The following excerpt is taken from the monumental work titled The Incarnate Christ and His Critics: A Biblical Defense, authored by Robert M. Bowman Jr. & J. Ed Komoszewski, published by Kregel Academic, Grand Rapids, MI, 2024, Part 2: Like Father, Like Son: Jesus’ Divine Attributes, Chapter 12: In the Beginning Was the Word, pp. 227-230.
In my estimation this is THE best and most comprehensive exposition and defense of the biblical basis for the Deity of Christ. Every serious Trinitarian Christian student of the Holy Bible, apologist, and/or theologian must have this book in the library.
THE WORD WAS ETERNAL
John begins his Gospel by saying that the Logos “was” (ēn) in the beginning (vv. 1b, 2). John does not mean that the Logos began to exist but that he was already existing “in the beginning.” The word ēn (the imperfect tense form of the Greek “to be” verb) has the nuance of “was already existing” (cf. NLT, “already existed”) in this context for two reasons. The first is the studied contrast in John 1:1–5 between ēn (“was”), which occurs six times, and egeneto (“became,” “came to be”), which appears twice (1:3) and is a key word used twenty-one times in the Greek translation of the creation narrative in Genesis 1:1–2:4. It is the contrast between the way the two verbs are used in context that indicates the eternal preexistence of the Logos, not the imperfect tense of ēn by itself. In contrast to everything that “came to be,” the Logos simply “was.”15
The second reason is the context of existing “in the beginning” (en archē). As Richard Hays points out, “The opening words of John’s Gospel echo the first words of Israel’s scripture: ‘In the beginning . . .’ Although the echo consists of only two words (en archē), its volume is amplified by the placement of these words at the outset of the narrative, corresponding to their placement as the opening words of Genesis.”16 This is not the only allusion to Genesis 1 in the prologue, since both passages go on immediately to talk about creation and light (Gen. 1:1, 3–5; John 1:3–5, 9).17 As James Dunn notes, John’s statement that “the Logos was (not ‘came to be’) in the beginning” means that “we have moved beyond any thought of the Logos as created, even the first created being,” that one might find in earlier Jewish texts about Wisdom, for example.18
According to John, everything that came into existence—the world itself— did so through the Logos (John 1:3, 10). Verse 3 is rather emphatic: “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not even one thing came into being that has come into being” (1:3 NASB).19 John states the point positively (“all things came into being through Him”) and then negatively (“and apart from Him not even one thing came into being”), thereby making clear that his statement is to be taken in the most comprehensive way possible.
Notice how these two statements—that the Logos “was in the beginning” (John 1:1b, 2) and that everything that has come into being without exception did so through the Logos (1:3)—fit together. When taken together, they clearly put the Logos on the uncreated side of the divide between the uncreated (God, the Creator) and the created (creation, the world).
We will discuss the role of the Logos (Christ) in the work of creation in chapter 32 (see pp. 616–18). For now, the point to be grasped is that these statements affirming the Word’s existence before creation and his involvement in bringing about the existence of all creation reveal him to be eternal and uncreated—two essential attributes of God.
At this point the teaching of the prologue conflicts especially with the Christology of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who view the Logos as the preexistent but created archangel Michael who later became Jesus Christ. John’s teaching here also poses a problem for non-Jehovah’s Witnesses favoring something like an Arian view of Christ.20 It should be noted that Bart Ehrman, who argues that Paul viewed Christ as a preexistent but created angel, agrees that John did not accept that view. Ehrman concludes that John held that the Logos was eternal and was in some sense God.21
To circumvent the clear teaching of John 1:1–3 that the Logos was uncreated, Jehovah’s Witnesses try to limit the creative work of the Logos in that passage to the physical world. They understand John’s opening words, “In the beginning” (1:1, 2), to refer to the beginning of the physical world only, with the spiritual world of angelic beings (including the Logos) having been created prior to that “beginning.”22 One serious problem with this interpretation is that verse 3 is as explicitly comprehensive as the language could be. Everything that has “come into being” did so through the Logos; nothing “came into being” that did not do so through him.
