Witness to the Word. Karl Barth

that comes to us. In him as the Word is the life that is the light of men, as we read in vv. 4f. It seems to me to be making it all impermissibly pragmatic when Schlatter has it that the Evangelist is referring to the words from the lips of Jesus.18 For the Evangelist the Word is not just the words that Christ speaks but the Word that he is in his whole manifestation. The fact that he is the Word contains and sums up all that he is. For John, then, all the other things fade away which undoubtedly echo in the Logos concept, and of which we might still catch an echo if we have a taste for speculation. In John Logos means Word, and perhaps we do best not to add to this, not even perhaps to make the addition Creator-Word which recollection of Gen. 1:1 suggests. All the things that with historical justification we might read into ho logos in the light of contemporary ideas, all the things that with exegetical justification we might read into it in the light of v. 3 and v. 10, e.g., reason, meaning, principle, power, deed, etc., can only cause confusion. We think of the passage in which Goethe has his Faust (“We learn to value supraterrestrial things, we long for revelation”) expound the New Testament precisely at this verse: “It is written: In the beginning was the Word. Here I falter already. Who will help me? I cannot possibly value the word so highly. I have to translate it differently if I am truly to be enlightened by the Spirit.” He then considers the renderings “meaning” or “power,” but finally: “I suddenly see my way and confidently write: In the beginning was the deed.”19 But immediately after he has confidently written this, the devil appears. It would be better to stay with the fact that John calls the subject of his Gospel, his “hero” in the not wholly apt phrase of W. Bauer, “the Word.” The word is the unassuming but incomparably true form in which people simply impart themselves, no more and no less, to others. By the Word God, too, imparts himself to us. Because he is the Word of God, he is not just a word but the Word, the Word of all words. But the Word. In the simplicity and strictness, and precisely thus in the fulness of the Word, God reveals himself and has revealed himself. From the very first line John starts out from the fact that the Word is and has been given. This need not be proved. We can count on it with the certainty of an axiom. Hence no stress is laid on the threefold ho logos in v. 1. As an ideogram it can stand there like the inscription on the diadem of the white rider of Rev. 19, which can be read but not understood, like the x in the equation whose value will appear only when the equation is solved. The prologue first sets out the equation. It gives the unknown factor its place, its relation to the other numbers. What is the place of the Word in the economy of the whole complex of God, the world, humanity, the witnesses, believers? What role does it play? What is its path from him who speaks it to those who hear it? What is, what takes place, where it is spoken and heard? Finally, at the climax, who is the Word? But this brings us to the point where the concept has served its turn, where the reality of Jesus Christ that is concealed in the proclamation of the Evangelist takes its place with power, where the equation is solved: kai hautē estin ē martyria tou Iōannou, vv. 19ff. We have in v. 1 the beginning of this presentation. The Word is where God is. Hence it must belong to God and be of the same nature as God. No more and no less than God himself was and is needed if the Word is there, and is and will be spoken. He had to speak it. But he has spoken it. And he speaks it again. To this Word the human word of the Evangelist bears witness.

