Newsletter 3/5/2025

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. - John 1:1

The book of John is my favorite Gospel. Of all of the writers who put the life of Jesus on paper, I resonate with his contemplative yet practical style of presenting the story of Christ. His narrative is an outlier. It is not part of what are called the “synoptic Gospels”. Its approach, feel, and even the content is radically different from the other three authors. John embedded certain themes in the first chapter of his Gospel which he expands upon in the proceeding chapters. There are the concepts of light, life, grace, glory, witness, belief. These all get quite a bit of airplay. But there is one idea that John weaves throughout the narrative that overshadows them all; The Word. 

There is not enough space in this Newsletter to breakdown everything I’ve been learning recently about John’s understanding of the Word and how and why he begins his story with this concept. But here are a few delightful things to consider. Notice that the beginning of John mirrors the beginning of Genesis 1. It is almost as if he is signaling that his book is a second Genesis, a revamp of the creation story. Notice also that in Genesis that the primary mode of creation that takes place is that of God speaking things into existence ex nihilo (out of nothing). In simple terms, God uses just words to make the universe. Fascinating. Everything that we know as real, all of the material from which our real world is constructed, all of the distant space filled with orbs and lights and mysteries came from the mere mention of them. They appeared by Deity speaking about them and then poof, there they were. The mind of God imagined it, then the word of God made it. Then consider that John states in verse 1:14 of his Gospel that the Word became human and made His home among us. John is equating the Word with Jesus. Putting the spiritual equation together, he intimates that when God spoke at creation He did not just say words, Jesus the Word of God Himself made that which God imagine. Jesus made visible what was invisible. He made audible what was inaudible. He made tangible that which was only abstract. Jesus is to God in this instance what words are to thought. That is not to reduce Jesus to something so elementary. That is just so that we can understand the unfathomable. 

The first few lines of John’s book indicate that all things were made by the Word. Meaning that Jesus is Co-Creator. And this same maker of all things came down to earth to live among His creations in order to reveal to humanity what the Father was truly like and to give mankind a second chance at creation. Genesis 1:26,27 suggest that original humans were made in the image of God. But we lost that image because of disobedience. So now God creates again through the Word, His Son, and gives men the power to now become the sons of God. This is so that common sinners like you and I can be fashioned in the likeness of our Maker in character. All through Jesus Christ the Savior. This same Word came to live among us, to show us what God was like and how God’s children are to live in a dark world. 

But Jesus is not physically among us today. However He is with us, in us, through the Holy Spirit. And we are not without the physical Word, the mind of God made real and audible. We have the Bible, the expression of the Father’s own heart through the revelation of the Son. The Word still creates, it still speaks, it still makes things new, it still designs ex nihilo and produces something from absolutely nothing! What reverence then should we have for our Bibles? How often should we make it our daily companion? How much should we rely on its promises and quote its wisdom? It is our declaration of faith in Jesus Christ in a world of unbelief. It is our firm foundation upon which we stand. It is the truth and the only truth. This Word has always been, is now, and will always be. 

Pastor Dean