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John

Johnchapter 1

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Speaks with:John 1×10John 3×5Matthew 3×5Colossians 1×3Matthew 11×3Mark 1×3

The Word Made Flesh — Gustave Doré (engraving), public domain

Summary

Chapter summary

Prologue: 'in the beginning was the Word.' Incarnation; 'we beheld his glory.' John the Baptist's witness; 'behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.' Calling of Andrew, Peter, Philip, Nathanael: 'thou shalt see greater things than these … the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.'

Context

Gospel · John — John overview

  • A. 1–5 In the Beginning Was the Word
  • B. 6–13 The Light Comes to His Own
  • C. 14–18 The Word Became Flesh and Dwelt Among Us
  • D. 19–28 John the Baptist: A Voice in the Wilderness
  • E. 29–34 Behold, the Lamb of God
  • F. 35–51 The First Disciples: Come and See

The outline

  1. A.In the Beginning Was the Wordvv. 1 to 5

    Read vv. 1 to 5 →

  2. B.The Light Comes to His Ownvv. 6 to 13

    Read vv. 6 to 13 →

  3. C.The Word Became Flesh and Dwelt Among Usvv. 14 to 18

    Read vv. 14 to 18 →

  4. D.John the Baptist: A Voice in the Wildernessvv. 19 to 28

    Read vv. 19 to 28 →

  5. E.Behold, the Lamb of Godvv. 29 to 34

    Read vv. 29 to 34 →

  6. F.The First Disciples: Come and Seevv. 35 to 51

    Read vv. 35 to 51 →

Threads

Each of these runs on past this chapter. The passage you have just read is marked.

A prophet like unto Moses

Type

Moses promises that God will raise up a Prophet like himself, and the last chapter of the Torah says the promise is still outstanding: there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses. The question is still live in John's Gospel, and Peter preaches the promise fulfilled in Christ.

The five books of Moses end on an unfilled office, and the whole Old Testament reads under that open promise. When the priests ask John the Baptist, Art thou that prophet, they are asking about Deuteronomy 18. Acts states the answer in so many words, which is why this page may say it plainly.

  1. Deuteronomy 18:15-18

    The promise given

    A Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; I will put my words in his mouth.

  2. Deuteronomy 34:10

    The promise still open

    The Torah's last chapter says no prophet like Moses has yet arisen.

  3. John 1:21 you are here

    Art thou that prophet?

    The question is still being asked in the first century.

  4. Acts 3:22-23

    Peter names the Prophet

    Acts quotes Deuteronomy 18:15 and applies it to Christ.

The world behind this chapter

John 1
When
The opening of the ministry, while John the Baptist was still drawing crowds · c. AD 27–28
Where
A crossing of the Jordan called Bethany beyond the Jordan, and the road back up to Galilee
Who first heard it
Readers in a world where Jewish synagogue and Greek city sat side by side

The history

The opening word, translated Word, worked in two directions at once for first-century readers. To Jews it echoed the way God's word created and acted, and the reverent way synagogue Aramaic paraphrases spoke of God's Word doing what God did; to Greeks it named the rational principle they believed held the universe together. John uses a term both audiences already owned and then says it became flesh, which neither of them expected.

The verb behind dwelt among us means pitched a tent, and it is the language of the wilderness tabernacle. Readers who knew the story of God's glory settling on that tent would have caught what was being claimed about a man they could touch.

The delegation from Jerusalem was official business. Priests and Levites sent by the authorities to interrogate a popular preacher at a river crossing is exactly the kind of inquiry a religious establishment ran, and the questions they ask — are you the Messiah, Elijah, the Prophet — are the three figures Jewish expectation was watching for.

The call scenes are full of small local facts. Untying a sandal strap was the one task so degrading that a Jewish master could not require it of a Jewish slave, which is what makes John's disclaimer so extreme. Nathanael sitting under a fig tree fits a common picture of a man studying Scripture in the shade. And the crack about Nazareth is fair: it was a village of perhaps a few hundred, never named in the Old Testament and never mentioned by Josephus.

What it meant to them

The Baptist's title for Jesus — the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world — put together two things a Jewish hearer kept separate: the Passover lamb, whose blood shielded a household, and the sacrifices that dealt with sin at the altar.

For readers pushed out of synagogues by the time this Gospel circulated, the prologue answered the deepest question they had. He came to his own and his own did not receive him — but to all who did receive him he gave the right to become children of God. Their rejection was written into the story from the first page.

Sources cited

Every work MannaFest builds on →

The text of this chapter

This page carries no textual note on John 1. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →

Connections from this chapter

v. 1 · An echo of this verse

John opens his Gospel with Genesis's first words, 'In the beginning', and places the Word there before anything was made.

