John 12:44Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

But why, you ask, did He never say the reverse: He who believes in the Father believes not in the Father, but in Me?

Because they would have answered, "See, we believe in the Father, but we do not believe in You." They were still very weak.

Therefore, when speaking with the disciples, He said: "Believe in God, and believe also in Me" (Jn 14:1). But with the Jews He speaks differently.

Seeing that, because of their weakness, they could not yet hear such words, He shows them that it is impossible to believe in the Father without believing in Him.

And lest you think that this is said in the same sense in which it could be said of a man, He adds: "He who sees Me sees Him who sent Me" (Jn 12:45).

But what do the words "He who believes in Me" mean? It is as if someone said: He who draws water from a river draws it not from the river, but from the spring.

Yet even this is a very weak image of the matter at hand.

But one who believes in Him believes in Him as God. Therefore one may say, "He believes the apostles." But one cannot say, "He believes in the apostles."

For this reason the Lord did not say, "He who believes Me." Paul and Peter, too, could have said, "He who believes me."

It was set down as a reproach to the Jews that they did not believe Moses (Jn 5:46). But He said something greater: "He who believes in Me."

By this He shows that He Himself is God, as He also says to the disciples: "Believe in God, and believe also in Me" (Jn 14:1).

Therefore one who believes in Him raises his faith to the Father. One who does not believe Him does not believe the Father.

With foresight He gradually trains the mind of those suffering from ungovernable envy against Him toward the depth of the mysteries concerning Him. He does this not in relation to His human person, πϱόσωπον, but to the person of His divine essence.

He trains them toward Him as Godhead, contemplated wholly in the person, ἐν τῷ πϱοσώπῳ, of God the Father. For the Father has in Himself the Son and the Spirit.

Most wisely He leads them upward, saying: "He who believes in Me believes not in Me, but in Him who sent Me." He does not place Himself outside our faith.

He requires us to believe that He is God by nature and has appeared from God the Father. Yet, as has been said, He skillfully guides the mind of the weak toward piety.

Thus you may understand the saying in this way. If you believed in Me, who for your sake became man like you, yet am God in Myself and from the Father from whom I am, do not think your faith is directed toward a man.

For I by no means cease to be God by nature. Though I appear like you, I have the Begetter in Myself.

Since I am consubstantial with the Begetter, faith must, of course, pass also to the Father Himself. Thus, little by little, as we have said, He guides them to what is better.

Usefully weaving the human into the divine, He said: "He who believes in Me," and the rest. He showed with great clarity that faith is not simply in a man, but in the nature of God, although the Logos was in the flesh.

If the Son bears such a likeness in relation to His Father that, in a certain sense, He is united with Him according to essence and displays His nature as in an image, then one who dares call Him a creature is most impious.

This is so unless he also admits that the Father Himself is created. For the Son must necessarily be what the Father is by nature.

Since the Father is not a creature, the Son likewise will not be a creature. Rather, He is uncreated, as is He who begot Him.

For in this way the Son will truly have being, and we shall be able to contemplate the Father in Him.

On verses 44-45. While our Lord Jesus Christ was speaking among the Jews and working such signs, some, predestined to eternal life, whom He also called His sheep, believed. Others did not believe and could not believe, because by the hidden yet just judgment of God they were blinded and hardened.

They were abandoned by Him who resists the proud and gives grace to the humble (cf. Jas 4:6). Among those who believed, some confessed their faith so openly that, taking palm branches, they hastened with joy and exultation to meet Christ as He came.

Others, among the rulers, did not dare confess their faith, lest they be put out of the synagogue. The Evangelist reproves them, saying that they loved the glory of men more than the glory of God (Jn 12:43).

Among those who did not believe, there were some who believed later. These were the ones He foresaw when He said: “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He” (Jn 8:28).

Others would remain in this unbelief. They are represented by the Jewish people, who after these events were crushed in war, according to the prophecy written concerning Christ, and scattered almost throughout the whole earth.

When this happened to Him, and when His Passion was already drawing near, Jesus cried out and said: “He who believes in Me, believes not in Me but in Him who sent Me; and he who sees Me sees Him who sent Me” (Jn 12:44-45).

He had already said elsewhere: “My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me” (Jn 7:16). We then understood that He called the Word of the Father, which He Himself is, His teaching.

By saying, “My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me,” He indicated that He is not from Himself, but has His being from Him. For He is God from God, the Son of the Father. But the Father is not God from God, but God, the Father of the Son.

How, then, shall we understand what He now says, “He who believes in Me, believes not in Me but in Him who sent Me,” except in this way? He appeared to men as man, while as God He was hidden.

So that those who believed would not think that He was only what they saw, He desired them to believe in Him as the Father is. Therefore He said: “He who believes in Me, believes not in Me” (Jn 7:16), that is, not in what he sees Me to be, but “in Him who sent Me,” that is, in the Father.

But one who believes in the Father necessarily believes that He is Father, and therefore necessarily believes that He has a Son. For this reason, whoever believes in the Father must necessarily believe in the Son.

Yet let no one think of the Only-begotten Son what is thought of those who are called sons of God by grace and not by nature. The Evangelist says of them: “He gave them power to become children of God” (Jn 1:12).

To this belongs what the Lord Himself recalled as spoken in the Law: “I said, you are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High” (cf. Jn 10:34; Ps 82:6). Therefore He said: “He who believes in Me, believes not in Me,” to show that faith in Christ is not only faith in His humanity.

“So,” He says, “he believes in Me who does not believe in Me according to how he sees Me, but believes in Him who sent Me. Thus, when he believes in the Father, he believes that He has a Son equal to Himself, and then he truly believes in Me.”

For if he thinks that the Father has only sons by grace, who are certainly His creatures, and not the Word as Son, but only what was made through the Word, then he does not believe in the Father who sent Him.

If he thinks that the Father does not have a Son equal to Him and coeternal, eternally begotten, equally unchangeable, in no way different and in no respect inferior, then he does not believe in the Father who sent Him. For such a one is not the Father who sent Him.

Therefore, after He said, “He who believes in Me, believes not in Me but in Him who sent Me” (Jn 7:16). He at once added: “And he who sees Me sees Him who sent Me.” He did this so that people would not think He wanted the Father to be understood as Father of many children reborn through grace, and not as Father of the Only-begotten Son equal to Him.

Does He say here, “He who sees Me does not see Me, but Him who sent Me,” just as He said: “He who believes in Me, believes not in Me but in Him who sent Me”? He said one thing so that they would not believe in Him as He appeared, namely only as the Son of Man.

He said the other so that they would believe in Him as equal to the Father. “He who believes in Me,” He says, “does not believe in what he sees in Me, but believes in Him who sent Me.

Or, if he believes in the Father who begot Me equal to Himself, let him believe in Me not as he sees Me, but as in Him who sent Me. For there is so little difference between Him and Me that he who sees Me should see Him who sent Me.”

The Lord Christ certainly sent His apostles, as follows from their name. For as the Greek word “angels” means “messengers” in Latin, so the Greek word “apostles” means “those sent” in Latin.

Yet would any apostle have dared to say, “He who believes in me, believes not in me but in Him who sent me”? None of them would have said at all, “He who believes in me.” We believe the apostle, but we do not believe in the apostle, for the apostle does not justify the ungodly.

But to the one who believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteousness (Rom 4:5). An apostle could say, “He who receives me receives Him who sent me.” Or, “He who hears me hears at the same time Him who sent me.”

For the Lord said this to them: “He who receives you receives Me; and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me” (Mt 10:40). We honor the master in the servant, and the father in the son. But the father is, as it were, in the son, and the master, as it were, in the servant.

The Only-begotten Son, however, could with full right say: “Believe in God, believe also in Me” (Jn 14:1). He could also say what He now said: “He who believes in Me, believes not in Me but in Him who sent Me” (Jn 7:16).

He did not turn away from Himself the one who believed in Him. Rather, He did not wish the believer to perceive Him only in the form of a servant. For whenever anyone believes in the Father who sent Him, he simultaneously believes in the Son, without whom the Father cannot be conceived.

And he believes in such a way as to regard Him as equal, for it is said: “He who sees Me sees Him who sent Me” (Jn 12:45).

The Jews did not believe in Christ. Even the rulers who believed in Christ did not openly confess their faith. Yet Christ loudly proclaimed, "He cried out," ἔκραξεν, what great significance faith in Him has.

He also proclaimed what terrible consequences unbelief brings. When the anger of the Jews had subsided, Jesus Christ appears again and teaches.

His words have the same meaning as if He had said: "He who believes in Me believes in Him who sent Me." This is not only because They have one and the same divine nature.

It is also because, in general, the honor shown to the one sent passes to the one who sent him. The words "does not believe in Me," which seem to have a negative sense, actually contain an even stronger inducement to believe in Jesus Christ.

A similar expression occurs in Mark: "He who receives Me receives not Me, but Him who sent Me" (Mk 9:37). All these are idioms.

One should also know that believing Jesus Christ and believing in Jesus Christ do not mean the same thing. The first expression means believing His words, as one speaks of God alone.

They therefore think this is not a discourse of Jesus Christ Himself. Rather, it is the Evangelist's bringing together of many sayings spoken by Jesus Christ at different times, to conclude the history of the Lord's testimonies concerning Himself as the Messiah.

Compare Jn 14:9; 8:12; 3:17-18; 8:26-28; 6:63, and others. In that case the expression in verse 44, "He cried out and said," must be understood in the sense of Jn 1:15.

That is, it means open testimony in general, without indication of time. In their content, the testimonies of Jesus Christ about Himself found here constitute a rebuke of the unbelief of the Jews described above.

This whole brief discourse is nothing other than a bringing together of the Lord's earlier sayings about His person and His messianic dignity. It lacks the dialogical, conversational form found in all the Lord's discourses in John's Gospel.

The expressions "cried out" and "said" do not contradict this supposition. They mean only that the Lord preached and set forth this teaching about Himself.

Of course, anyone may take this discourse as a distinct discourse of the Lord. The issue is not the outward form, but the essence.

The essence of the matter, the meaning of the teaching, remains the same in either case.

"Not in Me, but in Him who sent Me." The object of faith in the Lord as Messiah is God, His heavenly Father, by reason of the unity of Their essence.

It is not the person of the Lord Jesus Himself considered separately from God the Father (cf. Jn 7:16; Mk 9:37; Jn 5:36 and following; Jn 7:29; Jn 8:19, 42; Jn 10:38).

"Why are you afraid to believe in Me? Faith in Me, as also unbelief, passes through Me to God. See how always and in everything He reveals the perfect equality of His essence with the essence of God the Father" (Chrysostom; cf. Theophylact).

"But Jesus cried out and said": the aorist κεκραξε και ειπεν cannot mean the pluperfect, but expresses repeated action. Jesus proclaimed aloud and said: "He who believes in Me believes not in Me, but in Him who sent Me."

"And he who sees Me sees Him who sent Me." Both statements show in Christ not a merely human person separate from the Godhead.

Then He teaches that faith passes through Him to God, through the one sent to the One who sent Him, through the Son to the Father.

The same thoughts occur in Jn 8:19, 42 and Jn 5:24, 38. So also taught the apostles Peter (1 Pet 1:21) and Paul (Heb 7:25).

"He who sees," according to the Evangelist's word, is the same as "he who believes," not one who reflects coldly. "He who sees" is in the same state as Isaiah, who saw Christ's glory in the Lord who appeared, v. 38.

Or, closer to the Greek: "But we all, with unveiled face, as in a mirror," κατοπτριζὸμενοι, quasi in speculo intuentes, "beholding the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord."

In the Son we contemplate the Father. Looking upon the Son, we ourselves, as in a mirror, can by faith and love reflect, though dimly and weakly, some part of the divine perfections.

"As soon as we are baptized," says St. John Chrysostom on this passage of the Epistle to the Corinthians, "our soul, purified by the Spirit, becomes brighter than the sun."

"We become not only capable of looking upon the glory of God, but we also receive from it a certain radiance."

"As pure silver, placed before the sun's rays, itself emits rays not only from its own nature but also from the brilliance of the sun, so too the soul purified by the Spirit of God becomes more brilliant than silver."

"It receives into itself a ray from the glory of the Spirit and reflects from itself a ray of that same glory."

Thus one who believes in the Son of God believes in the Father and sees the Father. Enlightened by the Holy Spirit, he himself reflects divine glory in his soul, receiving from it joy and radiance.

He becomes a "light," as the Lord indicated in Mt 5:14, 16, Lk 8, and elsewhere. The Lord's following words point to the eternal source of light.