ance and the mission of John. There came a man, and that man was sent from God.
From God (arapa @c0d). The preposition means from beside. It invests the messenger with more dignity and significance than if the writer had said, “sent by God.” It is used of the Holy Spirit, sent, from the Father (xv. 26). j
Whose name was John (évoya ait@ Iwdvns). Lit., the name unto him John. The first mention of John the Baptist. The last occurs, Acts xix. 3. On the name, see on Matt. iii. 1; Luke iii. 2. John never speaks of the Baptist as John the Baptist, like the other Evangelists, but simply as John. This is perfectly natural on the supposition that John himself is the author of the gospel, and is the other John of the narrative.
7. The same (ovdros). Compare ver. 2, and the pronoun éxeivos, he, in ver. 8.
For a witness (e/s paptupiav). Rev., more correctly, for witness : a witness would be pdprupa as Acts i. 8. The sense is for witness-bearing or to. bear witness. On the word, see Acts i. 22; 1 Pet. v.1. It is one of John’s characteristic words, oc- curring nearly fifty times in various forms in his Gospel, and thirty or forty times in the Epistles and Apocalypse. The emphatic development of the idea of witness is peculiar to this Gospel. ‘It evidently belongs to a time when men had begun to reason about the faith, and to analyze the grounds on which it rested” (Westcott). He develops the idea under the follow- ing forms: The witness of the Father (v. 31, 34, 37); the wit- ness of Christ himself (viii. 14; xviii. 37); the witness of works (v. 17, 86; x. 25; xiv. 11; xv. 24); the witness of Scripture (v. 39, 40, 46; i. 46); the witness of the forerunner (1. 7; v. 33, 35); the witness of the disciples (xv. 27; xix. 85; xxi. 24; 1 John i. 2; iv. 14); the witness of the Spirit (xv. 26; xvi. 13, 14; 1 John v.6). Note the emphasis attached to the idea here, by the twofold form in which it is put: first, generally, for wt- ness, and then by giving the subject of the testimony.