Who Jesus Really Is: Jesus is the Eternal Word (Part 1)

Dr Alfonse Javed
Sep 21
10 min read

Updated: Sep 22

Don’t compare Christianity with religions and don’t compare Christ with other religious leaders because while all religions and religious leaders burden people with rules, rituals, and religious rites to do better and to be better to be accepted by God, Christianity says the only way you can be accepted by God is by believing, and believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

John 1:1-5 - ¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was in the beginning with God. ³All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. ⁴In him was life, and the life was the light of men. ⁵The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

What would you say if I ask, “Who is Jesus really?” I ask because for over two thousand years, this question has baffled humanity. To date, people believe Him to be a brilliant teacher, a prophet, a moralist, a revolutionary leader, and even a myth or a legend. However, the Bible teaches that Jesus is God, who came not to show the way to salvation but to be our salvation.

The problem is that people don’t know who Jesus really is because, by and large, the church has reduced the view of Jesus to a religious figure. They need to know their shallow view of Jesus limits Jesus to merely a helper, a healer, and a historical figure.

The Gospel of John, that we are starting today, was written to confront the shallow view of Jesus with the supernatural view of Jesus so that we may know who Jesus really is, believe in Him, and be saved.

That is the stated purpose of this Gospel in John 20:30-31 which says, “³⁰Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; ³¹but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

So, the threefold purpose of the book is that we may believe Jesus is Christ, believe Jesus is the Son of God, and that by believing in Jesus, we may have life in His name. This means believing is the key to salvation, not our good or bad deeds, not our obedience or disobedience to God’s law, not our religious rituals, or any moralistic approach to life, but believing in the divinity of Jesus and what He accomplished on the cross.

As we begin the verse-by-verse study of this Gospel, John 1:1-5 zeroes in on the divinity of Jesus to show that God reached down to save us. If you are a believer then this is a good reminder of who Jesus really is; if you are not a believer then this is a good opportunity to hear who Jesus really is according to the Bible.

The big Idea is that if we want to be saved to receive eternal life, then we must believe Jesus is God.

The question is, how do we know Jesus is God? John 1:1-5 takes us all the way back to the time before time began to show Jesus is the Eternal Word of God because anything less than God makes Jesus a small Jesus who may help and heal but cannot carry the weight of our salvation, our struggles, and our sanctification.

Our passage reveals three divine attributes of Jesus that make Him God: Christ’s Preexistence, Christ’s Preeminence, and Christ’s Power. Today, we will only look at the first divine attribute of Christ, and next time, we will cover the other two.

Christ’s Preexistence (John 1:1-2)

We see that in John 1:1-2,“¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ²He was in the beginning with God.” These opening verses set the Gospel of John apart from the synoptic Gospels— Matthew, Mark, and Luke because the synoptic Gospels focus on the synopsis of Jesus’s earthly life with a historical view, but the Gospel of John focuses on Jesus’s heavenly life with a supernatural view.

Therefore, it does not start with the genealogy of Jesus and does not include many earthly affairs of Jesus, such as His birth, early life, baptism, temptation, transfiguration, and time in Gethsemane. There are no parables, nothing that ties Jesus to His humanity, but everything that talks about His divinity because in John’s context, no one had a question about Jesus’ humanity but had questions about His divinity.

So, led by the Spirit of God, John opens his Gospel by taking us back further than Bethlehem, further than Abraham, even further than creation itself. He introduces Jesus as “the Word.” The question is, why didn’t John say, “In the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God, and Jesus was God?”

In the original text, the Greek word for “the Word” is logas, which has two profound meanings: word and reason. John’s original audience was a mixture of Jews and Gentiles in the historical context of the Greco-Roman culture. To Jews, logos, was the Word, the authority for life, and for Greeks or Gentiles, logos, was the reason, the rationale for life.

So, Jews looked for the meaning of life in the Word of God, the Torah, but the Greeks looked for the meaning of life in reasoning. All of us fall into one category or the other. Some of us look toward the Word for the meaning and purpose of life. Others seek a rational explanation for everything including the existence of God and the divinity of Christ.

In one Greek word, logos, both believers and skeptics were satisfied. To Jews, logos, the Word of God, brought everything into existence in Genesis 1:3. For Greeks, logos, the reason was the eternal principle of order in the universe.

Hundreds of years before John, Greek Philosophers debated logos, the reason for life, in search for answers for meaning, and the purpose of life. By the time John was writing, many had concluded that perhaps, there are no answers. As a result, Epicureans taught that pleasure is the highest good and the goal of life is to live for pleasure and party all night. Sounds like New York City, doesn’t it?

Their view was countered by Stoics, who taught that even though there are no answers and there is no right or wrong, still we ought to live morally, justly, wisely, and courageously. That too exists in our society. John’s opening said to the Greeks that there is logos, the reason for life, meaning, and purpose for life, but it is not a philosophical abstract thought, or some absolute principles, but a person.

