what does john 1.1 say about the nature of jesus christ

7/23/2019 What Does John 1.1 Say About the Nature of Jesus Christ

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What Does John 1:1 Say About The Nature of Jesus Christ?

Cults that deny the Trinity focus on denying the deity of Christ. It is because a belief in the

deity of Christ could lead to a belief in the Trinity. Thus, they try to water down verses that

clearly teach that Jesus is God such as John 1:1.

The key clause in this verse is “the Word was God.”[1] To deaden the impact of that clause,

the Jehovah’s Witnesses in their NWT[2] rendered it, “the Word was a god.” On the other hand, the

Iglesia ni Cristo argues that the meaning of λόγος or “Word” is merely a concept. So, they claim

that Christ was just an idea or a plan of God. This study will show that “the Word was God” in its

literary context teaches that by nature Jesus is God. Though we cannot build the doctrine of

the Trinity on one verse, an exegetical analysis of John 1:1 in its grammatical-historical

context is a necessary part of that teaching.

Our passage is part of the prologue of the Gospel of John (1:1-18). It talked about the

preexistence of the Word who became man. Here we see that “the only Son” (v. 14) is also

called “the only God” (v. 18). The author expressly stated that the purpose why he wrote this book

was that “[we] may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing [we] may

have life in his name.” (20:31) To believe that Jesus is the Son of God is to believe that He is

God. He started with introducing that “the Word was God” (1:1c) and ended with Thomas

declaring Him, “My Lord and my God!” (20:28) This Gospel is full of references to the deity of

Christ. For example, the Jews sought to kill Jesus because He claimed to be equal with God

by“calling God his own Father” (5:18), by claiming the Divine Name for Himself (8:58), and by

confessing that He and the Father are one (10:30). Therefore, to say that the clause “the Word

was God”

teaches that Jesus is God is really consistent with the whole tenor of the Gospel of

John.

Was John talking about a principle or a person when he talked about ὁ λόγος in John 1:1?

As far as Greek philosophers are concerned, this generic Greek for “word” “stands usually for

‘reason’”.[3] This fits the interpretation that the Word refers to a mere principle. But, it appears

the apostle John had a person in mind rather than reason when he used the term. From verses

1 to 14, John repeatedly used personal pronouns such as “he,” “him,” and “his” to refer to the

Word. So, he was not talking about a principle or even a personification but about the person of

Christ. Walls wrote, “But one refers naturally to Philo’s logos as ‘it,’ to John’s as ‘he.’”[4] Plus,

not only that it shows the Word as the subject, the use of the definite article ὁ (“the”) shows that

John was not just talking about any word but the Word. According to the TDNT, “Only in the

Prologue do we find ho logós in the absolute.”[5] Here in this Gospel, only in this pericopé was

Christ called the Word. After the Word became man in verse 14, He was no longer called the Word

for the rest of the Gospel. The next time we see John called Jesus as the Word is in 1 John 1:1

where the apostle described Him as someone they related to. Then, the last time is in Rev. 19:13

where John said that “the name by which he is called is The Word of God.” Here we see that the

Word is one of His titles. In all these usages of λόγος, he always referred to the person of Christ. In

fact, it seems that only John referred to Jesus as the Word. However, the apostle Paul may be



alluding to this term when he wrote that Christ is “the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24, 30) since the

λόγος “expression takes its suitability primarily from the OT connotation of ‘word’ and its

personification of wisdom.”[6] Therefore, in its use of λόγος, John 1:1 was not talking about a

concept but about the Christ. Yet, despite of this clear Johannine usage, the Iglesia ni Cristo

insists that John 1:1 was talking about an idea in the mind of God. In their official magazine they

declared, “before God created the world, Christ was foreknown or was already in God’s mindbecause He had planned to create the Messiah or Christ.”[7] In their desire to deny the pre-

existence of Christ, this cult group committed a basic error in word study by sticking to a dictionary

meaning that favors their bias against the deity of Christ and then insisting on that meaning alone in

any context. But the context of the word clarifies its meaning. As already noted above, John was

talking in ὁ λόγος about Christ Himself, not just an idea about Him. Also, John wrote, “In the

beginning was the Word”(v. 1a). The copulative verb εἰμί (“was”) is in the imperfect,

which“expresses continuous timeless existence”.[8] Christ was not from the beginning but He

already existed even before the beginning. Both Genesis 1:1 in the Septuagint and John 1:1 in the

