In this chapter we have,
I. Christ's evading the snare which the Jews laid for him, in bringing
to him a woman taken in adultery, ver. 1-11 .
II. Divers discourses or conferences of his with the Jews that cavilled
at him, and sought occasion against him, and made every thing he said a
matter of controversy.
1. Concerning his being the light of the world, ver. 12-20 .
2. Concerning the ruin of the unbelieving Jews, ver. 21-30 .
3. Concerning liberty and bondage, ver. 31-37 .
4. Concerning his Father and their father, ver. 38-47 .
5. Here is his discourse in answer to their blasphemous reproaches, ver. 48-50 .
6. Concerning the immortality of believers, ver. 51-59 .
And in all this he endured the contradiction of sinners against
himself.
1 Jesus went unto the mount of Olives.
2 And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and
all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them.
3 And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken
in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,
4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery,
in the very act.
5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be
stoned: but what sayest thou?
6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse
him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the
ground, as though he heard them not. 7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and
said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first
cast a stone at her.
8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.
9 And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing
in the midst.
10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the
woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers?
hath no man condemned thee?
11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do
I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.
Though Christ was basely abused in the foregoing chapter, both by the
rulers and by the people, yet here we have him still at Jerusalem,
still in the temple. How often would he have gathered them! Observe,
I. His retirement in the evening out of the town
( v. 1 ): He went unto the mount of olives; whether to some friend's
house, or to some booth pitched there, now at the feast of tabernacles,
is not certain; whether he rested there, or, as some think, continued
all night in prayer to God, we are not told. But he went out of
Jerusalem, perhaps because he had no friend there that had either
kindness or courage enough to give him a night's lodging; while his
persecutors had houses of their own to go to
( ch. vii. 53 ),
he could not so much as borrow a place to lay his head on, but what he
must go a mile or two out of town for. He retired (as some think)
because he would not expose himself to the peril of a popular tumult in
the night. It is prudent to go out of the way of danger whenever we can
do it without going out of the way of duty. In the day-time, when he
had work to do in the temple, he willingly exposed himself, and was
under special protection, Isa. xlix. 2 .
But in the night, when he had not work to do, he withdrew into the
country, and sheltered himself there.
II. His return in the morning to the temple, and to his work there, v. 2 .
Observe,
1. What a diligent preacher Christ was: Early in the morning he came
again, and taught. Though he had been teaching the day before, he
taught again to-day. Christ was a constant preacher, in season and out
of season. Three things were taken notice of here concerning Christ's
preaching.
(1.) The time: Early in the morning. Though he lodged out of
town, and perhaps had spent much of the night in secret prayer, yet he
came early. When a day's work is to be done for God and souls it
is good to begin betimes, and take the day before us.
(2.) The place: In the temple; not so much because it was a consecrated place (for then he would have chosen it at other
times) as because it was now a place of concourse; and he would
hereby countenance solemn assemblies for religious worship, and
encourage people to come up to the temple, for he had not yet left it
desolate.
(3.) His posture: He sat down, and taught, as one having
authority, and as one that intended to abide by it for some time.
2. How diligently his preaching was attended upon: All the people
came unto him; and perhaps many of them were the country-people,
who were this day to return home from the feast, and were desirous to
hear one sermon more from the mouth of Christ before they returned.
They came to him, though he came early. They that seek him early
shall find him. Though the rulers were displeased at those that
came to hear him, yet they would come; and he taught them, though they were angry at him too. Though there were few or none
among them that were persons of any figure, yet Christ bade them
welcome, and taught them.
III. His dealing with those that brought to him the woman taken in
adultery, tempting him. The scribes and Pharisees would not only
not hear Christ patiently themselves, but they disturbed him when the
people were attending on him. Observe here,
1. The case proposed to him by the scribes and Pharisees, who herein
contrived to pick a quarrel with him, and bring him into a snare, v. 3-6 .
(1.) They set the prisoner to the bar
( v. 3 ):
they brought him a woman taken in adultery, perhaps now lately
taken, during the time of the feast of tabernacles, when, it may be,
their dwelling in booths, and their feasting and joy, might, by wicked
minds, which corrupt the best things, be made occasions of sin. Those
that were taken in adultery were by the Jewish law to be put to
death, which the Roman powers allowed them the execution of, and
therefore she was brought before the ecclesiastical court. Observe, She was taken in her adultery. Though adultery is a work of
darkness, which the criminals commonly take all the care they can to
conceal, yet sometimes it is strangely brought to light. Those that
promise themselves secrecy in sin deceive themselves. The scribes and
Pharisees bring her to Christ, and set her in the midst of the
assembly, as if they would leave her wholly to the judgment of Christ,
he having sat down, as a judge upon the bench.
(2.) They prefer an indictment against her: Master, this woman was
taken in adultery, v. 4 .
Here they call him Master whom but the day before they had
called a deceiver, in hopes with their flatteries to have
ensnared him, as those, Luke xx. 20 .
But, though men may be imposed upon with compliments, he that searches
the heart cannot.
(3.) They produce the statute in this case made and provided, and upon
which she was indicted, v. 5 .
Moses in the law commanded that such should be stoned. Moses
commanded that they should be put to death ( Lev. xx. 10; Deut. xxii. 22 ),
but not that they should be stoned, unless the adulteress was espoused,
not married, or was a priest's daughter, Deut. xxii. 21 .
Note, Adultery is an exceedingly sinful sin, for it is the rebellion of
a vile lust, not only against the command, but against the covenant, of
our God. It is the violation of a divine institution in innocency, by
the indulgence of one of the basest lusts of man in his degeneracy.
(4.) They pray his judgment in the case: " But what sayest thou, who pretendest to be a teacher come from God to repeal old laws and
enact new ones? What hast thou to say in this case?" If they had asked
this question in sincerity, with a humble desire to know his mind, it
had been very commendable. Those that are entrusted with the
administration of justice should look up to Christ for direction; but this they said tempting him, that they might have to accuse him, v. 6 .
[1.] If he should confirm the sentence of the law, and let it take its
course, they would censure him as inconsistent with himself (he having
received publicans and harlots) and with the character of the Messiah,
who should be meek, and have salvation, and proclaim a year of release;
and perhaps they would accuse him to the Roman governor, for
countenancing the Jews in the exercise of a judicial power. But,
[2.] If he should acquit her, and give his opinion that the sentence
should not be executed (as they expected he would), they would
represent him, First, As an enemy to the law of Moses, and as
one that usurped an authority to correct and control it, and would
confirm that prejudice against him which his enemies were so
industrious to propagate, that he came to destroy the law and the
prophets. Secondly, As a friend to sinners, and, consequently, a
favourer of sin; if he should seem to connive at such wickedness, and
let it go unpunished, they would represent him as countenancing it, and
being a patron of offences, if he was a protector of offenders, than
which no reflection could be more invidious upon one that professed the
strictness, purity, and business of a prophet.
2. The method he took to resolve this case, and so to break this
snare.
(1.) He seemed to slight it, and turned a deaf ear to it: He stooped
down, and wrote on the ground. It is impossible to tell, and
therefore needless to ask, what he wrote; but this is the only mention
made in the gospels of Christ's writing. Eusebius indeed speaks of his
writing to Abgarus, king of Edessa. Some think they have a liberty of
conjecture as to what he wrote here. Grotius says, It was some grave
weighty saying, and that it was usual for wise men, when they were very
thoughtful concerning any thing, to do so. Jerome and Ambrose suppose
he wrote, Let the names of these wicked men be written in the
dust. Others this, The earth accuses the earth, but the judgment
is mine. Christ by this teaches us to be slow to speak when
difficult cases are proposed to us, not quickly to shoot our bolt; and
when provocations are given us, or we are bantered, to pause and
consider before we reply; think twice before we speak once: The
heart of the wise studies to answer. Our translation from some
Greek copies, which add, me prospoioumenos (though most
copies have it not), give this account of the reason of his writing on
the ground, as though he heard them not. He did as it were look
another way, to show that he was not willing to take notice of their
address, saying, in effect, Who made me a judge or a divider? It
is safe in many cases to be deaf to that which it is not safe to
answer, Ps. xxxviii. 13 .
Christ would not have his ministers to be entangled in secular affairs.
Let them rather employ themselves in any lawful studies, and fill up
their time in writing on the ground (which nobody will heed), than busy
themselves in that which does not belong to them. But, when Christ
seemed as though he heard them not, he made it appear that he not only
heard their words, but knew their thoughts.
(2.) When they importunately, or rather impertinently, pressed him for
an answer, he turned the conviction of the prisoner upon the
prosecutors, v. 7 .
First, Here Christ avoided the snare which they had laid for
him, and effectually saved his own reputation. He neither reflected
upon the law nor excused the prisoner's guilt, nor did he on the other
hand encourage the prosecution or countenance their heat; see the good
effect of consideration. When we cannot make our point by steering a
direct course, it is good to fetch a compass.
Secondly, In the net which they spread is their own foot taken. They came with design to accuse him, but they were forced to accuse
themselves. Christ owns it was fit the prisoner should be prosecuted,
but appeals to their consciences whether they were fit to be the
prosecutors.
a. He here refers to that rule which the law of Moses prescribed
in the execution of criminals, that the hand of the witnesses must
be first upon them ( Deut. xvii. 7 ),
as in the stoning of Stephen, Acts vii. 58 .
The scribes and Pharisees were the witnesses against this woman. Now
Christ puts it to them whether, according to their own law, they would
dare to be the executioners. Durst they take away that life with their
hands which they were now taking away with their tongues? would not
their own consciences fly in their faces if they did?
b. He builds upon an uncontested maxim in morality, that it is
very absurd for men to be zealous in punishing the offences of others,
while they are every whit as guilty themselves, and they are not better
than self-condemned who judge others, and yet themselves do the same
thing: "If there be any of you who is without sin, without sin
of this nature, that has not some time or other been guilty of
fornication or adultery, let him cast the first stone at her." Not that
magistrates, who are conscious of guilt themselves, should therefore
connive at others' guilt. But therefore,
( a. ) Whenever we find fault with others, we ought to reflect
upon ourselves, and to be more severe against sin in ourselves than in
others.
( b. ) We ought to be favourable, though not to the sins, yet to
the persons, of those that offend, and to restore them with a spirit
of meekness, considering ourselves and our own corrupt nature. Aut sumus, aut fuimus, vel possumus esse quod hic est--We either
are, or have been, or may be, what he is. Let this restrain us from throwing stones at our brethren, and proclaiming their faults. Let him that is without sin begin such discourse as this, and
then those that are truly humbled for their own sins will blush at it,
and be glad to let it drop. ( c. ) Those that are any way obliged to animadvert upon the
faults of others are concerned to look well to themselves, and keep
themselves pure
( Matt. vii. 5 ), Qui alterum incusat probri, ipsum se intueri oportet. The
snuffers of the tabernacle were of pure gold.
c. Perhaps he refers to the trial of the suspected wife by the
jealous husband with the waters of jealousy. The man was to bring her
to the priest
( Num. v. 15 ),
as the scribes and Pharisees brought this woman to Christ. Now it was a
received opinion among the Jews, and confirmed by experience, that if
the husband who brought his wife to that trial had himself been at any
time guilty of adultery, Aquæ non explorant ejus uxorem--The
bitter water had no effect upon the wife. "Come then," saith
Christ, "according to your own tradition will I judge you; if you are
without sin, stand to the charge, and let the adulteress be executed;
but if not, though she be guilty, while you that present her are
equally so, according to your own rule she shall be free."
d. In this he attended to the great work which he came into the
world about, and that was to bring sinners to repentance; not to
destroy, but to save. He aimed to bring, not only the prisoner to
repentance, by showing her his mercy, but the prosecutors too, by
showing them their sins. They sought to ensnare him; he sought to
convince and convert them. Thus the blood-thirsty hate the upright,
but the just seek his soul.
First, Perhaps his writing on the ground frightened them, as the
hand-writing on the wall frightened Belshazzar. They concluded he was
writing bitter things against them, writing their doom. Happy they who
have no reason to be afraid of Christ's writing!
Secondly, What he said frightened them by sending them to their
own consciences; he had shown them to themselves, and they were
afraid if they should stay till he lifted up himself again his next
word would show them to the world, and shame them before men, and
therefore they thought it best to withdraw. They went out one by
one, that they might go out softly, and not by a noisy
flight disturb Christ; they went away by stealth, as people
being ashamed steal away when they flee in battle, 2 Sam. xix. 3 .
The order of their departure is taken notice of, beginning at the
eldest, either because they were most guilty, or first aware of the
danger they were in of being put to the blush; and if the eldest quit
the field, and retreat ingloriously, no marvel if the younger follow
them. Now see here,
1. The force of the word of Christ for the conviction of
sinners: They who heard it were convicted by their own
consciences. Conscience is God's deputy in the soul, and one word
from him will set it on work, Heb. iv. 12 .
Those that had been old in adulteries, and long fixed in a proud
opinion of themselves, were here, even the oldest of them, startled by
the word of Christ; even scribes and Pharisees, who were most conceited
of themselves, are by the power of Christ's word made to retire with
shame.
2. The folly of sinners under these convictions, which appears
in these scribes and Pharisees.
(1.) It is folly for those that are under convictions to make it their
principal care to avoid shame, as Judah
( Gen. xxxviii. 23 ), lest we be shamed. Our care should be more to save our souls
than to save our credit. Saul evidenced his hypocrisy when he said, I have sinned, yet now honour me, I pray thee. There is no way
to get the honour and comfort of penitents, but by taking the shame of
penitents.
(2.) It is folly for those that are under convictions to contrive how
to shift off their convictions, and to get rid of them. The
scribes and Pharisees had the wound opened, and now they should
have been desirous to have it searched, and then it might have
been healed, but this was the thing they dreaded and declined. (3.) It is folly for those that are under convictions to get away
from Jesus Christ, as these here did, for he is the only one that
can heal the wounds of conscience, and speak peace to us. Those that
are convicted by their consciences will be condemned by their Judge, if
they be not justified by their Redeemer; and will they then go from
him? To whom will they go?
First, The prosecutors are called: Where are those thine
accusers? Hath no man condemned thee? Not but that Christ knew
where they were; but he asked, that he might shame them, who declined
his judgment, and encourage her who resolved to abide by it. St. Paul's
challenge is like this, Who shall lay any thing to the charge of
God's elect? Where are those their accusers? The accuser of the
brethren shall be fairly cast out, and all indictments
legally and regularly quashed.
Secondly, They do not appear when the question is asked: Hath
no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. She speaks
respectfully to Christ, calls him Lord, but is silent concerning
her prosecutors, says nothing in answer to that question which
concerned them, Where are those thine accusers? She does not
triumph in their retreat nor insult over them as witnesses against
themselves, not against her. If we hope to be forgiven by our Judge, we
must forgive our accusers; and if their accusations, how invidious
soever, were the happy occasion of awakening our consciences, we may
easily forgive them this wrong. But she answered the question
which concerned herself, Has no man condemned thee? True
penitents find it enough to give an account of themselves to God, and
will not undertake to give an account of other people.
Thirdly, The prisoner is therefore discharged: Neither do I
condemn thee; go, and sin no more. Consider this,
( a. ) As her discharge from the temporal punishment: "If they do
not condemn thee to be stoned to death, neither do I. "
Not that Christ came to disarm the magistrate of his sword of justice,
nor that it is his will that capital punishments should not be
inflicted on malefactors; so far from this, the administration of
public justice is established by the gospel, and made subservient to
Christ's kingdom: By me kings reign. But Christ would not
condemn this woman,
( a. ) Because it was none of his business; he was no judge
nor divider, and therefore would not intermeddle in secular affairs.
His kingdom was not of this world. Tractent fabrilia
fabri--Let every one act in his own province. ( b. ) Because she was prosecuted by those that were more guilty
than she and could not for shame insist upon their demand of justice
against her. The law appointed the hands of the witnesses to be first
upon the criminal, and afterwards the hands of all the people, so that
if they fly off, and do not condemn her, the prosecution drops. The
justice of God, in inflicting temporal judgments, sometimes takes
notice of a comparative righteousness, and spares those who are
otherwise obnoxious when the punishing of them would gratify those that
are worse than they, Deut. xxxii. 26, 27 .
But, when Christ dismissed her, it was with this caution, Go, and
sin no more. Impunity emboldens malefactors, and therefore those
who are guilty, and yet have found means to escape the edge of the law,
need to double their watch, lest Satan get advantage; for the
fairer the escape was, the fairer the warning was to go and sin no
more. Those who help to save the life of a criminal should, as Christ
here, help to save the soul with this caution.
( b. ) As her discharge from the eternal punishment. For Christ to
say, I do not condemn thee is, in effect, to say, I do
forgive thee; and the Son of man had power on earth to forgive
sins, and could upon good grounds give this absolution; for as he
knew the hardness and impenitent hearts of the prosecutors, and
therefore said that which would confound them, so he knew the
tenderness and sincere repentance of the prisoner, and therefore said
that which would comfort her, as he did to that woman who was a sinner,
such a sinner as this, who was likewise looked upon with disdain by a
Pharisee
( Luke vii. 48, 50 ): Thy sins are forgiven thee, go in peace. So here, Neither do
I condemn thee. Note,
( a. ) Those are truly happy whom Christ doth not condemn, for his discharge is a sufficient answer to all other challenges; they
are all coram non judice--before an unauthorized judge. ( b. ) Christ will not condemn those who, though they have sinned,
will go and sin no more, Ps. lxxxv. 8; Isa. lv. 7 .
He will not take the advantage he has against us for our former
rebellions, if we will but lay down our arms and return to our
allegiance.
( c. ) Christ's favour to us in the remission of the sins that are
past should be a prevailing argument with us to go and sin no
more, Rom. vi. 1, 2 .
Will not Christ condemn thee? Go then and sin no more.
12 Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of
the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but
shall have the light of life.
13 The Pharisees therefore said unto him, Thou bearest record
of thyself; thy record is not true.
14 Jesus answered and said unto them, Though I bear record of
myself, yet my record is true: for I know whence I came, and
whither I go; but ye cannot tell whence I come, and whither I go.
15 Ye judge after the flesh; I judge no man.
16 And yet if I judge, my judgment is true: for I am not alone,
but I and the Father that sent me.
17 It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two
men is true.
18 I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that
sent me beareth witness of me.
19 Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father? Jesus
answered, Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me,
ye should have known my Father also.
20 These words spake Jesus in the treasury, as he taught in the
temple: and no man laid hands on him; for his hour was not yet
come.
The rest of the chapter is taken up with debates between Christ and
contradicting sinners, who cavilled at the most gracious words that
proceeded out of his mouth. It is not certain whether these disputes
were the same day that the adulteress was discharged; it is probable
they were, for the evangelist mentions no other day, and takes notice
( v. 2 )
how early Christ began that day's work. Though those Pharisees that
accused the woman had absconded, yet there were other Pharisees
( v. 13 )
to confront Christ, who had brass enough in their foreheads to keep
them in countenance, though some of their party were put to such a
shameful retreat; nay perhaps that made them the more industrious to
pick quarrels with him, to retrieve, if possible, the reputation of
their baffled party. In these verses we have,
I. A great doctrine laid down, with the application of it.
1. The doctrine is, That Christ is the light of the world ( v. 12 ): Then spoke Jesus again unto them; though he had spoken a great
deal to them to little purpose, and what he had said was opposed, yet
he spoke again, for he speaketh once, yea, twice. They
had turned a deaf ear to what he said, and yet he spoke again to
them, saying, I am the light of the world. Note, Jesus
Christ is the light of the world. One of the rabbies saith, Light is the name of the Messiah, as it is written, Dan. ii. 22 , And light dwelleth with him. God is light, and Christ is the
image of the invisible God; God of gods, Light of lights. He was
expected to be a light to enlighten the Gentiles ( Luke ii. 32 ),
and so the light of the world, and not of the Jewish church
only. The visible light of the world is the sun, and Christ is the Sun of righteousness. One sun enlightens the whole world, so
does one Christ, and there needs no more. Christ in calling himself the
light expresses,
(1.) What he is in himself--most excellent and glorious.
(2.) What he is to the world--the fountain of light, enlightening every
man. What a dungeon would the world be without the sun! So would it be
without Christ by whom light came into the world, ch. iii. 19 .
2. The inference from this doctrine is, He that followeth me, as
a traveller follows the light in a dark night, shall not walk in
darkness, but shall have the light of life. If Christ be the
light, then,
(1.) It is our duty to follow him, to submit ourselves to his
guidance, and in every thing take directions from him, in the way that
leads to happiness. Many follow false lights--ignes fatui, that
lead them to destruction; but Christ is the true light. It is
not enough to look at this light, and to gaze upon it,
but we must follow it, believe in it, and walk in it, for it is a light
to our feet, not our eyes only.
(2.) It is the happiness of those who follow Christ that they shall
not walk in darkness. They shall not be left destitute of those
instructions in the way of truth which are necessary to keep them from
destroying error, and those directions in the way of duty which are
necessary to keep them from damning sin. They shall have the light
of life, that knowledge and enjoyment of God which will be to them
the light of spiritual life in this world and of everlasting life in
the other world, where there will be no death nor darkness. Follow
Christ, and we shall undoubtedly be happy in both worlds. Follow
Christ, and we shall follow him to heaven.
II. The objection which the Pharisees made against this doctrine, and
it was very trifling and frivolous: Thou bearest record of thyself;
thy record is not true, v. 13 .
In this objection they went upon the suspicion which we commonly have
of men's self-condemnation, which is concluded to be the native
language of self-love, such as we are all ready to condemn in others,
but few are willing to own in themselves. But in this case the
objection was very unjust, for,
1. They made that his crime, and a diminution to the credibility of his
doctrine, which in the case of one who introduced a divine revelation
was necessary and unavoidable. Did not Moses and all the prophets bear
witness of themselves when they avouched themselves to be God's
messengers? Did not the Pharisees ask John Baptist, What sayest thou
of thyself? 2. They overlooked the testimony of all the other witnesses, which
corroborated the testimony he bore of himself. Had he only borne record
of himself, his testimony had indeed been suspicious, and the
belief of it might have been suspended; but his doctrine was
attested by more than two or three credible witnesses, enough to establish every word of it.
III. Christ's reply to this objection, v. 14 .
He does not retort upon them as he might ("You profess yourselves to be
devout and good men, but your witness is not true "), but
plainly vindicates himself; and, though he had waived his own testimony
( ch. v. 31 ),
yet here he abides by it, that it did not derogate from the credibility
of his other proofs, but was necessary to show the force of them. He is
the light of the world, and it is the property of light to be
self-evidencing. First principles prove themselves. He urges three
things to prove that his testimony, though of himself, was true and
cogent.
1. That he was conscious to himself of his own authority, and
abundantly satisfied in himself concerning it. He did not speak as one
at uncertainty, nor propose a disputable notion, about which he himself
hesitated, but declared a decree, and gave such an account of
himself as he would abide by: I know whence I came, and whither I
go. He was fully apprised of his own undertaking from first to
last; knew whose errand he went upon, and what his success would be. He
knew what he was before his manifestation to the world, and what
he should be after; that he came from the Father, and was
going to him ( ch. xvi. 28 ),
came from glory, and was going to glory, ( ch. xvii. 5 ).
This is the satisfaction of all good Christians, that though the world
know them not, as it knew him not, yet they know whence their spiritual
life comes, and whither it tends, and go upon sure grounds.
2. That they are very incompetent judges of him, and of his doctrine,
and not to be regarded.
(1.) Because they were ignorant, willingly and resolvedly ignorant: You cannot tell whence I came, and whither I go. To
what purpose is it to talk with those who know nothing of the matter,
nor desire to know? He had told them of his coming from heaven and
returning to heaven, but it was foolishness to them, they received it not; it was what the brutish man knows not, Ps. xcii. 6 .
