John 12:49-50 - Exposition

There is much emphasis to be laid upon the ὅτι , which implies that our Lord would give a sacred reason for the tremendous power with which his λόγος would be invested. The λόγος , the ῥήμα , is not simply his; it did not proceed from himself only, from his humanity, or even his Divine Sonship alone, but from the Father which sent me . He stood and spake always as the voice of the Eternal One, from whom he came, with saving powers. He has given me commandment what I should say, and what I should speak . The two words εἶπω and λαλήσω ( dicam and loquar, Vulgate), though Hengstenberg says it is frivolous to distinguish, are supposed by Meyer, Westcott, and Godet, to discriminate matter and form, as Godet says, "What I should say, and how I should say it ." My words and their manner and opportunity and tone are all of them the outcome of the Father's ἐντολὴ . It certainly is incredible that John could have put these words into the lips of Jesus. They are no mere summary. They are set down with awful sincerity as having burned themselves into his memory. But the Lord added, "I may be rejected and my words spurned, and yet they may go on as apparitors of judgment, but however that may be, and I know ( οἶδα ) that his commandment, his commission to me , is life eternal— is so now" (cf. John 3:36 ; John 17:3 ; 1 John 5:12 , 1 John 5:13 ). "The Law is ordained unto life," said Paul, and "the goodness of God leadeth us unto repentance." The depth of this sublime experience goes down and back into the eternal counsels. The things which therefore I speak (am speaking even at this moment), even as the Father has said unto me, so I speak . "In rejecting me and my words, men reject and insult the Father. His word they dare to renounce, as solemn and unalterable as the word spoken on Sinai. They not only reject me, but they count themselves unworthy of eternal life. They not only spurn Law, but love." Thus, at the conclusion of the public ministry, the evangelist sets forth, in a few burning words, the theme of the prologue, so far as it is realized in the offer of a full revelation of the Logos to the world in human flesh. This Logos found adequate utterance through the human life and lips of Jesus. "The Father has been so amply revealed that the non-believer and rejecter, who hears and does not keep my sayings, is disbelieving and rejecting Hill." These potent words, and this wonderful conclusion of the entire record of the public ministry of Jesus, is the appropriate summary of teachings which were now brought to a dose. Without any exact parallels, they breathe the spirit of the whole teaching, they supply the basis of the prologue. It is, however, dear that the style is different from the prologue, and from the reflection of the evangelist in previous verses. Just as the whole Gospel is a series of recollections which form from their own intrinsic glory and truth a sacred inimitable whole, so this spicilegium is a brief evangelium in evangelio—a gathering up of the whole in the narrow compass of a few precious lines. Though "the hour" has come, it waits. The comparison between this method of the evangelist and that of the apocalyptist is very impressive.