Logos of Man Oft Confused With
Gnosticism – False Knowledge
Isaiah’s ministry was to relay God’s message to he is contemporary Jews to blind them to the truth of God and harden their hearts against His gospel (Is 6:10). If this is true then the obvious conclusion is that God becomes the unjust Judge of sinners. Or, perhaps one is not reading the passage correctly and it is a symptom of one’s Logos that man find guilt with God to excuse his own sin.
The quote from Isaiah is used several times in the New Testament. I will be using John’s quote to discuss the concept of Logos that John introduced at the very beginning of his Gospel (Jo 1:1). Many authorities believe that John’s writings were against the ascending religion of Gnosticism; however, I do not find this credible. Gnosticism will gain ascendency in the churches in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Valentinius infused Gnosticism into church at Rome, later to become the Roman Catholic Church (RCC). This permeated both RCC theology and most Protestant theologies down to the present time. I believe Gnosticism will become the premiere religions that binds together all other religions during the time of the Antichrist until he claims himself as god supported by his False Prophet. However, this is not the focus of John’s Gospel. John writes to make the case that Jesus is the Son of God, an extraordinary new emphasis which the majority of the Jews rejected, even today. However, John does make a statement that is largely ignored today but has great bearing on the Gospel and the passage in Isaiah – Logos.
Abstract Representation of
God’s Logos – Light
Logos is usually translated as word, occasionally also as Word. Yes, it is used in reference to Christ but other than representing Him as the Living Word there is also a fuller explanation of what Logos represents. The above graphic may help us understanding this relationship better. God is Light, He is the center and source of all that is Him. Logos is the fundamental aspect of His nature, His truth and His righteousness {sense of right and wrong}. From His Logos flows His mind, the process of logic or thought that becomes communicated to us as His utterances or words. Thus, Logos is the very essence of God. John says that Jesus is also the very essence of God or visible Logos. But, in one opening statement John says so much more, “In the beginning was the Logos and the Logos was with God and the Logos was God.” John goes on to state that Jesus was the active agent in this physical Creation depicted in Genesis chapters one and two. This is John’s focus for writing his gospel: Jesus is the Son of God sent to be the true Passover Lamb for man’s sin. This statement also communicates that the physical creation flowed from the invisible essence of the Father as depicted by the writer of Hebrews (He 11:3). Notice, this passage says that the physical creation was created by the Logos of God. Not only does this mean that Christ was the active agent but also this creation is based on the essence of God’s nature. This is one reason why man cannot define energies such as electricity, gravity or even heat. Man defines these forces by their measurable effects {science} but man cannot define the fundamental mechanism or origins of these forces, or any force for that matter. Science is limited to the empirical: measurable and repeatable. Science ends where the invisible forces begin. Thus, when God said that this creation was good, He meant that it was functioning according to His nature and will; i.e., His Logos. Nature was integrated with God but it is not God.
Man, Created in God’s Image
However, His Logos is Sinful
When God created man in His image man had some measure of God’s Logos in him. This explains why man is self-aware and the only moral being in this creation, excluding angels and fallen angels. However, when man rejected the truth of God, sinned, his Logos was irreparably altered. Man sought to be God, same sin as Lucifer; thus, man’s Logos copied but was subservient to Lucifer’s Logos (Ge 3:1-7; Is 14:13-15; Ro 1:18-32). Since this Creation was integrated with man it suffers because of man’s sin (Ro 8:19-23). Now, we are ready to discuss John’s quote of Isaiah (Jo 12:40-41).
First, the Greek word translated as blinded is a Perfect, Active, Indicative verb. This means that some action in the past resulted in a continuing active effect. What was that inciting incident? Man’s sin in coveting special knowledge to be God. As God warned man would die: spiritually and physically. Spiritual death was immediate. Man’s Logos was irreparably altered, sundered apart from God’s Logos. Physical death would come in time. All born from Adam and Eve are conceived in sin (Ps 51:5). This is the blindness Isaiah speaks of for the natural man rejects the truth of God as it makes no sense to his now fallen Logos (1Co 2:14). Instead, man seeks to make his own light such as depicted in the opening graphic; yet, this light is dark light that actively seeks to suppress God’s bright light (Mt 6:22-23). The heart hardening quoted from Isaiah is in the Aorist, Active, Indicative. The fallen Logos of man is impermeable to God’s Gospel from that single past event. We are born as sin. This sins we think and do reflect our sin, they do not cause our sin. The more people hear the Gospel the more they reject the Gospel as it is foolishness to them. Thus, God is not the author of sin nor the unjust Judge preventing people from receiving the Gospel. Sin flowed from Adam and Eve. Every single person rejects the truth of God becoming responsible for his or her own judgment. The thoughts and deeds only confirm one’s Logos of sin.
Christian maturation is the Holy Spirit developing the mind of God in us after salvation (Col 3:1-17). Those Christians who refuse to mature grieve the indwelling Holy Spirit and are considered babies, unable to understand but the bare basics of the Gospel (He 5:11-14). I fear this is the unhappy state of many Christians today who are only too happy to remain ignorant of God’s complete gospel, the Bible. Thus, they are driven by every changing wind of doctrine (Ep 4:10-14). It is a sad affair when Christians seek to return to blindness and harden their hearts against the Scriptural truths; such is the state of evangelicalism today.