John 8:28Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Then, since He could not draw them to Himself either by many signs or by teaching, He begins to speak of the Cross.

“When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father taught Me, these things I speak.

And He who sent Me is with Me; the Father has not left Me alone.” By this He shows that He rightly said, “The beginning, even what I say to you.” So inattentive were they to His words.

“When you lift up the Son of Man.” Do you expect that you will be especially rid of Me then, when you kill Me? But I say that then especially you will know that I am He.

You will know this from the signs, the resurrection, and the captivity. All these truly sufficed to show His power.

Jesus performed many miracles, and yet did not draw the Jews to Himself. Now He speaks to them of the Cross.

You think, He says, that when you crucify Me, you will be free from every concern and will be rid of Me. But I say that you will know that I am He.

That is, you will know that I am the Christ, the Son of God, who bears and upholds all things (Heb 1:3). You will know that I am not opposed to the Father.

I do not act or speak from Myself, for I do not have a will of My own different from the Father’s will.

How will they know Him on the Cross? From the signs of that time, from His resurrection, and from their captivity. All these could reveal His power.

Therefore, when you crucify Me, you will know both things: My power and My oneness of mind with the Father.

"When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then ye shall know that I am He." Imitating good physicians, He lays bare the cause of the spiritual sickness present in them. He clearly reveals what prevents them from quickly coming to the knowledge of Him and to faith in Him. Since they looked at His flesh and His fleshly origin, they were inclined to think meanly of Him. With such a veil over the eyes of their mind, they did not know that He is true God, though He appeared as man. Therefore He deems it necessary to add: "When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then ye shall know that I am He." This means: when you cease your low and earthly conception of Me, and when you think of Me in a lofty and heavenly way, you will recognize Me as God who has appeared from God. Though I became like you for your sake as man, then you will clearly know that I am the light of the world, of which I spoke to you just now. Indeed, what obstacle can remain to prevent the One already received as true God from being also the light of the world? No one will reach such madness and audacity as still to dare to say, "Thy witness is not true" (Jn 8:13). He who is called God by nature and in truth can in no way speak falsehood. Thus from the Savior's words it is entirely plain that, when we hold a low opinion of Him and regard Him as a mere man, deprived of Godhead by nature, we thereby no longer believe in Him. Nor do we acknowledge Him as Savior and Redeemer. What then follows? We are deprived of hope. If salvation comes through faith, and faith has disappeared, what remains to save? But when we believe and raise the Only-Begotten to the height befitting God, though He became man, we shall cross the laborious sea of life as with a favorable wind. We shall be translated to the city above and there receive honors for faith. Another interpretation of the same saying. "When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then ye shall know that I am He." The Lord used many excellent words to soften the fury of the Jews, yet He sees that it only increases. They do not cease to blaspheme Him without restraint. At one time they treat His word as nothing and impiously call Him a liar. For what else can "Thy witness is not true" (Jn 8:13) mean? At another time, when in love He tells them what is needed for salvation and says, "If ye do not believe that I am He, ye shall die in your sins" (Jn 8:24), they rise hotly against Him. To the words spoken to them in love, they oppose their own mad words and ask, "Who art Thou?" (Jn 8:25). Therefore, for those so unrestrainedly sunk in irrational boldness, a word was needed that could bring them to their senses. It had to move them toward a more modest disposition and put a bridle on their tongue, even against their will. For this reason He threatened them, saying very clearly that they would not escape punishment for their impiety. Though at present they saw Him as long-suffering, when their impiety against Him reached its terrible limit, namely His betrayal to crucifixion and death, they would then suffer dreadful punishment and extreme calamity. This plainly came through the war with the Romans, which occurred after the Savior's crucifixion because of divine wrath from God. That they would suffer great evils the Savior also indicated very clearly. Once He said to the women who were weeping: "Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children" (Lk 23:28). At another time He said: "When ye see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then ye shall say to the mountains, Cover us, and to the hills, Fall on us" (Lk 21:20; 23:30). Such calamities from war would come upon the Jews that every form of death would be more pleasant and desirable. Indeed, Josephus also recounts in his writings their expulsion from their country, the captivity of its inhabitants, cruel slaughters, famine in every city, and the eating of children. Therefore He says: when, after handing over "the Son of Man" to crucifixion, you undergo the corresponding punishment, and for your audacity against Me receive an equal recompense, "then" with weeping "ye shall know that I am He." That is, you shall know that I can do all things, and that I am God. For if "not even one little bird falls into the snare of the hunter without God," how could an entire country and a beloved people come to such complete destruction unless almighty God had permitted it? See how terrible an evil contempt for God proves to be, bringing men to such fearful calamities. Therefore Paul also rebukes some, saying of God: "Or dost thou despise the riches of His goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering, not knowing that the goodness of God leads thee to repentance? But according to thy hardness and unrepentant heart, thou treasurest up wrath for thyself in the day of wrath" (Rom 2:4-5). Another interpretation of the same saying. Christ spent much time in converse with the Jews. In every assembly, one might say, He spoke with them. Every Sabbath He spoke with them, often and gladly offering them profitable teaching and constantly calling them to enlightenment from the Spirit. Thus, among other things, He said to them as true God by nature: "I am the light of the world" (Jn 8:12). But they, giving themselves to foolish thoughts, answered these words: "Thou bearest witness of Thyself; Thy witness is not true" (Jn 8:13). The audacity of the Jews did not extend only to verbal contradictions. Their untamable boldness was not limited only to accusations. Passing mercilessly through every degree of cruelty, they ended by handing Him over to crucifixion and death. But since He was life by nature, He burst the bonds of death and rose from the dead. He justly withdrew from the abominations of the Jews, passed over to the Gentiles, called all to the light, and granted sight to the blind. Thus it happened that, after the death on the Cross of our Savior Christ, the minds of the Jews were darkened because the light withdrew from them. The hearts of the Gentiles were enlightened because the true light shone upon them. Therefore He says: "When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then ye shall know that I am He." This means: I shall endure your impiety to the very end. I shall not bring My wrath upon you prematurely. I shall accept suffering and death. Besides all else, I shall endure this also. But when you hand the Son of Man over to crucifixion, regarding Him as a mere man, then even unwillingly you will know that I did not lie in saying, "I am the light of the world." For if you see yourselves subjected to darkness. And countless Gentiles enlightened because I am among them, must you not finally agree, even against your will, that I am truly the light of the world? That the Savior, after rising from the dead, was to withdraw from the synagogue of the Jews is beyond doubt for everyone. This has already happened and been fulfilled. But it can also be seen still more clearly from His words: "While ye have the light, walk in the light, lest darkness overtake you" (Jn 12:35). The lessening and withdrawal of light brings darkness into being. Conversely, the presence of light causes darkness to disappear. Thus Christ is the true Light. By His withdrawal He subjected the Jews to darkness, and by His presence He enlightened the Gentiles. The experience of calamities became a bitter lesson for the Jews. Another interpretation of the same saying. "When ye have lifted up the Son of Man, then ye shall know that I am He." Since you look at the flesh alone, He