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Question 5

Bercot insists the New Testament normally uses “God” to mean the Father (not “the Trinity”), and says saying “the Word was God” is better understood as “the Word was *Theos* (deity)”; how does that reshape the way you read John 1:1 without collapsing the Son into the Father, and what modern Trinity explanations does it implicitly confront?

Another way to ask: Bercot says the New Testament usually uses “God” to mean the Father, and that “the Word was God” can mean “the Word was deity.” How does that change the way you read John 1:1 without turning the Son into the Father, and which popular Trinity explanations does it push back on?

Direct Answer Bercot’s reading treats John 1:1 as teaching the Word is a distinct person “with” the Father, yet fully shares the Father’s divine nature (“Theos” as deity), which confronts explanations that make the Son either the same person as the Father or a lesser created being.

Support from Transcript:

He says in English John 1:1 can sound like: “the Word was with the Father and the Word was the Father,” and adds “that is exactly what many professing Christians believe today.”
He clarifies: “the Logos was with the God, with the Father. And the Logos was Theos. He was divine…deity.”
He distinguishes person vs nature: “Where it says He was with God is talking about the person…Father. When it says He was God, it’s talking about the nature…divinity.”
He rejects the JW rendering “a god,” insisting it means not a lesser deity but “of equal nature with the Father.”
He says many modern explanations are “things that the early Christians…and Athanasius would have said it is hiders” (heresy), because people don’t grasp these distinctions.

Discussion Follow-ups How would your everyday speech change if you trained yourself to hear “God” in most NT passages as “the Father,” unless the context clearly says otherwise?

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