John 1:1

In the first verse three things are stated regarding the Logos, the subject ὁ λόγος being repeated for impressiveness. Westcott remarks that these three clauses answer to the three great moments of the Incarnation declared in John 1:14. He who was (ἦν) in the beginning, became (ἐγένετο) in time; He who was with God, tabernacled among men; He who was God, became flesh.

(1) ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος. ἐν ἀρχῇ is here used relatively to creation, as in Genesis 1:1 and Proverbs 8:23, ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸ τοῦ τὴν γῆν ποιῆσαι; cf. 1 John 1:1. Consequently even in the time of Theophylact it was argued that this clause only asserts that the Logos was older than Adam. But this is to overlook the ἦν. The Logos did not then begin to be, but at that point at which all else began to be He already was. In the beginning, place it where you may, the Word already existed. In other words, the Logos is before time, eternal. Cf. Colossians 1:18 (the article is absent because ἐν ἀρχῇ is virtually an adverbial expression). ὁ λόγος. The term Logos appears as early as Heraclitus to denote the principle which maintains order in the world (see passages in Ritter and Preller). Among the Stoics the word was similarly used, as the equivalent of the anima mundi (cf. Virgil, Æn., vi., 724). Marcus Aurelius (iv. 14 21) uses the term σπερματικὸς λόγος to express the generative principle or creative force in nature. The term was familiar to Greek philosophy. In Hebrew thought there was felt the need for some term to express God, not in His absolute being, but in His manifestation and active connection with the world. In the O. T. “the Angel of the Lord” and “the wisdom of God” are used for this purpose. In the Apocryphal books and the Targums “the word of Jehovah” is similarly used. These two streams of thought were combined by Philo, who has a fairly full and explicit doctrine of the Logos as the expression of God or God in expression (see Drummond's Philo; Siegfried's Philo; Reville, Doctrine du Logos; Bigg's Bampton Lec.; Hatch's Hibbert Lec.). The word being thus already in use and aiding thoughtful men in their efforts to conceive God's connection with the world, John takes it and uses it to denote the Revealer of the incomprehensible and invisible God. Irrespective of all speculations which had gathered around the term, John now proceeds to make known the true nature of the Logos. (Cf. The Primal Will, or Universal Reason of the Babis; Sell's Faith of Islam, 146.)

(2) If the Word was thus in the beginning, what relation did He hold to God? Was He identical or opposed? ὁ λόγος ἦν πρός τὸν θεόν. πρός implies not merely existence alongside of but personal intercourse. It means more than μετά or παρά, and is regularly employed in expressing the presence of one person with another. Thus in classical Greek, τήν πρός Σωκράτην συνουσίαν, and in N. T. Mark 6:3; Matthew 13:56; Mark 9:19; Galatians 1:18; 2 John 1:12. This preposition implies intercourse and therefore separate personality. As Chrysostom says: “Not in God but with God, as person with person, eternally”.

(3) The Word is distinguishable from God and yet Θεὸς ἧν ὁ λόλος, the Word was God, of Divine nature; not “a God,” which to a Jewish ear would have been abominable; nor yet identical with all that can be called God, for then the article would have been inserted (cf. 1 John 3:4). “The Christian doctrine of the Trinity was perhaps before anything else an effort to express how Jesus Christ was God (Θεός) and yet in another sense was not God (ὁ θεός), that is to say, was not the whole Godhead.” Consult Du Bose's Ecumenical Councils, p. 70 73. Luther says “the Word was God” is against Arius: “the Word was with God” against Sabellius.