His discussion of Johannine theology is contained in four chapters. The first chapter, “Orientation,” places the Johannine writings in their historical context. The remaining three chapters explore John’s theology as it relates to “Johannine Dualism,” “The ‘Krisis’ of the World,” and “Faith.”

In placing John in his historical context, Bultmann investigates the relationship of the Johannine writings to the Synoptic Gospels and to the Pauline tradition. John, it seems, is likely familiar with at least some of the Synoptic tradition, yet he forges his own path. The miracle traditions for John function as a starting point for extended narratives on a definite theme. Unlike the Synoptic counterparts, John presents Jesus as a Revealer sent by God, who speaks about his coming and going, who he is, and what he brings to the world. John the Baptist is not a preacher of repentance, but the witness to Jesus as the Son of God. The Gospel reflects a separation from Judaism so that issues related to the law are not at the forefront as they are in the Synoptic Gospels.

John’s relationship to the Pauline tradition cannot be traced out on a linear scheme of development, since the two lines go in different directions. Though John was younger than Paul, he does not use Paul as a link to the earlier church. Both work within the sphere of Hellenism. In both Paul and John Christology is formed after the patterned of the Gnostic Redeemer-myth: the sending of the pre-existent Son of God in the disguise of a man. There are also many other points where they utilize common-Christian terminology, yet specifically Pauline terminology is absent in John, such as Paul’s terminology relating to Heilsgeschichte. Neither is there sacramental piety in John. John is a figure with his own originality, nevertheless there is a deep relatedness in substance that exists between John and Paul—in both of them the eschatological occurrence is understood as already taking place in the present and the new life appears under the mask of death. They both de-mythologize Gnostic cosmological dualism.

The last section of the first chapter asks the question of the author’s identity and place of writing. Both of these are unknown. The thought atmosphere of John and the Epistles is that of “oriental Christianity.” Bultmann identifies a source of Jesus’ sayings and discourses which he calls the Revelation-discourses; these presuppose a basic dualistic view characterized by antithetical terms such as light and darkness, truth and falsehood, above and below, freedom and bondage. The terms “truth” and “life” replace “Reign of God” and “righteousness of God” for John; they signify the eschatological event which for John is a present reality. The figure of Jesus is portrayed in the forms offered by the Gnostic Redeemer-myth—the pre-existent Son of God whom the Father clothed with authority and sent into the world. The Son is an ambassador on behalf of the Father, speaking his words. Bultmann identifies logos as a Gnostic term and locates the author as possibly coming from a Gnosticizing form of Judaism.

In the second chapter, Bultmann turns his attention to the dualism of the Johannine literature. God sent his son into the world to save it, though it is deserving of judgment. Kosmos means world of men; its very essence is darkness and falsehood, and it has fallen into bondage. Those under bondage are under the sway of death and the world is at enmity to life. The world is the creation of God, not some gnostically oriented tragic event of primeval time. The dualistic concepts (light and darkness, truth and falsehood, freedom and bondage, life and death) are of Gnostic origin, but they take on their specific Johannine meaning only in their relation to the idea of creation. Light, for example, is the daylight by which one is able to orient himself in his world and find his way. True light, however, is the state of having one’s existence illumined, where a person achieves a self-understanding. Darkness is when the world shuts itself up against the light, thereby God, and thrusts itself into falsehood. The basic meaning of truth in John is God’s reality. Jesus not only tells the truth, but he is the truth; in Jesus, God’s reality encounters men as a gracious gift. Man is determined by his origin and in each present moment does not have himself in hand; he has only one alternative: to exist either from God (reality) or from the world (unreality). Light, truth, life, and freedom (and their opposites) explain each other; they derive their meaning from the search for human existence. The cosmological dualism of Gnosticism has become a dualism of decision in John.

John’s dualism divides humanity into two groups (those of God and those of the devil), but does this suggest that from its outset humanity is determined as to its essence and its fate? No. All share the same position under God’s wrath and Jesus extends to all his invitation and call to decision. This invitation gives the hearer an opportunity of decision, whether or not to remain in the old way. To put it another way, the entire world was in darkness, but with the coming of the Revealer, there now exists the possibility for people to leave the darkness and enter the light.

Human life is pervaded by the quest for reality. The object of the quest is Jesus, the light of the world, whom the world needs. Yet instead of answering their quest properly, people often supply themselves with an answer that give them a false sense of security; they pervert the truth into a lie and thus pervert creation into the “world.” The Jews are no exception to this. They search the scriptures, but they don’t realize that it speaks about Jesus; instead, they use the scriptures against Jesus. Likewise, the Jews also have a hope of their own and miss the fact that Jesus was the expected messiah. The world speaks of honor, love, sin, righteousness, and judgment, but it understands them in its own sense and not as God intended.

