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Joh_7:17. The condition of knowing this is that one be willing—have it as the moral aim of his self-determination—to do the will of God. He who is wanting in this, who lacks fundamentally the moral determination of his mind towards God, and to whom, therefore, Christ’s teaching is something strange, for the recognition of which as divine there is in the ungodly bias of his will no point of contact or of sympathy; this knowledge is to him a moral impossibility. But, on the contrary, the bias towards the fulfilling of God’s will is the subjective factor necessary to the recognition of divine doctrine as such; for this doctrine produces the immediate conviction that it is certainly divine by virtue of the moral ὁμοιότης and ὁμοιοπάθεια of its nature with the man’s own nature. Comp. Aristotle, Eth. ix. 3, iii. 1 : τὸ ὅμοιον τοῦ ὁμοίου ἐφίεται . See also on Joh_3:21 and Joh_15:19. It is only in form, not in reality, that the τὴν ἀγάπην τ . θεοῦ ἔχειν ἐν ἑαυτῷ , Joh_5:42, differs from the θέλειν τὸ θέλημα τ . θεοῦ ποιεῖν here, for this latter is the moral praxis of the love ot God. Accordingly, we certainly have in this passage the testimonium internum, but not in the ordinary theological sense, as a thing for those who already believe, but for those who do not yet believe, and to whom the divine teaching of the Lord presents itself for the first time.
The θέλῃ is not superfluous (Wolf, Loesner, and most), but is the very nerve of the relation; note the “suavis harmonia” (Bengel) between θέλῃ and θέλημα . The θέλημα αὐτοῦ , however, must not be limited either to a definite form of the revelation of it (the O. T., Chrysostom, Euthymius Zigabenus, Bengel, Hengstenberg, Weiss, and most), or to any one particular requirement (that of faith in Christ, Augustine, Luther, Erasmus, Lampe, Ernesti, Storr, Tittmann, Weber, Opusc., and most expositors; comp. the saying of Augustine, right in itself, intellectus est merces fidei), which would contradict the fact that the axiom is stated without any limitation; it must be taken in its full breadth and comprehensiveness—“that which God wills,” whatever, how, and wherever this will may require. Even the natural moral law within (Rom_1:20 ff; Rom_2:14-15) is not excluded, though those who heard the words spoken must have referred the general statement to the revelation given to them in the law and the prophets. Finally, it is clear from Joh_6:44-45, Joh_8:47, that willingness to do God’s will must be attributed to the gift and drawing of the Father as its source.
περὶ τῆς διδ .] concerning the teaching now in question, Joh_7:16.
ἐγὼ ἀπʼ ἐμαυτοῦ ] I of myself, thus strongly marking the opposite of ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ . Comp. Joh_5:30. The classical expression πότερον … ἤ occurs only here in the N. T.