In [the] beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John's opening line does not start with a birth or a family line — it starts before creation, with a Person called "the Word." John makes three short statements about Him: that He was, that He was with God, and that He was God.
The first clause fixes a moment, then tells us Someone was already there.
The opening words of this verse carry us back as far as our minds can reach. They take us to the moment when the first thing that ever had a beginning began. Before that moment there was only God. In that moment of "beginning" the Word "was," that is, existed. He did not begin then; He existed then.
The same opening phrase can do two different jobs.
You cannot pick out any moment in eternity, before the work of creation began, when He was not there. He was already there "in the beginning." … "In the beginning God created," and so on, begins time; "In the beginning the Word was," leaves the door open for the eternal.
A word carries a mind out into the open. That is the force of the name John chooses.
As the Word, He represents the whole mind and thoughts and ways of God. He does this in His own Person, and by what He says and does. Whenever God's thoughts and plans and will have to be revealed, He is the One who reveals them.
Writers set this title beside another one — the Son.
As the Word He is, and He is the expression of the whole mind of God; but as the Son, the eternal Son, He is, in incarnation, the revealer of the Father.
Two Persons are already in view in the second clause, and both are eternal.
In the beginning, then, before there was any creature, was the Word, and the Word was with God. So there was distinct personality in the Godhead, and the Word was a distinct Person Himself. He was not, as men imagined, something that flowed out from God in time, even though He is eternal and divine in nature. … The personality was as eternal as the existence.
Another writer lists what the Word was not, before stating what He was.
We learn … that the Word Who became flesh was not an abstract quality or attribute in the beginning. He was not a special outflow of the Deity either. He was a Person existing with God. More than that, this Word was God Himself. … We do not read God was the Word, but the Word was God.
Some translations soften the third clause. One writer answers them by looking at the grammar behind the change.
Some have tried to weaken the force of this great statement. They translate it "the Word was Divine," or "the Word was a god," because the text leaves out the definite article — it does not say, "the Word was the God." But those who know Greek tell us that Greek has no indefinite article at all. The word translated "God" is a strong one, and it means proper and absolute Deity. If the text had said the Word was the God, it would have shut Deity up to the Word alone and shut out the other Persons of the Godhead.
The same clause answers another question. Does His lowliness as a Man mean He ranks below God?
After He took a servant's form, the Lord used certain language about Himself, and certain terms fit Him once He had become a Man. But it would be quite wrong to think that He held a lower place in Deity before He came. This last clause in our verse destroys any idea of a lower place in the Godhead. "The Word was God"; and God cannot be inferior to God.
The order of John's clauses protects something. Before John shows us the Son as a Man, he tells us who the Son is.
To guard the divine glory of the Son, the Spirit of God adds, "The Word was God." The Son has become Man, and God has made sure His word protects that glory. No one can use His coming down so low as an excuse to deny it.
- Was, not became. At the point where everything that began began, He already existed; He did not start then, He was there then.
- Was with. "With God" means He is a distinct Person. He is not an attribute, and not something flowing out of God. He is a Person alongside God, as eternal as God's own existence.
- Was God. A missing article does not mean "a god." The wording claims absolute Deity for Him, and still leaves room for the other Persons of the Godhead.
- Was the Word. He is God's whole mind put into expression — every revelation God gives comes through Him.
- Was guarded. John puts this clause first, so no one can turn His lowliness as Man into an argument against His glory.
*He* was in the beginning with God.
John's opening lines reach back before time itself. Verse 2 seems to repeat what verse 1 already said. So why say it twice? The answer guards something precious about who Jesus is.
The verse sounds like an echo of verse 1. Commentators say it adds something verse 1 had not yet settled.
This is no mere repetition of the fact already stated that He was a distinct Person with God. Here we learn the additional truth that He was eternally a distinct Person. So carefully the Spirit of God guards the glory of His Person. He guards it against those who admit that He is a distinct Person, yet claim there was a time when He began to have a distinct Personal existence.
The opening lines build one on another, and this verse completes the set.
The distinct Personality that marks the Word is not something He took on at a later point in time. Eternal Personality was His. In the beginning He was "with God" in this way, because this distinction of Personality lies in the very essence of the Godhead. So four things have now been said about the Word. His eternal Being; His distinct Personality; His essential Deity; His eternal Personality. Whatever else we may have to learn about the Word, here are four things that should bow us in humble worship.
The phrase does not mark a date. Push your mind as far back as it will go, and He is already there.
It does not matter how far you try to go back in thought into the depths of eternity. Imagine millions of years! Even that is not the beginning — though of course we cannot really talk about "years" before there were any measures of time. But go back in imagination into these unmeasured depths, and there He existed. He Who is eternal had no beginning, and in His own personality He was "with God."
Only God could report on such a scene, and the record is placed before creation, not inside it.
"The same was in the beginning with God" (verse 2); not at a subsequent date, but "in the beginning," when no creature had commenced its existence. For this truth we are entirely indebted to God. Who could speak of such things but God? It is He Who uses John to write, and all He says is worthy of implicit faith. The Word "was in the beginning with God." His personality was eternal, no less than His nature or being.
The small word "with" is doing heavy work. Had John written "in God" instead, a wrong conclusion would have been open to us.
If the evangelist had written "the Word was in God," our foolish minds might have thought this. Levi was still in his ancestor Abraham's body when Melchizedek met him (Heb. 7), and only came into actual being later. In the same way, our Lord, the Son, the Word, might have received separate being only at a date in eternity. But the Holy Spirit is too jealous for His glory and too exact in His words to allow this mistaken idea… There never was a time, however far back, when the Word was not with God. He was always distinct from the Father as the Father, and from the Holy Spirit as the Holy Spirit. Yet there is no suggestion of a second Godhead, for though distinct in personality, He was with God.
