Refuting All Trinitarian ‘Proof-Texts’
The Gospel of John
John 1:1-18: John states that the Word of God, identified as Jesus (v. 14, 17), was with God and was God in the beginning. This may reflect early Targums (first-century Aramaic paraphrases of the Hebrew Bible) which had a tendency to replace “Yahweh” with “the Word of the Lord.” For example, Targum Neofiti 1.1 states, “In the beginning the Word of the Lord created and perfected the heavens and the earth.” If this was John’s literary background, then the claim that the Word of God became flesh in Jesus is a claim that Jesus is Yahweh Himself in human flesh. Furthermore, the Word of God (i.e. the pre-existent Son) is said to have created all things (v. 3).
Throughout the Wisdom literature, the “word” and “wisdom” of God are equated with one another (Wisdom 9:1-2; Sirach 24:3). God’s word/wisdom is commonly personified as an agent, but is not personal, as it is paralleled with “His command,” “knowledge,” and other impersonal attributes (Psa. 147:15; Prov. 3:19-20; Wisdom 18:14-16; Sirach 1:4). Therefore, the “word” in John 1:1 is not a personal, pre-existent Jesus, but is the word/wisdom of God. As it happens, every single statement about the Word in John 1 finds a direct parallel in the Wisdom literature:
Since John 1:1-18 so clearly echoes what is said about Wisdom throughout Jewish Wisdom literature, as many scholarly commentators have also noticed, [4] the “word” of John’s prologue must refer to an impersonal attribute of God, namely His spoken word and wisdom, by which He created all things. It cannot refer to Jesus, who is consistently distinguished from the Creator throughout the New Testament (Mark 10:6; 13:19; Acts 4:24, 30; 17:24, 31; Heb. 2:10). As a consequence, this passage does not support the deity of Jesus nor his pre-existence.
John 1:18: Most manuscripts state here that the Son, in the bosom of the Father, is the “only-begotten God” who reveals the Father. This reflects trinitarian claims that the Son is the Begotten God while the Father is the Begetting God. However, patristic evidence favors the alternate reading, “only-begotten Son.”
John 1:15, 30: John the Baptist states that Jesus “has surpassed me, because He was before me.” This shows that Jesus existed before John, and so must have pre-existed His birth.
On the contrary, the Greek word protos can mean either “before” in time or “superior.” John’s statement could equally be translated as, “[Jesus] has surpassed me because he has always been my superior.” Alternatively, if it does mean “before me,” this could be continuing the Wisdom metaphor of John’s prologue, because Wisdom existed since the beginning. For a discussion of the pros and cons of each translation, see here.
John 3:13: Jesus claims to have “come down out of the heaven,” which is evidence of His pre-existence.
Jesus came down from heaven in the same sense that all good gifts come down from heaven — that is, they are sent by God (Jas. 1:17). The epistle of James contrasts “the wisdom coming from above” with “that which is earthly” (3:15-17). John the Baptist was also said to have been “sent by God” (John 1:6), and Jesus asks, “From where was the baptism of John, from heaven or from humans?” (Matt. 21:25) If John’s baptism was “from heaven,” that would not mean that John literally came down from heaven, but that he was empowered by God.
The same distinction between ‘heavenly’ and ‘earthly’ things occurs elsewhere in the gospel of John, especially in chapter 3, where it is said that one must be “born from above” (v. 3), that Jesus has spoken “earthly things” and will speak “heavenly things” (v. 12), and that because Jesus is “from above,” he does not “speak from the earth” (v. 31). Elsewhere in this gospel, Jesus tells the Jewish leaders, “You are from below; I am from above” (John 8:23). Of course, the Jews were not literally “from below,” but Jesus’ point was that they are thinking about lowly things, whereas he has heavenly wisdom. Therefore, when John says that Jesus “came down out of heaven,” this means that he has heavenly wisdom, a theme which recurs throughout this gospel (3:34; 7:16; 8:26, 40; 14:10; 17:8).
John 4:14, 26: Jesus states, “I am He, the One speaking to you” (ego eimi ho lalon soi) which is a near word-for-word quote of Isaiah 52:6 (LXX), in which Yahweh reveals His name as “I am He, the One speaking, ‘I am here’” (ego eimi ho lalon pareimi).
