John 2 - The New International Commentary

1 The story begins abruptly with the notice that “a wedding took place.” The verb for “took place” is the now familiar egeneto (literally, “came,” or “came about,” as in 1:3, 6, 10, 14, 17, and 28). We know nothing of the circumstances of the wedding, or the identity of the bridegroom and the bride, only that the mother of Jesus was “there” (ekei, accenting the importance of the place). His mother’s presence provides a reason for the presence of Jesus and his disciples (v. 2) and sets the stage for a brief exchange between Jesus and his mother (vv. 3–4) and the ensuing miracle. The fact that “the mother of Jesus” is never named in this Gospel (see vv. 3–5, 12; 6:42; 19:25–27) is less surprising than is often assumed. Jesus’ brothers are not named either (v. 12; 7:3–5, 10), and his father Joseph is named only by Philip (1:45) and by “the Jews” in Galilee (6:42), never by the Gospel writer. In this respect, John’s Gospel is not so different from Mark’s, where Jesus’ mother Mary and his brothers Jacob, Joses, and Simon are named only once (Mk 6:3), and that by the citizens of his hometown, not the Gospel writer.*

E. Jesus at Cana and Capernaum (2:1–12)

And the third day a wedding took place in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there, and Jesus with his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. And when the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus says to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus says to her, “What is that to me or to you, woman? My hour has not yet come.” His mother says to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now there were six stone water jars, placed there for the purification rituals of the Jews, each holding two or three measures. Jesus tells them, “Fill the water jars with water,” and they filled them to the top. And he tells them, “Now draw some out and take it to the banquet master”; so they took it. When the banquet master tasted the water-turned-to-wine and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the banquet master called for the bridegroom and said to him, “People always put out the good wine first, and then the not-so-good when they have had too much to drink. You have kept the good wine until now.” This Jesus did in Cana of Galilee as a beginning of the signs, and revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him. After this he went down to Capernaum, he and his mother and brothers and his disciples, and there they remained for a few days.

A few verses earlier Jesus “decided to set out for Galilee” (1:43), but at the end of the chapter his journey there with his disciples had not yet begun. Now we are “in Cana of Galilee,” where, we are told, “the third day a wedding took place” (2:1). Here (as in 1:19) we expect a full stop and a fresh start, and the modern chapter division caters to this expectation. But instead the writer uses the conjunction kai (“and”) to move us on with scarcely a break. “Ignore the chapter division,” he seems to tell us, “and you will see what Jesus said you would see” (that is, in 1:51). Moreover, “the third day” reminds us that we are still in the time-conscious world of 1:19–51, punctuated by the repeated expression, “the next day,” in 1:29, 35, and 43. Four successive days have gone by, and “the third day” normally means “two days later,” or “the day after tomorrow” from the standpoint of the events just described. This brings the total to six.* Nowhere are the six days totaled up, however, and it is probably futile to look for symbolic parallels either in the six days of creation, or the six days prior to Jesus’ last Passover (12:1), or the six days preceding the glory of Jesus’ transfiguration (compare Mk 9:2; Mt 17:1). Perhaps the most attractive suggestion is that of Moloney, who finds in the Jewish midrash Mekilta on Exodus an account of the giving of the law on Mount Sinai in which “the third day” (compare Exod 19:11, 15, 16), being preceded by four days of preparation, is actually the sixth day overall, just as in John 1:19–2:11. The strength of his proposal is that he can appeal to the principle stated already in the Gospel that “the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came into being through Jesus Christ” (1:17).* But the midrash is later than John’s Gospel, and the parallel is one that would likely have been lost on the Gospel’s readers. Rather, the author’s interest is in the sequence, not in the total of six. If there had been more days, or fewer, the point would have been much the same. Nor is it helpful to find in “the third day” a subtle allusion to the resurrection of Jesus.* Rather, “the third day” here, instead of “the next day,” merely signals the fact that additional time was needed to make the journey from the place where John had been baptizing to “Cana of Galilee.”* Because “the third day” can sometimes be used rather imprecisely (like “a couple of days” in English; see Lk 13:32), and because the location of “Bethany, beyond the Jordan” (1:28) is unknown and Cana’s location not absolutely certain,* it is useless to speculate how long the actual journey would have taken. The narrative shows no interest in the journey as such, nor in Jesus’ arrival in Galilee. The scene has changed, and for the moment Jesus and his disciples are not in the picture. But “Galilee” is important, for Galilee, not Judea, will be the scene of the first miracle.

2 Almost as an afterthought, we are told that “Jesus with his disciples had also been invited [literally, “called”] to the wedding.” The verb is singular, suggesting that Jesus was invited and brought his disciples along,* but it is wrong to infer, as some have done, that their presence was what led to the shortage of wine (v. 3).* Nor can it be assumed that Jesus was invited to the wedding while he was still beyond the Jordan, at Bethany. The notice that Jesus “decided” to go to Galilee (1:43) suggests that he acted on his own initiative (compare 5:21; 17:24; 21:22), not in response to an undisclosed wedding invitation! The narrator is simply bringing Jesus and his disciples to the wedding as quickly and simply as possible, to get to the account of the miracle. Here for the first time, the phrase “his disciples” refers to the disciples of Jesus (compare vv. 11, 12, 17, and 22) rather than to John’s disciples (as in 1:35, 37).* The disciples (evidently Andrew, Peter, Philip, Nathanael, and perhaps one other)* are introduced here, but play no part in the actual miracle story (vv. 3–10). The only reason for mentioning them is to prepare for the concluding notice that when Jesus “revealed his glory” in the miracle of the wine, “his disciples believed in him” (v. 11).

Jesus’ father Joseph and his brothers and sisters, on the other hand, are not mentioned.* In one second-century tradition about the incident, Jesus “was invited with his mother and his brothers”* (rather than his disciples),* suggesting a time when he was still within the family circle and had no disciples. The notion that at some stage of the tradition the story was told as a remarkable incident from Jesus’ childhood (like Lk 2:42–51, or even the stories found in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas) is an intriguing one,* but in John’s Gospel this is obviously not the case because of the presence of disciples and all that has gone before.*

3 The story unfolds with a remarkable economy of language. “When the wine gave out” is only two words in Greek.* The comment of Jesus’ mother, “They have no wine,” echoing the narrator, suggests that she speaks merely as a guest, not as someone with direct responsibility for the wedding banquet. Her words, “they do not have,” rather than “we do not have,” puts her at a certain distance from the situation. As far as we can tell, she is simply pointing out a fact, not asking Jesus to do anything, least of all for herself. Her pronouncement sounds almost like a parody of Jesus’ own comment in the synoptic tradition just before the feeding of the four thousand: “They do not have anything to eat” (Mk 8:2; Mt 15:32). There it was a matter of possible starvation; here it is a possible social disaster!

