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It was long held believe that Jesus was God, The disciples of John himself, who wrote the gospel of John understood full well what John meant, its not a matter of what we think or spin we put on scripture.
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John himself understood and wrote accordingly of Jesus's words -> This now is the eternal life, that they should know You (Father)
the ONLY TRUE God and whom you have sent, Jesus Christ.
Jesus here,
UNQUESTIONABLY and INDEPENDENT of himself, defines the Father as the Only True God when he was here.
This is also confirmed in John 1:18, where after the cross, Jesus is now exalted and glorified and referenced as an only Begotten God = he was Not a God prior to the cross.
John wrote his Book for -> John 20:31 -
But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.
He didn't write it to show he was God or God in the flesh, or God man or the Word, just that he was the Son of the Only True God and Father, the one Jesus quoted following.
Hear, Israel: Yehowah our God is ONE Yehowah -> God does not change and Neither is he Man.
Paul states -> 1 Cor 8:6 - But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.
Surely you're not going to try and tell us, that the God there is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as YOU HAVE previously claimed. 
1 Tim 2:5 - For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, -> God is NOT Man.
Is this God also the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, ONE magically turns into THREE ??????? 
