John 8

CHAPTER VIII

IV. Jesus Proves his Testimony True and Warns his Opponents, 8:12–30

7:53–8:11 is not an integral part of John’s Gospel but part of the early oral tradition (antedating the year 70); it was very early put into written form, and one of its two versions was eventually inserted into John’s Gospel. These findings of the text critics must be accepted as facts. Between 7:52 and 8:12 nothing intervenes. The spurious section is foreign to John’s Gospel, fits nowhere into the plan of this Gospel, and is easily recognized as an interpolation in the place which it occupies. The language differs decidedly from that of John’s own writing. Yet this spurious section reports quite correctly an actual occurrence in the life of Jesus.

Every feature of it bears the stamp of probability, although we are unable to say at what point in the story of Jesus it should be inserted. Since John did not write this section, we give no exposition of it.

John 8:12

12 The Feast of Tabernacles is ended. We hear nothing more about the ὄχλος, all the pilgrims have departed. Again, therefore, Jesus spoke to them saying, I am the light of the world. He that follows me shall in no way walk in the darkness but shall have the light of life. The movement to arrest Jesus had proved abortive, “accordingly,” οὗν, he goes on delivering his testimony. When John writes, “again, therefore, Jesus spoke to them saying,” πάλιν refers back to 7:35, where he stood and cried out to the multitude.

He now again speaks after a brief interval. The verb ἐλάλησεν (λαλεῖν, the opposite of being silent) conveys the thought that Jesus simply continued with his public utterances as he had done before, and αὑτοῖς, “them,” has as its antecedent the Pharisees (7:47), who also in v. 13 are named as making a reply. That others, too, are present it self-evident, compare “many” in v. 30, all of whom certainly were not Pharisees. The Temple was the most public place in Jerusalem, where crowds constantly gathered. The Pharisees, those that were members of the Sanhedrin, and others of their numerous party kept close watch on Jesus to note anything he might say or do.

This is the situation when Jesus now again speaks and declares (λέγων), “I am the light of the world.” The emphatic ἐγώ means I and I alone, I and no other. When the predicate has the article as it does here: to τὸφῶς, it is convertible with the subject; in other words, the predicate is identical with the subject, R. 768. The question is asked as to how Jesus comes to use the figure of light just at this time. Because the context furnishes no hint, some say that no special reason or occasion suggests the figure; that Old Testament references such as Isa. 9:1; 42:6; 49:6; 60:3; etc., are basis enough for its use on this occasion. Others find a connection with a notable ceremony that was observed during the festival that has just ended. Grand candelabra with four vessels of oil were placed in the inner court.

Young priests climbed ladders and lighted the wicks, and a grand torch dance was staged by the people, even men like Hillel priding themselves on their skill in taking part. We are told that the bright light shone all over the city. Maimonides states that this ceremony took place every evening during the feast, others are sure that it occurred only on the first evening. The main difficulty in connecting the word of Jesus with this ceremony is that it leaves out an essential part of the figure. Those candelabra were stationary, and men danced in the courts, while Jesus speaks of a movable light: “he that follows me.” We may say more. In 7:37, when Jesus calls those that “thirst” and bids them come to him and “drink,” he does not stop with the ceremony of drawing water from Siloah and pouring it out at the altar, in which no quenching of thirst by drinking is pictured; he reaches back to the original blessing received at Meribah where the thirsty actually received water to drink.

He does the same here. One of the great blessings during the desert sojourn of Israel was the pillar of cloud and of fire, evidence of the presence of Jehovah with his people. As the entire feast, with Israel for a week dwelling in booths, commemorated the sojourn in the desert, so the shining candelabra pictured the pillar of fire that dispelled the darkness of night during the desert journey. Israel followed that pillar and camped in its light every night. What that pillar was for Israel in days gone by Jesus is for the whole world. That pillar was Jehovah, Jesus is God’s own Son.

Following this word of Jesus that he is the light of the world, John in his prolog, 1:4–9, described the Logos as “the light.” When speaking to Nicodemus on faith and unbelief (3:18), Jesus said that “the light is come into the world,” and that the believer comes to this light while the unbeliever shuns it (3:19–21). Here we now have the basic word, “I am the light of the world.” The idea in “light” is that of an active power which conquers the opposing power called “darkness.” Each constitutes a power, each stands opposed to the other, and the light triumps, over the darkness. Note the article τῇσκοτίᾳ, the darkness,” not merely “darkness” in general. The best analysis of both is that of S. Goebel: divine truth, clear as light, over against human falsehood and ignorance; divine holiness, pure as light, over against human sin and impurity; divine blessedness and glory, radiant as light, over against the night of human woe, to which we would add death. In the various connections in which the term light is used one or the other of these features may be more prominent. Here where Jesus speaks unconditionally all three are combined. “I am the light of the world” means to say: “In the human person of Jesus, as in a focus of radiant light, the shining image of divine truth, holiness, and blessedness has appeared in the human world, by its victorious radiance to penetrate the darkness of the word and to deliver it from the night of falsehood, sin, and woe.”

Like the pillar in the desert, Jesus as the light of the world must be followed: “he that follows me.” While actual outward attachment is meant, even as many at that time followed Jesus about and kept in his company as much as possible, following Jesus here as elsewhere in the Gospels means permanent spiritual attachment (see 1:43). Of its own accord this gracious gift of God, this light, shines into the world’s night. Its glorious, saving radiance attracts all whom it meets and draws them to remain with this light. Everyone who yields to this drawing power “shall not walk in the darkness,” shall escape from its deadly power, shall no longer be lost, eventually to perish in the world’s desert. This negation, however, and its individual formulation intimate that some whom the light reaches and begins to draw to itself will turn from it and prefer the darkness, 3:20. This is the tragedy that is connected with the coming of the light.

Yet the positive “he that follows me” intimates also that some will truly follow Jesus, and the effect shall be that each of these “shall have the light of life.” As so often in the words of Jesus, the positive is not made the mere counterpart of the negative. Jesus says more than that “he shall walk in the light.” To be sure, he shall do this too, but he shall do it because this light shall actually penetrate him and shall become his personal possession. This is another case where the figure used is really inadequate to express the spiritual reality, it only approximates that reality. Natural light never becomes part of our inner being, it only shines outwardly round about us. Jesus, the light of the world, shall do far more.

“He shall have the light of life” states more than this inner penetration and personal possession; it adds the inner and permanent effect of the possession, which is life, ζωή, the spiritual life, abiding union with God who is the essence of life. Here we have the same combination of life and light as in 1:4. As the two go together in nature, so also in the world of the spirit. By implication the opposite is suggested: darkness and death likewise go together. The absolute mastery of expression used by Jesus must not escape us. Words so few, so simple in themselves, in such lucid combination, to express realities so profound, so exalted, so heavenly, that our minds stagger in the effort to apprehend them.

God, who is life and light, sent his Son Jesus as the source of light and life to all the world, to fill each individual soul with truth, holiness, and blessedness, and thus to give it life eternal. Note the universality in “the light of the world,” combined with the personal individuality in the singular “he that follows me.” Both reach out to the universe of men, far beyond the bounds of national Judaism. When we visualize the lowly Jesus in the Temple court uttering these words, astonishment overcomes us. But two thousand years of Christianity have verified these words in millions of individuals in all the “world.”

To follow Jesus as the light keeps to the figure and yet indicates all of the reality by one simple verb form. The light does all the drawing to itself, not we; it makes us follow. Only wilful resistance, the most unreasonable and unaccountable perversion, breaks away from that drawing and chooses the deadly darkness instead of the light which brings life, yet not “to follow” darkness but to remain in it. To follow Jesus is to believe and trust him. How can anyone trust the darkness? He must mistrust and flee from it when the light shines over him.

How can anyone mistrust and flee from the light when it shines over him? We are made for this light and its life, our whole being responds to it. How can it help but draw, hold, and fill us? While to follow means to believe and to trust, it means this in its fulness, even as the verb “to have” indicates. To follow is to believe and to obey, i.e., to walk in the path of this life. To follow means to unite inwardly with Jesus—he in us and we in him, “to have” in the unio mystica.

The genitive “the light of life” is not appositional, so that “the life” is identical with “the light.” Nor is it the genitive of origin, so that “the light” proceeds from “the life” (Jesus). This is the simple possessive genitive, “the light” which belongs to “the life” and is invariably connected with it. Thus light and life are distinct concepts. The former is here identified with Jesus, the latter is elsewhere also identified with him. By making the second a genitive the two clasp hands in this case: Jesus is the light, and this light is always linked with life. Shall we ever be able to penetrate the depth of these simple words?

John 8:13

13 As soon as Jesus has uttered this great I AM, the Pharisees, some of whom are present among the auditors, object. The Pharisees, therefore, said to him, Thou art testifying concerning thine own self; thy testimony is not true. They pay no attention to what Jesus says of himself and to his promises to his followers. Their ears are deaf to anything of that kind. They are completely satisfied with themselves and care nothing for who he is and what he bestows. They are bent only on catching at any reason for rejecting him and for discrediting him, no matter how flimsy it may be.

So now they fasten on “I am” and raise the formal objection that Jesus is testifying in his own behalf, and that such testimony “is not true,” i.e., cannot be accepted as true before a judgment bar. Jesus had met this objection a year ago when in 5:31 he acknowledged the formal principle and made his own testimony legally competent by adducing his Father as a second witness, who had given the Jews his testimony in his Word, 5:37, etc. Here he does the same, v. 18.

John 8:14

14 But before he adduces his supporting witness he qualifies himself as a competent witness. Jesus answered and said unto them (1:48), And if I do testify concerning myself, my testimony is true, because I know whence I came and where I am going; but you do not know whence I come or where I am going. We cannot admit that Jesus here contradicts what he says in 5:31, although it be only formally. For in verse 17 Jesus himself enunciates the old principle of the law, which requires at least two witnesses, the very principle he admitted in 5:31 and met in 5:37, just as here he again complies with it in verse 18. Why the notion of at least an apparent contradiction persists, is hard to understand. To be sure, a second witness is necessary, and Jesus Has that second witness.

For that very reason the self-witness of Jesus must be accepted as being legally perfectly competent. While, if offered alone, it would amount to nothing before a court of law, corroborated by a second witness, it stands. So Jesus qualifies as a witness in his own case. “And if I myself (ἐγώ) do testify concerning myself, my testimony is true.” Why? “Because I know whence I did come and where (ποῦ for “whither,” R. 298, d) I am going.” He is conversant with the facts, namely those concerning his coming into the world from heaven for his saving mission, and his return to heaven, whence he came, after completing his mission. Knowing these facts, though they concern himself, he is competent to testify concerning them.

It is, therefore, a misconception to say that “the ordinary rule of law does not apply to Jesus”; the contrary is true. Nor does Jesus here appeal to his divinity or to his holiness as a guarantee of his truthfulness. He says not one word about either of these. He declares his testimony to be true for the simple reason that it states the true facts regarding himself. That this testimony of his must be accepted as being legally competent is due to the fact that it is corroborated by a second unimpeachable witness, namely the Father, v. 18. Jesus claims no exemption of any kind for himself; on the contrary, he gladly and completely submits to every legal requirement regarding the admission of testimony.

How could he hope to have his testimony accepted by anybody if he proceeded to set aside the very law concerning testimony? It tends to confusion to talk about “the consciousness of Jesus” in connection with the verb οἶδα, “I know.” How far this confusion may lead appears in the assertion, that “Christianity is entirely based upon Christ’s consciousness of himself,” and in the admonition about “the heroism of faith” on our part in resting on that consciousness. Like any witness, Jesus tells what “he knows,” knows by firsthand, direct, personal knowledge, not what he has heard from others at second hand, not what he merely thinks or imagines. “I know”—that marks the genuine witness. “Whence I did come” is a fact which he most certainly does know. Why would he be ignorant of it? “And where I am going” is a second fact of the same kind. Who can bring evidence that Jesus does not know either or both of these facts? He is not a witness who is not in a position to know and thus to testify in regard to these facts.

Here Jesus does not specify the place that is referred to. He has already done that, more than once, and his hearers have heard it a long time ago. All that he now needs to do and all that he does, is to insist that he is doing the true part of a genuine witness: telling what he actually knows. That is all that anyone can ask of a witness. And when a witness tells this, all men who are true and honest will believe his testimony—provided, of course, that it is duly corroborated (v. 18).

We do not believe that κἄν (καὶἐάν) is concessive in this case in the sense of “although” I testify, or “if also,” or “if perchance” (R. 1018); for Jesus does actually testify that he is the light of the world. In fact, he keeps testifying so often that one of his titles is “the faithful witness,” or “the faithful and true witness,” Rev. 1:4; 3:14. His bearing witness is not an incidental function but one of the chief functions of his office. R. 1010, 1018, and B.-D. 372, 1 (a) think that κἂνμαρ̣τυρῶ (as in 5:31) may be the indicative and not the subjunctive; and B.-D. offers the explanation that ἐάν is used for εἰ, calling the construction a vulgarism. Whatever the real explanation of ἐάν with the indicative may be, an indicative would here indicate actuality, and a present indicative iterative actuality: “and if I do keep on testifying,” wenn immer (B.-D.); but certainly not: “if I perchance testify” (R.). The subjunctive would indicate future iterative testifying: “if I shall keep on testifying, as I expect to do.”

By repudiating the testimony of Jesus on legal grounds the Pharisees arrogate to themselves the position of legal judges in Jesus’ case. They love to do that sort of thing, deeming themselves the great guardians of the law. Therefore, after establishing his own competency as a legal witness, Jesus establishes the incompetency of these self-constituted judges: “But you do not know whence I come, or where I am going.” Whether we read δέ or not, this statement is not a continuation of the proof that Jesus is a legally competent witness. The ignorance of the Pharisees in no way helps to qualify Jesus as a witness. Such qualification inheres and must inhere in Jesus alone; it cannot inhere partly in other men. Nor does this statement about the ignorance of the Pharisees mean to say that because of their ignorance they are dependent on Jesus for any testimony regarding whence he comes and whither he is going.

A thought of this kind would be entirely out of line with what Jesus presents. The statement about the ignorance of the Pharisees is the preamble to their disqualification as judges in Jesus’ case. It goes together with what follows on this point in v. 15. We see at a glance that in the clause, “whence I come,” ἔρχομαι is identical in thought with the same clause that precedes, “whence I did come,” ἦλθον. This is the aoristic present, which expresses the fact in a timeless manner; R. 865, etc., calls it “the specific present.” Here Jesus uses “or” between the object clauses, drawing separate attention to each of the two.

John 8:15

15 Since the Pharisees labor under this ignorance they are rendered totally incompetent to make a legal pronouncement as judges concerning Jesus as an inadmissible witness. You are judging according to the flesh. That is all they are able to do in Jesus’ case when they arrogate to themselves the position of judges. Note the article in κατὰτὴνσάρκα. All they see and know is “the flesh” of Jesus, his human appearance. They have no other norm (κατά) for judging him.

Who this person really is, whence he came, or whither he is going, is hidden from them. This ignorance disqualifies them. Deprived of the real data for pronouncing a valid judgment on Jesus, in particular as to whether he is a competent witness, they fall back on a superficial datum (his flesh) and thus render an invalid, spurious judgment, showing that they are unfit to serve as judges. These Pharisees, however, have had many followers. “The flesh” is specific and refers to the flesh of Jesus; without the article, κατὰσάρκα, “according to flesh,” would state only a general principle, that of customarily judging only in an outward way. How these Pharisees customarily judge is not the point here but how they judge in this specific case of Jesus.

