IN THE BEGINNING was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning.
3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
6There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. 8He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.
10He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—13children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
15John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ ” 16From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. 17For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.
Original Meaning
ONE REASON WHY the Gospel of John was symbolized in the ancient church by the eagle is the lofty heights attained by its prologue. With skill and delicacy, John handles issues of profound importance. It comes as no surprise that this prologue has been foundational to the classic Christian formulation of the doctrine of Christ. Here divinity and humanity, preexistence and incarnation, revelation and sacrifice are each discussed by John with deceptive simplicity.
This prologue may well have been an ancient Christian hymn. We know of other hymns extant especially in Paul’s writing, and here too there is an artful flowing of language and theology.1 In the medieval church the prologue was so venerated that it was sometimes worn in an amulet around the neck to ward off disease and evil spirits. The Roman church read it over the sick and newly baptized. It was even the final prayer of the Roman mass.
Many scholars have attempted to give some literary form to the hymn, and it is impossible here to survey their results.2 I have found a satisfying structure that combines a number of scholarly insights and breaks down the prologue into four theologically distinguishable strophes. In Greek literature a strophe was a turn (as in dance) or a choral poem or lyric used with dance. In poetry we might call it a stanza. Here John offers four artful “turnings,” which give us separate glimpses of the Word and his relation to God and the world.
This prologue is also an overture to the story of the rest of Gospel. Themes mentioned here will be picked up later and given fuller development: the preexistence of Christ (1:1; 17:5), divine light entering the world (1:4, 9; 8:12; 9:5), the opposition of light and darkness (1:5; 3:19), the visibility of glory (1:14; 12:41), Jesus as the only Son (1:14, 18; 3:16), divine birth (1:12–13; 3:1ff.), and the place of John the Baptist in Jesus’ work (1:7, 15; 1:19, 30).3 More precisely, 1:11–12 reflect the layout or the emphasis of the Gospel’s entire structure: “He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” The first half of the Gospel (chs. 1–12, the Book of Signs) describes the rejection of Jesus by Judaism, “his own people.” The second half of the book (chs. 13–21, the Book of Glory) describes the “flock of Jesus,” those who have embraced his messiahship and followed him.
In its earliest edition, John’s Gospel may have begun at 1:19 with the story of John the Baptist.4 This hymn was presumably later added by John about the same time he wrote his letters (cf. the opening verses of 1 John and the Gospel) to serve as a literary preface or prologue. In order to knit this section to his Gospel, John added material from the story of John the Baptist (1:6–8, 15) as well as his own personal commentary on the hymn (1:13, 17–18). Of course, any reconstruction such as this is speculative; but when examined closely, it enhances our understanding of the theological message of the prologue.5
The First Strophe
In the beginning was the Word,
And the Word was with God,
And the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
The Second Strophe
All things came into being through him,
and without him not one thing came into being.
What has come into being in him was life,
and the life was the light of all people.
The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it.
[There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light.]
The Third Strophe
The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
He was in the world, and the world came into being through him;
yet the world did not know him.
He came to what was his own people,
and his own people did not accept him.
But to all who received him, who believed on his name,
he gave the power to become children of God.
[Who were {who was} born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.]
The Fourth Strophe
And the Word became flesh and dwelt
among us, full of grace and truth.
And we have seen his glory,
the glory as of a father’s only son.
[John testified to him and cried out, “This is he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’ ”]
From his fullness
we have all received grace upon grace.
[The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is {God} the only Son, who is close to the Father’s bosom, who has made him known.]
The First Strophe: The Logos and God (1:1–2)
THE FIRST VERSES of John’s Gospel are a triumph of Christian theology. John begins by establishing the preeminence of the Word existing before the creation of the world. The initial allusion to Genesis 1 cannot be missed (John 1:1). This is a Gospel that will record the re-creation of men and women, the giving of life in darkness where there is no hope. This parallels the thought of Genesis 1, in which God breathes life into the nostrils of Adam and provides new possibilities for the world.
