They said therefore to him, Who art thou? [And] Jesus said to them, Altogether that which I also say to you.
Jesus has just spoken of Himself as "I am" and as the One sent from the Father. So when His hearers ask "Who are you?", His answer gives them no new proof — it sends them back to the words He has been speaking all along.
One writer sets their question against what they had already heard. He also sets it against John the Baptist's answer to the same question:
The great name "I Am" ought to have bowed their hearts in complete submission. Yet the Jews would not submit. They ask in irritation, "Who are You?" This was certainly the vital question. But He had plainly told them He was the One sent from the Father, the "I Am." People asked John the Baptist the same question, and he answered, "I am not the Christ" (John 1:20). How different the answer of the Lord Jesus.
Commentators differ over the wording of the reply. Some take it as pointing back to what He had said from the beginning. Others take the Greek to describe the very principle of His being:
"They said therefore to Him, Who are You? Jesus said to them, Absolutely that which I am also speaking to you" (verse 25). Jesus is not merely the way and the life, but the truth. He is, in the principle of His being, what also He speaks. No answer could have been less expected, and none more withering to their thoughts of themselves and of Him. He alone of all men could say as much; yet He was the lowliest of men. His way and His words were in perfect accord, and all expressed the mind of God. The truth is the reality of things spoken. We cannot know God except by Him, nor can we know man except by Him. Good and evil are shown and exposed only by Him, and He identifies Himself with His speech.
This is a claim no one else could make:
In His reply the Lord brings forward His words as the witness to Himself, for His words are the perfect expression of Himself. He can say, "Altogether that which I also say to you." Men often use words to hide the truth about themselves. Who but Christ could say that His words were altogether the expression of Himself? Not only does He do what He says, He is what He says.
If His speech is the exact presentation of Himself, then a written record of that speech is not second best. It is a real acquaintance with the Person:
He was the truth, and His speech was a true and exact presentation of Himself. This could not be said of the best and wisest of men. Even if we wanted to, we cannot accurately show ourselves in words. If we could, we would shrink from doing it, because of what we are… Let us think about this word of Jesus very deeply. It carries the assurance that in the Gospels we have a real and true revelation of Christ. They give us what He did as well as what He said. But by His words alone we may truly know Him, even though we never saw Him while He lived on earth. What He said, that He is altogether.
Because word and Person are one, the hearer has no neutral ground:
But this introduces a principle of all-importance: the identification of His word with Himself. He was God; His words expressed God; this is what left the Jews without excuse. In rejecting Him, they despised God who was speaking to them… The words of Jesus expressed what He was. They were the true expression of God shown to man. So they put man in the place of either receiving or rejecting God — God as the light of men. If God speaks, and expresses Himself, man accepts what He is, or rejects Him.
One writer draws out what this means for believers, who still carry fallen human nature:
Our Lord was what His words declared. His life in its activity is the expression of His own sayings… In us there is self, fallen human nature, evil. Still, what was true of Christ — "the word which you have heard from the beginning" — is now true of each child of God, "true in Him and in you" (1 John 2:8), because Christ is our life.
- The question — They ask "Who are you?" after He has already told them. So His answer gives no new proof. It sends them back to His words.
- The answer — Commentators differ on the wording. Many read it as "absolutely that which I am also speaking to you" — a statement of what He is, in the principle of His being.
- The Person — He does not just do what He says. He is what He says. No one else can say that, because our words hide us as much as they show us.
- The record — His speech presented Him exactly. So His words in the Gospels give true knowledge of Him to people who never saw Him.
- The verdict — Word and Person are one. So hearing Him leaves two options: receive God as He speaks, or reject Him.
I have many things to say and to judge concerning you, but he that has sent me is true, and I, what I have heard from him, these things I say to the world.
Jesus is speaking to Jewish leaders who have rejected Him. He tells them He has much He could say against them — then He sets it aside to deliver the message of the One who sent Him.
The first half of the verse is restraint, not threat. He had grounds for judgment, but that was not His work at that moment.
You cannot have the truth apart from Jesus. He adds, "I have much to say about you and much to judge, but He who sent Me is true" (verse 26). He was a servant though Son, and He said what the Father pleased as needed truth, not according to the abundance of what He had to say and judge about the Jews.
The irony is sharp. They were busy passing verdict on Him while ignoring the evidence in front of them; He, who could have returned the favour, chose something else instead.
On their part, they were willing to judge Him without accepting the evidence that was plain and decisive: now He tells them He has many things to say and to judge of them; this put matters in proper focus. But this was not what He was primarily occupied with. He had rather a positive message to the world from Him who had sent Him, Him who is true.
