John's Gospel and New Creation

John’s Gospel, from it’s opening lines all the way to its end, is a story of how God’s sent Son rescued the whole of creation.

The Gospel begins, deliberately evoking the beginning of the Bible’s creation story, “In the beginning…” (Gen. 1:1; John 1:1). John is telling us—with all the imagery about a new beginning and about “light” and “darkness” (John 1:4-5)—that this is the story of the new creation, the fresh renewal brought about by God’s Son.

If that’s how the Gospel begins, how then does it end?

The Gospel ends, in particular, with John 20-21; and in John 20, after the resurrection, Mary finds Jesus in a garden and thinks He’s a gardener (20:14-15). In fact, right after the crucifixion of Jesus, John tells us: “Now there was a garden in the place where he was crucified” (John 19:41).

This cannot help but remind the reader—who has been prepared for just this by the opening of John’s Gospel with its allusions to Genesis 1—that John 19-20 are full of allusions to Genesis 2: the story of God walking in the garden with Adam and Eve.

More than this, this Gospel, framed in between allusions to Genesis 1 at the beginning and to the garden of Genesis 2 at the end, tells the story of Jesus’ crucifixion in a particular way. Jesus cries out from the cross: “It is finished!” (John 19:30).

For the reader who has been attuned to such resonances by the beginning and ending of John, it becomes clear that this cry from the cross, “It is finished,” is an allusion to the beginning of Genesis 2, the section separating the creation of the world and God’s planting of the garden of Eden. At the beginning of Genesis 2, God declares, “It is finished” (Gen. 2:1-2)—with “it” being the creation of the world.

Therefore, John’s point is utterly breathtaking.

John presents the entire story of Jesus—from the Father’s sending all the way to the crucifixion—as the new Genesis 1, the way in which God established a new creation. Beyond this, John presents the climactic moment of new creation, somewhat shocking, to be the death of Jesus himself.

Or, as John simply puts it, “There was a garden in the place where he was crucified” (John 19:14).

Come join us at Ooltewah United Methodist Church as we learn day by day and week by week to live within God’s freshly unveiled new creation!