John 1:1

[See also the "General Considerations on the Prologue" in the comments of John 1:18.]

At John 1:1, John finds in eternity the subject of the history which he is going to relate, the Logos; at John 1:2, he takes his place with Him at the beginning of time; in the 3d verse, he shows Him to us cooperating in the work of creation, which is the condition of that of Redemption; finally, in the 4th verse, he unveils the relation which from all time has existed between that divine being and humanity, down to the moment when He Himself appeared as a member of this race.

Vv. 1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

These three propositions follow each other like oracles; they enunciate, each of them, one of the features of the greatness of the Logos before His coming in the flesh. The ascending progression which binds them together is indicated, after the Hebrew manner, by the simple copula καί, καί, and, and. The ἐν ἀρχή, in the beginning, manifestly is a reproduction of the first word of Genesis (bereschith). It therefore naturally designates the beginning of the existence of created things. Some Fathers applied it to that divine wisdom which the book of Proverbs describes as the principle of the universe; but nothing could justify such an extraordinary sense. Several modern writers, such as Olshausen, de Wette, Meyer, understand by this beginning eternity. In fact, eternity is, not the temporal beginning, but the rational principle, of time. And it is in this sense that the word ἀρχή seems to be taken in Proverbs 8:23: “In the beginning, before creating the earth,” perhaps also in 1 John 1:1: “That which was from the beginning (ἀπ᾿ ἀρχῆς).”

Indeed, as Weiss observes, the absolute beginning can be only the point from which our thought starts. Now such a point is not found in time, because we can always conceive in time a point anterior to that which we represent to ourselves. The absolute beginning at which our minds stop can therefore only be eternity a parte ante. It is none the less true, however, that, as this same author acknowledges, the allusion to Gen 1:1 determines the word ἀρχή as the temporal beginning of things. But if the notion of eternity is not found in the word itself, it is nevertheless implied in the logical relation of this dependent phrase to the verb ἦν, was (see farther on; comp. Keil). The Socinians, in the interest of their doctrine, have applied this word ἀρχή to the beginning of the Gospel preaching, as Mark 1:1; Luke 1:2. This sense is evidently incompatible with all that follows; no one any longer defends it at the present day. The imperfect ἦν, was, must designate, according to the ordinary meaning of this tense, the simultaneousness of the act indicated by the verb with some other act. This simultaneousness is here that of the existence of the Word with the fact designated by the word beginning. “When everything which has begun began, the Word was. ” Alone then, it did not begin; the Word was already. Now that which did not begin with things, that is to say, with time, the form of the development of things, belongs to the eternal order. Reuss objects, it is true (Hist. de la theol . chretienne, p. 439), that, “if we infer from these words the eternity of the Word, we must infer also from the beginning of Genesis the eternity of the world.” This argument is without value. Since in Genesis we do not have the imperfect was, but the perfect definite created. When John passes to the act of creation (John 1:3), he also abandons the imperfect to make use of the aorist (ἐγένετο). The notion of eternity, as we have seen, is not in the term in the beginning, but only in the relation of this term to the imperfect was. The term Word, no less than the term in the beginning, serves to recall the narrative in Genesis; it alludes to the expression: and God said, repeated eight times, which is as it were the refrain of that magnificent poem. All these sayings of God John gathers as if into one single, living word, endowed with intelligence and activity, from which emanates each one of those particular orders. At the foundation of all those spoken divine words, he discovers the divine speaking Word. But while those resound in time, this exists above and beyond time. The idea of this first proposition is, therefore, that of the eternity of the Logos.

