John 1:12

But not all rejected Him. ὅσοι δὲ ἕλαβον … ὄνομα αὐτοῦ. ὅσοι, as many as, as if they were a countable number (Holtzmann), or, rather, suggesting the individuality of exceptional action on the part of those who received Him. ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς, to them (resuming ὅσοι by a common construction) He gave ἐξουσίαν, not equivalent to δύναμις, the inward capacity, nor just equivalent to saying that He made them sons of God, but He gave them title, warrant, or authorisation, carrying with it all needed powers. Cf. John 5:27; John 10:18; John 19:10; Luke 9:1; Mark 6:7, where ἐξουσία includes and implies δύναμις. τέκνα θεοῦ γενέσθαι, to become children of God. Weiss (Bibl. Theol., § 150) says.: “To those who accept Him by faith Christ has given not sonship itself, but the power to become sons of God; the last and highest realisation of this ideal, a realisation for the present fathomless, lies only in the future consummation”. Rather, with Stevens, “to believe and to be begotten of God are two inseparable aspects of the same event or process” (Johan. Theol., p. 251). John uses τέκνα rather than the Pauline υἱοὺς τ. θ., because Paul's view of sonship was governed by the Roman legal process of adopting a son who was not one's own child: while John's view is mystical and physical, the begetting of a child by the communication of the very life of God (1 John, passim). This distinction underlies the characteristic use of υἱός by the one writer and τέκνον by the other (cf. Westcott, Epistles of St. John, p. 123). By the reception of Christ as the Incarnate Logos we are enabled to recognise God as our Father and to come into the closest possible relation to Him. Those who thus receive Him are further identified as τοῖς πιστεύουσιν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ, “those who believe (believers, present participle) in His name”. πιστεύειν εἴς τινα is the favourite construction with John, and emphasises the object on which the faith rests. Here that object is τὸ ὅνομα αὐτοῦ, the sum of all characteristic qualities which attach to the bearer of the name: “quippe qui credant esse eum id ipsum, quod nomen declarat” (Holtzmann). It is impossible to identify this “name” with the Logos, because Jesus never proclaimed Himself under this name. Other definite names, such as Son of God or Messiah, can here only be proleptic, and it is probably better to leave it indefinite, and understand it in a general sense of those who believed in the self-manifestation of Christ, and were characterised by that belief.