10 - An Evaluation of Johannine Spirituality

Summary

In this concluding chapter some comments must be made about the quality of the spirituality we have discovered in the Fourth Gospel.

1. (1) There are some extremely dangerous elements in it:

2. (a) An inspired leader, an evangelist, a teacher, a prophet or the like, might easily be tempted to think that he was in fact an incarnation of the spirit–paraclete. This is what one may designate the ‘Montanist error’. Instead of humble gratitude to the God and Father of Jesus Christ, instead of a wise and balanced assessment of one's own spiritual powers, it is all too easy to substitute an arrogant know-all attitude.

3. It is this kind of assertiveness that is to be seen in the pretensions of the opponents of St Paul at Corinth, who could ‘perform the signs of a true apostle’ (2 Cor. 12: 12) and who claimed that Christ was speaking in them (cf. 2 Cor. 13: 3). Perhaps Diotrephes ‘who likes to put himself first’ was such a man (3 John 9). Dangers of a similar sort may lie behind 1 Tim. 4: 1–5.

4. […]