John 8:53Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

But if, besides this, I speak the truth, have no sin, am sent by God, and am greater than Abraham, are you not mad? Do you not labor in vain, when you try to put Me to death? What do they say? "Now we know that You have a demon." But the Samaritan woman did not speak so. She did not say to Him, "You have a demon," but only this: "Are You greater than our father Jacob?" (Jn 4:12). This is because the Jews were revilers and murderers, while she desired to learn. For this reason she expressed perplexity, answered with fitting modesty, and called Him Lord. Indeed, one who promises far greater blessings, and who is worthy of faith, ought not to be insulted. On the contrary, He ought to be honored. But the Jews call Him demon-possessed. The words of the Samaritan woman expressed perplexity. These words reveal unbelieving and corrupt men. "Are You greater than our father Abraham?" Therefore, according to His words, He was greater than Abraham. When you see Him lifted up, then you will acknowledge that He is indeed greater. Therefore He said, "When you lift Me up, then you will know that I am He" (Jn 8:28). See what wisdom there is here. First He cut them off from kinship with Abraham. Then He shows that He is greater than Abraham. Through this He already makes it known that He is incomparably greater than the prophets also. Yet they always called Him a prophet. Therefore He also said, "My word has no place in you" (Jn 8:37). There He said that He raises the dead (Jn 5:21). Here He says that one who believes in Him will not see death. This is much greater than preventing someone from remaining forever under death's power. For this reason they became still more indignant. What do they say? "Who do You make Yourself out to be?" These words also are reproachful. You exalt Yourself, they say.

Will You remain immortal, though You are a man and have a body from the earth? How could You give others what You Yourself do not have? Surely You will die, since You are a man. If You are not greater than Abraham and the prophets, and will undergo death common with them, then You will not be able to give others a good which You do not have. Their ambiguous question has a meaning like this. Do not be surprised that they think nothing greater about Christ. As we have often and fully said, they regard Him as a mere man and as one like ourselves. They are wholly ignorant of the Only-begotten God the Word united to the flesh. Therefore they ask, "Who do You make Yourself out to be?" In the excessive error of their mind, they think they are correcting the Lord, as though He were mistaken. They advise Him, as one ignorant of what is fitting, to think more modestly. You do not know Your nature, they say. You have forgotten Your humanity, and You are not content with the measure given You by God. Who indeed do You make Yourself out to be, if You promise to give something higher than the honor granted by Him to man? Who are You, if You boldly affirm that You will accomplish something surpassing His power? Thus they accuse Him of blasphemy and already rush upon Him like serpents. They suppose that Christ ought to receive just punishment because He does not honor the measure of humanity. He exalts and raises Himself so much, they think, that He is carried beyond the glory belonging to the Master of all. He tramples on the honor of the holy patriarchs and prophets. By posing the question, "Who do You make Yourself out to be?" they treacherously draw Him toward an answer. They are already waiting to hear Him clearly cry out, "Yes, I am greater than Abraham and the prophets." Yet these words of the Lord would have been altogether true. For God, who surpasses every nature, both visible and spiritual, cannot be compared with humanity at all.

Again, with what palate or throat is death tasted, so that its flavor may be recognized? When every sensation disappears at the moment of death, what will remain on the palate?

Here, however, "see" and "taste" are said in the sense of "experience."

The Lord said this, if one may say so, as One awaiting death to those who awaited death. For "the gates of death are in the power of the Lord" (Ps 67:21), as the psalm says.

Since He speaks to those awaiting death, and speaks as One awaiting death, what else does He want to say about Himself in the words, "If anyone keeps My word, he shall never see death"?

He means that the Lord had in view another death, from which He came to deliver us. This is the second death, eternal death, the death of Hades, the death of punishment with the devil and his angels.

This is the true death. That bodily death is a departure. What does that bodily death mean? It is the leaving of the body, the casting off of a heavy burden.

This is true, unless a man carries another burden, by the force of which he will be cast down into Hades. Of this very death the Lord said, "He who keeps My word shall never see death" (cf. Jn 8:51).

Therefore let us not fear that death of the flesh, but let us fear this one. It is heavier. Many, by fearing that death in vain, fall into this one.

Some were told, "Worship idols, for if you do not do this, you will perish." Or as Nebuchadnezzar said, if you do not worship, you will be cast into the furnace burning with fire (Dan 3:15).

Many were afraid and worshiped. Not wishing to die, they died. Fearing the death that could not be avoided, they fell into the death that they could have happily avoided, had they not unhappily feared the unavoidable death.

You were born a man. You will die. Where will you go to escape death? What will you do so as not to die?

Your Lord, to console you who were condemned to death, freely chose to accept death. When you see that Christ died, do you refuse to die?

Therefore you will die. It is not in your power to avoid this. Whether it happens today or tomorrow, it will happen. It is a debt that must be paid.

What does a man gain by fearing, fleeing, and hiding, so that his enemy may not find him? Does he seek not to die at all? No, only to die a little later.

He does not obtain release from the debt, but seeks a delay of payment. However long it is postponed, what was postponed will happen.

Therefore let us fear the death feared by the three men, tres viri, who said to the king. These are Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael. In Discourse 11, blessed Augustine uses pueri, "boys," usually aged seven to sixteen, but here in Discourse 43 he uses viri, "men."

"God is able to save us from the furnace, but even if not..." (cf. Dan 3:17-18). There was fear of the death now mentioned by the Lord, when they said, "If He does not wish to deliver us openly, He can crown us secretly."

Therefore the Lord Himself, intending to strengthen the martyrs and become the Head of the martyrs, said, "Do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing" (cf. Mt 10:28; Lk 12:4).

How can they do nothing? What can they do after they kill? They can throw the body to beasts and birds to be torn. It seems that cruelty can still do something.

But against whom? That man has gone away. The body remains, but it feels nothing. The dwelling of the true man lies there, but the inhabitant has departed.

Therefore they can do nothing after this, because they can do nothing to what feels nothing. But fear Him who has power to cast both body and soul into the Gehenna of fire (cf. Lk 12:5).

This is the death of which He spoke when He said, "If anyone keeps My word, he shall never see death" (Jn 8:51).

Therefore, brethren, let us keep His word in faith, as those who are to come to the vision of Him after we have received the whole fullness of freedom.

But those Jews, indignant, being dead and predestined to eternal death, answered with abuse and said, "Now we know that You have a demon. Abraham died, and the prophets" (Jn 8:52).

But neither Abraham nor the prophets died with the death which the Lord wished to explain. They certainly died, but they live. These Jews were alive, but dead.

For in one place, answering the Sadducees who raised a question about the resurrection, the Lord replied: "Concerning the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what the Lord says to Moses from the bush?

"'I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' God is not the God of the dead, but of the living" (cf. Mt 22:31-32; Ex 3:6).

If they are alive, let us strive to live in such a way that we may be able to live with them when we die.

"Who do You make Yourself," they said, "that You say, 'If anyone keeps My word, he shall never see death' (Jn 8:53, 52), when You know that Abraham and the prophets died?"

Yet just as the good must become better through injuries, so the evil become still worse through benefactions. For after hearing the preaching, they again say, "Now we know that You have a demon." They had sunk into eternal death and did not see the death into which they had sunk.

There is, without doubt, a historical and economic difference between the revelation of the Old Testament and that of the New. Yet the essential content is one and the same in both. The Savior is one, and God is one.

The books of the Old Testament are holy for every Christian as divinely inspired Scripture. They are not like monuments of ancient pagan literature.

Nevertheless, the new revelation is not only the revelation of the same Godhead. It is a fuller and clearer revelation of the Godhead known through the ancient revelation. Therefore our reverence for the new revelation must be higher and deeper.

"And you have not known Him, but I know Him."

The revelation of God concerning God and Christ is one thing. The understanding of that revelation among the Hebrew people is another. The Savior says to the Jews: you do not know Him, the heavenly Father.

Does this reproach refer only to the contemporaries of Jesus? "You always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you," says St Stephen (Acts 7:51).

The people of Israel were the chosen people, the best people. Yet their own monuments, the historical and prophetic books, clearly say that they understood God's revelation badly.

So they appeared also in their dealings with Christ Jesus. They do not recognize in Jesus the One of whom the prophets spoke. They fail to recognize Him because they formed false ideas of the Messiah and the God of the prophets.

In the tumult of earthly passions, they lost the pure concepts of the salvation of mankind. "I know Him," says the Savior.

This knowledge was not received from outside, as it is with men. It is the consequence of the inward consubstantiality of the Son with the Father.

The Savior says this because truth requires it. If He said otherwise, He would resemble the Jews, to whom lying is so characteristic. The faithfulness of such a testimony can be verified by deeds.

His whole life is dedicated to the glory of the heavenly Father. Thus it is not vainglory, but love of truth, that bears witness before the Jews that He knows the Father.

Therefore whoever values truth must value His testimony.

"Abraham your father rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad."

The Jews vainly regard the greatness of Abraham as inaccessible to Jesus. On the contrary, Jesus is far higher than Abraham. He is the Messiah awaited by the father of believers.

The "day" of Jesus is "the time of His coming" (Cyril of Alexandria). This is explained by the Savior Himself in Jn 9:4-5. Otherwise, it is the time of light indicated by the prophets (2 Pet 1:19).

It is the time of salvation, "concerning which the prophets searched and inquired" (1 Pet 1:10-12). Abraham desired to see this day, and saw it with rapture.

How and when did Abraham see the time of Jesus Christ? Some suppose that he saw it in types, for example in the offering of his son as a sacrifice, as Zigabenus, Augustine, and Origen say.

But Jesus Christ distinguishes the expectation of the manifestation from the seeing. In the latter, He lets us see a special state of Abraham.

Abraham was not glad only when he received promises concerning the Messiah, or when he was instructed about Him through types. He saw with rapture the very time of Christ, or what is the same, His manifestation to the world.

When and how? By a revelation given in the life beyond the grave. This thought is confirmed by the example of Moses and Elijah, who appeared on Tabor and spoke with Jesus about the Cross (Mt 17:4).

The Jews' guilt does not lie in their failure to understand this mystery. It lies in their deliberate and malicious resistance to the teaching of goodness and love. It lies in their blasphemy, which made them opponents of God and barred their entrance into the Kingdom of God. They could enter that Kingdom only by faith. In their hardness of heart they do not see that the Lord Jesus is the Representative of the Divine Word. They do not understand that He came forth from God, and therefore they perish in darkness.