This is he of whom I said, 'After me comes a man who is preferred before me, for he was before me.'
Powerful declaration of the deity of Jesus Christ. So plain, so straight, so forthright, that even a little child in reading it could not be confused. It would take a Jehovah Witness to confuse this passage of scripture. And they did, by the insertion of an article "the". "And the Word was a God." But they had to create something that doesn't exist in the original language in order to twist this whole thing around. John is starting out with the plain declaration that Jesus, the Word, is God. Just as straightforward, forthright as can be declared.