Many studies, reflections and meditations have already been published since the theme, "That All may have Life in Fullness", was chosen for the 24th general council in Accra in 2004, and many more will no doubt follow. The present reflection is intended as a contribution to this exchange of ideas. It seeks to anchor the theme in its biblical context and offer some exegetical lines for understanding certain aspects of John 10. It does not make a full interpretation of the passage. I shall begin by showing how the two preceding chapters shed light on our understanding of Jn 10.9-10, before going on briefly to recall a moment in the history of the Johannine community in order to understand what "life" meant for those Christians. Finally, we shall consider the difference and complementarity between "abundance" and "fullness" in this text. But the central challenge raised for us by our theme, surely, is to proclaim to all the people, and to remind our churches, that God's goodness is greater than any prosperity.

John 10.10 is not a bolt from the blue

It is interesting to note the context in which Jesus' words belong in this passage in Jn 10.10. In this fragment (10.10) we not only find the immediate, internal coherence of the story about the "good shepherd", with its metaphors of the door, the sheepfold, the flock, robbers, shepherd, etc.; it also seems to me to link up with other dramatic statements made by Jesus in his polemical relationship with the Pharisees, notably in chapters 8 and 9. If we fail to take account of the conflict opposing Jesus to the official representatives of his religion, we shall probably understand very little of chapter 10. What is it about?

Chapter 8 tells us that, early in the morning, Jesus is once again in the temple. Early as it is, the people are already gathering and he is teaching them. The scribes and the Pharisees bring forward a woman "caught in adultery", trying to find out what position Jesus will take on what is, at least in their interpretation of the law of Moses, a blatant case of sin. The text tells us that their real intention was "to test him, that they might bring a charge against him". Accuse the woman and eliminate her physically, accuse Jesus and eliminate him by discrediting him; it seems as though the scribes and the Pharisees hoped to kill two birds with one stone!

We know how this dramatic story continues, but I would like to underline three points. Jesus is in the temple; in other words, he has occupied the place that symbolizes God's presence in the spiritual imagery of the times. Jesus' presence and actions in the temple are not exactly greeted with enthusiasm by its usual masters. Unlike the scribes and their disciples, Jesus does not speak the accepted discourse of Jewish orthodoxy, nor does he teach what is usually taught there. Yet the people (all the people, the texts tells us) come to receive Jesus' teaching. It is quite easy to see that a number of the metaphors in chapter 10 (sheepfold, shepherd, flock, pasture) correspond to the elements in chapter 8: temple, Jesus, people, Jesus' teaching given in the sanctuary.

The second point I want to highlight in chapter 8 is this: The account shows us two camps facing one another, with a fierce trial of strength and extreme tension between the scribes and the Pharisees on the one hand, and Jesus on the other. And in between them, the people! This was precisely the position in which the woman "caught in adultery" was placed in the scene narrated here. On one side she faces a camp which wants her to die; and, on the other, a man who wants her to live! This dramatic situation is decisive for the woman's immediate fate. But does it not also shed light on the famous saying that concerns us in chapter 10? But that is not all. For after this confrontation between, on the one side, the advocates of "executions" - judicial or extra-judicial - and on the other, the one who gives every law its validity and legality, namely, Jesus, the conflict hardens to the point where the death-dealing forces do not hesitate to attack Jesus himself physically, seeking to take his life. The polemic reflected in John 8 also highlights major themes in John's apologetic christology in notions such as light, judgement, knowledge, believing, setting free, liberty. In one way or another, these themes are about the same crucial thing: access to life through the quality of our relationship with the one who is life. I shall come back to this.

One last point. At the end of chapter 8, the Jewish religious leaders' hostility towards Jesus crosses a threshold and reaches a truly terrifying intensity. We saw the story begin with the call for the stoning of a woman accused of adultery. Now we see it ending with the stoning actually happening, only this time the stones are aimed at Jesus, who escapes death by hiding and withdrawing from the temple. The scribes and the Pharisees want to vent on Jesus the murderous violence which they did not use on the woman. The temple has become the scene of trials, exclusions and even attempted executions. This time, Jesus' exit from the temple marks the point of no return. In John's Gospel, Jesus never returns to teach in the temple after this event. This negative fact thus provides a contrast that helps to clarify our understanding of Jesus' words in chapter 10 and its important metaphors.

