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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comVincent Word Studies - John 1:14 - 1:14
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
And the Word (καὶ)
The simple copula as before; not yea, or namely, or therefore, but passing to a new statement concerning the Word.
Was made flesh (σὰρξ ἐγένετο)
Rev., “became flesh.” The same verb as in Joh 1:3. All things became through Him; He in turn became flesh. “He became that which first became through Him.” In becoming, He did not cease to be the Eternal Word. His divine nature was not laid aside. In becoming flesh He did not part with the rational soul of man. Retaining all the essential properties of the Word, He entered into a new mode of being, not a new being.
The word σὰρξ, flesh, describes this new mode of being. It signifies human nature in and according to its corporal manifestation. Here, as opposed to the purely divine, and to the purely immaterial nature of the Word. He did not first become a personality on becoming flesh. The prologue throughout conceives Him as a personality from the very beginning - from eternal ages. The phrase became flesh, means more than that He assumed a human body. He assumed human nature entire, identifying Himself with the race of man, having a human body, a human soul, and a human spirit. See Joh 12:27; Joh 11:33; Joh 13:21; Joh 19:30. He did not assume, for a time merely, humanity as something foreign to Himself The incarnation was not a mere accident of His substantial being. “He became flesh, and did not clothe Himself in flesh.” Compare, on the whole passage, 1Jo 4:2; 2Jo 1:7.
Dwelt (ἐσκήνωσεν)
Literally, tabernacled, fixed, or had His tabernacle: from σκηνή, a tent or tabernacle. The verb is used only by John: in the Gospel only here, and in Rev 7:15; Rev 12:12; Rev 13:6; Rev 21:3. It occurs in classical writings, as in Xenophon, ἐν τῷ πεδίῳ ἐσκήνου, he pitched his tent in the plain (“Anabasis,” vii., 4, 11). So Plato, arguing against the proposition that the unjust die by the inherent destructive power of evil, says that “injustice which murders others keeps the murderer alive - aye, and unsleeping too; οὕτω πόῤῥω του ὡς ἔοικεν ἐσκήνωται τοῦ θανάσιμος εἶναι, i.e., literally, so far has her tent been spread from being a house of death” (“Republic,” 610). The figure here is from the Old Testament (Lev 27:11; 2Sa 7:6; Psa 78:67 sqq.; Eze 37:27). The tabernacle was the dwelling-place of Jehovah; the meeting-place of God and Israel. So the Word came to men in the person of Jesus. As Jehovah adopted for His habitation a dwelling like that of the people in the wilderness, so the Word assumed a community of nature with mankind, an embodiment like that of humanity at large, and became flesh. “That which was from the beginning, we heard, we saw, we beheld, we handled. Our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ” (1Jo 1:1-3. Compare Phi 2:7, Phi 2:8).
Some find in the word tabernacle, a temporary structure (see the contrast between σκῆνος, tabernacle, and οἰκοδομή, building, in 2Co 5:1), a suggestion of the transitoriness of our Lord's stay upon earth; which may well be, although the word does not necessarily imply this; for in Rev 21:3, it is said of the heavenly Jerusalem “the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will set up His tabernacle (σκηνώσει) with them.”
Dante alludes to the incarnation in the seventh canto of the “Paradiso:”
- “the human species down below
Lay sick for many centuries in great error,
Till to descend it pleased the Word of God
To where the nature, which from its own Maker
Estranged itself, He joined to Him in person
By the sole act of His eternal love.”
Among us (ἐν ἡμῖν)
In the midst of us. Compare Gen 24:3, Sept., “the Canaanites, with whom I dwell (μεθ' ὧν ἐγὼ οἰκῶ ἐν αὐτοῖς).” The reference is to the eyewitnesses of our Lord's life. “According as the spectacle presents itself to the mind of the Evangelist, and in the words among us takes the character of the most personal recollection, it becomes in him the object of a delightful contemplation” (Godet).
The following words, as far as and including Father, are parenthetical. The unbroken sentence is: “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.”
