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THE LOGOS AND THE GOSPEL OF JOHN....HOW ARE WE TO UNDERSTAND THE "LOGOS" AND JESUS?

Having surveyed some common ideas regarding the "Logos" during the Hellenistic period, it would be useful to study the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel to see how it relates to this model. It is reproduced below, where the terms "Word" and "world" have been replaced with the Greek originals, "Logos" and "kosmos" respectively:

John 1:1-18 1 In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. 8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. 9 That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the kosmos. 10 He was in the kosmos, and the kosmos was made by him, and the kosmos knew him not. 11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not. 12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: 13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. 14 And the Logos was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. 15 John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me. 16 And of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace. 17 For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. 18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. (KJV)

It is easy to see how the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel reflects the ideas of the Hellenistic "Logos" teaching, set forth here in its Christian version. The "Logos" is in the archê, the Beginning, Source, or Fount of existence. As the underlying harmonic pattern of creation, all things were made through the "Logos", which contains the principles of Life and Light. The light of the "Logos" shines out, illuminating the darkness of matter, forgetfulness, and our unawakened spiritual nature, yet "the darkness" grasps it not: the darkness cannot understand the Light, nor can it destroy it. But by turning back toward the "Logos" and the world of first principles, humanity discovers what it means to truly live, and is illuminated by the spiritual source of creation.

John the Baptizer is perhaps a member of an Essene community and he bears witness concerning the Light. The kosmos itself is a reflection of the "Logos", which exists here-and-now in the manifest world THROUGH ORDER. This "order" is best understood by the obedience to the will and Commandments and Laws of God; yet, without the power of Mind-the power of Light-the created world is unaware of the higher realities, even though it mirrors them. That explains the message of John the Baptist who came preaching repentance and and turning back toward God and the will of God as found in the Torah-the Laws of God. The "Logos" came unto its own, humanity [the Logos resides within each man as we call], but not everyone recognized its nature nor would yield to its will for their lives. Yet those who received the "Logos", "the dayspring from on high," and believed in its divine name, experienced a spiritual regeneration-referred to elsewhere in this gospel as "the birth from above"-and, like the "Logos" itself,became Sons of God. This passage is not saying, I reiterate is not saying, that those who believed in Jesus or the theology created about him later by Rome is "born from above" or "becomes a son of God." Again we must remember to understand this metaphorically and not literally as Rome has tragically not done for thousands of years. As shared above some experiences this awakening to the Spiritual realities that exist among us in this realm of Change better than others; thus the call of repentance to the multitudes to return to obedience of these Laws of God which, when obeyed, yields the fruit of the Logos in this world. Those who had experienced such an awakening to the spiritual realm were the anointed ones calling the masses to turn their hearts unto their fathers of the faith (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob; who we have learned were Pharaohs who lived these Laws of God themselves). Understand that if Israel repented and submitted to the rule and reign of God and His principles of Order and Harmony over their lives then the rule and reign and kingship of God would be over their lives and then this world would become the very image of the realm of Being (Heaven would come to earth...As Above...So Beneath). The Kingdom of God would be manifested in our realm of Change and truly the Kingdom of God would be a reality; Heaven would come to Earth (the Realm of Being would overtake the Realm of Change).

Matt 6:10 10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. (KJV)

THE LOGOS MADE FLESH

We learned earlier that the "Logos" is part of every person and that to the degree a person surrenders to the rule and reign of the Mind of God in their lives the "Logos" becomes manifested in the life and actions of that person. Throughout history we find examples of Godly people who stood head and shoulders above their contemporaries. Righteous examples or "avatars" or specially anointed men and women from God can be found in almost every nation of the world if one examines the history of various nations. The Jesus of the New Testament was such an avatar and righteous one of whom I speak. Those who knew him best understood that in him and his life was the purest manifestation of God and His rule that could be found within humanity.

