The Pulpit Commentary — John — Volume 1 — Section 502

Vers. 19, 20.-The scornful rejoinder of the Pharisees. "Where is thy Father? n I. THE APPEAL TO AN UNSEEN AND ABSENT WITNESS DOES NOT SATISFY THE ENEMIES OF JEsus. They ask not, "Who is thy Father?" but "Where is thy Father?" that he may be produced before us as a witness to thy claims. II. OUR LoaD's ANSWER. "Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye would have known my Father also." 1. Their ignorance of Christ's Divine flature was patent aU al07lg. 2. Their ignorance of the Father was necessitated morally by their ignorance of the Son; for it is he who reveals the Father. " He that bath seen me bath seen the Father;" "No man can know the Father, but be to whom the Son reveals him." The eye of faith needed to supplement the eye of sense. Ill. THE PUBLICITY Alm J!OLD~'ESS OF OUR LORD'S TEACHING. " These words spake Jesus, as he taught near the treasury in the temple." 1. Therefore in the very centre of Jewish life, •u1nder the very eyes of the Sanhedrin. 2. The Jews, though ready to datroy him, were restrained by conscience and by public opinion from "laying their hands upon him." 3. The liour of our Lord was not yet come, Vers. 21-25.-.A warning to the Jews of the importance of the present hour. It was, probably, in the last day of the feast that our Lord uttered this warning. L TEE SOLEMN ISSUES TEAT HUNG UPON HIS 0ONTll..-UED SOJOURN WITH TEE JEWB, "I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and ye shall die in your sin : whither I go, ye cannot come." 1. !!'heir refiection of him would close heaven agairtst them. They could not possibly enter into that "rest" on account of their unbelief. 2. His death was a matter fixed by the "determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God." Through death he is to pass upward to his kingdom and glory. 3. The Jewish search after him would be in the day of their overwhelming despair, and would be fruitless because not in the' way of faith. 4. The separation between Jesus and the Jews would be made perpetual,' 'by their S1·n. "Ye shall die in your ~in." The sin was that of unbelief, in" departing from the living God." "If ye believe not that I am, ye shall die in your sins." lL THE SPIRIT OF BOOR~7UL LEVITY WITH WHICH THESE ISSUES ABE TREATED BY TEE JEWS. "Will he kill himself? for he saith, Whither I go, ye cannot come?" 1. There u an evident increase in Jewish bitterness. Lately they asked....:..Would he go as a Messiah to the Gentiles? now they ask-Would he go to the dead? 2. They insinuate that to follow him to the grave u out of the question. If he killed himself, he would find himself in hell; they, on the ether band, expected to find themselves at death in .Abraham's bosom. 3. The question reveals the deepening moral separation between Jesu.s and his enemies. . IIL TEE CAUSE OF TIIEIB INABILITY EITHER TO FOLLOW OR TO UNDERSTAND HUI, "Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world. Therefore said I unto you, that ye shall die in your sins." 1. They belonged to a different sphere from himself. His origin and nature were from heaven ; their origin and nature were from earth. There could, therefore, be no moral understanding between tLem. " They were alienated from the life of God through the ignoranqe that was in them " (Eph. iv. 23). 2. Fatal effect of this worldly nature. "For if ye believe not t.hat I am, ye shall die in your sins." As following the course of this world, as minding earl,i1Jy things, but, above all, as refusing to recognize his essential Divinity, they were separated from him who was the true Source of life, and were doomed to die in their 6ins. IV. THE RE~'EWAL OF TEEm SCORNFUL QUESTIQNING. "Then said they unto him, Who art thou? Jesus saith to them, Even. the same that I .said unto you from the beginning." 1. How indurated was the tllfl,belief of the Jews I They had received "line upon line, precept upon precept," and yet th"'y rejected Christ. 2. How utterl11. ott. vm. 1-59.J TllE GOSPEL ACCO'RDIN'G TO ST. JOmt. 377