Why is "the Word was a god" not a valid translation of John 1:1?

The opening words of the first verse carry us back to the most remote moment that our minds are capable of conceiving: the moment when there began the first thing that ever had a beginning: the moment on the further side of which there was only — GOD. In that moment of "beginning" the Word "was," that is, existed. He did not begin then; He existed then. His eternal Being is proclaimed, and we are carried back before the opening words of Genesis 1. Further He was "with God." Our minds are still back at that remote moment, and we discover that then He was possessed of distinct Personality. The Word is not a title of the Godhead in a general way, apart from any special distinction, for in being "with God" a special, distinctive place is definitely stated.

This being so, the reasoning mind would be inclined to argue: then we cannot speak of the Word as being God in any full or proper sense; even if He is not exactly a creature, seeing He existed before creation. Such reasoning is flatly contradicted by the closing words of verse 1, "the Word was God." Essential Deity was His. Attempts have been made to weaken the force of this great statement, and translate it, "the Word was Divine," or, "the Word was a god," based upon the omission of the definite article; i.e., it does not say, "the Word was the God." But we are told by those who know the Greek that there is in that language no indefinite article, and the word translated "God" is a strong one, denoting proper and absolute Deity; and had it stated that the Word was the God, it would have confined Deity to the Word and excluded therefrom the other Persons of the Godhead. The words are chosen with Divine exactitude: the Word was properly and absolutely God.

To take now various examples, as they present themselves in a chapter of the New Testament (John 1): Θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. the question is not at all if Θεός is supreme; it is something affirmed of λόγος. Were it ὁ Θεός, it would exclude from Deity the Father and the Spirit, and confine the unity of the Deity to the Word.

The "faith sect" must be a burlesque of faith, a school of nothing but unbelief. The man referred to understands Greek no better than Querist who owns his ignorance honestly. For the distinction in John 1:1 has nothing to do with the alleged difference, but only with the predicative usage, which in Greek requires the absence of the article, as every scholar knows.

Ἦν πρὸς τὸν Θεόν. Here again God is an objective being to my mind, with whom the Word was. It has been supposed that there can be no rule given for prepositions. I believe, though the cases require more power of abstraction and apprehension of the relation of ideas, the one rule holds.

Θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. Here the same word characterizes λόγος. We have again πρὸς τόν for the above reason, verse 2.

The passage now leads us to another case-the use of the article with a verb substantive. This is generally left as optional. It is true, the noun accompanying such verb is used with and without an article; but the meaning is not the same. Ἐν αὐτῳ ζωὴ ἦν. Is it not evident here that the possession of ζωή characterizes the person or being spoken of? And ζωή becomes a noun characteristic of the existence affirmed. Hence constantly with verbs substantive, when the thing is generally affirmed, the article is wanting. A thing which could be called life was found in him: that name characterized the existing thing. It might in many other cases too, and hence it is only characteristic of the existence implied in the verb substantive. The existence is before the mind, and hence the verb is called substantive. There was … what? Life. This will be entered into fully farther on, for it is true of all impersonal verbs, there "was," "fell," etc. Had it been ἡ ζωή, there would have been no life anywhere else, for the whole thing designated by ζωή would have been in Him.

There has been an attempt by Russellites (Jehovah’s Witnesses) to belittle the Person of our Lord at this point. They claim that the literal Greek of John 1:1 is as follows: In the beginning was THE Word, and the Word was was with THE God, and the Word was A God. They teach that the Lord Jesus was only A God, an inferior God, created as the head of God’s creation, but a creature, with power to create all else. This strange and blasphemous Russellite teaching is the revival of the Socinian heresy that sprang up in the 16th century. The Russellites simply show their ignorance of Greek. They deceive simple souls, who may have a very indifferent knowledge of their own language, and unable to check the truth of what these itinerant Russellites put forth. In the Greek language there is a definite article, but there is no indefinite article, and they have no right to speak of Word as “A God.”

Judge Rutherford misquotes John 1:1, but in so doing shows his ignorance both of the Scriptures and Greek. It is simply the echo of “Pastor” Russell. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with [the] God, and the Word was [a] God.” The Greek language uses the definite article, but there is no indefinite article in its grammar. Why then does Judge Rutherford put in the indefinite article at the end of the verse? Simply to deceive the reader. There is no indefinite article in the original.

These are very weighty, very important Scriptures. We live in a day when someone may come and knock at your door and say, 'Ah, but when you look at the original language there is no definite article, so you can read it 'The Word was a God'; but you do not need to know very much about the original language to know that there is no such thing as an indefinite article in the Greek, and if the definite article had been put in it would read, 'The Word was the God to the exclusion of all others '. Also you do not need to be too far advanced in your Greek studies to know that a great deal of weight is put on the order of the words. This "God was the Word" is more emphatic than "the Word was God". So we need not be disturbed by these people who knock on our doors when they bring up their points.

[1] The absence of the article here is necessarily due to the fact that Theos is the predicate of Logos, in no way to an inferior sense of His Godhead, which would contradict the context itself. Indeed, if the article had been inserted, it would be the grossest heterodoxy, because its effect would be to deny that the Father and the Spirit are God by excluding all but the Word from Godhead.

7 The rule destroys the folly of many Socinian comments, easily else destroyed, such as Wakefield's and the like. "In the beginning was the word," &c.; καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. Θεός here is the predicate of λόγος, and if it had had the article, it would have proved that there was nought else at all God but the Word — that the extent of Godhead was equivalent to ὁ λόγος. It has nothing whatever to do with any emphatic sense of Θεός, a sense which I believe Θεός never can be proved to have.

Take another illustrative instance; Romans 1:21: διότι γνόντες τὸν Θεόν, οὐχ ὡς Θεὸν ἐδόξασαν — not clearly as a subordinate God: the apostle's argument is directly the other way. But when they knew God, the Person, the one God, the object of reverence, they glorified Him not in that character. Had the other notion been right or in any instance true, this passage would have no force, unless it were ὡς τὸν Θεόν. I believe then, in every instance where the article is omitted, the noun is characteristic, adjectival in its character; where inserted, it presents the substantive object of thought.

“The Word was WITH GOD, and the Word WAS GOD.” Here we get His unequivocal deity announced. It may be pointed out that here there is no definite article before the word God—“the Word was God.” A Christadelphian once urged this upon the writer, and he had the audacity to translate the text, “The Word was A God.” In this he showed his lack of knowledge of what he was talking about. There is no indefinite article in the Greek.