The Johannine "Signs": Their Meaning and Function in John's Time and Today
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Date
2002
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Tangaza University College
Abstract
The Gospel according to St. John, to many people, is the most precious book in
the Bible. It can be read and loved without any commentary at all. But the more one
studies John, the more wealth arises out of it. Down through the centuries, the Fourth
Gospel has been considered as a Gospel with a difference, right from its opening words,
which begin, not in Palestine, but in Eternity. The longer one studies the Gospel of
John, the clearer it becomes that the Fourth Gospel raises theological questions of great
and universal importance.
Many scholars have been passionately attracted by the richness of the
symbolism and the use of the theological vocabulary in the Fourth Gospel. More
attention is called to the spiritual significance of apparently routine happenings and to
the fuller meaning of words and events narrated in the Gospel. Symbolism is extended
to the events and persons and makes it necessary for us to read John with close attention
lost it's full meaning escape us. Symbolism for its own sake does not exist in John. The
author never challenges the reader's subtlety as an end in itself, but always to make him
realize that there was nothing trivial in the Gospel. In this essay our sole aim is to locate our study in the meaning and function of
the Johannine usage of the term "sign" and to bring out the challenges it offers to us
Christians today. The term -sign" which appears for the first time in in 2:11 is a
theological one deliberately chosen by the Evangelist, with a meaning which must be
assessed in relation to the whole Gospel. John has used the term to designate the major
miracles of Jesus, which are not merely mentioned but described in some detail.
Even though we will take a comprehensive look at the use of "sign" in the
Gospel as a whole, we will mainly focus our attention on the meaning and function of
the "seven signs" narrated in the "book of signs". Our aim is to show how these "signs"
unfold progressively the identity of Jesus as the Life-Giver.
This essay is divided into three chapters with a general introduction and a
general conclusion. In the first chapter we examine the non-biblical and biblical
background of John's concept of the term "sign". This study will take us to the usage of
"sign" in history, in the Old Testament and in the synoptic Gospels.
In the second chapter we examine the general aspect of the Johannine usage of
"sign" and the meanings and functions of the "seven signs".
The third chapter deals with the challenges oftoday in responding to the "signs"
of Jesus, especially he present day challenges that the Church in India has to face, if it
wants to be a true "sign" of Jesus, the Life-Giver.
In short, the essay is an attempt to study the theology of the Johannine "signs"
through which the Evangelist unfolds the identity of Jesus as the Life-Giver in a
progressive and dramatic way and to identify the pragmatic demands of Christian life.
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Keywords
Signs, John's Time