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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of John 5:30

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I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.

30. The Son’s qualification for these high powers is the perfect harmony between His will and that of the Father.

I can of mine own self ] Change to the first person. He identifies Himself with the Son. It is because He is the Son that He cannot act independently: it is impossible for Him to will to do anything but what the Father wills.

as I hear ] From the Father: Christ’s judgment is the declaration of that which the Father communicates to Him. And hence Christ’s judgment must be just, for it is in accordance with the Divine Will; and this is the strongest possible guarantee of its justice. Comp. Mat 26:39.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Of mine own self – See Joh 5:19. The Messiah, the Mediator, does nothing without the concurrence and the authority of God. Such is the nature of the union subsisting between them, that he does nothing independently of God. Whatever he does, he does according to the will of God.

As I hear I judge – To hear expresses the condition of one who is commissioned or instructed. Thus Joh 8:26, I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him; Joh 8:28, As the Father hath taught me, I speak those things. Jesus here represents himself as commissioned, taught, or sent of God. When he says, as I hear, he refers to those things which the Father had showed him Joh 5:20 – that is, he came to communicate the will of God; to show to man what God wished man to know.

I judge – I determine or decide. This was true respecting the institutions and doctrines of religion, and it will be true respecting the sentence which he will pass on mankind at the day of judgment. He will decide their destiny according to what the Father wills and wishes – that is, according to justice.

Because I seek … – This does not imply that his own judgment would be wrong if he sought his own will, but that he had no private ends, no selfish views, no improper bias. He came not to aggrandize himself, or to promote his own views, but he came to do the will of God. Of course his decision would be impartial and unbiased, and there is every security that it will be according to truth. See Luk 22:42, where he gave a memorable instance, in the agony of the garden, of his submission to his Fathers will.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Joh 5:30

I can of My own self do nothing; as I hear I judge

Christs present judgment

This verse is a conclusion of this part of Christs apology for His curing of the man, and commanding him to carry his bed on the Sabbath day, and for His asserting His unity and equality with the Fathel; wherein, from the former purpose, be sums up these conclusions:

That He is inseparable from the Father in operation (Joh 5:19), having no private power of His own (as they conceived of Him as a mere man); but the same in essence, power, and operation with Him.

2. That He is in all the Fathers counsels, and hath the power of administration of all things communicate to Him from the Father, which is pointed out under the name of hearing, as it is Joh 5:19, by seeing, to hold forth the spirituality of the way of communicating, and His infinite comprehension of all that is communicate, as hearing and seeing all.

3. That His government and administration is most just, as seeking no satisfaction to any will of His own, contrary to, or diverse from the Fathers, as He is God; and that He doth this not only as God simply, but as God now incarnate also, being the same still With the Father, and acting in all things according to the will of God. And though as man, He have a will distinct from His will as God, and so diverse from the Fathers will, yet that did act in subordination to the will of God (Mat 26:39).

Whence learn:

1. The divinity of Christ is a truth that may no ways be quarrelled with, and doth call for our second and serious thoughts; therefore doth He recapitulate His apology, that this truth may be inculcate.

2. Such is the strict conjunction and perfect unity of the Father and the Son, that the Son neither doth, nor can do anything without the fellowship of the Father; so that in all His working the Father is to be seen and taken up; for I can of Mine own self do nothing, saith He.

3. Christ, in the administration of all things, and executing of His purposes in this life, and at the day of judgment, is upon the Fathers counsel, acting from Him, and all Christs administrations are upon counsel and conclusion taken betwixt the Father and the Son, for, saith he, As I hear, I judge.

4. Christs administrations and sentences are all just and right, doing injury and violence to no man, nor ought they to be stumbled at by any, for, My judgment is just, saith He.

5. The reason of the justice of Christs judgment is because it is agreeable to the will of the Father, with whom He is one, and whose will is the rule of justice, as being supreme and absolute Lord; which will Christ, being incarnate and God-man, did conform Himself unto in all things, for, My judgment is just, because I seek not Mine own will (nor have any will, contrary to, or diverse from His, as hath been explained), but the will of the Father, which hath sent Me. (G. Hutcheson.)

Christs present judgment

Note

1. There is a moral difference in the judgment of men concerning Divine truth.

2. Diversity of judgment is dependent on moral condition.

3. Moral condition is resolvable into one of two great principles of action–self-seeking or God-seeking.

4. Adoption of the Divine will is the essential condition of just judgments.

Their principles

1. Explain the perversion of the Bible by its avowed disciples.

2. Indicate the method in which the gospel should be preached.

3. Supply a test of fitness for the work of the gospel ministry.

4. Show the necessity of Divine influence. (W. H. Van Doren, D. D.)

The unclouded heart

1. For the training of goodness, the ancient reliance was on the right discipline of habit and affection: the modern is rather on the illumination of the understanding. Vice is made a blunder of intellect, and, like optical delusions, to be cured by the most approved instruments for seeing.

2. This prescription is attractive from its apparent simplicity. It seems to take away all mystery from the moral emotions. But its value disappears the moment we use is, as, say, the miser, the cheat, the insane candidate for glory. When has it ever made such generous, just, and meek. It is true that you have only to give the slave of passion a different view of the objects of his desire and he is set free. It is equally true that you have only to make the paralytic run and he will be well.

3. Christ, reversing the order of the explanation, placed the truth in a juster point of view. He knew that if sometimes because the reason is darkened the passions are awake, it more often happens that because the passions are awake the reason is darkened. Pure sympathies make a clear intellect. When auditors, feeling that, never man spake like this man, asked, how knowest this man letters? etc., He said, My judgment is just because I seek not Mine own will, etc.; and He instructed others how to gain a like discernment: If any man do His will, etc. Whatever be the word on which the judgment may be engaged, it will be invariably ordered by the sympathies of a just, disinterested, and holy mind.

4. Even in His abstruser toils, these are the wise mans mightiest power. The most turbid clouds which darken reason are those which interest, fear, and ambition spread, and these the pure affections sweep away. How often will a child penetrate the centre of some great truth. A pure-hearted man will be a right-minded man.

5. All the great hindrances to impartiality in the quest of truth have their seat in some class of selfish feelings. The excessive eagerness about reputation produces a thousand pitiable distortions of understanding. In one it takes the shape of a determination to be original and so extinguishes his perception of all ancient excellence, in another it passes into the pride of being moderate and sound, and so he dreads eccentricities far more than falsehoods. And what is partizanship but a collection of selfish feelings, fatal to all the equities of reason.

6. But the mere absence of selfishness is not the only condition for a just judgment. Inpartiality will accomplish nothing without impulse. Clearness of intellectual view will be found not-in one who follows the light without the deep love of it, but in Him who seeks the will of One who sent Him, and who trusts it with a love that casteth out fear!

I. ON QUESTIONS OF PRACTICAL MORALS this principle holds good. The moral habits and tastes of men form their opinions much more frequently than their opinions form their habits, so that their theoretical sentiments are little more than a systematic defence after the act. Any moral practice may be recommended; yet how many things we palliate would be condemned by the very act of expounding them to others–duelling, e.g. It is fearful to reflect how the moral sentiments are modified by the atmosphere of social influence; how the indications of the unperverted conscience may become obscured or lost, and the possibility of remorse killed out.

II. IN ITS JUDGMENT OF HUMAN CHARACTER the same principle rules. The pure affections still the confusion of the senses and remove all motive for not seeing men and life exactly as they are. One who looks on the world as his appointed post of strenuous duty and feels on him the Divine charge to leave it better than he found it must close neither eye nor heart against its ills; and as for its charities and virtues, delighting in them all, he discerns them all; bringing as they do the refreshment of a generous veneration what temptation has he to doubt or decry them. To the selfish, on the other hand, men are tools and have to be flattered into service, and accustomed to speak of good qualities which they do not possess, the mind dwells to such an extent on the negation of excellence that it ceases to believe in it, and thus the nobler half of human nature undergoes permanent eclipse.

III. Those who seek their own will, are liable to error respecting those CHANGES IN SOCIETY which are brought about by the nobler forces of the human will. It is happy for the world that over the vision of its greatest enemies, their own selfishness spreads a film concealing the powers which will effect their over-throw. In spite of all the pampered despots vigilance, conspiracy, conducted by lean and praying patriots, has gone on unnoticed before his very eyes, and suddenly the tempest bursts. It is of the very nature of guilty power to be surprised by the apparition of high-minded virtue in a people. Conclusion:

1. Selfishness under the form of jealousy draws another cloud over the judgment and hides from it all that is fairest in kindred minds.

2. But our judgments will not be right unless our sympathies be not only disinterested but pure. In addition to not seeking our own will, we must seek Gods. The partialities of the affections are nobler every way than those of self-love; but they are partialities still; and while they make our judgments merciful, may prevent their being just. (J. Martineau, D. D.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 30. I can of mine own self do nothing] Because of my intimate union with God. See Clarke on Joh 5:19.

I seek not mine own will] I do not, I cannot attempt to do any thing without God. This, that is, the Son of man, the human nature which is the temple of my Divinity, Joh 1:14, is perfectly subject to the Deity that dwells in it. In this respect our blessed Lord is the perfect pattern of all his followers. In every thing their wills should submit to the will of their heavenly Father. Nothing is more common than to hear people say, I will do it because I choose. He who has no better reason to give for his conduct than his own will shall in the end have the same reason to give for his eternal destruction. “I followed my own will, in opposition to the will of God, and now I am plunged in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone.”

Reader, God hath sent thee also to do his will: his will is that thou shouldst abandon thy sins, and believe in the Lord Jesus. Hast thou yet done it?