John begins by introducing Jesus as “the Word” (logos) and is building here on much contemporary Jewish thought, where the word of God took on personal creative attributes (Gen. 1; Ps. 33:6, 9).6 In the New Testament period it was personified (Wisd. Sol. 7:24; 18:15–16) and known by some as the immanent power of God creatively at work in the world (Philo). John identifies this Word as Jesus Christ. As such John can attribute to him various divine functions, such as creation (John 1:3, 10) and giving of life (1:4, 14, 16).
But John goes further. He is ready to infer some personal identity between the Logos and God. “And the Word was God” (1:1). John often employs similar Greek verbs in order to develop a contrast of themes. The Greek words ginomai (to become) and eimi (to be) have similar nuances, but John frequently uses them together to make a point. For instance, in 8:58 Jesus says (lit.), “Before Abraham was [ginomai], I am [eimi].” The first verb suggests “coming into being,” such as Abraham’s birth; the second implies ongoing existence. Thus in 1:6 John writes, “There came [ginomai] a man sent from God.” In 1:1 John carefully writes, “In the beginning was the Word”—“the Word was with God”—“the Word was God.” In each case he uses eimi. John is making an absolute affirmation about the eternal existence of the Word. It did not come into being nor was there ever a time when “the Word was not.”7 Whatever we can say about God, we can and must say about the Word.
But who is this Word? “The Word was God.” Attempts to detract from this literal translation for grammatical reasons (e.g., “the word was a god [or divine]”) run aground when we consider the number of other times when such a divine ascription is made for Jesus. For example, Jesus employs the divine Old Testament title “I Am” (8:24, 28, 58, etc.), he is “one with God” (10:30), and he is even addressed by Thomas in the Gospel’s final scene as “my Lord and my God” (20:28).
Some have argued that because theos (God) does not have a definite article, the better translation would be, “The word was divine,” thereby limiting any absolute claim for the Logos. But this cannot be the case. Greek has another common word for divine (theios), and in other passages, John omits the article but does not imply a change in meaning.8 In Greek the word order is even reversed (“and God was the Word”), emphasizing not that the Word contains the entirety of the Godhead, but that the divinity possessed by God is also possessed by this Word.
This is John’s overture to Christology and the beginnings of his Trinitarian thought. Indeed, “John intends that the whole of his gospel shall be read in the light of this verse. The deeds and words of Jesus are the deeds and words of God.”9 This is the theme that will be echoed throughout the Gospel. We will be introduced to Jesus time and time again, and in each case we will be forced to picture Jesus with increasingly profound images. He is the greatest of all people; he is the Messiah of Jewish expectation; but more (this is John’s unique message), he is the Son of God, the divine messenger from the Father. Any reading of the Fourth Gospel that omits this supreme and ultimate claim for Jesus misses its central affirmation.
The Second Strophe: The Logos and Creation (1:3–8)
ONCE JOHN HAS identified the Logos with God, he continues to mark the relation of this Logos to the world. As God’s creative agent, he was responsible for the creation of the world. John’s language here is careful and specific: The Logos was not one preeminent creation that went on to create others. In fact, the Logos was never created. Nothing came into being without him (v. 3).10 This is another parallel with the thought world of Genesis. In Genesis 1 we are introduced to the God of Israel, Creator of the universe. Now we learn more. The creative capacity of God was Logos. Therefore John stresses not merely that who God is, the Logos is (Strophe One), but that what God does, the Logos does. Therefore in the Gospel, what Jesus does is divine activity. When he heals or speaks—when he gives eternal life (v. 4)—this is God at work, just as God worked at the foundation of the world.
