Overall background

The man-meeting-woman-at-well theme is recurring in Scripture and is a marital motif. John has already had the wedding in Cana, but more directly the Baptizer has just finished calling Jesus the Bridegroom in 3.29. Jesus is Yahweh, calling Israel and Judah back from their harlotry, and refashioning them into one Bride, as promised by the prophets.

There is intended parallel and antithesis with the Nicodemus meeting in previous chapter. Both meetings are necessary and complementary, which is perhaps why it is now that Jesus “must go through Samaria” (4.4), whereas Jews would normally bypass it by going around, through Perea.  Nicodemus stands in for the Jews (Judah) as “the teacher of Israel” (3.10) and reflects a great deal more knowledge, as “salvation is of the Jews” (4.22); the woman stands in for Samaritans (northern kingdom of Israel). Explains the contrasts: Nicodemus is knowledgeable and respectable and meets Jesus in Jerusalem, while the woman is not privy to Judah’s faith, is not particularly respectable, and meets Jesus in an otherwise unknown location (although it is not very far away from Shechem): this is the present state of Judea and Samaria, respectively. In both cases, Jesus is alone with His conversation partner: Nicodemus comes to Jesus by night, and Jesus speaks to the woman while the disciples are away buying food in the town. The times are diametrically opposite: night vs noon (sixth hour).

John 3 is the first encounter between Jesus and one of the Jewish leaders; and John 4 is the first and primary recorded encounter between Jesus and Samaritans. Thus the two passages together constitute the beginning of Jesus’ official/representative program to fulfill the reunion prophecies of e.g. Ezekiel 37 etc. He goes to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (cf Mt 10.6; 15.24), both of Judah and what is left of “Ephraim.”

Verse By Verse

4.1-3 When Jesus learned. Why does Jesus depart when the Pharisees hear He is making and baptizing more disciples than John? One answer: His time has not come, so doesn’t want conflict. Problem: elsewhere incites/invites conflict before “time has come.”

At any rate, the last mention of the Pharisees was with the introduction of Nicodemus, and it would appear from his opening that he was sent by them or at least comes to Jesus in some sort of representative capacity.

4.4 It was necessary for Him to pass through Samaria. See overall comments above. Jesus was baptizing in the Judean countryside (3.22), although we are not told how far he was from John, who was baptizing in Aenon (3.23). If Jesus was in that neighbourhood, He would have had to double back to get to Sychar. More likely, He was baptizing in the Jerusalem vicinity. That would mean Sychar was en route to Galilee, but most Jews would have bypassed Samaria altogether and gone the long way through Perea.

4.5-6 Near the field Jacob gave Joseph… well of Jacob. John’s Gospel has already been loading up on Israel (Jacob) themes, including the ladder to heaven (1.51). Especially given the backdrop of Ezekiel 36-37 in the previous chapter, we are being taught to think of this passage as establishing a program to reunite the houses of Israel and Judah, as promised in Ezek 37 (see also v 40).

4.6-7 Bridegroom meets woman at well. Marriage imagery, and not least that of Jacob himself.

Well. Still in line with the baptismal themes of ch 3 which are part of the Gospel’s walk through the temple, beginning with the laver.

Sixth hour. See below on 21.

4.9 Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. Likely a misstated translation. The term likely means that Jews and Samaritans wouldn’t share a common drawing pail, since Jews would expect Samaritans to be unclean. Only appearance of this particular word, but the root is chraomai, and with the sun- (Greek for “with”) prefix, probably means something like “make use of together.”

But Jesus’ question is sign of what He is breaking down in order to reunite Judah and Ephraim: Jew and Samaritan will “make use of together,” drinking from Himself as common source.

4.10 If you knew. Cf again 1.10: “the world did not know Him;” 1.26 “whom you do not know.”

Who it is. Cf 1.34: John saw and bore witness “Son of God.”

Contrast this lack of knowledge with what Jesus knows, esp 2.24-25.

Living water. This is the term for spring water in the law, but Jesus has another meaning here, echoing Jer 2.13: “My people have committed two evils – they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” Cf also Ezek 37.2: the bones were “very dry.”

4.18 Five husbands… man you now have. I.e. six; thus Jesus is the seventh man (insight borrowed from John Barach). Jesus is the one who gives rest. Cf Babylon the harlot in Rev 17.10: “There are also seven kings. Five have fallen, one is, and the other has not yet come. And when he comes, he must continue a short time.” This is the beast that carries the harlot; Jesus is the Son of Man (cf Daniel 7.13‘s son of man in contrast to the beasts in surrounding text). Jordan: harlot in Rev 17 drinks saints’ blood; here, Jesus has food to eat that no one knows, and offers the woman water. Cf also Jer 3.1: Israel is a harlot with many lovers.

