Today we’ll start commenting on the gospel of St. John and, you know, we have four gospels in the new Testament, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And then later on St. John started to write his gospel with the end of the first century, saint Matthew and saint Mark and saint Luke told us the story of the Lord Jesus Christ, they focused on the story with the parables with the miracles happened with the crucifixion, with the resurrection, with the teachings of the Lord. But, you know, after their martyrdom, people started to say that Jesus was not a real man. And many of them started to say, The Lord Jesus never said that he is the Lord. He is God. That’s why the apostle St.John, who are the only one of the 12 apostles living at that time, started to write his gospel, to focus on the divine nature of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to speak about the holy Trinity. That’s why we always say Saint John, the theologian.
So St. John wrote his gospel at like 96 AD and he did not, you know, repeat the stories mentioned in the other gospels, he did not focus much about the birth of the Lords from St. Mary. He did not focus on many of the miracles happened to the sick people because people already knew these stories, but he focused on events in the Lord’s life on earth. He focused on, the last week in his life. That’s why, you know, You can say that half of the gospel of St. John, like from chapter 11 to chapter 21 totally about the holy week, the last week of the Lord’s life before his resurrection also St. John, because he focused on the divine nature of the Lord ,he mentioned many of the dialogues happened between him and the Jew people concerning his nature, his mission, and also concerning the holy sacraments. That’s why we considered the gospel of St. John, the gospel of the church, the gospel of the holy sacraments. He commented on the holy baptism on the holy spirit, the Myron, he taught us about the Eucharist.
He taught us about the priesthood. So all the holy sacraments of the Orthodox church were there in the gospel of St. John.
Also St. John wrote his gospel in the old Greek language . And he spoke good language, good Greek language because his gospel was read by all people even the Jew people, they spoke the Greek language at that time.
Another important point related to the gospel of St. John, that he focused on the dialogues with some persons , so you can see that there are special meetings happened in the gospel of St. John, like the “Samaritan woman” story, like the story of “Nicodemus” in chapter three, like the “Lame” story, the one who was paralyzed 38 years in chapter five, like the born blind man in chapter nine.
So he spoke a lot about this special dialogue between the Lord and somebody. In this you know, dialogue you can see clearly the proofs of his divine nature and the love of the Lord to everyone also in the gospel of St.John there were like five chapters concerning the holy spirit. That’s why we call this five chapter, the Pentecostal chapters, because the focus was on the holy spirit from chapter 13 to chapter 17.
The start of the gospel of St. John is very different. Because he started with the logos. The logos was a term well-known by the Greek people, because the philosophers, the early philosophers of Greece spoke about the logos power behind everything, the creator of everything, the logic before anything behind anything.
So the logos was like a term well known by the Greek people. And then St. John said that the logos was God himself and the logos became man so he spoke about the incarnation using the term, the logos.
This like, some important points related to the gospel of St. John. Now let’s start reading the great gospel of St.John .
Chapter one : “ In the beginning, was the word” The Logos “ and the word was with God. And the word was, God ” , you know it’s better to name it the logos, because when you hear the word “Word”, you may identify it or recognize the meaning like it’s like a word in a book or a word given by a mouse, but the meaning of the logos is not just a written word or a spoken word. It’s like the logic behind the word. It’s the power of the word. It’s the full being of the word. So it’s not as simple as a written or a spoken word, but you know, it is related to the word “ Word “.
In the beginning was the logos. So our Lord Jesus Christ, the logos was there in the beginning so he was before everything before all creatures. So we can never say that the Lord Jesus Christ is created. He is the creator. He is God, he, the son of God, the logos of God, the light of God, the mind of God, the word of God. But he is the light of light ,is true God or true God. So in the beginning, was the word.
So the term beginning here, like before ages, before anything.
“Word was with God” because there was always a father and a son. You can never say that there was a father without his son. And there was a son without his father, father, and son, and holy spirit are always there , one God, one nature, one divine nature of God.
“He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and without him, nothing was made that was made.” . So simply God created everything. With his logos. So by the logos, through the logos, everything was created. So the nature of man was originally made by the logos. That’s why it was written in the book of Genesis that we were created on his image, the full image of God is the logos .
So we were created on the logos, you may say, but the logos had no picture at that time. Yes. The logos was not incarnated yet, but because God could see the future and he was plan for this, for his calming in flesh, according to this picture of man, he made the early man Adam on his image.
