John 1:1-5 -

In the beginning the Word already existed.
    The Word was with God,
    and the Word was God.
²He existed in the beginning with God.
³God created everything through him,
    and nothing was created except through him.
⁴The Word gave life to everything that was created,
    and his life brought light to everyone.
⁵The light shines in the darkness,
    and the darkness can never extinguish it.

1:1-3

John begins his gospel further back in history than any of the other three gospel writers. Luke might have begun with the announcement of John the Baptist’s birth, but John reaches back into the annals of eternity past to begin his testimony of Jesus being the Son of God, the Savior of the world. In verse one, John introduces us to a man he calls the Word. As you read all eighteen verses, we see that the one John calls the Word is Jesus.

Logos is the Greek word translated Word. This word was loaded with meaning for both Greeks and Jews. To the Greeks, logos was the impersonal, abstract principle of reason and order in the universe. In some sense, they also viewed it as a creative force and the source of all wisdom. John explains to those of Greek thought that the logos weren’t an impersonal and unknowable force or thought but a personable knowable God who became flesh and dwelt among them for a time.

For the Jews, the word of the LORD was an expression of divine power and wisdom. By his word, in the Old Testament, God revealed his covenant with Abraham, gave Israel the ten commandments, attended the building of Solomon’s temple, revealed himself to Samuel, spoke through his prophets, brought creation into existence, and revealed Scripture to the prophets.

John introduces Jesus as the word of God incarnate. He is God’s power and revelation in the flesh. Jesus would introduce the new covenant, instruct his disciples, unite us into a spiritual temple, reveals God to humanity, was the agent of creation, and has sent His spirit to guide us, to write and preserve the Scriptures. The writer of Hebrews tells us that Jesus is God’s final word or revelation of Himself to humanity (Hebrews 1:1-2).

While many people have trouble accepting Jesus’ divinity today, people of the first century had more difficulty grasping his humanity. John’s introductory verses address both Jesus’ deity and humanity. Beginning in verse one, John tells us that Jesus is God because He existed before creation. God the Son is not a created being but eternally existed before creation, before Genesis 1:1. Only God is eternal (Genesis 21:33; Psalm 90:2; Isaiah 57:17; 1 Timothy 1:17), since Jesus is eternal, He is God. Since the deity of Christ is a non-negotiable belief of the Christian faith, and others use this passage to try to disprove Jesus being God, I want to mention the importance behind the word John used for was.

The Greek word that John uses for was is the imperfect tense of eimi which describes a continuing action in the past, in context here, continually existing. If John wanted to imply that the second person of the Trinity came into existence at some point in time and therefore being part of creation instead of Creator, he would have used a different word to do so (gino-mai, meaning become). From the start, John throws a one-two punch to defend the deity of Christ. First, Jesus is eternal (John 8:58), and second, Jesus is Creator (Genesis 1:1; John 1:3; Colossians 1:15-16; Revelation 4:11), a term used to describe God the Father and Christ.

1:4

John goes for the knockout punch in his defense of Jesus being God. In verse four, the apostle says that the Word gave life to everything that was created. God gets life from within Himself, for He depends on no one or nothing for His life (Exodus 3:14; Acts 17:28). He is the source of life. For the Word to give life, He must also be life Himself, dependent on no one or no thing, including God the Father, thus making Him God, the self-existent one. While Jesus gave and sustained physical life for everything created, life in 1:3 is translated from the Greek word, Zoe, which John uses for spiritual or eternal life given through God’s grace to bring dead sinners to life throughout his gospel.

The Word’s life also brought light to everyone. Through his incarnation, God becoming man, Jesus’ life or truth and holiness shed light on and exposed Satan’s lies and man’s sinfulness, revealing their need for Him. Revealing their need for a way to God, Jesus also revealed and made possible the way for fallen humanity to become reconciled to God the Father (John 8:12; 14:6).

1:5

The aged apostle wrote his account of Jesus’ life and ministry from the city of Ephesus at least five decades after he had witnessed the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. Despite it being at least 50 years later, John could still say the light was still presently shining in the dark world, exposing its sinfulness and illuminating the way to be made right with a holy God, Jesus alone by faith alone. The darkness – Satan and his demons had done all they could possibly do to snuff the light of the world out, but not even death could blow Jesus, the world’s light out!

John unpacks so many teachings concerning the person of Jesus, the Trinity, and the incarnation in the first eighteen verses of his gospel that could tire the mind of even the most advanced theologian. My hope with these posts is to hopefully expand more than most study Bibles but not to provide so much information about each passage that consuming information or becoming overwhelmed by a lot of notes on each passage overtake the main goal of the >SM Journals, and that is to simply help you hear from God as you read His Word that is to you and for you. However, if you’d like to go deeper than the study notes provided, I have included some additional resources below.

Further Resources for Further Study

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