The inconstancy involves Jesus' teachings about judgment. Specifically, there are places in John where Jesus says that he has not come to judge the world. For example:
You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. (8.15)If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. (12.47)
And yet, there are other places in John where Jesus quite clearly describes himself as judging the world:
For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son. (5.22)As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me. (5.30)Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” (9.39)
You can see the inconsistencies. "I did not come to judge the world" versus "For judgement I came into the world." How to make sense of this?
The best idea I had on my own, before searching commentaries and theological journals, was that the "judgment" in John was mainly a self-judgment. This goes back to the very first post in this series about Jesus being the Choice, the existential and eschatological crossroads. Jesus enters the world to save the world, not to judge. And yet, once Jesus stands before you, how you respond to him can lead to judgment. Jesus as Choice creates the Johannine dualisms we face, life versus death, light versus darkness.
Jesus doesn't enter history as the End Times Eschatological Judge, gathering the world before the Judgment Seat of God and sorting the wheat from the chaff. We don't witness Judgment Day in the gospel of John. Jesus comes to save, to extend grace, and to call the dead out of their graves. And yet, in the event of the Incarnation--the light entering the darkness--Jesus bifurcates history. And that bifurcation, light now shining in the darkness, places a choice before us, a choice full of eschatological consequence. In short, Jesus' intention wasn't to judge the world, but his saving action now clearly demarcates a territory--the world--which will face a coming judgment.
You see this dynamic all through John. Here's one example from Chapter 9, where Jesus is debating with the Pharisees after healing a blind man on the Sabbath:
Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.” Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains."
Jesus says here that he comes "for judgment." But the judgment here doesn't describe any action Jesus is doing. Jesus is not picking and choosing between the sheep and the goats like we see in Matthew 25. Jesus is healing in this story, he's not pitching people into hell. All Jesus is doing is saving. He's just being the Light. Consequently, the judgment here isn't in the healing but in the response of the audience to the healing. As Jesus says, some see and others don't. Jesus' healing bifurcates human perception. The "guilt" of the Pharisees is wholly due to their response to Jesus. They say they "see" but they are really "blind," and their stubborn insistence that they "see" Jesus clearly keeps them in a state of guilt. They are placing themselves at eschatological risk because of how they are responding to the Choice.
This dynamic is succinctly captured in John 3:19:
And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.Notice, the light simply comes into the world. The objective isn't to judge but to save. And yet, judgment happens, a bifurcation occurs, because of how people respond to the Choice. We are judged not by Jesus but because we "loved darkness rather than light." It's this decision of ours that creates the eschatological hazard, a judgment we bring upon ourselves. We are judged when we reject the light and embrace the darkness.
