NOTES for Joh 8:51-59
51 Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death. |
52 Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death. |
53 Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself? |
54 Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God: |
55 Yet ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him, and keep his saying. |
56 Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. |
57 Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? |
58 Jesus said unto them, Verily,verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am. |
59 Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by. |
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Throughout the whole eighth chapter of the Gospel of John, the Jews, or more precisely, the scribes, that is, the intellectuals, ask Jesus who He is. And yet His answer, repeated more than once in different forms, "the One who exists from the beginning," "the Light of the world," "I came forth from God and have come," is as though they do not hear it. Or do not want to hear it. In the end, the Truth revealed to them proves unacceptable to them, beyond the capacity of simple human reason. After all, everyday logic truly cannot grasp that the Jesus of Nazareth standing before them is the Christ, the Savior of human beings, God going to death out of love for His creature.
Meanwhile Jesus does more than affirm His divine nature. All the time He is trying to make His listeners think about the choice His coming to earth places before them: between light and darkness, between slavery to sin and freedom in God, and finally between life and death. And when the conversation reaches this last boundary, their inability to receive the Message, and the necessity of faith that comes from the heart rather than the intellect, produces only aggression in His listeners, and they rush at Christ with stones. One should not think that such a reaction to divine revelation belonged only to the intellectuals of the first century AD.
Readings for 8 December 2025
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