The Word of God
From divine speech to incarnate presence
Every culture has a word for word. But the biblical concept of God's word carries a weight unlike any other—it creates, it judges, it heals, it becomes. Follow the concept of divine speech from the Hebrew scriptures into the Gospel of John.
λόγος — The Word
something said (including the thought); by implication, a topic (subject of discourse), also reasoning (the mental faculty) or motive; by extension, a computation; specially, (with the article in John) the Divine Expression (i.e. Christ)
Also rendered: account, cause, communication, concerning
In classical Greek philosophy, logos meant reason, discourse, and the ordering principle of the cosmos. The Stoics saw logos as the rational structure woven into all reality. But John takes this familiar word and fills it with something unprecedented: a personal being, in relationship with God, through whom all things came into existence.