Water into Wine: The Significance of the Sign in John 2:1–11

The turning of the water into wine is one of Jesus’ most famous miracles. The narrator of John’s Gospel calls this ἀρχὴν τῶν σημείων the first of the signs that Jesus performed during his public ministry (John 2:11; compare with John 20:30–31; 21:25). If this miracle is a sign, it is appropriate to ask what its significance is.

The detail that Jesus created the wine in six stone jars that were used for Jewish ceremonial washing is important (John 2:6). Each jar could hold about 75–115 liters, which means that together they could have held enough water to fill a Jewish ceremonial immersion pool. It can also be implied from Jesus’ instruction to the servants to fill the jars with water (see John 2:7) that these jars were originally empty or close to such. This is also an important detail.

Jesus filling the jars with water, and subsequently transforming this water into good-quality wine, points to the truth that Jesus is the full-fill-ment of Judaism. The empty state of the jars, and the fact that there were six jars, symbolizes the dryness, barrenness, and incompleteness of the old covenant age. The Old Testament was a time when the work of the Holy Spirit was limited. But Jesus has come to give the Spirit and life and joy in abundance; and as a result, the old covenant age of emptiness and thirst has been replaced by the new covenant age of abundance. This fulfills Yahweh’s promise in Isa 44:3: “I will pour out water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.” The time of the new covenant would be a time when the thirsty were invited to come and drink, to “buy wine and milk without money and without price” from the Davidic leader and commander of the peoples (Isa 55:1–4). John’s Gospel presents Jesus of Nazareth as being the fulfillment of this Old Testament hope, and the miracle at Cana points to the fact that Jesus has come to change old covenant curse into new covenant blessing (Ezek 34:26; Zech 8:13; Gal 3:13–14).

In addition, the fact that this miracle involved Jesus making wine signifies that Jesus has come in fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies that describe the new covenant age in terms of an abundance of new wine. For example, in Isa 25:6 it is prophesied: “On this mountain [i.e., Jerusalem] Yahweh of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined.” This divine provision of wine occurs as part of an eschatological feast, which is connected with the abolition of sadness and death on a universal scale: “And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord Yahweh will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth” (Isa 25:7–8). The Old Testament often associates divine blessing with an abundance of wine (see Deut 33:28; Jer 31:11–12; Joel 2:19–27; Zech 9:16–17).

On a deeper level, the sign performed by Jesus at Cana stands as a witness to God’s plan for the world. In terms of the bigger picture, world history involves a movement from curse to blessing, from sadness to joy, from death to life, corresponding in large part to the movement from the old covenant to the new, wherein God saves the best till last.

This idea about God saving the best till last is emphasized through the way in which the episode in John 2:1–11 finishes. When the servants took some of the water that had been turned into wine to the master of the banquet, the master of the banquet was amazed, not just at the quality of the wine, but also because of the late timing of its serving:

“When the master of the banquet tasted the water which had become wine and did not know where it was from … [he] called the bridegroom, and said to him, ‘Everyone sets the good wine first; and when they have had too much to drink, the inferior. But you have kept the good wine until now’” (John 2:10).

The master of the banquet was presumably unaware of the deeper significance of his statement, but it captures brilliantly God’s way of working in history, and that is exactly why it is recorded here in John’s Gospel. The statement of the master of the banquet that “you have kept the good wine until now” is statement about God’s way of acting in world history through Jesus. By entering the world in the person of Jesus near the end of world history, God has kept the good wine until the end. God has saved the best till last!

Understanding that God is saving the best till last affords us a profound insight into the purpose of the cosmos. God could have arranged for sin never to have entered our world, but he chose not to structure world history that way. God could have sent Jesus and unleashed the full power of his Spirit shortly after Adam and Eve had sinned, but he chose not to structure world history that way. Rather, God would take his time. This is consistent with the fact that God took six long days to create and order the world before it was “completed” and “very good” (Gen 1:31–2:1). The time frame of creation itself points to the idea that God’s plan for human history would get worked out over time. And as part of this process, God was saving the best till last.

But why would God act in this way? Why take his time? We can frequently become impatient with God and his timetable. At times we are unwilling to accept that suffering continues. We sometimes question God as to why he is not seemingly doing anything. Even Mary wanted Jesus to act before his time had come (John 2:3–4). But God is taking his time, and saving the best till last, because that is the process that is most conducive from God’s perspective for his overarching purpose of self-revelation. History is his story; and like with any story, it takes time to tell it. You cannot appreciate the ending of a story without knowing the preceding narrative. Our experience of the negative helps us to appreciate the positive. That is simply the way that God in his infinite wisdom has chosen to structure things.

God’s saving of the best till last is connected with the revelation of Jesus’ miraculous power and his divine glory (John 2:11). The miracle of turning the water into wine was “the beginning of [Jesus’] signs” because it signifies how the best has come with Jesus. This sign tells us that Jesus has come to complete God’s plan of salvation. Jesus is the one who changes emptiness into fullness, sadness into joy, and death into life. In this way, Jesus is the full-fill-ment of the Old Testament hope of life and salvation. In Jesus, the best has been saved till last, and has “now” been revealed.

The Fulfillment of Micah 5:1–5a in Jesus of Nazareth

One of the strongest proofs of the truth of Christianity is the fulfillment of prophecy. There are at least fifty specific prophecies about the Messiah in the Old Testament, not to mention the many people or objects that function as prophetic parallels to Christ.

Micah 5:1–5a is a particularly good example. Micah is one of the eighth century prophets. He lived in Moresheth-Gath, a town in the south of Judah, about 35 km south-west of Jerusalem. The second half of the eighth century B.C. was a time when the Assyrian empire was exerting increasing pressure in the region. Israel was forced to pay tribute to the king of Assyria, and over time lost territory to the Assyrians until finally, in the year 722 B.C., the northern kingdom of Israel was conquered, and its citizens deported.

Conducting his ministry in this context, Micah was prophesying at significant time in the history of the people of Israel. His basic message was that the military defeat of Israel was coming as a result of Israel’s rebellion against God. As part of the covenant that God had entered into with Israel at Mount Sinai, God had promised to bless Israel on condition of obedience; but if they didn’t obey, instead of receiving blessing, Israel would experiences the curses of the covenant, bad things like disease, drought, defeat, death, and expulsion from the Holy Land.

Some 700 years after the exodus, God had finally had enough. After 700 years of rebellion and repeated unfaithfulness on the part of Israel, God’s judgment was going to come down against Israel in a serious way. The northern kingdom of Israel would be defeated and deported by the Assyrians, and over a century later the southern kingdom of Judah would be destroyed by the Babylonians.

Micah 5:1 speaks of this judgment. Micah 5:1 goes with the preceding five verses (i.e., Mic 4:9–13). In these verses Micah predicts that Jerusalem, also called the daughter of Zion, will be attacked; Jerusalem’s king will perish; the city will writhe in agony; and her inhabitants will be forced off into exile in Babylon. This is why in Mic 5:1 Micah calls upon Jerusalem to marshal her troops, to get ready for war. Jerusalem would be besieged, and the people would defend the city, but their effort would end in failure.

This defeat is pictured in Mic 5:1 with the ruler of Israel being struck on the cheek with a rod. Israel’s ruler being struck on the cheek with a rod is a picture of the king of Jerusalem being captured and mistreated by his captors. As a result of the sin of God’s people, the king of Israel would suffer. This verse is not primarily a prophecy about Jesus; but it is significant that, when Jesus was arrested, the Roman soldiers mocked Jesus by making him wear a royal robe and a crown of thorns (Matt 27:28–29). They made him hold a rod as his royal scepter; then they knelt down and mockingly hailed him as the king of the Jews before snatching away the rod, and spitting on him, and striking him on the head with the rod many times (Matt 27:29–30). The treatment of the king of the Jews at the hands of the Babylonians would foreshadow the treatment of Jesus at the hands of the Romans some 600 years later.

God’s judgment was coming down upon Israel because of her covenant rebellion. The curses of the covenant (including military defeat and exile) were going to be realized against her. But in the midst of judgment, Micah also proclaimed salvation. In fact the book of Micah itself alternates between sections of judgment and salvation. The book contains three cycles with every cycle beginning with oracles of judgment, followed by an oracle or oracles of salvation:

                                            cycle 1: judgment (1:2–2:11); salvation (2:12–13)

                                            cycle 2: judgment (3:1–12); salvation (4:1–5:15)

                                            cycle 3: judgment (6:1–16); salvation (7:1–20)

Micah preached the reality of judgment, but he also proclaimed that after the time of judgment God’s favor would return to Israel. Death and destruction would not be the end of the story for God’s people. Beyond the time of trouble, there would be a time of restoration. But what would this restoration look like, and how would it happen?