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

I can of mine own self do nothing; neither considered as God, nor as Mediator. As God, the Father and Christ were one, and what one Person in the Holy Trinity doth, all do; so that has did nothing in that capacity separately from his Father. As Mediator, he did nothing of himself; he finished the work which his Father gave him to do.

As I hear, I judge; and my judgement is just; as the Father revealed his will to him, for the administration of his mediatory kingdom in the world, so he judged; and therefore his judgment must necessarily be just and true.

Because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me; for his will was not a will proper to himself, so as it was not also common to his Father, but diverse from the will of his Father; but as his essence, so his will, was the same with his Father; and he being by the Father sent into the world to do his will, accordingly did nothing as Mediator but what was his Fathers will as well as his own, in nothing diverse from his Fathers.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

30-32. of mine own self donothingthat is, apart from the Father, or in any interest thanMy own. (See on Joh 5:19).

as I hearthat is, “Myjudgments are all anticipated in the bosom of My Father, towhich I have immediate access, and by Me only responded to andreflected. They cannot therefore err, as I live for one endonly, to carry into effect the will of Him that sent Me.”

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

I can of mine own self do nothing,…. This is the conclusion of the matter, the winding up of the several arguments concerning the Son’s equality to the Father, and the application of the whole to Christ. He had before been chiefly speaking of the Son, in relation to the Father, as if he was a third person; but now he applies what he had said of the Son to himself: and it is as if he had said, I am the Son that can do nothing separate from the Father, and contrary to his will, but do all things in conjunction with him; who sees all that he does, by being in him, and co-operating with him, and do the selfsame. I am the Son to whom the Father shows, and by whom he does, all he does; and to whom he will show, and by whom he will do, as a co-efficient with him, greater works than what, as yet, he has done: I am the Son that quickens whom he pleases, and to whom all judgment is committed, and have the same honour the Father has: I am he that quickens dead sinners now, and will raise all the dead at the last day; and have authority to execute judgment on all mankind: and,

as I hear, I judge; not as he hears men, or, according to the evidence men will give one of another; for it is denied of him, that he will proceed in judgment in this manner, Isa 11:3, but as he hears his Father; for being in his bosom, and one with him, as he sees, and knows all he does, his whole plan of operations, and acts according to them; so he hears, knows, and is perfectly acquainted with all his counsels, purposes, and rules of judgment, and never deviates from them. Hearing here signifies perfect knowledge, and understanding of a cause; and so it is used in the Jewish writings, in matters of difficulty, that come before a court of judicature h:

“there were three courts of judicature; one that sat at the gate of the mountain of the house; and one that sat at the gate of the court; and another that sat in the paved chamber: they go (first) to that which is at the gate of the mountain of the house, and say, so have I expounded, and so have the companions expounded; so have I taught, and so have the companions (or colleagues) taught:

, “if they hear”, they say; (i.e. as one of their commentators explains it i, if they know the law, and hear, or understand the sense of the law; in such a case they declare what they know;) if not, they go to them that are at the gate of the court, and say (as before).–And, “if they hear”, they tell them; but if not, they go to the great sanhedrim in the paved chamber, from whence goes forth the law to all Israel.”

Christ was now before the great sanhedrim, and speaks to them in their own language, and as a superior judge to them:

and my judgment is just; in the administration of the affairs of his church, which are done in the strictest justice; just and true are all his ways, as King of saints; and in the execution of the last judgment, which will be in righteousness and truth; the judgment he passes must be right, since it is according to that perfect knowledge he has of his Father’s will, which is an infallible rule of judgment:

because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me; that is, he did not seek to gratify his own will, as distinct from his Father’s, or in opposition to it; for he had no private end to answer, or separate interest, or advantage to pursue; and seeing therefore he acted according to his Father’s will, and not his own, as contrary to that; his judgment must be just, and the sentence he passes right; since the will of God is indisputably such. The Vulgate Latin, and all the Oriental versions, the Alexandrian copy, and two of Beza’s copies, leave out the word “father”, without altering or hurting the sense at all.

h Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 10. sect. 2. i Maimon. in ib.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

I (). The discourse returns to the first person after using “the Son” since verse 19. Here Jesus repeats in the first person (as in 8:28) the statement made in verse 19 about the Son. In John is used by Jesus 16 times and not at all by Jesus in the Synoptics. It occurs in the Synoptics only in Matt 8:8; Luke 7:7.

Righteous (). As all judgements should be. The reason is plain (, because), the guiding principle with the Son being the will of the Father who sent him and made him Judge. Judges often have difficulty in knowing what is law and what is right, but the Son’s task as Judge is simple enough, the will of the Father which he knows (verse 20).

Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament

Of the Father. Omit. Rev., of Him that sent.

Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament

1) “I can of mine own self do nothing:” (ou dunamai ego poiein ap’ hemautou ouden) ”I am not able to do one thing, or anything of or from myself,” on my own, isolated or alone from the will and purpose of the Father ‘ He came as an executor of the Father’s will, See? Joh 5:19; Psa 40:7, Heb 10:7.

2) “As I hear I judge: (hathos akouo krino) “Even as I hear I judge,” just as I hear or heed my Father, in doing what He has committed to me, I judge. He is only an agent or emissary of the Father, carrying out the will of the Father, doing always those “things that please Him,” Joh 8:29.

3) “And my judgement is just; (kai he krisis he eme dikaia estin) “And my judgement is just, righteous, fair, or equitable,” as I do what my righteous and just Father directs me to do, or sanctions what I do, Joh 3:35.

4) “Because I seek not mine own will,” (hoti ou zeto to thelema to emon) “Because I seek not (to administer) my will,” by my own independent will, desire, or impulse, as I would if I were a carnal, selfish, sinful man, Psa 40:8; Mat 26:39.

5) ”But the will of the Father which hath sent me.“(alla to thelema tou pempsantos me) “But the specific will of the one who has sent me,” based upon His will, His Word, His law as a basis of all acts and judgement decisions of adjudications, Joh 4:34; Joh 6:39.

Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

30. I can do nothing of myself. It would be superfluous here to enter into abstruse reasonings, whether the Son of God can do any thing of himself or otherwise, so far as relates to his eternal Divinity; for he did not intend to keep our minds employed about such trifles. Consequently there was no reason why the ancients should have given themselves so much anxiety and distress about refuting the calumny of Arius. That scoundrel gave out that the Son is not equal to the Father because he can do nothing of himself The holy men reply, that the Son justly claims for himself all that can be ascribed to the Father, from whom he takes his commencement, with respect to his person. But, in the first place, Christ does not speak of his Divinity simply, but warns us that, so far as he is clothed with our flesh, we ought not to judge of him from the outward appearance, because he has something higher than man. Again, we ought to consider with whom he has to deal. His intention was, to refute the Jews who were endeavoring to contrast him with God. He therefore affirms that he does nothing by human power, because he has for his guide and director God who dwells in him.

We ought always to keep in remembrance that, whenever Christ speaks concerning himself, he claims only that which belongs to man; for he keeps his eye upon the Jews, who erroneously said that he was merely one of the ordinary rank of men. For the same reason, he ascribes to the Father whatever is higher than man. The word judge belongs properly to doctrine, but is intended also to apply to the whole of his administration, as if he had said, that he acts by the Father’s direction in all things, that the Father’s will is his rule, and therefore that He will defend him against all adversaries. (105)

And my judgment is just. He concludes that his actions and sayings are beyond the risk of blame, because he does not allow himself to attempt anything but by the command and direction of the Father; for it ought to be regarded as beyond all controversy that whatever proceeds from God must be right. This modesty ought to be held by us as the first maxim of piety, to entertain such reverence for the word and works of God, that the name of God would alone be sufficient to prove their justice and rectitude; but how few are to be found who are ready to acknowledge that God is just, unless they are compelled to do so! I acknowledge, indeed, that God demonstrates his righteousness by experience; but to limit it to the perception of our flesh, so as to have no opinion respecting it but what our own mind suggests, is wicked and daring impiety. Let us, therefore, set it down as certain and undoubted, that whatever is from God is right and true, and that it is impossible for God not to be true in all his words, just and right in all his actions. We are likewise reminded that the only rule for acting well is, to undertake nothing but by the direction and commandment of God. And if after this the whole world should rise against us, we shall still have this invincible defense, that he who follows God cannot go astray.

Because I seek not my own will. He does not here make his own will and that of his Father to clash with each other, as if they were contrary things, but only refutes the false opinion which they entertained, that he was impelled by human presumption rather than guided by the authority of God. He affirms, therefore, that he has no disposition which is peculiar to himself and separate from the command of the Father.

(105) “ Il sera son protecteur et garent contre tous adversaires.”

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

JESUS OWN WITNESS

Text 5:30-32

I can of myself do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is righteous; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.

If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true.

It is another that beareth witness of me; and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true.

Queries

What makes Jesus judgment righteous?

Why would Jesus witness of Himself not be true?

Paraphrase

I am not able to act strictly from My Own will, but as I hear directly from the Father, so I decide and act, because I have no desire to please Myself; My only aim is to act according to the will of the Father Who sent Me. So if I testify to Myself and My Own glory, apart from the Father, then My testimony is untrue. There is Another Who is testifying concerning Me, and I know that His testimony is true.

Summary

Jesus and the Father are absolutely One, and thus Jesus judgment is righteous. He is therefore bound to testify to His own deity, or be untrue.

Comment

Jesus, in Joh. 5:30, re-states the fact of His oneness with the Father, as He had previously declared it in Joh. 5:19. The reason His judgment is righteous (just, infallible, perfect) is that He sees what the Father does, and the Father shows Him all things. As Wescott points out, Jesus judgment is absolutely just because He has no regard for His own will in any judgment, but He abides altogether within the will of the Father. Human judges often do not know how to judge justly. They may at times seek their own will or let their emotions rule instead of that which is just and right. Not so with the Son. He is omniscient.

There are a number of interpretations for Joh. 5:31 : (a) The sentence should be interrogatively punctuated . . . If I bear witness concerning Myself, My witness is not true? (b) If I should testify to My Own deity without other witnesses, My testimony would not be according to Mosaic law, therefore, I adduce the following witnesses . . . (the Father, John the Baptist, the Scriptures, etc.), (c) If I bear witness to Myself, My witness is not true in your estimation.

It is more in harmony with the context, however, to assume that Jesus is making another claim to Oneness with the Fatherin a negative sense . . . If I should testify to Myself as doing these works independently of God I would be a liar, for I can of Myself do nothing, etc. . . . The Jews had given indication that they expected Him to disclaim any equality with God (cf. Joh. 5:17-18), but this He could not do and remain true!

Joh. 5:31; Joh. 8:14 have been ridiculed for years by unthinking critics as contradictions in the Bible. The critics, as usual, take Jesus words out of context and interpret them, having already decided beforehand what He says. A careful study of the two passages in their respective contexts will show that on both occasions He affirmed exactly the same thing from opposite angles.

Joh. 5:31

My witness is untrue if given independently of God.

Joh. 8:14

My witness to Myself is true because I and the
Father are One in knowledge and will.

In Joh. 5:32 Jesus is expressing His confidence in the witness of Another, This other One is even His Father, God. Jesus briefly introduces the Father as His witness here, and later (Joh. 5:36-37) elucidates. Jesus will rest His case upon the testimony of the Father, which the Father is continuing to witness through signs and wonders. When the Father bears witness to Jesus deity, there can be no questionone can only accept the testimony, or reject it and judge oneself.

Quiz

Why is Jesus judgment absolutely just?

How should Joh. 5:31 be interpreted?

Does Joh. 5:31 contradict Joh. 8:14? Explain.

What is the significance of Joh. 5:32?

Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(30) For the will of the Father which hath sent Me, in the last clause, read, with nearly all the best MSS., the will of Him that sent Me. (Comp. Joh. 5:36-37.)

The verse is the expression, once again, but now with special reference to judgment, of the thought with which the discourse opened, and which runs as a current through the whole. (Comp. Notes on Joh. 5:19; Joh. 5:22). As in all His works (Joh. 5:19), so in the greater works of life-giving (Joh. 5:26) and of judgment, the Son cannot act apart from the Father. The judgment must be just, because it is not one of an isolated will, but one in accord with the eternal will of God. He seeth the Fathers works (Joh. 5:19), and in like manner doeth them; He heareth the Fathers will, and that alone He seeketh.

The tenses in this verse are present, and the judgment is therefore to be interpreted without limitation of time. It is one which He is evermore passing on every act and word and thought. (Comp. Joh. 9:39.)

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

30. Of mine own self Either as Son of God or Son of man he received the sustentation of the Father, and hence his action was sustained by omnipotent authority.

Judgment is just Even though human, the work of a man, that judgment has no human fallibility or wrong.

Seek not mine own will At his temptation Satan would have seduced him to seek his own will. But, in the freedom of his own will, he chose to lose his own will in the will of his Father; and thenceforth forever does his finite will, freely and with all the force of its energies, enter into and cooperate with the will of his Father.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

As The Son Jesus Works Totally in Accord with the Father’s Will ( Joh 5:30 ).

Jesus now emphasises that He works and judges totally in line with His Father. He does nothing on the basis simply of His own will. He aligns His will with the will of the Father.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

“I can of myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is righteous because I do not seek my own will but the will of him who sent me”.

Having asserted the supreme authority and power He has received from the Father, Jesus now assured His hearers that this did not mean that He was acting on His own. While all judgment has been committed to Him He does not seek His own will, for He and the Father work in unison, and indeed anything else is not possible. By His very nature He cannot act on His own. The unity of the Godhead is too close. There is, as it were, a divine exchange, and as He judges He is always aware of what the Father says and has in mind the Father’s will. Thus His judgment is just because it is the judgment of God.

Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

30 I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.

Ver. 30. I can of mine own self do nothing ] But by the power communicated unto me, in that eternal generation.

As I hear ] SoJoh 5:19Joh 5:19 ; “as I see,” which Beza understandeth to be spoken in respect of his human nature, as it is hypostatically united to the Divine.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

30. ] Here begins (see Stier, iv. 195, edn. 2) the second part of the discourse , but bound on most closely to the first ( Joh 5:23 ), treating of the testimony by which these things were substantiated, and which they ought to have received . This verse is, however, perhaps rather a point of transition to the next, at which the testimony is first introduced.

As the Son does nothing of Himself, but His working and His judgment all spring from His deep unity of will and being with the Father, this His great and last judgment, and all His other ones, will be just and holy (He being not separate from God, but one with Him); and therefore His witness given of Himself Joh 5:17 , and called by them blasphemy, is true and holy also.

Observe, the discourse here passes into the first person , which was understood before, because he had called himself the Son of God, but is henceforth used expressly .

Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament

Joh 5:30 . This judgment claimed by Jesus is, however, engaged in, not in any spirit of self-exaltation or human arbitrariness, nor can it err, because it is merely as the executor of the Father’s will He judges. . The first statement of the verse is a return upon Joh 5:19 , “The Son can do nothing of Himself”; but now it is specially applied to the work of judgment. . As He said of His giving life, that He was merely the Agent of God, doing what He saw the Father do: so now He speaks what He hears from the Father. His judgment He knows to be just, because He is conscious that He has no personal bias, but seeks only to carry out the will of the Father. In Joh 5:31-40 Jesus substantiates these great claims which He has made in the foregoing verses. He refers to the borne by John the Baptist, by the works given Him by the Father, and by the Father in Scripture.

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Joh 5:30

30I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.

Joh 5:30 Jesus, the incarnated Logos of God was subject to and submissive to the Father. This strong emphasis on submission also appears in Joh 5:19 (“the Son can do nothing”). This does not imply the Son is inferior, but that the Trinity has delegated the redemptive tasks among the three distinct persons, Father, Son, and Spirit.

Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

will. Greek. thelema. App-102.

the Father. All the texts read “Him”.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

30.] Here begins (see Stier, iv. 195, edn. 2) the second part of the discourse,-but bound on most closely to the first (Joh 5:23),-treating of the testimony by which these things were substantiated, and which they ought to have received. This verse is, however, perhaps rather a point of transition to the next, at which the testimony is first introduced.

As the Son does nothing of Himself,-but His working and His judgment all spring from His deep unity of will and being with the Father,-this His great and last judgment, and all His other ones, will be just and holy (He being not separate from God, but one with Him); and therefore His witness given of Himself Joh 5:17, and called by them blasphemy, is true and holy also.

Observe, the discourse here passes into the first person, which was understood before, because he had called himself the Son of God,-but is henceforth used expressly.

Fuente: The Greek Testament

Joh 5:30. , do) Understand, and judge.- , as I hear) from the Father. Comp. Joh 5:19, The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do: seeth: [ch Joh 16:13, The Spirit of truth shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak.]-, I judge) Understand, and do.- , but the will) which is a just will.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

Joh 5:30

I can of myself do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is righteous; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.-While to Jesus had been committed the work of judging the world, he is careful that all should understand that he and his Father are one because he sought to enforce no will of his own; but his Fathers will and in doing this the Father was with him.

Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

Jesus Works His Sufficient Witness

Joh 5:30-38

The one desire and purpose of our Lord was to do Gods will. We cannot penetrate the mystery of His ineffable being, but clearly, so far as His human nature was concerned, he had a will which could be denied and subordinated to the Fathers. See Joh 5:30; Joh 6:38; Luk 22:42. It meant shame, a breaking heart, a soul exceeding sorrowful, the cry of the forsaken, but he never swerved. He clung to it as to a hand rail down the steep dark staircase that led to Calvary. Let us live according to Gods will. It feeds the spirit, Joh 4:34. It clears the judgment, Joh 5:30. It gives rest and tranquility to the heart, Mat 11:29. It is the key of certain and assured knowledge, Joh 7:17. It introduces us into a great circle of others, who in the past and present, in heaven and on earth, are living with the same purpose. Our Lord cites as allies John the Baptist, Joh 5:6; the Scriptures, Joh 5:39; and Moses, Joh 5:45. Choose this life policy! There is no other way! Remember that Gods will is goodwill, and that His love is endless and changeless.

Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me. If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true. There is another that beareth witness of me; and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true. Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness unto the truth. But I receive not testimony from man: but these things I say, that ye might be saved. He was a burning and a shining light: and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light. But I have greater witness than that of John: for the works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me. And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape. And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not. Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life. I receive not honour from men. But I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you. I am come in my Fathers name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive. How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust. For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?

This is a very interesting section, in which we have five distinct witnesses to the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ is the Sent One of the Father, who came into the world that through Him we might have life and have it in abundance, and that He might be the propitiation for our sins. He speaks to us as Man in the days of His humiliation here on earth. In verse 30 He says, I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me. In this we see the Lord Jesus Christ taking the very opposite place to that which was aspired to by Lucifer of old. People often ask the question, Why did God create a Devil? He did not create a Devil. He created Lucifer, an archangel, but his heart was lifted up because of his beauty. Five times he set his will against God, saying, I will. I will be like the most High. I will ascend unto the throne of God. That was his ruin. Because of asserting his own will, Lucifer, the archangel, became the Devil, or Satan.

