John 1:1-18: God Becomes Human to Bring Us to God

(1) Bible Study Questions

Discuss: Do you like knowing the ending of the movie before you go and see it? Why or why not? Do you like reading the end of the book before you start it? Why or why not?

1. Read John 20:30-31. What is John’s Gospel about?

2. Read John 1:1-18 and answer the following questions from verses 1-3:

(a) When was the Word?

(b) Who was the Word with?

(c) Who was the Word? (cf. vv. 14, 17-18)

(d) How can the Word be with God and be God?

3. Answer the following questions from verses 3-5:

(a) What did the Word make? (cf. v. 10)

(b) What does the Word have in him?

(c) Why couldn’t the darkness understand, or literally ‘grasp’, the light?

4. Answer the following questions from verses 6-9, 15:

(a) Who is the John being talked about here?

(b) Who isn’t he? Who is he? How does John witness to the light? (cf. vv. 19-23, 29-30)

(c) What is John's testimony?

Tracing a Theme: ‘The Light’ in John’s Gospel

Jesus Christ is the light of the world (8:12; 9:5; 12:46). This theme is introduced in the prologue and expanded subsequently. The light is life (1:4). It is in combat with darkness, which tries to overcome it, but cannot (1:5). The light comes into the world (1:9, 3:19) and to humans (1:4) but only for a short time (12:35). The true light enlightens every man (1:9), which seems to be a reference to the opportunity for eternal life and truly knowing God that Christ brings. The light of Christ shines in the darkness (1:5), and humans must walk with (12:35) and trust in (12:36) that light.

While John the Baptist is not the light, he testified to the light (1:7, 8). In a derivative sense, John the Baptist shined for a time (5:35), but this is a reference to his testimony to the true light, Christ.

Men love the darkness not the light (3:19) because their deeds evil, and they therefore love to hide in the darkness (3:20). There is a type of light the world has (11:9). Walking in the darkness shows that a person is not in the light (11:10), but doers of the truth do in fact enter the light (3:21).

5. Answer the following questions from verses 10-13:

(a) What is bizarre about the world and his own people not receiving the Word? (vv. 10-11)

(b) Who has the authority to become God’s children? (v. 12)

(c) How do people not become come God's children? (v. 13)

(d) Are you God’s child? Why or why not?

(e) Who’s decision is it? (v. 13)

6. What is the earth-shattering change that is recounted in verses 9, 14-16? How is the world different as a result?

7. John compares the ministry of Jesus to that of Moses. How would you characterize the difference in these two important ministries? (vv. 16-17)

(2) Sermon Script

Introduction: How Do You Know If You’ve Made It?

How do you know when a person has made it? What’s the yardstick of greatness in our community?

What about a call from Andrew Denton, “Look, we’d love to interview you, when can you come in?” That’s pretty good. But is it great? What if Michael Parkinson rang, “Look, Tony Blair can’t do this week. We’ll fly you over. Try not to overshadow Bill Clinton, Billy Connolly and Bono!” Not bad! But is it true greatness? OK then, Oprah Winfrey? “We’ve cancelled Nicole Kidman! The private jet’s on the way.” That’s undeniably big. But I think true greatness demands a forum that takes a whole life into account, not just the latest movie, book or scandal.

What if the door bell rings, and there stands misty-eyed Mike Munro, plush red book in hand. Shielding your eyes from the bright lights, you hear in those deep radio announcer tones your name and the climactic ‘This is Your Life’. You are magically surrounded by violin music, changed into evening attire, and transported into the midst of a live studio audience. Important people from around the world have flown in to say how wonderful you are. You could justifiably say to yourself, “I think I’ve now made it!”

Well, in today’s bible reading, the gospel writer John does this for Jesus ‘Christ’: “Jesus Christ, this is your life!”—Start violin music here!

Where Do You Start Jesus’ Story? (vv. 1-2, 15)

But where do you start Jesus’ life story. The different beginnings of each New Testament Gospel demonstrate the problem. In our day, a normal biography would at least start with the date of birth, bring in a school friend, and show embarrassing photos of wide ties, bowl haircuts, and pre-orthodontic teeth.

That’s not where John starts. He goes further back. He doesn't start in a Nazarean carpenter’s home, nor in a Bethlehem manger, nor even with ‘great-great-to-the-power-of-25-grandparents’.

John the Baptist was six months older than Jesus. He was Jesus’ older cousin. We all know that normally a big brother, or an older cousin, never lets the younger siblings forget their place.

But not John the Baptist. Look at what he says of Jesus in verse 15:

1:15John testifies about him and cries out, saying, “This one was he of whom I said, ‘the one coming after me came before me, for he was prior in rank over me.’”

John the Baptist lived to point people to Jesus Christ. He was like an attendant at the movies, torch in hand, pointing out your seats. So you can sit down and watch the bright feature film projected on the screen. And the feature is Jesus Christ.

To start his story of Jesus life, our Bible writer, John, goes way back. Before humans existed. Before the dinosaurs. Before the sun, moon and stars. Before anything that was created. That’s where John goes. John goes way back. Verses 1-2:

1:1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 1:2This one was with God in the beginning.

