Lectures on the Prologue of the Gospel of John
© David H. Linden,
Action International Ministries
This
is a skillfully crafted opening for the book. One may wonder how much time the
apostle spent arranging this material. Now we must pay careful attention to
what he said and to how he has presented it. One way John shows his emphasis is
by the arrangement of his material. See
Appendix 1A: The ABBA Structure of the Prologue.
The
Structure
A. The Word’s early activity in creation with the Father
(1:1-5)
B. John’s witness concerning the light (1:6-8)
C. The incarnation of the Word and the privilege of becoming
God’s children (1:9-14)
B. John’s witness concerning the Word’s preeminence (1:15)
A. The Word’s recent activity in the new creation revealing
the Father (1:16-18) [1]
Concerning
the two B’s: The obvious thing to see is
that there is a mention of John the Baptist twice. In the style of Western writing, we have a
strong tendency to pull together similar material, but the apostle does not.
That means he has packaged what he emphasizes most between two sets of material
about the Baptist.[2]
Concerning
the two A’s: Three features stand out.
a.)
The Son is with the Father in v.1 and in the Father’s bosom in v.
18. This closeness is the second item in v.1 and the second last in v.18. That
is not an accident; it is a way of framing the prologue.
b) The Word is God in v.1 and the Only-begotten God in v.18. These statements appear as the third from the beginning and the third from the end. There are not as many explicit statements that Jesus is God in the NT as we might expect, therefore the appearance of two of them in the same prologue must make us notice that this is the starting point in this Gospel. The two A’s are parallel.
c)
What is done is through the Word in v. 3 and through Jesus Christ
in v. 17.
Concerning the two B’s: The outside frame (the two A’s) is Who Christ is and what is accomplished through Him. The two B’s speak of the ministry of John the Baptist. That arrangement gives the inside section special emphasis. This does NOT mean it is more important or more true. This Gospel begins with the foundation and eternal truth of the life of God! The Word was in the beginning; He is eternal; He was with His Father. The gospel message is not merely to inform of the facts of God. This Gospel is written to urge people to believe in Christ. John is very focused in pursuing that goal.
Concerning
the two C’s: This section also has an ABBA structure,
which is evidence that it was very carefully constructed.
A. Coming into the world, yet not
known by it
B. He is
rejected by His own
C.
Receiving
D. The
right to be children of God
C.
Believing
B. What caused the opposite of rejection
A. Coming in flesh to reveal the
glory of God
The
Prologue sends a strong signal that John will follow the themes of Christ
coming here (sent by the Father), His being rejected and accepted, and why it
is that some do believe and others do not. John will speak of believing almost
100 times, three times more than the other Gospels combined! Though he speaks often of eternal life, here
he begins by holding out the wonderful benefit of believing – that those who do
are given by God the family rights of His children. First, they must become His
children by receiving Christ. John does not announce that as covenant people,
they are God’s children already apart from conversion.
This Gospel is a God-given message of evangelism. The first half of the book will say much about becoming God’s children, while the latter part (except for the passion narratives) will be devoted to teaching God’s children. The only time Jesus ever taught an audience that was not a mixture of believers and unbelievers was after Judas left in 13:30. That very brief time – comprised of one evening! – receives more than four chapters in John.
1:1,2
The
apostle opens with words that immediately bring to mind Genesis 1:1. His Jewish readers hearing “in the beginning”
would expect God as the next word, but John says “the Word”! This is
surely deliberate since some things that follow parallel creation in Genesis 1.
In the first creation, light came first and gave life to things dependant on
it, and darkness was separated from the light, and unable to prevent it.
To say that the Word was there in the beginning asserts His
eternity – and thus His deity. There was no beginning in which He was not
already there. The Father did not precede Him and create Him.[3] We are
not left with only a clear implication, for it says plainly in this context
that the Word was God. Before doing so, it connects Christ to His Father – Who
is mentioned about 90 times in this Gospel. So before it announces that He is
God, it states His closeness to God the Father. This is typical of the rest of
this Gospel. Jesus spoke of His Father more than anything and in relation to
everything. Jesus coming to save us is a wonderful truth, but the foundation of
all He did was to please the Father Who sent Him (8:29). The word for with
in Greek is not the more standard preposition syn, but pros, a
word that carries a sense of specific relation to the Father.
