John Chapter 1, Verse 6
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6: εγενετο ανθρωπος απεσταλμενος παρα θεου ονομα αυτω ιωαννης
6: There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
6: There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.
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Explanatory Comment: John the Baptist was not the Light
A feature of the style of John is his habit of pausing to comment on words which he has recorded. Here we have a parenthetical note to explain that the Light of which the Logos hymn sings is not John the Baptist. It has been suggested that this was inserted as necessary to combat the pretensions of some Christians who exalted the Baptist unduly (cf. Acts 18:25, Acts 19:3f) ; but see on Jn 1:20 below.
For John, as for Mark, the "gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God" (Mk 1:1), began with the preaching of the Baptist. John does not stay to record stories of the Birth of Jesus, as Luke and Matthew do. He opens his Gospel with a mystical hymn about the Logos, which reminds the reader that the true beginnings of the wonderful life are lost in the timeless and eternal Life of God. But in the Gospel John is to describe the historical manifestation of the Word, and this was prepared for, and introduced by, the preaching of the Baptist. Upon this John dwells more fully than any other evangelist, probably because his informant, the aged son of Zebedee, was himself one of the Baptist's disciples. The correspondences between Mark 1 and John 1 in regard to what they tell about the Baptist and his sayings are remarkable.
Mk 1:2 introduces Ihe Baptist by quoting Mal 3:1 "I send my messenger before my face"; John introduces him as a man "sent from God." Both Mk 1:2 and Jn 1:23 apply to him the prophecy of Isa 40:3. Mk 1:7 gives two utterances of the Baptist about Christ which reappear Jn 1:15, Jn 1:27, Jn 1:30. Mk 1:8 and Jn 1:26 both report the emphasis laid by the Baptist on his baptism being with water. And the allusions to the baptism of Jesus in Jn 1:33f are reminiscent of Mk 1:10f.
εγενετο ανθÏωπος κτλ
("There arose a man," etc.). There is no introductory particle connecting this with v. 5. It is a sentence quite distinct from the verse of the Logos Hymn which goes before.
απεσταλμενος παÏα θεου
The Baptist made this claim for himself (Jn 3:28); cf. Mal 3:1. Cf. Jn 9:16 Jn 9:33 for a similar use of para theon, and see on Jn 6:45.
ονομα αυτω ιωαννης
For the construct cf. Jn 3:1 and Rev 6:8, Rev 9:11. Burney (Aramaic Origin, etc. p31) urges that this is a Semitic construct, but it is also good Greek, e.g. Aristophon onomo auto (Demosth. contra Zenoth. 11).
The spelling Ioanes is preferred to Ioannes by most modern editors, being almost universally found in B. "It belongs to the series of Hellenised names which treat the an of the Hebrew termination (Ioanan) as a variable inflection " (Blass, Gram, 11).
John is prone to distinguish carefully people who have the same name, e.g. Judas (Jn 6:71 Jn 13:2 Jn 14:22), Mary (Jn 11:2 Jn 19:25), Joseph (Jn 19:38); in this being more scrupulous than the Synoptists. It is, perhaps, worthy of note, therefore, that John never writes "John the Baptist," but always "John," as if there were no other John who could be confused with him. On this has been based an argument to prove that John the son of Zebedee is, in some sense, the author (if not the actual scribe) of the Fourth Gospel; for the one person to whom it would not occur to distinguish John the Baptist from John the son of Zebedee would be John the son of Zebedee himself. On the other hand, the Synoptists only occasionally give the full description "John the Baptist", "John" being quite sufficient in most places where the name occurs. It would not be as necessary for an evangelist writing for Christian readers at the end of the first century to say explicitly "John the Baptist," when introducing the John who bore witness to Jesus at the beginning of His ministry, as it was for Josephus when writing for Roman readers to distinguish him as "John who is called the Baptist " (Antt. xviii. v. 2).
A man sent from God. See Matthew Chapter 3. The evangelist proceeds now to show that John the Baptist was not the Messiah, and to state the true nature of his office. Many had supposed that he was the Christ, but this opinion he corrects; yet he admits that he was sent from God -- that he was divinely commissioned. Though he denied that he was the Messiah, yet he did not deny that he was sent from or by heaven on an important errand to men. Some have supposed that the sole design of this gospel was to show that John the Baptist was not the Messiah. Though there is no foundation for this opinion, yet there is no doubt that one object was to show this. The main design was to show that Jesus was the Christ, Jn 20:31. To do this, it was proper, in the beginning, to prove that John was not the Messiah; and this might have been at that time an important object. John made many disciples, Mt 3:5. Many persons supposed that he might be the Messiah, Lk 3:15 Jn 1:19.
Many of these disciples of John remained AT EPHESUS, the very place where John is supposed to have written this gospel, long after the ascension of Jesus, Acts 19:1ff. It is not improbable that there might have been many others who adhered to John, and perhaps many who supposed that he was the Messiah. On these accounts it was important for the evangelist to show that John was not the Christ, and to show, also, that he, who was extensively admitted to be a prophet, was an important witness to prove that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ. The evangelist in the first four verses stated that "the Word" was divine; he now proceeds to state the proof that he was a man, and was the Messiah. The first evidence adduced is the testimony of John the Baptist.
