the Word

[scc11]

Can someone explain to me in plain English what the Word is?
I have been reading my catechism and from what I understand, the Word in the Bible is Jesus Christ. Is this correct? In the book of John it says “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”
Some help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[TimothyH]

“Word” (upper case) generally refers to Christ, the living Word of God.

“word” (lower case) generally refers to the written word of God, sacred scripture.

And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory, (John 1:14)

Jesus is God’s logos (word), God’s reason, self-image, and discourse, consubstantial (of one substance) with the Father, who existed with the Father as the Second Person of the Trinity before creation.

The LORD begot me, the beginning of his works,
the forerunner of his deeds of long ago;
From of old I was formed,
at the first, before the earth.
When there were no deeps I was brought forth,
when there were no fountains or springs of water;
Before the mountains were settled into place,
before the hills, I was brought forth;
When the earth and the fields were not yet made,
nor the first clods of the world.
When he established the heavens, there was I,
when he marked out the vault over the face of the deep;
When he made firm the skies above,
when he fixed fast the springs of the deep;
When he set for the sea its limit,
so that the waters should not transgress his command;
When he fixed the foundations of earth,
then was I beside him as artisan;
I was his delight day by day,
playing before him all the while,
Playing over the whole of his earth,
having my delight with human beings.
(Proverbs 8:22-31)

That same Second Person of the Trinity - God’s logos - became a man and walked among us.

What was from the beginning,
what we have heard,
what we have seen with our eyes,
what we looked upon
and touched with our hands
concerns the Word of life—
for the life was made visible;
we have seen it and testify to it
and proclaim to you the eternal life
that was with the Father and was made visible to us
(1 John 1:1-2)

The living logos of God, the living Word of God, is the second person of the Trinity made visible to us, Jesus Christ.

His teaching has been captured as part of the written word of God.

-Tim-

 

[M-Dent]

This may be helpful?

Right through his Gospel St John the Apostle lays special emphasis on our Lord’s divinity; his existence did not begin when he became man in Mary’s virginal womb: before that he existed in divine eternity as Word, one in substance with the Father and the Holy Spirit. This luminous truth helps us understand everything that Jesus says and does as reported in the Fourth Gospel.

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The sacred text calls the Son of God “the Word.” The following comparison may help us understand the notion of “Word”: just as a person becoming conscious of himself forms an image of himself in his mind, in the same way God the Father on knowing himself begets the eternal Word. This Word of God is singular, unique; no other can exist because in him is expressed the entire essence of God. Therefore, the Gospel does not call him simply “Word”, but “the Word.” Three truths are affirmed regarding the Word – that he is eternal, that he is distinct from the Father, and that he is God. ''Affirming that he existed in the beginning is equivalent to saying that he existed before all things"
(St Augustine, “De Trinitate”, 6, 2).​

There is no greater revelation God could make of himself than the incarnation of his eternal Word. As St John of the Cross puts it so well: “In giving to us, as he has done, his Son, who is his only Word, he has spoken to us once and for all by his own and only Word, and has nothing further to reveal”
(“Ascent of Mount Carmel”, Book II, chap. 22).

Navarre Bible Commentary