They took upon them to judge of that which they did not understand,
which lay quite out of the road of their acquaintance. Those that
despise Christ's dominions and dignities speak evil of what they know not, Jude, v. 8, 10 .
(2.) Because they were partial ( v. 15 ): You judge after the flesh. When fleshly wisdom gives the rule of
judgment, and outward appearances only are given in evidence, and the
case decided according to them, then men judge after the flesh; and when the consideration of a secular interest turns the scale in
judging of spiritual matters, when we judge in favour of that which
pleases the carnal mind, and recommends us to a carnal world, we judge
after the flesh; and the judgment cannot be right when the rule is
wrong. The Jews judged of Christ and his gospel by outward appearances,
and, because he appeared so mean, thought it impossible he should be
the light of the world; as if the sun under a cloud were no sun.
(3.) Because they were unjust and unfair towards him,
intimated in this: " I judge no man; I neither make nor meddle
with your political affairs, nor does my doctrine or practice at all
intrench upon, or interfere with, your civil rights or secular powers."
He thus judged no man. Now, if he did not war after the
flesh, it was very unreasonable for them to judge him after the
flesh, and to treat him as an offender against the civil
government. Or, " I judge no man, " that is, "not now in my first
coming, that is deferred till I come again," ch. iii. 17 . Prima dispensatio Christi medicinalis est, non judicialis--The first
coming of Christ was for the purpose of administering, not justice, but
medicine.
3. That his testimony of himself was sufficiently supported and
corroborated by the testimony of his Father with him and for him ( v. 16 ): And yet, if I judge, my judgment is true. He did in his doctrine
judge
( ch. ix. 39 ),
though not politically. Consider him then,
(1.) As a judge, and his own judgment was valid: " If I judge, I
who have authority to execute judgments, I to whom all things are
delivered, I who am the Son of God, and have the Spirit of God, if I
judge, my judgment is true, of incontestable rectitude and
uncontrollable authority, Rom. ii. 2 . If I should judge, my judgment must be true, and then you
would be condemned; but the judgment-day is not yet come, you are not
yet to be condemned, but spared, and therefore now I judge no
man; " so Chrysostom. Now that which makes his judgment
unexceptionable is,
[1.] His Father's concurrence with him: I am not alone, but I and
the Father. He has the Father's concurring counsels to direct; as he was with the Father before the world in forming
the counsels, so the Father was with him in the world in prosecuting
and executing those counsels, and never left him inops
consilii--without advice, Isa. xi. 2 .
All the counsels of peace (and of war too) were between them
both, Zech. vi. 13 .
He had also the Father's concurring power to authorize and confirm what
he did; see Ps. lxxxix. 21, &c. Isa. xlii. 1 .
He did not act separately, but in his own name and his Father's,
and by the authority aforesaid, ch. v. 17, and xiv. 9, 10 .
[2.] His Father's commission to him: "It is the Father that sent
me. " Note, God will go along with those that he sends; see Exod. iii. 10, 12 : Come, and I will send thee, and certainly I will be with
thee. Now, if Christ had a commission from the Father, and
the Father's presence with him in all his administrations, no
doubt his judgment was true and valid; no exception lay against it, no appeal lay from it.
(2.) Look upon him as a witness, and now he appeared no
otherwise (having not as yet taken the throne of judgment), and as such
his testimony was true and unexceptionable; this he shows, v. 17, 18 ,
where,
This was the sum of the first conference between Christ and these
carnal Jews, in the conclusion of which we are told how their tongues
were let loose, and their hands tied.
First, How their tongues were let loose (such was the malice of
hell) to cavil at his discourse, v. 19 .
Though in what he said there appeared nothing of human policy or
artifice, but a divine security, yet they set themselves to cross
questions with him. None so incurably blind as those that
resolve they will not see. Observe,
a. How they evaded the conviction with a cavil: Then
said they unto him, Where is thy Father? They might easily have
understood, by the tenour of this and his other discourses, that when
he spoke of his Father he meant no other than God himself; yet
they pretend to understand him of a common person, and, since he
appeals to his testimony, they bid him call his witness, and
challenge him, if he can, to produce him: Where is thy Father? Thus, as Christ said of them
( v. 15 ),
they judge after the flesh. Perhaps they hereby intend a
reflection upon the meanness and obscurity of his family: Where is
thy Father, that he should be fit to give evidence in such a case
as this? Thus they turned it off with a taunt, when they could not
resist the wisdom and spirit with which he spoke.
b. How he evaded the cavil with a further conviction; he did not tell them where his Father was, but
charged them with wilful ignorance: " You neither know me nor my
Father. It is to no purpose to discourse to you about divine
things, who talk of them as blind men do of colours. Poor creatures!
you know nothing of the matter."
( a. ) He charges them with ignorance of God: " You know not my
Father. " In Judah was God known
( Ps. lxxvi. 1 );
they had some knowledge of him as the God that made the world, but
their eyes were darkened that they could not see the light of his glory
shining in the face of Jesus Christ. The little children of the Christian church know the Father, know him as a Father
( 1 John ii. 13 );
but these rulers of the Jews did not, because they would not so know
him.
( b. ) He shows them the true cause of their ignorance of God: If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. The
reason why men are ignorant of God is because they are unacquainted
with Jesus Christ. Did we know Christ,
[ a. ] In knowing him we should know the Father, of whose person
he is the express image, ch. xiv. 9 .
Chrysostom proves hence the Godhead of Christ, and his equality with
his Father. We cannot say, "He that knows a man knows an angel," or,
"He that knows a creature knows the Creator;" but he that knows Christ
knows the Father.
[ b. ] By him we should be instructed in the knowledge of God, and
introduced into an acquaintance with him. If we knew Christ better, we should know the Father better; but, where the
Christian religion is slighted and opposed, natural religion will soon
be lost and laid aside. Deism makes way for atheism. Those become vain
in their imaginations concerning God that will not learn of Christ.
Secondly, See how their hands were tied, though their tongues
were thus let loose; such was the power of Heaven to restrain the
malice of hell. These words spoke Jesus, these bold words, these
words of conviction and reproof, in the treasury, an apartment
of the temple, where, to be sure, the chief priests, whose gain was
their godliness, were mostly resident, attending the business of the
revenue. Christ taught in the temple, sometimes in one part,
sometimes in another, as he saw occasion. Now the priests who had so
great a concern in the temple, and looked upon it as their demesne, might easily, with the assistance of the janizaries
that were at their beck, either have seized him and exposed him to the
rage of the mob, and that punishment which they called the beating
of the rebels; or, at least, have silenced him, and stopped
his mouth there, as Amos, though tolerated in the land of Judah, was
forbidden to prophesy in the king's chapel, Amos, vii. 12, 13 .
Yet even in the temple, where they had him in their reach, no
man laid hands on him, for his hour was not yet come. See
here,
1. The restraint laid upon his persecutors by an invisible power; none
of them durst meddle with him. God can set bounds to the wrath of men,
as he does to the waves of the sea. Let us not therefore fear danger in
the way of duty; for God hath Satan and all his instruments in a chain.
2. The reason of this restraint: His hour was not yet come. The
frequent mention of this intimates how much the time of our departure
out of the world depends upon the fixed counsel and decree of God. It will come, it is coming; not yet come, but it is at hand. Our
enemies cannot hasten it any sooner, nor our friends delay it any
longer, than the time appointed of the Father, which is very
comfortable to every good man, who can look up and say with pleasure, My times are in thy hands; and better there than in our own. His
hour was not yet come, because his work was not done, nor his testimony
finished. To all God's purposes there is a time.
21 Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall
seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot
come.
22 Then said the Jews, Will he kill himself? because he saith,
Whither I go, ye cannot come.
23 And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above:
ye are of this world; I am not of this world.
24 I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins:
for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.
25 Then said they unto him, Who art thou? And Jesus saith unto
them, Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning.
26 I have many things to say and to judge of you: but he that
sent me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I
have heard of him.
27 They understood not that he spake to them of the Father.
28 Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of
man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing
of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.
29 And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me
alone; for I do always those things that please him.
30 As he spake these words, many believed on him.
Christ here gives fair warning to the careless unbelieving Jews to
consider what would be the consequence of their infidelity, that they
might prevent it before it was too late; for he spoke words of terror
as well as words of grace. Observe here,
I. The wrath threatened
( v. 21 ): Jesus said again unto them that which might be likely to do them
good. He continued to teach, in kindness to those few who received his
doctrine, though there were many that resisted it, which is an example
to ministers to go on with their work, notwithstanding opposition,
because a remnant shall be saved. Here Christ changes his voice; he
had piped to them in the offers of his grace, and they had
not danced; now he mourns to them in the denunciations of his
wrath, to try if they would lament. He said, I go my way, and you
shall seek me, and shall die in your sins. Whither I go you cannot
come. Every word is terrible, and bespeaks spiritual judgments,
which are the sorest of all judgments; worse than war, pestilence, and
captivity, which the Old-Testament prophets denounced. Four things are
here threatened against the Jews.
1. Christ's departure from them: I go my way, that is, "It shall
not be long before I go; you need not take so much pains to drive me
from you, I shall go of myself." They said to him, Depart from us,
we desire not the knowledge of thy ways; and he takes them at their
word; but woe to those from whom Christ departs. Ichabod, the glory is
gone, our defence is departed, when Christ goes. Christ frequently
warned them of his departure before he left them: he bade often
farewell, as one loth to depart, and willing to be invited,
and that would have them stir up themselves to take hold on
him.
2. Their enmity to the true Messiah, and their fruitless and infatuated
enquiries after another Messiah when he was gone away, which were both
their sin and their punishment: You shall seek me, which
intimates either,
(1.) Their enmity to the true Christ: "You shall seek to
ruin my interest, by persecuting my doctrine and followers, with a
fruitless design to root them out." This was a continual vexation and
torment to themselves, made them incurably ill-natured, and
brought wrath upon them (God's and their own) to the
uttermost. Or,
(2.) Their enquiries after false Christs: "You shall
continue your expectations of the Messiah, and be the self-perplexing
seekers of a Christ to come, when he is already come;" like the
Sodomites, who, being struck with blindness, wearied themselves to find
the door. See Rom. ix. 31, 32 .
3. Their final impenitency: You shall die in your sins. Here is
an error in all our English Bibles, even the old bishops' translation,
and that of Geneva (the Rhemists only excepted), for all the Greek
copies have it in the singular number, en te hamartia
hymon -- in your sin, so all the Latin versions; and
Calvin has a note upon the difference between this and v. 24 ,
where it is plural, tais hamartiais , that here it is
meant especially of the sin of unbelief, in hoc peccato vestro--in
this sin of yours. Note, Those that live in unbelief are for ever
undone if they die in unbelief. Or, it may be understood in general, You shall die in your iniquity, as Ezek. iii. 19, and xxxiii. 9 .
Many that have long lived in sin are, through grace, saved by a timely
repentance from dying in sin; but for those who go out of this
world of probation into that of retribution under the guilt of sin
unpardoned, and the power of sin unbroken, there remaineth no relief:
salvation itself cannot save them, Job xx. 11; Ezek. xxxii. 27 .
4. Their eternal separation from Christ and all happiness in him: Whither I go you cannot come. When Christ left the world, he
went to a state of perfect happiness; he went to paradise. Thither he
took the penitent thief with him, that did not die in his sins; but the
impenitent not only shall not come to him, but they cannot; it is morally impossible, for heaven would not be heaven
to those that die unsanctified and unmeet for it. You cannot come,
because you have no right to enter into that Jerusalem, Rev. xxii. 14 . Whither I go you cannot come, to fetch me thence, so Dr.
Whitby; and the same is the comfort of all good Christians, that, when
they get to heaven, they will be out of the reach of their enemies'
malice.
II. The jest they made of this threatening. Instead of trembling at
this word, they bantered it, and turned it into ridicule
( v. 22 ): Will he kill himself? See here,
1. What slight thoughts they had of Christ's threatenings; they could
make themselves and one another merry with them, as those that mocked
the messengers of the Lord, and turned the burden of the word of the
Lord into a by-word, and precept upon precept, line upon
line, into a merry song, Isa. xxviii. 13 .
But be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong. 2. What ill thoughts they had of Christ's meaning, as if he had an
inhuman design upon his own life, to avoid the indignities done him,
like Saul. This is indeed (say they) to go whither we cannot follow
him, for we will never kill ourselves. Thus they make him not
only such a one as themselves, but worse; yet in the calamities brought
by the Romans upon the Jews many of them in discontent and despair did
kill themselves. They had put a much more favourable construction upon
this word of his
( ch. vii. 34, 35 ): Will he go to the dispersed among the Gentiles? But see how
indulged malice grows more and more malicious.
1. He had said, Whither I go you cannot come, and here he gives
the reason for this
( v. 23 ): You are from beneath, I am from above; you are of this world, I am
not of this world. You are ek ton kato -- of those
things which are beneath; noting, not so much their rise from
beneath as their affection to these lower things: "You are in with
these things, as those that belong to them; how can you come where
I go, when your spirit and disposition are so directly contrary to
mine?" See here,
(1.) What the spirit of the Lord Jesus was--not of this
world, but from above. He was perfectly dead to the wealth
of the world, the ease of the body, and the praise of men, and was
wholly taken up with divine and heavenly things; and none shall be with
him but those who are born from above and have their conversation in heaven. (2.) How contrary to this their spirit was: " You are from
beneath, and of this world." The Pharisees were of a carnal worldly
spirit; and what communion could Christ have with them?
2. He had said, You shall die in your sins, and here he stand to
it: "Therefore I said, You shall die in your sins, because you are
from beneath; " and he gives this further reason for it, If you
believe not that I am he, you shall die in your sins, v. 24 .
See here,
(1.) What we are required to believe: that I am he, hoti
ego eimi -- that I am, which is one of God's names, Exod. iii. 14 .
It was the Son of God that there said, Ehejeh asher Ehejeh--I will
be what I will be; for the deliverance of Israel was but a figure
of good things to come, but now he saith, " I am he; he that
should come, he that you expect the Messias to be, that you would have
me to be to you. I am more than the bare name of the Messiah; I do not
only call myself so, but I am he. " True faith does not amuse the soul with an empty sound of words, but affects it with the doctrine of Christ's mediation, as a real thing that has
real effects.
(2.) How necessary it is that we believe this. If we have not this
faith, we shall die in our sins; for the matter is so settled
that without this faith,
[1.] We cannot be saved from the power of sin while we live, and
therefore shall certainly continue in it to the last. Nothing but the doctrine of Christ's grace will be an argument powerful enough,
and none but the Spirit of Christ's grace will be an agent
powerful enough, to turn us from sin to God; and that Spirit is given,
and that doctrine given, to be effectual to those only who believe in
Christ: so that, if Satan be not by faith dispossessed, he has a lease
of the soul for its life; if Christ do not cure us, our case is
desperate, and we shall die in our sins. [2.] Without faith we cannot be saved from the punishment of sin when
we die, for the wrath of God remains upon them that believe not, Mark xvi. 16 .
Unbelief is the damning sin; it is a sin against the remedy. Now this
implies the great gospel promise: If we believe that Christ is
he, and receive him accordingly, we shall not die in our
sins. The law saith absolutely to all, as Christ said
( v. 21 ), You shall die in your sins, for we are all guilty before God;
but the gospel is a defeasance of the obligation upon condition of
believing. The curse of the law is vacated and annulled to all that
submit to the grace of the gospel. Believers die in Christ, in his
love, in his arms, and so are saved from dying in their
sins.
IV. Here is a further discourse concerning himself, occasioned
by his requiring faith in himself as the condition of salvation, v. 25-29 .
Observe,
1. The question which the Jews put to him
( v. 25 ): Who art thou? This they asked tauntingly, and not with any
desire to be instructed. He had said, You must believe that I am
he. By his not saying expressly who he was, he plainly intimated
that in his person he was such a one as could not be described by any, and in his office such a one as was expected by all that
looked for redemption in Israel; yet this awful manner of speaking,
which had so much significancy in it, they turned to his reproach, as
if he knew not what to say of himself: " Who art thou, that we
must with an implicit faith believe in thee, that thou art some mighty
HE, we know not who or what, nor are worthy to
know? "
2. His answer to this question, wherein he directs them three ways for
information:--
(1.) He refers them to what he had said all along: "Do you ask
who I am? Even the same that I said unto you from the
beginning. " The original here is a little intricate, ten
archen ho ti kai lalo hymin which some read thus: I am the
beginning, which also I speak unto you. So Austin takes it. Christ
is called Arche -- the beginning ( Col. i. 18; Rev. i. 8; xxi. 6; iii. 14 ),
and so it agrees with v. 24 , I am he. Compare Isa. xli. 4 : I am the first, I am he. Those who object that it is the
accusative case, and therefore not properly answering to tis
ei , must undertake to construe by grammar rules that parallel
expression, Rev. i. 8 , ho en . But most interpreters agree with our version, Do
you ask who I am? [1.] I am the same that I said to you from the beginning of time
in the scriptures of the Old-Testament, the same that from the
beginning was said to be the Seed of the woman, that should break
the serpent's head, the same that in all the ages of the church was
the Mediator of the covenant, and the faith of the patriarchs.
[2.] From the beginning of my public ministry. The account he
had already given of himself he resolved to abide by; he had
declared himself to be the Son of God ( ch. v. 17 ),
to be the Christ
( ch. iv. 26 ),
and the bread of life, and had proposed himself as the object of that
faith which is necessary to salvation, and to this he refers them for
an answer to their question. Christ is one with himself; what he
had said from the beginning, he saith still. His is an everlasting
gospel.
(2.) He refers them to his Father's judgment, and the instructions he
had from him
( v. 26 ):
" I have many things, more than you think of, to say, and in them to judge of you. But why should I trouble myself any
further with you? I know very well that he who sent me is true, and will stand by me, and bear me out, for I speak to the world (to which I am sent as an ambassador) those things, all those
and those only, which I have heard of him. " Here,
(3.) He refers them to their own convictions hereafter, v. 28, 29 .
He finds they will not understand him, and therefore adjourns the trial
till further evidence should come in; they that will not see shall
see, Isa. xxvi. 11 .
Now observe here,
First, The assurance which Christ had of his Father's presence with him, which includes both a divine power going along with him to enable him for his work, and a divine favour manifested to him to encourage him in it. He
that sent me is with me, Isa. xlii. 1; Ps. lxxxix. 21 .
This greatly emboldens our faith in Christ and our reliance upon
his word that he had, and knew he had, his Father with him, to confirm the word of his servant, Isa. xliv. 26 .
The King of kings accompanied his own ambassador, to attest his mission
and assist his management, and never left him alone, either
solitary or weak; it also aggravated the wickedness of those
that opposed him, and was an intimation to them of the premunire they ran themselves into by resisting him, for thereby they were found fighters against God. How easily soever they might think to
crush him and run him down, let them know he had one to back him with
whom it is the greatest madness that can be to contend.
Secondly, The ground of this assurance: For I do always those
things that please him. That is,
1. That great affair in which our Lord Jesus was continually engaged was an affair which the Father that sent him was highly well pleased with. His whole undertaking is called the pleasure of the Lord ( Isa. liii. 10 ),
because of the counsels of the eternal mind about it, and the
complacency of the eternal mind in it.
2. His management of that affair was in nothing displeasing to
his Father; in executing his commission he punctually observed all his
instructions, and did in nothing vary from them. No mere man since the
fall could say such a word as this (for in many things we offend
all ) but our Lord Jesus never offended his Father in any thing,
but, as became him, he fulfilled all righteousness. This was
necessary to the validity and value of the sacrifice he was to offer
up; for if he had in any thing displeased the Father himself,
and so had had any sin of his own to answer for, the Father could not
have been pleased with him as a propitiation for our sins; but such a
priest and such a sacrifice became us as was perfectly pure and
spotless. We may likewise learn hence that God's servants may then expect God's presence with them when they choose and
do those things that please him, Isa. lxvi. 4, 5 .
V. Here is the good effect which this discourse of Christ's had upon
some of his hearers
( v. 30 ): As he spoke these words many believed on him. Note,
1. Though multitudes perish in their unbelief, yet there is a remnant
according to the election of grace, who believe to the saving of the
soul. If Israel, the whole body of the people, be not
gathered, yet there are those of them in whom Christ will be glorious, Isa. xlix. 5 .
This the apostle insists upon, to reconcile the Jews' rejection with
the promises made unto their fathers. There is a remnant, Rom. xi. 5 .
2. The words of Christ, and particularly his threatening words,
are made effectual by the grace of God to bring in poor souls to
believe in him. When Christ told them that if they believed not they should die in their sins, and never get to heaven, they
thought it was time to look about them, Rom. i. 16, 18 .
3. Sometimes there is a wide door opened, and an effectual one, even where they are many adversaries. Christ will carry on his work, though the heathen rage. The
gospel sometimes gains great victories where it meets with great
opposition. Let this encourage God's ministers to preach the gospel,
though it be with much contention, for they shall not labour
in vain. Many may be secretly brought home to God by those
endeavours which are openly contradicted and cavilled at by men of
corrupt minds. Austin has an affectionate ejaculation in his lecture
upon these words: Utinam et, me loquenti, multi credant; non in me,
sed mecum in eo--I wish that when I speak, many may believe, not on me,
but with me on him.
31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye
continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
32 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you
free.
33 They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in
bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?
34 Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you,
Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.
35 And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the
Son abideth ever.
36 If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free
indeed.
37 I know that ye are Abraham's seed; but ye seek to kill me,
because my word hath no place in you.
I. A comfortable doctrine laid down concerning the spiritual
liberty of Christ's disciples, intended for the encouragement of those Jews that believed. Christ, knowing that his
doctrine began to work upon some of his hearers, and perceiving that
virtue had gone out of him, turned his discourse from the proud
Pharisees, and addressed himself to those weak believers. When
he had denounced wrath against those that were hardened in unbelief,
then he spoke comfort to those few feeble Jews that believed in
him. See here,
1. How graciously the Lord Jesus looks to those that tremble at his
word, and are ready to receive it; he has something to say to those
who have hearing ears, and will not pass by those who set themselves in
his way, without speaking to them.
2. How carefully he cherishes the beginnings of grace, and meets those
that are coming towards him. These Jews that believed were yet
but weak; but Christ did not therefore cast them off, for he gathers the lambs in his arms. When faith is in its infancy, he
has knees to prevent it, breasts for it to suck, that it may not die from the womb. In what he said to them, we
have two things, which he saith to all that should at any time
believe:--
(1.) The character of a true disciple of Christ: If you continue in
my word, then are you my disciples indeed. When they believed on
him, as the great prophet, they gave up themselves to be his
disciples. Now, at their entrance into his school, he lays down
this for a settled rule, that he would own none for his disciples but
those that continued in his word. [1.] It is implied that there are many who profess themselves Christ's
disciples who are not his disciples indeed, but only in show and
name.
[2.] It highly concerns those that are not strong in faith to
see to it that they be sound in the faith, that, though not
disciples of the highest form, they are nevertheless disciples
indeed. [3.] Those who seem willing to be Christ's disciples ought to be told
that they had as good never come to him, unless they come with a
resolution by his grace to abide by him. Let those who have thoughts of
covenanting with Christ have no thoughts of reserving a power of
revocation. Children are sent to school, and bound apprentices, only
for a few years; but those only are Christ's who are willing to
be bound to him for the term of life. [4.] Those only that continue in Christ's word shall be accepted
as his disciples indeed, that adhere to his word in every
instance without partiality, and abide by it to the end without
apostasy. It is menein -- to dwell in Christ's word,
as a man does at home, which is his centre, and rest, and refuge. Our
converse with the word and conformity to it must be constant. If we
continue disciples to the last, then, and not otherwise, we approve
ourselves disciples indeed.
