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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John’s first century eyewitness biography of Jesus 1: 1-5) |
Is it true? Is it true that, before big bang and before anything at all existed, “the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Is that really true? That there is a reason why everything exists, rather than nothing?
What about the next sentence written by John, the disciple of Jesus, about this “Word”: “He was in the beginning with God.” Straight away this “Word” is identified as being Jesus, the subject of John’s biography. Was Jesus eternal?
John adds, “All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” Nothing has been made that was not made by the Word, by Jesus, who was in the beginning and who was God. Is that true?
But there’s more about this “Word”, this Jesus: “In him was life, and the life was the light of men.” What is this “life” which was in Jesus? John the biographer was intelligent and educated. He was careful in choosing the correct Greek words for his biography. The word he chose here for the “life” which was part and parcel of the Word and was in Jesus, was zoe.
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When John recorded Jesus’s words, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep… The Father knows me and I know the Father and I lay down my life for the sheep… For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again” he recorded that, three times, Jesus used the Greek word psyche. Not zoe.
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So, this “life (zoe)” which was in the Word, in Jesus, was distinct from human life which Jesus laid down. This “life” in him was “the light of the world”. But, is it not correct that the light of Jesus has been extinguished, blacked out, totally redacted?
If that’s true, how then could John write, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” Surely, surely, it’s true that the light of the world went out completely when Jesus “laid down his life (psyche)”, when he died? Is he not dead?
Later in his biography, John records Jesus teaching these words, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
You may well ask for more information about word “life” used by Jesus repeatedly above including in his statement, “I give them eternal life.” Jesus used zoe not psyche. He used zoe, the eternal “life” which was in him from eternity past. His words – are they true?
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Yesterday I went to the funeral of my aunt. One promise given to us all who attended the funeral service in a Christian Chapel went like this:
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For what is it to die? But to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun. And what is it to cease breathing? But to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God, unencumbered.
Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And the earth shall claim your limbs. Then shall you truly dance.
Is that true? Will you one day melt into the sun or receive (now) from Jesus “eternal life (zoe)”?
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