The first words of the Gospel of John are meant to recall the first words of Genesis: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth … And God said, Let there be light: and there was light … And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life … Let the earth bring forth the living creature … Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion … Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them” (Gen.1-2:1).
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not” (John 1:1-5).
So John picks out the essential teaching of Genesis, as in like manner the Psalmist had done in the 33rd Psalm: (4) “For the word of the LORD is right; and all His works are done in truth … (6) By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth … (9) For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast …(11) The counsel of the LORD standeth for ever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations”.
For the Psalmist the Word of the LORD is what God spake and commanded in the beginning, and in that Word is revealed the counsel and thoughts of His heart. So it is for John, and as in the one no thought of a pre-existent being, apart from God, enters, so neither does it enter the thought of the other.
We have too the straightforward testimony of God Himself that He was alone the Creator. Isaiah 44:24 – “I am the LORD that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself.” 45:5,6 – “I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no god beside me … I am the LORD, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil” (verse 18) “For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.”
In the 8th Psalm the fact that God said of men (Genesis 1:26) “Let them have dominion … over all the earth” constituted man ‘God’s heir’, and, although not ‘God’ (see R.V.), was capable of being crowned with glory and honour. “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels (R.V., R.S.V. ‘God’), and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet.” Now this is important, because the final words of Jesus himself in the first chapter of John show that the highest honour and the final fulfilment of God’s Word in Genesis will be when “Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.”
From Genesis throughout the Old Testament the Word of God is spoken of in terms which clearly distinguish it from the word of man. In the New Bible Dictionary (1962) we are told, “In the Old Testament the word of God is used 394 times of a divine communication which comes from God to men in the form of commandment, prophecy, warning, or encouragement. The usual formula is ‘The word of Yahweh came (lit. was) unto but sometimes the word is seen as a vision (Is.2:1; Jer.2:31; 38:21). Yahweh’s word is an extension of the divine personality, invested with divine authority, and is to be heeded by angels and men (Ps.103:20; Deut.12:32); it stands for ever (Is.40:8), and once uttered cannot return unfulfilled (Is.55:11).”
This is the antecedent usage which makes it quite natural to speak of it as “the Word”, and to insist on its close association with God from the very beginning. But in none of these 394 instances is “the Word” a person or being, and John in writing his first epistle makes it quite clear that he does not regard it as a person or being from the very beginning. He insists that it was “from the beginning”, not from “before the beginning”.
“That which was from the beginning …” From this impersonal word in the beginning the personality “which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled” has been manifested because “eternal life” too has become manifest in the person of the One whom God has declared to be His Son Jesus Christ.
The time at which the Word became personal is equally clearly stated in John 1:14 (R.V.) – “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and truth.” Luke 2:27-30 shows that as a young child Jesus was acknowledged to be “God’s salvation” – “For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.”
Personality commenced with Jesus as with all men with birth and subsequent growth. Luke 2:40: “and the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.” (Verse 52) “And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.” Verse 49 shows that he was, at the age of twelve, conscious of his divine parentage.
The Christian Faith involves no recognition of a word that was a personal being in the beginning, but Hebrews 11:3 sets forth that faith ”Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.”
In the 2nd Epistle to the Corinthians 4:5-6 the events of the beginning as recorded in Genesis are linked, as in the early verses of John, with the manifestation of the glory of God in Jesus Christ, but no other personality is conceived of as existing in the beginning save the God that spake.
“For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. Seeing it is God, that said, Light shall shine out of darkness, who shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (R.V.). It should be noted also that Christ Jesus is to be regarded as ‘Lord’ because he ‘is in the image of God’ the complete fulfilment of the purpose of God in the creation of man.
We have another instance in the First Epistle of Peter of a parallel to the first chapter of John, where it is definitely stated (1:20) that Christ “was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times.” The R.V. has “was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world; RSV has “he was destined” and the NEB “he was predestined”; all these renderings contradict “pre-existence”.
Peter, like John, ascribed the “power to become the sons of God” the new birth – to the Word of God: “that word is the good news which was preached to you” (1 Peter 1:25, R.S.V.).
James sums up John 1:12-13 in simple words that match and make clear the words of John: – “Of his (the Father of lights) own will begat he us with the word of truths that we should be a kind of first-fruits of his creatures’ (1:18).
So John himself, Paul, Peter and James all exclude the idea of “the Word” being a pre-existent personality before it was “made flesh” and manifested in these last times as God’s Son, Jesus Christ.
Hebrews 4:12-13 demonstrates that all the attributes of personality can be ascribed to the Word of God, and makes us realise that by His Word God judges us :- “For the word of God is quick (living, R.V.), and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.”
In this case “the word of God” is spoken of, but in Mark 4:14-20, where Jesus explains the parable of the sower, ‘the Word’ is spoken of throughout without the qualification ‘of God’, yet the parallel in Luke 5:11 shows that “of God” is to be understood, or “the word of the kingdom” according to Matthew 13:19. In one case the source of the word is indicated; in another what the Word is about; yet Mark, as well as John, reports Jesus as speaking of “The word”, powerful to test and bear fruit wherever it is sown.
Thus the usage of John in the first verses of his Gospel can be understood without reference to the technicalities of Greek philosophical writings or the details of Greek grammar by noting the other Scriptures which deal with the same theme.
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