John 3:34 - Exposition

The γὰρ shows that the former utterance is sustained. For he whom God sent uttereth the words of God. The full, many-sided, abundant expression of the thought of God. He has been sent for this purpose. Some take this clause to refer to all the ambassadors of God, and pre-eminently to the "man ( John 1:6 ) sent from God, whose name was John." But, on the ether hand, observe that throughout the Gospel, ἀπόστελλω and πέμπω are used of the "Lord from heaven" (verse 17). Christ certainly is ἀπεσταλμένος as well as ἐρχομένος , and this great statement, viz. that Christ speaks the words of God, is a justification of the fact that, in accepting the witness of Christ to invisible and eternal things, and in the admission that he has been sent from heaven charged with the words of God, every separate believer becomes a seal, a ratification, of the veracity of God. The clause that follows (seeing that " to him" is unquestionably a gloss of translators, and is not found in any manuscripts) may be translated in three different ways.

(a) The present tense is justified by the statement of the abiding of the Holy Spirit upon Jesus, and the continuous operation of the gift in the "words of God," which were flowing from his lips.

(b) The αὐτῷ is easily supplied in thought.

(c) The connection is thus instituted with the thirty-fifth verse. Meyer and Lange prefer a wider significance being given to the words, seeing in them a broad reference to the affluence and measureless capacity of the gift of the Spirit. Luthardt: "This is true of all God's messengers, but especially of him of whom the Baptist speaks" (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:4-12 ). The Lord from heaven receives all the gifts of the Spirit.