“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)
The opening words of John’s Gospel take us back to the opening words of Moses’ gospel—the Pentateuch, the opening words of the Bible. They introduce us to the divine Word who was present at the Creation, who was active in the Creation, and they firmly root the good news of Jesus Christ in the creation of the cosmos. Indeed, the world, the cosmos, is at the very center of John 1:1, and the story of redemption that John is introducing us to here is cosmic in the full sense of that word. The only begotten God, the Creator Word, has been made flesh, bringing the fullness of grace and truth to those who believe in his name, giving them the right to be children of God.
The prologue of John’s Gospel is justly famous. Not only does it introduce to us virtually all of the main themes of the Gospel that follow, but it does so in the form of a hymn. It is poetry, unfolding themes with repetition, rhythm, and meter. Stanza by stanza, it introduces ideas in dense, pithy statements that will unfold over the course of the narrative to follow. In the beginning, that biblical moment before God spoke created things into existence, the Word was, the Word was with God, and the Word necessarily was God. All things—he is no mere thing—all things came into being through him. He preexists. He is the life and light of men, the light of the world. He is not a man like John but one more than a man. He is true light, and he has shone into a dark world that does not comprehend and does not receive him. There is conflict in this poem and in this Gospel. Those who do receive him are born of God, born again, not saved by their flesh but by the Word made flesh. And this Word made man, made flesh, is full of truth and grace; his grace and truth are fullness and abound grace upon grace. He accomplished and realized true grace. This Word made flesh earned the right for his siblings to be brothers and sisters. His work brought us more than Moses: not law but grace and truth, and this grace and truth he reveals and accomplishes are explanations of the unseen God.
It is a sort of a thesis statement, and by condensing the Gospel, John has given us a confessional document chock-full of theologically significant pearls. But these pearls are strung together, as the hymn of the entire Gospel is strung together, around a central theme and purpose. As John says in concluding his Gospel, “These things have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.” The prologue introduces us to Jesus Christ by telling us where he has come from, his source. “God” appears three times in the first two verses, and twice in the last verse of this hymn, framing up this section and clearly expressing its central idea: Christ is God.
The origins of Christ are found back in the beginning, before the cosmos was spoken into existence. The Creation narrative of Moses is not invoked in the opening of John’s Gospel merely for literary style; it is invoked because to know Christ, to believe in Christ, you must know where he has come from, and he was with God before the foundations of the earth were laid. Jesus Christ is a man, with flesh, yet no man has seen God at any time. The man Jesus is the only begotten God who has come out from the very bosom of the Father and presents, explains, “exegetes” the Father to us.
The prologue is a hymn to Christ. It begins with the Word, traces Creation and incarnation, and ends with Jesus Christ, a man who is not a mere man but who is the only begotten God, coming from and returning to the very bosom of his Father. In opening his Gospel with a hymn to Christ—not a birth narrative, a genealogy, or an Old Testament quotation—John introduces us to a preeminently Christocentric Gospel. There are other characters in this drama, to be sure—God the Father, the Creation, John the Herald, those who do not receive the light, and those who do. While all the Gospels are about Christ, John uniquely signifies the true identity of Jesus. John, the Gospel of the “I Am” statements, distinctively describes the Jesus who not only takes the self-existent name of God on his lips — “I AM WHO I AM”— but who further explains who he is for us as incarnate God:
I am the bread of life.
I am from above.
I am the light of the world.
I am the door.
I am the Good Shepherd.
I am the Son of God.
I am the Resurrection and the Life.
I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.
I am the True Vine.
John’s Gospel breaks down into two major parts: chapters 1–12 comprise the “Book of Jesus’ Signs,” and chapters 11–21, the “Book of Jesus’ Hour.” Chapters 11–12 are a central hinge for the whole, the climactic sign of the resurrection of Lazarus and the resultant coming of the hour of Jesus. As you read the first half of this book, note how the signs, the encounters, the words, and the deeds of Jesus validate him as the one who was sent from above, sent from his heavenly Father. The first sign recorded—the changing of water into wine at Cana—is pointedly identified by John as “the beginning of the signs Jesus did,” a new beginning that explicitly echoes “the beginning” of the first creation, “the beginning” of the opening words of the Gospel. The one who is mighty and powerful in Creation, here on earth at Cana of Galilee, has manifested his glory in history. Again, John’s concluding summary tells us that many other signs were performed that weren’t written down, but these were written so we may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing we may have life.
John’s Gospel is true, it is history; but above and beyond that, it is a literary creation. He had so much material to work with, and he carefully selected the choicest individual elements, like tiles chosen by an artist to form a mosaic. A close study of John’s Gospel shows this to be the case. The book is a deliberately structured literary work. Biblical books were not written with chapter divisions, or even paragraphs; but instead, key words and literary devices were deployed to convey units of thought and central themes. Scenes were introduced by markers of time and indication of setting, as in chapter 2: “And on the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee.” At the end of chapter 4, we are told that Jesus “came therefore again to Cana of Galilee where he had made the water wine” and performed “a second sign in Galilee.” John is telling us that in chapters 2-4 there is a self-contained unit, and he does so throughout the book. As we read, these scenes, the setting, and the time all come together to advance the goal of our author and the goal of the Spirit: To portray to us the only begotten Son of God who was sent by the Father, so we might believe in him and have life.
