The Word Enters the World He Made

“In the beginning” is en arche, the opening words of Genesis in the Greek Old Testament. Logos, “Word”, meant the reason ordering the world to Greek philosophers, while Aramaic paraphrases of Scripture spoke of the Memra, the Word of the LORD, acting for God. In “the Word was God” the Greek article marks the Word as subject, so the sentence cannot be turned round.

“Was” is the imperfect en, continuing existence, used four times in two verses. The next verse switches to egeneto, “came into being”, for everything made, and verse 6 uses egeneto again for John. The whole prologue keeps the two verbs apart: the Word was; everything else came to be.

Ancient writers and many modern editions put the full stop earlier, after “not any thing made”, and begin the next sentence “That which was made in him was life.” The King James follows the other division, which makes the verse a double statement: all things through him, nothing without him.

“Life” is zoe, a word the Book of John uses more than any other book of the New Testament. Light was the first thing spoken into being in Genesis 1:3, and Psalm 36:9 joins the two: “with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.”

“Shineth” is present tense, set among past verbs: the light is still shining. The verb behind “comprehended” is katalambano, which reappears at 12:35, “lest darkness come upon you”, where it plainly means overtake. That later use gives weight to the reading “the darkness has not overcome it.”

“There was” is egeneto again, “there came to be”, the verb of created things, not the “was” of the Word. The Book of John never calls him “the Baptist”; in this Gospel he is simply John, and the only other John is the father of Simon (verse 42 in the best manuscripts).

Witness is this Book’s great word: the verb and noun together occur about forty-seven times in John, against a handful in Matthew. “That all men through him might believe” states for John the same purpose the Book gives for itself at the end: “that ye might believe” (20:31).

The denial is emphatic, and it may have been needed. Acts 19:1–7 finds disciples at Ephesus who knew only John’s baptism, and a later Christian text reports followers of John who claimed he was the Christ (Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions 1.60). That is one explanation of why the Book of John insists so often.

“True” is alethinos, real or genuine as against a copy or shadow, the adjective of the true bread (6:32), the true vine (15:1) and the true worshippers (4:23). “That cometh into the world” may describe every man, as the King James takes it, or the light itself, which “was coming into the world”.

“World”, kosmos, occurs about seventy-eight times in John, more than in Matthew, Mark and Luke combined. Here it carries three senses in one verse: the place he was in, the creation made through him, and the people who did not know him.

The Greek changes gender between the two halves. He came to ta idia, neuter, “his own things” or his own home; and hoi idioi, masculine, “his own people”, did not receive him. The neuter phrase returns at 19:27, when the disciple takes Jesus’ mother “unto his own home”.

“Power” is exousia, right or authority, not strength. “Sons” is tekna, children: the Book of John keeps huios, son, for Jesus alone. It never uses the noun “faith” at all, but uses the verb “believe” about ninety-eight times, often as here with eis, believing into.

“Blood” is plural in Greek, “bloods”, reflecting the ancient idea that a child was formed from the mingled blood of the parents; the Wisdom of Solomon (7:2) speaks of being “compacted in blood”. A few early Latin writers read “who was born” in the singular and took the verse as a reference to Jesus’ own birth.

“Only begotten” is monogenes, one of a kind, unique: Hebrews 11:17 uses it of Isaac, though Abraham had another son, and Luke of a widow’s only son (Luke 7:12). “Full of grace and truth” echoes God’s self-description to Moses in Exodus 34:6, “abundant in goodness and truth”, hesed and emet in Hebrew.

“Cried” is kekragen, a perfect tense, “has cried out”, as if the shout were still ringing. John’s voice breaks into the prologue here as his name did in verse 6. The Book of Luke makes John about six months older than Jesus (Luke 1:36), which sharpens “he was before me”.

“Fulness” is pleroma, the word Paul uses of all the fulness of God dwelling in Christ (Colossians 1:19; 2:9). “Grace for grace” is charin anti charitos; anti means “in place of”, so it may be one grace replacing another, which the next verse explains, or grace heaped on grace like waves.

After sixteen verses of “the Word”, “the Light” and “he”, the Book names him for the first time: Jesus Christ. The full double name occurs in the Gospel only here and at 17:3, in Jesus’ own prayer.