No husband. Cf Isaiah’s Beulah theme. Israel has played the whore with many and has become desolate, yet Yahweh will find delight in her and call her land Beulah (married) (Is 62.4). Although that was with reference to Jerusalem, Ezk 37 promises the rejoining of Judah and Israel, and therefore the same promise applies. This woman thus stands in for the land and its restoration.

Jesus again reveals here what is said in 2.24: He knows all people, so that He can tell the woman whatever she has done (4.39). Although her instinct is to dissemble, He uncovers her situation. He does not speak to her because He thinks she is innocent; He speaks to her because He is the recoverer of the lost sheep of Israel’s house.

We are not told why the woman had five husbands. It is unlikely that she has been widowed five times, and “her men” are probably at least among the targets of her speech in 4.28. Men were more likely to initiate divorce than women (if for no other reason than that a woman had little hope of sustenance if unprovided for). Likely, she has been divorced, perhaps for adultery or perhaps for minor offenses or because her ex-husbands found someone younger/more attractive; we are not told. At any rate, the one she now has is not her husband, so at present at least there is sexual immorality involved.

Both the representative and individual elements are present here. Her plight is real and personal, and yet there is no denying the representative character of the encounter. Just as a man (i.e. each person) must be “born again” in Jn 3, so this woman too, for herself, needs the revivification promised in Ezek 37. There is no conflict or tension between the individual and the corporate.

4.21 Hour is coming. Says this at sixth hour, thus speaks of “seventh” (Barach).

Neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. Not denying that God will be worshipped in these places, but there will no longer be one central worship center at the exclusion of the other. God is doing a new thing which will reunite Judah and Ephraim (as well, ultimately, as Gentiles).

4.22 You worship what you do not know… salvation is of the Jews. I.e. because they maintained at least the form of true temple worship and retained the Scriptures.

4.23 True worshipers will worship the Father in Spirit and Truth. Just as temple worship was with Spirit-signifying music and word (Jordan), so that worship finds fulfillment in this “new hour.” Carries forward the Spirit theme of chapters 1, 3, and introduces Jesus as Truth (cf 14.6: “I Am, the way, the truth, and the life”). Statement is divine-personal rather than about an abstract attitude: Those who worship the Father must worship in the eschatological Spirit, and in Christ.

4.27 I Am, the one speaking to you. Both an affirmation of her mention of Messiah, and an “I Am” statement. Jesus’ self-identification.

4.28 Left her water jar and went into the city and told the men. Cf Gen 29.12: when Jacob tells Rachel who he is (4.27 here!), she runs and tells her father. “Jacob” has told the woman who He is (and cf 4.12: she identifies Jacob as her father).  Thus the character situations are reversed from Genesis: in Genesis, Jacob the soon-to-be husband reveals himself to Rachel and she tells her father; here, the true Jacob is the father, and the woman runs to tell her husbands (“the men,” note the article).

4.30 They went out from the city and came to Him. Cf 3.26: Jesus is baptizing and “all are going to Him.”

4.35 Harvest. Cf the backdrop of the land’s barrenness in the prophets. Jesus is making things fruitful again, as promised. Cf Jer 2.3: “Israel was holy to the Lord, the firstfruits of His harvest.” The desolation returned (the wilderness was “a land not sown,” Jer 2.1), but now the harvest has returned.

4.40 Stayed there two days. Cf Gen 29.14: Jacob stayed with Laban.

4.43 Departed for Galilee. After staying in Samaria, returns home. Cf Gen 30: after staying with Rachel’s family twenty years (Gen 31.38), Jacob returns home; after staying with the woman’s “family” two days, the Greater Jacob returns home.

4.44 No honour in hometown. Ironic contrast: Jacob returns home and receives honour from Esau (!), while Jesus receives none from His fellow sons of Jacob. But on this occasion, the Galileans welcome Him, having observed His signs at the feast in Jerusalem (4.45).

We read of Nicodemus coming to Jesus and saying things that seem pretty promising… until we notice that this is recorded immediately after the note about Jesus not entrusting Himself to those who believed in His name, because He knew all men, and what was in men (2.24-25). So while I think there is good indication that Nicodemus ultimately took the full step of faith into the new covenant kingdom, we have some context here for understanding why Jesus responds the way He does.

Jesus’ response to Nicodemus’s acknowledgment that He has come from God is that unless one is born again/from above, he cannot so much as see the kingdom of God. That’s a bit of a backhanded way of saying that Nicodemus knows less than he thinks he does.

The arguments have gone on and on about whether Jesus intends to say one must be born from above, or born again. The argument is moot; John probably means both (of all biblical writers, he is probably the most intentionally ambiguous, and here the two meanings complement rather than conflict with one another).

