Bible Commentaries

CHAPTER 14

BEFORE πορεύμαι, John 14:2, ὅτι (Lachm. Tisch.) is decisively attested. Its omission is therefore to be explained from the fact that it was taken for the recitative ὅτι, as which it appeared superfluous, since the recitative ὅτι is so frequently passed over in the Codd.

John 14:3. καί before ἑτοιμ. is wanting in A. E. G. H. K. Δ. Curss., some Verss., Phot. Deleted by Matth. and Lachm. D. M. Curss. Syr. Cant. Theophyl. Euth.: ἑτοιμάσαι. This mechanical repetition from what precedes was the cause of the omission of the καί, which, however, is still very strongly attested by B. C. L. N. U. X. Λ. א. Vulg. It. and important witnesses.

John 14:4. οἴδατε, καὶ τ. ὁδὸν οἴδατε] B. C.* L. Q. X. א. 157, Copt. Aeth. Pers. p. Verc. have merely οἴδατε τ. ὁδόν. So Tisch., whilst Lachm. only brackets the καί and the second οἴδατε. The Recepta is an explanatory expansion; against it John 14:5 also witnesses.

John 14:5. δυνάμεθα τ. ὁδὸν εἰδέναι] Lachm. and Tisch.: οἴδαμεν τὴν ὁδόν, according to B. C.* D. Codd. It. Cyr. Tert., among which, however, a few (including D.) have τ. ὁδ. οἴδ. The Recepta is an explanatory expansion. John 14:7. ἐγνώκειτε ἄν] B. C.* L. Q. X. Curss. Cyr. Ath.: ἂν ᾔδειτε, or (X.) ᾔδ. ἄν. From John 8:19.

John 14:9. τοσοῦτον χρόνον] Lachm. Tisch.: τοσούτῳ χρόνῳ, according to D. L. Q. א. Cyr. The accusative is an unnecessary gloss.

John 14:10. αὐτὸς ποιεῖ τὰ ἔργα] Tisch.: ποιεῖ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ, according to B. D. א. Rightly. The αὐτός, added in explanation, dislodged the αὐτοῦ, and that in such a way that it took its place (L. X.) in some instances, in others was placed before the verb.

John 14:11. After ἐμοί Elz. has ἐστίν. A supplementary addition against decisive testimony.

μοι at the end is rejected by Schulz, deleted by Tisch. It suggests the suspicion of being a mechanical repetition; besides, the omitting witnesses (amongst them Codd. D. L. א. 33) are sufficiently strong.

John 14:12. μου] is, according to preponderating evidence, with Lachm. and Tisch., to be deleted.

John 14:14 is entirely wanting in X. Λ. Curss., some Verss. Chrys. Nonnus; witnesses, however, which are too weak to permit us, with Rinck, to condemn it, especially since, on account of the similar beginning in John 14:14; John 14:16, and considering its superfluous character, it might very easily be passed over.

John 14:15. τηρήσατε] Tisch.: τηρήσετε, according to B. L. א. (?) Curss. Euseb. But the future readily arose from the entire surrounding.

John 14:16. μένῃ] B. L. Q. X. א. Codd. It. Goth. Copt. Syr. and several Fathers have ᾖ. So Lachm. (but, with B., after αἰῶνα) and Tisch. Rightly; μενῃ is a more closely-defining gloss from John 14:17.

John 14:17. ἔσται] Lachm.: ἐστίν, according to B. D.* Curss. Verss. Lucif. According as MENEI was taken as present (E. G. K. M. U. X. Λ.) or as future (Vulg.), ἐστίν or ἔσται may be written after it; hence it is only the preponderance of witnesses which decides, and this is in favour of the future.

John 14:20. Since the first ὑμεῖς stands in some of the witnesses after, in some before, γνώσ. (so, only bracketed in Lachm.), while in some it is entirely wanting (A. Verss. Fathers), it must be regarded as an addition.

John 14:22. Instead of καὶ τί, Elz. and Lachm. have merely τί, in accordance with preponderating evidence. But καί (which א. also has) might be readily passed over by clumsy copyists, especially, too, as the preceding κύριε might occasion its being overlooked.

