Lori Jane

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Source: Focus on the Kingdom, November, 2022

John 1:14 provides one of the most solemn statements in the whole of Scripture. That verse announces that “the word became flesh [a human being] and tabernacled among us.” The word “became” tells us with complete clarity and certainty that the word became something it was not before. The word (not a person) became a human person, Jesus.

We have no difficulty grasping that “the water became wine” (John 2:9), or “command these stones to become bread” (Matt. 4:3), or Paul “became a minister” (Col. 1:25). The water was not wine until it became wine! The same change came to the “word”: It became what it was not before. It became a human person, the Messiah Jesus.

It is therefore most confusing to evacuate the word “became” of its easy meaning by suggesting that “the word” in John 1:1 means the human Jesus. Such a misreading of John 1:1 cancels the easy meaning of John 1:14 where the word became what it (not he) was not before. The word (not Word) became the human Jesus in John 1:14. On no account should such a stupendous and central truth be lost to our understanding.

Wherever the word “became” has a complement, i.e. “flesh” in 1:14, the sense is more than clear. I think that no lexicon would disagree here. “The word became flesh” gives us “flesh” as the subject complement. It is not the same as or parallel to “there came a man called John” (John 1:6). My concern is that we will put people off by saying that “the word became flesh” means the word was flesh.

Bauer’s Lexicon makes the same point under ginomai (to become). It would be very false to say that the “word was flesh.” No, the word became flesh. There are just lots of parallels to this which are unambiguous.

By contrast, John uses the word “was” (een) in 1:1. The word “was with God” — not “became God.”

Note too, I suggest, that when a person is with a person, then the preposition “with” in the Gospel of John is para and not pros. In the Gospel of John, pros means a thing with a person as also in Paul: “the Gospel is with (pros) you” (Gal. 2:5). Since the word became what it was not before, i.e. it, the word, became the human Jesus (John 1:14), then Jesus cannot possibly be the word in 1:1. The word “became” in 1:14 prevents any misunderstanding.
 
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Diana S

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I found something: From the well known Dutch Oosthoek Encyclopedia: 'The term logos is also used in the Bible (particularly the prologue of the Gospel according to John) and in the ancient Christian world of thought, but then against the background of the creative word of God from the Hebrew conceptual world...
(Ps 33:6 - Dutch NBV21 Bible: By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, by the breath of his mouth the host of the stars.
Isaiah 55:11 11So this also applies to the word that proceeds from my mouth: it does not return to Me in vain, not without first doing what I want and to do what I command.

The Dutch Naarden Bible reads in John 1:1: Since the beginning there has been speaking; that speaking is near to God, yes, God himself is that speaking; it's been there from the beginning, God so near; everything is done through it, and apart from that not one thing is done that is done.
Just a little research and with the Bible things just become clear.