That being so the we can now properly understand how the "Logos" was made flesh within the lives of these people, and Jesus, as it became incarnate in the universe via the principle of Humanity and was "manifest" among mankind by the degree of their obedience to the Laws of God. This concept must be understood in an allegorical and not a literal manner in order to avoid pagan idolatry. Failure to understand the "Logos" doctrine correctly as shared in this article has rendered billions as idolators and blasphemers in the history of the world in the last two thousand years.

This word,manifest, is usually translated as "dwelt." But the original Greek term is ambiguous and means, literally, "tented" or "tabernacled," referring to the tent in which the tablets of the Mosaic Law were kept.

Answer for yourself: Did you again notice the reference to Law in that verse? Is this coincidence or is Law one of the main manifestation of the Divine Mind of the Logos?

The meaning here is that the revelation of the New Law, the "Logos", has now been made manifest among humanity as was the Law of old. The old Law was given through Moses, but grace and truth come through the "Logos", Jesus the Christ, the anointed one who manifested this "new law" by his actions.

BUT WHEN DID JESUS ACQUIRE THE LOGOS?

According to some early Christians, the human Jesus became the vehicle for the Divine "Logos" only at his baptism by John, signified by the descent of the dove [the doctrine of adoptionism], while developing orthodoxy decided that he had been the incarnation of the "Logos" from the start [pre-existence]. In other words either Jesus received the descending "Logos" because He, the Logos, could tabernacle within such a holy temple and body surrendered to the will of God as Jesus was or either Jesus was born with the Logos fully dwelling within him. Theology will debate this for centuries and the result is that they make Jesus God instead of man anointed by God which allowed the Logos to lead him which is actually the truth; but Rome desiring to pattern Jesus after their pagan gods and godmen will do otherwise and Jesus will become God himself. This was done in 325 A.D. at the Council of Nicea when Jesus was made God! Idolatry has infected almost every believer since!

John 1:18 18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. (KJV)

Answer for yourself: Who is the "Son" in the above verse? Is it Jesus or the "Logos"?

No one has at any time seen the ineffable, High God. I agree with that...for He is the "hidden one"...Atum. But the only-begotten Son seems to have seen Him. Tragically for Christians they interpret this verse as if Jesus is the "Son" in the above verse when in reality it is the "Logos" who is in the bosom of the Father and not Jesus. It is the "Logos" which is part of God Himself which knows and has seen the Father completely since He expresses God to all mankind in the first place. It is the "Logos" as the "Son" of the Father which has revealed to humanity the nature of the transcendent Source, both through consciousness - the Light of Life and through the structure of the universe itself. Understand that the verse says that this "mind of God" in the form of the "Logos" which resides within all humanity manifests God through their Godly actions in which they imitate God or not. Said another way:

We either let the "Logos" shine through us like Jesus or we do not. Some of course do this better than others and Jesus was one who was recognized among his followers as one who portrayed this Divine image through his surrender to the Torah better than most in his day. Jesus and his obedience to the Torah and the will of God in his life as well as his teaching and modeling of such principles among his people revealed to humanity the very nature of this transcendent Source we call God. This revelation is grasped by too few and expressed through one's life by fewer still. There are many such men who line the halls of history who were like Jesus in this manner and history records such great men like Rama, Moses and Yeshua who were manifestations among men of the Divine Logos in human form; again however this is to be understood allegorically and not literally.

THE LOGOS PERSONIFIED

While the early Christians personified the "Logos" in the figure of Jesus, the Greeks had {short description of image}represented the "Logos" in the figure of Apollo, the god of geometry and music. Take just a minute to notice the "harp" of Apollo; another indication of the intent that Divine Harmony (music/harmony) is to be achieved on earth as it is in Heaven. The relation of the notes of the musical scale to numbers, whereby harmony results from vibrations in equal times, and discord from the reverse, led Pythagoras to apply the word "harmony" to the visible creation, meaning by it the just adaptation of parts to each other. Let us understand again that is this Realm of Change that must adapt to the Realm of Being (earth to Heaven).

Matt 6:10 10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. (KJV)

Another favorite representation was Hermes, who, as the church fathers acknowledge, was actually called "the "Logos" by the Greeks. God in all reality is the true "Logos"; and inasmuch as He is the germ from which all else develops, He is called the seminal Logos (logos spermatikos). This Logos is at the same time a force and a law, an irresistible force which bears along the entire world and all creatures to a common end, an inevitable and holy law from which nothing can withdraw itself, and which every reasonable man should follow willingly (Cleanthus, "Hymn to Zeus" in "Fr. Stoic." I, 527-cf. 537). Conformably to their exegetical habits,the Stoics made of the different gods personifications of the Logos, e. g. of Zeus and above all of Hermes.

At Alexandria, Egypt, Hermes was identified with Thoth, the god of Hermopolis, known later as the great Hermes, "Hermes Trismegistus", and represented as the revealer of all letters and all religion.

As above, so below. This saying, attributed to Thoth as being the most fundamental truth of our conscious minds, is the basis of the outer Hermetic teaching. The idea is that the world is a mirror of heaven – a reflection. The divine patterns found here are a reflection of those in the worlds above.{short description of image}Everything that is understandable here has meaning because it’s pattern is represented in the divine. Thoth was the 'god of the equilibrium' (harmony like Apollo) and considered depictions of him as the 'Master of the Balance' to indicate that he was associated with the equinoxes - the time when the day and the night were balanced. Such balance is best understood as well as this "harmony" that was to exist on earth as it did in Heaven and this comes through the indwelling "Logos" or the "mind of God" within each man as he is called by it to surrender to the will of God and His Laws on this earth. As stated above Thoth was later identified with the Greek god Hermes in the form of Hermes Trismegistos ("Hermes the thrice great"), in which form he remained popular in medieval magic and alchemy. Thoth was also a god of the underworld, where he served as a clerk who recorded the judgments on the souls of the dead (for the failure to live by the Laws of God). Alternatively, it was Thoth himself who weighed the hearts of the dead against the feather of Truth in the Hall of the Two Truths. Thoth was the god of writing and knowledge.

Now back to our main point concerning the Logos. Many great men were known to have brought Divine wisdom and knowledge from God (Thoth/Hermes) to bear upon this world and were considered as representations of the Logos among mankind. Jesus was not the first; nor the last. Thus Justin Martyr writes:

"When we say, as before, that he [Jesus] was begotten by God as the Word of God in a unique manner beyond the ordinary birth, this should be no strange thing for you who speak of Hermes as the announcing word [Logos] from God" (Justin Martyr, First Apology, 22; in Richardson, Early Christian Fathers, 256).

For example, according to the gnostic sect of the Nassenes, "Hermes is the Word who has expressed and fashioned the things that have been, that are and that will be" (Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 5.2 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, v. 50); translation by Doresse, Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics, 84).

In ancient Egypt, where the "Logos" theology appears at an early date, the Greek god Hermes was later identified with the Egyptian divinity Thoth. Thoth was the personification of the universal order, the "heart and tongue" of the sun god Ra who "spoke the words" which resulted in the creation of the heavens and the earth.

Answer for yourself: Are you beginning to see the connection between "tongue of Ra" and "spoken words" and this "logos" long before the concepts of the New Testament borrowed such words?

According to Iamblichus, Thoth was the author of 36,525 books (equal to the number of days in one hundred solar years). He was represented as the "scribe of the gods," the revealer of mathematics, geometry, and priestly knowledge. As E. A. Wallis Budge points out:

His knowledge and powers of calculation measured out the heavens, and planned the earth, and everything which is in them; his will and power kept the forces in heaven and earth in equilibrium; it was his great skill in celestial mathematics which made proper use of the laws (maãt) upon which the foundation and maintenance of the universe rested; it was he who directed the motions of the heavenly bodies and their times and seasons; and without his words the gods, whose existence depended on them, could not have kept their place among the followers of Ra (Budge, Gods of the Egyptians I, 407-408).