The salient word of the second proposition is the preposition πρός, which, with the objective word in the accusative, denotes the movement of approach towards the object or the person serving to limit it. The meaning is, therefore, quite different from what it would have been, if John had said μετά, in the society of, or σύν, in union with, or ἐν, in the bosom of, or παρά, near to (John 17:5). This preposition is chosen in order to express under a local form, as the prepositions in general do, the direction, the tendency, the moral movement of the being called the Word. His aspiration tends towards God. The form, apparently incorrect, by which John connects a preposition of motion (towards) with a verb of rest (was), signifies that this motion was His permanent state, that is to say, His essence. Comp. 2 Corinthians 5:8; Galatians 1:18. This use of the preposition πρός has evidently no meaning except as it is applied to a personal being. We believe that we hear in this an echo of that plural of Genesis which indicates intimate communion (John 1:26): “Let us make man in our image.” So in the 18th verse the term Son will be substituted for Word, as Father will take the place of God. It is not of abstract beings, of metaphysical principles, that John is here pointing out the relation, but of persons. The end to which the Logos incessantly tends is τὸν θεόν, God (with the article); God is thereby designated as a being complete in Himself, independently of the Word Himself. It is not the Logos who makes Him God, even though He is inseparable from His Logos. Hence it results that the existence of the Logos rests on another principle than that of a metaphysical necessity. The idea of this second proposition is that of the personality of the Logos and of His intimate communion with God. But thus there is found lying in the Divine existence a mysterious duality. This duality is what the third proposition is designed to resolve.

In this third proposition we must not make θεός (God) the subject, and ὁ λόγος (the Word) the predicate, as if John meant to say: And God was the Word. John does not propose in this prologue to explain what God is, but what the Word is. If the word θεός (God), although the predicate, is placed at the beginning of the proposition, it is because in this word is contained the progress of the idea relatively to the preceding proposition. An anonymous English writer has recently proposed to place a period after ἦν was, and to make ὁ λόγος, the Word, the subject of John 1:2. The meaning would thus be:

“The Word was in relation with God and was God.” Then would follow in John 1:2: “And this Word (ὁ λόγος οὖτος) was in the beginning with God.” He has not perceived that the threefold repetition of the word ὁ λόγος, the Word, in these three first propositions was intentional, and that this form has a peculiar solemnity; comp. the similar repetition of the word κόσμος, John 1:10 and John 3:17. We find here the same grammatical form as in John 4:24 (πνεῦμα ὁ θεός), where the predicate is also placed at the beginning of the clause. The word θεός, God, is used without an article, because it has the sense of an adjective and designates, not the person, but the quality. Undoubtedly we must guard against giving it, for this reason, the meaning divine, which is the signification of the word θεῖος. The apostle does not mean to ascribe to the Logos that which this adjective would express, a quasi-divinity, a condition intermediate between God and the creature. This idea would be incompatible with the strict monotheism of the Scriptures. The Logos is something different from the most perfect of men or the most exalted of angels; He partakes of θεότης (deity). It is when this proposition is thus understood, that it answers its purpose, that of bringing back to unity the duality posited in God in the preceding clause. The idea contained in the third proposition is thus that of the essential divinity of the Word.

To the plenitude of the divine life, therefore, there appertains the existence of a being eternal like God, personal like Him, God like Him; but dependent on Him, aspiring towards Him, living only for Him. And this being it is whom John has recognized in that Jesus whom he knew as the Christ, and who is to be the subject of the following narrative (John 1:14).

We have given to the word Logos the meaning Word, and not reason which it ordinarily has with the Greek philosophers. This word signifies two things: 1, the reason, as being by its very nature in the line of manifestation; and 2, the word, as the instrument of the reason. But the first of these two meanings is foreign to the N. T. Besides, it is excluded in this passage by the relation to Genesis 1:1. We cannot therefore, as has sometimes been attempted, give to this word here the philosophical sense of divine reason and apply it to the consciousness which God has of Himself. Storr and others have taken it in the sense of ὁ λέγων, he who speaks, the supreme interpreter of the thought of God; others (Beza, etc.) in that of ὁ λεγόμενος, the one announced, the one promised. These two senses are grammatically inadmissible. Hofmann and Luthardt, with the desire of removing from John's Prologue every element of philosophical speculation, have taken this word in the sense which the expression Word of God ordinarily has in the N. T.: the message of salvation. According to Hofmann, Jesus is thus designated because He is the true subject of all the divine messages; according to Luthardt, as being the personified proclamation, the message and the messenger identified. But what becomes of the allusion to Genesis 1:1, according to these two views? Then, in the following verses the work of creation is spoken of, not that of redemption. Finally, if the term Word had this sense, could the proposition of John 1:14: the Word was made flesh, be any longer understood? Is it allowable to suppose that John meant thereby: The contents or the agent of the gospel proclamation was made flesh? The fact is that Jesus did not become these contents or this agent except as following upon and by means of the incarnation. The anonymous English writer of whom we spoke, who evidently belongs to a party professing the Unitarian (anti-Trinitarian) doctrine, gives to the word Logos the sense of divine declaration. This is, in fact, the divine decree proclaimed as a command which produced the universe (John 1:1-5), then the prophetic revelations (John 1:6-13), finally, the Christian redemption (John 1:14). All personality of Jesus anterior to His earthly appearance is thus eliminated from the text of John. But how, with this sense of the term Word, is the ἦν, was, of John 1:1 to be explained? The declaration of the divine will is not eternal; ἐγένετο must have been used, as in John 1:3; since this is an historical fact. No more comprehensible are the second and third propositions of John 1:1.