“The Word was God” This does not mean
He was for a while, since no one can be God unless that one always was. The
Lord is and was and is to come (Revelation 1:4). Other Scriptures call Christ God:
Romans 9:5, Titus 2:13, Hebrews 1:8, as well as John 1:18. The term “Son of
God” makes Him equal to the Father yet distinct from Him (5:18). The chief
proof above all others of the deity of Christ is that He as Lord has the divine
Name, as in Philippians 2:9-11 and John 8:58.
The Jehovah’s Witness argument: “But Jesus is just a god!” By such words JW’s deny the Lord God of
Their
confusion is enormous:
a)
Had the text said in reference to the Word, “the God was the Word” this would
establish that the Word (Christ) and the God (the Father) are the same person.
b)
Unlike English, Greek has no indefinite article. English can say “the”, “a,” or leave the
article out. In Greek there are two choices only, the article is there or it
isn’t. So the original text did not call
Jesus “a god”. It says God without the article.
c)
The word theos appears in this prologue with no article four times
(vv.6, 12, 13, & 18). Each time it refers to the Father, yet not once does
the JW “Bible” translate a reference to God the Father as “a god”! They save
this demotion for Christ. In 20:28 it uses “the” with theos in reference to
Jesus! The JWs know Thomas said that when he saw Jesus, but they explain that
text as Thomas being so surprised to see Him that he let out an exclamation
similar to “O my God!”
d)
Since all things were made through Him with no exception allowed (1:3), Christ
cannot be a part of creation. He must precede all of it as its Creator! .
e)
The JW’s have gained the great benefit of having a doctrine of God that they
can fully comprehend. Having a god more on our level is always an attraction to
the sinful mind. Christians have a God we cannot fully comprehend, thus such a
deep mystery as the Trinity will eternally amaze us. They have a god of their
own creation and understand him perfectly.
Jehovah’s
Witnesses take their name from Isaiah 43 & 44. They teach Jesus is “a god”,
a created person. Isaiah 43:10 says, “Before me no god was formed, nor will
there be one after me.” Isaiah 44:6 says
“I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God,” 44:6. There
is no other God beside Him, and no other Savior. “Was it not I, the LORD? And
there is no God apart from me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none but
me,” Isaiah 45:21. The Isaiah texts deny that there is “a god” apart from the
Lord, and thus Isaiah prohibits the JW mistranslation of John 1:1!
Word
as a Title of Christ [4] Only in this prologue does John use the
word “Word” for Christ; after this introduction he spoke of Christ ordinarily
as Jesus – 262 times! When he uses Christ
it is usually “the Christ”, a word familiar to Jews. In Jewish custom when they
avoided pronouncing YHVH, the Name of the Lord, they would use substitute
words, such as “the Name”. In the time between the Old and New Testaments, they
also used “Word” for the Lord in their Scripture readings. In John 1, Word does not refer to God without distinction of Persons, but God
the Son.
John
does not use Word the way the Greeks did. They never meant a person by it. One great
benefit of using Word for the Greeks is that it carried a sense of
something universal, something that supported everything. But for them Word
was an impersonal and detached force. John is ready to take advantage of their
sense of something beyond them to speak of the Transcendent Person Who was
always at the Father’s side but came here to make Him known. He differs strongly from their concept of a
detached Word because he writes of the Word Who became flesh and for a while
lived among us! John’s careful use of
Word was very new to them.
