A.   In the first stanza, lines 1 and 2, we are introduced to the “the Word”. It was in the beginning of creation, it was with God, but it also was God. After stating this paradoxical nature of the Word, that it was both with God and was God, we are told that “He” was with God in the beginning. This leads us to assume that the “He” the author is referring to is the Word. So the author has now personified the Word as a man or a masculine essence.

In the next stanza, lines 3-5, we learn that all of creation came from “him”, the Word, which has now   taken on a human form. We are then told that what he created was life, and that this life is the light of all people, or the essence of everyone. Lastly, that this light that he created, that is the essence of all people, cannot be overcome by darkness. It shines in the darkness and the darkness is powerless over it.

In the next stanza, lines 9-12, we are told that “he”, the Word, the “true light”, which is the source of all life, was himself going to enter his own creation. He was in the world, yet the world he was in came into being only through him. However, his creation did not know him. He came to the people that he created, but they did not know him and they rejected him. But to those who believed what he said, and believed in him, he gave them power to become children of God.

The final stanza, lines 14 and 16, we are told again that the Word has become a man, and he lived among the people of his creation. And the people were witnesses to his glory, which was like the glory of an only son, which was full of grace and truth. Lastly we learn that from His fullness, we have all received immeasurable grace.

B.   We know that the Word and Jesus are the same being because in verse 3, the Word changes to a male pronoun, and is referred to thus for the remainder of the hymn. And then we are told that “the Word became flesh and lived among us” (John 1:14), which is then followed by the statement that this flesh, the Word, is the one who John the Baptist testifies will come after him, who we know is Jesus. Also, we are told that the Law came from Moses, but the grace and truth came from Jesus Christ. Earlier in verse 14, we are told that the Word is full of grace and truth, so by tying these two verses together, where the author is referring to the Word as “full of grace and truth” and then saying that through Jesus Christ came “grace and truth”, we can infer the author is speaking about the same being. This is significant in understanding the author’s view of Jesus, because just as in Matthew where the author details Jesus’ genealogy to give him credence, in John, this hymn serves as Jesus’ genealogy of sorts, because the author of John wants to put emphasis on Jesus’ role as the son of God himself, who was with God at the beginning of time, not that he is related to Abraham, David or even Adam, which was the aim of the author of Matthew.

C.   The prologue helps justify John’s lack of a birth story for Jesus, because as stated above, his emphasis is on Jesus’ genealogy in relation to God. This is the only Father that John wants the audience to consider. The fact that Jesus is the Son of God, and is actually One with God (“…and the Word was God”, verse 1), overrides any need to provide a genealogy linking him with important figures of the past. So John is trying to emphasize the essence of Jesus, which is his spiritual reality, his relationship to God, so he doesn’t deem it important to recount where he was born, or that he was baptized by John, for we are told that he (Jesus) created every person in the world, so this is much more powerful than a birth story or details of his upbringing. What we learn in the prologue hymn also explains the mentioned verses, where Jesus is making claims regarding his divine origin, how he does not act on his own will but on the will of God who sent him to the world, and how people’s faith in his words will bring them to Eternal Life, and they will never die again. All of these statements Jesus makes throughout the first half of John are explained by the prologue.