<p>2:11 <em>This, the first of his signs, Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, thereby revealing his glory; and his disciples believed in him</em>-&quot;Jesus... manifested forth his glory&quot; through his miracles. His miracles therefore were a demonstration of the character (&quot;glory&quot;) of God, not just to relieve human grief as he came across it. Therefore they are all capable of allegorical interpretation; there are seven miracles in John called &quot;signs&quot;. Contrast how the glory of God was manifested to Moses, who peeped at it from the rock. Yet Jesus was the glory of God, higher than the Angel who actually manifested the glory.</p><p>The real Christ must be the concealed basic pattern behind a person. But one of the problems in seeking to build up an image of the man Jesus is that He Himself didn't proclaim so much about Himself in so many words. He never specifically announces that He is Messiah- that fact is stated by who He was in life. His miracles were a <em>phanerosis</em>, a rendering apparent, of His glory (Jn. 2:11). The glory of God is essentially His character (Ex. 33:18). The Lord started to reveal this, to let this show, after age 30- beginning, it seems, with His <em>arche-miracle</em> of making the wine at Cana (Jn. 2:11 Gk.). But even that was a revealing of His glory to only a few- because even the governor of the feast thought that it was the bridegroom, and not Jesus, who had somehow pulled out new supplies of wine. The guests were drunk (see on :10). The revealing of His glory, spoken of by John in such startling terms as His arch-miracle, was in fact only to the disciples and perhaps a few others who perceived what had happened. This, I submit, is how to understand the Biblical references to the glory which the Lord Jesus had &quot;from the beginning&quot;- i.e. of His life and His ministry, but which was only made apparent later. Certainly until that point at Cana, He somehow restrained that glory within His very ordinariness- to the extent that people were utterly shocked when He stood up in the synagogue and basically proclaimed Himself to be Messiah.</p><p>The language of &quot;He manifested forth his glory<em>&quot; </em>isused of how He would do so on the cross, which was to be a greater manifestation of his glory (see on Jn. 1:14). The historical incidents in John so often are a foretaste of the Lord's final death; for He lived the Spirit of that death and self-sacrifice throughout His life.</p>