John 14:23. ποιήσομεν] Lachm. and Tisch.: ποιησόμεθα, in accordance with important witnesses (D. also with ἐλεύσομαι κ. ποιήσομαι declares for the middle voice). Rightly; the middle, which John uses nowhere else, was unfamiliar to the copyists.

John 14:28. ἠγαπᾶτε] D.* H. L. and a few Curss.: ἀγαπᾶτε, to which Buttmann, in the Stud. u. Krit. 1858, p. 481 f., gives the preference. Too weakly attested; and how easily would a stumbling-block be found in the imperf., as denying love to the disciples!

Between ὅτι and πορεύομαι Elz. has εἶπον, against decisive witnesses. An interpolation in conformity with the preceding.

John 14:1.[138] From Peter Jesus now turns, with consolatory address in reference to His near departure, to the disciples generally; hence D. and a few Verss. prefix καὶ εἶπεν τοῖς μαθηταῖς αὐτοῦ (so also Luther, following Erasmus). But the cause of the address itself is fully explained in John’s narrative by the situation, and by no means requires the reference, arbitrarily assumed by Hengstenberg, to Luke 22:35-38. The whole of the following farewell discourses, down to John 17:26, must have grown out of the profoundest recollections of the apostle, which, in a highly intellectual manner, are vividly recalled, and further expanded. It coheres with the entire peculiarity of the Johannean narrative of the last Supper, that the Synoptics offer no parallels to these farewell discourses. Hence it is not satisfactory, and is not in keeping with the necessary personal recollection of John, to regard him as taking his start from certain primary words of earlier gospels, which he, like an artist of powerful genius, has transfigured by a great, but, at the same time, most appropriate and enchanting transformation (Ewald).

μὴ ταρασσ.] by anxiety and apprehension. Comp. John 12:27. It points to what He had spoken in the preceding chapters of His departure, not, as Chrysostom, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, and many thought, to Peter’s denial, after the prediction of which the rest of the disciples also might have become anxious about their constancy. This is erroneous, because the following discourse bears no relation to it.

πιστεύετε, κ.τ.λ.] By these words Jesus exhorts them not to faith generally (which they certainly had), but to that confident assurance by which the μὴ ταράσσεσθαι was conditioned: trust in God, and trust in me. To take, in both cases, πιστεύετε as imperatives (Cyril., Gothic, Nonnus, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Bengel, and several others, including most moderns, from Lücke to Hengstenberg and Godet) appears most in conformity with the preceding imperative and the direct character of the address.[139] Others: the first πιστ. is indicative, and the second imperative: ye believe on God, believe therefore on me (Vulgate, Erasmus, Luther in his Exposition, Castalio, Beza, Calvin, Aretius, Maldonatus, Grotius, and several others). Luther, who takes the first sentence as a hypothetical statement, which in itself is admissible (Bernhardy, p. 385; Pflugk, ad Eur. Med. 386, comp. on John 1:51), has in his translation taken πιστεύετε, in both cases, as indicatives. According to any rendering, however, the inseparable coherence of the two movements (God in Christ manifest and near) is to be noted. Comp. Romans 5:2.

[138] Luther’s exposition of chap. 14, 15, 16 belongs to the year 1538. He terms these discourses “the best and most consoling sermons that the Lord Christ delivered on earth,” and “a treasure and jewel, not to be purchased with the world’s goods.”—Luther’s book (which originated in sermons, which Casp. Cruciger took down) is among his most spirited and lively writings. How highly he himself esteemed it, see in Matthesius, eilfte Pred. (ed. Nürnb. 1592, p. 119a).

[139] So also Ebrard, who, however, in conformity with a supposed Hebraism (see on Ephesians 4:26), finds the inappropriate meaning: “Believe on God, so ye believe on me.” Thus the emotional address becomes a reflection. Olshausen arrives at the same sense, taking the first πιστ. as imperative, the second as indicative.

