When the word comes to life

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us … (John 1:1, 14, ESV).

The fourth Gospel proclaims a world-transforming message. What God decreed in the beginning has become a living, breathing reality here on earth. The world God spoke into existence is now present in the Christ: light in the darkness, Father’s life in the human family, a corrupted world restored to heaven’s reign in him.

God’s word in the beginning transformed a formless and empty world into something with shape and significance. “Let there be light!” God decreed, as he separated light from darkness. “Let there be a vault separating the waters … and let the dry land appear.” “Let there be life … vegetation on the land … waters teeming with living creatures … the land producing living creatures … mankind in our image.” God’s decrees placed each creature in the right place, in the boundaries God set for them. God’s decree called humans to manage his meaningfully formed and filled world. God’s decrees were very good, forming a world at peace (Genesis 1).

The word of the Lord God called the human into the garden of God’s dwelling. “Take care of it and guard it,” God said. “It’s all yours. Only the knowledge of good and evil is not for you, and trying to take that would be fatal.” (Genesis 2:15-17). For the first time, there’s a hint that what God decreed may not work out.

Another voice confronts what God said. “You will certainly not die,” the serpent told the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods [elohim], knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:4-5). Queen Eve and King Adam did what was right in their own eyes instead of following what God decreed as good and evil. It didn’t make them gods; it made them mortal. Disconnecting from our Life-Source is deadly.

Brother kills brother in a world where good means “what’s good for me” (Genesis 4). Light and darkness are no longer separated when the godly (Genesis 5) turn from God to plan only evil. A world ruined by violence is no longer protected by the decree God gave separating the land from the seas (Genesis 6).

What would it take to rescue the corrupted world? One person aligned with God’s decrees: Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him (Genesis 6:22 ESV). When the light shines in the darkness, the darkness does not overcome it (John 1:5).

That’s John’s Good News. The Word has come, the living breathing, embodied reality of all that God purposed for the earth. He is the undoing of death. God’s people come to life in him.

John 1:9–13 (ESV)
⁹ The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into the world. ¹⁰ He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. ¹¹ He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. ¹² But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, ¹³ who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

In the beginning, God formed the human from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the human became a living being (Genesis 2:7). By disconnecting from God, āḏām (the human) returned to being ǎḏāmāh (the ground) (Genesis 3:19).

But John’s Gospel sees the Son restoring us to life in Father’s family. Raised from the ground on the first day of a new creation week, the man in the garden says, “Go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’” (John 20:17). He breathes God’s breath into us (John 20:12).

The word God spoke in the beginning comes to life in Christ. For the first time, we see the glory of the divine image in the Son, the Son who restores our sonship as we come to life in him. All of this is being restored to us, for the world-transforming word of God is now present here in him:

John 1:14 (ESV)
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.

So what kind of people are we to be? If we’re the community that has come to life in Christ for the world, how do we embody God’s grace in reality?

Related posts

• How John introduces Christ (John 1)
• Meet the author of life (John 1:1–14)
• Introducing Jesus (John 1:1-5)