Jn 1:14b ‘We saw his glory—the glory of the one and only, full of grace and truth, who came from the Father.’

Jn 1:18 ‘No one has ever seen God. The only one, himself God, who is in closest fellowship with the Father, has made God known.’

Jn 3:16 ‘For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.’

1 Jn 4:9 ‘By this the love of God is revealed in us: that God has sent his one and only Son into the world so that we may live through him.’

The issue to be explored here is whether the Greek word monogenēs should be understood as meaning ‘only begotten’ or ‘unique’; ‘one of a kind’.

The word itself occurs with reference to:

1. Isaac (Heb. 11:17),
2. the widow’s son (Luke 7:12),
3. Jairus’s daughter (8:42),
4. the demoniac boy (9:38),

In these cases, the meaning is fairly obvious: ‘unique’; ‘one of a kind’.

But the word is also applied to Jesus Christ (John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9).  Does John intend anything other than, or more than, ‘unique’?

Traditionally, the word has been translated ‘only begotten’ (AV).

Harris (Navigating Tough Texts):

‘Although, by derivation, the term is not related to “begetting” or “generation,” after NT times it came to be associated with those ideas because in 1 John 5:18 Christ is described as “the one who is born of God” (“he that is begotten of God,” KJV). But in NT use the word is concerned with familial relations, not manner of birth.’

According to Yarbrough, (EDBT), this idea of ‘only begotten’ can be traced back to Jerome, (ca. A.D. 400), who:

‘supplied the Vulgate’s unigenitus (“only begotten”) to help counter the Arian view that Jesus was a created being; unigenitus permitted Jesus to be “begotten” of the Father in the sense implied in certain Bible passages (e.g., Ps. 2:7; Acts 13:33), while “only” left room for affirmation of his divine nature. Through the Vulgate’s influence on early English versions of the Bible, the traditional translation “only begotten” still rings true for many today.’

1. ‘Unique’?

‘Only-begotten’ has come down to us from AV.  It is also followed by NASB.  Most modern English translations and many commentaries , however, offer the translation ‘unique’ (or similar).  So J. H. Bernard, R. E. Brown, C. H. Dodd, L. Morris, B. F. Westcott, C. Kruse.

Brown: The word describes Jesus’ uniqueness, ‘not what is called in Trinitarian theology his “procession”.’

Morris argues that ‘only-begotten’ suggests something more metaphysical that is actually meant. The word means ‘unique’; ‘only’, as the following references indicate, Ps 22:20; 25:16 (LXX); Lk 7:12; 8:42. The word is used of the widow of Nain’s ‘only’ son, Lk 7:12, and of Jairus’ ‘only’ daughter.  The word is used of Isaac, Heb 11:17 – this is interesting, since Isaac was not Abraham’s only son. But he was unique, and specially loved. So the reference here, although not necessarily indicating a metaphysical relationship, does show that Jesus is God’s Son in a uniquely special way. No-one else is God’s son in the way that Jesus is.

Mounce says that ‘only-begotten’ is based on a misunderstanding of how the word monogenes is formed.  To convey the sense of ‘begotten’, it have to be formed from ‘gennao‘ (two nu’s).  But, since it has a single ‘nu’, it must be formed from ginomai.

Lexham Bible Dictionary:

‘Not only does the translation “only begotten” seem to contradict the obvious statements in the Old Testament about other sons of God, it sounds as though there was a time when the Son did not exist—that He had a beginning…The second part of the word μονογενής (monogenēs) does not come from the Greek verb γεννάω (gennaō), but rather the noun γένος (genos, “class, kind”).

In Johannine theology, then, Jesus is the ‘unique’ Son of God.  As many commentators have observed, John reserves the word huios (son) for Jesus alone. He refers to believers as teknon (children), as in John 1:12.

