I learned that the portrait of Jesus in John’s gospel was essentially one of the Christ of faith, and not the Jesus of history. Jesus never spoke of himself as the Son of God, as one with God, as the light of the world, as the way, the truth, and the life, and so forth. Indeed, he never spoke the words of John 3.16–that verse from my childhood that had summed up my image of Jesus. I am aware that this is still news for some Christians, even though it has been old hat in the seminaries of mainline denominations throughout this century.
