John 12:38Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

In the following words he expresses the same thing still more strongly, saying, "Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said."

By this he wishes to prove more clearly that Scripture is not false, and that what it foretold happened no otherwise than exactly as it had been foretold.

And lest anyone should say, "Why, then, did Christ come? Did He not know that they would not listen to Him?" he cites the prophets to show that they too knew this.

Christ came so that they might have no excuse for their sin.

What the prophet foretold, he foretold because it would certainly happen. If it had not been going to happen with certainty, he would not have foretold it.

But it would certainly happen because the Jews were incurable.

If the word "could not" is placed here, it means the same as "did not wish." Do not be surprised at this.

In another place it is said, "He who is able to receive it, let him receive it" (Mt 19:12).

So also in many places Scripture commonly uses the word "ability" in the sense of willing. For example: "The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me" (Jn 7:7).

The same thing, as anyone can see, occurs in ordinary speech. When someone says, "I cannot love such a person," by ability he means a particular force of will.

Likewise, someone says, "Such a man cannot be good." And what does the prophet say? "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?" Can this people "do good, who are accustomed to doing evil?" (Jer 13:23).

He does not mean that the practice of virtue is impossible for these people. Rather, because they do not wish it, they therefore cannot.

The Evangelist's words express only this: it was impossible for the prophet to speak falsely. But one can by no means say that for this very reason it was impossible for the Jews to believe.

The prophet could have remained truthful even if they had believed, for he would not have foretold this.

Why, then, you will say, did Scripture not express itself in this way? Scripture has certain such distinctive usages, and therefore we must submit to its rules.

"And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" That is, the mighty operation of miracles, which he called the arm, was revealed to none of the foolish Jews. They slander Me even when I perform so many miracles.

The meaning is this. Isaiah introduces words spoken as if by God: if I become man and with My own voice teach you what is profitable, even then you will not obey Me, just as you did not obey the prophets.

Even when you see miracles beyond reason, you will receive no profit from seeing. This is what the expression "you will not see" means.

He did not say, "I will harden their hearts and blind their eyes." Rather, He says that if you hear, you will not hear, and if you see, you will not see, so that I will not heal you when you turn to Me.

If they had heard and seen in the proper way, they would certainly have profited. Therefore the saying does not indicate a necessary punishment, nor the decree of a Judge condemning the Jews.

It serves as a foreannouncement of what is profitable, for He knew what they would be and declared it about them. Yet the word is not directed against all, but only against the unbelievers, for many of them believed.

The Seventy translated this passage in this way. It is likely, however, that the Evangelist, following the Hebrew text, which differs from the Septuagint, said: "Therefore they could not believe," because He had blinded them.

As to the direct meaning of the saying, he did not say that God blinded them. Naturally, this is because another did it, so that the Jews would not turn and receive healing.

Even if we accept that God blinded them, it must be understood this way: He permitted them to suffer blindness from the devil, since they were not good in their moral condition.

In this way He also "gave over" people of a similar moral condition, the Gentiles, "to a debased mind" (Rom. 1:28) and to passions.

While they were such, it was not just for them to know the depth of the mystery and the hidden truths, since they had not kept even the commandments under the law.

Therefore, if they received neither the law nor the Gospel ordinances, having closed the eye of their soul, then for this reason they do not receive the instruction that could enlighten them.

He utters many accusations against the Jews. Many signs did not shame them, but they were somehow unbending in their hardness of heart, though nothing had been omitted that could lead them to correction.

Even if the Jews, being ashamed, had believed, it was still impossible for the Holy Spirit to lie (Acts 5:3), who spoke through the prophet Isaiah concerning their unbelief.

They did not believe the prophets either, and Christ, the power and arm of the Father, was not made known to the Jews. That no one believed is said hyperbolically, because out of many only a few were saved.

Wishing to expose their boundless corruption, the Evangelist added the words "before them," showing that they did not believe even what they saw.

"Lord! ... to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" The arm (βραχίων) of God the Father is the Son. This thought appears many times in the saint, often in almost the same words.

Compare: "The right hand (δεξιά) and arm of God the Father is the Son" (Commentarius in Isaiam prophetam 1:5, PG 70.256A). Also: "The arm of God and the Father, that is, the Son" (ibid. V.1, PG 70.1161B).

Also: "That the right hand and arm of the Father is the Son" (Thesaurus 35, PG 75.636C).

Such people do not understand that some things can be named only by the names of other things with which they have some likeness. But there will be those who murmur and ask: “What fault is there in the Jews, if it was necessary that the words of Isaiah be fulfilled: ‘Lord, who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?’” (Is 53:1).

