Theological Highlights:
- True Freedom: Not political independence (as the Jews claimed), but liberation from the slavery of sin through the Son.
- Spiritual Sonship: Being Abraham's children is not a matter of biology but of imitation (doing Abraham's works).
- Two Fathers: Jesus contrasts His Father (God) with their father (the Devil, implied in subsequent verses, hinted at here by "what you have seen with your father").
- Procession vs. Mission: Knabenbauer carefully distinguishes between Christ's eternal procession from the Father (processi) and His temporal mission (veni/missit).
The post includes a brief list of textual variants which most people may wish to scroll past in order to read the commentary. This post was translated by Qwen.
Joseph Knabenbauer's Commentary on John 8:30-42
Jesus Rebukes the Jews: On Freedom, Sonship, and Spiritual Paternity
f. Context: Jesus Rebukes the Jews (8:30–59)
The Biblical Text (John 8:30-42)
30 As He was speaking these things, many believed in Him. 31 Jesus therefore said to those Jews who believed Him: "If you remain in My word, you shall truly be My disciples. 32 And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." 33 They answered Him: "We are the seed of Abraham, and we have never been slaves to anyone. How can You say, 'You will be free'?" 34 Jesus answered them: "Amen, amen, I say to you, that everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin. 35 But the slave does not remain in the house forever; the son, however, remains forever. 36 If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall truly be free." 37 "I know that you are children of Abraham; but you seek to kill Me, because My word finds no place in you. 38 I speak what I have seen with My Father; and you do what you have seen with your father." 39 They answered and said to Him: "Abraham is our father." Jesus said to them: "If you are children of Abraham, do the works of Abraham. 40 But now you seek to kill Me, a man who has spoken the truth to you, which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this. 41 You do the works of your father." They said therefore to Him: "We were not born of fornication; we have one Father, God." 42 Jesus therefore said to them: "If God were your Father, you would certainly love Me. For I proceeded and came from God; nor did I come of Myself, but He sent Me."
Textual Variants
Exegetical Commentary
Introduction: Faith and Offense
Many Begin to Believe:
"As He was speaking these things, many believed in Him." (v. 30)
They believe His words; His words have an effect which His miracles did not have. Chrysostom, Cyril, Theophylact, and Euthymius think Jesus' last words were humble and accommodated to the genius of the hearers, and therefore many believed. But in these words you will scarcely find a humbler mode of speech, but rather the same dignity as before, by which He professes Himself sent by God and the Son of God the Father. Nor is it necessary to refer this to the last words only, but rather to look upon the whole sermon. You may rightly say that among these many there were even noble Jews, previously His adversaries. However, we are taught by what follows that their faith was sufficiently imperfect and soon completely failed.
Verse 31: The Condition of Discipleship
"Jesus therefore said to those Jews who believed Him..."
He therefore requires a constant and firm mind that they obey the doctrine received from Him (cf. Cyril). Only on this condition can they be true disciples. Chrysostom notes on "if you remain" that Jesus indicates what was in their heart, and that He knew indeed that they had believed, but would not persevere. He says "if you" not without emphasis, hinting what is required especially in them after having made this good beginning, and how imperfect is that beginning of their faith.
Verse 32: Knowing the Truth and Freedom
"And you shall know the truth... and the truth shall make you free."
Then He explains the further fruit which they will gain from that constant obedience by which they express the perceived doctrine in life. "And you shall know the truth," namely, of which Jesus professes Himself the teacher, and which, remaining in His word—that is, constantly offering faithful ears to Jesus teaching—they will learn. "And the truth shall make you free." This doctrine, which they ought to draw from Jesus, will render them free.
He says two things which wound the pride of the Pharisaic Jews not a little: they boast themselves doctors of the law and emulators, and Jesus asserts that the true doctrine about God and salvation to be obtained is finally to be learned from Him, and then finally, if they shall have learned it, they will be vindicated into freedom. And how reluctantly they bear this, and also upon how labile a foundation they have built their faith, they immediately reveal.
Verse 33: The Jews' Claim to Freedom
"They answered Him: We are the seed of Abraham, and we have never been slaves to anyone."
