remembering amidst all the wealth of detail that thin red line of

redeeming love, that not only binds the opening and closing verses of

the prologue together, but runs through the whole Gospel, revealing

that He Who made all things is `Love', and that in the fulness of time

He gave His all on our behalf.

Had verse 3 been a direct continuation from verse 1, we might have

been uncertain as to whether the phrase: `All things were made by

Him' referred to Theos, `God', or Logos, `the Word'.  Verse 2,

however, makes it clear that the reference is to `the Word'.

A literal translation of the third verse would read: `All things

through Him became, and apart from Him became not one thing that

has become'. We may not approve of this as a piece of English, but it

has the merit of forcing the reader to perceive, in the insistent use of

the verb ginomai, the intended contrast between the Creator, and all

things that He has created. Ginomai means `to become', as in Acts

12:18, `what was become of Peter'. The word is also often used in the

sense of `to make' (1:3) and `to come to pass', `to happen', `to be

born' (Gal. 4:4). Ginomai is essentially a word that denotes origin, and

such words as `generations', `beget', `parent', are derived from it. In

contrast with ginomai, we have the verb eimi, `to be', which meets us

in the first two verses. The reader will perhaps appreciate the contrast

better if we turn to 8:58.

`Verily, verily, I say unto you, before Abraham came into being

(ginomai), I am (ego eimi)'.

The Jews fully understood what such words portended. Such a

claim they regarded as `blasphemy' (10:31-33), and we read that they

took up stones to stone Him (8:59).

There must always be a fundamental distinction between the One

Who can say `I am', the One Who was `in the beginning', and all who

have come into being (ginomai) as finite creatures. Further on in our

study of this prologue, we shall discover that, after the Word was made

flesh, the word ginomai is used of Him. This, however, we must leave

to be dealt with later.

We have already observed that each Gospel has its own point of

view and it is interesting to notice that John is the only one of the four

evangelists to put forward the claim represented in the third verse.