John 1:11-15
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John 1:11-15
John 1:11-15
(ESV)
11 He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him.
3588 – a feminine or neutered word usage to show His forever, His ownership, everyone
2398 – He is the owner, producer of His. Again neutered to show ownership of all (does not mean that we all make it – we will see in ) but as ownersh
3880 – An “aorist active indicative” (aorist – doesn’t account for length of time but shows an actual occurrence, active voice – is directly said by or said to, indicative – mood tense that what is being stated as fact (they may be lying but the statement is stated as fact)
12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,
4100 – The action or activity of faith, to entrust
3686 – This form of “name” is one that such that is used to imply authority
1849 - Ability , faculty, the power of doing something
1096 – To begin to be, to come into existence
5043 – Descendant, children of Theos – those who love and worship
2316 – God of all, creator of all – Jehovah (denial of Jesus) as well an inaccurate translation
13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
129 – The use here is of physical blood in the human body, blood as a medium
2307 – Determination
4561 – Flesh used here is like us
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
3056 – The pre-existent nature of Christ
1096 – To begin to be, to become something the object is not (stones to bread)
4561 – Flesh used here is like us
1391 – Divine perfection, luster, brightness as Moses’ face, celestial glow of angels
3439 – Only born, only begotten,
4134 – Fully assured, completely convinced of, a surface fully covered, filled with the Spirit
5485 – Total grace that was given to us by Jesus, pardoning of all sin, admission to the Kingdom
-225 – An evidence in relation to fact, not concealed but shown open as truth
15 (John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’”)
There are two main verbs that contrast what Jesus had always been and what He became at His incarnation.
First, there is “en” (eeeen), it is the imperfect of “eimi” (1510) meaning “to be,” which can also be translated as “has been.” (It is imperative to note here that EVERY SINGLE TIME in this passage that this verb is used regarding Jesus – it is when He is referred to eternally (logos) – (vv 1,2,4,9,10,15).
The second verb is “egeneto” (this is the aorist form of “ginomai” (1096) meaning “to become”. This refers to becoming something that one was not before, Christ as a Physical Being. *** AORIST FORM = does not account for the amount of time that it has or has not taken to happen (indicative mood tense tells us that it is stated as fact in the past, present, or future tense) but that it is a SINGLE POINT IN TIME
The Prologue (): The Theological Story
Beginnings are important. John begins his Gospel with a prologue () that more than those in the other Gospels combines theological explanation and events.
One event is the coming of John the Baptist, who acted as a witness to the light () and his identification of Jesus as the one to whom he had borne testimony that one would come after him who surpassed him (). Sandwiched in the middle of these statements is a further event that takes place in history, namely, the Word becoming a human being and being seen by a group within which the author of the Gospel places himself (). But these events are placed in the context of a theological statement by the author, whose principal points are:
First, in the beginning (which seems to mean “as far back as we can go in thought”) there was a being with God called the Word who was God. This paradox is stated without explanation.
Second, this being was responsible for the creation of the universe.4 He himself was the source of life and light for the universe, which would otherwise be a place of darkness. How the universe created by the Word should come to be in darkness is not explained. This is the mystery of evil.
Third, the light shines in the darkness, evidently bringing salvation and life to people. One way in which the light was manifested was through the testimony of John. He bore witness to the light that was to come into the world.
Fourth, the light was not generally recognized in the world, not even by his own people. This must be a reference to the Jewish people. But there were some who did recognize and accept the light, and they became God’s children.5 This took place through a process akin to birth, which it is not in human power to bring about but depends upon a divine action.
At this point we have another paradox in that some people do believe and so become children of God, but this birth is brought about by God. One way of understanding this is to say that God responds to human faith by conferring the new birth on believers. This explanation does not explain why these particular people respond whereas others do not. Another way of understanding it is to say that God causes certain people to believe and so to come to new birth. This explanation does not explain why God causes certain people to believe and not others. The text clearly favors the former type of understanding rather than the other.
Fifth, the particular way in which the Word entered the world was by becoming “flesh”, which in context means that he took on the form of a human being.