Born again is how Nicodemus seems to take the words (hence the question of returning to the womb), and Jesus makes no attempt to correct him.

On the other hand, from above is the most obvious understanding from the literary context of John (which of course Nicodemus was not privy to), where Jesus’ origin is stressed, as is the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Him for His public ministry.

I’ve mentioned the salvation-historical backdrop before, and here’s a major place it gets ignored. Evangelicals routinely take this passage as referring to the necessity of a “conversion experience.”

But the problem again, is that as we read on, that isn’t quite what is happening in the chapter. To use our framework, Jesus means that all Israel, including on-the-way-to-heaven-believers, needed this rebirth. So there is more going on.

In the ensuing, Jesus says that one must be born of water and Spirit (3.5) and uses the plural in His general statement, “You [y'all] must be born again/from above” (3.7).

Why is Jesus talking about water and Spirit? If we’ve been paying attention, this Gospel has been talking about this pairing from the start. John baptizes with water for repentance a la the purification rites of the law, but Jesus does more: He baptizes with the eschatological Spirit (i.e. the promised gift for “the last days”). When we get to the end of Matthew’s Gospel, we find that Christian baptism is into [eis] the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – something that John’s baptism could never be. That Great Commission is thus answering to John’s promise, and reaches its fulfillment in Peter’s Pentecost sermon: on the day of the rather visible gifts of Acts 2, Peter assures his hearers that the thing to do is to be baptized with water, and they will receive the same gift of the Spirit (Acts 2.38). (He doesn’t promise they will receive the same gift of tongues-speaking, which is not universal, 1 Cor 12.30 in context; but the gift of the Spirit is the universal new covenant gift.)

Thus whatever else can be said, John 3 is not about poor Nicodemus’s lack of an invisible experience. Certainly, it is divine action that must lead him to the place he needs to go, and without that action, he cannot really see the kingdom for what it is – but the place he needs to go is not in secret, which is why Jesus says here that He hasn’t been talking about heavenly things (3.12)!

In 3.6, Jesus says that what is born of the flesh is flesh. That is by itself a neutral statement that Paul echoes in 1 Corinthians 15. It takes the man from heaven to transcend the earth-man, which Adam was even apart from sin. But now, since Jesus is the one who baptizes with the Spirit, there is a new birth, a birth from above, from where the Spirit has come.

Then Jesus says something that we almost always cross the wires on: He says that the “wind” (pneuma = same word for Spirit) blows where it wishes and though its sound is heard, “you do not know whence it comes or where it goes” (3.8).

This statement is almost always referred to the mysterious work of regeneration: you can’t see how the Spirit changes an individual’s heart, and yet He does.

But that again is not at all what Jesus says; He says: “So is everyone who is born of the Spirit” (3.8b). In other words, just as the Spirit/wind is mysterious in its origin and destiny, so too are those who have been given life by the Spirit. They are inscrutable to others. The point is therefore not about how mysterious regeneration itself is (although that’s true enough in certain respects); the point is that those who are merely flesh, still in the darkness of the old creation, cannot see the kingdom of God and therefore cannot genuinely understand the kingdom’s members.

When Nicodemus still sounds lost (3.9), Jesus chides him: you’re a teacher of Israel, and you do not understand these things?

The rebuke is not because Nicodemus ought to have his systematic theology sufficiently straight to have developed a dogma of conversion. The rebuke is because the teachers of Israel were entrusted with the Scriptures concerning the Messiah and His kingdom (cf Rom 3.2 in connection with Rom 1.2-3), and what Jesus is expounding is fundamental to the new covenant prophecies.

In particular, we should look at Ezekiel 36.25-27, where the water and Spirit are promised together as well: “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you; and I will give you a new heart, and a new Spirit I will put within you…. I will put my Spirit within you….”

And without coincidence, Ezekiel goes on to speak a few verses later of the valley of dry bones (Ezek 37): Israel is dead and therefore in need of resurrection (and what is that but a rebirth?), which occurs when “the son of man” (!) prophesies over the bones, and prophesies to the “breath” (= Spirit), so that Israel could live.

This then is why I mentioned the plural in 3.7: Israel (not just isolated individuals) must be born again, revived according to the prophecy of Ezekiel, and this must occur through the instrumentality of “the Son of Man.” Yes, it is individual men who come into the kingdom, but that is like saying it is individual bones that got stuck back together into whole bodies in Ezek 37. We are talking about the revivification of Israel and the kosmos, not the rescue of atomized “souls.”

As a teacher of Israel, Nicodemus should have known this much, at least, even though, as a blind man still in the darkness, he really could not know what it would look like. But even this much he is astonished by.

