BBI II-A: #5 Origin of the “WORD” as the first “LIFE” (Jn. 1:3-4)
In lesson 5 we dig into the Greek text of John 1:3-4. This text was quoted quite differently by the early Christian writers from how it is translated in most of our modern Bibles. The punctuation in all of the critical printed editions of the Greek text of this passage is also ignored in most English versions. When we punctuate these verses as in the printed Greek texts and as quoted by the early Chrsitians, it says something about “Logos” (the Word) which is left out of most Bibles, that He had a beginning of His life and existence. It is not surprising that Trinitarian Bible translators choose to ignore the evidence.
As always, comments and questions are welcome and appreciated. Please post them under the video on the 4Winds Fellowships YouTube channel. (Click on the “Watch on YouTube” in the video above).
14 thoughts on “BBI II-A: #5 Origin of the “WORD” as the first “LIFE” (Jn. 1:3-4)”
Hey Tim,
There are some Unitarians who see John 1:1-5 as a resurrection text. Here’s a comment from one of them:
I respect Tim, but these texts are not about preexistence. These texts are about resurrection life, which was in the first manifested and in the second witnessed.
“The life made apparent, and we have seen, and we witness and report to you the age-enduring life that was with the Father and was made apparent to us…”
This is clearly referring to resurrection life that was with the father and came to be in Jesus at his resurrection. John was a witness to resurrection life, the life-giving spirit. The life that originated or came to be in Jesus was resurrection life. Light is life and darkness is death. Life overcame death. Again resurrection. These are resurrection texts. It is needless to twist and distort to put all of this two persons idea together to push preexistence. What is the good news? The good news of the kingdom is that there is new resurrection life. The life that came to be in Jesus overcame death. When did this happen? Following the ministry and death of Jesus. Not before.
How would you respond to this argument?
Brian
First, “light” and “darkness” throughout the NT (especially in John’s writings) refer to revelation knowledge of God (light) vs. willful ignorance (darkness). This can be easily demonstrated from many passages: (John 1:5; John 3:19; John 8:12; John 12:35,46; 2 Cor. 4:6; 2 Cor. 6:14; Eph. 5:8; Eph. 6:12; 1 Thess. 5:4-5; 1 Pet. 2:9; 1 John 2:8-11), but especially only 2 verses later: 5 This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. “ (1 John 1:5-5).
Second, 1 John 1:1-3 was clearly meant to parallel John’s prologue to His Gospel. In that passage, “In the beginning” was a reference to Genesis 1:1. This is important because the clause “and the Word was with God“ (John 1:1) and “this One was in the beginning with God” (John 1:2) are parallel to “the Life, the age-during, which was with the Father, and was manifested to us” (1 Jn. 1:2 YLT). These “with God” statements (stative verb with the preposition “pros”) require a personal, external accompaniment, exactly as in 1 John 2:1 “we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ”, and obvious reference to Christ’s position at God’s right hand in fulfillment of Psalm 110:1.
Note that “Logos” (Jn. 1:1) and “Logos of Life” (1 John 1:1) was FIRST with God (in His presence, not in His person) and afterwards shown to the Apostles.
There is a consistent problem with the Socinian (Biblical) Unitarian explanations of all of the passages that prove preexistence. They cannot be harmonized together into a consistent whole. It is this severe lack of consistency which lies at the root of the problem, and why Socinian Unitarians cannot even agree with each other on the meaning of many passages, including whether John 1:1-3 and Col. 1:15-18 refers to the Genesis creation or to the “new creation” (neither of which can be harmonized with the grammar), the meaning of Phil. 2:5-10; Heb. 1:8-12, etc. They can often come up with an explanation of one particular problem verse, but it does not fit into the big picture so that the Bible is presenting a consistent picture. All of the problems that pop up when an alleged solution is presented to one problem, shows that Socinian theologians are playing “Whack-a Mole” with the Scriptures.
Tim,
Interesting. I read the comment quoted above and it was my comment copied from a Facebook post.
