In Him Was Life

• In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. (John 1:1–2, NIV 1984).

In the beginning, the Word (Jesus) was already there, with God because He was God. He had no beginning because He was God. “I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” (John 8:58, NIV 1984).

Why do you think John refers to Jesus as the Word (logos in the Greek)?

Why is it important to know that Jesus was pre-existent? What would be the significance if He were not?

• Through Him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. (John 1:3, NIV 1984).

God the Father, through Christ the Son, created all things. God the Spirit was there too, “hovering over the waters,” (Genesis 1:2, NIV 1984). Without them, nothing that was made, was made. There was no uncaused cosmic big bang from which time, space and matter inexplicably came into existence.

Why is it significant that Christ was not a created being?

Why is it important to know that Jesus was creator of all that is? What would be the significance if He were not?

• In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. (John 1:4, NIV 1984).

There was no mysterious or coincidental mingling of all the right enzymes, proteins, etc. in the primordial ooze from which the spark of life began. There was no process of natural selection by which the first spark of life evolved into man. “The LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”  (Genesis 2:7).

What are the two aspects of “in Him was life?”

Why do you think it is that so many reject both aspects?

• The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him. (John 1:9, 10a, NIV 1984).

The Creator of the world (and man) came into the world (as a man) to give light and life to the mankind. “I [Jesus] am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12, NIV 1984).

What does it mean to be transcendent?

Why come to give to give light and life when He had already created life and light?

Did God create darkness? Explain.

• The world did not recognize Him. He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive him. (John 1:10b–11, NIV 1984).

The Creator was not recognized by the created. But it goes even deeper than that. They did not receive (i.e., they rejected) Him. “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” (Isaiah 53:3, NIV 1984).

Why was He not recognized (“we esteemed Him not”) by the world? Why was He rejected as one highly regarded (i.e., esteemed)?

The dictionary has at least three distinct definitions for “own.” Discuss each.

Belonging to oneself or itself (as in ownership)

Doing something without the help of another person (as in by myself)

Express immediate or direct kinship (as in my own kind)

• Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. (John 1:11–13, NIV 1984).

“Born of God.” The Creator performing a new creation. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old [fallen creation] has gone, the new [redeemed creation] has come! All this is from God.” (2 Corinthians 5:17–18, NIV 1984).

The old creation could not have happened without Jesus. Why couldn’t the new creation happen without Him? That is, why must it be “from God?”

How would you explain that salvation is the “gift of God” that gives us the “right to become children of God?”

Bonus Material:

Explain the following text: “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only,  who is at the Father’s side, has made Him known.” (John 1:18, NIV 1984).