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Historical Perspectives

The Structure of the Prologue

The Prologue sets the tone for the rest of the Gospel.49 It is the conceptual center from which all other dimensions radiate.50 From this center light is thrown on other parts of the book and on all its important issues. These include an understanding of both the human quest for the meaning of life and the relation between the universal and the particular elements in Christianity. The relation between the universal and the specific Christian elements is crucial to understanding the structure of the Prologue. This text has a twofold character: on the one hand its structure is concentric; on the other it reflects a progress from the universal to the specific Christian. Both these aspects have relevance for contemporary interpretations of the Gospel.

The first approach may be characterized as literary; it reflects a spacious understanding. The structure of the Prologue is concentric, as is seen from the following scheme:

A. The Word was with God (vv.1–2)

B. All things were made through the Word (v. 3)

C. The Word was life and light for human beings (vv. 4–5)

D. John witnessed to the light (vv. 6–8)

E. The true light came to the world (vv. 9–10)

F. He came to his own (people)—they received him not (v.11)

F. Whoever received him . . . he gave power to become children of God (vv.12–13)

E. The Word was made flesh (v. 14)

D. John witnessed to the Word, who was before him (v. 15)

C. From his fullness we have received grace (v.16)

B. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ (v. 17)

A. The only Begotten Son—himself God—has interpreted God for us (v. 18).

In this structure a special emphasis is placed on the beginning (A) and the end (A), which correspond to each other, with the center at F-F, where it is underlined that those who have received Jesus have become God’s children (vv.12–13). The Prologue is about the Word, but in the last two verses it is clarified that Christ is the only Begotten Son, himself God. In this way the Prologue describes a movement from God to God with the incarnation of the Word as a turning-point. The aim is that all those who receive the Word become part of this divine movement.51 According to this understanding the main emphasis is on soteriology, the understanding of salvation.

The structure reflects John’s understanding of God. In a number of passages God is presented as the ground of all being and the source of all life (cf. the paragraph “Witness” in Part Two). In this sense God is greater than anything else.52 This observation is relevant to how we nowadays can be engaged in a dialogue of religions, since the transcendence of God is underlined by other religions than Christianity, e.g., Islam. But the Gospel of John does not stop there of course. The book not only says that the Son is subordinated to the Father, but it also insists on the unity between Father and Son. And the crucial point in the last verse of the Prologue is that the Father has revealed himself in the Son. This may be interpreted as a critical concern for other religions, including Islam.

The second approach is the traditional historical-critical analysis, which is based on a temporal conception: a chronological axis, where v. 1 and v. 18 constitute the frame, and the climax is v. 14. The emphasis here is on Christology:

v.1 v. 14 v.18

According to this understanding the Prologue reflects a course or a progress. It has two major parts and a transitional passage. In the first half of the Prologue John uses general terms like Logos, God, all things, life, light, darkness, world etc. In the second half he uses specific Christian terms such as the only begotten Son, Father, grace, truth, Jesus, Christ, glory etc. John’s attempt to express his experience of Christ in a language that would raise echoes in a non-Christian world around him should remain an inspiration and model for us to continue the same process in our own times.53 The transition between the two halves is fluid. In the Greek text it is not quite clear when the author passes from the impersonal “it” to the personal “he.” Some modern translations choose the personal pronoun already in verse 2 (“He was in the beginning with God”), while others have it later in the text, e.g., verse 10.54 The latter alternative is to be preferred, since this is in line with the context.

The Word in the World

It is beyond dispute that the Word (the Logos) has a unique position in John’s theology. Scholars have sought the origins of Logos in many different contexts. Some argue that the concept is rooted in the creative Word of the Old Testament and/or the Wisdom literature (e.g., Prov 8), while others point to the Hellenistic world, e.g., Hermetic and gnostic literature or Stoicism and Philo.

Again it is probably not an either-or question; Logos has to be seen in both contexts. It seems that the author deliberately uses a language that is “semantically” open.55 The value of modern research is that by way of comparison or contrast, it brings out the manifold aspects of John’s thought. Jesus is seen as the fulfillment of all this but in a specific way. As Kysar puts it: “Yes, Christ is all of this—Stoic Logos, Old Testament Word, and Jewish Wisdom—rolled into one person. And that is the thrust of the prologue, I believe. Logos for the Christians is a person. The Logos is not an abstract philosophical concept. It is not a category of religious experience. Nor is it speculative religious mythology. It is a person, infleshed, living, historical person.”56

From the beginning the Prologue points to a Christology that is inclusive and cosmic. The focus is on the universal Word that is active in all places. First comes a description of the divinity of the Word (vv.1–2); then the Word is conceived of as the source of all life (v.3) and as the light of humankind (v. 4). Hence, there is no doubt whatsoever that the Word plays a crucial role in God’s creation, cf. also the Christ hymn in Col 1:15–20.

