John 1:1-14, part of a segment that extends to verse 18, is the introductory hymn to the Gospel of John. We enter what we might think of as the “holy of holies” for Christian theologians. Part of the reason is this. Christianity affirms that we find truth, goodness, and beauty in an event within human history, in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. We learn that truth in the simple affirmation of this passage that “The Word became flesh,” and not just any flesh, but Jewish flesh. We find that God created through the Word. The Logos is never just an assemblage of words, but is always meaning, thought, or discourse. It means an orderly presentation. It could connect with the notion of Wisdom, suggesting that this form of Wisdom is part of the world. Jesus Christ is that Word or revelation from God. We might even say something as bold as this. We will not really understand creation until we come to terms with the Son of God. Of course, we can understand it scientifically, but we will never have a proper view of it until we turn to Jesus. These verses open a discussion of life and light, which will major themes in this Gospel. It introduces us to the importance of coming to believe or trust what God has done in the Word. We have many roles in this world as human beings who are part of various groups. We are in families, places of work, communities, and nations. Yet, beyond all roles, the most important thing you can be is a child of God. We also learn that when the Word came into this world, the Word did not come as a stranger. The Word came to his own possession or people, and not to foreign territory. Those who did not receive him were not strangers, but his own people. Our resistance to the Word means that we need rebirth by the Spirit. If this divine Word became flesh, God intends to redeem this world and bring it into the eternal presence of God.
God gets local. “From a distance, God is watching us,” sang Bette Midler, singing a beautiful song with wonderful sentiments. True. God is greater than any of us can imagine. Yet, in this passage, we in the church celebrate God getting local, getting up close and personal.
My discussion may be tedious. If we are patient, it will yield fruitful thinking and living. Since the prologue refrains from naming Jesus of Nazareth until near its end, I will attempt to do so as well. The temptation is to race ahead to the conclusion. I will be patient.
Many scholars think of the hymn as having its origin in Asia Minor. John adapted it for use here. Considering the theme of wisdom, the hymn could have originated among Hellenistic Judaism. Regardless of the origin, John conceived it as an integral part of the gospel from the beginning. It has the character of a theological opening narrative, the believer telling the pre-history that becomes the history of Jesus at the historical turning point of the Incarnation. In the background is the Jewish concept of preexistent divine wisdom in Proverbs 8:22-31. Colossians 1:15-20 and Hebrews 1:2-3 breathe of the same theological air, as does this passage.[1]
If we step back and consider the relationship of this prologue with other gospels, John 1:19-51 correspond to Mark 1:4-15 in terms of structure, a Johannine “take” on the opening of the good news concerning Jesus Christ. If that is the case, then 1:1-18 should correspond to Mark 1:1-3, with its emphasis upon the prophetic word that precedes the coming of Jesus.
In John 1:1-2, we find the theme of the word of God. 1In the beginning was the Word. It clearly connects with Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning, God created.” He connects the Word with creation. The first statement in the creed does not just affirm the existence of God but also affirms that God has done something; namely, create all things visible and invisible. Such creation involved their entry into historical reality. The Word was present with God and present with the beginning of that which is distinct from God.[2] The fellowship between God and the Word, and by extension in the Trinitarian relation, finds correspondence in the fellowship between God and that which God has created. It speaks to the ontological connection between Christ and creation. It speaks to the position, dignity, and power of the Creator that this passage also ascribes to Christ.[3] Further, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. Logos refers to meaning, thought, discourse, or book. It refers to rationally ordered ideas. God created through the Word, manifesting itself in the world as life and light which is open to every person. In the Old Testament, the “word of the Lord” is what prophets received and most rejected, despite a faithful remnant. The Logos corresponds to Wisdom in the Old Testament. If the Word becomes flesh, it could mean the immanence of Wisdom in people, making them friends of God. Yet, we will need to go beyond all of this and suggest that John connects Logos with Philo and Stoic philosophy. If so, Logos is the rational principle in the universe. Logos is the meaning, plan, or purpose that God has revealed and is active in the universe. Knowing God in Jesus Christ places one in touch with the divine Logos. John assumes that the cosmos exhibits a divine meaning that constitutes its reality. John wants his readers to know what that meaning is as embodied in the life of Jesus, as he describes it in this Gospel. In that sense, the prologue offers a philosophy of life, a worldview. The rest of the Gospel will fill it out in further detail.