What about John 1? (What John 1:1-4 Means)

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 The first verses of John’s Gospel introduce the Gospel of John. I know, crazy, right!

 This article interprets the first four verses of the Gospel of John as part of an introduction to the Gospel of John, not as an introduction to or summary of Genesis creation.


John 1:1a

John’s Gospel starts out “In the beginning” (1:1a), John’s beginning is a parallel to Genesis 1:1, but is not a direct reference to or a commentary on the Genesis creation. John’s Gospel introduces a new “beginning” in the life and ministry (that is, the gospel) of the human person Jesus of Nazareth. The Gospel of John elsewhere used “the beginning” to refer to the beginning of Jesus Gospel, e.g., Jesus says in John 15:27, “and you also will testify, because you have been with me from the beginning” (cf. 8:25, 16:4).[1] 

“In the beginning was the Word”

The human person Jesus is metaphorically called the Word because through Jesus God spoke and worked to bring about the ongoing new creation (John 4:50, 5:8, 6:54, 8:25, 29, 44, 9:7, 14:10, 14:24, 15:27, 16:4, 17:21). The human person Jesus so epitomized the Gospel that the author introduced Jesus as the Word.  Somewhat similarly, the man Jesus is called the Word of God in Revelation 19:13, but for a different reason. In Revelation it is because God judges mankind through the man Jesus (cf. Acts 10:42, 17:31). Here at the beginning of John because God spoke and worked through the man Jesus to bring about restoration and life in a new beginning. Again, the Gospel, the good news of restoration and life for mankind is bound up, expressed by and demonstrated in the human person Jesus to such an extent that Jesus is called the Word. 

There is no reference to a previous eternity (eternity would have no beginning). Rather, mention is made here of a beginning. The Word was at whatever beginning John means, not from eternity. 

John 1:1b

“and the Word was with God” (1:1b) means that the human Jesus had a unique relationship with God. In Moses-like fashion (Exo. 24:18, 33:11, 34:28; Deu. 9:9; Num. 7:89, 12:6–8), the human person Jesus was with God and saw and heard things from God (1:17, 1:45, 3:2, 3:11, 5:19, 8:26, 8:28, 8:38, 8:40, 9:16, 9:33, 15:15). The statement at the end of John’s Introduction[2] in John 1:18 that the Son is in the bosom of the Father forms a grammatical and thematic inclusio with “the Word was with God”.

John 1:1c

“and the Word was God” (1:1c) is not a statement about ontology, essence or “being”, but means that God (the Father, the one true God, 17:3) spoke and worked in and through the human person Jesus. Rather than being about ontology, “the Word was God” is a statement about representation, action and agency: God at work in and through the man Jesus.

This Gospel declares some 40 times that Jesus was sent. As Jesus declared in John’s Gospel, “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (14:9) and “the Father who dwells in me does His works” (John 5:19, 5:30, 8:28, 10:38, 14:7, 14:10, 9-20, 28, 17:21, 20:28). The God in Jesus was the Father, not a non-biblical “God the Son”. “God” in John 1:1c is the same “God” as in 1:1b and is the same God in 1:2.[3]

The past tense “the Word was God” (not “is God”) is used since in this short statement the author retrospectively summarized the historical work of God in the life and ministry of Jesus.

John 1:2

John 1:2 begins a contrast between the human Jesus (the Word) and John the Baptizer. “This one” ou-toj (demonstrative pronoun) who “was in the beginning with God” is the Logos, the human person Jesus of Nazareth, in whom life came to be and who was the true light (1:3-4, 9). In contrast is “This one” ou-toj in 1:7, John the Baptizer, who was not the light but came to bear testimony to the light.

The clarification of the relationship between John the Baptizer and Jesus is a consistent theme throughout the first verses of the Gospel of John. The Baptizer is mentioned by name already in verse 6, but the clarification begins already here in verse 2. The Baptizer’s presence by name in 1:6 is out of place if John’s first verses are introducing the Genesis creation, but are completely in place if John’s Gospel is introducing a new beginning in which the Baptizer plays a role.

The contrast the author makes in his Introduction is between two human persons, 1) the Word (Jesus Christ) and, 2) John the Baptizer.  The contrast is not between the Baptizer and a pre-incarnate Logos. The contrast is between two human persons. One called the Word, the person Jesus the Messiah (“This one” in vs. 2), and another person (“This one” in vs 7), the man sent from God, John the Baptizer.

Like the Baptizer’s very presence in verses 6-8, the repetition in verse 2: “this one was in the beginning with God” has puzzled interpreters who think the Gospel of John’s first verses are about the Genesis creation. But the puzzling veil lifts with the recognition that it is the pre-eminence of Jesus to John the Baptizer being emphasized already in verse 2.

“This one (not John the Baptizer) was in the beginning with God.” Again, “God” in John 1:2 is the same God as the two previous mentions of “God” in John 1:1, the Father.

John 1:3

This is a verse that many Bible readers think is a summary of the creation of all things at the Genesis creation, and that a pre-incarnate “divine” Jesus participated in that Genesis creation. Some biblical unitarians think it is only a personified Wisdom or Plan with God involved in that Genesis creation. However, I think we can understand that John 1:3 is not describing the Genesis creation, but a new beginning. And the human person Jesus participates in that new beginning.

