Gospel of John Bible Study - Digging Deeper: The Prologue
The prologue of John’s gospel (and to a lesser degree but not lesser import the entirety of the John’s gospel makes significant use of the terms “Word,” “Glory,” and “Name” to describe the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity. These terms are used by John to not only proclaim in a revelatory manner Jesus of Nazareth as the incarnate Son of God, but informs our understanding of the incarnation itself and the preexistence of the Son prior to creation. The writer to the Hebrews states: “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.”1 It will be shown that John’s gospel proclaims Jesus Christ is just such a revelatory manner, connecting Him through the terms “Word,” “Glory,” and “Name” to explain His divine work in the creation through history to the incarnation and atoning sacrifice on the cross, death, resurrection, and final ascension to the right hand of the Father, returning to Him who sent Christ into His creation as our sin-bearer.
The prologue asserts the Word was present with and present as God at the creation. This same Word functioned as creator. The Word then became incarnate and “tabernacled” among His created. We run a risk of anthropomorphizing the terms Name, Glory, and Word by trying to categorize the actions of the persons of the Trinity using them. However, the term Word is an exception when used to describe Jesus Christ, as John does extensively in the prologue. Thus described we can see how John’s use of Word informs the preexistence of the Son and His dwelling among us illuminates His “tabernacling” not only in the incarnation but as the physical manifestation of God in the Old Testament as well. John 1:18 says “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known. (ESV)” The word revealed God as manifest in the Old Testament theophanies.
No one has seen the full revelation of God until the Word became flesh and revealed the Truth (Himself) to the world. This revelatory language in verses 14-18 resonates across time and space as we see in the entire prologue. The coming of the God-man reveals God's truth to His created, and the interpretation of said truth ripples both backward and forward from the creation to the last day. The Word begotten from eternity in the bosom of the Father is revealed corporeally in finite time and subsequently returned to the right hand of the Father. This is the gift of truth, which then informs our interpretation of the entire Old Testament. All Scripture orbits the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus.
John saying "no one has seen God at any time" is both in the physical sense and the revelatory sense. It is true, no one has seen the face of God until God gained a face in the incarnation. In every Old Testament theophany, God revealed Himself in a way that is relatable to humans such as the glory cloud, the angel who wrestled with Jacob, etc., as well as the many instances of “the word of the Lord came to...” in the prophets. These were actual physical manifestations, but also incomplete. He had not revealed Himself in answer to the original promise, the Truth, until the incarnation. It is then that the full truth is revealed. Man sees reflected in the now flesh and blood face of Christ the image of what we were supposed to be. The image of God in which we were created, and had lost. So in that way, the revelation reached back all the way to before the fall. The Word is always the instrument of revelation. Revelation in the Old Testament was by the Word who manifested as the visual presence of God. The full revelation of God's glory does not come until the Son is sent in the Name of God into the flesh and glorified upon the cross, however.
John uses “glory” to describe further this visible manifestation of God. He writes in John 1:14–15 “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” In Exodus 33:20 God says “you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live.” Yer God reveals Himself to us through the preincarnate Christ, perceived not as “God” but as “the glory of the Lord.”2 As Gieschen points out that only the only begotten Son of God has seen the Father and made Him known to us, implying that the Son was seen before the incarnation. Thus Christ as the Glory has always been the physical manifestation of God. Indeed Christ scolds the scoffers for not recognizing the word made flesh as being the same voice which spoke on Sinai (cf. Dt. 4:12, Jn. 5:7, Num.12:6). Jesus said “I have come in my Father's name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?”3 The revelation of God – the glory of the Word sent in the Name is complete in Christ. The glory of the Lord men are to seek is found in Christ. The glory seen by Isaiah (6:1-3) is fully revealed at the empty tomb: “Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?’”4
The Word sent to reveal the Glory of the Lord is sent in the Name of the Lord. The Name in inseparable from a personal being, existing from before creation and used in the creative act. “Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.”5 He has a secret Name which “no one knows” (Rev.19:12) but the Name “by which he is called is The Word of God.”6 He is the one who is sent, the Word which “leapt from heaven”7 The glory which has “the appearance like a man” (Ez. 1:26) or “one like a son of man”8 to whom glory and dominion are given.
John shows us that Gad has always revealed Himself to us through His Son. The Son has been with the Father from eternity and spoke as the Word of God through the prophets and tabernacled among us as the Glory of the Lord. This revelation was not complete, however, until the Son was sent by the Father in His Name to become incarnate and dwell among us physically, revealing His Glory upon the cross and returning to the Father. Now in these last days, God is revealed to us us all of Scripture through His Son, Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.
John’s prologue is unique in its presentation of the Son of God as uncreated, present at the creation as the Word and by inference the “Word of the Lord” which came to the prophets up to and including John the baptist sent in the Name of the Father. This word abides with man and reveals the Glory of the Lord, seen through a glass dimly until the full revelation of glory on the cross. Name, glory, and word are an inseparable hypostasis in Christ not dissimilar to our understanding of the hypostatic union of the God-man Jesus. A tapestry is painted of the eternal Son of God, the Word sent into the world to reveal the glory of the Lord bearing the name of the Lord before the incarnation and fully revealed in the incarnation. Accomplishing the missio Dei, the Word ascends back to the Father from whom He descended.
1Hebrews 1:1–3 (ESV).
2Gieschen, Charles A. Angelomorphic Christology: Antecedents And Early Evidence. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2017. p.273-274.
3John 5:43–44 (ESV).
4John 11:40 (ESV).
5John 17:7–8 (ESV).
6Revelation 19:13 (ESV).
7Wisdom of Solomon 18:15-16 (found in the Apocrypha).
8Daniel 7:13-14.