[4] In the Word, God reveals God to humanity. In the Word, humanity can see and know God. God also discloses the divine plan for humanity both in judgment and in deliverance. In this Word, God is one with humanity. God has created through Christ a theater for the dealings God will have with humanity. We have no need of speculating about some mysterious will behind Christ. We know the will of the Father because of this gracious Word. God wills or chooses nothing apart from Christ. The Word was never distant from God. The Word stands outside the sequence of created things. No one escapes the Word. The Word precedes all being and all time. Given that the Word was not only with God but was God, the being of the Word and the being of God are identical, suggesting that the doctrine of “homoousion” in classical Christian theology is on the right track.[5] This passage clearly distinguishes Logos from the historical manifestation of the Logos in verse 14. God is the content of this Word.[6] The eternal Logos appears in the man Jesus. This Logos, who has a specific identity in Jesus, was in the beginning with God. This means we need to distinguish between the human reality of the Logos and the eternal Logos.[7] If this is true, I am parting company with Karl Barth in his notion of election.
I would like to step back and consider the background of this notion of Logos. On the one side, Logos is the Word of the Lord, by which God framed the heavens, which came through the prophets to Israel, the people rejected at large, but found acceptance with the faithful remnant, to whom it gave the status of the children of God. The Word found actual embodiment and worked creatively as at the beginning. The meaning of prophecy finds it realization in the Gospel story. On the other side, Logos is the divine Wisdom, the Platonic world of Ideas and the Stoic Logos. Logos is the thought of God that is the transcendent design of the universe and its immanent meaning. Such a world of thought is strange to the eschatology of early Christian thought, whether of Jesus or of Paul. Eschatology is temporal, referring to this age and that which is to come. The Prologue has its basis in the philosophical conception of two orders of being, distinguished by the greater or less measure of reality that they possess. One order is that of pure reality, transcendent and eternal, that is the thought of God, and the other is the empirical order, which is real only as it expresses the eternal order. The world at various levels displays an increasing penetration of the lower order by the higher, an increasing dominance of light over darkness, of being over not-being, of truth over error. [8]
Many of us have an ambiguous relationship with words. “That’s just words.” No doubt, you have heard people say this, usually with a sneer and a dismissive wave of the hand. Maybe you have said it yourself. When Shakespeare’s Prince Hamlet (Act II, Scene 2) has a question concerning what he is reading, he responds, “Words, words, words” — implying that the words in front of him are meaningless. It reminds me of the scene in My Fair Lady, when a man who keeps talking about his love for Elisa finally receives a response from her,
“Words, words, words, I am so sick of words. First from him (Henry Higgins), now from you. Is that all you can do?”
Then she goes on, “Don’t talk of love, show me.” Show me. What a good reminder. People can use words in such a deceptive way that we often must wait and see if deeds match words. Yet …
One of the most obvious things that distinguish human beings from other parts of creation is language. Our capacity for language gives us the ability to create symbols, simply with sounds from our mouths as well as words we write on a page. These symbols express inner thoughts and feelings, as well as what we see out there. In that sense, words have the potential to reveal who we are to others, share ideas, make promises, and create community. Words can get us in trouble. An anonymous saying is that children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you should not have said. Words can be humorous. Bern Williams once said, “I like the word indolence. It makes my laziness seem classy.” Words can be powerful. Holocaust survivor and author Elie Wiesel said, “Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds.”
