Faith in the Word

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

FAITH IN THE WORD

John 1:1-5

1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning.

3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

NIV

In the beginning, was the Logos. What we really need to first deal with is the beginning. The Greek word which is translated beginning carries the meaning of the absolutely the beginning of all things. God is not a thing and therefore he was before the beginning of all things. He is not included in all things which had a beginning. This is possibly the most difficult concept for us humans, who are part of all things that had a beginning, to understand, fully comprehend that God never had a beginning, or that he has always been. Whoever God is, whatever form he has, he has always lived. John wants his reader to understand the Logos or the Word was in the beginning. He is using this term to reference Jesus. So then John is saying that in the beginning was Jesus and Jesus was with God and Jesus was God, He was with God in the beginning. John is giving us the picture right from the state of the divine nature of Jesus. Although over the centuries there have been various thoughts in the search for the historical Jesus that depicts Jesus as a prophet, a great man, a philosophy, and a teacher, but those ideas come from men who lived many years after Jesus living in the flesh. John was a man who lived with Jesus, who walked with him, witnessed all that Jesus did and said. John’s witness is first hand and those we have to give that most credence to what he has recorded. Jesus has always been, before the beginning of what we would call time, as with God time means nothing. He lives outside the boundaries of space and time, however, he created both for us to be able to comprehend life as we know it. All this beginning and before the beginning and has to be taken by faith, as none of us were there. The whole of this argument between creation and evolution is based on faith. We have no definitive human proof of either. We do, however, have the records of persons who witnessed Jesus, and his life, death, resurrection, and ascension, as well as all that he did and said while here on earth. Men say the theory of evolution is based on science, but that science is based on what they, men believe or interpret from their findings of historical items. That is all we will ponder on that, for we have chosen to believe in the historical accounts written by eyewitnesses of actual events that have occurred. Therefore we know the Word was there in the beginning and we know the Word was with God and we also know the Word was God. It is fact, it has been recorded by John as he was inspired by God to write it. We also know, without any reservation that everything that exists, everything is space and time which includes the whole of all the universe we can see and beyond which we cannot see, were made by the divine Jesus as being a member of the triune God, which again, may actually be beyond our ability to fully comprehend. We try our best to attempt to explain what before the beginning was, and who the triune God is, and how all that fits together, but at the end of the day, it comes down to faith in the Word. This is how we have to live, by faith.