Aaron, have you read Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition by Hans Boersma? In Chapter One he discusses the ancient way of viewing appearance and tellos. Historically, the telos of a thing was seen to be embedded in its nature. But this changed with Enlightenment ideology. This seems to be the framework John is working within. Male and female bodies hold eschatological realities that find their ultimate fulfillment in the person and work of Christ. Is that a fair summary in your opinion?
I have not read that book but that’s an interesting connection, thanks Kim. I really like your summary, that “Male and female bodies hold eschatological realities that find their ultimate fulfillment in the person and work of Christ.” That really fits well with John’s Gospel. Re: Boersma, I would wonder if/how he deals with Aristotle. The aristotelean connection between nature (formal cause) and telos (final cause) has influenced Christian anthropology for centuries, so that the differences typically perceived between the bodily nature of man (hard, strong) and woman (soft, weak) correlate to a different telos for each (ie ruling for man, submission for woman). But I agree we can use the nature-telos connection so long as Scripture (special revelation) is our guide rather than natural theology.
I have only now read your posts on God is a Wedding. Yesterday, I was working on the last edits of my book. The chapter I edited deals with Mary mistaking Jesus for the master gardener. I went on to say that He is the Master Gardener, planting seeds in the Kingdom. I have not written of Jesus giving birth to the Kingdom, but I have thought about it and planned to write about it in my second book. So, this is interesting and dovetails nicely with what I have written.
My thesis, as I have said, is that the Father is the masculine (and that does not make Him a biological male) and the Comforter is the feminine. Jesus is the balance, the connection, the ladder, the bridge. Masculine and feminine are the two ways we interact with the world. The masculine is through observations and thinking. The feminine is through connecting and acting. The balance that Jesus exhibited is the integration of both. The majority of people are not balanced--either being too rational or too emotional. To work toward balance should be the goal of each Christian and the church as a whole.
I am still reading Timothy Patitas' The Ethics of Beauty and have something to say about his view. I'll read your next post first. So far, however, I agree with your exegesis and find it well written. Thanks.
Thanks so much, Shiela, for the detailed engagement and taking the time to read all of that. I love all of this coincidental dovetailing. And congratulations on finishing your book! I can’t recall, have you read what McGilchrist says about gender and brain hemispheres? I re-read that after our last correspondence and unexpectedly it seems the research doesn’t favor the anecdotal generalization of male/left-brain and female/right-brain. Fwiw. But I wholeheartedly agree, we need balance. At the same time, I’m persuaded by McGilchrist that the right (relational) brain needs to lead, so it’s a dance of right-left-right, rather than balancing right-left. I appreciate your formulating this vis a vis the Trinity, it’s important to trace our ideal nature to the God-man in whose image we are made and re-made.
Aaron, I am fascinated by your post. What I came away with after reading is that Christ fulfills the typology of both man and woman in the Gospel of John by becoming flesh. As you mentioned in your last two Substacks, John's Jesus is the stairs or bridge between heaven and earth. But more than that. In mediating a future consummate union, the man and the woman's symbolism find their fulfillment in him as the Son and the Sanctuary. It brings me to Colossians 1:17, the Son over heaven and earth, holding heaven and earth together by coming in the flesh became the fulfillment of their types. As I have worked on the typology of the woman as sacred space, I have always been puzzled with John 2:19. Jesus says that he is the temple. He is the enfleshed son (the Second Adam from the earth) but he is also the temple itself, heaven, born from the Mother Realm that is identified by him. We are held by both a person and a place in being brought into union and communion with him. We see that functional unity in SoS 8, the stag on cleft mountains. The man and the woman of Gen. 1:27, Israel and the Promised Land, David and his city, sonship and sanctuary, Christ and the eschatological temple all devolve on him as the substance and surety of both. It's as if the glory and majesty of his person have overtaken the realm, so that he is absolutely identified with both. Of course at this point, my thoughts go to Meredith Kline and the his work on the Glory Spirit who has filled the heavenly temple, Son and Spirit together in their mission making the glory of heaven the "air" we breathe above.