This misses the fact that Jesus is responding to a statement by the Samaritan woman: “I know that the Messiah is coming; when he comes, he will tell us all things” (John 4:25). Jesus answers, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.” Jesus is clearly claiming to be the Messiah, not God. Furthermore, Isaiah 52:6 was spoken by the Father, not Jesus, because this same speaker goes on to refer to the Messiah as “My servant” (Isa. 52:13). Therefore, even if this was an intentional allusion to Isa. 52:6, Jesus can’t have been claiming to be the original speaker of Isa. 52:6, which was the Father.
John 5:18-30: According to John, the Jews viewed the claim that “God was [Jesus’] Father” as “making Himself equal to God.” Furthermore, Jesus goes on to claim that the purpose of judgment is “that all will honor the Son according as they honor the Father” (vv. 22-23), indicating equality of worship between the Son and the Father.
John 5:18 is typically taken to mean, “he was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.” However, this is an indefensible interpretation in light of the Jewish concept of sonship, which implies obedience, not equality (Deut. 21:18; Sirach 3:6-16; Philo, Decal. 118). [6] Furthermore, the title “son of God” was used by many non-God entities in the Old Testament, including angels, the Davidic kings of Israel, and Israel itself (Gen. 6:2; Exod. 4:22; Deut. 14:1; 32:8; 2 Sam. 7:14; 1 Chron. 28:5-6; Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7; Psa. 2:6-7; 82:6; 89:6, 20, 26-27; Jer. 31:9; Hos. 11:1). According to Second Temple Jewish texts, anyone who does righteousness is “the son of God” (Wisdom 2:13-18; Sirach 4:10; 51:10; Philo, Conf. Ling. 145-147).
The same situation holds in the New Testament, in which the title “son of God” is applied to Jesus by virtue of his being the rightful king of Israel (Luke 1:32-33; John 1:49). In fact, elsewhere in the gospel of John (8:41), the Jews themselves claim that God is their Father! Thus, John 5:18 cannot be interpreted to mean, “he was calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.” This is simply not what the title “son of God” implied at that time. Rather, it must be taken to mean, “he was calling God his own Father and making himself equal to God.” In contemporary Jewish thought, making oneself equal to one’s father was the act of a rebellious son. [7]
In response to the Jews’ accusation that he is a rebellious son, Jesus assumes the position of the obedient Son. He answers them by saying, “The Son is not able to do anything of himself, but only whatever he should see the Father doing; for whatever He does, the Son likewise does” (John 5:19). Jesus then explains that all of his authority and prerogatives have been given to him by the Father, and none of it is of himself (5:20-30). Thus, Jesus was not making himself equal to God; quite the contrary, he rejected this charge and claimed instead that he was obedient to God.
John 6:20: See note on Matthew 14:27.
John 6:33, 38, 41-42, 50-51, 58: See note on John 3:13.
See my response to the note on John 3:13, with regard to “coming down out of heaven.” Note also that this passage involves typology, identifying Jesus as the antitype of the manna from heaven in the Old Testament. The manna is a type of the Messiah because both give life to Israel (vv. 33, 51), but this does not require that both literally came down from heaven. Furthermore, the manna is said to be Jesus’ “flesh” (v. 51); if taken literally, this would mean that Jesus bodily descended from heaven, which is obviously contrary to John’s statements elsewhere (John 8:40; 18:37; 19:25).
John 6:62: Jesus says, “What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where He was before?” This shows that Jesus was previously in heaven, where He later ascended to, demonstrating His pre-existence.
This verse could be taken to refer to Jesus’ resurrection, because the word “ascend” (anabaino) elsewhere describes resurrection (Job 7:9 LXX). Jesus was responding to his disciples’ statement, “this is a hard teaching” (v. 60), which likely refers back to his teaching, “I will give my flesh [i.e., die] for the life of the world” (v. 51). Furthermore, he goes on to say that, if they follow his teachings, the spirit will also give life to them (v. 63; cf. Rom. 8:11). These contextual indications indicate that Jesus was speaking of his resurrection, not his ascension, and so this verse does not provide evidence of Jesus’ pre-existence.
John 7:37-38: Jesus claims to be the One from Whose innermost being flows springs of living water. In the OT, this is Yahweh Himself (Isa. 12:2-3; Jer. 2:13).
