WHAT IS THE WORD OF GOD?

8 Copyright 2017, John H. Davidson M.A. (Cantab)

John H. Davidson M.A. (Cantab)

Adapted from The Gospel of Jesus – In Search of His Original Teachings,

John Davidson, 2004.

Available from:
http://www.scienceofthesoul.org/product_p/en–176–0.htm

Many people talk about the Word of God, but what do mystics mean when
they speak about it? What is its meaning in St John’s gospel? Have we got
it entirely wrong when we think of it as a body of religious teachings? It
would seem that Jesus and the early Christians would have thought so.

In the Beginning Was the Word

There is considerable confusion in the minds of many modern Christians over the
meaning of the Word of God. There was also the same confusion amongst many of the
early Christians, as indeed there is in the gospels themselves. Many people – without
giving the matter much thought – assume that the Word means the outer teachings or the
message of Jesus and it is certainly true that, in many cases, the term is used in this sense.
But in as many, if not more, instances, the Word of God means something far more
fundamentally mystical.

The term is commonly translated from the Greek Logos and its most well-known usage
comes at the beginning of John’s gospel (John 1:1–3):

In the beginning was the Word (the Logos),

and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
The same was in the beginning with God.
All things were made by him (the Logos);
and without him (the Logos)
was not any thing made that was made.

John says that the Word has existed from the “beginning”, from before time and before
the creation came into being. This Word was a part of God – indeed it is and was God –
and by means of this Word, this Logos, all things in creation were fashioned. The ‘him’,
here, refers to the Logos and so as to make the distinction, Tyndale’s original translation
renders ‘him’ as ‘it’: “all things were made by it.”

Now, a Word that was with God before the creation and by which all things were made is
clearly no spoken word or verbal teachings. The Word that is being described is the
creative Power of God, His emanation by which the creation was brought into being and

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by which it is constantly sustained. This great truth is one of the most recurrent themes in
the mystic literature of all ages and cultures.

Throughout history, this creative Power of God has been called by a multitude of names
and expressions. Amongst the Christian and allied literature alone, it has been called the
Word of Life, the Word of God, the Creative Word, the Logos, the Image of God, the
Wisdom of God, the Voice of God, the Cry, the Call, the Holy Name, the Holy Spirit, the
Holy Ghost, the Power, the Nous, the Primal Thought, Idea or Mind of God, His
Command, His Commandment, His Law, His Will and His Ordinances.

In the metaphorical language so beloved of the Middle East, it has also been described as
the Living Water, the Living Wine, the Bread of Life, Manna from Heaven, the Breath of
Life, the Breath of God, the Medicine of Life, the Herb of Life, the Tree of Life, the True
Vine, the Root, the Seed, the Pearl, the Way, the Truth, the Letter and by many other
such figures of speech.

God, say the mystics, is One. The creation, however, is manifestly diverse and manifold,
with everything in a state of constant flux. Nothing remains the same; everything
constantly changes. Modern scientists, delving into the heart of matter have determined
that not only are the forces, molecules, atoms and subatomic particles comprising matter
constantly in a state of highly energetic agitation, but that their very motion contributes to
their existence. It is the motion or vibration within things which makes them appear to
exist. If the motion stopped, then the universe would simply disappear like a mirage from
the desert or like ripples from the surface of a pond. Motion and existence are virtually
synonymous.

Mystics say that this primal energy or vibration is the Word itself. It is this Power of God
which drives things and sustains them in existence and creates the fundamental order and
organization not only in the physical universe, but in higher heavenly regions of creation,
too.

The Logos of God

Although John’s gospel contains many parallels to the Judaic Wisdom literature, it has
also been called the Hellenistic gospel because of its use of Greek mystical terminology,
in particular, the Word. The Logos is a term with extensive use in Greek mystic literature
dating back many centuries. It was quite familiar to Plato (c.427–347 BC), for example,
four centuries before Jesus. In Phaedrus, Plato records the dialogue of Phaedrus with
Socrates (c.470–399):

SOCRATES: Now tell me, is there another sort of Word (Logos), that is brother to the
written word (logos), but (more) real? Can we see how it originates, and how
much better and more powerful it is than the other?
PHAEDRUS: What sort do you have in mind, and how is it generated?
SOCRATES: The sort that exists together with Knowledge and is written in the soul of the
student, that has the power to defend itself, and knows to whom it should speak
and to whom it should remain silent.
PHAEDRUS: You mean the Word of Knowing, alive and ensouled, of which the written
word may correctly be called an image.
SOCRATES: Precisely.

