John 8:54-56

“ Jesus answered, If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing; he who glorifies me is my Father, he of whom you say that he is your God; 55 and yet you do not know him, but I know him; and if I say that I do not know him, I shall be like to you a liar; but I know him and I keep his word. 56. Abraham, your father, rejoiced in the hope of seeing my day; and he saw it, and was glad. ”

In one sense, Jesus glorifies Himself, indeed, whenever He gives testimony to Himself; but the emphasis is on ἐγώ, I, “I alone, without the Father, seeking and attributing to myself a position which has not been given to me.” The word δοξάσω may be either the future indicative or the aorist subjunctive. Here is the answer to the question: Whom dost thou claim to be? “Nothing except that which the Father has willed that I should be.” And this will of the Father with regard to Him is continually manifested by striking signs which the Jews would easily discern, if God were to them really what they claim that He is: their God. But they do not know Him; and therefore they do not understand the signs by which He whom they declare to be their God accredits Him before their eyes.

This ignorance of God which Jesus encounters in the Jews awakens in Him, by the law of contrast, the feeling of the real knowledge which He has of the Father, in whose name and honor He speaks: He affirms this prerogative with a triumphant energy, in John 8:55. It is, as it were, the paroxysm of faith which Jesus has in Himself, a faith founded on the certainty of that immediate consciousness which He has of God. If He did not assert Himself thus as knowing God, He would be also a liar like them, when they claim to know Him. And the proof that He does not lie is His obedience, which stands in contrast with their disobedience. Thus are the unheard of affirmations prepared for, which are to follow in John 8:56; John 8:58. Οἷδα, I know him, designates direct, intuitive knowledge, in opposition to ἐγνώκατε (literally, you have learned to know), which relates to an acquired knowledge.

After having thus answered the reproach: Thou glorifiest thyself, Jesus comes to the question raised by them: Art thou greater than our father Abraham? and He does not hesitate to answer plainly: “Yes! I am, for after having been the object of his hope when he was on earth, my coming was that of his joy in Paradise where he now is!” There is a keen irony in this apposition: “Abraham, your father. ” Their spiritual patron rejoicing in the expectation of an appearance which excites only their spite! The word rejoiced designates the joy of hope, as is indicated by the ἵνα ἴδῃ, to the end of seeing. To see Him this was the aim and object of the exultant joy of the patriarch. The question is evidently of what took place in Abraham's heart, when he received from the mouth of God the Messianic promises, such as Genesis 12:3; Genesis 22:18: “ In thy seed shall all the nations be blessed, because thou hast obeyed my voice. ” The expression my day can only designate the present time, that of Christ's appearance on earth (Luke 17:22). The explanations of Chrysostom (the day of the Passion) and Bengel (the day of the Parousia) are not at all justified here. Hofmann and Luthardt understand by it the promised birth of Isaac, a promise in which Abraham saw the pledge of that of the Messiah. But the expression: my day, can only refer to a fact concerning the person of Christ Himself.

The relation between the ἵνα ἲδῃ, to see, and the past εἶδε, and he saw, proves that this last term expresses the realization of the desire which had caused the patriarch to rejoice, the appearance of Jesus here below. The second aorist passive, ἐχάρη, well expresses the calm joy of the sight, in contrast with the exultant joy of the expectation (ἠγαλλιάσατο). Jesus therefore reveals here, as most of the interpreters acknowledge, a fact of the invisible world, of which He alone could have knowledge. As at the transfiguration we see Moses and Elijah acquainted with the circumstances of the earthly life of Jesus, so Jesus declares that Abraham, the father of believers, is not a stranger, in his abode of glory, to the fulfillment of the promises which had been made to Him, that he beheld the coming of the Messiah on the earth. No doubt we know not in what form the events of this world can be rendered sensible to those who live in the bosom of God. Jesus simply affirms the fact. This interpretation is the only one which leaves to the words their natural meaning.

The Fathers apply the εἷδε, we saw, to certain typical events in the course of the life of Abraham, such as the birth or the sacrifice of Isaac, in which the patriarch, by anticipation, beheld the fulfillment of the promises. These explanations are excluded by the marked opposition which the text establishes between the joy of the expectation and that of the actual sight. The same is true of that of Hengstenberg and Keil, who apply the last words of the verse to the visit of the angel of the Lord as Logos-Jesus (Genesis 18). The expression my day can receive, in all these applications, only a forced meaning. The Socinian explanation: “Abraham would have exulted, if he had seen my day,” is no longer cited except as calling it to mind. What can be made of the second clause with this interpretation?

By bringing out this two-fold joy of Abraham, that of the promise and that of the fulfillment, Jesus puts the Jews to the blush at the contrast between their feelings and those of their alleged father.