“Put your sword back into its sheath”: A Johannine approach to nonviolent resistance

Abstract

The Gospel of John challenges the use of violence in both the exercise of power and in resistance to power. This article identifies how power is used in John, discusses who uses it, and examines how power is complicated or inhibited within the narrative. God and the Logos are introduced in the Prologue as the Gospel’s most powerful figures, yet their power is resisted. The Jewish leaders (often co-identified with “the Jews”) hold sociocultural power, though it is limited by Rome. The Empire looms in the background until the passion narrative, in which Roman power is relativized to the power of the empire of God. Cosmic evil co-opts Rome and the Jewish leaders and serves as the most dominant force arrayed against Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, even if constrained. Jesus’s power is superior, yet he exercises self-restraint. The article then explores the resistance practices to dominant power by the Jewish leadership, Peter, then Jesus, focusing on the arrest and (quasi-)trial in John 18. While “the Jews” resort to violence by colluding with Rome, Peter assaults with a sword then denies Jesus. Although greater in power than the arresting party and judicial authorities, Jesus responds to threats with nonviolence, undermining an imperial imagination sustained by ideologies of violence and death.