{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"JHN","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"John","commonName":"John","introduction":"THE author of the Fourth Gospel was the younger of the two sons of Zebedee, a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee, who resided at Bethsaida, where were born Peter and Andrew his brother, and Philip also. His mother's name was Salome, who, though not without her imperfections (Mat 20:20-28), was one of those dear and honored women who accompanied the Lord on one of His preaching circuits through Galilee, ministering to His bodily wants; who followed Him to the cross, and bought sweet spices to anoint Him after His burial, but, on bringing them to the grave, on the morning of the First Day of the week, found their loving services gloriously superseded by His resurrection ere they arrived. His father, Zebedee, appears to have been in good circumstances, owning a vessel of his own and having hired servants (Mar 1:20). Our Evangelist, whose occupation was that of a fisherman with his father, was beyond doubt a disciple of the Baptist, and one of the two who had the first interview with Jesus. He was called while engaged at his secular occupation (Mat 4:21-22), and again on a memorable occasion (Luk 5:1-11), and finally chosen as one of the Twelve Apostles (Mat 10:2). He was the youngest of the Twelve--the \"Benjamin,\" as DA COSTA calls him--and he and James his brother were named in the native tongue by Him who knew the heart, \"Boanerges,\" which the Evangelist Mark (Mar 3:17) explains to mean \"Sons of thunder\"; no doubt from their natural vehemence of character. They and Peter constituted that select triumvirate of whom see on Luk 9:28. But the highest honor bestowed on this disciple was his being admitted to the bosom place with his Lord at the table, as \"the disciple whom Jesus loved\" (Joh 13:23; Joh 20:2; Joh 21:7, Joh 20:24), and to have committed to him by the dying Redeemer the care of His mother (Joh 19:26-27). There can be no reasonable doubt that this distinction was due to a sympathy with His own spirit and mind on the part of John which the all-penetrating Eye of their common Master beheld in none of the rest; and although this was probably never seen either in his life or in his ministry by his fellow apostles, it is brought out wonderfully in his writings, which, in Christ-like spirituality, heavenliness, and love, surpass, we may freely say, all the other inspired writings.\n\nAfter the effusion of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, we find him in constant but silent company with Peter, the great spokesman and actor in the infant Church until the accession of Paul. While his love to the Lord Jesus drew him spontaneously to the side of His eminent servant, and his chastened vehemence made him ready to stand courageously by him, and suffer with him, in all that his testimony to Jesus might cost him, his modest humility, as the youngest of all the apostles, made him an admiring listener and faithful supporter of his brother apostle rather than a speaker or separate actor. Ecclesiastical history is uniform in testifying that John went to Asia Minor; but it is next to certain that this could not have been till after the death both of Peter and Paul; that he resided at Ephesus, whence, as from a center, he superintended the churches of that region, paying them occasional visits; and that he long survived the other apostles. Whether the mother of Jesus died before this, or went with John to Ephesus, where she died and was buried, is not agreed. One or two anecdotes of his later days have been handed down by tradition, one at least bearing marks of reasonable probability. But it is not necessary to give them here. In the reign of Domitian (A.D. 81-96) he was banished to \"the isle that is called Patmos\" (a small rocky and then almost uninhabited island in the Ægean Sea), \"for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ\" (Rev 1:9). IRENÆUS and EUSEBIUS say that this took place about the end of Domitian's reign. That he was thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil, and miraculously delivered, is one of those legends which, though reported by TERTULLIAN and JEROME, is entitled to no credit. His return from exile took place during the brief but tolerant reign of Nerva; he died at Ephesus in the reign of Trajan [EUSEBIUS, Ecclesiastical History, 3.23], at an age above ninety, according to some; according to others, one hundred; and even one hundred twenty, according to others still. The intermediate number is generally regarded as probably the nearest to the truth.\n\nAs to the date of this Gospel, the arguments for its having been composed before the destruction of Jerusalem (though relied on by some superior critics) are of the slenderest nature; such as the expression in Joh 5:2, \"there is at Jerusalem, by the sheep-gate, a pool,\" &c.; there being no allusion to Peter's martyrdom as having occurred according to the prediction in Joh 21:18 --a thing too well known to require mention. That it was composed long after the destruction of Jerusalem, and after the decease of all the other apostles, is next to certain, though the precise time cannot be determined. Probably it was before his banishment, however; and if we date it between the years 90 and 94, we shall probably be close to the truth.