What Does John 1:18 Mean?

(18) **No man hath seen God at any time.**—The full knowledge of truth is one with the revelation of God, but no man has ever had this full knowledge. The primary reference is still to Moses (comp. Exodus 33:20; Exodus 33:23), but the words hold good of every attempt to bridge from the human stand-point the gulf between man and God. “The world by wisdom knew not God” (1Corinthians 1:21), and systems which have resulted from attempts of the finite to grasp the Infinite are but as the vision of a dream or the wild fancy of a wandering mind. **The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father.**—The oneness of essence and of existence is made prominent by a natural figure, as necessary in Him who is to reveal the nature of God. The “is in” is probably to be explained of the return to, and presence with the Father after the Ascension. Some of the oldest MSS. and other authorities read here, “Only begotten God, which is in the bosom of the Father.” It will be convenient to group together the passages of this Gospel, where there are important various readings in one Note. See *Excursus B. Some Variations in the Text of St. John’s Gospel.* **He hath declared him.**—“He,” emphatically as distinct from all others, this being the chief office of the Word; *declared,* rather than “hath declared;” “Him” is not found in the original text, which means “He was interpreter,” “He was expositor.” The word was used technically of the interpretation of sacred rites and laws handed down by tradition. Plato, *e.g.,* uses it of the Delphian Apollo, who is the “national expositor” (*Rep.* iv. 427). The verse is connected, by a likeness of Greek words too striking to be accidental, with the question of Jesus the son of Sirach asked some three centuries before, “Who hath seen Him that he might tell us?” (Ecclesiasticus 43:31). The answer to every such question, dimly thought or clearly asked, is that no man hath ever so known God as to be His interpreter; that the human conception of God as “terrible” and “great” and “marvellous” (Ecclesiasticus 43:29) is not that of His essential character; that the true conception is that of the loving Father in whose bosom is the only Son, and that this Son is the only true Word uttering to man the will and character and being of God.