(avg. read time: 6–12 mins.)
John has a Christmas story in his own right, which is conveyed in his own fashion, as is unsurprising for how our author worked. Of course, John does not begin his story of Jesus with any mention of Mary, Joseph, Herod, Caesar, the Magi, the shepherds, angels, or even any mention of Jesus’s birth itself, as he is focused on the incarnation as such. Although both Matthew and Luke highlight Jesus’s virginal conception, John makes no such reference. In fact, there are times when Jesus is referred to as the son of Joseph, but it is worth noting that these statements parallel Luke 4:22 in that they are in the mouths of people who do not comprehend Jesus’s origins (1:45; 6:42). These statements fit with the general theme of the Gospel according to John that most people do not know whence Jesus came and that those who would follow him must have faith in who sent him and where he comes from (1:9, 11–15; 3:17, 30–31, 34; 4:34; 5:23–24, 30, 36–40; 6:29–60; 7:16–18, 25–43, 52; 8:14–18, 22–29, 42–47; 9:4, 28–33; 10:36; 11:42; 12:44–50; 13:1–3; 14:24–26; 15:21–26; 16:5, 27–30; 17:3, 8, 18–25; 20:21). And while John does not reference Jesus’s birth, I would suggest that his account of the incarnation gives us a Christmas story in his own fashion. There are significant areas of overlap between John on the one hand and Matthew and Luke on the other that show how John’s prologue functions as his own Christmas story. There are, of course, also distinct emphases that distinguish John’s Christmas story, including the distinct ways in which he hinges the story of Jesus to the story of the OT.
Compared to the Synoptics, John makes a more direct point about the significance of Jesus’s coming (1:1, 10, 14, 18). For Jesus to come into the world, it would mean that the Word of God who was with God and who was God (though not the Father, who is most regularly identified as “God”) had come in flesh as human to bring to fruition the work he had been doing with God since before the creation of the world. It would mean not only the fulfillment of expectations of God’s coming and the climax of salvation history (Pss 50:3–4; 96:12–13; 98:8–9; Isa 4:2–5; 24:21–23; 25:6–10; 31:4–5; 35:3–6, 10; 40:3–5, 9–11; 52:7–10; 59:15–21; 60:1–3, 19–20; 62:10–11; 63:1, 3, 5, 9; 64:1; 66:12, 14–16, 18–20; Ezek 43:1–7; 48:35; Joel 3:16–21; Zeph 3:14–20; Hag 2:7, 9; Zech 1:16–17; 2:4–5, 10–12; 8; 14:1–5, 9, 16, 20–21; Mal 3:1–4; cf. Rev 16:18; 21:10–11, 22–23; 22:1–5); it would mean the fullest revelation of God because one who was God and who was with God had come to dwell among us and show the God whom the people had known for a long time in a way that he had never been known before. And though God had been with us in the past, by Jesus he would be with us in a way he never had been before. More indirectly, it would mean that Jesus is the one to whom disciples must listen to know the will of God and the one from whom they must learn what it means to live in true alignment with the purposes of God (all of which are implied by John calling him the Word of God; John 3:32; 5:19–23; 7:16; 8:26, 38, 40, 47, 55; 14:10; 17:8, 14, 16). As one with God, he also defines the meaning and content of the image of God by clarifying what it means to be human and what it means to be God (the two key points of 1:1 and 1:14 illustrate this dual emphasis).
As the Word of God, he is the one about whom John says that “all things came to be through him” (1:3) and “the world came to be through him” (1:10). These statements declare that Jesus shares in the work of the Creator, as God the Father created all things through him. It is also signifies that he is the life-giver, hence why John also describes Jesus’s incarnation as the coming of the true life and light into the world (1:3–5, 9). More so than the other Gospels, John makes these terms into themes for his text. Jesus is not only the provider of the life of the present age, but is also the provider of the everlasting life—the life of the age to come in the new creation—that believers possess in the present time and will experience more fully in the resurrection (3:15–16, 36; 4:14, 36; 5:21, 24–26, 29, 39–40; 6:27, 33, 35, 40, 47–51, 53–54, 57–58, 63, 68; 8:12, 51; 10:10, 28; 11:25–26; 12:25, 50; 14:6, 19; 17:2–3; 20:31). He is the light of the world who reveals the truth about God and about the world, providing light that overcomes the darkness of sin in the world for salvation and judgment (3:19–21; 8:12; 9:4–5; 11:9–10; 12:35–36, 46). These statements are more direct references to who Jesus is and what he provides from the time he enters the world because he has provided it since the creation of the world. While these statements are more direct, they are also more subtle than Matthew and Luke in citing Jesus’s coming as a new chapter that recapitulates and amplifies what God has been doing in the long story of creation and primarily in the story of Israel. They are also statements that evoke the promises given through the prophets of life with God and living by the light of God.
