Jesus is known as Logos – the Word of God. What is the Word?
Vines Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words states the following: (I) the expression of thought,” not the mere name of an object, (a) as embodying a conception or idea, (b) a saying or statement, (2) the phrase ”the word of the Lord,” i.e., the revealed will of God… it is the message from the Lord, delivered with His authority and made effective by His power
If the word is God, so is the opposite: God is the word. God is also wisdom. At this point, you should be careful when combining the meanings of words. God is also love, is it not? However, I do not think it is right to say that love is God. God is also light. But let’s not say that light is God.
In the original Greek text is not logos-word written with a capital letter; all the words were written without punctuation marks and all in either uppercase or all lowercase letters.
Jhn 1:14 ”The Word [logos λόγος] became flesh, and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth”. – Jesus proclaimed the Word of God and the Gospel of the Kingdom of God and carried out the will of God. Therefore, it is correct to say that the Word became flesh, but it does not mean that Jesus would have originally been the same as the word not to mention that he was God.
Rev 1:2 who [John] bare witness of the word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, even of all things that he saw.
Rev 20:4 Then I saw thrones, and those who sat on them were given authority to judge. I also saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or hands. They came back to life and ruled with Christ for a thousand years. – It should be noted that both of the two verses have kept separate the concepts of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ with the word.
According to the Strong’s lexicon, the word logos is defined as follows: λόγος lógos, log’-os; from G3004; something said (including the thought); by implication, a topic (subject of discourse), also reasoning (the mental faculty) or motive; by extension, a computation; especially, (with the article in John) the Divine Expression (i.e. Christ):—account, cause, communication, concerning, doctrine, fame, have to do, intent, matter, mouth, preaching, question, reason, reckon, remove, say(-ing), shew, speaker, speech, talk, thing, none of these things move me, tidings, treatise, utterance, word, work.
The Greek philosophers of the first centuries, however, began to give logos a divine meaning. As a result of their influence, the Catholic synod then exalted Jesus to God and, at a later stage, the Holy Spirit. This was how the doctrine of the triune God was formed. For Jesus, it was explained in Chalcedon’s synod that Jesus is both perfect God and perfect man.
For John, the word of God means the revealed will of God (Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words). For instance 2 Kings 3:12 … “The word of the LORD is with him.” This means: God has informed him of his will.
In the beginning was the Word – but what does the Word actually mean? Does it mean that the Word is Jesus, or the Word is God’s message to people? Should it be written with a capital first letter? In the Bible, the word is written with a capital initial letter, but in the original text, all words are written in the same type, either in capital letters or just small ones. The word logos is manifested in many verses of the New Testament, but considering the context, it cannot in any way signify Jesus.
1 Jhn 1:1-3 That which was from the beginning, that which we have heard, that which we have seen with our eyes, that which we saw, and our hands touched, concerning the Word of life — and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us —3 What we have seen and heard we declare to you so that you, too, can have fellowship with us. Now, this fellowship of ours is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.
The eternal life was with the Father. The Word of Life means precisely this or word that brings us eternal life. The Word of Life or God’s plan of salvation was with God from the beginning. When John writes that the Word was with God, he means that the word (message, plan) was in God’s mind. The New American Bible defines the word “word” (logos) as follows: Was thought to be a reality lodging within the person, and that it goes out from that person when spoken or written and then lodges within the person to whom it is directed.
1 Jhn 2:7 Brothers, I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning.
Mat 13: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and doesn’t understand it, the evil one comes, and snatches away that which has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown by the roadside (Jesus’ parable of the sower).
2 Pet 3:5 But they deliberately ignore the fact that long ago the heavens existed and the earth was formed by God’s word out of water and with water,
Heb 1:1 God, having in the past spoken to the fathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 has at the end of these days spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds [the worlds, in Greek αἰών aiōn, ages. Green’s literal: ”He indeed made the ages”].
In the beginning was the Word means that in the beginning was the plan of God, the will of God to create the world that he carried out. In the OT times, God spoke to people through the prophets, but only in the last days through his Son. This I think, shows that Jesus was not the Word at the beginning of time.
The Word was with God means that God’s plan or his will was in his mind.
The Word was God
Prov 3:19 “The LORD by wisdom founded the earth, by understanding He established the heavens. 20 By His knowledge the deeps were broken up and the skies drip with dew. Rev 4:11 Worthy are you, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for you created all things, and because of your will they existed, and were created.”
God created the world with his word. Isaiah, on the other hand, says that God created the world alone. Jesus Christ did not create the universe, but He has created the new world to come. Yes, Jesus became God’s Word with His activity on earth.
