What does it mean that Jesus was in the beginning with God (John 1:2)?

In the light of this scripture, it is no difficulty to faith, but an indescribable joy, to receive these unfoldings of the transcendent glories of the Word. Not only was the Word in the beginning, but "the Word was with God" — One Person with Another — as truly "with God" (ver. 1) as in manhood the Word was "among us" (ver. 14). Moreover, the Person abides continuous and unchanging, for "the Word was God" (ver. 1).

Then, in verse 2, His distinctive personality with God in the beginning is affirmed, the emphatic pronoun being used in the original to identify Him beyond dispute with the Word: "He [this very One, just named as the Word] was in the beginning with God." We learn, therefore, our hearts meanwhile being charged with adoration, that the Word Who became flesh was not in the beginning an abstract quality or attribute, nor a special emanation of the Deity, but a Person existing with God; and moreover, that this Word was God Himself. Thus, the Word was not a personal distinction of God, but a distinct Person with God, as well as and as truly as He was God Himself. We do not read God was the Word, but the Word was God; let us carefully store in our hearts this distinctiveness of expression.

Further, we are told that the Word was "with God". Not only is the Word an eternal Person, He is also a distinct Person in the Godhead. The "with" denotes, moreover, not only distinctness of Person, but also intercommunion between the Persons in the Godhead. Then we are told that "the Word was God." The opening statement, telling us that the Word is an eternal Person, would imply that He must be a divine Person. But we are not left, in a matter that touches the glory of His Person, to an inference, however correct. We are definitely told that "the Word was God" — a divine Person.

Finally, we learn, "The same was in the beginning with God." This is no mere repetition of the fact already stated that He was a distinct Person with God. Here we learn the additional truth that He was eternally a distinct Person. Thus carefully does the Spirit of God guard the glory of His Person against those who might admit the distinctness of His Person and yet assert that there was a time when He commenced to have a distinct Personal existence.

Both the Lord, referring to the commencement of His ministry, and John, speaking of the commencement of Christianity, use the expression "from the beginning". Here in reference to that which has no commencement we twice have the expression, "in the beginning". Further, it is to be noted that it is said that "the Word was with God" — not the Father. As the Word and God, so the Son and the Father are correlative. The designation God comprehends not only the Father but also the Holy Ghost and the Son. The Word and God speak of the nature of divine Persons: the Father and the Son tell of relationships between divine Persons. The great object of these verses is to establish the glory of Christ as in nature a divine Person.

This being so, the reasoning mind would be inclined to argue: then we cannot speak of the Word as being God in any full or proper sense; even if He is not exactly a creature, seeing He existed before creation. Such reasoning is flatly contradicted by the closing words of verse 1, "the Word was God." Essential Deity was His. Attempts have been made to weaken the force of this great statement, and translate it, "the Word was Divine," or, "the Word was a god," based upon the omission of the definite article; i.e., it does not say, "the Word was the God." But we are told by those who know the Greek that there is in that language no indefinite article, and the word translated "God" is a strong one, denoting proper and absolute Deity; and had it stated that the Word was the God, it would have confined Deity to the Word and excluded therefrom the other Persons of the Godhead. The words are chosen with Divine exactitude: the Word was properly and absolutely God.

Then the second verse carries us back to the first and second statements of verse 1. This distinct Personality which characterizes the Word is not something assumed at some subsequent point of time. Eternal Personality was His. In the beginning He was thus "with God," for this distinction of Personality lies in the very essence of the Godhead. Thus we have had four things stated of the Word. His eternal Being; His distinct Personality; His essential Deity; His eternal Personality. Whatever else we may have to learn about the Word, here are four things that should bow us in lowly adoration.

Again, it is not said that in the beginning He was, in the sense of then coming into being (ἐγένετο), but He existed (ἦν). Thus before all time the Word was. When the great truth of the incarnation is noted in verse 14, it is said — not that the Word came into existence, but that He was made (ἐγένετο) flesh — began so to be. This, therefore, so much the more contrasts with verses 1 and 2.

