Logos #17

Logos was a rich and loaded term in the Greek philosophical world by the time John’s Gospel was written, used by Stoic and Hellenistic-Jewish thinkers alike for the rational principle underlying and ordering the universe. In ordinary Greek it simply meant “word,” “speech,” or “reasoned account” — the root of English words like “logic” and “-ology.”

Biblical Usage

John opens his Gospel by reaching for this loaded philosophical term and filling it with a specific, startling claim: “In the beginning was the Word [Logos], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… All things were made through him” (John 1:1-3). He then identifies this eternal Logos with a historical person: “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). Revelation later gives the risen Christ the same title directly: “the Word of God” (Revelation 19:13).

Theological Significance

By choosing Logos rather than a more ordinary title, John frames Jesus’s identity in terms his Greek-speaking readers — familiar with Logos as the rational principle behind the cosmos — could immediately recognize, while radically redefining the term: not an impersonal cosmic principle, but a person who was both distinct from God the Father (“with God”) and fully God himself (“was God”), and who entered creation as a human being.