Room 2 of 20
John 1:1
The Word was God
Verse
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Why they use it
They say “the Word was God” means Jesus is the same being as the Father.
Why they are wrong
The Word was God — and the Word was with God. John will not let you collapse those two lines.
Translation note
Greek: pros (πρός)
toward / in relationship with — not ‘absorbed into’
The Word is toward God. Then the Word is God. John can say both because he is not glueing two persons into one essence. He is naming the Son who is divine and is with the Father.
The room (aka the context)
- Who wrote it
- John.
- Who is in the room
- A church arguing about who Jesus is — not a later creed committee.
- Who is speaking
- The narrator, opening the Gospel.
- What is going on
- John starts where Genesis starts. The Word is not a creature who showed up late. He is with God, and He is God, and then He becomes flesh.
- What they already believe
- Jesus is the divine Word. They are not reciting Nicea. Nicea is three centuries out.
- How they would hear these words
- “Was God” does not delete “with God.” Two lines in one verse. If they were the same isolated being, “with” is a waste of ink.
Clarifying verse
John 1:14
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
Fourteen verses later the Word becomes flesh and we behold the glory of the Father’s only Son. John 17:3 then says eternal life is knowing the Father *and* Jesus Christ whom He sent. Gospel Topics and FAIR send you here: we confess the Word is God. We refuse to erase the Father He is with.
Gal1:8 topic →Mark it
Tap when you can say the verse out loud.