As the next verse states, the “living water” refers to the gift of the holy spirit (John 7:39). Although it was the Father’s divine prerogative to give the holy spirit, He gave Jesus the authority to pour out the holy spirit (Acts 2:33). Thus, both God and Jesus are now sources of this “living water,” even though only God was the source of living water in the Old Testament.
Furthermore, John 7:38 might actually be referring to believers in general, not just Jesus. Jesus says, “the one believing in me, as the Scriptures have said, ‘Out of his inner parts will flow living water.’” The immediate antecedent is not Jesus himself, but “the one believing in” Jesus. This might be a paraphrase of Proverbs 4:23, which says regarding those who obtain Wisdom, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” If this is the source of the quotation, this would be another example of Wisdom Christology in the gospel of John.
John 8:24, 28: Jesus twice states emphatically that “I am He” (ego eimi), mirroring two identical declarations from the book of Isaiah. First, He claims that “I am He” (ego eimi) and that unless His audience believes this they will be dying “in your sins” (en tais hamartiais humon), strongly paralleling Isaiah 43:24-25 in which Yahweh states that “you stood before Me in your sins [en tais hamartiais humon]” but that “I am He, I am He [ego eimi ego eimi] Who blots out your transgressions.” In the second statement, Jesus claims that “you will know that I am He” (gnosesthe hoti ego eimi) paralleling Isaiah 43:10 in which Yahweh states that “you may know… that I am He” (gnote hoti ego eimi). These two, almost word-for-word, quotes from the same chapter of Isaiah in such close proximity would certainly not have been missed by Jesus’ Pharisaic audience.
Jesus cannot have been claiming to be the speaker of Isaiah 43, since the speaker of Isa. 43 refers to the Messiah as “My servant” (vv. 10), and therefore must be the Father (Acts 3:13, 26). In John 8:24, he was claiming to be able to forgive sins, but this is because God has given him the authority to forgive sins, not because he is God (Matt. 9:6, 8).
In the second ‘I am’ statement of this passage, Jesus says, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he” (John 8:28). In context, this obviously means “then you will know that I am the Son of Man,” not “then you will know that I am God.”
John 8:58: After making such implicit claims to deity as noted in the previous note above, Jesus goes on to say at the end of the chapter that “before Abraham became, I am.” Although this does not (as is commonly assumed) parallel Exodus 3:14, it is a straightforward claim that Jesus existed before Abraham, coming immediately after a dialogue in which Jesus claims to be far greater than even Abraham (something which the Jews did not fail to pick up on). The Jews immediately pick up stones to stone Jesus, showing that they viewed this as a strong implicit claim to deity (and thus ‘blasphemy’).
It’s true that John 8:58 does not quote nor allude to Exodus 3:14. In the Septuagint, which was the common Greek translation of the Old Testament, God’s title in Exod. 3:14 is translated as ho on (“the One Who Is”), not ego eimi as in John 8:58. Other Greek translations of Exod. 3:14 translate it as esomai hos esomai (“I will be what I will be”) rather than ho on. [8] Therefore, no first-century Jew would have seen a reference to Exodus 3:14 in any of Jesus’ “I am” (ego eimi) statements.
But, does John 8:58 prove that Jesus had an eternal pre-existence, as many trinitarian commentators argue? No, it does not. It’s important to read this verse in its full context. The exchange begins when Jesus states, “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he should see my day, and he saw and rejoiced” (v. 56). However, Abraham did not see Jesus’ day as a fulfilled reality, but as a prophetic promise (Heb. 11:8, 13, 39 cf. Gen. 22:17-18; Gal. 3:16-18). This sets the tone for the rest of the passage: Jesus is not speaking of literal existence, but prophetic existence.
The Jews then twist his words into a ridiculous claim: “You are not yet 50 years old, and you have seen Abraham?” (v. 57) However, Jesus was not claiming that he had seen Abraham, but that Abraham had seen him, prophetically. Jesus then states, “Verily, verily I say to you, before Abraham was, I have been” (v. 58). [9] In context, Jesus is not claiming to have literally existed before Abraham, but to have been before Abraham in God’s plan. Indeed, the Messiah was promised as early as Genesis 3:15. It was common in first century Judaism to speak of things promised as already existing. [10] The Jews then attempted to stone him for claiming to be greater than Abraham (cf. v. 53).
