by James Sanders
via Sentry Magazine, Vol. 16 No. 4, December 31, 1990

The Words of John 1:1

Nothing shatters—nothing startles like the sound of thunder. Its voice is unmistakable. And nothing seizes our attention like thunder. Whatever we may be doing when the crash of thunder interrupts, we stop immediately and listen. Thunder cannot be ignored. The opening words of the Gospel of John have been described as a peal of thunder. The contents of the first 18 verses are certainly earthshaking.

Note these texts:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; ... In Him was life; ... And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, ..."

The language is direct but highly imaginative; the vocabulary is limited, but intensely profound. A.T. Robertson cites the prologue to the Gospel of John in A Grammar of the Greek New Testament as a study of certitude and confident statements. The indicative mode of the verb dominates and is found 38 times in these verses. This is the mode of reality—of unqualified statement—of simple fact. There is fact here. There is plainness here. There is certainty here. There is reality. What is stated is stated with the simplicity of truth. This style is characteristic of the book as a whole. Philip Schaff gave this description of the Gospel of John:

"No book is so plain and yet so deep, so natural and yet so full of mystery. It is simple as a child and sublime as a seraph, gentle as a lamb and bold as an eagle, deep as the sea and high as the heavens. ...

"The sentences are short and weighty, coordinated, not subordinated. The construction is exceedingly simple: no involved periods, no connecting links, no logical argumentation, but a succession of self-evident truths ... There breathes through this book an air of calmness and serenity of peace and repose ..." [History of the Christian Church, pp 688, 699, 701].

The Crash of Thunder: John 1:1

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

These opening words tell of the divinity of Christ and His pre-existence in a remarkably simple way. The sentence is nothing more than three independent clauses. "In the beginning was the Word" is the first clause; the second is: "And the Word was with God;" the third clause literally reads: "And God was the Word." That all seems simple and direct enough. But the clauses are arranged in literary repetition. The word ending one clause is also the first word in the succeeding clause. This gives the sentence both beauty and continuity. The effect is that of a march. There is direction here, and there is purpose. And therefore, there is meaning.

The clauses also share a common subject, a subject identified as Word. Each clause tells something different about the One called the Word. The first two clauses utilize a prepositional phrase and the last, a predicate. Much like the prologue to John’s Gospel, the first sentence is an introduction to the person of Christ. There is a valid reason for beginning like this. It is only after we know who the Word really was that we can know what He did: "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name" (John 1:12). The two go together. I mean the person and the work of Christ. God became man so that man might be saved from sin (Hebrews 2:9ff.). The humanity of Christ, the deity of Christ, and the salvation made possible by Christ are but three sides of the same triangle. The person of Christ and the work of Christ cannot be separated. And it is by understanding who Christ is, we come to appreciate what He did.

The Word pre-existed before the beginning. He already was when time began. Second, the Word was with God—was with Him always. And third, the Word was fully divine. The Word was God. The words of John 1:1 are simple, but the thoughts are elegant and incredibly penetrating. The depth of what is stated here is as moving as is the dignity of expression.

The First Clause: "In the Beginning Was the Word"

"In the beginning was the Word."

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1).

The two texts are strangely alike but also unalike. F.L. Godet noted both the similarities and the differences:

"The beginning of which John here speaks can only be that which Moses had made the starting-point of his narrative. But, immediately afterwards, the two sacred writers separate from each other. Starting from the fact of the creation, Moses descends the stream of time and reaches the creation of man (ver. 26). John, having started from the same point, follows the reverse course and ascends from the beginning of things to eternity" [Commentary on the Gospel of John, p. 245].

The Word pre-existed. He was above or beyond time, prior to time. The Word already was when time began. His pre-existence is reflected in prayer for His disciples just before they left for Gethsemane: "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was" (John 17:5). The Word pre-existed. The verb tense in the clause, "In the beginning was the Word," is the imperfect and conveys a sense of timelessness. The Greek imperfect is the tense of past continuous or uninterrupted action. The adverbial prepositional phrase, "In the beginning," tells how time and the Word are related. The Word had no beginning. Time began, but the Word was eternal. The Word always was. The tense is imperfect and therefore continuous. One writer expressed the force of the tense:

"The imperfect is used in all three clauses of this verse and is expressive in each case of continual timeless existence" [A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel of John, by J. H. Bernard, p. 65].

