Like the rationality of the Logos of Philo that resides in all persons, the light of the Logos gives life to every person in John’s prologue. Also like the Logos in Philo, the Word in John is the agent of creation, the one who completes the creation. However, unlike the Logos in Philo there is no sense in the prologue of John that “the God” the father is unable to touch the material world or so far transcendent that he must use a mediator to communicate with it. The statement that all things came to be through him could be translated that “nothing happened without him.” What happened through him was life—both spiritual and physical. However, the notion that Christ is once again seen as the agent of creation seems to be expressed. The verb in verse 2 εγενετο (egeneto, from the infinitive γινομαι, ginomai) is used in the LXX to describe creation in Genesis 1, usually translated: “and it was so” just as God spoke it to be (Gen. 1:3, 6, 9, 15). Nevertheless, the verb used for “to create” in the LXX is not egeneto, but ποειω (poieo, the past tense imperfect form GK, epoiesen is always used). In other words, the Word of God is not the cause of creation but the completion of creation, the one who makes it so that it is what God spoke it to be. Again Brown notes that, since “the Word is related to the Father and the Word creates, the Father may be said to create through the Word.” (Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John I-XII, 26)
Blake T. Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought: Of Gods and
Gods (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2008), 170
