Part I: Before the Beginning

Chapter 2: His Revelation—The Word

Let us return to the opening of John’s Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything made that was made” (John 1:1–3). Here we see that before anything was created—before time, before space, before anything at all—Yahweh, the self-existing One, chose to reveal and manifest Himself as the Word (in Greek, the Logos). The title “Word” is profoundly fitting, for a word is the means by which a hidden mind expresses itself and makes itself known. Just as our thoughts are invisible until they are clothed in speech, so the invisible God makes Himself known through His Word.35

I hope you grasp the wonder of this: He chose to express the Word in a form that could be seen and known—a visible manifestation of His glory, which Paul calls “the firstborn of every creature.” He did not create the Word, nor did He bring the Word into being as something separate from Himself; rather, He revealed and manifested His own hidden self. This is one of His characteristics and attributes: that He is the Word. And the very first thing He did, in unveiling His many perfections, was to reveal and manifest Himself as the Word. In Scripture, this kind of visible self-disclosure of God is called a theophany—a manifestation of God that can be perceived. It is through the Word, by this self-revelation, that everything else was created, both the spiritual and the physical world.

We should be careful here, for the truth is glorious but easily misunderstood. When God revealed Himself as the Word in visible glory, the Word had not yet become flesh; that would come later, in the fullness of time, at Bethlehem. The early church understood the Old Testament appearances of God—to Abraham at Mamre, to Moses at the burning bush, to the prophets—as manifestations of this same Word, the One who would one day take our nature upon Himself. Irenaeus, a disciple of Polycarp (who himself knew the apostle John), taught plainly that it was the Word who appeared to the patriarchs and prophets, “manifesting to them the unseen things of the Father,” long before He became man and suffered on the cross.36 These appearances were not yet the incarnation; they were radiant unveilings of the glory of the One who would be incarnate.

Let us look at how the prophet Ezekiel saw Him, to gain some sense of how the Word appeared in visible, uncreated glory:

“Then I noticed from the appearance of His loins and upward something like glowing metal that looked like fire all around within it, and from the appearance of His loins and downward I saw something like fire; and there was a radiance around Him” (Ezekiel 1:27).

“Then I looked, and behold, a likeness as the appearance of a man; from His loins and downward there was the appearance of fire, and from His loins and upward the appearance of brightness, like the appearance of glowing metal” (Ezekiel 8:2).

Ezekiel labors to describe what he sees, repeating the word “likeness” again and again, because he is straining at the very edge of human language. Above the firmament he beholds “the likeness of a throne,” and upon it “a likeness as it were of a human form” (Ezekiel 1:26). Reformed and evangelical commentators have long noted that this “likeness of a man” upon the throne anticipates the truth of the incarnation: that the One enthroned in glory is not ashamed to appear in the likeness of man, and would in time truly become one.37

Here is a summary of His appearance as the Word in visible glory, as Scripture describes it:

This is a powerful and glorious appearance, yet a terrifying one. Every prophet who beheld it—Ezekiel, Daniel, John—fell on his face as though dead (Ezekiel 1:28; Daniel 10:8–9; Revelation 1:17). Many artists have tried to capture these descriptions, yet no drawing has ever come close to what is portrayed. Human words themselves strain and break under the weight of it. It is no accident that the description of the glorified Son of Man in Revelation 1 deliberately weaves together the imagery of Daniel 7 and Ezekiel 1: John is telling us that the One he saw on Patmos is the same glorious Lord the earlier prophets beheld.38

In the chapters to come we will see how the Word became flesh, as John declares: “And the Word became 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” (John 1:14). It is after this manifestation of the Word in the flesh that the apostle Paul opens yet another window onto the mystery, writing to the Colossians: “Giving thanks unto the Father… who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist” (Colossians 1:12–17).

