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

That he should see my day.—The expression of all the immeasurable hopes of Abraham united in their central point of aim. The hope for the heir—for the heirs—for the inheritance ( Hebrews 11) was a hope whose aim and centre appeared on the day of the Divine Heir who embraces all other heirs and the whole inheritance. The day of Christ is therefore also the whole time of the New Testament, as it reaches beyond the last day into the eternal day of His glory. “Not the passion-time (Chrysostom),^[FN86] not the time of the parusia (Bengel), not the birth-day (Schleusner),^[FN87] but the time of the appearance of Christ, as in the plural, Luke 17:23, in the singular, John 8:24.” Tholuck. On the worthlessness of the hypothetical shape of the sentence with the Socinians, see Lücke and Tholuck, p267. In reference to a similar longing of the theocratic pious kings, see Luke 10:24. The connection with the previous: 1) Chrysostom, Calvin: Ille me absentem desideravit, vos præsentem aspernamini. 2) De Wette: Now Jesus really places Himself above Abraham, by representing Himself as the object of Abraham’s highest desire3) Baumgarten-Crusius: As the Giver of life He could raise Himself above Abraham, for Abraham himself had in joyful anticipation expected and received life from Him. “Origen also finds in the εἶδεν καὶ ἐχάρη a definite refutation of the Ἀβρ. ἀπέθανε,” maintained by the Jews (Tholuck). In answering their question whether He was greater than Abraham who had died, Christ asserts two points: 1) Abraham did not die in their cheerless sense of death; 2) He did not raise Himself above Abraham, but Abraham subordinated himself to Him; comp. the parallel word on David, Matthew 22:45.

And he saw it and rejoiced.—Different explanations:

1) He foresaw the day of Christ in faith [on the ground of the Messianic promises made to him during his earthly life, Genesis 12; Genesis 15; Genesis 17; Genesis 18; Genesis 22; Romans 4; Galatians 3:6 ff.—P. S.] So Calvin, Melanchthon and older Protestant commentators [also Bengel: Vidit diem Christi, qui in semine, quod stellarum instar futurum erat, sidus maximum est et fulgidissimum.—P. S.].

2) He saw it in types: the three angels [one of them being the Logos, Genesis 18; so Hengstenberg], especially the sacrifice of Isaac [as foreshadowing the vicarious death and resurrection of Christ]. So Chrysostom, Theophyl, Roman commentators, Erasmus, Grotius.

3) In prophetical vision. So Jerome, Olshausen [who refers to Isaiah’s vision of the glory of Christ, John 12:41], etc.

4) In the celebration of the birth and meaning of Isaac. Hofmann. [So also Wordsworth, fancifully: The name Isaac (laughing), Genesis 17:17, had a reference to the ἀγαλλίασις of Abraham; for in Isaac, the promised seed, he had a vision of Christ, in whom all rejoice.—P. S.]

5) Visio in limbo patrum. Este, etc.^[FN88]

6) As one living in paradise in the other world [comp. Luke 16:22; Luke 16:25], like the angels, 1 Peter 1:12; Moses and Elijah on the mount of transfiguration, Matthew 17:4; Luke 9:31. So Origen [Lampe], Lücke, De Wette [Meyer, Stier, Luthardt, Alford, Bäumlein, Godet] and different others.^[FN89] Doubtless the proper sense: therefore His living Abraham in opposition to their dead one. [Abraham saw the day of Christ as an actual witness from the higher world, like the angels who sang the anthem over the plains of Bethlehem.—P. S.]

And rejoiced.—Indication of changes in the realm of death, wrought by the appearance of Christ.^[FN90] The calm joy of the blessed, ἐχάρη, in opposition to the excited joy of anxious desire, ἠγαλλιάσατο. According to rabbinical traditions God showed to Abraham in prophetic vision the building, the destruction and Revelation -construction of the temple, and even the succession of empires (see Lücke, the note on p363). These traditions represent the dark shadow of the light which the word of Christ casts into Hades.

