=6, 7. There was a man sent from God.= From a characterization of the light, John passes to a description of the incarnation and its object, and to a discrimination between the incarnate Light and the prophet who foretold its coming. From the Greek word here rendered _sent_ (ἀποστέλλω, _apostello_) comes our word _apostle_. The apostle is a man sent from God; Christ is the word or utterance, or manifestation of God. Comp. Heb. 1:1-3.--=John.= The Baptist.--=The same came for a witness.= As one who enters the witness-stand to testify what he knows, so John the Baptist came to declare what had been revealed to him concerning the coming Messiah. Comp. John 5:32-35.--=To bear witness of the Light.= Simply a repetition and amplification of the previous clause of the sentence. He was not a mere preacher of the law, nor of the duty of repentance, though this is the phase of his ministry most prominent in the reports of Matt. (3:1-12), and Luke (3:1-18). He was a forerunner of the great King, sent to bear witness of his approach. And this phase of his ministry, though indicated in the other Gospels (Matt. 3:11; 11:9, Mark 1:7, 8; Luke 3:16, 17), is most clearly brought out in John (verses 23, 29-36).--=That all through him might believe.= That is, through John might believe in the Light. The other construction, through the Light might believe, _i. e._, in God, is forced and unnatural, even if grammatically admissible. The true office of the Christian ministry is so to bear witness to the Light which the preacher _knows_ by his own experience (Rom. 7:14; 8:28; 2 Tim. 1:12), that men may believe in and accept that Light (2 Cor. 4:5; Col. 1:28.) 8 He[33] was not that Light, but _was sent_ to bear witness of that Light. 9 _That_ was the true Light,[34] which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. [33] Acts 19:4. [34] Isa. 49:6.