John 1:14

[See also the "General Considerations on the Prologue" in the comments of John 1:18.]

Ver. 14. “ And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His glory, a glory as of the only-begotten Son coming from the presence of the Father full of grace and truth.

The connection between this verse and the preceding, which is involved in καί, and, is expressed in the following thought: If faith can make of a man born of the flesh a child of God, it is because it has for its object the Word made flesh. The coming of Christ upon earth in the flesh had been already mentioned in John 1:11, from the point of view of its relation to Israel, and of the unbelief by which it had been met. John proclaims again the great fact, the subject of his narrative, from the point of view of all mankind, and as the object of the faith of the Church. There is, therefore, no tautology in this repetition. It even reflects very faithfully the phases of the development of faith in the heart of those who were formerly Jews, like John and the apostles. They first witness the appearance of the Messiah in Israel (to His own) John 1:11, and they see Him ignominiously rejected. But far from joining in this rejection, they receive Him as the promised Messiah, and through their faith in Him find the privileges of adoption and regeneration (John 1:12-13).

Then sounding in all its depths the object of a faith which is capable of effecting such wonders, they cry out: “This is the Word who has been made flesh!” The idea of the national Messiah was thus gradually transformed in them into that of the Son of God, the Saviour of mankind. The καί, and, is not, therefore, here a simple connecting copula. How, indeed, can we connect with one another by an and or an and also two ideas which are as unlike as those of 13b and 14a: “They are born of God,” and (and also): “the Word became flesh.” We do not think that the thought of the evangelist is any more successfully apprehended by paraphrasing this καί, as Luthardt does, “and to tell the whole truth,” or, as Bruckner, “and in these circumstances. ” The paraphrase of Weiss-Meyer: “And this is the way in which faith in Him was able to take form and produce such happy fruits....,” amounts to nearly the same thing with our own explanation, which was already that of Chrysostom, Grotius, etc.

The emphasis is not on the subject: the Word; this noun is repeated (instead of the simple pronoun) only with the purpose of better emphasizing the contrast between the subject and the predicate became flesh. The Word to which everything owes its existence, which created us ourselves, became a member of the human race. The word flesh properly denotes, in its strict sense, the soft parts of the body, as opposed either to the hard parts, the bones; thus when it is said, “Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bones” (Gen 2:23), or to the blood (John 6:54). From this more restricted sense, a broader one is derived: the entire body, regarded from the view-point of its substance, the animated matter; so 1 Corinthians 15:39. Finally, as the flesh is properly the seat of physical sensibility, this word, by metonomy, often designates the entire human being, in so far as he is governed in his natural state by sensibility with respect to pleasure and pain. “ For also they are but flesh,” is said of men before the deluge, Genesis 6:3. Comp. John 17:11; Psalms 65:1; Romans 3:20: all flesh, no flesh, for: every man, no man. Undoubtedly, the desire of enjoyment and the dread of suffering are not in themselves criminal instincts. They are often the precious means by which man escapes from a multitude of losses and injuries of which he would otherwise not be conscious. Still more: without this double natural sensibility, man would never be able to offer to God anything but “sacrifices which cost him nothing.” He could not himself become “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God” (Romans 12:1), and thereby fulfill his noblest destiny, that of glorifying God by the sacrifice of himself. But, on the other hand, it cannot be denied that in these two natural propensities lies the possibility of temptation and sin.

Human nature in this critical condition: such is the form of existence which the Word has consented to take for himself. The expression became flesh, accordingly signifies, first of all, that the Word left the immaterial state of divine being to assume a body, and to confine Himself, like the creature, within the limits of time and space. But the word flesh expresses much more than this. Since the work of Zeller (Theol. Jahrb. 1842), the Tubingen school makes John say that the Logos borrowed from humanity only the material body, while He Himself filled, in Jesus, the office of the spirit in every other man (the old theory of Apollinaris). But John does not dream of any such thing. We have just proved that the word flesh often designates the entire human person (spirit, soul and body, 1Th 5:23). This is certainly the case in this passage. The expression: “ the Word became body,” would have no meaning. It would have been necessary to say: took a body.

