Logos: The ongoing Conversation of God

A conversation about Logos

In my recent studies on the word Logos that is used in the Gospel of John, I noticed (thanks to Gordon Clark and John Robbins) that the word Logos in scripture is used in two ways.

Logos – the Word or Jesus
logos – words, like in an conversation.



This was a bit intriguing in the context of the emerging conversation. (emerging church as too many call it). I began to think on it a bit and wanted to share some thoughts.

When was the first conversation?

It is taught about Jesus that He existed in the Father before all things began, and being God incarnate, I do believe Jesus did. We see that the Trinity or Tri-unity is relational as we are taught God is a person, who exists as three persons.

This I believe does not carry the fullness of the Trinity as in how it can be expressed, yet as far as expressing the relational quality it cannot be denied.

So I see that “in the Father” Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit spoke to each other and communed together. Yet, love must be expressed, especially unselfish love. For God is not a selfish God that he would keep only to Himself. He desired to express His love to someone other than Himself…

I realized a while back that there was a different model to the Trinity that I have never really heard anyone talk about or teach and that is the model of Speaker, Word, and Breath. In order to for one to speak one must use their breath to move the words formed out in sound. All are related in relationship with each other. Jesus speaks of the Father being greater. I have had a problem with that as a son can be as great as a father, unless the son is still a child. In my mind Jesus was a man and as a man equal with His Father… in a sense He was… yet Jesus taught that the Father was greater. As I thought about the Speaker/Word/Breath model I began to grasp why the Father was greater, as the Speaker is greater than the words… for without the speaker there would be no words… this is like when Jesus states that the Teacher is greater than the Student… and in a sense that was also what Jesus was.. a student. If you think I am mistaken then explain who Jesus had to “learn” obedience… for this is what is taught in Hebrews. Jesus "learned obedience" to the Father even unto death.

Jesus was/is God… now having taken on flesh and become a man. As a man walked in dependency on the Father… He spoke and acted only as He saw and heard the Father speak and act. Some also forget that Jesus never laid down His Humanity... He ascended to the Father... in flesh and bone... glorified, but still is in "God in the image of man".

Again, as I reflected on the first conversations I realized that God had the very first one at the creation… He first words began the conversation… “Let there be…” and it was. All things were created through Jesus Who was/is those very words… and as God spoke to Moses and the Prophets again, conversations grew and as we read through the OT we see this God of Creation, reveal Himself more and more as two people would begin to know each other more and more in their conversations.

Jesus is THE CONVERSATION, and in sense we are that continued conversation… the continued expression of God as He continues His Creation… in us individually, but even more corporately. For as the Head of a Body speaks to the parts for one part to do this and another to do that, Jesus the Head of His Body, which is the Church… or all of us, tells each part, you and me, to move and have our very being in Him! As we trust in that our own head will tell our hand to reach for a pencil or that we need to wipe the tear from a child’s eye… we must learn to trust Jesus in just that manner.

Now an immature body will have trouble as a baby will not have full ability to say drive a car and an adolescent will say stumble as he grows over his own feet and feel awkward and even a little insecure. Yet, as with the human body God expects that we will grow… and I am sure that there are many who are mature and fully able to do as He commands as the Head, yet I wonder about those who are not ready if Jesus decided that the time for His Body to move… if those who remained infants in spite of all Jesus did to grow them, will Jesus wait for them to grow? It is said that God makes things grow… so I see if those that are not connected will not grow… and will become dependant on other things and most often men who appear to be mature in the faith… and may have great head knowledge… yet are not connected to the Head… so I fear for them as I see they are missing out on the most important part of becoming a mature Christian. In fact they may have deceived themselves and not be saved! Remember the sheep and the goats! I know that many use those verses to show that it is the charismatics who went out and healed and such, and I am sure that there are many in that camp also who will suffer from the main point of that passage and that is that Jesus never knew them! Too often people focus on trying to know God and over look that the more important thing is that God must know them! And that can only be by a relationship with Jesus. For if we know Jesus we know the Father… and if the Jesus knows us, (which is the most important thing) then the Father knows us and our name will be written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.

Many, like Gordon Clark and John Robbins have and do contribute to theology and have some great thoughts, yet, they miss that God is not just a pure mind floating unconnected to His creation… or that God sits without emotion as just pure intellectual logic… that even the very expression of Grace is emotional… Allen Hodges (my pastor) sees in the Greek that the word Grace holds in its meaning, emotion… Allen sees that Grace is God’s emotion towards us. In order for God to be the “Person” as we are taught in scripture, God must have personal qualities… (I am not saying that God is a man in the sense of anthropomorphic understandings, that in a real sense lowers God to our level), I do see that God has pure and true emotions… and desires to share them with His Children… as a father would his own earthly children.

God is more than logic, though that cannot be denied… God is more than just words, as He is also very much a God of action… faith without works is dead… a God Who speaks yet has not action… is no God.

God spoke and the creation began… God started a conversation of relationship with His creation… and then became that very Word to continue and then live by His Spirit in us giving us remembrance of His words…

In a way that is why I see faith as a conversation… not as a line in the sand… for as Jesus walked on the road to Emmaus and talked to the disciples, He still desire to do that with us today.

All one has to do is start talking to Jesus, and ask Him to guide you in His written words… and receive the Spirit of Life…

Blessings,
iggy

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