《Lange’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures – John (Ch. 4~Ch. 8》(Johann P. Lange) 04 Chapter 4

He was a murderer [lit. a manslayer] from the beginning [ἀνθρωποκτόνοςἀ π’ ἀρχῆς].—With special reference to their hatred of the Messiah issuing in blood-thirstiness and falsehood, hardened adherence to delusion and calumnious persecution of the truth and the evilness of it. The devil was a murderer of men from the very beginning (not of his existence, but) of human history (comp. Matthew 19:4, where ἁρχή likewise stands for the beginning of human history).^[FN76] How so? Different interpretations.

(1) The devil is a murderer as the author of the fall of Adam, by which death came on man ( Genesis 3; Romans 5:12). So Origen, Chrysostom, Augustine, and most in modern times. [Schleierm, Thol, Olsh, Luth, Meyer, Ewald, Hengstenb, Godet, Alford, Wordsworth.—P. S.] This interpretation is supported by the expression: “from the beginning;” and by Wisdom of Solomon 2:24; Revelation 12:9; Revelation 20;^[FN77] comp. also Ev. Nicod.: where the devil is called ἡ τοῦ θανάτου ἀρχή [and ἡ ρίζα τῆς ἁμαρτίας, the beginning of death, and the root of sin.—P. S.]

(2) As the author of Cain’s murder of his brother. Cyril, Nitzsch, Lücke, and others. [So also De Wette, Kling, Reuss, Bäumlein, Owen. The arguments for this interpretation are its appropriateness in view of the design of the literal murder of Christ entertained by the Jews, and especially the apparent parallel passage, 1 John 3:12 : “Cain was of the wicked one (i.e. a child of the devil, like other sinners, 1 John 3:8) and slew his brother,” comp. John 8:15 : “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer.” But neither here nor in Genesis 4is the Satanic agency in the murder of Abel expressly mentioned, as it is in the history of temptation ( Genesis 3), although it stands out prominently in the Bible as the first glaring consequence of the fall and as the type of bloodshed and violence that have since in unbroken succession desecrated the earth (comp. besides 1 John 3:12, also Matthew 23:35; Luke 11:51; Judges 11). Moreover, Cain’s deed itself presupposes the previous agency of the devil, when by the successful temptation of our first parents, he introduced first spiritual and then temporal murder and death into the world. The fall is the “beginning” of history, and of universal significance as the virtual fall of the whole race, and the fruitful source of sin in general and murder in particular. There the devil, in the shape of a serpent, proved himself both a murderer and a liar, as he is here described. To it therefore the passage must chiefly refer. 1 John 3:8 (ὁ ποιῶν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ἐκ τοῦ διαβόλου ἐστιν, ὄτι ἀπ̓ ἀρχῆς ὁ διάβολος ἁμαρτανει) which all commentators refer to the history of the fall, is the real parallel to our passage, and not 1 John 3:12.—P. S.]

(3) He is quite generally described as a murderer, without any special reference. Baumgarten-Crusius, Brückner.

(4) Evidently the thing intended is the murderous work of Satan in all history, aiming to complete itself in the killing of Christ, but having signalized itself in the beginning in the temptation of man and the lie against God, which afterwards bore their full fruit in Cain’s murder of his brother (Theodoret, Heracleon, Euthymius).

We therefore consider that there is properly no question here between Adam and Cain, 1 John 3:15-16. Yet the chief stress plainly lies on the temptation of Adam; for the devil, by his spiritual murder of Prayer of Manasseh, brought man himself also to murder; and he is described pre-eminently as a liar. From that “beginning” he was a murderer of man from time to time.

And doeth not stand [οὐχ ἕστηκεν] in the truth.—Interpretations:

(1) He did not continue in the truth. Augustine (Vulg.: stetit), Luther, Martensen [Dogmatik, § 108], Delitzsch [Psychol. p62]. This makes the word refer to the fall of the devil according to 2 Peter 2:4; Jude John 8:6. Against this interpretation see Lücke and Meyer. It would require the pluperfect εἱστήκει, stood. The perfect ἕστηκα means, I have placed myself, I stand [comp. John 1:26; John 3:29; Matthew 12:47; Matthew 20:6, etc.]

