Behold Your God

Before John tells us what Jesus did, he tells us who Jesus is. He does not begin in Bethlehem. He does not begin at the Jordan River, with John the Baptist calling people to repentance. He does not even begin with Abraham, Moses, or the creation of Israel.

He begins before creation itself.

“In the beginning was the Word.”

The opening words deliberately echo Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” But John makes a distinction that is easy to miss. Genesis begins with God’s act of creating. John begins with the One who was already there when creation began.

The Greek verb John uses is ēn, “was.” He does not say that the Word came into existence in the beginning. He says the Word already was. Before the first morning, before matter, before time as we experience it, the Word existed.

Jesus is not part of creation.

He is eternal.

John continues: “the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The Word is personally distinct from the Father and yet fully divine. John does not allow us to imagine Jesus as merely a great teacher who came late in the story of God. He stands on the Creator side of the Creator-creature distinction.

The title John chooses is Logos, translated “Word.” The term could carry several associations in the ancient world, but John’s own explanation controls its meaning. A word makes thought known. Speech reveals what would otherwise remain hidden. The eternal Son is God’s supreme self-revelation.

If you want to know what God is like, you do not begin with speculation.

You look at Jesus.

John then makes the claim even larger: “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

Everything that has a beginning owes its existence to Him.

The stars that filled the night sky above Galilee were made through Him. The water He would later turn into wine was made through Him. The human eye He would give sight to was made through Him. The breath He would restore to Lazarus came ultimately from the life that was already in Him.

John says, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.”

Life and light will become major themes in this Gospel.

Jesus will speak life where death seems final. He will call Himself the Light of the world. He will confront people who prefer darkness and invite them into the light. He will eventually say that eternal life is found in knowing the Father and the Son.

John is giving us the vocabulary we will need for the journey ahead.

Then darkness appears.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

The verb can carry the sense of overcoming, seizing, or comprehending. John’s point is not that darkness is harmless. Darkness resists the light. But darkness cannot extinguish it.

That promise matters because the Gospel will grow darker before it grows brighter. Jesus will be opposed, betrayed, condemned, and crucified. For a few hours, it will look as though darkness has won.

John tells us at the beginning how the story must finally be read.

The darkness will not overcome the Light.

John the Baptist then enters the story, but notice the care with which John describes him: “He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.”

That distinction is important. John the Baptist will become a significant figure. Crowds will listen to him. Religious leaders will investigate him. But John is never the center.

Jesus is.

The same must be true of every Christian ministry, every church, every teacher, and every life that claims to serve Christ. We are not the Light. We point toward the Light.

The tragedy of John 1 is that the Creator enters His own world and is not recognized. “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.”

The world He made fails to know Him.

Yet rejection is not the final word.

“But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.”

John places two responses side by side.

Some reject.

Some receive.

To believe in Jesus’ name means more than acknowledging that He existed. In Scripture, a name represents the person as revealed. Faith receives Jesus for who He truly is.

And those who receive Him are given a new identity.

Children of God.

Not because of ancestry.

Not because of human effort.

Not because of religious achievement.

John says this birth is “of God.”

Before this Gospel begins asking what you will do for Jesus, it asks whether you have received what only God can give.

Then John reaches the sentence that will dominate Week 2: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

For now, stop before rushing past it.

The eternal Word became flesh.

The Creator entered creation.

The Life entered a world of death.

The Light stepped into darkness.

And John says, “We have seen his glory.”

Perhaps Jesus has become familiar to you.

You know the stories. You recognize the verses. You know how the Gospel ends.

Familiarity is not the same thing as wonder.

John’s opening paragraph will not let us carry a small Jesus into the rest of the book.

The One who will soon attend a wedding in Cana is the One through whom the universe came to be.

The One who will sit tired beside Jacob’s well is eternal God the Son.

The One who will kneel with a towel, weep at a grave, and hang on a cross is the Light darkness cannot extinguish.

Before you ask what Jesus can do for you, behold who He is.

Before you ask what He wants from you, behold who He is.

Before you carry today’s fears into tomorrow, behold who He is.

Christian discipleship begins here.

Behold your God.