Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadLange Commentary - John 8:12 - 8:30
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
[Christ, The Light Of The World.]
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
On the supposition of its interpolation Meyer construes thus (and Lücke): “After the Sanhedrin had failed in their attempt to get possession of Jesus, and had become divided among themselves, as is related in Joh_7:45-52, Jesus was able, in consequence of this miscarriage of the plan of His enemies ( ïὗí ), to appear again and speak to the assembly in the temple.” The ðÜëéí is supposed to show that the time of the discourse is one of the days following the day of the feast. De Wette, on the contrary, supposes that John has not intended to preserve closely the thread of the history. Tholuck considers it impossible to decide whether the discourse was delivered on the last day of the feast or after it. He says: “If the pericope is genuine, this exclamation must have occurred some hours later.” Rather, a whole night and some hours later.
If the section be genuine, the words following are connected with the affair of the adulteress (Cocceius, Bengel). We have given this connection the preference. In view of the remarks that the repeated ðÜëéí in Joh_8:12 and Joh_8:21 is quite unmeaning without this section, for Jesus has not been interrupted by the history Joh_7:45-52; only the evangelist has interrupted himself by communicating some things which preceded behind the scenes. But the official state of things after the production of the adulteress must have been essentially changed. The rulers who threatened to take Jesus, and occasioned His saying, I shall soon go away from you,—have given Him an involuntary token of acknowledgment before the people; now He has the field again for a time, and can speak once more. The transactions following took place, accordingly, after the scene just preceding, on the day after the last day of the feast.
I am the light of the world.—Opinions as to the occasion of this figurative utterance: 1. Sunrise, or sunset. But the former was long past, and the latter had not yet come; and Jesus appears here not as antitype of the sun, as in Joh_9:5, but as the essential light, the light of the night. 2. The reading of the section Isaiah 42; since the “light of the Gentiles” ( öῶò ἐèíῶí ) of Joh_8:6 is equivalent to the “light of the world” ( öῶò ôïῦ êüóìïõ ) of this place, and designates the Messiah. Jesus, accordingly, here addresses Himself to the hope of the light of Israel and the Gentiles (Luk_2:32; Joh_1:4; Joh_1:9). Against this it has been observed that the reading of Scripture lessons belonged to the synagogues, not to the temple; even the temple-synagogue, which Vitringa adduces, was not in the temple itself (Lücke, p. 283). 3. The torch-feast, or the illumination at the feast of tabernacles. In the court of the women stood great golden candelabras, which were lit on the evening of the first day of the feast, and spread their light overall Jerusalem, while by the men a torch-light dance with music and singing was performed before these candelabras (see Winer, Laubhüttenfest. These lights are not to be confounded with the large golden lamps in the sanctuary). According to Maimonides this illumination took place also on the other evenings of the festival. Even apart from this, the exhausted lamps in the women’s court, or in the treasury-hall where Jesus according to Joh_8:20 was speaking, would on the day after the feast as distinctly suggest the symbolical transitory illumination of Jerusalem, as the eighth day of the feast would suggest the cessation of the symbolical streams of water; and this gave the Lord the same occasion for describing Himself as the true enlightener of the night, which the previous day had given for presenting Himself as the opener of the true fountain (Wetstein, Paulus, Olshausen; see Leben Jesu, II., p. 955). Opinions which lack a full appreciation of John’s symbolization, like Meyer’s, lose their weight by that very lack; though according to them we must take not the torch-light part of the feast, but, with Hug, the sight of the candelabras, as the occasion of our Lord’s expression. Of course the Messianic prophecies in Isa_42:6; Mal_4:2; Luke 2, as well as the rabbinical figures (Lightfoot, p. 1041), assisted this application. But beyond doubt the illumination was specifically an emblem of the pillar fire which had accompanied Israel at the time of its pilgrimage in the wilderness and its dwelling in tabernacles; therefore also an emblem of the later manifestation of the äüîá of the Lord, the idea of the Shekinah (see Isa_4:5). To this was further added, as the immediate occasion, the fact that the adulterous woman had fallen into darkness, and that the tempters of Jesus had come and gone away in spiritual darkness.
The light of the world. Êüóìïò is here, as in Joh_17:11, and elsewhere, the world of humanity in its obscuration. The true light, which enlightens the human night, the antitype of the temple light and of all lamps and night lights, is the personal truth and purity, which enlightens and sanctifies, or delivers from walking in religious and moral darkness. The substance or New Testament fulfilment of the pillar of fire.
Shall in no wise walk in the darkness [ ïὐ ìὴ ðåñéðáôáôÞóῃ ἐí ôῇ óêïôßᾳ ].—According to the reading ðåñéðáôÞóῃ , this is assuring: He shall surely not walk. A stronger expression of the assurance which is implied in the light of Christ; not to be understood as a demand, for this is precluded by the words: He that followeth Me. Darkness; the sphere of error, of delusion, of blindness. A fundamental conception of John.
Shall have the light of life.— Óêïôßá , the fear of death, had literally brought the adulteress to the verge of bodily death itself. Hence the light of life is here not the life as light, but the light as life, as giving, securing, and sustaining the true life. He shall have it for a sure possession of his own, for the following of Christ by faith causes an enlightenment from Him which proves itself as a living light, the life turning into light, the light turning into life, a fountain of life; as the water which He gives becomes a fountain within.
