John 1:1 – “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

Christ was with God, and He was God. We know from Joh. 1:14, “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us… full of grace and truth.” The Greek word for Word is Logos, and I’m moved by the thought that Logos isn’t just the word spoken or how that word sounds or the meaning of that spoken word, but Logos also points back to the conception of the thought that produced the spoken word from God that created everything that exists. Logos points to not simply the spoken word that brought the world into existence, but it points to the source of the spoken word and the very thought behind the creative power and divine authority that brought our universe into existence. That source is found in the person of Jesus Christ who was and is God who had become clothed with flesh.

Yet, Logos is even more than that. Logos points to the thought itself that chose to produce all life, which takes us to the very meaning of life itself. Why did God even conceive the thought that produced the action of the spoken word that created all of us even though He knew in advance that we would, in our free will rebel against Him, fall into sin, and need redemption? He still created us and died for us because He wanted to love and to have a relationship with free-willed humans who willingly chose to love Him in return.

The Lord Jesus Christ was and is eternally Logos, the source, the power, and the divine authority behind the spoken Word that created everything in existence. Christ is the eternal Word who in time became flesh. By using the word Logos, it would seem John was endeavoring to bring out the full significance of that miracle in the manger, the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ, to impress upon us that Jesus spoke with ultimate authority, because He is the one who spoke the universe into existence. The brilliance of presenting Christ as Logos is that it elevated Him infinitely above pagan concepts of deities. He wasn’t just with God, but He was God, as well. He was eternally pre-existent involved in the act of creation, and therefore, He will always be superior to everything, everyone, and He will always be one with God.

In the phrase “the Word was with God” the preposition “with” indicates both equality, distinction of identity, along with unity. In other words, He was face-to-face with God. Christ was face-to-face with God the Father. He was equal to God. He was in perfect oneness with the Father of all glory. Christ, the “Word,” is deity, eternal, one with God, co-equal with God, face-to-face with God the Father, yet distinct. We have external coexistence, eternal equality, eternal oneness, and eternal unity of Christ with God the Father.

We can never separate the Living Word from Christ Himself. You cannot have one without the other. You cannot have Christ without the Living Word, and you cannot have the Living Word without Christ. Bullinger would write, “As the spoken word reveals the invisible thought, so the Living Word reveals the invisible God.” Just as words reveal hidden thoughts, Christ came into this world to reveal the hidden God, and Christ Himself is the Living Word of the living God, the one who spoke the words of God the Father to mankind, revealing to us all the hidden thoughts of the Father for the world. Christ said, “I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things” (Joh 8:28). He said, “I and my Father are one” (Joh 10:30). He said, “I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works” (Joh 14:10). He said, “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father” (Joh 14:9).

Let me ask a question: is the Living Word the Lord Jesus Christ or the words He spoke? Yes. When John says the “Word was with God, and the Word was God,” he’s saying that Christ was with God the Father, that Christ was also an equal member of the Godhead, because the Father and the Son are one, just as they are one with the Spirit, but that Christ Himself is also the Word of God, because He verbally expressed the thoughts and will of His Father in Heaven. He was not only with God, but He always is to us the Word of God itself, because He expresses the thoughts, the words, and the will of God the Father. The Word of God is more than just the written Word. The Word of God are the words themselves spoken by Christ who is verbalizing the thoughts and will of the Father. Christ is the mouthpiece, if you will, of the Word of God the Father. The idea of the Living Word is inseparable from Christ because He was the living one expressing the words of God the Father made alive in us by the Spirit. Those words are living not simply because they contain the life of God in the words but also because those words are the means by which we obtain eternal life because it’s the Father who justifies the believer.

Thus, we have in the glorious incarnation of Jesus Christ, God Himself clothed with flesh, and in Him, the entire Godhead operated as one unit. Christ spoke the words of the Father, and He carried out miracles through the Spirit. In Act 10:38, Peter would say that “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.” Christ was anointed by the Father with the Spirit, and He was anointed with power “healing all that were oppressed of the devil”. I’d suggest Christ was anointed to begin miracles by the Spirit at His baptism, and Peter explained what it was He was anointed to do. To preach the words of the Father to the people of Israel. Plus, healings and exorcisms. Christ would even say in Mat. 12:28 that He casts out devils “by the Spirit of God.” He said, “But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you.” Here we have another mention of the entire Godhead in one verse. We have Christ proclaiming that He is doing miracles according to the will of the Father through the Holy Spirit. Everything in the Bible is of the Father, by Jesus Christ, through the Spirit. The entire triune Godhead operated as one in the person of Jesus Christ.