says, you think that I am a mere man, one like yourselves. The divine dignity and the glory joined to it do not enter your mind at all. Therefore the clearest sign for you that I am true God from God and Light from Light will be your utterly dreadful and lawless audacity, that is, the Cross and the death of My flesh upon it. For as soon as you see the purpose of your plot unfulfilled and the net of death broken, because I shall rise from the dead, then even unwillingly and by necessity you will finally agree with My words to you. You will have to confess that I am true God by nature. This is because I shall prove higher than death and corruption, and as Life by nature I shall raise up My temple (Jn 2:19-21). If dominion over death and contempt for the snares of corruption belong only to God by nature and to no other existing thing, then must I not be shown, without contradiction and beyond all doubt, able to conquer everything without hindrance? Thus the Savior said that His own Cross would be a sign for the Jews and the clearest proof that He is God by nature. You can see Him saying this clearly in another case also. Since countless miracles had been performed through Him, the Pharisees once came to Him and said: "Teacher, we wish to see a sign from Thee" (Mt 12:38). Since He saw their designs and knew their evil intentions, He said: "An evil and adulterous generation seeks a sign, and no sign shall be given to it except the sign of Jonah the prophet. For as Jonah was in the belly of the whale three days and three nights, so shall the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights" (Mt 12:39-40). Do you hear how, to the Jews demanding a sign as proof that He is true God, even though they said this to tempt Him, He says that no other sign will be shown them except the sign of Jonah the prophet? This means the three-day death and the resurrection from the dead. What sign of the authority proper to the Godhead could be so great and evident as the destruction of death and the abolition of corruption? Though by divine decree corruption had taken possession of human nature. In the person of Adam it heard: "Thou art earth, and to earth thou shalt return" (Gen 3:19). But it was in the power of Christ the Savior both to bring an end to His own wrath and to abolish by blessing the death that had appeared because of His own curse. That the Jews greatly trembled before the sign of the resurrection as a fearful proof that Christ is truly God is clearly taught by their final deed. As soon as they learned of the Savior's resurrection and that He was not found in the tomb, they were seized with very great fear. They tried to buy slander from the soldiers with much money. They gave them silver pieces so that they would say, "His disciples came and stole Him away while we slept" (Mt 28:13). See how great the sign of the resurrection is. It is an indisputable proof of the Godhead of Jesus. Therefore the hard and unbending heart of the Jews was troubled. "And of Myself I do nothing; but as My Father taught Me, these things I speak." He speaks in a way more suited to the human condition, because otherwise the Jews could not understand. Nor would they allow themselves to hear from Him His teaching about His Godhead in its pure form. In the latter case, they even wanted to stone Him, accusing Him of blasphemy because, being a man, He made Himself God. Therefore, laying aside the majesty of His divine dignity and stripping His word of the brilliance of that dignity, He fittingly adapts Himself to the weakness of His hearers. Seeing in their soul that they do not acknowledge Him as God, He fashions humanlike speech. He does this lest their hearts again burn with anger and they irrationally lose even the small attention they had toward Him. Therefore He says: when you lift up the Son of Man, you will know that I am He. In like manner you will also know that "of Myself I do nothing, but as My Father taught Me, these things I speak." But tell me, someone may ask, what need is there for such a saying? What does Christ teach us in it? We shall answer this by a pious explanation of each word in the saying. You do not cease, He says, to attack My works as lawless and impious. You often accused Me as acting against the Law and customarily doing what disagrees with the Lawgiver. Thus, when I healed the man who had suffered such a long illness and showed mercy to him on the Sabbath, you preferred to accuse Me for this instead of showing fitting reverence. You proved far from rendering Me what was due.

