ONENESS TRANSLATION OF JN.1:1

We are indebted to Bernard and others have helped straighten out the mystery of John1:1."John identified Jesus as God, the word, the Father, and Jehovah (the I am)."( Oneness of God p.79)

So the word as with God in the sense of belonging to God not in the sense of a separate person besides God. Furthermore, if God in Jn.1:1 means God the father, then the word is not a separate person for the verse would read, "the Word was with the Father and the word was the Father."( Oneness of God p.189)

The word was the Father ! In the book of Rev.19:13 Jesus is called the word, John 1:14 says the word was made flesh so then the father became flesh. Clearly he inserts he predisposed prejudices against the possibility of Jn.1:1 being a plural interpretation. Yet he is caught in his own false reading because the word cannot be God as Bernard goes on in his explanation of who he is, Oneness interprets the word as a plan or thought until it was spoken. "The word was not a separate person or a separate God anymore than mans word is a separate person from him. Rather the word was a thought or a plan in the mind of God...the logos existed in the mind of God from the beginning of time. When the fullness of time was come, God put that plan into action. He put flesh on that plan in the form of the man Jesus Christ. The Logos is God expressed ( the Oneness of God  David Bernard p.60)

"the Son is begotten, not eternal. the son of God existed from all eternity only as a plan in the mind of God....The word of John 1 (the logos) is not a separate person but is the thought, plan, activity or expression of God."( the Oneness of God p.295) This means we are all pre- existent like the son of God in the mind of God, as are all things he has made.

It was Basilides a Gnostic in 130 AD who taught the same concept , "the unborn and unnamed Father…sent his first begotten mind (And this he they call Christ),"(Irenaeus Adv.haer I.xxiv. 3-5)

According to another Oneness view, the name is Jesus for all three manifestations. So then Jn.1:1 is interpreted like this... "In the beginning was Jesus (the word), the word was with Jesus (God) & (word) Jesus was God... this is the actual translation it should be." (Elishua Reed Compelling evidence TV program). There is not a Greek scholar in the world that would agree with his view or Bernard’s. Both twist the scripture to avoid both the Father and the Son in Jn.1:1. Both of these men reinterpret it outside the Bibles consistent revelation. Since there is to be only one person instead of two this is the only way they can interpret it. Yet if they would read further, in context vs,2 says "he was in the beginning with God, and all things were made through him.." He antedates the beginning because he is the creator.

In Jn.1:3 it states "all things were made by him." The word dia means through him. That he was not the agent of causation but the instrument through which it was done. That there was another involved as in Heb.1:2 says "by whom he made the worlds". The Bible calls the word a he ,a him not a plan not a thought, not a speech pattern, he is a person who was existent at the same time as the other. According to Oneness God made the worlds through a plan in Heb.1:2. This was with a view towards the future.

Not even the JW's go this far in changing the meaning. This is why they make one almighty and the other a mighty God, they recognize two persons. It is for this reason the cults cannot deal with the plain sense of this passage and neither can the Oneness.

The Correct Interpretation

The phrase "in the beginning" is a reference to the beginning of time, When the time, and space universe came into being. He was with God communicates an eternal relationship with another, they are not the same person but are united, in harmony by their nature.

To the Jews the term "the word" Memra is an Aramaic term that was used by the rabbis to mean divine wisdom which was sometimes distinct from God. They considered the memra as the agent of creation and also the means of salvation. The word was also a theophany in the Old Testament. (the means by which God became visible) such as in The Angel of The Lord. Rabbis said God always revealed himself to the prophets by the word. By calling Jesus the word meant he embodied the full revelation of God to man. We have John writing this word was both God and with God throughout eternity.

The word coupling of the Word with God (also being God) is disputed by almost all anti Trinitarians. Just looking at the way the word "with" is used in other places should be self explanatory without going into the Greek language.

Matt 2:11 "they saw the young Child with Mary His mother," here is two, Mary and the child.

Matt 4:21 "two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father,"

Matt 17:3 "And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him."Here are two others with Jesus."

Acts 28:16 …" Paul was permitted to dwell by himself with the soldier who guarded him." Rom. 8:17 and if children, then heirs-- heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, Rom. 15:32 …and may be refreshed together with you.

Rom. 16:20 "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. In every instance with means another other than just one."

"The word of God does not imply a distinct person any more than a man's word implies that he is composed of two persons."(Oneness of God D. Bernard p.161) This is like saying there is no difference of night and day ! At the same token, ones speech is never considered alive and part of their own person as Oneness interprets the word being spoken. If the word that became flesh is not a person of which Oneness casts almost a unanimous vote yes, then in Isa.9:6 the mighty God may not be a person since he is the word..

