I am indebted to the excellent commentaries by the late Dr. Raymond M. Brown of Union Theological Seminary in NY for many of the insights expressed here. The translation is my own.
John, Chapter 1, Verses 1 through 5, 9 through 14, and 16 through 18
1:1 In the beginning there was the Logos
and the Logos was in God's Presence
and was Divine (i.e., in its nature). This Logos
2 was present with God in the beginning.
[OR, 1 In the beginning there was the Logos
and the Logos was in God's Presence
and the Logos was Divine (i.e., in its nature). This One ( = He/She)
2 was present with God in the beginning.]
3 Through It all things came into being,
and apart from It not a single thing came into being.
What has come into being 4 in It was Life,
and that Life was the Light of humankind;
[OR, 3 Through It all things came into being,
and apart from It not a single thing came into being
that has come into being. 4. In It was Life,
and that Life was the Light of humankind;]
5 And the Light shines on in the darkness,
for the darkness could never master it. . . .
9 The genuine Light was that which enlightens
every person, whenever It comes into the world.
10 Although It was in the world,
and the world came into being through It,
the world did not recognize it.
11 It came into Its own realm
and those who belonged to It were not receptive to It.
12 But as for those who did receive It,
It gave them authority to become children of God,
that is, to those who put their trust in His (i.e., God’s) Name
(i.e., the Name “YHWH”—a Name having the significance of
“the One Who Is [with you, there for you]”).
13 These were [OR, He was] not begotten from bloods,
nor from the will of flesh, nor from the will of a husband,
but from God.
14 And the Logos became flesh
and took up residence [literally, “pitched His tent”] among us,
And we gazed upon His glory,
glory as of One only-begotten of a Father,
full of grace and truth. . . .
16 From His fullness we have all received—grace upon grace.
17 For the Torah was given through Moses;
grace and truth came into being through Jesus Christ.
18 No one has ever yet seen God.
The Only-begotten One,
[OR, The only-begotten God,]
[OR, The only-begotten Son,]
Who is at the Father's side,
He is the One Who has revealed Him. . . .
John chapter 1: Prologue to the Gospel
Introduction to the Prologue
The Prologue to the Gospel According to John is apparently a hymn that originally may have been composed independently of the Gospel. Originally it may even have been a pre-Christian hymn, which now has been adapted to Christian use. Alternatively, it may have been an originally independent piece written by the the author of the Fourth Gospel himself. At any rate, in its present position in the Gospel According to John this hymn to the Logos has become a poetic summary of the whole theology and narrative of the Gospel, as well as its introduction.
It may be that this hymn can be fully understood only after a complete study of the entire Gospel. One major motif of this Gospel is the concept that the Son/Logos “descends” from Heaven to the level of humankind, and then “ascends” back to Heaven bringing human beings up with Him to the Divine level. The prologue describes the Son in Heaven, and the “descent.” The remainder of the Gospel describes the Son/Logos residing among human beings and His final elevation and “ascent” back to the Father.
The Translation of the Prologue
Before we interpret the prologue in detail, a few comments need to be made concerning the translation I have chosen. First, I have chosen a translation that refers to the Logos as “It” rather than “He” or “Him” prior to chapter 1, verse 14. This is because, in my opinion, true “personhood” for the Logos does not begin until the Logos becomes flesh and blood in the Person of Jesus.
Second, we need to remind ourselves that the earliest Greek manuscripts of the New Testament writings did not have divisions between words and sentences, capital letters at the beginning of sentences, or punctuation. The translator must choose not only the correct manuscript reading (of hundreds available) to be translated, and the best translation of the Greek words of that reading, but he must also in some cases decide about the divisions of sentences and their punctuation.
In our present text, historically, there have been two different ways of dividing the sentences in verses 3 and 4. And although most readers today would see little difference in meaning either way, there was a real debate over this particular sentence about the time of the first “Ecumenical” Church council held at Nicea in 325 CE. Prior to that time early church writers read the verses the way I have chosen to translate them (see translation above). But after that first ecumenical council the conclusion of the first sentence was moved forward by assuming that the punctuation and sentence division were the way I have indicated them in the alternate translation (above in brackets). This was done so as to insure that no orthodox believer could consider that the Holy Spirit was one of the things created.
Third, it seems clear that verses 6 through 8, and verse 15 break the natural sequence of thought in this hymn.
Some interpreters conclude that the hymn is earlier, and that the narrative about John the Baptizer has later been inserted at certain points into it to interpret it.
Others hold that the narrative about John the Baptizer is earlier, and that there was an earlier version of this Gospel that did not have the hymn to the Logos, which was added in a later edition.
