Eclectic Christian

Christ on the throne

By Michael Bell

This is Part 6, of a multi-part series looking at the deity of Christ. Here are the links to the Introduction and Table of Contents.

In our previous post we introduce Jesus Christ as the Word of God. John 1:1 makes a very powerful statement about the Word of God, he says, “The Word was God.”

Now this I think is probably my most difficult post to write in this series. I entitled my series “Reflections…” because they are my thoughts on the subject. In giving my thoughts on the subject, I wanted to prompt your thoughts on the subject as well. Sometimes though, when you get a statement as powerful as “The Word was God”, it is difficult not to dive to deeply into the intricacies that exist, especially when there has been considerable debate around the meaning of the term. I will try however to make it an enjoyable rather than mind numbing read.

The phrase “The Word was God”, when read in the Greek language, has a few interesting parts to it, especially considering its brevity.

• There are dual subjects, otherwise known as nominatives in the phrase, “The Word” and “God”.
• There is an equating verb, “was”.
• The word order in Greek is reversed from that in our English Bibles, so that the term for God appears before the term for “The Word”. It should be noted however that word order in Greek is of secondary importance, so that while it might aid our understanding of the meaning of this text, we should be careful not to base a theology upon word order.
• Only “Word” is accompanied by the definite article “The”, “God” is not accompanies by the definite article. Greek has no indefinite article “A”. Lack of a definite article, will often result in the understanding of an implied English “A”.  This however is not the case here because…
• Greek grammatical studies have shown that when two subjects are joined by an equating verb and the one subject has a definite article associated with it, then the second subject either has an implied definite article (Colwell’s rule) or is to be understood qualitatively (Harner’s analysis).

Now if your eyes haven’t glazed over and you would like to read more about about the Greek intricacies related to John 1:1, and why some of the other understandings of this verse are lacking in validity then here is one of the many web resources available on the topic. If your eyes have glazed over, then let me gently bring you back with a plain English explanation.

The best ways to understand John 1:1 is that either John is directly equating Jesus with God, or John is saying that Jesus has all the attributes and qualities of God.  As Daniel Wallace states:

He shared the essence of the Father, though they differed in person.  The construction the evangelist chose to express this idea was the most concise way he could have stated that the Word was God and yet was distinct from the Father. - Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, p. 269

All the attributes and qualities of God. This fits so well with what we have learned from the previous scripture passages that we considered, where we read that Christ was “in very nature God”, the “image of the invisible God”, and “the exact representation of [God's] being”.

Notice the interesting parallel we have with John 1:14. “The Word became flesh”. We see the movement here of the Word, having the attributes and qualities of God, taking on the attributes and qualities of a human being. It is a movement echoed in Philippians 2, from being “in very nature God”, to “taking the very nature of a servant.”

By looking again at the quotation by Daniel Wallace we can see how the Word can be both with God and yet be God at the same time. For the the Word, while having the essence of God, is also understood to be distinct from the Father. This again fits very nicely with the diagram of the Trinity that we introduced in an earlier post which showed that while Jesus is God, Jesus is not the father.

“The Word was with God, and the Word was God.”  It is amazing how much meaning can be packed into such a short phrase.  What a wonderful concept.