Does John 1:1 say Jesus is God
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A.D. 451.
451 - c. 30 = 421 years following the death, burial, resurrection and ascension of the man.
Wrangler
Well-Known Member
One would suppose Matthew 1:1 states the hypostatic union, the way trinitarians put it.
With historical orthodox trinitarianism on the ropes - ironically, at the hands of “trinitarians” - who can even say what a trinitarian truly is any more? It’s slowly becoming, for practical purposes, an undefined (meaningless?) term. I commented earlier this afternoon in another thread that we’re living in a day and age when “Trinity” (as well as other words) can mean just about anything.
Wouldn’t you agree that this would be a good time and place for me to use a certain Humpty Dumpty quote to make my point?
A few verses later John calls Jesus the word. So no, if we only had John 1:1, we would be stuck wondering. He also says Jesus is the light first spoken of - the light spoken of before the Sun is made.
Verse 14 says, 14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
So reading comprehension tells us that Jesus is the word.
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
“In the beginning was that Word, and that Word was with God, and that Word was God. This same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by it, and without it was made nothing that was made. In it was life, and that life was the light of men. And that light shineth in the wilderness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not.”
(John 1:1-5, Geneva Bible)
“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we saw the glory thereof, as the glory of the only begotten Son of the Father) full of grace and truth.”
(John 1:14, Geneva Bible)
Jesus is the incarnation, the enfleshment, of the word.
When does reading comprehension tell us that “Jesus is the word”?
Are you reading it back into the prologue?
I’m not. I harmonize it with the birth narratives in Matthew 1 and Luke 1.
Of course I’m reading it back to that….it’s reading comprehension. He opens talking about the word. A few sentences later he says the word is the son of God. Why would I think he was talking about a different “word?” Even an English professor would agree with me…
Thanks. That’s what trinitarians, binitarians and the majority of unitarians do. I asked because I didn’t want to put words in your mouth.
Approaching the NT with the OT background; the Hebrew word davar is why I read it differently than you. I believe that’s also why the translators of the Geneva Bible also read it as I do.
I’m not an English professor. I’m a theology professor, retired.
It’s a bit flummoxing. I don’t understand how a passage of any topic can be disconnected like that. It would be like me saying…
I have six eggs. The eggs are in a basket. I’ve had the eggs since Tuesday. I like my eggs with bacon. I like toast with my eggs too. And it just seems right to have a glass of milk. This morning I fried two eggs with bacon and toast. How many eggs do I have left?
And your answer would be, you still have six. You were talking about different eggs rather than the six eggs you started writing about.
It’s just the darndest thing…
And you mentioned trinitarians and binitarians. And I scratch my head the same way over that. We know that God is spirit and we know there’s the Holy Spirit, but it makes no sense to me to think God must be a different Spirit than the Holy Spirt. That’s the same as assuming John is talking about a different “word” when he calls Jesus the “word,” or saying I must be talking about different eggs I cooked than the six eggs I began speaking about.
I’m trying to understand how someone can be ANY sort of professor and not have reading comprehension. I’m not being mean, I’m just trying to grasp how that’s possible.
I have six eggs. The eggs are in a basket. I’ve had the eggs since Tuesday. I like my eggs with bacon. I like toast with my eggs too. And it just seems right to have a glass of milk. This morning I fried two eggs with bacon and toast. How many eggs do I have left?
And your answer would be, you still have six. You were talking about different eggs rather than the six eggs you started writing about.
It’s just the darndest thing…
And you mentioned trinitarians and binitarians. And I scratch my head the same way over that. We know that God is spirit and we know there’s the Holy Spirit, but it makes no sense to me to think God must be a different Spirit than the Holy Spirt. That’s the same as assuming John is talking about a different “word” when he calls Jesus the “word,” or saying I must be talking about different eggs I cooked than the six eggs I began speaking about.
I’m trying to understand how someone can be ANY sort of professor and not have reading comprehension. I’m not being mean, I’m just trying to grasp how that’s possible.
I just had an odd thought, unrelated.
I wonder if I’ve been reading a verse wrong.
I wonder if…many will come in my name (claiming me) and say that I am he (the Messiah) but will lead many astray is how to see it…I’m going to check the inter linear.
hmm…
I wonder if I’ve been reading a verse wrong.
I wonder if…many will come in my name (claiming me) and say that I am he (the Messiah) but will lead many astray is how to see it…I’m going to check the inter linear.
hmm…
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I’ve read a large number of your posts. I don’t think you’re mean.
Your premise is that I don’t possess reading comprehension. It’s a false premise. I never could have been an engineer, a college professor, a pastor if I lacked the ability to read comprehensively.
The search for the difference, if such a search is to be undertaken, has to take a different course.
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Wrangler
Well-Known Member
No. Look into Ayn Rand's notion of an Anti-concept. The most important purpose of anti-concepts is to erode one's capacity to reason. There are such things as invalid concepts. When one integrates invalid concepts into the world view, it erodes ones confidence in existence and especially in one's ability to deal with reality.
The Left's current push on applying "Equality" is an example of an anti-concept. There is new thread about Lebron James. Equality has to deny James is a superior athlete/basketball player. In reality there is no equality. Aristotle wrote in 380 BC, "The Greatest Inequality is to hold unequal things as Equal."
Trinitarianism is an inherently contradictory concept.
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
Galileo Galilei
Wrangler
Well-Known Member
Right but the fact is Jesus was a Jew, born under the law, required to believe the Shema, that YHWH alone is God. Jews don't believe in a 3in1 God. Jesus is the Jewish Messiah and there is no evidence he ever stopped being Jewish.
So, there is that.
Yes. I’ve been discussing it this morning in another thread with @RLT63. There is no scenario where Jesus could be a trinitarian.
If / since the Trinity cannot be Jesus’ God then the Trinity cannot be my God.
Wrangler
Well-Known Member
I look at it from the other way around.
YHWH could have reconciled us to him any way he wanted due to his sovereign power. He chose a new covenant that was easiest as a manifestation of his grace, mercy and love. He did not establish a covenant that was inherently contradictory, impossible to understand, let alone explain.
Isaiah 53 explains the suffering servant will pay a ransom for many.
An acquaintance of mine, the late trinitarian scholar Dr. Colin Brown, wrote an article in 1991 that was published in a journal called Ex Auditu -
“It is a common but patent misreading of the opening of John’s Gospel to read it as if it said: ‘In the beginning was the Son and the Son was with God and the Son was God.’ What has happened here is the substitution of Son for Word, and thereby the Son is made a member of the Godhead which existed from the beginning.”
(“Trinity and Incarnation: in Search of Contemporary Orthodoxy”)
“It is a common but patent misreading of the opening of John’s Gospel to read it as if it said: ‘In the beginning was the Son and the Son was with God and the Son was God.’ What has happened here is the substitution of Son for Word, and thereby the Son is made a member of the Godhead which existed from the beginning.”
(“Trinity and Incarnation: in Search of Contemporary Orthodoxy”)
RLT63
Well-Known Member
How does what Dr. Brown wrote about the misreading of John 1:1 deny verse 14, which Dr. Brown (and I) believe is true?
The word “Son” obviously doesn’t appear in John 1:1. It’s not what John wrote. If he had written it, every translation we have would have rendered it that way.
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