John, then, employs the language of this mystical philosophy, in order more effectually to refute its errors. He finds a certain substratum of truth, viz., that there is one God and one Mediator between God and man, underlying this superstructure of error; he begins his Gospel by occupying this ground, and by his phraseology brings himself into sympathy with his Gnostic readers; then, from this common ground he leads them on to the truth respecting the incarnation. It is true, he says to them, that there is a Word of God, but this Word was from the beginning with God, and is indeed God himself, who is not incommunicable, but a self-manifesting God. It is true that there is a Life and a Light; but the Life is God himself, not an inferior and subordinate deity; and the Light is not remote and unapproachable, but lighteth every man that cometh into the world. For this Mediator is not an emanation from God, but God himself, the true Light shining in the darkness (verse 5), the true Life by whom we can not only commune with Christ, but become the very children of God (verses 12, 13). And he has come and tabernacled among men in the flesh, in the earthly life of Jesus of Nazareth. It only remains to add that there is to be found in the Old Testament (see notes below) a Scriptural basis for John’s use of the language here, particularly his phrase “the Word of God,” and that there is not the least ground for the claims of some rationalistic scholars that John derived his doctrine here from Philo, or from the Alexandrian or Gnostic schools. On the contrary, his doctrine and theirs are radically inconsistent. Philo holds that matter is inherently defiling, that God cannot come into contact with matter, even to fashion it in creation, without defilement; John, that God “was made flesh and dwelt among us,” and yet so far from being defiled thereby, manifested his glory, “the glory of the only-begotten of the Father.” CHAPTER I. 1 In[23] the beginning was the Word,[24] and the Word was with[25] God, and the Word was[26] God. [23] Prov. 8:22, 31; Col. 1:16, 17; 1 John 1:1. [24] Rev. 19:13. [25] ch. 17:5. [26] Phil. 2:6; Heb. 1:8-13; 1 John 5:7.