An Attribute Can't Become Flesh
Be clear about who you are talking to, because this argument usually
comes from biblical Unitarians (for example Dale Tuggy, Dustin Smith
and Christadelphians), not from Jehovah's Witnesses. JWs teach that the
Word is a real person: Jehovah's first creation, his Spokesman, the
archangel Michael before he came to earth. So a JW will reject the
attribute reading too.
The Unitarian claim runs like this. Jewish writings from between the
Testaments, and the Aramaic paraphrases of the Old Testament (the
Targums), personify God's word (Hebrew dabar, Aramaic memra) and his
wisdom. Proverbs 8 does the same, and even says wisdom was created.
So John 1:1 personifies an attribute: "In the beginning God was
communicative, his speech was with him, and that speech was what he
is." At verse 14 that self-expression came to reside in the man Jesus
in a unique way. Jesus did not exist before his birth; he is the
human being through whom God's word was fully expressed.
Where JWs overlap: both groups lean on Proverbs 8. JWs read it as the
prehuman Jesus being "produced"; Unitarians read it as personified
wisdom and say John 1 works the same way.
Stay in one passage: . Concede what is true: Jewish writers did describe God's word and wisdom as if they were persons, and Proverbs 8 is poetry that does exactly that. Then read verse 14 in the NWT: "So the Word became flesh and resided among us, and we had a view of his glory, a glory such as belongs to an only-begotten son from a father." Ask: how does speech or wisdom become flesh? John doesn't say God's word was expressed through a man; he says the Word became one, and the glory he saw was a son's glory, not a quality's. Then read : John the Baptist says of the same Word, "he existed before me." Jesus was born after John, so "before me" reaches back before Bethlehem. No personified word or wisdom passage, inside the Bible or outside it, ever says the word was born, lived among us and existed before the man announcing it. If there's time, add : the one who explains the unseen God is "at the Father's side." Can an attribute stand at someone's side? With a JW, use this as common ground ("we agree the Word is a person") and move to verse 18.
Personification is a way of speaking; incarnation is an event. John says the Word became flesh, had a son's glory, existed before John the Baptist and is at the Father's side. Only a person can do those things.
Jewish writers before John personified the word of God — the memra in the Targums, the dabar. John is just doing the same thing.
I agree they personified God's word; that's real, and I won't pretend otherwise. But those writings don't speak with one voice. In the Targums the memra is mostly a reverent way of speaking about God himself, while Philo of Alexandria could even call the Logos a "second god." So which one is John copying? And none of them ever says the word was born, lived among us, or existed before John the Baptist. The New Testament knows those writings exist but never treats them as the key to reading Scripture. Shouldn't we let John tell us what he means by the Word, from verses 14 to 18?
Proverbs 8 personifies wisdom and even says wisdom was created. John 1 is the same kind of poetry.
I agree Proverbs 8 is a poem that personifies wisdom. Paul calls Christ "the wisdom of God" in , but that doesn't turn Proverbs 8 into a biography. Here is my question, though: was there ever a time when Jehovah had no wisdom? If wisdom was created, there was. That is why reading "created" literally causes problems for anyone. Even the "master worker" of never becomes flesh. does say that about the Word. Where do you see the difference?
The Greek pronoun in 'his glory' can just as well be 'its glory.' You can't build on a pronoun.
You're right that the pronoun alone doesn't settle it. The Greek form covers both "his" and "its," and "word" is a masculine noun in Greek anyway. So I'm not resting on the pronoun. I'm resting on what John says the glory is: "a glory such as belongs to an only-begotten son from a father." That's a son's glory. And in the next breath John the Baptist says the same Word "existed before me." What kind of attribute has a son's glory and existed before a man it was born after?
'The Word became flesh' just means God's plan or message was perfectly expressed in the man Jesus.
Then listen to how Jesus himself speaks in : "Father, glorify me at your side with the glory that I had alongside you before the world was." He doesn't say the plan had glory; he says "I had" it, "alongside you," before the world existed. A plan doesn't pray, and it doesn't remember being at someone's side. How do you read "I had alongside you"?
(JW) We agree the Word is a person. He's the archangel Michael, Jehovah's first creation.
Good, then we agree against the attribute view, and that's real common ground. So the question becomes which person John means. Would you read verse 18 with me? It closes the same introduction that verse 1 opens, and it calls the one at the Father's side "god" and says he explains the God no one has seen. Then let's see how the Gospel ends, with Thomas in .
Don't use this argument on a JW as though they hold the attribute view; they don't, and they'll rightly feel misrepresented. Ask first how they understand the Word. Don't deny that Jewish writers personified God's word or wisdom; they did, and denying it costs you credibility. Don't claim the Greek pronoun in verse 14 must be "his"; it can be read either way, so the argument rests on what the verse says, not on pronoun gender. Don't drift into a lecture on Targums and Philo; one sentence is enough. Stay in John 1:14-18, use the NWT at the door, and treat the person as someone worth listening to, not an opponent to beat.
(1) Read aloud until you can walk through it from memory: became flesh, a son's glory, "existed before me," at the Father's side. (2) Read in both the NWT and another translation and note that it is poetry; be ready to agree it is personification. (3) Read in the NWT and practise asking, "How do you read 'I had alongside you'?" (4) Practise the doorstep question out loud, and practise asking first, "How do you understand the Word in John 1?" so you know whether you are talking with a JW or a Unitarian. (5) Prepare to bring a drifting conversation back: "Can we finish verse 14 first?"