The Pharisees made a profession of judging; see the shallow judgment in 7:15, and the intemperate judgment in 7:49. Jesus contrasts himself with them. I judge no one, ἐγώ in contrast with the preceding ὑμεῖς. But in the next breath he adds, “And if I do judge,” etc. Many seek to remove what to them seems like a contradiction. So some add, “I judge no one according to the flesh,” or “like you,” which the very sense of the phrase forbids.

Others stress the tense, “I judge no one now,” meaning that he will eventually judge at the end of the world; but the following, “if I do judge,” also refers to the present time. Still others stress the pronoun “I” and let it mean “I alone,” “I in my human individuality,” as if John had written ἐγὼμόνος, which he has not. Finally, “no one” is stressed as a singular: he judges no individual but does judge “the moral state of the people.” Those are right who supply nothing, find no appearance of contradiction, and stress neither one nor the other of the words. What Jesus says is this: “I am engaged in judging no one.” The mission on which God sent him is not to act as a judge but as a Savior, 3:17. Here the context points to the contrast between judging and testifying. His great function is to testify to the truth and thus to save.

He is the light of the world, sent to bless with enlightenment and salvation. Luther puts it tersely, “He here indicates his office.”

John 8:16

16 But this very office with all its great saving purpose and in the very prosecution of that purpose necessitates the secondary function, a certain kind of judging. Luther continues: “If you will not have the Lord God, then keep the devil; and the office, which otherwise is not established in order to judge but to help and to comfort, this is compelled to judge.” This does not mean that unbelief turns the testimony of Jesus into judgment for itself but that Jesus himself does utter judgment on certain men in the prosecution of his office. And if, nevertheless (δέ), I do judge, my judgment is genuine, because I am not alone, but I and the Father that did send me. Here καὶἐὰνκρίνω is exactly like κἂνμαρτυρῶ in v. 14, present actuality (if subjunctive). The emphatic ἐγώ = “I,” who am sent to testify not to judge. This moves δέ back to fourth place in the sentence, which is unusual; it marks the contrast with the previous statement.

When this necessity of judging, nevertheless, arises, Jesus says, “my judgment (note the emphatic possessive: my in contrast with your judgment) is genuine,” ἀληθινή, worthy to be called a judgment. His judgment will not be only ἀληθής, “true,” rendering a correct verdict by some means or other, but “genuine,” coming from one who is in every way competent to act as a judge, who does not only happen to hit the right verdict but penetrates to all the facts in the case and pronounces accordingly. That kind of a judgment is, indeed, genuine, far beyond the judgment of these Pharisees on Jesus, who saw only his flesh.

As Jesus has qualified as a witness, so he now qualifies as a judge: “because I am not alone,” a mere man, as these Pharisees think, left only to the penetration and wisdom of his human abilities. Such a judge may err, even with the best intentions, and in many cases his judgment may not be “genuine,” worthy of the name. When Jesus judges, sent as he is by his Father from heaven on his saving mission, his judging must be infallible, hence his qualification as a judge must be according, far above those with which we are satisfied in mere men. Jesus has this qualification: he is not alone, “on the contrary (ἀλλά after a negation), I and he that did send me, the Father” (πατήρ omitted in some codices), i.e., we two are always together. By thus pointing to his Sender in connection with his judging Jesus declares that his judging is in connection with his mission. We may compare 5:19 and 30, also 8:26.

Also in his judging Jesus never acts apart from, or contrary to, his Sender. The judgments of Jesus are thus identical with those of his Father, unerring and divine. In all the verdicts of Jesus these Pharisees have the verdicts of God himself. A note of warning to the Pharisees lies in these brief statements which reveal the kind of judge that Jesus is.

John 8:17

17 What Jesus says of himself as a judge is only incidental, elicited by the action of the Pharisees in usurping judicial authority by calling the testimony of Jesus illegal and void in a court of law. Therefore, after briefly contrasting his genuine judging with the spurious judging of the Pharisees, Jesus reverts to the main issue, that of the legal competency of his testimony regarding himself. In v. 14 only the preliminary point is settled, that when Jesus does testify he testifies from actual and direct personal knowledge. Now the main point is taken up. And in your own law, moreover, it has been written, that the testimony of two men is true. Here καί … δέ is not the same as in v. 16; it is not “and yet,” or “and … nevertheless” (with δέ adversative), but as in 6:51 and in 1 John 1:3: “and … moreover”—καί adds, and δέ marks the addition as something different from v. 14.

Jesus himself cites the law on the point at issue, formulating it himself from Deut. 17:6 and 19:15. He knows that law perfectly. “It has been written” means that it stands thus indefinitely (this being the force of the tense). Jesus pointedly calls it “your own law.” Jesus thus points these legalists to their own supreme legal authority. But not with the implication: This is your law not mine; for Jesus was put under this law (Gal. 4:4), came to fulfill the law (Matt. 5:17), and did fulfill all its requirements. Yet Jesus cannot say “our law,” even as he must distinguish “your Father” from “my Father” and can never say “our Father.” His relation to the law differed from that of men. The law bound all Israelites since it was given for them.

Jesus placed himself under this law only for the sake of men; he was the Son, thus the lawgiver himself, and the law was never given for him. This vital disparity between Jesus and men is here brought out. Therefore, too, the possessive “your own” in no way disparages the law; Jesus always honors the law.

Now in Deut. 19:15, etc., the law demands that there be more than just one witness; there must be at least two. Each must corroborate the other. Our state laws contain the same proviso. Testimony by at least two witnesses stands as “true,” ἀληθής, must be admitted as true. The fact that one of the two witnesses may be testifying in his own case makes no difference. When citing this law about legally competent testimony Jesus uses the genitive: the testimony “of two men,” (ἄνθρωποι), whereas Deuteronomy has “of two witnesses” (μάρτυρες).

This difference in terms might be only accidental, since Jesus is not actually quoting the law in a set form, if the case at issue were one involving only a man and ordinary men as witnesses. Here, however, where Jesus is on trial and where he and his Father are the witnesses, the change in terms is evidently intentional. In any human court “two men,” two human witnesses, would be enough; for these Pharisees Jesus adduces two divine witnesses. So fully does he meet the requirement of the law that he greatly exceeds that requirement.

John 8:18

18 I am he that testifies concerning myself, and the Father that sent me testifies concerning me. In the Greek the statement is chiastic; the subjects are placed first and last, and the predicates are placed in between, an arrangement that is highly effective. Thus, indeed, we have two witnesses as the law requires. Both testify to the same facts concerning Jesus. This, however, shuts out the idea that the Father’s testimony is already contained in that of Jesus, that when Jesus testifies, the Pharisees already have also the Father’s testimony. The two are independent witnesses and stand as two; otherwise the provision of the law would not be met.

Jesus does not need to state what the Father’s testimony is because he did this a year ago when the same point was discussed, 5:31, etc., and the Pharisees have by no means forgotten. But the question is raised whether Jesus now includes in the Father’s testimony both the works which he gave him to do (5:36) and the Old Testament prophecies concerning Jesus (5:37–47), or only the former. The present tense μαρτυρεῖ, “he testifies,” is stressed as pointing only to the works. Yet the perfect tense μεμαρτύρηκε in 5:37, which is there used concerning the writings, has a present implication. Here, where the Father’s entire testifying is summed up in “he testifies,” the writings certainly cannot be excluded; and this the less since the presentation of the Father’s testimony made in 5:31, etc., is assumed still to be in the minds of the Pharisees.

John 8:19

19 They were, therefore, saying to him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Neither me do you know nor my Father. If you knew me you would know also my Father. The imperfect ἔλεγον may mean that different ones of the Pharisees put this question at Jesus. Their “where” question has a mocking tone. If God is, indeed, the father and Sender of Jesus, and if this God is to be the second witness, with his testimony to corroborate that of Jesus concerning himself, then let Jesus present this Father, that he may be interrogated as a witness, so that these Pharisees may see whether his testimony agrees with that of Jesus.

A silly shrewdness lies back of this question: the certainty that Jesus cannot produce this second witness in the way they intimate. In this demand on Jesus to present his second witness these Pharisees repeat their proceeding of v. 13: they dodge the main issue by raising a minor one that is wholly immaterial. The main issue is: Does God testify as Jesus says, or does he not so testify? In 5:36, etc., God’s testimony was given to the Pharisees: the works of Jesus and the Old Testament declarations concerning Jesus. This double testimony is undeniable and incontrovertible. These men brazenly set it aside and instead fasten on the point that Jesus should produce this second witness in person before them.

But by foolishly asking where this second witness is these Pharisees betray a second piece of fatal ignorance. The first Jesus points out in the last clause of v. 14; the second he now states in the same categorical way: “Neither me do you know nor my Father,” i.e., the true God. Their question is evidence for this their ignorance. People who ask where the Father is, who want him produced so that they can place him on the witness stand, thereby demonstrate that they do not know him at all, and no wonder, then, that they also do not know him whom God has sent. God is always on the witness stand of his written Word, where all who will may hear his testimony in full and thus also learn to know him most intimately and adequately. Those who reject this testimony know neither the Father nor the Son—and the guilt of this ignorance is theirs alone.

In the statement regarding the ignorance of the Pharisees Jesus uses “neither … nor,” disjunctives, placing each person by himself beside the other. In the following conditional sentence “also” (καί) connects the two persons. Why Jesus puts himself first and the Father second is apparent from the latter: “If you knew me you would know also my Father” (present unreality, εἰ with the imperfect followed by the imperfect with ἄν; ἤδειτε, pluperfect, always used as an imperfect). If Jesus had placed the Father first he would thereby have pointed to the Old Testament revelation as the means of knowledge, i.e., that by showing us the Father the Old Testament shows us also the Son. This the Old Testament, indeed, does. By placing himself first a different thought is expressed, namely that Jesus is the medium for knowing the Father aright.

For although the Father speaks clearly enough in the Old Testament, he speaks more clearly still through his Son (Heb. 1:1, 2), his person, mission, word, and work (14:6, 7). He who knows the Son, he, and he alone, knows also the Father. Thus these two, who may be placed side by side (“neither … nor”), belong together (“also,” καί), 14:9. The question of Philip in 14:8 is only apparently like that of the Pharisees.

The conditional form of the sentence shuts out the possibility of regarding it as an inverse deduction, in the sense that ignorance concerning Jesus is conclusive evidence that the Pharisees are ignorant also regarding the Father. Such a deduction appears in 5:38, where not believing in Jesus proves that the Father’s word is not in the Jews. If Jesus had desired a deduction of this type he would have said, “Because you do not know me, therefore also you do not know the Father”; or, “You do not know the Father, for you do not know me.” What he does say is that knowing the Father depends on (εἰ) knowing Jesus. Where this condition is absent, the conclusion is also absent. The implication is that it should be easy to know Jesus, who also has come to show us the Father and in and through whom the Father reveals himself.

John 8:20

20 This ends the present clash. The Pharisees have no reply and possibly walk away. These words he spoke at the treasury while teaching in the Temple; and no one arrested him because his hour had not yet come. Just what place is meant by “the treasury” is disputed. In the court of the women stood thirteen treasure chests with funnel or trumpet-like receptacles, into which the gifts were thrown; while near the hall in which the Sanhedrin met was the room in which the Temple funds were kept. The purpose in mentioning the place is to indicate that it was public, under the very noses of the authorities.

Moreover, Jesus made not only the utterances here recorded but was engaged in teaching. Yet (καί for joining an adversative thought) no one, not even these Pharisees, who had again been refuted in public, ventured to make a move to arrest Jesus. No secondary reasons are mentioned why he was let alone. The supposition that the consciences of the Pharisees had been touched, making them cowardly for the moment, is improbable. The primary reason is the same as that assigned in 7:30, which see.

John 8:21

21 A second and much sharper clash follows the altercation which John has just marked as being finished (v. 20). There cannot have been a long interval between the events recorded in these two verses. He said, therefore, again unto them, I am going away, and you shall seek me and shall die in your sin. Whither I go, you cannot come. The connective οὗν, “therefore,” refers to v. 20: since no one had arrested him, his hour not having come. “Again,” once more (compare v. 12) he thus spoke to them, this time in most serious warning. The persons addressed are the same, although John now calls them “the Jews,” such as belong to the hostile ruling class.

Jesus reiterates what he said to these men in 7:33, 34, but with important modifications. He points in warning to what their wicked unbelief must lead. This time the preamble, “Yet a little while I am with you,” is omitted. In 7:33 it was added because the police officers had been sent out to arrest him before the festival was ended; no police are now watching to effect an arrest. This time, however, an emphatic ἐγώ precedes the verb: “I, of my own accord, am going away” entirely irrespective of what you Jews may plot and plan. Jesus’ mission is approaching its end; then he will leave (ὑπάγω, the futuristic present, R. 870).

There is no need to repeat from 7:33 that he is going to the Father, his Sender. Then what about these Jews who are now so keen to be rid of Jesus? Strange to say, then when they have what they wish, they will not wish what they have—then: “you will seek me,” too late, with the seeking of despair; compare the explanation of 7:34. When the calamities of judgment will set in, the Jews will cry in vain for a deliverer.

In 7:34 only the negative is presented: “you shall not find me,” i.e., I shall not deliver you; here the positive is stated: “you shall die in your sin,” ἁμαρτία, the collective singular. To die in one’s sin is to receive the eternal penalty of sin after death. For to die in sin is to die without repentance and saving faith. To die thus is to perish, 3:16. Wanting to be completely rid of Jesus, these Jews shall be rid of him forever. “Whither I go, you cannot come.” The blessed presence of the Father, to which Jesus returns after he has completed his mission, will be closed to his enemies after death overwhelms them. This is what their unbelief will at last lead to.

John 8:22

22 This renewed, most positive warning the Jews again answer with mockery. The Jews, therefore, said, not addressing Jesus but speaking of him in the third person as in 7:35, 36, Surely, he will not kill himself since he declares, Whither I go you cannot come. They state the question with μήτι as if they have in mind a negative answer yet see no other way but to answer positively. The ears of these Jews are keen in a certain way, for they catch the force of the emphatic “I”: “I myself” am going away, and tack their answer onto that. This “I” is absent in 7:33, which accounts for the fling the Jews there employ, fastening it only on the verb ὑπάγω. In the present case the thrust that Jesus must be contemplating suicide is more vicious than the sneer about his going among the pagan Greeks in 7:35.

We may here regard ὅτι as causal, “since,” but compare the ὅτι in 7:35. The Jews here persist in their trick of catching at some one word or expression in the utterances of Jesus, turning their venom on that, and blindly ignoring the grave substance of what Jesus says. So here they are deaf to the warning that they shall die in their sins with all the horror that lies in this statement; they pick up only the expression that Jesus himself is about to go away. The fact that a man who kills himself lands in hell, and that these Jews do not intend to go there, is not implied in their mocking question, although some have thought so. If this were the point in their sneer, something in the wording would indicate as much.

John 8:23

23 Jesus pays no heed to the mockery just uttered. To ignore is also to answer, and often more effectively than to use words. And he was saying to them, means that he added the following to what he had already said: You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. This double contrast is only the preamble to the warning, combined with the call of grace, which follows in v. 24. Jesus thus repeats and expounds more fully what he has said in v. 21. The four ἐκ denote origin. “From below” = “of this world”; likewise “from above” = “not of this world.” The contrast in positive form is elucidated by the contrast in negative form.

The origin of the Jews is not the origin of Jesus. Moreover, the emphasis is on the two second members of the contrast, i.e., on the origin of Jesus. He and he alone is the exception. That the Jews, like all men, are “from below,” “of this world,” is an ordinary fact, universally acknowledged. That Jesus is totally different in his origin is the exceptional fact, denied by these Jews but a fact, nevertheless, and, as v. 24 shows, decisive for these Jews, whether they shall die in their sins or escape from this death.

While “this world” defines “below,” the latter also helps to define the former; the same is true of the opposite phrases. This means that the Jews are of mundane origin, but Jesus of supermundane, heavenly, divine origin. In the Biblical concept “world” mankind holds the dominating place, and “this world” indicates the present actual condition of the earth with its human inhabitants, with its corruption of sin and death. The effort to dissociate sin and death from “this world” as used here by Jesus fails because both are mentioned in the next breath (v. 24). Yet this is true, Jesus does not here operate with the contrast: the Jews are sinful, he is sinless. This would only place a gulf between him and them.

To be sure, the Jews are sinful because of their origin, and Jesus sinless because of his. This goes without saying. But Jesus, who is from above, is now amid those who are from below in order to lift them to his side. He who is not of this world now stands among those who are of this world in order to deliver them from the sin and the death in this world and to raise them to heaven. This preamble, therefore, intends once more to usher in for the Jews the way of escape through faith in Jesus.

John 8:24

24 Now follows the main statement. I said, therefore, to you, that you shall die in your sins; for unless you come to believe that I am (what I say) you shall die in your sins. Here is the full presentation of the briefer warning of v. 21. Its main point is that a way of escape from death is open. Hence the weight of οὗν rests on the clauses about Jesus in the preamble: “I am from above, not of this world.” Since Jesus is such a Savior he can help these Pharisees so that they shall not die in their sins. Only secondary weight attaches to the first clauses in the preamble, that the Pharisees are from below and of this world; for this is obvious and accounts for their state of sin.

This made it necessary, in the grace of God, that Jesus should appear in their midst, he who is from above, not of this world, divine, with power to deliver from sin and death. The reason, then, why Jesus told these Pharisees that they would die in their sins is not that, like all men, they are sinners. Note the thrice repeated phrase: die “in your sin” or “sins” (spreading out the collective singular in the plural). Though they have sins, they need not “die in them,” for here is the divine Savior from heaven come on his mission to free them from their sins.

The explanatory γάρ thus puts the warning in this form: “Unless you come to believe, you shall die in your sins.” The sins of these men will destroy them by robbing them of life eternal only if they refuse to believe in Jesus. The “if” clause is pure gospel, extending its blessed invitation anew. Yet it is again combined with the warning about dying in sins. This note of warning with its terrifying threat persists because these Jews had chosen the course of unbelief. Yet the “if” opens the door of life in the wall of sin. The divine threats are conditional.

You shall die if you do not come to faith (πιστεύσητε, ingressive aorist), come to accept, trust, and cling to the divine deliverer. That is why in v. 24 ἀποθανεῖσθε, “you shall die,” has the emphatic forward position while in v. 21 “in your sins” has this position. In v. 21 Jesus says, the sins will bring on death; now he says, death will be brought on by the sins. The emphasis is shifted to death because of the implied contrast with escape from death in the “if” clause. Unfortunately, this shift in emphasis with its important meaning is lost in translation.

Jesus might have said, “unless you come to believe in me.” Instead of the mere pronoun he uses the far more significant object clause ὅτιἐγώεἰμι with its strong emphasis on “I”—“I” alone and no other. The ellipsis in “that I am,” the omission of the predicate, is idiomatic in the Greek and quite common; see 4:26; 6:20; 9:9; 13:19; 18:5, 6 and 8 in John alone. The Greek mind is nimble and finds no difficulty in each instance in supplying the predicate from the context. So here “that I am” means: “that I am, as I say, from above, not of this world,” i.e., divine, the Son of God, come from heaven on the mission to save sinners who are from below and of this world. This is the substance of the faith that affords escape from death. Some would supply: “that I am the Messiah,” or “God,” etc.; but this disregards the context which alone supplies the predicate that the speaker has in mind.

In English this Greek idiom cannot be reproduced; we must in some way fill the place of the predicate: “that I am he”; “that I am what I say”; dass ich es bin. Note also that Jesus uses ἐάν, the condition of expectancy, and not the condition of present unreality: “if you would come to believe.” He does not imply that he thinks they will not believe but rather that he hopes and expects that after all they may come to believe. Thus ἐάν has the kindly note of grace, it is like an efficacious invitation.

John 8:25

25 The reply of the Jews pointedly repudiates both the warning and the invitation. They were, therefore, saying to him, Thou, who art thou? The descriptive ἔλεγον bids us contemplate this reply. Its tone is contemptuous. These Jews are not asking who Jesus is; they are sneering at him for making such claims for himself: “How dost thou (note the emphatic σύ) come to assume a role like this?” B.-D. 300, 2.

The reply of Jesus constitutes one of the most disputed passages in the New Testament, on which much research and ingenuity has been spent without attaining anything resembling unanimity.

Without question, τὴνἀρχήν is an adverbial accusative and because of its forward position strongly emphatic. Aside from the possibility that τὴνἀρχήν ever means “from the beginning” (our versions) this meaning is here excluded by the present tense λαλῶ; the A. V. changes it to “said” (aorist), and the R. V. to “have said” (perfect or possibly aorist). It is also excluded by the sense of λαλῶ; we should expect to find λέγω used here, or rather the aorist εἶπον. In other instances where John desires to say “from the beginning,” he invariably uses ἐξἀρχῆς, 6:64; 15:27; 16:4; and in the epistles.

Finally, why the strong emphasis on a phrase like “from the beginning”? Luther’s erstlich, “in the first place,” “principally,” is without another example in the Greek; nor does any other statement follow in regard to who or what Jesus is. The suggestion to draw the adverbial accusative to v. 26: “First of all, since I am still speaking to you, I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you,” likewise attributes a wrong meaning to τὴνἀρχήν and duplicates λαλεῖν in the same sentence in a helpless manner.

More prominent authorities propose “at all” as the translation. Thus the margin of the R. V., “How is it that I even speak to you at all?” B.-D. 300, 2 and R. 730, “Do you ask, why I speak to you at all?” or, “Are you reproaching me that I speak to you at all?” and Zahn’s exclamation, “To think that I yet speak to you at all!” Dass ich ueberhaupt noch zu euch rede! The sense of these renderings is that by their hostile interruptions the Jews have about made it impossible for Jesus to go on speaking to them. But this leaves no adequate emphasis on τὴνἀρχήν, in fact, this adverbial accusative should appear after ὅτι not before it. The thought, too, is unparalleled in the speech of Jesus. Aside from the fact that he goes right on speaking to the Jews, why should Jesus intimate that he is wasting his effort by saying anything further to these Jews when in a moment John reports (v. 30) that many believed on him?

Far more acceptable is the rendering, “Altogether (in every respect) I am what also I am telling you” (compare Thayer). The exact force of τὴνἀρχήν is ὅλως, but in the sense of ueberhaupt (C.-K. 176): In general (I am) that which (ὅτι) I also am telling you, καὶλαλῶ, not holding anything back in silence. Jesus thus meets the question, “Thou, who art thou?” This he invariably does, no matter how contemptuous or hostile the questioners may be. But Jesus cannot here allow any implication as though he has been silent on any vital point regarding himself. He has spoken fully and not kept silent, in fact, is now speaking clearly (καὶλαλῶ), v. 12; 23, 24. And these Jews have heard his testimony, for they refused and still refuse to accept it (7:19, etc.; 7:30, etc.; 8:13, etc.).

This same testimony concerning himself, Jesus intimates (λαλῶ), will go on—he will speak and not remain silent. By thus holding the Jews to what he is constantly saying concerning himself Jesus rebukes their question as being altogether uncalled for. Why ask a man who he is when he keeps on telling you? The claim that in this rendering εἰμί would have to be written out after τὴνἀρχήν is invalid, for we do not really need it even in the English, “In general, that which I also am telling you.”

John 8:26

26 With this reply the contemptuous question of the Jews concerning Jesus is both answered and dismissed as uncalled for. While Jesus will keep on telling these Jews in due order who and what he is, just as he has done up to this moment, he now informs them: Many things have I to tell and to judge concerning you. Now he that did send me is true; and what things I did hear from him these I am telling in the world. In 7:33, 34 and again in 8:21 Jesus tells these Jews something not only about himself, but also about themselves, something of a terrible nature, amounting to a prophetic judgment. Instead of heeding these utterances about themselves the Jews deliberately ignored them and by their contemptuous rejoinders tried to shift all the attention to Jesus. But Jesus has an answer for them.

He has “many things to tell concerning them,” using the same verb as in v. 25, λαλεῖν, things about which he cannot keep silent. Significantly he adds, “to tell and to judge concerning you,” the second verb being in explanation of the first. Their unbelief turns this telling into judging; compare v. 16. Jesus does not say “to tell you,” he says only “concerning you.” They may or may not hear this telling and judging, that makes no difference, Jesus will certainly not be silent.

As in v. 16, Jesus places his Sender back of everything that he will tell concerning these Jews. Here ἀλλά is not adversative, “but”; it adds only “an accessory idea”: “and,” “yea,” “now,” R. 1185, etc. First the preamble, “And he that did send me is true,” ἀληθής, whose very nature is verity, and whose every word thus expresses reality and truth. Being what he is, he cannot possibly say anything false or untrue. The designation “he that did send me” connects Jesus and his entire mission with this supreme author of truth. This again appears in the main statement, attached to the preamble with καί, “and what things I did hear from him these I (ἐγώ, I myself, emphatic) am telling in the world.” Compare 5:30.

All that Jesus tells on any subject emanates not from himself but from the Sender. This, of course, includes the “many things” he has to tell and to judge concerning these unbelieving Jews. Let them understand that in every word of warning and of judgment from the lips of Jesus they hear the word and the verdict of his great Sender. Will their conscience still remain callous? The breadth of Jesus’ statement covers also his offers of grace and escape from sin and death (v. 24). Back of these, too, is the Sender of Jesus.

Will the hearts of these Jews still refuse faith? The aorist ἤκουσα is explained by v. 23, “I am from above, not of this world” (compare 1:18). The tense refers to the same time as that expressed by ὁπέμψας. The Son heard when he received his great commission. We need not put into this tense the present constant communion of Jesus with his Sender, expressed for instance in 5:30, “as I hear,” and in 8:16, “I am not alone.” Since Jesus here includes all his speaking, he says, “these things I am telling in the world” and not merely to these Jewish rulers. We need not worry about εἰς and try to make it “into” or “unto.” This is an ordinary case of the static use of εἰς, “in,” on which see the discussion R. 591, etc.

The old idea that ἀλλά is always adversative, “but,” has led to a complete misunderstanding of what Jesus says. He is thought to say, that, although he has much to tell and judge concerning the Jewish rulers, nevertheless (ἀλλά), he will refrain and restrict himself to telling what he has heard from the Sender. Instead of spending his time in rebuking these Jews he will devote himself to his real mission. The moment ἀλλά is properly understood (R. 1185, etc.) ideas such as this fade away.

John 8:27

27 In order that we may understand why Jesus continues his discourse in the way in which he does in v. 28, 29, John introduces an explanatory remark. They did not realize that he was speaking to them of his Father. The Jews must have indicated their ignorance by some exclamation or objection which John does not record, preferring to state what their minds lacked. In ἕλεγεν we have a case where the Greek, like the English, accomodates the tense of the indirect discourse to the secondary tense of the main verb, here using the imperfect ἔλεγεν instead of the present after the aorist ἔγνωσαν, R. 1029.

The point of John’s remark is not that the Jews failed to understand the expression “he that did send me” as a designation for the Father. Verses 17–19 are too plain to be misunderstood; moreover, the expression itself would be clear to any Jew. Of course, the obduracy of the Jews blinded them, but not to the extent that they understood none of the references to the Father, for then John’s remark about their ignorance should have been made much earlier. The ignorance here meant refers only to v. 26, and in this verse only to the one point in the mission of Jesus, that every word he utters (λαλῶ) is in reality the word of the Father himself and thus verity in the highest degree. The Jews, indeed, heard Jesus say this, and the words he uses were quite intelligible to them. What their obduracy hid from them was the force of these words as pertaining to the Father. The verb γινώσκω denotes an inner grasp and realization, which is often lacking even where the intellect is active enough.

John 8:28

28 Jesus, of course, perceived that his mighty word about the Father’s relation to every one of his utterances had not registered with these Jews. In fact, obdurate as they are, it would not register; they would not “realize” even if he repeated this statement about his Father. Therefore Jesus turns to prophecy. Jesus, therefore, said (giving a prophetic turn to his statement), When you shall lift up the Son of man, then you will realize (what now your obduracy will not let you realize), that I am (what I say), and that from myself I do nothing, but, just as the Father taught me, these very things (and only these) I tell. We see that Jesus does not expect these Jews to realize just what the force of his words is even after this restatement. They will go on treating them lightly, as if no real verity is back of them.

But the time will come when this will change. Not indeed, as some have thought, that finally their obduracy will cease and turn to repentance. They will remain as they are, but God will speak another language to them, one that will crash through even their hard hearts—crushing them in judgment. Yet the purpose of uttering this prophetic warning now is still one of grace, that ere it be too late these Jews may yet turn, realize indeed, and repent.

Jesus uses a condition of expectancy in pointing to that future time, ὅταν with the subjunctive in the protasis, and the future indicative in the apodosis. His mind vividly conceives the coming time of his crucifixion. The verb ὑψοῦν, “to lift up,” refers to the elevation on the cross, just as in 3:14; compare also 12:32. Since Jesus ascribes this act to the Jews, the debate should end as to whether the crucifixion is referred to or the exaltation in heaven, or possibly both combined in some way. Moreover, the crucifixion is here brought in as the final act by which the Jewish rulers will repudiate Jesus and all he came to bring. Here Jesus once more calls himself “the Son of man,” using the Messianic title he loves: he who is a descendant of man, the incarnate Son of God.

See 1:51. In the crucifixion of Jesus the doom of the Jews would be sealed; not, indeed, in an absolute way as by the perpetration of this act alone, but in a factual way as the final rejection from which the Jews as a nation would never recede in repentance. Thus that act will open the floodgates of judgment, bringing on the destruction of Jerusalem, the permanent exile of the Jews from their native land, their miraculous preservation as a foreign element scattered among all other nations of the world as a sign until the end of time. Then will be fulfilled what Jesus says in v. 21, 24, “You shall die in your sins.”

“Then,” Jesus says, “you will realize.” Some connect this “then” too closely with the “when” clause, as if hard upon the crucifixion the realization of what Jesus here says will break in upon these wicked Sanhedrists and the unbelieving Jews generally. We must, however, abide by the context. Verse 28 is an elucidation of verses 21 and 24. Every unbelieving Jew, upon whom the fate of his nation makes no impression when he finally dies in his sins, will realize too late just what Jesus says. First, ὅτιἐγώεἰμι, a repetition from v. 24 and to be understood in the same sense, “that I (and I alone) am” what I tell you, namely “from above not of this world” (v. 23). We see how this reference knits the entire discourse (v. 21–29) together as a unit.

Too late all these ill-fated Jews will “realize” by their own experience of the divine judgment that what Jesus kept telling them concerning himself is verity indeed. Secondly, they will “realize” in the same way the verity connected with the Father, already stated in v. 26 and now repeated and amplified, “and that from myself I do nothing (5:19, etc.), but, just as the Father taught me, these very things I tell (5:30, etc.).” Back of every act and thus also of every word of Jesus is the Father and his verity (“he that did send me is true,” v. 26). Word and deed of Jesus go together, although here the emphasis is on the word; and this means the threat and the warning as well as the call and the offer of grace (v. 24) at present still held out.

