Only begotten

John uses the phrase “only begotten” ( monogenes ) four times in his gospel (1:14, 18; 3:15, 18). (I’m assuming here the controversial point that the phrase does mean “only begotten.”) He uses it only once in his first epistle: God’s love is manifest in the fact that “God has sent His only begotten Son into the world” (4:9). Why here?

The pattern in the gospel is for John to use monogenes in contexts where he’s talking about the manifestation of the eternal Word or Son of God. Both uses in John 1 are about visible displays: We see the glory of God in the Word tabernacled among us (1:14) and the invisible God is explained by the incarnate Son (1:18). John 3:16 refers to the sending of the only-begotten, and 3:18 says that those who refuse to believe in the only-begotten Son who has been sent are condemned already. This is also the context for 1 John 4:9: God’s love is manifested in the sending of the only-begotten Son (but cf. 4:10, 14).

If John is drawing some connection between “begottenness” and “sending,” perhaps we have some evidence for the way that Augustine works out the doctrine of the Trinity by distinguishing, but also uniting, the “processions” and the “missions” (sendings). The historical missions of the Son and Spirit point us to the internal relations of the Persons. The missions display what is eternally real in God, that the Son and Spirit eternally “go out” from the Father.

In the context of John 4, there is perhaps another link. In 4:7, John suggestively writes, to translate woodenly, “love out of God is” and “everyone who loves out of God is born.” The repetition of the phrase ek tou theou in these two clauses is a grammatical hint that there is a parallel between the love that is “out of God” and the loving-ones who are born “out of God.” This may simply mean that the ones who are born of the Father who is Love love; it may simply be pointing to the fact that love and the ones who love have a common source.

But there might also be more force in that ek : Just as love flows out from the Father, so those who are born from the Father, who flow out of Him as new creatures, love. Or, more speculatively, that the ones who are born of God embody the love that is “out of God.”

Now, we can make a connection between the verb used in 4:7 ( gennao ) and the genes of monogenes . This is a debatable connection, but possible – the words live in the same semantic neighborhood; and besides, 1 John 5:18 shows that John can speak of Jesus not only as monogenes but as gegennemenos , “born” of God.

We appear, then, to have a middle term between the love that flows from God and the loving ones who are born of God. Or, more precisely, we have a more specific designation for the love that flows eternally from God. John might be saying: God displays His love in the sending of His Son; that Son is begotten from His Father as the eternal Love that is “out of God” – that Son is the first who loves because He is “firstborn” of God; and those who are members of the Son, who abide in Him, are extensions of that eternal love that comes “out of God.”

This also adds a “third” outflow: Eternally, the Son is begotten of the Father; historically, once for all, the Son is sent by the Father; throughout the age of the church, the church is sent by the Father and Son, in the power of the Spirit. And this third outflow is an outflow of love: Eternally the Love that is the Son goes out from God; once for all, the Love that is the Son is sent as Savior of the world; continuously, those in whom the Filial Love of God dwells go out into the world.