The Significance of the Word Becoming Flesh in John 1:14

Through Jesus’ birth into the world, the Word became flesh (John 1:14). The idea of the Word becoming flesh means that a key part of the theological significance of Jesus’ birth is divine communication with humanity.

To understand the significance of the Word becoming flesh, we can imagine what the world would be like without the possibility of human communication. Imagine a world in which we humans could not speak, move, or show any emotion. Like slabs of concrete, it would be basically impossible for anyone be able to know anyone else. Without a person expressing himself or herself through language, whether that be body, sign, written, or spoken language, there would be little opportunity for mutual understanding or friendship. Without the ability of communication, there would be virtually zero knowledge of other people, and little opportunity for love. The ability of human beings to communicate is, therefore, very important; and the possibility of divine communication with humanity even more so.

When the Bible teaches that Jesus being born into the world is equivalent to the Word or Logos becoming flesh, we need to understand that the Word in question in John 1:14 is God’s Word (see John 1:1). But how are we to understand the concept of the divine Logos or Word? The answer is straightforward. What do we do with words? We use words to communicate. We express ourselves through words. As we express the thoughts of our soul through words spoken to others, we reveal ourselves; we share ourselves with others.

The fact of the Word becoming flesh means that the Creator of this universe has made this world for the purpose of his own communication and sharing. The purpose behind God creating the universe, and especially the Earth and the human race, is because God wants humanity to get to know him and to be his friends. God created us precisely because he wants to reveal himself to us. He wants to share the thoughts of his mind, thoughts that would otherwise remain hidden unless he revealed them.

Just like us human beings, God reveals himself through his word. Human communication through the transmission of words is an amazing process. When it comes to human language, linguists estimate that there are over 6,900 languages spoken in the world today. English has over a million different words in its vocabulary, but even the most educated will only know just over 20,000 words (according to E. B. Zechmeister, A. M. Chronis, W. L. Cull, C. A. D'Anna, and N. A. Healy, “Growth of a Functionally Important Lexicon,” Journal of Reading Behavior 27, no. 2 [1995]: 201–212). The variety of sounds and words that we speak, the variety of characters that we write, is truly amazing. So is the variety of methods that we use to communicate. We can speak face to face, or over the telephone; we can write letters, send cards, send SMSes, do video calls, or simply chat online. But where does this ability and interest of ours in communicating come from? The Bible expresses the view that it has been built into us by God. We human beings are into communication because God is into communication. In fact, God created us to be his communication partners.

But what language does God use to communicate with us? God actually uses lots of languages to speak to humanity, but his favorite and most important method of communication is … the Word becoming flesh! The truth of the Word becoming flesh tells us that God chose to take on the form of a human being, entering into our world to speak with us face to face. God not only speaks our language, but he has become one of us in order to speak with us! His divine Word has taken on human form in the person of Jesus. God’s revelation of himself in Jesus is his ultimate method of communication.

But if it is true that God has come into our world in the person of Jesus to speak to us, the question that we have to ask in the light of this is: Are we listening to Jesus? Do we spend time regularly getting to know him? Are we keen to understand his teaching? To ignore Jesus is to reject God’s communication to us. If it is important in the process of education for learners to listen to those with greater knowledge and experience than themselves in particular fields of study, then it would be foolish for us to ignore the information that the Creator of this universe wants to convey to us.

Through the birth of Jesus, God has come into our world to speak to us. It is very important, therefore, that we listen to God’s revelation of himself in Jesus. The Word has became flesh for the purpose of divine communication with the human race. As God proclaimed from heaven to Peter, James, and John regarding Jesus: “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him!” (Mark 9:7).

The Divine Metaphor of the Logos in John 1:1, 14

The concept of the logos in John 1:1, 14 is a key idea for understanding the relationship between God the Father and God the Son. John’s depiction of the second person of the Trinity as the Logos is in reality a metaphor. But what is the deeper significance of this metaphor? In what sense is the second person of the Trinity the Logos, and what does this imply about God the Father?

Father, Son, Spirit, Word: all of these are metaphors. The description of the Trinity in the Bible is dominated by metaphor. When applied to God, metaphors operate by taking something in common human experience as a kind of analogy to describe a particular attribute or set of attributes in God.

The idea of the second person of the Trinity as the Logos or Word, in combination with the common biblical depiction of the third person of the Trinity as the Spirit or רוח, a word which also means breath, is particularly illuminating. In the field of phonetics, it is obvious that there is a close connection between the spoken word and breath. Speaking words involves the modification of the flow of air from the lungs through the vocal tract. This physical linkage in human speech between breath and word strongly suggests that the conceptual framework underlying the divine metaphors of Word and Spirit is that of human linguistics. This also suggests that God the Father in the context of this conceptual framework is analogous to the concept of mind or cognition. This is based on the idea that words reveal thoughts hidden in the mind.

