In John 1:1-18, John is reminding believers who exactly Jesus is and says that this Jesus is (1) the Word of God that has existed from the beginning of time (John 1:1-2). This Jesus, that is the Word of God is (2) God’s ability to create and that “without him (Jesus) nothing was made that has been made” (John 1:3). This Jesus that is the Word of God is (3) God’s ability to give life and illumination to humanity, the ability to understand who he is and who God is (John 1:4-5). 

John testifies in John 1:6-8 that he had followers, at the time he was preaching a message of repentance; that God would send a new covenant message. This covenant was going to be founded on forgiveness and everyone who repents and looks to God’s way of salvation, God would save. This new message was bringing people who receive it, out from under messages of condemnation and hopelessness (John 1:6-8). 

John reminds believers however that God’s way of salvation was not through his message, but through Jesus. He reminds them that he is only a messenger whose message is to testify that Jesus is God’s “true light that gives light to everyone” (John 1:9). Meaning Jesus is who gives humanity the ability to understand who God is and what he is doing on earth. 

Yet, John writes that Jesus’ own people rejected this Jesus, God’s Word, God’s ability to create, God’s ability to give life and God’s way of salvation (John 1:10-11). But to anyone who does not reject Jesus, God’s way of salvation and God’s new covenant message, God has promised an inheritance to become children of God; heirs of God’s riches including righteousness and eternal life (John 1:12). 

John’s prelude to his gospel is sharing that the Word of the Almighty God came to earth in human form and lived among humanity and he testifies that he saw the glory of God through Jesus’ ministry on earth and was a witness to his message of God’s truth and grace (John 1:14). 

John writes that “out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given” (John 1:15). Meaning we as humanity were already given a measure of grace through the law that Moses gave, a form of forgiveness, but that Jesus’ ministry completed that work and has given the full measure of grace to us through his life, sacrifice for us and resurrection that reconnects us with God, becoming righteous like him and heirs, children of God (John 1:12-17). 

John says no one has seen God, only some have been given visions of God’s glory, nobody knows God but Jesus, “the one and only son who is himself God and in the closest relationship with the Father” (John 1:18). Because Jesus knows God, he is able to bring the understanding to us of who God is and make God know to us: that God existed before the beginning of time, nothing was made without God; that God alone has the ability to save and give life and that belief in Jesus is God’s way of salvation.