Once upon a time … A long time ago in a galaxy far far away … One ring to rule them all … In the beginning, God made the heavens and the earth. All of these are great ways to start epic stories. And here, John is starting an epic story before anything else existed. In the beginning there is God and there is ‘the Word’.

Introducing ‘the Word’ (vv. 1-5)

Now, we know what a ‘word’ is. It is the skin of a living thought, an idea wrapped and delivered in human language. But here, John describes the Word as a person. For John, the Word is a ‘he’, not an ‘it’, not just an abstract idea. He was with God. So there is God and the Word. And the Word is God. This Word is identified as God. Whatever God is, the Word is. He was with God, and he was God. That is what the Word is: distinguishable from God in some sense, yet identifiable with God’s very being and essence.

Friends, verses like these are the reason why Christians believe in the Trinity. The one true God exists eternally as three distinct persons in relationship with one another. For the Word was with God—a distinct person—yet he is God—as there is only one God, not three gods. In verse 3 we learn what the Word has done.

1:3All things came about through him, and apart from him nothing which came to be came about.

Why do you exist? Why are you sitting here, thinking, living, breathing right now? It is because the Word created you. He made you. And so the Word owns you. You belong to this Word person because he formed and molded you. You owe him your allegiance. But not only that, but the word has life in himself. Verses 4 and 5:

1:4In him was life, and that life was the light for people. 1:5The light also shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not grasped it.

This Word person has life in himself: “in him was life”. The Word sustains the world by his life. Just as the sun in the sky gives life and light to the earth, so the Word is the source of life and light to the human world.

What do we know about the Word so far? The Word is identified with God, but is also distinct from God (vv. 1-2). The Word created everything, including you and me (v. 3). The Word gives life and light, like the sun does to the physical world (vv. 4-5).

The World The Word Came Into (vv. 5, 10-11)

Creation points to the Word. John the Baptist points to the Word. And what was the result? Did it lead to mass conversions? Was the result that nations and tribes and peoples flock to the Word en mass? No, rather the result was rejection. Verses 10 to 11:

1:10He was in the world, and though the world came to be through him, yet that world did not know him. 1:11He came to his own country, and even his own people did not receive him.

Human society is darkened. Verse 5:

1:5The light also shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not grasped it.

The world is in darkness and is blind to the light and dead to the life, so it cannot grasp the light or life offered by the Word (cf. John 12:37-50). So blind and lifeless is our world, that we cannot recognize our creator when he turns up. So blind are we, that the light of the world turns up, and we can’t see him. So dead, that the life of the world comes, and we can’t see him. The creator of the world rocks up to say hello, and we say, “who are you?”

The Word came to his own people, the Jewish people, the one nation who God revealed himself to in the Old Testament. And they rejected and killed him. And we non-Jews are no better. The world didn’t recognize him, and his own people did not receive him.

Hope in a Dark Dead World: Becoming a Child of God (vv. 12-13)

Yet, there is hope in the midst of this deep darkness. Verses 12-13:

1:12But as many as received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave them the authority to become children of God. 1:13They were not begotten from the blood [of humans], nor from the will of the flesh, nor from the will of man, but [were begotten] from God.

We need not remain dead to God and blind to him. A way is opened to be free of this blind deadness. And that way is for us to receive the Word and believe in his name. And when anyone does this, that person becomes a child of God.

Becoming a Christian is nothing short of a new birth. We need to be born twice. First, from our mother’s womb, and second, by receiving the Word and believing in his name. Such a change is to be born again from God. Jesus will speak about this to Nicodemus, but Nicodemus will not be able to understand it (John 2:23-3:12). But we can understand it, because John has given us the solution right at the beginning.

And if anyone is born again, because they receive and believe the Word, it is nothing short of a miracle. God has intervened to bring about this new birth of believing and receiving the word. It wasn’t fundamentally a human decision that brought it about. It was God’s decision. No one can come to Jesus unless the Father who sent him draws him (John 6:44).

Flesh Becomes Children Of God Through God the Son Becoming Flesh (vv. 14, 17-18)

But flesh can only become children of God through the Son of God becoming flesh. Verse 14:

1:14And the Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us, and we have beheld his glory, glory as the only-begotten [Son] from the Father, full of grace and truth.

The eagle has landed. Verse 14 explodes like a depth charge. The Word who was with God, who was God, who made everything, who is light and life, he became flesh. He became meat just like us, with skin and bones and fat and sinew and muscle and nerve endings. Jesus became flesh that could be slapped and pinched and sliced and punctured and pierced and bruised, as it would be, in due course. The Word, who was with God and was God, became human, and pitched his tent among us. For a short time, he hung his hat with ours.

That’s what we’re meant to remember at Christmas time. In theological language, verse 14 teaches us the incarnation.