In John 1:3-5, we find a theme of the Word and creation. 3All things came into being through him, and without him, not one thing came into being. Since God created through the Word, the universe becomes a theater for the dealing of God with humanity. Since God created through the Word, one cannot escape the Word. The Logos participates in creation. Therefore, creation is an act of revelation, for it bears the stamp of the Word. It defines the deity of the Word as the mediator of creation. The Word shares in the special work of God and is therefore of one essence with God.[9] The world is tightly bound to the Word and therefore to God. It suggests the ontological connection between the Word and the world, and therefore an ontological connection between world and God. The dignity and power of the Creator is also an affirmation John is willing to make of the Word.[10] Further, 4what has come into being in the Word was life. It connects new eschatological life, eternal life, as life in the full sense; in comparison with which human beings call what they have on earth as life only with reservations. The divine Spirit is the origin of all life. Life in the full sense has a relation to its divine origin, permeated by the Spirit and the new life of eschatological hope. God revealed this new and imperishable life with the raising of Jesus into that life.[11]
The “life” of the secular party is revelry and merriment — too much to eat and drink — and at the end of it all, a veritable mountain of trash to haul out to the curb. “Good times,” most would affirm — yet hardly the sort of experience one would sum up using the single, glowing word: “life.” Entertainment mogul Ted Turner described this sort of empty existence most vividly, when he cynically remarked: “Life is like a B-movie. You don’t want to leave in the middle of it, but you don’t want to see it again.” The secular world seems, in its B-movie revelry, to be desperately grasping at anything that resembles life — but somehow never catching it. How else can you explain the “holiday blues” phenomenon that afflicts so many, as one year morphs into another? Having failed to discover life inside the gaudiest package under the tree or suspended inside the last drop hanging from the lip of the wine-bottle, the secular world hunkers down for many more weeks of winter, hardly daring, at this early stage, to dream of spring. Our lives are not about us. We are about a larger thing called life. We are not our own. We are an instance of a universal and eternal pattern. Life is living itself in us. The myriad forms of life in the universe are merely parts of the One Life — that many of us call “God.” We do not have to figure it all out, fix everything, or do life perfectly. All we must do is participate in this one life. If we find our unique niche in that larger life, we have discovered our vocation.[12] We ponder the meaning of life. We may need to pause and recognize that the amazing presence of life is wonder enough.[13]
John expands this notion with the affirmation that the life was the light of all people. In terms of the method of Christology, humans participate in a distinct way in the Logos, to whom all things owe their life. Athanasius rightly made sharing the Logos that God gave human beings at creation as the starting point of his doctrine of the Incarnation of the Logos. Without such a sharing in the Logos, the Incarnation of the Logos would be alien to our nature.[14] In this passage, the Word appears as revealer. God is the Word by which God made all things. Life comes through the Word. The Word was the light of life that enlightens humanity.[15]“Life” refers to the vitality of creation, which has its origin in the Logos. Life and light come together, which suggests the possibility of revelation. It refers to the enlightenment of human existence in order that humanity should understand itself in this world and find its way without anxiety. Light and revelation are the character of the life that entered through the Logos.[16] Life is the fullness of all the benefits of salvation. Belief leads to life (20:31), Jesus has come that they might have life (10:10), and Lazarus becomes a metaphor for resurrection and life (11). John usually uses “eternal” with “life.”[17] If we think of “eternal life” against the Jewish background of the book, John is contrasting temporal life from the life in the age to come. If, however, one assumes that Plato and his notion of the eternal is behind John, then eternal is timelessness. The life of God would not be time, but eternity.[18] 5The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it. “Light” is a natural symbol for deity. In religion, the sun was often an object of worship. In philosophy, Plato used the sun as a symbol of the Idea of good. Light opens the door to discuss the relation of the absolute to phenomena, or of God to the universe. God becomes light for the people of God. Light resists the assaults of the darkness. John intends a metaphysic of this kind.[19]
St. Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) tried to show that we could “see” and “know” God if we thought about it properly. We know them as five proofs for the existence of God. I prefer to think of them as hints and clues of the divine, since we could never prove anything in this matter. The suffering we find in this world will always be enough to lead people to atheism. Aquinas saw intimate connection between our knowledge of nature and our knowledge of God. He thought he could move from observations of experiences common to all persons in a way that would help us to see that God is the only explanation.
1. The first and most evident way is the argument from motion.
Movement is self-evident. Things do not move on their own. Something else must move it. Yet, in our time, this movement cannot go backward forever. Someone must have started movement. This we call God.
2. The second way is from consideration of efficient causes.
Everything has a cause, for nothing can create itself. Yet, this search for a cause must have an end, a first cause. We call this cause God.
3. The third way is consideration of the possible and the necessary.
Things in this world only have possible existence. They were not, they are, they decay, and they are not. Yet, if this process continues logically into the past, we would reach a time when nothing existed. That could not be, because nothing cannot give birth to the something we self-evidently see. A necessary Being must exist, which we call God.
4. The fourth way is the consideration of the grades or stages that in which we find things.
In all things, there are, obviously, grades of goodness and truthfulness. We speak of something as good or better. Therefore, something must be best. That which is best or excellent, we call God.
5. The fifth way is the consideration of the government of things.
All things that live seem to live intentionally, moving toward some end or purpose. Flowers turn toward the sun, human beings turn toward love. Where does this intention come from? A higher being directs all beings, even as an archer directs an arrow. This intelligent being who directs all things toward their proper end we call God.
In John 1:6-8, the prologue emphasizes that John the Baptist as a witness to the light. It acknowledges that 6John was a man sent from God. This recognition of the divine origin of his mission means we need to receive him in a way different from the way we would if he were simply an insightful human being. Such insight arises from within their reflection on their experiences. John, as insightful as he may or may not have been, derives his authority from the divine origin of his mission.[20] As such, 7he came as a witness, a theme of this gospel, to testify, another theme, to the light, so that all might believe, another theme, through the Word. Only a few of the prophets lived to see the results of their witness. Moses did not. Jeremiah did not. It also stresses that 8he himself was not the light. We are those who live in darkness. Nothing so tames the terrors of the darkness like a light, a voice. Christ is our light, the light of the world. The gospel opens by focusing upon the Word as the light that falls upon humanity. This light is the grace of Jesus Christ. God directs this Light toward human beings. Thus, we are not isolated individuals. Human beings will find their life as they open themselves to this Word, and therefore this light and grace.[21]
Victor Frankl wrote a classic account of his experiences in a Nazi death camp, Man's Search for Meaning. Frankl was taken to a camp. He had been a successful therapist. While in the camp, he spent his time observing himself and his fellow inmates. In fact, his curiosity, his inner determination to learn and to grow even in this horrible setting were major factors in his survival. Frankl noted that some of the prisoners just wasted away and died quickly, even though they had no discernible physical ailments. He recalls a man who one day was doing well, considering the deplorable conditions of the camp. The man often talked of his dream to get out of the camp and to reunite with his dear wife. Then the man received word that his wife had died in another prison camp. And in just a couple of days, the man died. Frankl concluded that the man died, not because of some bodily ailment, not because he lacked food or water, but because he lacked hope. He lacked hope that there was anything to be had beyond the darkness of the bleak prison camp, that there was anything beyond the present anguish of the Nazis and their brutality. We can live, said Frankl, longer without bread than we can live without hope.
Nazi authorities sent Rabbi Hugo Grynn to Auschwitz as a little boy. Amid the concentration camp, amid the death and horror all around them, many Jews held onto whatever shreds of their religious observance they could without drawing the ire of the guards. One cold winter’s evening, Hugo’s father gathered the family in the barracks. It was the first night of Chanukah, the Feast of Lights. The young child watched in horror as his father took the family’s last pad of butter and made a makeshift candle using a string from his ragged clothes. He then took a match and lit the candle. “Father, no!” Hugo cried. “That butter is our last bit of food! How will we survive!” “We can live for many days without food,” his father said. “We cannot live for a single minute without hope. This is the fire of hope. Never let it go out. Not here. Not anywhere.” [22]
A candle light is a protest at midnight.
It is a non-conformist.