John 8:57. Thou art not yet fifty years old.—The sensual, half imbecile and half malicious and intentional misunderstanding grows more and more in its folly. “The fiftieth year was the full age of a Prayer of Manasseh, Numbers 4:3.” Tholuck: From this passage arose the misunderstanding of Irenæus that Jesus had gone through all the ages of human life. [Irenæus inferred from this passage that Jesus was not quite, but nearly fifty years of age, Adv. hær. II:22, § 6 (ed. Stieren I. p360). E. V. Bunsen (a son of the celebrated statesman and scholar) defends this view, and infers from John 2:20 f, that Christ was forty-six years of age (The Hidden Wisdom of Christ, Lond1865, II p 461 ff.). Keim also is inclined to extend the earthly life of Christ to forty years, but confines His public ministry to one year and a few months, (Geschichtl. Christus, p235, Gesch. Jesu von Nazara, I:469 f. note). It is obvious that no clear inference as to the age of our Lord can be drawn from this indefinite estimate of the Jews, and Irenæus was influenced by a dogmatic consideration, viz, that Christ must have passed through all the stages of human life, including old age (senior in senioribus), in order to redeem thorn all. But the idea of declining life is incompatible with the true idea of the Saviour. He died and lives for ever in the memory of His people in the unbroken vigor of early manhood.—P. S.]

John 8:58. Verily, verily … Before Abraham became I am.^[FN91] Over against the completely hardened stupidity of spiritual death flashes up the perfect mystery of eternal life. Γενέσθαι not “was” (Tholuck [De Wette, Ewald,]), or “born” (Erasmus), but “became” (Augustine); the antithesis of the created and the eternal, which implies at the same time the antithesis of the temporal and the eternal. Εἰμί expresses the pre-existence (after the fathers), yet not only as the divine pre-existence, but that which reflects itself in Christ’s divine-human consciousness of eternity and extends to the present and the future as well as the past, or that form of existence which makes Him the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. He is the propelling principle and centre of the times. We distinguish, therefore, a threefold mode of existence: 1) The divine, timeless or pre-temporal existence of the Logos; 2) the divine-human principial existence of the Logos as the foundation of humanity and the world; 3) the divine-human existence of the coming and appearing Christ through the succession of times. This implies at the same time the ethical elevation of the feeling of eternity above the times. The principial and dynamic pre-existence must be understood in a sense analogous to the pre-existence of Christ before John, John 1:15; John 1:17. To the Jews this sense was most obvious: Abraham’s existence presupposes Mine, not Mine that of Abraham; he depends for his very existence on Me, not I on him. We have then here again a revelation of His essential Messianic consciousness, His primitive feeling of eternity over and above all time. Comp. John 6:63; John 8:25; John 8:42; John 13:3; John 16:28; John 17:5.

Socinus explains according to his system: Antequam Abraham fiat Abraham, i.e, pater multorum gentium, ego sum Messias, lux mundi. The interpretation of Baumgarten-Crusius: “I was in the predestination of God,” does not suffice, but is not incorrect, as Tholuck thinks; it denotes the principial aspect of pre-existence. In a similar sense the Rabbins boasted that Israel and the laws existed before the world.

[The passage most clearly teaches the essential and personal pre-existence of Christ before Abraham, in other words, before the world ( John 17:5), and before time ( John 1:1), which was made with the world, and implies His eternity, and consequently His deity, for God alone is eternal. This the Jews well understood, and hence they raised stones to punish the supposed blasphemer. The same doctrine is taught, John 1:1; John 1:18; John 6:62; John 17:5; Colossians 1:17; Hebrews 1:2. Alt attempts of ancient and modern Socinians and Rationalists to explain away the pre-existence, or to turn it into a merely ideal pre-existence in the mind and will of God (which would constitute no difference between Christ and Abraham), are “little better than dishonest quibbles” (Alford). I add Meyer’s explanation which is clear and satisfactory. “Before Abraham became (ward, not war), I am; older than Abraham’s becoming, is my being. Since Abraham had not pre-existed, but by his birth came into existence, the verb γενέσθαι is used, while εἰμί denotes being as such (das Sein an sich), which in the case of Christ who, according to His divine essence, was before time itself, does not include a previous γενέσθαι or coming into existence. Comp. John 1:1; John 1:6, and Chrysostom. The present tense denotes that which continues from the past, i.e, here from the pre-temporal existence ( John 1:1; John 17:5). Comp. LXX, Psalm 90:2; Jeremiah 1:5. But the ἐγώ εἰμι is neither an ideal existence (De Wette) nor the Messianic existence (Scholten), and must not be found in the counsel of God (Sam. Crell, Grotius, Paulus, Baumgarten-Crusius), which is made impossible by the present tense; nor is it (with Beyschlag) to be conceived of as the existence of the real image of God, nor is the expression a momentary vision of prophetic elevation (Weizsäcker), but it essentially corresponds with Christ’s permanent consciousness of personal pre-existence which in John meets us everywhere. Comp. John 17:5; John 6:46; John 6:62. It is not an intuitive, retrospective conclusion (Rückschluss),. but a retrospective look (Rückblick) of the consciousness of Jesus.” In other words, Christ, did not, in a moment of higher inspiration, infer that He existed before Abraham and the world (Beyschlag), but He calmly declared His knowledge and conviction, or revealed His personal consciousness concerning His superhuman origin and pre-temporal existence.—P. S.]

