Who is God the Son?

The Son of God was God, the Son, underived, eternally existing.

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.

In the Gospel by John the Spirit of God opens out to us the glories of the Word. As the Word, He is the universal Representative of all the mind and thoughts and ways of God, both in His own Person and by means of what He says and does. If at any time any revelation required, or requires, to be given of God's thoughts and plans and will, the revealing thereof took place, or will take place, through Him. We are to think of Him as the One adequate, and He alone, to fully disclose all that is in the mind of God, and to bring into being all that the mind of God has planned.

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.

"The law was given by Moses." It came, and made claims upon us. It made claims for the right reason that the law is a revelation of what the creature ought to be. As I gaze on the ten commandments I see what I ought to be. My conscience tells me that I am not it. Consequently I am condemned by the law. It naturally condemns me whenever I learn its spirit and its power. But what does the gospel do? It brings the revelation of what God is, not what man ought to be. The chapter we are looking at tells beautifully how God has come into this scene in the Person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It says, "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth." And who is that Word? The opening verse tells us, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." I want you to look at this, "In the beginning was the Word." Then the next thing is, that "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth." By "the Word" what am I to understand? The Eternal Word of God! It is Jesus — the Son of God entering into this scene and becoming a man. Men have said, "God was made flesh." Scripture does not say so. It says the "Word was made flesh;" and the reason is very simple. If I think of God as given to me in the Bible, I have presented to me the Triune God — Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. If I say "God was made flesh," then I should not express the truth, because the Father was never incarnate, and the Spirit of God was never incarnate; but the Son of God, the Word, "became flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth" (ver. 14). The Eternal Son has come into this scene, humbling Himself, and becoming a man, in order that, in the form of a man, He might reveal to us the heart and nature of God; and moreover, that God, in the condition in which He was found as a man, might find all He looked for in man. That is the charm of these beautiful words, "full of grace and truth." The law Moses might bring, but "grace and truth" came only by the Son of God.

There were communications from God previously, there were words from God, assuredly there was a communication of His mind in the manner in which it was conveyed before from God. There were Moses and the prophets, there were the writings of Moses and the writings of the prophets; "holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost;" but there never had been previously a revelation of God in One who, whilst He became a Man, was ever and always God, until Christ came. And hence, we have that blessed simple utterance of the Holy Ghost in the verse that we began to read from, here this evening, "The Word was made flesh:" mark! "the Word," that blessed Word of whom He speaks in the first verse of the chapter; "In the beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God;" that is to say, He was in His existence eternal, in His nature divine, in His Person distinct, and lest there should be any mistake about it, it is said, "the same was in the beginning with God," and also He "was God." Now that blessed Word, who ever existed — for we are carried into eternity here in the gospel, just as we are brought into time in the epistle — became a man; "the Word was made flesh." What a thought for adoring hearts to bow down and worship and adore, as they dwell upon it!

It is of great moment and interest too, that we should rightly understand the value of the words "in the beginning" and "from the beginning." "In the beginning" in the gospel connects us, as we have seen, with eternity; "from the beginning" in the epistle, brings us into time. But then, whilst it is so, the connection is most precious, beloved friends, for our souls; for He who was "from the beginning" in time, was also "in the beginning;" the One that was "from the beginning" was "in the beginning." And that brings us at once to that fourteenth verse, "The Word was made flesh." Now we have got into time. "In the beginning" in the first verse we are before time, we are in eternity. In verse 14 He has come down and become a man, He who was the Word and with God has become a Man; "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt [tabernacled] amongst us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of an only-begotten with a Father, full of grace and truth" — the fulness of grace, and truth.

Proving He was Man, proves nothing; we all believe it as fundamental truth: but was He only a man? Clearly not: He was "the Word:" He "came down from heaven." What was He then before He became a man? He claims to be One with the Father (John 10:30) - can a creature? If He was not a creature He was God; or we have one not created at all, of independent existence in Himself, yet not God, which is confusion and impossible. "By him were all things created:" who did that? He is the Firstborn of the creation, because He created it: all things, moreover, consist by Him (Col. 1:16). He was "in the beginning," and then by him were all things made that are made (John 1:1-3). He, then, was not made: are there two Gods? He laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of His hands; they perish, but He remains. (Heb. 1:8-11) All the angels of God are to worship Him (ver. 6). "Blessed are all they that put their trust in him" (Ps. 2:12), but "cursed be the man that trusts in man" (Jer. 17:5). He and the Father are one: can any creature say that?

An "image" denotes a visible representation of the invisible or absent. The Son, in the eternal light of His Person in the Godhead, is the Image of the invisible God. He did not acquire this competency of representation by creation, as Adam did, who "out of the dust of the ground" was created in the image and glory of God (Gen. 1:27; 1 Cor. 11:7). Man, though made a little lower than the angels, was the appointed representative of his Maker in the world. But the Son is the Creator, and being God, He, as the Image of God, sets Him forth with an infinite fullness inseparable from His personal glory as the Son, which was His before He became flesh.