Bible Study series: John 1:1-5. John opens his Gospel with deep truths, which were already alluded to in the epistles throughout the NT. What do these truths mean to our lives?
As I will write in every introduction to John’s Gospel: Friendly greetings and a warm welcome to this Bible study! I write to learn, so let’s learn together how to apply these truths to our lives.
I also translate to learn. The translations are mine, unless otherwise noted. If you would like to see many others, please click here:
For the Greek text, click here:
At that link, I dig more deeply with my commentary.
In this post, links are provided for further study.
Let’s begin.
Scripture: John 1:1-5
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 not one thing came into being which has come into being. 4 In him was life, and this life was the light of people. 5 And the light shines in darkness, and the darkness did not put it out. (John 1:1-5)
Commentary
John 1:1-18 is considered the Prologue to the entire Gospel. Those verses certainly lay out the themes of the fourth Gospel.
Here is a table of the themes which first appear in the prologue and then in the Gospel:
| Themes | Prologue | Gospel |
| Pre-existence of Logos or Son | 1:1-2 | 17:5 |
| In him was life | 1:4 | 5:26 |
| Life is light | 1:4 | 8:12 |
| Light rejected by darkness | 1:5 | 3:19 |
| Yet light not quenched by darkness | 1:5 | 12:35 |
| Light coming into the world | 1:9 | 3:19; 12:46 |
| Christ not received by his own | 1:11 | 4:44 |
| Being born to God and not of flesh | 1:13 | 3:6; 8:41-42 |
| Seeing his glory | 1:14 | 12:41 |
| The ‘one and only’ Son | 1:14, 18 | 3:16 |
| Truth in Jesus Christ | 1:17 | 14:6 |
| No one has seen God, except the one who comes from God’s side | 1:18 | 6:46 |
| Carson, p. 111, (slightly modified) | ||
1:
John starts off his profound and highly metaphorical Gospel with an allusion to Gen. 1:1. “In the beginning, God.” Klink: This line “is not merely an echo but serves conceptually to embrace John within its biblical-theological framework, a framework in which an explicit connection—a continuation. Even development—with the Old Testament is being presented, including both the God of and the story told by the Old Testament. In Genesis, ‘in the beginning’ introduces the story of the ‘new creation, in John it introduces the ‘new creation” (comment on v. 1c). In other words, in the Genesis, the first verse is about the old creation. Here in John 1:1, it introduces the new creation, which has been launched.
However, he uses the bridge-word logos. It is not used in the Greek philosophical sense of abstract wisdom or rationalism, but logos is God-in-action, in saving and delivering his people in the biblical sense (Bruce, comment on v. 1). “As far back as Heraclitus (fifth century BC), the logos was understood to be the unifying principle of all things. For the Sophists [orators in ancient Athens of dubious methods] the logos was predominantly human reason. Philo, a prolific writer and leading citizen of the Jewish community in Alexandria, used the term more than thirteen hundred times as a mediating figure linking the transcendent God and the world … In general, Greek speculation viewed the logos as the principle of reason or order in the world” (Mounce, referencing Bruce, comment on v. 1).
Prof. Borchert offer the Hebrew background:
The phrase “the word [dabar] of the Lord” expresses one of the fundamental ideas of the Hebrew Old Testament. Among the many contexts in which it appears, it was used (1) as the basis for the covenant with Abraham (e.g., Gen 15:1); (2) as the foundation for the establishment of Israel’s laws (e.g., Exod 24:3–4) and the giving of the Ten Commandments (e.g., Deut 5:5); (3) as a clue to the closeness of the relationship of Israel with God (e.g., 1 Sam 3:1); (4) as the stated source for the proclamations of the prophets (e.g., 1 Kgs 13:20; 18:1; Isa 1:10; Hos 1:1; Joel 1:1); (5) as the wise means for guidance (e.g., Ps 17:4); and (6) as the key or way to enlightenment (e.g., Ps 119:105). Yet the creation statement of Ps 33:6 reminds us that in Israel’s thinking the word of the Lord carries in it the concept of an active power. The speaking of God in Genesis 1 is not merely the verbalizing of rationality that is basic to the Greek meaning of logos or the English word “logic.” When God spoke according to the Old Testament, his very speaking initiated the power to create or to order reality. (comment on v. 1)
The Word is God’s perfect divine expression, and logos is a bridge word for anyone trained in Greek philosophy in the ancient world, but the soil (origins) of John’s version of the logos is biblical.
Here are two verses:
He sent out his word and healed them;
he rescued them from the grave. (Ps. 107:20, NIV)
… so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. (Is. 55:11, NIV)
Commentator Carson writes of the Logos, God’s Word:
In short, God’s ‘Word’ in the Old Testament is his powerful self-expression in creation, revelation and salvation, and the personification of that ‘Word’ makes it suitable for John to apply it as a title to God’s ultimate self-disclosure, the person of his own Son. But if the expression would prove richest for Jewish readers, it would also resonate in the minds of some readers with entirely pagan backgrounds. In their case, however, they would soon discover that whatever they had understood the term to mean in the past, the author whose work they were then reading was forcing them into fresh thought …. (p. 116)
Morris is excellent here about the Word:
“The Word” points to the truth that it is of the very nature of God to reveal himself. A person’s word is the means by whereby he reveals what he is thinking … God is not to be thought of as aloof and indifferent. He reveals himself. But he reveals himself as he chooses. He is sovereign in revelation as in all else. We must guard against two misinterpretations. The one is that of thinking of the revelation as static. It is more than the revelation of certain truths about God. To know God is life eternal (17:3). The knowledge of God that the Word brings is not merely information. It is life. The Word is creative. The other is that of thinking of the Word as nothing more than an attribute or even an activity of God. John thinks of the Word as coming down to earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth (v. 14). At the same time he partakes of the innermost being of God, for “the Word of God.” (Comment on v. 1, pp. 66-67)
Morris’ commentary on the entire chapter is excellent.