John 8:59. Then took they up stones.—The clear sound of the word concerning His eternity sounds to the Jews like blasphemy. They get ready, therefore, to execute theocratic judgment as zealots of the law (comp. John 10:31). A summary stoning in the temple is related by Josephus, Antiq. XVII:9, 3. “The stones were probably the building-stones in the vestibule, see Light-foot, p1048 (Meyer),” Considering the frequent attempts of the Jews to stone Jesus, it must appear the more providential, that He nevertheless found His death on the cross, and the more divine that He foresaw it with certainty.

But Jesus hid himself (withdrew Himself), ἐκρύβη. A vanishing out of sight (ἄφαντος γινεσθαι), as in Luke 24:31 (Augustine, Luthardt [Wordsworth]), is hardly to be thought of: to become invisible is not a withdrawal, a hiding, and Jesus was not yet transfigured. He hid Himself while disappearing among the multitude of the people, especially His adherents. Therefore also not quite so ἀνθρωπίνως, as if He had fled (Chrysost.). The doubtful addition: διελθών, etc. [see Text. Notes], does not express a miraculous disappearance, but rather that He secured His safety in virtue of His majesty, just by breaking through the midst of the group of His enemies. Meyer, therefore, has no good reason to say that this occurrence is quite different from the one related, Luke 4:30. The conjecture of a docetic view (Hilgenfeld, Baur) is arbitrarily put in. Also in these details we see how the crisis thickens and the storm is gathering.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. The grand decisive turning point in the position of the Jews in Jerusalem towards the Lord, or the falling away from the beginnings of faith, a consequence of His exposition of true discipleship (in antithesis to false): (1) Real faith, true orthodoxy: continuance in His word, faithful obedience in contrast to arbitrary perversion of His word. (2) The fruit of faith, true philosophy: knowledge and recognition of divine truth in antithesis to the delusions of error. (3) The blessing of truth: true freedom, liberation from the service of sin, in antithesis to a spurious freedom or mock freedom, contemning the spiritual conditions of external freedom. The truth shall make you free. Afterwards: the Son maketh free. Truth is personal in Christ, Christ is universal in truth. Truth is the light, freedom the might of life. Truth is the enlightenment of the reason, liberty the redemption of the will. Truth is the harmony of the contrasts of life, having its central point in the life and work of Christ, its source in God, its rays in all fragments of knowledge: liberty the harmony of man in his true self-destination in accordance with his abilities and the reality of God. Truth corresponds to Revelation, liberty to redemption.

2. Causes of the falling away: (1) Pride (Abraham’s seed); (2) self-delusion (“not slaves”); (3) carnal aspirations (outward rebellion); (4) evil fellowship, or party spirit (“we, we,” etc.).

3. Antithesis of true freedom and true servitude.—Servitude: (1) Beginning of servitude (the commission of sin); (2) state of servitude (the slave of sin); (3) result (only an unfree bond servant in the house of God, over whom expulsion is impending).—The servant (also the servile spirit) abideth not in the house of God (in the communion of the kingdom) forever. This has been first fulfilled in the case of unbelieving Israel.

4. The Son of the house, as the real Freeman, also the true Liberator.

5. The contrast between Christ and His adversaries: (1) In disposition. He estimates them impartially (Abraham’s seed); He woos them with His word. They, on the other hand, do not suffer His word to spring up in them, therefore hatred to Christ buds within them (they change the savor of life unto life into a savor of death unto death). (2) In the impulses of life. The Father of Christ, the father of the Jews; the seeing of Christ, the hearing of the Jews; the witnessing of Christ, the doing of the Jews. (3) In conduct: Israelitish, anti-Israelitish (“if Abraham were your father”); prophetic (“a man that telleth you the truth”), murderously anti-prophetic (“ye seek to kill Me”); divine-human, anti-Christian. (4) In origin: Of God, of the devil.