Everything here turns on His speaking. That speech does more than one thing at a time.
His words not only express the truth about Himself, they also expose the true character of men. So the Lord can add that He has much to say about them and much to judge. His words were also the expression of the Father's mind. He spoke to the world the things He had heard from the Father. His words express Himself, expose the world, and reveal the Father.
Calling the Sender true puts the hearers to the test. Their refusal of His message shows what they are.
The light of God, come in the Person of the Son, revealed God in His great compassions. It also exposed those who rejected His testimony. So He says, "I have much to say about you and much to judge." What could He say of those who had rejected such words and such works? They had no life of God in them, for He was true, and had they been true, they would have received Him whom the Father had sent.
He does not speak as a teacher with material of His own. He reports what He has heard.
To the Jews the Lord testified that God was now speaking to them in a way different from the days of old. In His teaching they were listening to the Son, who had taken a place of obedience for this purpose. On one occasion He said to them, "My teaching is not mine, but His who sent me." Again, "I declare to the world what I have heard from Him." And, "For 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."
He is arguing with Jewish leaders — and He says He speaks to the world. That one word runs through John's Gospel.
In verse 26 we have a word that marks this Gospel — the word World: "I declare to the world what I have heard from Him." The world is before His spirit from the beginning, even while He is speaking to the Jews. "God so loved the world." "The bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." "Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world." "I am the light of the world." Looking at the passages where the word "world" occurs would help one much in grasping the true character and scope of these Scriptures.
They missed what He was claiming. Recognition would come later, at the cross.
He was here as the sent One. He spoke of the Father, but they did not understand it. And now He mentions His death at their hands. Then they would learn who He was: not the deceiver they claimed to think Him, but the Son of Man, the Christ, the Son of the Father. They would learn the truth about His Person, but only after they had crucified Him. Blessed are those who, while their day of grace lasts, have learned the same lesson.
- Sent. He speaks as the one sent, saying what He has heard, not what He could say on His own account.
- Restrained. He had much to say and to judge about them, but He held it back. His work then was a message, not a verdict.
- True. The Sender is true. So refusing His message shows what the hearer is. True hearts would have received Him.
- World. He stands among Jewish leaders, yet He speaks to the world. That word runs through John: the world loved, given light, given life.
- Later. They did not see He meant the Father. The cross would show them who He was. Blessed are those who learn it while grace lasts.
They knew not that he spoke to them of the Father.
Jesus has just told His hearers that the One who sent Him is true, and that He speaks what He has heard from Him. Then John breaks in: they had no idea He meant the Father — so how could religious men miss it, and what did their blindness cost them?
This verse is not spoken by Jesus. John steps in to explain his own scene. One commentator notes that John understood what the hearers did not.
They did not know — and so they "crucified the Lord of glory" — that He was speaking to them of the Father. John knew, and wrote it, interpreting it for us by the Spirit.
Their failure was not a small gap in knowledge. One writer names both the cost and the cause.
It is impossible to know the Father except by receiving the Son; and they rejected Him, right up to the cross. It is the truth God presents now that tests the soul. Unbelief often uses the past to strengthen its resistance to what God is doing now. So the Jews used the oneness of God to deny the Son and the Father, because they did not know who Jesus was speaking about.
Another writer picks up the question they had already thrown at Jesus.
They met His claim with plain ignorance: "Where is Your Father?" The way to know His Father was to know Himself; and in fact they knew neither.
Their problem was not the vocabulary. One writer draws out a principle: divine truth does not enter the mind the way ordinary ideas do.
The Jews did not understand the words, because they did not understand the things. This is a very important principle in divine matters. In human matters, we explain words to learn what the things are. We simply put a label on what comes to us through the senses, or on things of the mind, because such things are within man's reach. Divine things are not. If I say "born again," I must know what it is to be born again before I can understand the words. Let us remember this.
Another commentator names the state behind that failure and links it to the cross.
Blinded by the darkness of their minds, these men did not understand that He was speaking of the Father. Later they would crucify the Son of Man. Then all the solemn results of His rejection would come true, just as the Lord's words foretold. Then they would "know" that He is the Son, though still refusing to believe in Him.
Consider who was standing in front of these men while they missed the point.
Their blind unbelief had kept them from receiving and enjoying the greatest revelation ever brought to men. Every moral feature of the Father was displayed in that blessed Person. He was brought up with the Father, nurtured in His love, and daily His delight before the foundation of the world. In Him the Father's grace shone out, and the secrets of His heart were opened.
Jesus answers their blankness by pointing forward to His death. Commentators differ on how that later knowing works out. One takes it as conviction that even hardened opponents could not shake off.