Let us widen the context and see what is happening in chapter 9.

Jesus has opened the eyes of a man born blind (John 9). He has enabled this disabled person to move out of the world of darkness in which he was imprisoned and make his confession of faith, magnificent in its simplicity (9.38). In the course of the story (9.22), we learn of the decision taken by the "Jews", threatening penalties against anyone who should confess Jesus as the Christ and excluding them from the synagogue. Jesus' second meeting with the man who had been blind (9.35) takes place precisely after the break between that man and the Pharisees. Having reviled him, "they cast him out". Although we cannot say definitely that this amounts to exclusion from the synagogue, the context as a whole does not disallow this interpretation. The man is turned out because someone had opened his eyes and he had had the courage to bear witness to it and confess his faith in the Son of Man. And the one who is revealed here as the "Son of Man" is none other than the one who had to flee from the temple, driven out by the righteous violence unleashed by the "Jews".

The description of the synagogue in chapter 9 is frankly unflattering: apparently, the synagogue now gathers only those who hold the same view of things, a view that is limited and curtailed, a vision that leads nowhere. This is a synagogue that operates with exclusions and excommunications, a pathetic paradox when one thinks of the essential meaning of the word: a synagogue that does not gather the people...! The synagogue of chapter 9 serves as a counter-metaphor to v.9 in chapter 10; it is the very opposite of the new congregation ushered in by Jesus, the new sheepfold of which he is the "door" through which people can come and go freely and in safety.

To summarize, in chapter 8 a woman is narrowly saved from stoning to death in the temple; at the end of the story, Jesus in turn escapes an attempt at stoning to death and flees from the temple for having said "before Abraham was, I am". The repressive logic of a blind and intolerant institution continues in chapter 9. A man born blind recovers his sight when he meets Jesus, then confesses his faith in him. Released from darkness this man is then cast out by the leaders of a sectarian and somewhat totalitarian Judaism. There is no doubt that what is recounted in chapters 8 and 9 includes elements that are significant for the general context of the teaching of chapter 10 and, in particular, the saying in v.10: "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly". This affirmation does not arrive like a bolt from the blue in the fourth Gospel; it finds its full meaning and force within this wider framework of the other statements made by Jesus in John's account.

Life in abundance - what does John mean?

It is all too tempting to understand this idea of "life in abundance" by contrast to the real or symbolic attempts at killing that we have just mentioned, but it would be harmful and simplistic to stop there. There can be no doubt that the affirmation in Jn 10.10, like the discourse in this chapter as a whole, follows logically from chapters 8 and 9 and needs to be seen in the context of the increasingly radical conflict between Jesus and the religious representatives of his people. But it is equally clear that the life of which Jesus speaks, and the way in which he speaks of it, point to a wider, and certainly more fruitful, biblical framework.

As we know, the fourth Gospel places life, or eternal life, at the very centre of Jesus' preaching. Whereas the synoptics take the "kingdom of heaven" or the "kingdom of God" as the heart of the revelation granted in the person and work of Jesus, John puts the emphasis on life or eternal life. But this word zoé/zoé aiônios (used at least 35 times by the author of the fourth Gospel) is not easy to define.

Life here is not the opposite of death. It is that, but it is also more than that and also something else again. Life here is not some kind of salvation after death, spiritual happiness in another world, a particular metaphysical state or an indescribable psycho-religious experience. John's Gospel often speaks of life, or eternal life, as a special quality of relationship that Jesus establishes between God and humankind. Being and existing through the one true God; being and continuing through a sonship that precedes us and sustains us in this deeper relationship with God: this, in sum, is one of the striking features of what we find in John.

The term life is sometimes closely linked with other complex notions such as light, knowledge, truth, freedom, love. Consequently, the essential meaning and identity of the word life in the fullest sense includes this reference to light, knowledge, etc. I should like to mention one passage where life, manifested by a tangible reality, is symbolically referred to as life (in the sense of eternal life) in the unique relationship with Jesus, knowing Jesus, receiving Jesus into our lives.

Chapter 6 gives John's version of the miracle of the loaves and fishes. John sets this "event" in the context of the Passover. The evocation of the lamb sacrificed in memory of the exodus and its continuing benefits (notably the gift of the manna) is as it were superimposed on the sign of the multiplying of the loaves for the benefit of the crowd in Galilee. This act catches the people's imagination and leads them to sense the messianic nature of Jesus. But he, realizing that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, withdrew from the crowd and went to join his Father in a time of solitary prayer.

From v.23 on there is a very striking shift in the text. A very long speech by Jesus on the bread that comes down from heaven, the bread of life, the living bread, marks a break between Jesus' role in the "event" as the giver of the bread (symbol of life) and the nature of Jesus as the gift of God himself to human beings (and as such, the incarnation of this life in abundance); he is, therefore, the bread of life or the living bread come down from heaven! The multiplying of the loaves to produce plenty signified the abundance of life that God offers to those whose existence remains dominated by poverty, all those disinherited masses who often lack the most basic necessities of life. The lesson of the multiplying of the loaves could be summed up in the words of Ps 23, which sings of the provident goodness of a faithful and sustaining God.

With this "I am..." saying, the centre of attention in the meditation is not the sign of the bread given by God, but the revelation of the one beyond compare who is the bread come down from heaven for eternal life. Jesus states here that he is not the symbol of a promise that will be fulfilled by a tangible reality, nor is he even the mediator between the God who gives the bread in plenty and the people who enjoy it. Jesus takes the multiplication of the loaves as the occasion to reveal himself as the bread itself, the living bread come down from heaven. In multiplying the loaves Jesus gave something tangible, physical sustenance for our lives that know other hungers; through the teaching he expounds he reveals himself and gives himself as the only sustenance we need. Just as the body needs bread to live, so God presents Jesus for our lives, so that the word and the sign which Jesus incarnates and reveals may be accepted into our lives as the one living God who gives us life.

The discourse in which Jesus proclaims his identity as the living bread come down from heaven is a performative utterance. It produces an effect; it does what it says. The Jews realized this and withdrew, scandalized by what they had heard. The disciples themselves were no less shocked, because they found this a hard saying. When Jesus challenged them to go away also, they pulled themselves together and decided to stay, tacitly adopting Simon Peter's stance: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (6.68).

The multiplication of the loaves signifies abundance of life. This is the underlying meaning of this sign as it relates to our theme in Jn 10.10. When Jesus says that he has come that "they may have life, and have it abundantly" (NRSV), his listeners were bound to make a link between the meaning of the multiplication of the loaves and the teaching contained in John 10. But, as we have seen, life in abundance is not a matter of well-filled stomachs. If it were, Jesus would not have rebuked the crowd by saying "...you seek me not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves." In the light of this, we can understand the possible confusion that may arise between "having life in abundance" and eating our fill of bread, wallowing in plenty or greedily, compulsively devouring other consumer goods.

We need to stress this point and formulate, albeit succinctly, what is to be understood by "life in abundance" in the Johannine context. Is "life in abundance" the challenge thrown down against poverty? Is it a kind of indirect language countering a situation characterized by "death in abundance"? Could "life in abundance" be a type of mystical-esoteric reality, unconnected with the social-historical issues in the world and accessible only to a few initiates? If we fail to ask these questions we could find ourselves taking what is said in chapter 10 as nothing but a slogan - which is damaging to our listening to the scriptures and unfortunate with regard to the seriousness of our conviction about the way in which the scriptures interpret our lives and not how we, in our own contexts, or in the light of our own experiences, interpret and receive the scriptures.

I should like here to make a brief historical detour which will, I hope, shed light on what was at stake for the Christians gathered around John, and which, I believe, raises a number of challenging issues for us today.

The fourth Gospel dates from about the year 90 of our era. The Christian community from which the tradition of this text emanated influenced and perhaps even determined John's perspective. A great deal was said and written in the last century about the various influences that were thought to have marked the Johannine tradition: Philo, the Mandaeans, the Hermetics, in particular the Egyptians, the Qumran community, the hostility of the rabbis of Jamnia. There is no need here to go into the complexities of the hypotheses and historical and critical work on this subject. A few observations will suffice.

