John 1:1-5 Jesus' Divinity Made Clear

John 1:1-5 NASB

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. 5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

In the Beginning...

Every story has to start somewhere. For John, he takes it further than the other Gospel authors, it begins before everything. In Matthew, it starts with Abraham, Mark just passes it all and heads straight for the baptism, and Luke only goes as far back as Adam. Why does John go all the way back to before the beginning of everything? Who is this Jesus that John believes is before everything, ahead of even the universe? For John, the answer is simple--Jesus is the Word, the very being of God. Jesus is God; the Creator Yahweh. 

John is saying something very important with his statement that this Word is God. J. Ramsey Michaels believes that this is a cosmological statement, "[the] purpose of the Gospel writer is to place the story of Jesus in a cosmic perspective" (Michaels, John, 21). Most scholars agree that John is placing Jesus (John purposefully hides the identity of this Word as Jesus till the end of his prologue) as "the personification of God's creative word" (Michaels, John, 21). This is how I understand John's prologue. John tells us, in this order, that the Word was God, was with Him, created everything, life, light, and humanity of which who will not understand Him. This misunderstanding of the Word led to a rejection of Him. Yet, He also came to proclaim the Message of God.

It is very important that we remember that this prologue is meant to tie in with the first chapter of Genesis. By labeling Jesus as the Word, John is making a very significant point. John Shelby Sponge (I do not agree with everything from this man though he does make some good points from time to time) makes a statement, as he loosely translates Genesis 1 and 2: "In the beginning there was the oneness of God. Then out of God came God's word, 'Let there be light.' Now the singularity of God shared creation with a new power...the anonymous Jewish writers who wrote this creation story attributed  to the 'word' of enormous creative power, seeing it as separate from God, but God's very essence" (Spong, Fourth Gospel, 43). This statement is a good way to sum up John's use of the Word to mean this separate but equal essence of God, though I chose to say it this way so as not to mistake our Trinitarian orthodoxy with a weird pseudo-Arian misunderstanding: God was the Creator, Jesus, as God was the power as the Word, and the Holy Spirit as God was the action that made the creation. All three similar, one, and yet separate at the same time--the Three in One.

  

...was the Word...

The Word was God, His message, and the Messanger. The Word in Greek is logos and it has a lot of meanings packed into it. Basically, it meant logic, reasoning, a saying of or from the divine, doctrine, or discourse.  Interestingly, John might have written in Greek, and the audience may have been Hellenistic, is it possible that the logos might have a Semitic background to it? For Thomas Oden, it does. The main source, according to Oden, of the logos Christology of John is rooted in the ancient Hebrew phrase dabar Yahweh which means “Word of God” (Oden, Word of Life, 69). In the OT, logos is not only spoken, it is also “personified.” It is shown through the prophets (Isa. 55:10-11 and Jer. 1:4, 2:1) and as wisdom in the Proverbs (Prov. 8:22-30)--as well as in the Apocrypha (Oden, Word of Life, 69-70 and Barton, et al, John, 2-3). For Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh, the Logos is less Hellenistic and more socially Israelite. For them, the Logos is not an abstract theory of Reasoning but “self-revelation and self- communication” (Malina and Rohrbaugh, Gospel of John, 35-39). However, we must see this word as both Hebrew and Hellenistic in thought. 

 As mentioned earlier, the Greeks had several ways of using the word logos, in the first century. It could have been the thoughts of someone or their reasoning, or a person’s speech. In philosophy, it meant “the rational principle that governed the universe, even the creative energy that generated the universe” (Barton et al, John, 3). To the Greek's, logos was an abstract thought (Wright, John, 4). This abstract thought was the power to make a man choose right from wrong and gave order to the universe--it was the divinity of god in man (Barclay, John, 35). 

Philo of Alexandria

Philo of Alexandria took both the Hebrew understanding and the Greek belief of the logos and combined them. I believe that it is possible that John had copies, especially if he wrote this in Ephesus (which had a rather large library at one point), of Philo's works there. I think that John was influenced by Philo's logic of the logos and believed this to be the best way to understand Jesus and his relationship with God. Because of this, John could say that Jesus was the Logos, this reasoning of God, the divinity of God in man today, the one who helps us to make the right from wrong decisions. This is why John can say that Jesus is the life and the light. Through Jesus, we have the life of God that was given to Adam in the Garden, which he lost at the fall. The light that has been given is that which will guide us with reasoning. Jesus is the reasoning we must follow. Whatever Jesus did and said we are to do the same, Jesus only did as the Father told him to do. If we are followers of Jesus, then we are followers of God, and if we are followers of God, then we must do as we see and hear Jesus do, because he followed God. If you follow Jesus, then your life must show it.--Tweet that!

I hope to have the rest of John 1:1-18 up throughout this week. If I do not, then it will be up as I am able to post them. Thanks for reading; what do you find interesting about this text? What interpretations have you seen that I have not mentioned? Leave all your responses and comments in the comment section below. Thanks for reading and sharing, have a blessed day!

C. Bohall

Bibliography

Barclay, William. Gospel of John. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975.

Barton, Bruce, Philip W. Comfort, David R. Veerman, and Neil Wilson. Life  

Application Bible Commentary: John. Carol Stream: Tyndal House Publishers, Inc.,  

1993.

Malina, Bruce J. and Richard L. Rohrbaugh. "Word." In Social Science  

Commentary on the Gospel of John. (35-39). Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998.

Michaels, J. Ramsey. New International Biblical Commentary: John. Peabody:  

Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1989.

Sponge, John Shelby. Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic. New York: Harper Collins,  
2011.

Wright, Tom. John for Everyone: Part One. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 

2004.