A COMMENTARY. ST. JOHN. СНАР. І. a N the beginning was the Word, and the Word IN a Prov. viii. 22, 1. "In [the]beginning." No article before "beginning," as there is none before the corresponding Hebrew word, yx, in Gen. i. 1, or Prov. viii, 22, or in the Sept. rendering of either of these places. The addition of the article gives it more of the idea of a definite point of time, whereas without the article indefinite or limitless duration is rather denoted. 1. "In the beginning was the Word." "In the beginning," that is, before all time, in the fathomless depths of the past eternity: as the Church in her creed expresses it, "Begotten of His Father before all worlds." Before all the ages or cons, for that is the true rendering of these words. Neither in the Hebrew of Genesis i. nor in the Greek of this place is there any article before the word "beginning." It does not mean in the beginning, as indicating a particular beginning, a moment which could be defined: let us put back the beginning of created things as far as we please, still the Word existed, so that it cannot merely mean that on the first of the six days, when duration first began to be measured, the Word was. Most probably the Holy Spirit in the opening words of Genesis would have us go back in thought infinitely beyond the first of the six days. Between God's first creative act or movement and the work of the first day in dividing the light from the darkness, there were countless ages when "The earth was without form and void, and darkness B b Prov. viii. 30. ch. xvii. 5. 1 John i. 2. e Phil. ii. 6. 1 John v. 7. b was with God, and the Word was God. upon the face of the deep," during which and before which the Word was. There is also a marked contrast between the wording of the book of Genesis and that of St. John's Gospel, which leads us up to the idea of the eternity of the Word. In "the beginning,” as it is in the book of Genesis, God created. In "the beginning," as it is in St. John, the Word was. In the beginning in the one sacred writer God performed an act. In "the beginning" in the other an Intelligence was in existence; and that the Evangelist means to put the existence of this Intelligence as anterior to everything that can be called "beginning,"-in fact from everlasting, is certain from the things which here and elsewhere are said of Him Who was thus in "the beginning." For the relations of the Son to the Father are elsewhere described in terms which render it unimaginable that God should ever have been without Him. We might as well try to conceive of God without His highest attributes. St. John in writing this exordium had evidently as much in his mind the personification of the Divine Wisdom in the book of Proverbs as he had the account of creation, and in the eighth of Proverbs Wisdom is described as saying, "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of His way before His works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. . . . Then was I by Him, as one brought up with Him: and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him." Is it to be imagined that there ever was a time when God began to possess this Wisdom-that there ever was a time when Wisdom first began to be with Him, and that there ever was a time when God began daily to delight in this Wisdom? If the Son be the expression of the hidden Wisdom, and the outcoming Word of God, is it to be thought that the Divine Being should ever have been without Him? As well might we suppose a perfect human being without intelligence or power of utterance. Now the Holy Spirit in speaking of the Son of God as the "Word of God," as "with God," "in the bosom of God," as "God in Him and He in God," as the brightness of His glory," as the "power" of God, and the "Wisdom of God," necessarily implies that He Who is all this, and of Whom all 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 2. "The same." Literally, "this [Logos or Word] was," &c. d Gen. i. 1. this can properly be said, is essential to the Divine perfection, so that to say these things of Him is to assert His co-eternity with the Father. The Word was "with God." The preposition translated "with" has a remarkable meaning. It has not merely the same significancy as our preposition "with." It implies that the Word is, in a sense, out of, or apart from, God, and yet looking towards Him; expressing as in 1 John i. 2, the existence of the Logos in God in respect of Intercourse." (Meyer.) Again, "the Greek word pros [poc] expresses proximity, but combining with that notion that of drawing near; it indicates an active relation-a felt and personal communion. The real translation would be 'The Word was in relation with God,' and it would be best, therefore, to preserve the old form, The word was with God.'" (Godet.) The simplest illustration of St. John's phrase is got from Genesis i. 26, where (with the utmost reverence be it said) the Two Persons of the Godhead look to one another, and the one says to the other "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." It is to this intimate counsel in the depths of the Divine Being that this second proposition of the Apostle alludes, as the first referred to Gen. i. 1. May I supplement this with a reference to Prov. viii., "Then was I BY Him, as one brought up wWITH Him, and I was daily His delight." So that this "with" does not mean "in," as wisdom, or love, or power may be "in" God, yet in no respect having distinct personality, but it carries with it distinctness of person from the Father, and yet communion with Him, such communion ineffable in its reality, and yet capable of being put into human language in such words as “I have learned of My Father," "I have known the Father," "I know the Father," "I love the Father." Just then as the first clause, "In the beginning was the Word," teaches His eternal existence, so this second,." The Word was with God," teaches His separate personality; so that in speaking to God He marks His own individuality by using the personal pronoun "I,” "I have glorified Thee," "I have known thee,' ""Thou lovedst me," "Glorify thou Me;" and yet such close and ineffable union that He says, "I and the Father are one." "The Word was God." In the former, i.e., the second clause, the e Ps. xxxiii. 