ADVENT: AND THE WORD WAS GOD? (John 1:1-2)

What was John saying in 1:1-2 about the Word (logos)?  I, like others, do not think I can capture the Greek concepts in English.  I will try, but what I notice is that many commentators get hung up on the individual word issues and miss the broader cultural understanding of speaking that lies behind John’s imagery.

Issues
“In beginning”: indicating temporality or causality is not as important as the fact that John is thinking of Genesis 1:1.
“Word” (logos): can mean word, speech act, reason or plan, etc.  The context of a speech act that alludes to Genesis 1 matter.
“With God”: the preposition pros can have a wide range of nuances; appropriate to the context here is a nuance of extension and an expression of relationship.
“Was God”: 1) Mormons want to translate it as “was a God” because there is no definite article; however, 2) the predicate noun stated first can be definite without the definite article; but more significantly 3) it could be qualitative, as in “fully divine.” [See Net Bible for a discussion.]  Again, the context matters.

Cultural Concept
Understanding the cultural concept of the speech act is more important than debating the words individually.  In that culture, when someone spoke, that person did so by their very life essence, their spirit or breath (Hebrew: ruach; Greek: pneuma).  As a result, the utterance was something real and “tangibly” of the speaker.  One can even feel words breathe out of the person’s mouth.  This is why words of blessing and words of cursing were taken as real and powerful as the speaker.  

In Genesis 1, of which John is thinking, God utters forth creation: “God said … and it came to be.”  God’s utterance divides light from darkness.  God’s utterance divides order from chaos.  God’s utterance brings about life.  God’s utterance in creation was understood to be continually efficacious, maintaining the creational order in the presence of chaos. God’s utterance was of the very life essence (Spirit) of God.

Application
John’s parallel to Genesis 1 is identifying Jesus as that creational ordering, efficacious utterance of God that is itself (Himself) inseparably of the essence and person of God.*  Through this Utterance, “All things through Him came into being; and apart from Him nothing has come into being” (1:3).  Here is a paraphrase, inadequate but maybe helpful, of 1:1-2:
    In the beginning, was God’s Ordering, Life-giving Utterance [the Word].
    And the Ordering Utterance was the extension of God.
    And fully expressing the Divine was the Ordering Utterance.
    This One was from the beginning the extension of God.
As I think about Jesus, I am overwhelmed by the realization that the Divine Utterance became flesh, became a person.  This is the Christ.  This is the Savior of the world.  The world came into being through Him.  I came into being through Him.  I am moved to worship.
Lord, Jesus, I am yours.  Amen.
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*Although I am not saying that John was attempting to give a theological metaphor for the Trinity, if I was to put words in John’s mouth, I would use the image of God the Utterer (Father), God the articulating Breath (Spirit), and God the Utterance (Son) – all of the same Godhead, all distinct, all in unity.

I GRIEVE BECAUSE OF CHRISTIANS.

I grieve that people are not walking with Jesus because of Christians.  I am speaking about something much deeper than political division.  I have friends who are atheists or agnostics due to their experience with Christians.  Today, again, I met another fine man who is an agnostic.  He would like to believe in a God, but because Christians have taught him that all non-Christians will “go to hell,” he does not want anything to do with Jesus.  That is what grieves me deeply.  That is not good biblical theology.  Very briefly and without full explanations, this is what I would like to tell such people, if they were open to listening:

1.   The basic biblical message is that God wants to be in a close, eternal relationship with those whom God created.  God humbles God-self to effect such relationships.

2.   Read literally the key biblical texts, such as John 3:16: and Rom 6:23, tell us that there two spiritual options: people either can accept eternal life with God or they will die, not that they will either live eternally with God or live eternally tormented.

a.   The popular teaching that everyone has an eternal soul and can never die comes from ancient Greek thought. It is not biblical. It is read into the Bible.

b.   In Gen 3, when Adam and Eve seek to become like God, they do die; they are banned from eating from the Tree of Life.  The clear implication is that they were created mortal but had the opportunity of living forever removed because of their sin.

c.   The popular-level doctrine of “hell” comes from conflating two different concepts: Gehenna, the depository place of dead bodies, and Hades, the holding place until the resurrection of the dead. (The conflation can be seen in 9^th century Anglo-Saxon translations that render both terms by “hel/helle” [underworld].)  Revelation calls the final judgement of death, after the resurrection of the dead, the “second death” (20:6,14; 21:8).  In the 1^st century AD, mortals (vs. angels) being thrown into a lake fire symbolized the complete destruction of the person.

3.   God does not limit the option of life to the “informed” (e.g. Jews or Christians).  Paul recognizes in Romans 2 that non-Jews who did not have the law and were not circumcised (a sign of being a member of the covenant community) could have the law “in their hearts” and be spiritually “circumcise” (i.e. belong to the community of faith; see 2:11-16, 26-29).  God welcomes people from every nation who totally respect God (Luke 1:50; Acts 10:34-35).

4.   The main Christ redemption event was to reveal fully the heart of God who is willing lower God-self and then to “lift up” and remove sin, that is to bring people into a state of forgiveness and reconciliation.

5.   The salvific language in the Gospels is that people now can participate in the Kingdom of God (eternal life); they can now become participants in Christ, in God; and that God participates now in them through the presence of the Holy Spirit.

When we do not communicate the biblical message of God’s love accurately or well, we hinder people from walking closely with Jesus.  It is not their fault.  It is ours, Christians.

Note: I understand that my points above do not conform to popular, Christian “orthodoxy.”  My efforts as a biblical scholar – recognizing that I am frail and fallible – are to understand to the best of my ability what the biblical terms and concepts meant to the original Jewish and Christian audiences in their time and culture.  Here is an example, although it is centuries later than the New Testament.  Probably millions of people in the US every Sunday recite from one of the ancient Christian creeds something to the effect of how they “believe in the resurrection of the dead.”  I wonder how many of them realize that they are affirming the belief that at the Second Coming of Jesus the dead will then be resurrected?  How many understand the biblical teaching of the resurrection of the dead?  Much like Jesus’ teaching on participating in the Kingdom of God now, it is generally a lost concept.