John 17:8Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

That they suffered from great foolishness of mind is easy to see. Because of the Incarnation alone they stumbled, as over a stone, and did not receive His ineffable and pre-eternal birth from God and the Father.

You will easily be assured of this when you hear the Evangelist's words: 'For this reason the Jews sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath, but also called God His own Father' (Jn 5:18).

The cry of the impious Jews against Him is also recorded: 'For a good work we do not stone Thee, but for blasphemy, because Thou, being a man, makest Thyself God' (Jn 10:33).

From this you will clearly understand that the true keepers of His words acknowledged and believed that He shone forth from the Father. This, I think, is what the word 'came forth' means.

They also believed that He was sent to us, 'declaring the commandment of the Lord,' according to what is said in the Psalms (Ps 2:7).

Those who mocked this divine word from the Father thereby rejected faith as well. They plainly denied that He is God and from the Father, and that He came to us for our salvation, becoming like us yet without sin.

Therefore He rightly assigns to God and the Father those good men who truly offered Him the obedience of their souls. He makes no mention of those completely opposed to them, so that from our own times what He said might already be clear.

What was this? 'Everyone who confesses Me before men, I also will confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I also will deny before My Father who is in heaven' (Mt 10:32-33).

God the Father Himself promised to do this when He once cried out through the voice of Isaiah: 'Be My witnesses, and I am a witness, says the Lord God, and the Servant whom I have chosen' (Is 43:10).

Therefore the Savior speaks both as God and at the same time as man. For at one and the same time He was both God and man.

He uttered a word blameless in both respects, providentially adapting to the needs of the time what was fitting to each, both to the Godhead and to the humanity.

It is all the same whether He says, "I came forth," or, "Thou hast sent Me."

And lest anyone think that this knowledge was already from sight and not by faith, He adds, "and they believed that Thou hast sent Me."

They truly believed. This does not mean they believed as they believed before, according to His own words, when they feared being scattered in different directions and leaving Him alone.

Rather, truly means as they were soon to believe: unshakably, firmly, steadfastly, bravely, never again returning to their own people while leaving Christ.

At that moment the disciples were not yet such as He describes them with verbs in the past tense. They were to become such when they received the Holy Spirit, who, according to the promise, would teach them all things.

"For the words," He says, "which Thou gavest Me I have given them, and they received them." That is, they understood and kept them.

For a word is received when it is perceived by the mind. "And they truly understood that I came forth from Thee, and they believed that Thou hast sent Me."

Here too "truly" must be added. For after saying, "they truly understood," He wished to clarify this by adding, "and they believed."

Therefore "they truly believed" is the same as "they truly understood." Likewise, "I came forth from Thee" is the same as "Thou hast sent Me."

Therefore, when He said, "they truly understood," He added, by way of explanation, "and they believed." He did this so that no one would think such understanding is attained already by sight and not through faith.

By adding "truly," we understand that "they truly understood" is the same as "they truly believed."

This is not the manner He had indicated a little earlier when He said, "Do you now believe? Behold, the hour is coming, and has now come, when you will be scattered, each to his own, and will leave Me alone" (Jn 16:31-32).

Rather, "they truly believed" means that they believed as they ought to believe: unshakably, unwaveringly, steadfastly, firmly, so that they would no longer return to their own and abandon Christ.

His disciples were not yet such as He characterizes them, using past-tense verbs as if they had already become such.

Rather, He foretold what they would be when they received the Holy Spirit, who would guide them, as promised, into all things.

How, before they received Him, did they keep His word in which He described what they would be? The first of them denied Him three times, although he had heard from His mouth what would happen to the man who denied Him before men.

So He gave them, as He said, the words which the Father gave Him. When they received them spiritually, not outwardly with the ears, but inwardly with the heart, then they truly understood them.

They truly understood because they truly believed. Yet by what words could a man explain how the Father gave those words to the Son?

Certainly the question will seem simpler if we suppose that He received the words from the Father according to the fact that He is Son of Man.

Yet who can say when and how He, born of the Virgin, learned them? Who can even speak of His very birth from her?

But if one holds that He received these words from the Father according to the fact that He is begotten of the Father and coeternal with Him, no thought of time must be admitted.

We must not imagine that He existed before receiving them and then obtained them, so as to possess what He did not possess before.

For everything that God the Father handed over to God the Son, He handed over to Him by begetting Him.

As the Father gave to the Son that without which He could not be Son, so He also granted Him being.

For how else could He give any words at all to the Word, in whom He ineffably spoke all things?

What follows, however, must be explained in another discourse.

For just as He became man for our sake, so through Him we are exalted. Consequently there is nothing absurd if, as for our sake He humbled Himself, so for our sake He is said to be exalted.

Thus 'He gave to Him' means 'He gave to us for His sake.' And 'He highly exalted' (Phil 2:9) means 'He highly exalted us in Him.'

When we are exalted, receive, and are helped, the Word Himself, as though He were being exalted, receiving, and helped, gives thanks to the Father. He refers what is ours to Himself and says, 'All that Thou hast given Me I have given to them.'

That is, they believed that I was begotten of Thee, the Father, and shone forth from Thy essence. They were assured that Thou didst send Me, that is, that by Thy good pleasure I appeared to the world, having assumed flesh and become man.

It cannot be compared with any of our prayers. No sinful man can ever experience what filled the soul of the God-man, who gave His human life for the sins of others, for the sins of the whole world.

Let us bow before the majesty and holiness of this sacrifice. Let us leave aside every bold attempt to convey the content of this prayer to readers in other words.

Let us read it in the very words recorded by the Evangelist, who wrote not only from memory, but also by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

The fruit of this was lofty convictions. Whence did this come? How did it happen? Very simply.

Humble attention to the words of the Lord enters more deeply with its thoughts into divine things than self-confident reason does. Such reason, for the most part, does not even think it necessary to meditate on heaven.

Even when it thinks about heavenly things, it throws out question after question, now about one thing, then another and a third. It does not stop over anything as it should, yet thinks that it knows everything (1 Cor 8:2-3).

Such was the pride of the Jewish scribes. 'We know where this Man is from,' they said of Jesus. 'But when the Christ comes, no one will know where He is from' (Jn 7:27).

The humble mind does not take much upon itself. With reverence it strives to understand the revealed will of God, catches every word with attention, and patiently waits for explanation of what is incomprehensible.

Thus the Apostle James commands us to hear the teaching of salvation: 'Laying aside all filthiness and the remnant of evil, receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls' (Jas 1:21).

Thus the Apostles listened to Christ Jesus and finally came to know who their Teacher was.

Of course, their faith did not yet have either the fullness or the unshakable firmness that it later attained under the influence of the Spirit, the Comforter.

Yet they sincerely knew and believed that Christ Jesus was God's Messenger (Jn 16:27).

The good Lord covers their deficiencies with love and silence. With the joy of love He presents to the heavenly Father the living and precious seed kept in the depth of their hearts.

Under the influence of heavenly dew, this seed had to bring forth excellent fruits. He prays that the heavenly Father would complete the work begun in them.

'This is the will of Him who sent Me,' He had said before, 'that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life' (Jn 6:40).

Yet only believers stand in a special chosen relation to God. They are those whom God 'foreknew' (compare Rom 8:29-30), and they glorify the name of God manifested by the God-man.

Those who did not obey the voice of Love calling them remained in the general relation of creature to Creator, on the same level as the irrational world.

The chosen souls were entrusted by the invisible God the Creator to God incarnate precisely because they believe. Believing, they can behold God in the manifestation of the second Hypostasis and receive the gifts of the Spirit of God.

These men, to whom the name of God was revealed, kept the word of the Lord. Now it has been revealed to them, and they have understood that there is no deed or word of the Son that is not from the Father.

Therefore they perceived the complete unity of the Father and the Son; compare Jn 6:44-46, 14:6, and many others.

They have understood this now, says the Lord, because I spoke to them the words which Thou gavest Me. These words are the possession of both the Father and the Son, who is inseparable from the Father in essence.

Receiving these words, the disciples understood the greatness of the mystery of the God-man's procession from the Father.

'The words that I have spoken to you,' says the Lord, 'are spirit and life' (Jn 6:63). 'I have not spoken from Myself; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a commandment, what I should say and what I should speak... As the Father has said to Me, so I speak' (Jn 12:49-50; Jn 14:10).

The Word who became flesh manifested God's name to the disciples. They kept the word of God, and they understood the unity of the invisible God with God incarnate.

In these words is the whole spiritual life of the Christian: faith, love, hope, and that knowledge of the mysteries of God which are revealed to man and which he can receive.

Knowledge was given to the disciples as the fruit of faith and love. First they loved and believed; after this, knowledge was given to them. First they gave their souls to Christ and kept His word; after this, 'they understood.'

All development of spiritual life proceeds according to this law. The mysteries of God are comprehended only by those who believe and love.

Neither wisdom, nor study, nor knowledge can bring one into the world of God's joy, but love and faith. He who believes and gives his soul to Christ with love 'will find it' (Mt 10:39), purified, enlightened, and made wise with higher, divine wisdom.