Greek New Testament used exactly the same prepositional phrase Ἐν ἀρχῇ and exactly the same

parsing (preposition + noun-dative-singular-feminine), showing that “there is a deliberate allusion

to Gen 1:1 here”.[9] So, the first clause of John 1:1 proves that the person of Christ pre-

existed. In addition to that, according to John 1:1b, “the Word was with God”. The preposition

πρὸς (“with”) shows “accompaniment”, that is, that the Word has a close, interpersonal

relationship with God the Father.[10] He did not simply exist in the mind of God. The Word

was not

“in” God but “with” Him.

The main focus of the debate regarding John 1:1 is with the last clause: καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ

λόγος (“and the Word was God” ).Does it prove His deity? The first clause (“In the beginning

was the Word” ) directly proves the pre-existence of Christ but only implied His deity. Though

the Iglesia ni Cristo might dispute His pre-existence, the Jehovah’s Witnesses can just simply say it

reinforces their belief that Jesus “is the first of God’s creations, that he had a beginning.”[11] ButJohn 1:1a does not say that Christ had a beginning but that He was already there in the beginning.

He was not created but He was the creator (1:2-3). Nevertheless, John 1:1a talks about His pre-

existence explicitly and His deity implicitly. The next clause (“the Word was with God,”

1:1b)

proves that the person of the Word is distinct from the person of God the Father but not the

deity of the Word. Both the Iglesia ni Cristo and the Jehovah’s Witnesses would happily agree

with us when we affirm that our Lord Jesus is not God the Father. For them, that proves that Christ

is different by nature from God. But we are only saying that He is distinct by personhood from

the Father. Still, the second clause deals with His distinction and not His deity. So, the issue is with

the third and last clause of John 1:1.

The noun θεὸς (“God”) in 1:1c is in the emphatic which “stresses [the] essence or

quality”[12] of the λόγος. So, the Word has the same nature as God. Translators have attempted

to draw out this particular meaning. The NEB[13] goes this way: “and what God was the Word

was.” While the translators of the NET Bible conceded in its footnote of John 1:1 that the NEB

has “perhaps the most nuanced rendering,” yet instead for the sake of clarity it translated the third

clause as “the Word was fully God.” The NET Bible did bring out the force of its emphatic

position. While λόγος has the article ὁ (“the”), θεὸς does not and, therefore, it is anarthrous (that is,



without an article).John carefully worded the third clause in such a way that, while affirming

the equality of the nature of the Word with God, he consistently distinguished the person of

Jesus from the person of the Father just as he did in the second clause. So the Word is by

nature God Himself. The third clause gave much sense to the first two clauses of John 1:1. The

Word pre-existed because He is God. Though He is distinct from God, the Word is of the

same essence as God.

As mentioned above, the Jehovah’s Witnesses rendered 1:1c in the NWT as, “the Word was

a god.” They defended their translation by arguing that θεὸς is anarthrous. So, they interpreted θεὸς

as indefinite. But Wallace labels such rendition as “weak”, “simplistic”, and has “an insufficient

basis.”[14] To be consistent, the NWT should have translated every anarthrous θεὸς in John 1 as “a

god” but instead they rendered it as “God” (vv. 6, 12, 13 and 18). Plus, for the sake of argument, if

the NWT was correct in its translation, the Greek construction of 1:1c should have been καὶ ὁ λόγος

