Jesus therefore said to the Jews who believed him, If ye abide in my word, ye are truly my disciples;
Many who heard the Lord speak said they believed in Him. To these new believers He gives no congratulation but a test: everything hangs on whether they stay in His word.
Unbelievers were running Him down, yet God still worked in some. His appeal is urgent because professed faith can be of two very different kinds.
It is an encouraging fact that God may use a time of unbelieving slander to work widely in souls. "As He was saying these things, many believed in Him" (verse 30). But faith that God gives cannot be separated from life. It acts in liberty and is subject to the Son of God. Faith that is only human soon tires of His presence. It abandons Him whom it never truly valued and turns to loose thinking or loose living in rebellion against Him. This is why the Lord's solemn appeal is so urgent. Continuance in and with Him is of God.
There is no warmth in His reply. He did not at once own these believers as His disciples.
His words had such truth and power that we are told, "many believed in Him." Yet with these people He shows nothing of the deep joy that filled His heart when the woman at the well was converted (John 4:32). Repentance is clearly lacking here, for He does not own them as His disciples. The proof of their discipleship would be continuing in His word.
Some are interested for a while and then lose interest. A disciple holds on.
To abide in His word, then, is the condition of being truly Christ's disciple. Others may take great interest, but they soon grow weary, or turn before long to other things. Christ's disciple holds fast to His word and keeps finding fresh springs in what first drew him. His word proves itself divine in this way, for it is faith that abides in it, and the truth is then not only learned but known. Vagueness and uncertainty disappear. The truth does not produce bondage as the law does; it makes the soul free, whatever its earlier slavery.
The test reaches both what a person believes and how he lives.
Abiding in the word is more than knowing the truth in the mind. The main point is obedience to the truth: a life shaped by the truth and marked by the holiness which grace demands. Knowledge of the truth can be separated from obeying it. A man may hold sound doctrine and live loosely. Another may live a life no one can fault, yet be unsound in basic truth. In neither case is there a true disciple.
The Pharisees had their own followers. The word itself is simple.
This word means "a learner" or "pupil." The Pharisees had such followers, and they taught them to fast… The Lord Jesus had His disciples. The apostles He chose are called His "twelve disciples," but elsewhere the word covers all who followed the Lord, many of whom "turned back and no longer walked with Him"… To the Jews who believed in Him He said, "If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples" (John 8:31). It was true association in heart with a rejected Christ.
God had already given commands to keep. The Lord now points to something else.
So His word, not the law, is the only means of knowing the truth and its liberty. This was not simply a matter of commands, or of something God wanted from man. God had given that already, and tried it. Far more was now at stake: God shown in Christ to the world, and this too in His word, in the truth. So it became a test of the truth.
Commentators agree that staying is the proof of reality. They differ over these hearers: some see a faith not yet real, others an encouragement to people already spoken to as followers.
Many felt the power of His words and took the place of believing in Him. The Lord tested them. He said that a real disciple, and not a follower in name only, is marked by continuing in His word — that is, in the whole truth He brought. Continuance is always the test of reality, and where it exists the truth is known in its liberating power.
The Lord's words are used only to show that continuance marked off true disciples from the unreal, like the wheat which had no proper root and did not continue. His words are encouragement and warning at once, and what these people might turn out to be is of no account at all. By professing belief in Him they were taking the place of disciples, and He spoke to them in that character.
- Believed — many believed as He spoke, but human faith soon tires of His presence and turns away.
- Abide — the disciple holds fast to His word and keeps finding fresh springs in what first drew him. That is the condition of being truly His.
- Obey — abiding is more than holding truth in the mind. Right doctrine with loose living fails the test, and so does a blameless life built on unsound belief.
- Know — His word, not the law, is the one means of knowing the truth. The law produces bondage; the truth sets the soul free.
- Continue — continuance is the test of reality, and it means real association in heart with a rejected Christ.
and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.
Jesus says this to people who had just believed on Him. He at once attaches a condition: they will know the truth if they stay in His word. Their reply was that they had never been anyone's slaves. It shows they did not yet see what He was offering to free them from.
Freedom does not come with the first stir of belief. One writer points to what marks a real disciple, and to the two powers at work:
Continuance is always the test of what is real. Those who continue come to know the truth and its freeing power. The devil enslaves by the power of his lie; Christ sets free by the power of God's truth. He did not flatter them by telling them that as God's nation they were free. He set before them the true spiritual freedom that comes from knowing the truth. They needed it, and so do we!
The promise points forward, and that shows where they stood at the time:
The proof of their discipleship would be continuing in His word. In that word they would find the knowledge of the truth, and by the truth they would be made free (vv. 31-32). So it is clear that these people were not yet free.
The Jews already had God's commands in the law. Christ points them somewhere else:
So His word (not the law) is the sole means of knowing the truth and its liberty. It was not just a question of commands, or of something God wanted from man. God had already given that, and it had been tested; and what did it come to for them and for Him? Now much more was at stake, God showing Himself in Christ to the world, and doing this in His word, in the truth.
The offer of freedom offended them. Their protest fails in two ways:
It offended the proud Jews of our Lord's day when He said, "The truth will set you free." They answered Him, "We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, 'You will become free'?" Their boast of freedom was false in two ways. As a nation, they had served at least a dozen different powers in their history. In spirit they were where everyone is by nature: in bondage to sin.
"The truth" here is not a vague ideal. One writer sets the promise against people who look open-minded because they hold nothing as true:
They have no truth at all, so they do not care about it, and they like to be free. Since they hold nothing as truth, they are happy to leave others free too. It looks broad-minded, but it means they treat nothing as truth. You may have seen this in their interpretation of the Lord's remarkable words, "If you abide in my word... you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." It is a huge announcement of the love of God. It promises freedom by truth that is certain and known — and, He adds, by the Son — from every immoral influence, from everything that was not the truth.
Because the truth stands on its own, our sense of it is not the measure of it:
The truth is what it is — the truth; it is unchangeable, and our experiences or our enjoyment in no way affect it. Let us ask for grace to measure our freedom in Christ by this standard. Until we know the truth, we are not aware of being free in spirit before God.
Freedom here is not permission to please oneself. One writer defines it by what it removes:
First, each person who receives the truth revealed in Christ comes into perfect freedom before God. Freedom from what? Everything that would keep your heart and soul from enjoying God to the full.
It also changes the person who receives it:
God has made us know His truth as what delivers us. This freedom is not freedom for our sinful nature. It cuts right through our hearts and makes a real separation, one that God, who is holy, knows fully. So a person comes into his place before God with a broken and humbled heart.
One writer links this promise with the Lord's later words about the Son, and reads them as two stages of one blessing:
after
To know "the truth" frees us from the things that hold the soul in bondage. That is a great thing. But it is the Son Himself who brings the soul into real freedom in the presence of the Father. That is why it says, "So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed."
- Continue — Christ promises freedom to those who stay in His word, not to those who only start well. Staying is the test of real belief.
- Know — what sets free is real truth we can know. Our feelings do not change it. A faith that holds nothing as true has nothing to free anyone with.
- Free from — their boast of never being slaves was false twice over. The nation had served many masters, and every person by nature serves sin.
- Free for — this freedom removes whatever blocks our enjoyment of God. It humbles the heart instead of feeding it. It is never a licence to sin.
- Free indeed — truth frees us from what enslaves. The Son Himself brings the freed soul into the Father's presence.
They answered him, We are Abraham's seed, and have never been under bondage to any one; how sayest thou, Ye shall become free?
They had just heard an offer: continue in His word, know the truth, and be set free. Their answer names a pedigree and denies a problem — and in doing so it shows why they needed that offer.
The words of Jesus divide His hearers. Some receive them. In others they find no place. The reply about Abraham's seed shows which group is speaking.
The verses before show the effect of Christ's words on those who believe. The verses that follow expose the condition of those in whom His words have no place. The Jews, who reject His words, resent the implication that they are in bondage. They claim a place of privilege as Abraham's seed. They say they have never been in bondage to any man. They forget that at that very moment they were in bondage to Rome.
To deny ever serving anyone was no small exaggeration. Their history is full of servitude. They were even living under a foreign power as they spoke.
They took pride in being Abraham's children: "We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone." It is easy to forget what you do not wish to remember. They had forgotten the brick kilns of Egypt, their oppression by Moab, Canaan, Midian and others during the time of the Judges. And even at that moment they were under the domination of Rome. Yet they could say they had never been in bondage to any man. What fools pride can make of its victims!
Their own leaders had said the opposite in prayer. Ezra and Nehemiah both confessed the nation's servitude openly.
Even outwardly, not to speak of the soul, the Jews were, and had long been, in servitude to the Gentiles. So Ezra confessed at the evening sacrifice… "we are bondmen; yet our God has not forsaken us in our bondage." So, again, Nehemiah: "Behold, we are bondmen this day, and the land that You gave to our fathers to eat the fruit of it and the good of it, behold, we are bondmen in it… and they have dominion over our bodies… and we are in great distress."
Jesus does not chase the false claim. He could have disproved it. Instead He goes after the point that matters, and that choice is a lesson in handling objections.
What patience it took to deal graciously with these people! It took discernment, too, to answer them rightly. The Lord showed both, and gave His disciples an example of how to meet objections people raise. What to take up and what to let pass may need Divine wisdom. This time He would explain His words. But He let their claim pass without comment — that they had never been enslaved to anyone. Nehemiah 9:36-37 says the opposite. There was no need, however, to point that out. He kept to the real point about freedom, explained what He meant, and then took up their mention of Abraham.
Their descent from Abraham is real; Jesus never disputes it. What He disputes is what they think it proves.
They were Abraham's seed by natural birth. But they were not the children of Abraham as the father of the faithful. Their attitude to God and to His Son showed that they belonged to another family.
The bondage Jesus names is worse than any foreign rule. Unbelief keeps people from seeing it.
His word stung their proud spirit, because it laid bare their slavery to the enemy… In His answer Jesus brought in the light of God — for eternity, yes, but also for the present. "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin." How true, solemn, and humbling! No bondage is so real, none so degrading, as that of sin: could they seriously deny it was theirs? Truly unbelief blinds people to their moral state, and even to plain facts. Only grace delivers, and through the truth believed.
A servant in the house has no lasting place there. Only the Son does.
The idea of bondage stung them, for their pride could not bear it. So they declare themselves free, and say they have never been in bondage to anyone. In reply, the Lord shows that those who commit sin are the servants (slaves) of sin. Now, as Jews under the law, they were servants in the house, and they would be sent away. But the Son had rights that could not be taken from Him; He was of the house and would remain in it for ever.
The mistake is not limited to one nation. Trusting your background and standing does the same damage today.
If we fall into this snare, we may be inwardly counting on our ancestry and position, just as the Jews in our Lord's time boasted of being children of Abraham. Nothing deadens the conscience more than this. It kills the inward exercise, and that practical response to the truth which bears fruit.
- Pride blinds. Egypt, the Judges and Rome all contradicted their claim. Pride made them forget what they did not wish to remember.
- Blindness hides. Unbelief hid the plain facts of history from them. It also hid the deeper slavery Jesus named: everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.
- Descent fails. They truly were Abraham's seed. Yet they were not his children, for their treatment of God's Son showed another family likeness.
- Only the Son. A servant has no lasting place in the house. The Son remains for ever, and freedom comes from Him.
- Check yourself. Counting on ancestry or position deadens the conscience today just as it did then.
Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say to you, Every one that practises sin is the bondman of sin.
The scene is a dispute in the temple. Men who claimed Abraham as their father insisted they had never been slaves to anyone. The Lord answered with a solemn "truly, truly." His words move the argument off politics and ancestry, and onto a bondage they had never counted.
They insisted they had never been slaves. One commentator points to the yoke they had worn so long that they no longer felt it.
It was not that the Jews of that day carried a lighter load. They had grown so used to the yoke that they forgot it and denied it altogether. And if their outward bondage came from God's righteous government, still less did they judge rightly their state before God. That state was what the Lord Jesus was now bringing to light. Their proud spirit was stung by His word, which laid bare their slavery to the enemy. "We are Abraham's seed, and have never been in bondage to anyone." Jesus in His answer brought in the light of God. How true, solemn, and humbling! No bondage is so real, none so degrading, as that of sin. Could they seriously deny it was theirs? Unbelief blinds people to their moral state, and even to plain facts.
They wanted to argue about who had ever ruled over them. The Lord left that question aside.
But the Lord will not raise that question here; He goes deeper. "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin" — and this, though men often count it freedom, is the bitterest bondage. Since this is the condition of man in general, the first thing he needs is to be set free. There is no such thing in the spiritual realm as freedom a man wins for himself: salvation from sin must come from God.
People flatter the sinner. They call the man who does as he pleases free, independent, his own master. The Lord's word turns that picture around.
What a divine thought that is in John 8 — "Everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin." The man who gratifies his lust is not a man of pleasure with independence, the Lord says. He is a slave, a captive — he serves sin.
The bondage is not the penalty God adds later; it is what contact with sin does. One writer taught children this with a picture from a kitchen.
Imagine an old fly talking to a young fly. It would say, "Whatever you do, do not touch that sticky tape. It looks and smells nice, it is very attractive, but do not touch it." The little fly will not listen. It thinks it must have one touch, so it puts out a leg — and the leg gets stuck. It puts out more legs to push itself off, and they stick too. Come back in half an hour and you would find the little fly nearly dead, sticky all over. The fly cannot touch the tape without being caught by it. That is like sin. Am I giving you my own ideas? I will tell you what our Saviour said: "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin."
Verse 34 opens an argument. If they are slaves, what is a slave's place in a household worth?
The Lord, in His reply, passes over their history in connection with man, and exposes their state before God. By their sins they proved themselves to be the slaves of the evil principle of sin. Being slaves, they could have no continuing place in the house of God, a picture here of the position of privilege they had just claimed. The slave can be dismissed; the Son abides for ever. The Son, whom they were rejecting, could indeed make them free.
If sin is a master, the cure must be stronger than rules. One writer marks what the law could never promise.
He was speaking of the slavery of sin, a far worse bondage. Romans 6 and 7 set out this Christian teaching at length. The law could never promise that freedom to the Jews. Grace alone can give it. It gives it to those who believe on the Lord Jesus and own Him as their life. They learn in practice the blessed result of being in Him who has died, and reckon themselves dead indeed to sin. Over such, sin shall not have dominion; for they are not under law, but under grace.
- Practice deceives — men count it freedom; the Lord calls it the bitterest bondage.
- Practice blinds — long habit makes a yoke easy to forget, so the loudest denials came from men still wearing one.
- Practice binds — nobody touches sin without sticking to it, as a fly sticks to the tape.
- Practice excludes — a slave has no lasting place in the house; the master can send him away, but the Son stays for ever.
- Practice ends only in Christ — the law could never promise this freedom; grace gives it, and the Son sets the slave free.
Now the bondman abides not in the house for ever the son abides for ever.
Jesus has just called His hearers slaves of sin. Now He draws a picture of a household, where one figure has a permanent place and the other does not. Two questions follow: what is "the house", and who is the son who stays?
The people He is speaking to had boasted in their descent from Abraham and in the law. One writer points out that the law has its rightful place, but it deals with people only as servants. Servants get no permanent place.
Did they boast in the law? What place had they under it? Slaves! Yes, and they were faithless to it; they broke the law; they were slaves of sin. It is not the slave, but the Son, who remains in the house... The law has its just place; it is for servants, and deals with them justly. The result is that they have no permanence, and no freedom either. Law could not meet the case; nothing and no one less than the Son could.
"The house" is God's own house, not a family home. That is what makes the servant's position so weak. For these hearers, the link with God ran through natural descent and law, so they stayed only by permission.
Their link with Abraham was a natural, fleshly one, and so it fitted the law and worked through the law. But as far as any link with God went, this left them still servants — failing servants, with no living place in the house... So their place there was only allowed, only tolerated — to put it in the truest and gentlest way. And only "for ever" marks a link that is real: "The servant does not remain in the house" (here it is a question of God's house) "for ever; but the Son remains for ever."
Commentators differ here. Some read the words as a general principle about two positions in a household. The question is which one you hold.
This is not a contrast between the servant and the eternal Son. The question is, Are you a servant or a son? If the former you must go, but if the latter you remain.
Others hear Christ speaking of Himself. What He is as Son is the reason He can set anyone free.
Why? Because of the greatness and glory of the One who gives this holy freedom, and His closeness to God. He gives Himself with it, in the things of God. This is what He taught: "The servant does not remain in the house for ever, but the Son remains for ever." This holy nearness and closeness belong to the Son for ever — note the words, "THE SON" — so He Himself can give this real freedom, and no one else can.
A third writer holds both together. The principle is general, but the application belongs to Christ alone.
He is in the freedom that comes from relationship. He is not under the slave's law, which may throw him out. The principle is general... In fact, only Christ Himself can make free, and this is how the Lord applies it here: "If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed." For the Son is no mere servant in the Father's house. He is one with the Father in word and purpose, and His work is the work of salvation, which alone can make free.
Abraham once sent Hagar the slave woman and her son Ishmael away. One writer says that old scene points to something far more serious.
We cannot help remembering the apostle's illustration of Hagar and Ishmael. The casting out of the slave woman and her son was soon to happen. Even this is only a shadow of what is worse: the dreadful final rejection into outer darkness. The unsaved sinner must surely face it, however zealous a law keeper he may be.
For the believer, this permanence becomes his own. Sonship is a bond nothing can break.
We are no longer slaves but sons, because the Son has made us free. If we continue in His word, we are truly His disciples, and as we come to know the truth we feel its power to set us free. The "house" also comes into view — the place of sons, our eternal home. Unlike the slave's position, this relationship can never be broken.
The ground of that place is not our record but His.
We are made free, and may "go in and out and find pasture" as children of the house. I have a place as a son because of what Christ is as a Son.
- Servant — a slave of sin has no settled place in God's house. He stays only by permission, and the law can give him no permanence and no freedom.
- Son — the contrast is between two positions in a house, not two kinds of people. Commentators differ over whether "the son" means any son or Christ Himself.
- Freedom — only One with a permanent place can hand out freedom, so the next verse rests on this one.
- Shadow — Hagar and Ishmael put out of Abraham's house is the picture. The reality behind it is a far more final rejection.
- For ever — nothing can break the believer's place, because it rests on what Christ is as Son, not on our own record.
If therefore the Son shall set you free, ye shall be really free.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
I know that ye are Abraham's seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word has no entrance in you.
The Lord agrees with what His hearers claim: they are Abraham's descendants. In the same breath He tells them that this family line has not stopped them plotting His death. The reason He gives is the sharpest part: their wish to kill Him traces back to a word that found no room in them.
Commentators note that Jesus grants the family line without granting anything that matters.
To be Abraham's seed, as the Lord lets the Jews know, is a poor safeguard. One might be of Abraham, and be the worst enemy of God. Such were the Jews then, who were seeking to kill Christ because His word had no hold in them. Every one acts according to his source; character follows it. To be of Abraham does not save from Satan. To hear the Son, to believe on Him, is to receive one's nature from God and have eternal life.
The phrase does not mean they never heard Him.
The real point here was not their descent from Abraham, important as that was for Jewish privilege. The point was this: the word of Christ had no place in them. They had heard it outwardly, and could even reason about it. But it had no place in them. A solemn word for conscience always.
A closed heart does not stay neutral. What Jesus' words met inside them came back out as hatred.
Outwardly the Jews were indeed the children of Abraham; but the word of Christ had no place nor entry into their hearts, and they sought to kill Him. Here the contrast becomes formal. Jesus spoke what He had seen with His Father — for it is always His word. He was Himself the Son who revealed Him, and He announced what was heavenly and divine. But this brought out of their hearts the Satanic hatred against God which fills the heart of man.
If the word finds no lodging, the problem is not the word. Writers trace it back to what the natural heart is, and say the same barrier stands in every one of us.
There is nothing in the natural heart of man to afford root for divine truth. No, everything within us is completely unlike God, and so unlike everything that is like Him. That is why we naturally hate and reject the testimony about Himself which He has given in His word. Man must and will reject it, until God Himself gives the life-giving power through which alone Christ is seen and valued. So we cannot let Christ into our hearts any more than the Jews could bear Him in the world.
The force of the verse lies in who is hearing it. Only a few verses earlier, many had believed on Him — and these are the ones told that they are seeking His life.
These same Jews were Abraham's descendants by birth, and they had been seeking to kill the Lord. He knew this attitude had not changed, despite their outward professed belief. Many today are the same. They claim to believe in Christ, yet they are His enemies: His word has no place in them.
Commentators draw a line between two kinds of faith in that crowd. Only one of them lasts.
It is an encouraging fact that God may use a time of unbelieving slander to work widely in souls. "As He was saying these things, many believed in Him" (verse 30). But faith that God gives cannot be separated from life. It acts in liberty, and it is subject to the Son of God. Where faith is only human, it soon tires of His presence and abandons Him whom it never truly valued, going after freedom of mind or of ways in rebellion against Him.
Writers place this verse among the deaths of those killed for the witness they bore.
A martyr is someone put to death because of the witness he bears. Christ Himself was the faithful and true witness, and He said to His persecutors, "You seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you... you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth." John 8:37, 40. So the Lord Jesus was the true Martyr. But His death included much more than dying as a martyr: it made atonement.
- Room, not roots. Being Abraham's descendant was true, and it saved no one. What decides everything is whether Christ's word has room inside.
- Heard, not housed. They listened and could debate His words. Yet the word never got in. Hearing without keeping it is the danger here.
- Closed becomes hostile. A heart with no room for His word does not stay neutral; it produced the plan to kill the One speaking.
- Room is given, not found. Nothing in the natural heart gives divine truth root. The door stays shut in every one of us until God Himself opens it.
- Continuance proves room. These words came to people who had just professed faith. Only faith that stays with His word is real. The rest soon tires of Him.
I speak what I have seen with my Father, and ye then do what ye have seen with your father.
