During the last year, most of these blog postings have been about leaving “agape” untranslated. Lately, I’ve been thinking about other words from the original Greek New Testament that cannot be translated because modern English is such a spiritually weak language. Another obvious word is “Logos” from John 1:1-14.
I’ve always been bothered by the question: why did the author of that Gospel begin with a poem about that very strange Greek word “Logos”? After seeking the answer for a few decades, I’ve started to think that a possible reason is he wanted to make the point that his whole Gospel was about the Logos.
I’ve never been satisfied by all the regular explanations, speculating that the Logos poem was a little prelude that was put there to identify Jesus with the Logos; then the rest of the gospel was about Jesus. So recently, I started wondering: what if it was the other way around? What if John identified Jesus with the Logos so that an important explanation could be made about the Logos?
I reread the poem from that perspective, understanding that the point was to say, “This whole Gospel is about the Logos.” What was expressed there was the formless, eternal essence that is the basis of Creation. And so how in the world could we ever expect such a meaning of “the Logos” to fit into the translation of our common, everyday English “word.” That means the translators make a terrible mistake when they strip all the meaning of spiritual power from the Logos when they translate it as “word.” Of course, all interpreters have assumed that what was meant was the “Word of God.” But nowhere is that stated in the Greek; instead, if we leave it untranslated, we get the great faith statement: “The Logos was God.”
The opening of the Gospel of John takes us back to the very beginning of the Bible. “In the beginning was the Logos; the Logos was in God’s presence, and the Logos was God.” (the Anchor Bible) Of course, that reminded me of the great agape statement in 1 John: “We have known and have believed the agape that God has for us. God is agape, and those who remain in agape remain in God and God remains in them.” (1 Jn 4:16 Common English Bible) Of course, the statement would never have been made: “Agape is God.” That would have changed the meaning. But in John 1:1 we do have the statement, though, “The Logos was God.”
(The New Revised Standard Version translated the opening of the Bible not as “In the beginning was God;” but instead, they found that the ancient Hebrew expressed that more like, “In the beginning when God created ….”)
Vss. 3-4 express the eternal creative power by showing that through the Logos all things came into being. Then came the great connection between Logos, life, and light by expressing that what Logos created had life and this life was the light of all people.
And then came the identifying of the eternal creative power, the Logos, with Jesus. But the identifying was done in such a way that we see how Jesus had his identity with the formless eternal essence of the Logos. That then becomes the main theme of the entire Gospel. So that when Jesus speaks “I” in a spiritual sense he means his identity as the Logos, the creative power of God -- the life-giving power -- the light-bestowing power. That is how Jesus, as the Logos, was able to empower people to become God’s children, “begotten not by blood, nor by carnal desire, nor by man’s desire, but by God.” (vss. 12-13 Common English Bible)
In the famous “I am …” and “I will …” statements, Jesus was displaying that he identified more with the formless eternal creative essence (the Logos) than identify with the mere non-eternal form of “Jesus.” The first example came right after he sent the money changers out of the temple -- then when the religious authorities challenged him, he said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I with raise it up.” (Jn. 2:19) Obviously, he wasn’t saying that the physical body of Jesus would rebuild the physical temple in 3 days. Instead, he was demonstrating his identity with the eternal creative power. And as such he was proclaiming the New Creation of a New Form of Temple.
Next, was with the Samaritan woman at the well, to whom he said, “Whoever drinks from the water I will give will never be thirsty again. The water I give will become in those who drink it a spring of water that bubbles into eternal life.” (4:14) So he was identifying with the eternal creative essence (in other words, the Logos), and as such the Logos would bring a spiritual ‘water’ that leads any person who identifies with it to eternal life.
Then when the disciples asked him why he didn’t eat, he told them, “I am fed by doing the will of the One who sent me and by completing his work.” (4:34) Again, at that place, he wasn’t referring to the material body of “Jesus” but the eternal essence he identified with.
When he was challenged about working on the sabbath, he replied, “My Father is still working, and I am working too.” (5:17) And then to show the spiritual depth of the identity he was expressing, he said, “I don’t seek my own will but the will of the One who sent me.” (5:30)
In the remaining, famous “I am …” statements, I think he was demonstrating his identity with the formless eternal creative essence, and not with the material form of Jesus. But when he used the words “my own” or “my own will,” then he meant the material form of Jesus. Here is the list. “I am the bread of life.” (6:35) “I am the light of the world.” (8:12) “You are from below; I am from above. You are from this world; I am not from this world.” (8:23) “I haven’t come on my own; God sent me.” (8:42) “Before Abraham was, I Am.” (8:58) “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.” (10:9) “I am the good shepherd.” (10:11) “This is why the Father loves me: I give up my life so that I may take it up again.” (10:17) “I give them eternal life. … I and the Father are one.” (10:28 & 30) “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me will live, even though they die. Everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.” (11:25-26) “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you have really known me, you will also know the Father.” (14:6-7) “The Father who dwells in me does his works. Trust me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” (14:10-11) “I will ask the Father, and he will send another Companion, who will be with you forever. This Companion is the Spirit of Truth, whom the world can’t receive because it neither sees him nor recognizes him. You know him, because he lives with you and will be with you.” (14:16-17)(14:19-20) “Because I live, you will live too. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, you are in me, and I am in you.” “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vineyard keeper. … Remain in me, and I will remain in you. A branch can’t produce fruit by itself, but must remain in the vine. Likewise, you can’t produce fruit unless you remain in me. I am the vine; you are the branches.” (15:1-5) “When Jesus finished saying these things, he looked up to heaven and said, ‘Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, so that the Son can glorify you. You gave him authority over everyone so that he could give eternal life to everyone you gave him. … I pray they will be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. I pray that they also will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me so that they can be one just as we are one. I am in them and you are in me so that they will be made perfectly one.” (17:1-2, 21-23)
Thus we can see that he was identifying with the formless, eternal essence (and not with the form of Jesus) when he said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you have really known me, you will also know the Father.” So the “I” and the “me” referred to the Logos, not to Jesus. That’s why we should understand that statement to mean “The formless, eternal essence is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through the formless, eternal essence.”
Chapters 14-17 also contain the verses about the giving of agape to the disciples and about his commanding that they share agape with one another. For example, he prayed, “I’ve made your name known to them and will continue to make it known so that your agape for me will be in them, and I will be in them.” (17:26) There he was showing that a main spiritual purpose to the Logo’s work through Jesus was to bring God’s spiritual power of agape to people, and he made sure that it was working in the lives of his disciples.
By accepting that all those quotes refer to Jesus finding his identity more with the unlimited eternal essence than with any materially limited ego-identity -- then those “I” statements weren’t referring to the material Jesus but to the unlimited eternal essence. And I believe his will was for us to consider our identity with the formless, eternal essence, and not with any form of ego.
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