John 8:56

56. Your father Abraham He prepares to assert his superiority over Abraham in his highest title, their boasted father; much more, then, over all other Jews.

Rejoiced Exulted, leaped for joy.

To see my day Literally, that he should see my day. Abraham’s exultation was in hope of seeing Christ’s day.

And he saw it Saw it in accordance with his exultant hope. But when did he thus see Christ’s day. The interpretation hitherto most common is that concisely given by Dr. A. Clarke on the passage. “

And he saw it Not only in the first promise, Genesis 3:15, for the other patriarchs saw this as well as he; and not only in that promise which was made particularly to himself, Genesis 12:7; Genesis 22:18, (compared with Galatians 3:16,) that the Messiah should spring from his family; but he saw this day especially when Jehovah appeared to him in a human form, Genesis 18:2; Genesis 18:17, which many suppose to have been a manifestation of the Lord Jesus.”

But many later leading commentators, as Tholuck, Stier, and Alford, hold, that as Abraham’s exultant hope of seeing preceded the seeing itself, the seeing cannot be a mere prophetic seeing but a real. It must then be a seeing by Abraham from paradise. Tholuck says, “Such a sympathy is ascribed to Abraham as that spoken of in 1 Peter 1:12, where the angels are said to look down with joy upon the redemption wrought out, and in Luke 9:31, where Moses and Elias speak with the Redeemer of his decease at Jerusalem.” This is a much more striking meaning; but would not, then, he saw it have been in the present tense? Is not Abraham’s seeing in paradise, a permanent seeing?