In the previous two articles, we discussed how Jesus was an answer to some of the questions that the Jewish people had after the Babylonian exile, like what Israel’s role in God’s redemption plan would be and how the Davidic kingship would fit into the picture. We saw how Jesus retold David’s story to usher in a new kingdom of peace, abundance, and partnership between God and humans. We witnessed how Jesus retold Israel’s story to accomplish their mission of defeating the corruption of sin in his own human nature and demonstrate his ability to heal the sin-disease in others. John’s Gospel account of Jesus’ life touches on these themes as well, but John puts a special emphasis on answering another question on the Jewish people’s minds: would God ever dwell among them again?

John’s answer to this question is that God became human in Jesus.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

The statement that Jesus was both “God” and “with God,” as well as the idea that God became human, lead to many potential theological questions that the Church spent centuries working out. We don’t have the space to go into even a fraction of that discussion here, but we can highlight a few relevant conclusions. God is a “trinity,” three co-equal persons in one being: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Son (who John also calls “the Word”) became human in Jesus, who is both fully human and fully God.

The Trinity gives us insight into how God relates to His entire creation. A view of God as only transcendent (separate from creation) and unitary means God cannot contact us or communicate with us. A view of God as fully immanent (present in creation) means that all evil, including human evil, must be part of God. The Trinity avoids both these extremes. God is both transcendent over creation as the Father and immanent in creation as the Son and Spirit.

The Trinity also gives us an insight into God’s nature and character behind God’s actions: There is a beautiful, self-giving, other-centered love between Father, Son, and Spirit, God is the source of this kind of love (John 15:9; 17:26). So when God loves us and all creation, He is expressing His nature and character. When God calls us to love Him and others with His love, God is not being narcissistic. A view of God as a Singularity rather than a Trinity might lead to a sense that God is narcissistic. That view might also lead to the conclusion that God might choose to love, but not that God is the source of all true love, and is love in its fullness.

If these ideas seem a little confusing to you, that’s normal, but a basic understanding of them provides a key to unlocking the full significance of Jesus’ story.

Jesus Retells God’s Story

The opening verses of John’s Gospel are a clear allusion to the opening of Genesis. In addition to John’s repetition of Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning,” John unfolds the “back story” of Genesis. He elaborates on the Son’s role in the creation of the universe. The Son was the one who brought everything into being. It is fitting, then, that he is also the one who enters into the world to restore Creation. This is the dynamic in mind when we talk about Jesus “retelling God’s story.” In the context of David and Israel, they made mistakes that needed to be undone. Jesus retelling those stories was about fixing those mistakes to move those stories into a new chapter. In the case of retelling God’s story, it is not that God made a mistake; rather, God saw that Creation was again headed towards self-destruction, and God’s entrance into the world through Jesus marked a new beginning towards the world’s healing and restoration.

Continuing with allusions to Genesis, John’s Gospel makes repeated use of the number seven. There are seven stories about Jesus performing miracles. There are seven discourses, or passages of Jesus’ teachings. Over the course of John’s Gospel, Jesus makes seven “I am” statements, which hold additional significance considering that “Yahweh,” the Hebrew name for God, can be translated as “I am.” Towards the end of the Gospel, Jesus breathes on his disciples to give them the Holy Spirit, which parallels how God breathes life into Adam.

The effect of Jesus retelling God’s story can be understood through the repeated associations between Jesus and the Jewish Temple. Over and over again, Jesus is found in the temple. Very early in Jesus’ ministry, he cleanses the temple by driving out people who are selling animals and exchanging money in the temple’s outer court. When the people question his authority to do this, he responds by saying “destroy the temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The people in the story are confused by this, but to readers who know that Jesus was resurrected three days after being crucified the meaning is clear: Jesus is calling himself the true temple.

Jesus as Temple

It may seem strange that Jesus is identifying himself with a building, but let’s recall the meaning of the temple up to this point in the Bible’s story. Prior to the Babylonian exile, the temple was the place where God resided among the Israelites. It was constructed by Solomon to replace the tabernacle, which had been the tent that held God’s presence. The design for the tabernacle was given to the Israelites at Mount Sinai, and it reflected the different ways that Israel encountered God there: The outer courtyard corresponded to the foot of the mountain, where the people of Israel met with God. The inner “Holy Place” corresponded to the middle of the mountain, where seventy elders went with Moses to worship God. The innermost “Holy of Holies” corresponded to the mountain’s peak, where Moses met with God. Mount Sinai itself mirrored the mountain that contained Eden. Adam and Eve were in a garden land on a mountain but were exiled; Israel was invited up to Mount Sinai before entering into a garden land.

