Green Baggins

Verses 2-5 as a whole: Do the terms “life” and “light” have a creation or salvation connotation in these verses? Hendriksen, Hengstenberg, Hughes, and Lenski all agree that salvation is the connotation of these words in this context. This passage proves the divinity of the Son by His manifestations of creative power (Hutcheson). How does this prove the thesis of 20:31 (that the Christ is Jesus, and that by believing, we might have life in His name)? If the Messiah is going to be powerful enough to save us from our sins, then He has to have re-creative power (Keddie). The flip side of that is that here we learn about the exceeding sinfulness of sin. “Let us often read these first five verses of St. John’s Gospel. Let us mark what kind of Being the Redeemer of mankind must needs be, in order to provide eternal redemption for sinners. If no one less than the Eternal God, the Creator and Preserver of all things, could take away the sin of the world, sin must be a far more abominable thing in the sight of God than most men suppose. The right measure of sin’s sinfulness is the dignity of Him who came into the world to save sinners” (J.C. Ryle). McHugh says it well: “One may then recall that in Gen 1, the creation proceeds from day to day, in a careful logical succession, establishing the conditions in which living things may grow until on the sixth day, when all is at last ready for the completion of the work, God creates the land-based beasts and finally the human race. In Genesis, all these things, from the first creation (light) to the last, were brought into existence through God’s Word. So in the Fourth Gospel. All proceeds towards the restoration of life for the entire human race on the sixth day of the final week of Jesus’ earthly life, with Paradise Restored.”

Verse 2: “Houtos” (“This one”) implies “none other” (Beasley-Murray). Lenski also argues that this sums up verse 1 in one word. This verse says that the relationship of Jesus with the Father is eternal (Bernard). Westcott tells the profound truth that it is not only the Father and the Son (as persons) who were responsible for the creation of the World. But it is also their relationship that was involved (God speaking through His Son, the Word). Of course, we know from Genesis 1 that the Holy Spirit was involved as well. Creation was a result of the eternal fellowship among the persons of the Trinity.

Verse 3: This verse states the same thing twice, once positively, once negatively (Barrett). The “all things” is completely comprehensive of all created things. There is great comfort from this verse, in that nothing is outside God’s control, if nothing is outside His creative power (Schaff).

Verses 3-4: A punctuation issue: does “which came to pass” go with verse 3 or verse 4? An example of the former is the ESV: “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” An example of the latter is the NRSV: “All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being, etc.” Most translations have the phrase go with verse 3. In favor of having it go with verse 4 is that “any thing made that was made” sounds a bit redundant. One could answer to this objection that this phrase could be consciously excluding the Word Himself as someone who was begotten, but not made. He was not created, but was rather the Word by Whom all things were created. In favor of having it go with verse 3 is that it is difficult to know what “What has come into being in Him was life” actually means (so many commentators). To this it could be answered that in Christ’s person and work the way of salvation has come into being. The new creation that Jesus accomplished in the resurrection is life (for us!) that has come into being in Him. I marginally favor the latter reading (with verse 4), but it’s certainly not a hill on which I desire to perish.

Verse 4a: “The life which was eternally in the Word, when it goes forth, issues in created life, and this is true both of the physical world and the spiritual world” (Bernard). Hutcheson says that “the life of all living creatures was ‘in him’ as in the fountain cause, as the stream is in the fountain, and the rays of light in the sun.” Keddie says that “the logic of the text is that the Creator of life must be the very essence and definition of life.” Keener notes that the Jews believed that life and light both resided in the Torah. That belief would be in contrast to what John teaches here. Meyer argues that any and all kinds of life are here included.

Verse 4b: See Genesis 1:3 (“Let there be light”) leading to John 8:12 (“I am the light of the world”) (Bernard). Of course, light is what makes it possible for life to exist (Kostenberger). It also leads to a choice which has to be made. See Boice, vol 1, pp. 46-47, for a good illustration of the difference between lesser lights and the great light of Jesus Christ.

Verse 5: Note the present tense of “shines” (Bernard). “Darkness” has an ethical quality here (Barrett). Brown interprets “the darkness” to be the fall in Genesis 3. Hengstenberg adds that the darkness is both a deficient religious condition and also the end result, hence darkness implies death. Ambrose tells us that the darkness is not a protection, since the light will always expose what is done in darkness. Isaiah 9:2 (“the people walking in darkness have seen a great light”). Light and darkness are opposites, but not of equal strength, contra dualism (Bruce). Besser (quoted by Lenski) says “In Christ is the life-light, outside is the night of death.” He now shines in us (Lenski). See 12:35 (“Walk while you have the light”) for application (Lincoln). John does not leave us in suspense: the story has a happy ending (Michaels). Luther notes that this verse hurls a thunderbolt against all human reason, since the light exists only in Jesus, not in us. In us is darkness. The so-called Enlightenment isn’t.