Joh_8:13. Thy Witness is not true.—The Pharisees who were present rejected the great utterance of Jesus respecting Himself, “but, prudently enough avoiding the matter of it, they dispute its formal validity.” Meyer. In reference to the matter of it they perhaps felt half bound by the preceding hypocritical act of homage on the part of their fellows. Jesus Himself also seemed to them to have formerly, chap, Joh_5:31, suggested to them this rule which they now stated. But (says Lücke) the case is different. Matters of conscience, of the inmost sense of God and of divine things must be juged of otherwise than matters of outward experience. As God can only reveal and bear witness to Himself ( ὁ äὲ èåὸò áὐôὸò ἑáõôῷ ἁîéüðéóôïò ìÜñôõò , says Chrysostom), so the divine life and light in the world are only their own evidence. “Lumen,” says Augustine, “et alia demonstrat et se ipsum. Testimonium sibi perhibet lux, aperit sanos oculos, et sibi ipsa testis est.” Yet the times differ. Christ must be first accredited and introduced by the Father on the testimony of Scripture and miracle; afterwards His own testimony of Himself is valid. The connection also in that place and in this is very different. There Christ professed Himself the awakener of the dead, and as such the Father had accredited Him by the miraculous raising of the sick. Here He presents Himself as the sure guide through the darkness of this world to the true life, and His credential in this character must be the certitude of His own conviction. The proof of the truth of this conviction lies in the fact that He is clear respecting the course of His own life, His origin and His goal, and this proof He soon states further on. [Comp. my note on Joh_5:31, p. 192.—P. S.]
Joh_8:14. Though I bear witness of myself, etc.—Even when I am in this situation, as I am just now. He hereby intimates, that in other respects He quotes also another witness (the Father), as immediately afterwards in Joh_8:17.
For I know whence I came.—The clear consciousness of His origin and appointment on the one hand, and of His destination on the other (His ἀñ÷Þ and His ôÝëïò ), gives Him also a clear knowledge of His path, clearness respecting His own way and His guidance of others. He comes from the Father and goes to the Father (Joh_16:28). Therefore He reveals the Father and is the way to the Father. Or He is in His essence pure person, He goes to the perfection of His personality, therefore He is in His holy personal conduct the quickener and restorer of erring souls to personal life.
But ye know not [ ὑìåῖò äÝ ïὐê ïἵäáôå ] whence I come, and whither I go.—In the former case the aorist ( ἧëèïí ), now the present ( ἕñ÷ïìáé , ὑðÜãù ). They could not know whence He had come, but they ought to have seen whence He still at present came, to wit, that He was sent by God. And from His appearance they might then have inferred His origin. No more did they know whence He was going, though they fully intended to put Him to death; that is, they did not know that by the sacrifice of His life in death He would rise to glory. The reading: or [ ῆ instead of êáß , and] whither I go, is improbable, because the knowledge of Christ’s end depends upon the knowledge of His spiritual origin. Grotius accounts for Christ’s testifying of Himself from His being sent of God: “Legationis injunctæ conscius est is, cui injuncta est, reliqui ab ipso hoc debent discere.” A true point, but not the whole thought. Cocceius observes that no other man knows whence He comes and whither He goes, and in this respect Christ stands above others, and may testify of Himself. Unquestionably His clear divine-human consciousness was the bright star of salvation in the night of the world.
Joh_8:15. Ye judge according to the flesh [ êáôὰ ôὴí óÜñêá ].—Tholuck (after De Wette): “The loose and floating progression of ideas looks as if the ideas were inaccurately reproduced.” Hardly! The train of thought is similar to that at Joh_7:24; except that here the emphasis falls on the judging itself. Ye already judge persons and actions according to the flesh, according to their outward, finite appearance, and according to finite standards ( êáô ’ ὅøéí , Joh_7:24). He means, therefore, primarily, judging by a false outward standard, but, in connection with it, judging by a false inward estimate (so Chrysostom, De Wette: after a carnal, selfish manner). Ye judge (condemn) the internal character of the Son of Man from His humble form; I judge (condemn) no person. Meyer justly observes that the addition: according to the flesh, is not to be here supplied (as Augustine and others would have it; Lücke: as ye do), but the êñßíåéí is emphatic in the sense of êáôáêñßíåéí . This is supported by the turn in Joh_8:16. The sentence, however, probably includes a reference to their theocratic judicial office, which in the affair of the adulteress had shown a thirst for reprobation, while His office consists not only in. not judging, but in delivering and saving. Hence modifications of the sentence: I judge no one. Now ( íῦí , Augustine and others) is not untrue to the sense, but superfluous. So is the explanation: I have no pleasure in judging (De Wette). The maxim of Christ, however, is founded of course on the fact that He distinguishes between the original nature or essential constitution of persons and their caricature in sin (which Meyer disputes). It is just this which makes Him Redeemer.
Joh_8:16. But even if I myself judge.—Meyer supposes that this also means condemn, and that the Lord would say that there are “exceptions to that maxim of not judging.” But the exceptions would destroy the positiveness of the previous sentence. He judgeth no man (unfavorably), but He does judge in general, and in the special sense judges in condemnation of sin in every man. Thus in His decision respecting the adulteress and her accusers He judged. Thus He judges or forms His estimate of them and of Himself. But all His judging is êñßóéò ἀëçèéíÞ (see the critical notes), the real, essential estimation (of persons), discrimination (of sinner and sin), and separation (of believer and unbeliever). The ground of this judgment, of His being thus true, is that the Father by the actual course of things executes these same decisions, separations, and judgments, which the spirit of Christ passes.
