In the Beginning Was the Word: Finding Meaning in the Literary Structure of the Gospel of John

by James M. Hamilton Jr.

You may have heard the saying that the Gospel of John is shallow enough for a child to wade in, yet deep enough for an elephant to swim—meaning that any literate Christian can adequately understand it, but there is depth of meaning below the surface that is well worth the effort to explore. In the Beginning Was the Word invites you to go deeper.

Like an expert diving instructor, pastor and biblical scholar James M. Hamilton, Jr., gives you the tools and training necessary to discover the theological treasures found in the literary structure undergirding John's Gospel. Covering both the overall structure of the book, as well as key repetition of terms, phrases, concepts, and themes, Hamilton helps you understand what John wanted his readers to understand about Jesus's claims of Old Testament fulfillment, his human and divine natures, the triune nature of God, and more.

Perfect for pastors, Bible teachers, seminary students, and anyone who wants a fresh, theologically rich experience listening to the book of John.

224 pages, Paperback

Published July 15, 2025

About the author

James M. Hamilton Jr. (PhD, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary) is professor of biblical theology at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and preaching pastor at Kenwood Baptist Church. He is the author of God's Glory in Salvation through Judgment and the Revelation volume in the Preaching the Word commentary series.

Reviews

[Collin Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

My eyes just had an exercise in vertical astigmatism looking at so many chiasms in this book lol.

What a fantastic in-depth view of the book of John. Hamilton is so technical with how he handles the Word and draws on biblical theological connections through literary structure.

Now, I’m not sure I saw every chiasm like he did but I did agree in seeing intentional structure from the biblical author all throughout the gospel narrative. So thankful for those who rightly handle the Word of God like this. This work no doubt, came with years of reading and memorizing Scripture.

Excited to have Dr. Hamilton for class in a few months!

[Drake · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m going to acknowledge from the outset that Jim Hamilton is currently my senior pastor, so I already had a good idea of what to expect from the book before I began reading. Nevertheless, there were still a few things that surprised me alongside the more familiar (and helpful) insights, as well as some aspects of the book that I think could have been stronger.

The main focus of Hamilton’s volume on John’s Gospel is the way in which the book’s literary structure at both the macro and micro levels impact one’s understanding of the Gospel’s theology (through, e.g., foregrounding certain themes or placing some concepts in parallel with each other). After an inspiring introductory chapter, Hamilton argues his case for seeing a chiastic structure for the Gospel of John as a whole in Chapter 2. While I’m normally a bit on the skeptical side when it comes to chiasms, I found Hamilton’s case here at the macro-level compelling.

Hamilton then proceeds in the following chapters to go through John’s Gospel unit-by-unit. His strongest chapters in this part of the book are those that focus on smaller sections of text, such as Chapter 3 (John 1), Chapter 4 (John 2-4), and Chapter 7 (John 18:1-20:19). These chapters are full of the kinds of insightful exegetical and biblical-theological work that characterize his other writings and provide some of the best “meat” of the book. Chapters 5 and 6 attempt to cover larger units of text (John 5-11 and 12-17, respectively); as a result, Hamilton takes more of a bird’s-eye view approach and, in many cases, simply provides his proposed chiasm for each individual passage along with a few brief comments. While understandable, these chapters left me wishing that less space had been given to simply displaying chiasms and more to unpacking the specific themes that characterize those larger units.

Finally, Hamilton closes his book with two chapters that focus on the doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trinity as presented in the Gospel of John. These end the book on a high note, as Hamilton provides a clear example of how historical and systematic theology can greatly enhance (rather than distort) our understanding of NT theology. While I would have liked to have seen more interaction with other Johannine scholars both here and throughout the book, his use of patristic and Reformed sources is extremely refreshing and demonstrates the strengths of reading the NT from a robustly creedal perspective. For Hamilton, the teachings of the Church universal are a help rather than a hindrance to exegesis, and his treatment of John’s theology is all the stronger for it.

*My thanks to Baker Books for sending me a review copy of this book. I was not required to write a positive review.

[Brandon Arnold · Rating 4 out of 5]

Never read scripture like this before in my life. Mind blown by the intricacies of John's Gospel.

[Jonathan Ginn · Rating 4 out of 5]

When it comes to unpacking a biblical text's literary structure, I find the arguments more persuasive when as much concrete, textual evidence as possible is leveraged. Given that this book was written at a popular level, I can understand why the technical aspects of the discussion were largely omitted. Nevertheless, I think Hamilton could have made a far stronger case if he had "shown his work" a little bit more on paper. Overall, however, this book's focus on structure is right up my alley. I'd love to see more stuff like this on other books of the Bible.

