John 8:46Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

For if they do not believe Him who committed no sin, who says that He came from God and was sent by Him, who speaks the truth, and speaks the truth in such a way that He calls everyone to refute Him, then it is clear that unbelievers do not believe in Him because they are fleshly men.

He knew, He surely knew, that sins destroy the soul. Therefore it is said: “Since you have become dull of hearing” (Heb 5:11). Truly, can one who cannot despise earthly things ever philosophize about heavenly things?

Therefore, I implore you, let us strive in every way to amend our life and cleanse our soul, so that nothing impure may become an obstacle for us. Kindle in yourselves the light of knowledge, and do not cast seeds among thorns.

Whoever does not know that covetousness is a vice, how will he learn anything greater? Whoever does not turn away from this earthly thing, how will he desire that heavenly thing?

It is good to seize, but not perishable things. Seize the kingdom of heaven. “The violent,” it is said, “take it by force” (Mt 11:12). Therefore it is not by laziness that one can attain it, but by zeal.

What does “the violent” mean? Great force is needed, because the way is narrow. A youthful and vigorous soul is needed. Those who seize want to get ahead of everyone. They look at nothing, neither reproach, nor condemnation, nor punishment.

They think of only one thing, how they may obtain what they want to seize, and they get ahead of all who are before them. Let us, then, seize the kingdom of heaven. This seizure is not sinful, but praiseworthy. Here the sin is not to seize.

Here our wealth causes no loss to others. Let us strive to seize it. If anger weighs us down, if desires trouble us, let us conquer nature, become meek, and labor a little in order to rest forever.

Do not steal gold, but seize the wealth beside which gold appears as dirt. Tell me, if lead and gold lay before you, which would you take? Is it not clear that you would take the gold?

So when the one who seizes is punished, you choose the better thing. When the one who seizes deserves honor, will you not prefer the better thing? Would you not choose this better thing even if there were punishment for seizing either one?

But here there is nothing of the kind. On the contrary, here there is blessedness. How then, you ask, can one seize the kingdom of heaven? Throw away what is in your hands. As long as you hold this, you cannot seize that.

Imagine a man whose hands are filled with silver. Will he be able to seize gold while he is holding the silver, unless he throws it away and becomes free? The one who seizes must be bound by nothing, lest he be held back.

Even now there are hostile powers that attack us and try to take the kingdom of heaven away from us. Let us flee from them. Let us flee without leaving behind anything by which they can grasp us. Let us cut the cords and strip ourselves of the things of life.

What need have you of silk garments? How long shall we wrap ourselves in these ridiculous clothes? How long shall we bury gold in the earth? I would like to stop speaking about this every time. But you do not allow it, since you always provide the occasion and impulse.

Now, at least, let us leave this, so that by teaching others also through our life, we may receive the promised good things. May we receive them by the grace and love for mankind of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom be glory to the Father with the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.

Taken in a general sense, this reasoning must, of course, extend to every transgression in general. Yet applying it properly to the subject of the discourse, let us observe that He is not asking in the present case about every sin, as though expecting accusations.

Rather, we reason thus. Since He always especially strove to shame the sin of the Jews, He did not want thereby to incite them again to the same accusations of which we spoke earlier. These were: “We do not stone You for a good work, but for blasphemy, because You, being a man, make Yourself God” (Jn 10:33).

To this they also added the violation of the Sabbath, for which He was considered a great transgressor of the law. Thus in the present case He calls falsehood sin.

If, He says, I cannot in any way be convicted as a liar, why have you resolved not to believe Me? I am always true and say with complete clarity that I was born from the true Father and know no falsehood.

Give at last authority to undoubting faith that I too am certainly true when I say of Myself, “I came forth from the Father and have come” (Jn 8:42), and of you that your father is the devil (Jn 8:44). For you are liars and murderers just as he is.

He accuses them of murder with a good purpose, as though to forestall their designs by this accusation. For sin, when accused, is often ashamed and seems to retreat, finding nowhere the means for further movement and spread.

Yet, having apparently hidden itself, it always rushes toward something greater. If not restrained by obstacles, it is carried to the final limit of evil.

“If I speak the truth, why do you not believe Me?”

He often returns to repetitions when He sees that His hearers do not understand Him. This is highly fitting for teachers, not to be sluggish in unfolding by every means a thought not understood at once, so as to implant it in the souls of the hearers.

Thus He said: “When the liar speaks a lie, he speaks from his own, because he is a liar, as is his father.” Why then, when you neither think nor do anything akin to what I have said, do you not believe Me when I speak the truth?

You act as though I were speaking against the truth, though I am true just as the Father is true. Here He apparently convicts the Jews of being unable to receive the words of truth because they are not sons of truth.

They falsely call God their Father when they say, “We have one Father, God.” For God, being wholly truth, rejoices in the truth and wills that those who worship Him should worship “in truth and spirit” (Jn 4:24).

On the contrary, the children of truth gladly receive what is akin to it, namely the truth. But “you do not believe” Me when I speak the truth, because you are not sons of truth.

The Lord, it seems to me, says here to the Jews something that may be seen with complete clarity when applied to someone else. For example, a chaste man might address such words to a dissolute son, servant, or neighbor.

If, in censuring fornication, I appear to you chaste and entirely remove from myself suspicion of this vice, why do you not obey and believe my words that this is an evil and vile thing?

To such a question he will certainly not answer with a denial. But by pointing to his disobedience, the speaker will clearly convict him of not following the exhortation to chastity because he gives himself over to dissoluteness.

We should think the same of the Jews when Christ said: “If I speak the truth, why do you not believe Me?” Questions of this kind always presuppose the conscience of those questioned. It serves to convict them that they lack precisely what is required of them.

Notice also that He does not say simply and generally, “Why do you not believe Me?” He adds “you.” By this He points to the most savage unbelievers. He also shows that some may have been present who had a nobler disposition.

In their character they did not preserve the exact marks of Cain’s immorality, but were striving to become children of God.

We must think, I suppose, that not all Jews without exception were plunged into unrestrained madness. There were some who had “zeal for God,” as Paul says (Rom 10:2), “but not according to knowledge,” and for this reason proved somewhat slow in faith.

Among those so disposed, we must accuse especially those who were inflamed with anger and rushed irresistibly toward murder. These were above all the impious scribes and Pharisees.

To them most of all the words are directed: “Why do you not believe Me?” For Christ especially assigns immeasurable unbelief to them. They were the leaders, and they persuaded those under their authority to cooperate in their crimes.

Therefore they are justly accused of having taken away the key of knowledge. They themselves did not enter, and they hindered others from entering (Lk 11:52). Thus the word “you” has a special and primary reference to the leaders.

What does the Lord say? ‘Therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.’ This is precisely what the Lord says. What will you say to this?”

Listen to what I say. They are both of God and not of God. By nature they are of God; by vice they are not of God. For the good nature, which is from God, sinned by following its will, believing what the devil suggested, and was damaged. Therefore it seeks a physician, because it is sick.

This is what I say. But it seems impossible to you that they should be of God and not of God. Hear why this is not impossible. They are of God and not of God in the same way that they are Abraham’s children and not Abraham’s children.

Here there is what is necessary, and there is not what you Manichaeans say. Hear the Lord Himself. He Himself said to those Jews: “I know that you are Abraham’s children” (Jn 8:37). Does the Lord lie? By no means.

Then what the Lord said is true? True. Then it is true that they were Abraham’s children? True. But hear how He denies it. He said: “If you are Abraham’s children, do the works of Abraham. But now you seek to kill Me, a Man who has told you the truth which He heard from God. Abraham did not do this. You do the works of your father,” that is, the devil (cf. Jn 8:39-41).

How, then, were they both children of Abraham and not children of Abraham? He showed both things in them. They were children of Abraham because of fleshly descent. They were not children of Abraham because of their vicious following of the devil’s persuasion.

Understand the same thing concerning our Lord and God. They were from Him and not from Him. Why were they from Him? Because He created the man from whom they were born. Why were they from Him? Because He is the Creator of nature. He is the Creator of flesh and soul.

And why were they not from Him? Because they damaged themselves. They were not from Him because, by imitating the devil, they became children of the devil.

Therefore the Lord God came to sinful man. You have heard two names: man and sinner. What is man is from God. What is sinner is not from God. Let vice be separated from nature. Let nature be recognized, for which the Creator must be praised. Let vice be recognized, because of which the Physician must be invoked.

“He who is of God hears the words of God. Therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God.” He was not dividing the merits of natures. He did not find in men another nature besides their soul and flesh, one that had not been corrupted by sin.

But because He foreknew those who would believe, He called them “of God,” since through adoption they would be born anew from God. To them belong the words: “He who is of God hears the words of God” (Jn 8:47).

What follows, “Therefore you do not hear, because you are not of God,” was spoken to those who were not only corrupted by sin, for this evil was common to all. It was spoken to those whom He foreknew would not believe with the faith by which alone they could be freed from the bonds of sin.

Therefore He foreknew that those to whom He spoke this would continue to persist in what they had received from the devil, that is, in their sins. They would die in the impiety in which they had become like him.

They would not come to the new birth in which they would become children of God, that is, be born of God, who created them as men. The Lord spoke according to this predestination, not according to any man whom He found already to be of God through regeneration, or not to be of God by nature.

He was a murderer from the beginning of the history of the human world. Even now he is moving you to kill Me. He does not stand in the truth, εστηκα, 'I have set myself, I stand,' because there is no truth in him, within him.

Falsehood, not truth, is the sphere of both his activity and his inner life. When he speaks falsehood, he speaks from himself, for he is a liar and the originator of all falsehood in the world. All liars are under his influence.

You are children of the father of falsehood. And because I speak the truth to you, you do not believe Me. Which of you convicts Me of sin, αμαρτια, in word or deed, in My teaching or in My life? If I speak the truth, why do you not believe Me?" Verse 47 gives the answer.

Are you silent? You cannot convict Me of falsehood? Therefore I speak the truth. If so, why do you not believe Me? For I speak to you the words of God. If God were your Father, you would hear them. But you do not hear, because you are not of God, because He is not your father.”

“Which of you convicts Me of falsehood?” “Which of you can convict Me of sin?” In the Church Slavonic translation: “Which of you convicts Me of sin?” This is a question with which no man has ever dared, or will ever dare, to address his enemies.

All men, even the most righteous and the holiest, have always known and still know that they can be convicted of falsehood and sin. Among men there are only those more or less sinful, but there are no sinless ones.

And if anyone were so senseless as to decide to put such a question to his enemies, he would immediately be exposed and put to shame. Could men have enemies as embittered as those whom the Evangelist John calls the Jews were toward Jesus Christ?

Only complete consciousness of His own sinlessness and rectitude in everything, in words and in deeds, could give Christ the possibility of presenting Himself before His enemies. Only unconditional certainty that everything He said was spoken by God Himself, and that no one would find darkness in the true Light, could allow Him to offer publicly to be convicted by them of falsehood and sin.

And no one dared to appear as an accuser. Even later, at the trial before the Sanhedrin and Pilate, His malicious enemies could accuse Him only of having made Himself the Son of God (Jn 19:7). They could not convict or accuse Him of falsehood and sin, even with the help of false witnesses.

All this leads to the conviction that Jesus was sinless and spoke only the truth. Since He affirmed, both before and in this significant discourse with the Pharisees, that He spoke only what He had heard from His Father, God, we must believe that everything He said was spoken by God Himself.

Therefore in Him God Himself was revealed to men. We must also believe that Jesus is the most perfect Man, and at the same time God, that is, the God-man, or God incarnate.

In general, one can either believe Jesus Christ fully or not believe Him at all. There can be no middle ground. Since, for the reasons indicated above, it is impossible not to believe Him, we must believe Him fully in everything, even what is incomprehensible to our limited mind.

