Series on the Gospel of John

Jesus and His Glory!

John 1:1–18 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John testifies concerning him. He cries out, saying, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ ” From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.”

In a radio address, C. S. Lewis illustrated the incarnation and Jesus’s sacrifice for us this way: “Lying at your feet is your dog. Imagine, for the moment, that your dog and every dog is in deep distress. Some of us love dogs very much. If it would help all the dogs in the world to become like men, would you be willing to become a dog? Would you put down your human nature, leave your loved ones, your job, hobbies, your art and literature and music, and choose instead of the intimate communion with your beloved, the poor substitute of looking into the beloved’s face and wagging your tail, unable to smile or speak? Christ by becoming man limited the thing which to Him was the most precious thing in the world; his unhampered, unhindered communion with the Father” (C. S. Lewis, introduction to On the Incarnation, by Athanasius the Great of Alexandria, trans. John Behr, Popular Patristics 44B [Yonkers, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2011], 14).

John 1:1-18 is called a PROLOGUE - A word that describes a summary of of the key teaching regarding Jesus both in terms of His Person and Work.

Leon Morris writes, “These verses bring before us some of the great thoughts that will be developed as the narrative unfolds.” For as D.A. Carson points out, “The Prologue is a foyer to the rest of the Fourth Gospel…simultaneously drawing the reader in and introducing the major themes.” And to call upon Donald Guthrie, he regards the prologue as “essentially introductory, giving some flashes of insight into the kind of person to be introduced in the following narrative.” Thus, the Logos doctrine “raises an expectation that the presentation of Jesus will be of a person who is both God and man.”

So John’s Gospel addresses some key questions about Jesus!

"Who is Jesus?" Where did he come from? What does His remarkable manifestation and life teach us about God, about ourselves and about the way of salvation?

John is desperate for us to discover the answer to these and many more questions about Jesus that we may have for his overall intention is stated in John 20:30–31 “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

That’s a great intention and it plays into John’s desire to show us JESUS AND HIS GLORY!:

In his gospel, “glory”(Grk: 𝑑𝑜𝑥𝑎) refers to the manifest presence and honour of God which is revealed in Jesus Christ’s life, death and resurrection.

It is not for John, about earthly fame as he will present a Jesus whose “kingdom is not of this world”(John 18:36) and who refused to be made “king by force”(John 6:15). Instead he presents a Jesus who is glorified through His life, suffering, death and resurrection and talked of this as necessary in bringing the Father, “glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.”(John 17:3-5).

And this GLORY is something that believers share in as they glorify God through their action: such as in bearing much fruit, which brings glory to the Father, through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit,eand when they will finally be glorified in God's eternal kingdom. ‘“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.”(John 17:24).

So, let us consider JESUS AND HIS GLORY as He is revealed to us in these opening verses of John’s Gospel by considering the fact that:

I. He Existed Before He was Born! - John 1:1-5

JESUS IS THE WORD OF GOD!

John introduces Jesus in a remarkable way: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning"(1v1,2).

“The Word" here translated is the Greek word, logos, (c/f logical = reasoning. “Logic is an expression of the mind of God” - William Lane Craig). and its meaning is essentially the same as in English, namely, (i). A word is an audible or spoken, expression of a thought - Nobody really knows what you are thinking unless you express it in words. (ii), A word expresses thoughts which otherwise would be incommunicable until they are put into words.

To illustrate, in order for you to know what is going on in my mind, I would need to communicate something to you! The only way I can convey to you the thoughts of my mind, and the only medium I have at the moment, are words. You are listening to what I am trying to say, and in a sense you are therefore thinking my thoughts because my words shape and form the meaning of them.

This is what John means here, when he tells us that Jesus was "the Word". He came among us to express what was going on in the mind of God. He told us the thoughts of God.

There are a number of occasions when the Scripture asks. "Who has known the mind of the Lord?" The answer it gives is, “no one.”! Nobody knows what God thinks until He tells us. And this is especially problematic when it comes to thinking God’s thoughts because He says, “My ways are not your ways, says the Lord, neither are my thoughts are your thoughts”(Isa 55:8-9).

Jesus makes known to us the mind of God. He reveals God’s thoughts to us! He unveils to us what Paul calls "the manifold wisdom of God." (Eph 3v10)

And this is so exciting because it shows us that God is really keen to speak to us; to communicate with us!