      2. Houtos ēn en archȩ̄ pros ton theon. This, I think, is how we should place the emphasis. So far as I can see, this verse receives what might be called perfunctory treatment from almost all expositors. The commentaries tell us that it recapitulates, concentrates, confirms, and repeats v. 1. This obviously means that they can make neither head nor tail of it. They cannot tell us why this recapitulation is needed after three short, clear statements, or what purpose it serves. In fact, nothing beyond v. 1, or especially its second and third statements, seems to be said here, and the only surprise is why the third statement is not confirmed and repeated too. Theodor Zahn, who was struck by this, supposes that with the repetition of the two basic statements, namely, that the Logos was en archȩ̄ and pros ton theon, the final statement, namely, that he was theos, is safeguarded against the view (which, according to Zahn’s exposition, is not ruled out) that the Logos, like other divine hypostases, is a supreme creature. No, v. 2 answers according to Zahn, he, the Logos, was in the beginning with God. But apart from the dubious nature of the assumption regarding v. 1c, it is very doubtful whether the author would have offered such a safeguard by merely repeating v. 1a and v. 1b, statements which, if I understand him aright, Zahn thinks we are to elucidate in terms of v. 1c. Where does it leave us, then, if what is elucidated has to elucidate that which elucidates it? If we cannot follow Zahn, and find an answer to the riddle of the verse in the theory of mere recapitulation, there remains only one possibility which, surprisingly, only Schlatter (p. 2) among all the exegetes known to me takes into consideration. I have to regard it as the only possibility. Why should the houtos ēn merely refer back to ho logos? Can it not also point forward in some way? Is it arbitrary to hunt around in the prologue and to argue that another highly significant houtos ēn occurs in v. 15, in the saying of the Baptist, in which houtos ēn, although the name is not mentioned, undoubtedly refers to Jesus? In the whole development in vv. 1–18 the author obviously has Jesus Christ in view. He is referring to him. For him Jesus is the Logos, Jesus is the life, Jesus is the light that shines in the darkness. All expositors agree on this. Zahn and Schlatter and also Eduard Thurneysen20 have all emphasized this very strongly in their interpretations, even too strongly in my view (esp. Zahn with his too great historicizing). Fundamentally this view of the prologue is unquestionably correct. But it rests primarily on a hypothesis that arises irresistibly out of the total impression made by the section. Exegetically its correctness can be demonstrated only if the houtos of v. 2 does not refer back to the ho logos of v. 1c but is a first and purely indicatory filling of the place that is marked out by the term Logos and its predicates in v. 1. After the first and basic statements that define the place, John, on this view, is saying that he, this one, who in truth as little needs to be made known as a person as does the person that we here call ho theos—this one whom we all know, who has come to us all as the Word, who addresses himself to us all (the Evangelist immediately adopts here the attitude of John the Baptist with his pointing finger)—he was in the beginning with God, and all that has been said and is yet to be said is said about him. The author can thus rely axiomatically on the fact that the Word has been given and spoken because he is at once in a position to give the indication: houtos, “he there,” as Schlatter paraphrases the term. With his statement that the Word was in the beginning John looked back to the beginning of the Bible, to creation. But now he speaks about the Word that lends nature its law and its power. “He looks from the beginning of the Bible over to Jesus, and with this first statement he says how thankful he is to Jesus. In him he has so found the Word of God that he can receive it.” In my view, this is saying too much, but materially it catches excellently the meaning of the verse. I need not stress the point that the verse, interpreted thus, is no longer superfluous as in earlier expositions. One has to read it in very close connection with v. 1c. With a backward reference the meaning is that he, Jesus, as the Logos who was theos, who partook of the divine nature, was in the beginning, because as such he belongs legitimately to God. Hence the concrete pointing to Jesus with the remarkable discretion that is proper to the author tells us both who was in the beginning with God, because he was theos, and that his being theos, his being in the beginning with God, is true. The answer to both questions is that it was he. If we view v. 2 in this way, we need not be surprised that the statement in v. 1c is not repeated, for v. 2 is related to it. We are then forced exegetically to understand the theos ēn ho logos of v. 1c, as we have done, as an identification by nature of two distinct persons. For alongside the person denoted by ho theos the houtos that partakes of the same theotēs, the Logos, has also come in person.

      3. If vv. 1–2 undoubtedly form a first closed circle in the presentation, the same applies to v. 3: panta di’ autou egeneto kai chōris autou egeneto oude hen ho gegonen. I thus accept this demarcation of the verse. It is debated whether there should not be a period after oude hen. If so, ho gegonen goes with what follows. W. Bauer (op. cit., p. 11) offers four arguments that seem to favor this reading. (1) The rhythm comes out better (as Loisy points out). (2) There are other instances of what might seem to be the strange ending of the sentence