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THE “WORD” IN JOHN’S PROLOGUE
 
‘THE WORD’ MISAPPLIED
 
Before he died in 1928 the eminent Professor Loofs explained how the earliest concept to pervert the Christian doctrine about God and Jesus came about:
 
The Apologists [Justin Martyr, Tatian etc. of the second century] used the metaphysical misinterpretation of the concept of Son [as preexisting logos]…This was a philosophical new interpretation of John’s logos idea and imported into the church’s theology…They presented Philo’s philosophical logos idea [as a “second God”] as Christian teaching and read it back into Scripture. The Apologists laid the groundwork for the perversion of Christianity into a revealed [philosophical] teaching. Specifically their Christology influenced further development disastrously. They were the cause of the beginning of the Christological problems of the 4th century. They transferred the concept of Son of God onto the preexistent Christ. They took this for granted.
They thus shifted the starting point of Christological thinking away from the historical Jesus [the only real Jesus] back into preexistence. They shifted Jesus’ life into the shadows and elevated the Incarnation [of a preexisting Son]. They connected Christology to cosmology and were unable to connect it to salvation. Their Logos [Word] teaching is not a “higher” Christology than the ordinary one. It fell in fact far behind the genuine assessment of Jesus: it was no longer GOD who revealed Himself in Christ, but the Logos, the lesser God, a God who as God was subordinate to the supreme God.
Leitfaden zum Studien der Dogmengeschichte, part 1, pp. 90, 97, 1890, reprinted 1949, translated by Professor Anthony Buzzard.
 
THE PROLOGUE IN JOHN IS MAINLY POETIC 
 
For many decades now it has been recognized by most scholars that the prologue of John’s Gospel was a hymn in praise of God, the Father. The New American Bible displays the poetry and prose layout which makes up the prologue. A slightly different poetic form of the prologue is set out by Raymond Brown as:
 
1st Strophe       verses 1 and 2                3rd Strophe      verses 10 to 12b
                       2nd Strophe      verses 3  to  5                 4th Strophe      verses 14 and16
 
Noteworthy, is the fact that the poem is arranged in what is called staircase parallelism form in which the last word of one phrase becomes the first word of the next finally rising to the climax in verse 14.
 
INTERNAL DETAILS OF THE PROLOGUE
 
Our understanding of the prologue is considerably helped when we examine its internal details. These give us clues as to how to understand its various parts. For instance, Catholic theologian Raymond Brown comments that:
 
the Greek word zoe (life) never means natural life in John’s writings and that The prologue is speaking of eternal life. The Gospel According to John 1-12 (The Anchor Bible), p. 7
 
So John 1:4 in saying: “and the life was the light of men” means ‘the eternal life was the light of men.’ And in saying “those who were born of God,” verses 12 and 13 show that it is
 
God’s declared purpose to make a New Creation which will be immortal. Also verse 18 shows that “No one has seen (got to know) God” and therefore God’s salvation plan or immortality plan is sent in the form of a man (verse 14) to explain, reveal or declare Him (verse 18).  According to verse 17 such revealing was only partially accomplished by the Law, but “grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.”
 
LOGOS THEOLOGY
 
For the ancient Greek Stoic philosophers the Logos was the rational principle of the universe but not a person. However, for the neo-Platonic philosophers the Logos was a person - an intermediary between the remote supreme God and creation.
What is termed Logos theology originated when Justin Martyr of the mid-2nd century AD and his disciples, who were trained in and promoted Greek philosophy, became Christians and interpreted John 1:1 in neo-Platonic terms so that “the word” (Greek logos) was interpreted as a person. However, in recent decades a significant number of theologians have demonstrated that the word is, in fact, not a person - not Jesus Christ; but is to be interpreted in biblical Hebrew terms because the Gospel of John, although written in Greek, is a thoroughly Jewish book (Aramaic being the common language). These theologians also have demonstrated that John 1:1 speaks of only one person, namely the Father.
 
JOHN DID NOT GET HIS CONCEPT OF “THE WORD”
FROM GREEK SOURCES
 
Based on the assumption that John wrote his book for Gentile Christians Trinitarians in past times have made several claims concerning where John got his concept of “the word”:
1. From Greek Platonic philosophy
2. From Philo (in Egypt) who applied Greek philosophy to explain the Hebrew Scriptures.
3. That John originated the concept himself.
 
Firstly, ​it is now recognized that the people to whom the Gospel of John was written were not people who would know much about Greek philosophy. Rather they were Jewish non-Christians for whom the book was “written so that [they] may believe that Jesus is the Christ (Messiah)” (John 20:31).
Secondly, although at first glance it may appear that Philo’s understanding of the logos was of a person separate from God, yet deeper investigation reveals that:
 
The Logos for Philo is ‘God’ not as a being independent of ‘the God’ but as ‘the God’ in his knowability – the Logos standing for that limited apprehension of the one God...
Christology in the Making, p. 241.
 
