Joh 1:1. Ἐν ἀρχῇ] John makes the beginning of his Gospel parallel with that of Genesis;[61] but he rises above the historical conception of בְּרֵאשִׁית, which (Gen 1:1) includes the beginning of time itself, to the absolute conception of anteriority to time: the creation is something subsequent, Joh 1:3. Pro 8:23, ἘΝ ἈΡΧῇ ΠΡῸ ΤΟῦ ΤῊΝ ΓῆΝ ΠΟΙῆΣΑΙ, is parallel; likewise, ΠΡῸ ΤΟῦ ΤῸΝ ΚΌΜΟΝ ΕἾΝΑΙ, Joh 17:5; ΠΡῸ ΚΑΤΑΒΟΛῆς ΚΌΣΜΟΥ, Eph 1:4. Comp. Nezach Israel, f. 48, 1 : Messias erat מפני חוהו (ante Tohu). The same idea we find already in the book of Enoch 48:3 f., 48:6 f., 62:7,-a book which (against Hilgenfeld and others) dates back into the second century B.C. (Dilm., Ewald, and others). The notion, in itself negative, of anteriority to time (ἄχρονος ἦν, ἀκίχητος, ἐν ἀῤῥήτῳ λόγος ἀρχῇ, Nonnus), is in a popular way affirmatively designated by the ἘΝ ἈΡΧῇ as “primeval;” the more exact dogmatic definition of the ἀρχή as “eternity” (Theodor. Mopsuest., Euthym. Zig.; comp. Theophylact) is a correct development of John’s meaning, but not strictly what he himself says. Comp. 1Jn 1:1; Rev 3:14. The Valentinian notion, that ἀρχή was a divine Hypostasis distinct from the Father and the ΛΌΓΟς (Iren. Haer. i. 8. 5), and the Patristic view, that it was the divine σοφία
[61] See Hoelemann, de evangelii Joh. introitu introitus Geneseos augustiore effigie, Leipsic 1855, p. 26 ff.
(Origen) or the everlasting Father (Cyril. Al.), rest upon speculations altogether unjustified by correct exegesis.[62]
ἦν] was present, existed. John writes historically, looking back from the later time of the incarnation of the λόγος (Joh 1:14). But he does not say, “In the beginning the ΛΌΓΟς came into existence,” for he does not conceive the generation (comp. μονογενής) according to the Arian view of creation, but according to that of Paul, Col 1:15.
Ὁ ΛΌΓΟς] the Word; for the reference to the history of the creation leaves room for no other meaning (therefore not Reason). John assumes that his readers understand the term, and, notwithstanding its great importance, regards every additional explanation of it as superfluous. Hence those interpretations fall of themselves to the ground, which are unhistorical, and imply anything of a quid pro quo, such as (1) that ὁ λόγος is the same as Ὁ ΛΕΓΌΜΕΝΟς, “the promised one” (Valla, Beza, Ernesti, Tittm., etc.); (2) that it stands for ὁ λέγων, “the speaker” (Storr, Eckerm., Justi, and others). Not less incorrect (3) is Hofmann’s interpretation (Schriftbeweis, I. 1, p. 109 f.): “ὁ λόγος is the word of God, the Gospel, the personal subject of which however, namely Christ, is here meant:” against which view it is decisive, first, that neither in Rev 19:13, nor elsewhere in the N. T., is Christ called ὁ λόγος merely as the subject-matter of the word; secondly, that in John, ὁ λόγος, without some additional definition, never once occurs as the designation of the Gospel, though it is often so used by Mark (Joh 2:2, Joh 4:14, al.), Luke (Joh 1:2; Act 11:19, al.), and Paul (Gal 6:6; 1Th 1:6); thirdly, that in the context, neither here (see especially Joh 1:14) nor in 1Jn 1:1 (see especially ὃ ἑωράκαμεν … καὶ αἱ χεῖρες ἡμῶν ἐψηλάφησαν) does it seem allowable to depart in Ὁ ΛΌΓΟς from the immediate designation of the personal subject,[63] while this immediate designation, i.e. of the creative Word, is in our passage, from the obvious parallelism with the history of the creation, as clear and definite as it was appropriate it should be at the very commencement of the work. These reasons also tell substantially against the turn which Luthardt has given to Hofmann’s explanation: “ὁ λόγος is the word of God, which in Christ, Heb 1:1, has gone forth into the world, and the theme of which was His own person.” See, on the other hand, Baur in the Theol. Jahrb. 1854, p. 206 ff.; Lechler, apost. u. nachapost. Zeit. p. 215; Gess, v. d. Person Chr. p. 116; Kahnis, Dogmat. I. p. 466. The investigation of the Logos idea can only lead to a true result when pursued by the path of history. But here, above all, history points us to the O. T.,[64] and most directly to Genesis 1, where the act of creation is effected by God speaking. The reality contained in this representation, anthropomorphic as to its form, of the revelation of Himself made in creation by God, who is in His own nature hidden, became the root of the Logos idea. The Word as creative, and embodying generally the divine will, is personified in Hebrew poetry (Psa 33:6; Psa 107:20; Psa 147:15; Isa 55:10-11); and consequent upon this concrete and independent representation, divine attributes are predicated of it (Psa 34:4; Isa 40:8; Psa 119:105), so far as it was at the same time the continuous revelation of God in law and prophecy. A way was thus paved for the hypostatizing of the λόγος as a further step in the knowledge of the relations in the divine essence; but this advance took place gradually, and only after the captivity, so that probably the oriental doctrine of emanations, and subsequently the Pythagorean-platonic philosophy, were not without influence upon what was already given in germ in Genesis 1. Another form of the conception, however, appears,-not the original one of the Word, but one which was connected with the advanced development of ethical and teleological reflection and the needs of the Theodicy,-that of wisdom (חָבְמָה), of which the creative word was an expression, and which in the book of Job (Job 28:12 ff.) and Proverbs (Proverbs 8, 9), in Sir 1:1-10; Sir 24:8, and Bar 3:37 to Bar 4:4, is still set forth and depicted under the form of a personification, yet to such a degree that the portrayal more closely approaches that of the Hypostasis, and all the more closely the less it is able to preserve the elevation and boldness characteristic of the ancient poetry. The actual transition of the ΣΟΦΊΑ into the Hypostasis occurs in the book of Wis 7:7-11, where wisdom (manifestly under the influence of the idea of the Platonic soul of the world, perhaps also of the Stoic conception of an all-pervading world-spirit) appears as a being of light proceeding essentially from God,-the true image of God, co-occupant of the divine throne,-a real and independent principle revealing God in the world (especially in Israel), and mediating between it and Him, after it has, as His organ, created the world, in association with a spirit among whose many predicates ΜΟΝΟΓΕΝΈς[65] also is named, Joh 7:22. The divine λόγος also appears again in the book of Wis 9:1, comp. Wis 9:2, but only in the O. T. sense of a poetically personified declaration of God’s will, either in blessing (Joh 16:12, comp. Psa 107:20) or in punishing (Joh 18:15). See especially Grimm, in locc.; Bruch, Weisheitslehre d. Hebr, p. 347 ff. Comp. also Sir 43:33. While, then, in the Apocrypha the Logos representation retires before the development of the idea of wisdom,[66] it makes itself the more distinctly prominent in the Chaldee Paraphrasts, especially Onkelos: see Gfrörer, Gesch. d. Urchristenth. I. 1, p. 301 ff.; Winer, De Onkel. p. 44 f.; Anger, De Onkel. II. 1846. The Targums, the peculiarities of which rest on older traditions, exhibit the Word of God, מֵימְרָא or דִּבּוּרָא, as the divinely revealing Hypostasis, identical with the שְׁבִינָה which was to be revealed in the Messiah. Comp. Schoettg. Hor. II. p. 5; Bertholdt, Christol. p. 121. Thus there runs through the whole of Judaism, and represented under various forms (comp. especially the מַלְאַךְ יְהֹוָה in the O. T. from Genesis 16, Exodus 23 downwards, frequently named, especially in Hosea, Zechariah, and Malachi, as the representative of the self-revealing God), the idea that God never reveals Himself directly, but mediately, that is, does not reveal His hidden invisible essence, but only a manifestation of Himself (comp. especially Exo 33:12-23); and this idea, modified however by Greek and particularly Platonic and Stoic speculation, became a main feature in the Judaeo-Alexandrine philosophy, as this is set forth in PHILO, one of the older contemporaries of Jesus. See especially Gfrörer, I. 243 ff.; Dähne, Jüdisch-Alex. Religionsphil. I. 114 ff.; Grossmann, Quaestion. Philon., Lpz. 1829; Scheffer, Quaest. Phil. Marb. 1829, 1831; Keferstein, Philo’s Lehre von dem göttl. Mittelwesen, Lpz. 1846; Ritter, Gesch. d. Philos. IV. 418 ff.; Zeller, Philos. d. Griechen, III. 2; Lutterb. neut. Lehrbegr. I. 418 ff.; Müller in Herzog’s Encykl. XI. 484; Ewald, apost. Zeit. 257; Delitzsch in d. Luther. Zeitschr. 1863, ii. 219; Riehm, Hebr. Brief, p. 249; Keim, Gesch. J.I. 212. Comp. also Langen, d. Judenth. z. Zeit Christi, 1867; Röhricht as formerly quoted. According to the intellectual development, so rich in its results, which Philo gave to the received Jewish doctrine of Wisdom, the Logos is the comprehension or sum-total of all the divine energies, so far as these are either hidden in the Godhead itself, or have come forth and been disseminated in the world (λόγος σπερματικός). As immanent in God, containing within itself the archetypal world, which is conceived as the real world-ideal (ΝΟΗΤῸς ΚΌΣΜΟς), it is, while not yet outwardly existing, like the immanent reason in men, the ΛΌΓΟς ἘΝΔΙΆΘΕΤΟς; but when in creating the world it has issued forth from God, it answers to the ΛΌΓΟς ΠΡΟΦΟΡΙΚΌς, just as among men the word when spoken is the manifestation of thought. Now the ΛΌΓΟς ΠΡΟΦΟΡΙΚΌς is the comprehension or sum-total of God’s active relations to the world; so that creation, providence, the communication of all physical and moral power and gifts, of all life, light, and wisdom from God, are its work, not being essentially different in its attributes and workings from ΣΟΦΊΑ and the Divine Spirit itself. Hence it is the image of the Godhead, the eldest and first-begotten (ΠΡΕΣΒΎΤΑΤΟς, ΠΡΩΤΌΓΟΝΟς) Son of God, the possessor of the entire divine fulness, the Mediator between 21 ΛΌΓΟς ΤΟΜΕΎς, ΔΗΜΙΟΥΡΓΌς, ἈΡΧΙΕΡΕΎς, ἹΚΈΤΗς, ΠΡΕΣΒΕΥΤΉς, the ἈΡΧΆΓΓΕΛΟς, the ΔΕΎΤΕΡΟς ΘΕΌς, the substratum of all Theophanies, also the Messiah, though ideally apprehended only as a Theophany, not as a concrete humanized personality; for an incarnation of the Logos is foreign to Philo’s system (see Ewald, p. 284 ff.; Dorner, Entwickelungsgesch. I. 50). There is no doubt that Philo has often designated and described the Logos as a Person, although, where he views it rather as immanent in God, he applies himself more to describe a power, and to present it as an attribute. There is, however, no real ground for inferring, with some (Keferst., Zeller), from this variation in his representation, that Philo’s opinion wavered between personality and impersonality; rather, as regards the question of subsistence in its bearing upon Philo’s Logos (see especially Dorner, Entwickelungsgesch. I. 21; Niedner, de subsistentia τῷ θείῳ λόγῳ apud Philon. tribute, in the Zeitsch. f. histor. Theol. 1849, p. 337 ff.; and Hölemann, de evang. Joh. introitu, etc., p. 39 ff.), must we attribute to him no separation between the subsistence of God and the Logos, as if there came forth a Person distinct from God, whenever the Logos is described as a Person; but, “ea duo, in quibus cernitur ΤΟῦ ὌΝΤΟς ΚΑῚ ΖῶΝΤΟς ΘΕΟῦ essentia s. deitas plenum esse per suam ipsius essentiam et implere cuncta hac sua essentia, primo diserte uni substantiae tribuuntur, deinde distribuuntur, sed tantum inter essentiam et hujus actionem, quemadmodum nomina ΤΟῦ ΘΕΟῦ et ΤΟῦ ΛΌΓΟΥ hujus ipsius dei” (Niedner). Accordingly, Philo’s conception of the Logos resolves itself into the sum-total and full exercise of the divine energies; so that God, so far as He reveals Himself, is called Logos, while the Logos, so far as he reveals God, is called God. That John owed his doctrine of the Logos-in which he represents the divine Messianic being as pre-existent, and entering into humanity in a human form-solely to the Alexandrine philosophy, is an assertion utterly arbitrary, especially considering the difference between Philo’s doctrine and that of John, not only in general (comp. also Godet, I. 233), but also in respect to the subsistence of the Logos in particular.[67] The form which John gave to his doctrine is understood much more naturally and historically thus, without by any means excluding the influence of the Alexandrine Gnosis upon the apostle;-that while the ancient popular wisdom of the Word of God, which (as we have above shown) carries us back to Gen 1:1, is acknowledged to be that through which the idea of the Logos, as manifested in human form in Christ, was immediately suggested to him, and to which he appended and unfolded his own peculiar development of this idea with all clearness and spiritual depth, according to the measure of those personal testimonies of his Lord which his memory vividly retained, he at the same time allowed the widespread Alexandrine speculations, so similar in their origin and theme, to have due influence upon him, and used[68] them in an independent manner to assist his exposition of the nature and working of the divine in Christ, fully conscious of their points of difference (among which must be reckoned the cosmological dualism of Philo, which excluded any real incarnation, and made God to have created the world out of the ὕλη). Whether he adopted these speculations for the first time while dwelling in Asia Minor, need not be determined, although it is in itself very conceivable that the longer he lived in Asia, the more deeply did he penetrate into the Alexandrine theologoumenon which prevailed there, without any intermediate agency on the part of Apollos being required for that end (Tobler). The doctrine is not, however, on account of this connection with speculations beyond the pale of Christendom, by any means to be traced back to a mere fancy of the day. The main truth in it (the idea of the Son of God and His incarnation) had, long before he gave it its peculiar form, been in John’s mind the sole foundation of his faith, and the highest object of his knowledge; and this was no less the case with Paul and all the other apostles, though they did not formally adopt the Logos doctrine, because their idiosyncrasies and the conditions of their after development were different. That main truth in it is to be referred simply to Christ Himself, whose communications to His disciples, and direct influence upon them (Joh 1:14), as well as His further revelations and leadings by means of the Spirit of truth, furnished them with the material which was afterwards made use of in their various modes of representation. This procedure is specially apparent also in John, whose doctrine of the divine and pre-existent nature of Christ, far removed from the influences of later Gnosticism, breaks away in essential points from the Alexandrine type of doctrine, and moulds itself in a different shape, especially rejecting, in the most decided manner, all dualistic and docetic elements, and in general treating the form once chosen with the independence of an apostle. That idea of a revelation by God of His own essence, which took its rise from Genesis 1, which lived and grew under various forms and names among the Hebrews and later Jews, but was moulded in a peculiar fashion by the Alexandrine philosophy, was adopted by John for the purpose of setting forth the abstract divinity of the Son,-thus bringing to light the reality which lies at the foundation of the Logos idea. Hence, according to John,[69] by ὁ λόγος, which is throughout viewed by him (as is clear from the entire Prologue down to Joh 1:18)[70] under the conception of a personal[71] subsistence, we must understand nothing else than the self-revelation of the divine essence, before all time immanent in God (comp. Paul, Col 1:15 ff.), but for the accomplishment of the act of creation proceeding hypostatically from Him, and ever after operating even in the spiritual world as a creating, quickening, and illuminating personal principle, equal to God Himself in nature and glory (comp. Paul, Php 2:6); which divine self-revelation appeared bodily in the man Jesus, and accomplished, the work of the redemption of the world. John fashions and determines his Gospel from beginning to end with this highest christological idea in his eye; this it is which constitutes the distinctive character of its doctrine. Comp. Weizsäcker, üb. d. evang. Gesch. pp. 241 ff., 297; also his Abh. über d. Joh. Logoslehre, in d. Jahrb. f. D. Th. 1862, pp. 619 ff., 701 f. The Synoptics contain the fragments and materials, the organic combination and ideal formation of which into one complete whole is the pre-eminent excellence of this last and highest Gospel. Paul has the Logos, only not in name.
The second and third ἦν is the copula; but καὶ ὁ λόγος, as the repetition of the great subject, has a solemnity about it.
πρὸς τὸν θεον] not simply equivalent to ΠΑΡᾺ Τῷ ΘΕῷ, Joh 7:5, but expressing, as in 1Jn 1:2, the existence of the Logos in God in respect of intercourse (Bernhardy, p. 265). So also in all other passages where it appears to mean simply with, Mar 6:3; Mar 9:19; Mat 13:56; Mat 26:55; 1Co 16:6-7; Gal 1:18; Gal 4:18; and in the texts cited in Fritzsche, ad Marc. p. 202.[72] Upon the thing itself, comp. concerning Wisdom, Pro 8:30, Wis 9:4. The moral essence of this essential fellowship is love (Joh 17:24; Col 1:13), with which, at the same time, any merely modalistic conception is excluded.
καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος] and the Logos was God. This θεός can only be the predicate, not the subject (as Röhricht takes it), which would contradict the preceding ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, because the conception of the ΛΌΓΟς would be only a periphrasis for God. The predicate is placed before the subject emphatically (comp. Joh 4:24), because the progress of the thought, “He was with God, and (not at all a Person of an inferior nature, but) possessed of a divine nature,” makes this latter-the new element to be introduced-the naturally and logically emphasized member of the new clause, on account of its relation to πρὸς ΤῸΝ ΘΕΌΝ.[73] The omission of the article was necessary, because ὁ θεός after the preceding ΠΡῸς ΤῸΝ ΘΕΌΝ would have assigned to the Logos identity of Person (as, in fact, Beyschlag, p. 162, construes θεός without the art.). But so long as the question of God’s self-mediation objectively remains out of consideration, Ὁ ΘΕΌς would have been out of place here, where ΠΡῸς ΤῸΝ ΘΕΌΝ had laid down the distinction of Person; whereas θεός without the article makes the unity of essence and nature to follow the distinction of Person.[74] As, therefore, by θεός without the article, John neither desires to indicate, on the, one hand, identity of Person with the Father; nor yet, on the other, any lower nature than that which God Himself possesses: so his doctrine of the Logos is definitely distinguished from that of Philo, which predicates ΘΕΌς without the article of the Logos in the sense of subordination in nature, nay, as he himself says, ἘΝ ΚΑΤΑΧΡΉΣΕΙ (I. 655, ed. Mang.); see Hoelemann, I. 1, p. 34. Moreover, the name Ὁ ΔΕΎΤΕΡΟς ΘΕΌς, which Philo gives to the Logos, must, according to II. 625 (Euseb. praep. ev. vii. 13), expressly designate an intermediate nature between God and man, after whose image God created man. This subordinationism, according to which the Logos is indeed μεθόριός τις θεοῦ φύσις, but ΤΟῦ ΜῈΝ ἘΛΆΤΤΩΝ, ἈΝΘΡΏΠΟΥ ΔῈ ΚΡΕΊΤΤΩΝ (I. 683), is not that of the N. T., which rather assumes (comp. Php 2:6, Col 1:15-16) the eternal unity of being of the Father and the Son, and places the subordination of the latter in His dependence on the Father, as it does the subordination of the Spirit in His dependence on the Father and the Son. ΘΕΌς, therefore, is not to be explained by help of Philo, nor is it to be converted into a general qualitative idea-“divine,” “God-like” (B. Crusius),-which deprives the expression of the precision which, especially considering the strict monotheism of the N. T. (in John, see in particular Joh 17:3), it must possess, owing to the conception of the personal Logos as a divine being. Comp. Schmid, bibl. Theol. II. 370. On Sam. Crell’s conjecture (Artemonii initium ev. Joh. ex antiquitate eccl. restitut. 1726) that θεοῦ is a mere anti-trinitarian invention, see Bengel, Appar. crit. p. 214 ff.
[62] Quite opposed to correct exegesis, although in a totally different direction, is the rendering of the Socinians (see Catech. Racov. p. 135, ed. Oeder), that ἐν ἀρχῇ signifies in initio evangelii.
[63] See, with reference to 1Jn 1:1 (in opposition to Beyschlag’s impersonal interpretation), besides Düsterdieck and Huther, Johansson, de aeterna Christi praeexist. sec. ev. Joh., Lundae 1866, p. 29 f.
[64] See Röhricht in the Stud. u. Krit. 1868, p. 299 ff.
[65] Comp. Joh 7:25, where it is said of wisdom, ἀπόῤῥοια τῆς τοῦ παντοκράτορος δόξης εἰλικρινής. Μονογενές should not have been rendered single (Bauerm., Lücke, Bruch, after the early writers), which it neither is nor is required to be by the merely formal contrast to πολυμερές. This idea single, as answering to the following πολυμερές, would have been expressed by μονομερές (Luc. Calumn. 6). Even Grimm (exeget. Handb. p. 152) has now rightly abandoned this interpretation.
[66] Wisdom as appearing in Christ is mentioned in N. T. also, in Luk 11:49, comp. Mat 11:19.
[67] It tells also against it, that in John the name λόγος is undoubtedly derived from the divine speaking (Word); in Philo, on the other hand, from the divine thinking (Reason). See Hoelemann as before, p. 43 ff.
[68] Comp. Delitzsch, l.c., and Psychol, p. 178 [E. T. pp. 210, 211]; Beyschlag, Christol d. N. T. p. 156; Keim, Gesch. J. I. p. 112 ff. If some attempt to deny the influence of the Judaeo-Alexandrine Gnosis on the Logos doctrine of John (Hoelemann, Weiss, J. Köstlin, Hengstenberg), they at the same time sever, though in the interests of apostolic dignity, its historical credibility from its connection with the circumstances of the time, as well as the necessary presumption of its intelligibility on the part of the readers of the Gospel. But it is exactly the noble simplicity and clearness of the Prologue which shows with what truly apostolic certainty John had experienced the influence of the speculations of his day, and was master of them, modifying, correcting, and utilizing them according to his own ideas. This is also in answer to Luthardt, p. 200, and Röhricht, l.c.
[69] In the Apocalypse also, chap. Joh 19:13, Christ is called the λόγος, but (not so in the Gospel) ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ. The writer of the Apocalypse speaks of the whole Person of the God-man in a different way from the evangelist,-in fact, as in His state of exaltation. (See Düsterdieck, z. Apok. Einl. p. 75 ff.) But the passage is important against all interpretations which depart from the metaphysical view of the Logos above referred to. Comp. Gess, v. d. Person Chr. p. 115 ff.
[70] Comp. Wörner, d. Verhältn. d. Geistes zum Sohne Gottes, 1862, p. 24; also Baur, neutest. Theol. 352; Godet, I.c.
[71] That is, the subsistence as a conscious intelligent Ego, endued with volition. Against the denial of this personal transcendency in John (De Wette, Beyschlag, and others), see in particular Köstlin, Lehrbegr. 90; Brückn. 7 f.; Liebner, Christol. 155 f.; Weiss, Lehrbegr. 242 f. When Dorner (Gesch. d. prot. Theol. 875 ff.) claims for the Son, indeed, a special divine mode of existence as His eternal characteristic, but at the same time denies Him any direct participation in the absolute divine personality, his limitation is exegetically opposed to the view of John and of the Apostle Paul.
[72] The expressions, in the language of the common people, in many districts are quite analogous: “he was with me,” “he stays with you” (bei mich, bei dioh), and the like. Comp. for the Greek, Krüger, § 68. 39. 4.-As against all impersonal conceptions of the Logos, observe it is never said ἐν τῷ θεῷ. Röhricht (p. 312), however, arrives at the meaning ἐν τῷ θεῷ, and by unwarrantably comparing the very different usage of πρός, takes exception to our explanation of πρὸς τὸν θεόν.
[73] There is something majestic in the way in which the description of the Logos, in the three brief but great propositions of ver. 1, is unfolded with increasing fulness.
[74] “The last clause, the Word was God, is against Arius; the other, the Word was with God, against Sabellius.”-LUTHER. See also Thomasius, Chr. Pers. u. Werk, I. 83 ff.
Joh 1:2 again emphatically combines the first and second clauses of Joh 1:1, in order to connect with them the work of creation, which was wrought by the λόγος.[75] In this way, however, the subject also of the third clause of Joh 1:1 is included in and expressed by οὗτος. On this οὗτος-to which, then, πάντα standing at the beginning of Joh 1:3 significantly corresponds-lies the emphasis in the continuation of the discourse. In Joh 1:2 is given the necessary premiss to Joh 1:3; for if it was this same Logos, and no other than He, who Himself was God, who lived in the beginning in fellowship with God, and consequently when creation began, the whole creation, nothing excepted, must have come into existence through Him. Thus it is assumed, as a self-evident middle term, that God created the world not immediately, but, according to Genesis 1, through the medium of the Word.
[75] Who accordingly now worked as λόγος προφορικός.
Joh 1:3. Πάντα] “grande verbum, quo mundus, i.e. universitas rerum factarum denotatur, Joh 1:10,” Bengel. Comp. Genesis 1; Col 1:16; Heb 1:2. Quite opposed to the context is the view of the Socinians: “the moral creation is meant.” Comp. rather Philo, de Cherub. I. 162, where the λόγος appears as the ὄργανον διʼ οὗ (comp. 1Co 8:6) κατεσκευάσθη (ὁκόσμος). The further speculations of Philo concerning the relation of the λόγος to the creation, which however are not to be imputed to John, see in Hoelemann, l.c. p. 36 ff. John might have written τὰ πάντα (with the article), as in 1Co 8:6 and Col 1:16, but he was not obliged to do so. Comp. Col 1:17, Joh 3:35. For his thought is “all” (unlimited), whereas τὰ πάντα would express “the whole of what actually exists.”
καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ, κ.τ.λ.] an emphatic parallelismus antitheticus, often occurring in the classics (Dissen, ad Dem, de Cor. p. 228; Maetzner, ad Antiph. p. 157), in the N. T. throughout, and especially in John (Joh 1:20; Joh 10:28; 1Jn 2:4; 1Jn 2:27, al.). We are not to suppose that by this negative reference John meant to exclude (so Lücke, Olshausen, De Wette, Frommann, Maier, Baeumlein) the doctrine of a ὕλη having an extra-temporal existence (Philo, l.c.), because ἐγένετο and γέγονεν describe that which exists only since the creation, as having come into existence, and therefore ὕλη would not be included in the conception. John neither held nor desired to oppose the idea of the ὕλη; the antithesis has no polemical design-not even of an anti-gnostic kind-to point out that the Logos is raised above the series of Aeons (Tholuck); for though the world of spirits is certainly included in the πάντα and the οὐδὲ ἕν, it is not specially designated (comp. Col 1:16). How the Valentinians had already referred it to the Aeons, see in Iren. Haer. i. 8. 5; Hilgenfeld, d. Ev. u. d. Briefe Joh. p. 32 ff.
οὐδὲ ἕν] ne unum quidem, i.e. prorsus nihil, more strongly emphatic than οὐδέν. Comp. 1Co 6:5; see Stallbaum, ad Plat. Sympos. p. 214 D; Kühner, ad Xen. Mem. i. 6. 2. As to the thing itself, comp. Philo, II. p. 225: διʼ οὗ σύμπας ὁ κόσμος ἐδημιουργεῖτο.
ὃ γέγονεν] Perfect: what has come into being, and now is. Comp. ἔκτισται, Col 1:16. This belongs to the emphatic fulness of the statement (Bornemann, Schol. in Luc. p. xxxvii.), and connects itself with what precedes. The very ancient connection of it with what follows (C. D. L. Verss., Clem. Al., Origen, and other Greeks, Heracleon, Ptolemaeus, Philos. Orig. v. 8, Latin Fathers, also Augustine, Wetst., Lachm., Weisse), by putting the comma after either γέγ. or αὐτῷ (so already the Valentinians),[76] is to be rejected, although it would harmonize with John’s manner of carrying forward the members of his sentences, whereby “ex proximo membro sumitur gradus sequentis” (Erasmus); but in other respects it would only be Johannean if the comma were placed after γέγ. (so also Lachm.). The ground of rejection lies not in the ambiguity of ζωή, which cannot surprise us in John, but in this, that the perfect γέγονεν, as implying continuance, would have logically required ἐστί instead of ἦν after ζωή; to ἦν not γέγονεν but ἐγένετο would have been appropriate, so that the sense would have been: “what came into existence had in Him its ground or source of life.”
[76] “Whatever originated in Him (self) is life.” The latter is said to be the Zoë, which with the Logos formed one Syzygy. Hilgenfeld regards this view as correct, in connection with the assumption of the later Gnostic origin of the Gospel. But the construction is false as regards the words, because neither ἐστί nor ἐγένετο stands in the passage; and false also as regards the thought, because, according to vv. 1-3, a principle of life cannot have first originated in the Logos, but must have existed from the very beginning. Even Bunsen (Hypol. II. 291, 357) erroneously preferred the punctuation of the Alexandrines and Gnostics.
Joh 1:4. An advance to the nature of the Logos[77] as life, and thereby as light.
ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν] in Him, was life, He was πηγὴ ζωῆς (Philo). Life was that which existed in Him, of which He was full. This must be taken in the most comprehensive sense, nothing that is life being excluded, physical, moral, eternal life (so already Chrysostom),-all life was contained in the Logos, as in its principle and source. No limitation of the conception, especially as ζωή is without the article (comp. Joh 5:26), has any warrant from the context; hence it is not to be understood either merely of physical life, so far as it may be the sustaining power (B. Crusius, comp. Chrysostom, Euthymius Zigabenus, Calvin), or of spiritual and eternal life,-of the Johannean ζωὴ αἰώνιος (Origen, Maldonatus, Lampe, Kuinoel, Köstlin, Hengstenberg, Weiss), where Hengstenberg drags in the negative notion that the creature was excluded from life until Christ was manifested in the flesh, and that down to the time of His incarnation He had only been virtually life and light.
καὶ ἡ ζωὴ, κ.τ.λ.] and the life, of which the Logos was the possessor, was the light of men. The exposition then passes over from the universal to the relation of the Logos to mankind; for, being Himself the universal source of life to the world made by Him, He was as such unable to remain inactive, least of all with respect to men, but shows Himself as operating upon them conformably to their rational and moral nature, especially as the light, according to the necessary connection of life and light in opposition to death and darkness. (Comp. Joh 8:12; Psa 36:10; Eph 5:14; Luk 1:78-79.) The light is truth pure and divine, theoretical and moral (both combined by an inner necessity, and not simply the former, as Weiss maintains), the reception and appropriation of which enlightens the man (υἱὸς φωτός, Joh 12:36), whose non-appropriation and non-acceptance into the consciousness determines the condition of darkness. The Life was the Light of men, because in its working upon them it was the necessary determining power of their illumination. Comp. such expressions as those in Joh 11:25, Joh 14:6, Joh 17:3. Nothing as yet is said of the working of the Logos after His incarnation (Joh 14:6), but (observe the ἦν) that the divine truth in that primeval time came to man from the Logos as the source of life; life in Him was for mankind the actively communicating principle of the divine ἀλήθεια, in the possession of which they lived in that fair morning of creation, before through sin darkness had broken in upon them. This reference to the time when man, created after God’s image, remained in a state of innocency, is necessarily required by the ἦν, which, like the preceding ἦν, must refer to the creation-period indicated in Joh 1:3. But we are thus at the same time debarred from understanding, as here belonging to the enlightening action of the Logos, God’s revelations to the Hebrews and later Jews (comp. Isa 2:5), by the prophets, etc. (Ewald), or even from thinking of the elements of moral and religious truth to be found in heathendom (λόγος σπερματικός). In that fresh, untroubled primeval age, when the Logos as the source of life was the Light of men, the antithesis of light and darkness did not yet exist; this tragic antithesis, however, as John’s readers knew, originated with the fall, and had continued ever after. There follows, therefore, after a fond recalling of that fair bygone time (Joh 1:4), the painful and mournful declaration of the later and still enduring relation (Joh 1:5), where the light still shines indeed, but in darkness,-a darkness which had not received it. If that reference, however, which is to be kept closely in view, of ἦν to the time of the world’s creation, and also this representation of the onward movement of our narrative, be correct, it cannot also be explained of the continuous (Joh 1:17) creative activity of the Logos, through which a consciousness and recognition of the highest truth have been developed among men (De Wette); and just as little may we find in τὸ φῶς τ. ἀνθρ. what belongs to the Logos in His essence only, in which case the reading ἐστί would (against Brückner) be more appropriate; comp. φωτίζει, Joh 1:9. As in ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν, so also by ἦν τὸ φῶς τ. ἀνθρ. must be expressed what the Logos was in His historical activity, and not merely what He was virtually (Hengstenberg). Comp. Godet, who, however, without any hint from the text, or any historical appropriateness whatever, finds in “life and light” a reminiscence of the trees of life and of knowledge in Paradise.
[77] The Logos must necessarily be taken as in vv. 1-3, but not from ver. 4 onwards in Hofmann’s sense, as no longer a person but a thing, viz. the Gospel, as Röhricht (p. 315) maintains, as if the verbum vocale were now a designation of Christ, who is the bearer of it. No such change of meaning is indicated in the text, and it only brings confusion into the clear advance of the thought.
Joh 1:5. Relation of the light to the darkness.
καὶ τὸ φῶς] and the light shineth;[78] not “and thus, as the light, the Logos shineth” (Lücke). The discourse steadily progresses link by link, so that the preceding predicate becomes the subject.
φαίνει] Present, i.e. uninterruptedly from the beginning until now; it embraces, therefore, the illuminating activity of the λόγος ἄσαρκος[79] and ἔνσαρκος. As it is arbitrary to supply the idea of “still present” (Weiss), so also is its limitation to the revelations by the prophets of the O. T., which would make φαίνει merely the descriptive praesens historicum (De Wette). For the assumption of this, however, in connection with pure preterites there is no warrant; comp. rather φωτίζωι, Joh 1:9. According to Ewald, Jahrb. V. 194 (see his Johann. Schr. I. 121), φαίνει represents as present the time in which the Light, which since the creation had enlightened men only from afar, had now suddenly come down into the world, which without it is darkness, and was shining in the midst of this darkness. An antithetic relation is thus assumed (“only from afar,-but now suddenly in the midst”) which has no support in the present tense alone, without some more distinct intimation in the text. The stress, moreover, is not on φαίνει, but the (tragic) emphasis is laid on the ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ, which with this object precedes it. It is the continuation of the discourse, Joh 1:7 ff., which first leads specially to the action of the Incarnate One (this also against Hengstenb.).
