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Joh_8:42 f. God is not your Father, else would ye love me, because ye would be of like descent with me; ἑνὸς γεγαῶτα τοκῆος ἀῤῥαγέος φιλίης ἀλύτῳ ξυνώσατε θεσμῷ , Nonnus. This ἀγαπᾶτε ἂν ἐμὲ would be “the ethical test” (Luthardt) of the like paternity; the fact of its non-existence, although it might have existed, is evidence to the contrary.
ἐγώ ] spoken with a feeling of divine assurance.
ἐξῆλθον ] the proceeding forth from that essential pre-human fellowship with God, which was His as the Son of God, and which took place through the incarnation (Joh_13:3, Joh_16:27-28; Joh_16:30, Joh_17:8). The idea of a mere sending would not be in harmony with the context, the proper subject of which is the Fatherhood of God; comp. Joh_6:62, Joh_17:5.
καὶ ἥκω ) Result of the ἐξῆλθον : and am here, it belongs, along with the rest, also to ἐκ τ . θεοῦ .
οὐδὲ γὰρ ἀπʼ ἐμαυτοῦ , etc.] Confirmation of ἐκ τ . θεοῦ , etc.; for not even of my own self-determination, etc. If Jesus, namely, had not manifested Himself as proceeding from God, He might have come either from a third person, or, at all events, ἀφʼ ἑαυτοῦ ; on the contrary, not even ( οὐδέ ) was this latter the case.
Joh_8:43. After having shown them that they were the children neither of Abraham nor of God, before positively declaring whose children they actually are, He discloses to them the ground of their not understanding His discourse; for everything that they had advanced from Joh_8:33 onwards had been in fact such a non-understanding. The form of expression here used, namely, question and answer ( ὅτι , because; comp. Rom_9:32; 2Co_11:11), is an outflow of the growing excitement; Dissen, ad Dem, de Cor. p. 186, 347. De Wette (comp. Luther, Beza, Calvin) takes ὅτι as equivalent to εἰς ἐκεῖνο ὅτι (see on Joh_2:18): “I say this with reference to the circumstance that.” Illogical, as the clauses must then have stood in the reverse order ( διατί οιὐ δύνασθε … ὅτι τὴν λαλιάν , etc.), because, namely, the words οὐ γινώσκετε denote the relation which is clear from what has preceded.
In the question and in the answer, that on which the emphasis rests is thrown to the end. His discourse was unintelligible to them, because its substance, to wit, His word, was inaccessible to their apprehension, because they had no ears for it. For the cause of this ethical οὐ δύνασθε , see Joh_8:47. λαλιά , which in classical Greek denoted talk, chatter (see on Joh_4:42), signifies in later writers (e.g. Polyb. 32. 9, 4; Joseph. Bell. ii. 8. 5), and in the LXX. and Apocrypha, also Discourse, Sermo,[27] without any contemptuous meaning. Comp. Mat_26:73. So also here; indeed, so different is it from ὁ λόγος , that whilst this last mentioned term denotes the doctrinal substance expressed by the ΛΑΛΙΆ ,—the doctrine, the substance of that which is delivered,[28]
λαλιά denotes the utterance itself, by which expression is given to the doctrine. Comp. Joh_12:48 : ὁ λόγος ὃν ἐλάλησα ; Php_1:14; Heb_12:7.
[27] On λάλιος in bonam partem, see Jacobs, ad Anthol. vi. p. 99, vii. p. 140.
[28] Comp. Weizsäcker in d. Jahrb. für deutsche Theol. 1857, p. 196 f. But in the gospel it is always the verbum vocale, and it should not be confounded with the λόγος of the prologue, which is the verbum substantiale; hence, also, it furnishes no evidence of a deviation from the doctrine of the Logos. The consciousness Jesus possessed of speaking, keeping, doing, etc., the λόγος of God, rested on His consciousness of His being that which is denoted by the Logos of the prologue. Now this consciousness is not the abstract divine, but that of the divine-human Ego, corresponding to the ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο .