Gospel of John 1:1-18 Sunday School Notes

Some Sunday School Notes from Christmas, actually.

Reference works include:

A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures in the New Testament CBD

Roger Omanson, A Textual Guide to the Greek New Testament Amazon

Bart Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture Amazon

John 1:1
These eighteen verses form what is typically called “John’s Prologue”. In it, John gives a sort of summary of the major themes of his gospel, perhaps borrowing from introductions often found in Greco-Roman plays.

A.T. Robertson- Word Pictures in the New Testament
In the beginning (en archēi). Archē is definite, though anarthrous like our at home, in town, and the similar Hebrew be reshith in Gen_1:1. But Westcott notes that here John carries our thoughts beyond the beginning of creation in time to eternity. There is no argument here to prove the existence of God any more than in Genesis. It is simply assumed. Either God exists and is the Creator of the universe as scientists like Eddington and Jeans assume or matter is eternal or it has come out of nothing.
Was (ēn). Three times in this sentence John uses this imperfect of eimi to be which conveys no idea of origin for God or for the Logos, simply continuous existence. Quite a different verb (egeneto, became) appears in Joh_1:14 for the beginning of the Incarnation of the Logos. See the distinction sharply drawn in Joh_8:58 “before Abraham came (genesthai) I am” (eimi, timeless existence).

There is a tremendous background to the term “word”, in Greek “logos”, which helps explain why so many have argued over how best to translate the term, or even, leave it untranslated as “logos”.

A.T. Robertson- Word Pictures in the New Testament
The Word (ho logos). Logos is from legō, old word in Homer to lay by, to collect, to put words side by side, to speak, to express an opinion. Logos is common for reason as well as speech. Heraclitus used it for the principle which controls the universe. The Stoics employed it for the soul of the world (anima mundi) and Marcus Aurelius used spermatikos logos for the generative principle in nature. The Hebrew memra was used in the Targums for the manifestation of God like the Angel of Jehovah and the Wisdom of God in Pro_8:23. Dr. J. Rendel Harris thinks that there was a lost wisdom book that combined phrases in Proverbs and in the Wisdom of Solomon which John used for his Prologue (The Origin of the Prologue to St. John, p. 43) which he has undertaken to reproduce. At any rate John’s standpoint is that of the Old Testament and not that of the Stoics nor even of Philo who uses the term Logos, but not John’s conception of personal pre-existence. The term Logos is applied to Christ only in Joh_1:1, Joh_1:14; Rev_19:13; 1Jo_1:1 “concerning the Word of life” (an incidental argument for identity of authorship). There is a possible personification of “the Word of God” in Heb_4:12. But the personal pre-existence of Christ is taught by Paul (2Co_8:9; Phi_2:6.; Col_1:17) and in Heb_1:2. and in Joh_17:5. This term suits John’s purpose better than sophia (wisdom) and is his answer to the Gnostics who either denied the actual humanity of Christ (Docetic Gnostics) or who separated the aeon Christ from the man Jesus (Cerinthian Gnostics). The pre-existent Logos “became flesh” (sarx egeneto, Joh_1:14) and by this phrase John answered both heresies at once.

You will often read in older commentaries discussions about how John’s gospel in particular was influenced by Gnosticism, that bundle of ancient Jewish- Christian heresies that has lately become THE fashionable object of study in universities worldwide. But what we have learned in the past fifty years, thanks especially to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, is how essentially Jewish are all these things John mentions in the Prologue. Judaism by the first century AD had been in contact with and influenced by Greek culture and philosophy for over a century and a half, and the current theory on the origins of “gnosticism” is that it likely developed among the Jews in Alexandria, Egypt, spread northward, encountered Christianity, and developed into a range of esoteric religions that became VERY popular in the second and third centuries AD. In fact there were so many what we now call “heresies” during Christianity’s early history that Bart Ehrman, the famous/notorious New Testament textual critic, has built a career out of the claim that many of the variant wordings in ancient New Testament manuscripts came about because the scribes adjusted the original text to combat heretical interpretations of biblical texts.

