Tag: bible

EARLY CHURCH & THE CARMEN CHRISTI

In this post I will be sharing some of the interpretations of Philippians 2:5-11 among the various Christian writers, theologians, bishops etc. for the first 400 hundred years of the Church. All emphasis will be mine.

100s AD

Tertullian

Of course the Marcionites suppose that they have the apostle on their side in the following passage in the matter of Christ’s substance — that in Him there was nothing but a phantom of flesh. For he says of Christ, that, being in the form of God, He thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but emptied Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant, not the reality, and was made in the likeness of mannot a man, and was found in fashion as a manPhilippians 2:6-7 not in his substance, that is to say, his flesh; just as if to a substance there did not accrue both form and likeness and fashion. It is well for us that in another passage (the apostle) calls Christ the image of the invisible God. Colossians 1:15 For will it not follow with equal force from that passage, that Christ is not truly God, because the apostle places Him in the image of God, if, (as Marcion contends,) He is not truly man because of His having taken on Him the form or image of a man? For in both cases the true substance will have to be excluded, if image (or fashion) and likeness and form shall be claimed for a phantom. But since he is truly God, as the Son of the Father, in His fashion and image, He has been already by the force of this conclusion determined to be truly man, as the Son of man, found in the fashion and image of a man. For when he propounded Him as thus  found in the manner of a man, he in fact affirmed Him to be most certainly human. For what is found, manifestly possesses existence. Therefore, as He was found to be God by His mighty power, so was He found to be man by reason of His flesh, because the apostle could not have pronounced Him to have become obedient unto death, Philippians 2:8 if He had not been constituted of a mortal substance. Still more plainly does this appear from the apostle’s additional words, even the death of the cross. Philippians 2:8 For he could hardly mean this to be a climax to the human suffering, to extol the virtue of His obedience, if he had known it all to be the imaginary process of a phantom, which rather eluded the cross than experienced it, and which displayed no virtue in the suffering, but only illusion. (Against Marcion, Book V, 20.4-5)

Clement of Alexandria

He awed men by the fire when He made flame burst from the pillar of cloud — a token at once of grace and fear: if you obey, there is the light; if you disobey, there is the fire; but since humanity is nobler than the pillar or the bush, after them the prophets uttered their voice — the Lord Himself speaking in Isaiah, in Elias — speaking Himself by the mouth of the prophets. But if you do not believe the prophets, but suppose both the men and the fire a myth, the Lord Himself shall speak to you, who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but humbled Himself, Philippians 2:6-7 — He, the merciful God, exerting Himself to save man. And now the Word Himself clearly speaks to you, shaming your unbelief; yea, I say, the Word of God became man, that you may learn from man how man may become God. Is it not then monstrous, my friends, that while God is ceaselessly exhorting us to virtue, we should spurn His kindness and reject salvation? (Exhortation to the Heathens, Chapter 1. Exhortation to abandon the impious mysteries of idolatry for the adoration of the Divine Word and God the Father.)

Chapter 2. Our Instructor’s Treatment of Our Sins

Now, O you, my children, our Instructor is like His Father God, whose son He is, sinless, blameless, and with a soul devoid of passion; God in the form of man, stainless, the minister of His Father’s will, the Word who is God, who is in the Father, who is at the Father’s right hand, and with the form of God is God. He is to us a spotless image; to Him we are to try with all our might to assimilate our souls. He is wholly free from human passions; wherefore also He alone is judge, because He alone is sinless. As far, however, as we can, let us try to sin as little as possible. For nothing is so urgent in the first place as deliverance from passions and disorders, and then the checking of our liability to fall into sins that have become habitual. It is best, therefore, not to sin at all in any way, which we assert to be the prerogative of God alone; next to keep clear of voluntary transgressions, which is characteristic of the wise man; thirdly, not to fall into many involuntary offenses, which is peculiar to those who have been excellently trained. Not to continue long in sins, let that be ranked last. But this also is salutary to those who are called back to repentance, to renew the contest. (The Paedagogus (The Instructor), Book I)

200s AD

Hippolytus of Rome

After something from Apollinaris:—

HIPPOLYTUS: The word of prophecy passes again to Immanuel Himself. For, in my opinion, what is intended by it is just what has been already stated in the words, giving increase of beauty in the case of the shoot. For he means that He increased and grew up into that which He had been from the beginning, and indicates the return to the glory which He had by nature. This, if we apprehend it correctly, is (we should say) just restored to Him. For as the only begotten Word of God, being God of God, emptied Himself, according to the Scriptures, humbling Himself of His own will to that which He was not before, and took unto Himself this vile flesh, and appeared in the form of a servant, and became obedient to God the Father, even unto death, so hereafter He is said to be highly exalted; and as if nearly He had it not by reason of His humanity, and as if it were in the way of grace, He receives the name which is above every name, Philippians 2:7-9 according to the word of the blessed Paul. But the matter, in truth, was not a giving, as for the first time, of what He had not by nature; far otherwise. But rather we must understand a return and restoration to that which existed in Him at the beginning, essentially and inseparably. And it is for this reason that, when He had assumed, by divine arrangement, the lowly estate of humanity, He said, Father, glorify me with the glory which I had, John 17:5 etc. For He who was co-existent with His Father before all time. and before the foundation of the world, always had the glory proper to GodheadHe too may very well be understood as the youngest (son). For He appeared in the last times, after the glorious and honourable company of the holy prophets, and simply once, after all those who, previous to the time of His sojourn, were reckoned in the number of sons by reason of excellence. That Immanuel, however, was an object of envy, is a somewhat doubtful phrase. Yet He is an object of envy or emulation to the saints, who aspire to follow His footsteps, and conform themselves to His divine beauty, and make Him the pattern of their conduct, and win thereby their highest glory. And again, He is an object of envy in another sense — an object of ill-will, namely, to those who are declared not to love Him. I refer to the leading parties among the Jews — the scribes, in truth, and the Pharisees — who travailed with bitter envy against Him, and made the glory of which He could not be spoiled the ground of their slander, and assailed Him in many ways. For Christ indeed raised the dead to life again, when they already stank and were corrupt; and He displayed other signs of divinity. And these should have filled them with wonder, and have made them ready to believe, and to doubt no longer. Yet this was not the case with them; but they were consumed with ill-will, and nursed its bitter pangs in their mind.

(Some Exegetical Fragments of Hippolytus)

300s AD

Marius Victorinus

What does this mean—“being equal to God”? It means that he [the Son] is of the very same power and substance [as the Father]. … It is in this sense therefore that Christ was equal to God. Note that Paul did not say Christ was “similar to God,” for that would imply that Christ possessed some accidental likeness to the substance of God but not that he was substantially equal.20 … Thus Christ is the form of God. The form of God is the substance of God. The form and image of God is the Word. The Word is forever with God. The Word is of one substance with the Father, with whom from the beginning it remains forever the Word. (Against the Arians, 1.21-22)

It would be a kind of robbery if two things were not equal by nature but were forced to be made equal or made equal through some accident. It therefore shows great confidence and bespeaks the very nature of divinity when Paul says of Christ that he did not think it robbery to be equal with God yet did not consider this equality something he had to fortify. (Ibid., 1.23)

God is the very principle of life. God is being itself. God contains life as a principle of life and so also understanding. But life and understanding are in a sense the form and image of what exists. What most truly exists is God. God is being itself, as many agree, and more so that which is above existence. The form of existence is motion, understanding and life…. Christ is said to be “the form of God” because Christ is life, consciousness and understanding. (Epistle to the Philippians, 2.6-8)

He received “the name that is above every name.” He received this name because of his saving word, because of the mystery of his passion, where death was vanquished by the very death of Christ. Through this grace he received the name. It was at that point that the name rightly accrued to him. But the reality to which the name pointed was already given before. The Word, the very power of God, did not become real for the first time only when it entered flesh. Rather it possessed its reality as the power, wisdom, action and work of God from the outset, when it was called the Word and when it indeed was the Word. It is that same Word that has now put on flesh … that has received the title of Son, which title is above every name. (Ibid., 2.9-11)

Gregory of Nyssa

He did not say “having a nature like that of God,” as would be said of [a man] who was made in the image of God. Rather Paul says “being in the very form of God.” All that is the Father’s is in the Son. (Antireticus Against Apollinarius)

It is obvious that the highest is in need of no exaltation. Only what is lowly can be lifted to the exalted state, becoming now what it was not before. Being united to the Lord the human nature is lifted up to share in his divinity. What is exalted is that which has been lifted up from lowliness. (Ibid.)

3. Gregory proceeds to discuss the relative force of the unnameable name of the Holy Trinity and the mutual relation of the Persons, and moreover the unknowable character of the essence, and the condescension on His part towards us, His generation of the Virgin, and His second coming, the resurrection from the dead and future retribution.

What then means that unnameable name concerning which the Lord said, Baptizing them into the name, and did not add the actual significant term which the name indicates? We have concerning it this notion, that all things that exist in the creation are defined by means of their several names. Thus whenever a man speaks of heaven he directs the notion of the hearer to the created object indicated by this name, and he who mentions man or some animal, at once by the mention of the name impresses upon the hearer the form of the creature, and in the same way all other things, by means of the names imposed upon them, are depicted in the heart of him who by hearing receives the appellation imposed upon the thing. The uncreated Nature alone, which we acknowledge in the Father, and in the Son, and in the Holy Spirit, surpasses all significance of names. For this cause the Word, when He spoke of the name in delivering the Faith, did not add what it is — for how could a name be found for that which is above every name?— but gave authority that whatever name our intelligence by pious effort be enabled to discover to indicate the transcendent Nature, that name should be applied alike to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, whether it be the Good or the Incorruptible, whatever name each may think proper to be employed to indicate the undefiled Nature of Godhead. And by this deliverance the Word seems to me to lay down for us this law, that we are to be persuaded that the Divine Essence is ineffable and incomprehensible: for it is plain that the title of Father does not present to us the Essence, but only indicates the relation to the Son. It follows, then, that if it were possible for human nature to be taught the essence of God, He Who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth 1 Timothy 2:4  would not have suppressed the knowledge upon this matter. But as it is, by saying nothing concerning the Divine Essence, He showed that the knowledge thereof is beyond our power, while when we have learned that of which we are capable, we stand in no need of the knowledge beyond our capacity, as we have in the profession of faith in the doctrine delivered to us what suffices for our salvation. For to learn that He is the absolutely existent, together with Whom, by the relative force of the term, there is also declared the majesty of the Son, is the fullest teaching of godliness; the Son, as has been said, implying in close union with Himself the Spirit of Life and Truth, inasmuch as He is Himself Life and Truth.

These distinctions being thus established, while we anathematize all heretical fancies in the sphere of divine doctrines, we believe, even as we were taught by the voice of the Lord, in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, acknowledging together with this faith also the dispensation that has been set on foot on behalf of men by the Lord of the creation. For He being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant Philippians 2:6, and being incarnate in the Holy Virgin redeemed us from death in which we were held, sold under sin , giving as the ransom for the deliverance of our souls His precious blood which He poured out by His Cross, and having through Himself made clear for us the path of the resurrection from the dead, shall come in His own time in the glory of the Father to judge every soul in righteousness, when all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth, they that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation.  But that the pernicious heresy that is now being sown broadcast by Eunomius may not, by falling upon the mind of some of the simpler sort and being left without investigation, do harm to guileless faith, we are constrained to set forth the profession which they circulate and to strive to expose the mischief of their teaching.

4. He next skilfully confutes the partial, empty and blasphemous statement of Eunomius on the subject of the absolutely existent.

Now the wording of their doctrine is as follows: We believe in the one and only true God, according to the teaching of the Lord Himself, not honouring Him with a lying title (for He cannot lie), but really existent, one God in nature and in glory, who is without beginning, eternally, without end, alone. Let not him who professes to believe in accordance with the teaching of the Lord pervert the exposition of the faith that was made concerning the Lord of all to suit his own fancy, but himself follow the utterance of the truth. Since then, the expression of the Faith comprehends the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, what agreement has this construction of theirs to show with the utterances of the Lord, so as to refer such a doctrine to the teaching of those utterances? They cannot manage to show where in the Gospels the Lord said that we should believe in the one and only true God: unless they have some new Gospel. For the Gospels which are read in the churches continuously from ancient times to the present day, do not contain this saying which tells us that we should believe in or baptize into the one and only true God, as these people say, but in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. But as we were taught by the voice of the Lord, this we say, that the word one does not indicate the Father alone, but comprehends in its significance the Son with the Father, inasmuch as the Lord said, I and My Father are one.  In like manner also the name God belongs equally to the Beginning in which the Word was, and to the Word Who was in the Beginning. For the Evangelist tells us that the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  So that when Deity is expressed the Son is included no less than the Father. Moreover, the true cannot be conceived as something alien from and unconnected with the truth.

But that the Lord is the Truth no one at all will dispute, unless he be one estranged from the truth. If, then, the Word is in the One, and is God and Truth, as is proclaimed in the Gospels, on what teaching of the Lord does he base his doctrine who makes use of these distinctive terms? For the antithesis is between only and not only, between God and no God, between true and untrue. If it is with respect to idols that they make their distinction of phrases, we too agree. For the name of deity is given, in an equivocal sense, to the idols of the heathen, seeing that all the gods of the heathen are demons, and in another sense marks the contrast of the one with the many, of the true with the false, of those who are not Gods with Him who is God. But if the contrast is one with the Only-begotten God , let our sages learn that truth has its opposite only in falsehood, and God in one who is not God. But inasmuch as the Lord Who is the Truth is God, and is in the Father and is one relatively to the Father , there is no room in the true doctrine for these distinctions of phrases. For he who truly believes in the One sees in the One Him Who is completely united with Him in truth, and deity, and essence, and life, and wisdom, and in all attributes whatsoever: or, if he does not see in the One Him Who is all these it is in nothing that he believes. For without the Son the Father has neither existence nor name, any more than the Powerful without Power, or the Wise without Wisdom. For Christ is the Power of God and the Wisdom of God 1 Corinthians 1:24; so that he who imagines he sees the One God apart from power, truth, wisdom, life, or the true light, either sees nothing at all or else assuredly that which is evil. For the withdrawal of the good attributes becomes a positing and origination of evil.

Not honouring Him, he says, with a lying title, for He cannot lie. By that phrase I pray that Eunomius may abide, and so bear witness to the truth that it cannot lie. For if he would be of this mind, that everything that is uttered by the Lord is far removed from falsehood, he will of course be persuaded that He speaks the truth Who says, I am in the Father, and the Father in Me ,plainly, the One in His entirety, in the Other in His entirety, the Father not superabounding in the Son, the Son not being deficient in the Father — and Who says also that the Son should be honoured as the Father is honoured , and He that has seen Me has seen the Father , and no man knows the Father save the Son, in all which passages there is NO hint given to those who receive these declarations as genuine, of any variation of glory, or of essence, or anything else, between the Father and the Son.

