me, I speak these things. And he that sent me is with me: the 29 Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him. 31 As he spake these words, many believed on him. Then said 30 Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the 32 truth, and the truth shall make you free. They answered him, 33 We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free? Jesus answered them, 34 Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of sin. And the servant abideth not in the house forever, 35 29. He that sent me is with me. Chap. xvi. 32. The Father not only originally empowered and inspired me, but he is still supporting and guiding me. When he sent me, he did not dismiss me from his presence; and though I shall be lifted up on the cross, yet he will not then leave me alone, for my conduct is well-pleasing in his sight. 30. Many believed on him. Chap. x. 42. His words were so full of truth and persuasion, so living and heartfelt. This Gospel presents many glimpses, as it were, of what passes behind the scene, and explains, with the knowledge of an eye-witness, many events and customs, and the fluctuations of opinion and belief, among the disciples and auditors of Jesus. 31, 32. If ye continue in my word, &c. Or, doctrine. In allusion, perhaps, to some who did not persevere. Chap. vi. 66. Ye shall know the truth, &c. If they proved steadfast in their discipleship, they would attain to new and exalted views of truth, which would emancipate them from their present errors and sins. For it is eminently the property of truth, to make men free in all respects; physically, socially, civilly, and spiritually. The reference here, however, is undoubtedly to the freedom, which the gospel imparts from the bondage of sin. 33. We be Abraham's seed. Mat. iii. 9. They here express the darling idea of their nation, their boasted descent from the father of the faithful, in whom they seem to have prided themselves more than in Moses, their divine lawgiver. Were never in bondage to any man. This was a false assertion, as our Lord intimates, ver. 44; for they had often been in bondage during their national existence, in Egypt, in Babylon, under the Assyrians, Macedonians, and Romans, and at that moment were in abject bondage to the latter nation. Or, if, as some suppose, they refer to personal servitude, they were under the dominion of passions and desires, which rendered them, to all intents and purposes, the veriest slaves. Yet they deny the fact, either through ignorance or falsehood, or a mixture of both. 34-36. Is the servant of sin. Or, the slave of sin. Christ explains to them, that he did not refer to political, but to moral servitude, and utters the great truth which we can never ponder too much, that whoever sins, enslaves himself to sin. The servant abideth not, &c. The Saviour here alludes to a common occurrence in life, by which he illustrates this moral truth of the slavery of the wrong-doer. A slave has no permanent residence in a family, but is liable at any time to be sold or sent 36 but the Son abideth ever. If the Son therefore shall make you 37 free, ye shall be free indeed. I know that ye are Abraham's seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you. 38 I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that 39 which ye have seen with your father. They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham. 40 But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, 41 which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham. Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born 42 of fornication; we have one Father, even God. Jesus said unto away; whereas a son is the heir, and therefore remains stationary. Only those, therefore, that are God's genuine children, can inherit his promised blessings. If the Son therefore shall make you free, &c. In supposed allusion to an ancient custom, by which a son had power to adopt one into the family as a member, to receive its privileges. As the servants of sin, the Jews would not continue to be God's chosen ones, but be expelled from his housefrom their temple and city-while those, who were adopted by the Son, would take their places, and be free indeed. 37, 38. Because my word hath no place in you. The secret of the hostility of the Jews against Jesus was, that they did not welcome his doctrine; it found no congenial place in their hearts. - And ye do that which ye have seen. I and you act in conformity with the principles we have respectively derived from two different sources; I from above, you from below; I from God and heaven, you from the world, and from him, who is personified in the philosophy of the day, as the embodiment of evil in it, the devil; who may be called your real father, rather than the pious Abraham. 39. They still cling to the national watchword, Abraham, and protest against being called the children of any one but him.- If ye were Abraham's children, &c. Thus applying the test of resemblance in character and actions, as entitling them to be designated by that sainted ancestral name. If you were worthy of being called his descendants, you would imitate his virtues; his faith and obedience towards God, and his integrity and humanity towards men. 40, 41. But now ye seek to kill me, &c. So far from resembling the good patriarch, you are laying plots to take my life, not the life of any common individual, but of one who has come to you on a great and solemn mission, as a teacher of truth from God. Such conduct is wholly abhorrent from the life of Abraham, and finds not the least justification, but sharp rebuke, by reference to him as your father. - Ye do the deeds of your father. "You have certainly another father than Abraham; one who has instilled his own malignant nature into you." We have one Father, even God. Still ignorant of his meaning, but driven from their adherence to the paternity of Abraham, they revert to the idea of God as their Father. They assert that they were not of a spurious, or idolatrous race, apostates, but worshippers of God as their Father. them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. Why do ye not understand my speech? even because 43 ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and 44 the lusts of your father ye will do: he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth; because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, 45 ye believe me not. Which of you convinceth me of sin? And 46 if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? He that is of 47 God, heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God. Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, 48 Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil? 42, 43. If God were your Father, &c. Our Lord pursues his close and searching conversation with the Jews, by assuring them that God could not be their Father, for the same reason that Abraham could not be, viz. because their conduct was unworthy of such a parentage. Came from God, i. e. spiritually, not locally; a phrase equivalent to the one used afterwards, he sent me, i. e. as his messenger, and the revealer of his truth. If the Jews had done the will of God so far as they had known it, they would have been prepared to receive his Son with open arms. 1 John v. 1.- Because ye cannot hear my word. Or, hearken to my doctrine. They could not listen to his teachings with docility, because their minds were wholly destitute of that love of truth, which is the essential condition of being profited by in struction. 44. As they did not understand him, or parried the force of his words, he now boldly declares, in so many words, that instead of being the children of Abraham, or of God, they were the children of the devil, and manifested his passions. 1 John iii. 8. He was a murderer from the beginning. Alluding to the opinion of the Jews, that Satan introduced death into the world; and also, probably, that he deceived our first parents in the garden of Eden, and was the supposed source of all the evil, falsehood, and wickedness that had broken in upon mankind. For he is a liar, and the father of it, i. e. father of lies. Jesus converses with the Jews upon their own principles respecting the devil, without either approving or disapproving of them. He mentions two particulars, in which they resembled him their murderous and their lying dispositions. 45-47. Ye believe me not. A striking description of their perverted moral state. The very reason that they believed not, was because he spoke to them the truth; so distasteful had it become to them on account of their depravity. Which of you convinceth me of sin? Or, convicteth me of imposture. He that is of God, heareth God's words, &c. The same criterion, which he had before adopted by which to judge of their characters. 48. A Samaritan-hast a devil. Or, demon. Not, of course, that they supposed he was of Samaria, for they had reproached him, at other times, with being a Galilean, a Nazarene; 49 Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honor my Father, and 50 ye do dishonor me. And I seek not mine own glory: there is 51 one that seeketh and judgeth. Verily, verily, I say unto you, If 52 a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my 53 saying, he shall never taste of death. Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom 54 makest thou thyself? Jesus answered, If I honor myself, my honor is nothing: it is my Father that honoreth me, of whom ye 55 say, that he is your God. Yet ye have not known him; but I but these were terms of reproach, which had nearly the same import in their vocabulary of abuse. Their hatred of the Samaritans was so fierce, that no name was too bad to couple with theirs. Unable to argue with Jesus, their rage against him could devise no terms more opprobrious than those here employed, which signified that he was their enemy, and quite beside himself. ness." 49, 50. I have not a devil. "I speak the words of truth and soberJesus repels the foul accusation, and reaffirms his connexion with the Father. — There is one that seeketh, &c. He would not vindicate himself, but falls back for his defence upon that Being, who would glorify his Son and judge him righteously. The temper of self-possession and forbearance, which was manifested by Christ in his most exciting conversations with the Jews, and in their most violent and abusive accusations against him, merits our study and imitation. When shall his spirit be breathed into all human intercourse, and every where hallow and dignify the meeting of man with man! Heb. xii. 3; 1 Pet. ii. 23. 