6. “I am from above.” This answer to the intimation: He is about to descend far below as a suicide, contains the idea of His ascent. To the Jews death was in general a going downward. In the Old Testament the germ of the opposite hope was implanted. Genesis 5:24; Genesis 28:12, in the holy mountain-ascents of Moses ( Exodus 19; Deuteronomy 34:4), in Elijah’s ascension to heaven, in expressions such as Proverbs 15:24. Christ here makes the idea of the heavenly abode appear more clearly (comp. John 7:34); at a later period, chap14, He reveals it openly to His disciples in order to confirm it by His ascension.

7. The doctrine of Jesus concerning the devil. See the Exegetical Notes. Comp. Com. on Matthew 4:1; Matthew 12:26 [pp81, 223, Am. ed.]. Comp. the Dogmatik of the author (Die Lehre vom Teufel).

8. Characteristics of the devil and his children: (1) Lusts, passions; (2) murder, hate; (3) falsehood; (4) contagion and seduction. Starke: “A seed is figuratively ascribed to the devil, Genesis 3:15. By this are commonly understood not only the fallen angels but also all malignant sinners ( 1 John 3:10; Matthew 13:38-39); partly because the first origin of the evil was the first sin of the devil, partly because all wicked people fulfil his will with filial obedience and hence bear his image. Διάβολος means properly a slanderer, calumniator, because Satan is (1) a slanderer who belies (slanders) and defames God to men ( Genesis 3:3; Genesis 3:5), in that he suggests to believers hard thoughts of God, and tells them that He is angry with them, whilst in reality He is reconciled to them through Christ, but persuades the wicked that God is favorable to them and unmindful of their iniquities. He also accuses and calumniates men to God, Job 1:9; Revelation 12:17. (2) An adversary of Christ and the faithful, Genesis 3:15; Zechariah 3:1; 1 Peter 5:8; Revelation 12:9. (3) A deceiver and seducer of men, 2 Corinthians 11:3; 2 Corinthians 11:14, etc.; he is the chief seducer, and then also all evil spirits who are under him as their head.”

9. The Sinlessness of Jesus. Comp. Ullmann, The Sinlessness of Jesus 7th ed, 1863] and Schaff on the Person of Christ—[Germ. ed. Gotha, 1865, revised ed. New York, 1870, Engl. ed. Boston, 1865, pp50 ff. The sinlessness of Jesus is strongly asserted even by divines who are by no means orthodox, (Schleiermacher, Hase, Keim, Bushnell) and has been assailed only by a few writers of any note (such as Strauss, Pecaut, Theo. Parker, Renan), and even these are forced to admit that He made a nearer approach to moral perfection than any other man. But the only logical alternative is between absolute sinlessness or absolute hypocrisy; and to admit the former is virtually to admit the whole Christian system.—P. S.]

10. Unbelief the uniform characteristic of the devilish mind: (1) Unbelief of the truth of Christ because it is truth, (2) because it is the effluence of His holiness, (3) because it is divine. Or (1) the lack of a sense of truth, proneness to falsehood, (2) the want of appreciation of the purity of life, (3) the lack of affinity to God, of obedience to the voice of God in the breast.

11. “A Samaritan.”—The insulting and abusive retort to the calm sentence of truth contains the life-picture of fanaticism, which has first boldly chicaned ( John 8:13), then quibbled and sneered ( John 8:19), after this uttered taunts ( John 8:22); then with eager longing for a chiliastic mystery and mystical proceeding has drawn Him out ( John 8:25), and worshipped Him ( John 8:30). Turning round again it grows rancorous ( John 8:33), boasts ( John 8:39), and arrogantly and abusively contradicts ( John 8:41). Here it stands in its fullest development. It slanders while it reviles and reviles as it slanders.

12. The wonderful proof of Christ’s self-command, patience and freedom of spirit exhibited throughout the chapter. His frankness, His prudence, His Wisdom of Solomon, His incorruptibleness ( John 8:30-31), the most diverse virtues of the Lord prove superior to the most difficult situation and the severest temptations. From the midst of the solemnly moving serenity with which He proclaims judgment, His mercy bursts forth again as a flaming beacon of deliverance, John 8:51. The declaration in John 8:51 reverts to that contained in John 8:31.