Really existent, he says, one God in nature and in glory. Real existence is opposed to unreal existence. Now each of existing things is really existent in so far as it is; but that which, so far as appearance and suggestion go, seems to be, but is not, this is not really existent, as for example an appearance in a dream or a man in a picture. For these and such like things, though they exist so far as appearance is concerned, have not real existence. If then they maintain, in accordance with the Jewish opinion, that the Only-begotten God does not exist at all, they are right in predicating real existence of the Father alone. But if they do not deny the existence of the Maker of all things, let them be content not to deprive of real existence Him Who is, Who in the Divine appearance to Moses gave Himself the name of Existent, when He said, I am that I am : even as Eunomius in his later argument agrees with this, saying that it was He Who appeared to Moses. Then he says that God is one in nature and in glory. Whether God exists without being by nature God, he who uses these words may perhaps know: but if it be true that he who is not by nature God is not God at all, let them learn from the great Paul that they who serve those who are not Gods do not serve God. But we serve the living and true God, as the Apostle says 1 Thessalonians 1:10: and He Whom we serve is Jesus the Christ. For Him the Apostle Paul even exults in serving, saying, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ Romans 1:1 . We then, who no longer serve them which by nature are no Gods , have come to the knowledge of Him Who by nature is God, to Whom every knee bows of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth Philippians 2:10-11 . But we should not have been His servants had we not believed that this is the living and true God, to Whom every tongue makes confession that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father Philippians 2:10-11 …

12. He thus proceeds to a magnificent discourse of the interpretation of Mediator, Like, Ungenerate, and generate, and of The likeness and seal of the energy of the Almighty and of His Works.

Again, what is the manifold mediation which with wearying iteration he assigns to God, calling Him Mediator in doctrines, Mediator in the Law? It is not thus that we are taught by the lofty utterance of the Apostle, who says that having made void the law of commandments by His own doctrines, He is the mediator between God and man, declaring it by this saying, There is one God, and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus ; where by the distinction implied in the word mediator he reveals to us the whole aim of the mystery of godliness. Now the aim is this. Humanity once revolted through the malice of the enemy, and, brought into bondage to sin, was also alienated from the true Life. After this the Lord of the creature calls back to Him His own creature, and becomes Man while still remaining God, being both God and Man in the entirety of the two several natures, and thus humanity was indissolubly united to God, the Man that is in Christ conducting the work of mediation, to Whom, by the first-fruits assumed for us, all the lump is potentially united. Since, then, a mediator is not a mediator of one Galatians 3:20, and God is one, not divided among the Persons in Whom we have been taught to believe (for the Godhead in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost is one), the Lord, therefore, becomes a mediator once for all between God and men, binding man to the Deity by Himself. But even by the idea of a mediator we are taught the godly doctrine enshrined in the Creed. For the Mediator between God and man entered as it were into fellowship with human nature, not by being merely deemed a man, but having truly become so: in like manner also, being very God, He has not, as Eunomius will have us consider, been honoured by the bare title of Godhead.

What he adds to the preceding statements is characterized by the same want of meaning, or rather by the same malignity of meaning. For in calling Him Son Whom, a little before, he had plainly declared to be created, and in calling Him only begotten God Whom he reckoned with the rest of things that have come into being by creation, he affirms that He is like Him that begot Him only by a special likeness, in a peculiar sense. Accordingly, we must first distinguish the significations of the term like, in how many senses it is employed in ordinary use, and afterwards proceed to discuss Eunomius’ positions. In the first place, then, all things that beguile our senses, not being really identical in nature, but producing illusion by some of the accidents of the respective subjects, as form, color, sound, and the impressions conveyed by taste or smell or touch, while really different in nature, but supposed to be other than they truly are, these custom declares to have the relation of likeness, as, for example, when the lifeless material is shaped by art, whether carving, painting, or modelling, into an imitation of a living creature, the imitation is said to be like the original. For in such a case the nature of the animal is one thing, and that of the material, which cheats the sight by mere color and form, is another. To the same class of likeness belongs the image of the original figure in a mirror, which gives appearances of motion, without, however, being in nature identical with its original. In just the same way our hearing may experience the same deception, when, for instance, some one, imitating the song of the nightingale with his own voice, persuades our hearing so that we seem to be listening to the bird. Taste, again, is subject to the same illusion, when the juice of figs mimics the pleasant taste of honey: for there is a certain resemblance to the sweetness of honey in the juice of the fruit. So, too, the sense of smell may sometimes be imposed upon by resemblance, when the scent of the herb camomile, imitating the fragrant apple itself, deceives our perception: and in the same way with touch also, likeness belies the truth in various modes, since a silver or brass coin, of equal size and similar weight with a gold one, may pass for the gold piece if our sight does not discern the truth.

We have thus generally described in a few words the several cases in which objects, because they are deemed to be different from what they really are, produce delusions in our senses. It is possible, of course, by a more laborious investigation, to extend one’s enquiry through all things which are really different in kind one from another, but are nevertheless thought, by virtue of some accidental resemblance, to be like one to the other. Can it possibly be such a form of likeness as this, that he is continually attributing to the Son? Nay, surely he cannot be so infatuated as to discover deceptive similarity in Him Who is the Truth. Again, in the inspired Scriptures, we are told of another kind of resemblance by Him Who said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness Genesis 1:26; but I do not suppose that Eunomius would discern this kind of likeness between the Father and the Son, so as to make out the Only-begotten God to be identical with man. We are also aware of another kind of likeness, of which the word speaks in Genesis concerning Seth — Adam begot a son in his own likeness, after his image Genesis 5:3 ; and if this is the kind of likeness of which Eunomius speaks, we do not think his statement is to be rejected. For in this case the nature of the two objects which are alike is not different, and the impress and type imply community of nature. These, or such as these, are our views upon the variety of meanings of like. Let us see, then, with what intention Eunomius asserts of the Son that  special likeness to the Father, when he says that He is like the Father with a special likeness, in a peculiar sense, not as Father to Father, for they are not two Fathers. He promises to show us the special likeness of the Son to the Father, and proceeds by his definition to establish the position that we ought not to conceive of Him as being like. For by saying, He is not like as Father to Father, he makes out that He is not like; and again when he adds, nor as Ungenerate to Ungenerate, by this phrase, too, he forbids us to conceive a likeness in the Son to the Father; and finally, by subjoining nor as Son to Son, he introduces a third conception, by which he entirely subverts the meaning of like. So it is that he follows up his own statements, and conducts his demonstration of likeness by establishing unlikeness. And now let us examine the discernment and frankness which he displays in these distinctions. After saying that the Son is like the Father, he guards the statement by adding that we ought not to think that the Son is like the Father, as Father to Father. Why, what man on earth is such a fool as, on learning that the Son is like the Father, to be brought by any course of reasoning to think of the likeness of Father to Father? Nor as Son to Son: — here, again, the acuteness of the distinction is equally conspicuous. When he tells us that the Son is like the Father, he adds the further definition that He must not be understood to be like Him in the same way as He would be like another Son. These are the mysteries of the awful doctrines of Eunomius, by which his disciples are made wiser than the rest of the world, by learning that the Son, by His likeness to the Father, is not like a Son, for the Son is not the Father: nor is He like as Ungenerate to Ungenerate, for the Son is not ungenerate. But the mystery which we have received, when it speaks of the Father, certainly bids us understand the Father of the Son, and when it names the Son, teaches us to apprehend the Son of the Father. And until the present time we never felt the need of these philosophic refinements, that by the words Father and Son are suggested two Fathers or two Sons, a pair, so to say, of ungenerate beings.

Now the drift of Eunomius’ excessive concern about the Ungenerate has been often explained before; and it shall here be briefly discovered yet again. For as the term Father points to no difference of nature from the Son, his impiety, if he had brought his statement to a close here, would have had no support, seeing that the natural sense of the names Father and Son excludes the idea of their being alien in essence. But as it is, by employing the terms generate and ungenerate, since the contradictory opposition between them admits of no mean, just like that between mortal and immortal, rational and irrational, and all those terms which are opposed to each other by the mutually exclusive nature of their meaning — by the use of these terms, I repeat, he gives free course to his profanity, so as to contemplate as existing in the generate with reference to the ungenerate the same difference which there is between mortal and immortal: and even as the nature of the mortal is one, and that of the immortal another, and as the special attributes of the rational and of the irrational are essentially incompatible, just so he wants to make out that the nature of the ungenerate is one, and that of the generate another, in order to show that as the irrational nature has been created in subjection to the rational, so the generate is by a necessity of its being in a state of subordination to the ungenerate.

For which reason he attaches to the ungenerate the name of Almighty, and this he does not apply to express providential operation, as the argument led the way for him in suggesting, but transfers the application of the word to arbitrary sovereignty, so as to make the Son to be a part of the subject and subordinate universe, a fellow-slave with all the rest to Him Who with arbitrary and absolute sovereignty controls all alike. And that it is with an eye to this result that he employs these argumentative distinctions, will be clearly established from the passage before us. For after those sapient and carefully-considered expressions, that He is not like either as Father to Father, or as Son to Son, — and yet there is no necessity that father should invariably be like father or son like son: for suppose there is one father among the Ethiopians, and another among the Scythians, and each of these has a son, the Ethiopian’s son black, but the Scythian white-skinned and with hair of a golden tinge, yet none the more because each is a father does the Scythian turn black on the Ethiopian’s account, nor does the Ethiopian’s body change to white on account of the Scythian — after saying this, however, according to his own fancy, Eunomius subjoins that He is like as Son to Father.  But although such a phrase indicates kinship in nature, as the inspired Scripture attests in the case of Seth and Adam, our doctor, with but small respect for his intelligent readers, introduces his idle exposition of the title Son, defining Him to be the image and seal of the energy of the Almighty. For the Son, he says, is the image and seal of the energy of the Almighty. Let him who has ears to hear first, I pray, consider this particular point — What is the seal of the energy? Every energy is contemplated as exertion in the party who exhibits it, and on the completion of his exertion, it has no independent existence. Thus, for example, the energy of the runner is the motion of his feet, and when the motion has stopped there is no longer any energy. So too about every pursuit the same may be said — when the exertion of him who is busied about anything ceases, the energy ceases also, and has no independent existence, either when a person is actively engaged in the exertion he undertakes, or when he ceases from that exertion. What then does he tell us that the energy is in itself, which is neither essence, nor image, nor person? So he speaks of the Son as the similitude of the impersonal, and that which is like the non-existent surely has itself no existence at all. This is what his juggling with idle opinions comes to — belief in nonentity! For that which is like nonentity surely itself is not.

Paul and John and all you others of the band of Apostles and Evangelists, who are they that arm their venomous tongues against your words? Who are they that raise their frog-like croakings against your heavenly thunder? What then says the son of thunder? In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And what says he that came after him, that other who had been within the heavenly temple, who in Paradise had been initiated into mysteries unspeakable? Being, he says, the Brightness of His glory, and the express Image of His person Hebrews 1:3 . What, after these have thus spoken, are the words of our ventriloquist ? The seal, quoth he, of the energy of the Almighty. He makes Him third after the Father, with that non-existent energy mediating between them, or rather moulded at pleasure by non-existenceGod the Word, Who was in the beginning, is the seal of the energy: — the Only-begotten God, Who is contemplated in the eternity of the Beginning of existent things, Who is in the bosom of the Father , Who sustains all things, by the word of His power , the creator of the ages, from Whom and through Whom and in Whom are all things , Who sits upon the circle of the earth, and has meted out heaven with the span, Who measures the water in the hollow of his hand Isaiah 40:12-22, Who holds in His hand all things that are, Who dwells on high and looks upon the things that are lowly , or rather did look upon them to make all the world to be His footstool , imprinted by the footmark of the Word the form of God is the seal of an energy. Is God then an energy, not a Person? Surely Paul when expounding this very truth says He is the express image, not of His energy, but of His Person. Is the Brightness of His glory a seal of the energy of God? Alas for his impious ignorance! What is there intermediate between God and His own form? And Whom does the Person employ as mediator with His own express image? And what can be conceived as coming between the glory and its brightness? But while there are such weighty and numerous testimonies wherein the greatness of the Lord of the creation is proclaimed by those who were entrusted with the proclamation of the Gospel, what sort of language does this forerunner of the final apostasy hold concerning Him? What says he? As image, he says, and seal of all the energy and power of the Almighty. How does he take upon himself to emend the words of the mighty PaulPaul says that the Son is the Power of God 1 Corinthians 1:24 ; Eunomius calls Him the seal of a power, not the Power. And then, repeating his expression, what is it that he adds to his previous statement? He calls Him seal of the Father’s works and words and counsels. To what works of the Father is He like? He will say, of course, the world, and all things that are therein. But the Gospel has testified that all these things are the works of the Only-begotten. To what works of the Father, then, was He likened? Of what works was He made the seal? What Scripture ever entitled Him seal of the Father’s works?

But if any one should grant Eunomius the right to fashion his words at his own will, as he desires, even though Scripture does not agree with him, let him tell us what works of the Father there are of which he says that the Son was made the seal, apart from those that have been wrought by the Son. All things visible and invisible are the work of the Son: in the visible are included the whole world and all that is therein; in the invisible, the supramundane creation. What works of the Father, then, are remaining to be contemplated by themselves, over and above things visible and invisible, whereof he says that the Son was made the seal? Will he perhaps, when driven into a corner, return once more to the fetid vomit of heresy, and say that the Son is a work of the Father? How then does the Son come to be the seal of these works when He Himself, as Eunomius says, is the work of the Father? Or does he say that the same Person is at once a work and the likeness of a work? Let this be granted: let us suppose him to speak of the other works of which he says the Father was the creator, if indeed he intends us to understand likeness by the term seal. But what other words of the Father does Eunomius know, besides that Word Who was ever in the Father, Whom he calls a seal— Him Who is and is called the Word in the absolute, true, and primary sense? And to what counsels can he possibly refer, apart from the Wisdom of God, to which the Wisdom of God is made like, in becoming a seal of those counsels? Look at the want of discrimination and circumspection, at the confused muddle of his statement, how he brings the mystery into ridicule, without understanding either what he says or what he is arguing about. For He Who has the Father in His entirety in Himself, and is Himself in His entirety in the Father, as Word and Wisdom and Power and Truth, as His express image and brightness, Himself is all things in the Father, and does not come to be the image and seal and likeness of certain other things discerned in the Father prior to Himself.

