John 12:50Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Thus, as He was about to leave them and speak with them no more, He testifies, as it were: in speaking with you, I have said nothing properly from Myself, but everything from the Father.

For this reason He concludes His discourse with them in humble words. He means to say that this was His final voice to them at the very end. What was it? "As the Father said to Me, so I speak."

If I were an opponent of God, I would say the opposite. I would say that I speak nothing pleasing to God, so as to ascribe all glory to Myself. But I refer everything to Him, so that I say nothing of My own.

Why, then, do you not believe Me when I say that I have received a commandment? Why do you not believe Me when I so powerfully refute your false opinion, that I oppose the Father?

Those who have received a commandment cannot do or say anything other than what is pleasing to those who sent them, until they fulfill the commandment with exactness. So neither can I do or say anything other than what the Father wills.

What I do, He does. Therefore He is with Me, and "the Father has not left Me alone" (Jn 8:29).

Do you see how everywhere He shows that He is closely united with His Begetter, and that nothing stands between Them? When He says, "I have not come of Myself" (Jn 7:28), He does not take authority away from Himself.

Rather, He destroys only the thought that He is alien and opposed to God. If men have authority over themselves, much more does the Only-begotten Son. That this is true, hear what Paul says: "He emptied Himself and gave Himself for us" (Phil 2:7).

But, as I said, vainglory is fearful, truly fearful. It was the cause that these men did not believe, that others believed wrongly, and that words Christ spoke for their own sake, out of love for mankind, they turned into an occasion for impiety.

Therefore let us flee this beast in every way. It has many kinds and forms, and pours its poison on everything: on treasures, on pleasures, and on bodily beauty.

For this reason we overstep the limits of necessity everywhere. Hence luxury in clothing and the great crowd of servants. Hence moderation is neglected in everything: in houses, in clothing, and at table, while luxury rules.

Do you wish to enjoy glory? Give alms. Then the angels will praise you. Then God will glorify you. But now all the glory falls to the craftsmen in gold and the weavers, while you remain without a crown.

Often you see yourself burdened with curses. Do not hang all these things on your body. Spend them instead on the nourishment of the poor, and applause will come from every side, with great praise from everywhere.

Then you will truly possess these things, when you distribute them to others. So long as you enjoy them alone, you do not possess them. A house is not a secure treasury. The hands of the poor are the faithful treasury.

Why do you adorn the body, while the soul remains neglected and covered with uncleanness? Why are you not as concerned for the soul as for the body? Indeed, one ought to care much more for it.

At least, beloved, let us have the same care for it. Tell me, if someone asked you which you would rather have, a pure, healthy, and beautiful body with poor clothing, or a deformed and diseased body adorned with gold and ornament, what would you choose?

Would you not far sooner wish to have beauty in the very nature of your body than in the splendor of garments? Will you wish this with respect to the body, yet the opposite with respect to the soul?

If your soul is repulsive, misshapen, and blackened, do you think you gain anything through golden adornments? Is this not extreme madness? Turn these adornments inward instead, and deck your soul with these necklaces.

When they lie upon the body, they serve neither its health nor its beauty. They will not make what is black white, nor what is misshapen beautiful and comely.

But if you adorn the soul with them, you will soon make it white instead of black, beautiful and comely instead of repulsive and misshapen. This is not my word, but the Lord's own.

He says, "Though your sins be as scarlet, I will make them white as snow" (Is 1:18). And again, "Give alms, and behold, all things are clean for you" (Lk 11:41).

You will make not only yourself beautiful, but your husband also, if you act in this way. When husbands see that you have abandoned these adornments, they will no longer need great expenses.

Not having this need, they will wholly turn away from covetousness and become more inclined to almsgiving. Then you too will be able to counsel them boldly to do what is fitting. But now you are entirely deprived of this authority.

With what mouth, indeed, will you say this to them? With what eyes will you look at them, demanding that your husbands give alms, when you spend the greater part on adorning the body?

Then you will be able to speak boldly to your husband about almsgiving, when you have abandoned golden adornments. Even if you accomplish nothing in this, at least you will have done all that belongs to you.

