“Word” -- John 1:1-5, 10-14, 16-18

A while back, a new slang term came into our world. It is a one-word response given to someone who says something we strongly agree with. The slang term is: “Word.”

“Word” in the context of today’s slang means that the speaker has said something the listener believes to be absolutely true. It is the equivalent of the days when a congregation would say, “Amen,” when the preacher said something that struck a chord with the congregation.

Today, we consider the opening passage of the Gospel according to John. In this introduction to John’s account of Jesus, we are told about the Word and the full impact of that Word in our world and in our lives today.

Background

Most Bible scholars agree that the fourth Gospel was written by the apostle John, younger brother of James, the son of Zebedee. John was one of the first disciples to follow Jesus (cf. John 1:35-39).

If we say that Matthew’s account was a demonstration of Jesus as Messiah and King, that Mark’s was written to speak to the action-oriented Romans, and that Luke wrote his as a documentary, then we can consider John’s Gospel as an allegory. While the first three Gospel accounts focused on the historical Jesus, John speaks more to the theological Jesus as seen through the historical person.

In John’s Gospel account, we see the battle between light and darkness, between life and death. John shows Jesus in light of His relationship and identification with God and how the religious leaders of His day rejected Jesus.

John’s purpose for writing his account is found in John 20:31, which says, “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you have life in His name.”

As we consider the opening verses of John’s Gospel, let us keep in mind this truth:

Central Truth: John is inspired to let us know that Jesus and God are one.

John writes to show that:

1. Jesus is a full part of the Godhead (1-5)

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.

A sense of identity is important to us. We cheer for our school because we identify with that school. The same is true of our town, our state, our country, even down to our family. When we are attached to something, we find identity and community.

In writing this opening sentence, John showed Jesus’ identity to all the world. He first showed what makes Jesus unique, and then he told how Jesus affects our world.

In the first verse, John shows three things about Jesus. Before we get to those aspects of Jesus, though, it’s good to look at John’s choice to describe Jesus as the Word. For Jews, the word reflects the revelation of God to us. God created the world by speaking it into existence. God showed Himself and His will to us through the written word. To the Greeks, the Word suggests all that binds their gods to them—a sense of philosophy and higher learning. By calling Jesus “the Word,” John informed his readers that Jesus is the answer to both the Jews and the Greeks who are seeking to find the real God.

In describing Jesus, John pointed out first that Jesus is eternal. Just as God precedes time as mentioned in Genesis 1:1, so Jesus as the Word has always been around. Jesus is eternal.

Jesus is also distinct from God the Father. John’s use of language here suggests that the Word is a companion of equal and close relationship with God. It is as though they are seated facing each other in a closeness of mutual respect and regard.

Third, John showed that Jesus is God. In this statement, Jesus is shown not just to have an equality with God, but that Jesus is One with God. Jesus is a different aspect of God. In verse 2, John showed that the Word is both distinct from and one with God.

Having established who the Word is, John then wrote that the Word brought everything into existence, and that all that exists owes its existence to the Word. There is nothing in all of creation that does not owe its very being to the creative work of Jesus. As Genesis 1 tells us, when God created the world, He spoke it into existence. He used His Word to make it so. Jesus, as the Word, is the Creator and is God.

Not only is Jesus the source and reason for our existence, but He is also the giver of life. Here the life that is written of is the divine life that allows us to have fellowship with the Father. As human beings, we are created in three parts—body, spirit and soul—that are inter-twined. The soul is the source of our emotions and our personality. The spirit is that part of us that is enables our soul to communicate with God. When we sin, the body dies and is cut off from that fellowship. The body is the way through which our soul communicates with the physical world around us. By saying that Jesus is life, John meant that Jesus gave us the ability to commune with God, and that through Jesus we find that ability to commune with God once again.

That’s why the life is the light. Reading further into John’s introduction, we can understand that the light is God’s glory, His presence with us. When God led the people of Israel out of Egypt, He went with them, showing His presence in the pillar of fire and the column of smoke. When the angels spoke to the shepherds, the glory of the Lord turned the midnight into the brightest day. When Paul encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus, it was the glory of God—Jesus’ presence—that outshone the midday sun.

By saying that the light shines in the darkness, but that the darkness has not understood is lets us know that we cannot grasp the significance of Jesus by simply using our own intellect and insight. Fellowship with the Father through the Son comes only by the work of the Holy Spirit as He draws us to the Father through the Son.

Because Jesus is the Word, He is God and He is Creator. He is timeless, He is divine, and He is the greatest and fullest source of God’s revelation to us. He is worthy of worship and of Lordship over us.

