* Grimm (Clavis: followed by Thayer, Lex.) gives this as a solitary instance of the use of Logos in the sense of the divine mind or reason; but for this there is neither necessity in the context nor warrant in NT usayes.
(against Beyschlag, Bib. Theol. of NT). In yv.*5 the activity of the Logos in relation to the universe isstated. ‘ All things were made (came into exist- ence, ἐγένετο) through him, and without him was not anything made that hath been made’; a phrase which describes the Logos as the medium of the entire creative activity of God, and which excludes, at least by implication, the notion that creation was the formation of the cosmos from existing matter.* ‘In’ the Logos, moreover, ‘was life,’ i.e. He pos- sessed the divine fulness of physical, rational, and ethical energy, with the implication that all the manifestations of life in the universe are due to His activity t (ef. Col 7. Note here also 1 Jn 11:8), Hence to men, endowed with intelligence, the life possessed by the Logos and manifested in creation was originally the illuminating truth (‘the Bent) by which they apprehended God and duty ; but when man became immersed in dark- ness (by sin), the divine light, though still con- tinuing to shine, was not comprehended. This divine person crowned His manifestation of God by becoming flesh,—an expression which includes the reality and totality of Christ’s human nature, the identity of His personality with that of the divine Logos, and, when taken with the context, the voluntariness of the incarnation, —and in the flesh manifested to His disciples, like the Shechinah in the tabernacle, His glory, such as became God’s ‘ only-begotten One,’ being ‘full of grace and truth.’ Attested by the Baptist (vv.** 15) and the apostles (vv."*1*), He surpassed the earlier revelation through Moses (vv.'*"7), though after, as before, His incarnation He was rejected by the world, and even by the Jews (v."), and was received only by the true children of God (vv.}*:""). He, however, 1s the only, but perfect, medium through whom God is known (y.’8).
From this summary it appears (1) that ὁ λόγος is not equivalent to ὁ λέγων, ‘he who speaks,’ as if the term were used because Christ was the teacher of whom St. John wrote; nor to ὁ λεγόμενος, ‘the pou one’; but is a designation of the divine son in His everlasting function of revealer of God. (2) That Logos means ‘ Word,’ not ‘ Reason,’ since it represents Him as the personal manifestation, not of a part of the Divine Nature, but of the whole of Deity (cf. 14° 2°). (3) That the purpose of the prologue was to summarily express the teaching of the gospel (see 20%) by representing Jesus as the real incarnation of God (ef. 1 Jn 5”: 3), His spoken message (Christianity) as the expres- sion of His inmost and eternal nature, and His historical activity in the flesh as the crown of all other manifestations of God, since these were mediated by the same divine person. For this purpose the term Word was an appropriate means of describing the Son as the perfect medium of God’s self-revelation.
Il. St. JoHN’s TERMINOLOGY.—In discussing the historical origin of St. John’s teaching, it is fair to distinguish between the source of the doctrine and of the phraseology in which he clothed it. Writers who regard the doctrine as an offshoot of the Alexandrian philosophy (see, ¢.g., among more recent writers, Holtzmann, Finleit. in das N.T. p. 480, and, still more uncompromisingly, Réville, La Doct. du Logos dans le quat. Evang. et dans les wuvres de Philon) fail to do justice to the testimony of the Fourth Gospel itself, to the teach- ing concerning Christ’s person found in earlier
* Philo’s phrase, λόγος δὲ ἐστιν εἰκὼν Oued, δι᾽ οὖ σύμπας ὁ κόσιως ἱδημωουργῶτο (de Monarch, ο. 5), or κατισκενά θη (de Cherub. ο. $5), is quite different from St. John’s.
t Many MSS and the earliest Fathers and Versions punctuate, “That which hath been made in him was life,’ and WH prefer this; but the perfect would then seem to require ‘is,’ not * was,”
| s reading not sufficiently supported (see Meyer, Conmun, on doe)
134 LOGOS
apostolic literature, and to the profound differences between Philo’s doctrine and St. John’s. Thus the Fourth Gospel itself indicates that the historical personality and teaching of Jesus was the primary source from which the writer drew his belief in the Lord’s divinity and mediatorial function (see, Cu, Jn 130 318-21. 85. 36 519-30 6% 62 738. 2 gi. 25. 35. 42. δά. 58 1029-38 ]2#-50 146 165: 38 173 δ. 8. 31] 1881 2073+ 80. 31),
As the author appeals to historical testimony (e.g. 115 21 ]4°6 208-81) for his narrative, so the prologue cannot be separated from the narrative which follows it, but, while evincing the writer’s reflection upon the nature of Christ, evidently appeals to Christ Himself for proof of the doctrine. More- over, St. Paul and the Ep. to the Heb. had alread set forth the person of Christ in terms which include every element of St. John’s doctrine, though in different phraseology (see esp. Col 113: 2°, Ph 2-1, He 14), The doctrine of Christ’s eternal divine Sonship, and His function as revealer of God (note εἰκών, ἀπαύγασμα, etc.), was therefore, long before St. John wrote, an explicit belief of the Christians, so that there is no need to go beyond the sphere of apostolic testimony and teaching to account for the substance of his doctrine.