The Benefits of the Incarnation of the Word: John 1:15–18

By David J. MacLeod

David J. MacLeod is Chairman of the Division of Biblical Studies, Emmaus Bible College, Dubuque, Iowa, and Associate Editor of The Emmaus Journal.

This is the sixth article in a six-part series, “The Living Word in John 1:1–18.”

On October 17, 1944, Thomas Torrance, who later became professor of theology at Edinburgh University, was a stretcher-bearer following the British troops in a night attack on the small town of San Martino, Italy. At daylight he came across a young soldier, Private Philips, only twenty years old, lying mortally wounded on the ground, who clearly had not long to live. As Torrance knelt down and bent over him, the young soldier said, “Padre, is God really like Jesus?” Torrance writes, “I assured him that he was—the only God that there is, the God who had come to us in Jesus, shown his face to us, and poured out his love to us as our Saviour. As I prayed and commended him to the Lord Jesus, he passed away.”[1]

Torrance never forgot that event. He wrote, “The incident left an indelible impression on me.. .. I kept wondering afterwards what modern theology and the Churches had done to drive some kind of wedge between God and Jesus. There is no hidden God. .. no God behind the back of the Lord Jesus, but only the one Lord God who became incarnate in him.”[2]

Andrew Purves wrote, “If Jesus is not God in the flesh, the effect is to shut God out of the world, making God mute, hidden, and inoperative with regard to our sin.”[3] The apostle John affirmed, however, that God is not mute, hidden, or inoperative. In John 1:14, the “central passage” on the doctrine of the Incarnation, he boldly set forth the truth that God has indeed assumed human flesh.[4] And this doctrine, wrote Torrance, is “the most fundamental truth which we have to learn in the Christian Church, or rather relearn since we have suppressed it.. .. The Incarnation was the coming of God to save us in the heart of our fallen and depraved humanity.”[5]

Having affirmed the fact of the Incarnation, John then set forth the confirmation and benefits of the Incarnation. The lesson of John 1:15–18 is this: Because the eternal Logos has assumed human nature He can meet all the needs of His people and reveal God fully to man.

The Confirmation of the Incarnation (v. 15)

Confirmed by the Prophecy of John

Verses 15–18 corroborate what John wrote in verse 14, and they conclude the prologue by underlining the uniqueness of Jesus Christ.[6] On the assumption that John was quoting an early Christian hymn in these verses, it is evident that he broke in on the hymn to give an account of the witness of John the Baptist. Verse 15 is generally believed to be a parenthesis,[7] a brief narrative section in which the apostle summarized the testimony of the last and greatest prophet of the Old Covenant (cf. Matt. 11:11; Luke 7:28).[8] He already did this in verses 6–8, when he wrote that the Baptist bore witness to the Light. Now he made it clear that the Light is identical to the incarnate Word of verse 14. This parenthesis also prepares the way for the detailed story of John the Baptist later in this chapter (vv. 19–36, esp. vv. 29–34).

Verse 15 states that “John testified about Him.” Literally the verse reads, “John bears witness of Him,” that is, the Evangelist used the historical or dramatic present,[9] in which a writer uses the present tense to describe a past event. He did this for the sake of vividness. The apostle still heard John’s voice,[10] as it were, and he wanted his readers to hear it too.

The apostle continued by stating that John “cried out, saying.. .. ” Again the tense of the verb is interesting here. It is the perfect tense (κέκραγεν, “has cried”), which normally describes an event completed in the past with results existing in the present time. In other words what John the Baptist proclaimed in the past is permanently true.[11] Sometimes, however, this tense can be translated as a present tense, “John cries out,”[12] that is, the Baptist’s voice still sounded in his ears as the Evangelist wrote his Gospel. John the Baptist, of course, was more than a witness. He was a herald, loudly proclaiming the coming of the promised Messiah.[13]

Superior to John

John the Baptist appeared on the scene before Jesus did and began to proclaim the coming of the Messiah (the Christ, the anointed one). John did not know that Jesus was the Messiah until Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River (vv. 26–33). “The Baptist proclaimed ‘the Coming One’ (ὁ ἐρχόμενος) before he had identified Him with Jesus.”[14] Then John pointed to Jesus and said, “This is the Son of God” (v. 34).

In the Jewish culture of Jesus’ day, age and precedence bestowed peculiar honor on a person. One might suspect that because John was older than Jesus and had appeared on the scene before Him, he was greater than Jesus.[15] John said that was not so. “He who comes after me has a higher rank than I.” The New International Version renders this, “He. .. has surpassed me” (v. 30). The thought is of priority in status, which was because Jesus had “priority in time.”[16] John said, “He existed before me” (ὅτι πρῶτός μου ἦν).[17] The New English Bible reads, “Before I was born, He already was.” Christ was before John in His preincarnate life, although He was born into the world six months after John the Baptist. John, then, was speaking of the Word, who existed in eternity past with God (v. 1).

