by Kenneth Sheets
The name “Logos,” translated “Word” in John 1:1, is a descriptive title which functions as a name. Descriptive “titles” differ from pure “names” in that the titles are words which in themselves indicate some characteristic or aspect of the nature of whatever bears that title, while a name, though it may also carry some measure of descriptiveness, takes in all aspects and characteristics without focusing on any one or group of them. This difference is obvious in the two primary names applied to God.
The word “God” indicates what He is and, as a name, carries with it all that is involved in His transcendent existence as Creator, Owner, Designer, and Authority over everything that exists. Certainly, other characteristics may be included in the use of “God” as a name, but the primary focus of this word is His magnificent, incomprehensible, transcendent nature as the One who is over every thing and within whom every thing exists. On the other hand, the word “yahweh,” or “y’hōwäh,” an unpronounceable Hebrew form derived from and apparently standing for yĭhyěh, “he exists,” is the very name He specified for Himself and, while it does indeed refer to His “eternal existence,” its primary significance as a name is that it takes in the entirety of every aspect and characteristic of His Being.
The name “Logos” is itself from the Greek noun lŏgŏs, which is usually translated “word” in English. The translation “word,” however, does not accurately convey the full sense of lŏgŏs, not because this translation is in error, but because very few people in the present day actually know and use the word “word” with the significance it carried at the time the NT was written. The modern concept tends to be limited to some combination of consonants and vowels which form “words,” which are in turn combined with one another to form sentences, paragraphs, documents, etc., but this was not the concept in the mind of the Apostle John when he chose this Greek word to refer to the Lord Jesus Christ. Many readers of Scripture have, however, applied this modern concept to John’s words and have developed a sort of “mystical” view of Christ as though He were “the group of words” which comprise God’s written revelation, almost as though the written text of the Bible was the embodiment of Him.
The ancient perspective of the writers of Scripture, even Luke, from his close association with the Apostle Paul, was greatly different, having originated in their faithful ancient Hebrew perspective. This perspective must then be the basis for determining the significance of the name “Logos,” and the Scriptures must be the primary source of the evidence. The Greek “logos” concept originated from the Hebrew däbär (pronounced dävär), which is the most common Hebrew word for referring to written or spoken “words” throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, including its use in the phrase, “the word of the LORD” or “the word of God.” Though this English translation seems to bear the same significance as its modern concept, däbär carried a broader meaning in the mind of the ancient Scripture writers.
Faithful ancient Hebrews used däbär to refer not only to the written revelation of God, but also to the entirety of His revelation. They recognized the fact that whatever the Creator did, whether He spoke or acted, was an absolutely perfect representation of His magnificent Person, that is, because He cannot lie or change or misrepresent His eternal person in any way, everything He does corresponds perfectly, exactly, to who He is. In contrast to the perspective of many modern “believers,” the faithful ancient Hebrew knew unequivocally that everything God has done, is doing, or will ever do perfectly expresses His Person and His design for all that exists. The “word” of God, then, was to them the composite testimony, the composite “expression,” of everything that exists, that is, the totality of a creation which lives and moves and exists within Him, and which, as David said in Psalm 19, is continually, unmistakably, and inescapably reiterating the inestimable value, the “glory,” of its Creator. To these ancient believers, the däbär of God was not limited to His written revelation, but His written revelation was an inseparable, essential, part which gave clarity and completeness to the entirety, the whole, of His revelation.
Like däbär, the word “logos” had a broader meaning than something composed of letters and words. Both of these words, the Hebrew and the Greek, referred to anything which expressed information in some way, whether audible or silent, whether visible or not. No specific perceptory sense, or combination of such senses, defined the nature of the means or manner of expression. The issue was expression, however that was accomplished and whatever the content. Everything, regardless of form or format or the means of sensory perception, “expresses” itself to the senses of the beings in creation; everything expresses something: its identity, its physical dimensions, its smell, its sound, its presence, its something. This is the design of God, and thus, everything that exists is a däbär, a “logos,” and in God’s creation, everything “expresses” both itself, as something perfectly designed to fulfill a specific function, and the identity of the One who brought it into existence.
The transcendent Creator God has always possessed the ability to interact with and to manifest Himself in His creation whenever and however He saw fit, and when He did so, those occurrences were not “miracles” but ordinary activities for the God who had brought the creation into existence within Himself. When God the Son came into the physical world, the world He Himself had created, He, like every other thing He had brought into existence, became an expression, a “logos,” of His Person. Certainly, the Father and the Spirit expressed their Persons in innumerable ways, but, in the written revelation of God, they did not apply the name “Logos” to their manifestations of themselves as they did to the Son.
The Son “expressed” the Father, the Spirit, and Himself, in a way unique to Him. He came as God in the flesh, the perfect living physical Expression of the Person and Nature of God. He expressed God, and especially the Trinity, in a way which man had never fully experienced before He stepped, as a male human being, into His own creation. As John said of their interactions with Him, men could behold Him with their eyes, or touch Him, or lean on His breast, or walk with Him, or hear Him with their ears, and they were directly experiencing the Person of the transcendent Creator of all that exists. God had not expressed Himself in this manner, except perhaps with Adam before the violation of that first human, but men should have perceived Him that way nonetheless. Some had “seen” Him, and committed their lives to making themselves walk with Him, but most never saw Him personally and visibly. So, the Son came to live, and die, as a human among humans, and to give to all humanity an unmistakable “expression” of the Creator.
Certainly, the revelation provided by the living physical presence of Christ in His world did not supersede any other aspect of God’s revelation, regardless of the means by which God provided it, because it was all perfect in its provision. Humans who hated the Creator sought from the beginning to twist and pervert virtually every aspect of that revelation, seeking to justify themselves and eradicate their inescapable accountability to God, but even their perversions could not escape vestiges of truth. They built elaborate “philosophies” wherein they sought to misrepresent the Creator, as they took His truth and reformed it into their own humanist perspectives, but even their most diligent efforts could not negatively influence those individuals who caused firmness to His revelation. The Son of God, in His physical presence, filled and clarified the Creator’s own “self-portrait,”the “picture” men should have had, and could have had, in their minds. He was personal, caring, always loving perfectly by always seeking the absolute best, that is, conformity to the design of God, for every person in every situation. He and the Father were one, and when a man had seen Him, the Son, he had seen the Father, because He was the unique “expression,” the perfect “logos,” of God.