The Forgotten Trinity (8 page)

All of the "Word" = All of "God"

he would be contradicting himself. If the Word is "all" of God, and
God is "all" of the Word, and the two terms are interchangeable, then
how could the Word be "with" himself? Such would make no sense. But John beautifully walks the fine line, balancing God's truth as he is
"carried along" by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21, NIV). John avoids
equating the Word with all of God through his use of the little Greek
article, the equivalent of our word "the" (o).

It may seem "nit-picking" to talk about such a small thing as the
Greek article, but as my friend Daniel Wallace points out, "One of the
greatest gifts bequeathed by the Greeks to Western civilization was the
article. European intellectual life was profoundly impacted by this gift
of clarity."8 He also notes, "In the least, we cannot treat it lightly, for
its presence or absence is the crucial element to unlocking the meaning
of scores of passages in the NT."9 The writers of Scripture used the
article to convey meaning, and we need to be very careful not to overlook the information they provide to us through the use, or nonuse,
of the article.

The third clause of John 1:1 provides us with an example of what
is known in grammar as a predicate nominative construction.1° That is,
we have a noun, the subject of the clause, which is "the Word." We
have an "equative" or "copulative" verb, "was," and we have another
noun, in the same case or form as the subject, which is called the nominative case, that being "God." We need to realize that in Greek the
order in which words appear is not nearly as important as it is in English. The Greeks had no problem putting the subject of a sentence,
or its main verb, way down the line, so to speak. Just because one word
comes before another in Greek does not necessarily have any significance. What does this have to do with John 1:1? Well, in English, the
final phrase would be literally rendered, "God was the Word." But in
English, we put the subject first, and the predicate nominative later.
The Greeks used the article to communicate to us which word is the
subject, and which is the predicate. If one of the two nouns has the
article, it is the subject. In this case, "Word" has the article, even
though it comes after "God," and hence is our subject. That is why the
last phrase is translated "the Word was God" rather than "God was the
Word."

Stay with me now, for there is another important point to be seen
in the text. If both of the nouns in a predicate nominative construction like this one have the article, or if both lack the article, this is significant
as well. In that case, the two nouns become interchangeable. That is, if
"Word" had the article, and "God" did, too, this would mean that John
is saying that "God was the Word" and the "Word was God." Both
would be the same thing. Or, if neither of them had the article, we
would have the same idea: an equating of all of God with all of the
Word. "God" and "Word" would be interchangeable and equal terms.

You see, much has been made, especially by Jehovah's Witnesses,
of the fact that the word "God" in the last clause of John 1:1 is anarthrous, that is, without the article. You will notice that there is no
form of the Greek article preceding the term AEOS (theos). Because of
this, they argue that we should translate it "a god." This completely
misses the point of why the word theos does not have the article. If
John had put the article before theos, he would have been teaching
modalism, a belief we mentioned earlier that denies the existence of
three divine persons, saying there is only one person who sometimes
acts like the Father, sometimes like the Son, sometimes like the Spirit.
We will discuss modalism (which is also often called "Sabellianism")
later. For now, we see that if John had placed the article before theos,
he would have been making "God" and the "Word" equal and interchangeable terms. As we will see, John is very careful to differentiate
between these terms here, for He is careful to differentiate between the
Father and the Son throughout the entire Gospel of John."

One commentator has rightly noted regarding the prologue, "John
is not trying to show who is God, but who is the Word."2 The final
phrase tells us about the Word, emphasizing the nature of the Word.
F. F. Bruce's comments on this passage are valuable:

The structure of the third clause in verse 1, theos en ho logos,
demands the translation "The Word was God." Since logos has the
article preceding it, it is marked out as the subject. The fact that
theos is the first word after the conjunction kai (and) shows that
the main emphasis of the clause lies on it. Had theos as well as logos
been preceded by the article the meaning would have been that the
Word was completely identical with God, which is impossible if
the Word was also "with God." What is meant is that the Word shared the nature and being of God, or (to use a piece of modern
jargon) was an extension of the personality of God. The NEB paraphrase "what God was, the Word was," brings out the meaning
of the clause as successfully as a paraphrase can."

In the same way, the New Living Translation renders John 1:1, "In the
beginning the Word already existed. He was with God, and he was
God."

INDEFINITE, DEFINITE, QUALITATIVE, OR WHAT?

Before leaving John 1:1, we need to wrestle with the controversy
that surrounds how to translate the final phrase. We've touched a bit
on it above, but it would be good to lay out the possibilities. Without
going into all the issues," the possible renderings fall into three categories:

Indefinite: hence, "a god."

Definite: hence, "God."

Qualitative: hence, "in nature God."

Arguments abound about how to translate an "anarthrous preverbal predicate nominative," and most people get lost fairly quickly
when you start throwing terms like those around. Basically, the question we have to ask is this: how does John intend us to take the word
OEOg in the last clause? Does he wish us to understand it as indefinite,
so that no particular "god" is in mind, but instead, that Jesus is a god,
one of at least two, or even more?" Or is OEOS definite, so that the God
is in view? Or does the position of the word (before the verb, adding
emphasis), coupled with the lack of the article, indicate that John is
directing us to a quality when he says the Word is 6E6S? That is, is John
describing the nature of the Word, saying the Word is deity?

In reference to the first possibility, we can dismiss it almost immediately. The reasons are as follows:

Monotheism in the Bible-certainly it cannot be argued that John
would use the very word he always uses of the one true God, OEOS, of
one who is simply a "godlike" one or a lesser "god." The Scriptures do not teach that there exists a whole host of intermediate beings that can
truly be called "gods." That is gnosticism.

