The Gospel of John Chapter 1

Before we begin, please read The Gospel of John chapter 1. You can use the following online source if you do not have your own Bible (Bible Gateway). Feel free to read ahead as you desire. I will try to keep this teaching to one steady blog and add to it as we go through this entire Gospel. If you do not feel comfortable commenting online, you can reach me offline via messaging or email. I do appreciate your questions.

Note:  in reading the Gospel of John, you will soon realize that the author is not John the Baptist, but John the Apostle.  John the Baptist was the cousin of Jesus and was called to pave the way for The Christ through the baptism by water. Luke Chapters 1 and 3.

Gnostic and Agnostic

Let’s begin by defining two terms commonly used today by people describing their religious preference, Gnostic and Agnostic. In religious contexts, “Gnostic” usually refers to one who purports to have special knowledge or professes to seek knowledge about God. Agnostic is just the opposite. They are persons who claim to have no knowledge nor do they seek knowledge about the existence of God. In essence they are saying, “I don’t know and I don’t care”. Some individuals like to say, ‘We agree to disagree.” Again, a polite way of saying, “Thank you, but I don’t want to hear what you have to say concerning the matter.” Then they will go on to contradict themselves by saying they believe there is a god and describe this god as some sort of mysterious presence without form or shape that may or may not be a rational thinking entity. In this, they unknowingly place themselves as Gnostics but don’t want to define themselves as anything, so they say they are Agnostic.

Gnosticism is the conviction that matter is evil and that freedom or enlightenment comes through the knowledge of special spiritual mysteries usually based in the belief in various gods or entities requiring worship to obtain these mysteries. You can see these ideas played out in Buddhism, Hinduism and other religions but not Christianity. Some of the recently discovered writings of St. Thomas were rejected for their Gnostic properties and therefore not canonized into the New Testament. Gnostic doctrine teaches that the world was created and ruled by a lesser divinity responsible for creating the physical universe and that Christ was an emissary of this demigod. Gnostics believed that unique supernatural knowledge of Christ enabled the redemption of the human spirit…none of which is true. The influx of these erroneous teachings into the early church is what St. John is addressing in The Gospel of John.

John 1:1-5  

John starts his writings by reinforcing what the church was already familiar with, the Torah, specifically the book of Genesis. Notice that the Gospel of John starts by using the same three words as the Book of Genesis, “In the Beginning…” This not only connects the two books together using three words but subtly precursors a Trinity that was revealed in Genesis… from the very beginning.

Genesis states that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. It goes on to say that the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. In the first two sentences of Genesis here is God the Creator and the Spirit of God. Notice the capitalization on God and Spirit. This is an indication that they are one and the same God. Only God can be capitalized in monotheistic religions. The lowercase god is only used in reference to gods and goddesses of polytheistic (multiple gods) religions.

In the third sentence of Genesis it is revealed that God created through the spoken word by saying, “Let there be light,” and so on. John confirms this by saying that in the beginning was the Word. Again, notice the capitalization. The Word is God. John finishes out the first sentence by validating this, “…and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

If that was not enough to confirm a Triune God, John continues to describe the Word. “He was with God in the Beginning.” Notice that John describes the Word as a person. This is a person that was with God in the beginning and yet, like the Spirit of God “was God”. Parallels with Genesis continue in the third sentence of John’s Gospel, “Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that had been made.” This is God’s spoken word. This spoken word is a person and that person is the creative entity of God. Separate from the Spirit of God, but not separate from God.

In Genesis the very first thing that God (the Word) did was create Light. “Let there be light”, and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness…. -This was the first day.’  In John’s fourth sentence, John states that, “In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Comparing the Book of John and Genesis we begin to see that the separation of light from darkness has far more depth in meaning than just the physical world, but also pertains to the spiritual separation of life and death. “Life was the light of all mankind. That life shines in the darkness (death) and darkness (death) has not overcome it.” Again, this light is the Word and that Word was/is with God and was/is God.

At the time of John’s writings, the Gnostic philosophy had swept through the Roman world and was making serious inroads into the church. The Apostle Paul addressed this in some of his letters such as I Corinthians, Galatians, and Colossians. However, John counters this philosophy in all of his writings.  Understanding what John and Paul are addressing is important in that these same philosophies permeate our society to this day. The Gnostic belief states that throughout time and space certain contrary forces have and will struggle against each other. These forces are matter and spirit, evil and good, darkness and light. In such a dualistic system, no overlapping or gray area is allowed. You can see John address this by using familiar terms such as darkness, light, evil and good along with the spiritual and physical aspects of God. He also weaves the triune nature of God throughout by showing Him as physical and spiritual, overlapping as three distinct persons and yet still one God. He does not want to alienate the Gnostics but brings them into a clearer understanding of the true nature of God in a way they would more readily understand.

