John 1, The Epilogue

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Short Summary
The discourse focuses on the epilogue of the Book of John, particularly the first 18 verses, which set the stage for understanding Jesus’s identity and the need for his followers from a first-century Jewish perspective. The speaker emphasizes the significance of the term “Word” in connection with Jewish scripture, noting that it represents God’s creative power and law, while also contending that the phrase “the Word was God” should be interpreted as “the Word was godlike” to distinguish between Jesus and God. The discussion aims to provide insight into how first-century readers would perceive John’s message about Jesus as the perfect representative of God’s promises.

Long Summary
### Summary of John 1: The Epilogue

Introduction to the Epilogue:
– The first 18 verses of the Book of John act as an epilogue, introducing the themes and context of the text.
– These verses set the stage for understanding Jesus’ identity and the significance of his role for followers.

Historical Context:
– The discourse is approached from a first-century Jewish perspective, pre-Nicene, where the concept of the Trinity was not yet formed.
– Readers were primarily familiar with the Old Testament, and there was limited influence from Gentile philosophies.

Key Verses:
– Focus on selected verses: John 1:1, 1:4, 1:14, 1:18.
John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
John 1:4: “In it was life, and the life was the light of all mankind.”
John 1:14: “The Word became flesh and made its dwelling among us.”
John 1:18: “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has revealed Him.”

Understanding “The Word”:
– The term “Word” (Logos) is crucial and connects to Genesis 1, where God creates through His words.
– The speaker emphasizes that life and creation stem from God’s spoken word, linking it to the giving of the Law at Sinai.

Connections to the Old Testament:
– The giving of the Ten Commandments is referenced, where they are often called the “ten words” in Jewish tradition.
– The speaker notes that both the creation account and the Law highlight humanity’s failure to uphold God’s commands, leading to corruption.

The Nature of the Word:
– John’s descriptions may not strictly indicate a pre-human existence of Jesus but rather reflect God’s character and attributes.
– The Word is perceived as an expression of God, not necessarily equating Jesus with God in a Trinitarian sense.

The Distinction Between God and the Word:
– The phrase “the Word was God” has been debated; the speaker suggests it could be interpreted as “the Word was godlike” rather than equating the Word directly with God.
– The absence of a definite article in the original Greek supports this interpretation, emphasizing the qualitative nature of the Word.

Jesus as the Manifestation of God:
– Jesus is portrayed as the perfect representative of God, fulfilling Old Testament promises and prophecies.
– Reference to John 14:8-9 highlights that seeing Jesus is akin to seeing the Father, indicating his role as God’s embodiment.

John’s Intent:
– John writes from a perspective that presumes a Jewish audience’s understanding.
– The epilogue sets the stage for comprehending Jesus’ mission and identity, as the embodiment of God’s promises.

Conclusion:
– The discussion encourages readers to consider the text from a first-century Jewish viewpoint, understanding the intricate relationship between God, the Law, and the Word.
– Jesus is presented as the culmination of God’s revelation and the one who actualizes the divine promises, urging followers to recognize his role as the expression of God’s will on Earth.

This detailed summary encapsulates the essential themes and interpretations of John 1 from the provided discourse, emphasizing the theological implications of the text while grounding it in its historical and cultural context.

Transcript

John one, the epilogue. Epilogue for John is the first or 18 verses. Another name for epilogue is the introduction or intro. The book of John. We have 18 verses that kind of set the scene for what John is showing us who Jesus is and why, why we need to be followers of him.

And I’m going to do it from a first century Jewish perspective. This is pre Nicene. There’s people didn’t believe in the Trinity at that point in time. This is the time when the context of what the people there were reading was the Old Testament. They weren’t thinking, they weren’t at this point, they still didn’t have the mixtures in of Gentile thoughts and so forth, at least not to the same degree.

And I want to do this discussion because I think it helps us to understand a little bit more of what John is saying and how he is not trying to say the Word is the same thing as God. So let’s just quickly read over. We’re not going to read all of it, we’re just going to read part of it. John 1, 1, 4 and then verses 14, 8 and 18. Those are the verses that really tie in here.

In the beginning was the Word. Word was with God, and the Word was God. It was with God in the beginning. Through it all things were made.

