Jesus the Messiah was Not a Literal Preesixtent Being.

John 1:1-3

"In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being."

Trinitarian belief has led us to believe that the passage actually says,

“In the beginning was the Son, and the Son was with God, and the Son was God. The Son was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through the Son, and without the Son not one thing came into being.” 

The Good News Bible translates John 1:1-3 as:

“Before anything else existed, there was Christ, with God. He has always been alive and is himself God. He created everything there is. Nothing exists that he did not make.”

But that is not what the text says.  This is a classic example eisegesis (reading into the text) rather than exegesis (reading out from).

The word “word” is a translation of the Greek word "logos," and has a variety of meanings such as: a communication, expression of mind, utterance, statement, question, proclamation, instruction, message, revelation, the gospel, declaration, decree, plan, creative thought, purpose, promise, wisdom, or reason.

Any good Greek lexicon will show these variety of meanings (the words in italics are translated from logos):

• speaking; words you say (Rom. 15:18, “what I have said and done”).
• a statement you make (Luke 20:20 – (NASB), “they might catch him in some statement).
• a question (Matt. 21:24, “I will also ask you one question”).
• preaching (1 Tim. 5:17, “especially those whose work is preaching and teaching).
• command (Gal. 5:14, “the entire law is summed up in a single command”).
• proverb; saying (John 4:37, “thus the saying, ‘One sows, and another reaps’”).
• message; instruction; proclamation (Luke 4:32, “his message had authority”).
• assertion; declaration; teaching (John 6:60, “this is a hard teaching”).
• the subject under discussion; matter (Acts 8:21, “you have no part or share in this ministry.” Acts 15:6 (NASB), “And the apostles… came together to look into this matter”).
• revelation from God (Matt. 15:6, “you nullify the word of God ”).
• God’s revelation spoken by His servants (Heb. 13:7, “leaders who spoke the word of God”).
• a reckoning, an account (Matt. 12:36, “men will have to give account” on the day of judgment).
• an account or “matter” in a financial sense (Matt. 18:23, A king who wanted to settle “accounts” with his servants. Phil. 4:15, “the matter of giving and receiving”).
• a reason; motive (Acts 10:29 – NASB), “I ask for what reason you have sent for me”). [1]

The Greek word "logos" was used to correspond to the Old Testament Hebrew word "davar." Here are some examples of how davar is translated.

I have hoped in Your word [i.e. wisdom, plan, promises]. (Psalm 119:74)

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. (vs. 105)

So shall My word be that goes from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:11)

In the passage from Isaiah, we are to understand God’s “word” as His plan or purpose.  There is nothing there to suggest a preexisting Son of God.  Nowhere in the entire Bible is it ever stated or implied that “word” means a preexisting person.

Also in John 1:3, the words “He” and “Him” are impersonal pronouns in the Greek and therefore should be translated as “it” when referring to logos as it was before the KJV came about. Every English Bible before the King James Version of 1611 translated the pronouns this way:

"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 IT, and without IT nothing was made that was made."

I have the Kingdom of God Version and it states:  

Everything came to be through it, and without it nothing came to be."

In the notes concerning John 1:1-3 it state:

What did LOGOS mean to John in his Gospel?  As with Philippians 2:6-11 and Colossians 1:15-20, the passages of John 1:1-5, 10-11 and 14 are poetic. The layout for all these passages can be seen in the New American Bible. 

John's concept of "the logos" did not come from Greek Platonic philosopy or from Philo (in Egypt) who applied Greek philosophy to explain the Hebrew scriptures.  Neither did John originate the concept himself, but rather his understanding came from the Hebrew scriptures and their corresponding Aramaic Targums - the Hebrew word being debar (translated in the Greek of the Spetuagint as logos) and the Aramaic being memra. Debar occurs 1,440 times in the Hebrew scriptures and logos over 300 times in the Christian scriptures, all having a variety of meaning - none of which refers to a person; and so there is no legitimate reason for John 1:1 to refer to a person.  As a number of leading theologians recognize: when a literary piece is poetic it is generally given to metaphorical interpretation, which in the case of John's prologue is the figurative language of personficiation, rather than hypostatization of (ascribing essence to) "the word."   