Jesus came to unfold that to us and convey it in words that we cannot mistake “The entire Gospel focuses on "the Word" - God's expression to men, God's explicator..Jesus, as the Word came to explain God to men" (ibid. p. XV)

JESUS IS THE WORD! - He is the Great Revealer of God.

But more, He claims to be the definitive and final Word from God. "In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe"(Heb 1v1).

And even more importantly for us to grasp. There is to be no other revelation that gives is full and final explanation about the way of eternal salvation, other than that revealed in Jesus: Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved."(Acts 4v12)

2. JESUS, THE WORD PREEXISTED WITH GOD AND AS GOD!

John sets out the mystery of Jesus' divine nature as the Word who was with God and was God, recalling the opening words of Genesis 1 and highlighting Jesus’ role in creation.

John takes us back to the realm of pre-creation and existence, in the world of cosmology, outside of time.

In the beginning was the Word - It is a firm statement of the eternal nature of the word. Before Jesus of Nazareth was born, He existed as the word of God! (see Prov.8:20-23).

John says, “and THE WORD was with God and THE WORD was God”.

This describes the active relationship of fellowship and communion with God before the world began; indeed before time began, in the Eternal Now! John says something similar elsewhere in 1 John 1:2 “The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.” (c/f Proverbs 8:22 for the idea of Wisdom/Logos being “with God”).

For John, the Logos is not simply a mode of God’s appearing, He is God as truly as God with whom he exists in the closest union of being and life. And as a Monotheistic Jew he knew full well the mind-blowing and earth shattering nature of this claim but in revealing THE GLORY OF JESUS in this Gospel! Take one example of this in John 8 when Jesus in dispute with the Jewish leaders about who were the true children of God, pointed out that in rejecting Him, they were rejecting God Himself for he says, “Your Father Abraham rejoiced at seeing my day, he saw it and was glad” and they reacted by saying, “You are not yet fifty years old and you have seen Abraham!” to which Jesus replied in John 8:58, “Before Abraham was, I am.”

What a claim! I Jesus exist in the timeless present! I am the I AM of Exodus 3 and listen to how they reacted, “At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.”(John 8:59). They knew exactly what he was claiming in His teaching and preaching, as John tells us in John 10:32–33 “but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?” “We are not stoning you for any of these,” replied the Jews, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”

John is going to prove this claim again and again. It will shape all that he tells us about Jesus and it will culminate in John 20:28 when, “Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”” An act of worship that Jesus fully accepted as being both true and worthy of any disciple.

We have not fully comprehended the GLORY OF JESUS unless and until, like Thomas we fall down and worship Jesus with the same words! “My Lord and my God!”

Jesus is fully God and therefore there is plurality in the Unity of God. In eternity, the Word was both "with God" and yet "was God" at one and the same time! So in God there are distinct Persons, whom John describes under the title "Son"(v14) and "Father"(v18). (He does not yet introduce to us the third Person in God, namely the Spirit(see on chs 14-16). The distinction is made to show us that though the Word is God, the Son is not the Father. When Jesus was on earth, He prayed to His Father in Heaven. He was not speaking to Himself!

3. JESUS, THE WORD PREEXISTED WITH GOD AS GOD AND IS THE CREATOR OF EVERYTHING THAT EXISTS!

“Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.”

This expresses the relation of THE WORD to creation. In the work of creation, everything owes its existence to him.

All realms of creation were made through him. “When Scripture speaks of creation, once again it speaks of the Father creating through the Son, indicating a relationship prior to when creation began (see John 1:3; 1 Cor. 8:6; Heb. 1:2; also Prov. 8:22–31). - Wayne Grudem

The idea that Jesus was involved in creation is also found in Paul’s letter to the Colossians 1:15–17 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.”

Life is given to us by the instrumentality of Jesus, the mediator of creation, and that life which is conscious and rational is so because we are made to be different from all other creatures in the animal Kingdom!

This is a needful reminder for Modern Man who thinks of himself as a biological accident or a advanced animal rathe than a direct and unique creation of Almighty God: “Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, `We are his offspring.' Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone-- an image made by man's design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent"(Acts 17v22-30)

II. He is Light in the Darkness! - John 1:5-13

John introduces us to one of his big themes, that of light to demonstrate how God shines light into this world’s darkness in various ways, through various means BUT although: “The light shines in the darkness…the darkness has not understood it.”

