipitated by
warnings in the Farewell Discourse that to participate in Jesus is to share in
his sufferings (15:18-25; 16:1-4). The deification of Johannine oneness does
not promote an escapist fight from this world; its dynamics are decisively
operative within this world, a reality that motivates Jesus’ prayer in John 17:
‘I am not asking that you take them out of this world’ (v. 15).
The oneness
of the disciples in John 17 certainly entails a participation in Jesus’ mission
and activity. But the theological basis of the Shema behind the term’ one’, the
expansion of the boundaries of divinity pressed by Psalm 82, and the
participation of mortals in the divinity and heavenly glory of Jesus all
require an understanding of oneness that extends beyond a call to social
harmony or a functional imitation of Jesus’ earthly ministry. The oneness of
John 17 calls for the communal deification of those who have received and will
receive the divine revelation of the Word of God. (Andrew J. Byers, Ecclesiology and Theosis
in the Gospel of John [Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series
166; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017], 196-99, emphasis in bold
added)