Because, it is now recognized that John wrote his Gospel with a Jewish audience in mind most Trinitarians have dropped the claim that Greek Platonic philosophy was John’s source. They also recognize that Philo’s understanding did not promote Greek Platonic philosophy with respect to the logos, but rather was drawn from the same Jewish background as John’s. So some Trinitarians have moved to the position that John originated the concept himself. However, under the article ‘Logos’ The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia states that:
It would be inconceivable that the apostle [John] lighted upon the word [Logos] by chance or that he selected it without any previous knowledge of its history or value. It may be assumed that when he speaks of the ‘Word’ in relation to God and the world, he employs a mode of speech which was already familiar to those for whom he wrote...
 
THE WORD
“THE WORD” IN THE BIBLICAL LANGUAGES
 
The Hebrew word dabar was translated into the Aramaic of the Targums as memra
The Hebrew word dabar was translated into the Greek of the Septuagint as logos.
 
Therefore dabar (Hebrew) = memra (Aramaic) = logos (Greek)
 
THE PROGRESSION OF “THE WORD” THROUGH
THE HEBREW AND INTO THE GREEK SCRIPTURES
 
Dabar occurs 1440 times in the Hebrew Scriptures and the phrase “the word of Jehovah” occurs 242 times in the Hebrew Scriptures. It has the following usages.
 
1. THE CREATIVE “WORD”
“By the word (dabar) of Jehovah the heavens were made” (Ps. 33:6).
This is God’s decree which brought forth the Genesis creation.
 
2. “THE WORD” IN THE FORM OF THE MOSAIC LAW 
“Hear the word of Jehovah, YOU dictators of Sodom. Give ear to the law of our God, YOU people of Gomorrah” (Isa. 1:10).
By Hebrew parallelism “the word of God” = “the law of God” (the Torah) in this appeal to Israel.
 
3. “THE WORD” IN THE FORM OF JUDGMENT 
“There was a word that Jehovah sent against Jacob, and it fell upon Israel” (Isa. 9:8)
Here we also see the idea of God’s word personified.
 
4. “THE WORD” AS GOD’S GOOD NEWS MESSAGE
“The green grass has dried up, the blossom has withered; but as for the word of our God, it will last to time indefinite” (Isa. 40:8).
 
This passage was quoted by Peter:
“for "All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever." And this word is the good news that was preached to you. (1 Pet. 1:24, 25).
 
Finally, “the word (logos) became flesh” in the person of Jesus (John 1:14). This progression is seen in:
John 1:17, 18:    
“…because while the law [Old Torah] was given through Moses, grace and truth [New Torah] came through Jesus Christ.”
 
In all of the 1,440 occurrences of dabar in the Hebrew Scriptures there is no instance where it refers to a person.
 
THE ARAMAIC TARGUMS WERE THE BIBLE OF
FIRST CENTURY PALESTINE
 
Because Aramaic had become the language of the common people in Palestine after the Babylonian Exile the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Aramaic in the form of the Aramaic Targums. These were the scrolls that were read in the synagogues so that the people could understand. By contrast the Septuagint was mainly the Bible of the Greek world outside of Palestine.
The Encyclopedia Britannica 2003, art. “Targum” informs us that:
 
The earliest Targums date from the time after the Babylonian Exile when Aramaic had superseded Hebrew as the spoken language of the Jews in Palestine. It is impossible to give more than a rough estimate as to the period in which Hebrew was displaced by Aramaic as a spoken language. It is certain, however, that Aramaic was firmly established in Palestine by the 1st century AD, although Hebrew still remained the learned and sacred language. Thus the Targums were designed to meet the needs of unlearned Jews [i.e. the great majority] to whom the Hebrew of the Old Testament was unintelligible, (emphasis ours).
 
ARAMAIC IN THE CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES
WORDS: Talitha qoum, ephatha, abba, raca, mammon, rabboni, maranatha, eli eli sabachthani, korbanas, sikera, hosanna.
PERSONAL NAMES: Bartholomew, Simon-bar-Jona, Barabbas, Bartimaeus, Barsabbas, Barnabas, Bar-Jesus, Boanerges, Cephas, Thomas, Tabitha.
PLACE NAMES:  Gethsemane, Golgotha, Gabbatha.
 
THE ARAMAIC TARGUMS WERE JOHN’S PRIMARY SOURCE
FOR THE CONCEPT OF “THE WORD”
 
The Targums were produced at a time when God was thought of in His transcendence so that people were afraid to attribute any human thoughts and actions to God and direct references to Him were thought of as irreverent. So in the Aramaic Targums the word memra was used as a periphrasis or circumlocution (a substitute word) for God. Instances of periphrasis are: Matthew’s use of “heaven” instead of writing “God” or “Yahweh” and Jesus’ use of the word
 
“Power” (Matt. 26:64) also as a periphrasis for “God” or “Yahweh.” In no instance of its use in the Aramaic Targums did it carry the thought of a person separate from God who is the Father.
 
EXAMPLES OF USAGE OF THE WORD “MEMRA”
• Genesis 3:8:
Hebrew Scriptures:   “They heard the sound of Yahweh God walking in the garden...”
Aramaic Targum:      “They heard the voice of the word [memra] of the Lord God    
                                        walking in the garden...”
 
