John 1:1–3 | True Bible Answers

John's opening line does not start with a birth or a family line — it starts before creation, with a Person called "the Word." John makes three short statements about Him: that He was, that He was with God, and that He was God.

Before anything began

The first clause fixes a moment, then tells us Someone was already there.

The opening words of this verse carry us back as far as our minds can reach. They take us to the moment when the first thing that ever had a beginning began. Before that moment there was only God. In that moment of "beginning" the Word "was," that is, existed. He did not begin then; He existed then.

F. B. Hole

The same opening phrase can do two different jobs.

You cannot pick out any moment in eternity, before the work of creation began, when He was not there. He was already there "in the beginning." … "In the beginning God created," and so on, begins time; "In the beginning the Word was," leaves the door open for the eternal.

William Kelly

Why the title "the Word"

A word carries a mind out into the open. That is the force of the name John chooses.

As the Word, He represents the whole mind and thoughts and ways of God. He does this in His own Person, and by what He says and does. Whenever God's thoughts and plans and will have to be revealed, He is the One who reveals them.

W. H. Westcott

Writers set this title beside another one — the Son.

As the Word He is, and He is the expression of the whole mind of God; but as the Son, the eternal Son, He is, in incarnation, the revealer of the Father.

The Christian's Friend

"With God" — a distinct Person, not an idea

Two Persons are already in view in the second clause, and both are eternal.

In the beginning, then, before there was any creature, was the Word, and the Word was with God. So there was distinct personality in the Godhead, and the Word was a distinct Person Himself. He was not, as men imagined, something that flowed out from God in time, even though He is eternal and divine in nature. … The personality was as eternal as the existence.

William Kelly

Another writer lists what the Word was not, before stating what He was.

We learn … that the Word Who became flesh was not an abstract quality or attribute in the beginning. He was not a special outflow of the Deity either. He was a Person existing with God. More than that, this Word was God Himself. … We do not read God was the Word, but the Word was God.

William J. Hocking

"The Word was God" — and the objection to it

Some translations soften the third clause. One writer answers them by looking at the grammar behind the change.

Some have tried to weaken the force of this great statement. They translate it "the Word was Divine," or "the Word was a god," because the text leaves out the definite article — it does not say, "the Word was the God." But those who know Greek tell us that Greek has no indefinite article at all. The word translated "God" is a strong one, and it means proper and absolute Deity. If the text had said the Word was the God, it would have shut Deity up to the Word alone and shut out the other Persons of the Godhead.

F. B. Hole

The same clause answers another question. Does His lowliness as a Man mean He ranks below God?

After He took a servant's form, the Lord used certain language about Himself, and certain terms fit Him once He had become a Man. But it would be quite wrong to think that He held a lower place in Deity before He came. This last clause in our verse destroys any idea of a lower place in the Godhead. "The Word was God"; and God cannot be inferior to God.

W. H. Westcott

A glory guarded in advance

The order of John's clauses protects something. Before John shows us the Son as a Man, he tells us who the Son is.

To guard the divine glory of the Son, the Spirit of God adds, "The Word was God." The Son has become Man, and God has made sure His word protects that glory. No one can use His coming down so low as an excuse to deny it.

An Outline of Sound Words

Summary

- Was, not became. At the point where everything that began began, He already existed; He did not start then, He was there then.

- Was with. "With God" means He is a distinct Person. He is not an attribute, and not something flowing out of God. He is a Person alongside God, as eternal as God's own existence.

- Was God. A missing article does not mean "a god." The wording claims absolute Deity for Him, and still leaves room for the other Persons of the Godhead.

- Was the Word. He is God's whole mind put into expression — every revelation God gives comes through Him.

- Was guarded. John puts this clause first, so no one can turn His lowliness as Man into an argument against His glory.