This week is the first of 12 during which we will be immersed in the Gospel According to John. But, actually, the unit began last week when we studied Proverbs 8 and the concept of wisdom as the gift of God to His creation.

I confess at first, I wondered why we would begin a study of John with a chapter from Proverbs. But, as soon as I turned to John 1:1-14, it became evident, for the writer of John is linking the preexistent divine wisdom with the preexistent Word which John identifies as Jesus Christ.

We know Christianity began among the Jews and its earliest leaders were drawn from that same matrix. Furthermore, the earliest expression of the gospel of Christ was made in the vocabulary and thought-forms of the Hebrew religion.

Dr. William Barclay tells us that some 30 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ there “must have been 100,000 Greeks in the Church for every Jew who was a Christian.” So the apostles to the Gentiles (Greeks, Romans and others) were faced with the problem of presenting the “Good News of Jesus Christ” in ways and means that were meaningful to the Gentiles.

The writer of John found a concept familiar to both Jews and Greeks: The connection of “the word.” To Jews “the word” was not merely a sound but a force that actually did things, and the Old Testament often emphasizes the power of words. In time – about 100 years before the birth of Jesus – many Jews, believing the name of God was so sacred, substituted “the word of God” for the name of God. They emphasized the difference and distance of God from human beings.

“The word of God” came to mean not only the expression of God, but His reason and wisdom as well. The Hebrew language had fewer than 10,000 words, while the Greek language had 200,000. The Greek language, instead of emphasizing the difference and distance of God, focused on the God who expressed Himself to His creatures and creation.

Accident or mind?

There have been many times in my life when someone has challenged me to explain why I believe in God and try to follow Jesus Christ.  I usually begin with the creation of the universe (today scientists speak of “many universes”).

When I try to comprehend creation, I cannot help but believe that, instead of creation being a gigantic accident, it must be the result of some kind of divine reason or wisdom. I see plan and purpose in the universe and therefore, I come to accept that this stupendous Idea must have been the product of a stupendous Mind.

As soon as I reach that point, I come face to face with the question: What or who is this God? How can we know anything about the one in which there was born the wisdom of creation? How can it be possible for the finite mind to encounter and analyze the infinite Creator? All human minds attempting to know this Creator are doomed to ultimate failure; the failure of finite minds to know and comprehend that infinite.

This, then, is the task to which John addresses himself and his readers when he says: “And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth” (1:14).

Since human beings cannot conceive and understand God – the gap between divine and human far too wide – God bridged that gap in becoming in the flesh of Jesus of Nazareth born of Mary, a human being himself.

I can write those words, but they are too audacious to be fully understood. I can apprehend them, even if I cannot comprehend them. God, who resides above history, became a historical human being. God, the unlimited, stooped to the limitations of humanity.

I have always appreciated the translation of John 1 by J.B. Phillips: “At the beginning God expressed Himself. That personal expression was with God and was God, and He existed with God from the beginning. All creation took place through Him, and none took place without Him.”

The Word of God, the Wisdom of God proposes that God expressed Himself, communicated with us in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. In John 1:18, John says: “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.”

Life in the light

This doesn’t mean that now the human mind can comprehend the divine realities, or that we can know enough to draw a picture of or write a description of God. But it does mean that we can know the essentials illustrated in the person and ministry of Jesus to live a life in the light of God, rather than the darkness.

All I really need to know to live a life ordained by God, I can find in Jesus Christ. Both his life and his teachings are sufficient for “enlightened living.” In Jesus we find sufficient light to live the life God wants from us.

Remember, the writer of Proverbs 8 promised: “For whoever finds me finds life and obtains favor from the Lord; but those who miss me injure themselves; all who hate me love death” (Proverbs 8:34,35). 

Scan the headlines and photos in today’s newspaper and you will know that there is much, much darkness in this world. But look to Jesus, the “word made flesh,” and I am assured there is also light in this world: “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (1:5).

If we do not see the light of God in Jesus Christ, it is because we are looking in the wrong places. It is a matter of focus: if you focus on the darkness, you will be in darkness; if you focus on light, you will walk in the light. And, if we walk in the light, we must be bearers of that light: “It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.”

Peter Milne was a missionary to the New Hebrides island of Nguna. There is a portrait of him in the little church he founded there. Beneath the picture are these words: “When he came there was no light; when he died there was no darkness.” How would you like that for your epitaph?

Readers with questions or comments for Rev. Althouse may write to him in care of this publication.