The entry of the Logos into the world (his incarnation) is described as light shining in the darkness (v. 5). Even though John the Baptist’s testimony was clear (vv. 6–9), still, Jesus experiences rejection (vv. 10–11). But there is more. The darkness is hostile. There is enmity. The NIV translates 1:5 that the world cannot understand the Word, following the traditional KJV reading. But the verb used here has a double significance: to grasp with the mind and so to comprehend; and to grasp with the hand and so to overcome or destroy. Both ideas are at work in John, but the second meaning seems foremost here.11
John suggests that the darkness cannot defeat or overcome the Word. This theme gives us some hint of the struggle between light and darkness that will sound throughout the Gospel. The opposition to Jesus will be severe. The world that the Logos enters and God loves is a place of remarkable unbelief. Those opposed to him will try to defeat this Word. But they will fail. John is thinking of the cross—the place of attempted defeat. But as this Gospel will show, the cross is not a place of defeat, but of glory. Jesus overcomes the world (16:33; cf. 12:31; 14:30).
I have set apart verses 6–9 to distinguish them from the prologue itself. This section (as well as v. 15) may come from materials John has added into the prologue in order to weave it into the body of the Gospel. In fact, these tie in nicely with the story that begins at 1:19.12 John emphasizes the true nature of the Baptist’s ministry and shows how he came as a witness to Jesus; this theme is clear in the other “Baptist” sections of the Gospel (1:19–34; 3:22–36; 10:40–42). What does the writer say? John the Baptist was not the Messiah (1:20) or the light. Instead, he came as a witness to tell the truth about what was happening in the world.
This is the first time we see the word group for “witness” (Gk. martyreo, martys, martyria) in the Gospel. This group is important because it communicates what happens as the Word enters the world.13 As if in a courtroom, evidence and witnesses will come forward to verify the truth of Jesus’ case. John the Baptist is the first of these “literary” witnesses. We will see this more completely in 1:19ff., where the Baptist (as forerunner to Jesus) speaks directly to Judaism’s leadership about the identity of Jesus. But here we have a foreshadowing, a hint, that John (and others like him) will enter the Johannine stage providing insight into the meaning of Jesus (5:31–37, 39; 8:18; 10:25; 15:27; 19:35; 1 John 5:6–11). Essential to John’s mission is a denial of his own significance: “He was not the light.” This will reappear in a triple denial in John 1:19–24, suggesting that John’s main role is simply to glorify and identify Jesus.
The Third Strophe: The Logos and Revelation (1:9–13)
JOHN THE BAPTIST was bearing witness not to an abstraction or a hope, but to a reality. The “true light” was coming. “Coming into the world” is difficult. It can modify either “everyone” (i.e., the true light enlightens everyone who comes into the world) or “light” (i.e., the true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world).14 Because the entry of the Word into the world is such a frequent thought for John, the latter reading is the better interpretation (cf. 1:10; 3:17, 19, etc.).15
However, the virtue of this divine entry is in how it reaches all people, particularly those hostile to God. In John’s vocabulary, the “world” (Gk. kosmos) is an important theological term, appearing seventy-eight times in this Gospel alone. In some cases it bears a positive connotation (e.g., 3:16: “God so loves the world”). Other times it is neutral (e.g., 8:26, where Jesus says, “What I have heard from him [God] I tell the world”). But for the most part, references to kosmos are decidedly negative. The world is not the created order of things; it is not the natural environment per se. It is the sphere of creation that lives in rebellion (1:10; 7:7; 14:17, 22, 27, 30; 15:18–19; 16:8, 20, 33; 17:6, 9, 14, 25). Thus when we read about Jesus’ appearance in the world, God’s love for the world (3:16), or Jesus’ salvation of the world (4:42), such passages are not ringing endorsements of the world, but testimonies to the character of God and his love.16
But if the world is hostile—and here we anticipate the rejection described in 1:10—how can it enlighten everyone? Does the arrival of this true light illumine every heart? Perhaps John is thinking of the accessibility of everyone to this one source of illumination. Or is this the distribution of the knowledge of God (general revelation) that makes all people responsible, as Paul argues in Romans 1?17 Another option is to think of the primary meaning of the verb photizo: to light up, expose, bring to light. What is at stake here is how the objective revelation of the Word works: The light invades the darkness, shining on every person and exposing them for who they are. No one is exempt, and in the course of this Gospel the divine revelation divides the audience: Some flee because their deeds are evil (3:19–20), while some receive the revelation because their deeds are true (3:21). Either way, the light shines on everyone, forcing a distinction (8:12; 9:39–41).
