Reflections on the Prologue of the Gospel of John

1:1: In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.

In an obvious comparison to the opening words of the Book of Genesis, John echoes “In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth,” but substitutes the concept of the word for God’s creative presence. The word is God’s creative presence. God made or created by thinking and speaking, the spoken and written understanding and essence of truth. God’s thoughts and words are the Greek logos, the word, the philosophical idea advanced by the Greeks in the preceding half millennium before John wrote: the word is a transcendent, universal, creative presence in the mind and understanding of Being that humans, each individual being, can perceive and comprehend.

1:2: This was in the beginning with God.

The word is personified with an indistinct pronoun, this, meaning this one, as an individual being linked with Being, God. Hence the word is a being next to God, or linked with God. And the word was present as in the opening verse of Genesis: “In the beginning.” The word, it is implied, is the creative presence of God.

1:3: All things through Him came into being and without Him came into being not one thing that has come into being.

The word is now personified with a distinct pronoun, him, indicating the presence of a particular being the reality of which humans can identify with and know. This particular being, the word, is the creative presence of all things created by God “in the beginning.”

1: 4: In him was life, and life was the light of humans.

The word is the basis for life, that is, all life, not just human existence. Particular to humans, this basis for life the word is also light, that is, truth. The word is the creative essence of life in all creatures and knowledge in humans.

1: 5: And light in the darkness shines, and the darkness has not overpowered it.

Light represents knowledge and truth, darkness represents ignorance and falsehood. Darkness in John is often personified by the deceiver and tempter. The word personifies light and truth, therefore overcomes darkness, and darkness is helpless before Him.

1:6: There was a man sent from God named John;

1:7: this man came to witness for the light, that all humans might believe in the light.

1:8: He was not the light, but he was a witness to the light.

In the other Gospels this man is identified as John the Baptist, whose patrimony is discussed in the Gospel of Luke. He is a forerunner, a messenger, to the word making Himself present to humans, allowing humans to see truth and light.

1:9: It was the true light that enlightens all humans coming into the world.

The creative presence, the word, having existed throughout all time, co-existent with God, is now at this particular time, as John proclaims, appearing among humans as knowledge and light.

1:10: He was in the world, the world through whom came into being, and the world did not know him.

The world, cosmos, that is, all existence, created through the word, the logos, does not know the logos when it comes among the creatures through whom they are created. Implied ignorance in all living things that will now be enlightened with knowledge of the presence of the word or logos among all living things.

1: 11: To his own things he came and his own people did not receive him.

He came among his own creation, including humans, few of whom knew him, and the humans refused to recognize him. Ignorance of the creation of their own creator.

1: 12: But to the many who received him he gave them the right to become children of God, those who believed in his name,

Some few knew him, or learned of him and accepted him, and they are embraced by him as his children; they believe in the power of his name. Although at this point John does not yet indicate his name.

1:13: who were not born by blood, the will of the flesh, nor by the will of humans, but were born of God.

Those children of God are born through their acceptance of God; it is a birth that is not of flesh or human will but by accepting God’s will.

1:14: And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, glory as of the only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth.

Now in one sentence John reveals that the word became an unnamed human who lived among us; people recognized him for who he was, that he was from the father, God, but in particular he alone is the one from the Father; and we knew him as such because of his grace and truth, his character, teaching, actions, and being.

1: 15: John is the witness concerning him and cried out saying, This is the man of whom I said, the one after me coming before me has become, because he was first before me.

John the Baptist declares that this one (still unnamed), who appears to come in time after him, actually preceded him, as he preceded all humans, being the word, the one from the Father.

1: 16: Because of his fullness we have received grace upon grace;

Fullness implies that there is nothing lacking, nothing empty in him, that he is complete, unlike all other creatures, who lack in the sense that life does not provide all, that something is inherently missing in life, because that is what drives humans and all creatures into the arms of each other, awaiting death. But this one has provided us with countless grace, a word that appears to mean a special benefit from God to fill the emptiness.

1: 17: because through Moses the law was given, but grace and truth derive through Jesus Christ.

Now he is named, Jesus, the Messiah, who is different from Moses, who gave humans the law to live by, but Jesus has given us grace, that is that special benefit from God to fill the emptiness, and truth, that is, knowledge of what is real and not false. He opens our eyes.

John waits until now to identify him: he has begun by telling us that there is this spoken and written understanding and essence of truth that exists coeternal with God; that this spoken and written understanding and essence of truth is the creative essence of God, through whom all things have become; that this spoken and written understanding and essence of truth has taken on flesh and time, has come among us, lived among us, but we resist the knowledge and awareness of him. That John the Baptist has made him known to us as the one who is in time but has existed throughout time. This being living among us provides us with all graces to fill and complete our emptiness. He is greater than Moses, he surpasses the Law, he is the Messiah, and his name is Jesus.

1:18: No one has ever seen God; the only begotten one of God, who is in the bosom of the Father, has declared God the Father.

In short, then, this only one from God, Jesus, who is in and with God, is the one who has made known to us, to the creation, who God is.