48The Jews answered him, “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?”
49“I am not possessed by a demon,” said Jesus, “but I honor my Father and you dishonor me. 50I am not seeking glory for myself; but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. 51I tell you the truth, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”
52At this the Jews exclaimed, “Now we know that you are demon-possessed! Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say that if anyone keeps your word, he will never taste death. 53Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?”
54Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. 55Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and keep his word. 56Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.”
57“You are not yet fifty years old,” the Jews said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!”
58“I tell you the truth,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” 59At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.
COMMENTARY
48 It is clear that the religious rulers could not allow Jesus to stand there in the temple courts and charge them with being children of the devil. So they countered by declaring that he, not they, was the one who wasn’t a genuine member of the Jewish race. Calling for an affirmative response, they ask whether it is true that he is a “Samaritan and demon-possessed.” Relations between the Jews and Samaritans had long been bitter and disrespectful. To tell a Jew that he was a Samaritan was the lowest kind of insult. The Samaritans were a mixed race, considered apostate, and at least at a later date often connected with magic and the demonic. Origen (Cels., 6:11) tells us about Dosistheus, a prophet in Samaria who claimed to be the son of God and was considered mad by the Jews. Since in the following verse Jesus responds to the charge of being demon-possessed but not to being a Samaritan, we may infer that the two were considered essentially the same.
49 Far from being possessed by a demon, Jesus by his words and actions is bringing honor to his Father. The accusations made by the Jews are 180 degrees off target. They do not recognize that what Jesus has been telling them is in fact a message from God himself. To charge that this message comes from one possessed by an evil spirit shows how hopelessly blind they were to spiritual reality. While Jesus honors the Father, they dishonor Jesus and consequently God too. Jesus continually brings honor to God by carrying out his will; they continually dishonor (both timō, GK 5506, and atimazete, GK 869, are present tense) both the Son and the Father by not accepting the message.
50–51 Jesus does not seek glory for himself but leaves it to the Father, who as judge (the one competent to decide all things with fairness) wants him to have it. Verse 51 begins with a double “amen,” indicating its special importance. Astounding as it must have sounded to his adversaries, Jesus declares, “If anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.” As he said earlier, to hear his word and to believe in the one who sent him is to have passed over from death to life (5:24; cf. 6:47; 11:26). He is the one who has the words that give life (6:63, 68).
52–53 The people misunderstood Jesus’ remark about never seeing death to mean that he was claiming that he would never die. This confirmed them in their opinion that Jesus was demon-possessed. Death had been the common experience of every person in the long history of humankind. Even Abraham, the “friend of God” (Isa 41:8; Jas 2:23), and the prophets died. To “taste death” and to “see death” (v.51) are Hebraic expressions for dying. How could believing what this untutored Galilean had to say prevent a person from dying? Obviously he is mad. And he surely would be, except for the fact that what he said is true. There is no middle ground: Jesus is either the Son of God or a raving lunatic. The decision as to which he is falls on every individual, and the eternal fate of every human being hangs on that crucial decision.
From the perspective of the Jews, Jesus was placing himself on a higher level than Abraham. Even Abraham, the great patriarch and father of the Jewish race, shared with the prophets and everyone else the common experience of death. So they ask, “What sort of a person are you claiming to be?” Once again, the Jews miss the point. Jesus isn’t setting himself up at all; he is carrying out his mission in complete subjection to the will of his Father. Their failure to grasp who Jesus really is has led to a complete misunderstanding of what he is about. The same confusion is understandable in the case of the Samaritan woman (4:12), but hardly with the religious elite of Israel.
54 Jesus doesn’t answer their derisive question but explains that were he to glorify himself, it would amount to nothing. Those who claim honor for themselves are quickly understood as self-serving, and their words are hollow. No, the One who is glorifying him is none other than his Father, the very One they claim as their God. The glory of which Jesus speaks is the glory of the incarnation, brought into focus in the death and resurrection of the Son of God.
55 Jesus levels against the Jews the accusation that they “do not know [God].” This is a terrible indictment against learned religionists! In contrast (the use of the personal pronoun and its location in the sentence lend considerable emphasis), Jesus does know him. Some writers call attention to the two verbs in v.55a used for “to know,” pointing out that the Jews had not come to recognize him (egnōkate, perfect active indicative of ginōskō, GK 1182) but that Jesus knew him intuitively and directly (oida, GK 3857; so Hendriksen, 2:64). But others assert that there is probably no distinction between the two at this point (so Bruce, 204).
Note how closely Jesus links personal knowledge and obedience (“I do know him and keep his word”). The two cannot be separated. Jesus knows the Father not only because he is eternally coexistent with him but also because he obeys him. It is precisely because he lived a life of obedience to the Father that he knows him. If Jesus were to deny that he knew the Father, he “would be a liar,” just like his adversaries. It is helpful to keep in mind the actual setting in which Jesus carries on this interchange. He is in an outer court of the temple, in the time following the Feast of Tabernacles, and speaking to a group of highly religious Jews whose reputations for piety depend on public opinion. To confront them in public and pronounce them liars is to put his life in severe jeopardy.
56 Jesus continues his discourse by pointing out that, in contrast to the hostility of the Jews toward him, “Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my [Jesus’] day.” This remark has occasioned much speculation. Did Abraham actually see the day in which Jesus lived? Some rabbis argued that Abraham was given a vision of his descendants. Rabbi Akiba (Gen. Rab. 44:22–28) held that Abraham was privileged to preview the coming ages. But Jesus doesn’t say that Abraham actually saw his day, only that he rejoiced in anticipation of seeing it. Others interpret the saying in terms of certain events, such as the birth of Isaac, whose name means “he laughs” (Ge 17:19), or the time when Abraham told Isaac that “God himself” would “provide the lamb” for sacrifice (Ge 22:8). It was through Isaac that the Messiah would eventually come, so it was to this great event that these incidents pointed. However, in the final clause of v.56 Jesus said of Abraham, “he saw [my day] and was glad.” In some sense, Abraham actually saw the day of Jesus. A few writers suggest that since Abraham was alive in paradise at that time (Lk 16:19–31), it was from there that he saw Jesus’ day. But that all three verbs in the verse are in the aorist tense points to something that had happened, not something that was happening.
A related question has to do with whether “my day” is to be taken as the period of Jesus’ earthly ministry or as the eschatological day of his parousia. Barrett’s answer, 352, provides the most plausible resolution: “It is idle to ask whether by Jesus’ ‘day’ John intended his ministry or the coming glory of the Son of man. He meant that the work of salvation, potentially complete in Abraham, was actually complete in Jesus.” It is in this sense that Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing Jesus’ day and, seeing it, was glad.
57 Once again, the Jews misunderstand what Jesus was actually saying and “in the inaccuracy born of irritation” (Temple, 1:149) misquote what had been said. They protest that Jesus is not yet fifty years old, so how could he have possibly seen the patriarch Abraham! They chose to pretend that Jesus was claiming to be a contemporary of Abraham (and only a madman would do that!). “Fifty years” is not intended to suggest the actual age of Jesus but was the normal age at which a Levite would stop working (cf. Nu 4:2–3; 8:24–25).
58 Jesus’ answer (an unqualified “before Abraham was born, I am!”) is prefaced by a double “amen.” Earlier he had used the famous egō eimi (“I am”) to establish his identity as the one coming to bring salvation (cf. vv.24, 28). “I am” became “I am he.” Here egō eimi should be taken absolutely. Certainly it reflects Exodus 3:14, where God reveals his name as “I AM WHO I AM” and instructs Moses to tell the Israelites that “I AM” has sent him. Barrett, 352, is again on target in taking the verse to mean, “Before Abraham came into being, I eternally was, as now I am, and ever continue to be.” What Jesus is claiming is eternal existence. He knows of Abraham’s delight in contemplating the future because there is no period of time in which Jesus did not exist. Not only was he before Abraham, but he now is and will forever be.
59 That the Jews understood Jesus’ statement as implying deity is clear from the fact that they “picked up stones to stone him.” For an itinerant Galilean teacher to claim divine prerogatives was blasphemous in their eyes. Leviticus 24:16 states unequivocally that “anyone who blasphemes the name of the Lord must be put to death,” with the execution being carried out by stoning. In Jesus’ case, a handy supply of stones would have been readily available, since the temple was still in the process of being built. No thought was given to the need of a trial by law. The Jews were so infuriated by what Jesus claimed for himself that they picked up stones to do away with this troublemaker once and for all. Although the Romans did not allow the Jews to carry out capital punishment (cf. 18:31), they could probably have carried out a stoning like this without undue opposition from their overlords.
In any case, Jesus’ critics were so enraged that they didn’t even think of possible consequences. They wanted to lynch Jesus but were unsuccessful because his time had not yet come (cf. 7:6, 8). Jesus “hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.” Rieu translates, “made his way out of the Temple unobserved.” To what extent this may have involved supernatural protection is not known. Because of the active hostility of the Jews, it would appear that God intervened in some way so as to make his escape possible (cf. Lk 4:29–30).
59 In Scripture, stoning was a form of ritual execution carried out by the assembled community. Deuteronomy 17:6–7 requires two or more witnesses, who must then be the first to cast stones at the accused. The OT lists a number of offenses that are to be punished by stoning, ranging all the way from blaspheming the divine name (Lev 24:14) to sacrificing a child to Molech (Lev 20:2) to gathering sticks on the Sabbath (Nu 15:32–36).