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Joh_8:17-18. After the first reason in answer to the Pharisaic rejection of His self-witness (namely, that He gave it in the consciousness of His divine mission, Joh_8:14), and after administering a reproof to His antagonists, in connection therewith, for their judging (Joh_8:15-16), there follows a second reason, namely, that His witness to Himself is no violation of the Jewish law, but has more than the amount of truth thereby required.
καὶ … δέ ] atque etiam, as above in Joh_8:16.
τῷ ὑμετ .] emphatically, from the point of view of His opponents (comp. Joh_10:34, Joh_15:25), who took their stand thereon, and regarded Jesus as a παράνομον , and even in Joh_8:13 had had in view a well-known prescription of the law. The words of Christ are therefore no doubt anti-Judaic, but not in themselves antinomian (Schweizer, Baur, Reuss), or belonging to a later Christian point of view (De Wette, B. Crusius, Tholuck); nor must they be taken to mean: for Christ and believers the law exists no longer (Messner, Lehre der Apostel. p. 345); though, no doubt, they expressed His consciousness of being exalted above the Jewish law as it then was, and in the strange and hostile form in which it met Him. Accordingly, Keim[12] is mistaken in saying: “In this way neither could Jesus speak nor John write—not even Paul.” See Joh_5:45-47, Joh_7:19; Joh_7:22 f., Joh_5:39, Joh_10:35, Joh_19:36.
The passage itself from the law is quoted with considerable freedom (Deu_17:6; Deu_19:15), ἀνθρώπων being uttered with intentional emphasis, as Jesus draws a conclusion a minori ad majus. If the law demands two human witnesses, in my witness there is still more; for the witnesses whose declaration is contained therein are (1) my own individuality; and (2) the Father who has sent me; as His representative and interpreter, therefore, I testify, so that my witness is also His. That which took place, as to substance, in the living and inseparable unity of the divine-human consciousness, to wit, His witnessing, and God’s witnessing, Jesus discriminates here only formally, for the sake of being able to apply the passage of the law in question, from which He argues κατʼ ἄνθρωπον ; but not incorrectly (Schenkel): hence, also, there is no need for supplying in thought to ἘΓΏ : “As a human knower of myself, as an honest man” (Paulus), and the like; or even, “as the Son of God” (Olshausen, who also brings in the Holy Ghost).
[12] See his Geschichtlich. Christ. p. 14, ed. 3. Note, on the contrary, that it is John himself who stands higher than Paul. But not even the Johannean Jesus has broken with the law, or treated it as antiquated. See especially vv. 45–47. His relation to the law is also that of πλήρωσις .