In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.
John 1:1-3 (NIV)
People from the early days of the Church all the way to today have had a lot of controversy as to who or what Jesus is. From the Ebionites, who tried to humanize the deity right out of Him, to those today who accept Jesus, but only as a good man, a great teacher, or a martyr.
But if you are going to only accept Jesus as a human being, then there are huge chunks of the Bible that you have to disagree with, disregard, or try to reinterpret. John 1 is one of those. John would never allow anyone to demote Jesus to less than he knew Him to be. In His first letter (1 John 1:1-4), John clearly indicates that he himself was an eyewitness of Jesus and of His divinity – not a philosopher or a theologian, but a witness. This is the same testimony that Peter gave in 2 Peter 1:16-18.
John begins by referring to Jesus as “The Word.” (By the way, if you need proof that the Word is Jesus, look at verse 14.) According to the HCSB Study Bible, “the primary use of ‘logos’ (“word”) is to denote divine revelation in some form or other.” What John is telling us is that Jesus, the Word, is the pure revelation of the Father to the world. If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus. If you want to know what God requires, listen to Jesus.
This concept is reinforced by the 3 characteristics pointed out by John in verses 1 and 2:
- He was in the beginning – Jesus wasn’t created by God as part of the “created order.” Before the heavens or the earth existed, Jesus was already there.
- He was God – Jesus is not some lesser divine being or an angel as some teach. He is God. As Jesus Himself put it, “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30)
- He was with God in the beginning – Even though Jesus and the Father are one, they are also distinct. This is part of the mystery of the Trinity. (By the way, the classic meaning of “mystery” is simply something that doesn’t fit easily into our finite brains.) Jesus is one with, but distinct from, the Father.
And John goes one step further: Jesus is the Creator of the universe (verse 3). This is restated very clearly with the writer of Hebrews wrote, “the Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe. (Hebrews 1:2, emphasis added.) This all-powerful God of the universe is the Savior that we serve.
I guess it’s easy for people to see Jesus as less than He is because He came to earth as a mere human being. He was born as a helpless infant in a backwater village, grew up as a normal person, and died like any other human being would do. But a lot of His life wasn’t really what you would call “normal.” His birth was attended by all of heaven’s hosts (Luke 2:8-14), His ministry was characterized by more amazing miracles than could be recorded (John 20:30-31), and after He died on the cross, He raised Himself from the dead. He came as a real human being, but He always remained the eternal God.
CS Lewis captured the essence of the battle for Jesus’ identity in Mere Christianity:
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else He would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was and is the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit on Him and kill Him as a demon, or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God, but let us not come to Him with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.