glass of water

What does it mean to be “born of water”?

March 7, 2014 — 2 Comments

In John 3:5, Jesus tells Nicodemus that to enter the kingdom one must be “born of water and the Spirit”. How is this phrase understood? Is it a single construct (i.e. one birth of both water and Spirit)? Or are two births in view (one of water and one of Spirit)? And what does it mean to be born of water?

Context is the key to interpretation. You’ve heard the mantra in real-estate, “location, location, location.” Well in interpretation its, “context, context, context.” The location of a verse matters in its interpretation.

Think of the word “hand,” for instance. What does it mean? Without context “hand” could have quite a few meanings.

  • the hired hand fixed the railing
  • his hand was illegible
  • he wanted to try his hand at singing
  • I didn’t hold a good hand all evening
  • The hands read 3:25
  • give the little lady a great big hand
  • hand me the spoon, please

we can see the words meaning more clearly in context.

The Immediate Context

The phrase “born of water and Spirit” appears in Jesus’ night time conversation with Nicodimus. In John 3:3, Jesus says,

I tell you the truth, no one can see the Kingdom of God unless he is born again.

Nicodimus is dumbfounded

How can a man be born when he is old…surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!

Jesus then rephrases his earlier statement

I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of god unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.

The contrast between flesh and spirit in the last verse would seem to indicate that water stands for natural birth.

Beyond the Chapter

But there’s an even broader context to John 3:5 that others pick up on. Two chapters earlier, in John 1:32-33, John the baptist testifies,

I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a a dove and remain on him. I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, “the man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.”

Here water and Spirit are linked in the Baptist’s ministry and testimony. John baptizes with water but Jesus baptizes with the Holy Spirit. If John 3:5 is linked to this verse, water could refer to baptism (or repentance which John’s baptism is often said to represent).

A Look to the Whole Book

But there’s still a greater context which defines the meaning of water. Water isn’t simply mentioned in these two scenes. It’s used everywhere in John as a metaphor and a symbol.

  • John says three times that he baptizes in water (1:26, 31, 33)
  • Jesus turns water into wine (2:1-10)
  • Jesus says we must be born of water and the spirit (3:5)
  • John baptizes at Aenon near Salim because “there was much water there.” (3:23)
  • Jesus promises the woman by the well living water (4:4-28)
  • The lame man wants to get healed in the troubled waters of Bethesda (5:7)
  • Jesus walks on water (6:19)
  • Jesus invites the thirsty to come to him and drink (7:37-39)
  • Jesus heals blind man in pool of Siloam (9:6-7)
  • Jesus washes his disciples feet (13:4-5)
  • Water flows from Jesus’ side (19:34)

With the exception of John’s baptism and Jesus walk on water, these references do not appear in Matthew, Mark or Luke. They are entirely unique to John.

Each of these scenes plays a crucial role in revealing the water’s intended meaning. John develops this meaning early in his gospel, contrasting water that is used in ritual and tradition with a higher, heavenly water offered in Jesus.

John the Baptist’s Testimony (1:19-34): John says Jesus’ baptism in the Holy Spirit surpasses his baptism in water. Water here is the medium of a traditional ritual of purification. But Jesus’ in a comparative and a contrasting sense baptizes with the Holy Spirit (i.e water from above).

Jesus Wedding Miracle (2:1-11): Jesus’ “water-turned-wine” is better than the choice wine/water which came before. The water which becomes wine is drawn from containers used for ritual purification. Though Jesus could presumably have reused the empty wine jars, he instead has the servants fill six waterpots which John says were “set there for the Jewish custom of purification.” Jesus surpasses this ritual water by transforming it into wine (spirit water) which the headwaiter testifies surpasses the wine that came before.

Jesus Conversation by the Well (4:4-26): Jesus’ living water is greater than Jacob’s well. The well itself is a traditional site analogous to the Samaritan’s worship on the mountain. The woman points to the greatness of the well by pointing to “father” Jacob as the source and user of the water. The word “father” is again used when the topic of conversation moves from well to worship. Just as ‘father” Jacob gave the well, the Samaritan “fathers” had given them worship on the mountain. When Jesus offers the woman living water she responds by asking if he is “greater” than Jacob who gave them the well. Jesus indicates that it is by contrasting the limitations of the well water with the never-ending life-giving water he supplies. His water is “Spirit” like the true worship God seeks.

