Life Together and ὁ λογος

I was reading Bonhoeffer late last night for the first time.

"Human* love is directed to the other person for his own sake, spiritual love loves him for Christ's sake. Therefore, human love seeks direct contact with the other person; it loves him not as a free person but as one whom it binds to itself. It wants to gain, to capture by every means; it uses force. It desires to be irresistable, to rule" (Life Together, ch. 1).

I had wondered why I seem so closed within myself of late. And then there it was: the answer; so simple, so hard. This is why I have not been free.

"You have not love because you have not Christ."

"What do you mean? Of course I have Christ. It's not all about emotions. Just because I don't feel it, doesn't mean I don't have it."

"It? It? Would you possess Him in the same way you seek to possess others? He cannot become an It, you know, it is contrary to His nature. He is and ever will be the Eternal Thou. He is a free Person and shall always be free. Will you follow in the sin of your father Adam and seek to subdue a Person rather than subdue the earth? Has it not been written that He is the Α and Ω? Is He not ὁ λογος in which all λογοι live and move and have their being? Is He not the God through Whom and for Whom all things were created and ὁ λογος Who holds all λογοι together? You cannot directly address any λογος without first turning towards ὁ λογος and speaking: Thou."

I cannot help thinking about the primeval chaos into which God spoke and created the earth. Was it all a jumble of unintelligible sounds, symbols and words? Were there no words at all? Is hell/death the place where language cannot hold together? Is it the scattering of l multiplied a thousand times over? Is it the place where words cannot find their relationship to one another because they cannot address the Word? Is it a state wherein one is forever doomed to address other words as "It" and never as "Thou"?

Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἐποίησεν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν. Ἡ δὲ γῆ ἦν ἀόρατος καὶ ἀκατασκεύαστος, καὶ σκότος ἐπάνω τῆς ἀβύσσου· καὶ πνεῦμα Θεοῦ ἐπεφέρετο ἐπάνω τοῦ ὕδατος.

The following translation of LXX Gen. 1:1-3 is mine except for ἐπεφέρετο, an imp. mid. indicative verb from ἐπιφέρω. While trying to figure out how to translate this, I stumbled across a helpful blog which translated the verb as "carry itself" (http://kilbabo.wordpress.com/category/septuagint/).

"In a beginning God made the heaven and the earth. But the earth was invisible and untamable, and darkness over the abyss/ /place of the ; and a spirit/breath/wind of God was carrying itself over the water."

(Note the use of τῆς ἀβύσσου. If this is a description of the earth in its "invisible and uncontrollable" state of chaos before God speaks - or try "words/languages" - creation into existence, this gives deeper meaning to Jesus casting out of the Legion in Luke 8. The Legion begs Jesus not to send them into τἠν ἄβυσσον. Jesus sends them into the herd of pigs and then the pigs rush down into the lake. It's ironic because they beg not to be sent into the abyss - "where the wild things are" - yet they end up returning to the water which seems to be a place of chaos/uncreation/death.)

Now try John 1:1-5 on for size:

1 Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. 2 οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θεόν. 3 πάντα δι ᾿ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν ὃ γέγονεν 4 ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν, καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων· 5 καὶ τὸ φῶς ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ φαίνει, καὶ ἡ σκοτία αὐτο οὐ κατέλαβεν.

I'm having a lot of difficulty with these verses so please bear with me as I stumble through this. I know that ἐγένετο is an aor.mid.3rd.sg from γινομαι ("I am created/born/produced) and is usually translated in English as "he/she/it was created" (that's how it is translated in my Mounce textbook) Yet, if this is middle, shouldn't it mean something more like, "it was created by itself" or "it created itself." Is there some simple Greek rule about aorist middle indicative verbs that I'm forgetting or is this just really weird? I know we always translate it "was created" - I just don't know why. So here is my translation (heresy not omitted). I know the third sentence doesn't really work with the plural πάντα and singular ἐγένετο but, again, bear with me (and, yes, there are punctuation issues with verses 3-4).

"In a beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was a god. This [word] was in the beginning with God. All [things] through him was created through itself (or 'he was created through himself'?) and apart from him not one thing was created through itself which has been created in him was life, and the life was the light of men; and the light in the darkness appears/shines and the darkness did not grasp it."

