OceanSide church of Christ
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WHY DID
JOHN DESCRIBE JESUS AS “THE LOGOS”?
A Bridge between Jew and
Gentile
Victor M. Eskew
In
thirty short years, the gospel of Christ had spread from the city of
A connection was needed between Jewish thought and Greek ideology. The apostle John, who lived in the Greek
city of
The Jews heard of “the word of God” on almost a daily basis, especially
in the first century. The Hebrew
Old Testament had been translated into the Aramaic language. The translations were called the
Targums. The Targums contained the
phrase, “the word of God,” often.
“In the Jonathan Targum, the phrase the word of God occurs no few than about
three hundred and twenty times” (Barclay, p. 30).
“The word of God” had rich meaning to the Jew. It was a powerful and active force. It had the power to create and to give
life. “As Professor John Paterson
has put it: ‘The spoken word to the
Hebrew was fearfully alive…It was a unit of energy charged with power. It flies like a bullet to its billet’”
(Barclay, p. 27). The term also
contained the idea of reason to a Jewish mind. In fact, the word “wisdom” in the Wisdom
Literature of the Old Testament is analogous to the term “word.” This connection can be seen often in the
book of Proverbs (Prov. 3:13-26; 4:5-13; 8:1-9:2). Like “the Word,” wisdom is pre-existent,
has the ability to create, and gives life.
Most certainly, the Jews’ attention would be caught when he heard of “the
Word.”
The Gentile mind was also interested in “the Word.” “In Greek thought the idea of the word began away back about 560 B.C.,
and, strangely enough, in Ephesus when the Fourth Gospel was written” (Barclay,
p. 34). The word was used and
developed by a Greek philosopher named Heraclitus. He saw that everything was constantly in
a state of flux. Yet, the change
did not result in complete chaos.
It was controlled and ordered.
“…that which controlled the patter was the Logos, the word, the reason of God. To Heraclitus, the Logos was the principle of order under
which the universe continued to exist” (Barclay, p. 35). This concept fascinated the Greeks,
especially the Stoics (See Acts 17:18).
The Stoics believed: “’All
things are controlled by the Logos of
God. The Logos is the power which puts sense into
the world, the power which makes the world an order instead of a chaos, the
power which set the world going and keeps it going in its perfect order’”
(Barclay, p. 35).
“Slowly the Jews and Greeks had thought their way to the concept of the Logos, the Mind of God which made the world and makes sense of it. So John went out to Jews and Gentiles to tell them that in Jesus Christ this creating, illuminating, controlling, sustaining mind of God had come to earth. He came to tell them that men need no longer guess and grope; all that they had to do was to look at Jesus and see the Mind of God” (Barclay, pp. 36-37).