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Joh_8:15-16. The course of thought repeated with some minuteness (Tholuck), but similarly to Joh_7:24. The rejection of His testimony by the Pharisees in Joh_8:13, was an act of judgment on their part which, inasmuch as they were unacquainted with His higher position as an ambassador of God, had been determined merely by His cutward sensuous appearance, by His servant’s form ( εἰσορόωντες ἐμὴν βροτοειδέα μορφήν , Nonnus), as to which He seemed to them to be an ordinary man. This Jesus tells them, and adds, how very differently He proceeds in this respect.[10] Κρίνειν receives through the context the condemnatory sense, and κατὰ τὴν σάρκα is not to be understood of the subjective norm (Chrysostom: ἀπὸ ἀνθρωπίνης διανοίας … ἀδίκως ; De Wette: in a carnal, selfish manner; comp. B. Crusius), but of the objective norm (comp. κατʼ ὄψιν , Joh_7:24; Euth. Zigabenus: πρὸς μόνον τὸ φαινόμενον βλέποντες , καὶ μηδὲν ὑψηλότερον καὶ πνευματικὸν ἐννοοῦντες ). Comp. 2Co_5:16.
ἐγὼ οὐ κρίνω οὐδένα ] I condemn no one. There is no need, however, for supplying in thought κατὰ τ . σάρκα , as even Augustine proposed, and after Cyril’s example many modern writers (also Kuinoel, Paulus); to the same thing comes Lücke’s supplement: as you do. This is decidedly to be rejected, partly for the general reason that the proper point would have to be supplied in thought, and partly because, in Joh_8:16, καὶ ἐὰν κρίνω cannot be taken otherwise than absolutely, and without supplement. For these reasons every kind of supplement must be rejected, whether by the insertion of νῦν , which would point to the future judgment (Augustine, Chrysostom, Euth. Zigabenus, Erasmus, and several), or of μόνος (Storr, Godet), as though John had written αὐτὸς ἐγώ . Jesus rather gives utterance to His maxim in the consciousness of having come, not κρίνειν , but to save and bless (comp. on Joh_8:11), which is what He carried out principaliter; but this principle was, that He refrained from all condemnation of others, knowing as He did that κρίνειν was neither the end (Brückner) nor the sphere of His life (Hengstenberg). This principle, however, did not exclude necessary cases of an opposite kind; and of such cases Joh_8:16 supplies the necessary explanation. Luther aptly remarks: “He herewith clothes Himself with His office;” but an antithesis to teaching (Calvin, Beza) is foreign to the verse; and the interpretation: I have no pleasure in judging (De Wette), imports into the words what they do not contain.[11]
Joh_8:16. καὶ ἐὰν κρίνω δὲ ἐγώ ] καὶ δέ here and in Joh_8:17, atque etiam, see on Joh_6:51. The thought is: and even if a κρίνειν on my part should take place, etc. Notwithstanding His maxim, not to judge, such cases bad actually occurred in the exercise of His vocation, and, indeed, just for the purpose of attaining its higher object—as was, moreover, inevitable with His antagonism to sin and the κόσμος . Comp. Luther: “If thou wilt not have our Lord God, then keep the devil; and the office which otherwise is not set for judgment, but for help and consolation, is compelled to assume the function of condemnation.” Luthardt: “But my witness becomes a judgment through unbelief.” This, however, is not in the passage; and Jesus was often enough forced into actual, direct κρίνειν , Joh_8:26.
δέ ] occupies the fourth place, because the preceding words are connected with each other, as in Joh_8:17; Joh_6:51; 1Jn_1:3; Mat_10:18, al.
According to the reading ἀληθινή (see the critical notes), the meaning of the second clause is: my condemnation is a genuine one, answering to the idea, as it ought to be—not equivalent to ἀληθής (B. Crusius). Comp. on Joh_7:28. Reason: For it is not (like an ordinary human personality, restricted to myself) I alone (who condemn), but I and the Father that hath sent me (are the κρίνοντες ), which fellowship ( ὅπερ ἐγὼ κρίνω , τοῦτο καὶ ὁ πατήρ , Euth. Zigabenus) naturally excludes everything that could prevent the κρίσις from being ἀληθινή . Comp. Joh_5:30.
[10] Hilgenfeld, Evang. p. 286, ought therefore not to have concluded that the words, “I judge no man,” presuppose the history of the woman taken in adultery.
[11] Among the meanings imported into the passage may be reckoned Lange’s fanciful notion (L. J. II. p. 958), that Jesus can never regard the real essence of man as worthy of rejection (but merely the caricature which man has made of his own nature by sin). Where is there anything in the passage about the real essence of man?