Here, in contrast to this, we have One who was in the form of God from all eternity, and yet in grace renounced the glory that He had before the world was. As the lowly Man here on earth, He refused to put forth His own power but undertook to do all His works in the energy of the Holy Spirit. He said, I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just. Why? Because His judgment was the judgment of God Himself. He did everything as under the authority of God, His Father. He alone of all men who have lived in this scene could always say, I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.

The measure in which you and I as Christians imitate our Lord in this will be the measure in which we too shall glorify God down here. We imagine sometimes that the greatest happiness we can have is to take our own way, but that is a mistake. The happiest man or woman on earth is the one who makes the will of God supreme. Jesus had no will of His own. His one desire was to do His Fathers will, for which He had been sent into the world.

Having given this declaration, He goes on to say, If I bear witness of myself, my witness is not true (v. 31). What does He mean? He has just declared that the Father had given everything into His hand. He has told us that some day His voice is going to cause the dead to come forth from the graves. He has declared that He is the One sent from the Father and now He says, If I bear witness of myself [the very thing He has been doing], my witness is not true. What does He mean by that? He means that if He alone bears witness of Himself, that testimony is not valid. We read elsewhere that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established (Mat 18:16; see also 2Co 13:1). If anyone came bearing witness on his own behalf and speaking for himself and there were no others to accredit him, his witness would be ruled out of court and, therefore, would not be valid. He says, Now if you have to depend only upon what I say, I recognize that that would not be valid as a testimony. Then He adds, But I have other witnesses to corroborate what I have been telling you. He brings four additional witnesses that give absolutely clear testimonies to the fact that He is indeed the Sent One of the Father, and all these in addition to His own declaration. He is the first witness.

The second is John the Baptist. Now it was a singular thing that the great majority looked upon John the Baptist as a prophet. The leaders in Israel refused to accept his testimony because it condemned them, but the multitude of the people believed him to be sent of God. And so the Lord Jesus says, If you will not receive My testimony unaccredited by another, then I will summon another witness into court. So He brings in the testimony of John. There is another that beareth witness of me; and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true (Joh 5:32). Here is now a second testimony, and, therefore, two witnesses can be received in court. I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true. Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness unto the truth (vv. 32b-33). To what truth? The same truth that the Lord Himself declared. He presented Jesus and said, He that is preferred before mewas before me. And John the Baptist on another occasion pointed Him out and said, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world (Joh 1:29). He bore witness to the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ was the appointed sacrifice who was to give Himself for our sin upon that cross of shame. And then again, John declared, I saw, and bare [witness] that this is the Son of God (v. 34).

Well, that is the very question. Is Jesus the Son of God? Is He the Eternal Son sent into the world to work out the plan of redemption? Jesus answered, as it were, If I were the only one to say this you would not believe Me, but here is the one whom you thronged to hear and recognized that he was a prophet. Well, he bears witness to the same thing that I am telling you. John the Baptist tells you that I am the Son of God, the Lamb of God come to die for sinners. I am the preexistent Christ. But, Jesus says, I am not dependent upon John. I do not need his testimony to make these things valid. I am not dependent upon mans testimony, but I say these things that you might be assured of their truth. The Lord wanted to cut out from under their feet any ground for unbelief. He desired to make it clear that He was the Savior He professed to be. But He did not need Johns testimony, no matter how good and great he was. The truth is the truth apart from any mans recognition of it. John was a wonderful man, a burning and a shining light (5:35). That witness had been silent for some time. Herod had slain him, but his testimony remained. Today we may hear the voice of John the Baptist declaring that Jesus is the Son of God, the Lamb of God, the preexistent One.

But now the Savior says, I have another witness. What is the third witness? The works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me (v. 36). And that is the reason for the miracles of our Lord Jesus Christ. He wrought those mighty acts of power in order that He might prove that He was the Sent One of the Father. But Jesus never wrought a miracle simply to magnify Himself. They were performed to alleviate human suffering and help mankind. All this had been predicted beforehand in the Old Testament. The prophets had declared that the eyes of the blind should be opened, the ears of the deaf should be made to hear, the lame man should leap with joy, sorrow and sickness should flee away, and the prison house of sin should be opened. These things the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled during those three years. These wonderful works and miracles, these mighty acts of His, all bore testimony to the fact that He was indeed the Sent One of the Father. Look at that poor leper. He comes to Him all covered with sores. He cries out in agony, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean (Mat 8:2). Jesus looks upon him and He, the Holy One, is not afraid of being defiled by his unclean-ness, so He puts His hand on him and says, I will; be thou clean (v. 3). Do you think that man doubted that Jesus was sent from the Father? Would he raise any question as to the Deity of the Son of God?

Look at the sorrowing father at Capernaum. He comes to Jesus, pleading, Master, my only child, my little daughter, is sick. Come and heal her. Jesus went to the home and the people came rushing out, saying, There is no use; she is dead. But the Lord said, Be not afraid, only believe (Mar 5:36). He enters into that room, takes the hand of that little dead child, and says to her tenderly in Aramaic, Talitha cumi; which is, being interpreted, [little maid], I say unto thee, arise (v. 41), and she opened her eyes and sat up. Do you think Jairus and his wife had any difficulty in believing that He was the Sent One of the Father?

And that poor widow outside of the city of Nain, following the funeral procession of her only son, until Jesus came and stopped it all! Mr. Moody said, You cant find any direction as to how to conduct a funeral service in the Bible. Jesus broke up every funeral He ever attended. So He interfered here, and said to the young man, I say unto thee, Arise (Luk 7:14), and Jesus gave him to his mother. Do you think she doubted that He was the Sent One of the Father?

The same works that I do, bear witness of me. Go over to Bethany by that grave in the hillside and listen as Jesus cries with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth, and see him come shuffling out, bound by grave clothes, and the two sisters rush to meet that beloved brother brought back from the dead. Any doubt there that Jesus is the Sent One of the Father? These were the works that bore witness of Him.

And then the most wonderful thing of all, when at last He Himself had died and yielded His spirit to the Father, and His body had been laid away in the tomb, and on the third day He came forth and was declared to be the Son of God with power. Yes, the works of Jesus bear witness to the fact that He is the Son of God.

We have had three witnesses. Now there is another, in verses 37-38, And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape. And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not. How did the Father bear witness to the fact that Jesus was His Eternal Son, sent into the world for our salvation? When the Savior offered Himself at the Jordan to become the substitute for our sins and John baptized Him there, when He came up from the watery grave, the heavens were opened and the Spirit of God was seen descending like a dove, and the Fathers voice was heard saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased [or, in whom I have found all my delight] (Mat 3:17; Mar 1:11; Luk 3:22). This was the Fathers testimony. Not only then, but on the Mount of Transfiguration, once more the Father said, This is my beloved Son, hear ye him (Mat 17:5; Mar 9:7; Luk 9:35). And later on when Jesus on that other occasion lifted up His voice and said, Father, glorify thy name, a voice was heard from heaven saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again (Joh 12:28). Three times the voice of the Father was heard from heaven accrediting the person and the mission of His blessed Son while here on earth, and yet these people who professed to believe in God as their Father did not hear His voice. The disciples heard it, but these hard, critical, legalistic men never heard the voice of the Father.

Have you heard it? Have you heard the Fathers voice speaking in your heart? Have you heard Him saying to you, This is My beloved Son, I want you to find your delight in Him? Oh, the Father still delights to accredit the Lord Jesus Christ.

Then there is a fifth witness. Verse 39 says, Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. Most scholars, I think, understand that opening expression as a definite statement rather than a command, and they read it like this, as indicated in the margin, Ye search the scriptures. Whether they are right or whether our translators were right, I do not pretend to say. Both might speak to our hearts. Certainly the Spirit of God again and again commands us to search this blessed Word. But if we take it as a statement rather than a command, it is the same in principle. He was talking to these leaders in Israel. They read and studied their Bibles, and He said to them, Ye search the Scriptures, believing that in them ye have eternal life. That is, you take it for granted that you are going to have life by becoming familiar with and obeying the Scripture, but unless you trust the One of whom the Scripture speaks, you will not have eternal life. In 2 Timothy 3, when speaking to a man who had been brought up on the Word of God, the apostle said, From a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus (v. 15).

Notice that it is not simply familiarity with the Bible that will give you eternal life. It is becoming acquainted with the blessed Son, who is the theme of the story. So Jesus says, You have the Bible. Go back into the Old Testament, and as you read the Old Testament you will find that there they are speaking of Me. He was the theme of the entire Old Testament. All the Levitical types spoke of Him. All the prophets gave witness to Him. He was the One who rebuked the adversary in the days of Zechariah, the prophet. All through the Old Testament we have Jesus preached in type and in prophecy. They are they which testify of me. The Scripture tells of Jesus and Christ authenticates the Scriptures. Prophecy after prophecy was fulfilled in Him.

He shows that the entire Old Testament is the Word of the living God. Now He says, You read your Bible, and yet you will not come to Me that you might have eternal life (Joh 5:39-40, authors paraphrase). My dear friend, do you know Christ? You are familiar with the Bible, and I know some of you are depending upon that knowledge for salvation. Have you received the Christ of whom that Book speaks? Have you trusted the Savior of whom the prophets wrote? Have you believed in the One who came in grace to die for sinners? This is the theme of the whole Bible. It is a pitiful thing to pretend to honor the Bible while rejecting the Christ of the Bible.