We beheld (ἐθεασάμεθα)
Compare Luk 9:32; 2Pe 2:16; 1Jo 1:1; 1Jo 4:14. See on Mat 11:7; see on Mat 23:5. The word denotes calm, continuous contemplation of an object which remains before the spectator.
Glory (δόξαν)
Not the absolute glory of the Eternal Word, which could belong only to His pre-existent state, and to the conditions subsequent to his exaltation; but His glory revealed under human limitations both in Himself and in those who beheld Him. The reference is again to the Old Testament manifestations of the divine glory, in the wilderness (Exo 16:10; Exo 24:16, etc.); in the temple (1Ki 8:11); to the prophets (Isa 6:3; Eze 1:28). The divine glory flashed out in Christ from time to time, in His transfiguration (Luk 9:31; compare 2Pe 1:16, 2Pe 1:17) and His miracles (Joh 2:11; Joh 11:4, Joh 11:40), but appeared also in His perfect life and character, in His fulfillment of the absolute idea of manhood.
Glory
Without the article. This repetition of the word is explanatory. The nature of the glory is defined by what follows.
As (ὡς)
A particle of comparison. Compare Rev 5:6, “a lamb as though it had been slain;” also Rev 13:3.
Of the only begotten of the Father (μονογενοῦς παρὰ πατρὸς)
Rev., “from the Father.” The glory was like, corresponds in nature to, the glory of an only Son sent from a Father. It was the glory of one who partook of His divine Father's essence; on whom the Father's love was visibly lavished, and who represented the Father as His ambassador. The word μονογενής, only begotten (De Wette and Westcott, “only born”) is used in the New Testament of a human relationship (Luk 7:12; Luk 8:42; Luk 9:38). In the Septuagint it answers to darling, Hebrew, only one, in Psalms 21:20, A.V. Psa 22:20; and to desolate in Psalms 24:16, A.V. Psa 25:16. With the exception of the passages cited above, and Heb 11:17, it occurs in the New Testament only in the writings of John, and is used only of Christ. With this word should be compared Paul's πρωτότοκος, first born (Rom 8:29; Col 1:15, Col 1:18), which occurs but once in John (Rev 1:5), and in Heb 1:6; Heb 11:28; Heb 12:23. John's word marks the relation to the Father as unique, stating the fact in itself. Paul's word places the eternal Son in relation to the universe. Paul's word emphasizes His existence before created things; John's His distinctness from created things. Μονογενής distinguishes between Christ as the only Son, and the many children (τέκνα) of God; and further, in that the only Son did not become (γενέσθαι) such by receiving power, by adoption, or by moral generation, but was (ἦν) such in the beginning with God. The fact set forth does not belong to the sphere of His incarnation, but of His eternal being. The statement is anthropomorphic, and therefore cannot fully express the metaphysical relation.
Of the Father is properly rendered by Rev., “from the Father,” thus giving the force of παρά (see on from God, Joh 1:6). The preposition does not express the idea of generation, which would be given by ἐκ or by the simple genitive, but of mission - sent from the Father, as John from God (see Joh 6:46; Joh 7:29; Joh 16:27; Joh 17:8). The correlative of this is Joh 1:18, “who is in the bosom (εἰς τὸν κόλπον) of the Father;” literally, “into the bosom,” the preposition εἰς signifying who has gone into and is there; thus viewing the Son as having returned to the Father (but see on Joh 1:18).
Full of grace and truth (πλήρης χάριτος καὶ ἀληθείας)
This is connected with the main subject of the sentence: “The Word - full of grace and truth.” A common combination in the Old Testament (see Gen 24:27, Gen 24:49; Gen 32:10; Exo 34:6; Psa 40:10, Psa 40:11; Psa 61:7). In these two words the character of the divine revelation is summed up. “Grace corresponds with the idea of the revelation of God as Love (1Jo 4:8, 1Jo 4:16) by Him who is Life; and Truth with that of the revelation of God as Light (1Jo 1:5) by Him who is Himself Light” (Westcott). Compare Joh 1:17. On Grace, see on Luk 1:30.