The σκοτία is the negation and opposite of the φῶς, the condition and order of things in which man does not possess the divine ἀλήθεια, but has become the prey of folly, falsehood, and sin, as a godless ruling power, with all its misery. Here the abstract term “darkness,” as the element in which the light shines, denotes not the individual subject of darkness (Eph 5:8), but, as the context requires, that same totality which had been previously described by τῶν ἀνθρώπων, consequently mankind in general, in so far as in and for themselves they have since the fall been destitute of divine truth, and have become corrupt in understanding and will. Melancthon well says, “genus humanum oppressum peccato vocat tenebras.” Frommann is altogether mistaken in holding that σκοτία differs in the two clauses, and means (1) humanity so far as it yet lay beyond the influence of the light, and (2) humanity so far as it was opposed thereto. But Hilgenfeld is likewise in error, when, out of a different circle of ideas, he imports the notion that “light and darkness are primeval opposites, which did not first originate with the fall;” see on Joh 8:44.
οὐ κατέλαβεν] apprehended it not, look not possession of it; it was not appropriated by the darkness, so that thereby the latter might have become light, but remained aloof and alien to it. Comp. Php 3:12-13, 1Co 9:24, and especially Rom 9:30; also expressions like καταλαμβ. σοφίαν, Sir 15:1; Sir 15:7. The explanation apprehended, i.e. ἔγνω, Joh 1:10 (Eph 3:18; Act 10:34; Act 4:13; Plato, Phaedr. p. 250 D; Phil. p. 16 D; Polyb. viii. 4. 6), is on one side arbitrarily narrowing, on another anticipatory, since it foists in the individual subjects of the σκοτία, which is conceived of as a realm. It is erroneous to interpret, as Origen, Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, Bos., Schulthess, Hoelemann, p. 60, also Lange: “The darkness did not hem it in, oppress it; it was invincible before it.” Linguistically this is allowable (see Schweighaüser, Lex. Herod. II. p. 18), but it nowhere so occurs in the N. T., and is here opposed to the parallels, Joh 1:10-11.
Observe that οὐ κατέλαβεν, which presupposes no Gnostic absolutism, but freedom of moral self-determination (comp. Joh 1:11-12), reflects the phenomenon as a whole, and indeed as it presented itself to John in history and experience; hence the aorist. Comp. Joh 3:19.
[78] φαίνει, lucet, not interchangeable with φαίνεται, which means apparet. See on Php 2:15. Godet’s criticism of the distinction is erroneous.
[79] Godet thinks that the law written in the heart, the light of conscience, is meant (Rom 2:14), which the Logos makes use of; and this His relation to all mankind is essential and permanent. But this would be utterly inadequate to the fulness of meaning expressed by φῶς, especially in its antithesis to σκοτία. The φῶς shines as divine light before Christ (by revelation and prophecy), and after Him. It is supernatural, heavenly. Comp. 1Jn 2:8. There is no mention here of the λόγος σπερματικός.
Joh 1:6. In the painful antithesis of Joh 1:5 which pervades the entire Gospel, was included not merely the pre-human relation of the Logos to mankind, but His relation thereto after His incarnation likewise (see on φαίνει). This latter is now more minutely unfolded as far as Joh 1:11, and indeed in such a way that John, to strengthen the antithesis, adduces first the testimony of the Baptist (Joh 1:6-8) to the Light, on the ground of which he then designates the Logos as the true Light (Joh 1:9); and finally, thus prefaced, makes the antithesis (Joh 1:10-11) follow with all the more tragic effect. The mention of John’s testimony here in the Prologue is not therefore a mere confirmation of the reality of the appearance of the Logos (Brückner), which the statements of Joh 1:9-10 did not require; still less is it a pressing forwards of the thought to the beginning of the Gospel history (De Wette), nor even the representation of the idea of the first intervention in the antithesis between light and darkness (Baur), nor “an illustrious exception” (Ewald) to the preceding ἡ σκοτία, κ.τ.λ.; but introducing a new paragraph, and therefore beginning without a particle, it forms a historical preparation, answering to what was actually the fact, for that non-recognition and rejection (Joh 1:10-11) which, in spite of that testimony of the Baptist, the light shining in the darkness had experienced. Joh 1:15 stands to Joh 1:7 in the relation of a particular definite statement to the general testimony of which it is a part.
ἐγένετο] not there was (ἦν, Joh 3:1), but denoting the appearing, the historical manifestation. See on Mar 1:4; Luk 1:5; Php 2:7. Hence not with Chrys.: ἐγένετο ἀπεσταλμένος ἀντὶ τοῦ ἀπεστάλη; which Hengstenberg repeats.
Observe in what follows the noble simplicity of the narrative: we need not look out for any antithetical reference (ἐγένετο
ἄνθρωπος
ἀπεστ. π. θεοῦ) to Joh 1:1 (B. Crusius, Luthardt, and older expositors). With ἀπεσταλμ. π. θεοῦ, comp. Joh 3:28; Mal 3:1-3. Description of the true prophet; comp. also Luk 3:2-3.
Joh 1:7. Εἰς μαρτυρίαν] to bear witness; for John testified what had been prophetically made known to him by divine revelation respecting the Light which had come in human form. Comp. Joh 1:33.
ἵνα πάντες, κ.τ.λ.] Purpose of the μαρτυρήσῃ, final end of the ἦλθεν.
πιστεύσ.] i.e. in the light; comp. Joh 1:8-9; Joh 12:36.
διʼ αὐτοῦ] by means of John, so far as he by his witness-bearing was the medium of producing faith: “and thus John is a servant and guide to the Light, which is Christ” (Luther); not by means of the light (Grotius, Lampe, Semler), for here it is not faith in God (1Pe 1:21) that is spoken of.
Joh 1:8. ἦν is emphatic, and is therefore placed in the front: he was not the Light, but he was to bear witness of the Light; and hence, in the second clause, μαρτυρήσῃ emphatically takes the lead. The object of making this antithesis prominent is not controversy, nor has it the slightest reference to the disciples of John (see the Introduction), but to point out[80] the true position of the Baptist in face of the historical fact, that when he first appeared, men took him for the Messiah Himself (comp. Joh 1:20; Luk 3:15), so that his witnessshall appear in its proper historical aspect. Comp. Cyril.
ἀλλʼ ἵνα, κ.τ.λ.] From what precedes, we must understand ἦλθεν before ἵνα; a rapid hastening away to the main thought (comp. Joh 9:3, Joh 13:18, Joh 15:25; 1Jn 2:19; Fritzsche, ad Matt. 840 f.; Winer, p. 297 [E. T. p. 398]); not imperative (De Wette), nor dependent upon ἦν (Lücke, Lange, Godet): not the latter, because εἶναι, ἵνα (instead of εἰς τό), even if it were linguistically possible, is here untenable on account of the emphasis placed upon the ἦν; while to take ἦν in the sense of aderat, as again understood before ἵνα (Godet), would be more forced and arbitrary than to supply ἦλθεν from Joh 1:7.
[80] Not: to bring more fully to light the greatness of Christ, through the subordination to Him of the greatest men and prophets, as Hengstenb. asserts. In this case John ought to have been described according to his own greatness and rank, and not simply as in ver. 6.
Joh 1:9. For the correct apprehension of this verse, we must observe, (1) that ἦν has the main emphasis, and therefore is placed at the beginning: (2) that τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθ. cannot be the predicate, but must be the subject, because in Joh 1:8 another was the subject; consequently without a τοῦτο, or some such word, there are no grounds for supposing a subject not expressed: (3) that ἐρχόμ. εἰς τὸν κόσμον (with Origen, Syr., Copt., Euseb., Chrys., Cyril., Epiph., Nonnus, Theophyl., Euth. Zig., It., Vulg., Augustine, Erasmus, Luther, Beza, Calvin, Aret., and most of the early expositors[81]) can only be connected with πάντα ἄνθρωπον, not with ἦν; because when John was bearing witness the Logos was already in the world (Joh 1:26), not simply then came into the world, or was about to come, or had to come. We should thus be obliged arbitrarily to restrict ἐρχ. εἰς τ. κόσμ. to His entrance upon His public ministry, as Grotius already did (from whom Calovius differs), and because the order of the words does not suggest the connecting of ἦν with ἐρχόμ.; rather would the prominence given to ἦν, and its wide separation from ἐρχόμ., be without any reason. Hence the connection by the early church of ἐρχόμ. with π. ἄνθρ. is by no means to be regarded, with Hilgenfeld, as obsolete, but is to be retained,-to be explained, however, thus: “The true Light was existing, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world”. This, together with the following ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἦν onwards to ἐγένετο, serves, by preparing the way, to strengthen the portentous and melancholy antithesis, καὶ ὁ κόσμ. αὐτὸν οὐκ ἔγνω. The usual objection that ἐρχόμ. εἰς τ. κ., when referred to πάντα ἄνθρ., is a superfluous by-clause, is inept. There is such a thing as a solemn redundance, and that we have here, an epic fulness of words. Hence we must reject (1) the usual interpretation by the older writers (before Grotius), with whom even Kaeuffer sides: “He (or even that, namely to τὸ φῶς) was the true Light which lighteth all men who come into this world” (Luther), against which we have already remarked under (1) and (2) above; again, (2) the construction which connects ἐρχόμ. with φῶς as an accompanying definition (so probably Theod. Mopsu.; some in Augustine, de pecc. mer. et rem. i. 25; Castalio, Vatablus, Grotius; Schott, Opusc. I. p. 14; Maier): “He was the true Light, which was at that time to come into the world;”[82] also, (3) the connecting of ἦν with ἐρχόμενον, so as to interpret it either in a purely historical sense (Bleek, Köstlin, B. Crusius, Lange, Hengstenberg: “He came”, with reference to Mal 3:1; and so already Bengel); or relatively, as De Wette, Lücke: “when John had appeared to bear witness of Him, even then came the true Light into the world,” comp. Hauff in the Stud. u. Krit. 1846, p. 575; or as future, of Him who was soon to appear: venturum erat (Rinck, Tholuck), according to Luthardt (comp. Baeuml.): “it had been determined of God that He should come;” or more exactly, of an unfulfilled state of things, still present at that present time: “It was coming” (Hilgenfeld, Lehrbegr. p. 51[83]); and according to Ewald, who attaches it to Joh 1:4-5 : “It was at that time always coming into the world, so that every human being, if he had so wished, might have let himself be guided by Him;” comp. Keim: “He was continually coming into the world.” As to details, we have further to remark: ἦν] aderat, as in Joh 7:39 and often; its more minute definition follows in Joh 1:10 : ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἦν. The Light was already there (in Jesus) when John bore witness of Him, Joh 1:26. The reference of Joh 1:9-13 to the working of the Logos before His incarnation (Tholuck, Olshausen, Baur, also Lange, Leben J. III. p. 1806 ff.) entirely breaks down before Joh 1:11-13, as well as before the comparison of the Baptist with the Logos, which presupposes the personal manifestation of the latter (comp. also Joh 1:15); and therefore Baur erroneously denies that there is any distinction made in the Prologue between the working of the Logos before Christ and in Christ. Comp. Bleek in the Stud u. Krit. 1833, p. 414 ff.
τὸ ἀληθινόν] Because it was neither John nor any other, but the true, genuine, archetypal Light, which corresponds to the idea-the idea of the light realized.[84] Comp. Joh 4:23; Joh 4:37, Joh 6:32, Joh 7:28, Joh 15:1. See, generally, Schott, Opusc. I. p. 7 ff.; Frommann, Lehrbegr. p. 130 ff.; Kluge in the Jahrb. f. D. Th. 1866, p. 333 ff.; also Hoelemann, l.c., p. 63, who, however, supposes an antithesis, which is without any support from the connection, to the cosmic light (Genesis 1).
ὁ φωτίζει πάντα ἄνθρ.] a characteristic of the true light; it illumines every one. This remains true, even though, as a matter of fact, the illumination is not received by many (see on Rom 2:4), so that every one does not really become what he could become, a child of light, φῶς ἐν κυρίῳ, Eph 5:8. The relation, as a matter of experience, resolves itself into this: “quisquis illuminatur, ab hac luce illuminatur,” Bengel; comp. Luthardt. It is not this, however, that is expressed, but the essential relation as it exists on the part of the Logos.[85] Bengel well says: “numerus singularis magnam hic vim habet.” Comp. Col 1:15; Rom 3:4.
ἐρχόμενον εἰς τ. κόσμον] every man coming into the world; rightly without the article; comp. 2Jn 1:7. The addition of the predicative clause gives emphatic prominence to the conception of πάντα. There is no need to compare it with the Rabbinic בּוֹא בְעוֹלָם (see Lightfoot and Schoettgen). Comp. Joh 16:21, and see on Joh 18:37.
[81] So of late Paulus also, and Klee, Kaeuffer in the Sächs. Stud. 1844, p. 116, Hoelemann, and Godet.
[82] The interpretation of Schoettgen, Semler, Morus, Rosenmüller, as if instead of ἐρχόμ. we had ἦλθεν, is quite erroneous. Luther’s explanation down to 1527 was better: “through His advent into this world.”
[83] That is, during the time before His baptism; the man Jesus (according to the Valentinian Gnosis) did not become the organ of the Logos until His baptism, and accordingly through that rite the Logos first came into the world. The birth of Jesus was only introductory to that coming. Brückner, while rejecting this importation of Gnosticism, agrees in other respects with Hilgenfeld.-Philippi (der Eingang d. Joh. Ev. p. 89): “He was to come, according to the promises of the O. T.;” and ver. 10 : “These promises had now received their fulfilment.”
[84] In the classics, see Plato, Pol. i. p. 347 D (τῷ ὄντι ἀληθινός), vi. p. 499 C; Xen. Anab. i. 9. 17; Oec. x. 3; Dem. 113. 27, 1248. 22; Theocrit. 16 (Anthol.); Pindar, Ol. ii. 201; Polyb. i. 6. 6, et al. Rück., Abendm. p. 266, erroneously says, “the word seldom occurs in the classics.” It is especially common in Plato, and among later writers in Polybius.
[85] Luther: “Of what avail is it that the clear sun shines and lightens, if I shut my eyes and will not see his light, or creep away from it beneath the earth?” Comp. also Delitzsch, Psychol. p. 348 [E. T. p. 410].
Joh 1:10. What here follows is linked on to the preceding by ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἦν, following upon εἰς τ. κόσμ. This is a fuller definition of the emphatic ἦν of Joh 1:9 : “It was in the world”, viz. in the person of Jesus, when John was bearing witness. There is no mention here of its continual presence in humanity (B. Crusius, Lange), nor of the “lumière innée” (Godet) of every man; see on Joh 1:5. The repetition of κόσμος three times, where, on the last occasion, the word has the narrower sense of the world of mankind, gives prominence to the mournful antithesis; Buttm. neut. Gr. p. 341 [E. T. p. 398].
ἦν] not pluperfect (“It had been already always in the world, but was not recognised by it”), as Herder, Tholuck, Olshausen, and Klee maintain, but like ἦν in Joh 1:9.
καὶ ὁ κόσμος διʼ αὐτοῦ ἐγέν.] Further preparation, by way of climax, for the antithesis with reference to Joh 1:3. If the Light was in the world, and the world was made by it, the latter could and ought all the more to have recognised the former: it could, because it needed only not to close the inner eye against the Light, and to follow the impulse of its original necessary moral affinity with the creative Light; it ought, because the Light, shining within the world, and having even given existence to the world, could demand that recognition, the non-bestowal of which was ingratitude, originating in culpable delusion and moral obduracy. Comp. Rom 1:19 ff. We need not attach to the καί, which is simply conjunctive, either the signification although (Kuinoel, Schott), nor the force of the relative (which was made by it, Bleek).
αὐτόν] the Logos, which is identified with the Light, which is being spoken of as its possessor, according to Joh 1:4 ff.; αὐτοῦ was still neuter, but the antithesis passes over into the masculine, because the object which was not recognised was this very personal manifestation of the Logos.
With regard to the last καί, observe: “cum vi pronuntiandum est, ut saepe in sententiis oppositionem continentibus, ubi frustra fuere qui καίτοι requirerent,” Stallbaum, ad Plat. Apol. p. 29 B. Comp. Hartung, Partikell. p. 147. Very often in John.
Joh 1:11. More particular statement of the contrast. Observe the gradual ascent to still greater definiteness: ἦν, Joh 1:9; ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ἦν, Joh 1:10; εἰς τὰ ἴδια ἦλθε. Joh 1:11.
εἰς τὰ ἴδια] to His own possession, is, with Erasmus, Luther, Beza, Calvin, Bengel, Lampe, and many expositors, also Lücke, Tholuck, Bleek, Olshausen, De Wette, B. Crusius, Maier, Frommann, Köstlin, Hilgenfeld, Luthardt, Ewald, Hengstenberg, Godet, and most interpreters, to be explained of the Jewish people as specially belonging to the Messiah (Sir 24:7 ff.), as they are called in Exo 19:5, Deu 7:6, Psa 135:4, Isa 31:9, Jehovah’s possession; from Israel salvation was to spread over all the world (Joh 4:22; Mat 8:12; Rom 1:16). This interpretation is required by the onward progress of the discourse, which by the use of ἦλθε excludes any reference to the world. (Corn. a Lapide, Kuinoel, Schott, Reuss, Keim), as was proposed along with this by Chrysostom, Ammonius, Theophylact, Euth. Zig., and conjoined with it by Augustine and many others. “He was in the world;” and now follows His historical advent, “He came to His own possession.” Therefore the sympathy of God’s people, who were His own people, should have led them to reach out the hand to Him.
οἱ ἴδιοι] the Jews. παρέλαβον] they received Him not, i.e. not as Him to whom they peculiarly belonged. Comp. Mat 1:20; Mat 24:40-41; Herod, i. 154, vii. 106; Plato, Soph. p. 218 B. Observe that the special guilt of Israel appears still greater (οὐ παρέλαβον, they despised Him) than the general guilt of mankind (οὐκ ἔγνω). Comp. the οὐκ ἠθελήσατε of Mat 23:37; Rom 10:21. In the negative form of expression (Joh 1:10-11) we trace a deeply elegiac and mournful strain.
Joh 1:12. The mass of the Jews rejected Him, but still not all of them. Hence, in this fuller description of the relation of the manifested Logos to the world, the refreshing light is now (it is otherwise in Joh 1:5) joyfully recognised and placed over against the shadow.
ἔλαβον] He came, they received Him, did not reject Him. Comp. Joh 5:43; Soph. Phil. 667, ἰδών τε καὶ λαβὼν φίλον.
The nominative ὅσοι is emphatic, and continues independent of the construction that follows. See on Mat 7:24; Mat 10:14; Mat 13:12; Mat 23:16; Act 7:40.
ἐξονσίαν] neither dignity, nor advantage (Erasmus, Beza, Flacius, Rosenmüller, Semler, Kuinoel, Schott), nor even possibility (De Wette, Tholuck), nor capability (Hengstenberg, Brückner), fully comes up to the force of the word,[86] but He gave them full power (comp. Joh 5:27, Joh 17:2). The rejection of the Logos when He came in person, excluded from the attainment of that sacred condition of fitness-received through Him-for entering into the relationship of children of God, they only who received Him in faith obtained through Him this warrant, this title (ἐπιτροπὴ νόμου, Plato, Defin. p. 415 B). It is, however, an arrangement in the gracious decree of God; neither a claim of right on man’s part, nor any internal ability (Lücke, who compares 1Jn 5:20; also Lange),-a meaning which is not in the word itself, nor even in the connection, since the commencement of that filial relationship, which is the consummation of that highest theocratic ἐξουσία, is conceived as a being born, Joh 1:13, and therefore as passive (against B. Crusius).
τέκνα θεοῦ] Christ alone is the Son of God, manifested as such from His birth, the μονογενής. Believers, from their knowledge of God in Christ (Joh 17:3), become children of God, by being born of God (comp. Joh 3:3; 1Jn 3:9), i.e. through the moral transformation and renewal of their entire spiritual nature by the Holy Ghost; so that now the divine element of life rules in them, excludes all that is ungodly, and permanently determines the development of this moral fellowship of nature with God, onwards to its future glorious consummation (1Jn 3:2; Joh 17:24). See also 1Jn 3:9 and 1Pe 1:23. It is thus that John represents the idea of filial relationship to God, for which he always uses τέκνα from the point of view of a spiritual genesis;[87] while Paul apprehends it from the legal side (as adoption, Rom 8:15; Gal 4:5), regarding the spiritual renewal connected therewith (regeneration), the καινότης ζωῆς (Rom 6:4), as a new creation (2Co 5:17; Gal 6:15), a moral resurrection (Romans 6), and the like; while the Synoptics (comp. also Rom 8:23) make the υἱοθεσία appear as first commencing with the kingdom of the Messiah (see on Mat 5:9; Mat 5:45; Luk 6:35), as conditioned, however, by the moral character. There is no difference as to the thing itself, only in the manner of apprehending its various sides and stages.
τοῖς πιστεύουσιν, κ.τ.λ.] quippe qui credunt, is conceived as assigning the reason; for it is as believers that they have fulfilled the subjective condition of arriving at sonship, not only negatively, since they are no longer under the wrath of God and the condemnation of the law (Joh 3:36; Joh 3:16-17, Joh 5:45), but also positively, inasmuch as they now possess a capacity and susceptibility for the operation of the Spirit (Joh 7:38-39). John does not say πιστεύσασιν, but πιστεύουσιν, for the faith, the entrance of which brought about the ἔλαβον, is thenceforth their enduring habitus.
εἰς τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ] not essentially different from εἰς αὐτόν, but characterizing it more fully; for the entire subject-matter of faith lies in the name of the person on whom we believe; the uttered name contains the whole confession of faith. Comp. Joh 2:23, Joh 3:18, 1Jn 3:23; 1Jn 5:13. The name itself, moreover, is no other than that of the historically manifested Logos
Jesus Christ, as is self-evident to the consciousness of the reader. Comp. Joh 1:17; 1Jn 5:1; 1Jn 2:22.
[86] Comp. Godet: “il les a mis en position.”
[87] Hilgenfeld, indeed, will have it that those spoken of are already regarded as originally τέκνα θεοῦ (comp. Joh 3:6, Joh 8:44, Joh 11:52), and attempts to escape the dilemma into which γενέσθαι brings him, by help of the interpretation: “the power by which the man who is born of God realizes this, and actually becomes what he is in himself according to his nature!” Thus we should have here the Gnostic semen arcanum electorum et spiritualium. See Hilgenfeld, Evangelien, p. 233. The reproach of tautology which he also brings against the ordinary explanation (in his Zeitschr. 1863, p. 110) is quite futile. The great conception of the τέκνα θεοῦ, which appears here for the first time, was in John’s eye important enough to be accompanied by a more detailed elucidation. Generally, against the anthropological dualism discovered in John by Hilgenfeld (also by Scholten), see Weiss, Lehrbegr. p. 128 ff.; also Weizsäcker in the Jahrb. f. D. Th. 1862, p. 680 f.; and even Baur, neutest. Theol. p. 359 ff.
Joh 1:13. Οἵ] refers to τέκνα θεοῦ (the masculine in the well-known constructio κατὰ σύνεσιν, 2Jn 1:1, Phm 1:10, Gal 4:19; comp. Eurip. Suppl. 12, Androm. 571), not to τοῖς πιστεύουσιν, because the latter, according to Joh 1:12, are said to become God’s children, so that ἐγεννήθησαν would not be appropriate. The conception “children of God” is more precisely defined as denoting those who came into existence not after the manner of natural human generation, but who were begotten of God. The negative statement exhibits them as those in whose coming into existence human generation (and consequently also Abrahamic descent) has no part whatever. This latter brings about no divine sonship, Joh 3:6.
οὐκ ἐξ αἱμάτων] not of blood, the blood being regarded as the seat and basis of the physical life (comp. on Act 15:20), which is transmitted by generation.[88] Comp. Act 17:26; Hom. Il. vi. 211, xx. 241; Soph. Aj. 1284, El. 1114; Plato, Soph. p. 268 D; Liv. 38, 28. Kypke and Loesner on the passage, Interpp. ad Virg. Aen. vi. 836; Horace, Od. ii. 20. 6; Tib. i. 6. 66. The plural is not to be explained of the commingling of the two sexes (“ex sanguinibus enim homines nascuntur maris et feminae,” Augustine; comp. Ewald), because what follows (ἀνδρός and the corresponding ἘΚ ΘΕΟῦ) points simply to generation on the man’s side; nor even of the multiplicity of the children of God (B. Crusius), to which there is no reference in what follows; quite as little does it refer to the continuos propagationum ordines from Adam, and afterwards from Abraham downwards (Hoelemann, p. 70), which must necessarily have been more distinctly indicated. Rather is the plural used in a sense not really different from the singular, and founded only on this, that the material blood is represented as the sum-total of all its parts (Kühner, II. p. 28). Comp. Eur. Ion. 705, ἄλλων τραφεὶς ἀφʼ αἱμάτων; Soph. Ant. 121, and many places in the Tragedians where αἵματα is used in the sense of murder (Aesch. Eum. 163, 248; Eur. El. 137; Or. 1547, al.); Monk, ad Eur. Alc. 512; Blomf. Gloss. Choeph. 60. Comp. Sir 22:22; Sir 31:21; 2Ma 14:18; also Plato, Legg. x. p. 887 D, ἔτι ἐν γάλαξι τρεφόμενοι.
The negation of human origination is so important to John (comp. Joh 3:6), that he adds two further parallel definitions of it by οὐδέ
οὐδέ (which he arranges co-ordinately); nor even-nor even, where σαρκός designates the flesh as the substratum of the generative impulse, not “the woman” (Augustine, Theophylact, Rupertus, Zeger, Schott, Olshausen),-an interpretation which is most inappropriately supported by a reference to Gen 2:22, Eph 5:28-29, Jud 1:7, while it is excluded by the context (ἀνδρός, and indeed by what follows). The man’s generative will is meant, and this is more exactly, i.e. personally, defined by ἐκ θελ. ἀνδρός, to which the contrasted etc ἘΚ ΘΕΟῦ is correlative; and hence ἈΝΉΡ must not be generalized and taken as equivalent to ἌΝΘΡΩΠΟς (Lücke), which never occurs-even in the Homeric ΠΑΤῊΡ ἈΝΔΡῶΝ ΤΕ ΘΕῶΝ ΤΕ only apparently-but here least of all, because the act of generation is the very thing spoken of. The following are merely arbitrary glosses upon the points which are here only rhetorically accumulated to produce an ever increasing distinctness of description; e.g. Baumgarten Crusius: “There is an advance here from the most sensual to the most noble” (nature, inclination, will-in spite of the twice repeated θελήματος!); Lange (L. J. III. p. 558): “There is an onward progress from natural generation to that which is caused by the will, and then to that consummated in theocratic faith;” Hoelemann: “σάρξ, meant of both sexes, stands midway between the universalis humani generis propagatio (ΑἽΜΑΤΑ) and the proprius singularis propagationis auctor (ἈΝΉΡ).” Even Delitzsch refines upon the words, finding in ΘΕΛΉΜ. ΣΑΡΚΌς the unholy side of generation, though John has only in view the antithesis between the human and the divine viewed in and by themselves.
ἐκ θεοῦ ἐγεννήθ.] were begotten of God, containing the real relation of sonship to God, and thus explaining the former τέκνα θεοῦ, in so far as these were begotten by no human being, but by God, who through the Holy Spirit has restored their moral being and life, Joh 3:5. Hence ἘΚ ΘΕΟῦ ἘΓΕΝΝ. is not tautological. ἘΚ indicates the issuing forth from God as cause, where the relation of immediateness (in the first and last points) and of mediateness (in the second and third) lies in the very thing, and is self-evident without being distinctively indicated in the simple representation of John.
[88] ὡς τοῦ σπέρματος ὑλὴν τοῦ ἔχοντος, Eustath. ad Hom. Il vi. 211. Comp. Delitzsoh, Psychol. p. 246 [E. T. p. 290, and note].
Joh 1:14. Καὶ] and; not assigning a reason for the sonship just mentioned (Chrys., Theophyl., Jansen, Grotius, Lampe, and several others); nor even = οὖν (Bleek), nor in the sense of namely (Frommann), nor yea (Godet), but simply carrying forward the discourse, like every καὶ in the Prologue; and not therefore pointing back to Joh 1:4 (Maldonatus) or to Joh 1:9 (De Wette), nor joining on to Joh 1:11 (Lücke: “The Logos came not only to His own possession, but appeared visibly;” so, substantially, also Baur and Hilgenfeld), which would be a merely apparent advance in the exposition, because the visible manifestation is already intimated by φαίνει in Joh 1:5 and in Joh 1:9-13. No; after having in Joh 1:4-13 spoken of the Logos as the light, of the melancholy opposition of the darkness of unbelief to that true light which had been attested by the Baptist as divine, and of the exceedingly blessed effects which He exercised on believers through the bestowal of the gift of sonship, the evangelist, on arriving at this last point, which expresses his own deepest and most blessed experience, can no longer hesitate formally and solemnly again to proclaim the great event by which the visible manifestation of the Logos-previously so frequently presupposed and referred to-had, with all its saving power, been brought about; and thus by an outpouring of speech, which, prompted by the holiest recollections, soars involuntarily upwards until it reaches the highest height, to set forth and celebrate the How of that manifestation of the Logos which was attended with such blessed results (Joh 1:12-13), and which he had himself experienced. The transition, therefore, is from what is said in Joh 1:12-13 of the efficacy of the manifested Logos, to the nature and manner of that manifestation itself, i.e. consequently to the incarnation, as a result of which He, as Jesus Christ, exhibited the glory of the Only-begotten, and imparted the fulness of grace and truth,-that incarnation which historically determined what is recorded of Him in Joh 1:12-13. Accordingly καὶ is not definitive, “under such circumstances, with such consequences” (Brückner, who inappropriately compares Heb 3:19, where καὶ connects the answer with the question as in continuous narration), but it carries the discourse onwards, leading up to the highest summit, which even from Joh 1:5 showed itself as in the distance. We must interpret it: and-to advance now to the most momentous fact in the work of redemption, namely, how He who had come and wrought so much blessing was manifested and was able to accomplish such a work-the Word was made flesh, etc.
ὁ λόγος] John does not simply say καὶ σὰρξ ἐγένετο, but he names the great subject as he had done in Joh 1:1, to complete the solemnity of the weighty statement, which he now felt himself constrained still to subjoin and to carry onwards, as if in joyful triumph, to the close of the Prologue.
σὰρξ ἐγένετο] The word σάρξ is carefully chosen, not indeed in any sort of opposition to the divine idea of humanity, which in this place is very remote,[89] but as opposed to the purely divine, and hence also to the purely immaterial nature[90] of the Logos (Clem. ad Cor. II. 9, ὢν μὲν τὸ πρῶτον πνεῦμα ἐγένετο σάρξ; comp. Hahn, Theol. d. N. T. I. 197), whose transition, however, into this other form of existence necessarily presupposes that He is conceived of as a personality, not as a principle (Beyschlag, Christol. p. 169); as is, besides, required by the whole Prologue. The actual incarnation of a principle would be for John an unrealizable notion. Just as decidedly is ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο opposed to the representation that the Logos always became more and more completely σάρξ (Beyschlag) during the whole unfolding of His earthly life. The ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο is a definite act in the consummation of His history. He became flesh, i.e. a corporeal material being, visible and tangible (1Jn 1:2), which He was not before,[91] and by which it is self-evident that the human mode of existence in which He appeared, which we have in the person of Jesus, and which was known to the reader, is intended. Ἐν σαρκὶ ἐλήλυθεν (1Jn 4:2; 2Jn 1:7; comp. 1Ti 3:16) is, in fact, the same thing, though expressed from the point of view of that modality of His coming which is conditioned by the σὰρξ ἐγένετο. As, however, ἐγένετο points out that He became what He was not before, the incarnation cannot be a mere accident of His substantial being (against Baur), but is the assumption of another real existence, whereby out of the purely divine Logos-Person, whose specific nature at the same time remained unaltered, and in order to accomplish the work of redemption (chap. 6; Rom 8:3; Heb 2:14-15), a really corporeal personality, i.e. the God-man Jesus Christ (Joh 1:17), came into existence. Comp. on the point, 1Jn 4:2; Php 2:7; 1Ti 3:16; Heb 2:14; Heb 5:7. Since σάρξ necessarily carries with it the idea only of the ψυχή (see Schulz, Abendm. p. 94 ff.; Weiss, Lehrbegr. p. 256), it might seem as if John held the Apollinarian notion, that in Christ there was no human νοῦς, but that the λόγος took its place.[92] But it is not really so (see, on the other side, Mau, Progr. de Christolog. N. T., Kiel 1843, p. 13 ff.), because the human ψυχή does not exist by itself, but in necessary connection with the πνεῦμα (Beck, bibl. Seelenl. § 13; Hahn, Theol. d. N.T. I. § 154), and because the N. T. (comp. Joh 8:40) knows Jesus only as perfect man.[93] In fact, John in particular expressly speaks of the ΨΥΧΉ (Joh 12:27) and ΠΝΕῦΜΑ of Christ (Joh 11:33, Joh 13:21, Joh 19:30), which he does not identify with the Logos, but designates as the substratum of the human self-consciousness (Joh 11:38).[94] The transcendental character, however, of this self-consciousness, as necessarily given in the incarnation of the Logos, Weizsäcker has not succeeded, as is plain from his interpretation of the passages referred to, in explaining away by anything Jesus Himself says in this Gospel. The conception of weakness and susceptibility of suffering (see on Act 2:17), which Luther, Melancthon, Calvin, Olshausen, Tholuck, Hengstenberg, Philippi, and others find in σάρξ, is quite remote from this verse (comp. 1Jn 4:2), where the point in question is simply the change in the divine mode of existence, while the σάρξ is that which bears the δόξα; and so also is any anti-Docetic reference, such as Frommann and others, and even De Wette and Lechler, imagine.
The supernatural generation of Jesus is neither presupposed nor included (as even Godet maintains), nor excluded,[95] in John’s representation ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο, for the expression contains nothing as to the manner of the incarnation; it is an addition to the primitive apostolical Christology, of which we have no certain trace either in the oldest Gospel (Mark), or in the only one which is fully apostolic (John), or even anywhere in Paul: see on Mat 1:18; comp. Joh 5:27, Rom 1:3-4.
καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν] and tabernacled, i.e. took up His abode, among us: ἐσκήνωσεν here is chosen merely to draw our attention to the manifestation of the incarnate Logos, whose holy σκήνωμα (2Pe 1:13) was in fact His human substance,[96] as the fulfilment of the promise of God’s dwelling with His people (Exo 25:8; Exo 29:45; Lev 26:11; Joe 3:21; Eze 37:27; Hag 2:8 : comp. Sir 24:8; Rev 21:3), and therefore as the Shekinah which formerly revealed itself in the tabernacle and in the temple (see on Rom 9:4); an assumption which the context justifies by the words: ἐθεασ. τ. δόξαν αὐτοῦ. The Targums, in like manner, represent the Word (מימרא) as the שׁבינה, and the Messiah as the manifestation of this.
ἘΝ ἩΜῖΝ] refers to the ὍΣΟΙ ἜΛΑΒΟΝ ΑὐΤΌΝ, Joh 1:12-13, to whom John belongs, not simply to the Twelve (Tholuck), nor to the Christian consciousness (Hilgenfeld), nor to mankind generally; comp. Joh 1:16. The believers whom Jesus found are the fellowship who, as the holy people, surrounded the incarnate Word, and by whom His glory was beheld (comp. 1Jn 1:1).
ΚΑῚ ἘΘΕΑΣΆΜΕΘΑ, Κ.Τ.Λ.] We must not (as most expositors, even Lücke, Frommann, Maier, De Wette) take this clause as far as ΠΑΤΡΌς to be a lively insertion, interrupting the narrative; for the having beheld the δόξα is the essential element in the progress of the discourse. It is an independent part in the connection; so that ΠΛΉΡΗς ΧΆΡ. Κ. ἈΛ., which is usually joined grammatically with Ὁ ΛΌΓΟς, is to be referred to ΑὐΤΟῦ in an irregular combination of cases, determined by the logical subject (B. Crusius, Brückner, Weiss, comp. Grotius), by which the nominative instead of the dependent case (Augustine read πλήρους) sets forth the statement more emphatically without any governing word. See especially Bernhardy, p. 68; Heind. ad Plat. Theaet. 89, Soph. 7; Winer, p. 524 [E. T. p. 705].
τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ] the Majesty (כבוד) of the Logos, i.e. of necessity the divine glory (in the O. T. symbolically revealing itself as the brilliant light which surrounded the manifestation of Deity, Exo 24:17; Exo 40:34 ff.; Act 7:2), so far as the Logos from His nature (see what follows) essentially participated therein, and possessed it in His pre-human state and onwards.[97] It presented itself to the recognition of believers as a reality, in the entire manifestation, work, and history of Him who became man; so that they (not unbelievers) beheld it[98] (intuebantur), because its rays shone forth, so as to be recognised by them, through the veil of the manhood, and thus it revealed itself visibly to them (1Jn 1:1; comp. chap. Joh 2:11). The idea of an inner contemplation is opposed to the context (against Baur). The δόξα τοῦ λόγου, which before the incarnation could be represented to the prophet’s eye alone (Joh 12:41), but which otherwise was, in its essence, incapable of being beheld by man, became by means of the incarnation an object of external observation by those who were eye-witnesses (Luk 1:2; 1Jn 4:14) of His actual self-manifestation. We must, however, bear in mind that the manifestation of this divine glory of the Logos in His human state is conceived of relatively, though revealing beyond doubt the divine nature of the Logos, and nothing else than that, yet as limited and conditioned on the one hand by the imperfection of human intuition and knowledge, and on the other by the state of humiliation (Php 2:6 ff.) which was entered upon with the σὰρξ ἐγένετο. For the ΔΌΞΑ absolutely, which as such is also the adequate ΜΟΡΦῊ ΘΕΟῦ, was possessed by Him who became man-the Logos, who entered upon life in its human form-only in His pre-existent state (Joh 17:5), and was resumed only after His exaltation (Joh 12:41, Joh 17:5; Joh 17:22; Joh 17:24); while during His earthly life His δόξα as the manifestation of the ἼΣΑ ΕἾΝΑΙ ΘΕῷ was not the simply divine, but that of the God-man.[99] See on Php 2:8, note, and chap. Joh 17:5. No distinction is hereby made between God’s ΔΌΞΑ and the ΔΌΞΑ of the God-man (as objected by Weiss); the difference is simply in the degrees of manifestation and appearance. Still Weiss is quite right in refusing, as against Köstlin and Reuss, to say that there is in John no idea whatever of humiliation (comp. Joh 12:32; Joh 12:34, Joh 17:5).
ΔΌΞΑΝ] more animated without ΔῈ. Comp. Hom. Od. A, 22 f.; Dem. de. Cor. 143 (p. 275, Reisk.): πόλεμον εἰς τ. Ἀττικὴν εἰσάγεις … πόλεμον Ἀμφικτυονικόν. See Krüger, § 59, 1. 3, 4.
Ὡς ΜΟΝΟΓΕΝΟῦς] as of an only-begotten, i.e. as belongs to such an one,[100] corresponds to the nature of one who is μονογενὴς παρὰ πατρός; Chrysostom: οἵαν ἔπρεπε καὶ εἰκὸς ἔχειν μονογενῆ καὶ γνήσιον υἱὸν ὄντα, κ.τ.λ. The idea of reality (Euthymius Zigabenus: ὄντως) lies as little in ὡς as in the erroneously so-called כְ veritatis (against Olshausen, Klee, and earlier writers); there is rather the supposition of a comparison, which approaches the meaning of quippe (Ellendt, Lex. Soph. II. p. 1002); see Kühner, § 330. 5.
ΜΟΝΟΓΕΝΉς] of Christ, and regarded, indeed, in His divine nature, is Johannean, expressing the apostle’s own idea of Christ’s unique relationship as the Son of God, Joh 1:18, Joh 3:16; Joh 3:18, 1Jn 4:9, though it is put into the mouth of Christ Himself in Joh 3:16; Joh 3:18. Comp. the Pauline ΠΡΩΤΟΤΌΚΟς, Col 1:15, Heb 1:6, which as to the thing certainly corresponds with the Johannean μονογενής, but presents the idea in the relation of time to the creation, and in Rom 8:29 to Christendom. Μονογ. designates the Logos as the only Son (Luk 7:12; Luk 8:42; Luk 9:38; Heb 11:17; Tob 8:17; Herod, vii. 221; Plato, Legg. III. p. 691 D; Aesch. Ag. 898; Hes. ἜΡΓ. 378), besides whom the Father has none, who moreover did not become such by any moral generation, as in the case of the ΤΈΚΝΑ ΘΕΟῦ, Joh 1:12-13, nor by adoption, but by the metaphysical relation of existence arising out of the divine essence, whereby He was ἘΝ ἈΡΧῇ with God, being Himself divine in nature and person, Joh 1:1-2. He did not first become this by His incarnation, but He is this before all time as the Logos, and He manifests Himself as the μονογ. by means of the incarnation, so that consequently the ΜΟΝΟΓ. ΥἹῸς is not identical (Beyschlag, p. 151 ff.) with the historical person Jesus Christ, but presents Himself in that person to believers; and therefore we are not to think of any interchange of the predicates of the Logos and the Son, “who may be also conceived of retrospectively” (Weizsäcker, 1862, p. 699). In other respects the designation corresponds to human relations, and is anthropomorphic, as is υἱὸς θεοῦ itself,-a circumstance which, however, necessarily limited its applicability as an expression of the metaphysical relation, in apprehending which we must also leave out of view the conception of birth as such, so far as it implies the idea of the maternal function. Origen well remarks: ΤῸ ΔῈ Ὡς ΜΟΝΟΓ. ΠΑΡᾺ ΠΑΤΡ. ΝΟΕῖΝ ὙΠΟΒΆΛΛΕΙ, ἘΚ Τῆς ΟὐΣΊΑς ΤΟῦ ΠΑΤΡῸς ΕἾΝΑΙ ΤῸΝ ΥἹῸΝ … ΕἸ ΓᾺΡ ΚΑῚ ἌΛΛΑ ΠΑΡᾺ ΠΑΤΡῸς ἜΧΕΙ ΤῊΝ ὝΠΑΡΞΙΝ, ΜΑΤΑΊΩς Ἡ ΤΟῦ ΜΟΝΟΓΕΝΟῦς ἜΚΕΙΤΟ ΦΩΝΉ.
ΠΑΤΡΌς] without the article (Winer, p. 116 [E. Tr. p. 151]). ΠΑΡᾺ ΠΑΤΡ. must be joined to ΜΟΝΟΓ., to which it adds the definite idea of having gone forth, i.e. of having come from the Father (Joh 6:46, Joh 7:29, Joh 16:27). Correlative with this is Joh 1:18, ὁ ὢν εἰς τ. κόλπον τοῦ πατρός, where the, only-begotten Son who came forth from the Father is viewed as having again returned to the Father. The conception of having been begotten, consequently of derivation from the essence, would be expressed by the simple genitive (πατρός) or by the dative, or by ἐκ or ἀπό, but lies in the word μονογενοῦς itself; since this expresses the very generation, and therefore the ἘΚ Τῆς ΟὐΣΊΑς ΤΟῦ ΠΑΤΡῸς ΕἾΝΑΙ (Origen). Its connection with ΔΌΞΑΝ (Erasmus, Grotius, Hofmann, Schriftbew. I. 120, Weiss; already Theophyl.?) is in itself grammatically admissible (Plut. Agis, 2; Plato, Phaedr. p. 232 A; Act 26:12), but is not favoured here either by the position of the words or by the connection, from which the idea of the origin of the ΔΌΞΑ lay far remote, the object being to designate the nature of the δόξα; moreover, the anarthrous μονογ. requires a more precise definition, which is exactly what it has in παρὰ πατρός.
πλήρης χάρ κ. ἀληθ.] To be referred to the subject, though that (αὐτοῦ) stands in the genitive. See above. It explains how the Logos, having become incarnate, manifested Himself to those who beheld His glory. Grace and truth[101] are the two efficaciously saving and inseparable factors of His whole manifestation and ministry, not constituting His δόξα (Luthardt),-a notion opposed to Joh 2:11; Joh 2:17,-but displaying it and making it known to those who beheld that glory. Through God’s grace to sinful man He became man; and by His whole work on earth up to the time of His return to His Father, He has been the instrument of obtaining for believers the blessing of becoming the children of God. Truth, again, was what He revealed in the whole of His work, especially by His preaching, the theme of which was furnished by His intuition of God (Joh 1:18), and which therefore must necessarily reveal in an adequate manner God’s nature and counsel, and be the opposite of σκοτία and ψεῦδος. Comp. Mat 11:27. The ἀλήθεια corresponds formally to the nature of the Logos as light (φῶς); the χάρις, which bestows everlasting life (Joh 3:15), to His nature as life (ζωή), Joh 1:4-5. That the χάρις κ. ἀλήθεια with which He was filled are divine grace and truth, of which He was the possessor and bearer, so that in Him they attained their complete manifestation (comp. Joh 16:6), is self-evident from what has preceded, but is not specially indicated, as would necessarily have been done by the use of the article, which would have expressed the grace and truth (simply) κατʼ ἐξοχήν. Joh 1:16 f. is decisive against the construction of πληρής with what follows (Erasmus, Paulus). Whether John, moreover, used the words πλήρ. χάριτος κ. ἀληθ. with any reference to Exo 34:6 (Hengstenberg) is very doubtful, for אֱמֶת in that passage has a different meaning (truthfulness, fidelity). John is speaking independently, from his own full experience and authority as a witness. Through a profound living experience, he had come to feel, and here declares his conviction, that all salvation depends on the incarnation of the Logos.
[89] Against Beyschlag in the Stud. u. Krit. 1860, p. 459.
[90] Hence also σάρξ is selected for the purpose of expressing the full antithesis, and not σῶμα, because there might be a σῶμα without σάρξ (1Co 15:40; 1Co 15:44); and besides, the expression ὁ λόγος σῶμα ἐγένετο would not necessarily include the possession of a human soul. John might also have written ἄνθρωπος ἐγένετο (Joh 5:27, Joh 8:40), but σάρξ presented the antithesis of both forms of existence most sharply and strikingly, and yet at the same time unquestionably designates the human personality (Joh 17:2). According to Baur, indeed, it is said to be impossible to understand by the incarnation any proper assumption of humanity.
[91] Comp. the well-known “Sum quod eram, nec eram quod sum, nunc dicor utrumque.” In Jesus Christ we have the absolute synthesis of the divine and the human.
[92] Of late, Zeller in particular (in the Theol. Jahrb. 1842, I. 74) has limited the Johannean doctrine of the human element in the person of Jesus simply to His corporeity, excluding any special human anima rationalis. Comp. also Köstlin, p. 148 ff., and Baur, neutest. Theol. p. 362. That σάρξ was the merely formal non-personal clothing of the Logos-subject (Pfleiderer, in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschr. 1866, p. 260), does not correspond with the conception of ἄνθρωπος, under which Christ represents Himself (Joh 8:40). This is also in answer to Scholten, who in like manner comes to the conclusion that, in John’s view, Jesus was man as to His body only, but the Logos as to His spirit.
[93] So John in particular. See Hilgenfeld, Lehrbegr. p. 234 ff., who, however, explains the σὰρξ ἐγένετο from the Valentinian system, and attributes to the evangelist the notion of a corporeity, real indeed, but not fettered by the limitation of a material body, appealing to Joh 6:16 ff., Joh 7:10; Joh 7:15, Joh 8:59, Joh 2:19 ff. Baur’s view is similar, though he does not go so far. Baur, p. 367.
[94] Rightly has the church held firmly to the perfection (perfectio) of the divine and human natures in Christ in the Athanasian sense. No change and no defect of nature on the one side or the other can be justified on exegetical grounds, and especially no such doctrine as that of Gess, that by the incarnation the Logos became a human soul or a human spirit (comp. also Hahn, Theol. d. N. T. I. 198 f.). This modification, which some apply to the κένωσις, is un-scriptural, and is particularly opposed to John’s testimony throughout his Gospel and First Epistle. How little does Gess succeed in reconciling his view with Joh 5:26, for example,-a passage which is always an obstacle in his way! Further, according to Wörner, Verhältn. d. Geistes zum Sohne Gott. p. 27, the Logos became a soul. Against Hahn, see Dorner in the Jahrb. f. D. Theol. 1856, p. 393 ff.
[95] For assuredly the same Subject, which in His divine essence was pre-existent as the eternal Logos, may as a temporal human manifestation come into existence and begin to be, so that in and by itself the manner of this origination, natural or supernatural, makes no difference in the conceivableness of the fact (against Baur in the Theol. Jahrb. 1854, p. 222).
[96] In this He tabernacled among us not merely as a divine principle (Beyschlag), but as πᾶν τὸ πλήρωμα τῆς θεότητος (Col 2:9), i.e. exactly what He was as the personal Logos. Thus His body was the temple of God (Joh 2:19), the true special dwelling of God’s gracious presence.
[97] Comp. Gess, Person Chr. p. 123.
[98] All limitations to individual points, as e.g. to the miracles, or even specially to the history of the transfiguration (Luk 9:32; Wetstein, Tittmann), are arbitrary.
[99] Which indeed, even after His exaltation, is and ever continues to be that of the God-man, though without limitation and perfect.-According to Weiss (Lehrbegr. p. 261), the δόξα of the Logos cannot he that of the originally divine essence itself, but one vouchsafed to Christ for the purpose of His works. This, however, is contrary to the express meaning of the word here, where by the τὴν δόξ. αὐτοῦ, κ.τ.λ., we can only understand His proper glory brought with Him by the Logos into His incarnate life. As to Joh 17:22, see on that passage.
[100] Therefore μονογ. is without the article. The expression is qualitative.
[101] Where, according to Hilgenfeld, the author must have had in view the female Aeons of the two first Syzygies of the Valentinian system. John undoubtedly has the word χάρις only in the Prologue, but Matthew and Mark also do not use it; while Luke does not employ it in the sense of saving Christian grace, in which sense it first occurs in the Acts and in Paul.
Joh 1:15. It is to this great fact of salvation to which the Baptist bears testimony, and his testimony was confirmed by the gracious experience of us all (Joh 1:16).
μαρτυρεῖ] Representation of it as present, as if the testimony were still sounding forth.
κέκραγε] “clamat Joh. cum fiducia et gaudio, uti magnum praeconem decet,” Bengel. He crieth, comp. Joh 7:28; Joh 7:37, Joh 12:44; Rom 9:27. The Perfect in the usual classical sense as a present (βοῶν … καὶ κεκραγώς, Dem. 271, 11; Soph. Aj. 1136; Arist. Plut. 722, Vesp. 415). Not so elsewhere in the N. T. Observe, too, the solemn circumstantial manner in which the testimony is introduced: “John bears witness of Him, and cries while he says.”
οὗτος ἦν] ἦν is used, because John is conceived as speaking at the present time, and therefore as pointing back to a testimony historically past: “This was He whom I meant at the time when I said.” With εἰπεῖν τινα, “to speak of any one,” comp. Joh 10:36; Xen. Cyr. vii. 3. 5; Plato, Crat. p. 432 C; Hom. Il. ζ. 479. See on Joh 8:27.
ὁ ὀπίσω μου ἐρχόμ. ἔμπροσθέν μου γέγονεν] “He who cometh after me is come before me;”-in how far is stated in the clause ὅτι πρῶτός μου ἦν, which assigns the reason. The meaning of the sentence and the point of the expression depend upon this,-namely, that Christ in His human manifestation appeared after John, but yet, as the pre-mundane Logos, preceded him, because He existed before John. On γίνεσθαι with an adverb, especially of place, in the sense of coming as in Joh 7:25, see Krüger on Xen. Anab. i. 2. 7; Kühner, II. p. 39; Nägelsbach, note on Iliad, ed. 3, p. 295. Comp. Xen. Cyrop. vii. 1. 22, ἐγένετο ὄπισθεν τῶν ἁρμαμαξῶν; Anab. vii. 1. 10; i. 8. 24. Both are adverbs of place, so that, however, the time is represented as local, not the rank (ἐντιμότερός μοῦ ἐστι, Chrysostom; so most critics, even Lücke, Tholuck, Olshausen, Maier, De Wette),[102] which would involve a diversity in the manner of construing the two particles (the first being taken as relating to time), and the sentence then becomes trivial, and loses its enigmatical character, since, indeed, the one who appears later need not possess on that account any lower dignity. Origen long ago rightly understood both clauses as relating to time, though the second is not therefore to be rendered “He was before me” (Luther and many, also Brückner, Baeumlein), since ἦν is not the word;[103] nor yet: “He came into being before me,” which would not be referable “to the O. T. advent of Christ” (Lange), but, in harmony with the idea of μονογενής, to His having come forth from God prior to all time. It is decisive against both, that ὍΤΙ ΠΡῶΤΌς ΜΟΥ ἮΝ would be tautological,-an argument which is not to be set aside by any fanciful rendering of ΠΡῶΤΟς (see below). Nonnus well remarks: ΠΡῶΤΟς ἘΜΕῖΟ ΒΈΒΗΚΕΝ, ὈΠΊΣΤΕΡΟς ὍΣΤΙς ἹΚΆΝΕΙ. Comp. Godet and Hengstenberg; also in his Christol. III. 1, p. 675, “my successor is my predecessor,” where, however, his assumption of a reference to Mal 3:1 is without any hint to that effect in the words. According to Luthardt (comp Hofmann, Weissag. u. Erf. II. 256), what is meant to be said is: “He who at first walked behind me, as if he were my disciple, has taken precedence of me, i.e. He has become my master.” But the enigma of the sentence lies just in this, that ὁ ὀπίσω μου ἐρχόμ. expresses something still future, as this also answers to the formal ἔρχεσθαι used of the Messiah’s advent. Hofmann’s view, therefore, is more correct, Schriftbew. II. 1, p. 10 ff.,-namely, that the meaning of the Baptist is, “while Jesus is coming after him, He is already before him”. But even thus ἐμπρ. μου γέγ. amounts to a figurative designation of rank, which is not appropriate to the clause ὅτι πρῶτός μου ἦν, which assigns the reason, and manifestly refers to time.
ὍΤΙ ΠΡῶΤΌς ΜΟΥ ἮΝ] is a direct portion of the Baptist’s testimony which has just been adduced (against Hengstenberg), as Joh 1:30 shows, presenting the key to the preceding Oxymoron: for before me He was in existence. The reference to rank (Chrysostom, Erasmus, Beza, Calvin, Grotius, and most comm., also B. Crusius and Hofmann), according to which we should construe, “He was more than I”, is at once overthrown by ἦν, instead of which we ought to have ἘΣΤΊΝ. Comp. Mat 3:11. Only a rendering which refers to time (i.e. only the pre-existence of the Logos) solves the apparent opposition between subject and predicate in the preceding declaration.
πρῶτος in the sense of ΠΡΌΤΕΡΟς, answering to the representation, “first in comparison with me”.[104] See Herm. ad Viger. p. 718; Dorvill. ad Charit. p. 478; Bernhardy, Eratosth. 42, p. 122. We must not, with Winer and Baur, force in the idea of absolute priority.[105] Comp. Joh 15:18; and Buttmann, neut. Gr. p. 74 [E. T. p. 84]. This also against Ewald (“far earlier”), Hengstenberg, Brückner, Godet (“the principle of my existence”). To refuse to the Baptist all idea of the pre-existence of the Messiah, and to represent his statement merely as one put into his mouth by the evangelist (Strauss, Weisse, B. Bauer, De Wette, Scholten, and many others), is the more baseless, the more pointed and peculiar is the testimony; the greater the weight the evangelist attaches to it, the less it can be questioned that deep-seeing men were able, by means of such O. T. passages as Mal 3:1, Isa 6:1 ff., Dan 7:13 ff., to attain to that idea, which has even Rabbinical testimony in its support (Bertholdt, Christol. p. 131), and the more resolutely the pioneer of the Messiah, under the influence of divine revelation, took his stand as the last of the prophets, the Elias who had come.
[102] This rendering is not ungrammatical (in opposition to Hengstenberg), if it only be maintained that, even while adopting it, the local meaning of ἔμπροσθεν is not changed. (Comp. Gen 48:20; Bar 2:5.)
[103] So, too, in Mat 19:8 and Joh 20:27, γίνεσθαι does not mean esse, but fieri (against Baeumlein); so also in passages such as Luk 1:5, 2Pe 2:1.
[104] Comp. the genitive relation in πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως, Col 1:15.
[105] Philippi, d. Eingang d. Joh. Ev. p. 179: “He is the unconditioned first (i.e. the eternal), in relation to me.” The comparison of A and Ω in the Revelation is inapplicable here, because we have not the absolute ὁ πρῶτος, but πρῶτός μου.
Joh 1:16. Not the language of the Baptist (Heracleon, Origen, Rupertus, Erasmus, Luther, Melancthon, Lange), against which ἡμεῖς πάντες is decisive, but that of the evangelist continued.
ὅτι (see critical notes) introduces the personal and superabounding gracious experience of believers, with a retrospective reference indeed to the πλήρ. χάριτος κ. ἀληθ., Joh 1:14, and in the form of a confirmation of John’s testimony in Joh 1:15 : this testimony is justified by what was imparted to us all out of the fulness of Him who was borne witness to.
ἐκ τοῦ πληρώμ. αὐτοῦ] out of that whereof He was full, Joh 1:14; πλήρωμα in a passive sense; see on Col 1:19. The phrase and idea were here so naturally furnished by the immediate context, that it is quite far-fetched to find their source in Gnosticism, especially in that of the Valentinians (Schwegler, Hilgenfeld).
ἡμεῖς] we on our part, giving prominence to the personal experience of the believers (which had remained unknown to unbelievers), Joh 1:10-11.
πάντες] None went empty away. Inexhaustibleness of the πλήρωμα.
ἐλάβομεν] absolute: we have received.
καὶ] and indeed. See Winer, p. 407 [E. T. p. 546]; Hartung, Partikell. I. 145.
χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος] grace for grace, is not to be explained (with Chrysostom, Cyril, Severus, Nonnus, Theophylact, Erasmus, Beza, Aretius, Calovius, Jansen, Wolf, Lampe, and many others, even Paulus), N. T. instead of O. T. grace (Euthymius Zigabenus: τὴν καινὴν διαθήκην ἀντὶ τῆς παλαιᾶς), or instead of the original grace lost in Adam (see especially Calovius), since in Joh 1:17 ὁ νόμος and ἡ χάρις are opposed to each other, and since in the N. T. generally χάρις is the distinctive essence of Christian salvation (comp. especially Rom 6:14-15); but, as Beza suggested, and with most modern expositors,[106] “so that ever and anon fresh grace appears in place of that already received.” “Proximam quamque gratiam satis quidem magnam gratia subsequens cumulo et plenitudine sua quasi obruit,” Bengel. So superabundant was the λαμβάνειν! This rendering is sufficiently justified linguistically by Theogn. Sent. 344, ἀντʼ ἀνιῶν ἀνίας; Philo, de poster. Caini, I. p. 254; Chrys. de sac. vi. 13,-as it is generally by the primary meaning of ἀντὶ (grace interchanging with grace); and it corresponds, agreeably to the context, with the idea of the πλήρωμα, from which it is derived, and is supported further by the increasingly blessed condition of those individually experiencing it (justification, peace with God, consolation, joy, illumination, love, hope, and so on: see on Rom 5:1 ff.; Gal 5:22; Eph 5:9). John might have written χάριν ἐπὶ χάριτι or χάριν ἐπὶ χάριν (Php 2:27), but his conception of it was different. Still, any special reference to the fulness of the special χαρίσματα, 1 Corinthians 12-14 (Ewald), lies remote from the context here (Joh 1:17); though at the same time they, as in general no εὐλογία πνευματική (Eph 1:3), wherewith God in Christ has blessed believers, are not excluded.
[106] Among whom, however, Godet regards the phrase with ἀντί as a play upon words, referring to the O. T. law of retaliation, according to which “chaque grâce était la récompense d’un mérite acquisx.” But such an allusion would be inappropriate, since χάρις in ἀντὶ χάριτος is not something human, but divine.
Joh 1:17. Antithetical confirmation of χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος; “for how high above what was formerly given by Moses, does that stand which came through Jesus Christ!” Comp. Rom 4:15; Rom 10:4; Gal 3:10 ff., al. The former is the law, viewed by Paul as the antithesis of grace (Rom 6:14; Rom 7:3; Gal 4:4, and many other passages), in so far as it only lays us under obligation, condemns us, and in fact arouses and intensifies the need of grace, but does not bestow peace, which latter gift has been realized for us through Christ. The antithesis without μὲν
δέ has rhetorical force (Joh 4:22, Joh 6:63); Buttm. N. T. Gk. p. 344 [E. T. p. 364].
ἡ χάρις] in the definite and formal sense of redemption, saving grace, i.e. the grace of the Father in the Son. Hence also καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια is added with a pragmatical reference to Joh 1:14; this, like all Christ’s gifts of grace, was regarded as included in the universal χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος of Joh 1:16. Moreover, the ἀλήθεια was not given in the law, in so far as its substance, which was not indeed untrue, but an outflow of the divine will for salvation (Rom 7:10 sqq.; Act 7:38), was yet related only as type and preparation to the absolute revelation of truth in Christ; and hence through its very fulfilment (Mat 5:17) it had come to be done away (Rom 10:4; Col 2:14; Heb 10:1 ff; Heb 7:18). Comp. Gal 3:24. Grace was still wanting to the law, and with it truth also in the full meaning of the word. See also 2Co 3:13 ff.
ἐγένετο] The non-repetition of ἐδόθη is not to point out the independent work of the Logos (Clemens, Paedag. i. 7), to which διὰ would be opposed, or of God (Origen), whose work the law also was; but the change of thought, though not recognised by Lücke, lies in this, that each clause sets forth the historical phenomenon as it actually occurred. In the case of the law, this took place in the historical form of being given, whereas grace and truth originated, came into being, not absolutely, but in relation to mankind, for whom they had not before existed as a matter of experience, but which now, in the manifestation and work of Christ, unfolded their historical origin. Comp. 1Co 1:30.
Observe how appropriately, in harmony with the creative skilful plan of the Prologue, after the incarnation of the Logos, and the revelation of His glory which was therewith connected, have been already set forth with glowing animation, there is now announced for the first time the great historical NAME, Jesus Christ, which designates the incarnate Logos as the complete concrete embodiment of His manifestation. Comp. 1Jn 1:1-3. Only now is the Prologue so fully developed, that Jesus Christ, the historical person of the λόγος ἔνσαρκος (who therefore is all the less to be understood throughout, with Hofmann and Luthardt, under the title λόγος), comes before the eye of the reader, who now, however, knows how to gather up in this name the full glory of the God-man.
Joh 1:18 furnishes an explanation of what had just been said, that ἡ ἀλήθεια διὰ Ἰ. Χ. ἐγένετο;[107] for that there was required direct knowledge of God, the result of experience, which His only-begotten Son alone possessed.
οὐδείς] no man, not even Moses. “Besides is no doctor, master, or preacher, than the only Teacher, Christ, who is in the Godhead inwardly,” Luther; comp. Mat 11:27.
ἙΏΡΑΚΕ] has seen, beheld (comp. Joh 3:11), of the intuition of God’s essence (Exo 33:20), to the exclusion of visions, theophanies, and the like. Comp. 1Jn 4:12; also Rom 1:20; Col 1:15; 1Ti 1:17. Agreeably to the context, the reference is to the direct vision of God’s essential glory, which no man could have (Ex. l.c.), but which Christ possessed in His pre-human condition as λόγος (comp. Joh 6:46), and possesses again ever since His exaltation.
Ὁ ὮΝ ΕἸς ΤῸΝ ΚΟΛΠ. ΤΟῦ ΠΑΤΡΌς] As ἘΞΉΓΗΣ. refers to the state on earth of the Only-begotten, ὠν consequently, taken as an imperfect, cannot refer to the pre-human state (against Luthardt, Gess, pp. 123, 236, and others); yet it cannot coincide with ἐξήγη. in respect of time (Beyschlag), because the ΕἾΝΑΙ ΕἸς ΤῸΝ ΚΟΛ. Τ. Π. was not true of Christ during His earthly life (comp. especially Joh 1:51).[108] The right explanation therefore is, that John, when he wrote ὁ ὦν εἰς τ. κ. τ π., expressed himself from his own present standing-point, and conceived of Christ as in His state of exaltation, as having returned to the bosom of the Father, and therefore into the state of the εἶναι πρὸς τὸν θεόν. So Hofmann, Schriftbew. I. 120, II. 23; Weiss, Lehrbegr. 239. Thus also must we explain the statement of direction towards, εἰς τὸν κόλπ., which would be otherwise without any explanation (Mar 2:1; Mar 13:16; Luk 11:7); so that we recognise in εἰς as the prominent element the idea of having arrived at (Ellendt, Lex. Soph. I. p. 537; Jacobs, ad Anthol. XIII. p. 71; Buttm. N. T. Gr. p. 286 [E. T. p. 333]), not the notion of leaning upon (Godet, after Winer, Lücke, Tholuck, Maier, Gess, and most others), nor of moving towards, which is warranted neither by the simple ὦν (in favour of which such analogies as in aurem dormire are inappropriate) nor by εἰς, instead of which πρὸς (Hom. Il. vi. 467) or ἐπί with the accusative ought rather to bo expected.[109] This forced interpretation of εἰς would never have been attempted, had not ὮΝ been construed as a timeless Present, expressing an inherent relation, and in this sense applied (Lücke, Tholuck, De Wette, Lange, Brückner, Hengstenberg, Philippi, and most expositors) also to the earthly condition of the Son; comp. Beyschlag, pp. 100, 150. So far as the thing itself is concerned, the εἶναι εἰς τὸν κόλπ. does not differ from the ΕἾΝΑΙ ΠΡῸς ΤῸΝ ΘΕΌΝ of Joh 1:1; only it expresses the fullest fellowship with God, not before the incarnation, but after the exaltation, and at the same time exhibits the relation of love under a sensuous form (κόλπον); not derived, however, from the custom (Joh 13:23) of reclining at table (thus usually, but not appropriately in respect of fellowship with God), but rather from the analogy of a father’s embrace (Luk 16:22). In its pragmatic bearing, ὁ ὦν is the historical seal of the ἐξηγήσατο; but we must not explain it, with Hilgenfeld, from the Gnostic idea of the ΠΛΉΡΩΜΑ.
ἘΚΕῖΝΟς] strongly emphatic, and pointing heavenwards.[110]
ἐξηγήσατο] namely, the substance of His intuition of God; comp. Joh 8:38. The word is the usual one for denoting the exposition, interpretation of divine things, and intuitions. Plato, Pol. iv. p. 427 C; Schneid. Theag. p. 131; Xen. Cyr. viii. 3. 11; Soph. El. 417; comp. the ἐξηγηταί in Athens: Ruhnken, ad Tim. p. 109 ff.; Hermann, gottesd. Alterth. § 1, 12. It does not occur elsewhere in John, and hence a special reference in its selection here is all the more to be presumed, the more strikingly appropriate it is to the context (against Lücke, Maier, Godet). Comp. LXX. Lev 14:57.
[107] Not including any explanation of ἡ χάρις also (Luthardt), because ἑώρακε and ἐξηγήσατο answer only to the conception of the truth in which the vision of God is interpreted.
[108] Hence we must not say, with Brückner, comp. Tholuck and Hengstenberg, that a relation of the μονογενής is portrayed which was neither interrupted nor modified by the incarnation. The communion of the Incarnate One with God remained, He in God, and God in Him, but not in the same manner metaphysically as before His incarnation and after His exaltation. He while on earth was still in heaven (Joh 3:13), yet not de facto, but de jure, because heaven was His home, His ancestral seat.
[109] Philippi’s objections (Glaubens. IV. 1, p. 409 f.) to my rendering are quite baseless. For an explanation of the ὦν εἰς τὸν κόλπ. which occurs to every unprejudiced expositor as coming directly from the words themselves cannot be “arbitrary.” And it is not contrary to the connection, as both Godet and Beyschlag hold, because what the words, as usually interpreted, say, is already contained in the ὁ μονογενής υἱός, whereupon ὁὦν, κ. τ. λ. sets forth the exaltation of the Only-begotten-just as in ὁ μονογ· υἱός were given the ground and source of the ἐξηγήσατο-as the infallible confirmation hereof. This also against Gess, p. 124. My interpretation is quite as compatible with earnest dealing in regard to the deity of Christ (Hengstenberg) as the usual one, while both are open to abuse. Besides, we have nothing at all to do here with the earnestness referred to, but simply with the correctness or incorrectness of the interpretation. Further, I have not through fear of spiritualism (as Beyschlag imagines) deviated from the usual meaning, which would quite agree with Joh 3:13.