His words imply that all men may come to Him if they will. There are some people who imagine that some are not welcome, but Jesus would not use language like this if it did not include everybody. Whosoever will may come. If you are lost at last, it will be because you would not come: Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.

Now the Savior says, I receive not honour from men (v. 41). He did not want their patronage, but He desired men to accept the salvation that He had come to provide. But I know you [and He could say that as no other], that ye have not the love of God in you (v. 42). He was here to do the will of the Father and yet they would not have Him. He warns them of the coming Antichrist, the false Messiah. He says, If another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive (v. 43). Who is this other? It is that willful king of the eleventh of Daniel, that idol shepherd of Zechariah, the false prophet of Revelation, the lawless one of 2 Thessalonians 2, a sinister figure yet to arise in this world. Men who will not have Christ will bow down to him.

It is a very serious thing to reject Christ, to spurn the salvation that God has provided. How many a young man has sat in a gospel meeting, under deep conviction, but has thought of what this one and that one of his friends will think of him if he confesses Christ! How many a young woman has known that she should be saved, but someone whom she esteems very highly keeps her back, for she says, What will he think of me if I do that? Unless you put God first, you will never be able to believe. Once come to the place where you say, I cant allow myself to be turned aside from that which is right and true because of any other interest, even the opinion of those nearest and dearest to me. I must seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and then, the Lord Jesus says, the other things will be added to me. Have you been kept from confessing Christ because of the fear of man? Remember that those who would hinder are just poor human beings like yourself and soon will have to give account to God.

Well, you say, then is He going to accuse us? Oh, no. Think not that I will accuse you to the Father. But He adds-and oh, it had point to those Jews-There is one that accuseth you, even Moses (v. 45). Moses accuse? How and whom does he accuse? Moses accuses all who reject his testimony, and he predicts dire judgment. And so Jesus adds, Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me (v. 46). This is the answer to those who say, Well, we do not believe that those first five books were written by Moses. But Jesus says, Moses wrote of Me, and thus He puts His seal upon these books, declaring that Moses wrote them-For he wrote of me.

Those prophecies written by Moses were written of Christ. Those types represented Christ. When Moses wrote, The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken (Deu 18:15), Moses was writing and speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so the Savior says, If ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words? (v. 47). If men will not receive the testimony of the Old Testament, they will not receive the testimony of Christ. The two are so linked together that they can never be separated.

So we have five witnesses. There is His own testimony, there is the testimony of John the Baptist, there are the miracles He performed, there is the witness of His Fathers voice, and there is the Word of God, the Bible. All agree in this, that Jesus is the Son of God, which should come into the world. Have you received Him?

Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets

can: Joh 5:19, Joh 8:28, Joh 8:42, Joh 14:10

I judge: Joh 8:15, Joh 8:16, Gen 18:25, Psa 96:13, Isa 11:3, Isa 11:4, Rom 2:2, Rom 2:5

because: Joh 4:34, Joh 6:38, Joh 8:50, Joh 17:4, Joh 18:11, Psa 40:7, Psa 40:8, Mat 26:39, Rom 15:3, Hos 10:7-10

Reciprocal: Num 16:28 – of mine 1Ki 3:9 – to judge Isa 28:6 – for a spirit Isa 42:3 – he shall Dan 11:36 – do Mar 14:36 – nevertheless Luk 22:42 – not Joh 7:16 – but Joh 8:29 – for Joh 8:38 – speak Joh 10:36 – sent Joh 12:49 – General Gal 1:4 – according Heb 10:7 – Lo

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

This is the same teaching as that in verse 19.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary

I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.

[As I hear, I judge.] He seems to allude to a custom amongst them. The judge of an inferior court, if he doubts in any matter, goes up to Jerusalem and takes the determination of the Sanhedrim; and according to that he judgeth.

Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels

IN these verses we see the proof of our Lord Jesus Christ being the promised Messiah, set forth before the Jews in one view. Four different witnesses are brought forward. Four kinds of evidence are offered. His Father in heaven,-His forerunner, John the Baptist,-the miraculous works He had done,-the Scriptures, which the Jews professed to honor,-each and all are named by our Lord, as testifying that He was the Christ, the Son of God. Hard must those hearts have been which could hear such testimony; and yet remain unmoved! But it only proves the truth of the old saying,-that unbelief does not arise so much from want of evidence, as from want of will to believe.

Let us observe for one thing in this passage, the honor Christ puts on His faithful servants. See how He speaks of John the Baptist.-“He bare witness of the truth;”-“He was a burning and a shining light.”-John had probably passed away from his earthly labors when these words were spoken. He had been persecuted, imprisoned, and put to death by Herod,-none interfering, none trying to prevent his murder. But this murdered disciple was not forgotten by his Divine Master. If no one else remembered him, Jesus did. He had honored Christ, and Christ honored him.

These things ought not to be overlooked. They are written to teach us that Christ cares for all His believing people, and never forgets them. Forgotten and despised by the world, perhaps, they are never forgotten by their Savior. He knows where they dwell, and what their trials are. A book of remembrance is written for them. “Their tears are all in His bottle.” (Psa 56:8.) Their names are graven on the palms of His hands. (Isa 49:16.) He notices all they do for Him in this evil world, though they think it not worth notice, and He will confess it one day publicly, before His Father and the holy angels. He that bore witness to John the Baptist never changes. Let believers remember this. In their worst estate they may boldly say with David,-“I am poor and needy; yet the LORD thinketh upon me.” (Psa 40:17.)

Let us observe, for another thing, the honor Christ puts upon miracles, as an evidence of His being the Messiah. He says,-“The works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me that the Father hath sent me.”

The miracles of the Lord receive far less attention, in the present day, as proofs of His Divine mission, than they ought to do. Too many regard them with a silent incredulity, as things which, not having seen, they cannot be expected to care for. Not a few openly avow that they do not believe in the possibility of such things as miracles, and would fain strike them out of the Bible as weak stories, which, like burdensome lumber, should be cast overboard, to lighten the ship.

But, after all, there is no getting over the fact, that in the days when our Lord was upon earth, His miracles produced an immense effect on the minds of men. They aroused attention to Him that worked them. They excited inquiry, if they did not convert. They were so many, so public, and so incapable of being explained away, that our Lord’s enemies could only say that they were done by satanic agency. That they were done, they could not deny. “This man,” they said, “doeth many miracles.” (Joh 11:47.) The facts which wise men pretend to deny now, no one pretended to deny eighteen hundred years ago.

Let the enemies of the Bible take our Lord’s last and greatest miracle-His own resurrection from the dead-and disprove it if they can. When they have done that, it will be time to consider what they say about miracles in general. They have never answered the evidence of it yet, and they never will. Let the friends of the Bible not be moved by objections against miracles, until that one miracle has been fairly disposed of. If that is proved unassailable, they need not care much for quibbling arguments against other miracles. If Christ did really rise from the dead by His own power, there is none of His mighty works which man need hesitate to believe.

Let us observe, lastly, in these verses, the honor that Christ puts upon the Scriptures. He refers to them in concluding His list of evidences, as the great witnesses to Him. “Search the Scriptures,” He says: “they are they which testify of me.”

The “Scriptures” of which our Lord speaks are of course the Old Testament. And His words show the important truth which too many are apt to overlook,-that every part of our Bibles is meant to teach us about Christ. Christ is not merely in the Gospels and Epistles. Christ is to be found directly and indirectly in the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets. In the promises to Adam, Abraham, Moses, and David,-in the types and emblems of the ceremonial law,-in the predictions of Isaiah and the other prophets,-Jesus, the Messiah, is everywhere to be found in the Old Testament.

How is it that men see these things so little? The answer is plain. They do not “search the Scriptures.” They do not dig into that wondrous mine of wisdom and knowledge, and seek to become acquainted with its contents. Simple, regular reading of our Bibles is the grand secret of establishment in the faith. Ignorance of the Scriptures is the root of all error.

And now what will men believe, if they do not believe the Divine mission of Christ? Great indeed is the obstinacy of infidelity. A cloud of witnesses testify that Jesus was the Son of God. To talk of wanting evidence is childish folly. The plain truth is, that the chief seat of unbelief is the heart. Many do not wish to believe, and therefore remain unbelievers.

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Notes-

v30.-[I can of mine own self, etc.] This verse is perhaps one of the most difficult in Scripture. It is so because the subject of it is that great mystery,-the unity of God the Father and God the Son. Man has no language to express adequately the idea that has to be conveyed. The general thought of the verse seems to be as follows:-

“In consequence of the close relation between Me and the Father, I cannot do anything independently and separately from Him. ‘I judge,’ and decide, and speak on all points, in entire harmony with the Father, as though I heard Him continually at My side; and so judging and speaking My judgment on all points is always right. It is right now, and will be seen right at the great account of the last day. For in all that I do I seek not to do My Own will only, but the will of Him that sent Me, since there is an entire harmony between My will and His.”

Let it be carefully noted that at this part of His address our Lord ceases to speak in the third person of Himself as “the Son of man,” and begins to use the first person,-“I can,” “I hear,” “I judge,” etc.

“Of mine own self” does not mean “unhelped and unassisted,” but “from myself,”-from My own independent volition and action.

Chrysostom remarks,-“Just as when we say, it is impossible for God to do wrong, we do not impute to Him any weakness, but confess in Him an unutterable power; so also when Christ saith, ‘I can of my own self do nothing,’ the meaning is that it is impossible,-my nature admits not,-that I should do anything contrary to the Father.”