Joh_8:17. In your law.—From this turn it clearly appears that Christ was including judgment respecting Himself. After He has declared that His own testimony is alone sufficient for the declaration that He is the light of the world, He returns to the assurance that after all He is not limited to His own testimony, but has the Father also for a witness. In your law, i.e., in the law in which ye make your boast, and the very letter of which also binds you; not in the law which is nothing to Me (whether in the antinomian interpretation of Schweizer, or the doctrinal interpretation of De Wette). Comp. Joh_5:39; Joh_7:22; Joh_8:5; Joh_8:45-47; Joh_10:35.—Tholuck: In this way of speaking of the íüìïò we must by no means fail to perceive a characteristic of John.—The testimony of two men is true. A free quotation from Deu_17:6. Two men is emphatic.
Joh_8:18. I am he who beareth witness, etc.—He produces two significant witnesses: His own consciousness and the power of the Father working with Him. Paulus would take the ἐãþ to mean: I, as one who knows Himself; Olshausen: I, as Son of God. But it means also in particular: I, as the one sent by the Father. That which makes two witnesses valid in law, is the agreement of two consciences in a public declaration under oath. And if there may be two false witnesses it must be one of those abnormal, horrible exceptions for which human society cannot provide. But when the power of God in the miracles of Christ and His word in the Old Testament agree with the word of Jesus, it is a harmony of testimonies, in which the testimony of the Father Himself joined with the testimony of Him whom He has sent must be acknowledged.
Joh_8:19. Where is thy Father?—An intentional misapprehension and malicious mockery. Therefore no doubt also a feint, as if they were inquiring after a human father of Jesus (Augustine, and others); the use of ðïῦ instead of ôßò is not against this. The Pharisees well knew that God is invisible; if their question had referred to God, it must have been: Where then does God, Thy Father, testify of Thee? They seem, in mockery, to look about for a human father of Jesus as His witness. This reference of the word to a human father does not necessarily involve, as Tholuck thinks, the calumnious intimation that He was a bastard (Cyril); for the thing in hand is not any exact information concerning His birth, but the presentation of His Father as a witness. Yet the irony might possibly have gone even to this wicked extent.
If ye had known me, etc.—Because they did not and would not perceive the divine Spirit in the words and life of Jesus, they were blind to the Spirit of God in His miracles, as well as to the testimony of God concerning Him in the Scriptures; and this proved that they did not know God Himself any more than they knew Jesus. Comp. Joh_16:9.
Joh_8:20. In the treasury.— Ἐí ôῷ ãáæïöõëáêßῳ . We must in the first place distinguish between the treasury-hall, the ãáæïöõëÜêéïí , which was in the court of the women (i.e., the court beyond which the women did not venture, but where the men also stopped or passed, see Mar_12:41), and the treasure-chambers of the temple, ãáæïöõëÜêéá . Then we must again distinguish between the more special term ãáæïöõëÜêéïí , applied to the thirteen chests, and the same term in its more general application to the whole hall of the chests, which was also called ãáæïöõëÜêéïí , (see Tholuck, p. 241, where Meyer’s translation: at the money chests,—is also set aside). The evangelist names this locality, because it was the most public, here everybody deposited his temple gifts. The locality gives the bold words of Christ concerning Himself and concerning the Pharisees their full force; yet “no one laid hands on Him, for His hour had not yet come,” Joh_7:30. “The refrain of the history with an air of triumph.” Meyer.
Joh_8:21. Again therefore he said to them, I go away, and ye will seek me, and will die in your sin [ ἐí ôῇ ἁìáñôßᾳ ὑìῶí ἁðïèáíåῖóèå ].—As He had said before, Joh_7:33. Not a new discourse, placed by Ewald and Meyer, contrary to the usual view, on one of the subsequent days. It seems unnecessary to assume (with Tholuck) a special occasion for this discourse; for the occasion in the preceding mockery of the Pharisees stands out strongly enough (hence the ïὗí ). The mockery of unbelief stands entirely on a line with persecution; mockery therefore is here to the Lord a new signal of approaching death, as persecution was at Joh_7:34. But for this reason He here declares still more strongly than He did there, both His freedom in His death and their condemnation. In the former case: Ye will not find me; now: Ye will die in your sin. The seeking again denotes the seeking of the Messiah amidst the impending judgments; not a penitent seeking of the Redeemer, but a fanatical chiliastic seeking of a political deliverer. Hence without any finding of Christ. And the not finding is, positively, a dying in sin. Lücke: The thing meant is natural dying in the state of sin, not a dying on account of sin or by reason of sin. But the former idea cannot here be kept apart from the latter. The sins are their sins as a whole, sealed by their unbelief and their murderous spirit towards the Messiah; the dying is dying in the whole sense of the word: perishing in woe, irremediable death, utter ruin in this world and in that which is to come; and lastly the persons meant are the people as a whole, deceivers and deceived. But as the ὑìåῖò does not mean every single Jew, so the sin of obduracy is not foretold of all, nor the prospect of death extended to hopeless damnation in every case. Only the sin and death of the nation as a body are without limit.
