Jamieson, Fausset & Brown

Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see My day. He saw it and was glad.”

“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…”

Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and You have seen Abraham?”

“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].”

“Truly, truly, I tell you,” Jesus declared, “before Abraham was born, I am!”

“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…”

While it is daytime, we must do the works of Him who sent Me. Night is coming, when no one can work.

“I must work the works of him that sent me, &c.--a most interesting statement from the mouth of Christ; intimating, (1) that He had a precise work to do upon earth, with every particular of it arranged and laid out to Him; (2) that all…”

While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

“"As before the raising of Lazarus (Joh 11:25), He announces Himself as the Resurrection and the Life, so now He sets Himself forth as the source of the archetypal spiritual light, of which the natural, now about to be conferred, is only a derivation and…”

Then He told him, “Go, wash in the Pool of Siloam” (which means “Sent”). So the man went and washed, and came back seeing.

“Go, wash in the pool of Siloam, . . . Sent, &c.--(See 2Ki 5:10, 14). As the prescribed action was purely symbolical in its design, so in connection with it the Evangelist notices the symbolical name of the pool as in this case bearing testimony…”

The Jews still did not believe that the man had been blind and had received his sight until they summoned his parents and asked, “Is this your son, the one…

“They prevaricated, however, in saying they "knew not who had opened his eyes," for "they feared the Jews," who had come to an understanding (probably after what is recorded, Joh 7:50, &c.; but by this time well known), that whoever owned Him as the Christ…”

So a second time they called for the man who had been blind and said, “Give glory to God! We know that this man is a sinner.”

“Give God the praise; we know that this man is a sinner--not wishing him to own, even to the praise of God, that a miracle had been wrought upon him, but to show more regard to the honor of God than ascribe any such act…”

“That is remarkable indeed!” the man said. “You do not know where He is from, and yet He opened my eyes.

“So irresistible was his argument that their rage burst forth in a speech of intense Pharisaism, "Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us?"--thou, a base-born, uneducated, impudent youth, teach us, the trained, constituted, recognized guides of the people in the things…”

We know that God does not listen to sinners, but He does listen to the one who worships Him and does His will.

“Nor would it be strange if such thoughts should arise in the youth's own mind. But if they did, it is certain, from what follows, that they made no lodgment there, conscious as he was that "whereas he was blind, now he saw," and satisfied…”

“Who is He, Sir?” he replied. “Tell me so that I may believe in Him.”

“He answered and said, Who is he, Lord, that I may believe on him?--"His reply is affirmative, and believing by anticipation, promising faith as soon as Jesus shall say who He is" [STIER].”

“If you were blind,” Jesus replied, “you would not be guilty of sin. But since you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”

“If ye were blind--wanted light to discern My claims, and only waited to receive it. ye should have no sin--none of the guilt of shutting out the light.”

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life, and have it in all its fullness.

“I am come that they might have life, and . . . more abundantly--not merely to preserve but impart LIFE, and communicate it in rich and unfailing exuberance.”

just as the Father knows Me and I know the Father. And I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this fold.

“It is the riches and the poverty of "the Word made flesh"--one glorious Person reaching at once up to the Throne and down even to the dust of death, "that we might live through Him."”

No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of My own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.

“Here lay the glory of His sacrifice, that it was purely voluntary. The claim of "power to take it again" is no less important, as showing that His resurrection, though ascribed to the Father, in the sense we shall presently see, was nevertheless His own…”

Again there was division among the Jews because of Jesus’ message. Many of them said, “He is demon-possessed and insane. Why would you listen to Him?”

“There was a division . . . again among the Jews for these sayings--the light and the darkness revealing themselves with increasing clearness in the separation of the teachable from the obstinately prejudiced.”

and Jesus was walking in the temple courts in Solomon’s Colonnade.

“Jesus walked . . . in Solomon's porch--for shelter. This portico was on the east side of the temple, and JOSEPHUS says it was part of the original structure of Solomon [Antiquities, 20.9.7].”

I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them out of My hand.

“I give unto them eternal life--not "will give them"; for it is a present gift. It is a very grand utterance, couched in the language of majestic authority.”

My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all. No one can snatch them out of My Father’s hand.

“It is a general expression of an admitted truth, and what follows shows for what purpose it was uttered, "and none is able to pluck them out of My Father's hand."”

I and the Father are one.”

“I and my Father are one--Our language admits not of the precision of the original in this great saying. "Are" is in the masculine gender--"we (two persons) are"; while "one" is neuter--"one thing."”

But Jesus responded, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone Me?”

“This He says to meet the imputation of unwarrantable assumption of the divine prerogatives [LUTHARDT]. for which of those works do ye stone me?--"are ye stoning (that is, going to stone) me?"”

Jesus replied, “Is it not written in your Law: ‘I have said you are gods’?

“It is never said of Christ that "the word of the Lord came to Him"; whereas this is the well-known formula by which the divine commission, even to the highest of mere men, is expressed, as John the Baptist (Lu 3:2).”

(Mary, whose brother Lazarus was sick, was to anoint the Lord with perfume and wipe His feet with her hair.)

“She "anointed THE LORD," says the Evangelist--led doubtless to the use of this term here, as he was about to exhibit Him illustriously as the Lord of Life.”

When Jesus heard this, He said, “This sickness will not end in death.

“(See Greek.) Remarkable language this, which from creature lips would have been intolerable. It means that the glory of GOD manifested in the resurrection of dead Lazarus would be shown to be the glory, personally and immediately, of THE SON.”

Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.

“No wonder that those miserable skeptics who have carped at the ethical system of the Gospel, as not embracing private friendships in the list of its virtues, have been referred to the Saviour's peculiar regard for this family as a triumphant refutation, if such were…”