“That I am” is a repetition from v. 24; and the predicate that is to be supplied is the same. The aorist “he taught” is historical, just as the aorist “I heard” in v. 26; both refer to the time indicated in ὁπέμψαςμε, “he that did send me,” in v. 26 when Jesus went forth from God on his mission. We must note that καθώς … ταῦτα correspond: “even as … these very things”; and ταῦτα is resumptive for the clause “even as the Father taught me.” But from the manner “even as” Jesus turns to the substance, “these very things,” instead of keeping to the manner, “thus also” (οὕτως). This is lost in our versions which translate, “I speak these things,” as though Jesus refers only to what he just now says.

John 8:29

29 Jesus prophesies that the obdurate Jews will come to realize too late what they ought to realize now, namely that Jesus is what he says, and that every word of his has back of it the Father and his verity. From the Jews he now turns to himself. They shall die in their sins, but Jesus, being what he is, doing and saying what he does, is sure of his Father and that Father’s support. And he that did send me is with me; he did not leave me alone; because the things pleasing to him I for my part am doing always. The observation is correct that these three brief statements are closely united and are understood only when taken together. The first is positive: the Sender is with him whom he sent; μετά here conveys the idea of help or aid, R. 611. While Jesus uses the present tense “is with me,” this tense receives its force from the subject, “he that did send me.” For in the entire mission of Jesus from its start to its finish the Father is with Jesus.

The positive statement is followed by the negative, “he did not leave me alone.” The absence of a connective lends it greater force. Here Jesus uses the aorist ἀφῆκεν, “he did not leave” me alone. Like the present tense “is with me,” this aorist receives its force from the subject, “he that did send me.” The sense cannot be that the Father did not leave his Son only at the moment when he sent him. Some regard this aorist as constative: from the moment of the sending up to the present moment the Father did not leave the Son he sent. This is conceived as an expression of the consciousness of the Father’s presence which Jesus has enjoyed until this very time. That, too, we are told, is why the hostile Jews with all their number and their power were unable to destroy Jesus as they planned to do—Jesus was not alone.

Only by way of a deduction the thought is added, that as hitherto the Father did not leave his Son alone, so also he will be with the Son until the end. We need make no deduction whatever, the aorist itself covers all that is added by the deduction. The Father who sent the Son on his mission “is with him” during that entire mission and “did not leave him alone” during any part of that mission. “He that did send me,” repeated so often by Jesus, is true regarding every moment when Jesus utters this designation, applies to every moment until his mission is completed and he returns to his Father.

Jesus is here thinking and speaking of the close of his mission, “I go away” (v. 21); “When you have lifted up the Son of man.” The crucifixion is in his mind. With that before his eyes he utters the words of verity and assurance that his great Sender is ever with him and did not leave him alone. This is substantiated by the reason which Jesus assigns for the constant presence of his Sender in his mission: “because the things pleasing to him I am doing always.” Jesus is not speaking only of what he is doing at the moment. “I am doing always,” the adverb made strongly emphatic by being placed at the end, covers the entire mission of Jesus. Most pleasing of all, indeed, “an odor of a sweet smell” (R. V.) for his Father, is his passion when he prayed, “Thy will be done!” and drank the bitter cup of death. “Always” looks also to the cross.

When in v. 28 (compare 5:19 and 30) Jesus says that he does nothing “from himself,” he means that in his entire mission he never disowns but always acknowledges his Father. The counterpart of this is the fact that in. his entire mission the Father is “with him” and never “leaves him alone,” i.e., the Father never disowns Jesus but always acknowledges him. Both thoughts meet in the expression “the things pleasing to him,” the adjective having “a distinct personal flavor,” R. 537. Jesus ever pleases the Father, and the Father is ever pleased with Jesus. Thus the two are bound together with never a break in the tie. This holds true even with regard to the agony on the cross; in fact, holds true there in the highest degree.

For there, if anywhere, Jesus did not his own but his Father’s will; there, if anywhere, Jesus did what pleased his Father; there, if anywhere, the Father was pleased in his Son. “With me” and “did not leave me alone” (οὑἀφῆκεν) holds true with regard to the cross. And yet God forsook Jesus on the cross. But the verb ἐγκατέλιπες, “Why didst thou forsake me?” (Matt. 27:46; Matt. 15:34) means something entirely different, namely that Jesus trod the winepress alone, drank the cup of wrath for our sins alone, paid the penalty for our guilt alone. This was the Father’s will; and Jesus did it. Yea, for this he had come (12:27; compare 10:18) and, though it wrung the bitter cry from his soul, he carried it through. He could perform this part of his mission only in this way—alone; no one could share the extreme agony with him.

But paying the ransom (λύτρον) and the price (τιμή) alone does not mean that at that supreme hour Jesus acted “from himself,” disowning his Father and his Sender’s mission, or disowned by his Father and Sender. In that very hour the hardest part of his mission was accomplished (Phil. 2:8).

We may say that the emphatic pronoun ἐγώ, “I on my part,” is in contrast to the Jews and to all of us as sinners, for none of us do what is pleasing to the Father. Yet this is a minor point. For “the things pleasing to him” signify all that belongs to Jesus’ mission. These Jesus did “always” without a single omission. While thus the reason for the Father’s ever being with Jesus can be called ethical, this reason is not ethical in the usual sense as obeying the divine law but in the far higher sense of voluntarily assuming the mission of redemption and executing that mission with absolute fidelity. The opposite of doing “the things pleasing to him” is, therefore, not the doing of some sin displeasing to God—a thought that is foreign to the connection; but of after all giving up the voluntarily assumed redemptive mission and of thus allowing it to remain unfulfilled. The perfect sinlessness of Jesus is only mediately involved in “the things pleasing to him” as one of the personal qualifications (as, on the other hand, the divinity) for the redemptive mission.

John 8:30

30 As he was uttering these things many believed in him. It makes little difference whether we add this sentence as the close of the previous paragraph or make it head the new paragraph. “These things” points backward, yet v. 31 mentions believing Jesus, and v. 30 accounts for them. The aorist ἐπίστευσαν merely states the fact that many “believed.” Amid all the hostility that Jesus faced he won this victory.

V. Jesus’ Testimony Culminates in an Effort to Stone Him, 31–59

John 8:31

31 Accordingly, Jesus was saying to the Jews who had believed in him, If you remain in my word you are truly my disciples and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. When editors of the text and commentators make a paragraph at v. 30 or 31, this does not imply that we are to insert an interval, either of hours or of a day, between the paragraphs, as is generally done. John connects v. 30 with what precedes by means of ταύτα and the genitive absolute, “while he was saying these things,” and v. 31 with v. 30 by means of οὗν, “accordingly, Jesus was saying” to these believers. Any interval is shut out. John’s remark in v. 30 and in the preamble of v. 31 are merely explanatory of the words which Jesus now utters, for they are words intended only for believers, and we must be told that and how such believers were present. John’s explanatory remark is exactly like the one he inserted a moment ago in v. 27 in order to make plain to us why Jesus turned to prophecy in v. 28.

Once this is clear, we shall not think that τοὺςπεπιστευκόταςαὑτῷἸουδαίους is an exceptional expression in John’s Gospel. It is as natural as it can be in this its proper place. Nor shall we place the emphasis either on the noun “Jews” or on the attributive participle “having believed,” for neither term is emphatic. We shall also not entertain such notions as that John means to convey to us the thought that the people here named have a double naturo, the old Jewish nature still persisting beside the new nature of faith. This idea is introduced in order to explain v. 33, “they replied to him”; the unspecified subject of ἀπεκρίθησαν is taken to be these believing Jews, whose old Jewish nature is supposed to be cropping out in objecting to what Jesus says. But the moment this is done, all that follows likewise refers to these believing Jews.

Jesus would be telling them that they are seeking to kill him, that they are of the devil, etc. In fact, then the most scathing utterances of Jesus in this entire chapter would be hurled at these believing Jews. But so monstrous a situation is incredible.

From v. 21 to the end of the chapter is one uninterrupted narration. The persons participating are the same throughout, Jesus and a crowd of Jews. At first all are hostile to Jesus, but by the time we reach v. 29 a goodly number are actually won to believe in him (note the statement of this as a fact by means of the aorist ἐπίστευσαν in v. 30), not through miracles, but through the words of warning coupled with grace which these men have just heard. In some way or other, not indicated by John, these believers manifest their change of heart. At once Jesus has a word for them in particular. No sooner does he utter it than the hostile crowd of Jews raises further objection.

They act just as they did from the start: they pick at some point to which to object (compare v. 22 and 25; also v. 13 and 19). John does not need to say in v. 33 who these objectors are, for we have heard them from the very start, and their objection is of the same type as before. Jesus answers them in v. 34, etc. But they go on. The clash becomes more and more intense until these Jews take up stones, and Jesus leaves them.

The imperfect ἔλεγεν is like the imperfect in v. 23 and 25, little more than a variation from the aorist; note that in the following exchanges the aorists introducing them are interrupted by one present tense, λέγει, in v. 39. After faith has been kindled in the hearts of a goodly number of the present audience of Jesus, the great need is that they continue in the blessed course upon which they have entered. The condition of expectancy (ἐάν with the subjunctive), “If you remain (or shall remain) in my words,” counts on such continuance as the normal thing. The pronoun ὑμεῖς is emphatic, “If you on your part remain,” etc., i.e., “you” as having come to faith. This singles them out from the rest of the Jews. We must not overlook the implication in the verb “remain” in my word.

Jesus acknowledges that these men are now in his word; in other words, that they now embrace his word by faith. He uses the aorist subjunctive μείνητε, actually and definitely remain, be fixed and established in his word. The opposite would be to drop the word they have taken up, definitely to leave it again, namely by a return to unbelief. Jesus also uses the strong possessive adjective “word of mine,” which is weightier than the genitive pronoun. This clause sheds light on the dative αὑτῷ: who believed “him.” It indicates that these Jews now believed in what Jesus had told them; to believe “him” = to believe what he says. Theirs was the genuine type of faith, resting on the word.

All they needed was to become permanently fixed in that faith.

The apodosis: then “you are truly my disciples,” corroborates the implication in the protasis. Jesus implies that these believers are already his disciples; on μαθηταί see 2:2. Yet there is a difference between being disciples and being truly disciples. The preceding aorist subjunctive indicates what this difference is. All are disciples of Jesus who in any way believe his word, but those are truly disciples who once for all become fixed in his word. Hence also the “if.” Beginners, however genuine their beginning, may drop off again; but once they become fixed definitely to remain in the word, they will never drop off again.

Note, too, that Jesus uses the present tense: then “you are truly” my disciples; and not the future tense: then “you will be truly.” This avoids the implication that only at some perhaps future time these believers can achieve the higher status. They can become fixed and established in Jesus’ word in short order. No long apprenticeship is needed. To remain in Jesus’ word (aorist) carries an intensive and not merely an extensive idea. Not the amount and quantity of the word makes us truly disciples but the fidelity and the firmness with which we hold the amount of the word which has been vouchsafed to us. While these beginners in the faith must learn more and more of the precious word of Jesus on which their incipient faith rests, and while all further portions of the word, such as the portion they already possess, will tend to hold them in the faith, for them to remain in the word of Jesus means primarily what Paul puts into the admonition, “Be ye steadfast, unmovable!” 1 Cor. 15:58.

The word of Jesus (λόγος) is his teaching, the gospel; most emphatically it is “his” word. The necessity for firm adherence to it is at once seen when we remember that this “word” and this alone is spirit and life, outside of which is spiritual death. Jesus identifies himself with his word, “If you remain in me, and my words (the one word in its different parts) remain in you,” 5:7. The word is the vehicle of Jesus, bringing him to us, and us to him. An example of remaining in his word is seen in the case of the 3, 000 at Pentecost: “they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine,” Acts 2:42. Compare Acts 13:43; Col. 1:23; Heb. 3:14; 1 John 2:28 (John loves the word “to remain,” “to abide”); 2 John 9. Thus to remain is not only a mark of discipleship but its very essence.

John 8:32

32 “And” adds the blessed result that is immediately involved in truly being disciples of Jesus, first the proximate, next the ultimate result. The former is: “you shall know the truth,” γνώσεσθε, “realize” it by your inner spiritual contact with it. Of course, intellectual apprehension is included, but much more is involved (7:17), namely the knowledge derived from a living experience with the blessed power of the truth. No man who rejects the truth can possibly attain this type of knowledge. The future tense is constative, R. 871, like that of the same verb in v. 28; it summarizes the entire realization following real discipleship. “Shall know” does not refer to a remote future but to one that begins at once and continues and grows.

“The truth” is the contents of the word of Jesus, the substance of what he conveys to our minds and our hearts. “I have given them thy (the Father’s) Word,” 17:14; “Sanctify them in the truth; thy Word is truth,” 17:17 (see also 17:8). By “truth,” ἀλήθεια, “reality,” is meant, and the Greek article here indicates the specific reality and actuality that exists in God and in Jesus, and all that they give to us and do for us by divine grace. Compare the term in 1:14. It is not in any sense philosophic, so that the language of philosophy could define it. It is not an abstraction formed by operations of the intellect but divine and everlasting fact, which remains such whether men know it, acknowledge it, realize it or not. It is a unit: “the truth,” although it consists of many united and unified parts.

Thus also Jesus speaks of his “Word” and of his “words.” It centers and circles about Jesus who, therefore, also calls himself “the Truth,” 14:6. In his own person and his life Jesus embodies, incorporates the saving realities of God.

At once and in any measure that we realize the truth this follows as the next effect: “and the truth shall set you free,” shall liberate, emancipate you. R. 872 calls this future punctiliar or effective. Yet we should not disconnect it from the preceding future tense, which R. acknowledges as constative. For by realizing we are set free; hence the more we realize, the more we are set free. The one action grows immediately out of the other. Any measure of inner penetration on the part of the truth produces a corresponding measure of freedom.

Moreover, these results have already begun in the believers Jesus addresses; for to believe the word of Jesus ever so little means to realize the truth to that extent and to be set free correspondingly. Then, of course, to remain in the Word of Jesus, to be fixed and firm in that Word, means a realization and an emancipation fixed and firm accordingly.

This liberating effect implies that here “the truth” is viewed as an inward and spiritual power, one that conquers an opposing, an enslaving power. The implication is also that only “the truth,” or the Word of Jesus, is able to crush that opposing power and to set men free. Hence, all who bar out from their souls this liberating power of necessity remain under the enslaving power. The quick rejoinder of the unbelieving Jews prevents Jesus from adding what he means by this enslaving power and by the bondage from which “the truth” sets the believers free. Yet the very implication that lies in ἀλήθεια as “reality” reveals that the opposing power must be “the unreality,” the power of spiritual lies, falsehoods, deceptions (all that in religion is not so), which fetter and thus enslave the souls of men. A glorious prospect is held out to the believing Jews by Jesus, one to inspire them to ever greater faith in order to be free from all delusion and spiritual bondage.

Liberty! Men have fought and died for it on the lower plane of life; philosophers dream of it in the intellectual life; Jesus assures it on the highest plane, that of religion and the soul.

John 8:33

33 They made answer against him, Seed of Abraham are we and to no one have we been in bondage ever. How dost thou say, You shall become free men? Instead of the regular dative αὑτῷ (or the plural where required) John here writes πρὸςαὑτόν, “against him,” affording us this hint that these objectors are the unbelieving Jews who again seize on one certain expression (see v. 19, 22, 25) in order to upset what Jesus is saying. See the discussion on v. 31. Those who assume that the believing Jews here speak against Jesus must assume also (and some actually do) that, believing in one instant, they lose their faith in the next and in a moment become more vicious than ever. One thing is beyond question, we now hear the voice of open unbelief.