(2.) The privilege of a true disciple of Christ. Here are two precious
promises made to those who thus approve themselves disciples indeed, v. 32 .
II. The offence which the carnal Jews took at this doctrine, and their
objection against it. Though it was a doctrine that brought glad
tidings of liberty to the captives, yet they cavilled at it, v. 33 .
The Pharisees grudged this comfortable word to those that believed, the
standers by, who had no part nor lot in this matter; they
thought themselves reflected upon and affronted by the gracious charter
of liberty granted to those that believed, and therefore with a great
deal of pride and envy they answered him, " We Jews are Abraham's
seed, and therefore are free-born, and have not lost our
birthright-freedom; we were never in bondage to any man; how sayest
thou then, to us Jews, You shall be made free? " See
here,
1. What it was that they were grieved at; it was an innuendo in
those words, You shall be made free, as if the Jewish church and
nation were in some sort of bondage, which reflected on the Jews in
general, and as if all that did not believe in Christ continued in that
bondage, which reflected on the Pharisees in particular. Note, The
privileges of the faithful are the envy and vexation of unbelievers, Ps. cxii. 10 .
2. What it was that they alleged against it; whereas Christ intimated
that they needed to be made free, they urge,
(1.) "We are Abraham's seed, and Abraham was a prince and a great
man; though we live in Canaan, we are not descended from Canaan,
nor under his doom, a servant of servants shall he be; we hold
in frank-almoign--free alms, and not in villenage--by a
servile tenure. " It is common for a sinking decaying family to
boast of the glory and dignity of its ancestors, and to borrow honour
from that name to which they repay disgrace; so the Jews here did. But
this was not all. Abraham was in covenant with God, and his children by
his right, Rom. xi. 28 .
Now that covenant, no doubt, was a free charter, and invested them with
privileges not consistent with a state of slavery, Rom. ix. 4 .
And therefore they thought they had no occasion with so great a
sum as they reckoned faith in Christ to be to obtain this
freedom, when they were thus free-born. Note, It is the common
fault and folly of those that have pious parentage and education to
trust to their privilege and boast of it, as if it would atone for the
want of real holiness. They were Abraham's seed, but what would this
avail them, when we find one in hell that could call Abraham father?
Saving benefits are not, like common privileges, conveyed by entail to us and our issue, nor can a title to heaven be made by descent, nor may we claim as heirs at law, by making out
our pedigree; our title is purely by purchase, not our own but our
Redeemer's for us, under certain provisos and limitations, which if we
do not observe it will not avail us to be Abraham's seed. Thus many,
when they are pressed with the necessity of regeneration, turn it off
with this, We are the church's children; but they are not all
Israel that are of Israel.
(2.) We were never in bondage to any man. Now observe,
[1.] How false this allegation was. I wonder how they could have the
assurance to say a thing in the face of a congregation which was so
notoriously untrue. Were not the seed of Abraham in bondage to
the Egyptians? Were they not often in bondage to the neighbouring
nations in the time of the judges? Were they not seventy years captives
in Babylon? Nay, were they not at this time tributaries to the Romans,
and, though not in a personal, yet in a national bondage
to them, and groaning to be made free? And yet, to confront Christ,
they have the impudence to say, We were never in bondage. Thus
they would expose Christ to the ill-will both of the Jews, who were
very jealous for the honour of their liberty, and of the Romans, who
would not be thought to enslave the nations they conquered.
[2.] How foolish the application was. Christ had spoken of a liberty
wherewith the truth would make them free, which must be meant of
a spiritual liberty, for truth as it is the enriching, so
it is the enfranchising of the mind, and the enlarging of
that from the captivity of error and prejudice; and yet they plead
against the offer of spiritual liberty that they were never in corporal thraldom, as if, because they were never in bondage to
any man, they were never in bondage to any lust. Note,
Carnal hearts are sensible of no other grievances than those that
molest the body and injure their secular affairs. Talk to them of
encroachments upon their civil liberty and property,--tell them of
waste committed upon their lands, or damage done to their houses,--and
they understand you very well, and can give you a sensible answer; the
thing touches them and affects them. But discourse to them of the
bondage of sin, a captivity to Satan, and a liberty by Christ,--tell
them of wrong done to their precious souls, and the hazard of their
eternal welfare,--and you bring certain strange things to their
ears; they say of it (as those did, Ezek. xx. 49 ), Doth he not speak parables? This was much like the blunder
Nicodemus made about being born again.
III. Our Saviour's vindication of his doctrine from these objections,
and the further explication of it, v. 34-37 ,
where he does these four things:--
1. He shows that, notwithstanding their civil liberties and their
visible church-membership, yet it was possible that they might be in a
state of bondage
( v. 34 ): Whosoever commits sin, though he be of Abraham's seed, and was
never in bondage to any man, is the servant of sin. Observe, Christ
does not upbraid them with the falsehood of their plea, or their
present bondage, but further explains what he had said for their
edification. Thus ministers should with meekness instruct those that
oppose them, that they may recover themselves, not with passion
provoke them to entangle themselves yet more. Now here,
(1.) The preface is very solemn: Verily, verily, I say unto you; an awful asseveration, which our Saviour often used, to command a
reverent attention and a ready assent. The style of the prophets was, Thus saith the Lord, for they were faithful as servants; but Christ, being a Son, speaks in his own name: I say unto you, I the Amen, the faithful witness; he pawns his veracity upon it.
"I say it to you, who boast of your relation to Abraham, as if that
would save you."
(2.) The truth is of universal concern, though here delivered upon a
particular occasion: Whosoever commits sin is the servant of
sin, and sadly needs to be made free. A state of sin is a state of
bondage.
[1.] See who it is on whom this brand is fastened--on him that commits sin, pas ho poion hamartian -- every one
that makes sin. There is not a just man upon earth, that lives, and sins not; yet every one that sins is not a servant of
sin, for then God would have no servants; but he that makes sin, that makes choice of sin, prefers the way of wickedness before
the way of holiness
( Jer. xliv. 16, 17 ),--
that makes a covenant with sin, enters into league with it, and makes a marriage with it,--that makes contrivances of
sin, makes provision for the flesh, and devises iniquity,--and
that makes a custom of sin, who walks after the flesh, and makes a trade of sin.
[2.] See what the brand is which Christ fastens upon those that thus commit sin. He stigmatizes them, gives them a mark of servitude.
They are servants of sin, imprisoned under the guilt of sin,
under an arrest, in hold for it, concluded under sin, and they
are subject to the power of sin. He is a servant of sin, that
is, he makes himself so, and is so accounted; he has sold himself to
work wickedness; his lusts give law to him, he is at their beck,
and is not his own master. He does the work of sin, supports its
interest, and accepts its wages, Rom. vi. 16 .
2. He shows them that, being in a state of bondage, their having a
place in the house of God would not entitle them to the inheritance of
sons; for
( v. 35 ) the servant, though he be in the house for awhile, yet, being
but a servant, abideth not in the house for ever. Services (we
say) are no inheritances, they are but temporary, and not for a perpetuity; but the son of the family abideth ever. Now,
(1.) This points primarily at the rejection of the Jewish church and
nation. Israel had been God's son, his first-born; but
they wretchedly degenerated into a servile disposition, were
enslaved to the world and the flesh, and therefore, though by virtue of
their birthright they thought themselves secure of their church
membership, Christ tells them that having thus made themselves servants
they should not abide in the house for ever. Jerusalem, by
opposing the gospel of Christ, which proclaimed liberty, and adhering
to the Sinai-covenant, which gendered to bondage, after its term was expired came to be in bondage with her children ( Gal. iv. 24, 25 ),
and therefore was unchurched and disfranchised, her charter seized and
taken away, and she was cast out as the son of the bond-woman, Gen. xxi. 14 .
Chrysostom gives this sense of this place: "Think not to be made free
from sin by the rites and ceremonies of the law of Moses, for Moses was
but a servant, and had not that perpetual authority in the church which
the Son had; but, if the Son make you free, it is well," v. 36 .
But,
(2.) It looks further, to the rejection of all that are the servants
of sin, and receive not the adoption of the sons of
God; though those unprofitable servants may be in God's house
awhile, as retainers to his family, yet there is a day coming when the
children of the bond-woman and of the free shall be
distinguished. True believers only, who are the children of the promise
and of the covenant, are accounted free, and shall abide for ever in
the house, as Isaac: they shall have a nail in the holy place on
earth
( Ezra ix. 8 )
and mansions in the holy place in heaven, ch. xiv. 2 .
3. He shows them the way of deliverance out of the state of bondage
into the glorious liberty of the children of God, Rom. viii. 21 .
The case of those that are the servants of sin is sad, but thanks be to
God it is not helpless, it is not hopeless. As it is the privilege of
all the sons of the family, and their dignity above the servants, that
they abide in the house for ever; so he who is the Son, the
first-born among many brethren, and the heir of all things, has a power
both of manumission and of adoption
( v. 36 ): If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed. Note,
(1.) Jesus Christ in the gospel offers us our freedom; he has
authority and power to make free. [1.] To discharge prisoners; this he does in
justification, by making satisfaction for our guilt (on
which the gospel offer is grounded, which is to all a conditional act of indemnity, and to all true believers, upon their
believing, an absolute charter of pardon ), and for our
debts, for which we were by the law arrested and in execution.
Christ, as our surety, or rather our bail (for he was not
originally bound with us, but upon our insolvency bound for
us ), compounds with the creditor, answers the demands of injured
justice with more than an equivalent, takes the bond and judgment into his own hands, and gives them up cancelled to all that by faith and repentance give him (if I may so say) a counter-security to save his honour harmless, and so they are made free; and from the debt, and every part thereof, they are
for ever acquitted, exonerated, and discharged, and a general release
is sealed of all actions and claims; while against those who refuse to
come up to these terms the securities lie still in the Redeemer's
hands, in full force.
[2.] He has a power to rescue bond-slaves, and this he does in sanctification; by the powerful arguments of his gospel, and the
powerful operations of his Spirit, he breaks the power of corruption in
the soul, rallies the scattered forces of reason and virtue, and
fortifies God's interest against sin and Satan, and so the soul is made
free.
[3.] He has a power to naturalize strangers and foreigners, and
this he does in adoption. This is a further act of grace; we are
not only forgiven and healed, but preferred; there is a charter
of privileges as well as pardon; and thus the Son makes us free denizens of the kingdom of priests, the holy nation, the new
Jerusalem.
(2.) Those whom Christ makes free are free indeed. It is not alethos , the word used
( v. 31 )
for disciples indeed, but ontos -- really. It
denotes,
[1.] The truth and certainty of the promise, the liberty which the Jews
boasted of was an imaginary liberty; they boasted of a false
gift; but the liberty which Christ gives is a certain thing, it is
real, and has real effects. The servants of sin promise themselves
liberty, and fancy themselves free, when they have broken religion's
bands asunder; but they cheat themselves. None are free indeed but those whom Christ makes free. [2.] It denotes the singular excellency of the freedom promised; it is
a freedom that deserves the name, in comparison with which all other
liberties are no better than slaveries, so much does it turn to the
honour and advantage of those that are made free by it. It is a glorious liberty. It is that which is (so ontos signifies); it is substance ( Prov. viii. 21 );
while the things of the world are shadows, things that are
not.
4. He applies this to these unbelieving cavilling Jews, in answer to
their boasts of relation to Abraham
( v. 37 ):
" I know very well that you are Abraham's seed, but now you
seek to kill me, and therefore have forfeited the honour of your
relation to Abraham, because my word hath no place in you. "
Observe here,
(1.) The dignity of their extraction admitted: " I know that you are
Abraham's seed, every one knows it, and it is your honour." He
grants them what was true, and in what they said that was false (that
they were never in bondage to any) he does not contradict them, for he studied to profit them, and not to provoke them, and therefore said that which would please them: I know that
you are Abraham's seed. They boasted of their descent from Abraham, as that which aggrandized their names, and made
them exceedingly honourable; whereas really it did but aggravate their crimes, and make them exceedingly sinful. Out of their own mouths
will he judge vain-glorious hypocrites, who boast of their parentage
and education: "Are you Abraham's seed? Why then did you not tread in
the steps of his faith and obedience?"
(2.) The inconsistency of their practice with this dignity: But you
seek to kill me. They had attempted it several times, and were now
designing it, which quickly appeared
( v. 59 ),
when they took up stones to cast at him. Christ knows all the
wickedness, not only which men do, but which they seek, and design, and
endeavour to do. To seek to kill any innocent man is a crime black
enough, but to compass and imagine the death of him that was
King of kings was a crime the heinousness of which we want words to
express.
(3.) The reason of this inconsistency. Why were they that were
Abraham's seed so very inveterate against Abraham's promised seed, in
whom they and all the families of the earth should be blessed? Our Saviour here tells them, It is because my word
hath no place in you, ou chorei en hymin , Non
capit in vobis, so the Vulgate. "My word does not take with
you, you have no inclination to it, no relish of it, other things
are more taking, more pleasing." Or, "It does not take hold of
you, it has no power over you, makes no impression upon you." Some
of the critics read it, My word does not penetrate into you; it
descended as the rain, but it came upon them as the rain upon the rock,
which it runs off, and did not soak into their hearts, as the rain upon
the ploughed ground. The Syriac reads it, " Because you do not
acquiesce in my word; you are not persuaded of the truth of it, nor
pleased with the goodness of it." Our translation is very significant: It has no place in you. They sought to kill him, and so
effectually to silence him, not because he had done they any
harm, but because they could not bear the convincing, commanding power
of his word. Note,
[1.] The words of Christ ought to have a place in us, the innermost and
uppermost place,--a dwelling place, as a man at home, and not as
a stranger or sojourner,--a working place; it must have room to
operate, to work sin out of us, and to work grace in us; it must have a ruling place, its place must be upon the throne, it must
dwell in us richly.
[2.] There are many that make a profession of religion in whom the
word of Christ has no place; they will not allow it a place,
for they do not like it; Satan does all he can to displace it;
and other things possess the place it should have in us.
[3.] Where the word of God has no place no good is to be expected, for
room is left there for all wickedness. If the unclean spirit find the
heart empty of Christ's word, he enters in, and dwells
there.
38 I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do
that which ye have seen with your father.
39 They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father.
Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do
the works of Abraham.
40 But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the
truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.
41 Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be
not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.
42 Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love
me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of
myself, but he sent me.
43 Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot
hear my word.
44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your
father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and
abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he
speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the
father of it.
45 And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not.
46 Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth,
why do ye not believe me?
47 He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.
Here Christ and the Jews are still at issue; he sets himself to
convince and convert them, while they still set themselves to
contradict and oppose him.
I. He here traces the difference between his sentiments and theirs to a
different rise and origin
( v. 38 ): I speak that which I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have seen with your father. Here are two fathers spoken
of, according to the two families into which the sons of men are
divided--God and the devil, and without controversy these are contrary
the one to the other.
1. Christ's doctrine was from heaven; it was copied out of the counsels of infinite wisdom, and the
kind intentions of eternal love.
(1.) I speak that which I have seen. The discoveries Christ has
made to us of God and another world are not grounded upon guess and
hearsay, but upon ocular inspection; so that he was thoroughly apprized of the nature, and assured of the truth, of all
he said. He that is given to be a witness to the people is an
eye-witness, and therefore unexceptionable.
(2.) It is what I have seen with my Father. The doctrine of
Christ is not a plausible hypothesis, supported by probable arguments,
but it is an exact counterpart of the incontestable truths lodged in
the eternal mind. It was not only what he had heard from his
Father, but what he had seen with him when the counsel of
peace was between them both. Moses spoke what he heard from God,
but he might not see the face of God; Paul had been in the third
heaven, but what he had seen there he could not, he must not, utter;
for it was Christ's prerogative to have seen what he spoke, and to speak what he had seen.
2. Their doings were from hell: " You do that which you have
seen with your father. You do, by your own works, father
yourselves, for it is evident whom you resemble, and therefore easy to
find out your origin." As a child that is trained up with his father
learns his father's words and fashions, and grows like him by an
affected imitation as well as by a natural image, so these Jews, by
their malicious opposition to Christ and the gospel, made themselves as
like the devil as if they had industriously set him before them for
their pattern.
II. He takes off and answers their vain-glorious boasts of relation to
Abraham and to God as their fathers, and shows the vanity and falsehood
of their pretensions.
1. They pleaded relation to Abraham, and he replies to this plea. They said, Abraham is our father, v. 39 .
In this they intended,
(1.) To do honour to themselves, and to make themselves look great.
They had forgotten the mortification given them by that acknowledgement
prescribed them
( Deut. xxvi. 5 ), A Syrian ready to perish was my father; and the charge exhibited
against their degenerate ancestors (whose steps they trod in, and not
those of the first founder of the family), Thy father was an
Amorite, and thy mother a Hittite, Ezek. xvi. 3 .
As it is common for those families that are sinking and going to decay
to boast most of their pedigree, so it is common for those churches
that are corrupt and depraved to value themselves upon their antiquity
and the eminence of their first planters. Fuimus Troes, fuit
Ilium--We have been Trojans, and there once was Troy. (2.) They designed to cast an odium upon Christ as if he reflected upon
the patriarch Abraham, in speaking of their father as one they had
learned evil from. See how they sought an occasion to quarrel with him.
Now Christ overthrows this plea, and exposes the vanity of it by a
plain and cogent argument: "Abraham's children will do the works of
Abraham, but you do not do Abraham's works, therefore you are not
Abraham's children."
First, He shows them what their work was, their present work,
which they were now about; they sought to kill him; and three
things are intimated as an aggravation of their intention:--
1. They were so unnatural as to seek the life of a man, a
man like themselves, bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh, who
had done them no harm, nor given them any provocation. You imagine
mischief against a man, Ps. lxii. 3 .
2. They were so ungrateful as to seek the life of one who had told them the truth, had not only done them no injury, but had
done them the greatest kindness that could be; had not only not imposed
upon them with a lie, but had instructed them in the most necessary and
important truths; was he therefore become their enemy? 3. They were so ungodly as to seek the life of one who told them
the truth which he had heard from God, who was a messenger sent
from God to them, so that their attempt against him was quasi
deicidium--an act of malice against God. This was their work, and
they persisted in it.
Secondly, He shows them that this did not become the children of
Abraham; for this did not Abraham. 1. "He did nothing like this." He was famous for his humanity, witness
his rescue of the captives; and for his piety, witness his obedience to
the heavenly vision in many instances, and some tender ones. Abraham
believed God; they were obstinate in unbelief: Abraham followed God;
they fought against him; so that he would be ignorant of them, and
would not acknowledge them, they were so unlike him, Isa. lxiii. 16 .
See Jer. xxii. 15-17 .
2. "He would not have done thus if he had lived now, or I had lived
then." Hoc Abraham non fecisset--He would not have done this; so
some read it. We should thus reason ourselves out of any way of
wickedness; would Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob have done so? We cannot
expect to be ever with them, if we be never like
them.
2. So far were they from owning their unworthiness of relation to
Abraham that they pleaded relation to God himself as their Father: "We
are not born of fornication, we are not bastards, but legitimate
sons; we have one Father, even God. "
(1.) Some understand this literally. They were not the sons of the
bondwoman, as the Ishmaelites were; nor begotten in incest, as the
Moabites and Ammonites were
( Deut. xxiii. 3 );
nor were they a spurious brood in Abraham's family, but Hebrews of the
Hebrews; and, being born in lawful wedlock, they might call God Father, who instituted that honourable estate in innocency; for
a legitimate seed, not tainted with divorces nor the plurality of
wives, is called a seed of God, Mal. ii. 15 .
(2.) Others take it figuratively. They begin to be aware now that
Christ spoke of a spiritual not a carnal father, of the
father of their religion; and so,
First, They did not love Christ: If God were your Father, you
would love me. He had disproved their relation to Abraham by their
going about to kill him
( v. 40 ),
but here he disproves their relation to God by their not loving and
owning him. A man may pass for a child of Abraham if he do not
appear an enemy to Christ by gross sin; but he cannot approve himself a
child of God unless he be a faithful friend and follower of Christ.
Note, All that have God for their Father have a true love to Jesus
Christ, and esteem of his person, a grateful sense of his love, a
sincere affection to his cause and kingdom, a complacency in the
salvation wrought out by him and in the method and terms of it, and a
care to keep his commandments, which is the surest evidence of our love
to him. We are here in a state of probation, upon our trial how we will
conduct ourselves towards our Maker, and accordingly it will be with us
in the state of retribution. God has taken various methods to prove
us, and this was one: he sent his Son into the world, with sufficient
proofs of his sonship and mission, concluding that all that called him
Father would kiss his Son, and bid him welcome who was
the first-born among many brethren; see 1 John v. 1 .
By this our adoption will be proved or disproved--Did we love Christ,
or no? If any man do not, he is so far from being a child of God
that he is anathema, accursed, 1 Cor. xvi. 22 .
Now our Saviour proves that if they were God's children they would love him; for, saith he, I proceeded forth and came from
God. They will love him; for,
1. He was the Son of God: I proceeded forth from God. Exelthon this means his divine exeleusis ,
or origin from the Father, by the communication of the divine essence,
and also the union of the divine logos to his human
nature; so Dr. Whitby. Now this could not but recommend him to the
affections of all that were born of God. Christ is called the beloved, because, being the beloved of the Father, he is
certainly the beloved of all the saints, Eph. i. 6 .
2. He was sent of God, came from him as an ambassador to the
world of mankind. He did not come of himself, as the false
prophets, who had not either their mission or their message from God, Jer. xxiii. 21 .
Observe the emphasis he lays upon this: I came from God; neither
came I of myself, but he sent me. He had both his credentials and
his instructions from God; he came to gather together in one the
children of God ( ch. xi. 51 ),
to bring many sons to glory, Heb. ii. 10 .
And would not all God's children embrace with both arms a messenger
sent from their Father on such errands? But these Jews made it
appear that they were nothing akin to God, by their want of affection
to Jesus Christ.
Secondly, They did not understand him. It was a sign they did
not belong to God's family that they did not understand the language
and dialect of the family: You do not understand my speech ( v. 43 ), ten lalian ten emen . Christ's speech was divine and
heavenly, but intelligible enough to those that were acquainted with
the voice of Christ in the Old Testament. Those that had made the word
of the Creator familiar to them needed no other key to the dialect of
the Redeemer; and yet these Jews make strange of the doctrine of
Christ, and find knots in it, and I know not what stumbling stones.
Could a Galilean be known by his speech? An Ephraimite by his sibboleth? And would any have the confidence to call God Father
to whom the Son of God was a barbarian, even when he spoke the will of
God in the words of the Spirit of God? Note, Those who are not
acquainted with the divine speech have reason to fear that they are
strangers to the divine nature. Christ spoke the words of God
( ch. iii. 34 )
in the dialect of the kingdom of God; and yet they, who pretended to
belong to the kingdom, understood not the idioms and properties of it,
but like strangers, and rude ones too, ridiculed it. And the reason why
they did not understand Christ's speech made the matter much worse: Even because you cannot hear my word, that is, "You cannot
persuade yourselves to hear it attentively, impartially, and without
prejudice, as it should be heard." The meaning of this cannot is
an obstinate will not; as the Jews could not hear Stephen
( Acts vii. 57 )
nor Paul, Acts xxiii. 22 .
Note, The rooted antipathy of men's corrupt hearts to the doctrine of
Christ is the true reason of their ignorance of it, and of their errors
and mistakes about it. They do not like it nor love it, and therefore
they will not understand it; like Peter, who pretended he knew not
what the damsel said ( Matt. xxvi. 70 ),
when in truth he knew not what to say to it. You cannot hear my
words, for you have stopped your ears ( Ps. lviii. 4, 5 ),
and God, in a way of righteous judgment, has made your ears
heavy, Isa. vi. 10 .
III. Having thus disproved their relation both to Abraham and to God,
he comes next to tell them plainly whose children they were: You are
of your father the devil, v. 44 .
If they were not God's children, they were the devil's, for God and
Satan divide the world of mankind; the devil is therefore said
to work in the children of disobedience, Eph. ii. 2 .
All wicked people are the devil's children, children of Belial ( 2 Cor. vi. 15 ),
the serpent's seed
( Gen. iii. 15 ),
children of the wicked one, Matt. xiii. 38 .
They partake of his nature, bear his image, obey his commands, and
follow his example. Idolaters said to a stock, Thou art our
father, Jer. ii. 27 .
This is a high charge, and sounds very harsh and horrid, that any of
the children of men, especially the church's children, should be called children of the devil, and therefore our Saviour fully proves
it.
1. By a general argument: The lusts of your father you will do, thelete poiein .
(1.) "You do the devil's lusts, the lusts which he would have
you to fulfil; you gratify and please him, and comply with his
temptation, and are led captive by him at his will: nay, you do
those lusts which the devil himself fulfils." Fleshly lusts and worldly
lusts the devil tempts men to; but, being a spirit, he cannot fulfil
them himself. The peculiar lusts of the devil are spiritual
wickedness; the lusts of the intellectual powers, and their corrupt
reasonings; pride and envy, and wrath and malice; enmity to that which
is good, and enticing others to that which is evil; these are lusts
which the devil fulfils, and those who are under the dominion of these
lusts resemble the devil, as the child does the parent. The more there
is of contemplation, and contrivance, and secret complacency, in sin,
the more it resembles the lusts of the devil. (2.) You will do the devil's lusts. The more there is of the will in these lusts, the more there is of the devil in them.
When sin is committed of choice and not by surprise, with pleasure and not with reluctancy, when it is persisted in with a
daring presumption and a desperate resolution, like theirs that said, We have loved strangers and after them we will go, then the
sinner will do the devil's lusts. "The lusts of your father you delight to do; " so Dr. Hammond; they are rolled under the tongue
as a sweet morsel.
2. By two particular instances, wherein they manifestly resembled the
devil-- murder and lying. The devil is an enemy to life,
because God is the God of life and life is the happiness of man; and an
enemy to truth, because God is the God of truth and truth is the bond
of human society.
(1.) He was a murderer from the beginning, not from his own
beginning, for he was created an angel of light, and had a first estate
which was pure and good, but from the beginning of his apostasy, which
was soon after the creation of man. He was anthropoktonos -- homicida, a man-slayer. [1.] He was a hater of man, and so in affection an disposition a
murderer of him. He has his name, Satan, from sitnah--hatred. He maligned God's image upon man, envied his
happiness, and earnestly desired his ruin, was an avowed enemy to the
whole race.
[2.] He was man's tempter to that sin which brought death into
the world, and so he was effectually the murderer of all mankind, which
in Adam had but one neck. He was a murderer of souls, deceived them into sin, and by it slew them ( Rom. vii. 11 ),
poisoned man with the forbidden fruit, and, to aggravate the matter,
made him his own murderer. Thus he was not only at the
beginning, but from the beginning, which intimates that thus he has been ever since; as he began, so he continues, the murderer
of men by his temptations. The great tempter is the great destroyer.
The Jews called the devil the angel of death. [3.] He was the first wheel in the first murder that ever was committed
by Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother, 1 John iii. 12 .
If the devil had not been very strong in Cain, he could not have done
such an unnatural thing as to kill his own brother. Cain killing his
brother by the instigation of the devil, the devil is called the murderer, which does not speak Cain's personal guilt the less,
but the devil's the more, whose torments, we have reason to think, will
be the greater, when the time comes, for all that wickedness into which
he has drawn men. See what reason we have to stand upon our
guard against the wiles of the devil, and never to hearken to
him (for he is a murderer, and certainly aims to do us mischief, even
when he speaks fair ), and to wonder that he who is the murderer
of the children of men should yet be, by their own consent, so much
their master. Now herein these Jews were followers of him, and were
murderers, like him; murderers of souls, which they led blindfold into
the ditch, and made the children of hell; sworn enemies of
Christ, and now ready to be his betrayers and murderers, for the same
reason that Cain killed Abel. These Jews were that seed of the
serpent that were to bruise the heel of the seed of the
woman; Now you seek to kill me.
(2.) He was a liar. A lie is opposed to truth
( 1 John ii. 21 ),
and accordingly the devil is here described to be,
IV. Christ, having thus proved all murderers and all liars to be the
devil's children, leaves it to the consciences of his hearers to say, Thou art the man. But he comes in the following verses to assist them in the application of it to themselves; he does not call
them liars, but shows them that they were no friends to
truth, and therein resembled him who abode not in the truth,
because there is no truth in him. Two things he charges upon
them:--
1. That they would not believe the word of truth ( v. 45 ), hoti ten aletheian lego, ou pisteuete moi .
(1.) Two ways it may be taken;--
[1.] "Though I tell you the truth, yet you will not believe me
( hoti ), that I do so. " Though he gave abundant
proof of his commission from God, and his affection to the children of
men, yet they would not believe that he told them the truth. Now was truth fallen in the street, Isa. lix. 14, 15 .
The greatest truths with some gained not the least credit; for they rebelled against the light, Job xxiv. 13 .
Or,
[2.] Because I tell you the truth (so we read it) therefore you believe me not. They would not receive him, nor entertain
him as a prophet, because he told them some unpleasing truths which
they did not care to hear, told them the truth concerning themselves
and their own case, showed them their faces in a glass that would not
flatter them; therefore they would not believe a word he said.
Miserable is the case of those to whom the light of divine truth is
become a torment.
(2.) Now, to show them the unreasonableness of their infidelity, he
condescends to put the matter to this fair issue, v. 46 .
He and they being contrary, either he was in an error or they were. Now
take it either way.
2. Another thing charged upon them is that they would not hear the
words of God
( v. 47 ),
which further shows how groundless their claim of relation to God was.
Here is,
(1.) A doctrine laid down: He that is of God heareth God's
words; that is,
[1.] He is willing and ready to hear them, is sincerely
desirous to know what the mind of God is, and cheerfully embraces
whatever he knows to be so. God's words have such an authority over,
and such an agreeableness with all that are born of God, that they meet
them, as the child Samuel did, with, Speak, Lord, for thy servant
heareth. Let the word of the Lord come.
[2.] He apprehends and discerns them, he so hears them as
to perceive the voice of God in them, which the natural man does
not, 1 Cor. ii. 14 .
He that is of God is soon aware of the discoveries he makes of
himself of the nearness of his name ( Ps. lxxv. 1 ),
as they of the family know the master's tread, and the master's knock,
and open to him immediately ( Luke xii. 36 ),
as the sheep know the voice of their shepherd from that of a stranger, ch. x. 4, 5; Cant. ii. 8 .
(2.) The application of this doctrine, for the conviction of these
unbelieving Jews: You therefore hear them not; that is, "You
heed not, you understand not, you believe not, the words of God, nor
care to hear them, because you are not of God. Your being thus
deaf and dead to the words of God is a plain evidence that you are not of God. " It is in his word that God manifests himself and is
present among us; we are therefore reckoned to be well or ill affected
to his word; see 2 Cor. iv. 4; 1 John iv. 6 .
Or, their not being of God was the reason why they did not profitably hear the words of God, which Christ spoke; they did not
understand and believe him, not because the things themselves were
obscure or wanted evidence, but because the hearers were not of
God, were not born again. If the word of the kingdom do not bring
forth fruit, the blame is to be laid upon the soil, not upon the seed,
as appears by the parable of the sower, Matt. xiii. 3 .
48 Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, Say we not well
that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?
49 Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honour my Father,
and ye do dishonour me.
50 And I seek not mine own glory: there is one that seeketh and
judgeth.
Here is, I. The malice of hell breaking out in the base language which
the unbelieving Jews gave to our Lord Jesus. Hitherto they had cavilled
at his doctrine, and had made invidious remarks upon it; but, having
shown themselves uneasy when he complained
( v. 43, 47 )
that they would not hear him, now at length they fall to downright
railing, v. 48 .
They were not the common people, but, as it should seem, the scribes
and Pharisees, the men of consequence, who, when they saw themselves
convicted of an obstinate infidelity, scornfully turned off the
conviction with this: Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and
hast a devil? See here, see it and wonder, see it and tremble,
1. What was the blasphemous character commonly given of our Lord Jesus
among the wicked Jews, to which they refer.
(1.) That he was a Samaritan, that is, that he was an enemy to their
church and nation, one that they hated and could not endure. Thus they
exposed him to the ill will of the people, with whom you could not put
a man into a worse name than to call him a Samaritan. If he had
been a Samaritan, he had been punishable, by the beating of the
rebels (as they called it), for coming into the temple. They had
often enough called him a Galilean--a mean man; but as if that
were not enough, though it contradicted the other, they will have him a Samaritan--a bad man. The Jews to this day call the Christians,
in reproach, Cuthæi-Samaritans. Note, Great endeavours
have in all ages been used to make good people odious by putting them
under black characters, and it is easy to run that down with a crowd
and a cry which is once put into an ill name. Perhaps because Christ
justly inveighed against the pride and tyranny of the priests and
elders, they hereby suggest that he aimed at the ruin of their church,
in aiming at its reformation, and was falling away to the
Samaritans.
(2.) That he had a devil. Either,
[1.] That he was in league with the devil. Having reproached his
doctrine as tending to Samaritanism, here they reflect upon his
miracles as done in combination with Beelzebub. Or, rather
[2.] That he was possessed with a devil, that he was a melancholy man,
whose brain was clouded, or a mad man, whose brain was heated, and that which he said was no more to be believed than
the extravagant rambles of a distracted man, or one in a delirium. Thus
the divine revelation of those things which are above the discovery of
reason have been often branded with the charge of enthusiasm, and the
prophet was called a mad fellow, 2 Kings ix. 11; Hosea ix. 7 .
The inspiration of the Pagan oracles and prophets was indeed a frenzy,
and those that had it were for the time beside themselves; but that
which was truly divine was not so. Wisdom is justified of her
children, as wisdom indeed.
2. How they undertook to justify this character, and applied it to the
present occasion: Say we not well that thou art so? One would
think that his excellent discourses should have altered their opinion
of him, and have made them recant; but, instead of this, their hearts
were more hardened and their prejudices confirmed. They value
themselves on their enmity to Christ, as if they had never spoken better than when they spoke the worst they could of Jesus
Christ. Those have arrived at the highest pitch of wickedness who avow
their impiety, repeat what they should retract, and justify themselves
in that for which they ought to condemn themselves. It is bad to say
and do ill, but it is worse to stand to it; I do well to be
angry. When Christ spoke with so much boldness against the sins of
the great men, and thereby incensed them against him, those who were
sensible of no interest but what is secular and sensual concluded him beside himself, for they thought none but a madman would lose
his preferment, and hazard his life, for his religion and
conscience.
II. The meekness and mercifulness of Heaven shining in Christ's reply
to this vile calumny, v. 49, 50 .
1. He denies their charge against him: I have not a devil; as
Paul
( Acts xxvi. 25 ), I am not mad. The imputation is unjust; "I am neither actuated
by a devil, nor in compact with one;" and this he evidenced by what he
did against the devil's kingdom. He takes no notice of their calling
him a Samaritan, because it was a calumny that disproved itself,
it was a personal reflection, and not worth taking notice of: but
saying he had a devil reflected on his commission, and therefore he
answered that. St. Augustine gives this gloss upon his not saying any
thing to their calling him a Samaritan--that he was indeed that good
Samaritan spoken of in the parable, Luke x. 33 .
2. He asserts the sincerity of his own intentions: But I honour my
Father. They suggested that he took undue honours to himself, and
derogated from the honour due to God only, both which he denies here, in saying that he made it his business to honour his Father, and
him only. It also proves that he had not a devil; for, if he
had, he would not honour God. Note, Those who can truly way that they
make it their constant care to honour God are sufficiently armed
against the censures and reproaches of men.
3. He complains of the wrong they did him by their calumnies: You do
dishonour me. By this it appears that, as man, he had a tender
sense of the disgrace and indignity done him; reproach was a sword in
his bones, and yet he underwent it for our salvation. It is the will of
God that all men should honour the Son, yet there are many that dishonour him; such a contradiction is there in the carnal mind
to the will of God. Christ honoured his Father so as never man did, and
yet was himself dishonoured so as never man was; for, though God has
promised that those who honour him he will honour, he never promised
that men should honour them.
4. He clears himself from the imputation of vain glory, in saying this
concerning himself, v. 50 .
See here,
(1.) His contempt of worldly honour: I seek not mine own
glory. He did not aim at this in what he had said of himself or
against his persecutors; he did not court the applause of men, nor
covet preferment in the world, but industriously declined both. He did
not seek his own glory distinct from his Father's, nor had any
separate interest of his own. For men to search their own glory is not glory indeed
( Prov. xxv. 27 ),
but rather their shame to be so much out in their aim. This
comes in here as a reason why Christ made so light of their reproaches:
" You do dishonour me, but cannot disturb me, shall not disquiet
me, for I seek not my own glory. " Note, Those who are dead to
men's praise can safely bear their contempt.
(2.) His comfort under worldly dishonour: There is one that
seeketh and judgeth. In two things Christ made it appear that he sought not his own glory; and here he tells us what satisfied
him as to both.
[1.] He did not court men's respect, but was indifferent to it,
and in reference to this he saith, " There is one that seeketh, that will secure and advance, my interest in the esteem and affections
of the people, while I am in no care about it." Note, God will seek their honour that do not seek their own; for before
honour is humility.
[2.] He did not revenge men's affronts, but was unconcerned at
them, and in reference to this he saith, " There is one that
judgeth, that will vindicate my honour, and severely reckon with
those that trample upon it." Probably he refers here to the judgments
that were coming upon the nation of the Jews for the indignities they
did to the Lord Jesus. See Ps. xxxvii. 13-15 . I heard not, for thou wilt hear. If we undertake to judge for
ourselves, whatever damage we sustain, our recompence is in our own
hands; but if we be, as we ought to be, humble appellants and patient
expectants, we shall find, to our comfort, there is one that
judgeth.
51 Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he
shall never see death.
52 Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a
devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a
man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death.
53 Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and
the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself?
54 Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it
is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that he is your
God:
55 Yet ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should
say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know
him, and keep his saying.
56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad.
57 Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years
old, and hast thou seen Abraham?
58 Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before
Abraham was, I am.
59 Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid
himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of
them, and so passed by.
I. The doctrine of the immortality of believers laid down, v. 51 .
It is ushered in with the usual solemn preface, Verily, verily, I
say unto you, which commands both attention and assent, and this is
what he says, If a man keep my sayings, he shall never see
death. Here we have,
1. The character of a believer: he is one that keeps the
sayings of the Lord Jesus, ton logon ton emon -- my
word; that word of mine which I have delivered to you; this
we must not only receive, but keep; not only have, but hold. We must keep it in mind and memory, keep it in love
and affection, so keep it as in nothing to violate it or go contrary to
it, keep it without spot ( 1 Tim. vi. 14 ),
keep it as a trust committed to us, keep in it as our way, keep to it
as our rule.
2. The privilege of a believer: He shall by no means see
death for ever; so it is in the original. Not as if the bodies of
believers were secured from the stroke of death. No, even the children of the Most High must die like men, and the
followers of Christ have been, more than other men, in deaths often,
and killed all the day long; how then is this promise made good
that they shall not see death? Answer,
(1.) The property of death is so altered to them that they do not see
it as death, they do not see the terror of death, it is quite taken
off; their sight does not terminate in death, as theirs does who live by sense; no, they look so clearly, so comfortably, through
death, and beyond death, and are so taken up with their state on the
other side death, that they overlook death, and see it not. (2.) The power of death is so broken that though there is no remedy,
but they must see death, yet they shall not see death for
ever, shall not be always shut up under its arrests, the day will
come when death shall be swallowed up in victory. (3.) They are perfectly delivered from eternal death, shall not
be hurt of the second death. That is the death especially meant
here, that death which is for ever, which is opposed to
everlasting life; this they shall never see, for they shall never
come into condemnation; they shall have their everlasting lot where
there will be no more death, where they cannot die any
more, Luke xx. 36 .
Though now they cannot avoid seeing death, and tasting it too, yet they
shall shortly be there where it will be seen no more for ever, Exod. xiv. 13 .
II. The Jews cavil at this doctrine. Instead of laying hold of this
precious promise of immortality, which the nature of man has an
ambition of (who is there that does not love life, and dread the sight
of death?) they lay hold of this occasion to reproach him that makes
them so kind an offer: Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead. Observe here,
1. Their railing: "Now we know that thou hast a devil, that thou
art a madman; thou ravest, and sayest thou knowest not what." See how
these swine trample underfoot the precious pearls of gospel promises.
If now at last they had evidence to prove him mad, why did they
say
( v. 48 ),
before they had that proof, Thou hast a devil? But this is the
method of malice, first to fasten an invidious charge, and then
to fish for evidence of it: Now we know that thou hast a
devil. If he had not abundantly proved himself a teacher come
from God, his promises of immortality to his credulous followers
might justly have been ridiculed, and charity itself would have imputed
them to a crazed fancy; but his doctrine was evidently divine, his
miracles confirmed it, and the Jews' religion taught them to expect
such a prophet, and to believe in him; for them therefore thus to
reject him was to abandon that promise to which their twelve tribes
hoped to come, Acts xxvi. 7 .
2. Their reasoning, and the colour they had to run him
down thus. In short, they look upon him as guilty of an
insufferable piece of arrogance, in making himself greater than Abraham and the prophets: Abraham is dead, and the
prophets, they are dead too; very true, by the same token that
these Jews were the genuine offspring of those that killed them. Now,
(1.) It is true that Abraham and the prophets were great men, great in
the favour of God, and great in the esteem of all good men.
(2.) It is true that they kept God's sayings, and were obedient
to them; and yet,
(3.) It is true that they died; they never pretended to have, much less to give, immortality, but every one in
his own order was gathered to his people. It was their honour
that they died in faith, but die they must. Why should a good
man be afraid to die, when Abraham is dead, and the prophets are dead?
They have tracked the way through that darksome valley, which
should reconcile us to death and help to take off the terror of it. Now
they think Christ talks madly, when he saith, If a man keep my
sayings, he shall never taste death. Tasting death means the same
thing with seeing it; and well may death be represented as
grievous to several of the senses, which is the destruction of
them all. Now their arguing goes upon two mistakes:--
[1.] They understood Christ of an immortality in this world, and this
was a mistake. In the sense that Christ spoke, it was not true that Abraham and the prophets were dead, for God is still the God
of Abraham and the God of the holy prophets ( Rev. xxii. 6 );
now God is not the God of the dead, but of the living; therefore
Abraham and the prophets are still alive, and, as Christ meant it, they
had not seen nor tasted death.
[2.] They thought none could be greater than Abraham and the prophets,
whereas they could not but know that the Messiah would be greater than
Abraham or any of the prophets; they did virtuously, but he excelled
them all; nay, they borrowed their greatness from him. It was the
honour of Abraham that he was the Father of the Messiah, and the honour
of the prophets that they testified beforehand concerning him: so that
he certainly obtained a far more excellent name than
they. Therefore, instead of inferring from Christ's making himself
greater than Abraham that he had a devil, they should have
inferred from his proving himself so (by doing the works which neither
Abraham nor the prophets ever did) that he was the Christ; but their
eyes were blinded. They scornfully asked, Whom makest thou
thyself? As if he had been guilty of pride and vain-glory; whereas
he was so far from making himself greater than he was that he now drew
a veil over his own glory, emptied himself, and made himself less than
he was, and was the greatest example of humility that ever was.
III. Christ's reply to this cavil; still he vouchsafes to reason with
them, that every mouth may be stopped. No doubt he could have struck
them dumb or dead upon the spot, but this was the day of his
patience.
1. In his answer he insists not upon his own testimony concerning
himself, but waives it as not sufficient nor conclusive
( v. 54 ): If I honour myself, my honour is nothing, ean ego
doxazo -- if I glorify myself. Note, Self-honour is no
honour; and the affectation of glory is both the forfeiture and the
defeasance of it: it is not glory ( Prov. xxv. 27 ),
but so great a reproach that there is no sin which men are more
industrious to hide than this; even he that most affects praise would
not be thought to do it. Honour of our own creating is a mere chimera,
has nothing in it, and therefore is called vain-glory. Self-admirers are self- deceivers. Our Lord Jesus was not one
that honoured himself, as they represented him; he was crowned by him who is the fountain of honour, and glorified not
himself to be made a high priest, Heb. v. 4, 5 .
2. He refers himself to his Father, God; and to their father, Abraham.
(1.) To his Father, God: It is my Father that honoureth me. By
this he means,
[1.] That he derived from his Father all the honour he now
claimed; he had commanded them to believe in him, to follow him, and to
keep his word, all which put an honour upon him; but it was the Father
that laid help upon him, that lodged all fulness in him, that sanctified him, and sealed him, and sent him into the
world to receive all the honours due to the Messiah, and this justified
him in all these demands of respect.
[2.] That he depended upon his Father for all the honour he
further looked for. He courted not the applauses of the age, but
despised them; for his eye and heart were upon the glory which the
Father had promised him, and which he had with the Father before the
world was. He aimed at an advancement with which the Father was to exalt him, a name he was to give him, Phil. ii. 8, 9 .
Note, Christ and all that are his depend upon God for their honour; and
he that is sure of honour where he is known cares not though he be
slighted where he is in disguise. Appealing thus often to his Father,
and his Father's testimony of him, which yet the Jews did not admit nor
give credit to,
First, He here takes occasion to show the reason of their incredulity, notwithstanding this testimony--and this was their unacquaintedness with God; as if he had said, "But why should I
talk to you of my Father's honouring me, when he is one you know
nothing of? You say of him that he is your God, yet you have not
known him. " Here observe,
a. The profession they made of relation to God: " You say that
he is your God, the God you have chosen, and are in covenant with;
you say that you are Israel; but all are not so indeed that are of
Israel," Rom. ix. 6 .
Note, Many pretend to have an interest in God, and say that he is theirs, who yet have no just cause to say so. Those who called
themselves the temple of the Lord, having profaned the
excellency of Jacob, did but trust in lying words. What will it
avail us to say, He is our God, if we be not in sincerity his
people, nor such as he will own? Christ mentions here their
profession of relation to God, as that which was an aggravation of
their unbelief. All people will honour those whom their God honours;
but these Jews, who said that the Lord was their God, studied how to
put the utmost disgrace upon one upon whom their God put honour. Note,
The Profession we make of a covenant relation to God, and an interest
in him, if it be not improved by us will be improved against
us.
b. Their ignorance of him, and estrangement from him,
notwithstanding this profession: Yet you have not known him. ( a. ) You know him not at all. These Pharisees were so
taken up with the study of their traditions concerning things foreign
and trifling that they never minded the most needful and useful
knowledge; like the false prophets of old, who caused people to
forget God's name by their dreams, Jer. xxiii. 27 .
