Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)
John 1 - Introduction
CHAPTER 1.
The prologue.
The first eighteen verses contain a preface, or as it is usually called, the prologue to the Gospel. In this prologue the writer identifies the person, Jesus Christ, whom he is about to introduce on the field of history, with the Logos. He first describes the Logos in His relation to God and to the world, and then presents in abstract the history of His reception among men, which he is about to give in detail. That the Eternal Divine Word, in whom was the life of all things, became flesh and was manifested among men; that some ignored while others recognised Him; that some received while others rejected Him that is what John means to exhibit in detail in his Gospel, and this is what he summarily states in this prologue.
The prologue may be divided thus: John 1:1-5, The Logos described; John 1:6-13, The historic manifestation of the Logos and its results in evoking faith and unbelief; John 1:14-18, This manifestation more precisely defined as incarnation, with another aspect of its results. Cf. Westcott's suggestive division; and especially Falconer in Expositor, 1897.