# John 1:1



## CubsIn07 (Apr 25, 2007)

The Jehovah's Witnesses seems to have lessened their stance on John 1:1. They now take Jesus to be god in the qualitative sense with an indefinite ring. Daniel Wallace agrees with the qualitative interpretation, but says that Jesus is still God in essence. My question is this: how does Jesus having the quality of divinity (shares the same essence with God the Father) work with Jesus being with God at the beginning? To me the orthodox response is correct - Jesus has the essence of God but is another person which is why he was with the Father at the beginning. Thus "God" in John 1:1 is not to be taken in the definite sense because then Jesus would have been totally equal with God which is another heresy.



Watchtower said:


> At John 1:1 there are two occurrences of the Greek noun the·os' (god). The first occurrence refers to Almighty God, with whom the Word was ("and the Word [lo'gos] was with God [a form of the·os']"). This first the·os' is preceded by the word ton (the), a form of the Greek definite article that points to a distinct identity, in this case Almighty God ("and the Word was with [the] God").
> 
> On the other hand, there is no article before the second the·os' at John 1:1. So a literal translation would read, "and god was the Word." Yet we have seen that many translations render this second the·os' (a predicate noun) as "divine," "godlike," or "a god." On what authority do they do this?
> 
> ...


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## Davidius (Apr 26, 2007)

CubsIn07 said:


> Thus "God" in John 1:1 is not to be taken in the definite sense because then Jesus would have been totally equal with God which is another heresy.



Can you explain this?


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## CubsIn07 (Apr 26, 2007)

If "God" is in the definite sense then Jesus is the same as God. "...and the Word was God." I am trying to say that God and the Word are not the same person and the definite interpretation of John 1:1 allows for a bad interpretation.


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## polemic_turtle (Apr 26, 2007)

If the last clause in Joh 1:1 had included the definite article before _theos_, it would have been identifying the Word with God rather than ascribing to Him the properties of deity. That would be the error of Oneness Pentecostalism( Sabellianism ).


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