What, then, is this? He seems to have said nothing other than that after His Passion they would know who He is. Therefore, without doubt, He saw there some whom He Himself knew. In His foreknowledge, He had chosen them with His other saints before the foundation of the world, and after His Passion they would believe. For when the Holy Spirit was sent from above, after the Lord's Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension, miracles were performed in the name of Him whom the persecuting Jews had despised as dead. Then they were cut to the heart. Those who in fury had killed Him were changed and believed in Him. These were the three thousand and the five thousand Jews whom He saw there when He said, "When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am." It was as though He said, "I postpone the time of your knowledge in order to undergo My Passion."

This does not mean that all who heard Him would believe only then, after the Lord's Passion. For a little later the evangelist says, "As He spoke these things, many believed in Him" (Jn 8:30), though the Son of Man had not yet been lifted up. By His lifting up, he means His lifting up in the Passion, not in glory. He means the cross, not heaven, because He was also lifted up when He hung upon the tree. But that lifting up was humility. For then He became obedient even unto death, the death of the cross (Phil 2:8). This was to be fulfilled by the hands of those who afterward believed. To them He said, "When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am." Why so, if not so that no one should despair when conscious of any crime? For he sees that even murder, as it were, was forgiven to those who killed Christ.

You thought that He is the Father because He said, "I am." Hear that He is the Son: "And of Myself I do nothing" (Jn 8:28). What does "of Myself I do nothing" mean? "I do not exist from Myself." For the Son is God from the Father, and the Father is not God from the Son. The Son is God from God, while the Father is God, but not from God. The Son is Light from Light, while the Father is Light, but not from Light. The Son is, but there is One from whom He is. The Father is, but there is no one from whom He is.

Therefore do not set before your eyes two men, as it were, one father and the other son. Do not imagine a father speaking to his son as you do when you speak words to your son. What, then, shall we say, brothers? In what manner did the Father speak with the Son, since the Son says, "As My Father taught Me, I speak these things" (Jn 8:28)? Did He converse with Him? When the Father taught the Son, did He utter words as you utter words when you teach your son? How did He utter words to the Word? How were many words received by the one Word? If God speaks in our hearts without sound, how does He speak with His Son? The Father spoke with the Son incorporeally, for the Father begot the Son incorporeally. He did not teach Him as though He had begotten Him untaught. Rather, He taught Him in such a way that He begot Him knowing. For if, as few understand, the nature of truth is simple, then for the Son, to be is to know. The Father, by begetting Him, gave Him being. In the same way, by begetting Him, He also gave Him knowledge.

You have already heard much, beloved, from the Holy Gospel according to John, which you see in our hands. You have heard what, with God's help, we have explained as far as we could. We have impressed upon you that this evangelist was especially chosen to speak of the divine essence of the Lord, according to which He is equal to the Father and is the only Son of God. For this reason he is compared to the eagle, because no other bird is known to fly so high. Therefore listen with the greatest attention to what follows in order, as the Lord has granted us to interpret it.

We spoke with you about the preceding passage, trying to explain how the Father should be understood as true, and the Son as Truth. But when the Lord Jesus said, "He who sent Me is true" (Jn 8:26), the Jews did not understand that He was speaking to them of the Father. Therefore He said to them what you have just heard in the reading: "When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am, and that I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father taught Me, I speak these things." What does this mean? He seems to have said nothing other than that they would know who He is after His Passion. Beyond all doubt, He saw there certain persons whom He knew. In His foreknowledge He had chosen them, together with His other saints, before the creation of the world. He knew that they would believe after His Passion.

These are the ones whom we constantly praise and set before you with great zeal for imitation. For after the descent of the Holy Spirit, following the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of the Lord, miracles began to be performed in His name. Then the Jews who had persecuted Him repented in their hearts, though they had recently despised Him as dead. Those who had killed Him in fury were transformed, believed, and began to drink the blood which in their frenzy they had shed. These were the three thousand and the five thousand Jews (cf. Acts 2:37, 41; 4:4) whom He saw there when He said, "When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am." It was as though He said, "I postpone the moment when you will know Me, so that I may bring My Passion to completion. In its own order you will know who I am."

This does not mean that all who heard Him would believe only after the Lord's Passion. For a little later it is said, "As He spoke these things, many believed in Him" (Jn 8:30), when the Son of Man had not yet been lifted up. Certainly He speaks of lifting up in the sense of the Passion, not in the sense of glorification. He speaks of being lifted up on the cross, not into heaven. For He was also lifted up when He was hung upon the cross. But that lifting up was His humiliation, for then He became obedient even unto the death of the cross (cf. Phil 2:8). This was to be fulfilled by the hands of those who would later believe. To them He said, "When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am." Why did He say this? Precisely so that no man would lose hope, whatever crime he might know in himself, when he sees that murder was forgiven to those who killed Christ.

