14. Kat ὁ λόγος ’ σὰρξ ἐγένετο, καὶ Séoxyvacer ἐν ἡμῖν, (καὶ pr Tim.
689
ii, 16. Heb.
: ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ, δόξαν * ὧς μονογενοῦς ' παρὰ πατρός), ii. 14.
πλήρης χάριτος καὶ " ἀληθείας.
35; xxi.3,etc. στ ]ο. |. 1.
histories and pedigrees were here of no account, no matter how many illustrious ancestors a man could reckon, no matter what bloods united to produce him.— οὐδὲ . . . ἄνδρος. The combination of these clauses by οὐδὲ . . . οὐδὲ and not by οὔτε . . . οὔτε excludes all interpre- tations which understand these two clauses as subdivisions of the foregoing. οὐδέ adds negation to negation: οὔτε divides a single negation into parts (see Winer, p. 612). ‘‘ Nor of the will of the flesh,” z.e., not as the result of sexual instinct; ‘‘nor of the will of a man,” i.é., not the product of human purpose {‘‘ Fortschritt von Stoff zum Naturtrieb und zum personlichen Thun,” Holtz- mann). Cf. Delitzsch, Bibl. Psych., p. 290, note E, Tr.—a Ad’ ἐκ θεοῦ ἐγεννή- θησαν. The source of regeneration positively stated. Human will is re- pudiated as the source of the new birth, but as in physical birth the life of the child is at once manifested, so in spiritual birth the human will first manifests re- generation. In spiritual as in physical birth the origination is from without, not from ourselves; but just because our spiritual birth is spiritual the will must take its part in it. Nothing is spiritual into which the will does not enter.
Vv. 14-18. The manifestation of the Logos defined as Incarnation.—Ver. 14. καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο, “ and the Word became flesh”. This is not a mere repetition. John has told us that the Logos came into the world, but now he emphasises the actual mode of His coming and the character of the revela- tion thus made, καί ‘‘ simply carrying forward the discourse” (Meyer) and now introducing the chief statement (Luthardt). . It is this great statement to which the whole prologue has been directed; and accordingly he names again the great Being to whom he at first introduced us but whom he has not named since the first verse. As forcibly as possible does he put the contrast between the prior and the subsequent conditions, 6 λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο; he does not even say ἄνθρωπος but capt. He wishes both to emphasise the interval crossed, λόγος, σάρξ; and to direct
q Zech. ii.
2 Mt. νι, αρ. ti. 4s; x. 18; xv. 26,
attention to the visibility of the mani- festation. Cf. 1 Tim. iii. 16, ἐφανερώθη ἐν σαρκί; 1 John iv. 2, ἓν σαρκὶ ἐληλυθώς: also Heb. ii. 14. ‘Flesh expresses here human nature as a whole regarded under the aspect of its present corporal embodiment, including of necessity the ‘soul’ (xii. 27) and the ‘ spirit’ (xi. 33, xiii, 21) as belonging to the totality of man’? (Westcott). The copula is éyévero, and what precisely this word covers has been the problem of theology ever since the Gospel was written. The Logos did not become flesh in the sense that He was turned into flesh or ceased to be what He was before ; as a boy who becomes a man ceases to be aboy. By his use of the word ἐκένωσεν in connection with the incarnation Paul intimates that some- thing was left behind when human nature was assumed; but in any case this was not the Divine essence nor the personality. The virtue of the incarna- tion clearly consists in this, that the very Logos became man. The Logos, retain- ing His personal identity, ‘‘became”’ man so as to live as man.—kal ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν, ‘and tabernacled among us’’; not only appeared in the flesh for a brief space, manifesting Himself as a Being apart from men and superior to human conditions, but dwelt among us (‘‘ non tantum momento uno apparuisse, sed versatum esse inter homines,” Calvin). The “tent,” σκηνή, suggests no doubt temporary occupation, but not more temporary than human life. Cf. 2 Cor. ν. 1, 2 Pet. i. 13. And both in classical and N.T. Greek σκηνοῦν had taken the meaning “' dwell,” whether for a long or a short time. Cf. Rev. vii. 15, xii. 12, and Raphel, Annot. in loc. From the use of the word in Xenophon to denote living together and eating together Brentius would interpret ina fullersense: ‘ Filius ille Dei carne indutus, inter nos homines vixit, nobiscum locutus est, nobiscum convivatus est”. But the association in John’s mind was of course not military, but was rather with the Divine taber- nacle in the wilderness, when Jehovah pitched His tent among the shifting tents of His people, and shared even in their thirty-eight years of punishment.