Okay, I know I'm probably wrong and my translation is likely just bad and heretical. But ponder with me a moment what meaning might be conveyed if it could be translated that way. What if it really meant that "the Word was a god"? The Word is a "god," a representative of God like Adam. And yet this Word is greater than Adam, because this Word was with God in the beginning. Therefore, this Word is before all other words - an uncreated Word because he "was created through himself." This would not necessarily negate the deity of Christ in this passage, but it would certainly not make His deity explicit from this passage.

Yes, heresy - I know; we talked about it in Doctrine I. But it's fun to think about.

So where was I going with all this? Oh, yes. Christ as the Creator God, the Word, the source of all other words. Just for fun, here's my translation of the poem in Colossians 1:15-20:

15 ὅς ἐστιν εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ἀοράτου,
who is an image/likeness/form/substance of the God of the invisible,
πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως,
chief/first/foremost offspring of all creation,
16 ὅτι ἐν αὐτῷ ἐκτίσθη τὰ πάντα ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς,
because in him was called into being/created all things in the heavens and on the earth,
τὰ ὁρατὰ καὶ τὰ ἀόρατα,
the visible (things) and the invisible (things),
εἴτε θρόνοι εἴτε κυριότητες εἴτε ἀρχαὶ εἴτε ἐξουσίαι·
whether thrones whether lordships/potentates whether rulers whether powers/authorities;
τὰ πάντα δι ᾿ αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν ν ἔκτισται·
all things through him and in him it has been created;
17 καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν πρὸ πάντων καὶ τὰ πάντα ἐν αὐτῷ συνέστηκεν,
and he himself is before all things and all things in him he has placed together/permanently framed,
18 καὶ αὐτός ἐστιν ἡ κεφαλὴ τοῦ σώματος τῆς ἐκκλησίας·
and he himself is the head of the body of the church;
ὅς ἐστιν ἀρχή,
he who is a beginning/ruler
πρωτότοκος ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν,
first-offspring out of the bodies,
ἵνα γένηται ἐν πᾶσιν αὐτὸς πρωτεύων,
in order that he might exist/live in all things holding first rank/having preeminence,
19 ὅτι ἐν αὐτῷ εὐδόκσησεν πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα κατοικῆσαι
since in him everything which fills up was pleased to indwell/inhabit
20 καὶ δι ᾿ αὐτοῦ ἀποκαταλλάζαι τὰ πάντα εἰς αὐτόν,
and through him to reconcile all things to him,
εἰρηνοποιήσας διὰ τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ σταυροῦ αὐτοῦ,
making peace through the of his cross,
[δι ᾿ αὐτοῦ] εἴτε τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς εἴτε τὰ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς.
[through it/him] whether the things on the earth whether the things in the heavens.

And still there remains the very practical question of "how"? How is one member of the covenant community to love another not for his own sake, but for Christ's sake? Yes, through Christ - creation and re-creation are His affair. We are God's field and He is the One Who causes growth. And yet how is this done? I suppose the most basic (basic - not easy) answer would be to love others without any sort of expectation, receiving love from Christ in whatever way He sees fit to give us (not indulging in futile expectations as to how He will or must show love to us - for He is free). As Job learned, one cannot continue forever relating to God through a "blessings and curses formula." There comes a point where God has to show up and answer with His Presence.

"You have not love because you have not Christ."

And how might I have Christ? I cannot bind Him, for He is ever free. The only way to have Him - have Him in a real sense - is for Him to have me. A word is only free as it faces its Source; a reflection only lives as it faces the Image it bears. I cannot define Him; He defines me. I cannot swallow the Word; I cannot rule over Him. I must turn and know that He is master over me.


*The translator renders the term "geistlich" as "spiritual" instead of "pneumatic" (referring to the Holy Spirit) and the term "seelisch" as "human" instead of "psychic." I do not care for this rendering as I think that too often the words "human" and "spiritual" are pit against each other, when there is really nothing innately unspiritual about humanity. Our problem is our sin nature, not our human nature - there is nothing human about sin.