Persons or personifications?
Personification is a literary technique in which an inanimate
object, an 'it' or 'thing' is instead described as if it were a person.
This can involve giving it a voice so that it speaks, or having it
do things as a real person would.
The Bible writers occasionally used this device to convey their
inspired message.
One prominent example is found in the Old Testament.
In it the attribute of wisdom is personified as a woman and given a voice:
Proverbs 8:1
¶Doth not wisdom cry?
and understanding put forth her voice?
2 She standeth in
the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths.
3 She crieth at
the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors.
4 Unto you, O men, I
call; and my voice is to the
sons of man.
5 O ye simple, understand wisdom: and, ye fools, be ye of
an understanding heart.
6 Hear; for I will
speak of excellent things; and the
opening of my lips shall be right things.
7 For my mouth shall
speak truth; and wickedness is an abomination to my lips.
Yet for all of her crying and standing we know that it's just
Solomon exercising his poetic license.
Wisdom is not a woman- she is not a she at all, but rather an 'it'.
It is wisdom.
If you need any
further proof, she even describes herself this way!
Proverbs 8:11
For wisdom is better than rubies;
and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.
By verse 22, Solomon is in full flow. Wisdom is described as being
with God from the very beginning:
Proverbs 8:22
¶The
LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.
23 I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or
ever the earth was.
…
30 Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was
daily his delight, rejoicing always before him;
Yet in spite of all this, even though 'she' has a mouth and lips,
even though she cries, speaks, stands and rejoices it would hardly be justified
to call wisdom another eternal person beside God!
Yet that is exactly what many people do with another even better
known passage of scripture. Please fasten your seatbelts, we are about to take
off…
John 1:1
¶In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 The same was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any
thing made that was made.
4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
The 'person' being described here is the word of God. The Greek
word 'logos' is used and is the equivalent of the Hebrew word 'davar'.
Nowhere in the Old Testament has the word of God ever been
personified, much less seen as being an actual person. It's always described as
an 'it'.
The Law & Prophets:
Deuteronomy 4:2
Ye
shall not add unto the word which I
command you,
neither shall ye diminish ought from it,
that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.
Isaiah 55:11
So
shall my word be that goeth forth
out of my mouth:
it shall not return unto me void,
but it shall accomplish that which I
please,
and it shall prosper in the thing
whereto I sent it.
Ezekiel 12:25
For
I am the LORD: I will speak,
and the word that I shall speak
shall come to pass;
it shall be no more prolonged: for
in your days,
O rebellious house, will I say the word, and will perform it,
saith the Lord GOD.
The Apostles:
Acts 13:46
Then
Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, It was necessary that the word of God should first have been
spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from
you,
and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles.
1 Corinthians
14:36
¶What?
came the word of God out from you?
or came it unto you only?
Even Jesus himself described the word of
God as an it:
Luke 8:21
And
he answered and said unto them,
My mother and my brethren are these which hear the word of God, and do it.
Luke 11:28
But
he said, Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.
Although the word in John 1.1 is described as a 'he' and is said to
have made all things, this needs to be read in the light of the other famous
'in the beginning' passage:
Genesis 1:1
¶In
the beginning God created the heaven and
the earth.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness
was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters.
3 ¶And God said,
Let there be light: and there was light.
It was Yahweh, God Almighty who created the heavens and the earth
and Yahweh alone.
He had no intermediary to do this, no helper. He was both the
architect and builder of his creation:
Isaiah 44:24
Thus
saith the LORD, thy redeemer, and he that formed thee from the womb,
I am the LORD that maketh all things;
that stretcheth forth the heavens alone;
that spreadeth abroad the earth by
myself;
And he did this by speaking his word:
Psalms 33:6
By the word of the LORD were the heavens made;
and
all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.
…
9 For he spake, and
it was done;
he commanded, and it stood fast.
The word is personified as a he however, for a very good reason.
John is leading up to an important point:
John 1:14
And
the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the
glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.
That the word of God which he spoke in the very beginning,
and according to verse 2 by which God made the heavens and the earth.
That same word of God which was both
- with God in the
sense that it went out from him as he spoke it,
- and was God, since it was God's
expression of himself and that expression was completely true to his nature,
power and character.
Was ultimately made flesh as God spoke to us through the life of
the man Christ Jesus.
Jesus was the faithful and true witness who spoke exactly what the
Father gave him to say. He added nothing to it and took nothing from it.
You see, God has always been speaking and expressing himself
through his word.
The God who cannot be seen or heard (See link: God is invisible) first
showed his invisible attributes and made them known by the creation:
Psalms 19:1
¶The
heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.
2 Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night
sheweth knowledge.
3 There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not
heard.
Romans 1:19
¶Because
that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto
them.
20
For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world
are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his
eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
Next he made man in his image and likeness to show forth his glory.
After that he made himself known to Israel as he gave them his Law. Throughout
history he revealed himself to man by the mouth of his prophets.
Jesus was the climax of all this:
Hebrews 1:1
¶God,
who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers
by the prophets,
2 Hath in
these last days spoken unto us by his Son,
whom
he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
God's word adopted its fullest expression to man, in the person of
a man.
Jesus was the ultimate personification of God's word.
Through his lips and mouth, through his standing and crying,
through his reaching out and healing, through his tears and compassion, through
his life, he not only preached and taught the word of God. He lived it as an
example.
My
paraphrase of John 1:
1. In the beginning, God expressed himself
and
so his expression was both with him
and
true to God's character and purpose.
2. God has been expressing himself all
along- right from the start.
3. All things were made by God's
expression of himself.
Without
it was no part of creation made.
4. Life has it's source in it, and that
life is what gives light to men.
11. God expressed himself to the world, the
world which had been made by his word,
yet
the world failed to recognise him even by this.
14. Lastly, God expressed himself through
flesh-and-blood.
A
man who dwelt among us
(we
saw his glory- the glory that belongs uniquely to the Father's only begotten)
through
whom God expressed the fullness of his grace and truth to us.
Note-
1) This is not a translation- it's
a paraphrase. It is simply my attempt to show a different way of reading this
passage.
A way of seeing it without reading the prevailing theological bias in the text.
To do otherwise violates a cardinal rule of scriptural interpretation-
by taking an ambiguous and
solitary (This being the only place in the whole Bible where the word of God is
referred to as 'he' as opposed to 'it') passage of scripture, and deriving from
it an interpretation which contradicts the unanimous and very plain witness of
every other passage which deals with this subject (God's creation and God's
word).
2) That
the 'Word' in John 1 is God's self expression is commonly accepted, even within
the constructs of a Modalistic Oneness or Trinitarian theology. This is not the
matter under debate.
My reading
would be considered controversial based upon the fact that I stop short of
seeing the 'Word' as a personal being alongside God and instead understand it
to be a personification (that is, a literary device whereby personal attributes
are attached to an impersonal 'thing' in order to convey a point).
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1. Introduction |
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10. Seen! |
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17. Jesus- a
Godsend |
18. 1
Creator |
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20. The
firstborn |
21. The name
of God |
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