Jesus stands before men who are already plotting His death. He traces His words, and their conduct, back to a source — His to His Father, theirs to theirs. The verse moves the argument off ancestry and onto the origin of character. So what had the Son seen before He ever spoke on earth?
(Several writers below quote an older translation: "what you have seen with your father.")
The phrase "what I have seen with my Father" is not about a vision He received during His ministry. It reaches back behind His birth.
The Son's words were, "I speak what I have seen with My Father" (John 8:38). The character of what He revealed rested on this fact: He was with the Father before He came into the world. The Son was fully aware of that eternal presence with the Father, and of the glory He had with Him before the world was. He has testified to it (John 17:5), so that we may believe that the Father sent the Son — and, believing, adore the Father and the Son.
What He had seen was not a set of facts He passed on. His speech carried the Father to them, because it carried Himself.
Verse 38 sums up the contrast. His words were the moral revelation of what He had seen with His Father, just as their deeds were the moral expression of what they had seen with their father. But what were the things Jesus had seen with His Father? In verse 25 they asked, "Who are You?" Jesus replied (in a more exact translation), "Altogether that which I also say to you." That is, His word, His speech, presented Himself, for He was Himself the truth. And He was the One who revealed the Father. So He could say, "The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own authority, but the Father who dwells in Me does His works."
The two halves of the verse are not parallel. He testifies; they act.
"I know that you are Abraham's offspring." The Lord acknowledges the order God had set up with Israel, as He always does. But that did not change the truth about moral character, on which everything depended. It is set out clearly here in its cause, its principle, and the way it shows itself. "But you seek to kill Me," Me the Light, the Truth, because "My word" does not dwell in you. That was the great thing. The contrast was complete. He was there in testimony, in His service; they were there in action, working out their will in murder. "I speak the things which I have seen with My Father, and you do the things which you have seen with your father." An intimacy of association — sad on their side, as it is glorious on His.
The men listening really were descended from Abraham, and Jesus granted it. The verse still leaves them exposed, because bloodline decides nothing about nature.
To be Abraham's seed, as the Lord lets the Jews know, is a poor safeguard. A man might come from Abraham and still be the worst enemy of God. Everyone acts according to his source; character follows it. So our Lord graciously says, "I speak what I have seen with My Father; and you therefore do what you have seen with your father." Being of Abraham does not save anyone from Satan. To hear the Son, to believe on Him, is to get one's nature from God and have life eternal.
So in what sense does Jesus use the word "father" here?
The Bible uses the word 'father' as a picture when there is a moral likeness between a leader and his followers. John 8:38-44.
Because conduct follows source, the verse works as a test. Nobody has to guess at another's parentage. The way a person lives shows it.
The words of Jesus to the leaders of the people brought everything to light. A man's origin came to light by the way he lived in this world. Righteousness, truth, and love point out the children of God; sin, falsehood, and hatred proclaim the children of the devil.
Another writer names the two charges that settle it.
They claimed they had no father but Abraham. Yet they proved their true origin by their works, as all men do. On one side, they were seeking to kill the Lord; on the other, they opposed the truth. Murder and the absence of truth are the two great marks of Satan. They prove that these Jews, though children of Abraham by natural descent, were in moral character children of the devil.
- Source. Everyone acts according to his source, and character follows it. The verse sets two sources side by side. Each side's conduct shows which one it came from.
- His source. Jesus had seen with His Father what He speaks, before He entered the world. So His words reveal the Father and present Himself.
- Their source. Here "father" means moral likeness between a leader and his followers, not bloodline. That is why real descent from Abraham was no safeguard.
- The evidence. They wanted to kill Him, and they opposed the truth. Murder and the absence of truth are Satan's two marks. They showed whose children these men were.
- The result. The way a person lives brings everything to light. Righteousness, truth and love mark out the children of God; sin, falsehood and hatred mark out the children of the devil. The way out is to hear the Son and believe on Him.
They answered and said to him, Abraham is our father. Jesus says to them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham;
They answer Jesus with their family line: Abraham is our father. He grants the descent, then moves the test elsewhere — to what they do.
Jesus never disputes their family tree. But descent is one thing. Being a true child before God is another.
The Jews were bitterly opposed to the Son of God, yet they called Abraham their father. The Lord pointed out that if they had been Abraham's children, they would have done the works of Abraham. They were Abraham's seed by natural birth. But they were not the children of Abraham, the father of the faithful. Their attitude to God and to His Son showed that they belonged to a different family.
A famous ancestor protects no one. The men proudest of Abraham were the ones plotting murder.
To be Abraham's seed, as the Lord lets the Jews know, is a poor safeguard. One might be of Abraham, and be the worst enemy of God. Such were the Jews then, who were seeking to kill Christ because His word had no hold in them. Everyone acts according to his source, and character follows it… The Lord had already allowed that they were descended from the father of the faithful. But did they bear the family likeness? Did it not make their evil worse that they stood in contrast with the man they boasted of coming from?
If the test is works, which works? Abraham's own work was believing God.
"Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham." As believers they already had the very honour they were trying in vain to earn by works. They were "of faith," as Abraham was, and so were his children spiritually… Abraham's sons are those who do the works of Abraham. They work, as he did, the work of God by believing. He believed the One who first gave the promise; they believe the same Promise, now fulfilled by God in Christ.
Their own plan condemns them. They want a man dead for telling them the truth he heard from God.
Our Lord still holds to the moral, the divine character of the relationship. He knew they were Abraham's seed; indeed, He had spent His life towards them because they were. But if they had been Abraham's children they would have acted in Abraham's character, done Abraham's works. Instead, "you seek to kill me." That is, there was a spirit of hostility in their very nature, a spirit of murder, against the truth from God. And it was aimed at "a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God": "this is not what Abraham did." The complete opposition of their two characters comes out with the plain power of truth.
He measures them by their works. Then He puts Himself under the same test.
The evidence of the Son is in the Father's works: "If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did." Our Lord submits Himself to the same test. "If I am not doing the works of my Father," whether in power or in love, "good works," "then do not believe me. But if I do" — how could I be anything other than what I claim? If I do them, the evidence is complete: "even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know."
The rule Jesus used on them was not limited to them. It reaches every religious claim, including a Christian one.
A profession that no visible grace backs up deserves no credit from others… The Jews falsely claimed to be Abraham's children. His unanswerable reply was: "If you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the works Abraham did." The same law still rules, and nothing can revoke it. Those who truly believe in the Lord Jesus Christ are known not because they say so, but because they do, in some measure, work the works of Christ. A loveless "saint" is no true child of God… Men are what they habitually do.
Another writer follows the argument where Jesus takes it next, and to the only remedy:
He insists that likeness is essential, and He goes further: "You are of your father the devil" — because that terrible likeness was stamped on them. Is it not a solemn thing that day by day and hour by hour we are showing our parentage?… There is no other way to freedom but sonship, and we cannot be sons of God except by being born of God, receiving the divine nature, which results in likeness.
- Claim. They rest on descent. Jesus grants they are Abraham's seed by birth, but denies they are children of Abraham, the father of the faithful.
- Test. Descent is not the measure — works are. Everyone acts according to his source, and character follows it.
- Content. Abraham's works were the work of believing God; so those who are of faith are his children in the sense that counts.
- Verdict. They plan to kill a man who told them truth heard from God. Abraham never did that. Their conduct names a different father.