Do you like chillie con carne? That’s meat with chillies (in Spanish). And Jesus is God becoming carne, in the incarnation, in the Word becoming truly human in the man, Jesus Christ. God enfleshed himself. God became flesh, even meaty, just like us, to be butchered by us and for us. God became fully human, in every way that we are, except sin.

And now, for the first time in John's Gospel, we learn the name of God in the flesh. Verse 17:

1:17For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

In verse 17, the name of the Word who was with God and was God is given as ‘Jesus’. It was a common Jewish name, usually pronounced ‘Yeshua’, and the equivalent of our ‘Joshua’, and meaning ‘Yahweh saves’. And Jesus’ title is also given, being ‘Christ’, also known as ‘Messiah’. This title ‘Christ’ is not his last name but the title that tells us that Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. So now we don’t know him as ‘the Word’, or just as ‘the Word’. We know him primarily as ‘Jesus Christ’, which is the name he took at his incarnation, and the title that had long been prepared for him in the Old Testament.

Jesus is not a baby in the manger any more. We do him a great disservice thinking that he is. Sure, Jesus Christ was once “holy infant so tender and mild”. But Jesus Christ is no longer a baby, and never again will he be a baby.

As we read through John’s Gospel, we will never see Jesus as a baby. John completely skips the ‘baby’ stage of Jesus’ incarnation and earthly life. John is only interested in the key years of Jesus’ Palestinian ministry, and he considers that is enough for us to believe in him and receive eternal life. In a later book, John towards the end of his life will be shown this same Jesus as the mighty warrior king who will return to crush all human pride and pretensions and subdue every dominion and power under his almighty control (the Book of Revelation). But in this book, in the Gospel of John, Jesus came not to judge the world, but to save the world (John 3:17).

We celebrate the Queen’s birthday in Australia. I doubt many of us think of the Queen as a baby. It is probable that many of us don’t even think of the Queen at all. But we are supposed to think of the Queen as she snow . Think of your children’s twenty-first parties. Sure, you could continually remind them that you potty trained them, that they were really cute in nappies, that they got lost in Westfields for three hours. But you won’t be thanked if that’s all you do. Because it doesn’t do justice to the young man or woman whose life you are there to celebrate, and whose arm will support you in your frailty. They aren’t babies anymore, and never will be again. Jesus is no longer a cuddly cute little baby. The Christ is now in heaven cannot be ignored and must be dealt with.

He is, in the words of verse 18, “God the only-begotten”. He is God the Son who became human. He has done what no other human has done, because he is what no other human is. He has seen God face to face, eyeball to eyeball—just as you and I must do one day.

Conclusion

In reading John chapter 1 verses 1 to 1, you’ve met with God’s word, lower case w. But friend, are you ready to meet God’s Word, capital W, face to face? Are you ready to meet Jesus Christ in the flesh? For one day we will, both you and I, whether living or dead. The Bible’s picture of Christ’s second coming is nothing like his first coming. Then there will be no baby in a manger. It will be more like Rambo or the Terminator, when Jesus comes in judgment and anger, but to save his people. Jesus Christ will return to the earth he made to destroy his enemies once and for all and rescue the people for whom he died, who have been waiting for his return. And what is the way to find peace with him. Verse 12.

1:12But as many as received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave them the authority to become children of God.

Receive him as Christ, King of Kings. Believe in him as saviour, for that’s what his name means, ‘God saves’. And from now on the life you live and the death you die will be in his service.

Let’s pray.

(3) English Translation

(4) Exegetical Notes

Bibliography

Brown, Raymond E, John: Anchor, New York: Doubleday, 1966.

Morris, Leon, John: NICNT, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1971.

Rienecker & Rogers, Linguistic Key to the Greek NT, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1980.

John 1:1-18 serves as an introduction to the whole Gospel of John. The prologue introduces some of the major themes of the Gospel, such as the Son or Logos’ pre-existence (John 1:1-2; 17:5) or that the Son is the one and only/only begotten Son/God (John 1:14, 18, 3:16). Thematic words are first introduced, e.g. ‘life and light’ (vv. 4-9), ‘witness’ (vv. 7-8, 15), ‘truth’ (vv. 9, 17), ‘the world’ (vv. 9-10), and ‘glory’ (v. 14).

John in verses 1-18 takes us back to before the creation of the world, when the Word, the divine Logos, existed with God because he was indeed God (vv. 1-3, 18). Moreover, the Logos sustains the world. John the Evangelist introduces both the person and the testimony of John the Baptist (vv. 6-8, 15, cf. 1:19-39, 3:22-36). Those for whom the Logos came, those who accepted and rejected the Messiah (vv. 9-13, 17). The incarnation of the Logos is referred to (vv. 9, 14). The relationship of Jesus to Moses is explicitly commented on (v. 17).

In verse 1, there are three propositions articulated: first, Jesus existed before time began, and was not created (Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος); second, Jesus was in communion with the Father as a distinct person (ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν); third, Jesus was always a partaker of deity, not elevated to that position (θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος).

