John 1:1-5

JOHN'S GOSPEL

You observe, thus far, not a word has been said about John's Gospel. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all wrote historically. Consequently, they go much together, most felicitously corroborating one another. Matthew wrote for the Jews, fifteen years after the ascension of our Lord; Luke, for the Greeks, twenty-five years after the ascension; and Mark, for the Romans, thirty years after the ascension. John wrote for the Christians, not so much historically as doctrinally, experimentally, and spiritually, about sixty-five years after the ascension of our Lord. A.D. 95, Domitian, the Roman emperor, had John thrown into a caldron of boiling oil at Rome, to make soap of him. In the providence of God, his work wasn't done. Consequently he did not saponify, but enjoyed the hot bath, floundering round and shouting “Hallelujah!” Then the emperor had him taken out, and banished to the Isle of Patmos, in the Agean Sea. I sailed by it the other day in my detour from the Holy Land. At that time it was so infected with malaria as to be uninhabitable, and was used by the Roman emperors as a place of banishment for the worst criminals. His custodians arriving with him late Saturday afternoon, and throwing him out on the bleak rocks of that desolate shore, hastened away, leaving him alone, with the bones of his predecessors bleaching in the moonlight on those barren heights. The man of God prays all night. Next morning, which was Sunday (Revelation 1), the glorified Savior comes down from heaven amid lightning, thunders, and splendid corruscations, bringing heaven with Him; throws open the door, and invites His beloved apostle to look in, contemplate the wonders of the latter day, and write them to the people.

John spent the last years of his long and eventful life at Ephesus, the metropolis of Asia Minor, where history keeps track of him till A.D. 101, when, losing sight of him, we have no record of his death, Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, who lived in the second century, and John Wesley, as well as many others, believing that he was translated to heaven alive, like Enoch and Elijah.

THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST

John 1:1-5. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” “Word” means revelation. The incarnation of Christ is the greatest revelation of God ever made to man. Hence, Word here simply means the Incarnate God. “The same was in the beginning with God.” Hence, you see that the Son, like the Father, is uncreated, never having had a beginning, and can never have an end. “All things were made by Him, and without Him there was nothing that was made.” You see from this, not only the co-eternity of the Son with the Father, but that He actually created all things; i.e., the Divinity becomes creative in the Second Person. (Colossians 1)

“In Him was life, and the life was the light of men; and the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.”

Darkness is the concomitant of death, and light that of life.