John 1 - CSB Tony Evans Study Bible

1:1-3 When we read the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, the story begins in history with Jesus Christ conceived by the Holy Spirit and born to Joseph and Mary. But in the Fourth Gospel, John reaches back even further—into eternity. We are given access to the prequel, so to speak.

1:5 Satan has blinded people’s minds to keep them from seeing the glory of Christ (see 2 Cor 4:4), but Jesus has come to bring illumination (light) so that people can see things as they truly are. John’s Gospel shows us how Jesus was continually rejected; nevertheless, the darkness did not overcome his light. Though his enemies crucified him, he was actually glorified in his death on the cross (see John 13:31-32) and victorious in his resurrection, resulting in the provision of salvation for all people (see 3:16; Rom 5:18; 1 Tim 2:6; Heb 2:9; 1 John 2:2).

1:6 Here John, the apostle and author of the Gospel, introduces John the Baptist.

1:7-8 Though he was the first to bear witness to Christ, John was not to be the last. All Christians have the responsibility to testify about him, to declare the truth of Jesus so that all might believe in him (1:7). That’s the foundation of evangelism and missions.

1:10-11 Sin blinds people so that they don’t know their Creator (1:10). Even his own people—the Jews, those who were waiting for the Messiah, those who should have recognized him—did not receive him (1:11). Of course, the first believers, including the apostles, were Jews. But by and large, the Jewish people rejected Jesus during his earthly ministry.

1:12-13 To receive Christ is not like passively receiving a letter in your mailbox. Instead, it means to welcome him (based on his substitutionary atonement), like one welcomes a guest into one's home. Those who do so are adopted into the family of God as his children. To believe in Jesus’s name is to believe in his person (who he is) and work (what he has done) (1:12). When someone receives and believes in Jesus for the free gift of eternal life, he undergoes a supernatural birth, the impartation of spiritual life. He is born . . . of God (1:13)—what Jesus would call being “born again” (3:3).

1:14 The Word became flesh and dwelt among us testifies to the glory of the incarnation. Conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary (see Matt 1:20), the divine Son of God became a man. Jesus is thus the God-Man—not half man and half God, but one person with a fully divine nature and a fully human nature. He is fully human so he cried as an infant, but he is fully divine and gave life to his mother! He is fully human so he had to sleep, but he is fully divine and can raise the dead. Our God experienced what it is to be human—yet without sinning (see Heb 4:15). Hunger, pain, temptation, grief, hardship, rejection: you face no category of human experience your Savior has not endured.

1:15 Though John was born before Jesus (see Luke 1:57-58; 2:1-7), he recognized that Jesus preceded him in eternity.

1:16-17 When we receive the substitutionary atoning death of Christ on the cross, our sins are forgiven and eternal life is imparted. That’s amazing grace! The gospel, then, does what the law couldn’t do (1:7). Through Jesus, we have access to the unmerited and unlimited favor of God. Grace is the inexhaustible supply of God’s goodness that continuously brings his favor to his people (1:17), doing for us what we can’t do for ourselves. God will provide believers with a never-ending supply of grace upon grace through Christ, as waves crashing on the seashore (1:16).

1:18 Even Moses saw only the backside of God’s glory. No one can see God’s face on this side of eternity and live (see Exod 33:18-23). Yet, since Jesus is fully God, to know Jesus is to know God. He has perfectly revealed him.

1:19-20 John had been preaching and baptizing, so they wondered if he thought he was the Messiah, the coming King foretold in Scripture (1:20).

1:21 They were referring to the prophecy that Elijah would return (see Mal 4:5-6). The Prophet was a reference to Moses’s prophecy that God would raise up a great prophet like him (see Deut 18:15-18).

1:23 The word Lord in this quotation refers to God, thus identifying the deity of Jesus.

1:27 Untying the sandals was the most menial job of a slave.

1:29 Behind John’s statement is the Old Testament practice of animal sacrifice in general and the Passover offering of a lamb in particular. God had commanded Israel to sacrifice a lamb so that he might rescue them from Pharaoh before instituting the sacrificial system to atone for their sins. But ultimately the blood of animals couldn’t “take away sins” (Heb 10:4). It was a temporary measure (a layaway plan!) that pointed to a permanent means of salvation. Only the sacrifice of Jesus could truly address the sin “of the whole world” (1 John 2:2). For unbelievers, the problem is not that their sin hasn’t been atoned for; the problem is that they are unwilling to receive the atonement that Jesus has already made (see John 1:12).

1:35-37 A Christian’s testimony ought to accomplish what John the Baptist’s testimony did: pointing people to Jesus so that they want to follow him.

1:40-42 Notice the domino effect in this passage. When you understand who Jesus is, you’ll want others to know him.

1:43 An invitation to follow Jesus is an invitation to become his disciple.

1:46 Nazareth, a town in Galilee, had a poor reputation. Moreover, the Messiah was supposed to hail from Bethlehem (see Mic 5:2). Jesus had been born in Bethlehem, but he’d been raised in Nazareth (see Matt 2:1, 23).

1:47-51 Jesus displayed his omniscience, his supernatural knowledge of all things. Not only did he know about Nathanael’s character and where he was when Philip found him (1:47-48), but he also knew what Nathanael had been thinking about. Notice that Jesus told Nathanael that he, along with the other disciples (the you is plural), would see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man (1:51). This statement is a reference to Jacob’s experience of dreaming about a stairway reaching from earth to heaven with angels “going up and down on it” (Gen 28:10-12). Not only did Jesus make explicit reference to this story, but he also told Nathanael that he was an Israelite in whom there is no deceit (John 1:47). Being a deceiver was exactly what Jacob was known for (see Gen 27:1-36). So by these two comments, Jesus was making Nathanael aware that he had read his thoughts.