The Gospel of John identifies Jesus as the Logos, the “Word” through which God made all things. This is a key theme of John, one that builds on traditional ideas from the Hebrew Bible about how God created the Universe and especially life through His spoken Word. Jesus of Nazareth is the ultimate expression of that Word and the Living God.
In his words
and deeds, and especially through his Death and Resurrection, Jesus manifested
the truth, grace, and nature of God. Though abandoned by his friends and put to
death by his enemies, the Father vindicated him by raising him from the dead
and installing him as the “Lord of Glory” who now bestows life and the
Spirit on his people.
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| [Photo by Vladimir Fedotov on Unsplash] |
Therefore, in every sense, Jesus of Nazareth was and remains the Living AND the Life-Giving Word. Similarly, the Letter to the Hebrews declares that the “ages have been fitted together by the utterance of God so that what is seen has not been made out of things which appear” – (Hebrews 11:3).
John did not
break new ground in his Gospel. What is revolutionary is his claim that this Life-Giving
“Word became flesh” and was manifested for all humanity to see in
Jesus, a man from the insignificant village of Nazareth.
The Psalmist wrote, “By the word of Yahweh were the heavens made, and all the
host of them by the breath of his mouth… For he spoke, and it was
done; He commanded, and it stood fast” - (Psalm 33:6-9).
Moreover, per the
creation account in Genesis - Yahweh “formed the man from dust from the ground, and breathed into
his nostrils the breath of life, and the man becometh a living creature” –
(Genesis 2:7, Hebrews 11:3).
In the Greek
text of John, the opening clause echoes the
first words of Genesis – “In the beginning.” Likewise, in
Genesis, “in the beginning, God said, Let there be
light, and there was light.” So also, the Gospel of John opens by declaring, “In
the beginning, all things were made through him… In him was life, and the life was the light of men.”
God created all things by His spoken “Word,” and in John, we meet this same “Word” face-to-face in the flesh and blood man of Nazareth. “In him, the Word became flesh,” thereby revealing the glory of God to one and all.
In John’s writings, the term “flesh” is
used as in the Hebrew Bible to refer to men in their weakened and mortal state.
Thus, Jesus was a genuine human being who participated in the same mortality as
the rest of humanity. In the truest sense, he is the Logos, the “Word
of God,” and we find this idea expressed in several ways elsewhere in the
New Testament. For example:
- “Since the children are partners in flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner partook of the same, that through death, he might bring to nothing him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might deliver all them who through the fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage… Wherefore, it behooved him in all things to be made like his brethren that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God” – (Hebrews 2:14-18).
- “For we have not a high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but one that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” - *(Hebrews 4:15. Compare Philippians 2:7-8).
This
is why the “words” of Jesus are living and Life-Giving. They determine
whether a man receives “everlasting life.” He was not just another
philosopher or religious teacher. In his teachings and actions, men heard and saw
the very creative “Word of God.” Jesus is the ultimate expression of the
Father. Thus, just as God “quickens” or “makes alive,” so “the Son makes alive whom he wills,” imparting life where there is none.
LIFE-GIVING WORD
The
words of Jesus are Life-Giving, a theme developed in John’s gospel account. “I am the resurrection
and the life; he who believes
in me, even though he dies, he shall live.” Likewise, “I am the light of the world. He
that follows me shall not walk in the darkness, but he shall have the light of the
life.” – (John 5:21, 8:12, 11:25).
Those who heed his words will inherit “everlasting
life.” As Jesus declared, “He who hears my word and believes in Him who
sent me, he has everlasting life, and has passed from death to life.” Every
man who “keeps my word will not see death,” and those who are his true disciples
will “abide in his word” - (John 5:24, 5:38, 8:31, 51).
Furthermore, the “Word made flesh” is
“full of grace and truth.” Not just more truth or the reaffirmation of
the Mosaic Law. The Law was “given through Moses, however, grace and truth came to be through
Jesus.”
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| [Photo by Evgeni Tcherkasski on Unsplash] |
Thus, the fullness of God is revealed in His Son. The Father is not known apart from him. “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me… From henceforth, you know him and have seen him.” Like the living waters of the Earth, his words impart life - (John 14:6-7).
Jesus did not identify himself as the Father. God
has been manifested fully in in his life, words, and concrete acts of mercy,
therefore, if anyone has seen or heard him, he has seen and heard the Father.
Only in Jesus can we begin to understand the Living God who created all things.
There is no third way. All that God did in
the past was in preparation for His complete revelation in His Son, the Living
and Life-Giving Word. As Paul wrote to the Colossians, Jesus is the one in
whom “all the fullness dwells bodily.”
SEE ALSO:
- The Greater Moses - (Jesus is the Greater Moses who interprets the Law and the Prophets and brings God’s promises to fulfillment)
- Salvation for All - (Jesus dispatched his disciples to announce his Lordship and salvation to the uttermost parts of the Earth)