Alternatively, John 8:58 could also be translated as “Before Abraham comes to be (in the resurrection), I am,” if the aorist infinitive verb genesthai is interpreted to be future tense. [11] If this is the correct translation, then Jesus was continuing the idea that “Abraham saw my day,” referring to the future Day of the Messiah on which the resurrection will occur (1 Cor. 1:8; Php. 1:6, 10; 2:16). If this is the case, then there is not even figurative pre-existence being considered in this verse.
John 10:1-16: Jesus makes the claim, not only to being the Shepherd of the sheep, but to being the exclusive Shepherd of the sheep, to the extent that everyone else is either a thief or merely a “hired servant.” However, in the OT, the only Shepherd of Israel is Yahweh Himself (Gen. 48:15; 49:24; Ps. 23:1; 79:13; 80:1; 100:3; Isa. 40:11; Ezek. 34:31; many others). Unless Yahweh is being degraded to merely a “hired servant,” the claim to deity is immediately evident: Jesus is not merely a hired servant of Yahweh, but He Himself is Yahweh, the exclusive Shepherd of Israel.
On the contrary, Jesus is the shepherd appointed by Yahweh, an idea which appears in the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament (Ezek. 34:22-24; Micah 5:4). Although God is the ultimate Shepherd of Israel, He also chose David and his descendants (including Jesus) to “be the shepherd of His people Jacob” (Psa. 78:70-72). Rather than showing that Jesus is God, the “good shepherd” analogy of John 10 shows that he is the son of David and the rightful king of Israel.
John 10:25-29: Jesus again claims to be the Shepherd of Israel, but goes even further than that, stating that the people of Israel are the ‘sheep in His hand.’ Furthermore, the people of Israel are also the ‘sheep’ in His Father’s hand. This is a reference back to Psalm 95:7, in which it is said that Israel are “the people of [Yahweh’s] pasture and the sheep of His hand.” If they are the sheep in the hand of both Jesus and His Father, the only conclusion is that both Jesus and the Father are somehow Yahweh.
See my response to the note on John 10:1-16. Yahweh is indeed the ultimate Shepherd of Israel, but He appointed David and his descendants, including the Messiah, to also shepherd Israel (Psa. 78:70-72; Ezek. 34:22-24; Micah 5:4). Thus, Jesus can rightly claim that the people of Israel are the “sheep in his hand” by virtue of being the son of David. He is not claiming to be Yahweh in this passage.
John 10:30: “I and the Father are one.” Unitarians often argue that Jesus was merely stating that He and His Father were ‘of one mind,’ citing John 17:21 and 1 Corinthians 3:8 as parallels. But in light of what He just finished stating - that the Israelites are the ‘sheep in the hand’ of both He and the Father - Jesus was already making a claim to ontological unity with His Father as Yahweh (see the previous note above). Thus, by stating that “I and the Father are one,” He was merely affirming that which His Jewish audience was likely already thinking: “Yes, My Father and I are one; We are Yahweh.”
See my responses to the notes on John 10:1-16 and John 10:25-29. Jesus’ claim to being the good shepherd of Israel was not a claim of ontological identity as Yahweh, but a claim to being the son of David and true Messiah, because Yahweh appointed David and his descendants to shepherd Israel alongside Him (Psa. 78:70-72; Ezek. 34:22-24; Micah 5:4). Thus, when Jesus says, “I and my Father are one,” he is not claiming ontological unity with his Father as Yahweh, but saying that he is ‘one in agreement’ with the Father with regard to shepherding Israel.
In this regard, 1 Cor. 3:8 is certainly a valid parallel, because it shows that two individuals can be “one” in the sense that they are ‘one in agreement’ rather than being an ontological unity. Another important parallel is John 17:22-23, in which Jesus prays to the Father “that they [believers] may all be one, just as we are one, I in them and You in me, that they may be completely one.” Of course, all believers will never be “one” as an ontological unity, but will one day be perfected and ‘one in agreement’ with one another.
John 10:31-36: Jesus’ statement that “I and the Father are one” is the first time that He explicitly makes Himself out to be God in the gospel of John; prior to this, He had only indirectly indicated this by way of Old Testament references (although His audience did not fail to pick up on it). The Jews, incensed by this statement, immediately take up stones to stone Him “for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God” (v. 33). In response, Jesus rebukes them: “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, “You are gods”’?” (v. 34) Unitarians often claim that Jesus is stating that He is merely a derivative and lesser god, like the ones in Psalm 82. However, if we continue the quote from Psalm 82, it reads, “I have said, ‘You are gods, and all of you are sons of the Most High; but you will die like men, and fall like one of the princes.’ Arise, O Elohim, judge the earth!” Jesus is not saying that he is a derivative god; rather, He is rebuking the Pharisees and saying that they will “die like men.” In fact, in the context of the full quote, Jesus is putting Himself in the place of Elohim, as Judge over all of the derivative gods (including the Pharisees). This would make very little sense if Jesus were Himself one of the derivative gods.
This is reading far too much into Jesus’ quotation of Psalm 82:6. If we just read the next few verses, Jesus’ reason for quoting this OT passage becomes clear: “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, “You are gods”’? If He called them gods… how can you say, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said I am the Son of God?” Jesus was not using some esoteric rabbinic rebuke, but was pointing out that if the Law even referred to corrupt leaders as ‘gods,’ then it is certainly appropriate for Jesus, as the Messiah, to refer to himself as the Son of God.
John 10:37-39: Finally, Jesus finishes off this dialogue heavy with OT refs and double meanings by appealing to the works that He has done as proof that “the Father is in Me and I am in the Father.” This claim is apparently strong enough, along with the other statements He has made, to be considered blasphemy and worthy of stoning by the Jews, because they immediately attempt to seize Him again.
Jesus’ claim that “the Father is in me and I am in the Father” cannot be a claim to deity, because John says the same thing about believers: “Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in them, and they in God… those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them” (1 John 4:15-16). Jesus also prays to the Father that his disciples would “be in us… I in them and You in me” (John 17:21, 23). One meaning of the word “in” (en) in Greek is “in close association” (with respect to individuals), and this is almost certainly the meaning here. The Jews thought that Jesus had a demon (John 7:20; 8:48; 10:19-20), so from their perspective, it was blasphemy for Jesus to claim to be in close association with God. This explains why they tried to stone Him.
John 11:25: Jesus claims to be the Resurrection and the Life, which is elsewhere true of only Yahweh Himself, “the Living God” “in Whom we live and move and have our being.”
Jesus immediately clarifies what he means by claiming to be the Resurrection and the Life: “Whoever believes in me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall not die in the age to come” (John 11:25-26). Jesus is “the Life” because everyone who believes in him will have life in the age to come, and he is “the Resurrection” because God has given him the authority to resurrect (cf. John 5:21, 25-26). Jesus is “the Life” not of himself, but because the Father gave him that authority (John 5:26). Thus, Jesus was not claiming to be Yahweh, but the Messiah with the power to resurrect, as Martha’s response confirms: “Yes, Lord. I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God” (John 11:27).
John 12:13: See note on Matthew 21:9.
John 12:38-41: John states that Isaiah the prophet spoke the words of Isa. 6:8-10 and 53:1 “when he saw His [Jesus’] glory and spoke of Him.” In context, it is the glory of Yahweh of Hosts which Isaiah saw when he spoke of these things (Isa. 6:3). This shows that Jesus is Yahweh.
Note that John quoted both Isa. 6:8-10 and 53:1. Although the first passage from Isaiah does take place when Isaiah saw the glory of Yahweh, the second takes place when Isaiah foresaw the glory of the Messiah, Yahweh’s servant (Isa. 52:13-15; 53:10-12). It is unclear which passage John is referring to in v. 41, so this is equivocal with regard to the deity and pre-existence of Jesus.
John 13:18-19: Jesus quotes Psalm 41:9 as a prophecy about Himself, saying “so that you may believe (when it comes to pass) that I am He” (hina pisteusete… ego eimi). This is a near word-for-word quote of Isaiah 43:10 (LXX), in which Yahweh says, “so that you may believe… that I am He” (hina pisteusete… ego eimi). Like earlier in the gospel of John, this ‘ego eimi’ statement clearly parallels an Isaianic statement about the uniqueness of Yahweh, and is thus an implicit claim to deity by Jesus.