\n\nAs to the readers for whom it was more immediately designed, that they were Gentiles we might naturally presume from the lateness of the date; but the multitude of explanations of things familiar to every Jew puts this beyond all question.\n\nNo doubt was ever thrown upon the genuineness and authenticity of this Gospel till about the close of the eighteenth century; nor were these embodied in any formal attack upon it till BRETSCHNEIDER, in 1820, issued his famous treatise [Probabilia], the conclusions of which he afterwards was candid enough to admit had been satisfactorily disproved. To advert to these would be as painful as unnecessary; consisting as they mostly do of assertions regarding the Discourses of our Lord recorded in this Gospel which are revolting to every spiritual mind. The Tubingen school did their best, on their peculiar mode of reasoning, to galvanize into fresh life this theory of the post-Joannean date of the Fourth Gospel; and some Unitarian critics still cling to it. But to use the striking language of VAN OOSTERZEE regarding similar speculations on the Third Gospel, \"Behold, the feet of them that shall carry it out dead are already at the door\" (Act 5:9). Is there one mind of the least elevation of spiritual discernment that does not see in this Gospel marks of historical truth and a surpassing glory such as none of the other Gospels possess, brightly as they too attest their own verity; and who will not be ready to say that if not historically true, and true just as it stands, it never could have been by mortal man composed or conceived?\n\nOf the peculiarities of this Gospel, we note here only two. The one is its reflective character. While the others are purely narrative, the Fourth Evangelist, \"pauses, as it were, at every turn,\" as DA COSTA says [Four Witnesses, p. 234], \"at one time to give a reason, at another to fix the attention, to deduce consequences, or make applications, or to give utterance to the language of praise.\" See Joh 2:20-21, Joh 2:23-25; Joh 4:1-2; Joh 7:37-39; Joh 11:12-13, Joh 11:49-52; Joh 21:18-19, Joh 21:22-23. The other peculiarity of this Gospel is its supplementary character. By this, in the present instance, we mean something more than the studiousness with which he omits many most important particulars in our Lord's history, for no conceivable reason but that they were already familiar as household words to all his readers, through the three preceding Gospels, and his substituting in place of these an immense quantity of the richest matter not found in the other Gospels. We refer here more particularly to the nature of the additions which distinguish this Gospel; particularly the notices of the different Passovers which occurred during our Lord's public ministry, and the record of His teaching at Jerusalem, without which it is not too much to say that we could have had but a most imperfect conception either of the duration of His ministry or of the plan of it. But another feature of these additions is quite as noticeable and not less important. \"We find,\" to use again the words of DA COSTA [Four Witnesses, pp. 238, 239], slightly abridged, \"only six of our Lord's miracles recorded in this Gospel, but these are all of the most remarkable kind, and surpass the rest in depth, specialty of application, and fulness of meaning. Of these six we find only one in the other three Gospels--the multiplication of the loaves. That miracle chiefly, it would seem, on account of the important instructions of which it furnished the occasion (John 6:1-71), is here recorded anew. The five other tokens of divine power are distinguished from among the many recorded in the three other Gospels by their furnishing a still higher display of power and command over the ordinary laws and course of nature. Thus we find recorded here the first of all the miracles that Jesus wrought--the changing of water into wine (Joh 2:1-11), the cure of the nobleman's son at a distance (Joh 4:43-54); of the numerous cures of the lame and the paralytic by the word of Jesus, only one--of the man impotent for thirty and eight years (Joh 5:1-9); of the many cures of the blind, one only--of the man born blind (Joh 9:1-12); the restoration of Lazarus, not from a deathbed, like Jairus' daughter, nor from a bier, like the widow of Nain's son, but from the grave, and after lying there four days, and there sinking into corruption (John 11:1-44); and lastly, after His resurrection, the miraculous draught of fishes on the Sea of Tiberias (Joh 21:5-11). But these are all recorded chiefly to give occasion for the record of those astonishing discourses and conversations, alike with friends and with foes, with His disciples and with the multitude which they drew forth.\"\n\nOther illustrations of the peculiarities of this Gospel will occur, and other points connected with it be adverted to, in the course of the Commentary. \n\n\n\nNext: John Chapter 1\n\n","order":43,"numberOfChapters":21,"sha256":"2a03297b1e3a6f9e0b82a13c39c82e2202f9e979c173750344c480c63057d8a0","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JHN/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JHN","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":21,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JHN/21.