John 1: 1-5, The Logos

For the last two years I have covered the New Testament twice on this blog, going through roughly a chapter a day.  In 2018 I intend to slow down and go much more slowly through major books of the New Testament, in a process designed to look at every verse, and cover the New Testament in three to four years.

We begin with John's Gospel. Today we look at the first five verses, which introduce the Logos, translated here as "Word". This is a very Greek concept, examined from a Jewish viewpoint.

John 1: 1-5, The Logos
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 
2 He was with God in the beginning. 
3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 
4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 
5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John begins with a philosophical concept, the Greek "Logos" ("Word") and claims that it is God, having been with (part of) God for all eternity. This Logos is the Creator of the Universe.  The Logos is not a secondary afterthought, but part of the very beginning of Space and Time.

John, a Jew, uses the Logos, a Greek (or Gentile) philosophical concept to introduce the Jew's Messiah. By the end of the first century, most Christians were Gentiles and John, writing to Gentiles, explains the Jewish Messiah in terms that they can better understand.

Would the Greek concept of the Logos, the divine Word that organized the world, have been an attractive idea to the Jew?  How much Greek philosophy is the apostle John willing to adopt?  Commentator William Barclay points out that the Jews had their own idea of Logos, of the spoken word of God. The voice of God was the action of God (see Genesis 1) and was personified as Wisdom (see Proverbs 8). According to Barclay, some Jewish translators replaced the word "God" by "Voice of God" in the Torah out of a desire to keep some distance from the holy (and scary) Yahweh.

The gospel writer says that this creative Mind offers life -- purposeful, meaningful Life -- to all humanity. Instead of darkness and chaos, we have a chance for purpose and meaning!

The Logos is light for mankind. (The last phrase of verse 5 could also be translated "the darkness has not understood it.") In the metaphor of light and darkness, darkness is the absence of light, and so the appearance of light destroys it. We will see this clash of light vs. darkness in other places in John.