John 8:29

When our Lord said, He is true that sent Me, the Jews did not understand that He spoke to them of the Father. But He saw some there, who, He knew, would believe on Him after His passion. Then said Jesus to them, When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you shall know that I am. Recollect the words, I am that I am, and you will know why I say, I am. I pass over your knowledge, in order that I may fulfill My passion. In your appointed time you will know who I am; when you have lifted up the Son of man. He means the lifting up of the cross; for He was lifted up on the cross, when He hung thereon. This was to be accomplished by the hands of those who should afterwards believe, whom He is now speaking to; with what intent, but that no one, however great his wickedness and consciousness of guilt might despair, seeing even the murderers of our Lord forgiven.

Or the connection is this: When His miracles and teaching had failed to convert men, He spoke of the cross; When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you shall know that I am He: as if to say, you think that you have killed Me; but I say that you shall then, by the evidence of miracles, of My resurrection, and your captivity, know most especially, that I am Christ the Son of God, and that I do not act in opposition to God; But that as My Father has taught Me, I speak these things. Here He shows the likeness of His substance to the Father’s; and that He says nothing beyond the Paternal intelligence. If I were contrary to God, I should not have moved His anger so much against those who did not hear Me.

Or thus: Having said, Then shall you know that I am, and in this, I am, implied the whole Trinity: lest the Sabellian error should creep in, He immediately adds, And I do nothing of Myself; as if to say, I am not of Myself; the Son is God from the Father. Let not what follows, as the Father has taught Me, I speak these things, suggest a carnal thought to any of you. Do not place as it were two men before your eyes, a Father speaking to his son, as you do when you speak to your sons. For what words could be spoken to the only Word? If the Father speaks in your hearts without sound, how does he speak to the Son? The Father speaks to the Son incorporeally, because He begat the Son incorporeally: not did He teach Him, as having begotten Him untaught; rather the teaching Him, was the begetting Him knowing. For if the nature of truth be simple, to be, in the Son, is the same as to know. As then the Father gave the Son existence by begetting, so He gave Him knowledge also.

He gives now a humbler turn to the discourse: And He that sent Me. That this might not be thought however to imply inferiority, He says, Is with Me. The former is His dispensation, the latter His divinity.

And though both are together, yet one is sent, the other sends. For the mission is the incarnation; and the incarnation is of the Son only, not of the Father. He says then, He that sent Me, meaning, By whose Fatherly authority I am made incarnate. The Father however, though He sent the Son, did not withdraw from Him, as He proceeds to say: The Father has not left Me alone. For it could not be that where He sent the Son, there the Father was not, He who says, If in heaven and earth. And He adds the reason why He did not leave Him: For I do always those things that please Him; always, i.e. not from any particular beginning, but without beginning and without end. For the generation from the Father has no beginning in time.

Or, He means it as an answer to those who were constantly saying that He was not from God, and that because He did not keep the sabbath; I do always, He says, do those things that please Him; showing that the breaking the sabbath even was pleasing to Him. He takes care in every way to show that He does nothing contrary to the Father. And as this was speaking more after a human fashion, the Evangelist adds, As He spoke these words many believed in Him; as if to say, Do not be disturbed at hearing so humble a speech from Christ; for those who had heard the greatest doctrines from Him, and were not persuaded, were persuaded by these words of humility. These then believed on Him, yet not as they ought; but only out of joy, and approbation of His humble way of speaking. And this the Evangelist shows in his subsequent narration, which relates their unjust proceedings towards Him.

I do not issue orders to you, as if I were some great person. For though I am bound for His name, I am not yet perfect in Jesus Christ. For now I begin to be a disciple, and I speak to you as my fellow-servants. For it was needful for me to have been admonished by you in faith, exhortation, patience, and long-suffering. But inasmuch as love suffers me not to be silent in regard to you, I have therefore taken upon me first to exhort you that ye would run together in accordance with the will of God. For even Jesus Christ does all things according to the will of the Father, as He Himself declares in a certain place, “I do always those things that please Him.” Wherefore it behoves us also to live according to the will of God in Christ, and to imitate Him as Paul did. For, says he, “Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.”

Again, whose doctrine does He announce, at which all were astonished? Was it His own or the Father’s? So, when they were in doubt among themselves whether He were the Christ (not as being the Father, of course but as the Son), He says to them “You are not ignorant whence I am; and I am not come of myself, but He that sent me is true, whom ye know not; but I know Him, because I am from Him.” He did not say, Because I myself am He; and, I have sent mine own self: but His words are, “He hath sent me.” When, likewise, the Pharisees sent men to apprehend Him, He says: “Yet a little while am I with you, and (then) I go unto Him that sent me.” When, however, He declares that He is not alone, and uses these words, “but I and the Father that sent me,” does He not show that there are Two, Two, and yet inseparable? Indeed, this was the sum and substance of what He was teaching them, that they were …

4. “Free among the dead” ( ver. 5 ). In these words our Lord’s Person is most clearly shown: for who else is free among the dead but He who though in the likeness of sinful flesh is alone among sinners without sin?…He therefore, “free among the dead,” who had it in His power to lay down His life, and again to take it; from whom no one could take it, but He laid it down of His own free will; who could revive His own flesh, as a temple destroyed by them, at His will; who, when all had forsaken Him on the eve of His Passion, remained not alone, because, as He testifies, His Father forsook Him not; was nevertheless by His enemies, for whom He prayed, who knew not what they did, …counted “as one who hath no help; like unto them that are wounded, and lie in the grave.” But he adds, “Whom thou dost not yet remember:” and in these words there is to be remarked a distinction between Christ and th …

Ver. 28, 29 . “When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then ye shall know that I Am, and that I speak not of Myself, and that He that sent Me is with Me. And the Father hath not left Me alone.”

Seest thou the humility of the words? For he that hath received a commandment is not his own master. Yet He saith, “As the Father raiseth up the dead and quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom He will.” ( c. v. 21 .) Hath He then power to quicken whom He will, and to say what He will hath He not power? What He intendeth then by the words is this; “The action hath not natural possibility, that He should speak one set of words, and I should utter another.” “And I know that His commandment is life everlasting.” He said this to those that called Him a deceiver, and asserted that He had come to do hurt. But when He saith, “I judge not,” He showeth that He is not the cause of the perdition of these men. …

30. They have also dared to say that the Scripture, When all things shall be subjected unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subjected unto Him that subjected all things unto Him , that this Scripture shews that the Son also shall be absorbed into the Father. Shall ye then, O most impious of all men, ye the creatures of Christ, continue? and shall Christ perish, by whom both you and all things were made? Such a word is blasphemous. But further, how shall all things be made subject unto Him? By perishing, or by abiding? Shall then the other things, when subject to the Son abide, and shall the Son, when subject to the Father, not abide? For He shall be subjected, not because He shall then begin to do the Father’s will (for from eternity He doth always those things that please Him ), but because, then as before, He obeys the Father, yielding, not a forced obedience, but a self-chosen …