Two phrases in this passage deserve careful attention, for they are the very heart of the matter. First, Christ is “the image of the invisible God.” The Greek word for “image” is eikōn, from which we get our word “icon.” It carries two ideas together: exact likeness and visible manifestation. Christ is not a mere reflection of God; in Him the very nature and being of God are perfectly revealed and made visible. As the writer to the Hebrews says, He is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Hebrews 1:3). The invisible God has made Himself visible in the Word.39

Second, Christ is “the firstborn of every creature.” This must be understood rightly, for some have wrongly taken it to mean that the Son was the first being God created. That is not what the word means. In Scripture, “firstborn” (prōtotokos) regularly signifies rank, status, and preeminence rather than chronological origin—the privileged position of the eldest son. Israel is called God’s “firstborn” (Exodus 4:22), and David, the youngest of his brothers, is appointed “firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth” (Psalm 89:27). The meaning, then, is not that Christ is the first creature, but that He holds supreme rank over all creation. Indeed, the very next verse settles the matter: “For by him were all things created”—the One through whom all things were made cannot Himself be one of the things that were made.40

The structure of Paul’s words confirms this. A few lines later he calls Christ “the firstborn from the dead” (Colossians 1:18), meaning the first to rise in resurrection glory and the head of a new humanity. Just as that title marks His preeminence in the new creation, “firstborn of every creature” marks His preeminence over the old. He is before all things; He is the cause and head of all things; in every way He is first.41

So, drawing John chapter one and Colossians chapter one together, we see the same glorious truth from two angles. Before time there was the Word; through the Word, in the beginning, everything was created; and the Word is the visible manifestation of the invisible God—the One Ezekiel saw in chapters one and eight, enthroned in fiery glory, “like a man.” Yahweh’s first revelation, manifestation, and appearance is the Word; and through the Word everything else was made. In this way Yahweh related and connected to His creation and began to unveil His attributes.

God is Spirit, invisible and everywhere present, and He revealed and manifested Himself as the Word in visible glory. He did not create this manifestation as something other than Himself; rather, He unveiled His own hidden self as one of His characteristics and perfections—the self-existing One making Himself known. He is the Living One, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty,” and beside Him there is no other God (Revelation 1:8, 17–18; 21:6–7; 22:13; Isaiah 44:6; 48:12). And let us never forget the climax toward which all this moves: this same Word, who appeared in glory to the prophets, “became flesh and dwelt among us”—the permanent and final unveiling of God in our own nature.4243

Let Him manifest and reveal Himself in your life. Let Him be the first in everything you do, and let Him take the first place in your heart.

Notes

  1. 35. Edgar J. Lovelady, “The Logos Concept: A Critical Monograph on John 1:1,” Grace Theological Journal 4, no. 2 (1963); see also Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, rev. ed., NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 100–111. ↩
  2. 36. Irenaeus, Against Heresies 4.20.7–11; cf. 4.7.4. Irenaeus, a disciple of Polycarp (who knew the apostle John), identifies the Word as the One who appeared to the patriarchs and prophets before becoming flesh. ↩
  3. 37. Daniel I. Block, The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 1–24, NICOT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 96–106; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, on Ezek. 1:26–28, reads the “likeness of a man” upon the throne as a foreshadowing of the eternal Son who would take our nature. ↩
  4. 38. G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 206–216; the description of the glorified Son of Man in Rev. 1 deliberately draws on Dan. 7:9–13 and Ezek. 1. ↩
  5. 39. Peter T. O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon, Word Biblical Commentary (Waco, TX: Word, 1982), 43–44; the Greek eikōn (“image”) carries the double sense of likeness and visible manifestation. ↩
  6. 40. Douglas J. Moo, The Letters to the Colossians and to Philemon, Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 117–125. On prōtotokos as rank and priority rather than created origin, see also F. F. Bruce, The Epistles to the Colossians, to Philemon, and to the Ephesians, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984), 58–62. ↩
  7. 41. Moo, Colossians and Philemon, 119–120; Larry R. Helyer, “Arius Revisited: The Firstborn over All Creation (Col 1:15),” JETS 31, no. 1 (1988): 59–67. The parallel “firstborn from the dead” (Col. 1:18) shows that prōtotokos denotes preeminence, not being the first item in a series. ↩
  8. 42. F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 40–42; the incarnation is the climactic, permanent assumption of true humanity, distinct from the temporary visible manifestations (theophanies) of the Old Testament. ↩
  9. 43. Hebrews 1:3; cf. F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Hebrews, rev. ed., NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 47–51. The Son is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.” ↩
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