The Word became flesh: the prologue and the first witnesses in John 1

The fourth Gospel is anonymous in its text but names an unnamed 'disciple whom Jesus loved' as the source of its testimony (21:20-24). From the late second century the church identified him with John, son of Zebedee, an apostle. Irenaeus, who says he learned from Polycarp, who knew John, reports that John wrote at Ephesus. Many scholars still defend this view. Others propose that the author was a different John, 'the elder' mentioned by Papias, or that the Gospel came from a circle of the beloved disciple's followers who shaped his testimony. The date is usually put between AD 80 and 100, though some argue for an earlier date. A small papyrus fragment of John 18 (P52) is usually dated to the first half of the second century and shows that the Gospel was already copied and read in Egypt by then.

John differs from Matthew, Mark and Luke in many ways. It has no birth narrative, no parables of the kingdom, no exorcisms; it includes long discourses, seven signs, several 'I am' sayings, and a ministry that centers on Jerusalem and several Passovers. Scholars disagree about whether John knew any of the other Gospels or wrote independently. The author states his purpose in 20:30-31: these signs are written so that readers may believe Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and have life in his name. John's readers were likely Jewish and Gentile believers who needed to hear that Jesus is God's self-revelation, and the opening chapter is built to say this.

John 1 starts before time, then moves to the Jordan. The prologue (1:1-18) is a hymn-like introduction to the whole book. Then come four days of John the Baptist's testimony and the calling of the first disciples. The Baptist's work is the setting for the Gospel's earliest scenes, as it is in Mark. But John tells it with his own focus: the Baptist's role is to bear witness to Jesus, and he never narrates Jesus' baptism directly.

John 1:1-18 is a poem, and it should be read as one. It uses short, linked statements in which the end of one line is the start of the next ('the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning'). Many scholars see it as arranged around a central turn at verse 14, though they disagree about the exact pattern. Prose comments about John the Baptist (verses 6-8, 15) are set into the poem, which suggests the author joined a hymn to his narrative. The prologue states in compressed form what the rest of the Gospel will show.

The title 'the Word' (logos) needs context. For the first readers it recalled several things. In the Old Testament God made the world by speaking (Genesis 1; Psalm 33:6), and his word goes out and does his will (Isaiah 55:11). In Jewish wisdom writing Wisdom is with God at creation and is God's agent (Proverbs 8:22-31). The Jewish thinker Philo of Alexandria spoke of the Logos as God's agent, and in Greek philosophy the Stoics used logos for the reason that orders the world. John uses a term which Jewish and Greek hearers would both find familiar, and then says what no one had said: the Word became flesh.

The second principle is to follow John's habit of double meanings and of echoing Genesis and Exodus. The opening words repeat Genesis 1:1. The language of dwelling, glory and 'grace and truth' recalls Exodus 33-34, where God's glory was revealed to Moses. The sequence of days in 1:19-2:11, which seems to run about a week, may echo the first week of creation. This is a pattern that readers have long noticed, though John does not state it.

Verses 1–5

'In the beginning' repeats the first words of Genesis. Before anything was made, the Word already was. He was with God, in a relation of nearness the Greek expresses with the word pros (toward, face to face), and he was God. The three statements are distinct: the Word existed, the Word was in relation to God, and the Word shared God's own nature. Through him all things were made, and without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it (or has not understood it; the Greek verb can mean either).

Verses 6–13

A man named John was sent from God to testify about the light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the light. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world he made, and the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. The prologue states in miniature the pattern of the Gospel: rejection and acceptance.

Verses 14–18

'The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.' The verb for dwelling (skenoo) means 'to pitch a tent' and recalls the tabernacle, where God's glory dwelt with Israel (Exodus 40:34-35). 'We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.' The last pair of words recalls the Hebrew pair for God's covenant love and faithfulness (Exodus 34:6). The law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. This is not a contrast of bad and good but of promise and fulfillment. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son (some manuscripts have 'the only God'), who is at the Father's side, has made him known. The Greek verb for 'made known' (exegeomai) gives us the word exegesis.