In the initial phrase, verse 1a, Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, Genesis 1:1 LXX is almost certainly echoed, which provides the Old Testament setting for John’s initial statement, and also explains the absence of the definite article. The underlying Hebrew is the prefixed preposition appended to the noun, and thus since there is no article in the Hebrew, neither is there in the Greek here.

Some see Proverbs 8:22 behind Ἐν ἀρχῇ, although the clear reference is to Genesis 1:1 (Hebrew, bereshith). The Jews saw the Torah as being at the beginning, and in this, John is contrasting the pre-existent person of Christ with the law and showing the pre-eminence of the Word over the law (cf. v. 17).

The imperfect tense form of the verb ‘to be’, ἦν, is used here to convey background information. John is now addressing the question of the existence of Christ, and is laying the foundations for his belief that the incarnate Christ is the pre-existent Logos. By contrast, the broad verb ἐγένετο, ‘to become’ (v. 3) refers to things coming into being or to persons who change their state, and therefore John here rightly does not use it to describe the ontology of the pre-existent and eternal Logos. Nevertheless, γίνομαι with Jesus as subject is used in verse 15 in the phrase ἔμπροσθέν μου γέγονεν || he [Jesus] came before me [John the Baptist], so not a lot of weight can be placed on that argument. Perhaps the statement by John the Baptist may be taken as an economic, not ontological, statement, regarding the interventions of the pre-incarnate Christ in creation (cf. vv. 1-3) and during the Old Testament period.

Regarding ὁ λόγος (v. 1, ‘the logos’, translated as ‘the Word’), there are diverse potential backgrounds to John’s usage of the term, as pointed out by Leon Morris (1971: 115-126), and the notes that follow are in part taken from him, as well as from notes from Moore College NT2 lectures by Dr Philip Kern.

First, in Greek philosophy, Heraclitus saw ‘logos’ as the world soul, the rational principle of the universe, a creative energy through which all things came. Thus, for the Greeks, the logos is the stabilizing principle and the metaphysical glue of the universe, that which gives structure and meaning to the world. The Stoics followed him, holding that the logos is eternal reason, the rationality of the universe. The Stoics felt that there was a rational principle controlling the universe, and considered that a disciplined life is one lived in conformity with the logos. This background establishes that logos conveys to the Greek mindset, a pre-expression, pre-linguistic inward thought, but as the thought moves forward in the mind, the thought is clothed with words. The inward thought combined with the outward expression is ὁ λόγος. The phrase therefore resonates with John’s Greek readership, being widely recognizable and carrying much weight, but John’s essential meaning does not primarily derive from the Greek background. Unlike the behaviour of the pantheon of Greek gods, John narrates that the one true God enters the world he createdin the person of his only begotten Son.

Second, in the Hebraic context, key is Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning […] and God said”. The word of Yahweh in the biblical creation account is the effective agent for accomplishing the divine will (Ps 33:6). Wisdom also is semi-hypostasized in Proverbs 8:22ff. However, ‘word’, ‘wisdom’, and ‘law’ are not the same as ‘God’, though they are in some sense divine. In the Old Testament, God word (dabar) is that which provides redemption. “My words shall accomplish what I purpose it to do” (Isa 55:11; cf. Deut 34). God redeemed his people with his word (Ps 107:17).

Third, in the targums, the written oral paraphrases of the Hebrew Scriptures in Aramaic, the ‘word’ (Aramaic, memra) sometimes replaced the divine name (e.g. Exod 19:7). ‘Word’ was used as a designation of the divine and as a replacement for the divine name.

Fourth, in the apocrypha, wisdom was created and with close relationship with God and an associate with his works (Sir 24:9; cf. Wis 8:3,4).

Fifth, in Philo, the thought is that the logos is ‘second God’ or ‘one God in action’. In Philo and Hellenestic Judaism, the logos takes the place of sofia, wisdom. Philo inserts the logos between God and the world, and for him the logos is not divine. John views the logos as personal, not personified, as Philo does.

John’s thought is essentially new, though he uses a pregnant term. His thought is richer: the word is not a principle but a living being, not a personification but a person, and that person is God. The lexeme itself conveys the idea, in the context of the Gospel of John, of God’s communication and self-revelation. Words communicate and reveal the speaker to the hearers. This certainly is consistent with the idea that Jesus makes the Father known (cf. v. 18).

Logos is not a common designation for Christ in the New Testament, but consistent with the rest of the New Testament witness, Jesus is seen as the creator and sustainer of the world (Luke 8:11, 2 Cor 2:9; 1 John 1:1; Heb 1; Col 1). There is no intermediary between God and creation that does the work of creation, and in this perhaps John speaks against Gnosticism, in that matter is not inherently evil, but God himself in the person of Jesus created the world. There are no evil intermediaries perversely creating matter, but God directly creates. The motifs of ‘wisdom’, ‘torah’, and ‘word’ find their fulfillment in the incarnate Christ. Christ, not the law of Moses, nor wisdom, is the eternal logos of God. John’s background is undoubtedly the Jewish understanding, but he uses a word that has profound meanings for Greeks, and it may well be that John toys with the ambiguity. Logos is thus a bridge word to communicate with Greeks, though John undoubtedly fills it with an Old Testament understanding.

