He is seeing back so far that he is getting beyond human reach. So he fastens his line into the farthest of the far-reaches of human knowledge, the creation, and then flings the line a bit farther back yet. He must use a human word, if human folk are to understand. So he says "_beginning_." "In the beginning," the beginningless beginning, away back of the Genesis beginning, the earliest known to man. Then he recalls the tremendous fact that when, in the later beginning man knew about, the worlds came into existence, it was by a _word_ being spoken, a _creative, outspoken word_. The power that created things revealed itself in a few simple words. Then he searches into the depths of language for the richest word he knew to express thought outspoken. And taking that word he uses it as a _name_ for this One of whom he is trying to tell. The scholars seem unable to sound the depths of the word that John in his own language uses. It means this, and beyond that, it means _this_, deeper yet, and then _this_. And then all of these together, and more. That is John's word. "In the beginning was _the Word_." Then with a few swift touches of his pen he says, "This was Jesus before He came among men, the man Jesus whom we know." In the earliest beginning the whole heart and thought of God toward man was outspoken in a person. This person, this outspeaking God, it was He who later became known to us as Jesus. Jesus, away back before the farthest reach of our human knowledge, was God speaking out of His inner heart to us. This Jesus _is_ God speaking out His innermost heart to man. Did you ever long to hear God speak? Look at Jesus. He's God's speech. This One was _with_ God. He _was_ God. It was _He_ who spoke things into being, that creative span of time. Only through Him _could_ anything come into being. All life was in Him, and this life was man's light. It is He who came into our midst, shining in the darkness that could neither take Him in nor hold Him down from shining out. Every now and then as he writes John's heart seems near the breaking point, and a sob shakes his pen a bit, as it comes over him all anew, and almost overcomes him, how this wondrous Jesus, this throbbing heart of God, was treated. Listen: "He came to His _own possessions_, and they who were His--own--kinsfolk--and the quiver of John's heart-sob seems to make the type move on the page--_His own kinsfolk_ received him not into their homes, but left Him outside in the cold night; _but_--a glimpse of that glorious Face steadies him again--as many as _did_ receive Him, whether His own kinsfolk or not, to them He gave the right to become _kinsfolk of God_, the oldest family of all." <u>God's Spokesman.</u> John has a way of reaching away back, and then by a swift use of pen coming quickly to his own time, and then he keeps swinging back over the ground he has been over, but each time with some added touch, like the true artist he is.