31 In the Beginning was the Word

The Word

What are words? 

Words are symbols, which are used to convey meanings.  There are different methods of expression; such as writing, speaking, sign language, wars, natural disasters and others.

The Gospel of John begins like this, In the beginning was the Word, (Autou, in Greek), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. John 1:1-2 KJV. 

If one believes in the Trinity, these are good verses to try to prove that Christ is God.  However, the Bible does not say that Christ is God; it says that the Word was God.  Bible teachers have been telling us that, the Word, refers to Christ.  Let's look at this thought with an open mind and an open Greek lexicon.

The writer of Hebrews begins his book with, God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son. 1:1-2

Very explicitly, the writer tells us that God has used different methods of communicating with the Jewish people, but that now, in the last days, God spoke through His Son.  Not till now did God even have a Son.  There is nothing, in the first 13 verses of John chapter 1 that says that Christ was that Word.

The meaning of, the Word, is better understood as some scholars have it, where it refers to the wisdom of God.  Note these words by Solomon, about the creation of the universe Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom; ... “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His way, Before His works of old. I have been established from everlasting, From the beginning, before there was ever an earth. Prov. 8:14-23.  

Jeremiah reiterated that same idea; He has made the earth by His power, He has established the world by His wisdom. Jer.10:12.  Christ was not there when the world was created!  THE WISDOM OF GOD WAS THE CREATIVE FORCE.

When John is read in the light of his Hebrew background he provides no support for a doctrine of a Jesus who is "God the Son," an eternal uncreated Person in a triune Godhead. Anthony Buzzard

All things were made through Him (it), and without Him (it) nothing was made that was made. In Him (it) was life, and the life was the light of men. John 1:3-4.

The word Him, (Autou, in Greek), can mean Him or it.  However, because the doctrine of the Trinity is so prevalent, Bible translators opt for the common usage which pushes the theory of the Trinity rather than the very unpopular but proper usage which means it.  It is easy to see that if the word it is used rather than, Him, the word would refer to the wisdom of God rather than to the Son of God.

English translations of the Bible from the Greek before the KJV rendered the beginning of John 1: "All things were made through it and without it nothing was made that was made." Similarly a number of modern German and French translations describe the word as "it," not "him." There is no reason, therefore, to think of the word as a Person, until it becomes embodied in Jesus in John 1:14. Remember that "word" in the Hebrew Bible, the background to the New Testament, never meant a Person in all of its 1455 occurrences.  Does Everyone Believe in the Trinity? Anthony Buzzard.

It is not till John 1:14, that Christ is even introduced in the first chapter of John, with these words, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.  Finally, after aeons of time, the Word became Christ, and we (Saint John and his peers) beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.  

• It was in Christ that they saw the glory of the Father.  
• Jesus Christ is the Father’s way of speaking in the last days. 
• IT WAS NOT UNTIL THE LAST DAYS THAT CHRIST BECAME THE WORD!  
• It was only in the last days that Jehovah spoke to the world through His Son. 
• Before Christ's birth in Bethlehem Jehovah's Son did not even exist.

Opposition to the Trinity is not confined to so-called "cults." That is a public myth. How many know what Sir Isaac Newton, John Locke and John Milton have in common? They are recognized as among the most intelligent Bible students of the seventeenth century. All objected strongly to the doctrine of the Trinity. These men cannot just be dismissed as ill-educated or prejudiced. They had very good reasons for what they believed and defended in writing. All three were vigorous anti-Trinitarians. So also was Thomas Jefferson, who examined the Trinitarian question carefully in the light of the Bible. ... Many contemporary biblical scholars recognize that the Trinity is a post-biblical development.

http://focusonthekingdom.org/articles/trinity.htm

In writing about the trinity Anthony Buzzard quotes Soren Kierkegaard, Christendom has done away with Christianity without being quite aware of it". (cited in Time magazine, Dec. 16, 1946, p. 64).

It is incredulous that even those evangelical theologians who admit that the Bible does not teach the doctrine of the trinity believe it anyway.  

The reformers made great strides when they left the Roman Catholic church; for them to reject all the unbiblical Roman Catholic tenets of faith at once may have been more than we should expect.  

Really, though, that was five hundred years ago, why do our theologians still cling to the traditions which were designed without following the teachings of the Bible?

Perhaps we can forgive the Roman Catholic teachers because they accept that tradition is an acceptable guideline.   However, there is no forgiving those who say that all our doctrines must be based on what the Bible (sola scriptura - Latin for scriptures only) teaches and then they blatantly still follow that traditional teaching developed in the third and fourth centuries.

Concerning the Trinity, Anthony Buzzard writes: Neither Catholic nor Protestant theology is based on biblical theology.  

Further on he quotes Victor Gollanz as saying: In fact, the authority of the Protestant ministry as a whole, the claim to be able to understand the Bible and expound it as the word of God, is in my view a vast confidence trick. I am not accusing the clergy of being fraudulent, or even insincere. The confidence trick is collective; individually those who engage in it are deceived by it. ... Any claim that training and ordination produce the only authentic Christian teaching is fraudulent.

For a comprehensive study of the fallacy of the doctrine of the trinity I strongly recommend the book, The Doctrine of the Trinity; Christianity's Self-inflicted Wound, by Anthony Buzzard, available at:

http://focusonthekingdom.org/articles/trinity.htm