The passage
      v1-2. The gospel of John begins with a key truth that serves to unlock the meaning of the gospel: Jesus is the creative word of God, as God (ie. he is divine) and with God from before time.
      v3. Jesus, as the word, created all that we know and experience. There is nothing in our time and space that is not from his hands.
      v4. John now uses two powerful Old Testament images that describe the divine eternal word; they are life and light. Just as God's revealed word in the law and the prophets was life and light to his people Israel, so Jesus is life and light. Jesus is life in that he possesses divine life. This divine life radiates a divine light which is God's life-giving eternal truth/revelation.
      v5. The purity of the divine light shines in the midst of cosmic evil ("darkness"), but no matter how hard the darkness tries, the light cannot be quenched.
      v9. John now moves his view from the cosmos to the world. The authentic divine light enters the world of human existence. This it does in the birth of Jesus and so the light of God's word comes and dwells with us as one of us. The light shines upon all humanity; truth shines over a broken world.
      v10. Yet, although Jesus created the world of human affairs, the human race neither recognizes him nor accepts him.
      v11. Worse still, the people he came to, the people of Israel, a people prepared for his coming, did not welcome him.
      v12. Yet, those who do welcome him, who receive him, accept him for the person he is, "believe" in him, they will receive God's long awaited promise of sonship, immortality, divinity.
      v13. John now describes this sonship. It is a new life, a rebirthing. It is nothing like the creation of life through human conception and birth, but rather a spiritual new life, a divine rebirthing.

The Cosmic Christ
      When John wrote his gospel, he must have had an inkling that the stories of Jesus' beginnings were going to end up like a folktale.
      The birth stories are wonderful stories and Christmas wouldn't be the same without them. We decorate our churches with nativity scenes and if we are lucky, our young people will perform a nativity play for us. In fact, we have all played the shepherds or wise men and we have all wondered at this simple tale. Yet, for many in our world it is little more than a fairy-story. Still, it remains a very powerful story. Business loves the selling power of Christmas. Our shopping malls are filled with Christmas fare, decorations, bunting, nativity scenes ....., all promoting the spirit of Christmas. It is of course changing, becoming more secular. The jolly red gentleman, Father Christmas, is slowly replacing the child in the manger. The folktale is slowly fading into the red, white and green.
      Matthew and Luke are right into the birth stories about Jesus, but for John, Jesus' beginnings are elsewhere. They are beginnings that cannot be confined to a nativity scene, or depicted on a Christmas card. They are beginnings that can neither be contained nor ignored. John doesn't introduce us to the babe in Bethlehem, but rather to the cosmic Christ.
      John tells us that Jesus is the creative word of God, that he is actually responsible for all that we see around us, all that is good. His existence is before all time, before the creation of our time and space. Jesus is with God; he is as God; he is God.
      In describing Jesus, John uses the words "life" and "light". Jesus is the source of life, not just breath, but divine life, eternal life. He is light in that he radiates divine truth, knowledge, wisdom ..., and this truth, this revelation, is itself life-giving. This cosmic Christ, says John, radiates in the darkness of the cosmos and his light is not be quenched.
      The amazing truth is that this creative word of God came and dwelt with us, became incarnate. The authentic divine light entered the world of human affairs as one of us, and yet many of us ignored him, rejected him. The world seems to desire darkness more than light. Yet, some have accepted him, have welcomed him, and those who do, bask in his light, became irradiated with his life. The few who believe possess a spiritual rebirthing such that flesh and blood gains eternity, immortality, divinity.
      As we move into an age of magic and mystery, remember that the aura around the new born babe is but a hint of the cosmic Christ.

v3
      dia + gen. "through" - through, by means of. With the genitive, as here, it takes the sense "by the instrumentality of." Both Law and Wisdom are viewed in Jewish tradition as instruments of creation. For John, the Word is the instrument of creation.

v4
      hJ zwh .... to fwV "that life [was] the light" - Both life and light are Old Testament images used to describe both wisdom and the Law. God's revelation is light and its enlightening enlivens; it enlivens because it is good. For John, Jesus is divine life, and that life radiates a pure and good divine truth which gives life. Both images are further developed by John in his gospel on occasions when lost humanity is saved, ie. enlivened / enlightened.

