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1–18. Prologue to the Gospel. – 19–28. Testimony of John the Baptist about Christ before the Jews. – 29–36. Testimony of John the Baptist to his disciples. – 37–51. The first followers of Christ. The Gospel of John begins with a majestic introduction, or prologue, which tells how the Only Begotten Son of God was revealed to the world. This introduction is conveniently divided into three stanzas, the content of which is as follows. Stanza one (verses 1-5): The Word, which was in the beginning with God and was Himself God, and through whom the world was created, was life and light to people, and darkness could not extinguish this light. Verse two (verses 6-13): John was sent from God to testify of the Word as the true light, but when the Word appeared to his own, his own did not receive Him. There were, however, a few who accepted the Word, and these people were given by the Word the power to become children of God. Verse three (verses 14-18): The Word became flesh in Jesus Christ and dwelt among men, who saw His majesty as the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, so that those who believed in Him received grace from Him in abundance. Through Him, who is higher than John the Baptist and Moses the lawgiver, the grace and truth of the invisible God are proclaimed. The main idea of ​​the prologue is expressed in verse 14: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Everything that precedes and follows serves to characterize the Divine Person, Who in Jesus Christ became man and revealed to people the grace and truth of the invisible God. From the prologue we first learn that the Word existed with God even before the creation of the world and that the world itself owes its origin to Him. We also learn that, in particular, for humanity the Word was light and life even before His incarnation. Then the evangelist, in order to prepare the attention of his readers for the following brief news about the incarnation of the Word, mentions God’s sending of John the Baptist as a witness of the coming of the Word to His people and of the attitude of the Jewish people to the appeared Word. Thus, the evangelist quite logically approaches further the depiction of the very incarnation of the Word and the greatness of the benefits He brought with Him. It is remarkable that the entire content of the prologue consists of historical facts, and not of reasoning. We feel that the evangelist is not giving us any philosophical structure, but a brief history of the Word incarnate. Therefore, the speech of the prologue resembles the speech of a historian. As Keil notes, the correct understanding of the entire prologue depends on the explanation of the term “Logos”, translated in our Bible by the expression “Word”. The Greek noun ὁ λόγος has various meanings in classical Greek. It could mean: a) statement and what was said; b) reasoning, deliberation and the ability to reason, i.e. reason or reason. There are many more meanings of this word, but they all have their basis in the indicated two main meanings of the term ὁ λόγος. As for the second meaning of the term in question (b), although there are interpreters who insist on the need to accept the term Logos in the sense of “reason,” we cannot allow this. The main obstacle to this assumption is that in New Testament Greek the term ὁ λόγος is nowhere used as meaning “reason” or “reason,” but only “action” or “result of the activity of the mind”: report, calculation, etc. (See Preuschen E. Vollständiges Griechisch-Deutsches Handwörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der übrige nurchristlichen Literatur. Giessen 1910, columns 668, 669.) But none of the impartial readers of the prologue will say that there is even the slightest reason for In the prologue, the term Logos is interpreted in the sense of “activity” or “result of the activity of the mind”: this is clearly contradicted by everything that is said in the 14th and following verses about the incarnation of the Logos 7 . Now, regarding the first (a), main meaning of the term Logos, it must be said that both on the basis of the philological direct meaning of this term, and on the basis of the entire teaching of the Gospel of John about the Person of the Lord Jesus Christ, this meaning - “Word” - is the only acceptable one in the present case. But understanding this name in this way as applied to Christ, we must remember that the evangelist, of course, called Christ “the Word” not in the simple (grammatical) meaning of this term; he understood the “Word” not as a simple combination of voice sounds, but in a higher (logical) sense, as an expression of the deepest being of God. Just as in the word of Christ Himself His inner essence was revealed, so in the Eternal Word - the Logos - the inner essence of the Divinity was always revealed. God is Spirit, and where the Spirit is, there is the Word, therefore, the “Word” was always with God. The existence of the Logos in itself “is by no means due to the fact that He is the Revelation of God the Father to the world, i.e. is not at all conditioned by the existence of the world; on the contrary, the existence of the world depends on the fact that the Logos becomes for the world the revelation of God the Father, but must necessarily be thought of as given in the very existence of God the Father” (Znamensky, p. 9). The Fathers of the Church for the most part explained the meaning of calling Christ “the Word” by comparing Christ the Word with the “word” of man. They said that just as thought and word are different from each other, so is the “Word” - Christ was always a separate Person from the Father. Then they pointed out that the word is born by thought and is born, moreover, not through cutting off or expiration, but in such a way that the thought or mind remains in its own composition, so Christ is the Son of God, from whose birth no change occurred in the essence of the Father. Further, the Fathers of the Church, taking into account that the word, being different from thought in the way of being, always remains one with thought in the content or essence of being, deduced from here that the Son is one in essence with God the Father and, by virtue of this unity in essence, is not separated from the Father for a single minute. Thus, considering the term “Word” as a designation of the Son of God, the Fathers of the Church found in this term an indication of the eternity of the Son of God, His personality and consubstantiality with the Father, as well as His dispassionate birth from the Father. But in addition, bearing in mind that this term can also mean a spoken word, and not just something existing in thought (internal), the Fathers of the Church understood this term as applied to Christ and as a designation of the fact that the Son reveals the Father to the world, that He is the revelation of the Father to the world. The first understanding can be called metaphysical, and the second – historical. Among the newest theologians of the critical school, the view has become established that the term Logos in John has only the meaning of a so-called “historical predicate”, and does not essentially define the Person of Christ the Savior. The evangelist seemed to want to say with this term that Christ is the revelation of God to the world. Thus, according to Tsang, Logos is a name that belongs to no one else but the historical Christ; it is the same predicate or definition of Christ as the definitions “light”, “truth” and “life” that follow in the prologue. Christ was not the Logos before the incarnation, but became such only after the incarnation. This view of Zahn is approached by the opinion of Luthardt, according to which Christ is called by John the Logos in the only sense that in Him the entire totality of divine revelations found its completion. Finally, according to Goffman, in John the Logos should be understood as the apostolic word or preaching about Christ. Of the Russian scientists, Prince took the side of these researchers. S.N. Trubetskoy, in his dissertation on Logos (Moscow, 1900). But against such an understanding of the term in question in John is the extremely clear indication of the evangelist himself, found in the 14th verse of the prologue: “And the Word became flesh.” That which at a certain time took on flesh obviously must have existed before that time, without flesh. It is clear that the evangelist believed in the pre-existence of Christ as the Son of God, as the Eternal Word of God. Then the entire content of the Gospel of