NOTES for Joh 1:1-18

The Greek word "Logos," in different contexts, means not only "word," but also "meaning," "purpose," "knowledge," "reason," and even "way"... Then the incarnation of the Word is both the manifestation of Divine Reason for people, and the disclosure of His Purpose, and the revelation of the Way, and the appearance of the fullness of Communion (Participation), and all this in the one God-human person of Jesus Christ, who lived in this world, walked on this earth beside the disciples, who "saw, heard, and touched" Him (cf. 1 John 1:1).

The Gospel is always the testimony about Christ given by those who knew Him. We have the right not to believe them; we may take their words about grace, truth, and glory as a lie or as sincere error, as a poetic metaphor or an enthusiastic exaggeration - and then the Good News will not reach us, and we will gain neither meaning, nor communion, nor the way.

The remarkable hymn that begins the Gospel of John opens to us the mystery of God's inner life. God is a person, in a certain sense the same as each of us. Only (and in this "only" lies the absolute difference between God and humanity), unlike any of us, He is an infinite Person. Conditioned by nothing except His own will, and therefore by Himself. And therefore in need of no one. And, naturally, under no obligation to tell anyone anything about His life. Why He needs creation, why He needs all of us, is His mystery. One would have to be Him to know the answer. But the fact remains: He created the world and us as part of this world. And He loves us. And He opens to us, just a little, the mystery of His life. It turns out that He, like us, does not merely know Himself. He also continuously comes to know Himself.

How He manages this is His mystery. We, of course, would not be able simultaneously to know ourselves in fullness, to know ourselves in all depth, and at the same time to remain in complete peace. And also outside all the spaces and times that exist in the created world. More precisely, above them. How this happens with Him, we will never know. But in this is the fullness of His life. And He reveals this fullness to the world. He projects it into the world. And He contains this fullness of His life within the boundaries of human nature. Of course, not such as ours. But still human. Such as our humanity could have been if not for the fall.

And yet this is created nature. Created by Him as well. But from the very beginning we human beings were not merely nature alone. From the very beginning we were given that breath of life which, properly speaking, makes us human. And this is His breath. The breath that breathes in us. His presence in us. Of course, not in the fullness proper to His own life. But still His. And if not for the fall, we would be completely different: not thanks to some special nature that was taken away from us after the fall, but thanks to the fact that our life would be wholly determined by this breath.

And not by the minimal degree to which it determines our life now, when this breath in us is at times barely noticeable even to ourselves. But if He wills, His presence in a human being can become complete. Such as it abides in Him Himself. And then into the world will be born the Human Being with a capital letter. The Human Being in whom God will be revealed to the world in fullness. And through whom His life will be opened to each of us in the same fullness. The life that the Savior came to give us. Life in fullness and abundance.

John’s Gospel, like the Old Testament, begins with an account of Creation, and this sets a tone that helps us not only to see the days of Christ’s earthly life against their historical and cultural background, but also to understand their relation to eternity. The light brought into the world by Christ is not merely a metaphor for His teaching; it is the very light with which Creation began. In the same way, the Word that was in the beginning was not the kind of word that serves as a unit of speech. (How often the expression “in the beginning was the Word” is used in vain, detached from its true meaning!) But human words cannot save us from sin and death.

The account of the Word who dwelt among people is intertwined with the story of a man named John. Once again, we can sense the mysterious relationship between the eternal and the temporal, for it is only where they meet that we can understand the meaning of our existence revealed by the Bible. The Lord Himself, who belongs to eternity, entered the temporal world and showed its importance.

Christianity does not despise the temporal for the sake of the eternal, but transforms it by bringing it into communion with the eternal.

What can we know about God? Can human words express what is beyond words and thought? What books and wise teachings can adequately describe the God whom no one has ever seen? The first and central message of the Gospel of John tells us of the Word through whom the Inexpressible One fully expressed Himself, for this Word shares God's very nature. This Word was not written in a book: He became flesh, a human being, one of us. Moses could only hear of the ineffability of the Name (in essence, God told him, “I am who I am; no name can express My essence”), whereas the author of the Gospel saw a Man who could say, “I and the Father are one,” and “Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father.” God can now be not only heard through the word of the Law, which expresses God's will only in a limited way: the man who wrote the Gospel saw God, heard His own words, felt the warmth of His body and became His disciple. He writes to bear witness to what he saw, to how the Son revealed the One whom no one has ever seen.