Verse 5: (Translation issue: is “katelaben” to be translated “overcome” or “comprehend”?) Maybe it plays on the two meanings (Barrett). Hendriksen argues a litotes here emphasizing the absolute antithesis between darkness and light. Perhaps the best translation is one that incorporates both connotations: “mastered” is my favorite way of translating the term.

References to names in parentheses are references to the commentary written by that individual and are cited according to their comments on that passage, unless otherwise noted.

Verse as a whole: Genesis 1:1 is the obvious background (Godet writes, “Moses descends the stream of time and reaches the creation of man (ver 26). John, having started from the same point, follows the reverse course and ascends from the beginning of things to eternity”), Proverbs 8:22 (on which, see Bultmann, who says, “She is pre-existent, and is God’s partner at the creation. She seeks a dwelling on earth among men, but is rejected: she comes to her own possession, but her own do not accept her.”), 1 John 1:1-4. The “en” is expressive of “continuous timeless existence” (Bernard).

Logos: John introduces the term with no explanation (Westcott). This implies that people would have had a good idea of what it meant. “As a word is a means of revealing a man’s mind to others, so Christ hath revealed the Father in his own person” (Hutcheson). Pink expands on this, and says, “He is God’s alphabet, the One who spells out Deity, the One who utters all God has to say…Christ then, is the One who has made the incomprehensible God intelligible…The Scriptures reveal God’s mind, express His will, make known His perfections, and lay bare His heart. This is precisely what the Lord Jesus has done for the Father…It is only in Christ that God is fully told out.” If you want to know God, then study Jesus (Pink and Boice).” “Logos” implies inward thought and outward speech (Barrett). This is “ratio” (thought) and “oratio” (speech) (Keddie). Michaels (quoted by Kostenberger) says, “Elsewhere in John’s Gospel, Jesus speaks the word, but in the prologue he is the Word, the personal embodiment of all that he proclaims.” Bultmann writes “In the O.T. the Word of God is his Word of power, which, in being uttered, is active as event.” He further writes that no silence preceded the Word. Notice that the word of God is creative and revelatory (Barrett). Isaiah 55 tells us that God’s Word is effective for accomplishing His purpose. Why the term “logos?” J.C. Ryle notes various possibilities, all of which feed into this concept: “the wisdom of God, the express image of the Father, the subject of OT prophecy, and the speaker and interpreter of God’s will.” It is also true that God does not communicate His essence to us: it must be mediated (Meyer). “The deeds and words of Jesus are the deeds and words of God; if this be not true the book is blasphemous” (Barrett). Therefore the whole of the Gospel needs to be read in light of this verse (ibid.). In fact, connecting 20:31 with this passage yields the following thought: “the one I want you to believe in, because the Christ is Jesus, this Jesus is also the pre-incarnate God Himself, the one responsible for all creation.”

Clause 1: “In Gen. 1:1 ‘In the beginning’ introduces the story of the old creation; here it introduces the story of the new creation. In both works of creation the agent is the Word of God” (Bruce). “Beginning” denotes the period before creation (Brown). Carson notes, “Since Mark begins his Gospel with the same word, ‘The Beginning,’ it is also possible that John is making an allusion to his colleague’s work, saying in effect, “Mark has told about the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry; I want to show you that the starting point of the gospel can be traced farther back than that, before the beginning of the entire universe.” Notice the difference between “was” and “became” (Bernard). This clause refutes the Arians, who say that there was a time when then Son was not.

Clause 2: Kostenberger says (connecting the first clause with the second) that “Since the Word existed in the beginning, one might think that either the Word was God or the Word was with God. John affirms both.” Here John “may already be pointing out, rather subtly, that the ‘Word’ he is talking about is a person, with God and therefore distinguishable from God, and enjoying a personal relationship with him” (Carson). Not only does the “pros” establish a relationship between God and the Word, but also it distinguishes the two from each other” (Brown, quoted in Kostenberger). See also Genesis 1:26. This refutes the Sabellian heresy (which denied distinction of persons).

Clause 3: Jesus did NOT falsely claim to be God (see 10:33, 5:18). Keener says, “Jesus did not ‘make himself’ God; he shared glory with the Father before the world began.” NEB translation is excellent: “What God was, the Word was.” This refutes Socinians and Unitarians.

Anarthrous “theos” comments: If “theos” had the definite article “ho,” then it would have implied that “no divine being existed outside the second person of the Trinity” (Barrett). Note Colwell’s rule, which refutes the JW’s. Colwell’s rule, applied in this instance, is relatively simple. There are two nouns in the nominative case. To discover which one is the subject of the sentence, and which is the predicate, simply look for which noun has the definite article. In this case, “logos” has the definite article, and is therefore the subject of the sentence, even though it comes after the word “theos” in word order.