John 1:1-5, 14-18 • the other "In the beginning" passage

John 1:1-5, 14-18 → 1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. 4In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. 5The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

14And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15John testified about Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’ ” 16For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. 17For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. 18No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.

• I wanted to deviate just for a moment from Genesis, as I wanted to compare Gen 1:1 with John 1:1 briefly before we get too far away from Genesis 1. These are both "In the beginning" passages. They cover the same setting, but while Genesis seems to focus so much on what happened, John focuses more on WHO made it happen.

• Couple of points before we dig into the passage...

1st → The name Genesis actually originates from a transliteration of the Greek (I think) word used in the Septuagint to translate the Hebrew word (one word) that is translated into English as "In the beginning".

2nd → In the Gospel of John, the author actually never names himself, other than to call himself "the disciple whom Jesus loved" . Almost every time we see the name John in this gospel it is referring to John the Baptist. A few times it is referring to Peter's father.

3rd → I'm skipping over verses 6-13 because that passage talks about John's involvement in introducing Jesus to the world. While important, it's not what I want to focus on today.

• John differs from the other gospels, in that where they for the most part deal with His human lineage, John talks about His eternal divinity.

• He talks about someone called "the Word". Doesn't tell us yet who that is, other than to quality that this person is/was...

1 → eternal - John clearly states that "He was in the beginning with God."

2 → with God - the idea that the Word was not part of what is being created, but rather is present during the creation.

3 → was God - John makes it clear that while the Word is present with God, He is also God Himself.

4 → "All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being." So not only at the creation, but actually the AGENT of creation.

5 → the Word brings life and light to mankind.

6 → "the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us,...". The God/Man. God in a bod. Don't ask me how this works because I haven't a clue. But the scripture clearly tells us that is what happened.

7 → "grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ." Finally. It only took John 17 verses to get to the point. The WORD is JESUS.

• When John first called Jesus "the Word", he had a choice of two different Greek words he could have used. Rhema is Greek for "word", but it has more of a context of the spoken word. The Greek word that John used was Logos, which also includes spoken, but actually has more of an emphasis on something that is manifested. The idea of being visible. Something we can see. And touch. Jesus is the Logos, the manifested Word. The God we can see. The God we can touch. The God who became a man to save us from our sins.