John 7:16

Our Lord delays His visit, in order to excite men’s attention, and goes up not the first day, but about the middle of the feast: Now about the midst of the feast Jesus went up into the temple, and taught. Those who had been searching for Him, when they saw Him thus suddenly appear would be more attentive to His teaching, both favorers and enemies; the one to admire and profit by it; the other to find an opportunity of laying hands on Him.

At the commencement of the feast, men would be attending more to the preachings of the festival itself; and afterwards would be better disposed to hear Christ.

The feast seems, as far as we can judge, to have lasted several days. And therefore it is said, “about the middle of the feast day:” i.e. when as many days of that feast had passed, as were to come. So that His assertion, I go not up yet to this feast day, (i.e. to the first or second day, as you would wish me,) was strictly fulfilled. For He went up afterwards, about the middle of the feast.

In going there too, He went up, not to the feast day, but to the light. They had gone to enjoy the pleasures of the festival, but Christ’s feast day was that on which by His Passion He redeemed the world.

He who had before concealed Himself, taught and spoke openly, and was not laid hold on. The one was intended for an example to us, the other to testify His power.

What His teaching is, the Evangelist does not say; but that it was very wonderful is shown by its effect even upon those who had accused Him of deceiving the people, who turned round and began to admire Him: And the Jews marveled, saying, How knows this Man letters, having never learned? See how perverse they are even in their admiration. It is not His doctrine they admire, but another thing altogether.

All, it would appear, admired, but all were not converted. Whence then the admiration? Many knew where here He was born, and how He had been educated; but had never seen Him learning letters. Yet now they heard Him disputing on the law, and bringing forward its testimonies. No one could do this, who had not read the law; no one could read who had not learnt letters; and this raised their wonder.

Their wonder might have led them to infer, that our Lord became possessed of this learning in some divine way, and not by any human process. But they would not acknowledge this, and contented themselves with wondering. So our Lord repeated it to them: Jesus answered them and said, My doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me.

Mine is not mine, appears a contradiction; why did He not say, This doctrine is not Mine? Because the doctrine of the Father being the Word of the Father, and Christ Himself being that Word, Christ Himself is the doctrine of the Father. And therefore He calls the doctrine both His own, and the Father’s. A word must be a word of someone’s. What is so much Yours as You, and what is so much not Yours as You, if what You are, You art of another. His saying then, My doctrine is not Mine own, seems briefly to express the truth, that He is not from Himself; it refuses the Sabellian heresy, which dares to assert that the Son is the same as the Father, there being only two names for one thing.

Or He calls it His own, inasmuch as He taught it; not His own, inasmuch as the doctrine was of the Father. If all things however which the Father has are His, the doctrine for this very reason is His; i.e. because it is the Father’s. Rather that He says, Is not Mine own, shows very strongly, that His doctrine and the Father’s are one: as if He said, I differ nothing from Him; but so act, that it may be thought I say and do nothing else than does the Father.

Or thus: In one sense He calls it His, in another sense not His; according to the form of the Godhead His, according to the form of the servant not His.

Should any one however not understand this, let him hear the advice which immediately follows from our Lord: If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of Myself. What means this, If any man will do His will? To do His will is to believe in Him, as He Himself says, This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent. And who does not know, that to work the work of God, is to do His will? To know is to understand. Do not then seek to understand in order to believe, but believe in order to understand, for, Except you believe, you shall not understand.

This is as much as to say, Put away the anger, envy, and hatred which you have towards Me, and there will be nothing to prevent your knowing, that the words which I speak are from God. Then He brings in an irresistible argument taken from human experience: He that speaks of himself, seeks his own glory: as if to say, He who aims at establishing some doctrine of his own, does so for no purpose, but to get glory. But I seek the glory of Him that sent me, and wish to teach you for His, i.e. another’s, sake: and then it follows, But he that seeks His glory that sent Him, the same is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.

As if He said, I speak the truth, because My doctrine contains the truth there is no unrighteousness in Me, because I usurp not another’s glory.

He who seeks his own glory is Antichrist. But our Lord set us an example of humility, in that being found in fashion as a man, He sought His Father’s glory, not His own. You, when you do good, take glory to yourself, when you do evil, upbraid God.

Observe, the reason why He spoke so humbly of Himself, is to let men know, that He does not aim at glory, or power; and to accommodate Himself to their weakness, and to teach them moderation, and a humble, as distinguished from an assuming, way of speaking of themselves.

