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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - John 1:8 - 1:8
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8. ἐκεῖνος. A favourite pronoun with S. John, often used merely to emphasize the main subject instead of denoting some one more remote, which is its ordinary use. ‘It was not he who was the Light, but &c.’ Comp. Joh 2:21, Joh 5:19; Joh 5:35; Joh 5:46-47, Joh 6:29, Joh 8:42; Joh 8:44, Joh 11:9; Joh 11:11; Joh 11:25; Joh 11:36, &c. As in Joh 1:3, though not quite in the same way, S. John adds a negation to his statement to give clearness and incisiveness.
τὸ φῶς. The Baptist was not τὸ φῶς but ὁ λύχνος ὁ καιόμενος καὶ φαίνων (Joh 1:35); he was lumen illuminatum, not lumen illuminans. At the close of the first century it was still necessary for S. John to insist on this. At Ephesus, where this Gospel was written, S. Paul in his third missionary journey had found disciples still resting in ‘John’s Baptism;’ Act 19:1-6. And we learn from the Clementine Recognitions (I. LIV., LX) that some of John’s disciples, perhaps the Hemerobaptists, proclaimed their own master as the Christ, for Jesus had declared John to be greater than all the Prophets. Translate ‘the Light,’ not ‘that Light,’ as A.V.
ἀλλ' ἵνα. No need to supply anything: ἵνα may depend on ἦν. ‘John was in order to bear witness.’ If anything is supplied, it should be ‘came’ rather than ‘was sent.’ Ἵνα is one of the particles of which S. John is specially fond, not only in cases where another particle or construction would have done equally well, but also where ἵνα is apparently awkward. This is frequently the case where the Divine purpose is indicated, as here. Cf. Joh 4:34; Joh 4:47, Joh 6:29, Joh 11:50, Joh 12:23, Joh 13:1, Joh 15:8; Joh 15:12-13; Joh 15:17, and Winer, p. 425. For the elliptical ἀλλ' ἵνα comp. Joh 1:31, Joh 9:3, Joh 13:18, Joh 14:31, Joh 15:25; 1Jn 2:19.