John 5:30

We were about to ask Christ, you will judge, and the Father not judge: will not you then judge according to the Father? He anticipates us by saying, I can of Mine own Self do nothing.

That is, nothing that is a departure from, or that is unlike to, what the Father wishes, shall you see done by Me, but as I hear, I judge. He is only showing that it was impossible He should ever wish any thing bat what the Father wished. I judge, His meaning is, as if it were My Father that judged.

When He spoke of the resurrection of the soul, He did not say, Hear, but, See. Hear implies a command issuing from the Father. He speaks as man, who is inferior to the Father.

As I hear, I judge, is said with reference either to His human subordination, as the Son of man, or to that immutable and simple nature of the Sonship derived from the Father; in which nature hearing and seeing is identical with being. Wherefore as He hears, He judges. The Word is begotten one with the Father, and therefore judges according to truth. It follows, And My judgment is just, because I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which has sent Me. This is intended to take us back to that man who, by seeking his own will, not the will of Him who made him, did not judge himself justly, but had a just judgment pronounced upon him. He did not believe that, by doing his own will, not God’s, he should die. So he did his own will, and died; because the judgment; of God is just, which judgment the Son of God executes, by not seeking His own will, i.e. His will as being the Son of man. Not that He has no will in judging, but His will is not His own in such sense, as to be different from the Father’s.

I seek not then Mine own will, i.e. the will of the Son of man, in opposition to God: for men do their own will, not God’s, when, to do what they wish, they violate God’s commands But when they so do what they wish, as at the same time to follow the will of God, they do not their own will. Or, I seek not Mine own will: i.e. because I am not of myself, but of the Father.

He shows that the Father’s will is not a different one from His own, but one and the same, as a ground of defense. Nor marvel if being hitherto thought no more than a mere man, He defends Himself in a somewhat human way, and shows his judgment to be just on the same ground which any other person would have taken; viz. that one who has his own ends in view, may incur suspicion of injustice, but that one who has not cannot.

The only Son says, I seek not Mine own will: and yet men wish to do their own will. Let us do the will of the Father, Christ, and Holy Ghost: for these have one will, power, and majesty.

As therefore the Lord does nothing without the Father, for says He, “I can of mine own self do nothing,” so do ye, neither presbyter, nor deacon, nor layman, do anything without the bishop. Nor let anything appear commendable to you which is destitute of his approval. For every such thing is sinful, and opposed [to the will of] God. Do ye all come together into the same place for prayer. Let there be one common supplication, one mind, one hope, with faith unblameable in Christ Jesus, than which nothing is more excellent. Do ye all, as one man, run together into the temple of God, as unto one altar, to one Jesus Christ, the High Priest of the unbegotten God.

This is, however, in the matter of the two men by one of whom we are sold under sin, by the other redeemed from sins, by the one have been precipitated into death, by the other are liberated unto life; the former of whom has ruined us in himself, by doing his own will instead of His who created him; the latter has saved us in Himself, by not doing His own will, but the will of Him who sent Him: and it is in what concerns these two men that the Christian faith properly consists. …

2. With the eyes of faith ye have seen this man blind, ye have seen him too of blind seeing; but ye have heard him erring. Wherein this blind man erred, I will tell you; first, in that he thought Christ a prophet, and knew not that He was the Son of God. And then we have heard an answer of his entirely false; for he said, “We know that God heareth not sinners.” If God heareth not sinners, what hope have we? If God heareth not sinners, why do we pray, and publish the record of our sin by the beating of the breast? Where again is that Publican, who went up with the Pharisee into the temple and while the Pharisee was boasting, parading his own merits, he standing afar off, and with his eyes fastened on the ground, and beating his breast, was confessing his sins? And this man, who confessed his sins, went down from the temple justified rather than the other Pharisee. …

1. What is this that the Lord said of the Holy Spirit, when promising that He would come and teach His disciples all truth, or guide them into all truth: “For He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak”? For this is similar to what He said of Himself, “I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge.” But when expounding that, we said that it might be taken as referring to His human nature; so that He seemed as the Son to announce beforehand that His own obedience, whereby He became obedient even unto the death of the cross, would have its place also in the judgment, when He shall judge the quick and the dead; for He shall do so for the very reason that He is the Son of man. …