• Exodus 19:17:
Hebrew Scriptures:  “And Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God.”
Aramaic Targum:   “And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet  
                                     the word of God.”
 
• Exodus 31:13:
Hebrew Scriptures:   “...is a sign between me and you throughout your generations.”
Aramaic Targum:    “...is a sign between my word and you throughout your  
                                         generations.”
 
So John and his readers were very familiar with the term memra and its Greek equivalent logos.
 
 
 
 
THE WORD
 
DABAR/MEMRA/LOGOS MEAN MORE THAN SIMPLY “WORD”
 
However, memra was not a simple substitute for “Yahweh” but denoted a special characteristic of “Yahweh” in reference to His speaking i.e. His activity of commanding in wisdom and power. Therefore, because memra = logos then logos also refers to God’s activity of commanding.
 
LEXICAL EVIDENCE FOR THE MEANING OF LOGOS
Utterance, command, decree, plan, expression of mind, revelation, creative thought, purpose, promise, message, wisdom, or reason.
 
For instance Bauer’s Greek/English Lexicon variously states logos to refer to:
 
A communication whereby the mind finds expression – of utterance; statement; question; proclamation; prophecy; command; instruction; message; revelation; the gospel; and declaration.
 
“LOGOS” ENCOMPASSES THOUGHT, SPEECH AND ACTION
Therefore ‘Word’ is really a rather inadequate translation of logos. So the rather wieldy phrases ‘God’s creative thoughts expressed into activity,’ ‘God’s expressed/declared/decreed/commanded purpose or plan’ or similar phrases more adequately reflect the full meaning of logos. Somewhat more encapsulated phrases might be: God’s declared or decreed purpose or His self-revelation.
 
PERSONIFICATION RATHER THAN HYPOSTATIZATION
 
Because the poetic factor in John’s prologue was not recognized in earlier times, it was taken literally. This has resulted in hypostatization of (to ascribe essence to) “the word” in verses 1-5 and so caused misunderstanding of John’s intent. When a literary piece is poetic it is generally given to metaphorical interpretation, which in this case is the figurative language of personification.
Roger Haight a Jesuit scholar explains that:
 
Hypostatization means making an idea or a concept into a real thing...the symbols Wisdom, Word, and Spirit, which are found in the Jewish Scriptures and refer to God, are not hypostatizations but personifications ... A major development occurred when a personification became transformed into hypostatization. Jesus Symbol of God, p. 257
 
The personification in John’s prologue is appropriate because his sources were Hebrew and Aramaic literature where personification was freely used. For instance, the Hebrew term dabar translated ‘word’ is often personified in the Hebrew Scriptures e.g. “With speed his word runs” (Psalm 147:15). Interestingly the prologue shows striking parallels with Proverbs 8:22-30 where Lady Wisdom is personified, but never hypostatized. There is also a certain similarity to the introduction to the Letter to the Hebrews. So a personified impersonal logos was not a new idea to John or his readers. Additionally, logos, although grammatically of masculine gender in Greek, does not mean that it is actually sexually masculine when translated into English. This is just the same as when a French masculine or feminine noun is logically neuter when translated into English. From the above it is evident that God’s logos has been personified and therefore does not refer to any literal person.
 
 
 
“LOGOS” WAS NEVER USED TO REFER TO A PERSON
Additionally, in the Septuagint O.T. the Greek word “logos” occurs some 1,500 times and is never used of a literal person. It also appears over 300 times in the Christian Scriptures. Again it is never used of a literal person other than being wrongly capitalized as a person in John 1:1 (but legitimately in Revelation 19:13).
 
“LOGOS” IN JOHN 1:1 DOES NOT REFER TO JESUS
 
AN ILLOGICAL UNDERSTANDING
Because God is the Father, it makes no sense for Trinitarians to interpret the “word” as Jesus. This would make John 1:1 become contradictory as in the following experiment:
If we replace the terms “God” with “Father” and “word” with “Jesus” it reads as:
 
‘In the beginning was Jesus and Jesus was with the Father and Jesus was the Father.’ 
Yet it is not part of Trinitarian belief that Jesus is the Father.
 
THE LOGOS AND JESUS ARE ALWAYS DISTINCT
In fact John’s prologue maintains the distinction between the logos and Jesus throughout, and with Jesus not being directly mentioned until verse 17 but with indirect references to him in verses 9, 10, 11 and 14. Furthermore, the prologue of the Gospel shows no conversations between God and “the word” as with those conversations between Yahweh and Satan in Job 1 and 2 or the conversations that are recorded between God and Jesus in other parts of the Scriptures. This indicates the impersonality of “the word.”
 
A PERSON’S WORD HAS NO PERSONALITY OF ITS OWN
Certainly we all recognize that the word of a person has no personality beyond the personality of the person whose word it is. One parallel is that the spirit of a person is not a separate person from him/her.
 
James Dunn says concerning the prologue of John:
 
In the earlier stages of the poem we are still dealing with the Wisdom...not as a personal being, but as the wise utterance of God personified.  
Christology in the Making, p. 242.
 
On this issue C.J. Wright states that: “When John presents the eternal Word he was not thinking of a Being.”        
 