4 Jesus’ abrupt reply, “What is that to me or to you?” (literally, “What to me and to you?”) is a startling expression here because its five other New Testament occurrences are all in stories of demon possession, addressed to Jesus by people who are possessed.* The same idiom in Hebrew occurs in a wider range of settings in the Old Testament.* There the meaning can range from conflict between two parties (Jdg 11:12 and 1 Kgs 17:18, “What do you have against me?”) or avoidance of conflict (2 Chr 35:21, “What quarrel do I have with you?”), to simple disengagement of one party from another (2 Kgs 3:13, “What have we to do with each other?”; compare Hos 14:8, “What has he [Ephraim] to do with idols?”). It is more ambiguous in 2 Samuel 16:10 and 19:23, where King David seems to demand disengagement between himself and “Abishai son of Zeruiah,” and at the same time between both of them and “Shimei son of Gera,” guaranteeing that Shimei will not be put to death. Disengagement is the point of Jesus’ reply to his mother as well, but with the same ambiguity we find in the two texts from 2 Samuel. If Jesus is taking his mother’s comment as an implicit request for him to act, it is natural to understand his reply as personal disengagement from her and what she is asking, as if to say (in the impatient tone of the modern idiom), “What do you want from me?” But if he hears her comment simply as a statement of fact (which it appears to be), his reply could be read as a disengagement of both of them from the troubles of the wedding party, as if to say, “What is that to me or to you?”*

It is difficult to decide between these alternatives. On the one hand, Jesus’ knowledge of the inner thoughts of people he encounters (see 1:48; 2:24–25; 4:17–18) suggests that he might well be looking beneath the surface of his mother’s remark and responding to an unspoken request to work a miracle. Moreover, as Brown points out, “the fact that he speaks of ‘my hour’ would seem to indicate that he is denying only his own involvement.”* Commentators have found in this Gospel a recurrent pattern of Jesus at first refusing a request, then establishing his independence of human agendas by referring to a decisive “hour” or “time” of glorification, but then granting the request after all (for example, Jesus and his brothers in 7:2–10; Jesus and the sisters of Lazarus in 11:1–7).* On the other hand, each incident is different, and their distinctiveness must be respected. For example, only Jesus’ brothers in chapter 7 ask anything of him explicitly, and the Gospel writer is quick to tell us that their request was made in unbelief (7:5). Neither Jesus’ mother here nor the sisters of Lazarus in chapter 11 make any actual request, and there is no evidence here (unless this is it) that Jesus and his mother have contrary intentions. Given the portrait of Jesus that emerges in this Gospel, there is little doubt that the narrative comment made in connection with the feeding of the five thousand applies here as well: “For he himself knew what he was going to do” (6:6). His mother’s remark that “they have no wine” (v. 3) is not so much a request for Jesus to perform a miracle as a signal to the reader that he is going to do so. Her subsequent word to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you” (v. 5), will signal further that this is her expectation as well. In short, Jesus and his mother are thinking along the same lines, not at cross purposes.

If this is the case, then Jesus’ words are meant not as disengagement from his mother or what she has in mind, but as disengagement of them both from the wedding banquet and its immediate needs. His mother’s matter-of-fact pronouncement, “They have no wine,” could evoke an impression of extreme need or deprivation (as in Mk 8:2; Mt 15:32). Yet whatever we may think of the importance of being a good host, or of honor and shame in the New Testament world, a shortage of wine at a wedding is not in quite the same category as a life-threatening illness (4:46–54), physical helplessness (5:1–8), being without food (6:5–13), blindness (9:1–7), or death (11:11–16, 38–44). Jesus’ words to his mother are not a rebuke, nor an unambiguous refusal to act, but simply a reminder that the need she has pointed out is a relatively minor one. “Don’t worry,” he seems to say, “Their predicament is nothing to us. They will survive quite nicely even if ‘They have no wine’!” He could even be saying, “Don’t worry, woman. What is it to us? It is a small thing, and easily fixed.” The issue is not compassion, but the revealing of Jesus’ glory (compare 1:14), and it is important to make clear at the outset (to his mother, but above all to the reader) that whatever revelation is to take place here is only a beginning, and a modest one at that. This he does with the additional comment, “My hour has not yet come.” We are left with a twofold question: First, how would Jesus’ mother have understood this pronouncement? Second, how is the reader of the Gospel to understand it?

Both here and in 19:26, Jesus addresses his mother as “woman” (gynai), the same term he uses in addressing the Samaritan woman (4:21) and Mary Magdalene (20:15; compare the angels in v. 13).* While the term implies no disrespect,* it makes Jesus’ mother a stranger, just as the Samaritan woman was a stranger to Jesus, and just as Mary Magdalene was a stranger as long as she thought he was the gardener.* Yet the designation is not surprising if we keep in mind that Jesus never calls her “mother” (or “Mary”) in any of the four Gospels. Only in John’s Gospel, in fact, does he ever speak to her directly as an individual.* The three other instances in this Gospel are instructive in that each is linked, directly or indirectly, either to a decisive “hour,” or to something “not yet.” In 4:21 Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that “an hour is coming,” or “an hour is coming and now is” (v. 23), when worship will be “in Spirit and truth.” In 19:27, as soon as Jesus had given his mother into the beloved disciple’s care, we are told that “From that hour the disciple took her home.” In 20:17 Jesus tells Mary Magdalene not to hold on to him, “for I have not yet ascended to the Father.” In yet another instance Jesus tells a parable about “the woman,” who “when she gives birth, has pain because her hour has come. But when the child is born, she no longer remembers the pain, because of the joy that a human being is born into the world” (16:21). This woman represents Jesus’ disciples, who “now have pain, but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you” (v. 22; compare 16:2, 4, 32). The evidence is complex. The “hour” can be a time of suffering that will pass, or a moment of decisive change and vindication, or both at once. As a mother and as a woman, the mother of Jesus knows of such times in life, above all giving birth and coping with death. While she has no way of knowing that Jesus’ hour will in some sense be hers as well (19:27), she has good reason to sense in her son’s words a momentous destiny of some kind. Beyond that, it is difficult to know how she would have heard his pronouncement. What determines her quick response (v. 5) is not so much the term “hour” as Jesus’ assurance to her that it “is not yet here.” If she believed that by his “hour” Jesus meant simply the right time to perform a miracle, then his reply would have been a clear refusal to act. But if he meant a decisive future crisis, the “not yet” could signal just the opposite: that there was still time to address such mundane things as a shortage of wine at a wedding!*

As to the readers of the Gospel, it is necessary to distinguish between first-time readers and those who have read or heard the Gospel before. For the latter, the answer is easy. They will remember that when the religious authorities later tried to arrest Jesus, they could not do so because “his hour had not yet come” (7:30; 8:20). But then at the Passover, when some Greeks asked to see him, Jesus replied, “The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified” (12:23), and prayed, “Father, save me from this hour—no, this is why I came to this hour! Father, glorify your name” (vv. 27–28; compare 17:1, “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you”). Such readers will know that Jesus’ “hour” is the moment of his death, “his hour to be taken out of this world” (13:1), the “sixth hour” of the Day of Preparation of the Passover (19:14). None of this is apparent to first-time readers. Jesus’ ministry is just beginning (compare v. 11), and they have little more to go on than Jesus’ mother. Yet from the preceding testimony of John, they can infer that perhaps Jesus’ “hour” is the moment when he will carry out his priestly work of purification by “taking away the sin of the world” (1:29) and “baptizing in Holy Spirit” (1:33). Now they learn that the time for the decisive cleansing is “not yet.” They will also remember that Jesus promised them a vision of “angels going up and coming down over the Son of man” (1:51)—a process rather than a single moment—and they may well be wondering whether that vision too belongs to the future “hour,” or whether it is closer at hand.

5 Jesus’ mother does not answer him, but turns instead to “the servants,” mentioned here for the first time.* Her comment confirms that she has not interpreted Jesus’ words in verse 4 as a refusal to act. She assumes that he will act, first because he considers the shortage of wine a matter easily remedied (“What is that to me or to you?”), and second because whatever dark crisis may be on the horizon, it is “not yet here.” There is still time for small things, and she instructs the servants accordingly: “Do whatever he tells you.” Her optimism is not attributable to any supernatural knowledge on her part (only Jesus has that), nor to a motherly intuition that although her child says one thing he really means another. Instead, she is a reliable hearer and interpreter of Jesus’ words to her in the preceding verse. Her response is a clue to what the reader’s response should be: Let the miracle proceed!

