1:18
This verse is so deep. The Greek in John’s gospel is nowhere near as refined as that found in Luke, but the John’s gospel has a wonderful habit of encapsulating so much truth within a few words. “No one has seen God”. Moses was not allowed to see God. The only one who has seen God is the Son. John then reminds us that the Son is God, and that He is in “closest relationship with the Father”. In talking about the Trinity we have a problem of language. Our language is designed for a “one being, one person” universe. With God we have a “one being, three persons” world. So to understand the Bible and the Trinity we have to take the whole teaching of the Bible into account. And within any one verse we must not interpret a verse, or phrase, in isolation beyond its immediate context and purpose. John here states both the divinity of Jesus and the distinction between the Father and the Son. But this God who we cannot see, this otherwise unknowable God, has been revealed to us by Jesus Christ. The Greek could literally be translated as “who is the bosom of the Father”. Hence the NIV “who is in the closest relationship with the Father. The ESV footnote has the bosom translation as a footnote. The NIV main translation is actually better than the ESV here.
So in the prologue we have moved from the deep concepts of the Word, to the revelation to be found in Jesus Christ. The deepest theological truths are found in knowing the person of Jesus Christ. We are not just reading about a man, we are reading about the eternal Son of God.
John 1:1-18 can be viewed as a chiasm. I haven’t looked at this aspect here because I wrote about in my previous walkthrough John 1, you can follow the link if you want to know more.
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