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Joh_6:37 ff. Through this culpable οὐ πιστεύετε , they were quite different from those whom the Father gave Him. How entirely different were all these latter; and how blessed through me, according to the Father’s will, must their lot be!
πᾶν ] Neuter, of persons as in Joh_3:6, Joh_18:2; 1Co_1:27. It designates them as a “totam, quasi massam,” Bengel.
ὁ δίδ . μοι ὁ πατ .] viz. by the efficacious influence of His grace (Joh_6:44-45), whereby He inclines them to come, and draws them to me; οὐ τὸ τυχὸν πρᾶγμα ἡ πίστις ἡ εἰς ἐμέ . ἀλλὰ τῆς ἄνωθεν δεῖται ῥοπῆς , Chrysostom. Moral self-determination (Joh_5:40, Joh_7:17; Mat_23:37) may obey this influence (Joh_6:40), and may withstand it; he who withstands it is not given Him by the Father, Php_2:13. “There is implied here a humble, simple, hungering and thirsting soul,” Luther. Explanations resting on dogmatic preconceptions are: of the absolute election of grace (Augustine, Beza, and most others[233]), of the natural pietatis studium (Grotius), and others.
πρὸς ἐμέ ] afterwards ΠΡΌς ΜΕ . But ἘΜΈ is emphatic. The ἭΞΕΙ is not more (arrivera jusqu’à moi, Godet) than ἐλεύσεται , as Joh_6:35 already shows; comp. the following Κ . Τ . ἘΡΧΌΜΕΝΟΝ , with which ἭΞΩ is again resumed.
Οὐ ΜῊ ἘΚΒΆΛΩ ἜΞΩ ] I certainly will not cast him out, i.e. will not exclude him from my kingdom on its establishment; comp. Joh_6:39-40; Joh_15:6; also Mat_8:12; Mat_22:13. The negative expression is a litotes full of love; Nonnus adds: ἀλλὰ νόῳ χαίροντι δεδέξομαι .
Joh_6:38-39. “How could I cast them out, seeing that I am come only to fulfil the divine will? and this requires of me, not the rejection of any one, but the blessed opposite.”
οὐχ ἵνα , κ . τ . λ .] Comp. Joh_5:30.
ΤΟῦΤΟ ΔῈ … ΠΈΜΨ . ΜΕ ] impressive repetition of the same words.
ΠᾶΝ Ὁ ΔΈΔΩΚΕ , Κ . Τ . Λ .] Nominative absolute, unconnected with the following, and significantly put first. Comp. Joh_8:38, Joh_15:2, Joh_17:2; and see on Mat_7:24; Mat_10:14; Mat_10:32; Mat_12:36; Buttmann, N. T. Gr. p. 325 [E. T. p. 379]. Here the Perfect δέδωκε , because spoken from the standing-point of the future.
μὴ ἀπολ . ἐξ αὐτοῦ ] sc. τι ; see Fritzsche, Conject. p. 36. The conception of losing (i.e. of letting fall down to eternal death; see the antithesis ἀλλὰ , etc.) is correlative to that of the ΔΈΔΩΚΈ ΜΟΙ . Comp. Joh_17:12.
ἈΝΑΣΤΉΣΩ , Κ . Τ . Λ .] of the actual resurrection at the last day (comp. Joh_5:29, Joh_11:24, Joh_12:48), which, as a matter of course, includes the transformation of those still living. The designation of the thing is a potiori. It is the first resurrection that is meant (see on Luk_14:14; Luk_20:34; Php_3:11; 1Co_15:23), that to the everlasting life of the Messianic kingdom. See on Joh_5:29. Bengel well says: “hic finis est, ultra quem periculum nullum.” Comp. the recurrence of this blessed refrain, Joh_6:40; Joh_6:44; Joh_6:54, which, in the face of this solemn recurrence, Scholten regards as a gloss.
[233] See, on the contrary, Weiss, Lehrbegr. p. 142 ff.—Schleiermacher rationalizes the divine gift and drawing into a divine arrangement of circumstances; see L. J. p. 302 ff. Thus it would be resolved into the general government of the world.—According to Beyschlag, p. 162, there would be in this action of the Father, preparing the way for a cleaving to Christ (comp. vv. 44, 45), an opposition to the light-giving action of the Logos (vv. 4, 5, 9), if the Logos be a personality identical with the Son. But the difference in person between the Father and the Son does not exclude the harmonious action of both for each other. Enlightening is not a monopoly of the Son, excluding the Father; but the Father draws men to the Son, and the Son is the way to the Father. Weiss has rightly rejected as unjohannean (p. 248 f.) the idea of a hidden God, as absolutely raised above the world, who has no immediate connection with the finite.