John’s Gospel, and especially its Prologue (John 1:1‒18), has played a central role in shaping the church’s understanding of the person and identity of Jesus Christ. The opening verse, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (v. 1),¹ already affirms three foundational truths about Jesus: that He is preexistent, distinct from the Father, and equal with the Father.² All these attributes are demonstrated in different ways throughout the Gospel. Yet, the third part of the Prologue (vv. 14–18) seems to make an even bolder Christological claim: that Jesus is in fact the incarnation of the Old Testament God, the God of Israel, an idea that is also found elsewhere in the Gospel. This is the subject of the present article, which is divided into four sections: the first one addresses the question of background, while the remaining three deal with the interpretation of the passage itself, though only insofar as it relates to the main topic.

The Exodus Background

Verses 14–18 of John’s Prologue can be described as a passage of its own. Even if the term logos ensures continuity with the preceding verses, its sudden reappearance—alongside the shift to the first-person plural, the more pronounced theological tone, and the climactic nature of the argument—seems to justify to some extent a separate treatment. Another significant change has to do with the conceptual background. While in the introductory section of the Prologue (vv. 1–5) John resorts to the creation story of Genesis 1 to emphasize the Logos’ divine preexistence with God and creative power,³ he now appeals to the exodus story to bring the Logos from the cosmic sphere and place Him within the realm of human history. And he does that by means of two motifs: the Levitical tabernacle as the medium of God’s presence among His people and the giving of the law at Sinai, particularly the second giving following the episode of the golden calf (Exod 32).

The tabernacle imagery, used in John 1:14a–c to articulate the reality of the incarnation, arises from the combination of two key terms, skēnoō (to dwell) and doxa (glory). The former, which appears only here in the Gospel, recalls the language that the Old Testament, both in Hebrew and in Greek, uses for the tabernacle in the wilderness (miškān, skēnē),⁴ the portable prototype of the temple and the ancient dwelling place of God in Israel. The latter certainly refers here to the glorious manifestation of God’s presence in the tabernacle (see Exod 40:34–38).⁵ As for the giving of the law, there are at least four points of convergence between John 1:14–18 and that story:⁶ (1) the contrast between Moses and Jesus in verse 17 explicitly refers to the giving of the law at Sinai; (2) the statement “we have seen His glory” (v. 14c), while pointing to God’s hidden glory in the tabernacle, also brings to mind Moses’ request to see God’s glory in Exodus 33:18; (3) John’s claim that “no one has ever seen God” (v. 18a) echoes God’s response to Moses: “You cannot see My face; for no one shall see Me and live” (Exod 33:20 NRSV); and (4) the expression “full of grace and truth” (plērēs charitos kai alētheias, v. 14e; cf. v. 17) is a deliberate allusion to raḇ-ḥéseḏ we’ĕmet of Exodus 34:6.⁷

The reading of John’s Prologue against this Old Testament conceptual background is now widely followed. Gone are the days in which scholars could plausibly argue that the Fourth Gospel’s Christology is the result of a slow, evolutionary process that was completed only when Christianity moved away from its Jewish borders (and roots) and found itself within a radically different environment, the Greek world. Those who still operate within the constraints of the religio-historical school, thus arguing for Hellenism rather than Judaism as the main source of the Johannine Logos Christology, are definitely few.⁸ In his careful, methodical analysis of all the proposed parallels—from Gnostic and Hermetic literature, from the Old Testament, and from the Jewish interpretive tradition—to determine the cultural context of the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel, Craig A. Evans concludes that it is to be found entirely within the Jewish synagogal domain. Its specific antecedents, he says, are the “biblical texts relating to creation and the Sinai covenant interpreted against the OT myth of wisdom and ideas of God’s dwelling in Israel.”⁹ And it was Jesus’ own teaching that facilitated the application of these traditions to His own person. “At no point in this evolution,” Evans continues, “is there a missing link which only Gnostic mythology can supply.”¹⁰ Then, in line with the dominant view of modern New Testament research,¹¹ he affirms that “Gnostic myths of a redeemed redeemer evidently originated in the second and third centuries, borrowing freely from Judaism, Christianity and passages from the Old and New Testaments.”¹²