The Gospel poem about the Word which was in the beginning has repeatedly become the subject of many different kinds of theological reflection, often quite abstract. Yet it itself is no theological abstraction. On the contrary, like no other biblical text, it bears witness to the concreteness of God.

Of course, the Bible is far from portraying God as an impersonal force or faceless energy. All of it tells us about the will and providence of the One who created the world. But the mystery of God's personhood, the mystery of His inner life, remains a mystery. What is He like? How does He know Himself, and what does He know about Himself?

To answer these questions exactly is, of course, impossible: it is not for man to penetrate the mysteries of God's personhood. But the poem about the Word opens this mystery to us a little. What is a word? For us it is a witness to full awareness of reality: what has been named by a word has been comprehended and understood, if not to the end, then at least to the limit beyond which we are not yet able to penetrate.

For God in His relation to the world, the word is a means, an instrument that God uses to carry out His plans and purposes. And what is His Word for Him Himself? It exists as long as God Himself, which means it is eternal; it is itself God. It reveals something. What? To whom? Does it reveal God to God?

Perhaps: after all, God knows Himself, and in His eternity one cannot first be the knower and then the known. Here everything is together and everything is at once: God, knowing Himself, eternally and forever remains both knowing and known together. And this inner life of the Creator, this mystery of His self-knowledge through the incarnation of the Word, is in some mysterious way connected with His Kingdom: the Word becomes incarnate in the person of Christ, and Christ brings into the world the Kingdom connected with the fullness of the Word which was in the beginning.

The life of the Kingdom and our salvation are thus connected with the very depth of God's personhood, with that depth where there is not and cannot be anything accidental. This means that we ourselves are not accidental or secondary to God either; we are just as absolutely important to Him as He is absolutely important to Himself. In this are our joy and our hope.

What means "to become sons of God"? And which power is necessary to become them? At the dawn of the Jewish history, in the days of the Exodus and in the time of the conquest of Palestine, everything was simple. Then was called son of God every Hebrew, who belonged to the people of God by being born Hebrew. But even in this period to be Hebrew not only meant belonging to the Jewish people by birth, but also keeping this union-covenant, which was concluded on Sinai, and thus, to observe also the Torah given to the people by Moses. With time the glance on the Torah and on the people changed, and the question to know who is the son of God, began to be solved in the context of the observation of any tradition inside yahvistes communities. It was obvious that it is about yahvistes believers, and not about heathen, who at the pre-captivity era were enough among the Jews.

But already in this pre-captivity era, inside the community were formed (mainly around the prophets) movements, members of which were considered as sons of God, first of all, each other and its members. During the captivity and at the after captivity period, when appeared the Synagogue, its members began to consider themselves sons of God. Here already, it was of course not only and not so much about nationality (could join the Synagogue those who had no relationship by blood with the Jewish people), than about the loyalty of the community, and thus, and the traditions connected with this community. The tradition also supposed the communion with God (prayer, reading and study of the holy texts), and the raising and education activity (the study of the Torah and its teaching to children and adults), and works of charity. All this made of man, as the scientific rabbis of the time of the Second Temple said, son of God. It is not by chance that in the evangelic time to that title claimed, above all the Pharisees - the members of the religious brotherhoods, participating actively in all which was enumerated.

They were sure that they can really consider themselves sons of God: because they all succeeded in God's works, since they understood them, as nobody else. But the early Christian Church emphasizes not on the religious activity, nor any other activity, but on this life of the Kingdom, which is impossible without Christ. Of course the activity connected to the works of charity or the religious teaching, does not negate it, but brings in the foreground another: communication with the risen Christ and this unity of the life of the Kingdom, which unites His faithful with Him, making them, according to the words of the apostle Paul, "the body of Christ". It is not surprising: because Christianity is nothing else than the life with Christ in His Kingdom. All the rest is just consequence.

What does it mean "to be children of God"? And what authority is needed in order to be them? At the dawn of Jewish history, in the days of the Exodus and in the times of the conquest of Palestine, everything was simple.

Then every Jew who belonged to the people of God by the fact of being born a Jew was considered a child of God. But even in those times, to be a Jew meant not only to belong to the Jewish people by birthright, but also to keep that union-covenant which was concluded at Sinai, and therefore to follow the Torah given to the people through Moses.

Over time, the view of the Torah and of the people changed, and the question of who is a child of God began to be resolved in the context of following this or that tradition within the Yahwist community. It was understood by itself that the question concerned believing Yahwists, not pagans, of whom there were enough among the Jews in the pre-exilic era. But already in that pre-exilic era, movements were forming within the community, mainly around the prophets, whose members considered first of all one another and their like-minded companions to be children of God.