Wonderful connections, thank you Anna. I love how you are able to intuit those so naturally, at least it seems that way, and fits so well with the temple theme in John, which includes fulfillment as well as continuation. 2 books on my to-read list are by Mary Coloe: Dwelling in the Household of God: Johannine Ecclesiology and Spirituality; and God Dwells with Us: Temple Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel. In the latter book she writes:
“I propose to show that the Temple functions in the narrative as the major christological symbol that gradually shifts its symbolic meaning from the person of Jesus to the Johannine community in the post-resurrection era. In the time of Jesus’ ministry, he is the focus of the cultic imagery of Temple and Tabernacle. Within the Jewish feasts of Passover, Tabernacles, and Dedication, Jesus appropriates to himself the cultic symbols—bread (6:35, 48, 51), water (7:37-39), light (8:12), sacred place (10:36). Within the narrative there are indications that what is said of Jesus, will, in a future time, apply to the community of believers (4:23; 7:38, 39; 14:2). These proleptic comments are associated with the future gift of the Spirit. The Temple, therefore, is not a peripheral image. It is used consistently throughout the text and moves beyond the life of Jesus into the life of the community, giving the community a clear sense of identity and a way of sustaining faith in the absence of Jesus.”
Put differently, just as “man and the woman's symbolism find their fulfillment in Jesus as the Son and the Sanctuary,” so too in the Spirit men and women become sons and daughters as the new sanctuary, the household (family, John 14:2, 23) and house (sanctuary, John 2:13-22) of God.
I love those quotes by Mary Coloe --- the way she incorporates the work of the Holy Spirit, where John focuses in the Upper Room discourse, the Spirit's his indwelling, abiding presence which absolutely identifies Christ's people with himself in earthly mission and heavenly consummation. She has incredible insight!
Aaron, have you read Seeing God: The Beatific Vision in Christian Tradition by Hans Boersma? In Chapter One he discusses the ancient way of viewing appearance and tellos. Historically, the telos of a thing was seen to be embedded in its nature. But this changed with Enlightenment ideology. This seems to be the framework John is working within. Male and female bodies hold eschatological realities that find their ultimate fulfillment in the person and work of Christ. Is that a fair summary in your opinion?
I have not read that book but that’s an interesting connection, thanks Kim. I really like your summary, that “Male and female bodies hold eschatological realities that find their ultimate fulfillment in the person and work of Christ.” That really fits well with John’s Gospel. Re: Boersma, I would wonder if/how he deals with Aristotle. The aristotelean connection between nature (formal cause) and telos (final cause) has influenced Christian anthropology for centuries, so that the differences typically perceived between the bodily nature of man (hard, strong) and woman (soft, weak) correlate to a different telos for each (ie ruling for man, submission for woman). But I agree we can use the nature-telos connection so long as Scripture (special revelation) is our guide rather than natural theology.
I have only now read your posts on God is a Wedding. Yesterday, I was working on the last edits of my book. The chapter I edited deals with Mary mistaking Jesus for the master gardener. I went on to say that He is the Master Gardener, planting seeds in the Kingdom. I have not written of Jesus giving birth to the Kingdom, but I have thought about it and planned to write about it in my second book. So, this is interesting and dovetails nicely with what I have written.
My thesis, as I have said, is that the Father is the masculine (and that does not make Him a biological male) and the Comforter is the feminine. Jesus is the balance, the connection, the ladder, the bridge. Masculine and feminine are the two ways we interact with the world. The masculine is through observations and thinking. The feminine is through connecting and acting. The balance that Jesus exhibited is the integration of both. The majority of people are not balanced--either being too rational or too emotional. To work toward balance should be the goal of each Christian and the church as a whole.