It says to the darkness,
“I beg to differ!”[23]
In her novel, The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan tells of a group of Chinese women who had been brutalized and horrified by the atrocities of the Japanese invasion in the 1930s and '40s. These women asked "How much can you wish for a warm coat that hangs in the closet of a house that burned down with your mother and father in it? How long can you see in your mind arms and legs hanging from telephone wires and starving dogs running down the street with half-chewed hands dangling from their mouths?" Such chaos created terror in their hearts. They had a choice. They could sit and contemplate such horrors with somber faces, or they could "choose their own happiness." Therefore, the four women chose to organize a club. They met once a week over the best meal they could prepare. They played games and told good stories that made them "laugh to death." They could win ten thousand yuan and still not have anything because toilet paper was worth more than paper money! "That made us laugh harder, to think that a thousand-yuan note was not even good enough to rub on our bottoms." They chose their own luck - to laugh at the absurdity and ambiguity of the world around them. They made their own luck during the disaster of war. They named their weekly parties the "Joy Luck Club."
John 1:9-13 relates the human mission of the Word. The Word is 9the true light, which enlightens everyone. This light was coming into the world. Verses 10-12a has the theme of the Word in the world. 10Hewas in the world, referring to the ministry of Jesus. The Word became historical reality. John reaffirms that the world came into being through the Word. Yet, the world in general did not know who the Word was. The Incarnation presupposes this situation.[24] The Word 11came to what was his own, that is, the Jewish people. The Word came to his own possession and not a foreign territory. If this is so, then the Word could not be alien to their being or knowledge. Even if they are sinners, the being of creatures remains the creative presence of God, who constitutes them through the Logos.[25] Without this statement, the Incarnation would be alien to human nature.[26] Yet, his own did not accept him. Those who did not receive the Word were still not strangers. They were his own people. The Word came so close to people that they could touch him for their salvation. The brutal and shattering reality is that the world rejected him. Logos Christology and anthropology become close at this point. The individual particularity of the Word may simply be that the definitively expresses essential humanity as participation in the Logos. What stops us from moving this direction is that human sin as alienation from the Logos is something that the Incarnation of the Logos must overcome. The resistance that darkness presents means that we do not receive him unless we receive new birth through the Spirit.[27] Human beings depend upon their Creator. They participate in the Logos. The Logos is not alien to human nature. All creatures owe their independent existence to the creative activity of the Word in virtue of this self-distinction from God, because the Logos is the basis of their creaturely independence as the generative principle of otherness. The nature of the Logos can find expression in all creatures. The Logos can do so in humans to a higher degree than in other creatures. The Incarnation is no alien thing, although it may seem alien to sinners alienated from the Logos. The Incarnation is the union of deity with humanity, suggesting that humanity cannot fulfill its destiny on its own finite strength. Only the Spirit, who lifts human beings above finitude, can enable humans to accept finitude, allowing the Trinitarian distinction of Father and Son take shape in it.[28] However, 12ato all who received him, who believed in his name, which John will identify as Jesus in verse 17. Receiving Christ is a decisive act. The very people we might think would have eagerly welcomed Christ did not do so. Yet, here and there, individuals stood apart from the rest. Each of these said, "I receive Jesus as the Christ." As receiving Christ is a distinctive act, so it is a personal one: "To as many as received him." Verses 12b-13 becomes a comment on the previous section. Those who believe receive 12bpower to become children of God, of which baptism is the basis of the adoption of believers as children of God,[29] 13who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of human beings, but of God. This suggests that becoming a child of God is a spiritual act that God initiates. The Word constitutes a people who did not possess the power to become children of God by their decision.[30] The Word constitutes and gathers a people that represent a new calling and personal faith distinct from what was present in Israel.[31]The vocation of the believer is nothing more nor less than to become a child of God, to be a Christian.[32]
I would like to push the theme of this passage a bit with a meditation on home. Since the Word did not come to foreign territory, the Word came home. Home rejected the Word. Yet, some people received and believed in the Word. These persons become children of God. In a sense, these persons come home, to the one through whom God created. I would suggest that we have a bit of paradox.