(2) He does not stand in the truth. He has taken no stand and he holds no ground in it. In an emphatic sense he does not take a position; he has not honorably planted himself and valiantly stood. Euthymius: Οὐκ ἐμμένει, ἀναπαύετει; Lücke: “He is perpetually in the act of apostasy from the truth,” De Wette, Meyer: “Falsehood is the sphere in which he stands; in it he is in his proper element, in it he has his station.” Correct, except that there can be no standing or fixedness, and no station in falsehood. Perpetual restlessness and going to and fro are his element, Job 2:2. Hence he is the spirit or devil of endless toil, and the number of his representative, as antichrist, Isaiah 666 ( Revelation 13:18). Compare the description of Lokke, his deceptions and his flights, in the Scandinavian mythology. He denies his own existence, as he denies all truth and reality.^[FN78] But he is the perpetual rover, because he is the deceiver.

[The passage then does not teach expressly the fall of the devil, but it presupposes it. ἔστηκεν has the force of the present and indicates the permanent character of the devil, but this status is the result of an act of a previous apostacy, as much as the sinful state of man is brought about by the fall of Adam. God made all things, without exception, through the Logos ( John 1:3), and made the rational beings, both men and angels, pure and sinless, yet liable to temptation and fall. As to the time of the creation and fall of Satan and the bad angels, the Scriptures give us no light.—P. S.]

Because there is no truth in him.—Because falsehood is in him as the maxim of his life, he is in falsehood; because he keeps no position with himself, he keeps no position in reality. As he deceives himself, so he deceives the world. For internal truth is the centre of gravity which causes a moral being in the sphere of truth to stand firm as a pillar in the world. [Mark the absence of the article before ἀλήθεια, subjective truth, truthfulness, while in the preceding clause ἀλήθεια has the article and means objective truth, the truth of God. Comp. De Wette and Meyer.—P. S.]

When he speaketh [λαλῇ] a lie.—[τὸ ψεῦδου is generic, but the English language requires here the indefinite article, while it retains the definite article in the phrase “to speak the truth.” See Alford in loc.—P. S.] Through the devil falsehood comes to its manifestation, thorough his familiar way, his persuasion, his whispering, his insinuation (λαλεῖν). But then he always speaketh of his own [ἐκτῶνἰδίωνλαλεῖ, out of his own resources], from his own nature; himself revealing his own truthless and loveless mind (“The devil has a half-charred heart”); revealing himself to his own condemnation, Matthew 12:34 [ἐκ τοῦ περισσεύματος τῆς καρδίας τὸ στόμα λαλεῖ. His ἴδια are to be taken ethically. Yet the description of a lie as that which is the devil’s own, includes the idea that it originates from his own will, and that, being only for his own sake, it remained a thing of his own, having no ground in the foundation of truth, in God.

For he is a liar and the father thereof [ὃτιψεύστηςἐστ ιν καὶὁπατὴραὐτοῦ].—That which he says proceeds indeed from within himself, and what he is within himself as devil, in his ἴδιον of Satanic egoism, that he puts forth continually in his own work and in the work of his child as its father. Different interpretations of πατὴρ αὐτοῦ:

(1) The father of the lie, τοῦ ψεύστους, Origen, Euthymius, et al., Lücke. [With reference to the first lie recorded in history, by which the devil seduced Eve: “Ye shall not surely die,” Genesis 3:4.—P. S.] Observe, on the contrary, that Christ intends to speak here not merely of the author of the lie, but also concretely of the father of the liars, to whom he returns. Therefore,

