Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him. The Son, therefore, as the revealer of God, is the Word. The reason why John selected this designation of the divine nature of Christ, is not so easy to determine. It may indeed be said that there is ground for the use of the term in the usage of the Old Testament and of the Jews who were contemporaries with the Apostle. In the Hebrew Scriptures the manifested Jehovah is called the Word of God, and to Him individual subsistence and divine perfections ai'e ascribed. (Ps. xxxiii. 6 ; cxix. 89 ; Is. xl. 8 ; Ps. cvii. 20 ; cxlvii. 18.) This is more frequently done in the apocryphal books and in the Targums. It was not therefore an unusual or unknown term introduced by the Apostle John. Still as he only, of the New Testament writers, thus employs the word, there must have been some special reason for his doing so. That reason may have been to counteract the erroneous views concerning the nature of God and his Word, which had begun to prevail, and which had some support from the doctrines of Philo and other Alexandrian Jews. It is, however, of less importance to determine why John calls the Son Aoyos, than to ascertain what he teaches concerning Him. He does teach (1.) That He is eternal. He was in the beginning ; i. g., was before the creation ; before the foundation of the world ; before the world was. Compare Prov. viii. 23 ; John xvii. 5, 24 ; Eph. i. 4. These are all Scriptural forms of expressing the idea of eternity. The Word then was {rjv). He did not begin to be but already was. The r}v of ver. 1 stands opposed to eyeWro ver. 14. " He ivas the Word, and became flesh." (2.) The eternal Word ex- isted in intimate union with God. " The Word was with God ; " as Wisdom is said to have been with Him in the beginning. (Prov. viii. 30 ; John i. 18.) (3.) He was God. The word Oio<i is clearly the predicate, as it is without the article (compare John iv. 24, TTvev/xa 6 Ocos, God is a Spirit), and because Xoyos is the subject in the whole context. That 6e6s is neither to be taken for 6e2o?, nor rendered a Grod, is plain from what is immediately said of the Aoyos in the following verses, and from the analogy of Scripture, which proves that the Adyos is 6'€o's in the highest sense of the word. ' In this connection 6 6e6^ rjv 6 Adyos would be equivalent to saying, " The Son is the Father." ©cds without the article occurs frequently in the New Testament when it refers to the supreme God. (4.) The Vdyos is the creator of all things. AH things were made by Him, 8t' avTov. The 8ta here does not necessarily express subordinate instrumentality. All things are said to be 8ta Oeov as well as Ik 6'eoS. The Father operates through the Son and the Son through the
606 PART I. — THEOLOGY. [Ch. VII. — Divinity of Chbmt
Spirit. All that the preposition indicates is subordination as to tho mode of operation, which is elsewhere taught in relation to the per- sons of the Trinity. That all creatures owe their being to the Word, is made the more prominent by saying, " Without him was not anything made that was made ; " ttSv 6 yiyov^v is through Him. He therefore cannot be a creature. He was not only before all crea- tures, but everything created was by Him caused to be, (5.) The Xdyos is self-existent. He is underived. " In him was life." This is true only of God. The Godhead subsisting in the Father, Word, and Spirit, alone is self-existent, having life in itself. (6.) The life of the Word " is the light of men." Having life in Himself, the Word is the source of life in all that lives, and especially of the intel- lectual and spiritual life of man ; and therefore He is said to be the light of men ; i. e., the source of intellectual life and knowledge in all tlieir forms. (7.) The Aoyos, as the true or real light, shineth in darkness (ef i-rj o-kotlo. = iv toTs eo-KOTto-^teVots) in the midst of a world alienated from God. The men of the world, the children of dark- ness, do not comprehend the light ; they do not recognize the Word as God, the creator of all things, and the source of life and knowl- edge. To those who do thus recognize Him, He gives power to become the sons of God, that is. He raises them to the dignity and blessedness of God's children. (8.) This Word became flesh that is, became a man. This use of the word flesh is explained by such passages as 1 Tim. iii. 16 ; Heb. ii. 14 ; Rom. viii. 3, in con- nection with Luke i. 35 ; Gal. iv. 4 ; Phil. ii. 7. As to the glory of the incarnate Xoyos, the Apostle says of himself and of his fellow disciples, " We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father " ; such as could belong to none other than to Him who is the eternal Son of God, consubstantial with the Father.
Other Passages in St. JohrCs Gospel. This introduction, which thus unmistakably sets forth the divine nature of Christ, is the key-note of John's Gospel, and of all his other writings. His main object is to convince men that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh, and that the acknowledgment of Him as such is necessary to salvation. This Apostle was, therefore, in the early Church called the ©eoAoyos, because he taught so clearly and earnestly that the Xoyos is God. In verse 18 of this chapter he says that the Son alone has the knowledge of God, and is the source of that knowledge to others. He showed Nathanael that He knew his character, being the searcher of hearts. In his discourse with Nico- demus, He spoke with divine authority ; revealing the things of
§8, A.] THE DIVmiTY OF CHRIST. 507
heaven, because He came from heaven and was even then in heaven. His coming into the world was the highest evidence of divine love, and the salvation of all men depends on faith in Him ; that is, on their believing that He is what He declared Himself to be, and trusting Him and obeying Him accordingly. When the Jews censured Him for healing a lame man on the Sabbath, He de- fended Himself by saying that God worked on the Sabbath ; that He and the Father were one ; that He did whatever God did ; that He could give life to whom He willed; that all judgment was committed to Him, and that He was entitled to the same honour as the Father. In the sixth chapter He sets Himself forth as the source of life, first under the figure of bread, and then under that of a sacrifice. In the eighth chapter He declares Himself to be the light of the world. " He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." He alone could give true freedom, freedom from the condemnation and power of sin. He had been the only Saviour from the beginning as He was the object of faith to Abraham, who saw his day, and rejoiced, for he says, " Before Abraham was I am," thereby asserting not only his preexistence, but his eternity, as He declares himself to be the "I am," that is, the self-existing and immutable Jehovah.
In chapter x., under the character of a shepherd. He represents Himself as the head of all God's people, whose voice they hear, whose steps they follow, and in whose care they trust. For them He lays down his life, and takes it again. To them He gives eter- nal life, and their salvation is certain, for no one is able to pluck them out of his hands ; and He and the Father are one. The elev- enth chapter contains the history of the resurrection of Lazarus, on which it may be remarked, (1.) That his disciples had full confi- dence that Christ could deliver from death whom He pleased. (2.) That He claims to be the resurrection and the life. To all that believe on Him He is the source of spiritual life to the soul, and of a resurrection to the body. (3.) In illustration and proof of his divine power, He called Lazarus from the grave.
Our Lord's Last Discourse. The discourse recorded in the 14th, 15th, and 16th, and the prayer recorded in the 17th chapter, are the words of God to men. No created being could speak as Christ liere speaks. He begins by exhorting his disciples to have the same faith in Him which they had in God. He went to prepare heaven for them, and would return and take them to Himself. The knowledge of Him is the
508 PART I. — THEOLOGY. [Ch, VH. — Divinity of Christ