John Chapter 1, Verse 4
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4: εν αυτω ζωη ην και η ζωη ην το φως των ανθρωπων
4: In him was life; and the life was the light of men.
4: In him was life: and the life was the light of men.
ο γεγονεν εν αυτω ζωη ην
"That which has come into being was, in Him, Life," i.e. the life which was eternally in the Word, when it goes forth, issues in created life, and this is true both of (a) the physical and (b) the spiritual world, (a) Jesus Christ, the Son and the Word, is the Life (Jn 11:25 Jn 14:6), the Living One (ho zoe Rev 1:17) ; and it is through this Life of His that all created things hold together and cohere (ta panta en auto sunesteken Col 1:17). (b) In the spiritual order, this is also true. The Son having life in Himself (Jn 5:26) gives life to whomsoever he wishes (house thelei zoopoiei Jn 5:21). Cf. 1Jn 5:11 and see on Jn 17:24. The children of God are those who are quickened by a spiritual begetting (see on Jn 5:13). See also on Jn 6:33.
If en auto is the true reading at Jn 3:15, we have another instance there of en auto being awkwardly placed in the sentence.
Presumably because of this awkward position of en auto, some Western authorities ×D, many Old Latin texts, and the Old Syriac, replace en by estin; interpreting, as it seems, the sentence to mean "that which has come into being in Him is life." But this reading and rendering may safely be set aside as due to misapprehension of the meaning.
και η ζωη ην το φως των ανθÏωπων
The first movement of the Divine Word at the beginning was the creation of Light (Gen 1:3). This was the first manifestation of Life in the kosmos and the Psalmist speaks of the Divine Life and the Divine Light in the same breath : "With Thee is the fountain of life, and in Thy light shall we see light" (Ps 369). God is Light (1Jn 1:5) as well as Life, if indeed there is any ultimate difference between these two forms of energy (see on Jn 8:12).
In this verse, Jn. does not dwell on the thought of the Word's Life as the Light of the kosmos, but passes at once to the spiritual creation ; the Life of the Word was, at the beginning, the Light of men. Cf. Jn 12:46 Jn 9:5, and see especially on Jn 8:12 for the Hebrew origins and development of this thought, which reaches its fullest expression in the majestic claim ego eimi to phos tou kosmon (Jn 8:12).
Philo speaks of the sun as a paradeigma of the Divine Word (de somn i. 15); but he does not, so far as I have noticed, connect life and light explicitly.
In him was life. The evangelist had just affirmed Jn 1:3 that by the Logos or Word the world was originally created. One part of that creation consisted in breathing into man the breath of life, Gen 2:7. God is declared to be life, or the living God, because he is the source or fountain of life. This attribute is here ascribed to Jesus Christ. He not merely made the material worlds, but he also gave life. He was the agent by which the vegetable world became animated; by which brutes live; and by which man became a living soul, or was endowed with immortality. This was a higher proof that the "Word was God," than the creation of the material worlds; but there is another sense in which he was life. The new creation, or the renovation of man and his restoration from a state of sin, is often compared with the first creation; and as the Logos was the source of life then, so, in a similar but higher sense, he is the source of life to the soul dead in trespasses and sins, Eph 2:1. And it is probably in reference to this that he is so often called life in the writings of John. "For as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself," Jn 5:26; "He giveth life unto the world," Jn 6:33; "I am the resurrection and the life," Jn 11:25; "This is the true God and eternal life," 1Jn 5:20. See also 1Jn 1:1, 1Jn 1:2, 1Jn 5:11 Acts 3:15 Col 3:4.
The meaning is, that he is the source or the fountain of both natural and spiritual life. Of course he has the attributes of God.
The life was the light of men. Light is that by which we see objects distinctly. The light of the sun enables us to discern the form, the distance, the magnitude, and the relation of objects, and prevents the perplexities and dangers which result from a state of darkness. Light is in all languages, therefore, put for knowledge -- for whatever enables us to discern our duty, and that saves us from the evils of ignorance and error. "Whatsoever doth make manifest is light," Eph 5:13. See Isa 8:20, Isa 9:2. The Messiah was predicted as the light of the world, Isa 9:2, compared with Mt 4:15, Mt 4:16; Isa 60:1. See Jn 8:12, "I am the light of the world;" Jn 12:35ff.
"I am come a light into the world." The meaning is, that the Logos or Word of God is the instructor or teacher of man-kind. This was done before his advent by his direct agency in giving man reason or understanding, and in giving his law, for the "law was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator" (Gal 3:19); after his advent by his personal ministry when on earth, by his Spirit (Jn 14:16, Jn 14:26), and by his ministers since, Eph 4:11 1Cor 12:28.
