Signs in John
(avg. read time: 11–22 mins.)
The Gospel according to John is notable for its use of “sign” language. In the other Gospels, there are signs of events, signs in the heavens, and signs demanded of Jesus (though not actually performed on demand). Only in John is this is a regular way of referring to Jesus’s extraordinary deeds, often described today as “miraculous.” To understand the function of this “sign” language, we will be looking at all seventeen instances of its appearance—2:11, 18, 23; 3:2; 4:48, 54; 6:2, 14, 26, 30; 7:31; 9:16; 10:41; 11:47; 12:18, 37; 20:30—in context. Some important contextual features to pay attention to will be the relationship of signs to testimony, faith, and sight (since, of course, signs are typically visual).
Additionally, we should consider how this preferred way of referring to Jesus’s extraordinary deeds is related to the story of the exodus. I have noted previously that there is much scholarship on the new exodus in the NT, though I only referred to sources that provide overviews of the scholarship and the NT as a whole. John is one such book that scholars have interpreted with this resonance in mind. There are several potential warrants for doing so. First, when the Word incarnates, it is said that he “tabernacled” (σκηνόω) among us. This is usually translated as “dwelt,” but that does not convey the more specific sense of dwelling as in a tent/tabernacle, which resonates with God’s presence in the tabernacle established in the exodus as the ending to the story of Exodus. Second, like the other Gospel authors, John connects John the Baptist to the new exodus text of Isa 40 as the one who prepares the way for the new exodus (1:23). Third, the Passover is referenced at narratively crucial points in John, which help to build up to and convey the new exodus that Jesus will bring about (2:13, 23; 6:4; 11:55; 12:1; 13:1; 18:28, 39; 19:14). Fourth, the point about Jesus “tabernacling” is further accentuated with Jesus cryptically describing his own body as a temple as a means of establishing his authority to do what he did in the temple, thereby portraying himself as God’s sanctuary-in-person (2:18–22). Fifth, Jesus compares himself with the bronze snake lifted up in the wilderness for the healing of Israel, though his lifting up will be superior in every way, not least because by it he will give others everlasting life (3:14–15). Sixth, Jesus also makes the link himself when he describes himself as the bread of life that provides everlasting life, being superior to the manna given to the Israelites in the wilderness (6:32–58). Seventh, the notion of Jesus’s death as bringing together the dispersed children of God and its relation to the Passover further support a new exodus framework that fulfills the hope of return from exile (11:51–52). None of this necessarily suggests that we read the “sign” language specifically as another connection with the exodus story, not least because there are differences with the signs against Egypt and the signs of Jesus that do not have that wrathful edge to them. But all of these points establish a context in which such a connection can be plausible. We will simply need to determine the plausibility of each case as it arises.
The first reference to a “sign” comes with the first such deed described in this fashion in 2:11. This is the ending of the story of Jesus being at the wedding in Cana where he turned water into wine. In this display of Jesus’s power in a mundane setting, John says that he revealed his glory. After all, this event was a revelation of who he is, being a sign that pointed to his identity. As such, it was a basis for the disciples to have faith in him. In this way, the sign functions similarly to the signs God gave Moses to perform so that the Hebrews/Israelites would believe him (Exod 4:8–9, 17, 28, 30). Signs are significant for faith, but as we will see later, they are hardly sufficient for it.
In the next episode of the story, when Jesus visits the temple for the first time in his ministry, we get the confrontation between Jesus and the Jewish leaders at the temple. They ask him for a sign to show them that he has the authority for clearing out the temple as he has and making the declarations he has (2:18). Jesus answers with his statement about destroying this temple and that he will raise it in three days. As John says, this is a reference to Jesus’s resurrection, as I explored recently. The resurrection is a sign being invoked that is actually not going to happen anytime soon. It is something that will demonstrate his authority well after the fact. The sign thus not only points to his authority, but also to his identity from which his authority derives, since he is God’s presence-in-person, and this fits with what he has said of presenting himself in terms of the temple. In this context, the resurrection will be a sign that will be doubly vindicative. First, it will vindicate this action precisely by functioning as a sign that points to his identity. Second, it will vindicate his identity claims, including of being God’s temple-in-person, thus attesting to who he is against those who sought to destroy him and snuff out his call to faith. Interestingly, there is a parallel for this in Exodus that is more distant than the previous one. In fact, the first time God uses “sign” language in Exodus, it is the sign he gives to Moses by which he will know that he has sent him: when he has brought his people out of Egypt, he and they will worship God on this mountain (i.e., Sinai; Exod 3:12). The sign will be the fulfillment itself, just as Jesus’s resurrection will be in the narrative of John. This fits with the test established in Deut 13:1–2 and upheld elsewhere that a prophet is shown to be true by whether a sign or wonder comes to pass (cf. 1 Sam 10:1, 7, 9; 2 Kgs 19:29; 20:8–9; Isa 7:14; 37:30; 38:22; Jer 44:29).
The next two references can be treated together because they have the same referent. The narrator tells us that many had faith in Jesus’s name after they beheld the signs that he did (2:23). When Nicodemus begins his subsequent conversation with Jesus, he refers to “these signs” that Jesus does and that no one could do them unless they came from God (3:2). Interestingly, in John’s narrative, we are not told what other signs he could be referencing. Thus far, only one act in the course of the narrative has been called a sign, which was at the wedding in Cana, and that was not common knowledge. It could be that John is implying Jesus doing other deeds while in Jerusalem that today would be called “miracles.” At the same time, as part of this reference, it could be that the cleansing of the temple is being presented as a prophetic sign-action. Of course, in context, it goes beyond a typical prophetic sign-action because it testifies not only to what God will do by this symbolic action, but it also testifies to Jesus’s identity. The fact that the signs are effective for initiating faith once again shows that they are not without effectiveness. Faith and sight are not inherently opposed. What must be shown is that the faith will endure in the absence of such extraordinary visual stimuli, and that this initial faith will truly become faithfulness (i.e., allegiance). Of course, as we will see later, the complication in the relationship of faith and sight extends further, as there are some who do not have faith despite what they see, and Jesus will call “blessed” those who come to faith through the testimony of the gospel who thus have faith without seeing.
The next story is also Jesus’s next sign, which is done for a royal official’s son who is on the verge of death. Jesus initially challenges the royal official with the notion that “Unless you should see signs and portents, you will by no means have faith” (4:48). This is similar to other critical statements he has made about this generation asking for signs (Matt 12:39 // Luke 11:29; Matt 16:4; Mark 8:12; cf. Matt 17:17 // Mark 9:19 // Luke 9:41). But those who insist upon signs rather than receiving the signs they have been given are not of the mindset to establish a faith that will endure. The official responds to the challenge by saying that this is not his intention; he simply believes that Jesus can heal his son. Thus, Jesus tells him that his son will live, the man has faith in his word, and he goes. When he later learns that his son has been healed and he was healed instantaneously from a distance whenever Jesus gave the word, he and his whole household had faith in Jesus (4:53). Again, this sign pointed to who he is, and because people saw it happen, they had faith in Jesus.
What is also notable about this passage is the statement in v. 54: “Now again, this was the second sign Jesus did, after he came from Judea into Galilee.” Considering that there were references to multiple signs in 2:23 and 3:2, this can be initially confusing to the reader. The last clause is added to clarify that this was his second sign in Galilee, and it is the second sign thus narrated there. This is akin to the narrator comment that Jesus appeared to his disciples for “the third time” in 21:14, when this was the fourth appearance referenced in the book and John would have been aware of others (per 1 Cor 15:5–7 and the other Gospels). But in the narrative scope, this is only the third and it is the third specifically to the group of disciples, which Mary’s appearance does not count towards because she was not among the other disciples when Jesus first appeared to her.
However, what could be counted as the third “sign” is not described in that fashion in the episode where it happens in 5:1–9. It is indirectly called such in 6:2, when the narrator says, “But a great crowd followed him, because they were seeing the signs which he did for the sick.” Again, there could be unnarrated signs indicated here, but in the narrative context, the last two extraordinary deeds are the signs being referenced, since they were both done for the sick, one for the royal official’s dying son and one for the lame man, the latter of which had taken place in Jerusalem on a Sabbath during a festival. Some of these Galileans would probably have been around for the festival, just as Jesus himself had gone up to Jerusalem, and so could have easily beheld or heard of the latter sign that way. The other story would have spread of its own accord in Galilee. Thus, this great crowd gathers around him to see what else he might do.
This same crowd would receive his next sign and see it done, for it was the miracle of multiplication for the feeding of the 5,000. The response to seeing this sign, combined with the timing near Passover, and the setting in the wilderness made this reminiscent of the provision of manna, which is not even to mention the diverse messianic expectations of the time, was to declare, “This one truly is the prophet who is coming into the world” (6:14). This recalls the promise God gave through Moses that he would raise another prophet like Moses in Deut 18:15–18. As such, the people sought to seize him to make him king (6:15), since they thought this would be the man to free them from Rome, renew the people of Israel, and establish the kingdom in accordance with the hopes delivered through the prophets (in addition to the new exodus entry, see here as well). This is an important reminder that signs without context can easily be used to take one to the wrong conclusion. Indeed, one can always reject the context given and substitute one’s own. As such, signs are never sufficient by themselves, and faith cannot live by signs alone. As Jesus knows that the people have not understood his sign properly and have misconstrued what it means for him to be the one like but greater than Moses, he avoids the crowd and will later provide the context for understanding this sign.
In that later teaching, Jesus will say that the crowd sought him out not because of the signs but because they ate the bread and were satisfied (6:26). But he tells them not to seek such food, but to seek for the food that abides to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give (6:27). In order to do the works of God and to receive this bread, Jesus says that they must have faith in the one whom he sent (6:28–29). The crowd then asks what he would do for a sign that they may have faith in him (6:30). Again, this crowd knows of other works he has done, and they themselves received the fruits of the sign of his multiplication of the bread and fish. Yet here they are asking for another sign, as if one more sign is what they need to have faith in him, and what they know of him thus far is supposedly insufficient for them to begin. They expect something akin to what he has already done, but more like the miracle of the manna coming down out of heaven (6:31). But Jesus says that the manna was not the bread of heaven that he can give them, for that bread could not give everlasting life (6:32–33). Instead, as the rest of the discourse will show (6:34–58), the bread of life that he will give is himself, his flesh, as well as his blood. Those who are in faithful union with him are those who partake of it, participating in his life. Only by such faithful union will they receive the everlasting life he has to give. Again, as we saw in the case of 2:18–22, this sign is something that will not come for some time with his death, resurrection, and exaltation. The sign is nothing else but the actual achievement of Jesus’s communication of everlasting life. The sign is the reality itself, which will demonstrate his identity and thus ability to give everlasting life. But the crowd is offended by how he describes this sign, and, like some of his own disciples, they cease following after him once he gives the context of the sign he has already done. That sign did point to who he is as the bread of life, and it foreshadowed the bread of life that he will give. But the crowd was not willing to receive this deeper meaning and fuller context, for indeed they were not willing to receive him on this level, for it would be more demanding of them than of simply sitting back and receiving provision.
This story is also a reminder of the exodus story in more ways than what has already been indicated. After all, while the exodus story did involve signs, it also involved hardness of heart (Exod 7:3, 9; 10:1–2; 11:9–10). But Pharaoh was not the only person involved in the story of the exodus that showed hardness of heart in the face of the signs God gave. The Israelites also demonstrated their hardness of heart in spite of the signs they saw in Egypt and in the wilderness (Num 14:11, 22; Deut 4:34; 6:22; 7:19; 11:3; 26:8; 29:3; 34:11; Neh 9:10; Pss 78:43; 105:27; 135:9; Jer 32:20–21). The signs they saw did not lead them into deeper faith. They did not make the commitment of allegiance they needed.