And so the Lord, knowing them in that crowd, said, "When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am." You already know what "I am" means, and I must not repeat it constantly, lest so great a matter become wearisome to you. Recall this: "I am He who is," and "He who is has sent Me" (Ex 3:14). Then you will understand what was meant by the words, "Then you will know that I am." But the Father also is He who is, and the Holy Spirit also is He who is. The whole Trinity belongs to this being.

Yet because the Lord was speaking also as the Son, it was important that no Sabellian error, that is, the error of the Patripassians, should suddenly spring up from His saying, "Then you will know that I am." I advised you not to hold this error, but to beware of it. They said, "The Father and the Son are the same: two names, but one thing." Therefore, so that you might beware of this error, the Lord said, "Then you will know that I am." But lest they suppose Him to be the Father, He immediately added, "I do nothing of Myself; but as My Father taught Me, I speak these things."

The Sabellian had already begun to rejoice, as though support for his error had been found. But at once, as if led out of darkness, he was confounded by the light of the next statement. You, Sabellian, thought that He is the Father because He said, "I am." Hear that He is the Son: "I do nothing of Myself." What does "I do nothing of Myself" mean? It means, "I do not exist from Myself." For the Son is God from the Father. But the Father is God, not from the Son. The Son is God from God. The Father is God, but not from God. The Son is Light from Light. The Father is Light, but not from Light. The Son is He who is, but He is from Him who is. The Father is He who is, but not from Him who is.

When He added, "As My Father taught Me, I speak these things," let no fleshly understanding creep upon any of you, my brothers. Human weakness cannot conceive anything except what it usually does or hears. Therefore do not set before your eyes two men, as it were, one the Father and the other the Son. Do not imagine the Father speaking to the Son as you do when you speak certain words to your son. You exhort and instruct him how he ought to speak, so that whatever he hears from you he may entrust to memory. Having entrusted it to memory, he can express it with the tongue, divide it into words, and convey to another's ears what he has received in his own. Do not think this way, lest you set up idols in your hearts.

Do not attribute to the Trinity the human form, the outline of human limbs, the shape of human flesh, outwardly manifested senses, bodily posture and movement, use of the tongue, and division of sounds. These belong only to the form of a servant (cf. Phil 2:7), which the Only-begotten Son received when the Word became flesh to dwell among us (cf. Jn 1:14). I do not forbid you, human weakness, to think from what you know. Rather, I even call you to this. If true faith abides in you, understand Christ as He is from the Virgin Mary, not as He is from God the Father. He was an infant, grew as a man, walked as a man, hungered and thirsted as a man, slept as a man. Finally, He suffered as a man, was hung upon the tree, died, and was buried as a man. In the same form He rose. In the same form, before the eyes of the disciples, He ascended into heaven. In the same form He will come for Judgment. For the voice of the angels has established this in the Gospel: "He will come in the same manner as you saw Him go into heaven" (Acts 1:11).

Therefore, when you consider the form of a servant in Christ, think of Him as like man, if faith is in you. But when you consider that "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (Jn 1:1), cast every human likeness from your heart. Drive from your thoughts everything bounded by bodily limits, enclosed in spatial place, or determined by any weight. Remove such an image from your heart. Think, if you can, of the beauty of wisdom. Set before yourself the beauty of righteousness. Does wisdom have a shape? Does it have stature? Does it have color? It has none of these, and yet it exists. For if it did not exist, it would not be loved or praised. It would not be held, with love and praise, in the heart and in one's way of life. Men become wise. How would they become wise if wisdom did not exist? Moreover, O man, if you cannot see your own wisdom with bodily eyes, nor think of it through the same bodily images as bodily things, how do you dare give the wisdom of God the form of a human body?

What then shall we say, brothers? In what manner did the Father speak to the Son? For the Son said, "As My Father taught Me, I speak these things." Did He speak with Him? When the Father taught the Son, did He use words as you use words when you teach your son? How did He use words for the Word? How were many words used for the one Word? Did the Word of the Father keep ears close to the mouth of the Father? Let these bodily images be torn from your hearts.

