John 1:1,
“In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
This text provides ambiguous
evidence for the trinity at best. The
phrase that is translated as “the Word was with God” uses τον Θεόν (ton theon) for God. This is the definite form. The phrase that is translated as “the Word
was God” uses Θεος (theos) for God. This
is the indefinite form. When a noun is
in the indefinite form, it can be translated as an adjective. In fact, the actual phrase is “καὶ θεος ἦν ὁ Λόγος (kai theos en ho logos)”.
Word for word, in English, this is, “and god was the word.” This allows it to also be translated as “the
Word was Godlike”. For example, the
Revised English Bible renders it, “In the beginning the Word already was. The Word was in God's
presence, and what God was, the Word was.”
One scholar explained it this way.
In a case like
this we cannot do other than go to the Greek, which is theos en ho logos. Ho is the definite article, the,
and it can be seen that there is a definite article with logos, but not with theos. When in Greek two nouns are
joined by the verb “to be,” and when both have the definite article, then the
one is fully intended to be identified with the other; but when one of them is
without the article, it becomes more an adjective than a noun, and describes
rather the class or sphere to which the other belongs.
An illustration
from English will make this clear. If I say, “The preacher is the man,” I use the definite
article before both preacher and man, and I thereby identify the preacher with
some quite definite individual man whom I have in mind. But, if I say, “The
preacher is man,” I have omitted the definite article before man, and what I
mean is that the preacher must be classified as a man, he is in the sphere of
manhood, he is a human being.
[In the last
clause of John 1:1] John has no article before theos,
God. The logos, therefore, is not identified
as God or with God; the word theos has become
adjectival and describes the sphere to which the logos
belongs. We would, therefore, have to say that this means that the logos belongs to the same sphere as
God; without being identified with God, the logos has the
same kind of life and being as God. Here the NEB [New
English Bible] finds the perfect translation: “What God was, the
Word was.” (William Barclay, Jesus as They Knew Him (Harper and Row, N.Y.,
1962), pp. 21 and 22.)
Remember, Satan is the theos of this world.
2 Corinthians
4:4,
"In whom
the god (theos) of this
world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the
glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto
them."
