Jesus is the Word. The concept is the physical manifestation of a thought or idea. God is Spirit: "God is spirit, and the people who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:24
Jesus is the physical manifestation of God: "Now the Word [Greek: logos] became flesh and took up residence among us. We saw his glory—the glory of the one and only, full of grace and truth, who came from the Father." John 1:14
If you think that there can be only one, transcendent creator you need to expand your thinking. John 1:3, "All things were created by him [Jesus], and apart from him not one thing was created that has been created."
@stunnedbygrace @Lambano @Johann
Unfortunately, the church has suffered under the false doctrine of Trinitarianism, and those who invented it, enforced it with threats of pain and death. Also, down through the years, the church has used the Trinity Doctrine to sus out the heretics among us. For these reasons, the Trinity Doctrine is like an electrified fence, and we touch it at our peril. I know the danger I face here, so please believe me when I say that I do not take this subject lightly. I am sacrificing my "on-line" career to help you gain a knowledge of the truth.
The church has been taught, under penalty of death, that three beings existed from the beginning. Thus, Trinitarians interpret and teach John's gospel according to Trinitarian suppositions. We are taught, for instance, that "the Word" is but one of three distinct individuals among the "Godhead." We are taught that in the beginning was "the Word", the second person of the Trinity, and that He was in the beginning with God, the first person of the Trinity. We are taught that Jesus is the incarnate second person of the Trinity.
First, the idea that there can be only one transcendent creator is not up for debate. The idea is called "a first principle", a fundamental concept that is true by definition. The Bible clearly teaches this idea in passages such as the following. "To you it was shown that you might know that the Lord, He is God; there is no other besides Him." Deuteronomy 4:35
There are, what the Bible calls "so-called gods", which are spirit beings and mere men. In his epistle to the Corinthians, Paul argues that is is permissible to eat meat offered to an idol, because there is no such thing as an idol. The so-called god they worship doesn't exist. What they offer, they actually offer to demons he says. In other words, the meat is just meat. In that context Paul writes the following:
"4 Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and that there is no God but one. 5 For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, 6 yet for us there is
but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we
exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we
exist through Him. 1Corinthians 8:4-6.
I take note of the fact that according to Paul, God the Father is the cause of all things, and we exist for him. If Paul were a Trinitarian, surely he would have said that the Second person of the Trinity created all things, not the first person of the Trinity. But Paul says that the Father created all things. The son is not the source of all things, but, according to Paul, the son is the reason for all things. Not only did the father create us for Jesus; we enter into his kingdom through Jesus.
Second, our translations, purposely reflect Trinitarian doctrine. (Who wants to touch the electrified fence?) But if we allow ourselves to think about the passage a bit more, we might see the subject of John's first paragraph is "the word" and how it relates to God. Everywhere else in the New Testament, the Greek term "logos" has a wide range of meaning centered on the activities of reason and rationality: word, account, reasoning, giving testimony, telling a story, and etc.
Thus, as we sus out John's meaning in his first paragraph, we might try out different aspects of the term "logos". Our translators offered one
"In the beginning was "the word"
"In the beginning was "the reason"
"In the beginning was "the promise"
"In the beginning was "the script"
"In the beginning was "the argument"
In any case, the term "logos" used literally, refers to an aspect of rational thought. And so the first paragraph the pronouns should all read "it" rather than "he." For instance, "
[It] was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through [it] and apart from [it] nothing has come into being that has come into being."
Later in the text, (vs 14) John refers to Jesus as "the word", not because Jesus is the second person of a Trinity, but because Jesus is the
reason why everything exists. God has created everything in this world with Jesus in mind. Jesus is the reason for everything. Everything was made for him. Before God created the world, he decided to give Jesus a central role in all of creation. If Logo means "promise" in this context, then Jesus is that promise in bodily form. If Logos means "reason", then Jesus is that reason become flesh. If Logos means "script", then Jesus is that script become flesh.
The concept of a "second person of the Trinity" is superimposed on the text. Paul says that the Father brought all things into existence for his son. And he will establish a new kingdom of light through his son, who suffered and died that they might live.
Also, and this is very important, Jesus and The father share the same identity in that, according to the New Testament authors, Jesus is God as expressed in the medium of a human life. If we picture God as the author of a novel, then we understand that the author (God) wrote himself into his novel (Jesus.) According to John, Jesus is the exegesis of God. John 1:18. No one has seen God at any time, but Jesus makes God accessible and understandable to us. According to Paul, the man Jesus is "the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature." Hebrews 1:3