First, I’m not a Biblical Unitarian or a Socinian Unitarian and I disagree with much of what they teach, but they are right about a lot too. The problem I see with Biblical Unitarian interpretations of John 1.1 is that they separate the word (message) from Jesus. I believe Jesus is the word and that the word is the message of God. Not as some preexistent plan or even as a personification of wisdom. Jesus is the messenger AND the message of God. Life is declared through Jesus as spoken word and by the works of God through Jesus’ ministry. You cannot separate the message from the messenger. If the message is separated from the messenger, then neither the message nor the messenger “happen” John 1.10.
I believe Biblical Unitarians are afraid to concede that the “word” involves Jesus because they are afraid of trinitarians who already know that.
If Biblical Unitarians stopped separating the message and Jesus; and trinitarians stopped combining God and Jesus, ontologically, we could perhaps get past all of the foolishness.
Your response above is not a counter argument to my comment. That light is the testimony of Jesus, which is more than spoken word, it is the works of the Father. That testimony of life illuminates mankind.
We know the light is testimony because John writes several interesting statements made by Jesus about testimony. Beginning at John 5.31 Jesus says:
“My testimony is not valid”
“His (God’s) testimony about me is valid”
“…I do not accept human testimony.”
“John was a lamp that…gave LIGHT, and you…were willing to bask in his LIGHT, but”
“…I have TESTIMONY more substantial than that of John.”
(Note: So we see clearly that John the Baptist’s light is his testimony)
Jesus goes on to state “The works…testify about me…”
“The Father who sent me has Himself testified about me.”
(Note: In contrast, the light of Jesus comes from the testimony of the Father from the Father’s works. The true light is the testimony of God expressed by more than spoken words. The true light is expressed by the eternal life of God dwelling in Jesus, which is God’s testimony about Jesus evidenced by God’s works through Jesus, ultimately, Jesus’ resurrection.)
Jesus concludes in John 5:37-38:
“…You have never heard His (God’s) voice or seen His (God’s) form, nor does His word abide in you, because YOU DO NOT BELIEVE the one he sent.”
(Note: the purpose of witnesses and testimony is to provide evidence others can believe. God testifies by His works – the very works of Jesus – so the world will believe, and belief in the Son is equivalent to belief in the Father.
Contrast those that do not believe in John 5.37-38 with those who believe in John 14.1-11:
John 14.1 “…YOU BELIEVE in God; BELIEVE in Me as well.”
John 14.7 “…From now on you have known Him (God) and have SEEN Him (God).”
John 14.9 “…Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”
John 14.10 “…it is the Father dwelling in me performing His works.”
“…The words I say to you, I do not speak on My own. Instead, it is the Father dwelling in Me, performing His works. 11 BELIEVE Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me—or at least BELIEVE on account of the works themselves.
It is clear from Jesus’ own words that the testimony of God was shown by the works He did through Jesus during Jesus’ ministry. It is also clear that testimony is life coming into the world at the time of Jesus’ ministry, not at the “casting down” of the world or at Genesis 0:0. So the word is made flesh is that message of life happening because the Father dwells in the Son.
John 1.1 may not be directly about the resurrection, just as it is not directly about the creation in Genesis 0:0, but it certainly alludes to it and I do not believe the resurrection is ever far from John’s thoughts.
I see the Word of John 1.1 as the message of God, an expression of God through the ministry, life, death and resurrection of His Son which necessarily requires the involvement of Jesus. The message and the messenger cannot be separated.
By the way, I don’t see where there is place for a birth narrative (what you call incarnation) in the prologue. Within the first six verses John refers to John the Baptist as an adult and contrasts him to that light. When you get to verse 14, how can it be about a baby? The apostle John didn’t know Jesus as a baby or witness his birth. He was his contemporary, his brethren. Viewed further in light of 1 John 1 et seq we see John’s statement about “that which was from the beginning” and “this is the life that was revealed; we have seen it and testified to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us.” So it was the life that was revealed and seen. John didn’t see an incarnation. He saw the resurrected man, Jesus.
Joel
Joel,
There is a great deal I agree with in your above post, especially your comment about not separating the “Messenger” from the “Message.” I am not clear, however, as to whether you believe that the same “Messenger” has brought the “Message” from the beginning (creation). That is the critical point. My view is that the very same “Messenger” has been proclaiming this “Message” since the beginning, albeit HIs identity has been concealed in a “mystery” as “Wisdom,” “Word,” and the “Messenger of Yahweh” upon whom God placed HIs own name and title (Exod. 23:20-23).
