SCOPE OF JESUS'S HIGH PRIESTLY PRAYER IN JOHN 17, THE

Encounter, Winter 2006 by Janzen, J Gerald

But between the time of Ezekiel and the writing of the Gospel of John, if C. T. R. Hayward is correct, Targumic exegesis, by the way it has employed the term Memra not only as a surrogate for ehyeh, "I will be," but also for God's speaking to create in Genesis 1:3 (yehi, "let there be"), extends the scope of the connotations of the divine name to cosmic creation. If, now, the same divine name for the sake of which God delivered Israel out of Egypt and forgives Israel its most grievous covenant violations is understood to be the divine name in and through which God created the world (John 1:1-5), how can the incarnation of that name, in his intercession, pray for a more circumscribed community? The matter may be put, crudely, in the form of a ratio: Jesus as an intercessor is to the community for whom he prays, in the light of the scope of the divine name in which he prays (cosmic creation), as Moses is an intercessor to the community for whom he prays, in the light of the scope of the divine name in which he prays (Exodus redemption).

I wish now to sum up the preceding exegetical tour, which I hope is not a tour de force. The focus has been the theme of holiness and its transvaluation. In the first instance, holiness belongs to God, as that which sets God apart from all that is not God. Holiness also belongs to God's name-which is another way of saying the same thing. In the second instance, holiness marks the sanctuary in which God or God's name dwells. In the third instance, holiness marks the priests who minister in the sanctuary and the vessels and other physical means by which the priests carry out their duties. Finally, holiness marks worship acceptably offered by the people, and marks them as well. Thus, for example, of the twenty-two times that the phrase "my/thy/his holy name" occurs in the Old Testament, it occurs ten times in 1 Chronicles and the Psalms in the context of praise and thanksgiving; and it occurs three times in Leviticus and seven times in Ezekiel in connection with God's concern for the defilement or profanation of God's holy name. Especially noteworthy is Leviticus 20:3, where worship of Molech through child sacrifice "defil[es] my sanctuary and profan[es] my holy name."22 Further, texts such as Isaiah 6:3, Habakkuk 3:3, and Ezekiel 28:22 are sufficient to indicate that in reference to God "holiness" and "glory" are mutually defining terms, while texts such as Exodus 28:2 and 1 Chronicles 16:29 (Psalm 29:2), indicate the same in reference to those who worship the divine holiness/glory.

Now, if God's holiness refers to the divine mystery by which God is utterly other than all that is not God; and if that mystery is gathered up in the holiness of the divine name YHWH (a mystery that manifests itself foundationally at the burning bush and its "holy ground," and is then both revealed and hidden in the proclamation, "I will be who I will be"); that mystery is both disclosed anew and further deepened by the audacity of John 1:1-2 and 17:5, in which the Word (here understood in terms of the Targumic Memra and behind it the divine ehyeh of Exodus 3:14) both is with (pros) God and is God; is (post-resurrection) unto (eis) God; and thereby is glorified in the presence of (para) the Father, with the glory had with (para) God before the world was made. That mystery, I suggest, is then "exegeted" in John 17 as the mystery of a oneness characterized as "mutual indwelling." It is to this mutual indwelling-to be manifest supremely in that death on the cross by which the Son is glorified in glorifying the Father-that Jesus in 17:19 consecrates/sanctifies himself. This means that the mystery of the divine glory/holiness, as a mystery of mutual indwelling, is manifest/hidden (see Isaiah 45:15) in an event which-if the crucified one is the living tabernacle of God (1:14)-is an act of utter profanation and defilement of God's sanctuary and God's holy name. How can this be? How can God be glorified in an act which profanes God's holy name and sanctuary? What does this do to our notions of divine holiness and the communities that seek to relate themselves and their sanctuaries and sanctuary practices to that holiness (communities called to a sanctity likewise explicated as a unity of mutual dwelling)? Do we have here the Johannine version of what the other three Gospels intimate in reporting that at the death of Jesus the curtain of the temple was torn in two (Matt. 27:51; Mark 15:38; Luke 23:45; and compare Heb. 10:20)?