John 1:1-5, 9-14. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner during our Christmas Service, December 21, 2025.
We are pausing on our study of 1 Peter today in order to focus on the Incarnation of Jesus. The Messiah would not just come to fix Israel, but he would also come to fix the Creation through a process of re-creation. Matthew and Luke emphasize the human genealogy of Jesus. However, John focuses on the fact that Jesus was an incarnation of the eternal Word of God that was revealed in the very first Word, “Let there be Light!” The Word that brought forth all of creation in accordance with the will of the Father is the same Word that comes into the fallen world in order to bring about a re-creation.
This opening passage of John is intended to point us back to Genesis chapter one, helping us to understand the connection between Jesus and the Word of God. The original creation is pictured as a world covered with darkness and water, i.e., not a good place for humans to live. The destructive forces of sin brings us back to this state in a very real way. We become stuck in darkness and the systems of our own making that are not good for us as humans. At a particular point in time, however, God the Father sent the One True Light into the world so that we could see, believe, and be re-created.
Let’s look at our passage.
Jesus is the name that was given to a human who was unlike any other. In some respects, this name only references the event in which the second person of the Godhead took on the additional nature of a human. Yet, God had planned for this incarnation from the very beginning. If Jesus is the Lamb, slain from the foundations of the earth (Revelation 13:8), then he was also incarnated from the foundations of the earth. What I mean is that the Incarnation was the plan from the beginning. The Father knew that it would become necessary.
Thus, there is nothing wrong with talking about Jesus being the Word of God back in Genesis one, as long as we don’t think of him as being a human being at that time. Jesus is not a man who became God. He is God who has become a unique man. John is tying this back to the first light that came forth from the Word of God in the beginning. He is showing us the backstory to the reality of who this Jesus truly was.
We should note the closeness of Jesus, the Word, to God in this section. John uses four statements to reveal this.
There is no clearer way to say that the Father and the eternal Son are both distinct and yet, one. Like words that proceed from the inner part of a man, so the Son proceeds from the Father.
This passage is both mysterious and very clear. The One True God has existed from before creation as a unity of plurality, a community of loving relationship. God is not dependent upon creation, but He does desire relationship with it, with us. He created this universe, and He can uncreate it. He is the only uncreated thing that exists.
Genesis 1 pictures God creating through a series of commands, “Let there be light,” and so on. By referring to Jesus as the Word of God, John shows us that there is a distinction of activity with God. The Father wills and sends, but it is the Word, Jesus, who comes forth to do the will of the Father. This makes Jesus the active agent of creation. Verse 3 tells us that all things came into being through him. To be clearer, apart from Jesus, the Word, “nothing came into being that has come into being.” This shuts down the argument that the Father must have created Jesus, or that a contradiction exists in which it looks like John says that the Word created the Father. The Father and the Word are not a created being. Rather, they are an eternal unity that existed before time itself was created.
Imagine a man walking on this earth knowing that everything on it owes its existence to him. There are many powerful people on this planet who act like everyone owes their existence to them, but this is only true of Jesus. All of creation owes its existence to Jesus, the Word of God.
We can also see the personhood of The Word in this passage. John clearly sees the Word not as an impersonal force that comes from the Father, but as a person. He refers to “the Word” as a means of helping us make the tie to Genesis chapter one. Notice verse 14 expressly states that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Even before this, the passage uses masculine personal pronouns of the Word (“through him,” “by him,” etc.). This continues in the next verses as well.
The story of creation is not yet complete. God has purpose and meaning for everything that exists, and humans are at the middle of that purpose. Genesis chapter three shows how everything went sideways. Mankind has lost its place and ability to image God the Father. The Word become flesh, i.e., Jesus, came in order to redeem and re-create humanity.
Jesus pays the price to give us back what has been lost. This has two stages to it. Stage one involves us remaining mortal and learning to battle our sin, while growing in the ability to image God the Father within a fallen world. Stage two comes into play when we inherit a new, immortal body and step into a restored Eden, a new heavens and a new earth.
As the True Light (v. 9), Jesus comes into the world to enlighten us just as we see in Genesis chapter one. There are many forces from within humanity and from the fallen angels that promise to enlighten humanity. The enlightenment of the 1600s forward projected the idea that there is no God and that the world around us can be disenchanted from such antiquated notions. These are false lights that only mislead and bring humanity into greater and greater bondage, into blindness. Only Jesus can truly enlighten us to our true purpose, which is to image God, and to the means by which all things can be fixed, which is to put your trust in him. This world pretends like Jesus is a nice story but can’t really affect this world. Jesus was sent to open our eyes to the reality of the Father’s love for us.
John tells us that the Word that had become flesh was not recognized and received for who he really is. Verse 5 tells us that the light shined in the darkness but the darkness did not comprehend it. The word translated “comprehend” also has the connotation of overcoming it. When a person mentally grasps something, they comprehend it. However, people often try to take hold of messaging and turn it to their own ends. This is an overcoming and repackaging of Jesus, which John declares doesn’t work.
We are all in the dark to the plans and purposes of God the Father without Jesus. In him, we can step into the light and know the truth.
Verse 10 tells us that the world he made did not know him. Verse 11 states that those who were his own did not receive him. This is not just about Israel, although they are the initial example of this. We become so blinded by the systems of this world that we cannot recognize the one who made us and gave us a purpose, meaning, value. Thus, Jesus was treated as a common heretic by Jews and as a common rabble rouser by the Romans. Yet, this was not the truth about who he was.
Verses 12 and 13 lay the path of redemption for humanity as a whole, but also for us as individuals. We are to receive Jesus as sent by God to us. We are to believe in His name. That is, we are to live our life by faith in who He is. We are not to trust in our genetics, our family wealth, our technology, and our ability to will things into being. We are to embrace being spiritually reborn by the will of God the Father.
One day we will be also physically reborn by the will of God the Father, and through the Lord Jesus, King Messiah. Do not lose heart. Things are not falling apart. God is simply birthing new children into the world, until the day that He brings this world into judgment.
May God strengthen your faith this year in the One who became human in order to save us from our ruined condition. The world may not look like it is being redeemed by Jesus, but he is focused on our hearts first. Fear not! The day will come when Jesus will take up the thrones of this earth and bring all things into the glorious rule of the One True Light!