John 5

CHAPTER V

III

The Attestation Arousing Unbelief Chapters 5 and 6

Five and six are evidently companion chapters. The former shows how the antagonism against Jesus arose in Jerusalem among the rulers of the nation when he manifested and declared himself to be the Son of God. The latter shows a similar opposition in Galilee, where the people at first were favorable to Jesus. Both hostile movements finally resulted in the complete rejection of Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God on the part of the Jewish nation.

THE RISE OF OPEN OPPOSITION IN JERUSALEM CHAPTER 5

John 5:1

1 The Healing on the Sabbath Day, 5:1–18.—After these things there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went to Jerusalem. “After these things” bridges the entire gap between the second return of Jesus, distinguished by the miracle upon the royal officer’s son, and his return to Jerusalem as now reported. “These things” include all that Jesus said and did during this period, of which “things” the miracle is a sample.

Commentators, from the ancient fathers onward, are hopelessly divided as to what festival of the Jews John here refers to. The codices are about equally divided between the reading “a festival of the Jews” (without the Greek article) and “the festival of the Jews” (with the article), although inner reasons would speak for the former reading. Jesus had left Judea in December (4:35) for the reason stated in 4:1–3. First there came the feast of Purim in March; next the Passover in April; fifty days later the Jewish Pentecost; in October the feast of Tabernacles. Purim we may dismiss in short order, since this festival had no connection with the Temple nor with any service there. The book of Esther was read only in the local synagogues, no work was done, and the time was spent in eating and in drinking, often to excess.

Having left Judea as indicated, Jesus would not return there so soon, and surely not for the observance of a festival that compelled nobody to go to Jerusalem. So much is certain: the feast we seek to determine must be sought between the Passover of 2:12, when Jesus cleansed the Temple, and the Passover of 6:4, during which Jesus remained in Galilee. With Purim out of consideration, the choice narrows down to one of the three pilgrim feasts, Passover, Pentecost, or Tabernacles. This means that whichever of these three we choose, we must allow two years between 2:13 and 6:4. In other words, the Passover mentioned in 2:13 is followed by another, and this by the one in 6:4. It is certain that the one mentioned in 6:4 cannot be the next in order after that of 2:13.

For the time from April (2:13) to December Jesus spent in Judea; late in December he came to Galilee. Then if the next April is the festival mentioned in 6:4, the feast referred to in 5:1 must be Purim, which with Jesus’ return to Galilee leaves only three weeks at best till the Passover of 6:4. But in 6:4 we find Jesus in fullest activity and at the height of his work in Galilee. It is impossible to assume that his work in Galilee reached that height in so short a time, i.e., from the end of December to the beginning of April, with time taken out in March for the pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the observance of Purim. Thus 6:4 simply must be placed one year later; it is the second Passover after 2:13.

With this established, it really makes little difference which feast we assume for 5:1, the first Passover after 2:13, or the following Pentecost seven weeks later, or Tabernacles in October. The chronology remains fixed: one Passover (2:13) at which the Temple was cleansed; two Passovers following, the second of which is that of 6:4; then the next at which Jesus died—three years in all, plus the weeks or the months that precede 2:13 (Jesus’ Baptism, first return to Galilee, first appearance in Jerusalem). With the choice for the festival of 5:1 thus reduced, we may eliminate the Passover (the one following the return to Galilee in December). If John had meant this Passover in 5:1, we have every reason to assume that he would have used its name instead of writing merely “a (or: the) feast of the Jews.” He writes thus indefinitely because what follows did not occur at the feast, or in the Temple, nor was it connected with the feast. It took place on a Sabbath following the feast, at the pool called Bethesda. Most likely, then, the feast of 5:1 is either Pentecost or Tabernacles.

The latter, by all odds, is the preferable choice. Having left Judea because of the evil agitation of the Pharisees (4:1–3) in December, Jesus would hardly return to Jerusalem in three months (April, Passover), or a few weeks later (Pentecost), but would delay till Tabernacles in October. This assumption at least meets most adequately all the data available, and, as we shall see, even the character of the miracle related in 5:2, etc. We note that Jesus then attended only two Passovers at Jerusalem during his ministry, the first and the last; and remained away for the two that intervene. Why he did not attend that of 6:4 John tells us in 7:1.

John 5:2

2 Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porches. “Is” = is still, after the destruction of Jerusalem, when John wrote; it is not the “is” of vivid narrative, since the narration goes on with ordinary tenses. With ἐπὶτῇπροβατικῇ supply πύλῃ, as is usual with such substantivized adjectives: “by the sheep gate.” Besides having other names, this swimming pool had the Hebrew (i.e. Aramaic, R. 104) name “Bethesda,” House of Mercy, which was most likely bestowed upon it because of the erection of the five porches for the charitable accomodation of the sick, or because of the mercy of God manifested in the supposed periodic healing. The exact location of this pool the archaeologists must determine, but we refuse to accept as the probable site the excavation seventy-five feet deep near the gate now called St. Stephen’s, because it would be impossible for sick people to plunge into it except to drown. The exact location is immaterial for the narrative. John mentions the Aramaic name of the place because in this language the name bears a significant relation to the miracle here wrought by Jesus.

John 5:3

3 In these was lying a multitude of sick, blind, lame, withered. The five porches or covered colonnades were like a hospital, filled with a crowd of sufferers, four classes being mentioned, this number often being used for indicating completeness. The first group, the “sick,” takes in all that are not included in the other groups. The absence of the articles draws attention to the qualities indicated by the nouns. When so many sufferers are brought together they impress us much more than when we see them singly; we then see more adequately all the wretchedness, the misery, the broken lives that form the result of sin among men.

Verse 4: “for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and troubled the waters: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole with whatsover disease he was holden,” is a spurious addition. The final words in v. 3, “waiting for the moving of the water,” may, indeed, state what was true, and may rest on v. 7, but are textually so doubtful that they must be cancelled. Since the details of these findings really belong not to commentaries but to works on technical text criticism, we here pass these details by. Tertullian used this spurious passage for his favorite conception of “the baptismal angel”; somewhat later Ambrose saw in it a prophecy of the descent of the Holy Spirit, consecrating the water of baptism to a mystical washing away of sin; and Chrysostom had the same conception. The spurious passage reflects only a popular notion of the time. The fresh water, bubbling up periodically, may have had some medicinal qualities.

These were exaggerated as being curative for all kinds of ailments. Popular superstition did the rest. Thus shrines and fountains still attract multitudes of sick people; and since certain nervous troubles yield to strong suggestion, some sufferers find relief or cure at places of this kind and in a perfectly natural way. Catholic shrines, Christian Science, faith healers, etc., operate in this manner. In John’s account Jesus completely disregards the pool, the cure the sick man hoped to find there and thought that others found.

John 5:5

5 And a certain man was there, having been thirty-eight years in his infirmity. Longer than an average term of life this man had suffered; how long he had been at Bethesda we are not told, though the implication is that he had been there for some time. His ailment rendered him helpless and may have been a form of paralysis, which was possibly due to youthful excesses (v. 14). With adverbs and adverbial expressions ἔχω = to be; here, “having been,” the present participle getting its time from the main verb ἦν.

John 5:6

6 Him, when Jesus saw lying and knew that he had been thus already a long time, he says to him, Dost thou want to become well? Jesus selects what was probably the worst case then present at Bethesda. The two aorist participles ἰδών and γνούς merely state the facts that Jesus saw this man, just described in 5, and that he knew about the long time he had been sick. Here ἔχει is again used with an adverbial modifier as in v. 5. Its present tense “gathers up past and present into one phrase” (Moulton in R. 879), for which we use the perfect, “has been,” which after a past tense we change to the past perfect: knew that he “had been.” We need assume no miraculous seeing and knowing in this case. This exceptional case would be generally known, perhaps even be paraded before visitors.

It is true, the disciples are not mentioned in this entire chapter, and from this silence the conclusion has been drawn that Jesus visited Jerusalem alone at this time. But the latter is altogether unlikely. The disciples are not mentioned because John finds no occasion for referring to them. They may have drawn Jesus’ attention to this man, having had their attention drawn to him by others.

The question of Jesus, “Dost thou want to become well?” could not awaken and was not intended by Jesus to awaken faith in the man. Here is a plain instance where the miracle precedes the faith, where the faith even follows some time later. Jesus merely attracts the sick man’s attention (Acts 3:3) and makes him think of his sad condition and how desirable it would be to change that for complete health. Note the punctiliar aorist γενέσθαι: “be well,” or “become well” at one stroke; not: gradually be getting well.

John 5:7

7 The man’s reply is discouraging enough; it is only the whine and complaint of many a man who has been sick a long while. He does not rouse up enough even to answer with a decided, “Yes!” or, “Yes, I do!” All he answers is the hopeless plaint he had often repeated before. The sick man answered him: Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool; but while I am coming, another goes down before me. The address Κύριε is most likely due to the dignity in the appearance and the manner of Jesus. “I have no man” voices the disappointed wish of past days, “Oh, if only I had some man to help me!” Did the look of interest on Jesus’ face, the tone of power in his voice, perhaps lead him for a second to think that this man would help him finally to reach the water in time, or obtain some other man to do so? In the clause, “whenever the water is troubled,” the aorist indicates the brief moment of the disturbance. We may accept this periodic welling-up of the water in a certain part of the pool as being true; but the angel is the invention of the author of v. 4.

The man also believed in the curative power of this freshly bubbling water and imagined it would cure him, too, if only he could reach it in time. What virtue the water really had it is not in the interest of John to report. After ἔχω the ἵνα clause takes the place of the infinitive, B.-D. 379; although R. 960, 1011 makes it usurp the function of a relative clause, which, however, would be a different conception, one about the man instead of about the action. “To throw,” βάλῃ, is summary, standing on no ceremony, losing not a second because of gentle handling.

Always he gets there too late. While he is still coming, another goes down before him, pre-empts the precious spot where the water churns for a little while, and in the rush to get there with others he is hopelessly left behind. The Greek heightens the effect by the abutting of ἐγώ and ἄλλος.

John 5:8

8 Three mighty words from the lips of Jesus do more than this man’s years of effort. And Jesus says to him, Arise, take up thy bed, and walk. The punctiliar aorist imperative ᾶ̓ρον expresses the momentary lifting of the κράββατος or pad on which the man lay; and the durative present imperative the indefinitely extended action of walking. The two tenses are good illustrations of their use. We must regard ἔγειρε as merely being attached to ἆρον, hence no comma or καί is necessary; hence also, like other such attached imperatives, we have the usual present tense without independent tense force, and here it is aoristic because it is attached to ἆρον, R. 855; not, however, ἔγειραι, another reading, see the verb in R. 1215.

John 5:9

9 The effect of the three verbs is instantaneous. And straightway the man became well and did take up his bed and was walking. The evidence for cancelling εὑθέως is too meager. But apart from this adverb the verbs and their tenses express an immediate effect. The man was sound and well on the instant, all traces of the ailment of thirty-eight years had vanished and were gone. Strength surged through his body: he did pick up his bed (again aorist) and he was walking away (the durative imperfect).

Some interpreters think that faith was necessary for the miraculous healing. Some claim that Jesus saw this faith before he spoke the words; others, that faith instantly followed the words. If not faith in the ordinary sense, then at least the faith of the man in his own ability to do as Jesus said. Thus, we are told: “The man believed that word to be accompanied with power; made proof, and found that it was so.” Or, “the command of Jesus brings the courage of faith to his soul, and power into his limbs, to obey the command.” On the contrary, the man suddenly was sound and well, and this apart from faith in any sense of the word. He no more needed to believe either in Jesus’ word to arise, etc., or in his own health and strength, than any hale and hearty man does. He had the soundness, that was all.

He had more; for when a man has not walked for a long time he must learn again, and this man needed not to learn. His muscles were firm and responded to his will as if they were perfectly trained and practiced. Why should not the man pick up his bed and walk away?

But did not Jesus go too far when he told the man to carry away his bed? Would it not, in view of the faultfinding it would surely arouse on the part of the Sanhedrists, have been wiser to let the man abandon his bed and go on without it? As regards the second question, it is plainly Jesus’ intention to oppose, openly and positively, both the human traditions and the false spirit of the Jewish leaders. One must study their barren, legalistic, and casuistic methods of building up a hedge of human traditions or regulations around the law of God, in order to see how utterly impossible it was for Jesus to avoid clashing with the exponents of these traditions. They found thirty kinds of labor forbidden on the Sabbath and they insisted on these prohibitions, deduced by their own wisdom, in such a way as to lose sight of the law’s chief requirements and true spiritual intention. Jesus could have lived in peace with these men only by submitting to their spirit and their methods, and this was an utter impossibility. So he even invites the conflict.

As regards the first question Moses had, indeed, said, Exod. 20:10, “In it thou shalt not do any work”; and Jeremiah 17:19–27 especially forbids burden-bearing. But this latter passage speaks clearly of that desecration of the Sabbath to which the Jews were ever prone, of doing business on the Sabbath and of working at common labor for gain. The prophet meant marketing and trading. Nehemiah (13:15, etc.) had difficulty with “the merchants and sellers of all kinds of ware,” treading wine presses on the Sabbath, bringing in sheaves, and lading asses; as also wine, grapes, figs, and all manner of burdens. The men of Tyre brought figs and all manner of ware and sold them on the Sabbath to the children of Judah in Jerusalem. A glance is enough to show the difference between this sort of burden-bearing and that of the healed man carrying his bed.