Some have argued that John the Baptist could not have known of Christ’s preexistence when Jesus’ own disciples did not fully appreciate this until after His resurrection.[18] However, the Baptist was a prophet, that is, he spoke because of having received revelation directly from God. Furthermore he could point to the Old Testament, which spoke of the eternality of the Coming One (Isa. 9:6; Mic. 5:2; Dan. 7:13–14).[19]

The Benefits of the Incarnation (vv. 16–18)

Jesus Supplies All the Needs of His People (v. 16)

Having made his parenthetical remark about John the Baptist’s testimony, the Evangelist picked up the thought begun in verse 14.[20] At this point he added a third confirmation of the Word’s incarnation. In verse 14 he gave the testimony of the original disciples, “We beheld His glory.” In verse 15 he gave the testimony of John the Baptist, “He existed before me.” Now in verse 16 he added the confirming testimony of the experience of all Christians, “We have all received.”[21] The connection is a bit elliptical. What is meant is something like this: “We, too, testify to His uniqueness, because of His fullness we have all received.”[22]

In verse 14 the apostle wrote that God’s only begotten Son was “full of grace and truth.” Now he said that believers have drawn on His inexhaustible resources[23] of grace and truth. Christ is the source of all blessings, and those blessings are infinite (“grace upon grace”). John, of course, was assuming something he had not yet mentioned, namely, Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. “The Word, who became flesh, has also completed a work of redemption, because we could never enjoy His fullness if we had not been redeemed.”[24]

The phrase χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος (“grace upon grace”) is a beautiful one. It has an accumulative sense.[25] “What the followers of Christ draw from the ocean of divine fullness is grace upon grace— one wave of grace being constantly replaced by a fresh one. .. There is no limit to the supply of grace which God has placed at His people’s disposal in Christ.”[26] As the Lord told Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you” (2 Cor. 12:9).

During the closing months of World War I many German housewives had great difficulty in giving their families enough food from the small, available rations. One day a woman arrived at the seaside from a north German city. It was the first time in her life that she had been able to enjoy a sight of the vast ocean. She was quite overwhelmed with the magnificence of the view and with the endless waters. In her astonishment she cried out, “At last, after all, something which they cannot ration!” One may smile at this comment, but one can understand her delight in view of her circumstances.[27] God’s inexhaustible heavenly resources are a thousand times greater (“grace after grace”), and the Lord has placed these resources at the disposal of His children.

Paul spoke of “the unfathomable riches” of Christ’s heavenly blessings (Eph. 3:8), and he described Christ Himself as the “indescribable gift” of God (2 Cor. 9:15). The expression “according to [κατά] the riches of His glory” in Ephesians 3:16 conveys much more than if the apostle had said, “out of [ἐκ] His riches.” If a homeless person were to ask a man for a dollar, and if the man (unknown to the beggar) were a billionaire, and he gave the poor man a dollar, then he gave “out of” his riches. But he did not give “according to” his riches. If he had given him “according to” his wealth, the gift would have been very different. God gives to believers “out of His fullness” (1:16), but He also gives “grace after grace,” that is, “according to His riches.”[28]

This is not to suggest, of course, that the Christian life is free from problems, trials, or difficulties, for it is not. Yet the Lord gives grace to meet these needs. As a young man Harry Wood of Wales played soccer for a couple of that country’s teams. Later in his adult life he worked in a sawmill owned by the coal mines, but the depression came and he was out of work. He tramped the streets looking for work, but there was none. He would go to cricket matches to find relief from his depression. But he said, “I would go in through the north gate. .. and there my problem would be forgotten, but as I went out through the south I picked it up again.” Then he heard the gospel preached by Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and he was converted. Harry said, “He preached to me and showed me the way whereby I could enter by the north gate, and go out through the south, with all my problems solved!”[29]Yes, Harry was still poor and unemployed, but the truly great problems—sin, guilt, and indifference to the things of God—had all been solved. He had learned of the grace of God!

Jesus Surpasses All the Accomplishments of the Law (v. 17)

John the apostle exulted in the “grace upon grace” that all believers have received in Christ. This is in marked contrast with the spiritual condition of those who were under the Law.[30] John wrote, “The Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.”

As Calvin observed, “We must notice the antithesis in his contrasting of the law to grace and truth; for he means that the Law lacked both of these.”[31] John was not denying that God acted graciously toward the Jewish people (cf. Exod. 34:6; Ps. 86:15). Yet he taught, as did the apostle Paul, that “Christ displaced the Law of Moses as the focus of divine revelation and the way to life.. .. The new order, fulfills, surpasses, and replaces the old.”[32]

And so John set the Old Testament Law in contrast to “grace and truth.”[33] The Law “was given through Moses,” that is, he was simply the one through whom God gave the Law. However, grace and truth “came through [ἐγένετο διά] Jesus Christ.”[34] Christ was not only the Mediator of grace and truth but also is its source and embodiment.[35]

The Law, Paul wrote in Galatians 3:19 (cf. Rom. 5:20), was only a temporary addition to the essential program of salvation (Rom. 10:5; cf. 2:7); grace, however, is the complete fulfillment of God’s program.[36] Perfect obedience was, of course, impossible (Gal. 3:10–12). The Law therefore served as a preparation for the grace and truth that would come through Jesus Christ.

The antithesis may be summarized in this way: Law was preparation, while grace is the provision. The Law gives the knowledge of sin, while the grace of God through Jesus Christ puts it away (Rom. 3:20; 4:15; 5:20; 8:1–4; Gal. 3:19). The Law commands, demands, and accuses (John 5:45), but grace offers, gives, and forgives. The Law is a shadow, but grace provides the true substance of the new age (Col. 2:16; Heb. 10:1, 5–10).[37]

Alexander MacLaren (1826–1910) told of a man who was sick and lame. What is the use, MacLaren asked, of pointing to a mountain retreat and saying to the man, “Go up there and you will be helped by the purer atmosphere?” The man was unable to do it because of his illness. So it is with the Law. There is no help there.[38] “Men are not perishing because they do not know what they ought to do. Men are not bad because they doubt. .. what their duty is. The worst man in the world knows a great deal more of what he ought to do than the best man in the world practices. So it is not for want of [rules] that so many of us are going to destruction, but it is for [lack] of power to fulfill the [rules].”[39]

In John 1:17 John used the name “Jesus” for the first time in his Gospel. The eternal “Word,” who had been made flesh, is Jesus Christ. John was fond of the name “Jesus,” using it 237 times, more than any of the other Gospels (Matthew, 150 times; Mark, 81 times; Luke, 89 times). He used the title “Christ” 19 times—again, more than the other Gospels (Matthew, 17 times; Mark, 7 times; Luke, 12 times). And he used the name “Jesus” and the title “Christ” together only twice, here in 1:17 and in 17:3. The title “Christ” depicts Him as the Messiah, that is, the anointed king of Israel (cf. 1:20). John used the name and the title in verse 17 in pointing up Jesus’ superiority to Moses and the Law.[40]

Jesus Reveals All the Secrets of His Father (v. 18)

All men are limited in their knowledge of God. Verse 18 brings John’s great prologue to a close.[41] The verse serves two purposes.

First, having named Jesus in verse 17, verse 18 becomes a transition to the actual history of Christ’s life on earth.[42] Second, John expounded the fullness of truth, just as he expounded the fullness of grace.[43] It is impossible for people, because of their finiteness and sin, to have direct knowledge of God. The only way one can know Him is through the One who shares both the divine nature of God and a human nature.[44]

When John wrote, “No man has seen God at any time,” he may have been thinking of some occasion when someone claimed to have seen God.[45] In light of verse 17 he was probably thinking of Moses. It was said metaphorically that God spoke with him “face to face” (Deut. 34:10). When Moses asked to see God’s glory, the Lord told him to stand in the hollow of the mountainside while His glory passed by. He covered Moses with His hand and allowed him to see His back (Exod. 33:20–23), “for no man can see Me and live.” Moses saw, “the afterglow of the divine glory.”[46] There were other occasions in Old Testament times when people are said to have seen God (e.g., Jacob, Gen. 32:30; Moses and the leaders, Exod. 24:9–10; and Isaiah, Isa. 6:5). But all those theophanies or Christophanies were partial, visionary, and evanescent. They did not see God in His actual being.[47] They did not get “a direct vision of God’s essential glory, which no man” was permitted.[48]

All that has changed since the incarnation of Christ. In Jesus Christ God has been seen and “explained.” Jesus is here called μονογενὴς θεὸς, which is rendered by the New American Standard Bible as “the only begotten God.” This reading may seem strange to ears used to the King James Version, which has “the only begotten Son.” The King James Version reflects the reading of a large number of Greek manuscripts, but not the oldest manuscripts.[49] The oldest manuscripts favor something close to the reading of the New American Standard Bible.

But even that is not quite accurate because the word μονογενής connotes sonship—even though υἱός is not used. The reading of the New International Version (“God the only Son”) is a bit better.[50] Perhaps the best English rendering would be “the only Son, God,”[51] or “the only begotten Son, (Himself) God.”

And so the prologue ends as it began. The One who in verse 1 is called “the Word” is God, and in verse 18 the Word who was made flesh in Jesus Christ, is again said to be God.

As Bruce wrote, “Only one who fully knows the Father can make Him known.”[52] And the Son’s knowledge of the Father is powerfully underscored by the phrase ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς (“who is in the bosom of the Father”).[53] In verse 18 the prologue comes full circle. It began with the Word in the Father’s presence in eternity past, and it concludes with the Son again in the presence of the Father after His ascension.[54]

The phrase “in the bosom of the Father” is an idiom that expresses the very closest of relationships.[55] It is used in the Bible of a mother and child (Num. 11:12), of husband and wife (Deut. 13:6), and of friends reclining side by side at a feast (John 13:23).[56] It is a picture of love and close communion. Jesus, who occupies that place in relation to God the Father, knows the most secret thoughts of His Father.[57]

Jesus Christ, the eternal Word, shares the very nature of God. He dwelt with God in eternity past, and today He has an unparalleled intimacy with God the Father.[58] Only such a person is qualified to reveal God.[59] Luther said, “There is no other doctor, teacher, or preacher who resides in the Godhead and is in the bosom of the Father but the one Doctor, Christ. Humanly speaking, the Father enfolds Him in His arms and caresses Him.. .. Who else could have revealed God to us?”[60] And that is exactly what He did during His sojourn on the earth. “He has explained [ἐξηγήσατο] Him.”

The verb ἐξηγέομαι, translated “explain,” means “to tell or narrate” (cf. Luke 24:35; Acts 10:8; 15:12, 14; 21:19). The English word “exegesis” comes from this verb, so that the Son has been called “the ‘exegete’ of the Father.”[61] In classical Greek it was used of the publishing or explaining of divine secrets, and that is its meaning here.[62] In fact one commentator says that this is a brief statement of the theme of the entire Gospel of John. It is the interpretation of the person and work of the Father by the Son.[63]

An elderly man walked through the writer’s open office door at Emmaus Bible College. He said he was on his way to Minneapolis for the fifty-year reunion of his high school class. He said he had graduated from Emmaus three years after his high school graduation as president of his class, but he had abandoned the Christian faith a few months later when he was a student at Duke University. A warm and charming man, he said he was a member of the Unitarian Church and was a mystic. He said he had had a transcendent experience in which he said he had experienced the divine. But he commented that he could not put his experience in words; it was ineffable. This is so unlike Jesus Christ, the “Word” of God. He has brought to humankind the truth in His very tangible person. People come to know God not through mystical experiences with the infinite, but through the God-Man, Jesus Christ, who came to earth where He could be seen and heard.

Thou art the everlasting Word,
The Father’s only Son;
God manifestly seen and heard,
And Heaven’s beloved One.
Worthy, O Lamb of God, art Thou
That every knee to Thee should bow.
In Thee most perfectly expressed
The Father’s glories shine;
Of the full Deity possessed,
Eternally divine:
Worthy, O Lamb of God, art Thou
That every knee to Thee should bow.[64]

Conclusion

Using beautiful hymnic prose the apostle John set forth in his prologue the framework of a worldview that serves as the introduction to his Gospel. Everything that follows must be read in light of what John said in these opening eighteen verses. The various planks of his Christian worldview have been examined in this six-part series of articles. They include (1) the preexistence and deity of Christ; (2) the personal distinction of the Son from the Father; (3) the creation of the universe by Christ; (4) the reality of sin—unbelief, rebellion, and falsehood—which enshrouds the world in darkness; (5) the role of Jesus Christ as the true light, that is, as the true agent of divine revelation, opposed to all false agents both ancient and modern; (6) the rejection of Christ by Israel as an explanation of that nation’s plight; (7) the role of Jesus Christ as Savior to those who receive Him, that is, believe in Him; (8) the sovereignty of God in bringing people into His family; (9) the incarnation of the eternal Son of God; (10) His superiority to John the Baptist and, by extension, all other prophets and spiritual leaders, because of His preexistence and deity; (11) His superiority to all the accomplishments of the Law; (12) His embodiment of grace and truth; (13) His revelation of the invisible God in His own person; and (14) His present-day intimacy with God because of His ascension. As the various ingredients of John’s worldview are examined, it is evident that the person and work of Jesus Christ are the unifying factors of His entire message. For John, the Christian worldview is more than a philosophy; it is a person. It is more than a way of viewing reality; it actually brings people out of the darkness so that they can see. It is not just a way of life; it is the way of salvation.