The common thread that unites Eden, Sinai, the tabernacle, and the temple is that these were the places where Heaven and Earth met. These were the places in Israel’s stories where God and humans were closest together. Each of them acted as a sort of base camp/launch pad/headquarters for God’s mission to the world, the source from which God’s restoration and healing flowed outward to Creation. By identifying himself as the temple, Jesus is saying that he is where Heaven and Earth meet, where God and humans touch, and the new source of God’s healing and restoration to the world. Jesus brings God’s Kingdom to Earth because he is both God and King. He cures the sin-disease because he is both doctor (God) and patient (human). After the Babylonian exile, when God’s presence left the temple, the Jewish people wondered if it would ever return. In Jesus, it did. John 1:14 is usually translated as “the Word became flesh and lived among us,” or something similar, but a more literal translation would be “the Word tabernacled among us.” John’s Gospel is clear that in Jesus, God made his return, open to all in a new way.

This connection between Jesus and the temple gives additional texture to the tearing of the temple veil at Jesus’ death recorded in Matthew, Mark, and Luke’s Gospels. The veil stood at the entrance of the Holy of Holies, the innermost part of the temple, where God’s presence resided prior to the Babylonian exile. The tearing of the temple veil symbolizes that God’s presence is no longer limited to the temple, accessible only to the Israelites. Now, God is universally present all over the world. Jesus fulfilled the temple’s purpose and brought all of humanity back into the presence of God.

Though John’s Gospel does not record the tearing of the temple veil, he communicates a similar idea in the story of Jesus’ empty tomb. When Mary comes to see if Jesus’ tomb is really empty, she finds two angels standing next to where Jesus’ body had lain. One stood at the head, and one at the feet. To a Jewish audience, this image would have evoked a reminder of the Ark of the Covenant, the chest which held God’s presence in the Holy of Holies. The cover of the Ark of the Covenant had an angel on each side. The message communicated by the two angels in Jesus’s empty, open tomb is clear: the Ark of the Covenant has been opened, and God’s presence now resides over all of Creation.

Jesus as Sacrifice

John’s Gospel also connects Jesus to the sacrificial system, which was closely associated with the temple. We go much more in depth on this idea in [Atonement 201][A201], but we will touch on the main points here. Our key verse for this section is John 1:29. When John the Baptist sees Jesus coming towards him, he says “Here is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”. The “lamb” part should be clear to those familiar with the Bible’s story. The Jewish celebration of Passover, which commemorates how God freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, involves the killing of a lamb, which God commanded the Israelite families to do the night before they gained their freedom. Each Gospel records that Jesus was killed during Passover, identifying him with the Passover Lamb.

But how should we make sense of the rest of John the Baptist’s exclamation? The Passover Lamb didn’t “take away the sins” of the Israelites. That happened during the Day of Atonement. During that celebration, one goat was killed for the sake of cleansing all of Israel of ritual impurity, and a second “scapegoat” was sent into the wilderness, carrying all of Israel’s sins with it. In John the Baptist’s statement, he is combining the Passover lamb with the scapegoat and associating Jesus with both.

Though the Passover lamb and scapegoat are two different sacrifices, we can see how they connect. The Passover lamb marked the moment when the Israelites cut themselves away from the external evil that they encountered in Egypt. They were freed from slavery and oppression by outside forces, removed from a land of sin into a new garden land. The scapegoat was a ceremony where the Israelites sent away their society’s internal evil. They were removing their sin-disease and sending it out of the garden land. These two sacrifices were two sides of the same coin, and it’s no mystery as to why John the Baptist combined them.

Death and Resurrection

The meanings behind the Passover lamb and scapegoat help us to better understand what Jesus’ death accomplished. In dying, Jesus struck the final blow to the sin-disease in his human nature. His death was the last step of a surgical procedure that began when he became human in Mary’s womb. It was the stroke that completed the “circumcision of the heart” that Moses called for, which sent away the corruption for good. Before Jesus, all humans were slaves to sin. As Passover Lamb, Jesus frees us from the bondage of our sin-sickness. Before Jesus, the best humans could do was to hold the corruption at bay. As scapegoat, Jesus sends our sin-disease as far away as the East is from the West.

With Jesus’ healing of his human nature from sin, death could not hold him, and the third day from his crucifixion, he was resurrected as the first member of a New Humanity, one with a fully restored human nature back in perfect relationship with God, others, and Creation.

With the resurrection, Jesus completed the retelling of God’s story. John’s Gospel alludes to this with the story of Jesus appearing to Mary after his resurrection. When Mary first encounters Jesus, she mistakes him for a gardener. Clearly, the risen Jesus was waiting for the disciples in a garden outside his tomb. What is the image that this scene portrays? Jesus, in his resurrected state, has returned humanity to the Garden. We have discussed how a return from exile to Eden was Israel’s goal, on behalf of all humanity, but it was also God’s desire. Recall that the exile from Eden was not so much a punishment from God, but a way to protect Adam and Eve from immortalizing the corruption in their human nature by eating from the tree of life with the sin-disease present. The story of the Bible is a story of God’s partnership with humanity towards human restoration, and this was accomplished with Jesus.

Now What?

We have only touched the surface of the symbolism present in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. There is much more to explore in the Atonement 201 series. What we have covered gives us a basic understanding of what Jesus accomplished, and while we can be in awe of that, some readers may be left wondering what all of it means for us.