John 8:37-38

“ I know indeed that you are Abraham's seed; but you seek to kill me, because my word makes no progress in you. 38. As for me, I speak that which I have seen with the Father;and you do the things which you have heard from your father. ”

Jesus does not deny the genuineness of the civil registers in virtue of which His hearers affirm their character as children of Abraham. But He alleges a moral fact which destroys the value of this physical filiation in the spiritual and divine domain; it is their conduct towards Him and His word. Jesus here employs a method like that of John the Baptist, Matthew 3, and that of Paul, Romans 9.

By reason of the resistance which they oppose to His teaching, He addresses them as persons who have already returned to the solidarity of that Israelitish community which is desiring to make way with Him. Hence the charge which has been regarded as so strange (comp. John 8:31-32): “ You seek to kill me. ” But what more proper than the announcement of such a crime to make them feel the necessity of breaking finally the bond which still united them to a people so disposed. What justifies this severe assertion of Jesus is that He has just discovered, at this very moment, the impression of irritation produced in them by His word (John 8:33). The word χωρεῖν has two principal meanings: one, transitive, to contain (John 2:6) this meaning is inapplicable here, the other, intransitive: to change place, to advance. This verb is applied in this sense to water flowing, to a dart piercing, to a plant growing, to one body penetrating another, to invested money paying interest. Starting from this second meaning, some have explained: “has no place in you for developing itself,” or: “has no entrance, access to you” (Ostervald, Rilliet). The former translation is not suitable for the word χωρεῖν; comp. 2 Corinthians 6:12; οὐ χωρεῖτε τὸν λόγον would have been necessary. With the second, these words would apply only to persons who have already manifested a beginning of faith. We must therefore explain, with Meyer, Weiss, Keil: makes no progress in you.

The word of Christ struck in them, from the first uttered words, against national prejudices which they still shared with their fellow-countrymen, against the Jewish heart which they had not laid aside; like the seed which fell on the rocky ground, it had been blighted as soon as it had begun to germinate. This is the reason why Jesus had said at the beginning, “If you abide. ” Yet once more, there is no inaccuracy in the narrative. For him who goes to the foundation of things and who judges of the facts by placing himself at the point of view of Jesus and of John himself, everything is perfectly connected and well-founded.

In John 8:38, Jesus explains the resistance which His word encounters in them by a moral dependence in which they are and which is of a nature contrary to that in which He Himself lives. In speaking as He does, He obeys the principle which governs Him; they, in acting as they do, are the instruments of a wholly opposite power. In order to decide between the numerous various readings which are presented by the text of this verse, it is natural to start from this principle: that the copyists have sought to conform the two parallel clauses to one another, rather than to introduce differences between them. If we apply this rule, we shall arrive at the text which seems to us also to present the best sense intrinsically. It is that of the MS. K (with the exception, perhaps, of the pronoun μου which is read by this MS. in the first clause, and which may be rejected according to the principle suggested). This text of K is that which we have rendered in the translation.

The expression: that which I have seen with my Father, does not refer, as Meyer, Weiss and others think, to the state of the Lord's divine pre-existence; the parallel clause: that which you have heard from your father, excludes this explanation. For the two facts compared must be of a homogeneous nature. Weiss alleges the difference introduced intentionally by the change of the verbs (see, hear). But John 8:40 and John 5:30 prove that no intention of this sort occasions this difference of expression. The question here is of a fact of incalculable importance in all human life. Behind the particular acts which are at the surface in the life of each man, there is concealed a permanent basis and, if I may venture to speak thus, a mysterious anteriority. All personal and free life has communication in its depths with an infinity of good or of evil, of light or darkness, which penetrates into our inner being and which, when once received, displays itself in our works (words or acts). This is what Jesus here represents under the figure of the paternal house whence we come forth and whence, as a son with his father, we derive our principles, our conduct, our habits: “From my speaking and from your doing, one may clearly see from what house we come forth, you and I.” This is not all: at the foundation of each of these two infinites, good or evil, with which we are in ceaseless relation and of which we are the agents, Jesus discerns a personal being, a directing will, the father of a family who reigns over the whole house (my Father, your father). It is from him that the initiative on each side starts, that the impulses emanate. And as the moving power is personal, the dependence in which we are placed as related to it is also free, not inevitable. Jesus by His fidelity cultivates His communion with the Father; so He finds in this relation the initiative of all good (“that which I have seen”) the perfect: “ that which I am having seen with the Father.” The Jews, through their spirit of pride and hypocrisy, maintain in themselves this relation to the opposite principle, to the other father; so they continually receive from him the impulsions to every species of perverse works (“that which you have heard”).

The therefore which unites the two parallel clauses has certainly a tinge of irony, as Meyer acknowledges: “You are consistent with the principle with which you are in communication, in doing evil, just as I am with mine in speaking what is good.” The rejection of the pronoun μου after πατρί characterizes God as the sole Father in the true sense of the word. The singular pronoun ὅ, that which, in the first clause, answers to the thorough unity and the consistent direction of the will towards good. There is in it no vacillation, no contradiction. The plural pronoun ἅ, the things which, characterizes, on the contrary, the capricious inconsistency of the diabolical volitions.

This contrast is connected with that of the perfect ἑώρακα and the aorist ἠκούσατε : the former designating a man who is what he is through the fact of having beheld; the latter, a variety of particular and momentary inspirations. The choice of the two terms see (Jesus) and hear (the Jews), to designate the two opposite kinds of moral dependence, is no less significant. Sight is the symbol of a clear intuition, such is only possible in the domain of the divine light and revelation. “In thy light we see light” (Psa 36:10). The term: to hear from applies, on the contrary, to the secret suggestions which the perfidious mouth of an impostor whispers in the ear of his agents. Evil is the night in which one hears, but does not see. There is nothing even to the contrast of the two prepositions παρά (with the dative) with, and παρά (with the genitive), from, which does not contribute to the general effect of this inexhaustible saying: with is related to the idea of sight, as from is to that of hearing. If Jesus mentions on His own part speaking (λαλεῖν) and on the part of the Jews doing, (ποιεῖν), it is because His activity consisted essentially, at this moment, in His testimonies and His judgments, while the Jews answered Him by hostile measures and projects of murder (John 8:37). If it were desired, with Hengstenberg, to give to ποιεῖτε, you do, the sense of the imperative do, it would not be necessary to see here a summons of the character of that in chap. John 13:27; it would rather be necessary to refer the word your father to God, and to see in the word a serious exhortation. But all this is opposed to the connection with what follows.