to say what I have said ; and I might say much more, because I am not a common prophet, but am commissioned and sent as the Word of the Father."
The frequency with which our Lord speaks of Himself as " sent by the Father," in St. John's Gospel, should be carefully noticed.
When our Lord speaks of Himself as " hearing" things from the Father, we must remember that His language is accom- modated to our understanding. The relation between the Father and the Son in the Trinity is something too mysterious for us fully to comprehend. The Son does not really and liter- ally need the Father to " speak " to Him, and does not himself need to "hear" Him. The first and second Persons in the Trinity are ineffably united, though two distinct Persons.
Lightfoot thinks the latter part of this verse means: "He that sent Me hath of old said and judged of you, and He is true, and they are true things that He said. Of this kind are the passages Isaiah xi. 10, and xxix. 10, and from such predictions Christ concludes thus — « ye shall die in your sins."'
27.— [They understood not, etc.'] Why the Jews who heard these words did not comprehend that our Lord spoke of the " Father" is not clear. They must have thought that " He that sent Me " meant some earthly sender. The extent to which our Lord's hearers sometimes understood Him, as in John v. 18, and some- times did not understand Him, as here, is a curious subject.
Alford observes : " There is no accounting for the ignorance of unbelief; as any minister of Christ knows by painful expe- rience."
28.— [Then said Jesus, etc.] This verse is phrophetical. Our Lord predicts that after His crucifixion the Jews would know that He was the Messiah, that He had done all he had done not of His own private authority, but by God's commission, and that He had spoken to the world only such things as the Father had taught aud appointed Him to speak. But whether our Lord meant that His hearers would really believe with the heart and really confess His Messiahship, or that they would know it too late and be convinced when the day of grace was past and gone, is a nice and difficult question.
My own opinion, judging from the context and the analogy of other places, is in favour of the latter view: viz., that our Lord predicted the Jewish nation would know the truth and discover their own mistake too late. I think so because our Lord seems so frequently to allude to the light which would come on the minds of the Jewish nation at large after His death. They would be convinced, though not converted.
Chrysostom thinks that our Lord meant, " Do you expect that you shall certainly rid yourselves of Me, and slay Me ? I 5