No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
No man [`No one' oudeis (G3762 )] hath seen God at any time - that is, by immediate gaze; by direct, naked perception. In the light of this emphatic negation of all creature vision of God, how striking is what follows!
The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. Had such a statement not come from the pen of apostolic authority and inspiration, who could have ventured to write or to titter it? Let us study it a little. [The extraordinary and extremely harsh reading which Tregelles here adopts, in deference to three of the oldest MSS., and some other authorities-`the only begotten God'-reading OC (Theta-Sigma) for UC (Upsilon-Sigma) - is met by such a weight of counter-authority in favour of the received reading, so thoroughly Joannean, that Tischendorf abides by it, and all but every critic approves it.] What now is the import of this phrase, "The Only begotten Son," as applied to Christ here by the beloved disciple, and in three other places (John 3:16; John 3:18; 1 John 4:9), and of "the Only begotten from the Father," in John 1:14? To say, with the Socinians and some others, that it means no more than "well beloved," is quite unsatisfactory.
For when our Lord Himself spoke to the Jews of "His Father," they understood Him to mean that God was His 'proper Father' х patera (G3962) idion (G2398)], and so to claim eqality with God; nor did He deny the charge (see the note at John 5:18). And that precious assurance of the Father's love which the apostle derives from His "not sparing His own Son" depends for its whole force on His being His essential Son, or partaker of His very nature х tou (G3588) idiou (G2398) Huioi (G5207) ouk (G3756) efeisato (G5339)]; see the note at Romans 8:32. We are shut up, then, to understand the pharse, "Only begotten," as applied to Christ, of the Son's essential relation to the Father. The word "begotten," however-like every imaginable term on such a subject-is liable to be misunderstood and care must be taken not to press it beyond the limits of what is clearly sustained by Scripture.
That the Son is essentially and eternally related to the Father in some real sense, as Father and Son; but that while distinct in Person (for "The Word was with God"), He is neither posterior to Him in time (for "In the beginning was The Word"), nor inferior to Him in nature (for "The Word was God"), nor separate from Him in being (for "The same was in the beginning with God"), but One Godhead with the Father:-this would seem to come as near to the full testimony of Scripture on this mysterious subject as can be reached by our finite understanding, without darkening counsel by words without knowledge, The special expression in the 14th verse - "The Only begotten Son [forth] from the Father" х para (G3844) Patros (G3962)], and that equally remarkable one in John 1:18, "The Only begotten Son which is in (or 'into,' or 'upon') the bosom of the Father' х eis (G1519) ton (G3588) kolpon (G2859) tou (G3588) Patros (G3962)] seem to be the complement of each other: the one expressing, as we might say, His relation to the Father's essence-as 'forth from' it; the other, if we might so speak, His non-separation from Him, but this in the form of inconceivable personal and loving nearness to Him. Thus does our Evangelist positively affirm of Christ, not only what he had just before denied of all creatures-that He "hath seen God" see John 6:46) - but that being 'in,' 'into,' or 'on' the bosom of the Father, He had access to His very heart, or without a figure, that He, and He only, has absolute knowledge of God. Well,
He hath declared him, х ekeinos (G1565) exeegeesato (G1834)] - 'He declared him' who only could, as The Word, the Reflection, the Extrusion of His very Self; He, who, living ever on His bosom, gazes on Him ever, knows Him ever, with an intimate perception, an absolute knowledge special to Himself-He it is whom the Father hath sent to "declare Him." And thus does our Evangelist close this great Introductory section of his Gospel as he began it, with The Word.
Remarks:
(1) Since God so ordered it that the first converts and the infant churches should be thoroughly familiarized with the History of His Son's work in the flesh on the lower platform of the First Three Gospels, before they were lifted up by this Fourth Gospel to the highest view of it, we may infer, that just as we also have thriven upon the milk of the other Gospels will be our ability to digest and to grow upon the strong meet of this last and crowning Gospel. And might it not be well, in the public exposition of the Gospel History, to advance from the corporeal Gospels, as the Fathers of the Church were wont to call them, х ta (G3588) somatika (G4984)], to what by way of eminence they called the spiritual Gospel х to (G3588) pneumatikon (G4152)]? Nevertheless, even in this Gospel there is an exquisite net-work of concrete outward History, which captivates even the rudest and youngest readers; and it breathes such an atmosphere of love and heaven, that the deep truths which enshrined in it possess attractions they would not otherwise have had. Thus, each is perfect in its own kind, and all are one pearl of great price.
(2) Did our Evangelist, before uttering the keynote of his whole Gospel, pave the way for it by so many introductory verses? What need, then, to put off the shoe from off our feet when we come to tread such holy ground!
(3) With respect to the origin and growth of this term, "The Word," in the sense in which it is here used-for it certainly was not used by our Evangelist for the first time-we find the teaching of the Old Testament from the first tending gradually toward that conception of it which is here presented: "The word of the Lord" is said to have given birth to creation, and to carry into effect all the divine purposes; "wisdom" is spoken of as eternally with God, and rejoicing in the habitable parts of His earth; "The Angel of Yahweh" is identified with Yahweh Himself; men are warned to "kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and they perish from the way;" and the form of that fourth mysterious Person who was seen walking in Nebuchadnezzar's burning fiery furnace, with the three Hebrew youths, was "like the Son of God." Thee conceptions, combined, would familiarize the thoughtful with something very like what is here said of The Word.