As "the reason and mental powers" of the sun god Ra, Thoth was "also the means by which the will of Ra, "God," translated into speech" (Budge, Gods of the Egyptians I, 407). As the revealer of celestial knowledge, the attributes of Thoth are later reflected in the figure Hermes Trismegistos (Thrice-Great Hermes), the reputed author of the Egyptian Hermetic writings. While the actual authors of these important works are unknown, like the unknown authors of the Christian gospels, Iamblichus repeats the tradition that "Hermes, the god who presides over language, was formerly very properly considered as common to all priests; and the power who presides over the true science concerning the gods is one and the same in the whole of things. Hence our ancestors dedicated the inventions of their wisdom to this deity, inscribing all their own writings with the name of Hermes" [Iamblichus, On The Mysteries 1.1 (Taylor translation, 17-18)].

THE LOGOS AND THE HERMETIC WRITINGS

The Greek Hermetic tractates were written and used in Egypt during a period stretching from perhaps 100 B.C.E. to 350 C.E. by members of Hermetic spiritual communities which were active in synthesizing native Egyptian teachings with the expressions of Greek philosophy. The ideas of this "pagan gnosticism" were certainly "in the air" during the formative days of early Christianity, and while "no direct literary relationship can be traced. . . it seems clear that [the person who wrote the Gospel of] John was working with similar presuppositions and along similar lines to those of the Hermetic authors" (C.K. Barrett, The Gospel of John, 31).

The Hermetic writings are cast as revelation discourses between Hermes Trismegistos, the spiritual "father," and Tat, his "son," the aspiring initiate. In an esoteric sense, "Hermes" and "Tat" may represent two aspects of an individual's soul, the higher and lower natures respectively. Through "his" writings and discourse with his disciples, Hermes Trismegistos reveals teachings of a spiritual and cosmological nature, concerning the nature of God, the soul, the origin and structure of the cosmos, and the path through which the soul may experience its divinizing rebirth in the divine principle of Mind or Nous. Common to all of these writings are parallels to the Hellenistic "Logos" doctrine as it has been summarized in this as well as prior articles on the "Logos."

According to the underlying myth of Gnosis, humanity is asleep, forgetful of its celestial origin and true nature. It is the task of the "Gnostic Revealer" [as the manifestation of the Logos] to descend through the heavenly spheres and fan the slumbering sparks of spiritual knowledge which lie dormant within the soul, leading to the recognition of one's authentic nature and spiritual destiny. In Christianity, Jesus is personified as the Gnostic Revealer, the teacher of saving knowledge, especially in such works as the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Thomas. But understand history records many of these Gnostic Revealers of God which expressed among mankind the Logos better than their {short description of image}peers and Jesus is not the only one nor the last of them. In the Hermetic writings, Hermes Trismegistos represents another Hellenistic manifestation of the "Logos", also personified as the Gnostic Revealer. Understand what personification means: a picture of the real but not the actual "real." While one may have many teachers in life, Clement of Alexandria states that the ultimate spiritual teacher is the "Logos" itself, "the Teacher from whom all instruction comes" [Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks II (Anti-Nicene Fathers, II, 203)]. According to the ancients, the "Logos" exists without, yet also within. We can never be separated from the harmony of the universe because we are its living reflection, even if in our slumber, this recognition has been temporarily obscured.

Like the teachings of the early Christians, the Hermetic writings focus upon the mystery of the soul's "rebirth" and transfiguration, the discovery of "the inner man," which results in a divinization of the personality. Through this existential realization, the gnostic-the true initiate-discovers who he is, where he has been, and where he is going. The gnostic realization is that awakened, transfigured humanity is a manifestation of Nous, the Divine Intellect, the first emanation of the unknowable Source. Simply said we become "sons of God." In one of the Hermetic writings, The Cup or the Monad, the story is told of how the world creator, while giving each person a share of reason (logos), did not bestow on every soul an equal portion of Mind. Rather, Mind was "set up in the midst of souls, just as it it were a prize" [Corpus Hermeticum 4 (The Cup of Monad), 3 (Mead translation, Thrice-Greatest Hermes, II, 56)]. In language which strongly parallels that of early Christianity, Hermes explains the liberating baptism in the Cup of Mind. The world creator, he says

filled a mighty cup with it, and sent it down, joining a Herald to it, to whom He gave command to make this proclamation to the hearts of men: Baptize thyself with this Cup's baptism, what heart can do so; you who have faith can ascend to Him who sent down the cup, you who know why you have come into being! As many then as understood the Herald's tiding and doused themselves in Mind, became partakers in the Gnosis; and when they had "received the Mind" they were made "perfect men." But they who do not understand the tidings, these, since they possess the aid of Reason ("Logos") only and not Mind (Nous), are ignorant of why and how they have come into being [Corpus Hermeticum 13 (Mead translation, Thrice-Greatest Hermes, II, 57)].