His Healing by the Pool of Bethesda (5:1-9): Jesus’ healing is greater than the troubled water in the pool of Bethesda. Once again the waters of Bethesda are linked with tradition. While the tradition mentioned in 5:3 may not be original to John, it appears to be in line with John’s repeated use of water. While the man looks to the traditional water to heal him, he is powerless to reach it. Because Jesus reaches the man at his need, His power is revealed to be greater than the stirred water’s of the pool.

Jesus’ Invitation to Drink (7:37-39): Jesus’ “living water” is greater than the feasts water ceremony. Jesus invitation occurs on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles. On this day the High Priest poured water out in the temple as a symbol of the later day river that would flow from the temple (Ez. 47:1-12; Zech. 14:8). Jesus’ invitation and reference indicates that he is the scriptures true fulfillment. The water here is explicitly connected with the Holy Spirit (John 7:39).

The cumulative effect of these scenes indicates that there’s more than one meaning given to water. Sometimes water is simply a clear physical liquid used for washing, drinking etc. However when associated with Christ, water signifies the Spirit (i.e. “living-water or water from above).

A contrast between two waters (higher and lower) fits within John’s narrative’s dualism. Many of John’s metaphors and symbols have natural polarity. For instance John employees the imagery of light and darkness, life and death, above and below, true and false. Each refers to a separation between tangible world in which we live and the intangible realm of the Spirit. Because it’s immaterial, the world “above” is separate from the world “below.” For instance in John 3:12, Christ distinguishes between “earthly things” and “heavenly things” and in 8:23 He separates Himself from His opponents, stating, “You are from below I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.” The higher world represents an intangible reality which man cannot perceive. The prologue asserts “No one has seen God at any time” (1:18). Yet, it also goes on to equally claim that Jesus’ physical presence “explained” or “made known” the invisible God (1:14, 18).

Through metaphors and symbols, John constructs a ladder of understanding from the lower physical world to the higher world of the Spirit. A symbol, according to ordinary sense, is “that which represents something else by virtue of an analogical relationship.” H. Levin describes it simply as “a connecting link between two different spheres.” The symbol, “points beyond itself”, and in someway “embodies that which it represents.” Thus, John takes tangible images and infuses them with a higher connotation in order to define the imperceptible world of God.

Water function within this dualism.

Reading John 3:5 in light of its context

Returning to John 3:5 we can see how this repeated contrast between two different waters fits into the phrase “born of water and the Spirit.”

Most interpretations hold that water and Spirit exist as two distinct elements in the process of rebirth. The English word “and” implies two distinct things. This would certainly fit the apparent contrast between the lower water and the Spirit (higher water) in the scenes outlined above. But these scenes also make a comparison between water and Spirit and unlike the English translation, the Greek may suggest that water and Spirit are one thing and not two. C.H. Talbert states,

The construction in Greek is that of two terms joined by “and” (kai) and governed by one preposition. This Greek construction normally points to one act: e.g., Titus 3:5. If two acts were involved, normally two prepositions would occur.

Though Talbert appears confident in this translation, J. Ramsey Michaels counters with a more moderate approach. He states,

The fact that both are governed by a single preposition in Greek suggests that they are one. Yet in 1 John 5:6, the same sort of construction is immediately followed by a singling out of each element with its own preposition and definite article. The decision must therefore be made on other than grammatical grounds.

Given room to maneuver, immediate context points to water symbolizing the Spirit. “Born of water and Spirit” occurs as a reiteration of John 3:3’s phrase “born again”. The word, “again” possess two meanings. Though Nicodemus translates the word as “a second time,” the word also means “from above.” It is this later interpretation, which Jesus seems to intend. Thus Jesus, in John 3:3 and 3:5, speaks of one birth from above. According to the freedom granted by both grammar and context, Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be “born of water from above, which is the Holy Spirit.”

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When Jesus Gave Birth (Part 7)

November 25, 2013 — Leave a comment

As I pointed out in the last post, the Gospel of John’s emphasis on a birth from God points to John’s thematic climax, the cross, as Jesus’ labor for the birth of the believer.  And there’s simply no better picture of birth in this scene than the well-attested allusion to the creation of Eve in the depiction of Jesus’ pierced side  (John 19:34).

