I wrote a response to a comment about John 1:1, but since it is buried in the comments of another post I thought I should actually make a post on the subject. John didn’t just write a few verses; he wrote the whole Gospel of John. If you read John’s gospel you can see he didn’t think Jesus was God. He even made a statement in the same chapter that says no man has seen God but Jesus, John 1:18. John saw Jesus in the flesh and he saw him after the resurrection in his resurrected body. Yet John said that no man has seen God, but the son. He couldn’t have thought Jesus was God.
John even tells us the purpose for writing the Gospel. The ESV Bible even put the heading before the verse, The Purpose of this Book, which is the way I understand it too.
John 20 English Standard Version (ESV) 30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
Why would John start his book telling you Jesus is God, and not support it throughout his Book, and even tell you that Jesus is the anointed one of God, when he tells you the reason for writing the book. He is anointed by God, but did God anoint Jesus to be God and equal to him in every way? If John started the Gospel of John saying Jesus was God, (what man say’s) wouldn’t he have addressed him as God at the end also, when he writes the reason for writing his Gospel?
John also wrote in his Gospel what Jesus said. Let’s look at a few verses that John tells us Jesus said. He says God sent him and told him exactly what to tell us. John 12:49, Jesus says the Father does all the works. John 14:10, The Father is greater than him. John 14:28, The Father is the only true God. John 17:3. Is John telling us in verse John 1:1 that even though Jesus said he isn’t God, he doesn’t believe Jesus and decided to write Jesus is God.
John can’t be saying Jesus is God equal to the Father in John 1:1. What is John saying in this opening statement? My wife and I have thought about that a lot. We know that he can’t be saying Jesus is God, because Jesus says he isn’t and of course John doesn’t say Jesus is God in the rest of his Gospel. Man would have this verse and maybe a few others trump what Jesus’s said and what the rest of the Bible says.
At first, we thought since it used different words for God, (Θεόν, and Θεὸς), one meaning God and one means gods and that it could be saying gods for Jesus, which I think is what Jehovah Witness believe.
But we still were not sure that was it. We just knew that Jesus said he wasn’t God. Does John or any of the Disciples ever call Jesus “Word”? I haven’t seen it. Jesus does say that God commanded him to say the Word that he told us, which was given to him by the Father. I looked up Word in Greek it is Λόγος, or today they use Logos instead. There are different words that Λόγος, can mean.
Look at Revelation 19:13, which is also written by John and uses the word Λόγος, or Logos. Rev 19: 13 And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.
Here John says Jesus name was, The Word of God. This turned a light on. Where does Jesus say he got the, Word of God? His Father gave the Word to Jesus and commanded him to tell us exactly what he said.
John 14: 24 Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Fathers who sent me. 25 “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
You should be able to see here that it wasn’t Jesus that was the Word, it is God’s Word, that is the Word. A Pastor had me watch a video about the trinity, they were talking about personification of God’s Attributes. Could this be what John was doing in John 1:1? The personification of the Word of God, that was given to Jesus, and as for verse 1:8 the Word which God gave to Jesus, which brought God’s Word to us in the flesh.
I found this in THE EASTERN – GREEK ORTHODOX BIBLE : NEW TESTAMENT, read John 1:1 and the notes.
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word,a and the Word was with God, and the Word was {what} God b {was}.
a The Greek word Logos (lo,goj) is traditionally translated as “Word.” French translations sometimes use “Verb” which has a dynamic quality. The English “Message” or “Expression of the Mind” may also be appropriate attempts to convey the nuance of the Greek concept. The Jewish-Alexandrian theologian and philosopher Philo wrote extensively about the Logos in ways that are reminiscent of NT theology. For instance, his teaching that “For the Logos of the living God being the bond of every thing, as has been said before, holds all things together, and binds all the parts, and prevents them from being loosened or separated” echoes Colossians 1:17.
b Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ Λόγος, καὶ ὁ Λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγος This second theos could also be translated ‘divine’ as the construction indicates a qualitative sense for theos. The Word is not God in the sense that he is the same person as the theos mentioned in 1:1a; he is not God the Father (God absolutely as in common NT usage) or the Trinity. The point being made is that the Logos is of the same uncreated nature or essence as God the Father, with whom he eternally exists. This verse is echoed in the Nicene Creed: “God (qualitative or derivative) from God (personal, the Father), Light from Light, True God from True God… homoousion with the Father.”
http://fortsmithorthodox.org/NEW%20TESTAMENT.pdf Page 115
Colossians 1:15-24 English Standard Version (ESV)
The Preeminence of Christ
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
21 And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, 22 he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, 23 if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister.
We know that Jesus did NOT lie, we know that Jesus did give us the “Word of God” as he was commanded, we know that he says he is not God because he tells us that the Father is the only true God and does all the works. We also know that John did not believe Jesus was God. Therefore, John is not talking about Jesus being God but the Word Jesus gave us is the Word of God. I hope this helps you in your search to understand.
Read your Bible with your own eyes 