At any rate, it seems clear that these verses were not a part of the original hymn, and that they now are inserted in the hymn at these locations to insure that no one should conclude that John the Baptizer was himself the Logos.
Church tradition has long held that the Gospel according to John was first published in the area around Ephesus, and there are hints in the Book of Acts (18:24 – 19:7) that followers of John the Baptizer were indeed active in that area long after he had died in Palestine. And it further appears that there is actually a group of descendants of John the Baptizer’s followers still present in certain areas of the Middle East today. They are called “Mandaeans,” and they hold that Jesus was subordinate to John. There are also hints in the Gospels according to Matthew and Luke and in the Book of Acts, as well as here, that there may have been some kind of rivalry between the followers of John and the followers of Jesus (note the way they narrate the account of Jesus’ baptism in comparison with Mark).
It may be, however, that these verses are inserted into the hymn simply to provide the historical context for the beginning of the Gospel story, heralding the appearance of the incarnate Logos in the world, which is the theme of the following verses. These verses would then serve the same purpose as the introduction to Mark’s Gospel (1:1 ff.) and the parallels in Matthew (3:1 ff.) and Luke (3:1 ff.; cf. Acts 10:36 ff.).
Finally, there is a textual problem in verse 18, in which some Greek manuscripts read, “the only-begotten [One],” while others have “the only-begotten Son,” or “the only-begotten God.” The earliest, and presumably the most reliable manuscripts read, “the only-begotten God.” And a cardinal principle of textual criticism is that the more difficult reading is more likely to be correct, because, why would a person later change an originally easy reading to one more difficult?—It would more likely be the other way around.
Some interpreters suggest, therefore, that the original reading was “the only-begotten God.” They suggest that this reading was changed by later copyists to “the only-begotten Son,” which seems to fit better, and is in line with this Gospel writer’s more customary usage in John 3:16 and 18 and in 1 John 4:9.
The shortest reading, “only-begotten [One],” might seem to be the most attractive reading, but it does not appear in the earliest and best Greek manuscripts. There is, however, a principle of textual criticism that suggests that a shorter reading is more likely to be original than a longer one. This might be the case, because it is less likely that a copyist would deliberately omit words considered to be inspired Scripture, and it is more likely that such a person would add words to clarify the meaning of a shorter, but perhaps obscure passage.
Thus, some interpreters would argue that “Son” was added by some copyists to make the passage fit in line with John 3:16 and 18 and 1 John 4:9. They also suggest that other copyists added “God” to make it clear that the Son was not subordinate to the Father, but was co-equal with the Father, as John 1:1 implies, and as the fourth-century ecumenical councils beginning with the one at Nicea in 325 CE ruled.
Detailed Examination of the Text of the Hymn to the Logos
The first five verses of John 1 recall the Genesis account of creation. At the moment of creation the Logos already existed. Uncreated, the Logos was in the Father’s Presence; indeed, the Logos was Divine in its nature..
The Greek word “Logos” does not correspond exactly to “word,” although that is one meaning, and perhaps even the primary one in this context. But Logos has a range of other meanings, of which “reason” is the next most significant. However, it is probably better to just transliterate the Greek word here than to give it just one meaning, since a translation would convey only a part of its meaning.
The author of this Gospel introduces the term “Logos” without explanation, which suggests that he expected his readers would understand the term. “In the beginning” would certainly recall Genesis 1:1 for Jewish readers and would indicate that the writer is offering an interpretation of the narrative of creation in Genesis 1. In Genesis 1 God called the world into being by a word of command. Genesis 1:2 immediately asserts that idea: “God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.” Psalms familiar to Jewish readers also recall the creation account, for example, Psalm 33:6: “By the word of Yahweh the heavens were made,” and Psalm 148:5: “He commanded and they were created.”
Another part of the Hebrew background of this passage is the concept of Wisdom (Greek: Sophia) as presented in the Hebrew Scriptures and in later Jewish writings. The starting point is the eighth chapter of Proverbs, where Wisdom personified is the speaker. The entire chapter is instructive, but especially the part beginning with verse 22.
8:22 Yahweh created me at the beginning of His work,
the first of His acts of long ago.
23 Ages ago I was set up,
at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
24 When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no springs abounding with water.
25 Before the mountains had been shaped,
before the hills, I was brought forth—
26 when He had not yet made earth and fields,
or the world’s first bits of soil.
