John 1:16

John 1:16
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John 1:1–16 in Papyrus 75 (AD 175–225)
BookGospel of John
Christian Bible partNew Testament

John 1:16 is the sixteenth verse in the first chapter of the Gospel of John in the New Testament of the Christian Bible.

Content

In the original Greek according to Westcott-Hort, this verse is:

Καὶ ἐκ τοῦ πληρώματος αὐτοῦ ἡμεῖς πάντες ἐλάβομεν, καὶ χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος.

In the King James Version of the Bible, the text reads:

And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace.

The New International Version translates the passage as:

From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another.

Analysis

Fullness (πλήρωμα, plērōma)

The "fullness" (πλήρωμα, plērōma) from which believers receive is generally read as picking up the description of the incarnate Word as "full (πλήρης) of grace and truth" in verse 14: it is from that fullness that "we have all received". D. A. Carson states that the term accordingly "bears no technical, gnostic sense" here, and Craig Keener likewise construes the "fullness" of verse 16 as a reference back to the "full of grace and truth" of verse 14, the full measure of grace present in Christ.

Relationship between two graces (ἀντὶ, anti)

The phrase rendered "grace for grace" (KJV) or "grace upon grace", χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος (charin anti charitos), turns on the sense of the preposition ἀντί (anti). Carson distinguishes several proposals: that ἀντί means "corresponds to" (one grace answering another); "in return for" (a grace given in exchange, which Carson considers foreign to the New Testament's idea of grace); "in addition to" or "upon", giving the popular renderings "grace upon grace" (John 1:16, RSV) and "one blessing after another" (John 1:16, NIV); and "instead of", the sense Carson notes is the most common for ἀντί in the Septuagint.

Commentators are divided over which sense fits best. Carson favours "instead of", so that "from Christ's fullness we have all received grace instead of grace", one grace displacing an earlier one. Keener says because in the Fourth Gospel Christ fulfils rather than negates Moses, he judges that "accumulation may make more sense than substitution", grace added to grace to express an inexhaustible supply of blessing. Both note that the exact construction remains ambiguous while the general sense, the superabundance of grace received from Christ, is clear.

Two ancient parallels are commonly cited. Keener compares a phrase in Sirach, χάρις ἐπὶ χάριτι ("charm upon charm", "a double grace"), as a similar emphatic expression for an added blessing. Carson examines the parallel most often adduced for the "grace upon grace" reading, in Philo (On the Posterity of Cain 145), and argues that it tells against that reading: Philo speaks of "graces" in the plural and describes God dispensing them in small doses, one kind of grace replacing another, not an accumulation of grace upon grace.

According to Robert Witham, the wording in this verse implies an abundance of graces, and greater graces under the new law of Christ than during the time of the law of Moses, which is confirmed by the next verse. Cornelius à Lapide elaborates on this greater grace, saying "Moses gave only an obscure and slight knowledge of God and the Holy Trinity, but by Christ a knowledge that was clear and full."

Reception of grace

Keener takes the first-person "we have all received" to refer in the first instance to the eyewitnesses of verse 14, but, through the verb, to extend to all who come to believe on their testimony (John 1:12; John 17:20). He notes that the "all" (πάντες) is nonetheless restricted to those who believe the light, as in John 1:7 and John 1:9, not everyone to whom the light is made available.

Commentary from the Church Fathers

Thomas Aquinas assembled the following quotations regarding this verse from the early Fathers of the Church:

Notes

  1. ↑ Heinrich Meyer identifies Heracleon, Rupertus, Erasmus, Martin Luther, Philip Melancthon and Lange among those who share Origen's interpretation. Meyer sees the words ἡμεῖς πάντες (hēmeis pantes, we ... all) as decisively making the words part of John the evangelist's message.

References

  1. ↑ John 1:16: Westcott-Hort New Testament
  2. ↑ John 1:16: King James Version
  3. ↑ John 1:16: New International Version
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 Carson, D. A. (1991). The Gospel According to John. The Pillar New Testament Commentary. Leicester / Grand Rapids: Apollos / Eerdmans. on John 1:16. ISBN 978-0-85111-749-2.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Keener, Craig S. (2003). The Gospel of John: A Commentary. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic. on John 1:16. ISBN 978-1-4412-3705-7.
  6. ↑ Robert Witham, Annotations on the New Testament of Jesus Christ, Dublin: 1730.
  7. ↑ Cornelius Cornelii a Lapide; Thomas Wimberly Mossman, The great commentary of Cornelius à Lapide, London: J. Hodges, 1889-1896.
  8. ↑ Meyer, H. A. W. (1880), Meyer's NT Commentary on John 1, translated by Peter Christie from the German sixth edition, accessed on 16 August 2025
  9. 1 2 3 Thomas Aquinas, ed. (1874). "Catena aurea: commentary on the four Gospels, collected out of the works of the Fathers: Volume 6, St. John". Oxford: Parker. pp. 38–40. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
Preceded by
John 1:15		 Gospel of John
Chapter 1		 Succeeded by
John 1:17