And The Word Was God: Logos

Kenneth Sublett, Piney.com, Hohenwald, Tennessee

Dr. Rubel Shelly: Was Christ the Word revealed by the Apostle John as the Logos of Heraclitus of Ephesus? Full Deity dwelled in Jesus Christ and He was not just a member of the divine family of gods. [Rough Notes]

Rubel Shelly is willing to believe that John learned from Plato, Justin Martyr and others choose to believe that Plato learned from Moses.

Modern Gnosticism clearly worships Sophia-Zoe. Therefore, a motive for making the LOGOS of the Bible into the Logos of Philo:

"Philo of Alexandria) claimed that the Greek Logos was an inferior, secondary deity or as an emanation from God in time." This, unfortunately, has found its way into Christian thought.

1. The Sophia, identified by Philo and the early Fathers with the Logos, is supposed to have entered into and taken possession of Solomon as it afterwards did with Jesus. 2. stamatihu, an unknown verb. 3. xalepón. Testament of Solomon note.

"These attributes are proof positive that John was following the Jewish model and he was showing that Jesus was indeed the Messiah.

"One other point. Philo of Alexandra (AKA Philo Judaeus) was a Jewish philosopher of the early first century. He is known as the Greatest Jewish Philosopher. He was also a Greek philosopher. Philo tried to explain the Theophanies as the Word of God to the Greeks. When he did so, he used the Aramaic word memra. Modern Jewish apologists will try to tell you that because Philo used the concept, the Divine Word of God was appropriated from the pagan religions of the Hellenistic world at the time. They want to belittle Christianity as a man made religion derived from paganism. When you hear this argument, it is a false argument. Just remind the person trying to tell you this that the Word of God was a Jewish concept and not a pagan concept. Tell him about this study. Resource

See the connection between the Logos of the philosophers and the Star Worship to which God turned the Israelites over to when they rose up in musical play which was idolatry. Dr. Shelly gives approval to speak of the S.O.N. God as the S.U.N. god and approves the worship in the wilderness for a Christian pattern.

See how Hermes is the Logos of the Greeks and the father of instrumental music, liars and thiefs. Apollo is Abaddon or Apollyon and the Master builder of the Seeker System at Delphi.

However, John Chrysostom understood the Logos and creates Him with dignity. And incidentially ridicules Plato and any philosopher who presumes to know more than is revealed.

Dr. Rubel Shelly and John York define the Exodus pattern as a God-surrounded, Holy Spirit baptized, spirit-led journey through the wilderness. However, Israel threw away the Covenant of Grace and refused to listen to the WORDS of God. They rose up to play which was the musical idolatry of Egypt continued for hundreds of years and brought with them to Sinai. As a result, God "turned them over to worship the starry host.""Sermonizing"would see the story of Amos 5 and 6 as just a case of a "bad mental attitude."However, Amos and Stephen saw it as the same star worship which Israel "prayed"for and to which God turned them over. This destroyed any spiritual value for the temple and the temple staff had him murdered: Stephen was not discussing a mad mental state.

Fundamentals:

Number One: Dr. Rubel Shelly seeks to associate the S.O.N. of God with the S.U.N. God for celebrating.

Number Two: The Post-Modern Logos

Now, Look at The Greek Logos as Opposed to the Biblical Logos

Number Three: The Seeker Center System.

See how Apollo (Abaddon, Apollyon) set up his Seeker Center at Delphi. By seducing "ministers" to his oracle he promised them all of the sheep they could slaughter. They would all get rich with the system which had a female prophetess, gymnasium, theater, swimming pool and all that the heart could lust. With this they could attract, according to Lucian of Samasota, "the fatheads and simpletons simply by playing a flute and singing." However, Apollo is the Destroyer and the father of music and harmony.

Musical worship throughout the Old Testament tells God: "We will not listen to your Words."Instead, the Logos of Greek mythology, which is the story of the secular gods teaching the immature how to silence the Word of God by the magical "key"which just shuts down the rational (logical) mind God gave us as a temple in which to worship Him

The history of Judaism is the history of a delayed but fulfilled abandonment by God to paganism. If Jesus the ROCK is just Jewish legend then one can do whatever they wish with the story because it just doesn't matter anymore.

Unfortunate for John and Rubel but fortunate (not just luck) for us, God had many recycles of this story to prove that it was the story of pagan idolatry which is not pushed as a "musical paradigm."The result is the same: the Word or Logos is dishonored in philosophical sermonizing and "erotic"versifying with the same Sinai Sister Singers and strange Brother Singers standing in the holy place to, in Dr. Shelly's words. lead you into the presence of God.

That is what the Israelites thought after they had lost all ownership of the Word or Dabar or Logos by refusing to listen to Him.

Now, as prophesied, the same liberties will be taken with John.

Rubel Shelly: One of the things I look forward to in preaching the Gospel of John is getting to "walk around in"the life of Jesus -- much as Exodus has had us "walking around in"the shoes of our spiritual ancestors of 1500 years before Jesus' time.

As I read John, he is far less concerned with Luke's "orderly account"(1:3) or Matthew's prophecy-fulfillment motif (1:22, et al.) than simply to reflect on the spiritual impact of God's presence in human form on Planet Earth.

He takes the sort of liberty you and I have encouraged this church to take with the slavery, redemption, wilderness trek, and other aspects of Exodus.

When God Speaks (h1696) the Word (h1697) He is the Invisible Spirit God communicating, declaring, commanding or making some RATIONAL discourse with someone in the physical world. To hear the voice of God would be like seeing God without a Mediator:

From the Beginning, The Great I Am is The Word

And God said (amar), Let there be light: and there was light. Gen 1:3
And God spake unto Noah, saying, Gen 8:15

Did ever people hear the voice of God speaking out of the midst of the fire, as thou hast heard, and live? Deut 4:33

AFTER these things the word (Dabar) of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. Gen 15:1
And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and, lo, one born in my house is mine heir. Gen 15:3
And, behold, the word (Dabar) of the Lord came unto him, saying, This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. Gen 15:4

Until the End, the Lord Jesus is the Spirit of the Church, the Word

In the Book of Revelation John wrote of his writing resources:

THE Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John: Rev 1:1

Who bare record of the word (LOGOS) of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw. Rev 1:2

And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. Rev 19:10

Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words (LOGOS) of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand. Rev 1:3

John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne; Rev 1:4

And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, Rev 1:5

And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. Rev 1:6

I John, who also am your brother, and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. Rev 1:9

Conclusion: God Who speaks to mankind has always been The Word, Amar, Dabar, Logos.

---

Quotations from Dr. Rubel Shelly, Woodmont Family of God: 'And the Word Was God' (John 1:1-18)

In fairness you should read the entire sermon. While many good things are said about Jesus as the Word of God who was God, the disarming introduction sees the Logos interpreted by John out of the Greek philosophical world. This is the "proof-text"for the prior thesis that "taking liberties"allows us to take the "beyond redemption musical idolatry at Mount Sinai"and give it a second incarnation as "a pattern for Christian worship and community."And the consummate idolaters who wandered for 40 years so that the older generation could perish in the wilderness are our "spiritual fathers."

Dr. Shelly fails to tell the audience that God always manifested Himself vocally as the Word. In Hebrew it is Dabar: in Greek it is Logos. John borrowed nothing and the philosophers probably borrowed the idea from God and using "narrative theology"took liberties and came up with a logos consistent with Gnosticism of which ZOE is the feminist goddess member of the "god family"who dominates the LOGOS and the lesser jehovahs.

Now, we are to learn that Jesus is a fully-feathered member of the God family. And, we will learn that it remained for John influenced by Greek philosophy to inform everyone about the true identity of the Logos: little brother Jesus.

Rubel Shelly: This Gospel isn't just another biography of Jesus. It is a carefully crafted presentation of Jesus as not simply the one who reveals God but who is God -- God in our midst, God coming to his own, God loving everyone he has created in his image. Yet it is also an uncompromising affirmation of Jesus as God Incarnate -- God enfleshed, God become one of us, God robed in real flesh and blood for our sakes. Jesus is Son of God and Son of Man. He is fully divine and fully human.

We might have believed that all of the gospel accounts are more than biographies. Perhaps, they show us that Jesus is the Messiah the prophesied visual image of the invisible God, or the audible WORD of the invisible SPEAKER who blows breath (Spirit) through His "double-edged"swords or LIPS.

