The secular mind doesn't understand the personality of God, argues PAUL BARNETT. His new book, John: The Shepherd King, sheds fresh light on the fourth gospel.
JOHN'S OUTRAGEOUS CLAIM
Have you heard of the "first-page test' where you assess the writer's skill in grabbing readers' attention so that they keep reading? The opening chapter of John's gospel is his "first page'.
Jews thought a lot about something called "the Word' but so, too, did the Greeks. What or who was this "Word'? John opens with the outrageous, attention- grabbing assertion that the eternal Word that created the universe and the patterns in the universe was a man.
In his opening chapter John shows readers the remarkable journey of "the Word' from eternity into time. At first we see the Word eternally beside God, though himself God and the One who created all things (verses 1-18). Then, dramatically, the eternal and divine Creator-Word steps into time and space as "flesh'. The time and space into which the Word comes, however, is a dark place whose darkness will attempt to snuff out the light.
TEACHING HISTORY AND TRUTH
According to the secular mind, the universe began spontaneously, by chance, and "nature' has evolved unaided by any outside supernatural force or influence. Individuals may and do have their own religion but it rests only on opinion and cultural influence. There is no one "out there', no reality external to us.
By contrast, from the first page this gospel insists that the eternal Word of God, the Son of the Father, created all things. The Creation is not impersonal but personal. True, it can be accounted for in scientific and mathematical terminology. But these are mechanical explanatory models. Behind the universe is the personality of God.
The word logos meant "ultimate explanation' for the way things are. We perpetuate this understanding by attaching the letters l-o-g-y to various academic disciplines like biology and zoology. The logical scientific study within these disciplines is possible due to the God-given consistency of the universe. The logos, however, is not an "it', an impersonal explanation, but a "he', a personal and ultimate explanation of all things.
How can we know this? The answer is found in the pages of this Gospel. The great miracle signs, in particular the resurrection of Jesus, identifying him as the eternal and divine word (logos) through whom "all things" came'. To move from a secularist to a Creator worldview is a large step for which good evidence is needed. This gives huge importance to John's account as a God-given portrayal of Jesus as the divine Word. In saying "we beheld his glory', John is saying that he was an eyewitness of Jesus' miracles and also of his death and risen life. What John writes is history and truth.
It is, though, a profoundly ironical truth. The "Word' that was divine, eternal and all-powerful became "flesh' helplessly subject to humiliation and suffering. Yet it was as "flesh' that Jesus gave himself in death for the life of the world. The divine and eternal Word who became flesh and who died took away our sins in his death. This is the unfathomable but rock-bottom reality of the universe and of existence. It is God's love-based message to the world in revolt against him.
Whereas later in the Gospel Jesus speaks the word, here he is the Word. Elsewhere in the Gospel Jesus gives life (to Lazarus) and shines his light (for the blind man), here he is both life and light. The Word, therefore, is personal ("all things were made through him" in him was life" He was in the world" '). He is the only begotten Son of the Father.
So central is Jesus as Word and Son that John leaps across the history of Israel from Creation (and beforehand) to the historical incarnation of the Word and the historical ministry of the Son of God. Some modern "revisions' of Jesus as a mere "prophet', "holy man' or "rabbi' are at extreme variance from the One we encounter in the pages of the Gospel.
THE OBSTINACY OF THE WORLD
The first chapter of John points to the obstinacy of "the world' (in Greek, kosmos). "He was in the world and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him' (verse 10). This puts the rejection of the Word in a global setting, regardless of race, nation or time. Yet it is even more specific, painfully so. He came to his own homeland and "his own people did not receive him' (verse 11). People everywhere tend to reject him, but the rejection by his own people Israel is the most poignant.
John attributes this rejection of the Word by all peoples to the vice-like grip of Satan, "the prince of this world' (12:31) who captures alike the hearts of a petty thief Judas (12:6; 13:27) the learned and religious Pharisees (8:44), the devout chief priests (12:42-43) and a self-serving and cynical governor (18:38).
Yet God makes it possible to welcome his Word. Prominent in this regard is Nicodemus, a noted ruler and scholar who first visited Jesus secretly (3:1-11) but in the end identified himself with him publicly (19:39).
No less prominent is a Samaritan peasant woman who receives Jesus' "living water' and witnesses to Jesus as Messiah to her fellow Samaritans. For John's hearers, then and now, this means welcoming the written "word' (and therefore the living Word) in the Gospel.
To such welcomers of the "word' God gives authority to be his children. They do not owe their "birth' to biological process but to the direct work of God through his word.
John's assertion that the darkness has not overcome the light (verse 5a) is his commentary on the whole Gospel where we see Jesus undaunted by evil and rising undefeated by an unjust death. The victory of light over darkness tells us of God's victory over evil. John's unveiling of the Word, of his eternity, creativity, morality and triumph are a source of adoration and hope. In the first decades after Jesus, people who lived in that dark world rejoiced in the hope that had come to them.
Dr Paul Barnett is a historian, author and a former Bishop of North Sydney. His new book, John: The Shepherd King, is published by Aquila Press, RRP $21.95. Available at [url=http://www.publications.youthworks.net]http://www.publications.youthworks.net[/url] or phone (02) 8268 3344.