(2) Father of the liar [τοῦ ψεύστου = τῶν ψεύστων. Consequently he is your father, and ye are his children, see beginning of the verse—ψεύστης being singular the pronoun αύτῶν is attracted into the singular αὐτοῦ.—P. S.] Bengel, Baumgarten-Crusius, Luthardt, Meyer [Tholuck, Stier, Alford, Hengstenberg]. Then we must of course take πσεύστης first as a general predicate of the wicked personality. The devil is a liar in himself, and is father of the liar in abominable self-propagation through the delusion of the children of wickedness ( 2 Thessalonians 2)

The ancient Gnostic [and Manichean] interpretation, taking the demiurge as father of the devil, Revelation -applied to the Gospel by Hilgenfeld [and Volkmar], is disposed of by Meyer [p359].^[FN79] Meyer justly observes that in this passage the fall of the devil is presupposed; but it is by no means presupposed that the devil always was wicked (Hilgenfeld and others). It should be added that this description of the devil always suggests the causes of his fall: selfishness, falsehood, envy, hatred. The devil, the beginner of wickedness, 1 John 3:8; 1 John 3:12; the founder of wickedness, the spirit of the wicked. In the temptation of Adam ( Wisdom of Solomon 2:24; Hebrews 2:14; Revelation 12:9)^[FN80] as well as in Cain’s fratricide, that twofold nature of selfishness showed itself: hatred of truth and love of murder, which culminated in the crucifixion of Christ.^[FN81] There Isaiah, however, here no opposition of formal truth and formal falsehood, but the full extent of both ideas is kept in view (Luthardt, Tholuck); this is evident from the nature of the completed opposition itself, when speaking the truth turns life itself into truth, and in like manner lying makes life itself a lie. So the external murder of Abel which Satan effected through Cain is inconceivable without the spiritual murder performed in Adam, which became the cause of the literal murder.

John 8:45. But I—because I speak the truth, ye believe me not.—The ἐγὼ δέ is forcibly put first, not so much in opposition to the devil (Tholuck, Meyer), as in opposition to the Jews as the spiritual children of the devil. After telling them what they are, the last word of the explanation, what He Isaiah, hovers on His lips. Jesus characterizes His Ego to the extent of their present need: (1) He is the witness or the prophet of truth, in opposition to the arch-liar and his children; 2) The sinless one, in opposition to their lust of murder, intending to kill Him; 3) Coming from God, with the word of God, in opposition to their diabolic nature. This however is the great obstacle of His full self- Revelation, or rather the Messianic designation of His full self- Revelation, that in their hardened lying disposition they are opposed to His spirit of truth; that they do not believe Him for the very reason of His telling them the truth. [Alford: “This implies a charge of wilful striving against known and recognized truth.”] Euthymius [filling up the context]: εἰ μὲν ἔλεγον ψεῦδος, ἐπιστεύσατέ μοι ἄν, ὡς τὸ ἴδιον τοῦ πατρὸς ὑμῶν λέγοντι [If I should speak a lie, you would believe Me as speaking what properly belongs to your father].

John 8:46. Which of you convicteth me of sin? [τίς ἐξ ὑμῶνἐλέγχειμεπερὶἁμαρτίας.]—Different explanations of sin.

1) Because the truth in speaking is previously mentioned, ἁμαρτία must here mean error or intellectual defect. Origenes, Cyril, Erasmus and others. Against this speaks a) that ἁμαρτία in the New Testament throughout designates sin, and even with the classics it does not mean error, deceit, unless with a defining addition, e.g., τῆς γνώμης. [Comp. Meyer, p360 f.—P. S.] b) Jesus would in this case make the examination of truth an object of intellectual reflection, we might say, of theological disputation, while otherwise He represents it as a moral and religious process, c) The truth of His word is authenticated by the truthfulness and sinlessness of His life, see John 7:17-18.