And Dr. Colin Brown of Fuller Seminary comments that: “To read John 1:1 as if it means ‘In the beginning was the Son’ is patently wrong.”
 
Furthermore, Roger Haight says:
 
One thing is certain, the Prologue of John does not represent direct descriptive knowledge of a divine entity or being called Word, who descended and became a human being. To read a metaphor as literal speech is misinterpretation...
Jesus Symbol of God, p. 210.
 
 
 
 
 
THE WORD
1 JOHN 1:1-3 AS COMMENTARY ON THE PROLOGUE
 
A great help to our understanding is found in the prologue of John’s first letter which is a partial commentary on the prologue of his Gospel. From 1 John 1:1-3 we learn that, ‘the word’ is God’s promise to bring eternal life or immortality plan. So this impersonal promise, declared purpose or revelation is:    
   
• “...what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen...concerning the word of life...and the life was manifested.”
 
James Dunn comments that:
 
The subject of which 1 John 1:1-3 speaks is not Christ…but ‘that which concerns the word of life (the relative pronouns are neuter not masculine); and what ‘was manifested’ is not Christ or the word, but life, ‘the eternal life which was with the Father’. In other words, it is clearly the content of the message which is in view, not the person as such.
 
THE VIEW OF EARLY CHURCH FATHERS
 
Origen’s commentary on John says:
 
logos - only in the sense of the utterance of the Father which came to expression in a Son when Jesus was conceived.
 
Tertullian (155-230 A.D.) translated logos as speech and states:
 
It is the simple use of our people to say [of John 1] that the word of revelation was with God.
 
This view survived in Spain and southern Gaul until at least the 7th century.
 
WHAT DOES “WAS WITH (Gk. pros) GOD AND
THE WORD WAS GOD” MEAN?
 
According to Bauer’s lexicon the preposition pros with the accusative (as in John 1:1, 2) is a marker of movement or orientation toward someone/something: It variously can mean:
a. toward, towards, to,
b. near, at, during,
c. aiming at, striving toward,
d. against, for,
e. to indicate a connection by marking a point of reference, with reference to/regard to (about, because of, with respect to, which concerns, which belongs to, what makes for, in accordance with, in order to, for the purpose of ),
f. in adverbial expressions (“tends toward” Jas. 5:4)
g. by, at, near.
 
To all of these meanings Thayer’s lexicon adds the definition “pertaining to.” And various translations render pros with the accusative as: Concerning, as respects, pertaining to, of, even to. Furthermore, the Greek word generally rendered as ‘with’ is para and not pros. So one wonders why almost all translations of John 1:1, 2 render it as: “the Word was with God” when, in fact, the word with is barely one of the lexical definitions. Such a practice would seem to be because of tradition. In contrast, for about 70 times, the LXX renders pros ton theon as “to God.” Also there are 18 further occurrences of pros ton theon in the Christians
 
Scriptures, the great majority of which are translated as: “to God,” “toward God,” “related to God” or “pertaining to God.”
 
EXAMPLE OF ‘PROS TON THEON’ WITH THE ACCUSATIVE
Hebrews 5:2:
NWT: “appointed in behalf of men over the things pertaining to God...”
NASB: “appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God...”
NRSV: “is put in charge of things pertaining to God on their behalf...”
NKJV:  “appointed for men in things pertaining to God...”
ESV:  “appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God...”
NIV: “appointed to represent them in matters related to God...”
Amplified: “appointed to act on behalf of men in things relating to God...”
 
So there is no grammatical or contextual reason why some of these and other definitions could not be used for John 1:1, 2, e.g.
 
1. “the word was in relation to God and God was the word. This was in the beginning pertaining to God” or
 
2. “the word was with reference God and God was the word. This was in the beginning because of God.” or
 
3. “the word was with respect to God and God was the word. This was in the beginning with regard to God.”
 
NOTE: The phrase rendered: “and the word was God” is expressed in the Greek text as: “kai theos en ho logos” (“and God was the word”). So The Unvarnished New Testament renders John 1:1 as: “the Word was toward God and God was the Word.”
 
WORD = DECREED PURPOSE
So from the above we can rightly substitute ‘word’ for ‘decreed purpose’ or any of the other meanings of logos and giving the following possible renderings:
 
1. “the decreed purpose was with reference to God and God was the decreed purpose. This was in the beginning with respect to God” or
 
2. “the decreed purpose was in relation to God and God was the decreed purpose. This was in the beginning pertaining to God” or
 
3. “the decreed purpose was about God and God was the decreed purpose. This was in the beginning with regard to God.”
 
THE TRANSLATION ISSUE OF “AND THE LOGOS WAS A GOD”
 
Please see Study 4-23, EXAMINING THE NEW WORLD TRANSLATION. Much is made of the fact that the second word theos is anarthrous. However, this only matters if one uses the standard structure of the phrase i.e. “the logos was God (or a god).” However, the Greek text contains the phrase: “kai theos en ho logos” and is translated as “and God was the logos.” So the issue over the anarthrous noun becomes irrelevant.
 