So. God created everything with the logos, “All things were made through him and without him, nothing was made that was made.”, so simply everything is related to the Lord Christ, because he is the beginner. He is the creator. He is the supervisory, the “Pantocrator”,he is God,real God .
“In him was life.” so the meaning of life is important here, because you know, you may see in this world that there are living creatures and non-living creatures, but also the source of life is the logos. So he was the creator of everything and he is the source of life ,for man and for all creatures, no one can live without God, himself without Christ, because he was life, “In him was life and the life was the light of men.” So he, the creator, he is the light. He is the source of life, he is everything. So everything related to Christ, the logos .
“ And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it.” You know, there were darkness everywhere.
And when God’s. there should be light when light came out of darkness because of the word given by God, the power of logos created light in darkness and darkness cannot stop the light cannot stand against the light. The light of God is powerful because it’s God’s light.
“There was a man sent from God whose name was John “ , he will start speaking about John the Baptist, because before focusing on Christ himself, logos, incarnate, he should speak about John the Baptist who started preaching the name of cross before his coming. “This man came for a witness to bear witness of the light “ , so this man John was not the light, but he came just to witness to the light.
He came to direct everyone to focus on the coming Messiah, the coming Lord, God is coming to us in our land. So John the greatest prophet. He came just to point at Christ coming to save everyone.
“ There was a man sent from God whose name was John. This man came for a witness to bear witness of the light that all through him might believe.”
So he came to push people to believe in God and in the logos incarnate, “He was not that light, but was sent to bear witness of that light.” . You can see that the way Saint John, the evangelist writing his book , he used to make many sentences on the same meaning. That’s the way Saint John, the evangelist used to speak his word.
So he repeats many things, but you know, to focus on the same meaning the logos of God, the creator, the source of life, the light , John the baptist came to let everyone to push everyone to believe in the coming light of Christ .
“ That was the true light, which gives light to every man coming into the world.”, so man living in darkness, but with the true light of Christ, man can see the truth because without the light of God, they will live all their life in darkness.
And this darkness will take them to an eternal darkeness but with the light of God shining upon the mind, they can see clearly the truth they can believe in God, holy Trinity. So they can believe in Christ the savior and with the light of Christ, they can know the story of the salvation and how to catch eternal life.
“ He was in the world and the world was made through him.” So Christ was never outside the word. The logos were there because he has no space, no time. He is before all ages filling all spaces with his divine nature. So when you focus on the divine nature of the logos before incarnation , he was always there , everywhere because he is God, but people couldn’t recognize him.
Couldn’t know him because he is unseen. “ So he’s saying he wasn’t the word and the word was made through him.” , and he is the source. He is the beginner. He is the creator, again, people couldn’t identify him. “ He came to his own “ his own people meaning here, his human nature people, because he came into the flesh.
He came to be a man like them and also you can use the same meaning on the Jew people because Christ came to be like a Jewish man, but this Jewish people refused. “He came to his own and his own did not receive him.” His own people, Jewish people, or even other human beings, rejected Christ as savior did not believe him as God incarnate, “ But as many as received him to them, he gave the right to become children of God.” So when somebody believes in Christ as the logos. The light of God, the source of life, they become children of God with the faith because they will be born again of heaven with the grace of the holy baptism. They will be born again to be considered as children of God, but anyone reject the truth and stay in darkness, they will never be considered as children of God.
“To those who believe in his name “.
So believing in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ, the logos of God logos incarnate, the true light of true light , that the only path to become a child of God who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. So people may be, they are born of blood, born of the will of flesh born of the will of man.
But in order to be born of God, you need to believe in God. And his truth revealed by logos the light of God. And also some of the forefathers of the church said that people may live with the, you know, level of blood born people like animals. Some people may live with the will of the flesh, so that desire of the flesh will put them to live like men, but not of the will of man. Some people may live in a higher level of ethics of man, but you know to live like animals to live ,like, you know, any level of men is far different from being living as child of God , So the will of God is different from the will of man, man will give birth to man, but God will give birth to a child of God.
So you can choose to be like, man of man, born of man, or to be the child of God, following God, catching the truth of God, walking in the light of God. Then you can catch the eternal life .Glory to God. Amen
