Dave asks a few great questions about when the Apostle John was born again:
Did not John believe in Jesus for eternal life in John 2:11 after the wedding at Cana? What did he believe then in John 20:8 when he saw the undisturbed grave clothes? How does this instance of belief relate to the purpose of the book in John 20:31? The belief in 20:8 seems to be something other than eternal life, which seems to confuse the meaning of belief with the purpose statement.
The first question is whether John was born again after the first sign at the wedding at Cana.
I would say that the Apostle John was born again before the wedding at Cana.
The Apostle John was either born again while he was a disciple of John the Baptist before JB sent him to Jesus (John 1:35-37), or after he met and heard Jesus for himself (John 1:38-51).
The key to this first question is to ask what John meant when he wrote, “His disciples believed in Him” (John 2:11). Which disciples? The eleven? The seventy? The 120? I’d say we should understand this as referring to unnamed disciples, not to those named disciples who came to faith before the wedding, as recorded in John 1 (John, Peter, Andrew, Philip, and Nathanael).
Zane Hodges wrote concerning John 2:11:
What we learn in John 2:11 is this: the disciples who came to the wedding with Jesus had evidently not yet believed in Him as the Christ. No doubt they regarded Him as a rabbi of exceptional character and teaching skills. Even John the Baptist knew of Jesus’ personal righteousness before identifying Him as the Christ (see Matt 1:13-14). But as much as they must have admired Jesus as a rabbi, these particular disciples were not yet believers.
In all likelihood, therefore, the disciples who were invited with Jesus to this occasion constituted a Galilean circle composed of men known to the wedding hosts. They had not been with Jesus in Bethany beyond the Jordan (see 1:28) nor had they heard John the Baptist’s testimony about Him. But now the sign Jesus has just done leads them to believe in Him (Faith in His Name, pp. 44-45).
The second question about John 20:8 concerns, as Dave suggests, some belief other than John’s belief in Jesus for everlasting life.
The context of John 20:8 shows that the Apostle John came to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead when he saw the empty tomb. Before Jesus’ death and resurrection, one had to believe in Jesus’ promise of the gift of God, everlasting life (John 3:16; 4:10), not that promise plus His death and resurrection. That promise did not change after the cross and resurrection. People are still born again by believing in Jesus’ promise of everlasting life. Sadly, most who believe that Jesus died and rose again do not believe in the gift of everlasting life to the believer. It should be noted that it is even possible on this side of the cross that some people are born again before they come to believe in His death and resurrection. I’ve never met such a person. But if the Apostles were born again without yet having believed in His death and resurrection, then so can anyone today.
The primary object of faith in John’s Gospel is Jesus Himself and His promise of everlasting life. Of the hundred uses of pisteuō (believe) in John, about eighty refer to believing in Him for everlasting life, or the equivalent (i.e., believing in His name or believing that He is the Christ, the Son of God). About twenty percent of the uses of pisteuō in John refer to believing that He rose from the dead (John 2:22; 14:29; 20:8, 25, 27, 29), believing Moses’ writings (John 5:46-47), believing that the Father sent Jesus (John 11:42; 16:30; 17:8), believing in God (John 14:1), or believing in the unity of God the Father and Jesus (John 14:10-11),
I see nothing confusing about the fact that the object of belief in John’s Gospel is not always belief in Him in a salvific sense. Belief in John’s Gospel is always being persuaded of something,i but the object of faith varies. Mostly, the object is Jesus and His promise of life. But other objects of faith (that are not saving) underscore the fact that faith is persuasion.
Thanks, Dave, for your questions.
Keep grace in focus, and you will continue to be a student of God’s Word.
i There is one use where pisteuō refers to Jesus not entrusting (John 2:24) new believers (John 2:23) with additional teaching because they were unwilling to confess Him publicly. There are eight total uses of pisteuō in the NT in which the sense is “entrusting.” But none of those refer to what the believer must do to have everlasting life.