[110] As with Homer (see Nitzsch, p. 37, note 1), so in the N. T. John pre-eminently requires not merely to be read, but to be spoken. His work is the epic among the Gospels.
Note.
The Prologue, which we must not with Reuss restrict to Joh 1:1-5, is not “A History of the Logos,” describing Him down to Joh 1:13 as He was before His incarnation, and from Joh 1:14 ff. as incarnate (Olshausen). Against this it is decisive that Joh 1:6-13 already refer to the period of His human existence, and that, in particular, the sonship of believers, Joh 1:12-13, cannot be understood in any other than a specifically Christian sense. For this reason, too, we must not adopt the division of Ewald: (1) The pre-mundane history of the Logos, Joh 1:1-3; (2) The history of His first purely spiritual working up to the time of His incarnation, Joh 1:4-13; (3) The history of His human manifestation and ministry, Joh 1:14-18. John is intent rather on securing, in grand and condensed outline, a profound comprehensive view of the nature and work of the Logos; which latter, the work, was in respect of the world creative, in respect of mankind illuminative (the Light). As this working of the Logos was historical, the description must necessarily also bear an historical character; not in such a way, however, that a formal history was to be given, first of the λόγος ἄσαρκος (which could not have been given), and then of the λόγος ἔνσαρκος (which forms the substance of the Gospel itself), but in such a way that the whole forms a historical picture, in which we see, in the world which came into existence by the creative power of the Logos, His light shining before, after, and by means of His incarnation. This at the same time tells against Hilgenfeld, p. 60 ff., according to whom, in the Prologue, “the Gnosis of the absolute religion, from its immediate foundation to its highest perfection, runs through the series of its historical interventions.” According to Köstlin, p. 102 ff., there is a brief triple description of all Christianity from the beginning onwards to the present; and this, too, (1) from the standing-point of God and His relation to the world, Joh 1:1-8; then (2) from the relations of the Logos to mankind; Joh 1:9-13; and lastly, (3) in the individual, Joh 1:14-18, by which the end returns to the beginning, Joh 1:1. But a triple beginning (which Kaeuffer too assumes in the Sächs. Stud. 1844, p. 103 ff.) is neither formally hinted at nor really made: for, in Joh 1:9, ὁ λόγος is not the subject ἦν, and this ἦν must, agreeably to the context, refer to the time of the Baptist, while Köstlin’s construction and explanation of ἦν
ἐρχόμενον is quite untenable; and because in the last part, from Joh 1:14 onwards, the antithesis between receiving and not receiving, so essential in the first two parts, does not at all recur again. The simple explanation, in harmony with the text, is as follows: The Prologue consists of three parts,-namely, (1) John gives a description (a) of the primeval existence of the Logos, Joh 1:1-2, and (b) of His creative work, Joh 1:3 (with the addition of the first part of Joh 1:4, which is the transition to what follows). Next, (2) he represents Him in whom was life as the Light of mankind, Joh 1:4 ff., and this indeed (a) as He once had been, when still without the antithesis of darkness, Joh 1:4, and (b) as He was in this antithesis, Joh 1:5. This shining in the darkness is continuous (hence φαίνει, Joh 1:5), and the tragic opposition occasioned thereby now unfolds itself before our eyes onwards to Joh 1:13, in the following manner: “Though John came forward and testified of the Light, not being himself the Light, but a witness of the Light (Joh 1:6-8),-though He, the true Light, was already existing (Joh 1:9),-though He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, still men acknowledged Him not; though He came to His own, His own received Him not (Joh 1:10-11); whereas those who did receive Him obtained from Him power to become the spiritual sons of God (Joh 1:12-13).” Lastly, (3) this blessedness of believers, due to the Logos who had historically come, now constrains the apostle to make still more prominent the mode and fashion in which He was manifested in history (His incarnation), and had revealed His glory, Joh 1:14-18. Thus the Prologue certainly does not (against Baur) lift the historical out of its own proper soil, and transfer it to the sphere of metaphysics, but rather unveils its metaphysical side, which was essentially contained in and connected with it, as existing prior to its manifestation, and in the light of this its metaphysical connection sums it up according to its essence and antithesis, its actual development and the proof of its historical truth being furnished by the subsequent detailed narrative in the Gospel. We may distinguish the three parts thus: (1) The premundane existence and creative work of the Logos, Joh 1:1-4 a; (2) His work as the Light of men, and the opposition to this, Joh 1:4-13; (3) The revelation of His glory which took place through the incarnation, Joh 1:14-18. Or, in the briefest way: the Logos (1) as the creator; (2) as the source of light; (3) as the manifestation of the God-man. This third part shows us the Incarnate One again, Joh 1:18, where as ἄσαρκος He was in the beginning
ὁ ὦν εἰς τ. κόλπ. τοῦ πατρός; and the cycle is complete.
Joh 1:19-20. The historical narrative, properly so called, now begins, and quite in the style of the primitive Gospels (comp. Mark 1; Act 10:36-37; Act 13:23-25), with the testimony of the Baptist.
καὶ] and, now first of all to narrate the testimony already mentioned in Joh 1:15; for this, and not another borne before the baptism, is meant; see note foll. Joh 1:28.
αὕτη] “The following is the testimony of John, which he bore when,” etc.[111] Instead of ὍΤΙ, the evangelist puts ὍΤΕ, because the idea of time was with him the predominant one. Comp. Pflugk, ad Hec. 107; Ellendt, Lex. Soph. II. p. 393. Had he written ὅτι, his thought would have been: “Herein did his testimony consist, that the Jews sent to him, and he confessed,” etc.
ΟἹ ἸΟΥΔΑῖΟΙ] means, even in such passages as this, where it is no merely indifferent designation of the people (as in Joh 2:6; Joh 2:13, Joh 3:1, Joh 4:22, Joh 5:1, Joh 18:33 ff., and often), nothing else than the Jews; yet John, writing when he had long severed himself from Judaism, makes the body of the Jews, as the old religious community from which the Christian Church had already completely separated itself, thus constantly appear in a hostile sense in face of the Lord and His work, as the ancient theocratic people in corporate opposition to the new community of God (which had entered into their promised inheritance) and to its Head. How little may be deduced from this as ground of argument against the age and genuineness of the Gospel, see my Introd. § 3. For the rest, in individual passages, the context must always show who, considered more minutely as matter of history, the persons in question were by whom οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι are represented, as in this place, where it was plainly the Sanhedrim[112] who represented the people of the old religion. Comp. Joh 5:15, Joh 9:22, Joh 18:12; Joh 18:31, etc.
καὶ Λευΐτας] priests, consequently, with their subordinates, who had, however, a position as teachers, and aspired to priestly authority (see Ewald and Hengstenberg). The mention of these together is a trait illustrative of John’s precision of statement, differing from the manner of the Synoptics, but for that very reason, so far from raising doubts as to the genuineness, attesting rather the independence and originality of John (against Weisse), who no longer uses the phrase so often repeated in the Synoptics, “the scribes and elders,” because it had to him already become strange and out of date.
σὺ τίς εἶ] for John baptized (Joh 1:25), and this baptism had reference to Messiah’s kingdom (Eze 36:25-26; Eze 33:23; Zec 13:1). He had, generally, made a great sensation as a prophet, and had even given rise to the opinion that he was the Messiah (Luk 3:15; comp. Act 13:25); hence the question of the supreme spiritual court was justified, Deu 18:21-22, Mat 21:23. The question itself is not at all framed in a captious spirit. We must not, with Chrysostom and most others, regard it as prompted by any malicious motive, but must explain it by the authoritative position of the supreme court. Nevertheless it implies the assumption that John regarded himself as the Messiah; and hence his answer in Joh 1:20, hence also the emphatic precedence given to the σύ; comp. Joh 8:25. Luthardt too hastily concludes from the form of the question, that the main thing with them was the person, not the call and purpose of God. But they would have inferred the call and purpose of God from the person, as the question which they ask in Joh 1:25 shows.
ἐξ Ἱεροσ.] belongs to ἀπέστειλαν.
καὶ ὡμολογ.] still dependent on the ὅτε.
ὡμολ. καὶ οὐκ ἠρνήσ.] emphatic prominence given to his straightforward confession; ὡς ἀληθὴς καὶ στεῤῥός, Euthymius Zigabenus; comp. Eur. El. 1057: Φημὶ καὶ οὐκ ἀπαρνοῦμαι; Soph. Ant. 443; Dem. de Chers. 108. 73: λέξω πρὸς ὑμᾶς καὶ οὐκ ἀποκρύψομαι. See Bremi in loc. Valcken. Schol. ad Act 13:11.
καὶ ὡμολ.] The first κ. ὡμολ. was absolute (Add. ad Est 1:15, and in the classics); this second has for subject the following sentence (ὅτι recitative). Moreover, “vehementer auditorem commovet ejusdem redintegratio verbi,” ad Herenn. iv. 28. There is, however, no side glance here at the disciples of John (comp. the Introd.). To the evangelist, who had himself been the pupil of the Baptist, the testimony of the latter was weighty enough in itself to lead him to give it emphatic prominence.
According to the right order of the words (see crit. notes), ἐγὼ οὐκ εἰμὶ ὁ Χ., the emphasis lies upon ἐγώ; I on my part, which implies that he knew another who was the Messiah.
[111] Following Origen and Cyril, Paulus and B. Crusius suppose that ὅτε begins a new sentence, of which καὶ ὡμολόγησε, etc., is to be taken as the apodosis-contrary to the simplicity of John’s style.
[112] Comp. Ἀχαιοί in Homer, which often means the proceres of the Greeks.
Joh 1:21. In consequence of this denial, the next point was to inquire whether he was the Elias who, according to Mal 4:5, was expected (back from heaven) as the immediate forerunner of the Messiah.
τί οὖν] not, quid ergo es (Beza et al.), but as τίς does not again occur (vers. 19, 22): what then is the case, if thou art not the Messiah? what is the real state of the matter?
Art thou Elias? So put, the question assumes it as certain that John must give himself out to be Elias, after he had denied that he was the Messiah.
οὐκ εἰμί] He could give this answer, notwithstanding what is said in Luk 1:17, Mat 11:14; Mat 17:10 (against Hilgenfeld), since he could only suppose his interrogators were thinking of the literal, not of the antitypical Elijah. Bengel well says: “omnia a se amolitur, ut Christum confiteatur et ad Christum redigat quaerentes.” He was conscious, nevertheless, according to Joh 1:23, in what sense he was Elias; but taking the question as literally meant, there was no occasion for him to go beyond that meaning, and to ascribe to himself in a special manner the character of an antitypical Elias, which would have been neither prudent nor profitable. The οὐκ εἶμι is too definite an answer to the definite question, to be taken as a denial in general of every externally defined position (Brückner); he would have had to answer evasively.
ὁ προφήτης εἶ σύ;] The absence of any connecting link in the narrative shows the rapid, hasty manner of the interrogation. ὁ προφήτης is marked out by the article as the well-known promised prophet, and considering the previous question Ἠλίας εἶ σύ, can only be a nameless one, and therefore not Jeremias, according to Mat 16:14 (Grotius, Kuinoel, Olshausen, Klee, Lange), but the one intended in Deu 18:15, the reference of whom to the Messiah Himself (Act 3:22; Act 7:37; Joh 1:46; Joh 6:14) was at least not universal (comp. Joh 7:40), and was not adopted by the interrogators here. Judging from the descending climax of the points of these questions, they must rather have thought of some one inferior to Elias, or, in general, of an individual undefined, owing to the fluctuation of view regarding Him who was expected as “the prophet.”[113] Nonnus well expresses the namelessness and yet eminence of this ὁ προφήτης: μὴ σύ μοι, ὃν καλέουσι, θεηγόρος ἐσσὶ προφήτης, ἄγγελος ἐσσομένων; Observe how the rigid denials become shortened at last to the bare οὔ. Here also we have a no on the Baptist’s lips, because in his view Jesus was the prophet of Deuteronomy 18.
[113] Luthardt thinks of the prophet in the second portion of Isaiah. Comp. Hofmann, Weissag u. Erf. II. p. 69. It would agree with this, that John immediately gives an answer taken from Isaiah 40. But if his interrogators had had in mind Isaiah 40 ff., they would probably have designated him whom they meant more characteristically, viz. as the servant of Jehovah.
Joh 1:22-23. Now comes the question which cannot be met by a bare negative; ἵνα as in Joh 9:36.
The positive answer to this is from Isa 40:3 according to the LXX., with the variation εὐθύνατε instead of ἑτοιμάσατε, in unison with the second half of the words in the LXX. For the rest, see on Mat 3:3. The designation of himself, the herald of the coming Messiah calling men to repentance, as a voice, was given in the words of the prophet, and the accompanying βοῶντος ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ excludes the idea which Baur entertains, that John here intended to divest himself, as it were, of every personal characteristic. According to Hilgenfeld, Evang. p. 236, the evangelist has put the passage of Scripture applied to the Baptist by the Synoptics (who, however, have not this account at all) “at last into the Baptist’s own mouth.”
Joh 1:24 ff. The inquiry, which proceeds still further, finds a pragmatic issue in pharisaic style (for the Sanhedrim had chosen their deputies from this learned, orthodox, and crafty party). From their strict scholastic standing-point, they could allow (οὖν) so thoroughly reformatory an innovation as that of baptism (see on Mat 3:5), considering its connection with Messiah’s kingdom, only to the definite personalities of the Messiah, Elias, or the promised prophet, and not to a man with so vague a call as that which the Baptist from Isa 40:3 ascribed to himself,-a passage which the Pharisees had not thought of explaining in a Messianic sense, and were not accustomed so to apply it in their schools. Hence the parenthetical remark just here inserted: “And they that were sent belonged to the Pharisees,”-a statement, therefore, which points forwards, and does not serve as a supplementary explanation of the hostile spirit of the question (Euthymius Zigabenus, Lücke, and most others).
The reply corresponds to what the Baptist had said of himself in Joh 1:23, that he was appointed to prepare the way for the Messiah. His baptism, consequently, was not the baptism of the Spirit, which was reserved for the Messiah (Joh 1:33), but a baptism of water, yet without the elementum coeleste; there was already standing, however, in their midst the far greater One, to whom this preparatory baptism pointed. The first clause of the verse, ἐγὼ βαπτ. ἐν ὕδατι, implies, therefore, that by his baptism he does not lay claim to anything that belongs to the Messiah (the baptism of the Spirit); and this portion refers to the εἰ σὺ οὐκ εἶ ὁ Χριστός of Joh 1:25. The second clause, however, μέσος, etc., implies that this preliminary baptism of his had now the justification, owing to his relation to the Messiah, of a divinely ordained necessity (Joh 1:23); since the Messiah, unknown indeed to them, already stood in their midst, and consequently what they allowed to Elias, or the prophet, dare not be left unperformed on his part; and this part of his answer refers to the οὐδὲ Ἠλίας οὐδὲ ὁ προφήτης in Joh 1:25. Thus the question τί οὖν βαπτίζεις is answered by a twofold reason. There is much that is inappropriate in the remarks of expositors, who have not sufficiently attended to the connection: e.g., De Wette overlooks the appropriateness of the answer to the Elias question; Tholuck contents himself with an appeal to the “laconic-comma style” of the Baptist; and Brückner thinks that “John wished to give no definite answer, but yet to indicate his relation to the Messiah, and the fact of his pointing to Him;” while Bäumlein holds that the antithetical clause, ὃς βαπτίσει ἐν πνεύμ. ἁγ., which was already intended to be here inserted, was forgotten, owing to the intervening sentences; and finally, Hilgenfeld, after comparing together Matthew and Luke, deduces the unhistorical character of the narrative. Heracleon already was even of opinion that John did not answer according to the question asked of him, but as he αὐτὸς ἐβούλετο. In answer to him, Origen.
ἐγώ] has the emphasis of an antithesis to the higher Baptizer (μέσος δὲ, etc.), not to ὑμεῖς (Godet). Next to this, the stress lies on ἐν ὕδατι. This is the element (see on Mat 3:11) in which his baptism was performed. This otherwise superfluous addition has a limiting force, and hence is important.
μέσος without the spurious δὲ is all the more emphatic; see on Joh 1:17. The emphasizing of the antithesis, however, has brought this μέσος] to the front, because it was the manifestation of the Messiah, already taking place in the very midst of the Jews, which justified John in baptizing. Had the Messiah been still far off, that baptism would have lacked its divine necessity; He was, however, standing in their midst, i.e. ἀναμεμιγμένος τότε τῷ λαῷ (Euthymius Zigabenus).
ὃν ὑμεῖς οὐκ οἴδατε] reveals the reason why they could question as they had done in Joh 1:25. The emphasis is on ὑμεῖς, as always (against Tholuck); here in contrast with the knowledge which he himself had (see on Joh 1:28, note) of the manifested Messiah: you on your part, you people, have the Messiah among you, and know Him not (that is, as the Messiah). In Joh 1:27, after rejecting the words αὐτός ἐστιν and ὃς ἔμπροσ. μου γέγονεν (see the critical notes), there remains only ὁ ὀπίσω μου ἐρχόμενος (Joh 1:15), and that in fact as the subject of μέσος ἕστηκεν, which subject then receives the designation of its superiority over the Baptist in the οὗ ἐγὼ οὐκ εἰμὶ ἄξιος, κ.τ.λ. Concerning this designation, see on Mat 3:11.
ἐγώ] I for my part.
ἄξιος ἵνα] worthy that I should loose; ἵνα introduces the purpose of the ἀξιότης. Comp. ἱκανὸς ἵνα, Mat 8:8, Luk 7:6.
αὐτοῦ] placed first for emphasis, and corresponding to the ἐγώ. On αὐτοῦ after οὗ, see Winer, p. 140 [E. T. p. 184]. Τούτου would have been still more emphatic.
Joh 1:28. On account of the importance of His public appearance, a definite statement of its locality is again given.
A place so exactly described by John himself (Joh 11:18), according to its situation, as Bethany on the Mount of Olives, cannot be meant here; there must also have been another Bethany situated in Peraea, probably only a village, of which nothing further is known from history. Origen, investigating both the locality and the text, did not find indeed any Bethany, but a Bethabara instead[114] (comp. Jdg 7:24?), which the legends of his day described as the place of baptism; the legend, however, misled him. For Bethany in Peraea could not have been situated at all in the same latitude with Jericho, as the tradition represents, but must have lain much farther north; for Jesus occupied about three days in travelling thence to the Judaean Bethany for the raising of Lazarus (see on Joh 11:17). Yet Paulus (following Bolten) understood the place to be Bethany on the Mount of Olives, and puts a period after ἐγένετο, in spite of the facts that τῇ ἐπαύριον (comp. Joh 1:35) must begin the new narration, and that ὅπου ἦν Ἰωάνν. βαπτ. must clearly refer to Joh 1:25 ff. Baur, however, makes the name, which according to Schenkel must be attributed to an error of a non-Jewish author, to have been invented, in order to represent Jesus (?) as beginning His public ministry at a Bethany, seeing that He came out of a Bethany at its close. Against the objection still taken to this name even by Weizsäcker (a name which a third person was certainly least of all likely to venture to insert, seeing that Bethany on the Mount of Olives was so well known), see Ewald, Jahrb. XII. p. 214 ff. As to the historic truth of the whole account in Joh 1:19-28, which, especially by the reality of the situation, by the idiosyncrasy of the questions and answers, and their appropriateness in relation to the characters and circumstances of the time, as well as by their connection with the reckoning of the day in the following verses, reveals the recollections and interest of an eye-witness, see Schweizer, p. 100 ff.; Bleek, Beitr. p. 256.
ὍΠΟΥ ἮΝ ἸΩΆΝΝ. ΒΑΠΤ.] where John was employed in baptizing.
[114] To suppose, with Possinus, Spicil. Evang. p. 32 (in the Catena in Marc. p. 382 f.), that both names have the same signification (בֵּית עֲבָרָה, domus transitus, ford-house; בֵּית אֲנִיָה, domus navis, ferry-house),-a view to which even Lange inclines, L. J. II. 461,-is all the more untenable, seeing that this etymology is not at all appropriate to the position of Bethany on the Mount of Olives. Origen himself explains the name Bethabara with an evident intention to allegorize: οἷχος χατασχευῆς (ברא). The derivation of the name Bethany (Lightfoot: בֵּית הינֵי, house of dates; Simon: בֵּית עֲנִיָּה, locus depressionis; others: בֵּיח עֲנִיָה domus miseri) is doubtful.
Note.-(1.) Seeing that, according to Joh 1:26-27 (comp. especially ὃν ὑμεῖς οὐκ οἴδατε, which implies his own personal acquaintance), the Baptist already knows the Messiah, while according to Joh 1:31-33 he first learned to recognise Him at His baptism by means of a divine σημεῖον, it certainly follows that the occurrences related in Joh 1:19-28 took place after the baptism of Jesus; and consequently this baptism could not have occurred on the same or the following day (Hengstenberg), nor in the time between Joh 1:31-32 (Ewald). Wieseler, Ebrard, Luthardt, Godet, and most expositors, as already Lücke, Tholuck, De Wette, following the older expositors, rightly regard the events of Joh 1:19 ff. as subsequent to the baptism. It is futile to appeal, as against this (Brückner), to the “indefiniteness” of the words ὃν ὑμεῖς οὐκ οἴδατε, for there is really no indefiniteness in them; while to refer them to a merely preliminary knowledge, in opposition to the definite acquaintance which began at the baptism, is (against Hengstenberg) a mere subterfuge. That even after the baptism, which had already taken place, John could say, “Ye know Him not,” is sufficiently conceivable, if we adhere to the purely historical account of the baptism, as given in Joh 1:31-34. See on Matt. p. 111 ff. (2.) Although, according to Mat 3:14, John already knows Jesus as the Messiah when He came to be baptized of him, there is in this only an apparent discrepancy between the two evangelists, see on Joh 1:31. (3.) Mar 1:7-8, and Luk 3:16 ff., are not at variance with John; for those passages only speak of the Messiah as being in Himself near at hand, and do not already presuppose any personal acquaintance with Jesus as the Messiah. (4.) The testimonies borne by the Baptist, as recorded in the Synoptics, are, both as to time (before the baptism) and occasion, very different from that recorded in Joh 1:19 ff., which was given before a deputation from the high court; and therefore the historic truth of both accounts is to be retained side by side,[115] though in details John (against Weisse, who attributes the narrative in John to another hand; so Baur and others) must be taken as the standard. (5.) To deny any reference in Joh 1:19 ff. to the baptism of Jesus (Baur), is quite irreconcilable with Joh 1:31; Joh 1:33; for the evangelist could not but take it for granted that the baptism of Jesus (which indeed Weisse, upon the whole, questions) was a well-known fact. (6.) Definite as is the reference to the baptism of Jesus, there is not to be found any allusion whatever in John’s account to the history of the temptation with its forty days, which can be brought in only before Joh 1:19, and even then involving a contradiction with the Synoptics. The total absence of any mention of this-important as it would have been in connection with the baptism, and with John’s design generally in view of his idea of the Logos (against B. Crusius)-does not certainly favour the reality of its historic truth as an actual and outward event. Comp. Schleiermacher, L. J. p. 154. If the baptism of Jesus be placed between tbe two testimonies of Joh 1:19 ff. and Joh 1:29 ff. (so Hilgenfeld and Brückner, following Olshausen, B. Crusius, and others), which would oblige us still to place it on the day of the first testimony (see Brückner), though Baumlein (in the Stud. u. Krit. 1846, p. 389) would leave this uncertain; then the history of the temptation is as good as expressly excluded by John, because it must find its place (Mar 1:12; Mat 4:1; Luk 4:1) immediately after the baptism. In opposition to this view, Hengstenberg puts it in the period after Joh 3:22, which is only an unavailing makeshift.
[115] Keim, Gesch. J. I. p. 522, sees in John’s account not so much an historical narrative, as rather (?) a “very significant literary introduction to the Baptist, who to a certain extent (?) is officially declaring himself. According to Scholten, the Baptist, during his ministry, did not at all recognise Jesus as Messiah, and Mat 3:14-15 is said to be an addition to the text of Mark;” while the fourth Gospel does not relate the baptism of Jesus, but only mentions the revelation from heaven then made, because to narrate the former would not be appropriate to the Gnosis of the Logos.
Joh 1:29. Τῇ ἐπαύριον] on the following day, the next after the events narrated in Joh 1:19-28. Comp. Joh 1:35; Joh 1:44 (Joh 2:1), Joh 6:22, Joh 12:12.
ἐρχόμ. πρὸς αὐτ.] coming towards him, not coming to him, i.e. only so near that he could point to Him (Baur). He came, however, neither to take leave of the Baptist before His temptation (Kuinoel, against which is Joh 1:35), nor to be baptized of him (Evvald, Hengstenberg; see the foregoing note); but with a purpose not more fully known to us, which John has not stated, because he was not concerned about that, but about the testimony of the Baptist. If we were to take into account the narrative of the temptation,-which, however, is not the case,
Jesus might be regarded as here returning from the temptation (see Euthymius Zigabenus, Lücke, Luthardt, Riggenbach, Godet).
ἴδε ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, κ.τ.λ.] These words are not addressed to Jesus, but to those who are around the Baptist, and they are suggested by the sight of Jesus; comp. Joh 1:36. As to the use of the singular ἴδε, when nevertheless several are addressed, see on Mat 10:16. The article denotes the appointed Lamb of God, which, according to the prophetic utterance presupposed as well known, was expected in the person of the Messiah. This characteristic form of Messianic expectation is based upon Isa 53:7. Comp. Mat 8:17; Luk 22:37; Act 8:32; 1Pe 2:22 ff.; and the ἀρνίον in the Apocalypse. On the force of the article, see Joh 1:21, ὁ προφήτης; also ἡ ῥίζα τοῦ Ἰεσσαί, Rom 15:12; ὁ λέων ὁ ἐκ τῆς φυλῆς Ἰούδα, Rev 5:5. The genitive is that of possession, that which belongs to God, i.e. the lamb appointed as a sacrifice by God Himself. This interpretation follows from the entire contents of Isaiah 53, and from the idea of sacrifice which is contained in ὁ αἴρων, κ.τ.λ. We must not therefore render: “the Lamb given by God” (Hofmann, Luthardt). But while, according to this view, the lamb, designated and appointed by God, is meant,-the lamb already spoken of in holy prophecies of old, whose fulfilment in Jesus was already recognised by the Baptist,-it is erroneous to assume any reference to the paschal lamb (Luther, Grotius, Bengel, Lampe, Olshausen, Maier, Reuss, Luthardt, Hofmann, Hengstenberg; comp. Godet). Such an assumption derives no support from the more precise definition in ὁ αἴρων, κ.τ.λ., and would produce a ὕστερον πρότερον; for the view which regarded Christ as the paschal lamb first arose ex eventu, because He was crucified upon the same day on which the paschal lamb was slain (see on Joh 18:28; 1Co 5:7). He certainly thus became the antitype of the paschal lamb, but, according to the whole tenor of the passage in Isaiah, He was not regarded by the Baptist in this special aspect, nor could He be so conceived of by his hearers. The conception of sacrifice which, according to the prophecy in Isaiah and the immediate connection in John, is contained in ὁ ἀμνὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, is that of the trespass-offering, אָשָׁם, Isa 53:10;[116] 1Jn 2:2; 1Jn 4:10; 1Jn 1:7. It by no means militates against this, that, according to the law, lambs were not as a rule employed for trespass-offerings (Lev 14:2, Num 6:12, relate to exceptional cases only; and the daily morning and evening sacrifices, Exo 29:38 ff., Numbers 28, which Wetstein here introduces, were prayer- and thank-offerings), but for sacrifices of purification (Lev 5:1-6; Lev 14:12; Num 6:12):[117] for in Isaiah the Servant of Jehovah, who makes atonement for the people by His vicarious sufferings, is represented as a lamb; and it is this prophetic view, not the legal prescription, which is the ruling thought here. Christ was, as the Baptist here prophetically recognises Him, the antitype of the O. T. sacrifices: He must therefore, as such, be represented in the form of some animal appointed for sacrifice; and the appropriate figure was given not in the law, but by the prophet, who, contemplating Him in His gentleness and meekness, represents Him as a sacrificial lamb, and from this was derived the form which came to be the normal one in the Christian manner of view. The apostolic church consequently could apprehend Him as the Christian Passover; though legally the passover lamb, as a trespass-offering, which it certainly was, differed from the ordinary trespass-offerings (Ewald, Alterth. p. 467 f.; Hengstenberg takes a different view, Opfer, d. h. Schr. p. 24 ff.). This Christian method of view accordingly had a prophetical, and not a legal foundation. To exclude the idea of sacrifice altogether, and to find in the expression Lamb of God the representation merely of a divinely consecrated, innocent, and gentle sufferer (Gabler, Melet. in Joh 1:29, Jen. 1808-1811, in his Opusc. p. 514 ff.; Paulus, Kuinoel), is opposed to the context both in Isaiah and in John, as well as to the view of the work of redemption which pervades the whole of the N. T. Weiss, Lehrbegr. p. 159 ff.
ὁ αἴρων τ. ἁμαρτ. τ. κόσμου] may either signify, “who takes away the sin of the world,” or, “who takes upon himself,” etc., i.e. in order to bear it. Both renderings (which Flacius, Melancthon, and most others, even Bäumlein, combine) must, according to Isaiah 53., express the idea of atonement; so that in the first the cancelling of the guilt is conceived of as a removing, a doing away with sin (an abolition of it); in the second, as a bearing (an expiation) of it. The latter interpretation is usually preferred (so Lücke, B. Crusius, De Wette, Hengstenberg, Brückner, Ewald, Weber, v. Zorne Gottes, p. 250), because in Isaiah 53 the idea is certainly that of bearing by way of expiation (נשא: LXX. ΦΈΡΕΙ, ἈΝΈΝΕΓΚΕ, ἈΝΟΊΣΕΙ). But since the LXX. never use ΑἼΡΕΙΝ to express the bearing of sin, but always φέρειν, etc., while on the other hand they express the taking away of sin by ΑἼΡΕΙΝ (1Sa 15:25; 1Sa 25:28; Aq. Psa 31:5, where Symm. has ἈΦΈΛῌς and the LXX. ἈΦῆΚΑς); and as the context of 1Jn 3:5, in like manner, requires us to take ΤᾺς ἉΜΑΡΤΊΑς ἩΜῶΝ ἌΡῌ, there used to denote the act of expiation (comp. Joh 2:2), as signifying the taking away of sins; so ὁ αἴρων, etc., here is to be explained in this sense,-not, indeed, that the Baptist expresses an idea different from Isaiah 53, but the expiation there described as a bearing of sins is represented, according to its necessary and immediate result, as the abolition of sins by virtue of the vicarious sacrificial suffering and death of the victim, as the ἀθέτησις ἁμαρτίας, Heb 9:26. Comp. already Cyril: ἵνα τοῦ κόσμου τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ἀνέλῃ; Vulgate: qui tollit; Goth.: afnimith. John himself expresses this idea in 1Jn 1:7, when referring to the sin-cleansing power of Christ’s blood, which operates also on those who are already regenerate (see Düsterdieck in loc., p. 99 ff.), by ΚΑΘΑΡΊΖΕΙ ἩΜᾶς ἈΠῸ ΠΆΣΗς ἉΜΑΡΤΊΑς. The taking away of sins by the Lamb presupposes His taking them upon Himself. The interpretation “to take away,” in itself correct, is (after Grotius) misused by Kuinoel: “removebit peccata hominum, i.e. pravitatem e terra;”[118] and Gabler has misinterpreted the rendering “to bear;” “qui pravitatem hominum … i.e. mala sibi inflicta, patienti et mansueto animo sustinebit.” Both are opposed to the necessary relation of the word to ὁ ἀμνὸς τ. θεοῦ, as well as to the real meaning of Isaiah 53; although even Gabler’s explanation would not in itself be linguistically erroneous, but would have to be referred back to the signification, to take upon oneself, to take over (Æsch. Pers. 544; Soph. Tr. 70; Xen. Mem. iv. 4. 14; 1Ma 13:17; Mat 11:29, al.).
The Present ὁ αἴρων arises from the fact that the Baptist prophetically views the act of atonement accomplished by the Lamb of God as present. This act is ever-enduring, not in itself, but in its effects (against Hengstenberg). Luthardt holds that the words are not to be understood of the future, and that the Baptist had not Christ’s death in view, but only regarded and designated Him in a general way, as one who was manifested in a body of weakness, and with liability to suffering, in order to the salvation of men. But this is far too general for the concrete representation of Christ as the Lamb of God, and for the express reference herein made to sin, especially from the lips of a man belonging to the old theocracy, who was himself the son of a sacrificing priest, a Nazarite and a prophet.
τὴν ἁμαρτίαν] the sins of the world conceived of as a collective unity; “una pestis, quse omnes corripuit,” Bengel. Comp. Rom 5:20.
τοῦ κόσμου] an extension of the earlier prophetic representation of atonement for the people, Isaiah 53. to all mankind, the reconciliation of whom has been objectively accomplished by the ἱλαστήριον of the Lamb of God, but is accomplished subjectively in all who believe (Joh 3:15-16). Comp. Rom 5:18.
[116] As to the distinction between trespass or guilt and sin offerings, הַטָּאת, see Ewald, Alterth. p. 76 ff.; and for the various opinions on this distinction, especially Keil, Arch. I. § 46; Oehler in Herzog’s Encykl. X. p. 462 ff.; Saalschütz, M. R. p. 321 ff.
[117] Concerning אשׁם, Lev 5:6, see Knobel in loc.
[118] Comp. Baur, N. T. Theol. p. 396: “In a general sense, He bears away and removes sin by His personal manifestation and ministry throughout.” This is connected with the error that we do not find in John the same significance attached to Christ’s death which we find in Paul.
Note.
