Jesus, the Word of God

Another profound revelation given in the first chapter of John’s Gospel that is often read at Christmas time is the use of the expression, “Word” to signify the Lord Jesus Christ. This is clear in John 1.14: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”. 

The Gospel opens with the words “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. This is a phrase both dense and difficult to fathom – but it deals with both the nature of God and the incarnation, both of which are supernatural themes not easy to access. Let’s examine it more closely.

“In the beginning was…” – this both evokes the first verse of the Bible, “In the beginning God created…”; and yet the verb “was” depicts not an action but a presence. “In the beginning” brings us back to the very dawn of creation – or even to the deep mystery before creation took place. The “Word” was already there!

“The Word was with God”. Here the “Word” appears separate from God, but closely connected with him. “He was in the beginning with God” (verse 2). But who ever could have been there with the Creator at the beginning of creation? The Word was in eternity at God’s side; could he be God’s equal?

“The Word was God”. Now we are really confused: the Son, Jesus (the Word made flesh, v14) was not only with God. He was God! Later in the chapter John recounts the testimony of John the Baptist at the start of Jesus’ public ministry: “I have seen and have borne witness that this is the Son of God” (v34). The beginning of this Gospel therefore introduces us to the Son of God who was with God the Father at the eternal moment prior to creation. Christian theologians, reflecting on this and other passages of the New Testament where mention is made of “the Spirit of God”, concluded that in the one divine true God there is a tri-unity of Father, Son, and Spirit. This has always seemed out of reach of our human understanding, but that is the whole point: a god you can fully comprehend does not deserve the title of God. The Almighty Creator must always exceed our human grasp. “My thoughts are higher than your thoughts”, he says in Isaiah 55.8-9.

Next, John reveals that the Word was none other than the Creator: “All things were made by him, and without him nothing was made that was made” (verse 3). The Word, the eternal Son of God, was uncreated; indeed, he was the Creator of “all things”! So in Jesus’ birth, we see the Creator visiting his creation – even entering his own creation like the “undercover Boss”!

All this is true of that tiny babe in Bethlehem! “God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man”. Or as John puts it, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only-begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth” (verse 14). Well may the angels of heaven burst out to worship at the sight of the one who had forever dwelt in the heights of heavenly glory taking on the nature of humanity! 

John evokes however the greatest of tragedies: “He [the Word] was in the world, and the world was made by him, yet the world did not know him” (verse 10). Some, however, did come to know him, and to receive him and love him. Are you one of them?

Why not take time to read and meditate on those first 18 verses of John’s Gospel?

Clive Every-Clayton