What do John 1:1-14 mean when they declare that Jesus is the Word of God?
One day a theological storm is likely to erupt over the translation of John 1:1-3 in our standard versions. At present the public is offered a wide range of renderings, from the purely literal to the freely paraphrased. But do these translations represent John’s intention? Have they sometimes served as a weapon in the hands of Christian orthodoxy to enforce the decisions of post-biblical creeds and councils?
According to the findings of a recent monumental study of the origin of Christ in the Bible (Karl-Josef Kuschel, Born Before All Time? The Dispute over Christ’s Origin, New York: Crossroad, 1992) Bible-readers instinctively "hear" the text as follows: "In the beginning was Jesus and Jesus was with God and Jesus was God."
This understanding of the passage provides a vital support for the traditional doctrine of the Godhead, shared equally by Father and Son from eternity. The Contemporary English Version goes way beyond the Greek and gives us: "The Word was the One who was with God." No doubt, according to that version, that Word means an eternal Son.
But why, Kuschel asks, do readers leap from "word" to "Son"? The text reads "In the beginning was the word," not "In the beginning was the Son." The substitution of "Son" for "word" has had dramatic consequences. But the text does not warrant the switch.
There is no direct mention of the Son of God - Yehovah until we come to verse 14, where "the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory of a unique Son, full of grace and truth."
Consider this very remarkable and informative fact: If one had a copy of an English Bible in any of the eight available English versions before the appearance of the King James Version in 1611, one would gain a very different sense from the opening verses of John:
"All things were made through it [the word]," not "through him." And so those English versions did not rush to the conclusion, as does the KJV and its followers, that the word was a person before the birth of Jesus. If all things were made through "the word," as an "it," a quite different meaning emerges. The "word" would not be a person existing alongside God, the Father from eternity. The result: one of the main planks of traditional systems about members in the Godhead would be removed.
"In the beginning was the word." There is no justification in the original Greek for placing a capital "W" on "word," and turning it into a person. The question is, what would John and his readers understand by "word"? Quite obviously there are echoes of Genesis 1:1"In the beginning God - Yehovah created the heavens and the earth…and God - Yehovah said [using his word], ‘Let there be light.’" "God - Yehovah said" means "God - Yehovah uttered His word," the medium of His creative activity. And so in John 1:1 God - Yehovah expressed His intention, His word, His self-revealing, creative word. But absolutely nothing in the text (apart from the obtrusive capital letter on "word" in our versions) would make us think that God - Yehovah was in company with another person. The word which God -Yehovah spoke was in fact just "the word of God -Yehovah." And one’s word is not another person, obviously.
Sensible Bible study would require that we see in the background of John’s thinking what "word" would mean. "Word" had appeared many times in the Hebrew Bible known so well to John and Jesus. On no occasion did "word" ever mean anything other than an utterance, promise, command, etc. Never a personal being. Always the index of the mind — an expression, a word.
It would be a serious mistake of interpretation to discard the massively attested meaning of "word" in the Hebrew matrix from which John wrote and attach to it a meaning it never had — a "person," or even "spokesperson."
Another look:
John 1:1, "In the beginning God - Yehovah had a plan and that plan was within God’s - Yehovah's heart [mind] and was itself ‘God - Yehovah.’" In other words the plan was the very expression of God’s - Yehovah's will. It was a divine Plan, reflective of His inner being. John is fond of the word "is," which is not always an "is" of strict identity. Jesus "is" the resurrection ("I am the resurrection"); "God - Yehovah ‘is’ spirit." "God - Yehovah ‘is’ love and light." Well, God - Yehovah is not actually one-to-one identical with light and love, and Jesus is not literally the resurrection. "The word was God - Yehovah" means that the word was fully expressive of God’s - Yehovah's mind. A person "is" his mind, metaphorically speaking. Jesus is the one who can bring about our resurrection, acting as the agent of God - Yehovah. God - Yehovah communicates through His spirit. The word is the index of God’s - Yehovah's intention and purpose. It was in His heart, expressive of His very being. As the Translators’ Translation senses the meaning, "the Word was with God and shared His nature," "the Word was divine." The word, then, is the divine expression, the very self of God - Yehovah revealed. This came to perfect expression in the human being, Jesus.
"In the beginning there was a divine word and it was stored in God’s - Yehovah's heart [mind] and was His own creative self-expression. All things came into being through that divine word and without it nothing was made that was made…And the word/plan became flesh — was realized in a human person — and dwelt among us." That living expression of God’s - Yehovah's intimate purpose for mankind was Jesus the Messiah.
No comments:
Post a Comment