That the Baptist describes Jesus as the Messiah, who by His sufferings maizes expiation for the world’s sin, is to be explained by considering his apocalyptic position, by which his prophecies, which had immediate reference to the person and work of Jesus, were conditioned; comp. Joh 1:31 ff. It was not that he had obtained a sudden glimpse of light in a natural manner (Hofmann, Schweizer, Lange), or a growing presentiment (De Wette), or a certitude arrived at by reason and deep reflection (Ewald); but a revelation had been made to him (comp. Joh 1:33). This was necessary in order to announce the idea of a suffering Messiah with such decision and distinctness, even according to its historical realization in Jesus;-an idea which, though it had been discovered by a few deep-seeing minds through prophetic hints or divine enlightenment (Luk 2:25; Luk 2:34-35), nevertheless undoubtedly encountered in general expectations of a kind diametrically opposite (Joh 12:34; Luk 24:26),-and in order likewise to give to that idea the impress of world-embracing universality, although the way was already prepared for this by the promise made to Abraham. The more foreign the idea of a suffering Messiah was to the people in general, the more disinclined the disciples of Jesus showed themselves to accept such a view (Mat 16:21; Luk 24:25); the more certain that its dissemination was effected by the development of the history, while even thus remaining a constant σκάνδαλον to the Jews, the more necessary and justifiable does it appear to suppose a special divine revelation, with which the expression borrowed from Isaiah 53 may very well be consistent. And the more certain it is that the Baptist really was the subject of divine revelations as the forerunner of the Messiah (comp. Mat 3:14), all the more unhistorical is the assumption that the evangelist divests the idea of the Messiah of its historical form (Keim) by putting his own knowledge into the Baptist’s mouth (Strauss, Weisse, Baur, Hilgenfeld, Scholten; comp. De Wette’s doubt, but against this latter, Brückner). This view receives no support from the subsequent vacillation of the Baptist (Mat 11:3), because the revelation which he had received, as well as that made to him at the baptism (Joh 1:32), would not exclude a subsequent and temporary falling into error, and because this was not caused by any sufferings which Jesus underwent, but by his own sufferings in face of the Messianic works of Jesus, whereby the divine light previously received was dimmed through human weakness and impatience. It is only by surrendering the true interpretation (see ὁ αἴρων above) that Luthardt avoids such a supposition as this. The notion of a spiritualizing legend (Schenkel) is of itself excluded by the genuineness of the Gospel, whose author had been a disciple of the Baptist. Moreover, Jesus Himself, according even to the testimony of the Synoptics (Mar 2:20; Mat 12:39, etc.), was sufficiently acquainted from the very first with the certainty of His final sufferings.
does not refer to Joh 1:26-27, where John bears his witness before the deputies from the Sanhedrim, but to an earlier testimony borne by him before his disciples and hearers, and in this definite enigmatic form, to which Joh 1:15 likewise refers
Joh 1:30 does not refer to Joh 1:26-27, where John bears his witness before the deputies from the Sanhedrim, but to an earlier testimony borne by him before his disciples and hearers, and in this definite enigmatic form, to which Joh 1:15 likewise refers. So essential is this characteristic form, that of itself it excludes the reference to Joh 1:26-27 (De Wette, Hengstenberg, Ewald, Godet, and others). The general testimony which John had previously borne to the coming Messiah, here receives its definite application to the concrete personality there standing before him, i.e. to Jesus.
ἐστί] not ἦν again, as in Joh 1:15, for Jesus is now present.
ἐγώ] possesses the emphasis of a certain inward feeling of prophetic certitude.
ἀνὴρ] as coming from the Baptist, more reverential and honourable than ἄνθρωπος. Act 17:31; Zec 6:12; Dem. 426. 6; Herod, vii. 210; Xen. Hier. vii. 3.
Joh 1:31. Κἀγώ] not I also, like all others, but and I, resuming and carrying forward the ἐγώ of Joh 1:30. Though the Baptist had borne witness in a general way concerning the Messiah, as Joh 1:30 affirms, Jesus was, at the time when he bare that witness, still unknown to him as in His own person the historic Messiah. Joh 1:34 shows that καὶ in κἀγώ is the simple and; for the thrice repeated κἀγώ, Joh 1:31-34, can only be arbitrarily interpreted in different senses. The emphasis of the ἐγώ, however (I on my part), consists in his ignorance of the special individuality, in the face of the divine revelation which he had received.
οὐκ ᾔδειν αὐτόν] that is, as the Messiah, see Joh 1:33; not “as the manifestation of a pre-existent personality” (Hilgenfeld); still not denying, in general, every kind of previous acquaintance with Jesus (Lücke, Godet), which the following ἵνα φανερωθῇ and ὃν ὑμεῖς οὐκ οἴδατε in Joh 1:26 forbid. This οὐκ ᾔδειν leaves it quite uncertain whether the Baptist had any personal acquaintance generally with Jesus (and this is by no means placed beyond doubt by the legendary prefatory history in Luk 1:36 ff., which is quite irreconcilable with the text before us). That Jesus was the Messiah became known to the Baptist only at the baptism itself, by the sign of the descending dove; and this sign was immediately preceded only by the prophetic presentiment of which Mat 3:14 is the impress (see on that passage). Accordingly, we are not to assume any contradiction between our text and Matt. l.c. (Strauss, Baur, and most others), nor leave the οὐκ ᾔδειν with its meaning unexplained (Brückner); nor, again, are we to interpret it only comparatively as a denial of clear and certain knowledge (Neander, Maier, Riggenbach, Hengstenberg, Ewald).
ἀλλʼ ἵνα φανερωθῇ, κ.τ.λ.] occupying an emphatic position at the beginning of the clause, and stating the purpose of the Baptist’s manifestation as referring to Messiah, and as still applying notwithstanding the κἀγὼ οὐκ ᾔδειν, and being thus quite independent of his own intention and choice, and purely a matter of divine ordination.
ἵνα φανερωθῇ] This special purpose, in the expression of which, moreover, no reference can be traced to Isa 40:5 (against Hengstenberg), does not exclude the more generally and equally divine ordinance in Joh 1:23, but is included in it. Comp. the tradition in Justin, c. Tryph. 8, according to which the Messiah remained unknown to Himself and others, until Elias anointed Him and made Him manifest to all (φανερὸν πᾶσι ποιήσῃ).
ἐν τῷ ὕδατι βαπτίζων] a humble description of his own baptism as compared with that of Him who baptizes with the Spirit, Joh 1:33; comp. Joh 1:26. Hence also the ἐγώ, Ι on my part. For the rest, we must understand ἐν τ. ὕδ. βαπτ. of John’s call to baptize in general, in which was also included the conception of the baptizing of Jesus, to which Joh 1:32 refers.[119]
[119] For ἐν τῷ ὕδατι, Lachmann (now also Tischendorf), following B. C. G. L. P. Λ. א., cursives, and some of the Fathers, reads ἐν ὕδατι; but the article after ver. 26, comp. ver. 33, would be more easily omitted than inserted. It is demonstrative, for John as he speaks is standing by the Jordan.
Joh 1:32. What John had said in Joh 1:31, viz. that though Jesus was unknown to him as the Messiah, yet his commission was to make Him known to the people, needed explanation; and that as to the way in which he himself had come to recognise Him as the Messiah. This was, indeed, a necessary condition before he could make the φανέρωσις to the people. This explanation he now gives in the following testimony (not first spoken upon another occasion, Ewald) concerning the divine σημεῖον, which he beheld. And the evangelist considers this testimony so weighty, that he does not simply continue the words of the Baptist, but solemnly and emphatically introduces the testimony as such: καὶ ἐμαρτύρησεν, κ.τ.λ., words which are not therefore parenthetical (Bengel, Lücke, and most), but from an impressive part of the record: “And a testimony did John bear, when he said.” The following ὅτι simply recitative.
τεθέαμαι] I have seen; Perfect, like ἑώρακα in Joh 1:34, which see. The phenomenon itself took place at the baptism, which is assumed as known through the Gospel tradition, and is referred to in Joh 1:33 by ὁ πέμψας με βαπτίζειν ἐν ὕδατι, which implies that the σημεῖον was to take place at the baptism of the person spoken of. This is in answer to Baur, p. 104 ff., according to whom there is no room here for the supposition that Jesus was baptized by John,-an assertion all the more groundless, because if we insert the baptism of Jesus before Joh 1:19, there is no place in the plan of this Gospel for the narration of a fact which is assumed as universally known.
The sight itself here spoken of was no mere production of the imagination, but a real sight; it indicates an actual event divinely brought about, which was traditionally worked up by the Synoptics into a visible occurrence more or less objective (most unhesitatingly by Luke), but which can be the subject of testimony only by virtue of a θεωρία νοητική (Origen). See on Mat 3:17, note.
ὡς περιστεράν] i.e. shaped like a dove: ἀντίτυπον μίμημα πελειάδος, Nonnus. See on Mat 3:16. According to Ewald, “the sudden downward flight of a bird, coming near to Him at the moment, confirmed the Baptist’s presentiment,” etc. Conjectures of this kind are additions quite alien to the prophetic mode of view.
καὶ ἔμεινεν ἐπʼ αὐτόν] The transition here to the finite verb is owing to the importance of the fact stated. Bernhardy, p. 473; Buttmann, N. T. Gk. p. 327 [E. T. p. 382]. ἐπʼ αὐτόν, however, is not synonymous with ἐπʼ αὐτοῦ (Joh 19:31); the idea is, “remained (‘fluttered not away,’ Luther) directed towards Him.” We are to suppose the appearance of a dove coming down, and poising itself for a considerable time over the head of the person. See on ἐπί with the accusative (Joh 3:36; 1Pe 4:14), seemingly on the question “where?” Schaef. ad Long. p. 427; Matthiae, p. 1375; Kühner, ad Xen. Anab. i. 2. 2.
Joh 1:33. John’s recognition of Jesus as the Messiah (whom he had not before known as such) rested upon a revelation previously made to him with this intent; and this he now states, solemnly repeating, however, the declaration of his own ignorance (κἀγὼ οὐκ ᾔδειν αὐτόν).
ἐκεῖνος] in emphatic contrast with his own reflection.
εἶπεν] i.e. by express revelation. We cannot tell the precise time or manner of this prior revelation. By it John was referred to some outwardly visible σημεῖον (ἴδῃς) of the Spirit, in a general way, without any definition of its form. He was to see it descending, and this descent took place in the form of a dove, and after that divine intimation there was no room for doubt. Comp. on Mat 3:17, note.
ἐφʼ ὃν ἂν ἴδῃς] that is, when thou baptizest Him with water. This is not expressly stated in the divine declaration, but John could not fail so to understand it, because, being sent to baptize, he would naturally expect the appearance of the promised sign while fulfilling his mission; comp. Joh 1:31. He therefore describes the giver of the revelation as ὁ πέμψας με, κ.τ.λ., and the evangelist puts the statement in the conditional form: ἐφʼ ὃν ἂν, κ.τ.λ., i.e., according to the connection of the narrative: “When, in the fulfilment of this your mission, you shall see the Spirit descending upon one of those whom thou baptizest, this is He,” etc.
ἐν πνεύμ. ἁγίῳ] by communicating it to those who believe upon Him. See on Mat 3:11. The designation of this communication as a baptism very naturally arose from its close relation to the work of the Baptist’s mission (comp. Mat 3:11; Mar 1:8; Luk 3:16; Act 1:5; Act 11:16), because the gift of the Spirit, according to the prophetic figure (Joe 3:1; Isa 44:3), had been promised under the form of an outpouring (comp. Act 2:33). The contrast itself distinctly sets before us the difference between the two baptisms: the one was a preparation for the Messianic salvation by μετάνοια; the other, an introduction thereto by the divine principle of life and salvation, the communication of which presupposes the forgiveness of sins (see on Mar 1:4).
Joh 1:34. A still more distinct and emphatic conclusion of what John had to adduce from Joh 1:31 onwards, in explanation of the οὗτός ἐστιν mentioned in Joh 1:30.
κἀγώ] and I on my part, answering triumphantly to the double κἀγώ in Joh 1:31; Joh 1:33.
ἑώρακα] i.e. as the divine declaration in Joh 1:33 had promised (ἴδῃς). This having seen is to the speaker, as he makes the declaration, an accomplished fact. Hence the Perfect, like τεθέαμαι in Joh 1:32. Nor can the μεμαρτύρηκα be differently understood unless by some arbitrary rendering; it does not mean: “I shall have borne witness” (De Wette, Tholuck, Maier), as the aorist is used in the classics (see on Joh 6:36); or, “I have borne witness, and do so still” (Grotius, Lücke), or “testis sum factus” (Bengel, comp. Bernhardy, p. 378 ff.); but, I have borne witness, that is, since I saw that sight; so that, accordingly, John, immediately after the baptism of Jesus, uttered the testimony which he here refers to as an accomplished fact, and by referring to which he ratifies and confirms what he now has testified (Joh 1:30). Comp. also Winer, p. 256 [E. T. p. 341].
ὅτι οὗτος, κ.τ.λ.] the subject-matter of the μεμαρτ.
ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ] the Messiah, whose divine Sonship, however, had already been apprehended by the Baptist in the metaphysical sense (against Beyschlag, p. 67), agreeably to the testimony borne to His pre-existence in Joh 1:30; Joh 1:15 : ὅττι θεοῦ γόνος οὗτος, ἀειζώοιο τοκῆος, Nonnus. The heavenly voice in Mat 3:17, in the synoptic account of the baptism, corresponds to this testimony. All the less on this account are the statements of the Baptist concerning Jesus to be regarded as unhistorical, and only as an echo of the position assigned to the former in the Prologue (Weizsäcker). The position of the Baptist in the Prologue is the result of the history itself. That the meaning attaching to υἱὸς τ. θεοῦ in the fourth Gospel generally is quite different from that which it has in the Synoptics (Baur), is a view which the passages Mat 11:27; Mat 28:19, should have prevented from being entertained.
Note.
On Joh 1:32-34 we may observe in general: (1.) The λόγος and the πνεῦμα ἁγιον are not to be regarded as identical in John’s view (against Baur, bibl. Theol. d. N. T. II. 268; J. E. Chr. Schmidt, in d. Bibl. f. Krit. u. Exeg. I. 3, p. 361 ff.; Eichhorn, Einl. II. 158 ff.; Winzer, Progr., Lps. 1819), against which the ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο in Joh 1:14 is itself conclusive, in view of which the πνεῦμα in our passage appears as an hypostasis distinct from the λόγος, an hypostasis of which the σὰρξ ἐγένετο could not have been predicated. The λόγος was the substratum of the divine side in Christ, which having become incarnate, entered upon a human development, in which the divine-human subject needed the power and incitement of the πνεῦμα. (2.) He was of necessity under this influence of the Spirit from the very outset of the development of His divine-human consciousness (comp. Luk 2:40; Luk 2:52, and the visit when twelve years old to the temple), and long before the moment of His baptism, so that the πνεῦμα was the awakening and mediating principle of the consciousness which Jesus possessed of His oneness with God; see on Joh 10:36. Accordingly, we are not to suppose that the Holy Ghost was given to Him now for the first time, and was added consciously to His divine-human life as a new and third element; the text speaks not of a receiving, but of a manifestation of the Spirit, as seen by John, which in this form visibly came down and remained over Him, in order to point Him out to the Baptist as the Messiah who, according to O. T. prophecy (Isa 11:2; Isa 42:1), was to possess the fulness of the Spirit. The purpose of this divine σημεῖον was not, therefore (as Matthew and Mark indeed represent it), to impart the Spirit to Jesus (which is not implied even in Joh 3:34), but simply for the sake of the Baptist, to divinely indicate to him who was to make Him known in Israel, that individuality who, as the incarnate Logos, must long before then have possessed the powers of the Spirit in all their fulness (comp. Joh 3:34). The πνεῦμα in the symbolic form of a dove hovered over Jesus, remained over Him for a while, and then again vanished (comp. Schleiermacher, L. J. p. 150). This the Baptist saw; and he now knows, through a previously received revelation made to him for the purpose who it is that he has to make known as the Messiah who baptizes with the Spirit. To find in this passage a special stimulus imparted through the Spirit to Jesus Himself, and perceived by the Baptist, tending to the development or opening up of His divine-human consciousness and life (Lücke, Neander, Tholuck, Osiander, Ebrard, De Wette, Riggenbach, and others; comp. Lange, and Beyschlag, p. 103), or the equipment of the Logos for a coming forth out of a state of immanence (Frommann), or the communication of official power (Gess, Pers. Chr. p. 374; comp. Wörner, Verhältn. d. Geistes, p. 44), as the principle of which the Spirit was now given in order to render the σάρξ fit to become the instrument of His self-manifestation (Luthardt, after Kahnis, vom heiligen Geiste, p. 44; comp. also Hofmann, Schriftbew. I. 191, II. 1, 166; Godet; and Weisse, Lehrbegr. p. 268, who connects with Joh 1:51),-as in a similar way B. Crusius already explained the communication of the Spirit as if the πνεῦμα (in distinction from the λόγος) were now received by Jesus, as that which was to be further communicated to mankind;-these and all such theories find no justification from our Gospel at least, which simply records a manifestation made to the Baptist, not a communication to Jesus; and to it must be accorded decisive weight when brought face to face with those other diverging accounts. Thus, at the same time, this whole manifestation must not be regarded as an empty, objectless play of the imagination (Lücke): it was an objective and real σημεῖον divinely presented to the Baptist’s spiritual vision, the design of which (ἵνα φανερωθῇ τῷ Ἰσραήλ, Joh 1:31, that is, through the Baptist’s testimony) was sufficiently important as the γνώρισμα of the Messiah (Justin. c. Tryph. 88), and the result of which (Joh 1:34) corresponded to its design; whereas, upon the supposition that we have here a record of the receiving of the Spirit, there is imported into the exposition something quite foreign to the text. If this supposition be surrendered, then the opinion loses all support that the descent of the Spirit upon Jesus at His baptism is a mythical inference of Ebionitism (Strauss), as well as the assertion that here too our Gospel stands upon the boundary line of Gnosticism (Baur); while the boldness of view which goes still further, and (in the face of the βαπτίζων ἐν πνεύματι ἁγίῳ) takes the πνεῦμα to be, not the Holy Spirit, but the Logos (in spite of Joh 1:14), which as a heavenly Aeon was for the first time united at the baptism with Jesus the earthly man (so Hilgenfeld, following the Valentinian Gnosis), does not even retain its claim to be considered a later historical analogy. There remains, however, in any case, the great fact of which the Baptist witnesses-“the true birth-hour of Christendom” (Ewald): for, on the one hand, the divinely sent forerunner of the Messiah now received the divinely revealed certainty as to whom his work as Elias pointed; and, on the other hand, by the divinely assured testimony which he now bore to Jesus before the people, the Messianic consciousness of Jesus Himself received not only the consecration of a heavenly ratification, but the warrant of the Father’s will, that now the hour was come for the holy ἀρχή of His ministry in word and work. It was not that now for the first time the Messiah’s resolve was formed; rather was it the entrance (comp. Act 13:23) upon His great work, the commencement of its realization, which was the great event in the world’s history that marked this hour, when the fulness of time was come for the accomplishment of the counsel of God.
Joh 1:35-36. Πάλιν εἱστήκει] pointing back to Joh 1:29.
δύο] One was Andrew, Joh 1:41. The other? Certainly John himself,[120] partly on account of that peculiarity of his which leads him to refrain from naming himself, and partly on account of the special vividness of the details in the following account, which had remained indelibly impressed upon his memory ever since this first and decisive meeting with his Lord.
ἐμβλέψας] denoting fixed attention. Comp. Joh 1:43; Mar 10:21; Mar 10:27; Mar 14:67; Luk 20:17; Luk 22:61. The profoundest interest led him to fix his gaze upon Him.
ἴδε ὁ ἀμνὸς τ. θεοῦ] These few words were quite sufficient to direct the undivided attention of both to Him who was passing that way; for, beyond a doubt (against De Wette, Ewald,-because the fact that nothing is now added to the ὁ ἀμνὸς τ. θεοῦ gives the words quite a retrospective character), they had been witnesses the day before of what is recorded in Joh 1:29-34. The assumption of a further conversation not here recorded (Kuinoel, Lücke, and most) is unnecessary, overlooks the emphasis of the one short yet weighty word on which hangs their recollection of all that occurred the day before, and moreover is not required by Joh 1:37.
We need not even ask why Jesus, who was now walking along (περιπατ.) in the same place, had not been with John, because the text says nothing about it. Answers have been devised; e.g. Bengel: “Jesus had sufficiently humbled Himself by once joining Himself with John;” Lampe: “He wished to avoid the suspicion of any private understanding with the Baptist.” Equally without warrant in the text, B. Crusius and Luthardt: “Jesus had already separated Himself from the Baptist to begin His own proper ministry, while the Baptist desired indirectly to command his disciples to join themselves with Jesus;” as Hengstenberg also supposes, judging from the result, and because he at the same time regards the two as representatives of all John’s disciples.
[120] Already Chrysostom (according to Corderius, Cat.; Theodore of Mopsuestia) mentions the same view, but along with it the other: ὅτι ἐκεῖνος οὐχὶ τῶν ἐπισήμων ἦν, which he seems to approve of.-But if John is here already (and see on ver. 42) indicated, though not by name, and afterwards (ver. 46) Bartholomew under the name Nathanael; if, again, ver. 42 implies that James is brought to Jesus by his brother John, and that he therefore has his place after John; then we certainly cannot say, with Steitz (in the Stud. u. Krit. 1868, p. 497): “The order in which Papias, in Euseb. iii. 39, quotes the six apostles, Andrew, Peter, Philip, Thomas, James, John, exactly corresponds with that in which these names occur in succession in the fourth Gospel.”
Joh 1:37-40. And the two disciples heard (observed) him speak. For he had not addressed the words ἴδε ὁ ἀμνὸς τ. θεοῦ directly to them, but in general (comp. Joh 1:29) to those round about him.
ἠκολούθησαν] not the following of discipleship, nor in a “sens profondément symbolique” (Godet), but simply: “they went after Him” (ὀπίστεροι ἦλθον ὁδῖται Χριστοῦ νεισσομένοιο, Nonnus), in order to know Him more intimately (πεῖραν λαβεῖν αὐτοῦ, Euthymius Zigabenus). Nevertheless Bengel rightly says: primae origines ecclesiae Christianae.
στραφείς] for He heard the footsteps of those following Him.
τί ζητεῖτε] what do you desire? He anticipates them by engaging in conversation with them, not exactly because they were shy and timid (Euthymius Zigabenus). But no doubt the significant θεασάμενος, κ.τ.λ. (intuitus), was accompanied by a glance into their hearts, Joh 2:25.
ποῦ μένεις] correlative to the περιπατοῦντι, Joh 1:36; therefore: “where dost thou sojourn?” Polyb. xxx. 4. 10; Strabo, iii. p. 147. They regarded Him as a travelling Rabbi, who was lodging in the neighbourhood at the house of some friend.
ἔρχεσθε κ. ὄψεσθε (see the critical notes); a friendly invitation to accompany Him at once.[121] They had sought only to know where the place was, so that they might afterwards seek Him out, and converse with Him undisturbed. We have not here the Rabbinical form of calling attention, בא וראה (Buxt. Lex. Talm. p. 248; Lightfoot, p. 968), nor an imitation of Rev 6:1 (Weisse), nor yet an allusion to Psa 66:5; Psa 66:9, and a gentle reference on the part of Jesus to His Godhead (Hengstenberg), for which there was no occasion, and which He could not expect to be understood.
ἦλθον, κ.τ.λ.] shows the simplicity of the narrative.
μένει] instance of insertion of the direct address, common in dependent clauses. Kühner, II. 594; Winer, p. 251 [E. T. p. 335].
τὴν ἡμέρ. ἐκ.] i.e. the remaining part of that day, not at once from that day onwards (Credner, against whom is Ebrard).
ΔΕΚΆΤΗ] that is, at the beginning of their stay with Him. We have no reason to suppose in John, as Rettig does in the Stud. u. Krit. 1830, p. 106, as also Tholuck, Ebrard, Ewald, the Roman mode of counting the hours (from midnight to midnight, therefore ten o’clock in the morning) instead of the Jewish, which is followed elsewhere in the N. T. and by Josephus (even Vit. 54), i.e. four o’clock in the afternoon; because there is time enough from 4 P.M. till late in the evening to justify the popular expression τὴν ἡμέρ. ἐκ.; because, moreover, in Joh 11:9 it is plainly the Jewish method which is followed; and because even in Joh 4:6 the same method best suits the context, and is not excluded in Joh 4:52, while in Joh 19:14 it is with a harmonistic view that the Roman method of reckoning is resorted to. The Romans themselves, moreover, frequently measured the day after the Babylonian computation of the hours, according to the twelve hours from sunrise to sunset; and the tenth hour especially is often named, as in our text, as the hour of return from walking, and mention of it occurs as a late hour in the day, when e.g. the soldiers were allowed to rest (Liv. ix. 37), or when they went to table (Martial, vii. 1), etc. See Wetstein.
The great significance of this hour for John (it was the first of his Christian life) had indelibly impressed it on his grateful recollection, and hence the express mention of it here. This consideration forbids our giving, with Hilgenfeld and Lichtenstein, to the statement of time an onward reference to the incident next mentioned, the finding by Andrew of his brother Simon. Brückner, too, imports something that is foreign into this statement of time, when he says that it indicates, in close connection with Joh 1:41 ff., how rapidly faith developed itself in these disciples.
[121] There is nothing to indicate whether the place where He was lodging was near or at a distance, although Ewald would infer the latter from the reading ὄψεσθε.
Joh 1:41-43. Still on the same day (not on the following, as, after the early expositors, De Wette, Baur, Luthardt, Ewald, and most others suppose; see, on the contrary, the ἐπαύριον which again appears, but not till Joh 1:44), Andrew first meets his brother Simon.
πρῶτος] We must understand the matter thus: Both disciples go out from the lodging-place (at the same time, or perhaps Andrew first), still in the first fresh glow of joy at having found the Messias,[122] in order that each of them may seek his own brother (we must assume that both brothers were known to be in the neighbourhood), in order to inform him of the new joy, and to bring him to Christ. Andrew is the first (ΠΡῶΤΟς, not ΠΡῶΤΟΝ, an inelegant change adopted by Lachmann, after A. B. M. X. א **) who finds his brother. John, however, does not say that he also sought his brother James, found him, and brought him to Jesus; and this is in keeping with the delicate reserve which prevents him from naming either himself or those belonging to him (even the name of James does not occur in the Gospel). Still this may be clearly seen from the ΠΡῶΤΟς, and is confirmed by the narrative of the Synoptics, in so far that both James and John are represented as being called at the same time by Jesus (Mar 1:19 and parallels). Bengel, Tholuck, De Wette, Hengstenberg, wrongly say that Andrew and John had both sought out Simon. The ΤῸΝ ἼΔΙΟΝ is against this; as it neither here nor elsewhere (comp. Joh 5:18) occurs as a mere possessive (against Lücke, Maier, De Wette, and others), but in opposition to that which is foreign. Any antithetic relation to the spiritual brotherhood in which John as well as Andrew stood to Simon (Hengstenberg), is quite remote from the passage.
εὑρήκαμεν] placed emphatically at the beginning of the clause, and presupposing the feeling of anxious desire excited by the Baptist. The plural is used because Andrew had in mind the other disciple also.
ἐμβλέψας, κ.τ.λ.] This fixed look (Joh 1:36) on the countenance of Simon pierces his inner soul. Jesus, as the Searcher of hearts (Joh 2:25; Weiss, Lehrbegr. p. 263), sees in him one who should hereafter be called to be the rock of the church, and calls him by the name which he was henceforth to bear as His disciple (not first in Mat 16:18, as Luthardt thinks). A rock is the emblem of firmness as early as Homer (Od. xvii. 463); comp. Eze 3:9. There is no contradiction here with Mat 16:18 (it is otherwise with Mar 3:16), as if John had transferred the giving of the name to this place (Hilgenfeld, comp. Baur and Scholten), for in Mat 16:18 the earlier giving of the name is really presupposed, confirmed, and applied. See on Matt.
σὺ εἶ Σίμων, κ.τ.λ.] This belongs to the circumstantiality of the solemn ceremony of the name-giving; it is first said who he is, and what in future he should be called. Comp. Gen 32:28; Gen 35:10; Gen 17:5. Σὺ εἶ Σίμων is not, as Ewald thinks, a question; and there is no ground whatever for supposing that Jesus immediately recognised him (Cyril, Chrysostom, Augustine, Aretius, Maldonatus, Cornelius a Lapide, Bengel, Luthardt, and many, comp. Strauss), for Andrew introduced his brother to Jesus. Grotius and Paulus[123] give arbitrary explanations of the reading Ἰωνᾶ, but see the critical notes. For the rest, we must not say, with Hilgenfeld, “Peter here attains the pre-eminence of the first called disciple;” but Peter is first given this pre-eminence in the synoptical accounts (Mat 4:18 and parallels); the personal recollection of John, however, must take precedence of these. See especially the note following Joh 1:51.
[122] John’s use here and in Joh 4:25 of τὸν Μεσσίαν (משיה) is accounted for by the depicting of the scene exactly as it occurred; whereas in Joh 1:20; Joh 1:25, when he simply writes historically, he uses the ordinary translation Χριστός. The genre picture is specially minute; so here. According to Baur, N. T. Theol. p. 393, the author has given an antiquarian notice, as it were, of this Hebrew name which occurs nowhere else in the N. T.
[123] The fantastic play upon the words in Lange’s L. J. II. 469, is of this sort. He renders: “Now thou art the son of the timid dove of the rock; in future shalt thou be called the sheltering rock of the dove (the church).” According to the true reading of the passage, the name of Peter’s father contained in Βαριωνά which occurs in Matthew, must be regarded as an abbreviation for John, and has nothing whatever to do with dove. See on Mat 16:17.
Joh 1:44-45. Τῇ ἐπαύρ.] i.e. after the last-mentioned day, Joh 1:39, which is the same with the τῇ ἐπαύρ. of Joh 1:35, consequently the fourth day from Joh 1:19.
ἠθέλησεν, κ.τ.λ.] He was just desiring to go forth, and findeth, etc.; therefore still at the lodging-place, Joh 1:40, for ἐξελθεῖν refers to the stay there (μένει, Joh 1:40).
εὑρίσκει] as if accidentally, but see Joh 17:5 ff.
The statement, instead of being hypotactic in form (“when he would go out, he findeth”), is paratactic, as often in Greek from Homer downwards (Nägelsbach, z. Ilias, p. 65, ed. 3; Kuhner, II. p. 416), and in the N. T.; Buttmann, N.T. Gr. p. 249 [E. T. p. 196]. We must place the scene at the commencement of the journey homeward, not on the road during the journey (Lücke).
ἀκολ. μοι] of following as disciples. Comp. Mat 4:19-20; Mat 9:9; see also Joh 1:46; Joh 2:2. The invitation to do this (not merely to go with Him) is explained by Joh 1:45, as brought about by the communications of Andrew and Peter, though certainly the heart-piercing look of Jesus Himself, and the impression produced by His whole bearing, must be regarded as the causes which mainly led Philip to come to a decision. John does not record the further conversations which of course ensued upon the ἀκολ. μοι, and the obedience which followed, because his aim was to narrate the call.
ἐκ τ. πόλεως, κ.τ.λ.] see on Mat 8:14.
Joh 1:46. Εὑρίσκει] when and where in the course of the journey we are not told,-perhaps at some distance from the road, so that Philip, observing him, quitted the road, and went towards him. According to Ewald, “not till after their arrival in the village of Cana, which nevertheless is named for the first time in Joh 2:1, and to which Nathanael belonged” (Joh 21:2). The supposition, however, that Nathanael was on his way to John’s baptism (Godet) is quite groundless.
Ναθαναήλ, נְתַנְאֵל, i.e. Theodorus (Num 1:8; 1Ch 2:14), is identical with Bartholomaeus. For, according to this passage, in the midst of calls to the apostleship, comp. Joh 21:2, he appears as one of the twelve; while in the lists of the apostles (Mat 10:3; Luk 6:14; Mar 1:18; Act 1:13), where his name is wanting, we find Bartholomaeus, and placed, moreover, side by side with Philip (only in Act 1:13 with Matthew;[124] comp. Constitt. Apol. vi. 14. 1). This identity is all the more probable, because Bartholomew is only a patronymic, and must have become the ordinary name of the individual, and that in most frequent use; and thus it came to pass that his own distinctive name does not appear in the synoptic narrative.
ὃν ἔγραψε] of whom, etc. See on Rom 10:5
Μωϋσῆς] Deu 18:15, and generally in his Messianic references and types. See on Joh 1:46.
ΤῸΝ ἈΠῸ ΝΑΖΑΡΈΤ] for Nazareth, where Jesus had lived with His parents from infancy upwards, passed for His birth-place. Philip may have obtained his knowledge from Andrew and Peter, or even from Jesus Himself, who had no occasion at this time to state more fully and minutely his relation to Nazareth; while the τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ Ἰωσήφ, which must rest upon a communication from Jesus, leaves His divine Sonship undisturbed. To attribute to Philip knowledge of the facts of the case with regard to both points (Hengstenberg) is in itself improbable, and is not in keeping with the simplicity of his words. But it is a groundless assumption to suppose that John knew nothing of the birth at Bethlehem; for it is Philip’s own words that he records (against Strauss, De Wette). See on Joh 7:41.
[124] Hilgenfeld regarded him as identical with Matthew; but how much opposed is this view to the history of Matthew’s call! though the meaning of his name is not different from that of Matthew’s. Very recently, however, Hilgenfeld has supposed that the name answers to the Matthias who was appointed in the place of Judas (N. T. extra canon. IV. p. 105). Schleiermacher, L. J. p. 368, considers it very doubtful whether Nathanael belonged to the twelve at all. Chrysostom, Augustine, and others, long ago denied that he did, but this is already assumed in the “duae viae” (Hilgenfeld, N. T. extra canon. IV.). According to Spaeth, in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschrift, 1868, p. 168 ff., Nathanael is to be taken as a symbolical name, invented by the writer, under which the Apostle John himself is said to be represented. The author of the Appendix, chap. Joh 21:2, where Nathanael is expressly distinguished from the sons of Zebedee, is said to have made a mistake.
Joh 1:47. Can anything good come out of Nazareth? A question of astonishment that the Messiah should come out of Nazareth. But Nathanael asks thus doubtingly, not because Nazareth lay in Galilee, Joh 7:52 (the Fathers, Luther, Melancthon, Ebrard, and many), nor because of its smallness, as too insignificant to be the birth-place of the Messiah (Lücke, De Wette, Hug, Krabbe, Ewald, Lange, Brückner, and others), nor from both reasons together (Hengstenberg); nor, again, because the prophecy did not speak of Nazareth as the Messiah’s birth-place (Godet); but, as the general expression τὶ ἀγαθόν proves (it is not the more special ὁ Χριστός), because Nathanael, and probably public opinion likewise, looked upon the little town as morally degenerate: it must have been so regarded at least in the narrow circle of the surrounding villages (Nathanael belonged to Cana). We have no historical proof that this was so; outside the N. T. the place is not mentioned, not even in Josephus; nevertheless Mar 6:6, and the occurrence recorded Luk 4:15 ff., well correspond with Nathanael’s judgment as to its disrepute in a moral point of view.