- Reach. Jesus accepts the same standard, pointing to His Father's works as proof. Men are what they habitually do, and day by day we show our parentage. The only way in is to be born of God.
but now ye seek to kill me, a man who has spoken the truth to you, which I have heard from God this did not Abraham.
The crowd has just fallen back on their descent from Abraham. The Lord answers by pointing at what they are doing to Him. He calls Himself a man who has brought them the truth. Then He tests their claim to Abraham with one question: would Abraham have acted like this?
No one disputed that they came from Abraham. The Lord asks whether that descent counts for anything when the family likeness is missing.
To be Abraham's seed, as the Lord lets the Jews know, is a poor protection. A person could be of Abraham and still be the worst enemy of God... To be of Abraham does not save anyone from Satan. To hear the Son, to believe on Him, is to draw one's nature from God and have eternal life... It was already admitted that they came from Abraham, the father of the faithful. But did they bear the family likeness? Did it not make their evil worse that they stood in contrast with the man they boasted of coming from? Abraham believed, and it was counted to him as righteousness. They did not believe; they sought to kill the Man.
The Lord does not deny their family line. He reads their behaviour as evidence of who their true father is. Their plan to kill Him settles the question.
Our Lord still holds to the moral, the divine, character of the link. He knew they were Abraham's seed; yes, He had spent His life on them because they were. But if they had been Abraham's children, they would have acted in Abraham's character and done Abraham's works. Instead of this, "You seek to kill Me" — that is, there was a spirit of hostility at its core, a spirit of murder, against the truth from God.
The name the Lord gives Himself here carries more than it seems.
In verse 40 Jesus speaks of Himself as "a man who has told you the truth." Others spoke of Him as a man and saw no more in Him than that. But it is striking that He should call Himself a man in this Gospel, the Gospel that presents Him as the Word made flesh. So the truth is kept in balance for us, showing both His essential Godhead and His perfect Manhood with full clarity.
He does not present the truth as His own invention. Of all people He had the right to speak on His own authority, and He refused to use it.
He did not speak from Himself. Yet of all men He had the most right to. But if He is the true God, He is also true man, and He came to exalt His Father, not Himself. He had no private ends to serve. Lord of all, He became the servant of all — above all, of God. Self is what blinds the human race, even the faithful, as far as they let it work. Anyone who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but Jesus never did; He always served the glory of the One who sent Him.
Their response to the truth has two parts: a plan to kill, and a refusal of what He says. Together those two marks point to another father.
Despite their claim that they had no father but Abraham, they, like all people, prove their true origin by their works. On the one hand, they sought to kill the Lord; on the other, they opposed the truth. These are the two great marks of Satan: murder and the absence of the truth. They prove that the Jews were children of Abraham by birth, but children of the devil in their moral character.
These people had professed belief in Him. How they treated His word shows what that profession was worth, and the same pattern runs on today.
These same Jews were Abraham's seed by birth, and they had been seeking to kill the Lord. He knew this attitude had not changed, despite their outward profession of belief. Many today are the same. They claim to believe in Christ, yet they are His enemies: His word has no place in them.
- Seed, not children. No one denied their descent from Abraham, but that descent is "a poor protection" — one can be of Abraham and still be God's worst enemy.
- Likeness is the test. Real children do the father's works. The Lord asks whether they bear the family likeness, and their plan to kill Him answers it.
- A Man with a message. He names Himself "a man who has told you the truth." In this Gospel that name holds His perfect Manhood and His Godhead together.
- Truth received, not invented. He heard it from God. Of all men He had the most right to speak for Himself, yet He came to exalt His Father and never sought His own glory.
- The other father exposed. Murder and hostility to truth are the two marks of Satan. Profession means nothing where His word has no place in the heart.
Ye do the works of your father. They said [therefore] to him, We are not born of fornication; we have one father, God.
In the temple, Jesus tells a crowd who boast of descent from Abraham that their deeds point to a different father. They answer with the highest claim they have, and it raises a question that still matters: can inherited religious standing make anyone a child of God?
Before the Jews make their claim, the Lord has already laid down the principle that decides it. Descent from Abraham settles nothing, because conduct traces back to origin.
To be Abraham's seed, as the Lord lets the Jews know, is a poor safeguard. One might be descended from Abraham and be the worst enemy of God. Such were the Jews then, who were seeking to kill Christ because His word had no hold in them. Everyone acts according to his source; character follows it. So our Lord says, "I speak what I have seen with My Father; and you therefore do what you have seen with your father." To be of Abraham does not save from Satan.
Fatherhood language works this way through the whole passage. It names what a person resembles.
Sons are those who show the typical or distinctive traits of their fathers. This idea of a son standing for his father often appears in moral matters. So the "sons of disobedience" (Eph. 2:2) are those whose conduct displays disobedience as clearly as a son resembles a father. Barnabas showed the features of consolation so plainly that he was called the "son of consolation" (Acts 4:36). The Lord said that the Jews were of their "father, the devil," because they did his lusts and his deeds, showing their moral origin (John 8:41-45).
Their answer appeals to birth. It shows how inherited privilege can hide from a person the very thing he needs to see.
They said to Him, "We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father — even God." How far a man can deceive himself by privileges handed down to him, and by their lawful succession! This happens when the moral character of God is not set before him. And when he is morally corrupt, these privileges hide that from him and keep him from seeing his need of it.
The claim was not invented out of nothing. God had used that language of Israel as a nation, but their boast reached further.
The Lord refused their claim: "If God were your Father, you would love Me: for I came from God; neither did I come of Myself, but He sent Me. Why do you not understand My speech? Because you cannot hear My word" (42, 43). God was the Father of Israel as a nation, but in Old Testament times He had never revealed Himself as standing in that relationship to single people. The Lord, the Son, first taught believers that God was their Father. It is the Son who reveals the Father (Matt. 11:27). So although all creatures owe their being to God, no one who does not acknowledge the Son has the right and privilege to call God his Father.
Commentators differ on how far the Lord's reply reaches. Some take it as a flat denial that God is Father to all people:
Notice how the Lord's words completely destroy the false idea, held by so many, of the "universal Fatherhood of God." Even these Jewish religious leaders went no further than claiming a universal fatherhood of Abraham, and so of God, for their nation. Jesus said, "If God were your Father …" It was a denial. The devil was their father. The Fatherhood of God is limited to those who believe, as Galatians 3:26 states.
Others read the reply as aimed at moral condition, not at natural origin. They point to the Lord's same argument about Abraham, whose physical descendants they truly were:
The Lord says the same about their being Abraham's children. By natural birth they truly were his children, however little they were so morally. So it is of their moral condition that He is speaking. The devil was not their father physically, of course.
The failure exposed in the temple was not one nation's failure. It was man's, and a Person was the test that exposed it.
It is really man proved guilty when set against Christ, in every land, language and age. He turns out to be no different when tested by the truth, by the Son. Circumstances differ, but this is always the issue, and it comes out worst where things look fairest. If there was a family on earth that might have seemed furthest from impurity, it was the Jews; if any could claim God as their Father, they could, most of all. But Jesus is the touchstone.
- Source shows. Everyone acts according to his origin. Character follows it, so a person's works name the father he belongs to.
- Descent fails. One could be Abraham's seed and still be God's worst enemy — bloodline is a poor safeguard against Satan.
- Privilege blinds. Handed-down rights can hide a man's moral corruption from himself and keep him from seeing his need.
- Claim tested. God was Father to Israel as a nation. He never revealed Himself that way to single people, so their boast claimed more than He had given.