Though she comes from the side of a man, Eve’s creation is in fact the first birth recorded in scripture.  Note the implicit twist in the fact that the woman comes out of the man instead of the other way around. Genesis 2:21-22 reads,

So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was asleep, he took part of the man’s side and closed up the place with flesh.  Then the Lord God made a woman from the part he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man.  Then the man said, “This one at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one will be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.

The languages of the original readers also indicates they would have understood it this way.  In Hebrew, the imagery of coming from a man is at the heart of several idioms referring to a man’s offspring.

  • the fruit of the man’s belly/womb.  (Deut 28:4, 11, 18, 53, 30:9, Psalms 132:11, Mic 6:7)
  • One who will come fourth from the man’s inward parts  (2 Samuel 7:12, I Chr 17:11)
  • That which comes out from the man’s loins.  (Gen 46:26, Ex 1:5, Judges 8:30, 1 Kings 8:19)

These word-pictures allude to a male parallel to a woman’s labor and delivery, a fact which is somewhat obscured by our English translations.  For instance, the Hebrew word for loins above is not exclusive to men.  It’s the seat of a woman’s labor pains.  And the Hebrew word “belly” has the broader meaning of abdomen which includes the womb.

The LXX, the first translations of the Bible into Greek 200 years before the time of Christ, moved further in this direction.  It rendered “belly” and “inward parts” in the first two examples as koilia, a Greek word which mean’s “hallow” but by extension refers to the abdomen and womb. We might expect than that the translators would have rendered “loins” in the parallel expression of 1 Kings 8:19 in the same way.  Not so.  Instead they translated it as “sides.” (pleura).  This is interesting.  According to the earliest translation of the Hebrew Bible, a man’s child idiomatically comes from his belly, womb, and or sides.  These idiom appear to be linked in no small degree to the “birth” of Eve.

To be continued…

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When Jesus Gave Birth (Part 6)

November 21, 2013 — Leave a comment

I could have kicked myself.  For more than ten years I’d recognized John 19:34 as the gospels climax, capstone and bloom.  I’d seen how it’s allusion to the creation of Eve brought together the gospel’s theme of new creation, marriage and oneness with God.  But until that moment I’d simply overlooked it’s relationship to the most well-known characteristic of John’s gospel, the new birth.

Like every Evangelical, I love the term “born again!”  It perfectly describes how the Holy Spirit transforms hearts and lives.  I’ve experienced it.  But until then I’d never realized how this term points to an event other than conversion.  I now see how John uses it as powerful metaphor for what Jesus did on the cross.

Have you ever seen the crucifixion as Jesus’ labor pains and his death as the moment of birth?  That may sound odd.  But its exactly what John wants us to see in Jesus’ pierced side and its flow of blood and water (John 19:34)

Apart from 1 Peter 1:22-23, the new birth is found exclusively in John’s Gospel and letters.  We could say its his whole point.  John summarizes his gospel this way,

These things have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. (20:30-31)

How does this new life occur? Through a Divine birth of course. John spells it out for his readers four times.

(1) Born of God (1:11-13)

The nativity forms the heart of John’s introduction (1:1-18)  But unlike Matthew and Luke it’s not Jesus‘.  John 1:12-13 reads,

But to all who did receive him (Jesus), who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor the will of the flesh nor the will of man, but of God.

The significance of the believers birth is only underscored by its position within the prologue’s structure.  These opening eighteen verses form a chiasm, an ancient rhetorical pattern which rotates around and points to a central core.  And John 1:12-13 is that core.  The new birth is John’s thesis statement, a parallel to his summary on the other end of the book (20:30-31).  The gospel results in a spiritual nativity.  Reception of Jesus leads to a birth from God.

(2) Born Again (3:3-6)

The birth metaphor next appears in Jesus’ conversation with the aged Pharisee, Nicodimus.  Jesus tells him outright, “no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.”  Confused, Nicodimus asks, “How can a man be born when he is old?  Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time?”  Jesus clarifies his statement by rephrasing it.  “Unless a man be born of water and the spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”

The rephrasing here is important.  Nicodimus has stumbled over Jesus’ use of the word again, the Greek word anothen.  Anothen can mean a second time, but unlike the English translation, it can also mean ‘from above.’  The new birth of which Jesus speaks is not a second physical birth but an entirely new birth from God, a birth ‘of water and Spirit” or more accurately “water which is the Spirit.”  Jesus’ here echos the words of the prologue.  This birth is not from any human being but is entirely Divine in origin.