3. He then who calls the thing glory, and rebukes the disciple because he was trying to hinder Him, and proves that what constitutes the good shepherd is his sacrificing himself on behalf of the sheep, and declares that he earnestly longs for this thing, and willingly goes to meet it, how is it that He beseeches it may not come to pass? And if He did not wish it what difficulty was there in hindering those who came for that purpose? But in fact you behold Him hastening towards the deed. …

But now, since He was Begotten, with good reason neither John nor any other, whether apostle or prophet, hath asserted that He was created. Neither had it been so would the Only-Begotten Himself have let it pass unmentioned. For He who spoke of Himself so humbly from condescension would certainly not have been silent on this matter. And I think it not unreasonable to suppose, that He would be more likely to have the higher Nature, and say nothing of it, than not having it to pass by this omission, and fail to make known that He had it not. For in the first case there was a good excuse for silence, namely, His desire to teach mankind humility by being silent as to the greatness of His attributes; but in the second case you can find no just excuse for silence. …

Having uttered something great and sublime concerning Him, he again brings down his discourse to a humbler strain. For the expression, “what He hath heard and seen,” is suited rather to a mere man. What He knew He knew not from having learned it by sight, or from having heard it, but He included the whole in His Nature, having come forth perfect from the Bosom of His Father, and needing none to teach Him. For, “As the Father,” He saith, “knoweth Me, even so know I the Father.” ( c. x. …

But wherefore said He not, that “He doeth nothing contrary,” instead of, “He cannot do”? It was that from this again He might show the invariableness and exactness of the Equality, for the expression imputes not weakness to Him, but even shows His great power; since in another place Paul saith of the Father, “That by two immutable things in which it was impos sible for God to lie” ( Heb. vi. 18 ): and again, “If we deny Him, He abideth faithful,” for “He cannot deny Himself.” ( 2 Tim. ii. 12, 13 .) And in truth this expression, “impossible,” is not declaratory of weakness, but power, power unspeakable. …

Ver. 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 Him which sent Me.” Although He had but lately given no trifling proof of the Resurrection by bracing the paralytic; on which account also He had not spoken of the Resurrection before He had done what fell little short of resurrection. And the Judgment He hinted at after He had braced the body, by saying, “Behold, thou art made whole, sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee”; yet still He proclaimed beforehand the resurrection of Lazarus and of the world. …

[1.] What I have often said, I will now say, that Christ looketh not so much to His own honor as to our salvation; not how He may utter some sublime saying, but how something able to draw us to Him. On which account His sublime and mighty sayings are few, and those also hidden, but the humble and lowly are many, and abound through His discourses. For since by these men were the rather brought over, in these He continueth; and He doth not on the one hand utter these universally, lest the men that should come after should receive damage, nor, on the other hand, doth He entirely withhold those, lest the men of that time should be offended. Since they who have passed from lowmindedness unto perfection, will be able from even a single sublime doctrine to discern the whole, but those who were ever lowminded, unless they had often heard these lowly sayings, would not have come to Him at all. …

[2.] What “so many”? So many as the Evangelist hath omitted. And this is clear also from what follows. For when He had retired, and given in, and had come to them again, He speaketh with them in a lowly manner, saying, “He that believeth on Me, believeth not on Me, but on Him that sent Me.” ( Ver. 44 .) Observe what He doeth. He beginneth with humble and modest expressions, and betaketh Himself to the Father; then again He raiseth His language, and when He seeth that they are exasperated, He retireth; then He cometh to them again, and again beginneth with words of humility. And where hath He done this? Nay, where hath He not done it? See, for instance, what He saith at the beginning, “As I hear, I judge.” ( c. v. 30 .) Then in a loftier tone, “As the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them, so also the Son quickeneth whom He will” ( c. v. …

35 ( continued ). For, ‘The Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand;’ and, ‘All things were given unto Me of My Father;’ and, ‘I can do nothing of Myself, but as I hear, I judge;’ and the like passages do not shew that the Son once had not these prerogatives, (for had not He eternally what the Father has, who is the Only Word and Wisdom of the Father in essence, who also says, ‘All that the Father hath are Mine,’ and what are Mine, are the Father’s? for if the things of the Father are the Son’s and the Father hath them ever, it is plain that what the Son hath, being the Father’s, were ever in the Son), not then because once He had them not, did He say this, but because, whereas the Son hath eternally what He hath, yet He hath them from the Father.