John 1:14-18

THRID SECTION

The Incarnation of the Logos, the Appearance of the real Shekinah among the Faithful

John 1:14-18

(1) Incarnation Of The Logos, Or The Absolutely New Birth. Appearance Of The Real Shekinah, John 1:14. (2) Testimony Of John In General, John 1:15. (3) Experience Of Believers, Or Grace, John 1:16. (4) Antithesis Between Moses And Christ, The Law Of The Old Testament And Christianity, In Their Authority And Work, John 1:17. (5) Antithesis Between The Whole Old World And Christ In Their Relation To God, John 1:18

14And the Word was made [became, ἐγένετο] flesh, and dwelt [sojourned, tabernacled, ἐσχήνωσεν76] among us, (and we beheld his glory [the real Shekinah], the glory as of the [an] only-begotten of [from, παρά the Father,) [omit parenthesis]77 full of 15grace and truth. John bare [beareth]78 witness of him, and cried [crieth],79 saying, This was he of whom I spake [said], He that cometh after me [behind me] is preferred 16[hath come to be] before me; for he was before me [lit. first of me]. And [For]80 of his fulness have all we received [did we all receive], and [even] grace for grace. 17For the law was given by [through] Moses, (but) grace and truth came [came to pass] by [through] Jesus Christ. 18No man hath seen God at any time [No one hath ever seen God]; the only begotten Son [God],81 which [who] is in [toward] the bosom of the Father [of the nature of the Father and in his full confidence and service] he hath declared him [hath interpreted all).82

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

[John 1:14 contains the central idea of the Prologue, the Gospel, and the system of Christianity, yea, central idea of the whole history of the world; for ancient history before the incarnation was a preparation for Christ as the fulfillment of all types, prophecies and nobler aspirations of men; history after that event is subservient to the spread and triumph of Christianity till Christ be all in all. The theology of John is Christological throughout (comp. 1 John 4:2-3); that of Paul, in the Romans and Galatians, is anthropological and soteriological, but the Colossians and Philippians are likewise Christological, and in 1 Timothy 3:16 Paul makes the incarnation the central fact of our religion. But the idea of the incarnation, the great mystery of godliness, should not be confined to the mere birth of Christ, but extended to His whole divine human life, death and resurrection; it is “God manifest in the flesh.” Bengel discovers a threefold antithetic correspondence between vers.1 and John 4:0 :

THE WORD

Was in the beginning

became

God

flesh

With God

and dwelt among us.—P. S.]

John 1:14 And.—This καὶ has been explained in very different ways: as equivalent, for example to γάρ (for)83 or οὖ (therefore),84 or as signifying the condition of Christ’s becoming man. But it denotes an actual historical advance85 not, however, as De Wette takes it, upon John 1:9, but, as Lücke, upon John 1:11. First, the universal advent was spoken of; then the theocratical advent in the Old Testament; now, after indicating the transitional distinction of consecrated human birth and birth from God, which were continually approaching each other, the Evangelist comes to the point of incarnation, where birth and new or divine birth coincide.

The Word became flesh.—In this finishing sentence the subject is again named. Not a life only, or a light, from the Logos, was made flesh, but the whole Logos as Life and Light (see Colossians 1:19; Colossians 2:9). He became σάρξ; the strongest expression for becoming veritable man.

[This grand sentence: ὁλόγοςσὰρξἐγένετο, stands alone in the Bible; but the same idea in somewhat different forms of expression occurs repeatedly, viz.: 1 John 4:2 (ἐν σαρκὶ ἐληλυθώς, Christ having come in the flesh); 1 Timothy 3:16 (ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί, God was manifested in the flesh); Romans 1:3 (γενόμενος ἐκ σπέρματος Δαυεὶδ κατὰ σάρκα, born from the seed of David according to the flesh); John 8:3 (ἐν ὁμοιώματι σαρκὸς ἁμαρτίας, in the likeness of sinful flesh); Philippians 2:7 (ἑν ὁμοιώματι , being made in the likeness of men); Hebrews 2:14 (where it is said that Christ, like other men, partook of αἵματος καὶ σαρκός, of blood and flesh). Flesh (σάρξ) is a strong Hebraizing term (בָּשָׂר) for human nature in its weakness, frailty and mortality. Comp. the English, mortal (the German, der Sterbliche), for man. When used of man, the idea of moral weakness or sinfulness is also often implied, but not necessarily. In the passages where it is ascribed to Christ, sin must be excluded in view of the unanimous testimony of the Apostles to the sinlessness of Jesus. The term is more, comprehensive than body (σῶμα), which is used in distinction from soul (ψυχή) and spirit νοῦς or πνεῦμα), while flesh sometimes includes both; it is more concrete and emphatic than man (ἄνθρωπος), and expresses more strongly the infinite condescension of the Logos, the identity of His human nature with our own, and the universalness of His manhood. Yet it is as correct to speak of Christ’s becoming man (ἐνανθρώπησις, Menschwerdung) as of His becoming flesh (ἐνσάρκωσις, incarnatio, incarnation, Fleischwerdung). The Logos assumed, not an individual man or a single human personality, but human nature into union with His præ-existent divine personality. He moreover assumed human nature, not apparently and transiently (according to the Gnostic Docetic view), but really and permanently; nor partially (as Apollinaris taught), but totally, with all its essential constituents as created by God, body, soul and spirit. For Christ everywhere appears as a full man (comp. John 8:40 : “Ye seek to kill me, a man who,” etc.), and He is emphatically called “the Son of Man;” John speaks expressly of the soul (ψυχή) of Christ, John 12:27, and of His spirit (πνεῦμα), John 11:33; John 13:21; John 19:30; comp. Matthew 27:50. In the O. T., too, flesh often includes the moral or spiritual nature of man, comp. Leviticus 17:11; Deuteronomy 12:15; Job 12:10. It is not the flesh as opposed to the spirit, that is here intended, but human nature, as distinct from the divine. The flesh is the outward tabernacle and the visible representative of the whole man to our senses.86 Finally Christ assumed human nature, not in its primitive state of innocence, but in its fallen, suffering, mortal state, yet without sin (which, does not originally and necessarily belong to man); for He came to save this fallen nature. He was subject to temptation, or temptable, and was perfected through suffering (Hebrews 2:14-18; Hebrews 4:15), but He was neither σαρκικός (Romans 7:14), nor ψυκικός (1 Corinthians 2:14). He appeared not “in the flesh of sin,” but only “in the likeness of the flesh of sin” (Romans 8:2). He bore all the consequences of sin without a share of personal sin and guilt. This amazing miracle of His love is best expressed by the term: The Logos became flesh.87 Comp. 2 Corinthians 8:9 : “Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that, though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye by His poverty might become rich.” At His second advent Christ will appear as man indeed, yet no more in the likeness of sinful flesh, nor in weakness and poverty, but in glory and immortality (comp, Hebrews 9:28, χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας). P. S.]

It imputes a Judaistic [and Apollinarian] nonsense to the Evangelist, to represent him as saying that the Logos took only the human σάρξ, and not a reasonable human soul (Praxeas, Köstlin, Zeller88). The evidence of the contrary lies not only in the impossibility of conceiving a human σάρξ without ψυχή and such a ψυχή without πνεῦμα (see Meyer, p. 65), but especially in the Old Testament usage of the term flesh to denote human nature (Isaiah 40:0); to say nothing of John’s express designation of the ψυχή of Christ in John 12:27, and the πνεῦμα in John 11:33; John 13:21; John 19:30. But while the half-Baur school thus construes John’s statement of the incarnation Judaistically, Hilgenfeld construes it Gnostically: giving Christ (according to the Valentinian system) a real σάρξ, indeed, but such as was exalted above material limitations. Meyer (against Frommann and others) contests without good reason the anti-Docetic force of this expression; though certainly the main force of it is rather anti-Gnostic; for the incipient Gnosticism first asserted an external connection of σάρξ and λόγος, against which the verb ἐγένετο would be more emphatic than the substantive σάρξ.

With the idea of the σάρξ comes also the idea of passibility, but by no means the idea of any weakness of the flesh arising from sin; for Scripture recognizes the flesh in three stages: (1) pure in paradise; (2) weakened by sin; (3) sanctified by the Spirit; and the Logos could become flesh only in the latter sense.

All this carries in it the antithesis between His incarnation and His eternal, immaterial existence; yet neither in the sense of Pantheism, which makes His incarnation an accident (Baur), nor in the sense of the mediæval scholasticism, which sees in it, even as incarnation, a humiliation of the Logos even into an incongruous, heterogeneous nature. The historical humiliation of Christ coincides indeed with His historical incarnation; yet the two are to be distinguished.The supernatural birth of Christ is unquestionably implied in this passage, in that the origin of Christ as God-Man stands in opposition to the natural births previously described, all which, as such, needed to be completed by the birth from God (contra Meyer).[Became, ἐγένετο.—Not was, ἦν, as in John 1:1, nor ἐγένετο ἄνθρωπος, as is said of John, John 1:6, who had no existence before his birth, but the præ-existent, personal Logos became flesh.89 Comp. LXX., Genesis 2:7 : ἐγένετοὁ ἄνθρωπος εἰς ψυχὴς ζῶσαν. The word denotes a single and completed act. The Logos was not converted or changed into flesh, nor simply associated with flesh, but endued with human nature, which He assumed once for all into personal and perpetual union with Him.90 The Logos was henceforth Christ Jesus, the God-Man (θεάνθρωπος), and this not only for a transient purpose, but He continues so forever.—P. S.]

Tabernacled among us.—God dwelt as Jehovah in Israel, hidden in the most holy place of the tabernacle (σκηνή); now in the Logos He has tabernacles (ἐσκήνωσεν) among the disciples in the midst of the people, thus making the disciples themselves His tabernacle.91 (On among us, ἐν ἡμῖν, see John 1:16. The disciples and witnesses of Christ are meant, but as the central point of the people, and of all mankind). The expression evidently alludes to the Old Testament dwelling of God in Israel. The idea of that dwelling of Jehovah in the holy tabernacle (Exodus 25:8; Exodus 29:45) is enlarged even in the prophets (Isaiah 4:5; Isaiah 57:15). Now the Lord has taken His dwelling among His own people themselves. This reference is confirmed by what follows. “The Targums likewise represent the Word (מימרא) as the Shekinah (שּׁבינא), and the Messiah as the manifestation of the latter” (Meyer).92

And we beheld his glory.—Meyer rightly maintains, against Lücke, De Wette and Tholuck, that this main thought cannot be read as a parenthesis. Such reading has been occasioned by the nominative πλήρης93 χάριτος, at the close of the verse, referring to λόγος. According to Baumgarten-Crusius and Meyer [Brückner, Alford], this nominative refers, by a solecism, to αὐτοῦ, and serves to give more independent prominence to the descriptive clause. But the clause may also be read as a declaration prompted by the contemplation; ἦν being understood.94

We beheld.—The beholding has faith for its organ; it is not a merely outward vision, still less merely inward; nor does it perceive the glory of Christ only in single miracles or in a transfiguration, but in His whole life (comp. 1 John 1:1). [θεάομαι moreover is richer than ὁράω, and means properly to behold or contemplate with admiration and delight. John speaks here in the name of all the Apostles and eye-witnesses of the life of Christ. The plural adds force to the statement, as in John 21:24; 1 John 1:1; 2 Peter 1:16. Faith lifts the veil of Christ’s humanity and worships His divine glory, while to unbelief He is a mere man. Hengstenberg refers to several passages from Isaiah (Isaiah 40:5; Isaiah 66:2; Isaiah 66:18), in which the beholding of the glory of Jehovah is promised. John recognized Jehovah in the incarnate Logos (John 12:41).—P. S.]

His glory, δόξα, כָּבוֹד.—The real appearances of the divine glory in the Old Testament must be distinguished from its symbolical signs. Its signs are the cloud and tempest on Sinai, the pillar of smoke and the pillar of fire, the cherubim over the ark of the covenant in the most holy place. Its real manifestations are, from the nature of the Old Testament, transient, and given in visions: manifestations of the Angel of the Lord (see above), or of the Lord Himself attended by a host of angels, Daniel 7:0. The manifestation of the Angel of the Lord is, in its nature, connected with the manifestation of His glory. The later Jewish theology has designated these manifestations as the Shekinah.95 In Christ the Shekinah appears in full reality.

[We must distinguish four stages of this glory: 1) the præ-existent divine glory of the Logos with the Father, John 17:5; John 2:0) the preparatory shadowy manifestation of His glory in the Old Testament, as seen by the prophetic eye of Isaiah 12:41; Isaiah 3:0) its visible revelation in human form in the life and work of the incarnate Word, which shone from every miracle, John 2:11; John 4:0) the final and perfect manifestation of His divine-human glory in eternity in which the believers will share, John 17:24.—P. S.]

When Meyer, with Hofmann (Schriftbew. II.1, p. 21), makes the incarnation of Christ itself equivalent to His humiliation, and so conceives even theanthropic existence as distinct from simple divine, he has no Scripture for it, either in John 12:41; John 17:5; John 17:22; John 17:24, or in Philippians 2:6. Unquestionably the human δόξα of Christ in His earthly life was to be relatively conceived; but only (1) in that He entered into the historical conditions of humanity, especially into subjection to the law, (2) in that the life of the first man waited in Him for its completion in the higher, imperishable manifestation of the second.

The glory [emphatically repeated] as of an only begotten [δόξανὡςμουογενοῦςπαρὰπατρός].—A closer description of the δόξα. It was alone in its kind, and could be characterized only thus: as of the only begotten. The ὡς expresses literally not the reality (Euthym. Zigabenus: ὄντως), but in similitude, the idea of the only begotten, to which the appearance of Christ corresponded, while assuredly it first awakened that idea and brought it to view.96 Only the μονογενής could manifest Himself so (John 1:18; John 3:6; John 3:18; 1 John 4:9).97 That John has the term from Christ Himself, is shown by John 3:16; John 3:18. Paul’s πρωτότοκος, first begotten [Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:6], is a parallel. Both terms denote not only the trinitarian relation, of the Son of God, but also His theanthropic relation. In the expression of John, however, the incommunicable relation of Christ to God predominates; in that of Paul, His incommunicable relation to the world. In the one, the ontological idea of the Trinity rules; in the other, the economic and soteriological. The notion of the only begotten is closely akin to that of the beloved (ἀγαπητός), not identical with it as Kuinoel holds. The word denotes indeed, according to Meyer, the only begotten; but it thereby makes Christ also the peculiarly begotten (Tholuck), who is the principle of all other births and regenerations.98 The reference of μονογενοῦς to δόξα (Erasmus and others) is wholly without support.

From the Father [belongs to μονογενοῦς, not to δόξαν.—Origen: ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ πατρός. His origin and issue is from the essence of the Father. His coming forth from the Father (John 6:46; John 7:29; John 16:27) does not exclude, however, His continuance in the heaven of the Father (John 3:13; comp. John 1:18). His human relations do not supersede His divine.

Full of grace and truth.—Comp. John 1:17. The result of the beholding, uttered in an exclamation of astonishment, expressing the main forms in which the δόξα was seen in Him. He was full of grace and truth. Not only did He seem all grace and truth, but grace and truth seemed concentrated in Him. And this was His glory, for grace and truth are the main attributes of Jehovah in the Old Testament, since the Messianic spirit recognized Him as pre-eminently the God of redemption (חֶסֶד וֶאֱמֶת [in the LXX.: πολυέλεος καὶ ], Exodus 34:6; Psalms 25:10; Psalms 36:6). This reference to the Old Testament is groundlessly doubted by Meyer;99 for though אֱמֶת denotes also faithfulness, yet faithfulness and truth are one in the divine nature; and the rendering of חֶסֶד by ἔλεος in the Septuagint decides nothing, since ἔλεος finds its more precise equivalent in רַחֲמִים. But Meyer well observes that ἀλήθεια answers to the light-nature (φῶς), χάρις to the life-nature (ζωή) of the Logos. Of course the life is as much concerned in the truth of Christ, as the light in the grace; the latter notions are more soteriologically concrete, than the former. Christ, as absolute redemption, was pure grace; as absolute revelation, pure truth. [Christ is the personal Truth, John 14:6, and is in the Apoc. called the ἀληθινός, John 3:7; John 19:11, is whom there is a perfect harmony between appearance and reality, claim and being, promise and fulfilment.—P. S.]

John 1:15. John beareth witness of him.—Having described the advent of Christ to its consummation in the incarnation, the Evangelist comes to the testimony of John concerning Christ. He first introduced John’s mission to bear witness of Christ, John 1:6; now he comes to his actual testimony concerning Christ, and that as a testimony even to His præ-existence and His higher nature. Afterwards follows the testimony of the Baptist concerning the Messianic (John 1:19) and the soteriological (John 1:29 sqq.) character of Jesus.

Beareth witness.—Present. John’s testimony is perpetually living, active and valid. Its continued validity in the present rests upon the past fact that he cried only in Israel, and uttered what he had to say of Christ (κέκραγε λέγων). Hence Christ could appeal to his testimony, John 5:33; Matthew 21:24. Κράζειν, elsewhere also, John 7:28; John 7:37, etc., for loud public proclamation. There is no reason for taking the perfect in a present sense. [Comp. Text. Notes 3 and 4.—P. S.]

This was he of whom I said.—Οὖτοςἦν. He it was. Not because John is conceived as speaking in the present. In the testimony of John two periods must be distinguished: before and after the baptism of Jesus. Before the baptism, he preached the Messiah in His higher characters, as approaching, but knew not yet the Messianic individual; after the baptism he could point to Jesus and say: This was He, of whom I declared that præ-existence. Thus this second stage of his testimony is here in hand.

