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Christ in His Eternal Essence and Existence, and His Position between God and the World
Joh_1:1-5
1In the beginning was [in existence] the [personal, substantial] Word [the Logos], and the Word [the Logos] was with God [the Deity, the Godhead], and the Word 2[the Logos] was God [Himself]. The same was [existed] in the beginning with God. 3All things were made by [through] him; and without [except through] him was not anything made [ ἐãÝíåôï ], that as [hath been] made [ ãÝãïíåí ]. 4In him was 5[is] life [pure life]; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in [the] darkness; and the darkness comprehended [apprehended; Lange: suppressed] it not.
Joh_1:1. In (the) beginning. Ἐí ἀñ÷ῇ , áְּøֵùִׁéú , Gen_1:1. Comp. the Introductory Observations, and Hölemann: De evangelii Joan. introitu. Different explanations:—1. Cyril of Alex.: the “beginning” is God the Father.—2. The Valentinian Gnostics (according to Irenæus I. 8, 5): a distinct divine hypothesis between the Father and the Logos.—3. Origen: The divine Wisdom ( óïößá ).—4. Theodore of Mopsuestia, and others: eternity.—5. The Socinians [and some modern Unitarians]: the beginning of the gospel (in initio evangelii). [In Act_11:15 the expression has this meaning, but here it is entirely inconsistent with Joh_1:3.—P. S.].—6. Meyer: [John parallelizes the beginning of his Gospel with that of Genesis, but] he raises the historical notion of the beginning which in Gen_1:1 implies the beginning of time itself, to the absolute idea of præ-temporalness [or timelessness, Vorzeitlichkeit], as in Pro_8:23. [Here the Wisdom which is the fame with the Logos, says: ðñὸ ôïῦ áἰῶíïò ἐèåìåëßùóÝí ìå , ἐí ἀñ÷ῇ ðñὸ ôïῦ ôὴí ãῆí ðïéῆóáé , ê . ô . ë ., (‘from everlasting, in the beginning, before the earth was made’); comp. Joh_17:5, ðñὸ ôïῦ ôὸí êüóìïí åῖíáé ; Eph_1:4, ðñὸ êáôáâïëῆò êüóìïõ . Comp. also 1Jn_1:1 and Rev_3:14.—P. S.] We find an advance of the notion of the beginning primarily only in was ( ἦí ), and in the relation subsequently stated of the Logos to the eternal God, which unquestionably still further elevates, indirectly, the idea of the ἀñ÷Þ The ἀñ÷Þ . itself must ever refer to the primal generation or rise of things. But if in this ἀñ÷Þ the Logos already was ( ἦí ), then He was from eternity. [The same is said of God, Psa_90:2, who was before the mountains were brought forth, etc., i.e. from everlasting]. The Logos was not merely existent, however, in the beginning, but was also the efficient principle, the ἀñ÷Þ of the ἀñ÷Þ (Col_1:18). The ἀñ÷Þ , in itself and in its operation, dark, chaotic, was, in its idea and its principle, comprised in one single luminous word, which was the Logos. And when it is said, the Logos was in this ἀñ÷Þ , His eternal existence is already expressed, and His eternal position in the Godhead already indicated, thereby. The Evangelist says not: In the beginning of the world, because he would make the beginning perfectly absolute; but he pre-supposes the reference to the genesis of the world.
Was—Not became [ ἐãÝ v åôï , comp. Joh_1:6; Joh_1:14] the Son of God, a êôßóìá , as Arianism taught. (Comp. Pro_8:23; Sir_24:3.) It cannot be said, He might have become, or been made, before the beginning; for becoming and beginning are inseparable.
[The words: in the beginning was the Logos, clearly assert, as the best commentators now admit, the eternity of the Logos, but they imply at the same time His divinity, which is afterwards formally stated in the third sentence: was God. Metaphysically we cannot separate eternity, ab ante, from divinity, or predicate eternity of any creature. Luther felt this when he said: “That which was before the world and before the creation of all creatures, must be God.” On the basis of monotheism on which John stood, there is no room for a middle being between God and the creature. Before creation there was no time, for time itself is part of the world and was created with it. (Mundus factus est cum tempore, not in tempore). Before the world there was only God, and God is timeless or eternal. Hence the Arian proposition concerning Christ: There was a time (before creation) when He was not ( ἦí ðïôå ὅôå ïὐê ἦí ), involves the metaphysical absurdity of putting time before the world, a creature before creation.—P. S.]
