Observations from the Greek text in John's Gospel: 1:16-18

Let’s take a look at John 1:16-17.  

16 ὅτι ἐκ τοῦ πληρώματος αὐτοῦ ἡμεῖς πάντες ἐλάβομεν καὶ χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος·  17 ὅτι ὁ νόμος διὰ Μωϋσέως ἐδόθη, ἡ χάρις καὶ ἡ ἀλήθεια διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐγένετο.

16 because out of his fullness, we all have received grace for grace, 17 because the law was given though Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus the Anointed.

First of all, what does χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος (“grace for grace” or “grace instead of grace”) mean in verse 16?  John explains this in the very next verse.  The first “grace” was the OT law given through Moses, but the NT “grace” has come through Jesus.  Therefore, the new “grace” has replaced the old “grace”.

Now, let’s take a look at John’s famous passage, verse 18.

18 Θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακεν πώποτε· μονογενὴς θεὸς ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκεῖνος ἐξηγήσατο.

18 No one has ever seen God; the unique God, the one who is in the bosom of the Father, that one has expounded (the unseen God). 

First of all, the verb ἑώρακεν (ὁράω) is in the perfect tense, which normally means that the action occurred in the past and the effects of that action are still being felt at the time that the text was written.  So, up onto the time that John is writing this, God had not been seen.  With that said, ὁράω means a bit more than “to see”.  It also can carry the idea of “perceive” or “understand”.  This expanded definition may be in play here as we try to describe the action that Jesus does.

Before we get the action that Jesus does, let’s take a look at how John describes Jesus.  Here, Jesus is μονογενὴς θεὸς ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς (the unique God, the one who is in the bosom of the Father).  We first encountered μονογενὴς in the last blog.  Here, John describes Jesus as “the unique God” or “the unique deity”.  This makes the most sense when one considers that “the Word became flesh” and is now in the world.  John is basically restating what he stated in 1:1 that Jesus was God.  Of course this passage is not without controversy.  Later scribes replaced μονογενὴς θεὸς with μονογενὴς υἱός (unique son), but the oldest manuscripts have μονογενὴς θεὸς.  It is obvious that these later scribes saw a problem with Jesus being called “the unique God”, but I don’t.  It just reaffirms what John said in 1:1.

Last but not least, let’s look at the action that Jesus does here.  The verb is ἐξηγέομαι which means “to relate or expound in great detail”.  In other words, Jesus describes in great detail to people just who the invisible God is and how he really is.  As a man who lived among the people, Jesus was able to relate to people God’s true nature and just how much he loves the people in this world.

This sets the stage of John’s Gospel.  Now that John has introduced Jesus, he will go forth and set down in writing to prove that Jesus is who he has just described.