He that cometh after me.—[ ὁ ὀπίσω μουἐρχόμενο ς, ἔμπροσθένμουγέγονεν. A pithy oxymoron exciting attention and reflection, repeated John 1:27; John 1:30, and probably suggested by the prophetic passage, Malachi 3:2 : “Lo, I am sending My messenger, and he hath prepared a way before Me.” The following words, ὅτι πρῶτός μου ἦν, which must be referred to the præ-existence of Christ (comp. ἦν, John 1:1; John 1:9-10), not to the superiority of rank (which would require ἐστί), contain the clue to the enigmatic and paradoxical sentence. The meaning may be thus explained: My successor (in time) has become (or has come to be) my predecessor (in rank); for He is before me (even in time), being absolutely the first, viz.: the eternal Son of God; while I am only a man born in time and sent to prepare the way for Him.—P. S.]

“He that comes after me, has come before me.” Meyer.100 But it means: was made, has become(γέγονε) before me. John appeared before Christ as His fore-runner and herald; as to his progressive approach in His Old Testament advent, Christ was before him. His coming forth pervaded the Old Testament, and was the impelling power and cause of all prophecy, even the prophecy of John. And this earlier coming had its ground in His earlier (absolutely early, eternal) existence; hence ὅτιπρῶτόςμουἦν. These are, indeed, primarily antitheses of time. But the designation of the one coming after, as being before, implies at the same time a deeper and higher principle of life. According to Aristotle, the posterius in the real development is the prius in the idea or the value of the life. This is true of man in relation to the animal world, of the New Testament in relation to the Old, of Christ in relation to the Baptist. The ἐντιμότερός μου ἐστί of Chrysostom, therefore, is involved in the clause; while Meyer is right, against Lücke, Tholuck and others, in not taking this for its primary sense. Theἔμπροσθένμουγ έγονεν, of course, means not was before me (Luther and others), but: has become [or come to be] before me (against Meyer). Commentators have not been able to reconcile themselves to this γέγονεν, because they have not yet fairly reconciled themselves to the Old Testament incarnation of Christ. Hence Meyer: it is equal to προέρχεσθαι; Luthardt: He who at first came after me, as if He were my disciple, is since come before me, that is, become my master. Baumgarten-Crusius: of the ideal præ-existence of Christ in the divine counsels. This interpretation lies in the right direction, but misses the fact that the præ-existence of the Logos was personal and real, and that the ideal præ-existence of the God-Man was from the first dynamically real, the power of the creation, the central force and the core of the Old Testament (the “roct” of Isaiah), and in Israel was in a continual process of incarnation, which was objectively represented beforehand in the Angel of the Lord.

For he was before me [ὅτιπ ρῶτόςμουἦν].—The eternal præ-existence of Christ is the ground of His theocratic manifestation. Here again Meyer [on account of the ἦν] emphasizes the temporal sense, against the reference of the πρῶτος to rank [which would require ἐστίν], contrary to Chrysostom, Erasmus [Beza, Calvin, Grotius] and many others. He would take the merely temporal conception (i.e., the præ-existence of the Logos); hence πρῶτος in the sense of πρότερος. The comparative, however, could hardly stand here. Such præ-existence itself involves the higher, even divine dignity.101

Meyer justly holds, against Strauss [De Wette, Scholten] and others, that the Baptist could certainly have from Malachi 3:1; Isaiah 6:1 ff. and Daniel 7:13 ff., the idea of the præ-existence of Christ, which even the Rabbins attested. [Besides, we must assume a special revelation given to John at the baptism of Christ, John 1:33.—P. S.]

John 1:16. For [text, rec.: And] of his fulness did we all receive.—Undoubtedly the testimony of the Baptist continued, as Origen,102 Chrysostom [Erasmus, Luther, Mel.] and others take it. We adjust the ἡμεῖς πάντες by referring it to the Old Testament saints (John 1:12), and particularly to the prophets, whose line John closed.

From the fullness of Christ have we all drawn our supply, says the last of the prophets, and (even) grace for grace. The last, best, highest, which each one in the end received from His fulness, was grace. Thus the Old Testament experience of salvation looked to its completion in the New Testament. Comp. 1Pe 1:11-12.103

Of his fulness.—See John 1:14, πλήρης [also Colossians 1:19; Colossians 2:9, according to which the whole fulness of the Godhead dwelled in Christ bodily; Ephesians 1:23, where the church as the body of Christ is called “the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.”—P. S.].—That the idea of the πλήρωμα does not necessarily originate in Gnostic soil (as Schwegler and others [of the Tübingen School] hold), to pass thence into a pseudo-Johannean Gospel, a more thorough knowledge of the history of religion might abundantly teach.104 The heathen philosophy knows only an ideal pleroma as the basis of things; in the actual world all proceeds in broken emanations in infinitum, upon the premises of pantheism. But the idea of the real pleroma was an essential principle of the Old Testament religion and promise. In the Messiah the old piece-work was to become a whole,

shadows were to become reality, revelation was to be finished. See Isaiah 11:1; [comp. Hebrews 1:1-2] Hence even Matthew, at the outset, speaks repeatedly of positive fulfilment, John 2:0, etc. Likewise all the Evangelists and Apostles in their way; Ephesians 1:10; Colossians 2:9; Colossians 2:17; Colossians 1:19. The pleroma of Christ in the world corresponds with the pleroma of the Trinity in heaven; it is absolute revelation and religion concluded and consummated in His personality; and it is patent that this idea could be only borrowed by the Gnostics, to be altered and corrupted. The πλήρωμα of Christ is His fullness of being in its revelation, ontologically present, actively demonstrating itself. He had already partially opened Himself in the Old Testament, so that all the prophets might draw from Him. Comp. John 10:6 sqq.; 1 Peter 1:11-12.

And (even) grace for grace.—And even; not: and that, or: to wit.105—Grace for grace[חֵן עַל חֵן gratiam super gratiam]. Variously interpreted: (1) Starke: The grace of restoration, for the grace lost in paradise. (2) Chrysostom, Lampe, Paulus and others: The grace of the New Testament instead of or after that of the Old.106 (3) Augustine: First justification, then eternal life.107 (4) Bengel and most moderns: One grace after another [ever growing supplies of grace] from the fullness of Christ.108—At the same time, however, the Baptist doubtless thought of the different developments of religious experience in the course of the Old Testament prophecy. Grace was continually assuming new forms. [This remark loses its force if John 1:16 gives the words of the Evangelist, not of the Baptist.—P. S.]

John 1:17. For the law, etc.—[Antithetic demonstration of John 1:16] The antithesis of the Old and New Testaments, as in Paul (Romans 6:14; Romans 7:3; Galatians 4:4, etc.]. It must be remembered that both Apostles (and all the Apostles) recognize likewise the unity of the Old and New Testaments. This unity, even according to our text, is Christ Himself, and it is elsewhere in John [ch. John 8:56], as well as in Paul (Romans 4:4), represented by Abraham, or by promise and prophecy, also by the prophetic, typical side of the Mosaic law itself. The law, however, as law, constitutes the opposition of the Old Testament to the New. But the law is here placed in a twofold opposition to the New Testament. (1) As against grace, it is the binding commandment, which cannot give life, but by its demand of righteousness works the death of the sinner, either unto life in repentance, or unto death in the judgment, while it is incapable of giving life, expiating, justifying, sanctifying. Romans 7:0; 2 Corinthians 5:0; Galatians 3:0. (2) As against truth or the reality of salvation and of the kingdom of God, it is first only type, prefiguration, symbol; and then, when the reality is come, shadow, Colossians 3:17; Hebrews 10:1. Notice also the further antithesis, that the law was given, set forth, laid down (ἐρόθη), as a lifeless statute; grace and truth came, became (ἐγένετο), unfolded themselves as life.109

Grace and truth.110—Grace as the complete New Testament grace of redemption, “in the distinct and solemn sense” [Meyer, p. 93], yet according to its historical progress, which began with Abraham’s righteousness of faith, Genesis 15:6.—Truth, as the full truth of life and the full life of truth, the reality and substance of salvation, in contrast with the shadow. [Redeeming grace is opposed to the condemnation, truth to the typical and shadowy character, of the law, of which Bengel says: iram parans et umbram habens.]

Came through Jesus Christ.—In the historical synthesis: Jesus Christ, who is here for the first time called by His full [historical] name [in harmony with the instinctively artistic arrangement of the Prologue],111 the development of the grace also culminates in the absolutely efficient grace of redemption, But as Christ the Logos was from eternity, so also was the grace, as the power of the love and righteousness of God over the foreseen guilt of the world. Development is therefore no more to be ascribed to the grace in itself, than to the Logos in Himself; but the eternal grace, with the eternal Logos, entered into historical development towards incarnation, and the consummation: Christ in Jesus, was also the consummation of the grace. The thing here expressed, therefore, is the historical completion and operation of grace, not as a mere work of Christ (Clement of Alex.), or of God (Origen), but rather as the vital action of God in Christ. Dorschäus: “ἐδόθη et ἐγένετο eleganter distinguuntur, Ebr. III., prius enim organicam causam, posterius, principalem notat,” Yet leaving the Father the first principle.

John 1:18. No man hath seen God at any time.—That these words also might have been spoken by John the Baptist, appears from John 3:31-32; and that they are to be actually attributed to him, from the fact that the Evangelist evidently distinguishes the testimony concerning Christ which, from John 1:15, the Baptist gave in general, and particularly among His disciples, from his next following testimony, John 1:19, before the rulers of the Jews.112 Our verse, however, not only particularizes respecting the ἀλήθεια, John 1:17 (Meyer), but at the same time enlarges the preceding thoughts. Christ is so truly the fulfiller of grace and truth, that He stands in contrast not only to Moses, but also to the prophets and to the Baptist himself (see John 3:31). No man hitherto has seen and revealed God in the sense in which He has seen and revealed Him. Christ, therefore, as fulfilment, is the first veritable revelation.—God is emphatically put first. God, in His interior essence, and in His fulness and full glory, no man hitherto hath seen.—No man—i.e., not only: not even Moses, but also: none of all the prophets, not even the Baptist.—Seen (ἐώρακε). Not merely perfecte cognovit (Kuinoel); nor does the term refer to intuition without visions (Meyer); still less to such a seeing on the part of the Logos, as was suspended by His incarnation. For as to Christ’s seeing of God, this was in its nature at once internal, intuitive beholding and external seeing. When the prophets beheld, they saw not with the outward eye; when they saw, they beheld not in the prophetic way; and all that they in their prophetic moments beheld, was piece-work, which they beheld in its symbolical image. In Christ the prophetic vision became one with the ordinary external vision. He saw in all the outward works of God His Spirit, His personal love; and what He saw in the Spirit, He saw not merely as idea, but as actual divine operation. To Him all sensible seeing was permanently a sublime seeing of the majesty of God, a blissful seeing of the love of the Father. And of this vision of Christ, though it was grounded in the eternity of the Logos, Brückner justly observes that it was not interrupted by the incarnation. See John 3:0. [The same perfect knowledge of God, Christ claims for Himself alone, Matthew 11:27,—a passage which strongly proves the essential harmony of the Christ of the Synoptists with the Christ of John.—P. S.]

The only begotten Son [God]113 who is on (or toward) the bosom of the Father.—With the præ-existence of the Logos before His incarnation, His co-existence during His incarnation, is so simply put, that we can find in these words nothing too high for the theology of the Baptist. [?] If the Baptist elsewhere called Him the One who baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire (Matthew 3:0), the Bridegroom of the church (John 3:29), the One who cometh from heaven, in contrast with all prophets, he thereby designated Him also as the only begotten Son. We may then leave it entirely undecided, how far he actually understood the Sonship of Christ from Psalms 110:0 and other passages, and whether the term μονογενής does not belong rather to our Evangelist.—Who is on the bosom of the Father [ὁ ὤν εἰς τὸν κὸλπον—not ἐν τῷ κόλπῳ—τοῦπατρός. The preposition εἰς expresses a leaning on, or direction towards, the bosom of the Father, the union of motion and rest in the love of the Only Begotten to the Father.114 Comp. the notes on πρὸς τὸν θεόν, John 1:1. The phrase to be (leaning) on the bosom, like the Latin, in sinu or gremio esse, sedere, and the German, Schoosskind, bosom-child, expresses a relation of the closest intimacy and tenderest affection. Compare what is said of the Wisdom (the Logos) in Proverbs 8:30 : “Then I was near Him as one brought up with Him; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him.” Bengel remarks: “The bosom here is divine, paternal, fruitful, mild, sweet, spiritual. Men are said to be in the loins (in lumbis) who are yet to be born; they are in the bosom (in sinu) who have been born. The Son was in the bosom of the Father, because He was never-not born (non natus, ἀγέννητος). The highest unity, and the most intimate knowledge from immediate sight, is here signified.”—P. S.].—Acccording to Hofmann115 and Meyer, the Evangelist is speaking here, and speaking of Christ exalted. From this the εἰς τὸν κόλπον is supposed to explain itself as expressing the exaltation. But this would deprive the clause of all force, and reduce it to a pointless, self-neutralizing announcement. If it means: The only begotten Son, who has now ascended to the bosom of the Father, who once preached to us when He was with us,—the relative clause, besides being unmeaning, would be inaccurate; it should read: Who is again in the bosom of the Father. The passage John 1:50 does not prove that during the earthly life of Christ such an εἶναι εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρός did not belong to Him.116 The antithesis between His being on earth (John 1:51) and His being in heaven (John 3:13), between His being with the Father (John 8:35), representing the Father (John 14:9), and being one with the Father (John 10:30), and His coming forth from the Father (John 16:28), His being alone with the Father in His passion (John 16:32), and His being forsaken by God (Matthew 27:46), as well as between His glory (c. John 1:14) and His being not yet glorified (John 7:39),—is to be explained neither by a dualistic separation between the consciousness of the Logos and the consciousness of Jesus, nor by a pantheistic admission of human limitations into the Logos (Thomasius), but by the alternation of Christ’s moods between His self-subsistent relation to God and His self imposed compassionate relation to the world, or between the predominance of self-limiting grace and that of heaven-embracing omnipotence; between the states of humiliation and exaltation in their essential principle and positive spirit. We therefore, with De Wette, take ὤν as a time- less present, and εἰς, after the analogy of the πρὸς τὸν θεόν in John 1:1, as expressing the eternal direction of the Son towards the Father, Lücke rightly refers the being in the bosom of the Father, or for the Father, to the incarnate Logos, as He here appears in the definite character of the only begotten Son. Following the common acceptation, Tholuck considers the figure as borrowed from the place of fellowship at table, at the right hand, John 13:23 [ἦν …. ἐν τῶ κόλπῳ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ].117 Meyer thinks this unsuitable, but refers the expression to the paternal embrace, Luke 16:22 [ἐν τοῖς κόλποις].118 But the common acceptation is supported by the kindred expression of Christ, that He will come with the Father to His own, to make His abode with them, John 14:23; comp. Revelation 3:20; Revelation 19:9.

He hath, etc.—Ἐκεῖνος [“an epithet of excellency and of distance,” as Bengel observes] is certainly very emphatic [He, and none else]; yet not as looking to the local superiority of heaven,119 but to the majesty of the Son of God.

Interpreted.—Ἐξηγήσατο is hard to explain. Lücke refers it to the grace and truth which Christ has seen in God; Meyer, to the substance of His view of God; [the E. V. (which supplies: Him), Alford, Owen, Godet, to God Himself in the beginning of the verse.—P. S.] Lücke translates: He hath revealed it; De Wette: He hath proclaimed (declared) it, told it; Meyer: He hath explained, interpreted [viz.: the contents of His intuitions of God]. The New Testament parallels, Luke 24:35; Acts 15:12; Acts 15:14, etc., admit both renderings, but favor that of De Wette; the passage Leviticus 14:57 (LXX.) seems rather to favor Meyer, especially since the word, in classic usage, is applied particularly to the explaining of divine things.120 As we attribute the word to the Baptist, we conceive that it contains an allusion to the obscure beginnings of revelation in the Old Testament. The Baptist has not understood the historical predictions of Jesus, but has no doubt recognized in Christ the key of the ancient time, the perfect interpretation of the rudiments of revelation. We therefore take ἐξηγήσατο absolutely, with respect to the old covenant. In virtue of His seeing of God He has cleared up the law in grace and truth, brought the Old Testament gloriously to light in the New. He has brought and made solution.

[This very verb argues against Dr. Lange’s view of the authorship of John 1:18, which must be as cribed to the Evangelist. The Baptist never came into close personal intimacy with Christ, and died before He had fully revealed the counsel of God and the meaning of the Old Testament. But the Evangelist, in full view of the atoning death and glorious resurrection, could use this term in its most comprehensive sense. With it the Prologue returns to the beginning, and ἐξηγήσατο suggests the best reason why Christ is called the Logos, since He is the Revealer and Interpreter of the hidden being of the Godhead in all that relates to our salvation.—John puts the supreme dignity of Christ, as the eternal Word, the Author of the world, the Giver of life and light, the Fountain of grace and truth, the only and perfect Expounder of God, at the head of his Gospel, because without this dignity Christianity would sink to a position of merely relative superiority above other religions, instead of being the absolute and therefore final religion for all mankind. Luther observes on the Prologue: “These are indeed brief words, but they contain the whole Christian doctrine and life.”—P. S.]

