The Relationship of the Logos to the God

 "But for us, one God, the Father out of whom are all things and we are into Him, and one Owner, Yeshua, the Anointed through whom are all things and we are through Him." - 1 Corinthians 8:6

"Who is the image of the unseen God, firstborn of all the creation, that with Him was created all things within the skies and upon the land, the visible things and the invisible things, either thrones or dominions or first principles or authorities; all things were created through Him and into Him; and He is before all things and all things stood together with Him..." - Colossians 1:15-17

In Paul's writings we see a distinction, as in Stoic thought, between "the God and Father," and Jesus Christ. All of the ways in which Paul describes Jesus Christ in these two verses and elsewhere are almost word for word descriptions of the Logos from the Stoic authors where the God created the Logos first and brought about the rest of the creation with or by means of the Logos. While the Logos was identified with the God, a person in the first century would never have mistook the Logos for the God and Father, they being two related but different concepts. For the Logos to be called the "firstborn of all creation" is to imply that there was a point when the Logos was not, and the God was all there was. John explicitly calls Jesus Christ "the Logos" and says that the Logos incarnated. John, though explicitly explaining that Jesus Christ is in fact the Logos, also says that "no one has seen the God at any time" and that it is Jesus Christ as Logos, "that one of a kind Son who is at the breast of the Father explained Him fully."
     There is a great misunderstanding among modern American Christians in particular about the divinity of Jesus Christ because we are not taught and do not understand the first century Stoic concepts of the relationship between the God, the Logos, and the Pneuma which run all throughout the New Testament. No Christian in the first century would have said Jesus Christ is "the God and Father" because they understood the distinction or difference between the God and the Logos, of which every human being had a share. You didn't see anyone worshiping, that is performing rites of worship, to the Logos like they did to the God.
     This confusion really began not long after the Ecumenical Councils as the extent of the divinity of the Son came under question and was continuously reinforced in reaction to Arianism and Nestorianism. One way in which this can be seen is even in the two different versions of the Nicene Creed, the Orthodox version and the Catholic version with which western Christians are most familiar. In the Catholic version, two additions were made by a Spanish bishop that were later adopted by the rest of the western church through Charlamagne's influence, "God from God," and the famous "filioque" insertion in reference to the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father, that is, the addition of "and the Son."
     The Logos, born from the God and Father, was the instrument used through which all creation came to be. The Logos was next to the God, and the Logos was divine in nature. But there was never any confusion in the first century mind about the distinction between the Logos and the God and Father, or the different roles which were played by them. It was only after the Councils that you see this confusion begin to take root as they overreacted against dissenting opinions.