By Angus Harley

It is now very common in Evangelical scholarship that scholars are casting off the weight of the doctrine of original sin. This movement has predominantly come from OT scholars who reject the idea of man being ‘born in sin’. Sin, to them, is an entity that involves human will that is aware of the truth of God, and that knowingly and willfully rejects this truth. The idea of a babe in the womb being in sin is an absurdity to these scholars, therefore.

This view is helped to advance, in my opinion, by many who themselves do believe in original sin. How does this work? For their view of “flesh” (Gk. sarx) in John’s Gospel denies to it the meaning of man in spiritual rebellion against God. John, we are told, does not have the same theology of flesh that Paul holds. The two prooftexts for original sin in John’s Gospel, namely John 1:13 and John 3:6, are neutered and rendered ineffective for the doctrine of original sin because, to these scholars, John’s use of sarx in both verses does not have that negative spiritual import of fallen flesh at war with God; ‘flesh’, in both verses, refers merely to generic man (see ahead).

I have already demonstrated that sarx in John’s writings is anything but neutral, and goes far, far beyond the boundaries imposed on it by modern scholarship.[1] This article continues that same argument, this time in regard to John 1:13. I will also, however, end my discussion by arguing that John 1:13 must be retained as a prooftext for original sin. Let’s start.

Overview of John 1

The context of John 1 sets forth the Gospel contrast and clash between the Word that became flesh and was Light, who came into a world of darkness that rejected him; yet to those who believed in his name, in his Light, he brought salvation. Although it is true that the divine and human united in the person of the Son, “flesh” in vv13 and 14 must be understood from the point of view of salvation. For the entire chapter sets before us the Word in the flesh as the Mediatorial Man for us; his flesh was salvific-flesh to bring grace and truth to man whose own flesh was spiritually corrupt. It is this Christological and salvific engine that drives John’s theology in John 1.

Vv1-5. These verses are a synopsis about the divine Word, seen from the divine perspective, about his nature, activity, and role. Vv1-3 refer to the deity and creatorhood of the Word. He had made all things in conjunction with God, the Father. 

The “all things” that were made were created to express and bear the Word’s spiritual Light. Man was made to the end of walking in that Light (see Gen.2-3; 1 Jh.1:1-4; Rev.12:9, 13).

Although v4 assumes this relationship between the Light and man, it is primarily concerned with the world that plunged into spiritual darkness and which rejected the Light of God. V5 clearly describes that contrast, “And the light shines on in the darkness, but the darkness has not mastered it.” In this verse we see that the Light is not just in contrast to the darkness, but the darkness and the Light clash with one another. The NET reading here says the darkness did not master the Light.


Vv6-18 are a synopsis about the same Word, this time it is the apostle John recounting John the Baptist’s role as a witness to the Light. The apostle John weaves in his own theological commentary on the Baptist’s view of the Word in the flesh, implying that his apostolic teaching and testimony was as one with the Baptist’s.

V9 is the Word as salvific Light “coming into the world”. In the capacity as salvific Light he “enlightens every man”. Once again, contrary to what some argue, the context is not about the Word’s original-creation role. The world that Jesus was coming into was fallen and dark, even ruled by Satan (John 6:70; 8:44; 12:31; 13:2, 27; 14:30; 16:11; 17:15; see 1 Jh.2:13-14; 3:12; 4:4; 5:18-19); the Word invaded that darkened, Satanically-ruled, world. The dark world was, in other words, now assessed on an A.D. basis: the era of the Word as Light and his salvation and judgment were now set in motion. This was a cosmic and worldwide era, in which all men were now assessed according to the presence of the Light in this dark world. The apostle Paul takes a similar approach, but from the point of view of the Day of Judgment:

“30 “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent, 31because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.” ” (Acts 17:30-31)

The entirety of creation was now assessed by the presence of the Christ, not merely by the Creator-God, nor by the Father alone, but by the incarnate Son of God. Thus, John 1:10-13 expresses that assessment on a spiritual level to be one in which the world rejected him, even “his own”, which is most likely a reference to the Jews as representatives of that world (see ahead). In spite of this, there were some who received him, and to them alone he gave his salvific Light, that is, they received through the divine birth from above the Light of eternal life. For the world itself and its fleshly birth, due to its fallen and dark condition, could not produce by human birth true sons of the kingdom of heaven, a truth that all Jews rebelled against, apart from those few who believed in the Word in the flesh.

