BS1E - THE VERY BEGINNING
There is a deeper level to this question “did Jesus live?” John was Jesus’ closest disciple. He chose to start his eye-witness account of Jesus (called the Gospel of John) back in eternity rather than in Bethlehem. The first verses of John’s gospel are pretty startling!
John 1:1-4
WHO was John talking about here? If you haven’t guessed, John was talking about Jesus.
“The Word” is an expression applied to God. In Greek, the Word is “Logos”, which means a word uttered by a living voice. Jesus was to be God’s “living word” as opposed to the Old Testament which was God’s written word. John builds on this concept …….first he says the Word was WITH God and then says that the Word WAS God.
You see, John was convinced that the story started back with God. Jesus was with God in eternity and was his partner in the creation of the world. Here are further verses in John’s Gospel that highlight this fact:
John 3:13 / 6:46 / 6:62 / 8:14 / 8:58 / 16:28 / 17:5
What happened to “the Word” – i.e., Jesus?
John 1:14
And when Jesus came, whom did He reveal?
John 1:18
So, John says that the story of Jesus begins with God himself and since no one has ever seen God, Jesus was to be the one to reveal him to us by coming to earth in human form.
Philippians 2:7
For now, what is important to us about these 3 different genealogies is that Jesus was born fully human but He also was divine. He was just the right combination needed to become the mediator between God and man.
Next Study: BS1F-Jesus and the Historians Who Wrote About Him