Homilies on John, Homily 50

“Then some of the people of Jerusalem said, Isn’t this the man they are trying to kill? But look, He speaks boldly, and they say nothing to Him. Do the rulers really know that this is the very Christ? Yet we know where this man comes from.” [1.] Nothing in the Holy Scriptures is there without a reason, for they were spoken by the Holy Spirit, so let us examine every point carefully. A single expression can reveal the entire meaning (of a passage), as in the case before us. “Many of the people of Jerusalem said, Isn’t this the man they are trying to kill? But look, He speaks boldly, and they say nothing to Him.” Now why are the words “of Jerusalem” added? The Evangelist shows by this that those who had benefited most from His mighty miracles were more pitiable than anyone else: they had seen the greatest proof of His Godhead, yet left everything to the judgment of their corrupt rulers. For wasn’t it great proof of His Godhead that furious men bent on murder, who went around looking for Him to kill Him, suddenly became quiet when they had Him in their hands? Who could have done this? Who quenched their utter fury like this? Even after such proofs, observe these men’s folly and madness. “Isn’t this the man they are trying to kill?” See how they accuse themselves. “They are trying to kill Him,” it says, “yet they say nothing to Him.” And not only do they say nothing to Him; they say nothing even when He “speaks boldly.” Someone speaking boldly and with complete freedom would naturally have angered them all the more, but they did nothing. “Do they really know that this is the very Christ?” “What do you think? What is your judgment?” The opposite, it says. That is why they said, “We know where this man comes from.” What malice, what contradiction! They do not even follow their rulers’ judgment, but offer another one, perverse and worthy of their own folly: “We know where He comes from.” “But when Christ comes, no one knows where He comes from.” ( John vii. 27.) “Yet when your rulers were asked, they answered that He would be born in Bethlehem.” ( Matt. ii. 4–5.) And others again said, “God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we do not know where He comes from.” ( c. ix. 29.) “We know where He comes from,” and “we do not know where He comes from.” Notice the words of drunken men. And again, “Does Christ come from Galilee?” ( Ver. 41.) Isn’t He from “the town of Bethlehem”? Do you see that their judgment is that of madmen? “We know,” and “we do not know”; “Christ comes from Bethlehem”; “When Christ comes, no one knows where He comes from.” What could make the contradiction clearer? They had only one aim: not to believe. What, then, does Christ answer? Ver. 28. “You both know Me and know where I come from. And I have not come on My own, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know.” [2.] And again, “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also.” ( c. viii. 19.) How, then, does He say that they both “know Him” and “where He comes from,” and then that they know neither Him nor the Father? He does not contradict Himself—dismiss that thought—but is entirely consistent. For He speaks of a different kind of knowledge when He says, “You do not know,” just as when He says, “The sons of Eli were wicked sons; they did not know the Lord” ( 1 Sam. ii. 12 ); and again, “Israel does not know Me.” ( Isa. i. 3.) So Paul also says, “They profess to know God, but deny Him by their deeds.” ( Tit. i. 16.) It is therefore possible to “know” and yet “not know.” This, then, is what He says: “If you know Me, you know that I am the Son of God.” For “where I come from” does not refer here to a place. This is clear from what follows: “I have not come on My own, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know.” Here He refers to the ignorance shown by their deeds. [As Paul saith, “They profess that they know God, but in works they deny Him.”] For their fault came not merely from ignorance, but from wickedness and an evil will, because even though they knew this, they chose to be ignorant. But how does this connect with what came before? Why does He use their own words when rebuking them? For when they say, “We know where this man comes from,” He adds, “You both know Me.” Had they said, “We do not know Him”? No, they said, “We know Him.” But (observe), by saying, “We know where He comes from,” they meant only that He was “of the earth” and “the carpenter’s son.” But He led them up to heaven, saying, “You know where I come from,” that is, not from where you suppose, but from the place from which He who sent Me (hath sent Me). For by saying, “I have not come on My own,” He indicates to them that they knew He was sent by the Father, though they did not admit it. So He rebukes them in two ways: first, He proclaims aloud what they said in secret, to put them to shame; then He also reveals what was in their hearts. It is as though He had said, “I am not one of the worthless, nor one of those who come for no purpose, but He ‘who sent Me is true, whom you do not know.’” What does “He who sent Me is true” mean? “If He is true, He has sent Me for the truth; if He is true, it is likely that the One He sends is true also.” He also proves this in another way, defeating them with their own words. For since they had said, “When Christ comes, no one knows where He comes from,” He uses this to prove