In John 1:3 there are several vocabulary and translation issues. The translations of John 1:3 about “all things” which “were made” or “were created” pre-suppose and advocate a Genesis creation, material beginning.  However, the biases of Genesis creation interpretations and translations of verse 3 become apparent if we compare some literal translations of John 1:3, like:

Youngs Literal Translation:

“all things through him did happen, and without him happened not even one thing that hath happened.”

 

Or, the

 

Literal Standard Version:
“all things happened through Him, and without Him not even one thing happened that has happened.”

 

The word choice of these literal translations - specifically rendering the Greek word egeneto as “happened” instead of “were made” or “were created” - does not so readily recommend a Genesis creation context.

 

Additionally, the word “things” in John 1:3 suggests the material, physical universe of the Genesis creation. But the word “things” is not literally in the Greek New Testament text of John 1:3. The Greek word is simply “all”.  The reader has to consider the context to know what or which “all” John means. All what? All the universe? All rocks, trees, plants, animals and planets? All people? All authorities? All events? There are many options.

 

Here is something to think about concerning the word “all” in John 1:3: of the 65 (or so) occurrences of the word “all” in the Gospel of John I don’t think we will find one other place where the author used it to mean all the physical, created universe. Not one.

 

The main use of all in the Gospel of John is “all” people, sometimes those who believe, sometimes those who don’t believe. Sometimes those who hear, sometimes those who see.

 

And another significant use of the word “all” in John’s Gospel means “all events”, everything that happened.  Note John 19:28 as an example where “all” means the events associated with life of Jesus: Jesus was about to die on the cross. John records: “After this Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfil the scripture), ‘I thirst.’"

 

So, rather than take the “all things” of John 1:3 to be a reference to everything in the created universe, a way in which the “all” is never used anywhere else in the Gospel of John or for that matter rarely if ever in all of the New Testament, the word all is better understood in John 1:3 as all the events (everything) that the Gospel of John is about to describe.

 

John 1:3 can justifiably be translated:

 

“All happened through him, and without him nothing happened…”


Interpreted and translated this way, John 1:3 introduces events which the author is about to describe in his Gospel. That is, events associated with the gospel of the human person Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ.

 

John 1:3 is not saying that Jesus was involved in the creation of all the material universe.

In fact, in the Greek texts of the New Testament the words for “create” or “make” are not in John’s prologue. To repeat: the Genesis words for “create” and “make” are not in John 1.

 

Rather than being about creation ex nihilo, John 1:3 is introducing all the things that came about - everything that happened through the life and ministry of Jesus.[4]

 

John 1:4

Then, if we connect the last part of verse 3 with verse 4, we read:

“that which came to be in him was life…” Here John clarified or emphasized what he meant in the first part of verse 3, “all things came to be (happened) through him and without him nothing came to be. That which came to be in him was life”. That is, the most significant thing of the “all” that came to be through him was human life.

 

And it is eternal life, life of the age to come, that the Gospel of John is concerned about (John 3:16, 17:3, etc.). All things in Jesus’s ministry, with the emphasis on life “came to be through Jesus”. As Jesus said, "because I live, you will live also" (John 14:19).

 

John 1:4 continues: “and the life was the light of men.”

 

The life that came to be in the human person Jesus of Nazareth was the light of men. If you’ve read this far, please focus on these two words in John 1:4: light and men. Which light and which men are being directly referred to in John 1:4? Genesis creation light and the men in Genesis 1? No. Like Jesus said “I am the light of the world, he who follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). The specific light that John 1:4 is introducing came on the scene in the 1st century in the Land of Israel, not thousands of years before that.  The men that were present when the light came on the scene were men that were alive in the 1st century.   The context of John 1:4 is not the Genesis creation.

 

Summary:

While there are a few intentional echoes of Genesis,[5] John’s Introduction introduces events described in John’s Gospel that evidence a new beginning in the man Jesus (the Word) and show that Jesus is indeed the Christ. Neither the Introduction (the so-called Prologue) nor the body of the Gospel of John describe events or things that came to be in the Book of Genesis.

 

If this is the first time you’ve heard that John 1 is not Genesis 1, and you are curious in thinking more about it, I’ve worked a lot on this topic. Check out the playlist on the screen and in the show notes called:

 

John 1:1 Which Beginning (playlist)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUqWXumvcp5qQr2r7epOjtCCKpbN0uUC5

 

 


[1] See John 1:1, The Beginning of God’s New Creation https://landandbible.blogspot.com/2020/02/john-11-beginning-of-gods-new-creation.html

[2] “Prologue” implies something that went on before the narrative about to be described. “Introduction” is a better term since John is introducing and summarizing themes of the narrative itself.

[3] Deity of Christ believers and Wisdom/Plan personified interpreters of John 1:1 equivocate on the meaning of “God” between John 1:1b and 1:1c, even though the occurrences of God are separated in the Greek text only by καὶ “and”.

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