(3) New Sight (9:1-10)

The birth imagery is again found in the opened eyes of the blind man in John 9.  Note how John over and over again tells us that the man’s blindness was from birth (9:1-2, 19-20, 32-33). Through the emphasis, John depicts Jesus’ miraculous gift of sight as the man’s birth to new life.

(4) Labor Pains (16:20-22)

The last clear use of the birth metaphor is found in Jesus’ upper room discourse.  Here, Jesus compares the sorrow of the disciples to a woman in labor.

Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.  You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy.  When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.  So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will turn your joy from you.

In the analogy, the disciples are mother’s in labor and it’s Jesus, in his death and resurrection, who is being born.

But the analogy also implicitly and more accurately points to Jesus as the one giving birth. The disciples are sorrowful but they don’t experience anything close to the physical pain of crucifixion.  And of course their sorrow doesn’t produce the resurrection in the same way a mother’s pain produces a child or the way Jesus’ physical suffering brings about the believers new birth (1:12-13).  Jesus’ use of the word “hour” for a woman’s labor pains (16:21) also reminds the reader of Jesus’ climatic hour which he has used as a reference to the cross so many times before (John 2:4, 7:6, 8, 30, 8:20, 12:23, 27, 13:1, 17:1).

Given the repeated emphasis on a birth from God, it seems highly likely that John intended his readers to see the further implications of this analogy.  The cross is Jesus hour, his labor for our birth.  A birth which quite fittingly comes from the side of God.

If we were to look for a birth in John’s depiction of the crucifixion we would find no better illustration than the flow of blood and water from the pierced side of Christ and its allusion to the creation of Eve in Genesis 2:21-24.

To be continued…

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Was Jesus’ Resurrection the Result of a Missing Page?

November 15, 2013 — Leave a comment

Wow!  The History Channel is at it again. This time with Bible Secrets Revealed.  And like Banned From the Bible and other programs like it, it’s doing a real bang-up job of distorting the facts with quick sound bites and brazen insinuation.  I received this message from a troubled friend.

So they say the gospel of mark ended originally with the women going to the tomb to wash his body, but when they realized he was gone, they left & said nothing for they were afraid. Yet later on someone added the resurrection due to being unsatisfied with the original abrupt ending

You can find the segment of the program here between 19:27 and 21:21.

It’s true. I agree with the facts. BUT not the inference. Mark did originally end at 16:8 and that later Christians added a new ending because they were unsatisfied with the old. But its not at all for the reasons the program suggests.

The program implies early Christians later made up accounts of Jesus’ resurrection because of Mark’s missing ending. Wrong!  Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, writing 20 years before Mark, tells us who and in what order more than 500 people saw Jesus bodily risen from the dead.  A fact he had already received from others.

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.

But the writers of Bible Secrets Revealed are apparently so ignorant they feel they can rhetorically ask,

“Is it possible that the account of Jesus divine resurrection, one of the most important tenants of Christianity, was the result of a missing page? (21:09 – 21:21)

NO!  IT’S NOT!

Just read Mark!  It’s obvious he knows of these early resurrection appearances!  He points to them!  Three times, he records Jesus predicting his resurrection.

And He (Jesus) began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. (Mark 8:31)

For He was teaching His disciples and telling them, “The Son of Man is to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill Him; and when He has been killed, He will rise three days later.” (Mark 9:31)

They were on the road going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking on ahead of them; and they were amazed, and those who followed were fearful. And again He took the twelve aside and began to tell them what was going to happen to Him, saying, “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes; and they will condemn Him to death and will hand Him over to the Gentiles. They will mock Him and spit on Him, and scourge Him and kill Him, and three days later He will rise again.” (Mark 10:32-34)

Mark also tells us that the angel at the empty informed the women that Jesus had fulfilled these predictions and would later meet his disciples in Galilee.

