Bully's Blog

Joe Rigney writes,

While Jesus clearly did many signs throughout his ministry (2:23; 6:2; 20:30), most scholars agree that there are seven signs that are emphasized in the Gospel of John, but only six are universally identified.

1) Water into wine (2:1-11)
2) Healing the official’s son (4:46-54)
3) Healing the paralytic (5:1-18)
4) Feeding the 5,000 (6:5-14)
5) Healing the man born blind (9:1-7)
6) Raising of Lazarus (11:1-45)

When it comes to the seventh sign, some scholars suggest that walking on water [1] is the seventh sign:

Option 1

1) Water into wine (2:1-11)
2) Healing the official’s son (4:46-54)
3) Healing the paralytic (5:1-18)
4) Feeding the 5,000 (6:5-14)
5) Walking on the water (6:16-24)
6) Healing the man born blind (9:1-7)
7) Raising of Lazarus (11:1-45)

Others suggest that the cleansing of the temple [2] is the seventh sign:

Option 2

1) Water into wine (2:1-11)
2) Cleansing of the temple (2:12-22)
3) Healing the official’s son (4:46-54)
4) Healing the paralytic (5:1-18)
5) Feeding the 5,000 (6:5-14)
6) Healing the man born blind (9:1-7)
7) Raising of Lazarus (11:1-45)

Both of these options founder on the same fact: neither possesses the characteristics of the remaining undisputed signs:

Signs are 1) public, supernatural acts 2) performed by Jesus himself that 3) show the glory of Jesus to the disciples (2:11) and crowds (6:2; 12:18), 4) are designed to bring about faith in Jesus as the Son of God (2:11; 4:48; 6:14; 7:31; 20:31) or 5) to harden the unbelieving (12:37-43), 6) are explicitly identified as signs within the gospel, 7) confirm his identity as the one sent by God (2:23; 3:2), and 8 ) emphasize that Jesus brings life to the world through physical signification. [3]

Walking on water was not performed before crowds, is not identified as a sign, and does not demonstrate that Jesus brings life to the world through physical signification. Cleansing the temple is not a supernatural act, is not identified as a sign (though it does provoke a request for a sign), and does not demonstrate that Jesus brings life to the world through physical signification.

What then are the remaining options for the seventh sign? The two most likely options are either the cross or the resurrection. Because both options lend themselves to a chiastic analysis, I’ve displayed both options as a chiasm:

Option 3: The Cross

A Turning water into wine (2:1-11)

B Healing the official’s son who is near death (4:46-54)

C Healing the paralytic who sat near the pool at Bethesda on a Sabbath (5:1-18)

D Feeding the 5,000 with bread (6:5-14)

C’ Healing the man born blind in the pool of Siloam on a Sabbath (9:1-7)

B’ Raising Lazarus from the dead (11:1-45)

A’ The Crucifixion of Jesus (18:16-30)

A The Resurrection of Jesus: the beginning of a new creation (cf. John 1:1, 20:1, 19)

Option 4: The Resurrection

A Turning water into wine (2:1-11)

B Healing the official’s son who is near death (4:46-54)

C Healing the paralytic who sat near the pool at Bethesda on a Sabbath (5:1-18)

D Feeding the 5,000 with bread (6:5-14)

C’ Healing the man born blind in the pool of Siloam on a Sabbath (9:1-7)

B’ Raising Lazarus from the dead (11:1-45)

A’ The Resurrection of Jesus (20)

The strength of these chiasms is as follows:

1) B and B’ both have to do with life and death: the official’s son is about to die and Lazarus dies as a result of Jesus’ intentional delay. Jesus tells the official that “your son will live” (4:53) and then raises Lazarus from the dead. In both cases, it is Jesus’ word that is efficacious in producing life.

2) C and C’ both revolve around the healing of a disability on a Sabbath (5:9, 9:14) with reference to a pool of water. The paralytic is lying near the Pool of Bethesda and Jesus tells the blind man to wash in the pool of Siloam.

The strength of Option 3 is primarily the connection between A, D, and A’: Wine, Bread, and Cross. Such a structure emphasizes the strong sacramental theology of John’s gospel. Additionally, given that John’s gospel is introduced as a new Genesis (“In the beginning…” John 1:1), it is significant that John 20 emphasizes that Jesus was raised “on the first day of the week” (20:1, 19). Thus, the resurrection is not the seventh sign of the old creation, but the first sign of the new creation. The chief weakness of this proposal is that the cross is not identified as a sign within the gospel nor is it a supernatural act like the remaining signs.

The strength of Option 4 is that the resurrection is identified as a sign in John 2:18-22. In response to the Jews’ request for a sign, Jesus says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Significantly, Jesus portrays himself as active in his resurrection (see also 10:18), a feature that is unique to John’s gospel. The reason for this anomaly is that signs are performed by Jesus’ himself. Additionally, the resurrection is a fitting final sign because it is the pre-eminent demonstration of Jesus’ bringing life to the world through the transformation of his own body.

It is possible that Option 3 and 4 can be combined so that the seventh sign is the death and resurrection together. Support for such a reading lies in the fact that the request for a sign after the temple cleansing is met with a statement about both the destruction and raising of the temple of Jesus’ body. Likewise, in John 10:17-18, Jesus claims to have authority both to lay down his life and to take it up again. Additionally, while mention of “signs” ceases after 12:37, 12:33 records that Jesus “signified” (semaino) what kind of death he was going to die (cf. 18:32; 21:19). Thus, a type of signification continues in discussions of his death, so that both his death and resurrection are identified as ‘signs.’ [4]

Well, that’s a meticulous analysis. Thanks to Joe for sharing it. Here’s my go at it, based on the Bible Matrix (which is presented here for your interest and not to detract from Joe’s analysis in any way).

Identifying Lazarus with Trumpets (resurrection) also has the extra benefit of making sense for us of the inclusion of the comment from the crowd, “by this time he stinketh”! The response of the corpse of Lazarus to the voice of Jesus is a “bridal” response (so much for a strictly “objective” New Covenant).

Ascension is often two-fold in the pattern (Altar and Table) but sometimes it is presented as a three-level house, which it seems to be to my mind in this case. It allows us to include Jesus’ walking on the water, which, as Joe points out, is not identified as a sign. It was only witnessed by the disciples. It also ties the end of the “Head” section of the structure to the end of the “Body,” which is Peter’s dominion over the same “Gentile” waters as a fisher of men. Jesus takes dominion over the nations in heaven (as Head – waters above) and the disciples take dominion over them on the earth (as Body – waters below).

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[1] Mark Strauss, Four Portraits: One Jesus.
[2] Kostenberger.
[3] These characteristics are based in Nick Nowalk’s criteria set forth in his paper. I have modified and supplemented Nick’s criteria with my own.

[4] This was an excerpt from Joe’s teaching notes on the Gospel of John. Regarding attribution, he writes: “I forget which scholars adopt which view, but I know that I drew from Kostenberger’s commentary, Carson, and Strauss’s Four Portraits: One Jesus. The section about the definition of the signs is a slight modification of a friend’s categorization based on a paper he wrote in seminary arguing for the resurrection as the seventh sign. His name is Nick Nowalk, and he blogs here. The actual argumentation about which view to adopt is also a conglomeration of my own and Nowalk’s. I’m the one who noticed the Eucharistic possibility (I think), and he argues strongly for the resurrection view (though he’s open to the both-and solution).”