II. If there were nothing else to the purpose in the whole of

the New Testament, those first fourteen verses of the fourth Gospel would suffice to persuade a believer in Holy Scripture of the truth that Jesus Christ is absolutely Gop. It is a mistake to regard those fourteen verses as a mere prefatory attack upon the gnosis of Cerinthus, having no necessary connexion with the narrative which follows, and representing nothing essential to the integrity of the Apostle’s thought. For, as Baur very truly observes, the doctrine of the prologue is the very fundamental idea which underlies the whole ‘Johannean theology4.’ It is not enough to say that between the prologue and the history which follows there exists an intimate organic connexion. The pro- logue is itself the beginning of the history. ‘It is impossible,’ says Baur, ‘to deny that “the Word made flesht” is one and the same subject with the Man Christ Jesus on the one hand, and with the Word Who “ was in the beginning, Who was with God, and Who was God,” on the other 8,’
Taking then the prologue of St. John’s Gospel in connexion with the verses which immediately succeed it, let us observe that St. John attaches to our Lord’s Person two names which to- gether yield a complete revelation of His Divine glory. Our Lord is called the ‘ Word,’ and the ‘Only-begotten Son.’ It is doubtless true, as Neander observes, that ‘the first of these
4 Vorlesungen, p. 351. τ St. John i. 14. * Baur, ubi sup., St. Johni, 1. [ LECT.
in the Prologue of Saint Fohn’s Gospel. 229
names was’ put prominently forward at Ephesus, ‘in order to lead those who busied themselves with speculations on the Logos as the centre of all theophanies, frora mere religious idealism to a religious realism, to lead them in short to a recognition of God revealed in Christ ὃ, Τὺ has already ἃ been shewn that the Logos of St. John differs materially from the Logos of Platonizing Jews in Alexandria, while it is linked to great lines of teaching in the.Old Testament. No reason can be assigned why St. John had recourse to the word Logos at all, unless he was already in possession of the underlying fact to which this word supplied a philosophical form. If the word did express, in a form familiar to the ears of the men of Ephe- sus, a great truth which they had buried beneath a heap of errors, that truth, as Bruno Bauer admits, must have been held independently and previously by the Apostle’. The direct expression of that truth was St. John’s primary motive in using the word; his polemical and corrective action upon the Cerinthian gnosis was a secondary motive. |
By the word Logos, then, St. John carries back his history of our Lord to a point at which it has not yet entered into the sphere of sense and time. ‘In the four Gospels,’ says St. Augus- tine, ‘or rather in the four books of the one Gospel, the Apostle St. John, deservedly compared to an eagle, by reason of his spiritual understanding, has lifted his enunciation of truth to a far higher and sublimer point than the other three, and by this elevation he would fain have our hearts lifted up likewise. For the other three Evangelists walked, so to speak, on earth with our Lord as Man. Of His Godhead they said but a few things. But John, as if he found it oppressive to walk on earth, has opened his treatise as it were with a peal of thunder; he has raised himself not merely above the earth, and the whole com- pass of the air and heaven, but even above every angel-host, and every order of the invisible powers, and has reached even to Him by Whom all things were made, in that sentence, “In the begin- ning was the Word *.”’
Instead of opening his narrative at the Human Birth of our Lord, or at the commencement of His ministry, St. John places himself in thought at the starting-point (as we should conceive
M Nes: Kirchengeschichte, p. 549; quoted by ἜΗΝ Ἐν. Johan. kap. ἃ, 6 = Kritik der Evangel. Geschichte des Joh. p. 5; ied by Tholuck, ubi supra.
