Doesn't John 1:1 say the Word was 'a god'?
In John 1:1 the first 'God' has the Greek definite article (ho theos) but the second does not (theos). That shows John was distinguishing Almighty God from the Word, who is divine but a lesser being. So the New World Translation rightly says 'the Word was a god'.
— New World Translation (2013), John 1:1 and its study note
The missing article does not make theos indefinite. In Greek a predicate noun placed before the verb often lacks the article for reasons of word order and emphasis. Most grammarians read theos here as qualitative: the Word has the very nature of God. 'A god' also creates a problem the Bible won't allow: a second, lesser god beside the one true God, who says there is no other (Isaiah 44:6-8).
What Scripture says
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made.
The Word existed in the beginning, was with God, was God, and made everything that came into being.
14The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The same Word became flesh. John is speaking of Jesus.
18No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is Himself God and is at the Father’s side, has made Him known.
No one has seen God; the only Son (or 'only God', in the earliest manuscripts) has made him known.
6Thus says the LORD, the King and Redeemer of Israel, the LORD of Hosts: “I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God but Me. 7Who then is like Me? Let him say so! Let him declare his case before Me, since I established an ancient people. Let him foretell the things to come, and what is to take place. 8Do not tremble or fear. Have I not told you and declared it long ago? You are My witnesses! Is there any God but Me? There is no other Rock; I know not one.”
The LORD knows of no other god besides himself. There is no category of true but lesser gods.
24Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer who formed you from the womb: “I am the LORD, who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who by Myself spread out the earth,
The LORD made all things 'alone' and 'by myself'. John says all things were made through the Word.
28Thomas replied, “My Lord and my God!”
Thomas calls Jesus 'my Lord and my God' (ho theos mou), with the article, and Jesus accepts it.
21A remnant will return —a remnant of Jacob— to the Mighty God.
The LORD himself is called 'Mighty God' (El Gibbor), the same title given to the Messiah in Isaiah 9:6.
The case
What the New World Translation says, and why
The New World Translation (NWT) renders John 1:1 as "the Word was a god". Its study note explains the reasoning: in the first two clauses "God" (theos) has the definite article and refers to Almighty God; in the third clause theos lacks the article, which the note says makes it qualitative, describing a characteristic of the Word. The note suggests "divine" or "godlike" as equivalents.
Jehovah's Witnesses are right about two things. The Word is distinguished from "God" (the Father) in the second clause, and the third clause does emphasize the Word's nature. The disagreement is over what that nature is.
The grammar: what the article does and doesn't do
Greek had a definite article ("the") but no indefinite article ("a"). An English translator must decide whether a noun without the article is:
- definite ("the God"),
- indefinite ("a god"), or
- qualitative (describing nature or kind: "God" in essence).
The clause reads theos ēn ho logos, literally "God was the Word". Three facts matter:
1. The article marks the subject
In a sentence with "to be" and two nouns, Greek normally puts the article on the subject. Ho logos has it, so "the Word" is the subject and theos is the predicate. John needed to leave the article off theos to make that clear.
2. Colwell's rule, and its limits
In 1933 E. C. Colwell observed that definite predicate nouns that come before the verb usually lack the article. This shows that the missing article cannot prove theos is indefinite. But honesty requires noting the limit: Colwell's rule does not prove theos is definite either. Arguing backwards from the rule is a logical error that grammarians such as D. A. Carson and Daniel Wallace have pointed out. Apologists who claim Colwell "proves" the Trinity overstate the case.
3. Pre-verbal predicate nouns are usually qualitative
Philip Harner (1973) and later Wallace found that anarthrous predicate nouns placed before the verb most often stress quality. On this reading, John is saying that everything God is in nature, the Word is, while the Word is not the same person as the Father he was "with". The New English Bible paraphrase, "what God was, the Word was", captures this well.
The problem with "a god"
The Watchtower study note and most Trinitarian grammarians agree the noun is qualitative. The real question is whether there can be a genuine god who is not the one true God. Here the rest of Scripture speaks plainly.
| Text | What it rules out |
|---|---|
| Isaiah 43:10 | No god formed before or after the LORD |
| Isaiah 44:6-8 | The LORD knows of no other God, no other Rock |
| Isaiah 45:5 | Besides the LORD there is no God |
| 1 Corinthians 8:5-6 | So-called gods exist, but for us there is one God |
If the Word is "a god" in a true sense, then there are two true gods, one Almighty and one mighty. That is not Jewish monotheism. If the Word is a god only in the sense that idols or Satan are "gods", John would hardly have introduced him as the eternal Creator.
Consistency
The NWT itself renders theos without the article as "God" several times in this same chapter: "a representative of God" (1:6), "God's children" (1:12), "born... from God" (1:13) and "No man has seen God" (1:18). Witnesses rightly reply that these are not pre-verbal predicate nouns, so the grammar differs. That is fair. But it shows the absence of the article does not automatically mean "a god". The decision rests on context, and John's context is that the Word was eternal, was with God, and created all things (1:1-3).
How to talk about this kindly
Many Witnesses have been taught this verse carefully and will know the arguments well. It helps to agree where you can: yes, the Word is distinct from the Father; yes, theos here is qualitative. Then ask together: what kind of being creates "all things"? Isaiah 44:24 gives the LORD's answer: he did it alone.
