John 3:36

Having said, And what he has seen and beard, that he testifies, to prevent any from supposing, that what he said was false, because only a few for the present believed, he adds, And no man receives his testimony; i.e. Only a few; for he had disciples who received his testimony. John is alluding to the unbelief of his own disciples, and to the insensibility of the Jews, of whom we read in the beginning of the Gospel, He came to His own, and His own received Him not.

Or thus; There is a people reserved for the wrath of God, and to be condemned with the devil; of whom none receives the testimony of Christ. And others there are ordained to eternal life. Mark how mankind are divided spiritually, though as human beings they are mixed up together: and John separated them by the thoughts of their heart, though as yet they were not divided in respect of place, and looked on them as two classes, the unbelievers, and the believers. Looking to the unbelievers, he said, No man receives his testimony. Then turning to those on the right hand he said, He that has received his testimony, has set to his seal.

i.e. has shown that God is true. This is to alarm them: for it is as much as saying, no one can disbelieve Christ without convicting God, Who sent Him, of falsehood: inasmuch as He speaks nothing but what is of the Father. For He, it follows, Whom God has sent, speaks the words of God.

Or, Has put to his seal, i.e. has put a seal on his heart, for a singular and special token, that this is the true God, Who suffered for the salvation of mankind.

What is it, that God is true, except that God is true, and every man a liar? For no man can say what truth is, till he is enlightened by Him who cannot lie. God then is true, and Christ is God. Would you have proof? Hear His testimony, and you will find it so. But if you do not yet understand God, you have not yet received His testimony. Christ then Himself is God the true, and God has sent Him; God has sent God, join both together; they are One God. For John said, Whom God has sent, to distinguish Christ from himself. What then, was not John himself sent by God? Yes; but mark what follows, For God gives not the Spirit by measure to Him. To men He gives by measure, to His only Son He gives not by measure. To one man is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge: one has one thing, another another; for measure implies a kind of division of gifts. But Christ did not receive by measure, though He gave by measure.

By Spirit here is meant the operation of the Holy Spirit. He wishes to show that all of us have received the operation of the Spirit by measure, but that Christ contains within Himself the whole operation of the Spirit. How then shall He be suspected, Who said nothing, but what is from God, and the Spirit? For He makes no mention yet of God the Word, but rests His doctrine on the authority of the Father and the Spirit. For men knew that there was God, and knew that there was the Spirit, (although they had not right belief about His nature;) but that there was the Son they did not know.

Having said of the Son, God gives not the Spirit by measure to Him; he adds, The Father loves the Son, and farther adds, and has given all things into His hand; in order to show that the Father loves the Son, in a peculiar sense. For the Father loves John, and Paul, and yet has not given all things into their hands. But the Father loves the Son, as the Son, not as a master his servant: as an only, not as an adopted, Son. Wherefore He has given all things into His hand; so that, as great as the Father is, so great is the Son; let us not think then that, because He has deigned to send the Son, any one inferior to the Father has been sent.

The Father then has given all things to the Son in respect of His divinity; of right, not of grace. Or; He has given all things into His hand, in respect of His humanity: inasmuch as He is made Lord of all things that are in heaven, and that are in earth.

And because all things are in His hand, the life everlasting is too: and therefore it follows, He that believes on the Son has everlasting life.

We must understand here not a faith in words only, but a faith which is developed in works.

He means not here, that to believe on the Son is sufficient to gain everlasting life, for elsewhere He says, Nor every one that said to Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. And the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is of itself sufficient to send into hell. But we must not think that even a right belief in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is sufficient for salvation; for we have need of a good life and conversation. Knowing then that the greater part are not moved so much by the promise of good, as by the threat of punishment, he concludes, But He that believes not the Son, shall not see life; but the wrath of God abides on him. See how He refers to the Father again, when He speaks of punishment. He said not, the wrath of the Son, though the Son is judge; but makes the Father the judge, in order to alarm men more. And He does not say, in Him, but on Him, meaning that it Will never depart from Him; and for the same reason He says, shall not see life, i.e. to show that He did not mean only a temporary death!

Nor does He say, The wrath of God comes to him, but, abides on him. For all who are born, are under the wrath of God, which the first Adam incurred. The Son of God came without sin, and was clothed with mortality: He died that you might live. Whosoever then will not believe on the Son, on him abides the wrath of God, of which the Apostle speaks, We were by nature the children of wrath.

5. And not merely in works, but also in faith, has God preserved the will of man free and under his own control, saying, “According to thy faith be it unto thee;” thus showing that there is a faith specially belonging to man, since he has an opinion specially his own. And again, “All things are possible to him that believeth;” and, “Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.” Now all such expressions demonstrate that man is in his own power with respect to faith. …

As, then, those who have shaken off sleep forthwith become all awake within; or rather, as those who try to remove a film that is over the eyes, do not supply to them from without the light which they do not possess, but removing the obstacle from the eyes, leave the pupil free; thus also we who are baptized, having wiped off the sins which obscure the light of the Divine Spirit, have the eye of the spirit free, unimpeded, and full of light, by which alone we contemplate the Divine, the Holy Spirit flowing down to us from above. This is the eternal adjustment of the vision, which is able to see the eternal light, since like loves like; and that which is holy, loves that from which holiness proceeds, which has appropriately been termed light. “Once ye were darkness, now are ye light in the Lord.” Hence I am of opinion man was called by the ancients φώς . …

