Friday, December 27
John, the Beloved Disciple: It is often remarked that the omission of the Transfiguration account from the Fourth Gospel is properly explained by the fact that Jesus always appears transfigured in that Gospel. In its every scene, including the Passion narrative, Jesus is suffused with the radiance of the divine light. “We beheld His glory,” says St. John in the prologue, “the glory as of the only begotten of the Father” (1:14).
That prologue, which sets the theme for the entire story, is peculiar to John, whose Gospel otherwise adheres to the exact time span covered by the earliest apostolic preaching, namely, “all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John to that day when He was taken up from us” (Acts 1:21–22). Adherence to this same primitive time frame is also characteristic of the message of Peter and Paul (10:36–42; 13:23–31), as well as the earliest of the Gospels, Mark. So too John, except for his prologue.
Matthew and Luke had expanded that original time frame by adding
the stories of Jesus’ conception, birth, and infancy.
John’s prologue, however, escapes the confines of time altogether, rising to God’s eternity, where “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Only then does this Gospel begin to speak of the ministry of John the Baptist (1:6, 15).
The Jesus presented in John’s Gospel, then, is the eternal Word, in whom “was life, and the life was the light of men” (1:4). Becoming flesh and dwelling among us (1:14), He is the living revelation of God on this earth. Even though “no one has seen God at any time,” John says, “the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him” (1:18).
These themes will appear again in the Lord’s Last Supper discourse and the long intercession that He prays at the end of it. There will He speak of His being “the way, the truth, and the life” (14:6) and refer to the glory that He had with the Father before the world began (17:5, 24).
John’s contemplative gaze at the glory of God on the face of Jesus also determines other features of his Gospel. We observe, for instance, his treatment of Jesus’ miracles. Although his narrative very intentionally
includes fewer of these than do the other Gospels (20:30; 21:25), John provides them greater theological elaboration.
John limits the number of recorded miracles, which he calls “signs,” to the sacred figure seven. Leading to the commitment of faith, these seven signs commence with the fine wine of the wedding feast: “This beginning [arche, the same word as in 1:1] of signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory; and His disciples believed in Him” (2:11, emphasis added). The second sign John identifies as the curing of the nobleman’s son (4:46–54); as in the first case, the man himself “believed, and his whole household” (4:53, emphasis added). Next comes the curing of the paralytic at the pool (5:1–15), followed by the miracle of the bread (6:1–14), the walking on the water (6:15–21), and the healing of the man born blind (9:1–41). The final and culminating sign
is the raising of Lazarus from the dead (11:1–44).
John’s recording of these revelatory signs is accompanied by theological
comments on their significance, either in the detailed conversations of the narrative itself (as in the raising of Lazarus and the healing of the blind man) or by the Lord’s own further elaboration (as in the Bread of Life discourse). Thus, each of these events in the Lord’s life and ministry becomes a window through which we perceive the divine glory, and Jesus is transfigured with light through the whole narrative. In addition, two lengthy conversations, one with Nicodemus (3:1–21) and the other with the Samaritan woman (4:5–42), sound the depths of the revelation that takes place in the narrative.
At the end of the seven signs, John summarizes the tragedy of the unbelief with which the enemies of Jesus responded to His revelation (12:37–41). This unbelief leads immediately to the Lord’s Passion, which is introduced by the great Last Supper discourse.
In every scene, then, from the Lord’s appearance at John’s baptismal site all the way through the Lord’s death and Resurrection, the divine light appears among men. John records all these things that we readers too may “believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God” (20:31).
Saturday, December 28
Revelation 20:1-15: The most controversial part of this passage is the “thousand years,” to which several references are made. Even as I compose these notes, there are endless TV commercials for David Jeremiah’s new book The Coming Golden Age,. During this coming millennium of Christ’s earthly reign, this current author informs us, there will be no sickness and “death will occur only seldom.” Since there will be no wars nor murders during that period, I presume those rare occurrances of death will result from traffic accidents, shaky staircases, and slippery floors.
According to this same recent author, the millennium of Christ’s earthly reign must follow seven years of the Great Tribulation. I am uncertain when the Great Tribulation will begin, but one of the signs of it, I suspect, will be the sudden publication of new books on the subject.
Anyway, in order to prepare ourselves to understand what John is actually saying here, it may be useful to reflect on the literary image of the thousand years already well known to John. In the Judaism of John’s time there was the popular belief that the Messiah would reign on the earth a thousand years (as there was, more recently, in Hitler’s fantasy of a “thousand-year Reich”).
This popular belief is extant in Jewish literature of the time, such as The Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs and some sayings of famous rabbis. We also find a variation on this theme in the Dead Sea scrolls, which speak of the just who live a thousand generations.
John’s scene of the Messiah reigning with His loyal followers for a thousand years seems in large measure inspired by Daniel 7, in which God is portrayed as a very old man, the “Ancient of Days,” who would take the authority from the fourth beast and give it to God’s holy ones, those who are suffering persecution for His sake (Daniel 7:9-10,22,26-27). The early Christians were fond of this passage, because Jesus had identified Himself as the Son of Man, who appears in this same scene in Daniel (7:13-14).
We note that Daniel 7 speaks of “thrones” in the plural, which Christians understood to mean that they too would take part in the judgment of the beast. In other words, they too would sit on thrones along with the Messiah (Matthew 19:28). (Indeed, St. Paul would apply this idea to a practical ethical question that arose in the early Church, in 1 Corinthians 6:1-3). To say that the believers will judge does not mean, of course, that they will judge in the same sense that God does, because only God has access to the depths of the human heart.
Nonetheless, there is a true and genuine sense in which believers already sit in judgment with Christ over history. In the Holy Spirit the faithful are given to know which elements of history are good, and which bad; they are given to discern those components of history that are of value in the sight of God, and those that are not. That is to say, the disciples of Christ are forever passing true judgment over history. They are already on their thrones with the Messiah. The final judgment, at history’s end, will simply reveal that they were, all along, the authentic judges of history.
This, then, is their thousand years’ reign. It is that area of Christian experience in which Christians are already seated in the high places with Christ, already on their thrones, already judges of history. They are said to reign because they are not slaves to the beast and its image. Their reign, nonetheless, is not yet complete, because they still have ahead of them the battle with Gog and Magog.
Gog was already well known to readers of Ezekiel 38-39, who would scarcely have been surprised to hear of him, for it was the name of a person from the somewhat recent past. The Hebrew name Gog (or Gug>/i>, for in Hebrew these are the same vowel) corresponds to the Assyrian Gugu and the Greek Gyges. He was a famous seventh century king of Lydia in Asia Minor, who had died in 644. Accounts of the original Gog are found in Assyrian annals and History of Herodotus.
The name is not especially important for the identification of the invader; like the other names in these chapters of Ezekiel, it is symbolic of evil realities much larger and more menacing than their historical references. Thus understood, Gog and his forces appear here in Revelation 20.
“Magog” appears to be an abbreviation of the Hebrew min-Gog, “from Gog.” Here in Revelation he is a derived ally of Gog, much as, elsewhere in the book, one beast shares his authority with the other beast in 13:4.)
In verses 11-15 everything testifies to its own contamination by “fleeing” from the throne of God. In Chapter 4 John had seen that throne as the origin of all things, and now he sees it as the arbiter of history. Everything flees before it. This is the final judgment, and it belongs to God alone. Here we meet once again the image of the “Book of Life” that appeared earlier in 3:5; 13:8; 17:8.
Sunday, December 29
Matthew 2:19-23: By way of prophetic type in the Book of Genesis, it was the dreaming of a man named Joseph that originally brought the Chosen People into Egypt. That prophetic type is fulfilled in today’s Gospel reading, when another Joseph has a dream that results in his taking the Chosen People back to Egypt. According to today’s reading from Exodus 1:8-22), it was in Egypt that the little boys were sacrificed to the fears of a sinful king. This also happens in today’s Gospel.
Revelation 21.1-8: We now come to the final two chapters of John’s book of prophetic visions. Now we see no more battles, no more bloodshed, no more persecution. John sees, rather, the holy city, New Jerusalem, as the ultimate reality that gives meaning to all that preceded it.
In this final vision, which lasts two chapters, John is aware that seven things are gone forever: the sea, death, grief, crying, pain, the curse, and the night (21:1,4; 22:3,5). Here we are dealing with the definitive abolition of conflict, the end of chaos. The first symbol of this chaos is the sea, which has only such shape as it is given from outside of itself. The sea represents the nothingness out of which God creates all things, conferring meaning upon them. This chaos is both metaphysical and moral. It represents a nothingness replaced by the lake of fire, the second death. The sea is the hiding place of the monster and the setting where the scarlet woman thrones. This sea disappears at the coming of the new heaven and the new earth.
If we take the earth to represent man’s empirical and categorical experience, and heaven to represent man’s experience of transcendence, then the appearance of the new heaven and the new earth means the transformation of all of man’s experience. All of it is made new. The grace of God in Christ does not sanctify just a part of man’s existence, but his whole being. Man is not a partially redeemed creature. Both his heaven and his earth are made new.
Both heaven and earth are part of God’s final gift to man, the New Jerusalem, the “dwelling of God with man.” This dwelling, skene in Greek and mishkan in Hebrew (both words, if one looks closely, having the same triliteral root skn), was originally a tent made of “skins,” as the same etymological root is expressed in the English “skin”. During the desert wandering after the Exodus, this tent of skins was the abode of God’s presence with his people. Indeed, sometimes the word was simply the metaphor for the divine presence (verse 3). For instance, in Leviticus 26:11 we read, “I will set my mishkanˆ among you . . . . I will walk among you and be your God, and you shall be My people.”
Monday, December 30
Matthew 25.14-30: In this story about the three stewards who receive “talents” from their Master, once again the passage of time is integral to their testing. “After a long time,” says our Lord, “the lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them” (25:19). There is no instant salvation in the Christian life, that is to say. The passage of time is involved, and the whole process takes a while.
The point of comparison with the rest of Matthew’s context is found in the Master’s return to settle accounts. This is a reference to the parousia of the Son of Man, the subject of all the parables in this series. Once again, and for the third time (24:48; 25:5), the parousia is delayed (verse 19; contrast Luke 19:15).
Everything has to do with the ability to persevere through the passage of time. After all, we do not remain the same through the winding flow of time. Time changes things, and we believers are obliged to cope. Events affect our thoughts and sentiments. This coping with the passing of time is an integral part of our testing before God.
Revelation 21:9-27: All of history is symbolized in two women, who are two cities. We have already considered the scarlet woman who is Babylon/ Rome. The other woman is the Bride, the New Jerusalem, whose proper place is heaven, but who also flees to the desert, where she does battle with Satan (Chapter 12). Now that battle is over, however, and she appears here in her glory. That other city was seated, as we saw, on seven hills, but this New Jerusalem also sits on a very high mountain, which everyone understood to be symbolized in Mount Zion (cf. Ezekiel 40:1-2). John’s vision of the gates on the city is reminiscent of Ezekiel 48.
John’s vision here, especially verses 19-21, is also related to Ezekiel 28:12-15, where we find joined the themes of the mountain and the precious stones, for this city is also the Garden of Eden, where those stones first grew (cf. Genesis 2:10-12).
The symbolic number here is twelve, which we already considered in Chapter 12, where it was the number of the stars around the head of the heavenly woman. The identification of twelve stars with twelve stones is obvious in our own custom of birthstones to represent zodiacal signs. The symbol is not only astrological, however, but also historical, because it is the number of the patriarchs and apostles. Here, in fact, the twelve gates bear the names of the twelve tribes, who are the seed of the twelve patriarchs, while the twelve foundation stones of the city are identified as the twelve apostles.
We recall that one hundred and forty-four thousand—the number of the righteous—partly involves squaring of the number twelve. In the present chapter John stresses that the plane geometry of the holy city is square,
Tuesday, December 31
Revelation 22:1-20: The biblical story begins and ends in paradise. Thus, in John’s vision of the river of paradise we remember the four-branched river of paradise in Genesis 2. Both here and in Ezekiel 47:1-12 there are monthly fruits growing on the banks of the river, twelve in number, obviously. Just as Adam’s curse drove the whole human race out of paradise, so the leaves of the paradisiacal tree of life are for the healing of all the nations.
The theme of the living waters is very much central to the Johannine corpus (cf. John 4:7-15; 7:38; 19:34; 1 John 5:6-8).
Heaven, portrayed here as vision and worship with the angels (verses 8-9), is for all those whose foreheads are sealed with the mark of the living God. This sealing, of course, stands in contrast to the mark of beast. (It is curious to note that, outside of the Book of Revelation [7:2-3; 9:3-4; 13:16-18; 14:1.9; 17:5; 20:4], the word “forehead” does not appear in the New Testament.) The literary background of John’s sealing is apparently Ezekiel 9:1-4.
The urgency of John’s message is indicated by the command that he not seal it up for future generations. The Lord’s coming, in fact, will be soon, and it is imperative for John’s readers to “get out” the message. John’s visions are not sealed, concealed, esoteric codes to be deciphered by future generations. John clearly expects his own contemporaries to understand what he is writing. These things “must shortly take place” (verse 6); it will all happen “soon” (1:1,3). John is warning his contemporaries that a special moment of judgment and grace is upon them and that they had better prepare themselves for it, because it is later than they think.
This final chapter of Revelation resembles in several particulars the first chapter of the book, one of which is that in both places Jesus speaks to John directly. In both chapters He is called the Alpha and the Omega (verse 12; 1:8). As in that first chapter, likewise, the references to Jesus’ swift return (verse 7, for instance) do not pertain solely to His coming at the end of time; He is saying, rather, that in the hour of their trial those who belong to Jesus will find that He is there waiting for them. The blessing in verse 7, therefore, resembles the blessing in 1:3.
In this book a great deal has been said about the worship in the heavenly sanctuary. Now we learn that Christians already share in the worship that the angels give to God (verses 8-9).
Verse 11 indicates a definite cut-off point in history, which is the final coming of Christ. Verse 12, which quotes Isaiah 40:10, promises the reward, which is access to the Holy City, eternal beatitude—the fullness of communion with God. In preparation for that reward, verses 14-16 are something of an altar call, an appeal for repentance, based on all that this book has said.
In referring to those “outside” the City, John is relying on an ancient Eucharistic discipline of the Church, called “excommunication,” which literally excluded the person from receiving Holy Communion (cf. Didache 9.5; Justin Martyr, First Apology 66.1). One of the major problems of the Christian Church, in any age, is that of distinguishing itself from the world, and the Christian Church, like any institution in history, finds its identity threatened if it does not maintain “lines” that separate it from the world. In early Christian literature, beginning with the New Testament, we find the Church insistent on making those lines sharp and clear. This preoccupation is what accounts for the rather pronounced “them and us” mentality that we find in the New Testament. It is an emphasis essential to maintain if the Church is to preserve her own identity down through history.
Wednesday, January 1, 2025
Genesis 1: There is considerable advantage in reading the opening chapters of Genesis right after reading the final chapters of Revelation. Genesis was perhaps not the first book of the Bible to be written, and it is likely that Revelation was not the last book of the Bible to be written. Nonetheless, because the Holy Spirit is ultimately the Author of both books, and inasmuch as the Holy Spirit planned the entire corpus of Holy Scripture (which means that even the Bible’s “table of contents” is divinely inspired!), it should not surprise us that the final pages of the Bible close with reflections on matters that were originally introduced in the opening pages of the Bible. When Revelation, then, says that “there be no more curse” (22:3), this is a reference to that primeval curse brought on our race near the Bible’s very beginning.
This opening chapter of Genesis has always been a favorite for Christian commentators down through the ages, and they discovered in its lines profound levels of meaning. In this respect it is worth remarking that ancient Christian writers would have been very surprised to hear of the more modern idea that the “seven days” of Creation were, each of them, periods of twenty-four hours. They would have asked, in this respect, exactly what any strict adherence to logic would require us to ask, namely, “How could that be, since there was no way yet to measure time?” That is to say, a twenty-four hour day requires the rotation of the earth with respect to the sun. The sun, however, was not created until the fourth day.
