The strongest support of the Trinitarian doctrine concerning Christ, and, as it appears to most readers, the greatest difficulty in the way of Unitarians, is found in the introduction to the Gospel of John; to which I now ask your attention for a few minutes. It is an obscure and difficult passage of Scripture. But its obscurity arises, chiefly, from our failing to consider the object which the Apostle had in view, and the circumstances under which he wrote. Upon these it chiefly depends what meaning shall be given to the word Logos, and therefore to the whole passage in question. It is commonly supposed that his object was to declare that Jesus Christ was God, the second person of the Trinity. The Logos is taken as another term for Christ, as if the Apostle had said, “In the beginning was Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ was with God, and Jesus Christ was God.”
This explanation is thought by those who receive it to remove all difficulty, and to make the whole passage plain. But it is only because they are accustomed to it, and do not perceive the force of the words used. In fact it expresses a direct contradiction, which cannot itself be explained, except by saying that the terms used have no distinct or intelligible meaning. When we say that James is with John, we cannot take a plainer way of saying that James and John are two separate beings. To say that James is with John and that James is John, is a contradiction in terms. Why does not the same hold true of God and of Christ. If by the Logos we understand a personal existence distinct from God, we may say that the Logos was with God, but not at the same time that the Logos was God. To say one is to deny the other. We shall not, therefore, escape the difficulty of the passage by adopting the Trinitarian theory. We may not be quite satisfied with our own explanation, and some parts of it may continue to perplex us, but we cannot receive an explanation which so evidently contradicts itself.
Secondly, we cannot adopt it, because it also contradicts the Apostle's repeated assertions concerning Christ, and his plain statement of the object with which his Gospel was written. There is none of the Gospels which is so full in its declarations that Christ is the son of God, not God himself, and it is in this Gospel that we find record of Christ's most distinct denial of the Divine attributes. At its close, the Apostle informs us what his general purpose had been, as follows (John xx. 31): “These are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that, believing, ye might have life through his name.” Would he have so stated his purpose, if his real object had been to prove that Christ was himself the Infinite God, whose Son he declares him to be, and by whom he was anointed? Let me also remind you of his words, in this same first chapter which is supposed to teach that Christ is God: “No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” This is the true doctrine, in accordance with which we should explain the introductory sentences now under consideration.
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