The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 184

one wi'.th him. "And the Word was with God." Coleridge remarks upon the significance of the prepositi{ln (1rpos) as implying that the Word was "with God," not in the sense of coexistence, or local proximity, or communion, but of mysterious relation with God. The prep0sition implies that the Word was with God, before he revealed God. 'l'ho distinct. pPrsonality of t,he Son is asserted against tho error of the Sabellians, who held that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost aro but three Names of one Person. Tho "life eternal" was not only" manifested to men," but it wn.s "with the Father" (1 John i. 2). Not with God, as if to emphasize the distinction of Persons in tho Godhead ; not with men or angels, for they were yet to be created ; but with the Father in eternal glory. "It was he," says Pearson," to whom the Father said,' Let us make man in our image.'" 'Ye have no mental ?Rpacity to explain the oneness of essence, any more than tho dis- tmctness of Persons, m the Godh8lld. The apostle does not say that "God was witl, God," but that the" Word was with God." We therefore receive he!ievingly the words of our Lord him!!Olf, "I am in the Father, and the Father in me;" "I and the Father are one;" "He that bath seen me bath seen the Father," as different expressions of the same Divine truth. 3. He i.s God. "And the Word we.s God." The passage asserts the Divinity of Jesus Christ our Lord in the plainest terms. It places him within the unity of the Godhead. The Son is, therefore, not inferior to the Father. The text refutes the Arians, who say he is a super-angelic lleing inferior to God; the Socinians, who say be is only Man; and the Sabellians, who deny any distinction of Persons in the Trinity. 4. 'I7ie doctrine of tlie Trinity is a deep mystery, but it is fundamental in Christianity. Therefore the apostle reiterates the eternity, the personality, the oneness of the ,vord with God. "The same was in the beginnin~ with God." Some person might say there was a time when the Word was not a distinct Person in the Trinity. The statement is made that the same Person, who was eternal and Divine, was from eternity a distinct Per,on of the Godhead. Well may we say with Bernard, "It is rash- ness to search too far into it. It is piety to believe it. It is life eternal to know it!" Vers. 3-5.-Jesus Christ in relation to creation. The apostle next shows the relation between the finite and the infinite, the Divioe and the human. I. THE WoRD MADE FLESH. "All things were made by him." 'l'herefore he must be God. "He that built all things is God" (Heb. iii. 4). This creation has a double aspect. 1. He made the worlds. He made matter. (1) Therefore it is implied that matter exists. The existence of an external world has always been an article in the creed of men. (2) It has not existed always, as the Gnostics and so many philosophers sa v. Its atoms have all the character of "a manufactured article." Science can tell us" nothing of the time of its creation. (3) There is a Person great enough to create matter and form the worlds. He did not share, with angels, in the work of creation ; for" without him was not anything made that was made." Neither was the world made by evil spirits, as the Gnostics said. (4) This is not, therefore, o. fatherless world. (5) The ultimate fact, therefore, is not force, or any unknown power, but a Person, wise and mighty, who created all things. (6) Let Christians rejoice that the worlds are the handiwork of their Elder Brother. 2. He made man, who is the crown of creation; for "in him was life." II. THE WoRD IS THE LIFE OF THE WORLD. "In him was life." The Word is Life in its widest signification-the life of the body, the life of the soul, the life of the spirit. The world (including man), which is represented here as made by him, is also represented as in him as the Source of its continued preservation. "After having been the root of the tree, the Logos was also its sap." "For in him we live, and move, and have our bciog" (Acts xvii 28). There is a. perfect development of existence in virtue of his being our Life. III. THE RELATION OF THE LIFE TO THE LIGHT. "And the Life was the Light of men." 1. 'I7,is refers to the period of man's innocence in Paradise, as the next claU8e to tl,efact of his/all. 2. J.,,ife devel,oped in theform of light. 1t is peculiar to no being on earth but man. (1) The light did not spring directly from the Word, but was an emanation of the life that man received from the Word. (2) The light is not (a) intel- lectual knowledge simply, (b) nor holiness, but (c) the light of good through the medium of life. There was a steady shining of the light in man's conscience and intellect and heart e.t his creation. (3) It was the light of the whole race of man, not that of the CII, L 1-61.] THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. JOHN.