For I have not spoken from myself, but the Father who sent me has himself given me commandment what I should say and what I should speak;
These are the last words of Jesus' public teaching in this Gospel. He traces everything He has said back to the Father who sent Him — so what does it mean for the Son of God to speak under orders?
The sentence before it warns that the word Jesus spoke will judge the one who refuses it. The word "for" carries the weight of that warning back to its source.
He has the very thing that judges him — the word. "The word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day." And it judges him all the more surely, because Jesus did not speak from Himself, as if He were seeking His own will or glory. He was always and simply subject to the Father. The Father not only sent Him; the Father also told Him what to say and speak. And Jesus knew the Father's commandment to be eternal life. Jesus was as subject to Him in His utterances as in His doings, being here to declare Him and do His will.
His hearers heard a man speaking. He tells them the source lay deeper than that. The verse names two things — what to say and what to speak — and the Father set both.
"For I have not spoken on my own authority" — that is, the word has had a deeper source than you suppose, as if it came from a man. Instead, "the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment — what to say and what to speak." My wording, that is, as well as the things I spoke. They were God's words, as John the Baptist said.
The word "commandment" here is not one order given on one day. It covers everything He had said from the start of the Gospel.
He is here speaking of the testimony He has been giving from John 1:35 to chapter 12. He calls this testimony "a commandment," because it is what the Father laid on Him when He sent Him into the world. The Father had commanded Him what to say — what to speak. His testimony then — the word He had spoken — was the commandment of the Father.
It is striking that the Son should be under commandment at all. One writer ties this to the place He took on earth, not to what He is as God.
Christ's eternal Sonship gave His service on earth its incomparable character. In the Godhead there is one will, and so no subjection of One to Another. As God, the Son knew no subjection. But on earth, "although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered." In the lowly place of subjection He took, the Son chose to receive commandments from the Father. He obeyed them with infinite speed and infinite delight. What obedience could match this in kind or in degree?
If the Father set the content, what was it? One writer sums up that charge in a single aim.
He had a commandment from the Father about all that He was to declare. And that commandment, I have no doubt, was that He should perfectly reveal the Father in all He said and in all He did. This commandment He carried out to the letter. He says, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father," and Peter says, "You have the words of eternal life."
He did not choose His own message. That makes this verse a test for anyone who serves God — over what we say, not only what we do.
Even our blessed Lord, the perfect Servant that He was, took this ground. He said, "The Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise." He applies the same principle to what He said: "I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment — what to say and what to speak." So if He only did and said what the Father gave Him to do and say, we cannot go wrong when we seek grace to follow in His steps.
- Source. His teaching did not start with Him. The word had a deeper source than His hearers supposed, and the Father set even His wording.
- Scope. The "commandment" is not one instruction. It is His whole testimony — everything He had said since chapter 1 was what the Father sent Him to say.
- Submission. As God the Son knew no subjection. On earth He chose to receive commandments and obeyed them with delight. No obedience matches it in kind or degree.
- Substance. He carried out one charge to the letter: to reveal the Father in all He said and did. So His words are words of eternal life.
- Standard. He said only what the Father gave Him to say. His servants cannot go wrong if they use the same rule for their speech as for their work.
and I know that his commandment is life eternal. What therefore I speak, as the Father has said to me, so I speak.
Jesus is closing His public ministry, and He explains why His words carry such weight: they are not His own, but the Father's charge to Him. That charge, He says, is eternal life — so what sort of "commandment" gives life instead of demanding obedience?
Verses 44–50 are not a fresh sermon but a summing up of everything that has gone before, and of the position Israel had taken by refusing Him.
In rejecting Him, they rejected the Father, for what He said were the Father's words. So He did not judge the person who heard His word and did not keep it. He had not come to judge the world but to save it. His words would judge them at the last day. Now what He said was the Father's commandment, and this commandment was eternal life. He knew it. He had faith in it. He was certain of it within Himself. So everything He said, He spoke it as the Father had spoken to Him.
The word "commandment" here does not point to a single instruction. It covers the whole of what Jesus had been saying since the beginning of the Gospel.
He is here speaking of the testimony He has been giving from John 1:35 to chapter 12. He calls this testimony "a commandment," because it is what the Father laid on Him when He sent Him into the world. The Father had commanded Him what He should say — what He should speak. His testimony then — the word He had spoken — was the commandment of the Father.
One writer names what that charge contained:
The Father gave Him a commandment about everything He was to declare. That commandment, I have no doubt, was that the Father should be perfectly revealed in Him — in all that He said and in all that He did. This commandment He fulfilled to the letter. He says, "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father," and Peter says, "You have the words of eternal life."
The word can unsettle readers who associate commandments with law and penalty. The contrast is stated plainly.
More than this: the Father's commandment is life everlasting. It is not like the ten commandments, which brought condemnation and death. It brings eternal life for the vital blessing of mankind.
The same writer describes how that commandment sounded to those who heard it.
The commandment addressed to men through Christ struck no terror into the heart of the hearer. It did not speak of death, condemnation and curse, but of peace, love and everlasting life. It was the declaration of what God was for man. Even the worst of people could listen to that, and did listen closely, for surely no one ever spoke like this Man.
If the charge given to Jesus was to make the Father known, then receiving what He says is not a step towards life but life itself.
In words and works alike, He is the revealer of the Father. And so, as the verse tells us, "His commandment is eternal life": for it is eternal life to know the Father as revealed in this way.
The closing clause is not a throwaway. Commentators read it as the same submission seen at the very start of His ministry, now shown publicly at its end.
It is the moral glory of Christ that He always applied obedience in every demand and every difficulty. At the beginning, before His public service, He stood on this. He submitted to this. By this He defeated the enemy in each one of the three great temptations… We find exactly the same unswerving obedience in public at the end.
Seen against that, the unbelief of the chapter becomes tragic rather than merely stubborn.
This is what the Jews were rejecting in refusing the Son of God. They were turning away from the divine blessing of eternal life offered to them in the Father's grace. If this shows us the utter folly of Israel, it also displays the wonderful grace of the Father and the Son. What can we say to this? The Father had sent out His well-beloved Son into the world with this great message of life eternal. He gave Him the very words to speak, so that we might know perfectly the grace of His heart.
- Charge — the "commandment" is not one rule. It is the whole testimony the Father gave the Son to speak.
- Content — that charge was to reveal the Father in all the Son said and did. He carried it out to the letter.
- Contrast — the ten commandments brought condemnation and death. This one brings life, and declares what God is for man.
- Consequence — to know the Father as the Son reveals Him is eternal life. So receiving these words is receiving life.
- Choice — the same word that gives life to those who receive it will judge those who refuse it at the last day.