In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1 NASB
Beginning. The word “beginning” is the Greek word “arche” – meaning the start of time, and beginning as in the origin.
Gen 1:1 – “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”. Clearly there is a parallel here.
“The beginning” – the Bible clearly indicates that there was a single initial creation event. It is not, “at some point in time”, nor, “at the start of this cycle of universes” but “in the beginning.” We actually have scientific evidence which corroborates this, that there has been a singular creation event.
“In” the beginning could mean the beginning was bigger than the Word, and contained it. The Word was “in” the beginning. However, I think it means something more like this: suppose I am “in” a music group which is just forming. The music group formed, and I am in it. It does not mean the group contained me. I existed prior to the group, and I have a family and job and children and such outside of the group. Yet I am involved in the group, from its very inception. I am “in” it, but it does not contain me nor is the group the encompassing totality of my existence.
Word. The word “Word” is the Greek word Logos, which is a word and concept which is prominent in Greek philosophy from Heraclitus to Plato through to the Stoics.
“The Logos gave expression to their deep conviction of the rationality of the universe. They did not think of the Logos as personal, so they did not understand it as we would God.” – Leon Morris
The Greeks thought of the Logos as the thing which accounted for the order we see in the cosmos. It is the stabilizing, directing principle of the universe.
They are quite right, we do see order in the universe! We see physicists looking for the “Occam’s Razor” solution – the simplest and most elegant explanation for things. They search for governing universal laws which explain the most things with the fewest and most elegant principles. We do not live in a chaotic and random universe. The speed of light is always the same. The mass of an electron is always the same. The gravitational force of a given mass is always the same. The cosmological constant is always the same. There is rational logic and order to the structure of the universe and of life. There is, as Thomas Nagel the atheist philosopher has written, clearly a mind at work in the cosmos.
John lifts this tradition, this secular intuition that we still have, and uses it squarely at the very start of his gospel. In the beginning was the Logos, and it was God. He links the long traditions of secular philosophical thought and religious thought, of Greek thought and Jewish thought. He says, the Logos is true. There is a great Logos, a great stabilizing directing principle which governs the order of the universe. It is God. The secular notion and the religious notion are both true, and they find their unity in Christ. Unbelievable!
Heraclitus, the first Greek to write about the Logos, and Isaiah the prophet, lived at almost the same time. Isaiah was probably on his deathbed when Heraclitus was born. So the Lord was preparing for the coming of Jesus Christ the Logos made flesh over 500 years before His birth in both spheres.
The stoics, who carried this idea on, were active from 350 BC right into the time of Christ and the early church.
Philo the Alexandrian was a Hellenistic (Greek) Jewish philosopher who lived during the time of Christ who represented the apex of Jewish-Greek syncretism. He noted that in Genesis 1, God spoke, and he endeavored to combine this with the Greek notions of the Logos. His aim was to merge Plato and Moses into one philosophical system. Josephus tells of Philo’s selection by the Alexandrian Jewish community as their principal representative before the Roman emperor Gaius Caligula. Time frame of 20 BC to 50 AD. C.H. Dodd thinks he was heavily influential upon John.
The Logos idea was in the air for John to pick up and use in describing Christ, but he was not changed or swayed in his ideas about Christ through reading their philosophy. Leon Morris says: “John’s thought is his own. He uses a term which would be full of meaning to men whatever their background. But whatever their background they would not find John’s thought identical with their own. His idea of the Logos is essentially new.”
with and was. This is the first mention of the great mystery of the members of the trinity: the Word was with God and the word was God. The Word was with God (division) and was God (no division). Jesus is God, but is not the Father.
The Word did not “become” God. He was God from the beginning.
“With” denotes a relationship, or community. There is a division of identity that is bridged through communication. The Logos or word is that which transpires between two, and makes one. “Word” indicates a message spoken between two individuals. Inside of God’s identity there is communication going on between two individuals.