The Baptist’s testimony prepares the way for the Logos to come in flesh to reveal God’s character and to offer eternal life for those who believe. The Baptist confirms that Christ was pre-existent and that he is greater than the Baptist in status and rank (1:15). In fact, 1:15 does not interrupt the flow of thought between 1:14 and 1:16–18. Whereas 1:14 narrates the witness of the believing community to the glory revealed in the Logos-Son, 1:15 expresses the witness of the Baptist to the same glory, which was pre-existing as the Logos, even though temporally the Logos became flesh after the Baptist was born (cf. 1:26–27, 29–30; Matt 3:11 par.).
New humanity Enlightened by the Light (1:9–13)
The third section of the prologue introduces the Logos as “the true Light.” That is, he is the “genuine” or “authentic” Light, surpassing any other lights, which are “obsolete, defective, and unreliable.”5 He was coming into the world, the realm of human affairs, to enlighten every human being (1:9). “Enlightenment” means not just the attainment of intellectual knowledge but the insight one may get about God and his purpose for human beings. It is an illumination that transforms people from their evil nature to do good works. The universal implication of this mission is known from the word “every human.”
Even though the Light in the Logos came into the world, the world failed to know him (1:10). “Knowing” is a key word used in the Gospel to mean not so much the Hellenistic and Gnostic notion of intellectual perception as an active relationship between God and his people (see Amos 3:2 for God knowing his people in terms of choosing them and caring for them, and Jer 31:33–34 for the humans to know God in terms of their humble obedience and trust in him). The word “world” in John refers mainly to those who reject Jesus and his followers because of their hostility towards them (e.g., 15:18–19; 17:14). God’s provision to humankind to become children of God and the world’s rejection are prefigured in the prologue (1:9–10).
The Logos-Light was rejected, notably, by his own people. In John, the term “my own” denotes the people chosen by Jesus (or those given by God to Jesus) to be his followers (17:6, 10). The parallel phrase “his own people” (1:11b) confirms that those who did not receive the Light were Jesus’ own people, the Jews. It is noteworthy that only those who keep the covenant made by God are his “treasured possession” (Exod 19:5). However, the Jews who received God’s covenant belonged to the old and fallen humanity, and therefore they could not perceive the Logos-Light as the Messiah. John, in contrast, will declare in his Gospel that it is the people of God, under the new covenant, who will be “his own possession” (cf. 1:12).
In spite of the world’s rejection, God offered opportunity to the Jews and Gentiles to receive the Logos and to become his children. “Receiving” is the receptive aspect of believing. The object of faith is “his name.” In the OT, God manifests his character and work by revealing, or sometimes by concealing, his name, YHWH or “I am that I am” (e.g., Gen 32:27–30; Exod 3:13–14; 6:2–3; Isa 42:8). The Johannine Jesus bears this name so that he may manifest it to those who believe in him (17:6, 26). By revealing God’s name, Jesus reveals God himself. This powerful name of God enables those who receive him and believe in his name to be born in the family of God as his children, that is, to become members of new covenant community (1:12).
John discloses the source of new birth both in negative terms (i.e., neither of blood nor of the will of flesh nor of the will of man) and in positive term (i.e., of God). The new covenant community comes into being by the Spirit, the life-giving power of God, and not by any human effort (John 1:13; 3:3–8; cf. Deut 32:18; Ps 2:7).6
Dwelling of the Logos-in-flesh among humans (1:14, 16–18)
This section constitutes the fifth strophe of the hymn (1:1–18) and is the climax of what John wants to say in the prologue. His statement “the Word became flesh” (1:14a) would have kept many in astonishment in the late first century, since no philosophical or religious thought understood the concept of Logos in this way. The birth narratives of Matthew and Luke are summed up by John in one sentence: “And the Word became flesh.”
The conjunction “and” stresses the transition of the Logos from his pre-existent state to human history. Whereas 1:1 shows the transcendence of the Word, 1:14 describes how he became immanent—the supernatural natural, and the invisible visible.7 It would have been easier for understanding the incarnation if John had simply written, “The Word was born as a man” (cf. Phil 2:7b). Why should John use two catching words, “became” and “flesh”?
Some in the early church might have believed that by becoming a man Christ put off his divine glory in heaven (cf. Phil 2:7a). As observed above, there were heretics in the late first century who questioned either Christ’s divinity or his humanity. The word “became” (egeneto) implies that by taking human form the pre-existent Word did not cease to be God, just as Jesus continued to be Jesus of Nazareth even after he became a prophet (Luke 24:19; cf. 3 John 8).8 It does not support a “naїve Docetism”9 that minimizes the reality of Jesus’ humanity. In the earthly life of Jesus, his oneness with the Father continued. Otherwise it would be impossible to see the Father’s glory on earth.
The word “flesh” goes beyond mere humanness and points to the frailty and vulnerability of human beings (Isa 40:6; John 6:63).10 This means that Jesus, by assuming human flesh, experienced the weakness and helplessness of human beings, enabling him to be compassionate toward helpless sinners (cf. Rom 8:3; 2 Cor 8:9; Heb 2:17–18). John’s word “flesh” thus displays not merely a polemic purpose, but it also gives the good news that the one God, who is inaccessible (1 Tim 6:16), came to live with the fallen humanity.
This thought is carried forward by the statement “and he dwelt among us” (literally “and he tabernacled in the midst of us”). The Logos becoming flesh and his dwelling among human beings go together, as the conjunction “and” shows. The Greek word eskēnōsen (“he tabernacled/dwelt”) echoes the dwelling of God among his people in the tabernacle (Exod 25:8–9; 29:45–46; Zech 2:10–11). Besides the wilderness motif, one can also see a Wisdom motif11: The Creator chose the people of Israel as the tent where Wisdom can dwell and minister before him (Sir 24:8, 10). What was applied to Wisdom is now applicable to the Logos, though with a conceptual difference. The eschatological motif in 1:14b becomes obvious in its allusion to the Lord’s dwelling in the midst of the people of Israel on the day when many nations will join themselves to be his people (Zech 2:10–11; cf. Rev 7:15; 21:3).12 In this eschatological framework, the phrase “among us” does not indicate only the people of Israel, but broadly all human beings. Thus, in the coming of the Logos in human flesh, the end-time has dawned.
However, the personal pronoun “we” in “we beheld his glory” (1:14c) points exclusively to those who, by faith, could see and experience God’s glory in the Logos incarnate. It need not be confined only to eyewitnesses or to the Johannine community. For unbelievers, however, the glory of God revealed in flesh remains hidden.13 “Seeing God’s glory” can be connected with the tabernacle and the temple, where one can see God’s presence or his glory (Exod 24:15–17; 25:8; 40:35; 1 Kgs 8:10, 11, 13). The temple is also the place where God put his name to dwell (1 Kgs 8:29; 9:3; 2 Chr 6:20). For John the name of God that dwelt in the tabernacle/temple and God’s glory that was seen