Eternity
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God John 1:1
The three statements of John’s opening verse shed enormous light on how he saw Jesus.
‘In the beginning was the Word.’ John believed Jesus Christ shares God’s eternity. We can concretely think back to the beginning of creation. Before that we can only conceptualise God existing. John is saying that before time began Jesus Christ ‘was.’ Hear Jesus’ own words as He prayed, ‘Father glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began … I want those you have given me … to see my glory, the glory you gave me before the creation of the world’ (John 17:5,24). Jesus pre-dates time. From forever past to forever future, Jesus Christ is; so He shares God’s eternity.
‘The Word was with God.’ John believed Jesus Christ shared eternally a unique and intimate relationship with God. The word ‘with’ literally means ‘towards.’ John is implying Jesus was ‘face to face’ with God. Christ was not an emanation from God as was wrongly believed by some first century Christians. Otherwise God would be ‘face to face’ with Himself.
In the chiastic structure of verses 1 to 18, verses 16 to 18 mirror verse 1 and enlarge its meaning. In verse 18 John wrote of ‘the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side’ or more literally ‘the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father …’ (NASB). John wanted to convey that Jesus was ‘close to the Father’s heart’ as a child is to their father. So Jesus Christ shares eternally a unique and intimate relationship with God.
‘The Word was God.’ This third statement unambiguously affirms the deity of Jesus Christ. He is God the Son. He is differentiated from (Father) God by John’s first two statements: Christ is ‘with God’ and ‘at the Father’s side’ but yet what makes God ‘God,’ is what He is. Relationship necessitates different Persons but these two Persons equally share the very essence of God.
Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that because John wrote ‘the Word was God,’ (with no ‘the’ before ‘God’), a justifiable translation is their ‘the word was a God.’ But John’s gospel has similar sentence constructions where John wanted to be very specific. For instance in 1:49 he wrote ‘Rabbi, you are King of Israel’ when he clearly wanted his readers to understand Jesus was being acknowledged as ‘the’ King of Israel (see also 8:39; 17:17; Revelation 1:20). Paul did the same (Romans 14:17; Galatians 4:25).
So in His opening verse John states Jesus Christ shared three things with God the Father: His eternity, an eternal, unique and intimate relationship with Him and finally, His deity.
Saint Jerome famously wrote “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” Let John’s opening verse into your heart. It will illuminate more than just your thinking; it will illuminate Christ to your heart.
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