j St. Aug. tr. 36 in Johan, Υ
230 Doctrine of the Eternal Word
it) of all time. Nay rather, it would seem that if nw at the beginning of Genesis signifies the initial moment of time itself, ἐν ἀρχῇ rises to the absolute conception of that which is anterior to, or rather independent of, time2. Then, when time was not, or at a point to which man cannot apply his finite conception of time, there was—the Logos or Word. When as yet nothing had been made, He was. What was the Logos? Such a term, ina position of such moment, when so much depends on our rightly understanding it, has a moral no less than an intellectual claim upon us, of the highest order. We are bound to try to under- stand it, just as certainly as we are bound to obey the command to love our enemies. No man who carries his morality into the sphere of religious thought can affect or afford to maintain, that the fundamental idea in the writings of St. John is a scholastic conceit, with which practical Christians need not concern them- selves. And indeed St. John’s doctrine of the Logos has from the first been scrutinized anxiously by the mind of Christendom. It could not but be felt that the term Logos denotes at the very least something intimately and everlastingly present with God, something as internal to the Being of God as thought is to the soul of man. In truth the Divine Logos is God reflected in His own eternal Thought; in the Logos, God is His own Object. This Infinite Thought, the reflection and counterpart of God, subsisting in God as a Being or Hypostasis, and having a ten- dency to self-communication,—such is the Logos. The Logos is the Thought of God, not intermittent and precarious like human thought, but subsisting with the intensity of a personal
y Meyer in loc., note: ‘Véllig unexegetisch ist die Fassung der So- cinianer (8. Catech. Racov. p. 135, ed. Oeder): ἐν ἀρχῇ heisse in initio evangelii.’ :
2 Meyer in loc.; ‘Johannes parallelisirt zwar den Anfang seines Evangel. mit dem Anfange der Genesis; aber er steigert den historischen Begriff NW, welcher (Gen. i. 1) den Anfangsmoment der Zeit selbst bedeutet, zum absoluten Begriffe der Vorzeitlichkeit.’ This might suffice to refute the assertion of a modern writer that St. John does not teach the Eternity of the Divine Word. ‘Une des théses fondamentales de la spéculation ecclésiastique, c’est idée de l’éternité du Verbe. Depuis que le concile de Nicée en a fait une des pierres angulaires de la théologie Catholique, sa décision est restée ’héritage commun de tous les systtmes orthodoxes, Eh bien! les écrits de Jean n’en parlent pas.’ Reuss, Théol. Chrét. ii. 438. The author is mistaken in attributing to ἐν ἀρχῇ a merely relative force, and thence arguing that if the Word is eternal, the world is eternal also (Gen. i. 1). Besides, Θεὸς ἦν 6 Λόγος. How is the Word other than eternal, if He is thus identified with the ever-existing Being? Cf. Dél- linger, Christenthum und Kirche in der Zeit der Grundlegung, p. Ae
LECT,
in the Prologue of Saint Fohn’s Gospel. 231
form. The very expression seems to court the argument of Athenagoras, that since God could never have been ἄλογος ὃ, the Logos must have been not created but eternal. It suggests the further inference that since reason is man’s noblest faculty, the Uncreated Logos must be at least equal with God. In any case it might have been asked why the term was used at all, if these obvious inferences were not to be deduced from it; but as a matter of fact they are not mere inferences, since they are warranted by the express language of St. John. St. John says that the Word was ‘in the beginning. The question then arises: What was His relation to the Self-existent Being? He was not merely παρὰ τῷ Θεῷ Ὁ, along with God, but πρὸς τὸν Θεόν. This last preposition expresses, beyond the fact of co-existence or immanence, the more significant fact of perpetuated inter- communion. The face of the Everlasting Word, if we may dare so to express ourselves, was ever directed towards the face of the Everlasting Father®. But was the Logos then an independent being, existing externally to the One God? To conceive of an independent being, anterior to creation, would be an error at issue with the first truth of monotheism; and therefore Θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγος ἃ, The Word is not merely a Divine Being, but He is in the absolute sense God*, Thus from His eternal existence we
5. Athenag. Suppl. pro Christ. 10 (46 D. ed. Otto): εἶχεν αὐτὸς ἐν ἑαυτῷ τὸν Λόγον, didlws λογικὸς ὥν.
> St. John xvii. 5.
¢ Meyer in loc.: “πρός bezeichnet das Befindlichsein des Logos bei Gott ‘im Gesichtspunkte der Richtung der Gemeinschaft.’? Bernhardy, Syntax, p. 265.
