CALIDAD DE SERVICIO (QOS)

This leads naturally to the primary significance of John’s use of Isa 55, in this context, namely, its indication of the source of the life-giving water in view at John 7:38. The problems surrounding the punctuation and orientation of John 7:37-38 as well as the various solutions have been often surveyed and discussed and I will not review them here.366 It is sufficient to observe that an important facet of

361

Swancutt, “Hungers”, 227-228. 362

E.g., Jesus’ question to his first disciples, “what do you seek?” (1:39), finds an echo in his question to Mary, “whom do you seek?”(20:15). Cf., also, the well-meaning search of the crowds for Jesus in 6:24,26 and 11:56. 363 _{Exceptions are the references to the crowds’ benign search for Jesus in 6:24, 26.}

364 _{Sixteen out of thirty-four total occurrences of zh,tew in the Gospel occur in these chapters. Of these, eleven refer} to the search of the Jews for Jesus (7:1, 11, 19, 20, 25, 30, 34, 36; 8:21, 37, 40). Of the remainder (7:4, 18a,b; 8:54a,b) the subjects are God or Jesus or a generic reference.

365 _{Similarly, Hoskyns, John, 319.}

366 _{See, for example, the succinct discussions in Wengst, Johannesevangelium, 400-401; Kerr, Temple, 131-137;} Tricia Gates Brown, Spirit in the Writings of John: Johannine Pneumatology in Social-scientific Perspective (Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplem; London: T & T Clark, 2003), 155-158; Burge, Anointed, 88- 93. Those who punctuate with a full stop after “drink” include Lagrange, Jean, 214-215; Barrett, John, 326-327; Lindars, John, 299; Marsh, John, 341-342; Morris, John, 375; Freed, Quotations, 23-24; Carson, John, 321-326;

100

the debate concerns whether Jesus or the believer is the source of water in view at 7:38. Those who argue for the believer often claim support for this reading from the supposed precedent for this notion in John 4:14.367 It is simply taken for granted that this passage designates the believer as a source of the living water. But this is not at all obvious. For “in John 4:14, the ‘spring of water welling up to eternal life’ is a spring within the believer, procuring for him eternal life, as the antithetic parallelism makes clear.”368 Bienaimé surveys the arguments for a parallel with 4:14 and concludes,

…Jn 4,14 invoqué en faveur de cette interpretation n’est pas un paralléle adequate. La formulation est différent: une source jaillit à l’intérieur (Jn 4,14), des fleuves s’écoulent de l’intérieur (Jn 7,38). L’imagerie change aussi. D’une part, l’activité de la source intérieure se substitute à l’acte de boire (4,14); d’une autre part, on ne cesse de boire, en continuité avec la foi

Ridderbos, John, 273; Köstenberger, John, 240; Coloe, Dwells, 126-127; Balabanski, “Thirsty”, 139; Jones, Symbol, 154-155; Balfour, “Use”, 369-370; G. Fee, “Once more - John 7:37-39,” ExpT 89 (1978) 116; J. Cortes, “Yet another look at Jn 7:37-38,” CBQ 29 (1967) 75-84. Those who punctuate with a full stop after “believes in me”, preserving the parallelism between imperatives, include Lagrange, 214-215; Dodd, Interpretation, 342; Bultmann, John, 303; Brown, John, 321-323; Sanders and Mastin, John, 213-214; Bruce, John, 181-182; Smith, John, 174; Schnackenburg, John, 2:214; Yee, Feasts, 79; Burge, Anointed, 88-93; Dietzfelbinger, Johannes, 226; Keener, John, 728-729; Lincoln, John, 255; Wengst, Johannesevangelium, 291; Beasley-Murray, John, 115; Haenchen, John, 2.17-18; Hoskyns, John, 321; Moloney, Signs, 86; Kerr, Temple, 237; Brown, Spirit, 158; Aileen Guilding, The Fourth Gospel and Jewish Worship: A Study of the Relation of St John´s Gospel to the Ancient Jewish Lectionary System (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960), 106; G.D. Kilpatrick, “The Punctuation of John vii.37-38,” JTS 11 (1960) 340-342; J. Danielou, “Le symbolisme de l'eau vive,” RSR 32 (1958) 338; Luc Devillers, La Saga de Siloé: Jésus et la fête des Tentes (Jean 7,1-10,21) (Paris: Cerf, 2005), 82-83. M.J.J. Menken, “The Origin of the Old Testament Quotation in John 7:38,” NovT 38 (1996) 163-167, strikes a third course: he follows the first punctuation but nevertheless argues that Jesus, rather than the believer, is the source in view. Drawing on evidence from LXX and extra-Biblical Hellenistic Greek sources he argues that auvtou/ in v.38 resumes the thought of the pendent nominative (o` pisteu,wn eivj evme,), though not the subject of the nominative construction but the person mentioned in an oblique case, that is, evme,, Jesus.