Then Eunomius allows to Him the credit of the destruction of men by water in the days of Noah, of the rain of fire that fell upon Sodom, and of the just vengeance upon the Egyptians, as though he were making some great concessions to Him Who holds in His hand the ends of the world, in Whom, as the Apostle says, all things consist Colossians 1:17, as though he were not aware that to Him Who encompasses all things, and guides and sways according to His good pleasure all that has already been and all that will be, the mention of two or three marvels does not mean the addition of glory, so much as the suppression of the rest means its deprivation or loss. But even if no word be said of these, the one utterance of Paul is enough by itself to point to them all inclusively — the one utterance which says that He is above all, and through all, and in all. (Against Eunomius, Book II)

Lucifer of Cagliari

It was he who was and is and always shall be in the form of the Father, the true Son, immutable and unchangeable because he is God and the all-powerful Son of the Almighty, who nonetheless deigned to lower himself for our salvation, so that he might cause us to rise even as we lay prostrate. (On Dying for the Son of God, 12)

Epiphanius

Suppose that when he became a slave he ceased being truly Lord. How then could it be said that in his coming the one who was “in the form of God took the form of a slave”? (Ancoratus, 28)

The Word tasted death once on our behalf, the death of the cross. He went to his death so that by death he might put death to death. The Word, becoming human flesh, did not suffer in his divinity but suffered with humanity. (Ibid., 92)

Methodius

Being in the image of God, [humanity] still needed to receive the likeness. The Word, having been sent into the world to perfect this, first of all took on our own form, even though in history it has been stained by many sins, so that we for our part, on whose account he bore it, should be once again capable of partaking in his divine nature. Hence it is now possible for us to receive God’s likeness. Think of a skilled painter painting a likeness of himself on a surface. So we may now imitate the same characteristics that God himself has displayed in his becoming a human being. We hold these characteristics before us as we go in discipleship along the path he set out. His purpose in consenting to put on human flesh when he was God was this: that we, upon seeing the divine image in this tablet, so to speak, might imitate this incomparable artist. (Symposium, 1.4.24)

Ambrosiaster

When he dwelt among humans, he appeared as God by his acts and works. “For the form of God” differs in nothing from God. Indeed, the reason for his being called the form and image of God is to make it apparent that he himself, though distinguishable from God the Father, is everything that God is…. His works revealed his form. Since his works were not those of a human, he whose work or form was that of God was perceived to be God. For what is “the form of God?” Is it not shown by the evidences given of his divinity—by his raising of the dead, his restoration of hearing to the deaf, his cleansing of lepers? (Epistle to the Philippians, 2.6-2.8.5)

Eusebius of Caesarea

[Paul] acknowledged Christ and no other to be the Son of God. The flesh that Christ assumed was called “the form of a slave” and “son of man.” But as to that birth which, unknown to all, was from the Father and before all ages, he was Son of God. (On the Theology of the Church, 1.2)

Gaudentius

He added “being found in human form” because the form of God, which is properly God himself, has never been seen by anyone. (Treatise 19, On the Priority of the Father, 28)

“Therefore,” he says, “God exalted him.” But who was it that was exalted? Evidently the one who underwent the torture of the cross and death. It was not God himself, who is always on high throughout. (Ibid., 29)

The “name that is above every name” is God. It is not given to God in order that he should become God. For God the Son was the Word in the beginning with the Father. But the man assumed by the Son takes on his mission. In this way the Son of God, who had always existed, remains still equally God when joined to the humanity that he received from the Virgin. (Ibid.)

Athanasius

Chapter 11. Texts Explained; And First, Philippians 2:9, 10. Whether the words ‘Wherefore God has highly exalted’ prove moral probation and advancement. Argued against, first, from the force of the word ‘Son;’ which is inconsistent with such an interpretation. Next, the passage examined. Ecclesiastical sense of ‘highly exalted,’ and ‘gave,’ and ‘wherefore;’ viz. as being spoken with reference to our Lord’s manhood. Secondary sense; viz. as implying the Word’s ‘exaltation’ through the resurrection in the same sense in which Scripture speaks of His descent in the Incarnation; how the phrase does not derogate from the nature of the Word.

37. But since they allege the divine oracles and force on them a misinterpretation, according to their private sense , it becomes necessary to meet them just so far as to vindicate these passages, and to show that they bear an orthodox sense, and that our opponents are in error. They say then, that the Apostle writes, ‘Wherefore God also has highly exalted Him, and given Him a Name which is above every name; that in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth Philippians 2:9-10;’ and David, ‘Wherefore God even Your God, has anointed You with the oil of gladness above Your fellows.’ Then they urge, as something acute: ‘If He was exalted and received grace, on a ‘wherefore,’ and on a ‘wherefore’ He was anointed, He received a reward of His purpose; but having acted from purpose, He is altogether of an alterable nature.’ This is what Eusebius and Arius have dared to say, nay to write; while their partizans do not shrink from conversing about it in full market-place, not seeing how mad an argument they use. For if He received what He had as a reward of His purpose, and would not have had it, unless He had needed it, and had His work to show for it, then having gained it from virtue and promotion, with reason had He ‘therefore’ been called Son and God, without being very Son. For what is from another by nature, is a real offspring, as Isaac was to Abraham, and Joseph to Jacob, and the radiance to the sun; but the so called sons from virtue and grace, have but in place of nature a grace by acquisition, and are something else besides the gift itself; as the men who have received the Spirit by participation, concerning whom Scripture says, ‘I begot and exalted children, and they rebelled against Me.’ And of course, since they were not sons by nature, therefore, when they altered, the Spirit was taken away and they were disinherited; and again on their repentance that God who thus at the beginning gave them grace, will receive them, and give light, and call them sons again.

38. But if they say this of the Saviour also, it follows that He is neither very God nor very Son, nor like the Father, nor in any wise has God for a Father of His being according to essence, but of the mere grace given to Him, and for a Creator of His being according to essence, after the similitude of all others. And being such, as they maintain, it will be manifest further that He had not the name ‘Son’ from the first, if so be it was the prize of works done and of that very same advance which He made when He became man, and took the form of the servant; but then, when, after becoming ‘obedient unto death,’ He was, as the text says, ‘highly exalted,’ and received that ‘Name’ as a grace, ‘that in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow Philippians 2:8.’ What then was before this, if then He was exalted, and then began to be worshipped, and then was called Son, when He became man? For He seems Himself not to have promoted the flesh at all, but rather to have been Himself promoted through it, if, according to their perverseness, He was then exalted and called Son, when He became man. What then was before this? One must urge the question on them again, to make it understood what their irreligious doctrine results in. For if the Lord be God, Son, Word, yet was not all these before He became man, either He was something else beside these, and afterwards became partaker of them for His virtue’s sake, as we have said; or they must adopt the alternative (may it return upon their heads!) that He was not before that time, but is wholly man by nature and nothing more. But this is no sentiment of the Church. but of the Samosatene and of the present Jews. Why then, if they think as Jews, are they not circumcised with them too, instead of pretending Christianity, while they are its foes? For if He was not, or was indeed, but afterwards was promoted, how were all things made by Him, or how in Him, were He not perfect, did the Father delight Proverbs 8:30? And He, on the other hand, if now promoted, how did He before rejoice in the presence of the Father? And, if He received His worship after dying, how is Abraham seen to worship Him in the tent , and Moses in the bush? And, as Daniel saw, myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands were ministering unto Him? And if, as they say, He had His promotion now, how did the Son Himself make mention of that His glory before and above the world, when He said, ‘Glorify Thou Me, O Father, with the glory which I had with You before the world was John 17:5.’ If, as they say, He was then exalted, how did He before that ‘bow the heavens and come down;’ and again, ‘The Highest gave His thunder ?’ Therefore, if, even before the world was made, the Son had that glory, and was Lord of glory and the Highest, and descended from heaven, and is ever to be worshipped, it follows that He had not promotion from His descent, but rather Himself promoted the things which needed promotion; and if He descended to effect their promotion, therefore He did not receive in reward the name of the Son and God, but rather He Himself has made us sons of the Father, and deified men by becoming Himself man.

39. Therefore He was not man, and then became God, but He was God, and then became man, and that to deify us. Since, if when He became man, only then He was called Son and God, but before He became man, God called the ancient people sons, and made Moses a god of Pharaoh (and Scripture says of many, ‘God stands in the congregation of Gods ‘), it is plain that He is called Son and God later than they. How then are all things through Him, and He before all? Or how is He ‘first-born of the whole creation,’ if He has others before Him who are called sons and gods? And how is it that those first partakers do not partake of the Word? This opinion is not true; it is a device of our present Judaizers. For how in that case can any at all know God as their Father? For adoption there could not be apart from the real Son, who says, ‘No one knows the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him Matthew 11:27.’ And how can there be deifying apart from the Word and before Him? Yet, says He to their brethren the Jews, ‘If He called them gods, unto whom the Word of God came John 10:35.’ And if all that are called sons and gods, whether in earth or in heaven, were adopted and deified through the Word, and the Son Himself is the Word, it is plain that through Him are they all, and He Himself before all, or rather He Himself only is very Son , and He alone is very God from the very God, not receiving these prerogatives as a reward for His virtue, nor being another beside them, but being all these by nature and according to essence. For He is Offspring of the Father’s essence, so that one cannot doubt that after the resemblance of the unalterable Father, the Word also is unalterable.

40. Hitherto we have met their irrational conceits with the true conceptions implied in the Word ‘Son,’ as the Lord Himself has given us. But it will be well next to cite the divine oracles, that the unalterableness of the Son and His unchangeable nature, which is the Father’s, as well as their perverseness, may be still more fully proved. The Apostle then, writing to the Philippians, says, ‘Have this mind in you, which was also in Christ Jesus; who, being in the form of God, thought it not a prize to be equal with God; but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. And, being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient to death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also highly exalted Him, and gave Him a Name which is above every name; that in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father Philippians 2:5-11.’

Can anything be plainer and more express than this? He was not from a lower state promoted: but rather, existing as God, He took the form of a servant, and in taking it, was not promoted but humbled Himself. Where then is there here any reward of virtue, or what advancement and promotion in humiliation? For if, being God, He became man, and descending from on high He is still said to be exalted, where is He exalted, being God? This withal being plain, that, since God is highest of all, His Word must necessarily be highest also. Where then could He be exalted higher, who is in the Father and like the Father in all things ? Therefore He is beyond the need of any addition; nor is such as the Arians think Him. For though the Word has descended in order to be exalted, and so it is written, yet what need was there that He should humble Himself, as if to seek that which He had already? And what grace did He receive who is the Giver of grace ? Or how did He receive that Name for worship, who is always worshipped by His Name? Nay, certainly before He became man, the sacred writers invoke Him, ‘Save me, O God, for Your Name’s sake ;’and again, ‘Some put their trust in chariots, and some in horses, but we will remember the Name of the Lord our God.’ And while He was worshipped by the Patriarchs, concerning the Angels it is written, ‘Let all the Angels of God worship Him Hebrews 1:6.’

41. And if, as David says in the 71st Psalm, ‘His Name remains before the sun, and before the moon, from one generation to another,’ how did He receive what He had always, even before He now received it? Or how is He exalted, being before His exaltation the Most High? Or how did He receive the right of being worshipped, who before He now received it, was ever worshipped? It is not a dark saying but a divine mystery. ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God;’ but for our sakes afterwards the ‘Word was made flesh.’ And the term in question, ‘highly exalted,’ does not signify that the essence of the Word was exalted, for He was ever and is ‘equal to God Philippians 2:6,’ but the exaltation is of the manhood. Accordingly this is not said before the Word became flesh; that it might be plain that ‘humbled’ and ‘exalted’ are spoken of His human nature; for where there is humble estate, there too may be exaltation; and if because of His taking flesh ‘humbled’ is written, it is clear that ‘highly exalted’ is also said because of it. For of this was man’s nature in want, because of the humble estate of the flesh and of death. Since then the Word, being the Image of the Father and immortal, took the form of the servant, and as man underwent for us death in His flesh, that thereby He might offer Himself for us through death to the Father; therefore also, as man, He is said because of us and for us to be highly exalted, that as by His death we all died in Christ, so again in the Christ Himself we might be highly exalted, being raised from the dead, and ascending into heaven, ‘whither the forerunner Jesus is for us entered, not into the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.’ But if now for us the Christ is entered into heaven itself, though He was even before and always Lord and Framer of the heavens, for us therefore is that present exaltation written. And as He Himself, who sanctifies all, says also that He sanctifies Himself to the Father for our sakes, not that the Word may become holy, but that He Himself may in Himself sanctify all of us, in like manner we must take the present phrase, ‘He highly exalted Him,’ not that He Himself should be exalted, for He is the highest, but that He may become righteousness for us , and we may be exalted in Him, and that we may enter the gates of heaven, which He has also opened for us, the forerunners saying, ‘Lift up your gates, O you rulers, and be lifted up, you everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in.’ For here also not on Him were shut the gates, as being Lord and Maker of all, but because of us is this too written, to whom the door of paradise was shut. And therefore in a human relation, because of the flesh which He bore, it is said of Him, ‘Lift up your gates,’ and ‘shall come in,’ as if a man were entering; but in a divine relation on the other hand it is said of Him, since ‘the Word was God,’ that He is the ‘Lord’ and the ‘King of Glory.’ Such our exaltation the Spirit foreannounced in the eighty-ninth Psalm, saying, ‘And in Your righteousness shall they be exalted, for You are the glory of their strength.’ And if the Son be Righteousness, then He is not exalted as being Himself in need, but it is we who are exalted in that Righteousness, which is He 1 Corinthians 1:30 .

42. And so too the words ‘gave Him’ are not written because of the Word Himself; for even before He became man He was worshipped, as we have said, by the Angels and the whole creation in virtue of being proper to the Father; but because of us and for us this too is written of Him. For as Christ died and was exalted as man, so, as man, is He said to take what, as God, He ever had, that even such a grant of grace might reach to us. For the Word was not impaired in receiving a body, that He should seek to receive a grace, but rather He deified that which He put on, and more than that, ‘gave’ it graciously to the race of man. For as He was ever worshipped as being the Word and existing in the form of God, so being what He ever was, though become man and called Jesus, He none the less has the whole creation under foot, and bending their knees to Him in this Name, and confessing that the Word’s becoming flesh, and undergoing death in flesh, has not happened against the glory of His Godhead, but ‘to the glory of God the Father.’ For it is the Father’s glory that man, made and then lost, should be found again; and, when dead, that he should be made alive, and should become God’s temple. For whereas the powers in heaven, both Angels and Archangels, were ever worshipping the Lord, as they are now worshipping Him in the Name of Jesus, this is our grace and high exaltation, that even when He became man, the Son of God is worshipped, and the heavenly powers will not be astonished at seeing all of us, who are of one body with Him , introduced into their realms. And this had not been, unless He who existed in the form of God had taken on Him a servant’s form, and had humbled Himself, yielding His body to come unto death.

43. Behold then what men considered the foolishness of God because of the Cross, has become of all things most honoured. For our resurrection is stored up in it; and no longer Israel alone, but henceforth all the nations, as the Prophet has foretold, leave their idols and acknowledge the true God, the Father of the Christ. And the illusion of demons has come to nought, and He only who is really God is worshipped in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the fact that the Lord, even when come in human body and called Jesus, was worshipped and believed to be God’s Son, and that through Him the Father was known, shows, as has been said, that not the Word, considered as the Word, received this so great grace, but we. For because of our relationship to His Body we too have become God’s temple, and in consequence are made God’s sons, so that even in us the Lord is now worshipped, and beholders report, as the Apostle says, that God is in them of a truth. As also John says in the Gospel, ‘As many as received Him, to them gave He power to become children of God John 1:12;’ and in his Epistle he writes, ‘By this we know that He abides in us by His Spirit which He has given us 1 John 3:24.’ And this too is an evidence of His goodness towards us that, while we were exalted because that the Highest Lord is in us, and on our account grace was given to Him, because that the Lord who supplies the grace has become a man like us, He on the other hand, the Saviour, humbled Himself in taking ‘our body of humiliation Philippians 3:21,’ and took a servant’s form, putting on that flesh which was enslaved to sin. And He indeed has gained nothing from us for His own promotion: for the Word of God is without want and full; but rather we were promoted from Him; for He is the ‘Light, which lightens every man, coming into the world John 1:9.’ And in vain do the Arians lay stress upon the conjunction ‘wherefore,’ because Paul has said, ‘Wherefore, has God highly exalted Him.’ For in saying this he did not imply any prize of virtue, nor promotion from advance , but the cause why the exaltation was bestowed upon us. And what is this but that He who existed in form of God, the Son of a noble Father, humbled Himself and became a servant instead of us and in our behalf? For if the Lord had not become man, we had not been redeemed from sins, not raised from the dead, but remaining dead under the earth; not exalted into heaven, but lying in Hades. Because of us then and in our behalf are the words, ‘highly exalted’ and ‘given.’ (Against the Arians, Discourse I)

John Chrysostom

Have this mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God; but emptied Himself, taking upon Him the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, yea, the death of the cross. Wherefore also God highly exalted Him, and gave Him the Name which is above every name: that in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

I have stated the views of the heretics. It is befitting that I now speak of what is our own. They say that the words, He counted it not a prize, are of wrongfully seizing. We have proved, that this is altogether vapid and impertinent, for no man would exhort another to humility on such grounds, nor in this sort does he praise God, or even man. What is it then, beloved? Give heed to what I now say. Since many men think, that, when they are lowly, they are deprived of their proper right, and debased, Paul, to take away this fear, and to show that we must not be affected thus, says that God, the only begotten, who was in the form of God, who was no whit inferior to the Father, who was equal to Him, counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God.

Now learn what this means. Whatsoever a man robs, and takes contrary to his right, he dares not lay aside, from fear lest it perish, and fall from his possession, but he keeps hold of it continually. He who possesses some dignity which is natural to him, fears not to descend from that dignity, being assured that nothing of this sort will happen to him. As for example, Absalom usurped the government, and dared not afterwards to lay it aside. We will go to another example, but if example cannot present the whole matter to you, take it not amiss, for this is the nature of examples, they leave the greater part for the imagination to reason out. A man rebels against his sovereign, and usurps the kingdom: he dares not lay aside and hide the matter, for if he once hide it, straightway it is gone. Let us also take another example; if a man takes anything violently, he keeps firm hold of it continually, for if he lay it down, he straightway loses it. And generally speaking, they who have anything by rapine are afraid to lay it by, or hide it, or not to keep constantly in that state which they have assumed. Not so they, who have possessions not procured by rapine, as Man, who possesses the dignity of being a reasonable being.

But here examples fail me, for there is no natural preëminence among us, for no good thing is naturally our own; but they are inherent in the nature of God. What does one say then? That the Son of God feared not to descend from His right, for He thought not Deity a prize seized. He was not afraid that any would strip Him of that nature or that right, Wherefore He laid it aside, being confident that He should take it up again. He hid it, knowing that He was not made inferior by so doing. For this causePaul says not, He seized not, but, He counted it not a prize; He possessed not that estate by seizure, but it was natural, not conferred, it was enduring and safe. Wherefore he refused not to take the form of an inferior. The tyrant fears to lay aside the purple robe in war, while the king does it with much safety. Why so? Because he holds his power not as a matter of seizure. He did not refuse to lay it aside, as one who had usurped it, but since He had it as His own by nature, since it could never be parted from Him, He hid it.

This equality with God He had not by seizure, but as his own by nature. Wherefore He emptied Himself. Where be they who affirm, that He underwent constraint, that He was subjected? Scripture says, He emptied Himself, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death. How did He empty Himself? By taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man. It is written, He emptied Himself in reference to the text, each counting other better than himself. Since had He been subjected, had He not chosen it of His own accord, and of His own free will, it would not have been an act of humility. For if He knew not that so it must be, He would have been imperfect. If, not knowing it, He had waited for the time of action, then would He not have known the season. But if He both knew that so it must be, and when it must be, wherefore should He submit to be subjected? To show, they say, the superiority of the Father. But this shows not the superiority of the Father, but His own inferiority. For is not the name of the Father sufficient to show the priority of the Father? For apart from Him, the son has all the same things. For this honor is not capable of passing from the Father to the Son.

What then say the heretics? See, say they, He did not become man. The Marcionites, I mean. But why? He was made in the likeness of man. But how can one be made in the likeness of men? By putting on a shadow? But this is a phantom, and no longer the likeness of a man, for the likeness of a man is another man. And what will you answer to John, when he says, The Word became flesh? John 1:14 But this same blessed one himself also says in another place, in the likeness of sinful flesh. Romans 8:3

And being found in fashion as a man. See, they say, both in fashion, and as a man. To be as a man, and to be a man in fashion, is not to be a man indeed. To be a man in fashion is not to be a man by nature. See with what ingenuousness I lay down what our enemies say, for that is a brilliant victory, and amply gained, when we do not conceal what seem to be their strong points. For this is deceit rather than victory. What then do they say? Let me repeat their argument. To be a man in fashion is not to be a man by nature; and to be as a man, and in the fashion of a man, this is not to be a man. So then to take the form of a servant, is not to take the form of a servant. Here then is an inconsistency; and wherefore do you not first of all solve this difficulty? For as you think that this contradicts us, so do we say that the other contradicts you. He says not, as the form of a servant, nor in the likeness of the form of a servant, nor in the fashion of the form of a servant, but He took the form of a servant. What then is this? For there is a contradiction. There is no contradiction. God forbid! It is a cold and ridiculous argument of theirs. He took, say they, the form of a servant, when He girded Himself with a towel, and washed the feet of His disciples. Is this the form of a servant? Nay, this is not the form, but the work of a servant. It is one thing that there should be the work of a servant, and another to take the form of a servant. Why did he not say, He did the work of a servant, which were clearer? But nowhere in Scripture is form put for work, for the difference is great: the one is the result of nature, the other of action. In common speaking, too, we never use form for work. Besides, according to them, He did not even take the work of a servant, nor even gird Himself. For if all was a mere shadow, there was no reality. If He had not real hands, how did He wash their feet? If He had not real loins, how did He gird Himself with a towel? And what kind of garments did he take? For Scripture says, He took His garments. John 13:12 So then not even the work is found to have really taken place, but it was all a deception, nor did He even wash the disciples. For if that incorporeal nature did not appear, it was not in a body. Who then washed the disciples’ feet?

Again, what in opposition to Paul of Samosata? For what did he affirm? The very same. But it is no emptying of Himself, that one who is of human nature, and a mere man, should wash his fellow-servants. For what we said against the Arians, we must repeat against these too, for they differ not from one another, save by a little space of time; both the one and the other affirm the Son of God to be a creature. What then shall we say to them? If He being a man washed man, He emptied not, He humbled not Himself. If He being a man seized not on being equal with God, He is not deserving of praise. That God should become man, is great, unspeakable, inexpressible humility; but what humility is there in that one, who was a man should do the works of men? And where is the work of God ever called the form of God? For if he were a mere man, and was called the form of God by reason of His works, why do we not do the same of Peter, for he wrought greater deeds than Christ Himself? Why say you not of Paul, that he had the form of God? Why did not Paul give an example of himself, for he wrought a thousand servile works, and did not even refuse to say, For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. 2 Corinthians 4:5

These are absurdities and trifles! Scripture says, He emptied Himself. How did He empty Himself? Tell me. What was His emptying? What His humiliation? Was it because He wrought wonders? This both Paul and Peter did, so that this was not peculiar to the Son. What then means, Being made in the likeness of men? He had many things belonging to us, and many He had not; for instance, He was not born of wedlock. He did no sin. These things had He which no man has. He was not what he seemed only, but He was God also; He seemed to be a man, but He was not like the mass of men. For He was like them in flesh. He means then, that He was not a mere man. Wherefore he says, in the likeness of men. For we indeed are soul and body, but He was God, and soul and body, wherefore he says, in the likeness. For lest when you hear that He emptied Himself, you should think that some change, and degeneracy, and loss is here; he says, while He remained what He was, He took that which He was not, and being made flesh He remained God, in that He was the WordJohn 1:14

In this then He was like man, and for this cause Paul says, and in fashion. Not that His nature degenerated, nor that any confusion arose, but He became man in fashion. For when He had said that He took the form of a servant, he made bold to say this also, seeing that the first would silence all objectors; since when he says, In the likeness of sinful flesh, he says not that He had not flesh, but that that flesh sinned not, but was like to sinful flesh. Like in what? In nature, not in sin, therefore was His like a sinful soul. As then in the former case the term similarity was used, because He was not equal in everything, so here also there is similarity, because He is not equal in everything, as His not being born of wedlock, His being without sin, His being not a mere man. And he well said as a man, for He was not one of the many, but as one of the many. The Word who was God did not degenerate into man, nor was His substance changed, but he appeared as a man; not to delude us with a phantom, but to instruct us in humility. When therefore he says, as a man, this is what He means; since he calls Him a man elsewhere also, when he says, there is one God, one Mediator also between God and men, Himself man, Christ Jesus. 1 Timothy 2:5

Thus much against these heretics. I must now speak against such as deny that He took a soul. If the form of God is perfect God, then the form of a servant is a perfect servant. Again, against the Arians. Here concerning His divinity, we no longer find He became, He took, but He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men; here concerning his humanity we find He took, He became. He became the latter, He took the latter; He was the former. Let us not then confound nor divide the natures. There is one God, there is one Christ, the Son of God; when I say One, I mean a union, not a confusion; the one Nature did not degenerate into the other, but was united with it.

He humbled Himself, becoming obedient unto death, yea, the death of the cross. See, says one, He voluntarily became obedient; he was not equal to Him whom He obeyed. O you obstinate ones and unwise! This does not at all lower Him. For we too become obedient to our friends, yet this has no effect. He became obedient as a Son to His Father; He fell not thus into a servile state, but by this very act above all others guarded his wondrous Sonship, by thus greatly honoring the Father.

He honored the Father, not that you should dishonor Him, but that you should the rather admire Him, and learn from this act, that He is a true Son, in honoring His Father more than all besides. No one has thus honored God. As was His height, such was the correspondent humiliation which He underwent. As He is greater than all, and no one is equal to Him, so in honoring His Father, He surpassed all, not by necessity, nor unwillingly, but this too is part of His excellence; yea, words fail me. Truly it is a great and unspeakable thing, that He became a servant; that He underwent death, is far greater; but there is something still greater, and more strange; why? All deaths are not alike; His death seemed to be the most ignominious of all, to be full of shame, to be accursed; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree. Deuteronomy 21:23Galatians 3:13 For this cause the Jews also eagerly desired to slay Him in this manner, to make Him a reproach, that if no one fell away from Him by reason of His death, yet they might from the manner of His death. For this cause two robbers were crucified with Him, and He in the midst, that He might share their ill repute, and that the Scripture might be fulfilled, And he was numbered with the transgressors. Isaiah 53:12 Yet so much the more does truth shine forth, so much the more does it become bright; for when His enemies plot such things against His glory, and it yet shines forth, so much the greater does the matter seem. Not by slaying Him, but by slaying Him in such sort did they think to make Him abominable, to prove Him more abominable than all men, but they availed nothing.

And both the robbers also were such impious ones, (for it was afterward that the one repented,) that, even when on the cross, they reviled Him; neither the consciousness of their own sins, nor their present punishment, nor their suffering the same things themselves, restrained their madness. Wherefore the one spoke to the other, and silenced him by saying, Do you not even fear God, seeing you are in the same condemnation? Luke 23:40 So great was their wickedness. Wherefore it is written, God also highly exalted Him, and gave Him the Name which is above every name. When the blessed Paul has made mention of the flesh, he fearlessly speaks of all His humiliation. For until he had mentioned that He took the form of a servant, and while he was speaking of His Divinity, behold how loftily he does it, (loftily, I say, according to his power; for he speaks not according to His own worthiness, seeing that he is not able). Being in the form of God, He counted it not a prize to be equal with God. But when he had said, that He became Man, henceforth he fearlessly discourses of His low estate, being confident that the mention of His low estate would not harm His Divinity, since His flesh admitted this.

Ver. 9-11. Wherefore also God highly exalted Him, and gave Him the Name which is above every name: that in the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. 

Let us say against the heretics, If this is spoken of one who was not incarnate, if of God the Word, how did He highly exalt Him? Was it as if He gave Him something more than He had before? He would then have been imperfect in this point, and would have been made perfect for our sakes. For if He had not done good deeds to us, He would not have obtained that honor! And gave Him the Name. See, He had not even a name, as you say! But how, if He received it as His due, is He found here to have received it by grace, and as a gift? And that the Name which is above every name: and of what kind, let us see, is the Name? That at the Name of Jesus, says He, every knee should bow. They (the heretics) explain name by glory. This glory then is above all glory, and this glory is in short that all worship Him! But ye hold yourselves far off from the greatness of God, who think that you know God, as He knows Himself, and from this it is plain, how far off you are from right thoughts of God. And this is plain from hence. Is this, tell me, glory? Therefore before men were created, before the angels or the archangels, He was not in glory. If this be the glory which is above every glory, (for this is the name that is above every name,) though He were in glory before, yet was He in glory inferior to this. It was for this then that He made the things that are, that He might be raised to glory, not from His own goodness, but because He required glory from us! See ye not their folly? See ye not their impiety?

Now if they had said this of Him that was incarnate, there had been reason, for God the Word allows that this be said of His flesh. It touches not His divine nature, but has to do altogether with the dispensation. What means of things in heaven, and things in the earth, and things under the earth? It means the whole world, and angels, and men, and demons; or that both the just and the living and sinners,

And every tongue, should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. That is, that all should say so; and this is glory to the Father. Do you see how wherever the Son is glorified, the Father is also glorified? Thus too when the Son is dishonored, the Father is dishonored also. If this be so with us, where the difference is great between fathers and sons, much more in respect of God, where there is no difference, does honor and insult pass on to Him. If the world be subjected to the Son, this is glory to the Father. And so when we say that He is perfect, wanting nothing, and not inferior to the Father, this is glory to the Father, that he begot such a one. This is a great proof of His power also, and goodness, and wisdom, that He begot one no whit inferior, neither in wisdom nor in goodness. When I say that He is wise as the Father, and no whit inferior, this is a proof of the great wisdom of the Father; when I say that He is powerful as the Father, this is a proof of the Father’s power. When I say that He is good as the Father, this is the greatest evidence of His goodness, that He begot such (a Son), in no whit less or inferior to Himself. When I say that He begot Him not inferior in substance but equal, and not of another substance, in this I again wonder at God, His power, and goodness, and wisdom, that He has manifested to us another, of Himself, such as Himself, except in His not being the Father. Thus whatsoever great things I say of the Son, pass on to the Father. Now if this small and light matter (for it is but a light thing to God’s glory that the world should worship Him) is to the glory of God, how much more so are all those other things? (Homily on Philippians, Homily 7)

400s AD

Theodoret

But if [the Arians] think the “form of God” is not the being of God, let them be asked what they think is the “form of a slave.” … If the form of a slave is the being of a slave, then the form of God is God…. Furthermore, let us recognize also that the apostle uses the example of Christ as a lesson in humility…. If the Son was not equal to the Father but inferior, he did not obey in humility—he merely fulfilled his station. (Epistle to the Philippians 2.6)

Being God, and God by nature, and having equality with God, he thought this no great thing, as is the way of those who have received some honor beyond their merits, but, hiding his merit, he elected the utmost humility and took the shape of a human being. (Ibid.)

His humbling was not undertaken as a slave in relation to a master’s command. Rather he willingly undertook the saving work on our behalf. He obeyed as a son, not as a slave. (Ibid., 2.8)

Even to the most inattentive it is obvious that the divine nature needs nothing. He did not become human by being raised up from lowliness. Rather he abased himself from the utmost height. He did not receive what he did not have before but received as a man what he possessed as God. (Ibid., 2.9)

Fulgentius

Through the Son human nature was redeemed. It was human nature that he undoubtedly came to redeem. It was this human nature that the Son took up into the unity of his person. And because his humanity is never sundered from the Son of God, it therefore rules in heaven and earth over all angels and all humanity. (On the Incarnation, 12)

While the whole Word came to us when “the Word was made flesh,” the whole remained with the Father in Spirit, equal to the Father, from whom he is eternally begotten yet made less by the gracious assumption of flesh so that he could be visible to us. And by this the Lord from the Lord remained Lord “in the form of God.” In order that he might come to slaves he received “the form of a slave” from his handmaid. (Ibid., 21)

Augustine

Chapter 4.— Of the Son of God as Neither Made by the Father Nor Less Than the Father, and of His Incarnation

5. Wherefore The Only-Begotten Son of God was neither made by the Father; for, according to the word of an evangelist, all things were made by Him: nor begotten instantaneously; since God, who is eternally wise, has with Himself His eternal Wisdom: nor unequal with the Father, that is to say, in anything less than He; for an apostle also speaks in this wise, Who, although He was constituted in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God. By this catholic faith, therefore, those are excluded, on the one hand, who affirm that the Son is the same [Person] as the Father; for [it is clear that] this Word could not possibly be with God, were it not with God the Father, and [it is just as evident that] He who is alone is equal to no one. And, on the other hand, those are equally excluded who affirm that the Son is a creature, although not such an one as the rest of the creatures are. For however great they declare the creature to be, if it is a creature, it has been fashioned and made. For the terms fashion and create mean one and the same thing; although in the usage of the Latin tongue the phrase create is employed at times instead of what would be the strictly accurate word beget. But the Greek language makes a distinction. For we call that creatura (creature) which they call κτίσμα or κτίσις; and when we desire to speak without ambiguity, we use not the word creare (create), but the word condere (fashion, found). Consequently, if the Son is a creature, however great that may be, He has been made. But we believe in Him by whom all things (omnia) were made, not in Him by whom the rest of things (cetera) were made. For here again we cannot take this term all things in any other sense than as meaning whatsoever things have been made.

6. But as the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, the same Wisdom which was begotten of God condescended also to be created among men. There is a reference to this in the word, The Lord created me in the beginning of His ways. For the beginning of His ways is the Head of the Church, which is Christ endued with human nature (homine indutus), by whom it was purposed that there should be given to us a pattern of living, that is, a sure way by which we might reach God. For by no other path was it possible for us to return but by humility, who fell by pride, according as it was said to our first creation, Taste, and you shall be as gods. Of this humility, therefore, that is to say, of the way by which it was needful for us to return, our Restorer Himself has deemed it meet to exhibit an example in His own person, who thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant; in order that He might be created Man in the beginning of His ways, the Word by whom all things were made.

Wherefore, in so far as He is the Only-begotten, He has no brethren; but in so far as He is the First-begotten, He has deemed it worthy of Him to give the name of brethren to all those who, subsequently to and by means of His pre-eminence, are born again into the grace of God through the adoption of sons, according to the truth commended to us by apostolic teaching. Thus, then, the Son according to nature (naturalis filius) was born of the very substance of the Father, the only one so born, subsisting as that which the Father is, God of God, Light of Light. We, on the other hand, are not the light by nature, but are enlightened by that Light, so that we may be able to shine in wisdom. For, as one says, that was the true Light, which lights every man that comes into the world. Therefore we add to the faith of things eternal likewise the temporal dispensation of our Lord, which He deemed it worthy of Him to bear for us and to minister in behalf of our salvation. For in so far as He is the only-begotten Son of God, it cannot be said of Him that He was and that He shall be, but only that He is; because, on the one hand, that which wasnow is not; and, on the other, that which shall be, as yet is not. He, then, is unchangeable, independent of the condition of times and variation. And it is my opinion that this is the very consideration to which was due the circumstance that He introduced to the apprehension of His servant Moses the kind of name [which He then adopted]. For when he asked of Him by whom he should say that he was sent, in the event of the people to whom he was being sent despising him, he received his answer when He spoke in this wise: I Am that I Am. Thereafter, too, He added this: Thus shall you say unto the children of Israel, He that is (Qui est) has sent me unto you. (On Faith and the Creed)

FURTHER READING

PHILIPPIANS 2: AN ADAM CHRISTOLOGY?

“The Form of a god”? The Translation of Morphē Theou in Philippians 2:6

Philippians 2:6 In Various English Translations

Carmen Christi: Worshiping Christ as God

Revisiting the Deity of Christ in Light of the Carmen Christi Pt. 1Pt. 2

BEYOND THE VEIL OF ETERNITY

Carmen Christi: A Reformed Perspective

PLINY & CHRIST’S DEITY

NWT & JESUS’ EQUALITY TO FATHER

THE UNCREATED WORD ENTERS CREATION

In this post I quote the section of Dr. James R. White’s book, The Forgotten Trinity: Recovering the Heart of Christian Belief, Revised & Updated, published by Bethany House Publishers, Grand Rapids, MI 2019, Chapter 4. A Masterpiece: The Prologue of John, pp. 43-61.

I wonder how long it took. Surely it wasn’t something that was written carelessly, without planning, without thought. He must have spent a good deal of time and energy on it. I refer to the prologue of John, the first eighteen verses of the Gospel that bears his name. Some people are a little uncomfortable with the idea of one of the writers of Scripture working hard on a particular passage, a special section. There are others that think the writers of the Bible must have gone into some kind of “trance” while being led by the Holy Spirit to speak God’s truth. But such is not a truly biblical idea. These holy men indeed spoke from God, but that does not exclude at all the use of their highest efforts to present God’s truth (2 Peter 1:20-21; 2 Timothy 3:16-17).

The prologue of John is a literary masterpiece. Its balance is almost unparalleled. It is a carefully crafted work of art, a revelation that has inspired believers for almost two thousand years. The brightest minds have been fascinated by it and have always marveled at its beauty. It is an inexhaustible treasure.

Few passages of Scripture are more important to our study of the Trinity, and in particular, of the person of the Son, than the prologue of John. You see, John clearly intended this passage to function as a lens, a window of sorts, through which we are to read the rest of his Gospel. If we stumble here, we are in danger of missing so much of the richness that is to be found in the rest of the book. But if we work hard to grasp John’s meaning here, many other passages will open up for us of their own accord, yielding tremendous insights into the heart of God’s revelation of himself in Jesus Christ.

I live in Arizona, and we have a number of old abandoned mines out in the desert, including the famous, though not yet located, “Lost Dutchman Mine.” Most of these mines required a tremendous amount of work to open and run. But the hoped-for reward, the precious commodity of gold, was worth the effort on the part of the miners. In the same way, the prologue of John calls us to do some work, to stretch ourselves beyond what might be our “comfort zone,” but the reward is more than worth it.

As you scan through the next few pages you will see some Greek terms. Don’t let them stop you. I will explain what each one means, and for the person who is intent upon reaching the goal and truly entering into the treasure John has placed in these verses for us, they are necessary. No one studies Shakespeare solely in German or French the subtleties of Shakespeare’s language, his turning of a phrase, his use of synonyms or double meanings, can be lost in translation. So it is with John. John didn’t write the prologue in English, and the person who wishes to delve deeply into his meaning will seek to hear him speaking as he once spoke in the beautiful Greek language.

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. (John 1:1-3)

Here is the translation with the important Greek terms provided. The Greek term follows the English term that translates it.

(John 1:1-3) In the beginning [en arche] was [en] the Word [ho logos], and the Word was with God [pros ton theon], and the Word was God [theos en ho logos]. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him [panta di autou egeneto], and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

Each of the terms provided above is very important, and as we work through the prologue, you will see how each word reinforces the truth of the Christian belief in the inspiration of the Scriptures as well as in the deity of Jesus Christ.

In the Beginning

“In the beginning” should sound somewhat familiar. Many see this as a purposeful reference to Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Just as Genesis introduces God’s work of creation, so John 1:1 introduces God’s work of redeeming that people, and that work has been going on just as long as creation itself. Yet we do not need to focus solely upon the same point of origin in creation that is found in Genesis 1:1, for John is yet to give us some very important information about the time frame he has in mind.

The Word

We must keep foremost in our thinking the purpose of John’s prologue. It can be summed up rather simply: Who is the Word? From verse 1 through verse 18, John is telling us about the Word. We dare not take our “eye off the ball,” so to speak, and miss the fact that throughout this passage, the identity of the Word is at issue. Right at the start we must ask why John would use such a term as “the Word.” What is he attempting to communicate?

The Greek term translated “Word” in this passage is logos. It is certainly not an unusual term. It appears three hundred and thirty times as a noun in the Greek New Testament alone. It has a wide range of meanings, from the basic “word” to merely a “matter” or a “thing.” So why would John choose such a word for such an important task?

The Greeks had used the term logos in their philosophical explanations regarding the functioning of the world. The logos was for them an impersonal ordering force, that which gave harmony to the universe. The logos was not personal in their philosophy, but it was very important.

In the Old Testament there are dim reflections upon a similar concept. The “Word of the Lord” came to have deep significance to the Jewish people. Such passages as Psalm 33:6, “By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, and by the breath of His mouth all their host,” lent themselves to the idea that there was more to the “word” than one might see at first glance. During the few centuries prior to the coming of Christ, Jewish theologians and thinkers would see in such phrases as “word of the Lord” and in the “wisdom of God” references to a personal rather than an abstract concept.

But John went beyond everything that came before in his use of the term logos. In fact, as we proceed, we will see that it would be better to write Logos than logos, for John is using the word as a name, not merely a description. He fills the impersonal logos that came before him with personality and life, and presents to us the living and personal Logos, the Word who was in the beginning.

The Little Word “Was”

The English word “was” is about as bland a term as you can find. Yet in Greek, it is most expressive. The Greeks were quite concerned about being able to express subtleties in regard not only to when something happened, but how it happened as well. Our little word “was” is poorly suited to handle the depth of the Greek at this point. John’s choice of words is deliberate and, quite honestly, beautiful.

Throughout the prologue of the Gospel of John, the author balances between two verbs. When speaking of the Logos as He existed in eternity past, John uses the Greek word en (a form of eimi). The tense1 of the word expresses continuous action in the past. Compare this with the verb he chooses to use when speaking of everything else found, for example, in verse 3: “All things came into being through Him,” egeneto. This verb2 contains the very element missing from the other: a point of origin. The term, when used in contexts of creation and origin, speaks of a time when something came into existence. The first verb, en, does not. John is very careful to use only the first verb of the Logos throughout the first thirteen verses, and the second verb, egeneto, he uses for everything else (including John the Baptist in verse 6). Finally, in verse 14, he breaks this pattern, for a very specific reason, as we shall see.

Why emphasize the tense of a little verb? Because it tells us a great deal. When we speak of the Word, the Logos, we must ask ourselves: how long has the Logos existed? Did the Logos come into being at a point in time? Is the Logos a creature? John is very concerned that we get the right answer to such questions, and he provides the answers by the careful selection of the words he uses.

Above we noted that John gave us some very important information about the time frame he has in mind when he says “in the beginning.” That information is found in the tense of the verb en. You see, as far back as you wish to push “the beginning,” the Word is already in existence. The Word does not come into existence at the “beginning,” but is already in existence when the “beginning” takes place. If we take the beginning of John 1:1, the Word is already there. If we push it back further (if one can even do so!), say, a year, the Word is already there. A thousand years, the Word is there. A billion years, the Word is there.3 What is John’s point? The Word is eternal. The Word has always existed. The Word is not a creation. The New English Bible puts it quite nicely: “When all things began, the Word already was.”

Right from the start, then, John tells us something vital about the Word. Whatever else we will learn about the Word, the Word is eternal.4 With this John begins to lay the foundation for what will come.

With God

The next phrase of John 1:1 tells us something new about the Word. The Word is eternal, but the Word was not alone in eternity past. “The Word was with God (pros ton theon).” Yes, it is the same word “was,” again pointing us to an eternal truth. The Word has eternally been “with God.” What does this mean?

Just as Greek verbs are often more expressive than their English counterparts, so too are Greek prepositions. Here John uses the preposition pros. The term has a wide range of meanings, depending on the context in which it is found. In this particular instance, the term speaks to a personal relationship, in fact, to intimacy. It is the same term the apostle Paul uses when he speaks of how we presently have a knowledge comparable to seeing in a dim mirror, but someday, in eternity, we will have a clearer knowledge, an intimate knowledge, for we shall see “face to (pros) face” (1 Corinthians 13:12). When you are face-to-face with someone, you have nowhere to hide. You have a relationship with that person, whether you like it or not.5

In John I: 1b, John says the Word was eternally face-to-face with God, that is, that the Word has eternally had a relationship with God. Immediately, questions about how this can be pop into our minds, but for the moment we must stick with the text and follow John’s thought through to its conclusion. He will answer our question about the identity of “God” in due time. For now, we note it is the normal word for God, theon.6 It is the word any monotheistic7 Jew would use to describe the Almighty God, Yahweh, the Creator of all things. Someone such as John would never think that there were two eternal beings. John will explain himself soon enough.

Was God

The third clause of John 1:1 balances out the initial presentation John is making about the Word. We read, “and the Word was God (theos en ho logos).” Again, the eternal en. John avoids contradiction by telling us that the Word was with God, and the Word was God. If John were making this an equation, like this:

All of the “Word” = All of “God”

he would be contradicting himself. If the Word is “all” of God, and God is “all” of the Word, and the two terms are interchangeable, then how could the Word be “with” himself? Such would make no sense. But John beautifully walks the fine line, balancing God’s truth as he is “carried along” by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21, NIV). John avoids equating the Word with all of God through his use of the little Greek article, the equivalent of our word “the” (ho).

It may seem “nit-picking” to talk about such a small thing as the Greek article, but as my friend Daniel Wallace points out, “One of the greatest gifts bequeathed by the Greeks to Western civilization was the article. European intellectual life was profoundly impacted by this gift of clarity.”8 He also notes, “In the least, we cannot treat it lightly, for its presence or absence is the crucial element to unlocking the meaning of scores of passages in the NT.”9 The writers of Scripture used the article to convey meaning, and we need to be very careful not to overlook the information they provide to us through the use, or nonuse, of the article.

The third clause of John 1:1 provides us with an example of what is known in grammar as a predicate nominative construction.10 That is, we have a noun, the subject of the clause, which is “the Word.” We have an “equative” or “copulative” verb, “was,” and we have another noun, in the same case or form as the subject, which is called the nominative case, that being “God.” We need to realize that in Greek the order in which words appear is not nearly as important as it is in English. The Greeks had no problem putting the subject of a sentence, or its main verb, way down the line, so to speak. Just because one word comes before another in Greek does not necessarily have any significance. What does this have to do with John 1:1? Well, in English, the final phrase would be literally rendered, “God was the Word.” But in English, we put the subject first, and the predicate nominative later. The Greeks used the article to communicate to us which word is the subject, and which is the predicate. If one of the two nouns has the article, it is the subject. In this case, “Word” has the article, even though it comes after “God,” and hence is our subject. That is why the last phrase is translated “the Word was God” rather than “God was the Word.”

Stay with me now, for there is another important point to be seen in the text. If both of the nouns in a predicate nominative construction like this one have the article, or if both lack the article, this is significant as well. In that case, the two nouns become interchangeable. That is, if “Word” had the article, and “God” did, too, this would mean that John is saying that “God was the Word” and the “Word was God.” Both would be the same thing. Or, if neither of them had the article, we would have the same idea: an equating of all of God with all of the Word. “God” and “Word” would be interchangeable and equal terms.

You see, much has been made, especially by Jehovah’s Witnesses, of the fact that the word “God” in the last clause of John 1:1 is anarthrous, that is, without the article. You will notice that there is no form of the Greek article preceding the term theos.

Because of this, they argue that we should translate it “a god.” This completely misses the point of why the word theos does not have the article. If John had put the article before theos, he would have been teaching modalism, a belief we mentioned earlier that denies the existence of three divine persons, saying there is only one person who sometimes acts like the Father, sometimes like the Son, sometimes like the Spirit. We will discuss modalism (which is also often called “Sabellianism”) later. For now, we see that if John had placed the article before theos, he would have been making “God” and the “Word” equal and interchangeable terms. As we will see, John is very careful to differentiate between these terms here, for He is careful to differentiate between the Father and the Son throughout the entire Gospel of John.11

One commentator has rightly noted regarding the prologue, “John is not trying to show who is God, but who is the Word.”12

The final phrase tells us about the Word, emphasizing the nature of the Word. F. F. Bruce’s comments on this passage are valuable:

The structure of the third clause in verse 1, theos en ho logos, demands the translation “The Word was God.” Since logos has the article preceding it, it is marked out as the subject. The fact that theos is the first word after the conjunction kai (and) shows that the main emphasis of the clause lies on it. Had theos as well as logos been preceded by the article the meaning would have been that the Word was completely identical with God, which is impossible if the Word was also “with God.” What is meant is that the Word shared the nature and being of God, or (to use a piece of modern jargon) was an extension of the personality of God. The NEB paraphrase “what God was, the Word was,” brings out the meaning of the clause as successfully as a paraphrase can.13

In the same way, the New Living Translation renders John 1:1, “In the beginning the Word already existed. He was with God, and he was God.”

Indefinite, Definite, Qualitative, or What?

Before leaving John 1:1, we need to wrestle with the controversy that surrounds how to translate the final phrase. We’ve touched a bit on it above, but it would be good to lay out the possibilities. Without going into all the issues,” the possible renderings fall into three categories:

Indefinite: hence, “a god.”

Definite: hence, “God.”

Qualitative: hence, “in nature God.”

Arguments abound about how to translate an “anarthrous preverbal predicate nominative,” and most people get lost fairly quickly when you start throwing terms like those around. Basically, the question we have to ask is this: how does John intend us to take the word theos in the last clause? Does he wish us to understand it as indefinite, so that no particular “god” is in mind, but instead, that Jesus is a god, one of at least two, or even more?” Or is theos definite, so that the God is in view? Or does the position of the word (before the verb, adding emphasis), coupled with the lack of the article, indicate that John is directing us to a quality when he says the Word is theos? That is, is John describing the nature of the Word, saying the Word is deity?

In reference to the first possibility, we can dismiss it almost immediately. The reasons are as follows:

Monotheism in the Bible–certainly it cannot be argued that John would use the very word he always uses of the one true God, theos, of one who is simply a “godlike” one or a lesser “god.” The Scriptures do not teach that there exists a whole host of intermediate beings that can truly be called “gods.” That is gnosticism.

The anarthrous theos–If one is to dogmatically assert that any anarthrous noun must be indefinite and translated with an indefinite article, one must be able to do the same with the 282 other times theos appears anarthrously. For an example of the chaos that would create, try translating the anarthrous theos at 2 Corinthians 5:19 (i.e., “a god was in Christ. . .”). What is more, theos appears many times in the prologue of John anarthrously, yet no one argues that in these instances it should be translated “a god.” Note verses 6, 12, 13, and 18. There is simply no warrant in the language to do this.16

No room for alternate understanding–It ignores a basic tenet of translation: if you are going to insist on a translation, you must be prepared to defend it in such a way so as to provide a way for the author to have expressed the alternate translation. In other words, if theos en ho logos is “the Word was a god,” how could John have said “the Word was God?” We have already seen that if John had employed the article before theos, he would have made the terms theos and logos interchangeable, amounting to modalism.

Ignores the context–The translation tears the phrase from the immediately preceding context, leaving it alone and useless. Can He who is eternal (first clause) and who has always been with God (second clause), and who created all things (verse 3), be “a god”?

F. F. Bruce sums up the truth pretty well:

It is nowhere more sadly true than in the acquisition of Greek that ‘a little learning is a dangerous thing.’ The uses of the Greek article, the functions of Greek prepositions, and the fine distinctions between Greek tenses are confidently expounded in public at times by men who find considerable difficulty in using these parts of speech accurately in their native tongue.17

A footnote appears after the comment on the article, and it says: Those people who emphasize that the true rendering of the last clause of John 1.1 is “the word was a god,” prove nothing thereby save their ignorance of Greek grammar.

So our decision, then, must be between the definite understanding of the word and the qualitative. If we take theos as definite, we are hard-pressed to avoid the same conclusion that we would reach if the word had the article; that is, if we wish to say the God in the same way as if the word had the article, we are making theos and logos interchangeable. Yet the vast majority of translations render the phrase “the Word was God.” Is this not the definite translation? Not necessarily.

The last clause of John 1:1 tells us about the nature of the Word. The translation should be qualitative. We have already seen in the words of F. F. Bruce that John is telling us that the Word “shared the nature and being of God.”18 The New English Bible renders the phrase “what God was, the Word was.” Kenneth Wuest puts it, “And the Word was as to His essence absolute deity.”19 Yet Daniel Wallace is quite right when he notes:

Although I believe that theos in 1:1 c is qualitative, I think the simplest and most straightforward translation is, “and the Word was God.” It may be better to clearly affirm the NT teaching of the deity of Christ and then explain that he is not the Father, than to sound ambiguous on his deity and explain that he is God but is not the Father.20

Here we encounter another instance where the English translation is not quite up to the Greek original. We must go beyond a basic translation and ask what John himself meant.

In summary, then, what do we find in John 1:1? In a matter of only seventeen short Greek words, John communicates the following truths:

The Word is eternal–He has always existed and did not come into existence at a point in time.

The Word is personal–He is not a force, but a person, and that eternally. He has always been in communion with the Father.

The Word is deity–The Word is God as to His nature.

We would all do well to communicate so much in so few words! But he did not stop at verse 1. This is but the first verse of an entire composition. We move on to examine the rest.

More on the Eternal Word, the Creator

In verses 2 and 3, John continues his work of introducing us to the Logos, the Word. He reemphasizes the startling statement of verse 1 by insisting that “He was in the beginning with God.” Again the English is not quite as expressive as the Greek, for John puts the Greek word translated “He” at the beginning of the phrase so that we could very well understand him to be saying, “This One” was in the beginning, or “This is the One” who has eternally existed in personal relationship with God (the Father, as we shall see in verse 18, and as John himself says in 1 John 1:2).

Verse 3 then introduces another evidence of the deity of the Logos: His role in creation. “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” Here is a phrase that can only be used of the one true God. Creation is always God’s work. If the Logos created all things, then the Logos is divine-fully.21 John is very careful. He doesn’t say “most things,” or “some things,” but all things came into being, were made, by the Logos. Creation took place through Him, by His power. Apart or separately from Him, nothing was made which has been made.22 This is clearly an exhaustive assertion. Just as Paul in Colossians 1:16-17 uses the entirety of the Greek language to express the unlimited extent of Christ’s creative activity, so, too, John makes sure that we do not leave room for anything that is not made by the Logos. If it exists, it does so because it was created by the Logos.

John continues his work of introducing us to the Word by stating that in Him was life, and that life was the light of men. He goes on to speak of the preparation for the coming of the Logos into the world through the ministry of John (vv. 6-8). He then turns to the matter of the rejection, by some, of the Logos, and the acceptance by others, resulting in regeneration and salvation (vv. 10-13). In these verses John speaks to us about what the Logos does by coming into the world. But starting in verse 14 John returns to the subject of who the Logos is. And what he says is as amazing as what we saw in the first few verses.

Eternity Invades Time

Throughout the first thirteen verses of the gospel of John, our author has carefully distinguished the eternal Logos from that which is made by Him through the use of the verbs en and egeneto. But in verse 14 he communicates a deep truth to us by changing his pattern, and that for a clear reason. He writes:

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

“And the Word became flesh.” Here John uses egeneto, a verb that refers to an action in time. And the reason is clear: the Word entered into human existence, “became flesh,” at a particular point in time. The Logos was not eternally flesh. He existed in a nonfleshly manner in eternity past. But at a blessed point in time, at the Incarnation, the Logos became flesh. The Eternal experienced time.

We need to stop and consider this truth for just a moment. Sometimes Christians who have known God’s truth for a long time become somewhat hardened to the impact such a declaration was meant to carry. The Word, the Creator of all things, the Eternal One, became flesh. Maybe we think so highly of ourselves that we are not properly struck by such a statement. We need to be amazed by the assertion, “The Word became flesh.” How can the unlimited enter into limitation? John does not tell us. The mechanics of how are not revealed to us, for God is under no obligation to answer every prying question. We are simply told that the eternal Word became flesh. Faith rests in God’s revelation.

The Word became flesh. He did not simply appear to be flesh. He was not “faking it,” to use modern terminology. Jesus was not simply some phantom or spirit masquerading as a real human being. He became flesh. John uses a term that was easily understandable in his day. It’s not an unusual word. At times it refers solely to flesh, as in the material stuff of our bodies. At other times it refers to the whole human nature. In any case, its meaning could not be missed. The Logos entered into the physical realm. He became a human being, a real, living, breathing human being.

John is so concerned that his readers understand that he points out that He “dwelt among us, and we saw His glory.” John is not reporting a second- or third-hand story. He is giving an eyewitness account. Jesus dwelt among us. He lived His life in the middle of the mass of humanity. He rubbed shoulders with sinners and saints. He walked dusty roads, thirsted for water on hot days, and reclined at the table with friends, and even with enemies. He really existed, He really lived.

Why is John so concerned about this? We note that he repeats this emphasis in 1 John 1:1-5, and then goes so far as to say that anyone who denies that Jesus Christ came in the flesh is the antichrist (1 John 4:2-3)! The reason is found in the fact that even while the apostles lived on earth, false teachers were entering into the church. Specifically, there were men teaching a system that would eventually become known as “Gnosticism.” This belief system teaches that everything that is spirit is good, and everything that is material (including flesh) is evil. This is known as the belief in “dualism.” Spirit is good, matter is evil.

What, then, does a person do who believes in dualism but wants to make some room for the message of Jesus? He has to get around the plain fact that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. So these teachers, known to the early church by the term Docetics,23 denied that Jesus truly had a physical body so that they could keep the idea that He was good and pure and holy. They even spread stories about disciples walking with Jesus along the beach, and when one of the disciples turned around, he saw only one set of footprints, because, of course, Jesus doesn’t leave footprints! John is tremendously concerned that his beloved readers do not fall for this kind of teaching, so he strongly emphasizes the reality of Christ’s physical nature. He leaves no stone unturned in his quest to make sure we understand: the eternal Logos, fully deity by nature, eternal Creator, the very source of life itself, became a human being. This is the only way to understand his words.

John insists that he and his companions observed the glory of the “only begotten from the Father.” It would be good to stop for a moment and make sure we have a firm understanding of what “only begotten” means. Huge misunderstandings have arisen about the use of this term. For those interested in the in-depth story, an extended note is attached to this chapter. To summarize that information for our purposes here, the Greek term used is monogenes. The term does not refer to begetting, but to uniqueness. While the traditional translation is “only-begotten,” a better translation would be “unique” or “one of a kind.”

In verse 14, John uses the term as a title, “the glory of the One and Only” (NIV). Immediately we see that the term monogenes has special meaning for John, for he speaks of the One and Only having “glory.” The One and Only comes “from the Father.” This is the first time John has specifically identified the Father by name in this Gospel. He differentiates the Father from the Logos, the “One and Only,” clearly directing us to two persons, the one coming from the other. Yet the Logos is seen to have glory, to have a divine origin with the Father, and is said to be “full of grace and truth.”

John moves on to again make note of John’s testimony to Jesus in verse 15, and finally makes it plain that he is speaking of Jesus Christ by using that phrase for the first time in verse 17. But before he closes his prologue, John uses what is often called the “bookends” technique. He provides a closing statement that sums up and repeats, in a different form, what he said in his introduction. And this is found in the final verse of the prologue, verse 18.

The Only Son, Who Is God

When you are speaking to someone, it is usually the last thing you say that will be remembered. That’s what we are taught in classes on “How to Make a Great Presentation.” John seemed to understand that concept, because in John 1:18 he provides us with a summary statement, the second bookend, so to speak, for his prologue. Here’s what he wrote:

No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. (NASB)

Let’s note a couple of other translations:

No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known. (NIV)

No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known. (NRSV)

Yet if you have a KJV or NKJV, your translation reads differently at a very key point. Note the NKJV translation:

No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

The KJV and NKJV follow a later, less primitive text in reading “the only begotten Son” rather than “the only begotten God” (NASB). We have here a textual variant, pitting the earliest, oldest manuscripts of the gospel of John against the later bulk of manuscripts. Without going into a lot of detail,24 there is every reason to accept the reading of the earliest manuscripts, and to see the later emendation as a natural mistake made by scribes who were accustomed to the phraseology “only begotten son.”

But even once we have established the proper reading of the text, how do we translate it? The phrase in question is monogenes theos. The renderings given above provide a wide range of translation, from the very literal “the only begotten God” (NASB) through the NIV’s “God the One and Only” to the NRSV’s “God the only Son.” There are excellent summaries of the issue available,25 so we won’t go into the technicalities here. Suffice it to say that I find the NRSV’s translation to be the best, “God the only Son.” If we wanted something a little more literal, I would suggest, “the only Son, who is God.” This preserves the word order that John uses, placing monogenes as a title immediately preceding theos (God).

What is John telling us by using such an unusual phrase? One thing is for certain: he is not telling us that Jesus Christ was “created” at some time in the past. He is not denying everything he said in the previous seventeen verses and turning Jesus into a creation! Such ideas flow from wrong thinking about what monogenes means. Remember that the term means “unique” or “one of a kind.” In light of this, John’s meaning is clear. In fact, I would submit that outside of a Trinitarian understanding of this passage, John is making no sense at all! What do I mean?

John tells us that no one has seen God at any time. Is this true? Are there not many instances of men seeing God in the Old Testament? Did not Isaiah say that he saw the Lord sitting upon His throne in the temple (Isaiah 6:1-3)? So what is John saying? How can we understand his words?

The key is found in the final phrases of verse 18, specifically, “who is at the Father’s side.” When John says “no one has seen God at any time,” he is referring to the Father. No man has seen the Father at any time. So how do we have knowledge of the Father? The monogenes has “made Him known” or “explained Him.”26 The unique One has made the Father known. Or, in light of the use of the term Father, the Only Son has revealed the Father. But this is not merely a dim reflection, a partial revelation, provided by the Only Son. This is the monogenes theos, the Only Son who is God. The divine nature of the monogenes is again plainly asserted, just as it was in verse 1. This is what forms the “bookend,” the assertion in verse 1 that the Logos is divine, repeated and reaffirmed here in verse 18 with the statement that the Only Son is God.27

Another important fact to note from this verse is that if indeed no one has seen the Father, then what does this tell us of the Son? Who did Isaiah see in Isaiah 6? Who walked with Abraham by the oaks of Mamre (Genesis 18:1)? None other than the preincarnate Jesus Christ, the eternal Logos. John will develop this thought later in his Gospel, as we shall see when we examine those passages that identify Jesus as Yahweh.

With the great truths proclaimed in the prologue in mind, I would strongly encourage you to take the time to read the entire gospel of John. It’s barely an evening’s reading, and with the prologue acting as a “lens,” giving you the proper perspective of who Jesus Christ truly is, you will find passages leaping from the page, all of which confirm and substantiate the proclamation of John 1:1-18: Jesus Christ is God in human flesh, the eternal Creator of all things, “the Only Son, who is God!”

Chapter Four A Masterpiece: The Prologue of John

1. The imperfect tense of the verb eiµi (eimi) refers to continuous action in the past. One might compare it to saying, “I was eating,” in contrast to “I ate” or “I had eaten.” Specifically, and most importantly in this context, the verb does not point to a specific point of origin or beginning in the past.

2. egeneto is in the aorist tense. The main emphasis of an aorist verb is undefined aspect, normally resulting in punctiliar action in the past. Such a verb points to a particular point of origin when used in the context of creation.

3. Some have argued against this use of en by noting that the same verb is used of Mary’s presence at the wedding in Cana of Galilee in John 2:1, “and the mother of Jesus was (en) there.” Obviously John is not saying that Mary had eternally been in Cana. Such an argument, however, assumes that every use of en indicates eternal existence in the past, and such is not the case. In John 2:1, a specific limitation is provided in the context (that speaks of “on the third day”) and, of course, eternity itself is not even in view in the passage, unlike the prologue where that is, in fact, the specific “time” frame provided by the author himself.

4. To quote J. H. Bernard, the use of 11v in John 1:1 “is expressive in each case of continuous timeless existence.” A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. John, International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1928), 1:2. Greg Stafford in Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended (Huntington Beach, Calif.: Elihu Books, 1998), 168, attempts to avoid the weight of the distinction found in John’s words:

The contrast between en in verses 1 and 2 … and (egeneto, “came to be,” in reference to the “things” created in this part of the “beginning”) is simply a contrast between that which was existing (the Word) during the time period to which John refers, and that which came into existence, namely, the physical universe. It is not necessarily a contrast between an eternal being and created things.

Stafford posits a complex concept of “the beginning,” attempting to limit the Word’s preexistence to a particular part of the “beginning.” The inevitable result, however, is to say that the Word was not en the “beginning” absolutely considered, but was only relatively preexistent to a relative beginning, which is just the opposite of what John is communicating. Stafford assumes, and imports into his exegesis, the “creation of the Logos” as an immutable fact, despite John’s testimony against such an idea.

5. B. B. Warfield in The Person and Work of Christ, (Philadelphia: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1950), 53, commented:

“And the Word was with God.” The language is pregnant. It is not merely coexistence with God that is asserted, as of two beings standing side by side, united in local relation, or even in a common conception. What is suggested is an active relation of intercourse. The distinct personality of the Word is therefore not obscurely intimated. From all eternity the Word has been with God as a fellow: He who in the very beginning already “was,” “was” also in communion with God. Though He was thus in some sense a second along with God, He was nevertheless not a separate being from God: “And the Word was”-still the eternal “was”-“God.” In some sense distinguishable from God, He was in an equally true sense identical with God. There is but one eternal God; this eternal God, the Word is; in whatever sense we may distinguish Him from the God whom He is “with,” He is yet not another than this God, but Himself is this God. The predicate “God” occupies the position of emphasis in this great declaration, and is so placed in the sentence as to be thrown up in sharp contrast with the phrase “with God,” as if to prevent inadequate inferences as to the nature of the Word being drawn even momentarily from that phrase. John would have us realize that what the Word was in eternity was not merely God’s coeternal fellow, but the eternal God’s self.

6. theon is the accusative singular form of theos. Often people are confused by the fact that Greek nouns change form, depending upon their grammatical usage in a sentence. Greek is an inflected language, and its nouns are declined, meaning they take a different form when they are subject, object, indirect object, plural, etc. These changes in forms do not impact the actual meaning of the noun itself, only how it is being used in a particular sentence.

7. That is, believing in one God. Monotheism is the belief in one true God.

8. Daniel Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 207.

9. Ibid., 208.

10. Specifically, for the grammatically inclined, a preverbal, anarthrous predicate nominative, for theos does not have the article, and appears before the verb, en.

11. The great American Greek scholar A.T. Robertson in his work Word Pictures in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1932), vol. 5, 4-5, commented:

And the Word was God (kai theos en ho logos). By exact and careful language John denied Sabellianism by not saying ho theos en ho logos. That would mean that all of God was expressed in ho logos and the terms would be interchangeable, each having the article. The subject is made plain by the article (ho logos) and the predicate without it (theos) just as in John 4:24 pneuma ho theos can only mean “God is spirit,” not “spirit is God.” So in 1 John 4:16 ho theos agape estin can only mean “God is love,” not “love is God” as a so-called Christian scientist would confusedly say. For the article with the predicate see Robertson, Grammar, pp. 767f. So in John 1:14 ho Logos sarx egeneto, “the Word became flesh,” not “the flesh became Word.” Luther argues that here John disposes of Arianism also because the Logos was eternally God, fellowship of the Father and Son, what Origen called the Eternal Generation of the Son (each necessary to the other). Thus in the Trinity we see personal fellowship on an equality.

See also H. E. Dana, Julius Mantey, A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1950), 148-149.

12. M. R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (Wilmington, Del.: Associated Publishers and Authors, n.d.), 1:384.

13. F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 31. Note also the words of the Expositor’s Greek New Testament.

The Word is distinguishable from God and yet theos en ho logos, the Word was God, of Divine nature; not “a God,” which to a Jewish ear would have been abominable; nor yet identical with all that can be called God, for then the article would have been inserted….

W. Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor’s Greek Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 1:684.

14. The reader is directed to the presentation of Daniel Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, 256-270, and Murray Harris, Jesus as God (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992), 57-70, for excellent summaries of the scholarly material.

15. Some might include under this category the idea of “a godlike one.” However, if John had wished to do this, he could have used the adjectival theios in that case.

16. For those who are more refined in their presentation of this argument, and who wish to see only pre-verbal anarthrous predicates translated consistently in an indefinite form (a god): the context likewise militates against such a translation, for such an idea would be utterly foreign to John. Those who push this argument need to remember that the meaning of the word being translated must figure into the argument as well. What is more, the literature of those who attempt to defend the translation “a god” often confuses, and blends together, the case for a qualitative rendering (“the Word was as to His nature God”) and also for an indefinite rendering. It should be noted that all arguments for a qualitative rendering are, in fact, arguments against the rendering “a god,” which no more speaks to the qualities than does the bare rendering “God.”

17. F. F. Bruce, The Books and the Parchments (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1963), 60-61.

18. F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John, 31.

19. Kenneth Wuest, The New Testament: An Expanded Translation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956).

20. Daniel Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, 269.

21. It should be noted that when I use the term “divine,” I am in no way indicating an inferior status. That is, “divine” should be taken as a synonym for “deity.”

22. We do not enter here into the issue of how to punctuate this particular passage. Some texts (including the UBS 4th edition Greek New Testament) put a full break after “nothing was made.” This results in the assertion that “what was made in Him was life.” There is not much of a meaningful difference between the two renderings, but I prefer the phrasing used in most translations.

23. From the Greek term dokein meaning “to seem.” They taught that Jesus only seemed to have a physical body.

24. I have addressed this passage in my book The King James Only Controversy (Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers, 1995), 198-200, 258-260.

25 Harris, Jesus as God, 88-92, provides a full discussion.

26. The Greek term John uses to describe this revelation of the Father by the Son is simply beautiful: exegesato, a verb that means to “lead out, explain, make known, reveal.” It is closely related to the noun from which we get our word exegete, to make known or reveal the meaning of a passage of Scripture. Jesus “exegetes” the Father, making Him known, explaining Him to His people, and He does so with such perfection that Jesus can say, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). Jan G. van der Watt noted in the Westminster Theological Journal, 57:2 (Fall 1995),

The use of logos (v. 1 [John 1:1]) as well as exegesato (v. 18 [John 1:18]) emphasizes Jesus’ position as Revealer. Theobald (Im Anfang, 31-32) has pointed out that both sections (vv. 1-2 [John 1] and 18 [John 1:18]) refer to Jesus as God, as the one with the Father or at his side, and as the Revealer (logos and exegesato).

27. Harris notes,

It was not simply the only Son (ho monogenes hyios) who knew and revealed the Father. It was an only Son (monogenes) who himself possessed deity (theos) and therefore both knew the Father and was qualified to make him known (Harris, Jesus as God, 82).

Extended note on the meaning of monogenes:

Traditional translations often have a great impact upon theology. This is certainly the case in regard to monogenes. So imbedded in our thought is the phrase “only-begotten” as the translation of this word that it is difficult to discuss the term in its original context so as to arrive at the meaning it carried for those who used it, especially when we ask what it meant to the apostle John.

In English, “only-begotten” emphasizes the final element of the translation, the concept of begettal and generation. But the English meaning must, in all cases, be consonant with the Greek original, and we must take any emphasis from the Greek, not from the English.

The key element to remember in deriving the meaning of monogenes is this: it is a compound term, combining monos, meaning only, with a second term. Often it is assumed that the second term is gennasthai/gennao, “to give birth, to beget.” But note that this family of terms has two nu’s, ‘vv,’ rather than a single v found in monogenes. This indicates that the second term is not gennasthai but gignesthai/ginomai, and the noun form, genos. G.L. Prestige discusses the differences that arise from these two derivations in God in Patristic Thought (London: SPCK, 1952), 37-51, 135-141, 151-156.

genos means “kind or type,” ginomai is a verb of being. Hence the translations “one of a kind,” “one and only,” “of sole descent.” Some scholars see the –genes element as having a minor impact upon the meaning of the term, and hence see monogenes as a strengthened form of monos, thereby translating it “alone,” “unique,” “incomparable.” An example of this usage from the LXX is found in Psalm 25:16, “turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely (monogenes) and afflicted:” (NASE).

There are numerous scholarly sources that substantiate the proper meaning monogenes. The lexicon of Johannes Louw and Eugene Nida, A Translator’s Handbook on the Gospel of John (New York: United Bible Societies, 1980, p. 24) says:

monogenes, –es pertaining to what is unique in the sense of being the only one of the same kind or class-“unique, only.” ton hyion ton monogene edoen “he gave his only Son” In 3.16; ton hyion autou ton monogene apestalken ho theos “God sent his only Son” 1 In 4.9; ton monogene, ho tas epag-gelias anadexamenos “he who had received the promises presented his only son” or “… was read to offer his only son” He 11.17. Abraham, of course, did have another son, Ishamael, and later sons by Keturah, but Isaac was a unique son in that he was a son born as the result of certain promises made by God. Accordingly, he could be called a monogenes son, since he was the only one of his kind.

Newman and Nida’s A Translator’s Handbook on the Gospel of John (New York: United Bible Societies, 1980, p. 24) note:

Only Son is the rendering of all modern translations (i.e., John 1:18 – ed.). There is no doubt regarding the meaning of the Greek word used here (monogenes); it means ‘only’ and not ‘only begotten.’ The meaning “only begotten,” which appears in the Vulgate, has influenced KJV and many other early translations.”

The major work of James Hope Moulton and George Milligan, in The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament (Grand Rapids, Eerdman’s, 1930, pp. 416-417), likewise gives this indication:

monogenes is literally “one of a kind,” “only,” “unique” (unicus), not “only begotten,” which would be monogennetos (unigenitus), and is common in the LXX in this sense… The emphasis is on the thought that, as the ‘only’ Son of God, He has no equal and is able to reveal the Father.

This is cited with approval by Tenney, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1981, 33) with the additional comment, “God’s personal revelation of himself in Christ has no parallel elsewhere, nor has it ever been re peated.” George Beasley-Murray, likewise, said in the Word Biblical Commentary on John (Waco: Word Books, 1987, p.14),

monogenes, lit., “the only one of its kind,” unique in its genos, in the LXX frequently translates (yahid) …

Likewise we read in Leon Morris’s work, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971, 105),

We should not read too much into “only begotten.” To English ears this sounds like a metaphysical relationship, but the Greek term means no more than “only,” “unique” [The footnote at this point reads as follows: It should not be overlooked that monogenes is derived from ginomai not gennao … Etymologically it is not connected with begetting.]

So wide is the witness to this meaning that the standard lexical source, that of A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature edited by Bauer, Arndt, Gingrich and Danker, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), includes in its definition of the term:

monogeneses, only … of children: Isaac, Abraham’s only son … Of an only son … -Also “unique” (in kind), of something that is the only example of its category…-In Johannine lit., µ is used only of Jesus. The mngs. only, unique, may be quite adequate for all its occurrences here (so M-M, RSV, et al.; DMoody JBL 72, ’53, 213-19; FCGrant, ATR 36, ’54, 284-87).

Murray Harris, in Jesus as God, 87, said,

This leads us to conclude that monogenes denotes “the only member of a kin or kind.” Applied to Jesus as the Son of God, it will mean that he is without spiritual siblings and without equals. He is “sole-born” and “peer-less.” No one else can lay claim to the title Son of God in the sense in which it applies to Christ.

Finally, questions have arisen in light of the controversy concerning the “eternal subordination of the Son” relating to the meaning of this phrase. Dozens of articles have appeared in recent years (post 2016) as well as a few books, so brevity is a challenge. Further, the controversy brings together not only ancient church history (just exactly what was “post-Nicene orthodoxy”?) but Reformational church history as well (what does Calvin’s emphasis upon the Son as autotheos mean in reference to such subjects as the Son as “begotten”?) along with lexicography (focused here on the meaning of monogenes). As a result, the viewpoints expressed are often heavily nuanced and difficult to categorize accurately. My summary will not satisfy those directly involved in the controversy, but space does not allow anything more.   

We will discuss in chapter 12 that the Father, Son, and Spirit are differentiated from each other by the opera ad intra and the opera ad extra. That is, there are internal definitional realities that differentiate the divine Persons, mainly, their relationships toward one another, and there are external realities, mainly God’s actions in creation and redemption, that likewise assist us in distinguishing the divine Persons. The issue that has arisen in conservative theological circles in recent years was derived, ironically (and I think improperly), from consideration of the relationship of man and woman in creation. That is, some theologians, seeking to (properly) defend the creation distinctives between men and women, and their resultant proper and godly roles, have asserted that you can have proper equality in men and women sharing the imago Dei, the image of God, while still having an inherent subordination between them. And the example given is the alleged eternal subordination of the Son to the Father. For though these theologians would assert that the Son is fully God and equal to the Father in glory and power and might, there is something inherent in their relationship that indicates eternal and real subordination. Often this is related to the idea, developed after Nicea mainly, that the Son derives His being, or at least His participation in the one divine being, from or by the Father (and the same would be true of the Spirit).    

This work strongly affirms that 1) absolute monotheism must be affirmed without amelioration or the slightest compromise, 2) that the identification of Jesus as Yahweh (see chapter 9) is inherently opposite to any notion of internal subordination within the godhead, 3) that it is proper and necessary to emphasize that Jesus is autotheos, God “in and of Himself,” not merely by extrusion or participation, but by necessary reality of nature, and 4) that a proper understanding of begettal as a timeless relational act, and not as an act of derivation that is in any way a compromise of the full participation of the Son in the divine Being (and hence autotheos), is helpful, useful, and necessary, and that this concept is brought to us more by the chosen names of Father and Son than by either the lexical history of monogenes or by texts that are contextually more Messianic or salvific in nature than they are relevant to the eternal relationship of Father and Son. (Ibid., pp. 198-203)

NOTE

White’s sources on monogenes not implying begetting are outdated since a recent in-depth study done by Charles Lee Irons has proven otherwise. For more on this point I suggest reading the following articles:

The Meaning of Monogenes: Is Jesus God’s “Only Begotten” Son?

John 1:18 – What Does Μονογενὴς Mean?

FURTHER READING

JESUS: THE I AM HE INCARNATE

JESUS: JEHOVAH OF HOSTS

Carmen Christi: A Reformed Perspective

BEYOND THE VEIL OF ETERNITY

THE UNCREATED WORD BECOMES FLESH

CHRIST: GOD’S CREATED WISDOM?

The following 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 13. Was Christ the First Creature?, pp. 251-255.

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.

WISDOM AND CREATION (PROVERBS 8:22)

Proverbs 8:22 is one of the most controversial verses in the Old Testament. It was the focus of much debate in the fourth century between the Arians, whose view of Christ was similar to that of the Jehovah’s Witnesses today, and those who believed in the Trinity, notably Athanasius. Both groups in the early church assumed that Proverbs 8, which presents itself as a speech given by “Wisdom,” was referring to the preincarnate Christ, but they differed as to what the text meant. There is considerable debate today about how to translate the verse as well as how to interpret it.13 The following four versions of Proverbs 8:22 are representative:

The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His way,

Before His works of old. (NKJV)

The Lord acquired me at the beginning of his creation,

 before his works of long ago. (CSB)

The Lord begot me, the beginning of his works,

The forerunner of his deeds of long ago. (NABRE)

The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,

the first of his acts of long ago. (NRSV)

Looking closely at these four versions, we find three significant differences in the way they translate Proverbs 8:22. The translations differ on how to translate the main verb, whether wisdom existed at the beginning or was the beginning, and whether the second line means that wisdom existed “before” God’s works or was “the first” of those works. The Hebrew text, it seems, can be translated in any number of ways. On the other hand, the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament, is unambiguous: “The Lord created [ektisen] me as the beginning of his ways for his works” (LES). This wording in the Septuagint, which was the version of the Old Testament with which most Christians were familiar in the early church, seemed to support the Arian view that the preexistent Son had been created.

As the variations in the English versions (mostly based on the Hebrew text) reflect, the meaning of the Hebrew verb qānāh is the main question. There are four main choices here: “possessed” (ESV, KJV, NKJV); “acquired” (CSB); expressing birth, either “begot” (NABRE) or “brought forth” (NIV); and “created” (GNT, LEB, NASB, NEB, NET, NJB, NRSV, TNK; also “formed,” NLT).

In the vast majority of occurrences in the Old Testament, qānāh means “buy” or “acquire.”14 This is the case in all of the other thirteen occurrences in Proverbs. Moreover, in all but one of those occurrences, what a person is said to buy, acquire, or get is wisdom or another intellectual virtue such as understanding or knowledge (1:5; 4:5, 7; 15:32; 16:16; 17:16; 18:15; 19:8; 23:23). Since Proverbs instructs its reader to “acquire wisdom” (Prov. 4:5, 7; 16:16), when we find the same language used for wisdom in Proverbs 8:22 it makes sense to translate it the same way: “The Lord acquired me” (CSB).

On the other hand, the passage goes on to quote Wisdom as saying that it “was brought forth” before the physical world (Prov. 8:24, 25), which suggests that qānāh in verse 22 might be expressing something like birth.15 Perhaps this is the intended meaning, or perhaps the passage exhibits some mixing of metaphors.

Whatever precise translation we use, the verse appears to be saying that the Lord “got” wisdom. At this point the Watchtower argues that the passage must be speaking about Christ. They argue that since the character quality of wisdom “never began to exist because Jehovah has always existed and he has always been wise,” Proverbs 8:22 must be referring to something other than God’s attribute of wisdom. Since the New Testament calls Christ “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24), they conclude that it is referring to Christ.16

The main problem with this argument is that it assumes that Proverbs 8:22 should be understood literally to mean that God “got” a wisdom that he previously lacked. This assumption ignores the context. In Proverbs 1–9, Solomon describes wisdom using the literary device of personification, in which something that is not literally a person is described as if it were. Personification was a familiar rhetorical device in the Old Testament. One commentator points out that in the Old Testament, “Abstract concepts such as faithfulness, justice, love, peace, righteousness, truth and uprightness are all personified (Ps. 85:10 [Heb. 11]; Isa. 59:14).”17 Jehovah’s Witnesses should take this point seriously: The Watchtower’s own publications have made this point when they were not focused on using Proverbs 8:22 as a proof text about Christ but instead commenting on an earlier verse, “Wisdom cries aloud in the street” (Prov. 1:20):

Personification is another figure of speech. We use this when we speak of something inanimate as if it were alive. For example, the Bible tells us, “Death ruled as king from Adam down to Moses”; “grief and sighing must flee away”; “true wisdom itself keeps crying aloud in the very street.” (Romans 5:14; Isaiah 35:10; Proverbs 1:20) Death, grief, sighing and wisdom cannot really rule, flee or cry out. But speaking as if they did, the Bible paints vivid mental pictures, easily visualized and remembered.18

This statement is exactly right. Wisdom is personified not just in a verse here or there (like Proverbs 1:20), but in a sustained way in three passages: Proverbs 1:20–33; 8:1–36; and 9:1–12. In all three passages, Wisdom speaks in the first-person singular, as in the following examples:

I have called and you refused to listen.” (1:24)

I, wisdom, dwell with prudence.” (8:12)

“Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed.” (9:5)

In an attempt to blunt this point, Greg Stafford notes that only in Proverbs 8:12 does wisdom use the specific formula, “I, wisdom.”19 Evidently he regards all of Proverbs 8 as a speech by the preexistent Christ, not just 8:22–31. However, he does not explain why the use of this particular formula in 8:12 marks the passage as something other than literary personification. If that had been its purpose, one would expect this formula to appear at the beginning of Wisdom’s speech, not in the midst of it. In actuality, the “speaker” called Wisdom in Proverbs 8 is clearly the same as the Wisdom who speaks in Proverbs 1. Both are introduced in the same way:

Wisdom cries aloud in the street, in the markets she raises her voice; at the head of the noisy streets she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks. (Prov. 1:20–21)

Does not wisdom call? Does not understanding raise her voice? On the heights beside the way, at the crossroads she takes her stand; beside the gates in front of the town, at the entrance of the portals she cries aloud. (Prov. 8:1–3)

In both passages, Wisdom speaks in the first person and addresses her audience as “O simple ones” (Prov. 1:22; 8:5). In both passages, Wisdom speaks of “my words” (1:23; 8:8). In the first speech, Wisdom warns that those who refused to listen to her and who fall into calamity “will seek me diligently but will not find me” (1:28 NASB), while in the second speech she promises that “those who diligently seek me will find me” (8:17 NASB), presumably if they do not wait until it is too late. Both speeches conclude by promising good things to those who “listen to me” and warns of death for those who do not (1:32–33; 8:34–36). Clearly, the speaker in both passages is the same “Wisdom.

Proverbs 8 personifies other intellectual virtues besides wisdom. For example, it personifies understanding in the opening lines of the passage: “Does not wisdom call? Does not understanding raise her voice?” (Prov. 8:1). If “wisdom” is a person here, then “understanding” must also be a person. Anyone taking this passage to be referring to “Wisdom” as a person will also have to explain who “Prudence” is in 8:12, since that verse says that Wisdom dwells with Prudence!20 As Old Testament scholar Tremper Longman points out, in Proverbs prudence and other virtues besides wisdom “are themselves personified and considered her colleagues.”21

Another passage in Proverbs 1–9 that contains even more striking parallels to Proverbs 8 is Proverbs 3:13–20, where Solomon extols the value of wisdom and understanding. Note the following parallel:

Blessed is the one who finds wisdom,

and the one who gets understanding,

for the gain from her is better than gain from silver and her profit better than gold.

She is more precious than jewels,

and nothing you desire can compare with her.

Long life is in her right hand;

in her left hand are riches and honor. (Prov. 3:13–16)

Take my instruction instead of silver,

and knowledge rather than choice gold,

for wisdom is better than jewels,

and all that you may desire cannot compare with her. . . .

Riches and honor are with me,

enduring wealth and righteousness.

My fruit is better than gold, even fine gold,

and my yield than choice silver. (Prov. 8:10–11, 18–19)

Proverbs 3 goes on to describe the role of wisdom in the creation of the world, anticipating in a briefer way the debated passage in Proverbs 8:22–31:

The Lord by wisdom founded the earth;

by understanding he established the heavens;

by his knowledge the deeps broke open,

and the clouds drop down the dew. (Prov. 3:19–20)

The Lord possessed me [wisdom] at the beginning of his work . . .

When he established the heavens, I was there . . .

when he established the fountains of the deep . . .

when he marked out the foundations of the earth . . . . (Prov. 8:22, 27–29)

If we read Proverbs 8:22–31 in the broader context of Proverbs 1–9 as a whole, what we find is that Solomon was extolling wisdom as something God “had” and that he demonstrated in all of his created works. Wisdom’s poetic statement “The Lord acquired me at the beginning of his way” is a verbally artistic way of saying what Proverbs 3:19–20 says, which is that God created the world in a perfectly wise fashion. This interpretation makes sense of Proverbs 8:22 no matter how we translate qānāh. If we translate it “begot” or “brought forth” (NABRE, NIV), the birth imagery is simply part of the extended metaphor, personifying wisdom as God’s first child who was with him throughout his work of creation. If we translate it “created,” following the Septuagint and several modern English versions, it is still personifying wisdom as having played an essential role in the creation of the world. It is not saying that God made Christ as an angel and then sat back while the angel did the rest of the work of creation.

There is nothing wrong with reading Proverbs 8 as teaching us something about the wisdom that is perfectly revealed in Jesus Christ. Paul stated that in Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Col. 2:3). Thus, studying what the Old Testament says about wisdom can enrich our understanding of Christ. However, it is a mistake to apply isolated proof texts from Old Testament poetic wisdom literature to Christ in a wooden, literalist fashion. Proverbs 8 was not intended to tell us who Christ is but rather to teach us that wisdom is essential to all of God’s works.

13. For an overview, see Bruce K. Waltke, The Book of Proverbs, Chapters 1–15, New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 408–9.

14. The verb occurs eighty-five times in the Hebrew OT, and other than Proverbs 8:22 the meaning “buy” or “acquire” clearly fits all but two places (Gen. 4:1; Ps. 139:13).

15. This is the conclusion in Waltke, Book of Proverbs, Chapters 1–15, 409.

16. E.g., “Come Be My Follower” (Walkill, NY: Watchtower, 2007, 2012 printing), 131.

17. Ernest C. Lucas, Proverbs, Two Horizons OT Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 262.

18. “The Bible’s Vivid Figures of Speech,” Watchtower (June 1, 1984), 19, bold emphasis added. See also Insight on the Scriptures (1988), 2:1019, 1161.

19. Stafford, Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended, 3rd ed., 408.

20. The 1985 Tanakh (TNK), published by the Jewish Publication Society, translates Proverbs 8:12, “I, Wisdom, dwell with Prudence,” capitalizing the “names” of the personified traits.

21. Tremper Longman III, Proverbs, BCOTWP (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2006), 201.

FURTHER READING

Was Jesus a created being after all?

REV. 3:14 REVISITED… ONE MORE TIME!

FIRSTBORN OF CREATION REVISITED… AGAIN!

GOD GAVE JESUS LIFE?

A HYMN TO THE DIVINE CHRIST

HOW MANY THEOIS IN THE NT?

THE UNCREATED WORD BECOMES FLESH

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 

The Truth of John 1:1

JOHN 1:1 REVISITED

CHRIST: THE UNCREATED CREATOR OF ALL CREATION

NT SCHOLARSHIP ON JOHN 1:1 AND TITUS 2:13 PT. 1

What Kind of Theos is Jesus?