The former dishonored God, the latter glorified God and his mercy. That was done for private gain, not being satisfied with six workdays, this was done for the Master’s praise. That was clearly forbidden, this Jesus himself, in perfect harmony with the law of Moses, commanded. For the miracle wrought at Bethesda was not intended only for the man upon whom it was wrought but for as many as should see this man. It was a sign to the Jews. As such it was intended, while in no way transgressing God’s law, to run counter to the false Jewish traditions and thus to turn men’s hearts—if they would be turned at all—to the true authority of Jesus, who, while upholding God’s law, brought to view the mercy which both heals the sufferer’s body and sets free his soul from spiritual bondage.

Such was the significance of the sign set before the eyes of the men in Jerusalem: a man marvelously healed carrying his bed before men’s eyes through the streets to his home, on the Sabbath!

John 5:10

10 The clash comes. Now it was the Sabbath on that day. The Jews, accordingly, were saying to the man who had been healed, It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for thee to carry the bed. Jesus purposely chose the Sabbath for performing this sign. As on his first visit he cleansed the Temple of traffikers, so on this second visit he seeks to cleanse the people of their false traditions. John records this miracle for the very purpose of showing how the first preliminary clash is now followed by one that is more violent.

Here we get the full hostile sense which John puts into the designation “the Jews.” These were not ordinary people whom the man met on the streets as he walked along, but, as the sequel shows, men of authority (v. 16), Pharisees, some of them perhaps Sanhedrists. Their chief concern was whether a thing was “lawful,” ἔξεστιν, permitted or not, they being the sole judges in their casuistic fashion. The verb αἴρω may mean either “to take up” or “to bear,” “to carry,” according to the connection; see 1:29.

The imperfect ἔλεγον describes how these authorities urged the point upon the man. John calls him, with the perfect participle, “he who has been healed,” i.e., is such now. Not one word “were they saying” to the man about his wonderful healing. Significant silence!

John 5:11

11 The healed man knows a different authority. But he answered them, He that made me well, that one said to me, Take up thy bed and walk. We must read ἐκεῖνος not only as resumptive but at the same time as strongly emphatic, “that one,” or “that man,” he who did this wonderful deed, ὁποιήσας, the aorist to indicate the one deed. This is the man’s authority for doing what he does, and this authority not only permitted but commanded the act. We are not informed whether the man put down his bed in deference to the Jews, or not; it seems that he did not do so. Pointedly he describes Jesus as “he that did make me well.”

John 5:12

12 But this is lost upon the Jews—and yet not lost; for on his first visit to Jerusalem Jesus had wrought a goodly number of such signs and had impressed many, 3:23. These Jews had no use for such signs; they deliberately refuse to ask this man about the great deed of healing. They inquired of him, Who is the man that said to thee, Take up and walk? Their minds are fixed only on the supposed transgression, on this violation of their all-important traditions. For these Jews Jesus is not the man who healed this great sufferer, who bestowed on him divine mercy, but a man who broke their traditions, who had to be punished. When they here inquire who it is that issued this unlawful command, we must not suppose that they did not from the start know that it was Jesus.

They know only too well. They ask in order to secure legal testimony against Jesus. They want the man’s direct testimony, in order then to take legal action against Jesus. That, too, is why they quote only the verbs “take up and walk,” for these mark the crime in their eyes. The sign was before them, placed there by the master hand of Jesus, but these Jews neither read its meaning nor think of obeying its admonition.

John 5:13

13 But he that was healed knew not who it was; for Jesus slipped aside, a crowd being in the place. The very presence of the crowd made Jesus postpone the completion of his work upon the man; he would finish the task at a more opportune time. So he slipped away from the man through the crowd, ἐκιεύω, “to lean sideways,” thus “to evade” or slip away; the aorist simply states the past fact, for which the English prefers the pluperfect as bringing out the time relation (see R. 840, etc.). Why such a crowd visited the place on this Sabbath is not explained. But those are evidently wrong who suppose that Jesus did not consider that the day was the Sabbath, and who say that Jesus meant to do a kindly deed in a sort of private way. An ordinary man might not think about the Sabbath in such a way, though a sincere Jew would scarcely do so.

Moreover, the crowd was evidently present because it was the Sabbath, when many visitors were free from occupation and could go to visit sick friends. But the idea that Jesus forgot about the Sabbath would make this decisive miracle of his with its consequences so vital for him a kind of accident—which we simply cannot believe. Then, with this crowd present, how could Jesus tell the man to carry his bed without at once attracting public attention? The man did not go far through that crowd before the Jews, those with some authority, stopped him. No; it was Jesus who deliberately set this sign of his before these people. Not a few must have stood around when the man was catechized.

The aorist ὁἰαθείς simply states the past fact that the man was healed, while the perfect in v. 10 adds to the past fact the present implication of his now being one thus healed. There is something noteworthy about Jesus’ sending of this weak beginner in the faith against such powerful antagonists as “the Jews,” and in his putting these antagonists to silence by the man’s very weakness and ignorance. For all the man could reply to the probing of the Jews was that the man who had healed him had given him the order to carry his bed. In other words, all he could do was to reiterate the miracle (the credential and authority of Jesus) and the command that went with it (resting on that credential and authority). Because the man himself was compelled to tell about the miracle and the command he was fortified in his young faith.

John 5:14

14 After these things Jesus finds him in the Temple and said to him, Behold, thou art become well. Sin no more, lest something worse come to thee. This finding may have occurred on the same day or on the following day. On Jesus’ part it is intentional, for he now means to complete what he began with the unexpected miracle. It was a good sign that Jesus found the man in the Temple, where the man evidently had gone in order to thank God for the great mercy he had found in the House of Mercy and to render due sacrifice.

The word Jesus addresses to the man is remarkable. First a vivid reminder of the priceless benefit, “Behold, thou art become well!” the perfect tense implying that he stands here as a well man this very moment. This is the lever whose motive power is to lift the man to a higher plane. For Jesus adds, “Sin no more!” and like a flash lays bare the man’s distant past (4:18), extending over more than thirty-eight years. He had sinned, sinned in a way which his conscience would at once painfully recall, sinned so as to wreck his life in consequence. The objection that Jesus here has in mind sinfulness in general, because in Luke 13:1–5 he will not let his disciples infer a special guilt from a special calamity, cannot hold, for certain sins do entail painful and dreadful results.

And if Jesus here enjoins perfect sinlessness upon the healed man, how could he ever hope to escape the worse thing? No; the man had great sins on his conscience. The bodily suffering these sins had caused him Jesus had removed. Here lay the grace of pardon—by far the best thing in the miracle for the man personally. This Jesus now impresses upon the man’s soul. “Sin no more” involves that Jesus pardons the man’s past sins; for if the great sins of the past still stand against this man, what would abstinence from future open sins avail?

But, alas, even after thirty-eight years of suffering the root of the old evil remains, which may now shoot up again and spread its poisonous branches. Let every man who has by divine grace conquered some sinful propensity, some special “weakness,” some dangerous habit, remember that “Sin no more!” must ever ring in his ears in warning. “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak,” Matt. 26:41. But now that Jesus has freed this man, the admonition to sin no more comes with an effectiveness, bestowing strength and help, such as the man had never experienced before. So it is in every case. Not by our own unaided strength are we to fight our foe and sin no more but in the strength which Jesus gives and is ready to renew and to increase daily.

“Lest something worse come to thee,” χεῖρόντι (neuter comparative of κακός), by its very indefiniteness heightens the warning—something worse than thirty-eight years of suffering. We need not think only of the damnation of hell, although this, too, is meant. “Let no man, however miserable, count that he has exhausted the power of God’s wrath. The arrows that have pierced him may have been keen; but there are keener yet, if only he provoke them, in the quiver from which these were drawn.” Trench. On the one hand Jesus sets the benefit received, on the other hand the grace of warning, and between these two the admonition to sin no more. Thus, held by a double cord, the man will surely be found true in the end. It is a double healing which we witness, and the latter is the greater of the two.

John 5:15

15 The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus that had made him well. This action of the man has been misconceived as being a malicious reporting of Jesus to the authorities. Such a treacherous person Jesus would neither have healed nor have treated with pastoral care after the healing. Others seek for the man’s motive by supposing that the man wanted to bring the Jews to faith, or wanted to challenge the Jews with an authority that was superior to theirs, or wanted to discharge his duty to the authorities, or wanted to cover himself against blame by thrusting it upon Jesus. We must not forget that Jesus set this great sign publicly before the Jewish authorities, and that he purposely did it on the Sabbath. The man also reports to the Jews, not that it was Jesus who told him to carry his bed, but that it was Jesus who made him well.

The Greek indirect discourse retains the original tenses of the direct; the man actually said, “It is Jesus who did make me well,” which the English indirect discourse changes, “that it was Jesus who hade made him well.” Jesus wants his person and his name attached to the sign which he himself had publicly advertised by the bed carried on the Sabbath. Through the man Jesus furnishes the Jews exactly what they want: direct legal evidence that he is the man back of everything. The man’s motive is only a tool in Jesus’ hands; the motive of Jesus dominates. John reports briefly. Did the man not tell Jesus how the Jews had stopped and quizzed him? Perhaps Jesus actually directed the man now to go and to tell these Jews what they demand to know.

John 5:16

16 And on this account the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. We see that by “the Jews” the authorities are meant. The imperfect ἐδίωκον, “were persecuting,” means continuously persecuting. The second imperfect ἐποίει, “he was doing,” instead of the aorist ἐποίησε, “he did,” contains the inference of the Jews; for from the one act of healing and ordering the man to carry his bed on the Sabbath they rightly conclude that further acts such as this performed on the Sabbath will be regarded by Jesus as being perfectly in order. Whether Jesus thus performed more deeds of this kind on the following Sabbaths or not is immaterial. The Jews held Jesus liable not merely for once breaking the Sabbath by the one act (which would require the aorist) but for his general attitude regarding their traditional Sabbath observance.

This also explains ταῦτα, “these things,” a plural not because of the miracle plus the order about the bed, but a plural to include all that Jesus deemed proper to do on the Sabbath in contradiction to the Jewish traditions. The fact that the persecution involved the determination to make away with Jesus is seen from μᾶλλον in v. 18. To these fanatical Jews their own hatred, persecution, and murderous intentions were virtues, and the mercy, the miracles of Jesus, and his showing them as signs and seals of his divine Sonship, mortal crimes. They broke the law in the most glaring way by their pseudo-vindication of the law against him who never broke it and could not break it. “And sought to slay him” (A. V.) seems to be an interpolation from v. 18 and should be cancelled.

John 5:17

17 Part of the persecution venting itself upon Jesus consisted in charging him with violating the Sabbath. John is not concerned with the details of time, place, and other circumstances when these attacks occurred, but only with Jesus’ replies, filled as they are with the weightiest attestations concerning himself. As short and striking as is the first reply, so full and elaborate is the second (v. 19, etc.). But Jesus answered them, My father works till now. Also I myself work. That is all—not another word.

But this brief word is like a shot into the center of the target, such as Jesus alone is able to deliver. It absolutely and completely refutes the Jewish authorities. This time Jesus uses no mashal, as in 2:19, with a hidden meaning that requires a key to unlock it, but a word that is as clear as crystal. He does not say “our Father” and thus place himself on a level with the Jews or with men generally but pointedly “my Father” (see 20:17). And the Jews at once grasp the meaning that Jesus declares God to be his Father in a sense in which no other man can call God Father, i.e., that in his person as the Son he is equal (ἴσον) with the Father. Hence also the emphatic ἐγώ which parallels ὁπατήρμου.

Hence also the two identical verbs: “he works—I work.” The entire reply of Jesus centers in this equality of his as the Son with the Father.

The sense of this reply is so plain that the Jews could not and did not miss it. Do these Jews mean to accuse the Father, the very author and giver of the law, who, as every child knows, keeps on working (durative present tense) till this very day, stopping for no Sabbaths? Are they making God a lawbreaker? Well, Jesus says, this is my Father, I am his Son, we are equal. I work exactly as he does (again durative present). The point is that it is unthinkable that the Father and the Son or either of them, the very givers of the law, should ever break the law. When thus the Jews, as they do, charge Jesus with breaking the law, something must be radically wrong with their charge.

John 5:18

18 On this account, therefore, the Jews were seeking the more to kill him, because he not only was breaking the Sabbath but was also calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. This verse is built exactly like v. 16, “On this account … because,” etc. But v. 18 is a strong advance upon v. 16. The cause is greater, also the resultant effect. Jesus’ word of defense and justification made matters much worse. In v. 16 the Jews charge only that Jesus was doing certain wrong things on the Sabbath; now they charge that he is breaking the Sabbath, ἔλυε, dissolving and annulling it, the imperfect meaning that he is making this his business, R. 884, not only by what he is doing on the Sabbath but by his entire claim.