13. Christ and Abraham in antithesis to the previously depicted relation of the Jews to Abraham. On the feeling of life and the feeling of death. Between the doctrine of the pre-existence of Christ and the doctrine of the anticipatory joy of Abraham in the Messiah and his celebration of the Messianic day in the other world, there exists the closest connection; similarly, the comfortless speech of the Jews with regard to the death of Abraham and the prophets is connected with their witless estimation of the duration of the life of Christ. (And thus the Evangelical Church was reproached with her three centuries and the Evangelical Alliance with its three decennaries under the misapprehension of the eternity of the Evangel and the primitiveness of the fellowship of faith.)

14. Abraham’s exultation in this world, Abraham’s joy in the other world, or the excited celebration (of the Messianic day) of the mortal, and the calm, peaceful celebration of the glorified one. The anticipatory joy of the ancients was not without painful longing, their longing not devoid of rapturous glimpses of the future.

15. Isaac, the son of faith, also in this a type of Christ, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of Mary, the Virgin.

16. Christ’s proffer of everlasting life answered by the Jews with an attempt to stone and kill Him.

17. As Christ, ever more gloriously escaped from the Jews, thus too shall the Church of Christ in her evangelical confession and spiritual life ever more gloriously escape the persecutions of the legalists.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

The uprightness of Christ.—How the Lord by His heavenly uprightness gradually enchains the true disciples, gradually alienates the false ones (see John 3:6; John 9:1).—How He does not captivate the false disciples: 1. Will not captivate them; 2. cannot captivate them.—The true profitable conduct of disciples towards the word of Jesus: 1. The conduct; (a) to suffer themselves to be kept by the word (to continue in it, the obedience of faith, John 8:31); (b) to keep the word in temptation as a guiding star through the darkness of judgments (the loyalty of faith, John 8:51). 2. Whereunto this is profitable: knowledge of the truth and freedom from sin. (life in brightness and freedom from death).—Continuance in the word of Jesus the condition of true spirit-life: 1. Of true knowledge of God, 2. of true moral freedom.—Through truth to freedom.—Through inner freedom to outer freedom.—The false confidence of legal saints in their freedom (religious, ecclesiastical, political freedom): 1. They are enslaved outwardly by the world (the Jews by Rome); 2. enslaved at home by the letter of the law; 3. enslaved within and without by sin.—Domestic right in the house of God: 1. The Song of Solomon, 2. the bond-servants, 3. the freedmen.—The true children of Abraham, Romans 4—Where the word of Christ can not grow in the heart, enmity against Christ flourishes, John 8:37.—How man can by spiritual pride turn inherited blessings, even ecclesiastical ones, into a curse (as here the boast, about being Abraham’s seed).—The prudence of Christ in antithesis to the temerity of sinners, John 8:38 : 1. He speaks that which He has seen of God2. The evil that they have faintly heard, they do.—The trial of the Jews, instituted by the Lord, as to whether they are genuine heirs of the spirit and faith of Abraham: 1. The trial, (a)after the works of Abraham, (b) after their susceptibility of God’s words2. The result, John 8:44.

Abraham’s seed (consecrated children of God by circumcision; called regenerate), and yet of their father the devil. Song of Solomon, too, one may be called a Christian, an evangelical Christian, etc, and yet be of one’s father, the devil.—

The devil a person who, by murder and lying continually, calls in question his personality and all personality.—Christ’s severe words concerning the devil (here, Matthew 13, Matthew 4and elsewhere).—The fundamental traits of the devilish nature. How they are embraced in the One fundamental trait of unbelief (or of apostasy).—Falsehood and hate cognate: 1. Falsehood a murder of truth, of ideal reality2. Murder falsehood against life (denial of God, of love, sullying of the right).—How all threads of human falsehood and hatred and murder unite in the murder of Christ, the crucifixion.—How love and loyalty to all truth shine inseparable and pristine in the Crucified One.—The majesty of Jesus in His testimony to the devil and his children, etc44.—Hatred of truth.—Unbelief as a hatred of truth resting upon the love of sin.

