Re-activating JSON

I had a potential bad plug-in so de-activated all of mine as well as my theme. The issue is that I need JSON to run my site and now when I try to re-activate it, I get this error message.

Open Badges Issuer requires JSON_API and has been deactivated. Please install and activate JSON_API and then reactivate this plugin.

Fatal error: Call to undefined function deactivate_plugins() in /home/content/p3pnexwpnas08_data01/51/2842551/html/wp-content/plugins/badgeos-open-badges-issuer-add-on/open-badges-issuer-addon.php on line 402

The issue is that I cannot seem to re-activate it. I tried from the dashboard but simply got this error message. Now I can’t get to the dashboard. Ideas about how to resolve this?

Thanks so much!