As
the Word made flesh, Jesus spoke the words received from His Father and gave
them to us. In this Gospel this theme is strongly emphasized. His words are
God’s! (3:34). Abiding in Christ and abiding in His words mean the same thing
(15:4,7,10). They bring authority in prayer (15:7), cleansing (15:3) and
fruitfulness (15:7,8). Our great need is to believe (5:24) and keep them
(17:6). By them we have eternal life (6:68). Those who will not hear His word
are of the devil (8:44-47) and they will be judged by the word they have
refused (12:44-50). Whether we love Christ is made clear by whether we keep His
words (14:24). That word of truth from the Incarnate Word makes His people holy
(17:17).
1:3 This text does not teach that Jesus is an
independent Creator. Since all has been created through Him, this
reveals that Another has been active in creation. What the Father does, He does
through His Son, and what the Father and Son do, They do through Their Spirit. (See
5:19)
Since sin entered the world, the human mind is capable of terribly
irrational thinking. One might say
glibly that through Christ all things were made and then retain some
exceptions. If He made all things, there are no exceptions. The Lord has seen
fit in this verse to state a positive and then to follow with a crisp denial by
a negative. Often the way to state something controversial most clearly is to
state a matter from both sides. For example, we are justified by faith alone;
we are not justified in the same
sense by works.) Here in v.3, we find affirmation and denial joined.
1:4,5 The literary structure is: life/life,
light/light, darkness/darkness. In the first creation light sustains life. But
the light that Christ is is also moral and one that demands an obedient
response. Darkness cannot overcome light; likewise Satan’s “domain of
darkness” (Colossians 1:13) could not prevent Christ from delivering His
own into “the inheritance of the saints in light” in the kingdom of
God’s beloved Son (Colossians 1:13). The darkness loses; it could not overcome
the light.
It is not yet plain in these verses that there is a terrible
conflict between darkness and light. Christ is the light that shines for all
men, but John has not yet said that Jesus’ own people did not know Him (1:10),
or receive Him (1:11), because men love darkness and hate the light (3:19-21).
If the darkness did not overcome the light, this way of saying it indicates
that there is resistance, which does not succeed. The forces of darkness and
all who side with Satan will lose eternally (see Luke 11:17-23). It is the
nature of this Prologue to introduce themes briefly to be developed later. In
12:35,36 the darkness overtakes the one who refuses to believe in the light and
become a child of it!
Christ is never presented in
John as a light, a way, a truth or a life. He is exclusively the light above all
others, and the only way to the Father. “Salvation is found in no one else,
for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be
saved," (Acts 4:12).
1:6-8 There came [5]
a man from God named John. The Messiah did not show up without being
introduced. Quickly John had high credibility because of his courageous
preaching, and the people were convinced that he was a prophet from God
(Matthew 21:26). John was the first to identify Jesus as the Messiah (1:29,34).
His testimony was a witness to Christ and he baptized so that Jesus might be
revealed to
1:9-11 Looking back to the early days of John’s
ministry, it makes perfect sense to say that the Light was coming; then soon
Jesus arrived on the public scene. Christ was in the world made through Him.
The world did not know Him. Now the Evangelist switches from the created things
to God’s people by changing the gender of the word. First it is “His own” as in
world, then “His own” as in people. Christ the Creator is the Lord God of
It appears that the Apostle John was giving a record of failure. Christ is the Creator and the promised Messiah was properly introduced according to OT prophecies and the world did not know Him, nor did His own people (Isaiah 53:1-4). The Gentiles and the Jewish people would never receive a Messiah they did not want or understand. However, this pathetic response is followed by vv.12,13.
1:12 Some do believe (v.12). In v.12 the
Evangelist does not say why, only that people receive Christ, the opposite of
rejecting Him. Receive means believe. In
a Gospel devoted to the benefit of believing, the Apostle loves to use a
variety of words for faith.