Despite the presence of the Logos in the world (1:10a), despite his creative work making the world (1:10b) and leaving the marks of general revelation, still, the world failed to recognize him. “He came to that which was his own [neut. pl., his own place or home], but his own [now masc. pl., his own people] did not receive him.” The focus of revelation has been Judaism, the spiritual birthplace of the Messiah. And the great irony of this Gospel’s story is that even here, where readiness and receptivity should have been keen, there was only rejection. Similar to Luke’s description of Bethlehem’s homes, there was no room. Similar to the parable of the vineyard owner and his renters, the residents repudiated his visit (Mark 12:1–12). Therefore John has made a startling claim. Even though the focus of revelation has been in Israel, the natural home for the truth of God, the Word has come for the entire world, not merely Judaism.
John indicates, however, that the light has its followers; Jesus has his disciples (1:12–13). Even though his own people—adherents to Judaism—spurned his message, those who did receive him obtained power to become God’s children. Verses 12–13 anticipate the story of Nicodemus (3:1–21), in which this rebirth is explored.
Verse 13 poses an interesting challenge. Some manuscripts supply a singular verb in verse 13a: “who was born, not of blood . . . ,” implying that the subject here is Jesus. That is, Jesus was born uniquely through the will of God. Most translations, however, retain the plural, so that verse 13 echoes the thought of verse 12. Those who follow the Word, who believe and obtain divine power, will share in divine birth. This is John’s understanding of conversion: Deliberate faith joined with divine transformation. A careful reading of 1 John shows that “child of God,” “rebirth,” and “born of God” were commonplace names describing Johannine discipleship (1 John 3:2, 9; 4:4, 7, 12–13). In other words, there will be a powerful transformation of those who embrace this light, who align themselves with the light instead of the darkness, who cling to the Messiah instead of the world.
The Fourth Strophe: The Logos and Incarnation (1:14–18)
THE PROLOGUE’S FINALE is found in verses 14–18. John sums up in fresh language what has already been said. Now the abstract thought of light and darkness gives way to concrete Old Testament images.
John 1:14 is one of the most important verses in the Bible. The Word did not just appear to be human; the Word became flesh. This assertion stunned the Greek mind for whom the separation of the divine spirit and the mundane world (flesh, sarx) was an axiom of belief. But the second phrase is equally stunning for the Jew. This Word dwelt (skenoo) among us and revealed his glory (doxa). This verb for dwelling is employed in the Greek Old Testament for the tabernacle of God. In other words, Christ is the locus of God’s dwelling with Israel as he had dwelt with them in the tabernacle in the desert (Ex. 25:8–9; Zech. 2:10). Hence the glory of God, once restricted to the tabernacle (Ex. 40:34), is now visible in Christ (John 1:14b).
But two things must be noted. (1) This experience of glory is concrete. It is not a mystical vision and an inward illumination. The glory of God took up tangible form and was touched (20:20–29; 1 John 1:1ff.). (2) This glory was not merely a display of power. For John the deepest irony is how glory is to be found in suffering and humiliation, for in this Gospel, the cross of Christ is again and again described as Jesus’ glorification (John 12:23–24; 13:31). His signs and miracles showed his glory, to be sure (2:11; 11:4), but it is in the cross that the mysterious, unfathomable glory of God is to be found.
It is curious that the word “grace,” so common in the rest of the New Testament, is virtually unused by John and appears only here in the prologue (four times) and then disappears. Following the common understanding of the New Testament, John likely has in mind the generous work of God in sending his Son, which results in our salvation. Grace is found in God’s coming and working despite the hostility and rejection of the world. Grace is not merely an attribute of God. It is known when someone enjoys his goodness. It is the recipient who knows grace, not the theologian who has studied it. Thus in 1:16 John emphasizes our experience and reception of this grace as its chief merit.
