“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1 ESV)
A single Greek word, λόγος (logos), opens John’s Gospel with a thunderclap. I remember the first time I slowed down enough in the Greek text to realize just how loaded this word is. We read “Word” in English and think maybe of vocabulary or speech. But in Greek, logos is a word freighted with centuries of meaning, both in philosophy and in Scripture.
Most of the time, when we read John 1:1, we don’t necessarily think of it in a context beyond our own learned presuppositions. We only really consider it in the orthodox interpretation, but we don’t feel the weight of how important such a little word is.
Let me remind you of two key things I addressed in the first article of this series: we must understand that the English we read in our Bibles, physical or digital, is not the original form in which the Scriptures we have were written. The text we have today originated in Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic; were translated into Latin (the Vulgate), or Greek first if the source was Hebrew (the Septuagint); and has had its meaning debated over the years before arriving in one of the various translations from which we can choose to read.
Thus, understanding what the original language in all its semantics and semiotics is crucial. Yet, you don’t have to go to seminary, get a Bible degree, or become a linguistics expert in order to understand what you’re reading. This is my aim and hope in this and following articles where I unpack contested Greek words in well-known verses so that you and I both can have a better grasp on the Biblical text.
So let’s walk through John 1:1 and its key word carefully.
What Does λόγος Mean in Greek?
John 1:1 begins, Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, “In the beginning was the Word.” The phrase Ἐν ἀρχῇ deliberately recalls Genesis 1:1. John situates the Word on the Creator’s side of the Creator–creature distinction. The verb ἦν is the imperfect of “to be.” It indicates ongoing reality, not a point of origin. When the beginning began, the Word already was. As D. A. Carson and Leon Morris both stress, John is not describing a creaturely start. He is narrating eternal existence. The subject ὁ λόγος is marked by the article to identify this Word as the subject under discussion, which prevents us from hearing “a word” among other words. John is not introducing a category. He is introducing someone.
The next clause reads, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, “and the Word was with God.” The preposition πρὸς can denote movement toward, or a face-to-face relation. Many commentators hear in it the nuance of personal communion. Andreas Köstenberger and Herman Ridderbos note that the phrase maintains a real distinction. The Word is not the Father, yet is oriented toward the Father in eternal fellowship. John then writes, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος, “and the Word was God.” Here θεός appears without the article. This anarthrous predicate does not make the noun indefinite. It gives it a qualitative force. John speaks of what the Word is by nature. As Morris and Carson explain, the word order places θεός first for emphasis. John avoids saying “the Word was the God,” which would collapse the persons, yet he boldly says “the Word was God,” which ascribes full deity to the Word. In one verse John holds together personal distinction and divine identity. The Gospel begins within the horizon that the church later calls the Trinity.
Verse 2 repeats the point for clarity. “He was in the beginning with God.” Verse 3 then assigns universal creative agency to the Word. “All things came into being through him, and apart from him not one thing came into being that has come into being.” The repeated verb ἐγένετο, “came to be,” marks the creaturely realm. The Word is never said to “come to be.” He simply “was.” Ridderbos highlights the pastoral precision of the double negative in verse 3. No exception exists. If all that began to exist did so through the Word, then the Word did not begin to exist. John 1:14 completes the turn. “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” The verb ἐγένετο now appears of the Word. The eternal Word who always was, now becomes what he had not been, flesh, which is real human life in its frailty and time. The verb “dwelt” is σκηνόω, which evokes Israel’s tabernacle where God’s glory resided in the midst of the people. Carson and N. T. Wright both argue that John is declaring the fulfillment of temple hopes. The presence of God is now located personally in Jesus. Exegesis therefore yields doctrine. The Word is eternal, with God, and is God. The Word is the agent of creation. The Word becomes flesh. The grammar drives the confession.
So, a Greek reader of John’s Gospel would hear logos and think: “Ah, yes, the deepest truth of the universe, the rational order behind everything.” John grabs that resonance. But then he does something radical with it.
What Does λόγος Mean in Scripture?
For the Jewish reader, logos didn’t point first to philosophy but to the living Word of God. To hear λόγος as John intends, we must listen to two background choirs that sing at once. The first choir is Greek philosophy. Heraclitus used logos to name the rational principle that orders a world in flux. The Stoics spoke of logos as an immanent rationality or fiery reason that pervades the cosmos and gives it coherence. A Greek audience would hear ultimacy in the term. Yet in these systems the logos is typically impersonal. It functions like a cosmic law. John answers the legitimate hunger for order and meaning, but he refuses an impersonal answer. He speaks the language of his age, then he surprises the age with the claim that the logos is personal, relational, and incarnate.
