This is an old thread; there has been 218 posts prior to this one. I’m resurrecting it, because I would like to address the original question.
I wrote the following long ago, and so it is not addressing any of the previous posts. It simply expresses my answer to the question:
Is Jesus God?
The question is meaningful only if the questioner explains what he means by the word “God”. In the New Testament the word most frequently denoted the Father. Indeed it always denotes the Father if, in Greek, it is prefixed with the article and no other qualifier.
If one is using the word “God” to denote the Father, then the question become “Is Jesus the Father?” or more precisely, “Are Jesus and the Father the same Individual?” For many, the answer is “Yes.” The Modalist or Monarchist affirms that God is a single Individual who expresses Himself in three modes or appearances, like an actor who appears in a play wearing three different masks (προσωπα), and thus playing the part of what seems to be three different individuals. Αn early form of modalism was called “Sabellianism” named after Sabellius, a theologian from the third century. Modern modalists include the United Pentecostal Church and various branches of the “Apostolic Church.”
Trinitarians believe God is a compound Being consisting of three Individuals: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. If God is so defined, then the question becomes, “Is Jesus the Trinity?” Yet when Trinitarians affirm that Jesus is God, they clearly do not mean that Jesus is the Trinity. Neither do they mean that Jesus is part of the Trinity, for they affirm that the Trinity is undivided. They seem to mean that Jesus is of the same essence of the Father. Now many non-Trinitarians, including myself, believe that Jesus is of the same essence as the Father. But I feel uncomfortable with the statement “God was born as a human being.” What does that mean? That the divine essence was born as a human being?
But the divine essence is not a person. Does that mean that God is not a person? I just can’t get my mind around this seeming contradiction.
John 1:1 does not teach that the Logos was God Himself.
How could the Logos be with God and also be God? That’s not what the text says.
The first “God” is prefixed with the article; thus “the God” (meaning the Father, whom Jesus addressed as “the only true God”). The second “God” has no article. So it does not refer to the Father.
Because of the lack of an article, some think the sentence should read “and the Logos was a god”. This is also an incorrect translation.
That would be the case if the subjective completion had been placed AFTER the copula verb.
If John had meant “The Word was a god”, then the Greek words would have been:
ὁ…λογος…ἠν…θεος
the…word…was a…god
But this is not what John wrote.
If John had meant that the Word was God the Father Himself (as Modalists affirm), then the Greek words would have been:
ὁ…λογος…ἠν …ὁ…θεος
the…Word…was…the…God
Prefixing the word “θεος” with the article “ὁ” (with no other modifiers) would indicate that God the Father is meant. But that is not what John wrote.
Here is what John actually wrote:
θεος…ἠν… ὁ…λογος
God…was…the…Word
John placed the subjective completion BEFORE the copula verb! What did John mean? Did he mean that God the Father was the Word? No! If he had meant that, he would have prefixed the word “θεος” with the article “ὁ”. What then was his meaning? As a person who has studied Hellenistic Greek for several years and has even taught a self-devised beginner’s course to adults, I am going to propose a suggested translation, and then justify it by reference to other similar constructions in the New Testament.
A very crude translation could be “The Word was God-stuff”. However, this doesn’t sound very reverent. So I suggest “The Word was Divinity” or perhaps “The Word was divine”. He was divine because God begat Him before all ages as Another just like Himself! “God” or “Divinity” was the essence of the Word.
Let’s look at two more instances in the New Testament in which a subjective completion without a modifier is placed BEFORE a copula verb. In I John 4:8 and also in I John 4:16, we find the phrase:
ὁ…θεος… ἀγαπη…ἐστιν
the God…love…is
Here the subject is clearly the Father since the word “θεος” is prefixed with the article. But notice the subjective completion “ἀγαπη” occurs BEFORE the copula verb “ἐστιν”. The correct translation is: “God is love”. Love is the essence of God. This is analogous to saying in John 1:1 that Divinity is the essence of the Word.
One more example:
ὁ…λογος…ὁ…σος…ἀληθια…ἐστιν
the…word the [one]…of you reality…is
Translation: “Your word is reality”. God’s word is reality. There is never falsehood or unreality in what God says. Once again, the subjective completion “ἀληθια” comes BEFORE the copula verb “ἐστιν”. Reality is the essence of what God says.
Martin Luther, whatever else he may have been, had an excellent understanding of Greek. Concerning the phrase in John 1:1:
θεος…ἠν… ὁ…λογος
God…was…the…Word
Luther expressed quite succinctly what I have attempted to relate about the word order. He said:
“The lack of an article is against Sabellianism; the word order is against Arianism.”
Sabellianism was a form of Modalism, that God is a single divine Individual who expresses Himself in three modes: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Today, Modalism is represented by the United Pentecostal Church as well as the various sects of the “Apostolic Church”.
Arianism was and is thought by many to have been a position whereby the Son was a lesser god, and thus the translation “The word was a god”. This position is represented today by Jehovah’s Witnesses. The New World Translation actually renders the Greek phrase as "The word was a god.”
So I suggest the following translations as a good approximation of what the writer had in mind:
In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was divine.
b]In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was Deity.
It appears that Jesus Himself did not believe He was “true God”. In His prayer to His Father, he said,
“…this is lasting life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”
Not only did Jesus address His Father as “the only true God” but by using that little word “and” before his reference to Himself, He indicated that He was something other than “the only true God”.
However, it is important to note that just as the offspring of a man is “man” human, so the unique offspring of God was “God” (divine). Thus in the earliest manuscripts of John 1:18, John refers to the Son of God as “the only-begotten God.” The second-century Christian writers made similar statements, adding that the Father was unbegotten.