Logos/ Memra was essentially a known term in John’s day for a being apparently divine, yet, somehow separate from God. That came closest to the idea John meant to convey here, so it was the word he used. He would change its meaning a bit as he wrote, however.

“With God”: the Greek is “pros ton theon”. Pros is another nuanced word. It can mean “with, near, face to face, toward”. John is using “pros” here to indicate both the Word’s nearness to God, yet simultaneously the Word’s separateness from God. This is a lead in for the more specific “in the bosom of the Father” in verse 18, and conveys something of the same sense.

There is a current widespread belief that the vote at Nicea was very close, that Trinitarian Christianity barely came to exist. In fact, the vote to condemn Araianism was something like 220-250 condemning, 2 against condemnation.

The lack of a definite article ( like yet not really equivalent to the English “the”) on “God” in the last phrase has led to a lot of grief over whether or not John is indicating Jesus is somehow a lesser god. Besides the complicated Colwell’s Rule, there is the obvious observation made by Robert M. Bowman Jr. and J. Ed Komoszewski in their recent book, “Putting Jesus in His Place” (page 141, in fact) that God appears after verse 2 five times WITHOUT the definite article, four of which are pretty universally considered to mean God the God (verses 6, 12, 13, 18a)

John 1:2
A.T. Robertson-
The same (houtos). “This one,” the Logos of Joh_1:1, repeated for clarity, characteristic of John’s style. He links together into one phrase two of the ideas already stated separately, “in the beginning he was with God,” “afterwards in time he came to be with man” (Marcus Dods). Thus John clearly states of the Logos Pre-existence before Incarnation, Personality, Deity.

Don’t get carried away by “He” here as a pointer to Jesus. The Greek is houtos, “this”, “this one”, “this thing”.

John 1:3-4
There is longstanding controversy here over where to put “that was made” “that has been created”. The earliest manuscripts, orthodox and heretic alike, put these with verse 4, resulting in translations like:

Joh 1:4 NJB What has come into being in him was life, life that was the light of men;
John 1:4 NEB All that came to be was alive with his life, and that life was the light of men
“That which came into being- in the Word was its life”

The standard Greek New Testaments have switched where they place “ho gegonen” over time because the manuscript evidence is balanced out by stylistic considerations that favor keeping the words with verse 3. We can’t honestly be sure how to translate this one, though most nowadays agree with keeping the words with verse 3.

Those pesky ancient heretics used verse 3’s “all things” to claim that the Holy Spirit was in fact created by the Son, whom they believed was previously created by the Father

The ancient Jews believed God created the cosmos through his Wisdom/Word/Law, and that God sustains the universe because the righteous follow that Wisdom/Word/Law. Early Jewish scholars pointed out for example that the creation account in Genesis 1 says “And God said” ten times, by their interpretation, one time for each of the Ten Commandments.

“Life” was likely equated with “eternal life” among 1st century Jews, who further equated eternal life with life in the world to come, as one of God’s resurrected righteous. Jewish sayings from this early period often use “life” as short for “life in the world to come”.

“Light” was equated with God, Israel, patriarchs, and the righteous in early Jewish writings, but it was especially used with Torah, the Law.

John 1 :5

Our SS book’s translations use “overcome” and “comprehended” for the Greek word “katalaben”. These are both ways the word was used in ancient times, and the suspicion is that John chose “katalaben” just because it had multiple implications.

