John 1:1-18  

“In him was life; and that life was the light of men.”

Our lesson is an epitomized statement of the entire plan of God in most comprehensive form, reaching from long before the creation of the earth down into the future to the grand consummation of the divine plan at the close of the Millennial age. The subject is wide enough, deep enough, high enough to furnish food for thought for a score of lessons. In considering it as a whole, therefore, we can touch only briefly on its various points at this time.

“In the beginning“: These same words introduce us to the Bible as the record of the world’s creation in the book of Genesis, but here the reference is to a beginning long before the creation of this earth. At the beginning mentioned in Genesis, Job tells us that the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. There were then at that time angelic beings, sons of God, previously in existence, who rejoiced at this further manifestation of divine power in the creation of this world. There must have been a beginning, so far as they were concerned, long before.

It is to this original beginning that our text refers, a beginning long BEFORE the angels were created.

To what beginning, then, could it refer – a beginning of what?

We answer that it was not the beginning of the divine being, for respecting the heavenly Father, Jehovah, the Almighty, we have the distinct statement that from everlasting to everlasting he is God – he had no beginning. Hence the beginning mentioned in our text refers not to man, nor to angels, nor to the Father Himself, but rather refers to the “beginning of the creation of God” (Rev 3:14), a name or title given to the only begotten of the Father, who subsequently became our Redeemer and Lord, Jesus. With this thought in mind all is clear: the Apostle’s explanation has settled the matter.

This original or beginning or first creation of God in our text is called the Word of God – the Logos. History tells us that in olden times it was customary to regard the person of the king as too sacred to be seen by the common people except on special occasions, and that when certain great laws or edicts were to be announced it was customary for the king to be screened by a lattice from the gaze of the multitude assembled, while before the lattice stood a person who enjoyed the king’s favor and confidence and who became his representative and was called the king’s word, because he spoke in a loud, audible tone the commands and directions of the king, who communicated with him in a low voice from beyond the lattice work. This illustration gives us a clue to the use of the Word as one of the titles of the only begotten Son of God. It suggests to us what the Scriptures variously declare, namely – that all of the Father’s dealings with all others of his creatures are done indirectly through the Son, his mouthpiece, his Word, his representative.

A GOD, WITH THE GOD.

In the beginning the Word was alone with the Father, the Apostle declares. But the whole matter is still more clearly seen when we take the literal reading of the Greek, because in it the Greek article appears BEFORE the word rendered God, which would make the translation into English properly read,

“And the Word was with the God.” Here we see most clearly and beautifully the close relationship existing in the very remote past between the heavenly Father and the heavenly Son, between the LORD God Almighty and his only begotten Son, in whom centered all the divine purposes and through whom he was pleased to manifest every feature of the divine power and glory.

The next statement, “And the Word was God,” is not to be understood as contradicting the statements previously and elsewhere made, but the distinction is considerably lost in the translation. We explain, therefore, that here the Greek article does not appear before the word translated God, and hence the thought in the statement is a God, as in contrast with the previous statement, the God. Thus understood the passage would properly read, “The Word was with the God and the Word was a God.” Ah, now we have it clearly!

The word god signifies mighty one, and in the Scriptures is used not only respecting the Father but also respecting the Son, also in reference to the angels, and in one instance when referring to men, influential men – the seventy elders of Israel whom Moses appointed or designated elohim, that is gods, mighty ones. The thought in our text, then, is that the Word of God, the Only Begotten of the Father, the beginning of the creation of God, was created on a nobler and higher plane of being, endued with grand qualities, so that he was in very fact a god – NOT the Father, NOT the God, NOT Jehovah, but “The Son of the Highest.” The Apostle Paul clearly sets forth this matter, saying, “To us [Christians] there is one God the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ.” –1 Cor 8:6.

The second verse reiterates and thus emphasizes the statement that the Word, which was a God, was in the beginning (before the creation of others) with the God. If anyone were in danger of misunderstanding the statement of the first verse that the Word was a God, if in any danger of thinking of this as signifying that the Word was the God, the second verse would correct the error by showing that the Word as a God was WITH the God, and that therefore they were two and NOT one in person.

The third verse is a grand, comprehensive statement, which gives us a glimpse of the great honor and dignity of the Son of God, “the Only Begotten” of the Father, the “beginning of the creation of God.” “All things were made by him,” by the Word – angels, worlds, mankind – all things: “Without him was not one thing made that was made.” How grandly, how gloriously, the dignity and honor and position of our great Lord looms up before us as we think of how highly the Father honored him, even before he came into the world, even before he manifested his obedience to the Father’s will even unto death.

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