John 8:51-53

“ Verily, verily, I say unto you, If any one keep my word, he shall never see death. 52. The Jews therefore said to him, Now we know that thou art possessed of a demon; Abraham is dead and the prophets also, and thou sayest, If any one keep my word, he shall never taste of death. 53. Art thou greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? And the prophets also are dead. Whom dost thou pretend to be? ”

The various relations of ideas which it has been sought to establish between John 8:50 and John 8:51 seem to me hardly natural. With the last word of John 8:50: and who judges, Jesus has come to an end with His present interlocutors. But He knows that among these numerous hearers who had believed in Him (John 8:30) and of whom many had immediately succumbed to the test (John 8:32), there are a certain number who have fulfilled the condition imposed by Him (John 8:31): If you abide in my word; it is to these, as it seems to me, as well as to His disciples in general, that He addresses the glorious promise of John 8:51. So Calvin, de Wette, etc., think. Weiss holds that the discourse simply continues: Jesus shows that His word will be the means through which God will glorify Him, by giving life to some and judging others by means of it, which will show to all that He is the Messiah. The expression: keep my word, as well as the tone of the promise, carries us back to the exhortation of John 8:31: Abide in my word; and the promise of never seeing death is the opposite of the threatening of John 8:35: The slave does not abide in the house for ever. The term death is not taken in the exclusively spiritual sense, as if Jesus meant: shall not be condemned. Would there not be some charlatanism on Jesus' part in giving Himself the appearance of saying more than He really meant? It is indeed death, death itself, in the full sense of the word, which He denies for the believer. See at John 6:50 and John 14:3. What an encouragement presented to those who persevered in His word: no longer to have to experience death in death!

The Jews do not altogether misapprehend therefore, as is claimed, when they conclude from these words that Jesus promises to believers a privilege which was enjoyed neither by Abraham nor by the prophets, and that He makes Himself greater than these; for it is manifest that He must Himself possess the prerogative which He promises to His own. The expression: taste of death, rests upon the comparison of death with a bitter cup which a man is condemned to drink. The word εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα, for ever, in John 8:51-52, should not be explained in the sense: “He will die indeed, but not for ever. ” The sense is: “He shall never perform the act of dying.” Comp. John 13:8. The pronoun ὅστις, instead of the simple ὅς, signifies: “who, Abraham though he was.” This objection forces Jesus to rise to the highest affirmation which He has uttered with reference to Himself, that of His divine pre-existence.

If Jesus is the conqueror of death for His own, it is because He Himself belongs to the eternal order. He comes from a sphere in which there is no transition from nothingness to existence, and consequently no more falling from existence into death, except in the case in which He Himself consented to give Himself up to its power.