Jesus, the Revealer

Any adequate interpretation of John 1:14–18 must address the issue of the invisibility of God, which is emphasized in verse 18a: “No one has ever seen God.” Elsewhere in the Gospel (5:37; 6:46; cf. 7:28; 8:19, 54–55; 15:21), as well as in his First Epistle, John repeats the same idea (1 John 4:12; 5:20), which is also found in Paul (Col 1:15; 1 Tim 1:17; 6:16). Interpreters in general usually take this statement in connection with the Old Testament period. They point to the fact that it was a given within Judaism of John’s time that no human could see God with his or her bodily eyes except in the age to come and, convinced that there is here an allusion to Moses’ experience at Sinai (cf. John 1:17), they try to downplay the significance of that experience by insisting on God’s words to him, “You cannot see My face; for no one shall see Me and live” (Exod 33:20, NRSV). As for the theophany itself, the most that is conceded is that what Moses saw was nothing more than “the afterglow of the divine glory,”¹³ or “a passing glimpse of God’s visible glory.”¹⁴ The next step then is to interpret the following statement (John 1:18b: “the only Son . . . He has made him known,” author’s translation) with reference to the revelation brought by the incarnate Christ. In other words, according to the standard interpretation, John 1:18 conveys a contrast between two periods of history: the Old Testament times and the time of Jesus.¹⁵

Nevertheless, though it appears that Moses did not see the face of God, it could be said that for all intents and purposes he saw God when God passed before him (Exod 33:23; cf. 34:6; Num 12:8), something that is attested also in the New Testament (Heb 11:27). In addition, there are at least five other accounts in the Old Testament of people seeing God: Isaiah literally says, “I saw the Lord” (6:1); so do Manoah and his wife (Judg 13:21–22), and the prophet Micaiah (1 Kgs 22:19); Jacob certainly saw him at Peniel (Gen 32:30; cf. 28:10–17), and Abraham at Mamre (18:1–15; cf. 12:7). There could have been others (see Josh 5:13–15; 1 Kgs 19:11–18; Ezek 1:1–28; Dan 7:9–14). Coming back to Moses, the Jewish belief that God could not be seen by mortal eyes definitely did not apply to him, who was the primary hero of the Jews, someone who was regarded as “the friend of God”¹⁶ (cf. Exod 33:11) and even a “divine and holy” person¹⁷ (cf. 7:1). Several Jewish and Samaritan traditions had Moses going up to God on Sinai and actually ascending to heaven. He was thus able not only to speak with God face to face but also share all God’s mysteries.¹⁸ In later Jewish midrash, not only Moses but the whole people camped at Sinai had the privilege of seeing God’s face and glory,¹⁹ a probable allusion to Exodus 24:10–11, where the elders are also said to have seen God. It is important to note, however, that for John it is not only God Himself but also God’s form (eidos) that has never been seen; not even God’s voice (phonē) has been heard (John 5:37).

How does John reconcile his emphasis on the invisibility or hiddenness of God with the Exodus narrative, wherein Moses does see God? As Hartmut Gese acknowledges, there seems to be a contradiction here.²⁰ He then tries to explain this difficulty away by also minimizing the revelation to Moses and saying that the revelation was “limited to God’s ‘passing by’ and to seeing His back,” in the sense that God “was necessarily hidden by a covering which separates humans from what is transcendent.”²¹ Yet, this seems to imply a denial of the Old Testament tradition on John’s part. It has been suggested that John 1:18a in fact represents a polemical rejection of the Jewish claims about Moses,²² but two points must be kept in mind: though the context makes it clear that the primary reference of verse 18a is the Sinai theophany, John’s statement “no one . . . ever” (oudeis . . . pōpote) clearly requires a broader application (cf. 6:46);²³ and John’s polemic is against contemporary Judaism, not against Moses or the biblical narrative.²⁴

It is possible that John’s descent/ascent motif throughout the Gospel is designed to contradict the claims of Jewish speculative mysticism that Moses ascended into heaven,²⁵ but that Moses, as well as Abraham, Jacob, Isaiah, and others saw God is well established in Scripture, and Scripture was an important ally to John in his dispute with his fellow Jews. In the Fourth Gospel, all references to Scripture are positive (see 5:39; 10:35; cf. 1:45; 7:42; 13:18; 17:12; 19:24, 28, 36–37). Even Moses, when properly understood, testifies on behalf of Jesus (5:45–47).