6. ver. 10. Eph. iii. 9. Col. i. 16. Heb. i. 2. Rev. iv. 11. e 3 All things were made by him; and without 3. "Were made,” i.e., "came into being." "By him;" rather, "through" Him. All things are "of" the Father, through [the instrumentality of] the Son. word "God" is used with the article. The Word was with the Godwith Him Who, being unbegotten, is originally and essentially God of Himself, "made of none, neither created nor begotten." But in the third clause the term God is without the article, and so must be understood as if it meant "partaking fully of the nature of God." The two clauses can only be expressed to English-speaking people by a sort of paraphrase. The Word was with the one God and Father of all, and the Word, because He is the true and natural Son of the one God, was God, fully partaking of the nature of His Father, and so of the same order of being as He is. In the second clause the Father, because He is the Person by Whom the Son is begotten, and of Whose substance the Son is, is called God absolutely, "the God," as gathering up into Himself the whole Divine Nature. In the third clause the Son, because He is begotten in all the fulness and perfection of that nature, is called "God." The Nicene Creed reproduces this doctrine: "I believe in one God the Father ... I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of [or out of] God." The truth revealed in these four words, "The Word was God," is the highest thing which can be revealed to us respecting God. It is the most absolute dogma in the sense of authoritative utterance conceivable. The Church, in all her creeds, articles, standards, decrees of councils, has added nothing to it. In fact, nothing can go beyond it in the direction of the glory of the 1 "The word eróg, God, used as an attribute, simply expresses the notion of kind. It is an adjective which, while maintaining the personal distinction between God and the Logos, ascribes to the latter all the attributes of the Divine Essence, in opposition to every other essence which could have been assigned to Him either angelic or human." (Godet.) My friend the Rev. W. A. O'Conor of St. Jude's, Manchester, translates, "The Word was with the Deity, and the Word was Deity." him was not any thing made that was made. eternal Son. The dogmatic statements of the Church have rather modified it, but in such a good and right way that we can intelligently hold that "the Word was God," and yet believe perfectly the unity of the Divine Nature, in that we confess that the Son is not God unoriginate, of Himself, but "of the Father alone," God from God, "not made, nor created, but begotten." The truths set forth in this verse-the being of the Word, the Eternity of the Word, the co-existence of the Word with God, and the participation by the Word in the one Divine Nature—are in another way the most blessed Revelation respecting God which man can receive, for it assures us that in the Divine Nature there is not one mere “self”—absolutely lonely, absolutely solitary, absolutely without communion or fellowship worthy of Himself; but that in the One Godhead there has ever been a relationship answering to one of the closest relationships amongst men: for there has ever been in the Godhead a Father and a Son, the Son loving the Father and the Father the Son. On this ground only can we understand or believe that "God is love "—that is, is eternally and essentially Love. If God only began to love when late in eternity He created beings upon whom He could set His Love, then He is not essentially Love, because He was an eternity without loving, having no one to love; but it is only sufficient to name such a thing to show that it could not be. 2. The Same (or this Word, Who was in the beginning, Who was with God, and Who was God), "was in the beginning with God." Is this a mere repetition of clause 2 of the first verse? I think not: it seems written to reassure us of the distinct personality of the Word. The clause, "The Word was with God," expresses separate personality: for if one intelligence is said to be "with" another, the one must be personally distinct from the other. But since God is One, and the last clause had been "the Word was God," the reader might think that such an affirmation was a virtual denial of His separate Personality; so, to obviate this, he reiterates the clause which asserts that Personality, "the Same was in the beginning with God." If the Evangelist had been describing the Second Person as the Son of God, this reiterated statement would not have been needed, for the idea of Son necessarily carries with it distinct personal existence from the Father. But not so with the term |