Two aspects of the Prologue point to the cosmic significance of the Word. First, the Greek words en archē in verse 1 are usually translated by the phrase “in the beginning.” This is a reference to the creation story in Gen 1. But the meaning of the words is probably broader than that. In Greek philosophy the term archē is often connected to the doctrine of the elements. A Hellenistic audience might have heard this as well when reading the beginning of John’s Gospel. Accordingly, the author of the gospel wanted to stress that the Word (Logos) is the crucial and most important element, transcending all others, but at the same time encompassing them all.57 In other words, Logos is the elementary grounding of life.

Secondly, it should be noted that the concepts of life and light are of great importance in the Gospel. Of specific interest is the concept of life, since this term is usually connected to the fundamental salvific concept of eternal life (e.g., 5:40; 10:10). Some scholars therefore argue that this must also be the case in the beginning of the Prologue. This interpretation would give a Jesus-centered understanding of v. 4. On the other hand, to others it appears that the jump from Logos in all creation to the specific mission of Jesus is far too abrupt. They also think that if vv. 4–5 refer to Jesus, then the explicit references to the coming of Jesus would seem tautological.58 In fact, it is more natural to understand “life” in vv. 3–4 in a broader sense than eternal life—as being about the life of creation, life as a pre-supposition for everything else in our existence.

The first part of the Prologue, then, reflects an inclusive and cosmological Christology which is of great importance for the religious dialogue. This is in line with the insight of the early church fathers, such as Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen. They developed the idea of Logos Spermatikos, of the Spirit of Christ being present like seeds in non-Christian cultures and religions.59 The Spirit of Christ is sprouting forth, sometimes undetected but sometimes in real beauty and splendor, in poetry, rituals, holy scriptures, and so on; cf. Acts 17:23–28. God has manifested “Godself” in Logos in all cultures and religions in preparation for the decisive, definitive manifestation in the God-man of Jesus Christ. Consequently, what seems to be true, good, and noble in the different peoples, cultures, and religions has its origin in him.

This Logos Christology makes sense as a means of describing God’s working in all human lives. On the other hand the Fourth Gospel also affirms that religion as a human phenomenon is deeply ambiguous: “The light shines in darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (1:5).

The Incarnated Word as the Interpretation of God

The response to this fundamental ambiguity in the human being may be found in the second part of the Prologue, which in a confessional form expresses the unique character of the Christian message. The climax is the incarnation in v. 14: “The word became flesh and lived among us.” After the incarnation the Word is not just present in the world as that which shines in the darkness—cf. the concept of Logos Spermatikos. Now God has revealed himself in his fullness in the only begotten Son. In him is grace and truth. No one is comparable with him, not even Moses. The law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ, that is in his person (1:17). The uniqueness of Jesus is underlined even in the concluding verse 18. No one has ever seen God—but the only Son, the incarnated Word, has interpreted him to all mankind. The linguistic form of the verb (in Greek: aorist) is a clear indication that the verse refers to the historical and personal life of Jesus. God’s real nature is expressed in his encompassing love and power.

There is a yearning among human beings to see God. John does not deny this, but he insists that it is merely through the incarnated Word that man is able to know who God is. It is in believing in Jesus, the incarnated Word, that people can see God, cf. 1:18 and 14:9: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” In the middle of the Prologue (vv.11–13) the emphasis is on human decision. Jesus came to his own (i.e., all people or perhaps just the Jewish people), but his own did not accept him. However, to all those who did receive him was given the power to become the children of God. These words remind us of the thrust of the entire gospel: that those who believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, may have life in his name (20:31); the point is that they are born of God.

Particularity and Universality in the Interpretation of Christ

This analysis of the Prologue shows that from its very beginning the Gospel is cosmic and universal in perspective. The issues are all ultimate: the origin and meaning of creation, the attainment of authentic life, and the search for God. These are elements common to all religious systems. But a Christian interpretation cannot remain here; and so John moves from these universal elements to the earthly, historical Jesus. The movement is from the universal to the particular, from the global to the local, from eternity to history, from the impersonal to the personal. Men and women are called to follow that movement, and thereby realize that Jesus Christ is the unique revealer of the living God (1:18).