WHAT THE PHRASE “AND GOD WAS THE LOGOS” PROVES
The whole sentence being:
“In the beginning was the logos and the logos was with the God and God was the logos.”
THE WORD
 
This linking of the second occurrence of the word “God” with “the God” by the word “and” shows that the passage is speaking of one and the same person.
 
THE IMPERSONAL “WORD” IN TRANSLATIONS
OF JOHN 1:1-4  
PRIOR TO THE KJV
Even prior to the 1611 KJV, eight major translations and one lesser translation used either a small ‘w’ for word or the pronoun “it” with reference to the word or both. These are: Tyndale (1534), Coverdale (1535), Matthew’s Bible (1537), The Great Bible (1539), Taverner’s NT (1540), Whittingham (1557), The Geneva Bible (1560), Bishop’s Bible (1568), Thomson NT (1607). The first time the rendering ‘him’ was used came in 1582 with the Douai/Rheims version by Roman Catholic priest Gregory Martin.
 
TRANSLATIONS SINCE 1611 A.D.
There are numerous translations since 1611 that reflect the fact that a second person is not being spoken about in John 1:1-3 e.g. LeClerc (1701), Wakefield (1791), Campbell (1826), Diaglott (1864), Concordant (1926), William Temple (1939), the 1985 translation by the Jewish historian Hugh J Schonfield, The Unvarnished New Testament (1991), and the 1993 translation by Robert W. Funk. The Elberfelder and Luther Bibles have Das Wort (Das being neuter and a capital letter being standard for all nouns in German) and the French Segond version has La parole (feminine) and in Russian it is slovo…en bylo (neuter).
Modern English paraphrases are:
• “In the beginning was the purpose, the purpose in the mind of God, the purpose which was God’s own being”                                         G. B. Caird, New Testament Theology.
 
• “In the beginning there was the divine word and wisdom. The divine word and wisdom were there with God. It was there with God from the beginning. Everything came to be by means of it.”                                                                                                   Robert Funk.
 
• “In the beginning was the Plan, God’s Plan, divine!! Everything took shape through it, nothing without it!! It brought life and light for all, shining in the dark, never overcome!! It entered the world it had planned, yet the world refused to know!! God’s own people refused!! But all who accepted, who trusted, could become God’s children, not born in a woman’s blood, not conceived by any man, but born of God!! ... And the Plan became flesh...” David L. Edwards (Trinitarian).
 
WHAT DOES “THE WORD BECAME FLESH” MEAN?
 
J.A.T. Robinson explains John 1:14:
 
What I believe John is saying is that the Word which was, God in his self-revelation and expression, was embodied totally in and as a human being, became a person, was personalized not just personified. But that the Logos came into existence or expression as a person does not mean that it was a person before. In terms of the later distinction, it was not that the Logos was hypostatic (a person or hypostasis ) and then assumed an impersonal human nature, but that the Logos was anhypostatic until the Word of God finally came to self-expression not merely in nature and in a people but in an individual historic person, and thus became hypostatic.
                                                                                             The Priority of John, pp. 380-381.
 
 
 
So rather than being a sentient person “the word” in John 1:1 was the complete index of God’s mind and containing His entire purpose which, in the 1st century was then embodied in a human being at the begetting of Jesus (verse 14). So in John 1:1 it says “the word was God.” It was not embodied in the Son until John 1:14 which stated that “the word became flesh.”
 
A BRIEF COMMENTARY ON JOHN’S PROLOGUE
 
GOD’S IMPERSONAL LOGOS IS PERSONIFIED - FIRST POETIC STROPHE
Verses 1 and 2:              
“In the beginning was God’s decreed purpose [self-revelation] and the decreed purpose was in relation to God and God was the decreed purpose. This was in the beginning pertaining to God”
 
This refers not directly to the Genesis creation, but to a time prior to that creation when God formed a purpose to produce humans as immortal beings in a perfect world. “In the beginning” also has soteriological (salvation) overtones of the New Creation (verse 13) and therefore the “new heavens and earth.”
 
GOD’S PURPOSE BRINGS EVERYTHING INTO EXISTENCE - SECOND POETIC STROPHE
Verses 3 – 5:                  
“All things [the universe] came to be through it [God’s declared purpose], and without it nothing came to be that has come to be. In it was life [immortality of the coming age] and the life was the light of men. The LIGHT [God's revealed truth] shines in the darkness (of lies from Satan in Eden), and the darkness did not overpower it [Gen. 3:15 and onward].”
 
As noted earlier prior to the 1611 KJV and also in some modern translations the Greek word autou in verses 3 and 4 is translated it rather than he. Autou can be rendered as either it or he. So here the correct choice of it is based on the context. The use of the pronoun it with reference to “the word” is appropriate because the poem moves forward in its strengthening of the personification. God’s decreed purpose also brings about His revealed truth [The light] that leads to immortal life in the age to come:
 
“And this is the message which we have heard from him…that God is light and there is no darkness at all in union with him” (1 John 1:5).
 
The metaphor God is light means that only truth can come from God. So the light at this point (verse 5) of the prologue is clearly impersonal, the pronoun it having been used. This indicates that the word is also impersonal at this stage of the prologue. Both the word and the light become physically manifest in Jesus at a later stage of the prologue.
 
THE REVEALING OF THE TRUE LIGHT - THE FIRST PROSE SECTION— A PARENTHESIS
The general view has been that this section was inserted into an existing poem. However, it may be that verses 6-9, 12c, 13 and 15, 17 and 18 are the original prose into which an already structured poem was worked:
 
Verses 6 and 7:
“There came a man sent from God whose name was John…in order to bear witness about the light...” 
 
Verse 8: “He was not the light but he came to testify about the Light.”
 
THE WORD
 
Verse 9: “That (impersonal at this stage), was the true light which is enlightening every man coming into the world” (see NKJV and the structure in the Greek).
 
According to the Word Biblical Commentary the phrase “every man coming into the world” was “a common phrase among Jews.” Less likely is the common rendering of:
 
“That was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.”
 
The NWT wrongly adds “was about to.” (See KIT interlinear). Because John sets verses 6-9 at this point he has altered the sense of the remaining poetry which was about God’s purpose. He thereby gives the first hint that the climax will be about the purpose being enfleshed which then gives out the true light.
 
THE LIGHT IS ENFLESHED IN JESUS - THIRD POETIC STROPHE
John now connects the word with the true light, both to be embodied in Jesus.
Verse 10 NAB also see interlinear:      
“He [Jesus as the enfleshed ‘true light’] was in the world (Gk. kosmos), and the world came to be through (Gk. dia - genetive) him [Jesus] but the world did not know him.”
 
Raymond Brown considers the ‘He’ as referring to the word rather than the light because of the use of the masculine pronoun. However, this seems to be an artificial distinction because eventually Jesus is both the enfleshed word and the enfleshed light. So it seems logical to consider that, in verse 10, John begins to bring together this thought of embodiment so that it is Jesus who is now being spoken of - he being God’s light now in human form. (Matt. 4:16; John 3:19, 8:12). It is the world of humanity (Gk. kosmos), rather than the universe that is meant here according to the context. So we notice that the world only came to be through him at a time he already was in the world since his birth. We also notice that the world only came to be through him at a time that the world had failed to recognize him. That is: it already did not know him.
So we ask: In what sense did the world come to be through Jesus if this occurred after he had been born and was later rejected? Clearly this does not mean that he was the original creator of the universe. Only God was that (Isa. 44:24). Similarly this does not mean that God is only the architect of the original creation with a pre-Jesus entity doing the actual creating. In fact, God’s being the primary cause of creation is shown by the use of the words hypo (by) and ek (out of) in reference to what he creates. Yet in contrast to God’s initiating activity – the world came to be through (Gk. dia) Jesus and therefore not by or out of him (2 Cor. 5:18) so that God’s purpose for the world would come to its completing stage in the new creation (John 1:12, 13). In this way Jesus, during his lifetime on earth, acted as God’s agent to complete the creation by his work and his sacrifice.
 
NOTE: According to Bauer’s Gk/Eng lexicon the range of meanings of the word dia in the genitive is: instrumentality, of attendant or prevailing circumstance, of occasion, in consequence of. The dictionary definition of the English word through includes “by reason of.”
Verses 11, 12a and b NAB:  
“He came to what was his own [Israel], but his own people did not accept him But to those [enlightened men], who did accept him he gave power to become children of God...”
 
 
 
THE SECOND PROSE SECTION
Verse 12 c and 13 NAB:  
“…to those who believe in his name, [Jesus now having God’s authority] who were born not by natural generation nor by human choice nor by a man’s decision but of God” [i.e. “born from above”].
 
This is the completing of creation when those who accepted Jesus became the first of the new creation which will finally result in “new heavens and a new earth.”
 
THE CLIMACTIC STATEMENT ABOUT THE ENFLESHED WORD - FINAL POETIC STROPHE
In Christology in the Making James Dunn notes that:
 
it is only with verse 14 that we can speak of the personal Logos. Prior to verse 14 we are in the same realm as pre-Christian talk of Wisdom and Logos...dealing with personifications rather than persons, personified actions of God rather than an individual divine being as such, p. 243.
 
Also Kuschel notes that:
 
Only from v.10 on may one speak of the Logos ensarkos. But it is v.14 which first makes unmistakably clear in ‘Christian’ terms that ‘the word became flesh’ and thus identifies the Logos asarkos with a specific person… Born Before all Time?, p.381.
 
Just as John, in verse 10, had shown that God’s light was now embodied in a human, he completes his thoughts concerning God’s self-revelation by showing that it, too, was now embodied in a human.
 
Verses 14, 16:
“And God’s Decreed Purpose [self-revelation] became human and tabernacled [as the new mode of God’s presence and the bearer of the New Torah] among us, and we saw its [still logos, ‘the decreed purpose’], glory, glory as of an only-begotten from a father (a metaphor), full of grace and truth. From his fullness we have all received, grace [verse 17 shows this to be truth through Jesus leading to the New Covenant] in place of grace [the Old Torah which fades after it is fulfilled].” NIV has “one blessing after another” or NJB has “one gift replacing another.”
 
