understood, but openly, boldly, unreservedly, and without mys- tery.
S5.— [Jesus answered.. .1 told.. .ye believed not.'] To what does our Lord refer here ? I believe He refers to what he had said in the fifth chapter before the Sanhedrim, and in the eighth chapter in the discourse beginning, " I am the Light," etc. The words would be more literally rendered, " I ha>e told you, and ye do not believe."
Henry observes, "The Jews pretended that they only doubted, but Christ tells them that they did not believe. Scepticism in religion is no better than downright infidelity."
Hengstenberg thinks that "I have told you " specially refers to our Lord's recent proclamation of Himself as " the Good Shepherd." To a Jewish ear it would sound like a claim to be the Messiah.
\_Tlie icorks... Father's name, ...witness of me.] Here, as in other places, our Lord appeals to His miracles as the grand proof that He was the Christ. (Compare iii. 2, and v. 36, and vii. 31, and ix. 33, 34, and Acts ii. 22.) It is as though our Lord said, "The miracles I have done are more than sufficient proof that I am the Messiah. Nothing can account for them but the fact that I au the promised Messiah."
We should observe that our Lord says, " The works which I do in my Father's name ;" that is, by my Father's commission and appointment, and as His Messenger. Here, as elsewhere, He carefully reminds the Jews that He does not act independently of His Father, but in entire harmony and unity with Him. His works were works which " the Father gave Him to finish."
We should observe how our Lord always and confidently ap- peals to the evidence of His miracles. Those who try to depre- ciate and sneer at miracles, seem to forget how often they are brought forward as good witnesses in the Bible. This, in fact, is their great object and purpose. They were not so much meant to convert, as to prove that He who did them was from God, and deserved attention.
" Of me," would be more literally rendered, " concerning or about me."
26. — [But ye believe not, because. ..not.. .sheep.'] I doubt whether the word " because" does not put a meaning on this verse which it hardly bears in the Greek. It should rather be, " Ye neither believe my words nor my works, for ye are not in the number of my sheep. If ye were my sheep ye would believe : faith is one of their marks." Not being Christ's sheep was not the cause of the unblief of the Jews ; but their unblief was the ev- idence that they were not Christ's sheep.
Tyndale and others think that the full stop should be after the