July 5

John 1

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was fully God. 2 The Word was with God in the beginning. 3 All things were created by him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of mankind. 5 And the light shines on in the darkness, but the darkness has not mastered it.

6 A man came, sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify about the light, so that everyone might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify about the light. 9 The true light, who gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was created by him, but the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to what was his own, but his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who have received him – those who believe in his name – he has given the right to become God’s children – 13 children not born by human parents or by human desire or a husband’s decision, but by God.

14 Now the Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We saw his glory – the glory of the one and only, full of grace and truth, who came from the Father. 15 John testified about him and shouted out, “This one was the one about whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is greater than I am, because he existed before me.’” 16 For we have all received from his fullness one gracious gift after another. 17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came about through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God. The only one, himself God, who is in closest fellowship with the Father, has made God known.

19 Now this was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” 20 He confessed – he did not deny but confessed – “I am not the Christ!” 21 So they asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not!” “Are you the Prophet?” He answered, “No!” 22 Then they said to him, “Who are you? Tell us so that we can give an answer to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

23 John said, “I am the voice of one shouting in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said.” 24 (Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.) 25 So they asked John, “Why then are you baptizing if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”

26 John answered them, “I baptize with water. Among you stands one whom you do not recognize, 27 who is coming after me. I am not worthy to untie the strap of his sandal!” 28 These things happened in Bethany across the Jordan River where John was baptizing.

29 On the next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30 This is the one about whom I said, ‘After me comes a man who is greater than I am, because he existed before me.’ 31 I did not recognize him, but I came baptizing with water so that he could be revealed to Israel.”

32 Then John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending like a dove from heaven, and it remained on him. 33 And I did not recognize him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘The one on whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining – this is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 I have both seen and testified that this man is the Chosen One of God.”

35 Again the next day John was standing there with two of his disciples. 36 Gazing at Jesus as he walked by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!” 37 When John’s two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. 38 Jesus turned around and saw them following and said to them, “What do you want?” So they said to him, “Rabbi” (which is translated Teacher), “where are you staying?” 39 Jesus answered, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day. Now it was about four o’clock in the afternoon.

40 Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two disciples who heard what John said and followed Jesus. 41 He first found his own brother Simon and told him, “We have found the Messiah!” (which is translated Christ). 42 Andrew brought Simon to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon, the son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

43 On the next day Jesus wanted to set out for Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” 44 (Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the town of Andrew and Peter.) 45 Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the law, and the prophets also wrote about – Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” 46 Nathanael replied, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip replied, “Come and see.”

47 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and exclaimed, “Look, a true Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael asked him, “How do you know me?” Jesus replied, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” 49 Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel!” 50 Jesus said to him, “Because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree, dop you believe? You will see greater things than these.” 51 He continued, “I tell all of you the solemn truth – you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (John 1, NET).

There are so many ideas John is working with in his incredible opening to his gospel that it’s difficult to pick a spot to start. He starts with identifying Jesus as the very Word of God, playing on a number of different ideas from both the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) and from Greek philosophy. The word translated into “Word” in our New Testaments is the Greek word logos which, by the first century AD when John is writing, had a pretty well-developed set of ideas attached to it. Logos is the word from which we derive “logic” and that is one of the ideas attached to this word. But it’s more than that. Logos is also getting at an idea of a guiding principle, a fundamental.

The Greek philosophers at least since Plato and Aristotle had been playing around with the idea of the created order being “hylomorphic,” comprised of substance (the materials we see, the specific instances, the maple tree in your back yard) and form (the patterns, the underlying ideas, the “treeness” that helps you identify that the tree in your backyard is, in fact, a tree), and logos has to do with the latter of these, with the form of the universe. John identifies that the guiding principle had become incarnate as a person, in verse 14, had “dwelt,” literally had built his tent, as one of us.

And this intermingles with the Old Testament concepts as well. In Genesis 1, God is said to have created the whole cosmos through a speech action. Now that Word had become flesh, had indwelt our reality, but had done so carrying God’s light (another one of the major ideas/symbols used) and life in a way that made it communicable to us. John’s entire gospel is going to be geared towards helping us see Jesus Christ as the incarnation, the embodying, of God’s principles, His unmatched power, His life which overcomes death, and His light which cuts through the darkness of sin. And it all happens in the remarkable life of this man, Jesus of Nazareth. Apparently, something good can come from there.

I know that I tend to get bogged down in the opening 18 verses of John 1 when I read it. They’re so fascinating. There’s such a strong viewpoint communicated. The theological statements are so rich. But they are a preamble to the story or set of stories that John is wanting to tell us. As I read it this time preparing to write this devotional, I tried to pay more attention to what comes after, to that testimony of John the Baptist (or John the forerunner, not the author of this gospel) and to the calling of those first disciples.

We noted a couple weeks back in looking at John 3 that this gospel was likely written after the other 3 “synoptic gospels” and that John our author was seemingly looking to fill in some further details and adding some stories unique to him rather than needing to retell the same stuff as was found in the other gospels. The other 3 all do start with John the Baptist, but I think John’s gospel might do the most thorough handoff of the Baptist’s prophetic ministry of preaching repentance and baptizing those who respond and who are looking to embrace God’s kingdom. It’s in this telling that we learn that Simon Peter’s brother, Andrew, is one of the bridgers between the “voice in the wilderness” and the One being foretold.

I love seeing both John the Baptist’s and his disciples’ dedication to what they were preaching that when the One they were anticipating appeared, John readily recognizes that Jesus was who he was preparing Israel to receive. He also releases his disciples to go follow Jesus. And why shouldn’t he? But it’s still so counter to the ‘natural man’ to lay down one’s position and decrease so that another could increase. It is however, exactly modelling for us what Paul will identify as one of the main ideas of his gospel, that we die to ourselves, to our pride and position, to our own control, and find that in Christ we have a new life energized by that same Spirit that descended and rested upon Jesus.

One last image is worth picking up here. John the Baptist identifies that the Spirit came and rested upon Jesus as part of his baptism at the beginning of his ministry. This first chapter also finishes with a further insight into the spiritual realm as Jesus describes himself as being Jacob’s ladder (from Genesis 28). Jesus tells his new disciples that his knowing about Nathanael’s resting under the fig tree was nothing; they were going to see angels descending and ascending upon him. This image is a shorthand in the Old Testament imagination for being a locus, a focal point where heaven and earth are intersecting or overlapping. One of the major subplots of all four gospels is Jesus entering this life not just as God crossing the gap between Himself and us, but also coming in judgement over and against the Temple which had become corrupted through misuse of the Law and a fundamental misunderstanding of how the Law was supposed to point us to God’s holiness and our need for Him to save us. John’s call to baptism and repentance was a call to true religion. Nowhere does John say that people should stop observing the Temple rituals and feasts and sacrifices. That is going to be for Jesus to say as he inaugurates a New Covenant in His blood. Where the Temple had been the heartbeat of true religion, Jesus supersedes it by demonstrating its proper application and the proper values true Israelites were supposed to embody, the fulfillment of the Law and Prophets as it were. In the face of the One who fulfilled it, the Temple would break and God’s presence would disperse or democratize at Pentecost (which we read about only recently).

My prayer for you this week is that, no matter how long you’ve walked with Jesus, you’d be reinvigorated by His Spirit, that you’d feel some of that fresh excitement that I’m sure was felt by Andrew as he rushed to tell his stony brother or Philip as he rushed to tell Nathanael about finding the Messiah. May that same excitement that struck you when you first found out that God Himself had become a person just like you, that He went through our human experiences, but did so without succumbing to our follies and failures, that He became flesh and built His home among us, and that He did this for love’s sake, for your sake, may that excitement spur you to a renewed chasing after Christ, to remember that good does in fact come from Nazareth of all places, and that He will hold you fast and dwell with you no matter where life takes you.

Next week's text is James 1.