{Words of Help, Vol. 22, 1933, pages 228-9.}
In the beginning was the Word, in Greek, Logos. Logos is the intelligence, and the intelligible-reason, the thing thought. Logos is the mind of God expressed, the expression of what God is. This Christ was on earth, the Logos.
Chapter 1 shows us the Person of Christ and its bearing on man, as revealed, and what was required of man to be received, that is, God is Christ-revealed. We also have what that was which that revelation required from man.
This gospel goes back before Genesis. "Was." Whenever you put it the beginning "was." He "became" flesh. "With God" distinct from God. "All things were made by Him" (egeneto), and John adds, "Without Him was not anything made." Egeneto makes it absolute. "Only Begotten," always so. Similarly we read, "The light shines."
Theology is man's mind working on the truth of God. Nothing but faith puts God in the right place. If I pretend to know anything of the Godhead, in so doing I deny it. You must know the thing before you know the object. "Why do you not understand My speech; even because you cannot hear My word (8:43). "We have the mind of Christ" (1 Cor. 2:16) is mind with the intelligence. God sends a messenger, John, who comes and says, "Look at the light," at the sun, but the blind people don't see it. "A light to lighten the Gentiles" is quite different, that is, to manifest them. Chapter 10:1, "If anyone walk in the day, he stumbleth not," that is, if you have got the mind of Christ you will not fall. "Walk in the light" - we are in it.
The current idea is that the light has gradually developed until Christ come. It is not so at all - "the true light now shines."
The full development of man is Antichrist. "The light of everyone" - shining on everyone.
Christ was the Son begotten, not adopted like us. There are two senses in which Christ is Son of God. "He hath raised up Jesus again, as it is written also in the second Psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee," Acts 13:33 - "Raised up" is not resurrection. Acts 2:24, "Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death" - this is resurrection.
"First Begotten" is in reference to other children; "Only Begotten" is sole, absolute relationship with the Father.
There are three facts in verse 14: "made flesh"; "dwelt among us"; "full of grace and truth." The first part of chap. 1 to verse 18 is what He is essentially, and what man is essentially. "Grace and truth came," not were communicated but came. There was no revelation of God in the law. "What is man" occurs three times in the Old Testament. Ps. 8, "What is man and the Son of man?" - Christ glorified, Job 7, "What is man that Thou shouldest visit him every morning, and try him every moment?" - man in discipline; Ps. 144:3, "Lord, what is man, that Thou takest knowledge of him, or the son of man that Thou makest account of him?" - His vengeance looked for.
Ps. 2, "Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten Thee," is Son of God as born into this world. The meaning of "grace and truth" is, all that God was for man, and all His truth about man. There was all divine grace and truth in the Person of Christ. Verse 18, "No man hath seen God at any time." It would be poor comfort to be in my Father's house, and not see my Father.
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John Nelson Darby (1800 - 1882)
was an Anglo-Irish Bible teacher, one of the influential figures among the original Plymouth Brethren and the founder of the Exclusive Brethren. He is considered to be the father of modern Dispensationalism and Futurism ("the Rapture" in the English vernacular). Pre-tribulation rapture theology was popularized extensively in the 1830s by John Nelson Darby and the Plymouth Brethren, and further popularized in the United States in the early 20th century by the wide circulation of the Scofield Reference Bible.He produced a translation of the Bible based on the Hebrew and Greek texts called The Holy Scriptures: A New Translation from the Original Languages by J. N. Darby. Darby traveled widely in Europe and Britain in the 1830s and 1840s, and established many Brethren assemblies. He gave 11 significant lectures in Geneva in 1840 on the hope of the church (L'attente actuelle de l'église). These established his reputation as a leading interpreter of biblical prophecy.
John Nelson Darby was an Anglo-Irish evangelist, and an influential figure among the original Plymouth Brethren. He is considered to be the father of modern Dispensationalism. He produced a translation of the Bible based on the Hebrew and Greek texts called The Holy Scriptures: A New Translation from the Original Languages by J. N. Darby.
John Nelson Darby graduated Trinity College, Dublin, in 1819 and was called to the Irish bar about 1825; but soon gave up law practice, took orders, and served a curacy in Wicklow until, in 1827, doubts as to the Scriptural authority for church establishments led him to leave the institutional church altogether and meet with a company of like-minded persons in Dublin.
Darby traveled widely in Europe and Britain in the 1830s and 1840s, and established many Brethren assemblies. These established his reputation as a leading interpreter of biblical prophecy. He was also a Bible Commentator. He declined however to contribute to the compilation of the Revised Version of the King James Bible.