Genesis 1:1→

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (public domain)Puritan

v. 1 · A mirrored structure

John's Prologue divine-Word inclusio: 'the Word was with God ... was God' mirrors 'the only God ... has made him known'.

John 1:18→

No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is Himself God and is at the Father’s side, has made Him known.

R. Alan Culpepper, 'The Pivot of John's Prologue,' New Testament Studies 27 (1980): 1-31

v. 1 · Bookends: the same words open and close

John frames his whole Gospel with the confession of Christ's deity: it opens with “the Word was God” (1:1) and climaxes with Thomas falling down before the risen Jesus and saying “My Lord and my God” (20:28), immediately before John states why he wrote the book.

John 20:28→

Thomas replied, “My Lord and my God!”

TGC John commentary; critique: biblicalunitarian.com John 20:28; ASV/WEB text

v. 3 · A mirrored structure

John's Prologue pair: 'all things were made through him' (creation) mirrors 'grace and truth came through Jesus Christ' (new-covenant gift).

John 1:17→

For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Culpepper, NTS 27 (1980): 1-31

v. 11 · A picture of Christ

Despised and rejected by men

Isaiah 53:3→

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. Like one from whom men hide their faces, He was despised, and we esteemed Him not.

MannaFest topical index

v. 14 · An echo of this verse

'Dwelt (tabernacled) among us, we beheld his glory' echoes tabernacle-glory and Moses' glimpse at the cleft.

Exodus 33:22→

and when My glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft of the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by.

Hays, Echoes in the Gospels

v. 14 · An echo of this verse

Glory 'full of grace and truth' reprises YHWH 'abounding in chesed we-emet'; the Word 'tabernacled' as glory once tented at Sinai. Ties Name-proclamation to the Logos card.

Exodus 34:6→

Then the LORD passed in front of Moses and called out: “The LORD, the LORD God, is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in loving devotion and faithfulness,

Bauckham; standard Johannine commentary

v. 14 · An echo of this verse

'The Word... tabernacled (skenoo G4637) among us, and we beheld his glory': skenoo cognate to skene (LXX tabernacle); the tent-glory now in a body.

Exodus 40:34→

Then the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle.

John 1:14; LXX skene bridge; Beale 2004

v. 29 · A picture of Christ

The daily lamb (morning and evening) prefigures 'the Lamb of God' offered once for all.

Exodus 29:38→

This is what you are to offer regularly on the altar, each day: two lambs that are a year old.

Exod 29:38-42; John 1:29; Habershon 1898

v. 29 · A picture of Christ

YHWH-Yireh ('the LORD will provide') names the mountain after the ram substitutes; 'Behold the Lamb of God' proposes fulfillment. INTERPRETIVE - label as type.

Genesis 22:14→

And Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. So to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.”

Blue Letter Bible (Jehovah Jireh); text John 1:29

v. 29 · A picture of Christ

'God will provide himself a lamb' is answered at the Jordan: 'Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.'

Genesis 22:8→

Abraham answered, “God Himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two walked on together.

Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (public domain)Puritan

v. 29 · Same theme

'The Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world' -> 'a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain.' The Lamb-on-the-throne endpoint.

Revelation 5:6→

Then I saw a Lamb who appeared to have been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. The Lamb had seven horns and seven eyes, which represent the seven Spirits…

Read the whole verse

Then I saw a Lamb who appeared to have been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. The Lamb had seven horns and seven eyes, which represent the seven Spirits of God sent out into all the earth.

TSK; Johannine Lamb motif

v. 35 · Bookends: the same words open and close

John's Gospel brackets itself with the Beloved Disciple: an unnamed disciple stands with Andrew at the very beginning (1:35–40), and the book closes by identifying that disciple as the one “which testifieth of these things, and wrote these things” (21:24). The frame is John's own claim to have seen what he reports.

John 21:24→

This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who has written them down. And we know that his testimony is true.

Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses

v. 51 · A picture of Christ

Jesus takes Jacob's ladder to himself: 'ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man.'

Genesis 28:12→

And Jacob had a dream about a ladder that rested on the earth with its top reaching up to heaven, and God’s angels were going up and down the ladder.

Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (public domain)Puritan

Where scholars push back(2)

John 20:28. Unitarian readers take Thomas's words as an exclamation directed past Jesus to the Father rather than a confession of who Jesus is.

John 21:24. Critics of Bauckham's reading hold that the closing verse is a later editor's endorsement rather than the author's self-identification.

This page draws on Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Calvin, Commentaries; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.

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