2) Sin in speech, untruth, falsehood. Melancthon, Calvin [false doctrine], Hofmann [“Sünde des Wortes”], Tholuck. Against this: Either this interpretation amounts to the same as the first, or it must include the idea of intentional delusion, of sinful and wicked speech, or all this together (“wicked delusion,” Fritzsche, Baumgarten-Crusius). But for this the expression is too general.

3) Sin, the moral offence. [This is the uniform usage of ἁμαρτία in the New Testament.—P. S.] Lücke, Stier, Luthardt,^[FN82] etc. Jesus speaks from the fundamental conception that the intellectual life is inseparably connected with the ethical (Ullmann, Sinlessness of Jesus, p99). There is no reason in this explanation (with Tholuck) to miss a “connecting link,” or to assume a defect in the narrative. Meantime this declaration is also differently interpreted: a) The sinless one is the purest and safest organ of the perception and communication of truth (Lücke), or the knowledge of the truth rests upon purity of the will (De Wette). b) Meyer against this: this would be discursive, or at least imply that Jesus acquired the knowledge of the truth in the discursive way, and only in His human state, while, according to John especially, He knew the truth by intuition and from His pre-existent state, and in His earthly state by virtue of His unbroken communion with God. His reasoning is: If I am without sin—and none of you can prove the contrary—I am also without error, consequently I say the truth, and ye, on your part have no reason to disbelieve Me. But Jesus could exhibit His morally pure self-consciousness only by His life. Hence c) the word is to be understood according to the historical connection of the reproach of theocratic sin, They tried to make Him a sinner in the sense of the Jewish regulation with regard to excommunication, but they do not venture to accuse Him publicly, still less can they convict Him. But this consciousness of His legal irreproachableness implies at the same time the consciousness of the moral infallibility of His life and the sinlessness of His character and being, as He on His part recognizes no merely legal righteousness. Our expression is therefore certainly a solemn declaration of the Lord in regard to His sinlessness, which indeed is indirectly implied also in other testimonies concerning Himself, as for instance in John 8:29. The circumstance, that the divine-human sinlessness of Christ had to develop and prove itself in a human way, affords no reason to call it (with Meyer) relative in opposition to the absolute sinlessness of God according to Hebrews 5:8.

[This is a most important passage, teaching clearly the sinlessness, or (to use the positive term) the moral perfection, of Christ. He here presents Himself as the living impersonation of holiness and truth in inseparable union, in opposition to the devil as the author and instigator of sin and error. The sinlessness of Jesus is implied in His whole mission and character as the Saviour of sinners from sin and death; for the least transgression or moral defect would have annihilated His fitness to redeem and to judge. It is confirmed by the unanimous testimony of John the Baptist ( Matthew 3:14; John 1:15; John 3:31), and the apostles ( Acts 3:14; 1 Peter 1:19; 1 Peter 2:22; 1 Peter 3:18; 2 Corinthians 5:21; 1 John 2:29; 1 John 3:5; 1 John 3:7; Hebrews 4:15; Hebrews 7:26). Christ challenged His enemies to convict Him of sin, in the absolute certainty of freedom from sin. This agrees with His whole conduct, with the entire absence of everything like repentance or regret in His life. He never asked God forgiveness for any thought or word or deed of His; He stood far above the need of regeneration, conversion or reform. No other man could ask such a question as this without obvious hypocrisy or a degree of self-deception bordering on madness itself, while from the mouth of Jesus we hear it without surprise, as the unanswerable self-vindication of one who always speaks the truth, who is the Truth itself, and is beyond the reach of impeachment or suspicion. If Jesus had been a sinner, He must have been conscious of it like all other sinners, and could not have thus challenged His enemies, and conducted Himself throughout on the assumption of entire personal freedom from sin without a degree of hypocrisy which would be the greatest moral monstrosity ever conceived and absolutely irreconcilable with any principle of virtue. But if Christ was truly sinless, He forms an absolute exception to a universal rule and stands out the greatest moral miracle in midst of a fallen and ruined world, challenging our belief in all His astounding claims concerning His divine origin, character and mission.—The sinlessness of Jesus must not be confounded with the sinlessness of God: it is the sinlessness of the man Jesus, which implied, during His earthly life, peccability (the possibility of sinning, posse-peccare), temptability and actual temptation, while the sinlessness of God is an eternal attribute above the reach of conflict. If we view Christ merely in His human nature, we may say that His sinlessness was at first relative (impeccabilitas minor, posse non peccare) and, like Adam’s innocence in paradise, liable to fall (though such fall was made impossible by the indwelling divine Logos); nevertheless it was complete at every stage of His life in accordance with the character of each, i.e., He was sinless and perfect as. a child, perfect as a boy, perfect as a youth, and perfect as a man; there being different degrees of perfection. Sinless holiness grew with Him, and, by successfully overcoming temptation in all its forms, it became absolute impeccability or impossibility of sinning (impeccabilitas major, non posse peccare). Hence it is said that He learned obedience, Hebrews 5:8.—The historical fact of the sinlessness of Jesus overthrows the pantheistic notion of the necessity of sin for the moral development of man.—P. S.]

