the members of the One Body and Christ, the Head. It only occurs three times in John's

Gospel (John 12: 2, 18: 1, & 21: 3) and is not used again in John's epistles or the

Apocalypse. Since sun is not used in John 1: 1, we conclude that the Word is not there

represented as being merely "in fellowship" with God.

Another possible preposition could have been para. Was the Logos "with" God in the

sense that para would indicate? This word means "beside" as in "parallel", and is used

by John in 16: 27, "I came out from the Father"--i.e. "from beside the Father". Para

can therefore be used, just as meta can, to indicate certain relationships between the

Father and the Son, but neither meta nor para is used in John 1: 1.

We will not go on to deal with the remaining possible prepositions, but come at once

to the positive teaching of the passage. The word actually used by John is the preposition

pros. The Logos, as revealed in John 1: 1, was not simply "with God" in the sense of

being co-existent, einai meta ("He that was with thee beyond Jordan": John 3: 26); or

united by things held in common, einai sun ("This man was also with Him":

Luke 22: 56); or in connection with the local relations, einai para ("The glory which I

had with Thee before the world was": John 17: 5); but in a sense different from any of

these, that could only be expressed by the preposition pros.

At this point, let us turn for a moment to Heb. 4:, where the same word pros is used.

It would seem presumptuous for any one person, unless most fully qualified to speak,

to suggest that all existing translations of Heb. 4: 13 have missed the mark; and yet, as

we shall see, there is much to be said for a more literal rendering. The Authorized and

Revised Versions read "With Whom we have to do", while alternative renderings given

in other translations are either "To Whom we must give an account", or "About Whom is

our discourse". The original in Heb. 4: 13 is Pros hon hemin ho logos, or, translating

literally: "With Whom for us the Word." We may compare this with John 1: 1: Kai ho

logos en pros ton theon, "And the Word was with the God". There is so much in

common between John 1: 1-5 and Heb. 1:, which we must consider later, that we are

compelled to ask why Heb. 4: 13 should not be accepted literally:

The argument in Hebrews concerning Christ is much the same as that of John.

Heb. 4: 14-16 follows the reference to the Word that was "with" God (pros) by an

encouraging statement concerning the sympathy of Him, Who has now passed through

the heavens to the place where He was before. However, we must leave this very

intricate point, and turn to the wider consideration of the distinctive meaning of the

preposition pros.

It has been pointed out by others that pros is used very much with the verbs lego,

laleo, etc., meaning "to speak". One very common translation of pros is "to"--as for

example, "He brought him to Jesus" (John 1: 42).  It is also sometimes translated

"toward" as in Eph. 2: 7. "Unto" is also a very common translation, as in John 1: 29,