Or,
( b. ) You know him not aright, but mistake concerning him;
and this is as bad as not knowing him at all, or worse. Men may be able
to dispute subtly concerning God, and yet may think him such a one as
themselves, and not know him. You say that he is yours, and it is natural to us to desire to know our own, yet you know him not. Note, There are many who claim-kindred to
God who yet have no acquaintance with him. It is only the name of God
which they have learned to talk of, and to hector with; but for the
nature of God, his attributes and perfections, and relations to his
creatures, they know nothing of the matter; we speak this to their
shame, 1 Cor. xv. 34 .
Multitudes satisfy themselves, but deceive themselves, with a titular
relation to an unknown God. This Christ charges upon the Jews
here,
[ a. ] To show how vain and groundless their pretensions of
relation to God were. "You say that he is yours, but you give
yourselves the lie, for it is plain that you do not know him;" and we
reckon that a cheat is effectually convicted if it be found that he is
ignorant of the persons he pretends alliance to.
[ b. ] To show the true reason why they were not wrought upon by
Christ's doctrine and miracles. They knew not God; and therefore
perceived not the image of God, nor the voice of God in Christ. Note,
The reason why men receive not the gospel of Christ is because
they have not the knowledge of God. Men submit not to the
righteousness of Christ because they are ignorant of God's
righteousness, Rom. x. 3 .
They that know not God, and obey not the gospel of Christ, are put
together, 2 Thess. i. 8 .
Secondly, He gives them the reason of his assurance that
his Father would honour him and own him: But I know him; and again, I know him; which bespeaks, not only his acquaintance with him, having lain in his bosom, but his confidence in him, to stand by him, and bear him out in his
whole undertaking; as was prophesied concerning him
( Isa. l. 7, 8 ), I know that I shall not be ashamed, for he is near that
justifies; and as Paul, " I know whom I have believed ( 2 Tim. i. 12 ),
I know him to be faithful, and powerful, and heartily engaged in the
cause which I know to be his own. " Observe,
1. How he professes his knowledge of his Father, with the
greatest certainty, as one that was neither afraid nor ashamed to own
it: If I should say I know him not, I should be a liar like unto
you. He would not deny his relation to God, to humour the Jews, and
to avoid their reproaches, and prevent further trouble; nor would he
retract what he had said, nor confess himself either deceived or a
deceiver; if he should, he would be found a false witness against God
and himself. Note, Those who disown their religion and relation to
God, as Peter, are liars, as much as hypocrites are, who pretend to
know him, when they do not. See 1 Tim. vi. 13, 14 .
Mr. Clark observes well, upon this, that it is a great sin to deny God's
grace in us.
2. How he proves his knowledge of his Father: I know him and
keep his sayings, or his word. Christ, as man, was obedient
to the moral law, and, as Redeemer, to the mediatorial law; and in both
he kept his Father's word, and his own word with the
Father. Christ requires of us
( v. 51 )
that we keep his sayings; and he has set before us a copy of
obedience, a copy without a blot: he kept his Father's sayings; well might he who learned obedience teach it; see Heb. v. 8, 9 .
Christ by this evinced that he knew the Father. Note, The best proof of
our acquaintance with God is our obedience to him. Those only know God
aright that keep his word; it is a ruled case, 1 John ii. 3 . Hereby we know that we know him (and do not only fancy it), if we keep his commandments.
(2.) Christ refers them to their father, whom they boasted so
much of a relation to, and that was Abraham, and this closes the
discourse.
First, The ambition he had to see his day: He rejoiced, egalliasto -- he leaped at it. The word, though it
commonly signifies rejoicing, must here signify a transport of desire rather than of joy, for otherwise the latter part
of the verse would be a tautology; he saw it, and was glad. He reached
out, or stretched himself forth, that he might see my
day; as Zaccheus, that ran before, and climbed the tree, to see
Jesus. The notices he had received of the Messiah to come had
raised in him an expectation of something great, which he
earnestly longed to know more of. The dark intimation of that which is
considerable puts men upon enquiry, and makes them earnestly ask Who? and What? and Where? and When? and How? And thus the prophets of the Old Testament, having a
general idea of a grace that should come, searched diligently ( 1 Pet. i. 10 ),
and Abraham was as industrious herein as any of them. God told him of a
land that he would give his posterity, and of the wealth and honour he
designed them
( Gen. xv. 14 );
but he never leaped thus to see that day, as he did to see the
day of the Son of man. He could not look with so much indifferency upon
the promised seed as he did upon the promised land; in
that he was, but to the other he could not be, contentedly a
stranger. Note, Those who rightly know any thing of Christ cannot but
be earnestly desirous to know more of him. Those who discern the
dawning of the light of the Sun of righteousness cannot but wish to see
his rising. The mystery of redemption is that which angels desire to
look into, much more should we, who are more immediately concerned
in it. Abraham desired to see Christ's day, though it was at a great
distance; but this degenerate seed of his discerned not his day, nor
bade it welcome when it came. The appearing of Christ, which gracious
souls love and long for, carnal hearts dread and loathe.
Secondly, The satisfaction he had in what he did see of it: He saw it, and was glad. Observe here,
a. How God gratified the pious desire of Abraham; he longed to
see Christ's day, and he saw it. Though he saw it not so
plainly, and fully, and distinctly as we now see it under the gospel,
yet he saw something of it, more afterwards than he did at
first. Note, To him that has, and to him that asks, shall be given; to
him that uses and improves what he has, and that desires and prays for
more of the knowledge of Christ, God will give more. But how did
Abraham see Christ's day?
( a. ) Some understand it of the sight he had of it in the other
world. The separate soul of Abraham, when the veil of flesh was rent,
saw the mysteries of the kingdom of God in heaven. Calvin mentions this
sense of it, and does not much disallow it. Note, The longings of
gracious souls after Jesus Christ will be fully satisfied when they
come to heaven, and not till then. But,
( b. ) It is more commonly understood of some sight he had of Christ's day in this world. They that received not the
promises, yet saw them afar off, Heb. xi. 13 .
Balaam saw Christ, but not now, not nigh. There is room
to conjecture that Abraham had some vision of Christ and his day, for
his own private satisfaction, which is not, nor must be, recorded in
his story, like that of Daniel's, which must be shut up, and sealed
unto the time of the end, Dan. xii. 4 .
Christ knew what Abraham saw better than Moses did. But there are
divers things recorded in which Abraham saw more of that which he
longed to see than he did when the promise was first made to him. He
saw in Melchizedek one made like unto the Son of God, and a
priest for ever; he saw an appearance of Jehovah, attended with two
angels, in the plains of Mamre. In the prevalency of his intercession
for Sodom he saw a specimen of Christ's intercession; in the casting
out of Ishmael, and the establishment of the covenant with Isaac, he
saw a figure of the gospel day, which is Christ's day; for these things
were an allegory. In offering Isaac, and the ram instead of Isaac, he
saw a double type of the great sacrifice; and his calling the place Jehovah-jireh--It shall be seen, intimates that he saw something
more in it than others did, which time would produce; and in making his
servant put his hand under his thigh, when he swore, he had a
regard to the Messiah.
b. How Abraham entertained these discoveries of Christ's
day, and bade them welcome: He saw, and was glad. He was glad of
what he saw of God's favour to himself, and glad of what he foresaw of the mercy God had in store for the world. Perhaps
this refers to Abraham's laughing when God assured him of a son by
Sarah
( Gen. xvii. 16, 17 ),
for that was not a laughter of distrust as Sarah's but of joy; in that
promise he saw Christ's day, and it filled him with joy
unspeakable. Thus he embraced the promises. Note, A believing
sight of Christ and his day will put gladness into the heart. No joy
like the joy of faith; we are never acquainted with true pleasure till
we are acquainted with Christ.
First, How they were enraged at Christ for what he said: They took up stones to cast at him, v. 59 .
Perhaps they looked upon him as a blasphemer, and such were indeed to
be stoned
( Lev. xxiv. 16 );
but they must be first legally tried and convicted. Farewell justice
and order if every man pretend to execute a law at his pleasure.
Besides, they had said but just now that he was a distracted
crack-brained man, and if so it was against all reason and equity to
punish him as a malefactor for what he said. They took up
stones. Dr. Lightfoot will tell you how they came to have stones so
ready in the temple; they had workmen at this time repairing the
temple, or making some additions, and the pieces of stone which they
hewed off served for this purpose. See here the desperate power of sin
and Satan in and over the children of disobedience. Who would think
that ever there should be such wickedness as this in men, such an open
and daring rebellion against one that undeniably proved himself to be
the Son of God? Thus every one has a stone to throw at his holy
religion, Acts xxviii. 22 .
Secondly, How he made his escape out of their hands.
1. He absconded; Jesus hid himself; ekrybe -- he was hid, either by the crowd of those
that wished well to him, to shelter him (he that ought to have been
upon a throne, high and lifted up, is content to be lost in a
crowd ); or perhaps he concealed himself behind some of the walls or
pillars of the temple ( in the secret of his tabernacle he shall hide
me, Ps. xxvii. 5 );
or by a divine power, casting a mist before their eyes, he made himself
invisible to them. When the wicked rise a man is hidden, a wise
and good man, Prov. xxviii. 12, 28 .
Not that Christ was afraid or ashamed to stand by what he had said, but
his hour was not yet come, and he would countenance the flight
of his ministers and people in times of persecution, when they are
called to it. The Lord hid Jeremiah and Baruch, Jer. xxxvi. 26 .
2. He departed, he went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, undiscovered, and so passed
by. This was not a cowardly inglorious flight, nor such as argued
either guilt or fear. It was foretold concerning him that he should not
fail nor be discouraged, Isa. xlii. 4 .
But,
(1.) It was an instance of his power over his enemies, and that they
could do no more against him than he gave them leave to do; by which it
appears that when afterwards he was taken in their pits he offered
himself, ch. x. 18 .
They now thought they had made sure of him and yet he passed through
the midst of them, either their eyes being blinded or their hands
tied, and thus he left them to fume, like a lion disappointed of his
prey. (2.) It was an instance of his prudent provision for his own safety,
when he knew that his work was not done, nor his testimony finished;
thus he gave an example to his own rule, When they persecute you in
one city flee to another; nay, if occasion be, to a wilderness, for so Elijah did
( 1 Kings xix. 3, 4 ),
and the woman, the church, Rev. xii. 6 .
When they took up loose stones to throw at Christ, he could have
commanded the fixed stones, which did cry out of the wall against them, to avenge his cause, or the earth to open and swallow
them up; but he chose to accommodate himself to the state he was in, to
make the example imitable by the prudence of his followers, without a
miracle.
(3.) It was a righteous deserting of those who (worse than the
Gadarenes, who prayed him to depart ) stoned him from among them.
Christ will not long stay with those who bid him be gone. Christ did
again visit the temple after this; as one loth to depart, he bade oft farewell; but at last he abandoned it for ever, and
left it desolate. Christ now went through the midst of
the Jews, and none of them courted his stay, nor stirred up himself to
take hold of him, but were even content to let him go. Note, God never
forsakes any till they have first provoked him to withdraw, and will
have none of him. Calvin observes that these chief priests, when they
had driven Christ out of the temple, valued themselves on the
possession they kept of it: "But," says he, "those deceive themselves
who are proud of a church or temple which Christ has forsaken." Longe falluntur, cum templum se habere putant Deo vacuum. When
Christ left them it is said that he passed by silently and unobserved; paregen houtos , so that they were not aware of him. Note,
Christ's departures from a church, or a particular soul, are often secret, and not soon taken notice of. As the kingdom of God
comes not, so it goes not, with observation. See Judg. xvi. 20 . Samson wist not that the Lord was departed from him. Thus it was
with these forsaken Jews, God left them, and they never missed him.
Ver. 1. Jesus went unto the . Which lay eastward of Jerusalem, about a mile from it; hither Christ went on the evening of the last day of the feast of tabernacles; partly to decline the danger, and avoid the snares the Jews might lay for him in the night season; having been disappointed and confounded in the daytime; and it may be for the sake of recreation and diversion, to sup with his dear friends Lazarus, Martha, and Mary, who lived at Bethany, not far from this mount; and chiefly for private prayer to God, on account of himself as man, and for his disciples, and for the spread of his Gospel, and for the enlargement of his interest; this being his common and usual method, Lu 21:37.
John 8:2
Ver. 2. And early in the morning he came again into the temple,.... Which shows his diligence, constancy, and assiduity, in his ministerial work, as well as his courage and intrepidity; being fearless of his enemies, though careful to give them no advantage against him, before his time:
and all the people came unto him; which also commends the industry and diligence of his hearers, who were forward to hear him, and were early at the temple for that purpose, and that in great numbers:
and he sat down and taught them; he sat, as his manner was;
See Gill on "Mt 5:1"; and taught them as one having authority, and such doctrine, and in such a manner, as never man did; with all plainness, boldness, and freedom.
John 8:3
Ver. 3. And the Scribes and Pharisees,.... The members of the sanhedrim, who had been so miserably disappointed the day before, were no less diligent and industrious in their wicked way, seeking all opportunities, and taking all advantages against Christ; and fancying they had got something whereby to ensnare him, and bring him into disgrace or danger, they pursue it; and
brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; who, as some conjecture, might have been taken in it the day before, in one of their booths; being drawn into it through intemperance and carnal mirth, which at this feast they greatly indulged themselves in; which shows, that they were far from drawing the Holy Ghost at this time upon them; that on the contrary, they fell into the hands, and under the power of the unclean spirit: who this woman was, is not material to know; what is pretended to be taken out of the annals of the Spanish Jews, is no doubt a fable; that she was the wife of one Manasseh of Jerusalem, an old man, whose name was Susanna {d}:
and when they had set her in the midst; of the company, as the Persic version reads, to be seen by all the people. This history of the woman taken in adultery, is wanting in the Alexandrian copy, and in other ancient copies; nor is it in Nonnus, Chrysostom, and Theophylact; nor in any of the editions of the Syriac version, until it was restored by De Dieu, from a copy of Archbishop Usher's; but was in the Arabic and Ethiopic versions, and in the Harmonies of Tatian and Ammonius; the former of which lived about the year 160, and so within 60 years, or thereabouts, of the death of the Evangelist John, and the other about the year 230; it was also in Stephens's sixteen ancient Greek copies, and in all Beza's seventeen, excepting one; nor need the authenticness of it be doubted of; Eusebius {e} says, it is in the Gospel according to the Hebrews; nor should its authority be called in question.
{d} Vid. . Uxor Hebr. l. 3. c. 11. p. 377. {e} Hist. Ecless. l. 3. c. 39.
John 8:4
Ver. 4. They say unto him, Master,.... They applied to him in a handsome and respectful manner, the better to cover their ill design:
this woman was taken in adultery; by two persons at least, who could be witnesses of it; otherwise the accusation was not legal; see
De 19:15; though in the case of a wife suspected of adultery, they admitted a single witness as valid {f}:
in the very act; or "in the theft itself", for adultery is a theft; it is an unlawful use of another's property; see this word used in the same sense, in Heliodor, l. 1. sect. 11.
{f} Maimon. Hilchot Eduth, c. 5. sect. 2.
John 8:5
Ver. 5. Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should, be stoned,.... Not in Le 20:10; for though according to the law there, an adulteress, one that was a married woman, and so an adulterer, that was a married man, were to be put to death; yet the death was not stoning, but strangling; for it is a rule with the Jews {g}, that where death is simply mentioned (without restraining it to any particular kind) strangling is intended, and which rule they apply to this law: and accordingly in their Misna, or oral law, one that lies with another man's wife, is reckoned among those that are to be strangled {h}: Kimchi indeed says {i}, that adulteresses, according to the law, are to be stoned with stones; but then this must be understood of such as are betrothed, but not married; and such a person, Moses has commanded in the law, to be stoned,
De 22:23. And with this agree the traditions of the Jews {k};
"a daughter of must be stoned, who is hawvn alw
howra, "betrothed, but not married".''
And such an one we must believe this woman was; she was betrothed to a man, but not married to him, and therefore to be stoned: the Jews {l} have also a saying, that
"if all adulterers were punished with stoning, according to the law, the stones would be consumed; but they would not be consumed;''
adultery was so common with that people:
but what sayest thou? dost thou agree with Moses, or not?
{g} Maimon. Hilchot Issure Bia, c. 1. sect. 6. {h} Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 10. sect. 1. {i} In Ezek. xvi. 40. {k} T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 51. 2. {l} Apud Castell. Lex. Polyglott, col. 2180.
John 8:6
Ver. 6. This they said, tempting him,.... For they brought this woman, and exposed her in this manner, not because of their abhorrence and detestation of the sin; nor did they put the above question to Christ, out of their great respect to the law of Moses; which in many instances, and so in this, they in a great measure made void, by their traditions; for they say, that for such an offence as adultery, they did not put to death, nor beat, unless there was a previous admonition; the use of which was, to distinguish between presumptuous sins, and wilful ones {m}; but if there was no admonition, and the woman, even a married woman, if she confessed the crime, all her punishment was to have her dowry taken from her, or to go away without it {n}: now these masters say nothing about the admonition, nor do they put the question, whether this woman was to be dealt with according to their traditions, or according to the law of Moses? but what was the sense of Christ, whether Moses's law was to be attended to, or whether he would propose another rule to go by? and their view in this was,
that they might have to accuse him; that should he agree with Moses, then they would accuse him to the Roman governor, for taking upon him to condemn a person to death, which belonged to him to do; or they would charge him with severity, and acting inconsistently with himself, who received such sort of sinners, and ate with them; and had declared, that publicans and harlots would enter into the kingdom of heaven, when the Scribes and Pharisees would not; and if he should disagree with Moses, then they would traduce him among the people, as an enemy to Moses and his law, and as a patron of the most scandalous enormities:
but Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground; some think {o} he wrote in legible characters the sins of the woman's accusers; and the learned Wagenseil {p} makes mention of an ancient Greek manuscript he had seen, in which were the following words, "the sins of everyone of them": Dr. Lightfoot is of opinion, that this action of Christ tallies with, and has some reference to, the action of the priest at the trial of the suspected wife; who took of the dust of the floor of the tabernacle, and infused it in the bitter waters for her to drink; but it is most likely, that Christ on purpose put himself into this posture, as if he was busy about something else, and did not attend to what they said; and hereby cast some contempt upon them, as if they and their question were unworthy of his notice: and this sense is confirmed by what follows,
[as though he heard them not]; though this clause is not in many copies, nor in the Vulgate Latin, nor in any of the Oriental versions, but is in five of Beza's copies, and in the Complutensian edition.
(See Jer 17:13, "they that depart from me shall be wriiten in the earth". It could be that Christ was writing their names in the earth, thus fulfulling this prophecy in Jeremiah. They knew the Old Testament and this passage, and were convicted in their hearts. Editor.)
{m} Maimon. ib. sect. 3. {n} Misn. Sota, c. 1. sect. 5. {o} Hieron. adv. Pelagianos, l. 2. fol. 96. H. Tom. II. {p} In Misn. Sota, c. 1. sect. 5.
John 8:7
Ver. 7. So when they continued asking him,.... For observing that he put himself in such a posture, they concluded that they had puzzled and perplexed him, and that he knew not what to say; and therefore they were more urgent for a speedy answer, hoping they should get an advantage of him; and that they should be able to expose him, and that his confusion would appear to all the people:
he lift up himself and said unto them; having raised up himself, he looked wistly at them, and returned them this wise answer to, their confusion:
he that is without sin among you; meaning, not that was entirely free from sin, in heart, in lip, and life; for there is no such person; the most holy man in life is not, in such sense, free from sin; but that was without any notorious sin, or was not guilty of some scandalous sin, and particularly this of adultery; which was in this age a prevailing sin, and even among their doctors; hence our Lord calls that generation an adulterous one, Mt 12:39; and which was literally true of them; with this compare Ro 2:22. Adultery increased to such a degree in this age, that they were obliged to leave off the trial of suspected wives, because their husbands were generally guilty this way; and the waters would have no effect, if the husband was criminal also: so the Jews say {q},
"when adulterers increased, the bitter waters ceased; and Rabban Jochanan ben Zaccai (who was now living) caused them to cease.''
In vindication of which, he cited the passage in Ho 4:14; and this agrees with their own account of the times of the Messiah, and the signs thereof, among which stands this {r};
"in the age in which the son of David comes, the house of assembly (the gloss interprets it the place where the disciples of the wise men meet to learn the law) shall become, twnwzl, "a brothel house".''
And that this sin so greatly prevailed, our Lord well knew; and perhaps none of those Scribes and Pharisees were free from it, in one shape or another; and therefore bids him that was,
let him first cast a stone at her; alluding to the law in De 17:7, which required the hands of the witnesses to be upon a person first, to put him to death; and as Dr. Lightfoot thinks, referring to their own sense and opinion, in trying a wife suspected of adultery; that if the husband was guilty the same way, the waters would have no effect: by this answer of our Lord, he at once wrought himself out of the dilemma, they thought to distress him with; for though he passed no sentence upon the woman, and so took not upon him the judiciary power, with which they could accuse him to the Roman governor, yet he manifestly appeared to agree with Moses, that such an one deserved to be stoned; wherefore they could not charge him with being contrary to Moses; and by putting him that was without sin, to cast the first stone at her, he showed himself merciful to the woman, and to them, to be the searcher of hearts.
{q} Misn. Sota, c. 9. sect. 9. {r} Misn. ib c. 9. sect. 15. T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 97. 1.
John 8:8
Ver. 8. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. As before, having said enough to confound them; and yet unwilling to pursue the matter any further, or publicly expose them in any other way; and that they might have an opportunity of withdrawing themselves without any further notice of his, he took this method.
John 8:9
Ver. 9. And they which heard it,.... Not all, not the disciples of Christ, nor the multitude, but the Scribes and Pharisees:
being convicted by their own conscience; that they were not without sin, nor free from this; they had a beam in their own eye, who were so forward to observe the mote in another's; and oftentimes so it is, that those who are most forward to reprove, and bear hardest on others for their sins, are as culpable in another way, if not in the same; when sin lies at the door, and conscience is awakened and open, it is as good as a thousand witnesses; and lets in, and owns the sin which lies heavy, and makes sad work; and fills with anguish, confusion, and shame, as it did these men: who
went out one by one; from the temple, in as private a manner, and as unobserved as they could:
beginning at the eldest: who might have been most culpable, or however soonest took the hint; being more wise and sagacious:
unto the last; this is wanting in the Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Persic versions, and in two of Beza's copies, and the Basil edition:
and Jesus was left alone; not by his disciples, nor the multitude, but his antagonists, who came to tempt and ensnare him: for it follows,
and the woman standing in the midst; that is, of the company as before.
John 8:10
Ver. 10. When Jesus had lift himself up,.... From the earth, towards which he stooped, and on which he had been writing:
and saw none but the woman; that is, none of those that had brought her there, and had accused her to him:
he said unto her, woman, where are those thine accusers? the Syriac and Arabic versions read only, "where are these?" these men, that brought thee here, and charged thee with this crime:
hath no man condemned thee? has no one offered to do unto thee what I proposed? what, not one that could take up a stone, and cast at thee? was there not one of them free from this sin? could no man take upon him to execute this sentence?