We know how we want home to be. We want a Hallmark moment or at least a Folgers Coffee moment when the smell of brewing coffee wafts up the stairs to awaken sleeping parents with the homecoming of their long-absent son. They hurry downstairs to envelop him in hugs and smiles; this is what homecoming is supposed to look like. We want the happy ending. We would like it to be a "tie a yellow ribbon 'round the old oak tree" moment when the hesitant returnee discovers that, not one, but 100, ribbons have been fastened to the branches of the tree as a symbol of welcome and joy. We would like an over-the-top, full-out, heartfelt homecoming, complete with love, welcome and recognition.
Let me see if I can put the paradox differently. Which of the following statements is true?
When Dorothy returns from her whirlwind trip to Oz, she realizes that "there is no place like home." She was already home. All she had to do was realize she was, click her heals, and she was home. She discovers that home truly is where the heart is, and she revels in her the love and nurture of her family. In a contrasting bit of proverbial wisdom, we have the famous novel of Thomas Wolfe, informing us, "You can't go home again." You might be able to return physically to the place of your birth, but nothing and no one, including yourself, will be the same. The "home" of your memory no longer exists. The Wizard or Wolfe? Who does have it right?
Let us look. All of us yearn for "home" -- a powerful word that stirs up deep emotions. If you ask people of any age to describe the home where they grew up, they will be able to provide a lengthy and detailed description. Undoubtedly, they will remember details like where they slept, what mealtime was like and who sat around the dinner table. Being the only boy and oldest child of five, I had my room in the basement of one of our many homes of my early childhood. I discovered many years later than my mother felt sorry for me because it was the basement. I told her that for me, it was special. What I remembered was that it was my private space. As we got older, schedules became difficult. However, I knew I was to be home by 5 PM, ready for a meal together. Sunday after church was usually the meal dad prepared. Thanksgiving and Christmas meals, with oyster stew as part of the celebration, still lingers with me. For better or worse, home, and the memories of home, become part of our very being and travel with us throughout our lives. "Home" is supposed to be a haven, a port in the storm, a place where the door is always open, and you can count on being welcomed. Home is supposed to be that place where people will accept you just the way you are.
If becoming a Christian is coming home to the Word, through whom God created all that is, then Christians run the risk of rejection by those who have not discovered their home. The more they are at home in God, the less the things of this earth will feel like home.
Christians live in their own countries, but only as guests and aliens. They take part in everything as citizens and endure everything as aliens. They are as poor as beggars are, and yet they make many rich. They lack everything, and yet they have everything in abundance. They are dishonored, and yet have their glory in this very dishonor. They are abused, yet they bless. In a word: what the soul is in the body, the Christians are in the world. --Letter to Diognetus 5,6.
John 1:14, part of a segment that extends to verse 18, may be a confessional statement. It begins with the affirmation that 14the Word became flesh and lived among us. Much of Greek philosophy sought liberation from the material world. It thought of human beings meeting God as human beings ascended to God. Here, the Logos descends to the fleshy depths. Here, the divine Logos became (not just entered into) flesh. The Greek world longed for liberation from the material world. Here, the Logos binds himself to human history.[33]The “absolute” quality of the Christian revelation finds its affirmation in a proposition that declares that in one single area of the universe of space and time, we find the eternal archetype, namely, in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, signified by the affirmation, “The Word became flesh,” that is, part of this temporal order. The prologue anticipates the later theme of this gospel, namely, that of “realized eschatology.”