ἀγαθόν] which yet must above all be the case if the Messiah were to come therefrom,
He whose coming must be a signally holy and sublime manifestation.
ἔρχου κ. ἴδε] “optimum remedium contra opiniones praeconceptas,” Bengel.
Joh 1:48. Περὶ αὐτοῦ] therefore to those journeying with Him, but so that the approaching Nathanael hears it, Joh 1:49.
ἀληθῶς] truly an Israelite, not merely according to outward descent and appearance, but in the moral nature which really corresponds to that of an upright Israelite. Comp. Rom 9:6; Rom 2:29. Ἐν ᾧ δόλος οὐκ ἐστί tells by what means he is so. Thus sincere and honest, thus inwardly true, should every Israelite be (not simply free from self-righteousness, but possessing what essentially belongs to truth); and Nathanael was all this. This virtue of guilelessness, as the characteristic of the true Israelite, is not named as belonging generally to the ancient ideal of the nation (Lücke, De Wette; this view arbitrarily passes by the reference to the nation historically which lay much nearer); but in view of the venerable and honourable testimonies which had been uttered concerning the people of Israel (e.g. Num 23:10), whose father was himself already designated אִישׁ תָּם, LXX. ἄπλαστος,[125] Gen 25:27; Aq. ἉΠΛΟῦς,[126] Symm. ἄμωμος.
Jesus here also, as in Joh 1:43-44, appears as the searcher of hearts.
Joh 1:49. The approaching Nathanael heard the testimony of Jesus, and does not decline His commendation,-itself a proof of his guileless honesty; but he asks in amazement how Jesus knew him.
ὄντα ὑπὸ τ. συκῆν] belongs, as Joh 1:51 shows, not to φωνῆσαι, but to εἶδόν σε. Therefore, before Philip, Joh 1:46-47, met and called (φωνῆσαι, comp. Joh 2:9, Joh 4:16, Joh 9:28, Joh 18:33), Nathanael had been under a fig-tree; whether the fig-tree of his own house (Mic 4:4; Zec 3:10), whether meditating (possibly upon the Messianic hope of the people), praying, reading,-which, according to Rabbinical statements (see in Lightfoot, Schoettgen, Wetstein), were employments performed beneath such trees,-we are not informed. He had just come from the tree to the place where Philip met him.[127]
ΕἾΔΌΝ ΣΕ] is usually taken as referring to a glance into the depth of his soul,[128] but contrary to the simple meaning of the words, which affirm nothing else than: I saw thee, not ἔγνων σε, or the like. Comp. also Hengstenberg. The miraculous element in the ΕἾΔΌΝ ΣΕ, which made it a ΣΗΜΕῖΟΝ to Nathanael, and which led to his confession which follows in Joh 1:50, must have consisted in the fact that the fig-tree either was situated out of sight of the place, or so far off that no one with ordinary powers of sight could have discerned a person under it. ΕἾΔΌΝ ΣΕ thus simply interpreted gives the true solution to Nathanael’s question, because there could not have been this rapport of miraculous far-seeing on the part of Jesus, had it not just been brought about by the immediate recognition of the true Israelite when he was at that distance. This spiritual elective affinity was the medium of the supernatural εἶδόν σε. Nonnus well says: ὌΜΜΑΣΙ ΚΑῚ ΠΡΑΠΊΔΕΣΣΙ ΤῸΝ Οὐ ΠΑΡΕΌΝΤΑ ΔΟΚΕΎΩΝ. Jesus would not have seen an ordinary Jew, who, being therefore without this spiritual affinity, was beyond the limits of sight.
ὑπὸ τὴν συκ.] with the article: “under that well-known fig-tree, beneath which you were,” or, if the tree was within the range of vision, pointing towards it. De Wette also rightly abides by the simple meaning, I saw thee, but thinks that what caused the astonishment of Nathanael was the fact that Jesus saw him when he believed himself to he unobserved (though John regarded this seeing as supernatural). But this does not give an adequate motive psychologically for the confession of Joh 1:50; and we must further assume, with Ewald, that the words of Jesus reminded Nathanael of the deep and weighty thoughts which he was revolving when alone under the fig-tree, and he thus perceived that the depths of his soul were laid open before the spiritual eye of Jesus, though this is not indicated in the text.
[127] The reference of the εἶδόν σε to the same place where Philip called him (so, after the Greek Fathers, B. Crusius) must be rejected, because neither the πρὸ τοῦ
φωνῆσαι nor the ὄντα ὑπὸ τὴν συκῆν would thus have their appropriate and necessary point.
[128] Where it is imagined, though without the slightest hint to that effect in the text, that Jesus had a short time before passed by the fig-tree unobserved.
Joh 1:50. The double designation is uttered in the excitement of joyful certainty. The simple faith in the Messiah, expressed in Joh 1:41, is here intensified, not as to its subject-matter, but in its outward expression. Comp. Luthardt, p. 344. The second designation is the more definite of the two; and therefore the first, in the sense in which Nathanael used it, is not as yet to be apprehended metaphysically (against Hengstenberg) in John’s sense, but is simply theocratic, presupposing the national view (Psa 2:7; Joh 11:27) of the promised and expected theocratic King (comp. Riehm in the Stud. u. Krit. 1865, p. 63 ff.), and not perhaps implying the teaching of the Baptist (Olshausen). The early occurrence of such confessions therefore conflicts the less with that later one of Peter’s in Mat 16:3, which implies, however, a consciousness of the higher import of the words (against Strauss).
Joh 1:51. Πιστεύεις is, with Chrysostom and most others (even Lachmann and Tischendorf, not Godet), to be taken interrogatively; see on Joh 20:29.[129] But the question is not uttered in a tone of censure, which would only destroy the fresh bloom of this first meeting (Theophylact: “he had not yet rightly believed in Christ’s Godhead”); nor is it even the expression of slight disapproval of a faith which was not yet based upon adequate grounds (De Wette, comp. Ewald); but, on the contrary, it is an expression of surprise, whereby Jesus joyfully recognises a faith in Nathanael which could hardly have been expected so soon. And to this faith, so surprisingly ready in its beginning, He promises something greater (ἐς ἐλπίδα φέρτερον ἕλκων, Nonnus) by way of further confirmation.
τούτων] Plural of the category: “than this which you now have met with, and which has become the ground of your faith.”
καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ] specially introduces the further statement of the μείζω τούτων as a most significant word.
ἀμὴν ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν] The double ἈΜῊΝ does not occur in other parts of the N. T., but we find it twenty-five times in John, and only in the mouth of Jesus,-therefore all the more certainly original.
ὙΜῖΝ] to thee and Andrew, John, Peter (James, see in Joh 1:42), and Philip.
ἈΠΆΡΤΙ] from now onwards, for Jesus was about to begin His Messianic work. See chap. 2. Thus, in this weighty word He furnishes His disciples with the key for the only correct understanding of that work.
ὄψεσθε, κ.τ.λ.] The “opened heaven” is not intended to be taken in its literal sense, as if it stood alone, but is part of the figurative moulding of the sentence in keeping with the following metaphor. Observe here the perfect participle: heaven stands open; comp. Act 7:56. The ascending and descending angels are, according to Gen 28:12, a symbolical representation of the uninterrupted and living intercourse subsisting between the Messiah and God,-an intercommunion which the disciples would clearly and vividly recognise, or, according to the symbolic form of the thought, would see as a matter of experience throughout the ministry of Jesus which was to follow.[130] The angels are not therefore to be regarded as personified divine powers (Olshausen, De Wette, and several), or as personal energies of God’s Spirit (Luthardt and Hofmann), but as always God’s messengers, who brought to the Messiah God’s commands, or executed them on Him (comp. Mat 4:11; Mat 26:53; Luk 22:43), and return to God again (ἀναβαίνοντας), while others with new commissions came down (ΚΑΤΑΒΑΊΝ.), and so on. We are not told whether, and if so, to what extent, Nathanael and his companions now already perceived the symbolic meaning of the declaration. It certainly is not to be understood as having reference to the actual appearances of angels in the course of the Gospel history (Chrysostom, Cyril., Euthymius Zigabenus, and most of the early expositors), against which ἀπάρτι is conclusive; nor merely to the working of miracles (Storr, Godet), which is in keeping neither with the expression itself, nor with the necessary reference to the Messiah’s ministry as a whole, which must be described by ἀπάρτι ὄψεσθε, etc.
ἈΝΑΒΑΊΝ.] is placed first, in remembrance of Gen 28:12, without any special purpose, but not inappropriately, because when the ὄψεσθε takes place, the intercourse between heaven and earth does not then begin, but is already going on. We may supply ἈΠῸ ΤΟῦ ΥἹΟῦ ΤΟῦ ἈΝΘΡ. after ἈΝΑΒΑΊΝ. from the analogy of what follows. See Kühner, II. p. 603.
Concerning Ὁ ΥἹῸς ΤΟῦ ἈΝΘΡ., see on Mat 8:20; Mar 2:8, note. In John likewise it is the standing Messianic designation of Jesus as used by Himself; here, where angelic powers are represented as waiting upon Him who bears the Messianic authority, it corresponds rather with the prophetic vision of the Son of man (Dan 7:14), and forms the impressive conclusion of the whole section, confirming and ratifying the joyous faith and confession of the first disciples, as the first solemn self-avowal on the part of Jesus in their presence. It thus retained a deep and indelible hold upon the recollection of John, and therefore it stands as the utterance of the clear Messianic consciousness of Jesus unveiled before us at the outset of His work. It is exactly in John that the Messiahship of Jesus comes out with the greatest precision, not as the consequence and result, but as already, from the beginning onwards, the subject-matter of our Lord’s self-consciousness.[131]
[129] As to the paratactic protasis, which may be read interrogatively or not according to the character of the discourse, see C. F. Hermann, Progr. 1849, p. 18; Scheibe in Schneidew. Philolog. 1850, p. 362 ff. Comp. also Nägelsbach’s note on the Iliad, p. 350, ed. 3.
[130] This expression tells us nothing concerning the origin of Christ’s knowledge of God, which ver. 18 clearly declares, and which cannot therefore be attributed to a series of progressive revelations (Weizsäcker); the expression rather presupposes that origin. Comp. also Weiss, Lehrbegr. p. 286 ff.
[131] The historic accuracy of this relation, as testified by John, stands with the apostolic origin of the Gospel, against which even the objections of Holtzmann in his investigation, which are excellent in a historical point of view (Jahrb. f. D. Theol. 1867, p. 389), can have no effect.
Note.
The synoptical account of the call of the two pairs of brothers, Mat 4:18 ff. and parallels, is utterly irreconcilable with that of John as to place, time, and circumstances; and the usual explanations resorted to-that what is here recorded was only a preliminary call,[132] or only a social union with Christ (Luther, Lücke, Ebrard, Tholuck; comp. also Ewald and Godet), or only the gathering together of the first believers (Luthardt), but not their call-fall to the ground at once when we see how the narrative proceeds; for according to it the μαθηταί, Joh 2:2, are with Jesus, and remain with Him. See on Mat 4:19-20. The harmony of the two accounts consists in this simply, that the two pairs of brothers are the earliest apostles. To recognise in John’s account not an actual history, but a picture of the author’s own, drawn by himself for the sake of illustrating his idea (Baur, Hilgenfeld, Schenkel),-that, viz., the knowledge of the disciples and that of Jesus Himself as to His Messianic call might appear perfect from the outset,-is only one of the numerous self-deceptions in criticism which form the premisses of the unhistorical conclusion that the fourth Gospel is not the work of the apostle, but of some writer of much later date, who has moulded the history into the form of his own ideal. On the contrary, we must here specially observe that the author, if he wished to antedate the time and place of the call, certainly did not need, for the carrying out of his idea, to invent a totally different situation from that which was before his eyes in the Synoptics. Over and above this, the assumption that, by previously receiving John’s baptism, Jesus renounced any independent action (Schenkel), is pure imagination. Weizsäcker (p. 404) reduces John’s account to this: “The first acquaintance between Jesus and these followers of His was brought about by His meeting with the Baptist; and on that occasion, amid the excitement which the Baptist created, Messianic hopes, however transitory, were kindled in this circle of friends.” But this rests upon a treatment of the fourth Gospel, according to which it can no longer claim the authority of an independent witness; instead of this witness, we have merely the poet of a thoughtful Idyll. And when Keim (I. p. 553) finds here only the narration of an age that could no longer endure the humble and human beginnings of Jesus, but would transplant into the time of His first appearance that glory which, as a matter of history, first distinguished His departure and His exaltation, this is all the more daring a speculation, the more closely, according to Keim, the origin of the Gospel verges upon the lifetime of the apostle, and must therefore present the most vivid recollections of His disciples.
[132] So, most recently, Märcker, Uebereinstimm. der Evang. d. Matt. u. Joh., Meiningen 1868, p. 10 ff. The τὸν λεγόμενον Πέτρον, Mat 4:18, furnishes no proof, as is plain from the parallel in Mar 1:16, which is the source of Matthew’s account, but as not those words. They are simply a personal notice added from the standing-point of the writer, as in Mat 10:2.
1. In the beginning was the Speech. In this introduction he asserts the eternal Divinity of Christ, in order to inform us that he is the eternal God, who was manifested in the flesh, (1. i 3:16.) The design is, to show it to have been necessary that the restoration of mankind should be accomplished by the Son of God, since by his power all things were created, since he alone breathes into all the creatures life and energy, so that they remain in their condition; and since in man himself he has given a remarkable display both of his power and of his grace, and even subsequently to the fall of man has not ceased to show liberality and kindness towards his posterity. And this doctrine is highly necessary to be known; for since apart from God we ought not at all to seek life and salvation, how could our faith rest on Christ, if we did not know with certainty what is here taught? By these words, therefore, the Evangelist assures us that we do not withdraw from the only and eternal God, when we believe in Christ, and likewise that life is now restored to the dead through the kindness of him who was the source and cause of life, when the nature of man was still uncorrupted.
As to the Evangelist calling the Son of God the Speech, the simple reason appears to me to be, first, because he is the eternal Wisdom and Will of God; and, secondly, because he is the lively image of His purpose; for, as Speech is said to be among men the image of the mind, so it is not inappropriate to apply this to God, and to say that He reveals himself to us by his Speech. The other significations of the Greek word λόγος (Logos) do not apply so well. It means, no doubt, definition, and reasoning, and calculation; but I am unwilling to carry the abstruseness of philosophy beyond the measure of my faith. And we perceive that the Spirit of God is so far from approving of such subtleties that, in prattling with us, by his very silence he cries aloud with what sobriety we ought to handle such lofty mysteries.
Now as God, in creating the world, revealed himself by that Speech, so he formerly had him concealed with himself, so that there is a twofold relation; the former to God, and the latter to men. Servetus, a haughty scoundrel belonging to the Spanish nation, invents the statement, that this eternal Speech began to exist at that time when he was displayed in the creation of the world, as if he did not exist before his power was made known by external operation. Very differently does the Evangelist teach in this passage; for he does not ascribe to the Speech a beginning of time, but says that he was from the beginning, and thus rises beyond all ages. I am fully aware how this dog barks against us, and what cavils were formerly raised by the Arians, namely, that
in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,
(Gen 1:1)
which nevertheless are not eternal, because the word beginning refers to order, instead of denoting eternity. But the Evangelist meets this calumny when he says,
And the Speech was with God. If the Speech began to be at some time, they must find out some succession of time in God; and undoubtedly by this clause John intended to distinguish him from all created things. For many questions might arise, Where was this Speech ? How did he exert his power? What was his nature? How might he be known? The Evangelist, therefore, declares that we must not confine our views to the world and to created things; for he was always united to God, before the world existed. Now when men date the beginning from the origin of heaven and earth, do they not reduce Christ to the common order of the world, from which he is excluded in express terms by this passage? By this proceeding they offer an egregious insult not only to the Son of God, but to his eternal Father, whom they deprive of his wisdom. If we are not at liberty to conceive of God without his wisdom, it must be acknowledged that we ought not to seek the origin of the Speech any where else than in the Eternal Wisdom of God.
Servetus objects that the Speech cannot be admitted to have existed any earlier than when Moses introduces God as speaking. As if he did not subsist in God, because he was not publicly made known: that is, as if he did not exist within, until he began to appear without. But every pretense for outrageously absurd fancies of this description is cut off by the Evangelist, when he affirms without reservation, that the Speech was with God; for he expressly withdraws us from every moment of time.
Those who infer from the imperfect tense of the verb (9) which is here used, that it denotes continued existence, have little strength of argument to support them. Was, they say, is a word more fitted to express the idea of uninterrupted succession, than if John had said, Has been. But on matters so weighty we ought to employ more solid arguments; and, indeed, the argument which I have brought forward ought to be reckoned by us sufficient; namely, that the Evangelist sends us to the eternal secrets of God, that we may there learn that the Speech was, as it were hidden, before he revealed himself in the external structure of the world. Justly, therefore, does Augustine remark, that this beginning, which is now mentioned, has no beginning; for though, in the order of nature, the Father came before his Wisdom, yet those who conceive of any point of time when he went before his Wisdom, deprive Him of his glory. And this is the eternal generation, which, during a period of infinite extent before the foundation of the world, lay hid in God, so to speak — which, for a long succession of years, was obscurely shadowed out to the Fathers under the Law, and at length was more fully manifested in flesh.
I wonder what induced the Latins to render ὁ λόγος by Verbum, (the Word;) for that would rather have been the translation of τὸ ῥη̑μα. But granting that they had some plausible reason, still it cannot be denied that Sermo (the Speech) would have been far more appropriate. Hence it is evident, what barbarous tyranny was exercised by the theologians of the Sorbonne, (10) who teased and stormed at Erasmus in such a manner, because he had changed a single word for the better.
And the Speech was with God. We have already said that the Son of God is thus placed above the world and above all the creatures, and is declared to have existed before all ages. But at the same time this mode of expression attributes to him a distinct personality from the Father; for it would have been absurd in the Evangelist to say that the Speech was always with God, if he had not some kind of subsistence peculiar to himself in God. This passage serves, therefore, to refute the error of Sabellius; for it shows that the Son is distinct from the Father. I have already remarked that we ought to be sober in thinking, and modest in speaking, about such high mysteries. And yet the ancient writers of the Church were excusable, when, finding that they could not in any other way maintain sound and pure doctrine in opposition to the perplexed and ambiguous phraseology of the heretics, they were compelled to invent some words, which after all had no other meaning than what is taught in the Scriptures. They said that there are three Hypostases, or Subsistences, or Persons, in the one and simple essence of God. The word; ὑπόστασις (Hypostasis) occurs in this sense in Heb 1:3, to which corresponds the Latin word Substaatia, (substance) as it is employed by Hilary. The Persons (τὰ πρόσωπα) were called by them distinct properties in God, which present themselves to the view of our minds; as Gregory Nazianzen says, “I cannot think of the One (God) without having the Three (Persons) shining around me. (11)
And the Speech was God. That there may be no remaining doubt as to Christ’s divine essence, the Evangelist distinctly asserts that he is God. Now since there is but one God, it follows that Christ is of the same essence with the Father, and yet that, in some respect, he is distinct from the Father. But of the second clause we have already spoken. As to the unity of the divine essence, Arius showed prodigious wickedness, when, to avoid being compelled to acknowledge the eternal Divinity of Christ, he prattled about I know not what imaginary Deity; (12) but for our part, when we are informed that the Speech was God, what right have we any longer to call in question his eternal essence?
(9) “Pource qu’il est dit Estoit, et non pas N’este;” — “Because it is said Was, and not Has been.
(10) “Les Theologiens Sorbonistes.”
(11) The reader will find our Author’s views of the Holy Trinity very fully illustrated in the Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book I. Chap. 13., and will be at a loss whether to admire most the marvelous acuteness, or the sobriety of judgment, by which the whole discussion is pervaded. — Ed.
(12) “Que c’estoit je ne scay quel Dieu qui avoit este cree, et eu commencement;”— “That there was I know not what God who had been created, and had a beginning.”
2. He was in the beginning. In order to impress more deeply on our minds what had been already said, the Evangelist condenses the two preceding clauses into a brief summary, that the Speech always was, and that he was with God; so that it may be understood that the beginning was before all time.
3. All things were made by him. Having affirmed that the Speech is God, and having asserted his eternal essence, he now proves his Divinity from his works. And this is the practical knowledge, to which we ought to be chiefly accustomed; for the mere name of God attributed to Christ will affect us little, if our faith do not feel it to be such by experience. In reference to the Son of God, he makes an assertion which strictly and properly applies to his person. Sometimes, indeed, Paul simply declares that all things are by God, (Rom 11:36) but whenever the Son is compared with the Father, he is usually distinguished by this mark. Accordingly, the ordinary mode of expression is here employed, that the Father made all things by the Son, and that all things are by God through the Son. Now the design of the Evangelist is, as I have already said, to show that no sooner was the world created than the Speech of God came forth into external operation; for having formerly been incomprehensible in his essence, he then became publicly known by the effect of his power. There are some, indeed, even among philosophers, who make God to be the Master-builder of the world in such a manner as to ascribe to him intelligence in framing this work. So far they are in the right, for they agree with Scripture; but as they immediately fly off into frivolous speculations, there is no reason why we should eagerly desire to have their testimonies; but, on the contrary, we ought to be satisfied with this inspired declaration, well knowing that it conveys far more than our mind is able to comprehend.
And without him was not any thing made that was made. Though there is a variety of readings in this passage, yet for my own part, I have no hesitation in taking it continuously thus: not any thing was made that was made; and in this almost all the Greek manuscripts, or at least those of them which are most approved, are found to agree; besides, the sense requires it. Those who separate the words, which was made, from the preceding clause, so as to connect them with the following one, bring out a forced sense: what was made was in him life; that is, lived, or was sustained in life. (13) But they will never show that this mode of expression is, in any instance, applied to creatures. Augustine, who is excessively addicted to the philosophy of Plato, is carried along, according to custom, to the doctrine of ideas; that before God made the world, he had the form of the whole building conceived in his mind; and so the life of those things which did not yet exist was in Christ, because the creation of the world was appointed in him. But how widely different this is From the intention of the Evangelist we shall immediately see.
I now return to the former clause. This is not a faulty redundancy, (περιττολογία) as it appears to be; for as Satan endeavors, by every possible method, to take any thing from Christ, the Evangelist intended to declare expressly, that of those things which have been made there is no exception whatever.
(13) The difference of readings lies wholly in the punctuation, and the dispute is, whether the words ὃ γέγονεν shall form the conclusion of the Third, or the commencement of the Fourth verse. Calvin expresses his concurrence with the majority of manuscripts, which connect the words in question with the Third verse thus Καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἓν ὃ γέγονεν, and without him was not any thing made, (or, more literally, as well as more emphatically,) and without him was not one thing made which was made. Other manuscripts, certainly of no great authority, connect them with the Fourth verse: Καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἓν Ο γέγονεν ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ᾖν And without him was not one thing made What was made was in him life. The preference given by our Author rests on grounds which can scarcely be questioned. — Ed
4. In him was life. Hitherto he has taught us, that by the Speech of God all things were created. He now attributes to him, in the same manner, the preservation of those things which had been created, as if he had said, that in the creation of the world there was not merely displayed a sudden exercise of his power, which soon passed away, but that it is manifested in the steady and regular order of nature, as he is said to uphold all things by the word or will of his power, (Heb 1:3). This life may be extended either to inanimate creatures, (which live after their own manner, though they are devoid of feeling,) or may be explained in reference to living creatures alone. It is of little consequence which you choose; for the simple meaning is, that the Speech of God was not only the source of life to all the creatures, so that those which were not began to be, but that his life -giving power causes them to remain in their condition; for were it not that his continued inspiration gives vigor to the world, every thing that lives would immediately decay, or be reduced to nothing. In a word, what Paul ascribes to God, that in him we are, and move, and live, (Act 17:28,) John declares to be accomplished by the gracious agency ofthe Speech; so that it is God who gives us life, but it is by the eternal Speech
The life was the light of men. The other interpretations, which do not accord with the meaning of the Evangelist, I intentionally pass by. He speaks here, in my opinion, of that part of life in which men excel other animals; and informs us that the life which was bestowed on men was not of an ordinary description, but was united to the light of understanding. He separates man from the rank of other creatures; because we perceive more readily the power of God by feeling it in us than by beholding it at a distance. Thus Paul charges us not to seek God at a distance, because he makes himself to be felt within us, (Act 17:27.) After having presented a general exhibition of the kindness of Christ, in order to induce men to take a nearer view of it, he points out what has been bestowed peculiarly on themselves; namely, that they were not created like the beasts, but having been endued with reason, they had obtained a higher rank. As it is not in vain that God imparts his light to their minds, it follows that the purpose for which they were created was, that they might acknowledge Him who is the Author of so excellent a blessing. And since this light, of which the Speech was the source, has been conveyed from him to us, it ought to serve as a mirror, in which we may clearly behold the divine power ofthe Speech
5. And the light shineth in darkness. It might be objected, that the passages of Scripture in which men are called blind are so numerous and that the blindness for which they are condemned is but too well known. For in all their reasoning faculties they miserably fail. How comes it that there are so many labyrinths of errors in the world, but because men, by their own guidance, are led only to vanity and lies? But if no light appears in men, that testimony of the divinity of Christ, which the Evangelist lately mentioned, is destroyed; for that is the third step, as I have said, that in the life of men there is something more excellent than motion and breathing. The Evangelist anticipates this question, and first of all lays down this caution, that the light which was originally bestowed on men must not be estimated by their present condition; because in this corrupted and degenerate nature light has been turned into darkness. And yet he affirms that the light of understanding is not wholly extinguished; for, amidst the thick darkness of the human mind, some remaining sparks of the brightness still shine.
My readers now understand that this sentence contains two clauses; for he says that men are now widely distant from that perfectly holy nature with which they were originally endued; because their understanding, which ought to have shed light in every direction, has been plunged in darkness, and is wretchedly blinded; and that thus the glory of Christ may be said to be darkened amidst this corruption of nature. But, on the other hand, the Evangelist maintains that, in the midst of the darkness: , there are still some remains of light, which show in some degree the divine power of Christ. The Evangelist admits, therefore, that the mind of man is blinded; so that it may justly be pronounced to be covered with darkness. For he might have used a milder term, and might have said that the light is dark or cloudy; but he chose to state more distinctly how wretched our condition has become since the fall of the first man. The statement that the light shineth in darkness is not at all intended for the commendation of depraved nature, but rather for taking away every excuse for ignorance.
And the darkness did not comprehend it. Although by that small measure of light which still remains in us, the Son of God has always invited men to himself, yet the Evangelist says that this was attended by no advantage, because seeing, they did not see, (Mat 13:13.) For since man lost the favor of God, his mind is so completely overwhelmed by the thralldom of ignorance, that any portion of light which remains in it is quenched and useless. This is daily proved by experience; for all who are not regenerated by the Spirit of God possess some reason, and this is an undeniable proof that man was made not only to breathe, but to have understanding. But by that guidance of their reason they do not come to God, and do not even approach to him; so that all their understanding is nothing else than mere vanity. Hence it follows that there is no hope of the salvation of men, unless God grant new aid; for though the Son of God sheds his light upon them, they are so dull that they do not comprehend whence that light proceeds, but are carried away by foolish and wicked imaginations to absolute madness.
The light which still dwells in corrupt nature consists chiefly of two parts; for, first, all men naturally possess some seed of religion; and, secondly, the distinction between good and evil is engraven on their consciences. But what are the fruits that ultimately spring from it, except that religion degenerates into a thousand monsters of superstition, and conscience perverts every decision, so as to confound vice with virtue? In short, natural reason never will direct men to Christ; and as to their being endued with prudence for regulating their lives, or born to cultivate the liberal arts and sciences, all this passes away without yielding any advantage.
It ought to be understood that the Evangelist speaks of natural gifts only, and does not as yet say any thing about the grace of regeneration. For there are two distinct powers which belong to the Son of God: the first, which is manifested in the structure of the world and the order of nature; and the second, by which he renews and restores fallen nature. As he is the eternal Speech of God, by him the world was made; by his power all things continue to possess the life which they once received; man especially was endued with an extraordinary gift of understanding; and though by his revolt he lost the light of understanding, yet he still sees and understands, so that what he naturally possesses from the grace of the Son of God is not entirely destroyed. But since by his stupidity and perverseness he darkens the light which still dwells in him, it remains that a new office be undertaken by the Son of God, the office of Mediator, to renew, by the Spirit of regeneration, man who had been ruined. Those persons, therefore, reason absurdly and inconclusively, who refer this light, which the Evangelist mentions, to the gospel and the doctrine of salvation.
6. There was a man. The Evangelist now begins to discourse about the manner in which the Son of God was manifested in flesh; and that none may doubt that Christ is the eternal Son of God, he relates that Christ was announced by John the Baptist, as his herald. For not only did Christ exhibit himself to be seen by men, but he chose also to be made known by the testimony and doctrine of John; or rather, God the Father sent this witness before his Christ, that they might more willingly receive the salvation offered by him.
But it might at first sight appear ridiculous that Christ should receive testimony from another, as if he needed it; while, on the contrary, he declares that he does not seek testimony from man, (Joh 5:34.) The answer is easy and obvious, that this witness was appointed, not for the sake of Christ, but for our sake. If it be objected that the testimony of man is too weak to prove that Christ is the Son of God, it is likewise easy to reply, that the Baptist is not adduced as a private witness, but as one who, having received authority from God, sustained the character rather of an angel than of a man. Accordingly, he receives commendation not for his own virtues, but for this single circumstance, that he was the ambassador of God. Nor is this at variance with the fact, that the preaching of the gospel was committed to Christ, that he might be a witness to himself; for the design contemplated by the preaching of John was, that men might attend to the doctrine and miracles of Christ.
Sent by God. He does not say so for the purpose of confirming the baptism of John, but only mentions it in passing. This circumstance is not sufficient to produce certainty, since many run of their own accord, and boast that God has sent them; but the Evangelist, intending afterwards to speak more fully about this witness, reckoned it enough, for the present, to say in a single word, that John did not come but by the command of God. We shall afterwards see how he himself affirms that God is the Author of his ministry. We must now recollect — what I formerly noticed — that what is asserted about John is required in all the teachers of the Church, that they be called by God; so that the authority of teaching may not be founded on any other than on God alone.
Whose name was John. He states the name, not only for the purpose of pointing out the man, but because it was given to him in accordance with what he really was. There is no room to doubt that the Lord had reference to the office to which he appointed John, when he commanded by the angel that he should be so called, that by means of it all might acknowledge him to be the herald of divine grace. (16) For though the name יהוחנן (17) (Jehohannan) may be taken in a passive signification, and may thus be referred to the person, as denoting that John was acceptable to God; yet for my own part, I willingly extend it to the benefit which others ought to derive from him. (18)
7. He came for a testimony. The end of his calling is briefly noticed; which was, that he might prepare a Church for Christ, as, by inviting all to Christ, he shows plainly enough that he did not come on his own account.
8. He was not that light. So far was John from needing commendation, that the Evangelist gives this warning, lest his excessive brightness might obscure the glory of Christ. For there were some who gazed so eagerly upon him that they neglected Christ; just as if a person, enraptured with beholding the dawning of the day, would not deign to turn his eyes towards the sun. In what sense the Evangelist employs the word light we shall immediately see. All the godly, indeed, are light in the Lord, (Eph 5:8,) because, in consequence of their being enlightened by his Spirit, they not only see for themselves, but likewise direct others by their example to the way of salvation. The apostles likewise are peculiarly called light, (Mat 5:14,) because they go before, holding out the torch of the Gospel, to dispel the darkness of the world. But here the Evangelist speaks of him who is the only and eternal source of illumination, as he immediately shows more clearly.
(16) “Heraut et ambassade de la grace de Dieu;” — “Herald and ambassador of the grace of God.”
(17) “Le nom de Jean, qui signifie Grace;” — “The name John, which signifies Grace.”
(18) For the meaning of the name John, derived from the Hebrew Jehohannan, the reader may consult our Author’s Commentary on the Harmony of the Three Evangelists, vol. i. page 15. — Ed.
9. The true light was. The Evangelist did not intend to contrast the true light with the false, but to distinguish Christ from all others, that none might imagine that what is called light belongs to him in common with angels or men. The distinction is, that whatever is luminous in heaven and in earth borrows its splendor from some other object; but Christ is the light, shining from itself and by itself, and enlightening the whole world by its radiance; so that no other source or cause of splendor is anywhere to be found. He gave the name of the true light, therefore, to that which has by nature the power of giving light
Which enlighteneth every man. The Evangelist insists chiefly on this point, in order to show, from the effect which every one of us perceives in him, that Christ is the light. He might have reasoned more ingeniously, that Christ, as the eternal light, has a splendor which is natural, and not brought from any other quarter; but instead of doing so, he sends us back to the experience which we all possess. For as Christ makes us all partakers of his brightness, it must be acknowledged that to him alone belongs strictly this honor of being called light
This passage is commonly explained in two ways. Some restrict the phrase, every man, to those who, having been renewed by the Spirit of God, become partakers of the life-giving light. Augustine employs the comparison of a schoolmaster who, if he happen to be the only person who has a school in the town, will be called the teacher of all, though there be many persons that do not go to his school. They therefore understand the phrase in a comparative sense, that all are enlightened by Christ, because no man can boast of having obtained the light of life in any other way than by his grace. But since the Evangelist employs the general phrase, every man that cometh into the world, I am more inclined to adopt the other meaning, which is, that from this light the rays are diffused over all mankind, as I have already said. For we know that men have this peculiar excellence which raises them above other animals, that they are endued with reason and intelligence, and that they carry the distinction between right and wrong engraven on their conscience. There is no man, therefore, whom some perception of the eternal light does not reach.
But as there are fanatics who rashly strain and torture this passage, so as to infer from it that the grace of illumination is equally offered to all, let us remember that the only subject here treated is the common light of nature, which is far inferior to faith; for never will any man, by all the acuteness and sagacity of his own mind, penetrate into the kingdom of God. It is the Spirit of God alone who opens the gate of heaven to the elect. Next, let us remember that the light of reason which God implanted in men has been so obscured by sin, that amidst the thick darkness, and shocking ignorance, and gulf of errors, there are hardly a few shining sparks that are not utterly extinguished.
10. He was in the world. He accuses men of ingratitude, because of their own accord, as it were, they were so blinded, that the cause of the light which they enjoyed was unknown to them. This extends to every age of the world; for before Christ was manifested in the flesh, his power was everywhere displayed; and therefore those daily effects ought to correct the stupidity of men. What can be more unreasonable than to draw water from a running stream, and never to think of the fountain from which that stream flows? It follows that no proper excuse can be found for the ignorance of the world in not knowing Christ, before he was manifested in the flesh; for it arose from the indolence and wicked stupidity of those who had opportunities of seeing Him always present by his power. The whole may be summed up by saying, that never was Christ in such a manner absent from the world, but that men, aroused by his rays, ought to have raised their eyes towards him. Hence it follows, that the blame must be imputed to themselves.
11. He came into his own. Here is displayed the absolutely desperate wickedness and malice of men; here is displayed their execrable impiety, that when the Son of God was manifested in flesh to the Jews, whom God had separated to himself from the other nations to be His own heritage, he was not acknowledged or received. This passage also has received various explanations. For some think that the Evangelist speaks of the whole world indiscriminately; and certainly there is no part of the world which the Son of God may not lawfully claim as his own property. According to them, the meaning is: “When Christ came down into the world, he did not enter into another person’s territories, for the whole human race was his own inheritance.” But I approve more highly of the opinion of those who refer it to the Jews alone; for there is an implied comparison, by which the Evangelist represents the heinous ingratitude of men. The Son of God had solicited an abode for himself in one nation; when he appeared there, he was rejected; and this shows clearly the awfully wicked blindness of men. In making this statement, the sole object of the Evangelist must have been to remove the offense which many would be apt to take in consequence of the unbelief of the Jews. For when he was despised and rejected by that nation to which he had been especially promised, who would reckon him to be the Redeemer of the whole world? We see what extraordinary pains the Apostle Paul takes in handling this subject.
Here both the Verb and the Noun are highly emphatic. He came. The Evangelist says that the Son of God came to that place where he formerly was; and by this expression he must mean a new and extraordinary kind of presence, by which the Son of God was manifested, so that men might have a nearer view of him. Into his own. By this phrase the Evangelist compares the Jews with other nations; because by an extraordinary privilege they had been adopted into the family of God. Christ therefore was first offered to them as his own household, and as belonging to his empire by a peculiar right. To the same purpose is that complaint of God by Isaiah:
The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib, but Israel knoweth me not, (Isa 1:3;)
for though he has dominion over the whole world, yet he represents himself to be, in peculiar manner, the Lord of Israel, whom he had collected, as it were, into a sacred fold.
12. But to as many as received him. That none may be retarded by this stumbling-block, that the Jews despised and rejected Christ, the Evangelist exalts above heaven the godly who believe in him; for he says that by faith they obtain this glory of being reckoned the sons of God. The universal term, as many, contains an implied contrast; for the Jews were carried away by a blind vaunting, (19) as if they exclusively had God bound to themselves. The Evangelist declares that their condition is changed, because the Jews have been rejected, and their place, which had been left empty, is occupied by the Jews; for it is as if he transferred the right of adoption to strangers. This is what Paul says, that the destruction of one nation was the life of the whole world, (Rom 11:12;) for the Gospel, which might be said to have been banished from them, began to be spread far and wide throughout the whole world. They were thus deprived of the privilege which they enjoyed above others. But their impiety was no obstruction to Christ; for he erected elsewhere the throne of his kingdom, and called indiscriminately to the hope of salvation all nations which formerly appeared to have been rejected by God.
He gave them power. The word ἐξουσία here appears to me to mean a right, or claim; and it would be better to translate it so, in order to refute the false opinions of the Papists; for they wickedly pervert this passage by understanding it to mean, that nothing more than a choice is allowed to us, if we think fit to avail ourselves of this privilege. In this way they extract free-will from this phrase; but as well might they extract fire from water. There is some plausibility in this at first sight; for the Evangelist does not say that Christ makes them sons of God, but that he gives them power to become such. Hence they infer that it is this grace only that is offered to us, and that the liberty to enjoy or to reject it is placed at our disposal. But this frivolous attempt to catch at a single word is set aside by what immediately follows; for the Evangelist adds, that they become the sons of God, not by the will which belongs to the flesh, but when they are born of God. But if faith regenerates us, so that we are the sons of God, and if God breathes faith into us from heaven, it plainly appears that not by possibility only, but actually — as we say — is the grace of adoption offered to us by Christ. And, indeed, the Greek word, ἐξουσία is sometimes put for ἀξίωσις, (a claim,) a meaning which falls in admirably with this passage.
The circumlocution which the Evangelist has employed tends more to magnify the excellence of grace, than if he had said in a single word, that all who believe in Christ are made by him sons of God. For he speaks here of the unclean and profane, who, having been condemned to perpetual ignominy, lay in the darkness of death. Christ exhibited an astonishing instance of his grace in conferring this honor on such persons, so that they began, all at once, to be sons of God; and the greatness of this privilege is justly extolled by the Evangelist, as also by Paul, when he ascribes it to
God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love
with which he loved us, (Eph 2:4.)
But if any person shall prefer to take the word power in its ordinary acceptation, still the Evangelist does not mean by it any intermediate faculty, or one which does not include the full and complete effect; but, on the contrary, means that Christ gave to the unclean and the uncircumcised what appeared to be impossible; for an incredible change took place when out of stones Christ raised up children to God, (Mat 3:9.) The power, therefore, is that fitness (ἱκανότης) which Paul mentions, when he
gives thanks to God, who hath made us fit (or meet) to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints, (Col 1:12.)
Who believe in his name. He expresses briefly the manner of receiving Christ, that is, believing in him. Having been engrafted into Christ by faith, we obtain the right of adoption, so as to be the sons of God. And, indeed, as he is the only-begotten Son of God, it is only so far as we are members of him that this honor at all belongs to us. Here again the notion of the Papists about the word power is refuted. (20) The Evangelist declares that this power is given to those who already believe. Now it is certain that such persons are in reality the sons of God. They detract too much from the value of faith who say that, by believing, a man obtains nothing more than that he may become a son of God, if he chooses; for instead of present effect they put a power which is held in uncertainty and suspense.
The contradiction appears still more glaring from what immediately follows. The Evangelist says that those who believe are already born of God It is not therefore, a mere liberty of choice that is offered, since they obtain the privilege itself that is in question. Although the Hebrew word, שם (Name) is sometimes used to denote power, yet here it denotes a relation to the doctrine of the Gospel; for when Christ is preached to us, then it is that we believe in him. I speak of the ordinary method by which the Lord leads us to faith; and this ought to be carefully observed, for there are many who foolishly contrive for themselves a confused faith, without any understanding of doctrine, as nothing is more common among the Papists than the word believe, though there is not among them any knowledge of Christ from hearing the Gospel. Christ, therefore, offers himself to us by the Gospel, and we receive him by faith.
13. Who were born not of blood (21) Some think that an indirect reference is here made to the preposterous confidence of the Jews, and I willingly adopt that opinion. They had continually in their mouth the nobleness of their lineage, as if, because they were descended from a holy stock, they were naturally holy. And justly might they have gloried in their descent from Abraham, if they had been lawful sons, and not bastards; but the glowing of faith ascribes nothing whatever to carnal generation, but acknowledges its obligation to the grace of God alone for all that is good. John, therefore, says, that those among the formerly unclean Gentiles who believe in Christ are not born the sons of God from the womb, but are renewed by God, that they may begin to be his sons. The reason why he uses the word blood in the plural number appears to have been, that he might express more fully a long succession of lineage; for this was a part of the boasting among the Jews, that they could trace their descent, by an uninterrupted line, upwards to the patriarchs.
The will of the flesh and the will of man appear to me to mean the same thing; for I see no reason why flesh should be supposed to signify woman, as Augustine and many others explain it. On the contrary, the Evangelist repeats the same thing in a variety of words, in order to explain it more fully, and impress it more deeply on the minds of men. Though he refers directly to the Jews, who gloried in the flesh, yet from this passage a general doctrine may be obtained: that our being reckoned the sons of God does not belong to our nature, and does not proceed from us, but because God begat us willingly, (Jas 1:18,) that is, from undeserved love. Hence it follows, first, that faith does not proceed from ourselves, but is the fruit of spiritual regeneration; for the Evangelist affirms that no man can believe, unless he be begotten of God; and therefore faith is a heavenly gift. It follows, secondly, that faith is not bare or cold knowledge, since no man can believe who has not been renewed by the Spirit of God.
It may be thought that the Evangelist reverses the natural order by making regeneration to precede faith, whereas, on the contrary, it is an effect of faith, and therefore ought to be placed later. I reply, that both statements perfectly agree; because by faith we receive the incorruptible seed, (1. e 1:23,) by which we are born again to a new and divine life. And yet faith itself is a work of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in none but the children of God. So then, in various respects, faith is a part of our regeneration, and an entrance into the kingdom of God, that he may reckon us among his children. The illumination of our minds by the Holy Spirit belongs to our renewal, and thus faith flows from regeneration as from its source; but since it is by the same faith that we receive Christ, who sanctifies us by his Spirit, on that account it is said to be the beginning of our adoption.
Another solution, still more plain and easy, may be offered; for when the Lord breathes faith into us, he regenerates us by some method that is hidden and unknown to us; but after we have received faith, we perceive, by a lively feeling of conscience, not only the grace of adoption, but also newness of life and the other gifts of the Holy Spirit. For since faith, as we have said, receives Christ, it puts us in possession, so to speak, of all his blessings. Thus so far as respects our sense, it is only after having believed — that we begin to be the sons of God. But if the inheritance of eternal life is the fruit of adoption, we see how the Evangelist ascribes the whole of our salvation to the grace of Christ alone; and, indeed, how closely soever men examine themselves, they will find nothing that is worthy of the children of God, except what Christ has bestowed on them.
(19) “D’une vanterie aveuglee; c est a dire, n’entendans pas ce qu’ils disoyent;” — “by a blind vaunting; that is, not understanding what they said.”
(20) “Et par ceci derechef est refutee l’imagination des Papistes de laquelle j’ai parle, a scavoir que Dieu donne aux hommes une possibilite, seulement d’estre faits enfans siens;” — “and here again is refuted the notion of the Papists which I spoke of, namely, that God gives to men bare possibility of becoming His children”
(21) Here our Author, either from choice or from inadvertency, has adopted the phrase of blood, instead of What he followed in his version of the Text, (see page 35,) of bloods — the literal, though not idiomatic, rendering of ἐξ αἱμάτων, which is itself of rare occurrence, but not without classical authority. — Ed
14. And the Speech was made flesh. The Evangelist shows what was that coming of Christ which he had mentioned; namely, that having been clothed with our flesh, he showed himself openly to the world. Although the Evangelist touches briefly the unutterable mystery, that the Son of God was clothed with human nature, yet this brevity is wonderfully perspicuous. Here some madmen amuse themselves with foolish and trivial subtleties of this sort: that the Speech is said to have been made flesh, because God sent his Son into the world, according to the conception which he had formed in his mind; as if the Speech were I know not what shadowy image. But we have demonstrated that that word denotes a real hypostasis, or subsistence, in the essence of God.
The word Flesh expresses the meaning of the Evangelist more forcibly than if he had said that he was made man. He intended to show to what a mean and despicable condition the Son of God, on our account, descended from the height of his heavenly glory. When Scripture speaks of man contemptuously, it calls him flesh. Now, though there be so wide a distance between the spiritual glory of the Speech of God and the abominable filth of our flesh, yet the Son of God stooped so low as to take upon himself that flesh, subject to so many miseries. The word flesh is not taken here for corrupt nature, (as it is often used by Paul,) but for mortal man; though it marks disdainfully his frail and perishing nature, as in these and similar passages, for he remembered that they were flesh, (Psa 78:39;) all flesh is grass, (Isa 40:6.) We must at the same time observe, however, that this is a figure of speech in which a part is taken for the whole; for the lower part includes the whole man. (22) It was therefore highly foolish in Apollinaris to imagine that Christ was merely clothed with a human body without a soul; for it may easily be proved from innumerable passages, that he had a soul as well as a body; and when Scripture calls men flesh, it does not therefore deprive them of a soul.
The plain meaning therefore is, that the Speech begotten by God before all ages, and who always dwelt with the Father, was made man. On this article there are two things chiefly to be observed. The first is, that two natures were so united in one Person in Christ, that one and the same Christ is true God and true man. The second is, that the unity of person does not hinder the two natures from remaining distinct, so that his Divinity retains all that is peculiar to itself, and his humanity holds separately whatever belongs to it. And, therefore, as Satan has made a variety of foolish attempts to overturn sound doctrine by heretics, he has always brought forward one or another of these two errors; either that he was the Son of God and the Son of man in so confused a manner, that neither his Divinity remained entire, nor did he wear the true nature of man; or that he was clothed with flesh, so as to be as it were double, and to have two separate persons. Thus Nestorius expressly acknowledged both natures, but imagined two Christs, one who was God, and another who was man. Eutyches, on the other hand, while he acknowledged that the one Christ is the Son of God and the Son of man, left him neither of the two natures, but imagined that they were mingled together. And in the present day, Servetus and the Anabaptists invent a Christ who is confusedly compounded of two natures, as if he were a Divine man. In words, indeed, he acknowledges that Christ is God; but if you admit his raving imaginations, the Divinity is at one time changed into human nature, and at another time, the nature of man is swallowed up by the Divinity.
The Evangelist says what is well adapted to refute both of these blasphemies. When he tells us that the Speech was made flesh, we clearly infer from this the unity of his Person; for it is impossible that he who is now a man could be any other than he who was always the true God, since it is said that God was made man. On the other hand, since he distinctly gives to the man Christ the name of the Speech, it follows that Christ, when he became man, did not cease to be what he formerly was, and that no change took place in that eternal essence of God which was clothed with flesh. In short, the Son of God began to be man in such a manner that he still continues to be that eternal Speech who had no beginning of time.
And dwelt. Those who explain that the flesh served, as it were, for an abode to Christ, do not perceive the meaning of the Evangelist; for he does not ascribe to Christ a permanent residence amongst us, but says that he remained in it as a guest, for a short time. For the word which he employs (ἐσκήνωσεν) is taken from tabernacles (23) He means nothing else than that Christ discharged on the earth the office which had been appointed to him; or, that he did not merely appear for a single moment, but that he conversed among men until he completed the course of his office.
Among us. It is doubtful whether he speaks of men in general, or only of himself and the rest of the disciples who were eye-witnesses of what he says. For my own part, I approve more highly of the second view for the Evangelist immediately adds:
And we beheld his glory. for though all men might have beheld the glory of Christ, yet it was unknown to the greater part on account of their blindness. It was only a few, whose eyes the Holy Spirit opened, that saw this manifestation of glory. In a word, Christ was known to be man in such a manner that he exhibited in his Person something far more noble and excellent. Hence it follows that the majesty of God was not annihilated, though it was surrounded by flesh; it was indeed concealed under the low condition of the flesh, but so as to cause its splendor to be seen.
As of the only-begotten of the Father. The word as does not, in this passage, denote an inappropriate comparison, but rather expresses true and hearty approbation; as when Paul says, Walk as children of light, he bids us actually demonstrate by our works that we are the children of light. The Evangelist therefore means, that in Christ was beheld a glory which was worthy of the Son of God, and which was a sure proof of his Divinity. He calls him the Only-begotten, because he is the only Son of God by nature; as if he would place him above men and angels, and would claim for him alone what belongs to no creature.
Full of grace. There were, indeed, other things in which the majesty of Christ appeared, but the Evangelist selected this instance in preference to others, in order to train us to the speculative rather than the practical knowledge of it; and this ought to be carefully observed. Certainly when Christ walked with dry feet upon the waters, (Mat 14:26; Mar 6:48; Joh 6:19,) when he cast out devils, and when he displayed his power in other miracles, he might be known to be the only-begotten Son of God; but the Evangelist brings forward a part of the approbation, from which faith obtains delightful advantage, because Christ demonstrated that he actually is an inexhaustible fountain of grace and truth. Stephen, too, is said to have been full of grace, (24) but in a different sense; for the fullness of grace in Christ is the fountain from which all of us must draw, as we shall have occasion shortly afterwards to explain more fully.
Grace and truth. This might be taken, by a figure of speech, for true grace, or the latter term might be explanatory, thus: that he was full of grace, which is truth or perfection; but as we shall find that he immediately afterwards repeats the same mode of expression, I think that the meaning is the same in both passages. This grace and truth he afterwards contrasts with the Law; and therefore I interpret it as simply meaning, that the apostles acknowledged Christ to be the Son of God, because he had in himself the fulfillment of things which belong to the spiritual kingdom of God; and, in short, that in all things he showed himself to be the Redeemer and Messiah; which is the most striking mark by which he ought to be distinguished from all others.
(22) “Car sous la chair et la partie inferieure tout l’homme est comprins;” — “for under the flesh, and the lower part, the whole man is included.”
(23) “Est deduit d’un mot qui signifie Tabernacles, c’est a dire, tentes et avillons;” — “is derived from a word which signifies Tabernacles, that is, tents and pavilions.”
(24) This must have been a slip of memory on the part of our Author; for the phrases applied to Stephen are different, though parallel. He is called a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, (Act 6:5;) full of faith and power, (Act 6:8;) and full of the Holy Ghost, (Act 7:55.) — Ed.
15. John testifieth. He now relates what was the preaching of John. By using the verb testifieth (μαρτυρεῖ) in the present tense, (27) he denotes a continued act, and certainly this doctrine must be continually in force, as if the voice of John were continually resounding in the ears of men. In the same manner he afterwards uses the word cry, to intimate that the doctrine of John was in no degree obscure or ambiguous, and that he did not mutter among a few men, (28) but openly, and with a loud voice, preached Christ. The first sentence is intended to convey the statement, that he was sent for the sake of Christ, and therefore that it would have been unreasonable that he should be exalted, while Christ was lying low.
This is he of whom I spoke. By these words he means that his intention was, from the beginning, to make Christ known, and that this was the design of his public discourses; as, indeed, there was no other way in which he could discharge his office as ambassador than by calling his disciples to Christ.
Who, coming after me. Though John the Baptist was older than Christ by a few months, yet he does not now speak of age; but as he had discharged the office of prophet for a short period before Christ appeared in public, so he makes himself the predecessor with respect to time. With respect, therefore, to public manifestation, Christ came after John the Baptist. The words which follow might be literally rendered, he was made before me, for he was before me; but the meaning is, that Christ was justly preferred to John, because he was more excellent. He therefore surrenders his office to Christ and — as the proverb runs — “delivers to him the torch,” or gives way to him as his successor. But as he arose later in the order of time, John reminds his hearers that this is no reason why he should not be preferred to himself, as his rank deserved. Thus, all who are superior to others, either in the gifts of God or in any degree of honor, must remain in their own rank, so as to be placed below Christ.
(27) “En usant du verbe du temps present, a scavoir, Rend tesmoignage, et on pas, Rendoit ;” — “by using the verb in the present tense, giveth testimony, and not gave testimony. ”
(28) “Qu’il n’a point parle entre ses dents, et communique la chose comme en secret a peu de gens;” — “that he did not speak between his teeth, and communicate the matter, as it were secretly, to a few persons.”
16. And out of his fullness. He begins now to preach about the office of Christ, that it contains within itself an abundance of all blessings, so that no part of salvation must be sought anywhere else. True, indeed, the fountain of life, righteousness, virtue, and wisdom, is with God, but to us it is a hidden and inaccessible fountain. But an abundance of those things is exhibited to us in Christ, that we may be permitted to have recourse to him; for he is ready to flow to us, provided that we open up a channel by faith. He declares in general, that out of Christ we ought not to seek any thing good, though this sentence consists of several clauses. First, he shows that we are all utterly destitute and empty of spiritual blessings; for the abundance which exists in Christ is intended to supply our deficiency, to relieve our poverty, to satisfy our hunger and thirst. Secondly, he warns us that, as soon as we have departed from Christ, it is ill vain for us to seek a single drop of happiness, because God hath determined that whatever is good shall reside in him alone. Accordingly, we shall find angels and men to be dry, heaven to be empty, the earth to be unproductive, and, in short, all things to be of no value, if we wish to be partakers of the gifts of God in any other way than through Christ. Thirdly, he assures us that we shall have no reason to fear the want of any thing, provided that we draw from the fullness of Christ, which is in every respect; so complete, that we shall experience it to be a truly inexhaustible fountain; and John classes himself with the rest, not for the sake of modesty, but to make it more evident that no man whatever is excepted.
It is indeed uncertain whether he speaks generally of the whole human race, or means only those who, subsequently to the manifestation of Christ in the flesh, have been made more fully partakers of his blessings. All the godly, no doubt, who lived under the law, drew out of the same fullness; but as John immediately afterwards distinguishes between different periods, it is more probable that here he especially recommends that rich abundance of blessings which Christ displayed at his coming. For we know that under the Law the gifts of God were more sparingly tasted, but that when Christ was manifested in flesh, they were poured out, as it were, with a full hand, even to satiety. Not that any of us has obtained a greater abundance of the grace of the Spirit than Abraham did, but I speak of God’s ordinary dispensation, and of the way and manner of dispensing. John the Baptist, that he may the more freely invite his disciples to come to Christ, declares that in him is laid up for all an abundance of the blessings of which they are destitute. And yet if any one choose to extend the meaning farther, there will be no absurdity in doing so; or rather, it will agree well with the strain of the discourse, that all the fathers, from the beginning of the world, drew from Christ all the gifts which they possessed; for though the law was given by Moses, yet they did not obtain grace by it. But I have already stated what appears to me to be the preferable view; namely, that John here compares us with the fathers, so as to magnify, by means of that comparison, what has been given to us.
And, grace for grace. In what manner Augustine explains this passage is well known - that all the blessings which God bestows upon us from time to time, and at length life everlasting, are not granted as the reward due to our merits, but that it proceeds from pure liberality that God thus rewards former grace, and crowns his own gifts in us. This is piously and judiciously said, but has nothing to do with the present passage. The meaning would be more simple if you were to take the word for (ἀντὶ) comparatively, as meaning, that whatever graces God bestows on us, proceed equally from the same source. It might also be taken as pointing out the final cause, that we now receive grace, that God may one day fulfill the work of our salvation, which will be the fulfillment of grace. For my own part, I agree with the opinion of those who say that we are watered with the graces which were poured out on Christ; for what we receive from Christ he does not bestow upon us as being God, but the Father communicated to him what would flow to us as through a channel. This is the anointing with which he was anointed, that he might anoint us all along with him. Hence, too, he is called Christ, (the Anointed,) and we are called Christians.
17. For the Law was given by Moses. This is an anticipation, by which he meets an objection that was likely to arise; for so highly was Moses esteemed by the Jews that they could hardly receive anything that differed from him. The Evangelist therefore shows how far inferior the ministry of Moses was to the power of Christ. At the same time, this comparison sheds no small luster on the power of Christ; for while the utmost possible deference was rendered to Moses by the Jews, the Evangelist reminds them that what he brought was exceedingly small, when compared with the grace of Christ. It would otherwise have been a great hindrance, that they expected to receive from the Law what we can only obtain through Christ.
But we must attend to the antithesis, when he contrasts the law with grace and truth; for his meaning is, that the law wanted both of them. (29) The word Truth denotes, in my opinion, a fixed and permanent state of things. By the word Grace I understand the spiritual fulfillment of those things, the bare letter of which was contained in the Law. And those two words may be supposed to refer to the same thing, by a well-known figure of speech, (hypallage;) as if he had said, that grace, in which the truth of the Law consists, was at length exhibited in Christ. But as the meaning will be in no degree affected, it is of no importance whether you view them as united or as distinguished. This at least is certain, that the Evangelist means, that in the Law there was nothing more than a shadowy image of spiritual blessings, but that they are actually found in Christ; whence it follows, that if you separate the Law from Christ, there remains nothing in it but empty figures. For this reason Paul says that
the shadows were in the law, but the body is in Christ,
(Col 2:17.)
And yet it must not be supposed that anything was exhibited by the Law in a manner fitted to deceive; for Christ is the soul which gives life to that which would otherwise have been dead under the law. But here a totally different question meets us, namely, what the law could do by itself and without Christ; and the Evangelist maintains that nothing permanently valuable is found in it until we come to Christ. This truth consists in our obtaining through Christ that grace which the law could not at all bestow; and therefore I take the word grace in a general sense, as denoting both the unconditional forgiveness of sins, and the renewal of the heart. For while the Evangelist points out briefly the distinction between the Old and New Testaments, (30) (which is more fully described in Jer 31:31,) he includes in this word all that relates to spiritual righteousness. Now this righteousness consists of two parts; first, that God is reconciled to us by free grace, in not imputing to us our sins; and, secondly, that he has engraven his law in our hearts, and, by his Spirit, renews men within to obedience to it; from which it is evident that the Law is incorrectly and falsely expounded, if there are any whose attention it fixes on itself, or whom it hinders from coming to Christ
(29) “Que la Loy n’a eu ne l’un ne l’autre;” — “that the Law had neither the one nor the other.”
(30) The points of agreement and of difference between the Old and New Testaments are copiously illustrated by our Author in the Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book II. chap. 10.11 — Ed.
18. No man hath ever seen God. Most appropriately is this added to confirm the preceding statement; for the knowledge of God is the door by which we enter into the enjoyment of all blessings; and as it is by Christ alone that God makes himself known to us, hence too it follows that we ought to seek all things from Christ. This order of doctrine ought to be carefully observed. No remark appears to be more common than this, that each of us receives, according to the measure of his faith, what God offers to us; but there are few who think that we must bring the vessel of faith and of the knowledge of God with which we draw.
When he says that no man hath seen God, we must not understand him to refer to the outward perception of the bodily eye; for he means generally, that as God dwells in inaccessible light, (1. i 6:16,) he cannot be known but in Christ, who is his lively image. This passage is usually explained thus that as the naked majesty of God is concealed within himself, he never could be comprehended, except so far as he revealed himself in Christ; and therefore that it was only in Christ that God was formerly known to the fathers. But I rather think that the Evangelist here abides by the comparison already stated, namely, how much better our condition is than that of the fathers, because God, who was formerly concealed in his secret glory, may now be said to have rendered himself visible; for certainly when Christ is called the lively image of God, (Heb 1:3,) this refers to the peculiar privilege of the New Testament. In like manner, the Evangelist describes, in this passage, something new and uncommon, when he says that the only-begotten Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, hath made known to us what was formerly concealed. He therefore magnifies the manifestation of God, which has been brought to us by the gospel, in which he distinguishes us from the fathers, and shows that we are superior to them; as also Paul explains more fully in the Third and Fourth chapters of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians. For he maintains that there is now no longer any vail, such as existed under the Law, but that God is openly beheld in the face of Christ.
If it be thought unreasonable that the fathers are deprived of the knowledge of God, who have the prophets daily going before them and holding out the torch, I reply, that what is ascribed to us is not simply or absolutely denied to them, but that a comparison is made between the less and the greater, as we say; because they had nothing more than little sparks of the true light, the full brightness of which daily shines around us. If it be objected, that at that time also God was seen face to face, (Gen 32:30; Deu 34:10,) I maintain that that sight is not at all to be compared with ours; but as God was accustomed at that time to exhibit himself obscurely, and, as it were, from a distance, those to whom he was more clearly revealed say that they saw him face to face. They say so with reference to their own time; but they did not see God in any other way than wrapped up in many folds of figures and ceremonies. (31) That vision which Moses obtained on the mountain was remarkable and more excellent than almost all the rest; and yet God expressly declares,
thou shalt not be able to see my face, only thou shalt see my back, (Exo 33:23;)
by which metaphor he shows that the time for a full and clear revelation had not yet come. It must also be observed that, when the fathers wished to behold God, they always turned their eyes towards Christ. I do not only mean that they beheld God in his eternal Speech, but also that they attended, with their whole mind and with their whole heart, to the promised manifestation of Christ. For this reason we shall find that Christ afterwards said, Abraham saw my day, (Joh 8:56;) and that which is subordinate is not contradictory. It is therefore a fixed principle, that God, who was formerly invisible, hath now made himself visible in Christ.
When he says that the Son was in the bosom of the Father, the metaphor is borrowed from men, who are said to receive into their bosom those to whom they communicate all their secrets. The breast is the seat of counsel. He therefore shows that the Son was acquainted with the most hidden secrets of his Father, in order to inform us that we have the breast of God, as it were, laid open to us in the Gospel.
(31) “Enveloppemens de figures et ceremonies.”
19. And this is the testimony. Hitherto the Evangelist has related the preaching of John about Christ; he now comes down to a more illustrious testimony, which was delivered to the ambassadors of the Priests, that they might convey it to Jerusalem. He says, therefore, that John openly confessed for what purpose he was sent by God. The first inquiry here is, for what purpose the Priests put questions to him. It is generally believed that, out of hatred to Christ, they gave to John an honor which did not belong to him; but this could not be the reason, for Christ was not yet known to them. Others say that they were better pleased with John, because he was of the lineage and order of the priesthood; but neither do I think that this is probable; for since they expected from Christ all prosperity, why did they voluntarily contrive a false Christ ? I think, therefore, that there was another reason that induced them. It was now a long time since they had the Prophets; John came suddenly and contrary to expectation; and the minds of all were aroused to expect the Messiah. Besides, all entertained the belief that the coining of the Messiah was at hand.
That they may not appear to be careless about their duty, if they neglect or disguise a matter of so great importance, they ask John, Who art thou ? At first, therefore, they did not act from malice, but, on the contrary, actuated by the desire of redemption, they wish to know if John be the Christ, because he begins to change the order which had been customary in the Church. And yet I do not deny that ambition, and a wish to retain their authority, had some influence over them; but nothing certainly was farther from their intention than to transfer the honor of Christ to another. Nor is their conduct in this matter inconsistent with the office which they sustain; for since they held the government of the Church of God, it was their duty to take care that no one rashly obtruded himself, that no founder of a new sect should arise, that the unity of faith should not be broken in the Church, and that none should introduce new and foreign ceremonies. It is evident, therefore, that a report about John was widely spread and aroused the minds of all; and this was arranged by the wonderful Providence of God, that this testimony might be more strikingly complete.
20. And he confessed, and denied not. That is, he confessed openly, and without any ambiguity or hypocrisy. The word confess, in the first instance, means generally, that he stated the fact as it really was. In the second instance, it is repeated in order to express the form of the confession. He replied expressly, that he was not the Christ
21. Art thou Elijah ? Why do they name Elijah rather than Moses? It was because they learned from the prediction of Mal 4:2, that when the Messiah, the Sun of Righteousness, should arise, Elijah would be the morning star to announce his approach. But the question is founded on a false opinion which they had long held; for, holding the opinion that the soul of a man departs out of one body into another, when the Prophet Malachi announced that Elijah would be sent, they imagined that the same Elijah, who lived under the reign of king Ahab, (1. g 17:1,) was to come. It is therefore a just and true reply which John makes, that he is not Elijah; for he speaks according to the opinion which they attached to the words; but Christ, giving the true interpretation of the Prophet, affirms that John is Elijah, (Mat 11:14; Mar 9:13.)
Art thou a Prophet ? Erasmus gives an inaccurate explanation of these words by limiting them to Christ; for the addition of the article (ὁ προφήτης, the prophet) carries no emphasis in this passage; and the messengers afterwards declare plainly enough, that they meant a different prophet from Christ; for they sum up the whole: by saying, (verse 25,)if thou art neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor a Prophet. Thus we see that they intended to point out different persons. Others think that they inquired if he was one of the ancient prophets; but neither do I approve of that exposition. Rather do they by this term point out the office of John, and ask if God had appointed him to be a prophet. When he replies, I am not, he does not for the sake of modesty tell a lie, but honestly and sincerely detaches himself from the company of the prophets. And yet this reply is not inconsistent with the honorable attestation which Christ gives him. Christ bestows on John the designation of prophet, and even adds that he is more than a prophet, (Mat 11:9;) but by these words he does nothing more than demand credit and authority for his doctrine, and at the same time describes, in lofty terms, the excellence of the office which had been conferred on him. But in this passage John has a different object in view, which is, to show that he has no special message, as was usually the case with the prophets, but that he was merely appointed to be the herald of Christ.
This will be made still more clear by a comparison. All ambassadors — even those who are not sent on matters of great importance — obtain the name and authority of ambassadors, because they hold special commissions. Such were all the Prophets who, having been enjoined to deliver certain predictions, discharged the prophetic office. But if some weighty matter come to be transacted, and if two ambassadors are sent, one of whom announces the speedy arrival of another who possesses full power to transact the whole matter, and if this latter has received injunctions to bring it to a conclusion, will not the former embassy be reckoned a part and appendage of the latter, which is the principal? Such was the case with John the Baptist, to whom God had given no other injunction than to prepare the Jews for listening to Christ, and becoming his disciples. (35) That this is the meaning, will still more fully appear from the context; for we must investigate the opposite clause, which immediately follows. I am not a prophet, says he, but a voice crying in the wilderness. The distinction lies in this, that the voice crying, that a way may be prepared for the Lord, is not a prophet, but merely a subordinate minister, so to speak; and his doctrine is only a sort of preparation for listening to another Teacher. In this way John, though he is more excellent than all the prophets, still is not a prophet
(35) “Sinon de preparer les Juifs a donner audience a Christ, et estre ses disciples.”
23. The voice of him who crieth. As he would have been chargeable with rashness in undertaking the office of teaching, if he had not received a commission, he shows what was the duty which he had to perform, and proves it by a quotation from the Prophet Isa 60:3. Hence it follows that he does nothing but what God commanded him to do. Isaiah does not, indeed, speak there of John alone, but, promising the restoration of the Church, he predicts that there will yet be heard joyful voices, commanding to prepare the way for the Lord. Though he points out the coming of God, when he brought back the people from their captivity in Babylon, yet the true accomplishment was the manifestation of Christ in flesh. Among the heralds who announced that the Lord was at hand, John held the chief place.
To enter into ingenious inquiries, as some have done, into the meaning of the word Voice, would be frivolous. John is called a Voice, because he was enjoined to cry. It is in a figurative sense, undoubtedly, that Isaiah gives the name wilderness to the miserable desolation of the Church, which seemed to preclude the return of the people; as if he had said, that a passage would indeed be opened up for the captive people, but that the Lord would find a road through regions in which there was no road. But that visible wilderness, in which John preached, was a figure or image of the awful desolation which took away all hope of deliverance. If this comparison be considered, it will be easily seen that no torture has been given to the words of the prophet in this application of them; for God arranged everything in such a manner, as to place before the eyes of his people, who were overwhelmed with their calamities, a mirror of this prediction.