In his celebrated trilogy of novels devoted to interplanetary travel C. S. Lewis describes the encounters of the hero, Dr. Elwin Ransom, with the strangely wonderful creatures of the planet Malacandra, or Mars. Dr. Ransom learns that they call the planet earth “Thulcandra,” and they view its inhabitants as bent or sinful. They know the tutelary spirit of earth, namely, Satan, as “the Bent One,” and they know earth, his stronghold, as “the silent planet.” The creatures of Malacandra also tell Dr. Ransom of Maleldil the Young, who went to the silent planet, dared terrible things, and wrestled with the Bent One. The apostle John, of course, would agree with the strange inhabitants of Malacandra, but he could tell them much more.[65] He could tell them what he told his readers, namely, that Maleldil the Young is none other than the Eternal Word, the Son of God Himself, the Lord Jesus Christ. He could add that the Son of God created the universe and that He did indeed plan “terrible things” to rescue the bent and sinful men who lived in the fallen stronghold of “the Bent One.” Most wonderful of all, he could tell them that the Son of God actually assumed human flesh and came to this earth on His rescue mission to deliver those living in the darkness and to defeat the Bent One, the lord of their world.[66] He could tell them that “the silent planet” is silent no longer. The Eternal Word has spoken, and the light of His message directs men and women to the truth and to fellowship with the living God.