And not only is he busy destroying the Sabbath but on top of that he is calling (ἔλεγε, the same iterative imperfect) God his own Father, which these Jews define as “making himself equal with God.” This definition of what the Jews understood Jesus to mean by pointedly calling God “my Father” removes all doubt on the subject. All who claim that Jesus never called himself the Son of God, equal with the Father, must reject this entire Gospel as a piece of falsification. If Jesus did not mean what the Jews here understood him to say and to mean, Jesus should and could and would have said, “But this is not what I mean.” Instead Jesus accepts this as being in reality his meaning. He does this not once but again and again until his final trial and even on his cross. And that is the very reason why John records this altercation with the Jews. It embodies another clear and decisive attestation of Jesus regarding who he really is.

As it is with the cause, so it is with the result. While v. 16 has the more indefinite ἐδίωκον, “they were persecuting him,” we now have μᾶλλονἐζήτουνἀποκτεῖναι, “they were the more seeking to kill him.” What is only implied in v. 16 now comes out boldly; for μᾶλλον = magis not potius. The Jews are not seeking to kill rather than to persecute; but are seeking to kill even more than they sought this before. So early the fatal issue was drawn.

In this first summary reply to the Jews Father and Son are simply placed side by side as Father and as Son. Both work, yet neither breaks the Sabbath law by so doing. When Jesus adds in regard to the Father that he works “till now” this is to make plain that the Father’s work since the creation is referred to, including all the Sabbaths even to the present day; of course, no such explanatory modifier is needed when Jesus speaks of his own working. In both instances Jesus uses the unmodified verb: the Father “works”—“I work.” The statement is unrestricted: take any and every work of either Father or Son, none break the Sabbath. We have no right to limit the Father’s working to his work of grace only and to justify that limitation by pointing to Jesus whose office was this work of grace. Jesus does not say: the Father and I in this work of grace do not transgress the Sabbath.

The Sabbath law was, indeed, temporary (Col. 2:16, 17), but we should misunderstand Jesus if we supposed that he already abrogated, at least for himself, the divine regulations of the Sabbath law as God had given them to Israel. He does not mean that the Father and the Son are superior to this old Sabbath law, since both are God, or that he (Jesus) is free to disregard its regulations. The fact is the contrary. As the Messiah Jesus was put under the law and in his entire life and during his entire office fulfilled every jot and tittle of the law, including all the divine Sabbath regulations. Only confusion results when we bring in the Christian Sunday and when we make Jesus live according to this instead of according to the Jewish Sabbath. The entire contention of Jesus was intended to uphold the divine Sabbath law in its full integrity against the Pharisaic traditions with their vain and empty regulations which smothered even the spirit and utterly defeated the very purpose of God’s Sabbath law.

As the Son of God Jesus could and would not bow to these traditions or to any others the Pharisees had foisted upon the law. These “commandments of men” would make the Son, who worked only in harmony with the Father, being one with him, a slave (δοῦλος) of arrogant, blinded, perverted men. His Sonship, his Messiahship, his entire office by their very nature made Jesus challenge this attempt to make him bow as a slave to these wretched commandments. As the Father repudiated them, so did Jesus, the Father’s Son.

The Attestation Regarding the Person and the Work of Jesus before the Hostile Jews in Jerusalem, 5:19–47.—The contention that Jesus appeared at this feast in Jerusalem only in the capacity of a private pilgrim cannot be correct, for no private pilgrim would work such a miracle and order the man upon whom it was wrought to carry his bed home in the most public manner on the Sabbath day. This also disposes of the contention that on this visit Jesus appeared without his disciples. They are not mentioned in chapter five, because John has no occasion to mention them. Neither in 2:13 nor in 7:10 are the disciples mentioned, yet in 2:17 we incidentally learn that they were present. Neither in chapter seven nor in chapter eight do the disciples play a part, and hence again John makes no mention of them. John writes of the miracle in our chapter as though he were an eyewitness, and he with the other disciples heard the words of Jesus’ defense with their own ears.

Was the discourse of v. 19–47 uttered in one stretch, without interruption, or is it pieced together and made one by John? The more one reads this discourse, the more the impression deepens that it was spoken as it stands. The thought is closely knit together, and the force of the discourse depends on this continuity and this close coherence. The brief reply in v. 17 reads like a thesis, of which v. 19–47 are the elaboration. This creates the impression that the discourse followed the thesis, perhaps after only a very brief interval. Just as in v. 17 time, place, and other circumstances are omitted as being wholly immaterial, so here in v. 19.

All we know and need to know is that Jesus, therefore, answered and said unto them, the hostile Jews, what now follows. The two verbs (see 1:48) mark the gravity of what follows, but here the first is the aorist middle instead of the more frequent aorist passive, the sense being the same, R. 818.

The thesis of v. 17 contains two points, and the discourse elaborates these: 1) regarding the person and the work of Jesus, v. 19–29; 2) regarding the testimony he bore concerning himself, v. 30–47.

John 5:19

19 Amen, amen, I say unto you (see 3:3) the Son can do nothing of himself, except what he sees the Father doing; for what things that One does, these also the Son does in like manner. The double seal of verity, “Amen, amen,” is combined with the voice of authority, “I say to you.” Compare 1:51. It is absolutely impossible that Jesus should ever break the law, including that of the Sabbath. It is absolutely impossible just because he is the Son, from eternity one with the Father and now the incarnate Son, come to earth to carry out absolutely nothing but the Father’s will. If the Son, then, be charged by the Jews with breaking the Sabbath law, the charge would strike the Father himself. He is, indeed, “the Son,” this Jesus who stands before the Jews in human flesh.

The Jews were perfectly right when in v. 18 they understood that Jesus made himself “equal with God.” This very relation of the Son to the Father makes it simply impossible (οὑδύναται) that Jesus should do (ποιεῖν, now or ever) anything “of himself,” ἀφʼ ἑαυτοῦ, so that the thing would emanate from him alone and be done by him alone, separate and apart from the Father and thus deviating from and contradictory to the Father’s will—even as the Jews charged that Jesus was breaking God’s Sabbath law. Such a thing is possible for men; even Moses thus did a thing “of himself” (Num. 20:11, 12): but in the case of the Son, since he is the Son, this is absolutely excluded.

Over against this negative Jesus sets the opposite affirmative, “except what he sees (or: shall see) the Father doing,” the participle ποιοῦντα after the verb of seeing. The sense is not that the Son merely can do this, as though he might still omit his doing. For the γάρ clause at once shuts that thought out, “for what things that One does, these also the Son does in like manner.” In ἄν we merely have ἐάν, R. 190, 1018, John alone using the shorter form. The demonstrative ἐκεῖνος is strongly emphatic, “that One,” i.e., the Father, R. 708. Moreover, καί is to be construed with ταῦτα, “these also,” in the sense of “precisely these,” R. 1181; not, “the Son also” (R. V.).

Jesus even adds “in like manner”: the things both do are identical and the manner of the doing by both is identical. These tenses are present throughout; they state principles inherent in this relation of the Father and the Son, enduring and without exception. Since these two are Father and Son they also continue in intimate communion: the Son constantly “sees” the Father and what the Father “is doing.” This is predicated of the Son, not for the reason that he is inferior to the Father as the Son, but because it was he who assumed the redemptive mission, because it was he who was executing that mission in the incarnate state. As the Son in human flesh thus engaged in his mission his eyes were ever upon his Father, and no man will ever fathom the real inwardness of this seeing on the Son’s part. Thus, however, Jesus asserts not only that he as the Son does what the Father does, all that and only that, but also that all he thus does, he does as if the Father himself does it, for it is all and in every way the Father’s will and work.

In spite of the perfect simplicity and lucidity of Jesus’ words their sense is often darkened or misunderstood. Jesus asserts an impossibility (οὑδύναται, the negative even being re-enforced in οὑδέν), one based on the very nature of this Father and this Son. Yet some interpreters tell us that the Son might have done something “of himself,” but his love and his obedience held him in check. We, however, believe what Jesus says. Also, the word of Jesus is misunderstood when it is refered to the divine concursus of providence, the dependence of the man Jesus as a creature on his Creator and Preserver. Thus, we are told, the Jews were wrong, Jesus never meant to make himself “equal with God” and corrects this view in v. 19 as a serious misunderstanding.

The fact that he twice calls himself “the Son” and twice refers to “the Father” (once with the emphatic ἐκεῖνος) is brushed aside. For the perfect union and communion of the Father and the Son because of their equal divine nature the creature dependence of Jesus is substituted, the inferiority of his nature as compared with that of his Father. Thus, we are told, Jesus only imitates the Father, copies a superior model, moved only by his love and obedience. We, however, still believe just what Jesus says.

John 5:20

20 Jesus draws the curtain aside still farther. For the Father has affection for the Son and shows him all things that he does. One in essence, Father and Son are naturally bound together also in affection, and this explains still further what Jesus has said (γάρ). Here Jesus uses φιλεῖν, the love of affection, whereas in 3:35 he uses ἀγαπᾶν, the love of full comprehension and purpose. This does not imply that the former here denies the latter, which it does not do, but that the former harmonizes better with the relation of the two equal persons and their consequent affectionate intercourse. In v. 19, “what he may (or shall) do,” might refer only to some things the Father does; here we learn that the Father shows the Son “all things that he does,” πάντα, without restriction, which, as a matter of course, includes all that pertains to our redemption.

The verb “shows” corresponds with the verb “sees” in v. 19. The communication between these divine Persons is perfect and complete in every way. “Shows” and “sees,” because the Son is incarnate and in his humiliation on his redemptive mission. In the last clause αὑτός merely marks the fact that the Father is intended as the subject, otherwise it might be regarded as the Son. Note the undetermined present tenses: “has affection”—“does”—“shows,” always, ever. The very action of Jesus in saying these things to the Jews is a reflex of the Father’s will and act.

The general statement is made more specific: and greater works than these will he show him, in order that you may marvel. We must not miss the implication regarding the works Jesus has already done, including the healing on the Sabbath and the healed man’s carrying his bed, that these were done by Jesus not “of himself” and apart from the Father but altogether in union with the Father. These were certainly great works, at which the Jews might well marvel. But these Jews are to know that for the Father and the Son, namely Jesus, these great works are only a beginning. Prophets, too, have wrought miracles and yet were only men. Jesus is infinitely greater—he is the Son.

Hence in the days to come (δείξει, future) the Father will show him “greater works,” which shall, indeed, reveal Jesus as the Son. “Will show” means far more than “let him see,” for Jesus knows and thus already sees these works; he even enumerates them to the Jews. “Will show” implies that when the time comes, the Father will execute these works through Jesus, his Son. These greater works are the raising of the spiritually dead, the final raising of the bodily dead, and the last judgment. They are “greater” because they are fuller and loftier manifestations of the same power that displayed itself in the incidental miracles. The future tense “will show” must not be pressed as though no spiritual vivification had as yet taken place, for some had already been reborn; the tense refers to the mass of believers yet to follow before the day of resurrection and judgment. On and after the day of Pentecost, before the very eyes of these Jews, literally thousands obtained the new life.

“That you may marvel” is the intention of the Father and of Jesus. Note the emphatic ὑμεῖς, which means: people like you, unbelievers. These greater works are marvelous also to the disciples, but in their case the marveling is filled with faith, and in their case this faith is mentioned as the essential thing. This is true already with reference to the miracles, 2:11 for instance, and 20:31. In the case of the Jews and in the case of all unbelievers it will be empty marveling alone. They will not know what to make of these works, they will be astonished and finally overwhelmed by their progress and their power. The final exhibition of this marveling Paul describes when he tells us that at the name of Jesus every knee shall at last bow, Phil. 2:9 and 11.

John 5:21

21 With γάρ Jesus exemplifies and begins to describe the greater works, the μείζοναἔργα which are parts of the one great ἔργον of Jesus as our Redeemer. They furnish the details for the refutation of the Jewish charges. So mighty is each detail that the accusers should have become terrified because they had called Jesus a lawbreaker and should have fled in consternation. But the doom of unbelief is the wicked and presumptuous blindness which leads men to war against a gracious and an almighty God to the last. For just as the Father raises the dead and quickens them, thus also the Son quickens whom he wills. Verses 21–25 describe the raising and the quickening of the spiritually dead.

Here Jesus does not include the raising of the bodily dead, Lazarus and others, and all the dead of the last day; and still less does Jesus here speak only of the bodily resurrection at the last day. The raising of the three dead persons were miracles and thus belong only to the great not to the greater works. The final raising of all the dead at the last day is described in v. 28 in connection with the final judgment.

Note how v. 21 parallels the Father’s and the Son’s work just as v. 17 had done, save that in v. 21 “just as … thus also” formally emphasizes the parallel actions. The equality of the work evidences the equality of the Persons. The raising and the Quickening are two sides of one work, the one negative, the other positive; for where death is removed, life is assuredly bestowed. It is impossible to regard these as two works: first, bodily raising; secondly, spiritual quickening. For both verbs have the identical object “the dead,” which cannot be divided so as once to refer to the bodily dead and then to the spiritually dead. All the present tenses used in this verse have the same meaning; they refer to these acts as being in continuous progress.

We cannot refer one or the other of these equal tenses to a peculiar time. In other words, all the spiritual raising and quickening that has ever taken place (from the beginning onward), takes place now, or ever will take place, is equally the work of the Father and the Son; and we may add from the following: because they are wrought by the Father through the Son.

Only the one verb “quickens” is used in the clause with reference to the Son, to avoid a pedantic repetition of the two in the first clause. The addition “whom he wills” does not intend to mark a difference between the Father and the Son, for the Father certainly raises and quickens also only those whom he wills; and the will of Father and of Son is identical. This is the gracious and saving will, revealed in a large number of passages of Scripture, among which 3:16 stands out prominently, look also at 5:24. Neither here nor anywhere in the Scriptures are we told of a secret, mysterious, absolute will, which governs the bestowal of life and salvation. “Whom he will” cannot imply that in some case the Son might will contrary to the Father; their very relation excludes that idea. The clause is added to bring out the supreme greatness of the Son. That, too, is why Jesus here calls himself simply “the Son,” for the act here predicated of him is not restricted to the time since his incarnation. Yet all the quickening both by the Father and the Son is possible only because it is made so by the redemptive work of the incarnate Son.

John 5:22

22 This second γάρ exemplifies still further; it parallels the other in v. 21. Here is a second greater work. Yet it naturally goes together with the first; it is the outcome of the other. Since the Son quickens whom he will, how about those unquickened? They, too, are committed to the Son. Both quickening and judging are in his hands.

How the latter is involved in the former Jesus explains in 3:17, etc. Jesus could have said, “Just as the Father judges, thus also the Son judges”; even as he could have said, “The Father quickens no one but has given all quickening to the Son.” Jesus first simply parallels Father and Son, as if to say: Mark that they are of equal dignity; and then, secondly, he unites Father and Son as if to say: Mark how they work together, the Father through the Son. For neither does the Father judge anyone but has given all judgment to the Son. The Greek doubles and strengthens the negative, as in v. 19. The fact that the Father judges no one does not mean that, while the Father quickens, he does not judge, or that the Son alone without the Father and apart from him does the judging. This would contradict the statement that the Son does nothing of himself, v. 19.

The Father’s giving the judgment to the Son shows that it is, indeed, the Father’s. But he exercises it by giving it to the Son, “all judgment,” the preliminary judgments in time and the final judgment at the end of time.

In order to understand the work of judging we must first understand the work of quickening. Both involve the incarnation and the work of redemption by the incarnate Son. In v. 21, where the Father and the Son are only set side by side as both quickening, no reference to the incarnation appears. In v. 22 a veiled reference is added, namely in the verb δέδωκε, “has given.” The fact that this giving applies to the human nature of the incarnate Son is fully brought out in v. 27. All the greater works here mentioned by Jesus belong equally to the three equal divine Persons and in that sense are not given or received by one Person. And yet the Son alone became incarnate and performed the redemptive mission.

It is thus that the Son takes from the Father the works that go with his mission. Thus the perfect tense δέδωκε reaches back into eternity but rests on the incarnation and the mission of the Son and, of course, carries with it the implication for the present: the one act constantly stands as such. As in 3:17–19, Jesus uses the vox media, κρίνειν, likewise κρίσις, which does not intimate whether the verdict is acquittal or condemnation. This the context decides. Because, as in the present case, the spiritually dead are referred to, “to judge” and “the judgment” refer to condemnation. The quickened do not come into this judgment.

John 5:23

23 First, the equality of the Persons, secondly, the equality of the works, and now, thirdly, the equality of the honor and this expressed strongly with a positive and a negative statement. In order that all may honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He that honors not the Son honors not the Father that sent him. Why this is and must ever be the Father’s purpose lies on the surface: the Father would deny himself if he had a lesser purpose regarding the Son. His very truth demands that where the Persons and the work are equal, the honor must be likewise. But note that this is the Father’s gracious purpose, desiring that men by thus honoring the Son receive that Son’s salvation.

Hence Jesus does not here say, “that all must honor the Son.” So little did the Jews misunderstand Jesus in regard to his claim to be equal with God (v. 18), so little does Jesus disavow claiming this equality (v. 19), that here in the clause, “even as they honor the Father,” he asserts that equality in the clearest possible manner. Recall Isa. 42:8: “I am the Lord: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another (a creature), neither my praise to graven images.” This honor is constantly due to the Son, hence the durative present τιμῶσι, was due even then as the Son stood before those Jews in the flesh of his human nature.

Now the mighty warning in the negative statement, more forceful because it is without a connective, “He that honors not the Son honors not the Father that sent him.” The negative μή with the participle needs no explanation, R. 1137, it is the regular usage. Jesus does not say, “he that dishonors the Son,” but, “he that honors not,” which is stronger. What is meant v. 24 shows: refusal to hear and to believe the Son. Merely to disregard or to ignore the Son is fatal. What, then, does it involve, like these Jews, to accuse the Son, to persecute, to seek to kill him? This word applies to all the followers of those Jews down to the present day.

They thought that they were honoring God by contending for God’s Sabbath law against God’s Son and were thereby robbing God of all honor. So men today talk of “God,” “the Father,” “the Great Architect of the Universe,” or whatever other name they use, and set aside the Son and thus rob God of all true honor. Every religious profession and practice, whether by individuals or by organizations, that does not honor the Son, our Redeemer and our Judge, has its sentence of condemnation here recorded. The attributive participle modifier: the Father “that sent him,” brings out the vital point with which God is concerned and with which all men ought to be equally concerned: the saving mission and work of the Son incarnate. See 3:17 and note how often in the following utterances of Jesus he refers to “my Sender.” Others, too, are sent both by the Father and by the Son but none is like the Son (1:18), very God himself, the actual fountain of salvation, through whom alone we can come to the Father (14:6), in whom alone we see and have the Father (14:9–11).

John 5:24

24 With the same assurance of verity and authority with which Jesus began in v. 19 he now explains what he means by saying that “he quickens whom he wills.” For the figure of quickening he now uses literal terms, and the mystery of “whom he wills” is made plain by describing the persons: “he that hears and believes.” Amen, amen, I say to you, He that hears my word and believes him that sent me has life eternal and comes not into judgment but has passed out of the death into the life. Jesus “quickens whom he wills” means that he gives life eternal to everyone that hears and believes his Word. This Word he utters and sends out, and it comes to men as the bearer of life, Rom. 1:16. The Word itself causes the hearing—men’s ears perceive its invitation, offer, gift, and blessing. The more they hear, the more they perceive. As the Word impels men to hear, so it impels them to trust (πιστεύειν) as its message is made more and more clear.

The very nature of what the Word offers induces trust to appropriate that offer. The normal and natural effect of the hearing is to trust. The Word is not only itself absolutely trustworthy, it is full of efficacious power to implant truth in the heart. That trust, when wrought, is always the product of the Word not of any goodness or ability in the hearer. Yet it never works irresistibly. Man can exert his depraved will in such an abnormal way as to prevent the faith-producing power from accomplishing its purpose.

Those who do this are not quickened.

The hearing and the believing go together. They are always correlatives of the Word, i.e., the latter is intended for the very purpose of being heard and believed. And these are personal acts, hence the singular, so personal that Jesus combines person and act: ὁἀκούωνκαὶπιστεύων, “the one hearing and believing.” Jesus does not say: the one believing “my Word,” but: believing “him that sent me.” This really states the contents of the Word, which is all about the Father sending the Son for our redemption. To trust that Sender is to trust the Word that reveals and brings him to our hearts. Jesus here uses this summary of the Word because of the accusations of the Jews which he is refuting, and by this summary he again points to his relation to the Father, which the Jews refused to admit. The key word is ὁπέμψαςμε. To this day Jesus proclaims that the Father sent him; and on this Word, on the Father so having sent the Son, and on the Son so sent by the Father our faith rests.

He that hears and believes “has life eternal” (see 3:15), ζωὴαἰώνιος, the very life itself that flows from God, is grounded in God, joins to God, leads to God (10:28). The moment one has this life he is quickened, or made alive, or reborn (3:5). Temporal death only leads him into a fuller measure of this life. The present tenses ἔχει and οὑκἔρχεται may be considered gnomic or prophetic, R. 897–8, being used regarding constant truths, irrespective of time; as such, however, they include the immediate blessed possession of this true, spiritual, heavenly life that goes on endlessly into eternity. The obverse is that the believer, who has this life, “comes not into judgment” (elucidated in 3:18). Since ζωοποιεῖν and κρίνειν, both committed to the Son Jesus, are opposites, where the one is effected, the other is shut out.

As one of God’s children, how can the believer be judged now or at any time? No adverse sentence can ever be passed upon him.

This is made more vivid by the statement, “but has passed from the death into the life,” the perfect tense meaning that once having gone from the one to the other he remains where he is, 1 John 3:14. Whereas Jesus speaks of “the dead” in v. 21 he now speaks of “the death,” and the article points to the specific death here meant, namely spiritual death that ends in eternal death, the opposite of “the life,” again the article and again the specific life here referred to, namely spiritual life that ends in eternal blessedness.

In saying these things Jesus utters the most effective call to faith in the ears of the hostile Jews. In every word the gift of life was knocking at the hearts of his hearers, trying to break the bonds of their death; but they held to death and wilfully rejected the gracious gift of life.

John 5:25

25 Once more and with cumulative effect the voice of verity and authority rings out: Amen, amen, I say to you, The hour is coming and is now when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and those that did hear shall live. In v. 21 everything is compressed into the brief term that the Son “quickens.” In v. 24 this is expanded by adding the fact that life is received by means of “my Word” heard and believed. In v. 25 this is expanded still farther by stating that the hour for this coming to spiritual life “is now” already. That is why the words, “The hour is coming and now is,” are emphatically forward; compare for the same expression and in the same sense 4:23. The time referred to is that of the New Testament era (ὥρα in the broad sense), which, as Jesus speaks, still “is coming,” since the work of redemption is not yet complete and which yet “now is,” since Jesus is here and his saving Word at this very moment rings in men’s ears. It is thus impossible to refer these words to the last day and to interpret them with reference to the resurrection at that day. The Jews to whom Jesus is speaking need not wait till a later time, the hour to escape from death is now right here.

Again Jesus describes the quickening. In v. 21 it is the fact that the Son “makes alive,” ζωοποιεῖ, he bestows life on the dead. In v. 24 it is the fact that the believer has life, ἔχειζωὴναἰώνιον. Now it is the fact that the believers shall live, namely on and on to eternity. But now the figure is intensified into a spiritual resurrection. The preparation for this is the reference to “the death” in v. 24; to go “out of the death into the life” means a resurrection and no less.

Thus οἱνεκροί (plural of the category), the spiritually dead, lie lifeless. Then there sounds “the voice of the Son of God,” identical with “my Word” in v. 24. Note the correspondence in the terms: “my” (subjective, personal) “Word” (objective); “the voice” (subjective, personal) of the Son of God (objective, because in the third person). In the objective “Word” speaks the personal “voice” as one stands before another and speaks to him. “My” Word, i.e., that of Jesus in his humiliation, whom the Jews had before their eyes; but this is no less a person than “the Son of God.” Note the weight of the article τοῦυἱοῦ, R. 781. A resurrection is to take place, and this only the Son of God, who as the Son is equal with the Father, can effect. In this entire discourse Jesus again and again calls himself “the Son” and now he calls himself “the Son of God.” The modernistic claim that he never so called himself is maintained only by eliminating this and all other testimony of Jesus and of the Scriptures in general to the identity of his Person.

Twice Jesus mentions the hearing of his voice in his Word, using first the middle then the active of ἀκούειν, however with no difference of meaning in the forms, R. 356. Jesus means effective hearing, such as actually reaches the heart. In v. 24 this is expressed by two participles: “he that hears and believes.” The fact that some close their hearts and refuse the hearing of faith is omitted, enough having been intimated regarding these in v. 22, 23. The future “shall hear” refers to the coming hour, although it includes also all the hearing from the present moment onward (“and now is”), The instant of the hearing is the instant of the awakening of the sleeping dead. Hearing, they awake; awaking, they hear. “Shall hear” and “they that did hear” do not denote two kinds of hearing, the one hearing only outwardly with the ears, the other inwardly with the heart. Both denote the identical act of hearing: first, this act as it follows the Son’s voice (future tense), then, this act as it is followed by their living (aorist participle). The voice produces the hearing, the hearing produces the life.

The article in οἱἀκούσαντες is vital, “the ones that did hear,” for this changes the subject, which is vital to the sense of what Jesus here says. “The dead shall hear”—“they that did hear shall live.” This change of subjects focuses everything on the hearing, even on the first instant of hearing. If the article is omitted, Jesus would say, “The dead shall hear”—“after hearing they (the dead) shall live.” This separates the hearing from the living and nobody would know by how long an interval: first the dead would hear, then at some time after the hearing they would live. No; the dead, the very instant they shall hear, in that instant become οἱἀκούσαντες, “they that did hear,” and from that instant onward “they shall live.” Thus the Son “makes them live” (v. 21), and each of them “has life eternal” (v. 24). The verb ξῆν cannot here mean merely aufleben, “come to life,” but must mean “to live,” i.e., ἔχειντὴνζωὴναἰώνιον, v. 24. The figure of death, however, must not be pressed by bringing in omnipotence for the Son’s voice, for this would result in an omnipotent and irresistible grace, which is contrary to all Scripture teaching. We must abide by the tertium comparationis: the dead cannot bring themselves to life, the Son alone can and does give them life; and this he does by his Word and the voice of gospel grace.

The spiritually dead may resist that grace; many do. We know of no omnipotence that man is able to resist.

John 5:26

26 From the work Jesus reverts to the Worker. Everything depends on who he really is. “For” gives the reason why Jesus is able to do this work. This is not the evidential reason; for that would be the accomplished work itself, proving by his having done the work that he could indeed do it. This is the causal reason: Jesus, being what he is, can do what he says. For as the Father has life in himself, thus also he gave to the Son to have life in himself. The one fountain of life thus flows in one stream from the Father and the Son.

We must remember that this is not a truth uttered in general but a refutation of the charge of the Jews that Jesus made himself equal with God. The Jews certainly agreed that God the Father “has life in himself,” i.e., not derived from or dependent on, another. They would equally agree that God the Son “has life in himself” in the same way. To explain to these Jews the relation of God the Father and God the Son in the matter of both alike having life, each in himself, would thus be utterly pointless. This already shuts out the interpretation that ἔδωκε, “he did give,” refers to the eternal generation of the Son and a gift involved in that generation. This idea is again shut out by the same aorist ἔδωκε in v. 28.

Both times “he did give” is the historical aorist. Both verbs refer to the incarnate Son, to a giving for his mission and work. When Jesus says that this gift was made “to the Son,” he once more uses “the Son” to assert to the Jews that he, Jesus, is actually “the Son of God.” After explaining at length his work of making the spiritually dead alive with a life that is eternal, of doing this by “my Word,” the very Word the Jews were now hearing from his human lips, Jesus now adds the explanatory reason (γάρ) why this Word thus sounding in the ears of the Jews does, indeed, bestow life as he says. It is because of the Father’s gift, made when he sent his own Son on this mission to redeem and to quicken. “He did give” thus refers to the Son in his human nature, joined as it was to the divine. The great mission of the Son was carried out through that Son’s human nature. In itself this nature never “has life in itself”; in Jesus it received this gift from the Father, the Sender of Jesus.

Thus Jesus sets before the Jews the answer to the question how he, being man, does, indeed, not only as the Son but equally as man, not only by one nature but by both indissolubly united in his Person, bestow life eternal.

John 5:27

27 And now again Jesus reverts to the other side (as in v. 22), for some reject this life. And he gave him authority to execute the judgment, because he is man’s son. Those who obdurately remain in spiritual death the Father has not reserved for himself, he has placed them, too, in the hands of Jesus, the incarnate Son (v. 22). The two ἔδωκε go together. The second is only the negative side of the first. It is the same throughout: to believe—not to believe; to honor the Son—to dishonor him; to receive life—to reject life. Thus the Son has life in himself to bestow of himself on all who hear and believe—and authority to judge all who remain in their death.

We must note that the antecedent of αὑτῷ is “the Son” in v. 26; so that we may read, “He did give to the Son power to execute the judgment,” literally, “Power did he give,” etc., with the emphasis on “power.” The present tense ποιεῖν refers to all judgment throughout time and on the last day; if the latter only were meant, we should have the aorist infinitive. And now Jesus adds what he left unsaid in v. 26 but what applies equally there, the statement that this act of giving on the Father’s part refers to the human nature of the Son, “because he (the Son) is man’s son.” In υἱὸςἀνθρώπου neither noun has the article. This designation is not equivalent to ὁυἱὸςτοῦἀνθρώπου, “the Son of man,” which Jesus constantly used as a title when referring to himself. Compare on this title the remarks on 1:51. The Son was born man (1:14), the son of a human being, ἀνθρώπου (not denoting sex) not ἀνδρός (which denotes a male). True, the Virgin birth is here not specifically predicated, because ἄνθρωπος may refer to either sex; and yet it is predicated, because Jesus speaks this word only with reference to his mother.

What he tells the Jews is that only in one way, by a gift from the Father, could he as man receive the ἐξουσία, the right and the power, to act as the judge. And this only he, the Son, could receive for his human nature, joined as it was to the divine in personal union. No other “man’s son” could possibly be made the recipient of such a gift as the power to judge. So great is this gift that any mere man would be crushed by it.

Among the untenable interpretations are the following: “man’s son” = “the Son of man”; the hidden God cannot judge, hence he had to select a man (a gnostic idea; the Jews always knew God as the judge); judging came as a reward to Jesus for his redemptive work; ἐξουσία = only the right not also the power.

John 5:28

28 Jesus now states how he will exercise the right to judge. Thus he names and describes another of the greater works. Stop marvelling at this; for the hour is coming, in which all in their tombs shall hear his voice and shall come out, they that did do the good things unto resurrection of life, but they that did practice the worthless things unto resurrection of judgment. The present imperative with μή forbids what one is alreay doing, hence we translate, “Stop marvelling!” R. 890, i.e., at what Jesus has just said (τοῦτο refers to v. 24–27). In 3:7 the aorist forbids Nicodemus to begin marvelling. People such as the unbelieving Jews are indeed to marvel; it is God’s intention.

When Jesus here tells the Jews to stop this marvelling, this, like all that he says to them, is his call to cease their unbelief, to grasp and to believe the truth of what he says. Hence also Jesus states the great reason why these Jews should stop marvelling and begin believing: lest at the judgment they be found among those that practiced the worthless things.

As v. 25, 26 repeat and amplify v. 24 regarding the subject of life, so v. 28, 29 repeat and amplify v. 27 regarding the subject of judgment. Verse 25 and v. 28 are parallels also because both have the statement regarding the time, “the hour is coming.” Yet the difference is marked, for in v. 28 Jesus cannot add, “and now is.” Spiritual quickening starts now and will spread over the world when redemption is once wrought, but the universal judgment comes at the end of time. Yet “is coming” means that now, with Jesus here and redemption at hand, nothing else intervenes between this present and the final judgment day. The word ὥρα is again used in the broad sense. In what Jesus tells the Jews about this hour he states only what they themselves believed about the resurrection and the judgment (Dan. 12:2, and back to Abraham, Heb. 11:19). The only point he adds is that he connects all this with himself, the Son of God and man’s son. That these Jews are most assuredly to know, they who now have the very judge before them and are seeking to destroy him.

Note the important and decisive πάντες, “all,” and the attributive phrase, beyond question made such by the article, “all in their tombs,” i.e., all the bodily dead. With intentional similarity to v. 25 Jesus says that these too “shall hear his voice,” Jesus’ voice, that of God’s Son and man’s son. Now the voice of grace sounds forth in Jesus’ Word; spiritually dead hear it and are made spiritually alive. Then the voice of omnipotence will sound in the last trump, and all the bodily dead shall hear it, for that voice comes with resistless power, “and shall come out” of their graves, raised, all of them, from bodily death, their bodies once more being joined to their souls. This statement of Jesus’ is the foundation for one resurrection, and that occurring at the last day. In Rev. 20:6 “the first resurrection” uses “resurrection” symbolically with reference to “soul” (v. 4).

The transfer of these “souls” into heaven is called “the first resurrection.” Nothing is said in Rev. 20 about “the second resurrection,” but the implication is that the final transfer of the bodies of these blessed “souls” into heaven constitutes “the second resurrection.” So little can Rev. 20 refer to two bodily resurrections that it does not even refer to one; for Rev. 20 does not imply that bodies come from graves but that bodies are transferred to heavenly glory, as their souls were previously transferred to that glory. In John 5:28 only preconception can split into two parts the one word, “All in their tombs shall hear his voice and come out,” i, e., on the instant when that voice sounds.

John 5:29

29 But “all,” thus coming out in one moment, shall appear as two classes: “they that did the good things”—“they that did practice the worthless things,” the substantivized participles exactly as in 3:20 and 21, save that now they are plurals. On the difference between οἱποιήσαντες with reference to the believers and οἱπράξαντες with reference to the unbelievers see 3:20, 21; also for the distinctive meaning of τὰφαῦλα, “the worthless things,” which are here set overagainst τὰἀγαθά, “the good things” in the sense of excellent and thus valuable. The aorist tenses of the participles sum up the entire life of each class. For the one class it is, “they did do the excellent things”; for the other, “they did practice the worthless things.” The one class is marked by the good works that spring from faith; the other by the worthless works that spring from unbelief. Each class of works is specific, hence the articles τὰἀγαθά and τὰφαῦλα, i.e., the well-known works that God regards as excellent and prizes as valuable in us; the well-known works that God regards as worthless. Some of the latter men prize highly, as the Pharisees do their formal outward observances, as men’s work-righteous, humanitarian, philanthropic works today; see Matt. 7:22, 23.

The connection of the two classes of works, the one with faith, the other with unbelief, is furnished by the preceding statements on hearing, believing, having life, and the opposites of these. We may add that ποιεῖν, so distinctively used with reference to the believer’s works, accords with the idea of obedience to God, even as we always have this verb with reference to the obedience of Jesus to his Father’s will; while πράσσειν lacks this connotation in these connections and accompanies actions that are self-chosen, was einer selber treibt.

The actual judgment is here compressed into two mighty phrases: “unto resurrection of life”—“unto resurrection of judgment,” keeping the two cardinal terms in the two genitives. Both classes “come out unto resurrection,” their bodies being made alive by being joined to their souls. In neither case has εἰςἀνάστασιν the article, though our versions add it. Its absence stresses the quality of the noun: both classes come out to what is truly and rightly called ἀνάστασις, “resurrection.” How R. 500 can call the two added genitives objective is a puzzle. No transitive verbal idea lies in the noun “resurrection”; even if it could be inserted, neither “life” nor “judgment” could possibly be the object of the transitive action. These genitives are qualitative; each describes and characterizes.

The mark of the one resurrection is “life,” of the other “judgment.” Before they arise, the classes are already so marked; in their earthly existence the one obtained life through faith, the other remained under judgment because of unbelief (3:18). What Jesus here compresses into phrases he describes at length in Matt. 25:31–46.

So little can Jesus be charged with breaking God’s Sabbath law that he does all his work as God’s Son in divine intimacy with his Father. This is the first part of his answer to the Jews.

They also assailed his testimony concerning himself, saying that he lied when he made himself equal with God. Thus the second part of the discourse deals with the testimony concerning Jesus. No less than nine times does Jesus in the first part of his answer repeat his own testimony that he is, indeed, the Son. This testimony is so true that it only re-echoes God’s own double testimony, that of the works he gave Jesus to do, and that of the Scripture he gave to the Jews themselves.

Does the second part of the answer begin with v. 30 or with v. 31? It is attractive to think that Jesus closes the first part as he began it by saying, “I can do nothing of myself,” compare v. 19. But it is equally attractive to have him begin the second part in the way in which he began the first. What seems to mislead some is the fact that in v. 31 Jesus still speaks of his judgment; hence they conclude that this still belongs to v. 27–29, where Jesus speaks of the final judgment. They overlook the force of the present tense, “I judge,” and of the statement, “My judgment is righteous.” They likewise overlook the fact that Jesus says, “As I hear,” I judge. He speaks of his judgment concerning himself, i.e., of his testimony that he is, indeed, God’s Son.

John 5:30

30 I can do nothing of myself. As I hear, I judge; and my own judgment is right, because I seek not my own will but the will of him that did send me. The pronoun ἐγώ is emphatic, for which v. 19 has “the Son.” Compare the explanation of v. 19. Both the nature of Jesus as the Son and his mission as the incarnate Son absolutely shut out even the possibility that he should ever do (ποιεῖν, durative present) anything “of myself,” apart from and conflicting with the Father. But this fundamental statement is now applied to all the testimony of Jesus, whereas in v. 19, etc., it was applied to all his deeds and works. Hence, while in v. 19 Jesus speaks of seeing what the Father shows him for his great mission in the line of works, he now speaks of hearing, “As I hear, I judge.” The present tenses mean now or at any time.

This, of course, includes also the final judgment. But the clause, “as I hear,” now speaks of the judging of Jesus, not as a work, but as a pronouncement, as a verdict of his lips. Not a single word that Jesus utters in stating a judgment, whether it be on men, believers or unbelievers, or on matters or subjects of any kind, or on his own person and work, ever deviates from, or clashes with, the word of his Father. On the contrary, it only restates the Father’s word and judgment. And “as I hear” implies that the Son Jesus is in constant and most intimate communion with his Father. As little as Jesus could deny his Sonship, as little as he could repudiate his mission as the incarnate Son, so little could he utter one word that might be in disharmony with his Father’s word and verdicts.

Jesus merely coordinates, “and my own judgment is right,” although the relation of thought is that this being right is the consequence of Jesus’ judging as he hears. Jesus uses the emphatic pronoun: ἡκρίσιςἡἐμή, “this judgment of mine,” whatever may be the judgment of others, in particular the false judgment of these Jews. “Right,” δικαία = in perfect harmony with the Father’s norm of right (δίκη). The word is chosen to match κρίσις and κρίνω; in a moment, when the judgment is defined as testimony, we have the corresponding adjective “true.”

