Author : Tom Rainwater
QUESTION: You claim Jesus is God. Actually, Jesus was created by God, believe it or not (John 1:1; Revelation 3:14).
ANSWER: Hello! Thanks for examining the material on our web site. You are correct in saying that I affirm Jesus is God. I do so because that’s exactly what Scripture affirms.
However, you are incorrect in your assumption that the Fathercreated Jesus. The verses you cited do not prove what you claim. Let’s look at each one.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made….And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” (John 1:1-3,14, KJV)
There is nothing in the entire context of John 1 that remotely indicates Jesus was created. In describing Jesus as “the Word,” the Apostle John plainly says that Jesus was “in the beginning” “with God,” and was God’s agent of Creation. Jesus Himself created “all things.” “Without Him was not anything made that was made.” In other words, everything that was created was made by Jesus. Under those conditions, Jesus could not have “made” Himself. He could not be the “Creator” and the “created” at the same time. Consider Colossians 1:16:
“For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by Him, and for Him.”
It takes the power of God to create all things in heaven and on earth (Genesis 1:1). Jesus has that power.
It’s interesting that you cite John 1:1 to try to disprove Jesus’ Divinity when this is one of the most powerful texts in proof of His Divinity. It plainly says “the Word was God.” Indeed, Jesus is of the same Divine Nature as the Father. John’s affirmation here of the Deity of Christ is so direct that it offends a great many non-believers today. For instance, the group calling themselves the “Jehovah’s Witnesses” intentionally and dishonestly mistranslates John 1:1 to read “the Word was a God.” Muslims, when examining the Bible, also prefer using the same Jehovah’s Witness mistranslation because they cannot bear the fact that Jesus is God.
John 1:1 does not disprove that Jesus is God — it affirms it clearly and loudly.
“And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God…” (KJV)
In this verse, Jesus describes Himself by three titles including “the beginning of the creation of God.” Our Jehovah’s Witness friends say this means Christ had a beginning — that the Father created Jesus first before anything else was created. However, the word “beginning” in this verse is the Greek word arche, which does not indicate order, butcause. Thayer’s Greek Lexicon defines arche in Revelation 3:14 as“that by which anything begins to be, the origin, active cause” (p.77). Ardnt and Gingrich say that arche here means “the first cause”(p.112). Correctly understood, the verse is telling us that Jesus is the beginning first Cause of all God’s Creation. It originated with Him. (This is exactly what John 1:1 says.)
The Watchtower Society, in its effort to hide the truth about Jesus from its followers, also mistranslates this passage to read: “the beginning of the creation by God.” This is not how the Greek reads.
“For ‘by God’ to be a correct translation, the Greek would have to be hupo theou. But we do not have the ‘hupo theou.’ We simply have the word for ‘creation’ in the genitive case. ‘Of God’ is correct.” (Cline 6).
Revelation 3:14 does not disprove that Jesus is God, nor does it devalue His nature. On the contrary, Jesus is teaching us that He deserves glory, honor, and praise as the Creator of all things.
“…for unless you believe that I am {He}, you shall die in your sins.” John 8:24 (KJV)
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Cited Works:
Thayer’s Greek Lexicon.
A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, Arndt and Gingrich.
Ted Cline, Questions for Jehovah’s Witnesses.
