a sign: a perceptible mark or event that points beyond itself to a meaning, an identity, or the action of God
A sign is not the thing you look at but the thing it makes you look toward. The word never settles on a single kind of object: it can be
- a wonder no ordinary power could produce
- a plain agreed-on token by which you recognize someone or something
- an event read as marking a moment in God's plan
What ties these uses together is the pointing. In every case the sign is a pointer, and its worth lies entirely in what it indicates, so the word takes its specific sense from its setting rather than from any one fixed picture.
The largest group of uses is the authenticating sign, especially in John, who calls Jesus' works signs rather than mere displays of power. They are meant to disclose who he is and to draw faith. The book of Acts and Paul extend this with the paired phrase signs and wonders, which deliberately echoes God's rescue of Israel out of Egypt and presents the apostles' ministry as a continuation of that story. Set against all of this is the demand for a sign as proof, where opponents ask for a guarantee on their own terms and Jesus refuses, because a wonder produced on command authenticates nothing.
A third strand looks forward to a sign of the end, an event by which people try to read where they stand in God's purposes, and here the word turns two-edged: the same term covers both the true cosmic signs of God's coming and the counterfeit signs the deceiver works to mislead. A quieter strand is the everyday token of recognition: a mark, a gesture, a seal, even a baby in a manger, given so that someone or something can be identified.
The running danger is to fix on the spectacle and miss the message. A sign is never self-explaining; it must be read inside the right frame, and the same act can either reveal or deceive depending on the eyes that watch it. That is exactly the complaint the Gospels make about crowds who saw the works and still did not believe what they pointed to.
Nuances
Disputed
What the sign of Jonah refers to in Jesus' answer to the demand for a sign.
- contestedJesus' death and resurrection, since Matthew 12:40 compares Jonah's three days in the fish to the Son of Man's three days in the earth.; R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew (NICNT; Eerdmans, 2007), 491-494; Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 1-13 (WBC 33A; Word, 1993), 354-355
- contestedJonah's prophetic appearance and preaching of repentance, since Luke 11:30 lacks the three-days saying and likens the Son of Man's preaching to Jonah's.; Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke X-XXIV (AB 28A; Doubleday, 1985), 933-937; John Nolland, Luke 9:21-18:34 (WBC 35B; Word, 1993), 651-656
- contestedThe figure of Jonah himself, gathering deliverance from death, preaching to outsiders, and divine vindication into one person.; W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, The Gospel According to Saint Matthew (ICC; T&T Clark), 2:351-360
Whether the Gospel of John regards signs positively (they generate genuine faith), negatively (they yield inadequate or hardening faith), or ambivalently (either, depending on the perceiver).
- contestedPositive: the signs are written precisely to engender saving faith (John 20:30-31 is the stated purpose), and the sign-faith critiques refine rather than reject faith.; D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John (PNTC; Eerdmans, 1991); Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Hendrickson, 2003)
- contestedNegative: sign-faith is a concession to weakness, and the signs expose the inadequacy of a faith that depends on them, set over against believing without seeing.; Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Westminster ET, 1971)
- contestedAmbivalent: signs have a surface miraculous level that may yield superficial belief and a deeper level revealing Jesus' glory; rightly perceived they disclose his identity, misperceived they do not.; Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John (Crossroad/Herder, 1968-82); Marianne Meye Thompson, John: A Commentary (NTL; Westminster John Knox, 2015)