The Word.—[ ὁ Ëüãïò , with reference to Gen_1:3 : God said, etc. The living, speaking Word from whom the creative, spoken words emanate.—P. S.] The Word absolute, the one whole, all-embracing, personal manifestation of life; hence without the qualification: the Logos of God. It certainly includes also the divine reason or consciousness; though in the Scriptural usage ëüãïò never denotes the reason itself, but only the matured expression of the reason, word, speech, as a whole, the personal spiritual essence of God made, in its whole fulness, objective to itself, as its own perfect expression and image. And in this view the literal interpretation is entirely sufficient, but is supplied by the historical doctrine of the Logos (see above).
The exclusively verbal expositions, and the exclusively historical, are alike insufficient and incorrect: 1. the verbal, which explain ὁ ëüãïò as (a) ὁ ëåãüìåíïò , the promised one (Valla, Beza, Ernesti, Tittmann, etc.); (b) ὁ ëÝãùí , the speaking one (Mosheim, Storr, and others); (c) the gospel objectively considered, as the word of God: the subject of the gospel (alloiosis!), hence Christ; [so Hofmann, Schriftbew., I., p. 109ff. or, according to Luthardt: the word of God which in Christ (Heb_1:1) was spoken to the world, and the content of which is Christ (see, on the contrary, Meyer, p. 45, [pp. 58 and 59 in the fifth ed. of 1869.—P. S.]); 2. the historical, which would make either the Palestinian doctrine of the Wisdom [ Óïößá , çָëְîָä ] with the Word of God [ îֵéîְøָà or ãִּáּåּøָà ] of the Targums, or the Alexandrian Philonic doctrine of the Logos, or both, the proper root of the scriptural idea. This root is to be found in the manifestation of the consciousness of Christ, as it reflected itself in the intuition of John himself; the historical rise of the idea is due to the theological conceptions of the Old Testament (see above); and the expression itself was suggested by the Philonic doctrine of the Logos. Only this further discrimination must be observed: that the Philonic doctrine lays stress not on the word, but the reason, while John emphasizes the absolute, personal, perfect Word, the image of God, as the original of the world, the idea and life of the whole ἀñ÷Þ of things.
[Excursus on the Meaning and Origin of the Term Logos, and the Relation of John to Philo.—The Logos doctrine of John is the fruitful germ of all the speculations of the ancient Church on the divinity of Christ, which resulted in the Nicene dogma of the homoousion or the co-equality of the Son with the Father. The præ-existent Logos is the central idea of the Prologue, as the incarnate Logos or God-Man is the subject of the historical part of the Gospel. The Christ of idea and the Christ of history are one and the same. Logos signifies here not an abstraction nor a personification simply, but a person, the same as in Joh_1:14, namely, Christ before His incarnation, the divine nature of Christ, the eternal Son of God. God has never been ἄëïãïò , or without the Logos, the Son is as eternal as the Father. John is the only Writer of the New Testament who employs the term in this personal sense, as a designation of Christ, viz., four times in the Prologue (Joh_1:1; Joh_1:14, “the Word” simply and absolutely), once in his first epistle (Joh_1:1, “the Word of life”), and once in the Apocalypse (Joh_19:13, “the Word of God”), but in the last passage the whole divine-human person of Christ in His exalted state is so called. There is an inherent propriety in this application of the term, especially in the Greek language, where ëüãïò is masculine, and where it has the double meaning of reason and speech. Christ as to His divine nature bears the same relation to the hidden being of God, as the word does to thought. In the word of man his thought assumes shape and form and becomes clear to the mind, and through the same the thought is conveyed and made intelligent to others. So the Logos is the utterance, the reflection and counterpart of God, the organ of all revelation both with regard to Himself and to the world, ad intra and ad extra. God knows Himself in the Son, and through Him He makes Himself known to men. The Son has declared or revealed and interpreted God ( ἐîçãÞóáôï èåüí , Joh_1:18; comp. Mat_11:27).
The idea of such a distinction in God is in various ways clearly taught in the Old Test. Even in the first verses of Genesis we have already an intimation of the Word and the Spirit as distinct from, and yet identical with, God. Personal intercourse with Christ in the flesh and the inspiration of the Holy Ghost convinced John that Jesus was indeed the Word and the Wisdom of God, the Angel of the Covenant, Jehovah revealed (Joh_12:41), the centre and organ of all revelations (comp. the Introductory Remarks of Dr. Lange). The same idea, but in different form, we meet in Mat_11:27; Heb_1:3; Col_1:15-19, etc. The term ëüãïò was suggested to John by Gen_1:3, according to which God created the world through the word of His power, and by such passages as Psa_33:6 : “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made,” where the LXX uses the very term ëüãïò for the Hebrew ãáø , instead of the usual ῥῆìá . This seems to be sufficient to account for the form of expression, and hence many commentators (Hölemann, Weiss, Hengstenberg) deny all connection of John with the speculations of Philo of Alexandria. There is indeed no evidence that he read a line of the writings of this Jewish philosopher, who flourished about A. D. 40–50.
Yet, on the other hand, Philo was a profound representative thinker mediating between the O. T. religion and the Hellenic philosophy, and it is more than probable that some of his ideas had penetrated the intellectual atmosphere of the age before the composition of the fourth Gospel, especially in Asia Minor, where they stimulated the Gnostic speculations towards the close of the first and the beginning of the second centuries. Comp. the warnings of Paul, Act_20:29 ff.; 1 Timothy 4, the errorists of Colosse, and the heretical gnosis of Cerinthus, who came into conflict with John in Ephesus, and who, according to Theodoret, studied first in Egypt. Apollos also, the learned Jew, came from Alexandria to Ephesus (Act_18:24). It no more detracts from the apostolic dignity that John should have borrowed a word from, or at least chosen it with tacit reference to, Philo for expressing an original idea, than the general fact that the apostles appropriated the whole Greek language, which Providence had especially prepared to be the organ of the truths of the gospel. And inasmuch as John uses the term without any explanation, as if it were already familiar to his readers, the assumption of a connection with Philo, however indirect and remote, becomes more probable. Such a connection is asserted by Lücke, De Wette, Brückner, Meyer, Lange, Delitzsch, Alford, and others.
Philo’s doctrine of the Logos, in its relation to that of John, has been thoroughly ventilated by recent German scholars (see the literature in Lücke’s and in Meyer’s Com. p. 61). I shall briefly state the result in addition to the excellent remarks of Dr. Lange (p. 51). Philo, on the basis of the Solomonic and Apocryphal doctrine of the Wisdom and the Word of God, and combining with it Platonic ideas, represents the Logos (the Nous of Plato) as the embodiment of all divine powers and ideas (the ἄããåëïé of the O. T., the äõíÜìåéò and ἰäÝáé of Plato). He distinguishes between the ëüãïò ἐíäéÜèåôïò , or the Logos inherent in God corresponding to the reason in man, and the ëüãïò ðñïöïñéêüò , or the Logos emanating from God, like the spoken word of man which reveals the thought. The former contains the ideal world (the íïçôäò êüóìïò ); the latter is the first begotten Son of God, the image of God, the Creator and Preserver, the Giver of life and light, the Mediator between God and the world, the second God, also the Messiah, yet only in the ideal sense of a theophany, not as a concrete historical person.
But with all the striking similarity of expression, there is a wide and fundamental difference between Philo and John 1) Philo’s view is obscured by dualistic and docetic admixtures, from which John is entirely free. 2) He wavers between a personal and impersonal conception of the Logos (Keferstein, Zeller, Lange), or rather he resolves the Logos after all into an impersonal summary of divine attributes (so Dorner, Niedner, Hölemann, Brückner, Meyer); while in John He appears as a divine hypostasis, distinct from, and yet co-essential with, God. 3) Philo has no room in his system for an incarnation of the Logos, which is the central idea of the Gospel of John. His doctrine is like a shadow which preceded the substance. It was a prophetic dream of the coming reality. Lange compares it to the altar of the unknown God, whom St. Paul made known to the Athenians. It helped to prepare deeper minds for the reception of the truth, while it also misled others into Gnostic aberrations. “The grand simplicity and clearness of the Prologue” (says Meyer, p. 63, note) “shows with what truly apostolic certainty John experienced the influence of the speculations of his age, and yet remained master over them, modifying, correcting and making them available for his ideas.”
These ideas of Christ formed the basis of his belief long before he knew anything of these foreign speculations. But he seems to have chosen a form of expression already current in the higher regions of thought for the purpose of meeting a false gnosis of speculation with the true gnosis of faith. For the airy fancies about the Logos, as the centre of all theophanies, he substitutes at the threshold of his Gospel the substantial reality by setting forth Christ as the revealed God: thus satisfying the speculative wants of the mind and directing misguided speculation into the path of truth. A clear and strong statement of the truth is always the best refutation of error.—P. S.]
And the Word.—The clause: “In the beginning was the Word,” contains the whole theme. Now follows first the relation of the Logos to the eternal God, then, more at large, His relation to the temporal world.
Was with God.—[ ðñὸòôὸíèåüí , rather than ðáñὰ ôῷ èåῷ , Joh_17:5.] Properly: with God, as distinct from and over against Him, in direction towards Him, for Him [in inseparable nearness and closest intercommunion, comp. Joh_1:18, “towards the bosom of the Father.”—P. S.]. There is a similar phraseology in Mar_6:3, and elsewhere. On the antithesis in the eternal constitution of God, see above, and Pro_8:30; Wis_9:4. The doctrine of the Holy Ghost also is implied in this expression of the motion or posture of the Logos towards God, as well as in the further designation of the Logos: He was God. Starke: We must take good heed that we do not connect with the particle “with” the notion of place or space. The word denotes the most intimate and divine sort of relation to another.