John 14:2-3 serve to arouse the πιστεύειν demanded in John 14:1, to which a prospect so blessed lies open. In the house of my Father are many places of sojourn, many shall find their abiding-place (μονή only here and in John 14:23 in the N. T.; frequent in the classics, comp. also 1Ma 7:38), so that such therefore is not wanting to you also; but if this were not the case I would have told you (“ademissem vobis spem inanem,” Grotius). After εἶπον ἂν ὑμῖν a full stop must be placed, and with ὅτι (see critical notes) πορεύομαι a new sentence begins. So, first Valla, then Beza, Calvin, Casaubon, Aretius, Grotius, Jansen, and many others, including Kuinoel, Lücke, Tholuck, Olshausen, B. Crusius, De Wette,[140] Maier, Hengstenberg, Godet, Lachmann, Tischendorf. But the Fathers of the church, Erasmus, Luther, Castalio, Wolf, Maldonatus, Bengel, and many others, including Hofmann, Schriftbew. II. 2, p. 464, and Ebrard, refer εἶπον ἂν ὑμῖν to what follows: if it were not so, then I would have said to you: I go, etc. Against this John 14:3 is decisive, according to which Jesus actually says that He is going away, and is preparing a place.[141] Others take it as a question, where, however, we are not, on account of the aorist εἶπον, to explain: would I indeed say to you: I go, etc. (Mosheim, Ernesti, Beck in the Stud. u. Krit. 1831, p. 130 ff.)? but: would I indeed have said to you, etc.? In this way there would neither be intended an earlier saying not preserved in the Gospel (Ewald),[142] possibly with the stamp of a gloss on it (Weizsäcker), or a reference to the earlier sayings regarding the passage into the heavenly world (Lange). But for the latter explanation the saying in the present passage is too definite and peculiar; while the former amounts simply to an hypothesis which is neither necessary nor capable of support on other grounds.

The ΟἸΚΊΑ ΤΟῦ ΠΑΤΡΌς is not heaven generally, but the peculiar dwelling-place of the divine δόξα in heaven, the place of His glorious throne (Psalm 2:4; Psalm 33:13-14; Isaiah 63:15, et al.), viewed, after the analogy of the temple in Jerusalem, this earthly οἶκος τοῦ πατρός (John 2:16), as a heavenly sanctuary (Isaiah 57:15). Comp. Hebrews 9

ΠΟΛΛΑΊ] ἹΚΑΝΑῚ ΔΈΞΑΣΘΑΙ ΚΑῚ ὙΜᾶς, Euth. Zigabenus. The conception of different degrees of blessedness (Augustine and several others) lies entirely remote from the meaning here; for many the house of God is destined and established, and that already ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου, Matthew 25:34.

ὍΤΙ ΠΟΡΕΎΟΜΑΙ, Κ.Τ.Λ.] for I go, etc., assigns the reason of the assurance: ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ … πολλαί εἰσιν, so that ΕἸ ΔῈ ΜῊ, ΕἾΠΟΝ ἊΝ ὙΜῖΝ is to be regarded as logically inserted. The ΠΟΡΕΎΟΜΑΙ ἙΤΟΙΜΆΣΑΙ, Κ.Τ.Λ., however, is an actual proof of the existence of the ΜΟΝΑῚ ΠΟΛΛΑΊ in the heavenly house of God (not of the ΕἾΠΟΝ ἊΝ ὙΜῖΝ, as Luthardt thinks, placing only a colon after ὙΜῖΝ), because otherwise Jesus could not go away with the design of getting prepared for them in those ΜΟΝΑΊ a place on which they are thereafter to enter, a place for them. This ἙΤΟΙΜΆΖΕΙΝ ΤΌΠΟΝ presupposes ΜΟΝᾺς ΠΟΛΛΆς, in which the dwelling-place to be provided must exist. The idea is, further (comp. the idea of the ΠΡΌΔΡΟΜΟς, Hebrews 6:20), that He having attained by His death to the fellowship of the divine ΔΌΞΑ, purposes to prepare the way for their future ΣΥΝΔΟΞΑΣΘῆΝΑΙ with God (comp. John 17:24); but “therefore He speaks with them in the simplest possible, as it were, childlike fashion, according to their thoughts, as is necessary to attract and allure simple people,” Luther.