John the Baptist

In order to understand John 1:6-42, you will need to read the Gospel of Luke, chapters 1 and 3. This will set the background for these passages.

Luke 1:13-17 ¹³“Do not be afraid, Zechariah; your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. ¹⁴ He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, ¹⁵ for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born. ¹⁶ He will bring back many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. ¹⁷ And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

Interestingly, as you read Luke chapter 1 you will notice that the Holy Spirit filled John the Baptist even before he was born. The purpose of which was to prepare the way for the coming of the Lord. In the following passages the Holy Spirit will come on Mary (to arrive) and the power of the Most High will overshadow (to exalt His power and Authority over) her state as a virgin such that the Son of the Most High, the Son of God, may be born without the sin nature of man. ³² “The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, ³³ and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

The blood of the mother and the fetus are not shared in the womb. They are separated by the umbilical cord. In some cases the fetus may shed minute quantities of blood cells across the placental barrier, but not the other way around. Nutrients and oxygen flow to the fetus but not the mother’s blood. Therefore, the only blood in the child in Mary’s womb was that of the Holy Spirit, that of God. Jesus did not inherit the sin nature of man because He did not share the same blood. Though He was physically and in every other aspect a natural man He was pure in respect to sin. This is incredibly important as He was to be the Lamb of God, the Sacrifice for all of man’s sins. This would not be possible if He had been born with man’s sin within Him.

So we see that the Holy Spirit is incremental in the birth and blessing of both John and Jesus. The Holy Spirit is empowered with the authority of God and again…is God. The Holy Spirit empowered John to prepare the people for Jesus and for Jesus to be born of a virgin.

John 1:6-8

 ^6″There was a man sent from God whose name was John. ⁷ He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. ⁸ He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.” There was a common misperception that John the Baptist was the Messiah.  See Luke 3:15 ^15″The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah.” John adamantly denied this while pointing people toward the true Messiah. John the Apostle vouches for this by describing John the Baptist as a witness to the light (the Word).

John 1:9-13

⁹ The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. ¹⁰ He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. ¹¹ He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.” The Word, through whom the world was created, was coming into the world! God was coming into the world. The creator of all things would not be recognized because He was not what was expected. Even with John preparing the way and pointing Him out very few recognized the Word. He came to His own (the Jewish people – Jesus was Jewish), but they did not receive Him. ¹² Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— ¹³ children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.” So those who did (and do) receive Him are no longer born of natural descent, nor human decision or a husbands will…THEY ARE BORN OF GOD. Just as Christ was born of the Holy Spirit, so are we. When we receive Christ into our lives we are sealed with the Holy Spirit and therefore – Born of God.

John 1:14-18

¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” And there it is. God becomes flesh. The Word becomes matter. This statement destroys the Gnostic belief in Christ being a demigod and puts them to the question, “is God therefore evil?” Gnostics do not disbelieve in the High God nor do they believe God is evil. That is why they do not want to recognize Christ as God in the flesh. But, now with the teachings of the Apostle John, a man who was greatly respected for having walked by Jesus side, the Gnostics have to deal with God manifesting Himself in the flesh and walking among them as a common man.  John taught as Christ taught. There were no special “mysteries” involving secret societies, rituals, levels of understanding, and strange practices like “a gripping religious ecstasy” and being “possessed by the god being worshiped.” There was only the acceptance of God and His teachings through the Word.

¹⁵ (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”). John the Baptist was concieved and born naturally before Jesus was born of Mary, so he cannot be saying Jesus was older by natural birth. Therefore, what he was saying was that the messiah was there in the beginning of all things – long before John began testifying about him. ¹⁶ Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. ¹⁷ “For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.”  It was by the grace of God that The Law was handed down through Moses. However, actual grace and truth (meaning true redemption of sin and not just a representation of redemption by sacrificing animals) came through Jesus Christ. John had now put a name and a physical face to the Word. That name was Jesus Christ and He was the Word and He was God manifest in the flesh. ¹⁸ No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known. Again, John was saying that there was no other Son of God. This Son, Jesus Christ was himself God and God the Father had revealed Him to the world.

