John 7:18

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. …

Although at one time philosophy justified the Greeks, not conducting them to that entire righteousness to which it is ascertained to cooperate, as the first and second flight of steps help you in your ascent to the upper room, and the grammarian helps the philosopher. Not as if by its abstraction, the perfect Word would be rendered incomplete, or truth perish; since also sight, and hearing, and the voice contribute to truth, but it is the mind which is the appropriate faculty for knowing it. But of those things which co-operate, some contribute a greater amount of power; some, a less. Perspicuity accordingly aids in the communication of truth, and logic in preventing us from falling under the heresies by which we are assailed. …

Having expiscated the “to us” and the “absolutely”, sanctification and redemption being “to us” and not absolute, wisdom and redemption both to us and absolute, we must not omit to enquire into the position of righteousness in the same passage. That Christ is righteousness relatively to us appears clearly from the words: “Who was made to us of God wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” And if we do not find Him to be righteousness absolutely as He is the wisdom and the power of God absolutely, then we must enquire whether to Christ Himself, as the Father is sanctification, so the Father is also righteousness. There is, we know, no unrighteousness with God; He is a righteous and holy Lord, and His judgments are in righteousness, and being righteous, He orders all things righteously.

Is not then this Thy will? And how sayest Thou, “I am come to send fire upon the earth, and what have I desired to see, if that be already kindled”? ( Luke xii. 49 .) For if Thou also desirest this, it is very clear that Thy will and the Father’s is one. In another place also He saith, “For as the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom He will.” ( c. v. 21 .) But what is the will of the Father? Is it not, that not so much as one of them should perish? This Thou willest also. ( Matt. xviii. 14 .) So that the will of the One differeth not from the will of the Other. So in another place He is seen establishing yet more firmly His equality with the Father, saying, “I and My Father ‘will come, and will make Our abode with him.’” ( c. xiv. …

Ver. 18 . “He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory.”