John 8:11
Ver. 11. She saith, no man, Lord,.... No man said a word to me, or lift up his hand against me, or moved a stone at me:
and Jesus said unto her, neither do I condemn thee; Christ came not into the world to act the part of a civil magistrate, and therefore refused to arbitrate a case, or be concerned in dividing an inheritance between two brethren, Lu 12:13. Nor did he come into the world to condemn it, but that the world, through him, might be saved, Joh 3:17; nor would he pass any other sentence on this woman, than what he had done; nor would he inflict any punishment on her himself; but suitably and agreeably to his office; as a prophet, he declares against her sin, calls her to repentance, and bids her
go and sin no more; lest as he said to the man he cured at Bethesda's pool, a worse thing should come unto her. Wherefore the Jew {s} has no reason to object to this conduct of Christ, as if he acted contrary to the law, in De 13:5. "Thou shalt put the evil away from the midst of thee"; and also to the sanctions of all civil laws among men, which order the removal of evil, by putting delinquents to death; and he observes, that those that believe in him, do not follow him in this, but put adulterers and adulteresses to death; and that indeed, should his example and instructions take place, all courts of judicature must cease, and order be subverted among men: but it should be observed, that our Lord manifested a regard, even to the law of Moses, when he bid this woman's accusers that were without sin, to cast the first stone at her; though as for the law in De 13:5, that respects a false prophet, and not an adulterer or an adulteress; nor do the civil laws of all nations require death in the case of adultery; and did they, Christ here, neither by his words nor actions, contradicts and sets aside any such laws of God or man; he left this fact to be inquired into, examined, and judged, and sentence passed by proper persons, whose business it was: as for himself, his office was not that of a civil magistrate, but of a Saviour and Redeemer; and suitably to that he acted in this case; he did not connive at the sin, he reproved for it; nor did he deny that she ought to suffer according to the law of Moses, but rather suggests she ought; but as this was not his province, he did not take upon him to pronounce any sentence of condemnation on her; but called her to repentance, and, as the merciful and compassionate Saviour, gave her reason to hope pardon and eternal life.
{s} R. Isaac Chizzuk Emuna, par. 2. c. 47. p. 435, 436.
John 8:12
Ver. 12. Then spake Jesus again unto them,.... Syriac fragment of Bishop Usher's, published by De Dieu, prefaces this verse thus, "when they were gathered together", Jesus said, &c. that is, the Scribes and Pharisees, who went out and returned again; or some others of them, who came after this, to whom Christ addressed himself thus:
I am the light of the world; which he might say, on occasion of the rising sun, which was now up, and might shine brightly in their faces; see Joh 8:2; which is Mlweh rwa, "the light of the world", as Aben Ezra in Ps 19:8 rightly calls it: thus on occasion of the water in Jacob's well, he discoursed of living water; and upon the Jews at Capernaum mentioning the manna, he treated at large concerning himself as the bread of life: and he might also make use of this character, and apply it to himself, with a view to some passages in the Old Testament, which speak of him under the metaphor of the sun, as Ps 84:11, and represent him as the light; and the Jews {t} themselves say, that light is one of the names of the Messiah; and God himself is called by them, the light of the world {u}: and likewise he may have regard to those pompous titles and characters, which the Jewish doctors assumed arrogantly to themselves, and oppose himself to them; for they not only called Moses their master, Mlweh rwa, "the light of the world" {w}, and also the law of Moses {x}, but their Rabbins and doctors;
See Gill on "Mt 5:14". By the world here is meant, not the whole world, and all the individuals of it; for though Christ, as the Creator of all things, is the light of men, and does lighten every individual man with the light of nature and reason, yet not in a spiritual and saving manner, as is here intended; nor the whole body of the elect of God, though they are sometimes called the world, being the better part of it, and are made light in the Lord, in a special sense; nor the Jews only, and the chosen of God, among them, though Christ was a great light to many of them, that sat in darkness, and in the shadow of death; but the Gentiles are here designed, who were usually called by the Jews, the world; See Gill on "Joh 3:16". And these were in gross darkness before the coming of Christ, about the Divine Being, concerning the object, nature, and manner of worship; the Scriptures, the law, and Gospel; the Messiah, and his office and work; the Spirit of God, and his operations of grace; the resurrection of the dead, and a future state; now Christ came to be a light of the Gentiles, as well as the glory of his people Israel: our Lord seems to have respect to the prophecy of him, in Isa 42:6, as well as alludes to the sun in the firmament; whose light is diffused to all the nations of the earth, and not confined to one spot of land only: but since Christ was the minister of the circumcision, and was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, it may be asked, how could he be the light of the Gentiles? to which it may be replied, that he was so by his apostles, who were sent by him with the light of the Gospel, into all the world; and by his Spirit, who enlightens the minds of men, who were darkness itself, with the light of Christ: for he is not only the author and giver of the light of nature to all men, but also of the light of grace to all his chosen ones, Gentiles as well as Jews; who, in his light, see light; see themselves lost and undone, and him to be the only willing, able, suitable, and complete Saviour; and behold wondrous things in the doctrines of the Gospel, and have some glimpse of glory; and he is likewise the author of all the light of glory the saints enjoy in the other world; the Lamb is the light of that state; he is their everlasting light, and their glory; and happy are they who are his followers now:
he that followeth me; not corporeally, but spiritually, by faith; for as believing is expressed by coming to Christ, so by following after him: compare with this, Joh 12:46; and with love and affection to him, the desires of the soul being unto him, and to the remembrance of him; and in the exercise of every grace and discharge of every duty, in imitation of him; and through a variety of sufferings and tribulations, pressing after him as the guide, captain, and forerunner: and such
shall not walk in darkness; in the darkness of unregeneracy, not knowing what they are, and where they are, and whither they are going; for such know they are in the light; and though they were blind, now they see; they know in whom they have believed, and that they are in Christ, in the covenant of grace, and in the love of God, and are going to heaven and eternal happiness; such shall not walk in the darkness of unbelief; but walk by faith on Christ; nor in the darkness of error, but in the truth of the Gospel, and as becomes it; and though they may sometimes walk without the light of God's countenance, yet light shall arise to them; and such "shall not go into darkness", as the Ethiopic version renders the words, into outer darkness, or the darkness of eternal death:
but shall have the light of life; the grace of God abiding in them now; which as it is a well of living water, springing up to eternal life, so it is a shining light, which increases to the perfect day: as darkness and death, so light and life go together; grace, which is enlightening, is also quickening and comforting, and issues in eternal light and life; a light that will never be extinguished, and a life that will continue for ever, with never fading joys and pleasures; see Job 33:30.
{t} Bereshit Rabba, fol. 1. 3. Echa Rabbati, fol. 50. 2. & Jarchi in Psal xliii. 3. {u} Bemidbar Rabba, sect. 15. fol. 217. 2. {w} Tzeror Hammor, fol. 114. 3. {x} T. Bab. Bava Bathra, fol. 4. 1.
John 8:13
Ver. 13. The Pharisees therefore said unto him,.... On account of his declaring himself the light of the world: these were either the same who went out of the temple, filled with remorse of conscience, and were now returned, and bearing him a grudge, came to take some advantage against him, if they could; or they were others of the same complexion, sent by them, to make their observations on him:
thou bearest record of thyself. The Ethiopic version renders it, "dost thou thyself?" which does not seem so decent and comely; see
Pr 27:2; though it does not follow, that what a man says of himself is not truth, as these suggest:
thy record is not true; for John testified of himself, that he was not the Christ, nor Elias, nor that prophet; but the voice of one crying in the wilderness; and this testimony he bore of himself, at the importunity of the Jews themselves, Joh 1:19; and his testimony was true; so was that which Christ bore of himself; but their sense rather seems to be, that it was not firm and authentic, and would not pass in any court of judicature, since no man can be a witness in his own cause.
John 8:14
Ver. 14. Jesus answered and said unto them,.... In vindication of himself, and his testimony:
though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true; which seems contradictory to what he says, in Joh 5:31, and may be reconciled thus; there he speaks of himself as man, and in the opinion of the Jews, who took him to be a mere man; and also as alone, and separate from his Father, as the context shows; therefore his single testimony, and especially concerning himself, could not be admitted as authentic among men; but here he speaks of himself as a divine person, and in conjunction with his Father, with whom he was equal; and therefore his testimony ought to be looked upon, and received as firm and good, giving this as a reason for it:
for I know whence I came, and whither I go; that he was truly the Son of God, the only begotten of the Father, and had his mission and commission from him into this world; and which, as he knew himself, he was able to make known, and make appear to others, by his credentials, the doctrines taught, and the miracles wrought by him; which proved him to be what he said he was, the light of the world; and he knew that when he had done his work he came about, he should go to his God and Father, and take his place at his right hand:
but ye cannot tell whence I come, and whither I go; they took him to be the son of Joseph, and that he came out of Galilee; in which they were mistaken; and when he talked of going away, they did not understand him, nor know whither he was going; they ask if he was going to the dispersed among the Gentiles, to teach them? and at another time, whether he would kill himself? they knew not, that through a train of sufferings and death, he must, and would enter into his glory: the Persic version inserts another clause without any foundation; "but ye know not from whence ye come, and whither ye go", and then follows the former; there might be a truth in this, they did not know their true original, that they were from beneath; nor whither they were going, to what dismal abode, when they expected to enter, and enjoy the kingdom of heaven.
John 8:15
Ver. 15. Ye judge after the flesh,.... According to their carnal affections and prejudices; taking the Messiah to be a temporal prince, and his kingdom to be of this world, they judged that Jesus could not be he; they looked upon him as a mere man, and seeing him in much outward meanness, in his human nature, they judged of him according to this outward appearance: or "ye" that are "after the flesh judge"; to which sense the Persic version agrees, "for ye are carnal"; and so judged as carnal men, who are very improper persons to judge of spiritual things:
I judge no man; in the same way, after the flesh, or in a carnal manner, nor according to outward appearances, according to the sight of the eyes, or the hearing of the ears: Christ did not take upon him to judge and determine in civil affairs, or in things pertaining to a court of judicature among men; this was not his province; an instance of this there is in the context, in not condemning the woman brought to him; nor did he judge the persons and states of men, or proceed to pass any sentence of condemnation on them; he came not to condemn, but save the world; this was not his business now; otherwise, all judgment is committed to him, and which he will exercise another day.
John 8:16
Ver. 16. And yet if I judge, my judgment is true,.... Because he saw not as man did, nor looked unto, and judged according to the outward appearance of things; but looked into the heart, and knew what was in it, being the searcher and trier of it; to whom all things are naked and open, and therefore cannot be deceived or imposed upon; his judgment must be sure and infallible:
for I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me; he was not separate from the Father, or at a distance from him, when he was here on earth; he was in his bosom, and in heaven, as the Son of God, when as the son of man, he was below; nor was he alone in his testimony and judgment, the Father joined with him therein: and which is a further proof of the truth of his testimony, and the certainty of his judgment.
John 8:17
Ver. 17. It is also written in your law,.... The law of Moses, which was given unto them, and they boasted of; the passage referred to is in De 19:15; see also De 17:6; where though what follows is not to be found in so many words, yet the sense is there expressed:
that the testimony of two men is true: concerning which the Jewish writers say {y},
"they used not to determine any judiciary matter by the mouth of one witness, neither pecuniary causes, nor causes of life and death, as it is said, De 17:6. It is asked {z} in their oral law, if the testimony of two men stand, why does the Scripture particularly mention three? (for no other reason) but to compare or equal three with two, that as three convict two of a falsehood, two may also convict three.''
On which one of their commentators {a} has this observation, taking notice of De 19:18, which speaks of a single witness;
"Mar (a doctor) says, wherever it is said a "witness", it is to be understood of two, unless the Scripture particularly specifies one.''
In the case of a wife suspected of adultery, and in the business of striking off the neck of the heifer in case of murder, they admitted of one witness {b}.
{y} Maimon. Hilchot Eduth. c. 5. sect. 1. {z} Misn. Maccot. c. 1. sect. 7. {a} Bartenora in ib. {b} Maimon. Hilchot Eduth, ib. sect. 2.
John 8:18
Ver. 18. I am one that bear witness of myself,.... As he does of his sonship, in 1Jo 5:7.
And the Father that sent me, beareth witness of me; as he did, by the descent of the Spirit upon him at his baptism, and by a voice from heaven, both at that time, and at his transfiguration, and by the miracles which he wrought; and particularly he bore testimony of him, long before, in prophecy, that he was the light of the world he now said he was, Isa 42:6; so that here were two testifiers, his Father and himself; which show them to be two distinct divine persons, and equal to each other: and now if the testimony of two men is true, firm, and authentic, and to be depended upon and received, then much more the testimony of two divine persons; see 1Jo 5:9.
John 8:19
Ver. 19. Then said they unto him, where is thy Father?.... The Persic version adds, "show [him] unto us": produce this witness boasted of, let us see him; this they said in a sneering, taunting, and insulting manner; where is thy Father? what! he is in Galilee; fetch him from thence; it is Joseph the carpenter you mean; a goodly witness indeed!
Jesus answered, ye neither know me nor my Father; if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also; they did not know the divine original of Christ, that he was the Son of God, and that God was his Father; they greatly boasted of their knowledge of God, but they knew him not; their ignorance of Christ showed it: the knowledge of both go together, and which is life eternal; nor can any truly know the one, without the other: and where the one is known, the other will be also; Christ is the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person: so that he that has seen the one, must know the other; and indeed, no one can know the Father, but he to whom the Son reveals him: this was a severe mortification to these men of knowledge.
John 8:20
Ver. 20. These words spake Jesus in the treasury,.... The place where the thirteen chests stood, into which the people put their voluntary contributions for the sacrifices, and service of the temple: the Ethiopic version renders it, "at the alms chest";
See Gill on "Mr 12:41". The design of this observation of the evangelist, is to suggest to us, that it was in a very public place, in the temple, openiy, that Christ delivered the above words:
as he taught in the temple; where the Jews resorted, where his ministry was public, and he spake freely, and without reserve; in a very bold manner, with intrepidity, and without fear of man:
and no man laid hands on him; though they had sought to do it the day before; had sent officers to take him; and they themselves had a good will to it; and yet they were so awed and over ruled by one means, or one account or another, that no man did it; the reason was,
for his hour was not yet come; the time appointed for his sufferings and death.
John 8:21
Ver. 21. Then said Jesus again unto them,.... It may be, immediately after he had said the above words; or rather some time after, it may be on the same day:
I go my way; meaning, the way of all flesh, or that he should die: the way of speaking shows, that his death was certain, a determined thing; which must be, and yet was voluntary: he was not driven, nor forced, but went freely; this being the path, the way, through which he must enter into his kingdom and glory:
and ye shall seek me; that is, shall seek the Messiah, as their deliverer and Saviour, when in distress; and whom he calls himself, because he was the true Messiah, and the only Saviour and Redeemer of his people, in a spiritual sense; otherwise they would not, nor did they seek Jesus of Nazareth:
and shall die in your sins; or "in your sin"; so it is in the Greek text, and in the Vulgate Latin, and Persic versions: meaning, in their sin of unbelief, and rejection of him the true Messiah: the sense is, that in the midst of their calamities, which should come upon them, for their sin against him, they should in vain seek for the Messiah, as a temporal deliverer of them; for their nation, city, and temple, and they therein should utterly perish, for their iniquity; and their ruin would not only be temporal, but eternal: since it follows,
whither I, go ye cannot come, signifying, that whereas he was going to his Father, to heaven and glory; to enjoy eternal happiness at his Father's right hand, in the human nature; they should never come there, but whilst many sat down in the kingdom of heaven, with their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who should come from afar, they would be shut out, and not suffered to enter in.
John 8:22
Ver. 22. Then said the Jews, will he kill himself?.... Which was not only a wicked, but a foolish consequence, drawn from his words: for it by no means followed, because he was going away, and whither they could not come, that therefore he must destroy himself; this seems to be what they would have been glad he would have done, and suggested the thought that he might do it, in which they imitated Satan, Mt 4:6, under whose influence they now apparently were, and hoped that he would, which would at once extricate them out of their difficulties on his account:
because he sayeth, whither I go ye cannot come: this is no reason at all; for had Christ's meaning been, as they blasphemously intimate, they might have destroyed themselves too, and have gone after him.
John 8:23
Ver. 23. And he said unto them,.... Upon this wicked remark of theirs, and query on his words:
ye are from beneath: not only of the earth, earthy, and so spoke of the earth, and as carnal men; but even of hell, they were the children of the devil; they breathed his Spirit, spoke his language, and did his lusts, as in Joh 8:44.
I am from above; not with respect to his human body, which he did not bring with him from heaven, that was formed below, in the Virgin's womb; otherwise he would not have been the seed of the woman, the son of Abraham, David, and Mary: but either with regard to his divine nature and person, he was of God, the Son of God, the only begotten of the Father, who then lay in his bosom, and was in heaven above at that time; or to his mission, which was from heaven.
Ye are of this world; they were, as they were born into the world, sinful, carnal, and corrupt; they were in it, and belonged to it, had never been chosen, or called out of it; they had their conversation according to the course of it, and conformed to its evil customs and manners; they were under the influence of the God of the world, and were taken with the sinful and sensual lasts thereof; they were men of worldly spirits; they minded earth, and earthly things, and had their portion in this world, and might be truly called the men of it.
I am not of this world; he was in it, but not of it; he was come into it to save the chief of sinners, but he did not belong to it, nor did he conform to it; for though he conversed with sinners, ate with them, and received them, being called to repentance by him; yet he was separate from them, and did not as they did: nor did he pursue the pleasures, honours, and riches of this world, being all his days a man of sorrows, and despised of men; and though Lord of all, had not where to lay his head.
John 8:24
Ver. 24. I said therefore unto you,.... Because they were from beneath, and of the world, and discovered an earthly, worldly, carnal, yea, devilish disposition, in their conduct towards him:
that ye shall die in your sins; this he had said in Joh 8:21, and now repeats it, and confirms it by the following reason:
for if believe not that I am he; the everlasting and unchangeable I am, the true God, God over all, blessed for ever; the eternal Son of God, God manifest in the flesh, really made flesh, and become incarnate; the true Messiah, the only Saviour of sinners; the one and only Mediator between God and man; the Head of the church, prophet, priest, and King, and the Judge of quick and dead; as also the light of the world he had declared himself to be: these are things that are necessary to be believed concerning Christ; indeed, carnal and unregenerate men may believe all these things; the devils themselves do, and tremble at them; but then they, and so unconverted men, have no faith in them, with an application of them to themselves: true faith in Christ deals not with him in a general way, but in a special regard to a man's self; it is a seeing of Christ for a man's self; it is not an implicit faith, or a believing him to be what he is, merely upon report, but upon sight; it is a going out of the soul to Christ, a renouncing its own righteousness, and a trusting in him alone for life and salvation; it is with the heart, and from it, and is unfeigned; it works by love to Christ, and his people, and is attended with the fruits of righteousness, and a cheerful obedience to the commands and ordinances of Christ. Though perhaps no more than a general faith is here intended, for want of which, and their rejection of Jesus, as the Messiah, the Jews suffered temporal ruin; and had they but believed that Jesus was the Son of God, and true Messiah, they had been saved from that temporal destruction which came upon their nation, city, and temple; but not believing this in a general and notional, way, they perished, as is here threatened:
ye shall die in your sins; in which they were, being defiled with them, guilty before God for them, under the power of them, and liable to punishment for them; and so they remained, and did remain, and were yet in their sins, even until death, when they died in them, and for them, not only a corporeal, but an eternal death: for dying in their sins, these would be found upon them, and they would be charged with them, and must be answerable for them, and consequently endure the punishment of them, which is the second death. Dying in sin, and dying in Christ, are two widely different things. They that die in faith, die in Christ: they that die in unbelief, die in sin; and this is a dreadful dying; see Jos 22:20, where the Targum paraphrases it, "and he, one man", (or alone,) hybwxb
twm al, "did not die in his sins".
John 8:25
Ver. 25. Then said they unto him, who art thou?.... That talks at this rate, and threatens with death, in case of unbelief; this they said with an haughty air, and in a scornful manner:
and Jesus saith unto them, even [the same] that I said unto you from the beginning; meaning, either of this discourse, as that he was the light of the world, and which he continued to assert; or of his being had before the sanhedrim, when he affirmed that God was his Father, and by many strong arguments proved his divine sonship; or of his ministry, when by miracles, as well as doctrines, he made it to appear that he was he that was to come, the true Messiah; or who spake from the beginning to Moses, saying, I am that I am, hath sent thee, and to the church, and Jewish fathers in the wilderness; and who is that word that was from the beginning with God; and who is called the beginning, the first cause of all things, and of the creation of God; and some think this is intended here.
John 8:26
Ver. 26. I have many things to say, and to judge of you,.... Being God omniscient, he knew their persons and actions, their lives and conversations, and all their sins and transgressions, which he could justly have complained of, and charged them with, and proved against them, and judged and condemned them for; but this was not his present business, he came not to judge and condemn, but to save: wherefore he waved these things, and took no notice of them, leaving them to his Father, who would call them to an account, and punish them for them:
but he that sent me is true; as to his promises concerning the mission of his Son, to be the Saviour of sinners; so to his threatenings, to bring down vengeance on those that disbelieve him, and reject him:
and I speak to the world, or "in the world",
those things which I have heard of him; as concerning his love, grace, and mercy to those that should believe in him, so of the destruction of the despisers and rejecters of him; which things he spoke not in secret, in a corner, but publicly and openly, before all the world, to Jews and Gentiles, and to as many as were in the treasury, in the temple at this time; see Joh 18:20.
John 8:27
Ver. 27. They understood not that he spake to them of the Father. That sent him, and who was true and faithful to all he had said, whether in a way of promise, or threatening; such was their stupidity, that they did not know that he meant God the Father by him that sent him, so deriving his mission and doctrine from him; their hearts were made fat, and hardened, and their eyes were blinded. The Vulgate Latin version reads, "they did not know that he said, God was his Father"; and so Beza's most ancient copy, and another exemplar of his.
John 8:28
Ver. 28. Then said Jesus unto them,.... Upbraiding them with their ignorance, and giving them a sign, as well as pointing out the time when they either, by good or sad experience, should have knowledge of him:
when ye have lift up the son of man; meaning himself, who was to be lifted up upon the cross, as the serpent was upon the pole, in the wilderness; and which signified the manner of death he should die, the death of the cross; and suggested, that what the Jews designed for his reproach, shame, and abasement, would be the way and means of his rise and exaltation; and this lifting him up, or crucifying him, he ascribes to them, because they would deliver him to Pontius Pilate to be condemned, and stir up the people to ask, and be importunate themselves for his crucifixion:
then shall ye know that I am [he]; the Son of God, and true Messiah, as the centurion, and those that were with him, did, when they observed the earthquake; and the things that were done at his death; and after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, and the pouring forth of his Spirit, many of the Jews had not only a notional, but a true and spiritual knowledge of Jesus, as the Messiah; and upon the destruction of their temple, city, and nation, and their disappointment by false Christs, they doubtless many of them must, and did know, that the true Messiah was come, and that Jesus of Nazareth was he:
and that I do nothing of myself; See Gill on "Joh 5:19";
but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things; this he says not as lessening himself, or making himself inferior to the Father, but to show the excellency of his doctrine, and to assert the original, authority, and divinity of it; suggesting that it was not an human doctrine, or a device of man's, or his own, as man, but was divine, and from God; see Joh 7:16.
John 8:29
Ver. 29. And he that sent me is with me,.... By virtue of that near union there is between them, they being one in nature, essence, power, and glory, and by the gracious, powerful, comfortable, assisting, and strengthening presence of his Father, which he vouchsafed to him as man, and Mediator;
the Father hath not left me alone; Christ, as the word, was with the Father from all eternity, and, as the Son of God, was in heaven, and in the bosom of the Father, when he, as the son of man, was here on earth; for though he came forth from the Father into this world, by assumption of the human nature, yet the Father was always with him, and he with the Father, through the unity of the divine nature; nor did he withhold his supporting and assisting presence from him as man; nor did he withdraw, at least he had not yet withdrawn his gracious and comfortable presence from him, though he afterwards did, when upon the cross: compare with this Joh 16:32;
for I do always those things that please him; by submitting to Gospel ordinances, as to baptism, at which the Father declared his well pleasedness in him; and by complying with the ordinances of the ceremonial law, which were typical of him; and by perfectly obeying the precepts of the moral law, and bearing the penalty of it; or by suffering and dying in the room and stead of his people; all which were the will of God, and well pleasing to him.