4 The omission of the article before Θεός is explained by Meyer in loc. : ‘Die Nichtsetzung des Artikels war nothwendig, weil 6 Θεός nach dem vorherigen πρὸς τὸν Θεόν dem Logos die Identitit der Person zugesprochen hitte, was aber eben, nachdem πρὸς τὸν Θεόν die Verschiedenheit der Person gesetzt hat, ungereimt wiire, dagegen das Nichtartikulirte θεός auf diese personliche Verschiedenheit der Einheit des Wesens und der Natur folgen lisst.’ This is a sufficient reply to Winer, Gr. N. T., iii. § 19. 1.
9 Here is the essential difference between the Logos of St. John and the Logos of Philo. Meyer, who apparently holds Philo to have definitely considered his Logos as a real hypostasis, states it as follows, in his note on the words καὶ Θεὸς ἦν ὁ Λόγος: ‘Wie also Johannes, mit dem nich- tartikulirten θεός kein niedrigeres Wesen, als Gott Selbst hat, bezeichnen will; so unterscheidet sich die Johanneische Logos-Idee bestimmt von derjenigen bei Philo, welcher θεός ohne Artikel im Sinne wesentlicher Unterordnung, ja, wie Er Selbst sagt, ἐν καταχρήσει (i. Ρ- 655, ed. Mangey) vom Logos priidicirt ;—wie denn auch der Name 6 δεύτερος θεός, welchen er ihm giebt, nach ii. p. 625. Euseb. prep. Ev. vii. 13, ausdriicklich den Begriff eines Zwischenwesens zwischen Gott und dem Menschen
v |
232 The Divine Nature, how represented in St. F ohn.
ascend first to His distinct Personality, and then to the full truth of His substantial Godhead.
Yet the Logos necessarily suggests to our minds the further idea of communicativeness; the Logos is Speech as well as Thought’. And of His actual self-communication St. John mentions two phases or stages; the first creation, the second revelation. The Word unveils. Himself to the soul through the mediation of objects of sense in the physical world, and He also unveils Himself immediately. Accordingly St. John says that ‘all things were made’ by the Word, and that the Word Who - creates is also the Revealer: ‘the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory.’ He possesses δόξα, that is, in St. John, the totality of the Divine attributes. This ‘olory’ is not merely something belonging to His Essential Nature; since He allows us to behold It through His veil of Flesh.
What indeed this δόξα or glory was, we may observe by con- sidering that St. John’s writings appear to bring God before us, at least more particularly, under a threefold aspect.
1. God is Life (ζωή). The Father is ‘living’;’ He ‘has life in Himself)” God is not merely the living God, that is, the real God, in contrast to the non-existent and feigned deities of the heathen: God is Life, in the sense of Self-existent Being ; He is the Focus and the Fountain of universal life. In Him life may be contemplated in its twofold activity, as issuing from its source, and as returning to its object. The Life of God passes forth from Itself; It lavishes Itself throughout the realms of nothingness ; It summons into being worlds, systems, intelli- " gences, orders of existences unimagined before. In doing this It obeys no necessary law of self-expansion, but pours Itself forth with that highest generosity that belongs to a perfect freedom, That is to say, that God the Life is God the Creator. On the other hand, God is Being returning into Itself, finding in Itself Its perfect and consummate satisfaction. God is thus
bezeichnen soll, nach dessen Bilde Gott den Menschen geschaffen hat. Dieser Subordinatianismus, nach welchem der Logos zwar μεθόριός τις θεοῦ φύσις, aber τοῦ μὲν ἐλάττων, ἀνθρώπου δὲ κρείττων ist (i. p. 683) ist nicht der neu-testamentliche, welcher vielmehr die ewige Wesenseinheit des Vaters und des Sohnes zur Voraussetzung hat (Phil. ii. 6; Kol. i. 15 f.), und die Unterordnung des letztern in dessen Abhiingigkeit vom Vater setzt.’
‘ Cf Delitzsch, System der Biblischen Psychologie, p. 138.
ε St. John vi. 57: ἀπέστειλέ με 6 ζῶν Πατήρ.
h Ibid. v. 26: ὁ Πατὴρ ἔχει ζωὴν ἐν ἑαυτῷ.
[ LEcT.
The Divine Nature, how represented tn St. F ohn. 233
the Object of all dependent Life ; He is indeed the object of His own Life; all His infinite powers and faculties turn ever inward with uncloyed delight upon Himself as upon their one adequate End or Object. We cannot approach more nearly to a definition of pleasure than by saying that it is the exact correspondence between a faculty and its object. Pleasure is thus a test of vitality; and God, as being Life, is the one Being Who is supremely and perfectly happy.
