The Deity of Christ According to John 1:1
By Daniel Amari
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1
John 1:1 is a key biblical verse. By the grace of God, I will systematically explain this verse step by step so we all can understand some of the deep ideas it contains.
The Word
Who is the Word? The immediate context leaves no doubt that the Word refers to the Lord Jesus Christ. If you have any doubt just read the whole chapter. Read for example John 1:14:
“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
Keep in mind that the verses of the Bible cannot be taken out of context. They are not independent verses of each other; but they depend on the preceding and following verses to explain them.
John 1:14 says that the Word took upon himself human flesh and lived among us and that we have seen his glory, the glory in the fact that the Word is the only Son from the Father and the Son is full of grace and truth.
And the same chapter continues to explain:
John bore witness about him, and cried out, “This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me ranks before me, because he was before me.'") 16 And from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. (John 1:15-17)
Therefore, there should be no doubt that the Word in this chapter is Jesus. It does not refer to a mere word or to the Bible or to a word from God. It refers to Jesus. And given that, it is easy to see from John 1:1c that Jesus is God because it says the “Word was God.”
Maybe I can finish the article now with this wonderful and complete logical conclusion; however, there are deeper truths that enforce and further explain this doctrine.
In the Beginning was the Word
The word, “was”, in the Greek is very interesting. John has been consistently in this chapter using two words with differentiated meanings: “was” and “became”: In the Greek, “en” and “egeneto,” respectively. Observe the following:
1) When describing the essence or identity of the Word, he uses “was”
2) When using how the Word became flesh or created the world, he uses “became”
“en” in the Greek grammar gives the impression of continuous event in the past. In the other words, Jesus was always in existence in the beginning. However, Jesus was not always flesh. He became flesh at a certain point of time in History. The creation was not always there, but at a certain point, it became to exist when Jesus brought it to existence. Read John 1:3:
“All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.”
In the above verse, the verb “egeneto” was utilized twice to express the idea that creation was made or became “egeneto” by the Word.
The “beginning” as used in the Old Testament and the New Testament could mean many things depending on the following:
1) The associated verb used in the sentence
2) The context of the passage
Given that the verb is “en” and not “egeneto” and given the context of the whole chapter and the way “en” and “egeneto” were used consistently in the first 18 verses, the prologue of logos, it is very evident that the beginning refers to eternity. This means that the Word, Jesus, is eternal. Furthermore, even if the word, “beginning” (“arche” in Greek) was not clear, the verb combined with direct context leaves no doubt that the meaning here is eternality of Jesus.
The beginning could also refer to a specific point in time. For example, Genesis 1:1,
“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
In this case, the verb here is created. This means the beginning in the above verse refers to the point of time (or alternatively state) in which the heavens and the earth were created. In the LXX, the following word is utilized, “epoiesen” from “poiew”, which means “I make.” There is another word that can be used for created, which is “ektisen” from “ktizw.”
The first part of the first verse of the first chapter discusses the origin of the Word and whether the Word was created or was eternal. In the context of John chapter 1, if the intention of the author was to denote that the word was created or was made or was begotten or began at any point of time, then we would have expected the word “egeneto” to be utilized. If not “egeneto”, at least, “poiew” that was used in Genesis 1 or “ktizw.” However, the fact that the author used the verb “en” instead and none of the other valid expected alternatives, this leaves no other possibility but the clear understanding that Jesus is eternal. This usage is very consistent with the Old Testament in which God YHWH was described that he was in the beginning, i.e. he was eternal.
One might say that this is not very clear in English. The answer to this is this was written in Greek. If one reads it respecting its logical context, he will arrive to the same conclusion.
One might wonder if the context can be subjective; and the answer is that the context is what makes it objective. This is evident in that this conclusion is shared by virtually all reputable scholars of the Greek New Testament.
One might again wonder, why this verse won’t say that Jesus is eternal directly and simply; and the answer is it does; the simple reading of it: the Word was always there in the beginning.
The point is: whatever way you read it, directly or utilizing the larger context in question, you will arrive to the same conclusion: Jesus was eternal. He was not created.