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Perhaps with the idea of asserting the uniqueness of Christianity, Christian scholars have
sometimes claimed that the Logos of Plato and the Greek mystics was different from the
Logos of John’s gospel. But this distinction is only intellectual or theological. Different
writers and teachers may have emphasized different aspects at different times, but the
fundamental Power itself is one and beyond all description. It has been referred to in
many ways.

In the time of Jesus, the works of Plato and other Greek philosophers were well known in
the Hellenistic world and since a great many of the Jews who lived outside Palestine were
Greek-speaking, it is by no means surprising to find the Greek and Judaic cultures and
modes of expression intertwined, as they are in John’s gospel.

Possibly the most well known of the Greek-speaking Jews, certainly in the field of mystic
philosophy, was Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, a contemporary of Jesus, though he does
not appear to have known about him. Philo is acknowledged to be one of the greatest
compilers, synthesizers and commentators of his age, and the Logos is a recurrent theme
in his writings. Describing it as the Power by which God orders and organizes His
creation, for example, Philo says:

The discernible order in all things is nothing else than the Logos of God,
perpetually engaged in the action of creation (On the World’s Creation).

And again:

We shall find that the cause of it (the universe) is God, by whom it came
into existence.... The instrument by means of which it has been built is the
Logos of God” (On the Cherubim).

To Philo, then, as to so many others of his period, the Word or Logos was commonly
understood as God’s creative Power, a term for which there were many synonyms.

The Word as Wisdom

One of the commonest terms for the Word, encountered particularly in Greek and
Hebrew literature, is Wisdom, called in Greek, Sophia, and in Hebrew, Hokhmah. Like
the Word, Wisdom has an exoteric meaning, referring simply to human understanding
and knowledge. But in many places it very clearly refers to the creative Power of God. In
a commonly encountered literary style of the times, writers would also ‘assume’ the
identity of the Word or Wisdom, writing in the first person. We see this in an expansive
passage from Proverbs 8:22–31, parts of which are very ancient, which begins with lines
that are reminiscent of the opening to St John:

Yahweh created me when His purpose first unfolded,

before the oldest of His works.
From everlasting I was firmly set,
from the beginning, before the earth came into being.

The deep was not, when I was born,

there were no springs to gush with water.
Before the mountains were settled,
before the hills, I came to birth;

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 before He made the earth, the countryside,
or the first grains of the world’s dust.
When He fixed the heavens firm, I was there,
when He drew a ring on the surface of the deep,
when He thickened the clouds above,
when He fixed fast the springs of the deep,
when He assigned the sea its boundaries,...
when He laid down the foundations of the earth,
I was by His side, a master craftsman,
delighting Him day after day,
ever at play in His presence,
at play everywhere in His world,
delighting to be with the sons of men.

Wisdom, then, is God’s creative Power “ever at play in His presence”. Expanding upon
the same theme, in the Wisdom of Solomon, a Greek composition probably dating from
the first century BC, there are some beautiful passages concerning the nature of Wisdom
who, being a feminine noun in both Greek and Hebrew, is referred to here as “she”
(Wisdom of Solomon 7:22–30, 8:1):

For she is within herself a spirit intelligent, holy,

unique, manifold, subtle,
active, incisive, unsullied,
lucid, invulnerable, benevolent, sharp,
irresistible, beneficent, loving to man,
steadfast, dependable, unperturbed,
almighty, all-surveying,
penetrating all, intelligent,
pure and most subtle spirits;
For Wisdom is quicker to move than any motion;
She is so pure she pervades and permeates all things.

She is a Breath of the Power of God,

pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty;
hence nothing impure can find a way into her.
She is a reflection of the eternal Light,
untarnished mirror of God’s active Power,
Image of his goodness.

Although alone, she can do all;

herself unchanging, she makes all things new....

She is indeed more splendid than the sun,

she outshines all the constellations;
compared with light she takes first place,
for light must yield to night,
but over Wisdom,
evil (and darkness of the soul) can never triumph.
She deploys her strength from one end of the earth to the other,
ordering all things for good.

Paul – writing perhaps twenty years after the death of Jesus and being trained in the

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Jewish schools of mystical thought – was, naturally enough, familiar with all the writings
concerning the Wisdom of God. And he writes unequivocally that the Wisdom of God
was a part of the Christian “mysteries” – the secret teachings imparted to novitiates:

The hidden Wisdom of God which we teach in our mysteries

is the Wisdom that God predestined to be for our glory
before the ages began (1 Corinthians 2:7).

Wisdom, then, was another synonym for the Word, a Power well-known to the mystics
long before the time of Jesus.

The Word as the Son of God

Amongst the writings of the earliest Christian fathers, not only is Wisdom definitively
identified with the Word or Logos, but also with the Son of God, and although the subject
requires more discussion than can be afforded here, because of the meaning given to the
‘Son’ in Christianity, it is interesting at least to raise the matter here. Justin Martyr
(c.114–165) writing in the middle of the second century equated Wisdom, the Word and
the Son with other terms used to describe the same Power:

I am now going to give you, my friends, another testimony from the

Scriptures that God before all His other creatures begat as the Beginning, a
certain spiritual Power proceeding from Himself, which is called by the
Holy Spirit, sometimes the Glory of the Lord, and sometimes Son, and
sometimes Wisdom, and sometimes Angel, and sometimes God, and
sometimes Lord and Logos, and on another occasion he calls himself
Captain, when he appeared in human form to Joshua the son of Nun....

The Word of Wisdom, who is himself this God begotten of the Father of
all things, and Word, and Wisdom, and Power, and the Glory of the
Begetter, will bear evidence to me, when he speaks by Solomon, the
following.... (Dialogue with the Jew Trypho).

He then quotes the passage from Proverbs previously cited. Irenaeus, too, Bishop of
Lyons later in the same century, well-known for his castigation of the gnostics, quotes
from Proverbs in the attempt to demonstrate the eternal nature of the Son of God and his
identity with Wisdom. Here, as with Justin Martyr, the Son is identified primarily with
the creative Power of God:

We have abundantly shown that the Logos, that is the Son, was always
with the Father, and he says through Solomon (in Proverbs) that Sophia
(Wisdom) also, who is the Spirit, was with Him before any created thing.
For “By Wisdom Yahweh set the earth on its foundation” (Against
Heresies).

Irenaeus, like Justin, then goes on to quote the famous passage from Proverbs,
concluding:

So there is one God, who by His Word and His Wisdom has made all
things (Against Heresies).

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God, then, is the Father and His first emanation is – metaphorically – His First-born
Son. Now since this Word is the essence of all life and consciousness, as well as
everything else in creation, it is possible for a soul to experience this Word within
themselves, for it is the real essence of what the soul actually is. In fact, the Word is also
the means by which souls can escape from this creation and return to God. It is, so to
speak, the spiritual highway upon which the soul travels. In fact, there are souls who are
sent by God to this world as an incarnation or manifestation of this Word. As St John’s
gospel says (1:14):

And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us,...
full of grace and truth.

Now such souls teach nothing but the path of the Word as the means of return to God.
They are the highest mystics, the perfect Masters or Saviours – and they, too, are also
called the Sons of God, just as Jesus was. But Jesus was not the only such Son of God. As
it says in the Wisdom of Solomon (7:27):

In each generation, she (Wisdom) passes into holy souls,

she makes them friends of God and prophets;
For God loves only the man who lives with Wisdom.

The Word as the Bread of Life

One of the many images used by Jesus for the Word was the Bread of Life or the Living
Bread, a term drawn from the earlier teachings of Moses. Matthew and Luke, for
example, record that Jesus was tempted in the desert to turn stones into bread. Jesus
responds by quoting Deuteronomy 8:3:

It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every Word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

And as Jesus says in St John’s gospel (6:47–51):

“Verily, verily, I say unto you,

He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
I am that Bread of Life.
Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead.
This is the Bread which cometh down from heaven,
that a man may eat thereof, and not die.
I am the Living Bread which came down from heaven:
if any man eat of this Bread, he shall live for ever.”

No bread of this world can permit someone to live for ever. Jesus points out that the
children of Israel who ate the manna from heaven have all died. Everyone lives out their
normal span of life and dies, according to the laws of nature, just as the disciples of Jesus
have died. “A man may... not die” and “he shall live for ever” mean that through inner
experience of the Word of God, the “Living Bread”, the soul will reach the eternal realm
of God Himself, will realize its innate indestructibility and immortality, and will dwell
there for all eternity.

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The Word as Living Water

Perhaps an even commoner metaphor for the Word was the Water of Life or the Living
Water. The expression dates at least from the earliest Mesopotamian times, 2000 years or
more before the time of Jesus, and it is found in many writings both within and outside
the Bible. Practically all the mystics of the East have used the expression, including the
Sufis of Islam.

The term is readily understood. To begin with, bread and water are the basic essentials
for maintaining life in this world. Moreover, in a desert climate, nothing is more
important to life than water. Without water, there can be no life, a fact that is readily
forgotten in temperate zones. Therefore, just as water brings life to a physical desert, so
too does the Word bring life to a heart that is parched and dry for want of true spiritual
inspiration. In the spiritual desert of this world, the Living Water brings life, for it is the
current of God’s life force bringing everything into being. We encounter the term in
John’s gospel, where Jesus uses the expression much like he uses its parallel, the Bread of
Life (John 7:37–38):

If any man thirst, let him come unto me;

let him that believeth in me, drink.
As the scripture hath said,
‘Out of his breast (from within himself)
shall flow rivers of Living Water.’

The scriptural quotation cited here is not found anywhere in this precise form, though
there are a number of Biblical passages which refer to fountains or rivers of Living
Water. The meaning, however, is clear enough. Jesus says that if anyone is truly seeking
God, is athirst with a true longing to really understand the mystic reality, he should go to
one who is the “Word made flesh”, one from whose “breast” flows an abundance of the
Living Water that nourishes the soul. One who believes in and follows the Word
personified will be put into contact with the mystic river of Living Water, deep within
himself. Jesus is talking here to the people of his own time and place, not to those who
would come in future times.

Living Water is also found in the story of Jesus’ meeting at Jacob’s well with the
Syro-Phoenician woman. According to the narrative, the women asks Jesus to draw water
for her, but he responds (John 4:10,13–14):

If thou knewest the gift of God,

and who it is that saith to thee, ‘Give me to drink;’
thou wouldst have asked of him,
and he would have given thee Living Water....

Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:

but whosoever drinketh of the Water
that I shall give him shall never thirst;
But the Water that I shall give him shall be(come) in him
a well of water springing up into everlasting Life.

He says that those who drink physical water will naturally “thirst again” since the
satisfaction of material needs and desires is only temporary. But the Living Water
quenches all lower thirsts or desires by filling the soul with the intoxication of divine love

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and the essence of all life, and is therefore fully and completely satisfying. All yearnings
of the world are then swept aside.

Though Jesus spoke of the Word as the Living Water, we might not have grasped the
meaning of these two isolated passages in St John were it not for a multitude of
references to the term in other literature, both Biblical and otherwise, although there is no
space for anything but two short examples here. The writer of the early Christian Odes of
Solomon, for instance, speaks of the “Living Spring of the Lord”:

Draw for yourselves water from the Living Spring of the Lord,
because it has been opened to you.
And come, all you who thirst, and take a draught,
and rest by the Spring of the Lord,
for fair it is and pure,
and gives rest to the soul.

For its waters are far pleasanter than honey,

and the honeycomb of bees is not to be compared with it;
Because it flows forth from the lips of the Lord,
and from the heart of the Lord is its Name.
And it came unhindered and unseen,
and until it was placed within them, men did not know it.
Blessed are they who have drunk from it,
and have found rest thereby.

And addressing the souls of this world as dreamers, the writer of the gnostic Concept of
Our Great Power says:

You are sleeping, dreaming dreams.

Wake up and return (to God),
taste and eat the true food!
Hand out the Word and the Water of Life!
Cease from evil lusts and desires.

Many Names for the Word

As we have pointed out, there is an incredible wealth of metaphors used for this Power,
underlining the importance given to it by the great mystics and Saviours. In John’s gospel
and in gnostic literature, too, it is called the Light and the Life. It is also the Breath of
Life or the Breath of God. Hence, Philo Judaeus observes:

(Moses) called (it) the Breath of God, because it is the most life-giving
thing (in the creation), and God is the cause (source) of life (On the
World’s Creation).

Here, Philo is commenting on the verse from Genesis 2:7:

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground,
and breathed into his nostrils the Breath of Life;
and man became a living soul.
Genesis 2:7, KJV

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Philo also suggests an intriguing interpretation of Moses’ phrase “God’s Image”, found in
Genesis. God’s Image, he says, is actually the Logos, and from this Image arises the inner
spiritual light. That is to say, the light that can be seen inside is derived from the Logos:

And he (Moses) calls the invisible and spiritual divine Logos, the Image of
God. And of this, the image (in its turn) is that spiritual light, which has
been created as the image of the divine Logos (On the World’s Creation
VIII).

Man being made in the Image of God therefore means, according to Philo’s
interpretation, that he is created out of this Image, out of the Logos – something upon
which all the mystics who have taught the path of the Word have agreed. And like them,
Philo asserts that the creation, too, has been fashioned out of this Image or Logos:

The Logos is the Image of God by which the whole cosmos was made (On
Monarchy II:V).

Using a similar analogy, Philo also describes the Logos as God’s “Shadow”, a shadow
being something to which the original is inextricably bound and whose nature it reflects,
like an image or reflection. He also points out that the Logos is like a blueprint or
“archetypal model” from which everything else in creation comes into being, including
man:

God’s Shadow is His Logos, by using which, as if it were an instrument,

He made the cosmos. And this Shadow is, as it were, the archetypal model
of all else. For just as God is the Original of the Image, to which the title
shadow has just been ascribed, so, (in its turn) is that Image the model of
all else, as the prophet (Moses) made clear at the beginning of the
law-giving, when he said: “And God made man according to the Image of
God” – implying that the Image had been made as representative of God,
and man being made according to this Image (Allegorical Interpretation
III:31).

Another of the many terms for the Word which has been used by mystics of all times and
cultures is the Name, the True Name or the Holy Name, because a Name is that by which
we come to know about something. The mystic Name, therefore, is that by means of
which we can come to know God. Hence, the writer of Proverbs says that the “Name of
Yaweh” is like a “tower” which lifts the soul “on high” (Proverbs 18:10):

The Name of Yahweh is a strong tower;

the righteous man runneth into it
and is set up on high.

As always, there are great many places in the ancient literature where the term is used to
mean the Creative Word. In the gnostic Prayer of the Apostle Paul, for instance, we read:

I invoke You, the One Who Is

and who pre-existed in the Name
(which is) exalted above every name.

One of the oldest and most frequently encountered Middle Eastern metaphors for the

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Word of God or His Wisdom is the Tree of Life. The expression has been used by Jewish
mystics and many others throughout the ages, but once again we are touching here upon
an extensive subject, for, like Living Water, the term can be traced back to the earliest
Mesopotamian cultures, two or three thousand years before the birth of Jesus.

In Judaism, the Tree of Life is first found in the Genesis allegory where it stands in Eden
as the Tree whose fruit bestows eternal life. And out of Eden, symbolic of the eternal
realm, runs the river of Living Water which nourishes the whole creation. But in ancient
Mesopotamia, the motif of the Tree of Life with the river of Living Water flowing from
its roots was so common that it is even found on pottery and other artifacts.

Middle Eastern writers, never ones to overlook a good metaphor, have attributed many
species of tree to the Tree of Life, using the characteristics of each tree to bring out
various characteristics of the creative Power. One use by Jesus, but also found elsewhere
in Biblical and allied literature, is the Vine. In John’s gospel, Jesus speaks of himself as
the “True Vine” (John 15:1–8):

I am the True Vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away:
and every branch that beareth fruit,
he purgeth (purifieth) it,
that it may bring forth more fruit.

Now ye are clean through the Word

which I have spoken unto you.
Abide in me, and I in you.
As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself,
except it abide in the vine;
no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

I am the Vine, ye are the branches:

he that abideth in me, and I in him,
the same bringeth forth much fruit:
for without me ye can do nothing.

If a man abide not in me,

he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered;
and men gather them, and cast them into the fire,
and they are burned.

If ye abide in me, and my words (Word) abide(s) in you,

ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit;
so shall ye be my disciples.

Jesus’ meaning is very clear. Those who follow his teachings and live within the Word
will bear the fruit of salvation and union with God. But those who are not attached to this
True Vine of the Word are ‘burned’ (metaphorically) in the fires of creation. They have
to remain in this world and suffer a multitude of vicissitudes and troubles.

We have had to truncate much of this discussion for sake of the present context. For
instance, in addition to quoting only a fraction of the texts available on this subject, we

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have not discussed how the Creative Word may be contacted within ourselves. This, as
they say, is another story, but for those who wish to take the matter further, not only is
there a treasury of beautiful texts to explore, there is also a incredible world within
oneself waiting to be discovered.

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