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The true text of John 1:18
All the earliest manuscripts, record John 1:18, as
No one has seen God at any time, the only begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, has declared Him.
Jesus said: “For the Father Himself loves you because…you believe I came out of the Father” (John 16:27-28). This described the Spirit of Christ who “CAME OUT” of the Father. These are the same Greek words (ἐξῆλθον ἐκ τοῦ) we find in John 8:59: “but Jesus …went out of the temple.”
The Firstborn of creation
In Colossians 1:15, the Apostle Paul called Christ “the firstborn of creation.”
But, the Apostle Paul was not the first person to call Christ the firstborn of creation.
The Jewish people already understood that the Word was the firstborn.
The Jewish theologian Philo described the Word, as the firstborn.
The writer of Hebrews said:
“When He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says: ‘And let all the Angels of God worship Him.’” (Hebrews 1:6)
Notice the writer of Hebrews said that God – “again” – brought “the” firstborn into the world. He used the expression “the firstborn” rather than “His firstborn” because the man Jesus Christ was not called God’s Son, until He was baptized. But His Spirit was the firstborn of creation.
The Apostle John called Christ “the beginning of the creation of God” (Revelation 3:14). Because, God is the Father of all, who created all of us in the womb.
Through whom all things were created
In Colossians 1:16, Paul said that all things were created by Christ.
However, in the same verse, Paul also told us that all things were created “through Christ.”
John said the same in John 1:3:
“All things came into being through Him.”
The Father is the only true God. The Spirit of Christ was the Word, His speaker.
Jesus Christ was “the only begotten God” through whom God created the world. He was the God who appeared to man, and created man after His image.
The Hebrew word ELOHIM means Gods
The existence of two Gods, in Genesis 1, and the relationship between the invisible God and Christ, was revealed by the Hebrew word ELOHIM. This is a plural word, having an HIM ending, much like the letter “S” in English.
The plural word ELOHIM revealed the two Gods who created the heavens and the earth: the only true God, who is the most High God, and the only begotten God, who is Christ.