In him was life, and that life was the light of men.”

Light and life are essential elements in the Old Testament creation accounts - God said, “Let there be light and there was light”! And that light became a life giving source!

This links THE WORD, Jesus to the world of men. As he was Giver of life and existence to all creation, so He is the giver of life and light to men. (cf. Psalm 36:9 “For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.” ).

'Life' and 'Light' are two very characteristic Johannine words. Jesus, claims that he is the Life (John 11:25, 14:6) and the Light of the World (John 8:22, 9:5, cf. 12:46).

Jesus shows himself by his miracles and resurrection to be the “the way, the truth and the life”(John 14:6) and He declares Himself to be “the Light of the World,”(John 8:12)

“The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it”

This is cast in the form of THE WORD's relationship to the world of men, but now it shifts from the positive impact upon the created order to the world of men as viewed in its sinful and fallen condition, represented by “darkness' which in John means primarily the world estranged from God.

Darkness stands in opposition to light but light will always permeate and remove the darkness in time which is what John can confidently state that “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it”(John 1:5) which has been translated as “comprehended” ' or even 'to accept’ or “welcomed’ it.

Darkness represents spiritual ignorance and sinful rebellion and the biggest challenge confronted by believers facing the darkness is that “men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.”(John 3:19)

Notwithstanding mankind's rebellion, the Light has continued to shine and as R.E. Brown renders it, " ... the Light shines on ..."The divine Logos has continually asserted his presence in his creation. “

“There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John.”

One way in which the light continued to shine in the darkness was through John the Baptist - There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.”

The beginning of the new, decisive, redemptive intervention of the Light is seen by John in the sending and witness of John the Baptist.

John is "sent from God" as a divinely commissioned witness to the Logos. He is the fulfilment of Isaiah 40:3 in John 1:23, and also this connects him to Malachi 3:1 ““See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the Lord Almighty.”

But John makes it clear that John the Baptist was not the “true light” simply a witness to it! A preparer of the way for “The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world”

Even more importantly, however, John bears witness to the pre-existence of Jesus ("he was before me") in contrast to the other Gospels which record John the Baptist’s words, focusing on his identification of Jesus as "the one who comes after me."

It is of significance that John only ever uses the expression "coming into the world" of Jesus. (Cf. John 3:19, 12:46).

For the rest of men, their origins are in the world and this was an idea vital to grasping the true reality of Jesus - John 8:23 “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.”

In John 3:13 “No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man.”

Jesus has come from God and will return back to God, glorified in His presence(John 17:1-5) and He has come to provide the spiritual nourishment that people need to live forever as “the Bread of God … who comes down from heaven.". see also John 6:41, 51,62, 8:23, 13:3, 16:27-28, 17:5.

It is the darkness within our own souls that prevent us, and has always prevented mankind, from recognising Him! - He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.

John is telling us that there was a time before the incarnation when Jesus was present. This is indicated by the use of “was”, which echoes that of John 1:4 and John 1:9. The incarnation is only announced in John 1:14 and then as a new event.

Again and again he came to his own people - whether Israel or the World He made - a spiritual coming of the Logos to the world of human darkness before the incarnation BUT “his own did not receive him.”

However verses 12-13 show us the exceptions to the general rejection of the WORD.

Those godly men of faith who did 'receive him', 'those believing in his name'. To these, his gift was authority to become “children of God”.

And v13 provides us with an explanation of their acceptance of the Logos. It is because they are born of God (cf. 3:5,7).

Men are not by nature children of God - e.g. by virtue of an indwelling (spermatikos logos). Only by receiving Christ, believing in his name, do they gain right to become children of God. (cf. John 17:2,John 17:6 ““I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word.”

While John assumes the factual reality of his statements, his point is not to prove facticity but to deal with the acceptance or rejection of Jesus as the turning point of history (the focus of John 1:1–18).

Gerald L. Borchert

What a pitiful commentary on the world this is! The One who was the instrument of Creation was rejected by his own creatures (John 1:10,11). Mankind was so engrossed in darkness that the Light was misunderstood, unrecognised and rejected.

The only people who need to be told that the sun is shining are blind people. But even blind people can feel the heat. For a blind person to deny the sun is shining, even when they feel the heat is to be wilfully blind. For John the blindness of those who saw Jesus was a wilful blindness: "Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves" (Joh 14:11). “If I had not done among them what no-one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my Father"(Joh 15:24).

