Christ Crucified: A Counter-Cultural Concept

In 1 Cor 1:22 Paul summarizes what the people of his day were basically looking for in the realm of religion and philosophy. According to Paul, the Jews as a whole were into miraculous signs. They wanted God to do something spectacular, like what God had done to Pharaoh at the time of the exodus. They wanted God to act to save his people from the oppression of their enemies, and they understood that this required the exercise of powerful miracles. The Greeks, on the other hand, were into philosophy. They were lovers of wisdom. They had their schools of philosophy and rhetoric. They had their centers of learning and science.

But countering the Jewish desire for power and the Greek desire for wisdom, God deliberately did something incredible from the cultural perspective of both Jews and Greeks: God came into the world in human form as the Christ, only to be nailed to a cross. At the heart of the gospel stands Christ crucified. And this is the message that Paul and the apostles proclaimed: God incarnate was nailed to a Roman cross.

As an idea, this was literally incredible to most Jews and Greeks. To the Jews who wanted miraculous signs of God’s power to save, a crucified messiah was no better than a dead dog. A crucified messiah is both useless as well as scandalous. So scandalous in fact that the majority of the Jews of Paul’s day simply could not accept the idea. The idea of a crucified messiah was a stumbling block to them (1 Cor 1:23). And to the Greeks who were into wisdom, the story of a god (who is supposed to be the one true God) dying on a cross was pure foolishness (1 Cor 1:23). Do you Christians really believe that stuff? Do you really believe that the one true God came into the world in order to be crucified? What an absurd philosophy!

But to those whom God has called, to those whose eyes God has opened to understand the truth, whether Jewish or Greek, or whatever nationality, Christ crucified is indeed God’s power and wisdom (1 Cor 1:24). The Jews were looking for power; the Greeks for wisdom. But they were looking for these things in all the wrong places. The cross is where they should have been looking, for Christ crucified is the answer. In Christ crucified, we have God’s power and God’s wisdom on display.

Jesus Is the Eschatological Temple

Jesus’ response in John 2:19 to the Jewish religious authorities who challenged him after he had cleared the temple continues the theme in John 1–2 of Jesus being the eschatological temple. Jesus’ clearing of the temple was a provocative act that challenged the authority of the temple authorities. They responded by asking Jesus on what authority he had been acting in the way that he had: “What sign do you show us for doing these things?” (John 2:18).

Jesus answered his opponents by pointing to his resurrection: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19). Jesus’ sign was the sign of the destruction of “this temple” and the rebuilding of it in the space of three days.

The narrator explains in John 2:21 that the phrase this temple was used by Jesus to refer to the “temple” of his body. But at the time, with Jesus still situated in the Jewish temple precincts, Jesus’ words were deliberately ambiguous. John 2:22 indicates that the true meaning of Jesus’ words at this point only became clear with hindsight after the resurrection.

At the time, however, Jesus’ opponents did not understand that Jesus was referring to the “temple” of his own body. Given this lack of insight, it is understandable that the authorities incredulously said to him: “This temple was built over forty-six years, and you will raise it up in three days?” (John 2:20). Jesus’ opponents naturally thought that he had been talking about the physical temple. Starting around the year 20–19 B.C., it had taken Herod 46 years to renovate the temple. But Jesus had in mind the destruction of the temple of his body, and its rebuilding in the space of three days. This would be the sign of his authority to reform the worship of God as part of his ministry.

So Jesus was pointing to his resurrection as being proof (yet in the future) of his authority. But at the same time, by picturing his body in the figure of a temple, Jesus was hinting at the fact that he himself is the fulfillment of the temple theme of the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, the physical temple was a key symbol of God’s presence with his people. God had fellowship with his people at the temple. It was there at the temple that the people’s sins could be forgiven, and the way opened up for them to come into the presence of God. But because of Israel’s disobedience, the first temple (the temple of Solomon) was destroyed. After the Babylonian exile, the temple was rebuilt, but the glory of God never returned to the temple. The second temple was like a shell, waiting for the return of God’s glory. It is significant, therefore, that John’s Gospel portrays Jesus as being the revelation of God’s glory to Israel (see John 1:14). The coming of Jesus constitutes the return of God’s glory to the temple. In addition, the fact that Jesus could talk about his resurrection in terms of the rebuilding of “this temple” suggests that Jesus viewed himself as being the ultimate fulfillment of the Old Testament theme of temple.

John’s Gospel forcefully states the claim that Jesus of Nazareth is the eschatological temple. The building of the eschatological temple of Ezek 40–48, which is a metaphorical picture of the eternal state, would be achieved through the resurrection of Jesus. This is consistent with the view of the Apostle Paul that (through his resurrection) Jesus was the cornerstone of the “holy temple in the Lord … the dwelling place of God in the Spirit,” of which the saints form the ediface, built “upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets” (Eph 2:20–22). Jesus’ death on the cross represents the destruction of the old symbolic temple, and his resurrection to life represents the creation of the new, true temple. In the light of this temple-building function of resurrection, it makes sense that Jesus would drive people out of the old temple as a sign that, through his death and resurrection, a new temple was about to be built in order to bring about spiritual reformation for the sake of the establishment of the proper worship of God.

The Gospel of John presents Jesus as being the ultimate fulfillment of the Old Testament tabernacle/temple theme. Jesus is the eschatological temple through whom full atonement is made for human sin, allowing humanity (as they follow Jesus) to enter into the presence of God and live.

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.