RTBS: 01/21| John 1:18

RTBS | John 1:18

Focus:

Main Passage

John 1:18 NKJV

No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

1. SEEK

2. Passage Exegesis

Identify important words or phrases....

The only begotten son

Bosom of the father (mean within the folds of the father, picture like folding a blanket around someone)

Observe the textual differences between different Bible versions

John 1:18 NKJV

No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

John 1:18 NET

No one has ever seen God. The only one, himself God, who is in closest fellowship with the Father, has made God known.

John 1:18 NASB95

No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.

John 1:18 NRSV

No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

John 1:18 is a heavily debated topic in regards to it’s translation.

Where this debate comes into is essentially this.

Less Older Manuscripts - translate as the one and only God

More Newer Manuscripts - translate as the only begotten Son

For example, P66, and P75, manuscripts from the third century translates this as God

This is one of the very few passages in scripture where there are meaningful debatable differences across manuscripts.

We are not completely certain, however it appears evident that this should have been translated as God, or the one and only God.

What this breaks down to is this.

Scripture was written originally by different men, onto scrolls, as they were inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Immediately these writings began to be copied.

It isn’t like they had one scroll that was the book of John and they brought it everywhere for people to read.

Someone would read it, and copy it, then someone would copy their copy, and that is how we end up with what we call manuscripts.

WE do not have any original writings, with most of the earliest copies we have found being from a few hundred years after they were written.

The oldest manuscript fragment we have is called P52, and it is a section of a manuscript dated back to around 100 A.D. or about 70-100 years after Christ.

Many of these older manuscripts weren’t found until the past hundred years or so, so the older the English translation is, the less manuscripts were available to translate from.

For instance, the King James Version in 1611, had about 6-10 older manuscripts to base their translation on.

Today we have nearly 6,000 Greek new testament manuscripts, dating back to within 100 hundred years of the original writing, and another 25,000 manuscripts from other languages

We also have over 10,000 Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament

So someone today translating a Bible will look across thousands of manuscripts and determine based on what is commonly written, reliability in differences, etc. what the words should be

Oh so that means the Bible is false and is created by man! Not quite

It is usually agreed that there are about 400,000 total variants, differences across different manuscripts, that sounds like a lot, but it narrows down very quickly.

Out of 400,000, only about 1,000 even require an interpretation on translation

So 390,000 of these “variants” are spelling differences, words like and and the being used in different places, word order like Jesus Christ and Christ Jesus, etc.

These are things that do not effect any meaning whatsoever

Now out of the 1,000-1,500 that require interpretation, only about 200-300 of these affect the meaning

so these 1,000 - 1,500 would be words like anger vs wrath, or know vs understand, these are words that essentially mean the same thing, and have no real difference

But what about the 200-300, are you saying that there are 200-300 theological differences across the copies of the Bible? No

Out of these 200-300, only 15-20 of them are even debated as being meaningful at all

Many of the 200-300 have to do with a verse saying God in place of Jesus, which we know these are interchangebale

Some of these include stories that are include in some manuscripts and not others

There is nothing here that actually matters

So out of 400,000 variants we are left with only about 15-20 verses that required any theological interpretation

and some would say John 1:18 is one.

But even here you see there is no doctrinal issue either way, wether is says the only begotten son, or the one and only God, the meaning is the same

and with these 15-20, not a single one of them effects core christian doctrine at all

The most popular out of these is 1 John 5:7 “For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one.”

This is a verse that is not found in the earlier manuscripts, and this is one that the KJV only crowd would use to say that new transaltions are corrupt, becasue they take out this verse about the trinity, and that means they are trying to deceive

However this argument falls flat in the fact that newer translations still affirm the trinity explicity all throughout scripure, and we are seeing manuscript after manuscript not contain this, so it is likely it was added at some point.

BUT EVEN THIS MOST DEBATED VERSE, STILL DOES NOT CONTRADICT OR TEACH ANYTHIGN IN OPPOSITION TO THE REST OF SCRIPTURE

Here is why we are looking at all of this.

John 1:18 can fit in that 200-300 category, or the 15-20 category depending on a few things.

1. The importance of the word begotten vs one and only

2. The importance of God or Son

In the NKJV (translated from the KJV) the translation says John 1:18

John 1:18 NKJV

No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.

So in the NKJV it says that No one has seen God at any time. Then it says that the only begotten son, who is in the bosom of the father, has been declared by God.

Now this sentence reads really weird, and that is why some think that this may have been changed later

But in the NET it says John 1:18

John 1:18 NET

No one has ever seen God. The only one, himself God, who is in closest fellowship with the Father, has made God known.

This seems to make a lot more sense. It says that the only one, this is speaking of Jesus, who is himself God, and in close fellowship with the father, has made God known.

And I think this is where we really see the true meaning of the passage more clearly.

It’s simple - Nobody has seen God.

Now lets stop there, but people have seen God already, right?

ASK FOR EXAMPLES.… (Moses on Mt. Sanai - asked to see the back of God, the pillars of fire adn the cloud leading the Israelites, God walking in the Garden with Adam and Eve, God appearing and speaking to Abraham)

But what we see throughout all of these are not the fullness of God, but rather different manifestations

No one has ever seen the fullness of God, fully revealed, BUT JESUS, WHO IS GOD NOW IN THE FLESH, HAS MADE GOD KNOWN TO MAN, NOW WE CAN SEE GOD IN THE FULLNESS OF HIS BEING, NOT QUITE IN THE FULLNESS OF HIS GLORY

Now it isn’t until the moment of the transfiguration that we see Jesus reveal himself in A FRACTION OF HIS GLORY, but the point is that we can now see God in the fullness of his being and character through Jesus, that he is fully revealed through Jesus, not fully exposes

3. Core Doctrine

3.1 | Core Doctrine: The Doctrine of Christological Revelation

Definition: The doctrine of revelation has to do with how God reveals himself and his will to mankind through Christ.

Key Scriptures - HAVE SOMEONE READ

Hebrews 1:1–3 NKJV

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 by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

Colossians 1:15 NKJV

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

1 Timothy 6:16 NKJV

who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen.

John 1:14 NKJV

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

Theological Clarity

So Christological Revelation tells us that God fully revealed himself (not exposed) to man through the person of Jesus Christ.

4. Extra-biblical Research

BOOK TIME - RESEARCH CHRISTOLOGICAL REVELATION

5. Personal Reflection