John 1:1

1. In the beginning Originally: before all things else.

Was the Word Not was created, or brought into existence, but was. Fix any assignable point as the beginning, and the Word was, and still was. That is, the Word is absolutely eternal.

The Word As mind manifests itself in the spoken word, so God, the eternal mind, manifests himself in the eternal LOGOS or Word. And as this Word is in John 1:14 said to have been made flesh, and in John 1:14; John 1:18 is called the only begotten of the Father, the only begotten Son which is in the bosom of the Father, so this Word by which God manifests his own hidden and unknowable nature is identified with Jesus the Messiah. The propriety and beauty of both the terms Word and Son, to designate that in God by which his absolute essence is revealed in the universe, are such that we might suppose them originated by the mind of the Evangelist himself, under the guidance of inspiration. But we know, historically, that the term Word is used in a somewhat similar sense in the Old Testament, in the old Jewish Targums, in the Jewish apocryphal writings, by the Greek philosopher, Plato, and Greekish Jew, Philo, of Alexandria. Consult Watson’s Institutes, Part II, chap. 12. and Clarke’s excellent notes on John 1:0. In the Old Testament the first chapter of Genesis describes the creation as taking place at the divine word spoken. We have, Genesis 15:1, “The WORD of the Lord came to Abraham.” 1 Samuel 3:21, “The Lord revealed himself by the word of the Lord.” 2 Samuel 7:21, “For thy word’s sake.” In the Targums we find the term Word, ( Memra,) used for God revealing himself. Thus they say, “The Wo rd [ Memra ] of Jehovah creates man.” “Jehovah thy God, his Word [ Memra ] goeth before thee.” “The Lord said unto his Word.” Philo applies such passages as we have above quoted from the Old Testament expressly to the Logos. He describes the Logos as being the image of God, the second God, the eldest son of the eternal Father, etc. The term Logos being thus prepared and used by uninspired writers and in different systems, John adapts and limits it to the true Christian use. This Logos, as now defined, is the second person in the Holy Trinity, incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ. The term “Word” is used in the New Testament by John alone in this sense.

Was with God Literal Greek, was TO God. The eternal word was inherent to, in, with, God. This mysterious inherence is, as Asthanasius said, “hid by the wings of the cherubim.”

The Word was God The Arians, who hold that the Word is inferior in essence to the supreme God, though superior to all other finite beings, read this clause the Word was a god. But there is no reason for interpreting this word God differently from the same word in the former part of this verse, or from the same word, God, in John 1:6; John 1:12-13, etc. The Arian hypothesis has a strong tendency to polytheism.