John 1: 1-18 Life, Light and Logos
The prologue of John’s Gospel offers a transition from the old to the new, from the former times under the leadership of Moses, the lawgiver, and the age of the prophets to the one whom the law and prophets saw. The Prologue draws themes together that are amplified in the Gospel itself. In the beginning…God created…in the beginning was the Word…Genesis 1:1 the origin of all that is attributes being to God. God is creative. God creates human beings in God’s image. God speaks and all that is comes into being. John’s Gospel places the new creation in parallel with the creation of the world. Let there be light, said God (Gen 1:3) and the Logos declared, “I am the light” (John 8:12; 9:5). God said, “Let the waters and the earth bring forth living creatures” (Gen 1;21, 24) and the logos said, “I am…the life” (John 11;25). God said, “Let us make man in our image, male and female, sons and daughters of God, begotten after our image and likeness” (Gen 1:26, 27). The Logos said, “I give you the right to be children of God; begotten not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man – but born of God” (John 1:12, 13). The new creation unfolds in the person of Jesus. To know Jesus as Messiah and Lord is to be “born again” (John 3;7). The purpose of Jesus’ life is that “you may have life” (John 10:10).
The Old Testament prophets look for one anointed by God’s spirit, with wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord (Isa 11:2). A bruised reed he will not break (Isa 42:3). They speak of the marriage feast, a day on which the Lord will betroth his Israel to himself in faithfulness; the day on which the Lord will rejoice over his people as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride; a covenant of everlasting love. John the Baptist in the tradition of the prophets declares: the bridegroom has come for his bride (John 3;29). John’s Gospel maps out how Jesus fulfills the other prophetic motifs: the eyes of the blind are opened (Jn 9 – Isa 35:5), the lame man leaps as a hart (John 5: Isa 35:6), the dead are raised (Jn 11//Isa 25;19); the king comes riding on a donkey (Jn 12// Zech 9:9). When John the Baptist asks, if Jesus is the one or should they wait for another, the answer is go and tell John what you see and hear: the bind see, the lame walk, the dead are raised.
The prologue is at one level an abstract of the Gospel as I have tried to show. It is also a poetic summary of the revelation of God in Christ. Through the hermeneutic lens of Christology, the Logos, the Word of God, which spoke in creation, is God. The Gospels of Matthew and Luke offer a birth narrative, asserting that Jesus is the anticipated Messiah in the lineage of David. While Matthew seeks to prove that Jesus is the Messiah fulfilling the Old Testament prophets, and Luke intends to assure readers that God has not forsaken the first people for the salvation of the Gentiles, John begins with creation, asserting that it was the intent of God to redeem humanity for fellowship with God from the beginning of creation.
John declares a new creation through the Logos. The one who is no creature, who was in the beginning when the Word spoke all that is into being, is the same One who became creature so that we might be lifted into the sphere of the divine. The movement of the prologue is from above to us and backs above to God. The Logos is the incarnate One who creates life for the lifeless and brings light for all who dwell in darkness. The new creation dawns in Jesus the Christ. The eschatological order has penetrated from above to below.
The life, which the Logos brings, is joyous (2:10), regenerative (3:3), refreshingly transforming (4:29), eye-opening (9:30), nourishing (21:15-17). The light of the Logos is a revealer of truth (3:21), cosmic (8:12), directive (11;9), generative (12;35), and the dispeller of darkness (12;46).
The Logos transforms the created order and transforms the history of redemption. We move from the cosmic to the redemptive-historical arena. The Logos came to his own (v 11) as son (v12), dwelling with us (v 14) as law (v 17), parallel to Moses (v 17). The one who in the fullness of history brings redemption is the one who was in the beginning. This Word is not begotten of flesh or through the Law of Moses but through grace and truth: God with us.
The prologue takes us to the mountaintop and allows us to see the fulfilled promise of God. We see the Promised Land, the land of redemption, filiation, where the everlasting Son assures us that we belong to the everlasting Father. We stand above the created order with the vantage point of surveying the cosmos. We have heard form the Godhead itself beholding the glory of the uncreated one – Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. We gaze upon the mystery that surpasses all logic and human analogy. The One is equal with God and distinct from the Father and distinct from the creature. In the words of Athanasius: “The Son of God became man that we may become sons of God.” The Logos-Theos with Anthropos is to seal the mystical union of humanity with God.
The glory that Moses saw and the Prophets of Old longed to see is revealed to us. We behold his Glory, the glory of the only Son, begotten of the Father, light from light, very God of very God. You no doubt recognize phrases from the Nicene Creed in the Prologue of John’s Gospel. It is clear that in the development of Christology (the two natures of Jesus, divine and human) that the Fourth Gospel presents a “high” Christology. As the early church hammered out its dogma, the salvific work of God in and through Jesus the Christ was inherent in the Word made flesh, God with us, God in human form, two natures both divine and human. By taking on the nature of humanity, God lifted it into the Godhead with the resurrection and ascension of the Son. Rejoining the Father and Spirit, the three are one in being. The purpose of God’s plan of salvation is to redeem us from sin by an act of pure love. That gift we receive by grace, as unmerited favor. We cannot earn our divine inheritance; it is a gift. We can receive it with faith and thankful hearts.
John’s community is in conflict with Jewish counterparts, as were those of the Markan, Matthean, and Lukan communities. Each of the synoptic gospels presents Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of the Father, the redeemer of the world. The early Christian Church experienced conflict with Jewish congregants over the divine nature of Jesus, which seemed to teach two Gods, Father and Son, going against the strict monotheism of the Torah. Christology is the synthesis by which Jesus being both divine and human is God but distinct from the Father as he is the Son. When the further synthesis of Father, Son, and Spirit was brought to unity in the doctrine of the Trinity, the one God in three persons provided a consistent monotheistic understanding of God.
The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of light and truth. The word in the form of a person is more revealing than the word spoken to Moses or the Prophets. The word in flesh is more powerful than the written word of Torah. John’s Gospel attempts to show beginning with the prologue that all the traditions and scriptures of the Jews and Christians are one and the same, and directing us to see in Christ the promise of God. John is written that you might believe.
As we come to see and believe that Jesus is the Son of God, the Word of God, co-existent with the Father, we also can accept the offer of being adopted children of God. Jesus is from above. Jesus did not set his values and actions according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Jesus is not against life as a human but points to a better way of being and becoming than the acceptable and easy, or comfortable, ways of the world (from below). Jesus did not act out of the will of man but by the will of God. Communal values are demonstrated in how Jesus welcomes the Samaritan woman, Mary and Martha and Mary Magdalene, the way he called disciples friends. Jesus in John’s Gospel is not hierarchical or patriarchal. A disciple is one who receives the gift of the spirit. Regardless of social location, the gift of the spirit qualifies us to do the will of God. The Logos is on the move, not bound up in a human-made system of law, cult and authority, but free to come among us as one of us. Being adopted sons and daughters, believing in Christ, we receive light and life. Gifted by the Spirit, we ought to alert to the movement of the logos NOW.
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