Jesus is God in John 1:1, The Trinity, Part 1

I began this subject of the deity of Christ because I got tired of seeing Christians seemingly ignore cultists in Christian groups on social media sites who deny the deity of Christ. And honestly, maybe ignore is the wrong word, it's most likely because they don’t know how to refute the poster’s claim. Maybe I’m cynical, but I sometimes get seriously concerned about the biblical education Christians are being taught by their church. My previous blog was written to dissect a Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW’s) post denying the deity of Christ and I spent the whole blog tearing the post apart because it was so badly constructed. I wanted Christians that might read these posts to understand the tactics of cultists like the JW’s.

In this blog, my goal is to present the scriptural case that Jesus is God and why that is important. I will start with John 1:1 but will continue with other verses that boldly proclaim that Jesus is, in fact, God. I know that some will think a post like this is beneath them but please understand, my desire is to educate and provide the believer with easy to reference information and arguments to refute cultists like a JW or ‘thewordprophet’ who pretend to be Christians for the purposes of confusing and creating doubt in believers in the hopes of stealing sheep from the flock of God.

I also understand that John 1:1 is a verse that apologetics groups encourage you NOT to start with, and I’m not suggesting for anyone to start a conversation with a JW with this verse. But at some point you will need to present a biblical case to them for this verse and it seems wise for you to have a good understanding of the beginning verses of John 1, as well as good information to use as proof that Jesus is God because Scripture says so!

Jesus Claimed to Be God

For this specific blog, I will be using some material found in the book, The Forgotten Trinity by Dr. James R. White. [1] He has taught all levels of Greek for at least a decade and written down some great information in this short book of about 150 pages. He has done a masterful job of making technical information about the Greek language understandable for the layman. Once you've read this blog the cultist you encounter will know less about Greek than you will!

John 1:1-3

Let’s start by looking at John 1:1-3 and then walking through Christian understanding of what John wrote in these short but powerful verses.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. (John 1:1-3 NASB95)

So, let’s break these 3 verses down together.

“In the beginning was the Word” – Who is the “Word”? Jesus is and is how He is described in John 1. And how long has Jesus existed? We don’t know because Jesus has been there with God, from the ‘beginning.’ So, since God is eternal, then Jesus has to be eternal as well, since they were both together from the beginning.
“and the Word was with God” – Who was ‘with God’? Jesus was with God and He is still with God to this day. From the beginning, Jesus has always existed with God the Father.
“and the Word was God.” – Again, who was the word? Jesus. And He was what? God. Not ‘a god’ like the JW’s like to pretend John says, but Jesus was and still is God.
“He was in the beginning with God.” – Who? That’s right, Jesus was in the beginning with God. That means they have always existed together, and they are both God, from the beginning.
“All things came into being through Him” – This is a statement of the creative capabilities and power of Jesus. Because He is God, He can create just like the Father can. And what did He create? All things. Everything that has ever existed came into being through Jesus.
“and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” – In other words, nothing has ever been created that Jesus did not partake in the creation of. Jesus was always a part of whatever took place, from the beginning until now.

We could stop here because this has been the understanding of these three verses for about 2000 years. There have been challenges to the above understanding over the centuries, but those interpretations have been refuted over and over again, just like what has been done by scholars to groups like the JW’s for well over a century. JW’s, in particular, generally refuse to debate scholars on the changes they’ve introduced into their version of the Bible, or reveal where the justifications for some of their unorthodox beliefs come from as well as hiding the credentials of those that create their novel beliefs about Scripture. But that also leaves the layman in a sort of “no man’s land”, with highly technical information about Greek words that are difficult or impossible to understand from a layman’s perspective. That makes those believers unequipped to refute the JW at their doorstep. And that is where this blog is attempting to ‘step in.’

It will not be my goal to focus on every word in these three verses, but on the words that have generated the most conversation with groups like the JW’s.