There are some Biblical Unitarians who identify “Logos” in John 1:1 as Jesus, including Bill Schlegel. However, they claim that “in the beginning” refers to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, and that “all things” that originated through Him in vs. 3 refers exclusively to the things of the “new creation.” Is that your position? If not, can you please state succinctly when the person (Messenger, who is the Son) began to exist as a conscious being. If (as we agree) the Messenger cannot be separated from the Message, when did the “Message” begin? Was it not spoken to Abraham? (Gal. 3:8), to the Israelites in the wilderness (Heb. 4:2)? Jesus is both the “Founder” and “Finisher” of the Faith (Heb. 12:1-3), that is the “Abrahamic Faith.”
Regarding your question as to why John the Baptist is mentioned in vs. 6-8, it was because John testified to Jesus’ preexistence in His statement in vs. 15. Jesus’ preexistence from “the beginning” and HIs role in creation was clearly established by John in vss. 1-3. Then in vss. 4-5 his interaction with humanity in ancient times was mentioned. He then mentioned that John the Baptist bore witness to Him. This “witness” was his statement in vs. 15 that Jesus existed before him, even though John was born six months before Jesus.
John the Baptist was appointed as the forerunner of the Messiah. John explained why: “the true Light was coming into the world.” However, the Apostle went on to state that He ALREADY was in the world previously, and that the world originated through Him, but the world (which originated through Him) did not know Him. His “coming into the world” was tehn again mentioned in vs. 14, when “Logos became flesh and tabernacled among us.”
The statements in John’s prologue are not chronological in their progression, but are logical in progression, anticipating the opposing arguments of the Gnostics John was refuting (the Nicolaitans and Cerinthus, John’s contemporary).
Tim,
Humans begin existence at birth. Jesus is humankind. Even now he is an immortal Adamic man. Kind begets kind, as you say, can be applied spiritually, but the idea of God splitting Himself or duplicating Himself sounds of Gnosticism. Some of those Christians that you cited in other posts as early church “fathers” were deeply rooted in platonism and Greek philosophy, the very doctrines that gave rise to the writings of John and Paul.
A witness can only testify to what he has seen, heard, tasted, smelled or otherwise experienced with the senses.
John 21:24. This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who has written them down. And we know that his testimony is true.
I have a lot of respect for your work, but take a deep breath and relax. Try to look at the scriptures as they were intended by those who witnessed, testified. Consider the evidence that would make the point of the testimony more or less probable from the standpoint of the writer and the intended audience. John wasn’t writing about incarnation, a word not found. John did not witness the coming to be of the Word prior to creation of birds and creeping things. John did not witness a spirit being birthed by a woman as a baby. Apostolic monotheism (Biblical Unitarianism – your group claims inclusion of early Biblical Unitarian writers and thinkers), as you call it, has John testifying to events that he did not witness with his senses or see by vision. He doesn’t give an account to things he did not witness, even in the revelation.
“In beginning” of John 1:1 is a beginning witnessed by John, otherwise he could not testify to it. Men can become intoxicated by their overstatements. That is the will of man, to rule over and promote their own thoughts, but it is time to come to their senses. Just as John testified, Jesus testified and the other apostles, but most importantly the testimony of God is the only true testimony. Jesus is the testimony of God, and by the works God did through Jesus, we know Jesus is the Messiah. Those works of God – even the works Jesus did – do not testify to Jesus deity or that he was “a god” prior to His birth.
Yours faithfully,
Joel
Joel,
RE: your claim that “humans begin existence at birth” is not a valid argument against the preexistence of Christ. While that is true of most humans, it was not true of Adam or Eve. Each of them were a special and unique creation of God, without any birth or parents, yet both were completely human. So both are exceptions to your claim. Jesus had no human father, so he also is an exception IF “humanity” requires being procreated in the usual way. What these exceptions prove is that your prerequisite for being “human” is wrong. John the Baptist said that God could turn these stones into children of Abraham (Matt. 3:9). Your criterion for judging what God can and cannot do is a philosophical fabrication.