The Gospel for Judica [fifth Sunday in Lent], John 8:46-59.—The two-fold judgment in the separation between Christ and His adversaries: 1. The false judgment of the world, resulting in the justification of Christ; 2. Christ’s true judgment of the world, that shall lead to the justification of sinners.—Christ, the Prophet of everlasting life, considered in relation to the prophets of death: 1. Wherefore He is the Prophet of life, and why they are prophets of death, (a) He is the Holy One, the Sinless One, the publisher of the Word of God, and Himself the Word; existing from eternity, in respect of His essence—as respects His works, the Saviour of life, in time; (b) they are the sinners, enemies of the word, lost in temporalness, killing life with the fatal letter2. How He proclaims everlasting life, but they can preach of nothing but death, (a) Of His eternal life, of the eternal life of Abraham; (b) they of the death of Abraham and the Prophets3. How He offers them eternal life ( John 8:5), whilst they, in return, wish to kill Him, John 8:59. 4. How He is proved to be the Ever-Living One, while they have gone the way of death, John 8:54-55.—As error is connected with sin, so is truth with innocence and righteousness.

The sinlessness of Jesus corroborated by challenging the testimony of His enemies.—The testimony of the world and of Christ’s enemies to the innocence of Jesus (Pilate, Judas, the high-priests and elders themselves, Matthew 27:43).—The innocence of Christ in respect of its complete revelation: 1. Founded upon divine impeccability, 2. approved in human sinlessness.—The voice of Jesus, from the mere fact of its being the voice of the Holy Prayer of Manasseh, should receive the consideration of the whole world1. In its uniqueness, 2. in its credibility, 3. in its revelations.—He that is of God heareth God’s words.

John 8:48. The answer of the Jews a historically stereotype reply of the spirit of the law to the preaching of the gospel.—How religious testimony is turned into invectives in the mouth of fanaticism, John 8:48.—The calmness of the Lord in contrast to the railing excitement of His enemies.—Peter imitates Him in this composure ( Acts 2); so likewise do all faithful witnesses for the truth.—The cry of grief with which the Lord again offers salvation even to self-hardeners and blasphemers.—The New Testament word of everlasting life decried as a word of the devil by the false servants of the Old Testament.

John 8:55. And if I should say. The fidelity of the Lord to truth in the faithfulness of His self-consciousness and knowledge of God.

John 8:57. The length of true life, 1. measured by earthly-mindedness, 2. measured by godly-mindedness.—The Jews as accountants and reckoners opposed to the Lord and His numbers.—How the everlasting To-day of the Father ( Psalm 2) is Revelation -echoed in the everlasting I am of the Song of Solomon,

John 8:59. The ever repeated and ever vain attempt of Christ’s enemies to stone Him.—They were able in the end to crucify Him and they thus contributed to His glorification, but to consign Him to oblivion beneath a heap of stones was beyond their power.—How Christ always passes gloriously through the midst of His enemies.

Starke: It is not enough to make a good beginning in Christianity if one do not end well (continue and persevere).—Make free, Romans 6:18; Galatians 5:1; 1 Peter 2:10. From the bondage of sin, John 8:34, and of eternal death, John 8:51; Luke 1:77; by remission of guilt and punishment and by communication of the Spirit of adoption and of faith.—That only is real and sound truth which can sanctify and save.—Osiander: Believers are not free from external servitude and civil burdens; their freedom is far more glorious, for they are free from sin, death, the devil and hell, and can bid defiance to all enemies, Romans 6:22.—Zeisius: Of what avail is it to have pious parents and ancestors, and not to be pious ourselves? To be of noble blood, but ignoble in soul, &c.—Ibid.: Oh wretched liberty whose companion is thraldom under sin and the devil!—Canstein: If sin but play the master and have dominion over a Prayer of Manasseh, it obtains right and might to plunge him into sundry and greater sins.—He who will be forever with God must not be a slave but a son; and this is the highest good, this is true felicity—to dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Psalm 23:6.—Zeisius: Priceless liberty of the children of God; but beware that thou abuse not such liberty by making it an occasion of security!

John 8:41. The sinner who is forever vindicating himself does but entangle himself the more.—It is the way of the flesh to be always intent upon evasions.—Nova Bibl. Tub.: He who loves not Jesus, is not born of God but of the devil.—Jesus proceeded from the Father to seek us; should not we then go forth from ourselves and the whole world to meet Him?—The Can Not John 8:43 : A wicked, unruly will lay at the bottom of this.—Zeisius: Execrable as falsehood is because it is the offspring of the devil, just so base is it, alas! But O insolvent nobility of liars!—Ibid.: It is the old way of the world to love and to hearken to the devil’s lies, hypocrisy and flattery rather than truth.—As long as man can not endure truth he is incapable of faith.