Jesus cannot be claiming to be the speaker of Isaiah 43:10, since Yahweh in that verse refers to the Messiah as “My servant,” and Jesus is obviously not his own servant. Instead, Jesus is saying that “you may believe that I am the Messiah,” because he is interpreting the verse which he previously quoted (Psalm 41:9) as a Messianic prophecy.
John 14:6: Jesus again claims to be the Life, but also the Way and the Truth. As noted about John 11:25, being the Life is unique to Yahweh Himself, “the Living God” “in Whom we live and move and have our being.” Furthermore, the Truth (or the TRUE) is a title belonging to Yahweh alone, and it is applied elsewhere to both the Father (Jn. 17:3; 1 Thess. 1:9; 1 Jn. 5:20) and the Son (1 Jn. 5:20; Rev. 3:7).
With regard to Jesus being “the Life,” see my response to the note on John 11:25. Jesus is “the Way” because he is the mediator between God and humanity (1 Tim. 2:5), and “no one comes to the Father except through” him. Rather than showing that Jesus is God, this does the opposite; he is not the final destination, but “the Way” by which we arrive at the final destination, the Father. Jesus is “the Truth” because he is “a man who speaks the truth that he heard from God” (John 8:40), not because he is God.
John 14:9-11: Despite not being the Father, Jesus absolutely reveals the Father to the extent that if you have seen Jesus, you have seen the Father. Furthermore, the Father is in Jesus, and Jesus is in Him.This emphasizes the unity between the two Persons.
See my response to the note on John 10:37-39.
John 14:16-17, 26: Jesus distinguishes the “Helper,” “Holy Spirit,” and “Spirit of Truth” from the Father Who sends Him, and distinguishes Him from Himself (the Son) by referring to Him as “another Helper.” Furthermore, He uses masculine pronouns in v. 26 to describe Him (in contradistinction to the neuter word ‘spirit,’ pneuma), emphasizing the personality of this Spirit. Thus, the Holy Spirit is a Person separate from the Father and the Son.
The holy spirit is distinct from Jesus, but it also allows him to communicate with believers. Note that throughout this passage, both the spirit and Jesus are going to “come to you,” and they are not always distinguished (John 14:16-28). Furthermore, the spirit “will teach you… all that I [Jesus] said to you” and “will not speak on its own, but… will take from what is mine, and will declare it to you” (John 14:26; 16:13-14). This makes sense if the holy spirit is a power that allows believers to be in communion with God and Jesus, but would be very strange if the spirit is a separate person.
The masculine pronouns applied to the holy spirit in v. 26 do not show that it is a person, but are a grammatical necessity in the original Greek because “the helper” (parakletos) is a masculine noun. Elsewhere in the New Testament, only neuter pronouns are used to refer to the holy spirit, because “spirit” (pneuma) is a neuter noun. These pronouns are neither evidence for nor against the personality of the holy spirit; they simply represent the underlying Greek syntax.
John 16:7, 13: The “Spirit of Truth” will be sent by Jesus when He goes away (emphasizing the distinction between the Son and the Spirit), yet is described again with masculine pronouns in v. 13 in contradistinction to the neuter word ‘spirit’ (pneuma). This again demonstrates the Spirit to be a Person separate from the Father and the Son.
See my response to the note on John 14:16-17, 26. The same criticisms apply here.
John 16:30: The disciples say to Jesus, “You know all things.” This shows that Jesus is omniscient.
Jesus was not literally omniscient, because there were at least a few things that he did not know (Mark 13:32; Luke 8:45-47) and he had to learn (Luke 2:52; John 8:28, 40; Heb. 5:8). To know “all things” is hyperbolic, just as when Jesus said that the holy spirit would teach believers “all things” (John 14:26 cf. Eph. 6:21; 1 John 2:27). In this verse, “all things” refers to the fact that Jesus knew the thoughts of the disciples (John 16:19). But the disciples did not conclude from this that Jesus was God; on the contrary, they said, “By this we know that you came from God” (John 16:30).
John 17:5: Jesus, praying to the Father, asks Him to “glorify Me with Yourself, with the glory that I was having with You before the existence of the world.” Read straightforwardly, this would indicate that Jesus had a heavenly pre-existence, and that He has the same glory which Yahweh said He would never give to another (Isa. 42:8), meaning that He is Yahweh.