The Greek word for "with" says more than being near. It points to living association.
There seems to be more meaning in pros ton Theon ("with God") than simply being near, which para Theo would express… There is an element included in this word pros, and communicative association. It stood there in the presence of, and associated (vitally) with God. Also "in the beginning" means He existed before time. We find Him in essential, eternal existence. Everything else had a beginning, a cause commencing it, but He "was in the beginning."
The wording is deliberate. Two pairs of titles are in view, and each pair does its own work.
Notice also that it says "the Word was with God" — not the Father. The name God includes not only the Father but also the Holy Spirit and the Son. The names Word and God speak of the nature of divine Persons. The names Father and Son tell of the relationships between divine Persons. The great aim of these verses is to establish the glory of Christ as in nature a divine Person.
One old explanation of Christ says the Word was only an idea in God's mind until He spoke it out. This verse shuts that door.
I can only see John 1:2 as a striking and complete setting aside of the distinction drawn in Alexandria and by the early church fathers between logos endiathetos and logos prophorikos. Some of the earlier Greek fathers had been infected with the ideas of Plato. They held that the logos was conceived in God's mind from eternity, and only spoken out, as it were, in time. This gave a foothold to the Arians, who, like other unbelievers, grab at human traditions. The apostle here asserts, in the Holy Ghost, the eternal personality of the Word with God.
- Beginning — being. "In the beginning" is not a date. It means existence before time. Everything else had a cause that started it; He simply was.
- Beginning — with. "With God" means a distinct Person in living association — not an idea inside God waiting to be spoken.
- Beginning — repeated. The second mention is not an echo: it adds that His distinct Personhood is as eternal as His being.
- Beginning — guarded. Four glories open this Gospel: eternal Being, distinct Personality, essential Deity, eternal Personality.
- Beginning — worship. The right response to these lines is not debate but adoration of the One who was always there.
All things received being through him, and without him not one [thing] received being which has received being.
John's Gospel opens by placing the Word at the origin of everything that exists. Verse 3 draws the line: the Word is the Maker, and everything else is made.
The verse turns on a change of verb. Up to this point John has said the Word was; now he speaks of things that began. One writer sets the two Greek words side by side, and follows the contrast through to the incarnation:
The language is exact. He was in the beginning with God. John does not use egeneto ("became"), which would mean coming into being or being caused to be. He uses ēn: He "was", in His own absolute being. All things egeneto, "came into being" through Him. He was the Creator so completely that John adds, "and without Him not one thing came into being which has come into being." By contrast, verse 14 states the incarnation like this: the Word was made flesh — not ēn but egeneto.
The second half of the verse says the first half again, in reverse. It shuts the door on any search for something that slipped into existence on its own.
Nothing can go wider than the words "All things." In Colossians 1, creation is credited to the Son of the Father's love: it first says that all things were created by Him, then it names particular things, the things in heaven and the things on earth (verse 16). But in John nothing is left out. The eternal Word made all things that have been made. And as if to close the door on the heartless quibbling of human reason, the Spirit of God adds, "and without Him was not any thing made that was made."
One writer applies this to the claim that Christ Himself was created:
This shows that there was absolutely no exception as to creation. If Christ had been created, He would have been a notable exception. Surely the One who creates is the Creator, and the Creator is God.
Why does the title "the Word" stand right before a statement about creation? Because what a person makes expresses his mind, just as his words do.
The title "the Word" means that He — and He is a Person — expresses the Divine Being, just as our words or acts express our minds. For He is not only "the Word" because of what He has said, He is also "the Word" because of what He has done. By His acts in creating He expressed the power and mind of the invisible God. The Divine Being willed how created things should be — their form, their arrangement, their number, and their growth too, where there is life, whether animal or plant. All of it came from Him who is "the Word."
Yet created things only tell us so much:
The things that are made can show His eternal power and divine nature. But other unseen things about Him — His counsels and grace, and glory in the Son — nothing that was made can teach us. They come by revelation.
Creation is not the work of one Person acting alone:
Everything that was made came about according to the Father's sovereign will. But the Son, the Word of God, was the person who put forth the power. And never without the energy of the Holy Spirit, I may add, as the Bible teaches us. This matters greatly for what the Holy Spirit has in view in the Gospel of John. His object is to bear witness to the nature and light of God in the person of Christ.
This verse gives us a starting point, not a puzzle:
He was the originator, the designer and the maker of the vast universe and every creature within it… How wonderfully these simple yet great statements clear the air for us. We need not waste our time and weary our brains hunting in vain for some missing link. That search only props up a groundless theory, put forward by people who want to banish the Creator from His creation. We begin with the truth that the Word has made all things, that He upholds all things, and will one day make all things serve His glory.
- He was. Verse 1 uses a verb of pure existence; verse 3 uses a verb of beginning. The Word never began.
- All came. Everything that ever came into being came through Him. No words go wider than "All things."
- None excepted. The second clause closes every loophole. Christ is no exception, and the One who creates is the Creator.
- God expressed. In creating, He expressed God. His power and mind show in what He made. Grace and counsels come only by revelation.
- So begin here. Start with the Maker. Then the universe is not a riddle to solve but His glory to trace.
In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
John has just said that the Word was with God and made all things. Now he tells us what the Word holds in Himself: life — and that life reaches men as light. Two questions follow. What life is this? And why does John move from life straight to light?
John does not say that someone gave the Word life. He says life was in Him.
"In Him was life" — life that no one gave Him, life that is His own by nature, life with no beginning. "He is the true God and eternal life" (1 John 5:20). He is the Fountain of life. He is the Source of life.
