When we deal with eternity, we always have to be careful. The thought has often entered into my little brain, "What did God do all that time before He created the world?" Then I realize that if there wasn't time before He created the world, my question is meaningless. The same caution is in order when dealing with the Word of God, or a concept of the same.

When someone tries to formulate a doctrine of the nature of God such as the Trinity doctrines, the same caution is in order. I hear that Constantine goaded the council to formulate the doctrine by saying that we can't worship a God we don't know. I believe that was an error and the Christians should have dismissed him as unqualified to be requiring such a thing as a doctrine of God. At the same time, I believe that many sincere Christians have made statements about God's nature that were in error, and I include myself in that group. Someone on this forum referred to a statement by Justin Martyr that made Jesus a second God. Obviously he was very sincere, as he died rather than give up his beliefs (something quite difficult to do, as Bar Kochba would have told you). However, as we seek to express concepts of eternity and deity, we are all liable to err.

One of the reasons I accept the NT is that I see written there profound concepts that a man would not have come up with. There is also agreement between Colossians 1:16 and John 1:3, which say that Christ created all things and between Colossians 1:18 and Revelation 3:14, which call him the beginning, for example. These were from two different human writers, John and Paul, and they agree. James 1:18 refers to us being brought forth by "the word of truth" a title given by John to Jesus, and calls us a "kind of first fruits" since Jesus is the true firstfruit (I Corinthians 15:20, back to Paul). I Peter 1:3 tells us that Jesus brought us forth through his resurrection, and in II Peter 3:5, we read that the heavens were made by the word of God, exactly as John explains in John 1. This is in compete harmony with Genesis 1:1 Also, "... By the mouth of two witnesses, or by the mouth of three witnesses, shall the matter be confirmed." (Deuteronomy 1915)

If you add to those concepts the teaching that Christ came in the flesh, and the Word becoming flesh, you get a hint of a very profound concept. In coming in the flesh, this Word (we should not say "another God") in a sense became a part of the creation. After the resurrection, Jesus referred to his disciples as his brothers. In rising from the dead he became the first of a new series of men, a new creation brought forth. However, in becoming a part of the creation, that does not give us license to say he was a mere creature. Since he created everything bar none, this is not a "mere creature". Neither do we have license to say that he was "eternally begotten". He was begotten on a certain day, according to Psalm 2. He, as the Word, was in the beginning with God, and was God, according to John 1:1. He is the beginning of the creation of God and the firstborn of creation, but if you take that to mean that God created him, the Word, without the Word, then you contradict Colossians 1:16.

It MIGHT mean that God the Father, through the Word, created the identity of the only begotten Son, not the person of the Word himself. If this is correct, then this Word became flesh became a part of the creation, the Son, and it might be said that the Son as an identity is not eternal but a part of the creation. Thus the person created all things but became the firstborn of creation that he might be the firstborn among many brothers (the firstborn from among the dead), this firstborn status referring not to the original creation but the new creation that God, through his word is in the process of preparing. Eternal truths contain many surprises.

If you read this with an attitude of pride, believing that your intellect is superior to this phony "GT", or if you read it looking for laughable contradictions, you will find what you are looking for. If you read it with an attitude of humility you will find grace (Isaiah 57:15).

The Gnostic concept of the spirit of God entering a human is directly combated in John's epistles when he declared that Christ came in the flesh. The NT is not borrowing from pagan sources, but attempting to correct them. An unbeliever could say that the giving of the Ten Commandments is a copy of Hammurabi engraving commandments on stone. He could also claim that the blood sacrifices were take-offs of pagan practices and that the Torah, written by Moses, invented the story of Noah offering on an altar.