The Logos (or Word) as a God, by T. Latham 1826

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Christ, or Logos, according to John, was a begotten being; but a begotten being, must be a created being, and such can be no self-existent and uncreated God. Christ himself has said, and John has recorded that saying, chap. xvii. 3. that the Father is the only true God; that he himself is the Christ or Messiah whom the only true God has sent. God himself has said, I am God, and besides me there is no other. Is there a God besides me? I know not any, Paul has said to us, there is but one God, and that one God is the Father. Now, can we suppose, with the orthodox, that John had the hardihood to contradict the assertions of God, of Christ, and of Paul? And also contradict what he has written elsewhere with his own pen, that the Father is the only true God? And that he could be so weak and inconsistent after all this to assert that Jesus, the Logos, or Word of God, is God essentially and equally with the one only true God? I hope, however inconsistent the orthodox creed may be found, that the advocates of that creed will admit the Apostle John to have been consistent with truth and with himself; and not rashly assert, with Mr. Monday, a Baptist Missionary in the East Indies, “that if Christ be not God essentially, Paul was a fool and the Bible is a bundle of lies.” The Word was God, says the common version, but the true rendering of the original is, the Word was a God; and it is well known that the Hebrew word Elohim, and the Greek word Theos, are used with great latitude, and applied to men as well as to God. Thus, Moses was a God to Pharoah, and Aaron was a Prophet to Moses; and God has called them Gods to whom the Word of God came. And as Jesus had received a commission as a Prophet of God, and was invested with extraordinary powers and authority, he was a God in the phraseology of scripture, a messenger of God, a God in the same sense that others were Gods to whom the word of God came. In this sense, and in no other, he claimed the title, as appears from his answer to the charge of the Jews, who said to him; “for a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy; and because thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, ye are Gods? If he called them Gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scriptures cannot be broken; say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?” Now, if Christ had said, he was God, he had been guilty of blasphemy; but he only said, he was a Son of God, or the Son of God, (i. e.) the Messiah; and he shows he had as good a right to this title, because God had sanctified him and sent him as his great prophet to the world, as others had to the title of God, or a God, because God had made them inferior prophets and ministers of his word. And in this sense, and in no other, does John stile him a God: for as has been noted already in the 14th verse, he says, this same word who was a God, was a mortal man, a begotten son, a truly human being; and that his glory was not that of essential deity, but such as God could confer upon a man, and such as the man Jesus did actually receive from God; for he received from God the Father honour and glory; but God could receive no glory from another God, which was not actually his own, independent of every other being. To us there is but one God the Father, and one Lord Jesus the Christ, the son and servant of the Lord of all. This is amply sufficient for Unitarian christianity; but orthodoxy requires three Gods, and one God to be the sent and servant of the other.