The Self-Donation of God. Jack D. Kilcrease

and water represent John’s final identification of Jesus with the temple and its cult. Hahn notes that we are told in Ezekiel 47:1–11 that living water would flow out of the eschatological temple. Read in light of this passage, it would appear that John is suggesting, yet again, that Jesus’s body is the eschatological temple. The same author has also pointed to the rabbinic tradition that two streams, one of water and the other of blood (i.e., from the sacrifices), flowed out of the Second Temple.337 As we observed earlier, the temple was the locus of God’s glory in the Old Testament. From it he mediated his holiness to his people. Read from this perspective, John asserts that as the glory of God, Jesus now mediates that same holiness to the Church by his death and through the sacraments.

      This scene also evokes more Edenic imagery as well. Christ lying dead on the cross is reminiscent of Adam asleep giving birth to Eve out of his side. This parallel has been frequently noticed throughout the history of exegesis.338 In support of this reading, it should be observed that the crucifixion occurs on the sixth day of the week (the day of the creation of humanity) and that (as Wright noted above) Jesus has been identified as the true man (ecco homo, actually “human,” “anthrōpos” John 19:5). Read in this light, John appears to be asserting that Jesus is the second Adam and does for the Church through Word and sacrament what Adam did for Eve. This interpretation is bolstered by J. Ramsey Michaels’s observation that John possesses no description of ripping the veil of the temple.339 If Jesus is the true Temple, then the piercing of his heart is the actual ripping of the veil. Therefore, much like the preincarnate Christ gave himself over to ancient Israel by his presence in the cult, he now gives himself to the Church through Word and sacrament. In contrast to the Israelite cult though, he now ceases to be segregated from them, but instead directly gives himself over to them in the means of grace.

      By rising from the dead in a garden on the first day of the week, Jesus reveals himself as the new Adam and the divine agent of new creation. In the garden Mary mistakes him for the gardener (20:15), the vocation held by Adam prior to the Fall. In effect, Adam has returned to the garden and creation has begun anew. By faith (3:16), one enters into this new creation and is “born again” (3:3), this time of “water and the Spirit” (3:5), that is, through baptism. In this passage, we are reminded again of the original creation in which the Spirit hovered over the waters (Gen 1:2) and recognized the new act of creation that Jesus brings to us, mediated through Word and sacrament.

221. See the following commentaries: Alexander, Gospel of Mark; Carrington, According to Mark; Cranfield, Gospel; J. Edwards, Gospel; France, Gospel of Mark; Gould, Critical and Exegetical Commentary; Gnilka, Evangelium nach Markus; Grundman, Evangelium nach Markus; Hauck, Evangelium des Markus; Hobbs, Gospel of Mark; Horne, Victory According to Mark; Huby, Evangile selon Saint Marc; Hunter, Gospel; Jeremias, Evangelium nach Markus; S. Johnson, Commentary on the Gospel; Juel, Mark; Keegan, Commentary on the Gospel; Keil, Evangelien des Markus und Lukas; Kilgallen, Brief Commentary; Lagrange, Evangile selon Saint Marc; Lamarche, Evangile de Marc; LaVerdiere, Beginning of the Gospel; Lenski, St. Mark’s Gospel; Lohmeyer, Evangelium des Markus; G. Martin, Gospel according to Mark; Michael, Am Tisch der Sünder; Menzies, Earliest Gospel; Morgan, Mark; Moule, Mark; Nineham, Saint Mark; Riddle, According to Mark; Sabin, Mark; J. Schmid, Evangelium nach Markus; Schnackenburg, Evangelium nach Markus; Schanz, Evangelium des Heiligen Marcus; Schweizer, Mark; St. John, Analysis of the Gospel; Taylor, Mark; Trocmé, L’Evangile selon Saint Marc; Weidner, Mark; Wellhausen, Das Evangelium Marci; Witherington, Gospel of Mark; Wohlenberg, Evangelium des Markus; Wolff, Mark.

222. Witherington, Gospel of Mark, 69–70.

223. Gathercole, Pre-Existent Son, 236 (emphasis added). Also see the arguments for early high Christology in Bauckham, God Crucified; Hurtado, How On Earth; Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ.

224. Hengel, Four Gospels, 95.

225. N. T. Wright, Christian Origins, 2:615–31. Also see an argument about this theme in Mark in Horne, Victory according to Mark, 14–24.

226. This is a theme throughout the Gospels: Mark 2:27–28, 8:11–13, 8:31–32, 38, 8:38—9:1, 10:32–34; Matt 8:20, 12:8, 12:38–42, 13:37, 41–42, 16:27–28, 18:11, 20:17–19, 24:30, 25:31–32; Luke 6:5, 9:26–27, 9:58, 11:29–32, 18:31–34.

227. Nineham, Saint Mark, 61–62.

228. Motyer, “Rendering of the Veil,” 155–57.

229. Though I cite other scholars with regard to this insight, the first person to direct me to this point was David Frederickson, professor of New Testament, Luther Seminary.

230. Also see comments in Leithart, Four, 153.

231. Gathercole, Pre-Existent Son, 49.

232. Juel, Mark, 128.

233. Scaer, Christology, 79.

234. France, Gospel of Mark, 608.

235. See discussion of this interpretation of Jesus’s confession in N. T. Wright, Christian Origins, 2:551.

236. Gathercole, Pre-Existent Son, 60–61. Also see similar arguments in Bock, Blasphemy and Exaltation; Timo Eskola, Messiah and the Throne. Beyond Gathercole’s argument, Bock mentions that the challenge to the priesthood (representatives of God) would be viewed as blasphemy.

237. Fletcher-Louis, “Jesus and the High Priest,” 21.

238. Ibid., 15.

239. Just, Heaven on Earth, 100.

240. Mowinckel, Psalms in Israel’s Worship, 2–3.

241. For a similar argument see Bayer, “Toward a Theology of Lament,” 211–20. Gerhard also suggests that Jesus was a hero of faith who was not defeated even in death (History of the Suffering, 265).

242. Lenski, St. Mark’s Gospel, 722–23.

243. Jewish War, 5.5.4, in Josephus, Works of Josephus, 707.

244. For example, Schweizer, Mark, 354–55.

245.