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. See the preceding exegesis.2. The Word was made flesh. He was God, He became flesh. What He was, He was not merely in idea (Hegel), but in personal divine subsistency; what He became (ἐγένετο), He became not merely in appearance (Gnosticism), nor in a partial way (joining Himself to the flesh, or veiling Himself in it, according to Nestorianism, or depriving the flesh of its genuineness, and transforming it into a divine manifestation, according to Eutyches), nor only for a particular need and purpose (Anselm), but perfectly and forever. As Word, He was the full expression of the essence of the Godhead, and therefore was also pure eternal being and personal life; in His coming forth, He entered into veritable, integral human nature in its pure essence. The Word could not be changed by the flesh (contrary to modern attempts to carry change into the essence of God), but the flesh was to be perfected by the Word in His coming in it, carried from conditional potentiality to determinate actuality, made the glorified organ of the eternal Spirit. The prosecution of the doctrine of the Communicatio idiomatum lies not on the side of the divine nature, but on the side of the human.

As regards the doctrine of the incarnation, the Logos, as eternal Logos, became man, without change in Himself; that is to say, the incarnation was not occasioned by the sin of man. The doctrine of the flesh must, according to our passage, be so constructed that the flesh shall be as penetrable (and more) to the Spirit as to sin. The union between the divine and human natures is the great mystery of life, and to think of it rightly we must keep the distinction, that the divine being unfolds itself in a conscious way, like a work of art from a human mind, while the human becoming effects itself in an unconscious way, after the manner of the development of a plant. The pure contra-distinction appears in the work of art, which unfolds itself synthetically, subjecting to its service the material originally belonging to it, and the metamorphosis of the plant, which reveals spirit analytically, without attaining any power over itself. In the life of the natural man (in the pure sense of the term) nature predominates, but the spirit comes more and more to power (1 Corinthians 15:45); in the life of the spiritual man, who is from heaven, spirittual consciousness predominates, appropriating, pervading, and ruling the human organism. So the Logos, with the absolute master power of His essence as Logos, entered into human nature. He is not only voluntary in His incarnation in general; He is voluntary in each act of His human nature, i.e., of His human self-limitation for the sake of a higher spontaneity. He is voluntarily born (Luke 1:26 sqq.), voluntarily a child (Luke 2:51), voluntarily sleeps (Mark 4:38), is voluntarily ignorant as to the day of judgment (Mark 13:32-33), voluntarily suffers (Matthew 26:53), voluntarily dies (John 10:18); but all in order that He may truly live (John 5:17; John 9:4), truly unfold Himself (John 10:15-16; John 12:24), truly watch (Matthew 26:38), truly know (Mark 3:12), truly act and triumph (John 12:12), and eternally live (John 17:0).

In other words, Christ entered into the entire life of man, sin excepted, to raise it to the second, higher life of glorified humanity. This opposition is illustrated by the suspensions of consciousness in our natural life itself; and before we decide respecting the divine mystery of the Logos entering into sleep, we must be clear respecting the human mystery of our own mind’s sleeping. He goes to sleep. Weakness must be transfigured by freedom into rhythm, or determination of power. In the ideal incarnation of Christ, His historical incarnation, His subjection to law, is actually involved.

3. And we beheld His glory. The humiliation of Christ in the form of a servant did not hinder the Evangelist from seeing His glory. The omnipotence which, in the strength of love, puts limits upon itself (Matthew 26:53-54), is not entered into an absolute humiliation, but into a humiliation to our human vision, in order to reveal Himself in a higher glory. It remained κρύψις, inasmuch as it remained at every point free; it became κένωσις, inasmuch as it made earnest of the self-humiliation. But it did not leave its riches of power and honor behind in heaven; it yielded them up to the world, 2 Corinthians 8:9. The world had the honor of judging the universal Judge; it had the power to put omnipotence to death; the wisdom to judge concerning him; the omnipresence of the Roman empire to bring him down to Golgotha, the grave and Sheol; but it thereby only gained the power to judge itself, that it might be the medium of that revelation of omnipotence in the impotence of Christ whereby it was overcome, judged and reconciled. Full faith in the cross must feel that Christ has humbled Himself by surrender of Himself to the world, not in heavenly reservation towards the world, and that here has taken place on the full scale what occurs elsewhere on smaller scales, or here in one central fact what appears otherwise every where in history: God makes Himself weak, and stands, as bound, in His government, over against the freedom of the sinner, to let him feel in the judgment that physical power is nothing of itself, and that truth, righteousness and love are all.

4. Christ is the Only Begotten (μονογενής), inasmuch as He is the one Word, in whom all things were ideally and virtually included, in distinction from the universe in its development; He is the First Born (πρωτότοκος), inasmuch as He has entered, as a principle, into development.

5. And of His fulness. If John could bear witness of the præ-existence of Christ, he could also testify that the prophets had all drank of His fulness, and that their highest, fairest experience had been the experience of grace.

6. Grace for grace. The reciprocal forms of grace in the Old Testament, and in the whole history of the world.

7. The distinction between the Old and New Testaments: (1) Moses, the servant, serving; Christ, the Son and Lord, reigning in the obedience of the Father; (2) Given, laid down; come; (3) Law; grace and truth (see above).

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The combined testimony of the Old Testament John and the New to the incarnation of the Son of God: 1) The agreement of the two testimonies; 2) their difference; 3) their copiousness.—The Old Covenant and the New: 1) In contrast: Moses and Christ; 2) In harmony: John and Christ.—The Old Covenant in its relation to the New: 1) The advent of the New (Christ in the Old Testament); 2) the discipline for the New (Moses and the Law); 3) a shadow vanishing before the New (“No man hath seen God at any time”).—Twofold testimony of the Baptist concerning Christ: 1) Concerning the near approach of Christ, whose person he yet knew not; 2) concerning Jesus, that He is the Christ.—The Incarnation for our salvation: A great mystery in its nature (“the Word was made flesh”); 2) a historical fact in its demonstration (“dwelt among us”); 3) an assured sight of blessed eyewitnesses (“we beheld”); 4) a blessed experience of all believers (“full of grace and truth”).—The consummation of revelation: 1) The revealing Word, which had appeared in the Angel of the Lord, now become man; 2) the glory of God above the most holy place, now bodily manifested in the dwellings of men; 3) the entranced vision of divine tokens, now become the blessed seeing of the divine glory; 4) the law transformed into the fulness of grace and truth.—“The Word was made flesh:” a gospel of the highest knowledge; being 1) a view of Christ; 2) the key of philosophy; 3) a prophecy for Christianity.—The announcement: The Word was made flesh: 1) a preaching of repentance (sin therefore does not belong to the flesh, Romans 8:3); 2) a preaching of faith. Our flesh should be transformed through the Word.—Christ has explained all: 1) The mysteries of the Old Testament; 2) the mysteries of humanity (the Word was made flesh); 3) the mysteries of nature (the Word entered into the process of growth); 4) the mysteries of God.

Starke: O the mystery! God is become man; the Son of God the Father, a son of man; the Word, a child; the Life, a mortal man; the eternal Light is in the midst of darkness, Romans 9:5.—How deeply the Most High has abased Himself, and how gloriously the Humbled has exalted us.121—Canstein: Christ has pitched His tent in our nature, that He might make His abode in each one of us, and He will still more gloriously pitch His tabernacle among men, and more peculiarly manifest His glory, Revelation 21:3; Revelation 21:11.—Jesus is ever, in His whole office, full of grace and truth. In His prophetical office He preaches [and actually presents] grace and truth; in His priestly office He procures them; in His kingly office He gives and maintains them.—Seest thou how the Word is made flesh? Give diligence that thou mayest be made like Him according to thy measure in glory.—Zeisius: Christ, the one inexhaustible fountain of all graces, from which all believers from the beginning have drawn.—Canstein: The true use of grace received fits us for more grace, so that one grace becomes the reward of another, yet remains grace, Hebrews 10:1. Christ is the end of all the Mosaic system of shadows, and in Him we have the substance itself, which the shadows only prefigured, Hebrews 10:1; Colossians 2:17.—Ibid.: Grace and truth belong together. Where grace is, in the forgiveness of sins, there appears also the truth of a holy and upright nature in Christ. And where the latter fails, grace also is wanting.—Hedinger: Christ a prophet and interpreter of the divine will.

Mosheim: The second word: “Truth” is contrasted with ceremonies. Moses set forth only types and shadows; the Saviour has preached [acted in His life] pure truth, the grace and love of God towards men without figure.—Von Gerlach: “He that cometh after me is preferred,” etc. One of the many sacred enigmas in this Gospel, in which the literary sense gives a paradox to incite us to seek a higher.—From Augustine: The same God who gave the law, has also given grace; but this law He sent by His servant; with the grace He has Himself come down.—Heubner: This sentence [“the Word was made flesh”] contains all: (1) The divinity of Christ—He is the Logos; (2) His true humanity—He is made flesh. This dwelling denotes His true human life, and is a pledge of our future dwelling with Him.—There is no stopping, no limit, in grace, but ever new growth in insight, power, joy and peace.—Schleiermacher: Grace for grace. It is properly equivalent to grace in reward for grace; i.e., for our receiving one grace from Him, another grace is in turn imparted.—Only the One who is from the Father, hath seen the Father (John 6:46); only in Him and through Him can man know God the Father, and draw from His fulness grace and truth.