Why it matters
John's Gospel ends where it begins, with Thomas falling before the risen Jesus and saying "my Lord and my God" (John 20:28). John wants readers to know that in Jesus they are not meeting an exalted intermediary but God himself, come near in flesh, so that believing they "may have life in his name" (John 20:31).
Word study
greek · “God, god” · John 1:1
In the clause theos ēn ho logos, theos has no article and stands before the verb for emphasis. The article on ho logos marks 'the Word' as the subject. If John had written ho theos ēn ho logos, the two terms would be interchangeable, implying the Word is the Father. John's wording says what the Word is (God in nature) without saying he is the Father.
greek · “toward, with, in the presence of” · John 1:1
'The Word was with (pros) God' indicates personal relationship and distinction. Here 'God' (ton theon) refers to the Father. The verse holds together two truths: the Word is distinct from the Father, and the Word is God.
“But what about…?”
Doesn't 'god' sometimes refer to angels, judges or even Satan?
Yes. Psalm 82:6 calls human judges 'gods', and 2 Corinthians 4:4 calls Satan 'the god of this age'. But these are gods by title or by false claim. John 1:1-3 is different: the Word existed in the beginning and created everything that was made. In Isaiah the LORD claims that work for himself alone (Isaiah 44:24). The Word is God in the Creator's sense.
Isaiah 9:6 calls Jesus 'Mighty God', not 'Almighty God'. Isn't that a lesser title?
The Hebrew phrase El Gibbor ('Mighty God') is used for the LORD himself in the very next chapter (Isaiah 10:21). Jeremiah 32:18 also calls the LORD 'the great, the mighty God'. 'Mighty' is not a step down.
Didn't ancient Coptic translations say 'a god'?
The Sahidic Coptic version does use an indefinite article before 'god' in the third clause. But Coptic grammar regularly used that form to express a quality or kind, much as the Greek anarthrous noun does. It does not settle what the translators believed. The question still comes down to John's Greek and his context.
Isn't 'the Word was divine' a fair translation?
Several translators have used 'divine' to bring out the qualitative force, and that is defensible if 'divine' means having the full nature of God. The problem with 'a god' is that in English it suggests one god among others, which John, a strict Jewish monotheist, would never say.
Where Christians differ
Go deeper
- book · 1996Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (section on Colwell's rule and John 1:1)Daniel B. Wallace
- book · 1992Jesus as God: The New Testament Use of Theos in Reference to JesusMurray J. Harris
- article · 1953The Jehovah's Witnesses and Jesus Christ (Theology Today)Bruce M. Metzger
- book · 1989Jehovah's Witnesses, Jesus Christ, and the Gospel of JohnRobert M. Bowman Jr.
- book · 1993Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Jehovah's WitnessesRon Rhodes
- book · 2003Truth in Translation (a scholar who defends the NWT's 'a god')Jason David BeDuhn
Sources (5)
- New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures (Study Edition), John 1:1 and study note (jw.org)
- E. C. Colwell, 'A Definite Rule for the Use of the Article in the Greek New Testament', Journal of Biblical Literature 52 (1933): 12–21
- Philip B. Harner, 'Qualitative Anarthrous Predicate Nouns: Mark 15:39 and John 1:1', Journal of Biblical Literature 92 (1973): 75–87
- Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (1996), on Colwell's rule and qualitative predicate nominatives
- D. A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies (2nd ed., 1996), on misuse of Colwell's rule
Related questions
Doesn't Colossians 1:15 say Jesus was the first created being?
'Firstborn' in Scripture often means the one with first rank and inheritance, not the first one made. God calls David his 'firstborn' though he was the youngest son. And Paul immediately explains why Christ is firstborn: 'for' by him all things were created. Paul doesn't say 'all other things'. That word is added in the New World Translation. In Paul's Greek, Christ stands outside the whole created order as its Creator and heir.
Isn't Jesus really Michael the archangel?
No text in the Bible says Jesus is Michael. The identification rests on an inference from 1 Thessalonians 4:16. Meanwhile Scripture draws a sharp line between them. Daniel calls Michael 'one of the chief princes', but the Son is unique. Michael would not rebuke Satan on his own authority, but Jesus did. And the letter to the Hebrews spends a whole chapter showing that the Son is not an angel at all, but the Creator whom angels worship.
Isn't the Trinity a logical contradiction?
A contradiction says something is both one and three in the same sense at the same time. The Trinity does not. It says God is one in being (one 'what') and three in person (three 'whos'). That is a mystery that stretches our minds, but it is not nonsense. And it is not a philosopher's invention: it is what you get when you take seriously both the Bible's insistence that there is only one God and its treatment of the Son and the Spirit as truly divine.
Wasn't the Trinity invented at the Council of Nicaea?
Nicaea did not invent belief in Jesus' deity; it defended it. Christians were worshipping Jesus as God within weeks of the resurrection, as the New Testament letters show, and second-century writers called him God openly. The council met because Arius denied this inherited faith. Nearly every bishop rejected his view, and Constantine later favored Arius' allies anyway. The council clarified an old belief; it did not create a new one.
This entry is a draft and has not yet been theologically reviewed.