The Living Water and Bread of Life - Part 2

Continuing with these passages out of John's Gospel, today we will look at the literary context of these passages:

These images and allusions provide a foundation in that they show where both Jesus and the people He speaks with are coming from culturally. But it is important not only to see where these people are coming from, but also the position of these passages in the Gospel of John can shed light on the meaning as the author’s background is factored in. The structure and images used parallel other stories throughout the Gospel, and these ideas must be considered when looking at these passages.

Prior to Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well, He has a similar encounter with Nicodemus in John 3. Jesus encounters ordinary people from all walks of life. In these two chapters of John, Jesus meets a “learned, religious man” and a “degraded, immoral woman.”[1] They are both in need of eternal life, and Jesus leads their conversations so that they will ask questions, seeking answers to their initial confusion. But Jesus does not answer these questions as they would have liked. Instead, he “berates His audience for looking for physical rather than spiritual blessings.”[2] This similar structure can then be seen in John 6 when Jesus confronts the crowd after feeding the five thousand. And once again, it is important to understand how passages in John are “complexly tied to other passages in the Gospel.”[3] For some would argue that this is “not the same crowd” that was at the feeding of the five thousand.[4] Whether the crowd is the same crowd or not, John purposefully places this passage after the great miracle for thematic reasons.

Along with the common structure, many themes parallel one another as well. In both passages, along with the story of Nicodemus, Jesus speaks about eternal life. He shows Himself to be the only way, an idea presented in John 14 as well. These themes carry over into other parts of the Gospel, and the images that Jesus uses also appear multiple times. For instance, it has already been noted that the water imagery can be seen in both John 4 and John 6. Commentators also point to John 7 as another parallel passage where Jesus tells a crowd to come to Him if they thirst, speaking on eternal life again.[5] The images of bread and water are used on multiple occasions, and John organized his Gospel by placing similar stories with similar images together for a purpose. John groups these stories together by their themes and images to highlight a specific point. In the case of these two passages, John shows the importance of seeing Jesus as the source of eternal life.

[1] Blair, Living Eternally, 65.
[2] Craig L. Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel: Issues and Commentary (Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter Varsity Press, 2001) 122.
[3] Stephen Fowl, “John 6:25-35,” Interpretation 61, no. 3 (July 2007), http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pd f?vid=7&hid=13&sid=3b853655-aa23-46f3-a02181533080f2ec%40SRCSM2 (accessed February 15, 2009) 314.
[4] Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel: Issues and Commentary, 123.
[5] Allison, “The Living Water (John 4:10-14; 6:35c; 7:37-39),” 143.

Matt