[Schaff: John 1:14. The Incarnation the central truth of Christianity and of all religion.: 1) The end of the reign of separation from God, or the reign of sin and death; 2) the beginning of the reign of union and communion with God, or the reign of righteousness and life.—The Incarnation: 1) Its nature: (a) not a change or conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but an assumption of manhood into abiding union with the second person of the Godhead; the two natures remaining distinct, yet inseparably united for ever; (b) not an assumption of a part of human nature, but of the whole, body, soul and spirit; Christ being perfect God and perfect Man in one person; (c) not an assumption of sin, but only of its consequences, in order to remove and destroy them; sin being no part of human nature as originally constituted, but a corruption of that nature by a foreign poison and an abuse of freedom. Christ was tempted, and suffered and died as we, but He never submitted to temptation; He “knew no sin,” and remained “holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners.” 2. Its effects: (a) the redemption of human nature, or of the whole race, from the curse and dominion of sin and death; (b) the elevation of human nature to abiding union with the Godhead.—The Word became flesh: 1) really and truly (against Gnosticism, docetism, Arianism); 2) totally and perfectly (against Apollinarianism); 3) undividedly and inseparably (against Nestorianism); 4) unmixedly, without confusion or absorption of substance (against Eutychianism and Monophysitism).—The incarnation the end and aim of all religion; for religion (religio, from relegare, to rebind, to reunite) implies: 1) an original union of man and God in the state of innocence; 2) a separation of the two by sin and death; 3) a reconciliation and reunion which was effected by the atonement of Christ.—The mystery of the incarnation reversely repeated in every true regeneration by which man becomes a child of God, a partaker of Christ’s “divine nature,” and a “new creature in Christ Jesus.”]

[Burkitt, John 1:14 : Christ’s taking flesh implies that He took not only human nature, but all the weaknesses and infirmities of that nature also (sinful infirmities being excepted), such as hunger, thirst, weariness. As man, Christ has an experimental sense of our infirmities and wants; as God, He can supply them all.]

[M. Henry (abridged) on John 1:16 : As of old, God dwelt in the tabernacle of Moses, by the Shekinah, between the cherubim, so now He dwells in the human nature of Christ, the true Shekinah, the symbol of God’s peculiar presence. And we are to address God through Christ, and from Him receive divine oracles. All believers receive from Christ’s fulness; the greatest saints cannot live without Him, the weakest may live by Him. This excludes boasting and silences perplexing fear.—Grace is the good will of God towards us, and the good work of God in us. God’s good will works the good work, and the good work qualifies for further tokens of His good will.—As the cistern receives from the fulness of the fountain, the branches from the root, and the air from the sun, so we receive grace from the fulness of Christ.—Grace for grace speaks the freeness of grace; the abundance of grace; the promotion of grace by grace; the substitution of the N. T. grace for the O. T. grace; the augmentation and continuance of grace; the conformity of grace in the saints to the grace that is in Christ, the saints being changed into the same heavenly image. (A combination of different interpretations of χάριν , which may do for a sermon, but not for exegesis.)]

[Augustine on John 1:17 : The law threatened, not helped; commanded, not healed; showed, not took away, our feebleness. But it made ready for the physician, who was to come with grace and truth.—Olshausen: The law induces and elicits the consciousness of sin and the need of redemption; it only typifies the reality; the gospel actually communicates reality and power from above.]

[J. C. Ryle, John 1:18 : After reading this Prologue, it is impossible to think too highly of Christ, or to give too much honor to Him. He is the meeting point between the Trinity and the sinner’s soul. “He that honoreth not the Son, honoreth not the Father who sent Him” (John 5:23).—Quesnel calls the Prologue, especially John 1:1, “the gospel of the holy Trinity.” Our knowledge of this mystery of mysteries begins with the knowledge of the Son, who reveals and expounds to us the Father, and who is Himself revealed and applied to us by the Holy Spirit.—P. S.]

Footnotes:

John 1:14; John 1:14.—[The parenthesis marked in this verse in the text. rec. appears to be, like the division of chapters and verses, only conventional; though it serves us the good purpose of showing the true reference of “full” (πλήρης) to “the Word” (ὁ λόγος) rather than to “glory” (δόξα), which could not be otherwise indicated in the English version. The clause itself is not properly parenthetical. See the Exegesis.—E. D. Y]

John 1:15; John 1:15. [μαρτνρεῖ, present; the testimony of John goes on. Meyer: “Vergegenwärtigung, als tönte das Zeugniss noch for.”—P. S.]

John 1:15; John 1:15. [The perfect κέκραγε likewise implies continuation of the action in its effect. Meyer: “Das Perf, in gewöhnlicher, classischer, präsentischer Bedeutung.” Alford: “the voice is still sounding.” Κράζω (also used of Christ, John 7:28; John 7:37; John 12:44) is an onomato-poëtic word, imitating the hoarse cry of the raven, like the German, krüchzen, the English, to croak; here to call aloud with the confidence and solemnity of a herald. Bengel: “Clamat Joh. cum fiducia et gaudio, uti magnum præconem decet.”—P. S. ]

John 1:16; John 1:16, in most codd. [א. B. C* D. L. X], begins withὅτι, instead of καί: For of his fulness, etc. Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf. [Hengstenberg and Godet prefer καί, and conjecture that on was occasioned by the preceding and succeeding ὅτι.—P. S.]

[81] John 1:18. B. C* L. Codd. Sin. et al. read θεός for νἱός; probably from John 1:1. [So also Meyer.]

[This is the first important difference of reading which occurs in the Gospel of John, and which, on account of its theological character, deserves a fuller notice than it has received from Lange or any other commentator, except Alford, in his sixth edition. The ancient authorities are almost equally divided between θ ε ό ς, the (an) Only-begotten God, and υ ἱ ό ς the Only-begotten Son. A minor difference relates to the article which is omitted by most of the authorities favoring θεός. The reading θεός is supported by the two oldest MSS., the Sinaitic (which has ΘC, the usual abbreviation of θεός, a prima manu, but which, in this very verse, by omitting the words ὁ ὤν, before εἰς τὸν κόλπον betrays the carelessness of the transcriber), and the Vatican (both from the 4th century), also by C.* L.; the Syr. Peshito; Clemens Alex, (once or twice), Excerpta Theodoti (a full quotation), Epiphanius (three times), the Second Synod of Ancyra, Didymus of Alex, (twice). To this must be added that Gregory of Nyssa and other Greek fathers repeatedly call Christ ὁ μονογεὴς θεός, where they do not quote from John 1:18. The reading υἱός is favored by a larger number of manuscripts, A. (Cod. Alex, of the 5th cent.), C. (the Ephræm MS. corrected) 10. Δ and nearly all other MSS.; the Curetonian Syriac Vers., the Lat. Vers. (Itala and Vulgata); Tertullian (Adv. Prax. c. 15), who is older by at least 120 years than the oldest known MSS., Eusebius (in six passages, in one, however, with the significant addition ἢ μονογενὴς θεός after ὁ μονογενὴς υἱός, for which reason Tregelles claims him for θεός, though unjustly; see Abbot, Bibl. Sacra, 1861, p. 859), Athanasius (four times), Chrysostom (eight times), Ambrose, Augustine and other fathers, also the emperor Julian (twice). Hilary, in seven places, supports Filius, but in one (De Trin., xii. 24) he reads “unigenitus Deus in sinu Patris.” The evidence from Irenæus, Origen, Basil and Cyril of Alexandria is contradictory and uncertain. Irenæus, the oldest witness in this case (A. D. 170), quotes the passage three times, twice in favor of Filius (Adv.hær. IV. c. 20, §6), or Filius Dei (III. xi., 6), once in favor of Deus (IV. xx., John 11:0 : “unigenitus Deus, qui est in sinu Patris, ipse enarravit”). Origen reads θεός twice (In Joh. Tom. II. c. 29; XXXII. c. 13, Opp. ed. Delarue 4. p. 89 and 438), υὶός once (Contr. Cels. l. II. c. 71, Opp. 1 p. 440, in a full quotation), besides υἱὸς τοῦ θεοῦ once (In Joh. Tom. vi. 2, Opp. iv. 102, with a different reading, υἱὸς θεός), and Unigenitus Dei Filius once (in Rufinus’ version of Com. on Song of Solomon 1:4 Opp. iii. 91). Cyril of Alexandria, as edited by Aubert, has υἱός three times, θεός four times, and favors the latter in his Commentary, as printed. For a fuller statement of patristic testimonies see an elaborate article of Ezra Abbot (the learned librarian of Harvard University) in the Andover Bibliotheca Sacra for Oct. 1861, pp. 840–872. I have verified several of his quotations. He has corrected many errors of former critics and disproved the assertion of Tregelles that θεός is “the ancient reading of the Fathers generally. ” The authorities for υἱός cover a much larger territory than those for θεός, which seem to be almost confined to Egypt. For internal reasons, θεός, being the more difficult reading, has the preference, according to the usual canon; for μονογενής naturally suggested υἱός, while the designation of Christ as “the only begotten God,” stands isolated in the Bible. On the other hand, a change of the abridged form ΥC to ΘC, which is usual in the uncial MSS., was as easy as the change from the latter to the former. There is moreover an inherent propriety for the use of υἱός in connection with μονογενής and with the mention of the Father; while θεός is hardly in place immediately after θεόν at the beginning of the verse, and introduces a harshness without a parallel in the style of John. The Scripture argument for the Divinity of Christ is strong enough, even from the first verse of the Prologue, without the reading θεός in John 1:18. In view of all the data before us, I see no sufficient reason here to depart from the received text. Tregelles, Westcott and Hort adopt θεός (without the article); Abbot, Alford, Tischend. (Exodus 8:0) retain υἱός. Lachmann likewise reads υἱός, but before the authorities in favor of θεός were fully known. Comp. on this subject, besides Tregelles and Tischend. (Exodus 8:0, Vol. 1, p. 745), especially the article of Ezra Abbot already quoted, and a long note in the 6th ed. of Alford (pp. 689–691).—P. S.]