Delusions filled their minds and, under Satan's power, had darkened their souls. Evidence so clear would sweep those delusions away that they could no longer resist its force. We are not told when this would happen. It may well have had a double fulfilment: the day of Pentecost, and that marvellous day of grace for God's ancient people which Zechariah describes. Then they will look on Him whom they pierced, and mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child.
Another writer reads the same promise as a warning. He weighs the double sense of the title "Son of Man."
For "Son of Man" is His title both as the rejected Messiah and as the appointed Judge of living and dead. So He was crucified, and so He returns for the kingdom of universal glory. How terrible to know this too late, when pride shuts out the repentance that would acknowledge the truth!
- Aside. The verse is John's own comment. He wrote it so that readers would grasp what the hearers missed.
- Subject. They missed the Father — the greatest revelation ever brought to men, shown in a Person who was daily the Father's delight.
- Reason. The words failed because the things behind them were out of reach. Divine truth is not learned the way ordinary ideas are.
- Door. There is one way in: receive the Son and you know the Father. They rejected Him, so they knew neither.
- Later. Jesus points them to the cross. There the knowledge would come — for some as conviction, for others, one writer warns, too late.
Jesus therefore said to them, When ye shall have lifted up the Son of man, then ye shall know that I am [he], and [that] I do nothing of myself, but as the Father has taught me I speak these things.
Jesus points His hearers forward to the cross. The act by which they reject Him will prove who He is, and His words come from the Father, not from Himself.
"Lifted up" here means the cross. The Lord warns His hearers in advance of what their own hands would do:
The Jews were warned in advance of their guilt, for the Lord spoke of their lifting Him up in death. They would crucify Him. Afterwards they would know that they had rejected and killed not only their Messiah, but One who was the great I AM. They used the occasion of His Manhood to reject and kill Him, but He allowed them to do it. That sealed their guilt, yet it opened the way for higher purposes — even God's eternal purpose for the whole creation.
Older translations read simply "I am" here. Those who believed came to see who the lowly man on the cross really was:
The Lord, as the Light, went on to show the awful sin of man and the indescribable grace of God even more deeply. He said, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am." The lowly Jesus was the Son of Man among men, and He showed people their own hearts. Sinners were about to lift Him up on the cross. When this crowning crime of man was complete, those who believed on Him would know Him as the eternal Jehovah.
"Then you will know" means proof set before their eyes, not faith in their hearts. People then split over that same proof:
His lifting up was His death. Once that was done, resurrection would follow, and it would declare Him to be "the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness" (Rom. 1:4). Then they would know, in the sense that they had full proof before their eyes. A few did know, because the proof enlightened them. Most of them deliberately shut their eyes against the light. Still, the proof that He was wholly and always pleasing to the Father was there for every eye to see.
Commentators differ on when this knowing arrives. Some see more than one moment of fulfilment:
Their minds were full of delusions, and under Satan's power these had darkened their souls. Evidence so clear would sweep them away, and they would no longer be able to resist its force. We are not told when this would happen. It may well have had a double fulfilment: on the day of Pentecost, and in that wonderful day of grace for God's ancient people which Zechariah describes. Then they will look on Him whom they pierced, and will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only son.
Others weigh the title itself, and warn that this knowledge can come too late:
Son of man is equally His title as the rejected Messiah and as the appointed Judge of living and dead. So He was crucified, and so He returns for the kingdom of universal glory. How terrible to know this too late, when pride shuts out repentance and the acknowledgment of truth!
The same sentence that claims the divine name also says He does nothing on His own. That obedience reaches even to His words:
We have seen this principle of dependent obedience in the works of the blessed Lord. Nothing gives a greater sense of how complete it is than to find it true of His words too. Men would only recognise who He was when they had lifted up the Son of man. Only then would they see that in the place He had taken He neither acted from Himself nor spoke except "just as the Father taught Me." In words and works alike He is the revealer of the Father.
- Crime. The lifting up is the cross, and the Lord names His hearers as the ones who would do it. He allowed it, sealing their guilt and opening the way for God's wider purpose.
- Claim. "I am" is the divine name; the lowly Son of Man among them was the eternal Jehovah.
- Confirmation. His death and resurrection put the proof before every eye. A few saw it; most shut their eyes.
- Consequence. Some writers see the knowing fulfilled at Pentecost, and in a coming day when Israel mourns over the One they pierced. Others warn of knowing too late, when pride blocks repentance.
- Character. The same voice that says "I am" also says He does nothing from Himself. His words came from the Father, so in word and work He reveals Him.