John’s Logos (Word) Christology

The Messiah is called “Counselor” (Isaiah 9:6) and is said to have “the spirit of counsel” resting upon Him (Isaiah 11:2). This Counselor communicates the will of God to humanity in the ultimate form of truth and grace as the Word made flesh (John 1:1, 14). John’s use of the Greek term λόγος as a title for the Messiah conveys the notion of divinely given counsel. W. E. Vine explains the significance of this title as follows:

(I) “the expression of thought,”…

(a) as embodying a conception or idea…

(b) a saying or statement…

(c) discourse, speech, of instruction, etc….

(II) “The Personal Word,” a title of the Son of God…

(1) His distinct and superfinite Personality,

(2) His relation in the Godhead

(3) His deity; in Jhn 1:3 His creative power; in Jhn1:14 His Incarnation… thus fulfilling the significance of the title “Logos,” the “Word,” the personal manifestation, not of a part of the Divine nature, but of the whole Deity[.]¹⁾W. E. Vine, An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, Fleming H. Revell Co. (Old Tappan, NJ: 1940, 1966), Vol. 4, pp. 229-230

H. P. Liddon likewise emphasizes how this title reflects Christ’s divinity:

Yet the Logos necessarily suggests to our minds the further idea of communication; the Logos is Speech as well as Thought. And of His actual self-communication St. John mentions two phases or stages; the first creation, the second revelation. The Word unveils Himself to the soul through the meditation of objects of sense in the physical world, and He also unveils Himself immediately. Accordingly St. John says that ‘all things were made’ by the Word, and that the Word Who creates is also the Revealer: ‘the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory.’ He possesses δόξα, that is, in St. John, the totality of the Divine attributes. This ‘glory’ is not merely something belonging to His Essential Nature; since He allows us to behold It through His veil of Flesh.²⁾H. P. Liddon, The Divinity of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, Longmans, Green, and Co. (New York, NY: 1908), p. 232

Daniel Boyarin has argued that a developing history of Jewish thought preceded John’s Gospel in which Logos theology was already intelligible within Jewish categories. He writes, “It is at least possible that the beginning of trinitarian reflection was precisely in non-Christian Jewish accounts of the second and visible God, variously, the Logos (Memra), Wisdom, or even perhaps the Son of God.”³⁾Daniel Boyarin, “The Gospel of the Memra: Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to John,” The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 94, No. 3 (July 2001), p. 249

Philo of Alexandria frequently employs the concept of λόγος in a manner that closely parallels New Testament Christology. For example, he writes:

For God, like a shepherd and a king, governs (as if they were a flock of sheep) the earth, and the water, and the air, and the fire, and all the plants, and living creatures that are in them, whether mortal or divine; and he regulates the nature of the heavens… appointing, as their immediate superintendent, his own right reason [logos], his first-born son, who is to receive the charge of this sacred company, as the lieutenant of the great king; for it is said somewhere, “Behold, I am he! I will send my messenger before thy face, who shall keep thee in the road.”⁴⁾Philo, On Husbandry 51; The Works of Philo: New Updated Edition, (Trans. C. D. Yonge) Hendrickson Publishers (Peabody, MA: 1997), p. p. 178

The New Testament authors present Christ as the good shepherd (John 10:11, 14), the firstborn Son (Colossians 1:13–15), the captain or leader of salvation (Hebrews 2:10), and the One who governs and sustains creation (Colossians 1:16–17). Philo similarly states that humanity is “filled with the most universal manna; for manna is called something which is the primary genus of everything. But the most universal of all things is God; and in the second place the word of God.”⁵⁾Philo, Allegorical Interpretation, 2.86; The Works of Philo: New Updated Edition, (Trans. C. D. Yonge) Hendrickson Publishers (Peabody, MA: 1997), p. 47 Correspondingly, Jesus Christ identifies Himself as the bread of life (John 6:33, 35, 48, 51, 58).

Philo further explains that the High Priest is “an emblem of that reason [logos] which holds together and regulates the universe.”⁶⁾Philo, On the Life of Moses 2.133; The Works of Philo, p. 502 The Epistle to the Hebrews likewise presents Jesus Christ as the great High Priest (Hebrews 3:1; 4:14; 6:20).

This line of thought culminates in Philo’s declaration: “Now the image of God is the Word, by which all the world was made.”⁷⁾Philo, The Special Law 1.81; The Works of Philo: New Updated Edition, (Trans. C. D. Yonge) Hendrickson Publishers (Peabody, MA: 1997), p. 541 The New Testament echoes this assertion by describing the Lord Jesus Christ as “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15) and “the express image of his person” (Hebrews 1:3).

