John 1:1 presents Christ by means of the term logos. The Greek term means, "word," "statement," "message," "declaration," or "the act of speech." In John 1 logos has a specialized meaning; it is described as hupostasis (Heb. 1:3): a distinct, personal existence of an actual, real being. John 1:1 shows that "the Word was with God, and the Word was God" are both true at the same time. This means that there has never been a time when the Logos did not exist with the Father.
John then shows that the Word has agency in creation. Genesis 1:1 teaches us that God created the world. John 1:3 lets us know specifically that the Lord Jesus Christ in His preincarnate state actually did the work of creation, carrying out the will and purpose of the Father.
We find also that the Word is where life is found. John 1:4 says, "In him was life, and that life was the light of men." Because Jesus is the location of life, He is the only place where it may obtained. A quality of life is being described here, eternal life. This kind of life is available from God with His life-giving power through the Living Word. We have eternal life only as Christ's life is in us.
The world's misunderstanding of the Logos is hinted at in John 1:5, "The light shines in the darkness, but darkness has not understood it." The passage continues by saying that John the Baptist came as witness to that Light. "The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though was made through him, the world did not recognize him" (John 1:9-10). We want to focus our attention on this point. The Creator of the world, the Second Person of the Trinity, God the Son, was here in the world, but the world did not recognize Him. The next verse gets more specific. "He came to that which was his own [His own place, this earth He had created], but his own [His own people, Israel] did not receive him" (John 1:11).
The heirs of the covenant, the physical descendants of Abraham, did not receive Him. Here we see a very prominent theme that runs through the Gospel of John: the rejection of Jesus. When Jesus preacher, some Jews mocked. When Jesus said, "Your Father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad," the Jews in unbelief said, "You are not yet fifty years old... and you have seen Abraham!" Then Jesus declared, "Before Abraham was born, I am!" (John 8:56-58). The present tense of the verb "I am" (Gk. eimi) indicates linear being. Before Abraham was, the Son is.
Although many rejected the message, some were born of God. In John 1:12 we read, "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God." In other words, Jesus was redefining the whole reality of becoming a child of God. Up to that time, one had to be born into or join the specific, called, covenant people, Israel, to have that opportunity. But John emphasizes here that the spiritual message, the powerful gospel, had come and people had received Jesus, the Logos. Receiving Him meant receiving the right or the authority to become children of God. Some of those who received Him were Jews and some were Gentiles. Jesus broke down the dividing wall and opened up salvation to all who would come and receive Him by faith (John 1:13).
The essential truth about the Logos who is being described here is in John 1:14. "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." Here we see that the term logos is being pressed into the service of describing Jesus Christ, but that the reality of His person is more than the secular meaning of the concept is able to bear. To the ancient philosophic Greeks, a fleshly logos would be an impossibility. However, to those who will believe in the Son of God, a fleshly logos is the key to understanding the Incarnation. In fact, this is exactly what the Incarnation means: The preexisting Logos took on human flesh and walked among us.
