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by Max Aplin

One of the most well known verses in the Bible has to be John 1:1, where the apostle begins his Gospel by saying:

‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.’

Those of us who have been Christians for a long time will surely be very familiar with these words. However, it is very easy through over-familiarity to lose sight of the tremendous paradox that the words contain.

At first sight, this sentence seems to include what looks like an obvious contradiction. If the Word was with God, that implies a distinction between the Word and God. But if the Word was God, that implies identity between the Word and God. So how can we square this circle logically? Is the verse just talking nonsense, or is there a way to make sense of what it says?

The translation of Jehovah’s Witnesses and others

Jehovah’s Witnesses are one group that will not hesitate to say that the way this verse is translated in evangelical and other circles is self-contradictory and a mistranslation. They would argue that it should be translated:

‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god.’

They claim that the verse isn’t saying that the Word is the one true God at all, but that the Word is a creation of God that is described as ‘a god’.

I don’t want to get into a long discussion in this article of how Jehovah’s Witnesses interpret this verse. Suffice it to say that in the immediate context of the beginning of John’s Gospel their interpretation is not a very natural one, and that in the light of the rest of this Gospel their interpretation should certainly be ruled out.

We should have no hesitation in saying that John 1:1 states both that the Word was with God and that the Word was God.

The Trinity

Before we turn to think about how the Word can be with God and also be God, I need to say something about what is commonly referred to as ‘the Trinity’.

The Bible teaches that God is one Being who is three Persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Each Person is fully God but is neither of the other two Persons.

All analogies from everyday life fall short of adequately portraying the Trinity, but I like to use the analogy of a coin. If we take a coin, we can say that the whole coin is a metal, the whole coin is a solid, and the whole coin is money. The property of being a metal, the property of being a solid and the property of being money are different things, but they all apply to the whole coin.

Similarly, the whole Being that is God is the Father, the whole Being that is God is the Son and the whole Being that is God is the Holy Spirit. Father, Son and Spirit are different Persons, but they are all fully God.

This analogy of the coin falls short of describing the Trinity, because the Persons of Father, Son and Spirit relate to each other, whereas the properties of the coin that I mentioned don’t relate to each other. But I think the coin analogy has some merit in describing the Trinity.

Making sense of how the Word can be with God and also be God

Let’s get back now to John 1:1, with its claim that the Word was with God and the Word was God. Is this really possible? Does it make sense?

The answer to this is a clear yes.

Let’s think for a moment about the nature of language. If you look in any detailed English dictionary, you will find that the vast majority of words have a range of meanings. They have what linguists refer to as a ‘semantic range’.

But it isn’t just English that is like this. Every language, both ancient and modern, is similar, and that includes the Hellenistic Greek that the New Testament was written in.

In the New Testament, the standard word for ‘God’ is the noun theos. But this word can mean more than one thing. Sometimes it is used to refer to the Being that is God without thinking about the Persons of the Trinity. But at other times it is used to refer specifically to the Person who is the Father.

In John 1:1 theos is used once in each of these ways. Here is the verse again with some explanatory additions in square brackets:

‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God [i.e., the Person who is the Father], and the Word was God [i.e., the Being that is God].’

Importantly, ‘the Word’ in this verse is a precise reference to the Person of the Trinity who is the Son. So if we take theos to mean what I have said it does in the square brackets, the sentence makes perfect sense. The Word/Son is a distinct Person from the Father, so it is logical to say that in the beginning the Word was with God. But the Word/Son is fully the Being that is God, so it is logical to say that in the beginning the Word was God.

There is no contradiction here at all.

Why does the Bible refer to the Person who is the Father as ‘God’?

But this raises an important question. If Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all equally God, why would the Bible in this verse (and in others) refer to the Person of the Father simply as ‘God’? Does this imply that somehow the Father is more divine than the other two Persons of the Trinity?

The Father is certainly not more divine than the Son and Spirit. However, I do believe that there is a primacy that belongs to the Father that doesn’t belong to the Son or Spirit. I would say that among the Persons of the Trinity, the Father is the first among equals. At the risk of seeming to de-personify the Persons of the Trinity, I think we might even say that the Father is the default Person of the Trinity.

According to Scripture, the Son and Spirit are in some respects dependent on the Father in ways that the Father isn’t dependent on the Son or Spirit.

For example, in John 5:26 Jesus says:

‘For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he has granted to the Son to have life in himself.’

See in this verse how even the life that the Son has is derived in some sense from the Father! Crucially, however, this is an eternal derivation, so there was never a time when the Son didn’t have this life. The verse is therefore not saying that the Son was created. Rather, in view here is what theologians refer to as the eternal generation of the Son. But it is still a dependence of the Son on the Father in a way that the Father is not dependent on the Son.

Similarly, the Bible also portrays the Spirit as dependent on the Father in a way that the Father is never portrayed as dependent on the Spirit. In John 14:26, for example, Jesus says that the Father will send the Spirit in Jesus’ name. We will look in vain, however, to find a biblical reference to the Spirit sending the Father or anything remotely similar.

Understanding that the Father holds a position of primacy among the Persons of the Trinity can help us to understand why the Bible can often refer to him simply as ‘God’. If we turn our minds to thinking about God as a personal Being, it is natural for us to think immediately of the Father before thinking of the Son or the Spirit. Hence the New Testament often refers to the Father simply as ‘God’.

Summing up

We have seen, then, that the statement in John 1:1 that the Word was with God and the Word was God isn’t nonsense. Once we understand that the word ‘God’ is being used in this verse in two different ways, all becomes clear. In the beginning the Word, i.e., the Son, was with the Person of the Trinity who is the Father, and the Word was the Being that is God.

And once we recognise the primacy of place that the Father takes among the Persons of the Trinity, it helps us to understand why the Bible often refers to him simply as ‘God’.

Thanks!