In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. (John 1:1)
John explains the purpose of his Gospel as follows: “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (John 20:31). He does not tell us this until the end of his Gospel, although the doctrine is repeatedly asserted and illustrated in the text. It may be that he wishes to guide us to this conclusion, or to reach this conclusion with him as he presents episodes from the life and teaching of Jesus Christ.
In any case, the central proposition that John advances by this Gospel is “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.” And John advances the proposition because it is by believing this that men will “have life in his name.” Thus we know that this Gospel is about Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ was the incarnation of the Son of God. That is, God took upon himself a human nature and lived on the earth for a time. He was the God-man.
However, John begins his Gospel with no mention of the God-man. He does not make the incarnation explicit until 1:14. One might argue that it is suggested in the previous verses, but they only indicate that “the Word” was in the world, and not that he was made flesh. The idea that the earlier verses could refer to the incarnation must be read back into them after the later verses are understood. And John does not name the incarnate Son of God as Jesus Christ until 1:17. Rather, he begins with several definite and precise statements about “the Word” without any consideration of the incarnation or the name of Jesus.
John does not introduce his subject as Jesus Christ right away, because he traces the history of this person to a time before the incarnation, stating that he was already in existence. And in fact, he traces the history of this person to a point before creation itself, stating that he was already in existence even at that point, that he was not a creature, but that he was the one who made all things. That which he calls “the Word” did not take upon himself a human nature until God’s appointed time. As Paul writes, “But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law” (Galatians 4:4). Although he was born as a human person at that time, he had been in existence as the Word even before time.
This does not undermine the incarnation; indeed, it highlights and explains the doctrine. This approach highlights the doctrine because the incarnation would lose all meaning if it is taken as the birth of an ordinary human person who came into existence at conception. In fact, that would not be any special incarnation of anything at all. But John highlights the incarnation by drawing attention to the pre-incarnate condition of the Word. Then, this approach explains the incarnation because it tells us what it was that was incarnated, and who it was that came into the world. The divine nature is considered on its own before the incarnation is mentioned. Thus for John to begin his Gospel with the identity and activity of the Word prior to the incarnation clarifies for us the nature of the Christ, that in him there was the divine nature, who was made flesh, so that there was also the human nature.
Perhaps because of their zeal to exalt the necessity and the reality of the incarnation, some people claim much more for it than they have biblical warrant to do. It is popular for some believers to insist that the Son of God cannot be considered apart from the incarnation, and there is even the claim that God cannot be understood without the personal revelation of the Son of God in his incarnate state. Those who think this way might congratulate themselves for rendering so much honor to Christ as the God-man, but they are wrong. John is doing right here what they say cannot and must not be done. He talks about “the Word” entirely apart from the incarnation.
It is wrong to say that we could not know what God was really like until the Son of God was made flesh and showed us what God was like by his words and deeds. This is because such a doctrine amounts to a denial of the whole Old Testament. It is also wrong to suppose that Jesus came to show us some of the major dimensions of God’s character that had not been clearly revealed before, such as his love and forgiveness. This is because the Old Testament explicitly and repeatedly refers to God’s love and forgiveness, and other attributes that the ignorant consider to be peculiar to the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Moreover, it would be wrong to suggest that Christ came to show us a way of salvation that was previously unknown. Since the gospel was preached to humanity even at the beginning, almost immediately after our first parents fell into sin. And then the ideas of atonement, faith, and repentance had been declared throughout the centuries by the prophets. Jesus Christ came to fulfill these teachings, already revealed long ago in the Old Testament.
Some Old Testament doctrines would either suggest or refer to the incarnation as predictions, but my point is that they were revealed before the incarnate Word came in the flesh to tell us about these doctrines. They were revealed by the inspiration of the Spirit to the prophets, declared by them, and understood by their hearers, prior to and apart from the incarnation of the Word. Even now, it is possible to discuss God, even the Son of God, without any thought of the incarnation, as John himself does at the beginning of his Gospel. It is indeed possible to know and to discuss the nature of God entirely apart from the incarnation. The same applies to the Holy Spirit – the Old Testament gives us teachings about him that are perfectly intelligible, although they were given before the incarnation.
Again, this does not devalue the incarnation, but it is to correct a misguided piety and an exaggerated claim in relation to it. It is wrong to exalt the incarnate Word by implying that the older portion of Scripture was almost entirely useless. Another point to consider is that if the Word is the revelation of God, the express image of the Father, the divine intellectual ambassador of the Godhead, then the Old Testament is his revelation just as much as the incarnate Word or the words of the New Testament. He had been revealing himself – clearly, accurately, and meaningfully – since the beginning. Thus in honoring the revelation brought to us by the incarnate Word, we must take care not to insult or deny the revelation brought to us by the pre-incarnate Word.
Apart from any relation to the incarnation, the Word “was God” and “was with God.” That the Word “was God” refers to the deity of the Word. It was this “Word” that was made flesh, that took up a human nature, and the God-man was called Jesus, who was the Christ. The deity of the Word was unaffected by and unmingled with the humanity that it took up; however, the two natures had come together in a permanent union, so that it would be accurate to refer to Jesus Christ as God or as man, or as God and man.
The Word “was God,” but John adds that the Word was “with God.” This shows that it is possible to make a distinction between the Word and the one called “God” in this context. The doctrine of the Trinity is suggested here. Although John 1:1 does not mention the Holy Spirit, there are passages in the Bible that teach what we read here concerning the Word – that the Holy Spirit is God, or deity, and that he can be distinguished from the Father and the Son. When members of the Godhead are distinguished, then the word “God” usually refers to the Father; otherwise, “God” would denote the entire Godhead, or the Trinity. Thus our verse says that Jesus was God, in that he was deity, and that he was with God, in that he was distinguishable from the God the Father.
Again, this information serves to indicate what or who it was that came into the world, that was incarnated. John’s answer is that it was the Word, or God the Son, that took up a human nature and lived among men in the person of Jesus Christ. Throughout the Gospel, Jesus refers to his being sent by the Father, that he is teaching the Father’s words and doing his works. This would be unintelligible if there is no distinction between Jesus and the Father, although Jesus claims to be God himself. The Trinity makes perfect sense of this. John 1:1 prepares us for it, and notes that this relationship existed before the incarnation, and that it was not an effect of the incarnation.
The Christian faith affirms that there is one God, and that God is one. The objection against the doctrine of the Trinity is that it contradicts monotheism. Christians often admit that there is an apparent contradiction, and some seem curiously happy about it. But the idea of an “apparent” contradiction is subjective, so that it is useless except to expose the disturbed condition and the incompetence of the one to which such a contradiction is apparent. Either there is a contradiction or there is no contradiction. If a person sees a logical contradiction where there is none, this tells us nothing about the matter under discussion, but it tells us that the person is logically delusional. If the Christian faith contradicts itself by its doctrine of the Trinity, then the doctrine cannot be true. But if there is no contradiction, then there should not even be an apparent one. Contrary to common Christian behavior, to perceive an apparent contradiction is nothing to boast about, if we mean that one perceives a contradiction where there is none.
A standard explanation offered to those who suffer under the logical delusion that the doctrine contradicts monotheism is successful. The basic principle is to note that a contradiction occurs only when one asserts that something is so and not so at the same time and in the same sense. The doctrine of the Trinity is that God is one in one sense, and three in another sense. This alone is sufficient to avoid contradiction, even if we know nothing more about the Trinity, such as the precise nature of the union and the relation between the members of the Godhead. As long as God is not one and three in the same sense, there is no contradiction.
Let us think about this another way.
As far as I can recall, when I first learned about the doctrine of the Trinity as a child, it did not occur to me that someone might consider it a contradiction to the doctrine that there is one true God. Even if I was aware of the alleged problem, it did not make an impression on me. In fact, the first time that I was really made aware of it was when I read a Christian’s answer to it as a teenager.
Why was this? It was not because I lacked understanding of the idea of a contradiction. Even as a child, I knew that the various religions contradicted one another, that the Christian God was not like Buddha, or any non-Christian deity or figure – these things were very clear to me. I understood polytheism, that it contradicted monotheism, and I never thought that the Trinity was anything like polytheism. So I understood the idea of a contradiction, and I could distinguish between religions that contradicted one another. But I saw no contradiction, whether apparent or actual, in the doctrine of the Trinity.
Rather, I saw no contradiction because the Trinity was the one God that the Christian Scripture introduced to me from the start. The Christian God had never been introduced to me as an anti-Trinity. To say this another way, I had never accepted the pagan definitions of God as foundational, and then graduated from that to the Christian concept of God. I never had the need to make the Trinity consistent with the non-Christian idea of the oneness of God. The Christian God had always been a Trinity.
If we take one “god” as define by the pagans and multiply it, then we would have many gods, or polytheism. But if we consider the Christian revelation on its own terms, instead of comparing it with or accommodating it to the pagan definition, then we would see that Scripture does not define the oneness of God one way here and another way there. It teaches that there is one God, and only one God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is what God means. What are we saying, then, when we affirm that there is one God? We mean that there is only one Trinity. A problem occurs only when we smuggle a non-Christian idea of God into the discussion and then attempt to make the Christian God fit into it.
The Christian idea of God is a Trinity. Now, the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God. However, this does not mean that, if God is a Trinity, then there must be three Trinities, or that each one is only a third of deity. This again fails to consider the Christian doctrine on its own terms. I will illustrate with the relation between the Son and the Father. The Son is God, and he refers to the Father as if he is distinguishable from the Father. But then the Son himself says, “The Father and I are one.” That is, he can be distinguished from the Father, but not separated from him.
Of course, if God the Father does not exist, then there could be no relation that would make the other member God the Son. Moreover, if the Father could perish, or the relation between the Father and the Son could be otherwise, or if the Father and the Son could ever disagree, then this would not be the Christian idea of God in the first place. The relations within the Trinity are intrinsic to the definition of the Godhead. When God the Son is said to be “God,” it is understood that God is a Trinity, and the Son’s relation to the Father is implicit, since we call him the Son. Thus we do not say, “God, God, God,” but “the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.”
The Christian God should have never been made to reconcile with some non-Christian idea of monotheism. Every idea of “God” comes from a worldview. If it comes from the Christian worldview, then we are already referring to a Trinity, and all other worldviews are contradicted by us right away. But if the idea of God comes from a non-Christian worldview, then it is different from the Christian view from the start, and the Christian view has no obligation to adopt this foreign definition in its self-description. If the Trinity were a community of three “gods” in the pagan sense, then it would be impossible to reconcile this with the pagan idea of monotheism, or one non-triune deity. But the Trinity is one God in the Christian sense, and this Christian idea of God necessarily includes the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, whose very names acknowledge the Trinity and imply their relations.
The Word, then, was God, or deity. In terms of the Trinity, he was God the Son. John begins his Gospel by preparing us to learn that Jesus of Nazareth was the incarnation of the Word, the incarnation of deity. As God, Jesus possessed all the attributes of deity and all the honor due to deity, even our worship. Throughout his Gospel, he would illustrate this to us by presenting episodes or snapshots of Christ’s discourses and miracles, and by them to also show us the implications of his coming, especially as it pertains to our salvation.