John loudly cries out against such a narrow understanding of the German exegetes. In the speeches of the Lord, which John cites, everywhere there appears confidence in the eternal existence of Christ, in His consubstantiality with the Father. But it is precisely these same ideas that are included in the content of the concept of “Word” or Logos under consideration. And why would the evangelist attach such solemnity to his prologue if it spoke of Christ only as the Revelation of the invisible God? After all, such revelations took place in the history of the economy of our salvation and in the Old Testament (for example, the appearance of the Angel of Jehovah), and yet with his prologue John wants to open, so to speak, a completely new era in the history of salvation... It should also be noted that when we insist that in John the term Logos means “Word” and not “reason,” we do not deny that the Word is at the same time the Supreme Reason. And the human word does not exist outside of its relation to the thought of which it serves as an expression. In the same way, all the New Testament testimonies about the Son of God as the Truth and the Source of all truth leave no doubt that the Word of God is also the absolute “Mind of God” (see Znamensky, p. 175). About where John got this definition - Logos, see below, in the explanation of the 18th verse of the prologue. John 1:1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. "In the beginning was the Word". With these words the evangelist denotes the eternity of the Word. Already the expression “in the beginning” (ἐν ἀρχῇ) clearly indicates that the existence of the Logos is completely removed from the subordination of time, as the form of any created being, that the Logos existed “before everything conceivable and before the ages” (St. John Chrysostom) 8. This idea about the eternity of the Word is expressed even more strongly by adding to the expression “in the beginning” the verb “was” (-ἦν). The verb “to be” (εἶναι), firstly, is a designation of personal and independent being, as opposed to the verb “to become” (γίνεσθαι), which denotes the appearance of something at a certain time. Secondly, the verb “to be” is used here in the past imperfect tense, which indicates that the Logos was already at the time when created being was just about to begin. "And the Word was with God". Here the evangelist says that the Logos was an independent person. This is clearly indicated by the expression he used “it was to God” - it would be better and more accurate to translate the Greek expression πρὸς τὸν Θεόν. John wants to say by this that the Logos stood in a certain relationship with God the Father as a separate independent personality. He is not separated from God the Father (which would be the case if the word τὸν Θεόν had the preposition παρά - “near”), but also does not merge with Him (which would be indicated by the preposition ἐν - “in”), but remains in a personal and internal relationship to the Father - inseparable and unmerged. And in this relationship the Logos always remained with the Father, as the verb “to be” taken here again in the past imperfect tense shows. As for the question of why here John calls God the Father simply God, this question can be answered this way: the word “God” is generally used to designate God the Father in the New Testament, and then John (as Loisy says) could not yet use the word “Father” here, since he had not yet spoken of the Word as “Son.” "And the Word was God". With these words John designates the divinity of the Word. The Word is not only divine (θεῖος), but is the true God. Since in the Greek text the word “God” (Θεός) is used about the Word without an article, while about God the Father it is used here with an article, some theologians (in ancient times, for example, Origen) saw in this an indication that the Word is lower in dignity than God the Father. But the correctness of such a conclusion is contradicted by the fact that in the New Testament the expression Θεός without an article is sometimes used about God the Father (Rom. 1:7; Phil. 2:13). And then in the present case, the expression Θεός together with the verb ἦν constitutes a predicate to the expression ὁ λόγος and, as a general rule, should stand without an article. John 1:2. It was in the beginning with God. “It was with God in the beginning.” In order to prevent anyone from considering the Divinity of the Logos to be less than the Divinity of the Father, the Evangelist says that He is “in the beginning,” i.e. before all time, or, in other words, eternally stood in relation to the Father as a completely independent person, in no way different by nature from God the Father. This is how the evangelist summarizes everything he said about the Word in verse 1. At the same time, this verse serves as a transition to the next image of the revelation of the Logos in the world. John 1:3. Everything came into being through Him, and without Him nothing came into being that came into being. “All things” came into being “through Him, and without Him nothing came into being that” happened. Here, first positively and then negatively, the idea is expressed that the Logos was revealed in the world primarily as its Creator. He created everything (πάντα), i.e. every created being, without any limitation. But some, both ancient and modern, theologians saw in the expression “through Him” a derogation of the dignity of the Logos, finding that this expression indicates in the Logos only the instrument that God used to create the world, and not the First Cause. Such reasoning, however, cannot be considered solid, since in the New Testament the preposition “through” (διά) is sometimes used about the activity of God the Father in relation to the world (Rom. 11:36; 1 Cor. 1:9). The Evangelist obviously wanted to use this expression to note the difference that exists between the Father and the Son, not wanting “that anyone would consider the Son unborn” (St. John Chrysostom), i.e. and personally no different from the Father. It should be noted that the evangelist about the origin of all created things uses a verb that means “to begin to exist” (γίνεσθαι) and, therefore, recognizes the Logos not only as the organizer of the world from ready-made matter, but also in the literal sense as the Creator of the world out of nothing 9. John 1:4. In Him was life, and life was the light of men. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” The life that was in the Logos is life in the broadest sense of the word (why in the Greek text there is the word ζωή - “life”, without an article). All areas of existence have drawn from the Logos the forces necessary for every created being to reveal their abilities. The Logos, one might say, was “life” itself, i.e. A Divine Being, for life is in God. In particular, in relation to people, this animating action of the Logos was manifested in the enlightenment of people: this life (here the word ζωή is already placed with an article as a concept known from the first half of the verse) gave humanity the light of true knowledge of God and directed people on the path of a godly life: life was light for people. Just as no life in the world would be possible without material light, so without the enlightening action of the Logos it would not be possible for people to take at least a few steps forward along the path to moral self-improvement. The Logos enlightened both the chosen people of God with direct revelations and manifestations of God, and the best people from the pagan world, testifying to the truth in their minds and consciences. John 1:5. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it. “And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.” Since the last position of the previous verse might seem to the readers to disagree with reality: the situation of the pagan world, and even the Jewish one, seemed to them as a state of extreme moral decline and bitterness in sin, and therefore the evangelist considers it necessary to assure them that the light - the Logos, indeed, has always shone and continues to shine (φαίνει, present tense to denote the constancy of activity) even in the darkness of human ignorance and all corruption (“darkness” is σκοτία and means a state of fall and resistance to the will of God, cf. John 12:35; Eph.5:8). "Darkness did not embrace him." The meaning of the Russian translation is this: darkness failed to drown out, extinguish the action in the people of the Logos. In this sense, many ancient fathers and teachers of the Church, as well as many of the newest exegetes, interpreted this expression. And this interpretation seems completely correct if we pay attention to the parallel passage in the Gospel of John: “walk while there is light, lest darkness overtake you” (John 12:35). The same verb is used here (καταλαμβάνειν) to denote the concept of “embrace”, and there is absolutely no reason to interpret this verb differently than our Russian translation interprets 10. Some (for example, Znamensky, pp. 46–47) fear that such a translation will have to admit that John admitted the idea “of some kind of struggle between the very principles of light and darkness and, therefore, thought of them as real entities. Meanwhile, reality in the metaphysical sense can only be possessed by personal bearers of a known principle, and not by the principle itself.” But such reasoning is not thorough. The idea of ​​the struggle between light and darkness, one might say, is the main idea of ​​John’s worldview and is strongly present in all his writings. Moreover, John, of course, speaking about the efforts of darkness to extinguish the light, was thinking about individuals in whom light or darkness found the most powerful expression. Thus, accepting the old translation, we paint a majestic and terrible picture of the struggle of all dark forces against the divine enlightening action of the Logos, a struggle that was waged for several thousand years and which ended extremely unsuccessfully for darkness: the divine beacon still shines for all those sailing on the dangerous sea of ​​​​life and keeps their ship from the dangerous rocks. John 1:6. There was a man sent from God; his name is John. So far John has spoken of the Logos in His state before the incarnation. Now he needs to begin to depict His activity in human flesh or, what is the same, to begin his gospel narrative. He does this, starting from the same place where Mark began his Gospel, namely, with the testimony of the prophet and forerunner John about Christ. “There was”, more precisely: “came out” or “appeared” (ἐγένετο – cf. Mark 1:4), “a man sent from God.” The evangelist here, of course, means that God’s decision about the coming of John the Baptist was expressed in the book of the prophet Malachi (Mal. 3:1 according to the Hebrew Bible). The evangelist also names the name of this messenger of God, as if wanting to show that his great mission is indicated in the name of John (from Hebrew - “the grace of God”). John 1:7. He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that through him all might believe. The purpose of John's speech was to be a witness and precisely to “testify of the Light,” i.e. about the Logos or Christ (cf. verse 5), to convince everyone to go to this Light, as to the real light of life. Through his testimony, everyone - both Jews and Gentiles - were forced to believe in Christ as the Savior of the world (cf. John 20:31). John 1:8. He was not light, but was sent to testify to the Light. Since many looked at John as Christ (cf. verse 20), the evangelist says with special emphasis once again that John was not “light,” i.e. Christ, or the Messiah, but came only to testify about the Light, or the Messiah. John 1:9. There was the true Light, which enlightens every person coming into the world. "There Was the True Light". Most ancient interpreters saw an indication of the state of the Logos before the incarnation and translate this expression as follows: “the true Light existed from eternity (ἦν).” Thus, here we find the opposition of the eternal existence of the Logos to the temporary and transitory existence of the Forerunner. Many new interpreters, on the contrary, see in the expression under consideration an indication that the Logos, the true Light, had already come to earth when the Forerunner began to testify about Him. They give the translation of our passage as follows: “The true Light has already come” or, according to another translation, “has already emerged from the state of concealment” (in which His life passed until the age of 30). With this translation, the Greek verb ἦν is given the meaning not of an independent predicate, but of a simple connective relating to the last expression of the verse ἐρχόμενον εἰς τὸν κόσμον. Our interpreters (including Znamensky) adhere to the first opinion, finding the second combination of expressions “too artificial.” But it seems to us that with the second interpretation we avoid the interruption in the flow of thoughts that necessarily results from the assumption of the first translation. In fact, if we find here an indication of the existence of Light before the incarnation, this will mean that the evangelist unnecessarily returned to his discussion about the Logos, which he had already completed when he began to talk about the appearance of the Forerunner (verse 6). Meanwhile, in the second translation, the sequence of thoughts is completely preserved: John came; he was sent to testify to the true Light; this true Light had already appeared in the world at that time, and that is why John wanted to testify about It. Further, if in the expression ἐρχόμενον εἰς τὸν κόσμον we see an application to the expression τὸν ἄνθρωπον, then this expression will be completely superfluous, it will not add anything to the concept of “man” (ὁ ἄνθρωπος ). Finally, if such a separation of the verb connective ἦν from the predicate ἐρχόμενον εἰς τὸν κόσμον seems unnatural to some, then doubters can be pointed to other similar combinations in the Gospel of John (John 1:28, 11:1, 18:18). And among the weather forecasters, a similar expression ἐρχόμενος denotes the Messiah, i.e. Logos in the state of incarnation (Matthew 11:3; Luke 7:19). In what sense did the evangelist call Christ “the true Light”? The word ἀληθινός - “true” can mean: valid, reliable, sincere, true to oneself, fair, but here the most appropriate is the special meaning of this adjective: fully realizing the idea underlying the existence of this or that object, fully corresponding to its name. So we use this expression when we say: true freedom, true hero. If John says about God that He is Θεός ἀληθινός, then by this he wants to indicate that He is the only one to whom this name “God” befits. (cf. John 17:3; 1 John 5:20). When he uses the adjective ἀληθής about God, he indicates the truth of God’s promises, God’s faithfulness to His words (John 3:33). Thus, by calling Christ here the true Light (ἀληθινόν), John wants to say by this that any other light - whether it be sensory light, light for our eyes, or spiritual light, which some of the best representatives of humanity tried to spread in the world, even those sent from God, like John the Baptist - could not come any closer in dignity to Christ, who alone corresponded to the concept that we have about light. John 1:10. He was in the world, and the world came into being through Him, and the world did not know Him. Identifying in his presentation the Logos, which is also called Light and Life, and the Man - Jesus, John speaks here and further about the light as a man ("He" - αὐτόν "did not know": αὐτόν - masculine gender). The Messiah was already in the world when John the Baptist began to testify about Him, and he was also there after, when this God-sent witness had already fallen silent forever, and it was natural to think that the world that He had once created would recognize in Him its Creator. But this, to our surprise, did not happen: the world did not recognize Him and did not accept Him. The evangelist does not speak about the reason for such a strange phenomenon. John 1:11. He came to his own, and his own did not receive Him. Even more mysterious was the attitude towards the Messiah - the incarnate Logos - of that people about whom the Messiah could say: “These are My people” (cf. Is. 51:4). The Jews, these people closest to the Messiah, did not accept Him (παρέλαβον - indicates that they should accept Christ for permanent residence, cf. John 14:3). John 1:12. And to those who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the power to become children of God, However, there were people from both Jews and pagans (the expression ὅσοι, in Russian - “those who” denotes believers without distinction of origin) who accepted Him for the One He declared Himself to be. The evangelist calls these who accepted Christ believers in His “name,” i.e. in His power as the Son of God (cf. John 20:31). To those who accepted Him, Christ gave “power” (ἐξουσίαν), i.e. not only the right, but also the ability, the power to become children of God (the Russian translation here incorrectly uses the verb “to