However, while the crowds have some measure of faith in him, they tend to sit loose of the commitment to faithful union he calls people to. In a mostly positive context, many of the crowd at the Feast of Tabernacles are said to have faith in him, yet they also say in 7:31, “Whenever the Messiah comes, will he not do more signs than this one is doing?” This is part of a larger dialogue in which some in the crowd do think that Jesus is the Messiah, but others do not. This particular subset of people are positive about him, but have not taken the next step to recognize him as Messiah. Yet again, they have seen the signs, and they know they say something important about him. But without accepting his context for the signs, they do not understand them rightly. In this case, at least part of the crowd has now dissociated him from messianic expectation, since he does not fit the context they have established for him. Rather, Jesus must define his own context for the signs for those who wish to follow them to faithful union with him.
In another controversy among Pharisees, some insisted that Jesus was not from God because he supposedly did not keep the Sabbath (since he healed the blind man on the Sabbath), but others were perplexed at the idea that a sinful man could do such signs (9:16). Most immediately, this refers to his healing of the blind man, but obviously there is a history this comment rests upon as well. But the formerly blind man does not need to know any of that. Based on this action, when the Pharisees ask him what he says about the man who healed him, he says, “he is a prophet” (9:17). As the recipient of the sign and being so struck by the wonder of seeing for the first time in his life because of Jesus, he is closer to the truth than the Pharisee adversaries, but even he does not quite grasp who Jesus is yet. Jesus himself will need to provide the context for the formerly blind man to know him better and have faithful union with him upon knowing him as the Son of Man (9:35–39). This whole story is rich with language of sight and blindness, as well as layers of irony and connections with later historical experiences. For now, it is worth noting that the man who received the sign, but did not technically see it, is willing to make a faith commitment when he sees the one who did the sign (i.e., when he sees the reality of the light that the sign pointed to). Indeed, even before meeting Jesus, he is willing to testify about him. But the ones who have seen the man and the effects of the sign (as well as several others to this point) are at no point willing to make that same faith commitment. Theirs is a blindness more severe than this man had ever suffered, for it is willful.
In another controversy, Jesus was actually not asked for a sign but was asked to say frankly if he was the Messiah or not (10:24). Jesus does not give a sign; he responds with saying that he has told them already, but they did not believe him. But he points to his works that he has done in his Father’s name as testimony concerning him (10:25; cf. 10:37). While the signs are meant to inspire testimony, as in the case of the formerly blind man, they are themselves testimony that point to Jesus’s identity. But, as Jesus himself has indicated, they are not sufficient in themselves because they need context to make sense of them in how they point to and identify Jesus. The rest of the discourse then concerns Jesus’s identity and how these people would recognize him if they were among his sheep (10:26–39). The controversy even escalates to an attempted lynching by stoning because of how far Jesus goes in his identity claim to say that he and the Father are one (10:30). In the end, the episode still illustrates that signs can be testimony, and powerful testimony at that, but for people who are too comfortable with their worldview the way it is and who are unwilling to make the faith commitment to the reality the sign points to, the testimony will fall on stopped ears and eyes sealed shut. After this controversy, many will yet have faith in Jesus (10:42) not because of the testimony of signs but because of the testimony of another. For many went to where Jesus was, where John once baptized at the Jordan, and said, “John did no sign, but all things which John said about this man were true” (10:41). As I have written about all too briefly before, there is a narrative power to testimony, as well as a power to build trust from reliable witnesses for what they testify about. John the Baptist himself did no signs, but what he testified about Jesus was true, which was what these people needed to have faith in him. They foreshadow a point Jesus will make near the end of ch. 20. But we will get to that later. What needs to be noted for now is the significance of testimony even without signs.
