Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

John 7:39

39. After πνεῦμα omit ἄγιον (assimilation to John 20:22), with אT. D adds ἐπ' αὐτοῖς and B adds δεδομένον after ἅγιον. Οὔπω for οὐδέπω.

39. περὶ τ. πν. S. John’s interpretation is to be accepted, whatever may be our theory of inspiration, (1) because no better interpreter of Christ’s words ever lived, even among the Apostles; (2) because it is the result of his own inmost experience. The principle of Christian activity has ever been the Spirit. He moves the waters, and they overflowed at Pentecost. Till then ‘the Spirit was not yet;’ the dispensation of the Spirit had not come.

οὗ ἔμελλον. Which they that believed on Him were about to (John 6:71) receive: οἱ πιστεύσαντες, those who did believe, the first disciples.

οὔπω γὰρ ἦν πν. As in John 1:33 and John 20:22 there is no article, and an influence of the Spirit rather than the Third Person is meant: the spiritual life was not yet. Christus Legis, Spiritus Evangelii complementum; Christ completes the Law, the Spirit completes the Gospel.

ὅτι … ἐδοξάσθη. Comp. John 16:7; John 17:1; John 17:5; Psalms 68:18. The Spirit, “though given in His fulness to Christ Himself (John 3:34), and operating through Him in His people (John 6:63), was not, until after Christ’s return to glory, to be given to the faithful as the Paraclete and representative of Christ for the carrying on of His work” (Meyer). Christ did not send the Paraclete until He Himself had resumed the fulness of Divinity; and the Spirit did not give Christ to be the life of the Church until Christ was perfected.

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Cambridge Greek Testament Commentary

John 7:39

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