However, the "holy trinity"deprives Him of "Full Deity"as Paul insists in Colossians 2:9. Therefore, after a beautiful description of Jesus Christ, Dr. Shelly says that:

Rubel Shelly: In the text just cited from Paul, it is interesting that he traces heaven's redemptive work through Christ Jesus all the way back to a time "before the ages began"(2 Tim.1:9).

In John's language, Jesus has always been the Word -- the Logos who was not only with but also a full-fledged member of the divine family, the Godhead, the Holy Trinity.

We will more fully examine this idea in another article. However, it is important to understand that the Greek idea of Logos was not the Christian notion and that Greek thought and most ancient paganism gave rise to the Catholic's creation of the trinity of "god family"about four hundred years too late.

Contrary to the universal triads of Babylon and most paganism, none of the church Fathers speak of God as cut up like a pecan pie into three or ten thousand "members of the god family."Click to read what most of the important scholars thought about making God into a pagan clan.

Heraclitus of Ephesus

We should understand that this sermon which we will partially quote flowed out of a series of sermons on Exodus. In these sermons "narrative theology"was used to make the Exodus event into a pattern for Christian "family and community."

However, this series skipped over the pattern of Baptism and the loss of the Covenant of Grace because of the musical idolatry at Mount Sinai.

Because of this idolatry, God "turned them over to worship the starry host"according to Stephen in acts 7 and in several old testament passages. The Israelites worshiped the creature rather than the creator and the theology and worship at Mount Sinai was also taking place in Egypt, Babylonia and the Greek-Roman world.

The Chiun or Remphan was worshiped musically in Amos 5 and 6 in Israel, and Molech worshiped musically in Jerusalem was Saturn or various "gods"honored as wandering stars (planets) or the sun and moon.

Therefore, narrative theology can take one clear Biblical concept of consummate evil and give it a second incarnation as the paradigm of virtue.

Rather than build on the eternal Old Testament identification of God as the Word or Dabar or the Greek Logos, we have a vacuum filled with Greek philosophy.

For instance, Dr. Rubel Shelly notes that:

> Rubel Shelly: Ironically, a Greek philosopher named Heraclitus of Ephesus (later John's hometown!), whose work dates from around 500 B.C., speculated about a logos that ruled and gave structure to the world. He saw logos as a mysterious force "by which all things are steered through all things."

The word SERMO means conversational speech. Paul did not preach to the saved but dialoged. The opposite of Christian "preaching" comes from Hermes (Hermeneutics) and Mercury the Logos or:

ORATIO, a speaking, speech, discourse, language

In partic., formal language, artificial discourse, set speech (OPPOSITE to to sermo, ordinary speech, CONVERSATIONAL language): mollis est oratio philosophorum

Oration is "A set speech, harangue, discourse, oration: The POWER of oratory, eloquence While a SERMON is just "ordinary speech, speaking, talking, the language of conversation (OPPOSITE contentio)". As an ordinary member YOU will not be able to MOUNT the pulpit, bema or HIGH PLACE and CONTEND FOR THE FAITH which Christ delivered.

Contento, o-nis, f. [contendo] (acc. to CONTENDO, II.), an EAGER STRETCHING, a straining, EXERTION of the powers of body or mind, TENSION, effort, a vigorous struggling or STRIVING for something, a struggle after [work, work, work, legalism of the worst kind.]

(Acc. to contendo, II. B. 2.) A CONTEST, contention, strife (with weapons or WORDS), a fight, dispute, controversy

Hupo-kritikos, belonging to hupokrisis, skilled therein, esti phuseôs to hu. einai having a good delivery,

2. suited for speaking or delivery, (sc. technê) the art of delivery, but, the ACTOR'S art
3. metaph., acting a part, pretending to

The Orators or Philosophers were know as: Spermologos Regularly used with:

Turannos 2. imperious, despotic, an absolute sovereign, unlimited by law or constitution, [turannos is prob. from same Root as KURIOS,
Commeator, o-ris, m. [commeo] , one who goes to and fro, an epithet of Mercury as messenger of the gods to men

Hippolytus refers the poet, Heraclitus, and

This, with them, is the ineffable and mystical Logos. They assert, then, that the Egyptians, who after the Phrygians, it is established, are of greater antiquity than all mankind,

and who confessedly were the first to proclaim to all the rest of men the rites and orgies of, at the same time, all the gods, as well as the species and energies (of things), have the sacred and august, and for those who are not initiated, unspeakable mysteries of Isis.

