The Gospel message of John calls us to see beyond a self-centered Universe to be united with God in the Word

The Johannine Prologue

Introduction

The Gospel message of John calls us beyond a self-centered universe to be united with God in the Word. We are united with God only through the Incarnation. With the historic assurance of Christ's life, death, and resurrection, we can read ourselves into the prologue and recognize our place with God from the beginning. But narratively speaking, this is not the case. In the Johannine prologue we have no right, privilege, or claim to participate in God's ultimate reality apart from the Incarnation. The explicit 1^st person plural ("us" and "we") is not included in the cosmic realities of the prologue until verse fourteen, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory" (emphasis mine).

Narrative Experience of the Incarnation

By "leaving us out" of the first thirteen verses, the prologue challenges us to contemplate God's perspective of reality. Beginning with verse 14, we are brought into God's reality through the Incarnation. In order to focus on this dynamic, I will purposefully neglect much conversation regarding form, redaction, and source criticism of the Johannine prologue.

The prologue is most likely an early Christian hymn. This opens the possibility to consider verses 1-18 as a liturgical, narrative experience. Scholars debate which verses are original and which are added later, but Brown has summarized the verses into four "strophes" (stanzas of a poem) with some expansions and "displaced verses" about John the Baptist. The strophe titles are helpful: The Word with God (1-2), The Word and Creation (3-5), The Word in the World (10-12b), and The Community's Share in the Word (14, 16). Brown's titles identify the Word as the primary subject of the first 13 verses. Significantly, the Community (1^st person plural) comes on board for the first time at the moment of Incarnation. In the liturgical setting, this Early Christian hymn is teaching, contemplating, and enacting the Incarnation. The narrative reading of the prologue forces the readers to experience the reality, mystery, and preeminence of the Word apart from themselves until that moment of Incarnation. At that moment they are made part of the eternal Word in the beginning. In other words, the "Time" experience of this hymn breaks into "Not Time" at the moment of Incarnation in verse 14.

Applied to the Text
^{1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was in the beginning with God.}

"In the beginning" is the Genesis 1 moment. The Word is there. The Word is distinct, yet in union with God. The Word is also with God in the eschatological moment of Revelation 19:13, "¹³He is clothed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called The Word of God." Genesis and Revelation provide the parentheses for John's reality. Between the "Time" beginning and the "Time" end we find the "Not Time" of ultimate reality of the Word among us now.

3All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being ⁴in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.

At this point we rush to insert ourselves into the narrative. We want to be included in "all things" and "all people". Let the narrative work. The prologue is still leading us to contemplate the Word, not understand our beginning. Colossians similarly emphasizes the Word rather than creation,

"¹⁶for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him" (1:16).

The texts are resting in the mystery of the Word that brings being, life, and light. The prologue is preparing an encounter with the Word throughout the book of John.⁶In chapter 14, "Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me'" (14:6). Verses 3-4 are not specifically a continuation of the Genesis account. They are setting the character and dignity of the Word that can bring people to the Father.

^{5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.}

Still speaking of the Word, the light is working [present tense] when darkness worked [past tense]. "Not Time" is breaking into "Time" as a foretaste of the Incarnation in verse 14. His presence is brilliance in a reality of darkness. There is an apocalyptic sense that the light defeats the ultimate reality of darkness (chaos, spiritual enemies, and human sinfulness). Again, the prologue reveals the ultimate reality and character of the Word coming in verse 14 and does not fixate on temporal realities (John 12:46).

^{6There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. ⁷He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. ⁸He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. ⁹The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.}

With the introduction of John the Baptist, ultimate reality in the prologue is narrowed toward humanity. God of all that is seen and unseen, sends a human to prepare the way for the Incarnation - the true light. John has a mission to point to the light, and so is distinct from the light. Unlike the other books of Scripture, the Johannine narrative identifies John as the first person to be sent from God. Within the whole of Scripture, there are numerous accounts of God breaking into humanity with a covenant love (as seen in verse 16-17). The distinction in the prologue is the focus on the coming Incarnation - "so that all might believe in him."