v5
      th/ skotia/ (a) "the darkness" - John uses the images of darkness and death as opposites of light and life. As light has an ethical quality of goodness producing life, so darkness as an ethical quality of evil producing death.
      fainei (fainw) pres. "shines" - appear, shine. "The light keeps on giving light", A.T. Robertson.
      ou katelaben (katalambanw) aor. "has not understood" - did not take, grasp. With the idea of "seize" the word may mean "overcome in a hostile manner" or "understand", "take hold of with the mind". Barrett argues that it is possible to hold both meanings since John may well be playing with the word. Yet, the darkness at this point in the prologue is cosmological and therefore "overcome" is the better understanding of the word. "The darkness has never put it out", CEV.

v9
      alhqinon adj. "true" - real, genuine. Barrett suggests "veracious". Not simply just "true" as opposed to false, but rather an "authentic" light that pales all others.
      oJ fwtizei (fotizw) pres. "that gives light to" - which enlightens. Either "to shed light upon", "to bring to light", "to make visible", or "to illuminate inwardly", "to instruct", "to give knowledge", Barrett. "Shed light upon" is best, but does Jesus enlighten "every man" or only those who believe? When the light is taken as a quality which brings meaning and purpose to a person's life, then obviously it is only to the few who "understand it." Yet, the light is ethical, it is pure truth, the wisdom of God, perfection.... and as such, it shines on all humanity. Such shining is judgmental, that is, it separates; some come to the light, others flee from it.
      ercomenon (ercomai) pres. part. "was coming" - coming. The participle is adjectival, predicative (asserting something about the substantive) either neu. nom. agreeing with "light", or mas. acc. agreeing with "man". If the last, it means "every man who comes into the world". The first option is better since it probably serves as John's allusion to the birth of Jesus, so NIV.
      ton kosmon (oV) "world" - For John, the world does not equate with the creation, but rather the world of human activity - relational, organized and responsible.

v10
      egnw (ginwskw) aor. "recognize" - come to know, recognize. In Greek thought, the word is commonly used of rational, cognitive understanding. John's use relies on the Old Testament understanding of the word which moves from a practical perception of people and things to include an inward bonding with those people and things. When used of Israel's knowledge of God it includes not just information about God, but of a bonding love and humble trust toward him. This is John's common use of the word and it is particularly evident in a relationship with God which expresses itself in an acceptance of Jesus. So, here we may say of Jesus' coming, "created humanity neither recognized him nor accepted him." "The whole world failed to recognize him", Phillips.

v11
      ta idia adj. "that which was his own" - his own property, his own. John may mean that Jesus came to his own house, household, or even in the wider sense, the world of human affairs. Israel is probably to be preferred. "His own nation did not welcome him", CEV.
      parelabon (paralambanw) aor. "receive" - received, taken to oneself, welcomed. Those who should have known him and therefore should have received him, rejected him.

v12
      elabon (lambanw) aor. "received" - receive, accept a person, or deliberate, take. Here "receive/accept" is best. Note, as is common in John, to accept/receive Jesus is the same as believe in Jesus (here, be a believing one) and sometimes believe "in his name." To accept/receive gives life, or as here, sonship. The main question is what is involved in accepting? Barrett says "to accept him in obedience and faith as the envoy of the Father." Yet, for John, obedience, in the sense of duty to God, is honed down to believing in his Son. Believing involves a personal acceptance, or reception, of Jesus on the basis of the received revelation of whom Jesus is and what he promises. The revelation, the truth concerning Jesus, will vary in depth from person to person, with the only consequence being, more is expected of those who have. This is why "his own" stand condemned.
      edwken (didwmi) aor. "he gave" - Here God gives, as a gift, the right, or privilege, of sonship and thus, divinity (possibly just immortality, but we do become as Christ is, a new creation).
      exousian (a) "right" - authority, right, in the sense of privilege to be divine.
      tekna (on) "children" - John uses this word for believers who are God's children as distinct from the Son, Jesus.
      pisteuousin eiV to onoma "believed in his name" - believing in the name of him. cf. 2:23, 3:18. Typically, an Old Testament idea, here as with the name of God - the "name" encapsulating the person. So, it is a belief in, an acceptance/reception of, the person of Jesus and his claims for himself and for humanity.