“As I hear” is an expression adapted to man’s comprehension, to convey the idea of the unity between the Father and the Son. It is like verse 19th, where it is said, “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do.” It is also like the words used of the Holy Ghost,-“He shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak.” (Joh 16:13.)

Chrysostom remarks,-“Just as when Christ said, ‘we speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen,’ and John the Baptist said, ‘that which he hath seen and heard he testifieth,’ (Joh 3:11, Joh 3:32,) both expressions are used concerning exact knowledge, and not concerning mere ‘seeing’ and ‘hearing;’-so in this place, when Christ speaks of ‘hearing,’ He declares nothing else than that it is impossible for Him to desire anything save what the Father desireth.”

“I judge” applies not only to all Christ’s judgments and decisions as Mediator when He was upon earth, but to His final judgment at the last day.

“My judgment is just” would probably remind the Jews of the prophecies about Messiah. (Isa 11:3 and Dan 7:13.)

“I seek not mine own will” must be interpreted with special reference to our Lord’s Divine nature, as Son of God. Having as God, one will with the Father, it was not possible for Him to seek His own will independently of the Father. Hence the judgment was not His only, but His Father’s also.-As Son of man He had a human will distinct from His Divine will, as when He said, “Let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.” (Mat 26:39.) But the will here seems to be His Divine will.

Chrysostom remarks,-“What Christ implieth is of this kind:-not that the will of the Father is one and His own another, but that as one will in one mind, so is Mine own will and My Father’s.”

Once more we must remember the extreme difficulty of handling such a subject as the one before us. The distinction between the Persons in the Trinity, and the Unity of their essence at the same time, must always be a deep thing to man, hard to conceive, and harder still to speak or write about.

v31.-[If I bear witness of myself, etc.] This verse must be interpreted with caution and reasonable qualification. It would be folly and blasphemy to say that our Lord’s testimony about Himself must be false. What the verse does appear to mean is this:-“If I have no other testimony to bring forward in proof of My Messiahship but My own word, my testimony would be justly open to suspicion.”-Our Lord knew that in any disputed question a man’s assertions in his own favour are worth little or nothing. He tells the Jews that He did not want them to believe Him merely because He said He was the Son of God. He would show them that He had other witnesses, and these witnesses He next proceeds to bring forward. A comparison of this verse with Joh 8:14 shows at once that the meaning of the words, “My witness is not true,” must be qualified and restrained, or else one place of Scripture would contradict the other.

v32.-[There is another that beareth witness.] There are two distinct and different views of this expression.

(a.) Some, as Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euthymius, Lightfoot, Brentius, Grotius, Ferus, Barradius, Quesnel, Whitby, Doddridge, Gill, think that the “other witness” is John the Baptist.

(b.) Some, as Cyril, Athanasius, Calvin, Beza, Gualter, Bucer, Ecolampadius, Zwingle, Rupertus, Flacius, Calovius, Cocceius, Piscator, Musculus, Aretius, Toletus, Nifanius, Rollock, Poole, Leigh, Diodati, Hammond, Trapp, Hutcheson, Henry, Burkitt, Baxter, Bloomfield, Lampe, Bengel, Pearce, A. Clarke, Scott, Barnes, Stier, Alford, Webster, think that “the other witness,” is God the Father.

I feel no doubt in my own mind that this last is the correct view. The use of the present tense,-“witnesseth,”-is a strong proof of it. John the Baptist’s testimony was a thing past and gone.-Our Lord declares that His Father had borne distinct testimony to Him, and supplied abundant evidence, if they, the Jews, would only receive it. And He adds, “his testimony is true.” He will never bear witness to a lie.-Then having laid down this general proposition, He goes on to show the threefold testimony which God had provided:-first, John the Baptist;-secondly, the miracles which the Father had commissioned Him to work;-and, thirdly, the Scriptures.

The expression, “I know,” probably implies the deep consciousness which our Lord had, even in His humiliation, of His Father’s perfect righteousness and truthfulness. It means much more than a mere man’s “I know.” “I know and have known from all eternity that my Father’s testimony is perfect truth.”

v33.-[Ye sent unto John, etc.] In this sentence the word “ye” must be taken emphatically. It is “ye yourselves.” The meaning of the verse seems to be,-“My first witness is John the Baptist. Now ye yourselves sent unto him at an early period of his ministry, and ye know that he told you One greater than himself was coming, whose messenger he was, and that afterwards he said of Me, ‘Behold the Lamb of God.’ You cannot deny that he was a prophet indeed. Yet he bore faithful witness unto Me. He told you the truth.”

There can be no doubt that our Lord refers to the formal mission of “priests and Levites from Jerusalem” to John the Baptist described in Joh 1:19.

v34.-[But I receive not testimony from man, etc.] This sentence seems meant to remind the Jews that they must not suppose our Lord depended either solely or chiefly on man’s testimony. “Not that I would have you think I rest My claim to be received as the Messiah on the witness of John the Baptist, or of any other man. But I say these things about John and his witness to Me in order to remind you of what you heard him say, and that remembering his testimony to Me you may believe and be saved.”

Here, as elsewhere, we should note how our Lord presses home on the Jews the inconsistency of admitting John the Baptist to be a prophet sent from God, while they refused to believe Himself as the Messiah. If they believed John they ought in consistency to have believed Him. (See Mat 21:23-27.)

v35.-[He was a burning…light.] This is very high testimony to John. Doubtless he was not “the light,” as Christ was. But still he was not an ordinary lamp lighted from above, as all true believers are. He was pre-eminently “the lamp,” a lamp of peculiar power and brilliancy, a “burning” and a “shining” light like a flaming beacon or light-house seen from afar.

I think the expression “he was” shows that at the time when our Lord spoke, John the Baptist was either in prison or dead. At any rate his public ministry was ended. “He used to be a light. He is burning and shining no longer.”

Chrysostom remarks,-“He called John a torch or lamp, signifying that he had not light of himself, but by the grace of the Spirit.”

[Ye were willing for a season to rejoice.] This refers to the extraordinary popularity and acceptance of John the Baptist when his ministry first began. “Then went out unto him Jerusalem and all Juda, and all the country round about Jordan.” (Mat 3:5.) “Many of the Pharisees and Sadducees came to his baptism.” (Mat 3:7.) It was an ignorant excitement that brought many of John’s hearers to him. They thought most probably, that the Messiah, of whom he spoke, and whose way he came to prepare, would be a temporal king and conqueror, and would give to Israel its old pre-eminence on earth. But be the motives what they might, the fact remains that John’s ministry attracted immense attention, and awakened the curiosity of the whole Jewish nation. “They willingly rejoiced in the light which John lifted up.” They seemed to take pleasure in coming to him, hearing him, following him, and submitting to his baptism.

The expression, “for a season,” seems purposely used to remind the Jews of the very temporary and transitory nature of the impressions which John’s ministry produced on them.

Stier remarks,-“Man generally, even a prophet, can only give light by burning, like a lighted candle, until he is burnt out, and his mission on earth ceases. Thus did the Baptist burn, brightly but rapidly.”

Burkitt remarks,-“It has been an old practice among professors not to like their pastors long, though they have been never such burning and shining lights. John was not changed, but his hearers were changed. He did burn and shine in the candlestick with equal zeal and lustre to the last, but they had changed their thoughts of him.”

v36.-[But I have greater witness…John.] This means, “although John the Baptist was a witness to My being the Messiah, and the Son of God, his was not the only testimony I bid you receive. There is testimony even more important than his, namely, that of My miracles.” The Greek means literally, “the greater witness;”-“The witness that I have is greater.”

Flacius suggests that our Lord here and in the preceding verse reminds the Jews how willing they were at first to receive John’s ministry, and almost seemed to think he was the Messiah. Yet all this time “John did no miracle.”-But when the true Messiah appeared, doing mighty “works,” the Jews did not show him even as much attention as they had shown to John.

[The works…Father hath given, etc.] This is a distinct appeal to miracles, as an important proof of our Lord’s Messiahship and Divinity. Four times in this Gospel we find the same appeal. (Joh 3:2; Joh 10:25; Joh 15:24.) The evidence of miracles should never be lightly esteemed. We are apt to underrate their value because they were wrought so long ago. But in the days when they were wrought they were great facts, which demanded the attention of all who saw them, and could not be evaded. Unless the Jews could explain them away, they were bound, as honest and reasonable men, to believe our Lord’s Divine mission. That they really were wrought the Jews never appear to have denied. In fact they dared not attempt to deny them. What they did do was to ascribe them to Satanic agency. All who attempt to deny the reality of our Lord’s miracles in the present day, would do well to remember that those who had the best opportunity of judging, namely, the men who saw these miracles, and lived within hearing of them, never disputed the fact that they were wrought. If the enemies of our Lord could have proved that His miracles were only tricks, legerdemain, and impostures, it stands to reason they would have been only too glad to show it to the world, and to silence Him for ever.

Five things should always be noted about our Lord’s miracles. (1.) Their number: they were not a few only, but very many indeed. (2.) Their greatness: they were not little, but mighty interferences with the ordinary course of nature. (3.) Their publicity: they were generally not done in a corner, but in open day, and before many witnesses, and often before enemies. (4.) Their character: they were almost always works of love, mercy, and compassion, helpful and beneficial to man, and not mere barren exhibitions of power. (5.) Their direct appeal to men’s senses: they were visible, and would bear any examination. The difference between them and the boasted miracles of the Church of Rome, on all these points, is striking and instructive.

