Who is the Word?

John 1:1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John chapter one has been difficult for many people because they read into the Word of God the theology they have been taught rather than reading what is written and believing God's Word. Once you understand that the Word of God means what it says and says what it means - "the Word" is understood as exactly what it says: "the Word" is quite simply God's Word. In studying this verse I will examine each phrase to see the greatness of God's declaration.


1) In the beginning was the Word

Genesis 1:1
In the beginning God . . .

Genesis 1:3
And God said . . .

Hebrews 11:3
Through faith [believing] we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

The Greek word translated "the Word" in John 1:1 is the word, logos. Logos can be defined as an outward expression of an inward thought. It is the spoken word. It is the revealed word. It is God's communication to us of His thoughts. In the beginning was the Word. In the beginning there was God. God is a spirit (invisible) according to John 4:24. God makes Himself known to man via His Word. That is Logos.


2) and the Word was with God,

The Word [logos] was with God in the beginning. Here the Word is referred to as with God yet is presented distinctly independent of God. That Word which God would reveal to man was with God in God's foreknowledge. It was "in the mind of God." God's Word is presented independently to personify the Word. Giving an inanimate object (the Word) the characteristics or voice of a person is a figure of speech.

Proverbs 8:1,14, 22-31
Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice? . . . Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am understanding; I have strength . . . The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth: While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth: When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep: When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth: Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men.

The logos, (the thoughts, intents, wisdom, understanding, etc. that God was to reveal to man), was with God in the beginning in God's foreknowledge. He knew when he made the earth for man that man would sin. He knew that He would beget a son, Jesus Christ, to redeem man. He knew that Jesus Christ would do His Will and speak His Word. He knew that you and I would believe His Word and get born again. He knows our end as well as our beginning. The Word of God was with God in His foreknowledge. The Word that later would be revealed by prophets and angels, by His written Word - the Bible, and by His son the Lord Jesus Christ who always spoke God's Word was with God in the beginning.


3) and the Word was God.

God is His Word just as I am my word. You can not know me except by my words. You read what I have written. You talk to me and hear my words and then you know me. When God's Word is spoken it is just as if God were speaking. God's Word makes known God.

John 1:18
No man hath seen God at any time: the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

The word "declared" means to make known. Jesus Christ made known God by making known God's Word to man. You could see Jesus Christ. Yet no man hath seen God AT ANY TIME. Jesus Christ was not God. But Jesus Christ made known God. When you hear God's Word, no matter who speaks it, it makes known God to you because God is His Word. The reason people have such difficulty separating the Lord Jesus Christ from God is because Jesus always spoke God's Word. Jesus Christ was continually making known God to man. Everything he did was designed to reveal God. Jesus Christ so manifested God to man that even today people look at him and see God.

John 17:8
For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.

John 10:30-36
I and my Father are one. Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God. Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?

Jesus did not say that he was God. Jesus Christ made known God. Jesus Christ declared that those who spoke God's Word were referred to as gods (or as God) because they made known God to man. God sent Jesus Christ just as he had sent the prophets in the Old Testament to make known His Word. Those who spoke God's Word were referred to as God because the Word they were speaking was a communication of God to man. Jesus Christ was not God but Jesus Christ was one with God because he always spoke God's Word and thus made known God. You cannot see God (No man hath seen God at any time); but you can see His Word revealed and recognize it as a declaration of God.

Judges 13:2-3,6, 19-22
And there was a certain man of Zorah, of the family of the Danites, whose name was Manoah; and his wife was barren, and bare not. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto the woman, and said unto her, Behold now, thou art barren, and bearest not: but thou shalt conceive, and bear a son . . . Then the woman came and told her husband, saying, A man of God came unto me, and his countenance was like the countenance of an angel of God, very terrible: but I asked him not whence he was, neither told me his name: . . .So Manoah took a kid with a meat offering, and offered it upon a rock unto the Lord: and the angel did wondrously; and Manoah and his wife looked on. For it came to pass, when the flame went up toward heaven from off the altar, that the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame of the altar. And Manoah and his wife looked on it, and fell on their faces to the ground. But the angel of the Lord did no more appear to Manoah and to his wife. Then Manoah knew that he was an angel of the Lord. and Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God.

Manoah and his wife saw an angel that appeared as a man. The angel spoke God's Word to them and then ascended in the flame of the altar. The Word declares in verse 21 that Manoah knew that the man was an angel yet Manoah declared that they had seen God. They knew that the angel was not God, but they recognized that the Word he had declared to them was God's Word. God is His Word.

Exodus 3:1-6
Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.

God's Word was spoken to Moses from an angel out of the midst of a burning bush. Moses was afraid to look upon God. What he was looking at was a burning bush! Whenever God's Word is revealed to man that place is holy ground for God is being made known. We must recognize the source of that Word - GOD, and not focus on the vehicle of delivery. God is His Word.

John 1:14
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

Jesus Christ is here referred to as the Word; not because he was God but because he was sent to make known God.

I John 4:9-12
In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.

Jesus Christ was sent from God, spoke God's Word and was the payment for our sins. All this has been accomplished yet the Word of God still says NO MAN HATH SEEN GOD AT ANY TIME. When we speak God's Word today we also make known God. If people are to see God they must have His Word revealed to them for God is His Word.


Cortright Fellowship
URL http://www.cortright.org/logos.htm
© Copyright July 1997 Michael Cortright