|
The Thesis - (John 1:1; John 1:14; John 1:18)
 aving considered the writer's account of his book as found in his foot-note in verses thirty and thirty-one of chapter twenty (John 20:30-31), we turn to the systematic writing, which begins at Joh_1:1, and runs to John 20:29. In it there are two movements, first a summary, or summation, or summing up, in the first eighteen verses of chapter one (John 1:1-18). We usually call it the prologue. I am not quarrelling with that word, provided that we do not think prologue means preface. It is far more than a preface. In these eighteen verses we have an explanation of everything that follows from the nineteenth verse of chapter one, to the twenty-ninth verse of chapter twenty. All that follows is intended to prove the accuracy of the things declared in the first eighteen verses. Possibly John wrote those eighteen verses last. Having made his selection of signs, and written them, he made a summary, writing it last. On the other hand, of course, he may have written his summary first, and then the things that proved it. Whether the summation was written first or last, it is a summation; everything is found in those first eighteen verses. The whole truth, as John saw it, concerning "Jesus Christ the Son of God," is found in these first eighteen verses (John 1:1-18).
 o, I say, we have two movements in the system; a summary, summation, or summing up of everything. That constitutes the thesis of John. He states his thesis in what we now call the prologue. Then, having stated his thesis, from verse nineteen of chapter one, to the twenty-ninth verse of chapter twenty, he gives the selection of signs, which prove the accuracy of the things stated in the summary.
 n this statement of thesis there are two parts; first the essential declarations which are found in verses one, fourteen, and eighteen (John 1:1, John 1:14, John 1:18); then certain statements which are parenthetical. In verse fourteen (John 1:14), the King James and English and American translators have put certain words in brackets. They have done so because the words so enclosed do constitute a statement interpolated upon the main movement. But that applies equally to all that is found in verses two to thirteen, and again in verses fifteen to seventeen. Thus there are three parentheses.
 his is the structure of the prologue. A statement is made, verse one. That statement is illustrated by a parenthesis, verses two to thirteen. A second statement is made, verse fourteen, and in the middle of it there is a second parenthesis of illumination. This is followed by a third parenthesis of illustration, verses fifteen to seventeen (John 1:15-17). Finally a third statement is made, verse eighteen (John 1:18).
 e are now dealing with the essential declarations of verses one, fourteen, and eighteen. In verse one we have three statements. In verse fourteen we have three statements. In verse eighteen we have two statements. Let us set out the statements in verse one:
"In the beginning was the Word;"
"And the Word was with God:"
"And the Word was God."
here are also three statements in verse fourteen. They are not so clearly marked. The first statement in verse fourteen is clearly made. The second is made, but the subject of the sentence is not named; it is understood. The third statement is a phrase only, but with subject and predicate understood. Supplying the subject in the second case; and subject and predicate in the third, let us set out these statements:
"The Word became flesh;"
"And (the Word) dwelt among us;"
"(And the Word was) full of grace and truth."
n the eighteenth verse there are two statements. Let us set these in order:
"No man hath seen God at any time;"
"The only begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him."
 ow let us observe that the three statements in verse one, and the three statements in verse fourteen are closely related. This will be seen if we read them alternately. That is to say, instead of reading verses one and fourteen straight through in each case, we will read the first statement in one, and then the first statement in fourteen, and so on through.
"In the beginning was the Word."
"And the Word became flesh."
"And the Word was with God;"
"And the Word dwelt among us."
"And the Word was God:"
"Full of grace and truth."
hen in verse eighteen we have two declarations. Of these, the first belongs to verse one; and the second belongs to verse fourteen. Once more let us set them out:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
"No man hath seen God at any time."
"And the Word became flesh, and pitched His tent among us . . . full of grace and truth."
"The only begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him."
ow let us take the statements of verse one.
"In the beginning was the Word,"
"And the Word was with God,"
"And the Word was God."
o much has been written about that verse that it seems almost unnecessary to stay to say very much about it. There are, however, some general facts which should be recognized.
f we had those three statements only, apart from their connection with all that follows, there are two things of which we should be conscious; first that of the truth of the ideas; and secondly that they are inexplicable. That is a paradoxical statement, but none the less true.
 lance at the three statements in themselves. First we have a noun that arrests us, "The Word." This is coupled with a verb which does not arrest us in our English translations, but it does arrest us at once in the Greek, not in the essence of the verb, but in the tense employed.
e begin with the noun, "the Word." What is meant by that? In the realm of Greek philosophy the term ô logos, was very familiar. While that is true, I do not personally believe it explains John's use of the term. I do not believe that John was influenced by Greek philosophy when he employed it. He was influenced rather by Hebrew philosophy, which is a very important distinction. I recommend to every student, Dr. Burney's book, The Aramaic Origin of the Fourth Gospel. I do not agree with Dr. Burney in some points, but he has established, without dispute, that the Gospel of John in its thinking is Aramaic, not Greek; and his findings are that the book must have been the work of a Palestinian Jew; and that he could not have written it later than a.d. 75. Thus he maintains that the thinking of the writer is Hebrew. When John used the Greek term ô logos, unquestionably he would do so in the Hebrew sense as found in the Hebrew word Memra. The term "would have the Greek significance, qualified by Hebrew philosophy.
hat then did the Greek mean by it? It referred to the whole realm of thought, the abstract conception lying at the back of everything concrete. Perhaps the idea may be expressed in the word Wisdom. The Greek philosopher recognized wisdom as antedating all works, noumena as preceding phenomena.
he Hebrew philosopher said, Things postulate thought. Wherever there is a thing, it proves a thought. The thing is the outcome of the thought. The Hebrew philosopher went further, and said, If things postulate thought, thought postulates a thinker. The Greek philosopher did not go so far as that. The Greek philosopher said, Behind all things there must be thought, but the thought is abstract. The Hebrew philosopher said; You cannot have an abstract thought unless you have a thinker. Therefore the Hebrew philosopher said, "The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom." The Hebrew philosopher said there is no unsolved problem of the universe finally. It is solved in the mind of the Thinker. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The Thinker, God; the thought therefore; and then the thing as the result of His thought and His action. So much for the noun.
ow look at the verb. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Now that, as I have said, is not arresting to us, because our language is not inflected as is the Greek language. The tense in Greek in every case is the imperfect tense, and the imperfect tense suggests not something past, or something present, or something future; but something continuous. The word "was" there suggests a continuous state. "In the beginning was the Word," a continuous fact; "and the Word was with God" continuously; "and the Word was God" constantly. The imperfect tense thus described an age existence which cannot be measured by what we call time. Time is merely the marking off of eternity, to help finite beings until they reach the glory of eternity. The verb as here employed, takes us into the realm of the timeless. "In the beginning was the Word," Wisdom postulated as existing. "And the Word was with God"; Wisdom vested in a Personality, if I may use the word; only as we use it, do not let us think of ourselves, but think of Infinite Personality. Personality as I think of it in the realm of the human, is limited. Again, "the Word was God"; or to translate in the Greek idiom, "God was the Word." That is to say that the nature of the wisdom, was the nature of the Personality, in Whom all wisdom was found.
 et it at once be admitted that while in some senses these statements are self-evident truths, they nevertheless are finally inexplicable. The one quantity is inexplicable; and therefore all the statements are also inexplicable. The one Quantity is God. We cannot explain God; consequently His thought is a mystery; it is beyond us; and the fact of it being with Him is necessary, but inexplicable.
lance on for a moment to verse eighteen (John 1:18). "No man hath seen God at any time." That is as far as philosophy can go, whether Greek or Hebrew. A recognition of Wisdom, and of personality; of the thought and the Thinker, and no more. "No man hath seen God at any time." That is as far as verse one takes us. But how far is that? The fact of existence, "In the beginning was the Word"; the law of existence, "the Word was with God"; the nature of existence, "God was the Word." All is still in the realm of the abstract. Yet here the Hebrew philosopher transcends Greek philosophy, which never rose to the height of affirming the personality of God.
o we pass to verse fourteen (John 1:14). Again notice the noun and the verb. The same noun is here: "the Word." But the verb is different, not "was," but "became." The word refers, not to the beginning of something new, but to that which already had existence, as it became new in manifestation. "The Word became," that is one verb. There is another. "Dwelt," literally, pitched a tent.
