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Logos as God

The De-Mystified Logos by Phil Maxwell July 2000; Revised August 2003

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Having already covered how ‘the word’ or ‘memra’ was freely substituted for ‘Yahweh’ in the course of public readings of the Scripture in the synagogues, it naturally follows that the same was true of the common literary usage of the Greek word ‘logos’, as well. Thus, the answer to the question at hand is yes, in the minds of John’s contemporaries, it was perfectly appropriate to refer to God as ‘the word,’ or vice-versa. However, the point of contention here regards whether or not this indicated that the logos was a distinct independent being or person, and the evidence already presented indicates a resounding ‘no’ to that.

The UBS Scholars offer some interesting insights regarding the phrase ‘the word was God’ (Jn. 1:1):

…Since "God" does not have the article preceding it, "God" is clearly the predicate and "the Word" is the subject. This means that "God" is here the equivalent of an adjective, and this fact justifies the rendering he (the Word) was the same as God. John is not saying that "the Word" was God the Father, but he is affirming that the same divine predication can be made of "the Word" as can be made of God the Father, and so "the Word" can be spoken of as God in the same sense.

…"God" completely characterizes "the Word," and all that is true of God is true of the Word. This does not mean, however, that the two elements can be inverted, and that one can translate "God was the Word" any more than one can make "Love is God" an inversion of the biblical statement "God is love." It is difficult for some people to recognize that this equational sentence in Greek belongs to the second class because in the predicate the term "God" refers to a unique object. Since this type of equational sentence may be misleading with "God" in the predicate, it is better to translate it "The Word was the same as God" or "Just what God was that is what the Word also was."³

In other words, the same reasoning seems to apply here that did in the substitution of ‘memra’ for Yahweh in the Targums, though the idea of a personal being apart from God was never in view.  While many of our generation imply that John was making a profound statement of identifying a distinct being as the logos, those of John’s day were well accustomed to literary references that represented Yahweh as His word and vice versa. Thus, for John to say, ‘the logos was the same as God’ to them was no different than any number of similar statements and implications by philosophers and religionists of that generation. It was a statement about the nature of the word of God, which embodied of all of God’s will, works, manifestations, and revelations in the world.

If we desire to understand the true meaning of the passage in question, we must look at it from the perspective of John’s contemporaries, not our own. John used common terms and an established format of HIS day in writing his Gospel record, so we must interpret it accordingly. While ‘the word was God’ may seem to identify a distinct person who is God from our perspective, the evidence is strongly against such a meaning being concluded from the same passage by those living at the time of its writing.

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