The true Light was not "true" as opposed to "false," but "true" as answering to the perfect ideal, and as opposed to all more or less imperfect representations. The meaning of the Greek is quite clear. The difficulty arises from the fact that in English there is but one word to represent the two ideas. The word for the fuller meaning of "ideally true" is not confined to St. John, but is naturally of very frequent recurrence in his writings. The adjective is used nine times in this Gospel, and not at all in the other three. A comparison of the passages will show how important it is to get a right conception of what the word means, and will help to give it. (See John 4:23; John 4:37; John 6:32; John 7:28; John 8:16; John 15:1; John 17:3; John 19:35.) But, as ideally true, the Light was not subject to the changing conditions of time and space, but was and is true for all humanity, and "lighteth every man." . . .

(b) The illumination of the archetypal Light before incarnation. There are at least three grammatical translations of this verse. Either

(1) with Meyer, we may give to η΅ν the complete sense of existence, presence, and include in it the full predicate of the sentence; thus: "Existing, present (when John commenced his ministry), was the veritable Light which enlighteneth every man coming into the world." But the clause, "coming into the world," would here not only be superfluous, but moreover, while used elsewhere and often of Christ's incarnation, is never used of ordinary birth in the Scriptures, though it is a rabbinical expression.

(2) Lange, Moulton, Westcott, Godet, applying the ἐρχόμενον εἰς τὸν κόσμον to the light rather than to man, translate it, "That was the true Light which lighteth every man, by coming into the world, or that cometh into the world." The difficulty of this is that it makes the coming into the world, in some new sense, the occasion of the illumination of every man, although the evangelist has already spoken (ver. 4) of the Life which is the Light of men. A third method is to make the ἐρχόμενον εἰς τὸν κόσμον the true predicate of the sentence, and translate thus: The veritable Light which illumines every man was coming (ever coming) into the world; and there is a sense and manner of his coming which transcends all others, about which he is to speak at length. This might receive another meaning if η΅ν ἐρχόμενον were equivalent to η΅λθε; then a positive reference would here he made to the historic fact of the Incarnation. But it seems to me the evangelist is drawing a contrast between the continuous coming into the world of the veritable Light and the specific Incarnation of ver. 14. Consequently, the author here travels over and connotes a wider theme, namely, the operation of that archetypal Light, that veritable Light which differs from all mere reflections of it, or imitations of it, or luminous testimonies to it. The difference between ἀληθής and ἀληθινός is important. Ἀληθής is used in John 3:33 and John 5:31, and very often to denote the true in opposition to the false, the veracious as distinct from the deceptive. Ἀληθινός is used in the Gospel (John 4:23, 37; John 6:32; John 7:28; John 15:1; John 17:3), First Epistle (1 John 5:20), and Apocalypse (Revelation 3:7), and hardly anywhere else (see Introduction), for the real as opposed to the phenomenal, the archetypal as opposed to the various embodiments of it, the veritable as distinct from that which does not answer to its own ideal. Now, about this veritable light, in addition to all that has been said already, two things are declared. . . .

Parallel Commentaries ...