OVERVIEW
The first eighteen verses of the gospel of John are usually referred to as the prologue—a somewhat misleading designation in that it tends to suggest that the material covered in the verses is introductory rather than substantive. But John’s presentation of “the Logos” in the initial paragraphs of the gospel serves as an historical and theological summary of the entire book. It tells of Jesus’ preexistence, his work in creation, his incarnation, and his rejection by the world, but also of his gift of eternal life to all who will receive him. In addition to these and other obvious parallels, there are others of a more subtle nature. The prologue is a poetic overture that combines the major theological motifs that make up the entire gospel. The view that it was an early Christian hymn (Brown, 1) is unlikely, in part because material on John the Baptist is interwoven throughout. Barrett’s description, 150, of the prologue as “rhythmical prose” is accurate.
1In 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.
COMMENTARY
1 John opens his gospel with a majestic declaration: “In the beginning was the Word.” Before human history ever began, even before creation itself, “the Word already was” (NEB). The Word was not, as Arius would later claim, a created being—first in the order of creation, but nevertheless part of it.
The concept of logos (“word,” GK 3364) has an extensive and varied background in Greek religious and philosophical thought. As far back as Heraclitus (fifth century BC), the logos was understood to be the unifying principle of all things. For the Sophists, the logos was predominantly human reason. Philo, a prolific writer and leading citizen of the Jewish community in Alexandria, used the term more than thirteen hundred times as a mediating figure linking the transcendent God and the world (cf. TDNT 4:88). In general, Greek speculation viewed the logos as the principle of reason or order in the world (Bruce, 29).
In Hebrew thought, the word of God was a dynamic concept. God spoke and the world came into existence (Ge 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14 et al.; Ps 33:6 [“By the word of the Lord were the heavens made”]; cf. Heb 11:3). In Proverbs 8:22–31, wisdom is personified and its role in creation is described.
While it is helpful to be aware of Greek and Semitic backgrounds, John’s doctrine of the logos is only incidentally related. John does not begin with a metaphysical concept but with the person and work of the historical Christ. W. F. Howard (IB, 8:442) notes that “Jesus is not to be interpreted by Logos: Logos is intelligible only as we think of Jesus. At the same time it is true that the broad and varied usage of the term provided an excellent link to contemporary thought and allowed John the opportunity to redefine logos in terms of the incarnate Son of God.
Having established the eternal nature of the Word, John now proceeds to declare that the Word was both “with God” and at the same time “was God.” Never has so much christological truth been compressed into such a brief statement. Contrary to the later teaching of Sabellius (a third-century Roman theologian), the Word was personally distinct from God the Father. The common use of pros (“with,” GK 4639) followed by the accusative expresses motion toward. In this context it pictures the Word in a face-to-face relationship with the Father. BDAG, 875, cites John 1:1 as an example of the preposition meaning “(in company) with.”
Not only was the Word with God; the Word was God. Tasker, 42, notes that the unique contribution of the prologue is that “it reveals the Word of God not merely as an attribute of God, but as a distinct Person within the Godhead.” The lack of an article before theos (“God,” GK 2536) does not allow it to be translated “divine” (as some have suggested), for the lack is simply common practice for predicate nouns. Had John wanted to say that the Word was divine, he had at hand a perfectly good Greek term (theios [GK 2521]; cf. Ac 17:29). The tendency to regard the Word as somewhat less than God gave rise to the sixteenth-century heretical movement known as Socinianism, which held that the historical Jesus was a good man but only a man. He became God after his resurrection when the Father delegated to him certain divine powers. Socinus’s position laid the foundation for later Unitarian movements. All such heresies overlook the clear teaching of the fourth gospel that the Word was God, or, as the NEB so aptly translates, “What God was, the Word was.” In essence, God and the Word are one.
2 John restates the fact that the Word was “with God in the beginning.” Essential truths bear repetition! The verb ēn (“was,” GK 1639) has no particular temporal boundaries and should be contrasted with another verb (egeneto, “became,” GK 1181) in v.14. The Word as eternal Son stands outside time but in the incarnation became the historical Jesus. As in the previous verse, the preposition pros implies personal relationship and communication.
