into the past unto a point arbitrarily called "the beginning" and it is immaterial how many

millions of centuries we recede into the past before we mark a point on the calendar and

say "this is the beginning of time". The next word is the verb "to be", "was", and here

John is guided to use the imperfect tense (en), which gives the concept of continuous

existence in the past, and goes back before any point of time. Men can delve into history

as far as they like, mark a point of time and call it "the beginning", only to find at that

moment the Word had already been in a continuous state of being. He existed before the

beginning, since He always has existed. With Him there is no beginning, for He is

eternal and everlasting.

John describes Him as the Word (Logos) and it may come as a surprise to learn that

contemporary philosophers used this word frequently as the intermediary agent of

creation, who stood between the non-material God and the material world. Such was

Philo, the Alexandrian Jewish philosopher, and his writings give us the clearest views of

what the development of Judaism was and aimed at. For Philo, to predicate any quality

of God is to reduce Him to the sphere of finite existence, and so He could have no active

relationship with the material world.

Philo was forced to say that the world was a kosmos, i.e. an orderly world, governed

wholly by that which is reasonable, which is to say, natural law. The world is material,

and since this is subject to qualification, is a negation of all true being. If this is correct,

then God could not walk about, as Christ did, in human flesh, since to be human, one

must be material. In order to determine the origin of evil, Philo, and contemporary

philosophers, concluded that all matter is evil, since God is both immaterial and good.

To them Logos must be non-material, so when John wrote that the Logos became flesh,

he was committed to a view that neither Philo nor any of the Gnostics could accept.

For them Logos was a principle, not a Person, and this made the vast difference

between the Greek and Alexandrian philosophies and the Christian revelation of God

manifest in the flesh, the Lord Jesus Christ. This being so, we can see the divine wisdom

that withheld this contribution to the New Testament literature until Gnosticism had

arisen in the latter part of the century to challenge the central fact and foundation of the

Christian faith. John's writings confute Gnostic contentions from all angles. The title

Logos for Christ does not occur again in the Gospel.

While we have the principle of reason and order immanent in the universe stressed by

some Greek philosophical schools, we should not assume that these schools form the

background to John's conception of truth.  Professor F. F. Bruce states "the true

background to John's thought and language is found not in Greek philosophy but in

Hebrew revelation. The `word of God' in the O.T. denotes God in action, especially in

creation, revelation and deliverance". He draws our attention to the beginning of Genesis

where we read repeatedly "God said . . . . . and it was so"; also to Psa. 33: 6 "by the

word of the Lord were the heavens made", and this opens the way to personify the "word

of the Lord".