beginning before creation or from eternity. He is, on the one hand, distinct from God and in the
closest communion with him (πρὸς τὸν θεόν); on the other hand he is himself essentially divine,
and therefore called "God" (θεός, but not ὁ θεός).^828
This pre-existent Logos is the agent of the creation of all things visible and invisible.^829 He
is the fulness and fountain of life (ἡ ζωή, the true, immortal life, as distinct from βίος, the natural,
mortal life), and light (τὸ φῶς,which includes intellectual and moral truth, reason and conscience)
to all men. Whatever elements of truth, goodness, and beauty may be found shining like stars and
meteors in the darkness of heathendom, must be traced to the Logos, the universal Life-giver and
Illuminator.
Here Paul and John meet again; both teach the agency of Christ in the creation, but John
more clearly connects him with all the preparatory revelations before the incarnation. This extension
of the Logos revelation explains the high estimate which some of the Greek fathers, (Justin Martyr,
Clement of Alexandria, Origen) put upon the Hellenic, especially the Platonic philosophy, as a
training-school of the heathen mind for Christ.
The Logos revealed himself to every man, but in a special manner to his own chosen people;
and this revelation culminated in John the Baptist, who summed up in himself the meaning of the
law and the prophets, and pointed to Jesus of Nazareth as "the Lamb of God that taketh away the
sin of the world."
At last the Logos became flesh.^830 He completed his revelation by uniting himself with man
once and forever in all things, except sin.^831 The Hebraizing term "flesh" best expresses his
condescension to our fallen condition and the complete reality of his humanity as an object of sense,
visible and tangible, in strong contrast with his immaterial divinity. It includes not only the body
(σῶμα), but also a human soul ( ) and a rational spirit (νοῦς, πνεῦμα); for John ascribes them allHe was (1) in the beginning: He was (2) with God: He was (3) God. At the same time these three clauses answer to the three
great moments of the Incarnation of the Word declared in John 1:14. He who ’was God,’ became flesh: He who ’was with God,’
tabernacled among us (comp. 1 John 1:2): He who ’was in the beginning,’ became (in time)." Westcott (in Speaker’s Com.). A
similar interpretation is given by Lange. The personality of the Logos is denied by Beyschlag. See Notes (in text at end of § 72).(^828) Here we have the germ (but the germ only) of the orthodox distinction between unity of essence and trinity of persons or
hypostases; also of the distinction between an immanent, eternal trinity, and an economical trinity, which is revealed in time (in
the works of creation, redemption, and sanctification). A Hebrew monotheist could not conceive of an eternal and independent
being of a different essence (ἑτεροούσις) existing besides the one God. This would be dualism.
(^829) John 1:3, with a probable allusion to Gen. 1:3, "God said," asἐν αρχῇ refers to bereshith,Gen. 1:1. The negative repetition
οὐδὲ ἔν, prorsus nihil, not even one thing (stronger than οὐδένnihil), excludes every form of dualism (against the Gnostics),
and makes the πάντα absolutely unlimited. The Socinian interpretation, which confines it to the moral creation, is grammatically
impossible.
(^830) John 1:14: ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο a sentence of immeasurable import, the leading idea not only of the Prologue, but of the
Christian religion and of the history of mankind. It marks the close of the preparation for Christianity and the beginning of its
introduction into the human race. Bengel calls attention to the threefold antithetic correspondence between 1:1 and 1:14:
The Logos
was (ἧν) in the beginning
became (ἐγένετο)
God,
flesh,
with God.
and dwelt among us.
(^831) Paul expresses the same idea: God sent his Son "in the likeness of the flesh of sin," Rom. 8:3; comp. Heb. 2:17; 4:15. See
the note at the close of the section.
A.D. 1-100.