And the Word was [not the world, which did not yet exist, Joh_1:3, hence not man, nor angel, nor any creature, but] God.— Èåüò is the predicate, ëüãïò the subject; and in the Greek the predicate stands first, for the sake of emphasis. [Comp. Joh_4:24 : ðíåῦìá ὁ Èåüò .—P. S.] God [in the strict sense of the term], of divine nature and kind, was the Logos. Meyer shows how the omission of the article [before èåüò ] was necessary, to distinguish the persons or subjects, ὁ èåüò and ὁ ëüãïò ; and how, therefore, this expression is not to be taken in the sense of the èåüò without the article [a God], the subordinate äåýôåñïò èåüò , in Philo [p. 66]. Likewise the translation in the adjective form: [= èåῖïò ], divine (Baumgarten-Crusius), would alter the idea. Tholuck cites Chemnitz: èåüò sine artic. essentialiter, cum artic. personaliter. He refers also to Liebner: Christol. I, p. 165; the Letters of Lücke and Nitzsch, in the Studien u. Kritiken, 1840 and, ’41; Thomasius: Christi Person. II., §40.
[ Èåüò without the article signifies divine essence, or the generic idea of God in distinction from man and angel; as óÜñî , Joh_1:14, signifies the human essence or nature of the Logos. The article before èåüò would here destroy the distinction of personality and confound the Son with the Father. The preceding sentence asserts the distinct hypothesis of the Logos, this His essential oneness with God. To conceive of an independent being existing from eternity, outside or external to the one God, and of a different substance ( ἑôåñïïýóéïò ), would overthrow the fundamental truth of monotheism and the absoluteness of God. There can be but one divine being or substance.—P. S.]
Joh_1:2. The same was.—The first proposition characterizes the subject alone; the second declares the personal distinction of the Logos from God absolute; the third expresses the essential unity and identity of the divine nature. The clauses form a solemn climax: the Logos the eternal ground of the world; the Logos the image-like expression of God; the Logos God. The sentence now following combines those three propositions in one: This Logos, which was God, was in the beginning with God. [The emphasis lies on ïὗôïò this Logos who was Himself God, and no other Logos; and with ïὗôïò is contrasted ðÜíôá , Joh_1:3, the whole creation without any exception was brought forth by this Logos. So Meyer.—P. S.] This completes the statement of the position of Christ within the Godhead; then follows His relation to the world.
Joh_1:3. All things were made through [ äé ’] him.—[From the immanent Word, the ëüãïò åíäéÜèåôïò , John now proceeds to the revealed Word, the ëüãïò ðñïöïñéêüò . The first manifestation of the Logos ad extra is the creation.—P. S.] Genesis 1. Col_1:17; Heb_1:2; Philo, de Cherub. É . 162. [The Son is the instrumental cause, the Father the efficient cause, of the creation; comp. 1Co_8:6 and the difference between ἐê and äéÜ . The Son never works of Himself, but always as the revealer of the Father and the executor of His will.—P. S.] As the Evangelist means, that absolutely all that exists, not only in its form and totality, but also in its material and detail, was called into life by the Logos, ðÜíôá , all, without the article, is more suitable [being more general and unlimited] than ôὰ ðÜíôá [which would mean a specific and definite totality, as in 2Co_5:18. The Socinian interpretation: ‘the ethical creation,’ or ‘all Christian graces and virtues,’ is grammatically impossible.—P. S.]
And without him.—Not merely an “emphatic parallelismus antitheticus” [comp. Joh_5:20; Joh_10:28; 1Jn_2:4; 1Jn_2:27], though it is this primarily (see Meyer), but also a further direct statement of the negation contained in the previous clause. For Meyer [followed by Godet] in vain calls in question John’s intention to exclude by this negative sentence (as Lücke, De Wette, Olshausen and others have observed) the Platonic and Philonic doctrine of the timeless matter ( ὕëç ). The argument that, since ἐãÝíôï and ãÝãïíåí denote only a becoming which is subsequent to creation, therefore the ὕëç would not be included, seems itself to rest upon the unconscious notion of a præ-temporal ὕëç . The only question should be, whether ὅ ãÝãïíåí could be said of the ὕëç ; especially since the Evangelist does not distinctly enter upon the idea of the ὕëç in itself considered, and doubtless for very good reasons. A proposition so distinctly antithetic was undoubtedly expressed also with antithetic intent, and it would imply downright ignorance in the Evangelist to suppose him unacquainted with this antithesis so universally familiar to the ancient world. We should likewise remember, with Tholuck, that the sentence contains, on the other hand, the antignostic thought, that the orders of spirits also were made by the Logos. For Col_2:18 shows that the germ of the Gnostic doctrine of sæns was already known. Yet the strong ïὗäὲ ἕí [not even one thing, prorsus nihil, stronger than ïὐäÝí , nothing] proves that the antihylic aim decidedly prevails. [There is great comfort in the idea that there is absolutely nothing in the wide world which is unknown to God, which does not owe its very existence to Him, and which must not ultimately obey His infinitely wise and holy will. Comp. Ewald in loc.—P. S.]