So Jesus is the word or decreed purpose made into flesh. He was never that decreed purpose/word before his being flesh.
                       
THE FINAL PROSE SECTION
Verses 17, 18:    
“…because while the law [Old Torah] was given through Moses, grace and truth [New Torah] came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen [really known] God. The unique Son, who is close to the Father’s heart (NJB and NRSV) has revealed Him.”
 
CONCLUSION
 
In his prologue John is demonstrating how God, through Jesus, completes his creation as the New Creation. However, perhaps the most helpful points are the understanding that the term word is inadequate to express the meaning of logos. Additionally, the larger part of the prologue is poetry which indicates a strong likelihood of a metaphorical interpretation of personification as in its parallel passage of Proverbs 8.
 
THE WORD
Furthermore, Kuschel states that:
 
The prologue intrinsically has a dynamic movement and determines its own focal point. It begins universally and ends in a concrete way.           Born Before all Time? p. 382.
 
This really makes it impossible to jump back to any earlier stage of the prologue. Such forward movement in the poem strongly indicates that Jesus is what the word became only from verse 14 and making it impossible for there to have been a pre-existent person in John 1:1 who then became Jesus.
 
WTS CONTRADICTION OF ITS OWN TEACHING
 
From The New Schaff Herzog Encyclopaedia the WTS Trinity brochure on page 11 gives a quotation that is used by them to condemn Platonism. The Encyclopaedia states:
 
The doctrines of the Logos and the trinity received their shape from Greek Fathers, who...were much influenced...by the Platonic philosophy...That errors and corruptions crept into the Church from this source cannot be denied.
 
Yet the Logos doctrine is exactly what the WTS teaches when it teaches that a pre-existent Jesus was the logos in John 1:1.  
 
RECOMMENDED READING
 
Christology in the Making     James Dunn - Professor of Divinity (Durham University).
 
Born Before all Time         Karl Joseph Kuschel - Catholic theologian (University of Tubingen).
 
The Human Face of God       John A. T.  Robinson - leading Protestant theologian (UK).
The Priority of John             John A. T.  Robinson          
 
The Christian Experience of God as Trinity       James P. Mackey - Professor of Divinity.
 
The Birth of the Messiah       Raymond E. Brown - leading Catholic theologian (USA).

Are you Elijah Returns? :huh:

http://hubpages.com/hub/In-the-begining-...rd-was-god

If not, do you have his permission to plagiarize his post? :confused:

Why also did you create a new topic, instead of adding this post to the topic you already made on this subject? :scratchhead:

I already linke to the author who made this essay,XJW Ray Faircloth, NOT Elijah returns, who plagarised ,if anyone did, my friends website http://www.biblicaltruthseekers.co.uk

no reply Mavos? And res I don't see anyone getting at Bangalore saying he is talking "at" people I'm done with this forum, I'm posting from my iPhone from work and don't have time to extract my friends articles were quotations of scholars and scriptures if you don't want to respond to the truth and create a strawman or other from of attack than go ahead I'm done with this forum that promotes ploytheism and Gnosticism has double standards and is dead,there are some very cool and good people on here, but the weeds are beginning to overrun the place goodbye!

Hey Ozy, I hope you give us a second chance here. Perhaps with a new approach. I think what Rez was saying is we wanna talk with you not read other peoples opinions. It is very hard to discuss thing when that much info is presented at one time.

Let's take a reply from gogh to you on John 6

62 What then if you should see the Son of Man ascend where He was before?

So if you don't believe Jesus existed before His incarnation what is this verse saying?

Why not slow down and converse " give us your thoughts ". More Ozy less quotes.


So please reconsider and perhaps come about things in a different approach:giverose::grouphug::giverose:

BB:happyheart::heartbeat::happyheart:

Dear Ozymandias

I fully agree with you, some people are invading this board and it seems to be promotion for all kind of beliefs and promoting Newagers, Sientologists, Gnostics, Ateists, Tnitarian, Binetarians and Quantum Physicians or combinations hereof and maybe Christian Science :huh:

This BB seems to go in the direction of and to be like all others where everything from Flower Power Love to take a joint is fully acceptable, just it is covered by the name of Jesus Christ and the word Love :help:

It is my sincerely hope that the Admin, Moderators and Faciliators will wake upp before its too late and take their responsibility to live up to what I belived, that this was a Christian BB where we can ventilate our spiritual thoughts without promotion for all kind of Churches and Organisations, where their followers like to see the Scriptures with filters of doctrines of men and not with new eyes.

It seems to be right that all those who have leaved The Watchtower Society, do exactly as a dog which goes back to its womit, by joining all kind of new Churches and Organisations, much worser than where they came from and then promote them here at this BB :angry:

So people who don't agree with your views are not welcome on this board? For someone who seems to be so against intolerance, that's pretty intolerant. Nobody has "invaded" the board. Most of the people who hold to the views you've mentioned have been on this board since the beginning (even going back to the Old Cafe on Robert's site).

I'm sorry but what you wrote here is just silly.