In further continuity with Luke in particular, John emphasizes this role of John the Baptist as the precursor and first witness of the incarnate Word (1:6–8, 15). But more than Luke, John presents John the Baptist as the paradigmatic witness who testifies to Jesus in order that others might believe and become disciples (1:19–34; 3:26–30; 5:33–35; 10:40–41). Furthermore, John’s quotations of Jesus present a sense in which the function of witness—first embodied in the story by John—imitates and participates in the work of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit in testifying about Jesus (3:11–15, 32–36; 4:44; 5:31–38; 7:7; 8:14–18, 30, 38; 10:25; 15:26–27; 16:7–11; 18:37; 20:30–31; 21:24–25). Of course, John’s role in the prologue is different than in Luke’s Christmas story because John is visualized as an adult and his role as a witness is not so much foretold as it is recapped.
Like the other Gospels, John portends Jesus’s rejection when he states that Jesus came to his own, but his own did not receive him (1:11). The variations of the same Greek word in this verse—with the first being neuter accusative plural and the second being masculine nominative plural—indicate that two levels of “his own” are addressed here. He came to his own creation (literally, “his own things”), but his own people—his prime possession of the creation and the ones who would ideally be most eager to receive him—did not receive him. Instead, many disassociated themselves from him because they were still in the darkness. This statement, more than the other Christmas stories, vividly illustrates how far astray Israel had gone and foreshadows the sorrowful implications of Christmas alongside the joyful ones.
I have noted that John describes these effects in terms of God dwelling among us and the coming of the one who is the true source of life and light, but he also states the specific effect for believers in more vividly relational terms as Jesus enables those who receive him to become children of God (1:12–13). Like with many other points in the prologue, John introduces here a key outcome of faith that he emphasizes throughout Jesus’s discourses (and occasionally otherwise), as the individual’s relationship with Jesus as the Son of God defines the individual’s relationship to his Father (1:44–51; 3:15–21, 36; 4:21–24; 5:24–29, 37–38, 45–47; 6:29–30, 39–40, 69; 7:37–39; 8:24, 39–47; 9:35–39; 10:1–5, 25–27, 37–38; 11:25–27, 42; 12:36, 44–47; 13:19–20; 14:1, 10–14, 19, 20, 29; 16:27; 17:8, 20; 20:8, 20–22, 27–29, 31). More thoroughly than any other Gospel, John intertwines Jesus’s identity as the Son of God with our identity as children of God, sharers in the Holy Spirit, and heirs of what is to come. In John’s Christmas story, the Christ-child (though never narrated as a child) enables others to become children of God.
John also references Jesus’s glory, but once again his entire Gospel makes more of a theme of it as Jesus reveals his glory in the incarnation, his signs, and climactically through his crucifixion, resurrection, and exaltation (1:14; 5:41, 44; 7:18, 39; 8:50, 54; 11:4, 40; 12:16, 23, 28, 41, 43; 13:31–32; 15:8; 17:1–2, 4–5, 10, 22, 24; also see here and here). From the beginning, Jesus revealed the glory of God, but it was not until the last days of his earthly ministry that he most fully disclosed it. This “glory” has multiple dimensions. One, it recalls God’s glory displayed in the exodus and in dwelling among the people in the tabernacle and the temple (Exod 33:7–11; 40:34–38; Num 14:10; 1 Kgs 8:10–11; Pss 26:8; 102:16; Jer 17:12; Ezek 10:4). In other words, this reference to Jesus’s revelation of God’s glory connects him with the Shekinah. Two, as such it evokes new exodus imagery and the promises of God’s coming to Israel to dwell with his people forevermore (see above). Three, this glory is a quality both of the revelation and of the Revealer, the quality by which the Son reveals the Father and which the Son has by virtue of his union with the Father (as many of the Johannine texts show). Fourth, the conclusive events of Jesus’s life in his crucifixion, resurrection, and exaltation are the primary means of Jesus’s glorification because they are the outcome of Jesus’s perfect obedience to the Father’s will. For it is only in this obedience that Jesus glorifies the Father and receives glorification from the Father.