The more important word for John, however, is “truth.”18 Most simply it is the opposite of falsehood; but John sees truth as penetrating far deeper. Truth is the self-disclosure that alone comes from God; truth is not just what is right, but what is divine and this is right. Thus Jesus can describe himself as the truth (14:6) and likewise say that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth (15:26; 16:13). Therefore the incarnation of Christ (1:14a) silences the fraudulent voices of the world whose truth claims are inimical to God.
John the Baptist’s cry as a witness to Jesus (1:15; see comments on 1:6–7) repeats his role as witness. Even though Jesus comes after John chronologically, this does not give John priority. These words pick up on the theme in all of the Baptist texts, where John’s secondary status is underscored. However, here we find the reason why Jesus is superior: As in 1:1, his eternal preexistence surpasses John the Baptist’s status in every way. Jesus does not have a relative superiority, but an absolute superiority.
Throughout this Gospel, it is clear that the apostle John and his community are struggling with the counterclaims of the Jewish synagogue. As in John 9, the healed blind man must decide if he is a follower of Moses or a follower of Jesus. One (apparently) cannot be both (9:28)—or at least that is how John’s opponents are putting it.19 John makes clear here that Moses did indeed play an unparalleled role: He provided the first five books of the Bible, the Torah, which John here calls “the law” (1:17). These are not being discredited, for surely grace and truth came through Moses too. John does not intend to show that the grace of Christ stands at odds with the revelation of Moses. The law likewise contains the grace of God and is an earlier display of it.20
But what is at stake here is the exhaustive character of the Christian revelation. It is interesting that in Exodus 33:18 Moses’ request to see God is denied (33:20; cf. Deut. 4:12); but Jesus has come to us from the very heart of the Father (John 1:18). Indeed, he has seen the Father—and no one else has.21 This goes beyond Moses and every other claimant for the truth in the world. Hebrews 3:1–6 carries this same thought: The Son’s revelation cannot by definition have any rivals.22
The NIV indicates an interesting variation in 1:18: “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.” Some manuscripts insert “Son” for “God,”23 but the NIV’s more difficult, explicit affirmation of Christ’s divinity is likely original. John 1:18 then joins 1:1 as the closing frame of the prologue, offering a summary statement about the divine origin and exhaustive knowledge of the Son. Christ’s revelation is unique for ontological reasons: It is his identity, his being, the essence of who he is that makes his words God’s words. Indeed, Christ is fully God, who in his incarnation is revealing himself to the world.24
Bridging Contexts
THESE VERSES OF Scripture are perhaps some of the most important words ever penned. As I work to appropriate their meaning into my own generation, I must be alert to the major theological themes that John has woven into them. The prologue to John’s Gospel is densely packed with ringing affirmations about Jesus Christ, God’s relation to the world, and the character of humanity. Each of these not only had incisive things to say to John’s generation, but likewise to ours. The three themes I have listed here will unfold in the narrative of the Gospel and here can serve as an outline to what is to come.
The identity of the Son of God. In early Christian reflection, the catalyst for thinking about the identity and mission of Christ (Christology) was no doubt the resurrection. Jesus had been vindicated and the truth of his claims was assured, because God had delivered him from the grave. The fact of the resurrection and the failure of the cross to defeat Jesus becomes the center of New Testament preaching throughout Acts. Peter’s Pentecost speech finds its critical junction at the point where Jesus is described as rescued from the grave: “ ‘He was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay’ ” (Acts 2:31). It is the present reality of Christ, his lordship, and his presence in the church that fuel the church’s mission and confidence.
This emphasis is evident in Paul’s letters, which manifest virtually no interest in Jesus’ earthly life. Paul writes with passion about the present, empowering lordship of Christ, who is a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45) and who is sovereign over the church (Col. 1:18). He describes the future when Jesus in glory will return to the world to redeem his church (1Thess. 5:2).