[Caleb Burkhart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hamilton's "In the Beginning Was the Word" is a fine book at best, but not the most insightful or penetrating with regard to current Johannine studies. This book suffers from chiasm-mania, even structuring the book itself to be a chiasm. He argues that "understanding the literary contours of John's Gospel will put us in position to understand the way that he engages with, and claims to present fulfillment of, earlier Scripture" (14). All fine and well, but he proceeds to that "John's Gospel, is a chiasm" (15) without really showing how it really is one. Therefore, Hamilton's work tends to beg the question as he is trying to defend his thesis, often finding chiasms where it reflects more the inventive thinking of Hamilton rather than John's own authorial intention. This is not to say that there are not chiasms in John, there certainly are. However, this would need substantial evidence that goes beyond the space permitted in the book. Typically, the chiastic parallels that Hamilton makes are thematic at best, and even then some are strained, whereas tight chiasms tend to require verbal and grammatical parallels. I was not convinced that in order to understand John's Gospel one had to read it as a chiasm, since some of his readings of passages (such as Jn 2:1–11) find the main point in areas where others would certainly contest. His last two chapters on the incarnation and trinity in John are edifying and quite interesting, since he uses the Athanasian Creed (which he also argues is a chiasm) as a lens for understanding how the grammar and logic of John's Gospel led to the creedal definitions of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These two chapters also integrate current scholarship pertaining to the intersection of theological interpretation and biblical scholarship, whereas the bulk of the book does not interact with the level of scholarship that I was hoping for. Overall, a good book that can be a helpful aid when reading John's Gospel and thinking about its influence in the church's first few centuries, but nothing much that advances conversations in Johannine studies.

[Josiah Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have been a listener of Hamilton’s “Bible Talk” podcast by 9Marks for some time now, and have come to deeply appreciate and be formed by his and the other hosts’ knowledge and skill in biblical interpretation. This book is an excellent extension of that (I highly recommend the podcast). While it would take some further study of John to determine if I agree with all the chiastic assertions that Hamilton proposes, I appreciate his skill and wisdom in putting this book together. I especially found his comments on John 1 to be convincing, and his application of the major points that the chiasms point to is helpful. He does a great job of showing how John portrays Jesus as the fulfillment of the Old Testament. Finally, the final two chapters were insightful and interesting to me (someone with great interest in Church history and theology), as Hamilton details how the Athanasian Creed relates to the theology of John in relation to the person of Christ and the Trinity. This book will be an interesting read for those interested in biblical studies and specifically the structure of biblical literature. Hamilton’s writing is accessible (more so than his book “Typology” in my opinion), and could certainly be read by anyone with a basic understanding of John.

I would recommend reading with a Bible open if possible, making it easy to investigate for yourself.

[Michael G · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great companion to reading the Gospel of John, but certainly not a commentary. The book is relatively short at 218 pages, and focuses on the structure of John (the hint is in the title). But it also gives a skeleton of commentary as it paces through the gospel, and offers some deeper analysis of some creeds at the end, with a helpful exposition of the Trinity.

Personally I’m quite pleased to have read it, as I’m leading a Bible study group on John this year, and this book is a great assistant, but not too great an assistant as to preclude me from doing my own work in trying to understand this magnificent gospel, deeper than I expected it to be.

Recommended.

[Ruth]

I took this in as an audiobook which may have been a mistake on my part. I feel I might have been able to parse it better on the page. Given that the thesis of the book is that narrative structures aid in meaning, I was a bit disappointed that a narrative structure wasn't used as a framework.

I was most interested at the end where the author spoke unto how the chiastic structure of the book speaks into trinitarianism.

[Adam Kareus · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting and engaging read which examines the structure of the gospel of John. Hamilton does an excellent job showing how the gospel writer purposely used the structure to stress and emphasize his points and main ideas. This was a very interesting read and helped one see how the gospel writers were intentional in how they presented the story of Jesus.

[Matthew Rawlings · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting work. I disagree that the main point of John is the fulfillment of OT prophecy and defense of the incarnation and trinity. True but I am writing my dissertation on John and I think it has a wider apologetic and polemical historical reason. Yet, as always, Hamilton is insightful and a talented writer.

[Pat Reeder · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book. But his presentation of chiastic structures in John was so extreme that it muddied the genuine instances of chiasm. When he used the phrase “not unlike” for an instance of parallelism, I realized just how unhelpfully loose his standards were in “seeing” chiasms.

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Be a Berean, work through it for yourself, and be blessed. Whether you see it all or not, there will be much to consider.