Elsewhere, in another work, The Secret Discourse Concerning Rebirth, Hermes explains the process through which this divinization is experienced. Recalling the passage in the Fourth Gospel where Nicodemus asks, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?", Tat proclaims "I know not, thrice-greatest one, from what womb a man can be born again, nor from what seed" [Corpus Hermeticum 13 (The Secret Discourse Concerning Rebirth), 1 (Scott translation, Hermetica, 1, 239)].

Answer for yourself: Do you see this similarity between the Gospel of John and the Hermetic writings?

Hermes explains that the womb of rebirth is Wisdom and that the Will of God is the begetter. The mystery of rebirth produces the race of the Divine Sonship; this cannot be taught, but, when the time is right, God recalls the knowledge of the spiritual realities to one's awareness, the knowledge the soul possessed before being born into a body. As Walter Scott summarizes the teaching of this tractate:

The man whom the Rebirth brings into being is a son of God; he belongs to the world of Mind; he is composed of divine Powers. He who has been born again has become an incorporeal being; he is no longer a thing visible to bodily eyes.... He sees things no longer by bodily sense; he sees with the eye of Mind. And thus seeing, he finds himself to be one with all that exists; he feels himself to be omnipresent and eternal. The new self which has thus come into being is imperishable. He who has once become a god, and son of God, can never cease to be that which he has become (Scott, Hermetica, II, 372).

In this ecstatic, transcendent state, both Christian and Hermetic mystics entered into divine union with the "Logos", the Divine Intellect, the source of Life and Light. Contrary to what you have been taught the key Pauline phrase "in Christ" does not mean in union with a man (Jesus) but union with the Divine Intellect. This union does not come, as the Pagans or Rome would later teach though the eating of the God in the form or wafers or drinking the blood of God which we find in communion in our churches today. Hopefully you see the difference that this union with the Divine intellect comes through knowledge of the Divine, His Word, and your surrender to it in you life and your actions.

Therefore we must study to learn of these things because Western Christianity refused them centuries ago and made significant efforts to prevent you from ever learning of these principles

Instructed by the "Logos" itself, then we become its mouthpiece. Doing so then we understand that the ancients who understood these principles could thus honestly proclaim that the realizations they experienced were the direct teachings of Christ or Hermes. It is no doubt from such ecstatic, heightened states of consciousness that many of the inspired logia or "sayings of the Lord" originated that later found their way into the early Christian literature. That is why Jesus - the "Logos" personified as the "Gnostic Revealer"- can accurately say in the Gospel of Thomas,

"He who will drink from My [the Logos speaking of Himself] mouth will become like Me. I [the Logos] myself shall become he [one man in purpose and will], and the things that are hidden [in the Spirit realm] will be revealed to him [mankind." [Gospel of Thomas 108 (in Robinson,The Nag Hammadi Library, 137)].

Generally speaking, the ancient gnostics primarily viewed Christ as an eternal, celestial power, the "Logos", with which it is possible to have an intimate, personal relation, since our higher consciousness is made in its image. For this reason, gnostics stressed the experiential union with the divine, and showed little interest in the historical Jesus, whom it has always been impossible to know in a concrete sense, or even accurately in a historical sense. Because of this, gnostic speculation has always possessed a very strong ahistorical, cosmological tendency and dimension, preferring to concentrate on the liberating realization of Christ within.

This realization, of which the mystics speak, is the secret of initiation, and was referred to by the early Christians in a number of ways. The Prologue to the Fourth Gospel makes it clear that those who "received" the "Logos" experienced a divinizing energy, thus "becoming Sons of God," a transformation also referred to in the Hermetic writings. Elsewhere in the Fourth Gospel, this is referred to in Greek as "the birth from above" (John. 3:3).

John 3:3 3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. (KJV)

Origen, in his work Against Celsus, states that those who follow the example of "the Sun of Righteousness," who sent forth His rays from Judaea, become not only followers of Christ, but Christs in their own right. An even more appealing analogy is offered by Clement, who writes that not even the sun can show us the true God. That is because:

The healthful Word or Reason, who is the Sun of the soul, alone can do that; through Him alone, when He has risen within in the depth of the mind, the soul's eye is illuminated (Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks 6 (Loeb Classical Library translation, 155).

THE LOGOS AS MEDIATOR

We mentioned earlier that the "Logos" is called the "mediator." One of the primary roles of the "Logos" in Greek thought is its function as celestial mediator, the "geometric mean" between extremes. That is why Jesus proclaims, in the Gospel of John when speaking of the Logos:, "I am the Way" and "I am the Door."

Jesus never meant to say as the Catholic Church would later fashion that only though accepted orthodox beliefs and religious doctrines ABOUT himself (Jesus), which were to be created later by Rome concerning him, was one to be "saved." As the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel states, "No one has at any time seen God." However, "The only-begotten Son (the Logos), who is in the bosom of the Father, he has revealed him." Jesus in his actions and words modeled the thoughts of God and applied them to his life as few did in his day. Jesus revealed the "Logos" through his surrendered life. Simply said Jesus imitated the God he knew as expressed to him through the Logos that dwelled within him. This did not make Jesus the same as God or God in the flesh in a literal sense but only in an allegorical or metaphorical sense as he lived "Godly" among his people.

We need do the same by observing the same Laws and Commandments as Jesus did (the Laws of Noah for the Gentile and the Laws of Moses for the Jewish people)

We need let the logos be expressed in our lives by surrendering to the will of God in our lives. Not only is the "Logos" the image and manifestation of the otherwise transcendent Source, but it is the connecting principle through which we are joined back to the One, and that is why Jesus is represented as the mediator between heaven and earth in Christian symbolism. Again not literally as we have come to believe in error, but as the expression of the Divine Logos among men as the ultimate example of a Godly life. To the degree we live and surrender to the will of God we like Jesus let the Logos, the manifestation of this transcendent Source, life in and through us. The Kingdom of God goes then where we go.

As Christianity evolved into a collective belief system, it developed a political structure and creeds, teaching that Jesus came and left at a particular point in time, and that it was only possible to achieve salvation by joining the ranks of the organized church. The Catholic Church taught that there was no salvation outside of the Bishop! At the same, it outlawed other forms of religious expression, and confiscated the property of prominent individuals who resisted conversion to the new faith. This of course guaranteed the success of Christianity. The church thereby proclaimed itself the official mediator between man and God, instead of the "Logos," thus usurping the original function of the indwelling Christ/ the "Logos". The Catholic Church now took the role of the Logos which God put in every man! However, according to the gnostic approach, the "Logos" is an ever-present celestial power, not limited by time, space, or political boundaries; nor to a single appearance only in one man as Christianity teaches concerning Jesus. It underlies the structure of the universe and consciousness, and, for those attuned to its nature, the "Logos" illuminates the inner recesses of the heart with eternal, spiritual knowledge. That is why Jesus, in the ancient Gospel of Thomas, can accurately say as speaking of the Logos: "It is I [the Logos] who am the light which is above them all. It is I [the Logos] who am the All. From Me [the Logos] did the All come forth, and unto Me {the Logos] did the All extend. Split a piece of wood and I am there."

Now you know the truth about the Logos.....which is only to be understood as allegory of the Divine Intelligence of the Creator that inhabits every man [Gospel of Thomas 77 (in Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Library, 135)]

Answer for yourself: Now; is Jesus to be understood as the literal Logos and equal with God or even God himself the way Christianity has taught it and the way you have been taught to read the Gospel of John concerning Jesus and the "Logos?" No way!