And he said to them, “Do not be amazed; you are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who has been crucified. He has risen; He is not here; behold, here is the place where they laid Him. But go, tell His disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see Him, just as He told you.’” (Mark 8:6-7)

If Mark believes that Jesus was clearly correct about His resurrection, don’t you think Mark intends his readers to trust the predictions of the angel, that they did see Jesus in Galilee.  “There you WILL see Him, just as He told you.”  Any basic introduction to Mark would reveal this.  But you won’t get this from the History Channel.  They just let this leading questions dangle out there as if no one could possibly think of a better explanation.

So WHY doesn’t Mark end with a resurrection appearance of Jesus?

It’s vital part of his message. Throughout his Gospel, Mark has shown that true disciples follow Jesus wherever he goes. And that includes to the death. But the disciples of course ran away and abandoned Jesus in the hours before his death. The invitation from the angel is that Jesus is once again waiting for them. To find him they must follow. Mark ends his gospel, with that invitation still ringing in his readers ears. And the question he wants his readers to ask is, “will I follow?” “Will I start over and follow him in His death and resurrection?”

That point has been lost on a number of people, not least many readers in the early church. It’s a bit too subtle for some. That’s why someone felt it necessary to include Mark 16:9-20, which is itself a basic summary of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances from the book of Luke and Acts. The summary is accurate. It’s just not the point of Mark’s Gospel.

I’ve dealt with this topic in a couple of posts. You might find these helpful.

In Bible, Culture, Jesus
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Abraham Lincoln

Do Symbols Always Hijack the Facts?

November 1, 2013 — 3 Comments

Over the years I’ve encountered many Christians concerned with symbolism in the Gospel of John.  They’re particularly troubled with the notion that John intended objects and images to convey a coded meaning.  They might be bothered for instance that

  • the “water jar” in John 4:28-29 points to the woman’s abandonment of tradition
  • the “night” in John 3:1 and 13:30 refers to more than just time of day.
  • the parenthetical naming of the servant in John 18:10 is included because it means kingdom.
  • Or that the water which flows from Jesus’ side in John 19:34 represents the Holy Spirit.

And they, of course, have reasons for their concern.  Two come to mind.

(1) Symbols seem the product of an overly imaginative author tampering with historical fact.  Like a story with too many coincidences, symbols rub at our confidence in an eyewitness report.  We expect witnesses to give fresh, trivial details of what they’ve seen and heard.  But the presence of meaningful objects point to a premeditated creativity.  Where might history end and the authors imagination begin?

(2) Symbolic interpretations appear to bypass the plain meaning of the text.  Good interpretation must be grounded in rules which cause readers of varying backgrounds to arrive at similar conclusions.  Since the “discovery” of symbols has all too often varied from one interpreter to the next, they appear to arise from an “interpreter’s” whim and not the text itself.

Bottom line: symbols hijack history and or the author’s true intent.

I think we should heed these cautions.  The way a symbolic reading is presented can indeed lead some to question the gospel’s veracity.  Likewise without proper criteria the claim of symbolism is open to abuse.  But while we should heed these cautions it doesn’t mean we must discount John’s or the Bible’s use of symbolism.  Symbols are not antithetical to history nor is the discovery of deeper meaning damned to be divorced from proper interpretive criteria.  Symbols can and often are faithful to the facts.

5

Symbolism in History

History is full of legitimate symbols.  For example, we know Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on Good Friday 1865 just five days after Palm Sunday’s official end to the Civil War.  Lincoln’s final week thus corresponds significantly to Jesus’ final week.  Jesus entered triumphantly into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and on that first Good Friday he’s executed on the cross.  But the correspondences do not end there.  Like Jesus’s life and death, which brought spiritual freedom to humanity, Lincoln’s leadership and untimely death resulted in a “new birth of freedom” for the slaves.  That authors have seen in these remarkable similarities Lincoln as a type or symbol of Christ by no means undermines their historic credibility.

Craig Koester states,

“We can discern symbolic significance in images, events, or persons without undercutting their claims to historicity, and we can recognize that certain images, events, and people are historical without diminishing their symbolic value.”

According to Xavier Leon-Dufour, Symbolism

“should be understood as putting together the surface and deeper realities rather than as evacuating the surface of the text simply to reach the deeper reality.”

