Logos - The Living Word

Jesus is the Word become flesh through whom the glory of God is revealed, the same Word by which God created all things.

The Gospel of John identifies Jesus as the ‘Logos’, the “Word” through which God made all things. This theme is prominent in John’s Gospel. It builds on sayings from the Hebrew Bible that describe how God created the “Heavens and the Earth,” and especially life, through His spoken Word. Jesus of Nazareth is the ultimate expression of that Word spoken by the Living and Life-Giving God.

Jesus reflected the truth, grace, and nature of God in his words and through his righteous deeds. Though put to death by his enemies, his Father vindicated him by raising him from the dead and installing him as the Lord who gives Everlasting Life and the Gift of the Spirit to his people.

[Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash]

Jesus Christ is thus the Living and Life-Giving Word of God.  What is truly revolutionary in the Gospel of John is the claim that this “Word became flesh” in Jesus, a man from the insignificant village of Nazareth. As the Scriptures declare:

• “By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth <…> For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast” - (Psalm 33:6-9).

• “God formed the man from dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature” – (Genesis 2:7).

• “By faith, we understand the ages to have been fitted together by the word of God, to the end that, not out of things appearing should that which is seen have come into existence” – (Hebrews 11:3).

The opening clause of John’s Gospel echoes the first words of Genesis – “In the beginning.” Likewise, the Book of Genesis declares: “In the beginning, God said, Let there be light, and there was light,” and so the Gospel of John opens with a similar statement:

• “In the beginning, all things were made through him <…> In him was life, and the life was the light of men.”

God created all things through His spoken “Word.” In the Gospel of John, we meet this “Word” face-to-face in the flesh and blood man from Nazareth. “In him, the Word became flesh,” thereby revealing the glory and nature of the God of Creation and Life for all men to see.

The Gospel of John uses the term “flesh” or ‘sarx’ (Greek) in the same way as the Hebrew Bible to refer to men in their weakened and mortal state. Jesus was a genuine human being who participated in the same mortality as the rest of us, only without sin. In the truest sense, he is the ‘Logos’, the Word of God, and we find this idea expressed in several ways by the New Testament authors. For example:

• “Since the children are partners in flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner partook of the same, that through death, he might bring to nothing him that had the power of death, that is, the Devil, and might deliver all them who through the fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage <…> Wherefore, it was necessary for him in all things to be made like his brethren that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God” – (Hebrews 2:14-18).

• “For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that has been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” - (Hebrews 4:15).

• “But he poured himself out, taking the form of a slave, coming to be in men’s likeness, and in fashion, being found as a man, he humbled himself, becoming obedient as far as death, yea, death upon a cross” - (Philippians 2:7-8).

The “words” spoken by Jesus are living and Life-Giving since they determine whether a man receives everlasting life. He was not just another philosopher or religious leader. In his teachings and actions, men heard and saw the creative “Word of God” in action. Jesus was and remains the ultimate expression of the Father. Just as God “quickens” or “makes alive,” so “the Son makes alive whom he wills,” imparting life where there was none.

THE LIFE-GIVING WORD

Hence, the words of Jesus are Life-Giving, a theme developed in John’s Gospel. For example:

• “For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so, the Son also gives life to whom he will <…> I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, even so, He gave to the Son also to have life in himself” – (John 5:21-26).

• “I am the light of the world. He that follows me will not walk in the darkness, but he will have the light of the life” – (John 8:12).

• “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, even though he dies, he will live. And whoever lives and believes in me will never die” – (John 11:25-26).

Those who heed his words receive everlasting life. As Jesus declared, “He who hears my word and believes in Him who sent me, he has everlasting life and has passed from death to life.” Every man who “keeps my word will not see death,” and those who are his true disciples will “abide in his word” - (John 5:24, 5:38, 8:31, 51).

The ‘Logos’, “Word made flesh,” is “full of grace and truth.” Not just more truth or the reaffirmation of the Mosaic Law. The Law was “given through Moses, however, grace and truth came to be through Jesus” – (John 1:17-18).

The fullness of God is revealed through and by His Son, Jesus of Nazareth, and God cannot be known apart from him. “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me <…> From henceforth, you know Him and have seen Him.” Thus, the words of Christ impart life to all men who will hear and receive them - (John 14:6-7).

God is manifested fully in Christ’s life, words, and concrete acts of mercy. If anyone has seen or heard the Son of God, he has seen his Father. Only in Jesus can we begin to understand the nature of the Living God who created all things.

There is no third way. All that God did in the past was in preparation for His complete revelation in His Son, the Living and Life-Giving Word. As Paul wrote to the Colossians, Jesus is the one in whom “all the fullness dwells bodily.” He truly is the Word of Life.

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SEE ALSO:

• The Salvation of Yahweh - (Jesus means ‘Yahweh saves.’ In this Man of Nazareth, the Salvation promised by the God of Abraham and Israel has arrived for all men)

• The Royal Servant - (Following his baptism in the Jordan River, the Voice from Heaven identified Jesus as the Son of God and the Servant of the LORD)

• Yea and Amen in Jesus - (The promises of the Hebrew Bible are fulfilled in the Son of God and Messiah of Israel, Jesus of Nazareth, period)

• Revealing the Unseen God - (The fullness, grace, and truth of God are found in the Word made Flesh, Jesus of Nazareth, who alone has seen the unseen God – John 1:14-18)