John 1 - CSB Spurgeon Study Bible

1:1-3 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. All things were created through him, and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created.” John is the majestic evangelist. He is the high-soaring eagle with piercing eyes. His is the Gospel of the Son of God. We cannot describe the deity of Christ in clearer language than John uses. He was with God. He was God. He did the works of God, for he was the Creator. If any doubt his deity, they must do so in distinct defiance of the language of Holy Scripture.

1:6 “There was a man sent from God whose name was John.” How different is the style of this verse from the one that precedes it! How grand, how sublime, are the evangelist’s words when he speaks of Jesus, the Word of God! How truly human he becomes, how he dips his pen in ordinary ink when he writes here. Yet this is a noble testimony to the herald of Christ. John the Baptist was “a man sent from God.” John was a special witness, but we ought all to be witnesses to complete the chain of testimony. Every Christian should reckon that he is sent from God to bear witness to the great light that through him people might believe.

1:11-12 “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name.” The people you would have thought would have eagerly welcomed Christ did not do so. But here and there a man stood apart from the rest, or a woman came out from her surroundings, and each of these said, “I receive Christ as the Messiah.” You will never go to heaven in a crowd. The crowd goes down the broad road to destruction, but the way that leads to eternal life is a narrow way. They that go to heaven must come out one by one and say to the one sitting at the wicket gate that stands at the head of the way of life, “Set my name down, sir, as a pilgrim to the Celestial City.” We were slaves before. Now we are God’s children. We were strangers, aliens, enemies; and every word that means an evil thing might have been applied to us. But when we laid hold on Christ, we were regarded as the children of God.

1:29 “Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” The text not only mentions a lamb; it says, “Here is the Lamb of God.” It is not merely a sacrifice to which we are to look, but the sacrifice that God has appointed and ordained to be the one and only sacrifice for sin. This is an all-important point. “The Lord has punished him for the iniquity of us all” (Is 53:6). If Christ had not been sent by God to be the Savior of sinners, our faith would have no firm foundation to rest on. But as God himself has set forth Christ to be the propitiation for human guilt, then he cannot reject the sinner who accepts that propitiation.

It is “the Lamb of God” we must focus on. It is Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who died on Calvary, “the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring [us] to God” (1Pt 3:18). God appointed him to die as the substitute for sinners. God accepted this sacrifice when he died, and now Jehovah himself, speaking from his throne of glory, says to the sinner, “Believe on my Son, whom I have set forth as the propitiation for human sin. Trust in him and you will be eternally saved.”