But it was not long before reflection migrated into the early years of Jesus’ life. The earliest narratives written focused on the Passion story and provided an answer to the pressing question: Why was Jesus crucified?25 And if he exhibited power over the grave, surely this power was evident during his ministry. Thus, the Gospels explore other questions: What was the character of God’s presence with Jesus on earth?26 How do we explain his messianic role in Judaism?27 The work of Mark, Matthew, and Luke began to answer these questions, but there was one more line of inquiry that pressed Christological reflection a step further: Did Jesus have a preexistence? Matthew and Luke’s nativity stories open this discussion directly, but it was left to John to give a full theological explanation.
The prologue is the most complete, indeed, the most explicit study of Christ’s preexistence in the New Testament. The significance of Jesus is not merely in his ability to be a powerful worker of mighty deeds. Nor is it in his wisdom as a great teacher. Rather, Jesus is God-become-flesh. That is, the phenomenon of Jesus Christ is a phenomenon unlike anything the world has witnessed before. He is God-in-descent, God stepping into the context of humanity. In more technical terms, Jesus has an ontological divinity.28 His being, his essence, his very nature is one with God. This is to be compared with an ethical divinity, in which Jesus is valued or aligned with God—as evidenced in what he does. This may at first seem obvious to those who have been nurtured in the Christian environment, but today it simply cannot be assumed that men and women truly understand the Christological implications of John’s incarnational theology.
Springing from this doctrine of the high divinity of Jesus—a divinity anchored to preexistence—comes a host of theological themes that I must press home when I apply this text. John’s understanding of revelation lifts Jesus’ words above those of a prophet and any human being. The voice of Jesus becomes the voice of God. It is for this reason that Jesus can tell Philip that seeing him is equivalent to seeing the Father (14:9). This is also why Thomas, at the close of the Gospel, can give Jesus the high acclaim, “My Lord and my God” (20:28). In a similar fashion, John’s understanding of redemption now becomes a divine work that parallels Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 5:19: “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ.” Redemption is thus no divinely inspired human event that sets out to placate God. Redemption is God himself at work in the world, achieving his own goals for repairing the consequences of sin and bringing humanity back into relationship with himself.
To sum up, therefore, Jesus must be explained in terms of his unique origin and mission, and this explanation must be forged with a clear understanding of his unity with the Father. To compromise this delicate theme in the Fourth Gospel is to jeopardize John’s portrayal of Jesus throughout the Gospel.
The nature of the world. High on John’s theological agenda is his interest in explaining the rejection of Jesus by Judaism and the world—a rejection leading to the cross. For John this does not mean that Jesus failed in any way; rather, it uncovers the character of the world (a place of darkness) and discloses how the world reacts whenever it is penetrated by the light. John’s worldview is strictly dualistic: The forces of light and darkness, good and evil, God and Satan are arrayed against one another to such a degree that there can be no compromise. No intermingling. No association.
John’s theology of the world is his vehicle for explaining Jesus’ rejection by Judaism (1:11), the failure of most to understand the things of God (1:10), and the hostility of the world in general when the things of God are brought to the fore (1:5). John writes, “Light has come into the world, but [people] loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil” (3:19). In short, darkness is a theological description that betrays the world’s commitments and confusions. For this reason Nicodemus, who can barely understand Jesus, comes “at night” (3:2). And after Judas betrays Jesus, he departs the Upper Room into the night (13:30). These are literary devices John employs to tell us about the environment in which these two men live and work: “But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them” (11:10 NRSV).
The world, then, is not a neutral place, a place of open inquiry and curiosity about God. As I bring this passage into the modern world, I need to keep John’s cosmology, his theology of the world, foremost in my thinking. The world is opposed to the light. Yet despite the world’s hopeless and hostile condition, still, God loves the world and has entered it in order to save it (3:16–17). The world is thus a theological term for humanity set against God. “God so loved the world” is not about God’s love for nature, but God’s love for those arrayed against him.
The possibilities for humanity. John’s third message is his theology of hope. The desperate condition of humanity is set against the goodness of God and his overtures toward the world in Christ. This alone, this supernatural intervention, is the only possibility for men and women today. The darkness of the world cannot defeat the Word (1:5) because the Word created the world and understands everything that has gone into it (1:3). In 2:24–25 Jesus is celebrated by many who witnessed his signs at Passover, but then John provides a remarkable commentary about Jesus’ savvy understanding of this shallow popularity: He understood all people and understood what was in each one of them.
