"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
— John 1:1
Quick Answer
In John 1:1, 'Logos' (Greek for 'Word') identifies Jesus as the eternal self-expression and reason of God, who was with God and was God from the beginning, and through whom all things were created (John 1:1-3). John chose this term because it communicated to both Jewish and Greek readers that Jesus is God's ultimate revelation of himself.
An Unusual Way to Open a Book
John opens his Gospel unlike any of the other three. Matthew begins with a genealogy, Mark plunges straight into John the Baptist's ministry, Luke opens with a careful historical preface. John instead reaches back before creation itself: 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God' (John 1:1). This deliberately echoes the opening words of Genesis — 'In the beginning' — signaling that John is about to tell us something about who was present and active at the very dawn of creation.
The term he chooses, 'Word,' translates the Greek term 'Logos,' a word carrying rich meaning in both Jewish and Greek thought of the first century. John's choice of this particular term was deliberate and masterful, able to speak meaningfully to readers from very different backgrounds at once.
What 'Logos' Meant to Jewish Readers
For a Jewish audience steeped in the Old Testament, 'the word of the Lord' was already a familiar and powerful concept, closely associated with God's own creative and revealing activity. Genesis describes creation happening through God's spoken word: 'And God said, Let there be light, and there was light' (Genesis 1:3). The Psalms declare, 'By the word of the Lord the heavens were made' (Psalm 33:6), and describe God's word as active and effective: 'He sent out his word and healed them' (Psalm 107:20).
Jewish readers would also recall how 'the word of the Lord' regularly came to the prophets, carrying God's own authority and message (Jeremiah 1:4; Ezekiel 1:3). By calling Jesus 'the Word,' John identifies him as the living embodiment of everything God's spoken word had always been — his creative power, his self-revelation, his active presence in the world — now personally present in Jesus Christ.
What 'Logos' Meant to Greek Readers
For readers steeped in Greek philosophy, 'Logos' carried a different but complementary set of associations. Greek philosophers had long used 'Logos' to describe the rational principle that gives order, structure, and meaning to the universe — the underlying reason or logic behind all things (our English word 'logic' descends from it). Philosophers speculated about this ordering principle in impersonal, abstract terms, as a force or law rather than a person.
John takes this concept familiar to his Greek readers and transforms it radically: the ultimate reason and order behind the universe is not an abstract force at all, but a person — the eternal Son of God, who 'became flesh and dwelt among us' (John 1:14). Where Greek philosophy groped toward an impersonal organizing principle, John proclaims that the true Logos can be known, loved, and trusted, because he has a name and a face.
Both With God and Was God
John's opening verse makes two claims that must be held together carefully: the Word 'was with God,' indicating personal distinction from the Father, and the Word 'was God,' indicating full and equal deity. This is precise, careful language, guarding against two opposite errors — collapsing the Word into simply being identical to the Father as the same person, or reducing the Word to something less than fully divine, a created intermediary between God and the world.
John continues, 'He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made' (John 1:2-3). The Logos is not a created being through whom God later worked, but the eternal, uncreated Son, active in creation itself, existing before anything else came into being.
The Word Made Flesh
The climax of this opening section comes at verse 14: 'And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.' The eternal, divine Logos — present at creation, the source of life and light for humanity (John 1:4) — took on genuine human flesh and entered history as a real, observable person. John is not speaking abstractly; he and the other apostles saw this glory with their own eyes (1 John 1:1-3).
This is the staggering claim at the heart of Christianity: the very reason and order behind the universe, God's own eternal self-expression, became a baby born in Bethlehem, grew into a man, walked dusty roads in Galilee, and can be known personally.
Why This Matters
Calling Jesus 'the Word' tells us that in him, God has said everything he intends to say about himself. Hebrews echoes this same truth: 'Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son' (Hebrews 1:1-2). If you want to know what God is like, you do not need to speculate philosophically or search for hidden signs in nature alone; you look to Jesus, the Word made flesh, who came 'full of grace and truth' (John 1:14) to reveal the Father fully and to make him known (John 1:18).