Scripture: John 1:1-3
Date: April 10, 2011
Speaker: Sean Higgins
As I mentioned last week, the Fourth Gospel is quite different from the first three. John does not start his account with a genealogy (as does Matthew), with a birth narrative (as does Luke), or by announcing the forerunner of the Messiah (John the Baptist, as does Mark). Instead, John establishes the starting point of his gospel in eternity past, in the time before time when only God was.
John sets the gospel stage on an eternal platform and tells the gospel story, from the beginning, with its roots in God Himself. The Christ and the cross are in a much larger context than first century Palestine.
Verses 1-18 are generally referred to as the Prologue of John, an introduction before the main body of the Gospel. This section introduces us to some of the central themes that John will flesh out over the following 20 chapters. Those themes include light/darkness and life, truth, grace, Father and Son, along with the repetition of reception and rejection; in other words, not everyone believes. In the Prologue we also meet some of the key characters, including John the Baptist whose ministry and testimony begin the main body (1:19ff).
Most significantly we meet the main character even though He isn’t named until verse 17. Verses 14-18 summarize the glorious and gracious incarnated God. Verses 9-13 explain that only some men receive the incarnated God. Verses 6-8 identify a God-sent witness to the incarnated God. And verses 1-5 reveal the realities of the incarnated God—the Logos.
Most translations make a paragraph break, rightly so, between verses 5 and 6. While the concern of light caries over into verses 6-8, the subject changes from He who is the light to one who bore witness about the light. The subject, the focus, in each of the first five verses is the Logos. I struggled with the goal of getting through the whole paragraph in one shot, but the paragraph is so pregnant, perhaps with twins, so I wanted to give myself more time to care for both kids.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
Before addressing the realities of the Logos, we should talk about the word “Word.”
The Greek word for “Word”, used three times in verse 1 (and later in verse 14), is λόγος. “Word” is found in every major English translation I consulted, though variations include “Speech” (Calvin), or perhaps “message,” or inner thoughts, “reason” (see Carson, 115). λόγος is never used as a title in the Synoptic Gospels, never used by Paul, or Peter, or any other New Testament author. Even John, after verse 14 in his gospel, doesn’t use it again until Revelation 19:13. Because he wrote so late (c. AD 85) we can assume that John’s choice of vocabulary was carefully considered (and also inspired).
Logos has an OT history in “the word of God.” God’s word powerfully created; God’s word clearly communicated. That’s what words do. They reveal and they accomplish and they enable relationship. The word of God is God’s self-disclosure. The Jews would have had something in mind when they heard logos.
Logos also has a pagan, philosophical background. Logos, especially among the Stoics, referred to the principle of reason or logic by which the universe existed and by which the human soul made judgments. The Gentiles would have had something in mind, too, when they heard logos.
What stands out in John 1:1 is that the “Word” is personified. In verse 14 we’ll see that that Word is even incarnated. Neither the Jewish or Gentile background is sufficient to explain all that John intends by Logos as a title. Which, as a note for the margin of our minds, suggests that we don’t need to abandon words just because someone might misunderstand or have a preconceived notion. Use words that connect and be clear what you mean.
[Back to the Logos, don’t miss John’s description of “The Word of God” in Revelation 19:11-16.]
Verses 1-3 present four realities of the Logos. The verbs show no movement, but rather condition or state: “was,” “was,” “was,” and “was.” Even in verse 3, the verbs “were made” and “made” identify something actual and completed. John states reality without qualification or even evidence. These things are true because the Logos was.
The Logos has always been the Logos.
In the beginning was the Word,
Do these words sound familiar? Of course they do. They also begin the beginning of the Bible in the book of Genesis. “In the beginning God created” (Genesis 1:1). God’s existence requires no apology, only acknowledgment, at least in Moses’ mind, and also in John’s mind. When nothing else was, God was, and John says the Word “was” as well.
The “beginning” is not the beginning of the gospel of John, or even the beginning of the Logos’ ministry as the remainder of the paragraph and prologue demonstrate. The “beginning” is the beginning of creation, when there was no creation and when only God was.
John takes us back before the Logos became man, before the birth of baby Jesus in Bethlehem. “In the beginning was the Word.” The Logos did not come into being at the beginning; He was already. The Logos is eternal. That’s why Jesus had no hesitation telling the Jewish leaders, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58).
The Logos is “He” and not “It”.
and the Word was with God,
This phrase challenges us to move past undeveloped thinking of the Logos as impersonal reason, as if reason or logic was simply one of God’s attributes. That’s true, but it would be awkward to say “reason was with God” as if all we meant was that He is reasonable (not to mention the trouble we’d hit at verse 14).
”The Word was with God.” Even the preposition causes more consideration. πρὸς is often translated “to” or “toward” when the object is a place or thing. Only when the object is a person is it translated “with.” Otherwise there is a perfectly good preposition for “with” (σὺν). πρὸς works in relationship, as if the two (or more) persons were turned toward each other. “What is expressed is ‘not simple co-existence, but rather the idea of active relationship’” (Andreas Köstenberger, 27).