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JHN","chapter":21},"totalNumberOfVerses":680},"chapter":{"number":8,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["scribes and Pharisees--foiled in their yesterday's attempt, and hoping to succeed better in this.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["woman . . . in adultery . . . Moses . . . commanded . . . should be stoned--simply put to death (Deu 22:22), but in aggravated cases, at least in later times, this was probably by stoning (Eze 16:40). \n\nbut what sayest thou--hoping, whatever He might answer, to put Him in the wrong:--if He said, Stone her, that would seem a stepping out of His province; if He forbade it, that would hold Him up as a relaxer of the public morals. But these cunning hypocrites were overmatched.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["stooped down--It will be observed He was sitting when they came to Him. \n\nwith his finger wrote on the ground--The words of our translators in italics (\"as though He heard them not\") have hardly improved the sense, for it is scarcely probable He could wish that to be thought. Rather He wished to show them His aversion to enter on the subject. But as this did not suit them, they \"continue asking Him,\" pressing for an answer. At last, raising Himself He said.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["He that is without sin--not meaning sinless altogether; nor yet, guiltless of a literal breach of the Seventh Commandment; but probably, he whose conscience acquits him of any such sin. \n\ncast a stone--\"the stone,\" meaning the first one (Deu 17:7).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["again he stooped down and wrote--The design of this second stooping and writing on the ground was evidently to give her accusers an opportunity to slink away unobserved by Him, and so avoid an exposure to His eye which they could ill have stood. Accordingly it is added.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["they . . . convicted . . . went out one by one . . . Jesus was left alone--that is, without one of her accusers remaining; for it is added. \n\nthe woman in the midst--that is, of the remaining audience. While the trap failed to catch Him for whom it was laid, it caught those who laid it. Stunned by the unexpected home thrust, they immediately made off--which makes the impudence of those impure hypocrites in dragging such a case before the public eye the more disgusting.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["Woman, &c.--What inimitable tenderness and grace! Conscious of her own guilt, and till now in the hands of men who had talked of stoning her, wondering at the skill with which her accusers had been dispersed, and the grace of the few words addressed to herself, she would be disposed to listen, with a reverence and teachableness before unknown, to our Lord's admonition. \"And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more.\" He pronounces no pardon upon the woman (such as, \"Thy sins are forgiven thee\" [compare Luk 5:28; Luk 7:48] --\"Go in peace\" [compare Mar 5:34; Luk 7:50; Luk 8:48]), much less does He say that she had done nothing condemnable; He simply leaves the matter where it was. He meddles not with the magistrate's office, nor acts the Judge in any sense (Joh 12:47). But in saying, \"Go and sin no more,\" which had been before said to one who undoubtedly believed (Joh 5:14), more is probably implied than expressed. If brought suddenly to conviction of sin, admiration of her Deliverer, and a willingness to be admonished and guided by Him, this call to begin a new life may have carried with it what would ensure and naturally bring about a permanent change. (This whole narrative is wanting in some of the earliest and most valuable manuscripts, and those which have it vary to some extent. The internal evidence in its favor is almost overpowering. It is easy to account for its omission, though genuine; but if not so, it is next to impossible to account for its insertion).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["FURTHER DISCOURSES OF JESUS--ATTEMPT TO STONE HIM. (John 8:12-59)\n\nI am the light of the world--As the former references to water (Joh 4:13-14; Joh 7:37-39) and to bread (Joh 6:35) were occasioned by outward occurrences, so this one to light. In \"the treasury\" where it was spoken (see on Joh 8:20) stood two colossal golden lamp-stands, on which hung a multitude of lamps, lighted after the evening sacrifice (probably every evening during the feast of tabernacles), diffusing their brilliancy, it is said, over all the city. Around these the people danced with great rejoicing. Now, as amidst the festivities of the water from Siloam Jesus cried, saying, \"If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink,\" so now amidst the blaze and the joyousness of this illumination, He proclaims, \"I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD\"--plainly in the most absolute sense. For though He gives His disciples the same title, they are only \"light in the Lord\" (Eph 5:8); and though He calls the Baptist \"the burning and shining light\" (or \"lamp\" of his day, Joh 5:35), yet \"he was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light: that was THE TRUE LIGHT which, coming into the world, lighteth every man\" (Joh 1:8-9). Under this magnificent title Messiah was promised of old (Isa 42:6; Mal 4:2, &c.). \n\nhe that followeth me--as one does a light going before him, and as the Israelites did the pillar of bright cloud in the wilderness. \n\nbut shall have the light of life--the light, as of a new world, a newly awakened spiritual and eternal life.