Because "in the beginning was the Word," there is no point at which this life started.
Life was always in Him, the Word. There was never a time when He did not exist — "in the beginning was the Word." So there was never a time when life was not in Him. Who could imagine the Word — the One who expresses God — without life?
Verse 3 has already covered creation. Verse 4 says something new, and commentators press the difference.
He made all creation, but creation does not exist in Him. In Him was life, and in this He stood in relation to one special part of creation — the part God had in His thoughts and purposes. This life was the light of men. It showed itself as a witness to the divine nature, in direct connection with men, as it did with no other creatures at all.
Some read "life" here as life of every kind, plant and animal included. The second half of the verse is what rules that out.
Many take life here in the widest sense, "the Word being the Source of all life to the creature." But everyone admits that the last part of the verse can only mean spiritual life. How could such life be put in the same class as the life of a plant or an animal? Or be said to be in Him? … Life in Him, the Eternal One, is surely eternal life… Only the eternal life could be the light of men.
Adam had life. But the Bible never says that life was in him.
Angels were not its sphere, and it was not limited to one chosen nation: "the life was the light of men." Life was not in man, even before he fell. At best, the first man, Adam, became a living soul when God breathed into him. And it is never said, even of a believer, that life is or was in him, though he does have life. He has it only in the Son.
Believers have life, but they do not hold it in themselves. Only One with life in Himself can give it to others.
Life was in Him as part of His very being. The words "In Him was life" (John 1:4) belong with His eternal existence… We have it only as something passed on to us. Only life that is held in one's own right, as part of one's own being, can be given to others.
Light here is not general information about God available everywhere. It is the life in the Word making the unseen God known.
This life was the light of men. The Lord can say, "Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life" (John 8:12). The life in the Word was the perfect revelation to man of the invisible God. The light of nature will not reveal the heart of God. The light of reason cannot find out God by searching. It is only the light of the life in the Word become flesh that can declare God.
That leaves no room for any claim to an inner light of our own.
"The life was the light of men." The statement works both ways: nothing else was the light of men. This was the true light. The "light within" is not that, but the power of darkness in the human soul.
Without this life, a person has no light at all.
For man there is no spiritual light apart from this life. Without it he is in darkness, and walks in darkness (1 John 2:11).
Where the light does land, life and light come together.
The very beginning of all God's ways of grace with us has been the giving of divine life, along with the nature that cannot be separated from it. Precious truth! We see these two things, life and light, bound up together. Wherever there is life in a soul, there is light.
- Source. Life is in the Word Himself, with no beginning and no giver — He is the Fountain, not a channel.
- Stream. What we have is given to us; only life held in one's own right can be handed on to others.
- Sphere. This life is aimed at men — not angels, not one nation — and it reaches them as light.
- Standard. Nature, reason and any supposed "light within" cannot show God's heart; the life in the Word alone declares Him.
- Sign. Wherever that life is given, light comes with it — the two are never found apart in a soul.
And the light appears in darkness, and the darkness apprehended it not.
John's opening moves from the Word who is life to the Word who is light, and verse 5 is where that light meets the world. In nature light always beats darkness, so why did this light meet a darkness that neither took it in nor gave way?
John uses the present tense, and commentators press that point. The verse is not a report of one past moment. It describes what light always does against darkness:
Here I come to the judgment of the world, and of "His own." "The light shines in darkness." In nature that is impossible. If light shone into darkness there, no darkness would be left for it to shine in. The judgment of the world follows, for "the darkness did not take it in." Notice also that "the light shines in darkness" is a general statement. He does not say "shone."
In the Bible's first chapter, light breaks on darkness and the darkness goes. Here that pattern breaks. One writer sets the two scenes side by side:
When the Word appeared, the light shone. But the scene He came into was one of darkness. In Genesis 1 we read how by the divine word the light of creation burst upon the darkness; and the darkness vanished. Here we have light of a far higher order. It shines in the middle of moral and spiritual darkness. Only grasping the light could clear that darkness away, and men did not grasp it. Yet though the darkness remained, there was no other light for men than "the life."
Older translations end the verse with "comprehended." Writers explain the word as "apprehended": the darkness did not take the light in. One writer then sets this darkness beside the gloom over the unformed earth:
But men were in fact in a fallen condition, far from God. So the verse hints at a darkness worse than the gloom that covered the deep before the six days of creation began.
That darkness is not a rival god or a first principle of the universe. It is a condition, and only one thing meets it:
Some ancient religions called darkness the mother of all things, or an evil god locked in endless war with the good Lord of light. It is neither. It is the moral condition of fallen man. It is the absence of light, and quite different from physical darkness, because light itself has no effect on it. Grace alone can deal with the difficulty.
One writer puts the failure down to what man is, not to what he did. Man had nothing in him to answer the light:
Man was not light. He was darkness, without any glimmer of the nature of God. More than that, he had no power to receive this light. His whole nature stood against it. They saw no beauty in Him to desire Him. Here was the display of the divine nature itself, and nothing could go further than that. In the natural world, where there is light there is no more darkness. In the moral world it is not so. The light is there, pure in itself and showing up everything. Yet no one sees who is there.
Commentators differ over where the weight falls. Some put it on what man cannot do, others on what he will not do. The second view makes the darkness a choice, not an accident:
Anyone with eyes to see and a heart to understand can tell that the world is in darkness, that is, in ignorance of God. And the world has only itself to blame, for the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not take it in (John 1:5). This is not because men cannot see the light that shines. It is because they will not, for "people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil" (John 3:19). They stay in the darkness by choice, and so they lie under condemnation.
