Introduction And Eyewitness

John names Jesus the Word (Greek Logos) to declare that He is God's full and final self-expression. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1, NKJV). The Word is both distinct from the Father ("with God") and fully divine ("was God"). This title reaches back to creation, where God spoke all things into being, and identifies Jesus as that eternal, speaking God now made known to us.

Yes, plainly. "The Word was God" (John 1:1, NKJV) ascribes full deity to the Word, while "the Word was with God" preserves His personal distinction from the Father. The Westminster Confession (2.3) confesses three persons of "one substance, power, and eternity." John is not teaching that Jesus became divine, but that He always was God, sharing the very being of the Father from eternity.

The Son is eternal, not created. John writes, "In the beginning was the Word" (John 1:1, NKJV); when anything began, the Word already was. Verse 3 adds, "All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made." If all created things were made through Him, He Himself is uncreated. The Confession affirms the Son is "very and eternal God" (WCF 8.2), begotten of the Father, not made.

It means Christ is the Creator, the agent through whom God made everything. "All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made" (John 1:3, NKJV). Paul agrees: "For by Him all things were created" (Colossians 1:16). Creation is not the work of the Father alone but of the triune God, with the eternal Son as the One through whom the world came to be.

The light is Christ Himself, the source of life and the revelation of God to men. "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it" (John 1:4-5, NKJV). The darkness is the fallen world in its ignorance and sin. The light still shines, but apart from grace, sinful men neither grasp it nor are overcome by it.

Because fallen men love darkness rather than light. "He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him" (John 1:11, NKJV). Jesus later explains, "men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil" (John 3:19). This is total depravity: the problem is not lack of evidence but a heart in rebellion. The Creator stood among His creatures, and they preferred the dark.

Not by human effort or birth, but by God's sovereign work. "As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name" (John 1:12, NKJV). Verse 13 makes the source clear: such people are "born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." The new birth precedes and produces saving faith.

It means the eternal Son truly took on a complete human nature. "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14, NKJV). He did not merely appear human; He became man without ceasing to be God. The Westminster Confession (8.2) states that the Son "did, when the fullness of time was come, take upon Him man's nature." One person, fully God and fully man, dwelt among us.

Because the gospel rests on eyewitness testimony, not legend. "We beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14, NKJV). John writes elsewhere, "which we have seen with our eyes... concerning the Word of life" (1 John 1:1). The apostles saw, heard, and touched the incarnate Son. Their witness grounds our faith in historical fact.

As the only begotten Son, He alone has fully revealed the Father. "No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him" (John 1:18, NKJV). To see Christ is to see God truly made known. He is grace and truth in person, the One in whom the unseen Father is finally and perfectly explained to us.