The Gospel of John emphasizes this freedom [from Satan and sin] by
characterizing Jesus’s death and resurrection as an exorcism, a “casting out of
the Ruler of this world” that draws believers into a union with the divine
(12:31-36). This exorcism purifies believers by removing the presence of the
demonic Ruler from their midst, and it acts as an apotropaic to protect
believers from the evil one after Jesus’s departure (17:15). While the bronze
serpent and Passover lamb kept previous Israelites from physical death, Jesus’s
protection promises believers “eternal life” or “eternity life” (e.g., 3:14-16,
36; 4:14, 36; 5:24). Rather than preventing physical death, Coloe argues “eternity
life” is about the quality of life rather than just its duration. It is a
connection to God, the source of life who “raises the dead” and has given Jesus
“life in himself” (5:21-26).
In John’s Gospel, Jesus “makes life” (5:22) by healing others and
raising himself from the dead (10:17018). Jesus’s resurrection and return to
the Father enables the extension of his life-making to believers through the Holy
Spirit, who continues to protect those “given” to Jesus even after his
departure (e.g., 6:37-45, 61-65; 10:28; 17:6-12; 18:8-9). In this way, the Gospel
presents Jesus’s ministry as one of exorcism and apotropaism, extending God’s
divine presence from the limits of Jesus’s physical person to the boundlessness
of the Spirit. (Alicia D. Myers, The Theology of the Gospel of John [New
New Testament Theology; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025], 123-24, comment
in square brackets added for clarification)
On exorcism as “Apotropaic
Purification”:
Rather than performing individual exorcisms, or even many individual
healings (and no healings directly related to issues of ritual purity),
John’s Jesus performs one exorcism. This exorcism, though, similarly removes
impurity, just as other exorcisms were understood to do in the ancient
Mediterranean world. The demonic impurity possessing the world prevents
creation from accessing safely the life-giving holiness of God. Instead, the
Ruler keeps the world in bondage to sin, stuck on a path of death and
destruction as discussed above. Although rejected by the world, God does not
abandon or condemn it; instead, God sends Jesus to save it by purifying and
offering believers a way to the Father.
John changes the focus from individuals and people found in the Synoptics
to an exorcism of the entire world. As part of this change, Jesus is even more
emphatically portrayed as the location of God’s presence in the world. For this
reason, his conflicts with the temple cult and priestly class are even more
striking, contributing to John’s problematic presentation of the Jews. As in
the Synoptics, these conflicts underscore the finality of the purity and sanctification
provided by means of Jesus.
. . .
It should not be surprising, then, that Jesus’s work is explicitly
depicted as a purification in John’s Gospel. In 13:10-11, Jesus declares his
disciples (minus Judas) “purified” after washing their feet. In 15:2, Jesus
uses the metaphor of the vine and branches to describe God as a gardener, “taking
up” (cf. 1:29) fruitless branches, and “purifying” those that remain so they
produce more fruit. In 15:3, he declares that his disciples “are already
purified because of the word which I have spoken” (cf. Wis 16:12). Moreover,
Jesus repeatedly protects his disciples, warding off the evil one by keeping
everyone whom the Father has given him safe, aside from the “son of destruction”
(John 17:12). As holiness incarnate, Jesus purifies those who accept his words,
and continues to guard them, a living apotropaic, until his death enables the
extension of this sanctification.
As an exorcism, Jesus’s death and resurrection purifies his disciples,
but it also wards off evil like the blood of the Passover lamb and the exalted
snake in the wilderness. In this way, Jesus’s death facilitates God’s answering
Jesus’s prayer to extend his sanctifying and apotropaic work beyond those
believers who saw him to all those who “are believing in me through their word”
(17:30). Jesus’s request reads, in part: “Sanctify them in the truth:
your word is truth. Just as you sent me into the world, so also have I sent
them into the world. And on behalf of them I am sanctifying myself, so
that they might also be sanctified in truth” (17:15-19, emphasis added).
In the culmination of John’s apocalyptic irony, Jesus’s death becomes the
moment of sanctification and victory (16:33). When Jesus dies, it appears that
Satan has succeeded in killing life, darkness has overcome light, and creation
seems undone. Those with the Gospel’s apocalyptic insight, however, know that
this is no defeat. Rather, it is the means of God’s victory that comes with
Jesus’s resurrection, return to the Father, and most importantly, his giving of
the Holy Spirit. With his death and resurrection, Jesus shows his words, and
therefore the Word of God to be true (17:17; cf. 7:33-39; 8:14-30; 13:31-35;
16:12-24). He has “laid down his life on behalf of” his sheep and taken it back
up again (cf. 10:17-18; 13:1-10).
According to 17:15-19, trusting in truth sanctifies Jesus’s disciples;
it releases them from the grip of sin. It does so by casting outside the Ruler whose
lies desire nothing but destruction and murder (8:31-59). Once cleansed, the
disciples are possessed by the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, whose presence
prevents repossession by the Ruler. In this way, the Spirit guards believers from
the evil one so that they may continue God’s mission in the world. The Spirit
is the living apotropaic whose presence extends to all believers in all places
and times. Equipped in this way, the disciples continue God’s mission in the
world, forgive sins, and even approach God with requests in Jesus’s name
(15:26-27; 16:6-28; 20:22-23). (Alicia D. Myers, The Theology of the Gospel
of John [New New Testament Theology; Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2025], 125, 129-31)
Further
Reading:
Torsten
Löfstedt on the Lack of Exorcisms and Demon Possessions in the Gospel of John