In the beginning, then, before there was any creature, was the Word, and the Word was with God. There was distinct personality in the Godhead, therefore, and the Word was a distinct person Himself (not, as men dreamt, an emanation in time, though eternal and divine in nature, proceeding from God as its source). The Word had a proper personality, and at the same time was God — "the Word was God." Yea, as the next verse binds and sums up all together, He, the Word, was in the beginning with God. The personality was as eternal as the existence, not in (after some mystic sort) but with God. I can conceive no statement more admirably complete and luminous in the fewest and simplest words.

Next comes the attributing of creation to the Word. This must be the work of God, if anything was; and here again the words are precision itself — "All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made." Other words far less nervous are used elsewhere: unbelief might cavil and construe them into forming or fashioning. Here the Holy Ghost employs the most explicit language, that all things began to be, or received being, through the Word, to the exclusion of one single thing that ever did receive being apart from Him; language which leaves the fullest room for Uncreate Beings, as we have already seen, subsisting eternally and distinctly, yet equally God. Thus the statement is positive that the Word is the source of all things which have received being (γενόμενα); that there is no creature which did not thus derive its being from Him. There cannot, therefore, be a more rigid, absolute shutting out of any creature from origination, save by the Word.

Secondly, the Scripture shows that, commensurate with the eternity of His being is the fact of His possessing separate personality. "In the beginning … the Word was with God." If the evangelist had written "the Word was in God," our foolish minds might have thought that just as Levi was (Heb. 7) in the loins of his father Abraham when Melchisedec met him and only received actual being later, so perhaps our Lord, the Son, the Word, had only received separate being at a special date in eternity. But the Holy Ghost is too jealous of His glory and too accurate in His words to admit this erroneous idea. "In the beginning … the Word was with God." As certain as the Eternity of His being is the separateness of His personality. There never was a time, however remote, when the Word was not with God, ever distinguishable from the Father as the Father, and from the Holy Spirit as the Holy Spirit. Yet there is no suggestion of a second Godhead, for though distinct in personality, He was with God.

Finally, as though to forbid for ever any comparison of Personalities or of glories in the Godhead, or in our conceptions of the Deity, He says "the Word was God." Whatever language the Lord used of Himself after He took a servant's form, or whatever terms might apply when He had become a Man, we should be utterly wrong in supposing that He held an inferior place in Deity before He came. This last clause in our verse is absolutely destructive of any idea of an inferior place in Godhead. "The Word was God"; and God cannot be inferior to God.

"With God" here is literally "toward God"; and this affirms, along with distinctness of Person, the adherence of regard and affection to Him of this Being whose designation as "the Word" points Him out as giving expression to the mind of God. And this Personality and relationship are eternal likewise: the Word is not a development from God, even though a pre-creation one: for "He was in the beginning with God."

Further, we are told that the Word was "with God". Not only is the Word an eternal Person, He is also a distinct Person in the Godhead. The "with" denotes, moreover, not only distinctness of Person, but also intercommunion between the Persons in the Godhead. Then we are told that "the Word was God." The opening statement, telling us that the Word is an eternal Person, would imply that He must be a divine Person. But we are not left, in a matter that touches the glory of His Person, to an inference, however correct. We are definitely told that "the Word was God" — a divine Person.

"The Word was with God" — a distinct Person; "and the Word was God" — a divine Person; and "the same was in the beginning with God" — always personally distinct, as always in communion with the Father.

In the Gospel, John is most careful to say that "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." It matters not how far one essays back in thought into the depths of eternity. Imagine millions of years! These are not the beginning; though of course one cannot with propriety talk of "years" before the measures of time apply. But go back in imagination into these unmeasured depths, there He subsisted. No beginning had He Who is eternal, and in His own personality He was "with God."

In the Gospel, John is most careful to say that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." It matters not how far one essays back in thought into the depths of eternity. Imagine millions of years! These are not the beginning; though of course one cannot with propriety talk of “years” before the measures of time apply. But go back in imagination into these unmeasured depths, there He subsisted. No beginning had He Who is eternal, and in His own personality He was “with God."