v.1 n.4. John, Why Did You Write Your Gospel?

By Charles Hunting

If John had intended to introduce a preexistent divine being in the person of Jesus the Messiah, why, asks the German theologian Karl-Josef Kuschel[1], did he not begin his prologue as follows?

"In the beginning was the Son
and the Son was with God
and the Son was God."

Certainly the cornerstone of traditional views of the Godhead would be on much firmer ground if the Son had been a feature of the eternal past. But what John in fact wrote is this:

“In the beginning was the word,
and the word was with God
and the word was God.”

Hear Professor Kuschel answer his opening question: “The answer is that the author is evidently not interested in reflecting more closely on the relations between God and this Son in preexistence.” He notes that the word “Son” is first mentioned in verse fourteen of the prologue. The Son for John begins in history, not eternity. Kuschel observes that after John 1:14 John speaks in the Gospel only of the Son and not the preexisting word. It is this word which (not “who”) became a human being This is well within the scope of Paul’s short history of Jesus in 1 Timothy 3:16:

“And by common confession great is the mystery of godliness:
He who was revealed in the flesh,
Was vindicated in the Spirit,
Beheld by angels,
Proclaimed among the nations,
Believed on in the world,
Taken up in glory.”

John and Paul recognize Jesus as one who was first revealed as the human Son of God. Jesus is what the word became. But a word does not begin as a person. It is a thought, an idea, a promise, an expression; it conveys meaning. (In all of its thousands of occurrences in the Old Testament “word” never means a person.) In his prologue John reflects on the cosmic significance of Jesus. Jesus the Messiah, to be born in the family of David, was the starting point of all that God planned for the fulfillment of His creative activity. God’s King appointed to rule over the nations and save the world was the reason and occasion for the Genesis creation. The word of promise was in the beginning in God’s mind. It belonged to God, a single being unique in all the universe — it was His word brought in the fulness of time to fulfillment in the Messiah. “All things were originally made through it [the word]” (John 1:3).

Why did John write his gospel? It was to recall this fundamental Christian truth which was already under attack in the first century. God’s self-expressive activity took form as the human Son of God, Jesus the Messiah appointed to speak God’s last word to the world. John wrote to rehearse that truth, a truth which skeptics were already trying to distort by denying Jesus’ status as the human Son of God.

John dedicates his entire gospel to the singular purpose of reestablishing Jesus’ true identity. Note carefully John’s specific purpose statement: “But these things have been written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31).

Here is the revealing of the mystery of godliness known equally to Peter: “Who do you say that I am?” “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God” (Matt. 16:16). Jesus congratulated Peter for his discerning insight, revealed by “my Father who is in heaven.” No mention was made of a preexistent eternal Son in Peter’s answer. The Christology of the giants of original Christianity insists on belief that Jesus was the Christ and Son of God. And to be “Son of God” in the Bible is a claim not to be God, but God’s special agent and commissioner.

Footnotes:
[1] Born Before All Time? The Debate About the Origin of Christ, Crossroad, 1992.