Shouldn’t the “word” be better understood as THE LOGOS rather than the corporeal manifestation of God’s message; idea; word. That seems to somewhat relegate Christ to a lesser position in the Trinity.
Answer:
The word translated “Word” in English, from John 1:1 and 1:14 is actually the Greek word Logos. This word was widely used in the first century in different contexts and had a range of meanings. The Stoics understood it to be the rational principle by which everything exists. Others think that John borrowed from Philo, the first-century Jewish follower of Plato, who saw logos as the real or phenomenal world, or the ideal man, the primal man. More generally, logos can refer to inner thought, reason or science. Some Christian theologians, such as Gordon Clark, advocate translating the word as ‘reason’ or ‘logic’ to emphasize the rational nature of God.
In the Old Testament, ‘the word’ (Hebrew dabar) is related to God’s powerful activity in creation, revelation, and deliverance. It the Lord is said to speak to the prophet Isaiah, it is sometimes expressed as ‘the word of the Lord came to Isaiah’ (Isaiah 38:4). It can also refer to the wisdom of God (Proverbs 8:22). In short, God’s ‘Word’ in the Old Testament is his powerful self-expression in creation, revelation, and salvation, which makes it an apt word to describe God’s ultimate self-disclosure to humanity, his Son Jesus Christ.
While all this background enriches our understanding of logos, ultimately, what the word meant is determined by the literary context of the book of John. This Word is described as being ‘in the beginning’, and ‘with God’, and yet also ‘was God’ (John 1:1). This word is said to be the ‘true light that enlightens everyone’ (John 1:9), that has ‘became flesh and dwelt among us’ (John 1:14), and that makes God known to us (John 1:18). Hence, saying that the logos is the self-expression of God is appropriate, and we must go on to insist that this self-expression comes as a person, not merely just a principle, and that it is both with God and also God himself, and not lesser than God. Elsewhere in the book of John, Jesus makes statements about himself that make him equal and not lesser to God (e.g. John 5:17-18, 8:58-59, 10:32-33, 14:1, 20:27-29).
Leave a Comment