This is the hope to which John clings: Despite the fallenness and corruption of humanity—a corruption at the very heart of things, despite the hostility of humanity to God—nevertheless God empowers men and women to be transformed and become his children (1:12). This is hope: that despite the darkness, One Light shined and this Light worked to illumine others. Despite the darkness, the glory of God radiated in the world (1:14b), displaying the grace and truth of the Father (1:14a).
This is an essentially modern message because we live in a culture that is looking for hope. For some, hope has been anchored in human systems and possibilities. For younger generations, there often seems to be no hope, and as they look at their world, they feel despair. The key here is that I must proclaim a Christological eschatology, an ultimate and final message that is anchored in the possibilities brought about through God in Christ, or else I have betrayed the very essence of what God has done in the Incarnation.
Contemporary Significance
VOICES. THE WORLD in which we live is looking for a diagnosis of its condition and its possibilities for renewal. There are countless voices providing messages that promise to alleviate the struggle of life or the questions that trouble us. We hear political and economic voices, arguing that if we reallocate or reorganize or restructure, we will build the sort of world where equity and charity win the day. Other voices are more deeply personal, arguing that the problem is not sociological but human—the human soul is in need of repair or renewal—and if we provide the right education or therapy or vision of our neighbor, then all will be made right. These voices, these messages, are secular, and they can be heard in pulpits every Sunday. These prophets of our day offer services that are deeply needed and useful, but their voices cannot replace The Voice that John 1:1–18 introduces.
The prologue to John is not about a message that offers hope, but about The Message that is the only hope. It is not about an idea, but a person. The Word became flesh tells us that God is intent on communicating with us not about mere concepts; he is intent on communicating about himself. The Word became flesh tells us that The Message is accessible and not hidden away for mystics and scholars but was lived in the world and was touched and heard by many. The Word became flesh tells us that the man Jesus was no mere mortal. He was not an inspired carpenter or a model human. Jesus was God himself—taking on the clothing of humanity, embracing it fully and eternally, walking in it, speaking through it, and delivering the reality of God to the world in a manner never done before. This prologue tells us that something definitive has happened in time, something objective and absolute. A marker has been placed in human history, and all humanity is now being called to mark time and progress by that post.
Three strands. The prologue provides a theological template, weaving together three strands of thinking that, when taken together, form the essential fabric of the Christian message. Each message is tied to the other two, and together they comprise the core of our faith that men and women, even young children, should have as essential spiritual equipment. These commitments should be reflexes, beliefs so deeply ingrained that we cannot view the world in any other way except through them.
(1) Definitive Christology. The scandal that must never be compromised is the nature of Christ and his relation to the Father. Jesus is not one savior among the world’s many saviors, nor is he one good man among many men. Jesus is God-in-flesh. Or as the theologians of Nicea framed it, Christ and the Father share the same essence or being. There never was a time when the Son did not exist.
This basic scandal—this unyielding affirmation about Jesus Christ—is constantly at issue in discussions concerning the truth of Christianity and the validity of alternative religions and philosophical systems.29 But more fundamentally, this notion challenges a major shift in the way the modern world views reality.
This came home to me recently when I read Lesslie Newbigin’s Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture.30 Newbigin was a career missionary in India, who returned to his home in England after spending forty years in central Asia. But when he returned, he discovered that the culture he was reentering was as alien to the gospel as anything he witnessed in India. During his career he was accustomed to studying culture in order to understand the intellectual structures of a society and how he might communicate cross-culturally. But when he returned home, he discovered that if he was going to speak of the gospel at all in Western Europe, this communication too had to be cross-cultural. To his modern listeners, the gospel sounded like foolishness—much as Paul experienced among the Greeks in Corinth (cf. 1 Cor. 1:23).