It is true that Genesis 1 does not give an explicit account of the creation of the angels or other spiritual beings populating the spiritual or supernatural realm. However, both Jews and Christians during the New Testament era definitely included all such spiritual beings in the category of “all things” that God had created (e.g., Ps. 148:2–6; 2 Baruch 21:6; Jub. 2:2; 2 Enoch 29:3; Col. 1:16). Greg Stafford, a former Jehovah’s Witness defending their Christology, assumes that the angels who shouted with joy when God established the earth (Job 38:4–7) must have been created before the “beginning” of Genesis 1:1, and concludes that Christ was also created before that beginning.23 However, Job 38:7 entails only that the angels (“sons of God”) were present when God completed forming and establishing the earth; it does not indicate or imply that the angels existed before the initial creation of the physical universe.
When we compare John 1:3 to Colossians 1:16, we find confirmation that the “all things” created through the Logos in John include all spiritual or heavenly beings (translating literally):
All things [panta] came into being through him [di’ autou]. (John 1:3a)
Because in him were created all things [ta panta], in the heavens and on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things [ta panta] were created through him [di’ autou] and for him. (Col. 1:16)
Stafford admits that Colossians 1:16 encompasses the creation of the “invisible” beings (the angels) through the Son, but then claims that “Paul does not here directly refer to the ‘beginning’ of Genesis 1:1.”24 This claim is defensible only in the narrowest, most pedantic sense that Paul does not actually use the word “beginning” in Colossians 1:16. That Paul’s language derives ultimately from the creation account in Genesis 1 is quite plain (again translating literally):
In the beginning God made the heavens and the earth [ton ouranon kai tēn gēn]. . . . And God saw all things [ta panta] that he had made. (Gen. 1:1, 31 LXX)
Because in him were created all things [ta panta], in the heavens and on the earth [en tois ouranois kai epi tēs gēs]. (Col. 1:16)
We have solid reasons, then, to understand John 1:1–3 to mean that the Logos existed eternally and is uncreated.
20. E.g., Danny André Dixon, “An Arian View: Jesus, the Life-Given Son of God,” in Son of God: Three Views, by Irons, Dixon, and Smith, 65–83. Oddly, Dixon cites with apparent approval Leon Morris’s observation about the force of ēn versus egeneto in John 1:1–3 (82 n. 47; see our n. 15 above) without addressing what Morris understood this contrast to indicate.
21. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God, 274–79.
22. For a defense of this position, see Stafford, Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended, 3rd ed., 370–77. Although Stafford was not a Jehovah’s Witness when he published this third edition, his defense of the Watchtower’s position on this subject remains the most sophisticated attempt available.
23. Stafford, Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended, 3rd ed., 373, see also 189 n. 102, 222, 302, 338, 384. Only five other OT texts (Gen. 1:1; 3:15; Exod. 3:14; Ps. 82:6; Prov. 8:22) figure as prominently in Stafford’s book as Job 38:7.
The fact that John’s prologue is echoing the Genesis account of creation is easily proven by comparing the Greek translation of Gen. 1:1 with that of John’s Gospel:
“In the beginning was (en arche een) the Word, and the Word was (een) with God, and the Word was God (kai theos een ho logos). He was (een) in the beginning with God. All things (panta) came into being (egeneto) through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being (egeneto) that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it… There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens everyone. He was in the world, and the world came into being (egeneto) through Him, and the world did not know Him. And the Word became (egeneto) flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth… No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” John 1:1-4, 9-10, 14, 18
“In the beginning (en arche) God (ho theos) made the heavens and the earth. Yet the earth was invisible and unformed, and darkness was over the abyss, and the Spirit of God (pneuma theou) was being carried along over the water. And God said, “Let light come into being.” And light came into being (egeneto). And God saw the light, that it was good. And God separated between the light and between the darkness. And God called the light Day and the darkness he called Night. And it came to be (egeneto) evening, it came to be (egeneto) morning, day one… And God saw all the things (ta panta) he made, and see, they were exceedingly good. And it came to be (egeneto) evening, and it came to be (egeneto) morning, a sixth day.” Genesis 1:1-8, 31 LXX
The following texts affirm that Genesis 1 is describing God bringing the entire creation into existence, including all heavenly beings:
“Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. And on the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on it He rested from all His work which God had created in making it.” Genesis 2:1-3
The host of heavens includes all angelic creatures:
“You alone are Yahweh. You have made the heavens, The heaven of heavens with all their host, The earth and all that is on it, The seas and all that is in them. You give life to all of them And the heavenly host bows down to You.” Nehemiah 9:6