Exodus 33:20 had said “there shall no man see me, and live.” The oldest manuscripts read “the only begotten God”, not “Son”. “Declared” is exegeomai, to lead out, explain, narrate, the root of “exegesis”. “In the bosom” is the position of the disciple “leaning on Jesus’ bosom” at the supper (13:23).

“The Jews” occurs about seventy times in the Book of John, often of the Jerusalem authorities rather than the people as a whole; here the delegation is sent “from Jerusalem”, and John, Jesus and every disciple in the scene are Jews. Priests and Levites were the right officials to investigate a new rite of washing.

“Confessed, and denied not; but confessed” says one thing three ways, as Hebrew poetry does. His first words in the Book are ego ouk eimi, “I am not”, with an emphatic “I”, in a Gospel where Jesus will say ego eimi, “I am”, again and again.

Malachi 4:5 promised Elijah before the day of the LORD; “that prophet” is the prophet like Moses of Deuteronomy 18:15–18. The Qumran Community Rule awaits “the prophet and the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel” (1QS 9:11), the same three figures this delegation asks about. Each of John’s answers is shorter than the last.

The delegates are envoys who must report back. “What sayest thou of thyself?” raises a question the Book of John will press hard, the worth of self-testimony: “If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true” (5:31), and the Pharisees’ objection at 8:13.

In Mark and Matthew the Gospel writer applies Isaiah 40:3 to John; here John applies it to himself. Isaiah’s two verbs, “prepare” and “make straight”, are folded into one. The Qumran community cited the same verse as the reason it withdrew into the desert to prepare the way (1QS 8:13–14).

The Greek can mean that the men sent were Pharisees, or that some had been sent by the Pharisees, a second group. Either way, the Pharisees, with their close attention to purity and washing, had an interest in a man immersing Jews in the river.

Jewish ritual washings were done by oneself and repeated; John administered his, once. The question assumes a new baptism belongs to one of the expected figures, and prophets had promised cleansing water in the last days: “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you” (Ezekiel 36:25).

“Standeth” is a perfect of histemi: one has taken his stand among you. There was an expectation that the Messiah would live unknown until revealed; in Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho (8.4) the Jewish speaker says Christ, if he has come, is unknown until Elijah anoints him. The Book of John echoes it in 7:27.

The latchet is the sandal strap, and untying it was a slave’s work. A later rabbinic saying holds that a disciple should do for his teacher everything a slave does, except loosen his sandal (Ketubot 96a). John ranks himself below even a disciple.

Most early manuscripts read “Bethany beyond Jordan”, not the Bethany near Jerusalem of chapter 11. Origen could not find a Bethany on the river and preferred Bethabara, “house of the crossing”, the reading the King James follows. The site east of the Jordan is still disputed.

“The next day” begins a count of days (verses 29, 35, 43, then “the third day” in 2:1) that makes the opening of the Book a week. “Taketh away” is airo, to lift and carry off, in the present tense. “Sin” is singular, the world’s sin treated as one load.

“After me cometh” uses the language of following a teacher, opiso mou, “behind me”, the phrase of Mark 1:17, “Come ye after me”. Jesus could look like one of John’s followers; John says the one behind him ranks ahead of him. “A man” is aner, a grown man.

“Made manifest” is phaneroo, a favourite verb of this Book and of 1 John, used for Jesus showing himself: at Cana he “manifested forth his glory” (2:11). John gives his own baptizing a single purpose: to bring this man into view for Israel.

Nowhere does the Book of John narrate the baptism of Jesus; John reports only what he saw. The dove may recall the Spirit “moving upon the face of the waters” in Genesis 1:2, which a rabbinic saying compared to a dove hovering over its young (Hagigah 15a), or Noah’s dove over the flood waters.

Isaiah 11:2 promised that “the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him”, the resting that John was told to watch for. The promise of baptizing with the Holy Ghost is kept at the end of the Book, when Jesus breathes on the disciples and says “Receive ye the Holy Ghost” (20:22).

Some ancient witnesses, including the first hand of Codex Sinaiticus, read “the chosen of God” instead of “the Son of God”, echoing Isaiah 42:1, “mine elect… I have put my spirit upon him.” “I saw, and bare record” are perfects: I have seen, and I have testified, and the testimony stands.