The earlier reading of 3.8 above is confirmed in 3.11. “We bear witness.” Who is “we” here? Jesus, certainly. John? well, John does bear witness, but most likely, Jesus is referring to those who have already had the foretaste of being born of the Spirit, although that will come in its fullness only at Pentecost. But even now, they have begun to see the outlines of the kingdom, which is more than can be said of Nicodemus at this point.

In 3.13-14, the accent falls heavily on “the Son of Man.” This resonates well with the echoes of Ezekiel 36 we noted above; in Ezekiel 37, the prophet becomes the “son of man” who speaks to the bones and prophesies to the wind/breath/Spirit. Here, however, we discover that Jesus is not only fulfilling Ezekiel’s prophetic role; He has “descended” (cf again the born from above theme) in order to ascend again – but in this case, to be lifted up on a cross, as the serpent in the wilderness was also lifted up on a tree.

There is an antithetical sort of typology between Jesus and the serpent. Israel looks up to the serpent which symbolized what was killing them, but here Israel itself is hung on the tree in the form of its Messiah, and thus the One who is life dies so that Israel may live.

Just as Ezekiel prophesied to Israel, and the bones came together, but initially there was no breath, so Jesus’ pre-crucifixion ministry is one of reconciliation (bringing bones and sinews together) but is not by itself sufficient. It is only when He takes Israel’s death upon Himself that He can then take Ezekiel’s next step and “prophesy to the Spirit” on Pentecost and send breath (pneuma) into the reconstituted body He has begun to construct.

This mission, in the familiar words of Jn 3.16, is borne out of the love of God, who sent His only Son to die Israel’s death. Thus those who believe in Him will not stay in their death (cf Ezek 37) and ultimately perish, but find eternal life – the life of “the age to come.” The alternative is condemnation, which was already quite normal in the kosmos, and therefore not the Son’s purpose.

Yet the judgment is already arriving, in that only some, even among “His own” (cf 1.11), receive Him (1.19). And here we see the relationship between sin and darkness: While darkness was the general state of things for all, when the Jesus the Light comes, those who are wicked hide from the Light because their deeds are evil and don’t like the exposure that daylight provides, while believers like Nathaniel and Philip come to the light, because their deeds are already deeds worked “in God” (3.21).

In confirmation that Jesus is speaking of baptism when He speaks of water in 3.5, the chapter immediately transitions to baptismal activity (3.22ff): It is now that Jesus and His disciples take up the task of baptism; the transition from John has begun in earnest, and will culminate on Pentecost.

It is to this which John gladly acquiesces when he hears protests about Jesus from his own disciples. He essentially says: “Look, this is what I always told you. I’m not the Messiah; I came to get Him out in the open, which was not drudgery but a special gift – and now He’s ‘the Man.’ He is the Bridegroom of Israel; how can I be offended when He has come for His Bride? From now on, I recede, and His Messianic glory grows.” (See Jn 3.27-30.)

Backing up, the complaint is that instead of coming to John, “all are coming to Him” (3.26). That again should be seen in reference to 3.21: those whose deeds are worked in God are coming to the Light.

Wedding themes are going to recur in John, so we need to be ready for it. The wedding scene in chapter 2 is not merely coincidental; John the Baptizer will speak of Jesus as the Bridegroom in 3.29, and there are also marital themes in chapter 4 that shouldn’t be missed.

The event in Cana is not just a sign in the sense of “miracle” – the Bible doesn’t generally use “sign” terminology that way, and many other miracles occurred in e.g. Elisha’s ministry without getting that label. In fact, Jesus’ temple action is also a “sign,” and it involves no recorded miracle at all.

Keeping that in mind will help us see the full import of the event. Yes, it is a miracle: that was really water at the start, and wine at the end. But the fact that the event is a sign helps us to see things that give such a miracle its context. The water is not just any water; it is water prescribed by Torah (the Mosaic law) for purification (2.6).

This stands in a relationship with the baptismal themes of chapter 1. John comes baptizing with water, and despite how some folks misinterpret things, his baptism was effectual. The water-Spirit contrast he draws between his own ministry and that of Jesus is not ineffectual vs. effectual; it is a contrast between mere remission (which was also available via the old covenant rites which included baptism) and the eschatological gift of the Spirit who is embodied in Jesus and clothes Him for kingdom ministry at His own baptism.

John, according to Jesus, was the culmination of the law and the prophets; he stood at the doorway to the kingdom, and thus the least in the kingdom is greater than he (Mt 11.11). Thus although his baptism faces forward, it is essentially an old covenant baptism, akin to the purification rites of Torah, albeit on a more national scale and less “occasional” in its intent.