367

See, for example, the citation of this text without further discussion in Freed, Quotations, 23; Fee, “Once More”, 116; Sanders and Mastin, John, 213, 214; Marsh, John, 342; Cortes, “Another Look”, 79; Balfour, “Use”, 374; Schenke, Johannes, 164; Wengst, Johannesevangelium, 291; Jones, Symbol, 155. Interestingly, Lagrange, Jean, 214-215, sees a connection with John 4 but views John 7 as making explicit what was evidently only implicit in the earlier context. He comments, “la parole de Jésus dépasse ce qu’il a dit á la Samaritaine (iv,10), parce qu’on voit mieux ici que l’eau vive que Jésus donners viendra de lui-méme comme d’une source.” The same basic thought is articulated by Andreas Obermann, Die christologische Erfülling der Schrift im Johannesevangelium: eine

Untersuchung zur johanneischen Hermeneutik anhand der Schriftzitate (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament; Tübingen: J C B Mohr, 1996), 357.

368

Menken, “Origin”, 165. So, also, Marie Emile Boismard, "De son ventre couleront des fleuves d’eau," RB 65 (1958) 535; Brown, John, 321; Wengst, Johannesevangelium, 401; Burge, Anointed, 90; Dietzfelbinger, Johannes, 226; Lincoln, John, 255; Whitacre, John, 193; Brown, Spirit, 157. See especially Um, Temple, 159-166, who shows that the background to John 4:10-14 in both the Old Testament prophets as well as contemporary Jewish tradition leads the reader to view Jesus as the eschatological, messianic source of the life-giving waters expected to flow from the Temple (see also Olsson, Structure, 216-218, and Ulfgard, Sukkot, 260-261). The term a`llome,nou in 4:14 speaks of the inexhaustibility of this water (note the parallelism between 4:14a and b) rather than of the woman becoming a source for others. See further, on this, Lindars, 183-184.

101

(7,37b-38a). La supposition d’un jaillissement intérieur destine au croyant perdrait sa raison d’être en Jn 7,38.369

Earlier in the Gospel, John emphasized the distinction between the water baptism of the Baptist and the Spirit baptism Jesus brings as Son of God by the three-fold, superfluous evn u[dati culminating in the proclamation of the one who baptizes evn pneu,mati a`gi,w| (cf. 1:26, 31, 33-34). At the outset of chapter 4 he extended this distinction to the disciples of Jesus: “Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples)” (4:1-2). The line of separation between Jesus and his disciples seems intended to preserve the emphasis on the Holy Spirit baptism that Jesus will uniquely provide.370 Thus, though the disciples play a role in the ministry of Jesus (4:37-38), their role is not co-extensive with that of Jesus. It is uniquely the role of Jesus to give the Holy Spirit.

This distinction continues in 20:21-23, another passage sometimes adduced by those who read 7:38 as referring to believers becoming a source of the Spirit for others.371 Jesus gives the Spirit to the disciples not that they might give it to others, for their ministry consists in the forgiveness of sins not the imparting of the Spirit. The Spirit, it seems, serves to illumine their understanding and empower their ministry (cf. 14:16-17, 26; 16:13).372 There is no support elsewhere in John, then, for the idea that believers become sources of the Holy Spirit themselves (even secondarily373). It would be surprising, then, if such were the case in John 7.374

If appeal to other contexts (e.g., John 4:14) in support of making the believer the source of the water in 7:38 falters, the background of Isa 55 in the immediate context renders this view still less likely. The allusion to Isa 55 in John 7:32-37 casts Jesus in the role of Yahweh as the source of the life-giving water of the new exodus.375 The whole thrust of the context up to this point prepares the reader to

369 _{Bienaimé, “L’annonce”, 303; cf. 293-294. Kerr, Temple, 237, reasons similarly.} 370 _{Keener, John, 587-588.}

371 _{E.g., Freed, Quotations, 24.}

372 _{For the place of the Spirit in the ministry of the disciples (including extended discussion of John 20:22), see esp.} Burge, Anointed, 114-149, 198-221.

