JOHN 1:1 who is the WORD?

[gollamudi]

Thanks brother Gene for your response on my post.

Love and peace to you
Adam

[NickHassan]

HI GM,
You quote Is 45

“…there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me.” (Isa.45:21)
and say
If the LOGOS was another GOD, then this statement is false.”

But scripture speaks of other so called gods and so you should enlarge this view.
If men and angels are called gods then so too can the son of God be called a god.

[gollamudi]

Hi brother Nick,
Logos was not another God but an expression of the same one God the Father which later tabernacled in man Jesus. That's why Paul says in 2 Cori 5:19 as “God was in Christ reconcilling the world to Him” not that Jesus himself is another God but the same One and only God took abode in man Jesus.

I hope this will clear your doubts on this.

Thanks and peace to you
Adam

[NickHassan]

Hi GM,
An expression of God with God?
God was in Christ as His Spirit.
We too form such a temple[Eph2]

[GeneBalthrop]

Adam…….you have it absolutely right don't let anyone shake you lose from that truth, Logos is simply and attribute of God the Father and is not separate from Him, and the LOGOS or Gods words were in Christ, but that in no way makes him the word, He simply spoke the word as the Spirit of GOD gave him utterance. Jesus said plainly in several places the words he spoke were not His words, so while He was definitely a spokes man, He was not the person he represented, a spokesman is a representative of some one else and is not representing himself. Jesus did not have the freedom to be the FATHER but only to represent Him. And the Father confirmed the words He gave Jesus to Speak by the Signs that followed Him, even as He did the Apostles.

love and peace to you and yours Adam………………………gene

[NickHassan]

GB,
The Word was WITH God, not IN GOD.

[Tiffany]

So if the Word was God and was with God are there not two, a Godhead? Father and Son? Because the Word became flesh. We also have to look at other Scriptures in order to see if Jesus as God's Son was there from the beginning.
Read Rev. 3:14 ” These things says the Amen, the Faithful and True Witness, the BEGINNING OF THE CREATION OF GOD.” If He was the beginning of all creation, then He had to be there before Abraham was.
Also in Col. 1:15 it tells us that He is the image of the invisible God, the FIRSTBORN OVER ALL CREATION.
All thinga were created by Him and for Him. etc.
Is that not so?
Scripture does tell us so.
Peace and Love Irene

[NickHassan]

Hi Irene,
The Son came and was later deemed a fit vessel to be anointed and filled with God as Spirit.

[Tiffany]

Quote (Nick Hassan @ Nov. 25 2008,12:46)

Hi Irene, The Son came and was later deemed a fit vessel to be anointed and filled with God as Spirit.

So you do not believe that Jesus had glory with the Father before the world was? What glory do you think He had? I believe it was a Spirit Body. He was preeminence.
John 17:5
Irene

[NickHassan]

Hi Irene,
He said he had glory with the Father.
John 17:5
And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

[GeneBalthrop]

Irene……Jesus had predestined Glory, this Glory was already in Gods plan and so it (the glory) did preexist, but not Jesus the man. Jesus went to that preexisting Glory He was ordained for that Glory before he ever existed. Peter said it properly < He was foreordained, (BUT) was manifested (brought into existence) in Our time.

Love and peace to you and yours…………………gene

[gollamudi]

Quote (Gene Balthrop @ Nov. 25 2008,03:36)

Adam…….you have it absolutely right don't let anyone shake you lose from that truth, Logos is simply and attribute of God the Father and is not separate from Him, and the LOGOS or Gods words were in Christ, but that in no way makes him the word, He simply spoke the word as the Spirit of GOD gave him utterance. Jesus said plainly in several places the words he spoke were not His words, so while He was definitely a spokes man, He was not the person he represented, a spokesman is a representative of some one else and is not representing himself. Jesus did not have the freedom to be the FATHER but only to represent Him. And the Father confirmed the words He gave Jesus to Speak by the Signs that followed Him, even as He did the Apostles. love and peace to you and yours Adam………………………gene

Amen to that post brother Gene.

[gollamudi]

Quote (Nick Hassan @ Nov. 24 2008,20:16)

Hi GM, An expression of God with God? God was in Christ as His Spirit. We too form such a temple[Eph2]

Hi brother Nick,
There are n-number of times we have given the explanation on how a word can be with a person, so it is true with the Father God to say the word, 'a plan' or purpose or 'living word' was with Him. If you want here I am again quoting a portion of such explanation.

4. The Word “With God”:
John’s prologue continues: “And the word was with God.” So read our versions. And so the Greek might be rendered, if one has already decided, against all the evidence, that by “word” John meant a person, the Son of God, alive before his birth.

Allowance must be made for Hebrew idiom. Without a feel for the Hebrew background, as so often in the New Testament, we are deprived of a vital key to understanding. We might ask of an English speaker, “When was your word last ‘with you’?” The plain fact is that in English, which is not the language of the Bible, a “word” is never “with” you. A person can be “with you,” certainly, but not a word.

But in the wisdom literature of the Bible a “word” certainly can be “with” a person. And the meaning is that a plan or purpose — a word — is kept in one’s heart ready for execution. For example Job says to God (10:13): “Yet these things you have concealed in your heart; I know that this is with you.” The NASV gives a more intelligible sense in English by reading, “ I know that this is within you.” The NIV reads “in your mind.” But the Hebrew literally reads “with you.” Again in Job 23:13, 14 it is said of God, “What his soul desires, that he does, for he performs what is appointed for me, and many such decrees are with him,” meaning, of course, that God’s plans are stored up in His mind. God’s word is His intention, held in His heart as plans to be carried out in the world He has created. Sometimes what God has “with Him” is the decree He has planned. With this we may compare similar thoughts: “This is the portion of a wicked man with God and the inheritance which tyrants receive from Him” (Job 27:13). “I will instruct you in the power of God; what is with the Almighty I will not conceal” (Job 27:11).