John has a verdict for such people: “This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed"(Jn 3v19,20).

III. He is Full of Grace and Truth!

John 1:14-18

At the decisive moment when mankind in its darkness is continually rejecting the light, Jesus comes - “the word became flesh and dwelt for a while among us” (An alusion to the Tabernacle or Tent of Meeting in the Wilderness).

I want us to appreciate the profound love that compelled Christ to take on human form and the call to embody His grace and truth in our interactions with others. As Loisy put it, "Incarnation for John is really epiphany."

It is captured in our Carols, like this one:

“O holy night, the stars are brightly shining; it is the night of the dear Saviour’s birth. Long lay the world in sin and error pining, till He appeared and the soul felt its worth. A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn! Fall on your knees! O hear the angel voices! O night divine! O night when Christ was born!

In the Gospel of Luke, we see angels announcing the birth of Jesus to shepherds, the least likely recipients of such news, little wonder that they fall on their knees in worship.

This highlights the heart of the incarnation - God choosing to reveal Himself to the poor and marginalised, showing us that His love knows no boundaries.

He came for us all, meeting us in our lowly state, and rasing us up to give us a new status as “children of God” 2 Corinthians 8:9 “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.”

And yet we see Him now, not as a helpless babe in the manger but in the words of John 1:14 - 'The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

When John declares that "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us", he bears witness to a real incarnation of the Word of God. The term 'flesh' denotes here human nature as distinct from God but nevertheless it was REAL FLESH, He was fully man as well as fully God!

It could be arguably more accurately translated as "And the Word - as flesh - came upon the (human) scene". This does justice to the context and depicts the newness of the event indicated by the introductory! (see note 1&2).

His coming introduced a new and final era into the world of mankind. A glorious intervention, again captured in our carols such as the lyrics of Hark the Herald Angels Sing:

“Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace! Hail the Sun of Righteousness! Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings. Mild he lays his glory by, born that we no more may die, born to raise us from the earth, born to give us second birth.”

Hark the Herald, Angels sing!

Glory to the new born King!”

So John says, "we beheld his glory" -

John's emphasis is on the revelation of the glory which has taken place in Jesus, rather than merely focusing on the humanity of Jesus.

This Jesus who has come down from Heaven and invader our world to bring life and light; hope and salvation is King of kings and Lord of lords and as we fall down and worship Him, declaring Him to be “my Lord and my God” then “From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”(v15-16) (see Note 3 & 4)

JESUS AND HIS GLORY!

In 2 Corinthians 4:6, the Apostle Paul tells us why he gets so excited every time he preaches the gospel of God: “For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.”(2 Corinthians 4:5-7).

He had discovered Jesus and he was thankful that that invisible God has revealed himself to us men and women in the person of Jesus as John describes in John 1:18 “No one has ever seen God, but God the one and only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.”

This final verse serves both as the conclusion to the Prologue and as an introduction to the remainder of the Gospel: Jesus’ task as the incarnate Son is to make God known (Gr. exegesthai- exegete)

Jesus alone can perfectly explain the Father in a a greater and fuller way than even the great and blessed Abraham and Moses (Exod 32:18) for they only heard Him and saw Him in shadows, but Jesus has unique insight John 6:46 “No one has seen the Father except the one who is from God; only he has seen the Father.” Jesus has seen God (John 5:37)..

He is unique in this respect as the NIV translation of this phrase, "God the One and Only, - monogenes - who is at the Father’s side, has made him known," reinforces the total identification of Jesus and God in John1:1. It speaks of His uniqueness - 'God the Unque One' - who has made God known. Jesus is One of a Kind(see Hebrews 1). He is eis ton kolpon tou patros (NRSV "close to the Father’s heart").

And this is why, when Jesus spoke about going to the Father’s House in chapter 14 and being asked by Philip, “show us the Father and that will be enough for us”, Jesus replied “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”(John 14:9-14).

We have said that people did not recognise or understand or were prepared to accept, the Word.

But, thank God, we also read here of some who recognised, understood and accepted Him as ”the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth".

How did this come about? What is the explanation for this? They have been born of God. It has been revealed to them by God: “No-one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known"(Jn 1v18).

They have received salvation not as a result of "natural descent" - they were not entitled to it as an inheritance. It was not in their bloodline! Not by a "human decision" - they did not come to a point of decision after close and careful investigation. And not as a result of a "husband's will - they were not made Christians by virtue of natural birth!

