powers as enabled them to recall and comprehend the instructions of Christ, and also those of the ancient Scriptures. In other words, the truth which he revealed was, for the most part, evolved from what had been said or done before. Its roots were in the past; it was old as well as new; and we may therefore expect to find germs of it in the Jewish Scriptures, as well as in the sayings of the Lord. Now, in the first chapter of Genesis, which could not well have been absent from the mind of John when he wrote the opening sentences of his Gospel, the word of God is represented, by a ninefold repetition, as the medium of his creative energy. By the sole agency of his word, he originated the cosmos -the world of order, beauty, and life, of which man is the crown. But there is here no personification of this word. It is powerful, simply because it is spoken by God. It originates order and beauty, simply because it is the vehicle of divine wisdom. Yet in one expression of this chapter: "Let us make man in our image," there is a mysterious hint of Divine Society, a passing glance at some plurality of a personal nature in the Godhead, though the hint does not represent the word of God as having any part in that Divine Society which is suggested by the pronouns “us” and “our." But the ancient Scriptures offered more than this to the inspired understanding of John; for they spoke of a Being who was called the Angel of Jehovah, or of God, the angel that wrestled with Jacob and redeemed Israel from all evil, the angel of his presence, and the angel in whom was God's name, as if he were a special messenger of God, representing his authority and glory; while he was also called God, or, his Presence, Jehovah, or, I am that I am, as if he were the true God manifesting himself to men. And these various designations point to a Being who is in some respects identical with the invisible God, and in other respects distinguishable from him-to a Being through whom the true nature of God is revealed to men, and who may, therefore, be called, in the highest sense, the Word. But the mind of John, quickened and guided by the Holy Spirit, would readily connect these suggestions of the Old Testament with many references that were made by Christ himself to his existence and state before the incarnation. For the Saviour had spoken, in the presence of his disciples, of the glory which he had with the Father before the world was; of himself as the only being who knew the Father and could reveal him to men; of his knowledge of heavenly things; of his coming into the world from above; and of his being the Life, the Light, and the Truth, in a pre-eminent sense: and these wonderful sayings, when added to the significant intimations of the Old Testament, and interpreted by a mind full of the Spirit of Truth, may have sufficed to give the Evangelist his surprising knowledge of the Divine Word; or, at least, may have prepared him for the direct illumination of the Spirit as to the office of the higher nature of Christ before the incarnation. It is, therefore, unnecessary to suppose that the knowledge in question was imparted to John by the Spirit as a wholly new revelation, foreshadowed by nothing in the past, or that it was borrowed from any philosophical or Rabbinical source. Divine revelation is itself progressive; "first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear." The fountain from which the apostle drew, in writing the prologue, was neither the doctrine of Philo concerning the Logos, nor the doctrine of the scribes concerning the Memra or the Bath-Kōl, but it was the teaching of the prophets and of Christ, unfolded and complemented by the work of the Spirit. We do not, however, deny that the religious speculations of Philo, and other Jews, may have prepared the minds of Christian people, in some measure, to understand John's use of the term Logos. Never before, it may be, would the meaning which he put into this word, as a designation of the higher nature of Christ,have been so readily apprehended by those for whom his Gospel was written. Yet the doctrine of Philo as to the Logos is, in many respects, very different from that of John, and it is impossible to discover in his writings the source of John's Christology. 1. In the beginning was the Word. (Compare Gen. 1:1; 1 John 1:1, 2; John 17:5; Eph. 1:4; Rev. 3:14; Prov. 8:23.) This expression affirms the existence of the Word at the time referred to in the opening verse of Genesis, when God created the heavens and the earth. He, the Word, was Word was realized in active intercourse with and in perfect communion with God." "This life (1 John 1:2) was with the Father'; it was realized in the intercommunion of the Divine Persons when time was not." "This expression, as in 1 John 1: 2, also denotes the presence of the Logos with God from the point of view of intercourse. So in all the other passages where it appears to mean simply by or with. Mark 6:3; 9: 19; Matt. 13: 56; 26: 55; 1 Cor. 16: 6 sq.; Gal. 1: 18; 4: 18."