Tag Archives: John 1:18

Θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακεν πώποτε· ὁ μονογενὴς υἱὸς ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκεῖνος ἐξηγήσατο (John 1:18) Opening the Verse: The Drama of Divine Revelation

John 1:18 is a climactic theological declaration in the prologue of the Fourth Gospel. It moves from the universal (“Θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακεν πώποτε”) to the particular (“ὁ μονογενὴς υἱὸς”), describing an unparalleled event: the exegeting of God by the only Son. At the heart of this verse lies a rich convergence of Greek syntactic structure, verbal nuance, and christological depth.

This article will focus on four key grammatical and syntactic features:

The emphatic placement and function of οὐδεὶς with Θεὸν The present participle construction ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον The force and aspect of the aorist verb ἐξηγήσατο The theological implications of the articular subject phrase ὁ μονογενὴς υἱὸς “No One Has Seen God at Any Time” – Negation and Emphasis

The phrase Θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακεν πώποτε opens the verse with a subjectless construction.… Learn Koine Greek