Without it, nothing was made that has been made. In it was life, and the life was the light of all mankind. The Word became flesh and made its dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

No one has seen God at any time. Only the begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has revealed Him. Just before I go any further, you probably noticed that it looks a little bit different than your translations. I put the word it as the. For the pronoun, for the Word, for the.

Wherever the word for word is, it’s pronoun instead of he, and the reason I did that is I think it’ll help us as we go through this discussion, and it’s kind of like the same thing we do in John 17 when we talk about the Holy Spirit. The Word in Greek can mean he, she, it, they, them, these. It’s all based on the context.

So we can easily change the pronoun slightly to give a different, slightly different meaning. So all depending on how we want to interpret it, and again, we’re just going to look at this to stimulate our minds to think of how they would have read it in the first century.

Okay, so in the beginning was the word. John here is playing on the very first verses of the Bible. In the beginning, Genesis 1:1. That’s. That’s what John is trying to get us to focus in our mind.

He’s pushing us back to the very first words of the Bible. He’s connecting this word with Genesis 1, and what do we learn about in Genesis 1? We learn about the creation story. How does God create by his words?

He speaks everything into action.

And, you know, this is the connection that we are to be making in our mind also that life only comes through the words of God, man. The world was created. Life was created only through the words that God spoke, and all things came into existence through those words. Secondly, it would draw their minds to Mount Sinai and the giving of the law.

Turn with Me to Exodus 34:28, where it says, so he, Moses was there with Yahweh 40 days and 40 nights. He did not eat bread or drink water, and he wrote on the tablets the words of the Commandments, the Ten Commandments.

But the Israelites don’t call them the Ten Commandments. They call them the ten words, and just a side note, a real quick connection. How many times did God speak in Genesis 1 in the creation story? Does anybody remember?

10 times. Just as there’s 10 commandments or 10 words, and if you look at the Septuagint, which many of the. Was the Greek translation of the Old Testament in the first century, and many of the quotes in the new in the New Testament come from the Septuagint. It’s actually called the 10 loguses.

So it’s a really powerful connection there. So the purpose of the Law represented by the 10 logos or words, was to give life to anyone who could keep it.

Unfortunately, we can say both of these speakings by God failed, in a sense, to for mankind to come to that promised life in the Garden of Eden. Mankind sinned, and the first time God spoke, the words became corrupted. Mankind became corrupted, the world became corrupting, leading to the flood. The second time, at the giving of the law, the 10 words again, they could not keep it, and life was out of their attainment.

If we turn to John 1:1 first, John 1:1 two, it says, that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at, and our hands have touched, this we proclaim concerning the word of life. The life appeared. We have seen it and testify to it. We proclaim to you eternal life which was from the Father and has appeared to Us, but it’s the Word of life that has come and appeared to them and is this word of life that brings is what God is sending for mankind to have to give them that opportunity to have life.

So the Israelites would have seen the Word as the God given spoken words at that point, the Jewish people at that time, and well, some will say, well, it says the Word was with God, which would mean it would have to be two entities. Right? But that could also be a figure of speech, and we could interpret.

If you look at the Old Testament, we’ll pull out a few scriptures to show that, and turn with me to Job, the 25th chapter. It says dominion and fear are with God. He makes peace in the high heavens. Job 12:13.

With God are wisdom and might. He has counsel and understanding. You know, do we by this extension say, because it says the Word was with God, we would necessarily say that dominion and fear are also beings with God. I don’t think we could make that some assumption not to say that again. We’re, this is a thought experiment trying to get a further understanding of what John is saying.

So in these verses we see dominion, fear, wisdom and might are all with God. What Job is saying here is that these characteristics that John that, that God have or these attributes are with him. They God is so great that we can’t just identify God as who he is. We almost in a sense have to add these things on to explain Him.

And it was a writing style that was used by these writers to show God’s characteristics, and actually as we read in 1 John 1:2 a little bit earlier, it talked about eternal life, being with God and appearing to us, and again we, we have ways of interpreting. But if you literally interpret in the way that it has been going along here, you, it shows that it could be that this is the power of God that is part of him and it expresses Himself in different ways.