The verse records a refusal, not a defeat. The shining continues, and it has an end in view:
Light finally triumphs and darkness passes away. The process that will reach that happy end is going on now. "The darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining" (1 John 2:8).
- Shines — the tense is present, not past. This is what light always does, whether or not anyone receives it.
- Shines in darkness — in nature that is impossible, since light would leave no darkness behind. Here the darkness stayed.
- Darkness defined — not a rival power, but the moral condition of fallen man. Light itself does not touch it, and it is worse than the gloom over the deep at creation.
- Darkness refuses — man has no power to receive the light, and his nature stands against it. As writers show from John 3:19, the blindness is also chosen. That is why it carries condemnation.
- Darkness passing — grace alone deals with the difficulty, and the process is already running: the true light is already shining.
There was a man sent from God, his name John.
The chapter has been speaking of the eternal Word, who was with God. Now it narrows to one ordinary man with a name. Why did the Light need anyone to announce it, and what does it mean that this man's whole identity was "sent from God"?
The verse begins with a verb that means "became." The same verb covers the making of the world and the Word becoming flesh.
The first change is from "was made" to "became." The same Greek verb appears five times in the same form in verses 1 to 14 of this chapter. … There was (became) a man sent from God. The world was made (became) by Him. "The Word became flesh."
The phrase is not a detail added to a biography. It is the description of the man himself.
He was a man sent from God. … A man sent from God was what he was. Being a man on a mission from God was what described him.
Daylight needs no announcement. That God sent a messenger at all says something about the world he entered.
Men must be stirred to look at it. That takes the voice of someone nearer to them, more on their level and easier to understand, echoing the voice of conscience in their hearts. Such indeed was the "man sent from God, whose name was John." … What a sign of a world far away from God! The Light must have someone to proclaim it. The Creator must have someone to introduce Him into His own world. And then it is necessary to say, "He was not that light," in case men mistake the witness to Christ for the Christ he witnessed to!
Other Gospel accounts tie this man to the law and to practical advice for crowds. Here his mission answers to something larger.
God, who is Love, was active in His goodness to draw attention to the Light, because man's need was deep. … His mission here relates to the Light, not to the law or any legal purpose. So its scope goes far beyond Israel. He came to witness concerning the Light, so that all might believe through him. It is a question of personal faith in the Saviour. It is not merely moral advice for the crowd, tax collectors, soldiers, or anyone else, as in the Gospel of Luke.
What this Gospel leaves out of his story matters as much as what it keeps.
Not only does God give the light, but He sends a forerunner to call man's attention to the light. No details are given of John the Baptist's connection with the Jew or things earthly. Here he is viewed as "sent from God," and as a witness to that which is entirely new — the Light.
His whole mission comes down to three steps — and to one picture from the night sky.
The moon which shines in the night bears its witness to its lord, the sun. It has no light in itself, but as it catches the light of the sun it sheds it on the earth. So it was with John. His soul was enlightened by the glory of the One who was coming after him, and of Him he spoke. His was a great mission. He came from God — that was the source of his mission. He spoke of Christ — that was the object of his mission. His disciples who heard him speak followed Jesus — that was the result of his mission.
Scripture has to say plainly what this man was not. That denial shows how great he was.
The Holy Spirit introduces a man on the scene whose mission set him apart from all other men — "There was a man sent from God, whose name was John." Then He describes him by a negative sign — "He was not that Light." Think what the personal worth of this man must have been, for the Holy Spirit to declare that he was not what God Himself is in His essence! … As a lamp, he shone so brightly that his coming brought almost as much joy as the morning star brings. … Except Christ, there was never anyone in this world greater than he.
- Source. "Sent from God" is not background to his story; it is the description of the man — a man in mission from God was what he was.
- Reason. The Light needed someone to proclaim it. The Creator needed introducing to His own world. That shows how far the world had drifted from God.
- Reach. He points not to the law or to one nation, but to the Light, so that all might believe. It is a call to personal faith in the Saviour.
- Limit. Scripture must say what he was not, in case men mistook the witness for the One he witnessed to. A lamp is bright, but it is not the Light.
- Result. He came from God. He spoke of Christ. Those who heard him followed Jesus. Source, object, result.
He came for witness, that he might witness concerning the light, that all might believe through him.
John's Gospel opens with the eternal Word. Then it turns to a man with a name and a mission. Verse 7 tells us why he was there: not to draw eyes to himself, but to point them somewhere else.
Nobody announces the sunrise. That God sent a man to announce the Light says something about the state of the world.
Do you not think it is a wonderful thing that God should send a person to bear witness about light? reason placeholder — "What is it, man?" the people would say. "Look," he says, "there is the sun, and light coming from the sun," and he keeps on saying it. Why, you would think the fellow had gone out of his mind.
Being a witness was his whole job. That job carries a built-in danger, and the next verse shuts it down at once.
God sent him, a witness to bear witness concerning the truth, that all might believe through him. What a sign this is of a world far away from God! The Light must have someone to proclaim it. The Creator must have someone to introduce Him into His own world. And then it is necessary to say, "He was not that light" — in case men mistake the witness to Christ for the Christ he witnessed to!
In the other Gospels John speaks to a different audience. Here the frame is wider.
No details are given of John the Baptist's connection with the Jew or things earthly. Here he is viewed as "sent from God," and as a witness to that which is entirely new — the Light. In other gospels he witnesses to the King and His kingdom for repentant Israel: here he witnesses to the Light for all people.
The shift changes the reach of the mission and the response it asks for.
