Logos Archives - Colin Dye

Christmas:Understanding the reason behind the season

Colin Dye — Sat, 24 Dec 2011 00:04:57 +0000

Logos is the greek word for "reason" or for "word"

We read in John 1:14, that the ?Word became flesh.? The Word is none other than the Divine Word, the Logos of God, and he ?became flesh.? That is, the frail, vulnerable flesh common to all humanity. He became so completely human that, despite being God, he was in all respects like us, apart from sin. God has appeared in human form. He lived for a while (literally, he pitched his tent among us), to reside here temporarily, before he returned to the Father, taking his humanity with him.

My little Greek Christmas!

Why not add a little Greek to your Christmas celebrations? The New Testament as we have it is a translation from the original Greek text. The translators usually do a great job, but as in any communication there are bound to be treasures buried in the original that are lost in translation. So don?t be put off by a little Greek. Study the Strongs concordance definitions highlighted in this article and you will add a new richness to your Christmas!
The short life of the Word-made-flesh among us changed everything! Never again will we wonder what God is like? Jesus has forever revealed the Father. Never again will God be intangible, invisible and elusive to us ? Jesus has shown God in physical form so that eyewitness testimony can describe him and we can know him personally. Never again can we question our purpose ? it is to receive God?s grace and to behold his glory in the person of Christ. And it is to become sons and daughters of the Word-madeflesh? so that the Word may become flesh in us and we can show him to the world.

Full of Grace and Truth

The heart of the matter is that the Word (Logos) is full of grace and truth, and he is the glory of God we see in the real Christmas story. Truth is on the side of grace. That means we hold on to the truth by God?s grace and we live out that truth by the same grace. Law has absolutely nothing to do with it for, ?the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came (literally ?appeared in person?) through Jesus Christ (John 1:17).
The effects of this grace-truth appearing are incalculable! Now, we don?t just know about God; but we know him, personally. We receive his light and his life ? the very life that gives light to the whole world. The very source and ground of our being, and of everything else that is, lives with us and lives in us!

The Reason behind the Season

The divine ?Reason?, the Logos of God, is why we celebrate Christmas. God has made his thoughts and intentions clear. He has spoken to us in his Son ? his full and final revelation to humanity. It is complete, clear and visible. All that Jesus did and said was a revelation of the thoughts, intentions and attitudes of the Father. And, it is all good news! God cares. He did not send a messenger to tell us that ? he came himself, to show it through the words and actions of the Word-made-flesh.

It is time to think

The Logos is God?s reason, the rational thought and the reality that lies behind the universe. Everything in creation is the expression of that thought. Our capacity to reason and to understand comes from this gift of God?s creation. John says that this divine reason is evident to all humanity. Jesus, the Word, who came into the world?gives light to every man? (John 1:9).

?The Word? ? the Divine Logos*

STONGS NT:3056 logos (log?-os) something said (including the thought); by implication a topic (subject of discourse), also reasoning (the mental faculty) or motive; by extension, a computation; specifically (with the article in John) the Divine Expression (i.e. Christ).
This is the same truth found in Romans 1:20 where Paul says,?Since the creation of the world God?s invisible qualities ?his eternal power and divine nature ? have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.? That is why there is no excuse. The divine light has shone into our hearts and our choice is to receive it, or to suppress it.
The suppression of truth is everywhere, and this points to the need to shine the truth into the darkness, dispelling the gloom. The light of life shone that first Christmas morning and our Christmas lights testify to it today. The challenge is to let our light continue to shine when the decorations come down!
?Became flesh?*STONGS NT:4561 sarx (sarx); flesh (as stripped of the skin), i.e. (strictly) the meat of an animal (as food), or (by extension) the body (as opposed to the soul [or spirit], or as the symbol of what is external, or as the means of kindred), or (by implication) human nature (with its frailties [physically or morally] and passions), or (specifically) a human being.
Rekindle the flame of truth, beauty, nobility and passion in your heart and let the newly-trimmed lamps of Christmas wonder illuminate the darkness. Become a true warrior of this light.
The Logos, reminds us that there is reason behind the season, and everything else that is Christian. Your mind matters because ideas have consequences. It is time for Christians to think! Who said you kiss your brains goodbye when you commit your life to Christ. He is the answer to every question, the response to every need ?intellectual, moral and spiritual. We have the mind of Christ, the reason of God and the thoughts of the Spirit because the Logos lives in us.

It is time to speak

Logos is thought but, more than that, it is thought expressed in word. Jesus is God?s speech. His word going forth. Our faith is not the mystical contemplation of voiceless expression. God spoke, and worlds came into being. God spoke and Christ came. God speaks today and gives you a voice to love him and to proclaim him as a trumpet call to a waiting world.
When Jesus spoke, they marvelled at his gracious words. The Logos speaks through you in the same way. Let your voice be heard ? clear and confident, warm and affirming, strong and assuring. The angels at Christmas proclaimed,?Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace and good will have come!? This is the most positive message of hope the world could ever wish for and is longing to hear. But, they cannot hear unless it is proclaimed. Be a herald this Christmas. Tell the world of his love and favour. Grace! Grace! Grace! to all who will hear. Make it clear ?God receives sinners, and to all who receive his Christ, he gives the right, the privilege and the authority to become his children (John 1:12).
Through the word coming from Christ in you, you can replace error with truth, indifference with passion and law with grace. Let the world know truth has come and that truth speaks today ? Christ the Word of God!

It is time to act

Perhaps the greatest revelation of the Logos at Christmas is that the invisible has become visible the untouchable, touchable. John writes in his letter, ?That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched ? this we proclaim concerning the Word (Logos) of life? (1 John 1:2). John says, in effect, ?We know he is real ? he came, and we saw him, we heard him speak and we even touched him!?
The apostles witnessed all these things ? his words and actions ? and as eyewitness, they gave trustworthy accounts of it. Their testimony is the truthful witness behind the Gospels. But their proclamation carried its own mark of authenticity. So must ours. The apostles did not merely speak, they acted. Everything they believed and taught was also visible in their lives. Their actions testified to the truth of their beliefs.
There is always a crisis of credibility when our lives do not match up to our beliefs. Jesus is the empowering word, the very life of God in us. He must be seen in us. We would be heard more if we acted more. Take the important moral issue of the sanctity of life for example. How will the world take notice our protest against abortion, if we do not look after the pregnant mother who believes abortion is the only answer because she could never cope with a child as a single parent? How can we condemn our liberal laws against unwanted pregnancies due to a disability diagnosed while the baby is still in the womb, when we do nothing to help families with severely handicapped children?
Words and works go together just as truth-in-action is far better than mere truth without visible expression.?And dwelt (pitched his tent) among us?*STONGS NT:4637 skenoo (skayno?-o); from NT:4636; to tent or encamp, i.e. (figuratively) to occupy (as a mansion) or (specifically) to reside (as God did in the Tabernacle of old, a symbol of protection and communion):

Showing Christ at Christmas

Christmas, despite prolonged attempts by local and national government, is still a national Christian festival. The world loves it ? not always for the right reasons! But we have the true reason for the season ? God?s Reason, his Divine Logos. Let this Reason live in you, at Christmas and throughout the whole year to come. Let him think, speak and act through you. Then the world may begin to realise that Grace has truly come to the world, and his name is Jesus, the Word of God. He is the Reason behind the Season.
*All Greek word definitions are quoted from Biblesoft?s New Exhaustive Strong?s Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright ? 1994, 2003 Biblesoft, Inc. and International Bible Translators, Inc.

The post Christmas:Understanding the reason behind the season appeared first on Colin Dye.

The Word made flesh

Colin Dye — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 09:12:55 +0000

A scene from the movie "The Nativity"

