Overflow Daily...ish: Jesus among other gods


In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 
John 1:1 (ESV)

Sometimes I like to read through the events that have occurred on a single day. For example, yesterday was the Superbowl, but other significant events have occurred in the history of mankind on February the 3rd. For example, in 1789 the 1st electoral college elected George Washington and John Adams as the President and Vice President of the United States. Much later in 2004, Mark Zuckerburg chose that date to launch Facebook from his Harvard dormitory. A lot has changed in America since 2004, and a considerable amount more since 1789. And neither of those two events are without substantial impact to our lives today. The reason being that ideas have consequences.

While the Gospel of John had been written nearly 2000 years ago, it still is relevant and timely for our lives. And from the beginning of the Gospel we read a statement that bears significant meaning to every person who will live. It speaks a truth that is so important and challenges every other religious belief system in the world.

“In the beginning”- This echoes of Genesis 1 and we are reminded that there was a beginning. All that we see, hear, feel, taste, and smell, that did not exist in the beginning. It started to exist. It is not eternal as several pantheistic religions may claim it to be. The universe had a start, every finite thing had a start and so the finite became existent at the command of the infinite. But what was from the beginning?

“was the Word”- God’s Word implies a powerful self-expression in creation, revelation, and salvation. So the personification of the ‘Word’ is the title for God’s ultimate self-disclosure, the person of His Son. There from the beginning, there with God and was God! But what or who is this Word? It is Christ. We see revelation later in the chapter, most clearly in verses 14 and 17. The challenge that is made from those who claim that Jesus was created, or even that He is not eternal, are struck down. But not just them, in the rest of the verse other heretical ideas are torn down.

“And the Word was with God”- The heresy of Modalism or Sabellianism, not yet developed, is killed before it is birthed. Modalists claimed that God exists in modes with the most common way that this heresy is presented is the analogy of water; ice, water and vapor being used to describe the Father, Son, and Spirit of the Trinity. Those who want to say that God the Father and God the Son are the same person, but simply takes off one hat and dons a different one have a false god.

“And the Word was God”- And then we come to what is possibly the most controversial of them all. The Word was God. He wasn’t like God. He was God. We wonder how heresies are formed when the Word of God is so clear in this short verse and yet another one does spring up; Arianism, which taught that Jesus was like God in nature and essence but not truly God, of the same essence and nature.

Ideas have consequences. However, having misplaced faith has eternal consequences. Take a moment to consider what ideas have impacted you. How they have shaped you into the person that you are today. My prayer is that the truth of God’s Word is supreme in your life and that you continue to walk in sanctification and truth.

Grace and Peace,
Pastor Alex

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