John 1:1-18
Paraphrased:
Before anything was, there was the Utterance. This Utterance was the Voice of God, and it was God's Voice. This vocal Utterance was the beginning of everything that is. Everything that exists is the result of this Voice saying it. Nothing could exist that wasn't spoken into existence. This Utterance is alive, and His life gives Light to mankind. This Light shines into our darkness, and our darkness refuses to understand it.
Then John came to tell us about that Light. He wasn't the Light, he only knew about it and told us, so that we would believe. The true Light was coming, that could give light to everyone.
He came into the world, and although He created the world, it did not want to acknowledge Him. He even came to His own Chosen People, but they didn't even want to accept Him. But all those who would accept Him, He caused to be born into God's own Family, conceived not through natural, fleshly means, but from God Himself.
This Utterance took upon Himself human nature and lived with us. We are eye-witnesses to His magnificence, the majesty of the Only One, Son of God the Father, filled with grace and Truth.
John is giving his legal testimony--he announces clearly that: This is the Man I talked about before, that the Man who appears after me has the pre-eminence before me, because He existed before I was born. We have all received blessings on top of blessings from the super-abundance of His grace. Moses gave us the Law--Grace and Truth are brought to us by Jesus Christ. God the Father cannot be seen by the human eye, but God the Son, who is equal in substance to the Father, has shown Him to us.
