Part 5. Jesus: The Word Made Flesh - continued

      Again take a look at Matthew Henry’s very insightful commentary on these passages.  [I realize that this is a bit heady.  At least it is for me--- sometimes I reread passages to allow it to really sink in.]  Let us also enjoy the writing style of old while receiving the timeless message:

“John 1:1-5 -   Austin says (de Civitate Dei, lib. 10, cap. 29) that his friend Simplicius told him he had heard a Platonic philosopher say that these first verses of St. John's gospel were worthy to be written in letters of gold.  The learned Francis Junius, in the account he gives of his own life, tells how he was in his youth infected with loose notions in religion, and by the grace of God was wonderfully recovered by reading accidentally these verses in a Bible which his father had designedly laid in his way.  He says that he observed such a divinity in the argument, such an authority and majesty in the style, that his flesh trembled, and he was struck with such amazement that for a whole day he scarcely knew where he was or what he did; and thence he dates the beginning of his being religious. Let us enquire what there is in those strong lines.  The evangelist here lays down the great truth he is to prove, that Jesus Christ is God, one with the Father.  Observe,

 

I. Of whom he speaks - The Word - ho logos.   This is an idiom peculiar to John's writings.  See 1Jo_1:1; 1Jo_5:7; Rev_19:13.  Yet some think that Christ is meant by the Word in Act_20:32; Heb_4:12; Luk_1:2.  The Chaldee paraphrase very frequently calls the Messiah Memra - the Word of Jehovah, and speaks of many things in the Old Testament, said to be done by the Lord, as done by that Word of the Lord.  ...  The evangelist, in the close of his discourse (Joh_1:18), plainly tells us why he calls Christ the Word - because he is the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, and has declared him.  Word is two-fold: logos endiathetos - word conceived; and logos prophorikos - word uttered.  The logos ho esō and ho exō, ratio and oratio - intelligence and utterance.  1. There is the word conceived, that is, thought, which is the first and only immediate product and conception of the soul (all the operations of which are performed by thought), and it is one with the soul.  And thus the second person in the Trinity is fitly called the Word; for he is the first-begotten of the Father, that eternal essential Wisdom which the Lord possessed, as the soul does its thought, in the beginning of his way, Pro_8:22.  There is nothing we are more sure of than that we think, yet nothing we are more in the dark about than how we think; who can declare the generation of thought in the soul?  Surely then the generations and births of the eternal mind may well be allowed to be great mysteries of godliness, the bottom of which we cannot fathom, while yet we adore the depth.  2. There is the word uttered, and this is speech, the chief and most natural indication of the mind.  And thus Christ is the Word, for by him God has in these last days spoken to us (Heb_1:2), and has directed us to hear him, Mat_17:5.  He has made known God's mind to us, as a man's word or speech makes known his thoughts, as far as he pleases, and no further.  Christ is called that wonderful speaker (see notes on Dan_8:13), the speaker of things hidden and strange.  He is the Word speaking from God to us, and to God for us.  John Baptist was the voice, but Christ the Word: being the Word, he is the Truth, the Amen, the faithful Witness of the mind of God." 
From E-sword - Matthew Henry Commentary