Accordingly, the more profound Jewish theologians constantly represented "The Word of the Lord" [meeymªraa' diy Yahweh] as the Personal Agent by whom all divine operations were performed. In a word, about the time of our Lord the Alexandrian Jews, with Philo at their head, engrafting the Platonic philosophy upon their own reading of the Old Testament, had fallen into the familiar use of language closely resembling that employed here; and this phraseology was doubtless current throughout all the region in which our Evangelist probably wrote his Gospel, and must have been familiar to him. And yet, in two important points, this language of the Jewish Platonists, even where it seems to come the nearest to that of our Evangelist, is vastly removed from it. First, it was so hazy, that scholars who have studied their writings the most deeply are not agreed whether by The Word х ho (G3588) Logos (G3056)] they meant a Person at all; and next, even if that were certain, this "Word" was never identified by them with the promised Messiah. The truth seems to be, that this beloved disciple, having often reflected on such matters in the stillness of his own meditative and lofty spirit, and now, after so long a silence, addressed himself to the task of drawing up one more and final Gospel, did, under the guidance of the Spirit, advisedly take up the current phraseology, and not only thread his way through the corrupt elements which had mixed themselves up with the true doctrine of "The Word," but stamp upon that phraseology new conceptions, and enshrine forever is these eighteen introductory verses of his Gospel the most sublime of all truths regarding the Incarnate Redeemer.
(4) Within the limits of this section all the heresies that have ever been broached regarding the Person of Christ-and they are legion-find the materials of their refutation. Thus, to the Ebionites and the Artemonites of the second century, to Noetus and Paul of Samosata of the third and to Socinus and his followers at and since the Reformation-who all affirmed that Christ was a mere man, more or less filled with the Divinity, but having no existence until He was born into our world-our Evangelist here cries, "IN THE BEGINNING was the Word." To Arius, in the fourth century and to a host of modern followers-who affirmed that Christ, though he existed before all other created beings, was himself but a creature; the first and highest indeed, but still a creature-our Evangelist here cries, "The Word was GOD:" All things were made by Him, and without Him was not one thing made that was made: In Him was life, and the life was the light of men: as many as received Him to them gave He power to become children of God.
The Only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He declared Him." To Sabellius, in the third century, and not a few speculative moderns-who held that there is but one Person in the Godhead; the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit being but three modes in which the one Person has been pleased to manifest Himself for man's salvation-our Evangelist cries, "The Word was in the beginning WITH GOD: He is the Only begotten from the Father, and He it is that declared Him." To those afterward called Docetoe-who, as early as the first century, held that Christ took only an apparent, not a real, humanity; and Apollinaris, in the fourth century, and some modern followers-who affirmed that Christ, though lie took a human body, took no rational human spirit, the Word supplying its place as the only intelligence by which He acted; and the Nestorians of the fifth century-who held, or were charged with holding, that Holy Thing which was born of the virgin was not "the Son of God," but only the son of Mary, to whom the Son of God joined Himself, making two separate persons, though closely united; and finally to the Eutychians-who, in the same century, affirmed that the divine and human natures were so blended as to constitute together but one nature, having the properties of both: to one and all of these errorists (in language at least, though there is reason to think not always in actual belief) our Evangelist here cries, in words of majestic simplicity and transparent clearness, "THE WORD WAS MADE FLESH;" using that term "Flesh" in its wellknown sense when applied to human nature, and leaving no room for doubt in the unsophisticated reader that He became Man in the only sense which those words naturally convey.
The Fathers of the Church, who were driven to the accurate study of this subject by all sorts of loose language and floating heresies regarding the person of Christ, did not fail to observe how warily our Evangelist changes his language from "WAS" to "BECAME" х een (G2258) egeneto (G1096)] when he passes from the pre-existent to the incarnate condition of the Word, saving, "In the beginning was the Word-and the Word was made flesh." To express this they were wont to say, 'Remaining what He was, He became what He was not.'
(5) Did the truth of Christ's Person cost the Church so much study and controversy from age to age against persevering and evervarying attempts to corrupt it? How dear, then, should it be to us, and how jealously should we guard it, at the risk of being charged with stickling for human refinements, and prolonging fruitless and forgotten controversies! At the same time,
(6) The glory of the Only begotten of the Father is best seen and felt, not in the light of mere abstract phraseology-sanctioned though it be by the whole orthodox Church, unexceptionable in form, and in its own place most valuable-but by tracing in this matchless History His footsteps upon earth, as He walked amid all the elements of nature, the diseases of men, and death itself, amidst the secrets of the human heart, and the rulers of the darkness of this world-in all their number, subtlety, and malignity-not only with absolute ease as their conscious Lord, but as if themselves had been conscious of their Master's presence and felt His will to be their resistless law.