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true--How does He meet this specious cavil? Not by disputing the wholesome human maxim that \"self-praise is no praise,\" but by affirming that He was an exception to the rule, or rather, that it had no application to Him.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["for I know whence I came, and whither I go, &c.--(See on Joh 7:28).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":15,"content":["Ye judge after the flesh--with no spiritual apprehension. \n\nI judge no man.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["And yet if I judge, my judgment is true, &c.--Ye not only form your carnal and warped judgments of Me, but are bent on carrying them into effect; I, though I form and utter My judgment of you, am not here to carry this into execution--that is reserved to a future day; yet the judgment I now pronounce and the witness I now bear is not Mine only as ye suppose, but His also that sent Me. (See on Joh 5:31-32). And these are the two witnesses to any fact which your law requires.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["These words spake Jesus in the treasury--a division, so called, of the fore court of the temple, part of the court of the women [JOSEPHUS, Antiquities, 19.6.2, &c.], which may confirm the genuineness of Joh 8:2-11, as the place where the woman was brought. \n\nno man laid hands on him, &c.--(See on Joh 7:30). In the dialogue that follows, the conflict waxes sharper on both sides, till rising to its climax, they take up stones to stone him.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, &c.--(See on Joh 7:33).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["Then said the Jews, Will he kill himself?--seeing something more in His words than before (Joh 7:35), but their question more malignant and scornful.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["Ye are from beneath; I am from above--contrasting Himself, not as in Joh 3:31, simply with earthborn messengers of God, but with men sprung from and breathing an opposite element from His, which rendered it impossible that He and they should have any present fellowship, or dwell eternally together. (Again see on Joh 7:33; also see on Joh 8:44).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins--They knew well enough what He meant (Mar 13:6, Greek; compare Mat 24:5). But He would not, by speaking it out, give them the materials for a charge for which they were watching. At the same time, one is irresistibly reminded by such language, so far transcending what is becoming in men, of those ancient declarations of the God of Israel, \"I AM HE\" (Deu 32:39; Isa 43:10, Isa 43:13; Isa 46:4; Isa 48:12). See on Joh 6:20.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["Who art thou?--hoping thus to extort an explicit answer; but they are disappointed.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":26,"content":["I have many things to say and to judge of you; but he that sent me is true, &c.--that is, I could, and at the fitting time, will say and judge many things of you (referring perhaps to the work of the Spirit which is for judgment as well as salvation, Joh 16:8), but what I do say is just the message My Father hath given Me to deliver.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":28,"content":["When ye have lifted up the Son of man--The plainest intimation He had yet given in public of the manner and the authors of His death. \n\nthen shall ye know that I am he, &c.--that is, find out, or have sufficient evidence, how true was all He said, though they would be far from owning it.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":29,"content":["the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him, &c.--that is, To you, who gnash upon Me with your teeth, and frown down all open appearance for Me, I seem to stand uncountenanced and alone; but I have a sympathy and support transcending all human applause; I came hither to do My Father's will, and in the doing of it have not ceased to please Him; therefore is He ever by Me with His approving smile, His cheering words, His supporting arm.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":30,"content":["As he spake these words, many believed on him--Instead of wondering at this, the wonder would be if words of such unearthly, surpassing grandeur could be uttered without captivating some that heard them. And just as \"all that sat in the council\" to try Stephen \"saw his face\"--though expecting nothing but death--\"as it had been the face of an angel\" (Act 6:15), so may we suppose that, full of the sweet supporting sense of His Father's presence, amidst the rage and scorn of the rulers, a divine benignity beamed from His countenance, irradiated the words that fell from Him, and won over the candid \"many\" of His audience.