John 1:1 and the Jehovah’s Witnesses – Episode 4, Begotten, Not Created

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)

Jehovah’s Witnesses argue that Jesus is not God.  In their translation of John 1:1 it reads, “and the Word was a god,” and teach that “He is the only one created directly by Jehovah and is therefore appropriately called God’s ‘only-begotten’ Son.”

The implication of this statement is that “only-begotten” equals “only direct creation.” But nothing could be further from the truth. When you create, you create something different than yourself. Even if I could create a human-like android that looked like and acted like me, it would still be different than me. But when I beget, I beget something exactly like me at the DNA level.  What I beget is other than me but is not different from me. We’re of the same stuff. We’re “related” in the most basic of ways.

This is how the Biblical writers think of Jesus’ sonship. Sonship means equality. 

…God spoke to the fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us
by the Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the world, He being the radiance of God’s glory and the exact imprint of His nature…
(Hebrews 1:1-3, author’s translation)

The word translated “exact imprint” is the Greek word character, and is used in the New
Testament only in Hebrews 1:3. It originally referred to the engraving tool and then came to mean the mold or form with which something was shaped. You cannot be the exact imprint of someone’s nature and not be just like them. My sons and daughters are the exact imprint of mine and my wife’s nature. They share our DNA. We are all the exact imprint of Adam’s nature, our original father.

Creating is totally different from begetting or birthing. So, it is incorrect for Jehovah’s Witnesses or anybody to define “only begotten” as “only created.” If being the unique Son of God meant the first and highest created being, Jesus could have avoided accusations of blasphemy and the cross. It was when he claimed a unique sonship to the Father that the leadership among the Jews decided he needed to be killed.

The apostle John recounts for us:

And because of this the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he did these things on
the Sabbath. But Jesus responded to them, “My Father is working until now and I too
am working.” For this reason, then, the Jews began seeking rather to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was saying God was his own Father,
making himself equal with God. (John 5:16-18, author’s translation)

Sonship with the Father means equality with the Father. Because Jesus and the Father are the same thing, him being begotten, not created, by the Father, they share the same divinity. What the Father is able to do, the Son is also able to do. Their work is the same work because they are the same kind of being, deity. John understands this. It is not only the interpretation of the Jews that he is sharing, but his own interpretation. “Saying God was his own Father” was the same as “making himself equal with God.” If John did not share that same interpretation, he should have challenged it. But, of course, he didn’t challenge it. 

John did not believe that Jesus was “the only one directly created by Jehovah,” but rather that Jesus was in every way equal to God, was, in fact, the God who was with God in the beginning.