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Joh_1:12. The mass of the Jews rejected Him, but still not all of them. Hence, in this fuller description of the relation of the manifested Logos to the world, the refreshing light is now (it is otherwise in Joh_1:5) joyfully recognised and placed over against the shadow.
ἔλαβον ] He came, they received Him, did not reject Him. Comp. Joh_5:43; Soph. Phil. 667, ἰδών τε καὶ λαβὼν φίλον .
The nominative ὅσοι is emphatic, and continues independent of the construction that follows. See on Mat_7:24; Mat_10:14; Mat_13:12; Mat_23:16; Act_7:40.
ἐξονσίαν ] neither dignity, nor advantage (Erasmus, Beza, Flacius, Rosenmüller, Semler, Kuinoel, Schott), nor even possibility (De Wette, Tholuck), nor capability (Hengstenberg, Brückner), fully comes up to the force of the word,[86] but He gave them full power (comp. Joh_5:27, Joh_17:2). The rejection of the Logos when He came in person, excluded from the attainment of that sacred condition of fitness—received through Him—for entering into the relationship of children of God, they only who received Him in faith obtained through Him this warrant, this title ( ἐπιτροπὴ νόμου , Plato, Defin. p. 415 B). It is, however, an arrangement in the gracious decree of God; neither a claim of right on man’s part, nor any internal ability (Lücke, who compares 1Jn_5:20; also Lange),—a meaning which is not in the word itself, nor even in the connection, since the commencement of that filial relationship, which is the consummation of that highest theocratic ἐξουσία , is conceived as a being born, Joh_1:13, and therefore as passive (against B. Crusius).
τέκνα θεοῦ ] Christ alone is the Son of God, manifested as such from His birth, the μονογενής . Believers, from their knowledge of God in Christ (Joh_17:3), become children of God, by being born of God (comp. Joh_3:3; 1Jn_3:9), i.e. through the moral transformation and renewal of their entire spiritual nature by the Holy Ghost; so that now the divine element of life rules in them, excludes all that is ungodly, and permanently determines the development of this moral fellowship of nature with God, onwards to its future glorious consummation (1Jn_3:2; Joh_17:24). See also 1Jn_3:9 and 1Pe_1:23. It is thus that John represents the idea of filial relationship to God, for which he always uses τέκνα from the point of view of a spiritual genesis;[87] while Paul apprehends it from the legal side (as adoption, Rom_8:15; Gal_4:5), regarding the spiritual renewal connected therewith (regeneration), the καινότης ζωῆς (Rom_6:4), as a new creation (2Co_5:17; Gal_6:15), a moral resurrection (Romans 6), and the like; while the Synoptics (comp. also Rom_8:23) make the υἱοθεσία appear as first commencing with the kingdom of the Messiah (see on Mat_5:9; Mat_5:45; Luk_6:35), as conditioned, however, by the moral character. There is no difference as to the thing itself, only in the manner of apprehending its various sides and stages.
τοῖς πιστεύουσιν , κ . τ . λ .] quippe qui credunt, is conceived as assigning the reason; for it is as believers that they have fulfilled the subjective condition of arriving at sonship, not only negatively, since they are no longer under the wrath of God and the condemnation of the law (Joh_3:36; Joh_3:16-17, Joh_5:45), but also positively, inasmuch as they now possess a capacity and susceptibility for the operation of the Spirit (Joh_7:38-39). John does not say πιστεύσασιν , but πιστεύουσιν , for the faith, the entrance of which brought about the ἔλαβον , is thenceforth their enduring habitus.
εἰς τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ] not essentially different from εἰς αὐτόν , but characterizing it more fully; for the entire subject-matter of faith lies in the name of the person on whom we believe; the uttered name contains the whole confession of faith. Comp. Joh_2:23, Joh_3:18, 1Jn_3:23; 1Jn_5:13. The name itself, moreover, is no other than that of the historically manifested Logos
Jesus Christ, as is self-evident to the consciousness of the reader. Comp. Joh_1:17; 1Jn_5:1; 1Jn_2:22.
[86] Comp. Godet: “il les a mis en position.”
[87] Hilgenfeld, indeed, will have it that those spoken of are already regarded as originally τέκνα θεοῦ (comp. Joh_3:6, Joh_8:44, Joh_11:52), and attempts to escape the dilemma into which γενέσθαι brings him, by help of the interpretation: “the power by which the man who is born of God realizes this, and actually becomes what he is in himself according to his nature!” Thus we should have here the Gnostic semen arcanum electorum et spiritualium. See Hilgenfeld, Evangelien, p. 233. The reproach of tautology which he also brings against the ordinary explanation (in his Zeitschr. 1863, p. 110) is quite futile. The great conception of the τέκνα θεοῦ , which appears here for the first time, was in John’s eye important enough to be accompanied by a more detailed elucidation. Generally, against the anthropological dualism discovered in John by Hilgenfeld (also by Scholten), see Weiss, Lehrbegr. p. 128 ff.; also Weizsäcker in the Jahrb. f. D. Th. 1862, p. 680 f.; and even Baur, neutest. Theol. p. 359 ff.