In The Beginning

John 1:1. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God; and the Word was God.”

Genesis 1:1. “In the beginning, GOD created the heavens and the earth.”

There are not four different gospels; there is one four-fold gospel that present Jesus in four different ways:

· Matthew shows Jesus came from Abraham through David, and demonstrates that He is the Messiah promised in the Old Testament (Matthew 1:1-17).·

Mark shows Jesus came from Nazareth, demonstrating that Jesus is a Servant (Mark 1:9).·

Luke shows Jesus came from Adam, demonstrating that Jesus is the Perfect Man (Luke 3:23-38).·

John shows Jesus came from heaven, demonstrating that Jesus is God.

Messiah, Servant, Sinless Man, God Incarnate. There are several things about Jesus’ life that the other three gospels contain, but that John leaves out:

· Jesus’ birth· Jesus’ baptism· Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness· Confrontations with demons· Jesus teaching in parables· The Last Supper· The agony in Gethsemane· The Ascension.

This is not because John considered these events unimportant; but his emphasis was on the God Incarnate Who came as the perfect Son of God, Who would die for the sins of all mankind.

I used both John 1:1 and Genesis 1:1 to show the unity of God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Jesus was there in the beginning. It was not a beginning for God, because God has always existed. It was the beginning of the story of mankind.

While John doesn’t tell us much about himself, there are things we can glean from the other gospels:

· John’s father was Zebedee·

John’s mother was Salome, one of those to go to the tomb early on the morning the resurrection of Jesus was discovered·

John’s brother was James·

John was a partner in the fishing business with Peter·

John and his brother James were given the nickname, “Sons of Thunder”

Focusing now on the Word :

The Word was pre-existent, before the beginning. John could have written, “In the beginning of the beginning.” When the beginning began, the Word (Logos) was already there, pre-existing before time or creation. Hard to get our limited human minds to understand, this is a crucially important point of doctrine. GOD never began. He will never end. He Is. As He said to Moses, “I AM hath sent you!” (Exodus 3:14).

“The WORD” is none other than God Himself, God the Self-existent.

In the ancient Hebrew, The WORD was God. God was LOGOS. When Moses went to the top of the mountain to meet with God, he was meeting with LOGOS, and he brought back LOGOS to the people.

Greek philosophers saw the logos as the power that puts sense into the world, making the world orderly instead of chaotic. The logos was the power that set the world in perfect order and kept it going in perfect order. Also, we see in Acts 17:23 that the people worshipped the Unknown God, in the midst of all the gods they created in their mythology. They knew there was Something, Someone Who kept the earth from total chaos, the universe from turning itself inside out.

John’s opening sentence, therefore, met both the Hebrews and the Greeks from a position they already understood.

“And the Word was with God; and the Word was God.” With this brilliant statement, John 1:1 sets forth one of the most basic foundations of our faith – the Trinity. We can follow John’s logic:· There is a Being known as the Word.· This Being is God, because He is eternal (In the beginning)· This Being is God, because He is plainly called God (the Word was God).· At the same time, this Being does not encompass all that God is. God the Father is a distinct Person from the Word (the Word was with God).(David Guzik)

Foundational, but no mention is yet made of the Holy Spirit. That will come later. The fact is, Jesus was not only with God, but He was God. Two distinct entities, embodied in Logos, the Word.

Today’s post has become more lengthy than my posts usually are, but this is such an important truth. It lays the foundation for why Jesus could be the Supreme Sacrifice, Whose blood would not only cover sin, but would cleanse us from sin. Jesus was God. God was Jesus Christ.