In the Beginning Was the Word: The Uncreated and Eternal Divine Logos

John’s Gospel begins with the famous words “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). The phrase in the beginning in the first clause of John 1:1 is very significant. By starting off his gospel with this phrase, John is deliberately alluding to Gen 1:1, the very first verse of the Bible, which says: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

The significance of this allusion is profound. By saying that the Word was in the beginning, John implies that the Logos already existed before the beginning talked about in Gen 1:1, namely, the beginning of created reality. This means that the Logos must be uncreated and eternal. It is totally appropriate, therefore, for John to say in the third clause of John 1:1 that “the Word was God.” After all, John’s main argument in the prologue to his gospel in John 1:1–18 is that Jesus is the Logos incarnate, God’s revelation of himself in human form (see “The Divine Logos as Eschatological Torah in John 1:1”). Jesus himself could not be divine revelation if the Logos were not divine.