hatever is meant in the first verse by the noun "The Word," is meant in the fourteenth. But here are new verbs, no longer marking the continuity that defies all thinking in terms of past, present, and future; but declaring that something happened, something new, something fresh. "The Word became," and that same Word "dwelt."
ow take the statements, "The Word became flesh." The word "flesh" is used to cover the whole fact of human nature. Having become flesh, the Word pitched His tent among us, dwelt among us. And then merely a phrase, revealing the things that were seen when that thing happened, that new thing happened, "full of grace and truth."
 nce again, mark the relationship between verses one and fourteen. "In the beginning was the Word," existence; "the Word became flesh," a new form of existence; a new form, not a new existence, but a new form of the same existence. Writing to the Philippians Paul said: "Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus; Who, existing in the form of God, counted not the being on an equality with God a prize to be snatched, and held for His own enrichment, but emptied Himself," of what? Of His Deity? No, but of one form of manifestation. "Emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant";-a new form,-"made in the likeness of men." "The Word became flesh," a new beginning. "In the beginning was the Word"-timeless existence. "The Word became flesh," a new form of existence.
 gain, "The Word was with God." In this new form of existence, He "pitched His tent among us." Who? The same One. So the things we could not see, we began to see; and the things we could not know, we began to know; the things we had never heard with clearness of enunciation, were now finding utterance.
 inally John summarized all he saw through that new manifestation, "full of grace and truth."
hat is Christianity in a flash; and nothing else than that is Christianity. If men try to build up Christianity on an examination of the Man Jesus, they fail. Christianity takes hold of Hebrew philosophy, accepts its accuracy, but declares a new fact in the economy of God, that carries us much further than Hebrew philosophy ever did. "The Word became flesh, pitched His tent among us . . . full of grace and truth." "The only begotten Son, Who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." That is what Christianity is in its sum totality; it is the revelation of that which was undiscoverable, in order to apprehension and obedience.
o we come to the last statements. "No man hath seen God at any time," or more literally, "No man hath ever yet seen God." But now, "the only begotten Son Who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." Many very ancient authorities read, instead of "the only begotten Son," "God only begotten." No man can be dogmatic as to which John wrote, because some old manuscripts read one way, and others the other. It does not matter, because "begotten" marks Sonship and relationship; and the idea is the same whichever form John may have written. The Son of God means One sharing the nature. He hath declared Him.
 ut how? "The Word became flesh," and that becoming flesh was the method of declaring God. Now observe something peculiar and arresting. John wrote," The only begotten Son Who is in the bosom of the Father." That phrase, "Who is in the bosom of the Father "marks limitation. It declares that what the Son has revealed of the Father has to do with that which is represented by that most beautiful and tender expression, "the bosom of the Father." The revelation He came to make, is the revelation of the heart of God. He did not come to reveal the wisdom and the might and the majesty of God. These things are revealed in Nature, although we have never understood them in their fullness. These things are not possible of apprehension yet. We have eternity to investigate them. But Jesus came to speak from the heart of God. He hath revealed Him from the bosom of the Father. In that sense it is a limiting expression. It is illimitable, because who can measure or fathom the heart of God; but it is from the bosom of the Father He hath spoken.
ere John employs a revealing verb, "He hath declared Him." "Declared" is a beautiful word. In some senses we cannot improve upon it for the common understanding of ordinary men and women; but if I take the Greek verb, and instead of translating, transliterate it, it reads, "The only begotten Son Who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath exegeted Him." What is exegesis? The word means bringing out from into visibility; to bring forth authoritatively into visibility. Exegesis is the authoritative bringing forth into visibility of that which was there all the time, but which was not seen until so brought forth.
 esus is the Exegesis of God. He is the One through Whom there is brought forth authoritatively into visibility the things men had not seen. "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son Who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath exegeted Him."
hat is John's summary. John, who, according to the records, in the days of the flesh of our blessed Lord, laid his head on His bosom. When he did so, he was conscious not merely of the beating of a human heart, but distinguished the reverberations of the eternal compassion.
|