In verse 1b and the phrase πρὸς τὸν θεόν, the basic meaning of the preposition πρὸς is ‘towards’, ‘to’. Here, πρὸς indicates ‘with’, ‘in communion with’, ‘face-to-face’, ‘in the presence of God’, ‘converse’. It conveys nearness combined with movement towards (Morris 1971: 76). Thus it means that the Word was oriented towards God. This usage is not classical but typical of New Testament Greek. An example of this usage elsewhere in the Gospel of John at 20:11, ‘Now Mary stood next to the tomb (πρὸς τῷ μνημείῳ ἔξω)’. The phrase adds to the idea of the pre-existence of the Word that the Word is in some sense distinct from God. To be ‘with God’ means that there is a distinction of persons within the Godhead that is introduced.

Regarding verse 1c and the phrase θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος, the absence of the article does not indicate that θεὸς is indefinite; rather it indicates that it is the complement of the subject ὁ λόγος, which possesses the definite article. This can be compared with John 5:27, ὅτι υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου ἐστίν || ‘because he is Son of Man’, where the emphatic complement lacks the article. Some assert that if the noun θεὸς took the article, it would equate θεὸς with λόγος and would be pure Sabellianism (Morris 1971: 77, citing Westcott). In that case, an absolute identity between the Logos and God would be intimated, meaning that the Logos, and only the Logos, was God—not the Father and not the Spirit. But this would contradict the preceding clause where John states that the Logos was with God and thus distinct from the Father. Some argue the absence of the article in the predicate emphasizes a quality, i.e. that the logos is divine (e.g. Rienecker & Rogers 1980; Moffat), but against rendering θεὸς as ‘divine’, there is a separate adjective θεῖος, α, ον (Brown 1966: 5). Morris rightly argues that it is not qualitative or indefinite, but definite (1971: 77). John is using the most broadly understood category of God and μονογενὴς shows that there is not a plurality of gods on view (John 1:18).

In verse 2, the demonstrative οὗτος, ‘this’ is used as a pronoun ‘he’. Compare 1:7, 15 and use of ‘that’ in 1:8.

At the end of verse 3, and the phrase καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν. ὃ γέγονεν, the punctuation here is not conclusive. The verb γέγονεν could be attached to verse 3 as an emphatic phrase, and this is my preferred option, thus, “And without him nothing has come to pass which has come to be” rather than attaching the relative clause to the end of verse 4, “which has come to pass in him was life”.

In verse 4, Jesus replaces the torah, which was thought by the Jews to be life (ζωὴ). Jesus is the life, and many Jewish institutions are shown by John to be replaced by Jesus.

In verse 5, the verb καταλαμβάνω means ‘I lay hold of, obtain, attain, overcome, conquer’, and in the middle, ‘I understand’, that is, lay hold with the mind. But is a choice required between the meaning ‘understood’ and the meaning ‘overcome’? Against the meaning ‘understand’, why doesn’t John use γινώσκω? It is also used in John 8:3-4, of the woman ‘seized’, ‘caught’ or ‘grabbed’ in the act of adultery. In John 12:35, John uses καταλαμβάνω to mean ‘taken hold of’ in the sense of ‘overcome’. The NASB in 1:5 translates it as ‘grasp’, which covers both the cognitive meaning of ‘understand’ and the physical ‘taking hold of’. In the wider context of John’s Gospel, throughout there is both a battle between light and darkness, and also many seek to ‘grasp’ Jesus. The ambiguity of ‘grasp’ is useful, because we want to have the concept of understanding alongside a notion of the fact that Jesus could not be defeated.

In verses 6-8, John the Baptist is a man who has been sent from God (ἀπεσταλμένος παρὰ θεοῦ) but who is not the Christ. The Old Testament motif of shaliach, ‘to stretch out, send’, also runs through John’s Gospel. The perfect tense form foregrounds the divine sending. His testimony is recounted in verse 15.

In verse 9 we have the first intimation of the incarnation. Christ is the true light (τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινόν) that enlightens all men (ὃ φωτίζει πάντα ἄνθρωπον). The enlightening of all people is a reference to the potentiality of the Logos' saving work rather than its efficacy. Sinful humans do not come to the light (cf. 3:20-22). 'Light' is Christ's identity as a function of his divinity. The incarnation is referred to as the light "coming into the world" (ἐρχόμενον εἰς τὸν κόσμον). It is a reference to his revealing of what both God is like (v. 18), and what humans are really like.

In verse 11, εἰς τὰ ἴδια ἦλθεν, Jesus came to his home, the Jewish people, yet they rejected him. He came home to Israel, and his own who should have known better, rejected him (Morris 1971: 96). My translation is “He came to his own place and his own people rejected him.

John in verse 12 uses τέκνα θεοῦ, children, not sons, unlike Paul and Hebrews. John reserves the word ‘Son’ for Christ.

