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Joh_8:47. Answer to the question in Joh_8:46,—a syllogism whose minor premiss, however, needs not to be supplied in thought (De Wette: “Now I speak the words of God”), seeing that it is contained in ( ὑμεῖς ) ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ οὐκ ἐστέ . That Jesus speaks the words of God is here taken for granted. The major premiss is grounded on the necessary sympathy between God and him who springs from God, who hears the words of God, that is, as such, he has an ear for them. The words, ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ εἶναι , in the sense of being spiritually constituted by God, do not refer to Christian regeneration and to sonship,—for this first begins through faith,—but merely to a preliminary stadium thereof, to wit, the state of the man whom God draws to Christ by the operation of His grace (Joh_6:44), and who is thus prepared for His divine preaching, and is given to Him as His (Joh_6:37). Compare Joh_17:6.
διὰ τοῦτο
ὅτι ] as in Joh_5:16; Joh_5:18. See on Joh_10:17.
Note in connection with Joh_8:47, compared with Joh_8:44, that the moral dualism which is characteristic, not merely of John’s Gospel, but of the gospel generally, here so far reveals its metaphysical basis, that it is traced back to the genetic relation, either to the devil or to God—two opposed states of dependence, which give rise to the most opposite moral conditions, with their respective unsusceptibility or susceptibility to divine truth. The assertion by Jesus of this dualism was not grounded on historical reflection and a conclusion ab effectu ad causam, but on the immediate certitude which belonged to Him as knowing the heart of rom. At the same time, it is incorrect to suppose that He assumes the existence of two classes of human nature differing radically from each other at the very outset (Baur, Hilgenfeld). On the contrary, the moral self-determination by which a man surrenders himself either to the one or the other principle, is no more excluded than the personal guilt attaching to the children of the devil (Joh_8:24; Joh_8:34); though their freedom is the more completely lost, the more completely their hearts become hardened (Joh_8:43). The problem of the metaphysical relation between human freedom and the superhuman power referred to, remains, however, necessarily unsolved, and, indeed, not merely in this passage, but in the whole of the New Testament (even in Romans 9-11); comp. also 1Jn_3:12; 1Jn_4:4. But the freedom itself, in face of that power, and the moral imputation and responsibility remain intact, comp. Joh_3:19-21.