Notes

1. Alister E. McGrath, T. F. Torrance: An Intellectual Biography (Edinburgh: Clark, 1999), 73–74.
2. Ibid., 74.
3. Andrew Purves, “Jesus Christ: Lord in History,” Princeton Theological Review 8 (February 2001): 4.
4. H. C. G. Moule, Outlines of Christian Doctrine (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1889), 61.
5. Thomas F. Torrance, The Mediation of Christ (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 48.
6. Leon Morris, The Gospel according to John, New International Commentary on the New Testament, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans), 95.
7. Some have argued that verse 15 is an interpolation by a later redactor (e.g., Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel according to John: Chs. 1–12, Anchor Bible [Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966], 15). J. A. T. Robinson called the verse a “rude interruption” (“The Relation of the Prologue to the Gospel of St. John,” New Testament Studies 9 [1962-63]: 122). There is no need to conclude that it is anything more than “a planned parenthetical remark” by the apostle John (D. A. Carson, The Gospel according to John [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991], 130).
8. “Vv. 15–17 are intended to make clear the Old Testament setting in which the work of Jesus is to be understood” (C. K. Barrett, The Gospel according to St. John, 2d ed. [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978], 167).
9. Frederick Louis Godet, Commentary on the Gospel of John, trans. Timothy Dwight, 3d ed. (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1893; reprint, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1970), 1:274; Brown, The Gospel according to John, Chs. 1–12, 15; Carson, The Gospel according to John, 130; cf. Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar beyond the Basics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 526. Other commentators treat μαρτυρεῖ as a descriptive present, that is, the present indicates that although John the Baptist had been dead for several decades when the Gospel of John was written, his witness remained. John had been incorporated, as it were, into the community and he was perpetually present and bears witness (F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983], 42; George R. Beasley-Murray, John, Word Biblical Commentary [Waco, TX: Word, 1987], 15; Ernst Haenchen, John 1, Hermeneia [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984], 120; cf. Wallace, Greek Grammar beyond the Basics, 518).
10. The traditional view of John 1:35 is that one of the two disciples of John the Baptist was the author of this Gospel.
11. Bruce, The Gospel of John, 42; cf. Wallace, Greek Grammar beyond the Basics, 573. Commenting on the extensive use of the perfect tense in John’s Gospel, Nigel Turner notes “its love of emphasis and solemnity, its stress on the abiding significance of everything” (Syntax, vol. 3 of A Grammar of New Testament Greek, ed. J. H. Moulton [Edinburgh: Clark, 1963], 83).
12. Godet, Commentary on the Gospel of John, 1:274; Barrett, The Gospel according to St. John, 167; Morris, The Gospel according to John, 96 n. 106; cf. Moulton, Prolegomena, vol. 1 of A Grammar of New Testament Greek, 147; F. Blass and A. Debrunner, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), 176, § 341; and Wallace, Greek Grammar beyond the Basics, 579–80.
13. Brooke Foss Westcott, The Gospel according to St. John: The Greek Text with Introduction and Notes (London: John Murray, 1908; reprint, Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980), 1:24–25.
14. J. H. Bernard, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary onthe Gospel according to St. John, International Critical Commentary (Edinburgh: Clark, 1928), 1:20.
15. Carson, The Gospel according to John, 131.
16. Beasley-Murray, John, 25; cf. Wallace, Greek Grammar beyond the Basics, 303.
17. Πρῶτος here has the sense of first in time (Walter Bauer, William F. Arndt, and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, 3d ed. rev. Frederick William Danker [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000], 893).
18. Cf. Bernard, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary onthe Gospel according to St. John, 1:28.
19. Godet, Commentary on the Gospel of John, 1:276.
20. Brown argues that verse 16 resumes the hymn and should be tied to verse 14 (The Gospel according to John, Chs. 1–12, 15).
21. Zane C. Hodges, like earlier writers (e.g., Origen and Luther), argues that John continued to speak in verse 16. However, ἡμεῖς πάντες (“we all”) refutes this view (“Grace after Grace—John 1:16, ” Bibliotheca Sacra 135 [January-March 1978]: 35-36).
22. S. Lewis Johnson Jr., “The Word in History and among Believers: John 1:14–18, ” Believers Bible Bulletin, December 6, 1981, 4.
23. Later in Gnostic literature the word “fullness” came to have a technical sense (Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John, trans. and ed. George R. Beasley-Murray [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971], 77 n. 1). But it is not used in that technical Gnostic sense here (Barrett, The Gospel according to St. John, 168; and Carson, The Gospel according to John, 131).
24. Johnson, “The Word in History and among Believers: John 1:14–18, ” 4.
25. The interpretation of χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος has been debated. There are at least four views, all turning on the force of the preposition ἀντί. The first view is that ἀντί suggests the idea of replacement, that is, the grace that came through Jesus Christ replaces the grace of the Old Testament Law. This interpretation has to its advantage the fact that it adopts perhaps the most common use of ἀντί (“instead of”) and was held by the Greek fathers Origen, Cyril of Alexandria, and Chrysostom (Brown, The Gospel according to John, Chs. 1–12, 16; and Carson, The Gospel according to John, 132–34). This view fails because of the clear antithesis between law and grace in verse 17. John’s point is that grace did not come by Moses (Barrett, The Gospel according to St. John, 168). A second view is that ἀντί suggests the idea of correspondence, that is, the grace Christians receive corresponds to the grace of Christ (Bernard, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to St. John, 1:29). But it is unlikely that ἀντί is ever used in this way. A third view is that ἀντί suggests the idea of exchange, that is, one grace is given “in return for” another (Barrett, The Gospel according to St. John, 168). But this kind of quid pro quo arrangement for grace is foreign to John’s Gospel (Carson, The Gospel according to John, 131). A fourth view is that ἀντί suggests the idea of accumulation or succession, that is, “grace upon grace,” one blessing after