This is the continuation of the series on the keywords of the Jubilee 2025, conceived in dialogue form: an initial contribution by a lecturer of the Alphonsian Academy is followed by a second contribution written by a student. The second keyword is the door—Post 1/2.
Article by Prof. Krzysztof Bieliński CSsR:
Among the Jubilee words, ‘door’ – with its appellation ‘holy’ – occupies a prominent place due to its wide symbolic and theological significance. To describe the ‘door’, Scripture uses various terms. The most significant, because they recur most frequently in the pages of the Hebrew Bible, are the following three: שַַׁער (shaar), פַתח (ֶּpetah) and דֶלתֶּ (delet)[1]. The first of these defines the doors/gates: of the camp, of the temple (also of its courtyard) and of the city (most often), but also the connection to the city, the space between the inner and outer gate, the gate as a place, the gates of Jerusalem. In a figurative sense שַַׁער (shaar) recurs in the phrases: ‘the gate of heaven’ (Gen 28:17), ‘the gate of Sheol’ (Is 38:10), ‘the gate of death’ (Ib 38:17; Ps 9:14), ‘the gate of righteousness’ (Ps 118:19). The term פַתח (ֶּpetah) is translated as opening, entrance (to the tent; to the house, to the temple and its court and to the city), passage, door, but also the door itself, the gate. Metaphorically, it is used in the phrase ‘gate of hope’ in Hos 2:177. The third Hebrew term דֶלתֶּ (delet) means a door, a door knocker, but also the door of a house, a city or a temple. In addition to the literal sense, it is used in a figurative sense, e.g. in Ps 78:23 and indicates ‘the gate of heaven’. To say poetically that the manna comes from God, this expression was used: ‘he opened the gates of heaven; he rained manna on them for food’.
The Greek language, on the other hand, uses the following terms: πύλη (pyle), θύρα (thyra), εἴσοδος (eisodos), πυλών (pylon), πρόθυρον (prothyron)[2]. The term frequently used more than half the times in the Greek Bible (362 times) to refer to the door – is πύλη, which means the door, also the door to the abyss, and in a figurative sense: the access, the entrance to some state. The word θύρα (door, gate, doorway, entrance), on the other hand, occurs in the Bible 214 times in the Old Testament and 39 times in the New Testament. It is with this term that Jesus defines himself in the pericope about the good shepherd and the door (of the sheep) in Jn 10:1-21.
The importance of the door in antiquity was not limited to considering it as the entrance to a house, a temple or an entire city. Its functions were linked to its construction, as an ancient gate was often a complex of rooms used for various purposes, not just an entrance. Ancient gates were also meeting places, centres of urban life and exchange of ideas. The gate represented the place to which it gave access (Is 38:10; Ps 107:18). Particularly in the temple of Jerusalem, the door to the sanctuary coincided with the meeting and communion with God (Ps 24:7; 118:19-20; Is 26:2)[3]. House gates protected family members from external dangers and disadvantages. The city gate provided protection from enemies and represented salvation and safety.
The metaphor of the door characterises the history of salvation enclosed between a door that closes (Genesis) and twelve doors that open at the end of history (Revelation). Because of the sin of the progenitors (Gen 3:23-24), God closes the door of Eden. After the door to paradise has been closed, man no longer communicates familiarly with God. It will be worship that will establish a relationship between the two worlds, the divine and the human.
In Gen 28:18, the patriarch Jacob exclaims: ‘This is the gate of heaven’ after the vision of the ladder that reached heaven. ‘Gate of heaven’ is the biblical expression to indicate the border between God and us, but “in heaven” God is waiting for us. We already point out here that in John’s gospel, this staircase, ‘gate of heaven’, is Jesus who opens the access to the Father (cf. Jn 1:51).
The Israelite who comes to the door of the temple desires to draw near to God (Ps 100:4). When the temple is destroyed, Israel realises that man cannot ascend to heaven; therefore, in his prayer, he asks God to rend the heavens and descend Himself (Is 63:19); let Him, therefore, take the leadership of the flock and let Him pass through the gates (Mi 2:12f). This desire is fulfilled by Jesus[4].
In Rev 4:1, in the very introduction to the vision part, the seer sees ‘an open door (thyra ēneōgmenē) in heaven’. The Apocalypse of John makes us see fulfilled the announcements of Isaiah, Ezekiel and Zechariah, the new Jerusalem, a symbol of humanity’s communion with God, surrounded by twelve doors that are always open (Rev 21:12-13). In the day to come, the protection of the gates will be superfluous because the threats of evil will have been removed, and evil will no longer enter. The gates of the new Jerusalem ‘shall not be shut by day, for there shall be no more night’[5].
The motif of the gates of heaven, much used in the Bible, indicates visions and revelations[6]. Of great importance when dealing with the metaphor of the door in the context of the revealed salvation history in the Bible is the fact that at Jesus’ baptism heaven opens (cf. Mk 1:10; Lk 3:21; Mt 3:16). In the synoptic texts recounting the event, no doors are mentioned, but only the opening of heaven is spoken of – a prelude to salvation, because Jesus himself becomes the true door that will connect heaven and earth (Jn 1:51; cf. Gen 28:17), the door that leads to the pastures where divine goods are freely offered (Jn 10:9), the only mediator. Through him God communicates himself to men, through him men receive access to the Father (Eph 2:18; Heb 10:19).
