Online Resource Library
Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadHeinrich Meyer Commentary - John 5:37 - 5:37
(Show All Books | Show All Chapters)
This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Joh_5:37. From the works which testified that He was the Sent of God, He now passes to the witness of the Sender Himself; therefore from the indirect divine testimony, presented in the works, to the direct testimony in the Scriptures. And the Father Himself, who hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. The subject, which is placed at the beginning of the sentence, the independence (immediateness) expressed by αὐτός , together with the Perfect μεμαρτ ., unite to prove that there is no longer any reference here to the previous testimony, that of the works, by which God had borne testimony (against Augustine, Grotius, Maldonatus, Olshausen, Baur, and most others). Quite arbitrary, and in opposition to the account of the baptism given by John, is the view which others take, that the divine witness given in the voice at the baptism, Mat_3:17 (but see rather Joh_1:33), is here meant (Chrysostom, Rupertius, Jansen, Bengel, Lampe, Paulus, Godet). While Ewald (Johann. Schr. I. 216) includes together both the baptism and the works, Hengstenberg adds to these two the witness of Scripture likewise; others, again, “the immediate divine witness in the believer’s heart, by means of which the indirect testimony of the works is first apprehended” (De Wette, B. Crusius, Tholuck), the “drawing” of the Father, Joh_6:14, comp. Joh_6:45, Joh_8:47. But there is not the slightest indication in the text that an outward, perceptible, concrete, and objective witness is meant; nay more, in the face of the following connection ( φωνήν … εἶδος ). The only true interpretation in harmony with the context is that which takes it to mean the witness which God Himself has given in His word, in the Scriptures of the O. T. (Cyril, Nonnus, Theophylact, Euthymius Zigabenus, Beda, Calvin, Kuinoel, Lücke, Lange, Maier, Luthardt). In the O. T. prophecies, God Himself has lifted up His voice and revealed His form.
οὔτε φωνήν , κ . τ . λ .] Reproach of want of susceptibility for this testimony, all the more emphatic through the absence of any antithetic particle. Neither a voice of His have ye ever heard, nor a form of His have ye ever seen. With respect to what God had spoken in the O. T. as a testimony to Christ ( μεμαρτύρ . περὶ ἐμοῦ ), or as to the manner in which, with a like purpose, He had therein given His self-manifestation to the spiritual contemplation (He had made known his δόξα ; comp. μορφὴ θεοῦ , Php_2:6),—to the one ye were spiritually deaf, to the other ye were spiritually blind. As the first cannot, conformably with the context, be taken to mean the revealing voice of God within, vouchsafed to the prophets (De Wette), so neither can the second refer merely to the Theophanies (in particular, to the appearances of the Angel of the Lord, Hengstenberg) and prophetic visions,[221] but to the entire self-revelation of God in the O. T. generally, by virtue of which He lets Himself be seen by him who has eyes to see;—a general and broad interpretation, which corresponds with the general nature of the expression, and with its logical relation to μεμαρτ . π . ἐμοῦ . The Jews could not have heard the voice at the baptism, nor could they have seen the form of God as the Logos had seen it, Joh_1:18, Joh_3:13; and for this reason neither the one meaning nor the other can be found in the words (Ewald). Every interpretation, moreover, is incorrect which finds in them anything but a reproach, because Jesus speaks in the second person, and continues to do so in Joh_5:38, where the tone of censure is still obvious. We must therefore reject the explanation of B. Crusius: “never hitherto has this immediate revelation of God taken place;” and that of Tholuck: “ye have not received a more direct revelation than did Moses and his cotemporaries (Num_12:8; Deu_4:15; Deu_5:24), but ye have not received within you the witness of the revelation in the word,”—an artificial connecting of Joh_5:37 with Joh_5:38, which the words forbid. Paulus and Kuinoel (comp. Euthymius Zigabenus) likewise erroneously say that “Jesus here concedes, in some degree, to the Jews what they had themselves wished to urge in objection, viz. that they had heard no divine voice, etc. Comp. Ebrard (in Olshausen), who imports the idea of irony into the passage.
[221] Jesus could not reproach His opponents with not having received prophetic revelations, such as Theophanies and Visions, for these were marks of distinction bestowed only on individuals. This also against Weiss, Lehrbegr. pp. 104, 105.