`They reasoned with themselves' (Luke 20:5).

`We have peace with God' (Rom. 5:1).

`What communion hath light with darkness?' (2 Cor. 6:14).

Now we could easily `prove' that pros in Luke 20:5 implies at least

two separate persons, `They reasoned with themselves'; but can we

discover two people in Luke 18:11: `He prayed with himself'? Until

we can, let us not be deceived by the show of wisdom that would argue

about two separate individuals in John 1:1, because the passage reads

`The Word was with God'. Man faces a mystery when he faces his

own nature. How much more, then, when he is confronted with a

revelation that touches upon the nature of God!

We may perhaps catch a glimpse of the meaning in John by

looking at the last reference given above. As 2 Corinthians 6 indicates,

there can be no possible communion between light and darkness. We

know that God is light, and that the Word was both light and life - and

so the Word was `with' God.

We can no more introduce separate personalities here than we can

into Luke 18:11 or Romans 7:15-25. Moreover, we trust that no one

will object to the argument that uses the nature of man as a guide to the

nature of God, for the Scriptures themselves endorse this viewpoint.

Man was made in the image and likeness of his Creator, and in the

realm of grace the `new man' is renewed in knowledge after the image

of Him that created him (Col. 3:10). Even with regard to the natural

man, Paul could write:

`For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man

which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but

the Spirit of God' (1 Cor. 2:11).

Man, body, soul and spirit, is still a mystery to himself. He is but a

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faint adumbration of the ideal Being, God Himself, and it is surely

unbecoming for him to attempt to `explain' the nature of the Divine

Essence, when he himself has to confess that he cannot set forth,

without the aid of metaphysics, what he discerns regarding even his

own personality. We can at least appreciate something of the intention

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