therefore reply that they do not propose to stone Him for His works, but for having spoken blasphemous icords. The precise nature of the blasphemy they say is, that " being nothing but a mere man, He made Himself God, or spoke of Himself in such a way as showed that He claimed to be God."
This is a very remarkable verse. It is like chap. v. 18 : " The Jews sought to kill Him, because He said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God." It shows clearly that the Jews in our Lord's time attached a much higher and deeper sense to our Lord's frequently used language about God being His Father than modern readers are apt to do. In fact they regarded it as nothing less than a claim to equality with God. Modern Arians and Socinians, who profess to see noth- ing in our Lord's Sonship but a higher degree of that relation- ship which exists* between all believers and God, would do well to mark this verse. What they say they cannot see, the Jews who hated Christ could see. This " cotemporaneous exposition," to use a legal phrase, of our Lord's words, de- serves great respect, and carries with it great weight and authority. As a man, our Lord was a Jew, educated and trained among Jews. Common sense points out that the Jews who lived in His time were more likely to put correct sense on His words than modern Socinians.
Gualter observes, how frequently wicked men and persecutors of Christ's people have affected a zeal for God's glory and pre- tended a horror of blasphemy. The accusers of Naboth and Stephen are examples : so also the Spanish Inquisition.
A. Clarke observes : " That had the Jews, as many called Christians do, understood our Lord only to mean, by being * one with the Father,' that He had unity of sentiment with the Father, they would not have attempted to treat Him as a blas- phemer. In this sense Abraham, Isaac, Moses, David, and all the prophets were one with God. But what irritated them was that they understood him to speak of unity of nature. There- fore they say, ' Thou makest Thyself God.' "
S4, — [Jesus answered them, etc.'] Our Lord's defence of his own language against the charge of blasphemy is very remarkable. It is an argument from a lesser to a greater. If princes, who are merely men, are called gods, He who was the eternal Son of the Father could surely not be justly chargeable with blasphemy for calling Himself the " Son of God."
The expression, " your law," means the Scriptures. Some- times our Lord speaks of two great divisions into which the Jews divided the Old Testament: viz., the law and the proph- ets. (As Matt. xxii. 40.) The ';law" then included not the books of Moses only, but everything clown to the end of the Song of Solomon. Sometimes He distributes the Scriptures into three parts : the law, the psalms, and the prophets. (As in Luke xxii. 44.) Here He uses one word for all the Old Tes-