In the Beginning
Our Gospel of John reading plan begins today, and as is our custom, it will run Monday-Friday for the next seven weeks and will finish on Friday, June 7.
Let’s go!
P.S. Daily online Bible study will continue as well, and for you early risers, I’ll see you at 7:00 AM this morning. Join me via Facebook Live or at www.mungerplace.live.
John 1:1-28
The Word Became Flesh
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
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.
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. 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.
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.
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.’”) 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. 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.
John the Baptist Denies Being the Messiah
19 Now this was John’s testimony when the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him who he was. 20 He did not fail to confess, but confessed freely, “I am not the Messiah.”
21 They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?”
He said, “I am not.”
“Are you the Prophet?”
He answered, “No.”
22 Finally they said, “Who are you? Give us an answer to take back to those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”
23 John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet, “I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”
24 Now the Pharisees who had been sent 25 questioned him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”
26 “I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. 27 He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”
28 This all happened at Bethany on the other side of the Jordan, where John was baptizing.
John begins his Gospel at the beginning. Not with the birth of Jesus to Mary in Bethlehem, but with the Beginning of Creation itself. He is deliberately echoing Genesis 1—“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”—and the question is, Why? What’s he trying to tell us? Why would you begin a Gospel in this way?
John wants us to understand that the Word, i.e., the Second Person of the Trinity, is both God and distinct from God, and was in existence before he was born of the Virgin Mary and given the name Jesus. He wants us to understand from the very beginning of his Gospel just who this Jesus is: namely that the carpenter’s son from Nazareth who heals the sick, feeds the hungry, and eats with sinners is God in the flesh.
Although he doesn’t use the term, John is describing God as Trinity.
Go back and read Genesis 1:1-3:
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.Genesis 1:1-3
What do you notice? There is God, there is the Spirit, and there is the fact that God creates by his Word!
The rest of the Gospel is going to show us what happens when the Word puts on flesh and dwells among us.
AMAZING.
P.S. The “John” mentioned in the prologue here is John the Baptist. He was a SENSATION in first-century Judea, and so John the Author wants us to be totally clear: John the Baptist wasn’t the point; Jesus is the point!