John 14:3. ΚΑῚ ἘᾺΝ … ΤΌΠΟΝ] Emphatic repetition of the consolatory words, with which the still more consolatory promise is united: I will come again, and will (then) receive you to myself. Jesus says, καὶ ἐάν, not Κ. ὍΤΑΝ, for He will not mention the point of time of His return, but what consequences (namely, the πάλιν ἔρχομαι, κ.τ.λ.) will be connected with this departure of His, and preparation of a place of which He had just given them assurance. The ΠΟΡΕΎΕΣΘΑΙ Κ. ἙΤΟΙΜ, Κ.Τ.Λ., is the conditioning fact which, if it shall take place, has the ΠΆΛΙΝ ἜΡΧΕΣΘΑΙ, Κ.Τ.Λ., as its happy consequence. Comp. John 12:32. The nearness or remoteness of the appearance of this result remains undefined by ἘΆΝ. Comp. Düsterdieck on 1 John 2:28, where the reading ὍΤΑΝ is an alteration proceeding from clumsy copyists.

By ΠΆΛΙΝ ἜΡΧΟΜΑΙ Jesus means, and that not indefinitely, or with any approach to a spiritual signification (De Wette), but distinctly and clearly, His Parousia at the last day (John 6:39-40, John 11:24), and not His resurrection (Ebrard), to which the following κ. παραλ., κ.τ.λ., is not appropriate. That in John also (comp. 1 John 2:28), and in Jesus, according to John (comp. John 21:22, John 5:28-29), as in the whole apostolic church, the conception existed of the Parousia as near at hand,[143] although, on account of its spiritual character in the Gospel, it steps less into the foreground, see in Kaeuffer, de ζωῆς αἰων. not. p. 131 f., comp. also Frommann, p. 479 f.; Lechler, Apost. und Nachapost. Zeit. p. 224 ff.; Wittichen in the Jahrb.f. D. Th. 1862, p. 357 f.; Weiss, Lehrbegr. p. 181. On this His glorious return He will receive the disciples into His personal fellowship (as raised from the dead or transformed respectively), and that as partakers of His divine δόξα in the heavenly sanctuary which has descended with Him to the earth, in which a place will be already prepared for them. He comes in the glory of His Father, and they enter into fellowship with Him in this ΔΌΞΑ in the Messianic kingdom. Comp. Origen and several others, including Calvin, Lampe, Luthardt, Hofmann, Schriftbew. I. p. 194, Hilgenfeld, Brückner, Ewald. The explanation of a coming, only regarded as such more or less improperly, in order to receive the disciples by a blessed death into heaven (Grotius, Kuinoel, B. Crusius, Reuss, Tholuck, Lange, Hengstenberg, and several others), is opposed to the words (comp. John 21:22) and to the mode of expression elsewhere employed in the N. T. respecting the coming of Christ, since death does indeed translate the apostles and martyrs to Christ (2 Corinthians 5:8; Php 1:23; Acts 7:59; see on Php 1:26, note); but it is nowhere said of Christ that He comes (in order to be personally present at their dying bed, so Hengstenberg, indeed, thinks) and fetches them to Himself. Except in the Paraclete, Christ first comes in His glory at the Parousia. The interpretation, however (according to John 14:18 ff.), that here “only the spiritual return of Christ to His own, and their reception into the full sacred fellowship of the Spirit of the glorified Christ” (Lücke, Neander, Godet) can be intended (comp. Olshausen, Ebrard), is not to be approved, for the reason that Jesus Himself, John 14:2, has decisively provided beforehand for the words being understood of His actual return, and of local fellowship with Him (in John 14:18 ff. the entire context is different).

πρὸς ἐμαυτόΝ] spoken in the consciousness of the great value which the love of the disciples placed on fellowship with His own person. Only with Himself have faith and love the final object of hope, and their blessed reward[144] in the Father’s house.

[140] He terms the assertion “somewhat naïve.” But it has rather its full weight in the faith presupposed in the disciples, that He cannot leave them uninstructed on any essential point of their hope. Comp. Köstlin, Lehrbegr. p. 163.