another (Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Gospel according to St. John, trans. Kevin Smyth [New York: Crossroad, 1987], 1:275–76; Bultmann, The Gospel of John, 78 n. 2; Bruce, The Gospel of John, 43; Haenchen, John 1, 120; Max Zerwick and Mary Grosvenor, A Grammatical Analysis of the Greek New Testament [Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1974], 1:287; and Murray J. Harris, “Prepositions and Theology in the Greek New Testament,” New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, ed. Colin Brown [Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1978], 3:1179). It must be confessed that the preposition ἐπί would more clearly express this idea. Furthermore, if the two halves of verse 17 are seen as a comparison and not as a contrast, then the first view would be more likely. Also the citation from Philo that is commonly used to support the fourth view (On the Posterity of Cain and His Exile 145, in Philo, Loeb Classical Library, trans. F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker [New York: Putnam’s, 1929], 2:412–15) is open to an alternate interpretation. The fourth view makes the most sense in light of the context. Carson has an extensive discussion of the problem, but in the end he imposes his own view of law and grace on John.
26. Bruce, The Gospel of John, 43; cf. A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research (Nashville: Broadman, 1934), 574.
27. Erich Sauer, In the Arena of Faith, trans. A. E. Wilder Smith and G. H. Lang (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955), 71.
28. Ibid., 71-72.
29. Iain H. Murray, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: The First Forty Years, 1899–1939 (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1982), 210–11.
30. Students of the hymnic structure of John’s prologue generally agree that verse 17 was not part of the original hymn (Ürprolog) but is an editorial explanation by John (e.g., Brown, The Gospel according to John, Chs. 1–12, 16). Joachim Jeremias calls it “an expansion of the original hymn to the Logos” (“Μωῢσῆς,” in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Gerhard Kittel, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, vol. 4 [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967], 872).
31. John Calvin, The Gospel according to St. John, trans. T. H. L. Parker (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959), 1:24.
32. Bruce, The Gospel of John, 43.
33. Many commentators hold that John sets law and grace in contrast (e.g., Godet, Commentary on the Gospel of John, 1:278–79; Bernard, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to St. John, 1:29–30; Barrett, The Gospel according to St. John, 169; Bruce, The Gospel of John, 43; and Morris, The Gospel according to John, 99). It should be noted, however, that a number of scholars read the two halves of verse 17 as a comparison, not a contrast (e.g., J. N. Sanders and B. A. Mastin, A Commentary on the Gospel according to St. John, Harper New Testament Commentaries [New York: Harper & Row, 1968], 85; Beasley-Murray, John, 15; Brown, The Gospel according to John, Chs. 1–12,16; Carson, The Gospel according to John, 132; and Jeremias, “Μωῢσῆς,” 873). See the succinct remarks of Bruce, The Gospel of John, 43–44.
34. The verb ἐγένετο earlier refers to the Word’s creative activities (1:3, 10, 12). By using it here John may have been associating grace and truth with the work of Christ (Morris, The Gospel according to John, 99 n. 121).
35. Bruce, The Gospel of John, 44; cf. Bernard, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to St. John, 1:30.
36. Cf. Westcott, The Gospel according to St. John, 1:27.
37. Johnson, “The Word in History and among Believers: John 1:14–18, ” 5.
38. Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. 1–8 (Hartford, CT: Scranton, n.d.), 33.
39. Ibid., 34.
40. Morris, The Gospel according to John, 99.
41. Bernard says verse 18 is part of the original hymn (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to St. John, 1:cxlv, 30). Others argue that it is not hymnic poetry because the word καί is not used, the coordination is poor, and there is a casus pendens. This last objection is a grammatical feature of verse 18 that bears explanation. The phrase μονογενὴς θεὸς ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς is a nominativus pendens or “hanging nominative.” This grammatically independent nominative is the logical rather than the syntactical subject of the sentence. The resumptive pronoun ἐκεῖνος is the syntactical subject. This construction is used here for emphasis and is too choppy to be considered poetic or hymnic. It seems best, therefore, to view verse 18 as John’s own conclusion (Brown, The Gospel according to John, Chs. 1–12, 17). On the grammar of casus pendens, see Wilbert Francis Howard, Accidence and Word Formation, vol. 2 of A Grammar of New Testament Greek, 423–25; and Wallace, Greek Grammar beyond the Basics, 51–53.
42. Haenchen, John 1, 121.
43. Johnson, “The Word in History and among Believers,” 5.
44. Westcott, The Gospel according to St. John, 1:27.
45. Hanson, “John 1:14–18 and Exodus 34, ” 95.
46. Bruce, The Gospel of John, 44.
47. Westcott notes that θεὸν here lacks the article, thus making the noun qualitative. “By this manner of expression thought is turned to the divine Nature rather than to the divine Person: ‘God as God.’. .. The Theophanies under the Old Dispensation did not fall under this category” (The Gospel according to St. John, 1:27–28).
48. H. A. W. Meyer, The Gospel of John (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1884), 69.
49. Most modern scholars agree that in view of 66 and 75, both of which have θεός, the scales have tipped against υἱος. A minority, however, still defend the reading υἱός (Barrett, The Gospel according to St. John, 169; Schnackenburg, The Gospel according to St. John, 1:280; and Hodges, “Grace after Grace—John 1:16, ” 43 n. 29). Advocates appeal to two considerations. First, “only begotten Son” seems to be required by the following clause, “in the bosom of the Father.” Second, “only begotten Son” is more in conformity with Johannine usage (3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9). Proponents of the reading θεός make the following responses. First, it is a mistake to assume that John always links τοῦ πατρός to the phrase ὁ μονογενὴς υἱός. In fact, of the three undisputed uses of ὁ μονογενὴς υἱός in John (3:16, 18; 1 John 4:19), all relate the phrase to ὁ θεός and none to ὁ πατήρ. The true filial counterpart to the πατρός of John 1:18 is simply μονογενής—unaccompanied by υἱός. Second, it is wrong to assume that μονογενής has to mean either “unique” or “one of a kind.” It more likely means “only begotten [son]” or “only son.” In every one of the eight undisputed New Testament uses of μονογενής the word refers to an only child, that is, it denotes a filial relationship, whether or not it is accompanied by υἱός or θυγάτηρ. See D. A. Fennema, “John 1:18: ‘God the Only Son,’” New Testament Studies 31 (1985): 124-35.