2. Again, God is Love (ayazn)i. Love is the relation which subsists between God and all that lives as He has willed. Love is the bond of the Being of God. Love binds the Father to that Only Son Whom He has begotten from all eternityj. Love itself knows no beginning; it proceeds from the Father and the Son from all eternity. God loves created life, whether in nature or in grace; He loves the race of men, the unredeemed worldk; He loves Christians with a special lovel. In beings thus external to Himself, God loves the life which He has given them; He loves Himself in them; He is still Himself the ultimate, rightful, necessary Object of His love. Thus love is of His essence; it is the expression of His necessary delight in His own existence.
3. Lastly, God is Light (fas). That is to say, He is absolute intellectual and moral Truth; He is Truth in the realms of thought, and Truth in the sphere of action. He is the All- knowing and the perfectly Holy Being. No intellectual igno- rance can darken His all-embracing survey of actual and possible fact ; no stain can soil His robe of awful Sanctity. Light is not merely the sphere in which He dwells: He is His own sphere of existence; He is Himself Light, and in Him is no darkness at all ™,
11 St. John iv. 8: 6 μὴ ἀγαπῶν, οὐκ ἔγνω τὸν Θεόν" ὅτι ὃ Θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν. Ibid. ver. 16: ὁ Θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστὶ, καὶ 5 μένων ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ, ἐν τῷ Θεῷ μένει, καὶ ὁ Θεὸς ἐν αὐτῷ.
J St. John iii. 35: ὃ Πατὴρ ἀγαπᾷ τὸν Ὑἱὸν καὶ πάντα δέδωκεν ἐν τῇ χειρὶ αὐτοῦ. Ibid. ν. 20: 6 γὰρ Πατὴρ φιλεῖ τὸν Tidv, καὶ πάντα δείκνυσιν αὐτῷ ἃ προ ποιεῖ, Ibid. x. 17, xv. 9. Ibid. xvii. 24: ἠγάπησάς με πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου.
Κ St. John iii. 16: οὕτω γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὃ Θεὸς τὸν κόσμον, ὥστε τὸν Ὑἱὸν αὐτοῦ τὸν μονογενῆ ἔδωκεν. 1 St. John iv. 10: αὐτὸς ἠγάπησεν ἡμᾶς, καὶ ἀπέστειλε τὸν Ὑἱὸν αὐτοῦ ἱλασμὸν περὶ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν. Ibid. ver. 19: ἡμεῖς ἀγαπῶμεν αὐτὸν, ὅτι αὐτὸς πρῶτος ἢἠγάπησεν ἡμᾶς.
1 St. John xiv. 23, xvi. 27.
m™ 1 St.John i. 5: 6 Θεὸς φῶς ἐστι, καὶ σκοτία ἐν αὐτῷ οὐκ ἔστιν οὐδεμία. Tbid. ver. 7: αὐτός ἐστιν ἐν τῷ φωτί. Here ἐν does not merely point to the sphere in which God dwells. In St. John this preposition is constantly
¥]
234 Gon revealed by the Word Incarnate.
These three aspects of the Divine Nature, denoted by the terms Life, Love, and Light, are attributed in St. John’s writings with abundant explicitness to the Word made flesh.
Thus, the Logos is Light. He is the Light, that is, the Light Which is the very essence of God. The Baptist indeed preaches truth; but the Baptist must not be confounded with the Light Which he heralds®. The Logos is the true Light®. All that has really enlarged the stock of intellectual truth or of moral goodness among men, all that has ever lighted any soul of man, has radiated from Him?. He proclaims Himself to be the Light of the world4, and the Trutht; and His Apostle, speaking of the illumination shed by Him upon the Church, reminds Chris- tians that ‘the darkness is passing, and the true Light now shineth 8,’
The Logos is Love. He refracts upon the Father the fulness of His love. He loves the Father as the Father loves Himself. The Father’s love sends Him into the world, and He obeys out of love¥. It is love which draws Him together with the Father to make His abode in the souls of the faithful *.
used to denote the closest possible relationship between two subjects, or, as here, between a subject and its attribute. Cf. Reuss, Théologie Chré- tienne, ii. p. 434, for this as well as many of the above observations and references.
