Gospel of John 1:6-18
6-8 A man called John was sent by God as a witness to the light, so that any man who heard his testimony might believe in the light. This man was not himself the light: he was sent simply as a personal witness to that light. Phillips
‘A man’ is the translation for the Greek Anthropos, but the word actually refers to a person as opposed to aner which does mean man. Anthropos can be used for man when it is known that a man is the subject, as it is here. Why did GJohn use the word? I suspect because he wants us to understand our role is just as important as that of the Baptizer. He was a witness to Jesus as we all are expected to be, even if we are doing it centuries later.
That man was sent by God. GJohn will use sent, send, sending, etc., fifty-seven times. God intends for us to be visited by many witnesses. In that same vein, GJohn always refers to the Twelve as disciples, never Apostles. He seems to emphasize that all who follow Jesus are equal and expected to witness as the Baptizer did.
There are two Greek words, martureo (noun) and marturia (verb) occurring forty-seven times; they always mean witness, yet many English translations use testimony or testify. The purpose of witnesses is to convince people that Jesus is the Messiah. GJohn uses the word pisteuo one-hundred times. It means to believe.
Isaiah 40:3-5. A voice rings out: “Clear in the desert a road for the Lord! Level in the wilderness a highway for our God! Let every valley be raised, every hill and mount made low. Let the rugged ground become level and the ridges become a plain. The Presence of the Lord shall appear, and all flesh, as one, shall behold—for the Lord Himself has spoken.” JSP
Here, John first uses the Greek martureo—witness. We will see it thirty-seven times in his Gospel. Words, actions, and people all witness to the Messiah, including Jesus himself. In John’s Gospel, one witness is not enough; a dozen is not enough. All of us are witnesses to the reality of a human who was God; or a God who was human.
Yet, given Let us make man in our image…, why should we be surprised when God walks the earth looking like us?
The Baptizer, son of Elizabeth, a cousin to Mary, was only a prophet, not the Messiah. But he was a prophet regarding the Messiah, he who Isiah promised. Baptizer’s message was clear; turn to the true light now, for the Messiah is coming (GJohn does not use the word repent). He never claimed to be anything other than the promised witness for the long-promised Messiah.
9 The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. NIV
Standing in the running waters of the River Jordan, the Baptizer shouted to all who would listen, ‘he is coming.’ He spoke of the Promised One of God who would bring the Light of God into the dark world. The Word that created light became a human to bring us the Light created before the creation of the sun and moon.
10 He was in the world, and the world was created by him, but the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to what was his own, but his own people did not receive him. NET
The world we live in is not the perfect creation we read of in Genesis 1. This world, the one Jesus came to, is broken by sin, but we must live here until we can believe in God instead of ourselves. The Hebrew Yeshua, Jesus, lived a perfect life in this imperfect world so that we can see how God wants us to live. Jesus is a witness to God the Father.
We humans, Hebrew and Gentile alike, have a long history of not believing in God or ignoring Him. Many who claim to believe have very warped ideas of what that involves. Some followers of Jesus did not believe he was a person. John wrote his Gospel because of such beliefs to steer us back to the Truth. Jesus is the Son of God, but also the son of Joseph and Mary.
Tens of millions of people today are atheists who reject all religions and any concept of a god. That was not a problem John had to tackle. Nearly everyone in the world in 90 CE, not just the Roman world—Africa, China, the Americas—believed in gods. John had to convince his readers that there is one and only one God. Jesus the Messiah created the entire physical universe, and He created humans to be his companions. [Since few people could read until modern times, reading the Gospels and Letters aloud in churches was the norm.]
John works to counter the arguments put forth by atheists. God does not exist; ‘wrong, Jesus did exist, I walked with him for three years; I saw Jesus speaking with Moses and Elijah; I saw him drive out demons and heal the sick; I saw his empty tomb.’
12 But to as Many as did receive him, to those who put their trust in his person and power, he gave the right to become children of God. 13 not because of bloodline, physical impulse or human intention, but because of God. CJB
Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, writing about 350 CE, penned the following. For the Word perceived that death was the only way that the corruption of people could be undone—thus the flood. However, it was impossible for the Word to suffer death, being immortal and Son of the Father. Therefore, he takes to himself a body capable of death, so that such a body, by partaking of the Word who is above all, might be worthy to die in the stead of all, and might, because of the Word that had come to dwell in it, remain incorruptible. ACCS
Note the phrase, takes to himself a body, means that God created a body just like the first Adam had before sin changed it. God placed that body on earth to live a human existence. Athanasius was not speaking as a Gnostic; he argued against the Gnostic position.
By 350 CE, the Gnostics had to hide after two centuries of success. At their peak, they controlled about half of all churches throughout the empire. The Greek word, Gnostic, refers to knowledge, especially secret knowledge. Many of the Gnostic cults required initiation ceremonies, memorizing of secret texts, and proof of loyalty before being allowed into the inner circle of the enlightened few. Jesus’ Good News is for all who accept it in faith.
There were—and still are—many variations on the theme that God’s Son could not have died, so the disciples faked the death. Most Gnostics did like what Jesus taught, but they could not accept the possibility that he was God in the flesh. The two basic Gnostic ideas were: 1) God took over a man named Yeshua and used him as His puppet for three years, saying all the things God wanted us to hear; or 2) God appeared on earth looking like a human without being human and when it was time to ‘die,’ God let some loser die for Him.
John had to be sickened to see these ideas starting to weaken the church. John remembered the murders of his brother James, and Jesus’ brother James, and all the other Apostles who insisted that Jesus was both God and man.
We modern Christians are often fond of saying that Jesus took on our sins, but read what Augustine had to say about 400 CE. It is not right to say that any part was lacking in that human nature he put on, except that it was a human nature altogether free from any bond of sin. ACCS
Basil the Great, writing about the time of the Nicaean Doctrine in 325 had this to say. How can the Godhead be in the Flesh? In the same way as fire can be in iron: not by moving from place to place but by the one imparting to the other its own properties…. The fire is not diminished, and yet it completely fills whatever shares in its nature. So it is also with the Word. He did not relinquish his own nature, and yet “he dwelt among us.” ACCS Basil spoke against the ideas of Arius and Arianism. They held that Jesus was created by God, so was only human.
To those who put their trust in his person and power, he gave the right to become children of God.
Following Jesus is not rocket science, and trust is the only requirement. The atheist says Jesus does not exist; I say, ‘I trust he does exist.’ I say that because John, Matthew, Mark, Luke, Paul, James, Jude, and millions of others have said it and have held to the trust through the ages.
14 Now the Word became flesh and took up residence among us. We saw his glory—the glory of the one and only, full of grace and truth, who came from the Father. 15 John testified about him and shouted out, “This one was the one about whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is greater than I am, because he existed before me.’” NET
Because we do not have words to describe God, we resort to using human terms. He speaks, and things happen. Really? As far as human knowledge goes, yes, God speaks. He said the Word that placed a perfect human egg in Mary’s womb, guarded by angels, so that the one perfect human could become the long-promised Messiah, the man we call Jesus. We Saw his Glory. John means he and thousands of others saw Jesus and witnessed to having seen him.
Even before the Twelve, Jesus’ cousin preached about the Messiah and pointed him out to others as Jesus came to be baptized, a way to identify with John’s ministry. John even said that Jesus existed with God before arriving as a human.
All of this was easier in some ways for First Century people, especially Greeks and Romans, because speaking of gods becoming human and walking among us was everyday stuff. They were already religious, they just needed direction to the one true God.
16 Indeed, from his fullness we have, all of us, received—one gift replacing another, 17 for the Law was given through Moses, grace and truth have come through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God; it is the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known. NJB
Jesus came to us with a gift from God the Father. The gift is Grace, and only by grace can any of us enter the Courts of God’s Kingdom in the New Jerusalem. God the Father gave that gift to His Son, and Jesus freely gives it to anyone who believes in him.
In 1943, C. S. Lewis published a book entitled, Mere Christianity. On page 43 in my small paperback version, he writes: If you are a Christian, you are free to think that all these religions, even the queerest ones, contain at least some hint of the truth. When I was an atheist I had to try to persuade myself that most of the human race have always been wrong about the question that mattered to them most; when I became a Christian I was able to take a more liberal view. But, of course, being a Christian does mean thinking that where Christianity differs from other religions, Christianity is right and they are wrong. As in Arithmetic—there is only one right answer to a sum, and all other answers are wrong; but some of the wrong answers are much nearer being right than others.
Be righteous and do good.
Mike Lawrence
Mike Lawrence Books 