From the Sanhedrin’s general perspective, the fact that Jesus has done many signs, the latest of which was raising Lazarus from the dead, is a cause for much concern. As they see it, if Jesus continues to do signs as he has, “all people will have faith in him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation” (11:48). They have a similar corrupted image of who Jesus is to how the Galilean crowd thought of him, for they also misunderstand his purpose. But they also have overestimated the power of the signs. Not only are they apparently unaware of others who have not been swayed by them or of the issue Jesus ran into with the Galilean crowd, but they also are taking no account of the fact that the signs have not affected them (at least, mostly). Of course, this could be due to hubris, as they think their perceptiveness is above that of the rest of the populace, that they alone can stand firm against the waves of supposed deception, even if the rest of the nation is carried along with the tide. Likewise, they think their knowledge and understanding of Scripture is superior to others, but they clearly have not reckoned with the significance of their own ancestral narrative, where the signs God gave through Moses and Aaron in Egypt and the wilderness did not produce lasting faith for most of Israel.
To be fair, this is not to say that the signs have no effect. We have seen that the signs did have effect for initiating faith. In fact, when Jesus arrives at Jerusalem, the crowd who was with him when he raised Lazarus from the dead testified (12:17). While the original story in ch. 11 did not describe the event as a sign, v. 18 in this chapter does describe it in this fashion. It fits as a sign in being an immediate, visual demonstration of who Jesus is as “the resurrection and the life” (11:25). And as a result of seeing this sign, people are inspired to testify concerning Jesus. As I have said before, one of the primary functions of disciples in John is to serve as witnesses to testify to the truth of who Jesus is and what he has done in unison with the Spirit, the Scriptures, and Jesus’s own deeds (on the larger motif, see 1:6–8, 14–15, 29–34; 3:26–30; 4:39–42; 5:33–35, 39, 45–47; 9:8–34; 12:17; 15:26–27; 16:7–11; 19:35; 20:17–18; 21:24). As such, this whole sequence is something of an ideal outcome based on what we have seen thus far in John, although it is not quite there because the crowd does not yet rightly recognize what it will mean for Jesus to be the resurrection and the life in terms of the major gospel events he must go through. Even though they saw the sign of who Jesus is, and even though they testified for him, they did not yet grasp the proper context of the sign in Jesus’s mission.
Still, the narrator will later tell us that most did not have faith in him. And he says this is despite the fact that “he had done so many [or “such great”] signs before them” (12:37). On the one hand, John links this with Isa 53:1 as a way of further setting up Jesus’s fate and theologically framing his death (12:38). On the other hand, he also invokes Isa 6:10 as an explanation (12:39–40), which Jesus had also used in reference to why he spoke in parables. Of course, the description of hardened hearts also resonates with the exodus, and it is tragically apropos that hardness of heart should accompany the inauguration of the new exodus as well.
The final reference to signs is the narrator comment that after his resurrection, “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which have not been written in this book” (20:30). Notably, though, those signs are not written for the audience’s benefit. Instead, John says, “but these things have been written in order that you might continue having faith that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and in order that, having faith, you may have life in his name” (20:31). These last two verses accentuate the point Jesus first made in his response to Thomas’s christological confession that the ones who do not see and have faith are blessed (20:29). Jesus’s signs have their place in his ministry and his revelation, but in the end, they do not last forever, and a faith that needs a constant infusion of them will not last. And we have already seen examples in the Gospel of people who did not have faith in spite of his signs and who abandoned him after something he said. In fact, his own disciples who otherwise stuck with him abandoned him at his arrest after all that they had seen and been told. Signs are important in revelation and in Jesus’s mission, but they are not a sufficient condition for faith. At some point, the turn to testimony must take place. And that is what Jesus refers to in describing future believers.