Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewn you of my Father; for which work of them do ye stone me?
Stones are already in the hands of the crowd when Jesus speaks. He answers with no threat. He asks one question: which of His good works are they stoning Him for? That question makes His attackers name what they hate, and it shows what unbelief really is.
His claim to be one with the Father is what provoked the stones. Their answer is violence — and it goes nowhere.
L. M. GrantThe Lord's words had such living power. They ended with "I and My Father are one" (not "My Father and I"). In answer to the Jews' question in verse 24, those words have surely and fully proved that He is the Christ. But they react, not only in doubt, but in bitter hatred, and take up stones to stone Him. Yet they have no power to carry out their evil plan. His word, calmly and simply spoken, has power that holds them helpless.
They understood Him perfectly. Their problem was not the evidence but the lowly form in which grace had come.
Numerical Bible NotesThe Jews understand well enough, and take up stones to stone Him: but the might of His presence stills them. He calmly appeals to them, asking which of the many good works He has shown them from the Father they are stoning Him for. They could not deny the power or the goodness. But they could not believe the grace that had brought the Son of God among them in such lowly form.
Jesus does not only say the works were many. He says where they came from. That link is His proof.
Hamilton SmithIn perfect calmness the Lord appeals to the many good works that He had shown them from the Father. He thus connects His works with the Father as a proof that He had come from the Father. Had they then any fault to find with those works that show the goodness of the Father and the glory of Christ as the Son?
Every good thing has one source. That is where His works came from.
Michael VogelsangFirst of all we must realise that everything good has its ultimate source in God. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change" (James 1:17). The Lord Jesus, who revealed the Father here on earth, "went about doing good" (Acts 10:38), and so He could say to the Jews, "I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone Me?"
The works did not stand alone. His words came with them, and both had the same source.
H J VineAlong with the words were the wonderful works of the Father, and they were works of a kind the world had never seen before. They also bore witness to the divine origin of the words. The words and the works were together… When they sought to stone Him, He asked them which of the good works He had shown them from the Father they were stoning Him for. They replied that it was not for the works, but the words! Surely the origin of the one was evidence of the origin of the other! They were too blind to see this.
They could not name one bad work. So the hatred had no cause in Him at all.
Hamilton SmithAnd yet despite His acts of love, and His words of grace, they rewarded Him evil for good, and hatred for His love (Ps. 109:5). Truly He could say, "They hated me without a cause." Sadly, there was plenty of cause for hatred, but no cause in Him. There was no cause in man to call out Christ's love, and no cause in Christ to call out man's hatred.
- Source — Every good work of Jesus came from the Father. The goodness they were about to stone was the Father's own.
- Proof — Those works were His evidence. They showed that He had come from the Father.
- Agreement — His words and His works said the same thing. To accept the works and reject the words is blindness, not reason.
- Silence — His accusers could not name one work worth stoning. His question left them with nothing to say.
- Cause — Man had plenty of cause for hatred. Christ gave none. They lifted stones against pure goodness.
The Jews answered him, For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy, and because thou, being a man, makest thyself God.
Stones are already in the crowd's hands, because they heard Jesus claim to be God. Their charge raises the real question: was He blaspheming, or telling the truth about Himself?
The charge was not a misunderstanding.
William KellyThey were right in saying that Jesus was a man; they were not wrong in understanding that He claimed to be God. But this was Satan's suggestion, working on man's unbelief in everything beyond his own senses and mind. The suggestion is that He who was God would never lower Himself to become man and accomplish redemption, not even in love to men and for the divine glory. Was it incredible that God should stoop so low for such worthy ends?
His humanity was never their problem. One writer shows what their admission is worth:
C E StuartThey were clear and decided about the Lord's real humanity. They said it without any hedging. They were right that He was a man. He had a body, He had a soul, He had a spirit — the three parts that make up a man (1 Thess. 5:23). No one who saw Him on earth, we suppose, doubted His real manhood. What made the Jews stumble was His claim to be a Divine Person. About His manhood the Christian faith is sure; and Christians, taught by God, own it fully and thankfully. How near that brings Him to us!
They were answering the words He had just spoken: "I and the Father are one." That claim is more than sharing a purpose.
Robert F. WallThe Lord's statement was a clear affirmation of His deity. He was not only one with the Father in purpose, but one with Him in essence and being. In this the Son and the Father were inseparable: they were one. This was the issue when the Lord Jesus stood before their council. Put on oath by the High Priest to say whether He was the Christ, the Son of the Blessed, His plain answer was, "I am" (Mark 14:62). As a result of that statement He was again accused of blasphemy and condemned to death.
If they had misread Him, one sentence could have ended it. Instead He defends the claim from their own Scriptures.
Hamilton SmithIf their interpretation had been wrong, the Lord would have corrected such a terrible mistake at once. He would have rejected the claim to Deity. He does neither. Instead, He confirms His claim by appealing to their own Scriptures. He condemns them out of their own mouths for refusing His claim to Deity. Quoting from Psalm 82:6, the Lord asks, "Is it not written in your Law, 'I said, you are gods'?" God set apart men to be judges in Israel as His representatives, and His word came to them. Scripture calls them gods. Can it then be blasphemy for the Son to claim to be a divine Person — the Son whom the Father has set apart and sent into the world?
He let the charge stand. That leaves every reader with the choice the crowd faced.
J T MawsonIf we believe that pure truth flowed from His lips, we must accept this word as it stands. We have no alternative; to refuse it is to brand our Lord as the supreme impostor of all time. It was a great declaration, and we must admit that for a man to make it opens up a tremendous question. If He was not what He said He was, those Jews were right when they took up those stones to stone Him for blasphemy. If He lied, He was neither God nor from God, for "it is impossible for God to lie."
The charge turns back on the accusers. They could not accept that God would stoop so low.
William KellyTo their blinded and furious minds it was blasphemy for Him to say that He gave His followers eternal life, beyond the weakness or the power of any creature. It was blasphemy for Him to say that He and the Father were one. Yet this is the truth, so vital and necessary that no one who rejects it can be saved. His words were as good as His works, and even more important to man; and both came from the Father. He whom God sent, as John testified, spoke the words of God. It was they who blasphemed, denying Him to be God, who in grace to them stooped to become man.
The same truth that armed their hands is what steadies faith. Commenting on their words, one writer answers them in a single line:
J. N. DarbyIn very truth, that He is so is our hope.
- Heard rightly. The accusers understood Him exactly: He was a man, and He was claiming to be God.
- Meant fully. "I and the Father are one" means one in essence and being. That same claim later condemned Him before the High Priest.
- Never withdrawn. He would have corrected a mistaken charge on the spot. Instead He proves it from Psalm 82.
- Only two verdicts. Either He is God, or He is the greatest impostor of all time, and the crowd was right to stone Him.
- Blasphemy reversed. The real blasphemy was theirs: they denied that He is God, when He had stooped in grace to become man.