That hath been made.—Perfect: ὁãÝãïíåí . All created existence. The connection of this clause with the following: “That which was made, in Him it was life (had its life in Him),” has been advocated from Clement of Alexandria down, by eminent fathers like Origen and Augustine, and by some codices and versions. But, besides the mass of the codices, Chrysostom and Jerome are against this connection. It must be rejected for the following considerations: (1) that such connection would require ἐóôß instead of ἦí after ãÝãïíåí (Meyer); (2) that it would destroy the absolute idea of the æùÞ which is expected here (see 1Jn_1:1); (3) that it would cause the derived life in the creatures to be designated as the light of men; (4) that it would confuse the idea of the essential life itself here, and make the word equivocal.* Clement of Alexandria may have been led by his philosophy to separate somewhat the sentence: ïὐäὲ ἕí , ὂ ãÝãïíåí ; then many followed him for the sake of the apparent profundity of his combination. On Hilgenfeld’s introduction of the Gnostic æùÞ here, see the note in Meyer [p. 63].
Joh_1:4. In him was life.—[ æùÞ , the true life, the divine, immortal life (comp. Joh_3:15-16; Joh_6:27; Joh_6:33; Joh_6:35; Joh_6:40; Joh_6:47; Mat_7:14; Mat_19:16; Rom_2:7; Rom_5:10; Rom_5:17-18; Rom_5:21, and a great many passages), as distinct from âßïò , the natural, mortal life (comp. the Greek in 1Jn_2:16; 1Jn_3:17; Mar_12:44; Luk_8:14; Luk_8:43; Luk_15:12; Luk_15:21; 2Ti_2:4).—P. S.] The translation: “was life,” is based on the absence of the article (De Wette, Meyer), But in Greek the omission of the article makes less difference than in German [and English]. To say [in English]: In Him was life, may mean: some measure of life. In the Greek it means, at least in this connection: the fullness of life, all life (Philo: ðçãÞ æùῆò ). Hence Luther’s translation: war das Leben: was the life, is best. Meyer justly rejects the restriction of the idea to the spiritual life [ æùὴ áἰþíéïò ] (Origen [Maldonatus, Lampe, Hengstenberg] and others), or to the physical (Baumgarten-Crusius), or to the ethical (felicitas, Kuinoel). Nor is the life here to be at all divided into physical, moral and eternal. It is the creative life, the ultimate principle of life, which manifests itself in the operations of life in every province. This, however, excludes the thought that God called things into existence by an act of abstract, pure will in the Logos. The Word was as much an animating breath as it was a logical, luminous and enlightening volition. The life refers chiefly to the creative power and the power of manifestation, to the substance and the principles of things, as the light to their laws and forms; though primarily life and light still form a unity. Gerlach: “From creation he passes to preservation and providence, and ascribes these also to the Word, in virtue of the creative vital force dwelling in Him. All beings, however, not only stand in Him, but have their true, perfect life, attain their end, and enjoy the happiness and perfection designed for them, only in Him. Comp. on this full sense of life, eternal life, Joh_3:16; Joh_3:36,” etc.