In brief, Western society had emptied modern life of the ability to see the world theocentrically. God had been dismissed from his role of running the external world, thanks to the advent of science, and God’s last domain—the inner world—had been taken over by psychology. While the notion of an ambiguous God may still have a place, so Newbigin argues, the idea of a personal, self-revealing God has become incomprehensible to many. This means that we cannot simply announce that God has become human in Christ; rather, we must lay bare the fundamental structures of modern thought that have invalidated this idea in the first place. We must uncover today’s pagan cosmology.31
History is not simply buffeted by the forces of social change. The cosmos is not merely explained by cause and effect. God is the architect of history, who delights in making himself known and who enters our reality through word and miracle, showing his glory and power. And what we claim he has done in Jesus Christ fits excellently into any theological cosmology: Christ is God once more at work, disclosing himself to his creation. Christ is God reaching into the realm of men and women; he takes their form in order to give exhaustive and certain revelation of who he is.
This theme will reappear as we continue to examine the balance of John’s Gospel. Jesus is God’s intervention in the world, and as the gospel story unfolds, his audiences will intuit that here there is something—someone—greater than Moses. Someone who antedates Abraham. Someone whose history goes back to the beginning of time.
(2) Complete rejection. The great irony of Christian theology is that the very medicine that can cure the human condition is rejected. People love the darkness rather than the light because their deeds are evil (3:19). It is naive to think that the world is eagerly waiting for some disclosure from heaven. Such a disclosure is welcome if it comes in the world’s terms, if it is a message that affirms the systems of the world, upholding the personal aggrandizement of power and the prowess of human capacity. But if it names the darkness for what it is, if it describes sin for what it does, if it identifies unbelief in its many sophisticated forms, then the Word will experience sheer antagonism. If the Creator of the world now calls for dominion as its Creator and Lord, the world will have no part.
Christian theology affirms that humanity is in a state from which there is no freedom. Sin is not a series of bad choices, but a state of being from which bad choices continually come. This means that humanity’s moral, intellectual, even aesthetic capacities are fallen and poised to move away from the presence of the Light. This is true for the world that is steeped in darkness as well as it is true for those who have a religious disposition: “He came to . . . his own, but his own [people] did not receive him” (1:10, italics added). No one is exempt from this dilemma.
John understands that we do not live in a nice world that God desires to make nicer. We live rather in a world that repudiates the Truth and replaces it with fashionable truths. The Truth of God must excise from the human soul the condition that has been honed since Adam and Eve. Humanity must be reborn.
(3) Absolute transformation. There is only one hope, and it is God in Christ. In this incarnation God has exhibited the glory and grace that is native to his selfhood; and through this incarnation, humankind can regain the glory and grace it once had when it was created. The natural eye cannot see the glory of God since it is dimmed by sin. Instead, it is necessary for God to work, to self-disclose, to send his Son, who alone has exposed God’s heart (1:18).
When God takes this initiative, new possibilities are born. Divine power is released into the broken world and its broken lives so that new life is possible. The theological key that the world finds so foreign lies here: Transformation and hope cannot be the fruit of some human endeavor. Only God can take the initiative, and men and women must see, receive, and believe the work he desires to do. And when they do, they are reborn to become God’s children.
The pitfall of the pagan world is to find hope in its own canons of thought and behavior. But history has proven the futility of this dream. The pitfall of the religious person is to think that human spiritual proclivities can bring God into reality through religious devotion and practice. John says that God takes the initiative, for God becomes flesh. God discloses himself. God enters our world bearing truth and grace in order to transform whoever will receive him. Transformation is not an inspired human work; it is a divine work through and through.
I am reminded at every turn how the world is aware that it needs transformation, that it is incomplete and in need of repair. The self-help books in bookstores and the late-night info-mercials bear eloquent testimony to the deficiencies sensed by the world’s citizenry. One late-night commercial is by the hypnotist Marshall Snyder, who promises to deliver “Prosperity, Passion, and Power” to any who purchase his tapes (three easy installments of $39.95). These three promises unveil the world’s admission that all is not well, but they also unveil the emptiness of the world’s solution.