They would signify, according to this view, that the creative command has relation to God (πρός), in the sense that the creation is designed to reveal God, and other strange ideas of the same kind. Beyschlag, and several others after him, recognized clearly in John 1:1 the idea of the eternity of the Logos; but they deny to this being personality and would see in Him only an abstract principle, pre- existing in the divine understanding, and which is realized in time in the person of Jesus Christ. To this sense the Socinian explanation comes, according to which the Logos pre-existed only in the divine decree; also that of Ritschl and his school, which reduces the pre-existence of Christ to the eternal election of His person as the agent in the establishment of the kingdom of God on earth. Exegetically speaking, all these explanations come into collision with the second and third propositions of our verse, which, as we have seen, both of them imply the personality of the Logos. They are equally in contradiction to the words of Jesus, reported by our evangelist, from which he has also himself derived the idea formulated in this Prologue, particularly that of John 6:62: “When ye shall see the Son of man ascending where he was before,” John 8:58: “Before Abraham was, I am,” John 17:5: “Restore to me the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” Either Jesus used this language or the evangelist ascribed it to Him. In the first case, Jesus gave a false testimony respecting His person, even as the Jews accused Him of doing. In the second, the apostle allowed himself to make Him speak according to his own fancy, and this on a subject of capital importance. For ourselves, we regard both of these suppositions alike morally impossible. Meyer has modified the preceding view by supposing that the Logos, essentially impersonal, assumed the character of a person at the moment of creation and for the purpose of performing that act. This view has no basis in the text of the Prologue and none in the rest of the Scriptures. The three ἦν, was, of John 1:1 much rather indicate a permanent condition and one identical with itself. Finally, Neander saw in the Logos the organ by which God reveals Himself, as in the Holy Spirit he saw the force by which He communicates Himself. We do not contest the relative truth of this conception; we only find it incomplete. And for this reason: The second proposition of John 1:1 shows us the Logos turned primordially, not ad extra, towards the world in order to reveal God, but ad intra towards God Himself. The Logos reveals God to the world only after being immersed in God. He interprets in time the revelation of God which he receives or rather which He Himself is eternally.

To the divine essence, then, there appertains a being who is for God that which the word is for the thought, that which the face is to the soul. A living reflection of God within, it is He who reveals Him outwardly. This relation implies at once the most intimate personal communion and the most perfect subordination. How can these two facts be reconciled? Only on one condition:

That this eternal existence of the Logos is a matter, not of metaphysical necessity, but of the freedom of love. “God is love.” Now what He is, He is altogether, freely and essentially. It is the same with the Logos. His existence is a matter of eternal essence, and of free divine will, or, what unites these two ideas, of moral necessity (comp. John 17:24). It becomes one to remember that word of Christ Himself: “No one knoweth the Father except the Son” (Luke 10:22; Matthew 11:27), and that other word of the Apostle Paul: “We see now only darkly and as in a mirror; then we shall know as we have been known.” (See further the General Considerations on the Prologue, at the end of John 1:18.)