50. Brown, The Gospel according to John, Chs. 1–12, 17.
51. Fennema, who offers this translation, says that it can mean “the only Son, who (in addition to the Father) is God” (Fennema, “John 1:18: ‘God the Only Son,’ ” 128).
52. Bruce, The Gospel of John, 45.
53. There is some debate over two elements in this phrase. The first issue is how to interpret the articular participle ὁ ὢν. Some say it expresses the simultaneous presence of Jesus in heaven and on earth during His earthly ministry. “The only begotten is continually in the bosom of the Father” (Morris, The Gospel according to John, 101). However, John seems to have distinguished Christ’s descent and ascent as successive acts. Others say it speaks of the Son’s uninterrupted fellowship with the Father while on earth (e.g., Godet, Commentary on the Gospel of John, 1:282; and Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, 258–59). Haenchen argues that since the verb εἴναι has no past participle, ὁ ὢν here has an imperfect sense: “the One who was” (John 1, 121). Before the Incarnation the Son dwelt with the Father, but after becoming flesh He lived on earth. His preincarnate communion with God is the ground of His subsequent interpretation of the Father. Still others have suggested that the present participle alludes to the present session of Christ after His ascension. Bultmann wrote, “It is more probable, however, that ὢν is to be taken as a true present, and that it is therefore said of the Revealer who has returned to the Father. This would thus introduce the idea, which is so important for the Gospel that the work of the Revealer is bounded by His ‘coming’ and by His ‘return’ ” (The Gospel of John, 82 n. 6; cf. Meyer, The Gospel of John, 69–70; and Brown, The Gospel according to John, Chs. 1–12, 17). The second issue is how to interpret the preposition εἰς. Some have argued that it is static in meaning and thus is equivalent to ἐν (Barrett, The Gospel according to St. John, 169–70; and Morris, The Gospel according to John, 101 n. 126). The problem with this view is that John seems to have maintained a careful distinction between εἰς and ἐν. Of his 183 uses of εἰς, only in John 1:18 and 19:13 could it possibly have the static sense of ἐν (J. J. O’Rourke, “Εἰς and ἐν in John,” Bible Translator 25 [1974]: 139-42). In light of John’s strict distinction between εἰς and ἐν, it is most likely that εἰς has a dynamic force and points to the Son’s return to heaven through the Ascension (Meyer, The Gospel of John, 70). See the thorough discussion of the whole verse in Murray J. Harris, Jesus as God (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 73–103, esp. 94–101.
54. Adele Reinhartz has argued that “the prologue is narrated retrospectively, from a point in time after the Son’s return to the Father.” “The cosmological tale,” that is, the argument of the prologue, she writes, “proceeds parallel to the historical tale.” She adds, “References to Jesus’ pre-existence, though scattered throughout the body of the gospel (e.g., 8:58; 17:5), would be understood in the context of the pre-existent Word as described in the prologue. References to Jesus’ departure from the world and his return to the Father (16:10, 28) would be associated with the final phase of the cosmological tale as told in the prologue, when the Son is in the bosom of the Father once more (1:18)” (The Word in the World: The Cosmological Tale in the Fourth Gospel, Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series 45 [Atlanta: Scholars, 1992], 18–19). Paul R. Raabe agrees. “The prologue of 1:1–18 provides the hermeneutical key for understanding the subsequent narrative. It places the historical events occurring in Palestine within an overarching cosmological framework. The divine logos, who was with God before the creation of the world (1:1–3), became flesh and dwelt in the world (1:10, 14) and then returned to the bosom of the Father (1:18). This circle, from God to the world and back to God, receives reinforcement throughout the narrative (e.g., 6:62; 16:28)” (“A Dynamic Tension: God and World in John,” Concordia Journal 21 [April 1995]:142-43 [italics his]).
55. Meyer notes the dynamic force of εἰς and translates the phrase “having arrived at.” He writes, “It expresses the fullest fellowship with God, not before the incarnation, but after the exaltation, and at the same time exhibits the relation of love under a sensuous form (κόλπον). .. derived. .. from the analogy of a father’s embrace (Luke 6:22)” (The Gospel of John, 70 [italics his]).
56. Westcott, The Gospel according to St. John, 1:28.
57. Godet, Commentary on the Gospel of John, 1:282.
58. R. Alan Culpepper argues for a chiastic structure in John’s prologue. Although he concludes that verse 18 is not chiastic, he does argue that there is a correspondence between it and verses 1–2. He writes, “The return of the Word to the presence of God in v. 18 serves to give the prologue a definite ending which conveys a sense of order, balance and completion” (“The Pivot of John’s Prologue,” New Testament Studies 27 [1980-81]: 10).
59. Harris disagrees with this view. He says it seems to blur the fact that it is not the Son’s present communion with the Father but His preincarnate fellowship with the Father that guarantees the accuracy of His revelation (Jesus as God, 95–96). Harris’s own analysis proves, however, that a reference to the Ascension in verse 18 is possible, if not probable. As Meyer notes, John wrote from the perspective of his own standpoint years after Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension. He conceived of Christ as He is now in His state of exaltation, “as having returned to the bosom of the Father” (The Gospel of John, 70).
60. Martin Luther, Sermons on the Gospel of St. John Chapters 1–4, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan, vol. 22 of Luther’s Works (St. Louis: Concordia, 1957), 156.
61. Bruce, The Gospel of John, 45.
62. Westcott, The Gospel according to St. John, 1:29; and Barrett, The Gospel according to St. John, 170.
63. “It is the ἐξήγησις or Exhibition to the world of God in Christ” (Bernard, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel according to St. John, 1:33).
64. Josiah Conder, “Thou Art the Everlasting Word,” in Hymns of Truth and Praise (Fort Dodge, IA: Gospel Perpetuating, 1971), no. 101.
65. C. S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet (New York: Macmillan, 1978), 69–70, 86, 102, 130–33, 145, 155, and passim.
66. Ibid., 152.