The Prologue: See Introduction.
John 1:1-5. The Word in Relation to God and Creation. The references to the language and thought of Genesis 1 are clear. At the time of creation, if the phrase may be allowed, the Word was, eternally existent, in active communion with God, and Divine. The truth about the Logos shows that the Godhead has within itself such distinctions as make possible the exercise, within itself, of the highest activities which correspond to intercourse and communion among men. The Logos, Himself God, was eternally turned towards God. He was the agent of creation, apart from whom nothing came into being. The words that was made, if taken with John 1:3, are easy but meaningless. In early times they were interpreted as the beginning of John 1:4. The use made of the passage by Gnostics to support their theories of pairs of æ ons, and the fact that it seemed to place the Holy Spirit in the class of that which was made, may have led to the change. If taken with John 1:4 they must mean either (a) Creation was (i.e. from God's point of view, was so regarded in the eternal mind) life in Him He sustains the life of all that was made through Him; or (b) As for that which was made, in it was life (so Loisy); for the construction cf. John 1:12; John 10:29; John 17:24. But in any case the general meaning must be that the Logos is the source of life as He is the agent of creation. And in men this life takes the higher form of light, moral and spiritual life, of which also He is the source. The fight between this light and its opposite, the moral darkness of evil, has always been going on, and the light has never been conquered (this and not understood is the probable meaning of the word. Cf. John 12:35 and some authorities in John 6:17). Possibly John 1:5 may refer to the shining of the true light among Christians in the author's own time.