John will make it clear through the teaching of Jesus that salvation is not a work of man but a work of God as Jesus made clear to Nicodemus: "Rabbi, we know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no-one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him. In reply Jesus declared, "I tell you the truth, no-one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!" Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no-one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, `You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."(John 3v2-8).

Conclusion & Application:

As we end our study of these opening verses in John’s Gospel, I want to ask you whether this summary of John's most profound convictions about our Lord Jesus Christ is an expression of your own faith?

Is Jesus your “Lord and God”? The God Man who communicates God’s truth to us perfectly and became man in order to reveal to us God's way of salvation. A way of escape from the life of darkness; ignorance and alienation caused by sin

Have you discovered the central fact of Christian faith that Christianity is not a philosophy; it is about a Person, Jesus, and to take Jesus out of Christianity would be like taking numbers out of mathematics, or like taking doctors out of medicine, or Lawyers out of law courts. You cannot have Christianity without Jesus! He is the Word! The revealer of God and God's way of life to us!

God's desire is to be known by people!

He desired that so much that He did not wait for men and women to move toward Him, He moves toward them in Jesus!

Through Jesus we can know God, personally, experimentally, and to know God is to know "eternal life": “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent"(Jn 17v4).

*************************************************************************** Notes:

J.D.G. Dunn ("Unity and Diversity in the New Testament", pp.296ff.) considers that it is not possible to weaken the force of John 1:14a, as is done by Kasemann, to the statement simply of a divine appearance among men. "The ancient world was quite familiar with that idea, and could express it in various ways. John chooses none of them. Instead he affirms simply and pointedly, 'The Word became flesh' - not 'appeared as' or 'came down into', but 'became' - a confession which (as Schnackenburg puts it) 'can only be understood as a protest against all other religions of redemption in Hellenism and Gnosticism'. Nor is it possible to weaken the force of :14a by referring to the divine glory visible in and through the incarnate Word, for the noun is deliberately chosen too - that which the Word became was 'flesh'; and for John 'flesh' signifies human nature in absolute contrast and antithesis to God (1:13, 3:6, 663, 8:15)." Dunn draws attention to the central importance of Jesus' death in John's theology, and observes that Kasemann seriously misinterprets the Fourth Gospel in saying that "apart from a few remarks that point ahead to it, the passion comes into view in John only at the very end". John, in fact, continually points forward toward the climax of Jesus' death, resurrection and ascension in his references to 'the hour', 'the lifting up' and the 'glorification' of Jesus. In particular, Dunn considers that in John 19:34f. there is deliberately anti-docetic polemic intended in the reference to the blood and the water. Dunn concludes from this and his earlier discussion of John 1:14a, "At two points in particular John wished to guard against a docetic interpretation of his Gospel - the very points which Docetism sought to deny - the reality of the eternal Word's becoming flesh, and the reality of his death."

The 'newness' and distinctness of the event described in 1:14 does not lie in the coming, simply, but in the coming 'as flesh'. Kasemann's interpretation of the advent of the Logos in :14a cannot do justice to the 'newness' of the event there described, for the mere drawing near of the Logos in the outward form, though not reality, of a human figure, is not different at all from the pre-incarnate activity of the Logos as John has spoken of it in :5 and 9-13. John’s point here is merely to assert that the Logos and the human Jesus, to whom 'flesh and blood' in reality belongs are two uncontested presuppositions that the Apostle and his associates hold as truth

It seems clear that no denigration of the Mosaic law is intended either in 1:17 or elsewhere in the Gospel; instead, the focus is on the increasingly abundant grace received by the believing community. John does not oppose "the Law" - he speaks without misgivings of "keeping the commandments" (14:15,21, 15:10,12, 1 John 2:3f., 3:4,22,24, 4:21, 5:2f., 2 John 6) or the "new commandment" (John 13:34, 1 John 2:7f.

The double use of the word can imply accumulation and plenitue ("one blessing after another," NIV) or even replacement, with the idea of one reality superceeding another. Here, it seems to refer to gracious blessings which now continue in the revelation of God’s covenant "faithfulness and truth" through Jesus Christ. C.K. Barrett observes, "The glory of God is shown by his acting in faithfulness to his own character, and by his character revealing itself in mercy." Cf. John 17:6.