The Johannine community was familiar with the religious and mystical currents of its age. The prevalent gnosticism and the different varieties of Judaism - orthodox, heterodox or hellenic - were not unknown to it. But the Johannine Christians were mainly people of Jewish origin confronted with many difficulties: for example, their place and role alongside other Christian tendencies of the age, but even more, the growing intolerance of a persecuted Judaism that had itself turned persecutor. Historically and symbolically, the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple in the year 70 were cataclysmic in the collective Jewish consciousness. This had many consequences, one of which was the disappearance of the very real pluralism that had flourished within Judaism at the start of the first century.

As we have seen, John's Gospel is heavily marked by the hostility that existed between Jesus and the Jewish leaders. However, this fact can be read from two standpoints. One has to do with the actual witness to the acts, signs and statements of Jesus in the course of his ministry; the other concerns the way in which in recounting and reminding themselves of this memory, in bearing witness to their Lord, these Johannine Christians were translating and reinterpreting their own existence, the crises and challenges that faced them. We have already noted this historical fact. The mounting conflict between Jesus and the Jewish leaders, dramatically recounted by the author of the fourth Gospel, echoes the persecutions and exclusion suffered by Christians at the end of the first century.

At this time, some highly polemical writings had been published by "fundamentalist" Jewish circles, anathemas and other religious condemnations against Christians were current. One may mention the Birkath-ha-Minim, the twelfth blessing in an ancient liturgy of the synagogue comprising eighteen blessings in all. But this twelfth "blessing", composed at the period that interests us here, was, paradoxically, a curse against the "Nazarenes" and the Minim (that is, Judeo-Christian dissidents). Writings of Christian origin were prohibited and regarded as heretical. Considerable work had been done by the Jamnia community gathered around Johanan ben Zakkai with a view to restoring Judaism, establishing the recognized books to be included in the Bible, fixing the calendar of the major Jewish festivals, etc.

The fourth Gospel bears witness to these serious tensions and crises affecting a Judaism uncertain about its future, incapable of integrating the different tendencies that had once represented its pluralism and vitality and allowing them to live together. The synagogues were closed to Christians; the break between the Jewish Christians and the synagogue thus became inevitable. It was against this turbulent historical background that the Johannine current of thinking asserted itself, radicalizing and developing a "maximalist" christology unknown in other Christian circles at that time. The Johannine Christians seemed to be borne up by a strong apologetic conviction that they could expect nothing more of Judaism and had nothing more to discuss with it.

But how could such pious and fervent Jews, admittedly belonging to a recent dissident movement, come to the point of grounding their doctrinal and spiritual legitimacy over and beyond Abraham and Moses, indeed even in opposition to them? How were they able to believe and confess the salvation promised by the scriptures, while so cutting themselves off from the "Old" Covenant? The beginnings of an answer to these questions can be found in the opening words of the prologue to John: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God..." (1.1). The mention of Moses (1.17-18; 6.32-36) and of Abraham (8.58), to cite only these few passages, is very telling, even if a certain sense of disillusionment with the legitimating genealogy was not unknown in the First Testament: "For thou art our father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us..." (Is 63.16). In a situation of exile, with the loss of historical initiative, the prophet counts on the help of God alone.

To return to the Johannine community. In so asserting the precedence of Christ in relation to the chief symbolic figures of the First Testament, the Johannine Christians were, in a radical way, affirming their own status in relation to the rabbinate and other Jewish and Judeo-Christian currents of the time; they were attacking the very foundation of the synagogue's superiority and its claim to be the sole and exclusive place of communion with the God of the Covenant. The "good shepherd", the "thieves and robbers", the "door of the sheepfold", "abundant life" - all these metaphors in John 10 translate the existential anxiety and uncertainties that marked the life of an infant religious community that had already broken with the most ancient foundations of its identity. I think it is important for us to realize the scale of this crisis if we are to grasp the full depth and meaning of what is said in Jn 10.10.

This declaration seems to me to contain a considerable liberating power which encompasses and surpasses all considerations of a biological, health or economic nature. For, as I have pointed out, the abundance in question here cannot be reduced simply to an abundance of goods, giving life an unlimited, but one-sided quantitative dimension. We can see clearly that the Johannine Christians, plunged in a context of physical persecution and religious uncertainty, confess life in abundance as that which only their Lord can give them. Victory over poverty, denial of identity, exclusion, fragility, etc., the final disappearance of all these troubles, are not synonymous with "life in abundance"; but it is in face of these realities and despite them, opposing them and going beyond them that Johannine theology articulates the quality of trust in God - a God who lends our finite lives a fullness of meaning and truth that no extravagance of bread, no orgy by the powers-that-be can give them.

Abundant life in Jn 10.10 is a complex and essentially inclusive image. It links the sheepfold and the pasture; it guarantees the possibility for the sheep henceforth to go in and out. Life inside and life outside are held together and reconciled, as are security and freedom. The existence of thieves, wolves and robbers is described in very realistic, even dramatic terms, yet this does not mean the sheep are to be shut up in a closed, over-protected space; their food is also outside, in the pasture. Such confidence can only be gained by passing through the "door". This act of passing through, this special relationship with the "door" sets them free in an unprecedented way from all the anxieties about food and safety, and all the alienating tensions of the safety/freedom dilemma. There is a "door" and a "shepherd" - it is this confidence which seems to me to be at the very heart of life in abundance!

Towards the end of his life, Moses prayed to the Lord in these words: "Let the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation, who shall go out before them and come in before them, who shall lead them out and bring them in; that the congregation of the Lord may not be as sheep which have no shepherd" (Num 27.16-17 RSV). The resonance with John 10 is unmistakeable. It is striking to see how the gift of life, as that which comes from the creator, the gift of community, as a space for life in community wanted by God, and the gift of the "shepherd" are deeply connected here.

Many exegetes also interpret John 10 in the light of Ezekiel 34. The condemnation of the law of the jungle and its cynical brutality, the practical help given to the sheep that are weak, sick or injured, all that is said against ill-treating the weakest - all of this expresses first and foremost God's care for men and women who are oppressed, rather than the way in which the condition of the victims is to be improved. Life in abundance is not the dream come true of a land flowing with milk and honey, nor the nostalgic longing for the land of the fleshpots regained at last. It is the firm assurance of a caring God who sets limits on the evil and death that constantly flourish everywhere.

Abundance or fullness

The Greek word perissos/perisson, translated by "abundance", has several meanings, of which I shall mention two. It expresses excess, that which is extraordinary in size or in beauty, that which is excessively large or numerous. It can also be translated as that which goes over the amount, that which is extra, surplus or left over. The term also has a nuance that implies superfluousness. Besides Jn 10.10, the word is found in four other passages in the New Testament: Mt 5.37, 47; Mk 6.51; Rom 3.1; 2 Cor 9.1. Let us look briefly at the use of the word in these references.

Mt 5.37 and 5.47 do not have the same sense. In v.37, Jesus says, "All you need to say is "Yes' if you mean yes , "No' if you mean no; anything more than this comes from the evil one." (Jerusalem Bible). When one has said the essential, anything more creates confusion. A "profusion" of words and phrases simply serves to confuse minds. In v.47, which is also part of the Sermon on the Mount, the idea is different. Jesus challenges his listeners: "...and if you save your greetings for your brothers, are you doing anything exceptional?" Here the term is used for that which is out of the ordinary because of its beauty or its moral quality. In Mk 6.51, Jesus joins the disciples in the boat after the episode of the calming of the storm; the disciples are completely dumbfounded; other translations render this as "utterly astonished". The nuance of meaning emphasized here is surprise beyond all measure. In Rom 3.1, the apostle Paul says, "Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision?" But this can be translated literally as "what more does the Jew have (than the non-Jew)?" In the second letter to the Corinthians, Paul uses perissos in the negative sense of superfluous. "Now it is superfluous for me to write to you about the offering for the saints..." (NRSV) Other translations render this as "there is no need".

It is interesting to note that these five occurrences of perissos in the Bible do not refer to concrete things, but to matters of a moral, emotional and affective nature. Only Jn 10.10, speaking metaphorically, uses this term as an adjective to qualify life, "the life in abundance" promised to the "sheep" in the new "sheepfold" of which Jesus declares himself to be both the "door" and the "shepherd".

