John Bytheway: 00:01 Welcome to part two with Dr. Eric Huntsman, John 1.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 00:07 If we could share screens here, I would show you how I lay this out in Greek. This Johannan scholar I mentioned, Raymond Brown, the late Father Brown. He made an argument back in the ’70s, which I’ve really embraced, which is a lot of times things about Jesus or the discourses, the words of Jesus himself in the gospel of John, are either poetic or semi-poetic. In English, I’ve laid it out in the appendix of my little book On Becoming the Beloved Disciple, but I’ve also done it in Greek in other context. Whenever the first 18 verses of John 1 are talking about Jesus, it’s poetic, but when it’s ever talking about the witness that God sends the bear witness of the light, it’s prose. So we have this very poetic beginning.

  00:49 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word is with God, and the Word was God. Those of you who were doing the Psalms with me, see the parallelism there. If that same was in the beginning with God, all things were made by Him. Without Him, was not anything made. In Him was life. Life was the light of men. The light shineth in the darkness, the darkness comprehendeth it not. But then all of a sudden, in verse six through eight, it becomes very prosaic. Oh, by the way, there is a man sent from God. His name was John. This guy wasn’t a light, he was sent as a witness of the light.

  01:18 So it’s very elevated, poetic, powerful discourse when it’s talking about Jesus, the Word. But then, oh, then there was a guy, John, he was sent to witness for him. Then we go back to Jesus and it becomes semi-poetic in 9 through 14. This was the true light which lighteth every human being that cometh in the world. I’m being gender inclusive here, because anthropos is gender inclusive in Greek. Him, the word was in the world. The world was made by Him and the world knew Him not. In this verse, I’m going to have to inflict some more Greek on you, verse 11.

  01:54 He came into his own and his own received him not. Now, in Greek, it says, eis ta idia elthen. He came to his own things. It’s neither plural in Greek. kai hoi idioi auton ou parelabon, and his own people did not receive them. Now, why that’s so important is the elements as we’ll see in water into wine, the elements obey God. They obey the Word, the divine, where they obey Jesus. But people have their agency and sometimes don’t. I think it’s in Helaman. Is it in Helaman where Mormon has this little kind of poetic side-

John Bytheway: 02:29 Dust of the earth thing?

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 02:31 … Yes, yes. He says the dust of the earth moveth hither and thither, at the command of the Almighty God, but man hearkeneth not. And that’s what happens in John. And that’s going to be this theme of encounter discipleship. How do people respond? We know the elements will respond, but how will people? But as many as received Him, to Him, he gave power to become the sons and daughters of God, even to them that believe on His name. Now, you have to kind of unfold this. So I did something called the divine family of God and the Gospel of John. So that was my chapter, this last Sperry volume. And I examined this and it’s really interesting because Latter-day Saints were raised singing, “I am a child of God.”

  03:12 We’re already children of God. Why do we have to become the children of God? Now, Bob Miller, who both of you remember, former Dean of Religion, he says, “This is all about alienation. We started out as children of heavenly parents, but we lost that status because of the fall, and then later by our own choices in spiritual death. Christ comes to help restore that.” So that’s really interesting.

  03:34 He gives us the power to become the children of God, as many of us as believe on His name. And then it goes on says, “Which were born not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of men, but of God.” And when it says the will of man, it actually is masculine there. What we have here is born not of blood, that’s normal human conception, nor the desires of the flesh, normal human conception, nor the will of man, a man as the agent of conception, but of God. It’s a spiritual birth. And of course, later, when you read John 3, you read all about that.

Hank Smith: 04:08 That’s a very Book of Mormon principle as well.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 04:11 Mosiah 5, “You are the sons and daughters of Christ. You have been begotten this day by Him.” Absolutely. And then this is the high Christology of John, this divine Word that was the creator as the source of life and light, “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” This is what our Catholic friends would call the incarnation. And anyone who speaks Spanish can get the Latin there, carne asada, in the meat. Okay? So he is actually going to be in the flesh and dwelt among us. Once again, a little bit of a Greek here, kai ho logos sarx egenato kai eskenosen. The word for dwelt among us in Greek comes from the word for tent. Literally meant he pitched his tent or tabernacle. Now, how did the premortal Word, the divine Word, live in the children of Israel and Exodus? In the tabernacle. How is the incarnate word going to dwell with his people?

  05:06 He’s going to dwell in the flesh of the man, Jesus. So just like you have the pillar, fire and cloud, on the tabernacle and exodus, you’ve got the divine Word in Jesus. And the Word became flesh among us and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father. And then this last part ends with John, once again, a little prosaic aside, John bear witness of him and cried, “This is he of whom I speak. He that came after me is preferred before me, for he was before me.”

  05:38 And then I think, at least in my, I’m working on the BYU New Testament commentary volume for John. In my translation and analysis of 16 through 18, I think 16 through 18 is your narrator or the beloved disciple speaking here. “The fullness we have all received, grace for grace.” The law was given of Moses. That was grace, that was a gift. But grace and truth as its ongoing comes by Jesus Christ. “No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten God or the only begotten Son who is in the bosom and the embrace of the Father, He’s the one who declared him”. Oh, we ended up reading all 18 verses.

Hank Smith: 06:17 That’s fantastic.

John Bytheway: 06:18 When I was a kid, my mom did not like fake swearing. Oh my gosh. But anyway, I remember I was probably on my mission when I thought, “We probably shouldn’t say oh my word,” because that was one of Jesus’s names. I haven’t been able to ever since then because it’s capitalized and it means, “Ooh, that’s his name.” Anyway,

Hank Smith: 06:39 That’s great, John.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 06:41 So these verses, the first 18 verses is the first half of the prologue, and as I’ve suggested, is introducing the primary theme of the gospel of John. It’s high Christology, the fact that the man, Jesus of Nazareth, was Jehovah. He was the incarnate Jehovah, the divine son of God.

Hank Smith: 07:03 Is he going to continue to use light throughout the gospel? Because he uses it so much in this prologue.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 07:10 Yeah, we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves, but 7, 8, 9, and the first half of chapter 10, all of those discourses of Jesus to the “Jews”, the leaders in Jerusalem, are at the Feast of Tabernacles. And the Feast of Tabernacles, the Jewish Festival, Sukkot, has two main themes, water and light. So you have in chapter seven, it’s the fall festival and they’re praying for rain for the next year. And they actually go on the Gihon  Spring, fill up silver things of water, bring it up to the temple, pour the water in the altar, and pray for rain.

  07:39 At that moment, the incarnate Jehovah standing in the temple portico saying, “Hey, you’re praying for rain. I’m right here. If anyone wants water, come get it.” In the evenings, they would light the big huge candelabra in the courtyards, and they would actually have torch dances and they would dance all night by torchlight. So the Feast of Tabernacles had this image of light in darkness, and that’s why you have that one six miraculous sign, the healing of the man born blind, someone who’s always been in darkness is going to be enlightened by Jesus. I’m the way and the truth of the light. Yeah, it’s all through it.

John Bytheway: 08:13 And he goes and washes in water. So there’s water in light. The man born blind, it’s perfect. On my mission, and maybe others have experienced this, people who knew their scriptures a little bit, if you told them about the first vision, they would say, “Wait a minute. It says in John that no man has seen God at any time.” And I know there’s a JST reference there down below in the footnotes, but I’m sure there’s more. What can you tell us?

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 08:37 Yeah, I guess what we could, one way we kind of approach that is what does it mean? “The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, he has declared him.” What does it mean to declare him? exēgēsato, I think is what it is in the Greek, means literally to lay it out, to show him. Okay? So one could almost make the argument, “We can only come to the Father or see the Father through the Son.”

  09:02 Now, I know that’s almost reverse of what we have at the baptism, the transfiguration, the first vision where the Father is introducing the Son. But those are singular episodes. I think by and large, the way we get back to the Father, right? Since the Fall, we’re separated by the Father, the Son brings us to the Father. So you can make the argument that you can’t see the Father until you know the Son, and then the Son brings him to you. And that actually is consonant or goes along with what the JST rendering is.

  09:33 I remember when I was trying to figure out that same thing, in those days, we’d go back to Bruce R. McConkie, who’s documenting the New Testament commentary, and he would cite the JST, “No men has seen God any time except he has born record of the Son, for except it is through Him no man can be saved.” So I think unless you bear record of the Son, you can’t see God. And then when you know the Son, the Son himself bears record of the Father. I mean, the way we always explained it when I was trying to study this out is you can’t be in the presence of the Father in a mortal state. You have to be literally transfigured to be in his presence. And once again, that’s done through the agency of the Son.

John Bytheway: 10:13 And I like what you said about some of Jesus’s titles imply three parties.. If he’s an advocate, he is advocating for us, advocating for us to someone else, to the Father. He’s our advocate. I think my favorite title for the Savior, and I might change my mind tomorrow, but I love Advocate, that he is our advocate before the Father. He stands beside us. And this verse reminds me of those other titles, like Advocate or Mediator or Intercessor. He’s the one that will bring us back to the Father. And so no man has seen God at any time, and then it goes right to about the Son. He’s the one who’s going to take us there again.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 10:50 Well, and since you’ve brought up Advocate, of course, you start thinking of, is it Section 42 again where the risen Lord is talking to Joseph Smith and says, “Listen to him. Who is the advocate before the father’s-

John Bytheway: 11:00 45.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 11:01 … Father. 45, thank you. “Father, behold the suffering and blood of the Son.”