Regarding the unusual phrase in verse 13, οἳ οὐκ ἐξ αἱμάτων (those not of bloods, thinking of the blood of each parent as the origin of the child), the Old Latin version, supported by Irenaeus, Tertullian and Justin, reads a singular article, and was interpreted as referring to Christ’s virgin birth. However, the Greek manuscript evidence overwhelmingly supports the plural. Blood was sometimes thought as the means of procreation, but Jesus’ conception is not the result of sexual reproduction, or him being from the blood of two human parents. Again, the phrases οὐδὲ ἐκ θελήματος σαρκὸς οὐδὲ ἐκ θελήματος ἀνδρὸς, likewise emphasize that the begetting of the children of God is not of human (cf. John 3:6) or male initiation. The three phrases can be taken as a three-fold means of denying that the children of God are not sexually procreated into God’s family; it is an ‘of-God birth’ that is required.

In verse 13 and the aorist passive ἐγεννήθησαν, we have the first instance of the verb γεννάω in the Gospel of John (John 1:13, 3:2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8:41, 9:2, 19, 20, 32, 34, 16:21, 18:37). While often it refers to the male act of fathering, ‘begetting’ (e.g. John 8:41, cf. BAGD, 155), John and Jesus frequently use it of a woman’s act of bearing a child (John 3:4, 16:21, 18:37 of Jesus, who was born of woman into the world), and so it can be consistently translated ‘bear’ for women or in a gender neutral sense of ‘born to’ (as is illustrated in John chapter 9, as the birth relationship with the man born blind from birth is explicitly said to be with both parents, mother and father).

In verse 14, “the word became flesh” (Καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο) is a clear statement that Jesus became truly human by taking on ‘flesh’. John denies that Jesus only appeared to be human (docetism). Here is a true incarnation. The verb σκηνόω, ‘I tabernacle, pitch tent, dwell (temporarily), live’, is loaded with theological freight. In the Old Testament, God took up residence among us his people in the midst of the camp. While God’s tabernacling with Israel was not a transitory dwelling the way we talk about the tent, and was a permanent residence, yet the fact about Jesus’ first coming was that it was temporary on earth, and that Jesus did go back to the Father, though Jesus did not only temporarily take on a body.

In verses 14, 18, the important adjective μονογενὴς (cf. John 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9) has been subject to debate. The traditional translation of the AV was ‘only begotten’, but this was replaced in the revised translations of the last 100 years with ‘unique, one of a kind, one and only’. However, recently the understanding of ‘only begotten’ is enjoying a resurgence. The argument in part is etymological. The traditional/resurgent view takes the accidence of the lexeme to be μόνος (‘alone, only’) + γεννάω (‘I beget’ or ‘bear’), but the revised view takes the word formation to be based on μόνος (‘alone, only’) + γένος (‘kind’).

Leading the plea for a re-evaluation and the resurgence of the traditional understanding of μονογενὴς to mean ‘only begotten’ is Lee Irons (see https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/lets-go-back-to-only-begotten/). In the web post above, Irons deals with the etymological argument in the following way:

But what about the etymological argument that the –genēs portion of monogenēs comes from genos (“kind”) rather than gennao (“beget”)? This argument collapses once it is recognized that both genos and gennao derive from a common Indo-European root, ǵenh (“beget, arise”) [citing Robert Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 1.266, 272–73]. This root produces a fair number of Greek words having to do with biological concepts of begetting, birth, and offspring. In fact, the word genos itself sometimes means “descendant” (Rev. 22:16). True, it can also mean “kind” in a scientific or classification sense where literal biological descent is not in view (e.g., “different kinds of languages” [1 Cor 14:10]). But the scientific or classification usage is a metaphorical extension of the literal biological sense, since the abstract concept of “kind” is modeled on the embodied biological experience of the similarities shared by offspring descended from a common parent. [from https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/lets-go-back-to-only-begotten]

Some qualifications to Irons’ argument are provided by Daniel Wallace at https://danielbwallace.com/2016/11/24/μονογενής-only-begotten/, who while offering some criticisms, suggests that Irons may have a point with regard to the TLG data. On the point Wallace makes concerning redundancy or tautology, often the repetition that we might regard as a ‘tautology’ and not a good ‘economic’ use of Greek is a matter of style and emphasis by the New Testament author. For example, if the notion of son is inherent in μονογενὴς, why in John 3:16, 18 and 1 John 4:9 is the word for ‘son’, υἱός, explicitly used there? (τὸν υἱὸν τὸν μονογενῆ: v. 16), τοῦ μονογενοῦς υἱοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ: v. 18, τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ τὸν μονογενῆ: 1 John 4:9). If it is not, why is υἱός not used in John 1:14, 16? The notion of tautology does not really assist the exegetical task in these cases. See further by Denny Burk, a supporter of “only begotten”, http://www.dennyburk.com/lee-irons-has-posted-a-summary-of-his-unpublished-paper-on-monogenes-sharperiron-tgc/; http://www.dennyburk.com/deep-in-the-weeds-on-monogenes-and-eternal-generation/. Seamus McDonald regards the notion of begottenness as overemphasised by Irons, and prefers ‘only-child’ : https://thepatrologist.com/2017/11/29/a-response-and-critique-of-charles-lee-irons-a-lexical-defence-of-the-johannine-only-begotten/; https://thepatrologist.com/2017/11/26/monogenes-in-pro-nicene-exegesis-sbl-paper/.

At worst, the translation ‘only begotten Son’ is quaint, because ‘begotten’ is not a word used in modern English. But we often have imperfect English equivalents that we have to explain, and not just translate. And sometimes we have no direct English equivalent. The rendering ‘only begotten Son’ accents the origin of the Son. Not only is he unique, but he is in a relationship of a Son to a Father, as the word ‘begotten’ indicates. It is clearly a reading that is consistent with later credal formulations of the Trinity. The rendering of ‘unique, one of a kind, one and only’ by contrast does not seem to carry as much information. Of course, we need to ensure that the information is read out of the word, not read into it. But only ‘begotten’ adds to the idea of uniqueness the explicit notion of filial relationship. This can certainly be carried by adding the word ‘only begotten Son’, but we then are talking about modality (how loud or emphatic the phrase is in communicating its meaning) and not meaning (what the phrase means). I think it is worth translating μονογενὴς as ‘only begotten’ in the five instances in the Johannine literature. It accents the uniqueness of the Son and makes the reader stop and consider what the nature of that uniqueness is.

Regardless of our our decision on the best way to translate μονογενὴς, the high Christology is clear where it appears.

• Verse 14: and we have beheld his glory, glory as the only-begotten [Son] from the Father (δόξαν ὡς μονογενοῦς παρὰ πατρός), full of grace and truth.
• Verse 18: No one has ever seen God; the only-begotten God—the one in the bosom of the Father—has made him known (μονογενὴς θεὸς ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκεῖνος ἐξηγήσατο).

In the two instances of its use in the prologue, while the word for Son is not used, the close and unique relationship with the Father is explicitly related (παρὰ πατρός: v. 14, εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς: v. 18). The statement μονογενὴς θεὸς, with θεὸς in apposition, is as strong a statement of the full divinity of the Son as we have in the Scriptures, as strong as John 1:1, but adding to it the personal distinction described by μονογενὴς.

Rendering the saying of John the Baptist in verse 15 (cf. v. 30), is extremely difficult, and English translations almost universally resort to an interpretive paraphrase. However, literally we might render it:

(a) ὁ ὀπίσω μου ἐρχόμενος || the one coming after me

(b) ἔμπροσθέν μου γέγονεν, || became before me

(c) ὅτι πρῶτός μου ἦν. || because he was prior to me.

The enigmatic nature of the saying rests in the use of the two adverbs, ὀπίσω rendered ‘after’ and ἔμπροσθέν rendered ‘before’.

Regarding phrase (a), articular substantival participle ὁ […] ἐρχόμενος refers to Jesus as coming in the sense of his incarnate, public Palestinian ministry (so Chrysostom, Hom. John 1:15, noting the present participle). The fact that Jesus temporally follows John the Baptist in his earthly ministry is reflected in ὀπίσω μου. Perhaps it might also refer to Jesus’ submission to John’s baptism, but John provides no account of Jesus’ baptism, so this is much less likely.

Regarding phrase (b), which together with substantive (a) acting as subject of the verb constitutes the main clause of the sentence, modern translations almost universally render it as a statement of rank—effectively, ‘ranks before me’, ‘surpassed’ me (NIV), ‘a higher rank than I’ (NASB). This indeed is an ancient view, so Chrysostom:

What then means “is before me”? Is more glorious, more honourable. “Do not”, he says, “because I came preaching first from this, suppose that I am greater than He; I am much inferior, so much inferior that I am not worthy to be counted in the rank of a servant.” This is the sense of “is before me” […] (Chrysostom, Hom. John 1:15 at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/240113.htm accessed on 13 January 2018)

The adverb ἔμπροσθέν can be certainly used of rank (e.g. Gen 48:20 LXX), but the use of perfect γέγονεν in that case is surprising, given the use of ἦν in verses 1-3 and in (c).

Neither do any English translations take the statement in the strictly temporal sense of ‘before’ in time, that is ‘preceded me’ (for which see Godet 1899: 1:369), though this is certainly a natural meaning if the clause was taken in isolation, but the problem with this is that, as Chrysostom argued, there is then no compelling reason for the existence of subordinate clause (c). Suggestions concerning when Christ might have ‘come’ in a temporal sense before John include his ‘eternal generation’ (cf. μονογενὴς), or his Old Testament ‘Christophanies’, but again they seem to be desperate hypotheses.

No English translation I know of takes ἔμπροσθέν as coming before John the Baptist in terms of location, or place, which is a typical use of ἔμπροσθέν (cf. John 3:28, 10:4, 12:37). In that sense, the one coming after me (that is, Jesus came after John) would have come before me (that is, Jesus came before John, ‘in my presence’, ‘in my sight’, perhaps to get baptised), which would be quite a natural meaning of the Greek as it stands, but likewise it does not account for the explanatory subordinate clause (c) which follows.

