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Joh_5:38. At the end of Joh_5:37 we must place only a comma. John might have continued: οὔτε τὸν λόγον , κ . τ . λ .; instead of which he attaches the negation not to the particle, but to the verb ( οὔτε … καὶ , see on Joh_4:11), and thus the new thought comes in more independently: And ye have not His word abiding in you; ye lack an inner and permanent appropriation of it; comp. 1Jn_2:14. The λόγος θεοῦ is not “the inner revelation of God in the conscience” (Olshausen, Frommann), but, conformably with the context (Joh_5:37; Joh_5:39), what God has spoken in the O. T., and this according to its purport. Had they given ear to this as, what it is in truth, the word of God (but they had no ear for God’s voice, Joh_5:37), had they discerned therein God’s manifestation of Himself (but they had no eye for God’s form, Joh_5:37), what God had spoken would have penetrated through the spiritual ear and eye into the heart, and would have become the abiding power of their inner life.
ὅτι ὃν ἀπέστειλεν , κ . τ . λ .] demonstration of the fact. He who rejects the sent of God cannot have that word abiding in him, which witnesses to Him who is sent (Joh_5:37). “Quomodo mandata regis discet qui legatum excludit?” Grotius.
τούτῳ ὑμεῖς ] observe the emphasis in the position of the words here.