- Christ decides. Jesus is the touchstone. Love for the One God sent is the proof, and only those who acknowledge the Son may call God their Father.
Jesus said to them, If God were your father ye would have loved me, for I came forth from God and am come [from him]; for neither am I come of myself, but *he* has sent me.
His hearers have just claimed that they have one Father, God Himself. His reply does not argue with their theology. It hands them a test they cannot pass, and gives the reason a true child of God would respond differently.
He does not defend His own title. He measures their claim by how they respond to Him.
Jesus still rests His case not on His own title, but on God's: were they children of God? "If God were your Father" (He speaks from the consciousness of what He was, for He, as well as it, was the truth), "you would love Me." He tests the moral connection of their hearts with God by the truth, that is, by Himself.
Their claim was not empty. God had owned Israel as a nation. But that settled nothing about the individual.
The Jews declared that God was their Father (8:41). That was true of the nation. But it could not secure everlasting blessing for the individual. They had not understood this, because they had never been subjects of divine grace, and they showed it by their hostility towards the Lord... They needed more than agreeing to a creed, or resting in national privileges. If God was their Father, they would share a new nature, the divine nature. They would then become the special objects of His fatherly care.
The same words cut across a common modern idea: that God is everyone's Father.
Notice how the Lord's words completely destroy the false idea, held by so many, of the "universal Fatherhood of God." These Jewish religious leaders only went so far as to claim a universal fatherhood of Abraham, and so of God, for their nation. Jesus said, "If God were your Father …" It was a denial. The devil was their father. God's Fatherhood belongs only to those who believe, as Galatians 3:26 states.
If He had come from God, then hatred of Him exposed what no privilege could cover.
If there was a family on earth that might have seemed farthest removed from impurity, it was the Jews. If anyone could claim to have God as their Father, they most of all. But Jesus is the touchstone, and He proves them to be God's enemies, not His children. Otherwise they would have loved Him who came out from God and was then present among them. He had not come on His own impulse, but at God's sending. He came, and God sent Him, in love beyond man's thought or measure; and they rose against Him in hatred, seeking to kill Him.
The reason Jesus gives has two halves. Older translations render the first as "I proceeded forth and came from God."
But the Lord's answer is positive and solemn. If God were their Father, they would love the Lord Jesus. First, He proceeded forth and came from God; second, God sent Him (v. 42). The first points to His own divine and voluntary coming. The second points to His perfect interdependence with the Father, since the Father sent Him. Both are true: He came in voluntary, divine grace, yet not independently of the Father, but sent by Him. He is therefore the perfect representation of the Father, and He attracts the love of every person who loves the Father.
Each half also says something different about the Son Himself.
It is very important to see that one statement adds to the other. It is not a mere repetition in different words. In His coming forth, the Son acted in His own Personal rights and of His own will; in His being sent, the Son came into the world as the accredited Delegate of God.
He claimed no mission of His own. The great of this world speak very differently.
Jesus never claimed to be the originator of His mission, but delighted to own that He came as sent from the Father. How unlike men this is! The great men of this world boast that they are self-made, and that they started the systems that bear their names, whether in religion, philosophy or politics. But the Son of God was different from every other man. It was His pleasure to name the Father as the source of His mission, and to own His dependence on Him for everything... What rest of heart for the Son, and what joy, to confess that He was not come of Himself! And what rest and joy for those who received the words of the Son, to know that it was from the Father that He had brought such grace and blessing.
- Claim. Saying God is your Father settles nothing by itself. Israel's standing as a nation could not secure blessing for one person.
- Test. Christ does not press His own title. He makes Himself the test: your link with God shows in how you respond to Him.
- Reason. Love for Him follows because He came from God. He came of His own will, and God sent Him — two truths, not one said twice.
- Contrast. He took no credit for His own mission. The great of this world boast of being self-made; His joy was to name the Father as His source.
- Result. Anyone who loves the Father is drawn to the One who perfectly represents Him. Hatred of the Son showed a different father.
Why do ye not know my speech? Because ye cannot hear my word.
Jesus has just told these listeners that if God were their Father, they would love Him. Now He asks why His plain words leave them baffled. His own answer moves the problem out of the ear and into the heart: they cannot hear, and so they cannot understand.
The verse names two things, and the second explains the first. One writer separates the outward wording from the message inside it. He traces the failure back to where these men came from.
He set forth the truth, and those who had God for their Father would both love the truth and love Him. His opponents had an evil origin, and could not hear His word — the revelation that He brought. So they were completely unable to understand His speech — the words in which He clothed the revelation. This is what verse 43 tells us.
In ordinary study you learn the words first, and the subject follows. Here the order runs the other way.
They did not understand what He said because they did not take in His thought. In human things you must understand the language, the technical terms, before you understand the thing. But in divine things you must understand the ideas before you understand the words. If I say, "You must be born again," the words do not give an understanding of what it is. Until I know the liberty of Christ, until I have the thing in freedom, no words make me understand what "free" really is.
This also answers a common complaint. When people call the Bible unclear, the problem may not be in its words.
You come to know a speaker's wording by first grasping his thought, his aim, his mind — never the other way round. If the inner purpose is not received, the outer form is unknown. So it was with Jesus speaking to the Jews; so it is above all with the testimony in John's writings now. People complain that the wording is mysterious, because they have no idea of the truth it means.
Nothing Jesus said here used hard words. One writer points to the real problem.
They could not understand His speech because they could not hear His word; it was not the mind but the heart that was all wrong.
That resistance is not confusion. It is a recoil from what the truth exposes.
Why is it that people, then as now, do not understand the Scriptures? Not really because of difficult expressions. It is the truth that grates on the reluctant will of man. This is the source of all unbelief. It is the will refusing to face the terrible fact of man's ruin. It is the pride that rejects God's grace and will not bow to its own need of it. So the guilt of unbelief is not that man's understanding is weak. It is that he does not fear God and does not believe His love.
One writer looks behind their refusal to the power that shaped it.
The hindrance is the blinding power of the devil. He is the source of their thoughts and feelings, just as surely as he is the enemy of Christ. Men's judgments flow from their will and affections, and these are under the sway of His enemy.
If the fault lies in the will, the way back opens through willingness, not cleverness. One writer points to what Jesus said about doing God's will.
The ability to receive and understand the Divine Word lies in being willing to understand it so as to obey it. Our Lord says: "If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority," and "Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God."
And that inability is not a locked door.
So then, the Jews were spiritually unable to hear the voice of God… Still, being unable to hear was not beyond cure. There was a Great Physician for those who were not stubborn. He had come to make those who were not wilfully deaf "hear joy and gladness."
- Word before speech. Refuse the message He brings and His words stay a puzzle. Miss His inner purpose and the outer form means nothing.
- Reversed order. In human learning you grasp the words first, then the thing. In divine things you grasp the thing first, or words like "you must be born again" mean nothing.
- Heart, not head. The failure was not a weak mind but a wrong heart. Truth grates on a reluctant will, and that resistance is the source of all unbelief.
- A father behind it. The blinding power of the devil shaped their thoughts and feelings; men's judgments flow from a will under the enemy's sway.
- A remedy, not a verdict. Deafness that is not deliberate has a Physician. Willingness to do God's will opens the ear to know whether the teaching is from God.
