What Does John 1:1 Mean?
In the beginning was the word, and the word was turned toward God, and the word was God.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.THE KEY
The Word is not something God begins using: it already is, with God and is God.
THE MEANING
The Word that addresses you is not detached from God: it is with God and is God. Before any beginning you can name, God’s expression already is.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the idea that God’s Word is a created object or a message detached from God: the verse says it already is, is with God, and is God.
THE ROOT
λόγος
logos
GROWS FROM
λεγ-/λογ- (leg-/log-)
The verbal family means to say or speak; λόγος can mean a word, message, account, or reason.
English “Word” can sound like a spoken label, but λόγος also names an account or reason: intelligible expression. John holds that expression in relationship to God and identifies it as God, so the verse speaks of God’s own self-expression, not a detached message.
ALSO GROWS
legō: Say, speak.
λέγω
This is the verb behind λόγος, linking the verse’s “Word” to the act of expression.
dialogos: Dialogue, discourse.
διάλογος
It shows this word family can name sustained expression in relation, echoing the verse’s “with God.”
logikos: Reasonable, rational.
λογικός
This branch links expression with intelligible reason; the Word is more than an arbitrary sound.
THE PATTERN
God’s expression is already with God, and creation comes through that expression.
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.By the word of the LORD the heavens are made, and all their host by the breath of his mouth.All things came to be through him, and apart from him not one thing came to be that has come to be.THE THREAD
And the word became flesh and pitched a tent among us, and we beheld his weight, the weight as of the only-born from the Father, full of favor and truth.John repeats the same word, λόγος (logos, “word”): the one already with God and identified as God becomes flesh and lives among us. The opening claim reaches the reader embodied and present.
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