In this message we will begin to consider the aspects of the experience and enjoyment of Christ revealed in the Gospel of John.
John 1 presents Christ as the Word, the Lamb of God, the Baptizer, and the heavenly ladder.
The Word is the definition, explanation, and expression of God; hence, the Word is God defined, explained, and expressed.
“In the beginning was the Word” (v. 1a). As the Word (vv. 1-5, 14-18) Christ was in the beginning. The phrase in the beginning in verse 1a means in eternity past.
The remainder of verse 1 says, “The Word was with God, and the Word was God.” To say that the Word was with God means that the Word is not separate from God. It is not that the Word is the Word and that God is God, and that they are thus separate from each other. Rather, the Word and God are one. For this reason, the next clause in verse 1 says that the Word was God.
“He was in the beginning with God” (v. 2). From eternity past the Word was with God. Contrary to what is supposed by some, it is not that Christ was not with God and was not God from eternity past, and that at a certain time Christ became God and was with God. Christ’s deity is eternal and absolute. From eternity past to eternity future, He is with God and He is God.
“In Him [the Word] was life, and the life was the light of men” (v. 4). Life here refers to the life signified by the tree of life in Genesis 2. This is confirmed by the fact that in Revelation 22 John mentions the tree of life. Since life is in Him, He is life (John 11:25; 14:6), and He came that man might have life (10:10b).
Life is in the Word, the expression of God. Life can be found only in the expression of God. The Word, which is the expression and explanation of God, contains God as our life. When we receive the Word, we receive the life within it. Both the Word and the life are God Himself. The Word is the expression of God, and the life is the content of God. When we hear the Word, we realize that God is expressed and explained. When we receive the Word, we receive God’s very content as life.
The life in the Word is “the light of men.” Whereas the light for the old creation was the physical light (Gen. 1:3-5, 14-18), the light for the new creation is the light of life, mentioned in John 1:4. Christ is the Word, the expression of God by which we may know God. When we receive Him as the expression of God, He becomes our life, and this life becomes the light that shines within us. When the Word is heard and the life is received, the life becomes the light shining within us to enlighten us. Many of us can testify that when we called on the name of the Lord Jesus, receiving Him into us, the divine life came into our being, and immediately we had the sense of something shining within. That shining was the shining of life.
Christ is the light of life (1:4b-13; 8:12; 9:5; 12:46) to bring the divine life to the world by shining forth God that man may be born of God to be His children, making man God in life and nature but not in His Godhead. When we receive His shining of the light of life, this shining imparts the divine life into us. That divine life becomes our authority to be God’s children (1:12-13), God’s kind, God’s species, God’s family.