In this same discourse Jesus pointed to the testimony concerning Him from His heavenly Father. This self-testimony of Jesus about Himself is very important for us. It shows that He was always conscious of His own sinlessness.

In this case it was not self-praise or conceit, since that would have been the very Pharisaism against which Jesus fought throughout His whole life. Yet He was not alone in testifying to His sinlessness.

Even before He entered public ministry, John the Baptist testified to it when he said: “I need to be baptized by You, and do You come to me?” (Mt 3:14). Jesus pointed the Pharisees to this testimony after the healing of the paralytic (Jn 5:33-36).

But above this testimony He placed the testimony of the Old Testament Scriptures (verse 39), and especially the testimony of the works, the miracles, which the Father gave Him to accomplish (verse 36).

The Pharisees themselves felt the force of this last testimony. After the healing of the man born blind, they urged the healed man to give glory to God, because, in their opinion, Jesus as a sinner could not have performed such a miracle by His own power.

But the simple and unprejudiced blind man answered them that God does not listen to sinners, but only to those who honor God and do His will (Jn 9:31).

At the final trial, which brought Jesus to the Cross, Pilate also found Him completely innocent. The Jews had presented Jesus to him as the greatest criminal and demanded that He be condemned to death. Only at the insistence of the people and their leaders did he condemn Jesus to death.

But the strongest testimony to Jesus’ sinlessness was His Resurrection from the dead. Having taken upon Himself the sins of mankind, Jesus had to die for them, because “the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23).

Yet since He Himself “committed no sin” (1 Pet 2:22), God the Father, who permitted His death as a redemptive Sacrifice for the sins of men (Phil 2:8-9), then raised Him up (Acts 2:24 and others). He raised Him as sinless and not subject to death.

This conviction concerning the sinlessness of Jesus remains unshaken forever. Above all, one cannot agree with those who think that the Lord portrayed in the Gospels and New Testament writings appears so only according to the accounts and descriptions of His disciples.

They claim that the disciples embellished and poeticized His person, although in fact He was not such. But this is the same sort of slander against Jesus Christ as His contemporaries brought against Him.

The most hardened opponents of the Savior’s divinity, and therefore of His sinlessness, namely rationalists and atheists, involuntarily pay tribute of admiration to the human person of Jesus Christ. They acknowledge Him as the greatest of men, whom God raised up as the ideal of moral perfection toward which humanity must strive.

As for the accusation that the Apostles exaggerated and embellished, it is not enough merely to note that they were simple men, unlearned, and not poets at all. Yet the image of their Teacher that they created is so lofty, luminous, and perfect that twenty centuries have passed.

No one, not even the bitterest enemies of Jesus Christ and Christianity, has been able to find any faults in Him. Even the most gifted writers and poets could not create anything higher or better, even in their dreams.

Still less has it been possible, and never will it be possible, for there to appear in reality a person not only higher and more perfect than Christ, but even equal or closely similar to Christ.

Moses, Confucius, Buddha, Muhammad, the most famous lawgivers and founders of religions, and all the greatest historical figures cannot even stand beside Christ in comparison.

And His image, traced by His disciples, simple and unskilled in speech and writing, and handed on to men for all times, will eternally shine with its divine beauty, its perfection, and its sinlessness.

The answer is above, Jn 8:43. The conclusion is that by their unbelief the Jews themselves show that they are children of falsehood, or of the liar, that is, the devil. This saying of the Lord is an undoubted proof of His sinlessness.

If you have nothing with which to accuse Me, and if I speak the truth, why do you not believe Me and My words? And that I speak the truth, you yourselves know. Even your corrupted soul convinces you of this.

"But you do not believe, because you are not children of God." The very insensibility of the Jews testifies that they did not belong to God.

"He who is of God hears the words of God," for his heart cannot remain frozen. The words of God are fire. They either kindle the fire of love in man's heart, or consume the unworthy, embittered, and obstinate man.