logos – Written Exposition

FATHER AND SON

In 1:14 the glory of Jesus is described as ‘the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father.’ The major claim in this Gospel is that that Jesus came from and returned to God.
This claim is so important that those who reject the son do not honour and obey the Father who sent him. Those who believe in Jesus believe in the one who sent him (12:44). On this theme the Prologue makes a fundamental statement (1:18);

‘No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.’

The ‘only-begotten son’ (KJV) has seen God since only he was pre-existent with the Father before the creation of the world. This experience of seeing the Father only belongs to the One who has come from God – the incarnate Logos (3:11; 3:32; 5:37; 7:29; 8:42; 16:28).

The relationship between the Father and the Son is characterized by love (3:35; 5:20; 15:9; 17:24) and the intimacy is such that the Father continues to be present with the Son while he is on earth (8:29; 16:32). The pre-existent relationship is so close that it is described as a dwelling of one within the other (10:38; 14:10; 17:21) but the subordination of the son to the Father is emphasized. The son is viewed as having been sent on a mission initiated by the Father, and is therefore accountable to him (3:17; 4:34; 5:23; 6:38; 7:28; 8:29, 12:44, 14:24). He is dependent on and obedient to the Father who gives him things (3:34; 5:22, 26, 27, 36; 17:24; 12:49; 17:8; 18:11), and people (6:37, 17:6). The son says that he can do nothing on his own initiative but only as instructed by his Father. (5:19, 30; 8:28). Lincoln (2005, p.65) comments:

‘However, the language of dependency of the Son on the Father- ‘the Son can do nothing on his own’- stresses not so much the subordination of the former to the latter as the total alignment of the wills and activities of the two (cf. 5:19,30; 8:28; 12:59-50).’

The paradox that is developed throughout John’s Gospel is that while the Son is subordinate to the Father, it is this that makes him equal with the Father, not just equal but truly one with the Father. Jesus applies two interesting titles to himself in the Gospel. The first is ‘Son of Man’ (1:51; 3:13-14; 5:27; 6:27, 53, 62; 8:28; 12:23; 13:31), the second is the ‘Son’ or ‘Son of God’ (1:14, 34, 49; 3:16-18; 5:19-26; 8:36; 9:35; 10:36; 11:27; 17:1; 19:7; 20:31). The title “Son of God” connected Jesus with the being of God himself. He is God and he is with God. He is equal to God but also dependent on God. As son he does only what the Father wants him to do and only speaks what he hears from the Father. As Logos he is the expression of God but he does not point to himself, only to his Father. As Son he reveals God and enables human beings to have a relationship with God.

THE SUPERIORITY OF THE REVELATION IN CHRIST TO THAT ON WHICH JUDAISM IS BASED

The Gospel of John is firmly grounded on the Old Testament. The connection between Moses and Jesus is stated towards the end of the Prologue (1:16-18):

‘From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.’

Lincoln (2005, p.75) aptly sums up the implications of these verses:

‘In the prologue not only is the grace and truth previously associated with the glory of Yahweh in the covenant with Moses (cf. Exod. 34.6) now associated with the glory of the incarnate Logos (1.14), but a contrast can also be made between the two – ‘the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came into being through Jesus Christ’ (1.17). This is not a denial that before the coming of the Logos the law was previously an expression of Yahweh’s grace and truth. It is rather an assertion on the part of believers in Jesus that now they have seen the fullness of grace and truth in the Logos’s glory, these qualities need no longer be sought in the law.’

The Prologue thus ends as it began; with a statement of the deity of Christ. Verses 1 and 18 mirror one another as in each the Son is called ‘God’, is viewed as the expression (logos) or revealer of God and is described as being intimate with God (‘with God’ and ‘at the Father’s side’).

CONCLUSION

Most of these main themes and leading ideas in the Prologue continue throughout the Fourth Gospel but ‘Logos’, the key term in the Prologue, does not appear (as a Christological title). The Prologue contains the substance of the Gospel, which explains the religious significance of Jesus. He is the pre-existent Logos, the source of existence, life and light, who became a human being and lived on earth. He was witnessed to by John the Baptist, was generally rejected by his own people but was received by some, to whom he gave authority to become God’s children. God previously revealed himself in a limited way in the law, but the Logos, Jesus Christ, was the ultimate self-expression of God.

(1) THEMES IN THE PROLOGUE TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL.

(2) THEMES IN THE PROLOGUE TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL.

(3) THEMES IN THE PROLOGUE TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL.

(4) THEMES IN THE PROLOGUE TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL.

(6) THEMES IN THE PROLOGUE TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL.

Ngewa (2003, p.10) says of the background to Logos:

‘If Semitic, then the main idea is that God communicated himself through Jesus Christ. If the background is Greek, the central idea is that Jesus holds things together. Neither of these ideas is excluded in what John says about Jesus in this passage. ‘

In the Prologue the author presents three views of the Logos:

1) In verse one he presents the Logos as being with God and within this expresses three important ideas.

– The eternal existence of the Logos (‘In the beginning was the word’).

– The eternal relationship of the Logos (‘with God’).

– The eternal status of the Logos (‘was God’).

The Logos exists before creation, enjoys a special, intimate relationship with God and in his very nature is God. The writer is thus claiming that Jesus who lived on earth was in fact the eternal Word, God himself. The idea is repeated in verse two, emphasizing the point.

2) In verse three he talks about the Logos and Creation and emphasises the divinity of the Word by stating that he was God’s agent in creation . This is put both positively (‘Through him all things were made’) and negatively (‘without him nothing was made that has been made.’).

3) In verses ten to fourteen he speaks of the Logos in the world and deals with the rejection of the Logos (1:10-11), the new birth of those who accept him (1:12-13) and with the Incarnation (1:14).

The word ‘logos’ (word) is employed thirty-nine times in John’s Gospel but it is only in the Prologue, where it occurs four times, that ‘logos’ is used as a Christological title. The term ‘Logos’ is never again applied to Jesus in John’s Gospel. Jesus later identifies himself as ‘Light’ (Jn 8:12; 9:5), as ‘Son’ (Jn 5:19-24), and as ‘Life’ (Jn 11:25) etc. but never says ‘I am the Word.”

This is because from chapter 1:14 on, he is no longer called ‘the logos’ but ‘Jesus’ Jesus and ‘the logos’ are one and the same; ‘the logos’ is the pre-existent Christ.

Christ’s pre-existence is not only mentioned in the Prologue but also on several occasions throughout the Gospel of John there are references to his life before Creation. He speaks of himself as having ‘come down from heaven’ (3:13; 3:31; 6:33; 6:38; 6:62). He says: ‘before Abraham was born, I am!’ in 8:58 and, in the prayer of chapter seventeen, ‘And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began’ and ‘you loved me before the creation of the world.’ (17:5, 24).

Kysar (1993, p.31) maintains that the affirmation that Jesus existed from the beginning is ‘one of the highest claims that the Christian has made for Christ’. He observes:

‘The pre-existence of the Logos affirms not only that he existed before creation itself, but that he existed ‘before all things began’. His existence goes back into that mysterious time before time – into the realm of temporality that eludes human conceptuality. While we cannot fathom what it would mean to exist before all else, we can try to fathom what the author is trying to affirm by saying this. Christ is so important that he could not simply have come into being like any other person or object. Christ is made to transcend beings and things by the assertion of his pretemporal existence….Christ is no created being. He is before creation.’

(1) THEMES IN THE PROLOGUE TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL.

(3) THEMES IN THE PROLOGUE TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL.

(4) THEMES IN THE PROLOGUE TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL.

(5) THEMES IN THE PROLOGUE TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL.

(6) THEMES IN THE PROLOGUE TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL.