---
title: John 1:4
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/john-1-4/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/john-1-4.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: John 1:4
testament: NT
section: Gospels
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# John 1:4

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.

## NWT Wording of the Key Phrase

- NWT (2013 revision): "What has come into existence by means of him was life, and the life was the light of men."

## JW Usage

JWs generally pass over this verse quickly, because in the NWT it no longer says what it says in other Bibles. Where the rendering is discussed, the life in view is treated as life Jesus received and then passed on as Jehovah's agent — consistent with the Watchtower reading of John 6:57 ("I live because of the Father") as proof that Jesus owes his existence to someone else. Life is something granted to him, not something he has in himself.

## Protestant Usage

Four words carry the weight: "In him was life." Not life given, not life relayed — life resident. John says the same thing again in John 5:26, where the Father has granted the Son "to have life in himself." That last phrase is the point. Creatures have life derivatively; they hold it the way a room holds borrowed light. To have life in yourself is what distinguishes the Creator from everything he made. This is also the verse to reach for when a JW presses John 6:57 — "I live because of the Father." Read the whole of that sentence with them: "so also the one who feeds on me will live because of me." If the first half proves Jesus owes his origin to the Father, the second half proves believers owe their origin to Jesus, by identical grammar. Neither half is about origin. Both are about the life that flows from the sender to the sent. John 1:4 tells you where that life started.

## NWT Issue

The NWT moves the clause boundary. Standard translations end verse 3 at "that has been made" and begin verse 4 with "In him was life." The NWT reads instead: "What has come into existence by means of him was life, and the life was the light of men." The effect is that the verse stops saying life was in him and starts saying life was one of the things that came into existence through him — a created product rather than something he possesses. The Greek phrase in question (ho gegonen) can be attached either way and the earliest manuscripts carry no punctuation, so this is a translator's choice rather than a settled reading. It is worth noticing which choice was made, and that it moves the verse away from John 5:26, where the Son has life in himself.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [I Live Because of the Father](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/john-6-57-i-live-because.md) — John 6:57 — incarnation context, not pre-existent origin [Deity of Christ]
- [Two Verbs, Two Categories](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/en-vs-egeneto-john-1-tense.md) — John 1 — the Word 'was' (ēn), creation 'came to be' (egeneto) [Deity of Christ]
- [A Creature Can Point to Life; Only the Source Can Say 'I Am the Life'](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/i-am-the-life.md) — Psalm 36:9 / John 11:25 / John 14:6 / John 5:26 — the source of life is with Jehovah, and Jesus says he is that life [Deity of Christ]