The Gospel as a whole also reflects a movement in the opposite direction: from the historical and concrete to the universal and cosmic. A salient feature is the emphasis on the universality of Christ. One of many examples is the cross of Jesus with its inscription: “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews,” written not only in Hebrew, but also in Latin and Greek (19:20), that is, the major languages of that time. Towards the end of his public work Jesus is found by some Greeks wishing to see him (12:20ff.). He answers their request by speaking of his suffering, death, and glorification, and says that he will draw all people to himself when he is lifted up from the earth (12:32). The universal importance of Jesus is also underlined by the use of many different titles of Christ; this is particularly evident in 1:35–51, cf. “Images of Christ” in Part Two.

The tendency to move from the more particular to the universal is characteristic of many religious systems of that time, since their location in the Eastern Mediterranean area brought them under the influence of Greek culture. A similar development might well have taken place within the Johannine tradition. A growing number of scholars have noticed that the Johannine community was in dialogue with a wide spectrum of groups and ideologies in the first century.60 The gospel in its present form may represent an attempt to communicate with a great variety of dialogue partners. Nevertheless, John’s insistence on the universal dimension is not due simply to the impact of a more cosmopolitan culture. Rather, the universalism of the message flowed from the universal significance of Christ himself. Jesus revealed God, and only faith in this Jesus was an adequate response.61

The Gospel, then, is not the end-product of a succession of encounters with other groups and viewpoints that have influenced John’s theology. On the other hand, the author seems to be quite sensitive to movements and currents of his time. John’s attempt to express his Christian experience in a language that would awaken echoes in a non-Christian world around him should always remain an inspiration and model for us to continue the same process in our own times.62 In what follows we shall see examples of how contemporary religious dialogue has been inspired by the Prologue and the Logos Christology.

Contemporary perspectives

Syncretism and accommodation

The first example is the Norwegian theologian and missionary Karl Ludvig Reichelt who in his mission to Buddhism did not hesitate to translate Logos with the Chinese term Tao.63 Reichelt rejects the charge that this implies syncretism. On the contrary he argues that “Tao has found its full realization in Christ.”64

According to Filip Riisager, a specialist in Reichelt’s theology of mission, two reasons can be given for this identification of Logos and Tao. First, Reichelt’s Christology has a platonic tendency; and his Logos is interpreted more in a Hellenistic way as a transcendent-cosmic principle than straight from its biblical and Old Testament background. This implies a weakening of the incarnation and the historical dimension; the cosmic dimension in Christology becomes more important than the historical dimension. Second, Reichelt’s approach to the issue of Logos-Tao comes through a mystical experience that includes a search for the foundation of existence; and as a mystical experience it also has a sense of the encompassing, divine power behind everything. According to Riisager, Reichelt did what is justifiable and natural when his premises are taken into consideration, that is, he did what we always have to do when the Christian gospel is translated or interpreted into a new cultural situation: we employ words and concepts from that culture and give them a new content. In the time before Reichelt Protestant Christians in China did the same as him, using the term Tao to render the Johannine “Logos.”65

Yet, in other contexts Reichelt underlines the importance of the incarnation. In an article from 1939 (originally presented as a lecture at the mission conference in Tambaram in 1938) Reichelt observes that from the hour of incarnation “we have not only the Logos as a grain of seed or as small beams of light flashing out from the religious systems, but now we have God revealed in His fullness.”66 The uniqueness of the incarnation is given in the closing sentence in 1:18. Here it is said that God the One and Only “has made him known (i.e., the Father).” As Reichelt puts it, he “declared him, not only by giving one side of the godhead, like an Indian Avatara, not only by giving the essence of an inner pattern, as the Buddhists have it in their idea of the Bhuta-ta-tha-ta and the Tatha-ga-ta, but giving in a historical and personal life in all-embracing love and power, the full expression of the heart of God.”67

Many Indian theologians have likewise argued that Logos may be compared with atman and Brahman or similar notions. Matthew Vellanickal considers John’s presentation of Jesus as Logos very interesting in the Indian context. The corresponding Vedic term for Logos is Vac or Vak which means word or wisdom, and is the first-born of Rta (direction/destiny). “The similarity between the ‘Word’ in John’s Gospel and the Vak of Hindu scriptures seems to show that the Incarnation was the answer to the age-long prayer of the pre-Christian religions.”68 The Logos in the thought of John seems to be in the last resort the very principle of all that is and all that lives. It is connected to the concept of atman and Brahman, self and absolute. This principle is in the depths of God and is itself God. These attempts to combine Logos with central concepts like Tao or atman and Brahman are sometimes seen as an expression of syncretism. It is therefore relevant to ask: What is the difference between syncretism and a necessary accommodation?

