I recently heard someone argue that John 1:1c does not mean that “the Word was God” but rather that “the Word was divine.” Part of his argument relied on the lack of an article before the word “God” (theos) in Greek. On this argument, the Word is not God but merely divine.
The observation is not new. For example, Chrysostom, a native Greek speaker of the fourth century, notes in a homily that the word “God” in John 1:1c indeed lacks an article. And he knows some people may wonder why: “‘But see,’ you say, ‘the Father is spoken of with the article; the Son, without it'” (Homily John 1:1–3)
But it does not occur to Chrysostom that this lack of article leads to the conclusion that the Word was only divine, not the God of Israel.
It should not occur to us either for the following reasons.
Five Reasons Why
First, John uses predicates without articles to refer to specific things. John 1:49 says, “you are the king of Israel,” and the word king has no article preceding it (John 8:39; 17:17; Rom 14:17; Gal 4:25; Rev 1:20). This is normal koine Greek. Chrysostom, writing in the fourth century, notes that often in the New Testament, the word God sometimes does not have the article even when referring to the God of Israel (Homily on John 1:1–3).
Second, definite predicate nouns before verbs can be anarthrous. In other words, the word theos (God) can be definite without the need for an article preceding it.
Third, the Greek word theios means divine. So John could have used this term explicitly. But he doesn’t. He uses theos, which means God (Carson, John, 177). So even if theos contextually has a qualitative sense to it (as someone like Dan Wallace argues), the word itself remains theos. This matters.
Fourth, the context of John 1 shows that the lack of an article before the word God doesn’t mean that the Son is less than the Father.
John Chrysostom explains:
“Once he had said: ‘And the Word was God,’ in order that no one might think that the Godhead of the Son was inferior, he at once predicated of Him characteristics recognized as marks of genuine divinity, both referring again to His eternity, by declaring: ‘He was in the beginning with God,’ and mentioning also His power of creating, for: ‘All things were made through Him, and without Him was made nothing that has been made.’ The latter power in particular, His Father frequently declares by the Prophets, is a characteristic mark of His own Essence” (Homily on John 1:1–3).
Chrysostom then cites Jeremiah 10:11 and Isaiah 44:24 as examples of how God creates while false gods do not. His point is that John 1 contextually characterizes the Word in ways appropriate to the one God of Israel. So even if one translates John 1:1c as “the Word was divine,” then that divine character corresponds to the divinity of God in the Old Testament.
Fifth, John was a Jewish Christian, and so it would be odd to call the Logos “divine” alongside God the Father who was God—if by “divine” John meant a lower deity than the God of Israel. Would that have made sense to a first-century Jewish Christian who worshipped the one God of Israel?
Plausibility, it could if Jesus was an angel, or a throne, or principality. But John 1 says that all things came into being through the Word of God (John 1:3, 10). The Word then takes the role of Creator of all things. He is not just one of the spirits. He is the one through whom all things came into being.
What John 1:1c Means
So what does John 1:1 mean when it says, “The Word was God?”
Cyril of Alexandria, another native Greek speaker, argues that John shows both the Word’s distinction and identity with God in John 1:1.
Cyril looks at the whole sentence in John 1:1 and notes that John not only says “the Word was with God” but also that “the Word was God.” By saying “with God,” Cyril believes John aims to distinguish the Word from God (the Father); and by saying, “the Word was God,” Cyril asserts that John shows the Word’s shared nature with God (John 1:1 commentary, Ch 3).
While Cyril does use later theological language (e.g., “nature”), he does so in service of explaining the text’s meaning. And for him, John both distinguishes the Word from God (the Father) and points to their common definition of being God.
Augustine of Hippo adds a theological commentary on the text, noting how John says that everything that was made came through the Word (John 1:3, 10):
“If even the Word of God itself was made, through what other Word was it made? If you say that there is a Word of the Word, through which that [Word] was made, I say that this itself is the only Son of God. If you deny there is a Word of the Word, grant that that through which all things were made was itself not made. For that through which all things were made could not be made through itself” (Aug., Tract. in ev. Joan. 1.11).
His point is to say that the Word was before all things made—in the beginning. Nothing was made apart from the Word through whom all things came into being. So whatever else John is saying here in John 1, he identifies the Word who was with God in the beginning and who was God because he is eternal and Creator.
