The Forgotten Trinity (9 page)

We need to stop and consider this truth for just a moment. Sometimes Christians who have known God's truth for a long time become
somewhat hardened to the impact such a declaration was meant to
carry. The Word, the Creator of all things, the Eternal One, became
flesh. Maybe we think so highly of ourselves that we are not properly
struck by such a statement. We need to be amazed by the assertion,
"The Word became flesh." How can the unlimited enter into limitation? John does not tell us. The mechanics of how are not revealed to
us, for God is under no obligation to answer every prying question.
We are simply told that the eternal Word became flesh. Faith rests in
God's revelation.

The Word became flesh. He did not simply appear to be flesh. He
was not "faking it," to use modern terminology. Jesus was not simply
some phantom or spirit masquerading as a real human being. He became flesh. John uses a term that was easily understandable in his day.
It's not an unusual word. At times it refers solely to flesh, as in the material stuff of our bodies. At other times it refers to the whole
human nature. In any case, its meaning could not be missed. The Logos
entered into the physical realm. He became a human being, a real, living, breathing human being.

John is so concerned that his readers understand that he points out
that He "dwelt among us, and we saw His glory." John is not reporting
a second- or third-hand story. He is giving an eyewitness account. Jesus
dwelt among us. He lived His life in the middle of the mass of humanity. He rubbed shoulders with sinners and saints. He walked dusty
roads, thirsted for water on hot days, and reclined at the table with
friends, and even with enemies. He really existed, He really lived.

Why is John so concerned about this? We note that he repeats this
emphasis in 1 John 1:1-5, and then goes so far as to say that anyone
who denies that Jesus Christ came in the flesh is the antichrist (1 John
4:2-3)! The reason is found in the fact that even while the apostles lived
on earth, false teachers were entering into the church. Specifically,
there were men teaching a system that would eventually become
known as "Gnosticism." This belief system teaches that everything that
is spirit is good, and everything that is material (including flesh) is evil.
This is known as the belief in "dualism." Spirit is good, matter is evil.

What, then, does a person do who believes in dualism but wants
to make some room for the message of Jesus? He has to get around
the plain fact that Jesus Christ came in the flesh. So these teachers,
known to the early church by the term Docetics,23 denied that Jesus
truly had a physical body so that they could keep the idea that He was
good and pure and holy. They even spread stories about disciples walking with Jesus along the beach, and when one of the disciples turned
around, he saw only one set of footprints, because, of course, Jesus
doesn't leave footprints! John is tremendously concerned that his beloved readers do not fall for this kind of teaching, so he strongly emphasizes the reality of Christ's physical nature. He leaves no stone
unturned in his quest to make sure we understand: the eternal Logos,
fully deity by nature, eternal Creator, the very source of life itself, became a human being. This is the only way to understand his words.

John insists that he and his companions observed the glory of the "only begotten from the Father." It would be good to stop for a moment and make sure we have a firm understanding of what "only begotten" means. Huge misunderstandings have arisen about the use of
this term. For those interested in the in-depth story, an extended note
is attached to this chapter. To summarize that information for our purposes here, the Greek term used is µovoyEvij (monogenes). The term
does not refer to begetting, but to uniqueness. While the traditional
translation is "only-begotten," a better translation would be "unique"
or "one of a kind."

In verse 14, John uses the term as a title, "the glory of the One and
Only" (NIV). Immediately we see that the term monogenes has special
meaning for John, for he speaks of the One and Only having "glory."
The One and Only comes "from the Father." This is the first time John
has specifically identified the Father by name in this Gospel. He differentiates the Father from the Logos, the "One and Only," clearly directing us to two persons, the one coming from the other. Yet the Logos
is seen to have glory, to have a divine origin with the Father, and is
said to be "full of grace and truth."

John moves on to again make note of John's testimony to Jesus in
verse 15, and finally makes it plain that he is speaking of Jesus Christ
by using that phrase for the first time in verse 17. But before he closes
his prologue, John uses what is often called the "bookends" technique.
He provides a closing statement that sums up and repeats, in a different form, what he said in his introduction. And this is found in the
final verse of the prologue, verse 18.

THE ONLY SON, WHO IS GOD

When you are speaking to someone, it is usually the last thing you
say that will be remembered. That's what we are taught in classes on
"How to Make a Great Presentation." John seemed to understand that
concept, because in John 1:18 he provides us with a summary statement, the second bookend, so to speak, for his prologue. Here's what
he wrote:

No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. (NASB)

Let's note a couple of other translations:

No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is
at the Father's side, has made him known. (NIV)

No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close
to the Father's heart, who has made him known. (NRSV)

Yet if you have a KJV or NKJV, your translation reads differently
at a very key point. Note the NKJV translation:

No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who
is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

The KJV and NKJV follow a later, less primitive text in reading "the
only begotten Son" rather than "the only begotten God" (NASB). We
have here a textual variant, pitting the earliest, oldest manuscripts of
the gospel of John against the later bulk of manuscripts. Without going
into a lot of detail,2 there is every reason to accept the reading of the
earliest manuscripts, and to see the later emendation as a natural mistake made by scribes who were accustomed to the phraseology "only
begotten son."

But even once we have established the proper reading of the text,
how do we translate it? The phrase in question is tovoy£viig Oc6;
(monogenes theos). The renderings given above provide a wide range
of translation, from the very literal "the only begotten God" (NASB)
through the NIV's "God the One and Only" to the NRSV's "God the
only Son." There are excellent summaries of the issue available,25 so
we won't go into the technicalities here. Suffice it to say that I find the
NRSV's translation to be the best, "God the only Son." If we wanted
something a little more literal, I would suggest, "the only Son, who is
God." This preserves the word order that John uses, placing monogenes
as a title immediately preceding theos (God).

What is John telling us by using such an unusual phrase? One thing
is for certain: he is not telling us that Jesus Christ was "created" at some time in the past. He is not denying everything he said in the previous
seventeen verses and turning Jesus into a creation! Such ideas flow
from wrong thinking about what monogenes means. Remember that
the term means "unique" or "one of a kind." In light of this, John's
meaning is clear. In fact, I would submit that outside of a Trinitarian
understanding of this passage, John is making no sense at all! What do
I mean?

John tells us that no one has seen God at any time. Is this true? Are
there not many instances of men seeing God in the Old Testament?
Did not Isaiah say that he saw the Lord sitting upon His throne in the
temple (Isaiah 6:1-3)? So what is John saying? How can we understand
his words?

The key is found in the final phrases of verse 18, specifically, "who
is at the Father's side." When John says "no one has seen God at any
time," he is referring to the Father. No man has seen the Father at any
time. So how do we have knowledge of the Father? The µovoyevi has
"made Him known" or "explained Him."26 The unique One has made
the Father known. Or, in light of the use of the term Father, the Only
Son has revealed the Father. But this is not merely a dim reflection, a
partial revelation, provided by the Only Son. This is the monogenes
theos, the Only Son who is God. The divine nature of the tovoyevij
is again plainly asserted, just as it was in verse 1. This is what forms
the "bookend," the assertion in verse 1 that the Logos is divine, repeated and reaffirmed here in verse 18 with the statement that the Only
Son is God. 27

Another important fact to note from this verse is that if indeed no
one has seen the Father, then what does this tell us of the Son? Who
did Isaiah see in Isaiah 6? Who walked with Abraham by the oaks of
Mamre (Genesis 18:1)? None other than the preincarnate Jesus Christ,
the eternal Logos. John will develop this thought later in his Gospel, as
we shall see when we examine those passages that identify Jesus as Yahweh.

With the great truths proclaimed in the prologue in mind, I would
strongly encourage you to take the time to read the entire gospel of John.
It's barely an evening's reading, and with the prologue acting as a "lens," giving you the proper perspective of who Jesus Christ truly is,
you will find passages leaping from the page, all of which confirm and
substantiate the proclamation of John 1:1-18: Jesus Christ is God in
human flesh, the eternal Creator of all things, "the Only Son, who is
God!"

There is a particular group of passages in the Holy scriptures
that uses the word "God" of the Lord Jesus. While we could wish this
would be enough to banish all doubt, obviously it is not. The deity of
Christ is the constant object of attack and denial, and the verses that
bear testimony to this divine truth have been mistranslated, twisted,
and in various other ways undermined by nearly every false prophet
and false teacher over the past seventeen hundred years.

Just as the writers of the New Testament and the early Christians
did not hesitate to confess Jesus as their God, so we, too, must be bold
in our profession of this divine truth. We will, in this chapter, see how
the early Christians called Jesus "God." Each passage has been attacked
in almost every imaginable way; thus, we will have to explain why we
believe these passages proclaim the deity of Christ, and why others
should accept this truth.

There are many extensive and exhaustive works on each of these verses of Scripture, and we will not seek to recreate those works here.
Instead, I desire my fellow servants of Christ to be encouraged in their
faith in our Lord and to be strengthened in their faith and their testimony to the Lord of glory, the one Thomas called "my Lord and my
God."