Vv14-18 specifically detail the nature of the person and work of this incarnate Light and Word as he walked among men. He was, patently, no mere man. His flesh was no mere flesh. He “became” grace-flesh, truth-flesh. In his flesh, he embodied the fullness of the revelation of his heavenly Father’s grace.[2]

The Jewish factor that was alluded to before is drawn out explicitly in v17, for the Law was given to Israel through Moses; he was the revelatory head of Israel, the representative of God to that people. Whereas, grace and truth, not the Law, came through Jesus Christ, the Word who became flesh. Only this incarnate Word who became flesh was qualified to explain the Father, to ‘exegete’ him and reveal him to those who received him. Whatever value the Jews set upon Moses’ role as mediating the Law, it had zero worth as grace and truth, to the apostle John, for only the incarnate Word brought grace and truth; only he was the true revelation of the Father. These facts underscore that Jewishness as to following Moses’ Law and Jewish birth in particular were incapable of producing heavenly children. 


Many commentators take Moses’ role here as a positive and the Law’s existence, too. To some extent, I think this view is accurate. However, it fails to follow through properly on John’s understanding of the contrast between the Logos and the Jews. It is possible that “Law” here means the Pentateuch; yet, it might indicate the Mosaic legislation given in the Old Covenant. Certainly, the broader Law serves in John to provide an illustrative template of Jesus’ salvific actions- what some would call shadow or typology, and others picture fulfillment (3:15). Moses and his Law also testify to the coming Messiah (5:45-47). In his prophetic role, Moses is a positive figure. Yet, John’s Gospel is also concerned with what Moses the OT prophet did not, nor could not, bring to the salvific ‘table’ (6:32; 7:19-23). The clear implication is that Moses was a prophet of the One to come, so that Moses and his Law were therefore inherently deficient as a source of salvific grace. The Jews were de facto disciples of Moses, yet they rejected his prophetic and typological witness to the Christ by foolishly resting in Moses the man himself and his religious order.

Vv19-34 begin the ‘on the ground’, ‘live’, commentary and witness to the Word in the flesh. The focus is John the Baptist in live action. In his witness, John does two things: he self-deprecates; and he magnifies the Christ. In this we see that John the Baptist is functioning, in context, in a manner identical to Moses. The Baptist is a prophet of the Lord, of the Word in the flesh; but the prophet himself is a spiritual dead-end, belonging as he does to this realm. Moses could not provide eternal life, the bread of life; only God could provide that bread, that flesh. John the Baptist was not the Christ, and could not bring forgiveness; only God’s Lamb was the Christ and could bring forgiveness of sins. 

It is at this juncture of Christology where the lines are blurred between the apostle John’s theological statements to the Son of God in his salvific role and the Baptist’s testimony to the Messianic Son. For the OT ‘christ’, the Davidic son, was called the ‘son of God’ (2 Sam.7:14; Psa.2:7). The Baptist understood enough that Jesus was the One, and that Jesus came from heaven, from the Father, having been sent by him. John enriches the Baptist’s Christological testimony by telling us in no uncertain terms that One who came from David was, as to his Christological identity, the Word of God in the flesh. He was, in other words, the ‘Christ’, the ‘Son of God’.

This Christological development that combines the heavenly with the earthly, the OT with the NT, in the person of Jesus ought to retard the view that the Logos in the flesh was a simplistic case of ‘God in the flesh’. Nor is it enough, given this Christological emphasis, to focus on the Word’s flesh as merely human nature that is then contrasted to the divine nature. In other words, to force the ‘flesh’ of the incarnate Word into being just plain human nature ideologically removes any need for a ‘Christ’ in regard to ‘flesh’. Thus, the Word in the flesh was also the ‘Christ in the flesh’, a Savior in the flesh, and as such was the salvific-flesh that all must eat.[3]

Vv36-51 look at the live action from the point of view of the Christ himself and his own witness to, and presence among, his disciples. Once more, as with John, the Savior’s own witness is about him as the Christ, the Savior, the Messianic Son of God, that is, the Word who became Christ-flesh.