A.T. Robertson-
Joh 1:5
Shineth (phainei). Linear present active indicative of phainō, old verb from phaō, to shine (phaos, phōs). “The light keeps on giving light.”
In the darkness (en tēi skotiāi). Late word for the common skotos (kin to skia, shadow). An evident allusion to the darkness brought on by sin. In 2Pe_2:17 we have ho zophos tou skotou (the blackness of darkness). The Logos, the only real moral light, keeps on shining both in the Pre-incarnate state and after the Incarnation. John is fond of skotia (skotos) for moral darkness from sin and phōs (phōtizō, phainō) for the light that is in Christ alone. In 1Jo_2:8 he proclaims that “the darkness is passing by and the true light is already shining.” The Gnostics often employed these words and John takes them and puts them in the proper place.
Apprehended it not (auto ou katelaben). Second aorist active indicative of katalambanō, old verb to lay hold of, to seize. This very phrase occurs in Joh_12:35 (hina mē skotia humas katalabēi) “that darkness overtake you not,” the metaphor of night following day and in 1Th_5:4 the same idiom (hina katalabēi) is used of day overtaking one as a thief. This is the view of Origen and appears also in 2Macc 8:18. The same word appears in Aleph D in Joh_6:17 katelabe de autous hē skotia (“but darkness overtook them,” came down on them). Hence, in spite of the Vulgate comprehenderunt, “overtook” or “overcame” seems to be the idea here. The light kept on shining in spite of the darkness that was worse than a London fog as the Old Testament and archaeological discoveries in Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, Crete, Asia Minor show.

John 1:6-8

“Witness” is a major theme in John’s Gospel, as the high occurrence of the word as a noun and verb show.

Witnesses were hugely important in the ancient world. Jewish law provided the necessity of at least two witnesses to establish almost any crime. The early Christian author Papias is famous for sharing the ancient preference for hearing accounts of events and people from living witnesses over documents. A recent very prominent book by Richard Bauckham spends some six hundred pages establishing that witnesses lie behind the canonical gospels. Naturally the book is called “Jesus and the Eyewitnesses”

John 1:9
Roger Omanson points out that depending on where you punctuate this sentence, it can be read as “The true light, which enlightens everyone was coming into the world” NRSV, or “He was the true light that enlightens everyone coming into the world” NRSV margin

John 1:10-11
There is an old Jewish story that says God offered the Ten Commandments to all seventy nations of the world, but that each nation rejected some part of the commandments and refused them all. Only Israel accepted them all, and became God’s chosen people. Likewise John says Jesus came to the world, but the world rejected him. Even more, the Jews themselves rejected Jesus, His own special people. As has often been pointed out, Jesus was not the Messiah the Jews expect. The Jews expect an epic display of God’s presence in the Messianic times, and a new giving of the Law, where the Law will likely be even more stringent than before. Jesus’ teachings were not that at all.

John 1:12-13
There is a textual variant here at the beginning of v. 13 that changes “who were born” to “he who was born”, found mostly in Latin manuscripts. The plural “they who” is found in all Greek manuscripts, as well as versions and patristic quotes, leaving scholars to suspect someone tampered with the Latin texts in order to specify the virgin birth. While many famous scholars have backed the singular, it is not seriously considered these days.

A.T. Robertson-
Which were born (hoi egennēthēsan). First aorist passive indicative of gennaō, to beget, “who were begotten.” By spiritual generation (of God, ek theou), not by physical (ex haimatōn, plural as common in classics and O.T., though why it is not clear unless blood of both father and mother; ek thelēmatos sarkos, from sexual desire; ek thelēmatos andros, from the will of the male). But b of the old Latin reads qui natus est and makes it refer to Christ and so expressly teach the Virgin Birth of Jesus. Likewise Irenaeus reads qui natus est as does Tertullian who argues that qui nati sunt (hoi egennēthēsan) is an invention of the Valentinian Gnostics. Blass (Philology of the Gospels, p. 234) opposes this reading, but all the old Greek uncials read hoi egennēthēsan and it must be accepted. The Virgin Birth is doubtless implied in Joh_1:14, but it is not stated in Joh_1:13.

