Prologue to the Gospel according to St. John
[The Saviour of the World] [Volume I] [Book I]
Poem I [Poem II]
The divinity, humanity, and office of Jesus Christ, the Word of God, and himself God.
(The Gospel History, Section 1)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that hath been made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness apprehended it not. There came a man, sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for witness, that he might bear witness of the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but came that he might bear witness of the light. There was the true light, even the light which lighteth every man, coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and they that were his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he the right to become children of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth.
Prologue to the Gospel according to St. John
(The Saviour of the World, Vol I Book I Poem I)
Intimate, searching, inly witnessing
In every heart of man, behold, the Word!
We know not whence we came; nor how became:
The Word was in the beginning, and was God.
We may not know; but may know Him who knows;
For with the Word have all men secret speech.
The Word with the Father was ere time began:
He tells us of the Father all we know.
Whence came the world, and how were all things made?
All things that be to-day are of the Word.
No longer baffled, we, by tortuous quest—
Whether all life proceed from two or many,
Whether our origins be high or low—
Those things concern the manner of our making:
In Him was life; that is enough to know:
How He dispersed the largess of His bounty,
’Twere good indeed to learn; and time will come
When ear to hear the whisper of the Word
Shall wake; a man, learned in the laws of things,
That he heard whispered by the Word, shall tell.
Till then we wait, not knowing whence we came,
But knowing Him from whom all doth proceed.
Nothing of all good things that have been made,
Picture, or world, or book, without Him came.
Nor knowledge good for man can mankind know,
But He vouchsafes it; He is all our light.
And every man who comes into the world
By that true light is lighted, knowing it not.
The light in darkness shone; darkness nor quench’d
Nor caught the light, but dark in the light remained.
He came unto the world that He had made,
And the world knew not Him, its life and light.
He came to His own people, called of Him,
And they that were His own received Him not.
As many as received Him, they became
Children of God, believing on His Name.
Our flesh the Word became, and dwelt with us,
And we beheld His glory, as, of God,
The only-begotten Son: we who believed
Knew glory when we saw it, by the signs—
Not of the pomp and majesty of Kings—
But Grace, the touch of God, showed sweet in Him;
And Truth, discerning all things, made Him simple,
His glory saw we—full of grace and truth.
St. John i. 1–14
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Commentary by J. R. Dummelow
Jn 1:1–18. Preface, declaring (1) that the Word was God, (2) that He was made man, (3) that He revealed the Father.
This sublime preface is intended to commend ‘the truth as it is in Jesus,’ both to Jewish and Gentile minds. It describes our Lord’s person and office by a term familiar to both, that of the Logos or Word of God. ‘Logos’ has two meanings in Greek: (1) reason or intelligence, as it exists inwardly in the mind, and (2) reason or intelligence, as it is expressed outwardly in speech. Both these meanings are to be understood when Christ is called ‘the Word of God.’ He is the inward Word of God, because He exists from all eternity ‘in the bosom of the Father,’ as much one with Him as reason is one with the reasoning mind. Nothing is so close to a man as his own thought. It is within him, and is in a very real sense himself. So nothing is so close to God as His own eternal Word. It is within Him, it is one with Him, and it is divine like Him (vv. 1, 2, 18). Christ is also God’s outward Word. He expresses and explains and reveals to the world what God is. It was He who created the world (v. 3), making its order and beauty an outward expression of God’s hidden nature. In spite of the Fall, He remained in the world, revealing to sinful man, through reason, through conscience, and through prophecy, the nature of the Father. He was the True Light that shineth in darkness, and lighteth every man that cometh into the world (v. 4f.). In the fulness of time He revealed God still more perfectly, by becoming man, and living a perfect and sinless human life (v. 14f.). So perfectly did Christ’s wonderful life reveal the innermost character of God, that though ‘no man hath seen God at any time’ (1:18), those who have seen Christ may be said in a very real sense to have seen the Father also (14:9). The human life of Christ not only reveals what God is, it also helps man to become like God. The incarnate Christ is ‘full of grace and truth’ (1:14, 16, 17), and gives believers the power to put away their sinful nature, and to be born again as sons of God (1:12, 13).
(1) The Hebrew-speaking Jews were familiar with the idea that God reveals Himself to the world through His Memra, or Word, which they distinguished from Himself as His organ of revelation. The Targums of the OT. speak, not of Jehovah, but of the Memra of Jehovah, as being manifested to Abraham, Hagar, Isaac, Jacob, and to Moses at the bush. St. John’s preface, therefore, proclaimed to the Hebrew, ‘That Memra of Jehovah, which appeared to the patriarchs and prophets, was no other than Christ before His Incarnation.’ (2) The educated Greek-speaking Jews (Hellenists) were familiar with the writings of the Jewish philosopher, Philo of Alexandria (circ. 15 b.c.–50 a.d.). He believed that God does not act upon the world directly, but mediately through his Logos or Reason. To the Hellenist, therefore, St. John’s Gospel said, ‘That Logos, through which you say God acts upon the world and reveals himself in it, is no other than Christ.’ (3) Educated heathens also believed in a divine Logos or Reason, diffused through the world, and disposing all things in a rational order. First Heraclitus, then Plato, and finally the Stoics developed this doctrine, until, in the apostolic age, it was the explanation of the universe commonly accepted by educated persons. To the heathen, therefore, St. John’s preface said, ‘That divine Logos, which inspired your philosophers, so far as they have spoken truly, and whose existence is admitted by all educated men, has finally manifested Himself in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Read the account that follows of His wonderful life and sayings, and you will acknowledge that this is true.’