Jesus sometimes speaks in our Gospel of His soul, and of His soul as troubled (John 12:27). It is related of Him that He groaned or that He was troubled in His spirit (John 11:33; John 13:21), that He gave up His spirit (John 19:30); all this implies that the Logos does not play the part of the spirit in the person of Jesus. The spirit of Jesus is, as in every man, one of the elements of the human nature, like the soul and the body. It follows from this that the flesh denotes, in our passage, complete human nature. Consequently, this term flesh is not intended to describe merely the visibility or corporeity of Jesus (de Wette, Reuss, Baur), or even the poverty and weakness of His earthly manifestation (Olshausen, Tholuck). It designates the reality and integrity of the human mode of existence into which Jesus entered. In virtue of this incarnation, He was able to suffer, to enjoy, to be tempted, to struggle, to learn, to make progress, to love, to pray, exactly like us; comp. Hebrews 2:17. The phrase ἄνθρωπος ἐγένετο, became man, would have expressed nearly the same idea; only it would have described Jesus as a particular personality, as a definite representative of the human type, and it might have been imagined that this man had reserved for Himself an exceptional position in the race. The term flesh, which denotes only the state, the mode of existence, more clearly affirms the complete homogeneity between His condition and ours. Moreover, Jesus does not hesitate to apply to Himself the word ἄνθρωπος, man, John 8:40; and the name by which in preference to all others He described Himself, was Son of man (see on John 1:51).

The word which fills the interval between the subject, the Word, and the predicate, flesh, is the verb ἐγένετο, became. The word become, when it has a substantive for its predicate, implies a profound transformation in the subject's mode of being. Thus John 2:9: “The water became wine” (τὸ ὗδωρ οἶνον γεγενημένον). When a person is in question, this word become, without implicating his identity, indicates that he has changed his condition; for example, in the expression: The king become a shepherd. Baur and Reuss affirm that, in the evangelist's thought, the Logos, though becoming flesh, remained in possession not only of His consciousness, but also of His attributes as Logos. He clothed Himself, indeed, with a body, according to them, but as if with a temporary covering. “This incarnation was for Him only something accessory” (Reuss, ii., p. 456). Yet this scholar cannot help saying (p. 451): “There is nothing but the word become which positively affirms that, in coming, He changed the form of His existence.” Certainly! And we affirm nothing more, but nothing less. The word become shows, indeed, that this change reached even the foundation of the existence of the Logos. This natural sense of the word become is not invalidated by the expression is come in the flesh, 1 John 4:2, in which Reuss finds the affirmation of the preserving of His original nature with all its attributes, but which really involves only the continuity of His personality. The personal subject in the Logos remained the same when He passed from the divine state to the human state, but with the complete surrender of all the divine attributes, the possession of which would have been incompatible with the reality of the human mode of existence. And if He ever recovers the divine state, it will not be by renouncing His human personality, but by exalting it even to the point where it can become the organ of the divine state. This, as it seems to us, is the true Christological conception, as it appears in the Scriptures generally, and in our passage in particular.

The content of John's declaration, therefore, is not: Two natures or two opposite modes of being co-existing in the same subject; but a single subject passing from one mode of being to another, in order to recover the first by perfectly realizing the second. The teaching of John, as thus understood, is in complete harmony with that of Paul. That apostle says, indeed, Philippians 2:6-8: “He who was in the form of God...emptied (divested) Himself, having taken the form of a servant and having become like to men;” and 2 Corinthians 8:9: “Though He was rich, He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich.” These passages express, in a form which is completely independent of that of John, a conception which is identically the same: The incarnation by means of a divesting (κένωσις). We shall see that the whole Gospel history, and especially the picture of Jesus which is traced by our evangelist, accords perfectly, notwithstanding all the contrary assertions of Reuss, with the thesis of the Prologue as thus understood.

After having entered the human life, the Word took up His abode there and appropriated it to Himself even to the end; this is expressed by the following clause. The word σκηνοῦν, literally, to dwell in a tent, contains, according to Meyer, Reuss, etc., an allusion to a technical word in the religious philosophy of the later Jews, Shechinah (the dwelling-place), which denoted the visible forms by which Jehovah manifested His presence in the midst of His people. We might see thus in this word σκηνοῦν, to live in a tent, especially with the limiting phrase ἐν ημῖν, among us, an allusion to the Tabernacle in the wilderness, which was, as it were, the tent of Jehovah, Himself a pilgrim among His pilgrim people. To this conformity between the sort of habitation which Jehovah had and that of His people answers the complete community in the mode of existence between the incarnate Word and men, His brethren. Perhaps, these allusions are somewhat refined and John's thought is merely that of comparing the flesh of Jesus (His humanity) to a tent like ours (2 Corinthians 5:1).