Since believing to become a
child of God is a matter of receiving, the text includes gift language, for God
gives the right to become a child of God. The gospel truth is that
sinners receive and God gives. This is an essential matter to understand in
becoming a child of God. Reversing this or changing it is destructive of the
gospel. The Apostle Paul said, “… The promise comes by faith, so that
it may be by grace and may be guaranteed …” (Romans 4:16). We receive
Christ to become children of God, which is fundamentally different from
imitating Christ to become children of God, or by obeying the law. If the
promise of God were acquired by anything other than faith alone, it could not
be by grace but by our merit and accomplishment. As the structure of the entire
prologue reveals, this is John’s most emphatic point. When sinners hope by
receiving to be accepted by God into His family, the sinners’ faith contributes
nothing. The believer simply receives as a gift the status of a child of
God.
God gives the right
to become children of God. By what authority may anyone call himself a child of
God? It is God Who grants this right to whoever receives His Son. Our right to
enter God’s family is that God has given it graciously for nothing we have done
or ever will do. We received Christ, and as a result all the benefits that come
from Christ and His ministry become the rightful possession of every believer.
The Prologue makes “He gave the right to become children of God” the
centerpiece of the entire section. See Appendix 1A below.
1:13 This prologue now addresses a question that must
surely arise in our minds. If neither
the world nor His people
All children are born. Those who believe are given the right to
become His children by a birth. The text affirms more than the right given;
v.13 supplies the cause of the birth. In his classic manner, the Evangelist
joins positive and negative. (He did a similar thing in vv. 3 & 8.) In a way designed to deny every possibility
of a natural explanation of birth into God’s family, he tells how we are not
born and how we are. These children are born of God! Not by the right
bloodline, or the normal desire that results in children, or the zeal of a
father (the word in Greek is masculine) to have children. Rather than all of
this, these children are born of God.
This is a foretaste of the subject of being “born again” in John 3. Salvation is the result of a supernatural birth. Does a birth generated by God obviate faith? Certainly not, for this text presents both together. It affirmed and meant all it said in v.12 and all it said in v.13. Believing is the conscious human response to Christ. Believing is what we do when we become children of God, yet being born of God is the unseen activity of God in us. It does not say how they are related. For now, we simply see that both have been affirmed without the slightest worry that anyone might say they cannot both be true. We do not choose between two truths; we simply accept both. We have as much role in bringing about our new birth as we have in causing our physical birth. To believe/receive is the command of the gospel that men are to obey (2 Thessalonians 1:8). To give sinners birth to spiritual life is the role of God alone. Only God can bring the dead to life.
1:14 The prologue returns to the Incarnation.
Previously, it said that He was coming (v.9) and He was here in the world
(v.10). Now for the first time we are told He became human. There is a great
danger that someone might think He entered human life to some degree without
actually becoming fully human. The Apostle John declared bluntly that the Word
became flesh. No one has yet found a sharper way to say it in so few words.
Incarnation means He became the kind of physical flesh that we are, with the
same kind of muscle meat, hard bones, skin, teeth, eyes, hair and voice. He
became flesh that people could see, hear and touch (1 John 1:1). The Creator
became a creature, because the entire physical composition of Jesus was from
material made through Him.
It does not say Christ
simply lived among us. John’s choice of a verb is significant. Jesus
tabernacled[7] among us. Just as God was
in the tabernacle in the wilderness long ago, God as the Word entered a
tabernacle of flesh. In Moses’ day the people saw the glory of God over the
tabernacle in the fire and the cloud. Later when people saw Christ, human
beings were seeing the glory of God again. To say, “We have seen His glory” is
a way of saying that Jesus Christ is God Who has appeared among us. (See also 1
Timothy 3:16.) The One Who became flesh is the Word Who was God in the
beginning (1:1,2). Christ has always been the radiance of God’s glory (Hebrews
1:3), but the Incarnation brought that glory into human contact and view.
When the Lord entered the
tabernacle Moses built, His glory was seen there. “Then the cloud covered
the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. Moses
could not enter the Tent of Meeting because the cloud had settled upon it, and
the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle,” Exodus 40:34,35. “While Aaron was speaking to the whole
Israelite community, they looked toward the desert, and there was the glory of
the LORD appearing in the cloud,” Exodus 16:40. “ … The glory of the LORD appeared at the
Tent of Meeting …” Numbers 14:10.