“Do whatever he tells you” sounds like a command that at some point might have been issued to Jesus’ disciples (for example, 13:17, “Now that you know these things, blessed are you if you do them”). As we have noted, Jesus’ disciples seem to disappear between verse 2 and verse 11, and play no part in the actual account of the miracle. Within the account, it appears that these anonymous servants to whom Jesus’ mother said, “Do whatever he tells you,” take the disciples’ place, for their role here corresponds more or less to the disciples’ role in the feeding of the five thousand (see 6:5–13). They function as the disciples’ surrogates or stand-ins, for it is their obedience that accomplishes the miracle. Except for Jesus and his mother, only they and the disciples will even know that a miracle has taken place (vv. 9 and 11). They are the ones who actually “do” the miracle. Jesus simply gives the orders. To a certain extent this is also true of the disciples in the feeding of crowds (in the synoptic Gospels, though not in John), and of the bystanders at the raising of Lazarus, but less so than here, for Jesus has no direct contact here with either the water or the wine. In some sense, like his disciples, he stands apart from the actual miracle, watching it happen. As far as he is concerned, it will be a miracle of speech,* orchestrated by his two simple commands: “Fill the water jars with water” (v. 7), and “Now draw some out and take it to the banquet master” (v. 8).

6 Stories involving water in the Gospel of John ordinarily make some reference to natural water sources, such as the springs at “Aenon, near the Salim” (3:23), or Jacob’s well (4:6), or the pools of Bethsaida (5:2), or Siloam (9:7), but here the interest centers instead on “six stone water jars.” There must have been a well or a spring at Cana from which the jars were routinely filled, but it plays no part in the story. Why are the water jars mentioned instead of the water source? The narrator explains that they were “placed there for the purification rituals of the Jews.”* But are the jars emphasized because they were a prominent feature of the story as handed down in the tradition, and “the purification rituals” introduced simply to explain why they were so conveniently “there” (ekei), that is, at hand? Or does the story center on the jars instead of the natural water source precisely because they had to do with “the purification rituals of the Jews”? If Jesus is indeed the pure “Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” and “baptizes in Holy Spirit,” the latter possibility is superficially attractive. Is Jesus’ great work of purification being contrasted with another, lesser kind of cleansing? Is there an intentional contrast here between the old Jewish rules about purity and the liberating “new wine” of the new covenant in Jesus Christ?* So far in the Gospel the only possible basis we have seen for such a distinction is the principle that “the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came into being through Jesus Christ” (1:16), but the accent there, as we have seen, was on continuity rather than contrast. While there may be a certain irony in the reference to Jewish purification (compare 3:25), in the absence of direct evidence it is better to take the phrase simply as an explanation of why the jars were “there.”

More to the point is the sheer quantity of water required to fill the six* jars. If each jar held “two or three measures” (a measure equaling about nine gallons), the total amount of water turned to wine would be enormous—somewhere between 110 and 160 gallons! If the Gospel writer had accented the water source instead of the water jars, there would have been no way to measure this amount. It appears that the sheer magnititude or extravagance of the miracle is one of the writer’s interests. We have only to compare the twelve baskets of fragments left over after feeding five thousand people with five loaves and two morsels of fish (6:13),* or the “153 large fish” which the disciples caught in their net at Jesus’ command (21:11), or (in a different vein) the whole pint of precious perfume which Mary of Bethany poured out on Jesus’ feet (12:3), or the seventy-five pounds of spices used to embalm Jesus’ body after his death (19:39). If even these seem tame in comparison to certain Jewish and early Christian accounts of the extravagant bounty (of wine specifically, and of oil) in the messianic age,* it is because the Gospel writer is claiming a basis for his figures in actual history. Here the magnitude of the impending miracle stands in almost humorous contrast to the smallness or triviality of the need (v. 4, “What is that to me or to you?”). But the humor makes the serious point that when Jesus gives life, he gives it abundantly, far beyond all need or expectation (see 10:10).

7–8 Jesus told the servants to fill the jars, and they filled them “to the top,”* complying both with Jesus’ mother (v. 5) and with Jesus. In narrative time it takes only a moment to fill the six huge jars. In real time it could have taken hours, for it was, in Haenchen’s words, “by no means a simple undertaking.”* As we have seen, it is in the activity of the servants under Jesus’ orders that the miracle takes place. Ordinarily, the reader’s assumption would be that the water is being drawn for “purification,” not for drinking, but this assumption is quickly proved wrong. As soon as the jars were filled, Jesus told the servants, “Now draw some out and take it to the banquet master,”* and again they obeyed (v. 8). A miracle requires verification, and the banquet master, however unwittingly, will provide it. Because the verb “to draw out” (antlein) is used elsewhere in this Gospel for drawing water from a well (see 4:7, 15), B. F. Westcott suggested that the servants simply drew additional water from the well at Cana (so far unmentioned) and that only this small sample, not the contents of the six great jars, was changed into wine.* But if this were the case, why would the six water jars be mentioned at all? Why go to the trouble of filling them if they play no part in the miracle? Why would Jesus have had them filled up for some future purification ritual in which he himself would not participate? Moreover, while the banquet master would have been duly impressed, the small sample would not have solved the initial problem that “They have no wine” (v. 3). Westcott’s interpretation seems to have been an attempt to avoid the nineteenth-century embarrassment at Jesus’ providing an alcoholic beverage for a wedding celebration in such quantity, but in this Gospel the principle is much the same whether it is a matter of wine, or bread, or fish. Jesus is able to provide for us “more than abundantly, beyond all that we ask or think” (Eph 3:20).

9–10 At this point the miracle is already accomplished, but no one except Jesus knows it. The reader will find out first, from the expression “the water-turned-to-wine.” The servants who drew the water will find out next, presumably from the banquet master’s comment (v. 10). Then it will come out that Jesus’ disciples also knew what had happened (v. 11),* and we can infer from her earlier instructions to the servants that Jesus’ mother may have known as well. But as far as we can tell, neither the banquet master nor the bridegroom nor the bride nor the other wedding guests ever found out. On the contrary, the writer tells us that when the banquet master tasted the newly made wine he “did not know where it came from,” that is, he did not know that it came from the six stone water jars as the product of a miracle.* The miracle itself is not announced but taken for granted, buried within a participle (gegenēmenon, within the phrase “water-turned-to-wine”)—as if the reader knows it has already happened. There have in fact been clear signals all along the way, from the remark of Jesus’ mother that “They have no wine” (v. 3), to her command to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you” (v. 5), to Jesus’ step-by-step instructions (vv. 6–8). Obviously something was going to happen, and that something had to do with a shortage of wine and a huge amount of water. This author is not going to feign surprise when there is none. From the reader’s standpoint the transformation was virtually inevitable. Consequently the Gospel writer is less concerned with the miracle itself than with its verification.

The verification of the miracle is ironic in that the banquet master does not realize that he is verifying anything. On tasting the wine he “called for the bridegroom” (v. 9), with a humorous remark about the high quality of the wine: “People always put out the good wine first, and then the not-so-good when they have had too much to drink. You have kept the good wine until now” (v. 10). This story has long been identified as a miracle story, the first miracle in the Gospel of John (v. 11), yet its form is closer to what has been identified in the synoptic Gospels as a pronouncement story. A story, sometimes a miracle, sometimes a controversy, is told for the sake of a key pronouncement of Jesus (or even a series of pronouncements) as a kind of punch line to the story (see, for example, Mk 2:1–12, 14–17, 18–22, 23–28; 3:1–5). Here too the account leads up to a pronouncement that gives the story its meaning, but with the striking difference that the crucial words are not Jesus’ own, but those of the banquet master, testifying to what Jesus has done. This happens occasionally in the Synoptics as well (see Mk 1:27; 4:41; Lk 5:26), but when it does the ones testifying are fully aware of the miracle, while the banquet master in our story shows no such awareness. The readers of the Gospel, like “the servants who had drawn the water,” know what has happened, but he does not. Yet, ironically, his testimony is all the more convincing precisely because it is an unwitting testimony. An ignorant and therefore unbiased observer provides the best possible confirmation of what we as readers already know, that Jesus has turned water into wine.

The banquet master’s words are spoken to the bridegroom, who now makes his cameo appearance in the story. If the servants who drew the water function in the story as surrogates or stand-ins for Jesus’ disciples, the bridegroom functions in a strange way as a stand-in for Jesus. The words of the banquet master, “You [sy] have kept the good wine until now” (v. 10), ought to have been directed to Jesus. In some sense, from the reader’s standpoint they are directed to Jesus, for Jesus is the one who “kept the good wine until now.” The bridegroom gets the credit for what Jesus has done! We can only wonder about his reaction because he seems to have known no more than the banquet master about where the wine “came from.” By his silence he accepts the compliment and takes credit for the wine’s quality.* But Jesus’ disciples, and the reader, know better. This ending underscores the fact that throughout the narrative, Jesus, like his mother and his disciples, has stood somewhat apart from what was happening at the wedding (v. 4, “What is that to me or to you?”) and even somewhat apart from his own miracle. As we have seen, he simply gives directions and the miracle happens. Like his disciples, he has a surrogate or silent partner within the wedding festivities, the bridegroom who gets credit for providing the good wine. It is probably no coincidence that Jesus himself is seen as a bridegroom a chapter later in this Gospel (3:29), and elsewhere in the Gospel tradition (Mk 2:19–20 par.).

The theme of Jesus as bridegroom in the synoptic Gospels comes, appropriately enough, in a context dealing with the distinction between “old” and “new” wine (Mk 2:22 par.), and accenting the coming of the new in the person of Jesus. The closest parallel to the banquet master’s comment comes in a saying of Jesus added in Luke to this tradition, “No one who has drunk what is old desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good’ ” (Lk 5:39; compare Gospel of Thomas 47). Instead of “old” the banquet master speaks of “the good wine” as that which normally comes “first,” and instead of “new” he notes with surprise that in this case “the good wine” is that which comes later, kept “until now.”* As in the synoptics, the accent of the pronouncement is on “now,” and on the newness and superiority of that which Jesus now brings.* Yet the tension between the “already” and the “not yet” should not be overlooked. Jesus has clearly told his mother, “My hour is not yet here” (v. 4), and the Gospel writer will now confirm this with a notice that the miracle of the wine was only a “beginning” (v. 11).* When put in its literary context, the banquet master’s remark becomes simply a compliment on the quality of the wine. The “not yet” is what dominates the story as a whole. Jesus has provided “good wine,” but the best is yet to come.

11 The Gospel writer now stands back from the story to provide a summary of its significance. Such editorial summaries in this Gospel frequently begin, as here, with the demonstrative pronoun “this” (4:54; 21:14), or “these” (for example, 1:28; 6:59; 8:20; 12:16; 13:21; 17:1; 18:1; 20:31).* Here the pronoun is feminine, in agreement with the feminine noun archēn, “beginning,” which should probably be read as a predicate to the pronoun: “This he did as a beginning of the signs.”* The summary speaks of “the signs” (with the definite article), as if the writer knows of them as a specific set of events from which a selection can be made,* and the word “beginning” obviously implies that we will hear more of them (see 4:54, “And this Jesus did again as a second sign when he came from Judea to Galilee”).

In effect, the summary transforms the story that precedes it. In contrast to the story itself, where Jesus merely gives the orders and the servants “do” the miracle (v. 5), the summary states unambiguously that this was something Jesus himself “did.” Jesus’ words are regarded as equivalent to actions. “Sign” (sēmeion) is a distinctively Johannine word for Jesus’ deeds, used to accent the revelatory character not only of his miracles, but of everything he “did” (see 20:30, where everything Jesus “did in the presence of this disciples” is summed up under the heading of “signs”).* In this respect, the word “signs” (sēmeia) is similar to “works,” the other word used in this Gospel for Jesus’ miracles, which also refers more broadly to everything Jesus did in fulfillment of his mission from God. In “doing” this first sign, we are told, Jesus “revealed” or “made known” (ephanerōsen) for the first time something about himself, specifically his “glory,” glory defined for us earlier “as of a father’s One and Only, full of grace and truth” (1:14).

The Gospel writer’s straight-faced summary could be read ironically. Those who have seen the humor of the banquet master’s final remark about good wine have commonly assumed that the humor ended there, but this is not self-evident. The writer’s verdict that in performing this particular miracle Jesus “revealed his glory” has, on the face of it, a dry humor of its own. What kind of “revelation” or “manifestation” is it when most of the major characters in the story—banquet master, bridegroom, wedding guests—have no idea of “what just happened here”?* Can this be the “revelation to Israel” that John promised a chapter earlier (1:31)? The humor, or at least the appearance of it, comes in the pitifully narrow scope of the disclosure: “and his disciples believed in him.” The “Israel” of 1:31 turns out to be four, maybe five, people! No one else is said to have seen Jesus’ glory and believed—not the banquet master or the bridegroom, not Jesus’ mother who seemed to know what was coming, nor even the servants who knew where the wine came from (v. 9)—only a handful of disciples watching from the sidelines.* They are outsiders to the miracle, yet the revelation it brings is for them and them alone, not for those who actually participated in the miracle. Similarly we the readers of the Gospel are outsiders even to the telling of the miracle, yet the story invites us to see Jesus’ glory through the disciples’ eyes (compare 1:14) and with them believe (see 20:30–31).

For this reason, we should probably not read verse 11 as humor or irony, tempting as it might be to do so. Rather, the summary transforms the story seriously and legitimately, so that it accomplishes just what the Gospel writer intends. The promised vision of “the sky opened, and the angels of God going up and coming down over the Son of man” (1:51) is starting to come into focus. At least one disciple, Nathanael, was said to “believe” even then (1:50). Now the disciples are beginning to see the “greater things” that will bring them to the next level of faith,* and eventually, when Jesus’ “hour” has come and he is raised from the dead, to yet another level (see v. 22). The phrase “in Cana of Galilee” (echoing v. 1) frames the whole account with a characteristically Johannine interest in place (compare “there” in vv. 1 and 6). When Jesus comes to Cana again, the writer will remind us that it was “where he made the water wine” (4:46). At the same time, “Cana of Galilee” provides a point of reference for the notice to follow that “he went down to Capernaum” (v. 12).