be”; the verb here γενέσθαι means precisely “to become”, “to become”). Thus, Christians become real children of God gradually, through an intensified struggle against the remnants of sinful inclinations. They can always “be called” children of God (1 John 3:1). John 1:13. who were born neither of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. Here the evangelist defines more precisely what it means to be a child of God. To be a child of God means to be in incomparably closer communion with God than children are in with their parents. Spiritual birth from God gives a person, of course, incomparably greater strength for life than ordinary parents pass on to their children, being themselves weak (this is indicated by the expressions “flesh” and “husband”, cf. Is. 40:6; Job 4:17). Here we cannot fail to note the attempt to establish a new reading of this verse made by Tsang. Finding it incomprehensible that the evangelist here explains in such detail what it means to be born of God, Tsang suggests that in its original form this verse read like this: “Who (ὅς instead of οἵ) was born neither of blood, nor of the will of a man, but of God” (ἐγεννήθη instead ἐγεννήθησαν ). Thus, according to Zahn, we are talking about the seedless birth of Christ - a thought so clearly expressed by Saints Matthew and Luke. Tsang also finds confirmation of his reading in some of the writings of the holy fathers. He even claims that the reading he suggests was dominant in the West from the 2nd to the 4th century. But no matter how successful such a correction of the text may seem, nevertheless, the concordant testimony of all the ancient codes of the New Testament makes it impossible for us to accept Tzan's reading. John 1:14. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father. Here begins the third part of the prologue, in which the evangelist more precisely defines the coming of the Logos as the incarnation and depicts the fullness of salvation that the incarnate Logos brought with Him. “And the word became flesh.” Continuing his speech about the Logos and His appearance in the world, the evangelist says that the Logos became flesh, i.e. a person (the expression “flesh” usually in the Holy Scriptures means a person in the full sense of the word - with body and soul; cf. Gen. 6:13; Is. 40:5, etc.). At the same time, however, the evangelist does not make the slightest hint that with His incarnation the Word would suffer any diminishment in His Divine nature. The disparagement concerned only the “form” of existence, not the “essence.” The Logos, as it was, remained God with all the divine properties, and the divine and human natures remained in Him unmerged and inseparable. "And he dwelt among us." Having assumed human flesh, the Logos “dwelled,” i.e. lived and converted among the apostles, to whom the evangelist counts himself. By saying that the Logos “dwelt” (ἐσκήνωσε) with the apostles, the evangelist wants to say that in this way God’s promise to dwell with people was fulfilled (Ezek. 37:27, 43:9, etc.). "And we have seen His glory." More precisely: we contemplated, looked with surprise, awe (ἐθεασάμεθα) at ​​His glory, i.e. the incarnate Logos. His glory was revealed mainly in His miracles, for example, in the Transfiguration, which only the three apostles, including John, were worthy of seeing, as well as in His teaching and even in His very humiliation. “Glory as of the Only Begotten from the Father,” i.e. such glory as He should have had as the only Son of God, having an incomparably greater portion than the other children of God who became so by grace. The expression “from the Father” (παρὰ πατρός) cannot refer to the word “Only Begotten” (then instead of the preposition παρ. the preposition ἐκ would be put). This expression defines the “glory” that the Logos had: this glory was received by Him from the Father. "Full of grace and truth". These words should appear at the very end of the verse, as in the Greek and Slavic texts. In the Greek text, the word "full" (πλήρης) does not agree with the nearby noun "glory", and also does not agree with the pronoun "His". Nevertheless, it is most natural to attribute this expression to the pronoun “His”, and from the grammatical side such an agreement will not seem surprising, since among the Greeks (around the time of R. X.) the word πλήρης was often used as an indeclinable (Goltsman, p. 45). Thus, the Logos is here called “full of grace,” i.e. divine love and mercy for people, “and truth,” which was manifested in His teaching and life, in which there was nothing merely apparent, but everything was real, so that the word was always in accordance with the deed. John 1:15. John testifies of Him and, exclaiming, says: This was He of whom I said that He who came after me stood before me, because He was before me. “John testifies of Him...” The evangelist interrupts his memories of the manifestations of the glory of the incarnate Logos by citing the testimony of Christ, which was given by the Forerunner. It is very likely that among those for whom he intended his Gospel there were many who greatly revered the Baptist and to whom his testimony of Christ was of great importance. The evangelist, as it were, now hears the loud voice of the Baptist (the verb κέκραγεν here has the meaning of the present tense), because he, the evangelist wants to say, was completely convinced of the divine greatness of Christ. “This was the One...”. With the word “This,” the Baptist pointed his disciples to Jesus Christ who had approached them (cf. verse 29) and identified Him with that Person about whom he had previously spoken to them those words that he now repeats here: “He who comes after me,” etc. “He who followed me stood in front of me.” With these words, the Baptist wants to say that Christ first walked behind him, and then, and precisely now, he is already walking ahead of him, so to speak, overtaking the Baptist. On what the Baptist currently based his idea of ​​Jesus is not visible: there could still be no talk of any successes of Jesus at that time (cf. John 3:26-36). But the Baptist recognizes such anticipation of him by Jesus as quite natural in view of the fact that He was before him. The last words clearly have the meaning of defining the eternity of Christ. The Baptist, undoubtedly in a state of prophetic rapture, announces to his disciples the great mystery of the pre-existence of Christ. Christ was, i.e. existed earlier than the Baptist, although he was born later than him. He existed, therefore, in another world (cf. John 8:58). This idea of ​​the eternal existence of Christ is expressed in the Greek text by the use of the positive degree πρῶτός μου instead of the comparative πρότερός μου, which would be natural to expect here. John 1:16. And from His fullness we have all received and grace upon grace, “And out of His fullness we have all received.” Here the evangelist again continues his speech about Christ. Now, however, he refers not only to what the apostles alone contemplated (cf. verse 14), but says that all who believe in Christ received “from the fullness,” i.e. from the extraordinary abundance of spiritual benefits that Christ, as full of grace and truth, could bestow. What, in fact, the apostles and other believers accepted - the evangelist does not say, hastening rather to point to the highest of gifts - “grace” (χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος). Some (for example, Prof. Muretov) replace the expression “grace for grace” with the expression “grace for grace,” believing that the evangelist here means that Christ is for our grace, i.e. love for people, responds on His part with grace or love (Spirit. Read. 1903, p. 670). But we cannot agree with such a translation because the love of believers for Christ can hardly be placed on the same level as the love of Christ for believers (cf. Rom. 4:4, 11:6). Moreover, the word “grace” is not used in the New Testament to denote the believer’s relationship to Christ. It would be more correct to see here an indication of the replacement of some gifts of grace with others, higher and higher (ἀντί here means “instead”). Christ, at the very calling of the disciples, promised them that they would be worthy to see more from Him than what they had just seen (verse 50). Following this, this promise soon began to be fulfilled (John 2:11) and, finally, believers received from Christ the highest gift of grace - the Holy Spirit. John 1:17. for the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. The evangelist here confirms the idea that believers receive