Third, the New Testament often uses the Greek word logos to express the idea of God
communicating with His creation in the new covenant. This word can mean a word, an idea or a
thought; I suggest it often means all three together. This word logos
is the word he used when apostle John wrote his story of Jesus.
In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was
in the beginning with God. All things
came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that
has come into being. In Him was life,
and the life was the Light of men. The
Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. (John 1:1-5)
It is fairly clear from this paragraph by
John that the word (the logos of God)
is personified – took on the form of a person.
This person is eternal; was with God in eternity past; was indeed fully
God; was involved in the origin of all things; was an instrument of the
creation of all things that have been created.
In addition, he contained and possessed the life that was the ‘light of
men’ (i.e. the life by which humans live and move and have their being); that
life ‘turns on the light’ for humankind and the surrounding darkness can
neither comprehend nor extinguish it.
Vast numbers of us believe this logos here is Jesus.
John’s record goes further. Apostle John introduces us to John the
Baptist, of whom it was said, “He was not the light, but he existed to testify
about the light”. And the truth is, John
the Baptist did a very good job of testifying about Jesus. And part of that testimony was that Jesus was
indeed “the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every
man.” Of Jesus the logos, apostle John says:
[He] was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and
the world did not know Him. He came to
His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave
the right to become children of God; to those who believe in His name; who were
born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of
God.
John’s record goes still further:
And the
Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the
once/first-born from the Father, full of grace and truth. John [the Baptist] testified about Him and
cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I
said, ‘He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before
me.’” For of His fullness we have
all received, and grace upon grace. For
the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus
Christ. No one has seen God at any time;
the once/first-born God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.
This marvellous life that lights up every
man; this one who spoke and the elements obeyed and formed the world; this one
who, when we welcome him, welcomes us into the fellowship and the presence of
the Eternal Father; this Word (idea, thought and word) of God took on flesh and
blood and was subject to mother and father and lived among humans for thirty
years, becoming in truth ‘Son of Man’ as well as Son of God.
This Word of God unveils the Father to us and
we see His glory; we see that he is the once-born first-born from the Father,
full of grace and truth; and from that abundant richness of grace and truth, we
humans who fully trust in him receive overflowing grace ourselves – and the
right to become sons of God our Eternal Father.
In the past, no-one has seen God; in the face of Jesus, we see God revealed
and explained. Is that not a wonderful
definition of “the word of God”: God revealed and explained?
Without hesitation or qualification, Jesus is
The Word of God – as rich and as full and as complete as it is possible to be.
And as an extension of that, logos is also the word used for the spoken
rendition of the Living Word of God.
Whenever the account of the truth and the light and the life of God in
Jesus Christ is given, it is truly the word of God; and whenever such an
account is written down it also is the word of God.
In the New Testament, whenever the word logos is used, it implies a living,
spoken or written rendition of the truth and the light and the life of God in
Jesus Christ and it is, therefore, The Word of God. However, it does not equal (=) the
bible. The bible cannot possibly contain
the entire word of God and that was never the intention. Besides, what does the bible itself say? At the end of his account, apostle John
wrote: “And there are also many other things which
Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world
itself would not contain the books that would be written.” (John 21:25)
The word of God is the whole;
the bible is a part.
Turn for a moment to the Old
Testament and consider Psalm 119.
Generally believed to be written by Israel’s King David, this Psalm is
comprised of 22 sections of 8 verses in length each. Each section is introduced with a successive
letter of the Hebrew alphabet beginning with aleph and ending with tav. Almost every verse contains a reference to
one aspect or another of the Psalmist’s meditations. In English, nine different words are used and
one of these words is used in almost every verse. Each of these words is, in its own way, a
metaphor for “the word of God”: law; testimonies; ways; precepts; statutes; commandments;
judgments; word/s; ordinances.
Israel’s history is tied up
entirely with the three covenants from three epochs: the Abrahamic covenant;
the Mosaic covenant; and the Davidic covenant.
The wording of the covenant agreements comprised Israel’s “law”: how
they were to live together and how, as a nation, they were to live before
God. That “law” or “word of God”,
throughout the Old Testament is spoken of as each of the nine words listed
above. The Psalmist meditated on this law, this word and reminded himself daily of God’s communication and
conversation with him as King of Israel.
Five times throughout the
Psalm, David says “I wait for your …”
Three times it is word, once it is words (plural) and once it is
ordinances. The significance of this is
that David knew that not all God’s word or ordinances had been written down in
Israel’s covenant documents. And he knew
what the prophets knew (expressed by Jeremiah in Lamentations 3) that God’s
“lovingkindnesses never cease and His compassions never fail”; they are new every morning. The prophets knew and King David knew that
God always has new and fresh things to say to His children because of His
lovingkindness and His compassion; not everything is already written down in
the scriptures.
It is such a pity that so few
new covenant believers today understand that even under the terms and
conditions of the old covenant, God’s word is not limited to a fixed and
unchanging written code. And even in the
old covenant, the word of God is not just written code, but daily fresh
communication and conversation in a variety of forms that use nine English
words to describe it.
To suggest, as many do, that
“the bible is the word of God” is way too restrictive even for the old
covenant. It is an expression of an
attitude and belief that Paul has considerable disdain for: “the letter of the
law” – unbecoming a twice-born son of the new covenant filled with the Holy
Spirit.
When we come to the new
covenant, we see that “the word of God” is, in the first instance, the logos of God – the spoken and/or written
account of the life and the light of God in Jesus Christ. And within that context, as far as Jesus was
concerned, there are really only two commandments [precepts]: love the Lord you
God with all your heart; love your neighbour as yourself. The rest of the law is subsumed within those
two precepts; and all the law is
fulfilled in Jesus Christ; and, in Christ, those who fully trust in Him for
their right standing before God, are counted as having kept the law fully and
perfectly as Jesus did.
In the second instance, giving
expression to the “daily fresh” concept I just referred to (one that the King
David and the prophets well knew), there is what is called in the Greek of the
New Testament, rhema: that which is
spoken in the moment. So ….
There's more to come.
Cheers,
Kevin.
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