There is then in philosophy, though stolen as the fire by Prometheus, a slender spark, capable of being fanned into flame, a trace of wisdom and an impulse from God. Well, be it so that “the thieves and robbers” are the philosophers among the Greeks, who from the Hebrew prophets before the coming of the Lord received fragments of the truth, not with full knowledge, and claimed these as their own teachings, disguising some points, treating others sophistically by their ingenuity, and discovering other things, for perchance they had “the spirit of perception.” Aristotle, too, assented to Scripture, and declared sophistry to have stolen wisdom, as we intimated before. And the apostle says, “Which things we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth.” For of the prophets it is said, “We have all received of His fulness,” that is, of Christ’s. …

22. Wherefore, having mastered this rule for interpreting the Scriptures concerning the Son of God, that we are to distinguish in them what relates to the form of God, in which He is equal to the Father, and what to the form of a servant which He took, in which He is less than the Father; we shall not be disquieted by apparently contrary and mutually repugnant sayings of the sacred books. For both the Son and the Holy Spirit, according to the form of God, are equal to the Father, because neither of them is a creature, as we have already shown: but according to the form of a servant He is less than the Father, because He Himself has said, “My Father is greater than I;” and He is less than Himself, because it is said of Him, He emptied Himself;” and He is less than the Holy Spirit, because He Himself says, “Whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but who …

27. I ask, therefore, how we are to understand, “I will not judge him; but the Word which I have spoken shall judge him:” which appears from what follows to be so said, as if He would say, I will not judge; but the Word of the Father will judge. But the Word of the Father is the Son of God Himself. Is it to be so understood: I will not judge, but I will judge? How can this be true, unless in this way: viz ., I will not judge by human power, because I am the Son of man; but I will judge by the power of the Word, because I am the Son of God? Or if it still seems contradictory and inconsistent to say, I will not judge, but I will judge; what shall we say of that place where He says, “My doctrine is not mine?” How “mine,” when “not mine?” For He did not say, This doctrine is not mine, but “ My doctrine is not mine:” that which He called His own, the same He called not His own. …

4. There are, then, some things in the sacred books, as I began by saying, so put, that it is doubtful to which they are to be referred: whether to that rule whereby the Son is less on account of His having taken the creature; or whether to that whereby it is intimated that although equal, yet He is of the Father. And in my opinion, if this is in such way doubtful, that which it really is can neither be explained nor discerned, then such passages may without danger be understood according to either rule, as that, for instance, “My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me.” For this may both be taken according to the form of a servant, as we have already treated it in the former book; or according to the form of God, in which He is in such way equal to the Father, that He is yet of the Father. …

48. But because it is most difficult to distinguish generation from procession in that co-eternal, and equal, and incorporeal, and ineffably unchangeable and indivisible Trinity, let it suffice meanwhile to put before those who are not able to be drawn on further, what we said upon this subject in a sermon to be delivered in the ears of Christian people, and after saying wrote it down. For when, among other things, I had taught them by testimonies of the Holy Scriptures that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both, I continue: “If, then, the Holy Spirit proceeds both from the Father and from the Son, why did the Son say, ‘He proceedeth from the Father?’ Why, think you, except as He is wont to refer to Him, that also which is His own, from whom also He Himself is? Whence also is that which He saith, ‘My doctrine is not mine own, but His that sent me?’ If, therefore, it is His doctrine that is …

2. While matters were in this state, and His own passion was now at hand, “Jesus cried, and said,” as our lesson to-day commences, “He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on Him that sent me; and he that seeth me, seeth Him that sent me.” He had already said in a certain place, “My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me.” Where we understood that He called His doctrine just what He is Himself, the Word of the Father; and in saying, “My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me,” implied this, that He was not of Himself, but had His being from another. For He was God of God, the Son of the Father: but the Father is not God of God, but God, the Father of the Son. …

8. If, then, the Holy Spirit proceedeth both from the Father and from the Son, why said the Son, “He proceedeth from the Father”? Why, do you think, but just because it is to Him He is wont to attribute even that which is His own, of whom He Himself also is? Hence we have Him saying, “My doctrine is not mine, but His that sent me.” If, therefore, in such a passage we are to understand that as His doctrine, which nevertheless He declared not to be His own, but the Father’s, how much more in that other passage are we to understand the Holy Spirit as proceeding from Himself, where His words, “He proceedeth from the Father,” were uttered so as not to imply, He proceedeth not from me? But from Him, of whom the Son has it that He is God (for He is God of God), He certainly has it that from Him also the Holy Spirit proceedeth: and in this way the Holy Spirit has it of the Father Himself, that H …

Ver. 16 . “My doctrine is not Mine.” Again He answereth to their secret thoughts, referring them to the Father, and so desiring to stop their mouths.