For John, the beginning of the Good News is in eternity with God. The eternal Father is made known in the world by the Son (l: 18). 'God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life. ‘(3: 16) The Son is identified with God's creative Word. The eternal God and his creative Word were before time, before anything was created. In the creation account of Genesis 1, eight great acts of creation are the consequence of God's spoken Word (Psalm 33:6). God speaks, commanding that there should be light, the sky, the dry land and seas, all kinds of plants, the stars and planets, all kinds of sea creatures, all kinds of land creatures, and finally, the human race. Isaiah 55: 11 speaks of God sending his Word out to work for him. The Old Testament frequently speaks of God's Word revealing to his prophets how they must speak and act for him. God's wisdom is in God's Word. Proverbs 8 :22-31 speaks of God's wisdom as being the first of his created works and being with God as he created the universe, pointing to the Uncreated Word of John 1: 1; the Word was God.

Hellenistic Jewish thought, particularly as expressed in the writings of the Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus, used the idea of God's Word working not only in acts of creation but in the sustaining and directing of the world and of mankind. 'Logos' meaning 'Word' is used in the same way by the Hellenistic Jewish philosopher, Philo. The pagan Stoic philosophers also used 'Logos' in a different way. They believed that everything in the universe had in it something of the divine Logos which they understood as impersonal divine reason.

John used a word, therefore, which was known to both Jews and Greeks although understood quite differently by each, but neither Judaism nor Hellenism could say the 'Logos' became flesh as the Christian evangelist does (l :14). God's Word had come right into human life, in Jesus from Nazareth (1:45).