24. Were of the Pharisees. He says that they were Pharisees, who at that time held the highest rank in the Church; and he says so in order to inform us, that they were not some contemptible persons of the order of the Levites, but men clothed with authority. This is the reason why they raise a question about his baptism. Ordinary ministers would have been satisfied with any kind of answer; but those men, because they cannot draw from John what they desired, accuse him of rashness for venturing to introduce a new religious observance.
25. Why then dost thou baptize ? By laying down those three degrees, they appear to form a very conclusive argument: if thou art not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor a prophet; for it does not belong to every man to institute the practice of baptism. The Messiah was to be one who possessed all authority. Of Elijah who was to come, they had formed this opinion, that he would commence the restoration both of the royal authority and of the Church. The prophets of God, they readily grant, have a right to discharge the office committed to them. They conclude, therefore, that for John to baptize is an unlawful novelty, since he has received from God no public station. But they are wrong in not acknowledging him to be that Elijah who is mentioned by Mal 4:5; though he denies that he is that Elijah of whom they foolishly dreamed.
26. I baptize with water. This ought to have been abundantly sufficient for the correction of their mistake, but a reproof otherwise clear is of no advantage to the deaf; for, when he sends them to Christ, and declares that Christ is present, this is a clear proof not only that he was divinely appointed to be a minister of Christ, but that he is the true Elijah, who is sent to testify that the time is come (36) for the renovation of the Church. There is a contrast here which is not fully stated; for the spiritual baptism of Christ is not expressly contrasted with the external baptism of John, but that latter clause about the baptism of the Spirit might easily be supplied, and shortly afterwards both are set down by the Evangelist.
This answer may be reduced to two heads: first, that John claims nothing for himself but what he has a right to claim, because he has Christ for the Author of his baptism, in which consists the truth of the sign; and, secondly, that he has nothing but the administration of the outward sign, while the whole power and efficacy is in the hands of Christ alone. Thus he defends his baptism so far as its truth depends on anything else; but, at the same time, by declaring that he has not the power of the Spirit, he exalts the dignity of Christ, that the eyes of men may be fixed on him alone. This is the highest and best regulated moderation, when a minister borrows from Christ whatever authority he claims for himself, in such a manner as to trace it to him, ascribing to him alone all that he possesses.
It is a foolish mistake, however, into which some people have been led, of supposing that John’s baptism was different from ours; for John does not argue here about the advantage and usefulness of his baptism, but merely compares his own person with the person of Christ. In like manner, if we were inquiring, at the present day, what part belongs to us, and what belongs to Christ, in baptism, we must acknowledge that Christ alone performs what baptism figuratively represents, and that we have nothing beyond the bare administration of the sign. There is a twofold way of speaking in Scripture about the sacraments; for sometimes it tells us that they are the laver of regeneration, (Titus 3:5;) that by them our sins are washed away, (1. e 3:21;) that we
are in-grafted into the body of Christ, that our old man is crucified, and that we rise again to newness of life, (Rom 6:4;)
and, in those cases, Scripture joins the power of Christ with the ministry of man; as, indeed, man is nothing else than the hand of Christ. Such modes of expression show, not what man can of himself accomplish, but what Christ performs by man, and by the sign, as his instruments. But as there is a strong tendency to fall into superstition, and as men, through the pride which is natural to them, take from God the honor due to him, and basely appropriate it to themselves; so Scripture, in order to restrain this blasphemous arrogance, sometimes distinguishes ministers from Christ, as in this passage, that we may learn that ministers are nothing and can do nothing.
One standeth in the midst of you. He indirectly charges them with stupidity, in not knowing Christ, to whom their minds ought to have been earnestly directed; and he always insists earnestly on this point, that nothing can be known about his ministry, until men have come to him who is the Author of it. When he says that Christ standeth in the midst of, them, it is that he may excite their desire and their exertion to know him. The amount of what he says is, that he wishes to place himself as low as possible, lest any degree of honor improperly bestowed on him might obscure the excellence of Christ. It is probable that he had these sentences frequently in his mouth, when he saw himself immoderately extolled by the perverse opinions of men.
(36) “Que le temps estoit venu.”
27. Who coming after me. Here he says two things; first, that Christ was behind him in the order of time; but, secondly, that he was far before him in rank and dignity, because the rather preferred him to all. Soon after he will add a third statement, that Christ was preferred to all others, because he is in reality more exalted than all others.
28. These things were done in Bethabara. The place is mentioned, not only to authenticate the narrative, but also to inform us that this answer was given amidst a numerous assembly of people; for there were many who flocked to John’s baptism, and this was his ordinary place for baptizing. It is likewise supposed by some to be a passage across Jordan, and, from this circumstance, they derive the name, for they interpret it the house of passage; unless, perhaps, some may prefer the opinion of those who refer to the memorable passage of the people, (Jos 3:13,) when God opened up a way for them in the midst of the waters, under the direction of Joshua. Others say that it ought rather to be read Betharaba. Instead of Bethabara, some have inserted here the name Bethany, but this is a mistake; for we shall afterwards see how near Bethany was to Jerusalem. The situation of Bethabara, as laid down by those who have described the country, agrees best with the words of the Evangelist; though I have no wish to dispute about the pronunciation of the word.
29. The next day. There can be no doubt that John had already spoken about the manifestation of the Messiah; but when Christ began to appear, he wished that his announcement of him should quickly become known, and the time was now at hand when Christ would put an end to John’s ministry, as, when the sun is risen, the dawn suddenly disappears. After having testified to the priests who were sent to him, that he from whom they ought to seek the truth and power of baptism was already present, and was conversing in the midst of the people, the next day he pointed him out to the view of all. For these two acts, following each other in close succession, must have powerfully affected their minds. This too is the reason why Christ appeared in the presence of John.
Behold the Lamb of God. The principal office of Christ is briefly but clearly stated; that hetakes away the sins of the world by the sacrifice of his death, and reconciles men to God. There are other favors, indeed, which Christ bestows upon us, but this is the chief favor, and the rest depend on it; that, by appeasing the wrath of God, he makes us to be reckoned holy and righteous. For from this source flow all the streams of blessings, that, by not imputing our sins, he receives us into favor. Accordingly, John, in order to conduct us to Christ, commences with the gratuitous forgiveness of sins which we obtain through him.
By the word Lamb he alludes to the ancient sacrifices of the Law. He had to do with Jews who, having been accustomed to sacrifices, could not be instructed about atonement for sins in any other way than by holding out to them a sacrifice. As there were various kinds of them, he makes one, by a figure of speech, to stand for the whole; and it is probable that John alluded to the paschal lamb. It must be observed, in general, that John employed this mode of expression, which was better adapted to instruct the Jews, and possessed greater force; as in our own day, in consequence of baptism being generally practiced, we understand better what is meant by obtaining forgiveness of sins through the blood of Christ, when we are told that we are washed and cleansed by it from our pollutions. At the same time, as the Jews commonly held superstitious notions about sacrifices, he corrects this fault in passing, by reminding them of the object to which all the sacrifices were directed. It was a very wicked abuse of the institution of sacrifice, that they had their confidence fixed on the outward signs; and therefore John, holding out Christ, testifies that he is the Lamb of God; by which he means that all the sacrifices, which the Jews were accustomed to offer under the Law, had no power whatever to atone for sins, but that they were only figures, the truth of which was manifested in Christ himself.
Who taketh away the sin of the world. He uses the word sin in the singular number, for any kind of iniquity; as if he had said, that every kind of unrighteousness which alienates men from God is taken away by Christ. And when he says, the sin Of The World, he extends this favor indiscriminately to the whole human race; that the Jews might not think that he had been sent to them alone. But hence we infer that the whole world is involved in the same condemnation; and that as all men without exception are guilty of unrighteousness before God, they need to be reconciled to him. John the Baptist, therefore, by speaking generally of the sin of the world, intended to impress upon us the conviction of our own misery, and to exhort us to seek the remedy. Now our duty is, to embrace the benefit which is offered to all, that each of us may be convinced that there is nothing to hinder him from obtaining reconciliation in Christ, provided that he comes to him by the guidance of faith.
Besides, he lays down but one method of taking away sins We know that from the beginning of the world, when their own consciences held them convinced, men labored anxiously to procure forgiveness. Hence the vast number of propitiatory offerings, by which they falsely imagined that they appeased God. I own, indeed, that all the spurious rites of a propitiatory nature drew their existence from a holy origin, which was, that God had appointed the sacrifices which directed men to Christ; but yet every man contrived for himself his own method of appeasing God. But John leads us back to Christ alone, and informs us that there is no other way in which God is reconciled to us than through his agency, because he alone takes away sin. He therefore leaves no other refuge for sinners than to flee to Christ; by which he overturns all satisfactions, and purifications, and redemptions, that are invented by men; as, indeed, they are nothing else than base inventions framed by the subtlety of the devil.
The verb αἴρειν (to take away) may be explained in two ways; either that Christ took upon himself the load which weighed us down, as it is said that he carried our sins on the tree, (1. e 2:24;) and Isaiah says that
the chastisement of our peace was laid on him, (Isa 53:5;)
or that he blots out sins. But as the latter statement depends on the former, I gladly embrace both; namely, that Christ, by bearing our sins, takes them away. Although, therefore, sin continually dwells in us, yet there is none in the judgment of God, because when it has been annulled by the grace of Christ, it is not imputed to us. Nor do I dislike the remark of Chrysostom, that the verb in the present tense — ὁ αἴρων, who taketh away, denotes a continued act; for the satisfaction which Christ once made is always in full vigor. But he does not merely teach us that Christ takes away sin, but points out also the method, namely, that he hath reconciled the Father to us by means of his death; for this is what he means by the word Lamb. Let us therefore learn that we become reconciled to God by the grace of Christ, if we go straight to his death, and when we believe that he who was nailed to the cross is the only propitiatory sacrifice, by which all our guilt is removed.
30. This is he of whom I said. He comprehends every thing in a few words, when he declares that Christ is the person who, he said, was to be preferred to him; for hence it follows that John is nothing more than a herald sent on his account; and hence again it is evident that Christ is the Messiah. Three things are here stated; for when he says that a man cometh after him, he means that he himself was before him in the order of time, to prepare the way for Christ, according to the testimony of Malachi,
Behold, I send my messenger before my face, (Mal 3:1.)
Again, when he says that he was preferred to himself, this relates to the glory with which God adorned his Son, when he came into the world to fulfill the office of a Redeemer. At last, the reason is added, which is, that Christ is far superior in dignity to John the Baptist. That honor, therefore, which the Father bestowed upon him was not accidental, but was due to his eternal majesty. But of this expression, he was preferred to me, because he was before me, I have already Spoken. (37)
(37) See page 49.
31. And I knew him not. That his testimony may not be suspected of having been given either from friendship or favor, he anticipates such a doubt, by affirming that he had no other knowledge of Christ than what he had obtained by divine inspiration. The meaning, therefore, amounts to this, that John does not speak at his own suggestion, nor for the favor of man, but by the inspiration of the Spirit and the command of God.
I came baptizing with water; that is, I was called and appointed to this office,that I might manifest him to Israel; which the Evangelist afterwards explains more fully, and confirms, when he introduces John the Baptist, testifying that he had no knowledge of Christ but what he had obtained by oracle; that is, by information or revelation from God. (38) Instead of what we find here, I came to baptize, he there states expressly (verse 33) that he was sent; for it is only the calling of God that makes lawful ministers, because every person who of his own accord, thrusts himself forward, whatever learning or eloquence he may possess, is not entitled to any authority, and the reason is, that he is not authorized by God. Now since it was necessary that John, in order that he might lawfully baptize, should be sent by God, let it be inferred from this, that it is not in the power of any man whatever to institute sacraments, but that this right belongs to God alone, as Christ, on another occasion, in order to prove the baptism of John, asks if it was from heaven, or from men, (Mat 21:25.)
(38) “Par oracle; c’est a dire, advertissement ou revelation de Dieu.”
32. I saw the Spirit, descending like a dove. This is not a literal but a figurative mode of expression; for with what eyes could he see the Spirit ? But as the dove was a certain and infallible sign of the presence of the Spirit, it is called the Spirit, by a figure of speech in which one name is substituted for another; not that he is in reality the Spirit, but that he points him out, as far as human capacity can admit. And this metaphorical language is frequently employed in the sacraments; for why does Christ call the bread his body, but because the name of the thing is properly transferred to the sign? especially when the sign is, at the same time, a true and efficacious pledge, by which we are made certain that the thing itself which is signified is bestowed on us. Yet it must not be understood that the dove contained the Spirit who fills heaven and earth, (Jer 23:24,) but that he was present by his power, so that John knew that such an exhibition was not presented to his eyes in vain. In like manner, we know that the body of Christ is not connected with the bread, and yet we are partakers of his body.
A question now arises, why didthe Spirit at that time appear in the form of a dove ? We must always hold that there is a correspondence between the sign and the reality. When the Spirit was given to the apostles, they saw cloven tongues of fire, (Act 2:3,) because the preaching of the gospel was to be spread through all tongues, and was to possess the power of fire. But in this passage God intended to make a public representation of that mildness of Christ of which Isaiah speaks in lofty terms,
The smoking flax he will not quench, and the bruised reed he will not break, (Isa 42:3.)
It was then, for the first time, that the Spirit was seen descending on him; not that he had formerly been destitute of him, but because he might be said to be then consecrated by a solemn rite. For we know that he remained in concealment, during thirty years, like a private individual, because the time for his manifestation was not yet come; but when he intended to make himself known to the world, he began with his baptism. At that time, therefore, he received the Spirit not only for himself, but for his people; and on that account his descent was visible, that we may know that there dwells in him an abundance of all gifts of which we are empty and destitute. This may easily be inferred from the words of the Baptist; for when he says, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, it is he who baptizeth with the Spirit, his meaning is, that the reason why the Spirit was beheld in a visible form, and remained on Christ, was, that he might water all his people with his fullness. What it is to baptize with the Spirit I have already noticed in a few words; namely, that he imparts its efficacy to baptism, that it may not be vain or useless, and this he accomplishes by the power of his Spirit.
33. Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending. Here a difficult question arises; for if John did not know Christ, why does he refuse to admit him to baptism? To a person whom he did not know he would not say, I ought rather to be baptized by thee, (Mat 3:14.) Some reply, that he knew him to such an extent as to regard him with the reverence due to a distinguished Prophet, but was not aware that he wasthe Son of God. But this is a poor solution of the difficulty, for every man ought to obey the calling of God without any respect of persons. No rank or excellence of man ought to prevent us from doing our duty, and therefore John would have shown disrespect to God and to his baptism, if he had spoken in this manner to any other person than the Son of God. it follows that he must have previously known Christ.
In the first place, it ought to be observed, that the knowledge here mentioned is that which arises from personal and long acquaintance. Although he recognizes Christ whenever he sees him, still it does not cease to be true that they were not known to each other according to the ordinary custom of men, for the commencement of his knowledge proceeded from God. But the question is not yet fully answered; for he says that the sight of the Holy Spirit was the mark by which he was pointed out to him. Now he had not yet seen the Spirit, when he had addressed Christ as the Son of God. For my own part, I willingly embrace the opinion of those who think that this sign was added for confirmation, and that it was not so much for the sake of John as for the sake of us all. John indeed saw it, but it was rather for others than for himself. Bucer appropriately quotes that saying of Moses,
This shall be a sign to you, that after three days journey, you shall sacrifice to me on the mountain, (Exo 3:12.)
Undoubtedly, when they were going out, they already knew that God would conduct and watch over their deliverance; but this was a confirmation a posteriori, as the phrase is; that is, from the event, after it had taken place. In like manner, this came as an addition to the former revelation which had been given to John.
34. I saw and testified. He means that what he declares is not doubtful; because God was pleased to make him fully and thoroughly acquainted with those things of which he was to be the witness to the world; and it is worthy of notice, that he testified that Christ wasthe Son of God, because he who gives the Holy Spirit must be the Christ, for to no other belongs the honor and the office of reconciling men to God.
36. Behold the Lamb of God! Hence appears more clearly what I have already stated, that when John perceived that he was approaching the end of his course, he labored incessantly to resign his office to Christ. His firmness too gives greater credit to his testimony. But by insisting so earnestly, during many successive days, in repeating the commendation of Christ, he shows that his own course was nearly finished. Here we see also how small and low the beginning of the Church was. John, indeed, prepared disciples for Christ, but it is only now that Christ begins to collect a Church. He has no more than two men who are mean and unknown, but this even contributes to illustrate his glory, that within a short period, without human aid, and without a strong hand, he spreads his kingdom in a wonderful and incredible manner. We ought also to observe what is the chief object to which John directs the attention of men; it is, to find in Christ the forgiveness of sins. And as Christ had presented himself to the disciples for the express purpose that they might come to him, so no when they come, he gently encourages and exhorts them; for he does not wait until they first address him, but asks, What do you seek? This kind and gracious invitation, which was once made to two persons, now belongs to all. We ought not therefore to fear that Christ will withdraw from us or refuse to us easy access, provided that he sees us desirous to come to him; but, on the contrary, he will stretch out his hand to assist our endeavors. And how will not he meet those who come to him, who seeks at a distance those who are wandering and astray, that he may bring them back to the right road?
38. Rabbi. This name was commonly given to persons of high rank, or who possessed any kind of honor. But the Evangelist here points out another use of it which was made in his own age, which was, that they addressed by this name the teachers and expounders of the word of God. Although, therefore, those two disciples do not yet recognize Christ as the only Teacher of the Church, yet, moved by the commendation bestowed on him by John the Baptist, they hold him to be a Prophet and teacher, which is the first step towards receiving instruction.
Where dwellest thou? By this example we are taught that from the first, rudiments of the Church we ought to draw such a relish for Christ as will excite our desire to profit; and next, that we ought not to be satisfied with a mere passing look, but that we ought to seek his dwelling, that he may receive us as guests. For there are very many who smell the gospel at a distance only, and thus allow Christ suddenly to disappear, and all that they have learned concerning him to pass away. And though those two persons did not at that time become his ordinary disciples, yet there can be no doubt that, during that night, he instructed them more fully, so that they soon afterwards became entirely devoted to him.
39. It was about the tenth hour; that is, the evening was approaching, for it was not more than two hours till sunset. The day was at that time divided by them into twelve hours, which were longer in summer and shorter in winter. But from this circumstance we infer that those disciples were so eagerly desirous to hear Christ, and to gain a more intimate knowledge of him, that they gave themselves no concern about a night’s lodging. On the contrary, we are, for the most part, very unlike them, for we incessantly delay, because it is not convenient for us to follow Christ.
40. Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. The design of the Evangelist, down to the end of the chapter, is to inform us how gradually the disciples were brought to Christ. Here he relates about Peter, and afterwards he will mention Philip and Nathanael. The circumstance of Andrew immediately bringing his brother expresses the nature of faith, which does not conceal or quench the light, but rather spreads it in every direction. Andrew has scarcely a spark, and yet, by means of it, he enlightens his brother. Woe to our indolence, therefore, if we do not, after having been fully enlightened, endeavor to make others partakers of the same grace. We may observe in Andrew two things which Isaiah requires from the children of God; namely, that each should take his neighbor by the hand, and next, that he should say,
Come, let us go up into the mountain of the Lord,
and he will teach us, (Isa 2:3.)
For Andrew stretches out the hand to his brother, but at the same time he has this object in view, that he may become a fellow-disciple with him in the school of Christ. We ought also to observe the purpose of God, which determined that Peter, who was to be far more eminent, was brought to the knowledge of Christ by the agency and ministry of Andrew; that none of us, however excellent, may refuse to be taught by an inferior; for that man will be severely punished for his peevishness, or rather for his pride, who, through his contempt of a man, will not deign to come to Christ.
41. We have found the Messiah. The Evangelist has interpreted the Hebrew word Messiah (Anointed) by the Greek word Christ, in order to publish to the whole world what was secretly known to the Jews. It was the ordinary designation of kings, (39) as anointing was observed by them as a solemn rite. But still they were aware that one King would be anointed by God, under whom they might hope to obtain perfect and eternal happiness; especially when they should learn that the earthly kingdom of David would not be permanent. And as God raised their minds, when subdued and weighed down by various calamities, to the expectation of the Messiah, so he more clearly revealed to them that his coming was at hand. The prediction of Daniel is more clear and forcible than all the rest, so far as relates to the name of Christ; for he does not, like the earlier Prophets, ascribe it to kings, but appropriates it exclusively to the Redeemer, (Dan 9:25.) Hence this mode of expression became prevalent, so that when the Messiah orChrist was mentioned, it was understood that no other than the Redeemer was meant. Thus we shall find the woman of Samaria saying, the Messiah will come, (Joh 4:25;) which makes it the more wonderful that he who was so eagerly desired by all, and whom they had constantly in their mouths, should be received by so small a number of persons.
(39) See Harmony of the Three Evangelists, volume 1. page 92, n. 2; and page 142, n. 2.
42. Thou art Simon. Christ gives a name to Simon, not as men commonly do, from some past event, or from what is now perceived in them, but because he was to make him Peter, (a stone.) First, he says, Thou art Simon, the son of Jonah. He repeats the name of his father in an abridged form; which is common enough when names are translated into other languages; for it will plainly appear from the last chapter that he was the son of Johanna or John. But all this amounts to nothing more than that he will be a very different person from what he now is. For it is not For the sake of honor that he mentions his father; but as he was descended from a family which was obscure, and which was held in no estimation among men, Christ declares that this will not prevent him from making Simon a man of unshaken courage. The Evangelist, therefore, mentions this as a prediction, that Simon received a new name. I look upon it as a prediction, not only because Christ foresaw the future steadfastness of faith in Peter, but because he foretold what he would give to him. He now magnifies the grace which he determined afterwards to bestow upon him; and therefore he does not say that this is now his name, but delays it till a future time.
Thou shalt be called Cephas. All the godly, indeed, may justly be called Peters (stones,) which, having been Sounded on Christ, are fitted for building the temple of God; but he alone is so called on account of his singular excellence. Yet the Papists act a ridiculous part, when they substitute him in the place of Christ; so as to be the foundation of the Church, as if he too were not founded on Christ along with the rest of the disciples; and they are doubly ridiculous when out of a stone they make him a head. For among the rhapsodies of Gratian there is a foolish canon under the name of Anacletus, who, exchanging a Hebrew word for a Greek one, and not distinguishing the Greek word κεφαλὴ (kephale) from the Hebrew word Cephas, thinks that by this name Peter was appointed to be Head of the Church. Cephas is rather a Chaldaic than a Hebrew word; but that was the customary pronunciation of it after the Babylonish captivity. There is, then, no ambiguity in the words of Christ; for he promises what Peter had not at all expected, and thus magnifies his own grace to all ages, that his former condition may not lead us to think less highly of him, since this remarkable appellation informs us that he was made a new man.
43. Follow me. When Philip was inflamed by this single word to follow Christ, we infer from it how great is the efficacy of the word of God; but it does not appear indiscriminately in all, for God addresses many without any advantage, just as if he struck their ears with a sound which vanished into air. So then the external preaching of the word is in itself unfruitful, except that it inflicts a deadly wound on the reprobate, so as to render them inexcusable before God. But when the secret grace of God quickens it, all the senses must be affected in such a manner that men will be prepared to follow wherever God calls them. We ought, therefore, to pray to Christ that he may display in us the same power of the Gospel. In the case of Philip, there was no doubt a peculiarity about his following Christ; for he is commanded to follow, not like one of us, but as a domestic, and as a familiar companion. But still the calling of all of us is illustrated by this calling of Philip.
44. Was of Bethsaida. The name of the city appears to have been mentioned on purpose, that the goodness of God to the three Apostles may be more illustriously displayed. We know how severely, on other occasions, Christ threatens and curses that city, (Mat 11:21; Luk 10:13.) Accordingly, when God brought into favor with him some out of a nation so ungodly and wicked, we ought to view it in the same light as if they had been brought out of the lowest hell. And when Christ, after having drawn them out of that deep gulf, honors them so highly as to make them Apostles, it is a distinguished favor and worthy of being recorded.
45. Philip findeth Nathanael. Though proud men despise these feeble beginnings of the Church, yet we ought to perceive in them a brighter display of the divine glory, than if the condition of the Kingdom of Christ had been in every respect, from the outset, splendid and magnificent; for we know to how rich a harvest this small seed afterwards grew. Again, we see inPhilip the same desire of building which formerly appeared in Andrew. His modesty, too, is remarkable, in desiring and seeking nothing else than to have others to learn along with him, from Him who is a Teacher common to all.
We have found Jesus. How small was the measure of Philip’s faith appears from this circumstance, that he cannot utter a few words about Christ without mingling with them two gross errors. He calls him the son of Joseph, and says, that Nazareth was his native town, both of which statements were false; and yet, because he is sincerely desirous to do good to his brother, and to make Christ known, God approves of this instance of his diligence, and even crowns it with good success. Each of us ought, no doubt, to endeavor to keep soberly within his own limits; and, certainly, the Evangelist does not mention it as worthy of commendation in Philip, that he twice disgraces Christ, but relates that his doctrine, though faulty and involved in error, was useful, because it nevertheless had this for its object, that Christ might be truly known. He foolishly says that he was the son of Joseph, and ignorantly calls him a native of Nazareth, but yet he leads Nathanael to no other than the Son of God who was born in Bethlehem, (Mat 2:1,) and does not contrive a false Christ, but only wishes that they should know him as he was exhibited by Moses and the Prophets. We see, then, that the chief design of doctrine is, that those who hear us should come to Christ in some way or other.
There are many who engage in abstruse inquiries about Christ, but who throw such darkness and intricacy around him by their subtleties that they can never find him. The Papists, for example, will not say that Christ is the son of Joseph, for they distinctly know what is his name; but yet they annihilate his power, so as to hold out a phantom in the room of Christ. Would it not be better to stammer ridiculously, like Philip, and to hold by the true Christ, than by eloquent and ingenious language to introduce a false Christ? On the other hand, there are many poor dunces in the present day, who, though ignorant and unskilled in the use of language, make known Christ more faithfully than all the theologians of the Pope with their lofty speculations. This passage, therefore, warns us that, if any unsuitable language has been employed concerning Christ by ignorant and unlearned men, we ought not to reject such persons with disdain, provided they direct us to Christ; but that we may not be withdrawn from Christ by the false imaginations of men, let us always have this remedy at hand, to seek the pure knowledge of him fromthe Law and the Prophets.
46. Can any good thing come out of Nazareth? At first, Nathanael refuses, the place of Christ’s nativity (as described by Philip) having given him offense. But, first of all, he is deceived by the inconsiderate discourse of Philip; for what Philip foolishly believed Nathanael receives as certain. Next, there is added a foolish judgment arising from hatred or contempt of the place. Both of these points ought to be carefully observed by us. This holy man was not far from shutting out against himself all approach to Christ. Why was this? Because he rashly believes what Philip spoke incorrectly about Christ; and next, because his mind was under the influence of a preconceived opinion that no good thing could come out of Nazareth. If then we are not carefully on our guard, we shall be liable to the same danger; and Satan labors every day, by similar obstacles, to hinder us from coming to Christ; for he has the dexterity to spread many falsehoods, the tendency of which is to excite our hatred or suspicion against the Gospel, that we may not venture to taste it. And next, he ceases not to try another method, namely, to make us look on Christ with contempt; for we see how many there are who take offense at the degradation of the cross, which appears both in Christ the head and in his members. But as we can hardly be so cautious as not to be tempted by those stratagems of Satan, let us at least remember immediately this caution:
Come and see. Nathanael allowed his twofold error to be corrected by this expression which Philip uttered. Following his example, let us first show ourselves to be submissive and obedient; and next, let us not shrink from inquiry, when Christ himself is ready to remove the doubts which harass us. Those who read these words not as a question, but as an affirmation, Some good thing may come out of Nazareth, are greatly mistaken. For, in the first place, how trivial would such an observation be? And next, we know that the city Nazareth was not at that time held in estimation; and Philip’s reply shows plainly enough that it was expressive of hesitation and distrust.
47. Behold, one truly an Israelite. It is not on Nathanael’s own account that Christ bestows on him this commendation, but under his person he holds out a general doctrine. For, since many who boast of being believers are very far from being actually believers, it is of great importance that some mark should be found for distinguishing the true and genuine from the false. We know how haughtily the Jews gloried in their father Abraham, and how presumptuously they boasted of the holiness of their descent; and yet there was scarcely one in a hundred among them who was not utterly degenerate and alienated from the faith of the Fathers. For this reason, Christ, in order to tear the mask from hypocrites, gives a short definition of a true Israelite, and, at the same time, removes the offense which would afterwards arise from the wicked obstinacy of the nation. For those who wished to be accounted the children of Abraham, and the holy people of God, were shortly afterwards to become the deadly enemies of the Gospel. That none may be discouraged or alarmed by the impiety which was generally found in almost all ranks, he gives a timely warning, that of those by whom the name of Israelites is assumed there are few who are true Israelites.
Again, as this passage contains a definition of Christianity, we must not pass by it slightly. To sum up the meaning of Christ in a few words, it ought to be observed that deceit is contrasted with uprightness and sincerity; (41) so that he calls those persons sly (42) and deceitful who are called in other parts of Scripture double in heart, (Psa 12:2.) Nor is it only that gross hypocrisy by which those who are conscious of their wickedness pretend to be good men, but likewise another inward hypocrisy, when men are so blinded by their vices that they not only deceive others but themselves. So then it is integrity of heart before God, and uprightness before men, that makes a Christian; but Christ points out chiefly that kind of deceit which is mentioned in Psa 32:2. In this passage ἀληθῶς (truly) means something more than certainly. The Greek word, no doubt, is often used as a simple affirmation; but as we must here supply a contrast between the fact and the mere name, he is said to be truly, who is in reality what he is supposed to be.
(41) “Rondeur et syncerite.”
(42) “Canteleux et frauduleux.”
48. Whence knowest thou? Though Christ did not intend to flatter him, yet he wished to be heard by him, in order to draw forth a new question, by the reply to which he would prove himself to be the Son of God. Nor is it without a good reason that Nathanael asks whence Christ knew him; for to meet with a man of such uprightness as to be free from all deceit is an uncommon case, and to know such purity of heart belongs to God alone. The reply of Christ, however, appears to be inappropriate; for though he saw Nathanael under the fig-tree, it does not follow from this that he could penetrate into the deep secrets of the heart. But there is another reason; for as it belongs to God to know men when they are not seen, so also does it belong to Him to see what is not visible to the eyes. As Nathanael knew that Christ did not see him after the manner of men, but by a look truly divine, this might lead him to conclude that Christ did not now speak as a man. The proof, therefore, is taken from things which are of the same class; for not less does it belong to God to see what lies beyond our view than to judge concerning purity of heart. We ought also to gather from this passage a useful doctrine, that when we are not thinking of Christ, we are observed by him; and it is necessary that it should be so, that he may bring us back, when we have wandered from the right path.
49. Thou art the Son of God. That he acknowledges him to be the Son of God from his divine power is not wonderful; but on what ground does he call himKing of Israel ? for the two things do not appear to be necessarily connected. But Nathanael takes a loftier view. He had already heard that he is the Messiah, and to this doctrine he adds the confirmation which had been given him. He holds also another principle, that the Son of God will not come without exercising the office of King over the people of God. Justly, therefore, does he acknowledge that he who is the Son of God is also King of Israel And, indeed, faith ought not to be fixed on the essence of Christ alone, (so to speak,) but ought to attend to his power and office; for it would be of little advantage to know who Christ is, if this second point were not added, what he wishes to be towards us, and for what purpose the Father sent him. The reason why the Papists have nothing more than a shadow of Christ is, that they have been careful to look at his mere essence, but have disregarded his kingdom, which consists in the power to save.
Again, when Nathanael calls him King of Israel, though his kingdom extends to the remotest bounds of the earth, the confession is limited to the measure of faith. For he had not yet advanced so far as to know that Christ was appointed to be King over the whole world, or rather, that from every quarter would be collected the children of Abraham, so that the whole world would be the Israel of God. We to whom the wide extent of Christ’s kingdom has been revealed ought to go beyond those narrow limits. Yet following the example of Nathanael, let us exercise our faith in hearing the word, and let us strengthen it by all the means that are in our power; and let it not remain buried, but break out into confession.
50. Jesus answered. He does not reprove Nathanael as if he had been too easy of belief, but rather approving of his faith, promises to him and to others that he will confirm it by stronger arguments. Besides, it was peculiar to one man that he was seen under a fig-tree by Christ, when absent and at a distance from him; but now Christ brings forward a proof which would be common to all, and thus — as if he had broken off from what he originally intended — instead of addressing one man, he turns to address all.
51. You shall see heaven opened. They are greatly mistaken, in my opinion, who anxiously inquire into the place where, and the time when, Nathanael and others saw heaven opened; for he rather points out something perpetual which was always to exist in his kingdom. I acknowledge indeed, that the disciples sometimes saw angels, who are not seen in the present day; and I acknowledge also that the manifestation of the heavenly glory, when Christ ascended to heaven, was different from what we now behold. But if we duly consider what took place at that time, it is of perpetual duration; for the kingdom of God, which was formerly closed against us, is actually opened in Christ. A visible instance of this was shown to Stephen, (Act 7:55,) to the three disciples on the mountain, (Mat 17:5,) and to the other disciples at Christ’s ascension, (Luk 24:51; Act 1:9.) But all the signs by which God shows himself present with us depend on this opening of heaven, more especially when God communicates himself to us to be our life.
Ascending and descending on the Son of man. This second clause refers to angels. They are said to ascend and descend, so as to be ministers of God’s kindness towards us; and therefore this mode of expression points out the mutual intercourse which exists between God and men. Now we must acknowledge that this benefit was received through Christ, because without him the angels have rather a deadly enmity against us than a friendly care to help us. They are said to ascend and descend on the son of man, not because they minister to him, but because — in reference to him, and for his honor — they include the whole body of the Church in their kindly regard. Nor have I any doubt that he alludes to the ladder which was exhibited to the patriarch Jacob in a dream, (Gen 28:12;) for what was prefigured by that vision is actually fulfilled in Christ. In short, this passage teaches us, that though the whole human race was banished from the kingdom of God, the gate of heaven is now opened to us, so that we are fellow-citizens of the saints, and companions of the angels, (Eph 2:19;) and that they, having been appointed to be guardians of our salvation, descend from the blessed rest of the heavenly glory (43) to relieve our distresses.