The extension of the condemnation into the future world Jesus declares in the words: “Whither I go, ye cannot come.” As they now could not spiritually roach Him, so hereafter even as suppliants they could not reach Him on the throne of His glory nor beyond in His heaven. A distinct opposite of hell is not to be thought of (as Meyer holds); a place of punishment is no doubt at least implied.
Joh_8:22. Will he kill himself?—Formerly He said: “Where I am;” now he says: “Whither I go.” Hence they now (the Jews in the Judaistic sense) give their mockery another and a more biting form. “The irony of Joh_7:35, rises to impudent sarcasm.” Tholuck. They assume that He spoke of His death; and as He called this a ὑðÜãåéí , they mock, because they have no conception of the element of voluntary departure in the violence of death: “Will He kill Himself?” They think He has set Himself far above them in saying that they could not reach Him; they revenge themselves by suggesting that He will sink far below them. An orthodox Jew, they would say, utterly abhors suicide. According to Josephus, De Bello Jud. III. 8, 5, the self-murderer goes to the óêïôéþôåñïò ᾅäçò . Thus, according to the orthodox Jewish doctrine, to which the Pharisees bore allegiance, the suicide falls to the lowest hell of Hades, and is separated by a great gulf from Abraham’s bosom (Luk_16:26), into which they hoped to go. Concerning a peculiar interpretation of Origen, see Lücke, p. John 207: [that Jesus would kill Himself, and so go to the place and punishment of suicides, to which the Jews could not go, because their sin did not subject them to it.—Tr.]
Joh_8:23. Ye are from beneath; I am from above.—Jesus meets their mockery with a calm assertion which turns the point of it against themselves. For from beneath hardly means here merely from the earth (Meyer), as in Joh_3:31; but, as in Joh_8:44, it denotes the diabolical nature which they have shown, and by virtue of which they belong to that dark nether world. They therefore could go thither, where they are spiritually at home; He could not, since He is from above, from heaven (Joh_3:3). The antithesis in these words is that of hades and heaven, says Origen; in the moral sense, says Stier; on the contrary Tholuck, with Meyer, makes the antithesis heaven and earth. But the parallel êüóìïò ïὗôïò does not prove this; for that expression denotes not the visible world in itself, but the old bad nature of the world.
The more obscure first sentence He explains by the second: Ye are of this world.— Êüóìïò ïὗôïò , also, according to the Jewish Christology, denoted pre-eminently the ancient heathen world, which was to come into condemnation. I am not of this world. Therefore in spirit and life belonging to the áἰὼí ὁ ìÝëëùí , the new and higher world. The former antithesis denotes the principle of the life; the latter, the sphere of life corresponding.
Joh_8:24. I said therefore unto you, that ye will die in your sins.—That is to say, the words: “ye will die in your sins,” and the words: “ye are of this world,” or “from beneath,” are equivalent. Their being from beneath as to the principle of their life is the reason why they will die in their sins (Crell. Other views of the connection see in Tholuck). Meyer: “Observe that in this repetition of the denunciation the emphasis, which in Joh_8:21 lay upon in your sins, falls upon will die, and thus the perdition itself comes into the foreground, which can be averted only by conversion to faith.”
Yet they must not understand Him that they are in a fatalistic sense from beneath, or of this world, and therefore cannot but die in their sins. Hence He adds the condition: If ye believe not that I am He. There is, therefore, no lack of clearness in the connection (as Tholuck supposes). The expression: “that I am He,” is mysteriously delivered, without mention of the predicate. Meyer: “To wit, the Messiah, the self-evident predicate.” But the matter was not so simple; otherwise Christ would have previously named Himself the Messiah. And this He would not do, because their conception of the Messiah was distorted. They must, therefore, step by step perceive and believe that He is what He professed to be: the one sent of the Father, the Son of Man, the Quickener, the Light of the world; last: the one from above. They must believe in Him according to His words and His deeds; His higher existence, His real being, which stood before their eyes, and the real nature of which they criticised away, they must believe; not till then could they receive the word that He was the Messiah. The predicate is, therefore, the representation of Himself which Jesus gives in the context. According to Hofmann (Schriftbeweis, I. 62), an imitation of the Old Testament àֲðִé äåּà . Undoubtedly correct in the view that both here and there the self-evidencing living presence of the divine person must be above all things acknowledged without prejudice.
This mysterious import of the word is indicated also by the question of the Jews: “Who art thou?” (Joh_8:25). They wished to draw the last decisive word from Him. The answer of Jesus which follows speaks to the same point. Luther takes the óὺôßò åἰ as contemptuous; so does Meyer. But it is rather a sly question, to decoy or force Jesus to an avowal. Comp. Joh_10:24. If we compare the expression ὅôé ἐãþ åἰìé with that in Joh_7:39 : ïὕðù ãὰñ ἧí ðíåῦìá ἅãéïí ,—we might naturally translate: that I am here. That He is present as He is present in the fulness of His divine-human life,—this they must believe and apprehend before they will rightly apprehend Him as the Messiah.
Joh_8:25. Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning. [So the E. V. renders ôὴí ἀñ÷ὴí ὅ ôé êáὶ ëáëῶ ὐìῖí Comp. Text. Notes.—P. S.].—This passage has been a crux interpretum, because the progressive unfolding of the idea of the Messiah by Christ in His presentation of Himself has not been appreciated. The interpretation depends not merely on the sense of ôὴí ἀñ÷Þí , but also on that of the expression ὅ ôé êáὶ ëáëῶ ὑìῖí .
[To state the points more fully, the interpretation depends: 1) On the construction of the whole sentence—whether it be interrogative, or exclamatory, or declarative; 2) on the sense of ôὴí ἀñ÷Þí , whether it be taken substantively (principium, the beginning, the Logos), or adverbially (in the beginning, from the beginning, first of all, to start with, or omnino, generally); 3) on the ambiguity of ὅôé (conjunct.) and ὅ , ôé (relative); 4) on the meaning of ëáëῶ as distinct from ëÝãù ; 5) on the proper force of êáß . I remark in the premises that we must take ôὴí ἀñ÷Þí adverbially, and write ὅ , ôé , since ὅôé (quoniam, quia) gives no good sense.—P. S.]
1. Constructions which take the sentence as a question.
(a) Cyril, Chrysostom, Matthæi, Lücke (more or less equivalent): Why do I even speak to you at all? [Cur vero omnino vobiscum loquor? cur frustra vobiscum disputo?—P. S.] (Comp. Joh_10:25). This is grammatically possible, for ôὴí ἀñ÷Þí can mean omnino (in certain circumstances), and ὅ ôé can mean why. But such a sentence would be contradicted by Christ’s going on to speak, and it would be too “empty” (Meyer).
[With this agrees in sense Ewald’s explanation, with this difference that he takes the sentence as an indignant exclamation: That I should have to speak to you at all! (Dass ich auch überhaupt zu euch rede!) But this leaves the position of ôὴí ἀñ÷Þí before ὅôé (as Ewald writes instead of ὅ , ôé ) unexplained.—P. S.]
(b) Meyer (and Hilgenfeld): What I originally (from the first) say to you, that do ye ask? or (Do you ask), what I have long been telling you? The objection to this is that Christ had from the first not presented Himself as Messiah. Besides, there is no: Do ye ask?—in the sentence.
2. Constructions which connect with this sentence the ðïëëὰ ἕ÷ù following [Joh_8:26, and put only a comma, instead of a period, after ëáëῶ ὑìῖí ]. Some manuscripts, Bengel, Olshausen. Hofmann: “For the first, for the present, since He is engaged in speaking to them, He has many reproving and condemning things to say to them.” This would be an entire evasion of the question they had put.
3. Constructions which take the sentence as a declaration.
(a) Augustine (similarly Bede, Rupert, Lampe, Fritzche): Principium (the Logos, the Word) me credite, quia ( ὅôé ) et loquor vobis, i.e. quia humilis propter vos factus ad ista verba descendi. [Wordsworth: “I am what I am also declaring to you, the Beginning;” comp. Rev_21:6, ἡ ἀñ÷ὴ êáὶ ôὸ ôÝëïò .—P. S.] Untenable both in point of grammar and of fact; ôὴí ἀñ÷Þí is adverbial, and Jesus could not present Himself to these adversaries as the divine Logos. [A reference to the Logos would require ëÝãù instead of ëáëῶ .—P. S.]
(b) Calvin, Beza, Grotius, Baumgarten-Crusius, Tholuck: “I am what I told you in the beginning (and tell you until now).” But (1) He had not given them from the beginning a definite description of Himself; (2) ôὴí ἀñ÷Þí ought not to stand first; not to say that we ought rather to have ἐëÜëçóá [instead of ëáëῶ ].
(c) Luthardt: “From the beginning I am, that [ ὅôé ] I may even speak to you.” Obscure, and in part incorrect; for Jesus did not exist merely to speak to the Jews (see Meyer).
(d) Bretschneider: “At the outset I declared concerning Myself what I say also now.” But there is no ëåëÜëçêá .
(e) De Wette: “First of all, or above all, I am what I even say to you”. Luther: “I am your preacher; if ye first believe this, ye will also know by experience who I am, and in no other way.” (Ammon: He is to be known, above all things, from His words). But, in the first place, ôὴí ἀñ÷Þí must mean for the first thing, to begin with; and secondly, Christ says not that they must know Him from His words, but He refers to accounts which He actually gave of Himself.
(f) Winer: “I am wholly such as I represent Myself in My words.” See the grammatical objection against wholly in Meyer.
(g) “To begin with, for the first, I am that which I even say to you;” or, “First of all, I am the very thing I am declaring unto you.” Erasmus, Bucer, Grotius, et al., Leben Jesu, II., 963, Brückner. For the first thing, they must receive with confidence His descriptions of Himself as the fountain of life, the light of the world, etc., which He openly and familiarly talks ( ëáëῶ ) to them; then they will come to a full knowledge of His character; for all depends on their ceasing to determine His character by their crude notion of the Messiah, ceasing to require in Him such a Messiah as they have imagined, and beginning to determine their ideas of the Messiah from His revelation of Himself, and to correct and spiritualize them accordingly. When Tholuck objects that, upon this interpretation, Jesus would be drawing them first to a lower view of Himself, and afterwards to a higher, he is mistaken; for the issue here is between a designation of Himself by the New Testament thing that He is, and a designation of Himself by the theocratic name, which in its rabbinical form had to be regenerated by the New Testament spirit, and the course of thought is not from lower to higher, but from the more general to the more specific.
Joh_8:26. I have many things to say and to judge of you.— Ðåñὶ ὑìῶí is emphatic. Because He has so much to say and to judge of them, so much to clear up with them, He cannot go on to the final, decisive declaration concerning Himself. It must first be still more clearly brought out, what they are, and where they stand. Tholuck, therefore, groundlessly remarks, quoting an opinion of Maldonatus: “This expression also disturbs the clearness of the course of thought.” The opinion, of course, has in view also what follows.
But he that sent me is true.— ἈëëÜ is difficult. Meyer, with Apollinaris: ðïëëὰ ἕ÷ùí ëÝãåéí ðåñ ̀ ὑìῶí , óéãῶ . So Euthymius and others. Better Lücke, Tholuck and others, after older expositors: However much I have to judge concerning you, My êñßóéò is still ἀëçèÞò . Yet this sentiment is to be modified. It grieves Him that He has so much to judge of them; yet it must be so; God, who hath sent Him, is true. God judges in act according to truth, and Christ, the interpreter of His essential words which He hears of Him through the facts and through the showing of the Spirit, must do the same in speech. The ἀëëÜ , therefore, forms an adversative (missed in this view by Meyer) to the ðïëëÜ ἕ÷ù . According to Chrysostom the apodosis would mean: But I limit Myself to speaking ôὰ ðñὸò óùôçñßáí , ïὐ ôὰ ðñὸò ἕëåã÷ïí . Meyer: He has things to say to the world, other than the worthlessness of His enemies. But in this view God would rather be referred to as gracious, than as true. And Christ would not appeal to His duty to speak what He hears (comp. Joh_5:30).
Joh_8:27. They understood not.—Different conceptions: (1) Ὤ ôῆò ἀãíïßáò , Chrysostom. (2) Strange and improbable that they did not understand, De Wette. (3) The beginning of a new discourse with other hearers, Baumgarten-Crusius, Meyer. (4) A moral obtuseness, and refusal of acknowledgment, Lücke. So Stier and Tholuck: hardness of heart.—The failure to understand was due, on the contrary, to their suspecting a secret behind the expression: He that sent Me, on account of their greedy chiliastic hope of a Messiah. For as Messiah in their sense Christ would have still been welcome to them. This introduces what follows.
Joh_8:28. When ye have lifted up the Son of man.—It is now their turn to be tempted by Jesus, though in a holy mind. Jesus apparently yields to their vagueness of mind with a term of many meanings; hence the ïὐí . The sense is: lifted up on the cross, as in Joh_3:14; but it carries also the thought that this shameful lifting up would be the means of His real exaltation (Calvin, et al.), which comes more strongly to light in Joh_12:32. Now His hearers understand it to mean: When ye have acknowledged the Son of Man as Messiah, and proclaimed Him in political form.—Then shall ye know-that I am he.—Some willingly, in the outpouring of the Holy Ghost; others against their will, in the destruction of Jerusalem, etc. (comp. Joh_6:62, a passage which is elucidated by this. On the different interpretations of the knowing, see Tholuck). They take it thus: Then shall ye perceive howl manifest and prove Myself the Messiah after your mind.—And that I do nothing of myself.—( Ἀð ’ ἐìáõôïῦ comes under ὅôé , and is not, as Lampe takes it, a new proposition). That is: That I do not of My own will and ambition usurp the honor and glory of Messiah. They understand it: That I, for secret reasons, do not come forward on my own responsibility, but abide the result.—But speak these things as the Father taught me.—His action is according to the instruction of the Father, primarily a testifying, speaking (therefore not a completing, according to Bengel and De Wette: ëáëῶ completed by ðïéῶ , ðïéῶ by ëáëῶ ); and this very thing includes self-command in the matter of a decisive Messianic profession. Just this reserve leads Him into the difficult position, in which He seems to stand alone, and yet is not alone. He manifests Himself and conceals Himself as the Father instructs Him. See the history of the temptation. Now His hearers take it that the divine arrangement requires the Messiah to let the Messianic people take the initiative in His elevation.
Joh_8:29. And he that sent me is with me.—The Messiah’s trust to the arrangement of the Father in the trying course assigned Him. But in the progress of their misapprehension they must take Him as expressing His confidence of happy success in His Messianic enterprise with the help of God.—He hath not left me alone.—Pointing to the help of God which He has hitherto received, and which is secured to Him by the co-working of the divine purpose throughout the government of the world with His work, as well as with His Spirit, and by the co-working of His dominion with the Father. But they probably think of the silent preparation of extraordinary succor.
For I always do the things that are pleasing to him.—(Not: As appears from the fact that I do, etc., Maldonatus. The assistance of the Father is to be distinguished from the essential unity of the Father with the Son, and reciprocates the obedience of Jesus.) In His unconditional obedience He has the seal of His unconditional confidence. But they may imagine: He has already introduced and arranged everything according to the direction of God.