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":31,"content":["Then said Jesus to those Jews who believed, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed, &c.--The impression produced by the last words of our Lord may have become visible by some decisive movement, and here He takes advantage of it to press on them \"continuance\" in the faith, since then only were they His real disciples (compare Joh 15:3-8), and then should they experimentally \"know the truth,\" and \"by the truth be made (spiritually) free.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":33,"content":["They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man, &c.--Who said this? Not surely the very class just spoken of as won over by His divine words, and exhorted to continue in them. Most interpreters seem to think so; but it is hard to ascribe such a petulant speech to the newly gained disciples, even in the lowest sense, much less persons so gained as they were. It came, probably, from persons mixed up with them in the same part of the crowd, but of a very different spirit. The pride of the Jewish nation, even now after centuries of humiliation, is the most striking feature of their character. \"Talk of freedom to us? Pray when or to whom were we ever in bondage?\" This bluster sounds almost ludicrous from such a nation. Had they forgotten their long and bitter bondage in Egypt? their dreary captivity in Babylon? their present bondage to the Roman yoke, and their restless eagerness to throw it off? But probably they saw that our Lord pointed to something else--freedom, perhaps, from the leaders of sects or parties--and were not willing to allow their subjection even to these. Our Lord, therefore, though He knew what slaves they were in this sense, drives the ploughshare somewhat deeper than this, to a bondage they little dreamt of.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":34,"content":["Whosoever committeth sin--that is, liveth in the commission of it--(Compare Jo1 3:8; Mat 7:23). \n\nis the servant of sin--that is, the bond-servant, or slave of it; for the question is not about free service, but who are in bondage. (Compare Pe2 2:19; Rev 6:16). The great truth here expressed was not unknown to heathen moralists; but it was applied only to vice, for they were total strangers to what in revealed religion is called sin. The thought of slaves and freemen in the house suggests to our Lord a wider idea.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":35,"content":["And the servant abideth not in the house for ever, but the Son abideth ever--that is, \"And if your connection with the family of God be that of BOND-SERVANTS, ye have no natural tie to the house; your tie is essentially uncertain and precarious. But the SON'S relationship to the FATHER is a natural and essential one; it is an indefeasible tie; His abode in it is perpetual and of right: That is My relationship, My tie: If, then, ye would have your connection with God's family made real, rightful, permanent, ye must by the Son be manumitted and adopted as sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty.\" In this sublime statement there is no doubt a subordinate allusion to Gen 21:10, \"Cast out this bondwoman and her son, for the son of this bond-woman shall not be heir with my son, with Isaac.\" (Compare Gal 4:22-30).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":37,"content":["ye seek to kill me--He had said this to their face before: He now repeats it, and they do not deny it; yet are they held back, as by some marvellous spell--it was the awe which His combined dignity, courage, and benignity struck into them. \n\nbecause my word hath no place in you--When did ever human prophet so speak of His words? They tell us of \"the word of the Lord\" coming to them. But here is One who holds up \"His word\" as that which ought to find entrance and abiding room for itself in the souls of all who hear it.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":38,"content":["my Father . . . your father--(See on Joh 8:23).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":39,"content":["If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do the works of Abraham--He had just said He \"knew they were Abraham's children,\" that is, according to the flesh; but the children of his faith and holiness they were not, but the reverse.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":40,"content":["this did not Abraham--In so doing ye act in direct opposition to him.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":41,"content":["We be not born of fornication . . . we have one Father, God--meaning, as is generally allowed, that they were not an illegitimate race in point of religion, pretending only to be God's people, but were descended from His own chosen Abraham.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":42,"content":["If God were your Father, ye would love me--\"If ye had anything of His moral image, as children have their father's likeness, ye would love Me, for I am immediately of Him and directly from Him.