In the beginning was the Word. THE Word. That Word was with God. THAT Word … was God. He (the Word) was with God … in the beginning. Through Him all things were created. So begins the fourth Gospel. The apostle John opens His Gospel account with an emphatic statement about who Jesus is and was, before time. Jesus is THE Word. THE Word is God. And He came to us in the flesh.
This is an unambiguous, unmistakable Christological statement. “Christological” is an adjective used by theologians. An adjective describes something. Something “Christological” describes something about Jesus, THE Word, and the only begotten Son of God, and so on. Getting down to tin tacks, without getting too technical and confusing, Christological/Christology is the theological discipline that focuses on the study of Christ. The definition of Christology/Christological is really quite simple. Christology explores the nature and work of Jesus the Christ (not just the historical Jesus of Nazareth), and focuses on His identity as both divine and human, His incarnation, His resurrection, and His saving work. A key area of discussion is the concept of the incarnation, and the reason for it, where God took on human form. The relationship between Jesus' human and divine natures is important. The fourth Gospel portrays to us a rich Christology of the human being, Jesus, who was at the same time divine.
He was/is God.
In the early Church, by the time John was writing his Gospel narrative, there had already arisen various heresies that disputed Jesus’ divinity, and also His humanity. Left unaddressed and unrefuted such heresies would have distorted the true Gospel. Some argued that Jesus was only human and was therefore not divine. If that were true – and it isn’t – He could not have been able to provide atonement for sins. That is, He could not be the spotless Lamb of God because, being human and conceived by human beings who had inherited the sin nature of Adam, His sacrifice would not have sufficed. On the other hand, other heresies argued that Jesus was not human at all and was only divine. Now, if that were true – and it isn’t - Jesus could not have died. The thinking was that a divine person is a God and not human. And if Jesus had not died, if there was no shedding of blood for our sins, then there is no atonement and we are still trapped in our sins and facing the inevitable wrath of God.
John is facing these, and several other, challenges to the true Gospel, and so, as an apostle who was a firsthand witness of Jesus, the Christ, he writes to refute these distorted, heretical gospel perspectives so that they did not infect the early Church. At stake is the pure Gospel concerning Jesus, the Christ, and of course, the saving work that He achieved by His sacrificial, substitutionary death on the cross. When we understand a bit about the backdrop of the apostle John’s world, and what concerned him, we can better understand why he wrote the way he did. Probably, the main reason John’s Gospel was called the fourth Gospel is because it was the last to be written after Matthew, Mark and Luke. But my hunch is, regardless of when it was written, it is placed fourth in the canon of the New Testament because it is completely unlike the other three Gospels – which are called the “synoptic” Gospels. “Synoptic” basically means “see together with a common view” (the word literally means “together sight”). Matthew, Mark, and Luke cover many of the same events in Jesus’ life—most of them from Jesus’ ministry in Galilee—in much the same order. Nearly 90 percent of Mark’s content is found in Matthew, and about 50 percent of Mark appears in Luke. All of the parables of Christ are found in the Synoptics whereas the Gospel of John contains no parables at all. But, I digress.
John writes to confront false Gospels arising that were beginning to infect the early Church (90 AD and following) and so threaten the real Gospel. And so, using his status as a revered apostle who had walked with Jesus, who had seen His death at Calvary (the only apostle to have witnessed it), who had seen the resurrected Jesus who was now the risen Christ, he uses a whole variety of Christological descriptors in the opening pages of His Gospel. He starts with “the Word” who was God. In the beginning was the Word! That is a divine thing. God and His Word are inseparable. God is divine. His Word is divine … and the Word was with God in the beginning, and the Word was God. God and the Word are one and the same, says, John, inspired by Holy Spirit. That’s the opening sentence of John’s Gospel dissertation which he then completes by saying “… and the Word WAS God”.
One of John’s chief concerns is Christology – who Jesus was as fully human and, at the same time, fully divine. In the first chapter of the fourth Gospel the apostle lays down layer upon layer of Christology so that the reader is left without any doubt about who Christ is, and what He has done. No less than 10 Christological descriptors and inferences are used in the first chapter that reveal the real Jesus in His humanity and divinity.
· The Word that became flesh (v.1)
· The Creator (vss.3 & 10)
· The eternal life source (v. 4)
· Son of God (v. 14 & 49)
· His divine nature in pre-existence (vss. 1, 15 & 18)
· The Lord God (v. 23)
· Lamb of God (vss. 29 & 36)
· God’s “chosen one”, i.e.. Messiah (v. 34)
· The Messiah (Christ) (v. 41)
· Son of Man (v. 51)
And that’s just in John’s opening chapter. He is making an emphatic point. There are other Christological descriptors he uses later on also, such as the “I am” declarations. The only other “I am” statements are in the Old Testament beginning with Yahweh’s instruction to Moses to tell the enslaved Israelites in Egypt that “I Am has sent you.” This “I am” statement by Yahweh concerned His self-revelation. Jesus does the same. “I am the good shepherd”, “I am the gate”, “I am the way, the truth and the life”, “I am the resurrection and the life”. All these are found throughout the fourth Gospel leaving no doubt as to Jesus’ divinity. Of course, there are also the miracles, especially the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Jesus' miracles and teachings are presented as demonstrations of his divine power and authority, especially over demons and death itself.
Yet the divine Messiah, the Christ who is God, bled and died to make atonement, and rose from death in resurrection life. John sees the before and after Jesus. He sees the Jesus of Nazareth, who gets sweaty and dusty on the road; he witnesses the tired and thirsty Jesus who sits at Jacob’s Well and speaks to a Samaritan women. He sees the Jesus who wept over Lazarus. He sees the hungry Jesus. He sees the very human Jesus, and he glimpses Jesus’ divinity on the road, and these accumulate into growing revelation. He sees the empty tomb, he sees the divine Jesus’ in all His resurrection glory …
John 20:26-29 (NIV)
A week later His disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" 27 Then He said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see My hands. Reach out your hand and put it into My side. Stop doubting and believe.” 28 Thomas said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” (See it?)
It is essential and indispensable to the true Gospel that Jesus who is God, that is divine, is also fully human. The same person. He shed His own blood for us, and He rose from the dead. Therefore, we have hope – an unassailable hope.
Read through John’s Gospel this week. Look for the Christological references (now you know why they’re there!), and look for the very human Jesus, too – and marvel and worship. Without Jesus’ humanity and divinity together, there is no Gospel, and no hope for anyone.
Be encouraged!
Ps Milton