John establishes the divine, timeless, and eternal nature of Jesus Christ with poetic elegance: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). The repetition of the verb “was” utilized the imperfect verb tense, conveying continuous action without indication of completion. Later in the Gospel of John, Jesus affirmed his divine timelessness when he said, “Before Abraham was, I Am” (John 8:58). In John 1, the word “was” in its imperfect tense is used to say:
Beautiful! Thank you!