Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

John 1:4

ἐν αυτῷ ζωὴ ἦν. “In Him was life”; that power which creates life and maintains all else in existence was in the Logos. To limit “life” here to any particular form of life is rendered impossible by John 1:3. In John ζωή is generally eternal or spiritual life, but here it is more comprehensive. In the Logos was life, and it is of this life all things have partaken and by it they exist. Cf. Philo's designation of the Logos as πηγὴ ζωῆς. καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἧν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων, “and the life was the light of men”; the life which was the fountain of existence to all things was especially the light of man Lücke). It was not the Logos directly but the life which was in the Logos which was the light of men. O. Holtzmann thinks this only means that as men received life from the Logos they might be expected in the gift to recognise the Giver. Godet says: “The Logos is light; but it is through the mediation of life that He must become so always; this is precisely the relation which the Gospel restores. We recover through the new creation in Jesus Christ an inner light which springs up from the life.” Stevens says: “The Word represents the self-manifesting quality of the Divine life. This heavenly light shines in the darkness of the world's ignorance and sin.” The words seem to mean that the life which appears in the variety, harmony, and progress of inanimate nature, and in the wonderfully manifold yet related forms of animate existence, appears in man as “light,” intellectual and moral light, reason and conscience. To the Logos men may address the words of Psalms 36:9, παρὰ σοὶ πηγὴ ζωῆς, ἐν τῷ φωτί σου ὀψόμεθα φῶς.

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Expositor's Greek Testament (Nicoll)

John 1:4

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