Featured Why is Jesus called the Word?

Jesus is called the "Word" because he comes forth from God.

It is the exact same reason he is called the begotten Son, he is Truly God of Truly God, God from God. He came forth from God eternally, was begotten before all ages. He has no beginning, he will have no end.

This is the exact same reason he is called the Image of God.

It is the exact same reason he is called the radiance of the glory of God.

It is all the same thing being conveyed. He is the one who came forth from God, and the one who reveals God, and through whom God is manifested.

 

He's the word because, the scriptures testify of him. He is Genesis to Revelation, and everything in between. Everything that applies to the scriptures, apply to him, and visa versa.

 

The ancient Greek philosphers sought to understand how the kosmos (the structured order of existence, i.e. "the universe" or "the world") worked. For the Greeks, ultimately, there was some over-arching force, power, something that maintained the kosmos--that which gave order, a Divine Reason which held all things together. This Reason which held all things together they called Logos: Word, Reason, etc.

The Jewish philospher Philo of Alexandria identified the Logos with the Jewish idea of Divine Wisdom. This Logos was the divine agency through which God made all things and held all things together.

Early Christians took this idea of the Logos, the Divine Word or Reason, and saw here Jesus. Jesus is the Logos, the Divine Word of God through which God made all things and held all things together, this Word was no mere creature but was, indeed, to be identified with God Himself, in some way. It is from this core idea that Christians, along with other important concepts, could confess that Jesus as the Son and Word of God the Father is Himself God, but distinct from the Father. There, indeed, were to be counted three who are properly called God, though of one undivided Essence (and, hence, the Trinity).

When John calls Him Word, this is what he means. That Jesus is the Divine and Uncreated Logos through whom God the Father made all things; Jesus is the Logos that gives Reason and structure and purpose to all creation. Indeed we read "All things were made by Him and for Him" (Colossians 1:16) and "He upholds all things by His powerful command" (Hebrews 1:3).

Jesus is not Scripture, and Scripture is not Jesus. Scripture is the word about the Word, not the Word Himself.

-CryptoLutheran

 

Absolutely untrue and idolatrous.

Jesus Christ is eternal and uncreated God.
Scripture is not.

-CryptoLutheran

 

As the eternal Word, Jesus was eternally begotten by/of the Father, as never was a time when he was not!

 

"Logos" (translated as "Word") is John's name for the Second Person of the Trinity, who became incarnate as Jesus.

In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. ... And the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (from John 1)

 

Jesus is God.

 

John 1 is telling us that the Second Person of the Trinity is like Philo's Logos, but with a few specific differences, which are listed (like being fully God).

 

This may help...

 

No, the Word (Second Person of the Trinity) is completely different from the word (Scripture).

The bible is not God (Jesus is). The bible did not die to save us from our sins (Jesus did).

 

John 1:1

 

Scripture calls Him that.

"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The Same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not anything that was made that was made." (John 1:1-3)

"And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father,) full of grace and truth." (John 1:14)

"And He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and His Name is called The Word of God." (Rev 19:13)

 

Exactly. While Philo's Jewish take on the Logos is important, what we read in John's Prologue goes further than Philo.

-CryptoLutheran

 

Indeed.

I've always imagined that John, casting about for a way of explaining the Incarnation, picked on Philo's Logos as the closest thing, but then highlighted the key differences: the Logos was God, and the Logos became flesh.

It's from Philo, incidentally, that we get the idea that "the Angel of the LORD" in the OT was the pre-Incarnate Logos.

 

Not addressed to anyone specifically, just a general statement in regard to the thread topic:

When we call Scripture "the word of God" we are making a theological statement about the Scriptures; that they are divinely inspired, and that they communicate God to us in a powerfully unique way. Most important here is that the Scriptures are about Jesus. Jesus is the Word, and the Bible is about Him. Because in these books we confess that Jesus Christ is communicated to us, we meet Jesus in the Scriptures. He is the Word that is spoken to us in and through the Scriptures. However the Scriptures are not that Word, Jesus is that Word. The Scriptures are the word of God because they proclaim THE Word of God, Jesus Christ.

Without Christ the Scriptures are nothing more than religious literature, some history, a few good stories, and some moral lessons. But without Jesus they aren't Holy Scripture. It is Christ who makes them holy, it is Christ who makes them sacred for the Church of Jesus Christ. Indeed, we confess and believe the Scriptures for Christ's sake, because He said "You search the Scriptures... it is these which speak of Me". As St. Augustine said, the Scriptures contain one Utterance, one Word, and that Utterance is Christ.

That is why it is vitally important to not conflate the written word (Scripture) with the Word (Jesus Christ). We worship Jesus Christ, we do not worship the Bible. The Scriptures are to be honored and revered as like the manger which cradled the Christ-Child, but it is Christ--not the manger which held Him--that is the object of our adoration and praise.

-CryptoLutheran

 

Like in all scripture there are depths of meaning that we probably have no definitions for, maybe no words to express. But in a nutshell:

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:2 He was in the beginning with God.
John 1:3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
John uses the Greek word logos to describe Jesus as "in the beginning," even before Creation. Logos means word spoken as a statement. Jesus is God's spoken word.

John then continues the the Word aka Jesus was "with" God and "was" God.

Hope that helps.

 

Maybe he is also metaphorically God's message to the world.

 

Not metaphorically, but literally. Jesus Christ is God's Revelation to the world. The Revelation of God, God's own Self-disclosure of Himself to us, isn't a text or an idea, but a Person, a flesh-and-blood Person, Jesus.

-CryptoLutheran

 

I'll quickly chime in to the discussion:
Contrary to popular belief, John's use of "logos" in his gospel prologue is not borrowing from (or at least not solely or even primarily) Greek ideas of Logos.

Type in "memra" into your search engine and look at the articles that come up. Take a sampling of what you find there and check for sources and credibility (this is the wild west of the internet after all), but the first hits that come up for me were fairly uniform and comprehensive in their analysis in comparing "logos" to the Hebrew "memra" as it appears in the Old Testament.

SPOILER ALERT: Logos (Gk.="Word") is a conceptual stand-in for "the Word of Yahweh" in the Old Testament which is the instrument of revelation of God and occasionally personified. It is also used like "Angel of Yahweh" as a stand-in for Theophanies (physical appearances of God - e.g. The Word of the Lord came to...". This conceptual framework appears not only in the Old Testament, but in the commentaries (Targums) meaning that Jews in the time of John's writing understood what he was doing in his Gospel prologue.

Happy reading.