John 1:1-51

The Divinity and Incarnation of the Word. Witness of John. The First Disciples

1-18. Preface, declaring (1) that the Word was God, (2) that He was made man, (3) that He revealed the Father.

This sublime preface is intended to commend 'the truth as it is in Jesus,' both to Jewish and Gentile minds. It describes our Lord's person and office by a term familiar to both, that of the Logos or Word of God. 'Logos' has two meanings in Greek: (1) reason or intelligence, as it exists inwardly in the mind, and (2) reason or intelligence, as it is expressed outwardly in speech. Both these meanings are to be understood when Christ is called 'the Word of God.' He is the inward Word of God, because He exists from all eternity 'in the bosom of the Father,' as much one with Him as reason is one with the reasoning mind. Nothing is so close to a man as his own thought. It is within him, and is in a very real sense himself. So nothing is so close to God as His own eternal Word. It is within Him, it is one with Him, and it is divine like Him (John 1:1; John 1:18). Christ is also God's outward Word. He expresses and explains and reveals to the world what God is. It was He who created the world (John 1:3), making its order and beauty an outward expression of God's hidden nature. In spite of the Fall, He remained in the world, revealing to sinful man, through reason, through conscience, and through prophecy, the nature of the Father. He was the True Light that shineth in darkness, and lighteth every man that cometh into the world (John 1:4.). In the fulness of time He revealed God still more perfectly, by becoming man, and living a perfect and sinless human life (John 1:14.). So perfectly did Christ's wonderful life reveal the innermost character of God, that though 'no man hath seen God at any time' (John 1:18), those who have seen Christ may be said in a very real sense to have seen the Father also (John 14:9). The human life of Christ not only reveals what God is, it also helps man to become like God. The incarnate Christ is 'full of grace and truth' (John 1:14; John 1:16), and gives believers the power to put away their sinful nature, and to be born again as sons of God (John 1:12).

(1) The Hebrew-speaking Jews were familiar with the idea that God reveals Himself to the world through His Memra, or Word, which they distinguished from Himself as His organ of revelation. The Targums of the OT. speak, not of Jehovah, but of the Memra of Jehovah, as being manifested to Abraham, Hagar, Isaac, Jacob, and to Moses at the bush. St. John's preface, therefore, proclaimed to the Hebrew,' That Memra of Jehovah, which appeared to the patriarchs and prophets, was no other than Christ before His Incarnation.' (2) The educated Greek-speaking Jews (Hellenists) were familiar with the writings of the Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria (cirJohn 15 b.c-50 a.d.). He believed that God does not act upon the world directly, but mediately through his Logos or Reason. To the Hellenist, therefore, St. John's Gospel said, 'That Logos, through which you say God acts upon the world and reveals himself in it, is no other than Christ.' (3) Educated heathens also believed in a divine Logos or Reason, diffused through the world, and disposing all things in a rational order. First Heraclitus, then Plato, and finally the Stoics developed this doctrine, until, in the apostolic age, it was the explanation of the universe commonly accepted by educated persons. To the heathen, therefore, St. John's preface said, 'That divine Logos, which inspired, your philosophers, so far as they have spoken truly, and whose existence is admitted by all educated men, has finally manifested Himself in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Read the account that follows of His wonderful life and sayings, and you will acknowledge that this is true.' St. John's doctrine of the Logos differs from the Jewish and the heathen doctrine mainly in these two points: (1) That the Logos is personal, and (2) that He became flesh.