Moses’ Desire to See the Glory of God in Exodus 33,34 Moses’ ancient request of the Lord, “Show me
your glory” (Exodus 33:18) is now answered for all who will look to Christ, for
in Him the glory of God was revealed. He was God dwelling among men who saw
Him. That glory is revealed in His works or signs (2:11) and in all He did and
said. Only this Gospel ties the glory of God to Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross
(13:31,32). In other words, what the Father and Son did through the cross shows
the goodness and glory of God. He is the kind of God Who would do that. In
Moses’ time the Lord made His goodness pass before Moses, and God spoke to him
of being gracious to whom He chose to be gracious (Exodus 33:19). All three –
the Presence of God, His glory, and His grace – appear together in Exodus 33,34
just as they do in 1:14-18. Moses wanted to know God intimately, but here is
the One from the bosom of the Father – Jesus not Moses – Who has known Him
intimately and revealed Him to man. (See also Matthew 11:27). Moses
occasionally met God in the Tent of Meeting or in a cloud on a mountain, but
Christ is the only begotten Son, Who had always been with God (1:1).
The Revelation of Glory Peter, James, and John were the three
disciples permitted to be with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration in Matthew
17, Mark 9 and Luke 9. Peter did not write many pages of the NT, but he often
speaks of glory and mentioned seeing Jesus’ majesty on that mountain (2 Peter
1:16-18). When the Lord was transfigured before them and His face shone
brighter than the sun, Peter spoke of building three tabernacles. In his
Jewish background Peter knew that such glory was not to be fully exposed. Not
sure what to say, and knowing how God dwelt in a tabernacle in the past, he
suggested building tabernacles again.
John wrote that
the tabernacle of God will be with
men in Revelation 21, and that the tabernacle of God has been with men when Christ was in His flesh among us. The
heavens showed the glory of God in ancient times (Psalm 19). Later the Son made
God known in the fullest revelation yet. In the future when He comes, every eye
will see Him (Revelation 1:7). At His
glorious appearing (Titus 2:13) we shall see God (Matthew 5:8) in our
resurrected flesh (Job 19: 25-27) in a redeemed creation (Romans 8:20-25) and
He will dwell with man again (Revelation 21:3, 22-27).
A Comparison of Exodus 33,34 and John 1 |
|
Exodus 33, 34 |
++
John 1 |
|
33:7 Now Moses used to take the tabernacle … 33:9,10 The pillar of cloud (the Shekinah)[8]
descended… All the people saw the
pillar of cloud 33:11 Yahweh spoke to Moses face to face 33:20 You cannot see My face 33:23 You will see my back, but my face shall not
be seen 34:6 abounding in love and faithfulness |
v.14 The Word became flesh and tabernacled among
us v.14 We beheld His glory v.17 The law was given through Moses v.18 No one has ever seen God v.18 The only begotten Son has made Him known v.14 full of grace and truth |
For the translation of only
begotten see Appendix B below. When it speaks of the glory of the Only
Begotten, it is the observable glory of Christ that is specifically in view in
v.14. The tabernacle motif implies nothing less than and nothing other than the
glory of God. This is not the glory of the Father apart from the Son, but the
glory of the Only Begotten Himself – the Word Who became flesh. Thus the
Evangelist writer asserts that the glory of Christ is the glory of God –
another way to affirm that the Word was God.
The Lord Jesus at no time in
eternity past, during His days on earth, or since, has ever thought of Himself
as detached from the Father. Except in His role as Father, the Son is what the
Father is, and always spoke of Himself in relation to His Father. That is what
it means for Him to have the Father as His own Father, and to be from the
Father. To see Him is to see the Father and there is nothing more to the Father
than we have in the Son. Jesus said without exaggeration, “Anyone who has
seen me has seen the Father,” John 14:9.