John 8:30
Ver. 30. As he spake these words,.... Concerning his being lifted up, or his crucifixion, and the knowledge the Jews should then have of him; of the excellency and divinity of his doctrine, of his mission from the Father, and of the Father's presence with him, and of his always doing the things that are pleasing in his sight; which were spoken by him with majesty and authority, and came with power:
many believed on him: as the Son of God, and true Messiah: faith came by hearing; Christ's hearers were of different sorts; some understood him not, and disbelieved, and rejected him; others had their eyes, and their hearts opened, and received him, and his words.
John 8:31
Ver. 31. Then said Jesus to those Jews that believed on him,.... For he knew instantly who they were, and when they believed on him; and therefore he immediately turned himself to them, and thus addressed them;
if ye continue in my word; meaning the Gospel, called his, because he was both the author, and preacher, and sum, and substance of it: and to continue in it, is having cordially received it, to abide by it, and hold it fast, and not to be moved from it, by the temptations of Satan; the cunning of those that lie in wait to deceive; nor by the revilings and persecutions, the frowns and flatteries of men: and when men continue thus steadfast in it, and faithful to it, it is an evidence that it has come with power, and has a place in their hearts, and that they are the true followers of Christ:
then are ye my disciples indeed; there are two sorts of disciples of Christ; some are only nominal, and merely in profession such; and these sometimes draw back from him, discontinue in his word, and go out from among his people; which shows that they never were of them, nor are the true disciples of Jesus; for the genuine disciples of Christ continue in his Gospel, hold fast to him, the head, and remain with his people; which to do to the end, is an evidence, of their being disciples indeed.
John 8:32
Ver. 32. And ye shall know the truth,.... Either the truth of the Gospel, the truth as it is in Jesus; meaning, that they should have a larger knowledge of it, while others are ever learning, and never come to the knowledge of the truth; but the spirit of truth should lead them into all truth, and cause them to grow and increase in Gospel light and knowledge; or Jesus himself, who is the way, the truth, and the life; and the sense is, that they should know more of him, of the dignity of his person, of the nature and usefulness of his offices; of the efficacy of his blood, the excellency of his righteousness, and the fulness of his grace, and that for themselves:
and the truth shall make you free; from ignorance and error, and the prejudices of education, under which the whole nation laboured, and from the thraldom of the law.
John 8:33
Ver. 33. They answered him,.... Not the believing Jews, whom he peculiarly addressed, but the unbelieving Jews, who were present, and heard these things:
we be Abraham's seed; this the Jews always valued themselves upon, and reckoned themselves, on this account, upon a level with the nobles and the princes of the earth.
"Says R. Akiba {c}, even the poor of Israel are to be considered as if they were Nyrwx ynb, "noblemen", that are fallen from their substance, because they are the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob;''
and were never in bondage to any man; which is a very great falsehood, for it was declared to Abraham himself, that his seed should serve in a land not theirs, and be afflicted four hundred years, as they were; and as the preface to the law which the Jews gloried in shows, which says, that the Lord their God brought them out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage; and they were frequently overcome by their neighbours, the Moabites, Ammonites, and Philistines, and reduced to servitude under them, until delivered by one judge, or another: and not to take notice of their seventy years' captivity in Babylon, they were at this very time under the Roman yoke, and paid tribute to Caesar; and yet such was the pride of their hearts, they would not be thought to be in bondage; and therefore, with an haughty air, add,
how sayest thou, ye shall be made free? when they thought themselves, and would fain have been thought by others, to have been free already, and so to stand in no need of being made free.
{c} Misn. Bava Kama, c. 8. sect. 6. & T. Bab. Bava Kama, fol. 86. 1. & 91. 1.
John 8:34
Ver. 34. Jesus answered them, verily verily I say unto you,.... Taking no notice of their civil liberty, to which he could easily have replied to their confusion and silence, he observes to them their moral servitude and bondage, and in the strongest manner affirms, that
whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of sin; which must be understood, not of one that commits a single act of sin, though ever so gross, as did Noah, Lot, David, Peter, and others, who yet were not the servants of sin; or of such who sin through ignorance, weakness of the flesh, and the power of Satan's temptations, and especially who commit sin with reluctance, the spirit lusting against it; nor indeed of any regenerate persons, though they are not without sin; nor do they live without the commission of it, in thought, word, or deed; and though they fall into it, they do not continue and live in it, but rise up out of it, through the grace of God, and by true repentance; and so are not to be reckoned the servants of sin, or to be of the devil. But this is to be understood of such whose bias and bent of their minds are to sin; who give up themselves unto it, and sell themselves to work wickedness; who make sin their trade, business, and employment, and are properly workers of it, and take delight and pleasure in it: these, whatever liberty, they promise themselves, are the servants of corruption; they are under the government of sin, that has dominion over them; and they obey it in the lusts thereof, and are drudges and slaves unto it, and will have no other wages at last but death, even eternal death, if grace prevent not; see Ro 6:16.
John 8:35
Ver. 35. And the servant abideth not in the house for ever,.... The servant of God, and of Christ, does, but not the servant of sin: there may be servants of sin in the house or church of God here below; and such were these Jews Christ is speaking to; but such shall not abide there for ever: some that get into this house are quickly discerned, as Simon Magus was, and are soon removed; and others that may stay longer, are sometimes suffered to fall into some foul sin, or into some gross error and heresy, for which they are cast out of the house or church of God, according to the rules of God's word; others make parties, draw disciples after them, and separate themselves, and go out of their own accord, to serve their own purposes: and others, when persecution and tribulation arise because of the word, they are offended and gone; this is the fan with which Christ sometimes winnows his floor, and removes the chaff; and those that continue longest, even to the end of their days, or of the world, or the second coming of Christ, as the foolish virgins, will then be discerned and separated; for the ungodly shall not stand in judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; they shall not enter into the house above, into the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, which is Christ's Father's house: none but sons are brought to glory; these are the only heirs of salvation; others will be bid to depart, as workers of iniquity, as the servants of sin; even such who have made a profession of religion, and have been, and have had a standing in the house of God below. The allusion is to the case of servants in common; and, in a literal sense, it is true both of good and bad servants: good servants do not always continue in their master's house; even an Hebrew servant, that loved his master, and would not go out free at the end of his servitude; and who, after having his ear bored, is said to serve him for ever, Ex 21:6; yet that "for ever" was but until the year of jubilee, whether near or remote, as the Jewish commentators {d} in general explain it; nay, if his master died before that time, he went out free: he was not obliged to serve his son or heirs; and so say the Misnic doctors {e}:
"one that is bored is obtained by boring, and he possesses himself (or becomes free) by the year of jubilee, and by the death of his master.''
And to this agrees what Maimonides {f} says;
"he that has served six years, and will not go out, lo, this is bored, and he serves until the year of jubilee, or until his master dies; and although he leaves a son, he that is bored does not serve the son; which may be learned from the letter of the words, "he shall serve him", not his son, "for ever", until the jubilee: from whence it appears, that he that is bored does not possess himself (or is free) but by the jubilee, and by the death of his master.''
And one of their writers {g} observes, that the word rendered, "shall serve him", is by Gematry, and not his son. And among the Romans, good servants were oftentimes made free, and bad ones were turned out, and put into a work house, to grind corn in mills, a sort of bridewell; and such evil servants may more especially be respected, since Christ is speaking of servants of sin:
but the Son abideth ever: the Son of God, the only begotten Son of God the Lord Jesus Christ will always continue as a Son in his own house, as the Lord and proprietor of it; and as an high priest over it, having an unchangeable priesthood; and as he that takes care of it, provides for it, and manages all the affairs thereof, the family in heaven and in earth being named of him. And as he, so all the adopted sons of God shall continue, being pillars in this house, that shall never go out: such are no more servants, nor foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God; and being sons, are heirs and shall never be cast out, as the bondwoman and her son have been: but these being the children of the free, shall for ever enjoy the inheritance they are adopted to; once sons, always so; the relation ever continues; they will ever remain in the family, and being entitled to the heavenly estate, shall ever possess it.
{d} Jarchi, Aben Ezra, & ben Gersom in Exod. xxi. 6. {e} Misn. Kiddushin, c. 1. sect. 1. {f} Hilchot Abadim, c. 3. sect. 6, 7. {g} Baal Hatturim in Exod. xxi. 6.
John 8:36
Ver. 36. If the Son therefore shall make you free,.... Alluding to the custom of adoption by the sons or brethren in the family, which obtained in Greece, called adelfoyesia, "the adoption of brethren", as Grotius, and others have observed; or rather to a custom among the Romans, of a son's making free after his Father's death, such as were born slaves in his house. Such a case as this is supposed {h};
"a man having a son or a daughter by his maidservant, that which is born of her, since of a servant, is without doubt a servant: wherefore if he (the son) should say, this is my natural brother or my natural sister; for since my father had children by his maidservant, "whom he did not make free"; and he dying the law has made me lord of these, egw toutouv eleuyerwsa, "I have made these free", because of their natural kindred.''
This is allowed to be a just and good reason of manumission. Now this answers very much to the case in hand. Men are home born slaves; the chosen people of God are such by nature; they are born in sin, and are the servants of it; Christ the Son makes them free; and then they are no more foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God. This suggests, that true freedom is by Jesus Christ, the Son of God; see Ga 5:1. He it is that makes the saints free from sin; not from the being of it in this life, but from the bondage and servitude of it, from its power and dominion, and from its guilt and liableness to punishment for it, by procuring the pardon of their sins through his blood, and justifying their persons by his righteousness: he also makes them free, or delivers them from the captivity of Satan, by ransoming them out of his hands, taking the prey from the mighty, binding the strong man armed, and delivering them from him, and from the power of darkness, and putting them into his own kingdom; he does not indeed free them altogether from his temptations, but he preserves them by his power from being hurt and destroyed by him: he likewise makes his people free from the law, not only the ceremonial law, which is abolished by him, but from the moral law; not from obedience to it, as it is in his hands, and a rule of walk and conversation to them, but as in the hands of Moses, and as a covenant of works, and from the rigorous exaction of it, and from seeking justification and life by it, and from its curse and condemnation: and he gives them freedom of access to God, as their Father, through his blood and by his Spirit; and admits them to all the privileges and immunities of the church below; and gives them a right to, faith in, and an expectation of the glorious liberty of the children of God hereafter; and such are truly Christ's freemen:
ye shall be free indeed; this is true freedom; what the Jews boasted of, supposing what they said was right, was but a shadow of freedom in comparison of this; and that liberty which sinful men promise themselves in sin, is all deceit; there is no true, solid, substantial freedom but what is by Christ, the Son of God. Even that freedom which the children of God had under the legal dispensation, was a servitude, in comparison of that which the saints enjoy by Christ under the Gospel dispensation; though they were sons and heirs, yet being in bondage, differed nothing from servants, being under tutors and governors, in bondage under the elements of the world, and under the influence of a spirit of bondage unto fear; see Ga 4:1; but such that have received the spirit of adoption from Christ, they are really free: they have not only the name of children, and of freemen, but they are truly such, and wholly so; perhaps there may be some reference had to such sort of persons among the Jews, who were partly servants, and partly free: so it is said {i},
"dbe wyuxv ym, "he who is half a servant", or partly a servant, and partly free, shall serve his master one day, and himself another.''
And such an one, as the commentators {k} say, is one who is a servant of two partners, and is made free by one of them; or who has paid half his price to his master (for his freedom), but the other half is still due: and of one in such circumstances it is said {l}, that
"he that is partly a servant, and partly free, may not eat of his master's (lamb at the passover):''
but now those who are made free by Christ the Son of God, they are not in part only, but are wholly free, and have a right to all the privileges of his house, to the supper of the Lord, and to every other immunity.
{h} Theophili Antecensor. Institut. Imperat. Justinian. l. 1. tit. 6. sect. 5. p. 38. {i} Misn. Gittin, c. 4. sect. 5. & Ediot, c. 1. sect. 13. {k} Maimonides, Jarchi, & Bartenora in ib. {l} Misn. Pesachim, c. 8. sect. 1.
John 8:37
Ver. 37. I know that ye are Abraham's seed,.... In answer to the other part of the Jews' objection to Christ, and in favour of themselves, Christ owns that they were the natural seed of Abraham; for truth must be allowed to an adversary. But then this hindered not but they might be, as they were, in moral bondage to sin, and a generation of vipers, as those of them who came to John's baptism were; and might not be the sons of God, for not because they were the natural seed of Abraham, were they all the adopted sons of God; and might be cast out of the house of God, as Ishmael was cast out of Abraham's, though he was his natural seed. And what follows proves them to be under the power, and in the servitude of sin, and that they were the seed of the serpent that was to bruise the heel of the woman's seed, or put the Messiah to death, though they were the natural seed of Abraham:
but ye seek to kill me; which none but such who are under the governing power of sin, are slaves unto it, and the vassals of the devil, would ever do: the reason of which is,
because my word hath no place in you; their hearts were barred and bolted against it, with ignorance, enmity, and unbelief; it had no entrance into them; it did not come with power to their hearts, nor work effectually in them; it had no place at all in them, much less a dwelling; had it had one, it would have produced another effect in them, even love to Christ; which the doctrine of Christ, wherever it comes with power, and takes place in the soul, brings along with it; but where it does not, as here, hatred and indignation, envy and malice, more or less, show themselves. This clause is differently rendered, and so admits of different senses. The Vulgate Latin renders it, "my word does not take in you"; it did not take place in them, nor did it take with them; they could not receive it; in which sense the word is used in Mt 19:11; for the natural man cannot receive the doctrines of Christ; they are not suited to his taste: they are disagreeable to him. The Syriac version renders it, "ye are not sufficient for my word", to take it in; they were not capable of it; they could not understand it; it requires divine illumination, and a spiritual discerning, which they had not: the Persic version is, "ye are not worthy of my words"; of having the Gospel preached to them, and continued with them; they contradicting and blaspheming it, and rejecting the author of it; see Ac 13:45. The Ethiopic version renders it, "my word does not remain with you"; and to the same purpose the Arabic version, "my word is not firm in you"; as soon as it was heard by them, it was caught away from them by Satan, whose children they were; it made no lasting impressions on them, but was like water spilt upon the ground: it may be rendered, "my word does not enter into you"; it did not make its way and penetrate into their hearts; for though, when attended with the demonstration of the Spirit, and of power, it is quick and powerful, and sharper than a twoedged sword, and enters into the conscience, and penetrates to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and lays open the secret thoughts and intents of the heart; yet of itself is an insufficient means of conversion; it cannot make its own way; there must be an exertion of powerful and efficacious grace; which shows the hardness and obstinacy of the heart of man.
John 8:38
Ver. 38. I speak that which I have seen with my Father,.... This is an aggravation of the sin of the Jews, in seeking to kill Christ, on account of his doctrine, since it was not his own, but his Father's; was not merely human, but divine; was what he the only begotten Son, that lay in the bosom of his Father, had seen in his heart, in his purposes, and decrees, in his council, and covenant, and so was clear, complete, certain, and to be depended on:
and ye do that which ye have seen with your father; meaning the devil, whom, though they had not scan with their eyes, nor any of his personal actions; yet acted so much under his influence, and according to his will, as if they had close and intimate consultation with him, and took their plan of operation from him, and had him continually before them, as their example and pattern, to copy after. The Ethiopic version reads, "what ye have heard"; and so it is read in three of Beza's copies, and in three of Stephens's.
John 8:39
Ver. 39. They answered and said unto him,.... On account of his making mention of a father, whose works they did, and whom they imitated:
Abraham is our father; meaning their only one, nor had they any other:
Jesus saith unto them, if ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham; for who should children imitate but their parents? Abraham was a merciful, charitable, and hospitable man, as well as a man of strict justice and integrity; he feared God, believed in him, and was ready to receive every message and revelation which came from him; and they are his genuine children and offspring, who walk in the steps of his faith, charity, justice, and piety: and this is a rule which the Jews themselves give {m}, whereby the seed of Abraham may be known:
"whoever is merciful to the creature (man), it is evident that he is of the seed of Abraham, our father; but whoever has not mercy on the creature, it is a clear case that he is not of the seed of Abraham our father.''
And if this is a sure rule of judging, these men could not be the seed of Abraham, who were a merciless, barbarous, and cruel generation. Another of their writers {n} has this observation, agreeably to the way of reasoning Christ uses;
"a disciple is to be judged of according to his manners; he that walks in the ways of the Lord, he is of the disciples of Abraham, our father, seeing he is used to his manners, and learns of his works; but the disciple who is corrupt in his manners, though he is of the children of Israel, lo, he is not of the "disciples of Abraham", seeing he is not accustomed to his manners.''
Whence it appears, that they say these things not to distinguish themselves from other people who claimed a descent from Abraham, as the Ishmaelites or Saracens did; as did also the Spartans or Lacedemonians; for so writes Areus their king, to Onias the high priest of the Jews,
"it is found in writing, that the Lacedemonians and Jews are brethren, and that they are of the stock of Abraham,'' (1 Maccab. 12:20,21)
But to distinguish those who were religious and virtuous among the Jews themselves, from those that were not; and so our Lord means not to deny, that the Jews, though they were evil men, were the seed of Abraham, according to the flesh; but that they were not so in a spiritual sense, they did not tread in his steps, or do the works he did. The Persic version reads in the singular number, "ye would do the work of Abraham"; and if any particular work is designed, it is most likely to be the work of faith, since it was that which Abraham was famous for; and the doing of which denominated men, even Gentiles, the children of Abraham, and which the Jews were wanting in, they disbelieving and rejecting the Messiah.
{m} T. Bab. Betza, fol. 82. 2. {n} Abarbinel Naehaleth Abot, fol. 183. 1.
John 8:40
Ver. 40. But now ye seek to kill me,.... A temper and disposition very foreign from that of Abraham's:
a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God; to seek to kill a man is a very great crime, and punishable with death; to kill an innocent one, that had done no sin, who was pure, holy, harmless, and inoffensive to God and man, was an aggravation of the iniquity; and to kill a prophet, and one more than a prophet, who brought a revelation from God himself, and declared the whole truth of the Gospel, and particularly that of his divine, eternal sonship, which incensed them against him, and put them upon seeking to take away his life, still increased the sin.
This did not Abraham: the sense is not, that Abraham did not tell the truth he had heard of God; for he did instruct, and command his children after him, to walk in the ways of the Lord, which he had learned from him; but that Abraham did not reject any truth that was revealed unto him, and much less seek to take away the life of any person that brought it to him; and indeed not the life of any man that deserved not to die: and our Lord suggests, that if he had been on the spot now, he would not have done as these his posterity did, since he saw his day by faith, and rejoiced in the foresight of it, Joh 8:56. The Jew {o} makes an objection from these words against the deity of Christ;
"you see (says he) that Jesus declares concerning himself that he is not God, but man; and so says Paul concerning him, Ro 5:15; and so Jesus, in many places, calls himself the son of man: for do we find in any place that he calls himself God, as the Nazarenes believe.''
To which may be replied, that Jesus does not declare in these words, nor in any other place, that he is not God; he says no such thing; he only observes, that he was a man, as he really was: nor is his being man any contradiction to his being God; for he is both God and man; and so those that believe in him affirm: and though Christ does not in express terms call himself God, yet he owned himself to be the Son of God, Mr 14:61, and said such things of himself, as manifestly declared him to be God; and upon account of which the Jews concluded, that he not only made himself equal with God, but that he made himself God, Joh 5:17. Besides, he suffered himself to be called God by a disciple of his, which he would never have done, had he not been really and truly God, Joh 20:28; yea, he seems to call himself so, when being tempted by Satan, he observed to him what is written, "thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God", Mt 4:7. The reason why he so often calls himself the son of man is, because it was more suitable to him in his state of humiliation; and indeed, there was no need for him to assert his deity in express words, since his works and miracles most clearly proved that he was God: and as for the Apostle Paul, though he sometimes speaks of him as a man, he also says of him, that he is God over all, blessed for ever; and calls him the great God, and our Saviour, and God manifest in the flesh, Ro 9:5.
{o} R. Isaac Chizzuk Emuna, par. 2. c. 48. p. 436. & par. 1. c. 10. p. 118.
John 8:41
Ver. 41. Ye do the deeds of your father,.... Not Abraham, but the devil.
Then said they unto him, we be not born of fornication: meaning either literally, that they were not a brood of bastards, children of whoredom, illegitimately begotten in unlawful copulation, or wedlock; or figuratively, that they were not the children of idolaters, idolatry being called fornication in Scripture; but that they were the holy seed of Israel, and children of the prophets, who had retained the pure word, and the true worship of God, though in all this they might have been contradicted and refuted; to which they add,
we have one Father, [even] God; Israel being called by God his Son, and firstborn to them belonged the adoption, in a national sense, and of this they boasted; though few of them were the children of God by special adoption, or God their Father by regenerating grace.
John 8:42
Ver. 42. Jesus said unto them, if God were your Father,.... By adoption; and this was discovered by the grace of regeneration; or in other words, if they had been born of God,
ye would love me; for in regeneration love to Christ is always implanted: it is a fruit of the Spirit, which always comes along with the superabounding grace of God in conversion; whoever are begotten again, according to abundant mercy, love an unseen Jesus; and where there is no love to Christ, there can be no regeneration: such persons are not born again; nor is God their Father, at least manifestatively:
for I proceeded forth; and came from God; the former of these phrases is observed by many learned men to be used by the Septuagint, of a proper natural birth, as in Ge 15:4; and here designs the eternal generation of Christ, as the Son of God, being the only begotten of the Father, and the Son of the Father in truth and love; and the other is to be understood of his mission from him, as Mediator:
neither came I of myself; or did not take the office to himself, without being called unto it, and invested with it, by his Father:
but he sent me; not by force, or against the will of Christ, or by change of place, but by assumption of nature; he sent him at the time agreed upon, in human nature, to obtain eternal redemption for his people: and upon both these accounts Christ is to be loved by all regenerate persons, or who have God for their Father; both on account of his being the Son of God, of the same nature and essence with him, see 1Jo 5:1; and on account of his mission into this world, as Mediator, since he was sent, and came to be the Saviour of lost sinners.
John 8:43
Ver. 43. Why do ye not understand my speech?.... Language, idiom, dialect, and form of speaking, in a figurative way; for they did not know what he meant by liberty, and bondage, and by having another father than Abraham, or by his own procession and coming forth from God:
[even] because ye cannot hear my word; as they had no spiritual discerning and understanding of the doctrine of Christ, which showed them to be carnal, and natural men, and not regenerate ones, and the children of God; so they had an aversion to it, and could not bear to hear it.