The solution to the difficulty suggested by the statement that “no one has ever seen God” is indeed rather simple, even if far-reaching in its implications. Since there is no question that theos in John 1:18a refers to God the Father, as in the following clause (v. 18b) the term is linked to patēr, John’s point seems to be that on those occasions in Israel’s history when God is described as being seen, it was not really God the Father who was seen but Jesus Christ.²⁶ He says, “The only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made him known” (author’s translation).²⁷ For the evangelist, therefore, Jesus Christ, the only One to come from God and to have seen God (John 6:46), is the revelation of God (John 14:8–9; 1 John 5:20), God made visible. He is not only the agent of creation (John 1:1–3) but also the agent of revelation—or, of interpretation, as John actually says in 1:18b, where he uses the verb exēgeomai (to explain, to interpret). As Tord Larsson declares, “all knowledge of God outside of the revelation in the Logos, both pre-incarnate and incarnate seems to be denied.”²⁸ The only difference between the Old Testament revelations and the incarnation, says Herman Ridderbos, is that the former were temporary and restricted to a few people.²⁹

The Fourth Gospel itself provides explicit evidence for this. Referring to Isaiah’s vision of God in the temple, John plainly says that the glory the prophet saw was Jesus’, not God the Father’s (12:41). Similarly, Jesus’s enigmatic statement that Abraham saw His day (8:56), whatever its precise meaning, leaves no doubt that Jesus, not God the Father, was the object of Abraham’s vision, so much so that in the sequence Jesus says, “Before Abraham was, I am” (8:58). In their respective contexts, the references to Isaiah and Abraham make them witnesses to Jesus against the Jews by situating Jesus in the Old Testament era and narrative. This underscores the fact that Jesus is, and has always been, the sole authoritative self-revelation of God. In other words, apart from Jesus Christ there has never been any personal revelation of God.³⁰

Law and Grace at Sinai

With the previous discussion in mind, the distinction in John 1:17 between the law given through Moses (ho nomos dia Mōyseōs edothē) and grace and truth occurring through Jesus (hē charis kai hē alētheia dia Iēsou Christou egeneto) seems clear. In this verse, John does not mean that the Sinai event has become obsolete, being entirely superseded by the incarnation event. The traditional interpretation of this verse has been greatly impacted by the tension between law and grace in the writings of Paul, as understood by Marcion. The Marcionite influence is still present in those interpretations that assume a complete break between law and grace, as if they originally represented two different systems which were intrinsically opposed to each other and impossible to be reconciled, so that the law needed to be replaced by grace.³¹ A less radical approach views some sort of continuity between the law of the Old Testament and the grace of the New Testament, but as a rule this also ends with the exaltation of grace at the expense of the law. Frank Thielman, for example, argues that “the Mosaic law was characterized by grace; but its measure of grace pales in comparison with what has become available with the appearance of Jesus Christ.”³²

There is no question, nevertheless, that John’s words should be understood in light of Exodus 34:6, and none of the aforementioned interpretations do justice to the context of that passage. After the episode of the golden calf and the breaking of the tablets of the law by Moses, God asked him to cut new tablets of stone so that He could “write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets” (Exod 34:1). Moses did so, then he went up on Mount Sinai, where God had promised to pass before him (34:4). When that happened, God Himself proclaimed among His attributes that He is raḇ-ḥeseḏ we’ĕmet (34:6–7). This is exactly what John says about the incarnate Logos in John 1:14e,³³ an idea picked up again in verse 16 and brought to its logical conclusion in verse 17; verse 15 is clearly parenthetical. In other words, on the basis of the Sinai episode—and contrary to what Frank Thielman says—it is not the law proper that was “characterized by grace” but God, who described Himself as a God of “grace and truth.”

