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Course 7 · Lesson 6.3

The signs and the I am sayings

12 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 7 outline

Module 1: The World of the New Testament

  1. Second Temple Judaism in the time of Jesus
  2. Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes and other movements
  3. Rome, the Herods and the province of Judea
  4. Hopes, protest and revolt in Jewish political life

Module 2: Jesus in History

  1. Sources for Jesus: Christian, Jewish and Roman
  2. The quests for the historical Jesus and their methods
  3. Criteria of authenticity and their limits
  4. Historical results and Christian confession

Module 3: The Gospels as Books

  1. The gospels and ancient biography
  2. Traditions of authorship and the arguments about them
  3. The synoptic problem: the evidence of agreement and difference
  4. Solutions: Markan priority, Q, Matthean priority and others
  5. Four portraits of Jesus: the distinct emphasis of each gospel

Module 4: Acts and the Spread of the Church

  1. Pentecost and the Jerusalem church
  2. The mission to the Gentiles and the council at Jerusalem
  3. Paul in Acts and in his own letters
  4. Acts as history and as theology

Module 5: Pauline Theology

  1. Paul and his letters: occasion, authorship and order
  2. Gospel, faith and righteousness in Romans and Galatians
  3. Christ, the Spirit and the body of Christ
  4. Reading Paul: traditional, new perspective and other approaches

Module 6: Johannine Theology

  1. The Gospel, the three letters and Revelation: authorship questions
  2. Word, light, life and love in the Gospel of John
  3. The signs and the I am sayings
  4. The Spirit, the community and the Johannine letters

Module 7: Hope, Authority and Church Order

  1. The kingdom of God and last things in Jesus and the apostles
  2. Ways of reading New Testament eschatology
  3. What an apostle was and how apostolic authority worked
  4. Offices and order in the first churches
  5. How Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant churches read the evidence

Module 8: The Testaments Together

  1. Fulfilment and continuity: how the New Testament uses the Old
  2. Law and covenant across the Testaments
  3. Comparing Paul and John: a method
  4. Shared convictions and meaningful differences

All courses

Program / Course 7: New Testament Theology and History / Lesson 6.3

What you will learn

  • List the signs of John’s Gospel and explain why John calls Jesus’ miracles signs.
  • List the I am sayings and explain how each draws on Old Testament images.
  • Explain the difference between I am with a predicate and the absolute I am, and the debate about its background.
  • Describe how the signs and sayings fit the Gospel’s aim.

The big idea

John tells a limited number of miracles and calls them signs, because they point beyond themselves to who Jesus is. Alongside them he records sayings in which Jesus says I am the bread of life, the light of the world, the good shepherd and so on. Each uses a familiar image from Israel’s Scriptures to say what Jesus brings. In a few places Jesus says I am without any predicate, which many readers hear as an echo of the divine name. Signs and sayings together aim at faith: that readers may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

Key terms

Sign (semeion)
John’s word for a miracle of Jesus. It stresses what the act points to and not only the wonder.
Book of Signs
A scholarly name, from Raymond Brown, for John 1 to 12, which centers on Jesus’ public signs and discourses.
Book of Glory
A scholarly name for John 13 to 21, which centers on Jesus’ farewell to his disciples, his death and his resurrection.
I am sayings
Sayings of Jesus in John beginning with the Greek ego eimi, I am. Seven have a predicate, such as I am the bread of life, and others stand alone.
Absolute I am
The use of ego eimi without a predicate, as in John 8:58. Many scholars hear in it an echo of God’s self-revelation in Exodus 3:14 and Isaiah.
Discourse
A long speech of Jesus, often following a sign and explaining it, such as the bread of life discourse after the feeding.
Believing
The central response John asks for. The verb pisteuo, to believe or trust, occurs about ninety times in the Gospel.

Background

In the synoptic gospels Jesus performs many healings and exorcisms and tells many parables. John selects fewer miracles, gives no exorcisms and no parables in the same sense, and follows each major miracle with discussion. The author states his method: ‘Many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: but these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God’ (John 20:30 to 31).

