‘The Last Day’ in John: Future or Realized?

Abstract The Gospel of John applies many terms associated with future eschatology to describe realized-eschatological realities (‘judgment’, ‘death’, ‘condemnation’, ‘eternal life’, the ‘hour’, and ‘coming’). This paper defends the view that the Gospel’s six references to the ‘last day’ fit the same pattern (6:39–40, 44, 54; 11:24; 12:48). John’s Jesus takes up the language of a ‘last day’ from the sphere of future-eschatological expectations, but by his peculiar uses of the phrase, he guides the reader into a figurative, Spirit-realized interpretation of that language. In John, the ‘last day’ is not a specific, single day in the remote future. Rather, it is a cipher for the time materializing with Jesus’ coming into the world and fully realized at his departure and the coming of the Spirit, through which humans experience a spiritual resurrection and receive eternal life. The paper develops this thesis with special attention to such verses as 6:38–39; 7:37–39; and 11:24–26.