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Joh_1:18 furnishes an explanation of what had just been said, that ἡ ἀλήθεια διὰ Ἰ . Χ . ἐγένετο ;[107] for that there was required direct knowledge of God, the result of experience, which His only-begotten Son alone possessed.
οὐδείς ] no man, not even Moses. “Besides is no doctor, master, or preacher, than the only Teacher, Christ, who is in the Godhead inwardly,” Luther; comp. Mat_11:27.
ἙΏΡΑΚΕ ] has seen, beheld (comp. Joh_3:11), of the intuition of God’s essence (Exo_33:20), to the exclusion of visions, theophanies, and the like. Comp. 1Jn_4:12; also Rom_1:20; Col_1:15; 1Ti_1:17. Agreeably to the context, the reference is to the direct vision of God’s essential glory, which no man could have (Ex. l.c.), but which Christ possessed in His pre-human condition as λόγος (comp. Joh_6:46), and possesses again ever since His exaltation.
Ὁ ὮΝ ΕἸς ΤῸΝ ΚΟΛΠ . ΤΟῦ ΠΑΤΡΌς ] As ἘΞΉΓΗΣ . refers to the state on earth of the Only-begotten, ὠν consequently, taken as an imperfect, cannot refer to the pre-human state (against Luthardt, Gess, pp. 123, 236, and others); yet it cannot coincide with ἐξήγη . in respect of time (Beyschlag), because the ΕἾΝΑΙ ΕἸς ΤῸΝ ΚΟΛ . Τ . Π . was not true of Christ during His earthly life (comp. especially Joh_1:51).[108] The right explanation therefore is, that John, when he wrote ὁ ὦν εἰς τ . κ . τ π ., expressed himself from his own present standing-point, and conceived of Christ as in His state of exaltation, as having returned to the bosom of the Father, and therefore into the state of the εἶναι πρὸς τὸν θεόν . So Hofmann, Schriftbew. I. 120, II. 23; Weiss, Lehrbegr. 239. Thus also must we explain the statement of direction towards, εἰς τὸν κόλπ ., which would be otherwise without any explanation (Mar_2:1; Mar_13:16; Luk_11:7); so that we recognise in εἰς as the prominent element the idea of having arrived at (Ellendt, Lex. Soph. I. p. 537; Jacobs, ad Anthol. XIII. p. 71; Buttm. N. T. Gr. p. 286 [E. T. p. 333]), not the notion of leaning upon (Godet, after Winer, Lücke, Tholuck, Maier, Gess, and most others), nor of moving towards, which is warranted neither by the simple ὦν (in favour of which such analogies as in aurem dormire are inappropriate) nor by εἰς , instead of which πρὸς (Hom. Il. vi. 467) or ἐπί with the accusative ought rather to bo expected.[109] This forced interpretation of εἰς would never have been attempted, had not ὮΝ been construed as a timeless Present, expressing an inherent relation, and in this sense applied (Lücke, Tholuck, De Wette, Lange, Brückner, Hengstenberg, Philippi, and most expositors) also to the earthly condition of the Son; comp. Beyschlag, pp. 100, 150. So far as the thing itself is concerned, the εἶναι εἰς τὸν κόλπ . does not differ from the ΕἾΝΑΙ ΠΡῸς ΤῸΝ ΘΕΌΝ of Joh_1:1; only it expresses the fullest fellowship with God, not before the incarnation, but after the exaltation, and at the same time exhibits the relation of love under a sensuous form ( κόλπον ); not derived, however, from the custom (Joh_13:23) of reclining at table (thus usually, but not appropriately in respect of fellowship with God), but rather from the analogy of a father’s embrace (Luk_16:22). In its pragmatic bearing, ὁ ὦν is the historical seal of the ἐξηγήσατο ; but we must not explain it, with Hilgenfeld, from the Gnostic idea of the ΠΛΉΡΩΜΑ .
ἘΚΕῖΝΟς ] strongly emphatic, and pointing heavenwards.[110]
ἐξηγήσατο ] namely, the substance of His intuition of God; comp. Joh_8:38. The word is the usual one for denoting the exposition, interpretation of divine things, and intuitions. Plato, Pol. iv. p. 427 C; Schneid. Theag. p. 131; Xen. Cyr. viii. 3. 11; Soph. El. 417; comp. the ἐξηγηταί in Athens: Ruhnken, ad Tim. p. 109 ff.; Hermann, gottesd. Alterth. § 1, 12. It does not occur elsewhere in John, and hence a special reference in its selection here is all the more to be presumed, the more strikingly appropriate it is to the context (against Lücke, Maier, Godet). Comp. LXX. Lev_14:57.
[107] Not including any explanation of ἡ χάρις also (Luthardt), because ἑώρακε and ἐξηγήσατο answer only to the conception of the truth in which the vision of God is interpreted.
[108] Hence we must not say, with Brückner, comp. Tholuck and Hengstenberg, that a relation of the μονογενής is portrayed which was neither interrupted nor modified by the incarnation. The communion of the Incarnate One with God remained, He in God, and God in Him, but not in the same manner metaphysically as before His incarnation and after His exaltation. He while on earth was still in heaven (Joh_3:13), yet not de facto, but de jure, because heaven was His home, His ancestral seat.
