A word behind the word
Logos, the Word
The Greek word logos, translated Word, opens the Gospel of John: In the beginning was the Word. Logos can mean a spoken word, a statement, an account, or reason itself, and John chose it with care.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”John 1:1
What the word actually means
What the word actually means. In ordinary Greek usage logos ranges widely: a word, a saying, a message, a report, an argument, or the faculty of reason. Throughout the New Testament it most often means simply a spoken or written word or message. Jesus speaks of keeping his word in John 14:23; the word of God is preached in Acts and the Epistles; Hebrews 4:12 says, For the word of God is quick, and powerful. So in the vast majority of its appearances logos means an utterance or message, not a grand philosophical concept. What makes John 1 striking is that he takes this common word and applies it to a person: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, in John 1:1, and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, in John 1:14. Behind John's usage stands the Old Testament, where God creates by speaking, By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, Psalm 33:6, and where God's word goes forth and accomplishes his purpose, as in Isaiah 55:11. John draws on that Hebrew background of the powerful, creative, self-revealing word of God.
The myth to clear up
The myth to clear up. A frequent overreach reads John 1 as if John were simply borrowing the Logos of Greek philosophy, the impersonal cosmic reason of the Stoics or the divine mediating principle of some thinkers, and importing it wholesale. It is true that logos carried philosophical weight in the wider Greek world, and some early readers noticed the resonance. But John's Logos is not an abstract principle; it is a person who was with God, who was God, who became flesh and could be seen and handled, and who has a name, Jesus Christ. The sober correction: do not overload John 1 with Greek metaphysics as though that explains it. John's deepest roots are in the Hebrew Scriptures, where God speaks and worlds come to be. He may use a word his Greek readers recognized, but he fills it with the God of Israel who has now come near.
How the word opens onto Christ
How the word opens onto Christ. John's whole point is that the eternal Word is Jesus. Everything a word does, God has done in him. A word reveals the mind of the one who speaks; John 1:18 says, No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. Christ is God's self-expression, the making-audible and visible of the invisible God. A word creates when God speaks it, and John 1:3 says, All things were made by him. A word came to the prophets, but now the Word has come in person and dwelt among us. Hebrews 1:1-2 makes the same move: God, who spoke in times past by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son. To hear Jesus is to hear the final Word of God, not a message about God merely, but God's own eternal Word made flesh.
Questions people ask
Did John borrow logos from Greek philosophy?
The word had philosophical uses in the Greek world, and some early readers noticed the overlap, but John's Word is a person, not an abstract principle, and his deepest background is the Old Testament, where God creates and reveals by speaking.
What does it mean that the Word was made flesh?
John 1:14 says the eternal Word, who was with God and was God, became a real human being in Jesus and lived among us. God's self-expression took on flesh so we could see and know him.