- lorijanehawkins
7 Things About the Word
Updated: Jun 21, 2021
7 Things About the Word
The Word of God is quick and powerful. It is the absolute truth (John 17:17; Psalm 119:60) from the absolute ruler, and Author (Psalm 31:5, Isaiah 65:16).
God speaks the Word into fruition enacting regulations and laws which directly determine the environment – judicial, fiscal, cultural – within which His subjects must live.
In the beginning He spoke to nothing, and it became something.
Chaos heard it and became order; darkness heard it and became light. “And God said…and it was so” (Genesis 1:9).
These twin phrases, as cause and effect, occur throughout the Genesis story of creation.
The said accounts for the so. The so is the said put into the continuous present.
The use of “word” and “wisdom” within Judaism was of enormous help to the Christians as they tried to understand and express the reality they found in Jesus.
Jesus is what the “word” and “wisdom” were, and much more.
In John’s day “word” was often associated with “wisdom” (for example, Wisdom of Solomon 9:1; cf. Breck 1991:79-98), and John will often use wisdom motifs to speak of Jesus (cf. Willett 1992).
For example, like the Word who was with God, Wisdom is said to have been “at his side” at the creation (Prov 8:30).
As this passage suggests, God’s word and wisdom were often spoken of as if they were persons (for example, Wisdom of Solomon 18:14-16; Prov 8:1–9:18; Job 28.
7 things about the Divine Word:
“In the beginning was the Word” (John 1:1)
Here is the Word’s eternity.
He had no beginning of his own; when other things began, He—was.
In the beginning the Word already was. So, we actually start before the beginning, outside of time and space in eternity.
2. “And the Word was with God” (John 1:1).
Here is the Word’s personality.
A distinct personal being fulfills God’s power in active fellowship.
We must begin with the relationship shared between the Father and the Son “before the world began” (John 17:5, 24).
This is the key to understanding all that Jesus says and does.
Jesus is God (John 10:30).
One of the greatest mysteries – The Virgin Birth
“The baby born at Bethlehem was God”.
3. “And the Word was God” (John 1:1)
Here is the word deity.
He is not a created creature; personally distinct from the Father.
4.“Through him all things were made” (John 1:3)
Here is the Word creating
He was His Fathers’ agent in the act of making whatever the Father performed.
The Word was the agent of all creation putting science in its proper place.
“The builder of a house has greater honor than the house itself” (Heb 3:3).
As agent he is distinct from the Creator.
God the Father is viewed throughout the Gospel as the ultimate source of all, including the Son and the Spirit.
But life did not simply come through the Word but was in the Word (John 1:4).
Only God is the source of life, and it is a mark of Jesus’ distinctness and deity that the Father “has granted the Son to have life in himself” (John 5:26).
God Incarnate
5. “In Him was life” (John 1:4)
Here is the Word animating.
Answers the problem of the origin and continuance of life, in all its forms: life is given and maintained by the Word.
There is no physical life in the realm of created things except in and through Him.
John has moved from creation in verse 3 to re-creation, as it were, in verse 4.
The quality of life in the sphere of creation is not yet the deepest life, the divine life in the Word.
This idea is true to John’s thought, but he does not use light of men to refer to the new order of life now offered in Jesus.
So, most likely the reference is to the incarnation, declaring that what took place in the Word at his incarnation was the manifestation of life itself (cf. 1 John 1:1-2).
This allusion to the incarnation would only be evident to those who understand Jesus’ identity. as revealed in the rest of the Gospel.
Created things do not have life in themselves, but life in the Word, the second person of the Godhead.
He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:5, 12)
6. “And that life is the light of men” (John 1:4)
Here is the Word revealing.
In giving life, he gives light too; all people receive hints and suggestions of God from the fact of being alive in God’s world due to the work of the Word.
His life, manifest in the incarnation, is our light (John 1:4).
In this Gospel light always refers to the revelation and salvation that Jesus is and offers (cf. 8:12; 11:9 is the one exception).
In order to have life we need to know God, and Jesus is our source of such knowledge.
As our light, his life is our guide. He is our wisdom, that which reveals all else to us and enables us to see.
7. “The Word became flesh” (John 1:14)
The baby born at Bethlehem was God made man.
Here is the word incarnate.
The baby in the manger at Bethlehem was the “eternal Word of God”.
Jesus is the Word.
It is the nature of God to speak. The facts are that God is not silent, has never been silent. The second Person of the Holy Trinity – Godhead is called the Word.
The Bible is the inevitable outcome of God’s continuous speech. It is the infallible declaration of His mind for us put into our familiar human words.
It is not only a book which was once spoken, but a book which is now speaking in the continuous present.
The prophets habitually said, “Thus saith the Lord.”
It is more than a thing, it is a voice, a word, the very Word of the living God, that endureth forever.
References: A.W. Tozer – The Pursuit of God
J.I. Packer – Knowing God