John Bytheway: 11:05 Death of him who did no sin.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 11:07 So here’s an interesting, once again, theological gee-whiz moment. So advocate’s a Latin term, advocatia, which means being called to one side. Well, the Greek version of that is parakletos. Once again, being called to someone’s side to represent that person, to intercede for that person. That’s translated in John 14, 15 and 16 as comforter, parakletos. In some translations, you’ll see it rendered as just another Greek word, paraclete. Sometime’s called the paraclete sayings.

  11:37 So when he says, “I will send you another comforter,” the word is actually, I will send you another advocate, another helper, another person to represent, intercede for you. The reason it turned out to be comfort is the King James translators in older English, comfort meant to give support in a real way. I mean, it’s true the Holy Ghost and Jesus comfort us in an emotional sense,

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 12:00 but it’s more like treason laws don’t give any aid or comfort to the enemy. So when it says, “I will give you another comforter,” I will give you someone to give you what you need physically. I will stand up for you and I will intercede for you. I will represent you.” And in fact, in that passage, I know we’re a long way from John 14, but he actually says, “I will not leave you comfortless,” in verse 18:14-18, “I will not leave you comfortless. I will come into you.”

  12:26 The word comfortless in that verse is orphanos, he says, “I will not leave you orphans.” See, an orphan is someone without any source of support, no comfort in the archaic sense. “I will not leave you as orphans. I will come and be your Father.” So just as our heavenly parents are our spiritual parents and gave us spiritual life and our earthly parents gave us physical life, Jesus Christ comes to us as our covenant Father and gives us eternal life. Anyway, we’ll do that when we get to John 14, 15, and 16 later in the year, but it ties into what’s happening here. We can’t do anything without Jesus in the Gospel of John and I think that does help with that difficult verse, verse 18, about not being able to see the Father without the Son.

John Bytheway: 13:12 Yeah, and I might put in my margin Acts Chapter Seven, the stoning of Stephen, where I saw the glory of God and Jesus standing on the right hand of God and thought, well, that’s what Stephen saw, the Father and the Son.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 13:25 And what’s interesting is, if he doesn’t declare him, so when Stephen sees the Father and the Son, Jesus actually says this in the Gospel of John. “I bear witness to the Father, the Father bears witness of me, and the Holy Ghost bears witness of us.” So you can’t get any of those three without the other. And since this is primarily a book about Jesus, you can’t get to the Father without the Son. And what’s really interesting is even though the Holy Ghost is operating in his normal role as a witness of truth, et cetera, when we get to those chapters 14, 15, and 16, when Jesus is present, the Holy Ghost lets him do the stuff. So what’s really interesting is, for the disciples, they knew Jesus first. When Jesus is gone, he sends the Holy Ghost to be the Comforter.

  14:10 Now, we start out with the Holy Ghost, but eventually Jesus comes in as our comforter, and that’s I think what Joseph Smith’s doing with John 14 about the second comforter. So once again, the original disciples started with the man, Jesus. When he goes, they get the Holy Ghost. We start with the Holy Ghost, but we’re working up to getting the presence of Jesus just as the disciples had him in the first instance.

John Bytheway: 14:35 Interesting.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 14:36 It’s all in John. I mean, if you had to have only one book of scripture, I think you’d have to go with John. Well, Book of Mormon. But next, John.

Hank Smith: 14:47 Now, it switches from verse 18 to verse 19. It makes a change, Eric. What is that little symbol there?

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 14:54 Yes. So you have this up through about halfway through Acts. You’ve got that little looks like a backward P with two stems. That’s a paragraph mark. That is the editorial convention in many editions of the King James to let you know where paragraphs begin and end. It stops about halfway through Acts, so it doesn’t help you with Paul, which is exactly where you’d need it to unravel Paul. So that’s letting you know you’re moving into a new section. The technical term is pericope. We would just say paragraph. You’ve actually had several paragraphs in that first section. You had one at six, you had one at 15, and now you have one at 19. But 19 is a bigger change for reasons I’ve laid out. I think verses one through 18 are the primary theme of the divinity of Christ, the high christology of John, and then 19 to 51 is the secondary theme of encounter, the theme of discipleship.

Hank Smith: 15:44 Here comes the disciples.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 15:46 Yeah. And the first disciple interestingly is the man sent by God already in the first part of it, which is John the Baptist. Now, let me clarify that. He’s never called John the Baptist in the fourth Gospel. He is John the Baptist in the Synoptics. And what’s really interesting about this is even though John’s baptism of Jesus is implied as you turn the page when he says, “When I saw the Spirit descending upon, that was the one,” and we all know that’s the dove, blah, blah, blah, you actually don’t see John baptize Jesus in John. Because, I argue, the primary role of John, the son of Zacharias and Elisabeth, in the fourth Gospel is not as a baptizer, it’s as a witness. In fact, in my little book, Becoming A Beloved Disciple, I always call him the “prophet John” rather than “John the Baptist” because he’s the man sent by God to bear witness of the light.