\" But \"My speech\" (meaning His peculiar style of expressing Himself on these subjects) is unintelligible to you because ye cannot take in the truth which it conveys.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":44,"content":["Ye are of your father the devil--\"This is one of the most decisive testimonies to the objective (outward) personality of the devil. It is quite impossible to suppose an accommodation to Jewish views, or a metaphorical form of speech, in so solemn an assertion as this\" [ALFORD]. \n\nthe lusts of your father--his impure, malignant, ungodly propensities, inclinations, desires. \n\nye will do--are willing to do; not of any blind necessity of nature, but of pure natural inclination. \n\nHe was a murderer from the beginning--The reference is not to Cain (as LOCKE, DE WETTE, ALFORD, &c.), but to Adam [GROTIUS, CALVIN, MEYER, LUTHARDT, &c.]. The death of the human race, in its widest sense, is ascribed to the murderous seducer of our race. \n\nand abode not in the truth--As, strictly speaking, the word means \"abideth,\" it has been denied that the fall of Satan from a former holy state is here expressed [LOCKE, &c.], and some superior interpreters think it only implied [OLSHAUSEN, &c.]. But though the form of the thought is present--not past--this is to express the important idea, that his whole character and activity are just a continual aberration from his own original truth or rectitude; and thus his fall is not only the implied basis of the thought, but part of the statement itself, properly interpreted and brought out. \n\nno truth in him--void of all that holy, transparent rectitude which, as His creature, he originally possessed. \n\nWhen he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own--perhaps his own resources, treasures (Mat 12:35) [ALFORD]. (The word is plural). It means that he has no temptation to it from without; it is purely self-begotten, springing from a nature which is nothing but obliquity. \n\nthe father of it--that is, of lying: all the falsehood in the world owes its existence to him. What a verse is this! It holds up the devil (1) as the murderer of the human race; but as this is meant here in the more profound sense of spiritual death, it holds him up, (2) as the spiritual parent of this fallen human family, communicating to his offspring his own evil passions and universal obliquity, and stimulating these into active exercise. But as there is \"a stronger than he,\" who comes upon him and overcomes him (Luk 11:21-22), it is only such as \"love the darkness,\" who are addressed as children of the devil (Mat 13:38; Jo1 3:8-10).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":45,"content":["And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not--not although, but just because He did so, for the reason given in the former verse. Had He been less true they would have hailed Him more readily.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":46,"content":["Which of you convinceth me of sin--\"Convicteth,\" bringeth home a charge of sin. Glorious dilemma! \"Convict Me of sin, and reject Me: If not, why stand ye out against My claims?\" Of course, they could only be supposed to impeach His life; but in One who had already passed through unparalleled complications, and had continually to deal with friends and foes of every sort and degree, such a challenge thrown wide among His bitterest enemies, can amount to nothing short of a claim to absolute sinlessness.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":48,"content":["Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?--What intense and virulent scorn! (See Heb 12:3). The \"say we not well\" refers to Joh 7:20. \"A Samaritan\" means more than \"no Israelite at all\"; it means one who pretended, but had no manner of claim to the title--retorting perhaps, this denial of their true descent from Abraham.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":49,"content":["Jesus answered, I have not a devil--What calm dignity is here! Verily, \"when reviled, He reviled not again\" (Pe1 2:23). Compare Paul (Act 26:25), \"I am not mad,\" &c. He adds not, \"Nor am I a Samaritan,\" that He might not even seem to partake of their contempt for a race that had already welcomed Him as the Christ, and began to be blessed by Him. \n\nI honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me--the language of wounded feeling. But the interior of His soul at such moments is only to be seen in such prophetic utterances as these, \"For thy sake I have borne reproach; shame hath covered my face; I am become a stranger unto my brethren, an alien unto my mother's children. For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up, and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me\" (Psa 69:7-9).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":50,"content":["I seek not mine own glory: there is one that seeketh--that is, evidently, \"that seeketh My glory\"; requiring \"all men to honor the Son even as they honor the Father\"; judicially treating him \"who honoreth not the Son as honoring not the Father that hath sent Him\" (Joh 5:23; and compare Mat 17:5); but giving to Him (Joh 6:37) such as will yet cast their crowns before His throne, in whom He \"shall see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied\" (Isa 53:11).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":51,"content":["If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death--Partly thus vindicating His lofty claims as Lord of the kingdom of life everlasting, and, at the same time, holding out even to His revilers the scepter of grace. The word \"keep\" is in harmony with Joh 8:31, \"If ye continue in My word,\" expressing the permanency, as a living and paramount principle, of that faith to which He referred: \"never see death,\" though virtually uttered before (Joh 5:24; Joh 6:40, Joh 6:47, Joh 6:51), is the strongest and most naked statement of a very glorious truth yet given. (In Joh 11:26 it is repeated in nearly identical terms).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":52,"content":["Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil, &c.--\"Thou art now self-convicted; only a demoniac could speak so; the most illustrious of our fathers are dead, and Thou promisest exemption from death to anyone who will keep Thy saying! pray, who art Thou?\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":54,"content":["If I honour myself, my honour is nothing, &c.--(See on Joh 5:31, &c.).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":55,"content":["I shall be a liar like unto you--now rising to the summit of holy, naked severity, thereby to draw this long dialogue to a head.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":56,"content":["Abraham rejoiced to see my day, &c.--exulted, or exceedingly rejoiced that he should see, he exulted to see it, that is, by anticipation. Nay, \n\nhe saw it, and was glad--he actually beheld it, to his joy. If this mean no more than that he had a prophetic foresight of the gospel-day--the second clause just repeating the first--how could the Jews understand our Lord to mean that He \"had seen Abraham?\" And if it mean that Abraham was then beholding, in his disembodied spirit, the incarnate Messiah [STIER, ALFORD, &c.], the words seem very unsuitable to express it. It expresses something past--\"he saw My day, and was glad,\" that is, surely while he lived. He seems to refer to the familiar intercourse which Abraham had with God, who is once and again in the history called \"the Angel of the Lord,\" and whom Christ here identifies with Himself. On those occasions, Abraham \"saw ME\" (OLSHAUSEN, though he thinks the reference is to some unrecorded scene). If this be the meaning, all that follows is quite natural.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":57,"content":["Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old--\"No inference can be drawn from this as to the age of our Lord at the time as man. Fifty years was with the Jews the completion of manhood\" [ALFORD]. \n\nand hast thou seen Abraham?--He had said Abraham saw Him, as being his peculiar privilege. They give the opposite turn to it--\"Hast Thou seen Abraham?\" as an honor too great for Him to pretend to.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":58,"content":["Before Abraham was, I am--The words rendered \"was\" and \"am\" are quite different. The one clause means, \"Abraham was brought into being\"; the other, \"I exist.\" The statement therefore is not that Christ came into existence before Abraham did (as Arians affirm is the meaning), but that He never came into being at all, but existed before Abraham had a being; in other words, existed before creation, or eternally (as Joh 1:1). In that sense the Jews plainly understood Him, since \"then took they up stones to cast at Him,\" just as they had before done when they saw that He made Himself equal with God (Joh 5:18). \n\nhid himself--(See on Luk 4:30).\n\n\n\n\nNext: John Chapter 9\n\n"]}],"introduction":"THE WOMAN TAKEN IN ADULTERY. (Joh 8:1-11)\n\nJesus went unto the Mount of Olives--This should have formed the last verse of the foregoing chapter. \"The return of the people to the inert quiet and security of their dwellings (Joh 7:53), at the close of the feast, is designedly contrasted with our Lord's homeless way, so to speak, of spending the short night, who is early in the morning on the scene again. One cannot well see why what is recorded in Luk 21:37-38 may not even thus early have taken place; it might have been the Lord's ordinary custom from the beginning to leave the brilliant misery of the city every night, that so He might compose His sorrowful and interceding heart, and collect His energies for new labors of love; preferring for His resting-place Bethany, and the Mount of Olives, the scene thus consecrated by many preparatory prayers for His final humiliation and exaltation\" [STIER].\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JHN/8.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JHN","chapter":8},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JHN/9.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JHN","chapter":9},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/JHN/7.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"JHN","chapter":7},"numberOfVerses":45}