John 1 15 Exegesis Essay Research Paper

John 1: 1-5 Exegesis Essay, Research Paper

The Gospel of John is the fourth book of the New Testament. The passage that we will be dealing with from the book of John is chapter one verses one through five. In the outline from the background study it is under the section, .The eternal Word incarnate.. This passage is the prologue, which John uses in order to establish the foundation that he will use to build his presentation of the life of Christ, as it was not portrayed in the synoptic Gospels.

Verses 1-5 will be best understood in light of the entire context of the book. We should remember that the Gospel of John was written to supplement the other Gospels. Although John does not start out his Gospel with the birth of Christ the man, he starts out with Christ in eternity. In this prologue, he mostly deals with the deity of Christ, and His involvement in the creation of the world; however, he does deal somewhat with the authority and power given to Christ empowering him to overcome the .darkness..

In this paper, we will seek to understand the theological meaning that John presents in verses 1-5. We will seek to relate this meaning to the context in which this passage is found. For example, since it was commonly believed at the time of John.s writing of his Gospel that the .Word. had not yet come to the Jews, how did John deal with this. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to understand the significance of the writing of John.s Gospel, and the scripture upon which the theology of the Trinity is established. We will do this through a study of the words that John used in this particular message, through a study of the theological meaning of the message, and through interpreting the relevance of the message to the time and circumstances of its writing.

Verse 1

In the beginning. Starting off like Genesis 1:1, John here alludes to the Old Testament and the Jewish idea of God creating the earth through his preexisting wisdom (Clarke). This simple terminology implies so much about the very nature of the Trinity. First of all, the phrase can also be interpreted, .from all eternity. characterizing Christ as preexisting (New Commentary on the Whole Bible). Secondly, .In the beginning. does not mean from the beginning; Christ was already there. However, this does not imply that the man Christ had an existence before the world was created. Christ never ceased to be God; He chose to take upon himself the form of humanity (Life Application Notes). Finally, in the Greek, en archei is definite, however, it does not prove that the Trinity exists; it is simply assumed. Either Christ existed as the creator of the universe, or matter has come out of nothing (Robertson). John later explains that Christ is the creator of everything, and also the source of eternal life (Life Application Notes).

Was the Word. Next, John goes beyond the common Jewish idea that Jesus was created by saying that in the beginning, .Was the Word,. .Existed the logos,. .was the expression,. or .was the reason.. Whatever is meant by this phrase, it is applicable to an infinite Christ. There are many opinions on why this name was given to the Son of God. Some believe this was used to describe Christ because a word is something used to communicate. Christ might be called .the Word. because he is the one who communicated God.s will and commands for our lives to the world (Barnes). In the Hebrew Scriptures, .the Word. was an agent of creation (Psalm 33:6), the source of God.s message by way of the prophets (Hosea 1:2), and the standard of God.s holiness (Psalm 119:11) (Life Application Notes). The term word was also commonly used by the Jews to describe the Messiah. In their writings He is described as .Mimra. which is to say .Word. (Barnes). Since John was describing Christ as .the Word,. the phrase, .the Word was God. was blasphemous to the Jews. To the Greek readers the phrase, .the Word became flesh. was unthinkable. But, John used these phrases to express his new understanding that this .Word. was the Gospel. Also, by calling Jesus .the Word,. John calls Him the incarnate revelation of God.s commands in the scriptures, and therefore declares that only those who accept Jesus honor the law fully (Inter Varsity Press). Since .the Word. can also be described as .the expression,. it is also plausible to consider Christ as the expression of God to the world (New Commentary on the Whole Bible). The Greek culture encouraged the worship of many mythological gods. These gods had supernatural powers that were as important to the Greeks as the genealogies were to the Jews. John shows that Jesus is superior to these gods of mythology (Life Application Notes). Three times in the sentence, John uses the imperfect form of .was. or in the Greek, .eimi.. This conveys the idea that God is without origin, simply a continuous existence, an eternal God (Robertson).

The word .logos. in Greek is also commonly used to describe reason in addition to word. Heraclitus used .logos. to describe the principle which controls the universe, while the Stoics used it to describe the soul of the world (Robertson). The preexistent .Logos,. .became flesh,. so by this phrase John answered both of these heresies at the same time (Robertson).

And the Word was with God. This expresses friendship, intimacy, or co-existence between .the Word. and God. Christ himself explains this relationship clearly in