Art thou greater than our father Abraham, who has died? and the prophets have died whom makest thou thyself?
Jesus had just promised that anyone who keeps His word will never see death. His hearers answer by pointing at the grave of Abraham. Their reply ends with the real question of the whole chapter: who is this man claiming to be?
The crowd treats the tombs of Abraham and the prophets as a knockdown argument. One writer traces where such confidence comes from, and what it misses about the Man in front of them.
Unbelief reasons from its own thoughts, and is never so confident as when completely wrong. So the Jews misread the faithful sayings of the Lord Jesus. They use them in triumph as proof that Abraham and the prophets could not belong to His school, since those men were already dead — nobody disputed that. He must have a demon, then, to speak like this. Did He set Himself up to be greater than they? Whom did He make Himself? Sadly, it is here that man, Jew or Gentile, is blind. Jesus made Himself nothing, emptied Himself, taking a servant's form, becoming a man though being God over all, blessed forever.
Their objection rests on the only death they had ever thought about — the body in the ground. Their consciences never went deeper.
They meet it only with a shout of mockery. They know of only one way for death to be removed. With no exercise of conscience, they do not even know its sting — what makes death death. Abraham is dead, and the prophets: is He greater, this man who will not allow even His disciples so much as a taste of death?
They demand to know who He claims to be. His reply refuses self-glory. One commentator says this fits both what He is as Man and what He is as God.
They thought they were now clearly justified in rejecting such a Man, however He might have troubled them. "Abraham died, and the prophets died: who do you make yourself out to be?" Jesus answered, "If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing." This was right for Him as Man. It was also true of Him as God, since glorifying Himself would have denied His Deity. The Father glorifies the Son; the Son glorifies the Father; the Spirit glorifies both.
They ask as if the idea were absurd. A woman at a well had raised the same challenge earlier. Both times the answer is the same.
The woman Jesus met at the well in Sychar asked Him, "Are you greater than our father Jacob?" The answer is "Yes, He is." Jacob provided natural water to quench the body's thirst. Jesus supplied living water to satisfy spiritual thirst. The Pharisees asked Jesus if He was greater than Abraham. Again the answer is "Yes, He is." He existed before Abraham was born. The day will dawn when Jesus will fulfil the promises made to Abraham.
The Man they are questioning had walked with Abraham through his whole life.
He was the God of glory who appeared to their father Abraham (Acts 7:2). He was the Jehovah to whom Abraham built his altar between Bethel and Ai (Gen. 12:8). He was the Most High God, possessor of heaven and earth, to whom Abraham lifted up his hand (Gen. 14:22)… He was the God who tested Abraham, requiring that he offer up his only son as a burnt offering (Gen. 22:1-2). He was the Angel of Jehovah who stopped Abraham's hand when he was about to do that very thing.
They call Abraham "our father," yet they refuse the day he rejoiced in. One writer weighs what that link was really worth.
They clung to the splendours handed down to them. They refused the true source of all splendour and blessing. They cried out, "Who do you make yourself out to be?" He could give the astounding reply, "Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad." The link between them and their father Abraham was only traditional. If it had been real, they would have been filled with joy in the presence of that day. Abraham saw that day by faith, and the sight made him glad.
- Boast — They call Abraham "our father," yet the tie is only tradition. The real Abraham was glad at the very day they are refusing.
- Blindness — They are surest where they are most wrong. The One they accuse of self-promotion had emptied Himself and taken a servant's form.
- Death — Their argument works only because they know one kind of death. They have never felt its sting.
- Question — "Who do you make yourself out to be?" A Man who refuses to glorify Himself and leaves that to His Father.
- Greater — Greater than Jacob at the well, greater than Abraham here. He is the God of glory who appeared to Abraham, and He existed before Abraham.
Jesus answered, If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing it is my Father who glorifies me, [of] whom ye say, He is our God.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And ye know him not; but I know him; and if I said, I know him not, I should be like you, a liar. But I know him, and I keep his word.
These words fall in a bitter argument with men who claim God as their own God while fighting the Son whom the Father honours. Jesus divides that claim: they say they know God and do not, while He knows Him and will not deny it.
One writer treats their claim that God was their God as the key to the whole dispute — and as the lie at the root of everything they were.
"It is My Father that glorifies Me; of whom you say that He is your God: and you have not known Him." Here was the real truth of all, the solution of the great question. "But I have known Him; and if I said, I know Him not" — if I should not own these great truths, then "I should be like you, a liar." Everything they were was a lie, and it came from their father, the devil. They claimed what they were not. They implied a link with God — their false boast, and their lie. They said they knew Him. This was their lie.
Jesus is not volunteering claims here. He is answering hostile questions. The answer they demanded left Him one honest reply.
