Verses 1-5 will be best understood in light of the entire context of the book. We should remember that the Gospel of John was written to supplement the other Gospels. Although John does not start out his Gospel with the birth of Christ the man, he starts out with Christ in eternity. In this prologue, he mostly deals with the deity of Christ, and His involvement in the creation of the world; however, he does deal somewhat with the authority and power given to Christ empowering him to overcome the "darkness."

In this paper, we will seek to understand the theological meaning that John presents in verses 1-5. We will seek to relate this meaning to the context in which this passage is found. For example, since it was commonly believed at the time of John's writing of his Gospel that

In Him was life and the life was the light of men. Many people connect this with the preceding verse, since all things were made by him, then life was made by him. But, the life in this verse is the light of men (Adam Clarke's Commentary). That is not to say that the life is literally light. I believe that John is trying to express everlasting life in an understandable way. This life becomes the light to guide all who would believe into Heaven. The normal usage for the Greek word "zoe" was to mean, "life in general." But John, took the word and used its meaning to designate the eternal, divine life given to the believers (New Commentary on the Whole Bible). Whatever life is and all that life is, it is all in Jesus Christ. The very thing that is distinctive about life is that it is eternal. It lasts forever and it will eventually exalt the believer to the highest life in eternity with Christ (POSB Commentary). The power that creates and sustains life in the universe is Logos (Robertson). Life is man's most important asset. To lose life is tragic. John affirmed that in the sense that life is in Christ. Man's spiritual and physical life comes from Him. To be separate from Christ is to be dead whether spiritually or physically (Bible Knowledge Commentary).

10) New Commentary on the Whole Bible POSB Commentary; QuickVerse 6.0

3) NAB Commentary; Thompson Bible Study Library CD-ROM 1997

Was the Word. Next, John goes beyond the common Jewish idea that Jesus was created by saying that in the beginning, "Was the Word," "Existed the logos," "was the expression," or "was the reason." Whatever is meant by this phrase, it is applicable to an infinite Christ. There are many opinions on why this name was given to the Son of God. Some believe this was used to describe Christ because a word is something used to communicate. Christ might be called "the Word" because he is the one who communicated God's will and commands for our lives to the world (Barnes). In the Hebrew Scriptures, "the Word" was an agent of creation (Psalm 33:6), the source of God's message by way of the prophets (Hosea 1:2), and the standard of God's holiness (Psalm 119:11) (Life Application Notes). The term word was also commonly used by the Jews to describe the Messiah. In their writings He is described as "Mimra" which is to say "Word" (Barnes). Since John was describing Christ as "the Word," the phrase, "the Word was God" was blasphemous to the Jews. To the Greek readers the phrase, "the Word became flesh" was unthinkable. But, John used these phrases to express his new understanding that this "Word" was the Gospel. Also, by calling Jesus "the Word," John calls Him the incarnate revelation of God's commands in the scriptures, and therefore declares that only those who accept Jesus honor the law fully (Inter Varsity Press). Since "the Word" can also be described as "the expression," it is also plausible to consider Christ as the expression of God to the world (New Commentary on the Whole Bible). The Greek culture encouraged the worship of many mythological gods. These gods had supernatural powers that were as important to the Greeks as the genealogies were to the Jews. John shows that Jesus is superior to these gods of mythology (Life Application Notes). Three times in the sentence, John uses the imperfect form of "was" or in the Greek, "eimi." This conveys the idea that God is without origin, simply a continuous existence, an eternal God (Robertson).

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)