John 8:43

Ver. 43. Why then does all this escape them? How does it happen, in particular, that they do not distinguish the tone, and, so to speak, the heavenly timbre of his speech? Λαλία, speech, differs from λόγος, word, as the form differs from the contents, the discourse from the doctrine. “You do not know my speech; you do not distinguish it from an ordinary human word. Why? Because you are unable to lay hold of and receive my doctrine. ” There was wanting to them that internal organ by means of which the teaching of Christ would become in them a light perceived. ᾿Ακούειν, to hear, signifies here to understand; to listen with that calmness, that seriousness, that good will which enables one to apprehend. This inability was not a fact of creation; it results from their previous moral life; compare John 5:44-47. Jesus now develops in full the idea of the first cause of their moral incapacity. This cause He had already declared in John 8:38. It is the dependence in which they are inwardly on an enemy of the truth, who fills their hearts with tumultuous and hateful passions, and thus renders them deaf to the voice of God which speaks to them through Jesus.