John 8:28

Let not then, my brethren, His further words, "As my Father hath taught me, I speak these things," be the occasion of any carnal thought stealing into your minds. For human weakness cannot think, but as it is accustomed to act and to hear. Do not then set before your eyes as it were two men, one the father, the other the son, and the father speaking to the son; as any one of you may do, when you say something to your son, admonishing and instructing him how to speak, to charge his memory with what you have told him, and, having done so, to express it in words, to enunciate distinctly, and convey to the ears of others what he has apprehended with his own. Think not thus, lest you be fabricating idols in your heart. The human shape, the outlines of human limbs, the form of human flesh, the outward senses, stature and motions of the body, the functions of the tongue, the distinctions of sounds,-think not of such as existing in that Trinity, save as they pertain to the servant-form, which the only-begotten Son assumed, when the Word was made flesh to dwell among us. Thereof I forbid thee not, human weakness, to think according to thy knowledge: nay, rather I require thee. If the faith that is in thee be true, think of Christ as such; but as such of the Virgin Mary, not of God the Father. He was an infant, He grew as a man, He walked as a man, He hungered, He thirsted as a man, He slept as a man; at last He suffered as a man, hung on the tree, was slain and buried as a man. In the same form He rose again; in the same, before the eyes of His disciples, He ascended into heaven; in the same will He yet come to judgment. For angel lips have declared in the Gospel, "He shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven."

In accordance with which, Christ Himself says: "Then shall ye know that I am He and that I am saying nothing of my own self; but that, as my Father hath taught me, so I speak, because He that sent me is with me." This also amounts to a proof that they were Two, (although) undivided.

Since looking only (He says) to the flesh, ye believe that I am mere Man, and deem that I am one like yourselves, but the Dignity of the Godhead and the Glory from thence, do not so much as enter your mind:----a most evident token to you of My being God of Truly God and Light of Light, shall be your all-dread and most lawless deed of daring, the Cross that is and the Death of the Flesh thereupon. For when ye see the issue of your mad folly frustrate of its purpose and the snare of death crushed in pieces (for I shall surely rise from the dead): then shall ye even against your will and of necessity at length assent to what I said to you and shall confess that I am by Nature God. For I shall be superior to death and decay, I being by Nature Life shall raise again My Temple. But if to overmaster death and to triumph over the meshes of corruption belong to Him Who is by Nature God and to no other being, how shall I not (all contradiction and all doubt being removed) be shown thereby to overcome all things mightily and without trouble? therefore does the Saviour say that His Cross shall be a sign to the Jews and a most evident demonstration of His being by Nature God. And this you may see Him elsewhere too, clearly saying: for when many and unnumbered prodigies had been shown forth by Him, the Pharisees once came to Him tempting Him and saying, Master, we would see a sign from Thee. But He since He saw the imaginations which were going on in them, and was not ignorant that they were bitterly minded, says, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and a sign shall not be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas; for as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man too be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. […]

Christ spent long time dwelling with the Jews, and speaking in every synagogue, so to say, and addressing them every sabbath-day and, setting before them often and ungrudgingly profitable teaching, was continually inviting them to the illumination through the Spirit, and verily He saith, in that He is God by Nature and Very, I am the light of the world; but they thinking most foolishly were ever gainsaying Him who said these things, for (says he) THOU bearest record of Thyself, Thy record is not true. And not at contradictions in words did the daring of the Jews stay, nor only in love of reviling was their untamed audacity consummated, but going without stint through all savageness, they at last betrayed Him both to Cross and Death. But since He was by Nature Life, having burst the bonds of death, He arose from the dead and (as was reasonable) departs from Jewish defilement and hasted away from Israel and that with justice, and betaking Himself to the Gentiles, He invited all to the Light, and to the blind He freely bestowed recovery of sight. It befell then that after the Death on the Cross of our Saviour Christ, the understandings of the Jews were darkened, in that the Light had departed forth from them, and that the hearts of the Gentiles were enlightened, in that the Very Light beamed upon them. When then, He says, ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall ye know that I am, instead of, I will await the consummation of your impiety, I will not bring upon you wrath before its time, I will accept the Passion and Death, I will endure along with the rest this too. But when ye shall betray to the Cross the Son of Man deemed by you to be bare man, then shall ye know, even against your will, that not falsely have I said that I am the Light of the world. […]

Having with many and good words bathed the wrath of the Jews, He sees it not a whit the less swelling. For they cease not heedlessly blaspheming, yea at one time they set aside His Speech and impiously call Him a liar: for to say Thy record is not true, what else is it than this? at another time again, to Him out of love declaring the things that belong to salvation and on this account saying, If ye believe not that I am, ye shall die in your sins, they began hotly to oppose Him and arraying against those utterances of love their words of madness said, Who art THOU? For them therefore who thus unmitigatedly wallowed in unreasoning audacity there was need of a word that should sober them and persuade them to be more gently disposed and put a bridle on their tongue even against its will. Therefore was He threatening them telling them most clearly that they shall not escape punishment for their impiety, but even though they see Him for the present forbearing, yet when their impiety towards Him has gone forth to its dread consummation, I mean Death and the Cross, they shall undergo all-dread justice and shall receive in return intolerable lot, that of the war with the Romans, which after the Saviour's Cross befell them from the wrath above from God. And that they should suffer all-terrible things, the Saviour again signified more clearly to them saying, at one time to the weeping women, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for Me but weep for yourselves and for your children, at another again, When ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies, then shall ye say to the mountains, Cover us and to the hills, Fall on us. […]

Imitating the most excellent physicians, He lays bare the cause of their soul's infirmity and clearly opens what it was that hinders their going with resolution to understanding and faith towards Him. For since looking at the Flesh and its family, they were induced to think slightingly of Him and, having this vail over the eyes of their understanding, they would not know that He is God even though He is seen as Man, needs did He address them saying, When ye have lifted up the Son of Man then shall ye know that I am, i. e., when ye cease from your slight and grovelling conception of Me, when ye have some lofty and super-mundane thought of Me, and believe that I am God of God, even though for your sakes I am become Man as you, then shall ye know clearly that I am the Light of the world (for this I just now told you): for what would any longer hinder (He says) Him Who is wholly admitted to be Very God, from being also Light of the world? For not to so great depth of madness and daring will any go as then too to venture to say, Thy record is not true, for he will in no wise accuse what God by Nature and Very shall say. It is then most evident from the words too of the Saviour, that if we have a mean opinion of Him and consider Him to be bare Man and bereft of the Godhead by Nature, we shall surely both disbelieve Him and not admit Him as Saviour and Redeemer. And what is the result? we have fallen from our hope. For if salvation is through faith and faith be gone, what will yet save us? But if we believe and lift up to God-befitting height the Only-Begotten even though He hath become Man, advancing as with a fair wind and speeding across the all-troublous sea of life, we shall safe moor in the city that is above, there to receive the rewards of believing.

Here Jesus is saying, "Since you are looking only to the flesh, you believe that I am merely a man, and you suppose that I am just like you. But the dignity and the glory of the Godhead does not even enter your mind. However, you shall know that I am God of true God and Light of light through your dreadful and lawless act—my death on the cross. For when you see your mad foolishness come to nothing and the snare of death crushed in pieces—for I shall surely rise from the dead—ultimately you will be forced, even against your will, to agree with what I said, and you shall confess that I am God by nature.

Then when after working many signs, and teaching them, He drew them not to Himself, He next speaketh to them of the Cross, saying, "When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then ye shall know that I am, and that I speak not of Myself, and that He that sent Me is with Me. And the Father hath not left Me alone." He showeth that He rightly said, "the same that I said unto you from the beginning." So little heed they gave to His words. "When ye have lifted up the Son of Man." "Do ye not expect that ye then shall certainly rid yourselves of Me, and slay Me? But I tell you that then ye shall most know that I Am, by reason of the miracles, the resurrection, and the destruction (of Jerusalem)." For all these things were sufficient to manifest His power. He said not, "Then ye shall know who I am"; for, "when ye shall see," He saith, "that I suffer nothing from death, then ye shall know that I Am, that is, the Christ, the Son of God, who govern all things, and am not opposed to Him." For which cause He addeth, "and of Myself I speak nothing." For ye shall know both My power and My unanimity with the Father. Because the, "of Myself I speak nothing," showeth that His Substance differeth not (from that of the Father), and that He uttereth nothing save that which is in the mind of the Father. […]

This is the sign which before He had promised to give them when they asked it, saying, "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas;" meaning His cross, and His death, His burial, and His resurrection. And again, declaring in another way the virtue of the cross, He said, "When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then shall ye know that I am He." And what He saith is to this purport: "When ye have crucified me, and think ye have overcome me, then, above all, shall ye know my might." For after the crucifixion, the city was destroyed, and the Jewish state came to an end, they fell away from their polity and their freedom, the gospel flourished, the word was spread abroad to the ends of the world; both sea and land, both the inhabited earth and the desert perpetually proclaim its power.

We have spoken to you on the preceding passage, suggesting how the Father may be understood as True, and the Son as the Truth. But when the Lord Jesus said, "He that sent me is true," the Jews understood not that He spake to them of the Father. And He said to them, as you have just heard in the reading, "When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am, and that I do nothing of myself; but as the Father hath taught me, I speak these things." What means this? For it looks as if all He said was, that they would know who He was after His passion. Without doubt, therefore, He saw that some there, whom He Himself knew, whom with the rest of His saints He Himself in His foreknowledge had chosen before the foundation of the world, would believe after His passion. These are the very persons whom we are constantly commending, and with much entreaty setting forth for your imitation. For on the sending down of the Holy Spirit after the Lord's passion, and resurrection, and ascension, when miracles were being done in the name of Him whom, as if dead, the persecuting Jews had despised, they were pricked in their hearts; and they who in their rage slew Him were changed and believed; and they who in their rage shed His blood, now in the spirit of faith drank it; to wit, those three thousand, and those five thousand Jews whom now He saw there, when He said, "When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am [He]." It was as if He had said, I let your recognition lie over till I have completed my passion: in your own order ye shall know who I am.

Jesus performed many miracles, and yet did not attract the Jews to Himself. Now He speaks to them about the Cross. "You," He says, "think that when you crucify Me, you will be free from all concern and will be rid of Me. But I …

"Jesus therefore said to them: When you shall have lifted up the Son of man," namely on the cross: below in the twelfth chapter: "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all things to myself"; "then you will know that …

Here, for the first time, Christ foretells how they are to come to the faith, which is the remedy for death. He does two things: first: he shows what will lead them to the faith; and secondly, he teaches what must be believed about himself …

Then said Jesus unto them,....

When ye have lifted up - When ye have crucified me, and thus filled up the measure of your iniquities, ye shall know that I am the Christ, by the signs that shall follow; and ye shall know that what I spoke is true, by the judgments that shall follow. To be lifted up, is a common mode of expression, among the Jewish writers, for to die, or to be killed.

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. then 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.

This passage contains deep things, so deep that we have no line to fathom them. As we read it we should call to mind the Psalmist's words—"Your thoughts are very deep." (Psalm 92:5.) But it also contains, in the opening verses, some things which are clear, plain, and unmistakable. To these let us give our attention and root them firmly in our hearts. We learn, for one thing, that it is possible to seek Christ in vain. Our Lord says to the unbelieving Jews, "You shall seek Me, and shall die in your sins."

This passage contains deep things, so deep that we have no line to fathom them. As we read it we should call to mind the Psalmist's words—"Your thoughts are very deep." (Psalm 92:5.) But it also contains, in the opening verses, some things which are clear, plain, and unmistakable. To these let us give our attention and root them firmly in our hearts. We learn, for one thing, that it is possible to seek Christ in vain. Our Lord says to the unbelieving Jews, "You shall seek Me, and shall die in your sins." He meant, by these words, that the Jews would one day seek Him in vain. The lesson before us is a very painful one. That such a Savior as the Lord Jesus, so full of love, so willing to save, should ever be sought "in vain," is a sorrowful thought. Yet so it is! A man may have many religious feelings about Christ, without any saving religion. Sickness, sudden affliction, the fear of death, the failure of usual sources of comfort—all these causes may draw out of a man a good deal of "religiousness." Under the immediate pressure of these he may say his prayers fervently, exhibit a strong spiritual feelings, and profess for a season to "seek Christ," and be a different man. And yet all this time his heart may never be touched at all! Take away the peculiar circumstances that affected him, and he may possibly return at once to his old ways. He sought Christ "in vain," because he sought Him from false motives, and not with his whole heart. Unhappily this is not all. There is such a thing as a settled habit of resisting light and knowledge, until we seek Christ "in vain." Scripture and experience alike prove that men may reject God until God rejects them, and will not hear their prayer. They may go on stifling their convictions, quenching the light of conscience, fighting against their own better knowledge, until God is provoked to give them over and let them alone.

When ye have lifted up - When you have crucified. See Joh 3:14 note; also Joh 12:32 note. The Son of man - See the notes at Mat 8:19-20. Then shall ye know - Then shall you have evidence or proof. That I am he - Am the Messiah, which I have professed to be. And that I do nothing of myself - That is, you shall have proof that God has sent me; that I am the Messiah; and that God concurs with me and approves my doctrine. This proof was furnished by the miracles that attended the death of Jesus - the earthquake and darkness; but chiefly by his resurrection from the dead, which proved, beyond a doubt, that he was what he affirmed he was - the Messiah.