John 1:9

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

Ver. 9. “ The true light, which enlightens every man, came into the world. ”

I think I must positively decide for this interpretation, making the participle ἐρχόμενον, coming, the predicate of the verb ἦν, was: was coming, for: came. This analytic form implies an idea of continuance. At the moment when John bore witness of the light, it was in course of coming; it was properly coming; thus Bengel, Lucke, de Wette, Weiss, Westcott. This verse, thus understood, leaves to the expression to come into the world the ordinary, and in some sort technical, sense which it has in John (John 3:19; John 6:14; John 9:39; John 18:37, etc.). Some interpreters, while adopting the same construction, refer this term: came into the world to the long coming of the Logos through the ages, by means of His revelations during the whole course of the Old Covenant (Keim, Westcott). But this sense would lead, as we shall see, to a tautology with the first proposition of the following verse. Other meanings given to ἦν ἔρχόμενον by Tholuck: “He was going to come,” and by Luthardt, “He was to come,” are hardly natural. Meyer, with some ancient and modern interpreters (Origen, Chrysostom, Augustine, Calvin, Beza, etc.), adopts an entirely different construction; he joins the ἐρχόμενον with the substantive ἄνθρωπον : “which enlightens every man coming into the world. ” In this case τὸ φῶς, the light, is taken as the subject of ἦν, which is translated in the sense of aderat “was present.” “The true light, which enlightens every man coming into the world, was present;” or τὸ φῶς is made the predicate of ἦν, by giving to this verb as its subject a φῶς to be supplied from the preceding verse: “This light (to which John bore witness, John 1:8) was the true light which enlightens every man coming into the world.” The uselessness of this appended phrase, which is self-evident, has been often alleged against this connection of ἐρχόμενον, coming, with the substantive every man; but wrongly, as I showed in my first edition, where I adopted this explanation. For these words thus understood would signify that the light of the Logos is a divine gift which every man brings with him when he is born, that the matter in question is, accordingly, an innate light. This idea, however, is not lost in the other construction; it is still found in the words: which enlightens every man. The two constructions of ἦν, either in the sense of was present, or by supplying with it a subject derived from the preceding verse, are not very natural. Finally, the logical connection with John 1:8 is closer with the first meaning: John came to testify of the light (John 1:8): for at that very moment it was on the point of appearing in the world (John 1:9). In my second edition, I attempted a third, or even a fourth construction, by attaching the participle ἐρχόμενον, not to ἦν, nor to ἄνθρωπον, but to φωτίζει, to enlighten, making it a sort of Latin gerundive: “which enlightens every man by coming (itself) into the world.” But this use of the participle can scarcely be justified by sufficient examples.

The word ἀληθινός, veritable, appears here for the first time. It is one of the characteristic terms of John's style. Of twenty-eight passages in which we meet with it in the N.T., twenty-three belong to John, nine in the Gospel, four in the first Epistle, and ten in the Apocalypse (Milligan). It is also used in the classics. It designates the fact as the adequate realization of the idea. It contrasts, therefore, not the true with the false, but the normal appearance with the imperfect realization. The light of which John speaks, consequently, is characterized by it as the essential light, in opposition to every light of an inferior order. The expression: which enlightens every man, if applied to the Gospel revelation, would designate the universalistic character of the Gospel; the present enlightens would be that of the idea. It is more natural, however, to find here again the notion which was expressed in John 1:4: the Logos, as the internal light, enlightening every man, illuminating him by the sublime intuitions of the good, the beautiful and the true. The term every man gives again a formal contradiction to the assertion of Baur's school which makes John a dualistic philosopher.

The Logos when coming into the world did not arrive there as a stranger. By profound and intimate relations with humanity, He had prepared for His advent here on earth, and seemed to be assured of a favorable reception: