Galatians 4:4-7

Galatians 4:4-7 (NRSV)

⁴ But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, ⁵ in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. ⁶ And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” ⁷ So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.

In 4:4-7 there is of the most elegant expressions of incarnational faith in the New Testament. I begin with a theological consideration of the text. 

Paul utilizes the metaphor of slavery and freeing a slave to express his notion that our relationship to God has radically changed. The distinction between slave and child is a relational one. Both are under the authority of the head of the household, but they have a different status. Through Jesus Christ, the legal relationship of slave to the master is no longer binding. Paul uses imagery for the messianic/eschatological era, the fullness of time (χρόνου), suggesting that one period has ended so that another can begin, such as the transition from childhood to adulthood, or the transition of the slave to freedom. They have a new status, and a new era begins. The Moment arrived for God to transition to a new era in the plan of reconciling and redeeming the world, and humanity, which had been a minor and had various tutors, transitions into a mature age. The mission of the Son is to bring this fullness of time and has become the Lord of time. The sending of the Son is the event that gives time its fullness by being the agent of redemption and adoption. All time becomes fulfilled time. As understood by science, space/time is moving toward a void, toward emptiness and nothingness, but as understood through the Son, space/time is moving toward fullness.^[1] This event gives the Old Testament promises of the people of God expanding to embrace all nations, that God established a covenant with all peoples, that transformations of Torah need to occur for those promises to find their fulfillment. The promises and hopes of the Old Testament are without content apart from the coming rule of God in Jesus. Apart from their relation to this event, the law and the prophets are defective because of unresolved tensions that the event of Jesus of Nazareth resolves. In an analogous way, time is defective as it hastens toward the time of Jesus and moves away from this time, but this event of Jesus gives time its fullness, for time has its purpose because of this event.^[2] Regarding human experience, most of us assume that our time has meaning, but our moments of boredom, the despair of lost love, of lost passion for life and vocation, can lead to an experience of lost time. The present becomes futile without its connection to a positive future. Our time is meant for us to enjoy and live fully, embracing the brief time we have. Theologically, the sending of the Son is the origin of the doctrine of the Trinity, having its counterpart in the sending of the Spirit, for such sending implies pre-existence.^[3] This sending involves the cooperating will of Father, Son, and Spirit, expressing the love of God toward the cosmos and toward humanity. This sending involves God in a form of self-abasement and self-emptying. The Son came under the Law, stepping into the heart of the conflict between the faithfulness of God and the unfaithfulness of humanity. He took the conflict within divinity. Obviously, human sin offends by God, but God also threatens divinity with death. In this way, God enters solidarity with humanity.^[4] Paul stresses that the Son was born of a woman, bringing the sending of the Son into an intimate connection with his birth, which in the context of the canon, is striking, as Paul expresses no interest in how Mary conceived and gave birth to Jesus. In fact, his point is that the birth of Jesus was natural. We to think of Jeremiah 1:4, where the Lord set the prophet apart in the womb of his mother. In an analogous way, God set apart Jesus from his birth to fulfill his mission as the Son. The point is that the Son has entered the sphere of earthly existence with its conditions and relations. This applies to his entire earthly course that we find mention not only of his birth but also of the subjection of his earthly course to the Mosaic Law.^[5] Law had worked out its educational purpose and God now superseded it with the sending of the Son.  Negatively, it was the purpose of the Law to deepen the conviction of sin and thus to show the inability of all existing systems to bring people near to God.  Positively, it assumes a moral and spiritual expansion. This was the path God chose to rescue those under the law, giving the gift of adoption as children. They are free from slavery, but even more, have brought into the family of God, giving the children the Spirit of the Son that allows the intimacy of relating God as Abba (daddy), Father, even as Jesus taught in the Lord’s Prayer. The freedom and the adoption into the family of God is expressed in prayer. They receive in their own subjectivity before God a filial relation that expresses itself as spontaneity in relation to the Father and hence also to all creaturely reality. Putting Aramaic and Greek forms together symbolized Jewish and Gentile unity. These verses remind the believer of the basics of faith in which they stand and offer the good news that anyone who calls God "Abba" is part of the family. The abolition of the Law and rescue from bondage was a prior condition of the universal fellowship of God family. The presence of the Spirit is thus a witness to being children of God. the gift of the Spirit is the result of adoption as children. The mission of the Son is to give the rights of being in the family of God and the mission of the Spirit is to give the power of using them.^[6]H. Schlier (1971) said that God bestows on us not only the status of children through the sending of the Son, but also the character and knowledge of children through the sending of the Spirit. God bestows on us the character and knowledge of children because we are already in the status of children. This passage shows that reconciliation occurs as God takes up humanity into fellowship with the Father of the Son, a taking up that occurs through the Spirit, who assures that this reconciliation is no longer coming solely from the outside. We ourselves enter it. We find the goal of the sending of the Son is in others. As Paul sees it, a special link exists occurs with the death of Jesus by which God liberates believers from the dominion of sin, Law, and death. Therefore, the sending of the Son aims at the reconciliation to God of the world. The claim of Christian proclamation that this took place in the history of Jesus needs fuller exposition and demonstration, however, if it is to hold good. Note the connection between the sending of the Son and the function of the Messiah relative to the fellowship and renewal of the people of God. This passage shows that fellowship with God brings distance from self, enabling the people of God to fulfill their individual callings in service to God and to the world, to which God addresses divine love. Paul is describing the freedom of a new immediacy to God that believers have as children, mediated by the sending of the Son. The Spirit brings the mission of the Son to its completion. Where this freedom of the Spirit is, our reconciliation to God has reached its goal. The Old Testament could call all the people children of God.  The new thing for Paul is the inclusion of non-Jews in this filial relation and the linking of the relation to the gift of the Spirit and to fellowship with Jesus Christ, the Son, through whom believers receive the Spirit of adoption as children. For Paul, then, only in Jesus Christ has the basic filial relationship for which we are destined come to full and definitive manifestation. This passage was among the keys for the Reformation to emphasize the immediacy of relationship to God.^[7] Freedom and immediacy to God have an intimate connection.^[8]

In verses 4-7, Paul shifts the metaphor to deepen his crucial point that the human relationship to God has radically changed. Now he uses the metaphor of slavery and freeing a slave. Through Jesus Christ, the legal relationship of slave to the master is no longer binding.

Paul begins by pointing in the direction of a Christology from above.[9] Jesus is pre-existent as the Son of God.[10] God sends the Son in order to break the curse and power of the Law and to allow the community to live through the substitutionary death of the Son. The community now exists as sons and daughters of God, in which they cry, “Abba,” the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer in Aramaic, They are no longer slaves. They are free. The basis for being sons and daughters of God is the sonship of Jesus, the Spirit of the Son effecting this change in relationship, believers already living in this new creation.[11] He at least presents a version of the Adam-Christ theology of Paul. Jesus shared human frailty as a child of Eve and bondage to the Jewish law. As Adam was a son of God destroyed by the fall, Israel was son of God who became a slave to the law, while God sent Jesus to liberate humanity.[12]

However, the point may not be speculation about pre-existence, but that the historical mission of Jesus rests upon divine initiative.[13] One can understand the verse against the background of the tradition about Jesus, who thought of himself as the Son sent by God (Mk 9:37, 12:6, Mt 15:24, Lk 4:18, 10:16). Paul and his readers may well have thought of the man Jesus whose ministry was commissioned by God and whose unique relationship with the Father was assured by his resurrection and despite his rejection of those who were stewards of the law. The point of the passage is redemption and thus does concern itself with the Incarnation.[14]

I want to pause with each phrase. We need to take our time here.

In verse 4, when the fullness of time (χρόνου) had come, This fulfillment points to the end of the temporal course of human history,^[15] referring to the messianic or eschatological era that completes the long wait of centuries.  One might translate it more precisely, as “when the time had reached its full term.” "Fullness" has much more meaning than an end of a period. "Fullness" suggests that one period has ended so that another can begin. It can denote the legal transition from childhood to adulthood. Furthermore, as slaves fulfill the time of their service, they become free. They take on a new status as a new era begins. First, it was the fullness of time in relation to the giver.  The moment had arrived in God's plan.  Second, it was the fullness of time about the recipient.  Humanity had to reach a mature age. A time existed when humanity was in the position of a minor.  Humanity had tutors and governors, the stoicheia. Humanity was a slave among other slaves. This fulfilled time is before or after all other time. It makes all time chronologically understood also fulfilled time. Time may appear to move toward a void, but it is moving toward this fullness. All time is fulfilled time.^[16] The entire notion of the fullness of time pictures time as an empty vessel, not yet filled, but waiting for a particular time to fill it.  “Fullness” suggests something filling a vessel, plan, concept, or form full. The Old Testament promises are without content apart from the coming of the reign of God in the man, Jesus, and therefore defective in themselves, yet, being related to this event, they are not for nothing. Time has a similar character. It has the defect and advantage of being a time hastening toward the time of Jesus and is then destined to move away from His time. There is no fulfillment of time without the time of fulfillment. The specific word kairos does not occur here. However, the decisive significance of the concept expressed by kairos receives its definition by the opening of the verse. The new age brought in by Jesus is not a refutation of the old age. The old age had fulfilled its time, its purpose. All time from the moment of creation was moving toward this new time of redemption and release. A new age has begun. The Law holds sway no longer. The season of grace has come! Christ has inaugurated a new regime.^[17]

Continuing in verse 4, God sent his Son, time achieving its full measure in content as well as extent in the sending of the Son, the saving work of God entering history in the earthly Jesus as an eschatological act.^[18] The fullness of time suggests that God sent the Son to humanity. With the Son came the fullness of time arrived, that is, the mission of the Son is to bring the fullness of time. The Son has become Lord of time, a free person. This event gives time its fullness. Of course, behind all of these meanings lies the rich and evocative theological truth that with the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the old age is over, and a new age has begun. God has brought all things together in Christ and through Christ. 

This statement shows signs of being pre-Pauline. God is the subject who sends the already developed out of Wisdom speculation pre-existent Son. In Wisdom 9:10, the writer asks God to send wisdom from the holy heaven and the glorious throne to teach him what is pleasing to God, identifying in verse 17 wisdom with the sending of the Holy Spirit in order to learn the divine counsel. This closeness of the Son to God is decisive and constitutes of the significance of the sending, distinguishing it from the sending of prophets.^[19] Even when Paul uses wisdom terms like this that has its origin a primal mythical event, as applied to Jesus he turns it into a unique and definitive act.^[20] The pre-existent Son bound himself to Jesus of Nazareth,^[21] this sending connected closely to the commissioning of Jesus,^[22] “Son” expressing his relation to the Father, a relation of obedience, trust, and mission.^[23] God sent Jesus when the time was right to serve as the agent of redemption and adoption. Theologically, this notion of the sending of the Son is the New Testament origin of the notion of the Trinity, and it has its counterpart in the sending of the Spirit that we find in the Gospel of John. "Sent" includes concept of pre-existence.  

The significance of this passage is that Christology begins with the primitive Christian interpretation of the person and work of Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ. Messiah implies the thought of divine sonship. It early had the sense that in the man Jesus the preexistent Son of God came to earth. Only God could be behind this event, namely, the sending of the Son into the world. Yet, we can know that it happened only as it took place on the plane of our human, creaturely reality. This sending involves the totality of his life, including his birth.^[24] This sending has its ground in the free will of the Father and the Son in fulfillment of the divine love toward the cosmos and the world of humanity. God exposed divinity to an imposition. Speaking in an all too human way, God has been hard on Himself. God is stern toward Himself in this self-abasement and self-emptying. The Son came under the Law, stepping into the heart of the conflict between the faithfulness of God and the unfaithfulness of humanity. He took the conflict within divinity. Obviously, human sin offends by God, but God also threatens divinity with death. In this way, God enters solidarity with humanity.^[25]

Continuing in verse 4, the Son was born of a woman, denoting the incarnation as a whole,^[26] designating the situation common to all humanity,^[27] the phrase evoking the fullness of body as well as the completion of the time of a woman's pregnancy. These verses show that for Paul the issue of how Mary conceived and gave birth to Jesus was not as important as the fact that Jesus was born to save. Furthermore, the stress is not on the supernatural birth of Jesus but the very natural process of being born of a woman. The sending of the Son coincides with his birth from a woman. We are to think of Jeremiah, the servant of the Lord, and Paul as he describes himself in this letter. Only here do we find in Paul an express relating of the sending to the birth of Jesus, and even here the reference is not simply to the beginning of his course. The point is that the Son has entered the sphere of earthly existence with its conditions and relations. This applies to his entire earthly course that we find mention not only of his birth but also of the subjection of his earthly course to the Mosaic Law.^[28]

The Son was born under the law, designating the situate common to all humanity,^[29] the primary reference is to the Mosaic Law, though Gentiles also have undergone elementary discipline.  Law had worked out its educational purpose and God now superseded it with the sending of the Son.  Negatively, it was the purpose of the Law to deepen the conviction of sin and thus to show the inability of all existing systems to bring people near to God.  Positively, it assumes a moral and spiritual expansion.

Jesus is not some celestial god (familiar to the Greeks) who is above the Law; he is fully human who is born under the Law, a Jew. Jesus came not to provide a new moral law or philosophy; he came with a specific function of freeing slaves and spreading the boundary of family to include Gentiles. 

In verses 5-7, in his being Son, all others receive a share in that intimacy of relation to the Father. Becoming children of God through Jesus, the Father sent the Spirit into our hearts, who inspires us to cry, Abba, Father. the new human being lives based upon a new relation to the Father.^[30] He begins by expressing the saving mission of the Son: in order to redeem (ἐξαγοράσῃ, rescue from loss) those who were under slavery to the law, so that, adding another concept to help his readers understand who Jesus is, we might receive adoption (υἱοθεσίαν) as children, thereby becoming part of the family of God. In verses 6-7, through the Spirit the Christian has been lifted into the freedom of being a child of God:[31] And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts. Filling with the Spirit making being children of God possible.[32] The goal of the work of Christ is forming sons and daughters of God by the Spirit into the new life of a community. This new life finds expression in the community crying, "Abba! Father!" Freedom and immediacy to God have an intimate connection.^[33] This passage was among the keys for the Reformation to emphasize the immediacy of relationship to God.^[34] God now sends the Spirit of his Son, showing the intimate connection of what church teaching would call the Trinity. The sending of the Son and the Spirit have the goal of the intimacy of this relationship.

We need to pause again and reflect upon the significance of addressing God in this way. Their reconciliation with God was complete without the Law. The intimacy finds expression in the new Father-child relationship of the community. the Spirit who effects this new Father-child relationship impels the community to cry out in this way. The Spirit is a living reality who becomes the basis for a new kind of prayer. It expresses the certainty and joy expressed by one whom the Spirit moves to turn to God.[35] Jesus regularly addressed God as Father in prayer, and this passage, with Rom 8:15-16, is evidence that the early Christian communities continued the practice.[36] As God redeems and adopts the believer, he or she can call God, the Almighty, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, "Abba, Father." "Abba" is an Aramaic word best translated "Daddy." "Abba" originated among Jews in Palestine. It relates Jesus referring to God in this way, and possibly to the Lord’s Prayer. The point is the freedom such adopted children can have in prayer. It suggests the power of response to divine love in prayer issuing forth in freedom related to adopted children. They receive in their own subjectivity before God a filial relation that expresses itself as spontaneity in relation to the Father and hence also to all creaturely reality. Putting Aramaic and Greek forms together symbolized Jewish and Gentile unity. Jesus used this word about God. The word became significant to later generations of those followed Jesus. Through the grace of Jesus Christ, believers are heirs of the riches of the Kingdom of God. These verses remind the believer of the basics of faith in which they stand and offer the good news that anyone who calls God "Abba" is part of the family. The abolition of the Law and rescue from bondage was a prior condition of the universal fellowship of God family.  Though Mosaic Law is uppermost in his mind, Paul extends it to all systems.  The negative aspect of redemption is freedom from slavery.  The positive is adoption as children.  However, it is not just an inheritance, but new life, in which Paul associates the Trinity.  The presence of the Spirit is thus a witness to being children of God.  We should note that here, the gift of the Spirit is the result of adoption as children. The mission of the Son is to give the rights of being in the family of God and the mission of the Spirit is to give the power of using them.^[37] H. Schlier (1971) said that God bestows on us not only the status of children through the sending of the Son, but also the character and knowledge of children through the sending of the Spirit. God bestows on us the character and knowledge of children because we are already in the status of children. 

Continuing with verse 7, So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God. The coming of the Son changes everything. The distinction between slave and child is a relational one. Both are under the authority of the head of the household, but they have a different status. Our work does not lead to faith. Moral character is not the goal of faith. Rather, righteous living, the life that pleases God, is a means to an end. Our changed lives are the means. The worship of God and advancing the earthly divine mission are the end.^[38] Rules have much to say about our actions, but rarely do they shape our attitudes, thoughts, and emotions. A relationship is a far more influential force on the whole of how we live. When work of Christ replaces our work, slaves become children, and relationship guides us instead of rules. A clear result happens as we internalize the heart of God into our own.

---

[1] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67)III.2 [47.1] 358-9).

[2] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67)III.2 [47.1] (p. 461-2)

[3] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991)Vol II, 277, 316).

[4] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67)II.1 [30.2], 397).

[5] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991)Vol II, 302).

[6] H. B. Swete (The Holy Spirit in the New Testament, 1909, p. 204).

[7] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991)III, 128.

[8] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991)Vol II, 316, 321, 436, 450).

[9] (Pannenberg, Jesus -- God and Man, 1964, 1968) 33.

[10] (Pannenberg, Jesus -- God and Man, 1964, 1968) 118.

[11] Schweizer, TDNT VIII, 391-2.

[12] (Dunn, Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation, 1980, 1989) 112.

[13] (Fuller, The Formation of the Resurrection Narratives, 1971) 195.

[14] (Dunn, Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation, 1980, 1989) 38-44.

[15] (Pannenberg, Jesus -- God and Man, 1964, 1968) 380.

[16] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67), III.2 [47.1] 358-9).

[17] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67)III.2 [47.1] (p. 461-2)

[18] Delling, TDNT VI, 305.

[19] Schweizer, TDNT VIII 374-6.

[20] Schneemelcher, TDNT VIII, 383.

[21] (Pannenberg, Jesus -- God and Man, 1964, 1968) 143.

[22] (Pannenberg, Jesus -- God and Man, 1964, 1968) 152.

[23] (Pannenberg, Jesus -- God and Man, 1964, 1968) 159.

[24] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991), Vol II, 277, 316).

[25] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67), II.1 [30.2], 397).

[26] Schneemelcher, TDNT VIII, 383.

[27] (Pannenberg, Jesus -- God and Man, 1964, 1968) 142.

[28] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991)Vol II, 302).

[29] (Pannenberg, Jesus -- God and Man, 1964, 1968) 142.

[30] (Pannenberg, Jesus -- God and Man, 1964, 1968) 346.

[31] (Pannenberg, Jesus -- God and Man, 1964, 1968) 177.

[32] (Pannenberg, Jesus -- God and Man, 1964, 1968) 172.

[33] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991)Vol II, 316, 321, 436, 450).

[34] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991)III, 128.

[35] Grundmann, TDNT III, 902-3.

[36] (Dunn, Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation, 1980, 1989) 26-7.

[37] H. B. Swete (The Holy Spirit in the New Testament, 1909, p. 204).

[38] N. T. Wright, After You Believe.

John 1:1-14

(John 1:1-14 NRSV)  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being ⁴ in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

⁶ There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷ He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. ⁸ He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. ⁹ The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

¹⁰ He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. ¹¹ He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. ¹² But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, ¹³ who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

¹⁴ And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. 

John 1:1-14, part of a segment that extends to verse 18, is the introductory hymn to the Gospel of John. 

1:1-18 Prologue: Fulfillment of prophecy in Mark 1:1-3 becomes Logos revealed

The prologue of John 1:1-18 corresponds to Mark 1:1-3. The Logos is the word of the Lord, by which the heavens were framed, which came through the prophets to Israel, was rejected by the people a large, but found acceptance with the faithful remnant, to whom it gave the status to the children of God. this prophetic word was declared true, but in a deeper sense it was fulfilled. The Word which proceeds from the mouth of God found embodiment at the beginning. The meaning of prophecy is realized in the story of the gospel. Logos is also the divine Wisdom, which overlaps with the Platonic Idea and the Stoic Logos. The Logos is that thought of God that is the transcendent design of the universe and its immanent meaning. In contrast to the eschatological message of the synoptic gospels, Logos here is based upon the philosophical conception of two orders of being, distinguished by the greater or less measure of reality that they possess. There is the order of pure reality, transcendent and eternal, which is the very thought of God, and there 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 te higher, an increasing dominance of light over darkness, of being over not-being, of truth over error. The absoluteness of the Christian revelation is the eternal archetype, and that this area is co-extensive with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The lower order is the flesh, so accordingly, the fundamental proposition is that the Logos became flesh. The prologue represents a thoroughgoing reinterpretation of the idea expressed in terms of the realized eschatology of the early Christian community. The Logos-doctrine is first because it related the higher religion of Hellenism to the crucial point of the gospel, leading his readers to the historical actuality of its story, rooted in Jewish tradition.[1]