2 St.John i. 7: οὗτος ἦλθεν εἰς μαρτυρίαν, ἵνα μαρτυρήσῃ περὶ τοῦ φωτός, Ibid. ver. 8: οὐκ ἦν ἐκεῖνος τὸ φῶς, ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα μαρτυρήσῃ περὶ τοῦ φωτός.
° Ibid. ver. 9: ἦν τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινόν.
P Ibid.: ὃ φωτίζει πάντα ἄνθρωπον ἐρχόμενον εἰς τὸν κόσμον. ‘Das φωτίζειν πάντα ἄνθρωπον, als charakteristische Wirksamkeit des wahren Lichts, bleibt wahr, wenngleich empirisch diese Erleuchtung von Vielen nicht empfangen wird, Das empirische Verhiltniss kommt darauf zuriick : quisquis illuminatur, ab hac luce illuminatur. (Beng.).’ Meyer in J oh, i.9. The Evangelist means more than this: no human being is left with- out a certain measure of natural light, and this light is given by the Divine Logos in all cases.
ᾳ St. John viii. 12: ἐγώ εἶμι τὸ φῶς τοῦ κόσμου" ὁ ἀκολουθῶν ἐμοὶ, οὐ μὴ περιπατήσει ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ, ἀλλ᾽ ἕξει τὸ φῶς τῆς ζωῆς. Ibid. iii. 19: τὸ φῶς ἐλήλυθεν εἰς τὸν κόσμον, that i is, in the Incarnate Word. Ibid. ix. 5: ὅταν ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ ὦ, φῶς εἶμι τοῦ κόσμου. Ibid. xii. 46: ἐγὼ φῶς εἰς τὸν κόσμον ἐλήλυθα, ae πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων eis ἐμὲ, ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ μὴ μείνῃς. Comp. Eph. v. 8.
r St. John xiv. 6.
8 x St. John ii. 8: 4 σκοτία παράγεται, καὶ τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινὸν ἤδη φαίνει.
t St. John xiv. 31.
ur8tJ ohn i iii. 16: ἐν τούτῳ ἐγνώκαμεν τὴν ἀγάπην (the absolute charity), ὅτι ἐκεῖνος ὑ ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἔθηκε. Of. St. John i iii. 16.
x St. John xiv. 23: ἐάν τις ἀγαπᾷ με, τὸν λόγον μου τηρήσει, καὶ ὁ Πατήρ μου ἀγαπήσει αὐτόν, καὶ πρὸς αὐτὸν ἐλευσόμεθα, καὶ μονὴν παρ᾽ αὐτῷ ποιήσομεν. Ibid. xiii, 1, xv. 9.
[ LECT.
The Word ts the Only-begotten Son. 4235
The Logos is Life. He is the Lifey, the eternal Life 2, the Life Which is the Essence of God. It has been given Him to have life in Himself, as the Father has life in Himself*. He can give lifeb; nay, life is so emphatically His prerogative gift, that He is called the Word of Life 9,
Thus the Word reveals the Divine Essence; His Incarnation makes that Life, that Love, that Light, which is eternally resident in God, obvious to souls that steadily contemplate Himself. These terms, Life, Love, Light—so abstract, so simple, so sug- gestive—meet in God; but they meet also in Jesus Christ. They do not only make Him the centre of a philosophy. They belong to the mystic language of faith more truly than to the abstract terminology of speculative thought. They draw hearts to Jesus; they invest Him with a higher than any intellectual beauty. The Life, the Love, the Light, are the ‘glory’ of the Word Incarnate which His disciples ‘beheld,’ pouring its rays through the veil of His human tabernacled. The Light, the Love, the Life, constitute the ‘fulness’ whereof His disciples received®. Herein is comprised that entire body of grace and truth f, by which the Word Incarnate gives to men the right to become the sons of God 8.