The second choir is Israel’s Scripture and Second Temple Judaism. From the first page of the Bible, God creates and governs by speaking. “And God said” frames Genesis 1. Psalm 33:6 confesses that by the word of the Lord the heavens were made. Isaiah 55:11 promises that God’s word accomplishes what he purposes. Wisdom literature deepens this portrait. Proverbs 8 personifies Wisdom as present with God before creation and rejoicing in his works. This is not yet the Nicene doctrine of the Son, but it trains readers to hear personal dimensions in God’s self-disclosure. The Aramaic Targums sometimes substitute Memra, “Word,” for the divine name in order to speak reverently of God’s action in the world. One reads that the Memra of the Lord led the people. Raymond Brown and Richard Bauckham point out that this habit taught Jewish ears to hear “Word” as a way of talking about the living God at work. The Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, also spreads a vocabulary in which God’s word and wisdom are active, powerful, and faithful.
A further voice is Philo of Alexandria, a Hellenistic Jewish thinker who used logos to describe God’s mediation to the world and the instrument of creation. Philo offers categories and vocabulary. Yet he does not identify the logos as a distinct person who shares the divine identity, and he does not ground devotion in the history of Jesus. Larry Hurtado’s work on early Christian worship and Bauckham’s argument about divine identity sharpen the contrast. John uses language that both Greeks and Jews know, then he identifies the logos as Jesus of Nazareth, crucified and risen, worthy of the worship that belongs to the one God of Israel.
Hermeneutically, John’s move is not a compromise between Athens and Jerusalem. It is a fulfillment that reorients both. The Scriptural theme of God’s effective word, the Wisdom tradition’s portrait of pre-creation companionship, the Targumic reverence for Memra, and philosophy’s question about order and meaning, all converge. John gathers these threads, then ties them to the person of the Son. He does not dilute any source. He reveals their end.
Think Genesis 1: “And God said…” and the world came to be. Psalm 33:6: “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made.” Isaiah 55:11: God’s word always accomplishes its purpose.
By the first century, Jewish interpreters had begun to speak of God’s “Word” and “Wisdom” almost as if they had a distinct existence. Proverbs 8 personifies Wisdom as present with God before creation. The Aramaic Targums even used Memra (“Word”) as a reverent substitute for God’s own name: “The Word of the Lord led the people” (Exod. 19:17, Targum).
So, a Jewish reader would hear logos and think: “Yes, God’s powerful Word, His action in creation and revelation.”
Parsing the Word
Here’s where the Greek syntax helps us. In John 1:1, the phrase is Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος. Let’s parse it:
Ἐν ἀρχῇ – “In the beginning.” Echo of Genesis 1:1.
ἦν – imperfect tense, “was,” describing continuous existence. The Word already was.
ὁ λόγος – nominative subject, “the Logos.” Not abstract, not vague—definite.
John could have chosen other words for “word” (ῥῆμα is common for spoken sayings). But logos allows him to hold together reason and speech, thought and action, the principle and the Person.
What John Is—and Isn’t—Saying
Some teachers will claim John is just borrowing Greek philosophy wholesale, or that he is simply rephrasing Jewish wisdom traditions. Both miss the point.
From the beginning, Christians heard in John 1:1 a confession about the eternal Son. Justin Martyr speaks of the Logos as the one through whom God created all things, distinct from the Father yet divine. Irenaeus uses John’s opening to defend the unity of the Creator and Redeemer against Gnostic schemes. Origen develops the language of the Son’s eternal generation, which seeks to say that there was never a time when the Father was without the Word. The Arian controversy forced the church to sharpen these convictions. Arius claimed that the Son was the first and greatest creature. Athanasius replied with John 1:3. If all things that came to be, came to be through the Word, then the Word did not come to be. The Word is not a creature. At Nicaea the bishops confessed that the Son is homoousios with the Father, of one essence, language that guards what John’s grammar already requires. The creed is not an alien imposition on Scripture. It is a protective fence built from Scripture to prevent distortions.
A second stream of debate concerns translation and grammar. Some have tried to render θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος as “the Word was a god,” as if the anarthrous predicate must be indefinite. Greek syntax does not support this. The absence of the article before a predicate noun often signals qualitative force, particularly when the predicate precedes the verb. Carson and Morris both show that John’s construction says what the Word is by nature. It does not demote the Word to a lower grade of divinity. At the same time, John avoids turning the Word into the Father by using the article in πρὸς τὸν θεόν. The result is a balanced confession. The Word is personally distinct. The Word is fully God.
A third stream of debate concerns sources. Some have said that John simply baptizes Greek philosophy or imitates Philo. Others insist he repeats Jewish Wisdom language without remainder. The best reading recognizes overlap in vocabulary and imagery, then pays attention to John’s decisive identifications. The Word is not a principle or a metaphor. The Word becomes flesh and is named Jesus. The earliest Christian devotion, as Hurtado documents, already included prayer and praise directed to Jesus within the worship of the one God. Bauckham’s argument that the New Testament includes Jesus in the unique divine identity explains why this devotion makes sense. John 1:1 stands at the head of that inclusion. The later creeds teach the church to keep saying what John said, clearly and consistently, in every generation.
John isn’t parroting Stoics or repeating Proverbs. He’s cutting against both. For the Greeks, the divine was detached, serene, untouched by human struggle. John says: the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). For the Jews, the Word was God’s action, but not God Himself in person. John says: the Logos was God.
His grammar is tight: καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.
πρὸς τὸν θεόν – “with God,” showing relationship, not distance.
θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος – “the Word was God.” Notice: θεὸς comes first, for emphasis.
John isn’t blending Jewish and Greek thought. He’s using their language to say something brand new: the ultimate Word, the ordering reason, the creative speech—it’s all embodied in Jesus.
Why This Matters
If John had simply said “Jesus is wise,” no one would argue. If he had said “God spoke through Jesus,” it would fit Jewish categories. If he had said “Jesus is divine principle,” it would resonate with Greeks.
But John insists: Jesus is the eternal Logos, with God from the beginning, Himself God, through whom all things were made. Not principle but person. Not detached but incarnate. And because logos also means “word spoken,” this hits home: Jesus is God speaking to us. The Word is not mute. The Word speaks, lives, calls.
So what do we do with this?
It anchors our faith in Christ’s divinity. John 1:1 leaves no room for Jesus as “just a teacher.” He is the Logos made flesh.
It reminds us God is not silent. The Word became flesh, and the Word still speaks through Scripture. To follow Jesus is to hear and keep his word (John 8:31; 14:23).
It calls us into relationship, not abstraction. Life isn’t about aligning with a principle but knowing a Person.
These doctrinal implications shape the church’s life. In worship, we adore the Word who is with God and is God, not a sage whose sayings can be trimmed to fit our preferences. In preaching, we open Scripture so that people hear Christ speak, not merely moral advice or spiritual uplift. In discipleship, we train people to abide in the Word’s teaching and to keep his commands as the fruit of that abiding. In mission, we do not spread a principle or a lifestyle. We bear witness to a person who made all things, who forgives sins, and who is present by the Spirit with his people. The deepest questions posed by philosophy and the deepest hopes nurtured by Scripture find their resolution here. The rational order behind the world is not less than order, but it is infinitely more. He is the Son whom the Father loves, the one through whom all things exist, the one who became flesh for us and for our salvation.
Conclusion: The Word That Speaks
Parsing logos in John 1:1 shows us the precision of Scripture. John didn’t choose the word lightly. He knew its philosophical weight and its biblical resonance. But his meaning is his own: the Logos is not detached principle or poetic personification. The Logos is Jesus Christ—God with us, the Word that speaks life and truth, the Word that was God from the beginning and remains God today.
Return, then, to the first sentence. “In the beginning was the Word.” The imperfect tense tells you that the Word simply was, eternally. The preposition tells you that he was with God in personal communion. The anarthrous predicate tells you that what God is, the Word is. Verse 3 tells you that all that came to be did so through him. Verse 14 tells you that he became flesh and pitched his tent among us. The Old Testament tells you that God’s word creates and accomplishes his purpose. The early church tells you that this Word is the Son, of one essence with the Father, worthy of worship. Put the pieces together and you have the Gospel’s heartbeat. The Word is eternal. The Word is personal. The Word is God. The Word became flesh. That Word still speaks through Scripture, and that Word summons the church to trust, adore, and follow.