John 12:47

12:44-50 Our Lord publicly proclaimed, that every one who believed on him, as his true disciple, did not believe on him only, but on the Father who sent him. Beholding in Jesus the glory of the Father, we learn to obey, love, and trust in him. By daily looking to Him, who came a Light into the world, we are more and more freed from the darkness of ignorance, error, sin, and misery; we learn that the command of God our Saviour is everlasting life. But the same word will seal the condemnation of all who despise it, or neglect it.

Believe not (μὴ πιστεύσῃ) The best texts read φυλάξῃ, keep (them). Came (ἦλθον) The aorist tense, pointing to the purpose of the coming, as I am come (John 12:46) to the result. Compare John 8:14; John 9:39; John 10:10; John 12:27, John 12:47; John 15:22. Both tenses are found in John 8:42; John 16:28.

44-50. Jesus cried—in a loud tone, and with peculiar solemnity. (Compare Joh 7:37). and said, He that believeth on me, &c.—This seems to be a supplementary record of some weighty proclamations, for which there had been found no natural place before, and introduced here as a sort of summary and winding up of His whole testimony.

I judge him not; I alone judge him not, or rather, it is not my present business to pronounce sentence of condemnation against him; I am now doing the work of a Redeemer and Saviour, not of a Judge: he is condemned already, John 3:18 , and he hath another that accuseth and condemneth him; as the Jews had Moses, John 5:45 , so he hath my Father as his Judge, and will have my word as his accuser (as in the next verse): I shall one day condemn him; but that is not my present business, that was not my errand in coming into the world. I came to offer the world the means, and to show them the way to salvation; if they do perish, their blood will be upon their own heads: it is not my business to condemn them.

John 12:47 . Ἐγὼ οὐ κρίνω , I judge him not ) This is limited in a threefold way: (1) I , alone [not I alone, but also, etc.]; and (2) in the present, I do not judge [ now ; but hereafter I shall ]; and (3) causally, it is not I who judge him , but he who does not believe, himself rushes into judgment by the fact of not believing in My word.— ἵνα κρίνω , ἵνα σώσω , that I may judge, that I may save ) Words in the same tense. Observe: the unbeliever is a portion of that world, for the sake of saving which Christ came. This is clearly evident from the connection of the words.

47 . hear my words ] ‘Hear’ is a neutral word, implying neither belief nor unbelief. Matthew 7:24 ; Matthew 7:26 ; Mark 4:15-16 . For ‘words’ read sayings (see on John 5:47 ) both here and in John 12:48 . and believe not ] The true reading is and keep them not , i.e. fulfil them (comp. Luke 11:28 ; Luke 18:21 ). One important MS. omits the ‘not,’ perhaps to avoid a supposed inconsistency between John 12:47 and John 12:48 .

(47) And if any man hear my words, and believe not. —The better reading is, . . . and keep them not. (Comp., for the words “hear” and “keep,” Notes on Luke 11:28 ; Luke 18:21 .) For the thought of the verse comp. in this Gospel, Notes on John 3:17 et seq.; 5:24, 45 et seq.; 8:15 ei seq.; and the apparently opposite assertion in John 9:39 .

I judge him not ... - John 8:15 . It was not his present purpose to condemn men. He would come to condemn the guilty at a future time. At present he came to save them. Hence he did not now even pronounce decisively on the condition of those who rejected him, but still gave them an opportunity to be saved.

John 12:47-48 . Comp. John 3:17-18 , John 5:45 ff., John 8:15 ff. If any one shall have heard the words from me , does not denote hearing in the sense of believing (Lücke), but a hearing which is in itself indifferent ( Matthew 7:26 ; Mark 4:15-16 ; Mark 13:20 ); and by the κ . μὴ φυλάξῃ which follows (see the critical notes), that very faith which follows hearing is denied . φυλάσσειν , namely, denotes not indeed the mere holding fast, guarding ( John 12:25 ), but, as throughout, where doctrines, precepts, and the like are spoken of (see especially Luke 11:28 ; Luke 18:21 ; Romans 2:26 ), the keeping by actual fulfilment . But this takes place simply by faith , which Christ demands for His ῥήματα : with faith the φυλάσσειν comes into action (hence the Recepta κ . μὴ πιστεύσῃ is a correct gloss); the refusal of faith is the rejection of Christ ( ἀθετεῖν , here only in John, but comp. Luke 10:16 ; 1 Thessalonians 4:8 ), and non-adoption of His words , John 12:48 , is the opposite of that φυλάσσειν so far as its essence is just the ὑπακοὴ τῆς πίστεως . On ἀκούειν with a double genitive, as in Luke 6:47 , Acts 22:1 , comp. John 18:37 ; and see Buttmann, N. T. Gr . p. 145 [E.

T. p. 167]. ἐγὼ οὐ κρίνω αὐτόν ] I , in my person, am not his judge , which is further meant generally , not exclusively, of the last judgment, but in a condemnatory sense, as opposed to σώζειν , as in John 3:17 John 12:48 . ἔχει ] Placed first with great emphasis: he has his judge; he stands already under his trial . But this judge, says Christ, is not Himself, as an individual personally considered in and by Himself, but His spoken word; this and nothing else will be (and therewith all the terror of the last decision breaks in upon the mind) the determining rule of the last judgment. It is Christ , indeed, who holds the judgment ( John 5:22 ; John 5:27 ), but as the bearer and executor of His word , which constitutes the divine power of the judgment. Comp. John 7:51 , where the law judges and takes cognisance. How decisively does the present passage declare against the attempt of Scholten, Hilgenfeld, Reuss, and others, to explain away the last judgment out of John! Comp. John 12:28-29 ; 1 John 4:17 .