  16:39 So we shift in verses 19 through 28 to John’s witness to the Pharisees and the Levites who are sent from Jerusalem to say, “Who are you?” And then you get this whole business of him bearing his witness. So we are promised in verses six, seven, and eight and verse 15 that God is going to send a witness, and then we see that witness in verses 19 through 28, as he bears witness by the side of the Jordan to those sent by Jerusalem to find out who this Jesus is. But that’s actually not the important witness of the prophet John. The important witness that makes a difference is the witness he bears in verses 29 through 40. Let’s do 29 through 34, and then 35 through 40. 29, “The next day, John sees Jesus coming unto him and says,” you don’t know who he is talking to, just anyone around him, “‘Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world.'”

  17:42 So this is the real witness of the prophet John. Not just what he is saying to the priest and Levites, “Oh, this guy, he came before me and I can’t loose the latchet on his sandal.” The real witness is, “This is the Lamb of God.” And in fact, when we get to the passion narratives in John, John more than the other Gospels really portrays Jesus as the Pascal Lamb who’s going to be offered. Now, notice it says “the sin of the world”, not sins. Years ago, we were recording the Messiah with the tabernacle choir, and Mack Wilberg had done a very scholarly and careful edition of it, and he’s just a master, and he was just, “Rehearse this, rehearse this, rehearse this,” and we’re recording it, when you record, you do take after take after take, and he said, “Wait. You’re doing it wrong. You’re saying ‘sins of the world.'” So the singers were all saying, “Behold the Lamb of God.” It’s a beautiful chorus in Messiah. “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away,” they were all saying, “sins of the world.”

  18:39 And Mack kept getting on the speaker saying, “No. It’s sin.” And I finally told my fellow baritones later, “You’re saying sins of the world because you’re all busy thinking of your individual sins. But what John’s doing is more global. Sin of the world means the fallen state of the world. And it’s not just the world, the people in the world, it’s the entire fall and creation.” By the way, just gee whiz for when you get to Paul, in the early letters of Paul, the secure letters of Paul, sin is singular. In the later letters of Paul, when he is dealing with the nitty gritty of people, it’s sins. What John and the early Paul are focusing upon is a state of sin which comes from living in a fallen world and being born separated from our heavenly parents. Adam and Eve were driven out of the garden. They were cast out. We were simply born into this state. So he has come to take away the fallen state of the entire world.

Hank Smith: 19:37 That’s fantastic. Now, I’ve never seen that before, the sin of the world singular.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 19:41 Right.

John Bytheway: 19:42 It reminds me of the Ether 12, about give unto men weakness. People say weaknesses. No, it says weakness. It sounds more global.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 19:53 Right. And if you need a confirmation of that I think it’s in the Book of Jacob, there’s also discussion of weakness. So I always tell people, He has given us our fallen state where we need strength. That strength is grace. Now, we have all kinds of individual weaknesses. And he does say, “I’ll make weak things strong to you.” So our individual weaknesses will be strengthened. But we’re missing the global picture.

John Bytheway: 20:14 The global weakness.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 20:16 Exactly. Well, since we’ve mentioned Lamb of God, skip ahead to this next section, 35 through 40. “On the next day, again John stood and two of his disciples,” and we’ll find out who they are in a moment, ” and looking upon Jesus as Jesus walked, he said, ‘Behold the Lamb of God.'” He says it again. “From that moment the two disciples heard him speak, they followed Jesus.” So John had followers, people who were watching him and supporting him and learning from him, had been baptized by him. Two of them hear this testimony from the prophet John, that this is the Lamb of God, and they follow Jesus. And Jesus turns and sees them following and says, “What are you looking for?” Sorry, I’m translating on the fly here. And they said, “Teacher, Rabbi, where are you staying? Where dwellest thou?” And he says, “Come and see.”

  21:06 I remember years ago, I think it was President Monson, “Come and see. If you want to know the truthfulness of the Gospel, come and see. Just give it a try.” Jesus says, “Come and see.” And they stayed with him that day. One of the two which heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. So you’ve got the prophet John is the first witness and now Andrew’s going to be the second. Now, by the way, we don’t name the other disciple. We don’t know, but it could be the beloved disciple.

Hank Smith: 21:36 John.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 21:36 But at this point, he’s not trying to insert himself into the story because what’s important is what Andrew does, not what the other disciple does. What does Andrew do, Simon Peter’s brother.” Verse 41 through 42, first, he finds his own brother Simon, and says, “We have found Messiah,” which is being interpreted, the Christ. “We found the anointed one.” And he brought him, he brought Peter to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, “Thou art Simon.” You are Simon, the son of Jonas. Thou shall be called Cephas,” which is by interpretation, a stone. And we all know that in Greek petros means rocky. And I know there’s JST here and we talked about seer stone and Peter will be a seer, but we also have the sense that this man is going to become a rock solid disciple. So we have the prophet John bear testimony. We have Andrew then go and bear testimony to his disciples. Then we have Andrew go and bear testimony to a brother.