grace from Christ by indicating that grace and truth actually came and appeared from Christ. And how important these gifts are is clear from the fact that the most outstanding man of the Old Testament, Moses, gave people only the law from God. This law presented only demands to man, but did not give him the strength to fulfill these demands, since he could not destroy in them the hereditary tendency to sin. Moreover, Moses was only a servant, a passive instrument in the hands of Jehovah, as shown by the expression used about him: “the law was given through Moses,” while about the New Testament it is said that it came (ἐγένετο) through Christ as from its ruler (Blessed Theophylact). John 1:18. No one has ever seen God; The Only Begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has revealed. Against such exaltation of Christ before Moses, the Jews could say: “But Moses was worthy to see God!” (cf. Numbers 12:8). To this alleged objection, the evangelist notes that in reality none of the people, not even Moses, saw God: people were sometimes honored to see the glory of God under some kind of covering, but no one contemplated this glory in an inviolable form (cf. Exod. 33:20), and the evangelist recognizes this as possible for believers only in the future life (1 John 3:2; cf. 1 Cor. 13:12). Only the Only Begotten Son, eternally - both before and after the incarnation - abiding in the bosom of the Father - He saw and sees God in His greatness and therefore at a certain certain time he revealed Him to the world, that is, on the one hand, he showed God to people as a loving Father and revealed His attitude towards God, on the other hand, He carried out in His activity the intentions of God regarding the salvation of people and through this, of course, explained them even more. It should be noted that in many of the most ancient codes of the New Testament, instead of the expression “Only Begotten Son,” there is the expression “Only Begotten God.” But the difference in readings does not change the essence of the matter: from both one and the other reading it is clearly evident that the evangelist wanted to express the idea of ​​​​the Divinity of Christ. As for our reading, which is taken from the Codex Alexandrinus, it is more consistent with the context of the speech and the word “Son” is best consistent with the expression “Only Begotten.” Where did John the Theologian borrow his teaching about the Logos? It is most common in the West to attribute the origin of John's teaching on the Logos to the influence of Judeo-Alexandrian philosophy, in which there was also the idea of ​​the Logos as a mediator between the world and God. The main exponent of this idea is considered by the newest scientists to be the Alexandrian Jew Philo (died in 41 AD). But we cannot agree with such an assumption, because the Logos of Philo is not at all the same as the Logos of John. According to Philo, the Logos is nothing more than the world soul, the world mind operating in matter, and for John the Logos is a personality, the living historical face of Christ. Philo calls the Logos the second God, the totality of divine powers and the mind of God. One can even say that in Philo God Himself in His ideal relation to the world is the Logos, while in John the Logos is nowhere identified with God the Father and stands in an eternally personal relation to God the Father. Then, according to Philo, the Logos is not the creator of the world out of nothing, but only the world-former, the servant of God, and according to John, it is the Creator of the world, the true God. According to Philo, the Logos is not eternal - he is a created being, but according to the teachings of John, he is eternal. The goal that, according to Philo, the Logos has - the reconciliation of the world with God - cannot be achieved, since the world, due to its inevitable connection with matter, which is evil, cannot approach God. That is why Philo could not even imagine that the Logos would take on human flesh, whereas the idea of ​​the Incarnation is the essence of John’s teaching about the Logos. Thus, we can only talk about the external similarity between the doctrine of the Logos of John and Philo, but the internal meaning, apparently, of the theses common to John and Philo is completely different for both. Even the form of teaching is different for both: for Philo it is scientific and dialectical, but for John it is visual and simple. Other exegetes believe that John, in his teaching about the Logos, relies on the ancient Jewish teaching about “Memra” - the highest being in which God is revealed and through which He enters into communication with the Jewish people and with other people. This being is personal, almost the same as the Angel of Jehovah, but, in any case, not God or even the Messiah. From this it is clear that there is not even an external similarity between the Logos of John and “Memra,” which is why some exegetes directly turned to the Old Testament in order to find the source of John’s teaching about the Logos. Here they find a direct, in their opinion, precedent for the teaching of John in those places where the personality and activity of the Angel of Jehovah is depicted. This Angel really acts and speaks like God Himself (Gen.16:7, 13; Gen.22:11–15) and is even called the Lord (Mal.3:1). But nevertheless, the Angel of the Lord is nowhere called the creator of the world, and he is still only a mediator between God and the chosen people. Finally, some of the exegetes see the dependence of John’s teaching about the Logos on the teaching of some Old Testament books about the creative word of the Lord (Ps. 32:6) and about the Wisdom of God (Prov. 3:19). But against such an assumption is the fact that in the places indicated by the defenders of such an opinion, the feature of the hypostatic peculiarity of the Divine Word appears too little in appearance. This even has to be said about the main support of this opinion - about a passage from the book of the Wisdom of Solomon (Wisdom 18:15-16). In view of the unsatisfactory nature of any assumptions about John’s borrowing of his doctrine of the Logos from any Jewish, or even more so from a pagan source, 11 it is quite fair to conclude that he learned this teaching from direct revelation, which he received in his frequent conversations with Christ. He himself testifies that he received the truth from the fullness of the incarnate Logos. “Only the incarnate Logos himself, through His life, deeds and teaching, could provide the apostles with the key to understanding the mysteries of Old Testament logology. Only Christ’s discovered idea of ​​the Logos gave them the opportunity to correctly understand the Old Testament traces of the idea of ​​the Logos” (Prof. M. Muretov in “Orthodox Review”, 1882, vol. 2, p. 721). The very name “Logos” could also have been received by John in a direct revelation that happened to him on Fr. Patmos (Rev. 19:11–13). John 1:19. And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him: who are you? "And this is the testimony of John". In verses 6–8 and 15, the evangelist has already said that John testified about Christ. He now talks about how he testified for Christ before the Jews (verses 19-28), the people and the disciples (verses 29-34), and finally only before his two disciples (verses 35-36). "Jews". This word here means the Jewish people or the actual representation of the entire Jewish people - the great Jewish Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. In fact, only the chairman of the Sanhedrin, the high priest, could send priests and Levites to John as an official deputation, which was supposed to interrogate John. The Levites were attached to the priests as guards accompanying them, they performed police duties under the Sanhedrin (cf. John 7:32, 45 et seq.; John 18:3, 12, etc.). Since the path from Jerusalem to Jericho and, consequently, to the Jordan, where John baptized, was unsafe (Luke 10:30), it was not a bad idea for the priests to take guards with them. But, besides this, the guards were taken in order to give the embassy a strictly official character. "Who are you?" This question assumes that there were rumors about John at that time, in which his importance was too exaggerated. As can be seen from the Gospel of Luke, the people began to view John as the Messiah (Luke 3:15). John 1:20. He declared, and did not deny, and declared that I am not the Christ. John understood the question put to him precisely in the sense that those who asked would have nothing against it if he recognized himself as the Messiah. That is why he denies the dignity of the Messiah with particular force: “he declared and did not deny,” the evangelist reports. But one can hardly think that the priests would have recognized John as the real Messiah. They, of course, knew that the Messiah should be born in the descendants of David, and not of Aaron, from whom the Baptist came. More likely is the assumption of Chrysostom and other ancient commentators that the priests, having extracted from John a confession that he was the Messiah, would have arrested him for appropriating a dignity that did not belong to him. John 1:21. And they asked him: what then? are you Elijah? He said no. Prophet? He answered: no. The second question of the Jews was asked to John due to the fact that the Jews were expecting Elijah the prophet before the coming of the Messiah (Mal.4:5). Since John, in his fiery zeal for God, resembled Elijah (cf. Matt. 11:14), the Jews ask him if he is Elijah who came from heaven? John was not such an Elijah, although he was sent “in the spirit and power of Elijah” (Luke 1:17), which is why he gave a negative answer to the question of the priests and Levites. John responded in exactly the same way to the third question of the Jewish delegation, whether he was a prophet. The Jews asked him this question because they expected that the prophet Jeremiah or any other of the great Old Testament prophets would appear before the coming of the Messiah (cf. Matt. 16:14). It is clear that John could only answer such a question in the negative. John 1:22. They said to him: who are you? so that we can give an answer to those who sent us: what do you say about yourself? John 1:23. He said: I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness: straighten the way of the Lord, as the prophet Isaiah said. When the deputation demanded a final answer from the Baptist about his identity, John answered them that he was that voice of the desert, which, according to the prophecy of Isaiah (Is. 40:3), should call people to prepare the way for the coming Lord. For an explanation of these words, see the commentary on Matthew 3:3. John 1:24. And those who were sent were from the Pharisees; According to the usual interpretation, the conversation between those sent from the Sanhedrin and the Baptist continues here. But we cannot agree with this interpretation for the following reasons: 1) it would be strange if the evangelist, having already given a description of the deputation, now only pointed out that it all consisted of Pharisees; 2) it is incredible that the Sanhedrin, in which the bishops belonging to the Sadducean party (about the Jewish parties, see comments on Matthew 3:7 et seq.) occupied a leading position (Acts 5:17), would entrust the investigation into the case of John to the Pharisees, who differed from the Sadducees in their views on the Messiah; 3) it is unlikely that between the priests and Levites there were many Pharisees, who almost always grouped only around the rabbis; 4) while the last question of the deputation from the Sanhedrin testifies to its complete indifference to the work of John (see verse 22), these Pharisees are very interested in the baptism that John performed; 5) according to the best codes, the word ἀπεσταλμένοι is without the article ὁ, due to which this place cannot be translated as in Russian: “and those who were sent were from the Pharisees,” but should be translated as follows: “and the Pharisees were sent,” or: “and some of the Pharisees were (also) sent.” Thus, here the evangelist reports on a private request made to the Baptist by the Pharisees, who also appeared on behalf of their party from Jerusalem. This request followed when the official delegation had just left, which, however, the evangelist did not consider necessary to mention, just as he does not mention, for example, Nicodemus’s departure from Christ (John 3:21). John 1:25. And they asked him: why are you baptizing if you are neither Christ, nor Elijah, nor a prophet? The Pharisees want to know the meaning of John's baptism. He obviously invites everyone to something new with this baptism - what is this new? Does the activity of the Baptist have any relation to the Kingdom of the Messiah, which everyone was then expecting? This is the meaning of the Pharisees' question. John 1:26. John answered and said to them, “I baptize with water; but there is Someone standing among you whom you do not know. John answers the Pharisees that his baptism does not have the same meaning as the baptism that the Pharisees imagined would be performed by the Messiah or one of the prophets. He, John, baptizes only in water, obviously contrasting in thought with his baptism the baptism with the Holy Spirit that the Messiah will perform (Matthew 3:11). No, as John says, you should not direct all your attention to me, but to Him who is already among you unknown to you, that is, of course, to the Messiah for whom you are waiting. John 1:27. He is the one who comes after me, but who stands in front of me. I am not worthy to untie the thong of His sandals. “Untie the belt” - see Matthew 3:11. John 1:28. This took place in Bethabara by the Jordan, where John was baptizing. Instead of the name “Bethavara” (crossing place) in most ancient codes there is the name “Bethany”. This Bethany should be understood as a place after that, i.e. on the eastern side of the Jordan (in the Russian text inaccurately - “near the Jordan”). Tzan identifies him with Betonim, mentioned in the book of Joshua (Joshua 13:26). This place is located 10 kilometers from Jordan. The Baptist probably had his stay here, when many disciples gathered around him, who could not stay in the desert all the time in the heat and cold, without shelter. From here the Baptist could go daily to the Jordan and preach there. John 1:29. The next day John sees Jesus coming to him and says: Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world. The next morning, after a conversation with a deputation from the Sanhedrin and with the Pharisees, John, probably in the same place near the Jordan River, seeing Jesus approaching him, testified about Him aloud in front of everyone around him as the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. Why Jesus went to John at this time is unknown. The Baptist called Christ the Lamb (ὁ ἀμνός) of God in the sense that God Himself chose Him and prepared Him to be slaughtered as a sacrifice for the sins of people, just as the Jews, when leaving Egypt, prepared lambs, whose blood was supposed to save their homes from the terrible judgment of God (Ex. 12:7). God had long chosen this Lamb (Rev. 13:8; 1 Pet. 1:20) and now gave Him to people - to all people without exception. One can hardly see in the words of the Baptist a relation to the Sufferer depicted by the prophet Isaiah (Is. 53), as some ancient and modern exegetes believe. In the same chapter of the book of Isaiah, the Messiah is not directly called the Lamb, but is only compared to him and is the bearer not of our sins, but of illnesses and sorrows. “Who takes away the sin of the world” - more precisely: he takes away the sin of the world with Himself 12. The Baptist does not indicate the time when this Lamb will take away the sins of the world. The present tense of the verb αἴρω means, so to speak, an action not limited by a certain time: Christ “every day takes upon Himself our sins, some through Baptism, others through repentance” (Blessed Theophylact). John 1:30. This is the one of whom I said: A man comes after me, who stood before me, because He was before me. Repeating his testimony of the superiority of Christ before him, the Baptist, John calls Christ “husband,” probably meaning that He is the true Husband or Bridegroom of the Church, while John himself is only a friend of the groom (cf. John 3:29). John 1:31. I didn't know Him; but for this reason he came to baptize in water, so that He might be revealed to Israel. John 1:32. And John testified, saying, “I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and remaining on Him.” John 1:33. I didn't know Him; but He who sent me to baptize in water said to me: On whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining on Him, He is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. John 1:34. And I saw and testified that this is the Son of God. The listeners surrounding the Baptist could ask themselves: why does he speak with such confidence about the appearance of Christ? How does he know the task that lies with Christ? John, understanding the naturalness of such bewilderment, says