John 1:1 – The Word & God

Theme Text: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1 NIV)

This page continues the Scripture-first series on worship and identity, building on what we have already studied about God Almighty and Jesus Christ, and the questions around their relationship and origin. We learnt about the Holy Spirit too. Here, we slow down and listen to John’s opening lines as John meant them to be heard, in a world where empires trained people to speak sacred language about rulers, and to treat power as if it were divine.

1) When an empire calls its ruler “god,” words get tested

In the first century, the word “god” did not live only inside temples. It lived on coins, in slogans, in civic ceremonies, and in the public imagination. Caesars and emperors were praised with titles that sounded like salvation, and their reigns were announced as “good news.” In that atmosphere, the title “Son of God” could be used as a political instrument. It could turn domination into destiny, and conquest into something people were told to celebrate.¹

John’s Gospel does something quietly revolutionary: it refuses to let empire have the last word over sacred vocabulary. John does not begin with Caesar’s “good news.” John begins with “In the beginning”, echoing Genesis, and locating Jesus Christ’s identity in God’s creative life rather than Rome’s propaganda. That opening is not an abstract riddle. It is a rescue of language. It is a reclaiming of reality.

A small text note belongs here, simply so the argument stays anchored in well-attested wording. Some older printed Bibles included a longer phrase at 1 John 5:7–8 that names “the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit.” Many modern translations do not include that phrase because it is not supported by the earliest Greek manuscript evidence and appears to have entered the text later through the history of transmission. It is a reminder to let the best-attested wording guide what is treated as authentic biblical text. In any case, the prologue of John’s Gospel (John 1:1–18) does not depend on this line, so it can be read on its own terms with confidence.⁴

2) John’s “Word” belongs to creation’s beginning, not to empire’s stage

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” (John 1:1–3 NIV)

John holds two truths together from the first sentence. First, “the Word was with God.” That is relationship and distinction. Second, “the Word was God.” That is dignity and divine quality. John is not flattening the Father and the Word into one person, and John is not introducing a rival deity next to the Father. John is doing something more precise: he is placing the Word on God’s side of the story, not on Caesar’s side.

This is why John’s echo of Genesis matters. Genesis says:

“Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness…’” (Genesis 1:26 NIV)

Many readers have asked, “Who is the us?” John’s prologue invites a Christ-centered hearing: the Father creates with his Word, and the Word is already present before “all things” begin to be made. In other words, Genesis is not an empire myth about violence birthing order. It is a creation story where life flows from God’s generosity, and where the Son’s identity is bound to God’s purpose from the start.²

3) What does John mean by “the Word was God”?

Greek grammar helps here, but it helps most when it is used with care. Greek does not use the indefinite article (a / an) the way English does, so translators must rely on context, word order, and the flow of the argument to decide how a noun should be heard.

In John 1:1, John first writes, “the Word was with God.” That line already establishes relationship and distinction. Then John writes, “the Word was God.” In the Greek sentence, the word for God (theos) is placed at the front of the clause and appears without the definite article. That combination is very common when Greek highlights what something is by nature, not when it collapses two persons into one. The point is not that the Word is the Father, but that the Word belongs fully on God’s side of reality and shares God’s character.³

John’s Gospel itself gives a simple way to hear this. Consider two lines that also describe God with a predicate word:

“God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” (John 4:24 NIV)

“Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” (1 John 4:8 NIV)

Neither sentence turns God into an impersonal substance. Both sentences describe God’s nature. In the same way, “the Word was God” can be read as a declaration of the Word’s unique quality: the Word is not just another creature among creatures, and not an imperial “son of god” manufactured by propaganda. The Word is God’s own self-expression, sharing God’s life and glory, and therefore able to make the Father known without competing with him.

4) The Son as God’s firstborn before all creation

If we step beyond John for a moment, other New Testament texts speak in the same direction. They describe Jesus as preexistent, and they describe creation as coming through him, while still naming the Father as the God Almighty.

“The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.” (Colossians 1:15 NIV)

“And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God, says this:” (Revelation 3:14 NASB)

Read together with John 1, these passages point to a consistent picture: the Father is God Almighty, and the Son is God’s firstborn, brought forth before everything else, so that through him all things could be made. That is why Genesis can be heard as a Father-and-Son beginning. The “we” is not the flattery of an empire speaking to itself. It is the generosity of God’s own household, opening creation for life.

5) The true Son of God versus the empire’s “sons of god”

Rome’s rulers were called “son of god” to make people feel that the empire was permanent, sacred, and unquestionable. John announces a different Son. This Son does not demand worship through fear. He reveals God through light.

“In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” (John 1:4–5)

The difference is not small. Caesar’s “good news” claimed peace through domination. Jesus’ “good news” reveals peace through truth, love, and the restoring presence of God. In that sense, calling Jesus the true Son of God is not merely a doctrinal statement. It is a public refusal to let any empire pretend it is divine.

If John’s first line reclaims the words God, Word, and beginning from empire’s vocabulary, what happens when we read the rest of John with that same clarity, especially the places where Jesus speaks as the sent Son and as God’s living witness?

Read Next: The True Son

Footnotes

1. For the imperial use of “good news,” “savior,” and divine language around Augustus (including the Priene calendar inscription), see Craig A. Evans, “Mark’s Incipit and the Priene Calendar Inscription: From Gospel to Gospel,” Journal of Greco-Roman Christianity and Judaism 1 (2000): 69–73. ↩
2. On Genesis 1:26 (“Let us make…”) and common explanations such as a heavenly court/divine council reading, see Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1–15, Word Biblical Commentary 1 (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1987), on Genesis 1:26. This page’s point is that John 1 invites a specifically Christ-centered hearing of creation language. ↩
3. On John 1:1c and why the anarthrous predicate theos is often best taken as primarily qualitative (describing nature/essence) rather than collapsing identities, see Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996), 266–270; Philip B. Harner, “Qualitative Anarthrous Predicate Nouns: Mark 15:39 and John 1:1,” Journal of Biblical Literature 92, no. 1 (1973): 75–87; and E. C. Colwell, “A Definite Rule for the Use of the Article in the Greek New Testament,” Journal of Biblical Literature 52, no. 1 (1933): 12–21. ↩
4. On the longer wording sometimes printed at 1 John 5:7–8 (often called the “Johannine Comma”) and why many modern translations relegate it to a footnote, see Daniel B. Wallace, “The Textual Problem in 1 John 5:7–8,” Bible.org (2004), and Grantley McDonald, “Erasmus and the Johannine Comma (1 John 5.7–8),” (2016). For a standard scholarly summary in a critical apparatus discussion, see Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1994), on 1 John 5:7–8. ↩