In the Beginning was the Word - 1:1a

Because groups like the JW’s have retranslated the end of this verse to support their theology that Jesus is NOT God, it’s important to look a little closer at John 1:1-3. I don’t think anyone misunderstands or challenges the fact that the ‘Word’ in these verses of John 1 refer directly to Jesus. But because we will see the word, “was,” three times in this verse, it might be a good idea to define the word’s meaning and usage here and in the rest of this verse. According to James White, the Greek word, ‘en’ or ‘was,’ “expresses continuous action in the past.” [2] Again, according to White, this Greek word does NOT carry the meaning that “something came into existence.” [3] So, “In the beginning was the Word,” does NOT mean somehow that the Word, or Jesus, came into existence. John gives us the tense of the word, ‘en,’ so that no one gets the idea that there was a purposeful intention to insinuate that Jesus at some point ‘came into being or existence.’ His word selection was intentional so as to prevent someone from getting that as an idea from this verse. [4]

Furthermore, in this portion of John 1:1, the opposite should be understood, which is to say that the ‘Word’ or Jesus existed when the ‘beginning’ occurred. So, ‘in the beginning,’ the Word was already there. So, not a year before or a millennium before the ‘beginning,’ since Jesus was already and always present. Jesus was not created and came into being in some beginning timeframe. Jesus has always been present; He has always existed. [5]

The Word was with God - 1:1b

In the second part of verse 1, we need to focus on the last three words, “was with God.” We don’t need to relook at who the ‘Word’ is because it hasn’t changed, it is still referring to Jesus, and that is not going to change in the last part of verse 1 either.

But I think it’s important to reiterate that the word, “was,” still has the same exact meaning as was discussed above. As we saw above, ‘was’ is NOT about the creation of the ‘Word’ but is about His continual existence, His eternal existence with God. It’s not that the Word was all of a sudden ‘with God’ but that the Word has eternally been with God.

I particularly like something that James White wrote in his book about this. The term used in the Greek,

speaks of a personal relationship, in fact, to intimacy. It is the same term that the apostle Paul uses when he speaks of how we presently have a knowledge comparable to seeing in a dim mirror, but someday, in eternity, we will have a clearer knowledge, for we shall see “face to (pros) face” (1 Corinthians 13:12) When you are face to face with someone, you have nowhere to hide. You have a relationship with that person, whether you like it or not. [6]

In other words, John is saying that the Word was “eternally face-to-face with God.” [7] So, the Word was not created, because He has always eternally existed with God and has been in an eternal and intimate relationship with God.

The Word was God - 1:1c

And finally, we end with, “the Word was God.” This is the part of the verse that JW’s love to misquote and "read it as the Word was a god.” JW’s will attempt to give all manner of reasons why it should be rendered ‘a god’ but the bottom line seems to be that their preconceived beliefs force them to find an alternative explanation to avoid rendering something that might give the appearance of Jesus being God.

How a passage or verse is translated is a technical issue and for nontechnical Christians, which all of us generally are, some of this gets confusing rather quickly. We ‘trust’ the translations we read because by and large, all of them are very faithful to the manuscript evidence and the understanding of the Greek language that experts use to create a translation. Whether the Bible we read is the KJV, NKJV, NIV, NASB or the ESV, we generally trust the judgments made in the production of these Bibles. But someone like a JW has one single desire, to make you doubt the Greek language experts of the Bibles we use and instead, put our trust in the ‘experts’ who translated the JW’s New World Translation (NWT).

The questions that ‘non-experts’ have to answer is: who do we trust? I don’t know Greek and all I can go by is either what my Bible says or what I see in a Strong’s concordance or other Greek language resources I possess. But there are a lot of resources for the Christian who really wants to know, even if it takes a little time to figure out how to use the resources correctly. It is also why I footnote so much in my blogs. I want people to know that I’m not making things up. So, here is some great information for this part of John 1:1 that helps bring clarity to the technical reason for why it is translated, “the Word was God.”

The Greek phrase in John 1:1 is ‘theos ēn ho logos’ (literally, “God was the Word”). In Greek, the word theos (“God”) comes before the verb ēn (“was”). The placement of theos is important because it reveals that the Word (or Logos) is truly divine.

The absence of a definite article before a noun does not necessarily render it indefinite. When a predicate noun, like theos in this case, precedes the verb and lacks a definite article, then it is best to see it as either qualitative or definite, rather than indefinite. Thus, translating theos as “a god” misrepresents the grammatical structure.

John 1:1 is not alone in its use of nouns without a definite article. In the New Testament, there are numerous examples where a predicate noun before the verb lacks an article yet is properly understood as qualitative or definite. For instance, in John 1:49, Nathaniel declares, “You are the King of Israel!” In the Greek text, there is not a definite article before the word for “King,” yet it is rightly translated as “the King,” not “a king.”

Why is “the Word was a god” not a valid translation of John 1:1? | GotQuestions.org

So, here is an example of an inconsistency in the way the NWT translated John 1:49 based on their own rules of how John 1:1 should be translated. So, what does John 1:49 say in the NWT?

Na·thanʹa·el responded: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are King of Israel.” (NWT)

And what do the accepted Protestant Bible versions say?

Nathanael answered and saith unto him, Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel. (KJV)

Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.” (NIV)

Nathanael answered Him, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel.” (NASB95)

Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” (ESV)

As you can see, all accepted Christian versions read “the King.” The NWT leaves out the word, “the,” which, to be fair, does not make it read improperly, but if it was going to be consistent with their translation rules of John 1:1, it should have read, “a King.” But as you can see, it does not.

And one last thing to note about this section of John, as one theologian put it, “John is not trying to show who is God, but who is the Word.” [8] Theologian F.F. Bruce, referring to the Greek words used, “theos en ho logos”, said,

Had theos as well as logos been preceded by the article the meaning would have been that the Word was completely identical with God, which is impossible if the Word was also “with God.” What is meant is that the Word shared the nature and being of God. [9]

He was in the beginning with God - John 1:2

So, who was in the beginning with God? Yes, that’s right, Jesus. And again, I’ll quote James White,

Again the English is not quite as expressive as the Greek, for John puts the Greek word translated “He” at the beginning of the phrase so that we could very well understand him to be saying, “This One” was in the beginning, or “This is the One” who eternally existed in personal relationship with God (the Father, as we shall see in verse 18, and as John himself says in 1 John 1:2) [10].

All things came into being through Him - John 1:3a

So, if Jesus was always with God, and all things came into being through Him, through the Word, through Jesus, then creation - all things - is a work of God. And if it came through Jesus, then Jesus has to be God, because only God can create. This verse does not say “some things,” it says “all things.”

And Apart from Him Nothing Came into Being - John 1:3b

And if the first part of verse 3 wasn’t enough, the last part restates that Jesus was a part of creation because there was nothing that has come into being that came into being apart from Jesus. He was there through it all, He participated in everything that has occurred during creation. Not a blade of grass, a tree, a fish, an insect, nothing came into being without Jesus being a part of its creation. This leaves no open door for someone or something other than the divine Jesus, the Word, the logos.

These are powerful statements of who Jesus is.

Colossians 1:16-17

But I would like to draw your attention back to John 1:3, where it starts with, “All things came into being through Him.” Which sounds a lot like Colossians 1:16-17, so let’s take a look at it.

For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. (Col 1:16-17 NASB95)

I wanted to see what the Latin Vulgate said for over 1000 years, because I thought it would be a good historical understanding of its translation from Greek to Latin back in the 4th century. It took a little searching but this is a Latin to English translation provided for Colossians 1:16-17 - Latin English Study Bible.

{1:16} For in him was created everything in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones, or dominations, or principalities, or powers. All things were created through him and in him.

{1:17} And he is before all, and in him all things continue.

