OK. The origin of this particular query goes back to a comment by
@muhammad_isa:
"In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God" - John 1:1 -
Yes, very philosophical .. but did Jesus call himself the Logos? The idea of Logos is just Greek philosophy, isn't it?
Why did John [ whoever he was ] write that?
It ends up with The Logos WAS God .. Is the Logos still God today?
If it mean the Logos IS God, then how can the Logos be WITH God.
What???
I'm sorry ..but it reads a bit like a fairy tale to me. What you would call "gnostic", I suppose."
So let's tackle this point by point:
... very philosophical ...
Well language depends on context. In this instance, theological.
... but did Jesus call himself the Logos?[
No, that's John's theology. Jesus alluded to Himself as such. (cf John 8:12, 14:6).
The idea of Logos is just Greek philosophy, isn't it?
Logos is just the Greek term. The same idea in Hebrew is
memra
Why did John [ whoever he was ] write that?
The opening of John's Gospel clearly parallels the creation account in Genesis 1. Both open with 'In the beginning' (John's
en arche is the same as the Septuagint Genesis 1) and then goes on to assert the light of Genesis 1:3 being "In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." (v4-5).
First, John establishes a continuity by reference to the the Hebraic root of the Christian Revelation.
Second, by identifying Jesus as the Logos of God (v1) and the life and light of humanity (v4-5) he establishes a continuity of the of humanity's Adamic inheritance, as made by God to walk and talk with God in Paradise, but brought low by a self-inflicted wound which occluded that primordial light.
John is asserting an Hebraic holistic outlook – that in Jesus the spiritual and the physical worlds, sundered by the fall, are joined in the person of Christ. St Paul got this – Jesus put right what had gone wrong in Adam.
It ends up with The Logos WAS God .. Is the Logos still God today?
Yes. John is affirming that Jesus is eternal – that Jesus is Logos, but the Logos is not 'new', there always was Logos, and it is God.
If it mean the Logos IS God, then how can the Logos be WITH God.
The Jews understand this, it's in Scripture.
The use of 'Logos', as well as Genesis 1, is there in Psalms 33:6 "By the word (LXX
logos) of the Lord (LXX
kurios) were the heavens made". The idea of God, unknowable in Himself, reveals Himself in creation, comes out of the Hebrew Scriptures.
The Word, embodying the divine will – cf Psalms 3:4; Isaiah 40:8; Psalm 119:105), Psalm 107:20, Psalm 147:15 and Isaiah 55:11.
The personified Wisdom of God – Job 28:12 and Proverbs Chapters 8 and 9, notably 8:22-30: "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way ...
The Angel of the Lord is sometimes distinguished from the Lord and sometimes identical with him (Genesis 16:7-13; 32:24-28; Hosea 12:4, 5; Exodus 23:20, 21; Malachi 3:l).
In the apocryphal Wisdom of Solomon wisdom is another name for the divine, a light proceeding from God; an image of God, co-occupant of the divine throne, an independent mediator between God and the world, in association with a spirit which is called
μονογενες, only begotten (7:22).
After the Babylonian captivity the Jews combined the theophanies, prophetic revelations and manifestations of JHWH under a single concept of an agent of the Lord in the phenomenal world, designated by the name
Memra (Gk,
logos) of the Lord. The term was introduced into the Targums, or Aramæan paraphrases of the Old Testament, which were publicly read in the synagogues, substituting Memra (Logos) for JHWH.
Logos is there in Philo, a contemporary of John's.
John's doctrine and terms are informed by Hebrew and Hellenic speculation, but surpasses them. John's doctrine is not certainly not Greek, nor is it Philo's, and nor does it depend on either. Though both use the term Logos,
he uses it with an utterly different meaning. In John it signifies the immanent presence of God, as it does in Scripture generally.
In John the Messiah is the Logos, uniting himself with humanity, and clothing himself with a body in order to save the world.
The Logos of John is the real, personal God (1:1), the Word, who was originally before the creation with God, and was God, one in essence and nature, yet personally distinct (1:1, 18); the revealer and interpreter of the hidden being of God; the reflection and visible image of God, and the organ of all His manifestations to the world (cf Hebrews 1:3). He made all things, proceeding personally from God for the accomplishment of the act of creation (1:3), and became man in the person of Jesus Christ, accomplishing the redemption of the world. (The hymns written into Philippians Chapter 2 and Colossians 1 encompass the idea of Christ's co-eternity and co-equality with God, the latter also underpins the idea of Logos, and both hymns predate written Scripture : expresses the same thing, and that was a liturgical hymn that St Paul utilised in his letter.)
But in answer to the initial point, the term 'logos' would not be unknown to his audience, and they probably understood it better than we do today, for the idea that Logos means Word is a very poor translation indeed, the term means much, much more than that.