John 1:19-28

To understand Verses 19-28, it’s important to understand the cultural and social ideology that was prevalent at the time. The Jewish political and religious leadership resided mainly with two groups – the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Sadducees were mostly High Priests, Priests and Levites but also included very knowledgeable lay persons in the upper class. The Pharisees were theologians, teachers of law and scribes. They formed the largest and most influential party at that time. They controlled the places of worship called synagogues and were therefore as concerned as the Sadducees about the teachings of John and his ministry.

Jewish people often relied on the opinion of the Pharisees rather than that of the king or high priest. Because they were trusted by the people they were often chosen for high government positions like the Sanhedrin (Jewish council) while the Sadducees were more likely to be disliked by the common people for being aristocrats. Below is a great comparison of these two groups of people. Both had a significant impact throughout the New Testament making it important to understand their beliefs and how this conflicted with the teachings of John and ultimately Jesus’ ministry.

https://www.johnwijngaards.com/publications/background/backgr09.shtml

The Sadducees were asking if John was proclaiming himself to be the Messiah for very different reasons than the Pharisees. The Sadducees had no messianic expectations. The fact that they limited their canon to the Torah also limited their expectations of a future restoration of the Davidic kingdom. The Pharisees were just the opposite. They expected a Messiah to overthrow Roman rule and restore the Davidic Kingdom and reform the Temple to their extremist views. John disappointed these Jewish leaders when he ¹⁹“…confessed freely, ‘I am not the Messiah.’

The prophesy of Johns’ birth in Luke chapter 1:17 was no secret among the people and leaders of the community. This was proclaimed from the temple in front of a great crowd of witnesses by the High Priest Zechariah, soon to be John’s father. This is why they questioned if John was Elijah. They perverted what had been said in order to see if John claimed to be Elijah resurrected from the dead. The Sadducees did not believe in resurrection although the Pharisees embraced it. John denied this for he was not Elijah though he ministered in the spirit and power of Elijah as the prophesy proclaimed.

The prophecy of Malachi (4:5-6) in the Old Testament states, ⁵“See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. ⁶ He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”  The similarity in this prophesy, a prophesy from God through Moses in Deuteronomy, the prophesy spoken about the birth of John and John’s own responses to the Pharisees and the Sadducees are striking. This indicates that up to that point no one really understood the meaning behind these prophesies.

God spoke through Moses in Deuteronomy 18:15. ¹⁵“The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken;”. The prophet the Lord was referencing was actually Jesus, the Messiah, and not a separate prophet. Jesus was like unto God and it was to Him that they shall listen.

Now we understand why the leaders of the community were asking, “Are you Elijah? Are you the prophet?” If not, then who are you?” John denied being either. He then answers directly from the prophesy of Isaiah 40:3 to describing himself as ³“A voice of one calling: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God’.”  Again, another prophesy describing John’s ministry and the coming of the Lord. Everything in the Old Testament was pointing towards the coming of the Jesus.

Baptism was a common practice as a symbol of repentance. Converts to Judaism were baptized with water. However, to the Pharisees, there was little reason for someone who was already a Jew to be baptized and here John was baptizing all who came before him seeking repentance whether Jew or Gentile. In their minds, a person baptizing should have some kind of priestly office, or prophetic authority. John did not claim any of this, so in John 1:25 they asked, ²⁵…, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”

By quoting Isaiah 40:3, John was giving his authority. He was called by God to baptize and prepare the way for the Messiah. He then continues by calling out the Pharisees and Sadducees by saying they do not know the one who is coming. This person was far greater than John to the point of John saying he was unworthy of taking off this person’s sandals. He was speaking of the Lord. Over the centuries the Pharisees and Sadducees had changed the interpretation of the scriptures to fit their own needs and not the needs of the people thereby blinding their own eyes and the eyes of others. They were so far removed in their understanding of the Lord that they could not recognize the Lord or the ministry of John who was called by the Lord. John’s ministry was a call to the people to repent of the old way of thinking they had been taught.

Baptism was considered an outward exhibit of an inward change of a person’s heart whether that person be Jew or Gentile. A good example was the Jewish people passing through the Red Sea after leaving Egypt. This passage was a way of indicating they were being washed clean of their old ways and starting a new process of living and understanding. They were headed out of slavery and into what had been promised to them. Jesus’ ministry was also a new manner of thinking and living that was radically different from what they had known.

²⁸ This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing. The Jordan River runs into the northern part of the Sea of Galilee then travels along the eastern side passing the town of Bethsaida then furthering south to the end of the sea and beyond. This being said, John was ministering and baptizing on the Jordan River in the town of Bethany.