The perfect tense form γέγονεν need not denote past tense, but might here encode stative aspect with heightened proximity, but the difficulty is still that the lexeme γίνομαι usually denotes a change of state or being, which seems inconsistent with the previous use of ἦν (vv. 1-3). However, the use of the verb γέγονεν might reflect the unveiling of Jesus glory in time to John the Baptist in the incidents he witnessed that accompany the other account of the phrases (vv. 30-34). That is, the verb γέγονεν reflects that Jesus ‘became’ (that is, ‘was revealed in the sight of John’) ‘before’ him (that is, Jesus ‘is greater than John’) by the fact that though Jesus and John were cousins, John did not really ‘know’ him (vv. 31, 33), but when the Spirit as a dove descended and remained upon him in accordance with the divine word (vv. 32, 33), then John knew that his cousin Jesus, who only after him entered a public ministry, was more than just his cousin, but was the one would baptise with the Spirit, and thus greater than himself, who was the one who was given to simply baptize with water.

Chrysostom rightly shows that his hypothesis makes best sense of (c), and anticipates the explanation I have given in the previous paragraph in the following extract:

[B]ut because he [John the Baptist] is speaking [in clause (b)] concerning honour, he with reason explains what seems to be a difficulty. For many might well enquire, whence and on what pretext He who came after, became before [nb. appreciating γίνομαι], that is, appeared with great honour [that is, appeared to John the Baptist with the manifestations mentioned in vv. 30-34]; in reply to this question therefore, he immediately assigns the reason; and the reason is, His Being first. He does not say, that by some kind of advancement he cast me who has been first behind him, and so became before me, but that he was before me, even though he arrives after me. (Chrysostom, Hom. John 1:15 at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/240113.htm accessed on 13 January 2018)

So the saying should be rendered:

“the one coming after me comes before me in rank, because he existed prior to me in time.”

In verses 16-17, the ministry of Moses is compared with that of Jesus. The law was given by God through Moses (ὁ νόμος διὰ Μωϋσέως ἐδόθη: v. 17a, taking the passive as divine). It is thus good, but it is not the ultimate revelation, for grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (ἡ χάρις καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐγένετο: v. 17b). It is not the law is not true, but that the revelation is superior. The verb ἐγένετο refers to the incarnation as the means of the revelation of grace and truth, compared to the ‘giving’ of the law. The superiority of Christ is indicated in verse 16 by the words ‘fullness’ (πληρώματος) the phrase ‘grace upon grace’ (χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος).

The unusual phrase, χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος is most frequently taken as grace ‘upon’ or ‘on top of’ grace. The idea is of grace piling upon grace. However, the preposition ἀντί with the genitive frequently means ‘instead of’, ‘in substitution for’, ‘in replacement of’, ‘superceding’, ‘in the place of’. Given verse 17 is linked to verse 16 with a causal ὅτι, it is conceivable that the reference is to a salvation-historical progress of the ‘grace’ of the Mosaic law to the grace brought in by Jesus. But it may be that the lexemes themselves, ‘law’ and ‘grace’, might speak against this understanding. It may well be that in some contexts, that ‘the law’ itself is to be considered as grace, but it is not immediately obvious that John so regards the law that way. Rather than speaking of a one-off salvation-historical supercession of the Old Covenant by the New Covenant, the phrase probably refers to a continual supercession of one grace upon and on top of the previous, and thus a piling up of grace.

In verse 18, there is a textual issue which is surprisingly simple to solve. The majority of the earliest and best manuscripts quite clearly adopt the harder reading, μονογενὴς θεός (‘only begotten God’), which is found in P⁶⁶, P⁷⁵, the original hand of א, B, the original hand of C, with or without the article. It is therefore difficult to see how some modern English translations would adopt the reading, μονογενὴς υἱός, (‘only-begotten Son’) on text critical principles.

Again in verse 18, the phrase ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς is clear enough in the original but difficult to render in modern English. The closest usage of κόλπος, ‘chest’, ‘breast’, to this is in Luke 16:22, the ‘bosom’ of Abraham, that is, by Abraham’s ‘side’, which the NIV adopts. In Luke 6:38, it denotes the abundance that might be carried in the front folds of a garment. In modern English we do have the phrase ‘bosom buddies’, which allows us to use the somewhat outdated or quaint, ‘bosom’. ‘Heart’ is already used to render a well-known anthropological term, and ‘chest’ seems too anatomical for the intimacy that the term connotes (there is a different word John uses to describe his own action of leaning back upon Jesus’ ‘chest’: ἐπὶ τὸ στῆθος τοῦ Ἰησοῦ: John 13:25). Further complications lie in the anthropomorphic use of the term. There is not the same biblical precedent for ‘the chest of the Father’ as there is for ‘the arm of the Lord’ or ‘the face of God’. I think that the quaint and outdated yet intimate idea serves the purpose of translation.