“The Word became flesh”

(John 1:14)

The relationship between the opening verses of John’s Gospel (1:1-14) and the opening verses of Genesis (1:1-2:3) is striking, and thus, perhaps worth a few moments of reflection. John wrote his gospel late in the first century following the destruction of the Temple, and he likely had access to the other gospels. His disdain for the “Jews” relates most likely to the contemporary spate of excommunication from the synagogue of Jewish believers in Jesus. John’s embrace of Jewish tradition and culture is a bold proclamation to all Jews as an eye witness that their God became man and dwelled among them.

Hebrew tradition and scripture record that “In the beginning,” when the earth was formless and empty, the God was Spirit hovering over the waters (Gen. 1: 1-2). God’s Spirit spoke the world into being over a period of six days as recorded by Levite priests from oral and written tradition probably as late as the fourth century BCE (Gen. 1:3-27). According to these same priests, God was not alone in this endeavor, at least not at the end when he announced to His presumably heavenly court “Let us make mankind in our image”, (Gen. 1:26), whereupon He created male and female (Gen. 1:27). Also present with God before creation was Wisdom, a female personification ( Sophia in Greek) of the cosmic force indispensable to civil order. She was with God by God’s side during all the acts of creation (Prov. 8: 22-31).

John embraces all this tradition as he introduces his gospel. Yet John’s personification of God incarnated is male, not female. Therefore, John selects the Greek logos, a masculine noun translated as “word.” In Genesis 1, God speaks the world into being, using God’s Word. So, John’s introduction: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). Then, according to John, “He [Jesus] was with God in the beginning” (John 1:2). John reports in his gospel three occasions when Jesus refers to his eternal existence: a. “before Abraham was born, I am!” (8:58); b. “Father, glorify me …. with the glory I had with you before the world began (17:5); and c. “because you loved me before the creation of the world (17:24).

In John’s letter to the churches near the end of his life, he continued to proclaim the historical fact of incarnation that he witnessed. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched——this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.” (1Jn. 1:1-2).

It would appear that from the very beginning of creation, the flesh created by God was useless without the Spirit giving the flesh life which is meant to be eternal life. This is God’s great hope for each of us. What we are of this world is only of short value during our brief time in this bodily tent that quickly deteriorates to dust. It is only the Spirit that gives real life that lasts forever. John reported Jesus saying to his disciples, “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—-they are full of the Spirit and life” (Jn. 6: 63).

I am thinking that a tiny part of God’s Spirit is embedded in each of us at birth. We only need to kindle it to provide us the real life God intends for us.

Thanks be to God.