WHO OR WHAT IS THE WORD IN JOHN 1:1 An In-Depth Exegetical study of John 1:1 And A Historical Survey Of What the Word Meant in Johns Day Presented by Dr. Diego Sausa EXEGESIS OF JOHN 1:1 Right at the very introduction of John’s Gospel, under inspiration he says, “In the beginning was [en] the Word [ho Logos], and the Word was [en] with [pros] the God [ton Theon], and the Word was [en] God [Theos]” (Jn. 1:1, literal translation). John’s use of the Greek verb en (ἦν) which is the imperfect past (timeless from the past with no starting point) inflection of the verb to be eimi (εἰμί) for “I am” which means “to always exist” makes John’s intent very explicit. In other words, when John says, “In the beginning WAS [en] Ho Logos,” he is trying to tell his audience that in the beginning HaDabar (Hebrew) or Ho Logos (Greek), or “The Word” (English) already existed timelessly in the past without a starting point together with God. Meaning, if one can imagine the past as far back as he can, HaDabar or Ho Logos timelessly predates that past without a starting point. That is the import of the past imperfect verb ἦν from the root εἰμί which means “to always exist.” If John wanted his audience to understand past existence with a beginning, the “was” in Greek that he would have used would have been ginomai. The same “was” that John used for Abraham when he quotes Christ saying,“Before Abraham was [ginomai]” in John 8:58 meaning “Before Abraham had started to exist” because ginomai is the “was” in Greek when one has to portray the beginning of existence of something or someone in the past. But no, John did not use ginomai, because he wanted his audience to understand that HaDabar (Hebrew) or Ho Logos (Greek) or “The Word” did not start to exist in the past, rather, He eternally existed in the past timelessly without a starting point or without a beginning so he used the past imperfect inflection of the verb eimi, namely, en. In other words, under inspiration, in his very first few words in his very introduction to his Gospel, John demolishes any blasphemous heresy of Arianism, that is, the doctrine that holds that The Word had a beginning or was born in eternity past. His Greek syntax rules that out by choosing en (was timelessly existing in the past) instead of ginomai (was made to exist in the past). Thus, the first clause of Johannine Prologue, “In the beginning eternally existed [en] The Word” demolishes Arianism and other similar beliefs. The second clause of the very first verse of the Gospel of John says, “and the Word was [en] with [pros] the God [ton Theon]” is profound and pregnant with connotations. The second use of en for “was” in this clause tells us that the Word timelessly existed with “the God” in the past but John is telling us that He, the Word, is a separate Person from “the God,” thus John’s inspired second clause in his prologue demolishes the heresy of Modalism or Sabellianism, namely, the teaching that God the Father is also God the Son and also God the Holy Spirit in different manifestations. The preposition pros for “with” in the accusative case suggests that the togetherness between “the Word” and “the God” was face-to-face, meaning, the relationship was intimate between two peers or between two equals. Johns use of the preposition pros clearly states that the Word co-existed intimately as a peer or as a co-equal with “the God” timelessly without a starting point together in eternity past, clearly making the distinction between the Person of “the Word” and the Person of “the God.” John’s third clause reinforces and further explains his preceding two clauses about the Word. He says “and the Word was [en] God [Theos].” While in the second clause John is saying that the Word was with “the God” (arthrous “ton Theon,” with the article “the”) in timeless eternity past, clearly making the Word distinct from “the God” but both were existing together in the timeless past, now in the third clause, John is saying that “the Word” (Ho Logos) Himself “was [en] God [Theos].” In this third clause, John did not say “and the Word was in the timeless eternal past the God” because it would mean that the Word and “the God” in the second clause are the same Person. To keep that distinction between “the God” and “the Word” who was in the timeless eternal past also God, John omits the article “the” in his identification of the Word as God in the third clause to make it clear for his audience that the Word who was eternally God in the third clause was not the same as “the God” who was eternally God in the second clause but rather that the Word was also eternally God just like “the God” in the second clause. Some Arian proponents say that John’s anarthrous (without the article “the”) use of the word “God” identifying the Word in the third clause means that “God” (Theos) in this clause is an adjective that describes the nature of the Word as divine-like or as God-like but not exactly like “the God.” But this is mediocrity in the Greek language. In fact, John is careful in his usage of the word for “God” (Theos) in this clause. He did not use the Greek adjective theios in this clause which is the exact adjective that gives the qualitative description “divine-like” or “god-like.” Instead, John uses the same exact noun for God (Theos) that He uses to call God the Father in the second clause (Theon and Theos are the same only the case differs, accusative and nominative respectively). This means that the only reason why John did not use the