“Stood” is a pluperfect, “had been standing”, as if John were waiting there. That he had disciples of his own the Book mentions again at 3:25 and 4:1. Two of them are about to become the first disciples of Jesus.

“Looking upon” is emblepo, to fix one’s eyes, the verb used of Jesus looking at Simon in verse 42. The title is repeated in a shorter form, without “which taketh away the sin of the world”, and this time it sends two men walking.

“Followed” is akoloutheo, which means both to walk behind someone and to become his disciple, and both are happening. There is no call from Jesus in this first scene of discipleship; they follow on the strength of John’s word.

Jesus’ first words in the Book of John are a question, and it comes back: “Whom seek ye?” to the arresting party (18:4) and “Whom seekest thou?” to Mary Magdalene at the tomb (20:15). “Dwellest” is meno, abide, the verb used of the Spirit remaining on him (verses 32–33).

Counting from sunrise, the tenth hour is about four in the afternoon, late enough that they stayed the night. Some have argued that John counts from midnight, making it ten in the morning, but that is a minority view. The precise hour is the kind of detail a man remembers from the day his life changed.

Andrew is a Greek name, meaning manly, as is Philip’s. Each time Andrew appears in this Book he is bringing someone to Jesus: his brother here, the boy with the loaves (6:8–9), and the Greeks who wanted to see Jesus (12:22).

“Messias” is a Greek spelling of the Aramaic meshiha, anointed; in the New Testament it appears only in John, here and at 4:25, both times translated for the reader. Some manuscripts read “in the morning” or “he was the first to find” for “he first findeth”.

The best manuscripts read “son of John”, not “Jona”. Cephas is Aramaic kepha, rock, the name Paul generally uses for him (1 Corinthians 1:12; Galatians 2:9). In Matthew the naming comes at Caesarea Philippi (16:18); in John it happens at the first meeting, as a promise, “thou shalt be called”.

Jesus himself calls someone for the first time in the Book of John. “Follow me” are also nearly his last words in it, spoken to Peter on the shore of the lake: “Follow thou me” (21:19–22).

Bethsaida, “house of fishing”, lay near where the Jordan enters the Sea of Galilee; Philip the tetrarch rebuilt it as Julias (Josephus, Antiquities 18.28). Mark places Simon and Andrew’s house in Capernaum (Mark 1:29), so they may have moved there, or the family belonged to both.

Nathanael, “God has given”, never appears in Matthew, Mark or Luke. He is often identified with Bartholomew, who follows Philip in their lists of the Twelve, and 21:2 says he came from Cana. “The son of Joseph” was the ordinary way to name a man, set beside the prologue’s “only begotten of the Father”.

Nazareth is never mentioned in the Old Testament, in Josephus or in the early rabbinic writings; it was a village of perhaps a few hundred people. Nathanael came from Cana, a few miles to the north, which may add a neighbour’s scorn to the question.

Jacob, renamed Israel, was the Bible’s man of guile: Isaac said “Thy brother came with subtilty” (Genesis 27:35), and the Greek there is dolos, the word for guile here. Psalm 32:2 blesses the man “in whose spirit there is no guile.” Verse 51 will return to Jacob.

The fig tree offered shade, and later rabbinic tales picture teachers studying the law beneath one. Sitting under one’s own fig tree was also the prophets’ picture of peace (Micah 4:4; Zechariah 3:10). Nathanael’s question, “Whence knowest thou me?”, is his first admission.

Psalm 2 joins his two titles: “Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion… Thou art my Son” (Psalm 2:6–7). The crowd at the entry into Jerusalem will cry “the King of Israel” (12:13), and the title over the cross will say “King of the Jews”.

Greek has no question marks, so this may be a question or a statement: “because I said… thou believest.” “Greater things” anticipates Jesus’ words at 5:20, that the Father “will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.”

“Verily, verily” is amen doubled, a form found only in John, about twenty-five times and always from Jesus. “Ye” is plural. In Genesis 28:12 the Hebrew “on it” can also be read “on him”, and a rabbinic midrash took the angels to be ascending and descending on Jacob himself (Genesis Rabbah 68:12).