Lexicon

G3056 - logos

Strong's: G3056 · BLB lookup Pronunciation: log′-os Part of speech: masculine noun Root: from G3004 - lego (λέγω, "to say, speak")

Semantic range (Thayer / BDAG)

A word uttered, a single saying spoken aloud, embodying thought.
Discourse, account, narrative, extended speech; what someone has said.
The act of speaking, continuous discourse, speech as ongoing teaching.
Doctrine, teaching, message, the content taught (e.g. "the logos of the cross").
Reason, the mental faculty, internal reasoning; rationality itself.
Reckoning, account, financial or judicial accounting (Hebrews 4:13, "to whom we must give logos").
The Word of God personified, in Johannine theology, the eternal divine Logos, Jesus Christ as God's self-expression and creative agent.

Theological force

John's prologue (John 1.1, John 1.14) is the deliberate fusion of two streams: (a) the Hebrew memra / dabar YHWH, the creative word that goes out from God ("And God said…" Gen 1:3; "By the word of the LORD the heavens were made," Psalm 33:6), and (b) the Greek philosophical logos, Heraclitus's organizing principle, the Stoic divine reason, Philo of Alexandria's intermediary Logos between transcendent God and matter. John identifies that Word with the personal pre-incarnate Son and asserts the Word became flesh, a claim alien to all prior Greek logos doctrine.

Notable verses

John 1.1, ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, eternal pre-existence
John 1.1-3, agent of all creation
John 1.14, ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο, the incarnation
1 John 1:1, "the logos of life, which we have heard, seen, handled"
Revelation 19:13, "His name is The Word of God"
Hebrews 4.12, "the logos of God is living and active"
Luke 8:11, the seed in the parable is "the logos of God" (gospel-message sense)
Matthew 24:35, "my logos will not pass away"
Acts 6:7, "the logos of God kept on spreading"
Romans 9:6, "it is not as though the logos of God has failed"
1 Corinthians 1:18, "the logos of the cross"
2 Timothy 4:2, "preach the logos"
Hebrews 4:13, give an account (logos) (judicial-reckoning sense)

OT background (Hebrew dabar / memra)

Genesis 1:3, "And God said…"
Psalm 33:6, "By the word of the LORD the heavens were made"
Isaiah 55:11, "My word that goes out from My mouth shall not return to Me empty"
Jeremiah 23:29, "Is not My word like fire, declares the LORD?"

Patristic note

Justin Martyr (First Apology 46, c. AD 155) developed the Logos spermatikos, the seed-Logos, as a bridge concept arguing that pre-Christian philosophers who reasoned well partook of the same eternal Word incarnated in Christ. Origen (Comm. Jn. I) elaborated the Word's eternal generation. Irenaeus (Against Heresies III.16) used the Word's eternal pre-existence to refute Gnostic emanationism.

Verses in this codex

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