" wherefore, my brother ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ that you should be married to another, even to Him who was raised from the dead, then we should bring forth fruit unto God " ROMANS 7:4
"Dead to the law"?
What does the apostle Paul mean ? The context must be considered.
The apostle Paul has just described "dominion of the law" to a. Married woman. This is a situation of a married woman who has had her husband die. The no longer pertains to the dead. Because of this married woman is free to marry another.
ROMANS 7:6 but now we are delivered from the law , but being dead wherein we were held ; but we should serve as newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter
"When the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, born to a woman, born under the law,
that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons
Because you are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father" Galatians 4:4-6
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are children of God.
JOHN 1:1-4
"Dead to the law"?
What does the apostle Paul mean ? The context must be considered.
The apostle Paul has just described "dominion of the law" to a. Married woman. This is a situation of a married woman who has had her husband die. The no longer pertains to the dead. Because of this married woman is free to marry another.
ROMANS 7:6 but now we are delivered from the law , but being dead wherein we were held ; but we should serve as newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter
"When the fullness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, born to a woman, born under the law,
that he might redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons
Because you are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father" Galatians 4:4-6
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are children of God.
For you didn`t receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, "Abba Father!"
The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God" Romans 8:15-16
King James Updated--------- Hebrew and Greek Original
In the beginning was the Word, (o. logos) and the Word (o. logos) was with God
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The same was in the beginning with God
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All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.
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In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
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(en arch). Arch is definite, though anarthrous like our at home, in town, and the similar Hebrew be reshith in Genesis 1:1. But Westcott notes that here John carries our thoughts beyond the beginning of creation in time to eternity. There is no argument here to prove the existence of God any more than in Genesis. It is simply assumed.
Either God exists and is the Creator of the universe as scientists like Eddington and Jeans assume or matter is eternal or it has come out of nothing.(matter ages, which of course, we, in our physical bodys age, as does the rest of the physical creation--2nd law of thermodynamics tells us energy disapates)
Was (hn). Three times in this sentence John uses this imperfect of eimi to be which conveys no idea of origin for God or for the Logos, simply continuous existence. Quite a different verb (egeneto, became) appears in verse Genesis 14 for the beginning of the Incarnation of the Logos. See the distinction sharply drawn in Genesis 8:58 "before Abraham came (genesqai) I am" (eimi, timeless existence).
The Word of God has always existed
The Word (o logoß). Logoß is from legw, old word in Homer to lay by, to collect, to put words side by side, to speak, to express an opinion. Logoß is common for reason as well as speech. Heraclitus used it for the principle which controls the universe. The Stoics employed it for the soul of the world (anima mundi) and Marcus Aurelius used spermatikoß logoß for the generative principle in nature. The Hebrew memra was used in the Targums for the manifestation of God like the Angel of Jehovah and the Wisdom of God in Proverbs 8:23. Dr. J. Rendel Harris thinks that there was a lost wisdom book that combined phrases in Proverbs and in the Wisdom of Solomon which John used for his Prologue (The Origin of the Prologue to St. John, p. 43) which he has undertaken to reproduce. At any rate John's standpoint is that of the Old Testament and not that of the Stoics nor even of Philo who uses the term Logoß,
but not John's conception of personal pre-existence. The term Logoß is applied to Christ only in John 1:1,14; Revelation 19:13; 1 John 1:1 "concerning the Word of life" (an incidental argument for identity of authorship). There is a possible personification of "the Word of God" in Hebrews 4:12. But the personal pre-existence of Christ is taught by Paul (2 Corinthians 8:9; Philippians 2:6; Colossians 1:17) and in Hebrews 1:2 and in John 17:5. This term suits John's purpose better than sopia (wisdom) and is his answer to the Gnostics who either denied the actual humanity of Christ (Docetic Gnostics) or who separated the aeon Christ from the man Jesus (Cerinthian Gnostics).
The pre-existent Logos "became flesh" (sarx egeneto, verse John 14) and by this phrase John answered both heresies at once. With God (proß ton qeon). Though existing eternally with God the Logos was in perfect fellowship with God. Proß with the accusative presents a plane of equality and intimacy, face to face with each other. In 1 John 2:1 we have a like use of proß: "We have a Paraclete with the Father" (paraklhton ecomen proß ton patera). See proswpon proß proswpon (face to face, 1 Corinthians 13:12), a triple use of proß. There is a papyrus example of proß in this sense to gnwston thß proß allhlouß sunhqeiaß, "the knowledge of our intimacy with one another" (M.&M., Vocabulary) which answers the claim of Rendel Harris, Origin of Prologue, p. 8) that the use of proß here and in Mark 6:3 is a mere Aramaism. It is not a classic idiom, but this is Koin‚, not old Attic.