John 8:46. Against him who can ground his defence upon a good conscience the harshest invectives and abuse of his enemies will accomplish nothing.—A Christian is bound to appeal to his good conscience when his enemies revile and slander him without a cause.

John 8:47. Zeisius: Infallible test of those who belong to God: who truly love God’s word, &c.—When wicked men are convinced of their wickedness and have nothing to answer, they resort to abuse, invective, and calumny, Acts 6:10-11,—Lampe: To call upright witnesses for the truth heretics and enthusiasts, moreover to persecute them, and to boast of one’s own orthodoxy on the other hand—are characteristics of antichristian spirits, 1 Peter 3:9.

John 8:49. The more we honor God, the more the world will dishonor us. But courage! God will honor us in return.—Perverse world! It honors what is despicable, and despises what is honorable.

John 8:50. It is honor enough for believers that they are the children of God. God, moreover, will defend them.—The godly find what they do not seek, but the wicked attain not that for which they strive.

John 8:52, The wicked trample the most precious promises under foot and draw only poison from the fairest flowers of the divine word.—Cramer: The devil is a sophist.

John 8:54. Vanity and folly make a great boast of themselves! Consider the Saviour and follow His example.

John 8:56. The most pious parents often leave descendants who do not possess their faith, piety and virtue.—Believers see what is invisible, and believe that which is incredible, and rejoice with all their hearts.—Christians existed before the birth of Christ and were saved through Him, Hebrews 13:8.—Canstein: Truth always comes off conqueror.

Gerlach: The truth, the revelation in Christ, 1 John 1:6; 1 John 1:8; 1 John 2:21; Hebrews 10:26. This truth makes free, for only that being is free that develops in accordance with its God-created nature.—The first sinner in God’s creation, the devil, fell from the truth; he fell out of God, as the eternal source and vital element of all created beings. Thus he became a living contradiction in himself, a lie.

John 8:47; 1 John 5:20.—Recognize Him they would not, refute Him they could not, therefore they reviled Him.

John 8:52. All the Jews at that time believed that the Messiah would raise the dead and judge the world, even in the carnal, literal sense; hence the language of Jesus might well have excited their astonishment if they had not been inclined to receive Him as the Messiah: bitter enmity however prompted their treatment of His words, and the utter contempt which they entertained for Him is visible in their reply. (Be it observed only that they were also offended because He asserted His possession of this power without publicly presenting Himself as the Messiah.)—He strengthens the impression of mysterious majesty about His person, in that Hebrews, by virtue of His glance into the higher spirit-world, affirms that of Abraham which a mere man could not know.

Braune: Continuance, 1 John 2:28.—Blessed is he that endureth unto the end.—A real delirium of liberty had seized the Jews.—Bondage, 2 Peter 2:19.—Emancipation, Romans 8:2.—When a man takes offence at the expression of Jesus, he is not in harmony with the thoughts and mind of Jesus.—The evil will is the tool of Satan, the true devilish momentum.—Thus the devil’s nature is not naturally evil; but wickedness made it evil. It is not I that is evil but egotism. Without the I there were no love in which I learns thou and says we.—“To his haughtiness humility is servility, dependence on God slavery; to his false serpent-wisdom simplicity and honesty seem stupidity, and his egotism holds love to be foolish sensibility; his pride finds contrition, repentance and petitions for mercy an insufferable humiliation. The struggle for autocratic likeness to God delusively causes his aspirations and efforts to seem grand to him, his non-subjection to God sublime” (Sartorius).—There is cause for fear when he deceives and lies rather than when he rages.—Why did they say fifty years old? The fiftieth year is the close of manhood, and hence formed the period of the Levites’ time of service. Jesus was not as old as this, but they mention this age, as though they magnanimously granted more than could be demanded, in order to give an appearance of absurdity to His language.