John 8:46. I speak the truth, why do ye not believe me.—Luther co-ordinates this word with the former; Christ asking the reason why they did not believe in Him, since they could censure neither His life nor His doctrine. My life is pure, for none of you can convict Me of sin, My doctrine also, for I tell you nothing but the truth. But εἰ δὲ ἀλήθειαν λέγω cannot be [illigible words found] co-ordinate to the question. The connection is [illigible words found]rather this: Sinlessness is the truth of life; he who acts out the truth in a blameless life, must be admitted also to speak the truth and to be [illigible words found] worthy of faith. Purity of life guarantees purity [illigible words found] οf doctrine, as vice versa, James 3:2.

John 8:47. He that is of God heareth God’s word.—A syllogism; but not with this conclusion: I now speak God’s words (De Wette), but: you are not of God. That Jesus speaks the word of God is pre-supposed in the foregoing. An attentive hearing and reception of the word of God is meant. This is conditioned by being from God, by moral relationship with God; for only kindred can know kindred. The being of God has above been more particularly characterized as a being drawn by God ( John 4:44), being taught by Him ( John 8:45), as showing itself by doing truth in God, John 3:21.

Explanations of he that is of God (ὁ ὢν ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ): a) of divine essence and origin, in the dualistic, Manichean sense of two originally different classes of men (Hilgenfeld); b) elect, predestinated (Augustine, Piscator); c) born again (Lutheran and recent Reformed interpreters). In reference to the third interpretation it is to be assumed, that to be of God and to manifest it by hearing His word, is the beginning of the new birth; in reference to the second, that hereby true election comes to light, in reference to the first, that the antagonism between the children of God and the children of the devil is not metaphysical or ontological, but ethical, and is so defined in the New Testament, especially in John. On both sides self-determination is pre-supposed, but a direction and change of life is hereby expressed, which on the one side appears more and more as freedom and resemblance to God, on the other as demoniacal slavery (See John 8:24; John 8:34).

John 8:48. Thou art a Samaritan, and hast a demon.—Malicious refusal of, and reply to, His reproach. A Samaritan is doubless the designation of a heretic; but also with the secondary meaning of a spurious origin (from a mongrel nation), and an adversary of orthodox Judaism. (Paulus).^[FN83] “Samaritan” is meant to be a retort to His reproach: “You are no spiritual children of Abraham.” But His reproach: “You are of the devil,” they answer with the insult: “Thou hast a demon,” here in the more definite sense of being possessed of a Satanic spirit. To His two ethical reproaches they oppose two insults, by which they expect triumphantly to silence Him. Hence the self-complacent expression: οὐ καλῶς λέγομεν ἡμεῖς; Are we not right? Did we not hit it? The form of the expression betrays, that they do not utter these words for the first time. Perhaps the reproach: “Thou art a Samaritan,” was hinted at already in John 8:19; at all events the other reproach: “Thou hast a demon,” in a milder form, was made by the people on a previous occasion ( John 7:20); but here we must remember the fact, that the Pharisees had already formerly slanderously charged Him with casting out devils through Beelzebub, the prince of the devils ( Matthew 9:34; comp. John 10:25; John 12:24). It is significant that in their view demoniacal possession and a voluntary demoniacal working are the same thing, or rather that they consider the former condition the higher degree of devilish life.

John 8:49. I have not a demon.—Jesus, with, sublime self-control and calmness, ignores the first reproach (especially as He cannot recognize the designation of Samaritan either as a title of abuse or a verdict of rejection, “because He had already believers among the Samaritans, and He therefore did not hesitate in the parable of the good Samaritan to represent Himself under the symbol of a Samaritan.” Lampe). Yet He answers this reproach, while answering the second. He does this first with a simple refusal or protest, but then by the positive declaration: I honor my Father. This furnishes at the same time the counter-proof that He is no Samaritan and has no demon. No Samaritan: He proves it by word and life that God is His Father; not a demon: He proves it, that He is not possessed of a dark spirit, but full of the Spirit of the Father, and glorifying Him. This explains the character of their reproaches: they insult and blaspheme; they insult in Him the representative of God’s glory, therefore indirectly the glory of God itself. With this wickedness the matter cannot rest, because God reigns as the God of truth and righteousness. His τιμή obscured by their ἀτιμάζειν, must face them in higher brilliancy as δόξα. But it is not His business to aspire to this δόξα arbitrarily ( John 5:41); He leaves this to the Father with the confidence: that as surely as He seeks the δόξα of His Father, so surely will the Father, by His guidance, seek His. He knows that this is even a constant direction of the divine guidance; God is in this respect ὁ ζητῶν, and brings the case to a decision as ὁ κρίνων, in opposition to those who restrain the truth.

John 8:51. If a man keep my saying, he will never see death.—The announcement of God’s judgment, includes the announcement of death. This announcement Jesus could not make unconditionally to a Jewish audience, for1) there might be some among them and there were some who really kept His word; and2) He could not yet withdraw from His adversaries the invitation to salvation; 3) the thought of the terrible judgment always awakened in Him an impulse of pity and mercy (comp. Matthew 23:27). It is therefore incorrect to assume (with Calvin, De Wette) that these words after a pause were addressed to believers only, or to connect them (with Lücke) with John 8:31, instead of John 8:50. Meyer justly points out the antithesis to the reference to the judgment. His word will carry the believers safely through judgment and death, or rather beyond judgment and death, as the Christians afterwards really experienced at the destruction of Jerusalem. Generally the expression is equal to the similar one: to hear the word, to remain in the word; yet in this keeping the probation in trials and dangers of apostasy is especially emphasized in the κρίσις ( Matthew 13:21; John 15:20; John 17:6). He will never see death (not: he will not die for ever); a promise, that his life shall pass entirely safe through the whole succession of judgments, and will not see death even in the final judgment.

John 8:52. Now we know that thou hast a demon.—The answer of blind enmity to His enticing call of mercy. If they understand the word of Jesus of His natural death, it is probably an intentional misunderstanding in order to escape the force of His thoughts. They argue thus: He who promises to others bodily immortality, must Himself possess it in a still higher degree. But since Abraham and the Prophets died, it is a senseless and demoniacal self-exaltation if you claim for yourself freedom from death. It seems to be a characteristic part of their speech when they say: Now we know that Thou hast, etc, i.e., Now at last we know positively what we have before accused you of; and when they further change τόν ἐμὸν λόγον ( John 8:51) into τὸν λόγον μου ( John 8:52), and the expression οὑ μὴ θεωρήσῃ into: οὐ μὴ γεύσηται, though the latter expression is also used by the Lord in a different connection, Matthew 16:28. The γεύεσθαι is a usual expression among the Rabbins (Schöttgen, Wetstein), probably not merely in general a picture of experience, but a figure of the drinking from the cup of death; in any case it denotes ironically the antithesis to every enjoyment of life. While the expression: not to see death, denotes the objective side of the believer’s experience, according to which death is changed into a metamorphosis of life, the phrase: not to taste death, means the subjective emancipation from the guilty sinner’s dread and horror of death.

John 8:53. Whom dost thou make thyself?—With more than half-feigned shudder before the word of self-exaltation, which He is about to utter, they manifest at the same time a demoniacal curiosity to know the last word of His self-designation. Thus the form of the excited questions is explained by the mixture of their fanatical and chiliastic emotions.

John 8:54. If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing.—At first a protest against the reproach of self-exaltation. He makes nothing of Himself from His own will, but suffers Himself to become everything through the guidance of God. He does not answer their question directly, because every word referring to the true greatness of His δόξα would only be to them unintelligible and cause error and offence. The full majesty of the divine-human Son of God must as a new fact be accompanied by the new idea, a new name, Philippians 2:9. The accomplishment of this fact, however, belongs to the government of the Father. Therefore He cannot arbitrarily anticipate His glorification, without contradicting His real δόξα, which is just a fruit of self-humiliation and perfect patience, Philippians 2:6. But for this very reason the Father is active as the one that glorifieth Him (ὁ δοξάζων με), of whom they say that He is their God (ὅτι θεὸς ἡμῶν ἐστιν). To them it is the strongest reproach, that He is the same, whom they with spiritual pride point out as their God, and which is true in a historical, though not in a spiritual sense, to their own condemnation. The whole force of the contrast between their and His knowledge of God lies in this, that He can say: it is My Father, who glorifies Me, the same one whom you unjustly call your God, as you do not even know Him. That they do not know Him, they prove by their not recognizing His revelation in Christ, and their persecuting and insulting Him unto death.

John 8:55. Ye know him not, but I know him.—Commentators are apt to ignore the contrast between the οὐκ ἐγνώκατε αὐτόν and the threefold οἶδα αὐτόν [see, however, Meyer, footnote, p366]. In any case it means: you have not even indirectly made His acquaintance, but I have made His acquaintance directly; I. have looked at Him and know Him by intention. We choose from the different shades of the idea, the expression: I know Him.—I should be a liar like you. The child-like expression of the sublime self-consciousness of Christ. Were He to deny this unique and constant experience of God as His Father ( Matthew 11:27), He would, if this were possible, through mistaken and cowardly modesty become a liar like them. They are liars and hypocrites while pretending to know God (comp. John 8:44); He would fall into the opposite kind of hypocrisy, if He were to deny His consciousness.—The addition: But I know him and keep his word, is an ultimatum, a declaration of war against the whole hell: the word of God confided to Him, which is one with His own consciousness, He will not permit to be torn out of His heart by the storm of the cross.

John 8:56. Abraham your father^[FN84] rejoiced that He should see [ἠγαλλιάσατο ἵνα ἵδῃ]. The object of His joy is represented as its purpose and aim. Abraham rejoiced, that he should see, and that he might see. His belief in the word of promise ( Genesis 15:4; Genesis 17:17; Genesis 18:10) was the cause of his joy,—this the reason of the rejuvenating of his life, and this again the condition of his patriarchal paternity, Hebrews 11:11-12; comp. John 1:13. The birth of Isaac was mediated by inspiration of faith ( Romans 4:19; Galatians 4:23), and is therefore a type of that complete inspiration of faith, with which the Virgin conceived the promised Saviour by the overshadowing power of the Holy Ghost. The laughing of Abraham, Genesis 17:17, forms only an incident in this cheerful elevation of life, and so far as it is connected with a doubt of Abraham, it can be only regarded as a symbol of rejoicing, not, according to Philo, as a pure expression of his hope.^[FN85]