Speaking of the Serpent Worshiping Tritheists:

A power (there is) hermaphrodite, always continuing in infancy, never waxing old, cause of beauty, pleasure, maturity, desire, and concupiscence; and ignorance has been accustomed to style this Eros, according to whose image were born Paris, Narcissus, Ganymede, Endymion, Tithonus, Icarius, Leda, Amymone, Thetis, Hesperides, Jason, Leander, (and) Hero."

These are Proastioi up to Aether, for with this title also he inscribes the book.

The LOGOS of all of the pagans was Hermes, Mercury and many other HOMOSEXUAL agents able, with music, to "lead the worshipers into the presence of the gods."

While the vile "worship" including the idolatry of musical perversion is treated by all known sources as the MARK and cause of Israel's total apostasy, Rubel Shelly sees the exodus as a "pattern for worship and community." However, God turned them over to worship the STARRY HOST and Dr. Shelly wants to baptize Santa and the S.U.N. god to speak of the S.O.N. God.

However, Hippolytus notes:

Chapter XI.-Why They Call Themselves Peratae; Their Theory of Generation Supported by an Appeal to Antiquity;

Their Interpretation of the Exodus of Israel; Their System of "The Serpent; "Deduced by Them from Scripture; This the Real Import of the Doctrines of the Astrologers.

For they suppose little Egypt to be body, and that it crosses the Red Sea-that is, the water of corruption, which is Cronus-and that it reaches a place beyond the Red Sea, that is, generation;

and that it comes into the wilderness, that is, that it attains a condition independent of generation,
........... where there exist promiscuously all the gods of destruction and the God of salvation.

Now, he says, the stars are the gods of destruction, which impose upon existent things the necessity of alterable generation.

Of the non-functional pillars or Asherah poles crowned with fruit:

For they style this good-producing, not knowing what they say. And the Greeks, deriving this mystical (expression) from the Egyptians, preserve it until this day. For we behold, says (the Naassene), statues of Mercury (Hermes or Logos), of such a figure honoured among them.

Worshipping, however, Cyllenius with especial distinction, they style him Logios. For Mercury is Logos, who being interpreter and fabricator of the things that have been made simultaneously, and that are being produced, and that will exist, stands honoured among them,

fashioned into some such figure as is the pudendum of a man, having an impulsive power from the parts below towards those above. And that this (deity)-that is, a Mercury of this description-is, (the Naassene) says,

a conjurer of the dead, and a guide of departed spirits, and an originator of souls; nor does this escape the notice of the poets, who express themselves thus:-

"Cyllenian Hermes also called

The souls of mortal suitors.

As musical worship teams around the poles can "lead the worshiper into the presence of God,"

This, he says, is he who alone has power of life and death. Concerning this, he says, it has been written, "Thou shalt rule them with a rod of iron. [Ps. ii. 9.] The poet, however, he says,

being desirous of adorning the incomprehensible (potency) of the blessed nature of the Logos,

invested him with not an iron, but golden wand. And he enchants the eyes of the dead, as he says, and raises up again those that are slumbering, after having been roused from sleep, and after having been suitors. And concerning these, he says, the Scripture speaks: "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise, and Christ will give thee light [ Eph. v. 14.]

> Rubel Shelly: The logos-motif would be picked up later by the greatest of the Greek thinkers, Plato, and a Jew named Philo of Alexandria. They would speculate about logos (Gk, word, reason, meaning) over the centuries and make the term both current and curious over generations of time.

> Rubel Shelly: But it would be the Beloved Disciple of Jesus who revealed the true identity and work of the Logos. The Word became flesh in Jesus -- pushing back the darkness by displaying God's own glory in his person and bringing order, peace, and hope to once-chaotic souls.

Plato, Cratylus:

Her. Only one more God! I should like to know about Hermes, of whom I am said not to be a true son. Let us make him out, and then I shall know whether there is any meaning in what Cratylus says.

Soc. I should imagine that the name Hermes has to do with speech, and signifies that he is the interpreter (ermeneus), or messenger, or thief, or liar, or bargainer; all that sort of thing has a great deal to do with language; as I was telling you the word eirein is expressive of the use of speech, and there is an often-recurring Homeric word emesato, which means "he contrived"-

nb out of these two words, eirein and mesasthai, the legislator formed the name of the God who invented language and speech; and we may imagine him dictating to us the use of this name: "O my friends," says he to us, "seeing that he is the contriver of tales or speeches,

you may rightly call him Eirhemes." And this has been improved by us, as we think, into Hermes. Iris also appears to have been called from the verb "to tell" (eirein), because she was a messenger.

Her. Then I am very sure that Cratylus was quite right in saying that I was no true son of Hermes (Ermogenes), for I am not a good hand at speeches.

Soc. By the dog of Egypt I have not a bad notion which came into my head only this moment:

I believe that the primeval givers of names were
undoubtedly like too many of our modern philosophers,
who, in their search after the nature of things,
are always getting dizzy from constantly going round and round,
and then they imagine that the world is going round and round and moving in all directions;
and this appearance, which arises out of their own internal condition, they suppose to be a reality of nature;

they think that there is nothing stable or permanent, but only flux and motion,
and that the world is always full of every sort of motion and change. The consideration of the names which I mentioned has led me into making this reflection.

Logos was Mercury or Hermes, the father of musical instruments, the bow, of liars and of thieves:

The offspring of Hermes are believed to be Pan, Abderus and Hermaphroditus. Hermes as with the other gods had numerous affairs with goddesses, nymphs and mortals. In some legends even sheep and goats. Pan, the half man half goat, is believed to be the son of Hermes and Dryope,

Heraclitus and the Logos

However, the Catholic Encyclopedia notes that:

"It is in Heraclitus that the theory of the Logos appears for the first time, and it is doubtless for this reason that, first among the Greek philosophers, Heraclitus was regarded by St. Justin (Apol. I, 46) as a Christian before Christ. For him the Logos, which he seems to identify with fire, is that universal principle which animates and rules the world.
........... This conception could only find place in a materialistic monism.

The philosophers of the fifth and fourth centuries before Christ were dualists, and conceived of God as transcendent, so that neither in Plato (whatever may have been said on the subject) nor in Aristotle do we find the theory of the Logos. C.E.

Isaiah predicted that Messiah would come as Light and WORD. In Him the full Deity would dwell in more than a triune manifestation. The Spirit of Christ was always the ROCK (discounted as Jewish legend) and He was also the Word (Logos).

NEVERTHELESS the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation, when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, in Galilee of the nations. Isaiah 9:1

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. Isaiah 9: 2

Thou hast multiplied the nation, and not increased the joy: they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil. Isaiah 9: 3

For thou hast broken the yoke of his burden, and the staff of his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, as in the day of Midian. Isaiah 9: 4
For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire. Isaiah 9:5

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6

Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. Isaiah 9:7

The Lord sent a word (Dabar) into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel. Isaiah 9:8

And all the people shall know, even Ephraim and the inhabitant of Samaria, that say in the pride and stoutness of heart, Isaiah 9:9
The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stones: the sycomores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars. Isaiah 9:10

And, therefore, they would be destroyed.

Next, let's look further at Heraclitus. We will notice that he does not give any aid and comfort to knowing God in a sensuous, "worship"or enraptured sense of the Greek charismatics:

Fragment 1, Sextus, adv.math VII, 132

Of the Logos which is as I describe it men always prove to be uncomprehending, both before they have heard it and when once they have heard it. For although all things happen according to this Logos men are like people of no experience, even when they experience such words and deeds as I explain, when I distinguish each things according to its constitution and declare how it is;

but the rest of the men fail to notice what they do after they wake up just as they forget what they do when asleep.

Fragment 2, Sextus, adv.math VII, 133

Therefore it is necessary to follow the common; but although the Logos is common

the many live as though they had a private understanding.

Heraclitus was also aware that harmony is created by strife: as the twanging bow is sure to bring death.

The bowstring exerts a strong tension on the bow but the bow "fights"back and everything is in balance. Even when you pull the string back it is still in harmony. It is like a mouse trap: everything is in "harmony"but a nibble at the cheese and the trap will kill the mouse.

