Signs conveyed through images, symbols, and real-time events, natural and historical, and through divinely chosen persons, and other actors, are shown to be significant in Holy Scripture. Those signs are divinely chosen pointers toward Eternal Truth and signify God’s redemptive purpose for His creation. They hold significance for our reception and understanding of the Gospel and are central to both Old Testament and New Testament witnesses. But few of us have a firm, conceptual grasp of what is meant by “sign,” in biblical terms and usage.

Old Testament scholar and teacher, Dr. Page Kelley, quotes another Hebrew Bible scholar, H. Wheeler Robinson, in a 1948 work of his, which defines a sign as “something ordinary or extraordinary, as the case may be, regarded as significant of a truth beyond itself, or impressed with a divine purpose.” Notice that a sign may be either ordinary or extraordinary. A sign does not, in every instance, always come through a spectacular happening. Notice particularly that all such signs, ordinary or extraordinary, hold a “divine purpose.”. They are sent by God, for God’s plan and divine intention.

Professor Kelley emphasizes that “signs never stand alone, but are always closely linked with a word from God. Their purpose is to confirm the truth and power of the spoken [or written] word.”. His explanation impels me to ask, then, does God give a sign to those who do not study, and do not know, the biblical Word with which the sign is closely linked?

Two sacred signs, given through the Crucifixion of Jesus, are the heart of this study today. They are reported by John in the Fourth Gospel. “But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water” (John 19:34). A related passage in 1 John 5: 6-8 emphasizes, as well, these two signs of blood and water.

Dr. Kelley interprets further:

“A basic premise of this Gospel is that physical realities may incarnate and therefore effectively symbolize their spiritual counterparts. Biologically, the body of Jesus must have yielded an emission of blood and a clear liquid like water. But the Gospel has already given both of these terms rich spiritual significance relating to the quickening and sustaining of eternal life (e.g. John 2:7-9; 3:5; 4:14; 6:53-56; 7:38-39; and 13:5-10). Therefore, the literal blood and water which came from the crucified Christ symbolize that He alone is the Source of those realities that redeem and nourish whoever may believe” (emphasis added). Dr. Kelley’s insight is convincing, and accords with multiple passages, as stated.

Before recording those signs of blood and water occurring at the Crucifixion, John had pointed believers to other revelatory signs, given through the mission and ministry of Jesus, which function to ” redeem and nourish whoever may believe.” From Jesus’ extraordinary turning of water into wine at the wedding feast in Cana, to His surprising, but ordinary, washing of His disciples’ feet, and through many other signs, both extraordinary and ordinary, of the deep Truth of Jesus’ Messianic identity as sacrificial Lamb of God, Whose blood “takes away the sin of the world,” John’s Gospel narrative had built increasingly strongly, and more divinely purposefully, toward its climax and completion in the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ Jesus our Redeemer.

Other signs included the Samaritan woman at the well of Jacob who became a glad recipient and joyful witness to Jesus’s gift of spiritual water, through the Living Water of the Holy Spirit, extended to her. This sign, too, had pointed forward, toward the final completion of God’s redemptive plan and purpose through His Son.

First of all, John the Evangelist had placed at center stage in his Gospel narrative a sign which stood as prologue to Christ’s Crucifixion and Resurrection. Immediately, John had reported the holy sign given by God to John the Baptizer and Forerunner: “…he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’….And John bare record, saying, ‘I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon Him. And I knew Him not, but He that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, “Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, the same is He which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.”’ (John 1:29,32,33)

Professor Kelley states, “Faith needs only a limited number of signs in order to be pointed in the direction of true belief.” I pray that this column is another of those signs.

The faith I teach through my “newspaper seminary” column is nourished by the faith in God which blesses me, from my birth, through the deep gratitude and faithful trust of my father and mother, and also again through the faith and teaching of scholars like Malcolm Tolbert at Southeastern and Frederick Herzog at Duke, and by my joyous calling and privilege of having taught in seminary young ministers of the Gospel, and learning along with them, Eternal Truths which “redeem and nourish” our “true belief.” Above, and within, it all, God the Holy Spirit is the supreme Teacher. All worship and honor to the Holy Trinity!

Thanks be to God.