Who Is the Word in John 1?
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: John 1:1, John 1:14, Deuteronomy 6:4, Exodus 3, 1 Peter 1, Hebrews 1, Hebrews 2:17

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--who-is-the-word-in-john-1
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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yes let me give you a brief answer and then I will elaborate but first of all if you're interested my book The Oneness of God talks about this and then also my sequel the Oneness view of Jesus Christ has a whole chapter on the word so I can give you much more detailed even some quotations from other Scholars that although they're trinitarian will support some key points that I'm making uh then the other thing I'd like to say is just for a brief summary the a scriptural definition of the word in this context is God revealing himself God uttering himself the word is God in self Revelation as you say the Greek word here is logos l o g oos and it has a very complex history uh in Greek philosophy it came to mean reason as the controlling principle of the universe so it's much more than just a particular word but it's thought mind reason principle plan uh the the Greek philosophers felt the whole world was organized in a logical scheme and was run according to a logical scheme they didn't not necessarily have an idea of a personal God but they did have an idea that there was a world of ideas behind the physical world you know Plato had that concept of the world of ideals or the world of forms and that this physical world was an in imperfect copy or representation of the Eternal world of ideas so the word or logos or logos was the the controlling principle the controlling mind the controlling plan of the universe now I do believe John very deliberately inspired by the Spirit uh used that term knowing its Greek background he was writing in Greek uh to Greek speaking people in the late first century so obviously he had to know that he was using a word that was quite prominent in the thinking of that day but also remember he was a Jew and so you can't probably even more relevant to him was the Hebrew um meaning of the word so if you go in the Old Testament the word was never thought of as a second God or a second person or somehow separated from God but the Word was God in expression God in revelation God in extension the term word was a way of describing how God interacts with the world so Psalm says he sent his word and healed them Isaiah my word will not return unto me void but it will accomplish my purpose so God's word is somehow thought of as acting for God but not as a separate person so you might even say God in action or I go back to my standard definition God in self-revelation so John is writing his gospel uh to reveal who Jesus is and if you study the whole Gospel of John he gives he gives different stories some Miracles that are signs some teachings all for the purpose of showing who is Jesus truly so in John 1 he gives a prologue kind of a uh here's what I'm going to show you and then John 2 through 19 he gives all these stories to show who Jesus is then John 20 culminates the climax of the book B is Jesus appearing the resurrected Christ appearing to the disciples and Thomas putting this all together saying now I finally understand you are my Lord and my God and then John 21 is epilog so if you look at the book as a whole it starts out by saying I'm going to tell you who Jesus is now I'm going to tell you story so you can see it for yourself you can put all the evidence together he does all these kind of Miracles he says all these things he reveals himself to be all these kind of things and then at the end who is the only one who could do all these Miracles who could fulfill all these sayings uh who could uh be the light of the world the bread of life the Living Water the resurrection in the Life uh the Good Shepherd and on and on the I am which is a Divine title representing Jehovah or Yahweh who could be all these things Jesus Is My Lord and my God so from that context let's go back John 1:1 in the beginning was the word the word was with God and the Word was God then if you go down to verse 14 and the word became flesh it was made flesh literally and dwelt Among Us literally tabernacled Among Us so that's obviously Jesus Christ he goes on to identify so John one is basically saying Jesus is not just an afterthought of God Jesus is not merely a good teacher uh or a martyr for truth Jesus is the revelation of God in human flesh so it's an obvious parallel to Genesis in the beginning but whereas Genesis talks about God creating Heaven and Earth talking about the physical creation John in a sense goes back before that in the beginning before there was a physical creation there was God in the beginning was the word so think of it from the terms of Greek philosophy he's basically saying yes you've got a valid point this world just not just haphazardly evolve or or just spring into existence by accident there actually was a plan there was a scheme there was a Divine mind so in the beginning before there was the creation there was the mind of God so the word was with God so think of it in the sense of pertaining to God belonging to God of God's Essence so God's plan God's mind so this plan for the universe did not exist on its own it existed as the mind of God and to make that clear the word was with God and the Word was God and it's interesting because the Greek word order is emphatic um so much so that the Amplified Bible paraphrases some what the Word was God himself not just a God or substance of God the Word was God and this word who was God became flesh so when you put it all together if you're looking at from the Hebrew perspective John would be saying you know there's only one God Deuteronomy 6:4 uh you Jewish people you understand that and you know God is high and lofty and above he's holy he's separate but yet he interacts with our world he speaks to us he reveals himself to us he heals us he delivers us and and he his you know this as God's word that's God's way of interacting well let me tell you who Jesus is he's not just a prophet he's more than a prophet he's not just the high priest he's more than the high priest he is God speaking to you so the Jews would have never thought oh he's he must be the second person they would have understood he's claiming that Jesus is God speaking to us God revealing himself to us the the I am of Exodus 3 who spoke to Moses from the burning bush so God is Yahweh Jehovah but he speaks and he says I am and so that's the word of God but then if you're uh from a Greek background John could be saying well you know that the universe is not just random or haphazard it has logic it has order it has design it's a amazing it it's the revelation of divine mind well that's true well let me tell you Jesus is the Divine mind the whole universe was predicated on the fact that Jesus Christ would come and you can put this together when God created the world he created humans he knew that Adam and Eve would fall into sin and that sin would thwart or distort his original plan so why did he proceed because he also knew to quote 1 Peter 1 the land was from the foundation of the world so even though Jesus Christ did not come in the sense he was not born he did not die but yet the whole creation was predicated on the fact that one day a savior would be born and redeem the Fallen creation so in a sense God created the whole universe and particularly humans with the sun in view depending on the future Incarnation and atonement and that's what I think Hebrews 1 means when it says the worlds were created through the sun literally the Ages were created through the Sun not as if the sun was a second person sitting there saying I'll do all the work for you Dad don't worry about it but no God looking forward saying no matter what humans do I'm going to have a Plan of Redemption that will fulfill my original purpose in creation and so from that perspective yes this universe is Not an Accident you're right yes there is a Divine mind there is a divine plan there there is a grand scheme but that is revealed as Jesus Christ so John 1 in essence is saying to both Jews and Gentiles of the first century yes there's a good point in your reasoning but when you think it all through it points to Jesus he is the revelation of the one God he's the word of God made flesh now let me just pause to say a trinitarian explanation say well there got to be two persons because the word was with God but with doesn't have to mean sitting alongside as a person there's another passage that use the same Greek phrase uh Hebrews I think it's 217 it talks about things with God in the King James says things pertaining to God so you could uh you could say the word was with God in the sense of pertain to God not another person sitting side by side but God's mind God's reason God's plan not just a thought but God's total mind which is God just as we who are we we are our inner being you know what we think is what we really are so uh by saying with God it's not trying to diminish it or separate the concept it's saying with in the sense pertain to belong to of God's substance and but then it comes right along and say was God so is equivalent um not a portion or derivation but the true God himself the word was with God the Word was God so it's simply a way of saying uh the Mind revealed in Jesus Christ is the mind of God Jesus himself is the revelation of the one God in human identity a trinitarian explanation of two persons really wouldn't work because what it would have to say in the beginning was the word and so they're kind of assuming that means second person well let's follow this out the word was with God they're assuming that's the first person but then when it says the Word was God they want to say the second person is is the first person so they have to change the definition of God in the middle of the verse they would have to say in the beginning was the word the word was with God I.E we mean the first person and the Word was God I.E we mean the second person so the only way it makes sense for them is to change the definition of God in the middle of the verse but that's not reasonable in of itself and how could John expect the readers would make this mental substitution that the word god means two different things in the same verse now another way to look at it if you say well God what's the basic definition of God according to tarianism the Trinity well the word was with the Trinity you have somebody else and the Word was the Trinity so it's really confusing when you try to impose a trinitarian solution on the surface it might sound like well there's two so it must be leading to the Trinity but when you actually try to interpret it as such it quickly gets Tangled Up and confused but the Oneness explanation simply in the beginning was the word God's mind the word was with God so another words God's plan for the Incarnation atonement is not an accident not an afterthought not a later development but from the very beginning this was God's plan all alone but not to make a separation and imper personal Not only was the word with God the Word was God and the Word was made flesh so it was not just a thought or a plan that was made flesh but the personal God himself came in human identity and so I end the way I begin the word of John 1 is God in self Revelation