John 1:1-2 – “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.”

John takes up the figure of Jesus as the Word. Let us consider three things he is telling us.

1. “In the beginning was the Word.” Here is the Word’s eternity. He had no beginning of his own. Where other things began, he was.

2. “And the Word was with God.” Here is the Word’s personality. The power that fulfills God’s purposes is the power of a distinct personal being, one who stands in an eternal relation to God of active fellowship.

3.“And Word was God.” Here is the Word’s deity. Though personally distinct from the Father, he is not a creature. He is divine in himself, as the Father is. The mystery with which this verse confronts us is thus the mystery of personal distinctions within the unity of the Godhead.

Eternity, personality, deity. A lot is revealed about Jesus in the first sentence of John. Reflect on what it means that this same Jesus is your Savior and your friend (J.I. Packer, Knowing God Devotional Journal).

God spoke our language in Jesus Christ: in his birth, life, death, and resurrection. Jesus embodied God’s story and “fleshed it out” in the power of the Spirit. He bodily lived out and fulfilled, in time and space, what God had said and was saying. Likewise in his mercy, the Word now embodies his church through the Holy Spirit and the cross. We are his body; he has worked, is working and will work in us.

Let’s sing and worship God today for who he is and how he has brought us into and birthed such life in us through his Spirit. Let’s pray for our churches that others will see and hear Jesus, the Word more and more clearly, purely and powerfully through our lives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8gKXu6J2wE

-AP