together with a harmony which, through all the three or four years it has occupied them has been to both a source of constant thankfulness and joy. But they desire to forget themselves, and they ask their readers to forget them, in the one common aim to discover the true meaning of a Gospel which the eloquent Herder long ago described as 'the heart of Jesus.'

July, 1880.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO

JOHN.

CHAPTER 1: 1-18.

The Prologue.

1:1 IN the beginning was the Word, and the Word

The Prologue, vers. 1-18.

CONTENTS.-The Prologue of the Gospel of John stands in the most intimate connection with the plan and purpose of the Gospel as a whole. It is not to be regarded as a philosophical speculation to which the historical life of the Redeemer shall be afterwards conformed. It contains rather a short summary of that life in the light in which the Evangelist had been divinely taught to regard it, and of the impressions which he had gathered from it as the manifestation, the revelation, of God Himself to men. It is to illustrate and unfold this conception, which is at once metaphysical, theological, and historical, that the fourth Evangelist writes. Hence he begins with a description of what Jesus was in Himself, in the profoundest depths of His being; passing from that to what He 'became' in order that in Him men might so behold the glory of the Father as to be transfigured into the same glory, reaching onward to the fulfilment of their own destiny, to be children of God.

The Prologue is usually divided into three parts, ending with ver. 5, ver. 13, ver. 18, respectively. Of these divisions, the first brings before us the thought of the Eternal Word,-in Himself (ver. 1), and as the source of created being, of life, of light (vers. 2-5). The subject of the next thirteen verses is the Word as revealed to men, first generally (vers. 6-13), and secondly by the Incarnation (vers. 14-18). These two sections (in accordance with an important principle of structure, characterizing both this Gospel and the Apocalypse), though apparently successive, are really parallel: the thought is thus presented under two aspects, the second fuller and more definite than the first. In the former section we read of the Baptist, sent to bear witness concerning the manifestation of the Word as the Light (vers. 6-8); then of the twofold results of this manifestation, but especially of the blessedness of those who received the Word (vers. 9-13). The next section records the Incarnation of the Word (ver. 14); the testimony borne by the Baptist to the glory of the Incarnate Word (ver. 15); and, as before (but with greater clearness and definiteness, and from the point of view of human experience), the results of this crowning manifestation of the Word. This analysis, whilst showing the general parallelism of the thoughts in the several divisions of the Prologue, shows also that the division as hitherto indicated is insufficient. Ver. 14 clearly commences a new section, and yet ver. 15 (relating to the Baptist) immediately recalls the commencement of the former section (ver. 6). If, however, ver. 14 be carefully examined, it will be seen that it stands in a definite

relation to the first section, the opening words (And the Word became flesh ') being antithetical to ver. 1, and the remainder of the verse (which sets forth generally the manifestation of the Incarnate Word) corresponding to vers. 2-5. Hence the structure of the Prologue as a whole may be presented in the following tabular form:— Section I. THE WORD.

(a) In Himself (ver. 1).

(b) In His general manifestations (vers. 2-5).

Section II. THE WORD APPEARING IN THE WORLD.

(a) The Baptist's general witness concerning the Word, as the Light (vers. 6-8). (b) The general results of the manifestation of the Word (vers. 9-13).

Section III. THE WORD FULLY REVEALED IN THE INCARNATION.

A. (1) The Incarnate Word Himself (ver. 14 a: parallel to ver. 1).

(2) The Incarnate Word in His general manifestation of Himself (ver. 14 b: parallel to vers. 2-5).

B. The Baptist's witness, now definite and personal (ver. 15: parallel to vers. 6-8).

C. The complete results of this manifestation of the Word in the case of all who receive Him (vers. 16-18: parallel to vers. 9-13).

Ver. 1. In the beginning was the Word. This sublime opening of the Gospel carries our thoughts at once to the no less sublime opening of the Book of Genesis, whose first words the Evangelist certainly had present to his mind. He too will tell of a creation, and a creation has a 'beginning.' The words 'in the beginning,' taken by themselves, do not express the idea of eternal pre-existence; but they leave room for it, and in this respect they stand contrasted with the phrase 'from the beginning,' which often meets us in the writings of John (8: 44; 1 John 1: 1, 2:7, 24, 3:8). They denote simply the point of time; and the difference of thought with which they are connected, as compared with Gen. 1: 1, is to be found not in the meaning of 'beginning,' but in the different direction which the writer takes, and in the verb which he employs. In Gen. 1: 1, the sacred historian starts from the beginning and comes downwards, thus keeping us in the course of time. John starts from the same point, but goes upwards, thus taking us into the eternity preceding time. In Gen. 1 1, we are told that God in the beginning created,'done in time. Here we are told that 'in the beginning the Word was,' a verb strongly antithetical to came into being' (vers. 3, 14, comp. 8: 58), and implying an absolute existence preceding the point referred to. As that which is absolute, self-existent, not created-that which is is eternal, so the predication of eternity is involved in the clause before us taken as a whole. He who thus was in the beginning,' who, as we afterwards read, was with God,' and 'was God,' here bears the name of the Word' [Logos, which means both reason and word]. In one other verse of the Prologue this name is repeated (ver. 14); but it does not occur again in the Gospel. Nor shall we find the term (used, as here, simply and without qualification) in any other passage of the New Testament. The nearest approach is found