Indeed, this is partly the point. The setting and rising of the sun are not what determine day and night. We moderns think of the sunlight as that which creates the day, and the absence of sunlight as that which creates night. The Bible and its ancient commentators would have thought this a very shallow notion of day and night, light and darkness. In biblical thought, the sun “marks” the day; it does not create it. The day would be here, so to speak, whether the sun rose or not. The purpose of the sun is to enable us see that it is day. Evening and morning, however, already existed for three days before there ever was a sun.
Day and night are simply the names of light and darkness (verse 5); light and darkness exist independent of the sun or any other heavenly body. We note that Genesis does not say that God creates darkness; darkness was, so to speak, already there. Darkness is nothingness; it is non-existence. Therefore night itself is symbolic of non-existence. This is why night will eventually disappear, as we read yesterday in Revelation 22:5.
Light, on the other hand, is the first creation of God; “Let there be light” are His first recorded words (verse 3). The light, then, and the darkness, which are called day and night, refer to something far deeper in Creation than the phenomena that our eyes behold. Light is not simply a by-product of solar energy. It is, rather, the principle of intelligibility in the structure of Creation. The light that God calls into being at the beginning of Genesis is that inner structure of intelligibility that the mind of man, in due course, will be created to discover and investigate. Man’s investigation of the light is called philosophy, just as his investigation of God’s Word is called theology.
Thursday, January 2
Genesis 2: To even the simplest reader of the Bible it is obvious that there are two accounts of Creation in the first two chapters of Genesis. Both of them are theological interpretations of the fact of Creation; more to the point, they are different theological interpretations, analogous to the differences we find among the four canonical Gospels. Genesis 1 deals with Creation from nothingness; that is to say, there is no pre-existent matter out of which God creates. The Hebrew word used to designate this Creation is barah. By spreading Creation over six days, followed by the Sabbath rest, the inspired author structures the Jewish week into the structure of time itself. He views man as the final product and pinnacle of Creation.
In this second account of Creation, in Chapter Two, everything takes place much faster. Although man is said to sleep, night is never mentioned. Here God is said to “form” (yasar), to give shape to; it is the word normally used for working in ceramics. Indeed, man is shaped from the moist soil, the mud, like the work of pottery to which Jeremiah will later compare him. In this chapter of Genesis the plants and animals are not created until after the creation of man. Man is created in order to take care of the plants (verse 7-15), while the animals are created to be man’s companions (verses 18-20). The very word for “man” is the Hebrew generic word for a human being, adam, related to the adamah, or the “soil” from which he comes.
Still, this first human being is a male. (The word for “human being” in all languages, by the way, is unvaryingly masculine; for example, ha’adam in Hebrew, ho anthropos in Greek, ’nôshô’ in Syriac, al-insan in Arabic, chelovyek in Russian, der Mensch in German, de man in Dutch, zmogùs in Lithuanian, njerí in Albanian, man in English, homo in Latin, along with its multiple derivatives in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, and French. And so forth. These are all masculine nouns. Contrary to the contemporary conceit that pretends otherwise, there is no such thing as a non-gendered, gender-neutral noun for a human being. While the sex of an actual human being is either male or female, the gender of the designating noun is invariably masculine. This distinction, alas, tends to be lost on those who, confusing grammar with biology, go on to confuse gender with sex. Grammar is somewhat flexible; biology is certainly not.)
It is from this first man, Adam, that the first woman is formed. More specifically, it is from the part of man closest to his heart, from the place where woman herself lives, at man’s side. But she comes from within him; when Adam sees her, he recognizes this “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” She is, as it were, part of him. The sexual attraction between men and women, in the eyes of the Bible, is metaphysical, having to do with an essential craving for inner wholeness (verse 24).
Jesus will later on appeal to this truth as the basis for His prohibition of divorce (Mark 10:8-9; 1 Corinthians 6:16-17; Ephesians 5:31-32). It also serves as the biblical argument against sexual activity outside of the marriage between a man and a woman. Any sexual activity that does not involve a man and a woman, married to one another, stands outside of the proper moral structure of human sexuality itself. This is one of the major applications of man’s transcendence to the animals.