This question is addressed by the Japanese theologian Kosuke Koyama in the book Theology in Contact (1975). According to Koyama we must differentiate between syncretism and accommodation. In the new translation of the Thai New Testament, John 1:1 is translated as “In the beginning was tamma” (dharma). Koyama sees this as the insight of an accommodating and not a syncretistic mind. “The word tamma in Buddhist Thailand is as rich as logos in the Hellenistic world of the New Testament times.”69 In the light of this we may ask: Can the purity of Christian doctrine be maintained with the introduction of such a central Buddhist word? Would it not be possible to find a more neutral word? Koyama has three observations in relation to these questions.

First, if tamma is too strong a word and a danger to the purity of the Gospel (and thus expressive of an encroaching syncretism), we must remember that so it was with the word that John himself chose. In both cases it was a dangerous situation. When the Bible was translated in 1967 tamma was used out of the conviction that the power of the living Christ can capture it and baptize it with new meaning (2 Cor 10:5). It is the context of Christ which can baptize such strong words as tamma and Logos. The context is that of grace. It speaks of God’s initiative in coming to the world in the ultimate event of the incarnation of the Son. “How profoundly in the incarnation God accommodated himself to realize his love in the world (cf. Joh 3,16).”70 It is this love which is the substance of God’s method of accommodation.

Second, Koyama asks: How do we maintain the purity of the Gospel in the process of accommodation? He is not alarmed at “In the beginning was the tamma.” But if Jesus the Buddha rather than Jesus the Christ is proposed in the present-day religious context of Thailand, he would be alarmed. Yet he does not immediately condemn Jesus the Buddha as dangerous syncretism. First he must find out whether this suggestion is contextualization or syncretism. Is the concept of “the Buddha” here baptized into the new Christian context? Will Jesus the Buddha mean Jesus the Light in the Johannine sense: “the true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world” (John 1:9)? If so, it is an accommodation, and is too great a risk to take. This line of thought may make sense to a small group of theologically sophisticated people, but it will cause only immense and unnecessary confusion in the minds of both Christians and Buddhists.71

When “Jesus the Buddha” is said with the understanding that “here is no unique revelation in history, that there are many different ways to reach the divine reality,” then it is a straightforward syncretistic affirmation. What is meant is that Jesus of Nazareth plus Gautama will constitute greater universal religious truth than just Jesus or Gautama in separation. The “plus” here is fundamentally different from contextualization, which is a creative way of maintaining purity in the process of accommodation. But Jesus plus Gautama will distort the truth they proclaim respectively.72

Third, in our present discussion indigenization means a theologically informed endeavor to root the contents and expression of Christian theology in a community of different cultural localities.73 Speaking concretely, it means the total process for the emergence of a Thai Christian community, who speak the Thai-language, serve their neighbors in Thai fashion, and who own a Thai Christian theology. Indigenization means “rooting.” The event and message of Jesus Christ, which was brought by the missionaries, must be rooted in India, Thailand, Indonesia, Hong Kong.74

Logos—Christ Impulse or Incarnated Man

Other attempts to demonstrate the relevance of the Prologue are to be found in various new gnostic interpretations of the Gospel of John. One outstanding example is by Rudolf Steiner who gave twelve lectures on the Fourth Gospel in 1908, originally published in German, and later translated into English. Steiner argues that the very first words in the Gospel “permit of no other interpretation than that in Jesus of Nazareth, who lived at the beginning of our Christian era, a being of very high spiritual order was incarnated.”75 However, Logos as being is seen first and foremost as a principle (“Christ Principle”), or a Force-Impulse. “When Logos became flesh and appeared among men, then it became a Force-Impulse which is not only a teaching and a concept, but exists in the world as a Force-Impulse in which humanity can participate.”76

