Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - John 8:12 - 8:12
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Joh_8:12. The interpolated section, Joh_7:53 to Joh_8:11, being deleted, we must look for some connection with Joh_7:52. This may be found simply as follows. As the Sanhedrim had not been able to carry out their design of apprehending Jesus, and had, moreover, become divided among themselves (as is recorded in Joh_7:45-52), He was able, in consequence of this miscarriage in their plans against Him ( οὖν ), to come forth afresh and address the assembled people in the temple ( αὐτοῖς , comp. Joh_8:20). This renewed coming forward to address them is not, however, to be placed on the last day of the feast, but is so definitely marked off by Joh_8:20 as a special act, and so clearly distinguished from the preceding, that it must be assigned to one of the following days; just as in Joh_8:21 the similar transition and the recurring πάλιν introduce again a new discourse spoken on another day. Others take a different view, putting the discourses in Joh_8:12-20, and even that also in Joh_8:21 ff., on the day named in chap. Joh_7:37; but against this is not only the πάλιν of Joh_8:12 and Joh_8:21, but the οὖν , which in both places bears an evident reference to some preceding historical observation. Though Lücke’s difficulty, that a single day would be too short for so many discourses and replies, can have no weight, there is yet no sufficient ground for De Wette’s supposition, that John did not know how to hold securely the thread of the history.
I am the light of the world, i.e. (comp. on Joh_1:4) the possessor and bearer of the divine truth of salvation ( τ . φ . τῆς ζωῆς ), from whom this saving truth goes forth to all mankind ( κόσμος ), who without Christ are dark and dead. The light is not identical with the salvation (Hengstenberg), but salvation is the necessary emanation therefrom; without the light there is no salvation. So also Isa_49:6; comp. Isa_42:6. To regard the figure which Christ here employs, in witnessing to Himself, as suggested by some outward object—for example, by the two colossal golden candlesticks which were lighted at the feast of Tabernacles (but certainly only on the first day; see Succah v. 2) in the forecourt of the women, where also was the γαζοφυλάκιον , Joh_8:20, on either side of the altar of burnt-offering (Wetstein, Paulus, Olshausen),—is a precarious supposition, as the feast was now over; at the most, we can only associate the words with the sight of the candelabra, as Hug and Lange do—the latter intermingling further references to spiritual darkness from the history of the adulteress. But the figure, corresponding as it essentially does with the thing signified, had been given long before, and was quite a familiar one in the prophetic view of the idea of the Messiah (Isa_9:1; Isa_42:6; Mal_4:2). Comp. also Mat_4:15-16; Luk_2:32; and the Rabbinical references in Lightfoot, p. 1041. There is really no need to suppose any special suggesting cause, not even the reading of Isaiah 42; for though the Scriptures were read in the synagogues, we have no proof that they were read in the temple. To find also a reference to the pillar of fire in the wilderness (Godet), according to which the ὁ ἀκολουθῶν , κ . τ . λ ., has reference to Israel’s wanderings, is quite arbitrary; no better, indeed, than the reference of Joh_7:37 to the rock in the wilderness.
οὐ μὴ περιπατήσει ] The strongly attested, though not decisively confirmed, subjunctive περιπατήσῃ (so Lachmann, Tischendorf) would be the most usual word in the N. T. after οὐ μή , and might therefore all the more easily have displaced the future, which could hardly have been introduced through the following ἕξει , seeing that the latter word has no connection with οὐ μή . Upon οὐ μή , with the more definitely assuring future, see on Mat_26:35; Mar_14:31.
ἕξει τὸ φῶς τ . ζωῆς ] As the antithesis of the divine ἀλήθεια , the σκοτία , is the causative element of death, so is the light the cause of life, i.e. of the true eternal Messianic life, not only in its consummation after the Parousia, but already also in its temporal development (comp. Joh_3:15). ἕξει , it will not be wanting to him, he will be in possession of it, for it necessarily communicates itself to him direct from its personal source, which he follows in virtue of his fellowship with Christ (“lux enim praeferri solet,” Grotius). The ἀκολουθεῖν takes place through faith; but in the believer, who as such walks no more in darkness (Joh_12:46; Eph_5:8; Col_1:13), Christ Himself lives (the Johannean “I in you,” and the Pauline Gal_2:20; see on Joh_6:51), and therefore he has that light of life which proceeds from Christ as a real and inward possession (Nonnus, ὁμόφοιτον ἐν θὐτῷ ); he is υἱὸς φωτός (Joh_12:36), and himself “light in the Lord” (Eph_5:8). This explanation, not merely the having Christ with him (Weiss), is required by the context; because ἕξει , κ . τ . λ ., is the result of the ἀκολουθεῖν , and therefore of faith (comp. Joh_3:15; Joh_3:36, Joh_5:24, Joh_6:47), and accordingly τῆς ζωῆς is added.