Commenting on the theologically-problematic nature of how μονογενὴς θεὸς in John 1:18 is rendered in many modern translations of the Bible, Trinitarian apologist Charles Lee Irons noted the following in a recent work on the doctrine of "Eternal Generation":
Interestingly, the NIV adopts the μονογενὴς θεὸς reading, and yet, as in verse 14, it inserts the notion of “Son” in its rendering: “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him know.” The NIV renders monogenēs as “the one and only Son” and takes thoes in apposition to it, “who is himself God.” Again, as we saw in verse 14, the context is pushing the translators to recognize that the concept of sonship is present in the pregnant word monogenēs.
By contrast, the ESV avoids inserting the word “Son,” but the resulting translation is, in my view, extremely problematic: “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” Presumably the ESV translation committee was attracted to what seemed to them a powerful affirmation of the deity of Christ. Not only is the predicate “God” attributed to him (as in John 1:1), but even more powerfully, the predicate “the only God.” There is only one true and living God, Jesus is therefore not a lesser divine being distinct from the only God; he is the only God.
However, there are three problems with the ESV’s handling o that verse. In my view, the problems are so serious that they are fatal. First, perhaps without fully realizing it, the ESV translators have removed this one occurrence of monogenēs out of the frame of reference of the other four Johannine occurrences, in all of which monogenēs is used in reference to the uniqueness of the person of the Son: “the only Son from the Father” (John 1:14 ESV), “his only Son” (John 3:16; 1 John 4:9 ESV), or “the only Son of God” (John 3:18 ESV). On the ESV’s rendering of John 1:18 (“the only God”), the adjective “only” is an attributive modifying God (generic deity) rather than the Son.
The second problem with the ESV’s translation of John 1:18 is that it could easily be misused as a proof text for modalistic Monarchianism or the “Jesus only” heresy of Oneness Pentecostalism. The New Testament nowhere else calls Jesus “the only God” or “the one true God.” Instead, it consistently calls him “the Son of [the one true] God.” Of course, that means he is fully divine, since the Son is everything the Father is as to his essential nature. But he is fully divine, not because he just is the on God but because he is the one God’s eternal Son.
Third, the ESV’s rendering produces an unintended result. Here is the ESV again: “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” If “the only God” is a person who is “at the Father’s side,” then “the only God” is distinct from the Father. That seems to place the Father outside of “the only God.” The point of the affirmation that Jesus is “the only God” is to make clear that he is fully divine. But no sooner has the ESV put the Son within the ontological deity than it proceeds (unwittingly, no doubt) to place the Father outside of it.
It would seem that these two things—translating monogenēs as “only” and adopting the μονογενὴς θεὸς reading at John 1:18—do not comport with one another. Interpreters and translators have to die themselves up in pretzels in order to harmonize them. It is better to choose one or the other. If interpreters are convinced that monogenēs means “only” rather than “only begotten,” then they ought to follow the RS and adopt the Majority reading, ὁ μονογενὴς υἱός, to maintain the inner coherence and logic of the verse: “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.” On the other hand, if we are convinced (as I am) that μονογενὴς θεὸς is the earliest and best reading, then the only way to make coherent sense of the text is to take monogenēs in the traditional sense: “No one has seen God at any time, the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him” (NASB). (Charles Lee Irons, “A Lexical Defense of the Johannine ‘Only Begotten’” in Fred Sanders and Scott R. Swain, eds. Retrieving Eternal Generation [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2017], 98-116, here, pp.114-15, bold added for emphasis)
On p. 115 n. 54, Irons notes:
The ESV provides an alternate rendering in a footnote: “No one has ever seen God, the only One, who is God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.” In one sense, this construction, which takes monogenēs as a substantive (“the only One”), and θεος in apposition to it, is an improvement insofar as it keeps monogenēs as an attribute of the Son (consistent with the rest of Johannine usage) rather than of generic deity. However, in this case, the attempt to hold on to the premise that monogenēs means “only” and not “only begotten” becomes even less tenable, for the postulated christological title, “the only One,” is without example elsewhere in the New Testament and has no definite significance.
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