27 When He established the heavens, I was there,
when He drew a circle on the face of the deep,
28 when He made firm the skies above,
when He established the fountains of the deep,
29 when He assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress His command,
when He marked out the foundations of the earth,
30 then I was beside Him, like a master worker;
and I was daily His delight,
rejoicing before Him always,
31 rejoicing in His inhabited world
and delighting in the human race. --NRSV
By the first century BCE Logos and Wisdom were closely associated in the Apocryphal work, The Wisdom of Solomon, for example, in the prayer to be found in chapter 9, verses 1-4:
9:1 “O God of my ancestors and Lord of mercy,
Who have made all things by your Logos,
2 and by Your wisdom [Greek: Sophia] You have formed humankind
to have dominion over the creatures You have made,
3 and rule the world in holiness and righteousness,
and pronounce judgment in uprightness of soul,
4 give me the wisdom [Sophia] that sits by Your throne,
and do not reject me from among Your servants. --NRSV
(cf. Ecclesiasticus 24:3 ff., and 24:23 in the Apocrypha).
In passages such as these Wisdom and Logos have a role very much like that of the Logos in John 1, and it is likely that the Gospel writer was influenced by the Hebrew wisdom literature, just as many of the Rabbis in later Judaism were (see Montefiore, Rabbinic Anthology) when they spoke of the Torah in much the same way.
But Hellenistic Gentile readers who would have been unfamiliar with the Hebrew Scriptures still would not have found the opening lines of this Gospel unintelligible either, however much its later assertions might surprise them. To them these words would reaffirm the absolute priority of the Divine “Reason” that is the principle of law in the cosmos. Indeed, it was a native of Ephesus named Heraclitus, who had first used the term Logos as a technical philosophical concept in the sixth century BCE. Heraclitus thought of the Logos as the rational principle, power, or being that speaks to human beings both from without and from within. This universal “Word,” which, for those who have ears to hear, is audible both in nature, and in their own hearts, is the voice of the Divine, the omnipresent wisdom, by which all things are steered.
By the first century CE the most influential philosophy in the Roman world was Stoicism, which had been founded by Zeno of Athens in the third century BCE. Stoicism was more religious in nature than any other philosophy. A basic belief of Stoicism was that the Logos permeated the universe and gave it unity, order, and purpose. Stoics also believed that a “seed” of the Logos (Logos spermatikos) existed within all human beings and that by obeying the “seed” they could learn their purpose in life.
Furthermore, at the very time the Christian faith was coming into being there was a Hellenistic Jew, Philo of Alexandria, in whose writings the fusion of Greek thought and Hebrew religion found its consummation. This prolific writer uses the word Logos to express his conception of a mediator between the transcendent God and the universe, an immanent power active in creation and revelation. Here are some quotations from Philo:
The primal existence is God, and next to Him is the Logos of God. . . .
The image of God is the Logos, through Whom the whole universe was framed. . . .
The Logos . . . is antecedent to all that has come into existence, the Logos, which the Helmsman of the Universe grasps as a rudder to guide all things on their course. Even as, when He was fashioning the world, He employed It as His instrument, that the fabric of His handiwork might be without reproach. . . .
When the substance of the universe was without shape and figure God gave it these; when it had no definite character God molded it into definiteness, and when He had perfected it, sealed the Universe with an image and idea, even His own Logos.
So it is clear that the term Logos was not new, but was in widest use both in religious and philosophical discussions about the relation of God to His world, both of nature and of humanity, by the first century CE. But for Philo and for those before him the Logos was at best only God’s agent in creation and revelation, and was never more than a personified abstraction.
But when the writer of the Gospel according to John goes on in his further affirmations about the Logos, he goes beyond anything in the Hebrew Bible, or in Greek philosophy, or in Philo, as when he says, not only that “the Logos was with Divine,” but also that it “was Divine.” And it quickly becomes clear that for our writer the Logos, was more than a personification, but rather, an entity, indeed a Person, distinct from God, but not different in nature from God. John asserts here as emphatically as possible the sole agency of the Logos in creation, recalling not only what is said in the Hebrew Bible and in the Apocrypha, but also what is said elsewhere in other New Testament writings:
1 Corinthians 1:6:
. . . 1:6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from Whom are all things and for Whom we exist, and [there is] one Lord, Jesus Christ, through Whom are all things, and through Whom we exist. --NRSV
Colossians 1:15-19:
. . . 1:15 He (Christ) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; 16 for in Him all things in Heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether “thrones” or “dominions” or “rulers” or “powers”—all things have been created through Him and for Him. 17 He Himself is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. 18 He is the Head of the body, the Church; He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He might come to have first place in everything. 19 For in Him all the fullness of Deity was pleased to dwell, . . . –NRSV
Hebrews 1:1-3:
1:1 Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, 2 but in these last days He has spoken to us in the Person of a Son, Whom He appointed Heir of all things, through Whom He also created the worlds. 3 He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very Being, and He sustains all things by His powerful word [Greek: rhema, a synonym of Logos]. –NRSV, adapted by MJW
In John 1:4 our writer asserts that the Logos was not only God’s agent in creation, but the Logos is in the world (as he states explicitly in verse 10) sustaining it in being, as the principle of life within it.