John 1:18; John 1:18. [On the meaning of ἐξηγήσατο see the last foot note, p. 78. Christ is the true Exegete or Expounder of God.—P. S.]

[83][So Chrysostom, Theophyl., Grotius, Lampe.]

[84][So Bleek.]

[85][So Meyer: “einfach die Rede fortführend,wie alle καί des Prologs.” Here the copula carrie the reader to the highest pinnacle of contemplation. So far we may say with Godet that it is emphatic, but cannot adopt his translation: Yea, indeed.—P. S.]

[86][Apollinaris had no more right to appeal to this passage for his assertion that Christ had no rational soul, its place being supplied by the divine Logos, than he had a right to draw the same inference from all those passages where man is called flesh. On the Apollinarian Christology comp. my Church History, Vol. III., pp. 708 ff.—P. S.]

[87][Some of the ablest commentators urge this point. Calvin: “Eo usque se Filius Dei submisit, ut carnem istam tot miseriis obnoxiam susciperet.” Hengstenberg, John 1:0 : p. 49, quotes at length from Luther to the same effect, and says: “There is a wealth of comfort in this fact, a balm for the poor, terrified conscience.” Ewald, p. 127, makes these striking remarks: “Of all the words which express human nature, John chooses the meanest and most contemptible, viz.: flesh, which, in the O. T., denotes the lower, perishing, corruptible part of man; but even this the Logos did not despise, and thus He became man in the fullest sense of the term.”—P. S.]

[88][The same view is ascribed to John by Pfleiderer in Hilgenfeld’s Zeitschrift for 1866, p. 260, and by Scholten of Leyden—P. S.]

[89][Bengel remarks that nowhere in the whole range of literature is the difference of the verbs εἰμί and γίγνομαι more studiously observed than in the Prologue of John.—P. S.]

[90][Godet, p. 194, puts a strained view of the κένωσις into ἐγένετο, and makes it to mean that the Logos gave up His divine mode of existence.—P. S.]

[91][Or rather the humanity of Christ. His body (comp. John 2:19; John 2:21) was the σκηνή, the tabernacle, the temple of God, in which He revealed His presence, the fulness of His grace and truth. The Apostles and the believers generally (comp. John 1:12. ὅσοι ἔλαβον αὐτόν) are the spectators and worshippers in this sanctuary.—P. S.]

[92][Hengstenberg: “The indwelling of God among His people, which is implied in the idea of the people of God, was merely a shadow of the temple, and has attained its full truth only in Christ.” Bengel sees in the verb σκηνόω an allusion rather to the transitory abode of Christ on earth: “habitavit, ut in tabernaculo, vere, nec diu, spectaculum sui prœbens.” So also Godet. But this is certainly not applicable to God’s dwelling: with His people on the new earth, Revelation 21:3. Ewald, on the contrary, urges the idea of a longer abode, which is equally untenable. The Apostle has no reference to time, but to the reality of God’s abode with man in His incarnate Son as compared with the shadowy indwelling in the old tabernacle and temple. This sojourning implies community of life, as to say: We have eaten together, slept under the same tent, travelled together.—P. S.]

[93][This is the proper reading, while πλήρη, plenam, is conformed to δόξαν, πλήρου, pleni, to αὐτοῦ.— P. S.]

[94][Winer, Gramm., p. John 524: (7th Germ, ed.), likewise regards the comprehensive πλήρης χαρ.κ.ἀλ. as grammatically independent, and refers to Philippians 3:19; Mark 12:40. Hengstenberg views these words as an abridged relative sentence: (who is) full, etc.; comp. Revelation 1:5. But even this supplement is not necessary. Ewald, repeating the main subject, well translates: Er, voll Gnade und Wahrheit.—P. S.]

[95][שְׁכִינָה or שְׁכִינָא (from שָׁכַז, to dwell) does not occur in the O. T. Scriptures, and signifies the glorious presence of God with His people. Buxtorf (Lexicon Chald, Talmud, et Rabbin., ed. Bas. 1640, p. 2394) gives the following definition of it: habitatio, cohabitatio. In specie dicitur de præsentia, gloria et majestate divina aut Divinitate, quando dicitur hominibus esse priæsens, aut cum cis conversari, auxilio suo, gratia et salutari præsentia adesse. Communiter explicatur, gloria vel majestas divina, divinitas gloriosa.” In the same sense John uses σκηνή in Revelation 21:3 : ἰδοὺ ἡ σκηνὴ τοῦ θεοῦ μετὰ τῶν , καὶ σκηνώσει μετ̓ αὐτῶν θεὸς αὐτῶν. (Comp. Text. Note, 1.)—P. S ]

[96][̔Ως is also here a particle of comparison, not of confirmation (like the falsely so-called Hebrew כְ veritatis); but the comparison here is not between similar things, but between the fact and the idea, the reality and the expectation: as might be expected from one that is the only begotten. Hence the absence of the article before μονογενοῦ. The reality is implied as the basis of the comparison (against Alford).—P. S.]

[97] [John alone uses μονογενής of Christ, namely, in the five passages above referred to. Besides, the term occurs four times of human sons, three times in Luke (John 7:12; John 8:42; John 9:38) and once in the Hebrews (John 11:17). The term is called figurative, but it is more correct to say that all earthly relationships of fathers and filial affection are a figure and reflection of the eternal Fatherhood of God and the eternal Sonship of Christ. Comp. Ephesians 3:14-15 : “The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.” I hold with Lange that John learned the word directly from Christ. Lampe and Hengstenberg derive the appellation from Zechariah 12:10, where the Messiah is compared to an only begotten (יחיד):

“And they have looked unto me whom they pierced,And they have mourned over it,Like a mourning over the only One—(הַיָּחִיד, LXX.: ἀγαπητόν Vulg.: unigenitum).

And they have been in bitterness for it,Like a bitterness over the first-born—(הַבְּכוֹר, LXX.): ἐπὶ τῷ πρωτοτόκῳ—P. S.]

[98][The term refers back to τέκνα θεοῦ, John 1:12, and marks the difference between Christ and the believers: 1) He is the only Son in a sense in which there is no other; they are many; 2) He is Son from eternity; they become children in time; 3) He is Son by nature; they are made sons by grace and by adoption; 4) He is of the same essence with the Father; they are of a different substance; in other words, His is a metaphysical, primitive and co-essential, theirs only an ethical and derived, sonship. The idea of generation, as Meyer correctly remarks, is implied in the very term μονογενής. Origen explains μονογενής ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ πατρός. This leads logically to the Nicene dogma of the homoousia and the eternal generation, i.e., the eternal communion of love between the Father and the Son. (Comp. John 17:24) Luther says: God has many children, but only one only begotten Son, through whom all things and all other children were made.—P. S.]

[99][But defended by Hengstenberg, who sees here a new proof for the identity of Christ with the revealed Jehovah of the O. T. Grace and truth appear here as personal attributes, as in Exodus 34:6; while in John 1:17, as in Micah 7:20, they appear as gifts which Christ bestows.—P. S.]

[100][“Der hinter mir her Kommende ist mir zuvwgekom-men.” Meyer, like Origen, takes both adverbs in a temporal (or rather local sense; time being represented here in the form of space). So does Hengstenberg: Der nach mir kommt ist mir vorangegangen. Godet: Celui qui vient après moi, m’a precèdè. The objection to this interpretation is that it makes ὅτι πρῶτός μου ἡν a mere repetition. Hence most commentators (Chrys., Lücke, Thol., Olsh., De Wette, Alf.) refer ὀπίσω to time, and ἔμπροσθεν to rank. So also the E. V: “He that cometh after me is preferred (i.e., is advanced) before me.” John’s preparatory office decreased before the rising glory of the Messiah. This interpretation saves the distinction of ἐγένετο, has become, and ἧν, was, so carefully observed throughout the Prologue; ἐγένετο must, of course, not be referred to the divine dignity of the Logos, which is eternal, but to the divine-human dignity of the incarnate Christ, which was acquired. Dr. Lange ingeniously combines the reference to time and that to rank in ἔμπροσθεν and πρῶτος.—P. S.]