When you hang Me as man upon the Cross, then you will know that I am truly the Son of God and God. For Jesus Christ spoke the words “that I am He” as God.

You will know this from the indisputable signs that follow then, and from My resurrection from the dead. In addition, you will know it from the wrath of God then poured out upon the Jewish people.

After Jesus Christ was crucified on the Cross and those fearful signs occurred, Luke writes that all the people who had gathered to see this returned, beating their breasts (Lk 23:48).

The people knew that He truly was a Man of God, and that creation suffered with Him, unable to endure His suffering. Yet they did not dare say this, from fear of the rulers.

“Who then are You, who call Yourself from above?” the Jews asked Him with contemptuous mockery.

“I am what I told you about Myself from the beginning.” During His first visit to Jerusalem, in the temple itself, He called this temple His Father’s house, and therefore called Himself the Son of God.

“But I would have to say many things about you and judge you, if I began to say about you everything I think and know about you. Let us leave this aside.

He who sent Me is true. He will tell you fully both about Me and about yourselves, through the Spirit, who, when He comes, will convict concerning righteousness and sin.

From Him you will learn that I do not speak from Myself, but speak what I have heard and what I know from Him.

Those who asked Christ, “Who are You?” expected from Him a definite naming of Himself as the One He is. But Jesus Christ refused them such a definite answer.

Then they turned their attention to those words in which He spoke of His Father. Yet they did not understand, nor were they satisfied by what He said to them about the Father.

They had already heard this kind of testimony from Him about Himself. Since the Jews still remained without understanding of the Savior’s words about Himself, Jesus Christ says this.

“When you carry your unbelief so far that you lift Me up, the Son of Man, that is, upon the Cross, then you will know.

The listeners did not understand that He was speaking to them of the Father, God. But Jesus continued His discourse and said: “Now you do not understand what I am saying to you. But when you lift up the Son of Man, then you will understand Me. You will acknowledge that I did and said nothing personally from Myself, and that I did only what was pleasing to My Father, who was always with Me and never left Me.”

“So Jesus said”: to the Jews’ present incomprehension of the Lord’s discourse, He opposes the clear light that will soon be poured upon their consciousness, once the work of Christ is accomplished.

“When you lift up”: the immediate reference is to the Lord’s being lifted up by the Jews upon the Cross (Theophylact). The very expression “you lift up” corresponds to this.

The crucifixion of the Lord as the work of the Jews is presented in Acts 3 and following.

Yet the Cross alone, upon which the Jews lifted up the Lord, did not remove the veil from their eyes or compel them to acknowledge that “I am He.”

For them it was a stumbling block (cf. 1 Cor 1:23). The Cross had this sobering effect on them only when it was later revealed to be the beginning of His glory.

“They did not understand that He was speaking to them about the Father. Then Jesus said to them, When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will understand that I am He.”

They did not fail to understand because it was hard to grasp. The words were clear. Here “they did not understand” means the same as “they did not accept.”

They understood, but did not wish to admit that He was sent by the heavenly Father, and that He was speaking God’s will to them about Himself and about them. Thus the evangelist judged the Jews.

By the words “when you lift up,” the death of Christ on the Cross is meant. So it is also in other places, Jn 3:14; Jn 12:32, 34.

"You will understand that I am," that is, you will understand that I am He who is eternally and unchangeably like Himself, Jehovah, ever-existing and blessed; cf. Ex 3:14. Teaching in the temple, the Lord reveals His being ever more clearly. He reveals His complete unity with the God of the Covenant, and the great mystery of His Incarnation and Passion as the sacrifice offered for the sin of men.

"You will understand that I am the Existing One, when you lift up the Son of man." Only after committing the dread crime against Him who took upon Himself the humble form of man will you know His majesty and recognize God in Him. "I do nothing of Myself," says the Lord, "but as My Father taught Me, these things I speak." "He who sent Me is with Me."