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echo: bible-study
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from: Lsenders{at}hotmail.Com
date: 2005-01-09 10:39:00
subject: Re: Sarah`s Christology J

Jn 1:2  "He was in the beginning with God."  [NASB]

Again, in the Greek, John chose to use the imperfect tense.  This
allows the verse to read, "He was [already] in the beginning with God."
And again, the Greek preposition "with"  confers equality of relation
between the Logos and God.

Now it is common to suppose that 1:2 is little more than poetic
repetition of 1:1.  However, the logical construction seems to stand at
odds with such a conclusion.  Remember, John is writing from a deeply
Jewish perspective.  His cosmology is different than all of those who
stood outside of Moses' unique teaching found in Genesis.

Prov. 8:22, 23 "The Lord possessed me at the beginning of His way,
Before His works of old.  From everlasting I was established, From the
beginning, from the earliest times of the earth."
Prov. 8:30 Then I was beside Him. . . .

John's Logos is clearly the OT's "Wisdom" which requires harmony with
the rest of the OT testimony such as:

Is. 44:24 Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you
from the womb, "I, the Lord, am the maker of all things, stretching out
the heavens by Myself, and spreading out the earth all alone,

This cannot refer to the Father.  For earlier Isaiah made this
distinction:

Is. 44:6  "Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the
Lord of hosts: 'I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God
besides Me.

"AND".  This is a contrasting conjunction.  The Redeemer is at the same
time "Lord of the hosts" and yet distinguished from "the Lord."

John's Logos is the Redeemer who stood beside YHVH prior to creation.
That is, the Logos, being "already", was never created.  He is prior to
creation.  Jesus is the Logos who was "with" the Father.  He is the
YHVH of Hosts because He created them.

Again, the Greek in Jn 1:2 reveals a specificity which the English does
not.  The pronoun, outos, emphasizes the point that "This one," namely
the Logos, "was [already] with God."  There is no
"squiggle" room left
the interpreter here.  John is clearly articulating both equality to
God and separation from that which later came to be created.  John
answers the "Us" of Gen 1:26 by stating that "This One"
was He who was
in the beginning with God.

John also answers Agur's question:

Prov. 30:4 Who has ascended into heaven and descended? Who has gathered
the wind in His fists? Who has wrapped the waters in His garment? Who
has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name or His
son's name? Surely you know!

John announces that this OT mystery person was none other than the
Logos.  Agur, with satire dripping from his tongue implied that though
there are those who presume and profess to know God perfectly and give
a "exact representation" of all that He does, simply confessed that he
was not one of those men.  All revelation about God comes from God.
John reveals in the first two verses of his NT gospel that God has now
revealed the Revealer -the Logos.  This adequately expresses and
presents an understanding of why John chose the term logos to identify

1 John 1:1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we
have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled,
concerning the Word of Life--
1 John 1:2 and the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear
witness and proclaim to you the_eternal_life, which was "with" the
Father and was manifested to us--
1 John 1:3 what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, that
you also may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with
the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.

It is interesting to note, that prior to John's writing of his gospel,
another NT epistle had already attached the term logos to the God-Man,
Jesus.

Heb. 4:12 For the word [logos] of God is living and active and sharper
than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul
and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge [logos]  the
thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Sort of sheds new light on an old verse, does it not!  John's Logos is
Paul's "Just and Justifier." (Rom 3:26)

The Logos is the mystery which alone can represent and reveal the
mystery of God.  He is eternal because He is "eternal life", and stood
with God prior to all that was created.  He is eternal for He was part
of the "counsel of God" which by necessity occurred not only prior to
creation but prior to all which came into existence outside of the
Godhead.  In this "counsel" it was determined that the second Person of
the Godhead would be the Revealer, the Logos of God.  Becoming man, He
is the perfect bridge, the perfect Mediator, between God and man.  To
know the Logos is to know God.

Col 1:15  And He is the image of the invisible God, the first born of
all creation.

Paul specifically uses the verb "is" not "after."  He
is the Logos of
God.  If it were not for the Logos, we would never see God.

John 14:9 Jesus said to him, "Have I been so long with you, and yet you
have not come to know Me, Philip?  He who has seen Me has seen the
Father; how do you say, 'Show us the Father'?


John 1:1-2 teach us two things.  One, that Jesus Christ is part of the
Supreme Being, thus His supremacy, His sufficiency, His ability to
satisfy all needs or wants and His worship as attested to in Rev 4, 5.
Second, Jesus Christ is central to the Godhead's design to reveal
Himself.  "Jesus Christ [is] the object of all, the center to which
everything tends.  Whoever knows Him understands all things."  [Pensees
12, Blaise Pascal]

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