Kostenberger, Swain, and Rainbow (for any theology nerds out there), agree that "The reader is left to deduce that Jesus speaks God’s words and does God’s works in the rest of the Gospel by virtue of this empowerment” Meaning that everyone that Jesus does for the rest of the Gospel will be a result of receiving this Holy Spirit. Here’s where things start to get interesting. Let’s look at Jesus’ first week of ministry in John 1:19-2:11 Day 1: John’s testimony regarding Jesus (1:19-28) Day 2: Johns’ encounter with Jesus (1:29-34) Day 3: Johns’ referral of two disciples to Jesus (1:35-39) Day 4: Andrews’ introduction of his brother Peter to Jesus Day 5: Philip follows Jesus (1:43-44) Day 6: Nathanael follows Jesus (1:45-51) Day 7: the wedding at Cana (2:1-11). Considering the ridiculous amount of creation imagery already presented in John, the fact that John delineates Jesus’ first week of ministry into 7 clear days should be another obvious allusion to seven structure of the creation narrative. When I was talking to my good friend about this, he pointed out that if this were an allusion to the seven days of creation, a day of Sabbath should be presented, and it isn’t. This a good point, with a really good answer. Commentators link the lack of a Sabbath in the first week of Jesus’ ministry to Jesus’ statement to the Pharisee’s in chapter 5. The Jewish leaders get mad at Jesus for healing the sick man at Bethesda, and so Jesus responds in 5:17, “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.” In light of all of this, we can conclude that John understands Jesus’ ministry as the beginning of God’s new creative work in this world, for “no one other than the Creator had the authority to determine whether engaging in a particular activity on the day of rest was appropriate.” Now something very important happens on Jesus’ seventh day of ministry: his first miracle. Jesus is at a wedding party, when suddenly they run out of wine. So Jesus’ mom comes to Jesus and says, “hey, you need to fix this. Like now” (I’m paraphrasing). And Jesus says,
God lives by his Spirit.” And why Peter says in 1 Peter 2:4-5 "You are coming to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God’s temple. He was rejected by people, but he was chosen by God for great honor. And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple.” God is forming his people together in unity, in such a way that they become the Temple, the place where the presence of the living God with rest and remain. The place where those outside the community are to come to learn about YHWH the creator God. That place is now you, and me, and all of us individually and together. We are the overlap between Heaven and Earth. The cross section between God’s space and man’s space. We are to continue the work of Jesus of bringing Heaven to Earth, ushering in the New Creation, preparing for the day that the Christ returns, Heaven and Earth are reunited, the presence of God is manifest on Earth, and we live face to face with our Creator for all of eternity. How do we do that? We look to Jesus and follow in his example in every way. Showing love to the poor and outcast. Bringing healing to the sick. Being generous with our time and money. Obeying the Law as it was intended. I can’t give everyone here a direct application from today’s teaching. We must all do the hard work of understanding what it means to be a New Creation made in the image of Christ, in our own setting and context. So may we all go today, having the breath of Jesus in our lungs, and learn what it means to be gardeners. To care and cultivate this beautiful creation. To become a New Humanity.
if the last sign was suddenly broken into two distinct acts that took place over three days. In addition to all of this, John then makes an explicit statement that Mary went to go see Jesus’ tomb on the “first day” (20:1). If the signs truly do correlate to days of creation, the resurrection then is the 8th sign, and 8th day. It is the “first day” of the New Creation, inaugurated by the resurrection of Jesus, which implicitly looks forward to the final day of the New Creation: the resurrection of Christ’s followers. Due to John’s very intentional placement of both the crucifixion and the resurrection on meaningful days in the creation narrative, it is likely John intended for these two moments to be considered independent signs. Garden Imagery in the Passion Narrative From the beginning of the Passion narrative, all the way through the end of the book, John’s Gospel is filled with imagery alluding to the garden of Eden. Throughout the entire NT, κῆπος “garden” is only used five times: once in Luke 13:19, and four times in John (18:1; 26; and twice in 19:41). Such rare use of this word indicates John likely had a special purpose in using it. The first piece of garden imagery is at the arrest of Jesus, which takes place in a garden (18:1; 26). Some have argued that this cannot be an allusion to Eden, because the word for garden in 18:1 is κῆπος, whereas the LXX translates garden as παράδεισος “paradise” in Gen. 2:8. But, Suggit rightly observes, “In the Genesis narrative the Hebrew gan is rendered in the Septuagint by paradeisos (Gen. 2:8), but elsewhere in the Old Testament gan is translated by Kepos. In Ezekiel 36:35 gan-eden is rendered as kepos truphes, and Sanders and Mastin (1968) note that Auila and Theodotion rendered gan by Kepos in Genesis. Since paradeisos in the New Testament signified the future state in the presence of God (Luke 23:43; 2 Cor. 12:4; Rev. 2:7) it was an unsatisfactory word to use to refer to an earthly garden.”