12 This verse is transitional. The Gospel writer loses interest in exact chronology,* and the sojourn at Capernaum “for a few days” (literally, “not many days,” as in Acts 1:5) provides a cushion of sorts between the series of six days that began at 1:19 (compare 1:29, 35, 43 and 2:1) and Jesus’ first Passover (v. 13).* Jesus “went down” from Cana to Capernaum, just as he is urged to do later by a nobleman from Capernaum (4:47, 49), and, with his mother and brothers and his disciples, “remained there” (ekei) for an unspecified length of time.* Once again place is important, and later we will see Jesus back in Cana performing a miracle for someone in Capernaum (4:46–50). The presence of Jesus’ mother and his disciples is a natural carryover from the preceding account of the wedding, but the presence of his brothers (and sisters?)* is more surprising. As we have seen, Jesus’ brothers were present instead of the disciples in at least one early account of the wedding (Epistula Apostolorum 5; see above, n. 12). Their inclusion here may be a tacit acknowledgment of such a tradition, for their presence at the wedding seems to be assumed, not instead of but with the disciples. Even so, they would have had no knowledge that a miracle took place unless Jesus or the disciples told them. In any event, their inclusion anticipates Jesus’ later encounter with them (also in Galilee), where they urge him to “go to Judea” and “reveal” himself on a much wider scale than he had done before (7:3). There we learn that, unlike the disciples, they “did not believe in him” (7:5), at least not yet, but here at the outset of his ministry, Jesus and his mother, brothers, and disciples stay together briefly as a community in the town where the family seems to have been living.* Here a basis is laid, perhaps, for one of the disciples (possibly a brother?) taking Jesus’ mother into his care (19:27), and for Jesus finally referring to his disciples as “my brothers,” and children of the same Father (20:17–18). Deliberately or not, some such transformation is here anticipated as Jesus’ natural brothers and his disciples are seen together as “family.”

13 Once again the conjunction “and” (kai) links the account very closely to what has preceded. Just as in 1:19 and in 2:1, we expect a break in the action, but the conjunction drives the story forward without hesitation (compare the repeated “and” at the beginning of vv. 14, 15, and 16). A reader coming to the Gospel of John having just finished any of the other Gospels might have the impression here that this is to be a very short Gospel indeed! Jesus has been in Galilee, done a miracle there, and then stayed in Capernaum for an unspecified length of time. Now that the time of Passover is “near” (as later in 6:4; 11:55), Jesus travels to Jerusalem and finds money changers in the temple (as in Mt 21:12; Mk 11:15; Lk 19:45). Anyone familiar with the synoptic chronology might conclude that we are already into the last week of Jesus’ life!

This is of course not the case. The preceding notice (v. 11) has made it very clear that what Jesus did in Cana was only a “beginning.” Naturally there has always been vigorous discussion over the question of whether Jesus cleansed the temple in Jerusalem near the beginning of his ministry (as here),* or near the end (as in the Synoptics),* or whether he did so twice.* Such discussions belong either to canonical criticism or to the study of the historical Jesus. They are outside the scope of a commentary on any one Gospel, for each Gospel knows of just one cleansing and leaves the reader in no doubt as to when it took place. The reader of John’s Gospel has every reason to assume that Jesus purified the temple just once, and that he did so very early in his ministry. There is no hint in the text that the Gospel writer is correcting an earlier, different chronology. Rather, he purports to give an independent, first-time account of the event.

The phrase “the Passover of the Jews” (like “the purification rituals of the Jews” in v. 6) presupposes that the readers are not themselves Jews or Jewish Christians, and do not keep the Jewish Passover.* At the same time it signals that at this festival Jesus will confront “the Jews,” that is, the religious authorities in charge of the festival, and hints that there will be controversy (see vv. 18, 20). Having “gone down” from Cana to Capernaum (v. 12), Jesus now “went up,” not to Cana again but to Jerusalem, as he and others are customarily said to do for all the festivals (see 5:1; 7:8, 10, 14; 11:55; 12:20). We are not told that his disciples accompanied him to Jerusalem as they did to Cana (2:2) and Capernaum (2:12), yet as the story unfolds their presence seems to be presupposed (see vv. 17, 22).*

F. Jesus in the Temple at Passover (2:13–22)

And the Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And he found in the temple those selling cattle and sheep and doves, and the money changers sitting. And he made a kind of whip out of cords and drove them all from the temple, with the sheep and the cattle, and he spilled the coins of the money changers and overturned the tables, and to those selling doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a house of trade!” His disciples remembered that it is written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” So the Jews answered and said to him, “What sign do you show us, because you are doing these things?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up.” So the Jews said, “Forty-six years it has taken to build this sanctuary, and you are going to raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the sanctuary that was his body. So, when he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that this was what he meant, and they believed both the scripture and the word Jesus spoke.

In contrast to the miracle of the wine, in which Jesus simply spoke and the servants carried out his orders, here Jesus himself acts decisively (2:13–15), and then interprets his action by his speech (vv. 16–22), centering on two key pronouncements (vv. 16 and 19). These sayings, while directed to the religious authorities in Jerusalem as part of a controversy provoked by his actions, are (like the miracle at Cana) intended primarily for his own disciples (vv. 17 and 22).

14–15 The narrative assumes that Jesus went to Jerusalem specifically in order to visit the temple (compare 5:14, 7:14, 8:59, 10:23, and 11:56), where he “found … those selling cattle and sheep and doves, and the money changers sitting.” The prepositional phrases “in the temple” (v. 14) and “from the temple” (v. 15) frame the author’s concise account of Jesus’ drastic action. Definite articles mark the groups against whom Jesus directed his anger: “the sellers,” whether of cattle, sheep, or doves (vv. 14, 16), and “the money changers” (vv. 14–15). In contrast to the Synoptics, “buyers” are not mentioned. These groups had apparently set up shop in the outer courtyard of the temple (the so-called “court of the Gentiles”) for the convenience of worshipers, so that money could be changed and animals for sacrifice purchased right on the spot.* Quickly fashioning a whip out of cords,* therefore, Jesus drove “them all” from the temple. “Them all” (pantas) is masculine, suggesting that he used the whip (or threatened to do so) on merchants and animals alike.* As for the money changers,* he overturned their tables and spilled their coins.* All this he did without a word of warning.

16 Jesus reserves his speech for the sellers of doves,* but his words are just as applicable to the other merchants and the money changers: “Get these out of here! Stop making* my Father’s house a house of trade!”* We are not to suppose that Jesus’ comments followed his drastic actions, as if he had driven everyone else from the temple and was now left alone with the dovesellers. Nor is this the missing warning that actually preceded his actions, as if he had said, “Get these animals out of here, or I’ll drive them out myself!” Rather, his words are to be read as more or less simultaneous with his actions, given in order to interpret his actions, and for the reader. The heart of Jesus’ interpretation is his use of the term “house” (oikos) rather than “temple” (hieron, as in vv. 14–15), and his reference to God as “my Father.”

Jesus refers to the temple as God’s “house” in the synoptic accounts as well (Mk 11:17; compare Mt 21:13; Lk 19:46), citing God’s intention in Isaiah 56:7 that “My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations” and contrasting it with present circumstances, in which “You have made it a refuge for bandits” (compare Jer 7:11).* The temple is a sacred place or place of worship (hieron) not in and of itself, but because of its relationship to the God of Israel as God’s “house” (oikos), the place where God dwells. Here in John’s Gospel, without quoting Scripture, Jesus makes the same point, but goes beyond it in two ways. First, he denounces trade in the temple not because it is dishonest or corrupt, but because it exists there at all.* Playing on the word oikos, he contrasts God’s “house” not with “a refuge for bandits,” but with a “house of trade” (oikon emporiou).* Second, and more important, Jesus refers to the temple not simply as “God’s house” but as “my Father’s house.”* Here for the first time in John’s Gospel he calls God “my Father,”* a clear signal to the reader that he is now speaking explicitly as the Father’s “One and Only” (see 1:14, 18), or “the Son of God” (1:34, 49). With this, he begins a conversation with the Jewish authorities that will extend through the first half of John’s Gospel. His implicit claim might have drawn the same reaction here that it does at the next stage of the conversation, when “the Jews” will begin to seek his life because “he said that God was his own Father, making himself equal to God” (5:18). But it draws no such reaction. The merchants and money changers are too busy fleeing the premises and retrieving their property to challenge his claim, and when Jesus is finally challenged (v. 18), the response is to his actions, not his words. It is as if no one heard. To everyone but the reader, Jesus’ claim that God is his Father goes unnoticed.*

17 The first response to Jesus’ action (and the only response to his pronouncement) comes from his own disciples. To this point the reader has had no way of knowing that the disciples are even present with Jesus at the Passover festival in Jerusalem. Now suddenly they are in the picture. The Gospel writer intervenes in one of his narrative asides to tell us that they “remembered” a certain biblical text. This is the first Scripture citation in the Gospel of John,* but it comes as no surprise because Jesus’ disciples have already identified him as “someone of whom Moses wrote in the law, and of whom the prophets wrote” (1:45). The text chosen is appropriate in this context because it picks up the word “house,” which Jesus has just used twice (v. 16). A reader familiar with the other Gospels might have expected the Scripture cited by Jesus himself in the synoptic accounts, in which the God of Israel is the speaker: “My house shall be called a house of prayer” (Isa 56:7). But here the disciples remember a different text, one in which the psalmist speaks and God is being addressed: “Zeal for your house will consume me” (Ps 68[69]:10 LXX). It is as if Jesus himself is speaking in the words of the psalmist.