I am still reading Timothy Patitas' The Ethics of Beauty and have something to say about his view. I'll read your next post first. So far, however, I agree with your exegesis and find it well written. Thanks.
Thanks so much, Shiela, for the detailed engagement and taking the time to read all of that. I love all of this coincidental dovetailing. And congratulations on finishing your book! I can’t recall, have you read what McGilchrist says about gender and brain hemispheres? I re-read that after our last correspondence and unexpectedly it seems the research doesn’t favor the anecdotal generalization of male/left-brain and female/right-brain. Fwiw. But I wholeheartedly agree, we need balance. At the same time, I’m persuaded by McGilchrist that the right (relational) brain needs to lead, so it’s a dance of right-left-right, rather than balancing right-left. I appreciate your formulating this vis a vis the Trinity, it’s important to trace our ideal nature to the God-man in whose image we are made and re-made.
Aaron, I am fascinated by your post. What I came away with after reading is that Christ fulfills the typology of both man and woman in the Gospel of John by becoming flesh. As you mentioned in your last two Substacks, John's Jesus is the stairs or bridge between heaven and earth. But more than that. In mediating a future consummate union, the man and the woman's symbolism find their fulfillment in him as the Son and the Sanctuary. It brings me to Colossians 1:17, the Son over heaven and earth, holding heaven and earth together by coming in the flesh became the fulfillment of their types. As I have worked on the typology of the woman as sacred space, I have always been puzzled with John 2:19. Jesus says that he is the temple. He is the enfleshed son (the Second Adam from the earth) but he is also the temple itself, heaven, born from the Mother Realm that is identified by him. We are held by both a person and a place in being brought into union and communion with him. We see that functional unity in SoS 8, the stag on cleft mountains. The man and the woman of Gen. 1:27, Israel and the Promised Land, David and his city, sonship and sanctuary, Christ and the eschatological temple all devolve on him as the substance and surety of both. It's as if the glory and majesty of his person have overtaken the realm, so that he is absolutely identified with both. Of course at this point, my thoughts go to Meredith Kline and the his work on the Glory Spirit who has filled the heavenly temple, Son and Spirit together in their mission making the glory of heaven the "air" we breathe above.
Wonderful connections, thank you Anna. I love how you are able to intuit those so naturally, at least it seems that way, and fits so well with the temple theme in John, which includes fulfillment as well as continuation. 2 books on my to-read list are by Mary Coloe: Dwelling in the Household of God: Johannine Ecclesiology and Spirituality; and God Dwells with Us: Temple Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel. In the latter book she writes:
“I propose to show that the Temple functions in the narrative as the major christological symbol that gradually shifts its symbolic meaning from the person of Jesus to the Johannine community in the post-resurrection era. In the time of Jesus’ ministry, he is the focus of the cultic imagery of Temple and Tabernacle. Within the Jewish feasts of Passover, Tabernacles, and Dedication, Jesus appropriates to himself the cultic symbols—bread (6:35, 48, 51), water (7:37-39), light (8:12), sacred place (10:36). Within the narrative there are indications that what is said of Jesus, will, in a future time, apply to the community of believers (4:23; 7:38, 39; 14:2). These proleptic comments are associated with the future gift of the Spirit. The Temple, therefore, is not a peripheral image. It is used consistently throughout the text and moves beyond the life of Jesus into the life of the community, giving the community a clear sense of identity and a way of sustaining faith in the absence of Jesus.”
Put differently, just as “man and the woman's symbolism find their fulfillment in Jesus as the Son and the Sanctuary,” so too in the Spirit men and women become sons and daughters as the new sanctuary, the household (family, John 14:2, 23) and house (sanctuary, John 2:13-22) of God.
I love those quotes by Mary Coloe --- the way she incorporates the work of the Holy Spirit, where John focuses in the Upper Room discourse, the Spirit's his indwelling, abiding presence which absolutely identifies Christ's people with himself in earthly mission and heavenly consummation. She has incredible insight!