John 5:41-44

“ I receive not my glory from men. 42. But I know you, [and I know] that ye have not the love of God in yourselves. 43. I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not; if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. 44. How can ye believe, ye who receive your glory from one another, and seek not the glory which cometh from God only. ”

On one side, a Messiah who has no care for the good opinion of men and the homage of the multitude, and on the other, men who place their supreme good in public consideration, in an unblemished reputation for orthodoxy, in a high renown for Scriptural erudition and for fidelity to legal observances (comp. the description of the Pharisees, Matthew 6:1-18; Matthew 23:1-12): how could this opposition in tendency fail to put an obstacle in the way of the birth of faith in these latter? Weiss thinks that, if this were the sense of John 5:41, an ἐγώ, I, would be necessary, in contrast with you (John 5:42). In the same manner with Westcott, he understands in this way: Do not think that I am speaking thus “in order to glorify myself in your eyes” (Weiss); or: “as the result of spite which my disappointed hopes cause me” (Westcott). But the ἐγώ would be necessary only if the case of Jesus were placed second. If Jesus had meant to reply to such a supposition on the part of His adversaries, He would, no doubt, have said: μὴ δοκεῖτε, “ think not that I seek.....” The perfect ἔγνωκα means: “I have studied you, and I know you.” Jesus had penetrated the depth of vanity which these fine exteriors so much admired among the rulers covered. The love of God denotes the inward aspiration towards God which may be found in the Jew and even in the sincere Gentile. Romans 2:7: “Those who seek for honor, glory and immortality.” (Comp. John 5:44.) This divine aspiration it is, which leads to faith, as the absence of it to unbelief. Jesus states precisely here the thought which is expressed in an indefinite way in John 3:19-21. In yourselves: not only on the lips, but in the heart.

ADDITIONAL NOTES BY THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

XXX.

Vv. 41-44. The reason of their failure to accept the evidence presented to them is set forth, in these verses, in two forms. The first and fundamental reason is the absence of the true love of God in their hearts. The second reason, into which the first developed itself in its special manifestation, is the unwillingness to accept a Messiah who did not come in the line of earthly glory. The views of a temporal kingdom, as they held them, were connected with the selfish desire of exaltation. They were ready to receive one who came to them with no testimony but his own, and in his own name, if he only met these earthly views. But to the Divine testimony, whether in the sacred writings, or in the wonderful works, or in the words of the forerunner, they were unwilling to listen, because the one to whom all this witness was borne appeared among them simply as the messenger of God to tell the Divine truth, and by making known the true eternal life, to bring all who heard Him to personal righteousness and the possession of the kingdom of heaven within themselves through believing on the Son of God.