Note the passion displayed: haughty pride: “Seed of Abraham are we!” etc.; open scorn in the emphatic σύ, as much as to say, “Thou, who art thou!?”; resentment in restating ἐλευθερώσει by ἐλεύθεροιγενήσεσθε, “you shall become free men.” If the believing Jews could thus pass over into passionate unbelief because of one simple word of Jesus’, he certainly made a mistake when he held out to them the sweet prospect of spiritual liberty. Had he here lost his power to see what is in men’s hearts (2:25)?

Besser’s paraphrase is good: “If the truth you speak of is good only for slaves, do not trouble us, Abraham’s seed, with it! We are a freeborn, royal nation (Gen. 17:6, 7; 22:11) and acknowledge no one as our master save God. To him we belong as children (Deut. 14:1) and to no one else. This is the truth which makes us free!” The reply is headed by the emphatic, “Seed of Abraham are we!” This shuts out the notion that these Jews refer to political liberty, which also would contradict most flagrantly the facts of history, the domination of the Jews by the Babylonians, the Persians, the Seleucidae, and the Romans (these latter at this very time). It shuts out also the idea of social liberty, namely that in this nation Jews were not made slaves. “To no one have we been in bondage ever” asserts unbroken religious liberty for all Jews as God’s own chosen people, compared with whom all Gentiles were slaves of idols. Talk of them becoming free men! These Jews understand correctly that Jesus is speaking of religious liberty, and what they hurl against him (πρὸςαὑτόν) is meant in that sense.

The name “Abraham” here broached runs on through the remainder of the conflict to the very end. It constitutes the acme of Jewish assurance and pride—does so to this day. The emphatic σύ gets its force from the feeling of outrage that Jesus should presume to say anything against Abraham’s seed. Who art “thou” to dare such a thing? In v. 48 these Jews disown Jesus as a son of Abraham by calling him a Samaritan, the very antithesis of a child of Abraham. What these Jews voice as Jews in the name “Abraham” is found in all the sons of Adam, all of whom cling to their unholy pride when the gospel comes to give them true freedom.

John 8:34

34 Calm, quiet, direct, crushing is the simplicity and the force of the answer of Jesus. Jesus answered them, Amen, amen, I say to you, Everyone who does sin is the slave of sin. The double “amen” is the seal of truth for what Jesus says (compare on the term 1:51); “I say to you” is the voice of authority based on absolute knowledge and truth. This preamble marks the weight of what follows. It is in the nature of a moral axiom: “Everyone who does sin is the slave of sin.” The truth of the statement is self-evident. The article in ὁποιῶν is needed to substantivize the characterizing present participle and thus does not affect πᾶς as meaning “every.” The article in τὴνἁμαρτίαν is generic, everything that is rightly termed “sin.” The man so characterized, who does what is sin, obeys the dictates of sin, cannot break away from them—he is beyond question a slave of sin, in the spiritual soul-slavery of the worst kind.

This is true of men everywhere, at all times. The effect of sinning is as certain as the mathematical law that two and two make four. Jesus does not say outright that all men are sinners and thus slaves of sin, but his application to the Jews includes that thought. “Doing sin” is to be taken in the widest sense, doing it by thought, word, and act. Compare 2 Pet. 2:19; Rom. 6:16. Even the pagans voice what Jesus says about this slavery. Seneca declares that no bondage is harder than that of the passions; Plato, that liberty is the name of virtue, and bondage the name of vice.

John 8:35

35 A second axiomatic statement follows and in a surprising way opens up what lies in the word “slave.” Now the slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. To be sure, the status of the slave is such that he may be sold. He is in no sense a permanent part of the family. This again is undeniable. Not “the slave” but “the son” (both articles being generic) remains forever, namely by virtue of his relation and position as son and hence heir. Probably in order to avoid an incongruity the genitive τῆςἁμαρτίας in v. 34 was dropped in some codices, so that the clause reads, “is a slave,” and not, “is a slave of sin.” The idea of the codices seems to be the avoidance of two masters, first “sin” as the master of this slave, and secondly he who is the head of “the house” together with “the son.” But no father or head of the house is mentioned.

Jesus is not narrating a parable in which all the figurative details have their place. The illustration turns only on the correlative points: slave and son, or, we may say, slavery and freedom. We really do not need the usual explanation that this slave, made such by the domination of sin, would thus be nothing but a foreign slave in the house whose head is God, thus having even less right in the house. The figure Jesus uses is without such complication; for what would a native slave of the house be? All that Jesus uses is the status of a slave and the status of the son. In the phrase εἰςτὸναἰῶνα the noun αἰών denotes unlimited time and thus eternity, here with εἰς eternity a parte post (from now forward), C.-K. 93.

John 8:36

36 What Jesus means appears in the application which he makes of the figure. If, therefore, the Son shall set you free, you shall be free men in reality. The application retains the figure, now plainly joining it to the reality. Jesus goes back to his first utterance concerning those who are truly his disciples and are set free from bondage. He even combines his own word “shall set free” (v. 32) with that of the Jews, “shall become free men” (v. 33), for which Jesus substitutes “shall be free men.” What Jesus said regarding the truth in v. 32 he now predicates of himself. For the generic term “the son” (as opposed to “the slave”) in v. 35 is now turned into the specific “the Son.” This one and only Son is the embodiment of “the truth” and as such the great Liberator in his Father’s house.

For, not only are he and the Father one, but into his hands is laid the entire administration of the house by virtue of his redemptive and saving mission. For this reason also nothing concerning the Father needs to be provided for in the figurative terms.

Who is pictured by “the slave” is also plainly stated: “you,” the unbelieving Jews. Note that the believing Jews were already set free, needing only to be fully established in their liberty. Thus Jesus vindicates his implication in v. 32 that the unbelieving Jews need emancipation from slavery and that, in fact, they are slaves, an allegation against which their ire rises. Yet fine as the figure is for the main point Jesus means to drive home, like so many other figures and illustrations taken from merely human relations, it falls short in picturing what Jesus does for those who believe in him. When Jesus sets us free, we, of course, are ἐλεύθεροι, “free men,” and yet we are far more than the so-called freedmen (liberated slaves) in the old Roman Empire; we are ourselves turned into “sons,” adopted into the household of God, children of the Father, joint heirs with Christ. Only the emphatic adverb ὄντως, “really,” hints at this result of our emancipation by the Son. Perhaps also ἕσεσθε, “you shall be” (durative), is placed in contrast to γενήσεσθε, “you shall become” (punctiliar), used by the Jews.

Glancing back from the application in v. 36 to the figure used in the axiomatic statements in v. 34, 35, we see that already there part of the reality is interwoven with the figure. “Everyone that does sin” is non-figurative, and in “a slave of sin” “sin” is literal. Thus the figure about the “slave” only helps to bring out the axiomatic character of the statements. In v. 35 εἰςτὸναἰῶνα, “forever,” might be considered part of the figure, simply meaning that the slave does not remain “always,” only the son remains “always” (compare the phrase in 13:8; Mark 11:14; 1 Cor. 8:13; etc.). And yet where figure and reality are combined, as is the case here, and where the fate of souls is the subject, we may well prefer to take “forever” in the literal sense. “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that I will seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple,” Ps. 27:4. Again, “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever,” Ps. 23:6.

John 8:37

37 First, the point that these Jews do need liberation; now, the point that they are not “seed of Abraham.” The two belong together: true seed of Abraham would, indeed, be free; these Jews are not such seed, hence they need to be set free and thus truly become Abraham’s seed. I know that you are seed of Abraham, namely his physical descendants. No question about this point, and also the fact that it constitutes a great advantage to have a forefather like Abraham. Jesus is speaking of spiritual relationship, something that is on an altogether higher plane. Hence he lays his finger on the moral nature and character of this physical seed of Abraham: but you are seeking to kill me because my word has not free course in you. The question is: How does this agree with your being seed of Abraham and thus really free sons of God?

How can they as sons so treat the eternal Son? Compare 5:18; 7:19 and 25; also 8:59. With ἀλλά Jesus merely holds up the glaring contrast between the proud claim to be Abraham’s seed and the criminal determination to kill Jesus, the Son. One would expect of the physical sons of Abraham that they more than all men would turn out to be also Abraham’s spiritual sons and thus enter upon the spiritual inheritance of their great father. With these Jews the contrary is the case. Their real character they themselves reveal (“you seek to kill”).

The gravity of what they thus reveal lies not merely in the fact that they are base enough to plot murder as such but to plot the murder of the very Son, whose day Abraham desired to see (v. 56), for whom Abraham was made what he was, to whom the Father committed his entire house (v. 36).

The reason why these Jews fell so far from their Abrahamitic descent and heritage is presented in negative form, “because my word has not free course in you.” Moreover, it assigns a fact which does not stop at a halfway point but goes to the very root of their defection. With this reason Jesus also returns to the vital point which he had emphasized for those who had begun to believe him (v. 31, αὑτῷ, believe what he said), namely “my word.” Those believers, he said, must remain in “my word”; of these unbelievers he says: “my word” finds no place in you. The negation is in the nature of a litotes. Not to have free course = to be barred out. In the believers the word, having entered, must remain; in these unbelievers it has found no entrance at all. The word of Jesus would make these Jews believers and thus true seed of Abraham.

Instead of criminal designs against the Son the result would be loyal attachment to the Son. These slaves of sin would be turned into sons of the Father to abide with the Son forever. Thus all that Jesus says from v. 31 onward turns on the one point of his word. Note how much weightier ὁλόγοςὁἐμός, “this word of mine,” is than ὁλόγοςμου, “my word.” The word χωρεῖ is not transitive, for then we should have χωρεῖτετὸνλόγον, “you make no room”; but intransitive and in the sense, “my word finds no room in you.” Every effort of that word to enter leaves it outside.

John 8:38

38 The final statement is still about this word (λαλῶ), now tracing it back to its ultimate source and on this point placing it over against the ultimate source of the word which controls the unbelieving Jews. The text of the A. V. cannot be accepted. What things I myself have seen with the Father I utter; and you, accordingly, what things you did hear from your father you do. It is hard to pronounce on all the minutiae of the readings, some of which are altogether unimportant. The two statements are parallel but with marked differences in detail.

The main thought is that Jesus’ word has one source, and the actions of the Jews the very opposite source. The two relative clauses are prominent, being placed, as they are, ahead of the main verbs. But the emphatic ἐγώ is placed in the first relative clause, “I myself have seen,” while the equally emphatic ὑμεῖς precedes the second relative clause and forms the subject of the main verb, “and you, …, you do.” Thus the pronouns are in contrast, yet each has its own angle. Jesus was “with the Father” in heaven (the pronoun in the relative clause); the corresponding statement would not be true of the Jews, for they have not been with the devil in hell, their father, (hence the pronoun outside of the relative clause and with the main verb).

Jesus has seen the Father (properly with the locative, παρά and the dative); the Jews have not seen their father. He would not dare to show himself to them. They only heard from him (properly the ablative, παρά and the genitive, R. 614). He whispered insidiously to their hearts, not showing his real self but masquerading, just as in Eden. Even the tenses add a point, the extensive perfect indicating the prolonged seeing and association of the Son with the Father while in heaven, the effect of which is still present with Jesus; on the other hand, the aorist stating only the fact: “you did hear from your father.” In other connections, where no such contrast is intended, Jesus uses the simple aorist also regarding himself, “I did hear,” in v. 26; the Father, “did teach” in v. 28. In the phrase “with the Father” we do not need the pronoun “my,” which is added in some texts; for only one Father exists, he whose Son is Jesus; but in the corresponding phrase “from your father” the pronoun “your” is in place.

Its omission in some texts has led to a decidedly different interpretation: “Do you also, therefore, the things which you did hear from the Father!” (R. V. margin.) This would be an admonition addressed to the unbelieving Jews to follow the example of Jesus. But the Jews heard something far different, as their objection shows, namely an intimation in regard to their father, that he was evil. “The things which you did hear from your father” includes their plot to kill Jesus and thus intimates other deeds of this kind.

Jesus says, “I utter” (λαλῶ), because he has been speaking of his word and on this visit to Jerusalem had confined himself to speaking and presenting testimony, doing no miracles. With his utterances of the divine truth he was conferring the greatest benefit upon the Jews. Yet for this they wanted to kill him. Regarding the Jews, however, he uses “you do,” or “you perform” (ποιεῖτε), referring to their actions, including especially their efforts to kill him, these actions so openly marking their spiritual parentage.

John 8:39

39 Whom Jesus has in mind when he so pointedly says “your father” he does not yet state. One thing is clear, namely that this is not the one whom he calls his Father; yet this, too, is a father in the sense that he confers a spiritual character that is like his own, the opposite of that found in the heavenly Father. Jesus thus strikes at the consciences of these unbelieving Jews, seeking thus to convict them of their sins. They are “in their sins” (v. 24), liable to die in them; they are “doing sin” (v. 34) and thus lie in slavery. It is thus that they are doing “the things they did hear from their father,” thereby betraying their real parentage. This explains their reaction.

They answered and said to him (the doubling of the verbs indicating the weight they put on their reply; see 1:48), Our father is Abraham. The observation is correct that by this reply these Jews are not attempting to make Jesus speak out more plainly in regard to whom he terms their father. They had an inkling whom Jesus had in mind. Their conscience was pricked. Therefore, to ward off the sharp sting they assert the more strenuously that they have no father, physically or spiritually, but Abraham. Note that this reply is purely defensive, and that all their previous replies are either altogether offensive or connect offense with defense.

Their next reply (v. 41) is also nothing but an effort at defense; then comes vituperation, since defense fails (v. 48), and after that the preliminaries to murderous violence (v. 52, 53; 57 and 59).

Jesus is succeeding. The first sharp stab at the conscience is followed by a deeper thrust. Jesus says to them: If you really are Abraham’s children you would be doing the works of Abraham. But now you are seeking to kill me, a man who has been telling you the truth which he heard from God. This Abraham did not do. You are doing the works of your father.

Note the vivid aoristic present λέγει at this climax of the altercation and how it lends a special touch to the reply of Jesus, just as the double “answered and said” in v. 39 lends weight to the reply of the Jews. The first sentence uses a mixed condition, a protasis of reality and an apodosis of unreality (the imperfect with ἄν, although ἄν may be and often is omitted, as here). Mixed conditional sentences are perfectly in order (in all languages), according as the thought may require. Some texts have ἦτε for ἐστε (and even add ἄν), merely changing the form to an ordinary conditional sentence of present unreality: “If you were.…, you would.” With ἐστε Jesus says: “If you, indeed, are, as you assert, children of Abraham, you would,” etc. He here uses τέκνα not σπέρμα as in v. 37, with no difference in the sense. A generally admitted axiom underlies the statement, namely that children are like their father, disregarding the cases where abnormally a child differs from his parent.

John 8:40

40 In v. 39 Jesus really lays down the major premise of a negative syllogism. In v. 40, with the logical νῦνδέ, he lays down the minor premise. The conclusion of the syllogism is not stated. It is inevitable, left by Jesus for the Jews to draw for themselves, namely: “Ergo, you are not Abraham’s children as you assert.” This negative syllogism is irrefutable. Its effect is deadly for the claim of the Jews. It stamps their claim as a brazen lie.

In stating the minor premise Jesus uses the specific act of the Jews, their seeking to kill him. This act as such could not serve as the minor premise. But the moment this one act is placed in its proper category and is viewed as marking that category, the minor premise is perfect. Therefore Jesus adds the simple apposition: You are seeking to kill me, “a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God,” and sets over against the action thus characterized and generalized the undeniable fact: “This Abraham did not do.” When any man came to Abraham with the truth of God, Abraham did not try to kill him. This strong negative implies an equally strong positive: Abraham accepted that truth of God and the messenger who brought it to him.

This formulation of the minor premise lends terrific force to the entire syllogism by the simplicity with which the enormity of the crime of the Jews is indicated: trying to kill a man who brought them the truth of God! The greatest divine benefit—rewarded by the most dastardly human ingratitude! If the thing were not an actual fact, it would be utterly incredible. Just as the Jews, self-blinded and deaf to the truth Jesus brings them, know only the trick of fastening upon one certain word or expression of Jesus, perverting that into an objection to the truth, so later deniers of the Godhead of Christ fasten upon the word ἄνθρωπος here used by Jesus and try to prove by that that Jesus is not God. Indeed, Jesus is “a man,” perfectly human, even “flesh” (1:14); but what a man? Why fasten upon “a man” and omit the relative clause, the final part of which repeats what Jesus constantly testifies to the Jews, for which also they first (5:18) resolved to kill him, that as God’s Son he “did hear from God” and came down from God on his great mission.

This divine Son is the “man” who here again testifies that he is God. Note that both λελάληκα and ἤκουσα are verbs in the first person: “I have told,” “I have heard.” In translation this “I” is lost in the first verb. What this “man” here says of himself applies to his person only. No other man heard directly in heaven from God and then came to tell what he thus heard.

John 8:41

41 But if Abraham is not the spiritual father of these Jews, then who is? To this point Jesus returns by repeating with slight change the veiled statement of v. 38. You on your part (ὑμεῖς, emphatic) are doing the works of your (ὑμῶν, correspondingly emphatic) father. Now, however, it is clearer what Jesus means, since he has instanced one of these damnable works. Spiritually, then, these Jews can claim only a father who approves and who impels to such works.

The Jews are stung to the quick. The lash of the law makes these sinners squirm and wince. That they should, is just what Jesus intends, and we see that he lays the whip on still more severely. Unless he succeeds in crushing these hard hearts, the gospel cannot enter them. Frantic under the veiled imputation of Jesus, they attempt no counterattack but only hopeless defense. They said to him, We, not of fornication were we born One father we have—God!

The stress is on ἕνα, “one,” followed by τὸνΘεόν, “God.” The battle is far away from the question of physical fatherhood, abandoned already in v. 37; it is altogether on spiritual descent. Driven from the claim of being the spiritual children of Abraham by the inexorable syllogism of Jesus in v. 39, 40, the Jews now seek cover behind the passionate claim of their supposedly impregnable standing in the theocracy of God. For who can deny that they and they alone properly belong in that theocracy—all other people and nations are here shut out. God and God alone has placed them there—he is thus their one spiritual father.

The negation of this relation would thus be γεννηθῆναιἐκπορνείας, to be born of fornication, in the sense of having two fathers: one their real father, who actually begot them; the other their apparent father, in whose house they are merely tolerated. Their real nature would be inherited from the former; and only outwardly and nominally the second would be deemed their father. Is this what Jesus suggests, that, while these Jews are outwardly in the theocratic house of God, they are really the product of (ἐκ) fornication, illigitimately carried into that house? They do not indicate directly, as little as Jesus had done, who this adulterous real father would be. That he could only be evil is the implication which makes these Jews so passionate. Thus ἕνα is opposed to δύο.

Usually, since the Old Testament so frequently pictures the defection of the Jewish nation from God, their running after idols in the time prior to the exile, as fornication and adultery and thus the idolatrous Jews as “the seed of the adulterer and the whore” (Isa. 57:3), this reference to πορνεία is taken to mean: born of idolatrous fornication. The emphatic ἡμεῖς is then regarded as referring to the present generation of the Jews in the sense: “we Jews now,” we cannot be charged with idolatry, for since the days of the exile our nation has been practically free of this type of spiritual fornication. The difficulty regarding this view is the fact that Jesus in no way charges idolatry against these Jews and that he speaks only of one evil father (the devil) not of many such fathers (pagan idols or gods). To defend a point not attacked is senseless.

John 8:42

42 Again Jesus crushes this new vain defense of the Jews; this time not by a syllogism (although he might have put his reply in that form) but by applying the most simple axiomatic test. Jesus said to them, If God were your father, you would love me; for I came forth and am come from God; for not of myself have I come, on the contrary, he did commission me. The conditional sentence is the ordinary type of present unreality, εἰ with the imperfect, the imperfect with ἄν. The test is simple: true children of God would at once recognize the Son of God and in intelligent love (ἀγαπάω) would turn toward him; it is impossible that such children should not recognize and embrace God’s Son. Whereas in v. 40 Jesus speaks of himself as a man and adds the mark of divinity, here he does the reverse, stating what makes him divine (his coming forth from God) and adding the mark of his humanity (“I am come,” i.e., am here). The verbs ἐξῆλθον and ἥκω are not a mere duplication; both verbs are also modified by ἐκτοῦΘεοῦ. “I came forth from God” = the Incarnation, God’s Son became man (1:14). “I am come from God” = the mission, Jesus is standing here before these Jews, engaged in his mission, (ἥκω, present tense from a root with the meaning of the perfect, R. 881).

Doubly these Jews would recognize and love Jesus if they were God’s children: once as their relative, come from their God to them; again as their benefactor on his saving mission from God to them. His very person and his very work so mark Jesus as “from God” that any contact with him at once opens the hearts of God’s true children. Not one of them could possibly fail in this test. To fail is to demonstrate that those who fail, however emphatically they assert their childhood, are not children at all but—liars. For the coming of Jesus from God the Greek may use ἐκ, παρά (16:27), or ἀπό (16:30), R. 579.

The fact that “I am come from God” refers to the mission of Jesus, which he is now executing before these Jews, is explained by the second γάρ which elucidates ἥκω: “for not from myself have I come,” not thus am I here, carrying out a plan conceived only by myself; “on the contrary, he (ἐκεῖνος, God, emphatic, R. 708) did commission me” with a mission from him. Compare 7:17 and 28, 29; 8:28 and 42; 10:36; 11:42; 12:49; 14:10; 17:3 and 8. While the going forth from God and the mission of Jesus cannot be separated, since the latter is the one and only purpose of the former, the mission from God with all the truth it brings from God well deserves especial emphasis in the present connection. For, certainly, true children of God must at once recognize and love him who comes with God’s own truth and blessings.

As an affinity with Abraham would automatically show itself in doing the corresponding works, so an affinity with God would automatically show itself in loving him who came out from God and is sent by God. The claim of the Jews perishes under this natural test.

John 8:43

43 So far are these Jews from receiving Jesus with intelligent love (ἀγαπᾶν) that he appears as a foreigner to them. Why do you not understand my language, seeing that you are unable to hear my word? “You are not able to hear” is a litotes for “you are deaf.” They are deaf to τὸνλόγοντὸνἐμόν, this “word of mine” (emphatic), i.e., my meaning, what Jesus has to say. These Jews are not deaf to what others say, that goes right into their ears, they “are able to hear” just what is meant. The ὅτι clause, “seeing that,” just states a fact, a strange fact but a fact nonetheless. Jesus may present to them all the truth he pleases; these Jews “are unable to hear” a particle of it. The explanation lies in the first part of the question: they do not even recognize what “language” Jesus is speaking.

The emphasis is on the verb; also λαλιάν and λόγον are distinct, the language used in speaking and the meaning that is put into that language. The very language of the divine truth is foreign to these Jews. The evidence that the language is foreign to them is their inability to hear what is put into that language. Jesus may as well talk to deaf men. These Jews indeed claim that thy are God’s children; but when Jesus talks to them in the language of God and of God’s house, they act like deaf persons, his meaning is lost upon them. That fact has only one explanation: they do not even recognize the language, that it is that of God.

That proves that God is not their father. Children know their father’s language, it is their mother tongue. These Jews belong to a foreign land, where a different mother tongue is used. No need to say what land that is.

The fact that ὅτι must be rendered as here indicated is established by the use of this connective in 2:18; 7:35; 8:28; 9:2 and 17; 12:49; 14:10 and 22; Matt. 8:27; Mark 4:41; Luke 4:36; 8:12; see the grammatical explanations in B.-D. 456, 2; 480, 6; R. calls this ὅτι consecutive, 1001. Yet the grammars say nothing at all about our passage, although this is the very passage most in dispute. Is it because many translators and commentators take ὅτι to mean “because”? This turns the passage into a question which is followed by its answer: “Why do you not understand my language? Because you cannot hear my word!” But the answer is wrong. It ought to be, “Because you have not learned that language!” Or things ought to be reversed. “Why are you unable to hear my word? (why are you deaf to my meaning?) Because you do not understand my language!” To escape the incongruity between the question and the answer λαλιάν is translated “speech” instead of language, and the emphasis on γινώσκετε is overlooked. Yet even then little more than a tautology results.

The Jews had been deaf to all that Jesus had said to them (his word, the truth). In view of this Jesus asks whether they even understand his language. The question is rhetorical; it answers itself.

John 8:44

44 Now comes the final crushing blow, striking home in the conscience. The name of the spiritual father of these Jews, withheld so long, is now hurled straight into their faces: You, of your father, the devil, are you, and the lusts of your father it is your will to do. Note the emphatic subject ὑμεῖς. There are children of God, but you, you unbelieving Jews, are the devil’s children. Of course, the devil did not create these Jews while God created those people who are his children by faith. The fact that moral and spiritual relationship is referred to the clause with καί places beyond question.

The ἐπιθυμίαι of the devil are the evil desires, lusts, and passions that fill the devil himself and show that he is the devil. His children are naturally inflamed with the same lusts; they get or inherit them through their spiritual descent from him. And yet, since the entire relationship with the devil is moral and spiritual, these lusts of the devil find place in his children only by their own consent and will. Not unwillingly these Jews are what they are. Nor are these lusts merely passive or latent in their hearts. The devil’s children always actually will and go on willing (θέλετε) to do or to carry into action (ποιεῖν) these lusts.

The evil desire kindled in the heart gives birth to the corresponding deed. No evil deed is without this evil root. Thus the deeds are prima facie proof first of the lusts, secondly of the inward connection with the devil. With τοῦπατρός we need no ὑμῶν; the article alone suffices, and really no more needs to be said. And τοῦδιαβόλου is the appositional genitive. Among the inanities of exegesis is the one which makes this genitive possessive: of the father “of the devil,” turning the Jews into brothers of the devil, and Jesus and John into gnostics.

“The lusts of your father” is general, including all of them. Two of them are outstanding, as the history of the devil shows, and these two lusts reappear similarly in the devil’s children. Thus Jesus specifies: He, a manslayer was he from the beginning; and in the truth he does not stand because truth is not in him. When he speaks the lie, he speaks from what is his own; because he is a liar and the father thereof. Here is the historical moral portrait of the devil drawn by Jesus himself. The subject ἐκεῖνος is emphatic.

Murder and lying are mentioned as the devil’s lusts because they are that, as history shows, and because his children, the very Jews to whom Jesus is speaking, display these identical lusts. The historical reference in “manslayer” is not to the killing of Abel by Cain (1 John 3:12), but, as “from the beginning” shows, to the first introduction of sin among men, by which death entered and slew our race (Rom. 5:12). “Manslayer” attributes to the devil far more than the physical murders that are committed by men; it charges him with bringing death in all its destructive power upon the whole of mankind.

Because lying was the means by which the devil murdered our race, lying is mentioned as the second lust. For the text we must rely on the text critics. Since οὑκ is at times written also before a rough breathing, it makes little difference whether we agree on οὑκ or write οὑχ before ἕστηκεν. B.-D. 73 and 91, 1 prefers to read ἕστηκεν, but also as the perfect of ἵστημι and he explains the smooth breathing in 14. So this, too, is only a difference in writing and in pronunciation. Hort makes ἕστηκεν the imperfect of στήκω, but R. 224 and 1219 leaves this idea wholly with Hort.

While an imperfect would in a way match the preceding ἦν, yet no phrase such as ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς accompanies the second verb; and the perfect of ἵστημι (whether written with a rough or with a smooth breathing) is always used as a present and certainly matches the following ἐστίν, which is also more closely connected with it than the preceding ἦν. Thus Jesus says, “and in the truth he does not stand.” Why not? “Because truth is not in him.” Since ἀλήθεια is an abstract noun, it may or may not have the article. Truth and the devil are wholly foreign, in fact absolutely antagonistic to each other. Take the sphere of truth (ἐντῇἀληθείᾳ)—the devil has no place in it anywhere. Reverse this and take the devil—truth has no place in him anywhere. The word “truth” is here objective truth, since the truth and the devil are wholly separated; but also all that we conceive as subjective truth is denied with reference to the devil by the verbs used (“does not stand in,” “is not in”); personally “he is a liar,” etc.

A wrong implication should not be inferred from οὑκἕστηκεν, such as “does not stand firm” (as though he does stand loosely in the truth), or “does not stand permanently” (as though he does stand temporarily in the truth). The verb is absolute: “does not stand in any way.”

The statements that follow have no connective such as γάρ and do not mean to prove that such a gulf exists between the truth and the devil. Their purpose is much deeper. These statements reveal the origin of untruth, falsehood, lies, and place that origin in the devil. “When he speaks the lie he speaks from what is his own,” ἐκτῶνἰδίων. This does not mean that he acquired or appropriated what is now “his own,” for it had no existence before him or apart from him; “his own” is what he himself originated. In this sense Jesus adds, “because he is a liar and the father thereof”—a liar, not like others who learned lying from him, but unlike others, the parent of the lie itself. We find no difficulty in αὑτοῦ, which goes back through ψεύστης to τὸψεῦδος, B.-D. 282, 2; R. 683.

This pronoun is frequently construed without a close antecedent, merely ad sensum. To think of “his (the devil’s) father” is untenable. To translate, “and his (the liar’s) father,” is impossible, for this would make him his own father since “liar” is the predicate of “he (the devil) is.” The devil is the father of the lie; in this way he speaks “from what is his own” when he speaks the lie (for instance in Gen. 3:1–6; Job 1 and 2; Matt. 4:1–11).

Since ἡἀλήθεια denotes reality (that which is so), it exists by itself even apart from any created expression. Since τὸψεῦδος denotes unreality (that which only pretends to be so), it never exists by itself but only as some created mind may conceive it or give it expression. Hence “the lie” must go down before “the truth.” The truth, however, is also the expression of the actual reality, as the lie is that of the pretended reality. Truth loves to express what it really is, the lie never dares to do that. The two are powers with no peace possible between them. Truth’s power is eternal, because the reality cannot cease; the power of the lie is ephemeral, because its pretense is bound to be exposed.

God himself is the essence of the truth; the lie is the devil’s vain invention. To receive the truth is to connect with God; to yield to the lie is to be the child of the devil.

In the most decisive way Jesus here declares the existence, personality, character, and potency of the devil. Either these statements of his are “the truth,” ἡἀλήθεια, or he himself is guilty of “the lie,” τὸψεῦδος—no escape from this alternative is possible. To say that Jesus knew that no such being existed as he here describes, that his language is only an “accomodation” to the superstitious and false notions of his Jewish hearers, is to rob language itself of its meaning and to strip Jesus himself of his moral character. By making the devil the originator of sin the notion that evil is also an eternal principle is shut out. In the two types of evil made prominent as inhering in the devil Jesus recalls to the Jews the main chapters of Satan’s activity among men as set forth in the Old Testament. Jesus has no occasion here to declare the fall of the devil.

Those who think the devil’s fall is implied in the tense of οὑκἕστηκεν misread the tense; it is a grammatical perfect but an actual present: “does not stand” in the truth. It describes the devil as he now is and says nothing about the fact that at his creation he was otherwise. The testimony regarding his fall is recorded elsewhere. How the devil could become the author of evil, or how evil first began or could begin in him, is one of the mysteries that are wholly impenetrable to the mind of man.