And the life [the article ἡ refers to the æùÞ just mentioned] was the light of men.—John passes from the relation of the Logos to the world at large to His relation to men. Here life kindles up into light. As God the Father is in the absolute sense life (Joh_5:26 : ὁ ðáôὴñ ἔ÷åé æùὴí ἐí ἑáõôῷ ) and light (1Jn_1:5 : ὁ èåὸò öῶò ἐóôé ), so is the Son likewise. Light is a figurative expression for pure, divine truth, both intellectual and moral, in opposition to darkness ( óêïôßá ), which includes error and sin. Christ is not öῶò simply, but ôὸ öῶò the only true light; comp. Joh_5:9; Joh_8:12; Joh_9:5. All nations and languages use light, which is the vivifying and preserving principle of the world, as a fit image of the Deity. Christ is not simply doctor veræ religionis (Kuinoel), but is here represented as the general illuminator of the intellectual and moral universe even before His incarnation. He is the öùóöüñïò , the original bringer and constant dispenser of light to all men. Light and salvation are closely related; comp. Psa_27:1 : “Jehovah is my light and my salvation;” comp. Isa_49:6—In the Logos was the life, and this life is the light. Observe, it is not said the Logos was the life. The personal God, the personal Logos, have not passed into the form of mere life, as Pantheism holds; branched out into extension and thought, as Spinoza has it; alienated Himself from Himself; emptied Himself of Himself, as idea, according to Hegel and the modern philosophy of nature. And as little has He, according to the abstract supernaturalistic notion, made a purely creature-life out of nothing. He has creatively revealed the life which was in Him, and has made it, as the vital spiritual ground of the creation, the light of men. We must, therefore, on the one hand, keep the continuity of His revelation: the Word, the life, the light; but on the other hand, observe the antithesis, which now appears between the life and the light, more exactly defined: nature and spirit. With the idea of the light, the Evangelist passes to mankind. It belongs therefore to the constitution of humanity to receive the life as light (see Rom_1:20; Joh_8:12), and in the light still ever to perceive the personal revelation of the personal Logos. The light is, unquestionably, the divine truth, ἀëÞèåéá (Meyer); not, however, primarily as theoretical and practical, but as ontological or essential, and formal, logical; then also, doubtless, as the truth of the origin of life (ideal, religious) and the end of it (ethical). Meyer most justly maintains that here is described the primal condition of mankind in paradise, not primarily the subsequent revelation of the Logos as ëüãïò óðåñìáôéêüò in the heathen world, or as the principle of revelation in Judaism. And that the operations of that primal relation were not subsequently broken off, though certainly they were broken, is declared by the next verse itself, which thus forms a complete parallel to Rom_1:20.
Joh_1:5. And the light shineth.—[Comp. Isa_9:1; Mat_4:16].—i.e., it still shines, even now. The darkness which entered was not absolute. If the light here, as is certainly the case, becomes the subject (Meyer against Lücke), Lücke, in his interpretation: And as the light shines the Logos, is still right, in so far as the light, rightly known, must be known as the manifestation of the personal Logos. Since the darkness has not been able to destroy the life, it has also not been able to destroy the light in the life, and shining inalienably belongs to the light.—It shineth.—Present: denoting continuous activity from the beginning till now. But it does not follow that the enlightening agency of the incarnate Word ( ëüãïò ἔíóáñêïò ) is meant as well as of the Word before the Incarnation ( ëüãïò ἄóáñêïò ). For where the ëüãïò ἔíóáñêïò is known, the óêïôßá is taken away. The Logos, however, even for the heathen and unbelievers, is still constantly active in all the world as ἄóáñêïò round about the revelations of the ἔíóáñêïò . De Wette groundlessly takes the present as a historical present, referring to the activity of the light in the old covenant.
In the darkness.—The entrance of the darkness as a hostile counterpart to the light, i.e., the fall, is here presupposed; and it must be inferred that the primitive condition just described was not disturbed by any such darkness.—The darkness, however, is not simply “the state in which man has not the Divine truth” (Meyer). As the light is truth, so the darkness is falsehood (Joh_8:44), the positive perversion of the truth in delusion, and the óêïôßá denotes the total manifestation of sin as a total manifestation of falsehood, in its hostile workings against the light, together with its substratum, the kingdom of darkness in mankind, i.e., primarily in human nature, yet only in so far as human nature is submissive to and pleased with falsehood. We very much doubt whether John would have called mankind itself, as sinful, darkness.
Suppressed [?] it not.—[The aor. êáôÝëáâåí is used because John speaks of it as a historical fact.] Common interpretation: Comprehend [begreifen], understand (Luther [Eng. Vers., Alford, Wordsworth; but in this sense the vox media only is used, Act_4:13; Act_10:34.—P. S.]). (2) Meyer: apprehend [ergreifen], grasp. [So êáôáëáìâÜíåéí is used Joh_12:35 : ἵíá ìὴ óêïôßá ὑìᾶò êáôáëÜâῃ ; Mar_9:18; Rom_9:30; Php_3:12 f.; 1Co_9:24. The reason why the darkness rejected the light is indicated in Joh_3:19 and Mat_23:37.—P. S.] (3) hinder, suppress; Origen, Chrysostom and others (Lange, Leben Jesu, III, p. 554), recently Hölemann. Meyer is obliged to concede that. this interpretation is grammatically correct (Herod. i. 46, 87, etc.); he calls it, however, false to the context. But an absolute negation of the penetrating activity of the light would be false to the context; for it would destroy the full meaning of both of the next verses and the whole Gospel. The Evangelist intends to declare the very advent of the Light in the history of the world, its breaking through all the obstructions of the ancient darkness, as it appeared continuously in the history of Abraham.