3 It was through the Word that all things were made. He was the active agent in creation (cf. Col 1:16–17; Heb 1:2). Not a single thing that now exists was made apart from him. The universe with all its complexity and magnificence reflects his creative involvement. Matter is not eternal. It came into being ex nihilo, out of nothing. The author of Hebrews writes that “the universe was formed at God’s command” and that “what is seen was not made out of what was visible” (Heb 11:3). No better explanation of what we call objective reality exists. The human mind strenuously resists the idea of the eternality of matter—the only plausible alternative to creation ex nihilo. How much more satisfactory to embrace the truth that God the Creator carried out his task by working through his Son, the Word of God.
4 “Life” (zōē, GK 2437) is one of John’s favorite words. Almost half of the 134 occurrences of the word in the NT are found in his writings (thirty-six in the gospel, thirteen in his first epistle, and fifteen in Revelation). In contrast to another Greek word for life (bios, GK 1050), which occurs eleven times in the NT and normally refers to everyday life, zōē refers most often to the supernatural life that belongs to God and that the believer now shares through faith in Christ. Life is an essential attribute of God. In the course of his gospel, John will point out that God in his relationship to the believer is both the “bread of life” (6:35) and the “light of life” (8:12). He supplies the “water of life” (“living water,” 4:10), and his words are “spirit and … life” (6:63).
The life that was in the Son is said to be “the light of men.” It enables people to see that God is at work in the world. Lindars, 86, notes that it includes “the widest range of man’s intellectual apprehension of God and his purposes.” Life as “the light of men” makes revelation possible. Life and light are frequently associated in the OT (e.g., Ps 36:9).
5 The light “continues to shine” (Williams) in the darkness, but the darkness is unable to grasp its meaning or to put it out. The darkness about which John writes refers to the condition of the fallen race. It is personified as an active agent over against the light of Christ. The Greek katalambanō (GK 2898) means “to seize” or “to grasp.” If the action implied is physical, the verse means that the darkness did not “overcome” or “extinguish” the light (so RSV). If it is understood in the sense of a grasping with the mind, it means that the darkness did not “understand”—or perhaps “accept”—the light. There is no reason to limit interpretation to one or the other. When the life, which was in the Word, manifested itself as light, the world in darkness neither accepted it (cf. v.11) nor was able to put it out (ch. 20). The Living Bible translates, “His life is the light that shines through the darkness—and the darkness can never extinguish it.”
NOTES
1 Since θεός (theos, “God”; GK 2536) in the clause θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος (theos ēn ho logos, lit., “God was the Word”) is anarthrous, i.e., it does not have an article, some have taken it in the sense of “divine.” Ernest Cadman Cowell’s rule (“A Definite Rule for the Use of the Article in the Greek New Testament,” JBL 52 [1933]: 20–21) that a predicate nominative preceding the verb need not be taken as indefinite or qualitative is helpful but not determinative. Of course, if θεός, theos, did have an article, we would be faced with the theological problem that “no other divine being existed outside the second person of the Trinity” (Barrett, 156). The definite article before λόγος, logos (GK 3364), establishes the Word as the subject of the clause. The clause with its predicate nominative (θεός, theos) should be understood in the sense, “what God was, the Word was” (NEB).
3 A major question of punctuation occurs at the end of v.3. Should ὃ γέγονεν (ho gegonen, “that has been made,” GK 1181) complete v.3 or be moved to v.4? The argument that it belongs with v.4 is that when the Arians began to appeal to the passage to prove that the Holy Spirit was part of the creation, the church moved it to v.3. While its location in v.4 can be argued on the basis that it was the interpretation of the earliest Fathers and that it preserves “rhythmical balance,” the case for its location in v.3 is stronger. Taken together, John’s frequent use of ἐν (en, “in,” GK 1877) at the beginning of a sentence, his frequent repetition, and the fact that “in him was life” make much better sense than the rendering “that which was created [the created universe] was life in him.”
4 The word ἀνθρώπων (anthrōpōn, “men,” GK 476) here and quite often elsewhere should be taken in the generic sense of referring to the entire human race, not to males only. In all cases, context is the most reliable indicator of the intended meaning.
OVERVIEW
Suddenly the focus changes from the eternal Word to the historic beginnings of the incarnate Word. John the Baptist comes onto the stage of history to herald the arrival of the promised Messiah. Since the evangelist’s account of John the Baptist occupies more than 40 percent of ch. 1, it is not surprising to find him introduced so early in the prologue. More important, however, is that the text has just spoken of the light that shines in the darkness, and now we learn that John is the one who came to “testify concerning that light” (v.7). Throughout the gospel he is identified simply as John rather than John the Baptist (as in the Synoptic Gospels). On the assumption that John the apostle is the author of the fourth gospel, this way of referring to John the Baptist would cause no confusion. Some critics assume that the prominence given to John the Baptist at this point reveals the presence and influence of a large number of followers, but this is highly unlikely (cf. J. A. T. Robinson, “Elijah, John and Jesus,” NTS 4 [1958]: 278).
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.
COMMENTARY
6 John is identified as “a man who was sent from God.” His mission was divine in origin. He was commissioned and sent by God to carry out a specific role in history. Calvin, 1:14, correctly notes that “what is said about John is required in all Church teachers: they must be called by God, so that the authority of teaching may have no other basis than God alone.”
7 John came as a witness, or, as Moffatt has it, “for the purpose of witnessing.” The Greek martyria (GK 3456), with its English cognate “martyrdom,” is a reminder of how quickly witnessing can lead to rejection and death. John came to testify concerning the light (the light that continues to shine in the darkness) so that through him (i.e., through John’s testimony) all people might come to believe. It is also possible to take the pronoun translated “him” as referring to the light (i.e., Jesus), but this is less likely because Jesus is normally presented as the object rather than the agent of faith. That all will come to faith through the Baptist’s testimony means that in that day all who did come to faith were pointed in that direction by the witness of John.
8 The evangelist is careful to point out that the Baptist “was not the light” but came to bear witness to the light. Elsewhere in the gospel the Baptist is referred to as a “lamp” (lychnos, GK 3394) that burns and shines (5:35), but he is not the “light” (phōs [GK 5890]). In the fourth gospel Jesus is the “light of the world” (8:12; 9:5; cf. 12:46) and we are his witnesses who take that light into a dark world. A proper understanding of our role as witnesses is crucial for effective outreach. We are the ones who bear testimony, but it is the living Christ who alone can dispel the darkness of unbelief.
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.
COMMENTARY
9 Grammatically, the phrase “coming into the world” can refer either to “the true light” or to “every man.” Although syntax perhaps favors the latter (in the Greek text the phrase immediately follows “every man”), the majority of translators understand that John is describing the “true light” as coming into the world.
A more important consideration (from a theological point of view) has to do with what John meant by saying that the true light “gives light to [phōtizei, GK 5894] every man.” A common answer is that God gives light in the sense that he has endowed the human race with reason, intelligence, and the ability to discern between right and wrong. But certainly the coming of the true light had a far more important purpose. If this were all it could accomplish, the human race would still be wandering in spiritual darkness. While light is given to every person, not all will choose to receive the light. As we will see, only those who received the light became children of God (see comments at v.12).
Marsh, 106, questions the common translation of the verb phōtizō as “enlightens” by asking why John would then go on in the next verse to speak of the world’s unbelief. He suggests that we translate the verb in its primary meaning of “bring to light” or “shine upon,” so that whether or not a person accepts the light it still “shines upon him and shows him up for what he is.” Jesus is the true light in the sense of being real or genuine in contrast to that which is fanciful. The comparison is not between true lights and false lights but between the one light that is real and other lights that perhaps flicker with a bit of truth but then go out. He alone is the true light, “the genuine and ultimate self-disclosure of God to man” (Carson, 122).
10 We now learn that although the Word was in the world (which had come into being through him), it “did not recognize him.” Prior to the incarnation, the Word “was [on a continuing basis; cf. the same verb in vv.1, 2, 4, 8] in the world.” Even though the world came into being through the Word, it did not “recognize” (ginōskō, “to know,” GK 1182, in the Semitic sense of relational knowledge) him. John uses the term “world” frequently (seventy-eight times in the gospel) and with considerable variation in meaning. In v.10a and b, the world is the entire created universe, including humanity; in v.10c it refers to that segment of the human race that has alienated itself from God.
11 In the incarnation the Word came to “that which was his own” (idia, GK 2625, neuter) but “his own” (idioi, masculine) people “did not receive him.” It was not lack of knowledge but the set of the will that kept his own people from welcoming him into their midst. Not to receive is to reject. The eternal Word was rejected by his own people.
12 Although his people as a nation did not accept the divine Word, some as individuals did. To all those who did receive him, he gave “the right [the authority] to become children of God.” People are not by nature God’s children. They become his children by receiving Jesus Christ. God’s attitude toward all humanity is that of a father, but unless they receive his Son they cannot become his children. John always refers to believers with the word tekna (“children.” GK 5451) rather than huioi (“sons,” GK 5626), the latter term being reserved for Jesus alone.
Those who received him are further identified as those who “believed in his name.” Here we see the customary use of the verb pisteuō (“to believe,” GK 4409) followed by eis (GK 1650) and the accusative, a construction that appears thirty-six times in John. To believe is to place one’s faith “into” (eis) another person. Faith for John is a definitive action. By contrast, pisteuō with the dative case means no more than to believe that something is true. It involves the intellect but not the will. The construction John uses indicates “allegiance as well as assent” (Barrett, 164). To believe in the “name” of Jesus is to accept all that his name declares him to be.
13 Being born into the family of God is radically different from natural birth into a human family. To stress this point John uses three phrases to explain the difference. While it may be true that the three are “virtually synonymous” (Lindars, 92), the fact that all three are mentioned underlines the importance of the difference between birth into a human family and birth into the family of God.
First, the children of God are born “not of natural descent,” i.e., they are not brought into this world as the result of a normal sexual union. The Greek has ouk ex haimatōn (“not of bloods” [GK 135]). The plural reflects an ancient idea that children were conceived by a mingling of the blood of the parents. Second, children of God are not the result of a “human decision,” i.e., bodily appetite. The Greek thelēmatos sarkos (“will of the flesh,” GK 2525, 4922) denotes sexual desire (sarx in this context does not connote evil). Third, God’s children are not the result of a “husband’s will.” Children of God are “born of God.” He is the one who initiates the process. It is distinct from human procreation both in origin and in sphere.
The question sometimes arises as to whether v.13 alludes to the virgin birth of Jesus. Many of the early church fathers (e.g., Irenaeus, Tertullian) thought that it did. It is unlikely, however, that this statement regarding the way all believers come into the family of God has any relevance for the clear teaching of Scripture on the unique birth of Jesus Christ.
14 We now come to the most concise statement in Scripture regarding the incarnation. With eloquent simplicity born of brevity, John proclaims, “The Word became flesh.” The philosophical mind may have taken no exception to John’s teaching on the Logos up until this point. But any idea of the Logos (the eternal Reason) entering into our human estate would run counter to the fundamental Greek axiom that the gods were detached and separate from the struggles and heartaches of humanity (see Morris’s extended note, 115–26, on the Logos). By declaring that “the Word became flesh,” John answered the Docetics, who, while acknowledging that Jesus of Nazareth was divine, could not bring themselves to accept the fact that he was also fully human. They would claim that he only appeared (dokeō, GK 1506; used intransitively it means “to seem”) to be a real man. Throughout history Christian orthodoxy has always maintained the full humanity of Jesus, as well as his complete deity. He is the God-man. The incarnation is the embodiment of God in human form as Christ. In becoming human Jesus did not diminish in any way what he was before. While the voluntary restrictions of becoming human led him to resist any independent expression of his divine power, he was in no way less God by becoming human. He became what we are without relinquishing what he always has been and must be.
John goes on to say that the eternal Logos (God the Son) came and lived for a while (“made his dwelling”) among us. The reference is to his earthly ministry as Jesus of Nazareth. The verb skēnoō (GK 5012) means “to live in a tent [skēnē; GK 5008],” i.e., to take up a temporary abode. The term would call to mind the wilderness trek of Israel during which time God took up his abode in the tabernacle, or Tent of Meeting. During the time of Jesus’ earthly ministry, his followers recognized in him the very presence of God. He was the shekinah glory, the visible expression of the glory of God. He was, as the writer of Hebrews puts it, “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” (Heb 1:3). The glory that his followers “saw” (a weak translation of theaomai, “to behold,” GK 2517, from theōria, “an appearance or spectacle,” GK 2556) was the glory of the one and only Son. The KJV’s “only begotten” incorrectly suggests that monogenēs (GK 3666) is derived from gennaō (“to beget,” GK 1164) rather than from ginomai (in this context, “to be born,” GK 1181). John is saying that the Son is unique, the only one of a kind. God has as sons all who have been adopted into his family on the basis of personal faith, but Jesus is the Son of God sui generis (unique). He came from the Father, “full of grace and truth” (the phrase modifies “the Word” or “the one and only Son” rather than “glory” as some have suggested). These two great Christian terms reflect the unmerited favor of a God who, true to his essential character, gives of himself for the eternal benefit of humanity.
15 For the second time in the prologue, the evangelist refers to the ministry of John the Baptist (cf. vv.6–8). John bore witness to the Word incarnate by crying out (krazō, GK 3189, used here as a technical term for prophetic speech; cf. EDNT 2:313) that Jesus, who came after John in point of time nevertheless took precedence over him, because Jesus existed before John. It was commonly believed in antiquity that “chronological priority meant superiority” (Morris, 108). Some take the last expression (prōtos mou, GK 4755, 1609) to mean “first of me,” i.e., “my superior,” for pro emou (GK 4574, 1847) would be the normal way to say “before me” (cf. Jn 5:7; Ro 16:7; Gal 1:17). In that case John the Baptist would be saying that Jesus had surpassed him because he was superior to him (“he was ever First,” TCNT). In either case the Baptist was proclaiming the absolute superiority of the eternal Word, who entered history as Jesus, God’s one and only Son. The verb tenses in v.15 are noteworthy (martyrei, “testifies,” GK 3455, present; kekragen, “cries out,” GK 3189, perfect but used with the force of a present) and emphasize that the testimony of the Baptist continues with force into the present time.
16 Following the reference to John the Baptist in v.15, the evangelist resumes his line of thought from v.14. The one and only Son is “full of grace” (v.14), and out of his “fullness” they had all “received one blessing after another.” Not only had they received grace when they came to him in faith, but their experience of the goodness of God was one of continuous blessedness. The NIV rendering of charin anti charitos (“one blessing after another”; lit., “grace instead of grace”) makes clear the progressive blessings that come in the Christian life. Each experience of the grace of God is replaced by the next, like the manna that came fresh every morning. John’s point is that at the heart of new life in Christ is a constant supply of grace. It is interesting that John uses the term “grace” only here in the prologue (vv.14, 16–17) and no place else. (Contrast the writings of Paul, who uses charis, GK 5921, over one hundred times in his letters.)
17 John draws a contrast between “the law,” which was given “through Moses,” and “grace and truth,” which came “through Jesus Christ.” The contrast is not intended to be taken in an absolute sense. That the God of the OT was a God of grace is clear. The psalmist writes that God is “compassionate and gracious …, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness” (Ps 86:15; cf. Ex 34:6). Dodd, 84, notes that “law” and “grace and truth” are not directly opposed but bear a relationship of shadow and substance. There was nothing intrinsically wrong with the law. It served a preparatory role. Hendriksen, 1:89, notes that the two things it could not supply were “grace,” so the sinner could be pardoned, and “truth,” the reality to which all the types point. It is in this context that for the first time John uses the full name, “Jesus Christ.”
18 The prologue closes with a powerful statement regarding the superiority of the Son. While “no one has ever seen God,” the Son “has made him known.” In the OT, God had appeared at various times in theophanies (e.g., Ex 3:2–6; Jdg 13), but such appearances were always partial and temporary. God’s statement to Moses in Exodus 33:20 (“no one may see me and live”) is normative. That God in his essential being is invisible is taught in several verses (e.g., Dt 4:12; Col 1:15; 1Ti 1:17). While no one has ever seen God, the Son is said to be “at the Father’s side.” Tasker, 49, notes that the Greek eis ton kolpon (“into the bosom,” GK 3146) is a “Hebrew idiom expressing the intimate relationship of child and parent, of friend and friend.” Beck translates “close to the Father’s heart”; Norlie has “in the intimate presence of the Father.” The contrast is between the impossibility of a human being even to see the Father and the intimate relationship between Father and Son that made it possible for the Son to “interpret” the Father—he “made him known.” Exēgeomai (GK 2007) is the Greek verb from which we derive the English word “exegete.” In Hellenistic literature it was a semitechnical expression for the revealing of divine secrets. Josephus used it for the rabbinic exposition of the law.
9 The participle ἐρχόμενον (erchomenon, “coming,” GK 2262) may be neuter nominative, agreeing with τὸ φῶς (to phōs, “the light,” GK 5890), or masculine accusative, agreeing with ἄνθρωπον (anthrōpon, “man,” GK 476). In favor of the latter option are (1) the fact that it leads naturally to the following verse, which speaks of the light being in the world; (2) other references to Jesus having come into the world (Jn 6:14; 9:39; etc.) and in John 12:46 the additional statement that he came into the world “as a light”; and (3) the use of the periphrastic imperfect (ἦν … ἐρχόμενον [ēn … erchomenon, “was coming”]), which is definitely Johannine in style.
13 The suggestion that v.13 alludes to the virgin birth of Jesus comes from a few MSS that replace the plural οἳ … ἐγεννήθησαν (hoi … egennēthēsan, “who were born,” GK 1164, NASB) with the corresponding ὃς … ἐγεννήθη (hos … egennēthē, “[he] who was born”). Although Tertullian, a late-second-century church father, insisted on the singular (and many modern scholars agree), the formidable consensus of Greek MSS makes the plural certain.
14 The word μονογενής (monogenēs, “only [one of its kind], unique,” GK 3666; cf. EDNT 2:439) occurs nine times in the NT—three times in Luke in reference either to a son (7:12; 9:38) or a daughter (8:42), and four times in John as a designation of Jesus in relation to God the Father (1:14, 18; 3:16, 18; cf. 1Jn 4:9). In Hebrews 11:7 it is used of Isaac, the child of promise, Abraham’s “one and only son” who was about to be sacrificed. While believers are children of God, only Jesus is the one-of-a-kind, unique Son of God.
18 On the basis of external evidence, it is difficult to decide between ὁ μονογενὴς ὑιός (ho monogenēs huios, “the only son,” GK 3666, 5626) and the more unusual and unexpected μονογενὴς θεός (monogenēs theos, “only God,” GK 3666, 2536). Metzger, 169, notes that “with the acquisition of P66 and P75, both of which read θεός, theos, the external support of this reading has been notably strengthened.” Although ὑιός, huios, reads more easily in the context, the more difficult θεός, theos, explains the origin of the other reading and is to be preferred. If μονογενής, monogenēs, is taken as a noun and followed by a comma, the result is a threefold description of Jesus: he is the unique one; he is God; he is the one who is in the bosom of the Father.