The prologue to John's Gospel reminds us that the divine communication by which the worlds were made is the same word that has taken human flesh in order to dwell among us. This passage alone is sufficient to send us back to the beginning of creation to examine the way the creative word has worked until now. John is telling us that there is a history of the word that is part of salvation history, and this climaxes in the event he describes in v. 14 as the word becoming flesh and tabernacling among us.

In making the comparison between Moses and Jesus, John does not detract from the ministry of Moses but links it to the greater word of God that brings grace and truth. In describing the incarnation of Jesus as a "tabernacling,"4 John deliberately links the incarnation to the dwelling of God among His people in the tabernacle as recorded in the Old Testament. This is confirmed by the way he moves very quickly to incorporate the account of the cleansing of the temple in chapter 2. Here the temple of Herod is but a symbol of the true temple that has come with Jesus. Jesus' reference to the destruction of the temple is clearly a reference to His own death, for His claim to rebuild it in three days is interpreted by John as a reference to the resurrection.5

The effect of John's treatment of the logos in this prologue passage is to place the incarnation of the living Word, Jesus, firmly in the context of salvation history in Israel, and to extend the line of this holy history back to the creation and behind that to the preexistence of Christ as the eternal Word of God.

The Word of God That Addresses Us

Given that a biblical theology of preaching is integral to a theology of the word of God, we need to understand the significance of this word in the whole plan and purpose of God. The gospel of the Word who becomes flesh requires us to examine its antecedents in the Old Testament. We will briefly examine the nature of the word of God in creation, judgment, and salvation, as the redemptive history unfolds and moves toward the fulfillment in the gospel. The word of God by which all things were created is the word that establishes a covenant with a people being redeemed, and that finally bursts into our world as the God-man, Immanuel.

1. Creation and Fall

The holy history approach to the word of God in John's prologue suggests a methodology for the development of a biblical-theological overview of the subject. John begins his Gospel by recalling the first words of the book of Genesis, but in so doing he identifies the word of God by which creation was effected as the same word that became flesh. The Genesis account tells us that God spoke the universe into being and thus establishes the principle that is developed throughout Scripture that God chooses freely to relate to His creation by His word.

In keeping with this is the fact that when He creates the human pair He blesses them by addressing them with a spoken word (Gen. 1:26-30). It is an aspect of their being created in the image of God that He addresses them with words, and that they are able to understand this address.6 The word that He speaks establishes and interprets the context within which human beings exist and relate to everything else in creation. There is a hierarchy of relationships in which God is sovereign Lord of all and chooses human beings to be His regal representatives by having dominion and authority over the rest of creation.