John 8:27

John 8:27. They perceived not that he spake to them of the Father. This statement of the Evangelist is very remarkable; and, as it is so different from anything we might have expected, its importance as a guide and correction is the greater. In this section (beginning at John 8:21) He has not made mention of ‘the Father.' In the section which precedes, however (John 8:12-20), the word occurs several times. First Jesus speaks of ‘the Father which sent me'(John 8:16; John 8:18): in their answer the Jews show how they had understood His words, by saying, ‘Where is thy Father?' and in replying to their question Jesus also speaks, not of ‘the Father,' but of ‘my Father.' So far as these two sections are concerned, therefore, there is nothing to show that His hearers had understood Him to make distinct mention of ‘ the Father,' in the absolute sense, a name which, probably, every Israelite would have received as belonging to God alone. (If we look back at earlier Chapter s, we shall find that the passages have been few in which ‘the Father' is spoken of. The fifth chapter must be left out of consideration, for the whole discourse is dominated by the thought of personal Sonship. The same may be said of chap. John 3:35. There remain only the words addressed to the woman of Samaria, chap. John 4:21, and the discourses in Galilee related in chap. 6) Hence though we might have over-looked the fact but for the Evangelist's timely words we cannot feel great surprise that these hearers had not yet perceived that Jesus was making mention of ‘the Father.' The words, ‘I am from above,' ‘He that sent me,' must have suggested to those who heard that He claimed a Divine mission; but men familiar with the mission of a prophet might concede so much without understanding that the last words of Jesus (‘the things which I heard from Him I speak unto the world') implied an infinitely higher and closer relation to Him whom they worshipped, whom Jesus revealed as ‘the Father.' In this Name and in the words just spoken is contained the whole economy of grace.