I. Of whom he speaks--
The Word--
ho logos. This is an idiom peculiar to John's writings. See
1 John 1:1,
5:7;
Revelation 19:13. Yet some think that Christ is meant by
the Word in
Acts 20:32;
Hebrews 4:12;
Luke 1:2. The Chaldee paraphrase very frequently calls the Messiah
Memra--the Word of Jehovah, and speaks of many things in the Old Testament, said to be done by
the Lord, as done by that
Word of the Lord. Even the vulgar Jews were taught that the
Word of God was the same with God. The evangelist, in the close of his discourse (
John 1:18), plainly tells us why he calls Christ
the Word--because he is the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, and has declared him. Word is two-fold:
logos endiathetos--
word conceived and
logos prophorikos--
word uttered. The
logos ho eso and
ho exo,
ratio and
oratio--intelligence and
utterance. 1. There is the
word conceived, that is,
thought, which is the first and only immediate product and conception of the soul (all the operations of which are performed by
thought), and it is one with the soul. And thus the second person in the Trinity is fitly called
the Word for he is the
first-begotten of the Father, that eternal essential Wisdom which
the Lord possessed, as the soul does its thought,
in the beginning of his way, Proverbs 8:22. There is nothing we are more sure of than
that we think, yet nothing we are more in the dark about than
how we think who can declare the generation of
thought in the soul? Surely then the generations and births of the eternal mind may well be allowed to be great mysteries of godliness, the bottom of which we cannot fathom, while yet we adore the depth. 2. There is the
word uttered, and this is
speech, the chief and most natural indication of the mind. And thus Christ is
the Word, for
by him God has in
these last days spoken to us (
Hebrews 1:2), and has directed us to
hear him, Matthew 17:5. He has made known God's mind to us, as a man's word or speech makes known his thoughts, as far as he pleases, and no further. Christ is called that
wonderful speaker (see notes on
Daniel 8:13), the
speaker of things hidden and
strange. He is
the Word speaking
from God to us, and
to God for us. John Baptist was
the voice, but Christ
the Word: being
the Word, he is
the Truth, the
Amen, the
faithful Witness of the mind of God.