Knowing God

by J.I. Packer

This is the deep end of theology, no doubt, but John throws us straight into it. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (Jn 1:1). The Word was a person in fellowship with God, and the Word was himself personally and eternally divine. He was, as John proceeds to tell us, the only Son of the Father. John sets this mystery of one God in two persons at the head of his Gospel because he knows that nobody can make head or tail of the words and works of Jesus of Nazareth till he has grasped the fact that this Jesus is in truth God the Son. THIRD PERSON But this is not all that John means us to learn about the plurality of persons in the Godhead. For, in his account of our Lord’s last talk to his disciples, he reports how the Savior, having explained that he was going to prepare a place for them in his Father’s house, went on to promise them the gift of “another Comforter” (Jn 14:16 KJV).