Christ as a Force-Impulse is closely connected to the understanding of human beings as possessing a free “I-am” consciousness. An “I-am” statement is not limited to Jesus Christ; it is characteristic of all mankind. The words of Jesus in John 8:58 play a special role: “Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.”77 Steiner comments: “My primal ego mounts not only to the Father-Principle that reaches back to Abraham, but my ego is one with all that pulses through the entire cosmos, and to this my spiritual nature soars aloft. I and the Father are one! These are important words which one should experience, then will one feel the forward bound made by mankind, a bound which advanced human evolution further in consequence of that impulse given by the advent of Christ. Christ was the mighty quickener of the ‘I AM’.”78

According to Steiner, the incarnation of the Christ-Impulse in the human person of Jesus did not take place at one event only. Rather it was a process that began at Jesus’ baptism and after three years ended at the cross. The baptism is of particular importance: “All four Gospels stress this moment when the Christ was incorporated in a personality of this earth. However much they may differ in other respects, they all point to this event of Christ slipping into the great initiate, as it were: by baptism by John. In that moment, so clearly defined by the author of the John Gospel when he says that the Spirit descended in the form of a dove and united with Jesus of Nazareth, in that moment occurred the birth of Christ; as a new and higher Ego the Christ is born in the soul of Jesus of Nazareth. Until then, another ego, that of a great initiate had developed to the lofty plane on which it was ripe for the event.”79 The one who descended and incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth was the Logos.

Essentially, Steiner represents a modern gnostic worldview. He operates with two Jesus’es who were simultaneously born in Bethlehem as reincarnations of Zarathustra and Buddha. The two were united into one twelve-year old person and because the abode of Christ, the sun-spirit, at the baptism in Jordan, which was an initiation in the Essene community. Christ, the macrocosmic sun-spirit, dwelt in this special man named Jesus for the three years between his baptism and his crucifixion. This Christ-Impulse is unique, and turned the development of humankind from a devolution after the fall to an evolution towards godhood. Jesus prototypically realized the divinity of all human beings.80

The Christ-Impulse describes the path that every human being has to tread. The goal is for our ego to control our bodies: the astral body, the etheric body, and the physical body. Regarding the astral body this means that our ego and our will have to be masters in the house of our own consciousness and our feelings, passions, and desires. Regarding the etheric body it means that we control our forces of life, our capacities, and our temperament. Regarding our physical body it means that we control all the organic processes from within. Steiner asserts that Christ had reached all this within three years, and he supports his assertion primarily on the Gospel of John.81 “Jesus increased in wisdom (in his astral body), in maturity of disposition (in his etheric body), and in gracious beauty (in his physical body) in a way manifest to God and man.”82

There are at least two objections to this interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. The idea of a macrocosmic “I” (The Christ Principle) living ever more deeply in the body of Jesus of Nazareth is speculative. The Gospel itself does not support such an idea. The decisive feature of the Prologue is the movement from pre-existence to incarnation, from the impersonal to the personal. In this passage the principle of life (Logos) is identified with the name “Jesus Christ.” In the Fourth Gospel the center of life has a clear and unambiguous name. He is understood as a concrete, historical person and not as a spiritual principle. Another objection is that the Gospel clearly differentiates between the person of Jesus and the believers. This point is illustrated by the I-am sayings. It is not about the emanation of a Force-Impulse.

From the Impersonal to the Personal Image of God

Images of God are crucial in the encounter between Christianity and religious seekers. In a publication from 2008 entitled Tro i tiden three representatives from the organisations, Folkekirke og religionsmøde (The Danish Lutheran Church and the Meeting of Religions) and Areopagos presented a report on their conversations with Danish representatives of those who are inspired by Eastern religiosity and spirituality. According to the report there are many different ideas about God and the divine. Some people use pantheistic terms to indicate that the divine is something immanent: a consciousness, a divine aspect within us, the innermost part of the human being. Others speak of the divine as a reality transcending that which can be found in ourselves: as a power of life, as intelligence, or just as “something” which we nevertheless are closely related to, or perhaps are a part of. At the risk of simplification we may speak of three understandings of the divine here: as insight, as energy, and as relation.83 1) As insight, we may speak of a divine reality in humankind rather than of a personal God. 2) As energy, the divine is seen as an impersonal force or a spirit. 3) As relation, the word ‘God’ is used of something that is both within and outside humankind. The ultimate goal is the merging of the human soul into God.

