The Gospel of John and the Religious Quest. Johannes Nissen
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the Gospel of John has placed a strong emphasis on the category of time. This is especially characteristic of the existential analysis by Rudolf Bultmann. The focus is on realized eschatology. It is argued that elements concerned with the future have been added by a later redactor of the Gospel. However, recent research points to a combination of both the realized and the final eschatology. Present and future elements are united in the figure of Christ.31
This emphasis on the category of time seems too strong. Inspired by social anthropology a number of scholars claim that the categories of place and space are actually of greater significance. Thus, Halvor Moxnes underlines how changes in identity are connected with removal from one place to another—and to a new experience of space. Meaning and identity are connected to place rather than time.32 According to traditional theories it is the locality that creates the person and their character: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46). The concept behind this kind of statement is that those who know the place also know the character of the person coming from it.33
These observations have relevance for the Fourth Gospel. The incarnation means that Jesus is connected to a specific place. In addition, it is interesting to note that the Gospel in fact contains several characteristics that reveal the importance of locality. The first half of the Gospel depicts Jesus moving from place to place, and there is various topographical information that presumably reflects primitive tradition. As an example we can cite the well at Sykar in John 4.
The religious significance of space is underlined by Mircea Eliade in The Sacred and the Profane, in which he analyses how “sacred space” is established in the profane world. Crucial to his thinking is the concept of hierophany. In all traditions there are examples of sacred places, centers where a primeval hierophany sanctifies undifferentiated, profane space, and ensures that sacredness will continue there: “For it is the break effected in space that allows the world to be constituted, because it reveals the fixed point, the central axis for all future orientation. The manifestation of the sacred ontologically founds the world.”34 If the world is to be lived in, it must be founded: “The discovery or projection of a fixed point—the center—is equivalent to the creation of the world.”35 The threshold is the boundary or frontier that differentiates between two opposing worlds—and at the same time the paradoxical place where those worlds communicate, where passage from the profane to the sacred world becomes possible. Sacred spaces, such as temples, constitute an opening in the upward direction.36
A threshold and a door are symbols of the transition between the profane and the divine world. In the Fourth Gospel Jesus himself is considered to be the new temple (John 2: 21), the meeting-point of eternity and time (1:51). In him divine reality is revealed to humankind, and as its center he bestows the meaning from which all other meanings derive.37
The Language of Symbols and Metaphors
While the first three gospels write and think in metaphors drawn from social and political life (kingdom, justice, servants, masters, etc.), the Gospel of John uses a “biological” language, speaking much of birth and life and growth. Thus Jesus came that we should have life, and that abundantly (10:10). In John it is all about life and the process of life.38 Various metaphors link this experience and process of life fundamentally to the story of Jesus. These metaphors are often universal, since they address all human conditions of life. We are born into the world, and one day we must leave it. We encounter forces that promote life, and forces that destroy it. At the same time the way in which these metaphors are stamped depends on a number of historical and sociological factors. By connecting these metaphors and symbols with the story of Jesus John shows that eternity may be experienced in historical time, that Jesus gives us life in its authentic meaning, and that fellowship with him gives us a share in eternal life.39
Most importantly in our context these symbols and metaphors are accessible to readers from a variety of cultural settings. They can be heard and understood by both Jews and Greeks. The Gospel is not written for insiders alone; rather it aims at a wide spectrum of readers.40 In other words, the symbols are polyvalent—although there are limits to their potential of meaning.41
The Fourth Gospel has a great variety of symbols, such as life, light, water, bread, vine, and way. However, these symbols do not carry the same weight in the Gospel. Following R. Alan Culpepper we may distinguish between core symbols and peripheral symbols. Core symbols are those whose centrality is demonstrated by their higher frequency and their appearance in more important contexts. The three core symbols of the Gospel are light, water, and bread. Each of these points to Jesus’ revelatory role and carries a heavy thematic load. To these are related several coordinate symbols, metaphors, and concepts in different passages, such as darkness, life, wine, flesh. Subordinate symbols can also be gathered around a core symbol. For example, among the subordinate symbols for light are lamps, fires, torches, lanterns, day (and night), morning, seeing, and healing the blind.42 As mentioned, these symbols convey general and universal experiences about the meaning of life, in particular the three core symbols.
The fundamental meaning of the symbol of light is demonstrated in the Prologue that “links logos, life, and light so powerfully that the cluster dominates the symbolic system of the entire narrative.”43 The Word incarnate in Jesus is the exclusive source of life to humankind (1:4). The symbolism of light is applied a number of times in the Gospel, e.g., 3:19–21. Of special importance is 8:12, where Jesus is called “the light of the world.” For a more detailed analysis of the symbol of light see chapter 7 of this book.
The symbol of water appears frequently and with the most varied associations of any of John’s symbols. We meet stories about being baptized with water, about water changed into wine, about being born by water and Spirit (rebirth), about the living water (the Samaritan woman), about the healing pool (Bethesda), about thirst, about streams of living water, about foot washing, and about water and blood coming from the side of the crucified Jesus. The use of the water symbol is so broad and varied that it may be difficult to find an overall pattern. In general, while water is a dominant motif and expanding core symbol in John, it is less unified than either light or bread. For a more detailed analysis of the symbol of water see chapter 5 of this book.
In contrast to the scattered and varied use of water, the symbol of bread is used in a more uniform way. The reason may be that in the Christian tradition bread is linked directly to the Eucharist. Attention is drawn in particular to John 6. In the “economy” of the Fourth Gospel true bread cannot be bought, it can only be given and received, cf. Philip’s remark in 6:5. Furthermore, in the terminology of the Gospel, the one who provides the bread is himself the bread (6:35). Bread has a greater interpretive role than water in defining Jesus’ identity.44 More reflections on the importance of the image of bread may be found in chapter 6 of this study.
The uniqueness of the Fourth Gospel is that Jesus is introduced as the principal symbol in the Prologue. Jesus is the Word that became flesh and lived among us. He is the divine power of creation that is made concrete in the form of a man. The incarnation may be characterized as the most sublime form of symbolization. Indeed, in a sense we may speak of a twofold symbolization: “God’s creative power is symbolized by a Word that again is symbolized by a human person in flesh