A. The Writings of St. John.
John i. 1-14. Why the higher nature of Christ is called ὁ λόγος and why John used that designation, are different questions. As the word λόγος does not occur in Scripture in the sense of reason, it should be taken in its ordinary meaning. The question why the Son is called “The Word” may be answered by saying that the term expresses both his nature and his office. The word is that which reveals. The Son is the εἰκών and ἀπαύγασμα of God, and therefore his word. It is his office to make God known to his creatures. No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. The Son, therefore, as the revealer of God, is the Word. The reason why John selected this designation of the divine nature of Christ, is not so easy to determine. It may indeed be said that there is ground for the use of the term in the usage of the Old Testament and of the Jews who were contemporaries with the Apostle. In the Hebrew Scriptures the manifested Jehovah is called the Word of God, and to Him individual subsistence and divine perfections are ascribed. (Ps. xxxiii. 6; cxix. 89; Is. xl. 8; Ps. cvii. 20; cxlvii. 18.) This is more frequently done in the apocryphal books and in the Targums. It was not therefore an unusual or unknown term introduced by the Apostle John. Still as he only, of the New Testament writers, thus employs the word, there must have been some special reason for his doing so. That reason may have been to counteract the erroneous views concerning the nature of God and his Word, which had begun to prevail, and which had some support from the doctrines of Philo and other Alexandrian Jews. It is, however, of less importance to determine why John calls the Son λόγος, than to ascertain what he teaches concerning Him. He does teach (1.) That He is eternal. He was in the beginning; i.e.,was before the creation; before the foundation of the world; before the world was. Compare Prov. viii. 23; John xvii. 5, 24; Eph. i. 4. These are all Scriptural forms of expressing the idea of eternity. The Word then was(ἦν), He did not begin to be but already was. The ἦν of ver. 1 stands opposed to ἐγένετο ver. 14. “He wasthe Word, and becameflesh.” (2.) The eternal Word existed in intimate union with God. “The Word was with God;” as Wisdom is said to have been with Him in the beginning. (Prov. viii. 30; John i. 18.) (3.) He was God. The word θεός clearly the predicate, as it is without the article (compare John iv. 24, πνεῦμα ὁ θεός, God is a Spirit), and because λόγος is the subject in the whole context. That θεός is neither to be taken for θεῖος, nor rendered *a God,*is plain from what is immediately said of the λόγος in the following verses, and from the analogy of Scripture, which proves that the λόγος is θεός the highest sense of the word. In this connection ὁ θεὸς ἦν ὸ λόγος would be equivalent to saying, “The Son is the Father.” Θεός without the article occurs frequently in the New Testament when it refers to the supreme God. (4.) The λόγος is the creator of all things. All things were made by Him. δι᾽ αὐτοῦ. The διὰ. here does not necessarily express subordinate instrumentality. All things are said to be διὰ θεοῦ as well as ἐκ θεοῦ. The Father operates through the Son and the Son through the Spirit. All that the preposition indicates is subordination as to the mode of operation, which is elsewhere taught in relation to the persons of the Trinity. That all creatures owe their being to the Word, is made the more prominent by saying, “Without him was not anything made that was made;” πᾶν ὁ γέγονεν is through Him. He therefore cannot be a creature. He was not only before all creatures, but everything created was by Him caused to be. (5.) The λόγος is self-existent. He is underived. “In him was life.” This is true only of God. The Godhead subsisting in the Father, Word, and Spirit, alone is self-existent, having life in itself. (6.) The life of the Word “is the light of men.” Having life in Himself, the Word is the source of life in all that lives, and especially of the intellectual and spiritual life of man; and therefore He is said to be the light of men; *i.e.,*the source of intellectual life and knowledge in all their forms. (7.) The λόγος, as the true or real light, shineth in darkness (ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ = ἐν τοῖς ἐσκοτισμένοις) in the midst of a world alienated from God. The men of the world, the children of darkness, do not comprehend the light; they do not recognize the Word as God, the creator of all things, and the source of life and knowledge. To those who do thus recognize Him, He gives power to become the sons of God, that is, He raises them to the dignity and blessedness of God’s children. (8.) This Word became flesh that is, became a man. This use of the word fleshis explained by such passages as 1 Tim. iii. 16; Heb. ii. 14; Rom. viii. 3, in connection with Luke i. 35; Gal. iv. 4; Phil. ii. 7. As to the glory of the incarnate λόγος, the Apostle says of himself and of his fellow disciples, “We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father”; such as could belong to none other than to Him who is the eternal Son of God, consubstantial with the Father.