In the Gospel of John in the discourse on the door (Jn 10:7.9) we find the self-definition of Jesus as ‘door/ ἡ θύρα’. This text contains a statement of no little importance, since it is solemnly introduced with the double ‘amen’ and ‘ἐγώ εἰμι’, the expression that absolutely indicates Jesus’ self-revelation and with the predicate an aspect of his messianic function. In v. 7 Jesus had said ‘I am the door of the sheep’. This metaphorical statement says that it is through the relationship with Jesus that the sheep accesses the enclosure, it is through him that a sheep becomes a member of God’s people[7]. In v. 9 he no longer says of the sheep, but simply ‘I am the door’ and adds ‘if one enters through me, he will be saved’. Adriana Bottino explains that here ‘He is no longer merely the door of the sheep of the parable [i.e. of the text of Jn 10:1-5] who have heard the voice of the shepherd who brought them out of the enclosure of Judaism, but of anyone who enters through Him’[8]. He is the door that leads to salvation. Introduced here the verb ‘to save’ thus expresses the soteriological dimension of Christ-door. It should be emphasised that Jesus passes here from image (‘I am the door’ / ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ θύρα) to reality (‘through me’ / δι’ ἐμοῦ). Bottino, analysing the metaphor of the door in John’s Gospel, draws attention to the fact that in John 14:6 the expression ‘through me’ is found only one other time, which also belongs in this second text to the sayings-I (“I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me”). ‘A comparison of the two verses reveals the close connection between the two metaphors: door and way: both express the concept of Christ’s mediation, but cannot be said to have an identical meaning. The way expresses a path, the door an entrance. […] Jesus proclaims Himself to be the door, but does not say to what this door gives access, since it is in Him that the salvific goods are to be found. The text of Jn 14:6 clearly indicates where Jesus leads: to the Father”[9]. We could summarise the analysis of this important passage of John’s Gospel, for our theme, by saying that ‘this image of the door underlines the exclusive claim of the redeemer Jesus’[10]. Jesus, unlike the door of the Temple, brings one not simply into a sacred place but into communion with him. His glorified person is the new temple of God; it is the fulfilment of the historic-salvific role of the temple of the old covenant (cf. Jn 10:22-39).
It should be added that Jesus not only defines himself as the only door to access redemption, but also lays down the requirements for entry into the kingdom whose keys he handed over to Peter (Mt 16:19). The entrance into salvation presented as a city or a banquet hall is a narrow door (stenē), that is, conversion (Mt 7:13f; Lk 13:24), faith (Acts 14:27; Eph 3:12). He who will not be on his guard will find the door closed (Mt 25:10; Lk 13:25)[11]. In Lk 13:25 the Lord, after having closed the door, will answer: ‘I do not know where you are from’. Likewise in Mt 25:10 to the foolish virgins, who knock on the closed door: ‘I do not know you’. The meaning is eschatological: denial of participation in eternal salvation.
We conclude our reflections on the metaphor of the door in biblical revelation with its ecclesiological dimension. In the Book of Revelation, the risen Christ addresses a special exhortation to the church of Laodicea: ‘Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, [then] I will enter his house and dine with him, and he with me.’ (Rev 3:20). The evocative image of Jesus, who opened to humanity the door of life and communion with God and is himself the door of entry – we said the only mediator – and who now stands at the closed door with his proposal, with the gift of salvation, and knocks there.
The Letter to the Christian community of Laodicea (Rev 3:14-22) has been the subject of research especially under the aspect of the moral message it proposes[12]. The risen Christ speaks directly to this church calling it to conversion. The object of his knowledge is ‘works’ (Rev 3.15), i.e. the moral situation of the ‘lukewarm’ community. The term, as U. Vanni, describes the ‘insufficiency of love of the church of Laodicea’. The text specifies some more concrete aspects of this insufficiency: the particular spiritual and moral poverty of a church that prides itself on its economic prosperity; lacking the capacity for sapiential evaluation of things, for reading history, for ‘discernment’. The risen Christ ‘stands at the door’ and wanting to overcome the obstacle ‘knocks’. To the Church the ‘voice’ of Christ is heard, which tends to be listened to, but does not impose itself violently. The compleated listening is followed by: opening of the door, entrance, banquet. The opening of the door is presented as a consequence of listening to the voice, that is, the personal decision to welcome Christ[13]. ‘I will come to him, I will dine with him and he with me’ all this expresses with “an increased personalisation”, “the intimacy of a love between Christ and the Christian that tends to be a love between equals”. ‘By ‘entering’ him […], Christ assimilates the Christian to himself, bringing him down to his level’. This image of the supper recalls the ‘Lord’s Supper’, the Eucharistic supper that allows the Christian to ‘enter into himself, to assimilate the vitality of the risen Christ’[14].
The bibliography and footnotes are available in the original Italian version.