Yet it is impossible that you should not persuade your husband, when you speak to him by your deeds. "For how do you know, O wife, whether you will save your husband?" (1 Cor 7:16).

As now you will give account both for yourself and for him, so, if you put away all this outward glitter, you will receive a double crown. You will triumph, wearing the crown together with your husband unto endless ages.

You will enjoy the eternal good things. May we all be counted worthy of them, by the grace and love for mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom be glory unto ages of ages. Amen.

Therefore, wishing to prove this, that is, His unity of mind with the Father, He recalled this example, namely the commandment.

Therefore He adds, "Therefore what I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me." Since I said nothing from Myself, what excuse will the unbelieving present?

Without any contradiction, they will be condemned because they did not believe the Father.

Therefore, Orthodox one, do not imply anything lowly in humble words such as "I have received a commandment" and the like. Understand them prudently, as also this: "I received a commandment, what to say and what to speak."

For the Son, being the Word and expressing what is in the Mind, that is, the Father, says that He received from Him the commandment what to say and what to speak.

Likewise our word, if we desire to be truthful, says what the mind proposes to it. The word never differs in essence from the mind, but is entirely consubstantial with it.

Thus our Lord Jesus Christ at once reproves the stubborn Jewish people for resisting God the Father Himself. By saying that He received a commandment from Him and does not speak from Himself, He clearly shows Himself to be the Prophet foretold in the law.

He is the One proclaimed by the voice of God the Father from very ancient times. Though they were disobedient, He summons them to remember that, if they refuse to obey His words, they will surely undergo unavoidable punishment.

They will suffer what God declared. Those who transgress the holy commandment of God the Father and reject the life-giving word of God, our Savior Christ, must surely fall into the most dreadful calamities.

They will remain without participation in the life given by Him. Justly they hear what was said by the voice of the prophet: "Earth, earth, hear, hear the word of the Lord. Behold, I bring evils upon this people, the fruit of their turning away."

"For they have not heeded My law, and you have rejected My word" (Jer 6:19).

We find the Jews liable to a twofold accusation. They honored neither the law itself, though it was considered holy and dear among them, since they did not receive Him Who was proclaimed beforehand to them.

Nor did they heed the words of Christ our Savior, though He openly declared that He is the Prophet plainly preached by the law (Deut 18:18). For He says that He uses words proceeding from God the Father.

Let no one suppose that there can be any diminution of Him in any respect, whether according to essence or in divine dignity, when the Lord says that He speaks nothing from Himself, but from the Father.

First, let him consider again and answer our question. Would anyone consider the name and work of prophecy fitting for Him Who truly is, and is honored as, true God by nature?

Everyone, even the very simple, I think, will reject this, considering it incredible that God should be called a prophet, when He is the One Who speaks in the prophets.

For He Himself "multiplied visions," as it is written (Hos 12:10), and "was likened in the hands of the prophets." Therefore, when He received the name and form of servitude like ours, He was called a prophet according to our likeness.

The law therefore necessarily ascribed to Him what is proper to a prophet: to ask something from the Father and to receive a commandment concerning "what to say and what to speak."

Besides this, I think it necessary to say the following. Although the Jews held the law in very high honor, believing that it had been spoken by God, they nevertheless did not receive the words of the Savior.

He was transforming the ancient ordinances into spiritual worship. What, then, was the reason they did not wish to receive the transformation of types into the truth?

It was that they did not know the true God by nature. Nor did they have in mind that, being the Word of the Father, the Only-begotten bore our flesh for our sake.

Otherwise, they would at once have worshiped God and immediately turned to all that is pleasing to Him. They would have rendered Him the glory due to Him.

Instead, in their misery, they supposed that He was one of those like us. Thinking Him a mere man, they judged that He thought so highly of Himself that He even attempted to destroy the very laws given by God the Father.

Thus they shamelessly said to Him, "We stone You not for a good work, but for blasphemy, because You, being a man, make Yourself God" (Jn 10:33).

Therefore, by His great mercy and wise providence, our Lord Jesus draws His hearers away from the suspicion that possessed them. From His simple human appearance, He transfers the discourse to the One universally and admittedly worshiped, I mean God the Father.

In every way He wishes to put to shame the ignorant heart of the Jews. By various means He strives to guide the unreasonable toward the desire to know what is true and right.

Anyone could use the same words and arguments to repel the slander of impious heretics. They think the Son must be in some respect lesser than His Begetter, because He affirms that He speaks nothing from Himself.

They say this because He says that a commandment was given to Him and that He speaks as He has heard. I consider what has been said sufficient.

Nevertheless, I will add something else to convict the unbridled boldness of their tongue. If you wish, let us in the present case set aside discourse about the divine economy with the flesh.

We can prove that even concerning the Only-begotten Himself, it is justly and beautifully said: "For I do not speak from Myself, but the Father Who sent Me, He gave Me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak."

He Himself, the living and hypostatic Word of God the Father, necessarily speaks what is in Him. Bringing to light what is pleasing to His own Begetter, He says that He receives it as a commandment.

That this is truly so, and not otherwise, may be seen in ourselves. The spoken word, consisting in the combination of words and sayings, is expressed outwardly by articulate sound.

Receiving, as it were, a commandment from our mind, it reveals what is in the mind. This happens in a short time. What the mind understands, it at once transmits to the voice.

The voice brings outward what is within and reveals what is contained in the mind, changing nothing of what is commanded to it by the mind.

What is strange, then, someone might say to them, if the Word, being the Son of God the Father, reveals the will of Him Who begot Him? He is not like our word, for God is beyond every comparison.

And does not the prophet say that the name most fitting to Him is called "Messenger of Great Counsel" (Is 9:6)? I think this too is clear.

Therefore, in both essence and dignity, the Only-begotten suffers no diminution, even if He is said to have received a commandment from God the Father.

We ourselves often command others and order them to do something. Yet for this reason we are not deprived of our likeness, nor do we cease to be men, as though less consubstantial, either before or after the command.

But you will say, "Although they remain consubstantial, those among us who are lower in dignity serve others." To this I too will answer you concerning the Only-begotten.

If it had not been written of Him that, "being in the form of God, He did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, and being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself" (Phil 2:6-8), then your objection might have some force.

But if the form of subjection and abasement is manifest, why do you irrationally reproach Him Who underwent even this condition for our sake?

Therefore, having presented a full explanation of the correctness of the doctrines, we affirm that in the proposed saying our Lord Jesus Christ spoke providentially.

What could He say to Truth? There was no imperfection in Truth, so nothing can be added to It. Therefore He spoke to Truth because He begot Truth.

Next follows: "And I know that His commandment is eternal life." Therefore, if the Son is eternal life, and eternal life is the commandment of the Father, what else did He say but, "I am the commandment of the Father"?

Therefore, in what He added, "What I speak, I speak as the Father has told Me," let us not take "told Me" as if the Father uttered words for the Only-begotten Son.

Nor should we think that the Word of God needed words of God. The Father spoke to the Son as He gave life to the Son.

It was not that the Son did not know or did not possess something. Rather, it was that He was the Son.

What then does "I speak as the Father has told Me" mean, if not, "I speak the truth"? As the Father speaks as truthful, so the Son speaks as Truth.

Augustine uses verax, meaning truthful, or one who speaks the truth; cf. Jn 8:26.

The Truthful begot Truth. What could He say to Truth? Truth was not imperfect, as though something true had to be added to It.

Thus He spoke to Truth because He begot Truth. Likewise Truth speaks as it was spoken to Her, but She speaks to those who, through Her instruction, understand how She is begotten.

But so that men might believe what they were not yet able to understand, Her words sounded from the mouth of Christ's flesh and passed away.

Transient sounds rang out only for their brief duration. Yet the realities expressed by those sounds, fixed in a certain way in the memory of those who heard, have come down to us through letters, which are signs accessible to sight.

But this is not how Truth speaks. She speaks within understanding souls, instructs without sound, and fills the mind with the light of understanding.

Whoever can behold in Her the eternity of Her birth hears Her just as the Father spoke to Her to speak.

She has awakened a great thirst that Her sweetness may abide within us. Strengthened, we taste Her. Moving further, we are strengthened still more.

As we make progress, we go further still, so that at last we may become capable of finding Her.

Therefore we should not understand the commandment of which He speaks as an imperative word uttered by organs of speech, prescribing what the Son must do as though He were subordinate.

We should understand it in a manner worthy of God, as the communication of will. It is like the reflection of an image in a mirror, passing timelessly from the Father to the Son.

Even among men, one who has learned an art and by long meditation has rooted in himself an unshakable habit can act on his own according to the laws of knowledge formed within him.

Does the Wisdom of God, the Creator of all creation, ever perfect and wise without instruction, need a separate indication determining the manner and measure of His actions?

He is the Power of God, in whom "are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col 2:3).

They are used with a wise purpose, to explain the plans of the divine economy. Thus, for example: "I have not come of Myself" (Jn 7:28); "I do not speak from Myself" (Jn 14:10); "He gave Me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak" (Jn 12:49).

These and similar expressions directly affirm that Jesus Christ is not opposed to God. At the same time, they also indicate His equality with the Father.

They therefore think this is not a discourse of Jesus Christ Himself, but the evangelist's gathering of many sayings spoken by Him at different times.

This gathering concludes the history of the Lord's testimonies concerning Himself as the Messiah; cf. 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 as in 1:15. It means open testimony in general, without designation of time.

In content, the testimonies of Jesus Christ about Himself found here form a rebuke of the unbelief of the Jews described above.

For this He sent Me, and He sent Me not to judge the world, but to save it. Therefore I judge no one (Jn 8:15). And why judge now, when everyone who does not fulfill the will of God proclaimed by Me condemns himself?"

Blessed are those who have prepared themselves for the passage into eternity by life according to the Gospel. Woe to the negligent, the inattentive, the self-willed, and the self-opinionated.

Woe to those who have not broken communion with Satan. Woe to those who have not entered into communion with God. Greater woe to those who entered that communion and rejected it.

Despite all this, Israel remained unfeeling, obstinate, and hostile. In vain, according to the prophetic word of Isaiah cited by the Apostle Paul, God continually stretched out His hands to him during the whole ministry of His Son.

All this provoked only unbelief and opposition in the chosen people. At last grace, as if seeing the uselessness of all its influences, gave that people over to its own criminal inclinations.

It then calmly committed the most outrageous ingratitude, the most terrible crime, and the saddest sacrilege that can darken the memory of a people.

Didst Thou not know that commandment which is eternal life? And what does He wish to express by this? That He says and thinks nothing different from the Father.

Wishing to prove this, that is, His unity of mind with the Father, He recalled this example, namely the commandment.

The Son, being the Word and expressing what is in the Mind, that is, the Father, says that He received from Him the commandment what to say and what to speak" (Theophylact).

By virtue of this, His word or teaching is what judges the world on the last day of judgment. See verse 49.

The Son, revealing the Father in human form, speaks words that are not human. They are not words of human wisdom or inventions of human reason.

They are the eternal words of God, enlightening the human mind by the Holy Spirit of God. The Lord gives Him the holy and moving name of the eternal Comforter (Jn 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:13), who always abides with the Church of Christ.

The Word revealed to men could be accepted or rejected by individual persons because of the freedom of will given to the human soul. But the evil will of individuals could not alter the will of God, which saved the world.

"For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who perish, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the understanding of the prudent I will reject" (1 Cor 1:18-19; Is 29:14).

The Word of God was, is, and will be eternal life for us, together with the preaching of the Cross of which the Apostle Paul spoke.

Light, Love, Life: this is what the Lord brought us from heaven. These precious gifts of the one God, the Creator of the world, were manifested in the world by the second Hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Such, in brief, is the meaning of the final words of this chapter. It concludes the exposition of the teaching addressed by the Lord to the whole people and to the unbelieving Jews.

In the following chapters, before His Passion, the Lord enlightens His disciples, after the unworthy betrayer had withdrawn from among them.

After the great mystery of Christ's death, redemption, Resurrection, and Ascension into heaven with His glorified human flesh, they were to go preach to all nations.

They were to baptize them "in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Mt 28:19).

And in the Lord's final words, "I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Mt 28:20), we draw joy and strength on this earth to await our resurrection.

We do so while "looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith" (Heb 12:2), and to the "Author of life" (Acts 3:15).