that He Himself is the Christ. They used the words “No one knows” to refer to identifying some definite place, but through those same words He shows Himself to be the Christ, because He came from the Father. And everywhere He testifies that He alone knows the Father, saying, “Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from the Father.” ( c. vi. 46.) His words infuriated them, for telling them, “You do not know Him,” and rebuking them because they knew but pretended to be ignorant was enough to sting and anger them. Ver. 30. “Then they tried to seize Him, and no one laid a hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come.” Do you see that they are restrained invisibly and their anger held in check? But why does it not say that He had restrained them invisibly, instead of saying, “Because His hour had not yet come”? The Evangelist wanted to speak in more human and humble terms, so that Christ would be understood to be Man as well. Because Christ speaks everywhere about exalted matters, the Evangelist intersperses expressions like this. And when Christ says, “I am from Him,” He does not speak as a Prophet who learns, but as One who sees Him and is with Him. Ver. 29. “I know Him,” He says, “for I am from Him, and He has sent Me.” Do you see how He continually seeks to establish the statements “I have not come on My own” and “He who sent Me is true,” making every effort not to be thought an enemy of God? And notice how much good His humble words do, for after this, it says, many said, Ver. 31. “When Christ comes, will He do more miracles than this man has done?” How many miracles were there? In fact, there were three: the wine, the paralyzed man, and the nobleman’s son. The Evangelist has related no more. This makes it clear, as I have often said, that the writers pass over most of them and tell us only about those that led the rulers to mistreat Him. “Then they tried to seize Him” and kill Him. Who “tried”? Not the crowd, who had no desire to rule and could not be taken captive by malice, but the priests. For the people in the crowd said, “When Christ comes, will He do more miracles?” Yet even this was not firm faith, but something like the opinion of a mixed crowd. For saying, “When He comes,” was not the language of people firmly convinced that He was the Christ. We may understand the words this way, or as something the crowds said when they gathered together. “Since,” they may have said, “our rulers are making every effort to prove that this man is not the Christ, let us suppose that He is not the Christ. Will the Christ be better than He is?” For, as I keep repeating, people of a coarser sort are won over by miracles, not by doctrine or preaching. Ver. 32. “The Pharisees heard the people murmuring and sent servants to seize Him.” Do you see that breaking the Sabbath was a mere pretext, and that what stung them most was this murmuring? For here, although they could find no fault with anything He had said or done, they wanted to seize Him because of the crowd. They did not dare do it themselves, fearing danger, but sent their hired servants. How terrible their tyranny and madness—or rather, I should say, their folly! After often trying themselves and failing, they handed the matter over to servants, simply indulging their anger. Yet He had spoken at length at the pool ( c. v.), and they had done nothing of this kind. They did look for an opportunity, but made no attempt. Here, however, they can bear it no longer, when the crowd is about to flock to Him. What, then, does Christ say? Ver. 33. “I am with you a little longer.” Although He has the power to humble and terrify His hearers, He speaks with complete humility. It is as though He had said, “Why are you so eager to persecute and kill Me? Wait a little while, and even if you are eager to hold Me back, I will not put up with it.” So that no one would suppose (as they did) that “I am with you a little longer” meant an ordinary death, or suppose that He would do nothing after death, He added, Ver. 34. “And where I am, you cannot come.” Now if He had been going to remain in death, they could have gone to Him, for we all go to that place. His words therefore humbled the simpler people in the crowd, terrified the bolder ones, and made the more intelligent eager to hear Him, since only a little time remained and they would not always be able to enjoy this teaching. Nor did He simply say, “I am here,” but “I am with you,” that is, “Though you persecute Me, though you drive Me away, for a little while I will still keep providing what is good for you, telling you what concerns your salvation and urging you to follow it.” Ver. 33. “And I go to Him who sent Me.” This was enough to terrify them and throw them into anguish. For He also declares that they will need Him. Ver. 34. “You will seek Me,” He says, (not only “you will not forget Me,” but you will even “seek Me,”) “and will not find Me.” [3.] And when did the Jews “seek Him”? Luke says that the women mourned over Him, and it is likely that many others, both at the time and when the city was captured, remembered Christ and His miracles and sought His presence. ( Luke xxiii. 