John’s Thesis

"But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name."
                                ~John 20:31


I began to learn to write in Mrs. Grosh's freshman composition class. As in most freshman composition classes, we began writing paragraphs: description, persuasion, comparison/contrast. The paragraph was to begin, of course, with a thesis statement—an assertion of something that had to be proven. And then came the hard part: Mrs. Grosh insisted that every sentence in the paragraph had to support the thesis. If it didn't, it didn't belong in the paragraph. It doesn't sound that hard, but finding a thesis statement that was neither too broad nor too narrow and then shaping sentences so that they somehow tied back to the thesis could be a challenge. And Mrs. Grosh was one of those tough but amazing teachers who had high expectations for her students. I think I finally started getting it when I took advanced composition with her my sophomore year in college.

The apostle John would have done well in Mrs. Grosh's composition classes. He establishes his thesis in his first chapter, writes most of the rest of his gospel to demonstrate his thesis, and then wraps it up with the conclusion of John 20:31. And with every word that he writes, every incident that he details for us, every character that we meet along the way, John is masterfully demonstrating his thesis: that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

The Bible study I attend started studying the gospel of John this fall, and after three meetings, we're still on the first chapter. It's a fascinating book, and there are seemingly endless things that have been written about it and that I could write about here.

So how does John make his case that this Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God in the famous first eighteen verses—his prologue? He begins by telling us that in the beginning (reminding his readers of the book of Genesis) was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. His Greek readers would have said, "Right—we know about the Word, the logos. It's the ordering principle behind all things. It's the source of reason and wisdom in the universe. Nothing new here, John."

His Jewish readers would also have responded positively to the idea that there was a Word in the beginning. This concept had rich meaning for them as well. For them, "Word" was always attached to deed, so that God spoke a word and brought creation into being. The Old Testament prophets would speak the Word, and something would happen. Because they wanted to avoid using the name of God for fear of blaspheming, Jews adopted other words that were a kind of code for God. One of those was "the Word." John had nothing new for them, either.

John tells us that the Word existed from the beginning—before all things. He also says the Word was "with God," subtly informing us that Jesus is a distinct person in the Trinity. Finally, he says the Word was God, and since we understand that the Word is Jesus, we see that Jesus is fully divine; all that can be said about God the Father can be said about God the Son. He goes on use words like light and life, again reminding us of Genesis 1, to tell us more about this Word.

But then, in verse 14, John writes the shocking thing that would have made both Jew and Greek—and us today—sit up and take notice: "And 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."

For thirteen verses, John has been telling us that this Word was divine, with all of the qualities that both Jews and Greeks would expect a divine being to have. And now, all of a sudden, John tells his readers that the "Word became flesh and dwelt among us." And that's the surprise—that God would come down, take on human flesh, and dwell among men.

Why would God do that? That's what John will be explaining for the rest of his gospel.