What is not immediately clear is whether this is a recapitulation and hence a making more precise of what has just been said about the Word being in the world or whether it is a new stage, with a spiritual presence of the Word in the world in , followed by a physical presence in . The decision is not easy, but on the whole the former interpretation makes better sense. reads much more like an interpretation of Christian response to Jesus than of anything that occurred in the pre-Christian era.6
Sixth, the author identifies himself and his community as the group who recognized him. Although he was a human being, nevertheless they saw beyond the mere humanity to a person who embodied the glory of God. At this point God is identified as the Father, and the Word is identified as his Son.
Seventh, the fullness of the blessings mediated through the Word is emphasized. It is not denied that God’s grace was active in and through Moses as the giver of the law; but grace and truth are fully revealed in Jesus, to such an extent that Jesus as the only One, himself God, reveals God.7
What is the function of this prologue in relation to the Gospel? On a basic level it has introduced very many of the terms that the author uses to express his theology: Word, God, life, light, darkness, testimony, believe, name, children/sons, birth, flesh, glory, Father, grace,8 truth, law, seeing.9 More significantly, it has set out the basic story of salvation in brief fashion, anchoring what happens on the historical plane in a metanarrative that sees things in terms of divine activity transcending the universe and before its creation. Above all it is concerned with who Jesus is and what he does, but it achieves this by a kind of inversion in which it takes another figure, the Word, and explains Jesus as the incarnation of the Word.
An important question is why the term Word should be chosen for this purpose. The other Gospels begin rather with the identification of Jesus as the Messiah, God’s human agent who comes to establish God’s kingdom on earth and to announce its future consummation and calls people to repentance and faith and discipleship. Yet at the outset they too are conscious that this figure is more than a human being; he is the Son of God, and the change involved in becoming disciples can be described as becoming like little children. John, however, begins with the identification of Jesus as a divine being from outside the world who comes to share his heavenly status and nature with human beings. But as the story develops he too has to deal with the inevitable question from a Jewish perspective of whether Jesus is the Messiah, and with the call of Jesus to discipleship. The ingredients are the same, but the blend is rather different.
After the prologue Jesus is no longer referred to as “the Word”. Yet he continues to fulfill the functions of the Word in that he reveals and communicates life, light and glory, and makes the Father known, and he does this primarily through his words.10 Just as Jesus dispenses the bread of life and is that bread, so too he speaks the words of God and thereby functions as the Word of God.
The prologue says nothing about the events that form the climax of the story, the death and resurrection of Jesus. It may be that the death is in view in where the darkness did not understand and rejected the light, but nothing is said at this stage about the supreme function of the death and resurrection in bringing life to the world. But the prologue is a prologue, not a preview or précis of the whole story. What the rest of the story does is to describe more fully and with added detail what has been stated briefly in the prologue. From the beginning the reader knows the interpretation of the story, and the ongoing story will provide evidence that can only confirm that the interpretation that John has provided is the right interpretation. We may compare how in the Synoptic Gospels something very similar takes place.
4 Since God was the Creator in the thought of the time, it may be assumed that the Word acted as his agent. But the main thought may be that this activity placed the Word on a par with God.
5 There is the clear implication that apart from this acceptance of the light, people are not God’s children, even though they are created by the Word and even though they are Jews.
6 This is confirmed by the probable futurity of and the contrast between the two eras inaugurated by Moses and Jesus Christ in .
7 It is only at this point that it becomes explicit that the Word became a human being as Jesus Christ. Up until this verse the author has been speaking about “the Word”.
8 This term is not actually used outside the prologue (, ) but is in effect replaced by “love”.
9 Some crucial terms are absent: love (included in grace); Spirit/Paraclete; sin. Jesus is not called “Son” (except perhaps in according to one version of the text adopted by nrsv text; tniv mg.), but “only” by itself in , is equivalent to “only son”.
10 Robert H. Gundry, Jesus the Word According to John the Sectarian (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2002).
Marshall, I. H. (2004). New Testament theology: many witnesses, one Gospel (pp. 492–495). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.