And so the transformation of the purification water into wine is not merely an amazing miracle – it is of course that. But it is also a sign – an embodied symbolic demonstration – of the character of what Jesus is doing. He is bringing a new creation out of the old. Torah must die and be resurrected in Him; and even John’s ministry must experience the same (which is why the latter says that he must decrease while Jesus increases, 3.30).

Water is a staple, but wine is greater; it is glorified water. So we learn from John 2.1-11 that Jesus is manifesting His glory – a glory that He is bringing to the kosmos, a glory which Torah could not give.

The temple cleansing is not just the action of an angry reformer. It too is a sign -  of the coming of Yahweh to purify the sons of Levi as promised in Malachi 3. On the heels of the messenger (John), “the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to His temple,” and His arrival will be difficult to endure: He is like a refiner’s fire and fuller’s soap (Malachi 3.1-4). Jesus objects that the Father’s house is not to be made into an emporium (cf 2 Cor 2.17). Doubtless themes from Malachi could be drawn in here too (e.g. Mal 1).

The closing of the chapter (Jn 2.23-25) highlights the contrast between the Word who was made flesh, and those who were but flesh: while they are repeatedly described as unseeing and unknowing, He “knew all men” and “what was in man.” So the paradox (later evident also in chapter 8): although many believed when they saw such signs, He did not “believe in them” – i.e. did not entrust Himself to them (ouk episteuen). They were but flesh, and His kingdom is a new creation.

One of the first things that we need to unlearn is the unfortunate assumption that what is going on in John is all about our systematic theological category of “regeneration.” Although the Gospel’s themes are related to that, that approach dehistoricizes the events of the Gospel and robs us of much of the richness of the biblical backdrop.

We’re probably all familiar with the echo of Genesis 1 that we find in John 1.1, so I won’t dwell on it here much. The Greek form behind our translation “the Word was God” is anarthrous (no article) and thus stresses the character of the Word – what He is, if you will. The articular form is a title and generally only used of the Father, and therefore, we don’t expect it. Thus the intention of John 1.1 is essentially to state that the Word is God, just as “the God” (the Father) is God, and the Word is the Word God spoke in creation and was mutual party in the conversations of Genesis 1 (e.g. where we read, “And God said, ‘Let us…‘”).

The themes of light and darkness begin right away and stand behind the complementary themes of seeing and knowing which permeate John’s Gospel. In the darkness, one cannot see and thus cannot know.

Contrary to common assumption, darkness here is not simply a systematic category equal to sin, any more than the original darkness of Genesis 1 was evil. God glorified the kosmos by bringing light in Genesis 1; and that is what happens when the Light comes into the world in person in John 1. (Lord willing, we’ll talk more about the relationship between darkness and sin when we get to chapter 3.)

We can illustrate this by carefully following how the terminology actually functions in John. For example, we read in 1.10 that the kosmos was made through Him, and yet the kosmos did not know Him. That sounds rather damning, except that John the Baptizer will confess later in the chapter (1.31, 33) that he himself did not know Him. (Which raises the interesting point that although John was Jesus’ cousin, and their respective mothers had shared one another’s joy, there was no relocation: John remained down in Judea while Jesus was raised in Galilee and they did not know one another.) The key, of course, is that the One who sent John (God the Father) had sent him baptizing (in part) “for this purpose”: so that the Son would be revealed to Israel (1.31).

Avoiding that knowledge would thus be sinful, but the initial state of ignorance/sightlessness is not only not intrinsically sinful, but actually unsurprising. It is only in the Light that knowledge arises, and, for the sight of which John speaks to come into the world, He must be revealed.

This in turn informs our reading of 1.11ff. It is customary to take 1.12-13 to mean that those who received Jesus thus became regenerate-in-a-systematic-sense. But that is problematic, because without the Spirit’s regenerating work, these people would not have received Him to begin with, and we would be in a vicious circle.

But more importantly in terms of the context, the people being spoken of were not unbelievers: Nathaniel, according to Jesus, was “an Israelite with no deceit,” for example, and we have every reason to think of Simon and Andrew and Philip as already believers, as well.

Thus the sonship to God mentioned in John 1, and the birth to God, must be understood in a more salvation-historical sense. Just as prior to the creation of light in Genesis 1, the (good) world was all in darkness, so prior to Christ’s coming as the incarnate Light, so too even believers in the world were in relative darkness. Their prospective hope in the kingdom of God was the hope of a man born blind looking forward to the prospect of seeing: he cannot know what that seeing will be like; he has, after all, never seen it.