There was a time in history when the Word became flesh (John 1:14), but never when the Word was not. He is the One who said to His enemies: "Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58). Abraham had a beginning, but the Word did not. Timelessness is the thought. Christ is eternal, and that makes Him God. "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty" (Revelation 1:8). Timelessness, pre-existence, and deity are interrelated by logical necessity. He who is timeless must also be pre-existent, and He who is eternal and pre-existent must also be God.

The Word is both the source and meaning behind creation: "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made" (John 1:3). He is the first and the last for in the words of H.G. Wells, "Until a man has found God he begins at no beginning; he works at no end" [God the Invisible King].

The key element in John 1:1 is the designation "Word." It forms the central thought being repeated in each of the three clauses. Repetition yields emphasis, and the emphasis here is on Word. The term itself is prevalent in the New Testament, but its use as a designation is quite rare. It is never used to describe Christ outside of the writings of John. Christ is called: the Word (John 1:1,14); the Word of life (I John 1:1) and the Word of God (Revelation 19:13). There are no other examples in the Scriptures except these four verses.

What is meant by the description Word? It is easy to understand why Christ might be called the door, the shepherd, or the savior. But why is He called Word? The Greek term used here is logos and has a dual meaning of word and thought. A logos is the embodiment of an idea or thought. Christ is the logos, for He is the embodiment of the mind of God. He is God’s explanation to man on how to think and live.

But the description "Word" suggests another vital point. Emerson said, "A man cannot speak without revealing himself." Words are a part of us because they are a self-portrait. Words mirror the inner man. By our words we will be judged and by our words we will be condemned (Matthew 12:37). Since the Word was also God, the life of Christ and the lessons He taught constitute a self-portrait of God. His life says, "This is how God would have acted in such a circumstance." The Word was God, which means (to borrow the words of P.T. Forsyth): "When it comes to revelation, only God could do justice to God." Self-revelation is why Christ could answer Philip:

"Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works" (John 14:9-10).

Only the express image of the person of God could be called the final revelation from God (Hebrews 1:1-3).

Since the Word was God, the union between the Word and the Father was absolute:

"No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him" (John 1:18).

Because His closeness to God was inherent (always being in the bosom: the present participle is durative), He alone (the pronoun is emphatic) could declare God. Declare or exegeomai is the Greek root from which we derive the English word "exegesis." The Word is the exegesis of the Father, or the One who explains and interprets God.

Words communicate or enlighten, for that is the purpose of speech:

"And God said, 'Let there be light and there was light.'" God spoke creation into existence. That day speech created light; today speech creates enlightenment."

The coming of the Word in like fashion brought enlightment. Because of Him, our understanding of God and of ourselves has forever changed: "In Him was life; and the life was the light of men" (John 1:4).

The Second Clause: "And the Word Was with God"

The second independent clause of John 1:1 is as brief as the first clause: "And the Word was with God." The subject is again the One called Word, and the verb tense is imperfect. The stress is still on the continuous past. The Word always existed, and the Word always was with God. The prepositional phrase, "with God," connects the preexistent eternal Word and God. The thought is that of equality, intimacy, and closeness. The Word was literally face to face with God. The preposition is pros and much more personal than meta or para, which may suggest accompaniment or existence. The use of pros in I Corinthians 13:12 illustrates its personal force: "Now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face" (prosopon pros prosopon). F. L. Godet explained the phrase, "with God," as essence:

"This preposition is chosen in order to express under a local form, as prepositions In general do, the direction, the tendency, the moral movement of the being called the Word. His aspiration tends toward God. The form, apparently incorrect, by which John connects a preposition of motion (towards) with a verb of rest (was) signifies that this motion was His permanent state, that is to say, His essence" [Ibid, p. 245].

The words of John 1:18 ("being in the bosom of the Father") convey the same feeling of deep intimacy. It is the expression used of a parent and child or husband and wife (Numbers 11:12; Deuteronomy 13:6). The closest ties in life are those of the heart or bosom. Christ was always with God in the same sense that He was always in the bosom of the Father. The expression is taken from life as Barclay illustrates with this human analogy:

"If we want to know what someone really thinks and feels about something, and if we are unable to approach the person ourselves, we do not go to someone who is a mere acquaintance of that person, to someone who has known him only for a short time; we go to someone whom we know to be an intimate of many years standing. We know that the intimate friend of many years will really be able to interpret the mind and the heart of the other person to us" [William Barclay, The Gospel of John, p. 16].

"And the Word was with God." The closeness between the Word and God enabled the Word to reveal God. "Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me?" (John 14:10). "I and my Father are one" (John 10:30). Such statements abound in the Gospel of John. Belief in Christ is belief in God, and denial of Christ is denial of God (John 12:44, 45). "My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work" (John 4:34). Passages such as these are the divine commentary on the clause, "And the Word was with God."

The Third Clause: And the Word was God

The final clause of John 1:1 states directly what the former clauses only implied: "And the Word was God." The three clauses follow one another in a natural flow, like water naturally collects during a rain and flows downhill in streams. It is not a matter of logical argumentation but of the nature of things. He who is eternal and was always with God in the closest sort of way would Himself have to be deity. If John had said anything other than that the Word was God, it would have been abrupt and out of place.

The word "God" or theos opens the clause as a predicate nominative and therefore is without the article. (The clause literally reads: "And God was the Word.") Nouns in the predicate, as Ernest C. Colwell of the University of Chicago pointed out some years ago, do not have the article if the predicate precedes the verb:

"A definite predicate nominative has the article when it follows the verb; it does not have the article when it precedes the verb ... The opening verse of John’s Gospel contains one of many passages where this rule suggests the translation of a predicate as a definite noun" [Quoted by Bruce Metzger, "The Jehovah’s Witnesses and Jesus Christ: A Biblical and Theological Appraisal," Theology Today, X, April 1953].

Colwell’s rule of the predicate before the verb explains why the article is absent before theos. The result is that the predicate nominative theos becomes qualitative. "God was the Word" means God or deity was the Word’s nature or quality. A similar predicate construction is found in John 4:24: "Spirit (is) the God" (literally). Spirit is the nature or quality of God. Similarly, "flesh" is the predicate in John 1:14: "The Word flesh became" (literally). Flesh became His character or quality. The Word was both fully God and fully man. The predicate constructions are identical: "The Word was God"; "The Word became flesh." "Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh" (I Timothy 3:16). Joseph was told that the child in Mary’s womb would be Emmanuel, or God with us (Matthew 1:23). R.C.H. Lenski wrote of the dual nature of Christ: "The Word did not cease to be what it was before; but it became what it was not before - flesh."

A completely different thought would have been possible if the article had been used before theos. "The God was the Word" would have emphasized identity rather than quality. The sentence would then have read that the Word was with God because God and the Word were the same person. "The God was the Word" would have been like saying, "The Son of God is the Father." This is why A. T. Robertson is correct in saying: "The absence of the article here is on purpose and essential to the true idea."

But anyway, that is not how the verse reads. Two distinct personalities are discussed in John 1:1. One is identified as the God and the other as the Word, and both have the essence of deity. A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament by Dana and Mantey traces the grammatical flow of the verse:

"Pros ton theon points to Christ’s fellowship with the person of the Father; theos en o logos emphasizes Christ’s participation in the essence of the divine nature. The former clearly applies to personality, while the latter applies to character" [A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament, Manttey, p. 140].

These factors make the rendering by Moffatt, "The Logos was divine," unacceptable. The language is too ambiguous. The Word was not simply of God or an emanation; the Word was God. Deity was His nature. And completely wrong is the rendering adopted by the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ New World Translation: "And the Word was a god." (The "a god" rendering first appeared in a 1937 German translation by an ex-Catholic priest). The explanation of the Witnesses that theos or God in the absolute sense is always denoted by the article is fallacious: "The word theos, like a proper name, is freely used with and without the article" (A.T. Robertson). Thomas addressed Christ as God and used the definite article: "My (the) Lord and my (the) God" (John 20:28). He was in the form of a slave and in the likeness of men in the same sense He was in the form of God (Philippians 2:5-9). Benjamin B. Warfield considered the language used here very strong:

"'Form' is a term which expresses the sum of those characterizing qualities which make a thing the precise thing that it is. Thus, the "form" of a sword (in this case mostly matters of external configuration) is all that makes a given piece of metal specifically a sword, rather than, say, a spade. And "the form of God" is the sum of characteristics which make the being we call "God," specifically God,... the whole fullness of attributes which make God God" [Benjamin Warfield, "Person of Christ," I.S.B.E., edit. 1939].

The very fullness of the Godhead or deity dwelt with Him bodily (Colossians 2:9). He did not cease to be God by becoming man. His presence on earth is described as an ephiphany—a technical word used for the appearance on earth of a Greek god (II Timothy 1:10). He is both our great God and savior (Titus 2:13). Even the enemies of Christ acknowledged His claim to diety—only they called it blasphemy and tried to stone Him (John 5:17-18; 8:58-59; 10:33-36). There is no mistake. The Word was God in the complete and fullest sense of the term.

Extraordinarily Common

The footprints He left in time tell us that Christ was something far greater than man. He was ordinary and yet unordinary. He was so common but so uncommon. He was like every man but unlike all men. He was plain. He was simple. He was average. He could pass by unnoticed. He had all the marks of unimportance. There was every reason to discount Him, but no reason can explain Him. It all seems so unusual to argue that He was God because He was extraordinarily common, but the humanity of Christ is the unanswerable evidence of His deity. Athanasius began his defense of the incarnation of Christ with this same point:

"In His manhood He seems so little worth. For it is a fact that the more unbelievers pour scorn on Him, so much the more does He make His Godhead evident. The things which they, as men, rule out as impossible, He plainly shows to be possible; that which they deride as unfitting, His goodness makes most fit ... Thus by what seems His utter proverty and weakness on the cross He overturns the pomp and parade of idols, and quietly and hiddenly wins over the mockers and unbelievers to recognize Him as God" [Athanasius, The Incarnation of the Word of God, p. 25].

He was too common to have been ordinary and too ordinary to have been just a man. "Never man spake like this man" (John 7:46). His words were the words of a common man, but what He said is not what men say at all.

Every man has said things that later he wished he had not said, but not Christ. He always said the right thing at the right time and did what was right (Proverbs 25:11). No man could convict Him of wrong. "Which of you convicteth me of sin?" (John 8:46). He never hesitated and never had to reconsider a matter or reason something through. He always knew and always had the right answer. Every attempt to embarrass Him or prove Him wrong failed. He could silence His most bitter critics with the fewest of words: the woman taken in adultery, "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her" (John 8:7); and on the question of taxes, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s and unto God the things that are God’s" (Matthew 22:21). The situation was always the same. What others had to question, research, and debate, Christ answered immediately in ordinary, simple speech, and was never wrong. No man, even once, could counter His words. He was always unanswerable.

"He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes" (Matthew 7:29). Socrates taught by dialogue. He led his students through discussions, and together they reached conclusions. But Christ did not teach in this way. He merely spoke, and no man (neither follower nor enemy) could add anything to what He said.

He was totally unlike every other religious teacher. Others were careful to separate themselves from what they taught. The truth was higher than they were and was much more important. Mahomet, for instance, said, "This is the truth as God has showed it to me." And before he died, Buddha instructed his followers that remembering him was unimportant, but the truth he had discovered must be revered and kept. Truth was supreme; the teacher was secondary, whoever may have found it. But Christ did not separate Himself from what He taught: "I am the way, the truth, and the life; I am the bread of life; I am the light of the world; I am the door; I am the resurrection and the life" (John 14:6; 6:35; 8:12; 10:9; 11:25). Men do not speak the way Christ spoke—not even those sent from God. Moses never claimed to be Jehovah, nor did Moses even say anything like, "Son, be of good cheer; thy sins are forgiven thee" (Matthew 9:2).

It is always the same, whoever is contrasted with Christ. Men always sound like men, and He always sounds like God. Just as a photograph without contrast would be no picture at all, the contrast here is telling. Christ did not speak like men because He was more than a man. He was God.

"He is tender and compassionate; but he is violent and uncompromising. He could make a child feel at home on his knee; but he could make his powerful enemies quail before him. He said that by him men would be judged; but he was meek and lowly in heart. He said the most awful things about sin that have ever been spoken; but he said the kindest things to sinners that human ears have ever heard. He asks from me my all, yet he gives himself to me utterly. He is the most knowable man who ever lived, yet no one has ever explained him. He asserts his authority at every turn, yet he withdraws from the applauding crowds. His joyous comradeship raises scandal, yet they call him Man of Sorrows" [Leslie Weatherhead, His Life and Ours].

He is not great like Alexander or Frederick. He is beyond greatness. He is the only one. "And the Word was God."