Therefore, when you let go of the arrow the bow and string "twangs"but the "singing"is bringing death. This was the common Classical understanding.

Fragment 10, Aristotle, de mundo 5, 396b20

Things taken together are wholes and not wholes, something is being brought together and brought apart, which is in tune and out of tune; out of all things there comes a unity, and out of a unity all things.
........... The bow is called strife, but its work is death

Fragment 209, Hippolytus Ref Ix, 9, I

They do not apprehend how being at variance it agrees with itself: there is a palintonos (counter-stretched) harmony, as in the bow and the lyre.(4)

See the Twanging Background

"Douglass, who has developed the most successful Willow Creek-based church service in Germany, even maintained, "I think this approach is most applicable to the state churches. We have the people, even if they don't attend. We enjoy an incredible edge in confidence vis-àvis the free churches."He cautioned,
........... "The cost of this approach is hard work and loads of strife with church insiders."Christianity Today

This article has been removed: see note at Willow Creek

Fittingly that strife is caused by the music of the world replacing the Words of Christ or Spirit.

Many of the ancients students of music knew that something damaging was happening when one made "music"in the sense of harmony. They thought of the high tones outrunning the low tones, bringing conflict but then bringing harmony which seemed pleasant. They did not know that they were inducing a drug high. The "dog barks"and "water drips"of moving from one step to another and creating spiritual anxiety is masked by the overtones which bridge the step without getting caught. Heraclitus observed that the hidden harmony was more powerful than the apparent harmony:

Fragment 54, Hippolytus Ref IX, 9,5
........... An unapparent harmony is stronger than an apparent one.

Heraclitus: "All things come into being by conflict of opposites, and the sum of things flows like a stream. This order, the same for all things, no one of gods or men has made, but it always was, and is, and ever shall be, an ever-living fire, kindling according to fixed measure, and extinguished according to fixed measure. Justice meant a balance of opposites, and strife.

Heraclitus cited as an example the tension between the string and the frame in a bow or a musical instrument. 'Harmony lies in the bending back,

as for instance of the bow or of the lyre...

Opposition unites. From what draws apart results the most beautiful harmony. All things take place by strife'."(Parkes, Henry Bamford, Gods and Men The Origins of Western Culture, p. 188, Knopf)

However, the Logos Idea existed in the beginning of time.

Christ as the Logos does not begin with Greek Philosophy or with John stealing thoughts from the Greeks. Rather, Christ as the Word of God is the Spirit of Gor the Rational nature of God. When you cut away all of the "words"except the CORE GOSPEL you have lost it all. The word Dabar in Hebrew is more ancient than John taking liberties with the inspired writings.

Logos (g3056) log'-os; from 3004; something said (including the thought); by impl. a topic, subject of discourse, also reasoning (the mental faculty) or motive; by extens. a computation; spec. (with the art. in John) the Divine Expression (i.e. Christ):

When the Israelites rose up in Musical Idolatry at Mount Sinai God turned them over to worship the starry host because, given a second chance, they could not live while listening to the full import of the Word (dabar, logos) of God.

Dabar or Logos is logical, rational or spiritual. Therefore, any "body worship"bypasses the rational mind and drives hard into the emotional. That destroys the value of the Logos:

Sextus Empiricus, Against the Logicians I, 131
........... Heracleitus, then, asserts that this common and divine reason [logos],
........... ........... by participation in which we become rational,
........... ........... is the criterion of truth.

Logos religion must bring us to our senses. Pagan religion tries to defeat the rational mind by charismatic ritual and music.

Notice that the Messiah as Word would not be mystical but rational, related to the mind of mankind.

AND there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: Isa 11:1

And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; Isa 11: 2

And shall make him of quick understanding (spiritual) in the fear of the Lord: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: Isa 11: 3

But with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. Isa 11: 4

From Mount Sinai until the time of Christ the Jews could not read the Word of God, often written in parables (Mt 13) and that didn't worry them too much. However, when the Living Word or Living Dabar came they couldn't hear Him and Jesus didn't even speak to the multitudes without parables. The Word cannot be found in theatrical entertainment:

Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away. 2 Cor 3:16
........... Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 2 Cor 3:17

The "Spirit of Christ"spoke through the Prophets (1 Peter 1:11; Rev 19:10).

Paul equates the Holy Spirit or mental disposition to the Mind of Christ:

But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. 1 Cor 2:10

Pneuma (g4151) pnyoo'-mah; from 4154; a current of air, i.e. breath (blast) or a breeze; by anal. or fig. a spirit, i.e. (human) the rational soul, (by impl.) vital principle, mental disposition, etc., or (superhuman) an angel, doemon, or (divine) God, Christ's spirit, the Holy Spirit: - ghost, life, spirit (-ual, -ually), mind. Comp. 5590.

For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit (g4151) of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. 1 Cor 2:11

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. 1 Cor 2:12

In all of the traditional literature beginning just off the Ark and at the Towers of Babylon, Satan is the "father"of musical worship. Why is that so important to him? It is because if he can get the natural man involved in listening to music and being lied to that this is the "spirit of god"making people sing, clap and play instruments, it is physically and mentally impossible to discern spiritual truth.

Which things also we speak, not in the words which mans wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 1 Cor 2:13

But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 1 Cor 2:14

There is nothing about the natural body which is spiritual:

But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man 1 Cor 2:15

Pneumatikos (g4153) pnyoo-mat-ik-oce'; adv. from 4152; non- physically, i.e. divinely, figuratively: - spiritually.

The Spirit of God and the spirit of man, and the Mind of God and the mind of man are defined by the same Greek words:

For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ 1 Cor 2:16

Nous (g3563) nooce; prob. from the base of 1097; the intellect, i.e. mind (divine or human; in thought, feeling, or will); by impl. meaning: - mind, understanding. Comp. 5590.

Ginosko (g1097) ghin-oce'-ko; a prol. form of a prim. verb; to "know"(absol.), in a great variety of applications and with many impl. (as follow, with others not thus clearly expressed): - allow, be aware (of), feel, (have) know (- ledge), perceive, be resolved, can speak, be sure, understand.

The Holy Spirit is the Mind of Christ is the Spirit OF things pertaining to our spirit or mine:

Rubel Shelly: In John's language, Jesus has always been the Word -- the Logos who was not only with but also a full-fledged member of the divine family, the Godhead, the Holy Trinity.

The claim that "Jesus"as "logo"is one member of the "God family"as well as seeing Greek Philosophy as the source of John's idea of "Logos"coupled with the use of ZOE to facilitate female-led shepherding (with a tune) over the flock is all consistent.

"The idea of the logos in Greek thought harks back at least to the 6th-century-bc philosopher Heracleitus, who discerned in the cosmic process a logos analogous to the reasoning power in man.

"In the first chapter of The Gospel According to John, Jesus Christ is identified as "the Word" (Greek logos) incarnated, or made flesh.

This identification of Jesus with the logos is based on Old Testament concepts of revelation, such as occurs in the frequently used phrase "the Word of the Lord"--which connoted ideas of God's activity and power--and the Jewish view that Wisdom is the divine agent that draws man to God and is identified with the word of God Britannica Members.

"Later, the Stoics, philosophers who followed the teachings of the thinker Zeno of Citium (4th-3rd century BC), defined the logos as an active rational and spiritual principle that permeated all reality. They called the logos providence, nature, god, and the soul of the universe, which is composed of many seminal logoi that are contained in the universal logos.

It was Zeno who invented the dialectic by which someone can tell us that God is One but God is a family of three persons like us. That is 1 = 3 and 3 = 1.

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Plato and The Word or Dabar in the Old Testament

Rubel Shelly: The logos-motif would be picked up later by the greatest of the Greek thinkers, Plato, and a Jew named Philo of Alexandria. They would speculate about logos (Gk, word, reason, meaning) over the centuries and make the term both current and curious over generations of time.

"Quite frequently the Old Testament represents the creative act as the word of God (Gen.,i,3; Ps. xxxii, 9; Ecclus., xlii, 15); sometimes it seems to attribute to the word action of itself, although not independent of Jahveh (Is. Iv, 11, Zach., v, 1-4; Ps. cvi, 20; cxlvii, 15). In all this we can see only bold figures of speech: the word of creation, of salvation, or, in Zacharias, the word of malediction, is personified, but is not conceived of as a <