Ye are of the devil, as [your] father, and ye desire to do the lusts of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has not stood in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks falsehood, he speaks of what is his own; for he is a liar and its father
Jesus is speaking to men who have just claimed two fathers — Abraham and God Himself — and He answers by naming a third. It gives the Bible's sharpest description of Satan, and raises two questions: who counts as a child of the devil, and what does "from the beginning" mean?
The argument of the whole passage turns on family resemblance. Descent from Abraham was never in dispute; the likeness was.
To be Abraham's seed, as the Lord lets the Jews know, is poor protection. One might be of Abraham, and be the worst enemy of God... Everyone acts according to his source; character follows it. So our Lord says, "I speak of what I have seen with My Father, and you do what you have heard from your father." Being of Abraham does not save anyone from Satan... No one denied that they were descended from Abraham, the father of the faithful. But did they bear the family likeness?
Two traits gave them away, and Jesus names both in the verse.
On the one hand, they sought to kill the Lord; on the other they oppose the truth. These are the two great marks of Satan: murder, and no truth in him. They prove that these Jews were children of Abraham by birth, but children of the devil in character.
This is a specific charge, not a description of humanity at large. Writers are careful to mark the difference.
We cannot say that every unsaved person is a child of the devil. All are children of Adam and children of wrath (Eph. 2:3). A child of the devil is someone who hardens himself against what he knows to be true. He has given himself up to the service of Satan. Not that he would admit this, but his own pride and deceit are prominent.
The timing of the sentence matters as much as its content. Jesus said it only after they had made their own choice plain.
Remember this: God's Word never says it of anyone until their own ways have shown who and what they really are. Note also who gives this short account of the devil: the One who is the Word, who was with God, was God, and was in the beginning with God. So it must be true.
Some have taken the phrase to mean that Satan always existed as he now is. Commentators reject that reading.
But John 8:44 points neither to eternity past nor to the start of creation... "From the beginning" is quite different from "in the beginning." That second phrase is used of the Word Himself, and of the moment creation began. The devil has not always existed. He was an angel who grew proud and fell... The Greek phrase here cannot mean "from all eternity." That would deny that the devil is a creature. It would mean God made him a devil from the start, instead of his being an angel who, unlike others, did not keep his first state.
The two titles in the verse are not separate items on a list. One produced the other.
He brought this in at the start, and he brought it in by deceit; for "he was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth." ... He was and is a liar: that is his character, exactly opposed to Christ, who is the truth... Satan is the destroyer; Christ is the giver of life. Satan is the accuser of the brothers; Christ is the Mediator for them. Christ is the truth of God; Satan is the father of lies... By misrepresenting the truth and character of God, he became the murderer of the souls of men.
He does not usually tell a bare lie.
He puts it forward under the guise of truth, in the form of truth, and in some sense mixed up with the truth... He says, "You will not surely die." That was a plain lie. But he adds, "You will be like God, knowing good and evil" — and we know that was partly true... But he held back the one truth man most needed to know: what would follow if he took the advice.
When Christ spoke, He drew from the Father. The contrast is in the source each one speaks from.
When Christ spoke He spoke the truth, that which was indeed His own, but was also of the Father. But when he speaks a lie, he speaks out of what belongs to him, out of his own store. Our Lord had the right to speak of him this way: he is a liar, lies come from him, and he is the father of them.
The first lie attacked God's goodness. The cross answered it.
Satan is a liar from the beginning, and at the cross the Lord proved this. It cost the Lord His life to prove that God was good. Christ came to contradict the devil's lie, which man believed, and under which the whole world is lying... Christ takes my sin on His own sinless person. He bows His head in death on the cross. In this way He sets aside that lie of Satan, "You will not surely die."
- Lineage — descent from Abraham settled nothing. Character follows its source, so the family likeness shows who your father is.
- Lie — falsehood is Satan's own property, drawn from his own store. He serves it mixed with enough truth to be swallowed.
- Murder — the lie was the weapon. By misrepresenting God's character, Satan became the murderer of souls. Liar and murderer are one career, not two.
- Limit — Jesus uses the title "child of the devil" only after a person's own ways have shown it. It is not the same as being a child of Adam.
- Answer — the cross contradicted the first lie at the cost of Christ's life, proving God good where Satan said otherwise.
and because I speak the truth, ye do not believe me.
Jesus has just told these listeners who their father is. Now He names the reason they will not believe Him: people usually reject a message because it is false, but here the truth itself is what they cannot accept.
Everything hangs on that one connecting word. One writer points out what the verse does not say:
Notice the force of verse 45: it is not, "although I tell you the truth," but "because I tell the truth, you do not believe me." They had become so used to falsehood that, when truth is presented, it is the very thing they will not believe! A lie would be much easier for them to accept.
Why would truth itself drive people away? Because of what truth does to the world it shines on:
But truth can never be popular in this world. Even philosophers are puzzled that men love lies for the lie's own sake, when lies bring them neither pleasure, as they do the poet, nor profit, as they do the merchant. Truth shows men's follies and hidden motives too clearly, and sheds too broad a light on the play-acting of the world, for the world ever to welcome it… The truth exposes all human over-valuing, self-conceit and false fancies; and things that sparkle and look bright by the world's candlelight lose their shine in the light of day. Men cannot afford this, for it strips the world of its glory and shows it up as a cheap counterfeit.
The verse just before this one described a liar. Jesus is his complete opposite:
Jesus alone among men is the Truth; He is not only God, but the One who reveals God to man. In Him is no sin, nor did He sin, and no deceit was found in His mouth. He was in every respect the plain opposite of the devil, who, whenever he speaks falsehood, speaks out of his own store, because he is a liar and the father of it. Jesus is the truth, and makes it known to those who otherwise cannot know it. "But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me." How terrible, yet how just, is God's judgment of such people!
So unbelief is not a failure of understanding. The words are not hard. The will refuses them:
Why is it that people, then as now, do not understand the Scriptures? Not really because of difficult expressions. It is the truth that grates on the reluctant will of man. This is the source of all unbelief. The will resists, and refuses to face the terrible fact of man's ruin. It is the pride that rejects God's grace and will not bend to its own need of it. So the guilt of unbelief is not that man's understanding is weak. It is that he does not fear God and does not believe His love.
These men were not irreligious. They had a mark of privilege to boast in, and old false impressions die hard:
Experience of human nature tells us that false impressions of a superstitious kind are harder to get rid of than any others. They suit human nature and prop up human nature, whereas the truth is enjoyed spiritually and is foreign to human nature. "But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me." The Jews were circumcised, the Gentiles were not: that was something they could boast in and hold onto, when all its value was gone.
If the will is the barrier, evidence alone will not break through. The same writer holds two things together: man is responsible, and God gives life:
Man is responsible because God has given full and adequate evidence, suited to man (John 5:33-40). But man's will and desires are such that he loves darkness rather than light. And so God's power gives life sovereignly (John 5:21; see John 3:11; 3:32; 8:45). Conscience is the way in for light, and there is no other — except that love draws. God is love as well as light, and reveals Himself in Christ.
- Because, not although. Truth was not the obstacle Jesus overcame; truth was the reason they refused Him. A lie would have gone down more easily.
- Truth exposes. It shows up men's follies and hidden motives. It strips the shine off what the world calls bright, so it can never be popular.
- Truth has a Person. The liar speaks out of his own store. Jesus alone is the Truth, and He makes God known to those who could not otherwise know Him.
- Truth meets the will. Unbelief is not weak understanding. It is a will that grates against the truth, and pride that refuses its own need of grace.
- Truth needs love. Conscience is the only way in for light. But love draws, and God gives life sovereignly, because He is love as well as light.
