Getting Jesus Right (John 1:1-18) Series

Everything for humans depends on getting Jesus right. We have to understand who Jesus is. What he came for. What he accomplished. And what he wants. If we get this wrong, we end up outside of God's kingdom, looking in. We end up darkness. We perish.

But if we get all of this right, and do what Jesus wants, we inherit God's kingdom. We live in the light. We receive life.

So we have to get Jesus right.

The gospel of John begins by telling us almost everything we need to know about Jesus. But it does this, using poetic language. We read chapter 1, and find ourselves struggling to understand it. We grasp for its truth, only to feel parts of it confusing, or slip away from us.

That's okay, for now. We aren't supposed to read chapter 1, and totally understand it. But we are expected to read this, and remember it. John will come back to bits and pieces of chapter 1 over and over throughout the rest of his gospel. John 1 is the framework that gives us, as readers, an edge over everyone else that Jesus meets and talks to in the gospel. We already know about Jesus, what everyone else in the book has to figure out.

And the really cool thing about this passage, is that if you go back to it in about a year, and reread it, you'll marvel at how much better you understand it.

So let's start by simply reading verses 1-3:

(1) In the beginning, the Word was,

and the Word was (turned) toward God,

and God, the Word was.

(2) This one was in the beginning turned toward God.

(3) Everything through him [happened/came/was created],

and apart from him not one thing [happened/was created] that has [happened/been created].

What do these verses teach us about this mysterious "Word"?

(1) The Word existed before the beginning of the world. "In the beginning, the Word was." At the beginning of creation, the Word already existed (John 17:6). The Word is not part of creation; the Word precedes creation.

(2) The Word was "turned toward" God. "Pros" can mean "with," and that's how every English Bible translates this. But classically, when it's used with an accusative the idea is of motion or direction toward an object. So it's not that the Word is just "with" God. It's not just an association or connection. The Word is in some way independent of God, distinct from God, but the Word is also turned toward God.

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Westcott:

The idea conveyed by it is not that of simple coexistence, as of two persons contemplated separately in company (e??a? µet?, 3:26, &c.), or united under a common conception (e??a? s??, Luke 22:56), or (so to speak) in local relation (e??a? pa??, ch. 17:5), but of being (in some sense) directed towards and regulated by that with which the relation is fixed (5:19). The personal being of the Word was realised in active intercourse with and in perfect communion with God.

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(3) The Word was God. Now, this statement is tricky. If you've ever talked to a JW, and tried to convince him that Jesus is God by pointing to John 1, he will have an easy answer. "God" here doesn't have a definite article in front of it-- there is no "the." So a JW will tell you that what John says here, is that "the Word was "a" God."

The issue is a complicated one. But it's also really important. Let me just scratch the surface of this, and say two things:

(1) Many scholars argue that John couldn't say, "The Word was the God." You cannot point to the Word-- to Jesus-- and say that Jesus is the entirety of who God is. "God" is bigger than that. "God" is more complicated than that. And proof of this is found in how the church eventually settled on Trinitarian language.

I'm not sure this is quite right, and I say this because of my second point:

(2) Let's turn to John 20:28. This in many ways is the high point of the book. Jesus, after rising from the dead, appears to Thomas, and this is what Thomas says:

"My Lord, and my God."

In the Greek, it's "the Lord of me and the God of me." "God" has the definite article.

Thomas here says nothing wrong. In fact, what Thomas says, is what people have been reaching toward the entire book. Here, at the end, we see someone finally reach the same depth of understanding that is found in the prologue.

So I'm reluctant to argue that the gospel of John is opening with a finely nuanced, subtle explanation of the Trinity that depends on the definite article. John doesn't have a problem with Jesus being called "the" God.