Even St. Augustine saw no tension between the historical facts of John’s Gospel and the deep creativity involved in producing it.  He says John,

‘is like one who has drunk in the secret of His divinity more richly and somehow more familiarly than others, as if he drew it from the very bosom of his Lord on which it was his wont to recline when He sat at meat’

The presence of symbolism in John does not mean he was an overly imaginative author. It means he reflected deeply on the significance of the events. John can faithfully record history while highlighting its profound connections and meaning.

Interpreting Symbols

Literature, both ancient and modern, is full of real and yet implicit symbols.  We know that authors use symbols.  But we also know not everything that is claimed as symbol is truly symbolic.  So how do interpreters know which is which?

In How to Detect a Symbol, I described two ways of knowing.  First, by an initiation into the author and audiences shared knowledge and experience.   Like an inside joke, the author winks and the reader smiles while the uninitiated might simply be told, “just had to be there.”  And secondly by the author defining the meaning of symbol within the text itself.  If an author feels his audience may not readily understand his meaning, he or she will supply a definition for their audience.

In principle, people recognize the accuracy of these two criteria.  It’s the extent to which they’re used which bothers some.  Most, for instance, are not troubled by an author giving a word or an object an alternative meaning if and when they do so directly (i.e. x = 2).  It’s troubling, however, when it’s too subtle, when we can’t connect the dots. Without a carefully considered argument, the claim of symbolism can appear as perplexing as a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat.  But such tricks aren’t real magic, rather they’re a carefully crafted illusion arising from a systematic process.  It appears bewildering only because we don’t know how it works.

It takes more than an interpreter declaring, “this means X” for an object to be a symbol. To a person bypassing a careful engagement with the text we would rightly respond, “that’s just your interpretation.”  A true interpretation is a matter of carefully laying out the narrative evidence.

Authors can define symbols overtly (i.e. x = 2) but they can also do so covertly through such things as parallels in character’s speech or comparisons in narrative structure.  We need to recognize, unlike the world in which we live, there is no real division in a story between a character’s words and those of events, objects and images. All have been carefully shaped and edited by an author.  If a narrator or a character makes a meaningful comparison to an image in a figure of speech or the author invites comparison in the sandwiching of different scenes it opens up the the possibility that such object and images are used symbolically when they appear physically elsewhere within the the world of the story.

Its helpful to think of objects and images like words.  A single world, like “hand” for instance, can have a verity of definitions which only become apparent in context

  • the hired hand fixed the railing
  • his hand was illegible
  • he wanted to try his hand at singing
  • on the one hand…, but on the other…
  • I didn’t hold a good hand all evening
  • The hands read 3:25
  • give the little lady a great big hand
  • hand me the spoon, please
  • hand the elderly lady into the taxi

Such a list of uses for a single word come ready made in our culture.  But authors can also add their own uses to this list.  The same is true for the meaning of objects and images.  The metaphorical or symbolic meaning becomes one possible meaning which context alone helps us determine.   Just because Jesus calls himself the light of the world in one sermon does not mean that light is symbolic of Jesus everywhere it occurs.  But possibility becomes probability when a symbolic meaning is found to cohere in the images immediate context.  So if Jesus defines himself as the light in a specific sermon, then related images of darkness within the story can given a specific context take on an opposing significance.

Perhaps I should end with a parting example.

In John 18:36 Jesus declares,

“My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.”

There is a glaring discrepancy in Jesus’ statement.  Peter had just been fighting to stop Jesus’ arrest. He drew a sword and severed a man’s ear (18:10).

It’s interesting to note that while Matthew and Mark record this earlier incident, only John names Peter as the one who attacked the man and, in a concluding parenthetical statement, Malchus as the one whom he attacked.  Is the identification of Peter and Malchus simply the fresh, trivial detail of an eyewitness? Or does John find the significance in the fact that Malchus‘ name in Aramaic truly means kingdom?  Jesus statement about fighting and His kingdom certainly drives our attention back to this scene and causes us to look at it again with fresh eyes.  It seems to me highly likely, given Jesus later statement and its apparent connection to Peter’s fighting, that John included this historic detail, not just because it was historically true but because it symbolically revealed something significant in Peter’s actions.

In Bible, Jesus, Theology
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