Which of you convinces me of sin? If I speak truth, why do ye not believe me?
Jesus is speaking to openly hostile critics. He asks them to name one sin in Him, then asks why they refuse His word.
The question would be simple to answer about anyone else.
His challenge to them then is most appropriate. Could any of them convict Him of sin? This would be the easiest thing in regard to any other person. But they can point no finger at any occasion of sin in Him. Then it follows that everything He says is truth.
He could ask it because His life lay open to people who badly wanted to find a fault.
During His three and a half years of ministry the Saviour lived in the fierce glare of hostile criticism. He did not live a withdrawn, strict life as John the Baptist did; the desert was not His home; He moved freely in and out among the people. All the facts of His life were therefore fully known. If His foes could have discovered a single flaw in Him, how it would have delighted their evil hearts! But He was God's holy One. The Passover lamb had to be "without blemish." Only such a lamb could picture One who was holy in nature and stainless in all His ways. In the end His judge had to say he found no guilt in Him. His enemies could only produce the appearance of a charge by paying men to lie in court.
He asked others for what He never once asked for Himself.
Never once did He confess sin; never once asked for pardon, though He required both of all others. For everyone else, coming back humble and repentant, like the prodigal son, was the one road He marked out. It leads to the peace and rest of the Father's forgiveness. Yet He never gave a hint, He never breathed a prayer, that implied that He needed this. He declared plainly that He always did the things that pleased His Father. He had power on earth to forgive sin, but needed no forgiveness Himself.
The unanswered question points past good behaviour to who He is.
Again, His challenge, "Which one of you convicts Me of sin?" remains unanswered — we well know why. But a man without sin in a fallen world is a divine Person.
The second question appeals to what He said, not to who backed Him. In men's eyes He had no standing with any recognised authority.
Even the Lord's appeal in His own case was to the truth He spoke: "If I tell the truth, why do you not believe Me?" When He came forward in the Jewish synagogues, or elsewhere, He was, in men's eyes, only a poor carpenter's son. No school or group of men had approved Him. All the weight of authority was ever against Him. He disclaimed even "receiving testimony from men." God's word alone should speak for God. And how did His teaching prove itself? By the fact that it was truth. Truth was to make its way with those who are true. God will not leave people in ignorance and darkness if they are seeking to do His will.
Put the two questions together and only one explanation survives.
They refuse to believe the Lord who had told them the truth. Why then, if they could not convict Him of error, did they not believe on Him? There can only be one answer: the one who refuses to believe in Jesus is not of God, for he that is of God hears His words.
The questions were meant to expose them, and they did. Their charges against Him rebounded onto themselves.
Finally, the Lord goes on to challenge them, to lay bare their groundless malice... He was the Holy One, no less than the Truth, and surely both go together... Instead of convicting Christ of sin, they were themselves slaves of sin. Instead of speaking truth, they rejected Him who is the Truth. Instead of hearing the words of God, they hated Him who spoke them.
Earlier in the same chapter He had spoken to a woman caught in adultery.
Never was a person so accessible, such a Minister of good, and at the same time so holy, so absolutely apart from sin. Even to His enemies He could say, "Which one of you convicts Me of sin?" Almost in the same breath He said to the convicted sinner, "Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more."
- Challenge. He invited His enemies to name one sin, and no one answered — a question anyone else on earth would have lost.
- Evidence. He lived in full public view under hostile watch. His accusers had every motive to find a fault, and even His judge found none.
- Person. A man without sin in a fallen world is a divine Person; He asked others to confess sin, but never confessed any Himself.
- Consequence. If no one can convict Him of sin, His words must be true. Unbelief is left with no argument, only exposure.
- Grace. The same lips that could face down every accuser said to a guilty woman, "Neither do I condemn you."
He that is of God hears the words of God therefore ye hear [them] not, because ye are not of God.
Jesus is deep in a bitter argument with His opponents. He closes it by tracing their unbelief to its source: where a person comes from decides what he can hear. The verse raises a hard question — is hearing God's word the proof of belonging to God, or the cause of it?
The force of the verse rests on one claim inside it. The words Jesus speaks are God's own words, not a man's ideas about God.
The whole of the New Testament presents the testimony of Christ as a testimony that is directly divine. It is not the thoughts or longings of the human heart, but God's words. They are the words of One who could tell what was in heaven, while man was only dimly reaching after it. He could tell it because He came down from heaven, and spoke what He had seen, heard, and known there.
That claim is not a threat but a gift:
From verse 11 to the end, it is wonderful to see these evil men arguing with Jesus. They drive Him into a corner, as it were, and force Him to tell them what He is... He lets them know that "Whoever is of God hears the words of God." God's words! What infinite grace! A person speaking God's words among men.
The verb is not about sound reaching the ear. It means taking the words for what they are.
"Whoever is of God hears the words of God" — recognises and receives them, pays attention to them, as such. "The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God." Our Lord knew this. He knew His words were of God — otherwise He would not be true at all.
The Lord's statement is not an insult thrown in anger. It is a principle so obvious that His hearers had no reply, only resentment.
Nothing is harder for a man to admit than evil in himself. Nothing offends him more than another man saying evil of him and leaving him no way out. So it was now with the Jews whom the Lord denied to be of God, since they did not hear His words... For the ground taken was beyond dispute. Who could doubt that whoever is of God hears the words of God? How solemn, then! One who spoke as no one ever did declared with holy calmness that they did not hear because they were not of God. Conscience might wince, but refused to bow.
The same writer sets out what these men did instead, and where it left them:
Instead of proving Christ guilty of sin, they were themselves slaves of sin; instead of speaking truth, they rejected Him who is the Truth; instead of hearing the words of God, they hated Him who spoke them, because they were not of God but of the devil... To be not of God is to be wholly without good, and left in evil, exposed to its consequences. That is the judgment of Him who will not, cannot, change in His hatred of it.
Their problem was never a shortage of intelligence or education. One writer locates it in the will.
The ability to receive and understand the divine Word lies in the willingness to understand it in order to do it. Our Lord says: "If anyone's will is to do God's will, he will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own authority." He also says: "Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word," and "Whoever is of God hears the words of God; the reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God" (John 7:17; 8:43, 47).
This reverses the usual order of learning:
Notice here that understanding the meaning of the word is the way to grasp the force of the words. One does not learn the definitions of words and then the things; one learns the things, and then the meaning of the words is clear.
Jesus is no longer here in person. So how does the test work now? One writer traces it forward:
When the Lord was on earth, those who were of God showed it by hearing Him with the hearing of faith. When the Apostles were here, those who were of God showed it by hearing them with the hearing of faith. Now that they are gone, we have the Apostolic writings, the inspired Scriptures. Those who are of God show it by hearing them with the hearing of faith... An earthly king may speak in person. He may speak through the lips of his authorised ministers. Or they may put the message in writing. The manner differs, but the authority of the message does not.
- Source. Jesus does not offer opinions about God. He speaks God's own words, brought down from heaven by One who had seen and heard there.
- Grace. A Man stood among His enemies speaking God's words. That is infinite grace, not just a verdict.
- Hearing. To "hear" here is to recognise, receive and attend to the words as God's — not simply to catch the sound.
- Will. People fail to take in divine words not for lack of ability but for lack of willingness to do what they hear.
- Now. The same test runs on. First Christ's voice, then the apostles', and today the Scriptures. Those who are of God hear, and that hearing marks them out.