The fact that Jesus is said to have “the glory” in this verse cannot mean that he is God, because just a few verses later, he says, “the glory that you have given me, I have given them” (John 17:22). Obviously, the disciples were not God, so just being given glory does not mean that one is God. Nor does this verse prove the doctrine of Jesus’ pre-existence. According to John 7:39, he had not yet been glorified during his earthly ministry, so he cannot have literally been given glory before the foundation of the world.
Instead, the statement that Jesus was given glory “before the existence of the world” is almost certainly proleptic; that is, speaking of existence in God’s plan rather than in reality. [12] Similar statements are applied to believers. For example, our salvation was “given to us before time began” (1 Tim. 1:9), but we did not literally exist before time began. Therefore, this does not prove that Jesus pre-existed his birth.
John 17:16, 18: Continuing His prayer to the Father, Jesus says, “I am not of this world… You sent Me into the world.” This parallels other statements about Jesus elsewhere, where it is said that He came into the world and/or was sent into the world (Jn. 6:14; 9:39; 11:27; 12:46; 18:37; Rom. 8:3; Gal. 4:4). Therefore, Jesus must have existed prior to His birth.
The full context of this passage actually refutes this interpretation. Jesus states, “They [the disciples] are not of this world, just as I am not of this world… As You have sent me into the world, so also I have sent them into the world.” Yet no one would conclude based on this that the disciples pre-existed their own birth. John the Baptist, and in fact all of the prophets, are also said to have been sent from God (Matt. 21:25; Mark 12:1-12; John 1:6). Evidently, this sort of language refers to being commissioned by God to go out into the world, not to a heavenly pre-existence.
John 20:22: Jesus breathes on the disciples and gives them the Holy Spirit. This has a double meaning, as the word ‘breath’ (ruach in Hebrew and pneuma in Greek) is the same word as ‘spirit.’ The implication of this verse is that Jesus’ breath is the Holy Spirit; He has the same Spirit as Yahweh.
The holy spirit is the spirit of Jesus as well (Rom. 8:9-11; Gal. 4:6; Php. 1:19). However, this is not because Jesus is Yahweh, but because the Father gave Jesus authority over the holy spirit after his exaltation (Acts 2:33).
John 20:28: John reports Thomas as having exclaimed to Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” (ho kurios mou kai ho theos mou) This is a rare vocative address which is elsewhere always applied to Yahweh alone; it is found in both the LXX (e.g., Ps. 35:24) and the NT (Rev. 4:11). If the exclamation is to be understood vocatively, this is one of several instances in the New Testament where Jesus is explicitly referred to as “the God” (ho theos).
Contextual indications show that this is not the case. Before Jesus’ resurrection, his disciples did not believe him to be God, but “the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16) and “a prophet mighty in word and deed before God” (Luke 24:19). Jesus’ resurrection would not have done anything to change that belief, since several people, including Lazarus just a few days prior, had been resurrected in the past without being God. [13] It wouldn’t make sense for Thomas to have such a radical change in his opinion of Jesus just because he was resurrected.
Furthermore, a few verses earlier, Jesus referred to God as “my Father and your Father, my God and your God” (20:17). In other words, the god of believers is Jesus’ Father, not Jesus himself. As such, Thomas would be wrong if he declared Jesus to be “my God” in the full sense of the title, and it would make more sense for him to refer to the Father that way. In addition, at the end of the chapter, John writes, “These things are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God” (20:31). This would be very anticlimactic if Thomas had just declared Jesus to be God Himself!
For these contextual reasons, Thomas must not have been referring to Jesus as “my God” in the full sense of being Yahweh. Instead, another interpretation is preferred. Either Thomas was speaking of the Father, who is seen in Jesus, when he said “my God” (John 14:9-11); or else he was referring to Jesus as “God” in a representative sense, as the rightful Davidic king of Israel (cf. Psa. 45:6-7; Zech. 12:8).
John 21:17: See note on John 16:30.
See my response to the note on John 16:30.
Refuting All Trinitarian ‘Proof-Texts’
The Gospel of John
[3] It’s important to remember that the ‘deuterocanon’ (including Wisdom literature like Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, and Baruch) is not included in the modern Protestant canon, but it was a part of the Septuagint, the Bible used by the authors of the New Testament. There are many places where the New Testament authors alluded to these ‘deuterocanonical’ books in their writings — see here. Thus it would be seriously irresponsible to ignore these books when considering the literary background of John’s prologue. However, since most readers will likely be unfamiliar with these works, helpful links to each referenced deuterocanonical (and non-canonical) passage are provided in the body of the text.
