Reflection on the Depth of John 1:1

I've started a new series of morning devotions and I've changed things up a little. Instead of reading a full chapter of the Bible in the morning, I've started reading through a Christological Greek Grammar book on John 1:1-18.

Just reading through the first verse with commentary by Dr. Gary Staats is unbelievably insightful. I'm not going to bore you with all of the details, but it is absolutely true that the fullness of the Deity of Jesus Christ is made all the more clear when it is examined in New Testament Greek. Now, in order to appreciate it, I've had to refresh myself on certain grammatical rules.

One of the arguments made against the full deity of Christ is that, in the Greek, the last statement of John 1:1 does not provide a definite article for the word God. I've read further into the justification for the translation of "The Word was God" and it is more than justified. There is no other way to read it in the Greek.

In fact, the way it is worded in the Greek (with a word for word translation) would be, "God was the Word." Now, grammar scholars in the Trinitarian world do not hang their hats on that translation because they know it does not follow the Greek grammar rules. Thus, the proper translation would be the Word was God despite the lack of the definite article because the word God or theos is taking upon the predicate nominative. What does that mean?

In the Greek, the writer decided to put the word God, or theos, at the front of the sentence without the definite article to emphasize that word. This is found elsewhere in Scripture when the Apostle John wrote God is love. Love appears at the beginning of the sentence without the definite article to emphasize its importance.

But wow, I totally got caught diving down the rabbit hole here. This is just a start to the incredible Greek insights from Dr. Gary Staats on this incredible Scripture. What fascinated me more about this verse and the following verses, was how the author emphasized the eternality of Christ in a way that we would not get the entirety of this teaching by merely reading an English translation. That will be for another day.

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