“Then Micaiah said, ‘Therefore, hear the word of Yahweh. I saw Yahweh sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by Him on His right and on His left. And Yahweh said, “Who will entice Ahab so that he will go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?” And one said this while another said that. Then a spirit came forward and stood before Yahweh and said, “I will entice him.” And Yahweh said to him, ‘How?’ And he said, ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.” Then He said, “You shall entice him and also prevail. Go out and do so.” So now, behold, Yahweh has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; but Yahweh has spoken calamity against you.’” 1 Kings 22:19-23
“Praise Yah! Praise Yahweh from the heavens; Praise Him in the heights! Praise Him, all His angels; Praise Him, all His hosts! Praise Him, sun and moon; Praise Him, all stars of light! Praise Him, heavens of heavens, And the waters that are above the heavens! Let them praise the name of Yahweh, For He commanded and they were created. He caused them to stand forever and ever; He gave a statute and it will never pass away. Praise Yahweh from the earth, Sea monsters and all deeps; Fire and hail, snow and clouds; Stormy wind, doing His word; Mountains and all hills; Fruit trees and all cedars; Beasts and all cattle; Creeping things and winged bird; Kings of the earth and all peoples; Princes and all judges of the earth; Both choice men as well as virgins; The old with the young. Let them praise the name of Yahweh, For His name alone is set on high; His splendor is above earth and heaven. And He has raised up a horn for His people, Praise for all His holy ones; For the sons of Israel, a people near to Him. Praise Yah!” Psalm 148: 1-14
This explains why extra-biblical Jewish sources include angels within the Genesis creation account that God brought into being:
“O hear me, You who created the earth, the one who fixed the firmament by the Word and fastened the height of heaven by the Spirit, the one who in the beginning of the world called that which did not yet exist and they obeyed You. You who gave commandments to the air with your sign and have seen the things which are to come as well as those which have passed. You who reign with great thoughts over the hosts which stand before you, and who rules with indignation the countless holy beings, whom you created from the beginning from flame and fire, those who stand around your throne. To you alone does this belong so that you can do all that you want.” 2 Baruch 21:4-7
“And the angel of the presence spake to Moses according to the word of the Lord, saying: Write the complete history of the creation, how in six days the Lord God finished all His works and all that He created, and kept Sabbath on the seventh day and hallowed it for all ages, and appointed it as a sign for all His works.
“’For on the first day He created the heavens which are above and the earth and the waters and all the spirits which serve before him -the angels of the presence, and the angels of sanctification, and the angels [of the spirit of fire and the angels] of the spirit of the winds, and the angels of the spirit of the clouds, and of darkness, and of snow and of hail and of hoar frost, and the angels of the voices and of the thunder and of the lightning, and the angels of the spirits of cold and of heat, and of winter and of spring and of autumn and of summer and of all the spirits of his creatures which are in the heavens and on the earth, (He created) the abysses and the darkness, eventide <and night>, and the light, dawn and day, which He hath prepared in the knowledge of his heart.’” Jubilees 2:1-2
|Monday is the day. The fiery substance.|
“And for all my own heavens I shaped a shape from the fiery substance. My eye looked at the solid and very hard rock. And from the flash of my eye I took the |marvelous| substance of lightning, both fire
in water and water in fire; •neither does this one extinguish that one, nor does that one dry out this one. That is why lightning is sharper and brighter than the shining of the sun, and softer than water, more solid than the hardest rock.
“And from the rock I cut off a great fire, and from the fire I created the ranks of the bodiless armies – the myriad angels – and their weapons are fiery and their clothes are burning flames. And I gave orders that each should stand in his own rank.
|Here Satanail was hurled from the hight, together with his angels.|
“But one from the order of the archangels deviated, together with the division that was under his authority. He thought up the impossible idea, that he might place his throne higher than the clouds which are above the earth, and that he might become equal to my power.
“And I hurled him out from the height, together with his angels. And he was flying around in the air, ceaselessly above the Bottomless.
“And thus I created the entire heavens. And the third day came.” 2 Enoch 29
Therefore, Bowman & Komoszewski are correct. John’s prologue describes Jesus as the preexistent Word who was already existing prior to the creation of all things, proving that Christ is not a creature whom the Father brought into existence. Rather, the Son is an uncreated divine Person who has always been existing along with the Father from before the creation of all things.
Unless indicated otherwise, scriptural citations taken from the Legacy Standard Bible (LSB).
FUTHER READING
THE UNCREATED WORD ENTERS CREATION
JOHN 1:1
CHRIST: THE UNCREATED CREATOR OF ALL CREATION
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