that he also did not know Christ before, i.e. was not aware of His high destiny, but God sent him to perform baptism so that he would reveal and indicate the Messiah to the people, having previously recognized Him himself. And the Baptist recognized the Messiah by a special sign indicated to him in revelation by God. This sign is the descent and stay over the head of the Messiah of the Spirit, which was supposed to descend from heaven in the form of a dove. John saw such a sign over the head of Christ and realized that He was the Messiah. Thus, from these words of the Baptist it is clearly seen that John at first did not know that Christ was the Messiah whom everyone was then expecting. It is very likely that he did not know Christ at all, since he spent his entire life in the Judean desert, far from Nazareth, where Christ had previously resided. Only after the revelation given to him and especially after the baptism of Christ, John began to testify about Christ as the Son of God (according to some codes as “the chosen one of God,” but Tischendorf and other critics reject the latter reading). The fact that the Baptist, speaking about Christ as the Son of God, meant here the unity of Christ as the Son with God the Father in essence, and not only according to the grace that rested on Him, is clearly seen from the fact that the Baptist repeatedly recognized the eternal existence of Christ (see verses 15, 27, 30). For an explanation of the expressions: “the Spirit as a dove”, and: “baptizing with the Holy Spirit”, see the comments on Matthew 3:11, 16. John 1:35. The next day John and two of his disciples stood again. John 1:36. And when he saw Jesus coming, he said, Behold the Lamb of God. John 1:37. Hearing these words from him, both disciples followed Jesus. Here is the third testimony of the Baptist about Christ, which was delivered the next day after the Baptist testified about Christ before the people and his disciples. In front of his two disciples, who this time were with John, the Baptist briefly repeats what he said the day before about Christ, when Christ passed by the place where John stood. John “fixed his gaze” on Jesus (ἐμβλέψας, in Russian inaccurately – “seeing”), who at that time was walking at some distance, as if examining the area (περιπατοῦντι, inaccurately in Russian – “walking”). The two disciples who heard John's testimony this time were: Andrew (see verse 40) and, of course, John the Theologian, who usually does not call himself by name out of a sense of humility (cf. John 13:23, 18:15, etc.). The repetition of the testimony about Christ made such an impression on them that they followed Christ. John 1:38. Jesus turned and saw them coming and said to them, “What do you need?” They said to Him: Rabbi - what does it mean: teacher - where do you live? John 1:39. He says to them: go and see. They went and saw where He lived; and they stayed with Him that day. It was about ten o'clock. John 1:40. One of the two who heard from John about Jesus and followed Him was Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter. Both disciples silently followed Jesus, not daring to start a conversation with Him themselves. Then He, turning to them, begins the conversation with the question: “What do you need?” The disciples, wanting to talk with Christ about everything that particularly interested them, asked Him where He was staying (μένειν does not mean “to live in one’s own house,” but “to stay as a guest in someone else’s house,” especially “to stay overnight”; cf. Judges 19:9; Matt. 10:11). It can be assumed that such a residence for Christ at that time was some village on the western side of the Jordan, where there were generally more settlements than on the eastern bank. It was about the 10th hour when two disciples came to the house where Jesus was staying. Since John undoubtedly counts according to the Jewish reckoning, which in his time was common to the entire East (cf. John 19:14), the tenth hour was obviously equal to our fourth hour in the afternoon. The disciples, therefore, stayed with Christ for the rest of that day and all night. At least, the evangelist does not say anything about them leaving by nightfall (John Chrysostom, Theodoret and Cyril, as well as Augustine). Since the first disciple of Christ was named exactly by name Andrei, the Church from ancient times adopted for him the name “First-Called.” John 1:41. He first finds his brother Simon and says to him: we have found the Messiah, which means: Christ; John 1:42. and brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, “You are Simon, the son of Jonah; you will be called Cephas, which means stone (Peter). Having left the house where Jesus was staying, Andrew was the first to accidentally meet his brother, Simon, who, apparently, was going to the Jordan to listen to the Baptist. Andrei joyfully informs his brother that this Messiah has appeared, whom the Jews had been waiting for so long. The addition that Andrei found his brother “first” suggests that the other disciple found his brother, Jacob, a little later. When Andrew brought his brother to Jesus, Christ fixed his gaze on Peter (here again the same verb is used as in verse 36) and told him that he knew who he was (instead of “Jonin”, almost all Western codes read “John”, see, for example, Tischendorf). At the same time, Christ foretells to Peter that in time - the time is not precisely indicated - “to be called”, i.e. according to the use of the verb “to be called” in the Hebrew language, he will become a person of the highest degree firm and energetic (cf. Gen. 32:28). This, indeed, is the meaning of the Greek word πέτρος, which conveys the Aramaic name “Kephas” given by Christ to Peter (more precisely, “Keifa”, corresponding to the Hebrew word “keph” - rock, stone), and over time Peter became such among the believers. Christ, therefore, in the present case did not change Simon’s name and did not command him to change it over time: He thereby predicted only a great future for Simon. That is why Simon, out of reverence for the Lord, taking the new name Peter, did not abandon his former one, calling himself Simon Peter until the end of his life (2 Pet. 1:1). John 1:43. The next day Jesus wanted to go to Galilee, and he found Philip and said to him: follow me. From here to the end of the chapter the calling of Philip and Nathanael is discussed. Christ calls Philip to follow Him with only two words ἀκολούθει μοι (follow Me, that is, be My disciple - cf. Matthew 9:9; Mark 2:14). It must be remembered, however, that the calling of Philip, like the other disciples, this time was not yet their calling to constantly follow Christ, or even less a calling to apostolic service. After that first calling, the disciples still went home and at times went about their own business (cf. Matt. 4:18). Some time had to pass before Christ's disciples were able to become His constant companions and take upon themselves the heavy burden of apostolic service. John 1:44. Philip was from Bethsaida, from the same city as Andrew and Peter. Mentioning that Philip came from the same city, Bethsaida, where Andrei and Peter came from, the evangelist, of course, wants to say that Andrei and his brother told their fellow countryman Philip about Christ, which is why he did not show any bewilderment when Christ called him to follow Him. Bethsaida, the birthplace of Andrew and Peter (they lived not in Bethsaida, but in Capernaum, see Mark 1:29 et seq.), was a city on the northeastern shore of the Sea of ​​Gennesaret, settled by the tetrarch Philip and named by him in honor of Augustus’ daughter Julia. Near this city, closer to the sea, there was a village also called Bethsaida (“house of fishing”; about Bethsaida, see also the commentary on Mark 6:45), and Philip actually came from the village, which the evangelist identifies with the city as its suburb. John 1:45 Philip finds Nathanael and says to him: We have found the One about whom Moses in the law and the prophets wrote, Jesus the son of Joseph from Nazareth. Nathanael (God-given) had a different name - Bartholomew (see Matthew 10:3). “Moses in the law and the prophets” (see Luke 24:27). "Son of Joseph". This is what Philip calls Christ because he did not yet know the secret of the origin of Christ. John 1:46. But Nathanael said to him: Can anything good come from Nazareth? Philip says to him: come and see. Nazareth (see Matt. 2:23) obviously enjoyed a bad reputation among the Galileans, if Nathanael speaks so poorly of him. That is why it seems incredible to Nathanael that the