John 3:32Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

What, then, does "what He has seen and heard, this He testifies" mean? Through these senses we know everything with exactness. We consider ourselves trustworthy teachers in what we perceive through sight and hearing, because we do not invent or speak falsehood. Wishing to express this here also, John said, "what He has seen and heard." That is, there is nothing false in Him, but everything is true.

We too often ask with concern: Did you hear it yourself? Did you see it? When this is confirmed, the testimony becomes certain. So too, when Christ Himself says, "As I hear, I judge" (Jn 5:30), and, "What I heard from My Father, I speak" (Jn 8:26), and, "What we have seen, we speak" (Jn 3:11), and words of this kind, we must not think that He speaks from instruction received from others. To think this would be extreme folly. Rather, He speaks thus so that none of what He says may be suspected by the shameless Jews.

Since they did not yet have a proper understanding of Him, He often turns to the Father and in this way makes His words worthy of belief for them. Why do you marvel that Christ turns to the Father, when He often turns also to the prophets and the Scriptures? For example, He says, "They bear witness of Me" (Jn 5:39).

Will we then consider Him lower even than the prophets, merely because He takes testimonies from them? May it not be. He only adapts His word to the weakness of His hearers. If He says that He heard from the Father what He says, He does not speak as one needing a teacher. He speaks so that they may believe there is nothing false in His words.

John's words mean the following: I must listen to Him, because He has come from above and proclaims heavenly things, those which He alone knows truly. This is exactly what the words mean: "What He has seen and heard, of this He testifies. And no one receives His testimony."

But He had disciples, and many listened to His words. How then does John say, "no one receives"? Here "no one" is said instead of "few." If John had said "no one" in the strict sense, how could he later add, "He who has received His testimony has set his seal to this, that God is true"?

Here John also touches his own disciples, because they were not entirely disposed to believe in Christ. That they did not believe in Him even after these words is clear from the subsequent accounts. When John was in prison, he sent them to Christ precisely in order to unite them more closely to Him. But even then they scarcely believed in Him. Christ alluded to this when He said, "And blessed is he who is not offended because of Me" (Mt 11:6).

Therefore John said, "And no one receives His testimony," for no other purpose than to warn his disciples. It is as though he said: If few believe in Him, do not therefore think His teaching false. He "has seen, and testifies." At the same time John says this as a reproach against the insensibility of the Jews. Likewise at the beginning of the Gospel the Evangelist John rebukes them, saying: "He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him" (Jn 1:11). This is not a reproach against Christ Himself, but a condemnation of those who did not receive Him.

Would answer, "I do not know what the 'no one' in my words means." There are, of course, men born for the wrath of God and prepared for it from the beginning. For God knew from the beginning who would believe and who would not believe. God knew from the beginning who would persevere in what he had believed, and who would fall away from faith. All men prepared for eternal life had already been numbered by God. He already knew these particular persons. If He knew this and made it known to the prophets through His Spirit, then He also made it known to John. Therefore John saw this, not with his own eyes. For in what concerned himself, he was earthly and spoke from the earth. Rather, by the grace of the Spirit which he received from God, he saw certain ungodly and unbelieving men. Seeing them remaining in their unbelief, he said, "No one receives the testimony of Him who came from heaven." No one from among whom? From among those who will stand on the left side. To them it will be said, "Depart into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels" (cf. Mt 25:41). And who are those who receive? They are those who will stand on the right side. To them it will be said, "Come, blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world" (Mt 25:34). Thus he sees this division in the spirit, though in the human race he sees a mingling. What had not yet been separated by place, he separated in understanding and in the gaze of the heart. He sees two peoples, believers and unbelievers. He fixes his attention on the unbelievers and says, "He who comes from heaven is above all; what He has seen and heard, of that He bears witness; and no one receives His testimony" (Jn 3:31-32). Then he turned his gaze away from the left side, turned it to the right, and said, "He who has received His testimony has set his seal to this, that God is true" (Jn 3:33). And what does "has set his seal to this, that God is true" mean, except that man is false and God is true? For no man can speak what belongs to the truth unless he is enlightened by Him who cannot lie. Therefore God is true, and Christ is God. Do you wish to be convinced? Receive His testimony, and you will find this: "He who has received His testimony has set his seal to this, that God is true." Who is true? He who came from heaven and is above all is the true God. But if you do not yet understand that He is God, and have not yet received His testimony, then receive it. You will set your seal, clearly understand, and surely know that God is true. "For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God" (Jn 3:34). He Himself is the true God, and God sent Him. God sent God. Join the two together: there is one God, and the true God is sent by God. Ask about each separately: each of Them is God. Ask about both: both are God. They are not separate Gods, nor two Gods. Each separately is God, and both are God. For so great is the love of the Holy Spirit, and so great the peace of unity, that when you ask about each separately, you are answered: They are God. When you ask about the Trinity, you are answered: It is God. For if the human spirit, when joined to God, is one spirit, as the Apostle said most clearly, "He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him" (1 Cor 6:17), how much more is the Son equal to the Father one God with Him when joined to the Father. Hear also another testimony. You know how many believers there were when they sold all they possessed and laid it at the apostles' feet, so that distribution might be made to each according to need. And you know what Scripture says about that assembly of saints: "There was one heart and one soul in the Lord" (Acts 4:32). If love made one soul out of so many souls, and one heart out of so many hearts, how great is the love between the Father and the Son? Certainly it must be greater than among those men who became one heart. If the heart of many brethren became one through love, and the soul of many brethren became one through love, will you say that God the Father and God the Son are two Gods? If They are two Gods, then there is no supreme love between Them. For if love here is so strong that it makes your soul and your friend's soul one soul, how can there not be one God, the Father and the Son, there? Let faith be far from thinking so perversely. In short, understand how excellent that love is from this. Many men have many souls, and if they love one another, they become one soul. Yet one may still say, "many souls." This can be said of men, because the union among them is not so great. But there you may say, "one God." You must not say "two Gods" or "three Gods." From there is entrusted to you such greatness and such height of love that nothing can be greater.

When we wish to confirm that someone is speaking the truth, we usually say that he testifies to what he saw and heard.

Therefore, when you hear that Jesus Christ Himself says, "As I hear, I judge" (Jn 5:30), "My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me" (Jn 7:16), "What I heard from Him, these things I speak in the world" (Jn 8:26), and the like, know that He spoke this with a wise purpose.

He did so so that all might know that He speaks the truth, since His hearers did not yet have a proper understanding of Him.

"And no one receives His testimony," that is, no one among the unbelievers. John said this generally of the insensible Jews, and particularly of his own disciples, who out of ambition and jealousy wished to stir him up as well.

However great a prophet may be, and however lofty the revelations granted to him, he cannot himself comprehend or communicate what is revealed with the same clarity, depth, and fullness as the incarnate Son of God Himself.

"And yet no one receives His testimony." This seems to contradict the report of John's disciples that "all are going to Him."

But what seemed very great to them was very little in John's eyes. The emphatic expression "no one" is used precisely in contrast to the similarly emphatic expression "all" in verse 26.

In other words, Jesus Christ, as One who came down from heaven, spoke of what He had seen and heard in the eternal world, on the basis of His own immediate knowledge.

He did not speak like the prophets sent from God, who spoke only what had been revealed to them on earth.

But having indicated Jesus Christ's complete and all-perfect knowledge of heavenly things, such as no one else can have, the Forerunner immediately remarks with sorrow: "And no one receives His testimony."

Compare Jn 3:11. That is, no one receives His teaching.

This remark seems to stand in direct contradiction to the words of his disciples: "Behold, He is baptizing, and all are going to Him" (Jn 3:26).

Yes, but only in appearance. John knew well that He had disciples and others who had received His teaching and followed Him, because he himself speaks of them in the next verse.

Yet they were so few that they seemed to vanish in the mass of unbelievers.

Perhaps he spoke this way also because he wished to make his disciples understand the loftiness of Jesus Christ's teaching. Man cannot receive and assimilate it without God's help (Jn 6:44).

"He who has received His testimony has set his seal to this, that God is true." If John speaks of those who have received the testimony, then, of course, he cannot say that no one receives His testimony.

Thus, in saying that, sadly, not all receive Jesus' testimony, John quite transparently alluded to his own disciples, who had spoken to him about Jesus with such hostility and envy.

Noting with sadness such feelings in his disciples toward Jesus, John said to them: "You must believe everything that He says and will say. God has sent Him and has given Him all the power of His Spirit.

Therefore everything He says is spoken by God Himself. His words are the words of God. For He is the Son of God and has all the authority of God.

Whoever believes in Him thereby proves that he believes in God, and for this may be granted the blessedness of eternal life. But whoever does not believe in the Son rejects God, and for this he himself will be rejected by God.

Believe, then, in Jesus as the Son of God, the Christ-Messiah promised to you. Regard me, as I told you earlier, as His servant, unworthy even to loose the strap of His sandal.

Go to Him, and follow Him. He must increase, but I must decrease."

As he was ending his service to God, John in this last address to his disciples urged them to join Jesus and follow Him. These words are the testament of the greatest of the prophets.

Would it have been so, if everything were as it ought to be? Should there have been so few receiving the Messiah's teaching?

All ought to have received Him. And now, what does this number of those who have received Him mean? Nothing: no one receives His testimony.

Perhaps before the spiritual gaze of the Forerunner the whole history of the chosen people's relation to Christ was passing by.

Should such a small number of the chosen people have entered His Church as actually entered? No. The number that entered is nothing compared with the whole people, all of whom ought to have entered. No one receives His testimony.

Thus, for the Jews, John the Baptist's naming of Jesus Christ as the bridegroom had a deep and at the same time intelligible meaning. It was a confession of Christ as Messiah, the Son of God.

Soon after this, John the Baptist was confined in prison, and his disciples very likely entered the number of Christ's disciples.