His mission is seen here in relation to the Light, not to the law or any legal purpose. So its reach goes far beyond Israel. He came to witness about the Light, so that all might believe through him. The point is personal faith in the Saviour. It is not just moral advice to the crowds, tax collectors, soldiers, or anyone else, as in the Gospel of Luke.
Does "that all might believe" mean that everyone did? One writer treats the words as the aim of the mission, not a promise of success.
Was not the object of John the Baptist's mission "that all might believe through him"? Does that mean the actual effect of his mission would be that all men would believe in Christ? Did the command to John to go on this errand carry a promise that he would succeed? No one imagines this for a moment. God sent him to give adequate ground for faith, and the chance to believe, to everyone his mission actually reached.
The verse leaves a pattern: where the mission came from, who it was about, and what it produced.
He was a burning and shining light, but he was not the Light. The moon that shines in the night bears its witness to its lord, the sun. It has no light in itself, but as it catches the light of the sun it sheds it on the earth. So it was with John. His soul was enlightened by the glory of the One who was coming after him, and of Him he spoke. His was a great mission. He came from God: that was the source of his mission. He spoke of Christ: that was the object of his mission. His disciples who heard him speak followed Jesus: that was the result of his mission.
- Sent. The mission starts in God, not in the messenger — "a man sent from God" is the source of everything that follows.
- Witness. His entire assignment was to point away from himself; the word "witness" is both his title and his limit.
- Light. Like the moon, he had no light of his own; he only passed on the sun's. That God had to send a witness at all shows how dark the world had become.
- All. The reach here is not one nation but everyone — not moral advice for crowds, but personal faith in the Saviour.
- Believe. That was the aim, not the guaranteed result. God gave adequate ground for faith to everyone the mission reached.
*He* was not the light, but that he might witness concerning the light.
The opening of John's Gospel moves from the Word to a man sent to point people to Him. Verse 8 then draws a firm line: the messenger is not the message.
The difference rests on two different words. One commentator gives both in the original Greek, and shows how far John's mission reached:
God, who is Love, was active in His goodness to draw attention to the Light, for man's need was deep. So there was a man sent from Him — his name John. As we are told elsewhere, he was the burning and shining lamp (ho luchnos); but the Word was the Light (to phos) about whom he came to bear witness. Here his mission stands in relation to the Light, not to the law or any legal purpose. So its scope reaches far beyond Israel. He came to bear witness about the Light, so that all might believe through him. It is a question of personal faith in the Saviour.
A denial only makes sense where a mistake is possible. One writer asks what it took for men to notice the Light at all:
Men needed rousing to see it. The voice that roused them came from one nearer to them, more on their level, easier for them to understand, echoing the voice of conscience in their hearts. Such was the "man sent from God, whose name was John." … What proof that the world was far from God — the Light had to have someone to announce it, and the Creator had to have someone to introduce Him into His own world! And then it becomes necessary to say, "He was not the light," in case men should mistake the witness to Christ for the Christ he witnessed to!
If John shone at all, the light was not his own. One writer takes a picture from the night sky, then names three things in John's mission:
The moon which shines in the night bears its witness to its lord, the sun. It has no light in itself, but as it catches the light of the sun it sheds it upon the earth. So it was with John. His soul was enlightened by the glory of the One who was coming after him, and of Him he spoke. His was a great mission. He came from God — that was the source of his mission. He spoke of Christ — that was the object of his mission. His disciples who heard him speak followed Jesus — that was the result of his mission.
Later, officials came to question John. He said about himself what verse 8 says about him:
Who is this man? He has no human credentials, no authority from either Jews or Romans, no advertising, no public display. John's answer is short: "I am not the Christ." He had no interest in talking about himself. What did it matter who he was? He was not the one Man of importance. Christ was the burden of his testimony, not himself.
Jesus praised John in the highest terms. One writer weighs what that praise meant, and where its limit lay:
God had shown John the Baptist great favour, as a man and a prophet. The Lord's own testimony about him was remarkable: "Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist." But John's greatness was relative, not absolute; official, not personal. He was a light-bearer (John 5:35), but not the Light itself, though he bore witness to the Light. He still stood first among all the prophets and messengers of God since the world began, because he alone saw his own predictions about the Messiah come true. As the great forerunner, he could point to One standing in front of him and say, "Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" Yet, the Lord added, "the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he."
How John treated his own disciples sets the measure for anyone who speaks for God:
John contemplated Him as He walked, and he wanted his disciples occupied with Him. It did not matter to John if his disciples turned away from him, so long as they followed Jesus. … This is the effect of all true ministry. The eye is directed to Him alone, and the heart is engaged with Him only. A ministry that has its power in the flesh draws the hearer after the minister. … John preached his congregations away from himself, and he did not turn them to the Pharisees, lawyers or scribes — he turned them to the Son of God.
- Sent — John's mission came from God, spoke of Christ, and ended with his hearers following Jesus.
- Lamp — John was the burning, shining lamp. The Word was the Light itself. Two different Greek words mark the two apart.
- Guarded — the denial here guards Christ's glory, so that nobody mistakes the witness for the Christ he witnessed to.
- Confessed — questioned about himself, John gave one answer: "I am not the Christ."
- Measured — his greatness was real, but official rather than personal. The same test still holds: true ministry points away from itself to the Son of God.
The true light was that which, coming into the world, lightens every man.
John's Gospel has just introduced a witness named John, and now it turns to the One he pointed to. Calling Him "the true light" raises two questions: what does "true" add, and who comes into the world — the light, or every man?
"True" here is not set against lying. It marks the real thing against the mere sketch of it. John uses the word in a set series.
John's Gospel uses this word four times, besides the phrase "the true worshippers." There is the true Light (John 1:9), the true Bread (John 6:32), the true Vine (John 15:1), and the true God (John 17:3). In each case the word means the substance, not the shadow. It means the final thing, not the temporary one. It means the whole thing, not the part.
