Commentary on John 1:4-5

 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

-John 1:4-5 (NASB)

Here, John continues on with more abstract descriptions of the Word: He is the source of a life that brings light to all of humanity. The same living Word who was in the beginning, who was everything's first cause, continues providing life, light, and goodness to all who see Him.

In verse 5, we see our first indication of an adversary. Up until now, the Word has been unopposed, as well you might imagine. After all, think about what a potential opponent would be facing: A being that was in the beginning with God, that is one with God Himself, and that has brought all things into existence. It's not exactly taking candy from a baby to go up against this guy.

Nonetheless, this divinely powerful Light does have an opponent: The darkness. The word that the NASB renders "comprehend" is actually κατέλαβεν, and "comprehend" is only one possible meaning. Other senses of the word include "take hold of," "arrest," "capture," and "perceive." It comes from two words meaning "to aggressively take" and "down." Literally, the darkness cannot take the light down.

So the darkness could signify ignorance here: The Light was shining in the darkness, but the darkness failed to understand it.

Or the darkness could signify opposition: Despite its best efforts, the darkness couldn't stop the Light from overcoming it.

Regardless of which sense is correct here (and the answer might be that both are!), the Light stands in direct opposition to the darkness. It contends against darkness, evil, ignorance, and general sneakiness. This is a common theme in St. John's writings -- his first epistle reads, "This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all" (I John 1:5).

The stage is set, the actors are in position, and the lights have come up on center stage, overwhelming and driving out the darkness. (The darkness isn't completely gone, though -- he's hiding in the wings, preparing for his next appearance.) Now, at last, we're ready for the narrator to come on the scene...

Commentary on John 1:3

All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

-John 1:3 (NASB)

Here, we learn that the Word (who, as you'll remember, was both with God and one with Him) is the source everything that exists. In other words, nothing has appeared on the universe's stage without His direct, express involvement.

This is probably as good a time as any to address a couple of Christianity's fundamental problems:

1. If God's nature is thoroughly good, unadulterated by any evil, and if everything in existence has come through God, then how can we explain evil's existence? How could a good God have created a world fraught with evil?


2. Similarly, if God is all-powerful, and if He hates evil (since it is foreign to His character), how can we explain evil's continued existence? Why hasn't He wiped it out from the universe once and for all?

It would be foolish to claim that I have some final, ironclad answer to these questions. In fact, many brilliant philosophers have been arguing about this very matter for centuries. I can, however, tell you where my intellectual and spiritual journey has led me. 

1. I believe that when God creates rational beings, He gives them the ability to make decisions. This statement may seem obvious, but think about its implications. If God forced every human -- or angel, or whatever other will-bearing beings may exist -- to behave in accordance with His perfect nature, they wouldn't truly have the ability to make decisions. Oh, they might be able to choose within a range of acceptable options, but the decisions that mattered most to their identities would have been made for them long ago.
   
   I would argue, then, that our ability to choose evil is a fundamental part of being made in God's image. That is, our capacity for making decisions -- good or bad -- is the fingerprint of the divine.


2. I believe that mercy is a fundamental part of God's nature. This is particularly true in how He views mankind, His favorite creatures. Just as I do not wish to destroy my children when they choose to disobey me, God does not wish to wipe out His disobedient children, either. Instead, He wants to reach out, to restore our broken relationship, to give us as many chances to repent as possible.
   
   This is why He sent His Son to take our sins on Himself and bear the punishment of our evil. Being divine, Christ is able to accept God's wrath without being permanently removed from His sight. Being human, Christ is able to truly take the punishment that Adam and his children deserved.
   
   Nonetheless, God is also constrained by His goodness, righteousness, and holiness. Thus, He cannot and will not brook unrepentant rebellion forever. A day of reckoning must come for those who do not accept Christ's substitutionary sacrifice on their behalf.

We'll dig deeper into these ideas later. For now, the important thing  to see is that everything came into existence through the medium of the Word, the divine logos. And by everything, the evangelist means EVERYTHING. He emphasizes this by repeating himself in the second phrase: "Apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being." 

God's very divine Word, the being with whom He is one, and with whom He was in the beginning, is the source of everything that is and everything that ever has been. And, as we'll see, the Word is also the only way for God's rebellious children to return to Him.

Commentary on John 1:1-2

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.

-John 1:1-2 (NASB)

From the very first words of John's gospel, it's obvious that this won't be a straightforward story. Jesus Christ, of course, is the focus of this book, but the evangelist won't actually mention him by name until verse 17. Instead, he begins with a more abstract title: logos (λόγος - "the Word").

John's audience, if they were familiar with the Septuagint (the translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek), probably would have identified logos with God's universe-creating word of power, as in Psalm 33:6:

By the word [λόγω] of the Lord the heavens were made,
And by the breath of His mouth all their host.

If the readers were familiar with contemporary Jewish philosophers, they might have also heard of Philo of Alexandria's concept of the logos, which he identified with the Angel of the Lord. For Philo, the logos was an immaterial, adequate shadow of God, containing the fullness of His supernatural wisdom and power. Or perhaps they would have known of the Stoic concept of logos, dating back to 300 BC. Zeno and other stoics considered the logos to be the material, driving principle behind all life and action in the universe.

John's use of the term logos signals that he wants to provide his readers with a narrative deeper than a mere recounting of historical events. That doesn't mean he's going to play fast and loose with the facts. It does mean, though, that he's more concerned with spiritual truths than he is with giving an exact, detailed chronology of Christ's life and ministry.

We can tell from this first sentence that John's project is ambitious. The scope of his narrative begins not with Jesus's human birth in Bethlehem, but with the very origins of the universe itself. Moreover, the sentence echoes the first sentence in Genesis: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The implication is that, like some evangelistic Paul Harvey, John is here to tell The Rest of the Story.

John clearly asserts three things about the Word in verse 1:

1. The Word was present in the beginning (time)
2. The Word was in God's presence (location)
3. The Word was distinguishable from God, and yet one with Him (identity)

In verse 2, John repeats his first two assertions, but uses the pronoun οὗτος ("this one," or "he / she / it"): This One existed in the very beginning, and This One was together with God at that time. The repetition underlines the fact that the Word was both distinct from God and present with Him before the world existed.

So, then, the stage is set, and the actors are present:

SCENE: The beginning of all things.

Enter GOD, accompanied closely by THE WORD, the embodiment of His dynamic creative power. They are distinct, yet somehow one.

And without even reading the next verse, we know what must follow. After all, here we are, surrounded by a fully-formed, wondrous world...

Refugees, Terrorists, and Christ

The governor of my state recently signed an order preventing any state agency from helping to resettle Syrian refugees here. Weary after a long day and frustrated by American politics, I posted this on Facebook:

When Jesus said to love your neighbor, he clearly wasn't talking about those with names like "Sanchez" or "Abdullah." It's pretty obvious he was talking about people with safer names. Like "McVeigh," probably.

As you'd expect, a lot of people "Liked" my shallow snarkasm. Others accused me of inviting hordes of terrorists into my neighborhood. They warned that I'd better be ready to help sort out the dismembered body parts of children in the aftermath of the inevitable suicide bombings. Some posted pictures of Jewish refugees from WWII. One posted a picture of a refugee's dead toddler on a Mediterranean beach.

Predictably, flame wars erupted between my friends and loved ones from different contexts who don't know one another from Adam. They do, however, share one important trait: They're mutually appalled by what they perceive as one other's arrogance and ignorance.

The most helpful comment came from a dear professor of mine:

Micah, the comment you make has the power to remind me that I'm not a good Christian, and it also reminds me to try and think carefully about the situation, but the comment does not carry with it any knowledge about how to determine which people might not be refugees but instead may be terrorists. I do not share the confidence that you apparently have in our government's dealing with this question.

This comment went right to the heart of the matter. (And right through my heart, if I'm being honest.) I get irritated with this old world. When I do, I throw out some negativity, then withdraw, Jonah-like, to my shady hillside to watch them all go to hell. The problem is that Jesus doesn't want me to be a Jonah.

So I want to do a few things in this post:

1. Apologize to those who I've offended with my flippancy.
2. Outline what makes me think how I do.
3. Summarize my conclusions in a less sarcastic way.
4. Invite anyone who disagrees to sit down and chat with me about any of this. (In trying to understand someone's position, face-to-face communication always trumps e-conversations.)

So, here we go!

1. I'm sorry. I know this is a weighty topic, and I knew that my post was likely to offend. At the moment, I cared more about my superiority than I did about adding light to the world. This attitude displeases Jesus, so I'm ashamed of it.

2. Here's where I'm coming from. I want my life to be a reflection of Jesus Christ's life. I want to love the things He loves, hate the things He hates, live the way He lived, and die the way He died. In short, I want Him to be my controlling force.

Here are some things that the Bible says and I believe:

•  “The man who has two tunics is to share with him who has none; and he who has food is to do likewise.” (John the Baptist, on what it meant to live a God-honoring life - Luke 3:11)
• "Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?” And [the lawyer] said, “The one who showed mercy toward him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do the same.” (After Jesus's story of the Good Samaritan, Luke 10:36-37)
• ...practicing hospitality... (Romans 12:13, in the middle of a list of commands to Christians)
• "But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” (Romans 12:20, ibid.)
• Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it. (Hebrews 13:2)
• If a brother or sister is without clothing and in need of daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and be filled,” and yet you do not give them what is necessary for their body, what use is that? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. (James 2:15-17)
• “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves." (Jesus, sending the disciples out to preach in Matthew 10:16)

The one that I think informs my ideas most is the parable of the Good Samaritan, which Jesus tells in Luke 10:30-37. Its entire purpose is to demonstrate that the lawyer can't call himself righteous if he's complacent about the suffering of the those around him. The hero of that story is a Samaritan, who would have been despised by Jesus's hearers, yet proved himself more righteous than both a priest and a Levite, who did holy service in the temple.