While the mystery of the Infinite and Eternal God remains, Christians celebrate God getting local, getting up close and personal (John 1:1-18). The Word is pre-existent, and Christ is the pre-existent Word incarnate. It is the most powerful Word-Christology in the New Testament. It was written soon before the composition of the gospel. It is significant that Logos does not occur in the rest of the gospel, but this is because the prologue is emphasizing the preexistence of the Word, which becomes Jewish flesh in Jesus of Nazareth in v. 14. In him is the unity of speech and action. Awareness of the pre-temporal existence of the Son is essential background for understanding this gospel. The idea is not unique to John, where it provides the basis for ethical exhortation (Phil 2:1ff) and soteriology (Col 1:12ff). Thus, while the Logos is a distinctive aspect of the prologue, it is consistent with the underlying theme of early Christology regarding the preexistence of Jesus. The sole concern is with what has taken place in Jesus. In the person and event of Jesus traditional religious values are present in a new and personal way.[2] It is also significant that neither grace nor fullness occur outside the prologue in this gospel. The poem influences the composition of the gospel. It confronts the reader with the pre-existent Logos, which was in the beginning, a thought related to Philo, and in verse 14 with the Logos becoming flesh, an explicit statement of incarnation, the only such statement in the New Testament. The Logos is both as close to God as human beings can conceive or perceive and reveals as much of God to humanity as is possible to be revealed. John unites two separate ways of understanding Christ. The one used Wisdom and Logos language of Christ, identifying Christ as Wisdom, as the man that the Logos became, but did not seem to think of pre-existent Wisdom-Logos as a personal being or of Christ as one who had been pre-existent. However, Word was the more serviceable concept to provide a bridge of communication between Jewish monotheism and Greek religious philosophy, as it was with Philo. In the line of Jewish Wisdom theology, the Word is the self-revelation of God, as far as God may be known by humanity. He is the definitive manifestation of divine reality Jesus is not another God, but as God becoming present and known to humanity as far as that was possible within the confines of human experience. Jesus is unique, one of a kind. The Word was in the beginning, the power of God put forth in creation and revelation. Jesus Christ is this Word become a human being, embodying divine glory and alone reveals who God is. The other thought of Christ more as the Son sent by the Father. He took the step of speaking of Christ as the Son sent from heaven, as a personal being sent from his pre-existent glory into the world. This union of logos Christology and Son of God Christology, with its possibility of combining the metaphors and imagery appropriate to the personified Wisdom and the idea Logos of pre-Christian Judaism of Philo with the intimate personal language appropriate to talk of Father and Son, became the matrix from which developed the christologies of subsequent centuries. It represents a breakthrough into a different conceptuality and a bolder claim than we find in earlier and categories and structure of thought. The concept of incarnation comes to explicit expression, presenting Jesus as the incarnation of the divine Word. He is the only one who can make God fully known.[3] When compared with the other Christological hymns (Phil 2:6-11, Col 1:15-20, I Tim 3:16, I Peter 3:18-22 and 1:20, Heb 1:1-4), what is surprising is to find that it does not go on to speak of the subsequent ascent of this Word, for only the first half of the myth appears, that of the descent of the Word from the heavenly realm to the earthly. However, the ascent is concentrated in the incarnate life of Jesus that will be stated clearly in the cross and resurrection.[4]

In verses 1-5, God created all finite and temporal things, bringing all things into historical reality. This gospel begins with an ontic statement, which raises the ontological question.[5] The Word (ὁ λόγος, found only in the prologue, showing the distinctive use by John[6]) was present with God and present with the beginning of that which is distinct from God.^[7] 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.^[8] 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 the Word and creation. The world is tightly bound to the Word and therefore to God. It speaks to the position, dignity, and power of the Creator that this passage also ascribes to the Word.^[9] God created through the Word, manifesting itself in the world in the crucial metaphors of life and light which are open to every person. Here is life in the full sense, making the presence of life in the finite and temporal life with reservations. “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.^[10] God becomes light that enlightens humanity in a world assaulted by the darkness. The theme of light opposed by the darkness becomes a leitmotif of the entire gospel.

In verses 6-8, 15, which reads as though it was a reference back to 1:30, and is thus an insertion into the original poem,[11] the prologue emphasizes John the Baptist as a witness to the light that has come into the darkness through the Word. The divine origin of the mission of John means we need to receive him in a way different from the way we would if he were simply an insightful human being. As such, consistent with four important themes of the Gospel of John, he is a (1) witness who (2) testifies to the (3) light, so that people might (4) believe through the Word. The author emphasizes that John was not the light. The world lives in darkness, but nothing so tames the terrors of the darkness for us than light. The Word is that light that falls upon a humanity who lives in darkness. God has directed the light of the Word toward human beings. Human beings will find their life as they open themselves to this Word, and therefore to this light and grace.[12]

To state this belief in a Trinitarian way, 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.^[13] 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 God speaking finite and temporal things into historical reality. It could connect with the prophetic word of the Lord to the prophets, a word rejected by many but received by a remnant. It could connect with the notion of Wisdom, suggesting that this form of Wisdom is part of the world. 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. The cosmos exhibits a divine meaning that constitutes its reality. Logos is the thought of God that is the transcendent design of the universe and its immanent meaning. 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. Since the Word embodies itself in Jewish flesh, this rational principle and Jewish Wisdom are embodied. It means that when see the world in this way, we are growing a philosophy of life or worldview in such a way that it influences our view of self, humanity, and world. It also means we know God through this Word. We know the will of God because of this gracious Word. God wills or chooses nothing apart from Christ. We can distinguish between this Infinite and Eternal Logos from its historical manifestation. This Infinite and Eternal Word who is life and light became historical reality. This Word became the Moment to which the churches witness throughout generations. 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 that “The Word became flesh,” and not just any flesh, but Jewish flesh. This self-revealing of the Logos took the form of a human being, becoming identical with humanity so that those born of God might see the glory of the Father.[14] We 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. 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.^[15]  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.^[16] While many reject this Word, Light, and Life, some in the decisive act of belief or trust receive this Word. This decisive act, this Moment, is also a personal one. Belief or trust in what God has done in the Word becomes crucial. 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. The Word constitutes a people who did not possess the power to become children of God by their decision.^[17] The Word constitutes and gathers a people that represent a new calling and personal faith distinct from what was present in Israel.^[18] The vocation of the believer is nothing more nor less than to become a child of God, to be a Christian.^[19]

