In the start of the Gospel of John, we read a peculiar little account. But before we dig into the meaning of the first few verses of this book, let’s take a quick glance at why this book exists in the first place. In the New Testament of the Bible there are four letters known as Gospels. These four books account for the life of Jesus from different perspectives. They certainly say the same thing just with different thrusts. Matthew is writing to Jewish people who were expecting a king so he writes mostly about what Jesus said. Mark is writing to Roman people who saw Jesus do some pretty amazing things, so he’ll focus on what Jesus did. Luke writes to a guy named Theophilus, and he’ll spend his account focusing on what Jesus felt. And not to be left out, John writes to anyone and everyone, and he’ll focus on who Jesus was.
So with that quick snapshot of the gospels in mind, let’s dig into John’s opening words here to see what we can find out about this and why John called him the Word.
There are two main people groups who would have had access to John’s account right away. These were the Jews and the Greeks. These were two very different people groups, yet they had some overlapping ideologies. The Jews came from the Israelite tradition of the Old Testament. Throughout the Old Testament God spoke. He spoke words of comfort, condemnation, even creation. Words were the fundamental way God interacted with the people. This in part is the reason for John referring to Jesus as the Word. But there’s more to it than just – God spoke words.
Jewish belief was that the name of God, Yahweh, was so holy and so beyond our ability to comprehend that they feared even saying his name. So instead of saying the name of God, they would replace His name with a generic title for lord, using the Hebrew word adonai. This word very simply means lord, master or other respected and powerful being. They would also refer to Yahweh simply as the name. This worked under the idea that His name was too much for them to say. Finally, they would call Him by the title memrah which means the word. They would call Him the word because His real name was too powerful and holy that it was like an all encompassing word.
But the second audience for this letter would have been the Greeks who were very philosophical. They were educated and learned and understood that the world was intelligent in its design. And anything that intelligent and patterned and predictable in its working must have an intelligent designer or ordering principle. The Greeks had the understanding that the ordering of the world, the patterns of creation, the predictability of what exists can all be attributed to this logos or word. The rhythmic patterns of our words, the power when they’re spoken, the predictability of their meaning all were very well understood by the Greeks.
So when John says In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God – he was saying that the very power that caused the world to come to be, existed before the world was. That word is found where God is found and has all the power of God as it is spoken. But John takes it one step further. That word didn’t just exist with God. But that word actually came down.
This coming down of the word was such a powerful concept because for both Jew and Greek this meant the power that created the world and the power of the very name of God became a human being. It took on skin and bones and became like one of us in every way. When the word became flesh and dwelt among us everything changed for Jews and Greeks alike. And it changed for us as well.
Now because of Jesus, the one about whom the gospels are written, we have the name of God, the creating power of God, the full presence of who God is living and dwelling among us. It’s pretty life altering stuff when you actually let it sink in for a minute. Take a minute and read John 1:1-5 and verses 14-18. Consider the amazing things God has done by giving us the Word, His Name, His presence. Perhaps it truly has always been about the presence!