John 8:44
Ver. 44. Ye are of your father the devil,.... Not of his substance, but by imitation and example; and as being under his authority and influence, his instructions and directions, and ready to follow after him, and obey his commands; the word "your" is rightly supplied, and is in some copies:
and the lusts of your father ye will do; the Syriac and Persic versions read in the singular number, "the lust", or "desire of your father"; by which may be particularly meant, his eager desire after the death of Christ, which he showed at different times; he instigated Herod to seek to destroy his life in his infancy, and when he was just entering on his public ministry, he tempted him to destroy himself; and often stirred up the Scribes and Pharisees, to stone him or kill him, some other way; and at last put it into the heart of one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, to betray him: this looks as if though the devil had a notion of the salvation of men by Christ, yet that he thought, as some erroneous men have also done, that it was only by his doctrine and example, and therefore he was in haste to get him out of the world, that he might not be useful, or any more so that way; and not by the shedding of his blood, the sacrifice of himself, or by his sufferings and death, in the room of sinners; or otherwise it is scarcely credible, that he would have sought his death so earnestly: now this selfsame lust and insatiable desire after the death of Christ prevailed in the Jews; and they were resolute and bent upon fulfilling it at any rate, nor could anything divert them from it; this is the thing Christ is speaking of in the context, and is what fully proved the devil to be their father, and them to be his children:
he was a murderer from the beginning; he was not only spoken of from the beginning, as he that should bruise the Messiah's heel, or should compass his death, but he was actually a murderer of Adam and Eve, and of all their posterity, by tempting them to sin, which brought death and ruin upon them; and who quickly after that instigated Cain to slay his brother; and has had, more or less, a concern in all murders committed since; and has been in all ages, and still is, a murderer of the souls of men; and therefore is rightly called Abaddon, and Apollyon, which signify the destroyer: the phrase, "from the beginning", does not intend the beginning of his own creation; for he was created a holy creature, was in the truth, though he abode not in it; and was in an happy state, though he lost it: nor strictly the beginning of time, or of the creation of the world, which were some days at least before the fall of man, when the devil commenced a murderer; but it being very near it, therefore this phrase is made use of: the Syriac version renders it, "from Bereshith", which is the first word in the Hebrew Bible, and is frequently used by the Jewish Rabbins for the six days of the creation; and if Adam fell, as some think, the same day he was created, it might be properly said that the devil was a murderer from thence. Philo {p} speaks of Eve's serpent, as anyrwpou fonwnta, "a murderer of man"; applying to this purpose the text before referred to, Ge 3:15;
and abode not in the truth; neither in the integrity, innocence, and holiness, in which he was created; nor in veracity, or as a creature of veracity, but spake lies, and formed one, by which he deceived Eve, saying, "ye shall not surely die", Ge 3:4, when God had said they should, Ge 2:17; nor in the truth of the Gospel, which was at least in part made known unto him; particularly that the Son of God should become man, and in that nature be the head of angels and men: this he and his associates, in the pride of their hearts, not bearing that the human nature should be exalted above that of theirs, left their first estate, broke off their allegiance to God, and turned rebels against him:
because there is no truth in him; not that this is a reason why he continued not in the truth, for there was originally truth in him; though he abode not in it; but a reason, showing there was none in him now, since he was fallen from it, and abode not in it; there is no truth in him, that is natural and genuine, and essential to him; and if at any time he speaks it, it is not from his heart, but because he is forced to it, or has an evil design in it:
when he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own; that is genuine and natural, of his own devising, willing, and approving:
for he is a liar, and the father of it; he was a liar, as early as he was a murderer, or rather earlier; it was with a lie he deceived, and so murdered our first parents, and he has continued so ever since; he was the first author of a lie; the first lie that ever was told, was told by him; he was the first inventor of one; he was the first of that trade; in this sense the word "father" is used, Ge 4:20; so the serpent is by the Cabalistic Jews {q} called, the lip of lie, or the lying lip.
{p} De Agricultura, p. 203. {q} Lex. Cabalist. p. 724.
John 8:45
Ver. 45. And because I tell you the truth,.... And no lie, the whole truth of the Gospel, and particularly the truth of his divine sonship:
ye believe me not; to such an infatuation and judicial blindness were they give up, to disbelieve him, because he told the truth, and to believe a lie, that they might be damned; which showed them to be the children of the devil, and under his power and influence.
John 8:46
Ver. 46. Which of you convinceth me of sin?.... Of any immorality in life, or of any imposture, corruption, or deceit in doctrine. There were many of them that were forward enough to charge him with both scandalous sins, and false doctrines; but none of them all could prove anything against him, so as to convict him according to law: they called him a wine bibber, and a glutton; gave out they knew he was a sinner; charged him with blasphemy and sedition; sought to bring proof of it, but failed in their attempt:
and if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? since as no sin in life, so no corruption in doctrine, could be proved against him, what he said must be truth; and therefore it was a most unreasonable thing in them, and showed invincible obstinacy, not to believe him.
John 8:47
Ver. 47. He that is of God,.... Who is born, not of blood, by carnal descent from any person, or of the carnal will, or by the power of freewill, or of the will of the best man in the world; but of God, according to his abundant mercy, of his own will, by the power of his grace; and so has God to be his Father: such an one
heareth God's words; the doctrines of the Gospel, which have God for their author, being of his ordaining, sending, and publishing; and his grace for the matter of them, displayed in election, redemption, justification, pardon, adoption, and eternal salvation, and his glory for the end: now a regenerate man has eyes to see into the glory, loveliness, excellency, suitableness, and usefulness of these things; and he has ears to hear, and a heart to understand them, which others have not; and therefore hears them with pleasure, receives them in the love of them, cordially embraces them by faith, and distinguishes them from the words of man; and puts such of them in practice, as requires it:
ye therefore hear [them] not, because ye are not of God; because God was not their Father, or they were not born of him, as they boasted; therefore they had not eyes to see, nor ears to hear, nor hearts to understand: and it may as fairly be inferred, that because they did not hear the words of God, therefore they were not of God; for these two necessarily imply each other; it looks very dark on such persons, who neither hear the doctrines of the Gospel externally nor internally.
John 8:48
Ver. 48. Then answered the Jews, and said unto him,.... Being incensed to the last degree, that he should say they were of their father the devil, and not of God; and that he spoke the truth, and no one could convince him of sin:
say we not well, that thou art a Samaritan? it seems they had said so before, though it is not recorded; and now they thought themselves justified in it, since he treated them, the true sons of Abraham, in such a manner; and the rather, since he had been lately among the Samaritans, and had in a parable spoken in favour of a Samaritan: they meant by this expression, that he was an irreligious man, and one that had no regard to the law of Moses; or at least played fast and loose with religion and the law, and was for any thing, as times served: the Jews had a very ill opinion of the Samaritans, on these accounts and to call a man a Samaritan, was all one as to call him an heretic, an idolater, or an excommunicated person; for such were the Samaritans with the Jews; they charged them with corrupting the Scriptures, and with worshipping idols, which were hid in Mount Gerizim; and they give us a dreadful account of their being anathematized by Ezra, Zorobabel, and Joshua; who, they say {r},
"gathered the whole congregation into the temple, and brought in three hundred priests, and three hundred children, and three hundred trumpets, and three hundred books of the law, in their hands; they blew the trumpets, and the Levites sung, and they anathematized the Samaritans, by the inexplicable name of God, and by the writing on tables, and with the anathema of the house of judgment, above and below; (saying,) let not any Israelite for ever eat of the fruit, or of the least morsel of a Samaritan; hence they say, whoso eateth the flesh of a Samaritan, it is all one as if he ate swine's flesh; also let not a Samaritan be made a proselyte, nor have a part in the resurrection of the dead; as it is said, "You have nothing to do with to build an house unto our God", Ezr 4:3, neither in this world, nor in the world to come: moreover, also let him have no part in Jerusalem; as it is said, "But you have no portion, nor, right, nor memorial in Jerusalem", Ne 2:20; and they sent this anathema to the Israelites that were in Babylon, and they added thereunto, curse upon curse moreover, king Cyrus added an everlasting anathema to it, as it is said, "And the God that hath caused his name to dwell there, destroy", &c. Ezr 6:12.''
And hence, because the Samaritans were had in such abhorrence by the Jews, they would not ask a blessing over food in company with them {s}, nor say Amen after they had asked one {t}; nor indeed, after the better sort of them had asked, unless the whole blessing was distinctly heard {u}, that so they might be sure there was no heresy in it; by all which it appears, how opprobrious this name was, and what a sad character was fixed upon a man that bore it;
see Gill "Joh 4:9"; and as Christ was called by the Jews a Samaritan, they having no name more hateful and reproachful to call him by, so the Christians are still in their writings called Cuthites, or Samaritans; and it is indeed with them a general name for all Gentiles and idolaters, or whom they esteem such:
and hast a devil; familiarity and converse with one; by which means they imagined he knew their thoughts, and their actions, and by his assistance performed his miracles; or they took him for a lunatic, or a madman; whose lunacy and madness proceeded from the devil, with whom he was possessed: and this rather seems to be the sense, since in Joh 8:52 the Jews say they knew he had a devil, which they concluded from his saying, that such that observed his words, and kept them, should never die; which they considered as the words of a man out of his senses, seeing all men, even the best of men die, they not understanding his meaning; whereas they could not gather from hence, that he dealt with familiar spirits; and what still confirms this sense is, that these two are joined together in
Joh 10:20, "he hath a devil, and is mad", and such as were demoniacs, men possessed with devils, were either mad, or lunatic, and melancholy; see Mt 8:28, compared with Mr 9:17. To which may be added, that it was a prevailing notion with the Jews, that madness and melancholy were owing to evil spirits, which had the predominancy over men: and seeing Christ was thought to be besides himself by his friends and relations, Mr 3:21, it need not be wondered at, that his enemies should fix such a character on him; nor was this an unusual one to be given to good men; the prophets and spiritual men of the Old Testament were accounted madmen, 2Ki 9:11. And since our Lord was used in this abusive manner, it need not seem strange, that his followers should be treated in the same way; as the Apostle Paul and his companions in the ministry were, Ac 26:24; see
Joh 10:20.
{r} Pirke Eliezer, c. 38. {s} Bartenora in Misn. Beracot, c. 7. sect. 1. {t} Elias in Tishbi in voce twk. {u} Misn. Beracot, c. 8. sect. 8. & Maimon. & Bartonera in ib.
John 8:49
Ver. 49. Jesus answered, I have not a devil,.... He takes no notice of the first charge and scandalous character, that he was a Samaritan; it being so notorious to all the Jews, that he was not; but was, as they supposed, a Galilean, and of Nazareth; and besides, this was a term of reproach, which they gave to any man, that they had no good opinion of; just as we call a man a Turk, or a Jew; not meaning that he is in fact such an one, but behaves like one: to the other Christ replies, that he had not a devil, had no conversation with one, nor was he possessed or assisted by him, or was mad, and acted the part of a madman: in proof of which he observes,
but I honour my Father; by ascribing his doctrine and miracles to him, by doing his will, seeking his glory, and speaking well of him; all which he would not, had he been in confederacy with the devil; for no man can be familiar with him, or be assisted by him, and honour God; nor could a man out of his senses do all this:
and ye do dishonour me: by such wicked charges, and scandalous imputations: and Jews, who deny Jesus to be the Messiah, and treat him in this opprobrious manner, are not the only persons that dishonour Christ; there are many that are called by his name, who greatly dishonour him; some by their bad principles, and others by their evil practices: such highly reflect upon him, who deny his proper deity, and eternal sonship; who assert, that he is only God by office, and did not exist before his incarnation; who despise and reject his righteousness, submit not to it, but establish their own; who account his blood as common and useless, and speak disrespectfully of his sacrifice and satisfaction; and who consider his sufferings and death only as an example to men, and for the confirmation of his doctrine, but not as in the room and stead of his people, to answer and satisfy divine justice for them: and others they dishonour him, though they talk much of him, and pretend to faith in him, and love to him, and hope of eternal life by him, through their scandalous lives and conversations; dishonour his name and Gospel; give the enemy an occasion to reproach and blaspheme, and by reason of them, the ways and truths of Christ are evil spoken of.
John 8:50
Ver. 50. I seek not mine own glory,.... In his doctrine, or in his miracles; which showed that he was no impostor, but a true, faithful, and upright person; and though he was so very much reproached and abused, he was not over solicitous of his own character, and of retrieving his honour, and of securing glory from man; he knew that Wisdom was justified of her children, and he committed himself to God that judgeth righteously, who would take care of his glory, and vindicate him from all the unjust charges and insults of men:
there is one that seeketh and judgeth; meaning God his Father, who had his glory at heart; who had glorified him on the mount, and would glorify him again, when he should raise him from the dead, and spread his Gospel in all the world; and when he would judge the nation of the Jews, and bring wrath upon them, upon their nation, city and temple, for their contempt and rejection of him.
John 8:51
Ver. 51. Verily, verily, I say unto you,.... This is truth, and may be depended upon, as coming from the "Amen", and faithful witness:
if a man keep my saying; or doctrine, receives the Gospel in the love of it, obeys it from his heart, and cordially embraces and firmly believes it; and retains and holds it fast, having a spiritual and comfortable experience of the doctrines of Christ, and yielding a cheerful and ready obedience to his commands and ordinances, in faith and love:
he shall never see death; the second death, eternal death, which is an everlasting separation of a man, body and soul, from God: this death shall have no power on such a person, he shall never be hurt by it; and though he dies a corporeal death, that shall not be a curse, a penal evil to him; nor shall he always lie under the power of it, but shall rise again, and live in soul and body, for ever with the Lord: seeing and tasting death, as in Joh 8:52, are Hebraisms expressive of dying.
John 8:52
Ver. 52. Then said the Jews unto him,.... Upon these last words that he spake, giving assurance, that whoever kept his saying, should not die:
now we know that thou hast a devil; they thought and said so before, but now they were assured, that he must be under diabolical influence, must be possessed with the devil, and mad, and out of his senses; for they thought no man in his senses would ever talk at this rate:
Abraham is dead, and the prophets; that is, they are dead also, as the Ethiopic version adds; see Zec 1:5;
and thou sayest, if a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death: Abraham and the prophets were so far from pretending by their doctrine to communicate life and secure men from death, that they could not keep themselves from dying; and therefore it must be diabolical madness and frenzy to assert anything of this kind.
John 8:53
Ver. 53. Art thou greater than our father Abraham?.... So the woman of Samaria said, concerning Jacob, Joh 4:12. The Jews had a mighty opinion of their ancestors, especially of Abraham; and yet they allow the Messiah to be greater than he, as Jesus truly was: so one of their ancient commentators {w} on those words of Isa 52:13 thus paraphrases them,
""Behold my servant shall deal prudently", this is the King Messiah; "he shall be exalted" above Abraham, as it is written, Ge 14:22, "and extolled" above Moses, as it is written, Nu 11:12, and he shall be higher than the ministering angels, as it is written, Eze 1:26, for he shall be twba Nm lwdg, "greater than the fathers".''
They add here, of Abraham,
which is dead; he was a great and good man, and yet dead:
and the prophets are dead; though they truly kept, and faithfully delivered the word of God:
whom makest thou thyself? who art a poor carpenter's son, a Galilean, a Nazarene, and yet makest thyself greater than Abraham, or any of the prophets; yea, makest thyself to be God, to promise security from death, and an everlasting continuance of life upon keeping thy word.
{w} Tachuma apud Huls. p. 321.
John 8:54
Ver. 54. Jesus answered, if I honour myself, my honour is nothing,.... It is empty and vain, and will not continue; see 2Co 10:18;
it is my Father that honoureth me: by a voice from heaven, both at his baptism, and transfiguration, declaring him to be his beloved Son, and by the works and miracles he did by him; as he afterwards also honoured him by raising him from the dead, and setting him at his own right hand, by pouring forth his Spirit on his disciples, and succeeding his Gospel in every place:
of whom ye say that he is your God; your covenant God and Father, being the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; of this the Jews boasted. The Alexandrian copy, and some others, and all the Oriental versions read, "our God".
John 8:55
Ver. 55. Yet ye have not known him,.... Not as the Father of Christ, nor as in Christ, whom to know is life eternal: they had no spiritual knowledge of him, nor communion with him; nor did they know truly his mind and will, nor how to worship and serve him as they ought:
but I know him; his nature and perfections, being of the same nature, and having the same perfections with him; and his whole mind and will lying in his bosom: nor did, or does any know the Father, but the Son, and he to whom he is pleased to reveal him:
and if I should say, I know him not, I should be a liar like unto you. Our Lord still intimates, that they were of their father the devil, and imitated him not only as a murderer, but as a liar: this is quite contrary to the character they give of themselves, for they say {x}, that an Israelite will not tell a lie.
But I know him, and keep his saying: do his will, and always the things that please him, observe his law, preach his Gospel, fulfil all righteousness, and work out the salvation of men, which were the will and work of his Father he came to do.
{x} Maimon. in Misn. Pesachim, c. 8. sect. 6.
John 8:56
Ver. 56. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day,.... Or "he was desirous to see my day", as the Syriac and Arabic versions rightly render the word; or "very desirous", as the Persic version: and indeed, this was what many kings and prophets, and righteous men, were desirous of, even of seeing the Messiah and his day: we often read of xyvmh twmy, "the days of the Messiah": and the Jews, in their Talmud {y}, dispute much about them, how long they will be; one says forty years, another seventy, another three ages: it is the opinion of some, that they shall be according to the number of the days of the year, three hundred and sixty five years; some say seven thousand years, and others as many as have been from the beginning of the world; and others, as many as from Noah; but we know the day of Christ better, and how long he was here on earth; and whose whole time here is called his day; this Abraham had a very great desire to see:
and he saw [it] and was glad; he saw it with an eye of faith, he saw it in the promise, that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed; and when it was promised him he should have a son, which was the beginning of the fulfilment of the other, he laughed, and therefore his son was called Isaac, to which some reference is here made; he saw him in the birth of his son Isaac and rejoiced, and therefore called his name Isaac, that is, "laughter": he saw also Christ and his day, his sufferings, death, and resurrection from the dead, in a figure; in the binding of Isaac, in the sacrifice of the ram, and in the receiving of Isaac, as from the dead; and he not only saw the Messiah in his type Melchizedek, and who some think was the Son of God himself, but he saw the second person, the promised Messiah, in an human form, Ge 18:2; and all this was matter of joy and gladness to him. This brings to mind what the Jews say at the rejoicing at the law, when the book of the law is brought out {z}
"Abraham rejoiced with the rejoicing of the law, he that cometh shall come, the branch with the joy of the law; Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joshua, Samuel, David, Solomon, rejoiced with the joy of the law; he that cometh shall come, the branch with the joy of the law.''
{y} T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 99. 1. {z} Seder Tephillot, fol. 309. 1. Ed. Basil.
John 8:57
Ver. 57. Then said the Jews unto him, thou art not yet fifty years old,.... One copy reads forty, but he was not that; no, not much more than thirty; not above two or three and thirty years old: the reason of their fixing on this age of fifty might be, because Christ might look like such an one, being a man of sorrows and acquainted with griefs, as well as of great gravity; or they might be free in allowing him as many years, as could be thought he should be of, and gain their point; for what were fifty years, when Abraham had been dead above two thousand? and therefore he could never see Abraham, nor Abraham see him; moreover, this age of fifty, is often spoken of by the Jews, and much observed; at the age of fifty, a man is fit to give counsel, they say {a}; hence the Levites were dismissed from service at that age, it being more proper for them then to give advice, than to bear burdens; a Methurgeman, or an interpreter in a congregation, was not chosen under fifty years of age {b}; and if a man died before he was fifty, this was called the death of cutting off {c}; a violent death, a death inflicted by God, as a punishment; Christ lived not to that age, he was now many years short of it:
and hast thou seen Abraham? if he had not, Abraham had seen him, in the sense before given, and in which Christ asserted it, and it is to be understood.
{a} Pirke Abot, c. 5. sect. 21. {b} T. Bab. Chagiga, fol. 14. 1. Juchasin, fol. 44. 2. {c} T. Hieros. Biccurim, fol. 64. 3. T. Bab. Moed Katon, fol. 28. 1. Macsecheth Semachot, c. 3. sect. 9. Kimchi in Isa. xxxviii. 10.
John 8:58
Ver. 58. Jesus said unto them, verily, verily, I say unto you,.... Whether it will be believed or not, it is certainly fact:
before Abraham was, I am; which is to be understood, not of his being in the purpose and decree of God, foreordained to sufferings, and to glory; for so all the elect of God may be said to be before Abraham, being chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world: or that Christ was man, before Abraham became the father of many nations; that is, before the calling of the Gentiles; for nothing is said in the text about his being the father of many nations; it is a bold and impudent addition to it: and besides, Abraham was made the father of many nations, as Ishmaelites, Israelites, Hagarenes, &c. long before the incarnation of Christ; yea, he was so from the very promise in Ge 17:5, which so runs, "a father of many nations have I made thee"; so that this appears a false sense of the text, which is to be understood of the deity, eternity, and immutability of Christ, and refers to the passage in Ex 3:14. "I am that I am--I am hath sent me unto you", the true Jehovah; and so Christ was before Abraham was in being, the everlasting I am, the eternal God, which is, and was, and is to come: he appeared in an human form to our first parents before Abraham was, and was manifested as the Mediator, Saviour, and living Redeemer, to whom all the patriarchs before Abraham looked, and by whom they were saved: he was concerned in the creation of all things out of nothing, as the efficient cause thereof; he was set up from everlasting as Mediator; and the covenant of grace was made with him, and the blessings and promises of it were put into his hands before the world began; the eternal election of men to everlasting life was made in him before the foundation of the world; and he had a glory with his Father before the world was; yea, from all eternity he was the Son of God, of the same nature with him, and equal to him; and his being of the same nature proves his eternity, as well as deity, that he is from everlasting to everlasting God; and is what he ever was, and will be what he now is: he is immutable, the same today, yesterday, and for ever; in his nature, love, grace, and fulness, he is the invariable and unchangeable I am.
John 8:59
Ver. 59. Then they took up stones to cast at him,.... Supposing that he had spoken blasphemy; for they well understood that he, by so saying, made himself to be the eternal God, the unchangeable Jehovah. Should it be asked how they came by their stones in the temple? it may be replied, the temple was still building, Joh 2:20, and stones, or pieces of stones, might lie about, with which they furnished themselves, in order to have destroyed Christ: and this they attempted, though it was on the sabbath day, as appears from Joh 9:1; and with them, tbvb hlyqo, "stoning on the sabbath day" {d} was allowed in some cases.
But Jesus hid himself, not in any corner of the temple, or behind a pillar; but he withdrew himself from them directly, and made himself invisible to them, by holding their eyes, or casting a mist before them, that they could not see him:
and went out of the temple; by one of the gates of it:
going through the midst of them; not of the persons that took up stones to stone him; but the rest of the people, who were there in great multitudes to hear his doctrine, and see his miracles: and so passed by, and escaped out of their hands; the last words, going through the midst of them,
and so passed by, are not in Beza's most ancient copy, and in the Vulgate Latin version.
{d} T. Hieros. Yom Tob, fol. 63. 2.
John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible.
Christ neither found fault with the law, nor excused the
prisoner's guilt; nor did he countenance the pretended zeal of the
Pharisees. Those are self-condemned who judge others, and yet do
the same thing. All who are any way called to blame the faults of
others, are especially concerned to look to themselves, and keep
themselves pure. In this matter Christ attended to the great work
about which he came into the world, that was, to bring sinners to
repentance; not to destroy, but to save. He aimed to bring, not only
the accused to repentance, by showing her his mercy, but the
prosecutors also, by showing them their sins; they thought to
insnare him, he sought to convince and convert them. He declined
to meddle with the magistrate's office. Many crimes merit far more
severe punishment than they meet with; but we should not leave
our own work, to take that upon ourselves to which we are not
called. When Christ sent her away, it was with this caution, Go, and
sin no more. Those who help to save the life of a criminal, should
help to save the soul with the same caution. Those are truly happy,
whom Christ does not condemn. Christ's favour to us in the
forgiveness of past sins should prevail with us, Go then, and sin no
more.
Christ neither found fault with the law, nor excused the
prisoner's guilt; nor did he countenance the pretended zeal of the
Pharisees. Those are self-condemned who judge others, and yet do
the same thing.
Those are truly happy,
whom Christ does not condemn. Christ's favour to us in the
forgiveness of past sins should prevail with us, Go then, and sin no
more.
Sources: Matthew Henry; Gill's Exposition; Matthew Henry Concise
Commentary
Commentary