Swedenborgians interpret John 1:1 through the lens of Emanuel Swedenborg's spiritual theology and understand the Logos as divine truth and wisdom emanating from God. The phrase 'the Word was God' is read as affirming that divine truth is one with God, not as establishing the independent personhood of the second person of a Trinity.

Swedenborg taught a form of 'subordinationism' where Christ, while divine, is the manifestation of God's love and wisdom. The Logos is not a separate divine person coequal with the Father in the classical Trinitarian sense but rather the divine principle of truth and activity through which God acts and communicates. This interpretation distinguishes the Swedenborgian reading from both orthodox Trinitarianism and strict unitarianism.