article “the” to identify the Word as God in the third clause of his prologue is because he wanted to maintain the clear distinction between God the Father “the God” in the second clause and God “the Word” in the third clause. If he used “the God” to identify “the Word” with in the third clause, then the Word would have been mistaken as the same Person as “the God” in the second clause. To maintain the clear distinction between the two Persons in the Godhead, John used the arthrous Theos for God the Father (the God) in the second clause and the anarthrous Theos for God the Son or The Word (God without the article “the”) in the second clause. In other words, there is no difference between “ton Theon” in the second clause and “Theos” in the third clause, both words mean “God” and nothing else. In fact, elsewhere, John would use the same exact anarthrous Greek word for “God” (Theos) to identify God the Father in John 1:18. This means that the omission of the article “the” with the word “God” in the third clause is for differentiation from “the God” of the second clause. What John is saying in the third clause is that the Word is equally God just like the God in the second clause but different Person. KNOWING THE MEANING OF “THE WORD” IN JOHN’S TIME As the 21st century reader reads the Johannine Prologue, there is one thing that he should notice right away, namely, that John assumes that his first century audience, knew exactly who he was referring to he says “ho Logos” (the Word). He does not bother to explain what he is talking about, he simply assumes that his audience knows who he is talking about when he says The Word. Trying to define John’s “the Word” in his prologue according to our 21st century understanding of the meaning of the word “Word” would be anachronism, that is, applying today’s meaning for the word that the author used which the author did not really mean because he meant something else. It would be like trying to explain that the word “tablet” in the Ancient Neareast times meant a smart hand-held computer. How anachronistic can that be? “Tablet” in the ANE times meant clay blocks where people wrote on, and not a smart hand-held computer to write on Facebook. It is therefore imperative that we should understand what the word “ho Logos” (the Word) meant in John’s time, and not what it means in our time. The Gospel of John was written in his latter years when he resided in Ephesus before his exile on the isle of Patmos and some years after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. The date of authorship was sometime in the A.D. 80’s when he was in Ephesus. The church Father Irenaeus who was associated with the church Father Polycarp who was a direct disciple of the apostle John testifies, “John, the disciple of the Lord, who also had leaned upon His breast, did himself publish a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia [Minor]” (Irenaeus, AgainstHeresies 3.1.1). So what did “ho Logos” mean for the Jewish and Gentile Christians in John’s time in the latter half of the first century? THE JEWISH CONCEPT OF “THE WORD” DURING THE NEW TESTAMENT ERA The Jewish people during the first two centuries of the Christian era began to write mostly Aramaic paraphrases of the Hebrew Scripture called the Targums. Most likely these redactions already existed as traditional Jewish beliefs before they were written down because even the Greek speaking Jew Philo, who existed around the time of Christ in Alexandria Egypt, already held similar beliefs as expressed in the Targums. The singular Hebrew word Targum means “translation” or “explanation.” The plural form of Targum in Hebrew is Targumim. These Targums were mostly in Aramaic language because after the Babylonian captivity, the Jews had adopted the predominant Aramaic Babylonian language. These Targums would be read alongside the Hebrew Scripture (Tanakh) as further explanations to the latter in the Jewish Synagogues during the New Testament and post-apostolic eras. The Targums therefore reflected the theological beliefs of the Jewish people as they understood the Hebrew Old Testament or the Tanakh. One of the most revealing data in the Targums is the fact that the Jews already understood that their one YHWH was not composed of one Person. In other words, the Jews during the early Christian era already knew that there was another distinct Person YHWH other than the other YHWH although both are one God. For example the Jews understood that during the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah, there were two YHWHs involved. The NKJV translation of the Tanakh is like this: “Then the LORD [YHWH] rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, from the LORD [YHWH] out of the heavens” (Gen. 19:24). The passage is clear that it is talking about two YHWHs, one YHWH was on earth raining fire on Sodom and Gomorrah, but the fire that He rained down on the two cities was coming from another YHWH who was up in the heavens. The Jews saw this distinction between the two YHWHs clearly so they assigned the other YHWH who descends on earth the Aramaic name Memra to distinguish Him from the other YHWH in the heavens. So the Jewish Targum, called the Targum of Jonathan, paraphrases Genesis 19:24 this way, “And the Memra YHWH caused to descend upon the peoples of Sodom and Gomorrah, brimstone and fire from YHWH in heaven.” It is clear from the above paraphrase that Memra is the other name assigned by the Jews to the other YHWH. Again the Jews understood