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— It is plain that the antithesis cannot be between the false and the true, but only between the imperfect and the perfect, the shadowy and the substantial. So, too, the eternal word is declared to be τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινόν (John 1:9), not denying thereby that the Baptist was also "a burning and a shining light" (John 5:35), or that the faithful are "lights in the world" (Philippians 2:15; Matthew 5:14); but only claiming for a greater than all to be "the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world." Christ declares Himself ὁ ἄρτος ὁ ἀληθὶνος (John 6:32), not that the bread which Moses gave was not also "bread of heaven" (Psalm 105:40), but it was such only in a secondary inferior degree; it was not food in the highest sense, inasmuch as it did not nourish up into eternal life those that ate it (John 6:49). He is ἡ ἀμπελος ἡ ἀληθινὴ (John 15:1), not thereby denying that Israel also was God's vine, which we know it was (Psalm 80:8; Jeremiah 2:21), but affirming that none except Himself realized this name, and all which this name implied, to the full (Hosea 10:1; Deuteronomy 32:32). The fact that in John's writings the word ἀληθὶνος is used two and twenty times as against five times in all the rest of the New Testament, is one which we can scarcely dismiss as accidental.

(Archbishop Trench.)

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KJV: For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

WEB: For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.