[109] Philippi’s objections (Glaubens. IV. 1, p. 409 f.) to my rendering are quite baseless. For an explanation of the ὦν εἰς τὸν κόλπ . which occurs to every unprejudiced expositor as coming directly from the words themselves cannot be “arbitrary.” And it is not contrary to the connection, as both Godet and Beyschlag hold, because what the words, as usually interpreted, say, is already contained in the ὁ μονογενής υἱός , whereupon ὁὦν , κ . τ . λ . sets forth the exaltation of the Only-begotten—just as in ὁ μονογ · υἱός were given the ground and source of the ἐξηγήσατο —as the infallible confirmation hereof. This also against Gess, p. 124. My interpretation is quite as compatible with earnest dealing in regard to the deity of Christ (Hengstenberg) as the usual one, while both are open to abuse. Besides, we have nothing at all to do here with the earnestness referred to, but simply with the correctness or incorrectness of the interpretation. Further, I have not through fear of spiritualism (as Beyschlag imagines) deviated from the usual meaning, which would quite agree with Joh_3:13.
[110] As with Homer (see Nitzsch, p. 37, note 1), so in the N. T. John pre-eminently requires not merely to be read, but to be spoken. His work is the epic among the Gospels.
Note.
The Prologue, which we must not with Reuss restrict to Joh_1:1-5, is not “A History of the Logos,” describing Him down to Joh_1:13 as He was before His incarnation, and from Joh_1:14 ff. as incarnate (Olshausen). Against this it is decisive that Joh_1:6-13 already refer to the period of His human existence, and that, in particular, the sonship of believers, Joh_1:12-13, cannot be understood in any other than a specifically Christian sense. For this reason, too, we must not adopt the division of Ewald: (1) The pre-mundane history of the Logos, Joh_1:1-3; (2) The history of His first purely spiritual working up to the time of His incarnation, Joh_1:4-13; (3) The history of His human manifestation and ministry, Joh_1:14-18. John is intent rather on securing, in grand and condensed outline, a profound comprehensive view of the nature and work of the Logos; which latter, the work, was in respect of the world creative, in respect of mankind illuminative (the Light). As this working of the Logos was historical, the description must necessarily also bear an historical character; not in such a way, however, that a formal history was to be given, first of the λόγος ἄσαρκος (which could not have been given), and then of the λόγος ἔνσαρκος (which forms the substance of the Gospel itself), but in such a way that the whole forms a historical picture, in which we see, in the world which came into existence by the creative power of the Logos, His light shining before, after, and by means of His incarnation. This at the same time tells against Hilgenfeld, p. 60 ff., according to whom, in the Prologue, “the Gnosis of the absolute religion, from its immediate foundation to its highest perfection, runs through the series of its historical interventions.” According to Köstlin, p. 102 ff., there is a brief triple description of all Christianity from the beginning onwards to the present; and this, too, (1) from the standing-point of God and His relation to the world, Joh_1:1-8; then (2) from the relations of the Logos to mankind; Joh_1:9-13; and lastly, (3) in the individual, Joh_1:14-18, by which the end returns to the beginning, Joh_1:1. But a triple beginning (which Kaeuffer too assumes in the Sächs. Stud. 1844, p. 103 ff.) is neither formally hinted at nor really made: for, in Joh_1:9, ὁ λόγος is not the subject ἦν , and this ἦν must, agreeably to the context, refer to the time of the Baptist, while Köstlin’s construction and explanation of ἦν
ἐρχόμενον is quite untenable; and because in the last part, from Joh_1:14 onwards, the antithesis between receiving and not receiving, so essential in the first two parts, does not at all recur again. The simple explanation, in harmony with the text, is as follows: The Prologue consists of three parts,—namely, (1) John gives a description (a) of the primeval existence of the Logos, Joh_1:1-2, and (b) of His creative work, Joh_1:3 (with the addition of the first part of Joh_1:4, which is the transition to what follows). Next, (2) he represents Him in whom was life as the Light of mankind, Joh_1:4 ff., and this indeed (a) as He once had been, when still without the antithesis of darkness, Joh_1:4, and (b) as He was in this antithesis, Joh_1:5. This shining in the darkness is continuous (hence φαίνει , Joh_1:5), and the tragic opposition occasioned thereby now unfolds itself before our eyes onwards to Joh_1:13, in the following manner: “Though John came forward and testified of the Light, not being himself the Light, but a witness of the Light (Joh_1:6-8),—though He, the true Light, was already existing (Joh_1:9),—though He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, still men acknowledged Him not; though He came to His own, His own received Him not (Joh_1:10-11); whereas those who did receive Him obtained from Him power to become the spiritual sons of God (Joh_1:12-13).” Lastly, (3) this blessedness of believers, due to the Logos who had historically come, now constrains the apostle to make still more prominent the mode and fashion in which He was manifested in history (His incarnation), and had revealed His glory, Joh_1:14-18. Thus the Prologue certainly does not (against Baur) lift the historical out of its own proper soil, and transfer it to the sphere of metaphysics, but rather unveils its metaphysical side, which was essentially contained in and connected with it, as existing prior to its manifestation, and in the light of this its metaphysical connection sums it up according to its essence and antithesis, its actual development and the proof of its historical truth being furnished by the subsequent detailed narrative in the Gospel. We may distinguish the three parts thus: (1) The premundane existence and creative work of the Logos, Joh_1:1-4 a; (2) His work as the Light of men, and the opposition to this, Joh_1:4-13; (3) The revelation of His glory which took place through the incarnation, Joh_1:14-18. Or, in the briefest way: the Logos (1) as the creator; (2) as the source of light; (3) as the manifestation of the God-man. This third part shows us the Incarnate One again, Joh_1:18, where as ἄσαρκος He was in the beginning
ὁ ὦν εἰς τ . κόλπ . τοῦ πατρός ; and the cycle is complete.