- Weiss. The Word knows and loves the Father whom he reveals; his relation to God antedates and conditions his relation to man. With this proposition may be compared the words of Christ: "And now, Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was" (17:5), and, "No one knoweth the Son, save the Father; neither doth any one know the Father save the Son, and he to whom the Son willeth to reveal him" (Matt. 11: 27, Rev. Ver.); for these two sayings are a sufficient foundation for the statement that "the Word was with God." (See also 1 John 1:2.) already in being when that which before was not began to be. His existence, therefore, is without beginning, or eternal. This is a logical inference from the statement of John, and it is also suggested by the verb (v) which he employs. For there are two Greek verbs by means of which he is wont to express the idea of existence, one of them signifying existence with an implication of origin, and the other signifying existence with no such implication. The latter word is used in this place, and in the last part of the declaration, "before Abraham was, I am" (8:58); while the former is used in verse 6, below: "There was (arose, appeared,) a man sent from God," and in the first member of the saying, "before Abraham was (came to be), I am." The eternal existence of the Word is, therefore, logically implied and verbally suggested in the first sentence of this Gospel. -And the Word was with God. (Compare 1 John 1:2; John 17:5; 1:18.) An expression which brings to mind the words of Genesis: "Let us make man in our image." For the preposition here used points to intimacy, and so to distinction of a personal nature between the Eternal Word and the Having asserted the eternal existence and God revealed by him. If the Evangelist had communion of the Word with God, the said "in God," it might have been supposed Evangelist adds another fact of supreme inthat he had in mind some attribute of God, terest to his account of that Being, viz.-And e. g., reason; if he had said from God, it the Word was God. This is the only cormight have been supposed that he had in rect translation of the clause; and it would mind something impersonal, issuing from have been difficult for John to construct a God, as creative energy; but he has used a more definite and emphatic assertion of the preposition which "expresses, beyond the fact proper deity of the Word. For the terms of of co-existence, or immanence, the more sig- this clause are so arranged in the original nificant fact of perpetuated intercommunion." that, according to the laws of the Greek lan-Liddon. According to Godet, this preposi- guage, the emphasis falls upon the term tion "expresses proximity; but, combining God. Hence the Evangelist pronounces the with this notion that of drawing near, it indi- pre-existent Word to be strictly and fully cates an active relation-a felt and personal Divine. Although distinguishable in a percommunion." (Compare Mark 6:3; 9:19; sonal respect from the Father, in essence and Matt. 13:56; 26:55; 1 Cor. 16:6 sq.; Gal. nature he was truly God. The construction 1: 18; 4: 18.) And Westcott, commenting of the sentence is precisely the same as that on the passage, remarks that "the idea ex- of John 4: 24: "God is a Spirit," where by pressed by" the phrase was with (pós), virtue of its position the term "spirit" is emis not that of simple co-existence, as of two phatic, and is used to define the nature and persons contemplated separately in company essence of God. (See also 1 John 1: 5, "God (elvai perá 3:22), or united under a common | is light," and John 3:29, "He that hath the conception (elvai oúr, Luke 22:56), or (so to speak) in local relation (eivat mapá 17: 5), but of being (in some sense) directed towards and regulated by that with which the relation is fixed (5:19). The personal being of the bride is the bridegroom.") Meyer quotes from Luther the pithy remark, "The last proposition, the Word was God, is against Arius; the other, the Word was with God, against Sabellius." 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 2 was with God, and the Word was God. The same 3 was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him; and without 1 him 2 was not any a Gen. 1: 1.... Ps. 33:6; ver. 10; Eph. 3:9; Col. 1: 16; Heb. 1:2; Rev. 4: 11.-1 Or, by....2 Or, was not anything made. That which hath been made was life in him: and the life, etc. 2. The same (or, This one) was in the beginning with God. The three propositions of the first verse are here reduced to one, and solemnly re-affirmed. For the pronoun (ovros), translated The same, appears to represent the Word as he is described in the last and highest assertion of that verse, an assertion which, on account of its meaning and position, must hold the first place in the mind of writer or of reader. This Being, himself by essence and nature God, was in the beginning with God, which emphatic repetition of the first verse prepares the way for the statement that follows in verse third. And the practice of repeating an important truth for the sake of emphasis, or of preparing the mind for some connected truth, is characteristic of this Evangelist's style. 3. All things were made by him. The Greek word translated All things (mára), means every object in the universe; not the universe as a great whole, made up of numberless parts, but all the parts, however numerous and dissimilar, that exist in the wide universe. All these owe their existence to the agency of the Word. Through him they came to be (éyévero). For the term which is rendered were made, signifies in itself became or came to be, and only by virtue of its connection with an agent does it take the meaning were made. The preposition by, or through (diá), represents the Word as the mediating and proximate cause of the existence of all things, and, interpreted by other statements of Scripture, suggests the will of the Father as the first cause of their existence. By the agency, therefore, of the Word, the being and power of the invisible God were expressed in things created.