They respond sufficiently arrogantly; such is the pride of the Jews. Chrysostom: "O inflated skin, this is not greatness but swelling." And this itself according to the freedom of this time. Augustine: "How did you speak truth?" And the ancients recall to memory how often God says the people were liberated by Him from the house of bondage, how often in the time of the Judges they served foreigners, afterward the Assyrians, Babylonians, then the Romans.
But the Pharisees, inflated with national pride, judging that no domination by which they are subjected to foreigners can consist by right, vindicate their national freedom and immediately boast that what God had said holds true: "You shall not be able to set a man of another nation over you who is not your brother" (Deut 17:15). Moreover, even under the rule of the Romans certain proper rights were conceded to them with regard to religion, whence they retained a certain appearance of freedom which for their pride they exaggerated. What kind of freedom the Romans conceded to them, Josephus makes Titus speaking (Bell. Jud. 6.6.2).
Already John the Baptist had warned them not to vainly provoke Abraham as father (Matt 3:9), but in vain. Jesus, however, manifests that He is speaking of another liberty and servitude entirely, and not obscurely convicts them of what fatal servitude they are held.
Verse 34: Slavery to Sin
"Jesus answered them: Amen, amen, I say to you, that everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin."
The mode of narrating in v. 33 altogether requires that those who object to Jesus are from those very Jews who had believed, as Origen, Chrysostom, Rupert, Cajetan, Maldonatus, Schanz, Fillion meritiously judge; while others think those responded who remained unbelievers (Augustine, Bede, Toletus, Jansenius, Barrius, Lapide, Schegg). They think, namely, that those who are said to have believed could not so quickly again become adversaries of Christ. But the Evangelist not without a certain counsel adds that the sermon is made to Jews, and the mode by which Christ addresses those who believed Jews already sufficiently shows they pertain to those to whom Jesus Himself does not trust (2:24), and their response too manifestly shows with how much swelling their minds are filled; namely, they produce that disposition which Jesus reproves in 5:44.
By what servitude they are held, which indeed they are unwilling to acknowledge, Jesus explains: "because everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin." He is subject to him by whom he is conquered, and while man submits himself to the dominion of sin and becomes its slave, by that very fact he ceases to be a son of God.
Augustine well notes with what weight Jesus speaks: "Amen, amen, I say to you." Truth speaks; now how much this is commended understand from the very gemination; He commends, He inculcates, He excites the sleeping as it were, He makes the attentive, He does not wish to be despised. And He says "everyone" that no one be excepted, of whatever dignity he may be. He inculcates therefore to those Jews that they glory in vain about origin drawn from Abraham.
Verses 35-36: The Son and True Freedom
"But the slave does not remain in the house forever... If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall truly be free." (vv. 35-36)
And what their lot is to be, He declares by a parable or example. "But the slave does not remain in the house forever." He can be sold by the master to another, sent away; he has no right of remaining, he is in no way partaker of the inheritance, nor does he enter into full possession of the master's goods. Therefore slaves of sin are excluded from the Kingdom of God and divine goods—that is, from the family of God and heavenly inheritance. "But the son remains forever." He has perpetual right of remaining in the house, right of goods and inheritance.
Chrysostom signifies equal honor with the father and the difference of slave from free. This similitude having been posited, it is prompt to notice how terribly Jesus denounces to the Jews that they ought to go out (Rupert). Now all men by nature are slaves, slaves of sin; one is by nature Son who is in the bosom of the Father, who is in heaven (1:18; 3:13). Whence the application of the similitude is easily apparent; indeed in the latter member already a transition from example to thing can be recognized. Thus "the Son" is understood of the Son of God by Chrysostom, Cyril, Thomas, Schanz, while others retain the parabolic sermon in both members (cf. Theodoret, Bede, Rupert, Cajetan, Toletus, Jansenius, Patrizi, Corluy).
But the Son is Lord, and it belongs to the Lord to liberate slaves, to manumit. But the Son is also declared Lord because He remains in the house perpetually by native and proper right. Whence it follows: "If therefore the Son shall make you free, you shall truly be free." Jesus indicates that freedom from servitude of sin cannot be obtained unless by Himself, the Son of God. Above He had said "the truth shall make you free," here "the Son," for grace and truth was made through Christ (1:17), and He Himself is the Truth (14:6).
To the false notion of freedom which they affect, He opposes true freedom, by which snatched from servitude of sin they are constituted sons of God by adoption and in this dignity of adoption are preserved; thus they are truly free, which freedom no one grants except the Son. From which freedom how far they are absent, and what miserable and shameful servitude they undergo, in the following He sharply upbraids them.
Verse 37: Spiritual Paternity vs. Carnal Descent
"I know that you are children of Abraham; but you seek to kill Me, because My word finds no place in you." (v. 37)
"I know that you are children of Abraham." There was no need that you should oppose my sentence: "We are the seed of Abraham." I know you draw origin from Abraham, but in disposition and morals you are very far from Abraham. "But you seek to kill Me, because My word finds no place in you." How then does He say they believed in Him? But as I said, again they were changed (Chrysostom). For already by that response (v. 33) they had cast off that imperfect faith, whence meritiously Christ upbraids them with their pristine disposition to which either they have already returned or soon will fully return (see v. 59).
But they do not expel that disposition because the doctrine which they hear from Jesus "does not find room in you" (οὐ χωρεῖ ἐν ὑμῖν), does not take increase in your minds, does not obtain the success which it ought (cf. Schanz, Fillion, Grimm Lex s.v.). Which others explain: "does not find place among you" (Corluy), "is not captured by your minds" (Patrizi). It is less aptly said of those who began to receive that doctrine by faith (vv. 30-31); they are rather assimilated to those among whom the seed of the word fell upon rocky ground; immediately it springs up but soon born it withers because it does not have root (Matt 13:5, 20; Luke 8:6, 13). Thus these by the first truth by which their pride is wounded are immediately scandalized and withdraw, as Christ Himself explains that parable (l.c.).
Verse 38: Two Fathers, Two Origins
"I speak what I have seen with My Father; and you do what you have seen with your father." (v. 38)
Jesus splendidly exposes the excellence of His doctrine and simultaneously gives the reason why such doctrine cannot take increase among them. "I speak what I have seen with My Father" (ἑώρακα, what I have seen and have seen permanently; cf. Krüger, Winer). Whence He declares the most sublime origin and authority of His doctrine (cf. 5:20, 30; 8:56). Again He declares His intimate union with the Father from whom He has accepted all things. But simultaneously He opens by how great darkness this doctrine of divine light is opposed.
"And you do what you have seen with your father." He clearly edicts that they have plane another father as master whom they hear and sedulously imitate. They feel the sting and reproof, wherefore contumaciously...
Verses 39-40: The Works of Abraham
"They answered and said to Him: Abraham is our father." (v. 39)
They repudiate the insinuation that another father is ascribed to them by Jesus, and with indignation put back what they had already put forward in v. 33. But that this is brought forward by them in vain against the accusation of Jesus is plain from v. 37, because Christ altogether concedes to them origin from Abraham, nor is the matter concerning that. Whence Christ now without any ambiguities manifests what kind of cognation He understands.
"Jesus said to them: If you are children of Abraham, do the works of Abraham."
For children ought to express the disposition of the father in themselves and refer the paternal character. Theophylact: "The works of Abraham are the tame, the equitable, the obedient." Chrysostom: "They are obedience rendered to the voice of God, unshaken faith." Cyril: "He believed the sermon of God, sedulously cultivated, defended the innocent messengers of God, cultivated all humanity." Jansenius: "Therefore prove yourselves children not by words but by deeds." Maldonatus.
But how much their morals and disposition are distant from Abraham, and therefore how vainly they boast Abraham their father, by one crime and counsel of theirs is made clear as light.
"But now you seek to kill Me, a man who has spoken the truth to you, which I heard from God. Abraham did not do this." (v. 40)
He professes Himself a messenger sent to them by God who would teach them truth accepted from God, and such they seek to kill. Abraham was not a homicide (Augustine). He accepted and executed the mandates of God with sum reverence and obedience (Gen 12:4; 15:6; 18:19; 22:2 seq.). Therefore in opposition to Abraham Jesus openly upbraids them.
Verse 41: Spiritual Fornication
"You do the works of your father." (v. 41a)
Whence He declares they are not children of Abraham by life and morals. From these things they understand Jesus to be speaking not of a father according to carnal generation but of a spiritual father, and of filiation which consists in imitation and similarity of morals, and of him by whose law and institution life is ruled.
"They said therefore to Him: We were not born of fornication; we have one Father, God." (v. 41b)
They provoke as if to the words of the prophet: "Is not one Father of us all? Has not one God created us?" (Mal 2:10; cf. Deut 32:6). "Fornication" is said concerning idolatry; for the theocratic nation is considered as the spouse of the Lord, which is said to fornicate or commit adultery if it cultivates an alien god (Ex 34:16-17; Judg 2:17; 8:33; Jer 2:20; Ez 16, etc.). Whence they deny they ever receded from God or expressed the morals and manner of life, the works of idolaters. "If at any time our mother the synagogue receding from God fornicated with idols, we nevertheless have not receded nor fornicated with idols" (Thomas).
They understand fornication concerning idolatry (Albert, Bonaventure, Cajetan, Maldonatus, Jansenius, Toletus, Barrius, Lapide, Schegg, Patrizi, Corluy, Fillion), namely in opposition to the remaining gentiles (Schanz) who have gods as masters of life and morals. Responding to Jesus' words "You do the works of your father," saying they have one Father God, they openly wish to indicate they do the works of God, they express in themselves that disposition which befits those who acknowledge and venerate God as father, they profess therefore they are ruled by the spirit of God and in the ordering of life profess this quasi spiritual cognation with God.
Whence in the opposite member, i.e., in fornication from which they deny they are born, the sense can only be: we do not have another god as father. For the words "to have a father" and "to be born" openly correspond to each other. Therefore it cannot be admitted what pleased others: "We are not children of Hagar or Keturah" (Rupert), nor children of Sarah by another father (Erasmus, Weiss), nor can it be said they wish tacitly to accuse Jesus as if born of fornication, saying "we were not born of fornication" (cf. Origen, Cyril, Euthymius, Thomas). For this calumny was not impacted against Jesus unless afterward. Moreover, in no way is it congruous to say "we were not born of Agar" or "not of Ishmael" or "not of another man" but "we have God as father." Necessarily in both members such a father must be understood whose works they do; a father therefore not carnal but spiritual by whose law and institution life is directed.
Verse 42: Love for the Son of God
"Jesus therefore said to them: If God were your Father, you would certainly love Me." (v. 42)
How falsely they contend they are led by the spirit of God, Jesus demonstrates. "If God were your Father, you would certainly love Me." For whom the Father draws, these come to Jesus; who hear and learn from the Father, these come to Jesus (6:44-45). Whence the conclusion is plain: if by you God were truly held and worshipped as father—that is, if your morals were ruled by His law, institution, spirit—you would love Me. For all sons of God love each other mutually as having one spirit of adoption; indeed nor could they be sons of God otherwise unless by having love to each other (Rupert).
"For I proceeded and came from God; nor did I come of Myself, but He sent Me."
And if they worshipped God as father, therefore they would exhibit obedience and love to Him, they could not but love Him who proceeded from God and came, i.e., is present here and now. "I proceeded" (ἐξῆλθον) they understand of eternal procession and generation from the Father (Cyril, Augustine, Bede, Albert, Thomas, Bonaventure, Ammonius, Toletus, Barrius, Patrizi, Fillion, others); others concerning the Incarnation (Origen, Theophylact, Rupert): "I proceeded, I say, from God, made visible who was invisible" (Jansenius, Maldonatus, Lapide, Schegg, Schanz). And the very form "I proceeded" (ἐξῆλθον), by which narration is instituted concerning a thing once done, agrees more with this acceptance. For by eternal generation He always proceeds from the Father.
Nevertheless, from the very explanation concerning the Incarnation, His divinity is rightly and necessarily collected. For He would not be said to have proceeded from God to that end that He might assume human nature unless before assumed humanity He had been with God, nor would He have been with God before if He were not God (cf. Maldonatus, Jansenius). "And I have come" (καὶ ἥκω): the effect of His procession from God is that He is now present before them. Nor did He betake Himself to teach them by His own proper will and arbitrament, but "He sent Me." Whence a new title arises: if they venerate God as father and allow themselves to be led by His spirit, they could not but receive with love and joy a messenger sent to them by the same Father.
CONTINUE
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