I have a question from the creed. Homoousia, Of the same substance, God is an eternal spirit essence, ??? DOES THE CREED SAY JESUS IN NOT A MAN.\????
Doceian heresy that Jesus only came in the spirit and not the flesh.
Logos DOES NOT MEAN JESUS. The WORD is what GOD SAID!
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1
Tertullian said John 1:1 the Word (logos) was reason and from OT Hebrew thinking reason was the personification of God. That is where the idea the “Word” is Jesus came from. A study of history and Greek writings shows that the Greek “logos” was not used in that way. It means the “reason of thought carried out to maturity”. Yes Jesus is the fulfilment of God’s plan, but the word is what God said all His commandments not just the final fulfilment. The verse says “God is all life and that life (Jesus) is the light of the world.”
1 Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν,
In Beginning was the word, and the word was before the God
καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. 2 οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θεόν.
and God was the word. It was in beginning before the God
3 πάντα δι' αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν. ὃ γέγονεν
All through Him came in to being and without Him came into being nothing
ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν, καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων·
In him Life was and the life was the Light of men.
Trying to translate theword (ὁ λόγος) to Latin as early as the second century the Latin Sermo(speech) and Verbum(word) were rival translations of this term. Tertullian (fl. A.D. 198–210) gives us both, but seems himself to prefer Rati0(reason). The Latin versions without exception adopted Verbum(word), and from it comes our translation ‘the Word,’ translations which have greatly affected Western theology. None of these translations are at all adequate; but neither Latin nor any modern language supplies anything really satisfactory. The Latin Verbum and ‘the Word’ do not give even the whole of one of the two sides of the Greek ὁ λόγος. The other side, which Tertullian tried to express by Ratio (reason), is not touched at all. For ὁ λόγος means not only ‘the spoken word,’ but ‘the thought’ expressed by the spoken word; it is the spoken word as expressive of thought. But on what was this doctrine based? Where did St. John derive the expression? There can be little doubt that it has its origin in the Targums, or paraphrases of the Hebrew Scriptures, in use in Palestine, and in the mixture of Jewish and Greek philosophy prevalent at Alexandria and Ephesus. (1) In the Old Testament we find the Word or Wisdom of God personified, generally as an instrument for executing the Divine Will, as if it were itself distinct from that Will. (2) In the Apocrypha the personification is more complete than in the O.T.(3) In the Targums, or Aramaic paraphrases of the O.T., the development is carried still further. These, though not yet written down, were in common use among the Jews in our Lord’s time; and they were strongly influenced by the growing tendency to separate the Divine Essence from immediate contact with the material world. Cambridge Greek Commentary for Schools e-Sword
With this in mind let us try this again.
1 Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν,
In Beginning was the thought, and the though was before the God
καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.
and divine was the thought.
2 οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θεόν.
It(the thought) was in beginning before the God
3 πάντα δι' αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν. ὃ γέγονεν
All by God’s plan came in to being and without it came into being nothing
4 ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν, καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων·
In him(God) Life was and the life was the Light of men.(Christ)
But, what does that say? So much theology hangs on the meaning of this phrase we must know.
I think John 1:1 says “in the beginning was God’s plan and that plan was followed by God the Plan was divine.” In GOD is all life and that life became the Light of men, JESUS. The problem of this discussion is in the argument that “All Flesh is Sinful, Evil, or the opposite of God.” Jesus the Son of God, cannot be flesh it is evil. This is an ancient Mystic idea coming from Babylonian Mysticism and Zoroastrianism, it is the origin of Satan’s counterfeit. John 1:1 was translated to Latin then German and English with the theology that Jesus existed from before creation because He could not be Flesh, a man. BUT, Jesus was a man, He had to be a man to take our place and pay the sin debt. In a wonderful, hard to understand, God controlled mystery Jesus was both God and man, the exact extent of which I cannot explain.
BUT HE WAS TOTALLY GOD AND TOTALLY MAN.
The man had a birth conceived of God by the Holy Spirit in Mary. Grew and learned a trade, taught the way we can see God and how to live for God, then He took our place on the cross and paid a debt we could not pay. He is risen and rewarded and sits at God’s right hand. We must not translate Bible with a preconceived theology in mind, it generates error.
Joh 18:37 Pilate therefore said unto him, Are you a king then? Jesus answered, You say that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth hears my voice.
Look carefully at this verse there are two statements. 1. I was BORN the MAN. 2. I came into the world, The second person of the trinity.
JESUS WAS THE GOD/MAN BOTH A REAL MAN AND TOTALLY GOD.
Tertullian tried to express by Ratio(reason) the idea that the word was Jesus as God’s reason. And Jesus is the savior who carried out the plan. But, we must be careful not to make Jesus the plan. There is so much here we sell God short if we read this wrong.
Now, the Greeks talked much about the Logos. And according to the Greek philosophy, everything pre-existed in a thought. Anything that you see existed in thought before it became form. In other words, a pulpit began with a thought. Some craftsman had in his mind a design, an idea for a podium. And so, he drew it out on a piece of paper, but it was the expression of his thought. And so, before anything exists, it has pre-existed in a thought. So, to the Greek philosopher, the thought was the origin of things. Well, the Bible takes you one step further back. It said if there was a thought, then there had to be a thinker, because you can't have a thought without a thinker. So, in the beginning, God, "In the beginning, was the Word (the thought, the Plan)." And so, it actually goes back even before the thought, you have the existence of the One who thought, or the existence of God. Chuck Smith Commentary e-Sword
In the Greek world Plato argued that the reality of everything was in the mind, the thought. Aristotle argued the reality of everything is in the ITEM itself, “real” is what I can touch, measure, see. John’s use is the thoughtnot the person or item in the physical world.
