John 1:2

The same was in the beginning with God.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(2) The same was.—This is a summary in one clause of the three assertions made in the first verse.

The same, that is, the Word who was God, existed before any act of creation, and in that existence was a person distinct from God. Yet it is more than a re-statement. We have arrived at the thought that the Word was one in nature with God. From this higher point of view, the steps below us are more clearly seen. The Word was God; the eternal pre-existence and personality are included in the thought.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

1:1-5 The plainest reason why the Son of God is called the Word, seems to be, that as our words explain our minds to others, so was the Son of God sent in order to reveal his Father's mind to the world. What the evangelist says of Christ proves that he is God. He asserts, His existence in the beginning; His coexistence with the Father. The Word was with God. All things were made by him, and not as an instrument. Without him was not any thing made that was made, from the highest angel to the meanest worm. This shows how well qualified he was for the work of our redemption and salvation. The light of reason, as well as the life of sense, is derived from him, and depends upon him. This eternal Word, this true Light shines, but the darkness comprehends it not. Let us pray without ceasing, that our eyes may be opened to behold this Light, that we may walk in it; and thus be made wise unto salvation, by faith in Jesus Christ.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The same - The Word, or the λόγος Logos.

Was in the beginning with God - This seems to be a repetition of what was said in the first verse; but it is stated over again to "guard the doctrine," and to prevent the possibility of a mistake. John had said that he existed before the creation, and that he was "with God;" but he had not said in the first verse "that the union with God existed in the beginning." He now expresses that idea, and assures us that that union was not one which was commenced in time, and which might be, therefore, a mere union of feeling, or a compact, like that between any other beings, but was one which existed in eternity, and which was therefore a union of nature or essence.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2. The same, &c.—See what property of the Word the stress is laid upon—His eternal distinctness, in unity, from God—the Father (Joh 1:2).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

These words of the evangelist are a further confirmation and explication of what the evangelist had said before; asserting the eternity of the Son, and his relation to the Father, and oneness of essence with the Father. Whether the evangelist, forewarned by the Spirit of God, did add this repetition to forearm Christians against those errors which did afterward trouble the church, I cannot say; but certain it is, that these words do effectually confute the Eunomians, who distinguished between the Word which in the beginning was with God, and that Word by which all things were made; and the Arians, who make the Father to have existed before the Son; as also the Anomians, who would make the Father and the Son diverse both in nature and will. Some others make this verse a transition to John 1:4, and the sense to be, This same was not manifest to the world from the beginning of the world, but was with God until he came to be manifested in the flesh: thus, 1Jo 1:2, it is said, he was with the Father, and was manifested unto us. He was manifested in the flesh, 1 Timothy 3:16.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The same was in the beginning with God. This is a repetition of what is before said, and is made to show the importance of the truths before delivered; namely, the eternity of Christ, his distinct personality, and proper deity; and that the phrase, in the beginning, is to be joined to each of the above sentences; and so proves, not only his eternal existence, but his eternal existence with the Father, and also his eternal deity; and is also made to carry on the thread of the discourse, concerning the word, and not God the Father; and to express, not only his co-existence in nature, but his co-operation in the works of creation next mentioned.

Geneva Study Bible

The same was in the beginning with God.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

John 1:2 again emphatically combines the first and second clauses of John 1:1, in order to connect with them the work of creation, which was wrought by the λόγος.[75] In this way, however, the subject also of the third clause of John 1:1 is included in and expressed by οὗτος. On this οὗτος—to which, then, πάντα standing at the beginning of John 1:3 significantly corresponds—lies the emphasis in the continuation of the discourse. In John 1:2 is given the necessary premiss to John 1:3; for if it was this same Logos, and no other than He, who Himself was God, who lived in the beginning in fellowship with God, and consequently when creation began, the whole creation, nothing excepted, must have come into existence through Him. Thus it is assumed, as a self-evident middle term, that God created the world not immediately, but, according to Genesis 1, through the medium of the Word.

[75] Who accordingly now worked as λόγος προφορικός.

Expositor's Greek Testament

John 1:2. οὑτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θεόν. Not a mere repetition of what has been said in John 1:1. There John has said that the Word was in the beginning and also that He was with God: here he indicates that these two characteristics existed contemporaneously. “He was in the beginning with God.” He wishes also to emphasise this in view of what he is about to tell. In the beginning He was with God, afterwards, in time, He came to be with man. His pristine condition must first be grasped, if the grace of what succeeds is to be understood.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

2. The same] More literally, He or This (Word), with emphasis (comp. John 7:18). This verse takes up the first two clauses and combines them. Such recapitulations are characteristic of S. John.

Bengel's Gnomen

John 1:2. Οὗτος, He) He alone. The He comprises [includes in its application] the whole of the verse immediately preceding it, as He, in the 7th verse, comprises the 6th verse.—πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, with God) This, being repeated [from John 1:1], is now put in antithesis to His subsequent mission to men. The three weighty truths, put dividedly in the preceding verse, are repeated and brought together in one in this verse. He, the Logos, who was God, was in the beginning, and was with God. A remarkable antithesis, comp. John 1:14, as also 1 John 2:1 [which contain the same antithetic contrast.]

the word

Was in the beginning God:

Was made flesh,

With God:

And dwelt among us.

Moreover the very congeries of this second verse manifestly supports this antithesis, the appellation of Logos being intermitted between John 1:2; John 1:14.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 2. - The same Logos whom the writer has just affirmed to have been God himself, was, though it might seem at first reading to be incompatible with the first or third clause of the first verse, nevertheless in the beginning with God - "in the beginning," and therefore, as we have seen, eternally in relation with God. The previous statements are thus stringently enforced, and, notwithstanding their tendency to diverge, are once more bound into a new, unified, and emphatic utterance. Thus the αὐτός of the following sentences is charged with the sublime fulness of meaning which is involved in the three utterances of ver. 1. The first clause

(1) declared that the Logos preceded the origination of all things, was the eternal ground of the world; the second

(2) asserted his unique personality, so that he stands over against the eternal God, in mutual communion with the Absolute and Eternal One; the third clause

(3) maintains further that the Logos was not a second God, nor merely Divine (Θεῖος) or God-like, nor is he described as proceeding out of or from God (ἐκ Θεοῦ or ἀπὸ Θεοῦ), nor is he to be called ὁ Θεός, "the God absolute," as opposed to all his manifestations; but the Logos is said to be Θεός, i.e. "God" - God in his nature and being. This second verse reasserts the eternal relation of such a personality "with God," and prepares the way for the statements of the following verses. The unity of the Logos and Theos might easily be supposed to reduce the distinction between them to subjective relations. The second verse emphasizes the objective validity of the relation. John 1:2

Vincent's Word Studies

The same (οὗτος)

Literally, this one; the one first named; the Word.

Was in the beginning with God

In John 1:1 the elements of this statement have been given separately: the Word, the eternal being of the Word, and his active communion with God. Here they are combined, and with new force. This same Word not only was coeternal with God in respect of being (ἦν, was), but was eternally in active communion with Him (in the beginning with God: προ,ς τὸν Θεὸν): "not simply the Word with God, but God with God" (Moulton). Notice that here Θεὸν has the article, as in the second proposition, where God is spoken of absolutely. In the third proposition, the Word was God, the article was omitted because Θεὸς described the nature of the Word and did not identify his person. Here, as in the second proposition, the Word is placed in personal relation to God.

This verse forms the transition point from the discussion of the personal being of the Word to His manifestation in creation. If it was this same Word, and no other, who was Himself God, and who, from all eternity, was in active communion with God, then the statement follows naturally that all things were created through Him, thus bringing the essential nature of the Word and His manifestation in creation into connection. As the idea of the Word involves knowledge and will, wisdom and force, the creative function is properly His. Hence His close relation to created things, especially to man, prepares the way for His incarnation and redeeming work. The connection between creation and redemption is closer than is commonly apprehended. It is intimated in the words of Isaiah (Isaiah 46:4), "I have made, and I will bear." Redemption, in a certain sense, grows out of creation. Because God created man in His own image, He would restore him to that image. Because God made man, He loves him, educates him, bears with him carries on the race on the line of His infinite patience, is burdened with its perverseness and blindness, and expresses and effectuates all this in the incarnation and redemptive work of Jesus Christ. God is under the stress of the parental instinct (humanly speaking) to redeem man.