By Charles D. Wilson
Charles Wilson is a member of New Life Apostolic Church in Detroit Michigan. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degreee from Wayne State University in Advertising Design. In addition to his work in this field he is involved in preaching, teaching, writing, and children's ministry. Having authored numerous articles and lessons, he has a special interest in Biblical history and Jewish backgrounds.
Whence came the Johannine concept of the Logos? Certain liberal scholars have claimed that it was derived from Greek Philosophy via Philo or Alexandrian Judaism. Others (significantly some Oneness theologians), while denying philosophical roots, have argued that John deliberately used Greek philosophical terminology to refute specific Hellenistic heresies regarding the Logos as an inferior, secondary deity or as an emanation from God in time that were creeping into some Christian circles in his day.1
But there is more to it than that. It seems that many scholars have focused on the Greek background of the Logos but place little emphasis on the Jewish roots of the Johannine concept of the Logos. Thus we are left with many loose ends. In this paper, I propose that the true roots of the Christian Logos are to be found in pre-Christian Judaism, not Greek philosophy. To properly understand the Logos, we must first define the term and how it fits into Oneness theology and then discuss it in both Greek and Jewish contexts.
The Greek word logos means both the expression of a thought and the inward thought itself.2 Greek philosophers emphasized the logos as "thought" or "reason," while Jewish thinkers placed emphasis on the "word," or expression of inward thoughts.3 In John 1, the Logos is portrayed both as "thought," or plan of redemption in the mind of God, and the expression of that plan in the incarnation. God put flesh on His plan in the form of the man Christ Jesus.4 According to Flanders and Cresson, the Logos was "God's means of self-disclosure."5 Through the incarnation, God disclosed His eternal plan, or Logos.
In no way could the Logos refer to a second deity. David Bernard expresses the early Jewish view of the apostle John: "the Logos (Word) of John 1 is not equivalent to the title Son in Oneness theology as it is in trinitarianism. Son is limited to the incarnatin, but Logos is not...Before the incarnation, the Logos was the unexpressed thought or plan in the mind of God...In the fulness of time, God put flesh on the Logos; He expressed Himself in flesh."6 this Oneness viewpoint is backed up by the pre-Christian rabbinic interpretation of preexistence. Preexistence is that which occurs eternally "first in the mind of God."7 Thus, "it is not a hypostatically distinct person, but the plan, purpose and even predistination on the part of God in eternity prior to its becoming actualized in creation and history."8
Ancient tradition associates Johannine Christianity with Ephesus.9 Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History 3.1, 23; 5.8) quotes Clement, Origen and Irenaeus concerning John's ministry in Asia, and John's Gospel may have well been written here in the late 80's or 90's AD.10 Perhaps John was addressing a mixed audience of both Jews and Gentile Christians.11 I will focus on the Jewish audience and the problems therein that John's Gospel answers.
John wrote his Gospel after the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. Shortly thereafter, Pharisaic scribes had reorganized Judaism by emphasizing fidelity to the law and tradition and enforced a strict way of life and conformity of liturgical usages.12 Apocalyptic Judaism was dying and Gnostic ways of thinking were entering into the Jewish community.13
There was a resurgence of Judaism in the Ephesus area.14 The strong disavowal of Christ's claims to Messiahship grew. Marinun de Jonge states, "In that period, existing estrangement between the followers of Jesus and the local synagogues must have led to a definite break, and the expulsion of the former."15 It must have been rather hard for some Jewish Christians to handle this in the beginning. These expelled Christians were Jews who had seen themselves entirely within the orbit of the Jewish community. The choice was clear: renounce your faith in Jesus or face the pain of excommunication.16 Some, no doubt, began to wonder whether Jesus was really the promised Messiah or not. Was He really the way to the truth? John's Gospel answers these questions in a straightforward manner. No Jew needed to fear excommunication from the synagogue. Christ's claims do indeed have merit.
Robin Scroggs states, "The Gospel of John is to be placed at a late stage in the struggle of the Johannine community for self-understanding. It reflects energetic debates with the Jewish community. In this tension-filled crucible the author has formed a story about Jesus to deal with the issues raised by these struggles."17
The problem is quite simple: How does one know that truth to which he must commit his life? Hellenistic religious thinkers agonized over ways of stating the problem and fought with others when it came to solutions. In Judaism, the Torah was the accepted constitution, whose author was God. But conflicts arose concerning how to interpret it. This, in turn, raised the ultimate question: How is YHWH and His will revealed? The Pharisees had their own answers also. Philo states that at least some Hellenistic Jews were struggling with their own answers.18
John provides the solution. No Jew needs to be confused or fear excommunication from the synagogue. Jesus is the way to truth (John 1:17). When God put flesh on His plan, the ultimate truth of God was disclosed for all to see. No human mind can think through to divine truth. Without revelation, divine truth remains remote. God has to reveal it to man. In narrative fashion, John sets out to prove that Jesus had a unique origin (God in flesh) in order that the revelation expressed through the fleshly Jesus be taken as true, over against all other competing truth claims.
To verify Christ's claims in the thought realm, John would have to turn to Jewish thinking rather than Greek philosophy. To absolutely prove that Jesus was indeed the key to understanding the Torah and the truth, John would have to utilize Jewish idealogy regardless of audience or language terminology, because Jesus was a Jew and the plan of redemption must be revealed through the Jews, not the Greeks.
While the roots of the Johannine concept of the Logos may be found in Jewish though, the term Logos itself is Greek. It is utilized extensively in ancient copies of the Greek New Testament. If John originally wrote the fourth Gospel in Greek, he would have used Logos in a technical manner while displaying Jewish ideas,19 although many liberals have failed to admit it.
Since many scholars have emphasized the Greek background of the term, it would be worthwhile to discuss the Logos in the Greek context before turning to Jewish thought.
The Greek word Logos was a technical term used notably in several philosophical systems that antedate Christianity. It's philosophic use goes back to Heraclitus about 500 BC.20 Later, it was used by the Stoics, some of whom influenced Philo, the Jewish philosopher of Alexandria.
Heraclitus used the term logos for the rationale principle, power or being that speaks to men both from without and from within.21 William Barclay claims he believed the logos to be "the reasoning of God," the principle of power under which the universe continued to exist. "The reasoning of God" was the controlling factor in a universe where everything was in a "changing state of flux."22 According to Roland Nash, Heraclitus and later Stoics saw the logos as a "cosmic law of Reason that controls the univer and is immanent in human reason. The Stoics regarded human reason as an extension of the Reason that pervades the entire cosmos...the Logos of Heraclitus and the Stoics was neither a personal God nor even a personal being, but a metaphysical abstraction."23