Benjamin Warfeild tells us that "it is not merely coexistence with God that is a asserted, as two beings standing side by side, united in local relation, or even in a common conception. What is suggested is an active relation of intercourse." "Both the Word and His relationship to the eternal {the Father} are eternal. There was never part of His preexistence which found Him to be separated in any sense from the Godhead." It is important to recognize that John 1:1-2, Christ the Logos is said to be distinct from and at the same time equal with God. He was with God (the Greek preposition pros implies two distinct persons) and at the same time is said to be God. Hense, the Father and the Word " are not the same, but they belong together. The fact that one maybe said to be ‘with’ the Other clearly differentiates them. Yet, Though they are distinct, there is no disharmony. John’s expression points us to the perfect unity in which they are joined. We see, then, that John 1:1-2 suggests Trinitarian distinctions; now all is clear; we now see how this Word who is God was in the beginning, and how this Word who is God was in eternal reciprocal relation with God....The Logos is one of the three divine persons of the eternal Godhead."

Jn.1 states the word was God who is a personal eternal being. If the word is something issuing forth as speech and then became human then it is not Deity no matter how you color it by human wisdom. It is no more than any other created thing like a tree or another creature. For the word to be interpreted as something God spoke would mean that God is not an eternal personal being. The Bible says he is more than a thought a plan in the mind of God. We find that this word is a title for the Son of God who is the same nature as the Father, since the word is God. He is called the word because he is the active cause of the world, it is he whose word brought all things into existence. The word expresses the personification of wisdom of God in the O.T.. The word is called truth ,Christ is called the word and is the truth. God communicated to man in ancient times by his word through the prophets but now has communicated to us directly through his son who became a man. The word that made all things as the work of his own hands became his own workmanship by taking on an additional nature, humanity.

the Logos is God uttering himself (John Miller , Is God a trinity p.85)

The word (Greek-Logos) is not something spoken as an impersonal it. The word was neither an idea, a thought, or an expression. "John's use of the word logos is entirely to be distinguished from the use made of it by Philo of Alexandria and his school of philosophy in the 2nd cent. B.C. With them the logos was a impersonal idea, conveying the thoughts of God."(W.E.Vine The epistles of John p.11) They accuse the Trinitarians of Hellenistic thought when it is they who are promulgating Greek philosophy.

Jn.14:24 Jesus says the words he speaks are his and the fathers. This is two persons, if the word is eternal that means both Jesus and the father are also, since it is both their words.

Rev 19:13: And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. his name is called the word of God the word is a person, this same person is the son of God Rev.2:18 and Heb.1:2 God made the worlds through the son. If we parallel Rev.19:13 his name will is called the word of God." and in Isa.9:6 he is called the mighty God. Is not God more than what he speaks ?

Jn.1:18 the only begotten son in the bosom of the father kolpos the place of dearest affection and greatest place of intimacy in relationship. you need two for this. If the father is a person why not the son.

Jn.1:14 the word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory as the only begotten of the father." The word became, in Greek ginomai which means a change of position not of substance. What he was in the past he continues to be now.

Irenaeus which David Bernard thinks is on their side on pg.237 of his book states "He held that the logos which had become incarnate in Jesus Christ was the mind of God, and was the father himself."  I looked this up and he excluded something crucial to the meaning "the logos which had become incarnate in Jesus Christ was the son of God, the mind of God…" Here Jesus is called the son something that he does not believe and as far as the accuracy of his being the Father I have not found this to be in the way modalist mean.  In Irenaeus book 1 of against heresies he quotes the gnostics believing this and refutes them. He had this to say, "But this [Father] is the Maker of heaven and earth, as is shown from His words; and not he, the false father, who has been invented by Marcion, or by Valentinus, or by Basilides, or by Carpocrates, or by Simon, or by the rest of the "Gnostics," falsely so called. For none of these was the Son of God; but Christ Jesus our Lord [was], against whom they set their teaching in opposition, and have the daring to preach an unknown God." These are the very men Bernard names as promoters of their doctrine and Irenaeus is contending with them.

Irenaeus also stated "(The Gnostics) transfer the generation of the uttered word of men to the eternal Word of God, attributing to him a beginning of utterance and a coming into being . . . In what manner, then, would the word of God--indeed, the great God himself, since he is the Word--differ from the word of men?" (Against Heresies 2:13:8). Remember they believe the word is something spoken.

Oneness consistently reinterprets their own preconceived notions into crucial scriptures without any basis found in the original languages. This is in my opinion comic book theology.

However, Here are some others that agree with them. Freemasonry "That God and his thought uttered in his word, created the universe." "When the process of emanation, of creation or evolution of existence and was: and this word was (tros ton theon) near to God, i.e. the immediate or first emanation from god: and it was God himself, developed or manifested in that particular mode, and in action, and by that word everything that is was created." (Morals and dogma, Pike pp.576, 280)

Emanuel Swedenborg was a known medium who agreed with the deity of Christ much like Oneness. He also had conversations with angels and departed spirits and claimed the Lord had appeared to him ,. He said of the trinity, "Instead of a trinity of persons there is understood a trinity of person...that the Lord's divine is the father, the divine human the son, and the proceeding divine the Holy Spirit." (The four doctrines E. Swedenborg p.89)