logos

Semantic range

1. 1a spoken word, statement, message
2. 2reason, rational principle — the philosophers' sense
3. 3an account or reckoning
4. 4the divine Word: Christ Himself, in John's usage

John 1:1 puts a word to work in two directions at once. To a Greek-trained reader, logos was the rational ordering principle of the cosmos, a term the Stoics had made central and which Philo of Alexandria had already applied to a divine intermediary. To a Hebrew-trained reader, it was dābār — the word of the Lord that goes out and accomplishes (Isaiah 55:11), the word by which the heavens were made (Psalm 33:6).

John does something neither tradition had done: he says the Logos became flesh and pitched a tent among us (John 1:14 — eskēnōsen, the verb for tabernacling). The abstract principle turns out to be a person with an address.

Restoration scripture keeps the title and sharpens it. "He was the Word, even the messenger of salvation" (D&C 93:8); "Alpha and Omega, Christ the Lord; yea, even Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end" (D&C 19:1).

Where it appears

• John 1:1–14The prologue — the Word with God, the Word made flesh.
• Revelation 19:13"His name is called The Word of God."
• D&C 93:8–10The Restoration's commentary on John's prologue.

See also

• דָּבָרdābār
• μονογενήςmonogenēs
• φῶςphōs