Verses 19–28

Priests and Levites from Jerusalem ask John who he is. He says plainly that he is not the Christ. He is not Elijah (compare Malachi 4:5) and not the Prophet (the prophet like Moses of Deuteronomy 18:15). He calls himself a voice crying in the wilderness, from Isaiah 40:3. He baptizes with water, and there is one standing among them whom they do not know, whose sandals he is not worthy to untie. This takes place at Bethany beyond the Jordan, a site that is uncertain and not to be confused with the Bethany near Jerusalem.

Verses 29–34

The next day John sees Jesus and calls him the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The title may draw on the Passover lamb, the lamb of Isaiah 53:7, the daily sacrifice or the lamb God provided for Abraham (Genesis 22:8). Scholars debate which was in mind, and John may mean to combine them. John testifies that he saw the Spirit descend and remain on Jesus like a dove, and that the one who sent him to baptize told him that this was the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. He has seen and testifies that this is the Son of God.

Verses 35–42

The next day two of John's disciples hear him say again that Jesus is the Lamb of God, and they follow Jesus. He asks what they want, and they ask where he is staying. He tells them to come and see. One is Andrew, and the other is not named. Andrew finds his brother Simon and says they have found the Messiah. Jesus looks at Simon and gives him a new name, Cephas, which is Peter, meaning rock.

Verses 43–51

Jesus finds Philip, from Bethsaida, and calls him to follow. Philip tells Nathanael that they have found the one Moses and the Prophets wrote about. Nathanael asks whether anything good can come out of Nazareth, and Philip answers, 'Come and see.' Jesus calls Nathanael a true Israelite in whom there is no deceit, an allusion to Jacob, who was Israel and was a deceiver. Jesus says he saw him under the fig tree, and Nathanael answers that he is the Son of God and the King of Israel. Jesus promises greater things: they will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. This is Jacob's dream at Bethel (Genesis 28:12), with Jesus as the point of meeting between heaven and earth.

John 1 states the doctrine of the Trinity in an early form, without using the word. There is one God, and the Word was with God and was God, distinct from the Father but sharing the divine nature. The Spirit descends on the Son. The church's creeds, especially Nicaea in AD 325, arose in part from the fourth-century debate over Arius, who taught that the Son was a creature, and this prologue was central to the reply.

The chapter also teaches creation through the Word, which Paul takes up in Colossians 1:16-17 and Hebrews 1:2. The world was not made by a lesser being but by the Word who became Jesus. It teaches the incarnation: God's Son entered human life in a real body (flesh, sarx), a point which later writings of John defend (1 John 4:2). It teaches the nature of faith as receiving: to receive him is to believe in his name, and the result is new birth as children of God, a theme that continues in chapter 3. And it teaches revelation: the God no one has seen is made known by the Son.

On the place of the Law, verse 17 shows progress in God's dealing, from the gift of the law to its fulfillment. The Law is not rejected, as 5:46 shows, but it is not the final word.

No chapter of the New Testament states more about Christ in so few verses. He is the eternal Word who was with God and was God (1:1), the Creator (1:3), the life and the light (1:4-5), the one who became flesh (1:14), the one and only Son (1:14, 18), the Lamb of God (1:29), the Son of God and bearer of the Spirit (1:32-34), the Messiah (1:41), the King of Israel (1:49) and the Son of Man (1:51). Each title is tied to the Old Testament.

The prologue echoes Genesis 1 (in the beginning, light in the darkness) and Proverbs 8 (Wisdom with God at the creation). The words about dwelling and glory echo the tabernacle in Exodus 40. This is fulfillment: what the tabernacle pointed to, God's presence with his people, now takes the form of a person. The Lamb of God links Jesus to the Passover lamb (Exodus 12), and John will present Jesus as the Passover lamb at his death (19:14, 36). The Baptist's description of the Spirit remaining on Jesus is tied to Isaiah 11:2 and 42:1, where the Spirit rests on the Servant. Nathanael's vision of heaven opened, with angels ascending and descending, is Jacob's ladder at Bethel (Genesis 28:12) applied to Jesus himself. Where Jacob saw a ladder, John sees the Son of Man as the way between heaven and earth.