Discussion on “In the Beginning was the Word”

The Gospel of John contains a number of sayings which cannot be accepted in a strictly literal sense, but have to be measured by the context in which they are set. Among them is the petition of Jesus: “Glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was” (John 17. 5), which is supported in verse 25: “Thou lovest me before the foundation of the world”. A simple valuation of these words would countenance the false belief so early accepted by the Church, that Jesus existed with the Father right from the very beginning of time—long before his birth of the Virgin Mary less than two thousand years ago.

Another such passage is to be found in the first chapter: “In the beginning was the Word . . . and the Word was God”. Literally this would convey the impression that Jesus must be identified with God in a creative capacity; however, it is not until we read through to verse 14 that we learn that this Word which was in the beginning with God was ultimately, in God’s good time, made flesh in the person of Jesus and dwelt among men so that they beheld his glory, as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

Paul writing in Colossians 1. 15-23 about Jesus being “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature”, adds the thought that “by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in the earth”.

Without their context these passages can be materially wrested to give false instruction, as every member of the ecclesia of Christ knows very well. They are examples of parable and figure of speech which Jesus used so that believing minds would be instructed and unbelievers left uninformed. Even his disciples at times did not understand him, as when he said, “Unless ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink his blood, ye have no life in you”. For they were confused by the literal meaning which religious leaders chose to put on the words, to their own blinding. It was a selective kind of instruction for the purpose of teaching chosen disciples that his kingdom and his saving work had little reference to worldly ends and the material gains which men naturally pursued. They had to be taught spiritual truth through the only possible line of approach, that is, through faith.

The statement in John 17. 5 has to be viewed carefully along with its context, and this raises questions which clamour for an answer. If, for example, Jesus had glory with the Father before the world was, for what reason was that glory taken away from him when he was sent from above, so that he should have to pray for it again? Was the renewed bestowal contingent upon his glorifying the Father during his mission (see vs. 1, 4, 5) ? Could he have failed if, as is supposed, he was equal with the Father? How could such a state of things arise consistent with scripture teaching about the faithfulness and sincerity of God?

Again, what was the world he spoke of? Was it the earth, mentioned in verse 4, in which Jesus had already glorified God? Or was it the whole ordered structure of the human family in the widest sense? Or did it have special reference to the Jewish world based on law and promises, of which his hearers formed a part? Or did it refer in prospect to the Christian order which he was then in process of forming?

Jesus was living and working in the Jew­ish world (v. 18) : “I am not sent save to the lost sheep of the house of Israel”. Yet it was not to the same restricted world that he sent his followers: “Go ye into all the world”; “I will send thee far hence unto the gentiles”. Jesus, we read, was no longer in the world (v. 11). His disciples were to remain in it. The world hated both him and them because they were not of it (vs. 14- 16). Yet the whole purpose of his work was that the world might believe that God had sent him, that his disciples might be one with him as he was one with the Father, and that the glory which God had given him might be given them also (vs 21­22). What was the glory? We read from Heb. 2. 9 that for the suffering of death he had been crowned with glory and honour. The purpose of this was that God in bringing many sons to glory, should make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering, and also bring all things into subjection to him (Heb. 2. 10, 8). How then could this glory be from the foundation of the world?

With the Trinitarian doctrine in mind all such questions are confused with mystery. The Jews with their oriental flair for metaphor fell into the snare of insisting upon literal simplicity: “Tell us plainly”, they said. To which he replied, “Ye will not believe”. Their material view of Messianic glory blinded hearts and minds to the in­struction, “Ye must be born again”-born of water and spirit, of incorruptible seed; belief in him must endow them with power to become the sons of God, born not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

It was for this unnatural, hidden wisdom of God that Jesus had come, to be rejected by his own people. God’s infinite foresight had ordained it before sin had entered into the world to require the sufferings of Jesus by which he should be glorified. It was therefore only prospectively that Jesus unborn had glory with the Father from the foundation of the world. Peter in plain words confirms this truth (1 Eph. 1. 20): “Who (Jesus) was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifested in these last times”.

Jew and Christian alike, zealous for God but misinformed, have been blinded to the divine provisions which have led through faith and hope to the focal point of human redemption from sin—the former by national traditions and the latter by inherited superstitions. The Bible alone is security against the deceptions of theology and philosophy which tend to obscure the divine truth that the regeneration by which we are saved requires a body of new creatures (2 Cor. 5. 17), of which Jesus as Son of God is the firstborn (Col. 1. 15).