[34] The imagery is that of the tabernacle as a sign or symbol of the presence of God. Here is the climax of the hymn or prologue. The Logos, who dwelt with God, entered the earthly, human, material and perishable world by becoming flesh. This is something new. This is a real event. The Logos had already been present with God and present with creation as that which gives life to all that is. Now, the Logos becomes flesh and pitches a tent among human beings. It would not be wise for theology to surrender to the Christology of moral example or of political ideology. Even if we think Christology needs some re-thinking, the intent of the classical affirmation that Jesus was “very God and very Man” is the assumption and goal of any re-thinking. This statement confronts us with the mystery of revelation. The Logos shows us a genuinely loving and serving God. The Logos is the King of all kings as he enters the profoundly hidden quality of meekness of heart. The Word “acts” freely in this becoming and remains free as the Word becomes. The Word speaks, acts, prevails, reveals, and reconciles while never ceasing to be the Word. The Word became a human being, participating in the same human essence and existence as any of us. The Word is divine, and therefore God touches every human being in the Incarnation. Somehow, miraculously, the Word “became” flesh without surrendering divinity. By becoming “flesh,” the Word became that which is under the judgment and verdict of God. The Word brings humanity into fellowship with the Trinity. In this way, human beings can find God in the Word become flesh.[35] The Logos reveals human life in its fullness, and thus, that human life has significance and is full of meaning, will, and purpose.[36] The way John approaches the Incarnation is beneficial in that it focuses upon the uniqueness of Jesus as a medium of the revelation of the divine, in a way similar to the approach of Paul. This revelatory function of the Logos arises out of also associating the Logos with involvement in creation.[37]Further, we have seen the glory, (reputation, honor, distinction, and light) of the Logos. What the apostles saw in the appearances of the risen Lord is what all humanity will one day see. It will become clear to all.[38]
The debates about the divinity and humanity of Jesus found some resolution at Nicaea in 325 and Chalcedon in 451. Sadly, bishops, monks, emperors, the powerful wives and mothers of emperors and passionate laypeople tortured and killed each other in a conflict that was as much about imperial politics as it was about the question of Jesus. At the same time, the debates were about genuine issues. Bishops such as Arius argued at Nicaea that Jesus was a created being and that we could only consider God the Father as fully divine. For many people, then as now, it was difficult if not impossible to conceive of God fully invested in human form and participating in the messiness of human life. Many theological circles will think of humanity as something very separate from the divine. Christians simply do not see the separation the same way. True, humanity is sinful, and therefore needs redemption. God and humanity are separate in that way. Yet, sinful humanity and a broken creation still bear the marks of their creator. God created us for a relationship with God, and in Jesus, God shows us what that relationship looks like. Jesus embodied what it meant to have no other gods before the Lord, to obey God fully, and to love God and neighbor fully.
John defines this glory further by saying that the Logos has the glory (light, radiance, and splendor) as of the only son of a father. The Logos was full of grace and truth.
Frankly, few thoughts are dearer to Christians, and more puzzling to others, than such statements. If you have ever discussed the Torah with a Jew, you know their reverence for it. If you have ever discussed the Koran with a Muslim, you know their reverence for it. For Christians, nothing is more precious than the notion that God has shown up, not in words on a page, but in a particular person, Jesus of Nazareth.
Christianity is a revealed religion. We are not about simply delving into the psyche or about stumbling upon God by a walking in nature. Our common human experience will not lead us to what Christians believe about God. All that we know of God comes to us as a gift from God. If God did not choose, out of love for us, to reveal who God is to us, then we would not know God. We would still be in the dark. We would have only our imagination to fill in all the blanks about a meaningful and purposeful life. To live within a Christian view of God, you must be willing to take a step of faith in a revelation. God has a human face, the face of Jesus.
This is truly a scandal of the Christian message. Christians can experience this message as a scandal as well. Marcus Borg famously said that the church needed to have part of its mission to give Jesus demotion. The opening of the Gospel of John would not agree. The scandal of the message speaks of the unique relationship Jesus had with God. This is not just speculation about the nature of God. It has its basis in what the Christian community had experienced of Jesus, both while he was alive, but more particularly after he died. We can see the scandal of the Christian faith at this point when we read some comments about Christianity that are in the Koran, the holy book of the Muslims. It repeatedly and specifically condemns the idea of the Son of God.
"Allah is one, the eternal one of God. ... He begot none nor was he begotten. None are equal to him. ... Those who say that the God has begotten a son preach a monstrous falsehood, which the very heavens might crack, the heavens break asunder, and the mountains crumble to dust. It does not become the holy God to beget a son." (Surah 7:8)
That to which the Quran objects is precisely what we have come to believe. A Jewish boy growing up in Nazareth, baptized by John, preaching on the Galilean hills, crucified in Jerusalem, is the very person who lived so uniquely related to God that we call him "Son of God." We had nothing to do with it. It is what God has done. For us, this is good news.
[1] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology, I, 24)
[2] Barth (Church Dogmatics., III.1 [40], 14)
[3] Dodd (Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, 51)
[4] Dodd (Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, 1953)
[5] Barth (Church Dogmatics, II.2 [33.1] 95-99) Barth is willing to go the direction of discussing Christ as electing and elected God. Christ is the decree of God behind and above which one can find no earlier or higher decree of God, since all others serve only the fulfillment of this decree. Christ is the election of God before which and without which and beside which God cannot make any other choices. Without Christ, God does not elect or will anything. Christ is the election of the free grace of God. Christ is the free grace of God inwardly within God, but also expressed in the ways and works of God. Christ is the divine election of grace. He is the Word of God, the decree of God, and the beginning of God.
[6] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology I, 235, 243)
[7] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology, I, 24)
[8] Dodd (The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, 1953)
[9] Barth (Church Dogmatics, I.1, [11.2], 441)
[10] Barth (Church Dogmatics III.1 [40, p. 29, 41.1, p. 51, 41.2, 116)
[11] Barth (Church Dogmatics, II, 347)
[12] —Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation (Jossey-Bass: 2000), 2-3.
[13] —Margaret Mead, a 1926 letter published in To Cherish the Life of the World: Selected Letters of Margaret Mead (Basic Books, 2006).
[14] Barth (Church Dogmatics, II, 292)
[15] Barth (Church Dogmatics, IV.3 [69.3], 232)
[16] Barth (Church Dogmatics IV.3 [69.1] 9
[17] C. W. Bauer in his 1908 commentary, p. 35
[18] Dodd (The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, 1953)
[19] Dodd (The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, 1953)
[20] Soren Kierkegaard, 1847, the difference between a genius and an apostle.
[21] Barth (Church Dogmatics, II.2 [36.1] 539)
[22] Tom Long tells this story
[23] (Peter Storey. With God in the Crucible: Preaching Costly Discipleship, [Nashville; Abingdon Press, 2002], 33, 142.)
[24] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology, II, 25)
[25] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology I, 75)
[26] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology, II, 292)
[27] Pannenberg (Systematic Theology, II, 295)
[28] Barth (Church Dogmatics, II, 385-6)
[29] Barth (Church Dogmatics, III, 235)
[30] Barth (Church Dogmatics I.2 [15.2], 151)
[31] Barth (Church Dogmatics III.1 [41.1] 51-52)
[32] Barth (Church Dogmatics IV.3 [71.3] 521)
[33] Raymond Brown, in his commentary on this passage.
[34] Dodd (The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, 1953)
[35] Barth (Church Dogmatics I.2 [15.1-2], 122-171)
[36] Barth (Church Dogmatics III.2 [46.1], 335)
[37] Barth (Church Dogmatics ibid, II, 237)
[38] Barth (Church Dogmatics IV.3 [69.4] 301)
once more a powerful presentation of the crux of Christianity. Three irreverent thoughts. !. you did not mention the light in terms of Gnosticism. Did you want to dispute with them? 2. Passages like this always are a warning to me to not miss Christ in the world today. First century pious Jews considered Jesus claims and rejected them because He did not look like what they expected. This is always a warning to me to stay open to what God has for today. it might not look like what we think. He could be speaking to us in the form of a liberal, homeless gay man. I think we need to stay sensitive to the spirits speaking. 3. Been reading on pantheism and am aware how this text (as well as others) fits into their perceptions. Any thoughts on this? Chuck and I have been discussing this concept and he is very intrigued by it. -Lyn Eastman
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