The Father is a God of grace
and truth, and this quality is found fully in Christ. In fact, John was
probably still writing with Exodus 33/34 as his background. The same LORD Who
abounds in love and faithfulness (Exodus 34:6) is shown here to be the
Incarnate Lord, full of grace and truth. These two words are synonyms for the
love and faithfulness mentioned in Exodus. The virtues of God are found in His
holy angels and in godly men, but as creatures made in His image, they are mere
reflections of God. No creature possesses God’s qualities to the full. But with
Christ, it is different. “For in him [Christ] the whole fullness of
deity dwells bodily,” Colossians 2:9. The Apostle Paul and the Apostle John are
teaching the same view of Christ.
1:15 The Prologue returns to John the Baptist. We
might expect that v.16 would follow immediately after v.14. Both speak of
fullness and grace. However, John has good reason to put it here: 1) it
maintains the ABBA structure, and 2) what John the Baptist said fits in with
God taking residence in human flesh. John meant that Jesus as a man was younger
than he was, but as the eternal Lord, Jesus lived before him. Mentioning Jesus’
real humanity does not deny that He had lived forever before His
incarnation. John made this statement in
the form of an enigma which challenges us to ponder what it means. The Apostle John wanted us to think clearly
about Christ and believe truthful propositions about Him.
The earlier words that John
was a witness are abstract. Here for the first time in the Prologue, we have an
element of historical narrative. (The Word becoming flesh is an historical
event, but John chose to describe what Jesus became rather than refer to the
birth event itself.) In v.19 the narrative will really begin, but in v.15 we
have a sample of John’s witness in words he used. (Witnesses do not talk only
of themselves as the content of their testimony; they must testify to something
or someone other than themselves.) The Baptist spoke the words of v.15, but
John the writer chose this specific testimony to support the truth that the eternal
Word had become flesh.
John was not that light
(v.8) so he spoke of One far beyond himself. (It is a tragic thing to listen to
any sermon and find afterwards that the hearer has learned more of the speaker
than he has of Christ.) John witnessed in a kind of conundrum or riddle. How
can anyone be both before and after, or younger and yet older? The Word Who was
God and Who took on our flesh is the Eternal God, though as a man, Jesus was
younger than John, as Luke 1 makes clear. Since the Man Jesus is God, of course
He should surpass John in attention, public position, authority and rank as a
prophet of God, and in the worship John could only give to God.
Many centuries later we may
find we do not sense how crucial the witness of John was. It was prophesied in
Isaiah 40:3-5 and the Old Testament closes with a prediction of John the
Baptist in Malachi 4:5,6. John was a lamp that gave light so others would
recognize Christ (5:33-36). After his death, John’s witness continued to bear
fruit (10: 40-42). Only two Gospels give a birth narrative of Christ, but all
four include the ministry of John.
1:16 God proclaimed Himself as the Lord Who is
full of grace[9] in
Exodus 34:5-7 – a major statement about God by God! Later, men saw Christ, but
when Moses wanted to see God’s glory, he was allowed to see only His back. God
limited Moses’ sight but proclaimed to his ears this famous description of
Himself and His glory:
Then Moses said, "Now show me your glory." And the LORD said, "I will cause all my goodness to
pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence.
I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom
I will have compassion. But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for
no one may see me and live." Exodus 33:18 –
20.
Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation." Exodus 34:5-7
“We have all received grace
upon grace,” ESV.
We receive grace in the place of grace. For the NIV to translate this as “one
blessing after another” is quite flat and loses some of its richness. John does
not use the word grace often; when he does it should stand out to us. Grace
is more specific than blessing. All grace and truth is fully present in God the
Son. But His grace must affect someone. Grace cannot be grace if it never
reaches out to save. So John the Apostle, who was saved by the grace of God in
Jesus, also testifies in his Prologue. In v.14 he says we have seen His glory, speaking only for those who had seen Jesus.
Then John spoke for all of God’s people of all time; we have all received grace
in Christ.
1:17 The expression “grace in the place of
grace” in v.16 is unusual. V.17 elaborates on what v.16 means. God was very
gracious to
If all we had was the law,
we would have direction, a standard, a righteous guide, and God’s requirements
for obedience, but sinners derive no power from the law (Romans 3:19,20). Since
we have broken it, the law can only condemn us. It can never give sinners a
favorable ruling that we are righteous. We need the forgiveness of sin found
only in the grace of Christ dying for us. We need the obedience of Christ
(Romans 5:19,20). We need the sanctifying power of the Spirit of Christ (Romans
8:9-11). In Jesus, all this grace has arrived on earth. The grace of drawing
more and more to Christ continues on earth daily. So truth has arrived in the
sense that God has been true to – or faithful to – His commitment to bring
salvation. In the majesty of grace beyond our understanding, the Word became
flesh. The law was given though Moses, but it is not enough; we need the grace
and truth that came through Christ.
We may be puzzled why things
are said in such a cryptic form such as “grace for grace.” It is the nature of
this prologue to give brief undeveloped elements that John will enlarge
on later.
1:18 There are differences of opinion here on: 1) what the proper text is
for this verse, and 2) what a certain word in Greek means.
1) Should it be “the only begotten God” or “the only begotten Son”? Some translations simply say “the only Son” or “the only God” or “God the One and Only” (NIV). I think it should be “the only begotten God”. Centuries ago when scribes were making copies of the NT by hand, they were more likely to be surprised at words like the only begotten God (how can God ever be begotten!!) and they would be more tempted to write instead the only-begotten Son. To use Son would be more familiar language, as in 3:16. (The rule is that the more difficult text is likely to be the correct one.)
2) Should the Greek word monogenes be translated as one and only or as only begotten? This is a major decision in translation with more recent versions opting for “one and only.” I think the older decision was the right one. For this see Appendix 1B below.
The Apostle ended his well-designed prologue with strong statements of Christ, which is also the way he opened it. Christ is the Word Who was with the Father. Now at the end (v.17) the Name of Jesus appears with a repetition that He is God and has come from the bosom of the Father (or the Father’s side). No one could be more qualified to make God known. In His prayer at the end of His earthly ministry, He spoke of eternal life as simply knowing God and knowing Him (17:2,3). He manifested the Father’s name to His own (17:6). That prayer shows how 1:18 has been fulfilled. He did make the Father known.
Moses wanted to see the Lord, but no man can see God and live (Exodus 33:18-23). The Only-Begotten God Who at the Father’s side has always seen Him. By sending Christ – One more qualified than Moses, the giver of the early written revelation – God has sent God the Son as the ultimate revelation of God. The Lord Jesus always spoke and acted with the sense of mission that the Father had sent Him and that He was not here to draw attention to Himself, but to make the Father known. Peter came to understand this and stated the purpose of Christ’s death “that He might bring us to God” (1 Peter 3:18). Finally, the One Who has seen God has made Him known to us who cannot see God and live. To turn away from Christ is to give up the only way we can ever come to know, see, and be with God (Matthew 5:8; Revelation 21:3).
Appendix 1A: The A B B A Structure of John 1:1-18
1 1st In the beginning was the
Word, 2nd and the Word was with God, and 3rd the Word was God. 2He
was in the beginning with God. 3All things were made through him, and without him was not any
thing made that was made. 4In him was life, and the life was the
light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness
has not overcome it.
A
6 There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7He came as a witness, to bear
witness about the light, that all might believe through him. 8He was
not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
B
C
9The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the
world. 10He was in the world,
D
and the world was made through him,
yet the world did not know him. 11He came to his own, and his own
people did not receive him. Negative
E
12But to all
who did receive him,
F
he gave the right to become children of God.
E
to those who believed in his name,
D
13who were born, not of blood nor
of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. Positive
response
C
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen
his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
B
15(John bore witness about him, and cried
out, "This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks before me,
because he was before me.'")
A
16And from his fullness we have
all received, grace upon grace. 17For the law was given through
Moses; grace and truth came through
Jesus Christ. 18No one has ever seen God; 3rd God the only Begotten, 2nd
who is at the Father's side,
1st he has made him known.