When did their remembering take place? Did they, as most commentators suppose, remember the psalm right on the spot, just as Jesus in the other Gospels quoted Scripture in the very act of driving the merchants from the temple?* Or did they remember it later?* It is difficult to be certain because the verb for remembrance (emnēsthēsan) is introduced so abruptly.* But the nature of the quotation itself provides a clue. The quotation is from a psalm widely known and used in early Christian writings,* and agrees closely with the LXX except for the future tense of the verb: “Zeal for your house will consume me,” instead of “has consumed me,” as in the LXX.* The effect of this change is to shift the accent from the “consuming zeal” with which Jesus drove the merchants from the temple at that early stage in his ministry to the long-range results of his action. “Consume” can also mean “devour” or “destroy,” and what the disciples “remembered” was that Jesus’ zeal for the house of God would eventuate in his own destruction.* Even though John’s Gospel has placed the cleansing of the temple at the beginning rather than the end of Jesus’ ministry, it preserves a causal connection between that action and Jesus’ execution by the Jewish authorities.* But how would Jesus’ disciples have known this at the time? It is fair to say that they are not distinguished by great prophetic insight in the Gospel of John (or any other Gospel!), and it is doubtful that the Gospel writer would attribute to them such insight here. The future “will consume,” or “will destroy,” tends to support the view that their “remembrance” of the psalm was after the fact—as in the two other uses of the verb “remember” (emnēsthēsan) in John’s Gospel (one in the near context, in v. 22, “when he was raised from the dead,” and the other in 12:16, “when Jesus was glorified”).*

18 Jesus finally draws a response, not from the merchants and money changers, but from “the Jews,” building on the notice that the festival was “the Passover of the Jews” (v. 13). Even though the Passover was a festival for all the Jewish people, those in charge were the religious authorities in Jerusalem, the same authorities who earlier sent emissaries to question John (1:19). Here they engage Jesus in a brief dialogue extending through the next three verses: “So the Jews answered and said to him” (v. 18); “Jesus answered and said to them” (v. 19); “So the Jews said” (v. 20).

Strangely enough, these religious authorities take no explicit offense at Jesus’ reference to “my Father’s house” (v. 16).* Their “answer” is not to his words but to his actions: “What sign do you show us because* you are doing these things?” (italics added). The irony in their demand for a “sign” (sēmeion) is that the Gospel writer considers everything Jesus “did” as “signs” by which he “revealed his glory” to believers (see v. 11), and he expects his readers to see Jesus’ actions the same way.* Therefore in demanding a sign because Jesus was “doing these things,” the religious leaders are simply displaying their ignorance and misunderstanding.* The “signs” have been given. “These things” are themselves the signs, but unlike Jesus’ disciples (v. 11), “the Jews” in Jerusalem have neither seen nor believed (compare 6:30; 9:39–41; 12:37–41).

19–20 The Gospel writer’s presentation of Jesus’ response mimics the challenge of the Jewish authorities. Just as they “answered and said to him” (v. 18), so he “answered and said to them” (v. 19). Jesus’ answer is a kind of riddle: “Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up.” He seems to be introducing yet a third word for the temple in which they were standing. First it was called “the temple” (to hieron, vv. 14 and 15); then Jesus called it a “house” (oikos), specifically “my Father’s house” (v. 16); now it is a “sanctuary” (naos), specifically “this sanctuary.” A distinction sometimes made is to the “sanctuary” as the central shrine, or holy place within the larger “temple” precincts.* But the reaction of his hearers (v. 20) suggests no such differentiation. Their response, moreover, echoes Jesus’ pronouncement in three respects, mimicking or mocking his claim. They repeat his expression, “this sanctuary,” corresponding to the way in which Jews commonly referred to their own temple in Jerusalem.* They repeat his use of the verb “raise,” while using it interchangeably with the verb “build” (v. 20), either of which can be used for building a house or a place of worship.* Finally, they repeat “in three days,”* but in such a way as to characterize it as an absurdly short period of time in comparison to “forty-six years” (v. 20).* They do not, however, pay attention to the imperative “destroy” (lysate) with which Jesus’ riddle began. They seem to have perceived the verb as imperatival in form but not in meaning. Jesus is not commanding them to destroy anything, but rather setting up a condition: “If you destroy this sanctuary, in three days I will raise it up.”* The accent is not on the destruction of the “sanctuary,” but on the promise to “raise it up.”* Consequently, the Jewish authorities take offense not at being told to destroy their own temple, but at Jesus’ claim that he himself will build it again, and in such a short time.

A messianic reading of 2 Samuel 7:13–14 could suggest that rebuilding the temple was a work of the Davidic Messiah, even as David’s son had built the first temple (compare Zech 6:12–13). Jesus’ words might then have been interpreted as a messianic claim, particularly in the wake of his comment about “my Father’s house” (v. 16). Caution is necessary because the Messiah is pictured as the builder of the temple only rarely and only in later rabbinic literature, while in earlier Jewish material God is more often the Builder.* But even though the reader knows that Jesus is “God the One and Only, the One who is right beside the Father” (1:18), it is unlikely that he is claiming to be God, even implicitly, at this early point in the narrative. More likely, he is endorsing and claiming for himself Nathanael’s confession of him as both “the Son of God” and “the King of Israel” (1:49). The issue is joined, and will continue to be joined, over “christology” in the strict sense of the word, that is, over the question of whether or not Jesus is the Messiah.* This is consistent with the emphatic “you” in the mocking reply of the Jewish authorities: “and you are going to raise it up in three days?” Even though “the Jews” began by responding to Jesus’ actions rather than his words (v. 18), seeming to ignore his provocative reference to “my Father’s house” (v. 16), their problem in the end is not with what he has done, but with who he is, or claims to be. Their scornful last words (v. 20) go unanswered, just as the banquet master’s comic misunderstanding of the miracle at Cana went unanswered.* Jesus’ first confrontation with “the Jews” is over almost as soon as it began.

21 While “the Jews” have the last word in the dramatic exchange just described in the text, they do not have the last word in the text itself. That belongs rather to the Gospel writer, just as in did in the story of the wedding (2:11). The writer now intervenes to explain that Jesus “was speaking of the sanctuary that was his body.” This belated piece of information forces the reader to go back and look at verse 19 again. So far, most readers have probably been guided in their interpretation of Jesus’ riddle by the way in which the Jewish authorities heard it. They would assume that although “the Jews” were wrong to mock Jesus’ pronouncement about “this sanctuary,” they at least interpreted it correctly. Now they learn that this is not so, and a re-reading of verse 19 is required. What are the implications of rereading “this sanctuary” in Jesus’ pronouncement as “this body”?* Clearly, the demonstrative pronoun “this” is just as appropriate as before, if not more so. Paul spoke rhetorically of his body, or the human body generally, as “this corruptible,” or “this mortal” (1 Cor 15:53–54), or simply as “this” (2 Cor 5:2), or “this tent” (some manuscripts of 2 Cor 5:4), or even “these hands” (Acts 20:34).* The verb “destroy,” however, takes on new significance. Destroying a body (that is, killing a person) is obviously quite different from destroying a temple! The verb recalls verse 17: “Zeal for your house will consume [or destroy] me.” Jesus’ death is once again part of the scenario, and the implication is that “the Jews” (that is, the religious authorities in Jerusalem) will bring it about. The imperative, as we have seen, expresses a condition: “If you destroy this body, in three days I will raise it up.” When Jesus seemed to be referring to the temple in Jerusalem, that was not a realistic possibility. He was not saying that “the Jews” would destroy their own temple, nor did they attribute to him any such notion. But if he means by “this sanctuary” his own body, his pronouncement becomes a kind of accusation as well as a promise. The imperative begins to sound like a challenge: “Go ahead, destroy this body! If you do, I will raise it up in three days!” For the first time he hints at what he will say explicitly later on (“You are seeking to kill me,” 8:37, 40; compare 7:19–20), and what in fact they will soon begin to do (5:18; compare 7:1, 25; 8:59; 10:31–33; 11:53). Other features of the pronouncement quickly fall into place. The verb “raise up” (egeirein) is more commonly used of raising up persons (whether from sickness, sleep, or death) than buildings.* “Three days” is (as Jesus’ hearers had noticed) a ridiculously short time in which to build a temple, but (in light of certain synoptic traditions) an appropriate and familiar one in connection with Jesus’ resurrection. Just as in the synoptic tradition, the only “sign” given turns out to be his own resurrection.*

We are left, then, with two competing solutions to Jesus’ riddle about “this sanctuary” (v. 19): a wrong one (from a Johannine perspective) in verse 20, and the right one (supplied by the Gospel writer) in verse 21.* What the two solutions have in common is that the controversy is not over what Jesus has just done in the temple precincts (despite the initial response of “the Jews” in v. 18), but over who Jesus is. The implication of the final words of verse 20 is “Who do you think you are?” (compare 8:53b). The reader already knows who Jesus is, the Father’s “One and Only” (compare 1:14, 18), and has Jesus’ own words about “my Father’s house” (v. 16) to prove it. The reader also knows how the controversy will turn out: zeal for his Father’s house will “consume” or “destroy” Jesus (v. 17), but when the Jewish authorities “destroy” his body, he himself will raise it up (v. 19). The outcome of the conflict is not in doubt, for Jesus is fully in control.*

22 The Gospel writer’s narrative aside continues. Here the particle “So” (oun in Greek), often used in resuming a narrative after a parenthetical comment by the narrator,* instead continues and elaborates the comment itself. Having just stated that Jesus “was speaking of the sanctuary that was his body,” the Gospel writer goes on to explain that this was a conclusion to which the disciples came only after he was in fact “raised from the dead.” The verb “was raised” corresponds to the the words “I will raise up” in Jesus’ own pronouncement, except that the Gospel writer reverts to the more common passive form in which does not explicitly raise himself or his own body.* The notice that “his disciples remembered” echoes verse 17, where they were said to have remembered a passage of Scripture. There certain clues suggested that the recollection was after the fact; now the Gospel writer makes this explicit. It was indeed not in the temple on that first Passover, but much later, “when he was raised from the dead,” that they remembered. The writer bases his comment (v. 21) on their collective authority. He knows what Jesus meant by his pronouncement* because the disciples themselves (who were presumably present on the scene) eventually came to that realization. “Meant” is an appropriate translation because it is a matter not simply of recalling certain words that Jesus had spoken, but of coming to understand their significance in light of subsequent events.*

When the disciples “remembered” Jesus’ pronouncement, we are told, they also “believed both the scripture and the word Jesus spoke.” “Believed” recalls verse 11, where these same disciples “believed in him” after the miracle at Cana of Galilee. There it was a matter of putting one’s trust in Jesus as a person; here it is a matter of believing something to be true (that is, “the scripture and the word Jesus spoke”).* The contrast is not between a superficial preresurrection faith in Jesus as a person and a deeper postresurrection faith by which one learns to see him as the fulfillment of Scripture and receive the revelation he brings from God.* The point is rather that the crucial act of faith came first, when Jesus “revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him” (v. 11), and that what happened later, “when he was raised from the dead” (v. 22), simply verified and validated that initial faith. As we will see, the verification of Jesus’ words by later (sometimes postresurrection) events so that his disciples might “believe” is a conspicuous theme in this Gospel (see, for example, 13:19; 14:29; 16:4).

The disciples “believed” two things after the resurrection: “the scripture” and “the word” that Jesus had just spoken. By “the scripture” is meant the specific text from Psalm 69, “Zeal for your house will consume me” (v. 17),* not the Jewish Scriptures as a whole.* This text they treated as a prophecy come true. The words of the psalmist had become in effect words of Jesus. Zeal for his Father’s house had indeed destroyed him. As for “the word Jesus spoke,” it is clearly his pronouncement, “Destroy this sanctuary, and in three days I will raise it up” (v. 19), in particular the promise of “raising it up,” and the disciples “believed” this as well. Jesus had predicted his death (in the words of the scripture) and his resurrection (in his own words), and both predictions had now come true.* The Gospel writer’s notice here is a signal that Scripture and the words of Jesus will be treated in much the same way in this Gospel. Certain things will happen in the story “to fulfill” certain texts of Scripture (12:38; 13:18; 15:25; 17:12; 19:24, 36), and other things will happen “to fulfill” certain sayings of Jesus (18:9, 32). Some biblical texts are cited (as they are here) in the first person, as if Jesus is the speaker (compare 13:18; 15:25; 19:24), and sometimes Jesus’ own words are so closely entwined with words of Scripture that it is difficult to tell which is which (7:38; 19:28). To believe Scripture and to believe Jesus amount to much the same thing (compare 5:46–47). The disciples’ belief in “the word Jesus spoke” stands in sharp contrast to the unbelief of “the Jews,” because the latter had heard that same word and mocked it (v. 20). While there is no similar contrast with respect to “the scripture” because Jesus had quoted no text of Scripture in their presence (as he does in the Synoptic accounts), the implication is that the lines between faith and unbelief are beginning to be drawn. So far in the Gospel, first Nathanael (1:50) and then the disciples as a group (2:11 and here) have explicitly “believed,” and no one has explicitly been said to “disbelieve” or “not believe.” Yet here at Jesus’ first Passover in Jerusalem, without using the actual word, the Gospel writer has given us the first specific example of the unbelief that we know Jesus will face (see 1:10–11).