Heubner: Christ distinguishes between real and false, firm and wavering disciples.—The slave of sin does not so much as know that he lacks freedom. One does not perceive that until one begins to see clearly. That is already the beginning of freedom.—Man is blinded by many things so that he thinks himself perfectly free. Here it is a religious species of pride of ancestry, &c. But besides family pride there are a number of other considerations which exert a delusive power: external refinement, rank, authority, proficiency in business, commendation, a varnish of morality, art, science.—Why servant? when he says: it is my own will. Answer: Because the sinner never can say that his choice is the result of full and sober-minded conviction. He is reproved by conscience.—God will have no slaves, no unwilling servants by compulsion and for hire; He wants children, free, loving children. Their supreme right is: to abide in the Father’s house.—Man’s destiny: either adoption into the paternal house of God or exclusion from it.—The Son has broken the chains forged by Satan. He is the Redeemer of the human race.—Fictitious freedom.—The remembrance of pious ancestors should be a mighty impulse to good.—Christ has a unique speech.—The devil abode not. Hence the earliest fathers of the Church called the devil an apostate (ἀποστάτης).—Apostasy from truth leads to the entire loss of truth. Be it observed, moreover, that as early as in the apocryphal Predicatio Pauli the sinlessness of Jesus is denied.—Good men can be understood only by the like-minded. Christ teaches us equanimity in reference to worldly honor.—What is true honor?—The difference between honor with God and honor with the world.—That no slander can strip us of our true honor.

John 8:52. The words of Christ seem presumptuous because virtue often has the appearance of presumption. He who is morally good really makes the highest claims without immodesty or presumption; on the other hand presumption is to be found in the world.—Living among wicked and perverse people the severest trial of holy men.—What strengthens the pious in this life? 1. The consciousness of their lofty and intimate fellowship with the devout of all ages; 2. The prospect of everlasting blessedness, from eternity prepared for believers, through Christ.

Gossner: The world falsely declares itself free when it is over head and ears in slavery.—This is the tyranny of the devil, which he exercises over natural men to such an extent, that Paul rightly calls him the god of this world, who hath his work in the children of unbelief, Ephesians 2:2; 2 Corinthians 4:4.—From the Son of God all the children of God derive their birth, their life, their freedom, their redemption, their right of sonship and heirship.—What He Isaiah, that He also communicates to His people and makes them kings, prophets and priests. They have the honor of bearing His unction, seal and name.—Infidels believe the devil, while denying his existence.^[FN92]—A man may try himself whether he be a child of God or of the devil.—Lying is his proper character.—Christ would not die in the temple because He was to be sacrificed not alone for the Jewish nation, but for the whole world; for this another altar was requisite, whereon He might be offered up in the sight of all the world, as upon Golgotha.—What a judgment, to cast out Jesus! What a void in the heart, the temple of the Church, where Jesus must hide Himself and give way to blind zeal, pride, ambition, falsehood, selfishness—before all which He must flee!

Schleiermacher: Their belief ( John 8:30-31) was in itself utterly imperfect, because expectations were mingled with it which did not correspond with the real purpose of God, that He would accomplish in Christ. Now so long as these expectations exist, it is possible that when a man begins to doubt their truth and yet still clings to them at heart, he will forsake the faith. But just that clinging of the heart to something incompatible with true and living faith in the Redeemer is at the same time a non-continuance in His word and a cherishing of another word in the heart, 2 Corinthians 3:15.—There is no other way for us all to be filled and penetrated with the truth than by gazing into His holy image and suffering ourselves to be purified through Him from all falseness.

Besser: John 8:32. Something of this was known also to the heathen; Cicero says: The wise man alone is free. But they comprehended the nature neither of divine wisdom nor of divine liberty.—No thraldom, says Seneca, is worse than the thraldom of the passions. Plato calls the infamous lusts the hardest tyrants. Epictetus says: Liberty is the name of virtue, slavery the name of vice. The Brahmin sages call the natural state of man: “Bondage.”—Schmalz: The rage for heretical accusation: 1. It makes invectives take the place of convincing arguments; 2. it craftily distorts the plainest utterances of others; 3. it casts suspicion on the heart of others; 4. to combat them it grasps at unlawful and violent means.—Rambach: Jesus the sublimest pattern of meekness.—J. C. E. Schwarz: Falsehood: 1. in respect to its nature (apostasy from God, rebellion against His kingdom, pollution of His image in ourselves and others); 2. in respect to its fruits (self-belying, mischief, impulse to new sin).—J. Mueller: The holiness of Jesus Christ is proof of the truth of His testimony about His divine dignity.—Schnur: Why truth is so hated: 1. Because it sees too deeply; 2. because it speaks too openly; 3. because it judges too severely.—Rautenberg: Truth and its lot upon earth: 1. It is rejected but does not keep silence; 2. it is reviled but wearies not; 3. it is persecuted but does not succumb.