I have noted previously and on other occasions how the Christmas stories of Matthew and Luke embody God’s merciful, delivering love and his faithfulness to his covenants. While I have already noted several angles from which John makes similar statements, the phrase that most succinctly expresses these interwoven themes for John is “grace and truth” (1:14, 16–17). This pair of terms seems to correspond to a similar one in the OT in which the various authors use the words חסד and אמת and their derivatives to describe the expressions of God’s most fundamental relational qualities, and sometimes it described the ethical obligations of people in relation to others (Exod 34:6; 2 Sam 2:6; 15:20; Pss 25:10; 26:3; 40:10–11; 57:3, 10; 61:7; 69:13; 85:10; 86:15; 89:14; 108:4; 115:1; 117:2; 138:2; Prov 14:22; Mic 7:20; cf. Josh 2:14; 2 Sam 7:28; 2 Kgs 20:19//Isa 39:8; Prov 3:3; 16:6; 20:28; 29:14; Isa 61:8; Jer 33:6; Hos 4:1; Zech 7:9). In the LXX, the translators usually used some form of ἔλεος and ἀλήθεια to convey these ideas. Indeed, five of the six uses of ἔλεος in Luke are in the first chapter to convey the חסד of God in a linguistic context decidedly reminiscent of the LXX. However, it could be that John used χάρις to convey this idea due to it being a related concept and due to it being more prominent among the earliest Christians (159 uses for χάρις in the NT in every book but Matthew, Mark, and 1 and 3 John vs. 27 uses for ἔλεος in 13 out of 27 books). Also, it is worth nothing that χάρις appears only in the prologue while ἀλήθεια appears throughout the book more times than in any other NT work. Throughout John, “truth” primarily relates to knowledge of Jesus and thus of God through Jesus. The contrast of grace and truth coming through Jesus in succession of the Torah in 1:16–17 sets the tone for the entire Gospel and its focus on the discontinuity of the newness of Jesus in salvation history and the continuity of Jesus as the climax of the long story of Scripture. John communicates with this theme that Jesus is the superior revelation to the Torah, the one who fulfills and replaces it as the supreme and authoritative revelation, because he is the one who fulfills all of Scripture (1:45; 2:22; 3:14; 5:39, 45–47; 6:14, 31–33, 45, 49–51; 7:19, 22–29, 38, 42; 8:17; 9:28–29; 10:34–35; 12:13–16, 34, 36–41; 13:18; 15:25; 17:12; 19:24, 28, 36–37; 20:9; cf. Luke 24:44–49). John 2:22 in particular shows that Jesus was the one who unveiled the Scriptures to his followers, particularly after his resurrection. It was only in retrospect that the disciples realized that Jesus’s birth was the incarnation of God, the embodiment of the one who was God with us, and the union of God and human in a never-before-seen way, but retrospectively understood as being long expected.
Lastly, for all of John’s similarities with Matthew and Luke in regard to expressing continuity with the long story of Scripture, John also has a key distinct emphasis in his statement that no one else has seen God (thereby implying that other theophanies were the appearance of the Word who has only now become flesh). Only the one and only (or only begotten) Son of God the Father, the one who is in the heart of God, has told the whole story about him, being God’s exegete (1:18; note that the verbal equivalent of the root for “exegesis” is the word translated, “he has made him known”). While all the other Gospels make this point in their own ways, no other Gospel proclaims from the outset that to understand God one must ultimately look to Jesus for only in Jesus has God made himself known in exegetical human form. Christmas thus serves as the signal on earth for the culmination of God’s revelation and salvific works.