But, as has been already abundantly implied, the Word is also the Son. As applied to our Lord, the title ‘Son of God’ is protected by epithets which sustain and define its unique sig- nificance. In the synoptic Gospels, Christ is termed the ‘well-beloved’ Son. In St. Paul He is God’s ‘Own’ Soni, In St. John He is the Only-begotten Son, or simply the Only-
Υ St. John xi. 25: ἐγώ εἶμι... ἣ ζωή. Ibid. xiv. 6.
Ξ 1 St. John v. 20: οὗτός ἐστιν... ἣ ζωὴ αἰώνιος. The οὗτος is referred to the Father by Liicke and Winer. But see p. 242, note *.
® St. John v. 26: ἔδωκε καὶ τῷ Vig ζωὴν ἔχειν ἐν ἑαυτῷ.
b Thid. i. 3, 4.
¢ 1 St. Johni, 1: ὁ λόγος τῆς ζωῆς. Reuss, Théol. Chrét. ii. p. 445.
4 St. John i. 14: 6 Adyos σὰρξ ἐγένετο, καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν, καὶ ἐθεασά- μεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ.
© Ibid. ver. 16: καὶ ἐκς τοῦ πληρώματος αὐτοῦ ἡμεῖς πάντες ἐλάβομεν.
Tbid. ver. 14: πλήρης χάριτος καὶ ἀληθείας.
ε Ibid. i, 12: ὅσοι δὲ ἔλαβον αὐτὸν, ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς ἐξουσίαν τέκνα Θεοῦ γενέσθαι.
h ῥγαπητός, St. Matt. iii. 17, xii. 18, xvii. 5; St. Mark i. 11, ix. 7, xii. 6; St. Luke iii. 22, ix. 35. Cod, Alex. reads ἐκλελεγμένον, xx. 13; cf. 2 St. Peter i. 17.
1 Rom. viii. 32: τοῦ ἰδίου Tiod οὐκ ἐφείσατο. Ibid. ver. 3: τὸν ἑαυτοῦ Υἱὸν πέμψας.
υ])
236 ‘Word’ and ‘Son’ complete and guard each other.
begotten k, This last epithet surely means, not merely that God has no other such Son, but that His Only-begotten Son is, in virtue of this Sonship, a partaker of that incommunicable and imperishable Essence, Which is sundered from all created life by an impassable chasm. If St. Paul speaks of the Resurrection as manifesting this Sonship to the world}, the sense of the word μονογενής remains in St. John, and it is plainly ‘defined by its context to relate to something higher than any event occurring in time, however great or beneficial to the human race™,” The Only-begotten Son” is in the bosom of the Father (ὁ ὧν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ Πατρός) just as the Logos is πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, ever con- templating, ever, as it were, moving towards Him in the ceaseless activities of an ineffable communion. The Son is His Father’s equal, in that He is partaker of His nature: He is His Subordi- nate, in that this Equality is eternally derived. But the Father worketh hitherto and the Son works; the Father hath life in Himself, and has given to the Son to have life in Himself; all men are to honour the Son even as they honour the Father 9, How does the Son of God, as presented to us in Scripture, differ from Him, Whom the Church knows and worships as God the Son ἢ
Each of these expressions, the Word and the Son, if taken alone, might have led to a fatal misconception. In the language of Church history, the Logos, if unbalanced by the idea of Sonship, might have seemed to sanction Sabellianism. The Son, without the Logos, might have been yet more successfully pressed into the service of Arianism. An Eternal Thought or Reason, even although constantly tending to express itself in speech, is of itself
κ St. John i. 14: ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ, δόξαν ὡς μονογενοῦς παρὰ Πατρός. Ibid. i. 18: 6 μονογενὴς Ὑἱὸς, 6 ὧν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ Πατρός. Thid. iii. 16: [6 cds] τὸν Υἱὸν αὑτοῦ τὸν μονογενῆ ἔδωκεν. Thid. ver. 18: 6 δὲ μὴ πιστεύων ἤδη κέκριται, ὅτι μὴ πεπίστευκεν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ μονογενοῦς Ὑἱοῦ τοῦ Θεοῦ. Cf. 1 St. John iv. 9: τὸν Ὑἱὸν αὐτοῦ τὸν μονογενῆ ἀπέσταλκεν 6 Θεὸς εἰς τὸν κόσμον, ἵνα ζήσωμεν δ᾽ αὐτοῦ. The word μονογενής is used by St. Luke of the son of the widow of Nain (vii. 12), of the daughter of Jairus (viii. 42), and of the lunatic son of the man who met our Lord on His coming down from the mount of the transfiguration (ix. 38). In Heb. xi. 17 it is applied to Isaac. μονογενής means in each of these cases ‘that which exists once only, that is, singly in its kind.’ (Tholuck, Comm. in Joh.i. 14.) God has one Only Son Who by nature and necessity is His Son.
