In the Beginning

Introduction

We embark upon a series that will include a study of John’s Prologue or introduction to the gospel and eventually a study of Jesus’ discussion with Nicodemus in John 3.

Our purpose is to “review the basics” so that we have clarity in a time of growing chaos and confusion.

All four gospels were written to remind people who were already believers of the evidence that Jesus is both God and Christ.

We can easily relate to the creeping doubts of the early churches:

Disillusionment or doubt because Jesus had not yet returned.

Unexpected threat of persecution or tribulation.

Unexpected threat of death for association with Jesus.

Influence of false teachers and their false doctrines.

Every two years Lifeway conducts a survey titled “The State of Theology.”

2020 - 30% of evangelicals agreed with this statement: “Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.”

2022 - 43% agreed with that same statement.

At a personal level, we could ask these questions:

What is the faith?

Why do we believe in Jesus? (What does that mean?)

Why do we worship Jesus?

Why did Jesus come into the world?

Who is Jesus? Who is God?

Background:

The Apostle John wrote his gospel between 80-90 AD.

He most likely wrote from Ephesus for an Ephesian audience.

The arguments of the work are tight, the style and language succinct, yet the concepts expressed are profound.

John and others had witnessed the actions and heard the teaching of Jesus. He uses that first-hand knowledge to prove that Jesus is God (see John 20:30-31).

The Word Was

John introduces the Logos with intentional echoes of Genesis 1.

Ἐν ἀρχῇ can only be understood from a human perspective. Only we are bound by time.

As we proceed through the introduction, we will see the importance of the distinction between “was” and “became.”

These small words carry profound differences of meaning in the Prologue.

John’s point of emphasis, here, is not on the beginning itself.

That is reserved for John 1:3.

Instead, he makes the startling claim that ὁ λόγος existed before there was a beginning.

The ὁ λόγος “was”. It did not “come to be.”

ὁ λόγος was not a created being.

ὁ λόγος most likely is designed to appeal both to a Greek speaking and Jewish thinking audience.

To Greeks, this term denoted more than the hearing of a word or the expression of it, instead it indicated something rationed or reasoned out and then expressed. Thus, it would be the underlying thought and/or meaning and from there even the cause that makes knowledge and understanding possible.

In Hebrew thought, to grasp the “DaBaR” of a thing is to grasp the thing itself. It becomes clear and transparent; its nature is brought to light.

ὁ λόγος is that which makes possible the understanding of the nature of God.

God is knowable!

Notice also Psalm 33:6 in addition to Genesis 1.

The Word was With God

This remains governed by “in the beginning.”

ὁ λόγος did not merely exist.

ὁ λόγος was with God.

This implies more than location.

It explains that they had a close, face-to-face association with one another (or that the Logos had this with God).

It also implies they were two distinct entities.

The Word was God

Notice what happens to the word order in the last this triad.

They coexisted according to the first claim, but while they are two distinct entities, there is no difference between them in their essence, their character and nature.

God cannot be grasped apart from ὁ λόγος. Yet, to understand ὁ λόγος is to grapple with the person of God.

Heb. 1:1-3.

Part 2 Introduction

God desires to be known, and He is knowable.

We must follow John closely to see where he differentiates “was” from “came to be” especially in regard to the Logos.

In the first “Logos” section, as the narrative progresses, John uses different terms for the Logos.

In the Logos was life.

The Life was the the Light of humans.

Like the Logos, the Light is a person. John is very clear that these are not abstractions (see 1 John 1:1-2).

John 1:6-10.

So the Logos is not a principle of order that holds the universe together (Stoicism). The Logos is God. It is a He. So with light.

John 1:12 signals the beginning of the second Logos section.

All Things Came to be through Him.

“Came to be” is an important term used nine times in the Prologue.

Jn 1:3.

Jn. 1:6.

Jn. 1:10.

Jn. 1:12.

Jn. 1:14.

Jn. 1:15.

Jn. 1:17.

“Panta” here refers to the entirety of the universe or the creation.

Note the totality of John’s statement.

He makes a clear distinction between the Word and the physical creation.

ὁ λόγος was.

Panta came to be through ὁ λόγος.

Genesis 1:2, Ps. 33:6: John claims ὁ λόγος is a person not the utterance alone which God voiced in the act of creation.

Life was in Him

ὁ λόγος is the original possessor and, thus, giver of life.

Life begets life.

Abiogenesis: you cannot get life from not life (James Tour, Rice University).

John quickly shifts to a second claim, namely, that the life (now seemingly personified) was “the light of human beings.”

At a minimum light designates life itself, here.

John may also mean the following here (esp. in light of Jn. 1:9):

Man knows his life did not just happen. Humans have knowledge of the source and character of human life.

Light may also suggest humanity’s understanding of moral goodness as opposed to evil. (see Jn. 3:19-21).

Is it used in this way in Ps. 36:9?

The Light Shines in Darkness

This brief section will now conclude with a historical statement about “the Light.”

The light “is shining” in “the darkness.”

The darkness seems to refer to the moral evil imposed upon the creation by the fall of mankind.

The fall did not eradicate man’s knowledge of the origin of his existence or the character of the one who brought it about (see Romans 1).

When the light came to be in the world, he continued to expose to human beings their sinfulness as opposed to the nature of God.

The light was not overtaken by the darkness.

The darkness, in the majority, did not receive the light either. Rejection continued.