Psalm 1 contrasts the rejection of the counsel of the ungodly with delight in the law of the LORD. In this light, Jesus Christ appears as the true Counselor who, as the incarnate Word of God, offers His teaching as a yoke to those who would follow Him (Matthew 11:28–30). God’s way and judgment were already described as His “yoke” (Jeremiah 5:5), a path that brings rest to the soul of those who walk in it (Jeremiah 6:16). The Mishnah explicitly refers to the “yoke of the law” (Aboth 3.5).⁸⁾The Mishnah, trans. Herbert Danby, Hendrickson Publishers (Peabody, MA: 1933, 2016), p. 450 Christ’s invitation likely implies that His words carry authority equal to, or surpassing, that of the former covenant (Hebrews 9:15).

Other Jewish writings lament those “who have cast away from them the yoke of your law” (2 Baruch 41:3).⁹⁾James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Doubleday (New York, NY: 1983), Vol. 1, p. 633 Such individuals are described as those who “walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly” (Psalm 1:1). Moses inaugurated the first covenant through the sprinkling of blood (Exodus 24:7–8) and prophesied the coming of a prophet like himself (Deuteronomy 18:15–19), a promise fulfilled in Christ’s offering of a new yoke and a new covenant.

Philo was not the only Jewish thinker to articulate such theological categories. Boyarin notes, “However, there were other Jews [other than Philo], and moreover, not only Greek speking ones, who manifested. Version of Logos theology. Notions of the second god as personified word of wisdom or God were present among Semetic-speaking Jews as well.”¹⁰⁾Daniel Boyarin, “The Gospel of the Memra: Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to John,” The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 94, No. 3 (July 2001), p. 252 Christ as Logos (“intellect”) therefore stands in continuity with Old Testament Wisdom theology. As Liddon observes, “But if Christ is the Logos in St. John, in these Gospels He is the Sophia.”¹¹⁾H. P. Liddon, The Divinity of our Lord, Longmans, Green, and Co.(New York, 1908) p. 254

Aloys Grillmeier likewise remarks, “The Jewish-Hellenistic wisdom literature is more important for Paul than apocalyptic and the Rabbis.”¹²⁾Alloys Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition: From the Apostolic Age to Chalcedon (451)(trans J. S. Bowden), Sheed and Ward (New York, NY: 1965), p. 14 Paul accordingly refers to Christ as “the power of God, and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24). Yet this identification did not originate with Paul, but with Christ Himself. In parallel Synoptic passages, the title “wisdom” as sender of the prophets and apostles is replaced by Christ’s own “I” (Matthew 23:34; cf. Luke 11:49).

While it is true that “[m]ore often, early Judaism seems to have understood wisdom as an aspect or part of God, merely personified distinctly[,]”¹³⁾Craig S. Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (Grand Rapids, MI: 2009, 2012), p. 281 the Book of Proverbs presents Wisdom in strikingly exalted terms. As Liddon summarizes:

 In the Book of Proverbs the Wisdom is co-eternal with Jehovah; Wisdom assists Him in the work of creation; Wisdom reigns, as one specially honoured, in the palace of the King of Heaven; Widsom is the adequate object of the eternal joy of God; God possesses Wisdom, Wisdom delights in God.¹⁴⁾H. P. Liddon, The Divinity of our Lord, Longmans, Green, and Co.(New York, NY: 1908) p. 60

In other ancient Jewish documents, Wisdom is portrayed as proceeding from the LORD as the Word of God. Sirach declares, “All wisdom cometh from the Lord, and is with him for ever…. The word of God most high is the fountain of wisdom; and her ways are everlasting commandments.”¹⁵⁾The Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach 1:1, 5 in The Apocrypha (ed. Manuel Komroff), Barnes & Noble Books (New York, NY: 1992), p. 158 Likewise, The Wisdom of Solomon asks, “And thy counsel who hath known, except thou give wisdom, and send thy Holy spirit from above?”¹⁶⁾Wisdom of Solomon 9:17 in The Apocrypha (ed. Manuel Komroff), Barnes & Noble Books (New York, NY: 1992), p. 140 As the Wisdom and Word of God, Christ reveals the Father (John 1:14, 18), a revelation that is uniquely entrusted to the Son (John 14:6).

Ben Witherington III observes the exclusivity of this revelatory relationship:

The claim of exclusivity of mutual knowledge of Father and son should be compared to the claims that state only Wisdom knows God and vice versa (cf. Job 28:1-27; Sir 1:6, 8; Bar. 3:15-32; Prov. 8:12; Wis. 7:24ff.; 8:3-8; 9:4, ,9, 11). The middle two clauses suggest that Jesus sees his relationship to the Father in the light of wisdom ideas, and he may see himself as Wisdom incarnate here.¹⁷⁾Ben Witherington III, The Christology of Jesus, Augsburg Fortress (Minneapolis, MN: 1990), p. 227

Craig Keener similarly notes the contrast between Jesus’ revelation and inherited tradition:

By using here a term frequently used for passing on tradition [“delivered unto me” (Mt. 11:27)] the Gospels might contrast Jesus’ revelation, which is directly from the Father, with the traditions that sages received from earlier sages…. The Father has given Jesus the sole prerogative to reveal him, so that anyone who approaches God a different way will not find him.¹⁸⁾Craig S. Keener, The Historical Jesus of the Gospels, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (Grand Rapids, MI: 2009, 2012), p. 273

Love for God, and for Christ, is consistently expressed through obedience to His commandments (John 14:15, 21; 15:10; 1 John 2:3; 3:22, 24; 5:2–3). Psalm 1:2 depicts true devotion as delighting in and meditating upon the law of the LORD continually, a pattern mirrored in the Johannine emphasis on abiding in Christ (John 15:4–10; 1 John 2:28; 3:6, 24). John draws upon Psalm 1’s imagery of sustained, affectionate obedience when he writes, “He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked” (1 John 2:6).

Another significant expression of this theology appears in the Targumim. Genesis 15:1 states that “the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision,” rendering the Hebrew phrase דְבַר־יְהוָה (“the word of the LORD”), which the Septuagint translates as ῥῆμα Κυρίου. The Targum Onkelos, however, employs the term מימר (memra), meaning “word” or “command,” a term Marcus Jastrow explains as:

word, command, Targ. Gen. XLI, 44. Targ. Ps. XIX, 4; a. fr.—2) (hypostatized) (דיְיָ)… the Word, i.e. the Lord (used in Targum to obviate anthropomorphism).¹⁹⁾Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, The Talmud Babli and Yerushalmi, and the Midrashic Literature, Judaica Press, Inc. (New York, NY: 1971, 1996), p. 775

To describe the memra as “hypostatized” is to indicate that the Word is being personified. This usage parallels the description of Jesus Christ in Hebrews, “who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person [ὑποστάσεως]” (Hebrews 1:3). The theological term hypostasis “denotes a real personal subsistence or person…. It developed theologically as the term to describe any one of the three real and distinct subsistences in the one undivided substances or essence of God, and especially the one unified personality of Christ the Son in his two natures, human and divine.”²⁰⁾W. E. Ward, in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (ed. Walter A. Elwell), Baker Books (Grand Rapids, MI: 1984), p. 539

Daniel Boyarin comments on the theological significance of this phenomenon:

In all of the Palestinian Aramaic translations of the bible, the term memra—as a translation of various terms in the Hebrew either simply mean God or are names of God—is legion and theologically highly significant, because these usages parallel nearly exactly the function of the Logos, the dueteros theos in Logos theology.²¹⁾Daniel Boyarin, “The Gospel of the Memra: Jewish Binitarianism and the Prologue to John,” The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 94, No. 3 (July 2001), p. 256

Alfred Edersheim further demonstrated the personification of memra and its identification with Jehovah in the Targum of Isaiah:

The varied use of the terms Shekhinah and Yeqara, and then Memra, in the Targum of Is. vi., is very remarkable. In ver. 1 it is the Yeqara, and its train – the heavenward glory – which fills the Heavenly Temple. In ver. 3 we hear the Trishagion in connection with the dwelling of His Shekhintha, while the splendour (Ziv) of His Yeqara fills the earth – as it were, falls down to it. In ver. 5 the prophet dreads, because he had seen the Yeqara of the Shekhinah, while in ver. 6 the coal is taken from before the Shekhintha (which is) upon the throne of the Yeqara (a remarkable expression, which occurs often; so especially in ix. xvii. 16). Finally, in ver. 8, the prophet hears the voice of the Memra of Jehovah speaking the words of vv. 9, 10. It is intensely interesting to notice that in St. John xii. 40, these words are prophetically applied in connection with Christ. Thus St. John applies to the Logos what the Targum understands of the Memra of Jehovah.”²²⁾Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Macdonald Publishing Co. (Mclean, VA: 1883, 1886), Vol. 2, p. 660-661

Edersheim also catalogues the frequency with which memra is used in the Targumim to denote an unmistakably hypostatized Jehovah. In Targum Onkelos, these passages include: Gen 3:8, 10; 6:6 (bis), 7; 8:21; 9:12, 13, 15,16, 17; 15:1, 6; 17:2, 7, 10, 11; 21:20, 22, 23; 22:16; 24:3; 26:3, 24, 28; 28:15, 20 21; 31:49, 50; 35:3; 39:2, 3, 21, 23; 48:21; 49:24, 25; Ex. 3:12; 4:12, 15; 10:10; 14:31; 15:2; 18:19; 19:17; 29:42, 43; 30:6; 31:13, 17; 33:22, Lev. 20:23; 24:12; 26:9, 11, 30, 46; Numb. 14:9 (bis), 43; 17:19 (in our Version v. 4); 21:5; 23:21; Deut. 1:30; 2:7; 3:22; 4:37; 5:5; 9:3; 18:16, 19, 20:1; 23:15; 31:6, 8; 32:51; 33:3, 27.²³⁾Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Macdonald Publishing Co. (Mclean, VA: 1883, 1886), Vol. 2, p. 662

In the Targum Jerusalem on the Pentateuch, Edersheim identifies passages of “undoubted application to a Personal Manifestation of God,” including: Gen. 1:27; 3:9, 22; 5:24; 6:3; 8:16; 15:1; 16:3; 19:24; 21:33; 22:8, 14; 28:10; 30:22 (bis); 31:9; 35:9 (quat.); 38:25; 40:23; Exod. 3:14; 6:3; 12:42 (quat.); 13:18; 14:15, 24, 25; 15:12, 25 (bis); 19:5, 7, 8, 9 (bis); 20:1, 24; 25:4; 27:16; Deut. 1:1; 3:2; 4:34; 26:3, 14, 17, 18; 28:27, 68; 32:15, 39, 51; 33:2, 7; 34:9, 10, 11.²⁴⁾Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Macdonald Publishing Co. (Mclean, VA: 1883, 1886), Vol. 2, p. 662

Finally, Edersheim lists the undoubted personal manifestations of memra in the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan across a wide range of Pentateuchal texts, concluding that these usages consistently present the Word as a distinct, personal manifestation of God. Gen. 2:8, 10, 24; 4:26; 5:2; 7:16; 9:12, 13, 15, 16, 17; 11:8; 12:17; 15:1; 17:2, 7, 10, 11; 18:5; 19:24 (bis); 20:6, 18: 21:22; 22, 23, 33; 22:1; 24:3; 24:3, 24, 28; 27:28, 31; 28:10, 15, 20; 29:12; 31:3, 50; 35:3, 9; 39:2, 3, 21, 23; 41:1; 46:4; 48:9, 21; 49:25; 50:20; Exod. 1:21; 2:5; 3:12; 7:25; 10:10; 12:23, 29; 13:8, 15, 17; 14:25, 31; 15:25; 17:13, 15, 16 (bis); 18:19; 20:7; 26:28; 29:42, 43; 30:6, 36; 31:13, 17; 32:35; 33:9, 19; 34:5; 36:33; Lev. 1:1 (bis); 6:2; 8:35; 9:23; 20:23; 24:12 (bis); 26:11, 12, 30, 44, 46; Numb. 3:16, 39, 51; 4:37, 41, 45, 49; 9:18 (bis), 19, 20, (bis), 23 (ter); 10:13, 35, 36; 14:9, 41, 43; 16:11, 26; 17:4; 21:5, 6, 8, 9, 34; 22:18,19, 28; 23:3, 4, 8 (bis), 16, 20, 21; 24:13; 27:16; 31:8; 33:4; Deut. 1:10, 30, 43; 2:7, 21; 3:22; 4:3, 7, (bis) 20, 24, 33, 36; 5:5 (bis), 11, 22, 23, 24 (bis), 25, 26; 6:13, 21, 22; 9:3; 11:23; 12:5, 11; 18:19; 20:1; 21:20; 24:18, 19; 26:5, 14, 18; 28:7,9, 11, 13, 20, 21,22, 25, 27, 28, 35, 48, 49, 59, 61, 63, 68; 29:2, 4; 30:3, 4, 5, 7; 31:5, 8, 23; 32:6, 9, 12,36; 33:29; 34:1, 5, 10, 11.²⁵⁾Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Macdonald Publishing Co. (Mclean, VA: 1883, 1886), Vol. 2, p. 663