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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comRobertson Word Pictures - John 1:18 - 1:18
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
No man hath seen God at any time (theon oudeis heōraken pōpote). “God no one has ever seen.” Perfect active indicative of horaō. Seen with the human physical eye, John means. God is invisible (Exo 33:20; Deu 4:12). Paul calls God aoratos (Col 1:15; 1Ti 1:17). John repeats the idea in Joh 5:37; Joh 6:46. And yet in Joh 14:7 Jesus claims that the one who sees him has seen the Father as here.
The only begotten Son (ho monogenēs huios). This is the reading of the Textus Receptus and is intelligible after hōs monogenous para patros in Joh 1:14. But the best old Greek manuscripts (Aleph B C L) read monogenēs theos (God only begotten) which is undoubtedly the true text. Probably some scribe changed it to ho monogenēs huios to obviate the blunt statement of the deity of Christ and to make it like Joh 3:16. But there is an inner harmony in the reading of the old uncials. The Logos is plainly called theos in Joh 1:1. The Incarnation is stated in Joh 1:14, where he is also termed monogenēs. He was that before the Incarnation. So he is “God only begotten,” “the Eternal Generation of the Son” of Origen’s phrase.
Which is in the bosom of the Father (ho ōn eis ton kolpon tou patros). The eternal relation of the Son with the Father like pros ton theon in Joh 1:1. In Joh 3:13 there is some evidence for ho ōn en tōi ouranōi used by Christ of himself while still on earth. The mystic sense here is that the Son is qualified to reveal the Father as Logos (both the Father in Idea and Expression) by reason of the continual fellowship with the Father.
He (ekinos). Emphatic pronoun referring to the Son.
Hath declared him (exēgēsato). First aorist (effective) middle indicative of exēgeomai, old verb to lead out, to draw out in narrative, to recount. Here only in John, though once in Luke’s Gospel (Luk 24:35) and four times in Acts (Act 10:8; Act 15:12, Act 15:14; Act 21:19). This word fitly closes the Prologue in which the Logos is pictured in marvellous fashion as the Word of God in human flesh, the Son of God with the Glory of God in him, showing men who God is and what he is.