John 1:4-10 The Light of Life

John 1:4-5 Lest we miss the point, the Word of God has life in Himself. This comes up again in John 5:26, and is the basis for Jesus' promise that He gives eternal life. (John 5:24, 6:27, 6:47-54). Life here is the Greek zoe (the animated vitality of life), not biological life or that by which life is sustained (bios), not mere existence,  or the ability to grow, reproduce, act, and change. (see John 17:3)

          The Word has eternal spiritual life and shares it with His children. This life enlightens every man. We see a small picture of this in the mount of transfiguration in which Jesus physically glowed before His disciples. (Matthew 17:1-9; Mark 9:1-9, Luke  9:28-36) This light shows each individual what is the essence of life.

          The fact of darkness is that it is simply the absence of light. Darkness cannot overcome or even comprehend light. The Greek word katalambano variously translated as apprehended, overcome, or comprehended, has multiple meanings: to seize; to possess; to grasp. In the physical realm, this is straightforward. Light simply eliminates darkness by its presence. In the spiritual realm, the forces of darkness appear to have some ability to fight against the entrance of light. But we have it here on good authority that darkness cannot overcome the Light. In fact, the forces of darkness do not even comprehend the light. The ability of light to bring life to men is simply beyond comprehension the forces of darkness.

          Two familiar Jewish metaphors are not alluded to. Psalm 119:105 compares the light of God’s word to a lamp to the path – picture walking at night and using a flashlight to be able to see where you are about to step. Psalm 119:130 points to the light of God’s words as giving understanding. John’s understanding is that the light of the incarnate Word is life in and of itself.

John 1:6-8 John the apostle introduces the ministry and role of John the Baptist. He was sent by God for one purpose and that was to bear witness to the light. At the time John wrote his gospel record, perhaps 40-60 years after the events, it seems unlikely that anyone would have mistaken John the Baptist for the light of the world, but for the record, John the apostle states the obvious. The role of John the Baptist is further explained by Jesus Himself is that he was the prophet Elijah as foretold by Malachi (Matt 17:10-13). Malachi had stated that the role of Elijah would be to restore the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers (Malachi 4:5-6). Bearing witness to the light included the baptism of repentance that John the Baptist offered to those who came to him. This included some disciples of John, who later followed Jesus. (See below)

John 1:9-10 John recapitulates that the Word enlightens every man. See discussion of verse 3 above. No one, regardless of where or when they live or lived or what they are exposed to, is without the light that the Word brings. But the key statement introduced here, is that although the Word created the world, personally and in detail, the world did not know Him. The creation myths of innumerable pagan religions are perhaps a better reach towards the truth of where everything came from than the ignorance masquerading as science that the modern world embraces. But none of them recognize the Truth as revealed in Christ, that He is very God and it was by His action that the universe came into being.

John 1:1-3 In the beginning ....

John 1:1-3 John opens with a philosophical observation relating Jesus to the Greek theories of first causes. Aristotle, several hundred years earlier, had identified four categories of causes: formal cause; material cause; efficient cause; and final cause.

•    A change or movement's material cause is the aspect of the change or movement which is determined by the material which the moving or changing things are made of. For a table, that might be wood; for a statue, that might be bronze or marble.

•    A change or movement's formal cause is a change or movement caused by the arrangement, shape or appearance of the thing changing or moving. Aristotle says for example that the ratio 2:1, and number in general, is the cause of the octave.

•    A change or movement's efficient or moving cause consists of things apart from the thing being changed or moved, which interact so as to be an agency of the change or movement. For example, the efficient cause of a table is a carpenter, or a person working as one, and according to Aristotle the efficient cause of a boy is a father.

•    An event's final cause is the aim or purpose being served by it. That for the sake of which a thing is what it is. For a seed, it might be an adult plant. For a sailboat, it might be sailing. For a ball at the top of a ramp, it might be coming to rest at the bottom.(Downloaded from Wikipedia, April, 2014)

John in various places in his writings addresses most or all of these. Here he jumps immediately to final causes. Aristotle had understood that he could not make sense of the universe, and the apparent universal operation of cause and effect, without including an immovable mover who was at the outset, not subject to this law. Whether John was explicitly invoking Greek philosophy, or simply invoking Jewish scripture describing creation (Genesis 1), or melding the two, he specifically identifies here the word of God as that creative agent. In verse 14 he then identifies Jesus as this word of God.

          John's explanation of creation differs from the model of the universe that says that after God created it, He took His hands off and let matters take their course according to natural law. John says that all things came into being through Him. This aligns perfectly with Genesis 1, which describes the process by which God spoke into existence specific things.

•    God created matter in various phases (solid and liquid are called out in 1:1& 10)

•    God created light, and by implication laws of physics that enable it. (1:3)

•    God created space, the concept of distance and volume (1:8)

•    God separated land & sea and thus created the habitat into which He would place man. (1:9-10)

•    God created biological life in plant form, and in considerable detail grass, herbs, and trees (1:11-12)

•    God created stars, the sun, and the moon (1:14-18) with a specific purpose to establish a rhythm of day and night, and seasons, and also for signs.

•    God created sea animals that live in the water, and those that fly in the air. (1:20-21)

•    God created animals that live on the land, of various sizes and types, with various mechanisms for locomotion, and to reproduce replicas faithfully. (1:24-25) Note that the concept of the genetic code was implicit in creating plants, but the faithfulness of reproduction is not explicitly called out until here. Perhaps this is because cross-breeding animal species, or the concept of evolution, seems most prone to wild flights of error as it pertains to animals. But Genesis specifically says God created the various types of animals specifically and directly, and John echoes this statement with the statement that all things were created through the Word.

•    God created humans, in His own image and likeness. (1:26-27) Thus He explicitly made humans different from animals. Most importantly is that Genesis 2:7 says that God made man a living soul. Presumably this pertains to more than just the level of intelligence of man vs animals, but includes the spiritual dimension of humanity.

          John goes even further. John 1:3 says that nothing came into existence apart from the action and agency of the Word of God. In other words, it is not just the classes of items that God created to then reproduce after their kind. Each individual instance of an item in a class was also brought into being through the specific action of the Word of God. Many people today believe that some children are not needed, are excess, unintended, or even "unwanted". This is directly counter to the revealed truth that God specifically took action to create them. The Word of God specifically took action to call each person into existence, for the specific purpose of having a relationship with him or her. God so desires relationship with each person that the circumstances of their birth are unimportant.