John 1:1-5, πρός

Memorized: ΚΑΤΑ ἸΩΑΝΝΗΝ 1.1-5

(1)Ἐν ἀρχῆ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ό λόγος ἦν πρός τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεός ἦν ὁ λόγος. (2)οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θεόν. (3)πάντα δι' αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν ὃ γέγονεν. (4)ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν, καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων: (5)καὶ τὸ φῶς ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ φαίνει, καὶ ἡ σκοτία αὐτὸ οὐ κατέλαβεν.

That word πρός confused me at first. I see that it's in an accusative relationship with the word God, though I got my first headache figuring out how the Strong concordance was. At base, it means "on the side of," or "in the direction of." It's a strange word, because it means many different things. Next to a genitive definite article, it means "for," but only in Acts 27:34. In the dative, it means "at, close, by," and in the accusative, it means towards, in reference to, and in consideration of. At least in the Bible, this is the one spot where it means "with."

On a minor note, I can see a point where someone might try and make a case for Jehovah's Witnesses, because instead of "and the Word was God," the JW bible translates it, "... and the word was a god." I noticed there's no use of a definite article for the second use of God, and that usually indicates what would be the equivalent of an indefinite article in English (NT Greek doesn't use indefinite articles "a, an, the"), so if you're not careful and don't know what you're doing, it could come out sounding like "and a God was the Word." Part of Greek grammar is that the definite article may also be used to determine what is the subject and what is the predicate, and the predicate is sometimes indicated by having no definite article, although what is meant is understood. This is mainly the case when a form of "to be" is used. I believe that's why we translate it "and the Word was God" instead of "and God was the Word." Funny too is that sometimes the predicate will come before the form of "to be," and in some cases the subject comes behind it, though I believe that's done intentionally, for emphasis sake.

On that note, as I consider the word προς, I now understand why John orders things the way that he does in his book. John 1 is all making a statement about Christ, His deity, godhood, and purposes. John 2 goes on to demonstrate his authority. When you get into John 3, you start getting into His actual teachings in life. It seemed odd, because you'll notice that the story of the temple cleansing is at the beginning of this book, where in the other books it's found towards the end. I think John specifically had it in mind to make a clear statement that Jesus was God, and He used such authority when He cleansed out the temple.

Soli Deo Gloria!

Jake