[101][John probably chose πρῶτος instead of πρότερος, to raise Christ above all comparison. He is absolutely the first, the Alpha and Omega. Hengstenberg, too, finds in the word the idea of absolute priority, which would have been weakened by the use of the comparative.—P. S.]

[102][Origen (In Evang. Joh., Tom. VI. 2, Vol. IV., p. 102) blames Heracleon, a Gnostic commentator on John, from the middle of the second century, for terminating the testimony of the Baptist at the end of John 1:17, and makes it continue to the end of John 1:18.—P. S.]

[103][I prefer, with Meyer, Tholuck, Hengstenberg, Alford, Godet, to ascribe this and the following verses to the Evangelist, on account of their specific Christian character, and on account of we all (comp. John 1:14, ἐθεασάμεθα). The Baptist, after all, belonged to the O. T. dispensation, though standing at the very threshold of the New, as Moses died of the kisses of Jehovah outside, yet in sight of, the holy land. John speaks in the name of the Apostles, John 1:14, in the name of all believers, John 1:16. Hence πάντες, which already pre-supposes the existence of the Christian Church.—P. S.]

[104][The Gnostic pleroma is the ideal world, containing all the æons, i.e., the divine powers and attributes, such as mind, reason, wisdom, truth, life, which gradually emanate from it in a certain order (according to Valentine, in pairs with sexual polarity, the νοῦς and ἀλήθεια, the λόγος and ζωή, the ἄνθρωπος and ἐκκλησία). Christ is only one of these æons. But according to John, Christ is the whole pleroma from which flow all the benefits of salvation and gifts of grace. Irenæus, Adv. Hær. III. 11, 1, argues from the Prologue of John against the Gnostic idea of the pleroma.—P. S.]

[105][ Und zwar; nämlich, et même. In this epexegetical sense καί is taken by Winer, Gram. p. 407, Meyer and Alford. Comp. Galatians 6:16; Ephesians 6:18; Hebrews 11:17. But Lange’s interpretation makes καί more forcible. It often means also, even, (eben, ja). See Winer, p 408. Similarly Bengel: omne quod ex ejus plenitudine accipiendum erat, et (speciatim) gratiam pro gratia.—P. S.]

[106][Chrysostom supports this view by John 1:17, where the law of Moses is contrasted with the grace of Christ; but for this very reason the law cannot be another kind of grace, and is never so called. Cyril and Euthymius Zigabenus likewise explain: τὴν καινὴν διαθήκην .—P. S.]

[107][Or rather fides, and vita æterna, as the free reward of faith. “Quia ipsa fides gratia est, says Augustine, et vita æterna gratia est pro gratia.” Tract. III. in Joh., Tom. III. Pars. II. p. 308. The similar interpretation of St Bernard: gratia gloriæ pro gratia militiæ, is equally true and equally insufficient. The glory of the heavenly state is only the last link in this chain of divine grace.—P. S.]

[108][This interpretation is also adopted by Lücke, Thol., Olsh., Mey., Hengstenb., Alf., Wordsw., and falls in most naturally with the idea of πλήρωμα, nor is it inconsistent with the fundamental meaning of ἀντί (grace exchanging with grace). It is an unbroken stream of grace from justification through the various stages of sanctification to life everlasting, every new wave taking the place of and overwhelming, though not superseding or destroying, the other. Ewald refers to the multiplicity of spiritual gifts (χαρίσματα) in the Apostolic Church, 1 Corinthians 12-14, but the ordinary graces and blessings must be included. ‘Αντί does not always mean an exchange that supersedes one thing, but, like παρά and ἐπί, a. succession. Bengel refers for a similar use of ἀντί to Æschylus, Agam., and Chrysostom, De sacerd. VI. 13. Other examples are added by Lücke, Meyer and Alford. John might have said χάριν ἐπὶ χάριτι or χ. ἐ π ὶ χάριν (as Philippians 2:27) instead of ἀ ν τ ί, but it would not have expressed so strongly the overwhelming flow of grace upon grace. For the idea comp. Romans 5:1 ff.; Galatians 5:22; Ephesians 5:9.—P. S.]

[109][Bengel remarks here that no philosopher so accurately employs words and observes their distinctions as John, especially in this chapter, and explains the difference between ἐδόθη and ἐγένετο: “Mosis non sua est lex, Christi sua est gratia et Veritas.” Alford, after De Wette, finds the reason of the contrast in the fact that the law as a positive enactment was narrow and circumscribed, and hence ἐδόθη, while grace is unlimited. But besides the idea of positive enactment, ἐδόθη implies also the divine origin and solemn promulgation of the law, while ἐγένετο indicates the free, spontaneous and abiding nature of grace. Moses may disappear, for the law was only given through him, but Christ with His grace abides forever. The law commands, the gospel gives; the law condemns, grace justifies; the law kills, grace makes alive. The highest mission of the law is to awaken a sense of sin and guilt, the need of redemption, and thus to lead to Christ.—P. S.]

[110][The conjunction καί before grace, as Bengel remarks, is here elegantly omitted; for a “but” as well as an “and” was in place here.—P. S.]

[111][Comp. here the remarks of Meyer and Godet. The latter says: “Cest áu ce moment du prologue que l' apôtre prononce pour la première fois le grand nom attendu depuis si long temps, Jesus-Christ. A mesure, que la divine kistoire des misericordes de la Parole envers l' humanité se déroule à ses regards, ce spectacle lui inspire des termes toujours plus concrets, plus humains.” First the Word, then Life and Light, then the Only Begotten of the Father, now Jesus Christ, who embraces all that was. said of Him before.—P. S.]

[112][I dissent from this view. See foot notes on page 76.—P. S.]

[113][On this remarkable difference of reading: ὁ μονογενὴς υ ἱ ό ς, generally abbreviated in ancient MSS. YC and (b) (ὁ) μονογενὴς θ ε ό ς or ΘC, see Textual Notes (5).—P. S.]

[114][Winer, Gramm, p. 387 (7th ed.): an den Busen (angelehnt), gegen den Busen hin. Ewald translates am Schoosse.—P. S.]

[115][Schriftbeweis, Vol. I., p. 120, sec. ed,: der in den Schooss des Vaters hingegangen. But Meyer gave this explanation before Hofmann, who also refers to him.—P. S.]

[116][Hengstenberg, Brückner, Godet, Philippi likewise oppose Meyer’s ungrammatical reference of the present participle ὤν to the future state of exaltation. The intimate communion between the Son and the Father was not interrupted or suspended by the incarnation. Christ, while on earth, was at the game time in heaven (John 3:13), not simply de jure (as Meyer, in the fifth edition, p. 95, explains it), but de facto in a moss real, though mysterious sense. (Wordsworth is altogether too fanciful if he finds in ὁ ὤν an allusion to the peculiar name of Jehovah, the Being, the ever Existing One.)—P. S.]

[117][So also Winer, Lùcke, Gess, Ewald, Godet, Alford, Webster and Wilkinson.—P. S.]

[118][So also Robinson (Lex. sub κόλπος), Owen (from the idea of embracing a friend and straining him to the bosom) and Hengstenberg, who besides refers to similar expressions, Deuteronomy 13:7; Deuteronomy 28:36; Micah 7:5; Isaiah 40:11.—P. S.]

[119][As Meyer explains it in accordance with his reference of the passage to the state of exaltation in heaven.—P. S.]

[120][The words ἐξηγέομαι (properly to lead out, either in the sense of taking the lead, or of bringing out, explaining the hidden sense), ἐξήγησις, ἐξηγητής, are technical terms used by the classic writers of the interpretation of divine oracles, visions, mysteries, prodigies, laws and ceremonies, and hence properly applied by Christian writers to the exposition of the holy Scriptures. See the passages collected by Wetstein, p. 841, and the references in Meyer, p. 96. Lampe, who strictly adheres to this technical sense, like Meyer, supplies no object, and takes ἐξηγήσατο ἐξηγητής ἐστιν, interpret est, as regnat without the object is equivalent to rex est, and docet to doctor est. The emphasis certainly lies on the verb rather than the object. He has explained, truly and fully, in His words and in His life; His instruction alone merits the name of an explanation; He is the Expounder of God and divine things.—P. S.]

[121] [Richard Crashaw (1646):

“Welcome to our wondering sight,Eternity shut in a span!Summer in winter! day in night!Heaven in earth! and God in man!Great Little One, whose glorious birthLifts earth to heaven, stoops heaven to earth.”Luther, in his Christmas hymn: “Gelobet seist Du, Jesu Christ,” commemorates the sublime contrasts of the transcending mystery of the incarnation.—P. S.]