# Be Ready - Thursday, 2026.01.08 ## Part 3 - Who is Himself God ## tl;dr - There is one God, Father, FROM whom everything came - There is one Lord, Jesus Christ - THROUGH whom everything came - Jesus is the radiance of Father’s glory - Jesus is the exact representation of Father's nature - There is one Spirit (I need to do a lot more study and get to know Spirit better) ## Context See [[260106_p]] ## Observations See [[260106_p]] ## Questions - What did John mean when he wrote: "who is Himself God" {John 1.18 (BSB) } ## Interpretations - I broke-down John 1.18 into five phrases emphasizing Jesus as necessary. - No one has ever seen God - Jesus is the one and only Son - Jesus is Himself God - Jesus is at the Father's side - Jesus has a made the Father known - The first "God" in this verse refers to the Father. - Based on the immediate context it is unlikely that God refers to Jesus. In this case the first part of verse 18 would read, "No one has ever seen Jesus." Although those living today have not seen Jesus face-to-face, many in His day spent many days and night with Him. - Furthermore, this interpretation is consistent with John 4.24 where Jesus said about His Father, "God is Spirit" - The second occurrence of "God" is somewhat of an enigma. Because of the misinterpretation of this verse, there are several differing "models" of the Trinity. Many people believe both occurrences of "God" in this verse refer to some sort unique fourth element of the three part Trinity. Somehow, Father, Son and Spirit are all God but yet there are only three in the Trinity. It is VERY confusing to me and even to those who believe in their respective model. Some people have even elevated their model to god-like status written in blood (to use the blood, ink & pencil system.) - As of today (this is subject to change) I am ink-level convinced of a model that is consistent with Paul's model as recorded in 1 Corinthians 8.6. - There is one God, Father, FROM whom everything came - There is one Lord, Jesus Christ, THROUGH whom everything came - There is one Spirit - Almost all the occurrences of "God" in the NT refer to Father. (I haven't finished evaluating all 1327 occurrences, so I am reluctant to provide more specific statistics.) - I am ink-level convinced that the second "God" in verse 18 refers to the god-like attributes discussed in [[260101_p]]. If my interpretation is correct, then John is saying that Jesus, the Son of God possesses all the required attributes / characteristics to be divine. Furthermore, the author of Hebrews said in Hebrews 1.3a, "The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of His nature. ## Applications - Finish evaluating all 1327 occurrences of Strong's G2316 ## Correction - As always, I am open to scripture-based correction.