Witness to the Word. Karl Barth

might have had something to do with Zahn’s zeal in this regard. But be that as it may, his view of the matter is onesided and violent because even he, in vv. 1–3, cannot deny that we have to do with a reality and activity of the Logos that is only pointing ahead to the historical Jesus, and because it is hard to see why the statement which begins there, and which does not start at the Incarnation but simply hastens toward it, preparing the ground for a consideration of the incarnate Word, should suddenly break off here and become what in this case must be called a puzzlingly abstract reference to the significance of the life of Jesus. Certainly we have to say that in every word that John writes he has in view Jesus of Nazareth as the reality that fills out his depiction of the function of the Logos, as the goal toward which he is moving in this remarkable anticlimax. Certainly, if our interpretation of v. 2 is correct, John has been referring in a significant way to Jesus from the very first: He was in the beginning with God. Certainly vv. 4–5 are speaking of the same light as that whose epiphany or arising is depicted in vv. 14ff. and which then becomes the theme of the Gospel proper. Every word of the prologue can (and even must) be related to Jesus of Nazareth, for every word is thought out in relation to him, i.e., to the revelation that took place in him.47 Yet the word “light” includes not only the sunrise but also the dawn when the sun has not yet risen, and even the half-light of the night. It does not seem to me to be the presupposition of the prologue that the existence of light in the world, its coming into the world, to which v. 9 and then 3:19 and 12:46 refer, begins only with the ensarkōsis of v. 14. “Lux luxit etiam antequam in carne appareret.”48 Inasmuch as every word here relates to Jesus Christ, it also relates to the Logos as the Revealer of God who announces himself before and even apart from Jesus of Nazareth. To the conjectured dogmatic background of Zahn’s view we might reply with a principle of orthodox Reformed christology: “Sic logos naturam humanam sibi univit, ut totus earn inhabitet et tote quippus immensus et infinitus extra eam sit.”49 I shall be careful not to advance in relation to v. 4 the counterthesis that the reference here is simply to a pre-Christian stage of revelation, e.g., to Israel. The notes sounded by the terms “life” and “light” are too full to permit this. Obviously no one time is here marked off from another. Revelation as a whole, the light which comes and has already come, the light which is the light of men, is here contrasted with history as a whole. What the author wants to say is that whatever was revelation, the light of life, redemption for men, was so only in him—again not directly or immediately from God, from God indeed, but in him, in the same Word that took flesh in Jesus Christ, alongside which there never has been or can be any other Word. In him was life, and this life was the light of men. The emphasis of the verse—we must not let this be lost—is on the en autō̧. Wherever there was light, it was this light. Apart from him there is only witness to the light (v. 8), just as outside him nothing came into being that is. Augustine, even though in the main point he is wrong about this verse as “nimium platonicus.” is right, and grasps the thought of the Evangelist very well, when he comments on the phrase to phōs tōn anthrōpōn: “John the Baptist was illumined by this light, and so was John the Evangelist himself. He was full of this light who said: ‘I am not the Christ, but he who comes after me.’ … He was illumined by this light who said: ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and God was the Word.’ ”50 Here we take our red thread51 in our hands again. It is as well not to miss here, too, the accompanying note of this problem.

      5. Kai to phōs en tȩ̄ skotia̧ phainei, kai hē skotia auto ou katelaben. The readoption of the term phōs from v. 4b (which gives significance to the first connecting kai), the fact that v. 5a is in some sense an explanation of v. 4b, since it was as the light shining in the darkness that the life was the light of men, these factors justify our assumption that v. 5 stands in a special relation to v. 4 in the same way as v. 2 does to v. 1. The change from ēn to phainei, which is surprising at first glance, is no argument against this. We have already seen from v. 3b how flexible the tenses are for the author. We shall find further examples in the prologue when we come to v. 9 and v. 15a. As the ēn of v. 4 has some present significance, so indubitably the phainei, as the contrasting aorist katelaben shows, embraces the past as well. In this regard one has to say, of course, that in John the present always has the ring of the special actuality of the event denoted by the verb in question. For the moment I will leave open the question of the special thing at issue and in a preliminary way simply point out that the historical part of the first chapter, the story of Lazarus in ch. 11, and finally the resurrection in chs. 20–21 are all marked by a strikingly fluid use of the present tense which, in places where readers would expect past tenses, necessarily confronts them with the events narrated and hauls them out of their seats to action on the stage. That the surprising martyrei of v. 15a of the prologue has this effect is beyond dispute. Is this the aim here too, and also with the phōtizei of v. 9? However that may be, the relation in v. 4, which in appearance at least is neutrally described (“The life was the light of men”), is now characterized. It takes on color and becomes dramatic. The presuppositions of the terms “life” and “light,” which v. 4 does not specify, now come to the fore. Light shines—this is an analytical statement—in the darkness. Revelation confronts nonrevelation,52 concealment, indeed, a power that acts inimically against revelation. This is skotia. That skotia is not identical with the hoi anthrōpoi of v. 4 we can see from 3:19, where the men who love the dark, to skotos, more than the light are obviously distinguished from darkness. According to the relatively few passages in which skotia occurs in John, darkness is the atmosphere which contends against light and redemption. Men, all men, walk in this atmosphere (8:12; 12:35; 1 John 2:11). But as disciples of Jesus they must no longer walk in it; as believers they must not abide in it (12:35, 46). But according to 12:35 darkness can still overtake (katalambanein, the same term as in v. 5b) once again those who walk in the light, like a mist that unexpectedly rises in the mountains.

      It has often been noted, and quite correctly, that John does not explain why revelation is revelation in the darkness. He has given no origin for this opponent of revelation. He has set it in no relation to the panta di’ autou, either by explaining that it is an exception, that it has its own genesis, or by explaining that it is included, that evil falls within God’s plan for the world. The question of its origin is neither posed nor answered. “The Evangelist has not reflected on it,” is the comment of H. Holtzmann53 on this silence. We must add, however, that this is not because he unfortunately never thought about this profound question. It is because it was for him a meaningless question. Skotia is for him a reality which is found on the plane where one cannot put the question of origin, where there is no possibility of objective consideration, where our only option is to reckon with the realities that arise there and to deal with them either in war or in peace. On the same plane there stands on the other side the Word of God in which the self-revealing life is contained. In this case, too, there is no question of origin, of why or whence. In this case, too, there is only the question de fait, not de droit, for theos ēn ho logos (v. 1). Naturally darkness is not for John a second god as it is for Marcion. We are not in fact to restrict the panta di’ autou (v. 3). At the same time we are not to excuse or explain the fact of darkness with the help of the panta di’ autou. Incomprehensible in its origin, it confronts the light. It is not just an isolated phenomenon but the atmosphere, the characteristic constitution of humanity to which revelation turns. It is the dark riddle for the sake of which revelation is necessary and on account of which it can be understood only as a miracle. One might say that we confront the same incomprehensibility in face of darkness and in face of the light that streams from the life of the Word, positive on the one side, negative on the other. The revelation of v. 4 is a new thing compared to v. 3. It is unforeseen. It does not arise out of the plan or reality of creation. If in fact panta di’ autou, what need is there of the special life that comes, or of its revelation? Revelation has no basis or origin, or it is not revelation. Similarly, the darkness is simply there. It is an incident. It is not part of any program. Opposed to every program, it is simply an event. This incident on the one side and the Word of the revelation of life on the other are what the Evangelist finds to be the determinations of human existence, i.e., of his own existence. Hence he cannot “reflect” on them. Both of them, if in different ways, are incomprehensible. Hence in different ways he can only take up