Joh_8:30. As he spoke these words, many believed in him.—In the simplest historical sense: Became disciples, came forward as followers and confessors of Him. What kind of faith this was, the sequel must teach, and Jesus Himself took care that the faith which arose out of chiliastic misconstructions should soon be tested and set right. Tholuck: “ Ðéóôåýåéí is here used for a faith which arises certainly not from miracles, but from the word; by force of the imposing power of His testimony concerning Himself; a faith, however, which was but superficial, for it did not find in the words of Jesus ῥÞìáôá ôῆò æùῆò . They stand upon the footing of the disciples mentioned in Joh_6:66; hence ìÝíåéí is required of them.” The main thing required is submission to the word of Christ, renunciation of their carnal expectations, and a clearing and spiritualizing of their faith.
Failure to observe the misconstructions traced above has occasioned much confusion over the words of Jesus immediately following, and over the relapse of many or most of these disciples, which follows soon upon them.
2. The consciousness of Christ is the star of night, the sun of day. He is sure of His origin (from the Father), of His destination (to the Father), and therefore of His way (with the Father), and can therefore offer Himself with absolute certitude and confidence as the guide of life to the people who are wandering in darkness. “Though I bear witness of Myself, yet My witness is true.” Consciousness attested by conscience is the basis of all certitude (Luther, Descartes, Kant, Schleiermacher). Christ’s divine self-consciousness is the starting-point of all divine certitude. Augustine: A light shows itself, as well as other things. You light a lamp, for example, to look for a garment, and the burning lamp helps you find it; but do you also light a lamp to look for a burning lamp?
3. The assault of the men of the letter on the testimony of Christ concerning Himself, a type of the battle between dead tradition and living faith.
4. The world’s way of judging, and Christ’s way: (1) The world judges of the nature of the person after the flesh (subjectively, with a carnal judgment, and objectively, from the mere appearance); Christ judges not the nature of the person, but his guilt. (2) The world forestalls the judgment of God, and, midway, condemns Christ to the cross; Christ pronounces the judgment of God, and the actual judgment He does not execute till the end of the world.
5. Christ’s appeal to the testimony of His Father, and the mockery of the Jews; the fact, and the mistaking and denial, of the original Life. “It is remarkable how, in the words: in your law (of which ye are so proud), Jesus takes issue with them, and indeed, as it were quits them.” Gerlach. “Had not God from eternity come out of a rigid, self-imprisoned unity, and revealed Himself as second person in the Son, etc., He had not been able to redeem the human race, nor even therefore, to reveal, demonstrate Himself to it in His full truth.” Ibid.
[5 ½. The significant expression: “the Father is with Me,” is a counterpart of: “The Word was with God.” in Joh_1:1. From eternity the Son was with the Father; in time the Father is with the Son. This personal distinction of the Father and the Son from each other is the stronger rather than the weaker, for that other: “The Word was God,” which stands by its side, and which has a parallel here in Joh_8:19; “If ye had known Me, ye should have known My Father also.” It is impossible to do justice to its significance, without the doctrine of the essential, eternal trinity of the Godhead; and this doctrine may be said to be contained in this combination of mysterious words. Augustine, in the Catena: “Blush, thou Sabellian; our Lord doth not say, I am the Father, and I the self-same person am the Son; but I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.”—E. D. Y.]
6. The suicidal world suspects Christ and Christianity of a suicidal intent. Character of suicide on the part of the Lord. From beneath: the contrast of suicide, which is from beneath, and self-sacrifice, which is from above.
[6 ½. Here the Lord says: “I am from above;” “ye neither know Me, nor My Father;” “ye cannot tell whence I come, and whither I go.” He had said before, Joh_7:28 : “Ye both know Me, and know whence I am.” This apparent contradiction only reflects in His free, spontaneous utterance the perfect harmony and unity of real deity and real humanity (against Docetism and Apollinarianism) in Him. And yet His having a really earthly, human origin, as well as a really divine, was not the same as being from beneath and of this world. This world “lieth in the wicked one.”—E. D. Y.]
7. Christ reveals Himself in the spirit by veiling Himself in the flesh. “The teaching of Christ is not something outside of Him or added to Him; He Himself is all teacher, all revelation; His doctrine is Himself.” Gerlach.
[7 ½. “The Being who sent Jesus into the world, was in such close companionship with Him, that He shared with Him, so to speak, all the opprobrium and hostility with which His mission was met, and would be present to His aid in every danger.… It should ever be borne in mind that this obedience of the Son, although strictly predicable of Him only in His Messianic office, is to be regarded as proceeding from His essential unity with the Father; else, as Olshausen well remarks,…it would depend for its perpetuity upon the fidelity of the Son.…It is based upon those immutable relations of companionship springing from the essential unity of the Father and Son, and referred to so emphatically in the preceding words, is with me.” J. J. Owen.—E. D. Y.]
8. The chiliastic elements in the life of Jewish people: a. During the life of Jesus, in Galilee (John 6), in Judea (John 8); b. After the ascension of the Lord, (1) at the time of founding of the church, Act_6:7; (2) before the death of James the Just. See his biography.
9. It is not right to presume that the rulers of the Jews would have absolutely closed themselves beforehand against the impression of the Messiahship of Jesus. On the contrary they were thoroughly disposed from the beginning, under certain conditions, to acknowledge Him as Messiah; viz., if He would meet their idea of Messiah (see Matthew , 4) This accounts for the alternate attractions and the repulsions, which John exhibits to us in the boldest contrast, John 3; chs. 8. and 10. Even in the revilings against Christ on the cross the craving for a chiliastic Messiah may be perceived (Mat_27:42, see Leben Jesu, II. 3, p. 1562). This explains again the Lord’s reservation of His name of Messiah, which He positively refused to have publicly proclaimed by the people until the Palm-Sunday, and to which He Himself did not confess until the hour of His condemnation before the high council.
10. In the miraculous gliding of Christ out of the hands of His enemies, both here and often elsewhere, Luthardt rightly sees a presage of the resurrection of Christ, by which He perfectly transported Himself from the violence of His foes.
The Jews’ judging after the flesh, a judgment against themselves: 1. It is a judgment of the carnal mind, of passion, on the revelations of the Spirit. 2. It is a judgment according to outward appearance and pedigree on the wonders of the new life. 3. It is a carnal condemnation of the divine gentleness which could rescue from damnation.—Prejudice, a way to condemnation.—The Jewish students of God, in the treasury of God, unmasked as ignorant despisers of God.—The manifest Father of Christ, a hidden God to His adversaries.—How Christ can charge spiritual ignorance upon His adversaries at the height of their power (in the treasury). Men of the letter have the treasury of God, and not the knowledge of God.
The fearful word of Christ concerning His departure: 1. The horrible misinterpretation of it. 2. Its true meaning.—Suicide elucidated by the conversation of Christ with the Jews.—Self-killing and self-sacrifice; or, the death from beneath, and the life from above.—To be from beneath, and to be from above.—How Christ would be known according to His own representation of Himself, and not according to the preconceived opinions of the world: 1. According to the Old Testament, not according to the Jewish schools. 2. According to the New Testament, not according to mediæval tradition. 3. According to His divine glory, not according to our human notion.—Legitimate steps in the revelation of Christ to us.—Before the world would come to a decision concerning Christ, it must have the judgment of Christ concerning Himself.
Joh_8:26. The judgment of Christ concerning the world unavoidable: 1. As a testimony to the real government of God. 2. As a testimony to His true view of things.—The words of Christ concerning His elevation, as they are misinterpreted by the ear of the Jews.—The power of the Spirit in these words of the Lord: (a) His confidence that His elevation on the cross will be the lowest depth of His path to His heavenly exaltation. (b) The mercy with which He still gives His enemies the prospect of knowing their salvation by His death and resurrection, (c) The clear prediction of the effect of the preaching of the cross in the New Testament dispensation.—The twofold knowing that Jesus is the Lord, as produced by His twofold elevation (the knowing which believers have, and that which unbelievers have).
The word of Christ: I am not (left) alone: 1. The sense of the expression: The Father is with Him through the whole course of His sufferings (Gethsemane). 2. The confidence of it: Notwithstanding He was soon to be forsaken by all the world and apparently by God Himself. 3. The foundation of the confidence: for I do always those things, etc.
Those who believe from misunderstanding.—The form of enthusiastic belief, which can immediately turn into the bitterest unbelief.—Misunderstanding of the word of God: 1. Its forms. 2. Its causes. 3. Its marks. 4. Its solution. 5. Its consequences.
Starke: Lange: The illumination of the understanding always inseparably connected with the sanctification of the will. On life depends light or use of eyes.—Teachers should always lead their hearers from the earthly to the spiritual.—Hedinger: He who follows Christ never misses the right way; always with will-o’-the-wisps! Isa_11:3-4.—God, who is ( áὐôüðéóôïò ) the truth itself, can testify of Himself, and all men, though they be but liars, must believe His testimony.—If the Father and the Son testify the very same thing, how strong, how invincible is the testimony!—Stiff-necked enemies of the truth deride what they do not and will not understand, and when they can go no further, they start something ridiculous.—(In the treasury.) God wonderfully protects faithful teachers and confessors of His word.—Quesnel: Jesus says nothing but what the Father bids Him say; therefore should His ministers also preach nothing but what they have learned of Him, Rom_15:18.
Joh_8:28. Zeisius: The prophecies of God will never be more truly and fully understood than in their fulfilment.—O how many Christians do not know Christ before they have crucified Him with their sins!
Braune: “Shall not walk in darkness,” in un-holiness, in sin. It is manifestly a fundamental truth that mind and will belong together; neither can be corrupted or improved without the other; and enlightenment and sanctification ever play into one another. At the same time, looking at the preceding occurrences, the Lord seems to intend to guard His dealing with the fallen woman against all abuses. He does not let sin prevail.—Does not the sun bear witness even to its own existence? Set it aside, if you can.—Jesus alone knew both whence He came and whither He went; His adversaries knew neither.—Contend not with blasphemers over God, but over noble life.—The cross is the knot in which humiliation and exaltation are entwined. In the cross the deepest humiliation ended; in the cross exaltation began.
Heubner: Some light a man will always follow; the question is whether he will choose the right one. Criterion: The following of Jesus casts out all uncertain, restless groping.—There are only two ways: that of the darkness, and that of the light.—The test of true illumination is that it gives life.—Bearing witness to one’s self by no means absolutely inadmissible.—The believer also knows the source and the goal of his life.—How little would the hostile Jews have suspected that this Jesus, their antagonist, would soon be exalted at the right hand of God. So the children of the w