John 1:14
William Barclay says this verse includes “the sentence for the sake of which John wrote his gospel.” Neither the Greeks nor the Jews were ready for this concept. Both saw God as so transcendent that the idea of some intermediary or aspect of God was necessary for God to even interact with the world. That God would become man was simply foreign to both.
“Took up residence” “dwelt” “tabernacled” all translate skenoo, a Greek word meaning “living in a tent”. Interestingly, skn are the same consonants as found in shekinah, the Hebrew word for the glorious presence of God in the tabernacle and temple, the presence of God among men. John is plainly pointing at Jesus as God being God living among men like the Shekinah.
“Full of grace and truth” can in fact be considered a translation of Ex. 34:6 ‘s description of God: abundant in goodness and truth” (KJV) or “rich in faithful love and truth”. Again John points to Jesus as God in familiar OT terms.

A.T. Robertson-
And the Word became flesh (kai ho logos sarx egeneto). See Joh_1:3 for this verb and note its use for the historic event of the Incarnation rather than ēn of Joh_1:1. Note also the absence of the article with the predicate substantive sarx, so that it cannot mean “the flesh became the Word.” The Pre-existence of the Logos has already been plainly stated and argued. John does not here say that the Logos entered into a man or dwelt in a man or filled a man. One is at liberty to see an allusion to the birth narratives in Mat_1:16-25; Luk_1:28-38, if he wishes, since John clearly had the Synoptics before him and chiefly supplemented them in his narrative. In fact, one is also at liberty to ask what intelligent meaning can one give to John’s language here apart from the Virgin Birth? What ordinary mother or father ever speaks of a child “becoming flesh”? For the Incarnation see also 2Co_8:9; Gal_4:4; Rom_1:3; Rom_8:3; Phi_2:7.; 1Ti_3:16; Heb_2:14. “To explain the exact significance of egeneto in this sentence is beyond the powers of any interpreter” (Bernard). Unless, indeed, as seems plain, John is referring to the Virgin Birth as recorded in Matthew and Luke. “The Logos of philosophy is, John declares, the Jesus of history” (Bernard). Thus John asserts the deity and the real humanity of Christ. He answers the Docetic Gnostics who denied his humanity.
Dwelt among us (eskēnōsen en hēmin). First aorist ingressive aorist active indicative of skēnoō, old verb, to pitch one’s tent or tabernacle (skēnos or skēnē), in N.T. only here and Rev 7-15; Rev_12:12; Rev_13:6; Rev_21:3. In Revelation it is used of God tabernacling with men and here of the Logos tabernacling, God’s Shekinah glory here among us in the person of his Son.
We beheld his glory (etheasametha tēn doxan autou). First aorist middle indicative of theaomai (from thea, spectacle). The personal experience of John and of others who did recognize Jesus as the Shekinah glory (doxa) of God as James, the brother of Jesus, so describes him (Jam_2:1). John employs theaomai again in Joh_1:32 (the Baptist beholding the Spirit coming down as a dove) and Joh_1:38 of the Baptist gazing in rapture at Jesus. So also Joh_4:35; Joh_11:45; 1Jo_1:1.; 1Jo_4:12, 1Jo_4:14. By this word John insists that in the human Jesus he beheld the Shekinah glory of God who was and is the Logos who existed before with God. By this plural John speaks for himself and all those who saw in Jesus what he did.
As of the only begotten from the Father (hōs monogenous para patros). Strictly, “as of an only born from a father,” since there is no article with monogenous or with patros. In Joh_3:16; 1Jo_4:9 we have ton monogenē referring to Christ. This is the first use in the Gospel of patēr of God in relation to the Logos. Monogenēs (only born rather than only begotten) here refers to the eternal relationship of the Logos (as in Joh_1:18 ) rather than to the Incarnation. It distinguishes thus between the Logos and the believers as children (tekna) of God. The word is used of human relationships as in Luk_7:12; Luk_8:42; Luk_9:38. It occurs also in the lxx and Heb_11:17, but elsewhere in N.T. only in John’s writings. It is an old word in Greek literature. It is not clear whether the words para patros (from the Father) are to be connected with monogenous (cf. Joh_6:46; Joh_7:29, etc.) or with doxan (cf. Joh_5:41, Joh_5:44). John clearly means to say that “the manifested glory of the Word was as it were the glory of the Eternal Father shared with His only Son” (Bernard). Cf. Joh_8:54; Joh_14:9; Joh_17:5.
Full (plērēs). Probably indeclinable accusative adjective agreeing with doxan (or genitive with monogenous) of which we have papyri examples (Robertson, Grammar, p. 275). As nominative plērēs can agree with the subject of eskēnōsen.
Of grace and truth (charitos kai alētheias). Curiously this great word charis (grace), so common with Paul, does not occur in John’s Gospel save in Joh_1:14, Joh_1:16, Joh_1:17, though alētheia (truth) is one of the keywords in the Fourth Gospel and in 1John, occurring 25 times in the Gospel and 20 in the Johannine Epistles, 7 times in the Synoptics and not at all in Revelation (Bernard). In Joh_1:17 these two words picture the Gospel in Christ in contrast with the law of Moses. See Epistles of Paul for origin and use of both words.

