John1:1 in depth.

John 1:1 in NT Greek: Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
En arche en ho logos and ho logos en pros ton theon and theos en ho logos

There are three clauses separated by καὶ (or “and” in English). The first (John 1:1a) is literally translated: “In beginning was the word.” The second (John 1:1b) is translated “the word was with the god.” And the final one (John 1:1c) is literally translated “god was the word.”

I hope to examine John 1:1c to show that the very grammar used by John himself shows the actual meaning (whether ‘the Word was God,” or the “Word was a god.”). Since different NT writers varied somewhat in their grammar and usage of the Greek, we need to stick to John’s usage if we wish to analyze John 1:1c properly.

First, the word in question is θεος (theos in English letters) a noun known to NT Greek scholars as a noun in the nominative case. Notice that this form of the word ends in ‘s.’ Theos can be used to mean ‘God’ or ‘god.’ Also notice that, as used in John 1:1c, theos stands alone. That is, it has no “prepositional” modifiers (usually genitive or dative case nouns) such as “theos of Israel, or “theos to me,” etc.

Not only do such modifiers cause the use of the definite article (‘the’ in English) to be used irregularly, but the verse in question does not use them either. Therefore, the very few “preposition-modified” nouns in John’s writings are not proper examples in this study which relies on the use of the definite article.

The next point is that when John (and Matthew, Mark, and Luke also) clearly meant “God” when writing theos (the form of the Greek word which ends in ς), he always used the definite article (‘the’ in English - ho in Greek): ho theos. (You can tell that o in NT Greek is ‘ho’ if it has a tiny c-shaped mark above it - ὁ.)

You can test this ho theos use means ‘God’ in John’s writings yourself with a good interlinear NT and concordance.