"THE WORD"
“THE WORD”
Our Lord’s precious designation, “the Word”, brings out how the mind of God has been fully and intelligibly communicated in Him. “God having spoken in many parts and in many ways formerly to the fathers in the prophets, at the end of these days has spoken to us in the person of the Son”, Hebrews 1: 1, 2. All was truly there in the divine mind from eternity but the wonder and glory of the present time is that it has come into expression. The Greek, ‘Logos’ (Word) signifies this. J.N.D. has defined its meaning thus, ‘Whatever is the expression of a thought formed in the mind, and otherwise unknown; hence used for the thing expressed, or the expression of it ... . It is the matter and form of thought and expression, as well as the utterance of it ... . Whatever expresses the mind is ‘logos’’. ‘Nous’ is the intelligent faculty; whatever expresses the thought formed in it is ‘logos’. (See the note to 1 Corinthians 1:5 in the Darby translation; see the whole note). What should arrest attention is that God, and all that is in His mind relative to men, has come into expression so as to be intelligently apprehended. Nothing could be more wondrous.
The title, “the Word”, conveys to us what Christ the Son is as the glorious Person in whom is expressed the mind and heart of God. It is thus a very distinctive and comprehensive appellation, as perhaps covering a wider and more profound apprehension of Him than any other title that attached to Him. It is not a name of relationship like ‘Son’, not an official title like ‘the Christ’, but it is a designation which indicates the greatness of what is [p. 2] expressed in Him. The blessedness of God was in perfect expression in Him, and this is greater than anything else. It involves His full Deity in perhaps a more absolute way than any other of His titles. Who could be the full expression of God, and of God’s mind, save One who was Himself an eternal divine Person? Hence John, writing by inspiration of the Spirit, selects this appellation to designate Him as existing from eternity. Some title must be used, and we may be sure that “the Word” was more suitable to be used in that connection than any other. But John writes, as Luke does also, from the standpoint that the Word had been known as having become flesh, and dwelling among men. Men had been privileged to be “eyewitnesses of and attendants on the Word”, Luke 1: 2.
If Luke and John had not thus known “the Word”, neither of them would ever have written gospels. Christ has become known as “the Word” to these two blessed men of God — doubtless to thousands of others, but these two witnesses will suffice to prove that He was known to men, and spoken of by men, as “the Word”. Now John has told us, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that the Person thus known, and thus spoken of, was an eternal Person, and was God. He was in the beginning, and was with God and was God. But it was One known to John, and many others, as “the Word” who was in the beginning, and who was with God and was God. This is the whole point of what is stated. It is the assertion in unmistakable terms of the eternal pre-existence and Deity of Him who is now known to us as “the Word”. To say that He was “the Word” in eternity only raises questions as to what was expressed in Him in eternity, and to whom was it expressed; questions impossible to answer, for Scripture is silent on the matter. But the certainty that the One now known as “the Word” was eternally God is of the greatest and most vital importance. It bows the soul [p. 3] before Him in most profound reverence and intensifies the desire that the vast import of His title, “the Word”, shall be known now in spiritual reality and power in our hearts. There is immense gain in this and I am sure that the enemy would, if possible, divert us from it by any and every means.