It is characteristic that the different names for the divine do not include the idea of God as creature, master, or judge,84 so the concept of God is impersonal. Modern Christians are facing the same challenge as the author of John’s Prologue: how to move from an impersonal to a personal conception of God; in other words how can we demonstrate that the cosmic Christ has been incarnated in the person of Jesus?

Tro i tiden was followed by another report that year, Tro i lære, which contains conversations with 10 persons who as Christians are engaged in the religious encounter. These persons (clergy and laity) may have various motivations for their engagement, but they all seem to think that “to be in Christ makes it possible to be open-minded (and spacious).”85 The report underlines how Christology is developed in the concrete encounter with people from the new spiritual milieu. One of the respondents says that “we should not demonize others; instead we should see Christ in our neighbor.” Another states that “Christ as Logos also has an effect outside Church and Christianity and goes on to refer to the concept of ‘logoi spermatikoi’—which might be taken as a point of contact for the proclamation of Christ.”86

One of the interviewees is Ole Skjerbæk Madsen, founder of a number of Christian communities called “I Mesterens Lys” (In the Master’s Light).87 He has explained the theological idea behind this movement in a number of publications, including an article from 2003 focusing on John’s Prologue. Madsen insists that the whole understanding of the order of the universe was personalized in the creative Word of God who was made flesh. The Logos of the world was not an abstract law or principle, but a self-communication of God calling his creatures into a relationship of love with Godself.88

Furthermore, it is pointed out that speaking of the Logos/logos is especially relevant in communicating with theosophy, which, however, operates with a much more complex understanding of the term. Theosophy thus speaks of the Solar Logos, the God of the Sun System, the planetary Logos, the God of the planet Earth, a Logos-being on each different plane of consciousness, in a hierarchy of beings. Against this, the Christian understanding has as its focus on the incarnate Logos of God in Jesus Christ and recognizes through the work of Christ how God created the universe through Logos and how creative love orders creation according to the Logos.

The concept of Logos as known, manifested, and revealed in the logos of the created world may be combined with a Christianized use of the concept of Tao. This is relevant to the neo-spiritual movements, perhaps even more than using the logos terminology, since the concept of Tao pervades much New Age thinking and practice. Tao signifies the eternal order or the foundation and basic principle of life. Tao is the cause of all foundation, but in this sense is incomprehensible, unspeakable, and transcendent. Nevertheless, the term “Tao” is used because the unspeakable Tao is also immanent in the created world. In this second meaning, Tao is the mother of creation, power and norm of existence. Skjerbæk Madsen points to the fact that in the Chinese Gospel of John, “Logos” is translated as “Tao.” John 1:14 thus means that the eternal foundation and basic principle of life is not impersonal, but is met in person in a human life.89

The Cosmic Christ—in the Midst of Human Beings

The importance of the Prologue is also underlined by Harry Månsus, the founder of the Bromma-dialogue, a Swedish movement which highlights the dialogue between Christian faith and new spirituality. According to Månsus many Christians see spiritual currents of our time as a threat or even a sign of our living at the end of time. This situation is not new, however. Early Christianity was itself an “alternative spiritual movement” to the established order. It was born in a world that is as religious complex as our own.90 In Hellenistic culture many people distanced themselves from the ancient gods and the public religion. The void after the traditional religions was filled with alternative spiritual movements—including mystery religions, astrology, various forms of healing, and Christianity. Stoic philosophy is of particular importance in this context. It is said that Logos as the “cosmic world reason” permeates everything. In this way it may be said that God was present in the cosmic cathedral.91

Månsus is convinced that God uses many different means in his attempt to reach man. If the church proves unsuitable he will employ other means. Today the new religiosity and the new spirituality may be seen as a quest for sincere spiritual experience and a wish for a personal encounter with the cosmic Christ. Hence, the church should not isolate itself inside the walls of churches and chapels, but follow the example of the first Christians and meet people in public places, following Paul’s dialogue with the Athenians at the Areopagus in Acts 17:17–34.

The Prologue in John’s Gospel is another example of this open, dialogical approach. The text has the form of a hymn which was probably written in a Hellenistic environment with gnostic tendencies. The similarity with the new spirituality is striking. After all, we might have expected the author of the hymn to take steps to avoid any alternative spirituality, but in fact, he does the opposite. According to Månsus, John takes over the winged words from the spiritual circles of his time, “baptizes” them, and uses them in his presentation of the cosmic Christ. In his hymn John appropriates the concept of Logos from Stoic popular philosophy and the gnostic “terminology of light,” as well as including cosmic perspectives from the Old Testament story of the creation, cf. John 1:1–5.92

John’s theological intention is obvious: The cosmic Christ should not be isolated in churches, in false piety, or in religious dogma. God is not withdrawing himself from the earth into a religious reservation. On the contrary, in the gospel we meet the Creator himself as the cosmic Christ who descended into the fallen creature in order to liberate and heal creation from below. The cosmic Christ—“the true light, which enlightens everyone”—has incarnated himself in the world (John 1:9).

In Månsus’s view, John’s message to the new spirituality of the first century is: If you are searching for the light, you will find it embodied in a dark world! His message to seekers with a popular philosophy is: Logos—the wisdom that permeates everything—has revealed its glory, and we ourselves have seen it! His message to Judaism is: The Wisdom that is referred to in the Old Testament, has become man and lives in our midst!93

The Role of Incarnation in the Encounter with Other Religions

All religions operate with a center where eternity and time, divine and human, sacred and profane meet. The center signifies the irruption of divine reality into human reality. Hence, centering is the bestowal of some meaning from which all other meaning derives. The old reality is replaced by a new reality. The Fourth Gospel describes the Logos as this center, the axis of life. Everything else in the Gospel emanates from the central affirmation made in verse 1 and verse 14. In v. 1 the reader is brought into a primal, archetypal time in which the Logos existed and was God. It is this Logos that v. 14 affirms to have become flesh.94 Through the structure of the Prologue John seeks to express the experience of Christ first in a language that echoes his non-Christian environment, and then in a Christian language.95 It is a double movement, from pre-existence to incarnation, from the impersonal to the personal.96 John insists that the Word that became flesh has become the new center, the new reality that irrupts into the old world and has replaced the old centers. Thus, the center of Judaism, the temple, is replaced by Jesus who is the “place” where God tabernacles among us (1:14).97

The preceding examples of modern interpretations of the Prologue raise the question of how far Christians should go in communicating with non-Christian religions. A similar question was addressed by John. The Fourth Gospel is the classic example of the challenges and risks that are posed by translating the Christian message into the languages and perceptions of other cultures. Some would say that in order to win over the Gnostics John almost became a Gnostic himself (cf. Part Two). Yet he differed from his audience on two decisive points: his insistence on the historicity of Jesus and on his human nature.

It is essential for any dialogue today that Christians take the same movement as the Prologue: from the impersonal to the personal and from pre-existence to incarnation. In other words, we must do the same as the Gospel of John did: identify the Logos, the principle of life, with the person Jesus Christ. He is not just the core of life, but also life in all its fullness (1:16), for he gives life in abundance (10:10).

49. Barrett, The Gospel According to John, 130, rightly comments on v. 1: “John intends that the whole of his gospel shall be read in the light of this verse.”

50. Cahill, “The Johannine Logos as Center,” 65; Senior and Stuhlmueller, The Biblical Foundations for Mission, 284.

51. Kieffer, Johannesevangeliet, 19.

52. Cf. Olsson, “Deus semper major?” This point is underlined by John’s mission theology. There are four types of sending in the Fourth Gospel (John the Baptist, Jesus himself, the Paraclete, and the disciples). All of them revolve around Jesus: John the Baptist announces his coming; the Paraclete confirms his presence; and the disciples proclaim his Word to the world. But the endpoint of John’s mission is not Jesus but the Father. The Father, alone is not sent. He is the origin and goal of all the testimony of the Gospel, cf. John 1:1–18 and 17:20–23 (Nissen, New Testament and Mission, 76).

53. The first half of the Prologue gives the divine-human encounter in general terms, the second half gives it in a specific Christian language (Vellanickal, “The Gospel of John in the Indian Context,” 150).

54. The New Revised Standard Version is an example of the first option, as is the New Danish authorized translation from 1992 (over against the Danish authorized translation from 1948).

55. Berger, Exegese des Neuen Testaments, 230–31.

56. Kysar, John the Maverick Gospel, 25.

57. Aagaard, “Findes der en elementær kosmologi?,” 179; Aagaard, ”Tao,” 3.

58. Cracknell, Towards a New Relationship, 99.

59. Cf. Reichelt, “The Johannine Approach,” 94; Nørgaard-Højen, “Kristendommens absoluthedskrav,” 234. Various nuances differentiate the thought of these three church fathers. Yet, in the main lines their Logos-Theology shows a remarkable consistency, see Dupuis, Toward a Christian Theology, 70.