Micah 5:2–5a provides a few clues as to what the future restoration of God’s people would look like. It begins with Bethlehem, a small agricultural town, 9 km south of Jerusalem. Micah moves from his concern with Jerusalem to turn to address Bethlehem: “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, small among the clans of Judah” (Mic 5:2a).

But why this sudden focus on Bethlehem? Micah 5:2b tells us the reason: “from you [i.e., Bethlehem] will come forth for me one who will be a ruler in Israel.” At the time of the restoration of God’s people, there would be a ruler who would come from Bethlehem, the home town of King David. Micah seems to be prophesying about a second King David who would arise in the future to rule God’s people. This interpretation is confirmed by the common Jewish interpretation of this verse, an example of which is found in Matt 2:6. When Herod wanted to know where the Messiah was supposed to be born, the Jewish chief priests and scribes quoted Mic 5:2 as biblical proof that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.

So there was going to be a future ruler of Israel who would be born in Bethlehem, yet (quite amazingly) Micah prophesies that “his origins are from of old, from ancient times” (Mic 5:2c). How can this be? Who can be yet to come in the future, but at the same time someone who has been around for ages, since ancient times? Micah is talking about a second King David who would be at the very least thousands of years old by the time he became the ruler of Israel. How is this possible?

Christians point to Jesus as the only possible fulfillment of this prophecy. The historical record is clear that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. And after growing up, Jesus went around all of Israel, claiming to be the new Davidic king of Israel, who had existed even before Abraham: “before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). The early Christians believed that Jesus was the divine Word of God who had existed back in the beginning, back when the world was created, who took on human flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:1, 14). Micah 5:2c implies that the future ruler of Israel would be human (born in Bethlehem) yet divine (being of ancient origin).

Micah 5:3 confirms the idea that sees Jesus as being the fulfillment of Mic 5:2. Micah 5:3a states that (because this king was coming) God would give Israel over to their enemies “until she who is giving birth has given birth.” Israel would be under the power of her enemies until a birth had taken place. Linking Mic 5:2–3 together the implication is that Israel would be under the thumb of her enemies until this future ruler of Israel was born into the world by his mother in Bethlehem.

Once again Jesus makes sense of this prophecy. The Christian gospel proclaims that Jesus came to set God’s people free. Jesus’ birth into the world via Mary in Bethlehem marked the beginning of the end of Israel’s slavery. And Mic 5:3b seems to indicate the time when Israel would be fully free, when “the rest of his brothers return to be beside the sons of Israel.” The language here is intriguing. Who are these brothers of Israel who would join Israel? This could refer to the return of the Israelite exiles, but it could also be a prophecy about the conversion of the Gentiles. A similar ambiguity in the word brothers exists in Isa 66:20, a verse to which Paul seems to allude in Rom 15:16 when writing about his ministry to the Gentiles. If Mic 5:3b is a prophecy about the conversion of the Gentiles, then this is consistent with the teaching of the Apostle Paul in Rom 11 that the salvation of all Israel would not take place until the full number of the Gentiles had “entered in” (Rom 11:25–26).

This salvation of Israel from slavery to her enemies is associated in Mic 5:4 with this ruler of Israel standing to “shepherd his flock in the strength of Yahweh, in the majesty of the name of Yahweh his God.” The language of standing can have overtones of resurrection in the Old Testament (e.g., Dan 12:13), and the image of shepherding a flock is an image in the Old Testament language of exercising (ideally benevolent) rule over a people (see Ezek 34:1–10, 23–24; 37:24). After his standing up, this ruler of Israel would rule God’s people with the strength of God himself to the glory of God, the great I Am. This would result in the flock of God’s people dwelling securely, because “he [would] become great to the ends of the earth” (Mic 5:4b).

The idea of his greatness extending out to the ends of the earth is a picture of the Messiah’s rule being extended out from Israel to all the nations of the earth. Christians believe that this is what is happening as the gospel is preached throughout the world. As the message of the lordship of Jesus Christ is proclaimed to the nations, many people from all of the nations on earth are believing the message, and coming into submission to Jesus as Lord. In this way the rule of Christ is being extended throughout the world, even to the ends of the earth.

According to Mic 5:5a, “this is peace.” According to the Old Testament, the peace that this world needs is the peace that only Christ can bring. This is why Mic 5:5a identifies peace with “this” ruler. The masculine singular Hebrew pronoun זה this in Mic 5:5a [MT 5:4a] most likely refers back to the masculine singular subject in the final clause of the preceding verse, which refers back ultimately to one who will be ruler over Israel in Mic 5:2 [MT 5:1]. Hence, the translation: he is peace or he will be peace. This is consistent with the message proclaimed by the angels at the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem: “Glory to God in the highest! And on earth peace to those upon whom his favor rests” (Luke 2:14). The angels understood that this baby lying in a manger was the agent of true peace for God’s world.

Overall, Mic 5:1–5a prophesies that Israel would be under God’s judgment until this ancient ruler born in Bethlehem stood up to rule and bring security for the people of God, as his rule extended to the ends of the earth.

This is a very detailed prophecy that was given over 700 years before the birth of Jesus. If we compare this prophecy with what is known about Jesus in the New Testament, then it is hard to imagine who else could the fulfillment of this prophecy apart from Jesus of Nazareth, the eternal Word of God, born to the virgin Mary in Bethlehem. An objective examination and comparison of the content of this prophecy with what is known about Jesus is rather convincing provided that the New Testament record about Jesus is accepted as being more or less historically accurate.

The Christian perspective holds that Jesus is the fulfillment of this prophecy. Micah prophesied of a ruler born of a woman in Bethlehem, yet whose origins go back into eternity, who would extend his rule throughout the world, to bring all of God’s people back to live securely in the presence of God, to experience peace. This is the truth about Jesus that Christians celebrate at Christmas.

Paul's Understanding of the Gospel as the Fulfillment of the Prophetic Hope of the Old Testament

In my essay “Paul and the New Covenant Paradigm” in the book An Everlasting Covenant: Biblical and Theological Essays in Honour of William J. Dumbrell, after establishing Paul’s Old Testament theological context (see the posts entitled “The Apostle Paul’s Understanding of the Old Testament View of the Law” and “The Apostle Paul’s Understanding of the Old Testament View of the Gospel”), and after providing some key observations regarding the nature of Paul’s Jewish opponents (see “The Identity and Theology of Paul’s Jewish Opponents”), I turn to consider how we should understand the teaching of the Apostle Paul in Galatians and Romans.

As I state in the introduction to the third section of my essay, which is entitled “Understanding Paul in his Historical Context,” I believe that “an understanding of the Old Testament’s teaching about the new covenant is crucial to understanding Paul’s teaching on grace and the law” (p. 134).

Here is a quote from the sub-section that discusses Paul’s understanding of the Christian gospel as the fulfillment of the Old Testament hope:

“Paul understood Jesus’ work and the outpouring of the Spirit in direct continuity with the Old Testament prophetic hope. Paul was convinced that the coming of Jesus and the eschatological outpouring of the Spirit was the fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies of the restoration of Israel. As part of this work of restoration, Paul saw the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ as God’s main instrument in the new covenant age for bringing people, both Jew and Gentile, into a state of righteousness before God. In contrast to the old covenant age where covenant righteousness was defined in terms of commitment to the Mosaic law, Paul understood that the determining factor in the new covenant age is not a person’s commitment to the Mosaic law (i.e., the works of the law) but a person’s commitment to Jesus, the Lord of the new covenant, and to the gospel which proclaims his lordship (i.e., faith). In the new covenant age, where (according to God’s plan) righteousness is opened up to the nations, righteousness is no longer defined in terms of the Mosaic law, which was by definition mono-ethnic in its operation. The Mosaic law was a fence that divided Jew from Gentile (Eph 2:14-15). Applying to only one nation (Exod 19:5-6), the Mosaic law can no longer be used, therefore, as the determining factor of righteousness before God, for the age of the new covenant is a time when Gentiles will be included within the people of God. Therefore … the determining factor of righteousness in the new covenant age is whether a person has accepted the gospel and submitted to the lordship of Jesus in his role as Messiah” (p. 135).

My suggestion at this point to the world of Pauline scholarship is, therefore, that Paul’s concern lay not so much with defending Christ as the ground of absolute justification—the atoning value of the death of Christ was common ground between Paul and the Judaizers—but with defending faith as the instrument of justification on the level of the covenant. The dispute between Paul and his Jewish opponents centered around how covenant righteousness was to be defined (now that the new covenant in Christ had come). The Jews thought in covenantal categories. To interpret Paul and his opponents correctly, we need to do so too.