John’s Gospel gets set apart from the Synoptics and Paul here, especially John’s use of double-meaning language operating on two levels at once. That technique is precisely how John distinguishes merely worldly faith from true, other-worldly faith, all while preserving the underlying unity of Scripture.
Conservative commentary has grown thin, a gap answered here by De Graaf’s grammatical-historical method as a corrective. Read that way, the floating axe head becomes a mirror: we are the ones who have lost it.