2. Jesus allows us to become God’s children (10-14)

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 the children of God—children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision of 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.

When Jesus returned to Nazareth and was invited to read from the scroll at tabernacle, He was met with skepticism from those who had watched Him grow up. According to Luke, they responded to Him favorably but then Jesus told them that no prophet is accepted in home town. As He explained what He meant by that, the favorableness turned to anger. In fact, they drove Him out of town (cf. Luke 4:14-30).

Perhaps John had this in mind when he wrote these verses. Jesus had so much to offer to those who first heard Him, but they rejected Him because He didn’t fit into their expectations. They wanted a Messiah who would lead them out of Roman bondage and re-establish the earthly throne of David. They wanted someone who believed as they did. Instead, they got the Son of God who taught them what it really means to walk in faith and fellowship with God. He came into a world that expected a Superman; instead, they got a child in a manger, a carpenter’s son, an itinerate preacher. He wasn’t flashy, but down-to-earth and accessible. When our minds are already made up, it’s hard to hear and see the truth, even when it’s standing right in front of us. Is it any wonder the world rejected Him, that His own people rejected Him?

Jesus comes into our world—yours and mine—and we, too, have preconceived ideas about what and who He should be. We want a Jesus who accepts us as we are without expecting us to change. That isn’t what Jesus does, though. Yes, He accepts us as we are, but He calls us to live holy lives, to walk in obedience to Him, to show compassion and empathy to those in our world. He calls us to a higher standard, to live according to the Golden Rule.

If we come to Jesus on His terms—by faith and repentance—then we find a wonderful transformation taking place. Paul wrote that when we come to Jesus, He makes us into a new creation (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:17-21), He lets us know the Father and the Son by giving us eternal life (cf. John 17:3). And, perhaps most importantly of all, we are transformed into God’s children. John wrote that this transformation has nothing to do with us—we cannot decide to logically follow Him. It doesn’t come through someone else’s decision—we can’t be born into it or declared it by some legal document or national decree. Instead, we are brought into God’s family through the new birth Jesus told Nicodemus about in John 3.

Having given us this wonderful declaration, John next wrote that this Word that had so far been abstract and an idea was in fact Jesus. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” God intervened in our world, living with us and walking with us, talking and sharing, being one of us.

The dwelling John wrote about is the idea of abiding within a dwelling. He used the same word to describe God’s presence in the tabernacle and the Temple. The glory John writes of is the physical manifestation of God’s presence with us. To say that “we have seen His glory” is to say that we have seen God in Christ.

Jesus was and is full of grace and truth. His grace is seen in His coming into our world for the express purpose of going to Calvary to redeem us from our sins, and to extend forgiveness to all who believe and follow Him. His truth is seen in His message, both in the way He lived and the words He used to teach us.

John later wrote that Jesus promised us that if we love Him and obey Him, then He and the Father will love us and make His home with us—to dwell in us (John 14:23). This is done by the Spirit that lives in us, that gives us God’s presence in us. This is eternal life, and it is all because the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

3. Jesus is the fullest revelation of God (16-18)

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.

The last verse of this prologue brings to conclusion what John has been leading up to. The law that came by God through Moses pointed the people to God and to a life of faith in Him. When the Word became flesh, though, the law was set aside by the grace and truth that comes through Jesus.

It is in v. 17 that John tells us the Word is Jesus Christ. And it is in v. 18 that John tells us that Jesus and God are different aspects of the same person. John rightly says no one has ever seen God. There are those who have seen manifestations of God on earth—Moses at the tent of meeting, Isaiah in worship at the Temple—but God has been made known to us through Jesus. Notice how John describes Jesus in the end of v. 18: “God the One and Only who is at the Father’s side.” Yes, Jesus is God, but Jesus is also different from the Father.

In proclaiming the transcendence of Jesus over Moses and of His equality with the Father, John is telling us that we worship no ordinary savior. We worship God made flesh, God who gave Himself for us on Calvary, God who lives in us through His Holy Spirit. When we realize this truth, then we can say, like John, that we have received one blessing after another.

Conclusion

Christmas is the time we celebrate the birth of Jesus. It is the time we are reminded that peace on earth and goodwill toward men is extended by God to us through His Son. John wants us to know that the peace we receive and the goodwill we have is all because on that day when Jesus came into our world, God was with us. Immanuel had come to pass and that same God in the form of a child now lives in us through the Holy Spirit.

That’s why we celebrate Christmas. And we receive one blessing after another because God is love. Walk in His love and His peace. Rejoice in being God’s child through Christ.