Word of God --> Children of God

In the beginning was the Word of God and the Word was with God and the Word was God. This is how St. John begins his Gospel. He is tying the Greek notion of the Logos to the Person of the Son of God, the Eternal Word. The Stoics held that the Logos is a divine, rational principle that governs the universe. Philo of Alexandria associated the Logos with divine reason and saw the Logos as an intermediary between God and the world. We could think of the Logos as connected to the ideal and the world of Forms in Platonic philosophy. In Aristotle, the Logos was employed to signify rationality, order, or the principle of intelligibility in the natural world.

When we put these ideas together, we see that the Word of God is rightly identified by St. John as the Logos. The Word of God is the divine, rational principle that governs the universe. He is an intermediary between God and man - the one mediator between God and man, as St. Paul says. He is the perfect revelation of God to man - there is nothing lacking in Him. And it was through Him that all things came into being and received purpose, order, and intelligibility.

This Logos of God took on flesh. Perhaps we do not let that sink in enough. The Word of God became a man to share in our humanity. But it did not end there. He became man so that we could become like God. We see this beautiful truth expounded in St. John’s Gospel.

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:12-14)

By our belief in Jesus Christ - or the faith supplied by our parents and godparents - we have the “right to become children of God.” We were not born as children of God, in this fallen world because of original sin. The blood of God is no longer in our veins because of the sin of Adam. It is not by sheer will power of our bodies and minds that we can become children of God. We become a son or daughter of God because of the will of God and because of our cooperation with the gift of faith. The Word of God makes us children of God.

We see the Son of the Father, full of grace and truth, in the Person of Jesus Christ. We believe in Him, in His saving power. We acknowledge that He is the Christ, the promised of ages who has come to redeem us by His blood on the Cross. We embrace His cross and make it our own. We die to ourselves in the waters of Baptism. And we rise to new life by virtue of His Resurrection. Through this great sacrament we can say that we are truly a son or daughter of God, born of the will of God.

Thanks be to God for such a gift!