St. John’s doctrine of the Logos differs from the Jewish and the heathen doctrine mainly in these two points: (1) That the Logos is personal, and (2) that He became flesh.
1. In the beginning] not as in Gn 1:1, ‘in the beginning of creation,’ but ‘in the beginning of eternity,’ i.e. from all eternity: cp. 8:58 17:5. Was the Word] i.e. the Word existed. ‘The Word’ as a title of our Lord is only found in the Johannine writings (1:14 1 Jn 1:1 Rev 19:13). On its meaning, see above. Was with God] lit. ‘was directed towards God,’ the attitude of loving and intimate intercourse: cp. ‘in the bosom of the Father’ (v. 18). Was God] i.e. was divine, and is therefore to be worshipped with the same worship as is due to the Father. Jesus is again called God in express terms in v. 18 (RM) 20:28 1 Jn 5:20 Ro 9:5 Tit 2:13 (RV) Ac 20:28 Heb 1:8 2 Pet 1:1 (RV). 3. Made by Him] i.e. ‘through’ Him, as the Father’s agent. That Christ is the creator of the universe is stated Col 1:16, 17 1 Cor 8:6 Heb 1:2 1:10 Rev 3:14, but not in any Gospel except this.
3, 4. The word is not only the Creator of the world, but is also its Life; i.e. He sustains it in existence, supplies life to all living organisms, and guides all the operations of nature. To rational beings like men, He is also their Light, or Instructor. He was this even before His Incarnation, instructing them through reason, through conscience, and through prophecy.
5. This instruction by the Word was hindered by the Fall, which involved the world in moral and spiritual darkness. And the darkness apprehended it not] i.e. the people whose minds were darkened by sin did not understand or obey the instructions of the Word. Prejudice prevented them. Another translation is ‘and the darkness overcame it not.’
6–8. Parenthesis: The mission of Christ’s forerunner, John the Baptist. Perhaps this section is directed against those followers of the Baptist who maintained that he was the Messiah. The evangelist makes it clear, (1) that the Baptist had a true mission from God, and (2) that he was not the Light. His mission was to bear witness to it, and to reflect it.
9. The preface resumed. The true Light, Christ our Lord, existed even before His Incarnation, and enlightened every man, whether Jew or Gentile, born into the world. This important text teaches us that the light of revelation shines among all races, and that there is some truth, however distorted by error, in all religions. The best translation is, ‘Already the true Light existed, which lighteth every man as he cometh into the world.’ 10. He was in the world] viz. before His Incarnation. 11. He came, viz. at the Incarnation, unto his own (home), viz. the Holy Land; and his own, i.e. the Jews, received, i.e. believed, Him not.
12. Power] rather, ‘the right,’ or ‘privilege.’ Those who ‘believed on His name,’ i.e. accepted Him as the divine Son of God, and the Saviour of the world, received the privilege of becoming true sons of God. 13. This sonship conferred on men depended not on human descent from Abraham (blood), nor upon the sexual relations of their parents (the will of the flesh), nor could it be had for willing or wishing it, i.e. human effort (the will of man). It was a free and supernatural gift from God, inward and spiritual, implanted by the Holy Ghost, and dependent for its maintenance on union with Christ: see on 3:3,5.
14. The Word was became flesh] a plain statement of the wondrous fact of the Incarnation, the central mystery of our religion. God became man to atone for sin, and to make us partakers of the divine nature. ‘Flesh’ in St. John means human nature (body, soul, and spirit) without the added idea of sinfulness, which attaches to it in St. Paul (see especially 6:51 f.). Our text affirms, therefore, that the Redeemer is ‘perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting; equal to the Father, as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father, as touching His manhood. Who although He be God and man, yet He is not two, but one Christ.’
Dwelt among us] lit. ‘dwelt in a tabernacle among us,’ the tabernacle being His body (see 2:19, and cp. 2 Cor 5:1, 4 2 Pet 1: 13, 14). The allusion is to the ‘Shekinah,’ which the rabbis identified with ‘the Word of Jehovah.’ As the ‘Shekinah,’ or visible glory of God, dwelt in the tabernacle of old, so, when Christ was born into the world, His divine nature dwelt in His body as in a temple. We beheld his glory] i.e. not merely the visible glory of the Transfiguration and the Ascension, but the moral and spiritual splendour of His unique life, which revealed the nature of the invisible Father. The evangelist here claims to have been an eyewitness, as in 19:35. The only begotten from the Father] The glory of Christ’s life was not a reflected glory, as would have been the case had He been a mere human saint or prophet, but it was the glory of God’s only begotten Son, and therefore God’s own glory, for Christ and His Father are one. ‘Only begotten’ as a title of Christ is peculiar to St. John (1:18 3:16–18 1 Jn 4:9). It indicates that no man or even angel is God’s son in the sense in which Christ is. A ‘son’ in the full sense of the word is of the same nature as his father, and hence Christ, being God’s Son, is divine. Full of grace and truth] ‘grace’ is the divine favour and loving-kindness; ‘truth,’ as often in St. John, is not simply veracity, but holiness in general (cp. 1:17 3:21 4:23 8:44 1 Jn 1:6). Christ was full of grace and holiness, not that He might keep them to Himself, but that He might bestow them upon men.