This Infinite and Eternal Logos descends to the fleshly depths and becomes flesh. The Logos binds itself to human history. In one single area of the universe of space and time, we find the eternal archetype of Life and Light becoming part of the temporal order. This Word, by becoming flesh, dwelt among us, becoming a tabernacle, a sign or symbol of the presence of God, the presence of the Eternal in time.[20] 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. This statement confronts us with the mystery of revelation. 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. The significance of this becoming of the Word as Jewish flesh is that the Old Testament is a record of the ways in which Israel broke the covenant it had with the Lord and thereby received judgment from the Lord. For the Word to become this flesh reveals the determination of the Word to redeem a rebellious humanity. Sinful humanity and a broken creation still bear the marks of their creator. God created us for a relationship with God, and in the Word, God shows us what that relationship looks like. The Word brings humanity into fellowship with the Trinity. In this way, human beings can find God in the Word become flesh.^[21] The Logos reveals human life in its fullness, and thus, that human life has significance and is full of meaning, will, and purpose.^[22] This approach to the Incarnation is beneficial in that it focuses upon the uniqueness of the embodied Word as the revelation of God. This revelatory function of the Logos arises out of also associating the Logos with involvement in creation.^[23] Here is the heart of the debate. A Logos-human being Christology was typical of the Antiochene school and focused on the human Christ, leaving the unity of the divine and human in some question. A Logos-flesh Christology was typical of the Alexandrian school and focused on the preexistent Logos, leaving the humanity of Christ in some unclarity. As the debate became increasingly technical and with increasing subtle refinement, it moved toward a proof texting for arguments and positions determined by the different terms and logical constraints of later debates.[24]

This Logos is the glory, light, radiance, and splendor as the only Son of the Father, the rich fullness of grace and truth, which have been enacted by the incarnate Logos, a fullness of glory in which the grace and truth of God are actively declared. The glory of the Son consists in the sheer event of the divine event of grace and truth, a demonstration of such because it is the glory of the only-begotten Son.[25] People today receive grace through this Word. Thus, torah came through Moses, but enduring love came Jesus Christ, as John finally names the Logos. Only in Jesus is God truly revealed, in the incarnate Word, in which there is a real declaration of God through the gift of grace and truth. Statements of Torah, as light, water of life, and bread of life, are now used of Jesus. John contrasts a word of revelation in Torah with that received in Jesus.[26] The revelation of the Word in Israel and in Jesus tells us the truth about the world. God is with us since the world came into being through the Word. The age of Moses is surpassed in Jesus, for Jesus acts as God and shows himself to be the Son.[27] The incarnate Logos is Jesus Christ, who is set over against Moses as giver of the Torah, while Christ gives grace and truth, which have been enacted in Christ.[28] The creative Word becomes actual in the affirmation found in Emmanuel, God with us. Thus, although no human being can see the Infinite and Eternal, the Son is close to the heart of the Father and thus makes God known. The love relationship between Father and Son is one into which those who believe have an invitation to live in as well. The followers of Jesus participate in the fullness of the Son. Jesus Christ is the Word become flesh, but also superior, exalted, genuine, and glorious human being. Divinity hides in Jesus of Nazareth; while at the same time is blinding light in Jesus of Nazareth.^[29] To know the incomprehensible God, one must hold fast to the Son. The divine is incomprehensible to us in our finitude. Yet, the Son discloses or reveals the divine in such a way that the hidden God becomes manifest. Of course, even this revelation waits for a future unveiling in which all will become clear.^[30] The Logos implies a personal quality to God in that God speaks. The Word is the revelation of God in proclamation and Scripture. The Word is identical with God. The revelation of God is Jesus Christ. The Word is the revelation and the revealer. In Trinitarian language, the Word is the Son.^[31]  The Word contains the essence of the speaker. To hear this Word as true requires faith on our part.^[32] The eternal divine Logos was this man, Jesus, and this man, Jesus, was in the beginning with God. This man, Jesus Christ, opens the door of communion with the divine life.^[33]

A devout Jew will have reverence for the Torah. A devout Muslim will have reverence for the Quran. A devout Christian has reverence for the embodied Word. This Word is precious beyond measure. I understand that it offends others.

 

"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 Christians 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.

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 still be religious, but 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. 

For those Christians who think the church needs to demote this revelation to something less absolute regarding our knowledge of God, everything I have written here would offend. I understand the desire to be humble and embracing those who believe differently about God and the world. Those qualities are important for all believers, but that does not mean surrendering that which is the heart of Christianity. Christianity did not figure all this out by reasoning itself to it but accepted it as revelation. 

