"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (John 1:1).
John begins his gospel with a proclamation of Christ’s divinity by using the highly abstract term Word or Logos. In Greek philosophy, logos meant logic or reason. Philosophers such as Philo used the word in various ways: sometimes as a divine attribute, sometimes as a bridge between God and the world, but not identical to God, and sometimes as an abstract force that brought harmony and order to the universe. Some have thus reasoned that John used this term as the Greeks used it, but this is not the case. While the Gentiles to whom he was writing would have been familiar with the term, “the Word” rooted not in Greek but in Semitic thought, reaching back into the Old Testament Scriptures to derive its meaning. The Old Testament presents the Word of God as a Person: “By the Word of the LORD were the heavens made” (Ps. 33:6). How the Word made the heavens is elaborated in Proverbs. 8:27–30: “When He established the heavens, I was there … Then I was by Him, as master workman.…” This was the concept John wanted to convey when he used the term Logos.
As the Word of God, Christ is not only creative but He expresses or reflects the mind of God. He also reveals God to man. This is what a word does—it gives expression to an inner thought and reveals this thought to others. As you can see, there is a dimension to the use of the word that is similar to Greek use, but we would err greatly if we assumed that this was John’s main purpose in using the designation. His goal is much higher and is derived from the Old Testament where the Word is given personal and divine distinctiveness.
In case his readers missed the point, John declared Christ’s divinity by saying, “the Word was God.” But because God has no definite article before it in the Greek, some have translated the verse as “the Word was a god.” This, however, is not faithful to Greek grammar (or to the monotheism of Scripture). God does not have a definite article because it has been placed first in the sentence for emphasis. It is used in this same way elsewhere in the New Testament where there is no dispute over the meaning. John was obviously emphasizing the divinity of the Word.
Read John 1:1–17. What do you learn about Christ as the Word from this passage? How is the power and personal distinctiveness of Christ revealed in these verses? Read Rev. 19:11–16. How is Christ represented as the “Word” in this passage? What divine attributes does He possess in both these passages?