^{10He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. ¹¹He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. ¹²But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, ¹³who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.}

The narrative is refraining from making a 1st person connection in verses 10-13. Instead, the perspective still speaks from ultimate reality where the Word in the World (Brown) is the subject. So we see the prologue maintaining the center of reality on the Word who took it upon himself to work in the daily experience of humanity. The Word brought the revelation of the Creator face to face with Creation, and they did not know him. The narrative feels this tension, hurt, and disappointment. The prologue anticipates the challenge, opposition, and rejection of the Word in the rest of the Gospel of John. Yet it assures a hindsight hope and narrative expectancy that "all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God." Verse 13 clarifies that unique restoration to God, the Word of verse 3 that brought all things into being.

14And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

This is the moment of Incarnation! The narrative enacts ultimate reality breaking into the daily experience of humanity with the introduction of the 1st person, "and lived among US. WE have seen his glory" (emphasis mine). The Word's reality is our reality. The entire work of the prologue to this point established the Word in glory, authority, and union with God. In this verse of Incarnation we, as earthly creatures, are brought into glory, authority, and union with God. The daily experience, we thought was ours, is now wrapped up in the ultimate reality of the Word. The Word became flesh to bring us to the Father. If we read our reality of daily experience into the narrative within the first three verses, we miss the profundity of this Incarnational enactment. The signs and the glory of the Johannine narrative bring us to the Incarnational moment: "these are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name" 20:31.

^{15(John testified to him and cried out, "This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me.’")}

John the Baptist's testimony is striking following verse 14. John is explaining, "He was before me" to get at the sense of ultimate reality transcending daily experience. It is the parallel mystery of being apocalyptically wrapped up into the Word who was "in the beginning". In John's testimony, the narrative anticipates the difficulty of being included in verses 1-13 by virtue of 14. First, he affirms that this is the Incarnate Word we have been expecting from verse 1. Then, he teaches "Time" within "Not Time". John's assurance is also a welcomed human perspective on a divinely challenging experience.

^{16From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. ¹⁷The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.}

"Fullness" was last used to describe the Incarnate Word in verse 14: "full of grace and truth." The narrative experience of the Incarnation now submerges the reader in verses14, 16, and 4. The Incarnation is full of grace and truth (14). From that fullness we have received grace. (16) This flows chronologically. The underlying tide, however, flows to and from verse 4. His fullness is the life and light of all people. Having enacted the narrative through verse 14, we can sing verse 16, and the fullness we receive is the very life and light of verse 4. It is now narratively appropriate to read ourselves into the first 13 verses.

^{18No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.}

Brown looks at verse 18, Brown and writes,"The whole career of the Word is sketched in the prologue: the Word with God; the Word come into the world and become flesh; the Word returned to the Father" (p.17). Brown has summarized the whole career of the Word, but misses the purpose: The "Word returned to the Father" with children. The crucial element is that humanity is brought into the "Word with God" through the "Word become Flesh." The narrative experience of the prologue brings us to God through the Incarnation.

Spiritual Exercise

A liturgical reading of John that enacts the Incarnation is a challenge for our minds. I identified the narrative, experientially reading in order to develop a session of guided imagery. The meditation encourage listeners to visit the moment of Creation and encounter the Word in his glory. Then, assume the identity of the Word to experience the first 13 verses from the perspective of the Word. Continue as the Word through the Incarnation. Feel the emotions, the distance from Glory, the power to heal, the knowledge of true reality, and rejection by your own people. Share your fullness of grace and truth in ways they do not understand and rejoice with those who believe in your name. Experience being God made visible. Move through the pain to bring the children to God.

Conclusion

To experience the Incarnation within the narrative of John's prologue, we must slow down and submit to the unfolding of ultimate reality. The text begs us to move from our self-directed universe into a posture of God's mind. The Father's deliberate purpose is to bring us close to his heart (v. 18)…through the Incarnation of his only Son.

Works Consulted

New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha (NRSV)

Synopsis of the Four Gospels (Aland, ed.)

The Anchor Bible: The Gospel According to John (Brown)

Popular Commentary of the Bible: NT vol. 1(Kretzmann)

Introducing the New Testament (Achtemeir, et. al.)

Greek New Testament (4^th Revised Ed.)

Greek-English Lexicon

A Grammatical Analysis of the Greek New Testament

Quick Verse (Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, NRSVA, Teacher's Commentary, Holden Bible Dictionary)

Bobertz Lectures

Written that You May Believe (Schneiders)

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