The verse comes right after the man sent from God. The order matters. Naming the witness first sets up the difference between him and the One he announces.
He was the immediate forerunner of the Lord Jesus. He would not have been named here otherwise. He was the moon that took its light from the sun — from the Lord Jesus, who was about to come. His light was only borrowed... He might be a burning and shining lamp, but his light was only earthly and borrowed.
Older English versions attach "coming into the world" to every man, so it describes human birth. Many commentators attach it to the Light instead. They argue from how the phrase works elsewhere.
The phrase "coming into the world," and other phrases like it, appear very often in the New Testament, and they are used of the Messiah. In fact, John 3:19 uses the expression of Him in this very same connection, as the light: "the light has come into the world"... And again in John 12:46, "I have come into the world as light."
Read that way, the verse is not describing something that happens to each baby. It describes what happened when Christ arrived.
If the Light lights every man, does every man have some spark of it within? Commentators here say no. They warn against turning the verse into a teaching about a light inside us.
This has nothing to do with the conversion of men... the outward lighting up of men. Do not talk of "inner light," or anything like it. Instead, wonder at the presence of the Son of God on earth, in the middle of the darkness all around. See everything lit up by that presence, even though the darkness did not grasp the light.
The Gospel story itself shows what the shining did. How people stood in front of Him showed what they were.
The Lord Jesus Christ showed up everybody. He was the Test of everything and everybody. Think of the treachery of Judas. Think of the Pharisee, and of the woman, who came into the Pharisee's house. The light showed up the heart of the Pharisee, and it also showed up the heart of the woman. The Pharisee's heart was cold and dead. The woman's was repentant and loving. Their relation to Him showed up where each one was.
The law was given to one nation. The word "every" breaks that boundary, and it breaks every boundary of rank as well.
The Word, that is, Jesus, is the true light. Coming into the world (this is the only right way to translate it), He pours light on every man. It is not limited like the law to Israel. It shines on Gentile as well as Jew... it reveals the true state of each one, completely and at once. No prince stands above its searching power, and no slave, however low, stands beneath it.
Exposure is only half of what light does. The same shining that uncovers what people are also uncovers what God is.
The Light had a twofold effect: it exposed man, but revealed God... He did not simply open blind eyes to relieve blindness, but to make known the love of God in relation to man's need. Light is the revelation of God in love according to the full truth of man's condition and God's holiness.
- Real, not partial. "True" ranks Him as substance against shadow — the true Light, true Bread, true Vine, true God.
- Sun, not lamp. John the Baptist shone with borrowed light; the Light Himself needs no witness to make Him shine.
- He came, not us. Commentators here read "coming into the world" as Christ's arrival. The Gospel uses that phrase of Him elsewhere too.
- Outward, not inward. The shining lights up every man; it does not put a light inside every man, and darkness can still refuse it.
- Exposing, and revealing. The same beam that shows up a Pharisee and a repentant woman, a prince and a slave, is the beam that makes God known.
He was in the world, and the world had [its] being through him, and the world knew him not.
John has already called the Word the Maker of everything and the true Light. Now that Maker stands inside His own work, and the world does not recognise Him. Which "world" is meant? How could it miss Him? And what does that failure say about us?
The word behind "world" here is not simply the planet. One writer traces the term John chose and where it lands:
The Apostle John often mentions the world in his writings. He always uses a word we have taken into English when we speak of the "cosmos." It means the universe as an ordered whole, or sometimes, in a more restricted sense, just our world as an ordered whole. That is the sense of the world in this verse. As Creator He had made the universe as an ordered whole, and a wonderful moment arrived when He was found in that cosmos in a special way. He was there by entering this smaller restricted cosmos. Sad to say, it had become perverted and alienated by sin — so perverted that it did not even know Him.
Another writer sets the two senses of that word side by side.
John at the beginning of his Gospel makes the distinction between the world in a material sense and in a moral sense... He came into the world that He Himself had made, but the world that man had made did not know Him. In the material world, He found a moral world, a world of spiritual darkness.
Why does the verse mention who made the world? It shows the world had every reason to know Him.
"He was in the world, and the world was made through him." The world therefore surely ought to have known its Maker. But no — "the world did not know him." From the very first, man, being a sinner, was wholly lost. Here the unlimited scene is in view; not Israel, but the world.
Creation itself did not fail Him. Man did.
The world did not know its Creator when He came into it. The elements owned Him, for the winds and the waves obeyed His command, and the fish of the sea knew His voice. It was man, made in the image and likeness of God, who did not recognise Him and did not obey Him.
The thoughtless crowd was not the problem here. The world's leaders and best minds were.
In Jesus God was perfectly declared. He was presented before the eyes of men by works of power, mercy, and grace. But "He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him." ... Not only that, but judging Him to be a criminal, they put Him to a shameful death on a cross. And it was the princes, or leaders, of the world who did it. It was the head, the brains, of the world; not the thoughtless crowd. "The world did not know God through wisdom."
Verse 10 and verse 11 do not say the same thing twice. One word changes, and the guilt changes with it.
What infinite and loving condescension! He, the eternal Word, the true Light, was in the world — the very world that receives its being from Him! How dense its ignorance that the world did not know Him, its Creator! But He had one place on earth which He was pleased to regard as His own. There He came. And His own people did not receive Him — notice, it does not say they did not know Him! It was rejection, not ignorance.
Rejection is not a late turn in this Gospel. It stands at the opening:
This Gospel starts, then, with the fact that He is a rejected Saviour, while the first chapter gives us His personal glories, and these I might say are innumerable.