The anarthrous BEOs -If one is to dogmatically assert that any anarthrous noun must be indefinite and translated with an indefinite article, one must be able to do the same with the 282 other times OF6;
appears anarthrously. For an example of the chaos that would create,
try translating the anarthrous OEoS at 2 Corinthians 5:19 (i.e., "a god
was in Christ. . ."). What is more, Oeog appears many times in the prologue of John anarthrously, yet no one argues that in these instances
it should be translated "a god." Note verses 6, 12, 13, and 18. There is
simply no warrant in the language to do this.16

No room for alternate understanding-It ignores a basic tenet of translation: if you are going to insist on a translation, you must be prepared
to defend it in such a way so as to provide a way for the author to have
expressed the alternate translation. In other words, if 06; rlv o Xoyo;
is "the Word was a god," how could John have said "the Word was
God?" We have already seen that if John had employed the article before OE6;, he would have made the terms OE6; and Xoyo; interchangeable, amounting to modalism.

Ignores the context-The translation tears the phrase from the immediately preceding context, leaving it alone and useless. Can He who is
eternal (first clause) and who has always been with God (second
clause), and who created all things (verse 3), be "a god"?

F. F. Bruce sums up the truth pretty well:

It is nowhere more sadly true than in the acquisition of Greek
that "a little learning is a dangerous thing." The uses of the Greek
article, the functions of Greek prepositions, and the fine distinctions between Greek tenses are confidently expounded in public
at times by men who find considerable difficulty in using these
parts of speech accurately in their native tongue."

A footnote appears after the comment on the article, and it says:

Those people who emphasize that the true rendering of the last clause of John 1.1 is "the word was a god," prove nothing thereby
save their ignorance of Greek grammar.

So our decision, then, must be between the definite understanding of
the word and the qualitative. If we take AEOS as definite, we are hardpressed to avoid the same conclusion that we would reach if the word
had the article; that is, if we wish to say the God in the same way as if
the word had the article, we are making Oe✓o and Xoyog interchangeable. Yet the vast majority of translations render the phrase "the Word
was God." Is this not the definite translation? Not necessarily.

The last clause of John 1:1 tells us about the nature of the Word.
The translation should be qualitative. We have already seen in the
words of F. F. Bruce that John is telling us that the Word "shared the
nature and being of God."18 The New English Bible renders the phrase
"what God was, the Word was." Kenneth Wuest puts it, "And the Word
was as to His essence absolute deity."19 Yet Daniel Wallace is quite right
when he notes:

Although I believe that OeoS in 1:1 c is qualitative, I think the
simplest and most straightforward translation is, "and the Word
was God." It may be better to clearly affirm the NT teaching of the
deity of Christ and then explain that he is not the Father, than to
sound ambiguous on his deity and explain that he is God but is
not the Father.20

Here we encounter another instance where the English translation
is not quite up to the Greek original. We must go beyond a basic translation and ask what John himself meant.

In summary, then, what do we find in John 1:1? In a matter of only
seventeen short Greek words, John communicates the following truths:

The Word is eternal-He has always existed and did not come into existence at a point in time.

The Word is personal-He is not a force, but a person, and that eternally. He has always been in communion with the Father.

The Word is deity-The Word is God as to His nature.

We would all do well to communicate so much in so few words! But he did not stop at verse 1. This is but the first verse of an entire composition. We move on to examine the rest.

MORE ON THE ETERNAL WORD, THE CREATOR

In verses 2 and 3, John continues his work of introducing us to the
Logos, the Word. He reemphasizes the startling statement of verse 1 by
insisting that "He was in the beginning with God." Again the English
is not quite as expressive as the Greek, for John puts the Greek word
translated "He" at the beginning of the phrase so that we could very
well understand him to be saying, "This One" was in the beginning,
or "This is the One" who has eternally existed in personal relationship
with God (the Father, as we shall see in verse 18, and as John himself
says in 1 John 1:2).

Verse 3 then introduces another evidence of the deity of the Logos:
His role in creation. "All things came into being through Him, and
apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being."
Here is a phrase that can only be used of the one true God. Creation is
always God's work. If the Logos created all things, then the Logos is divine-fully.'' John is very careful. He doesn't say "most things," or
"some things," but all things came into being, were made, by the Logos.
Creation took place through Him, by His power. Apart or separately
from Him, nothing was made which has been made.22 This is clearly an
exhaustive assertion. Just as Paul in Colossians 1:16-17 uses the entirety of the Greek language to express the unlimited extent of Christ's
creative activity, so, too, John makes sure that we do not leave room
for anythingthat is not made by the Logos. If it exists, it does so because
it was created by the Logos.

John continues his work of introducing us to the Word by stating
that in Him was life, and that life was the light of men. He goes on to
speak of the preparation for the coming of the Logos into the world
through the ministry of John (vv. 6-8). He then turns to the matter of
the rejection, by some, of the Logos, and the acceptance by others, resulting in regeneration and salvation (vv. 10-13). In these verses John
speaks to us about what the Logos does by coming into the world. But starting in verse 14 John returns to the subject of who the Logos is. And
what he says is as amazing as what we saw in the first few verses.

ETERNITY INVADES TIME

Throughout the first thirteen verses of the gospel of John, our author has carefully distinguished the eternal Logos from that which is
made by Him through the use of the verbs en and egeneto. But in verse
14 he communicates a deep truth to us by changing his pattern, and
that for a clear reason. He writes:

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw
His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of
grace and truth.

"And the Word became flesh." Here John uses egeneto, a verb that refers
to an action in time. And the reason is clear: the Word entered into
human existence, "became flesh," at a particular point in time. The
Logos was not eternally flesh. He existed in a nonfleshly manner in
eternity past. But at a blessed point in time, at the Incarnation, the
Logos became flesh. The Eternal experienced time.