Therefore, in verse 17 the evangelist is describing what happened at Sinai. He is simply being faithful to the Exodus narrative, wherein the giving of the law through Moses is clearly distinguished from the revelation of God’s “grace and truth” by God Himself. John is not contrasting a graceless law with the grace that is available in Jesus. It is important to keep the text as it is, without reading into it an adversative “but” that is not in the Greek text.³⁴ Likewise, it is important to note that in Exodus 34:6–7 there is no indication at all that God’s ḥeseḏ we’ĕmet to Israel were only partial and thus inferior to His charis kai alētheia of the incarnation. Both the prefixed adjective raḇ (abounding) and the five other terms used by God to describe His character (raḥûm, merciful; wĕḥannûn, gracious; ’erek ’appayim, slow to anger; nōṣēr ḥeseḏ, keeping ḥéseḏ; nōśē, forgiving) warn us against any attempt to lessen or to limit God’s grace to Israel.³⁵ As Walter Brueggemann says, these terms “provide the core vocabulary of the OT affirmation of God’s awesome graciousness.”³⁶ In this context they are intended “to assure Moses (and Israel) that God is deeply committed to sustaining covenant with Israel.”³⁷ The only new element introduced by John in his interpretation of the exodus story is that it was Jesus who actually appeared to Moses at Sinai, not God the Father, because for John the Father cannot be seen except through Jesus.

Covenantal Faithfulness

As already mentioned, John 1:17 is nothing but the logical conclusion of the argument which starts in verse 14e, where “grace and truth” is first applied to Jesus. But besides being how God revealed Himself to Moses at Sinai, “grace and truth” (or ḥeseḏ we’ĕmet) is how the Old Testament consistently refers to God’s covenantal faithfulness (e.g., Gen 24:27; Pss 25:10; 40:10–11; 57:3; 61:7; 85:9–10; 86:15; 89:14; 117:2; 138:2; Lam 3:22–23; Mic 7:20). By applying the same expression to Jesus, John is likely making a further Christological claim: that God’s covenantal promise has now been fulfilled in a way that far exceeds that of the exodus.

It is not easy to find precise English equivalents to ḥeseḏ and ’ĕmet, particularly ḥeseḏ. While ’ĕmet can more simply be construed in terms of “truth” or “faithfulness,” ḥeseḏ may encompass a wide variety of meanings, such as “love,” “mercy,” “kindness,” “compassion,” “goodness,” and even “faithfulness,” “loyalty,” and “reliability.”³⁸ When occurring together, the difficulty of understanding them is even greater. Ḥeseḏ we’ĕmet are sometimes taken as two separate attributes, which, in reference to God, are manifested in “active kindness and protective faithfulness respectively.”³⁹ The discussion is extensive,⁴⁰ but the conventional view that this compound phrase is actually a hendiadys, in which ’ĕmet describes or explains ḥeseḏ,⁴¹ as received strong support from the minute analysis of Gordon R. Clark.⁴² In ḥeseḏ we’ĕmet therefore the main word would be ḥeseḏ, while ’ĕmet, when God is the agent, would point to His genuineness, permanence, and reliability—that is, His unwavering, enduring, reliable commitment to humans in which ḥeseḏ is the appropriate action.⁴³

In Exodus 34:6, the meaning of ḥeseḏ we’ĕmet must be seen in the context of the covenant and against the episode of the golden calf (chap. 32).⁴⁴ According to the book of Exodus, God announces His intent to fulfill the promise of a covenantal relationship between Himself and His people (2:24–25; 6:2–8). He then delivers Israel from Egypt and discloses to her the laws that would regulate that relationship (19:4–6; 20:1–23:33). When the people pledge to obey Him and the covenant is ratified (chap. 24), God sets forth the plans for the construction of the sanctuary (chaps. 25–31), so that the covenantal promise could come true (cf. 25:8). Before the execution of those plans (chaps. 35–40), however, the Israelites are involved in a frightful act of disobedience, the result of which is the real possibility that God will annul the covenant and destroy them (32:10). After Moses’ intercession (33:12–23), God’s abundant grace moves Him to forgive the people and to maintain His covenant. Granting Moses’ request to see His glory as a sign of His favor towards the people, God reveals Himself, His name, and character, and states among His attributes that He is raḇ-ḥeseḏ we’ĕmet (34:5–7). That was a particularly solemn revelation, coming from the mouth of God Himself in the course of the theophany and highlighting divine mercy and covenantal faithfulness.⁴⁵ Next (chaps. 35–40), the tabernacle is built and God’s promise to dwell among His people is fulfilled (cf. 40:34–38).