Why the judgments of Jesus are always right is now established ethically: “because I seek not my own will but the will of him that did send me.” In every word and judgment Jesus utters he has only one purpose: to carry out the great mission on which his Sender sent him. “The will of him that did send me” means, not the faculty of willing, but the content of the Father’s will, what he wills. Exactly that Jesus wills. “My own will,” the pronoun being emphatic, would be something else, determined by Jesus himself in contravention of what his Sender determined. Such a “will” does not exist. When the Son entered on his mission, all that that mission should include and effect was determined. When the Son became man, his human consciousness and will entered perfectly into all that had thus been determined. Jesus and his Sender were in constant communion: “as I hear.” No possibility existed that Jesus should ever will anything of a different nature. “I seek,” is a pregnant expression for “I seek successfully,” or “I seek and carry out.”

John 5:31

31 After the general statement that every judgment of Jesus accords with the will and the word of his Sender, Jesus turns in particular to the word which the Jews claimed to be false (v. 18), making himself equal with God. If I bear witness regarding myself, my witness is not true. According to R. 1018 this means, “If perchance I bear witness,” and looks at the matter either as a present reality or as a future possibility (we prefer: as something Jesus expects to do). In 8:13 the Jews say the same thing: when a man bears witness regarding himself, his witness is not true. In 8:14 Jesus contradicts this and says that if he bears witness concerning himself, such witness is, indeed, true. The contradiction is only apparent.

Legally a man’s unsupported testimony regarding himself or his own case cannot stand and be accepted as true. Yet in fact, as 8:14 shows, Jesus’ witness concerning himself is true, for he knows about himself, the Jews do not. The contrasts in the two passages are different. In 5:31, etc., it is Jesus, the Baptist, and the Father—their witness agrees. In 8:13, etc., it is Jesus and the Jews—their witness clashes. In the one case the appeal is to two witnesses that are competent and must be accepted.

In the other case the appeal is from the incompetent witnesses, who do not know, and whose attempt nevertheless to witness must be rejected. So here Jesus accepts the common rule concerning testimony in a man’s own behalf. He says in substance, “I do not ask you to take my word alone concerning who I really am.”

John 5:32

32 Hence also the sharp contrast: It is another that bears witness concerning me; and I know that the witness is true which he witnesses concerning me. The emphasis is on ἄλλος and on ἀληθής. Not for one moment does Jesus ask the Jews to accept his own lone testimony in his own behalf. Then, indeed, they might appeal to the common legal rule stated. On the contrary, Jesus has the greatest and most competent witness imaginable. When he adds, “and I know that the witness is true,” etc., the word “true” must be taken in the same sense as in v. 31: “true” legally, so as beyond question to stand as true in any court of law.

What Jesus says is that he is offering the Jews a witness of whom he knows that he is legally and in every other way competent. What the Jews will say to this witness and his mighty testimony, whether they, too, will accept it as legally competent Jesus does not here intimate. If they do, well and good; if they do not, they condemn themselves. The reading “you know,” οἴδατε, instead of “I know,” οἶδα, is due to the misconception regarding the word “true,” which is so often taken to mean “true in fact.” This sense of the word would make Jesus by his testimony establish the truth of this “other” witness to whom he appeals. By that implication Jesus would himself admit that the testimony of this “other” is after all insufficient. In fact, he would thus fall back on his own testimony.

This, of course, is not and cannot be Jesus’ meaning. To evade it the reading was changed. The explanations of the correct reading “I know,” when these are combined with the wrong sense of the word “true” as meaning “true in fact,” are labored and unsatisfactory.

John 5:33

33 Jesus speaks of “another” as his all-competent and legally irreproachable witness but does not at once name him or state his testimony. When introducing this “other” he declares that he is not the Baptist, valid and valuable as the Baptist’s testimony is. You yourselves (emphatic ὑμεῖς) have sent (a delegation, this the sense of the verb) to John, and he has testified to the truth, openly and without reservation. Jesus’ hearers know what that “truth” is, for some of them had helped to send that delegation, and all of them knew what report that delegation brought back, 1:19–23, namely, that the Baptist declared that he was not the Messiah, but that another was, namely, one so great that the Baptist, mighty prophet that he was, was not worthy to untie his sandal latchets. That, indeed, was “the truth.” The two perfect tenses “you have sent” and “he has testified” are the dramatic historical kind, presenting a vivid and realistic view of past acts, R. 897, as in effect still standing for the present moment.

John 5:34

34 Jesus might, indeed, appeal to this witness of the Baptist and in a way he does—not in his own personal interest but in the interest of these Jews, whom Jesus would yet, if possible, save. But I on my part not from a man do I take the testimony; but I say this, in order that you on your part may be saved. As ὑμεῖς in v. 33, so now both ἐγώ and ὑμεῖς are emphatic; and “I on my part” and “you on your part” are in contrast. The Jews even dispatched a delegation to the Baptist to get his testimony. Jesus can afford to dispense with the Baptist’s testimony, great though it is, because he has “the testimony” that is far greater than his. Grimm regards λαμβάνω as here being equal to capto, “to snatch at”; Ebeling as “seek to secure.” Jesus, of course, “receives” or “accepts” the Baptist’s testimony.

When he here says that he does not “take” it, the verb means: take in order to use it against his opponents. In other words, Jesus, as the defendant facing these Jews as his accusers, does not call on the Baptist to bring in the decisive testimony (τὴνμαρτυρίαν, note the article). Jesus’ great witness is God himself.

But why, then, does he mention the Baptist at all? “But I say this, in order that you on your part may be saved.” Though the Baptist was only “a man,” though Jesus thus very properly excels the Baptist by at once taking his greatest witness, namely the Father, the Baptist’s testimony should greatly impress the Jews, for among them generally the Baptist was deemed a great prophet who spoke by revelation from God. Among the hostile hearers of Jesus some might be found who, remembering what the Baptist said regarding Jesus, might be aided by his true testimony to believe what he testified and thus to “be saved” (on the verb see 3:17). Thus as ever when Jesus deals with his enemies, he holds out salvation to them.

John 5:35

35 How highly Jesus thought of the Baptist is made plain in the testimony. Jesus now gives him and in the way in which he scores the Jews for the treatment they accorded him. That one was the lamp burning and shining; and you on your part willed to exult for an hour in his light. A λύχνος is a portable lamp, which, when lit, burns and shines. The article means that the Baptist was “the lamp” intended by God specifically for that generation. The two participles, added attributively by one article, denote only one action: “burning and thus shining.” The entire figure describes the Baptist as showing the Jews the way to salvation in the Messiah who now was come.

The Baptist was, indeed, “the lamp,” not “the light,” (1:9). Both tenses here used, he “was” and you “willed” or “did will,” imply that the Baptist was now imprisoned. If the tragic news of this event had just become known, this reference to what the Baptist was to his generation would come with greater effect upon the authorities Jesus was facing. That burning and shining lamp had now been quenched forever.

So great was the Baptist in his short career, and how wretchedly had the Jews treated him! Again ὑμεῖς is emphatic, “you on your part,” in contrast with ἐκεῖνος, “that one” and all that he was. Your will went only so far as “to exult” in his light, ἀγαλλιασθῆναι, the passive form in the middle sense (R. 334), i.e., to disport yourselves in his light for the time being πρὸςὥραν (by position unemphatic), πρός with the accusative indicating extent of time. Instead of repenting and believing you only ran out to see and to hear the Baptist, delighted to have again after so long an interval the spectacle of a prophet in your midst. The aorist “you did will” implies that now it was all over and done with for the Jews. When Herod laid hands on the Baptist, no popular uprising took place, no violent indignation because of this outrage upon a prophet of God was voiced, no concerted effort was made to effect the Baptist’s release. The Jews let Herod do with him as he pleased, and now their interest in the Baptist was gone.

John 5:36

36 Jesus now proceeds to present the witness on whose testimony he relies. But I have the testimony that is greater than John’s: for the works which the Father has given me, in order to complete them, the very works which I do, they testify concerning me that the Father has sent me. As in v. 34, the article τὴνμαρτυρίαν designates the decisive testimony, decisive legally and in every other way. When Jesus says “I have” this testimony, he means that he has it to bring it forward in any court and thus by presenting it to establish that, when he himself says he is God’s Son, his statement is the truth. The addition of μείζω without the article is predicative and equal to a relative clause, R. 789; B.-D. 270, 1: the testimony “that is greater”; and the unmodified genitive τοῦἸωάννου is a common case of breviloquence, as R. 1203 states, for: greater “than that of John”; and we should not say, with B.-D. 185, 1; R. 516, that it is not clear whether we should understand: greater “than as John had it,” or: greater “than that given by John.” The difference between μείζων and μείζω is only that in the former contraction of μείζονα the irrational ν is used, R. 220. This disposes of the contention that the former is masculine, the latter feminine (with τὴνμαρτυρίαν); and that we should read the former: “I … as one greater than John.” This would also clash with the entire context in which the Father (not Jesus) is contrasted with the Baptist, and thus the Father’s testimony with that of the Baptist.

This greater testimony is that of Jesus’ works, meaning all his Messianic works, his miracles, his making spiritually alive, his final judgment. Some would exclude the latter, because these Jews cannot now see the work of judgment and because Jesus says ἃποιῶ, “which I am engaged in doing.” But the latter is quite general, and we should not slip in a “now”: “engaged in doing now.” For Jesus also says: ἵνατελειώσωαὑτά, “in order that I complete them,” the aorist signifying: actually bring them to an end. This reaches even to the final judgment. Let us recall 2:19, etc. (compare the exposition), where the judgment forms the final and convincing sign for all obdurate unbelievers. These works, Jesus says, the Father “has given to me,” and by this perfect tense he refers to the giving in his mission as the Messiah, a giving which stands indefinitely. This is not a constantly repeated giving, as some think, each miracle, as it were, a new gift.

The giving was complete from the start, and, once made, stands thus. Compare “he gave” in v. 26 and again in v. 27, especially also the reference in this repeated verb to the human nature of the incarnate Son. How much the gift includes in the line of works the ἵνα clause states, which we may regard as an ordinary purpose clause, or, if we prefer, as a substitute for the infinitive, but then the infinitive of purpose; hence they are practically the same. And ἃποιῶ states that Jesus is now in the midst of these works. Here Jesus uses the plural “the works,” spreading them out, as it were, in their great number, while in 4:34 (where also the same verb is used) “his work” compresses them into one great unit.

With strong emphasis Jesus says, “the very works that I do testify concerning me,” each one and all together now as they are being done and ever after. They stand up as witnesses in any court that may be called and testify. And their united, unvarying testimony is “that the Father has sent me,” the perfect tense stating that, once sent thus, Jesus is now on this his mission. By saying that he can do nothing of himself (v. 30), by adding that all his works are the Father’s gift to him, the testimony of all these works is presented as the testimony of the Father himself. A silent implication underlies what is thus said of the works and of their testimony, namely that they are such as admittedly no man could do of himself, in fact, no man at all, not even by way of a gift; for no man is great enough to receive and to administer a gift that is so tremendous. “That the Father has sent me” means: “has sent me on the Messianic mission.” The Baptist, too, was sent (1:6), and all the prophets were sent, but the sending of Jesus went far beyond the sending of all these. The sending of all others rested on that of the Son, while the sending of Jesus rested on no other sending.

John 5:37

37 Yet Jesus here mentions this great testimony of the Father’s only in a secondary way, for it is still in progress. Moreover, this testimony is mediate: the Father utters it through the works, although, of course, all the works are directly connected with Jesus, since he in his own person does them. Jesus brings to court a testimony that is all complete and one made immediately and most directly by the Father. And the Father that did send me, he has given testimony concerning me. Neither his voice have you ever heard, nor his form have you seen. Purposely Jesus reveals this all-decisive testimony only little by little, keeping the attention of the Jews on the alert to the utmost.

Here he names the ἅλλος, left unnamed in v. 32 and named indirectly as regards the works in v. 36. Now the name comes with full emphasis: “the Father that did send me, he,” or “that one,” ἐκεῖνος, the demonstrative making the name prominent. This is the person whom Jesus brings in as his witness. To call him “the Father” is not enough in this connection. For not merely as such is he this witness. But as “the Father that did send me,” for as the Son’s great Sender this Father appears as Jesus’ witness.

In other words, all his testimony is occasioned by the act and the fact of thus sending his own Son as the Messiah, deals with his sending, prepares for it, explains it, and thus accredits that sending. By thus designating his great witness Jesus gives an intimation regarding the character of the testimony of this witness, or, we may say, what the sum and substance of his testimony is. When Jesus calls the Father to the witness stand, that Father appears and testifies as the Sender of his Son.

The next feature is expressed by the perfect tense of the verb, “he has given testimony concerning me.” This is in contrast with the present tense used in v. 36: the works “give testimony,” i.e., now and right along as they occur and will occur. This other testimony stands complete. It was offered long ago, and, thus offered, now stands for all time. Not yet does Jesus say that this complete and enduring testimony consists of the Father’s own Word, although we can almost guess that this is what Jesus means. Long ago the Father gave his testimony regarding Jesus and the sending that followed; long ago, then, this testimony was known. Why, then, did the Jews know nothing about it? Why must Jesus now at this late date tell these Jews about this ancient testimony ?

Because they do not even know this great witness! “Neither his voice have you ever heard,” although his testimony has sounded out all along; “nor his form have you seen,” although in his testimony he has stood before your very eyes all along. Both “voice” and “form” are anthropomorphic and, of course, are not to be understood literally. Both expressions: hearing the voice and seeing the form, refer to the witness, whom one both hears and sees when he gives his testimony. Thus Jesus tells these Jews that they have never met this witness, they have never been near enough to him either to hear or to see him. In other words, they know nothing at all about his testimony, in fact, do not know that he ever thus testified. “Voice and form,” like hear and see, are only companion terms. Both are plainly meant in a spiritual not in a literal sense, i.e., to hear and to see with the heart. On this sense of seeing the Father compare 14:9; 12:45.

This disposes of the labored explanation caused especially by the saying that these Jews never saw God’s εἶδος or “form.” The prophets and the Baptist are usually brought in, who literally heard God’s voice and saw him in some visible form in a vision (Isa. 6 for instance). But what these prophets heard and saw they only told the people who themselves, even the most godly among them, never heard and saw in this way. The point of Jesus’ words is lost when we are told that the blame does not begin until v. 38; for then the words of Jesus about these Jews never having heard and seen the Father become pointless. Nor is this pointlessness removed by making Jesus mean, “I know you have never been granted a direct voice and vision of God like the prophets.” No ordinary Jew and no Christian today expects such a thing. Equally inadequate is the idea that Jesus here alludes to certain apocryphal expressions (Baruch 3:14–37; Ecclesiasticus 24:8–14), and that these indicate that Jesus here has in mind the Jewish institutions for teaching and for guiding the people, as a kind of embodiment of the divine authority and presence, in which they could have heard and seen God. Why take these institutions, and that on apocryphal evidence, when in the entire Old Testament the Father as the Son’s Sender stood for ages as the supreme Witness for all the hearts of his people to hear and to see? The perfect tenses “have heard” and “have seen” match the perfect “he has testified,” i.e., you have not in the past nor do you now.

John 5:38

38 With plain literalness Jesus continues: And his Word you have not remaining in you; because whom that one did send, him you do not believe. We must note that οὕτε … οὕτε … καίοὑ, “neither … nor … and not,” go together and form one statement, R. 1179, 1189. Three negations are thus linked together, for οὕτε is not disjunctive but only a negative copulative conjunction, “and not.” While the third negation is thus added to the previous two, in substance it states what results from those two: they who have never heard the Father’s voice and have not seen his form naturally have not his Word abiding in them, τὸνλόγοναὑτοῦ, the substance of truth which constitutes his Word as distinguished from the sounds by which it is uttered. The emphasis is on ἐνὑμῖνμένοντα, which must not be divided, making only the phrase “in you” emphatic and not the participle also. Then we should have the phrase placed after the participle, and even so the two would go together. This third negation shows in what sense hearing the Father’s voice and seeing his form is meant, namely, an inward hearing and seeing in the heart by faith and true understanding.

For only thus by the heart and by faith does the Word remain in us. If these Jews had heard what the Father’s voice speaks (but they have no ear for his voice), and if they had seen therein God’s presentation of himself (but they had no eyes for his form), then through such spiritual seeing and hearing the substance of God’s Word would become an abiding power in their lives. Meyer.

The ὅτι clause furnishes the undeniable evidential proof: “because whom that one (the Father) did send, him (the Son Jesus) you do not believe.” The Greek is highly effective in placing side by side the three emphatic words: ἐκεῖνος—τούτῳ—ὑμεῖς: he (no less a person than the Father) sent him; him (no less a person than the Son he sent); you (just think what wretches you are!) do not believe. Can they who reject the ambassador when he arrives and presents his credentials (Jesus and his works) claim to honor the announcements which tell them of that ambassador’s arrival? The dative with πιστεύω means to believe the person, i.e., that what he says is true; this is said because in v. 18 the Jews refuse to accept as true the word of Jesus that God is his Father.

John 5:39

39 So the testimony of this supreme Witness is the Father’s Word, i.e., the Old Testament Scriptures, in which God long ago and all along stood as a Witness and uttered his testimony regarding the Son whom he would send and did then send in Jesus. Though he stood there as concretely as possible and spoke as clearly as possible, these Jews never saw or heard him, and his Word and its meaning (ὁλόγοςοὑτοῦ) never entered and found lodgment in their hearts. What these Jews had hitherto failed to attain Jesus bids them attain now at last. Search the Scriptures, for you think in them you have life eternal; and these are they that testify of me; and you are not willing to come to me that you may have life. All the old exegetes with the single exception of Cyril read ἐρευνᾶτε as the imperative, likewise a host of others. More recently a number regard this form as the indicative: “You are searching” (also the R.

V.). The question is purely one of context, since no other evidence is available. When R. 329 concludes: “probably indicative,” he does so on grammatical grounds.

The imperative fits the entire situation, the indicative requires modifications, which we have no right to make. The situation is that Jesus introduces the Father together with the Scriptures as his all-decisive witness (v. 37). Really, this great Witness is a stranger to the Jews, and thus, of course, they have never known his testimony (v. 38) although it was given long ago (v. 37). Jesus tells the Jews: Here is my Witness—examine him! This testimony he gave long ago—“search it!” He could not say to these Jews: You are already searching it. If Jesus should want to say that, he would have to add, “You are, indeed, searching it, but in the wrong way.” And then he would have to indicate what is wrong and what the right way is.

He does nothing of the kind. Yet this the pleaders for the indicative have Jesus say: “You Jews are searching only outwardly, only the bare letter of the Old Testament, only in your sterile rabbinical fashion.” Not one word of this is found in what Jesus says. And, of course, also not one word of what Jesus then certainly ought to add, namely how these Jews should correct their false way of searching.

Again, take the situation. After Jesus introduces his great Witness with his decisive testimony, telling the Jews to search it, he adds the reason in full why they themselves should want to proceed to do so. We must note, however, that this reason extends through the three following clauses: ὅτι … καί … καί (v. 40), which, therefore, must not be divided, or joined only in loose fashion. Some find the reason only in the ὅτι clause, a few advance upon this and add the first καί clause, but the second καί clause (v. 40) is read as a statement by itself.

The first part of the reason why these Jews should certainly want to examine the Scriptures again is the statement of Jesus, “because you think (ὑμεῖς, emphatic) you have in them eternal life.” With “you think” Jesus plainly tells them they are mistaken. He, indeed, does not add, “I think otherwise,” merely pitting his thought against theirs, which would make no impression in these Jews. He does what is bound to carry more weight with them. He adds a second part of his reason. Over against the emphatic ὑμεῖς he sets the equally emphatic ἐκεῖναι (R. 707), “you think”—but just search the Scriptures, “these,” the very ones in which you think you have life eternal, they are “the ones that testify (αἱμαρτυροῦσαι) concerning me.” And περὶἐμοῦ means far more than that the Scriptures only say this or that about Jesus; “concerning me” means that all their testimony centers in Jesus, centers in him so that only by and through him men are declared to have life eternal. Thus Jesus adds the second point to his reason why the Jews should certainly want to examine the Scriptures. And this demands that Jesus state also the third point, which is already involved in the other two.

John 5:40

40 For when these Jews are so sure that they have life eternal in the Scriptures, they think that they have it without Jesus. Therefore Jesus says, “and you have no will to come to me (emphatic by position) in order to have life.” You think that life can be had without me. And again, when Jesus tells these Jews what they have never realized before that the Scriptures testify of him, i.e., of life only through him, he adds for this too, “and you have no will to come to me in order to have life.” The threefold reason which Jesus gives these Jews as to why they most certainly should want to search the Scriptures really forms a syllogism, one that refutes the false and shallow conclusion of these Jews. They conclude: We have life because we own and accept the Scriptures. Jesus answers: You merely think you have. Major premise: To have life you must, indeed, have the Scriptures, but that means me, of whom they testify, me the fountain of life in the Scriptures.

Minor premise: You do not come to me for life, in fact, you do not even know that the Scriptures thus testify of me. Ergo: You have not life; you only think so; you are sadly mistaken. This forceful reason and reasoning must stir even these Jews. They are challenged with the very Scriptures in which they proudly trust. They must meet this challenge; to refuse is to let the contention of Jesus stand. And there is only one way to meet it: just what Jesus says: “Search the Scriptures!” The surer these Jews are that they are right and that Jesus is wrong, the more eager they will be to do just that, “search the Scriptures.” Thus, only when ἐρευνᾶτε is the imperative does it fit the situation; an indicative would not meet the situation adequately.

It is the same situation over again that occurs in the case of Isaiah and his opponents, Isa. 8:20.

Formally these Jews were right when they thought that life eternal is to be had in the Scriptures; and this Jesus not only admits but himself asserts with his command to search the Scriptures. Concretely, however, these Jews were wrong, for they failed to find the one fountain of life in the Scriptures, the Father’s Son, whom he sent as the Messiah to bring them life. What made them wrong was not that they merely clung to the Book as a book, or merely studied it outwardly, its shell or letter, or merely went at this study with rabbinical refinement. Paul presents the matter more clearly in Rom. 10:3 and elsewhere. The Jews found the law in the Scriptures, the law alone. When they were so sure of having life eternal “in them,” they based their assurance only on this law and on their diligence in its observance.

They even added to this law a lot of regulations of their own, intended to support this law, among them the Sabbath rules which Jesus spurned, thereby bringing on the present conflict. They trusted in their works. They established a righteousness of their own. It was thus that they remained blind to the gospel, the very heart of the Scriptures, “ignorant of God’s righteousness,” the very righteousness revealed in the gospel (Rom. 1:17), the righteousness of faith in God’s Son and their Savior. Hence also the one cure for the Jews was the one Jesus here applies: “Search the Scriptures!”—“they are they that testify of me.”

John 5:41

41 The call, “Search the Scriptures!” still dominates what Jesus now adds, first on the real moral or spiritual reason for the unbelief of these Jews (v. 41–44), and secondly on the fearful consequences of this unbelief (v. 45–47). When men truly search the Scriptures to find what they say concerning his Son and their Savior, they begin to assume the right attitude toward God, the opposite of which these Jews now manifest, v. 42–44; then, too, they will escape the consequences of unbelief, into which they are now bound to run, v. 45–47.

Jesus has said: these Jews would not believe in him (v. 38), the Scriptures testify of him, the Jews will not come to him. Jesus reads their hearts and sees how they may think that he is motivated just as they are, that he is piqued because they do not honor and glorify him. This he cuts off at once. Glory from men I do not take, compare 8:50. The object is placed forward for emphasis: “glory,” honor, praise, distinction “from men,” in distinction from “the glory that comes from the only God” (v. 44). Even when men offered it to him (6:15) he spurned it and did not catch at it, λαμβάνω in the sense of capto, R. 110.

Jesus took only the glory which God gave him, God directly, and God through the faith of believing men. Let not these Jews imagine that Jesus is miffed because they do not honor him, that this is why he is scoring them so severely.

John 5:42

42 The unworthy motive is not in Jesus but in the Jews, the very motive back of their rejection of Jesus, back of their misjudging Jesus, back of their misreading of the Scriptures, back also of the consequences which therefore shall come upon them. This their motive makes Jesus charge them as he does. On the contrary (ἀλλά after a negative statement), I have known you, that the love of God is not in yourselves. Let these Jews not screen themselves behind Jesus when something is radically wrong with themselves. The perfect tense involves the present: “have known” all along and so know now. Compare on this knowing 2:24, 25.

Why R. 499 and 500 wavers regarding the genitive τὴνἀγάπηντοῦΘεοῦ is strange. This is without question the objective genitive, the Jews’ love for God, not the subjective, God’s love for the Jews. This is shown by οὑζητεῖτε in v. 44, they cared nothing for God’s opinion of them but only for the opinion of men. Behind the negative, not loving God, lies the positive, loving men instead. To be sure, they may profess love to God with their lips, even think they honor God by rejecting Jesus, but ἐνἑαυτοῖς, in their hearts, a far different motive prevails. No wonder God’s testimony counted so little with them.

It is so to this day. All lovers of God accept his testimony, by it quickly recognize and accept his Son Jesus, care nothing for and are influenced in no way by the opinions of men who spurn Jesus. When men do otherwise and claim to love God nevertheless, their claim is refuted by the evidence of their act of rejecting Jesus.

John 5:43

43 To this undeniable evidence Jesus points the Jews. I have come in the name of my Father, and you do not receive me; if another shall come in his own name, him you will receive. That is how much they really love God. Note the strong contrasts, each strengthening the other: I—another; have come—shall come; in the name of my Father—in his own name; you do not receive me—him you will receive. In Matt. 23:36, etc., Jesus shows this utter lack of love on the part of the Jews from the treatment they bestowed upon all the prophets, crowning this with their treatment of his Son; here he speaks only of the latter. To come “in the name of my Father” does not mean: by his authority or as his representative.