The logos or word metaphor implies, therefore, that the relationship between God the Father and God the Son is like the relationship of the mind to its verbal expression. God the Father is like the mind or thought. A thought is hidden unless it reveals itself. How can I know what is in a person’s mind unless that person expresses his or her thoughts through some kind of communication? Given that the primary form of human communication is verbal, it is common human experience that we get to know a person and his or her thoughts through the words that that person speaks.

In saying “the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1), the author of John’s Gospel implies that the divine Father and Son are as close to each other as thought and word. The Father is the source of divine cognitive activity, and the Son is the expression of this divine activity. When it is understood that words reveal the person, it makes perfect sense for John to assert that the Word is God. The Son is the self-expression of the Father just as words give expression to one’s thoughts. The Son is simply the eternal self-expression of the Father. For this reason, the Logos is divine and can rightly be called God. The Son of God, in his capacity as the Word of God, is God as he reveals himself; and clearly God as he reveals himself is none other than … God! At its heart the concept of the Trinity makes sense. It is logical. God’s self-revelation is none other than God as he has chosen to reveal himself. Jesus, as the Word of God incarnate, is the Father’s self-revelation in human form. Being the Father’s self-revelation incarnate, Jesus is God. This is a key element of orthodox Christian faith.

The logos or word metaphor also implies that God the Father is unknowable unless he expresses himself. The Apostle Paul captures this thought by saying that “the Son is the image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15). God the Father, God in his essential nature, is invisible and unknowable; but God the Father is a God who eternally expresses himself. The Father’s eternal self-expression is the Logos, the Word. This means that, without the Word, knowledge of God would actually be impossible. If the Logos did not exist, then we would not be able to know anything about God. In fact, without the Logos, without God’s creative self-expression, no universe would exist, nor would be able to exist. We can only know God as he reveals himself, and God both beyond and within space and time eternally reveals himself through his Word. By saying that Jesus is the incarnation of the Logos, John’s Gospel asserts that Jesus of Nazareth is the eternal self-revelation of God in human form.

The Doctrine of the Trinity Is Logical

The Trinity is a unique and important Christian concept, but some people have expressed the opinion that this concept is illogical. It is interesting in this regard that the English word logical is derived from the Greek adjective λογικός, which is related to the word λόγος (usually translated as word) that is used in John’s Gospel to refer to the second person of the Trinity (see John 1:1, 14).

According to Liddell and Scott, the word λόγος denotes “the word by which the inward thought is expressed,” and additionally “the inward thought or reason itself” (Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Lexicon: Abridged from Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon [Oxford: Oxford University, 1983], 416). The adjective λογικός also reflects this basic dual semantic potential of the word λόγος. Thus, λογικός can mean “belonging to speech or speaking,” or “belonging to reason, rational” (ibid.).

From the point of view of the Greek language used in the prologue of John’s Gospel (i.e., John 1:1–18), we have to say that the concept of the Word is λογικός. The Logos expresses the rationality or thought of God the Father that the latter has chosen to express (John 1:18).

Extrapolating from John’s depiction of the second person of the Trinity as ὁ λόγος, we can say that the totality of the concept of the Trinity is itself distinctly logical. The logic involved is the logic of the Father expressing himself through the Son and the Spirit. Being the self-expression of the Father, the Son and the Spirit possess the same divinity as their eternal source, God the Father.

Jesus: The Supreme Revelation of God the Father

The Greek word λόγος that lies behind the English translation the Word in John 1:1, 14 was used by some Greek Stoic philosophers to designate reason, which was thought of as being the basic principle which gives structure to the universe. But to understand the significance of logos in John 1, the concept of word needs to be placed primarily within a Jewish framework rather than a Greek one. In a Jewish context in which the Hebrew Bible is greatly influential, this concept would be linked in the first instance to the concept of the word of God. The word of God is the primary vehicle of divine revelation in the Old Testament. The obvious thematic connections between John 1 and Gen 1 (e.g., the phrase in the beginning, and the concepts of creation, life, light, darkness) also suggest that the concept of logos in John 1 should be understood in a manner consistent with the concept of word in Gen 1. Ten times the expression and God said occurs in Gen 1. The concept of word back in the beginning, as recorded in Gen 1, is the word of God, the word of divine fiat. The primary function of the word of God is revelation, the communication of God’s thoughts.

The Logos, therefore, is the Word in the sense that he uniquely reveals God. But with what are we to identify this Word? The key to identity of the Word is found in John 1:14, where John says: “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” It is obvious that John understood that the Word became incarnate in Jesus at a particular point in human history. The Word in more technical theological terminology is the second person of the Trinity, who is understood in John 1:14 to have become incarnate in the person of Jesus. In other words, Jesus is the incarnation of the Logos, who is the eternal self-revelation of God.

The revelatory function of the Logos is confirmed by the way in which the prologue in John 1 concludes: “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (John 1:18). The Logos makes known (i.e., reveals) the Father. The Logos becoming incarnate in Jesus makes Jesus the supreme revelation of God the Father. The implication stemming from this is that a person cannot truly know God without knowing Jesus.

In the Beginning Was the Word: The Uncreated and Eternal Divine Logos

John’s Gospel begins with the famous words “in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). The phrase in the beginning in the first clause of John 1:1 is very significant. By starting off his gospel with this phrase, John is deliberately alluding to Gen 1:1, the very first verse of the Bible, which says: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”

The significance of this allusion is profound. By saying that the Word was in the beginning, John implies that the Logos already existed before the beginning talked about in Gen 1:1, namely, the beginning of created reality. This means that the Logos must be uncreated and eternal. It is totally appropriate, therefore, for John to say in the third clause of John 1:1 that “the Word was God.” After all, John’s main argument in the prologue to his gospel in John 1:1–18 is that Jesus is the Logos incarnate, God’s revelation of himself in human form (see “The Divine Logos as Eschatological Torah in John 1:1”). Jesus himself could not be divine revelation if the Logos were not divine.

The Divine Logos as Eschatological Torah in John 1:1

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). This is a famous verse, but what does John mean by describing Jesus as the Word? Most commentators point out that the Greek word λόγος was used by some Greek philosophers to designate reason, which was thought of as being the law which structured the universe. While John’s use of λόγος here would be significant in a Greek context, the fact that the argument and concerns of John’s Gospel are fundamentally Jewish suggests that the significance of logos is best understood in Jewish terms.

What does the concept word convey in Jewish circles? The Old Testament is the most natural place to look for the answer. Indeed, the language of the prologue of John’s Gospel (i.e., John 1:1–18) points us in that direction. When the concept word is thought of in the context of concepts such as in the beginning (vv. 1–2), creation (v. 3, 10), life (v. 4), light (vv. 4–5, 7–9), and darkness (v. 5), what are we meant to think of? We are meant to think immediately of Gen 1. And the word that occurs in Gen 1 is the word of God.

When first-century orthodox Jews thought of word, they thought supremely of the word of God. But what is the function of the word of God in the Old Testament? The primary function is that of revelation. The most common way in which God revealed himself in the Old Testament was by way of his word spoken by the prophets on his behalf. God’s word reveals his character and will. It seems, therefore, that John has used the concept of the logos to assert that Jesus is the supreme revelation of God.

And this is confirmed by the way in which the prologue ends: “No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known” (v. 18). God the Father is unknowable unless he reveals himself. Just as a person’s words reveal the character of the person, the word of God reveals the character of God. Jesus is the supreme revelation of God. He makes God the Father known.

To say that Jesus is the Word is the same as saying that Jesus is the supreme expression of torah. In other words, Jesus is eschatological Torah! Being the supreme revelation of the God the Father, the Word is divine. The Son of God, in his capacity as the Word of God, is God as he has deigned to reveal himself. God as he reveals himself is none other than ... God! “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

The New World Translation of John 1:1 and Colwell's Rule

I have been asked to comment of the interpretation of the third clause of John 1:1 in the light of the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ New World Translation and the Word was a god. To insist that John 1:1c should be translated and the Word was a god on the basis of Greek grammar is incorrect. Likewise, some people, seeking to defend the orthodox Christian translation of the clause, have misguidedly appealed to a grammatical rule called Colwell’s Rule.

Colwell stated that “definite predicate nouns [i.e., definite noun complements] which precede the verb usually lack the article” (E. C. Colwell, “A Definite Rule for the Use of the Article in the Greek New Testament,” JBL 52 [1933]: 20), approximately 87% of the time (David Alan Black, It’s Still Greek to Me: An Easy-to-Understand Guide to Intermediate Greek [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998], 79). That may be true for pre-verbal definite noun complements, but others have pointed out that anarthrous (i.e., non-articular) pre-verbal noun complements are usually qualitative.

In the end, the proper translation of such clauses is dependent on the context, but the balance of probability strongly favors the pre-verbal definite noun complement as being qualitative, hence the suggestion by some that John 1:1c is best translated as and the Word was divine. Given the broader context that Jesus and his disciples accepted the Jewish monotheistic idea that God is one, the New World Translation is clearly a case of eisegesis dictating translation. The idea of the Word being divine is that he shares in the divine nature of the one true God.