The Logos Becomes a Human

Today we are looking at the Christmas story again, but as it is told, or rather not told, in John’s Gospel. It is probable that the writers of John had access to Matthew and Luke, but they chose not to include a birth story. Instead they chose a philosophical way of introducing the incarnation.

John tells us his purpose at the end of his gospel, “But these have been written in order that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through your faith in him you may have life.” (20:31)

So John has set out to reason and convince people to believe in Jesus. The early church began in the Jewish community set in a Greek thinking world. So he begins with the words of the Old Testament, “In the beginning…” followed directly by a Greek concept, “Logos”. The Bible begins with God speaking the world into existence. God’s Word acts.

John then uses the word Logos (Word), a rich Greek term which goes back to Heraclitus (6th century BC). Heraclitus declares that the logos, “is always existent” and that, “all things happen through this Logos”. (Leon Morris) In this Greek philosophy, God is not seen as personal, but as a principle or force.

So John is explaining the incarnation to both Jews and Greeks at the same time. Each can read it from their own perspective.

For the Jews, John is saying that Jesus is God’s Word of creation made into a human being. The same energy that God expressed to create the world is in evidence here. So Jesus is God’s creative speech revealed. Everything Jesus says and does is God speaking. This is not even something that Jesus in his humanity needs to be conscious of, it is just who he is.

For the Greeks, John is saying that the Logos has now become a human being. No longer just a philosophical principle or force, but a man. The eternal logic, the reason, the creative force, the soul of the world has come to live with us.

From both the Jewish and the Greek perspective God is incarnate in Jesus. He is the son of God. For both groups this is a controversial thing to say, but John wants them to know that it is the truth, the expression of God’s grace in abundance. The miracle of that grace is that now, for all those who believe in Jesus, they too can become children of God, not by human birth but by the direct, gracious act of God. In the same way the other Gospels declare that Jesus birth is the direct act of God, so too our birth as children of God is also the direct act of God. Remember in John 3 Jesus tells Nicodemus about this.

The incarnation is then God’s way of inviting all humanity into the very family of God.
In effect the message we have been hearing from Matthew’s Gospel that Jesus is Immanuel, God with us, is also true for John.

Adrian.