See on τὸὄνομα in 1:12. “The name” here means the revelation of the Father, in other words, the testimony of the Scripture. By this Jesus is recognized as indeed coming from the Father, and by this those Jews should and could have recognized him. Having no love for God, his “name” or revelation made no impression on them, and when Jesus came, with his coming all in connection with that revelation, “the name,” counted for nothing with them: “and you receive me not” (1:11). The very people to whom “the name” was given, that by it they might know him who was to come in that name, refused that name and did not receive him who came in that name. The tenses correspond: “I have come,” perfect, and now am here; and: “you do not receive,” present. “Not to receive,” a litotes, = to reject. While the negative is milder than the positive, it really is stronger.

The mere omission already constitutes the crime. As in 1:12 “to receive” = to accept in faith; hence “not to receive” = to reject in unbelief.

Jesus, so perfectly accredited by “the name,” the Scriptures, their testimony, and this by the Father himself, these Jews do not receive. When “another” shall come, any other, for ἐὰνἔλθῃ is general, “in his own name,” in connection with a revelation concocted and made up by himself, hence accredited by himself alone and not like Jesus by God—though it seems astounding and incredible when looked at sensibly: “him you will receive.” And yet it is not so astounding after all. Such an impostor is of the type and the character of these Jews, out for glory from men, caring not for glory from God.

The words of Jesus are a prophecy concerning all the false Messiahs and other false religious leaders that would come in the future. To generalize and to refer to any man who is out only for his own interest is to loose the contrast between ἐγώ and ἄλλος, between the acts of coming, and between the two ὀνόματι. While the statement is not that broad, neither is it so narrow as to refer only to one person, say to the anti-Christ (older exegetes), or to Simon Barkochba, whom Rabbi Akiba termed “the star of Jacob” (Num. 24:17), and who was acclaimed by the leaders of the Jews in the years 132–135, many giving up their lives for him. This would require the direct statement: ἄλλοςἐλεύσομαι, “another shall come,” not the conditional: “if another shall come.” Bengel notes that up to his time sixty-four such messiahs had come, including, of course, the notable Barkochba. Since then more religious deceivers have been added, and the end is not yet. 2 Thes. 2:11, 12. It is truly astonishing how one coming in his own name (not long ago even a woman!), seeking in the boldest, rankest way his own glory, advantage, power, money, by making people his dupes and victims, is received by thousands with open arms.

They who count the Son of God too small to give their hearts to him, the name, Word, and revelation of God too unreliable to trust their souls to him of whom God thus testifies, yield their hearts, their happiness, their property, their all, to any fool who condescends to impose upon their credulity and to use them as his tools. The generation of the Jews never dies out.

John 5:44

44 This calls forth the dramatic indignant question: How can you come to believe, since you receive glory from each other and the real glory from the only God you seek not? Jesus combines non-belief in himself and belief in any deceiver. Both rest on this seeking for glory not from God but from men. “How is it possible with such people as you (ὑμεῖς) to come to faith (πιστεῦσαι, ingressive aorist, R. 857)? It is altogether out of the question.” But the impossibility is due not to God but to themselves. The participle is not equal to a relative clause, “who receive” (our versions), which would require articulation; it is causal, R. 1128, “since you receive.” Jesus might also have continued with a second participle, “and since you seek not,” etc. Instead he uses the stronger indicative, “and you seek not.” Note also δόξαν without the article and then τὴνδόξαν with the article; the former “any glory” in the line of poor, passing honor from men, the other, “the real glory,” the specific praise and commendation of God which he bestows when he calls a man his own child and heir. The former these Jews actually “receive,” the latter they do not even “seek,” to say nothing of “receiving” it.

The emptiness of the one over against the value of the other is brought out still more by the two opposite παρά phrases. The one is glory only “from each other,” who are all on the same poor and wretched level, none of whom can give more than any other. The other is glory “from the only God,” or as some texts read, “from the Only One.” (Entirely wrong, “from God alone”). He, infinitely exalted above men, bestows glory indeed, here that specific glory which lifts us up as his own. In τοῦμόνου we have an allusion to Deut. 6:4, etc., “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.” Jesus had this in mind already in v. 42, where he speaks of “the love of God”; for Deut. 6:5 continues, “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart,” etc. These words each devout Jew prayed twice daily in the prayer called Shema.

Jesus scores the vanity of the Jews, by which they boasted to each other of being Jews, instead of letting God bestow on them the true glory of Israel in his Son Jesus. Jew still boasts to Jew of their mutual prerogatives and is pleased when Gentiles praise Jews and Judaism. This self-exaltation proved their abasement, Luke 18:14. A special sting lies in the designation “the only God,” which is not in contrast with the Jews as being many but a designation for monotheism as against polytheism. The special boast of the Jews to each other was that they adhered to monotheism, and is used by them now in opposition to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, although the Jews in the Old Testament and in the time of Jesus knew “the only God” as Triune: compare 1:32. Examples of the general Jewish greediness for honor are found in Matt. 23:5–7; John 12:43.

Paul describes a real Jew as one “whose praise is not of men but of God.” Rom. 2:29. So our skeptic scientists, our “critic” theologians, our gaudily bedizened lodge brothers, and others like them, still shower honors, titles, laudations, offices, and emoluments upon each other, boosting their own pride in themselves and in each other while “the real glory from the only God” they do not even seek.

Luther writes: “It is an exceedingly proud and glorious honor, when a man can boast of God, that he is God’s servant, child, people, over against which all the honor of the world is as altogether nothing. But the world regards not such honor, seeks honor from men. The false apostles teach what pleases men, and this in order to have peace and the favor and applause of the mob. And, indeed, they get what they seek; for such fellows get the prize and have the thanks of everyone, Matt. 6:2 and 5.… If you want honor, give all honor to God alone, and for yourself keep nothing but shame. Despise yourself and let all your doing be nothing and thus you will sanctify God’s name and give honor to God alone. See, as soon as you do this, you are already full of honor, which is greater than the honor of all kings and abides forever; for God adorns you and honors you with his name, so that you are called God’s servant, God’s child, God’s people, and the like.

What now could God do more for you, who gives you so much temporal and eternal good and in addition the highest, even his own name, and the eternal honor? It seems to me, this is, indeed, worthy of our thanking him from the heart and praising him. Who is able for one of these things constantly to praise and thank God sufficiently?”

John 5:45

45 Now Jesus presents to these Jews the consequences of their rejecting the Father’s testimony in his Word. Think not that I will accuse you to the Father; there is he that accuses you, Moses, on whom you have set your hope. We must not forget that Jesus faces the Jews with the consequences of their unbelief in a final effort to shatter that unbelief and turn it into faith. These last three verses are full of terrific force; either this will crush the hearts in contrition or be met with desperate obduracy, blindly set on its own destruction. We feel the force of Jesus’ words when we understand how the Jews clung to their Moses, boasted in him, gloried in him, felt themselves absolutely safe in him—not, of course, the real Moses but the figure they had made of him in their own minds. With one sweep Jesus not only takes their Moses away but hurls the real Moses against them, as the one who already condemns them. The mastery with which Jesus does this must ever captivate our hearts.

“Do not think” implies that the Jews had been thinking this very thing, R. 853. We need not press the future “that I shall accuse you to the Father” as referring to the future judgment and urge that then Jesus will appear only as the judge; for this tense is in correlation with the substantivized present participle “there is he that accuses you, Moses,” etc. What Jesus tells these Jews is that he does not need to accuse them, that Moses already attends to that. Why should Jesus accuse those who are already under the strongest kind of an accusation? Moreover, the contrast is between ἐγώ and this accuser ὁκατηγορῶνὑμῶν (objective genitive: “he that accuses you”), whom Jesus not only names but also characterizes, “on whom you have set your hope.” Any accusation Jesus might bring forward these Jews would treat lightly, thinking him only a man who makes great unwarranted claims for himself (v. 18). But Moses is their own great and acknowledged authority.

More than that, they “have set their hope on him,” that Moses will acknowledge them as his disciples and as faithful adherents and defenders of his law, and that thus through the mediation of Moses God will undoubtedly pronounce a favorable verdict upon them in the judgment. On the perfect ἠλπίκατε see R. 895. Proudly they say in John 9:28, 29: “We are Moses’ disciples; we know that God spoke unto Moses: as for this fellow (Jesus), we know not whence he is.” But by thus setting their hope on Moses and on his law they made of both something that neither was, much as the teachers of work-righteousness and of salvation by morality do today, who do not, like the Jews, stop with Moses but reduce even Jesus to the same level. When Jesus now says that this their Moses, on whom all their hopes rest, is their accuser, to whose accusation Jesus needs to add not a thing, he delivers a blow to their proud self-assurance which strikes home. They may recoil in outraged feeling, but they are bound to feel the shock. Placed first, ἔστιν has the regular accent and means “there exists.”

John 5:46

46 For if you believed Moses you would believe me; for concerning me he did write. This statement cannot intend to prove at this late point why Moses accuses the Jews. The reason has already been furnished in v. 41–44, which also is full and complete. With γάρ Jesus elucidates why any accusation of his would be superfluous when Moses already attends to this. If these Jews would treat Moses right, so that he would have no accusations against them, they would treat aright also Jesus, of whom Moses wrote, and thus, of course, he, too, would have no accusations against them. Jesus uses “believe Moses” and “believe me,” two datives: accept Moses’ and my words as true.

The condition is one of present unreality and in regular form: εἰ with the imperfect followed by the imperfect with ἄν. This implies that the Jews are not believing what Moses said and thus are also not believing what Jesus says. The former is enough and more than sufficient for accusation; so Jesus leaves that work to Moses.

But Moses and Jesus are not merely paralleled, nor is the Jewish unbelief against Jesus treated merely as a case similar to the Jewish unbelief against Moses. The two cases of unbelief are made one by the second explanatory γάρ: “for concerning me he did write.” What Moses wrote and what Jesus has been testifying concerning himself is identical. Thus to believe the one is to believe the other; to disbelieve the one is to disbelieve the other. Moses with his writing came first, Jesus now follows. Since the unbelief is one, whether of Moses or of Jesus, the one accusation, that of Moses, covers the case.

“He wrote”—Moses! Let the critics who repudiate the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch face this authoritative declaration of Jesus. It is worth more than all the so-called “research” that has ever been put forth and it stands overagainst these critics as Moses overagainst these Jews, as ὁκατηγορῶνὑμῶν, as “he that accuses them.” Nor did Moses write of Jesus only in a few detached places, as some suppose. Bengel: Nusquam non—nowhere did Moses not write of Jesus. Nor did Moses also write of Jesus; for the whole center and substance of what he wrote is Jesus. The entire twenty-five centuries with which he deals he views in relation to the Messiah.

Ever and always faith in the Coming One decides the fate of man. Great things he touches slightly, and little things, dry genealogies, small occurrences in the lives of the patriarchs, he describes at length, because these have a bearing on the Messiah. From the story of creation onward, through all the following history, ceremony, prophecy, and promise, he is ever in the mind of Moses. Moses in person and in office is even himself a type of the Mediator to come. All this the Jews of Jesus’ day did not believe, nor do the Jews believe it today. And this Jewish unbelief has been adopted by thousands of others who with the Jews count it the very height of Bible knowledge.

On “if you believed Moses.” Stier writes: “The Jews believed not Moses in his account of the creation and in his testimony on the fall of man; for if they had accepted this as truth, they as sinful men would have had to seek with all earnestness the living God, as did Enoch and Noah. They did not believe him in the account concerning the fathers and their faith, else they would have followed in the footsteps of Abraham. They did not believe in the sacred earnestness of the law he delivered, judging the hearts, else their Pharisaic work-righteousness would have fallen to the ground. Finally, they did not believe him when his entire order of priests and sacrifices constantly renewed the memory of their sins and pointed in shadowy outline to a future real fulfillment, else they would have become through Moses already what the Baptist finally tried to make them, a people ready and prepared for the Lord, embracing his salvation with joy like Simeon.”

John 5:47

47 The condition of unreality is now expressed in a condition of reality. But if his writings you do not believe, how shall you believe my words? The structure of the statement is chiastic and thus places the two objects into the emphatic positions. Not only does Jesus say, “Moses wrote”; he now adds, “Moses’ writings,” placing a double seal of authorship and truth on the Pentateuch. The contrast is between “his” and “my,” not between “writings” and “words.” Of course, the Jews had only the writings of Moses whereas they had the words, ῥήματα, the living audible speech of Jesus. Though we now have the utterances of Jesus in writing, the relation between Moses and Jesus is still the same. In conditions of reality the Koine uses εἰ with οὑ as the negative.

With a sad question, the implied answer to which is negative, Jesus breaks off and says no more. His task was done. Deep into the callous conscience of these Jews he had pressed the sting of the law. They pretended mighty zeal for the law, raging against Jesus for breaking the Sabbath law. But what Moses really wrote, what God through Moses really testified they did not believe. So Jesus leaves them with this gripping question. John is right in adding no remarks of his own at the end of this discourse. Its testimony is most effective just as it stands.

R. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, fourth edition.

B.-D. Friedrich Blass’ Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, vierte, voellig neugearbeitete Auflage besorgt von Albert Debrunner.