No matter how things might have been with the history and structure of this rival church, we obviously have to reckon with a religio-historical and ecclesiastico-political background to this verse. John’s Gospel belongs to a specific historical situation, although we can, of course, form only a partial and hypothetical picture of it with the help of occasional inferences. Clearly by no means the least important part of this situation was the need to say that John the Baptist was not the light, not the Christ (1:20; 3:28), not the returning Elijah, not the awaited prophet of later Jewish hopes (1:21), not the bridegroom (3:29), not the one who comes from above, from heaven (3:31). Vv. 1–5 prepare us for these negations as they cause us, at least with side-glances, to look around and consider where we stand. The full deity of the Word (v. 1), the reference to Jesus (he is the Word, v. 2), the subordination of everything that has come into being to the Word (v. 3), the restriction of the concept of light or revelation to the life that was in the Word (v. 4), and the opposing of revelation to the darkness as the sphere in which we human beings live (v. 5)—when we consider the place of the problem of the Baptist in the prologue, none of these things can be asserted without the Baptist also being in view. But as we were careful then not to allow the amply justified side-glance to lead us to neglect the far richer content of the presentation in which those references are embedded, so now, when the red thread is plain to see and takes a central place in the text itself, we must be careful not to see in the text only the practical historical background. In modern exposition that inclines in this direction the text takes on a remarkably petty and spiteful character that the author would not have tolerated. All honor to the Mandeans and all that is connected with them! But the possible correction of the squabblings of a Near Eastern sect is not the only thing or the final thing that we must see here.
We should certainly remember that any criticism there might be here either of the Baptist or of a sect of the Baptist has universal and typical significance for the author. In putting the witness in his place he surely recalls that he himself could have only the function of a witness, so that all that he wrote about the Baptist was automatically written about himself as well. In principle the same misunderstanding or confusion to which he sees the sect of the Baptist fall victim is the danger that besets every witness of the light. Luther was undoubtedly right when he said of this verse that the world suffers from the affliction of being full of masters and know-alls, of sages and lights, who seek their own way to heaven and want to be lights of the world and teach and lead us how to come to God; John is warning us against such.65 Wherever we have this confusion, the witness, instead of remaining a witness, begins to pose as the Revealer, points to himself instead of to Christ, and makes God’s cause his own. And wherever, as commonly happens, the disciples of the witness, out of pure gratitude and enthusiasm, do him the wrong of putting him in a place where he does not belong (although probably in a more refined way than in that Mandean text), there John 1:8 is apposite, for there we have a sect of the Baptist which cannot be too plainly or sharply refuted. The practical historical background of the text should not cause us to lose sight of the universal and typical nature of the problem that it raises.
A second point is even more definite and important. We have stressed from the very outset that the criticism of the Baptist is positive, i.e., that the No carries with it dialectically a Yes which is openly and non-dialectically expressed and which is thus to be heard no less attentively. We distort the meaning of the text if with W. Bauer66 we put an “only” in brackets before the eis martyrian (v. 7) and the hina martyrēsē (v. 8). A witness who is really a witness, from all that we have heard in vv. 6–7, is not “only” a witness. In doing justice to the polemical element in the verse we have to allow that the “only” has some validity, but in reading and interpreting v. 8 in context, with vv. 6–7 preceding it and vv. 9ff. following, we have no reason to view it merely as polemic, vigorous though the polemic may be. The second and positive part of the statement is certainly not just an amplification of the first and negative part, where Bauer’s “only” would be in place (although not in a translation). The second part is related in content to vv. 6–7, which are so positive that no one would think of limiting them by an “only” were it not for v. 8a. What they say is already limited and needs no further limitation. All that is said in vv. 6–7, within the limitation, applies also to what is said in v. 8a. Because the Baptist is not the light he is no less what he is and can be, a witness. What v. 8a affirms in definition of the term “witness” is the servant-relationship, the subordination, the dependence which applies to the one thus named over against revelation. But what vv. 6–7 affirm on behalf of v. 8b is that being a witness (even if only a witness) means a positive share [in revelation]67 even if this share be only indirect and on a lower level. John the Baptist is a mountain peak which is visible in the valley and which is lit up by the morning sun when the sun is not yet seen in the valley. The comparison is once again Augustine’s. Augustine tells us—strikingly with reference to v. 9—that John the Baptist came to weak spirits, to sick hearts, to the enfeebled eyes of the soul. This is why he came. And how could the soul see what is perfect? In the same way, as often happens, one can see the risen sun on an object on which it shines when one cannot see the sun with the eyes. For even those who have weak eyes can see a wall which is lit up and illumined by the sun, or they can see a mountain or a tree or some other object, and in another object the sun shows that it has risen even when they have no ability to see it for themselves. In the same way all those for whom Christ came were not completely unable to see him. He lit up John, and through him, who confessed that he was illumined and enlightened but did not himself illumine or enlighten, he was known who illumines, enlightens, and fills.68 Like Augustine, we are certainly not deviating from the Evangelist’s meaning if we say that John the Baptist represents a whole category here. What is true of him is true of all those who with him, classically represented by him, fall under the concept of “witness.” Hence in what follows in vv. 9ff. when we read of the phōs erchomenon eis ton kosmon, we are not to think only of the direct light of the incarnate Word which will be expressly mentioned only in v. 14. Implicitly, of course, there is reference to this too in vv. 9–13, as we had to assume that there was already in v. 5. But along with the direct light there is also for John an indirect light of revelation, which, as we noted already in v. 5, even now as dawn, or indeed as the half-light of midnight, is light from the same light even when its source, the sun, is not yet visible in the sky. This is what seems to be in view in vv. 9–13, which precede the saying about the Incarnation, if there is some significance in the fact that the saying about the Incarnation comes at the end and not at the beginning. And in vv. 9–13 John the Baptist undoubtedly is not the only one at issue. He represents all those who can and must be mentioned with reference to the phōs erchomenon eis ton kosmon in this derived and secondary sense. If this anticipated understanding of vv. 9ff. later proves to be correct, then v. 8 also has a forward reference. As the bearer of this indirect, broken, and muffled light, as the reflector of the light itself,