Now what does it mean that the "word" was "with God" and the "word was God?" The Greek preposition pros translated "with" means to be intimately associated with or together with and yet distinct and separate.  I can speak a word, and my word is with me, but my word is not another person.

In the Old Testament we know that “wisdom” was with God, 

“Then I [wisdom] was beside [with] Him as a master craftsman. (Proverbs 8:30)  

No Trinitarian will say that because wisdom was with God or beside God that wisdom is now another person. We understand it as a figure of speech called  personification.  In the same way in John 1:1, God’s word was with Him but it was not another person.

Concerning the meaning of the phrase “the word was God” I will quote the comments of scholar William Barclay,

In the AV [King James Version] John 1:1 reads: ‘In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God.’ For long the newer translations continued this rendering with the exception of Moffet and Goodspeed, who both render: “the Word was divine.’ . . . In a case like this we cannot do other than go to the Greek, which is theos en ho logos. Ho is the definite article, the, and it can be seen that there is a definite article with logos, but not with theos. When in Greek two nouns are joined by the verb to be and when both have the definite article, then the one is fully identified with the other; but when one of them is without the article, it becomes more an adjective than a noun, and describes rather the class or sphere to which the other belongs. An illustration from English will make this clear. If I say, ‘The preacher is the man,’ I use the definite article before both preacher and man, and thereby identify the preacher with some quite definite individual man whom I have in mind.  But if I say, ‘The preacher is man,’ I have omitted the definite article before man, and what I mean is that the preacher must be classified as a man, he is in the sphere of manhood, he is a human being. John has no definite article before theos, God. The logos therefore, is not identified as God or with God; the word theos has become adjectival and describes the sphere to which the logos belongs.  John has no definite article before theos, God. The logos therefore, is not identified as God or with God; the word theos has become adjectival and describes the sphere to which the logos belongs.  We would therefore, have to say that this means that the logos belongs to the same sphere as God; without being identified as God. Here the NEB [New English Bible] finds the perfect translation “What God was, the Word was.”  This passage then does not identify the logos and God; it does not say that Jesus was God, nor does it call him God.  

In other words, when we read the phrase “the word was God” the original intent of the Greek text was to convey the idea that the “word” was fully representative of God. The word was and is a revelation of God’s heart and character. If we understand God’s word we know what God is like.  The logos fully expresses God’s purpose and mind. Therefore you could very accurately paraphrase John 1:1-3 like this,

In the beginning God had a creative and redemptive plan. And this plan or purpose revealed His heart and was fully representative of all that God is. All things were made through this plan and without this divine plan nothing was made.

With all of this in mind, John 1:14 reveals a wonderful truth.  

"And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth."

The word, the logos, God’s plan, His purpose, became flesh and dwelt among us. With the coming into existence of Jesus Christ at his conception and birth, the full plan and heart of God was expressed as a human being.  Jesus Christ was full of divine grace and truth.  What became flesh in John 1:14 was not a preexistent "eternally begotten" (a phrase not found in scripture) Son of God.  As a brother has well stated, "There is no such thing as a 'pre-existence'.  Nothing, no one thing in this universe exists before it exists."  What became flesh was God's full plan of salvation revealed in the Man Jesus the Messiah.

A plan can take “flesh” when it is carried out or acted upon. When an architect’s plan actually becomes a building it becomes “flesh,” so to speak. In the same manner, God’s plan became literal flesh in His Son Jesus the Messiah who fully revealed God will and plan for us, and as Hebrews 1:1 declares,

God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us revealing His word, [logos] by His Son.

The Son of God was not a literal preexistent being. He is not the second person of the so-called "trinity," nor was he an angel.  He is simply and uniquely the Son of God who fully reveals God to us.

Thanks in part to Christian Monotheism and Biblical Unitarian

1. Arndt and Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (University of Chicago Press, 1979).