God Made Known - John 1:1-18নমুনা

Read John 1:4-5

John has much more to tell us about the Word. This Word is one in whom there is life. This is much more than saying that the Word is alive. In Him is life itself; He can create life. Life flows from Him. If we think about it, this is a logical next step from what we read in verse three. If nothing was made without the Word, then He must be able to give life. This is unlike any human being, even the most creative; unlike us, the Word can create from nothing.

But there is more to this life even than that. In John’s Gospel life generally means more than physical life. It speaks of spiritual life, also called eternal life – life in relationship with God that starts now and lasts forever.

We have a hint of this here because the life is also called light – revelation – of who God is, what He is like and what we are like. If we read on in John’s Gospel, we will see that life and light are golden threads through the book, not stopping with how we came to be but how we can truly know God and be known by Him.

And just as light fills John’s Gospel, so it is set against darkness. Darkness is more than simply the absence of light. In John’s Gospel the darkness is not neutral. Look at verse 5: it tries to overcome, to destroy the light. This shouldn’t surprise us as we look around our world and see the darkness of human evil. And if we’re honest, we can even see darkness in our own lives... would any of us want to have our hidden thoughts made public?

In other words, the light comes into the real world, the world as we know it. But John is not giving us a description of an even battle between good and evil, where we wait to find out which of the two forces will win. According to John, the darkness has not won. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.