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A friend recently asked "How is Jesus the Word?" and I have been thinking about how to answer him. I have a lot of thoughts on this, and what feels like an understanding of it, but how do I put it into words (haha!). So I asked the Holy Spirit to help me and here I go! 

 

"The Word" is another way of saying creation or reality. How do we express how all things came to be? By using words, they are all we have - the only way we can describe reality and our understanding of it to other people is through words. Humans are the only animal that speaks because only we are created in God's image - only we can communicate our knowledge and thoughts to others and to future generations, just as God does through His Word. Through reading and understanding the words of those who have gone before us, we build on their knowledge and understanding and humanity progresses. Similarly, God makes His Revelation known by giving His Word to us throughout the Old Testament and then fully in the form of the complete Revelation embodied in His Son, and humanity is thus brought closer to its intended state.

 

We say, because Scripture says, that all things were created by Him, through Him, and for Him (the Him here being Jesus Christ). So Jesus Christ is how things came to be and also why all things came to be. God "spoke" all things into being through and for His Son. If we human beings assigned a word to this act of creation, and we only have words to describe things, then it would have to be The Word - since it is everything, it is reality, it is Truth. And all of those things are Jesus Christ. Scripture is this Word, too, that is why we call it the Living Word - it is the Word of God - Christ again. 

 

Even when we use words they have creative effect - we can speak words of love, for example, and love is felt by the hearer - we have just created something with our words! Another way to see the creative power of words is to think of how, unlike God, we can lie, or say something that is wrong, and when we do, we create false realities. Look at the trouble we create for ourselves and others with misunderstandings, or look at the false alibi of a murderer, or the way that spies create false realities to fool their counterparts, or even what is going on now with COVID and the vaccines. People can create very believable false realities, they can even convince themselves, but these falsehoods never last. The truth always prevails in the end. Even If a murderer's false alibi is 100% believed and he is never caught, eventually he will face the Truth, the Word, and his lies will literally have no meaning. 

 

Satan is the Lord of Lies and the Prince of this world, so he whispers lies and false realities into it, and they are very convincing. We have been living under the darkness of his lies since the Fall, with only the light of Revelation to help us see through them. But we know the truth - God has written it on our hearts, and He has sent His Son, the Word, to show it to us. The Word became flesh and defeated Satan and his lies on the Cross.

 

So Jesus Christ is the Word because we can only communicate ideas through words, and that is the only word we can use to describe Him. What God speaks IS, His Word creates, and Jesus Christ IS that creation - He is reality, He is the Truth. God identifies Himself as "I Am" because He is being itself, and Jesus is the Word because He is all that God has said or will ever say.