The manner in which our Lord speaks of His miracles is very remarkable. He calls them,-“The works that the Father hath given me that I should finish.” He carefully avoids the appearance of want of unity between the Father and Himself, even in the working of miracles. They are not works which He did of His own independent will, but “works which the Father hath given me,” works which it had been arranged in the eternal counsels the Son should work, when He became man and dwelt upon earth. Precisely the same expression is used elsewhere about “the words” our Lord spake, as here about “the works:” “I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me.” (Joh 17:8.)

v37.-[And the Father himself….witness of me.] There is undeniable difficulty about these words. It is not clear to what “witness of the Father” our Lord here refers.

(a.) Some, as Chrysostom, Brentius, Bullinger, Gualter, Ferus, Toletus, Barradius, Cartwright, Chemnitius, Rollock, Jansenius, Trapp, Baxter, Hammond, Burkitt, Lampe, Bengel, Henry, Scott, Gill, think that our Lord refers to the audible testimony borne to Him by the Father at His baptism, and at the transfiguration, when He said,-“This is my beloved Son, hear him.” (Mat 3:17; Mat 17:5.) But it surely is a capital objection to this theory, that this voice of the Father was in all probability heard by nobody excepting John the Baptist at the baptism, and Peter, James, and John at the transfiguration. At this rate it would be entirely a private testimony, and of no avail to the general body of the Jewish nation.

(b.) Some, as Theophylact, Euthymius, Rupertus, Calvin, Cocceius, Pearce, Tholuck, Bloomfield, Tittman, A. Clark, D. Brown, Alford, Burgon, think that our Lord refers to the testimony the Father has borne to Him generally throughout the Old Testament Scriptures, and that the sentence before us should be taken in close connection with the next verse but one, beginning, “Search the Scriptures.” In fact that expression would then be the explanation of our Lord’s meaning.

Of the two views I decidedly prefer the second one. It certainly seems the least difficult, and open to the fewest objections. There is a third view, supported by Olshausen and Bucer, viz., that the “witness” here means the inward witness of the Spirit in the hearts of believers. This, however, appears to me wholly out of the question. It is a witness that would be useless to the world at large.

Both here and elsewhere we must take care that we do not attach the idea of “inferiority” to the expression “sent” by the Father. Rollock remarks,-“It is quite possible that an equal may send an equal to discharge some office.” Cyril remarks,-“Mission and obedience, being sent and obeying, do not take away equality of power in the sender and the sent one.”

[Ye have neither heard….seen his shape.] This appears to be a parenthetical sentence, as well as the verse that follows. It certainly seems to strengthen the view that when our Lord spoke of His Father “bearing witness,” He could not have meant the audible witness of His voice at the baptism or transfiguration. In fact the sentence seems purposely to preclude the notion. It is as though our Lord said, “Do not suppose that I mean any audible testimony of voice, or apparition, or vision, when I speak of My Father bearing witness to me. I mean testimony of a very different kind, even the testimony of His Word.”

The expression “not seen His shape,” teaches the same great truth we find elsewhere,-viz., that the Father is invisible, and has never been seen by mortal man. He who appeared to Abraham was the Second Person of the Trinity, and not the Father. Paul says distinctly of the Father,-“whom no man hath seen, nor can see.” (1Ti 6:16.) The idea of artists and painters, when they represent the Father as an aged man, is a mere irreverent invention of their own brains, without the slightest warrant of Scripture.

Rupertus and Ferus suggest that the latter part of this verse was spoken to prevent the Jews thinking that our Lord spoke of Joseph, His supposed father. This, however, seems a rather improbable and fanciful idea.

v38.-[And ye have not his word, &c.] This verse seems meant to remind the Jews that with all their pretended reverence for God, and affected zeal against blasphemies of Him, they were really ignorant of God’s mind. Their reverence for Him was only a form. Their zeal for Him was a blind fanaticism. They knew no more of His mind than of His shape or voice. They were not acquainted with His Word. It did not dwell in their hearts and guide their religion. They proved their own ignorance by not believing Him whom the Father had sent. Had they really been familiar with the writings of the Old Testament they would have believed.

Our Lord evidently implies that real knowledge of God’s Word will always lead a man to faith in Christ. Where there is no faith we may rightly assume the Bible is either not read, or read in a wrong spirit. Ignorance and unbelief will go together.

Locke holds the curious opinion, that the “word” in this verse means the “Personal Word,” as at Joh 1:1. “Ye have not Me, the Eternal Word, dwelling in your hearts.” But Christ nowhere calls Himself “the Word,” and the idea does not harmonize with the context.

Ecolampadius thinks that in this and the preceding verse there is a reference to Deu 18:15-19, where the Lord promised a prophet to the Jews like unto Moses, because they had said,-“Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not.” He thinks our Lord reminds them of this. God had fulfilled His promise, and sent them a prophet like unto Moses, and now they would not believe on Him!

v39.-[Search the Scriptures.] This famous sentence is interpreted two different ways.

(a.) Some, as Cyril, Erasmus, Ecolampadius, Beza, Brentius, Piscator, Camero, Poole, Toletus, Lightfoot, Lampe, Bengel, Doddridge, Bloomfield, Tholuck, A. Clark, Scholefield, Barnes, Burgon, D. Brown, Webster, think that our Lord spoke in the indicative mood, simply making an assertion,-“Ye do search.”

(b.) Some, as Chrysostom, Augustine, Theophylact, Euthymius, Luther, Calvin, Cartwright, Gualter, Grotius, Rollock, Ferus, Calovius, Jansenius, Cocceius, Barradius, Musculus, Nifanius, Maldonatus, Cornelius Lapide, Leigh, Whitby, Hammond, Stier, Alford, Wordsworth, think that He spoke in the imperative mood, giving a command,-“Search,”-as our version gives it.

I decidedly prefer this latter view. It is more forcible, and more in keeping with our Lord’s general style of address. Above all it seems to me to agree far better with the context. Our Lord had told the Jews that His Father had borne witness of Him, though not by audible voice, nor by visible apparition. How then had He borne witness? They would find it in His Word. “Go and search your own Scriptures,” our Lord seems to say. “Examine them, and become really acquainted with their contents; you will find that they testify clearly and distinctly of Me. If you wish to know God the Father’s testimony to Me, search the Scriptures.”

The word rendered “search” means “search minutely and diligently.” It appears to me intentionally used, to show that the Jews should not be content with mere reading. The Septuagint version of Pro 2:4, has an expression like it.

Chrysostom remarks,-“When Christ referred the Jews to the Scriptures, He sent them not to a mere reading, but to a careful and considerate search. He said not, ‘read,’ but, ‘search.’ Since the sayings about Him required great attention (for they had been concealed from the beginning for the advantage of men of that time), He bids them now dig down with care, that they might discern what lay in the depths below. These sayings were not on the surface, nor were they cast forth to open view, but lay like some treasure hidden very deep.”

Some, who think the word “search” should be taken as an indicative, “ye search,” maintain that our Lord spoke ironically, and meant, “Ye pretend to make a minute investigation of Scripture, and search into the letter of it, but never get any further.” I can see little ground for this view. The word “search” is never used in a bad sense in Scripture. (1Pe 1:11.) The chief argument in favour of the “indicative” side of the question is the notorious Rabbinical custom of minutely scrutinizing and reverencing every syllable of Scripture. To this custom of honouring the letter of Scripture, while neglecting its spirit, many advocates of the “indicative” here think that our Lord referred. Brentius gives a full account of the length to which the Jews went in their reverence for the letter of Scripture, such as counting the letters of each book, etc., and thinks that this was in our Lord’s mind. I cannot however agree with this view.

[In them ye think ye have eternal life.] In this sentence the first “ye” must be taken emphatically, as in Joh 5:33. “Think” does not imply that it was a doubtful point, or mere matter of opinion. It is rather, “Ye yourselves think, and think rightly,-it is one of the dogmas of your faith,-that ye have in the Scriptures the way to eternal life pointed out.”

Chemnitius remarks,-“The words ‘ye think’ mean that common persuasion and opinion of all men concerning Scripture, which, like an axiom in science, is established, firm, and certain.”

Let it be noted that many Christians are just in the unsatisfactory state of the Jews here described. Like them, they “think,” and hold it as a dogma of their creed, that they “have eternal life in the Scriptures.” But, like them, they never read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest what Scripture contains.

Ecolampadius remarks,-“Scripture alone does not make a man any the better, nor even preaching, by itself, except by the Holy Ghost aiding. It is the peculiar office of the external Word to supply testimony; but it is the Spirit of God alone that can make the heart of man assent.”

[They are they which testify of me.] This sentence is a strong and weighty declaration of the value of the Old Testament Scriptures. It was to them exclusively, of course, that our Lord referred. He says, “they testify of me.” In direct prophecies, in promises, in typical persons, in typical ceremonies, the Old Testament Scripture all through testifies of Christ. We read them to very little purpose if we do not discern this.

Ferus remarks that there are three ways in which the Scriptures testify of Christ. (1.) Generally: they are as it were the voice of the uncreated Word, ever speaking to man in every part of them. (2.) In figures: the paschal lamb, the brazen serpent, and all the sacrifices of the law were witnesses of Christ. (3.) In direct prophecies.

Let us note in this verse the high honour which our Lord puts on the Old Testament Scriptures. He distinctly endorses the Jewish Canon of inspired writings. Those modern writers who labour to depreciate them, and bring them into disrepute, show very little of Christ’s mind. Much infidelity begins with an ignorant contempt of the Old Testament. Stier remarks,-“Israel, possessing still the Old Testament, will enter into the kingdom, when the despisers of Scripture in the final unbelief of Christendom will be judged and condemned.”