The signs and the sayings are among John’s most distinctive features. They are closely connected, since the saying often interprets a sign: after feeding the crowd Jesus says, ‘I am the bread of life’; after giving sight to the blind man he has said, ‘I am the light of the world.’ The Gospel reads best when the two are read together.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The seven signs

Most readers count seven signs: water changed to wine at Cana (John 2:1 to 11), the healing of an official’s son (4:46 to 54), the healing of a paralyzed man at Bethesda (5:1 to 15), the feeding of the five thousand (6:1 to 14), Jesus walking on the water (6:16 to 21), the giving of sight to a man born blind (9), and the raising of Lazarus (11). The Gospel itself numbers only the first two (2:11, 4:54), so the count of seven is an inference, and some scholars list the signs differently. Others add the miraculous catch of fish in chapter 21 or the resurrection itself.

Each sign points beyond itself. At Cana, the wedding wine suggests the abundance of the new age. The feeding leads into the claim that Jesus is the bread from heaven. The man born blind comes to see, and those who claim to see are blind. The raising of Lazarus is followed by ‘I am the resurrection and the life.’ The signs lead to belief in some and to opposition in others, and the raising of Lazarus is the immediate cause of the plot to kill Jesus (John 11:47 to 53).

Step 2: The I am sayings with a predicate

Seven sayings are usually listed: I am the bread of life (6:35), the light of the world (8:12), the door of the sheep (10:7 and 9), the good shepherd (10:11), the resurrection and the life (11:25), the way, the truth and the life (14:6), and the true vine (15:1). Each uses an image with a long history in Israel’s Scriptures: manna in the wilderness, the light of God’s presence, the shepherd of Israel in Psalm 23 and Ezekiel 34, and Israel as God’s vine in Isaiah 5 and Psalm 80.

In claiming these images for himself, Jesus claims to be the one who gives what God gave in Israel’s story, but now in a fuller way. Some readers compare the I am sayings with the way Wisdom speaks of herself in Sirach 24, inviting people to eat and drink. John 14:6 has been much discussed, since it joins an exclusive claim, no one comes to the Father except through Jesus, with a promise to the disciples. Christian traditions read it in different ways when speaking of people of other faiths.

Step 3: The absolute I am

In some places Jesus says ‘I am’ with nothing added. In John 8:24 he says that unless people believe that ‘I am’, they will die in their sins. In 8:58, he says, ‘Before Abraham was, I am,’ and the listeners take up stones, which suggests they heard blasphemy. In 13:19 he says he is telling the disciples so that when it happens they may believe that ‘I am.’ In 18:5 to 6, when the arresting party says they seek Jesus of Nazareth and he answers ‘I am he’, they draw back and fall to the ground.

Many scholars see here an echo of God’s words to Moses, ‘I AM THAT I AM’ (Exodus 3:14), and of the repeated ‘I am he’ of the God of Israel in Isaiah 43 and 45. The Greek phrase can also mean simply ‘I am he,’ and some scholars take most of these uses in that plain sense. Others hold that the Gospel intends a divine claim at least in 8:58. The Fathers read these sayings as assertions of Jesus’ divinity, and most churches continue to do so.

Step 4: How the signs and sayings work

John is careful to say that signs do not automatically produce faith. Some who saw them believed, some did not, and some believed only because of the wonders (John 2:23 to 25, 4:48, 12:37). Jesus calls those who believe without seeing blessed (John 20:29). The signs are an invitation to see who Jesus is.

The historical question remains. Scholars debate how far the signs and sayings go back to Jesus and how far they come from the Johannine community’s reflection. Some argue that the discourses are largely composed by the author, and others that they preserve a distinct stream of Jesus’ teaching. Believing readers hold that the Gospel gives a true portrait of Jesus, whatever the process.

  1. Why does John call miracles signs, and what difference does the word make?
  2. How does each I am saying draw on an image from the Old Testament?
  3. What is the difference between a sign leading to faith and a sign leading to only amazement?
  4. How do you read ‘Before Abraham was, I am’ in John 8:58?
  5. Why might the raising of Lazarus be the last and greatest sign?
  6. What do you make of John 14:6, and how might Christians read it differently?

Examples

The man born blind

In John 9, Jesus gives sight to a man born blind. The man is questioned, and by the end he worships Jesus, while the leaders who claim to see are called blind. The story shows a sign leading to faith and to division, and the saying I am the light of the world interprets it.

The bread of life

After feeding the crowd, Jesus tells them not to labor for food that perishes, and says that he is the bread of life. The discourse mentions manna, and many follow no more. The crowd’s desire for more bread is set against the gift of life.

The arrest in the garden

When soldiers come to arrest Jesus, he steps forward and says ‘I am he,’ and they fall back (John 18:6). The scene is told so that the reader is aware of Jesus’ control and divine identity, even as he is taken to his death.

Different perspectives

Catholic view

The Catholic Church reads the signs as manifesting Christ’s divine power, and sees in the water and wine, the bread of life and the raising of Lazarus signs of the sacraments and of baptism and the Eucharist. The Catechism cites John 6 for the Eucharist and John 8:58 for Christ’s divinity.

Orthodox view

The Orthodox Church reads the I am sayings as revealing the divine nature of Christ, and uses them in liturgical hymns. The raising of Lazarus is celebrated on Lazarus Saturday before Palm Sunday as a sign of the general resurrection.

Protestant view

Protestants have stressed the call to faith in the signs and sayings, and the sufficiency of Christ. Reformed preaching often takes the I am sayings as a series of descriptions of what Christ provides. Protestants differ on whether John 6 refers to the Lord’s Supper.

Scholarly view

Scholars debate the sources of the signs, whether from a separate signs source behind the Gospel, as Rudolf Bultmann proposed, or from the author’s own selection. They also debate whether the absolute I am sayings assert divinity or the plain identification, and how historically rooted they are.

Why it matters

The signs and the I am sayings are the pillars of John’s portrait of Jesus. They give much of the language of Christian devotion and art, and they open a way into the question of who Jesus claimed to be. Understanding their Old Testament roots and the debates about them lets a reader read John with attention.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: John records every miracle Jesus did.

Correction: John says he has selected a few (John 20:30 to 31), and 21:25 says the world could not contain all that Jesus did.

Misunderstanding: The I am sayings are identical with the synoptic gospels’ teaching.

Correction: Most I am sayings appear only in John. The synoptics speak of the kingdom in parables, while John speaks more directly of Jesus’ own identity. How the two relate is discussed among scholars.

Misunderstanding: Every I am in John is a claim to be God.

Correction: Only the absolute uses, and not all of these, are thought to make that claim. Some, like the blind man’s I am he in John 9:9, are ordinary speech.

Misunderstanding: Signs mean faith is a matter of proof.

Correction: John shows that signs do not compel belief. People respond differently to the same sign.

Knowledge check

What are the seven signs commonly listed?

Water to wine at Cana, the official’s son healed, the paralytic at Bethesda, the feeding of the five thousand, walking on the sea, the blind man given sight, and the raising of Lazarus. The Gospel itself numbers only the first two, so the list is an inference.

Why does John use the word sign?

Because the miracles point to who Jesus is and to what he gives, and are not only wonders. John states that his selection of signs is written so that readers may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and have life.

Name four I am sayings with their images.

I am the bread of life, recalling manna. I am the light of the world, recalling the light of God’s presence. I am the good shepherd, recalling the shepherd of Israel. I am the true vine, recalling Israel as God’s vine. Others include the door, the resurrection and the life, and the way, truth and life.

What is the absolute I am, and why is it debated?

It is Jesus’ use of I am without a predicate, as in John 8:58. Many scholars hear an echo of God’s name in Exodus 3:14 and Isaiah. Others read the Greek as a simple I am he. The churches have read the key texts as claims to divinity.

How do signs relate to faith?

Signs invite faith but do not force it. Some who see believe, others oppose, and some believe only for the wonder. Jesus says that those who have not seen and yet believe are blessed.

Think it through

  1. Which sign or saying moves you most, and why?
  2. How do the images of bread, light and shepherd speak to the needs of people today?
  3. Why might some people see a sign and not believe?
  4. How should Christians speak about John 14:6 in a world of many faiths?

Independent assignment

A sign and its saying

In your own notebook, write 350 to 500 words. Choose one sign (for example John 6:1 to 21 or John 9) and the I am saying that goes with it. Summarize the story, quote the saying, name the Old Testament image behind it, and explain in a paragraph how the saying interprets the sign. Do not send this to anyone.

Further study