The Word Was God – John 1:1

They knocked on my door and greeted me with an agenda to explain the Bible.  I invited them in and embarked on a several weeks examination of a Watchtower publication describing the message of the Bible.  Our conversations got sticky when I expressed concern about the way their view dishonored Jesus, saying he was God’s first created being.  We wrestled with the meaning of John 1:1, which, in their translation, reads “and the Word was a god.”

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

John’s opening declaration in his Gospel is stunning, powerful and clear.  He describes Jesus as the Word, the logos (Greek), who in Genesis 1:1 style was in the beginning.  He didn’t become in the beginning.  He was.

If I were to say, “in the beginning of my family, my wife and I were,” it would stand to reason that we preceded our family, but also implied would be that we caused this beginning of family.  And the same is true here.  Jesus, the Word, caused the beginning, the same beginning Genesis 1:1 refers to.  And John confirms that in verse 3 when he says that “nothing that came into being came into being without him.”  He is the Creator who has existed from all eternity.

But he also, John says, was with God in the beginning.  The preposition “with” suggests relationship of two separate individuals.  Jesus is not the same person as the Father (here termed “God,” the common way of designating the Father in the Gospel).  Jesus has been in eternal fellowship with the Father.  And they are with each other, working in concert to make this beginning.

And most important of all, this Jesus “was God.”  Jehovah’s Witnesses make much of the fact that the Greek word “God” does not have the article “the” in front of it and should be translated “a god.”  But neither the Greek nor the rest of Scripture will allow that translation (for proof of that see here).

So John starts out his Gospel explaining that Jesus has existed eternally, is a separate person in fellowship with the Father from all eternity, and yet is in every sense God.  Jesus and the Father are the same thing, but not the same person.  They are deity, co-equal, each infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in their being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.  Here in this one verse is proof of what we have come to term the Trinity.

Jesus has expanded our understanding of who God is.  He is, in fact, the Word, the One who explains to us who God is and what He wants us to know.  He has expounded God to us.  He is God’s message to us.  Are you listening?

Discussion Questions

1. What experiences with Jehovah’s Witnesses have you had and what did you learn from them?
2. Could you explain this passage to a Jehovah’s Witness?  How would you defend the translation, “and the Word was God”?
3. How might knowing that Jesus was the Angel of Yahweh in the Old Testament highlight his title of Word of God?
4. How has Jesus explained God to you?
5. What does it mean to be a disciple of this Jesus, the Word of God?