John 1:8

[See also the "General Considerations on the Prologue" in the comments of John 1:18.]

Ver. 8. “ He was not the light; but [he came] to bear witness to the light. ”

The emphasis is not, as Meyer and Weiss think, on the verbal idea, was, but on the subject He, in contrast with the other personage (John 1:9). Hence the choice of the pronoun ἐκεῖνος, which has always with John a strongly emphatic and even oftentimes exclusive sense. It is in vain, as it seems to me, that Weiss denies this special use of the pronoun ἐκεῖνος in our Gospel. In a multitude of cases, this commentator is obliged to have recourse to veritable feats of skill in order to maintain that this pronoun always designates a subject or an object which is more remote, in opposition to one that is nearer; comp. e.g., John 1:40; John 5:39; John 7:45, and many other passages which we shall notice, and where the sense which is claimed by Weiss is not applicable. The ἵνα, in order that, depends, according to Meyer and Weiss, on an ἦλθε (came) understood, or it is even, according to Luthardt, independent of any verb, as often in John (John 9:3; John 13:18; John 15:25). But this independence can never be other than apparent; a purpose must always depend on some action. And it is unnatural to go very far in search of the verb ἦλθε, came, while the verb ἦν, was, can easily take the sense of “was there ” (aderat) and serve as a point of support for the in order that; comp. John 7:39, where Weiss himself renders ἦν by aderat.

It appears to me scarcely admissible that by this remark John desires simply to set forth the absolute superiority of Jesus to John the Baptist, (Meyer, Hengstenberg); or that, as Weiss thinks, we have here again a point merely describing the experience of the author himself as an old disciple of the forerunner. The negative form is too emphatic to be explained thus, and the analogous passages John 1:20; John 3:25 ff., compared with Acts 13:25, and with the remarkable fact related in Acts 19:3-4, lead us rather to suppose a polemic design in opposition to persons who attributed to the forerunner the dignity of Messiah (comp. Introd. pp. 213, 214).

The testimony of John should have opened the door of faith to all, and rendered unbelief impossible. And yet the impossibility is realized, and even under the most monstrous form. This is what is developed in John 1:9-11.