-And without him was not anything made that was made (lit., has been made). The same thought is here repeated in a negative form. Not one of all the objects that have been brought into being and now exist, was made without him. Look abroad, O man, over the universe, and consider all its parts, great and small! There is not one of them which does not owe its existence to the agency of that Divine Word who was in the beginning with God. With this declaration should be compared the language of Paul to the Colossians: "Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation; for in him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers: all things have been created through him and unto him; and he is before all things; and in him all things consist" (1:15-17, Rev. Ver.). It may be added that the statement of John in this verse appears to affirm the creation of everything that exists save the Godhead. For to say that "all things came into being" through the agency of the Word, is tantamount to saying that the entire reality, the substance as well as form of things, was due to the Word. This, to say the least, is the most obvious interpretation of the phrase, and there is nothing in the context which fairly suggests a different one. That Grecian philosophy pronounced matter eternal is no sufficient reason for supposing that the Evangelist believed it eternal, and, on that account, would not speak of it as created. It must now be added that many editors and interpreters close the third verse with the words, without him was not anything made, and begin the fourth verse thus: That which hath been made was life in him. But the early authorities are not conclusive; and if that which hath been made had been intended by the writer to go with what follows, he would surely have written "is life," instead of "was life"; or if, for any reason, the past tense had been here preferred, the previous verb would have been, was made (éyévero), rather than hath been made (yéyovev). Indeed, several manuscripts and versions have is, instead of was; but the evidence for was decidedly outweighs that for is, though is would have been more readily substituted for was, than was for is, by the early Fathers who generally connected which hath been made with what, follows. We adhere then, with Weiss and a majority of modern scholars, to the ordinary punctuation as correct, even though we do 4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. 4 thing made that hath been made. In him was life; 5 and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness 1appre a ch. 5:26; 1 John 5: 11....b ch. 8: 12; 9: 5; 12: 35, 46....c ch. 3: 19.1 Or, overcome. See ch. 12: 35 (Gr.). not insist on the fact that the other punctua- | of God, it is light, that is, a means of spirittion introduces a mystical and unintelligible ual vision; and inasmuch as this knowledge expression. 4. In him was life; i. e., life in the highest sense, spiritual life, springing evermore, in his case, from direct vision of God and perfect fellowship with him (compare 17: 3, and 1 John 1: 2). This seems to be the idea of true life from the religious point of view taken by the Evangelist. And the object of this sentence is to assert that life, in the truest and deepest sense of the word, belonged to the Logos from the beginning, thus preparing the reader's mind for what the Evangelist was about to state as the second office or work of the Word. This clause, therefore, stands in the same relation to the next as the second verse stands to the third. --And the life was the light of men; i. e., the life, as it was realized in the Divine Word, spiritual, holy, blessed, consisting in perfect knowledge of the Father and communion with him. All true knowledge of God on the part of men has come from the Word. Through him, and through him alone, have men been enabled to see and know the Father of lights. All revelation of the Divine Being, whether to Israel or to the nations, has been mediated by him. This interpretation will be confirmed by a careful study of the Evangelist's use of terms and by the end for which his Gospel was written. But two questions may be asked: Why is life conceived of as the source or principle of light? And why is light made the symbol of divine revelation? If we can answer these questions, we shall be prepared in some degree to understand the Fourth Gospel. In answering the second question, it may be said that, in the natural world, light is the means of sight, and that so much of human knowledge depends on sight, and therefore on light, as to make it suitable to use the word light to denote any means of knowledge. To see is to know, and to know is to see, in the language of common life. We see an argument as clearly as we do a mountain, and we know a color as well as we do an axiom. Hence if divine revelation brings to men a knowledge is the highest and only satisfying knowledge, he who brings it, is pre-eminently “the light of men." But the Divine Word is the One Being through whom God is made known to men, and he is therefore most fitly called the light of men. (Compare 1: 17, 18; 8: 12; 14: 6; Matt. 11: 27.) In answering the first question: Why does the Evangelist start with life, as if this were the source or principle of light-as if the Word could be the light of men only because there was in him the true and perfect life?---we may say, that all knowledge presupposes life. Intuition, perception, experience, are functions of life. A teacher must know what he teaches; a revealer must be acquainted with him whom he reveals. The highest life of which the Saviour speaks in this Gospel consists in knowing God; and he himself had possessed that life from eternity. Fellowship with the Father-a life which had been identified with the Father's in knowledge, feeling, and purpose, so that the whole fullness of the divine mind was his--qualified him to be the light of men. Out of this perfect life came the light which enlightens every man (ver. 9). Attention may also be called to the universality of the term men. As, in ch. 8: 12, Jesus is represented as having said: "I am the light of the world"—that is, not of the Jews only, but of all mankind-so in this place the Evangelist declares that the life of the Word was the light of men. Nothing, indeed, is said concerning the process by which the knowledge of the Eternal Word had been imparted to men before his incarnation; but the fact that he was the source of their knowledge of God is broadly affirmed. And this affirmation is in harmony with his own sayings. (See the last three passages referred to above). 5. And the light shineth in (the) darkness. According to Meyer, the emphasis falls upon the expression in (the) darkness. This expression introduces the new thought of the verse, and in the original precedes the verb shineth, an order of words which calls 6 a There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. 6 hended it not. There came a man, sent from God, 7 whose name was John. The same came for witness, that he might bear witness of the light, that all a Mal. 3: 1; Matt. 3: 1; Luke 3:2; ver. 33....b Acts 19: 4. 66 special attention to the new thought. More- | one entrusted with a special message or misover, the emphasis is increased by the use of sion from God. (See 3:2, and Mal. 3: 1.) an abstract instead of a concrete term to de- The writer of this Gospel, here and elsenote the sphere in which the light shines; where, calls the harbinger of Christ simply for the darkness evidently means sinful John, as none but the Apostle John would humanity, or the world as it lies in "the be likely to do. Any other writer would wicked one." But why is the present tense have distinguished him from the apostle by employed? Many have answered: Because calling him John the Baptist. See Introducthe Evangelist wishes to characterize this tion, p. 23. action of the light as constant, continuous, through all time. The light always shines, because it is its nature to shine. But it is, perhaps, equally natural to suppose that the present tense was selected because the Evangelist wished to say that in his own time the light was shining still, in spite of all that had been done to obscure it. This view is favored by the change of tense in the next sentence. -And the darkness comprehended it not. Better, with Westcott, Schaff, Weiss, and the Greek Fathers, overcame it not. John uses the verb in but one other passage (12:35), where the meaning is to "come down upon, to enwrap." "As applied to light," remarks Westcott, "this sense includes the further notion of overwhelming, eclipsing." The darkness had indeed, according to its nature, re-acted against the light, in order to suppress it; Calvary had witnessed this conflict; but it did not succeed in quenching the light. And because in that crucial attempt of moral darkness to overcome the true light, it signally failed, the light shines on even now: This interpretation is preferable to the one which is suggested by the word "comprehended"; especially if this word be equivalent to "understood." 7. The same came for a witness (or, more briefly, for witness). The chief end for which John the Baptist appeared, is here expressed by a single word, "testimony," or "witness" (μaprupia). This was the highest and immediate, if not the only, object of his mission to the people. And the difference between teaching or preaching, and bearing witness, should be borne in mind. (Compare 3:11, 32; 15: 27; also 1: 19; 8: 13, 14; 19: 35; 21: 24.) One bears witness of what he knows by personal observation, or by revelation from God.-To bear witness of the Light. (Compare 1: 33, 34.) Literally, that he might bear witness concerning the light. This clause repeats the idea of the foregoing, together with a statement of the person concerning whom the testimony was to be given. That person is here called the Light, because in and through him divine truth was offered to the souls of men. John was indeed "the lamp kindled and shining" (5:35), but he was in no proper sense "the Light." His light was borrowed and dim, but Christ was light, self-revealing and Godrevealing, the original and perfect light. This clause depends on the verb came.— That all men through him might be 6-13. TREATMENT OF THE GOD-REVEAL- lieve. The word him refers to John; and ING LIGHT BY MEN. the belief meant is belief in Christ, the true 6. There was a man sent from God, light. (Calvin, Bengel, Lücke, Olshausen, whose name was John. The word Tholuck, Lange, Luthardt, Alford, Meyer, (éyévero) translated was, signifies primarily De Wette, Godet, Weiss, Abbott, Clark.) "became," and is sometimes used with reference to birth, as in Gal. 4:4. But it may also denote such an event as the historical appearance of John to the people as a messenger of God; and this seems to be its import here. The added expression, sent from God, characterizes John as a true prophet, The direct object of John's mission was to bear witness concerning the Word, or Light, who is the Revealer of the Father; and the remoter object to be secured by this witnessing, was belief in the Word made flesh, the Saviour of the world. "The person of John is in itself of no importance, because it is |