[This interpretation gives good sense, but disagrees with the connection and destroys the parallelism of Joh_1:5; Joh_1:10-11, which is quite obvious, although there is a difference in the choice of the verbs êáôáëáìâÜíåéí , ãéíþóêåéí and ðáñáëáìâÜíåéí as also in the object (Joh_1:5, áὐôü sc. ôὸ öῶò , Joh_1:10-11, áὐôüí sc. ôὸí ëüãïí .)
Joh_1:5. ôὸ öῶò ἐí ôῇ óêïôßá öáßíåé ,
êáὶ ἡ óêïôßá áὐôὸ ïὐêáôÝëáâåí .
Joh_1:10. ἐí ôῶ êüóìῳ ἧí ,
êáὶ ὁ êüóìïò áὐôὸò ïὐêἔãíù .
Joh_1:11. åἰò ôὰ ἴäéá ἦëèåí ,
êáὶ ïἱ ἴäéïé áὐôὸí ïὐðáñÝëáâåí .
The Gentiles, as well as the Jews ( ïἱ ἴäéïé ), rejected the preparatory revelations of the Logos. Comp. Rom_1:20 ff. John speaks, of course, only of the mass, and himself makes exceptions (Joh_1:12). The meaning of êáß here and Joh_1:10-11 is and yet, notwithstanding the light shining in the darkness. There is here a tone of sacred sadness, of holy grief, which must fill every serious Christian in view of the amazing ingratitude of the great majority of men to the boundless mercies of God.—P. S.]
2. [In Lange, No. 1.] The fundamental cardinal ideas of this section are: The personal God ( ὁ èåüò ); the Word or the Logos absolute, the beginning, the rise of things, the life, the light, men, the darkness, the shining of the light in the darkness, the irrepressible breaking of the light through the darkness: all belonging to the exhibition of the eternal advent of Christ. God is designated as personal by virtue of His Logos: the Logos, on His God-ward side, is designated as the full expression of the being of God in objective, personal correlation; in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the ÷áñáêôÞñ , c. Joh_1:3; in Paul, the image, åἰêþí , Col_1:15. As the human word is the expression of the human mind, so the Word of God is the expression of His being, in focus-like central clearness and perfect concentration. But if, with reference to God, the Logos is single, He is, on the side toward the world, inexhaustibly rich and manifold, comprising the whole ideal kingdom of divine love, Joh_17:5; Eph_1:4. The Logos, as the expressed life of God, is the eternal ground of the temporal world. The beginning gives the becoming, the becoming gives the world. The ultimate cause of the world’s coming into being and continuing is the creating and upholding life in the Logos, as He contains the principles of life. The whole revelation of this life in the world was light for man, who was himself of the light, i.e., it was a spiritual element for his spirit. Even the encroaching darkness could not extinguish this light. In the midst of the darkness it shines (the bright side of heathenism), and through the darkness it breaks (the Old Testament revelation).
3. [2.] The passage before us contains the ultimate data of the New Testament doctrine of the ontological Trinity. The Evangelist states an antithesis in the Godhead which refers primarily not to the world, but to God. The Logos was in the beginning; this is His eternity, which at once implies His deity. He was God, i.e., not a subordinate kind of deity (Philo, and the subordinationists), which, in view of the Biblical monotheism, is simply a self-contradiction in terms; not to say that the absence of the article with èåüò emphasizes just the “divine being” of the Logos. With the divinity of the Logos as distinct from God (the Father), the antithesis in the Godhead is established. And at the same time is signified the unity of the speaking God and the spoken, i.e., the existence of the Spirit, which Schleiermacher (in his Dogmatik), misses in the passage. Considered as the unity of God with the Logos, it is contained in the term Logos; considered as the unity of the Logos with God, it is contained in the phrase ðñὸò ôὸí èåüí . Of the Spirit distinctly John had here no occasion to speak. But if the whole essence of God was concentrated as an object to itself in the Word, the eternal perfection of the divine consciousness in luminous clearness, unity, and certitude, is thereby declared, against all notions of a creaturely development in an originally crude divine being. In the eternal Logos lies the idea of the eternal consciousness, as well as its eternal concentration and revelation to itself: the idea, therefore, of the eternal personality, which, in its power of self-revelation, is the Lord; in its distinction, love; in its unity, the Spirit.
