The Forgotten Trinity: Recovering the Heart of Christian Belief

by James R. White

Throughout the prologue of the Gospel of John, the author balances between two verbs. When speaking of the Logos as He existed in eternity past, John uses the Greek word ἧν, en (a form of eimi). The tense[1] of the word expresses continuous action in the past. Compare this with the verb he chooses to use when speaking of everything else—found, for example, in verse 3: “All things came into being through Him,” ἐγένετο, egeneto. This verb[2] contains the very element missing from the other: a point of origin. The term, when used in contexts of creation and origin, speaks of a time when something came into existence. The first verb, en, does not. John is very careful to use only the first verb of the Logos throughout the first thirteen verses, and the second verb, egeneto, he uses for everything else (including John the Baptist in verse 6).