Thus, by saying that the Logos was “full of grace and truth,” John may want to emphasize God’s covenantal faithfulness, loyalty, and commitment. It is important to note that the emphasis in John 1:14–17 falls exactly on charis, since charis alone is resumed in verse 16.⁴⁶ What the evangelist seems to be arguing is that the incarnation was a sort of antitypical fulfillment of God’s covenantal dwelling among His people, and so an act of grace and faithfulness on God’s part.⁴⁷ This is why he can claim that those who believed in Jesus, including himself (hēmeis pantes), have received from that grace, from the “fullness” (plērōma) of that grace (v. 16a). There is no question that plērōma here bears no technical, gnostic sense. It merely picks up on plērēs charitos kai alētheias of verse 14e and underscores that God’s abundant faithfulness revealed in the incarnation was abundantly experienced by those who received Jesus.

As the Sinai covenant, after being broken, was renewed and had its promise eventually fulfilled because of God’s faithfulness, so the covenantal relationship brought about by the incarnation owed its fulfillment to the same faithfulness of God as manifested through Jesus Christ. This is why John can refer to the incarnation as “grace in the place of [anti] grace” (v. 16b).⁴⁸ John does not mean that the grace of Christ has been received in the place of the grace of the law, or that the grace of Christ was superior to the grace of the law, or even that the grace of Christ followed the grace of the law. The law has no grace in itself. In the New Testament the law is never referred to as or containing charis, though there is no question that the giving of the law at Sinai was also an expression of God’s grace towards Israel (cf. Deut 7:7–9). What John means is only that the grace of Sinai has been replaced by the grace of the incarnation.

The issue of continuity/discontinuity between law and grace is not raised here. Neither is there any hint of a grace available in two degrees—Old Testament and New Testament.⁴⁹ When John 1:16 is read in connection with verses 14e and 17, however, there seems to be a hint of a covenant being replaced by another, in that the symbol meets its reality and the promise its fulfillment. Only in this sense is one superior to the other, for both were covenants of grace, of the same grace, which in both instances was abundantly revealed by Jesus Christ Himself.

Conclusion

John 1:14–18 thus represents what may be regarded as the climax of New Testament Christology: the identification of Jesus Christ with Yahweh, the God of Israel.⁵⁰ This is not, of course, the only passage that affords such an identification, not even in John’s Prologue, which at the very start locates the Logos with God in the en archē of Genesis 1 and makes Him the Creator through whom all things were made (Gen 1:1–3). It is also possible that in John 1:9–10, John is not referring to the incarnation as such, but rather to the presence of the pre-incarnate Christ in the world and His various appearances throughout Israel’s history.⁵¹ As for the rest of the Gospel, passages such as 8:56 and 12:41 seem to offer explicit support for the view that it was Jesus, not God the Father, who was seen during Old Testament times. Likewise, Jesus’ claim that Moses wrote about Him (5:46) and Nathanael’s confession that Jesus is the One about whom Moses and the Prophets wrote (1:45) could also be taken to refer to Jesus’ actual presence in the Old Testament as the God of Israel, instead of merely portraying Him as the object of prophecy, as commonly understood.⁵² Finally, there is also the absolute egō eimi of 8:58 (cf. vv. 24, 28; 13:19), which in the LXX became the equivalent of a divine name, and in Johannine usage appears to indicate Jesus’ self-identification with Yahweh.⁵³

Even if the precise meaning of some of these texts is open to question, John’s argument in the third part of the Prologue seems clear: just as it happened at Sinai, so it has happened now. Just as Jesus appeared to Moses and dwelt among His people, so He has done now, but with the astounding difference that this has been accomplished through His being made human flesh, causing His glory to become visible to all. But the argument may carry a deeper theological insight. By referring to the incarnation in terms of God’s dwelling among Israel in the past, John could be saying that Jesus brought the Sinai covenant, which was intended to be temporary and a shadow of the new era of salvation (Jer 31:31–34; Ezek 37:27–28; cf. Heb 8:6–13; 9:9; 10:1), to its soteriological fulfillment, though its eschatological fulfillment is yet to come (cf. Rev 21:3–4). Therefore, to those who accept Him and believe in His name, the new covenant fulfills the typology of the old covenant, making them children of God (John 1:12) and allowing them to experience the fullness of His saving grace (v. 16).

*Part of this material has previously appeared in Wilson Paroschi, Incarnation and Covenant in the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel, European University Studies 820 (Frankfurt: Lang, 2006).