It may now be asked, why there is nothing said of Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and whether the ancient and modern distinctions between the eternal Logos of God and the coming of the Logos to be Son first in the creation (Marcellus, and in some measure Urlsperger), are not well grounded. It is to be observed, however, that the distinction between eternity and temporalness in Scripture is not the same as with these theologians. According to Scripture, time is not excluded or cut off from eternity, but embraced and penetrated by it, so that Christ says: “Before Abraham was, I am.” In the Logos is from eternity the essence of the Son, as in God is the essence of the Father, as in the relation of the two is the essence of the Spirit. The distinction of the two in our Evangelist, however, proceeded from his making an antithesis between the eternity which is before the world, and the eternity which, with the beginning of the world, enters into the world and comes under temporal conditions. If the eternity of God beyond the world be conceived in contrast with the world, the Son is called Logos; if it be conceived absolutely, the Logos is called the Son. And the church doctrine treats of the Godhead absolutely, as it is from eternity to eternity; therefore of the Son. The Son, as Logos, is from eternity; the Logos, as Son, passes from eternity into development, i.e., into the unfolding of the glories of the divine nature. On the development of the church doctrine of the Logos, see Dorner’s Entwicklungs-geschichte, etc. (History of Christology).
4. [3]. After the relation of the Logos to God follows first His relation to the world, as antithetic to the former. And the world is here viewed not as a finished cosmos, but in concrete totality: all things ( ðÜíôá ); because the cosmos is properly the result and manifestation of the development of the things; ôὸ ðᾶí is the finished appearance of the ðÜíôá as the Logos is their original source; because it should be distinctly remembered that the Logos is not merely architect of the form of the world (the demiurge of Philo), but also the producer of the material of the world, or rather of the life of the world, which reduces its subordinate, elementary forma to the material of the world. The question whether the creation of the world is from eternity, or arose in time, proceeds from an obscurity respecting the relation between the ideas of eternity and time. To conceive the world as arising in eternity, before time, incurs the absurdity of supposing a world, consequently a development (ein Werden) without time (i.e., also without rhythm or established succession). To conceive the world as arising in time, presupposes an existence of time before the world, i.e., a time without world. Time is the world itself in its unfolding. The world, therefore, arose with time, and time with the world, but upon the basis of eternity, which but reveals itself in all time.
5. [4]. “And without him was not any thing made,” Psa_33:6. The absolutely dynamic view of the world; in opposition to materialism, which, in its anti-dynamic dealing, is the philosophy of the absolute impotence of the spirit, vexed with a remnant of spirit. In the statement that all things were made by the Logos (not out of Him, nor yet by Him as an instrument, but as principle), the creation is at the same time represented as a pure act of the eternal personality; in opposition to all theories of emanation. Both the doctrine of an eternal heterogeneous opposition between God or spirit and matter (pantheistic Dualism), and the doctrine of an eternal natural outflowing of all things from God (dualistic Pantheism), are here excluded (not to speak of the cabbalistic fancies concerning matter, as a shadow of God, a negation of God, which have emerged again even in our day). By the harmonious distinction in God, or His absolute personality, the discordant opposition in the world, the heathen view of the world, is denied. Gerlach: The by is not to be understood as if the Logos, the Word, were only the external architect; Paul expresses it; “In him were all things created,” and adds: “by him and for him,” Col_1:16.
6. [5]. But the next words: “In him was the life,” etc., with equal decision, contradict Deism, which sees in the world only an act and work of a God entirely outside and remote. The Logos is the life of the life, the operative, creative force, by which all things are. Yet the things have their life in Him, not He His life in the things. And the preservation of the world rests upon the same word as the creation, Heb_1:3; Joh_5:17.—The points of unity between the creation and the preservation of the world, in which the creation establishes the preservation, and the preservation reaches back to the basis of the creation, are vital principles, out of which the vital laws evolve themselves, Gen_1:11; Gen 12:21, 28. The life is, however, before the light, nature before spirit; though even the natural light, as the first step of the separating (and liberating) process of the life, is a prophecy of the spirit, which, being of the nature of light, finds its essential light in the manifestations of the Logos.
7. [6]. “And the life was the light.” An intimation of the antithesis between spirit and nature. In man the revelation life of the Logos has appeared in the world as light. Consciousness is the light of being. But the life was the light of men, not merely as the source of life, in that the human spirit has its origin in the Logos; but also as the element of life, in that the clearness of the spirit subsists only through the in-working of the Logos. Without Him the light in man becomes itself darkness (Mat_6:22), and the spirit, the ðíåῦìá , itself becomes unspiritual flesh. But if the life itself was the light of men, the creation must have been, to the pure man, a transparent symbol, a perfectly intelligible likeness of divine things (Rom_1:20). And this thought is most gloriously carried out in the Gospel. Christ has made the light of men manifest in the life.
8. [7]. “In the darkness.” The Evangelist, writing as a Christian for Christians, can introduce the idea of darkness without further explanation, with no fear of being misunderstood. As he has not intended to give a cosmogony, so he considers it unnecessary here to treat of the beginning of sin. His subject is the Logos, who has appeared as the Christ. Accordingly he delineates first the eternal divine nature of the Logos and His congenial, friendly relations to the world and to mankind, and now comes to His hostile posture towards sin. And this he views in its deepest and most suggestive aspect, as an opposition