Is Jesus God or "a god" in John 1:1?
Most mainstream English translations render the last part of John 1:1 the same way: "the Word was God." The New World Translation, used by Jehovah's Witnesses, renders it differently: "the Word was a god." That single word "a" is doing a lot of work — it is the difference between Jesus being God himself, and Jesus being some other, lesser divine being.
Here is the actual Greek behind that clause, so you can see it for yourself: καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος — transliterated "kai theos ēn ho logos." You do not need to know any Greek to follow this. The point that actually matters is explained in plain English below.
Ancient Greek did not have an indefinite article equivalent to the English words "a" or "an." That means translators sometimes have to supply "a" when translating into English.
The fact that there is no written Greek word for "a" does not by itself settle John 1:1.
In this verse specifically, the word "God" appears a second time without the word "the" in front of it — unlike its first appearance a few words earlier, which does have "the." Jehovah's Witnesses argue that dropping "the" turns this second "God" into a different, lesser kind of "god." But that is not automatic. Leaving out "the" does not, by itself, turn "God" into "a god." It can also do something else: describe what the Word is by nature — while still keeping him distinct as a person from God the Father. Both are real possibilities the grammar allows, and deciding between them takes more than just noticing that "the" is missing.
So the real question is not "does the Greek say 'a god'?" — it doesn't, because Greek has no such word to say. The real question is this: is John placing Jesus among a class of lesser gods, or describing the Word as possessing the nature of God while remaining distinct from the Father? The fuller grammatical case for that second reading is set out below, in Examine It Deeper, for anyone who wants to look at it in detail.
What John himself says right around this verse
- He made everything that has been made. John 1:3 says that everything that came into existence came into existence through the Word. That places the Word on the Creator side of the Creator/creation distinction, not the creation side — and creates a serious problem for the claim that the Word himself was created: he cannot be the means by which everything that was created came to exist, and also be one of the things that came into existence through himself.
- The Word is Jesus. John 1:14 ties the abstract opening statement directly to a person: "the Word became flesh and dwelt among us" — this whole passage is about Jesus specifically, not a philosophical idea.
- A disciple calls him God, to his face. When Thomas sees the risen Jesus, he says to him, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28).
None of this means the Jehovah's Witness reading is dishonest or invented — it notices something real in the Greek text. But noticing that "the" is missing is not the same as proving the sentence means "a god." Read together with what John says about Jesus a few verses later, the evidence points the other way.
Examine it for yourself
The evidence, the interpretations and the conclusion, separated so you can examine each step. Every passage is linked; read them in context.
The Greek text itself
The textual fact is not in dispute: the third clause of John 1:1 places theos ("god") before the verb, without the definite article that appears on the first occurrence of "God" earlier in the same verse. Every printed Greek New Testament agrees on this wording — there is no manuscript variant at stake here. What is disputed is what an anarthrous, pre-verbal predicate noun like this one means, not what the Greek text says.
- John 1:1
The construction under examination: an anarthrous, pre-verbal theos as the predicate of "the Word."
John's own context
A single clause is never examined alone. John's own Gospel, in the same chapter and beyond, repeatedly identifies the Word with Jesus and states his relationship to God in terms that go well past "a god" among others.
- John 1:3
All things were made through the Word — the maker, not one of the made.
- John 1:14
"The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" — identifies the Word of verse 1 directly with Jesus.
- John 20:28
Thomas addresses the risen Jesus as "My Lord and my God," and Jesus does not correct him.
What they teach
Stated accurately, on its own terms, then examined against Scripture.
In John 1:1, the second occurrence of "God" (theos) has no definite article ("the") in front of it in Greek, while the first does. Because of that missing article, the Word should be understood as "a god" — a divine but lesser, separate being — not as God himself.
This argument correctly identifies something real in the Greek — that second John 1:1 really is written without the article, and real Greek scholarship (Philip Harner's often-cited study of this exact construction) is what it draws on. But that same scholarship concludes this kind of construction is primarily qualitative in meaning — describing what the Word IS LIKE, not counting him as one member of a category of gods. Daniel Wallace's follow-up grammatical work, examining this construction across the whole New Testament, reaches the same place: an anarthrous predicate noun placed before the verb like this one is normally qualitative, occasionally definite, and only rarely indefinite. "A god" is the indefinite reading — the reading this grammar least supports. The Watch Tower's own cited grammatical basis argues for "fully has the nature of God," not "a lesser god."
- John 1:1
The verse itself — the construction under examination.
The anarthrous construction itself — theos with no article, positioned before the verb — is a plain textual fact, visible in every printed Greek New Testament and not in dispute between any of the parties examined here.
What is interpretation is what that construction means. Philip B. Harner's study ("Qualitative Anarthrous Predicate Nouns: Mark 15:39 and John 1:1," Journal of Biblical Literature, 1973) found that around 80% of anarthrous predicate nouns placed before their verb in the New Testament are qualitative. Daniel B. Wallace restated this as a working rule in Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics (Zondervan, 1996) and in "Revisiting the Colwell Construction in Light of Mass/Count Nouns" (bible.org): such a noun is normally qualitative, sometimes definite, and only rarely indefinite. Neither Harner nor Wallace concludes "a god."
What the evidence supports
John 1:1 does not teach that Jesus is "a god" or a lesser divine being.
John distinguishes the Word from the Father while identifying the Word as divine in nature. John 1:3, 1:14, and 20:28 reinforce that reading. Therefore The Berea rejects the NWT rendering "the Word was a god."
Examine further
- John 8:58
Jesus applies God's own self-description ("I am") to himself.
- Colossians 2:9
"In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily."
Discuss and study
- Why does it matter that Greek has no word for "a" or "an" at all when evaluating this translation choice?
- How does John 20:28 change how you read John 1:1, if at all?