He was in the beginning with God.
John 1:2, Modern English Version (MEV)
As we might imagine, all of this was a lot to take in for those who knew Jesus and had been around Him for very long. John was driving home the point that yes, this Word, Jesus, the One they had been around day after day, was right there at the ultimate beginning. Today, most of us have been around this idea for so long that we pretty much take it for granted, but for those back then it was a lot for them to try to wrap their heads around. Then, to take it even further, imagine what was going on in the thoughts of those who hadn’t been around Jesus at all, who were probably hearing all this for the first time.
For the Jews in particular, this was some pretty radical stuff. They would have been familiar with Wisdom and Wisdom’s personification in the book of Proverbs and others, but John is taking them even beyond that. He’s making the case that he’s not speaking simply of the personification of a concept, but of God himself. We are now travelling over unbroken ground in unexplored, even undiscovered territory.
