1213 He inquires into their spiritual origin when he says, yet you want to kill me. First he shows that they have a spiritual origin; secondly, he rejects what they presume to be their origin (v 34); thirdly, he shows them their true origin (v 44). As to the first he does two things: first, he points out their guilt; secondly, he infers their spiritual origin (v 38). As to the first he does three things: first, he lays on them the guilt of murder; secondly, the sin of unbelief; and thirdly, he anticipates an excuse they might give.
1214 Our Lord shows that they have their spiritual origins from an evil root. Hence he expressly accuses them of sin and passing over all the other crimes in which the Jews were implicated, he mentions only the one which they continued to nurture in their minds, the sin of murder, because, as was said, they wished to kill him. This is why he says, you want to kill me , which is against your Law: "You shall not kill" (Ex 20:13); "So from that day on they took counsel how to put him to death" (11:53).
1215 Because they might say that to kill someone for his crime is not a sin, our Lord says that the cause of this murder is not any crime committed by Christ or their own righteousness, but rather their unbelief. As if to say: you seek to kill me not because of your own righteousness but because of your unbelief: because my message is no grasped by you: "Not all men can receive this message, but only those to whom it is given" (Mt 19:11). Our Lord uses this way of speaking, first of all, to show the excellence of his message. As if to say: my message transcends your ability, for it is concerned with spiritual things, whereas you have a sensual understanding, that is why you do not grasp it: "The sensual man does not perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God" (1 Cor 2:14). He speaks this way also to recall a certain similarity: for as Augustine says, the Lord's message to unbelievers is what a hook is to a fish, it does not grasp unless it is grasped. And so he says his message does not grasp them in their hearts, because it is not grasped by them, as Peter was grasped: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (6:68). Yet it does not harm those who are grasped, for they are grasped to salvation, and left uninjured.
1216 In Deuteronomy (c 18) we read that a prophet who speaks, as coming from the mouth of the Lord, things that the Lord did not say, should be killed. So, lest the Jews say that he should be killed for speaking from himself, and not from the mouth of the Lord, he adds, I speak of what I have seen with my Father. As if to say: I cannot be accused of speaking things that I have not heard, for I speak not only what I have heard, but what is more, I speak of what I have seen. Other prophets spoke the things they heard, whereas I speak the things I have seen: "No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known" (1:18); "That which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you" (1 Jn 1:3). This must be understood of a vision which gives the most certain knowledge, because the Son knows the Father as he knows himself: "No one knows the Father except the Son" (Mt 11:27).
1217 He then infers their spiritual origin when he says, and what you have seen with your father, that you do. As if to say: I speak things that are in accord with my origin; but you do the things that are done by your father, namely, the devil, whose children they were, according to Augustine, not insofar as they were men, but insofar as they were evil. You do those things, I say, which you see, at the devil's suggestion: "Through the devil's envy death entered the world" (Wis 2:24).
Chrysostom uses another text: What you see with your father, do it. As if to say: just as I reveal my Father in truth by my words, so you, reveal the father of our origin, namely, Abraham, by your deeds. Thus he says: Do what you see your father doing, you who are taught by the law and the prophets.
LECTURE 5
39 They answered him, "Abraham is our father." Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do what Abraham did [If you are Abraham's children, do what Abraham did], 40 but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God; this is not what Abraham did. 41 You do what your father did. "They said to him, "We were not born of fornication, we have one Father, even God." 42 Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I proceeded and came forth from God; I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. 43 Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word."
1218 After showing that the Jews had a certain spiritual origin, our Lord here rejects certain origins which they had presumptuously attributed to themselves. First, he rejects the origin they claimed to have from Abraham; secondly, the origin they thought they had from God (v 41). As to the first he does two things: first, he gives the opinion of the Jews about their origin; secondly, he rejects it (v 39b).
1219 It should be noted with respect to the first, that our Lord had said to them, what you have seen with your father, that you do, and so, glorying in their carnal descent, they aligned themselves with Abraham. Thus they said, Abraham is our father. This is like saying: If we have a spiritual origin we are good, because our father Abraham is good: "O offspring of Abraham his servant" (Ps 105:6). And as Augustine says, they tried to provoke him to say something against Abraham and so give them an excuse for doing what they had planned, namely, to kill Christ.
1220 Our Lord rejects this opinion of theirs as false (v 39). First, he gives the true sign of being a child of Abraham; secondly, he shows that this sign is not verified in the Jews (v 40); thirdly, he draws his conclusion, you do what your father did.
1221 The sign of anyone being a child is that he is like the one whose child he is; for just as children according to the flesh resemble their parents according to the flesh, so spiritual children (if they are truly children) should imitate their spiritual parents: "Be imitators of God, as beloved children" (Eph 5:1). And as to this he says, If you are Abraham's children, do what Abraham did. This is like saying: if you imitated Abraham, that would be a sign that you are his children: "Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you" (Is 51:2).
1222 Here a question arises, for when he says, if you are Abraham's children, he seems to be denying that they are the children of Abraham, whereas just previously he had said, "I know that you are children of Abraham" (v 37). There are two ways of answering this. The first, according to Augustine, is that before he said that they were children of Abraham according to the flesh, but here he is denying that they are children in the sense of imitating his works, especially his faith. Therefore, they took their flesh from him, but not their life: "It is men of faith who are the sons of Abraham" (Gal 3:7).
For Origin, who has another explanation, both statements refer to their spiritual origin. Where our text reads, "I know that you are children of Abraham," the Greek has, "I know that you are the seed of Abraham." But Christ says here, if you are Abraham's children, do what Abraham did, because the Jews, spiritually speaking, were the seed of Abraham, but were not his children. There is a difference between a seed and a child: for a seed is unformed, although it has in it the characteristics of that of which it is a seed. A child, however, has a likeness to the parent after the seen has been modified by the informing power infused by the agent acting upon the matter which has been furnished by the female. In the same way, the Jews were indeed the seed of Abraham, insofar as they had some of the characteristics which God had infused into Abraham; but because they had not reached the perfection of Abraham, they were not his children. This is why he said to them, if you are Abraham's children, do what Abraham did, i.e., strive for a perfect imitation of his works.
1223 Again, because he said, do what Abraham did , it would seem that whatever he did, we should do. Consequently, we should have a number of wives and approach a maidservant, as Abraham did. I answer that the chief work of Abraham was faith, by which he was justified before God: "He believed the Lord; and he reckoned it to him as righteousness" (Gen 15:6). Thus, the meaning is, do what Abraham did, i.e., believe according to the example of Abraham.
1224 One might say against this interpretation that faith should not be called a work, since it is distinguished from works: "Faith apart from works is dead" (Jas 2:26) ["Do what Abraham did" if translated literally gives "Do the works of Abraham."] I answer that faith can be called a work according to what was said above: "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent" (6:29). An interior work is not obvious to man, but only to God, according to, "The Lord sees not as man sees; man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart" (1 Sam 16:7). This is the reason we are more accustomed to call exterior action works. Thus, faith is not distinguished from all works, but only from external works.
1225 But should we do all the works of Abraham? I answer that works can be considered in two ways. Either according to the kind of works they are, in which sense we should not imitate all his works; or, according to their root, and in this sense we should imitate the works of Abraham, because whatever he did, he did out of charity. Thus Augustine says that the celibacy of John was not esteemed above the marriage of Abraham, since the root of each was the same. Or, it might be said that all of Abraham's works should be imitated as to their symbolism, because "all these things happen to them in figure" [1 Cor 10:11].
1226 Then (v 40) he shows that they do not have the above mentioned sign of being children. First, the conduct of the Jews is given; secondly, he shows that it does not resemble the conduct of Abraham (v 40b).
1227 The conduct of the Jews is shown to be wicked and perverse, because they were murderers; so he says, now you seek to kill me : "How the faithful city has become a harlot, she that was full of justice! Righteousness lodged in her, but now murderers" (Is 1:21). This murder was an unfathomable sin against the person of the Son of God. But because it is said, "If they had understood, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory" (1 Cor 2:8), our Lord does not say that they sought to kill the Son of God, but a man. For although the Son of God is said to have suffered and died by reason of the oneness of his person, this suffering and death was not insofar as he was the Son of God, but because of his human weakness, as it says: "For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God" (2 Cor 13:4).
1228 In order to further elucidate this murder, he shows that they have no reason to put him to death; thus he adds, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God . This truth is that he said that he is equal to God: "This is why the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also called God his Father, making himself equal with God" (5:18). He heard this truth from God inasmuch as from eternity he received from the Father, through an eternal generation, the same nature that the Father has: "For as the Father has life in himself, so has he granted the Son also to have life in himself" (5:26).
Furthermore, he excludes the two reasons for which the Law commanded that prophets were to be killed. First of all, for lying, for Deuteronomy (c 13) commands that a prophet should be killed for speaking a lie or feigning dreams. Our Lord excludes this from himself, saying, a man who has told you the truth : "My mouth will utter truth" (Prov 8:7). Secondly, a prophet ought to be killed if he speaks in the name of false gods, or says in the name of God things that God did not command (Deut 13). Our Lord excludes this from himself when he says, which I heard from God.
1229 Then when he says, this is not what Abraham did , he shows that their works are not like those of Abraham. He is saying in effect: Because you act contrary to Abraham, you show that you are not his children, for it is written about him: "He kept the law of the Most High, and was taken into covenant with him" (Si 44:20).
Some frivolously object that Christ did not exist before Abraham and therefore that Abraham did not do this [kill Christ], since one who did not exist could not be killed. I answer that Abraham is not commended for something he did not do to Christ, but for what he did not do to anyone in like circumstances, i.e., to those who spoke the truth in his day. Or, it might be answered that although Christ had not come in the flesh during the time of Abraham, he nevertheless had come into his mind, according to Wisdom (7:27): "in every generation she [Wisdom] passes into souls." And Abraham did not kill Wisdom by sinning mortally. Concerning this we read: "They crucify the Son of God" (Heb 6:6).
1230 Then when he says, you do what your father did , he draws his conclusion. It was like saying: from the fact that you do not do the works of Abraham, it follows that you have some other father whose works you are doing. A similar statement is made in Matthew (23:32): "Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers."
1231 Then when he says, they said to him, we were not born of fornication , he shows that they do not take their origin from God, for since they knew from our Lord's words that he was not speaking of carnal descent, they turn to spiritual descent, saying, we were not born of fornication. First, they give their own opinion; secondly, our Lord rejects it (v 42).