To them we answer that God, foreseeing the future, foretold through the prophet the unbelief of the Jews, but He was not its cause. God impels no one to sin. He knows that they will sin. He foreknows their sins, not His own. Thus the Jews committed sin, and that sin was foretold by Him from whom nothing is hidden.

The Lord Christ foretold His Passion and fruitful death on the Cross when He said that He would draw all things after Himself. Since the Jews understood that He was speaking of His death, they asked Him how He could speak of His death, when they had heard in the Law that the Christ remains forever.

He summoned them, while the light was still with them for a little while, to walk by that light through which they knew that the Christ remains forever. In this way they might come to know all things and not be overtaken by darkness. When He had said this to them, He hid Himself from them.

You learned this from the preceding Sunday readings and discourses. Then the Evangelist speaks the words with which today’s reading began: “Though He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him, that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled: ‘Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?’” (cf. Jn 12:37-38).

Here it is entirely clear that the Son of God is called the arm of the Lord. This does not mean that God the Father is represented in the form of human flesh, and that the Son is joined to Him like a member of His body. Rather, because all things were created through Him, He is called the arm of the Lord.

For just as your hand is called that by which you act, so the Word of God is called the hand of God, because the world was created through the Word. Why does a man stretch out his hand to do something, unless because what he has spoken does not immediately come to pass?

But if he had such power that what he said happened without any bodily movement, then his word would be his hand. Yet the Lord Jesus, the Only-begotten Son of God the Father, is not a member of the Father’s body.

Nor is He a word that has been thought out, uttered, and conveyed. But because all things were created through Him, He was the Word of God. Therefore, when we hear that the hand of God the Father is God the Son, let our habit of thinking carnally not trouble us.

Rather, as far as we can by His gift, let us understand here the Power and Wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24), through whom all things were created. Certainly such a hand is not stretched toward a distant object, nor does it seize and draw it.

He Himself is not the Father, but He and the Father are one (cf. Jn 10:30). Being equal to the Father, He is in every respect as the Father is. Therefore let there be no occasion for the detestable error of those who say there is only the Father, but that in different situations He is called now the Son and now the Holy Spirit.

Regarding these words, they dare to say: “See, there is only the Father, if the Son is called His hand. A man and his hand are not two persons, but one.” This refers to the followers of the heresy of Sabellius, who denied the hypostatic reality of the Persons of the Holy Trinity and taught a God of only one person.

They do not understand or consider how a word denoting one thing, because of some likeness between that thing and another, is transferred to the other thing even in everyday speech about visible and very familiar matters. How much more may such a likeness be used to express things ineffable to us, whose true meaning cannot be conveyed at all?

A man also calls another man, through whom he usually does something, his hand. If he loses him, he says with grief, “I have lost my hand.” And to the one who has taken that helper away, he says, “You have deprived me of my hand.”

Let those who are in error understand how the Son is called the Father’s hand, through whom the Father has made all things. If they do not understand this, they remain in the darkness of their error and become like the Jews, of whom it was said: “and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” (Jn 12:38).

Here we meet another question. To say anything fitting about it, and worthily to consider and examine all its hidden depths, I think I have neither the strength nor sufficient time. Nor are you fully able to grasp it.

Nevertheless, since we cannot, against your expectation, pass on to another matter without saying anything about this question, hear what we can say. If in anything we cannot satisfy your expectation, ask help from Him who appointed us to plant and water.

For, as the Apostle says, “neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but God who gives the growth” (1 Cor 3:7). Some whisper among themselves, and sometimes, when they can, declare aloud and even enter into heated disputes, saying: “What did the Jews do, or what fault was theirs, if it was necessary that the word of Isaiah the prophet be fulfilled: ‘Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?’”

We answer them that the Lord, foreseeing the future, foretold through the prophet the unbelief of the Jews. He foretold it, but did not cause it. For God compels no one to sin, because He already knew the future sins of men.

He foreknew that these were their sins, not His, and not the sins of someone else, but their own. Therefore, if the sins which He foreknew were not their sins, He would have foreseen falsely. But since His foreknowledge cannot be false, without doubt it is not another who sins, but precisely those whom God foreknew would sin.

Thus the Jews committed sin. He did not compel them to commit it, since sin is hateful to Him. But He foretold that they would commit it, because nothing is hidden from Him. Therefore, if they had wished to do good instead of evil, they would have met no obstacle.

Yet what they would do was known to Him who knows what every man will do, and what will be rendered to him according to his works.

"Lord, who has believed our report?" (Is 53:1). The prophet said this about those who did not believe in Jesus Christ, and about others like them.

He calls the prophecies concerning Jesus Christ a report. The prophets uttered these prophecies after hearing them with their spiritual ears from the Spirit of God Who dwelt in them.

Thus the prophet says that none of such people believed these prophecies.

"And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" The arm of the Father is the Son, as His power. The Apostle Paul also says that "Christ is the power of God" (1 Cor 1:24).

The Son of God was revealed to none of such people, not because He was hidden, but because of their own blindness.

Like the sun, He showed the light of His Godhead both by word and by deeds. Yet men, having sight corrupted by wickedness, did not see it clearly.

But the people of Israel remained the same down to the present time, when Isaiah's prophecy concerning the suffering Messiah was fulfilled.

Therefore the prophet's depiction of Israel's unbelief continues to retain its force, and becomes prophetic in relation to Christ's contemporaries.

In the second of the passages cited by the Evangelist, the cause of the people's unbelief is indicated, both toward the preaching of the prophets and toward the word of Christ Himself.

The Evangelist proves that this latter prophecy also belongs to the messianic times by noting that Isaiah said this when he saw His glory, that is, the glory of Jesus Christ, and spoke of Him.

In the prophet Isaiah it is, of course, stated that he saw the glory of the Lord of Sabaoth, God the Father Himself.

But in the Old Testament, as in the New, God, Who dwells in unapproachable light, revealed Himself to men in His Word; see section 1.

Finally, the Evangelist adds the qualification that not all Israel proved hostile to Christ. Even among the rulers many believed in Him.

Yet these, loving the glory of men more than the glory of God, did not openly confess their faith because of fear of the Pharisees.

Telling how he saw the glory of God, the same Prophet relates the voice of the Lord which he heard: "Go and say to this people: Hearing you will hear and not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive. For the heart of this people has grown dull, their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed..." (Is 6:1-13; Is 53:1-12).

God foresaw it in His eternal counsel, as He foresees everything in human history. The prophets had already foretold it.

Alongside prophecies testifying that Israel rejoices in the light of its Messiah, the prophets also have the sorrowful prospect of an obstinate Israel. Because of this obstinacy, Israel must be replaced by other nations.

This must not be lost from view, because precisely here lies the resolution of the first difficulty.

"The Jewish people did not believe in Him," says the Evangelist John. "That the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled: Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" (Jn 12:38; Is 53:1).

At the very moment when the prophet announces the future sufferings of the Messiah, he asks in amazement who will believe His word. Who will recognize in the heavenly Messenger, covered with reproaches, the almighty hand of the Lord?

Certainly the number of such persons will be small, because receiving such a mystery requires strong faith and a lofty soul.

The Jews did not deserve to preserve within themselves that gaze which penetrates the depth of the heart and makes it possible to see through darkness.

According to the Evangelist, another word of the same prophet was fulfilled over them: "This people has blinded its eyes and hardened its heart, lest they should see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, so that I should heal them."

The Evangelist John cites these words of the prophet Isaiah apparently from memory, without adhering to their literal exactness.

He follows neither the Hebrew text nor the Septuagint, although he faithfully preserves the meaning of the prophetic sayings; see Is 6:10.

This, then, is where the cause of the Israelite people's unbelief in the Messiah Who had come is found.

Israel proves unfaithful to God. Therefore God takes the light away from it, and it ceases to see.

All this was foreseen and can astonish only those who lack sufficient understanding to penetrate the meaning of Holy Scripture.

The wisdom of God, therefore, did not remain put to shame. It acted in accordance with what had to take place, and the very malice of the Jews assisted in the realization of its counsels.

The punishment that the unbelieving people deserved, and which it therefore bore, also entered into the plan of the divine economy.

Thus, while completely failing to see the Light that came forth from its own bosom, Israel nevertheless became a walking torch. From age to age it illumines the heavenly face of the Messiah.

Its own blindness, foretold by the prophets, became a striking proof of the divine mission of Jesus Christ.

If the proclamation of the suffering Messiah was so impossible for the people's thought to contain that they would not believe it, how much more would this be so at the very appearing of the Messiah in humbled and suffering form?

"Who has believed." There were, of course, believers, but not in a significant number compared with the mass of the people.

"What we have heard," that is, what the people heard from us, the preachers concerning the suffering Messiah Who was to come, with respect to the time of the prophets, and Who had already come, with respect to the time of Christ and the Apostles.

"To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" Whose spiritual sight perceived this power of the Lord, revealed in the Messiah, and believed in Him?

The arm is a symbol of power. Here it refers to the works of the Messiah's omnipotence, that is, to the miracles He performed. The expression "what we have heard" refers to the teaching of Christ; cf. Theophylact and Chrysostom.

The whole expression means: Lord, how few have believed the preaching and miracles of the Messiah, and the preaching concerning the Messiah.

In the first verse of this chapter, the arm of the Lord means the hand of the Lord and the power of the Lord. Thus the meaning of this verse is that man cannot judge the works of God by the measure of his little mind.