I shall not repeat my earlier comments on the meaning that is to be given to the phrase "life in abundance" in the context of Johannine theology. The life in question is not a matter of an (incalculable) quantity or a scale that cannot be measured. It is what remains and, as I have indicated, that by which the living God reveals to us the limits set to evil and to death, despite their constant and excessive presence at all times and in all places. Understood in this way, life in abundance remains synonymous with "eternal life". It is not an "exceptional life", "another life". It is the truth that reminds us that the life of creatures and things is in the loving care of the Creator and Lord of life. But is this perhaps to run the risk of further spiritualizing a subject which is already very much "spiritualized" in the thinking of John himself. In that case, we should speak of "fullness of life" rather than abundance.

The fourth Gospel is not unfamiliar with the term pleroma, pleromatos (fullness) though it occurs only once, in chapter 1.16. The essential idea in this text is that God fulfils all things in Jesus Christ. In him reside the fullness of grace and truth. "And from his fullness have we all received, grace upon grace." This fullness relates to the fulfilment of God's promises and the coming of the new age. Fullness expresses what has been uniquely and incomparably accomplished in Christ, but from which we benefit in our own lives. It proclaims what God has done in the person of Jesus Christ. The phrase "life in abundance" in Jn 10.10 expresses what Christ in his turn does in our lives when he is received into them as the "door" and the "shepherd". The metaphorical complex of life in abundance in Jn 10. 9-10 is distinct from Jn 1.16 in one particular respect: in it, freedom and security are intimately connected. The sheepfold is not fullness in itself, closed and protected, a kind of comfortable, protective prison. Rather it is a living space that communicates with other living spaces, nourishing pastures outside the enclosure.

"Abundance of life" contradicts the fragility of life, the scarcity of life because it is everywhere plagued by sickness and death; because too often the integrity of life is reduced to dust and ashes by countless misdeeds and acts of cruelty. "Abundance" of life thus refers directly to the fragility and vulnerability of life. "Life in fullness" has a similar but different meaning which refers to the emptiness coiled at the heart of life. To put it another way, our personal or collective existences could be said to be like vessels containing only tiny, insignificant portions of life and consequently aspiring to attain fullness. Even if what is lacking in our lives and in our destinies were deeper and more significant than the idea we may have of life, the problem would still arise. For something always has to be lacking in life, there has to be a space for what has yet to be received. Is it not the case that existences with no emptiness, where nothing is lacking are rather like coffins - in other words, containers that are full and carefully sealed, but filled with death?

The challenge for us

Preposterous as it may seem to say so, the one and only challenge for us as we reread Jn 10.9-10 is simply to tell again of the goodness of God, to bear witness to it through lasting and credible commitments which are, above all, signs of protest and resistance against all the "deserts of life" that surround us. The challenge for us lies not in endlessly seeking to find the relevance of Jn 10.10 for today, as a way of exorcising our helplessness and the confusion of the peoples who are at the mercy of the "thieves and robbers". Life in abundance cannot be reduced to terms of the GDP or the GNP of privileged countries. Nor can it be measured in terms of the material success of the individual men and women who enjoy the benefits of liberal capitalism. If it were so, the theological issue at stake in this text would simply be a façade and the last word on the matter would lie with the "gospel of prosperity", which is always quick to justify as journeys of faith crowned with blessings situations which are very often dubious and unjustifiable!

One western tradition has demonstrated that humankind come-of-age is able to live without God, or at least at a distance from God. In Africa today, by contrast, a certain type of compensatory Christianity is propagating a religion of distress which claims to celebrate the living God, the God of the risen Christ, but asks no questions about the fate suffered by life in our continent. It has to be said that in this case we have to do with a cynical and predatory Christianity. At home in dealing with the multiple forms and structures of death, it deploys much of its energy and vitality in situations of major disaster!

Faced with these two types of context summarily outlined here, the only approach for us remains the reference to the biblical roots. Jn 10.10 is neither a sacralization of life nor a limitless celebration of life. The seduction of Baalism is no less real for us in the 21st century than it was for the Hebrews at the time of Elijah and Elisha. Let us simply read Jn 10.10 and hear it afresh in the light of this prayer and cry of hope:

O God, you are my God, I seek you...
Because your steadfast love is better than life.
(Ps 63.1,3)

From Reformed World volume 52 number 4 (December 2002)