The Light of Men, John 1:4, 5

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Darkness has permeated all of mankind since the beginning. Genesis 3 tells us of the fall of man when Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, breaking the very command of God not to eat of it. As Scripture states, “Eve gave also to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings” (Genesis 3:6d, 7). The problem with what they did by sewing fig leaves together is that they did this thinking that their own way was right. God had a different plan when He “made garments of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21). In other words, their way was not sufficient…it was not going to save them from their sin. Only God’s way will bring salvation to man.

John the apostle reveals to us who came in the midst of this darkness caused by the sinfulness of man when he writes, “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” (John 1:4, 5). The Logos–the Word–is whom John is speaking in these verses. It is the Lord Jesus Christ who has come and brought life into this world as well as light. Life means that it is eternal life. When we think of life, however, we see that He is the One who created all things (cf. 1:3). Nothing that has been created came into being apart from the Creator who is our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the source of life. There is no life apart from Him. In Jesus Christ there is life and all that is existing today is found in the source of life.

John also explains that our Lord Jesus Christ is also the “Light of men.” While there is permeating darkness in the world because of the sinfulness of man, our Lord Jesus Christ comes and illuminates the world by and of Himself. There is darkness but when the Light shines in the darkness, the world does not understand what it is He is doing. He is revealing the sinful darkness that resides with every man. There is darkness that cannot be erased by man because man does not understand in and of himself that he needs to be illuminated by the Light of men. This Light shows us truth and we know that all truth is found in the Person and Work of our Lord Jesus Christ (cf. 14:6).

The idea of darkness “not comprehending” the Light means they could not take hold of Him or seize Him. The darkness of men cannot extinguish the Light who is our Lord Jesus Christ. He permeates that which permeates this world: darkness. He is the One who comes and clears out the darkness, brings to light the plight of man because of their sin, and brings truth to man. There is no other way that the darkness of man can be extinguished except for the Light of men to come and to drive the darkness out through His very Person and Work.

Our Lord Jesus Christ: our life and our light!

The Creator of All Things John 1:2, 3

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The logos was in the beginning. John the apostle writes in John 1:2 that the logos was in the beginning with God. We have seen in John 1:1 that the very existence of Jesus Christ was before all of Creation. There was nothing before Creation except God in Three Persons, the Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And this logos we have seen is very God! His Deity is that of the God of the Bible, the God of the heavens. He was, and is, and evermore shall be!

John links together into this one phrase two of the ideas already stated in John 1:1: in the beginning He was with God. Later in time–as we shall see–Jesus Christ came to be with man through His Incarnation (A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament). John is reiterating that Jesus Christ pre-existed before His Incarnation. He is Personal. He is Deity. He is God. There is nothing in His very nature, essence, or substance that is not God. He is very God!

The assumption of the Bible in Genesis 1:1 is out of nothing God created everything. This means there was no thing that He used to create all that we see, touch, taste, smell, and feel. All things, as we continue to discover the mysteries of the air, the seas, of the planets, the universe came into being when God created all of these things. John says that all things came into being through Him [the logos, Jesus Christ], and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being (John 1:3). While we see in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1), John states emphatically that the logos–Jesus Christ–is the One who created all things. Creation, as presented by John, is not something that existed prior to Jesus Christ’s act of creating, but, rather, came into being when Jesus Christ created all things.

Jesus Christ is the intermediate agent in the work of Creation. While the Hebrews would understand the Creation as beginning out of nothing by God, John now relays to them this revelation: Jesus Christ is the Creator! The Greeks are also given this explanation: it is not logic that created or even sustains all things, but rather it is the logos who is Jesus Christ who created and even sustains all things. And His sustaining of all things is not something that is static. Rather, it is a dynamic sustaining of all things. He is ultimately the One who is bringing all things to fruition for His own glory and honor. The logos is causing all things to progress in His Creation.

Jesus Christ was in the beginning, before anything was created, and all things have come into being through Him. Apart from Jesus Christ, nothing has come into being–it has not existed–until He created it.

In the Beginning… John 1:1

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A most divine chapter is John 1. In the opening verse of his gospel message, John the apostle writes these inestimable words: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. This one verse alone stands as a bulwark of the Christian faith. There is no greater truth to which we hold as the truth that Jesus Christ is the truly only begotten Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, who came in human form on mission to bring glory to His Heavenly Father and to seek and to save those who are lost. In this one verse we see the very Deity of Jesus Christ. He is not only God, but He is very God!

John states emphatically that Jesus Christ–represented by logos (Greek for word)–was in the beginning. This phrase takes the Hebrew mindset back to Genesis 1:1 as Moses writes, In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Jesus was in the beginning when God created all things. John writes in verse 2 of this same chapter: He [the logos] was in the beginning with God. This reiteration is to solidify John’s writing of the truth of who the logos is: Jesus Christ is God. John writes in John 1:3, All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. He is stating to the Jews that Jesus Christ is the Creator of all things. Everything that we see, touch, smell, taste, feel is what Jesus Christ created. There is nothing on top of the earth, below the earth, above the universe, or under the universe that Jesus Christ has not made. He created all things and all things have been created for Him.

To the Greek mindset, it is logic that created all things. It is logic that sustains and holds all things together. John calls Jesus Christ logos from whence the word logic is derived. As he writes to the Hebrews so he writes to the Greeks–the Gentiles. He says that this logic in whom they place their trust is not simple logic as found in man. Rather, this logic is Deity, this logic is Creator of all things. It was Aristotle that claimed that there must be an unmoved mover never taking the next step to say that this unmoved mover must be the Lord Jesus Christ who has created everything. To Aristotle, logic was king, logic was master never realizing that Jesus Christ truly is the most logical One who could have created everything.

John then writes the Word was with God. Before all things were created, John brings to the forefront the idea of Jesus Christ’s eternality. As Jesus said in His high priestly prayer, John writes what Jesus prays: Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was. “Before” is the key word in John 17:5. Jesus Christ has been with God before all things were created. There is a commonality that Jesus Christ has with God the Father. In Him–in Jesus Christ–we see a special relationship the Second Person of the Trinity holds with God. He is the only One with whom God shares His glory. There is no other in heaven, earth, or hell with whom God shares His glory except His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

While the Hebrews would suggest that this is blasphemy, the crime of assuming to oneself the rights or qualities of God, Jesus Christ did not count this as sinful for Himself. Rather, He explicitly says that He and God are One in every aspect of His nature, His essence, or His substance.

The Greek mindset would not understand this simply because it goes against all things natural, all things worldly, all things logical. To them for a man to call himself God or equal to a god, this man would be illogical and he would not stand in regard to those who claimed logic was all and in all.

But John turns the Hebrews and the Greeks upside down in their thinking. Jesus Christ is neither blaspheming nor is He a lunatic. Instead, John is clearly stating that the Word was God. The same is said in Paul the apostle’s writing: Although He existed in the form of God, [He] did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped (Philippians 2:6). That is, Jesus Christ both inwardly and outwardly displayed the very nature of God. Although we cannot know anything of His heavenly state, we can affirm that in Jesus Christ there is that expression of being which is identified with the essential nature and character of God. (Motyer, The Message of Philippians: Jesus our Joy, 109) John, as Paul, states that Jesus Christ is literally God.

This logos is the only One who was in the beginning–before all Creation. He was with God being the Second Person of the Trinity. Jesus Christ is God and not a blasphemer or a lunatic. Jesus Christ is the Word and John states that the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). He is unique among His brethren because of these perfections that are God, yay, very God!

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