Among the four Gospels that of John is readily discerned by metaphysicians as a symbolical life of Jesus and should appear first in the New Testament, corresponding to the first chapters of Genesis. Quite a few Bible critics so consider it, among them Ferrar Fenton, who gives it first place in his "Complete Bible in Modern English."
John explains that all existence is spiritual, that it comes to man as a gift, and that Christ is its fulfillment. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
"The Word" is the English translation of the Greek logos, which means a thought or concept and also the word that is an expression or utterance of the same. It also involves the logical relation between idea and expression; hence our word logic, which also derives from logos.
Our attention is called to the 1st chapter of Genesis: "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light."
Here in detail, day by day, or period by period, creation is ideated.
The parallel between Genesis and John is shown by the manifestation of the ideal man. In Genesis Adam appears first. In John it is John the Baptist, who is said to "bear witness" to the coming man, Jesus. In Genesis man was given dominion over all things; in John "all things were made through him."
John the Baptist represents the natural man, the physical man, who is the nucleus around which the spiritual man builds. Man may be compared to a
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