This word σκηνοῦν, to camp, denotes, in any case, all the familiar relations which He sustained with His fellow-men; varied relations like those which a pilgrim sustains towards the other members of the caravan. It is as if John had said: “We ate and drank at the same table, slept under the same roof, walked and journeyed together; we knew Him as son, brother, friend, guest, citizen. Even to the end, He remained faithful to the path on which He entered when He became a man.” This expression, therefore, calls to mind all the condescension of that divine being, who thus veiled His majesty in order to share in the existence of the companions of His journey. The limiting phrase ἐν ἡμῖν, among us, does not refer to men in general, nor even to the Church in its totality. In connection with the word σκηνοῦν, to live in a tent, and with the following phrase, we beheld, it can only designate the immediate witnesses of the earthly existence of Jesus, who sustained towards Him the familiar relations comprised in the notion of life in common. The expression of the general feeling of the Church will come later, John 1:16-18.

According as this spectacle presents itself to the thought of the evangelist, and assumes, in the words among us, the character of the most personal recollection, it becomes to him the object of delightful contemplation. The phrase is broken. The word us, of the limiting phrase, suddenly becomes the subject, while the subject, the Word and His glory, passes into the position of the grammatical object: “ And we beheld His glory. ” How easily may this change of construction be understood in the writing of an eye-witness! We observe the reverse change in the first verses of 1 John: “ That which we have heard, that which we beheld of the Word of life..., for the life was manifested and we have seen it, this it is which we declare unto you. ” Here, the apostle begins with the impression received it is a letter to pass from this to the fact itself. But in the Gospel, where he speaks as a historian, after having started from the fact, he describes the ineffable joy which the witnesses experienced in this sight.

The word θεᾶσθαι (to behold), is richer than ὁρᾶν (to see, to discern); it is the restful seeing, as Luthardt says, with an idea of satisfaction, while to ὁρᾶν attaches rather the idea of knowledge. Baur, Keim, Reuss, apply this word behold here to a purely spiritual act, the inward sight of Christ which is granted to every believer; comp. 1 John 3:6: “He that sinneth hath not seen him;” and 2 Corinthians 3:18. We may understand the design of this interpretation. These critics refuse to recognize in the evangelist a witness, and yet they would not wish to make him an impostor. This expedient, therefore, alone remains. But this expedient involves inextricable difficulty, as we have shown in the Introduction (pp. 201-202). How could there be a question here of the glorified Christ, as an object of the spiritual contemplation of believers? Are we not at the opening of the narrative of the earthly life of Christ, at the moment when the coming of the Logos in the flesh and His condescension towards the companions of His earthly career have just been pointed out? To attribute to the word behold in such a context a purely spiritual sense, is to set at nought the evidence. Undoubtedly, the witnesses had more than the sight of the body. This beholding was an internal perception. But the first was the means of the second.

The object of the beholding was the glory of the Word. The glory of God is the beaming forth of His perfections before the eyes of His creatures. This glory is really unique; every glory which any being whatsoever possesses is only the participation in some measure of the splendor which is sent forth by the perfection of God Himself. The glory which the witnesses of the earthly life of the Logos beheld in Him could not be the splendor which He enjoyed in His pre-existent state. For this glory Jesus asks again in John 17:5: “And now, Father, glorify thou me with thyself, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” One does not ask again for what one still possesses. Reuss claims that it is only “the most arbitrary harmonistic,” which can ascribe to John the idea that the Logos divested Himself of the divine attributes when he became incarnate (Theol . johann., p. 120). But as for this harmonistic, it is John himself who suggests it in the prayer of Jesus which we have just quoted, and this is in full harmony with Paul (Philippians 2:6 ff.). What must we understand, then, by that glory of Jesus, of which John here speaks, and which is not that of the pre-existent Logos? In Chap. 2, John 1:11, after the miracle of Cana, John says: “And he manifested his glory.” We might conclude from this that, as Weiss thinks, the earthly glory of the Logos consisted in the works of omnipotence, as well as in the words of omniscience, which the Father gave Him to do and to utter.

Nevertheless, in chap. John 17:10, Jesus says: “I am glorified in them,” and this expression leads us to a more spiritual idea of the glory which He possessed here on earth. Even in our verse, the words: full of grace and truth, describe the Word and give us a much more moral notion of His glory than the explanation of Weiss implies. The essential character of this earthly glory of the Logos was, as it appears to me, the stamp of sonship impressed upon the whole human life of Jesus, the intimate communion with the Father which so profoundly distinguished His life from every other. Jesus puts us upon the right path when, before uttering the words: “I am glorified in them,” He says (John 17:10): “All things that are mine are thine, and all things that are thine are mine.” Such a relation with God is the most complete glory which can irradiate the face of a human being. It comprehends, of course, all the manifestations of such a relation, thus works of power, words of wisdom, the life of holiness and charity, all of divine grandeur and beauty, that the disciples beheld in Jesus. This explanation agrees with that of John himself in the following words: “A glory as of the only- begotten from the Father.” The conjunction ὡς, as, does not certainly express here a comparison between two similar things, but, as is often the case, the absolute agreement between the fact and the idea: a glory as (must be) that of the Son coming from the presence of the Father. Weiss urges against this explanation the absence of the article τοῦ, of the, before the words: only- begotten Son and Father; and further, the most natural sense of ὡς, as, which is that of comparison.