John introduces us to an eternal relationship here, a relationship he will later talk about as one between Father and Son. The Logos was before creation (chronologically) and He was before God (relationally). That’s why Jesus prayed, “Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed” (John 17:5).
The preexistent, personal Word is God.
and the Word was God.
Men go mad here if they haven’t already. The philosophers choke on the Logos as personal; they prefer their ‘logos’ as an idea, perhaps because submitting to an idea is more appealing. Religious people (such as Jews, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Muslims) choke on the Logos as God, perhaps because submitting to ‘god’ is more appealing than submitting to someone with a face.
”Was with God” and “was God” works for schizophrenics and Trinitarians. How can the Logos be distinct from God and also be God? The doctrine of the Trinity—though only two are mentioned at the moment—allows for it, though it still can’t fully explain it to finite minds.
The “Word was God.” Again, this is stated as a matter of fact, of reality. John sets us up for the Word becoming flesh in verse 14. The Logos is the perfect revelation of God, which is why Jesus could say “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). The Logos embodies God (cf. “For in him the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily” - Colossians 2:9).
Verse 2 summarizes the first two points with the exact same phrases in one sentence.
He was in the beginning with God.
It’s almost as if the comment that the Logos was God was enough to derail the reader’s thoughts only one verse into the gospel. The repetition makes the reality unavoidable.
Verse 3 moves from the reality of the person or attributes of the Logos to a significant act of the Logos: creation. John states it positively and then negatively.
All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
The positive half of the statement emphasizes that the creative work of the Logos was exhaustive , “all things were made through him.” Before creation there was nothing. He did the creating, so anything and everything that exists was made by Him.
The second half states it in the negative and emphasizes that the creative work of the Logos was also exclusive , “without him was not anything made that was made.” Even more specific, “not even one of the made things.” The Logos existed, related, and created.
Kids, when your parents ask you where something comes from, you are correct to say, “God.” You are also correct to say, “the Logos,” Jesus.
Before we finish, consider the effect of John’s revelation of the Logos on our apologetics and our adoration.
Apologetics is the defense (apology) of the faith. Verses 1-3 in John chapter one have been at the center of controversy since Jesus came. Particularly, those who deny that Jesus is the Logos who is God.
Most famously, Arius denied that the Logos was God and claimed, “There was once when he was not” (quoted in Carson, 114). He claimed that the Logos was a created being, a supreme being, but not God. We meet the relatives of Arius today in Jehovah’s Witnesses and any who deny full deity to Jesus. [For a great read about Athanasius’ defense of the deity of Christ, read or listen to Piper’s biography of Athanasius.]
How might we defend the deity of Christ? First, verse 3 states the reality that the Logos created all the made things and that no made thing was made without Him. Either that is untrue, and therefore, we might as well give up on verses 1 and 2 being true, or it is is true and therefore, the Logos couldn’t have been made; He was. John declares the Word was God and that the Word did what only God can do.
Second, in the broad context John’s entire gospel, the Logos claimed for Himself that He was God and that’s exactly why the religious leaders wanted to kill Him. He claimed to be God, they claimed His claim was blasphemy. “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God” (John 10:33). Jesus didn’t claim a second tier existence between God and man; He claimed to be both.
Third, in the grammatical/Greek context, the lack of a definite article helps rather than hinders us. Jehovah’s Witnesses point out that verse one says “the Word was God” or “a God,” not “the” God. But Greek doesn’t require a definite article for something to be definite. For example, even in chapter one, John speaks about “the King of Israel” (v.49), and though “King” doesn’t have a “the” in Greek, there was only one.
Not only that, but if John would have said “the Logos was the God” we would have trouble with any distinction between God the Father, God the Logos, and later, God the Spirit. The anarthrous θεὸς stresses that the Logos shared the essence of the Father but allows for a distinct person from the Father; they shared a unity of nature but diversity in person.
One other comment more generally about apologetics. We do not need to abandon truth claims in order to persuade men to truth. In other words, we ought not to be afraid of telling men about reality “downhill.” The realities of the Logos need no introduction; they are the introduction. The gospel sits on realities, and we do ourselves—and the Logos—no favors by acting as if they must be proven first. John provides evidence through the rest of the gospel, but the gospel only makes sense in light of the Logos.
We can be confident that worship of the Logos—worship of Jesus—is not blasphemy because the Logos—Jesus—is God.
We can also be confident that worship of God that does not include worship of the Logos—Jesus—is blasphemous because He is God. Worship without the Logos is partial worship; it rejects God’s supreme revelation of Himself.
There is no eternal life apart from Jesus. In Him was life according to the next verse, and our life, along with our worship, will be partial apart from Him.
John begins his gospel account in eternity, where a Triune God not only existed, but expressed Himself through creation of life by the Word. That same word took on flesh so that we could have eternal life by believing in Him.