John 14:30Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

I am not subject to death and do not fall under it, He says, but I endure it out of love for the Father.

He says this to encourage the disciples again and to show them that He goes to death not unwillingly but voluntarily, and that He despises the devil.

Indeed, He was not content to say, "I am with you a little while longer," but often repeats these sorrowful words. To make them more easily received, He rightly mingles joyful words with them.

Therefore He sometimes says, "I am going away and I will come." Likewise, "Where I am, there you will be also." Again, "You cannot follow Me now, but afterward you will follow."

He also says, "I am going to the Father," and "The Father is greater than I," and "I have told you before it comes to pass."

Again He says, "I do not suffer this by necessity, but out of love for the Father." By this He teaches the disciples that His death is not destructive or harmful, since both the One who greatly loves Him and the One loved by Him consent to it.

Thus, mingling joyful words for this purpose, He often spoke also of sorrowful things, to train their mind for them.

He also comforted them by the words, "He will be in you" (Jn 14:17), and "It is to your advantage that I go away" (Jn 16:7).

For this reason He had said very much beforehand about the Spirit: "He is in you," "the world cannot receive Him," "He will remind you of all things," "He is the Spirit of truth," "the Holy Spirit," "the Comforter," and "it is to your advantage."

He said this so that they would not grieve as though they no longer had any advocate and helper. By the words "it is to your advantage," He shows that the Holy Spirit will make them spiritual.

Since some might think that Christ too is handed over to death for sins, He added, "and he has nothing in Me." I am not liable to death. I owe the devil nothing. I accept sufferings voluntarily, out of love for the Father.

“Behold,” He says, “the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.” I will die, and very willingly I will undergo death for the life of all. Out of reverence and love for My Begetter, I willingly permit even what is contrary to My soul, in order to fulfill His will (cf. Mt 26:39, 42).

This purpose can be clearly discerned in the words cited. But to unfold more precisely the meaning contained in them, we shall say this also.

Our forefather Adam, by the divine curse, became subject to death for transgressing the commandment given to him, being accused both by himself and by the devil. He appears to have suffered this, of course, for a wholly well-founded reason.

Punishment must, with full justice, follow the one who has sinned through negligence. But the second Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ, could by no means be accused of anything. For “He committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth” (1 Pet 2:22).

He underwent suffering for us, being Himself completely innocent, and gave Himself over to suffering as a ransom for the life of all. For He “loves the Father,” who desired the salvation of the world.

The work of One who loves the Father was, without doubt, not to disregard what was pleasing to Him and recognized as necessary, but to strive to bring it into fulfillment.

What was this? He willed to bring His own Son, although He had Him as like Himself and possessing equality with Him in all things, down to such humiliation that the Son became man for our sake and was not ashamed of death for the life of all.

This the Son accomplished, loving His Begetter. The Son says of Him that He was commanded by the Father to slay death by His own power through the suffering of the flesh, destroy the dominion of corruption, give life to those who had decayed, and again renew for them the original glory.

Therefore He says that the time for His words is short. The Passion is already at hand, and the audacious plot of the Jews against Him has been kindled. I will suffer voluntarily, He says, for I came for this.

Nevertheless, “the ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.” That is, I will not be found to have sinned, nor will the Jews have any well-founded pretext for their frenzy against Me.

The devil has nothing of his own in Me. Evil is, as it were, his property, and the origin of sin has its beginning in him.

That the Savior’s word is true, anyone can see especially from the very sequence of thought. Indeed, could He who knew no sin, who is true God and God by nature, wholly inaccessible to any change toward unrighteousness, have sinned? By no means.

No less can we see this through the writings of the holy evangelists themselves. Thus the all-wise John introduces Pilate saying: “I find no fault in Him” (Jn 18:38). Again, after the crown of thorns had been placed on Him, he proclaims: “Behold, I bring Him out to you, that you may know that I find no fault in Him” (Jn 19:4).

Matthew says that Pilate reached such revulsion from evil that he even washed his hands before the Jews and said: “I am innocent of the blood of this righteous Man” (Mt 27:24).

And presenting Him to us as brought before the chief priests themselves, he says: “The chief priests and the whole council sought false testimony against Christ, that they might put Him to death, and they found none, though many false witnesses came forward” (Mt 26:59-60).

But in Me the devil has no cause for My death, since I am sinless. Therefore he too will be judged, as was said in the interpretation of John 12:31: "Now is the judgment of this world; now the prince of this world will be cast out."

Paul did not dare to say this, though before his death he was caught up to the mysteries of the third heaven (2 Cor 12:2). Even John did not dare to say this of himself, though by special love he reclined at supper on the breast of his Redeemer (Jn 21:20).

For when the Prophet says, “Behold, I was conceived in iniquity, and in sin my mother bore me” (Ps 50:7), then one who came into the world with guilt could not be without guilt in the world.

Therefore the same Prophet says: “No one living shall be justified before You” (Ps 142:2). Therefore Solomon also says: “Do not give heed to every word that is spoken, lest you hear your servant cursing you” (Eccl 7:21).

Therefore John also says: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1 Jn 1:8). Therefore James says: “For we all stumble in many things” (Jas 3:2).

It is known that, since all are conceived from the pleasure of the flesh, the ruler of this world without any doubt had something of his own in them, whether in their deeds, words, or thoughts.

Yet he could neither seize them afterward nor hold them beforehand, because He freed them from their debts who, without owing it, paid the debt of death for us. Thus our debts to our enemy would not detain us, because the Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, freely gave to him on our behalf what He did not owe.

He freed us from the soul’s deserved death by paying for us with an undeserved bodily death. Therefore He says: “For the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.”

Therefore we must take care and ponder with abundant daily tears how fierce and how dreadful the ruler of this world will be when he comes on the day of our departure, seeking his works in us. He came even to the Lord dying in the flesh, and sought something in Him in whom he could find nothing.

What then shall we say, and what shall we do, miserable as we are, who have fallen into countless sins? What shall we say to the enemy who seeks and finds much of his own in us?

Only this: that we have a sure refuge and firm hope, because we have done one thing together with Him in whom the ruler of this world sought something of his own and could not find it. For He alone is free among the dead (Ps 87:5).

We are released from the bondage of sin into true freedom because we are united to Him who alone is free. It is known, and we cannot deny it but sincerely confess, that the ruler of this world has much in us.

Nevertheless, he no longer has power to seize us at the hour of our death, because we have become members of Him in whom that ruler has nothing.

But our God and Master, as Creator and Orderer of the whole world, is naturally and sovereignly prince of all things in heaven, on earth, and beneath the earth. He is the unwaning and unapproachable Light and the Lord of all, both present and future.

But Jesus Christ was not subject to sin. Therefore the devil will find in Him nothing that belongs to him. By this very fact, the devil’s efforts to conquer Jesus Christ will not succeed.

With the words about the approach of the prince of the world and the fulfillment of the Father’s will, Jesus Christ ended His discourse with the disciples after the supper.

"And he has nothing in Me," that is, nothing subject to his dominion. The devil is the prince of this world by virtue of the sinfulness into which the world is sunk.

Christ is sinless. Therefore the prince of this world has nothing in Him over which he could rule. This saying of the Lord also serves, among other things, as proof of His sinlessness.

It also proves the complete freedom with which He gives His life for the life of the world (cf. Jn 10:18). Yet although the prince of this world has no power over Him, the Lord hands Himself over to him, to die for the life of the world.

And so that this world may know that I love the Father and, out of this love, give My life by fulfilling His commandment (cf. Jn 10:18), "Arise, let us go from here," to meet My enemy, the prince of the world, who is approaching Me.

This meeting, a terrible meeting, took place in the garden of Gethsemane.

But in the Lord Jesus there was no sin. Therefore Satan had nothing to find in Jesus. The devil raised up death against Him, but death could not triumph over the One who had no share in sin. It was defeated, to the shame of the prince of darkness.