[141] This reason is valid, whether we read now in ver. 3 καὶ ἑτοιμάσω, or with Lachmann merely ἑτοιμάσω: Hofmann follows the latter, and connects therewith, as well as with ἐάν, artificial and laboured departures from the simple sense of the words. Ebrard also adopts a forced and artificial view, according to which ἑτοιμάσαι is said to be objective: bring about your presence; but ἑτοιμάσω (without καί) must point to the making accessible for the disciples. How could a listener hit upon this difference of idea in the same word?

[142] He would also place εἰ δὲ μὴ … τόπον ὑμῖν within a parenthesis, and finds here either a saying out of a now unknown gospel, or rather out of the fragment supposed to have been lost before chap. 6.

[143] However decidedly this is still denied by Scholten, who finds in John only a spiritual coming, in the sense, namely, that the Spirit of Jesus remains. According to Keim (Geschichtl. Chr. p. 45, ed. 3), the fourth Gospel has, “in sufficiently modern fashion, relegated the future kingdom to heaven,” and “broken off the head” of the expectation of the Parousia. But the head is exactly in the present passage.

[144] It is incorrect to maintain that in John the notion of reward is entirely wanting (so Weiss in the Deutsch. ZeitzsChr. 1853, pp. 325, 338, and in his Petr. Lehrbegr. p. 55 f.). As Christ seeks in prayer eternal glory for Himself as a reward, John 17:4-5, so He assigns it to the disciples also as a reward. See John 17:24, John 12:25-26, John 11:26. Here applies also the promise of ἰδεϊν τὴν βασιλ. τοῦ θεοῦ, John 3:3; John 3:5, and the resurrection at the last day, John 5:28-29, John 6:40; John 6:54. Comp. 1 John 3:2-3, where the future transfiguration and union with Christ is expressly designated as the object of ἐλπίς, as well as John 8 where even the expression μισθὸν πλήρη is employed, and is to be understood of eternal blessedness (see Düsterdieck, II. p. 505).

John 14:4-5. In order now to lead the disciples to that which, on their side, in respect of the promise contained in John 14:3, was the main practical matter, He says, arousing inquiry: And whither I go … ye know the way (so, according to the amended reading, see critical notes) which leads thither, namely, to the Father. And the disciples, had they already been more susceptible to the communications of the Lord respecting His higher Messianic destiny, must have known it,—this way,—since Christ had already so frequently set Himself forth as the only Mediator of salvation, as in chap. 6, John 10:1 ff., John 11:25, et al. He means, that is, not the way to suffering and death, which He Himself is about to tread (Luther, Jansen, Grotius, Wetstein, also Tholuck and Luthardt), but the way designated in John 14:6 (He Himself is that way!) along which every one is directed who would attain to that glorious fellowship with the Father.

ὅπου ἐγὼ ὑπάγω is an anacoluthon, with the emphasis of the certainty of the near and blessed completion, and ἐγώ has the accent of self-conscious and unique pre-eminence.

Thomas, as in John 20:25, speaks the language of sober, hesitating intelligence, not of dejection, at the approaching suffering of the Lord, as Ebrard thinks. He seeks information; ᾤετο γὰρ αἰσθητὸν εἶναί τινα τόπον, ὅπου ὑπάγει, καὶ ὁδὸν ὁμοίως τοιαύτην, Euth. Zigabenus. The heavenly ποῦ, however distinctly Jesus had already designated it, Thomas did not yet know clearly how to combine with his circle of Messianic ideas; but he desired to arrive at clearness. That Thomas is here cited without the name Δίδυμος, which is added in John 11:16, John 20:24, John 21:2, is accidental, and without the design which Hengstenberg imports (that he does not speak here according to his individual spiritual character).

πῶς, κ.τ.λ.] “Quodsi ignoretur, quae sit meta, non potest via sub ratione viae concipi,” Grotius.

