John 1 — The Word Made Flesh, the Lamb of God, and Come and See
I was in the garage last Sunday afternoon, planing a piece of white oak that had been sitting on the rack for about six months. The wood was dry and stable. As I ran the plane down the edge, a grain pattern I had missed before started showing. A curl that ran through the whole board, invisible until the blade cut into it.
That is roughly what John does in the first chapter of his gospel. He takes the plane to the surface and shows you something that was there all along.
John opens differently than Matthew, Mark, or Luke. He does not start with a birth or a baptism or a genealogy. He starts before anything started.
Meaning of the Word Was Made Flesh John 1
Verse 1 is one of the most carefully constructed sentences in scripture. According to John, "the Word was with God, and the Word was God" from the beginning.
John calls Jesus the Word. Logos in Greek. It means something like the principle that holds everything together. The reason behind things, the logic the universe runs on. And John says that Word became a person.
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
Verse 14 is the hinge of the whole chapter, maybe the whole book. The infinite, eternal, uncreated Word took on flesh. He lived in a body, got tired, ate food. He walked on the same ground the rest of us walk on.
I think about that when I am working with wood. Wood is stubborn and honest. You cannot pretend a joint fits when it does not. You cannot talk your way past a bad cut. The material tells you the truth whether you want to hear it or not. And the Word, the Logos, the thing that holds everything together, chose to enter a world like that. A world of honest materials and hard edges and real consequences.
What Does It Mean That Jesus Is the Lamb of God
John the Baptist shows up in verse 29 and says something that his audience would have understood immediately. "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."
The lamb was the animal sacrificed in the temple every morning and evening. Families brought lambs at Passover. Its blood marked the doorposts in Egypt, sparing Israel from death. Every Israelite who heard John say that would have known exactly what he meant. This is the one the whole sacrificial system has been pointing toward.
When the priests and Levites came to question John, they asked him who he was. He told them plainly he was not the Christ, not Elijah, not the prophet they were expecting. He said, "I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord."
John understood his role. He was the signpost, the voice telling people to get ready, not the destination.
Significance of John the Baptist Witness of Christ
The next day John saw Jesus walking and said, "Behold the Lamb of God." Two of his disciples heard him say it and followed Jesus. One of them was Andrew. The first thing Andrew did was find his brother Simon and tell him they had found the Messiah. Then he brought Simon to Jesus.
Jesus looked at Simon and said, "Thou art Simon the son of Jona. Thou shalt be called Cephas." Which means Peter, a rock. Jesus had never met Simon before, but he gave him a new name on the spot. He saw something in him that Simon did not know was there yet.
That is how the calling works in this chapter. It is personal. Jesus knows who these people are before they introduce themselves. He knows Simon's father. He sees Nathanael under a fig tree before Philip calls him. The invitation to follow him starts with being known.
Why Did Jesus Say Come and See to the Disciples
When Andrew and the other disciple asked Jesus where he lived, he did not give them a theology lecture. He said, "Come and see."
That phrase runs through the whole chapter. Philip says the same thing to Nathanael. When Nathanael is skeptical about whether anything good can come from Nazareth, Philip does not argue with him. He just says, "Come and see."
There is something honest about an approach that does not demand belief up front and lets people discover truth for themselves. Jesus does not tell people what to think before they have had a chance to experience him. He invites them to come see for themselves and spend time with him, then decide from what they observe.
I think about that when my kids ask hard questions. The instinct is to give them an answer, to explain everything clearly so they understand. But sometimes the right response is simpler. Come and see, come to church with me, read the chapter with me, watch how this works and decide what you think.
Meaning of Angels Ascending and Descending on the Son of Man
The chapter ends with a promise to Nathanael that connects all the way back to Genesis. Jesus says, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man."
This is a direct reference to Jacob's ladder. Jacob saw a ladder set up on the earth with its top reaching heaven, and angels going up and down on it. Jesus is saying he is that ladder. He is the connection between heaven and earth. The thing that links what we can see with what we cannot.
There is a link here to something I wrote about Luke 22 and the night everything broke. In that chapter, the connection between heaven and earth seemed to snap. But John 1 tells us from the start that the connection was always there. The Word was with God. The Word was God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us so that the ladder would never come down.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does it mean that the Word was God in John 1?
It means Jesus Christ existed as a divine being before his birth. He was with God the Father from the beginning and shared his glory. John uses the term Word to describe him as the power through which all things were created and the one who reveals the Father to us.
Why did John the Baptist call Jesus the Lamb of God?
John was connecting Jesus to the sacrificial system of the Old Covenant. Lambs were offered for sin. The Passover lamb saved Israel from death in Egypt. By calling Jesus the Lamb of God, John identified him as the ultimate sacrifice whose atonement covers the sins of everyone, not just one nation.
What is the significance of Jesus seeing Nathanael under the fig tree?
It showed Nathanael that Jesus knew him personally. Jesus saw something Nathanael thought was private, and that recognition changed Nathanael's mind about who Jesus was. It demonstrates that the call to follow Christ is personal. He knows where you are before you arrive.
Why did Jesus say come and see instead of giving an answer?
Jesus invited Andrew and Nathanael to experience him directly rather than accept a secondhand explanation. Come and see is an open door. It does not demand belief up front. It asks for willingness to observe and find out. That is still how faith works for most of us.
I put the plane down and wiped the dust off the oak board. The curl in the grain was subtle but it ran the full length. It had been there the whole time, waiting for the right cut to show itself.
That is what John's prologue does. It reveals what was always there. The Word that was with God in the beginning. The light that shines in the darkness. The lamb that takes away the sin of the world. The ladder between heaven and earth.
And then it invites you to come and see.
— D.