January 6

Today's Reading: John 1:1-51

There is so much to cover in this chapter, but I'm mainly going to focus on John's opening words.

Just as we saw with the book of Genesis, John's gospel opens with the words "In the beginning..." This is not just a coincidence. John wants us to be reminded of the creation account in Genesis. But John replaces "God" with "the Word". "The Word" is described as being "with God" and also being God (not "a God" as the Jehovah's Witnesses claim). The obvious question is why doesn't John just write "Jesus" rather than calling Him "the Word"?

That question requires a deep and lengthy answer that is beyond the scope of this devotional. But we can make a couple observations:

• John is clearly connecting Jesus back to the creation where God spoke the creation into existence. And as we saw in Psalm 19 that creation testifies to who God is.
• But as "the Word" Jesus is the final and most complete revelation of God that we have. The underlying Greek word - logos - can also mean "message". And there is a sense in which Jesus is God's final and most complete message we have regarding our salvation. The writer of Hebrews picks up on this idea in the opening words of his letter:

No wonder Jesus is the only way to God. Have you put your faith in Him alone? If not, will you do that today? We'll be glad to help you understand how to do that.