the two YHWHs in the passage in Exodus 14:31 where Moses says in the Tanakh (Old Testament Hebrew Scripture), “And Israel saw the great work which YHWH did upon the Egyptians: and the people feared YHWH, and believed YHWH, and his servant Moses. The Onkelos Targum paraphrases the passage by replacing the second word “YHWH” with “Memra”: “And Israel saw the great strong hand of God, what He did to the Egyptians. They feared God and believed Memra and in His servant Moses.” The Targum simply replaces God’s title YHWH with the title Memra. The Targum of Jonathan also identifies YHWH as Memra in Isaiah 45:17. The Hebrew Bible says,“But Israel shall be saved by YHWH.” The Targum of Jonathan paraphrases the passage this way, “Memra is Savior.” Again in this instance, the Targum replaces the name YHWH with the name Memra. In other words, during the early Christian era, the Jews already referred to YHWH by the Aramaic name Ha Memra. Again in Joshua 9:19 for example the Tanakh (Hebrew OT) says, “Then all the rulers said to all the congregation, ‘We have sworn to them by YHWH God of Israel; now therefore, we may not touch them.’” The Onkelos Targum paraphrases this passage by replacing God’s title YHWH with the name Memra, it says, “But all the princes said to all the congregation, ‘We swore to them in Ha Memra of God, the God of Israel, and now we cannot do any harm to them.” It is therefore clear that it was an established tradition during the early New Testament era for the Jews to use the name HaMemra instead of God’s name YHWH. In other words, the Jews already understood that there was another YHWH and they called Him “the Memra.” The Aramaic word “HaMemra” is “HaDabar” in Hebrew, it is “Ho Logos” in Greek, and it is “the Word” when translated into English. So it is clear then that when John said, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with the God, and the Word was God,” his Jewish audience very well knew that He was referring to HaMemra or the eternal uncreated Creator YHWH and not to some abstract impersonal plan or blueprint or some inferior God. And John explicitly says that YHWH, the HaMemra or “the Word” became a human being and dwelt with mankind (Jn. 1:14) to save the world (Jn. 3:16). The impact of John’s prologue on his audience was staggering. The YHWH that the Jews revered and worshiped, the God of their Fathers, the eternal uncreated Creator of the world, the timeless eternal YHWH God who was with God, according to John, had actually come already and became a human being to save the world. And all that mankind has to do is to believe in God’s salvation through “the Word” who Himself is YHWH like the One who sent Him. PHILO AND HO LOGOS (THE WORD) Philo was a famous Greek-speaking Jewish theologian-philosopher who lived at around the time of Christ but they never met each other because Philo lived in Alexandria, Egypt from around 30 BC to around AD 40. At around that time, there were about 1 million Jews who lived in Egypt which was for a long time under the Greek empire. The Greek cultural and religious influence on the Jews in Alexandria is betrayed by the fact that they had forgotten their Hebrew language and had adopted the Greek language so much so that from around 285-247 BC, the Jews in Alexandria requested 70 or 72 scholars from Jerusalem to translate the Old Testament Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) into Greek which we now know as the Septuagint or the LXX (named after the 70 scholars). Philo was a devout Jew and had a high respect for the Tanakh, however his theology was not without amalgamation from the teachings of the Greek philosophers which he admired such as Plato, Pythagoras, Parrnenides, Empedocles, Zeno, and Cleanthes. Philo’s theology therefore was a syncretization of Judaism and Greek allegorization and dualism. He believed that truth laid somewhere in between Judaism and Hellenism (Greek dualism). His theology therefore was a triangulation of Judaism and Hellenism. Influenced by his Jewish roots, he taught that God was so transcendent and beyond comprehension and absolutely holy that He was beyond defilement by man who was intrinsically evil because of his material body. Because of this great divide between the inscrutable transcendent absolutely holy God and corrupt mortal man, God needed a mediator or intermediate agencies between Him and corrupt mankind in order for Him to influence and be known to the latter. Eduard Zeller aptly describes Philo’s concept of these intermediaries: “In order to unite this absolute activity of God in the world with his absolute transcendence Philo had recourse to the assumption which was familiar to other thinkers of that time….This was the assumption of intermediate beings….He called these intermediate beings forces and described them on the one hand as qualities of the Deity, as ideas or thoughts of God, as parts of the general force and reason that prevails in the world; on the other hand as servants, ambassadors and satellites of God, or the executors of his will, souls, angels and demons. He found it impossible to harmonise these two modes of exposition and to give a clear answer to the question of the personality of these forces. All these forces are comprehended in one, the Logos. The Logos is the most universal intermediary between God and the world, the wisdom and reason of God, the idea which comprises all ideas, the power that comprises all powers, the representative and ambassador of God, the instrument of