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JOHN 1:1 “IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD, AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD, AND THE WORD WAS GOD.” (KJV, NKJV, NIV, NASB, ASV, RSV)
“Before anything else existed, there was Christ, with God. He has always been alive and is himself God.” (TLB)
OK, I understand that the Doctrine of the Trinity has been discussed and debated for two thousand years. I recognize that Jesus used words and terminology during His earthly ministry that certainly seemed to indicate that He and the Father should be considered as separate beings of the Godhead. But, I also have to recognize that there are many, many words that He and others used to identify Him as God Himself. This Scripture is just one of those.
Jesus said, “I will pray to the Father.” See John 14:16 “I will pray the Father and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you forever.” and John 16:26 “…I will pray the Father for you, for the Father Himself loveth you, because you have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father.” In Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer in John 15 He says, “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you.” and “…all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.”
No one, either side of the Trinitarian doctrinal view, denies that Jesus was all human/man and all God. The difficulty comes when we try to make the triune God into three distinct beings. The very bedrock of the Bible and the Jewish faith is stated in Deuteronomy 6:4 – “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord.”
Colossians 2:9 tells us “For in Him (Jesus Christ) dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” We know that God is spirit (John 4:24) and the Holy Spirit is revealed as Spirit….only the Son, Jesus, is manifested fully as the “Godhead bodily.”
In John 8, when the Pharisees were grilling Jesus over who His Father was, He revealed that if they had known Him, they would have known the Father (Verse 19). Ultimately, to make it totally clear, Jesus revealed in verse 58, “Before Abraham was, I AM.” This is the same “I AM” that God told Moses when he asked what His name was. It is no wonder that, through their blindness to what Jesus was declaring to them, they picked up stones to cast at Him.
In John 14:9, Philip decides to make it easy for them by simply asking Jesus, “Show us the Father.” Jesus responds by asking Philip, “Have I been with you so long and yet you have not known me? He who has seen me has seen the Father…I am in the Father and the Father is in Me.”
Jesus was the MAN-GOD. He was both fully man, and fully God. All fundamental Christians believe that fact. We even agree that Jesus and the Father are equal. We come into great difficulty however, when Jesus himself declares that He and the Father are ONE. God was fully manifested bodily in Jesus Christ.
The only fully physical, bodily representation or manifestation of the Godhead was declared in Jesus Christ. Only by recognizing that the Father and the Son (as well as the Holy Spirit) are ONE can we harmonize the Scriptures. Hence the revelation of John 1. This brings us back to our memory verse.
In Genesis 1:1, which we have already memorized, we remember that “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” Now John tells us in John 1:1-3, “…the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And, “All things were made by him, and without him was not any thing made.” Again, in verse 10, “He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.” And just in case we want to add another named figure to the Godhead, “the Word,” John makes it clear in verse 14, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.”
Jesus is the “Word” or “Logos.” John makes it very clear here that “all things were made by Him.” There is nothing that was made/created that was not made by Jesus. Jesus created the earth. He created sunshine, the water and the mountains. He did a pretty good job too!
The law of relativity must be observed then. Gen 1:1 says that God created the heavens and the earth. John 1:1 says that the Word, which was in the beginning, created all things that were created. Hence, Jesus is God. He was and is fully man. He was and is fully God. If we see Him, we see the Father.
Rodney Griffin wrote in song, “He was so much man that He slept in a boat, yet He was so much God that the waves ceased when He spoke. He was so much man that He wept when Lazarus died, yet He was so much God, Lazarus came forth when He cried. He was so much man that He thirsted at the well, Yet He was so much God that he saved her soul from hell. He was so much man that He died upon a tree, yet He was so much God that He rose in victory.
Questions to ponder: The doctrine of the Trinity is a complex one. It attempts to understand the existence of the Godhead. Is it an important doctrine to debate? Are Trinity and Oneness doctrines that different? If Jesus is God manifested in the flesh, why did He describe Himself, seemingly, in a manner to make us think He and the Father were distinct? Is it “Three in One” or “One as Three”? What is the difference? Just how do you reckon Jesus created the earth and all its fascinating features? When Genesis 1 tells us that God said, “Let there be light” yet John 1 tells us Jesus created it all, does that mean Jesus said, “Let there be light?” Is your head hurting thinking about all of this? Is the Godhead simply too difficult to understand? Or, is it a wondrously awesome thing that the Lord made us even able to consider and desire to actually know the nature of God? To whom do you pray?
Other Texts/Scriptures to examine and study: Matthew 6:9, The “Lord’s Prayer.” John 20:26-28, Thomas’ confession. Matthew 1:23, Jesus declared, “God with us.” Colossians 1:15, “He is the image of the invisible God…”
 
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