John 8:40Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

For he heard the word of God: “Go out from your land and from the land of your kindred, and go to the land that I will show you” (Gen 12:1). Without delaying at all in fulfilling God’s command, he immediately left his native country. He reached a land unknown and foreign, hoping in the help of Him who gave the command.

Then, when he had already reached the end of life and was one hundred years old, he heard: “You shall have seed” (Gen 15:5). Without doubting in the least, he answered the Speaker with fervent faith. He did not look at the weakness of the flesh, but fixed his mind on the power of Him who spoke (Rom 4:19).

Finally, he heard the command to offer his beloved son as a sacrifice to God. At once he overcame natural feeling and placed love for his young child below the divine commandment.

But in you I find the opposite of all this. For “you seek to kill Me” because I “told you” what is “from God. This Abraham did not do.” He did not insult the One who spoke with him by disobedience. He did not try to do anything that would grieve Him.

How, then, do you still appear to be children of Abraham, when you have departed as far from his love of God as from his virtuous character?

Notice how fittingly He orders His speech. He did not now say that He had heard the truth “from the Father,” but “from God.” As we have just said, because of their boundless folly, they inclined toward false opinions about Him. They imagined that He was speaking of some earthly father.

In the same way, when He points in His speech to death, He calls Himself “a man.” Yet everywhere He preserves for Himself, as God by nature, incorruption. Still, He does not separate His own temple, the body, from Himself. He remains the one Son even after becoming man.

He declares that He has spoken “the truth.” For the word of the Savior no longer teaches us to perform piety through figures and outward rites. Rather, it persuades us to love spiritual and true worship.

And if He says, “what I heard from the Father,” we should in no way be scandalized by this. Since He calls Himself “a man,” He also speaks in a human manner. Just as His death is spoken of as that of a man, so also His hearing must be spoken of as that of a man.

It is entirely natural that the inborn knowledge which He has of His Parent’s will is expressed by the word “hearing.” For Holy Scripture itself often and customarily uses this word concerning God. Thus, when it says, “And the Lord heard,” we certainly shall not assign to Him a special and separate sense of hearing, as in us.

The divine Nature is simple and foreign to every kind of composition. Rather, we must understand hearing as knowledge, and knowledge as hearing. In a simple being, as we have said, there is nothing composite.

We think it useful to add a third consideration here. God the Father said in one place concerning Christ to the most holy Moses: “I will raise up for them,” that is, for the Israelites, “a Prophet from among their brethren, like you. I will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them according to all that I command Him” (Deut 18:18).

For this reason, I think, our Lord Jesus Christ says that He “heard” the truth from the Father and spoke it to the Jews. At the same time He convicts them of opposing God the Father Himself. He clearly shows Himself to be the One of whom the lawgiver foretold that God would raise Him up.

Here He did not speak in that way. “That which you see, that upon which you gaze, that which you suppose Me to be, is I as man. Why do you want to kill a Man who speaks to you what He has heard from God? Is it not because you are not Abraham’s children?”

Yet above He had said, “I know that you are Abraham’s children.” He did not deny their descent, but condemned their deeds. Their flesh was from him, but not their life.

And we, beloved, did we come from Abraham’s stock? Was Abraham in any way our father according to the flesh? The flesh of the Jews derives its origin from his flesh, not the flesh of Christians. We came from other nations, and yet by imitating him we became children of Abraham.

Hear the Apostle: “The promises were made to Abraham and to his seed.” It does not say “and to seeds,” as though of many, but as of one: “and to your seed,” which is Christ. “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to the promise” (Gal 3:16, 29).

Therefore we became Abraham’s seed by the grace of God. God did not make co-heirs for him from Abraham’s flesh. He disinherited those, and added these to the heirs. From the olive tree whose root is in the patriarchs, He cut off the natural branches filled with pride and grafted in the humble wild olive (cf. Rom 11:17).

Therefore, when the Jews came to John to be baptized, he broke out against them and said: “Brood of vipers!” (Mt 3:7). They were greatly boasting of their noble descent, but he called them the offspring of vipers. He did not even call them offspring of men, but of vipers. He saw a human form, but detected poison.

Yet they had come to be changed, and for this reason to be baptized. So he said to them: “Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance. Do not think to say within yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham” (Mt 3:7-9).

If you do not bear fruit worthy of repentance, do not flatter yourselves because of such descent. God is able both to condemn you and not to deceive Abraham concerning children. He has a source from which to give Abraham children.

Children will appear who will imitate him in faith: “God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” This is us. In our parents we were stones, when we worshiped stones instead of God. From such stones God created a family for Abraham.

Why, then, did this vain and empty boasting exalt itself? Let them stop boasting that they are Abraham’s children. They heard what they needed to hear: “If you are Abraham’s children, prove it by deeds, not by words.

You seek to kill Me, a Man. Yet I do not say ‘the Son of God,’ I do not say ‘God,’ I do not say ‘the Word,’ because the Word cannot die. I speak of what you see. For you can kill what you see, and offend Him whom you do not see. Abraham did not do this.”