Few verses define the disagreement between Jehovah's Witnesses and historic Christianity more clearly than John 1:1.
Most English Bibles read:
“and the Word was God.”
The New World Translation reads:
“and the Word was a god.”
Which translation best represents the Greek?
The Greek text
The final clause is:
καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
kai theos ēn ho logos
The grammatical subject is the Word because ho logos has the article. Theos stands before the verb and lacks the article.
Jehovah's Witnesses place major weight on that absence.
The Watchtower argument
Earlier in the verse John says the Word was with ton theon — “God,” with the article.
In the final clause he writes theos without the article.
Witnesses therefore distinguish:
the God — Jehovah
from:
a god — the Word.
The argument correctly recognizes something important: John does not mean the Word is the same person as the Father.
Trinitarian theology agrees.
The question is whether an anarthrous theos means an indefinite lesser god.
Greek has no indefinite article like English
English has “the” and “a/an.”
Koine Greek has a definite article but no corresponding indefinite article.
Therefore:
no Greek article = English “a”
is not a valid rule.
An anarthrous noun can be definite, indefinite, or qualitative depending on syntax and context.
Predicate nouns often omit the article
In clauses where a noun describes the subject, the predicate can lack the article without becoming indefinite.
For example, 1 John 4:8 says:
“God is love.”
The Greek noun “love” lacks the article.
No one translates:
“God is a love.”
The point is that article absence alone cannot decide John 1:1.
The position of theos matters
John places theos before the verb.
Many grammarians understand this construction as strongly qualitative.
The clause tells us what the Word is by nature while still distinguishing him from the Father with whom he is.
A common explanatory paraphrase is:
“what God was, the Word was.”
This preserves both distinction and deity.
Does “qualitative” mean “not really God”?
No.
A qualitative predicate describes nature or quality.
To say theos is qualitative is not to say the Word is merely “godlike” in a weak sense.
It means the divine quality is predicated of the Word.
This is why some translations or scholars use language such as “the Word was divine,” though English “divine” can sound weaker than the Greek depending on the reader.
Is “a god” grammatically impossible?
A careful answer is no.
Anarthrous predicate nouns can sometimes be indefinite.
The stronger criticism is contextual, not mechanical.
John's prologue is Jewish-monotheistic literature.
The Word:
- exists in the beginning;
- is with God;
- is theos;
- is the one through whom all created things come into being;
- possesses life;
- and becomes flesh.
The prologue does not present a pantheon of one Almighty God plus a lesser deity.
An English “a god” naturally suggests precisely that.
John 1:3 is a major contextual problem
The New World Translation says:
“All things came into existence through him, and apart from him not even one thing came into existence.”
The verse creates two categories:
- things that came into existence;
- the Word through whom those things came into existence.
If the Word himself is a created thing, the universal wording becomes difficult.
Witness theology answers that Jehovah created the Word first and then used him to make all other things.
But John 1:3 does not say “all other things.”
It says not even one thing that came into existence did so apart from the Word.
John 1:18
The textual tradition of John 1:18 contains a significant variant.
Strong early manuscripts have a reading commonly translated “the unique God” or “only-begotten God.” Other manuscripts read “only-begotten Son.”
The New World Translation uses a form of the first reading and renders it “the only-begotten god.”
The textual variant must be acknowledged.
But either way, the prologue continues to give the Son an extraordinary identity.
Thomas in John 20:28
Near the Gospel's climax Thomas addresses the risen Jesus:
“My Lord and my God!”
Here the Greek has the article:
ho theos mou — “my God.”
The Gospel therefore begins and ends with explicit divine language surrounding Jesus.
John 1:1 should be read within that literary frame.
“But Jesus is not the Father”
Correct.
John 1:1 itself protects that distinction:
the Word was with God.
Historic Trinitarianism does not teach that Jesus is the Father.
It teaches that Father and Son are distinct persons sharing the one divine nature.
The grammar of John 1:1 does not require a lesser-god category to maintain personal distinction.
Does the Bible ever call others “gods”?
Yes.
Biblical language can use “god/gods” for heavenly beings, judges, rulers, or false deities.
The issue is not whether theos can ever be used in a secondary sense.
It can.
The question is what John is doing here.
A preexistent Word through whom everything created comes into being is not described like an ordinary judge or angel.
Early Christian reception
Early second-century Ignatius repeatedly uses direct divine language for Jesus.
Irenaeus later reads the Johannine witness in a framework that distinguishes Father and Son without placing the Son among ordinary created beings.
There is no evidence that the mainstream early reception of John understood 1:1 as teaching a supreme God plus a second created god.
Translation and theology
Every translation includes interpretation.
The New World Translation is not uniquely “theological” simply because it makes interpretive decisions.
All translators do.
The proper question is whether the decision best explains the Greek and literary context.
Here the NWT's “a god” fits Watchtower Christology neatly but creates a serious problem in a monotheistic prologue that places the Word on the creator side of the creator-creature divide.
Conclusion
John 1:1 simultaneously teaches:
distinction:
the Word was with God.
deity:
the Word was theos.
The lack of the article does not require an English indefinite article.
The traditional translation:
“the Word was God”
remains grammatically defensible when understood correctly.
John is not saying the Word is the Father.
He is saying the Word who is personally with God shares the divine nature.
Sources and further reading
- JW.org, John 1:1 New World Translation Study Bible.
- JW.org, John 1:1—“In the Beginning Was the Word”.
- Primary Greek texts: John 1:1–3, 18; 20:28; 1 John 4:8.
- A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, predicate-noun discussion.
- Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (Zondervan, 1996), qualitative predicate nominatives.
- Alexander Smarius, “Another God in the Gospel of John?”.
- Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians.