Simple questions (3)

John the biographer, writing around AD 90, is making a statement (see above) which, by any possible measure or standard, must divide his readers into one camp or another. The statement is this: “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” 

The simple question is: was John the biographer totally mad? So far he has written this about “the Word” (see last two week’s Info for Islanders): “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.”

John has stated clearly that “the Word was God” and that without “the Word” absolutely nothing exists – not you, not me, not the earth, not the sun, not the moon, not the Milky Way, nothing whatsoever. 

OK. But now he has written something which gives us all reason seriously to question John’s sanity. “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”  Made flesh?

 

But what’s this about? “We have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” His glory? Whose? The glory of the Word made flesh? Who he? Full of grace? Full of truth? Is it possible that John the biographer was not mad but was instead (at least to a degree) full of grace and truth? After all, John seems delighted to have seen grace and truth.

John the biographer straight away recalls another John, John the Baptist, seeing what Jesus was like back there in AD 30. This John also “bore witness” about “the Word (who) became flesh and dwelt among us.” John the biographer and John the Baptist were totally different personalities; the former earlier a well-educated businessman (fisheries – employing staff); the latter a down-to-earth ascetic warning of judgment to come.    

John the Baptist simply stated (as recorded above by John the biographer) “This was he of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.’ ” Another simple question. Was he mad as well as the other John? I ask that because we know from elsewhere that John the Baptist was several months older than Jesus. He was born before Jesus. Is there something wrong here? 

But there are more simple questions which need answers. “For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.” Did John the biographer and John the Baptist both receive something from “the fulness” of “the Word made flesh.”? Is that possible? Or not?

 

Did both of them receive some of the “grace and truth” which was “the glory” of “the Word made flesh”? Did they? Or did they only receive mor and more of “the Law”?

The final simple question for today blows my mind. John wrote (see above): “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” It’s worth asking – but only you can give me your answer. Did “the only God” “make himself known” to these two Johns? 

They both couldn’t stop stating “we have seen his glory”?