1 Acts xiii. 32, 33; Rom. i. 4. Compare on the other hand, Heb. v. 8.
τι Newman’s Arians, p. 174.
n St. John i. 18, ὅ μονογενὴς Tids, where the Vat. and Sin. MSS. and Cod. Ephr. read μονογενὴς ΘΕΟΣ. Scrivener defends Tids. Int. N. Τὶ ed. 3. p. 604. For the Patristic evidence, see Alfordinloc. 9 St. Johnv.17, 23, 26.
[LECT.
Manifestation of the Word in history. 237
too abstract to oblige us to conceive of it as of a personal Sub- sistence. On the other hand, the filial relationship carries with it the idea of dependence and of comparatively recent origin, even although it should suggest the reproduction in the Son of all the qualities of the Father. Certainly St. John’s language in his prologue protects the Personality of the Logos, and unless he believed that God could be divided or could have had a beginning, the Apostle teaches that the Son is co-eternal with the Father. Yet the bare metaphors of ‘ Word’ and ‘Son,’ taken separately, might lead divergent thinkers to conceive of Him to Whom they are applied, on the one side as an impersonal quality or faculty of God, on the other, as a concrete and personal but in-
ferior and dependent being. But combine them, and each corrects
the possible misuse of the other. The Logos, Who is also the Son, cannot be an impersonal and abstract quality; since such an expression as the Son would be utterly misleading, unless it implied at the very least the fact of a personal subsistence dis- tinct from that of the Father. On the other hand, the Son, Who is also the Logos, cannot be of more recent origin than the Father; since the Father cannot be conceived of as subsisting without that Eternal Thought or Reason Which is the Son. Nor may the Son be deemed to be in any respect, save in the order of Divine subsistence, inferior to the Father, since He is identical with the eternal intellectual Life of the Most High. Thus each metaphor reinforces, supplements, and protects the other. Taken together they exhibit Christ before His Incarnation as at once personally distinct from, aud yet equal with, the Father; He is That personally subsisting and ‘Eternal Life, Which was with the Father, and was manifested unto usP.’
St. John’s Gospel is a narrative of that manifestation. It is a Life of the Eternal Word tabernacling in Human Nature among men4. The Hebrew schools employed a similar ex- pression to designate the personal presence of the Divinity in this finite world. In St. John’s Gospel the Personality of Christ makes Itself felt as Eternal and Divine at wellnigh every step of the narrative'. Thus even the Forerunner describes
P 1St.Johni. 2. Cf. Newman’s Arians, ch. ii. sect. 3.
4 St. John i. 14: ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν. The image implies both the reality and the transient character of our Lord’s manifestation in the flesh. Olshausen, Meyer, and Liicke see in it an allusion to the ‘Shekinah,’ in which the Divine glory or radiance (1113) dwelt enshrined.
τ Baur, Dogmengeschichte, i. 602: ‘Was das johanneische Hradgelinin betrifft, so versteht es sich ohnediess von selbst, dass das eigentliche Subject
¥)
38 Manifestation of the Word in history.
a Being Who appearing later in time has had an earlier exist- ence’; and Who, while coming from above, is yet ‘above all "ν᾽ Each discourse, each miracle, nay, each separate word and act, is a fresh ray of glory streaming forth from the Person of the Word through the veil of His assumed Humanity. The miracles of the Word Incarnate are frequently called His works. The Evangelist means to imply that ‘the wonderful is only the natural form of working for Him in Whom all the fulness of God dwells.’ Christ’s Divine Nature must of necessity bring forth works greater than the works of man. The Incarnation is the one great wonder; other miracles follow as a matter of course. The real marvel would be if the Incarnate Being should work no miracles’; as it is, they are the natural results of His presence among men, rather than its higher manifest- ation. His true glory is not perceived except by those who gaze at it with a meditative and reverent intentness¥. The Word Incarnate is ever conscious of His sublime relationship to the Father. He knows whence He is*. He refers not ulffrequently to His pre-existent Lifey. He sees into the deepest purposes of the human hearts around Him”. He has a perfect knowledge of all that concerns God*. His works are simply the works of God». To believe in the Father
der Persénlichkeit Christi nur der Logos ist, die Menschwerdung besteht daher nur in dem σὰρξ γενέσθαι; dass der Logos Fleisch geworden, im Fleisch erschienen ist, ist seine menschliche Erscheinung.’ It will be borne in mind that σάρξ, in its full New Testament meaning, certainly includes ψυχή as well as the animal organism (see Olshausen on Rom. vii. 14), and St. John attributes to the Word Incarnate spiritual experiences which must have had their seat in His human Soul (xi. 33, 38, xiii. 21). But Baur’s general position, that in St. John’s Gospel the Personality of the Eternal Word is perpetually before us, is unquestionably true.
® St. Johni.15: 6 ὀπίσω μου ἐρχόμενος, ἔμπροσθέν μου γέγονεν, ὅτι πρῶτός μου ἦν. 3
t Ibid. iii. 31: 6 ἄνωθεν ἐρχόμενος ἐπάνω πάντων ἐστίν.
π' ἔργα; δι: 9 ohn ν..26, vi. 21, x; 26, 31, 38, ΧΙνῚ 11,012, χνι 253.. (Ὁ too St. Matt. xi. 2. The word is applied to the Old Testament miracles in Heb. iii.g; Ps. χοῖν. 9, LXX. Cf. Archbishop Trench on the Miracles, p. 7. That, notwithstanding the wider use of ἔργον in St. John xvii. 4, ἔργα in the fourth Gospel do mean Christ’s miracles, cf. Trench, Mir. p. 8, note t+. Cf. Lect. IV. p. 158.
Y Trench, ubi supra, p. 8.
Ww St. John uses the words θεωρεῖν, θεάσασθαι to describe this,
= St. John viii. 14: οἶδα πόθεν ἦλθον.
¥. Ibid. iii, 13, vi. 62, viii. 58, xvi. 28, xvii. 5.
5 Ibid, ii. 24, iv. 17, v. 14, 42, Vi. 15. @ Ibid. viii. 55, x. 15.
b Τρία ix. 4, x. 37, sqq., Xiv. Io,
[ LEcT.
This explains St. Fohn's point of view. 239
is to believe in Him. To have seen Him is to have seen the Father. To reject and hate Him is to reject and hate the Father. He demands at the hands of men the same tribute of affection and submission as that which they owe to the Person of the Father 5,
In St. John’s Gospel, the Incarnation is exhibited, not as the measure of the humiliation of the Eternal Word, but as the veil of His enduring and unassailable glory. The angels of God ascend and descend upon Him. Nay, He is still in heaven. Certainly He has taken an earthly form; He has clothed Himself with ahuman frame. But He has thereby raised humanity rather than abased Himself. In St. John the status inanitionis, the intrinsic humiliation of Christ’s Incarnate Life, is thrown into the background of the reader’s thought. The narrative is throughout illuminated by the never-failing presence of the Word in His glory4, Even when Jesus dies, His Death is no mere humilia-
¢ As M. Reuss admits: ‘Tl résulte (from the prerogatives ascribed to the Word Incarnate in St. John’s Gospel) que le Verbe révélateur pouvait demander pour lui-méme, de la part des hommes, les mémes sentiments, et les mémes dispositions, qu’ils doivent avoir ἃ l’égard de la personne du Pere. Ces sentiments sont exprimés par un mot, qui contient la notion dun respect professé pour un supérieur, la reconnaissance d’une dignité devant laquelle on s’incline. A cet égard, il y a égalité des deux personnes divines vis-a-vis de l’homme. On ne croit pas ἃ lune sans croire ἃ l'autre ; qui voit lune voit autre; rejeter, hair le Fils, c’est rejeter et hair le Pere. (St. Jean 111, 33, 34, xii. 44, xv. 23). Mais dans tout ceci (proceeds