John 8:45

45 From the devil Jesus turns to the Jews, the devil’s children. But because I on my part declare the truth, you do not believe me—proof positive that they are descendants of him who stands not in the truth, because the truth is not in him. Truth always demands faith; this is the very law of our concreated moral nature. To reject the truth because it is the truth is to turn devilish. These Jews, bent on doing the lusts of their father, the devil, trample truth under their feet. As sons of the father of lies their souls have an affinity only for lies; they believe only liars and lies (πιστεύετε, durative to express continuous conduct).

John 8:46

46 But this statement that Jesus “declares the truth” to these Jews must not be understood superficially as though he means only that what he tells them is true. This statement about Jesus declaring the truth is in direct contrast to what he has just said about the devil. As the devil’s very nature is “the lie,” so the very nature of Jesus is “the truth.” When the devil opens his mouth (λαλεῖ), out flow “what are his own”—lies; when Jesus declares his thoughts (λέγω), these thoughts coming from him (emphatic ἐγὼδέ) are the very expression of his being and his person—the truth. This is the connection for the dramatic and challenging question: Who of you convicts me of sin? He has convicted, is convicting them in the most crushing way with unanswerable proof. He has done this by bringing “the truth” to bear upon them, the reality of what they actually are.

He has specified, pointing to their murderous plot and to their open refusal to accept the truth, irrefutable evidence of their filial connection with the devil. By doing all this Jesus furnishes to the Jews equally irrefutable evidence that he is the very opposite of them and of their father, the devil,—his very nature is “the truth.” And what are these Jews doing by way of reply? Is even one of them convicting Jesus in any way whatever? No, not one. Are these Jews then by their utter inability to convict Jesus in any way not furnishing the strongest kind of evidence as to the true character of Jesus?

To be sure, the challenging question of Jesus is an incidental part of the truth with which he convicts the Jews. But not the small part which some consider it, as if all that Jesus challenges these Jews to do is to convict him of the fact that any allegation he is making against them is untrue, or that any allegation he is making concerning himself is false. Then the challenge would have to read, “Who of you convicts me of a lie?” But Jesus uses ἁμαρτία, the generic term for “sin.” He even omits the article, so that we are compelled to understand “sin” in the broadest sense of the word and not as restricted to some one sin which may perhaps be suggested by the context. The effort to reduce ἁμαρτία to “fraud” or “mistake” in the indictment of the Jews by Jesus is misspent. “Sin” means any and every kind of sin. And ἐλέγχειν means to convict by proof, to furnish genuine evidence of guilt, not merely to accuse. An accusation may be false and lack grounds.

The Jews accused Jesus violently enough, for instance at his trial, but altogether groundlessly. Compare Trench, Synonyms, 1, 31, etc., on the word. In a conviction it makes no difference whether the person himself is convinced and confesses his guilt or not. The Jews were convicted by Jesus although they scorned to confess and would not amend their ways. They stood convicted because neither they nor anybody else could possibly show that they were not guilty exactly as Jesus charged. Their sole defense consisted in lies; thus that they were not slaves (v. 33) when they were; that their spiritual father is Abraham (v. 39) or is God (v. 41), neither of which is true.

So the challenge Jesus hurls at these Jews defies them to bring proof of anything in him that in any way is sin. Let them take the entire category of sin, on not a single point are they convicting Jesus, yea, can they convict him.

Some look at this challenge only in so far as it is addressed to the Jews: “who of you.” This passage, we are told, cannot be used as proof for the absolute sinlessness of Jesus; for the inability of the Jews to prove some sin in Jesus certainly would not establish his entire freedom from sin. Many a criminal even, to say nothing of a common sinner, cannot be convicted by us simply because we lack the necessary evidence—the crime or sin is hidden from us. So this defiance of Jesus, challenging the Jews to prove sin against him, we are told, is sufficient to establish only a relative sinlessness for him not his absolute sinlessness. But this view leaves out the main fact, namely that it is Jesus who utters this challenge. Morally he would convict himself of inner falseness if he knew of any sin in himself and yet, counting on the ignorance of these Jews regarding himself, defied them to point out sin in himself. The fact that Jesus makes this challenge shuts out another mistake that is sometimes made when it is granted that in him was “no consciousness of sin.” Not to be conscious of sin is not by any means to be sinless.

Paul “knows nothing against himself” and yet adds in all honesty, “I am not hereby justified,” 1 Cor. 4:4. With the same honesty David prays, “Cleanse thou me from secret faults.” The case of Jesus is different, for not only does his consciousness reveal to him all that is in his moral being, leaving no secret recess hidden from his inner eye, as the very Son of God all possibility even of sin in any sense of the word was shut out for him, and this he knew with infallible knowledge.

The constant use which the church has made of this word of Jesus as an assertion of absolute sinlessness from his own lips is sound in every respect.

Since there is no sin in Jesus, everything that he says is and must be pure truth and verity. The assertion in v. 45, that the Jews do not believe Jesus just because he speaks the truth, is now turned into a question to strike once more and still harder at the callous conscience of the Jews, in order to crush them in repentance or to convict their obduracy by reducing it to impotent silence. If I say truth, why do you not believe me? The condition of reality implies that Jesus does say truth, never says anything but truth. Jesus has already given us one answer. Just because he presents truth, these Jews do not believe him.

Their kinship with the devil is thus made evident. These Jews never dared to assert or to prove that what Jesus says is untrue. They do not spurn what Jesus says because they think it is not really true, or because they do not see that it is true. In their case the reverse is the fact: they see and know that what Jesus says is truth and for that very reason spurn it. The fault is not in Jesus, that he did not make the truth plain enough, that if he had done better in this regard, they would believe. The reverse is the fact.

Aside from the fact that Jesus did his work of presenting the truth most perfectly, the more these Jews were made to realize that they were face to face with genuine truth, the more that truth stung them to rid themselves of it at all hazard. That is why the question of Jesus receives no answer. Any true answer would resemble v. 45. An unreasonable act cannot have a reasonable explanation. When truth is rejected because it is truth, all that can be said is that the act is the height of unreason, is vicious, and stands self-condemned. Refusing to give this true answer, these Jews are left dumb.

On this silence compare Matt. 22:12, also 21:27; and Luke 19:20–22 for an attempted answer. Silence proves conviction.

John 8:47

47 The Jews dare not answer, hence Jesus answers for them. He that is of God hears the utterances of God. For this reason you do not hear because you are not of God. The verb ἀκούειν is used with reference to true inward hearing, one which perceives and believes. Even the ῥήματα of God, the expressions used for conveying the truth of God, will thus be received as holy vessels filled with holy contents by him who is of God, a true child of his. Jesus employs a regular negative syllogism (compare another in v. 30).

Major premise: “He who is of God hears God’s words.” Minor premise: “You do not hear God’s words.” Ergo: “You are not of God.” The conclusion is deadly in its grip. Here, then, is the real reason why these Jews refuse to believe the truth which Jesus declares. They are not of God and want nothing that comes from (ἐκ, out of) God. Even the bitter truth Jesus now tells them about themselves, doubly because of its bitterness, they refuse. The more complete is their conviction.

This conviction Jesus executes by the calmest, clearest, most deliberate and irrefutable line of reasoning—but one that presents nothing but the undeniable realities themselves.

John 8:48

48 The boiling rage of the Jews breaks out in vicious insults and vituperation—an open confession of defeat in their war against the truth and at the same time an involuntary and unconscious substantiation on their part of all that Jesus has said about them and their moral parentage. The Jews answered and said to him (1:48 for the use of the two verbs), Say we not well, that thou art a Samaritan and hast a demon? By the tense of λέγομεν these men convey the thought that they have right along been calling Jesus such names when speaking of him. They mean to say that by denying that they are true children of Abraham and of God by calling them the devil’s offspring, Jesus, though he is a Jew, speaks like a Samaritan, one of the hated race who would reciprocate with equal hate; and, though he is sane enough, he speaks like a demoniac, like one possessed of an evil spirit that uses Jesus’ tongue to vilify these Jews, God’s dear people. These vicious insults intend to wound most deeply.

John 8:49

49 With the calmness of complete mastery Jesus makes reply. Jesus answered, I, I have not a demon; on the contrary, I am honoring my Father, and you, you are dishonoring me. He simply puts in glaring contrast what he is doing and what they are doing; the pronouns are the pivots: ἐγώ … ὑμεῖς. This contrast speaks for itself. Jesus touches only the second epithet hurled at him, that of being possessed by a devil, because that is enough for the contrast he is bringing out between what he is doing and what they are doing. Moreover, while these Jews utterly despise the Samaritans, Jesus does not; but to be a demoniac would destroy the force of every word he has uttered.

Even then Jesus denies the latter only in passing. For the emphatic ἐγώ is to be construed with τιμῶ, to match the emphatic ὑμεῖς with ἀτιμάζετε: “I am honoring, you are dishonoring.” The implication is not, “I have no demon,” meaning, “but you have.” “Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again,” 1 Pet. 2:23. The vicious outburst of the Jews by which they dishonor him makes Jesus tell these slanderers what he on his part is doing, namely honoring his Father. Indeed, he honors his Father most highly when he proves that these vicious Jews are certainly not the Father’s children and when he tells them just what they are. A tongue governed by a demon would never speak so.

By saying that they dishonor him Jesus means himself as he is engaged in honoring his Father. The dishonor heaped on Jesus thus falls also on his Father, 5:23. Here again the Jews show how certainly they are not this Father’s children but the offspring of an entirely different being. The exclamation in 7:20 should not be paralleled with the slander that Jesus has a demon, for the former is mere incredulous surprise, while the latter is deliberate insult.

John 8:50

50 Jesus suffers the insult, he does not retaliate. But I seek not my glory. There is one who seeks and judges. Under this insult offered him Jesus commits himself to him that judges righteously, 1 Pet. 2:23. Again ἐγώ is emphatic. The matter of maintaining and vindicating the honor of Jesus is in other, proper hands.

He uses δόξα, “glory,” the highest form of honor, not merely τιμή (see τιμῶ and ἀτιμάζετε in v. 49). The person and the honor or glory of Jesus are not cheap, for men to abuse at will; even though Jesus makes no defense. A mighty Vindicator stands behind Jesus, whom he describes only most briefly. His name these Jews may tell themselves. He is the one “who seeks” the glory of Jesus, i.e., who sees to it that glory will be his. Most deeply is he concerned as the Father about his Son, as the Sender about the representative he has sent.

He both seeks and he “judges.” He justifies Jesus, who upholds his Father’s honor; he condemns those who drag down his honor by reviling his Son and messenger.

John 8:51

51 Amen, amen, I say to you (see 1:51), If anyone shall guard my word, death he shall not at all see forever. This glorious gospel word, uttered with the assurance of verity and with the force of authority hard upon the stern words which convict these unbelieving Jews of sin, puzzles many of the commentators. Some assume that a pause occurred, after which Jesus begins anew; but John indicates no pause. Some think that Jesus turns from the unbelieving to the believing Jews and intends this word only for the latter. Those who think that the believers of v. 31 lose their faith in v. 33 and are called the devil’s children in v. 44, also suppose that Jesus now desires to revive their faith. Still others think that Jesus here declares that his word, on account of which the Jews revile him, will be gloriously vindicated by the great Judge.

Yet Jesus does not mention the Judge or any act of vindication by him in his great statement. What he does is to place the gospel beside the law, exactly as he does in v. 34–36. First he convicts of sin, then he opens the door of salvation from sin. In the wall of fire with which the law surrounds the sinner the gospel opens a wide gate of escape through faith in the Savior and his word. Never dare the law and the gospel be separated if their divinely intended result is to be achieved. In preaching either may come first; here law then gospel, but in 4:7–15 gospel then in 4:16–19 law.

The two may also alternate as in v. 34–36 followed by 37–51 and further by v. 54–58—three times law and gospel.

“If anyone” is universal and opens the door to all the sinners in the world. At the same time it is personal: each sinner must enter for himself. In the condition of expectancy (ἐάν with the subjunctive) Jesus sees that many will, indeed, guard his word and thus never see death. As in v. 32, it is “my word,” or “my own word,” (the possessive adjective added with the article) as against the word of anyone else. “My word” has this effect, mine alone. In substance “to guard” Jesus’ word is the same as “to remain in” his word (v. 32). Both verbs are aorists denoting actual guarding and actual remaining in the word.

Jesus loves the verb τηρεῖν, especially in connection with his word, his sayings, and his commandments (behests, ἐντολαί), 14:15–24; 15:10 and 20; 17:6. The picture in the verb is that of keeping an eye on the word, so that it is not tampered with but is kept inviolate. The English “to keep” has too much the suggestion of only retaining. Usually only two ideas are found in τηρεῖν, that of faith in the word, and that of obedience to the biddings of the word (“observe,” Matt. 28:20). We should add a third, that of letting no one tamper with the word, guarding it against perversion.

He who thus guards Jesus’ word, “death he shall not at all see forever.” This again matches v. 32, “you shall truly be my disciples, know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Save that v. 32 speaks of the proximate result (free from the bondage of sin), v. 51 of the ultimate result (eternal freedom from death). “Death” is made emphatic by position; οὑμή, “not at all,” is the strongest negation with a subjunctive (as here) or with a future, intensified in this case by “forever” and by the strong promise in the verb “shall see.” So far and so completely shall he who guards Jesus’ word be removed from death that he shall never even see it. Not to see death is the opposite of not to see the kingdom (3:3), the opposition being death and the kingdom. But “cannot see (ἰδεῖν) the kingdom” (explained by “cannot enter into the kingdom,” 3:5) conveys the idea that the person in question shall not catch even a glimpse of that kingdom; while not to see θεωρεῖν, to view) death conveys the thought that the person in question shall not view

death as crushing and destroying him. He shall not view death by experiencing it, by partaking of it (Abbott-Smith, Manual Greek Lexicon). The negative thought here expressed is coupled with its positive counterpart in 5:24; see also 6:50. He who has the life (ζωή) which Jesus and his word bestow is free from death forever. Only by implication we gather that he who rejects Jesus’ word shall, indeed, see death and see it forever. This negative fact Jesus here leaves unsaid. On εἰςτὸναἰῶνα see v. 35.

John 8:52

52 Once more the Jews justify what Jesus says about them in v. 45, that just because he tells them the truth they do not believe him. Their one determination is to repudiate whatever he may say. The Jews, therefore, said to him, Now we know that thou hast a demon. Abraham died, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If anyone shall guard my word he shall not at all taste of death forever. In ἐγνώκαμεν we probably have an intensive perfect, R. 893, “know beyond a doubt,” now after this last statement of Jesus’. No man in possession of his own sound mind would say a thing like this; a lying demon must rule his mind and his tongue.

The fact that Abraham died, as well as the prophets, the holiest people named in the Old Testament, brands as a lie this assertion of Jesus, that one who guards his word shall not experience death forever. The verbal change from “shall not see death” to “shall not taste of death” is unimportant, as both alike denote the experience of death, C.-K. 231. The latter is analogous to the rabbinical Hebrew and Aramaic and seems to refer to the bitterness of physical death, perhaps also to the more extended figure of drinking the cup of death. “Abraham died” is the commentary of the Jews themselves on their expression, “shall not at all taste of death.” With superficial blindness they substitute physical death for eternal death and thus pervert the word of Jesus. This is the more inexcusable since he had often told them of eternal life, the opposite of the death of which he now speaks. The perversion may even be deliberate on the part of the Jews, an evidence of their wicked intention not to understand whatever he may say if it does not serve their purpose.