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. Otherwise, as He says, He would be "a liar like them."
The verse does not stop at "I know Him." It adds keeping His word — and that is where their claim broke down.
The Lord refuses the suggestion that He is seeking to put honour on Himself; it is the Father who is honouring the Son. They claim the Father as their God, but they contradict their own profession by refusing to hear or keep "His saying."
The same words are true in His mouth and false in theirs. To hold them back would have made Him something other than what He is.
Our Lord had to own it, or He could not be what He was, and what He stated Himself to be: "But I know Him, and I keep His word" — true in Him, false in them. They contradicted the origin they claimed. He did keep His Father's word; He was true.
Why should knowing and keeping run together? Because of what Christ knew — God's own nature.
But I also get the knowledge of what God is in His nature. Christ as a man had perfect knowledge of God; and so perfect obedience and love to His Father flowed out in Him.
There is a warning here that cuts two ways: against pretending to know God, and against denying it when you do.
He never sought His own glory; He always kept His Father's word. He could say, from first to last, I know Him — in everything leaving us an example that we should follow His steps. We may learn from Him here. For men of the world to pretend they know God the Father is the grossest presumption. For a child of His to deny that he knows Him is the greatest wrong. "If I should say, I know Him not, I shall be like you a liar." But the one who claims to know Him keeps His word. In this he gives the evidence of reality alongside the claim.
- The boast — They said God was their God. That claim, held alongside their hatred of the Son, was itself the lie the Lord exposes.
- The exposure — Cornered by their own questions, He had to say who He was; to stay silent would have made Him what they were.
- The truth — What He knew was God's nature, and out of that knowledge perfect obedience and love flowed.
- The proof — Keeping His word proves the knowing. They refused His saying; He kept His Father's word, so the same words were true in Him and false in them.
- The call — It is presumption for the world to claim knowledge of the Father, and it is wrong for His child to deny it. Keeping His word makes the claim real.
Your father Abraham exulted in that he should see my day, and he saw and rejoiced.
The Jews had just asked whether this man could rank higher than the father of their nation. His reply pointed back to Abraham himself, who had looked ahead and seen Him. The verse raises two questions: what is "my day," and how could a man long dead have seen it?
This answers a direct challenge about His rank. It points back to a promise God made to Abraham about his offspring.
Was He greater than Abraham? It is tragic that they did not know He is infinitely greater than Abraham and all others... His answer is that Abraham rejoiced as he thought about His day. For Abraham was told, "in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed" (Gen. 22:18).
"My day" does not simply mean "my lifetime." It points to one particular day, and Abraham held the promises tied to it.
I understand that by "my day" He means the day of Christ's glory. It does not loosely mean the time of Christ, but the day when He will be displayed in glory. Abraham looked for that day of Christ's appearing in glory, and he saw it and was glad. It was the day when the promises would come true, and the man who held the promises naturally looked for the time when God would make them good in Christ.
Commentators differ over whether Abraham was looking at the cross or beyond it. One view is that the promise, not the sacrifice, filled his sight.
The first coming was not mainly in view, as some have thought — not in a technical sense and not in substance. What was in view was the day when God will prove His word and oath true before a wondering and rejoicing world... Abraham may have had some glimpse of the truth that the sacrifice on Moriah pointed to. Even so, he was looking to the promise in its full completion.
Others locate the seeing on the mountain where Isaac was bound. There Abraham spoke two prophetic sentences, and a ram died in his son's place.
In a figure, Abraham receives Isaac from the dead (Heb. 11:19). But if Isaac is to go free, death must come on the ram caught in the thicket — a further picture of the Lamb that God provides. During this wonderful scene Abraham makes two prophetic statements. The first is, "God will provide for Himself the lamb for a burnt offering." The second is, "On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided." So the Lord could say, "Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad" (John 8:56).
How could Abraham see a day so far ahead? By faith — the same faith that shaped everything else he hoped for.
The same faith that enabled Abraham to look for "the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God," and that gave him the desire for "a better country, that is, a heavenly one" (Heb. 11:10, 16), gave him the vision to see the day of Christ.
His hearers missed this, and their mistake drew out an even greater claim.
The Lord did not hesitate to meet their challenge about Abraham. He lets the Jews know that the father of the faithful was thrilled to see His day — His appearing in glory, I take it — and saw it and rejoiced. It was, of course, by faith... but the Jews took it all in a physical way. They argued from His young age to deny that Abraham had seen Him. Then the still deeper word comes out: "before Abraham was, I am," the ever-existing One.
Each stage in the verse grows out of the one before it.
His "rejoicing" was the earlier state of his soul. It tells us that he took an interest in the hints God had given him about Christ. They were few and faint, but they captured his heart. The glimpses were powerful. And the Lord honoured such affection, and gave His servant a fuller vision... Then we read, "he was glad." He used the knowledge he gained well, just as he had sought it well. His heart was in the search, and it was not cooled or deadened when he had found.
