In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was [a] God.]
And the word was [a] God.
That is, On account of the knowledge and power communicated to him by Almighty God, he may have been said to have been a God on earth, just in the same manner as God was pleased to say to Moses, Exodus 7:1. "I have made thee a God to Pharaoh;" and as magistrates are called gods, Psalm 82: 1, 6, "God standeth in the congregation of the mighty, he judgeth among the Gods. I have said, ye are Gods;" which last verse our Saviour cites, John 10: 34, in vindication of himself against the Jews, who stoned him, because, as they said, "Thou, being a man, makest thyself a god." Agreeably to the language here made use of, it is said in another place, that Christ, being in the form of God, or in the form of a God, took upon himself the form of a servant. In this manner has the above declaration of the evangelist been explained, by those who maintain that the translation may be altered in the manner in which I have exhibited it. But if it should be insisted that this alteration is not countenanced by the idiom of the original, and the common translation be retained, viz. "and the word was God," still this language may be understood to intimate no more than a complete union of counsels and designs between the word of life and God; so that the authority of the one might be considered as the same as that of the other; just in the same sense as Christ says, "I and my Father are one;" and "he that hath seen me hath seen the Father."
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