John 1:4

‘In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.'

It is now emphasised that the Word was not only the Creator but as such was the source of life, because in the beginning it was He Who created life, first the living creatures, and then man. And it was the very unique life that He gave to man (Genesis 1:26; Genesis 2:7) that meant that man had an awareness shared by no other on earth. Man alone received the light of conscience and thought. Man alone was able to reason profoundly. Man alone was able to know and worship God. Man alone was ‘in the image of God' (or ‘in the image of the elohim, the heavenly beings'). And here we learn that it was He the Word Who was the source of man's life, and Who gave man light. As the Psalmist says, ‘Your word has made me alive' (Psalms 119:50), ‘For with you is the fountain of life, in your light will we see light' (Psalms 36:9). But, as John's Gospel will now make clear, there is more to it even than that. The Word is not only the source and fountain of life and light as men know it on earth but He has come to reveal life and light in its fullest sense, to reveal a deeper life, to reveal a life fuller than man has ever known before, and to bring men to walk in His spiritual light. He has come to bring to men, that is, to those who will receive it, new life, abundant life, spiritual life, overflowing life, everlasting life, which has its source in Him, and in the ‘eternal life' that results.

This life is to be like a light within, more powerful than the conscience or the reason, revealing good and evil to man (John 3:19), and above all revealing God. That is why in 1 John 1:1 Jesus is specifically called ‘the Word of life', because Jesus, the One Whom they have heard, seen and touched, is to be seen as essentially God's saving Word, His life-giving word. This connection between life and light is most important. It is the life of which He is the source, and which He imparts, which gives light (John 1:4; John 8:12). This emphasis distinguishes the idea from both Greek ideas and from ideas at Qumran.

To the Greeks the idea of the Logos (the Reason) included the thought that it was a light within revealing morality and understanding, while the connection between the Word and light was well known to the Jews as expressed in Psalms 119:105, ‘your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light to my path' (compare also Proverbs 6:23). But the one saw it as intellectual and the other as rooted in the Law of God, the Torah, and it is with the Torah that this new light is being contrasted here (John 1:17). In a similar way the Qumranis saw themselves as ‘sons of light' because they followed the teaching of their community. But here the emphasis is on the light-giver as a Person. For John is here seeking to turn their eyes on this One Who went beyond, and was the fulfilment of, all in which they sought to believe. Greater than their reason, greater than the Torah, was the One Who had come as ‘the very Word of God', revealing His glory, bringing about His will, offering salvation to man.