The name they were hiding behind turns and testifies against them.
It was "My day" that made the very Abraham you boast in glad. He had faith in what you are rejecting. He was the opposite of you. I was his glory. He delighted in it. His triumph was that he should see My day, and he saw it and rejoiced — the day of the Messiah, which all the earlier pictures pointed to.
- Promise — God told Abraham that all nations would be blessed in his offspring. So he looked ahead to the day when Christ would make that good.
- Sight — He saw that day by faith, not with his eyes. The faith that made him look for a city built by God also showed him the day of Christ.
- Gladness — Faint glimpses caught his heart. God answered with a fuller vision, and the joy never cooled.
- Dispute — Commentators differ on which day. Some point to Moriah, where a ram died in Isaac's place. Others point to the day when God proves His word and oath true before the world.
- Verdict — The father they boasted in loved the One they were rejecting. The argument then moves past Abraham to "before Abraham was, I am."
The Jews therefore said to him, Thou hast not yet fifty years, and hast thou seen Abraham?
Jesus had just said that Abraham rejoiced to see His day. The Jews answer with a tape measure: a man who looks His age could never have met Abraham, long dead. Was their arithmetic wrong, or was the whole question wrong?
Their objection was not stupid. On their own level it was sound — and that was the problem. One writer traces the failure to a habit of mind, not a slip in logic.
The Jews were absorbed, not in the truth of their system, but in the mere ignorance of acting on present appearances. This is a deep and essential principle of error, and one has to watch for it. It does not see God and things according to His mind — which was exactly what was in question. It brings the mind of man into the things of God. The Jews therefore said to Him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" They thought the meaning of this was the same, because they looked no further than the outside. On man's ground, the Jewish reasoning was generally correct. Morally it was utterly wrong. It had no conscience in it, and so it was without God and without what God alone could teach. They now brought it to the point of the mere manhood of Christ — the point of their darkness.
Commentators differ over the number. Why fifty? One writer weighs two answers: certain verses in Numbers, or the way His face already looked.
One could explain the "fifty" from Numbers 4:3, 39 and Numbers 8:24, but it probably means what most suppose — that the blessed Saviour had aged before His time.
If His face did look older than His years, what put the lines there? One writer traces them to what He carried for others, and refuses to read any decay into Him.
On one occasion people speak to the "Man of sorrows" as though He looked nearly fifty years old (John 8:57). But from that I am to learn only how He had borne sorrows and services for our blessing and the Father's glory. In such marks I am to read Him whose "face was marred more than any man's." They came from what He endured for us and from the opposition of sinners against Him. They did not come, in the smallest degree, from the decay of natural old age. Such decay could never belong to Him.
Their question changed what He said. He spoke of Abraham seeing His day, not of Himself seeing Abraham. And one writer places that day in the future, not the past. The objection only works against a mere man.
"You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?" They no doubt thought their objection could not be answered. And it could not have been, had the Jews been opposing a mere man. But the day the Lord was speaking of was future, and it still is. It is that millennial time when, like Melchizedek, He will come out and bless a victorious people, after all their conflict and warfare are over. They did not see who they were speaking to, so of course they could not understand the future tied to His day. He did not, however, say here that He had seen Abraham — true though that was — but that Abraham saw His day.
He did not correct their sum. He answered on ground where age means nothing. His next words are not a claim to be very old, but a claim to be.
"You are not yet fifty years old," they reply, "and have you seen Abraham?" His answer is the full unveiling of His glory. He claims for Himself the title of Deity that belongs to no one else: "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham came into being, I AM."
The whole chapter runs on the same tragedy. Each new word about who He was drew a new objection. Their question about His age was one more proof for a verdict they had already reached.
Their minds were in conflict with everything He said. They were puzzled, and full of questions. Where was His Father? Where would He go that they would be unable to find Him? Who was He? In their view He was a Samaritan with a demon. They were shocked to hear Him say that whoever kept His word would never see death. And how could a man not yet fifty years old have seen Abraham? The light was too strong for them. Its fierce glare left them blind.
- Measure — They measured an eternal Person with a human yardstick. The sum was right on man's ground and wholly wrong before God.
- Marks — The "fifty years" may point to a face aged before its time. Those marks came from sorrows borne for others, not from any decay in Him.
- Misquote — He never said He had seen Abraham; He said Abraham saw His day, a day still future.
- Majesty — He did not argue about age. He answered with the name of God, claiming a title no creature can share.
- Missed — The light that should have shown them who He was only dazzled them. The strongest proof of His glory became their reason to reject Him.
Jesus said to them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.