Let us note further what a plain duty it is to read the Scriptures. Men have no right to expect spiritual light if they neglect the great treasury of all light. If even of the Old Testament our Lord said, “Search,” “it testifies of me,” how much more is it a duty to search the whole Bible! An idle neglect of the Bible is one secret of the ignorant formal Christianity which is so widely prevalent in these latter days. God’s blessing on a diligent study of the Scripture is strikingly illustrated in the case of the Bereans. (Act 17:11.)

Fuente: Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels

Joh 5:30. I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just. This verse is the dividing line of the discourse, belonging at once to both parts, summing up (to a certain extent) what has gone before, leading on to the new subject which occupies the remainder of the chapter. The last word spoken was judgment. Jesus now returns to it, and it is not strange that He should do so. He is speaking in the presence of the Jews, His determined foes, who refuse life, whom He judges and cannot but judge. Hence this lingering on judgment, and the recurrence to the first thought of the discourse (Joh 5:19), so as to show that this judgment is not of Himself, but belongs both to the Father and to the Son.The figure of Joh 5:19 is changed. There seeing was the word chosen, as most in harmony with the general thought of works done; here it is of judging that Jesus speaks, and hence the same thought of communion with the Father is best expressed by hearing. One characteristic of this verse is so marked as of itself to prove that the verse is closely related to those which follow. From the beginning of the discourse (Joh 5:19) Jesus has spoken of the Father and the Son. Now He directly fixes the eyes of His hearers upon Himself (I can, I hear, I judge); and this mode of speech is retained to the very end of the chapter.

Because I seek not mine own will, but the will of him that sent me. That His works have not been and cannot be against the authority and will of God, Jesus has shown by pointing out their essential unity with those of the Father (Joh 5:19). That the judgment He must pass is just, He has shown by the same proof,as hear I judge. But a second proof is now given, or rather (perhaps) a second aspect of the same truth is brought into relief, that thus His words of rebuke and warning may be more effectually addressed to the Jews. His action is never separate from that of the Father,there can be no variance: His will is ever the will of His Father,there can be no self-seeking. It was because the opposite spirit dwelt and reigned in the Jews that they were rejecting Him, and bringing judgment on themselves.The transition to the first person, I, my, suggests an objection that would arise in the minds of the Jews. This is met in the verse that follows.

Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament

Here Christ declares to the Jews, and in them all mankind, that they might assure themselves his judgment would be exactly righteous, because he had no private will or power of his own, contrary to, or different from, his Father.

Learn hence, that the Lord Jesus Christ, being the same in essence and nature, in power and operation, with the Father, had no private will or interest of his own, but acted all things as God, in co-ordination with the Father; and, as man, insubordination to him; I can of mine own self do nothing; that is, neither as God nor as Mediator: not as God, for God the Father and Christ being one, equal in power, what one person did, the other doth; not as Mediator, for so Christ finished the work which his Father gave him to do: the will of the Father, and the will of Christ, being both one. As Christ was sent by his Father’s order, so he was altogether guided by his Father’s will, wherewith his own will exactly concurred.

Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament

Ver. 30. I can do nothing of myself; as I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek not mine own will, but the will of him who sent me.

Can Joh 5:30 be connected with what immediately precedes, by the idea of judgment which is common to this verse and Joh 5:29? But the present tense: I judge (Joh 5:30) does not suit the idea of the future judgment (Joh 5:29); and the first clause: I can do nothing of myself, impresses at once on the thought of Joh 5:30 a much more general bearing. We are evidently brought back to the idea of Joh 5:19, which served as the starting-point of the preceding development: the infallibility of the Son’s work finding its guarantee in its complete dependence on that of the Father. As Reuss well says: The last verse reproduces the substance of the first; and the discourse thus is rounded out even externally. After having ascribed to Himself the most wonderful operations, Jesus seems to feel the need of sinking again, as related to the Father, into a sort of nothingness. He who successively accomplishes the greatest works, is powerless to accomplish by Himself the humblest act.

The pronoun (I), positively applies to that visible and definite personality which they have before their eyes the unheard of things which He has just affirmed, in a more abstract way, of the Son. This is the first difference between Joh 5:30 and Joh 5:19; the following is the second: In order to describe the total subordination of His work to that of the Father, Jesus made use of figures borrowed from the sense of sight: the Father shows, the Son sees. Here He borrows His figures from the sense of hearing: the Son hears, evidently from His Father’s lips, the sentences which He is to pronounce, and it is only thus that He judges. Moreover, of the two divine works which He accomplishes,raising from the dead and judging, it was especially the first which Jesus had in view in Joh 5:19, in relation to the miracle wrought on the impotent man; He here makes the second prominent, in connection with the supreme act indicated in Joh 5:29. The sentences of which He speaks are the acts of absolution or of condemnation, which He accomplishes here on earth, by saying to one: Thy sins are forgiven thee, to the other: Thy works are evil. Before declaring Himself thus, Jesus meditates in Himself; He listens to the Father’s voice, and only opens His mouth after He has heard. It is upon this perfect docility that He rests the infallibility of His judgments, and not upon an omniscience incompatible with His humanity: And that is, and thus my judgment is just. But there is a condition necessary for listening and hearing in this way; it is to have no will of one’s own; hence the (because), which follows. No doubt, Jesus, Himself also, has a natural will distinct from that of God; His prayer in Gethsemane clearly proves it: Not my will, but thine be done.

But, in a being entirely consecrated to God, as Jesus was, this natural will (my will), exists only to be unceasingly submitted or sacrificed to the Father’s will: I seek not mine own will, but the will of Him that hath sent me. From the ontological point of view, the Monothelites, therefore, well deserved to be condemned; for in denying to Jesus a will distinct from that of God, they suppressed the human nature in Him. And yet morally speaking, they were right. For all self-will in Jesus was a will continually and freely sacrificed. It is on this unceasing submission that the absolute holiness of His life rests, and from this holiness it is that the infallibility of His knowledge and His words results. He declares this here Himself.The of Him who sent me, is not a mere paraphrase of the name of God. It is argumentative: the one sent does the work of the sender.

What an existence is that of which this passage, Joh 5:19-30, traces for us the type! Such a relationship with God must have been lived, in order to be thus described: to act only after having seen, to speak only after having heard, what a picture of filial consciousness, of filial teaching, of filial activity! And all this attaching itself to a mere healing, accomplished on the initiative of the Father! Do we not see clearly that the essential idea of Joh 5:17 is that of the relation of dependence of the Son’s work towards the Father’s, and by no means that of the Sabbath, of which not the least mention is made in all this development? At the same time, this passage gives us, so to speak, access even to the inner laboratory of our Lord’s thought and allows us to study the manner in which His word was produced. The miracle performed and the accusations which He excites awaken His reflection. He collects Himself, and the profound relation of His work to that of His Father formulates itself in His consciousness in the form of that simple, summary, oracle-like thesis of Joh 5:17. This is the theme which He develops afterwards. At the first moment (Joh 5:19-20), He remains in the highest generalities of the paternal and filial relation. Then there are precisely formulated in His thought the two essential works which result from this relation: making alive, judging (Joh 5:21-23); finally, those two works themselves are presented to His mind in a more and more concrete form, in their progressive historical realization; first in themoral domain (Joh 5:24-27), then in that of external realities (Joh 5:28-29). Where in this incomparable passage is what is called religious metaphysics? From the first word to the last, everything breathes that sentiment of filial abnegation which is the heart of Jesus’ heart.

Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)

Joh 5:30-40. Witness.The subject is introduced abruptly, but rises naturally out of the circumstances. The claims made, if less than the author represents them, were such as to raise the question of authority. By what authority could He substantiate them? In the first place, John the Baptist, in whose teaching the people for a time took such pleasure. His chief witness is God Himself, whose testimony is declared through the works which He enables Jesus to do, and also directly in Scripture, which they study in the hope of gaining life. And yet they reject the Prophet, whom Moses in those very Scriptures (cf. Deu 18:15 ff.) and many others foretold.

Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

Verse 30

Of mine own self; separate from and independent of the Father. The idea is, that all the aims and designs of the Father and of the Son, are one and inseparable, as the remaining clauses show.–As I hear, that is, perceive and understand the will of the Father.

Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament

5:30 {9} I can {n} of mine own self do nothing: {o} as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.

(9) The Father is the author and approver of all things which Christ does.

(n) See above in Joh 5:22 .

(o) As my Father directs me, who dwells in me.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

4. The Father’s witness to the Song of Solomon 5:30-47

Jesus now returned to develop a theme that He had introduced previously, namely, the Father’s testimony to the Son (Joh 5:19-20). Jesus proceeded to cite five witnesses to His identity, all of which came from the Father, since the Jews had questioned His authority.

"The train of argument in this section is like a court scene, reminiscent of the trial scenes in the OT, when witnesses are summoned by Yahweh to testify on behalf of the gods of the nations in the face of the manifest truth of the only God, whose witnesses his people are (see esp. Isa 43:8-13; Isa 44:6-11)." [Note: Beasley-Murray, pp. 77-78.]

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

This verse is transitional. It concludes Jesus’ explanation of the Son’s equality with the Father (Joh 5:19-29), and it introduces His clarification of the Father’s testimony about the Son (Joh 5:31-47). Some translations consider it the conclusion of the preceding pericope (e.g., NIV), and others take it as the beginning of the next one (e.g., NASB).

Jesus’ point was that He could not do anything independent of the Father because of His submission to Him. His judgment is the result of listening to His Father. His judgment is just because the desire for self-glory does not taint it. The Son’s will is totally to advance the Father’s will.

Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Disfruta de miles de canciones cristianas en exclusiva sólo en Bibles