He translates accordingly, “A glory like to that of an only-begotten Son coming from a father,” in the sense that every only son inherits the rank and fortune of his father. Thus in this case it was seen that God had conveyed all His glory to Jesus. But this explanation would imply that every father, who has an only son, possesses also a great fortune to convey to him, which is by no means true. The absence of the article, which leads Weiss to an explanation which is so forced, is much better explained by the fact that the terms only Son and Father are treated here as proper names, or at least as substantives designating single beings of their kind (Winer's Grammar, § 18). Indeed, the Father in question is the Father, in the absolute sense, the one from whom every one who is called father in heaven and on earth derives his paternal character (Ephesians 2:15); and this only Son is the only one, not merely as the sole son of this father, but inasmuch as He is the absolute model and prototype of every one who among the sons of men bears the name of only son, With reference to ὡς, as, used to indicate the complete agreement of the fact with the idea, comp. the quite similar ὡς in Matthew 7:29; 1 Corinthians 5:3; 2 Corinthians 2:17; Galatians 3:16, etc. The glory of the incarnate Logos was undoubtedly, therefore, a humbler glory than that of his pre-existent state, but a glory which, nevertheless, marked Him as united to God by the bond of an unparalleled filial intimacy.

There was seen in Him, as never in any man, the assurance of being loved paternally by God, of the power of asking everything of Him with the certainty of being heard, and at the same time the most perfect filial fidelity towards Him. This unique glory of the Word made flesh the apostle describes, when he characterizes the entire earthly manifestation of the Word by that last stroke of his pencil: Full of grace and truth. We refer these words to the principal subject of the whole sentence, the Word. This is the simple and correct construction of the nominative πλήρης, full; it is also that which gives the best sense. Undoubtedly, this adjective might be made a nominative absolute, with Grotius, Meyer, Luthardt, Weiss and others, by referring it either to δόξαν : “ glory full of grace...” (hence the reading πλήρη in D), or rather to αὐτοῦ of him, “His glory, His who was full of grace...” (hence the reading pleni in Augustine). But these explanations, which are grammatically possible, appear to me to misconceive the true movement of the sentence. Carried away by the charm of the recollection, the evangelist interrupted the historical description of the relations which the Word sustained to those who surrounded Him; he now takes up again the picture which remained unfinished, not that a parenthesis must be supposed including the words from καί to πατρός; there is no deliberate interruption; the ardor of feeling caused the break in the sentence, which is now completed. In the Old Testament, the two essential features of the character of God were grace and truth (Exo 34:6): “ abundant in grace and truth. ”

These are also the two features which, in John's view, distinguished the human life of the Word made flesh, and which served to reveal to Him His filial relation to the Father. Grace: the divine love investing the character with affableness towards friends, with condescension towards inferiors, with compassion towards the wretched, with pardon towards the guilty; God consenting to give Himself. And as it is from grace that life flows forth, the Word became anew for believers, by reason of this first characteristic, what He had been originally for the world (John 1:4), the source of life. The second feature, truth, is the reality of things adequately brought to light. And, as the essence of things is the moral idea which presides over the existence of each one of them, truth is the holy and good thought of God completely unveiled; it is God revealed. Through this attribute the incarnate Word also became anew what He originally was, the light of men (John 1:4-5). By these two essential attributes of Jesus' character, therefore, the witnesses of His life were able to recognize in Him the only Son coming from the presence of the Father. Their feeling was this: This being is God given, God revealed in a human existence.

As a man who has made an important discovery recalls with satisfaction the suggestions which caused the first awakening of his thought and set his mind on its way forward, so from this experience, which he had had, the apostle transports himself to the decisive moment when he heard the first revelation of the fact of the incarnation. Not understood at the beginning, but afterwards made clear. For it is to this divine fact that the word of the forerunner which he is about to cite refers. John detaches this testimony from the historical situation in which it was declared, and which will be expressly recalled in John 1:30; and he makes use of it, at this time, simply with a didactic purpose, confirming by its means the capital fact of the incarnation, set forth in John 1:14. It is the second testimony, that of the official divine herald, following after that of the eye-witnesses.