The Nugget:
John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The Challenge:
“If God is eternal and exists outside of time, why do scriptures like John 1:1 use temporal language such as ‘In the beginning’ to describe the existence of God? Does this imply a beginning to God’s existence?”
My Answer:
PixelMistakePicasso You state:
“This verse does not make sense. First, it is said that the Father, Son (Jesus), and Holy Spirit are one as God. Now, when it comes to John 1:1, it is claimed that this verse is only about the existence of Jesus. You have to pick one; it cannot be both. If Jesus was created by God in the beginning, then Jesus is not God. But if you say Jesus is God, then something else must have created God after time was created.”
That the verse may not make sense to you has no bearing on the fact it makes sense to most Bible believing readers of this text today.
You are correct to say that the Bible teaches that “the Father, Son (Jesus), and Holy Spirit are one as God.” This is specifically affirmed in Matthew 28:19 where it is stated:
Mat 28:19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Note the use of the singular word “name” not the plural word “names.”
You state:
“Now, when it comes to John 1:1, it is claimed that this verse is only about the existence of Jesus.”
As a matter of fact, some Believing Bible Scholars have affirmed in their academic scholarly studies that the term “Logos” was adopted by John because it is a reflection of Hebrew usage in the Old Testament involving the related term “Memra,” as I recall from my recent reading.
Then you state:
“You have to pick one; it cannot be both.”
I respond: says who, and on what basis? Your comment may reflect a misreading of the text.
You further state:
” If Jesus was created by God in the beginning, then Jesus is not God. “
Jesus was not created by God. Jesus had no beginning. Jesus is God. Jesus the man clearly as man had a physical beginning when He was born of the virgin Mary in what is called in theology the hypostatic union of His eternal divine nature with the newly added human nature which took place in time.
Since God is spirit (John 4:24) He is invisible. Therefore it is understood that instances of visibility when God was seen in the narratives in the Old Testament are either theophanies (when God made Himself visible in human or angelic form) or more likely and far more often they are Christophanies when the Second Person of the Godhead made Himself visible in human or angelic form to persons in the Old Testament.
Lastly, in your comment you claim:
“But if you say Jesus is God, then something else must have created God after time was created.”
This seems to represent faulty or mistaken logic.
Since all three Persons of the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are all eternal, they have always existed and nothing in the Bible suggests that in their eternal nature that they were ever created.
You conclude with the question:
“By the way, did this verse come from Jesus’ mouth?”
These words clearly come from the pen of John, Jesus’s closest disciple. There is no reason to doubt them. John is the divinely inspired author of his Gospel, and he surely is wiser and better informed than his negative critics!
John was there when these events happened. That his Gospel is the last and latest written of the four canonical Gospels does not diminish its authenticity or authority but increases it.
John records incidents and the words of our Lord Jesus Christ that are not always included in the synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke.
They, for example, do not tell about the resurrection or resuscitation of Lazarus for reasons of prudence, for the Jewish leadership in their official rejection of their Messiah (see John 5:15, 16 and context. John 9:22 and context) sought to kill Lazarus for he was a standing miracle wrought before their very eyes and they could not deny it (John 11:46, 47, 48, 53).
The fact that John carefully records the inside debates of the Jewish leadership confirms that John had a close connection to those leaders as elsewhere revealed incidentally in his Gospel (John 18:16).
This confirms John, not a later author, wrote these things. John records the raising of Lazarus from the dead at the much later writing of his Gospel after any possibility of harm to Lazarus had passed. This is just one more positive proof of the authenticity and historicity of the Gospel of John.