373 _{Many who take this view make a qualification along the lines of Henry M. Knapp, “The Messianic Water that} Gives Life to the World,” HBT 19 (1997) 115: “This does not, of course, indicate that the believer is the origin of the water, but that the believer is mediately a source to others. The ultimate source remains…the Messiah.” Cf. esp. Z. Hodges, “Rivers of Living Water – John 7:37-39,” BibSac 136 (1979) 242; Coloe, Dwells, 127.

374

Reasoning along similar lines are Whitacre, John, 193; Kerr, Temple, 236-237; Wai-yee Ng, Water Symbolism in John: An Eschatalogical Interpretation (Studies in Biblical Literature; New York: Peter Lang, 2001), 80.

102

view Jesus as the source of the water that gives life, and neither in Isa 55 nor in John 7 is there anything to direct the reader to the idea of the believer becoming a source of this life-giving water.376

The pattern of thought in John 6 points in this same direction. There also I showed John interpreted the feast of Passover against Isa 55 and Ps 78 to indicate that Jesus, by his death, would provide the food that gives life. This idea of Jesus as source of that which gives life dominated the chapter as a whole (cf. my discussion of 6:5, 51) and at no point does John give any indication that the disciples, too, will give life (again, even if secondarily).377 As Devillers observes, “les défenseurs de la lecture en fonction du croyant oublient de tenir compte du contexte précis dans lequel l’oracle de Jn 7,38 intervient: …cet oracle doit être reçu avant tout comme une parole de révélation concernant un aspect essentiel de la personne de Jésus.”378 The Isaianic shape of the thought in John 7:32-37, then, adds greater weight to the conclusion that Jesus, not the believer, is the source of life-giving water in view in 7:38.

Some make much of the supposed conflict inherent in a summons to “drink” directed to “the one who believes”: if drinking is a metaphor for belief then the statement becomes redundant (“let the one who believes in me believe in me.”). Bienaimé comments on this punctuation (“coupure B”), “quelle que soit sa qualité formelle, le parallélisme de la coupure B manque de sense, quand l'impératif

pineto adresse au croyant une invitation a se désaltérer.”379 However, this problem may be more

apparent than real since the reading creates a kind of step-progression in which ‘coming to Jesus’ is figurative for discipleship (cf. John 1:39, 46-47). One might paraphrase, “if anyone thirsts let him come to me, and let the one who comes drink.” Urging those who have “come” and “believed” to (further) belief is not at all “lacking in sense” (contra Bienaimé) but is quite consistent with the conception of

376 _{So, similarly, Menken, “Origin”, 165; Ng, Symbolism, 80.}

377 _{John appears to create a motif around the idea of source with the term po,qen. In 2:9 the author states in} suggestive fashion that the master of the banquet did not from where (po,qen) the wine came. In context, the pregnant comment points to Jesus as the source of the wine for the eschatological banquet. In 3:8, playing on the double meaning of pneu/ma, Jesus states that Nicodemus does not know “from where (po,qen) the wind/Spirit comes or where it goes”. In context, the emphasis is surely on where the Spirit goes, that is, how he affects people. But against the setting of John 1-7 with the interest in Jesus’ activity of giving the Holy Spirit (cf. 1:33; 3:34; 4:10, 13- 14; 6:63; 7:39) the first part of the statement (“you do not from where it comes”) surely hints that what Nicodemus does not know is that the Spirit comes from Jesus. In 4:11, the woman asks Jesus, “from where (po,qen) will you get this living water?” While Jesus does not directly answer her question, it is clear that the source of this water is Jesus himself. In parallel fashion, the question of Jesus to Philip in 6:5 orients the following narrative (and discourse) around the idea that Jesus is the source of the food that brings life. Strikingly, the term po,qen occurs seven times across the feast of Tabernacles, every time with reference to the knowledge of Jesus’ origins (7:27 [2x], 28; 8:14 [2x]; 9:29, 30). The motif culminates with the unanswered question of Pilate to Jesus, po,qen ei= su,È (19:9). See further the discussion of Devillers, Siloé, 68-73.

378 _{Devillers, Siloé, 82.}

103

belief in the Fourth Gospel as a complex matter admitting of different levels of maturity. Jesus summons those who have believed in him on one level to deeper faith that will abide forever, as, for example, the summons to the believing crowds in John 6 to eat and drink his body and blood, metaphors signifying not a once-for-all faith-act but a perpetual, believing fellowship with the Son.