Witness to the Word. Karl Barth
of life in the midst of the field of force of darkness, as the one who gives information about this revelation, he is what he is, the witness, and over against the Revealer the first of those of whom there is to be said what vv. 12–13 will tell us about “those who received him,” the proclaimer of what he himself has known to those who have not yet known it, and for this reason also the one who has to draw back when he hears the voice of the bridegroom (3:29), the one who must decrease because the latter increases (3:30). In the same way, as the sun rises one no longer looks at the mountain peak which is lit up by it. The light of Christmas is the end of the lights of Advent. When the building is complete, the scaffolding can fall. When the subject itself speaks, there is no longer any need to speak about it, peri tou phōtos. This is the limit, the “only,” the restriction under which the witness stands as such. But within this limit he is what he is with authority and power.
We can meaningfully relate all this to the witnesses of revelation both before and after the epiphany. Before the epiphany John sees the Old Testament, concerning which he says in 8:56 the most unheard-of thing, which one has to read in connection with the New Testament. After the epiphany there is the church, within which he himself has a part. He finds light, the light that comes into the world, both before and after, both before the great skēnoun of the Logos among us (v. 14) and after his poreuein, his departure, among whose signs the later chapters of the Gospel are to be numbered. John the Baptist stands for him on the knife-edge border as the last to bear witness to him who is to come and the first to bear witness to him who has already come, already in some sense looking back to him when he calls him the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world [1:29]. Hence he and his position have both positively and negatively a universal69 significance that embraces the different times. In this regard note the ēn of v. 8a with a reference back to v. 4. In this light we take it that the pisteusōsin di’ autou of v. 7 means that all in some way must pass by him and his pointing finger if they are to come to faith. Hence the comparison of the epiphany to the rising sun has its limits. We are not to press it historically as though the position and character of the witness became different after the years 1 to 30 from what they were before. All witness to revelation is as such the Advent message, not phōs but martyria peri tou phōtos. At all times and in all circumstances the bearer of the Christmas message, having his own light, is the Word that is incarnate in the fulness of time. But the witnesses of the remotest past and the most distant future have in principle a similar share in revelation, or render a similar service to it. There applies to all of them the caveat that in themselves, if they do not misunderstand themselves, they are only witnesses, only friends of the bridegroom, destined to decrease, not worthy to untie his shoelaces. One may put more stress on either the positive or the negative side. At different times one or the other may be more necessary. That is not important. The important thing is that the office of the witness, the ministering function in relation to Christ, should be seen and understood as a function that there always has been and always again has to be, for our sake, not Christ’s,70 as a reflection of his own function.
9. Ēn to phōs to alēthinon, ho phōtizei panta anthrōpon, erchomenon eis ton kosmon. We have first to consider the understanding of older exegesis, and today not only of Schlatter71 but also of E. Schwartz,72 which also found expression in, e.g., Luther’s translation: “That was the true light that lights all men that come into this world.” On this view the subject lies outside the sentence and is best sought in the preceding phōs. Erchomenon eis ton kosmon then goes with anthrōpon, and the stress obviously falls on panta; everybody that comes into the world is illumined by the true light. Taken in connection with vv. 10–11 (according to H. J. Holtzmann’s formulation), what we have is thus a complaint “that men still need a witness to the same Logos when it has already been so close to every one of them.”73 Opinions differ as to whether the light that comes into the world is to be regarded as the grace that has always been offered to all (Augustine, Luther, Schlatter)74 or the communis lux naturae (Calvin), i.e., the sensus aeternae lucis which is given to each of us with reason and conscience, which is spoiled by the fall, but which still cannot be lost or destroyed in substance.75 Linguistically this view has in its favor the undeniable fact that it makes the order of the sentence easier to understand, but it has against it the lack of a subject in the sentence, the subject having to be supplied, not very convincingly, from what precedes: to phōs ēn to phōs to alēthinon, ho phōtize.… Materially it has in its favor the excellent forward connection, at least up to v. 11, but against it stands the arbitrariness of the link with vv. 6–8, as though there were some reason to bewail the need for a special witness to the light. With most modern exegetes I think the arguments against this reading carry the day. Favoring the reading: “The light was coming into the world,”76 which Cocceius, too, vigorously supported,77 is the linguistic point that the author likes to use what is called the periphrastic imperfect (cf. 1:28; 3:23; 10:40, ēn baptizōn; etc.; examples collected by W. Bauer).78 Again, “coming into the world” is constantly in this Gospel a function of the light or of Jesus (cf. 3:19; 12:46; etc.), in agreement with a Mandean formula and contrary to Philo, in whom God keeps the Logos with himself.79 Finally (a point made by H. J. Holtzmann),80 a fine contrast results between the surprisingly placed ēn, followed at once by the subject phōs, and the ouk ēn of v. 8. We thus translate: “The true light, which lights every man, was coming into the world.”
But what does this mean? First, what is to phōs to alēthinon? Four related meanings for alēthinos call for consideration: (1) “genuine” as distinct from false, imitative, or only apparently corresponding to the concept; (2) close to, or coincident with, alēhēs, i.e., “related to or filled with the truth,” “belonging to the realm of truth”;81 (3) “reliable,” “credible”; (4) “true” in the sense of the reality that has only an original and not a copy; cf. the true and heavenly tabernacle of Heb. 8:2 which God has set up and not man. If we look at other passages in the Gospel in which the term occurs, we have to say that according to the context pretty well all the meanings are more or less possible in their own place. As for this passage, in context I decide (with Calvin)82 for the fourth possibility. There can be no question here of opposition to a false or imitation light, for John the Baptist is not regarded as such. The meaning “related to the truth” is so general that its colorlessness and abstractness make a strange impression in this verse. The sense “reliable” or “trustworthy” fits well enough if the thought of the illumination of men by the light is the real point of the statement. But from what we have just said it is not. The paraphrase of Calvin makes good sense. Light in heaven and earth always receives its radiance from elsewhere. But Christ is the light which shines of itself and then fills the whole world with its radiance: “ut non alia sit usquam origo vel causa splendoris. Veram ergo lucem dixit, cui natura proprium est lucere.” [“There is no other source or cause of its brightness anywhere. And so he calls Him the true light whose own nature is to be light.”] Over against the witness peri tou phōtos there stood and stands the phōs alēthinon, the original, uncreated, primary light, the direct and immediate revelation of life that bears witness to itself. Of this true light a relative clause tells us: ho phōtizei panta anthrōpon. Phōtizein is more than phainein (v. 5), and the relative clause says more than v. 4b (that the light was the life of men). Not just an activity but an effect of light is meant here. It illumines men, it fills them with light, it sets them in the light. To the extent that they are set in the light at all! “Quisquis illuminatur, ab hac luce illuminatur.”83 It is in this restrictive sense that we are to take the panta, after the analogy of the pantes of v. 7. Everyone who receives light receives it from this source. Obviously also the man mentioned in v. 6! Only in this way and to this extent does he himself shed light so that others come to faith through him—only as he is illumined by this true and primary light. By this light which is first original and then alone at work, is what the author means to say. Of this light he says that it was erchomenon eis ton kosmon, i.e., coming into the world. What does this mean? According to Cocceius, H. Holtzmann, Heitmüller, and Zahn,84 we must quietly supply a tote before erchomenon. According to this view the Evangelist’s meaning is then that “when the Baptist witnessed to him, Jesus began to emerge from the concealment of his former life” (Zahn). Against this view it has been repeatedly pointed