All Things Came To Be Through Him

A friend asked me about the Greek verb egeneto (ἐγένετο) in the prologue of the Gospel of John (vv. 1-18).  It is a form of the verb ginomai (γίνομαι), and its presence--it occurs 9 times in the first 18 verses--is obvious and intentional.  Usually translated, "come to be," implying existence and creation, it is the same word used in Genesis 1 in the Septuagint (the Ancient Greek Old Testament) for: "And God said, 'Let there be light.'  And there was light."  More accurately: "And God said, 'Let light come to be,' and light came to be."  An experienced reader, Jew or Greek, wouldn't have missed John's point.

It's the verb of creation, and John's Gospel sings out the proclamation that YHWH's creation is Jesus' creation and YHWH is still in the business of making new things.

Furthermore, forms of that same verb, ginomai, are usually employed in prophetic books when the author says, "And the word of YHWH came to me."  Ezekiel 38:1 is an excellent example of this.  If it isn't stretching the notion too far, when the author tells us that the word of YWHW has arrived, it implies a creative arrival, a new word picture is about to be painted, a new vision cast.

Another intriguing parallel needs to be added here.  John's Gospel begins like this: "In the beginning was the word"  (en arche ein ho logos).  It's the same word that came to the prophets, and the same word that spoke creation into being.  The creative word of YHWH, that which breathed life into the cosmos and appeared with prophetic visions of hope -- that word (logos) was Jesus.

People often say that John was written primarily for the Greeks, because he was drawing on the Pre-Socratic and Platonic idea of the "underlying logos" of all things.  But it seems to me that he was singing polyphonically, in one octave to the Jews and another to the Greeks.  The Jews were not strangers to YHWH's logos ("word"), nor were they strangers to the idea of egeneto ("came to be")-- the coming into being of the cosmos in the case of Genesis and prophesy and vision through God's logos in the case of the prophets.

John is introducing the Creator of the world once again.  He's saying, "Look, Jesus created the stars and the earth and it was Jesus who separated the land from the seas!  And now he's here, setting up, creating again!"

One last thought.  The same verb is used in 2 Corinthians 5:21: "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."  A new creation has already happened if you're a believer.  And since the Greek verb is in the present tense here, it implies a process of creation.  God isn't done with us.