Read John 1:1-5, 14; 1 John 1:1-4; 5:20
We begin by asking the question, What was meant by speaking of the Lord as “the Word”? One thing which marks man as distinctive from the lower creation is his ability to speak. The animals can make their sounds—the lark can sing, and the sparrow can chirp, and the lion can roar, but it is reserved to man to utter intelligent speech. We could hardly know each other if we could not speak. We therefore, see God’s goodness in giving us speech. I have stood beside a very intelligent brother who was a German. I cannot speak German. He could not speak English. There we stood helpless. We could not understand each other. Why? Because we were not able to express intelligently our thoughts to each other.
The Greek word used is “Logos.” There is another word, “Rhema,” and this is confined to the actual word. Take the case of a parrot. It can pronounce words, but has no idea of what the words convey. There is no thought behind the words. “Logos” means the expression of thought in words. You cannot dissociate the thought from the word here since “Logos” is the word which is given to us in this chapter.
Suppose I become the tenant of a house. I have not been in that house very long before I am told that I have a very remarkable neighbour. He has never been seen: he does not go out into the street but he goes out occasionally into his garden. Then I am told that the wall of that garden is very high and on the top of the wall are bits of broken glass. Very bushy frees still further obscure the view, and nobody can possibly see over into my neighbours garden.
Now God cannot be seen. Scripture says that “God is light” and that God dwells in unapproachable light, and no man has seen Him or can see Him. That was true then and it is true now and for ever. God in His absolute character as Creator, as Father, Son and Spirit—ONE GOD dwelling in unapproachable light—cannot be seen, just as my neighbour has never been seen.
To return to the illustration. One day I hear the sound of footsteps on the gravel path in the adjoining garden, and to my surprise my neighbour speaks to me. I had no knowledge of him until he spoke. I note that he has a cultured voice and that he gives utterance to good thoughts. I am favourably impressed. I go into my garden again and again in the hope of hearing him speak, and again and again he speaks to me. Little by little I have a greater understanding of him. I cannot visualise his physical appearance, whether he is tall or short in stature, but I know his thoughts and his mind.
Now the eternal Thought is in God. He is the Fountain-Head of thought. How then is God going to make Himself known to us? In the wisdom of the Godhead the Son came forth. He is chosen as the Vehicle of divine revelation. Through Him alone can we have any knowledge of the blessed God. The Father and the Spirit sent Him (Isa. 48:1, 16). The Lord Jesus Christ came, and He is The Incarnate Word.
Our illustration fails in this respect. I learned about my neighbour only by his spoken word. Is it not amazing? God has spoken to us by a wonderful Person—The Living Word. Is not that amazing? It is enough to how our hearts in praise and worship! God has communicated His thoughts to us through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Now, we come to one or two details. It says “In the beginning was the Word.” The Gospel of Matthew begins with the birth of Christ, and the difficulties of Joseph in connection with Christ’s birth, and the coming of the Wise Men from the East. The Gospel of Luke begins with His birth, and His lying in the manger, and he sets the chronological order for certain events, which happened in the reign of Augustus. The Gospel of John begins in eternity. It is a beginning which never had a beginning. We go back to One who existed before the beginning of all that ever began. That is a very clear affirmation, is it not? “In the beginning was the Word.” These verses, I think, give as profound a revelation of Christ as any in the whole of the Scriptures. Then we are told “the Word was with God.”
Was He inferior to God? Was He a second God? Intuitively we say there cannot be two supreme wills! God is One. It says, “the Word was with God.” Then, who was He? We are told that the Lord Jesus Christ was more, if I may put it this way, than divine. Men talk of St. John the Divine; but the Lord Jesus Christ was fully and absolutely divine. He was and ever is God. We read, “the same was in the beginning with God”—eternal relationship of the Word in the unity of the Godhead. This relationship never had a beginning.
The thought of God from all eternity was to make Himself known. God is love, so He must have objects on which to bestow His love, and this love comes to such as you and me, and the saints of all time. We read, “All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made.” The Seventh Day Adventists teach that the Lord Jesus Christ was a wonderful creation of God, endued with such powers that He could create everything else, and that He was given this authority, but that He Himself was created by God. This verse brands this teaching as false. He is the absolute Creator. It is interesting to find that creation in 1 Corinthians 8:6 is attributed to the Father, in Job 26:13 that it is attributed to the Spirit, but here and in Colossians, and elsewhere it is attributed to the Son. Why should it be so particularly attributed to the Son? Because the Son, is the Word, who gives expression to God’s mind in creation.
I should like to show you how blessedly this is true. The Lord Jesus Christ was the Creator—the Word was the Creator. Perhaps I see a picture painted by an old Master. I look at it, and admire it, and say, It is wonderful! What exquisite colour! What imagination! What perspective! Marvellous to think of painting on canvas such a magnificent scene as the historical event depicted. But that does not tell me what the painter is like in himself. He may be a sober man, or he may be a drunkard. He may be a truthful man, or he may be a liar. I only know certain things about him.
So when we come to the Psalms we read of Creation. Creation shows us the wonderful fingers of God—“When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers” (Ps. 8:3)—“His eternal power and Godhead” (Rom. 1:20). But we travel down our chapter a little further, and we come to an amazing verse, “and the Word was made [became] flesh and dwelt among us” (v. 14). God’s thoughts are to be manifested in a Person who is God, the Creator of all things, the Sustainer of all things, who became Man, who became flesh. He was crucified in weakness; yet when He made purgation for sins He was upholding all things by the word of His power.
A certain star is said to be two thousand times more brilliant than our sun. There are millions of stars in the sky, yet the Lord upholds all these stars in space. This is beyond our thinking! He who can uphold all things in space is the Word made flesh.
“In Him was life.” That means life inherent. We have life given to us by God, but He has life in Himself, and it says this life was the light of men.
We come now to the Lord’s becoming flesh. He was born into this world, and God signalized who He was when the angels chanted His praises, though He were but a Babe to human eyes. The wise men of the east came and worshipped Him. And then there were those marvellous hidden years. Except in one instance (Luke 2:41-52), when He was about twelve years old, nothing is said of those thirty years. And then He comes out for three-and-a-half years. Speaking, after the manner of men, He died in the midst of His years. Many a young man of thirty-three and a half years has not got very far in life. But that wonderful period of three-and-a-half years was sufficient for the display of God, which has made such a wonderful mark on the world.
He did not gather around Him the intellectuals of His day. He gathered around Him those ignorant fishermen, and as they watched Him they saw Him touch things like nobody else. They were impressed. Little by little they came to a certain understanding of Him. When the Lord came into this world He revealed the Father. All through John, that magnificent Gospel, we read continually of the Lord speaking of His Father. The Father and the Son are so one that the Father is in Him and He is in the Father. He spoke of His Father to such an extent that, those disciples could say at last, “We beheld His glory, the glory as of an only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth.”
“That was the True Light, which lights every man that comes into the world.” This light means external illumination; that is to say, the Lord Jesus Christ showed up everybody. He was the Test of everything and everybody. Think of the treachery of Judas. Think of the Pharisee, and of the woman, who came into the Pharisee’s house. The light showed up the heart of the Pharisee, and it also showed up the heart of the woman. The Pharisee’s heart was cold and dead. The woman’s repentant and loving. Their relation to Him showed up where each one was.
Suppose the lights in a hall were to go out suddenly, and everybody tried to get to the door and all was confusion. Suddenly the lights goon. The light shows where everyone is, and what he is doing. The Lord Jesus Christ was the Great Light which tested everything.
We go on in the chapter, and we get the New Birth brought in. Only those who are born again can know anything of this outpouring of divine light and goodness which comes through Him, who was the eternal Word. He was the Word before He became flesh. Long before Christ was born, philosophers tried to understand the word “Logos,” but they did not get very far. They thought to find out the eternity of matter. But here the Spirit takes the word and stamps it with the clear meaning, which we have in John’s Gospel.
