1. Welcome to Grace –
happy Sunday!
“For there is one God
And one intermediary between God and humanity,
Christ Jesus Himself human,
Who gave Himself as a ransom for all,
Revealing God’s purpose at His appointed time.”
1 Timothy 2:5-6
6. John 1:1-3
“In the
beginning …
Stoics – the rational
principle by which
everything exists
“was the
WORD”
God Word
7. John 1:1-3
“In the
beginning …
Stoics – the rational
principle by which
everything exists
Philo (Gnostics) – ideal
rather than
phenomenal world
“was the
WORD”
God Word
8. John 1:1-3
“In the
beginning …
Stoics – the rational
principle by which
everything exists
Philo (Gnostics) – ideal
rather than
phenomenal world
God Word
Generally – inner
thought, expression,
speech/message
“was the
WORD”
9. John 1:1-3
“In the
beginning …
Stoics – the rational
principle by which
everything exists
Philo (Gnostics) – ideal
rather than
phenomenal world
God Word
Generally – inner
thought, expression,
speech/message
“was the
WORD”
10. John 1:1-3
“In the
beginning …
Stoics – the rational
principle by which
everything exists
John 1:14
“Now the Word
became flesh
and took up
residence
among us.”
Philo (Gnostics) – ideal
rather than
phenomenal world
God Word
Generally – inner
thought, expression,
speech/message
“was the
WORD”
11. John 1:1-3
Co-eternal, v. 1a & 2
“In the
beginning …
“In the beginning was
the Word …
The Word was with God
in the beginning.”
“was the
WORD”
God Word
12. John 1:1-3
Co-eternal, v. 1a & 2
God Consubstantial, v. 1b
Word
“ … the Word
was fully God.”
“In the
beginning …
“was the
WORD”
Creator
13. John 1:1-3
Creator
Co-eternal, v. 1a & 2
God Consubstantial, v. 1b
Word
Co-equal, v. 3
“In the
beginning …
“All things were created by him,
and apart from him not one thing
was created that has been
created.”
“GOD created
the Heavens
and the earth…”
14. John 1:1-3
Creator
Co-eternal, v. 1a & 2
God Consubstantial, v. 1b
Word
Co-equal, v. 3
“In the
beginning …
“God” (the WORD)
created the Heavens
and the earth”
Editor's Notes
The first thing John wants to let us know is that there was a time when there was nothing …
What there is was not, but now is … with one exception.
Every Jewish person, every-one who has had any contact with the OT at all, knows exactly Who was there before and therefore present at the beginning.
Every such person hearing read this letter from John would know from the first verse of the first chapter of Genesis EXACTLY what word will come next …
In the beginning …
The stunning thing is that John sets his hearers up to hear something familiar … but then instead of completing the verse in the way they expect he punches them in the face with something totally unexpected.
“In the beginning was the WORD …”
Who and what is this all about?
“In the beginning was the WORD …”
Who and what is this all about?
The Greek word for beginning often bears the meaning of ‘origin’ … only God therefore could be the originator …
But John doesn’t say God was the originator but that the Word was.
What is this ‘Word’ idea?
In the Hebrew Bible ‘the word’ – dābār – of God is connected with His powerful activity in Creation, revelation and deliverance.
It is (Gen. 1:3) by the Word of the Lord that the Heavens and Earth are made.
Throughout Gen. 1 God speaks the Word and it is done … But here the Word is a person …
So WHO are we talking about?
V. 14 is absolutely explicit.
Don Carson: “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.”
This passage in John’s gospel introduces us to the Jesus that the rest of the gospel is all about.
There are three ‘C’s that classically describe this relationship between the separate but distinct persons in intimate relationship in the Godhead expressed in these three verses …
In the beginning of all creation, the uncreated God was already there … but what John emphasises here is that the Word was in the beginning too.
He is separate from ‘God’, but WITH God … in fellowship but distinct.
When?
At the very first.
They were both before the beginning of time and creation … and not created, either of them, but in very nature eternal (unrestrained by time) God.
This Word, in the beginning, was προς τον Θεον – towards God … two distinct persons were there, before anything else was there, in fellowship with one another.
Of the same ‘stuff’ …
The Word was God.
Θεος ην ‘ο λογος … the structure of the Greek sentence demands that translation.
A long string of writers has argued that the lack of the definite article in this sentence means that the Word was not ‘God’ but ‘a god’, or just ‘divine’ in some sense less than being God.
This won’t do … there are all sorts of complicated grammatical arguments to be had that indicate it won’t do but the most straightforward reason it won’t do is that Greek has a perfectly serviceable word for ‘divine’, and that is NOT the word used here.
More importantly, there are many places in the NT where the predicate noun has no article but is nonetheless specific.
John intends that the rest of his gospel should be read in the light of these words here … the deeds and words of Jesus in John’s Gospel are the deeds and words of God, and if this statement is not true then this book itself is blasphemous.
This is pretty much the POINT that crowns this section … this is what John has been leading up to.
The point is made first positively and then for the avoidance of all possible doubt it gets made negatively …
Firstly, He was there making it all.
Secondly, nothing WAS created that
HAS BEEN created.
Did you get the change of tense there?
The attention moves from the act of creation to the state of creation.
But it does so with emphasis … without Him nothing was by any means made that was made.
It is not just John’s theme, but the NT’s theme, so …
Col. 1:16-17
Heb. 1:2
Rev. 3:14
So, what happens to the Christian faith if the idea of God as Creator is banished from or schools by Government dictat? (It has been).
What comes of the ability of the Creator to call His creation – you and me in it – to call us to account if it is not rightly His by dint of Creation, to do with as He wills? What do we have that we can say to make sense of suffering, the frustration of our plans, the difficult and challenging and unpleasant things of life when His Divine right to do as He sees perfect and fit in His Creation is undermined by the denial of what John tells us here?
Perhaps most seriously of all, if John’s fundamental setting out of His manifesto is flawed because his opening statement about the Creator-hood of God the Son is declared false, then how can we rely on anything he tells us about Jesus and the way of salvation that He offers in this Gospel? Because if THIS is not true, how can we reliably see 1:12 as being true either? “But to all whom have received Him – those who believe in His Name – He has given the right to become God’s children …”