The world's blindness did not end with Him. It still cannot read the people who follow Him.
"Beloved, the world does not know us, because it did not know Him." The motives that move the true believer, and the objects that stir him, lie far beyond the world's range of vision. And we may be sure of this: the more the world can enter into and appreciate a Christian's motives, the more that Christian must be unfaithful to his Lord.
- Made through Him — the world owed its existence to Him, so it of all places should have known its Maker.
- Known by creation — winds and waves obeyed His command and fish knew His voice; only man, made in God's image, failed to know Him.
- Unknown by wisdom — the world's leaders and thinkers failed, not just its crowds. The cross showed what human wisdom is worth.
- Not received by His own — the world's sin was ignorance. The next verse names something worse: a refusal by those who had every reason to know Him.
- Unknown still — the world that did not know Him does not know His people either. Being understood by it is no compliment.
He came to his own, and his own received him not;
He came to the one nation God had prepared for Him, and they turned Him away. Two questions follow: what were "His own," and why does John report this refusal on his very first page?
The one English word "own" covers two different forms here — one for a place, one for people.
But He had one place on earth which He was pleased to regard as His own possession (ta idia). There He came. And His own people (hoi idioi) — it does not say they did not know Him, but that they did not receive Him! It was rejection, not ignorance.
Refusal did not leave Him homeless.
The first word "own" in John 1:11 could be rendered "own home" — and John 19:27 does translate it that way. Refused His rightful place among His own people, He still had a home. To it He would invite the two disciples who asked, "Master, where are You staying?" His home was always in the bosom of the Father's love.
Israel had every reason to know Him when He came. Their own words show what they did instead.
On this earth, the people of Israel, the seed according to the flesh, were of all mankind in the best position to receive the Lord. The world around them did not know Him... That people had the law, the promises, the covenants, the oracles of God. According to the promise, the Lord was to come among them — and among them He came... But when the Messiah appeared, the Jews did not receive Him, even though His coming fitted the predictions of their own prophets perfectly. It is true, they said, and rightly, "This is the heir"; but because they hated Him, they added, "Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours."
Not receiving someone sounds mild. What Israel gave Him was worse than that.
And, worse still, His own — that favoured nation to whom God had spoken in the law and by the prophets, who boasted that they were God's people — did not receive Him when He came to them. They loved the darkness and not the light, because their deeds were evil. The Creator was a rejected stranger in His own world, and not rejected only, but hated.
It started at His birth and never eased.
When He was born a baby in David's city, there was no room for Him in the travellers' inn. Later there was no place for Him in Jerusalem or in its temple. Even among His own people the Lord of all had nowhere to lay His head. What a comment on human religiousness! And what an explanation: you may train human nature all you like — even train it by the law of God — and fallen humanity still has no heart for that life which was always with the Father, and which appeared in the person of Jesus.
Why put this refusal on the first page? The answer lies in how John's Gospel differs from the other three.
The first three — Matthew, Mark, and Luke — present Christ to man to be received, with proofs of power enough to remove all the effects of sin. But behind it all you find the difficulty: man is in the flesh, and the mind of the flesh is hostile to God. John's testimony starts here — men did not receive Him, and so He came in that grace which rose above all the rejection... so God comes out in grace... and so His Gospel all through is election and grace.
Israel's refusal did not stop God's purpose. It opened the door to a wider circle.
He came to His own, and they rejected Him. So condemnation closed their final responsibility. Still, grace in purpose would have a new set of people called "His own," taken out of the world. They are not limited to the chosen earthly nation, but include all who receive the Son, or in other words all who "believe on His name."
- Own things, own people. The first "own" points to what belonged to Him — a home, a place, rights; the second to the people connected with them.
- Not ignorance — rejection. The world did not know Him. Israel would not have Him. Knowing more made the refusal worse, not better.
- Not indifference — hatred. No room at His birth, no place in Jerusalem, a cross at the end. Religious training produced no heart for Him.
- Rejection first, then grace. John opens with the refusal. Everything after it comes as pure grace, given over man's "no."
- A second "His own." What one nation refused opened a new family. It takes in all who receive the Son and believe on His name.
but as many as received him, to them gave he [the] right to be children of God, to those that believe on his name;
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
who have been born, not of blood, nor of flesh's will, nor of man's will, but of God.
John has just said that some people received Christ, and that He gave them the right to become God's children. This verse answers the next question — how does anyone enter that family? — and it starts by ruling out every route people would try on their own.
The verse makes one positive claim and guards it with three denials. Each denial matches a part of ordinary human birth.
This verse makes four statements. One is positive and three are negative. The positive one is "who were born … of God." The three negative ones are "not of blood," "nor of the will of the flesh," and "nor of the will of man." These three are the parts that make up our human birth into this world. "Blood" refers to the nature of that birth, "flesh" to the agent, and "man" to the source... Chapter 1 stresses what the new birth is not. Chapter 3 stresses what it is and how God brings it about.
The first denial rules out ancestry — the family line you are born into, religious or social.
The Jew boasted of having Abraham's blood in his veins, just as today a man may boast of being born of aristocratic or even royal blood. Those humble souls, who as exceptions to the rule received Christ when He came, were born of God... Their birth was of God, a divine act. And the One whom they received in faith gave them the right to take openly the place that was already theirs by that birth.
"Flesh" here means fallen human nature. That nature cannot give this birth, because it is set against God.
The flesh is the moral principle of fallen humanity. It loves to reason, but hates to obey. It cannot be subject to the law of God. Those who are in it cannot please God. Its mind, which it glories in, is enmity against God. It is the seed-bed of human theories and speculations... The believer is not born of that, nor of the will of man; it is a ruined race. This is a solemn and important word, and it meets us right at the start of this Gospel.
