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Just as God divided the light from the darkness in Gen. 1:, so we read in John 1::
"And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not" (John 1: 5).
The word "comprehend" here is a translation of katalambano, from kata, an intensive,
and lambano, "to take". In the middle voice, it is rightly translated "comprehend", as in
Eph. 3: 18; but where it occurs in the active or passive, its meaning is "to grasp", "to
seize", "to overtake". So in John 8: 3, 4: "Taken in adultery", or in John 12: 35:
"Lest the darkness come upon you." And, in I Thess. 5: 4: "But ye, brethren, are not in
darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief."
Some read John 1: 5 as though the thought were that the darkness did not
"overpower" or "hold down" the light. The primary meaning "to grasp", however, seems
to be the most fitting here: "The darkness did not grasp it." Physical darkness is
dispersed immediately the light shines, but spiritual and mental darkness is more like a
dense fog, that remains obscure and dark even though the light of the sun be actually
shining. That this is the writer's meaning seems clear from verse 11: "He came to His
own, but His own received (paralambano) Him not."
The sudden transition to the ministry of John the Baptist in verse 6, shows that John is
not concerned with the question of the physical realm of life and light, but is using the
analogy of creation to enforce the truth of spiritual things. That this is so is confirmed by
the structure of the passage (John 1: 1-18), which was set out in Volume XXIX, page 174.
C | 1: 3. All things were made by Him (Egeneto dia).
C | 1: 17. Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ (Egeneto dia).
Christ is the Originator in both realms. He is the Spring and Source, both of physical
life and light, and of spiritual grace and truth.
While we have this outline before us, let us notice further that verse 4: "In Him was
life; and the life was the light of men", is balanced by verse 16: "Out of His fulness
have all we received." The later verse is really an expansion of the spiritual principle of
the earlier one.
When the prologue is concluded, John returns once more to the witness of John the
Baptist and this time deals with it in detail (verses 19-36), focusing our attention on the
great purpose for which he came--namely, that the Messiah should be made manifest to
Israel (John 1: 31).
In the prologue itself, instead of referring to the Lamb of God, or the Messiah of
Israel, John keeps to the Logos theme and speaks of "life" and "light". He tells us in
verse 7 that John the Baptist was sent "to bear witness of that Light, that all men through
him (i.e. John the Baptist's witness) might believe". The same scrupulous care that
differentiated between the Word Who "was", and all creation that "became", is evident
again in verse 8, where our attention is drawn to the fact that John "was not that Light".
Later on in this Gospel we read of John the Baptist that "he was a burning and a shining