John 1:1-2 - Homiletics

Prologue of the Gospel.

The prologue is in harmony with the design of a biographic history which is to set forth Jesus Christ as the Son of God. The Fourth Gospel is thus a distinct advance, dogmatically, upon the other Gospels, for Matthew exhibits him in his Messianic royalty; Mark, as the Son of man and the Servant of God; Luke, as the Son of man and Saviour of the race of man, without distinction of Jew or Gentile. The Apostle John exhibits him in the glorious activity of his Divine nature.

I. THE SUBJECT OF THE PROLOGUE . "The Word." Jesus Christ is the Word as he is the essential Revealer of the Divine Being. "There is in the Divine Essence a principle by which God reveals himself—the Logos; and a principle by which he communicates himself—the Spirit." Christ is "the express Image of the Father's Person" ( Hebrews 1:3 ), just as a word is an image or picture of a thought. But he is also the Interpreter of the Divine will. "The only begotten Son hath declared the Father" ( John 1:18 ), through Creation, through prophets, through the Incarnation. He was called the Word.

1 . Not as man ; for as man he was not in the beginning with God, neither was he Creator.

2 . He was the Word before he was man ; for it was as the Word he became flesh (verse 14).

3 . He was the Word as he was the Son of God— "the only begotten Son of the Father."

4 . Yet he is called here the Word rather than the Son of God, because the Jews were familiar with this name as applied to the Messiah, and, as has been suggested, the apostle would not at first alienate their hearts by the title "Son of God," which was so offensive to the unbelieving Jews ( John 10:30 , John 10:33 ).

II. THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF THE WORD .

1 . He is an absolute Eternal Being. "In the beginning was the Word."

2 . He is a distinct Person from God, yet one with him. "And the Word was with God." Coleridge remarks upon the significance of the preposition ( πρὸς ) as implying that the Word was "with God," not in the sense of coexistence, or local proximity, or communion, but of mysterious relation with God. The preposition implies that the Word was with God, before he revealed God. The distinct personality of the Son is asserted against the error of the Sabellians, who held that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are but three Names of one Person. The "life eternal" was not only "manifested to men," but it was "with the Father" ( 1 John 1:2 ). Not with God, as if to emphasize the distinction of Persons in the Godhead; not with men or angels, for they were yet to be created; but with the Father in eternal glory. "It was he," says Pearson, "to whom the Father said, 'Let us make man in our image.'" We have no mental capacity to explain the oneness of essence, any more than the distinctness of Persons, in the Godhead. The apostle does not say that "God was with God," but that the "Word was with God." We therefore receive believingly the words of our Lord himself, "I am in the Father, and the Father in me;" "I and the Father are one;" "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father," as different expressions of the same Divine truth.

3 . He is God. "And the Word was God." The passage asserts the Divinity of Jesus Christ our Lord in the plainest terms. It places him within the unity of the Godhead. The Son is, therefore, not inferior to the Father. The text refutes the Arians, who say he is a super-angelic Being inferior to God; the Socinians, who say he is only Man; and the Sabellians, who deny any distinction of Persons in the Trinity.

4 . The doctrine of the Trinity is a deep mystery, but it is fundamental in Christianity. Therefore the apostle reiterates the eternity, the personality, the oneness of the Word with God. "The same was in the beginning with God." Some person might say there was a time when the Word was not a distinct Person in the Trinity. The statement is made that the same Person, who was eternal and Divine, was from eternity a distinct Person of the Godhead. Well may we say with Bernard, "It is rashness to search too far into it. It is piety to believe it. It is life eternal to know it!"