The third denial closes the last door: what one person may decide, arrange or perform for another.
Third — "nor of the will of man." This settles the matter definitely — "man" has nothing to do with it. He may reform you, educate, civilise, make you religious, but he cannot touch this question. This belongs to God alone.
Commentators press this against the idea that a ceremony can make a child of God:
Not by baptism but by faith. Not infants who do not understand what the ceremony means, but sinners led to put their trust in Christ. This birth does not come by a priest putting a few drops of water on the face of an unconscious infant. It is "of God," by God's own sovereign act.
The positive half of the verse describes something given, not something improved.
But this new life given of God is not merely a moral change — a ceasing to do evil and learning to do well. It is a real new kind of life in the believer, though it may be impossible to define. That is no wonder, for natural life is impossible to define too. Through it we are the children of God in reality, not just in name — really born of Him.
Everyone born this way shares one source, and that makes them one people:
They form a new race. This does not come by natural birth — of blood. It does not come by their own efforts — the will of the flesh. It does not come by the will of others — the will of man. It comes from a new life they receive from God.
Verse 12 speaks of believing; this verse speaks of birth. Commentators differ on how the two fit together. Some argue the birth must come first:
Suppose I, while still unconverted, could produce the new birth by my own faith. Then it would be of "the will of the flesh" and "the will of man" — and we are plainly told that it is not. It is "of God," "of His own will," "by the word of God," and there we must leave it.
Others hold that the question itself pulls apart what Scripture keeps together.
Does new birth come before faith, or after it? Such questions try to separate what God has joined together and will not have divided... It is enough to say that new birth is a sovereign act of God, that He is first in it, and that it comes by the Word through faith.
- Blood — ancestry is ruled out. No family line, national or religious, passes this birth down.
- Flesh — self-effort is ruled out. The nature doing the willing is the very nature that is at enmity with God.
- Man — outsiders are ruled out. Another person can educate you or perform a rite on you, but cannot touch this.
- God — the one remaining source. Not the old life repaired, but a real new life, making us His children in fact and not just in name.
- Result — a new race, gathered by God's act rather than by descent, decision or ceremony. Commentators differ on how faith and this birth fit together. All agree that God is first in it.
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we have contemplated his glory, a glory as of an only-begotten with a father), full of grace and truth;
John's Gospel opens by describing One who was in the beginning, who was with God, and who was God. Now it says this Person became something He had not been before, and readers have asked ever since what "flesh" means here and whose glory the witnesses saw.
The verse marks a turning point in the chapter. Everything before it describes the Word's own nature; here something happens.
In verse 14 a new part begins. Before, it was what He was; now, what He became. The Word became flesh and lived among us. It was a real thing, not like God appearing to Abraham for a visit. He pitched His tent among us.
One writer looks closely at the word "became":
When Scripture says that the Word became flesh, it teaches us this was a new beginning. It was a condition that did not exist before. Now it is true of the One who was and is the Word.
The word chosen is the lowest word available for human nature.
"Flesh" describes humanity by its lowest part. The depth of this stooping down is the glory of what is revealed, and the words "the Word became flesh" convey that glory perfectly.
Because the word is so low, some have treated His humanity as a costume. Commentators reject that.
His humanity was not just an outward form. It was not something put on like a coat for a purpose, then thrown off once that purpose was done. It was real. He became an actual man, and this He will never cease to be.
And what He became took nothing away from what He already was:
His becoming man took nothing at all away from His eternal deity, or from His eternal place within God Himself. It only gave His humanity His own perfection without limit.
One writer compares this to the tabernacle, the tent where God's glory stayed among Israel.
In that tent, the glory of God had lived — in the darkness, not in the light, shut away where no one could reach it. Now here was another tent, the flesh of Christ, and in it lived the full glory of God, open to all. People could come near that divine glory and look at it, because it was shown in grace and truth.
This is why the coming is not classed with the appearances God made to people in earlier times:
He tabernacled among us, full of grace and truth. It was not a visit or an appearance of God, as in Old Testament experiences.
"We beheld" is not a claim about eyesight.
"We beheld," here, would tell any spiritual mind that this was spiritual sight, not just physical sight. So it does not mean one event in the lives of those who saw Him. It means a lasting impression on the mind. That is why one translation renders it as "we have contemplated His glory."
Commentators differ over the next phrase. One older version reads "the glory as of the only begotten of the Father," while another gives "a glory as of an only-begotten with a father." "Only-begotten" means the one and only Son. One writer reads it this way:
There was glory in this unique Person, "Only-begotten with Father." That glory existed before, and no one had ever seen it until He became flesh. When His devoted disciples did see it, it came to them as unlimited grace and truth, and it bound them to Him for ever.
The glory did not come as a demand.
It is God come as a man into the world of sinners. He comes veiled in humiliation. He comes into the world of sinners in grace. Instead of saying, "You must behave properly," He comes Himself — not to judge, but to save... Grace comes abounding over all the sin, and truth comes too — not telling us what we ought to be, but what we are.
- Became. The verse turns from what the Word always was to what He became. It was a real beginning, never true of Him before.
- Flesh. He took humanity at its lowest and frailest point. The depth of that stooping is itself the glory God reveals.
- Tabernacled. The old tent shut God's glory up in darkness. The flesh of Christ carried that same glory out where people could come near and look.
- Beheld. The witnesses did not catch a glimpse. They kept looking at glory that belongs to the One with the Father, and it came to them as grace and truth.
- Full. He came to save people, not to tell them what they ought to be. Grace overflowed the sin, and truth told them what they are.