51. He shall never see death. He does not assert that keeping his word, or obeying his instructions, would save the gross, material body from dying. His meaning is, that his disciples would be delivered from the bondage of the fear of death, and, above all, from spiritual death and condemnation hereafter. 52, 53. Abraham. His name again occurs to their minds, as it had been mentioned above, ver. 33, 40. The Jews still misunderstand our Lord, and break out into furious speeches against him, reiterating their former malicious charges. And thou sayest, &c. Greater point is given to this clause, by understanding it interrogatively; Abraham and the prophets are dead, and dost thou presume to assert that keeping thy sayings, will deliver men from death? Art thou greater, &c. Dost thou profess to be superior to the patriarchs and prophets? who, great and good as they were, yet died. Dost thou promise, then, that even a disciple of thine shall not die? Who art thou, to advance such proud claims? 54, 55. Jesus replies, that great as were his pretensions, they were justified and borne out by God, who had given him the highest tokens of honor, by the voice from heaven at his baptism, by the power of his miracles, and the divinity of his instructions. He repeats that they were ignorant of the nature of God, whom they professed to know and serve. know him and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you but I know him, and keep his saying. Your fa- 56 ther Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years 57 old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Veri- 58 ly, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. - Then 59 Shall be a liar like unto you. You, who profess to know him, but do not in reality. 56. Abraham rejoiced to see my day. Our Lord did not say, that he had seen Abraham, or that Abraham had seen him personally, but had rejoiced in seeing his day, the times of the Messiah. The patriarch is not to be understood as literally seeing this brighter day, but as anticipating it by the eye of faith, and rejoicing in the glorious prospect, that in his seed all the nations of the earth would be blessed. Gen. xii. 2, 3; Heb. xi. 13. 57. The Jews still stumble at the literal sense of his figurative language.-Not yet fifty years old. Jesus was not, in reality, much above thirty years old. Luke iii. 23. Irenæus, however, conjectured that the length of his ministry was about twenty years, and that his age, therefore, was then verging towards that mentioned. in the text; while others suppose that the toils and dangers of his life had impressed upon him the appearance of age. But we may much more rationally view fifty as a round number, which they use without any regard to what his age really was. This number might more readily occur to their minds, on account of the year of jubilee; and, also, as has been suggested, from the fact that the Jews were exempted from public offices after that period of life, on account of their age. 58. Before Abraham was, I am. The common version does not make sense, or correctly exhibit the original, for it has uniformly translated this peculiar idiom in kindred passages with he, or Christ, as supplying the ellipsis. Mark xiii. 6; Luke xxi. 8; John iv. 26, viii. 24, 28, xiii. 19; Acts xiii. 25. The clause, therefore, when properly rendered, would read, Before Abraham was, I am he, or, am Christ. If taken in the most literal sense, the sentence at farthest only declares the existence of Christ before Abraham, not his eternity or deity. But there are very strong reasons for believing, that Jesus makes here no declaration of the origin and duration of his existence, but asserts his superiority to Abraham, which the Jews had questioned or denied, ver. 52, 53, and that he was the Messiah, in whom it was promised to Abraham that all the nations of the world should be blessed. In fact, it was his commission and authority from God, his claims as the Messiah, not his nature or the duration of his being, though the Jews had partially touched upon that point in their literal understanding of his words, ver. 52, 57,- which constituted the great question of discussion, and to which Jesus spoke in the words before us. Whatever proof, then, other passages may be understood to furnish in support of the deity, or even of the preexistence of Christ, before he was born of Mary, no such proofs can be found here. But if it be asked, in the next place, what sense can be attached to the declaration, I am he, or Christ, it may be answered, that there are many passages in the Scriptures, which speak of things existing in the counsels of God, before they actually ex |