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Examined Doctrine
PASSAGE · BSB

John 1

17 positions in the corpus lean on this chapter. Cited verses are marked.

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2He was with God in the beginning.

3Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made.

4In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.

5The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

6There came a man who was sent from God. His name was John.

7He came as a witness to testify about the Light, so that through him everyone might believe.

8He himself was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light.

9The true Light who gives light to every man was coming into the world.

10He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him.

11He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.

12But to all who did receive Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God—

13children born not of blood, nor of the desire or will of man, but born of God.

14The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

15John testified concerning Him. He cried out, saying, “This is He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because He was before me.’”

16From His fullness we have all received grace upon grace.

17For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

18No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is Himself God and is at the Father’s side, has made Him known.

19And this was John’s testimony when the Jews of Jerusalem sent priests and Levites to ask him, “Who are you?”

20He did not refuse to confess, but openly declared, “I am not the Christ.”

21“Then who are you?” they inquired. “Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” He answered, “No.”

22So they said to him, “Who are you? We need an answer for those who sent us. What do you say about yourself?”

23John replied in the words of Isaiah the prophet: “I am a voice of one calling in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way for the Lord.’”

24Then the Pharisees who had been sent

25asked him, “Why then do you baptize, if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”

26“I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands One you do not know.

27He is the One who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”

28All this happened at Bethany beyond the Jordan, where John was baptizing.

29The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

30This is He of whom I said, ‘A man who comes after me has surpassed me because He was before me.’

31I myself did not know Him, but the reason I came baptizing with water was that He might be revealed to Israel.”

32Then John testified, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove and resting on Him.

33I myself did not know Him, but the One who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit descend and rest is He who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’

34I have seen and testified that this is the Son of God.”

35The next day John was there again with two of his disciples.

36When he saw Jesus walking by, he said, “Look, the Lamb of God!”

37And when the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus.

38Jesus turned and saw them following. “What do you want?” He asked. They said to Him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are You staying?”

39“Come and see,” He replied. So they went and saw where He was staying, and spent that day with Him. It was about the tenth hour.

40Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, was one of the two who heard John’s testimony and followed Jesus.

41He first found his brother Simon and told him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated as Christ).

42Andrew brought him to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You will be called Cephas” (which is translated as Peter).

43The next day Jesus decided to set out for Galilee. Finding Philip, He told him, “Follow Me.”

44Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the same town as Andrew and Peter.

45Philip found Nathanael and told him, “We have found the One Moses wrote about in the Law, the One the prophets foretold—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

46“Can anything good come from Nazareth?” Nathanael asked. “Come and see,” said Philip.

47When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, He said of him, “Here is a true Israelite, in whom there is no deceit.”

48“How do You know me?” Nathanael asked. Jesus replied, “Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.”

49“Rabbi,” Nathanael answered, “You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

50Jesus said to him, “Do you believe just because I told you I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.”

51Then He declared, “Truly, truly, I tell you, you will all see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

Who leans on it

Athanasius on the trinityPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°The Son is not a creature but an offspring proper to the Father's essence, eternally begotten. His signature argument is that Scripture uses "before," "once," and "when" of creatures and never of the Word, so the Arian "…Athanasius on the person of christPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Classic Alexandrian Word-flesh: the Word prepares a body in the Virgin as a temple and instrument, makes it His own, and wields it — "He became man, and did not come into man," aimed against the idea that the incarnation…Calvin on the person of christPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°One person in two natures, each keeping its own properties entire. Calvin names and rejects both errors by name: Nestorius 'presuming to dissect rather than distinguish between the two natures, devised a double Christ,' …Chrysostom on the person of christPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°He affirms both sides firmly and has no formula for holding them together. Against the Docetists, "was made" means real flesh; against any notion of change, the divine essence "did not change to flesh" but remained what …Chrysostom on original sin & the human willPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°What Adam passed down is death, not guilt. Facing Romans 5:19 he asks outright how another man's disobedience could make me a sinner, notes that on such a reading the man would not even deserve punishment, and settles on…Chrysostom on perseverance & eternal securityPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Sonship is given at baptism and can be thrown away, and only its holder can throw it away. He preaches at length against the baptized who go "back after our baptism to the oldness we before had," and warns hearers that w…Jonathan Edwards on the nature of saving faithPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Faith is one act of the whole soul receiving Christ, not a compound assembled from parts: "the whole soul according and assenting to the truth, and embracing of it ... with the belief, and with the inclination and affect…M. Heiser on the trinityPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°States his Trinitarianism directly and without hedging, and is explicit that what is unfamiliar about him is the route, not the destination. He also holds that there was a Godhead in the Old Testament — a visible and an …M. Heiser on the person of christDISPUTED READINGNO FIT°Affirms the deity of Christ explicitly and repeatedly, and reads the Old Testament 'second Yahweh' — visible, often in human form — as the one who becomes incarnate. Argues that the human-judges reading of Psalm 82 destr…Second London Baptist Confession on the trinityPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Chapter 2.3 states three subsistences in one divine essence, of one substance, power and eternity, each having the whole essence undivided, distinguished only by relative properties — with the Son eternally begotten and …Second London Baptist Confession on the person of christPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Chapter 8.2 gives the Chalcedonian formula in confessional prose: two whole, perfect and distinct natures inseparably joined in one person, without conversion, composition or confusion. Paragraph 8.7 adds the communicati…Second London Baptist Confession on the nature of saving faithPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Chapter 14.2 runs the three elements in order: the believer holds true whatever is revealed in the Word on God's own authority (knowledge and assent), perceives an excellency in it, and is thereby enabled to cast his sou…Luther on extent of the atonementDISPUTED READINGCONTESTED°Luther consistently speaks of Christ dying for the world and never restricts the object. The Smalcald Articles' chief article names him "the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world," and the 1522 Ascension Da…John Owen on the person of christPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°Chalcedonian, and Owen states the guardrails explicitly: God and man in one person, not a God and a man; God incarnate, not a man deified; the properties of each nature remaining that nature's own and not communicated to…Westminster Confession on the trinityPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°WCF 2.3 states the Nicene settlement in a single sentence and then adds the Western eternal-relations clause: the Father of none, the Son eternally begotten, the Spirit eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son. T…Westminster Confession on the person of christPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°WCF 8.2 reproduces the Chalcedonian formula and its four negations in seventeenth-century English, insisting on 'two whole, perfect, and distinct natures' in one person, and adding 'with all the essential properties and …Westminster Confession on the nature of saving faithPRIMARY SOURCEAFFIRMS°WCF 14.2 has both elements the triad requires. Assent to revealed truth comes first and is grounded in the authority of God speaking, not in the believer's judgement of the content; trust follows as the 'principal acts',…