[4] E.g., Thomas H. Tobin, “The Prologue of John and Hellenistic Jewish Speculation,” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 52, no. 2 (1990): 252-269; Daniel Boyarin, “Logos, a Jewish Word: John’s Prologue as Midrash,” in The Jewish Annotated New Testament, eds. Amy Jill-Levine and Marc Zvi Brettler (New York: Oxford, 2011): 546-549; Sheri D. Kling, “Wisdom became flesh: an analysis of the prologue to the gospel of John,” Currents in Theology and Mission 40, no. 3 (2013): 179ff.
[5] “unique God” 𝔓66 𝔓75 א B Origen(gr) Clement Eusebius Basil Gregory-Nyssa // “unique Son” A C Irenaeus(lat) Tertullian Origen(lat) Eusebius Athanasius Basil Gregory-Nazianzus Chrysostom Ambrosiaster Jerome Augustine
[6] James F. McGrath, “John’s Apologetic Christology: Legitimation and Development in Johannine Christology,” Ph.D. diss. (University of Durham, 1998), 120-123.
[7] Hugo Odeberg, The Fourth Gospel Interpreted in Its Relation to Contemporaneous Religious Currents in Palestine and the Hellenistic-Oriental World (Chicago: Argonaut Publishers, 1929), 203.
[8] See the second-century translations of Aquila and Theodotian.
[9] The present tense verb eimi should be understood as a historic present, “I have been” rather than “I am,” since it is combined with a past time indicator. See Luke 15:29; John 15:27; 1 John 3:8 for other examples of historic present verbs in the New Testament; see also Testament of Job 2.1: “I have been Jobab [ego eimi Iobab] before the Lord named me Job.”
[10] 1 Enoch 48.2-3; Joseph and Asenath 8.9; Assumption of Moses 1.13-14; 2 Baruch 4.1-5; Pesachim 54a.8, 11; Genesis Rabbah 1.4. The concept of prophetic pre-existence also appears in the canonical Bible; see 2 Kgs. 19:25; Jer. 1:5; Matt. 25:34; Rev. 4:11. Significantly, the idea of prophetic pre-existence is also explicitly applied to Jesus, who “was foreknown before the foundation of the world, yet manifested in the last times” (1 Pet. 1:20).
[9] The present tense verb eimi should be understood as a historic present, “I have been” rather than “I am,” since it is combined with a past time indicator. See Luke 15:29; John 15:27; 1 John 3:8 for other examples of historic present verbs in the New Testament; see also Testament of Job 2.1: “I have been Jobab [ego eimi Iobab] before the Lord named me Job.”
[10] 1 Enoch 48.2-3; Joseph and Asenath 8.9; Assumption of Moses 1.13-14; 2 Baruch 4.1-5; Pesachim 54a.8, 11; Genesis Rabbah 1.4. The concept of prophetic pre-existence also appears in the canonical Bible; see 2 Kgs. 19:25; Jer. 1:5; Matt. 25:34; Rev. 4:11. Significantly, the idea of prophetic pre-existence is also explicitly applied to Jesus, who “was foreknown before the foundation of the world, yet manifested in the last times” (1 Pet. 1:20).
[11] The verb genesthai is aorist and could refer to either past or future. In fact, excluding John 8:58, not one instance of genesthai in the gospel of John describes a past event (1:12; 3:9; 5:6; 9:27; 13:19; 14:29).
[12] It was common in first century Judaism to speak of things promised as existing “with God” or “in heaven,” and this can be seen in the New Testament as well. For example, see Job 23:14; Isa. 49:4; Matt. 5:12; 6:1, 20; 19:21; Luke 12:33; 2 Cor. 5:1; Col. 1:5; 1 Pet. 1:4.
[13] Including, but not limited to, the widow of Zarephath’s son (1 Kgs. 17:21-22); the Shunammite’s son (2 Kgs. 4:32-37); the man thrown on the bones of Elisha (2 Kgs. 13:21); Jairus’ daughter (Mark 5:40-42); the man at Nain (Luke 7:11-15); and Lazarus (John 11:38-44).
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