We should also consider the related concept of “Wisdom.” In Job we find this: “The deep says ‘It [Wisdom] is not in me.’ And the sea says, ‘It is not with me’ ” (Job 28:14). To have wisdom or word “with” one is to have them in one’s mind and heart. “With him is wisdom and strength. To him belong counsel and understanding” (Job 12:13). And of course Wisdom, that is Lady Wisdom, was with (Hebrew, etzel; LXX, para) God at the beginning (Prov. 8:22, 30).

In Genesis 40:14 we read “Keep me in mind when it goes well with you,” and the text reads literally “Remember me with yourself…” From all these examples it is clear that if something is “with” a person, it is lodged in the mind, often as a decreed purpose or plan. Paul remarked in Galatians 2:5 that the Gospel might continue “with [pros] them,” in their thinking. John in his Gospel elsewhere uses para, not pros to express the proximity of one person to another (John 1:39; 4:40; 8:38; 14:17, 23, 25; 19:25; cp. 14:23. Note also meta in John 3:22, 25ff, etc. See New Int. Dict. of NT Theology, Vol. 3, p. 1205).

Thus also in John 1:1, “In the beginning God had a plan and that plan was within God’s heart and was itself ‘God’ ” — that is, God in His self-revelation. The plan was the very expression of God’s will. It was a divine Plan, reflective of His inner being, close to the heart of God. John is fond of the word “is.” But it is not always an “is” of strict identity. Jesus “is” the resurrection (“I am the resurrection”). God “is” spirit. God “is” love and light (cp. “All flesh is grass”). In fact, God is not actually one-to-one identical with light and love, and Jesus is not literally the resurrection. “The word was God” means that the word was fully expressive of God’s mind. A person “is” his mind, metaphorically speaking. Jesus is the one who can bring about our resurrection. God communicates through His spirit (John 4:24). The word is the index of God’s intention and purpose. It was in His heart, expressive of His very being. As the Translators’ Translation senses the meaning, “the Word was with God and shared his nature,” “the Word was divine.”[4] The word, then, is the divine expression, the divine Plan, the very self of God revealed. The Greek phrase “theos een o logos”[5] (“the word was God”) can be rendered in different ways. The subject is “word” (logos) but the emphasis falls on what the word was: “God” (theos, with no definite article), which stands at the head of the sentence. “God” here is the predicate. It has a slightly adjectival sense which is very hard to put exactly into English. John can say that God is love or light. This is not an exact equivalence. God is full of light and love, characterized by light and love. The word is similarly a perfect expression of God and His mind. The word, we might say, is the mind and heart of God Himself. John therefore wrote: “In the beginning God expressed Himself.” Not “In the beginning God begat a Son.” That imposition of later creeds on the text has been responsible for all sorts of confusion and even mischief — when some actually killed others over the issue of the so-called “eternal Son.”

May God continue to reveal many things through His Spirit.
Adam

[NickHassan]

Hi GM,
A word is expressed already, not an unexpressed plan.
Jesus had glory with the Father before the foundation of the world.
It does not need convoluted explanations as GB would seem to want to attempt

[gollamudi]

Hi brother Nick,
If you believe the word as Jesus or any other person apart from God you are making two Gods literally as our sister Irene rightly told. I don't think you agree with this polytheism. Yes, our brother Gene is correct in saying Jesus' genesis came only when he was really born of Mary so the question of glory he shared can only be a promised glory before the foundations of the world by God the Father.

I hope this will clear your ambiguity.
Thanks and peace to you
Adam

[Tiffany]

Quote (Gene Balthrop @ Nov. 25 2008,16:05)

Irene……Jesus had predestined Glory, this Glory was already in Gods plan and so it (the glory) did preexist, but not Jesus the man. Jesus went to that preexisting Glory He was ordained for that Glory before he ever existed. Peter said it properly < He was foreordained, (BUT) was manifested (brought into existence) in Our time. Love and peace to you and yours…………………gene

Gen You really have to make a better study on the preexisting of Jesus. If He created all, how can He do that in the plan of God, that simple does not make sense.
Col 1:15-18 is a real good way to start. Rev, 3:14 come on Gen open your mind better. How can He be the Firstborn of all creation if He was not there? And was does preeminence mean. Jesus the man did come later. But that has nothing to do with what He was before He became a man. That is why He said let me go back to what I was with You Father. John 17:5 Think about this, if He was only a plan of God, is that what He went back to? No. He was a Spirit Being before and became it again only even Higher He sits at the right hand of the Father to come again as King of King and of Lords. But only for a thousand years, and then He will give the Kingdom back to the Father so God can be all in all. Please no offence.
Peace and Love
Irene

[NickHassan]

Hi GM,
How is Jesus another god if he was with God in the beginning?

[NickHassan]

Hi GM,
It is Whom you worship that matters, not so much titles.

[gollamudi]

Hi brother Nick,
Because Jn 1:1 says 'the word was God' and if Jesus was the word which was with God was also God then there must be two Gods according to you.

[gollamudi]

If the Logos was another person and also Jesus then we are Hellenizing Christianity as James Still rightly told. Please go through this article you yourself can understand.

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/james_still/gospel_john.html

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