49.) He added all this because He wanted to draw them to Him. For the short time remaining, their longing for Him with regret after His departure, and their inability to find Him then were together enough to persuade them to come to Him. For if they were not going to long for His presence with regret, they would not have thought He was saying anything significant. If, on the other hand, they were going to long for Him but could find Him, that would not have troubled them either. Again, if He were going to stay with them a long time, they would have been careless. But now He presses and terrifies them in every way. And “I go to Him who sent Me” is the statement of One declaring that their plotting will do Him no harm and that His Passion is voluntary. So here He made two predictions: that He would depart after a little while, and that they would not come to Him. Predicting His own death was beyond human understanding. Listen, for example, to David saying, “Lord, let me know my end and the number of my days, what it is, so that I may know how much time I have.” ( Ps. xxxix. 4.) No human being knows this at all, and one prediction confirms the other. And I think He says this indirectly to the servants and addresses His words to them, drawing them in especially by showing that He knew why they had come. It is as though He had said, “Wait a little, and I will depart.” Ver. 35. “Then the Jews said among themselves, Where will He go?” Yet those who had wanted to be rid of Him, who did everything they could to avoid seeing Him, should not have asked this question. They should have said, “We are glad of it. When will He leave?” But His words had affected them somewhat, and with foolish suspicion they ask one another, “Where will He go?” “Will He go to the dispersion of the Gentiles?” What is “the dispersion of the Gentiles”? The Jews gave this name to other nations because they were scattered everywhere and mingled with one another without fear. And afterward they themselves suffered this reproach, for they too became a “dispersion.” For in ancient times their whole nation was gathered in one place, and you could not find a Jew anywhere except in Palestine. That is why they called the Gentiles a “dispersion,” reproaching them and boasting about themselves. What, then, does “Where I go, you cannot come” mean? For at that time all nations had dealings with them, and there were Jews everywhere. So if He had meant the Gentiles, He would not have said, “Where you cannot come.” After saying, “Will He go to the dispersion of the Gentiles?” they did not add, “and ruin them,” but “and teach them.” Their anger had subsided that much, and they believed His words; for if they had not believed, they would not have asked one another what the saying meant. These words were spoken to the Jews, but there is reason to fear that they may apply to us too: that “where He is” we “cannot come,” because our lives are full of sins. For concerning the disciples He says, “I want them also to be with Me where I am” ( c. xvii. 24 ), but concerning ourselves, I fear that the opposite may be said: “Where I am, you cannot come.” For when we act against the commandments, how can we go to that place? Even in this life, if a soldier behaves unworthily toward his king, he will not be able to see the king, but will be stripped of his authority and suffer the severest punishment. So if we steal or covet, if we wrong or strike others, if we do no deeds of mercy, we will not be able to go there, but will suffer what happened to the virgins. For they could not enter where He was, but went away with their lamps extinguished—that is, with grace having left them. For if we choose, we can make the flame we received at once by the grace of the Spirit burn brighter. But if we will not do this, we will lose it, and when it is quenched, there will be nothing but darkness in our souls. Just as the light is strong while a lamp burns, so when it is extinguished there is nothing but gloom. That is why the Apostle says, “Do not quench the Spirit.” ( 1 Thess. v. 19.) And It is quenched when It has no oil, when there is a violent gust of wind, or when It is cramped and confined (for that is how fire is quenched). It is cramped by worldly cares and quenched by evil desires. Beyond the causes we have mentioned, nothing quenches It as much as inhumanity, cruelty, and plunder. For when, besides having no oil, we pour cold water on it (for that is what covetousness is: it chills the souls of those we wrong with despair), how will it be kindled again? We will therefore depart carrying dust and ashes with us, with plenty of smoke to convict us of having had lamps and having extinguished them. For where there is smoke, there must have been a fire that has been quenched. May none of us ever hear those words, “I do not know you.” ( Matt. xxv. 12.) And what will cause us to hear those words, except this: that we see a poor person and act as though we do not see him? If we refuse to know Christ when He is hungry, He too will refuse to know us when we beg for His mercy. And rightly so, for how can someone who neglects the afflicted and gives nothing of what is his own—how can he ask to receive what is not his own? So I beg you, let us do everything we can and find every possible way to keep our oil from running out, so that we may trim our lamps and enter the bridal chamber with the Bridegroom. May we all reach it through the grace and loving kindness of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom and with whom may glory be given to the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and always and forever and ever. Amen.