60. Several scholars argue that the Johannine community has undergone a development before it reached its present Christology and its special ecclesiological form. Brown (The Community of the Beloved Disciple) points out that the Johannine community originated among Jews who believed that Jesus had fulfilled well-known Jewish expectations, e.g., of a messiah or of a prophet-like-Moses. At a later stage there developed within the Johannine community a higher Christology that went beyond Jewish expectations by describing Jesus as a pre-existent divine savior who had lived with God in heaven before he became man.

61. Senior and Stuhlmueller, The Biblical Foundations for Mission, 280.

62. Vellanickal, “The Gospel of John in the Indian Context,” 150–51.

63. Reference is made to searchers for the truth among Buddhists, Taoists, Confucianists and others. “They style themselves spontaneously ‘Tao-Yu’, i.e., ‘Friends of Tao’ (Logos). Christ is for them the full realization and incarnation of the wonderfully rich Tao-idea which holds the supreme sway in all three religions in China (Buddhism included).” (Reichelt, “The Johannine Approach,” 99).

64. Reichelt, Fra Kristuslivets helligdom, 53.*

65. Riisager, Lotusblomsten og korset, 163–64.

66. Reichelt, “The Johannine Approach,” 95.

67. Ibid., 95. The terms tathata or bhutataka mean the Absolute, conditioned by nothing, which is in itself that which is; cf. Raguin, The Depth of God, 111–12.

68. Vellanickal, “The Gospel of John in the Indian Context,” 151.

69. Koyama, Theology in Contact, 60.

70. Ibid., 61.

71. Ibid., 62–63.

72. On the problem in general see also the paragraph “Transcending Categories—Toward a ‘More Than’ Christology” in Part Two below.

73. Indigenization “is not the transplantation of a grown tree, say from Amsterdam to Djakarta. Actually, indigenization is a critical antithesis to this whole process of big-tree-transplantation. The shift from transplantation to rooting is a difficult and painstaking process” (Koyama Theology in Contact, 67–68).

74. Ibid., 67.

75. Steiner, The Gospel of St. John, 19.

76. Ibid., 118.

77. Steiner’s own translation of John 8:58: “Before Father Abraham was, was the I AM.”

78. Steiner, The Gospel of St. John, 57.

79. Steiner, The Gospel of St. John and Its Relation to the Other Gospels, 33–34.

80. Romarheim, “Various views of Jesus Christ,” 95.

81. Damm, Kristendommen i antroposofiens lys, 16–20.

82. Steiner, The Gospel of St. John and Its Relation to the Other Gospels, 38. Steiner argues that the writer of John’s Gospel strongly emphasizes the existence of something divine in humankind, as well as the fact that this appeared in its most grandiose form as God and the Logos itself. “In the individual human being a great and mighty event can take place that can be called the rebirth of the higher ego” (ibid., 9). “Then, when the human principle had reached its height in Jesus of Nazareth, his human body having become an expression of his spirit, he was ripe to receive within Himself the Christ at the Baptism of John” (ibid., 18).

83. Tro i tiden, 18–19; Thelle, Buddha og Kristus, 142–52.

84. Tro i tiden, 17.

85. Tro i lære, 25. This is a free translation from the Danish text: “Kristus-forankring gør det muligt at være rummelig.”

86. Ibid., 25.*

87. See also the paragraph “In the Master’s Light” in chapter 7 of this book.

88. Madsen, “Theology in Dialogue,” 267.

89. Ibid., 269.

90. Månsus, Vägen hem och resan vidare, 108–14.

91. Ibid., 255–56.

92. Ibid., 111.

93. Ibid., 113.

94. Cahill, “The Johannine Logos as Center,” 65.

95. According to Dupuis (Toward a Christian Theology, 328) there are several manifestations of the Word in history. But not all of them have the same significance. Incarnation, as compared to enlightenment, has a historical density of its own. In other words, there is a clear distinction between the Word’s “incarnation” in Jesus Christ and the “enlightenment” by the divine Logos of other saving figures.

96. Dunn, Christology in the Making, 243.

97. Note also Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman in John 4. See chapter 5 in this book.