How Jesus Is the Abbreviated Word of God

John 1:1-3 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made."

From Aleteia

By Philip Kosloski

In a certain sense, the entire Bible could be condensed and abbreviated by simply reciting the name of Jesus.

Often, when we send text messages or e-mails, we look for the most concise word that takes the least amount of time to write. Many times, we may even go further and abbreviate what we want to say, using letter combinations that convey precisely what we are trying to communicate.

God did exactly the same thing, using a single Word to summarise his entire being. That word was Jesus.

The abbreviated Word

Pope Benedict XVI explained this spiritual concept during a general audience in 2013:

Christianity, St. Bernard said, is the “religion of God’s word”; yet “not a written and mute word, but an incarnate and living” (Homilia Super Missus Est, 4, 11: pl 183, 86b). In the patristic and medieval tradition a special formula is used to express this reality: it says that Jesus is the Verbum abbreviatum (cf. Rom 9:28, with a reference to Is 10:23), the abbreviated Word, the short and essential Word of the Father who has told us all about him. In Jesus the whole Word is present.

Not only did God the Father speak a single Word, but that Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

This is the reason why the name of Jesus is so highly revered in Christianity and is in itself a prayer. It recalls the entirety of God's saving plan for humanity and reminds us of God's immense love for us.

Swedish Carmelite priest Fr. Wilfrid Stinissen further explains this concept in his book Nourished by the Word:

The incarnate Word has traditionally often been called Verbum abbreviatum, the abbreviated word. In him all the condensed words of the Bible are summarized...The Church Fathers happily cite Psalm 62:11: Semel locutus est Deus (God has spoken once). God speaks only a single word, the son, the Word which gives meaning to all the words which have been spoke about him. It is in him and only in him that everything becomes comprehensible.

Theologian Henri, Cardinal de Lubac goes even further in his assessment of Christianity, writing that, "Christianity, properly speaking, is in no way a 'religion of the Book': it is the religion of the Word – but not uniquely nor mainly of the Word in its written form. It is the religion of the Word, 'not of a word written and mute, but of an incarnate and living Word.'" 

God wanted to teach us more about himself and so he spoke a single Word, but that word did not remain static, it became flesh and dwelt among us.