The Word: Created or Creator?

 

Jehovah's Witnesses insist Jesus is a created being, the first to be created, the one who created 'all other things.' Of the opening verses of John's gospel they write:

'The “beginning” referred to in this verse cannot mean “the beginning” of God, because God had no beginning. Jehovah God is “from everlasting to everlasting.” (Psalm 90:1, 2) However, the Word, Jesus Christ, did have a beginning. He is “the beginning of the creation by God.”—Revelation 3:14.'

What is 'the beginning' referring to in John 1:1? Did Jesus Christ have a beginning? Is the NWT accurate and reliable when it translates Revelation 3:14, 'the beginning of the creation by God'?

In the beginning was [εἰμί (eimi), Gk. ‘to be’] the Word – Genesis is in mind here, Jehovah’s Witnesses say as much when they teach God made Jesus and Jesus made ‘all other things,’ as Colossians 2 doesn’t say, but does in their NWT. Note, Jesus ‘was’ in the beginning; he didn’t begin to be. John could have said Jesus began to be. He used this phraseology when, in verse 14, he wrote, ‘And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.’ ‘Became’ here is γίνομαι (ginomai) to become, come into existence. But Jesus already was [eimi], in the beginning, denoting absolute pre-existence.

Jesus belongs to the order of eternity, an order to which God alone belongs. Of course, they are right to insist ‘the beginning’ John writes about is not the beginning of God, it is the beginning of creation, and when the beginning began Jesus already was.

The Watch Tower Society recognises this distinction in translating John 1:1, ‘In the beginning was the Word…’ and going on to translate, ‘All things came into existence through him, and apart from him not even one thing came into existence.’ ‘Was’ and ‘came to be’ are different categories, to say Jesus came to be is a category error.

Verse 3 reinforces the idea of Jesus as Creator and life-giver when John writes, ‘All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.’ Again, the Greek here is γίνομαι (ginomai), made, to come into being. Jesus cannot be part of the created order since ‘without him was not anything made that was made.’ He is what is called ‘the efficient principle,’ the beginning of everything, and not himself the first created.

Verse 4 reinforces this by saying of Jesus, ’In him was life…’ All creation is contingent, a crucial point, creation depends on another for life. Jesus has life in himself, is life’s source. This is why he was able to promise the woman at the well ‘a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’ (John 4:14) The source of life was offering his abundant life to a contingent creature.

Note also, Jesus prays in ch.17, ‘And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.’ 17:5 He had glory ‘with God,’ the God who insists he would not share his glory with another (Isaiah 42:8)

This is the challenge Jesus brings, and that Christians from the beginning have had to wrestle with. When asked for his credentials Jesus pointed to what he taught and what he did. Everything pointed to his divinity, from teaching as one with authority, through healing the sick, raising the dead, to conquering the grave.

Thomas declared the challenge met when he said to Jesus, ‘My Lord, and my God!’ John 20:28 Succinct but to the point. Theologians down the ages have dug deeper to get a fuller understanding of what it means that Jesus should be God the Son and not God the Father.

Unitarians conclude ‘He is the Son of God but not God the Son,’ a confession found nowhere in the Bible. In fact, to arrive at this conclusion they must ignore what John tells us in the prologue of his gospel.

Once you take the Unitarian stance you must bend every text and passage of Scripture to make it fit your Unitarianism. You have decide what the Bible says makes no sense to you and so you bend the Bible to your view. Wiser heads have decided to bend their faith to what the Bible says and, like Thomas, declare, ‘My Lord and my God!’