What does it mean that the Word was with God (John 1:1)?

The opening words of the first verse carry us back to the most remote moment that our minds are capable of conceiving: the moment when there began the first thing that ever had a beginning: the moment on the further side of which there was only — GOD. In that moment of "beginning" the Word "was," that is, existed. He did not begin then; He existed then. His eternal Being is proclaimed, and we are carried back before the opening words of Genesis 1. Further He was "with God." Our minds are still back at that remote moment, and we discover that then He was possessed of distinct Personality. The Word is not a title of the Godhead in a general way, apart from any special distinction, for in being "with God" a special, distinctive place is definitely stated.

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.

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.

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.

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.

By the fact of this eternity of existence He is necessarily God: God only is the "Eternal;" but the apostle will not leave us to such an inference: "the Word was with God," he says, "and the Word was God," — a distinct Person in the unity of the Godhead.

"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."

Thus a glimpse is permitted us into what is involved in a plurality of Persons in the Godhead. "God is love:" and are we to think of Him before creation as dwelling in a blank and utter solitude, alone, with no outflow for His love? no object towards which it could flow out? even now with no sufficient object worthy of Himself? And He, the Father, was He no Father then? and have His creatures alone given Him the reality of such a title? Nay, there was in the Godhead as such, as this passage already shows, an activity, a reception, an intercommunion of love: "the Word was with God," toward God. The Only-begotten Son was then in the bosom of the Father. That "bosom of the Father" is not a development, but a glorious, everlasting reality.

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.

"IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD." In this opening statement of the Gospel of John our thoughts are carried back to Eternity, and by the infinite grace of our God there is revealed to us who and what was there. Before Time began or ever the first creatorial word was uttered the Word was there. But He was not alone, "THE WORD WAS WITH GOD." The "with" of that statement not only reveals to us the distinct personality of the Word, but implies companionship and oneness of thought and life. The Word was in absolute accord with God. There was no breach in the harmony of that timeless eternity; between God and the Word there was perfect, ineffable communion. "The face of the eternal Word, if we may dare so to express ourselves, was ever directed to the face of the eternal Father" (Liddon); or to use those divinely inspired words in Proverbs 8. "Then was I by Him, as one brought up with Him, and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him," or to come to the more intimate and fuller revelation which is in this same chapter, we learn that this same Person, as the only-begotten Son, is in the bosom of the Father. No creature mind can fathom the depth and blessedness and intimacy of that eternal witnesses, but we know of no human language that could express it better.

‘In the beginning was the Word’: the eternal existence of the Word; ‘and the Word was with God’: the distinct personality of the Word; ‘and the Word was God’: the divine nature (deity) of the Word; ‘He was in the beginning with God’: that the distinct personality and divine nature (deity) of the Word are as eternal as His existence.

Thus He, whom we know to be the Son of the Father, is here presented as the Word — who subsisted personally in the beginning (ἐν ἀρχῆ) — who was with God, and was Himself God — of the same nature, yet a distinct personal being. To clench this matter specially against all reveries of Gnostics or others, it is added, that He was in the beginning with God.* Observe another thing: "The Word was with God" — not the Father. As the Word and God, so the Son and the Father are correlative. We are here in the exactest phrase, and at the same time in the briefest terms, brought into the presence of the deepest conceivable truths which God, alone knowing, alone could communicate to man. Indeed, it is He alone who gives the truth; for this is not the bare knowledge of such or such facts, whatever the accuracy of the information. Were all things conveyed with the most admirable correctness, it would not amount to divine revelation. Such a communication would still differ, not in degree only, but in kind. A revelation from God not only supposes true statements, but God's mind made known so as to act morally on man, forming his thoughts and affections according to His own character. God makes Himself known in what He communicates by, of, and in Christ.

As to the meaning of the term, "the WORD," it brings before us the fact that "He is, and He is the expression of the whole mind that subsists in God." All that God is, is therefore revealed in Him; and hence it was said, "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him." (v. 18.) Only here, He who was the Word is spoken of as the only begotten 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.