Now for a few more scattered thoughts on John 1:

• John declares that he is not worthy to even become a servant to Jesus in loosing the sandals from His feet (1.27), but in chapter 13, Jesus becomes the lowest of servants and washes the feet of His own disciples. This says a lot about the ministries of John and Jesus; it also says something about how the kingdom elevates the disciples.
• In 1.29 and again later, John calls Jesus “the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” This is clearly a Passover allusion, but its scope has been broadened: Passover was strictly for the circumcised nation.
• “Come, and see” gets an almost playful treatment. In 1.38-39, John’s two disciples ask Jesus where He is “staying” (and I think we’re intended to think back to John’s aside in 1.14 that the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us), and His response (later echoed by Philip – like Master, like disciple) is “Come, and see.” Given the themes of seeing/not-seeing, we are surely to understand that by coming and living with the light, they will, for the first time, be able to see.
• Among other Jacob/Israel themes in John’s Gospel, Jesus’ statement to Nathaniel in 1.51 implies that He is the ladder Jacob witnessed in his vision of the angels ascending and descending to and from heaven.

Now, a couple of intriguing things with names.

We are introduced to John the Baptizer early in the Gospel. We learn from Luke’s Gospel that this name was chosen for Him by God Himself (Lk 1.13). Why?

The Greek name Iwannhs, translated John by English-speaking people, seems to be from the old Hebrew name we usually translate Jonah. (Hence some translations identify Peter as “Simon the son of John” in 1.42, while others translate, “Simon the son of Jonah.”

I don’t think that is insignificant. Especially not given what we know of the two. Jonah too was sent preaching repentance with the prospect of destruction (40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown), while John preaches repentance, announcing that even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees, and those which do not bear good fruit will be thrown into the fire (Mt 3.10).

But there is also the interesting baptismal element. Jonah himself is baptized unto repentance in the Mediterranean, and it’s sufficiently effectual to get him to go preach as he was commanded. John is the greater Jonah, who starts the task of baptizing the kosmos in preparation for the Great Judge who has arrived.

The renaming of Peter is also significant. It is the beginning of Jesus’ process whereby he takes this man from being a Simeon (= Simon; see Acts 15.14) and transforming him into what He wants. (And here is the Jacob/Israel theme popping up again.)

In Genesis, Simeon and Levi are the hotheads. They are the ones who take up the sword and avenge Dinah by slaughtering the men of Shechem (Gen 34), despite a covenant that had been made between Jacob’s family and Shechem (Gen 34.8ff). Jacob objected to their violence (Gen 34.30), and it even informed his final benedictions for them, to the degree that he pronounced scattering upon them (Gen 49.5-7). (This came true: Simeon was reduced in numbers in the wilderness and ultimately was assimilated into Judah; Levi, of course was scattered throughout Israel for “religious service.”)

Simeon became emblematic of Israel’s wilderness sins when, during the idolatrous whoredom with Baal of Peor, a man of Simeon brought a Midianite woman into his tent in the sight of all Israel. In this case, it was Levi’s violent sword that saved the day, as Phinehas plunged a spear through both the Simeonite and the woman, apparently while they were copulating (Num 25.7-8). That decisive act stopped the plague which the Lord had begun pouring out and later was rewarded with the acknowledgement that this act was counted to Phinehas as righteousness (Ps 106.30-31).

In the Gospels, this “Simeon”-Levi confrontation is reversed: Levi sends messengers to arrest Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, and  Simeon stands up to smite with the sword (Jn 18.10). But that is not Peter’s identity anymore, so Jesus tells him and the rest to put up their swords.

(Interestingly, if my quick look is correct, it is only John who identifies the swordsman as Peter – and it is also in John that we have the account of his renaming from Simon to Peter.)

So why the nameshift? Jesus doesn’t want a Simeon (come to think of it, Levi also seems to get a name change to Matthew, if memory serves). The kingdom of God which He brings comes with new light, and it creates new men. That’s why He says to Pilate that because His kingdom is not sourced in this kosmos, His servants do not fight to keep Him from being tried and executed (Jn 18.36).

So instead of a Simeon, what does Jesus want? He wants a Cephas/Peter. The arguments with Rome come up here, and frequently the polemics flood out what we need to learn. The apostles (not just Peter) were ultimately to be the foundation of the Church (the kingdom community), Eph 2.20. Jesus Himself is the cornerstone who holds everything together. As the initial leader, Simon gets named for that. Instead of being impetuous and tempestuous, violent Simeon, he must become stable.

This again is part of a larger eschatological picture. In Daniel 7, the kingdom which overthrows and supplants the great world-kingdoms starts as a stone cut out without hands and grows into a mountain that fills the whole earth. That stone is Christ, and Peter becomes symbolic of the growth of “the rock,” and not surprisingly it is Peter himself who takes up the theme in his own epistle and calls all believers “living stones” (1 Pet 2.5).

I’m sure there’s more that could be said regarding Peter’s name change, but that’s a start.

I had always naturally assumed this verse was speaking of fullness of joy in a quantitative sense (full joy, lots of joy), but in considering the passage and its parallels, I’m led in a different direction.