Jesus concludes by saying that his disciples who received him will see “the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (v51). This alludes to Jacob’s ladder (Gen.28:10-17). Many commentators have pointed out that Jesus here is the metaphorical ladder or stairs that the angels of heaven ascend and descend upon. There is an interpretation of this scene that boils everything down to a simplistic ‘God in the flesh’ model, which believes that Jesus, because he was God, brought salvific grace. No doubt! However, the context is specifically about the incarnate Son, God in the flesh, as the Christ. Thus, Christ-flesh. It is the Christ who is not merely a ‘greater Jacob’ (see John 4), for he is the only mediatorial path from earth to heaven or from heaven to earth (14:6). He is the spiritual Christological causeway upon which the angels of God ascend and descend upon in service to God and of the saints of God. The entire angelic realm and its obedience is conducted to bring salvific service to God’s assembly through the Son of Man and his revelation alone. Plainly, as with Jesus’ “flesh” (v14), Jesus is no mere man, nor is he, after a simplistic fashion, merely God who became flesh; he is, rather, the divine One in Christological flesh, the Son of Man who is the divine way through which the angels minister to the assembly.

Exegesis of 1:12-13

“12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

The modern reading. The typical modern reading of John 1:13 and its use of sarx delimits it to human birth that patently cannot produce divine birth, for that which is human cannot produce the divine. Some commentators also add the element that flesh is human nature. Others again attach to this human nature the aspects of frailty and mortality arising from the Fall of man.[4]


Contextual setting. The modern reading is making the mistake of reducing everything to the natural contrast between that which is created vs the One who is uncreated and gives life to all. Whilst this theology is undeniably part of the background to John’s thinking, it only gets us part of the way. For both the prior and succeeding contexts to v14 concern fallen man who is in deep spiritual darkness and in need of salvific grace. It is not merely a case, then, of the human’s natural contrast to the divine. Sarx in context is not just man, or human nature, nor such a man who has been marked with frailty and mortality due to the Fall. Rather, sarx is the way of life of man in darkness who seeks to fight against God’s Light and attempts to bring forth his own divine children via human birth.

Physical birth as expression of divine birth. Why does John have to argue this case? Because in a world created by the OT God of Israel, the Jew assumed that man had a natural destiny to inherit God’s kingdom, to become children of God. This ‘man’ was, properly speaking, aligned to Israel of the flesh. For example, the Jews would have read Psalm 8 as a testimony to a Davidic and Jewish “son of man” who would rule the world. Note, on that score, how the blessings of the Lord of all the earth are in opposition to God’s enemies (Psa.8:2). This fleshly conception of divine children is underscored in the fact that the Jews, as to the flesh, were separated not only from the Gentiles, but also from the Samaritans (see John 4). This separation occurred at birth- thus, the Jewish rite of circumcision that is related in John 7:22-23. John 8:41 teaches that the Jews thought of themselves as born of God their Father and “not born of fornication”. We see something similar in Ezekiel 16:20, where Yahweh refers to the sons and daughters of Israelites that they bore to him. This underscores that human birth and divine birth were considered as one. 

“as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God“. The Jews did not receive Jesus, and, therefore, did not receive the Father who sent him (5:43; 13:20). Some did receive him, however. The term exousia probably should be translated as “authority” (see 5:27; 10:18 (x2); 17:2; 19:10 (x2), 11). Jesus, not the Father, gave to those who received him, believed in him, the authority to become children of God (I will come back to this aspect). This is not the Pauline doctrine of adoption. 

“who were born….”. In sum, John is countering any version of human birth that might be considered as vital to the divine birth. Human birth of any shade or hue, arising from any form of human causation and authority-in-action, was not at all part of God’s birth of his children.  

“blood”. Birth by blood has been variously interpreted: regular birth and its blood; human life that is in the blood; birth according to lineage; the blood of sacrifice that was offered for the child (firstborn) (Exo.13:1-2, 12-13; Num.3:13; Lk.2:23); and the blood of circumcision. The Greek term haimatōn is plural, “bloods”. It is an exceedingly odd phrase for the NT, never being used again. However, “bloods” is used in the OT, in the Hebrew text, to refer to the profusion of man’s blood on the hands of the bloodthirsty Jews (Isa.1:15; Hos.4:2). It is difficult to see how bloodguilt, or the profusion of blood by murder, connects to human birth. I do think it probably the case that John is using the plural form as a Hebraism. I am not entirely clear on how a profusion of blood links to lineage. Certainly, the lineage interpretation as indicating the fathers of the Jews (cf., Acts 17:26) is not out of step with John’s Gospel. It has references to different father figures, including, most importantly, Abraham (8:39, 53, 56). One could include Moses, too. Even the Samaritans looked to their fathers (4:20). Any reading that relies on the form of Jewish sacrificial blood is definitely a possibility. So, too, is circumcision (see Exo.4:21-26), as is the view that promotes ‘blood’ as man’s life-blood. Human birth in blood is possible, also (see Lev.12:1-8). Does John have in mind a combo of some of these definitions?

“nor will of the flesh”. See, here, how the flesh has a will. Flesh is not just a physical state; nor is it man merely in his mortal and frail condition due to the Fall. The flesh wills; specifically, the flesh wills to give birth, and this is in opposition to the divine birth that comes through faith in Jesus Christ.

Put exclusively negatively, the will of the flesh and the will of man are not concerned, contextually, with the mere idea of having a will; nor is John focused on this will’s ability to do its job, aka, volition. It’s not about having a will or it doing its work. Nor is the idea of will in John’s Gospel about man’s freedom to act or will.

Throughout John, thelēma (“will”) is the word of choice that John uses of Jesus to describe the Father’s plan for himself (4:34; 5:30 (x2); 6:38 (x2), 39, 40). It is the same will of the Father that Jesus calls upon the Jews to do (7:17), and which the obedient Jew was meant to follow (9:31). All in all, the concept of will (thelēma) in John’s Gospel is about following God’s will or plan revealed to the Son, Jesus Christ, a will that concerns man’s salvation from sin. Man’s will (thelēma) is, by the nature of the case, a will that opposes God’s, for man and his plans and will are in darkness and in combat with God’s will.

This contrast of wills makes perfect sense in John 1:12-13, for these verses contrast the will of Jews to the will of God enacted through Jesus Christ. The Jews were under the mistaken notion that due to their act of sexual copulation they could produce children of the kingdom.

“will of man”. As stated previously, the Jew thought of himself as kingdom-man, the true representation of manhood and as a partner with God in kingdom-childhood.  However, this version of manhood, of childhood, was in opposition to the Son of Man from heaven who came to earth. Salvation and heavenly birth came through his authority, not via the will, authority, and powers of man to create so-called kingdom-children by human birth. 

“born…of God”. Divine birth, of God, is solely by God himself, and proceeds only through his authority as invested in the Son of Man, Jesus Christ. He gives to those who believe in him the authority to become children of God. He is the true fulfillment of Psalm 8, the true Son of David who is appointed by God, and the true ‘Israelite man’ who is in creation.

Discussion

There are a few things arising from the above teaching that we will now discuss, and this will eventually bring us to the theme of original sin.

Will, authority, and human birth. I wish to come back to the issue of authority to relate it to the will of man and human birth. To the Jew, he had a divine right or authority from God to make kingdom-children via copulation. Please bear in mind both mankind’s original mandate to populate the earth, as found in Genesis 1:27-28, and Israel’s subsequent mandate to fill out the land of Israel with its own children. Human birth was the key to all of this, the most fundamental act of all- no children, no spreading out, and no fulfillment of the mandates. God did not merely tell man to do those things; he also gave him the authority to fulfill them, to create kingdom-children, as it were.


Re-reading v14. If we read John 1:14-18 in the light of these things, we see how God uses human flesh to bring salvific grace and divine birth through the divine Word. Of course, by taking on flesh, Jesus was not taking on sin. But as I’ve argued elsewhere, his ‘flesh’ as salvific-flesh dealt with the power of sin in this world, even in the flesh of man himself.[5] The irony is thick, therefore.

If scholarship were more open to ‘flesh’ in John’s writings having a negative meaning, it would see more continuity between Paul’s view of flesh and John’s. Certainly, Paul expresses the Jewish identity in the form of ‘flesh’, so that Christ is said to come as a Jew in the flesh (Rom.1:3; 9:3, 5). It is the same Jesus who, “in the likeness of sinful flesh”, became sin for us who are in the flesh (Rom.8:1-3; 2 Cor.5:21), and who are, consequently, sinful.

Jewish reading? My Jewish reading of v14 will be questioned by most, for in John’s Gospel, John is concerned with the Gospel going out to a darkened world.

This is certainly true: the Gospel that John relates is of Christ as the Savior of the world. Moreover, the Jews are evidently being lumped in with the Gentiles within that world. Even so, the entire Gospel concerns Jesus’ interaction with Jews in Israel. The sum of it all is this: if Jewish man- who was ‘kingdom man’- is found to be at war with the Light, how much more non-Jewish man? If Jewish birth could not generate divine children for the kingdom, how much more the attempts by non-Jewish man to create divine children? In this line of thinking, we come very close, again, to Paul’s thoughts in both Romans 3-4 and Galatians 3-4, wherein the plight of the Jews marks out a similar fate for the Gentiles, but so also does the salvation of Jew and Gentile blend as one.

Original sin. Kingdom-children of a spiritual nature were not born of the flesh. Man had no mandate to create spiritual kingdom-children; he had no authority to that end. For man in the flesh was a man of will who opposed God and his will, and this was manifest in that man as flesh opposed the Christ. Human birth spits out one type of child: a son of darkness. Look again at John’s Gospel: there is no genealogy, no leaning upon even the Virgin Birth. The Jews en masse are at war with God and his Christ. All the Jews were “Abraham’s children” (8:39) as to the flesh, even the babies; yet none of them were “children of God” according to the Spirit, except a few who believed in the name of Jesus Christ. That group of divine children was extended to include “the scattered children” of the nations (11:52), that is, those of faith within the many non-Jewish nations. These are the “children of Light” (12:36), Jesus’ children who are distinguished from “the Jews” (13:33).

Unfortunately, because many Evangelical scholars delimit ‘flesh’ in v13 to mere human nature or being a human, they have lost sight of the spiritual darkness that produces man by an act of the will of the flesh. As Jesus himself states, in John 3:6, “ “flesh gives birth to flesh” ”.

Nor does it matter who the particular man is that is behind the human birth- Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David- nor the person they give birth to (a Solomon, a David, a Nicodemus), all persons, as to the flesh, cannot produce divine children, and all as to the flesh are a spiritual dead-end, an empty reservoir. If Abraham knew that his flesh could not produce righteousness to stand before God, how was it possible for him to physically birth divine-children (Rom.4:1-3; 9:6-9; Gal.4:21-31)?

Closing Words

It seems to me that Evangelical scholarship has made artificial divisions that only partially reflect the text of John 1. Scholarship focuses on flesh as that which is merely human and is in contrast to the divine. All well and good until we look at the context that is about sinful man in darkness and the Light of the Word entering into that dark world as flesh. As such, he could not come as just ‘God + man’. He comes, rather, as the Christ-man, the Word, God, who is also the Messianic Son of God. Just as scholarship has the tendency to separate the Christological and salvific bond between Jesus’ divine and human natures, so it has a similar tendency, in interpreting John, to separate man’s humanity from its fleshly fallen and rebellious nature.

[1] Angus Harley, “John and Paul do agree! John’s use of “flesh” (sarx) conveys both sin and salvation,” All Things New Covenant, February 7, 2026, https://allthingsnewcovenant.com/2026/02/07/john-and-paul-do-agree-johns-use-of-flesh-sarx-conveys-both-sin-and-salvation/.

[2] Harley, “John and Paul do agree!”

[3] Harley, “John and Paul do agree!”

[4] Harley, “John and Paul do agree!”

[5] Harley, “John and Paul do agree!”