But, as applied to Jesus in the Johannne writings, ‘unique’ may not quite do it.  Peter Lewis (The Message of the Living God) suggests that the word conveys the sense that Jesus is the same ‘kind’ as God:

‘Jesus as monogenēs is the one who can say, ‘I and the Father are one.’ “Applied to Jesus as the Son of God, it will mean that he is without spiritual siblings and without equals. He is “sole born” and “peerless”. No-one else can lay claim to the title Son of God in the sense in which it applies to Christ.”‘ Quoting Murray Harris)

Harris (op. cit.) agrees that something more than uniqueness is implied in the Johannine references to Jesus as monogenēs:

‘John is emphasizing not merely the uniqueness of Jesus but primarily his being “of sole descent.” He is without spiritual siblings and without equals. He is “sole-born” and “peerless.” No one can now call him brother. No one else can lay claim to the title “Son of God” in the sense in which it applies to Christ; only he could expose his Father’s heart for all to see (John 1:18). In this connection, it is profoundly significant that in the First Epistle of John, as in the Fourth Gospel, Jesus alone is “Son of God” (huios theou, e.g., John 1:49; 3:18; 5:25; 1 John 3:8; 4:15). John never calls believers “sons of God” (huioi theou); they are called only “children of God” (tekna theou, e.g., John 1:12; 1 John 3:1–2). To express this distinction in a non-Johannine idiom, we could say that Christ’s sonship is “essential,” relating to his eternal being, while believers’ sonship is adoptive (cf. Gal 3:26, where Paul does call believers “the sons of God”—through adoption, Gal 4:5).’

2. ‘Specially beloved’?

Barclay (NDSB) says that, by the time this Gospel was written, monogenēs had come to mean both ‘unique’ and ‘specially beloved’.

Vine (Complete Expository Dictionary) notes that the equivalent word in the Heb. OT – yachid:

‘suggests the thought of the deepest affection, as in the case of the OT word yachid, variously rendered, “only one,” Gen. 22:2, 12; “only son,” Jer. 6:26; Amos 8:10; Zech. 12:10; “only beloved,” Prov. 4:3, and “darling,” Ps. 22:20; 35:17.’

MacLeod (The Person of Christ) agrees that the sense of ‘specially loved’ is never very far away from monogenēs.  In the LXX, monogenēs is used interchangeably with agapētos to translate yāḥîd.  Genesis 22:2, 12, 16 describe Isaac as a ‘beloved’ son.  The Gospels record the Father as declaring that Jesus is his ‘beloved son’.  See also Col 1:13.

3. ‘Only-begotten’?

However, it has been argued that in addition to ‘unique’ the word monogenēs also suggests Jesus’ origin in the Johannine passages in which it occurs.  It connotes ‘only-begotten’ (and not merely, ‘unique’) and does so in Jn 1:14 –

John 1:14 is especially significant: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). The problem is that the word son (Gk. huios) is not in the Greek text, which just says doxan hōs monogenous para patros. If we translate monogenēs as “only,” we end up with the nonsense phrase, “glory as of the only from the Father.” When Bible translations such as the ESV and NIV have to insert the word “Son,” Irons says, they show that monogenēs cannot mean simply “only” in this case but that the notion of being a child or being begotten was part of the meaning signified by the word monogenēs itself. By contrast, the translation “glory as of the only begotten of the Father” is a coherent idea.

(Grudem, Systematic Theology, 2nd edition, p295, summarising Charles Lee Irons)

This would be consistent with John’s well-known habit of utilising double meanings.

E.F. Harrison (EDB) agrees:

‘Though the translation “only” is lexically sound for the Johannine passages, since in all strictness “only begotten” would require monogennētos, the old rendering “only begotten” is not entirely without justification when the context in John 1:14 is considered.’

Other advocates of this view include C. K. Barrett, J. B. Bauer, F. Büchsel, R. H. Lightfoot, B. Lindars, and R. Schnackenburg.

C. B. Hoch, Jr. (ISBE, Revised Edition) cautions that:

‘An assessment of the linguistic evidence seems to indicate that “only” or “unique” may be an adequate translation for all occurrences of monogené̄s in the Johannine literature. Discussions about the origin or derivation of the Son in relationship to the Father should be conducted along theological rather than linguistic lines.’