The term full is the Greek plerow, frequently translated “fulfill.” Meanwhile, the context in John 15 is about the benefits of remaining in Christ, the vine, versus failing to remain in Him, and thus being unfruitful, and cast out as branches and burned.

There is a striking correspondence to all of this in the parable of the soils; in Matthew 13.20-21, Jesus says that when the Word falls on stony soil, the hearer responds with joy, but after enduring only for a while (proskairos, temporary – the opposite of remaining), he falls away in the face of tribulation or persecution.

I suggest therefore, that what Jesus is saying is that He has spoken this word of admonition, so that the disciples would indeed remain in Him, and that thus their joy would not merely be temporary, but that it would find its “full fulfillment” in bearing ultimate fruit that remains (Jn 15.16). In other words, the “fullness” of joy is not so much quantitative as telic: that is, that it reaches its proper goal of permanence.

It is a commonplace that the “feed my lambs” scene in John 21 constitutes a restoration of Peter, corresponding to his denial. Peter, of course, denies three times, and analogously, Jesus asks him three times, “do you love me?” Thus Jesus prompts three affirmations over against the three denials.

Tonight’s closing Bible study in A House for My Name brought further parallels to light. Peter Leithart draws attention to the “fire of coals” that provides the setting for both scenes: Peter is warming himself by a fire of coals when he makes his denial of Jesus (Jn 18.18), and Jesus has prepared a fire of coals for the restoration meeting (Jn 21.9).

But one other correspondence struck me. Peter denied Jesus because he was afraid of death. If he admits to being Jesus’ disciple, will he too be tried and executed? So what is the first thing Jesus says to Peter upon his reconfirmation? He tells him that he will die for Him (21.18-19). Thus the cycle is complete. Despite Peter’s cowardice and denial, he will faithfully reach the martyrdom he so feared.

I’ve talked about this before (albeit some time ago), but this week I have occasion to preach a sermon on part of this chapter (3.14-21 is the Gospel for the Lenten readings), so I’ll offer a few scattered reflections.

When Jesus announces rebirth/birth from above by the Spirit, He is – surprisingly enough – announcing what He calls “earthly things” (3.12). Yet these “earthly things” are themselves a mystery even to Nicodemus, who is (shall we say) sympathetic. Why? Because he is not yet born from above, and therefore cannot even see the kingdom of God (3.3).

I’ve waffled back and forth over whether “see” there is simply synonymous to “enter” in 3.5, but I think it is more basic than that. John, after all, frequently comments on the matters of sight and blindness; similarly, Jesus as “the Light” is a major theme, including in this very discourse (vv 19ff). Those not born from above cannot so much as recognize the kingdom (cf 1 Cor 2.14).

I’ve earlier commented on the fact that being “born by water and the Spirit” refers to water baptism (with a first referent to John) and Pentecost. It is by these means that the kingdom has come, and it seems unforeseen and unintelligible, even to Nicodemus.

But this is no surprise: that born from the flesh is flesh; that born from the Spirit is s/Spirit (3.6). This is a redemptive-historical, and not simply an individual, statement. The best of the saints living at Christ’s arrival were “flesh”; the opportunity had not yet come to be “born from above.”

It is my opinion that verse 8 is one of the most radically misunderstood verses in the passage. It is usually read along these lines: “The wind blows and you can’t see its origin or its destiny, and the Spirit is the same way.” But that is not what Jesus says. There is no comparative in the verse (“just as… even so”), and neither is it likely that the wind is referenced at all. At most, it is a resonance (something akin to Ezekiel 37, where Spirit, breath and wind are interchangeable. (In Greek, pneuma refers to all three: Spirit, breath, and wind.) Moreover, 8b is not strictly about the Spirit, but about the one born from the Spirit.

Again, Jesus has already just been talking about the Spirit (3.6: “That which has been born from the flesh is flesh, and that which has been born from the Spirit is spirit”). Verse 8 can be literally rendered, “The Spirit ‘spirits’/blows where He wills, and His sound you hear, but you do not know whence He comes and where He goes: thus is everyone who has been born from the Spirit.” Verse 8 is not a comparison, but an explanation: this is how the Spirit acts, and thus this is how those born from the Spirit have their existence.

The inexplicability of the birth into the kingdom stands in contrast to those born from the flesh. The members of the kingdom will not, as it turns out, simply be all the members of Israel head for head. The kingdom arrives and doesn’t simply incorporate the whole nation. Instead, the Spirit chooses whom He will, and brings them to baptism, and ultimately, to Pentecost.

Thus far, Jesus says He has been speaking of “earthly things” (3.12), as we noted. But now He speaks of heavenly: the Son of Man who ascends and descends with reference to heaven (3.13). Thus even more mysterious than the unpredictability of the Spirit’s kingdom work is Jesus’ own identity. But if this is a reference to the eternal existence of the Son of Man (as the language of descent would seem to imply), it also seems to be bound up with one strange form of ascent, as Jesus commences to speak of the Son of Man being “lifted up” (on the cross), with the result of giving eternal life to those who believe in Him (3.14-5).

3.16 is, of course, the most well-known verse in the Bible. God thus loved “the world,” that He gave His only-begotten Son, so that every one who believes in Him should not be destroyed but have eternal life. John has a very strong “world” (kosmos) theme, and it begins already in 1.9-10: “That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him” (there’s our “unseeing” theme again!).

Incidentally – is v 9 speaking of Jesus giving light to “every man who comes into the world,” or is it referring to the light coming into the world, giving light to every man? [The Greek nominative neuter participle - from "light" - is the same in form as the masculine accusative - which would correspond to "every man."] The latter, I suggest, is the point; since it is Jesus who is spoken of throughout John as “coming into the world.” This is cinched by our passage in 3.19: “And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”

John’s use of “world” seems self-contradictory to us. For example, the world is something that was made through the Word (1.10) and which is the object of God’s love (3.16), and Jesus gives His life for the life of the world (6.51) – and yet elsewhere it is the world that hates Jesus and His disciples (7.7; 15.18-9; 16.20), cannot receive the Spirit (14.17), and is about to be judged (12.31). Are these simply two radically different ways of using the same term?

I think the answer is yes and no. Keep in mind that kosmos is an order-word (I’ll explain a bit in a moment). We must hold together at least three things here: 1) the creation of the kosmos; 2) the fallenness of the kosmos as it now is; 3) the concept of two ages. In John’s usage, it seems to me that kosmos refers to the ordered reality of the first age, including its people. This ordered reality is thus corrupt and corruptible (i.e. subject to weakness and death), sinful – and also comprised of the very people Jesus came to save. Thus the negative and positive uses of the term are not entirely antithetical but complementary within a global concept of two ages, two orders.

(There is considerable overlap here with the term flesh in Paul – and to some degree, in John as well, as here in 3.6. Even Paul can use the flesh-terminology in a positive sense corresponding to John’s world-language: Christ is of the seed of David “according to the flesh,” for instance [Rom 1.3].)

Jesus comes simultaneously to judge and to save the world – and this is so, quite apart from the issue of condemnation. (Actually, Jesus says He does not come to “judge” the world in that sense – 3.17; 12.47 – although such condemnation is a by-product of His arrival: those who do not believe are indeed condemned: 3.18-19.) This is because Jesus is the bringer of the kingdom – that is, a new order of things, a new age. For “the world” to be saved, it needs to meet its “judgment” in the cross (12.31). As the same verse notes, this “judgment” upon the world involves the “casting out” of the “ruler of this world.” In other words, the Satan can only have power to rule in the kosmos, not the kingdom. So the judgment of the world in Christ’s flesh (and I use that term in its fullest sense) amounts to the defeat of Satan: “the world” that believes in Christ passes from being kosmos and thus out of Satan’s dominion.

Anyway, we have now wandered a bit astray from John 3. Returning there, with regard to the earlier concept of “not seeing”: the point is that those who have not yet been born of the Spirit remain fully within the kosmos. As such, because they are fully in the first age, they cannot “see” the kingdom.

(Jesus will later tell His disciples that they are “not of the world” [e.g. 15.19], even though He has not yet died, nor has the Spirit come. That may seem a bit of an anomaly, but not really, since Jesus is present, and He also distinguishes between how the Spirit is present with the disciples, but will be in them [14.17]. Perhaps we might say that those who believe upon Christ prior to His death, resurrection, and Pentecost, have been given authority to become the sons of God, but have not yet entered fully into that sonship; cf 1.12.)

With regard to 3.16, however, we see God’s love for the world. He sends His Son to judge the world in His own self-giving death, which will in fact be life for the world. The judgment upon the world will be a sort of destruction (in Christ), but that will be the necessary abolition which provides the possibility of resurrection. Thus the only-begotten Son finds the “destruction” that those who believe in Him may not. (In 3.16, we usually translate the word perish, but less arcane language, it means destruction. Sometimes, abandoning an archaic term will help us hear something afresh.)

So, as John the Baptizer preached, the coming of the Son of Man into the world is judgment (“the axe is laid to the root of the trees” etc). And yet that judgment will not entail destruction for those who believe in the Son of Man. That is the good news of the kingdom, a kingdom which is entered by water and by the Spirit.

Well, that is enough for tonight. Perhaps there will be more to come; we’ll see.