the creation and government of the world, the highest of angels, the first-born son of God, the second God….His personality is, however, as uncertain as that of the ‘powers’ generally. This must be the case; for so long as the concept of the Logos hovers between that of a personal being distinct from God and that of an impersonal divine force or quality can it provide even an apparent solution of the insoluble problem for which it is required – to make it comprehensible how God can be present in the world and all its parts with his force and activity, when he is by his very nature completely external to it and would be defiled by any contact with it” (Eduard Zeller, Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy,13th ed, revised by Wilhelm Nestle, and translated by L.R. Palmer, London: Kegan Paul, 1931, 77). In other words, Philo’s Ho Logos lies in between a divine Person and an impersonal divine force that mediates between an absolutely holy transcendent God and an inherently corrupt mankind. Philo’s Ho Logos comes to exist because of the necessity that arises, the need for an intermediary that would communicate between the transcendent absolutely holy God who is beyond defilement, and the corrupt mortal mankind. So the role of Philo’s Ho Logos as intermediary is to reveal God to mankind and to govern the world as it is. Philo’s Ho Logos lies in between being a person and an impersonal force or will. By the second half of the first century, after his death, Philo’s teaching about the Logos would influence many religious beliefs in the Ancient Neareast including that of the Jews, the Greeks, the Persians, the Egyptians, the Romans and the Indians. By the time that John wrote his Gospel in the city of Ephesus in Asia Minor (Turkey) in the A.D. 80s, Ephesus was the center of syncretism in which all the religions and philosophical doctrines of Greece, Persia, Egypt and Jerusalem met together. Frederic Godet succinctly describes the societal and religious-cultural milieu in Ephesus at the point when John wrote his Gospel: “Asia Minor, particularly Ephesus, was then the centre of asyncretism in which all the religious and philosophical doctrines of Greece, Persia and Egypt met together. It has been proved that in all those systems the idea of an intermediate divine being between God and the world appears, the Oum of the Indians, the Hom of the Persians, the Logos of the Greeks, the Memra of the Jews” (Commentaryon the Gospel of John, with an Historical and Critical Introduction by F. Godet, translated from the third French edition by Timothy Dwight, vol. 1, New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1886, pp. 290-291). Each of these religions and philosophies had its own concept of what or who “Ho Logos” was. So when John wrote his Gospel, the very first thing that he said to his audience in his Gospel was, yes, indeed there is Ho Logos, HaMemra, HaDabar, The Word, but He is not an impersonal Force, He is a Person, He is not a demi-god, He is God, He did not come to exist out of a necessity for God to communicate with corrupt mortals, He eternally timelessly without a starting point pre-existed with God, He is not inferior in nature to God, He is equal with God because He is God Himself like the One He was eternally associated with, He does not exist to keep the corrupt status quo in the world, He came to save the world from sin and corruption, He is not unlike us, He came to be like us humans so that through Him we might be saved and be reconciled to God. CONCLUSION So John’s prologue assumes that his first century audience knew who ho Logos was, namely, the Mediator between God and man. But Johns prologue cuts through the erroneous ideas about the ho Logos in his time and presents the true nature of who and what ho Logos was. Johns prologue therefore is for explicative, corrective and salvific purposes. His prologue explains who really Ho Logos or HaDabar or HaMemra or the Word is, that is, timelessly without a beginning He existed with the God of the universe as His peer and co-equal since the Word was God Himself who created everything that was created, and who came down to be like us human beings that He might save us all. Johns prologue, therefore, corrected the erroneous concepts of the people on who or what Ho Logos was in his day and introduced the staggering truth that ho Logos was God who became a human being and who died to save the world. What John is virtually telling his audience is, “the truth about Ho Logos is, He was co-eternal with God because He was God Himself. He is our Creator who created everything that exists and He is our Savior, because He has already come and became a human being like us and has died for all our sins that we might have eternal life. Accept Him and believe in Him and you will be saved” (see John 1:1-3,14). Today, many heretical views on Christ still abound. But John’s Prologue continues to explicitly demolish such blasphemous and heretical views on The Word, who was timelessly preexistent with the God without a starting point in eternity past as His peer and co-equal, who was eternally the uncreated Creator God Himself who created everything that exists, who loves the world with an eternal love so much so that He became a human being that He might assume the worlds guilt that whosoever would keep having faith in His salvation, shall not perish but have everlasting life.
Posted on: Sat, 20 Dec 2014 20:09:55 +0000
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