In John 17:5 John has para soi the more common idiom. And the Word was God (kai qeoß hn o logoß). By exact and careful language John denied Sabellianism by not saying o qeoß hn o logoß. That would mean that all of God was expressed in o logoß and the terms would be interchangeable, each having the article. The subject is made plain by the article (o logoß) and the predicate without it (qeoß) just as in John 4:24 pneuma o qeoß can only mean "God is spirit," not "spirit is God." So in 1 John 4:16 o qeoß agaph estin can only mean "God is love," not "love is God" as a so-called Christian scientist would confusedly say.
For the article with the predicate see Robertson, Grammar_, pp. 767f. So in John 1:14 o Logoß sarx egeneto, "the Word became flesh," not "the flesh became Word." Luther argues that here John disposes of Arianism also because the Logos was eternally God, fellowship of Father and Son, what Origen called the Eternal Generation of the Son (each necessary to the other). Thus in the Trinity we see personal fellowship on an equality.
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(outoß). "This one," the Logos of verse John 1, repeated for clarity, characteristic of John's style. He links together into one phrase two of the ideas already stated separately, "in the beginning he was with God," "afterwards in time he came to be with man" (Marcus Dods).
Thus John clearly states of the Logos Pre-existence before Incarnation, Personality, Deity.
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(panta). The philosophical phrase was ta panta (the all things) as we have it in 1 Corinthians 8:6; Romans 11:36; Colossians 1:16. In verse 1:10 John uses o kosmoß (the orderly universe) for the whole. Were made (egeneto). Second aorist middle indicative of ginomai, the constative aorist covering the creative activity looked at as one event in contrast with the continuous existence of hn in verses 1,2. All things "came into being."
Creation is thus presented as a becoming (ginomai) in contrast with being (eimi). By him (di autou). By means of him as the intermediate agent in the work of creation. The Logos is John's explanation of the creation of the universe.
The author of Hebrews (Hebrews 1:2) names God's Son as the one "through whom he made the ages." Paul pointedly asserts that "the all things were created in him" (Christ) and "the all things stand created through him and unto him" (Colossians 1:16). Hence it is not a peculiar doctrine that John here enunciates. In 1 Corinthians 8:6, Paul distinguishes between the Father as the primary source (ex ou) of the all things and the Son as the intermediate agent as here (di ou). Without him (cwriß autou). Old adverbial preposition with the ablative as in Philippians 2:14, "apart from." John adds the negative statement for completion, another note of his style as in John 1:20; 1 John 1:5. Thus John excludes two heresies (Bernard) that matter is eternal and that angels or aeons had a share in creation. Not anything (oude en). "Not even one thing."
Bernard thinks the entire Prologue is a hymn and divides it into strophes. That is by no means certain. It is doubtful also whether the relative clause "that hath been made" (o gegonen) is a part of this sentence or begins a new one as Westcott and Hort print it. The verb is second perfect active indicative of ginomai. Westcott observes that the ancient scholars before Chrysostom all began a new sentence with o gegonen. The early uncials had no punctuation.
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(en autwi zwh hn). That which has come into being (verse 1 John 3) in the Logos was life. The power that creates and sustains life in the universe is the Logos.
This is what Paul means by the perfect passive verb ektistai (stands created) in Colossians 1:16. This is also the claim of Jesus to Martha (John 11:25). This is the idea in Hebrews 1:3 "bearing (upholding) the all things by the word of his power." Once this language might have been termed unscientific, but not so now after the spiritual interpretation of the physical world by Eddington and Jeans.
Usually in John zwh means spiritual life, but here the term is unlimited and includes all life; only it is not bioß (manner of life), but the very principle or essence of life. That is spiritual behind the physical and to this great scientists today agree. It is also personal intelligence and power. Some of the western documents have estin here instead of hn to bring out clearly the timelessness of this phrase of the work of the Logoß. And the life was the light of men (kai h zwh hn to pwß twn anqrwpwn). Here the article with both zwh and pwß makes them interchangeable.
"The light was the life of men" is also true. That statement is curiously like the view of some physicists who find in electricity (both light and power) the nearest equivalent to life in its ultimate physical form. Later Jesus will call himself the light of the world (John 8:12). John is fond of these words life and light in Gospel, Epistles, Revelation. He here combines them to picture his conception of the Pre-incarnate Logos in his relation to the race. He was and is the Life of men (twn anqrwpon, generic use of the article) and the Light of men. John asserts this relation of the Logos to the race of men in particular before the Incarnation.
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