²⁹ 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 I meant when I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’ ³¹ I myself did not know him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that he might be revealed to Israel.” This may or may not be the first time John identifies Jesus as the Lamb of God. We know that He is a cousin to Jesus, therefore, the only explanation for his words was that he did not know who Jesus really was until he was baptizing Him. See Matthew 3:13-18.

Matthew 3:13-18

¹³ Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. Galilee was a district of northern Israel that was split into an Upper and Lower Galilee. When we read Matthew 2:19-23 we are told how Jesus parents returned from Egypt and settled in Nazareth which was a town in Lower Galilee. This is where Jesus grew up.

¹⁶ As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. ¹⁷ And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”

John 1:32-34

³² Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. ³³ And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ ³⁴ I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.”  

³⁷ When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus. ³⁸ Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?”

They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”

³⁹ “Come,” he replied, “and you will see.”

So they went and saw where he was staying, and they spent that day with him. It was about four in the afternoon. Looking at this it becomes apparent that John had been baptizing on the Jordan long enough to have acquired disciples. And, since, Jesus spent a great deal of his time in the town of Bethany, he would have had numerous friends who would have opened their houses to Him. The two disciples of John were asking where they could find Jesus later. Instead, Jesus responds by making time immediately and spends the rest of the day with them.

⁴³ The next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee. Finding Philip, he said to him, “Follow me.”

⁴⁴ Philip, like Andrew and Peter, was from the town of Bethsaida. ⁴⁵ Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law, and about whom the prophets also wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” Philip immediately informs his friend Nathanael about the Messiah who in turn says, ⁴⁶ “Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?”  As we said, Nazareth was in Lower Galilee. At that time, Galilee was predominantly Gentiles with far fewer Jewish people. It was referred to as “Galilee of the Gentiles” by Matthew when he spoke about the prophesy of Isaiah in MT 4:12-15 and the coming of the Messiah.

A “Jew” was anyone who belonged to one of the twelve tribes of Israel, and a “Gentile” was everyone else. Gentile nations did not have the knowledge of God’s laws as did the Jewish people. Due to their lack of understanding they usually broke these laws repeatedly and in shameful ways. This caused the Jews to look down upon them and why Nathanael was being sarcastic and judgmental about where Jesus lived insinuating a disbelief in what Philip was telling him.

⁴⁷ When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” Jesus being who He was already knew what Nathanael had said about Nazareth. Never having met Nathanael, Jesus first words to him are with a bit of ironic humor as He calls his character into judgement for the comment about Nazareth. In an almost challenging way, Nathanael then asked Jesus, ⁴⁸ “How do you know me?”

Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.” One of the common ways Jesus broke through to people was by proving His divine knowledge. Jesus described what Nathanael was doing before Philip approached him. This was the “Oh, no!” moment for Nathanael when he realizes everything about himself was known by Jesus. It was only then that Nathanael humbly recognized his Messiah and declared, “^49 ‘Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.’

Jesus had a great way of using ironic humor as a tool and teaching method. In Mark 3:14-17, Jesus named James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, “Boanerges”, which meant ‘Sons of Thunder’. If we look at another passage in Luke 9:51-56 we see where these two gained the nick name.

Luke 9:51-56

⁵¹ As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. ⁵² And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; ⁵³ but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. ⁵⁴ When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” ⁵⁵ But Jesus turned and rebuked them. ⁵⁶ Then he and his disciples went to another village. Jesus not only rebuked the two brothers for being vindictive but then goes on to laugh about the incident by naming them’Sons of Thunder’. You have to love that God has a sense of humor.

⁵⁰ Jesus said, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.” ⁵¹ He then added, “Very truly I tell you, you will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” This is a reference to Jacobs Ladder a dream message given to Jacob in Genesis 28:10-15

Genesis 28:10-15

¹² He (Jacob) had a dream in which he saw a stairway resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. ¹³ There above itstood the Lord, and he said: “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. ¹⁴ Your descendants will be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you and your offspring.  ¹⁵ I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land. I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”

In this dream message from God, The Lord reaffirms the covenant of Abraham with Jacob. Jacob was Abraham’s grandson. Jacob was later renamed Israel and would go on to marry and father twelve sons who would become the twelve tribes of Israel. From this lineage the nation of Israel was born where out of the line of Jacob came the promised Messiah. Jesus was saying that He, as the Son of Man, was that Messiah. As the Son of Man, Jesus bridged the gap between man on earth and access to God in heaven above. The angels represented a continuous dialogue of messages, prayers, prophesy and support between man and his Father in Heaven through Jesus Christ.