Thursday, November 12, 2020

Jesus as the New/Second Adam in John 19:34

The theme of Jesus being the New/Second Adam is not unique to Paul (see Rom 5; 1 Cor 15; cf. Phil 2). It is also part-and-parcel of the Christology of the Synoptic Gospels. For a book-length study, see Brandon D. Crowe, The Last Adam: A Theology of the Obedient Life of Jesus in the Gospels (Baker Academic, 2017). We also have this theme in the Gospel of John. One example of this can be seen when one compares John 19:34 with Gen 2:21-22 (LXX):

 

But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side (πλευρά), and forthwith came there out blood and water. (John 19:34)

 

So God laid a trance upon Adam and put him to sleep; and he took one of his ribs (πλευρά) and filled up the flesh in the place of it. The Lord God built the rib (πλευρά) that he took from Adam into a woman, and he led her to Adam. (Gen 2:21-22 Lexham English Septuagint)

 

As Joseph Ratzinger (the then-future Pope [emeritus now] Benedict XVI) noted:

 

For John, the picture of the pierced side forms the climax not only of the crucifixion scene but of the whole story of Jesus. Now, after the lance-thrust that ends his earthly life, his existence is completely open; now he is entirely “for”, now he is truly no longer a single individual but “Adam”, from whose side Eve, a new mankind, is formed. That profound description in the Old Testament according to which the woman is taken from the side of the man (Ge. 2.21ff.)—an inimitable expression of their perpetual dependence on each other and their unity in the one humanity—that story seems to be echoed here in the recurrence of the word “side” (πλευρά, usually translated—wrongly—by “rib”). The open side of the new Adam repeats the creative mystery of the “open side” of man: it is the beginning of a new definitive community of men with one another, a community symbolized here by blood and water, in which John points to the basic Christian sacraments of baptism and Eucharist and through them to the Church as the sign of the new community of men. (Joseph Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity [trans. J.R. Foster; New York: Herder and Herder, 1970], 180)

 

On John’s theology of water baptism in 3:3-5, see:

 

 Baptism, Salvation, and the New Testament: John 3:1-7

 

On the Eucharist, including a discussion of John 6 and τρωγω, see:

 

 Responses to Robert Sungenis, Not By Bread Alone (2000/2009)