Free said,
"And the last part says that “the Word was God,” which is to say, God in nature." [/QUOTE\]
At the end of his first letter to Christians the apostle John brings us to the understanding, namely, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that humans begotten of God are children of God with Jesus Christ.
An American Translation presents the end of John’s letter as follows: “We know that no child of God commits sin, but that he who was born of God protects him, and the evil one cannot touch him. We know that we are children of God, while the whole world is in the power of the evil one. And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us power to recognize him who is true; and we are in union with him who is true.” How? “Through his Son, Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. Dear children, keep away from idols.”(
1 John 5:18-21)
Since the One of whom Jesus Christ is the Son is “the true God and eternal life,” and since Jesus Christ is “he who was born of God” and who protects God’s other children, how are we to understand
John 1:1, 2, of which there are differing translations? Many translations read: “And the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Others read: “And the Word (the Logos) was divine.” Another: “And the Word was god.” Others: “And the Word was a god.”
Lets take first that popular rendering by the
Authorized Version or
Douay Version: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.” Here a few lines deserve to be quoted from the book
The Four Gospels Harmonized and Translated, by Count Leo Tolstoy, as follows:
If it says that in the beginning was the
comprehension, or
word, and that the
word was to God, or
with God, or
for God, it is impossible to go on and say that
it was God. If it was God, it could stand in no relation to God.(Quoted from page 30, paragraph 2, of
The Four Gospels Harmonized and Translated, as translated from the original Russian by Professor Leo Wiener, copyrighted 1904, published by Willey Book Company, New York, N.Y. The author is the famous Count Leo Tolstoy, the Russian novelist and religious philosopher, who died A.D. 1910.)
I don't believe the apostle John was so unreasonable as to say that someone (“the Word”) was with some other individual (“God”) and at the same time was that other individual (“God”).
John proves that the Word who was with God “was made flesh” and became Jesus Christ and that Jesus Christ was “the Son of God.” So it would be proper to say that the Word was the Son of God. For anyone to say that the Word was God, “the only true God,” would be contrary to what the apostle John proves by the rest of his writings. In the last book of the Bible, namely, in
Revelation 19:13, John calls him “The Word of God,” saying: “And his name is called The Word of God.” (
AV;
Dy) Note that his name is not called “God the Word,” but is called “The Word of God,” or God’s Word. So
John 1:1 means, at most that the Word was of God.
There is a book entitled “The Patristic Gospels, An English Version of the holy Gospels as they existed in the Second Century,” by Roslyn D’Onston. The title page tells how this version was put together. In
John 1:1 this version reads: “and the Word was God.” But it has this footnote:
“The true reading here is, probably, of God.
See Critical Note.”—Page 118. (This Critical Note for
John 1:1, found on page 156, says: There are three distinct reasons for believing of God to be the true reading. First, the manuscripts, as stated in that Note; secondly, the logical argument, because if the Evangelist meant ‘was God,’ there would have been no occasion for the next verse; thirdly, the grammatical construction of the sentence: for ‘was God,’ would he not have written
ho lógos ēn theós, which would, at any rate, have been more elegant? But if we read it,
kai theoû ēn ho lógos, the
theoû is in its proper place in the sentence. I have refrained from correcting the text of this passage at the express desire of the late Bishop Westcott.”)
[The Greek word
theoũ means “of God.”]
So why is it that translators disagree as to what the Word was—“God,” or, “god,” or, “a god”? It is because the Greek word for “God” is at the beginning of the statement although it belongs to the predicate, and it also does not have the definite article “the” in front of it.
Lets look at the first set of lines of the Greek text according to the fourth-century uncial manuscripts; and then on the second line, how the Greek text is pronounced in our language today; and on the third line a word-for-word English translation. Note Greek abbreviations for “God.”
ΕΝ ΑΡΧΗ ΗΝ Ο ΛΟΓΟΣ ΚΑΙ Ο ΛΟΓΟΣ
EN ARKHEI ĒN HO LOGOS, KAI HO LOGOS
IN BEGINNING WAS THE WORD, AND THE WORD
ΗΝ ΠΡΟΣ ΤΟΝ ΘΝ ΚΑΙ ΘΣ ΗΝ Ο ΛΟΓΟΣ
ĒN PROS TON THN, KAI THS ĒN HO LOGOS.
WAS WITH THE GOD, AND GOD WAS THE WORD.
ΟΥΤΟΣ ΗΝ ΕΝ ΑΡΧΗ ΠΡΟΣ ΤΟΝ ΘΝ
HOUTOS ĒN EN ARKHEI PROS TON THN.
THIS WAS IN BEGINNING WITH THE GOD.
Please note the omission of the definite article “THE” in front of the second “GOD.” On this omission Professor Moule asks: “Is the omission of the article in
theós ēn ho lógos nothing more than a matter of idiom?” Then, in the next paragraph, Moule goes on to say:
On the other hand it needs to be recognized that the Fourth Evangelist [John] need not have chosen this word-order, and that his choice of it, though creating some ambiguity, may in itself be an indication of his meaning; and [Bishop] Westcott’s note (
in loc.), although it may require the addition of some reference to idiom, does still, perhaps, represent the writer’s theological intention: ‘It is necessarily without the article (
theós not
ho theós) inasmuch as it describes the nature of the Word and does not identify His Person. It would be pure Sabellianism to say “the Word was
ho theós”. No idea of inferiority of nature is suggested by the form of expression, which simply affirms the true deity of the Word. Compare the converse statement of the true humanity of Christ five 27 (
hóti huiòs anthrópou estín . . . ).’
[Quoted from page 116 of
An Idiom-Book of New Testament Greek, by C. F. D. Moule, Lady Margaret’s Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge; edition of 1953.]
The late Bishop Westcott, coproducer of the famous Westcott and Hort Greek text of the Christian Scriptures, speaks of the “true humanity of Christ” and yet he argues that Jesus Christ was not “true humanity” but a mixture, a so-called God-Man. However, the Bishop says that the omission of the definite article
the before the Greek word
theós makes the word
theós like an adjective that “describes the nature of the Word” rather than identify his person. This fact accounts for it that some translators render it: “And the Word was divine.” That is not the same as saying that the Word was God and was identical with God.
The Four Gospels, by C. C. Torrey, shows the difference between
theós with
ho (the definite article) and
theós without
ho by printing his translation as follows: “And the Word was with God, and the Word was god.” (Second edition of 1947)
The Emphatic Diaglott, by Benjamin Wilson, of 1864, shows the difference by printing its translation as follows: “And the LOGOS was with GOD, and the LOGOS was God.”
Even translations printed in those ways indicate that the Word, in his prehuman existence in heaven with God, had a godly quality but was not God himself or a part of God. The Word was the Son of God. So the question arises, What would we call such a Son of God who first of all had this godly quality among the sons of God in heaven? We remember that Jesus Christ told the Jews that those human judges to whom or against whom God’s word came were called “gods” in
Psalm 82:1-6.—
John 10:34-36.