The
translation and meaning of the Greek word monogenes has no current
consensus. The people who had Greek as their native language seemed to
understand this as “only begotten”. That Christ was begotten of the Father was
a common affirmation in the early church. The translation only begotten
continued for centuries – as in “His only begotten Son”, from John 3:16 in the
KJV. However, many recent scholars of NT Greek think monogenes really means one
of a kind or unique. It is not a problem that these scholars are
seeking to distort what the Bible is saying. This is an honest difference of
opinion. I think the old understanding is probably correct, but my readers
should know that men of high integrity and scholarship disagree with me, and
they may be right.
One
argument for translating this word as unique is that it can mean simply an
only child. How could Isaac be ever called only begotten in Hebrews
11:17 when Abraham was also the father of Ishmael? Isaac was unique but
obviously not the only one generated from the body of Abraham, so the word
cannot be governed by the concept of generation. It seems they have won the
argument, yet the Greek-speaking teachers for centuries were also aware of that
word in Hebrews.
Unique does not clearly connote the sense of majesty. A family may have a
retarded child and with much love they may call him “unique”, but they do not
mean majestic; they mean special. The point being made in John 1:14 & 18,
is not the unusual uniqueness in the sense that no one compares with Christ,
but rather the fullness of His deity. We should not lose that sense in this
important word. I think John is speaking of the glory of the Only Begotten not
only in contrast to others but that Christ has no contrast to the Father! He
speaks not only of the glory of the Monogenes in a comparative sense, but of
His glory as the Monogenes from the Father in a derived sense. The term unique
tends to say that Christ is something in Himself, whereas begotten
accounts for the nature of Christ by emphasizing His source in the Father.
(That is source in the Father, but not a beginning.) I think John used this word in 1:14 and 1:18
because Jesus is qualified to reveal the Father, not because He is different
from others, but because He is the eternal product of the self of God.
Some
argue that monogenes does not come from gennao, the Greek verb to beget
or to generate. They point to one n, yet the verb to beget does have in
older Greek a derivative form of that word with only one n. The early Greek
theologians were aware of this spelling when they understood it as “only
begotten”. All languages have such quirks. We want to avoid the horrible error
that Jesus was created, so we may be inclined for theological convenience to
avoid language of the generation of the Son by the Father. The verb gennao
is used of Christ in Hebrews 1:5, “Today I have begotten you,” translated in
the NIV as “Today I have become your Father.” The NIV may give a safe meaning,
but a word that means generating was still used in Hebrews 1:5 to give that
meaning. We want to avoid the error of an event or a time when Jesus was
generated. That is a very wise stance, but we should not miss that the Lord
Jesus proceeds (and always has) from the Father as the Father’s full and
complete likeness. We never reverse this to speak of the Father proceeding from
the Son or as One in the image of the Son. We are not speaking of mere
similarity but of the Son’s absolute sharing of the full essence of what it is
to be God, including the Father’s eternal existence. When the Father wanted to
show Himself in the way above all others, He sent the Son Who is His Only Begotten
Son. There is no attribute or quality about the Father that is not just as true
of Christ. In the Incarnation, God sent Himself in another Person. Jesus
reveals the Father as God because He is God the Only Begotten of God the
Father. To speak only of the “one and only” fails (in my opinion) to
communicate the full majesty of the term as used by John. Jesus’ intimacy with
the Father – as one from the Father’s bosom – is not that He is vastly
different from others, but that He is the full image of and from the Father.
When we follow the intentional ABBA structure of John 1:1-18, we see that the third phrase from the beginning “and the Word was with God” lines up exactly with the third from the end “God the Only Begotten”. To say “one and only” does not indicate in what sense Christ is unique, but Only Begotten does!
[1] Revised yet taken mostly from Köstenberger (p.21) who pays special attention to the ABBA structure of the book.
[2] In much writing now, the shorter way to distinguish between John the Baptist and John the Apostle is to refer to one as “the Baptist”, which simply means he was John the Baptizer. The other is often called simply the Evangelist.