ἦν θεὸς instead of καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.[15] The word order upholds the nature of the Word as

equal with God. This is consistent with the language of John (“making himself equal with

God.” 5:18c). Now the next question would be, if θεὸς is not indefinite, then does it follow that it is

definite? The answer is also no. It is neither definite nor indefinite but actually qualitative. Harner

argues that “the anarthrous predicate in [1:1c] has primarily a qualitative significance and that it

would be definite only if there is some specific indication of definiteness in the meaning or

context.”[16] But the context rule out definiteness because that it would make it appear that the

Word is God the Father. Wallace explained that“calling θεὸς in 1:1c definite is the same as saying

that if it had followed the verb it would have had the article.” [17] It is also interesting to note that

the Jehovah’s Witnesses admitted that θεὸς is qualitative, that the anarthrous “points to a quality

about someone.”[18] But, despite that, they still argued that “the text is not saying that Word

(Jesus) was the same as the God with whom he was but, rather, that the Word was godlike, divine, a

god”.[19] Sadly, they read their theological bias into the text rather than allowing the text to

speak for itself. It appears the Jehovah’s Witnesses fell for the same (wrong) mindset of the Iglesiani Cristo, that to say Jesus is God is tantamount to saying that Jesus is the Father. But that was the

exact impression that John intended to avoid in his careful sentence construction of verse 1. Simply

put, for John, Jesus is of the same essence with the Father but He is not Him.

Putting it all together, in one compact verse, John expounded on the deity of Christ. He

existed in eternity before the beginning of everything. He enjoyed a close, personal

relationship with God the Father. His person is distinct from the person of the Father and yet

Jesus definitely shares the same nature with Him.

This study has shown that “the Word was God” in its literary context teaches that by nature

Jesus is God. Instead of watering it down, we should allow the full force of John 1:1 to bear on our

Christology. He is not just a god or a mere godly concept. He is God. Though it is not a surefire

guarantee that believing in the deity of Christ would automatically lead to believing the Trinity

because there are those who ended up thinking that He and the Father are one in person. But, as we

have seen, Jesus is distinct in person from God but equal with God. They are equal in respect but

not in aspect. Yet still, a belief in the deity of Christ forces us to seriously consider the belief in the

Trinity. Thus, in view of that, we are left with only one option: That God is a triune God. Such



confession is the only worthy way to worship God in truth (John 4:24).

© 2012 Bible Exposé Apologetics Ministry. To know more about us, click here.

NOTE: We have moved to our new home, http://bibleexpose.org/.

________________________________

[1]All Bible verses are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL:

Standard Bible Society, 2001) unless otherwise noted.

[2]New World Translation.

[3]A. F. Walls, “Logos,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 2d ed., ed. Walter A.

Elwell (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1984, 2001), 696.

[4]Ibid, 697. Emphasis his.

[5]Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament: Abridged in One

Volume, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1985), 513.

[6]Elwell, 697.

[7]Ruben D. Aromin, “Did Christ have Pre-existence,” Pasugo: God’s Message, November

2005, 12-3.

[8]Cleon L. Rogers, Jr. and Cleon L. Rogers III, The New Linguistic and Exegetical Key to

the Greek New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1998), 175.

[9]Ibid.

[10]Ibid.

[11]“Trinity,” Reasoning from the Scriptures (Brooklyn, NY: Watchtower Bible and Tract

Society, 1985, 1989), 409.

[12]William D. Mounce, Basics of Biblical Greek 2d ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan,

1993, 2003), 27.

[13]New English Bible.

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[14]Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan,

1996), 266-7.

[15]Mounce, 28.

[16]Philip B. Harner, “Qualitative Anarthrous Predicate Nouns: Mark 15:39 and John

1:1,”Journal of Biblical Literature 92, no. 1 (March 1973): 84.

[17]Wallace, 268.

[18]“Jesus Christ,” Reasoning, 212.

[19]Ibid. Emphasis theirs.

what does john 1.1 say about the nature of jesus christ

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