Bultmann’s third chapter on John focuses on the ‘Krisis’ of the Word. The Father’s sending of the Son is central to Johannine theology. It represented the deed of God’s love with the underlying purpose being the salvation of the world. “For God so loved the world….” Because Jesus’ appearance forces people to choose between the light and the darkness, he is simultaneously the eschatological bringer of salvation and a judge.
The Revealer appears as a definite human being in history: Jesus of Nazareth. He is both the bringer of the Revelation and the Revelation himself. Yet his work as a whole is both Revelation and offense, offense to those who misunderstand his activities and words. Faith in Jesus is faith in the exalted Jesus, who is at the same time the earthly man Jesus. The ‘glorified one’ is still always he who ‘became flesh’; Jesus’ life on earth does not become an item of the historical past, but constantly remains present reality.

As John develops his picture of Jesus, a clear unity between the Son and the Father emerges. The death of Jesus is not atonement for sins, but it signals his completion of the mission and ultimately leads to his exaltation. The resurrection, however, is minimized by John, since his exaltation occurs at his death. John collapses the entire salvation-drama (incarnation, death, resurrection, Pentecost, and the parousia) into a single event: “the Revelation of God’s ‘reality’ (ἁλήθεια) in the earthly activity of the man Jesus combined with the overcoming of the ‘offense’ in it by man’s accepting it in faith” (58).

The works that Jesus accomplishes are his words. John gives him the appropriate title Logos. The content of his words is that he speaks whatever he saw or heard with the Father, yet he does not speak about the Father in specific or concrete terms. Jesus’ words are assertions about himself. His word is identical with himself (e.g., his words are life, truth), and so to reject Jesus is the same as not accepting his words.
Interestingly enough, Jesus as the Revealer of God reveals nothing except that he is the Revealer! John only presents the fact of the Revelation and does not describe its content. Yet the Revelation is meaningful as it is the affirmation and fulfillment of human longing for life, for true reality. Since God’s will demands nothing more or less than faith, the meaning of the Revelation can be further clarified by showing what happens with faith.

The fourth chapter addresses the role of faith in Johannine theology. The Gospel was written “that you may believe” (20.31). Since Jesus and his word are identical, his word is also an object of faith and the same goes for his works. Faith proceeds from hearing, and for John the concepts of hearing, seeing, and believing are very similar. Faith is genuine insofar as it is a knowing faith, since knowledge is also a part of faith.
In the last section, Bultmann outlines aspects of faith as eschatological existence. It is the way to salvation; it is overcoming the offense that life meets man only in the word addressed to him by a mere man, Jesus. Faith is a desecularization—a transition into eschatological existence, thus it is not a once-for-all event, but a overcoming of the world which must be done over and over again. For John, eschatology as a time-perspective has dropped out because he has collapsed the eschatological occurrence into the present. This eschatological existence fosters love, peace, and joy. Believers participate in the Revealer and he in them in such a way that they are bound together into a unity among themselves with him, and thus unity with the Father. The believer’s access to Jesus or to God is only through faith. Lastly, this existence is accompanied with the possession of the Spirit, an eschatological gift. The Spirit is the power within the Church which brings forth both knowledge and proclamation of the Word.

But this brings us to Bultmann’s last point about John. The various aspects of the eschatological existence has somewhat described John’s notion of the Church. Yet the Church itself is not a theme for John as it is for Paul. John’s church is “the Church of the Word—the Word from which it lives, the Word which is also its commission to the world” (92). And it is through the Spirit that the Church receives knowledge and proclamation of the Word.

Bultmann’s treatment of John’s theology is a sophisticated analysis which seeks to let the primary texts speak for themselves while trying to make sense of John’s ancient historical setting. In the Johannine writings, Bultmann finds a Jesus who is not an uninteresting historical figure, but a Revealer of the Divine who makes it possible to move from death to life. The arrival of the Son of God presents humanity with an ongoing decision, whether to choose darkness or light, condemnation or salvation. Although we might rightly criticize some of Bultmann’s history-of-religions reconstructions, his redactional theories of the Fourth Gospel, or his overdependence on existentialism, his analysis of John’s theology has been more influential than any other exegete on the subject and cannot be quickly dismissed.