2:
Next, I used the standard translation “with God.” In context, this translation expresses the relationship of the preincarnate Word and God. And so the English preposition “with” does not do full justice to the Greek preposition in this context, but I decided to go traditional.
Here is Paul’s early statement on Jesus being the Creator and “tucked” inside or included in the Godhead:
… yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live. (2 Cor. 8:6, NIV)
That verse, reflecting an early doctrine in the church, is very high Christology.
See Phil. 2:6-11, quoted under v.14. Or click on this link:
4. Do I Really Know Jesus? He Took the Form of a Servant
Since vv. 1-3 are the strongest statement on the Trinity, let’s discuss this wonderful doctrine, only briefly in area of systematic theology.
The Father, the Son, and the Spirit share the same “Godness” or divine nature. That’s why we can call ourselves monotheists, but we are trinitarian monotheists. Picture a triangle of equal sides within a circle. The circle is one God or monotheism. The three sides of the triangle are the three persons of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Inserting a triangle in a circle is not a contradiction.
However, it is also clear from Scripture that during the incarnation the Son is submissive to the Father. Philippians 2:6: Jesus did not regard equality with God as something to hold on to, but he surrendered the environment of heaven and took the form of a servant.
Boiled down:
Function or role: the Father is over the Son during the Son’s incarnation and redemptive plan
In their essence or essential nature: Father and Son are equal.
Verses 1-3 manage to say the Father and Son are equal in essence but different in persons.
The Trinity: What Are the Basics?
The Trinity: What Are Some Illustrations?
The Trinity: Why Would God Seem So Complicated?
The Trinity: What Does He Mean to Me?
In v. 14, in another post, we will look at the Son’s incarnation. Here is the verse, which will be explained at that time:
14 The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we saw his glory, the glory as the only Begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
“And the Word was God”: For Colwell’s rule, go here and scroll down to the fourth point.
The Trinity: What Do Arians and Jehovah’s Witnesses Teach?
3:
We are about to learn in v. 14 that Jesus is the Word who was with God at the beginning. When God created the entire universe, the Word was already there, before time and space were created out of nothing. In fact, it is through the Word that every little thing came into being or was made. There was never a time when the Word (the Son) did not exist. He was eternal.
4-5:
“life”: this is more than mere existence. This is life of the next age, that age, which has broken into this age or right now. The next age has broken into this age and given us new life. It is eternal life right now.
Let’s look at life by the book—by BDAG, a prominent Greek lexicon of the NT.
It is the noun zoē (pronounced zoh-ay, and girls are named after it, e.g. Zoey). BDAG says that it has two senses, depending on the context: a physical life (e.g. life and breath) and a transcendent life. By physical life the editors mean the period from birth to death, human activity, a way or manner of living, a period of usefulness, earning a living. By transcendent life the lexicographers mean these four elements: first, God himself is life and offers us everlasting life. Second, Christ is life, who received life from God, and now we can receive life from Christ. Third, it is new life of holiness and righteousness and grace. God’s life filling us through Christ changes our behavior. Fourth, zoē means life in the age to come, or eschatological life. So our new life now will continue into the next age, which God fully and finally ushers in when Christ returns. We will never experience mere existence or death, but we will be fully and eternally alive in God.
Clearly, John means the fourth definition.
In his comment on v. 4 Bruce writes: “In John 5:19-29, it is because the Son shares his self-existent life with the Father that he is able to impart life to others; so here the statement refers to a life-giving agency on the part of the Word. (The relation God / Word in the prologue [vv. 1-18] corresponds to the relation Father / Son in the discourses of the Gospel.” The life of the Word is especially important for one part of his creation—the human race.
Recall that Gen. 1:2 says that God called light into being when darkness was on the face of the deep. Jesus is the highest and best light when we were covered in darkness in our own lives (Bruce, comment on v. 5).
Darkness is not only the absence of light, but positive evil (cf. 3:19; 8:12; 12:35, 46; 1 Jn. 1:5, 6; 2:8, 9, 11).
My translation “put it out” in v. 5 is an option offered by the Shorter Lexicon, Other translations: “grasp, comprehend and overcome, put out, master” … or “seize with hostile intent, overtake, come upon” (Shorter Lexicon).
To conclude ….
John is about to depict Jesus, the light, in constant conflict and misunderstanding with people dwelling in darkness. Jesus came out victorious, so the light was not extinguished or snuffed out, as one blows out a first-century lamp, even though the Son had to go through the cross. With such powerful opening verses revealing the heavenly origins of Jesus, there was no way that the Father would allow his Son is be defeated and finally and utterly. To this day, he still shines. “Light and darkness are to be understood ethically rather than metaphysically: ‘light’ is a synonym of good ness and truth, while ‘darkness’ is a synonym of evil and falsehood” (Bruce, comment on v. 5). Metaphysically means some high-level philosophy. In contrast, the Scriptures are interested in the light changing people’s lives so that their behavior will change.
Grow App for John 1:1-5
1.. Who is Jesus in those five verses? Write down the descriptors (e.g. the Word).
2. How does one or two descriptors apply to your life?
3. Has the enemy—Satan—tried to extinguish the light shining by the Son of God in your life? How have you come out victorious? Tell your story.
RELATED
14. Similarities among John’s Gospel and the Synoptic Gospels
12. Eyewitness Testimony in John’s Gospel
4. Church Fathers and John’s Gospel
3. Archaeology and John’s Gospel
SOURCES
For the bibliography, click on this link and scroll down to the very bottom:
Dr. Jim's Essential Bible Teaching 