Messiah would come from such a city, which enjoys an unenviable reputation. John 1:47. Jesus, seeing Nathanael coming to Him, said of him: Behold, truly an Israelite, in whom there is no guile. When, at the invitation of Philip, Nathanael went to Christ, Christ told His disciples about him that Nathanael was a real Israeli, without any falsehood. There are Israelis who do not deserve to bear the sacred name of Israel, who are full of all sorts of vices in their souls (cf. Matt. 23:25), but Nathanael is not like that. John 1:48. Nathanael says to Him: Why do You know me? Jesus answered and said to him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Nathanael, having heard the kind review made about him by Christ, asks Christ in surprise why He knows him, knows his character? In response to this, Christ points to His supernatural knowledge, reminding Nathanael of some incident from his life, which only Nathanael knew about. But this incident, apparently, was of such a kind that Nathanael’s truly Israeli dignity was expressed in it. John 1:49. Nathanael answered Him: Rabbi! You are the Son of God, You are the King of Israel. All of Nathanael's doubts disappeared after this, and he expressed his firm faith in Christ as the Son of God and King of Israel. However, some exegetes interpret the name “Son of God”, used by Nathanael, in the sense of designating the Messianic dignity of Christ - nothing more, considering it synonymous with the next name “King of Israel”. Perhaps this interpretation is supported by the fact that Nathanael did not yet know about the origin of Christ from God and subsequently (see, for example, Christ’s farewell conversation with his disciples) did not show sufficient confidence in the Divinity of Christ. But there can be no doubt that here Nathanael used the title “Son of God” in the proper sense of the word. If he meant the Messiah by the Son of God, he should have put in front the more usual name of the Messiah - “King of Israel.” Moreover, he calls Christ the Son of God in a special, exclusive sense, as evidenced by the article ὁ placed before the word υἱός. It now became quite clear to him what John the Baptist had previously spoken about Christ (verse 34). Finally, Nathanael could be convinced that Christ is a Being of a higher, divine nature by recalling the words of the 2nd Psalm, where God is depicted “today,” i.e. eternally giving birth to the Son, which distinguishes the Son from all people (Ps. 2:7). John 1:50. Jesus answered and said to him, “You believe because I said to you: I saw you under the fig tree; you will see more of this. For such a willingness to believe, Christ promises Nathanael and, of course, together with him, the other disciples to show even greater miracles. At the same time, Christ obviously accepts Nathanael as one of his followers. John 1:51. And he said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, from now on you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” The picture of the future that Christ paints here is undoubtedly related to the picture of Jacob's dream (Gen. 28:12). Both there and here the Angels are first “ascending” and then “descending”. There is no doubt that Christ and the evangelist himself, who cited these words of Christ about the Angels, recognized that Angels are indeed the executors of God’s commandments concerning people (cf. Ps. 103:20 et seq.; Heb. 1:7, 14). But what time did Christ have in mind when he predicted that His disciples would see the open heaven and the angels descending and ascending? We do not see from John’s further narrative that Christ’s disciples ever saw Angels. And Christ says that “from now on” (ἀπ´ ἄρτι must, according to the context of the speech, be recognized as a genuine expression, although it is not found in many codes) will see these Angels. Obviously, this ascent and descent of the Angels must be understood in a figurative sense, and the very vision of the Angels by the disciples must have been accomplished in the spirit. The Lord deigned to express with these wonderful words that from now on He will be the focus of free communication and continuous unity between God and man, that in Him there will be a place of meeting and reconciliation between heaven and earth. From now on, continuous connections will be established between heaven and earth through these blessed spirits called Angels (Trench). According to Tsan, Christ here calls Himself “Son of Man” in the same sense in which this name is used by Him in the speeches contained in the synoptic Gospels, and there, according to the same scientist, it denotes the true humanity of Christ, shows in Him the most ideal man (see Matthew 8:20, 12:32 and especially Matthew 16:13). But we cannot agree with this interpretation. The Lord here, in verse 51, obviously identifies Himself (the Son of Man) with Jehovah, Who appeared in a dream to Jacob, sitting at the top of the stairs along which the Angels ascended to Him. The fact that He had a basis for this can be seen from the 31st chapter of the book of Genesis, where it is said that not God, but the Angel of God appeared to Jacob in Bethel (Gen. 31:11-13). The Angel of God and Jehovah should be understood as the Only Begotten Son of God, Who appeared to the patriarchs of the Old Testament. So, Christ predicts here that the Angels, both in the Old Testament, served Him (Jacob’s vision), and now in the New Testament they will serve Him as the Messiah or, what is the same, the Son of Man (cf. Dan. 7:13-14), of course, in the matter of establishing His Messianic Kingdom among the people. “Do you see,” says Saint John Chrysostom, “how Christ little by little raises Nathanael from the ground and inspires him not to imagine Him as a simple man?.. With such words the Lord inspired to recognize Him as the Lord of the Angels. As to the true Son of the King, these royal servants ascended and descended to Christ, such as: during the suffering, during the resurrection and ascension, and even before that they came and served Him - when they preached about His birth, when they exclaimed: “Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth,” when they came to Mary, to Joseph.” Thus, the term “Son of Man” does not mean a simple person here in John, but the Messiah, the incarnate Only Begotten Son of God, reconciling heaven with earth. (The meaning of this term in John will be discussed in the explanation of the following chapters, see John 3:13, 5:27, etc.) Count L.N. Tolstoy in his work “Connection, translation and study of the four gospels” (St. Petersburg, 1906) finds, however, the most natural way to convey the meaning of the expression “Logos” with the Russian expression “understanding”, to which, on the basis of 1 John 1:1, he also adds the addition of “life” (vol. I, pp. 15 - 20). But everything that Tolstoy says in support of his translation completely misrepresents the entire content of the prologue, and, one might say, here Tolstoy turns out to be some kind of orgy of allegorization, reminiscent of those highly arbitrary interpretations of the Holy Scriptures that are found among the old Jewish rabbis... Wed. 1 John 1:1. The expression ἀπ´ ἀρχῆς is used there, which has the same meaning as the expression ἐν ἀρχῇ. But the latter further emphasizes the difference between the Logos and created beings not only in time, but also in the nature of being... It is impossible to compare (like Godet) the expression ἐν ἀρχῇ in John with the expression ἐν ἀρχῇ in Moses (Gen. 1:1) - it is impossible, because in Moses it is indicated at the initial moment of created existence... In some codices, the words of verse 3 "what happened" (ὃ γέγονεν) refer to verse 4. But we cannot agree with such a reading, since it does not produce a sufficiently clear thought from the 4th verse... In fact, if we read the 4th verse like this: “what happened was life in Him,” i.e. had the source of its life in Him, then such a thought will turn out to be incompatible with the following expression: and life was the light of men, for here we are talking about created life, which could not be called “light for people” (Keil, p. 75 note). Godet translates: the darkness did not accept the light that came from the Logos. Goltsman (p. 37) finds it possible to compare the teaching of the Logos of John the Theologian with the teaching of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus. It can also be translated: “destroys, suppresses,” as in 1 Samuel 25:28 according to the translation of the Seventy (Fcine Theologie d. N. Testam. 1910, p. 683). You might be interested in: