was with God, favoured by his Heavenly Father with peculiar intercourse with Him, and with express and complete communications respecting that grace and truth which came by him, and the means by which his all-important commission was to be executed and the Word was God, or, rather, a God,* since to him the word of God came, and he was the Representative of the Most High. The same was in the beginning with God,t from the first instructed by Him, and

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That

The Hebrew word Elohim (or Aleim, according to a different mode of pronunciation,) and the Greek word Jeos, corresponding with the appellation God, were used with much greater latitude than our more precise modes of expression will permit. Our Lord himself says (John x. 34, 35,) if he called them Gods (Jɛovs), to whom the word of God (ò λoyos TOV GEOV) came, and the Scripture cannot be broken,' &c.; and these words show the import of the Hebrew appellation when applied to inferior beings; and they afford abundant reason for the Evangelist's application of it to him, to whom, in so extraordinary a degree, the word of God came. St. John did not mean to represent Christ as truly God, is plain from our Lord's own words, in John xvii. 3, where he addresses the FATHER in prayer as the ONLY TRUE GOD. And since in the Hebrew Scriptures, and also in the Greek translation, this high appellation is repeatedly given to Rulers and Prophets, (see Exod. xxi. 6. xxii. 8, 9, 28. 1 Sam. xxviii. 13. Ps. lxxxii. 1,) and the Supreme Being is represented as sayiug to Moses, Exod. vii. 1. Behold! I have made thee a God to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy Prophet,' it is not probable that the Evangelist could be misunderstood by those for whom he wrote his Gospel. They would naturally consider him as applying the appellation to his honoured Lord, because appointed by God to be the special Revealer of His mind and will, acting under His authority, and aided by the special interpositions of His wisdom and power.-See also Chap. VI. § 1.

In like manner it is said, Exod. xxxiv. 28, Moses was there with Jehovah forty days and forty nights.'-When the Evangelist speaks of our Lord as having been, in the beginning, with God, he appears, in a particular manner, to refer to the period which our Lord passed in the Desert, after his baptism; during which he was not only exposed to temptation, but, without a doubt, was favoured with peculiar intercourse with his heavenly Father, and received from him the knowledge of his will and purposes respecting man

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receiving all his high powers and his inspired knowledge directly from Him. All things relative to the Christian dispensation were donet or executed through him: aided by divine power, and acting under divine authority, he accomplished the gracious purposes for which he came; and without him was not any thing done that was done: he gave the Apostles their commission, and illuminated their minds; he communicated to them the miraculous powers by which they were to diffuse and establish the Gospel; he continually directed them in their great work; and it was through his agency, that the world was anew created, and Gentiles as well as Jews placed in a state of spiritual privilege, and made heirs of eternal salvation. In or by him was life, and the life was the light of men: And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not: he had authority to reveal everlasting life, to enlighten thereby the darkness of nature, and extend the prospects of man

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kind. To the devout and holy mind of Jesus, this must be heaven itself.

• Пlavra 'all things' may and often must be taken (as I shall hereafter show) in a restricted sense; it never signifies the universe in John's writings; and that this Apostle indisputably uses it to signify all things relative to the Christian dispensation, see especially 1 John ii. 20. but ye have an unction from the Holy One, and know all things παντα.

+ The original word yivopai, here translated made in the P.V., is employed many huudred times in the N.T.; but in no clear instance in reference to the original ereation; and the same is almost uniformly the case in the Septuagint. Its peculiar force is to denote change of state. It may be translated, to become, to come, to be done, to be made or formed, to be born, to be, &c.-Some farther remarks on the import of the word will be found in Chap. VI. § 2.

kind to an eternal world; yet men loved darkness rather than light; and too many rejected the offered blessings. The Apostle then declares that John was a divine messenger, sent to bear witness to him who was to give to men the light of life; but that he was not himself the Light which was to enlighten mankind :* and continues in v. 9. That was the true Light which, having come into the world, or having come forth from God, is giving light to every man,† to mankind in general, without any regard to civil or religious distinctions. 10 He was in the world; he dwelt among men while engaged in executing his important commission; and the world was made or formed anew through him: introduced by him into a new state, a state of blessed and sanctifying privilege;‡ and yet the

*It is probable, from various expressions in the former part of John's Gospel, that some of the disciples of the Baptist retained their attachment to their master, and represented him, and not Jesus Christ, as the chief person. Ecclesiastical History speaks of a sect, holding such opinions, called Sabians.