Friday, January 3
Genesis 3: When we think of Adam’s fall, there are two passive participles that should come forcefully to our minds: lost and cursed. These two words sum up the human condition without Christ.
First, man is lost. Worse, he continues to get lost. It is a mistake to think of the fallen human being as somehow looking for God. Indeed, the very opposite is true. When the human race fell in Adam, a kind of spiritual inertia came into play, a force that kept him going in the same direction—away from God. Of himself man had no power of initiative to reverse the movement. This is what is meant by the Fall.
If man was to return to God, God had to take the initiative. If God had not sought man out, he would keep going in the same direction—away. This is very clear in the biblical story of Adam’s hiding from God immediately after his disobedience. He and all his descendants would still be lying low there in the bushes if God had not come after him, inquiring, “Where are you?”
It was not that God did not know where to find Adam. It was Adam who was lost, not God. God knew where Adam was, but Adam didn’t. God’s query, “Where are you?” was intended to wake lost man up to his real situation. As such, it was the first proclamation of the Gospel, the merciful word that began to reverse the direction of man’s existence. Indeed, it was the first step toward the mystery of the Incarnation.
This divine inquiry was necessary, because man had no interest in finding God. It was of God, on the contrary, that Adam was most afraid, because God recognized him to be naked. God understood this and promptly provided a covering for man’s nakedness. It was the initial step toward man’s final clothing, indicated in St. Paul’s exhortation to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:14).
But even when confronted by his sin, Adam did not accept the guilt and responsibility. He immediately blamed Eve: “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate.” Indeed, this response even seems to blame God for the Fall. Adam speaks of Eve as “the woman whom you gave me,” as though to say, “I did not ask for a wife; this whole arrangement was your idea. This woman, whom You designed, is the one who got me into this mess. So the two of you are to blame for it.”
Eve, for her part, follows Adam’s example of passing the blame: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” This too was God’s fault, of course, because he created this “creeping thing” (Genesis 1:25). Eve could hardly hold herself responsible for what happened.
Even found, that is to say, fallen man was obviously still lost.
Hence—to come to our second point—fallen man was cursed. In assigning punishment for the original sin, the Lord apparently accepted the order of guilt assigned by Adam and Eve. Accordingly, the snake was the first to be punished, then the woman, and finally the man (3:14-15).
The first word of God’s verdict is “cursed” (‘arur), because an historical curse is the lasting effect of the Fall. The Semitic root of this expression, ‘rr, is found in Akkadian, Ethiopian, and Arabic, in addition to Hebrew. Pronounced out loud, the word sounds a lot, in fact, like a “roar.” Well, I suppose it should, because both words, ‘arur and “roar” (from the Old English root ra) refer to the same thing—a loud and frightening expression of anger.
Long before its first inscribed record on Akkadian temple inscriptions, it is obvious that the root ‘rr was an onomatopoeia, a word that imitated a sound, in this case the sound of a lion.
Thus, to be “cursed” (another word, we note, that preserves the same guttural ur sound) means to receive a decree of irate and radical disapproval. It signifies expulsion from God’s society and communion. Moreover, it is of the nature of a curse that it is effective simply by being pronounced.
The curse incurred by fallen man was related to the very earth from which he was taken: “Cursed is the ground for your sake. . . In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread/ Till you return to the ground,/ For out of it you were taken;/ For dust you are, And to dust you shall return.” The curse, that is to say, was man’s mortality. What Adam handed on was domination by death; “sin reigned in death” (Romans 5:21). By reason of Adam’s Fall, man without redemption is under the reign of death and corruption, because “the reign of death (regnum mortis) operates only in the corruption of the flesh” (Tertullian, On the Resurrection 47).
This is what Adam bequeathed to his offspring, “the reign of death.” To die without the grace of redemption is to die eternally. This is the real curse of death, because to die such a death is to be “lost” in a most radical way, lost in the sense of putting oneself beyond the possibility of being found.