Imagine a king who fell in love with a peasant girl.  How could he tell her of his love?  Of course, he could come in all his royal power and might, overwhelm her with his glory, sweep her off her feet, bring her to the palace, and live happily ever after.  Then, would he ever know if she really loved him, or just the things with which he provided her.  No, instead, the king decides to become a peasant himself, to dress and in every way become a peasant, and seek to win her love.  Then he would know it was a genuine love for him, rather than only what he could do for her.^[34]

I have sought to explore the theology of the texts faithfully. I do so aware that the secularity and scientific nature of contemporary culture presents a unique challenge to this teaching. The bold claim of Christian teaching and preaching is helping people see the reality of the meaning and purpose God has for their lives. Christ is the center of that reality. It is difficult to imagine that the one who is the source of such immense universe that has evolved for around 14 billion years, provided the conditions for humanity to emerge from that process just a couple hundred thousand years ago, and cared enough for the universe and for humanity to send the Son to this earth. It is so difficult that some in our modern culture have decided it is impossible. The secularity of our age suggests that darkness or nothingness is the “ultimate truth” of human existence, whether our personal death, the death of the earth, or the death of the universe. It also suggests that it will take courage to lead a meaningful human life considering our nothingness. We arise every day to fulfill our various tasks, knowing the nothingness of our end. Any meaning we discover along the way is through the connections we develop with others. All this may well be true. That is why the hope presented in texts like this will require the response of faith in the promises of God. What are human beings, of what significance are they within the immensity of the universe as science describes it? Yet, the Incarnation delivers the amazing and miraculous news that each of us matters to the God who is the source of it all. The Incarnation concerns the uniqueness and universality of what the Father has done in sending the Son, in the power of the life-giving and life-sustaining Spirit, to live as one who served as a teacher, healer, and liberator, and as one who showed the full extent of divine love by the supreme sacrifice of himself for the sins of his followers in abandoning him and for the sins of enemies in judging him worthy of death, thereby dying for the sins of humanity in every age and culture. The story is one that invites us to see human life in a specific way. We are in darkness spiritually unless we reach out for healing, guidance, and liberation we need that will come not from us but from God. I would encourage you to try it.

---

[1] (Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, 1953, 1970), 294-6.

[2] Kittle, TDNT, IV, 129-36.

[3] (Dunn, Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation, 1980, 1989), 239-45; (Dunn, The Christ and the Spirit:, 1998), 24., 45; (Fuller, The Foundations of New Testament Christology, 1965), 72-6, 222-27; Kittle, TDNT, IV, 135, but where he places emphasis upon Torah speculations of the rabbis. Personally, it think speculations of Philo, as well as those concerning Wisdom and Torah, provide the background. Even Genesis 1, with its emphasis upon God speaking light into existence, is suggestive.

[4] (Fuller, The Foundations of New Testament Christology, 1965), 227.

[5] (Fuller, The Foundations of New Testament Christology, 1965), 249.

[6] Kittle, TDNT, IV, 128, where the word in Acts and Paul is the message about Jesus.

[7] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67)III.1 [40], 14)

[8] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67), 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.

[9] (Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, 1953, 1970), 51.

[10] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67), IV.3 [69.1] 9

[11] (Dunn, Christology in the Making: A New Testament Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation, 1980, 1989), 239.

[12] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67), II.2 [36.1] 539).

[13] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67), II, 347.

[14] Schweizer, TDNT, VII, 139.

[15] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991), II, 295.

[16] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991), II, 385-6.

[17] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67)I.2 [15.2], 151.

[18] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67)III.1 [41.1] 51-52.

[19] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67)IV.3 [71.3] 521.

[20] Michaelis, TDNT, VII, 386, where he moves away from the natural meaning that this earthly stay was no more than an episode between pre-existence and post-existence as exalted Lord.

[21] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67)I.2 [15.1-2], 122-171.

[22] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67)III.2 [46.1], 335.

[23] (Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, 1998, 1991), II, 237.

[24] (Dunn, The Christ and the Spirit:, 1998), 49.

[25] Delling, TDNT, VI, 285.

[26] Gutbrod, TDNT, IV, 1083.

[27] Rengstorf, TDNT, VII, 257.

[28] Grundmann, TDNT, IX, 566.

[29] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67)IV.2 [64.4] 353.

[30] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67)IV.2 [64.4] 353.

[31] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67)I.1 [5.2], p. 137.

[32] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67)I.1 [11.2], 436.

[33] (Barth, Church Dogmatics, 2004, 1932-67), III.2 [44.1], 66.

[34] (Soren Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments, 32-35).