And the Word was God. — Since the word God is predicate and has no definite article as in the preceding clause, its sense is best given by prefixing the indefinite article: the Word was a God, a deity; hereby both personal identity is excluded and subordination expressed.
In all ancient Greek and early Christian literature the word QEOS [theos] (God, a God) is very elastic; among the Stoics men were called QEOI; Gnostic teachers were so addressed; Philo says (De Hom. Mut., 22) that "he who is inspired may reasonably be called God"; and in a comment on Gen. xxi. 12 (De Somn., I. 39) remarks that the article with QEOS indicates that "the true God" is meant, while without the article the word denotes "his most ancient Logos"; this distinction was observed by the Christian theologian Origen; and Hippolytus says {Theophany, 8) that "the believer, having become immortal, will be God." In 2 Cor. iv. 4 Paul calls Satan QEOS.
Thus the first verse sets forth, in opposition to Jews and Gnostics, the anteriority, closeness to God, divine nature, of the Logos; and in Johannine manner verse 2 repeats the essential elements for emphasis.
All things were made by him (v. 3).—The preposition DIA, by or through, designates the means, not the ultimate cause. The repetition of the thought in negative form is for emphasis; the Gnostic doctrines of the self-existence of matter, and of the creation of the world by some inferior aeon or aeons, and of the separation of the creator from the redeemer, are here negatived. To Philo (Cherubim, 35) the Logos is the instrument (ORGANON) of creation.
Comment on verse 18: No man hath seen God at any time (v. 18).—This concluding verse gives us as a summary: (a) the need of a revelation of God, since he is invisible; (b) the adequacy of the person of the mediating revealer, since he is an only-begotten divine being, with God in the beginning and now after the incarnation in his bosom; (c) the adequacy of his function as revealer; he hath declared the Father, since even in his enfleshment he was so resplendent of the divine glory that whosoever by faith beheld him beheld the Father (xiv. 9). The marginal reading: God instead of Son, is best attested, and has in its favour the fact that the word Son is rather to be expected here because of the proximity of the words only-begotten and Father; copyists would be tempted to substitute the word Son. The meaning is the same, whatever the decision; for the Logos is in v. 1 called QEOS (a divine being) and in v. 14 designated MONOGENHS (only-begotten); the verse clearly distinguishes, as does v. 1, the derived divinity from the Underived One. The phrase which is in the bosom of the Father refers to the post-incarnate life of the Logos; the figure is of the son returned home and in the embrace of the father; the cycle is completed; the Logos is and wili be, as he was in the beginning, with God (v. 1).
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