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Joh_14:10-11. This language of thine amounts indeed to this: as though thou didst not believe that, etc.
ὅτι ἐγὼ ἐν τ . πατρὶ , κ . τ . λ .] On this mutual fellowship, which “virtutis potius quam essentiae elogium est” (Calvin), see on Joh_10:38. Comp. Joh_17:21. Here the ἐγὼ ἐν τ . πατ . stands first, because the matter in question is the way which the knowledge has to take from the Son to the Father.
τὰ ῥήματα … τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ ] (see critical notes): the proof of this union of mine with the Father is, that I do not speak of myself; but the proof for that (for this ἀπʼ ἐμαυτοῦ οὐ λαλῶ ) is, that the Father does His works through me. The δέ is therefore continuative (autem), not antithetical. Further, we must neither say that the ῥήματα are to be reckoned along with the ἔργα , nor that τὰ ἔργα signifies the business of teaching (Nösselt); but, from the fact that the Messianic works (see on Joh_5:36) are the works of the Father, it is inferred, with necessary dialectic certainty, from whom also the discourses of Jesus proceed; if the former are divine, the latter must be adequately related thereto. The first proposition is often arbitrarily supplemented from the second, and vice versâ.[145] This, however, does not agree with the Greek mode of allowing, in antithetic propositions, one clause to be completed from the other (Kühner, II. p. 603 f.; Bernhardy, p. 455), and would here run counter to the context, since Jesus, Joh_14:11, desires to have deduced from the ἔργα that which He had brought into light by τὰ ῥήματα … λαλῶ . Hence we are not to get out of the difficulty either by the assumption of an “incongruity in the antithetic propositions” (Tholuck), or, with Lange, pronounce that the words belong pre-eminently to the Son, the works pre-eminently to the Father, which is not contained in the expressions, and would be an un-Johannean halving of the thought (Joh_5:19, Joh_8:28, Joh_12:49); nor are we to assume, with Ewald, that a lesser significance is to be ascribed to the works in opposition to the words.
ὁ ἐν ἐμοὶ μένων ] expressing the ὁ ἐν ἐμ . ὤν as enduring (he who does not depart from me). According to the reading ποιεῖ τ . ἔργα αὐτοῦ (see critical notes), the works of Jesus are set forth as the works of God, which the Father performs, that is, in virtue of His immanence in the Son, making them to operate in an outward direction.
Joh_14:11. From Philip, Jesus now turns to the disciples collectively, and that with an exhortation to the faith, in reference to which He had been obliged to question Philip in a manner implying doubt.
πιστεύετέ μοι ] namely, without anything further, in addition to my personal assurance.
ὅτι ] not because (Bengel), but that, as in Joh_14:10.
διὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτά ] On account of the works themselves (in and of themselves), irrespective of my oral testimony, believe me in this. The works are the actual proofs of that fellowship, Joh_5:19-20, Joh_10:37-38.
[145] The words which I speak to you, I speak not of myself; and the works which I do, I do not of myself, but the Father who is in me. He teaches me the words, and does the works—De Wette, comp. Bengel.