This person is Jesus, who always eternally existed, and whoever believes in Him will have life eternal. The same message is for all the skeptics of our time, looking for the meaning and purpose of life. To the Jews, the message was not much different, but it had to be explained so that their monotheistic minds could see how there is one God who eternally exists in three distinct persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

This is something Jews, Muslims, and many Christian cults continue to struggle with, yet it remains the core doctrine of the Christian faith. We call it the Trinity in which God is one divine being existing in three co-equal, co-eternal, and distinct persons. They have the same divine essence, nature, and character, which means they are not three separate beings but three in one.

A good illustration is Colossians 1:15, which says, Jesus is not the Father, but He is the exact image of the Father.

First Corinthians 2:11 says, the Holy Spirit is not the Father, but He knows the mind of the Father because He is God.

John 1:1-2 outlines why Jesus is fully God yet a distinct person because He pre-existed, He co-existed, and He self-existed.

His Pre-existence

John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word.” This means that Jesus already existed when the beginning began. The word translated here as “in the beginning” in the Greek text is en arche. It connected the Jewish mind with the beginning in Genesis 1:1 in the creation account to show that in the beginning, “the Word,” which is Jesus, was there as the uncreated one. That means the Trinity was involved in creation. Genesis 1:1 tells us God the Father created the world, and Genesis 1:2 says God the Holy Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters of the shapeless, empty earth. What was God the Son doing in creation in the beginning? The next part of John 1:1 says that He was with God, which points to Christ’s co-existence with God.

His Co-existence

In the phrase, “and the Word was with God,” “with” is the Greek word “pros” which implies proximity and personal interaction. It highlights an intimate relationship between Jesus and God. Another way to translate this would be “and the Word was face to face with God” because they co-exist in perfect, intimate fellowship of the Triune God.

His Self-existence

John 1:1-2 continues, “and the Word was God. ²He was in the beginning with God.” How could Jesus be God and with God at the same time unless Jesus is a distinct person? What we have here is the clear teachings that Jesus is not just with God, but fully God Himself, distinct yet divine. These two verses are enough to defend against Sabellianism, which believed God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three distinct persons but different manifestations of God, or Modalism, which denied the three distinct persons within the Godhead and believed Christ to be a different mode of God.

Though those heresies were in the early church, every generation has to defend the doctrine of the Trinity against cults and heresies. We need to defend the Trinity from the outside but also from within the church.

I was talking to a Muslim person who said Muslims love Jesus because he is their prophet, too. Their problem is not with Jesus, their prophet; their problem is with Jesus our God. Steve, one of the Elders, recently witnessed to a Muslim. I like what he said to this Muslim person. He said, “You believe Jesus is a prophet and Jesus said that He is the way, the truth, and the life. So, either Jesus is what He said He is or He is a false prophet.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons are two of the most powerful Christian cults of our day that are successfully converting people in the name of Jesus, but not the Jesus of the Bible.

Jehovah’s Witnesses say Jesus was God’s first creation and God used Jesus to create the rest of the universe, and is not part of the Trinity.

Mormons, in much complicated language, say there was a time when the Son was not. Many other groups claim to believe in Jesus, but their Jesus is not the Jesus of the Bible. He is not the eternal God who always existed with the Father.

Do you believe in Jesus? Is your Jesus the Jesus of the Bible, fully God, fully man?

Application

Be warned. Just because a church uses the name of Jesus, does not mean it believes in the Jesus of the Bible, and just because someone says he or she is a Christian doesn’t mean they believe that Jesus is Christ, Jesus is the Son of God, and Jesus is the source of life eternal.

Closing Thought

Imagine standing at the edge of the ocean, staring into its vastness. You cannot see the beginning or the end of the water. John says that if you look all the way back to eternity’s horizon, Jesus is already there— timeless, uncreated, eternal, who preexisted with God, co-existed with God, and self-existed with God.

Therefore, He is not bound by time, circumstances, or human limits. Here is my point: a prophet can warn against what is evil in the eyes of God, a teacher can teach what is moral, ethical, and good in the eyes of God, a healer can heal, and a helper can help, but only God can look from beginning to end and sovereignly direct and correct our path. Only God can carry the weight of our sins to offer salvation. Think of an infinitely large vessel pouring out wrath— only an equally infinite vessel can catch and contain that wrath. Jesus is that vessel. Only God can take the full wrath of God, not a prophet, teacher, guru, helper, or healer, but Jesus, fully God and fully man.

Action Step

If you’ve never trusted Him for your salvation and eternal life, start today— believe in Jesus, the Son of God, who died on the cross for your sins to save you and to give you eternal life.

Appeal

What saves us from hell and ushers us into heaven is believing in the divinity of Jesus, that He came from heaven to earth and died on the cross to pay for our sins, and He rose again, and He is coming back to judge the unrighteous.

If you don’t want to be judged, if you want to be saved, all you need to do is confess your sins and put your trust in Jesus. Once you are saved, supernaturally, you will be empowered to obey everything Jesus has commanded. Now, only one question is left: will you believe in the Son of God for your salvation and eternal life?

Discussion Questions

When you think about Jesus, what picture or description first comes to mind? Why?
Why do you think many people— even within the church—struggle to see Jesus as more than a good teacher or helper?

Christ’s Preexistence Questions

What does it mean that Jesus was “in the beginning?”
How does this truth shape your view of Him compared to other religious leaders or historical figures?
How can His eternal nature give you confidence in the present struggles you face?