One could argue using your premise that “wine” cannot have a preexistence as “water,” but can only originate from crushing grapes. Yet Scripture declares that the water BECAME wine just as “Logos BECAME flesh.” (This requires that Logos in vs. 1-3 was not “flesh” when He was “in the beginning with God” and when “all things originated through Him”). You are making a philosophical argument, not a biblical or exegetical one. I prefer to accept what the Bible states at face value. John’s prologue states plainly that Logos was “in the beginning with God” and that everything originated “through Him” and “without Him nothing originated.” It says that the same world that “originated through Him” did not “know Him.” So this cannot refer to the “new creation” but must refer to the original creation.
RE: Your claim that the Apostles could only testify to what they saw and heard is contradicted by both Jesus and Paul. The “Spirit of Truth” came upon the Apostles at Pentecost and continued to reveal a great deal to them supernaturally (Jn. 16:12-16). They were eyewitnesses, but also chosen conduits for divine revelation after Jesus’ ascension. John’s prologue is not merely what he observed. It is what was supernaturally revealed, exactly as Paul stated in 1 Cor. 2:7-16. But Jesus also said several things recorded in John’s Gospel which John heard, including statements like “before Abraham was I am,” and “I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent Me,” and “what if you should see the Son of Man ascend to where He was before,” and “And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” etc. These statements of Jesus recorded in John’s Gospel are part of John’s own eyewitness account, part of the things which the Apostles saw and heard (1 John 1:1-3).
You wrote: “Some of those Christians that you cited in other posts as early church “fathers” were deeply rooted in platonism and Greek philosophy, the very doctrines that gave rise to the writings of John and Paul.”
Are you suggesting that John and Paul were influenced by Gnosticism? They were writing AGAINST Gnosticism, Platonism, and Greek philosophy. The writings of John and Paul when taken at face value (without any philosophical filter, either Greek or Hebrew) require that the Son preexisted from the “beginning” recorded in Genesis 1. Viewing their statements at face value is not viewing them through Platonism or Greek philosophy. The idea that the Son of God “became flesh” is totally incompatible with Greek philosophy which held as axiomatic that a divine being cannot be susceptible to change. This was Celsus’ very effective argument against the early Christians who claimed that the divine Son of God really “became flesh,” and understood Phil. 2:6-8 as the Divine Son “becoming in the likeness of humans” as a total transformation of nature. The idea of a Platonic “incarnation” developed later (late 2nd cent. beginning with Melito of Sardis) in response to Celsus’ refutation of Christianity. But the Platonic “incarnation” was not what the earliest Christians taught.
John’s purpose in writing His Gospel was to support Paul’s earlier teaching, and to refute the Gnostic teachers who had opposed Paul and were twisting his writings. John’s prologue takes into account the divine revelation given through Paul earlier, especially from Colossians 1, Philippians 2, and Hebrews 1-2, as well as John’s own mature understanding of several things that Jesus Himself said (but HIs disciples may not have been fully understood at the time).
Tim,
In your previous comment you asked of me: “can you please state succinctly when the person (Messenger, who is the Son) began to exist as a conscious being?” You were very careful not to indicate the intended person’s name (Jesus) or his humanity. It somehow still astonishes me that men can so confidently speak of Christ in such a way; however, there was a time that I was not sensitive to it.
The gnostic doctrines that many of your early church “fathers” (also brashly contrary to scripture Matt. 23:9) taught, which gave rise/caused/ prompted both John and Paul to write in opposition to those false doctrines, are the very doctrines you teach, although it is a mystery to you. I’m uncertain how you get around 1 John 4:2-3 and 2 John 1:5-11 but I’m sure you’ve written on it. Jesus was humankind, is humankind and will come again humankind. I’m not getting into to Adam and Eve as exceptions to humanity, I’m simply referring to Jesus as having been “born according to the flesh.” The meaning of this phrase is human. So, generally, humans are born and come to be at birth. Of course, some Arians will state that begotten “always” means “birthed of a woman” and most go further borrowing for the JWs that Jesus was a birthed of a woman god (little “g”). I disagree. You probably do not disagree with the statement that Jesus was fully a man, but I’m willing to bet that you have not fully thought it through. You might use stones as example, but this is not about what God can do, it is about what scripture says He did. Being a man is not a matter of degree if he is a man in all respects. Scripture says “all respects” and to take that away from Jesus should be something to consider very very carefully because he who does not have the Son, also does not have the Father.
When you look at the usage of “beginning”/Arche, how do you, for example, again in 2 John 1:5-6, not pick up the context? I’m not arguing a position, just stating res ipsa. John uses the phrase “from the beginning” at 6:64; 8:44; 1 John 1:1; 2:7, 13, 14, 24; 3:8, 11; see also 2 John 6.
I don’t want to argue with you at all l, especially not about what God can do, instead I propose that the focus should remain on what God did through the man, Jesus. That is what matters, the doctrine of Christ, and we had better stay in it. I believe Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah of God. That belief is what gives us the right to “become” children of God, born of the will of God.
Further, regarding the prologue, do you agree it was life in mankind that came to be, through the man, Jesus? Where there was darkness/death, now there is light/life? Just look at the numerous examples in the Old Testament. I agree that there was a hidden message in the Old Testament, but disagree that the message was that “a god” would be transformed into a man. The mystery was that the Messiah would reconcile creation and that life in the coming age/Kingdom would be granted by the grace of God to those who believe Jesus is the Messiah. That message of God is no longer hidden because Jesus declared the message with his own life, death and resurrection. In John 1, the message cannot be separated from Jesus because the message is expressed through Jesus, more than an uttered word, a physically realized eternal life, resurrection… that which John heard, saw, gazed upon, handled, is the Father’s message. The Father “testifies” of the Son by the works leading to the ultimate work, resurrection/reconciliation/renewal a renewed beginning of “all things”. The Father also testified “of” the Son by the Father’s works in the Old Testament, but not “by” the Son, rather God, in various ways… spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets; however, “in these last days he spoke to us by his Son.” I know you’ve read it and have probably written about it, but I believe it is worth reading again.
John’s prologue IS what John observed, AND, in a different sense than your statement, it was supernaturally revealed to John, i.e. observation of the resurrected Jesus. John recounts that the disciples witnessed Jesus three times after His resurrection. The Greek words marture, martureomai, marturia occur forty-seven times in John, and are translated witness, testimony, to bear witness, or to testify. Combined, the synoptics use those words plus marturion about twenty times. Acts uses those words plus marturomai about twenty nine times.
I’m not a fan of the word “pre-existence”. I think it is overused by Arians, Biblical Unitarians and now Apostolic Monotheists. A thing exists or it does not exist, but to believe a thing can pre-exist or exist before it exists is nonsensical. Even a Biblical Unitarian who says the logos is a plan, knows the plan exists or does not exist, it cannot “pre-exist.” A thing cannot pre-exist as another thing. The thing exists as it exists at one time and exists as it exists at another time. Should we say that we are adults who pre-existed as a children or that we are adults who once were children. The concept of pre-existence is confusing and leads to distortion and speculation. Origen is the “originator” of the doctrine of pre-existence, another church “father,” (not my father) who taught that the soul pre-exists human birth. Philo also taught pre-existence and may have influenced Origen.
Joel
Joel,
1. I was not “very careful not to indicate the intended person’s name (Jesus) or his humanity.” I was addressing your comment that one cannot separate the message from the “Messenger” (in context we were speaking about “Logos – Word” in John’s prologue). You claim that “Logos” was Jesus. I agree, but your view cannot accommodate the statement, “Logos BECAME flesh and tabernacled among us.” This requires a transformation TO “flesh,” and that He was not “flesh” before He “became flesh.”
2. You wrote: “I’m uncertain how you get around 1 John 4:2-3 and 2 John 1:5-11 …”. I do not get around them. I fully embrace every word. The Son of God, “the Word BECAME flesh and tabernacled among us,”; the one who was “in the form of God” and “equal with God” chose to “empty Himself, taking the form of a servant, and BECOMING in the likeness of men”. Such statements as these require a complete transformation, with the end-result being that He was completely human in His ontological nature, having no uniquely divine qualities not shared by all humanity. It is a false dichotomy to insist that one must have a certain “origin” in order to be human.