We read, “The Law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.” What did He stand for? Grace and Truth. It is interesting to note that grace is put before truth, and yet grace is not more important than truth, nor truth more important than grace. I understand that those two nouns are followed by a single verb to show us that we cannot separate the one from the other. We have got to come to the Lord’s death to understand the secret of it, because at the Cross we find grace and truth are met together: righteousness and peace have kissed each other. If a man is convicted in our law courts he cannot expect grace: he cannot expect mercy. These two things do not come together in earthly circumstances. The only place where they come together is at the Cross and surely the Lord displayed these things in His death in a way which could not be otherwise. It was grace—amazing grace indeed—when we think of the Almighty God, the Everlasting Father, becoming a babe and then dying on the Cross—surely it was wonderful grace! You go into a garden, and you cut a stem, and this stem breaks into two stems, each stem holds a flower. So it is here—“Grace and Truth” two flowers on one stem. “The law was given by Moses; but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”
Then we are told He is “the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father.” The bosom of the Father means that He ever abode in the affections of the Father. It is not a question of a place, but of a condition. It must be so. There is one will between them—one plan. He carried out the Father’s will. Yes! even on the Cross He was ever in the affections of the Father. He was there from all eternity and uninterruptedly for all eternity.
When we come to the 1st Epistle of John we come to a different beginning to that of the Gospel of John. The beginning here was connected with what those disciples heard on earth. The beginning was in their life time. The beginning here is the manifestation on earth of the Word becoming flesh. This is the real basis of true fellowship. It speaks of that which is from the beginning. It is very interesting to see how three of our senses are invoked. “Which we have heard”—“We have seen with our eyes”—“Our hands have handled of the Word of life.” It was no illusion to Thomas when he was told to put his hand into the Lord’s side. It is very interesting to note what those disciples saw and heard. It was a long contemplation for three-and-a-half years. Little by little the attractions of the Lord drew the disciples to Him in a wonderful way. We are not much of Christians, if our hearts are not touched by the presentation of their wonderful experiences. If these things are simply doctrines, they won’t hold us! At this time I am sure it is personal attraction to the Lord Jesus Christ, which is so necessary to draw us away from the great worldliness all around us, and self-seeking, and it is only as we are attracted to Him that our hearts are, taken out of this world, and it is only as we are attracted to Him that we can walk as strangers and pilgrims. And as we are attracted to the Lord, we shall be drawn to each other.
When the Lord ascended the disciples were found for ten days in Jerusalem in prayer, waiting for the promise of the Father. They were drawn to the Lord, and in being drawn to the Lord they were drawn to each other, and that is the basis of real power and fellowship. If I love the Lord I shall love my brethren, and if I am cold towards the Lord, I shall be cold towards my brethren. As we are drawn to the Lord, so shall we be drawn to each other. It is put in different ways and from different angles in the Scriptures. “For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show to you that Eternal Life, which was with the Father, and was manifested to us.” Eternal life never has a beginning, but there comes a point when that life was manifested, and that is what the Apostle describes. He leaves us a testimony. “That which we have seen and heard declare we to you,” etc. Those Apostles were drawn into that wonderful fellowship, and in the fulness of his heart the Apostle John links up the others with him, and tells us of this fellowship that we too may be drawn into it. We are going to be with the Lord for ever and ever. We are going to see Him and whilst we are down here, we have this wonderful fellowship, and it is given to us that our joy may be full.
Now, we go back to the beginning. How wonderful it is that God should communicate to us His mind through the Incarnate, the Eternal Word—the Lord Jesus Christ—the Word made flesh. This attracts our hearts, He did not come with pomp and power and show. He was born in a stable and cradled in a manger. He worked at a carpenter’s bench, and then in that three-and-a-half years we get His wonderful revelation of God. Think of the Gospels which show us the life of our Lord—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. They are precious to us, and is it not beautiful to read of what John said at the end of his Gospel:“And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written,” as also what he says at the end of his First Epistle.
“And we know the Son of God is come, and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him that is true, and we are in Him that is true, even in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and Eternal Life.”
What a Saviour we have! What a mingling of glories is found in His blessed Person and life. We shall thank Him through all eternity for this manifestation of what God is, as seen in Him.