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. (John 1:1-6)
From the Atheist and Agnostic to the Hindu and the Muslim very few would disagree that Christmas celebrates the birth of a truly historical and human figure named Jesus. But once you make the claim that Jesus was not only fully human but also the eternal and divine Son of the God disagreement begins. The Bible insists that Jesus was more than fully human, that he was more, even, than the perfect, sinless human, for it declares that he was fully divine and fully human, that he was God in human flesh.
John’s Gospel reveals Jesus’ divinity particularly clearly, and it does this essentially by introducing him as ‘the Word of God’, the logos who is a personal self-revelation of God, and by recording a series of ‘I am’ sayings in which Jesus seems to identify himself with Yahweh, with the ultimate ‘I am who I am’. He is presented as ‘the Son of God’ throughout the New Testament; and all twenty seven books ring with the great cry that ‘Jesus is Lord’.
The Logos
The Greek word logos is one of John’s Gospel’s most distinctive words. Although logos sometimes means Jesus’ message and sometimes points to Jesus himself, it always means something more than just the words spoken. John’s Gospel begins with the Son’s ‘heavenly genealogy’ in chapter 1 verses 1-18 which makes it clear that the fully human Jesus is also the eternal Word, the full revelation of the fully divine God. It reveals, for example, that God’s Word: is involved in creating and sustaining the world (Genesis 1; Psalm 33:6-9; 147:15-18); is invested with divine power and authority (Psalm147:15; Isaiah 55:11); and reveals God’s thoughts, concerns and purposes (Psalm 119:9, 105).
By identifying Jesus from the outset as the logos, John’s Gospel implicitly declares that Jesus was involved in creation, that he is invested with divine power, that he is the revelation of God, and that he is closely identified with God’s wisdom. All these ideas are then developed throughout John’s Gospel. John’s ‘prologue’ introduces a whole series of concepts which are expanded in the Gospel (such as light, life, truth, glory and the world), but it contains three basic ideas about Jesus which reveal the main characteristics of the Son as the logos.
John’s introduction also demonstrates the relation the Son has with the Father. John 1:1-2 echoes Genesis 1:1 and declares the Son’s pre-existence. John simply states that the logos was with God and was God: this underlines the Son’s divinity without blurring the distinction between the personal quality of the Son and the personal quality of the Father.
The Word was not created, He creates
John 1:1-2 reveals that the logos has the nature of God, but although the Word is God, God is more than the Word. We should recognise that John does not distinguish between the creative power of the Son and the creative power of God, but that he does distinguish the Son from creation. This means the Word was not created but always existed with God.
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14
John 1:14 explains that the divine logos became human flesh and dwelt among men. We see this means that God ‘pitched his tent’ or ‘tabernacled’ in humanity, and that this points directly to the Old Testament tabernacle. This shows that John’s proclamation of the Son as the eternal Word does not dilute Jesus’ humanity; instead, it places the Son firmly in history as a flesh-andblood human being and it reveals him as a divine being who is in constant and eternal communion with God. Yahweh: I am what I am!
John’s Gospel uses the personal pronoun ‘I’ more frequently than any part of the Bible: this adds both dignity and authority to Jesus and to his words. John uses the Greek word ego, ‘I’, 134 times to attract attention to the Son – and to prepare us for the emphatic personal pronoun ego eimi, ‘I am’ which he seems to use to stress the Son’s full divinity.
Jesus’ ‘I am’ sayings are important because the phrase is used in the Old Testament as God’s personal name. God introduced himself to Moses, in Exodus 3:14, as Yahweh, ‘I am what I am’. For Jews, this invested the emphatic personal pronoun ‘I am’ with special divine significance. John records seven sayings in which Jesus uses ego eimi, ‘I am’, to describe himself:
I am the bread of life (6:35) I am the light of the world (8:12) I am the door of the sheep (10:7) I am the good shepherd who gives his life (10:11) I am the resurrection and the life (11:25) I am the way, the truth and the life (14:6) I am the true vine (15:1).
In every case, the ‘I am’ saying reveals a different divine function of Jesus – to sustain, illuminate, admit, care for sacrificially, give new life, guide and make reproductive. These are staggering claims, which are all first introduced in John’s prologue.
Through these seven sayings, Jesus makes personal what is declared in theory in the prologue – he reveals himself to be the divine embodiment of everything that people seek.
Then the Jews said to Him, ?You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?? Jesus said to them, ?Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.? John 8:57-58
In John 8:57?58, Jesus was asked whether he had seen Abraham. Jesus? questioners thought that his reply was blasphemous, and took up stones to kill him ? they understood him to be claiming that he was the divine ?I am? of Exodus 3:14, Deuteronomy 32:39; Isaiah 43:10 & 46:4.
The crowds? reaction in John 18:5?6 further underlines the divine significance of Jesus? repeated claim to be the great ?I am?.

The empty tomb speaks of the resurrection of our Lord, who came in the flesh, died in the flesh and was risen for evermore

Jesus therefore, knowing all things that would come upon Him, went forward and said to them, ?Whom are you seeking?? They answered Him, ?Jesus of Nazareth.? Jesus said to them, ?I am He.? And Judas, who betrayed Him, also stood with them. Now when He said to them, ?I am He,? they drew back and fell to the ground. John 18:4-6
The force of Jesus? absolute use of ego eimi in John 8:24, 58 & 13:19 must shape our understanding of his seven ?I am? sayings. We can say that they convey exclusively divine qualities. This Christmas let us be clear that the most accurate body of ancient literature available to mankind, the Bible, declares that a man named Jesus was born in into history, That he was the Word made flesh. He is not just fully man but also fully God, He is truly the only begotten Son of God!

The post The Word made flesh appeared first on Colin Dye.