During the exile and in post-exilic times, when the Synagogue appeared, its members began to consider themselves children of God. Here, of course, the matter was not only and not so much nationality, since even those who had no blood relation to the Jewish people could join the Synagogue, but faithfulness to the community, and therefore also to the tradition connected with this community. The tradition presupposed communion with God, prayer, reading and studying sacred texts, educational activity, the study of the Torah and teaching it to children and adults, and works of mercy.

All this, as the learned rabbis of Second Temple times said, made a person a child of God. It is no accident that in the Gospel era the Pharisees above all claimed this title, members of religious brotherhoods who actively participated in everything listed. They were sure that they, at least, could certainly consider themselves children of God, because they all succeeded in the works of God as they understood them, as no one else did.

But the early Christian Church places the accent not on religious or any other kind of activity, but on that life of the Kingdom which is impossible without Christ. Of course, this does not cancel activity connected with works of mercy or religious instruction, but something else comes to the foreground: communion with the risen Christ and that unity of the life of the Kingdom which unites His faithful with Him, making them, according to the apostle Paul's word, the "body of Christ." This is not surprising: Christianity is nothing other than life with Christ in His Kingdom. Everything else is only a consequence.

The Greek word “Logos” in different contexts means not only "Word", but also "sense", "intention", "knowledge", "mind" and even "way"... Then the incarnation of the Word is and a demonstration of Divine Reason to people, and disclosing of His Intention, and the revelation of the Way, and the manifestation of a completeness Dialogue (Communion), and all this - in the unique Theandric personality of Jesus Christ, Who lived in this world, walked on this earth near to the followers who «have seen, heard and handled Him» (see 1Jn 1:1).

The gospel is always a testimony about the Christ by those who knew Him. We have the right to believe it or not, we can consider their words about mercy, truth and glory as lie or as pure aberration, either as a poetic metaphor or as enthusiastic exaggeration - and then the Good Message will not reach us, and we won't find neither sense, nor dialogue, or a way. So let's believe, let's be confident in witnesses that all is truth and that the Christ is INDEED RISEN!

What can we know of God? Can the human words express what is above words and ideas? What books and which wise instructions can adequately describe God, Who nobody has ever seen? The first, the central message in the Gospel of John tells us about the Word, which being Itself Unspeakable expressed Itself till the end, because this Word is of the same nature as God. This Word isn't written in the book: It became flesh, a human being, one of us. If Moses could hear only unspeakable Name (God indeed said to him: "I am, no name can express My essence "), the author of the Gospel as for him saw the Man, Who could say: "I and my Father are one", "who has seen Me, has seen the Father ". We can now hear about God not only through the words of the law, limited by the expression of God's will: the person who wrote the Gospel saw God, listened to His own words, felt the warmth of His body, became His follower. He writes to testimony what he saw, how the Son manifested the One That nobody has ever seen.

In John's Gospel, very little is said about the ministry of John the Baptist. This is especially strange if we remember that its author is a man who, before following Jesus, was for some time a disciple of John the Baptist. On the other hand, perhaps for this very reason the evangelist did not consider it necessary to say much about John's personality: it was evidently well known not only to him, but also to those closest to him, so there was no need to write much about John the Baptist. What had to be brought out was the main thing in his ministry, and the main thing was how John the Baptist himself defined the meaning of his ministry, expressing it in Isaiah's words: to prepare the way of Yahweh. By this the prophet meant that his task was to prepare the people for the Messiah's coming. And to prepare for His coming meant, as John the Baptist himself testified, to wash and be cleansed from sin.

Of course, in the prophet's calls one can see something reminiscent of the many brotherhoods of those whom historians of religion call "hemerobaptists," "constant bathers." Such were the Essenes too, who practiced regular purifying washings. If in traditional Jewish practice washing was always connected with cleansing from a specific sin committed by a person, the Essenes (including the Qumranites, with whom John was evidently connected in his younger years) did this regularly, believing that life itself defiles a person.

But in this case the resemblance was only external: unlike the "constant bathers," John did not think that cleansing was an endless process. He was only convinced that a person could be cleansed completely only when the power of God fully transformed his nature. And he was also convinced that the coming Messiah would be able to do this. The prophet evidently saw his own task as reminding people that religiousness alone is not enough, and that a person who, according to traditional ideas, is considered clean and fully sound is not so in God's eyes. Therefore one must be ready to take the next step on the path of resisting one's own sinful nature. A step that opens the way into the Kingdom.