So in John 1:1 we could just as easily say this is talking about God’s character, His power. The words that he has spoken are with him. They’re with him from the beginning. They’re with him at that time.

And you know, it could. I hate to say this, but it may not be speaking of Jesus’s pre human existence as quote unquote, the Logos. We’ll, we’ll continue to look at that a little bit further here. But as we go along now we come to four words that have probably caused more problems in the church history than any other four words that have ever. Any four other four words in The Bible.

But again, as we mentioned earlier, we’re looking at this from a pre Nicene viewpoint. We look at these four words from a post Nicene. The first thing we. Any commentarian that you read out there, that’s for the most part is going to say this proves that Jesus and God are the same thing. I would say it doesn’t.

But a first century Jewish person would not in any way believe that even if he interpreted the Word as Jesus, that Jesus and God are the same.

But if you think about this, what was the word of God from their perspective it was actually God’s words and that was part of God. But we’re just going to get into the this phrase a little bit of the structure of this sentence a little bit, and as we all know, it has the Word was God and there’s no hole in front of God which then means that Theos in that point is not the God, it’s just God, and there is a. I’m going to quote from a scholar from the Thompson commentary showing that it really is better structured.

The Word was godly or godlike and just. I’m going to read it here. It’s kind of technical, but I’ll just read it anyway. The statement and the Word was God and I’ll try pronounce it in. In Greek, Kaya, Theos and ho.

Logos poses one of the more challenging problems translating in John. The absence of a definite article before Theos, God has given rise to translations. The Word was a God or the Word divine. But neither of these affirmations capture John’s point. John predicates the word what the Old Testament predicates of Yahweh, Lord or Yahweh is God Yahweh Elohim.

To call the word God is not to collapse the distinction between the Word and God as subsequent distinction between the Father and Son makes clear. It is rather to use the highest degree of qualitative predictive predication regarding the subject, the Word. It’s a real mouthful there. But basically what he’s saying is that to say the Word and God are the same thing is completely wrong what it’s saying because there is no hope in front of Theos. It means that Theos becomes an adjective describing the Logos.

And so as I said there, the best way to describe it would be the Word was Godlike or the Word was godly, which gives a completely different interpretation or understanding than than what most translators will tend to translate it as.

Okay, and, and a quick here. John 14, 8, 9. You know Jesus says, or Philip says to Jesus, show us the Father, and Jesus basically says back, if you have seen me, you have seen the Father.

Jesus becomes the perfect representative of the Father. He becomes the word manifest, and in as we look through this, we realize in John 1, 14 and 18, John kind of ties this all back together. He says, this word of God, the word of life that is God spoken, is now being manifest. Who is it being manifest in?

It’s being manifest in his own beloved begotten beloved Son, who has been in his bosom from the beginning of time, and this is what John wants us to understand. That only as we understand this that we realize who Jesus is. He is God’s Son, but he is the expression of everything God wants to happen in this world. Paul agrees with John as we read in Philippians 2, 6, 8, who through who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of man and being found in human form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even the death on the cross.

John is giving us a glimpse into how we should read the Gospel of John in these verses. Jesus is God’s perfect representative. He is the one who is going to accomplish everything that God has promised in the promises of the Old Testament and in the writings of the Old Testament. The promises, the prophecies, the blessings are now all going to be fulfilled in Jesus because He is the word manifest, and now maybe I’ll just skip this part.

I was going to go into a little bit more history, but it’s not there. So I think what this has is it helps us to, by looking at this Jewish viewpoint of how they would interpret this, it helps us to give context John’s writing. It helps us to understand a perspective on these words that don’t necessarily have to cause us problem when we’re talking to a trinitarian who will say, oh yes, yes, this means that they’re the same. It gives us a better understanding of how John was writing and what his mindset, and I think we were talking a little bit earlier there and Sister Janet mentioned that scholars are really, really coming to the viewpoint that John was written for a Jewish audience.

And when he’s writing this, he’s expecting them, as they’re reading this, to know exactly what he’s talking about, and he’s going to be writing from a perspective that they understand and this is the perspective they would be from. So Let us remember as we’re reading through John. Think about this. Jesus is God’s perfect representative, the one that will carry out the words of promise that he has given.

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