The Admin, Moderators and Facilitators are not here to live up to "what you believe". This is a board of Christian and biblical discussion. No where that I can tell does it say that a person who goes to a Church or is part of an organization can't be part of this board. You through around the term "doctrines of men" so much, you sound like a broken record. Anything you don't agree with is suddenly a "doctrine of men" and following tradition and organizations. This is such silliness it is starting to greatly annoy me. I am tired of your rhetoric. I disagree with you in some areas where you still agree with the Watchtower society. Does that mean you are promoting "doctrines of men" and following tradition and organizations? You will be judged by the same standard you judge others.

Essentially you just said that anyone who has left the Society and now goes to a church is a dog and pig. I beg your pardon! Just because some here are part of a local community, fellowship, and assembly of believers, just because some go to **gasp** "CHURCH" doesn't mean that they are less spiritual or somehow inferior Christians.

You disagree with people here. Fine. Make your case from the Bible and stop the rhetoric. It's offensive, unloving, unhelpful and unchristian.

Matt

Amen Mavos! :thumbup:

Dear All

It has absolutely nothing to do with what I belive or not.

Let me hear all of you, that promote your new belonging to old Trinitarian, Binetarian and other Organisations, can one put your hand on your heats and say that we are totally independent and haven't joined one of these :cry:

We are free agents, but it seems that it is exactly all those persons that have went back and make their complaints for closing threads which didn't conform to their "new" religion, based at doctrines of men :help:

Man, are you still harping about closing that thread (and doctrines of men)? It seems that your feelings were hurt. As i said when i requested the thread to be closed it was starting to be the anja and talkative show.

When only two are having a conversation and no one else is interjecting that should tell you something. It was a lot more interesting when there were many conversations going by many posters.

It has everything to do with what you believe, as your post goes on to show.

No one has closed a thread because it didn't conform to their "new" religion. It's the mods who close threads and always for good reasons that are seldom based on their "beliefs".

And there you go again with the "doctrines of men" stuff. Just stop it already. Also, did you not listen to what I said in my last post. By your standard, I could easily say that you are holding on to the doctrine of men as well. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. But this doesn't help at all.

Please notice, when Jesus says that the Pharisees were "teaching as doctrines the commandments of men" (Matthew 15:9), what was he referring to? Verses 3 through 7 of Chapter 15 tell us it was the fact that they broke the Law that Jesus was angry with. He isn't talking about their theology here. He is talking about the fact that the Pharisees and Scribes were breaking the commandments of God and teaching others to do likewise. They were inventing ways to break the Law. This was what Jesus was referring to when he said teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. The Pharisees had made void the Law of God, because they advocated the breaking of God's Law in order to keep their own oral laws and pronouncements.

Every time you use this phrase in reference to some teaching you don't agree with you are taking it out of context. Listen: Make your arguments from the Bible. Stop with all this "doctrines of men" stuff. It's contentious. We are all here doing the best we can to base all of our beliefs on the Bible. Being part of a community of believers has no bearing on this at all.

Matt

Well folks, sorry to be so late in sitting down to my computer.:redface:

Looks like admin. is getting flack for the disappearing threads. This one may disappear as well, if Ozzy removes his first post. He apparently removed his other two threads. That's how it works....the first post determines the existence of the thread.

If Admin. had to remove a "first" post, unless it was not responded to yet, they would generally clean out the post and insert a note explaining. Or we could do it the way we did it the other day when we were hit with a scammer. Wayne, you probably remember the guy who was quoting the apocryphal book of Sirach.

The fact is, that Ozzy may return and remove his post and then all our words will be gone. Hope this helps.

Rez:P

PS to Ozzy: We do not promote polytheism and Gnosticism on the board. We are trying to hear and understand others' views by encouraging discussion among folks with somewhat differing opinions. If you were once a witness, did you not listen to the people you called on? Did you just keep talking until they managed to get their doors closed?

All of us need to keep working on our communication skills. A good biblical principal to follow is found at James 1:19-21, namely:

"Know this, my beloved brothers. Every man must be swift about hearing, slow about speaking, slow about wrath; for man’s wrath does not work out God’s righteousness."

As one wag put it: God gave us two ears and one mouth. So we need to listen twice as much as we speak.

Hi Mavos

Thanks for your comments.

Re: "We are all here doing the best we can to base all of our beliefs on the Bible."

For the most part, I believe this is true. If we try to be specific about a point or a concern and use scripture reference to provide foundation for a point or concern....expressions of such can result in encouraging others to also reason from scripture....(and develop better communication skills...grin).

Christian love,

gogh

Howdy Rez

Re: "All of us need to keep working on our communication skills."

I love it when this happens...grin

I was posting at the same time as you were...with the same wording re: "communication skills"....ha, ha,

(It happened yesterday too...with the "that's a lot of bull" phrase")

Oh happy days!

:drinking:

Yes indeed gogh. Also, most of the time the disagreements we have on the board revolve around the specific meaning or interpretation of scripture. Misreading a text isn't "following men". All of us are guilty of misreading scriptures from time to time. In our discussions, if we think that the other person has misread the text, we should take the utmost care and concern for the other person as we gently attempt to correct the other's thinking. Name calling and rhetoric should have no place in our discussions.

Thanks,

Matt