Given the Christ-centered focus of this book, we should stop and pause as we read through these scenes presented to us by the evangelist and ask how Christ is presented to us, how his glory is made manifest. In the prologue-hymn, this is condensed—Christ is presented to us as divine, the source of all life—and at the point of creation and regeneration—light and truth. He is presented to us not as a teacher or moral example but as an object of faith, one who is to be believed in. He is the incarnate envoy of God the Father. But throughout the Gospel, each of these aspects of his personality will expand and flower.
Importantly, the prologue of John’s Gospel does not reveal the nature of Christ for its own sake. The goal of the manifestation of the glory of the Son is not merely contemplation or mystical meditation. It is salvation. John writes so we might believe and have life. John the Baptist was sent as a witness, that all might believe and have life. Yet the world did not recognize him. The world, which he brought into being, to which he gives life, didn’t know him. Even his own—Israel—did not receive this glory as it came into the world. “But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name.”
Isn’t it glorious that at the heart of this grand poem to the divinity and glory of our incarnate Lord—this hymn that sings of creation and the unknown, unseen bosom of our heavenly Father—our salvation is described in such a simple, precious, concrete way? Those of us who receive the Son, who believe in his name, are given the right, the power, to become children of God. Jesus not only makes the unseen Creator God—whose glory could not be revealed fully to Moses—clear and present to us, but he also makes him our Father. No, not everyone is a child of God; we need to become such, to believe in his name, and to be born of God.
Here is the seed of the idea in John that has come to mark a movement in America: “born again.” How ironic that this catchphrase today primarily means a personal experience and emotional surrender to God, which is meant to set apart vital, Bible-believing Christians (the ones who really mean it) from all other sorts who might have a less-expressive, less-vital faith. A better translation from the text is probably “born from above,” because the idea is clearly in direct parallel to the expression from the prologue, “born of God.” We must be born of the Spirit, not of the flesh. Being creatures crafted by our heavenly Father is insufficient. It is by faith that we become children of God—which is not of blood, the will of the flesh, or the will of man. How ironic that the born-again experience has created a quest for a feeling, when John says that the children of God do not quest but rest in that name, in the glory of the Son who has come down from heaven.
So even though John’s prologue focuses on Christ, on his divinity, on his heavenly origin, and his mission of revelation, it also introduces us to salvation as the purpose of this mission. Belief in the name of Jesus is the goal of the Baptist, it is the goal of the Evangelist, and it is the goal of the mission of Christ. It is the goal of this Gospel. For those of us who believe, we know that we have received this fullness, that we have received grace upon grace. Our incarnate Lord has made us children of God, and no one can snatch us from his powerful hand.
But there is more than Christ and salvation in the apostle John’s opening words. There is history, and not just the cosmic history of Creation. John, the witness to Christ, comes into being; he bears witness of the coming one. And something truly cosmic and historic happens: the Word becomes flesh. The One who existed before John comes after him. The law was given through Moses, and grace and truth through Jesus Christ. He realizes grace and truth, which dwell fully in his glorious appearing. Jesus did not come to amplify the code of the law. He did not restate, clarify, or expand upon what Moses taught—nor did he deny it, reject it, or violate it. But he did transcend it; he went beyond it by bringing, by accomplishing, the fullness of grace and truth.
By introducing this historical element, John inserts a difference between the time before and after Jesus. There is a difference between Moses and Christ. John further tells us that there is difference in the concepts of law and grace—this against Pelagius and all other heretics who maintain that the best thing God can do for us is tell us, show us, really make it clear to us how we are supposed to fulfill the law. The distinction between law and gospel—between God’s holy demands and his precious gifts and promises—is clearly taught here.
Grace and truth are so clearly what we need. While John doesn’t trouble us with a discussion of sin in this hymn of glory, we know we are in darkness and need to be enlightened. We need to know our Creator God better than we would when left to our own devices, and for this reason, we must be born of God. We must believe, and this belief he brings and gives to us. God is made our heavenly Father when Christ our brother comes down and dwells with us.
John paints Christ and the heavenly Father with such a glorious brush that he conveys the sense of the world’s darkness. It is as though he has been given a vision of the light that makes his sense of our darkness acute. His heavenly vision—a vision conveyed by beholding the incarnate Christ who came down from heaven—rightly chastens his own self-confidence. Grace and truth are what we need to become children of God, to live in the light, and to possess true life.
Dr. Brian Lee is pastor of Christ United Reformed Church (URCNA) in Washington, DC, and a frequent contributor to Modern Reformation.
