Alberith John's Gospel

1:1 - In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

John opens his Gospel with words that would have recalled for his Jewish audience the initial words of the book of Genesis. F. F. Bruce thinks that:

"It is not by accident that the Gospel begins with the same phrase as the book of Genesis. In Gen 1:1 'In the beginning' introduces the story of the old creation; here it introduces the story of the new creation. In both works of creation the agent is the Word of God."1

William Temple, the Archbishop of Canterbury (from 1942), finds an alternative significance in this initial expression:

"In the beginning." Of course the words take up the opening of Genesis. But they do this so as to suggest at once the transition from temporal event to eternal reality which is the essence of this Gospel. For the Greek words can also be translated "In principle". It is a great mistake to suppose that, when a word in one language is represented by two or more in another, it is always necessary to choose one or the other of these; very often a word covers several meanings because the meanings really are connected together, and the mind easily passes from one to the other without consciousness of movement. So the word really means both things; and here the expression used means both 'in the beginning of history' and 'at the root of the universe'.2

In other words, we may say that what is implied by these words is that the Word is the controlling principle in everything we think about life and what it may mean and how it ought to be lived. To think about life without the Word is to live life without any anchor in that which gives life its focus, direction and significance.

If the words recall Genesis, they also serve a different purpose, as J. R. Michaels explains:

. . . the words "In the beginning" unmistakably echo Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth." Yet the differences are more striking than the similarities. God is the solitary Creator in the Genesis account, while in John creation is jointly the work of God and the Word. Genesis, moreover, is interested in God's act, not God's being or existence, which is simply presupposed: "God made the heaven and the earth." John's Gospel, by contrast, focuses on being, in three clauses: (1) "In the beginning was the Word," (2) "the Word was with God," and (3) "the Word was God." Perhaps this is because God in the book of Genesis needs no introduction. God can be safely presupposed, but the same is not true of the Word in the Gospel of John. The Word must be identified, and can only be identified in relation to God, the God of Israel.3