John 1:1

John 1:1. In the beginning was the Word. This sublime opening of the Gospel carries our thoughts at once to the no less sublime opening of the Book of Genesis, whose first words the Evangelist certainly had present to his mind. He too will tell of a creation, and a creation has a ‘beginning.' The words ‘in the beginning,' taken by themselves, do not express the idea of eternal preexistence; but they leave room for it, and in this respect they stand contrasted with the phrase ‘from the beginning,' which often meets us in the writings of John (Joh 8:44; 1 John 1:1; 1Jn 2:7; 1 John 2:24; 1 John 3:8). They denote simply the point of time; and the difference of thought with which they are connected, as compared with Genesis 1:1, is to be found not in the meaning of ‘beginning,' but in the different direction which the writer takes, and in the verb which he employs. In Genesis 1:1 the sacred historian starts from the beginning and comes downwards, thus keeping us in the course of time. Here he starts from the same point, but goes upwards, thus taking us into the eternity preceding time. In Genesis 1:1 we are told that God ‘in the beginning created,' an act done in time. Here we are told that ‘in the beginning the Word was, ' a verb strongly antithetical to ‘came into being' (John 1:3; John 1:14, comp. John 8:58), and implying an absolute existence preceding the point referred to. As that which is absolute, self-existent, not created that which is is eternal, so the predication of eternity is involved in the clause before us taken as a whole.

He who thus ‘was in the beginning,' who, as we afterwards read, ‘was with God,' and ‘was God,' here bears the name of ‘the Word' (Logos). In one other verse of the Prologue this name is repeated (John 1:14); but it does not occur again in the Gospel. Nor shall we find the term (used, as here, simply and without qualification) in any other passage of the New Testament. The nearest approach is found in Revelation 19:13, where the name of the righteous Conqueror and King is given as ‘The Word of God.' Two or more other passages may be said rather to recall to our thought the name we are considering than to present examples of its use; see especially 1 John 1:1 (‘the word of life,' followed by ‘the life was manifested,' John 1:2), and Hebrews 4:12. Though, however, this term is not really adopted by any New Testament writer except John, It is not peculiar to him in any other sense. When he wrote, it was a familiar and current term of theology. It has sometimes, indeed, been maintained that John's usage must be taken by itself, since with very much of the theological speculation in which this term so freely occurs he can have had no sympathy. We shall see that John's usage certainly does in an important sense stand alone; but as it is absolutely impossible that he, living at Ephesus (to say nothing of his long residence in Palestine), should have been unacquainted with the current doctrines respecting the Logos, it is inconceivable that he can have taken up the term without reference to these doctrines. Hence it is with the history of the term that we first have to do.

Every careful reader of the Old Testament is struck by the prominence given in certain passages to ‘the word of the Lord,' language which almost implies personal action being sometimes connected with this ‘word.' See, for example, Psalms 33:6; Psalms 105:19; Psalms 107:20; 1 Samuel 3:21. The root of this usage (at all events in very many instances) is to be found in the first chapter of Genesis, where the successive acts of creation are associated with divine words (see Psalms 33:6). Such passages as these, with their partial personification of the word of God, seem to have powerfully impressed early Jewish teaching. There was much besides in the Old Testament to strengthen this impression, as the frequent references in the Pentateuch to the Angel of Jehovah, and the language used of Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs (chap. 8; compare also chaps. 1, 3, 9, and Job 28). Thus a minute study of Scripture language was the means of leading Jewish teachers to connect divine acts with some personified attribute of God rather than with God Himself, or to seek for some medium of communication between God and man where the Scriptures themselves had spoken of direct revelation or fellowship. What other influences aided this tendency of thought, we cannot here inquire. The results are patent, especially in the Targums or Chaldea paraphrases of Scripture. The dates of the several Targums which are extant have been a matter of controversy: for our purpose, however, this is not of consequence, as it is acknowledged on all hands that every one of these paraphrases contains early materials. We cannot within our limits quote at length; but a reference to the following passages in Etheridge's translation of the Targums on the Pentateuch will show how far the writers went in substituting ‘the Word' (Memra) for the name of God Himself. In the Targum of Onkelos, see Genesis 3:8; Genesis 28:20; Numbers 23:4; Numbers 23:21; Deuteronomy 9:3: in that of Pseudo-Jonathan, Genesis 3:8; Numbers 23:4; Numbers 23:21: in the Jerusalem Targum, besides the three last mentioned, Genesis 18:1; Genesis 16:13; Genesis 19:24. From the Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel may be quoted Isaiah 63:7; Malachi 3:1. An examination of these passages will show how familiar to Jews had become the conception of the Word of God, through whom God made Himself known to men. Very little light is thrown upon the subject by the several Apocryphal books, and hence it will not be necessary to refer to them here. It is otherwise with the writings of the great Alexandrian philosopher Philo. In these the doctrine of the Divine Word holds a prominence which it would be hard to exaggerate. Yet from the multitude of passages in which Philo speaks of the attributes and actions of the Word, it is impossible to deduce with any certainty a clear statement of doctrine. Now the Word seems distinctly personal, now an attribute of God personified. In some passages the idea can be traced back to the thought of ‘spoken word;' in many others Philo takes up the other meaning of the Greek word Logos, viz. reason. Hence, though Philo speaks of the universe as created through the Logos, yet in other passages the Logos is the design or the idea of creation in the mind of God.

It is not necessary to carry this inquiry farther, since our only object is to collect the chief elements of thought associated with this term when John wrote. As has been said, he could not be ignorant of these various forms of teaching; if not ignorant, he could not be indifferent on the one hand to the good, or on the other to the evil, which they contained. He recognised the various teachings as a providential preparation for the true theology. In these introductory verses he adopts the term, but so defines it as to fix its meaning for all Christians. There is One by whom the Eternal and Invisible God reveals Himself: the Revealer is a Person: the Revealer is Himself God. Not only in outward manifestation, but also in inward fellowship with the heart, God reveals Himself by the Word of God, who is God. In one instance John appears to take up and ratify the wider application of the term which we have noticed above. This first verse takes us beyond the region of revelation to man: when ‘in the beginning,' beyond the limits of time, ‘the Logos was,' the thought of ‘speech' ceases to give us any help towards grasping the meaning; and, if we may venture to interpret the term at all in this application, we can only think of the human analogy by which we pass from the uttered word to the thought or reason of the speaker.

To all that John teaches respecting the Logos, the Lord's own teaching directly led. The doctrine of these verses is identical with that of chaps, John 5:19; John 6:57; John 10:30; John 17:5, etc. The personal application of the term is not found in our Lord's discourses; but many of those recorded in this Gospel contain remarkable examples of that exalted use of ‘the word' of God to which, as we have seen, the history of this sublime name may ultimately be traced.

And the Word was with God: the second of the three statements made in this verse regarding the Word, and obviously higher than the first. It is impossible to convey in English the full force of the preposition ‘with' in the Greek, for it denotes not merely being beside, but maintaining communion and intercourse with (comp. Mark 6:3; 1 John 1:2; 1 John 2:1).

And the Word was God: the third and highest statement respecting the Word. The Word is possessed of divine essence; in that being in which He ‘was,' He so possesses the divine attributes that He is God. There is difference of personality, but unity of nature. In this last clause the climax of the three clauses is complete.