The attempt is made to deny this perversion, whether blind or deliberate, and to have the Jews and Jesus understand death in the same sense. The souls of Abraham and of the Old Testament saints, we are told, passed into the “realm of the dead”; in this way they “saw death,” “died,” “tasted of death.” In this realm these souls remained until Jesus released them. To the New Testament saints Jesus promises a better fate: their souls shall not enter that dread realm. That is what Jesus means to say, what the Jews understand him to say and what they themselves have in mind. Their mistake, we are told, was only this that they considered Jesus a mere man and thus unable to give his believers what he promises. But this “realm of the dead,” identified with the sheol of the Old Testament, is a fiction.

The entire Bible knows of only two places in the hereafter, heaven and hell. Elijah was carried bodily into heaven; compare Gen. 5:24 on Enoch. Moses and Elijah appeared to Jesus and three of the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17:3). Did Moses come from “the realm of the dead”? And whence did Elijah come? Read Acts 2:25, etc., “that I should not be moved … my flesh also shall dwell in hope.” And why? “Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hades,” correctly rendered, “thou wilt not abandon my soul unto the house of hades,” οὑκἐγκαταλείψειςτὴνψυχήνμουεἰςᾳδου (supply οἶκον), David knows that at death his soul will not be abandoned to hades (sheol).

Ps. 16:10. The supposition of two compartments in this hades realm of the dead, one for the damned, and one for the saints, found even in C.-K. 80 and based on a misinterpretation of Luke 16:22, etc., only embellishes this alleged realm and is as fictitious as the realm itself.

John 8:53

53 In the original deduction that, since Abraham and the prophets are dead, a devil must wag a man’s tongue if he talks of preventing death by his word, lies a second deduction, namely that the man who talks thus must imagine himself greater than even Abraham or the prophets. This is like the deduction made by the Samaritan woman in 4:12. Yet hers led to faith while this leads the Jews to violence. Certainly thou are not greater than our father Abraham, seeing that he died? and the prophets died. Whom art thou making thyself? The interrogative word μή shows how certain the Jews feel of a negative answer; and ὅστις has causal force, R. 728.

The break in the construction: “and the prophets died,” ending the interrogative sentence with a declarative clause, is both natural and effective, R. 441. The only thing wrong about this second deduction is the assumption of the Jews that it cannot be drawn in fact but only in the imagination of Jesus. That Jesus is greater, infinitely greater, than Abraham or any mere man these Jews will not believe, no matter what the evidence. All the previous proof Jesus has given them in regard to his deity is non-existent for them. In the pointed question, “whom art thou making thyself?” lurks the threat that the questioners attempt to carry out in v. 59. A question such as, “Who art thou?” asked with a real desire to find out the truth, might lead to faith; but not the question they ask.

John 8:54

54 Jesus starts with the base insinuation that he is ascribing a fictitious glory to himself, but he proceeds not only to say who he is but also to prove that what he thus says is fact. Jesus answered, If I shall glorify myself, my glory is nothing, without reality, empty, talk—“I,” apart from God, like a man vaunting himself. The aorist subjunctive refers to some certain act of self-glorification which Jesus may perform. What Jesus here says of himself would apply equally to any boaster. It is my Father that glorifies me, and the present participle ὁδοξάζωνμε includes all that the Father does in glorifying Jesus, past, present, and future. Here Jesus declares who he is, the Son of his heavenly Father. This Son the Jews may dishonor, God not only honors but glorifies him.

The relative clause is masterly in the highest degree. It is directed against the Jews and their false claims of honor and at the same time defines just who the Father of Jesus is and who Jesus himself thus is: of whom you assert that he is your God, and (coordinating the very opposite) you do not know him (proving that your assertion is false). Here again (as in v. 52) the perfect ἐγνώκατε seems to be intensive (R. 893), “truly know,” with the sense of the present intensified. These Jews had the fullest means of really knowing God, γινώσκω, through actual experience and the realization it brings, through the Old Testament revelation. The evidence, proving that these Jews are strangers to God, is furnished in v. 47; so here only the fact is repeated. These Jews claim the great honor of being the children of this the true God.

They are the ones who are making the empty boast. This very God is the Father of Jesus, Jesus is his Son.

Hence Jesus adds: but I do know him, and if I shall say that I do not know him, I shall be like you, a liar; on the contrary, I know him and I am guarding his word. Three times Jesus here uses οἶδα in declaring that he “knows” God, in marked difference from γινώσκω, which he uses regarding the Jews; a difference lost for us in translation. The former fits intuitive knowledge, the latter knowledge gained by experience; thus the former reflects the very presence of the Son with the Father in heaven, and the latter the experience with God through his Word. When Jesus says, “I know the Father (οἶδα),” he means that he has been with him; when he tells the Jews, “You do not know him (οὑκἐγνώκατε) although you call him your God,” he means that they do not realize who God really is although he has revealed himself to them through his Word. This negation does not imply that the Jews followed idols instead of the true God but that their conceptions of the true God are in conflict with the revelation God made of himself in his Word. They have only a caricature of God.

C.-K. 388 adds another point: οἶδα indicates a relation of the object to the subject, γινώσκω a relation of the subject to the object. Thus in Matt. 25:12: οὑκοἶδαὑμᾶς, you have no relation to me of which I know; but in Matt. 7:23: οὑδέποτεἔγιωνὑμᾶς, I have had no relation to you of which I know. Likewise here, “You do not know him (γινώσκω)” because you are not his children but only call yourselves so; while, “I know him (οἶδα)” because I bear a relation to him, I am his Son, and he is my Father. The knowledge here expressed by οἶδα includes also that expressed by γινώσκω, hence the latter type of knowledge is also claimed by Jesus for himself in 17:25.

In order to drive home this contrast between the Jews and himself and, if possible, to pierce their conscience, Jesus adds, “and if I shall say, (εἴπω, aorist subjunctive: in some statement) that I do not know him, I shall be like you, a liar.” The condition with ἐάν in the apodosis, followed by the future indicative in the Protasis, conceives the thought in a vivid and realistic manner. Jesus minces no words when he says, “like you, a liar,” thus calling these Jews liars to their faces. The vivid supposition would, indeed, make Jesus “like” these Jews, only in an opposite way: they claim to know God and yet do not; Jesus would claim not to know him and yet he does know him.

The repetition, “on the contrary (I am not a liar like you), I know him,” is due to the evidential proof that is added by the coordinate clause, “and I am guarding his word.” The contrasting comparison with the Jews is carried even to this vital point. The Jews do not even “hear” God’s word (v. 47), to say nothing of “guarding” it (v. 51). That proves who they are. Jesus meets this axiomatic test: he is guarding his Father’s word. Here τηρῶ evidently means not only to hold to that word and to obey it but also to keep guard over it, to defend it against attack, and thus to keep it inviolate. Jesus here refers to his office as the great Witness and Prophet, but to defend and keep God’s Word inviolate is the natural duty of every true child of God.

John 8:56

56 The charge of self-glorification is answered first, by the facts of Jesus’ relation to the Father, and now, secondly, by the relation of Jesus to Abraham. Abraham, your father, exulted to see my day; and be saw it and was glad. It is correct to say that “your father” here refers to the father of whom these Jews boast. Also that in regard to Jesus this father acted very differently from these Jews who claim. to be his children. We must add that when Jesus said, “this (seeking to kill me) did not Abraham,” Jesus had in mind what he now says about Abraham. But apart from these points, Jesus cannot say “our Father,” for even physically Abraham is not the father of Jesus in the same sense as he is the father of the Jews. Invariably Jesus marks this difference in his human descent.

Two things are said of Abraham: he rejoiced that he was to see (ἵνα, subfinal, purport, not purpose, R. 993); then that he did see and was glad. The first is hope, the second realization. The object of both is identical: τὴνἡμέραντὴνἐμήν, “my own day.” The statement is evidently a mashal with a hidden meaning, like a riddle, which needs a key to solve it (like 2:19); for Abraham lived about 2, 000 years before Jesus came to earth. The two words Abraham “exulted” and “was glad” intend to fix our attention on the central occurrence in the patriarch’s life, Gen. 17:17; 18:12–15; 21:6–8, all marked by “laughter,” even as Isaac’s name itself means “laughter.” The other two prominent verbs “to see” and “saw” may intend to recall Gen. 22:14: “Jehovah-jireh,” meaning, “In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.” Moreover, it should be clear that “to see the day” means “to live to see it” and thus to behold the great event that distinguishes the day referred to.

These observations put to rest the bizarre, unbiblical notion that Abraham hopefully exulted during his earthly life and then, when Jesus was born, in some way saw this event in the fabled “realm of the dead” (hades, sheol) and there was glad. Likewise we must decline the view that Abraham “saw and was glad” in paradise, “in the bosom of God,” in heaven, namely when the birth of Jesus finally occurred in Bethlehem. Not only are all the aorists alike: “he exulted to see,” and “he saw and was glad,” historical aorists in the earthly life of Abraham, but also “my own day” cannot mean “my own birthday,” “seen” first in prophetic vision 2, 000 years before its occurrence and then “seen” in some other supernatural way in hades, or in heaven, when it actually arrived here on earth. Abraham “rejoiced to see and saw” means: Abraham during this life.

Some seek the solution of Jesus’ mashal in the typical nature of Isaac’s birth. Accordingly, Abraham first rejoiced that he was to see, and then also he actually did see with joy in the birth of his son Isaac the future birth of God’s Son Jesus. This sounds plausible yet proves unacceptable. Jesus does not in any way mention Isaac or hint at such a thing as type and antitype. He speaks only of Abraham and of two actions of Abraham, each of which is made decidedly emphatic by doubling the verb, and the exulting and being glad fixes the exact time in Abraham’s life here meant. For the mysterious mashal in 2:19 Jesus gave the Jews no key; John gives it to his readers in 2:21, 22.

Here Jesus furnishes the key, “Before Abraham came to be, I am.” This key contains nothing of type and antitype. Such a thought would be wide of the point at issue, namely the greatness of Jesus’ person as compared with Abraham.

With the key of Jesus in hand we can unlock the mystery. What caused Abraham to exult was the promise of the birth of Isaac as the son through whom the nations should be blessed. Abraham saw that son born and was glad. Then and there, in that event, Abraham saw with his own eyes what Jesus calls “my own day.” Then and there the day of Jesus began. In that wonderful gift of Isaac the very person now speaking to the Jews began by an action of his a deed both astouding and infinitely blessed, his own saving manifestation. Promises had preceded, only promises.

Here the first great fulfillment was wrought, a fulfillment that one could “see.” It was. as Jesus says, “my own day.” Abraham, though a hundred years old, had lived “to see” it. He saw it and was glad. Was Jesus greater than Abraham? Is the incredulous question of the Jews comparing Jesus with Abraham answered?

John 8:57

57 The Jews ignore all that Jesus has told them about his divine sonship, about his having come from the Father, about having known the Father directly, etc., and regard his words as those of a mere man. Thou hast not yet (lived) fifty years and hast thou seen Abraham? The reading, “and has Abraham seen thee?” is discredited. We need not trouble about how old Jesus seemed to the Jews, or bother about the deductions based on the “fifty years,” which are merely in contrast to the 2, 000 years since Abraham lived. The question of the Jews rests on a correct conclusion, namely that if Abraham actually saw the day of Jesus, Jesus must have seen Abraham. Does Jesus actually mean to say that he is so old?

John 8:58

58 Not only does Jesus affirm what the question of the Jews asks, with the solemn formula of verity and authority he affirms vastly more. Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be, I am. The aorist γενέσθαι (πρίν with the infinitive after a positive verb, R. 977, 1091) marks the historical point of time when Abraham came into existence as against the time prior to that point when Abraham did not exist. This aorist is in contrast to εἰμί; which Jesus predicates of his own person (ἐγώ), here a finite verb not the mere copula (R. 394). As the aorist sets a point of beginning for the existence of Abraham, so the present tense “I am” predicates absolute existence for the person of Jesus, with no point of beginning at all. That is why Jesus does not use the imperfect ἤμην, “I was”; for this would say only that the existence of the person of Jesus antedates the time of Abraham and would leave open the question whether the person of Jesus also has a beginning like that of Abraham (only earlier) or not.

What Jesus declares is that, although his earthly life covers less than fifty years, his existence as a person (ἐγώ) is constant and independent of any beginning in time as was that of Abraham. For what Jesus here says about himself in comparison with Abraham is in the nature of the case true of him in comparison with any other man, no matter how far back the beginning of that man’s existence lies. “I am” = I exist. Thus with the simplest words Jesus testifies to the divine, eternal pre-existence of his person.

To speak of an “ideal” existence before the days of Abraham is to turn the solemn assurance of Jesus into a statement that means nothing. Unacceptable are also all other efforts to empty out this divine “I am” and to substitute for the fact and reality of existence before Abraham something merely mental, whether this occurred in the mind of Jesus or in that of God. Yet this “I am” is nothing new; by means of two tiny words it states only what Jesus has testified and continues to testify of himself in many other words in other connections. Thus, too, it forms the parting of the ways for faith and unbelief.

Yes, Jesus has seen Abraham—the deduction of the Jews is right in every respect, only it should go much farther.

John 8:59

59 As Jesus had made his meaning clear to the Jews in the first place, so also he did in this final word. They understand its full import, namely that, if the existence of the person of Jesus antedates that of Abraham in absolute continuation, he declares himself to be God. To them this is rank blasphemy. They took up stones, therefore, in order to throw at him; but Jesus was hidden and went out of the Temple. The Jews, with what they deemed blasphemy ringing in their ears, proceed to carry out Lev. 24:13–16 upon Jesus, and this without formal legal proceedings but by an immediate act of popular justice. This haste and irregularity is the expression of the murderous hate in the hearts of these Jews, rushing now that they feel they have caught Jesus in flagrante delicto to make short work of it and to be rid of him once for all. The stoning mentioned by Josephus, Ant. 17, 9, 3, is of quite a different type.

Parts of the Temple were in the process of rebuilding during these and many following years, so that pieces of stone could be obtained for the deadly work. Yet a brief delay ensued as some of the Jews ran to the spot where the builders were at work and “took up” the stones. During this interval, we may take it, Jesus “was hidden.” The form ἐκρύβη, a second aorist passive, might be read in a middle sense, “hid himself,” since the Koine increased the number of these passive forms and used them in preference to the middle (R. 349). But here the passive sense is entirely in place (R. 807): Jesus “was hidden” from the Jews so that they could not reach him. We may suppose that he moved aside, and that his friends massed around him, and thus “he went out of the Temple.” The addition found in later texts: “going through the midst of them, and so passed by” (A. V.), must be cancelled as a combination that was added from Luke 4:30 and John 9:1.

This addition is also untrue in fact. For nothing miraculous took place in the escape of Jesus. “He was hidden” and “he went out” are two facts placed side by side, nor can we follow B.-D. 471, 3 in the suggestion that the second verb is used in place of a participle: “by going out he was hidden.”

Inwardly and outwardly the tension between Jesus and the Jewish leaders increases and approaches the breaking point. The realism of John’s narration is perfect—we see and hear just what was said and done. Always and at every point the antagonism of the leaders together with their followers is revealed as unjustified, unreasonable, due wholly to their own ungodliness. With ever greater clearness Jesus reveals to them both their own character and state and himself as the Son and Savior. He never temporizes, compromises, hesitates, or hides. He is absolutely fearless, and his victory is complete at every step. The Jews are driven from argument to vituperation and finally to desperate violence—their defeat is complete.

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.

C.-K. Biblisch-theologisches Woerterbuch der Neutestamentlichen Graezitaet von D. D. Hermann Cremer, zehnte, etc., Auflage, herausgegeben von D. Dr. Julius Koegel.