  22:32 This begins what I call in my book, the Great Chain of Witnesses. All of us got our testimonies from somewhere. It might have been our mom. It might have been our father. It might have been the missionaries. It might have been President Monson. It might have been a teacher. And then we go and share it with someone else. And who is it we first want to share it with? It’s our family. So Andrew goes and finds Peter, and then what happens next? The antecedent’s a little unclear in verse 43. “The next day following, Jesus would go forth in Galilee and findeth Philip and sayeth unto him, “Follow me.” It could actually be that Andrew or Peter finds Philip. So the antecedent of the verb in Greek findeth is unclear. We find out later that Andrew and Philip are actually very good friends. They appear together throughout this Gospel.

  23:17 There’s a passage in John, I think it’s 12, when some Greeks come to the temple and want to see Jesus. And who do they go to first? They go to the ones with Greek names. Andrew means manly in Greek and Philip means I love horses. So they go to some people from Bethesda. Well, Bethsaida, which was a Hellenized city who know Greek. Anyway, this is an example of how Andrew and Philip are together. Oh, also the two are together at the feeding of the 5,000 in John 6.

Hank Smith: 23:45 Right.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 23:46 So we have Andrew go to his family, his brother, and then we have him go to a friend. And then what does Philip do? He goes and finds Nathaniel. “We have found him of whom Moses and the law and the prophets, the Jesus of Nazareth, the son

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 24:00 of Joseph. So we go and find another friend. And Nathaniel says then to him, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Philip says, “Come and see.” That’s just what Jesus had said earlier to Andrew and the other disciple, “Come and see.”

  24:12 Jesus sees Nathaniel coming to Him and says, sayeth to him “behold an Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile.” Now because of good Bishop Partridge, Edward Partridge in whom there was no guile, I think we are always predisposed to interpret this positively that Nathaniel’s just a guileless guy.

  24:32 I wonder if maybe there’s a little sarcasm going on here, because Jesus knows that Nathaniel has just dissed his hometown. Can any good come out of Panguitch? No offense, Panguitch people. But can anything come from a little town? So Jesus showing him He knows what he had said, right? It’s not just what he had said, it’s what he had felt and seen.

  24:52 Nathaniel says, “How do you know me?” And Jesus says, “Before Philip came to me, when you were under the fig tree, I saw thee.” We had to kind of fill in the gaps and some of this is just guesswork, but there was something about saying, “When you were under the tree the other day, I saw you.” And there’s something Nathaniel was saying or doing there and this converts him.

  25:13 I think in some versions of this, I think the Chosen does this, I think the Chosen has him praying under the tree and sees a light. Some reason I want to compare him to Oliver Cowdery. Remember that wonderful passage where Oliver hadn’t succeeded in translating? And the Lord says, “You remember in the night when I spoke peace to your soul.” Nathaniel was praying about something and I suspect, I do not know, I’ll always say what I’m just guessing, I do not know, but I suspect he was praying about when the Messiah was going to come.

  25:42 When are we going to be liberated? When are we going to be free? When are we going to be saved? And the fact that Jesus knew both what he had said about his hometown and what he had been praying about converts him. And what does he say in Verse 49? “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God. Thou art the King of Israel.” In other words, “You’re the Messiah, the one I was praying for.”

  26:02 Now, here’s something interesting. So we have this chain of witnesses, a prophet to a disciple, to a family member, to a friend, to another friend. And the application section of this chapter in my little book is what are our chain of witnesses? Where have we gotten our testimony and where are we going to share our testimonies?

  26:19 But in terms of Christology, for those of us who are interested in that, for us Biblical studies geeks, I’ve mentioned that John has a high Christology. You go chapters and chapters and chapters, most of the gospel in Mark, Matthew, Luke, before anyone says, “You’re the Son of God,” right? It’s not till Caesarea Philippi in Mark, Matthew and Luke that Peter says, “You are the Christ, the Son of God.”

  26:39 We have people from the get-go, Chapter 1, saying things such as, “This is the Messiah. This is the one who was promised.” But look at this Christological confession, “You’re the Son of God and the King of Israel.” No one says anything like that for chapters and chapters and chapters in the other gospels.

  26:57 By the way, just because I never want to speak without giving our sisters a shout-out, you know who else has one of the strongest Christological confessions in the Gospel of John? Martha. She says in Chapter 11, she actually uses words that you’re used to hearing Peter say when she says, “Yea, Lord,” this is 11:27, “Yea, Lord, I believe and know that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God who shall come into the world.”

  27:23 So people are bearing powerful testimony in Jesus right and left in this gospel. And it starts in Chapter 1 with this chain of witnesses, which shows how people respond to Jesus when they encounter Him. And what I ask your listeners to do as they read the rest of this gospel is every time someone encounters Jesus, ask, “How is this person reacting to Jesus? How is this person getting a testimony and what testimony is this person bearing?”

  27:48 And then in terms of take away an application, “Do I identify with that person? Do I identify with that character?” And even if I don’t, do I know someone who does? Do I know someone like the woman at the well who has been ostracized because she’s a woman and she doesn’t get to draw water with the other women of the town and she’s a Samaritan?

  28:07 Or do I know someone who’s too big for his britches and a professor? Read Crucible of Doubt by the Givens’. Some of us have a hard row and our crucible… Strength and weaknesses to being a questioner, some people have simple faith.

  28:20 How many of us are like Peter and Thomas? Thomas gets a bum rap for not believing what the other apostles say when he just wants the same sure witness and the physical thing that he needs as an apostle. And Peter denies three times. But Thomas and Peter are the ones that are at the appearance in Galilee in Chapter 21. Thomas is mentioned by name in Chapter 21. And then of course, Peter has the threefold affirmation of love that rehabilitates him for the threefold denial that he knew Jesus.

  28:49 So we’ve got fallible but faithful disciples, impulsive but devoted disciples. And if any of our leaders say or do something we think isn’t perfect or is a mistake, well, guess what? Our leaders are in great company. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Noah, Peter. They’re fallible, sure, occasionally, but not in their teachings, but they’re faithful.

  29:09 Sometimes we all get a little animated. The Apostle Paul shot off the mouth all the time. Paul was a fiery dude. I identify with Paul. I want to be the beloved disciple, I’m really Paul, okay? I speak too fast but I’m too passionate and I have to take back my words sometimes. Doesn’t take away from the strength of his testimony or the power of his teaching. So you’ve got all these characters in this gospel, and Chapter 1 has prepared us to find them. And I hope you just embrace this gospel and find these characters, you find soulmates in them, you find kinsmen in them, kinswomen in them. But most of all, come back to the beginning of what we did in Chapter 1, you find Jesus in this gospel.

Hank Smith: 29:49 Yeah. That’s beautiful. John the Baptist, seems that he has a better sense for mission of the Savior when he talks about Him being the Lamb of God. Lambs are sacrificed.

John Bytheway: 29:59 This is the first time that title’s ever used in-

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 30:02 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 30:02 Right? And lambs are sacrificed.

John Bytheway: 30:04 Right.

Hank Smith: 30:05 You’ve got John later saying, “We did not yet know that He would rise from the dead.” Or that in Luke you’ve got other disciples saying, “Well, He died. That wasn’t supposed to happen.” But do you feel like John the Baptist here has a better sense for what the future holds for Jesus with this title?

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 30:24 So you kind of put me on the spot, so I haven’t given this any thought so I’m excogitating here. But in the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus says, “There was never a greater prophet than John.”

Hank Smith: 30:34 Right.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 30:35 My gut reaction, since you’re putting me on the spot, is to say, John, the son of Zacharias, John the Baptist and the Synoptics, is the greatest witness of Jesus up to that time.

  30:49 By the way, I’ll just mention this, so some people are aware of this, Section 91, all of this is kind of echoed in there and you’re going to have the fullness of the Witness of John, et cetera.

  30:58 There’s a real question, this wonderful, I use that word, logos or logos, the logos hymn that poetic first part of Chapter 1, there’s a real question, who wrote that? Is that John the Beloved, the Apostle, the source or author of this text? Or is it the Prophet John whom we know as John the Baptist?

  31:16 I have a working idea. Listeners, this is just Book of Huntsman, this is not gospel, it’s just an idea. I like to compare the Prophet John and the Apostle John to Lehi and Nephi. So Lehi has this dream, this prophetic dream of the tree of life, and it’s powerful and symbolic. But then Nephi, when he asks about it, when he hears his father preach that dream, he gets the most unbelievable apocalyptic vision in Chapters 11:14 with more detail. As Section 93 presents it, maybe the concepts, the principles that we read in the beginning of John 1 now were first preached by the Prophet John, but then the Apostle John when he was writing it down had it revealed to him even more fully and extensive.

  32:07 So rather than try to take a side in the Section 93 debate, is this John the Baptist or John the Beloved who wrote this hymn, I’m going to split the difference and say they’ve shared it.

  32:18 If the other disciple with Andrew was in fact John the later Apostle, he would’ve heard John the Baptist, whom I call the Prophet John, preach these things all the time. And then as he grows in faith and knowledge and comes to know Jesus personally and then later when he is preaching this and then writing it down, he writes it in this beautiful poetic format.

John Bytheway: 32:41 I just feel like John the Baptist, he was filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother’s womb, I feel like he was just at a different place from the beginning. He didn’t have the learning curve that the others did. And I like calling him John the Prophet. It’s not John merely the Baptist, he’s John the Prophet too. He’s a powerful witness. And I love later on how he’ll say, “He must increase, I must decrease.” And he just seems to get it from the very beginning.

Hank Smith: 33:08 I’m impressed with John the Prophet here. It says, “He has his disciples,” in Verse 35. And look at him saying, “Go to Him-“

John Bytheway: 33:16 He turns them over. Yeah, he’s just…

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 33:18 Yeah. In fact, in the application section of my chapter on the great chain of witnesses and becoming the beloved disciple, I actually used the example of how hard it was for me for just a few days when President Hinckley died, because I knew and loved President Hinckley so long and we have a shift in prophets and it takes a while to kind of transfer the loyalty.

  33:39 Or I grew up with Spencer Kimball, and then when it was President Benson. And what happens is you have to realize is you’re facing your loyalty, as much as you love the individual, it’s not that that person, it’s the person he represents. Sometimes we have a hard time transferring our loyalty.

  33:52 Yet Andrew and the other disciple did it, just as President Hinckley wanted us to transfer our support to President Monson. And as President Nelson will want us to support the next president of the church. Because they’re all serving the same Lord. So when we come and see, it doesn’t matter who the prophet is at the moment.

Hank Smith: 34:14 Eric, we have had a fantastic day here in the Gospel of John and John 1. If I’m at home and I’m a listener and I’m so comfortable with the Book of Mormon, how do I become that comfortable with the New Testament? I made it through the Old Testament last year and my default zone is, “Let me go back to the Book of Mormon.” Yet here’s a New Testament scholar saying, probably going to tell us, “Don’t do that. Stick through the New Testament.” What are we going to find?

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 34:41 Since you’ve framed this in terms of the Book Mormon and so many of our members being familiar with that, remember what we read in the Book of Mormon, don’t say a Bible, a Bible, we have a Bible. The Lord gives His Word to one people and to another, you can never have too much Word of the Lord.

  34:56 And if we remember the Old Testament’s the First Testament, and then the New Testament is the Second Testament in as much as it’s new, and the Book of Mormon is the other testament, we have three members of the Godhead. They’re even got three pillars right then and then you layer on that the Doctrine & Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price.

  35:10 I guess I never have understood this feeling I only need to like one book of scripture, I only need one book of scripture when we have been given such a gift.

  35:21 Years ago I heard, Brother Porter was traveling with us in the choir, he was our general authority chaperone when we’re in Washington and he shared something with me I’ve used in my teaching a lot. He said, “The New Testament gives us the facts of the Atonement, what Jesus Christ did to bring about our salvation. The Book of Mormon so clearly gives us the doctrine, and the Holy Ghost gives us the application.”

  35:42 So you read about Jesus and what He’s done and that’s got its own power, and then the Book of Mormon focuses that with giving us the doctrine behind it. But in the end, neither of those are fine on their own. We need to have that witness and the spirit, it’s true, and then the direction of the Holy Ghost and the channeling to the Holy Ghost of that

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 36:00 … grace. It’s a narrative, and you’ve heard of me talk about my son before, but one of the great gifts, if I can call it a gift, of having a special needs child, is it’s forced me to approach the gospel in a very direct and simple way. I mean, your listeners have heard me spout off about Greek and exegesis and symbolism and yada, yada, yada, but when it’s me and Sam studying the Book of Mormon or the New Testament or finishing seminary, we’re about to start doing Preach My Gospel, it’s just simple and it’s basic.

  36:31 And one of the things Sam really needs is narrative. He needs the story to make it real. Of course, it’s dovetailing because we’ve got him here with us in the Holy Land and we go to the places where Jesus was. In the beginning of our new Easter book, we talk about using the New Testament gospels to walk with Jesus through his final week. Here we have the text and we can actually walk where Jesus walked. But I just think the New Testament can draw people, and particularly the gospels. We’ll leave the Paul and the Epistles, and the other things, for later in the year.

  37:01 With the gospels, it’s a chance to really just join the world of Jesus, to imagine, even if you can’t come to the Holy Land, most people don’t have that opportunity, to imagine what it was like to be with him and talk with him. I mean, you get that in Third Nephi. I think that’s one of the reasons people love Third Nephi so much is the Lord finally makes his appearance. I just hope that people will make the Lord real in their lives. And of course, he was real to the people in the Book of Mormon, and of course he was real to Joseph Smith in the Doctrine & Covenants, but there’s a reason we call it the Meridian of Time. It was kind of that focal point where everything came together.

  37:38 Here’s another thing that I’ve learned from our Christian friends of other faiths. Our church doesn’t do this as much. A lot of the churches, they have what’s called liturgical calendar. And we do it at Christmas, and to some extent, at Easter, and I’m encouraging people to do it the whole week before Easter. They’ll kind of mark through the seasons what Jesus did in the seasons of his life. There’s a real power to that, I think, because you take a sacred text and you take a sacred place. Even if the space is in your mind as you’re imagining Galilee and Jerusalem and your sacred time, you’re taking yourself back to where Jesus was, and it just becomes very real to me, at least.

  38:15 I think that’s why so many people are drawn to The Chosen. I know we don’t just endorse one particular portrayal of Jesus or a particular show, but I think people are really moved by The Chosen because they’re just making Jesus and the Apostles so real and Mary and all those figures.

  38:28 Well, one of the reasons I always encourage my kids to read, and with Sam, it’s like pulling teeth sometimes, but if you just go and see the movie rather than reading the book first, you don’t have to exercise a lot of imagination. But reading is a much more active engagement because you have to imagine the things you’re reading, and I wonder if that’s why we’re taught to read scripture and study scripture rather than just watch videos of it, because it’s not just your imagination that you’re using as you’re trying to work through and recreate what the scriptures are portraying, the spirit’s there as well. For me, my scripture study time is a sacred time and it’s a very personal time, and I try to close off the rest of the world and I open those pages, and it’s just like I’m there with Him.

  39:17 One of the great strengths of doing Come Follow Me is it’s got so many people in the church in the scriptures, and in the scriptures together. Even if you don’t have a family, you’re doing it with your ward family. For instance, when you get to the Last Supper, when we get close to Easter, it’s not Jesus and the apostles with the Last Supper, it’s all of us. And we talked earlier in this discussion about John being kind of a type and leaving himself anonymous. When the beloved disciple is leaning in the arms of the Savior, I mean, that’s you. That’s you in his arms. And I do that a lot of times when the sacrament is being passed. I try to imagine myself in the upper room and walking the Kidron Valley and in Gethsemane and following Jesus to the cross, just like Peter and John were following him when he was arrested and John and mother of Jesus and the other Mary were there. I’m just kind of talking in abstract terms here. I just hope the scriptures can become real to people.

Hank Smith: 40:12 That’s beautiful.

John Bytheway: 40:13 Yeah, just that whole idea of looking at how different people encountered him and everything. The very first paragraph in the Come Follow me manual says, “Have you ever wondered whether you would’ve recognized Jesus of Nazareth as the son of God if you had been alive during his mortal ministry?” For years, faithful Israelites, including Andrew, Peter, Philip, and Nathaniel had waited and prayed for the coming of the promised Messiah. When they met him, how did they know he was the one they had been seeking? The same way all of us come to know the Savior by accepting the invitation to come and see for ourselves. We read about him in the scriptures. We hear his doctrine. We observe his way of living. We feel his spirit. Along the way, we discover, as Nathaniel did, that the Savior knows us and loves us, wants to prepare us to receive greater things.

  41:03 So I think reading it with your imagination and imagining what if you’re one of these characters is a perfect way to put that and to make the New Testament alive. And the Book of Mormon is the resurrected Christ. This was the mortal Christ in the Gospels that some recognized him, some didn’t, and that’s why I like the intrigue of that, would I have believed it, and that’s what our manual kind of talks about there.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 41:27 As you were speaking, John, I just want to bring one more thing because we’ve talked a lot about imagining and finding him in text, one other very famous passage in John, this is John 7:17. “If any man will do his will, he will know the doctrine, whether it be of God or I speak of myself.” So it’s not enough for us just to revel in the text and use the spirit to aid our imagination and encounter him that way. When Jesus said, “Come and see,” we’ve got to do it. We’ve got to walk with him and do the things that he would do, and see him in the poor and the marginalized and the hurting, and the happy and the successful and the sad. Sometimes we only talk about the marginalized. I mean, to find Jesus in everyone. And that’s what we actually read in the synoptics, right? If you’ve clothed the naked and visited the prison, I mean, you’ve done it unto him. If you’ve done it unto the least, and we need to come and see, and then do. Remember what I said about discipleship. It’s not just learning from the master. It’s becoming an apprentice and striving to be like the master.

Hank Smith: 42:33 Beautiful. We want to thank Dr. Eric Huntsman for being with us today and sharing with us all this knowledge. I’m so excited to continue reading the Gospel of John, John, because with all this introductory information now, I feel like, okay, I know what I’m looking for with this 30,000 foot view. Now I can zoom in and on these sub chapters and really find the Lord. So Eric, this has just been wonderful. Thank you for being here.

Dr. Eric Huntsman: 43:01 Thanks again for having me.

Hank Smith: 43:03 Yeah, we want to thank our executive producer, Shannon Sorensen, our sponsors David and Verla Sorensen, and we always want to remember our founder, the late Steve Sorensen. We hope you’ll join us next week. We’re coming back with more New Testament on followHIM.

  43:21 Today’s transcripts, show notes, and additional references are available on our website, followhim.co. Followhim.co, and you can watch the podcast on YouTube with additional videos on Facebook and Instagram. All of this is absolutely free, so be sure to share with your family and friends. To reach those who are searching for help with their Come Follow Me study, please subscribe, rate, review, or comment on the podcast, which makes the podcast easier to find. Thank you.

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