John 14:6. I (no other than I) am the way, on which men must go, in order to come to the Father in His heavenly house, John 14:2-3, and the truth, and the life. But since no one, without going the prescribed way, without having appropriated the truth to himself, and without bearing in himself the life, can come to that goal, οὐδεὶς, κ.τ.λ., is thus the exponent to all three particulars, not merely to the first. The three moments lay down the proposition that no other than Christ is the Mediator of eternal salvation with God in the Messianic kingdom, according to three several characteristic aspects which are co-ordinated, yet in such a way that the advance is made from the general to the particular. The characteristic of the mediation of salvation, in the first point, is not designated with reference to matter (as in ἡ ἀλήθεια and ἡ ξωή), but as to form, in so far, namely, as the mediation of salvation itself is therein expressed in a specific figure (comp. John 10:9). On individual points, note: (1) Christ is the Way, not because He ὑπέδειξε τὴν ὁδόν (Cyril. Melanchthon, and many others), whereby both the expression and the figure are departed from, and the relation of things is not sufficiently attended to, but because in His personal manifestation the mediation of salvation is objectively given, absolutely the sole mediation for all men, but which has to be made use of subjectively, that is, by faith on Him, like the man who is aiming at a goal, and for that purpose must take and pursue the given way which is the means of its attainment. (2) Christ is the Truth, because He is the self-revelation of God which has been manifested (John 14:7; John 14:9), the Light that is come into the world, without the appropriation of which salvation is not obtained. (3) He is the Life (Colossians 3:4), because He is the Principle and Source of eternal life (in its temporal development and future consummation); so that whoever has not received Him into himself by faith (John 6:50-51, John 11:25-26), has become a prey to spiritual and eternal death; comp. Ignatius, ad Trall. 9 : οὗ χωρὶς τὸ ἀλήθινον ζῆν οὐκ ἔχομεν; ad Ephesians 3 : Χριστὸς τὸ ἀδιάκριτον ἡμῶν ζῆν. These three points are not to be separated according to time (Luther: beginning, middle, end; so also Calvin), but Christ is all three at once,—in that He is the one, He is also the second and the third,—although this cannot justify an arbitrary fusion of the three predicates (as would be the Augustinian vera via vitae).

οὐδεὶς ἔρχεται, κ.τ.λ.] the Johannean sola fide. Note how John 14:6 is the summary of the most perfect self-confession of the Son regarding Himself and His work.

John 14:7. Had you known me (for they had indeed not known that He was the Way), you would also have known the Father (of their non-acquaintance with whom their οὐκ οἴδαμεν, ποῦ ὑπάγεις, John 14:5, had testified).

The emphasis changes (otherwise in John 8:19); it lies in the protasis on ἐγνώκ., not on the enclitic μέ; in the apodosis on τ. πατ. μον.

καὶ ἀπʼ ἄρτι, κ.τ.λ.] and—which I can nevertheless now add—from henceforward (after I have told you in John 14:6 so definitely and fully what I am) you know Him, and have (in me, John 14:9) beheld Him. This view of the meaning, which flows immediately out of the context, John 14:6; John 14:9, the point of which is the idea of the adequate self-revelation of God in Christ, entirely excludes any interpretation of the two verbs in a future sense (Chrysostom, Kuinoel, and many others), and the reference to a future terminus a quo (Chrysostom, Lücke, Ewald, and several others), which is wont to be assumed as the time of the communication of the Spirit, nay, even a mentally supplied “I hope” (De Wette) with ἀπάρτι. The reference of ἀπάρτι to the whole time of their fellowship with Christ since their conversion (Hengstenberg), is, even in a linguistic point of view, impossible. See on John 13:19, John 1:51. In that case only νῦν could stand. Godet’s remark is also incorrect: “at the point at which my teaching has now arrived,” as if ἄρτι merely were expressed.

On καί, which, without altering its meaning, significantly subjoins an adversative clause (and … i.e. and nevertheless), see on John 7:28.

John 14:8-9. Philip, like Thomas in a certain hesitation, corresponding to his want of apprehension, has not yet understood the ἑωράκατε αὐτόν; instead of seeing it fulfilled in the manifestation of Jesus Himself, it excites in him the wish that the Lord would bring about a Theophany, perhaps such as Moses once beheld (Exodus 24:9-10), or desired to see (Exodus 33:18), or the prophets had predicted for the inauguration of the Messianic kingdom (Malachi 3:1 ff.).