A.T. Robertson-
Joh 1:16
For (hoti). Correct text (Aleph B C D L) and not kai (and) of the Textus Receptus. Explanatory reason for Joh_1:14.
Of his fulness (ek tou plērōmatos). The only instance of plērōma in John’s writings, though five times of Christ in Paul’s Epistles (Col_1:19; Col_2:9; Eph_1:23; Eph_3:19; Eph_4:13).
We all (hēmeis pantes). John is facing the same Gnostic depreciation of Christ of which Paul writes in Colossians. So here John appeals to all his own contemporaries as participants with him in the fulness of the Logos.
Received (elabomen). Second aorist active indicative of lambanō, a wider experience than beholding (etheasametha, Joh_1:14) and one that all believers may have.
Grace for grace (charin anti charitos). The point is in anti, a preposition disappearing in the Koiné and here only in John. It is in the locative case of anta (end), “at the end,” and was used of exchange in sale. See Luk_11:11, anti ichthuos ophin, “a serpent for a fish,” Heb_12:2 where “joy” and “cross” are balanced against each other. Here the picture is “grace” taking the place of “grace” like the manna fresh each morning, new grace for the new day and the new service.

A.T. Robertson-
Joh 1:18
No man hath seen God at any time – Moses and others heard his voice, and saw the cloud and the fire, which were the symbols of his presence; but such a manifestation of God as had now taken place, in the person of Jesus Christ, had never before been exhibited to the world. It is likely that the word seen, here, is put for known, as in Joh_3:32; 1Jo_3:2, 1Jo_3:6, and 3Jo_1:11; and this sense the latter clause of the verse seems to require: – No man, how highly soever favored, hath fully known God, at any time, in any nation or age; the only begotten Son, (see on Joh_1:14 (note)), who is in the bosom of the Father, who was intimately acquainted with all the counsels of the Most High, he hath declared him, εξηγησατο, hath announced the Divine oracles unto men; for in this sense the word is used by the best Greek writers. See Kypke in loco.
Lying in the bosom, is spoken of in reference to the Asiatic custom of reclining while at meals; the person who was next the other was said to lie in his bosom; and he who had this place in reference to the master of the feast was supposed to share his peculiar regards, and so be in a state of the utmost favor and intimacy with him.

The Byzantine textual tradition has “only SON” here, like our SS book translations . There were always some manuscripts that said “only God”, but until P66 and P75 appeared in the 1950s, evidence was considered more strongly in favor of “only SON”. What undoubtedly created much of the problem was that both “God” and “Son” were abbreviated in the earliest manuscripts (nomina sacra, such abbreviations are called), and only one of two letters separates the words in abbreviation. The suspicion was that “only God” had been created by some scribes to fight the adoptionist heresy, which denied Jesus was truly God, but on instead only adopted as the son of God. However the earliest manuscripts now show “only God” has the stronger case, and there are plausible reasons for changing God to Son, but not the reverse. Thus the trend in newer translations (bucked by the HCSB, for some reason) is to translate “only God” here.

“bosom of the Father”- this is an ancient term for some very close to another. It is again John making the point that Jesus is a reliable guide to God because he is the closest possible representative God could have.