#19 Top 40 New Testament Passages: The Divinity of Jesus (John 1:1-14)

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-14)

My top 40 New Testament list has no birth narratives, but the prologue to John's gospel is read every Christmas Eve, quite often in candlelight. John chooses to open his account of the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus to begin to a beautiful theological announcement about he nature of Jesus. Jesus is God. Jesus is the divine Son of God, the Father's only begotten. Jesus is pre-existent, present before the universe was created. In fact the universe was created through Jesus. Jesus is the divine principle that orders the universe. Jesus is the Word.

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, "the Word or Logos in Greek philosophy and theology, is the divine reason implicit in the cosmos, ordering it and giving it form and meaning. Though the concept defined by the term logos is found in Greek, Indian, Egyptian, and Persian philosophical and theological systems, it became particularly significant in Christian writings and doctrines to describe or define the role of Jesus Christ as the principle of God active in the creation and the continuous structuring of the cosmos and in revealing the divine plan of salvation to man. It thus underlies the basic Christian doctrine of the preexistence of Jesus.

The idea of the logos in Greek thought harks back at least to the 6th-century-BC philosopher Heracleitus, who discerned in the cosmic process a logos analogous to the reasoning power in man. Later, the Stoics, philosophers who followed the teachings of the thinker Zeno of Citium (4th–3rd century BC), defined the logos as an active rational and spiritual principle that permeated all reality. They called the logos providence, nature, god, and the soul of the universe, which is composed of many seminal logoi that are contained in the universal logos. Philo of Alexandria, a 1st-century-AD Jewish philosopher, taught that the logos was the intermediary between God and the cosmos, being both the agent of creation and the agent through which the human mind can apprehend and comprehend God. According to Philo and the Middle Platonists, philosophers who interpreted in religious terms the teachings of the 4th-century-BC Greek master philosopher Plato, the logos was both immanent in the world and at the same time the transcendent divine mind."  

See the full article here: https://www.britannica.com/topic/logos

John is co-opting Greek and Greek-influenced ideas in Judaism that were prevalent in his world and presenting Christ in light of these ideas. While the other gospels take time to present Jesus as divine, John jumps right in stating it powerfully and plainly.

We learn that though Jesus, the Word, the world was created. (John 1:3) If you know the opening verses of the Bible, you will recognize that John's prologue is paying tribute to Genesis. 

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. (Gen 1:1-3)

Look at the similarities.

Genesis 1                                                     

In the beginning God (Gen 1:1)                        

Then God said (Word) (Gen 1:3)                             

“Let there be light" (Gen 1:3)                                   

God separated the light from the darkness (Gen 1:4)

John 1

In the beginning was the Word (John 1:1)

All things came into being through him (Word) (John 1:3)

the life was the light of all people (John 1:4)

light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it (John 1:5)

John uses the theological metaphors of light (illumination of the soul) and darkness (spiritual ignorance and confusion), life (creative presence) and lifelessness (the absence of God). In Christ is life and that life that has come into the world is the light of all humankind. The presence of Christ Jesus, the light of the world, is life for us. The presence of Jesus brings wisdom and understanding, shedding light in an otherwise dark and confusing world.

Of course all these claims are made from a faith experience shared by Christians throughout the millennia. These words about the eternal Christ, the Word, the Light, speak truth that resonates in the hearts of those who have experienced the living presence of Jesus through faith.

The darkness that did not overcome the light of Jesus is spiritual blindness to the truth of Jesus. Many religious leaders in Jesus' day did not recognize Jesus as the divine Son of God. They did not notice God's visitation in him. And while the political powers of that day tried to snuff out the light through crucifying Jesus, the light shined all the brighter in the hearts of those who knew that Jesus is risen and alive forevermore, reigning in victory. 

Though Jesus' own people did not embrace him as messiah, God's anointed savior king, there were some who did. Those who did place their trust in Jesus became children of God. They became children of God through power (grace), which transformed them from the inside out. They became children of God who shine with the light of Christ coming from within. 

From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known. (John 1:16-18)

And so the impact of Jesus is to make God known. God is mystery, and yet God has acted in Jesus to be known, so that we no longer stumble blindly in darkness of mind and heart, but ably walk in His light. John's gospel is all about giving his readers the truth about Jesus, so that you might believe in Him and have life. (John 20:31)

The big claim in John's prologue is that Jesus of Nazareth is God. That He was present at the dawn of creation and that all that is was made through Him. The apostles all affirm the divinity of Jesus Christ. Consider these New Testament passages.

The Divine Christ

He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Colossians 1:15-17)

For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily (Colossians 2:9)

He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word. (Hebrews 1:3)

He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things. (Ephesians 4:10)

He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark (1st Peter 3:18-20)

Now to him who is able to keep you from falling, and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (Jude 1:24-25)

When I saw him (Jesus), I fell at his feet as though dead. But he placed his right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, 18 and the living one. I was dead, and see, I am alive forever and ever; and I have the keys of Death and of Hades. (Revelation 1:17-18)

The birth narratives in both Matthew and Luke make the proposition of Jesus' divinity by affirming his conception through the activity of the Holy Spirit and a virgin mother. 

Some will argue that Jesus is only human, if he existed at all in history. They will maintain that the Jesus Christians worship is a human construct of wishful thinking. Peter knew such critic in his own day and contrasted the apostles' witness from Greek mythology. (2nd Peter 1:16) But cynics have always been. Darkness still confuses and clouds humanity's spiritual eyesight. (Romans 1:21; Ephesians 4:18) 

For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (1st Corinthians 1:22-23)

So what dies the divinity of Jesus mean for you? It means nothing unless your mind if illumined by an act of God. Indeed it cannot. (1st Corinthians 2:14) But when through trust in the message about Christ, you open to trust in Him, the light will shine in your heart and you will know what the children of God know. You will know Jesus, alive and reigning, and yourself as a child of God. And this shall give you grace upon grace, power and life overflowing from within.