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"But antecedent to any ancient MSS, Irenaeus (A.D.178), Tertullian (A.D.208),
Augustus (A.D.395) and other Fathers read `Who was begotten' (Sing. not pl.), the hos,
`Who' agreeing with autou (`His name'. Gr. onoma autou, `name of Him'). Verse 14
goes on to speak of the incarnation of Him Who was not begotten by human generation.
The Latin Codex Veronensis (before Jerome's Vulgate) reads `Qui . . . . . natus est'.
Tertullian ascribes the reading of the Received Text to the artifice of the Valentinian
Gnostics of the second and third centuries. See encyl. Brit. Eleventh (Camb.) edn.
vol. 27, pp. 852-7."
It is evident from the above note, that Dr. Bullinger (who personally prepared the
notes up to John 10: before his death) believed "Who was begotten" to be the true
reading. It is too late now for any one to express more than an opinion on this point. It
would seem, however, that every word in verse 13 would apply more appropriately to
Christ as "made flesh" than to "believers", for it would hardly seem necessary to say that
a believer was not "born of the will of the flesh". In any case, no doctrinal truth is
modified in the slightest degree, whichever reading we adopt. All we can say is that the
proximity of the incarnation in verse 14, and the way in which verse 13 leads up to it, is
an argument in favour of the reading found by Griesbach and adopted in The Companion
Bible.
#11. The Word made flesh (1: 14).
"The glory of the Only Begotten of the Father."
pp. 177 - 181
The structure of the prologue to John's Gospel is rather like the letter 5: It begins
with a steady descent, from verse 1, until the lowest point is reached at verse 14; and the,
from this point onwards there is a steady rise until the Son of God is "back where He was
before". In our present study we have reached verse 14, where we have the marvelous
words:
"And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the
glory was of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth" (John 1: 14).
It will be noticed that John makes no reference to the various features in connection
with the actual birth of Christ, that are dwelt upon by Matthew and Luke. He does not
even mention Mary, the mother of Christ, until the Lord is about to start His public
ministry; and although Mary is mentioned ten times in the Gospel nothing is said of the
virgin birth or of the fulfillment of prophecy at Bethlehem, except in a discussion among
the Jews, who only knew that Christ had come from Galilee. It would seem that John
purposely refrains from pointing out the fulfillment of O.T. Scripture--a very definite
feature of Matthew's Gospel which was written particularly for those who knew the
O.T.--and instead, brings before us one piece of evidence after another until we are
forced by its sheer weight to say, with Thomas, "My Lord and my God". Thomas was