6

-an act

in Rev. 19: 13, where the name of the righteous Conqueror and King is given as 'The Word of God.' Two or more other passages may be said rather to recall to our thought the name we are considering than to present examples of its use; see especially John 1: 1 (the word of life,' followed by the life was manifested,' ver. 2), and Heb. 4: 12. Though, however, this term is not really adopted by any New Testament writer except John, it is not peculiar to him in any other sense. When he wrote, it was a familiar and current term of theology. It has sometimes, indeed, been maintained that John's usage must be taken by itself, since with very much of the theological speculation in which this term so freely occurs he can have had no sympathy. We shall see that John's usage certainly does in an important sense stand alone; but as it is absolutely impossible that he, living at Ephesus (to say nothing of his long residence in Palestine), should have been unacquainted with the current doctrines respecting the Logos, it is inconceivable that he can have taken up the term without reference to these doctrines. Hence it is with the history of the term that we first have to do. Every careful reader of the Old Testament is struck by the prominence given in certain passages to the word of the Lord,' language which almost implies personal action being sometimes connected with this word.' See, for example, Ps. 33: 6, 105: 19, 107: 20; 1 Sam. 3: 21. The root of this usage (at all events in very many instances) is to be found in the first chapter of Genesis, where the successive acts of creation are associated with divine words (see Ps. 33: 6). Such passages as these, with their partial personification of the word of God, seem to have powerfully impressed early Jewish teaching. There was much besides in the Old Testament to strengthen this impression,-as the frequent references in the Pentateuch to the Angel of Jehovah, and the language used of Wisdom in the Book of Proverbs (chapter 8; compare also chapters 1, 3, 9, and Job 28). Thus a minute study of Scripture language was the means of leading Jewish teachers to connect divine acts with some personified attribute of God rather than with God Himself, or to seek for some medium of communication between God and man where the Scriptures themselves had spoken of direct revelation or fellowship. What other influence aided this tendency of thought, we cannot here inquire. The results are patent, especially in the Targums or Chaldee paraphrases of Scripture. The dates of the several Targums which are extant have been a matter of controversy: for our purpose, however, this is not of consequence, as it is acknowledged on all hands that every one of these paraphrases contains early materials. We cannot within our limits quote at length; but a reference to the following passages in Etheridge's translation of the Targums on the Pentateuch will show how far the writers went in substituting 'the Word' (Memra) for the name of God Himself. In the Targum of Onkelos, see Gen. 3: 8, 28: 20; Num. 23: 4, 21; Deut. 9: 3: in that of Pseudo-Jonathan, Gen. 3: 8; Num. 23: 4, 21: in the Jerusalem Targum, besides the three last mentioned, Gen. 18: 1; 16: 13;

19:24. From the Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel may be quoted Isa. 63: 7; Mal. 3: 1. An examination of these passages will show how familiar to Jews had become the conception of the Word of God, through whom God made Himself known to men. Very little light is thrown upon the subject by the several Apocryphal books, and hence it will not be necessary to refer to them here. It is otherwise with the writings of the great Alexandrian philosopher Philo. In these the doctrine of the Divine Word holds a prominence which it would be hard to exaggerate. Yet from the multitude of passages in which Philo speaks of the attributes and actions of the Word, it is impossible to deduce with any certainty a clear statement of doctrine. Now the Word seems distinctly personal, now an attribute of God personified. In some passages the idea can be traced back to the thought of 'spoken word;' in many others Philo takes up the other meaning of the Greek word Logos, viz. reason. Hence, though Philo speaks of the universe as created through the Logos, yet in other passages the Logos is the design or the idea of creation in the mind of God. It is not necessary to carry this inquiry farther, since our only object is to collect the chief elements of thought associated with this term when John wrote. As has been said, be could not be ignorant of these various forms of teaching; if not ignorant, he could not be indifferent on the one hand to the good, or on the other to the evil, which they contained. He recognized the various teachings as a providential preparation for the true theology. In these introductory verses he adopts the term, but so defines it as to fix its meaning for all Christians. There is One by whom the Eternal and Invisible God reveals Himself: the Revealer is a Person: the Revealer is Himself God. Not only in outward manifestation, but also in inward fellowship with the heart, God reveals Himself by the Word of God, who is God. In one instance John appears to take up and ratify the wider application of the term which we have noticed above. This first verse takes us beyond the region of revelation to man: when in the beginning,' beyond the limits of time, the Logos was,' the thought of speech' ceases to give us any help towards grasping the meaning; and, if we may venture to interpret the term at all in this application, we can only think of the human analogy by which we pass from the uttered word to the thought or reason of the speaker. To all that John teaches respecting the Logos, the Lord's own teaching directly led. The doctrine of these verses is identical with that of chaps. 5: 19, 6: 57, 10: 30, 17: 5, etc. The personal application of the term is not found in our Lord's discourses; but many of those recorded in this Gospel contain remarkable examples of that exalted use of 'the word' of God to which, as we have seen, the history of this sublime name may ultimately be traced.. And the Word was with God: the second of the three statements made in this verse regarding the Word, and obviously higher than the first. It is impossible to convey in English the full force of the preposition 'with' in the Greek, for it denotes not merely being beside, but maintaining