Consider, therefore, how many passages present their prescriptive authority to you in this very Gospel before this inquiry of Philip, and previous to any discussion on your part. And first of all there comes at once to hand the preamble of John to his Gospel, which shows us what He previously was who had to become flesh. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God: all things were made by Him, and without Him was nothing made.” Now, since these words may not be taken otherwise than as they are written, there is without doubt shown to be One who was from the beginning, and also One with whom He always was: one the Word of God, the other God (although the Word is also God, but God regarded as the Son of God, not as the Father); One through whom were all things, Another by whom were all things. …

In the Gospel: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh to the Father but by me.” Also in the same place: “I am the door: by me if any man shall enter in, he shall be saved.” Also in the same place: “Many prophets and righteous men have desired to see the things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.” Also in the same place: “He that believeth on the Son hath eternal life: he that is not obedient in word to the Son hath not life; but the wrath of God shall abide upon him.” Also Paul to the Ephesians: “And when He had come, He preached peace to you, to those which are afar off, and peace to those which are near, because through Him we both have access in one Spirit unto the Father.” Also to the Romans: “For all have sinned, and fail of the glory of God; but they are justified by His gift and grace, through th …

XX . For even now, on the tenth day of the month Gorpiæus, when they assemble together, they read the Lamentations of Jeremiah, in which it is said, “The Spirit before our face, Christ the Lord was taken in their destructions;” and Baruch, in whom it is written, “This is our God; no other shall be esteemed with Him. He found out every way of knowledge, and showed it to Jacob His son, and Israel His beloved. Afterwards He was seen upon earth, and conversed with men.” And when they read them, they lament and bewail, as themselves suppose, that desolation which happened by Nebuchadnezzar ; but, as the truth shows, they unwillingly make a prelude to that lamentation which will overtake them. …

It is in vain, then, that some, indeed very many, make moan over the eternal punishment, and perpetual, unintermitted torments of the lost, and say they do not believe it shall be so; not, indeed, that they directly oppose themselves to Holy Scripture, but, at the suggestion of their own feelings, they soften down everything that seems hard, and give a milder turn to statements which they think are rather designed to terrify than to be received as literally true. For “Hath God” they say, forgotten to be gracious? hath He in anger shut up His tender mercies?” Now, they read this in one of the holy psalms. But without doubt we are to understand it as spoken of those who are elsewhere called “vessels of mercy,” because even they are freed from misery not on account of any merit of their own, but solely through the pity of God. …

Hence also that other statement: “The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; while he that believeth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him.” Now in which of these classes must we place infants, amongst those who believe on the Son, or amongst those who believe not the Son? In neither, say some, because, as they are not yet able to believe, so must they not be deemed unbelievers. This, however, the rule of the Church does not indicate, for it joins baptized infants to the number of the faithful. …

We are driven at last to yield our assent on divine authority to that which we are unable to investigate with even the clearest intellect. It is well that they remind us themselves that Christ’s righteousness is unable to profit any but believers, while they yet allow that it somewhat profits infants; according to this (as we have already said) they must, without evasion, find room for baptized infants among the number of believers. Consequently, if they are not baptized, they will have to rank amongst those who do not believe; and therefore they will not even have life, but “the wrath of God abideth on them,” inasmuch as “he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him;” and they are under judgment, since “he that believeth not is condemned already;” and they shall be condemned, since “he that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved; but he that …

2. In this prayer, therefore, Jesus may seem to have omitted praying for some of His own, unless we carefully examine His words in the prayer itself. For if He prayed first for those, as we have already shown, who were then with Him, and afterwards for those also who should believe on Him through their word, it may be said that He prayed not for those who were neither with Him when He so spake, nor afterwards believed through their word, but had done so at some previous time either of themselves, or in some other supposable manner. …

“A friend Thou hast put far from me: and mine acquaintance from my misery” ( ver. 18 ). All these evils have taken place, and are happening in the limbs of Christ’s body, and God turns away His face from their prayers, by not hearing as to what they wish for, since they know not that the fulfilment of their wishes would not be good for them. The Church is “poor,” as she hungers and thirsts in her wanderings for that food with which she shall be filled in her own country: she is “in toils from her youth up,” as the very Body of Christ saith in another Psalm, “Many a time have they overcome me from my youth.” And for this reason some of her members are lifted up even in this world, that in them may be the greater lowliness. …

And wherefore said He not, “Marvel not that He is the Son of Man, for He is also the Son of God,” but rather mentioned the “resurrection”? He did indeed put this above, by saying, “shall hear the Voice of the Son of God.” And if here He is silent on the matter, wonder not; for after mentioning a work which was proper to God, He then permitteth His hearers to collect from it that He was God, and the Son of God. For had this been continually asserted by Himself, it would at that time have offended them, but when proved by the argument of miracles, it rendered His doctrine less burdensome. …

21. And what more does the Word contribute to our salvation than the Son, if, as they hold, the Son is one, and the Word another? for the command is that we should believe, not in the Word, but in the Son. For John says, ‘He that believeth on the Son, hath everlasting life; but he that believeth not the Son, shall not see life.’ And Holy Baptism, in which the substance of the whole faith is lodged, is administered not in the Word, but in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. If then, as they hold, the Word is one and the Son another, and the Word is not the Son, Baptism has no connection with the Word. …