23 Jesus is still “in Jerusalem at the Passover, with the festival going on,” though not explicitly in the temple. In contrast to the Jewish leaders in the temple, “many believed in his name, for they could see the signs he was doing.” These “many” are unidentified, although there is reason to think that some of them were leaders as well. One at least was “a man of the Pharisees” and “a ruler of the Jews” (3:1), and we will learn later of “many of the rulers” who similarly “believed” in Jesus (12:42). The expression, “believed in his name,” recalls 1:12–13, where the “children of God” who “received” the Light and were “born of God” are concretely identified as “those who believe in his name.” Here we are told that they did so on the same ground on which his disciples “believed in him” at the Cana wedding, that is, on the basis of “the signs he was doing” (compare 2:11). If “signs” (sēmeia) are understood as miracles, no miracles comparable to what Jesus had done at Cana are recorded at this Passover in Jerusalem, and none will be until explicit notice is given that a “second sign” has taken place (4:54). In the present narrative, “the signs” can only be Jesus’ actions in driving the merchants and money changers from the temple,* “signs” recognized as such by those who “believed in his name” but not by “the Jews” at the temple who challenged his authority. The latter had seen what Jesus was doing (v. 18), but had still demanded, “What sign do you show us?” Here too the accent is on the verb “was doing” (epoiei) more than on “the signs.” It now becomes clear (if it was not before) that “the signs” are simply Jesus’ “deeds,” not necessarily miraculous but full of revelatory significance. First Jesus’ disciples, and now these believers at the Passover festival, saw significance in things Jesus had done, while “the Jews” (vv. 18 and 20) saw only a threat to their authority as guardians of the temple.

Nothing in the text suggests that the faith of these Passover “believers” was anything but genuine.* Later we will hear that those who have not “believed in the name of the One and Only Son of God” prove thereby that they are “already condemned” (3:18). These “believers” are clearly not in that position. But are “those who believe in his name” necessarily given “authority to become children of God” simply because of their belief? It would be natural to assume so (on the basis of 1:12), but what immediately follows suggests that their faith, genuine though it may be, is not sufficient to identify them as those “born of God” (see 1:13).

G. Jesus and Nicodemus at Passover (2:23–3:21)

Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover, with the festival going on, many believed in his name, for they could see the signs he was doing. But as for Jesus, he would not entrust himself to them, for he knew them all. He had no need for anyone to testify about the person, for he himself knew what was in the person. But there was one person, a man of the Pharisees, Nicodemus by name, a ruler of the Jews. He came to him at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know you have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these signs you are doing unless God is with him.” Jesus answered and said to him, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless someone is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus says to him, “How can a person be born when he is old? Can he enter his mother’s womb a second time and be born?” Jesus answered, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless someone is born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Don’t be surprised that I told you, ‘You people must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it will, and you hear the sound of it, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” Nicodemus answered and said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered and said to him, “You are the teacher of Israel, and you don’t understand these things! Amen, Amen, I say to you that we speak what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, and you people do not receive our testimony. If I have told you people earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? And no one has gone up to heaven except he who came down from heaven, the Son of man [who is in heaven].* And just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes might have eternal life in him. For God so loved the world that he gave the One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not be lost but have eternal life. For God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but so that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not judged; whoever does not believe is already judged, because he has not believed in the name of the One and Only Son of God. This then is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and human beings loved the dark rather than the Light, for their works were evil. Everyone who practices wicked things hates the Light and does not come to the Light, for fear his works will be exposed, but whoever does the truth comes to the Light, so that his works will be revealed as works wrought in God.”

There is no easy way to divide this long section, which spells out in some detail the contrast between belief and unbelief. The notice about those who “believed in his name, for they could see the signs he was doing” (vv. 23–25) leads smoothly into a dialogue with Nicodemus, the only named representative of this group (3:1–11). The dialogue then fades into a monologue in which Jesus seems to be addressing no one but the reader (3:12–21). The theme of his brief discourse is as broad as the Gospel itself, recalling themes introduced in the so-called “Prologue” (1:1–18)—above all, the coming of the Light into the world, the alternatives of receiving or rejecting the Light, and the necessity of “believing in his name” and being “born of God” (see 1:9–13).

24–25 Even though many “believed” (episteusan, v. 23), the Gospel writer is quick to add parenthetically that “as for Jesus, he would not “entrust [episteuen] himself* to them.”* In one sense this is not surprising, for Jesus in this Gospel is not known for greeting the faith even of his own disciples with great enthusiasm. His reaction is usually either silence (2:11; 4:53; 11:27), or a warning of some kind (6:70; 16:31–32), or a reference to something “greater” (1:50) or more “blessed” (20:29). Here he goes further, seeming to reject the faith of these Passover believers altogether. This is very odd in a Gospel where Jesus will hold out all kinds of promises to those who believe: they are “born of God” (1:13); they are not condemned to death, but have “eternal life” (3:16, 18; 5:24; 6:47); if they die, they will rise to life, never to die again (11:25–26); they will “see the glory of God” (11:40); they will receive the Spirit (7:39); and they will do the works Jesus did, and even “greater works” (14:12).

Why do none of these promises apply to the believers here? We are not told why, except that Jesus “knew them all.”* “He had no need for anyone to testify* about the person, for he himself knew what was in the person.”* It is all very well to “believe,” but Jesus, and Jesus alone, determines whether or not a person’s faith is accepted. He knows these “believers,” just as surely as he knew that Nathanael was “a true Israelite” (1:47). But what is it about them that he knows, and why does this prevent him from accepting their allegiance? It cannot be simply that their faith was based on “signs,”* for the same was true of Jesus’ disciples (2:11), and he quite clearly “entrusted himself” to them (2:12). Later, he will encourage even those who oppose him to “believe the works” he performs in order to understand his relationship to God the Father (10:38). Rather, what Jesus knows about these Passover believers is what he knew about Nathanael. Just as he knew that Nathanael was someone “in whom is no deceit” (1:47), so he knew generally what was “in the person,” and therefore what was (or was not) “in” these believers. Later he will say to another group (unbelievers in this case) at another Jewish festival, “No, I know you, that you do not have the love of God in yourselves” (5:42).* As his disciples come to recognize, Jesus “knows” everything (see 16:30; 21:17). He shares in the omniscience of God the Judge of all, who can “test the mind and search the heart, to give to all according to their ways” (Jer 17:10, NRSV; compare Ps 7:10; Prov 24:12),* and nowhere in the Gospel is his divine knowledge more evident than here.*

The phrases “about the person” and what was “in the person” imply a generalization about humanity and the human condition (see n. 8). The assessment is the narrator’s assessment, even though attributed to Jesus. It is a conclusion drawn from Jesus’ refusal to “entrust himself” to certain people who sought him out, a refusal that can be seen in the synoptic Gospels as well as the Gospel of John.* The mention of a “person” (anthrōpos) echoes the opening verses of the Gospel, where the writer speaks of “the light of humans” (1:3), and of “the true [Light] that illumines every human being who comes into the world” (1:9), but it also anticipates 3:19, where we are told that “the Light has come into the world, and human beings [hoi anthrōpoi] loved the dark rather than the Light, for their works were evil.” The latter restates the principle that “the world did not know him” (1:10) and “his own did not receive him” (1:11). “Humans” or “persons” (hoi anthrōpoi) are equivalent in this Gospel to “the world,” or “his own,” those who should have received him because he created them and illumined them at birth (1:3, 9), but did not. Now we learn that Jesus knew this from the start because he knew what was “in” them. In this Gospel there is something wrong with what is merely “human.” Jesus insists that “I do not receive glory from humans” (5:41; also 5:34), in contrast to unbelievers who receive “glory from one another” (5:44), and in contrast even to those who “believed in him” (12:42, as here), yet “loved the glory of humans instead of the glory of God” (12:43).

In the latter case a reason is given for the negative verdict on their faith: “because of the Pharisees they would not confess him for fear of being put out of the synagogue” (12:42). Perhaps this was also the reason why Jesus would not “entrust himself” to those who believed at this first Passover. We are not told. The only distinction between these Passover believers and the disciples who “believed in him” after the Cana wedding is simply that he “revealed his glory” to the one group (2:11) but not to the other. There is, as we will see, a strong note of divine election throughout this passage, as in the Gospel as a whole. Jesus chooses his own disciples (6:70; 13:18). They do not choose him (15:16).