3. Here's what I think about the refugee crisis. I think the United States ought to be doing all it can to bring relief to refugees. Many of them have lost their homes, their businesses, their families -- they have sacrificed everything fleeing from the evil deeds of evil men. They are, in a very real sense, the ones "without clothing and in need of daily food." 

I think that leaders like Governor Brownback, who basically want to make this someone else's problem, are firmly in the camp of the priest and the Levite who crossed to the other side of the road rather than helping the man in need. Do they have the right to do it? Sure. Are there good reasons for them doing it? Certainly. Does that make it the God-honoring thing to do? I'm not so sure about that.

I think that hospitality is more than a suggestion in the New Testament; it is an absolute mandate. This is certainly the case for Christians helping fellow believers, and I think a good argument can be made for it also applying to non-Christians. For example, in Romans 12, Paul tells the Romans (who are, after all, living in Nero's Rome) to give their enemies food and drink.

I do NOT think that the United States should simply give an unqualified "yes" to anyone claiming to be a refugee. I recognize the importance of serpent-like wisdom, as Jesus did when He sent His disciples out to preach the good news. But I also recognize how vital His accompanying command was: Be as "innocent as doves." So by all means, yes, let's have a vetting process. Let's do whatever background checks we can. Let's use the intelligence we have to try to make good decisions. I'd even be open to taking in fewer refugees, or delaying the schedule for taking them in. But whatever we do, let's not allow fear of a "maybe" to blind us to the people suffering right in front of our faces.

I think that pursuing Christ's love is important enough to risk all the doubt and terror and death that ever existed. And I think the outpouring of that love is the one thing Christians are called to more than anything else.

4. Those are my thoughts... and I'm probably wrong about some of them. I'm not claiming to be infallible here. But I do think it's wrong-headed to give a knee-jerk "No!" to showing love and sympathy for some of the people who need it most.

If you want to talk, let's talk. I have a house with couches. I have a coffee pot. You're welcome to come over and help me use them.

On the Morality of Abortion

A recent series of videos released by the innocuous-sounding organization with an obvious ax to grind, Center for Medical Progress, has sparked a series of enraged abortion discussions on social media... and on the political stage, for that matter.

I have very serious concerns about this organization, its leaders, and their approach. I am also concerned that the focus of these videos (the tenuous yet ardently argued claim that Planned Parenthood is selling pieces of aborted babies! For Money!) is distracting folks from a much more significant question: The morality of abortion in general.

As I see it, abortion's morality really boils down to three smaller questions:

1. What is a human life?
2. What makes human life valuable?
3. When is it acceptable to deprive a human of life?

Your answers to these questions should be excellent predictors for your ideas about whether and when abortion is morally acceptable.

So here are my answers:

1. I believe that a human life originates when an embryo is formed. I think it's incorrect (and perhaps either ignorant or disingenuous) to claim that an embryo is really just a part of the mother's body, since the embryo is genetically distinct from the mother. I also believe that the fetus's ability to survive outside the womb is more or less irrelevant, since a newborn baby (despite its legal status as a "real live human") is also unable to survive and thrive without receiving the right sort of care. To my thinking, there's not a lot of moral space between late-term abortion and infanticide.

2. I believe that humans are created in God's image and, as such, are intrinsically valuable. I believe this is true regardless of age, race, ethnicity, religion, ability, sexual orientation, or any other imaginable configuration. If it's a human, it bears the indelible stamp of almighty God. If it's a human, Jesus died to redeem it because of God's great love for the world. Thus, for me, the level of a person's development (whether physical, emotional, mental, or otherwise) is not the most important part of this equation, since it does not alter a person's identity as a God-made, God-loved human being.

3. I'm a little less dogmatic on this one. If, by sacrificing one life, I could save a hundred, would I do it? I really don't know... unless that one life were mine, in which case I would give an unqualified yes. (And in case you're wondering about the cutoff, I would even sacrifice my own life for a single person.) But when it comes to taking other people's lives, I don't feel like that's a choice I should make. I'm not the creator, so I am by definition not the proper arbiter of life and death. However, I do stand open to reasonable discussion about this matter (e.g., regarding the death penalty, national security, justifiable warfare, or abortion to save the life of the mother).

What about you, dear reader? This being the Internet, I must ask you to keep your comments as civil as possible, but I really do want to know what you think about these questions.