John 1

John 1
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John 1:21-28 on Papyrus 119, written about AD 250.
Book	Gospel of John
Bible part	New Testament
Order in the Bible part	4
Category	Gospel

John 1 is the first chapter in the Gospel of John in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The book containing this chapter is anonymous, but early Christian tradition uniformly affirmed that John composed this gospel.

The first chapter of the Gospel of John has 51 verses and can be divided in three parts:

The first part (verses 1-18), often called the Hymn to the Word, is a prologue to the gospel as a whole, stating that the Logos is "God" ("divine", "god-like", or "a god" according to some translations). This portion of John's gospel is of central significance to the development of the Christian doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation.

Comparisons can be made between these verses and the narrative of Genesis 1, where the same phrase In the beginning first occurs along with the emphasis on the difference between the darkness (such as the earth was formless and void, Genesis 1:2) and the light (the ability to see things not understood/hidden by the darkness, John 1:5).

John Wesley summarised the opening verses of John 1 as follows:

According to the writers of the Pulpit Commentary, the phrase "the light of men" (John 1:4) "has been differently conceived by expositors. Calvin supposed that the "understanding" was intended - "that the life of men was not of an ordinary description, but was united to the light of understanding," and is that by which man is differentiated from animals. Hengstenberg regards it, in consequence of numerous associations of "light" with "salvation" in Holy Scripture, as equivalent to salvation; Luthardt with "holiness" and many with the "eternal life," which would introduce great tautology."