`Some trust in chariots, and some in horses: but we will remember

the name of the LORD our God' (Psa. 20:7).

Applying all this we may say that those who `received Him' and

`believed on His name', accepted Him in all the fulness of what His

name represented - both as the Word (His name `in the beginning') and

as `Jesus Christ', His name when `the Word was made flesh'. The

word translated `on' in the expression `believe on His name' here, is

eis and literally means `unto'.  This word usually indicates the

believing of a person; the fuller word epi (`upon') denotes trust, which

is a step in advance of John 1:12. In verse 13 we read:

`Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of

the will of man, but of God'.

It is interesting to inquire whether this verse completes the

statement of verse 12, or introduces the glorious doctrine of verse 14.

As the Authorized Version rendering stands, the words `were born',

being plural, must necessarily refer to those that believe, whose new

birth is entirely dissociated from `bloods' - that is to say `ancestry' -

and from the `will of the flesh', and the `will of man'. Griesbach,

however, has called attention to a different reading. Instead of hoi ...

egennethesan, he reads hos ... egennethe, `Who was not begotten of

blood ... but of God'. This reading would mean that verse 13 refers to

The Companion Bible has the following note in connection with

this verse:

`But antecedent to any ancient MSS., Iren -us (A.D. 178),

Tertullian (A.D. 208), Augustine (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 `Encyclopaedia Britannica',

eleventh (Camb.) edition, vol. 27, pp. 852-7'.

It is evident from the above note, that Dr. Bullinger (who

personally prepared the notes up to the tenth chapter before his death)