The point here is to show that the book of Colossians has essentially read the same for 2000 years. As you can see, I’ve highlighted “all things” in both the NASB95 and the Vulgate. And just to add a little proof of the continuity and consistency to the translation we have for Col 1:16-17, here is the actual 1611 King James Version:

For by him were all things created that are in heauen, and that are in earth, visible and inuisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him. And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. (Col 1:16-17 KJV 1611)

And now the 1769 update [11] of the KJV that most people who use it will see:

For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. (Col 1:16-17 KJV)

Other more recent versions read as follows:

for in him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or authorities--all things were created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Col 1:16-17 RSV)

For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. (Col 1:16-17 NIV)

I could keep going, but I think you get the point. Colossians has read the same since Jerome created the Latin Vulgate between 382 to 408 AD. What we see from the above, is that every major Bible version listed (as well as ESV, NKJV, etc), which covers a span of almost 2000 years, has read virtually the same.

Now, let’s take a look at how the JW’s New World Translation (NWT) reads for these two verses. By contrast the NWT say this for Col 1:16-17,

because by means of him all other things were created in the heavens and on the earth, the things visible and the things invisible, whether they are thrones or lordships or governments or authorities. All other things have been created through him and for him. Also, he is before all other things, and by means of him all other things were made to exist, (Col 1:16-17 NWT)

As you can see, there are some important differences which I’ve highlighted in all of the versions listed above. In four places in these two verses the word “other” was added in the NWT even though there are zero historical versions or manuscripts that support these four changes. This is obviously not in the original Greek because if it had been, all of these Protestant versions would have added it. The fact that none have it means the word “other” does not appear in the original manuscripts. I have actually done an extensive Bible study on this section of Colossians, which can be found here: The Preeminence of Jesus Christ, Col 1:15-18. But let’s look at some of that study now.

Concerning “all things” and quoting my study, the meaning here is:

Every plant, every insect and every animal that exists or ever existed on earth. Every rock, every mineral. Every planet that circles every star, in every galaxy. Everything that exists in the known and unknown universe. Every atomic and sub-atomic particle. Everything.

The Preeminence of Jesus Christ, Col 1:15-18

And concerning the ability to create, quoting my study again,

Creation is an explicit example of the attribute of omnipotence. Creation, by its very nature, requires access to unlimited power, and only God can access that attribute. No created being has the ability to access unlimited power. Mankind has trouble enough just accessing the limited power that God makes available to them.

The Preeminence of Jesus Christ, Col 1:15-18

Continuing our look at creation, John Gill said,

“… eternal things can never be said to be created; this is a contradiction in terms; the Father is not created by Him, nor He Himself as the Son of God, nor the Spirit; but everything that is made is created by Him. Hence it follows that He Himself is no creature, otherwise He must create Himself, which also is a contradiction, since every creature is made by Him; and consequently He must be God, for He that made and built all things is God.” [12]

But this verse says nothing about Jesus being eternal, does it? No, but indirectly it does. Adam Clarke points out that creation is the work of,

“an infinite, unlimited, and unoriginated Being; possessed of all perfections in their highest degrees; capable of knowing, willing, and working infinitely, unlimitedly, and without control: and as creation signifies the production of being where all was absolute nonentity, so it necessarily implies that the Creator acted of and from Himself.” [13]

A being that is infinite and unlimited must by necessity be eternal. Therefore, if Jesus created the universe, then He necessarily acted as an infinite and unlimited being, which makes Him eternal, and which also makes Him God. (Ps 102:25; Isa 44:24; John 1:3; 1 Cor 8:6; Heb 1:2, 1:10; Col 1:20)

So, why did I point out the unauthorized changes added into the NWT at Col 1:16-17? And what does it have to do with John 1:3? I’m glad you asked!

Here is the note that the NWT gives for Col 1:16,

all other things: A literal rendering of the Greek text would be “all things.” (Compare Kingdom Interlinear.) However, such a rendering could give the impression that Jesus was not created but was the Creator himself.

Colossians 1:1-29 | The New World Translation (Study Edition) | NWT Study Bible

So, they change what Scripture says to protect their viewpoint interpretation. Protestants generally go out of their way to never do this because it is so easy to look at the original language manuscripts and see what was actually written, as well as read from commentators that have read the original manuscripts and know their meanings. So, to purposely change what a verse says to promote a viewpoint is dishonest and unethical. There have been a couple of translations and some paraphrased versions that have attempted to make unbiblical changes and they end up being summarily rejected and condemned for doing so. And that is one of the reasons why the NWT is summarily rejected by Protestant scholars. It is dishonest to make the kind of changes that the NWT did in Col 1:16-17.

And what makes this change even more dishonest is that the so-called translators of the NWT were not even consistent in their changes. If the note I reproduced above was actually true, then why didn’t they change John 1:3? That still says, “all things” and gives the rightful impression that Jesus is God because He did create all things, just like John 1 says as well as Colossian 1. So, changing Col 1:16-17 to say, “all other things” exposes the motives of those responsible for creating the NWT. Scripture is consistently saying Jesus is God and the JW hierarchy cannot have their rank and file believing the truths of Scripture and also maintain the purposeful doctrinal misrepresentations the JW organization must press upon its people to keep them from seeing the truths of Scripture.

Conclusion

One of the most central doctrines of the New Testament is the deity of Christ. It is one of the reasons that there is so much in Scripture that tells us who Jesus is. But it is also why so many cults try to twist the clear teachings of Scripture in a way that is intended to confuse a true believer on the nature of Jesus as God. How else can we understand how God can provide the means of salvation laid out in Scripture? If Jesus is NOT God, then the salvation that God brought mankind through Jesus simply does not make sense. Why would Jesus, who has been present with the Father from the beginning, leave His side to become a human, born in a manger? Why would He, as God, agree to grow up in a human household, be submitted to a young Jewish couple when He was the creator of the universe and the creator of this young couple. Jesus knew from the beginning that He would be required to die a horrible death after living a sinless life, and a death whose sole purpose was to pay for the sins of the world. None of this makes any sense unless Jesus is God because neither a man nor an angel could live a perfect life or die a death that would pay for the sins of the world.

And there is the dilemma for those that reject the deity of Christ. If you start with a preconceived idea that Jesus is NOT God, then you really have no choice but to change Scripture to support your preconceived notion that Jesus cannot be God. What these cults like to do is to take each Scripture, one at a time with you, and interject a different meaning to the words of Scripture so that doubt for that verse is introduced. They then move onto the next verse with the same objective – always introducing doubt so that when they are done redefining Scripture, you don’t have any Scriptures left that support the belief that Jesus is God. With each doubt they successfully introduce, the more you start to believe that they are so much smarter than the great theologians of the past that did all the hard work of providing the understanding of the Greek language that has made it possible for all of the Bible translations and commentaries we have had over the last 500 years.

Add to that the fact that far too many Christians have no idea what Scripture says because they hardly ever crack their Bibles open to read. Far too many of today’s preachers long ago stopped believing in the inerrancy of Scripture and spend all their time teaching topical sermons where they rarely if ever quote a Bible verse unless it's to proof-text their topic. Jesus becomes a nice man with whiskers, not the creator God of the universe as Scripture describes Him.

The antidote to this problem is easy – read and study Scripture, and learn how to defend the teachings of Scripture. We have the truth on our side and it's time for us to shine it!

Footnotes

Ibid, p. 50.
Ibid, p. 51.
Ibid, p. 51.
Ibid, p. 51.
Ibid, p. 52.
Ibid, p. 52.
Ibid, p. 54.
Ibid, pp. 54-55.
Ibid, p. 58.
I am not here to argue for or against the KJV. It is a great translation, just as I believe NKJV, NIV, NASB, NASB95, ESV are.

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