Both Man and God
John 1:1-18
This prologue of John’s Gospel contains so much, it would be impossible to cover everything about it in this entry, so, in keeping with the principle of Christ Simply, I will cover just the basics.
Who was John?
Many guys named John are mentioned in the Bible, but the guy named John who wrote this gospel is the disciple who went by the name John. He was one of the original twelve apostles. This means he sat at the feet of Jesus and considered him not only a teacher (rabbi) but the Son of God. John claims to be an actual witness to the events of the ministry of God’s Son. Once I realized this, it made the words of this gospel more valuable to me.
Was Jesus really human?
John talks about Jesus being The Word in this passage. According to what John says in his prologue, Jesus was the following things:
The Word
Has been with God from the beginning
He is life
He is light
Rejected by some
Received by some
Flesh, an actual human
The Son of God
Full of grace and truth
Not only was he the Son, but he was also God the Father
That’s a lot. Pages and pages have been written on all of these things, but the important thing to know is Jesus came as a human to go through what we went through.
How can Jesus be both things?
I know it seems strange Jesus was both the Son and the Father, both human and divine. Because that is beyond our understanding, some people just reject Jesus and God outright. What I choose to do is realize some things are only understood by God and our human minds are too limited. I hope one day, as a child of God, I will be able to comprehend how Jesus can be both a man and a spirit, but for now, I must have faith that it is true.
Some side notes:
The John mentioned in verses 6-7 and 15 is John the Baptist, not to be confused with John the disciple and author of this gospel.
The Bible translation I use is the NIV. I use the NIV Quest Bible because it is excellent for personal Bible study, especially for the average person who isn’t a theologian or preacher.
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