From a peculiarity in the construction of the original, the clause coming into the world may refer to the true light, or to every man. The former appears to give a preferable rendering.Coming into the world, being sent into the world, coming forth from God, and coming from heaven, are expressions of nearly the same import; denoting that a person has received a commission from God, and is sent among mankind to execute it. Compare John xvii. 18.

That this verse cannot refer to the original creation, see the various passages which will be cited in Chap. VI. § 2; all proving, or founded upon, the great truth, that JEHOVAH, God of Israel, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, was the sole Creator of the universe, and that he exercised his creating power without any subordinate agency, or, as the Scriptures express it, by his great power and outstretched arm, ALONE, and BY HIMSELF. (See Jer. xxvii. 5. Is. xliv. 24.) In the great change effected by the Gospel in the spiritual condition of mankind, (of which the Apostle Paul

world knew him not, he was despised and rejected of men. "He came unto his own people, the Jewish nation, peculiarly the people of the Messiah ; but his own received him not: 12 But to as many as received him, gave he the privilege of becoming children of God, the objects of divine favour here, and heirs of a blessed immortality; even to those who believe in his name, 13 who have been born, or introduced into this state of sanctifying. privilege, not by blood, nor by the will of the flesh, nor by the will of man, i.e. (whatever be the precise meaning of each clause) not by Jewish descent or proselytism, but by God, through His gracious disposals, and in consequence of their godly disposition." And the Word, this illustrious Revealer of the divine will, though highly exalted by the Father's love and favour, and appointed to high dignity and power, became or was flesh: he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.'t We might have expected that he would be raised above the common lot of humanity; but he was subject to infirmity, distress, and mortality, and exposed to want and suffering; and at last experienced the shame and

repeatedly speaks as a creation,) Jesus Christ was the appointed agent.

In Jewish phraseology, these were termed Sons of God or Children of God, who resembled him in their moral character, or who were especial objects of the divine favour, or who were appointed by him to offices of dignity and importance. See Chap. VI. § 3.

+ The word rape flesh, "frequently and peculiarly stands for man, considered as mortal, and subject to infirmities and sufferings," See Improved Version, and Schleusner, No. 3. 4.

agony of the cross. dwelt among us full of grace and truth, with all the faithfulness and benignity of affectionate friendship; and we beheld his glory, the glorious displays of divine power by which his authority was confirmed, and the ennobling marks of divine approbation,-glory as of an only Son↑ from his Father. 15 John too bare witness concerning him, and cried, saying, "This is he of whom I said, He that cometh after me hath become before me, has taken precedency of me in dignity and power; for he was indeed my superior, my principal, the great object of my ministry, to prepare whose way I have been sent forth from God."

And for a short time he

• The Greek is, πληρης χαριτος και αληθειας. The Apostle afterwards (v. 17,) uses ǹ xapis kai ǹ adŋdɛia in opposition to o voμos-I lay no stress upon my interpretation in a doctrinal point of view; but it seems to me the most natural. The Apostle first uses the words in reference to the humanity of Jesus, in the sense which his intimate friendship with his honoured Lord naturally dictated he is afterwards led by the train of thought, to employ the same words in reference to the purposes of his mission, in the sense dictated by those purposes.

A similar mode of composition is, I think, employed in the parenthetical clause of the verse; And we bebeld his glory, rny dožav αυτού, glory as of an only son from a father, δοξαν ὡς μονογενούς Tаρа πатρоç,' where the Apostle appears to speak merely by comparison and indefinitely; but he afterwards uses the words definitely . 18. That by doka, glory, the Apostle refers principally to the miracles of our Lord is sufficiently obvious from ch. ii. 11. This beginning of miracles Jesus made in Cana of Galilee, and manifested his glory την δοξαν αυτου.” The Apostle was also a witness of his transfiguration, and probably of other direct proofs of the divine approbation, approbation as of an only son from a father.'

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The Greek word here rendered only, and in the P.V. onlybegotten, is used in circumstances (e.g. when applied to Isaac and Solomon) which show its force to be beloved as an only son, as well as strictly an only son. The Apostle John never uses the word αγαπητος beloved in reference to Christ; but uses μονογεγης only, or only-begotten, apparently in the place of it.