Up to verse 14 of John Chapter 1, both Jew and Greek could probably have followed our writer with little difficulty. But the assertion that “the Logos became flesh” would come as a shock to both. Paul had earlier asserted that the Cross was “a scandal to the Jews, and foolishness to the Gentiles” (1 Corinthians 1:23). They would have received this writer’s doctrine of the incarnation with much the same response.
John, Chapter 1, Verses 6 through 8, 15, and 19 through 28:
1:6 There once was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He was a witness, who had come to give testimony about the Light, so that through It everyone should come to complete trust/belief. 8 He was not himself that Light, but came to give testimony concerning the Light. . . . 15 John gives testimony about Him [i.e., the Light, now the Word that became flesh], and thus he has proclaimed: This is the One of Whom I said, “The One Who comes after me ranks before me, because He existed before me.” . . .
19 And this is the testimony John would give when the Judeans/Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” 20 At such times he would confess, and would not deny, but would confess openly, “I am not the Messiah.”
21 So they would ask him, “What then? Are you Elijah?”
And he would reply, “I am not.”
“Then are you the Prophet?”
And he would answer, “No.”
22 Then they would say to him, “Just tell us who you are, so we may give an answer to those who have sent us. What can you tell us about yourself?”
23 So he would say, “I am ‘a voice proclaiming in the wilderness: “Make straight the way for the LORD!” ’ as Isaiah the prophet said.”
24 Now the people who were sent to him belonged to the Pharisees. 25 And they would question him further and ask him, “Then why are you baptizing if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”
26 John would respond to them this way: “I am baptizing in water. but there is Someone presently residing in your midst, Whom you do not now perceive. 27 This Person is coming after me, and I am not worthy to unloose the thong of His sandals.”
28 These events were taking place near Bethany, beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
The public appearances of Jesus in the Gospel according to John open with the testimony of John the Baptizer to Jesus, the Lamb of God. These public appearances will close with the testimony of an unnamed disciple, the “disciple whom Jesus [especially] loved,” as Jesus, the Passover Lamb, is dying on the cross on Passover Eve. This Gospel writer gives us a picture with the Lamb of God in the center, flanked by two witnesses.
In the Synoptic Gospels we find hostility between John the Baptizer and the Judean authorities, but no open clash. But in this Gospel “the Jews” [Note: in this Gospel this term refers to persons of Judean birth, and especially their leaders, who reject the message of Jesus] are involved in direct attack from the beginning. The whole Gospel is a kind of trial of Jesus by the leaders of His people, and John the Baptizer is the first trial witness. The guardians of the national religion wish to know by what authority John baptizes. The answers he gives them about himself are negative; he becomes talkative only when he speaks about the One Who will follow him.
He begins by denying that he himself is the Messiah. In the Synoptic Gospels Jesus identifies John the Baptizer’s role with that of Elijah, whom the prophet Malachi (4:5-6) had proclaimed would come before the Day of Yahweh. Here, John the Baptizer will not accept that title or that of the “Prophet-like-Moses” (Deuteronomy 18:15) whom some expected, and of whom we read in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The only role John claims for himself in all four Gospels is that of a voice in the desert (Isaiah 40:3); his only authority for baptizing is his task to prepare the way for a greater One to follow. It is even possible that he thought of himself as preparing the way only for Elijah, and not for the Messiah, although all four Gospels as we now have them assume John was to prepare the way for the Messiah.
This section of the Gospel closes with a geographical reference that John was baptizing outside the Promised Land, on the other side of the Jordan (this “Bethany” has not been located; some manuscripts read, “Bethabara,” “the place of crossing over”). The writer does not actually indicate that John baptized Jesus, or even that Jesus was baptized.
Some interpreters, however, suggest that we should assume that this Gospel’s readers were already aware of Jesus’ baptism. They further suggest we are here to infer that after Jesus’ Baptism He entered the Promised Land, to stay there until His people reject Him, when once more He will retreat beyond the Jordan (John 10:30-40), so that Bethany beyond Jordan frames the public ministry of Jesus.
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