3. I have considered every time John and Jesus used the clause “from the beginning.” It is clear that it was used (indisputably) to refer to at least three different time periods.
a. From the beginning of Genesis (Matt. 19:8; Mark 10:6; John 8:44; 1 John 3:8)
b. From the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry (John 15:27)
c. From the beginning of the Apostolic preaching post-Pentecost (1 John 2:24).
There are several passages which are in dispute between us, including John 1:1; 1 John 1:1; 1 John 2:13-15. But you are misrepresenting the evidence if you claim that “from the beginning” must refer exclusively to the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. What ought to be obvious is that in most cases, “the beginning” is qualified or limited in the context, such as “what you heard from the beginning” limits this clause to what the readers themselves “heard.” However, there are several “beginning” statements that are NOT qualified or limited in the immediate context, such as John 1:1 “In the beginning” and 1 John 1:1 “from the beginning.” John expected his readers to understand what both of these clauses meant WITHOUT any qualifiers. Furthermore, making “from the beginning” necessarily refer to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry makes at least one of these statements superfluous and absurd: “I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning” (1 Jn. 2:13 NASB). So John was stating that Jesus has been “from the beginning” of His own ministry? That is nonsense.
4. John’s “eyewitness” testimony includes things Jesus said about His having come down from heaven, ascending back to where He was before, all part of what the disciples “heard” from Jesus Himself (1 Jn. 1:1-3). But it also includes their “witnessing” what was revealed after Pentecost through the Spirit of Truth. Was John an eyewitness to “Logos became flesh” (Jn. 1:14)? Was John an eyewitness to “and Logos was with God” (Jn. 1:1b) and “He was in the beginning with God” (Jn 1:2)?
5. I do not like the term “preexistence” either. But the concept is sound, that the only-begotten Son of God came down from heaven, that He BECAME flesh, that He BECAME in the likeness of men, that He had to (conform) BE MADE LIKE UNTO His brethren. In each case this language indicates that He became something He was not before, as does also “though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor.” This is precisely what the Bible teaches in language that a child could understand. You repeatedly appeal to gnosticism in your attempt to poison the well for the idea of “preexistence.” But one does not need to presuppose any form of gnosticism or Greek philosophy to take all of these statements literally, such as John 3:13, using the norms of interpreting and understanding speech. The earliest Christian martyrs took these Scriptures literally and at face value. Yes, Greek philosophical concepts eventually led to redefining the simple teaching of Scripture that “Logos BECAME flesh” into “Logos CLOTHED HIMSELF with flesh,” and eventually Trinitarianism. But that was not the original teaching.
I’ve been writing by text so please excuse spelling and syntax. Maybe someday we can talk.
I don’t think as you do in terms of combative banter. I’m not stating claims. My belief is that logos in John 1:1 is both the message and the man Jesus. To me that is distinctive to stating “the logos is Jesus.”
Logos is not “always” the message and the man, but in John 1 the message of God is expressed through the man, Jesus. Jesus himself states that IF he bears witness of himself, his witness is not true.
This and other statements concerning the testimony should emphatically indicate to the reader that this message is God’s message. This logos is the Father’s logos. I think if you do not hold in view the relationship between Jesus and the Father it leads to a different understanding. Those that knew him from the beginning would be absurd, but it is Him, the Father who they have known from the beginning by the Father’s testimony through the man, Jesus. Do you see that in 1 John 2:13?
Perhaps the difficulty you are having with John 1:14 is with regard to ginomai, this coming to be of the logos in a man, flesh, sarx. Becoming the son of God is by anointing, appointment it is by right, a name/authority given. What happened to Jesus must happen to each of us who is given to Him by God. And, John tells us over and over again that those who believe are given, granted the right to ginomai/become the sons of God. I see John 1:14 as a resurrection text. The word indwelt/tabernacled and “we” John and others “beheld” HIS glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father. Begotten refers to the resurrection of life. John wrote this after he witnessed the resurrected man Jesus and beheld THE glory. Do you at least acknowledge that John witnessed the “glorified” Jesus, not a baby?
It has to be consistent. What does it say about us and how we “come to be” sons of God, by adoption. Jesus was the legitimate heir of promise. We are not until we believe in him and abide in the doctrine of Christ, that he is the Messiah of God, the anointed King, our Master. You would say it but your heart takes you to another place.
Maybe we can talk sometime.
Joel
Joel,
When I try to reconcile your explanations of “beginning” and “Logos” with John’s prologue, I cannot make any sense of it, or see any logical progression of ideas. Several things just do not make any sense to me:
1. “In the beginning was Logos,” what does that mean if “in the beginning” refers to Jesus’ public ministry? Jesus existed at the beginning of His own ministry?????
2. “… and Logos was with God, and Logos was God.” What does that mean? How can Jesus/Message be both “with God” and be “God” simultaneously? (“God” is always a personal noun). These are mutually exclusive if “God” in 1:c refers to the Father.
3. “He was in the beginning with God,” Why did John repeat and stress that Logos was “in the beginning with God”? At what location?
4. “Everything originated through Him and without Him nothing originated,” If this is the “new creation” why is everything in the past tense (aorist indicative)? The new creation is still future.
5. “He was in the world, and the world originated through Him, and the world did not know Him” If the “world” which originated through Him is the new creation, why did the “new creation” not know Him?
6. “And Logos became flesh …” If “Logos” is Jesus in the previous verses (from the “beginning”), when did He “BECOME flesh”? Wasn’t He already flesh at the “beginning” of His ministry? What was He before He “became flesh?”
7. “… and tabernacled among us” To “tabernacle” means to take a humble tent as a dwelling. How does this correspond to His becoming “flesh?” (hint – 2 Cor. 8:9)
However, when John’s prologue is read without imposing philosophical filters (Greek or Hebrew), taking the statements literally and at face value the way language is normally understood, it all makes perfect sense. It flows in a logical progression of ideas, and it harmonizes perfectly with many other (preexistence) statements in John’s Gospel (John 3:13; John 6:38,62; John 8:58; John 16:26-30; John 17:5,24); and with John’s epistles (1 John 1:1-3; 1 John 2:13-14); and with Revelation (Rev. 3:14; Rev. 19:13).
Harmony is the indication of truth. I see no harmony in the explanations you have offered, only different ideas that are illogical and do not fit together. It looks to me like a desperate attempt to avoid what is glaringly obvious — the idea that Jesus the mortal man existed as the divine “Son of God” before He became “Son of Man,” exactly as the earliest Christians claimed.
The concept of an immortal person (the only-begotten Son of God) being fully transformed into a mortal person is just as reasonable as the concept of dead mortals who have returned to dust being fully transformed into living immortal persons in the resurrection, yet still being the same person. The arguments raised against this have been philosophical and false dichotomies, not based on well-exegeted statements of Scripture, but a series of attempts to deny the simple sense of the text. You have made a valiant attempt to avoid some of the inherent problems of Anthony Buzzard’s version of John’s prologue, but your view has even more problems than his, IMHO. Anthony is correct that “in the beginning” refers to the creation account in Gen. 1.
I was a Trinitarian for many years, and I originally taught Trinitarianism as a pastor before I was forced by Scripture to abandon it. But the same exegetical principles that forced me to take all of the “one God” statements literally also force me to take all of the “preexistence” statements literally. I refuse to use a double standard. I can tell you this: these attempts to deny the Son’s origin at the beginning of creation using the kind of argumentation I have seen from Unitarians will never put a scratch on Trinitarianism simply because they are filled with double standards.
Pretense is disappointing to witness from professed Christians. If you are so inclined go to John 17. Compare the Greek words and concepts John uses there with the same key words in John 1. Romans 6 also comes to mind. If you seek His will, He will show you. As Bill Schlegel says the humble will hear and rejoice.
Yours very truly,
Joel
Joel,
Condescension is no substitute for well-reasoned arguments and superior exegesis of Scripture. True “humility” regarding apologetics is when we approach the Scriptures with great fear of God and respect for His word, refraining from devising schemes to force them to fit our pre-determined outcomes, but allowing their simple meaning to shape our theology. Forcing God’s word is driven by unbelief not faith.
Hi Tim,
When you write, ” Note that “Logos” (Jn. 1:1) and “Logos of Life” (1 John 1:1) was FIRST with God (in His presence, not in His person) and afterwards shown to the Apostles.”, does “His” refer to the presence of “Logos” or that of God?James
The WORD was in God’s presence (with God) and afterward shown to the disciples.