ἀρκεῖ ἡμῖν] and then are we contented; then we see the measure of the revelation of the Father, given to us by Thee, fulfilled to such a degree that we do not covet a further until the last glorious appearance.

On the dative of duration of time, τοσούτῳ χρόνῳ (see critical notes), comp. Buttmann, N. T. Gram. p. 161 [E. T. p. 186]).

καὶ οὐκ ἔγν. με] And thou hast not known me? A question of melancholy surprise, and hence also in loving emotion, He addresses him by name. Had Philip known Jesus, he would have said to himself, that in Him the highest revelation of God was manifested, and the wish to behold a Theophany must have remained foreign to his mind. Hence: He who has seen me has seen the Father; for He reveals Himself in me, I am ἀθηήτοιο τοκῆος συμφυὲς ἔνθεον εἶδος ἔχων βροτοειδέϊ μορφῇ, Nonnus. The proposition is to be left in objective generality, and ἑωρ. is not to be limited to believing seeing (Luther, Lücke, De Wette, and many others). Every one has, if he has seen Christ, seen the Father objectively; but only he who has known Christ for that which He is, subjectively also, “according to the sight of the Spirit and of faith,” Luther. Comp. John 1:14, John 5:37.

John 14:10-11. This language of thine amounts indeed to this: as though thou didst not believe that, etc.

ὅτι ἐγὼ ἐν τ. πατρὶ, κ.τ.λ.] On this mutual fellowship, which “virtutis potius quam essentiae elogium est” (Calvin), see on John 10:38. Comp. John 17:21. Here the ἐγὼ ἐν τ. πατ. stands first, because the matter in question is the way which the knowledge has to take from the Son to the Father.

τὰ ῥήματα … τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ] (see critical notes): the proof of this union of mine with the Father is, that I do not speak of myself; but the proof for that (for this ἀπʼ ἐμαυτοῦ οὐ λαλῶ) is, that the Father does His works through me. The δέ is therefore continuative (autem), not antithetical. Further, we must neither say that the ῥήματα are to be reckoned along with the ἔργα, nor that τὰ ἔργα signifies the business of teaching (Nösselt); but, from the fact that the Messianic works (see on John 5:36) are the works of the Father, it is inferred, with necessary dialectic certainty, from whom also the discourses of Jesus proceed; if the former are divine, the latter must be adequately related thereto. The first proposition is often arbitrarily supplemented from the second, and vice versâ.[145] This, however, does not agree with the Greek mode of allowing, in antithetic propositions, one clause to be completed from the other (Kühner, II. p. 603 f.; Bernhardy, p. 455), and would here run counter to the context, since Jesus, John 14:11, desires to have deduced from the ἔργα that which He had brought into light by τὰ ῥήματα … λαλῶ. Hence we are not to get out of the difficulty either by the assumption of an “incongruity in the antithetic propositions” (Tholuck), or, with Lange, pronounce that the words belong pre-eminently to the Son, the works pre-eminently to the Father, which is not contained in the expressions, and would be an un-Johannean halving of the thought (John 5:19, John 8:28, John 12:49); nor are we to assume, with Ewald, that a lesser significance is to be ascribed to the works in opposition to the words.

ὁ ἐν ἐμοὶ μένων] expressing the ὁ ἐν ἐμ. ὤν as enduring (he who does not depart from me). According to the reading ποιεῖ τ. ἔργα αὐτοῦ (see critical notes), the works of Jesus are set forth as the works of God, which the Father performs, that is, in virtue of His immanence in the Son, making them to operate in an outward direction.

John 14:11. From Philip, Jesus now turns to the disciples collectively, and that with an exhortation to the faith, in reference to which He had been obliged to question Philip in a manner implying doubt.

πιστεύετέ μοι] namely, without anything further, in addition to my personal assurance.

ὅτι] not because (Bengel), but that, as in John 14:10.

διὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτά] On account of the works themselves (in and of themselves), irrespective of my oral testimony, believe me in this. The works are the actual proofs of that fellowship, John 5:19-20, John 10:37-38.

[145] The words which I speak to you, I speak not of myself; and the works which I do, I do not of myself, but the Father who is in me. He teaches me the words, and does the works—De Wette, comp. Bengel.