Yoshua, my cousin....hope you are well!
I'm posting regarding
John 1:1.... You'll see the sentence structure is different than vss.6,8,12, and 13.
In translating from one language to another, rarely can you render it word for word.
Case in point: Koine Greek grammar being what it was, it did not have the indefinite articles that we in English use (= a, an). All they had was the definite article, 'the.' With that in mind,
translating John 1:1 word for word, it says this: " in beginning (notice, not even THE beginning) was THE word. And THE word was with THE god, and god (notice, not THE God) was THE word." See? 'The god' and 'god' are different. And in the last part of the sentence, the anarthrous predicate noun, 'god', comes
before the subject, 'the word'. (If John had meant Jesus was God Almighty, he would've said, "....and THE god was THE word." Or better yet, "and THE word was THE God." [-- see previous post #2139, regarding Philip B. Harper and scholar John L. McKenzie.]) But the Apostle John did not write that. Besides, that would have
contradicted the context ("the Word was
with God"; and especially vs.18....... "
No man has seen God at any time" . People saw Jesus). So, clearly, that is
not what he was saying.
Would John really have written something so ambiguous, that the Word was
with God, but yet He
was God, though
no one has "ever seen" God? No. this would only have served to confuse his readers.
Considering that many Christians were former Jews, who worshiped Yahweh alone....if God
had changed, had included Jesus as part of a Trinity, those Christian Bible writers would have
bent over backward, clearly stating throughout that Jesus was God.
But they never did! They kept writing about Jesus'
Lordship, about how "God" (rarely saying only "the Father") accomplished things
through Jesus.
Never about Jesus' Godship!
Furthermore, if this
was a new teaching for Jews to accept -- a very drastic departure -- that Jesus was
also God -- so many of them (3,000) wouldn't have gotten baptized "that day" (
Acts of the Apostles 2:41); it would be too much to taken in! Rather, all they needed -- as Peter stated -- was to accept Jesus as the
prophesied 'Messiah,' God's
servant.....
not as God.
(I hope you can understand this, it's not very hard....unless I wasn't clear.)
At
John 20:17, John quoted Jesus as saying to Mary: "I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to MY GOD and YOUR GOD."
Yes, Jesus had a God he worshiped: Martha's God, Yahweh / Jehovah, was Jesus' God. As Christians instructed to 'follow Jesus' steps closely (
1 Peter 2:21)', this
should be our God!
Every verse that Trinitarians use to support their view, it all boils down to either syntax or semantics. But taking The Context into account will almost always show otherwise.
John 8:58 and
Philippians 2:5-11 are prime examples of this.
Take care.