Distinctive Character of the Fourth Gospel
The Category of Space and the Formation of Images
Reading John’s Gospel is like looking at a Chinese print.30 In the foreground we see an everyday scene drawn very realistically—a water-carrier crossing a bridge or a sage meditating under a tree. Similarly, John paints only a few scenes from Jesus’ life, drawing them out with many realistic details so that they often fill a whole chapter: for instance, the night conversation with Nicodemus or the meeting with the Samaritan woman at the well. Behind this foreground Chinese prints usually show a landscape with trees, mountains, a lake or other natural scenery, but through a haze as it were. Often a third dimension can be discerned, a horizon vaguely visible where heaven and earth meet. It is just so with John’s Gospel. There are deeper levels of meaning within and behind the scenes and sayings from Jesus’ life which he reports.
John’s Gospel invites prayer and meditation rather than intellectual analysis. It is a vision of Jesus rather than a story or explanation of him. When the Greeks approached a disciple they did not ask, “Sir, tell us about Jesus and explain him to us.” According to John’s testimony they said: “Sir, we wish to see Jesus” (12:21). As with a Chinese print, John’s Gospel invites us to “see” Jesus.
Traditional research in 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
