John 1:18 is without doubt one of the few verses within the New Testomony which accommodates each (1) an all-important theological assertion about Christ and (2) a puzzling Greek textual downside. As well as, (3) the Greek wording adopted by most fashionable model is troublesome to translate.
One theologically vital verse, three separate challenges for the Bible interpreter.
Surveying the exegetical panorama in Logos
If I have been to check this verse in Logos, I would begin with the Textual content Comparability device. I’ve mine loaded up with twenty-five biblical texts, together with translations and Greek New Testaments.
I’m going to focus on what I believe you’ll discover in the event you have been to make use of this device. Under I’ve marked the related phrase in every textual content. The eight texts that depend on the identical Greek wording (μονογενὴς υἱός) are boxed in orange. The remaining depend on the opposite Greek wording (μονογενὴς θεός).
Strive the Textual content Comparability device for your self. Discover variations of the textual content and translation of John 1:18.
The sheer profusion of choices—all chosen by clever Christians devoted to the examine of Scripture—is a sign of the issue right here.
Within the authentic Greek, there are two choices. As soon as these two are translated into English, I depend at the least 9 vital prospects:
- “The one God”
- “The one begotten God”
- “The one Son”
- “The one begotten Son”
- “God’s solely Son”
- “God the one Son”
- “The one and solely Son”
- “The one and solely Son, who’s himself God”
- “The one one, himself God”
What can we make of this?
Interpretive presuppositions and methodology
I need, in a manner, to skip to the tip and inform you what I believe you must anticipate if you see the translations all around the map like this. Merely put, you shouldn’t anticipate to resolve this set of interpretation issues as soon as for all. When you do, you should have no manner of figuring out with certainty that you just did, and you should have no manner of demonstrating to different Christians that your answer is the correct one. God in his windfall has given us a set of difficulties in John 1:18 that interpreters should interpret, preachers should preach, and translators should translate—however he hasn’t given us footnotes or a commentary offering us authoritative steering.
The closest we’ve got is what some name the rule of religion, the core instructing of all of Scripture. Certainly, at this level, many individuals in my expertise attain for theology to resolve given interpretive difficulties. And this isn’t mistaken. I consider within the divine inspiration of the Bible, and I subsequently anticipate by religion that the messages of the varied scriptural writers will cohere and agree. The Spirit is their creator, in any case (2 Pet 1:20–21).
But when we let theology easy over each interpretive problem, we erase something distinctive the Spirit needs to say to us. We’ve acquired to carry out an in depth studying and use all of the literary and interpretive instruments we’ve got at our disposal earlier than we acquire the correct to an opinion on the which means of this textual content.
I don’t suppose theology solves the issues offered by John 1:18 as a result of each main interpretive or translational choice will be—and has been—learn by the lens of an orthodox Christology. Put one other manner, successfully all of the biblical students who produced the readings within the Logos Textual content Comparability device above share the identical (Nicene) view of Christ as absolutely divine and absolutely human, and so they clearly view their translational decisions as in keeping with that view.
I believe it’s secure to imagine that you’ll do the identical—so among the stress is off right here. It’s actually not true that we’ve got an Arian studying vs. an orthodox one, or a theologically correct translation vs. a theologically aberrant one. Deliver your religion self-consciously to your studying, however do your finest to let your studying educate your religion.
Deliver your religion self-consciously to your studying, however do your finest to let your studying educate your religion.
The textual historical past of the verse
I don’t consider there’s a “correct” order for exegesis. The studying of texts is a really human exercise, an artwork. Additionally, irrespective of the place you begin, you’ve already began. You don’t and can’t come to any textual content as a clean slate. You should have concepts about Christ, about Scripture, and even about studying earlier than you ever hear of John 1:18.
Nonetheless, there’s something of a logical or temporal order I loosely observe when engaged within the “science” facets of exegesis, and that order begins with establishing the textual content upon which my interpretation can be based mostly. That is referred to as “textual criticism.”
I often flip to the Logos Exegetical Information to present me fast hyperlinks to my text-critical sources, comparable to the usual A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testomony by Bruce Metzger. This information additionally hyperlinks me to crucial apparatuses, historic manuscripts, on-line manuscripts, and different sources.
Use Logos’s Exegetical Information to get related exegetical sources on John 1:18 in seconds.
In case you are extra superior in your information of New Testomony textual criticism, you hardly want my enter right here—John 1:18 is a identified query within the discipline. When you’re extra of a newbie, you might discover assist from the Lexham Textual Notes on the Bible, which says this:
A number of early manuscripts, together with two very early papyrus manuscripts, have “the one and solely, God,” which can even be translated as “the one begotten God.” Different early manuscripts and associated later witnesses have “the one begotten Son.” The distinction is in referent, God or Son. Many textual critics (Metzger, Consolation, Omanson) think about “solely begotten Son” as assimilation with comparable language elsewhere in John (e.g., John 3:16, 18).
That is the principle concern offered by the textual historical past of the verse: Some very early handwritten copies of the Greek New Testomony say μονογενὴς θεός (“the one begotten God”; or “the one and solely God”—we’ll get to that translation problem later); different early and late copies say μονογενὴς υἱός (“the one begotten Son”).
That is our puzzling textual downside. At present’s Bible students are inclined to wish to go along with very early readings once they can—however what on this planet is an “solely begotten God“?
Select your personal journey
This brings us to translation. And right here you might select your personal journey.
Choice 1: the one begotten Son
The bulk—technically, the Majority—of Greek New Testomony manuscripts learn “the one begotten Son” at John 1:18. The Textus Receptus custom of Greek New Testomony editions reads this manner as a result of it tracks pretty intently (although not completely) with the Majority. Translations based mostly on the Textus Receptus subsequently say, “the one begotten Son.” This would come with the next translations:
- The Tyndale New Testomony
- The Geneva Bible
- The King James Model
- The New King James Model
- The Trendy English Model
I consider most Reformation-era Bible translations can have this studying.
And this Greek wording—μονογενὴς υἱός, “solely begotten Son”—is straightforward to harmonize with an orthodox Christology. Christ is nothing if not “the one begotten Son.” That’s what he’s actually referred to as in the Nicene Creed, although with a barely completely different phrase order: τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ Θεοῦ τὸν Μονογενῆ, normally translated into English as “the one begotten Son of God.”
It is a viable choice. Most Christians between the Reformation and 1900 learn this of their Bibles. They weren’t misled—theologically, at the least. Christ is certainly the one begotten Son.
Choice 2: the one begotten God
However most biblical students, evangelical and in any other case, undertake the more durable and (apparently) older studying right here: “the one begotten God” (μονογενὴς θεός). On the whole, most individuals who consider the Bible is God’s Phrase, who consider Christ is God’s (solely begotten) Son and the Savior of the world, and who learn New Testomony Greek are inclined to wish to undertake older and “more durable” readings when Greek manuscripts differ. On the whole, it is sensible that older readings are nearer to the time of the originals. On the whole, we observe that scribes appear to easy out the textual content somewhat than make it tougher—so more durable readings usually tend to be what the New Testomony writers wrote.
And on this case, one can readily think about a scribe coming alongside and seeing a phrase that doesn’t seem anyplace else within the New Testomony, “the one begotten God,” and assuming that the copy in entrance of him was mistaken. Scribes have been identified to assimilate language from different passages, particularly within the Gospels, which regularly comprise parallel wording. On this case, as a Logos Bible Phrase Research (see picture beneath) will shortly present, “solely begotten Son” does happen elsewhere within the New Testomony, particularly in John’s writings.
But when as a substitute John wrote the Greek phrase μονογενὴς θεός, then the Spirit mentioned one thing distinctive by him at this level. And that leaves us with some translation challenges.
I listed 9 choices for translation above; a full seven of them have been really translations of μονογενὴς θεός. (This type of selection is, to say the least, unusual, particularly in a theologically vital passage.) The choices, nevertheless, are available in primarily two classes:
- These seeing this phrase as speaking Christ’s onliness and divinity
- These seeing the phrase as speaking Christ’s sonship and divinity.
Lee Irons has famously argued (in his chapter in Retrieving Everlasting Era and in different writings) that μονογενὴς (monogenes) doesn’t derive from γένος (“form”) however from γεννάω (“begetting”). He rigorously acknowledges that etymology doesn’t decide which means, however he simply as rigorously exhibits from precise Greek utilization of the time that μονογενὴς didn’t simply imply “solely.” It’s used within the New Testomony to call the “solely son” (Luke 7:12) and “solely daughter” (Luke 8:42) of normal people, however in Greek, μονογενὴς was used—so argues Irons—solely to switch nouns which might be “begotten”; particularly, kids.
I’m not sure Irons is true right here. The Logos Bible Phrase Research pointed me to a number of locations in 1 Clement and the Septuagint which appear to me to make use of μονογενὴς to imply solely “solely” (Ps 24:16 LXX, which speaks of the psalmist’s soul being “alone”; 1 Clem 25:2, which speaks of the Phoenix being the “solely one in every of its form”).
However Irons additionally seems to me to be proper sufficient to make his level: μονογενὴς does, in my examine as in Irons’, consult with little children who lack siblings a lot as a rule. A μονογενὴς is (normally?) an solely baby.
By some means, then, the ideas of onliness and sonship most likely should be mirrored in any given translation. “The one God” (ESV) and “the one one, himself God” (NET; cf. NLT) and “the distinctive One, who’s himself God” (NLT) are most likely not proper to go away out the idea of sonship or begottenness. Critical individuals had severe and cogent causes for making these decisions, however there are good explanation why the 2025 ESV has reincorporated the “sonship” part of their revision of this phrase. The ESV now reads,
Nobody has ever seen God; God the one Son, who’s on the Father’s aspect, he has made him identified.
Once I first noticed it, I puzzled briefly if the ESV translators have been out of the blue selecting at this one place to go along with the opposite main Greek studying. However the extra I seemed, the extra I started to understand that, though they have been nonetheless assuming μονογενὴς θεός, they have been selecting up the “Son” part of which means from the –genes portion of the primary phrase of the phrase at concern.
My judgment is confirmed by what Crossway introduced about John 1:18 alongside their 2025 replace:
This translation incorporates the idea of descent (which is an implication of monogenēs in context) and maintains concordance with the opposite occurrences of monogenēs within the New Testomony. The concept of sonship is evoked by monogenēs within the context of “Father” in John 1:18 and 1:14.
This, in my judgment, is a smart and defensible method (that brings the ESV in keeping with the NRSV, at it occurs) to translating a troublesome phrase. It makes use of all the most important parts of which means that I consider are current within the Greek.
John 1:18 and the everlasting technology of the Son
Besides one—or so say the theologians. This already troublesome phrase in John 1:18 is made tougher by the connection the verse bears (or could bear?) to some sizzling debates inside Christian theology. The EFS debate that overtook nerdy parts of evangelicalism beginning in 2016 persuaded most evangelicals—right here comes my oversimplified sizzling take—that claiming that the Son was eternally functionally subordinate to the Father (somewhat than solely temporally subordinate through the incarnation, e.g., John 5:19 and different passages) endangers the total equality of the Son with the Father, chips away at divine simplicity, and subsequently undermines the doctrine of the Trinity.
That, fairly clearly, is a large deal, and never simply to nerds.
In distinction, the “classical theists” who gained public cachet by profitable the EFS debate, are inclined to wish to see John 1:18 as an essential testimony to the orthodox view, EGS: the everlasting technology of the Son. That is the concept the Son is eternally “begotten” of the Father. In addition they are inclined to view basic creedal language as all-important—and so they subsequently wish to see the technical time period “begotten” within the English Bible translation of John 1:18.
Right here I balk. I oppose EFS; the classical theists acquired me this far. However my instincts lie in philology—in Greek and in English. And I don’t suppose “begotten” is an actual English phrase anymore, not when used to consult with kids. At finest, it’s literary or archaic. Extra precisely, it’s a technical time period in Christian theology. I believe the ideas of onliness and sonship (and divinity) should be current in any devoted translation of John 1:18, however “begotten” I can take or go away. It’s most likely good that some translations retain it (NKJV, NASB, LSB); it’s most likely good that the majority don’t.
As D. A. Carson noticed in the identical quantity through which Irons’ paper appeared,
even when somebody holds that, on steadiness of chances, μονογενής in John means “solely begotten,” one should acknowledge that the expression itself is an exceedingly weak reed to help the everlasting technology of the Son. It wants the help of John 5:26 and different passages.
The doctrine of everlasting technology doesn’t stand or fall on one Greek phrase, nor actually on one English translation of 1 Greek phrase. Carson provides, “If it have been determined that μονογενής in its Johannine occurrences is finest rendered by ‘one and solely’ or the like, it might not rule out the technology of the Son.”
After which Carson quotes a line from Daniel Treier which accommodates tons of knowledge for my readers who’ve gotten this far on this intense article: “It’s basically misguided to maneuver from remoted exegetical discoveries, comparable to monogenēs in texts like John 1:18 not essentially denoting ‘begotten,’ towards denying everlasting technology.” And this fact has to return the opposite route: You may translate this verse with out the phrase “begotten” and never be responsible of denying and even undermining the everlasting technology of the Son.
Observe that, though the rendering “solely begotten Son” predominates within the West, presumably due to the Latin Vulgate’s unigenitus filius, it isn’t the one translation of this passage to return deep into Christian historical past. And never solely does the Reformation-era French Bible have Le seur filz de dieu, “the one Son of God,” however a number of historic translations render μονογενὴς as “solely” in John 1:18 (and different passages) and don’t embody the precise concept of “begottenness.” See, in Logos in the event you can, at John 1:14, 18, and three:16 the Sahidic Coptic, the Bohairic Coptic, the Syriac, the Ethiopic, and the Outdated Latin. Until a number of apparently orthodox individuals over the course of the historical past of the church have been secretly engaged in a plot to undermine the doctrine of the everlasting technology of the Son, maybe we will stay content material that there are a number of philologically sound and orthodox methods to resolve the textual and translational difficulties posed by John 1:18.
The doctrine of everlasting technology doesn’t stand or fall on one Greek phrase, or actually on one English translation of 1 Greek phrase.
Blessed are the peacemakers
Although the KJV and Latin Vulgate loom giant in our minds due to our particular cultural heritage, it is extremely uncommon that one translation involves dominate and sideline all others, magnifying the ability of its errors. No, we’ve got a number of translations within the evangelical church—and we’ve got tons of theologians and exegetes who aren’t beholden to the translations anyway, who as a substitute take discussions of the Trinity to the ultimate courtroom of attraction, the Hebrew and Greek. And there’s a footnote within the ESV pointing the great readers who can course of such issues to further sources on the controversy! I stand right here on the Logos Phrase by Phrase weblog pleading for peace.
At minimal, John 1:18 teaches valuable truths about Jesus that we do know from different passages: He’s the one and solely Son of the Father, and he’s himself divine. At most, this phrase may very well use a really arresting and totally distinctive description of Christ as (see NASB) “the one begotten God.” Orthodoxy is just not threatened in any respect by the minimal or, actually, the maximal views. Jesus was with God and Jesus was God, as John 1 has already instructed us. Jesus is with God and Jesus is God, as we all know from the remainder of the New Testomony. Jesus is worthy of the worship Christians have all the time accorded him. He reveals the Father to us. He’s the means to the Father. He’s equal with the Father.
The foremost utility of John 1:18: Bend the knee.
Really helpful sources for textual examine
Advised sources on Trinitarian theology
Associated articles
