Spiritual birth, living water, and new creation: Mapping life-giving metaphors in the Fourth Gospel

Abstract

The Gospel of John contains various memorable metaphors, drawing on the lived realities of its audience to encapsulate the depths of its Christology and central message. Seamlessly interwoven into the fabric of the gospel is the metaphor of (life-giving) water, offered by Jesus and ultimately provided by him. A related metaphor is that of new birth, signifying the changed allegiance and ethos of those who come to believe. Finally, the new creation imagery with its Edenic setting and Jesus breathing Spirit-life into his disciples illustrates something of the effect of an encounter with the life-giving God. Drawing on Cognitive Metaphor Theory, this paper demonstrates that imagery of birth, water, and new life can work together to create a metanarrative. The analysis follows the ramifications of this imagery in its literary context, its rhetorical function in the narrative, and the way in which the metaphors of birth, water, and life potentially work together to produce a larger picture that ministers to those who carry the realities of giving, nurturing, and sustaining life in their bodies. From the prologue and its birth-giving God, through the birth from above promised to Nicodemus, the living water promised to a Samaritan woman, and the Holy Spirit as living water flowing from the innermost being, the narrative flows seamlessly to the cross where the lifegiving blood and water flow from the side of Jesus and into the resurrection dimension of a new creation.