Got Fruit ?

Here’s something interesting that I came across while studying the Bible. I can’t recall the exact circumstances of why I was even studying John 1:1,2; but I thought that the results of the study were quite interesting regardless.

THE WORD BECAME FLESH

John 1:1,2 (NIV)
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was God in the beginning.

Before I go on, let me just say that this post is not meant to serve as a personal soapbox for arguing, debating or otherwise getting into long winded discussions concerning the divinity and “origin” of Jesus Christ. This entry is simply information derived from Bible study and discernment, that I’ve used to reassert the Trinitarian view of the Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit, specifically in this case the divinity of Jesus and the union with the Father.

As for the argument that the term “Trinity” is not in the Bible, I’ll conceded that this is very true based off of what I know; that however does not (in my opinion) negate the human concept of an attempt to understand the tri-lateral union. I’ve always believed that part of the problem in understanding the concept of Trinity is that we try to apply what we know and understand in the physical to the spiritual. This is one reason why I love Ephesians 6:12 “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places“.

Without going into a complete dissection of Ephesians 6:12, I’ll just quickly point to the first part of the scripture; “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood…“; this for me is a simple indicator of how we as Christians should always approach God and our relationship with Him. We can’t put Him in a box so to speak. It’s imperative to remember that God; being the creator of all things good, being omnipotent and omnipresent, is not constrained to time as we know and understand,is outside of what we fully understand and is eternal. We humans operate in the natural; God however operates in the supernatural, He is spirit, not limited or bound to the things that we are, so in the sense where some state that it’s ridiculous to have three “persons” (I prefer the term natures myself) in one “body”, I sit by my belief that scripturally, it is written that there are in fact three persons/natures of God, in one form. John 1:1,2 is an example of scripture that serves as proof for me.

As I was studying, I noticed a footnote after the first utterance of “Word” in my Bible (NIV), which referenced the Greek word “Logos”. For as long as I could recall, I had always assumed “Word” to be a reference to Christ but was not familiar with “Logos”, it was Greek to me). Being curious, I did some on line searching for the Greek translation. You can check the definitions for yourself here: http://www.biblestudytools.net/Lexicons/Greek/grk.cgi?number=3056&version=kjv Sure enough “Logos” is the Greek word for “Word”. As I was on the website checking out the Greek translation, I noticed that there was a verse count indicating that there are 316 instances of “word” or “Word” throughout the Books of the New Testament. Seeing the number 316 I immediately thought of the well known Bible verse… John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

I decide try something with this info that I had just acquired. I wanted to see what John 3:16 would “read” like if I replaced “only begotten son” (an obvious reference to Jesus, The Word) of John 3:16 with one of the following definitions of LOGOS:

• account, i.e. regard,
• consideration account, i.e. reckoning, score
• account, i.e. answer or explanation in reference to
• judgment
• relation

Here’s John 3:16 with “only begotten son” substituted with one of the definitions of LOGOS

• 16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his (account, i.e. reckoning, score), that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
• 16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his (account, i.e. regard, consideration), that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
• 16″For God so loved the world that he gave his (relation, i.e. with whom as judge we stand in relation), that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
• 16″For God so loved the world that he gave his (judgment), that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

By now the gears were really starting to turn in my noodle, so I went to Genesis 1 and studied the re accounting of the act of God creating the heavens,the earth, etc,. I went to Genesis 1 because it’s the beginning of the Bible, and the word “beginning” is the word used in John 1:1. Notice that John 1:1,2 didn’t say “after God created”, or “sometime after” or “during another period”, John 1:1,2 simply states “in the beginning”. Notice in Genesis 1 that God issued a divine decree ie, he spoke/said and bought into existence those things created during his 6 Days of creation? (Remember that word “Logos” that started this little journey of scriptural exploration?) Did you see anywhere the mentioning of Jesus being created?

By itself John 1:1,2 makes perfect sense to me, for some however a connect the dots approach might serve as a better example, hence the comparison of John 1:1,2, John 3:16 and the definitions of LOGOS in relation to Genesis 1.

Other scriptures that specifically show that Jesus was, is and always has been God: Isaiah 9:6, John 8:58, John 10:30, & Philippians 2:6.

As previously stated this post isn’t intended to be my personal assault against anyone’s religion, just some info taken from the Bible that speaks plainly about Jesus’ divinity.

A final nugget… In Hebrew the name John means “God is Gracious”. What a “coincidence” that the 1st chapter and 1st verse of John (the beginning) are staking claim to Jesus Christ’s divinity (God’s grace for mankind).

John 15:13(NIV)
Jesus speaking:“Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends”.