John 5:43

5:39-44 The Jews considered that eternal life was revealed to them in their Scriptures, and that they had it, because they had the word of God in their hands. Jesus urged them to search those Scriptures with more diligence and attention. Ye do search the Scriptures, and ye do well to do so. They did indeed search the Scriptures, but it was with a view to their own glory. It is possible for men to be very studious in the letter of the Scriptures, yet to be strangers to its power. Or, Search the Scriptures, and so it was spoken to them in the nature of an appeal. Ye profess to receive and believe the Scripture, let that be the judge. It is spoken to us as advising or commanding all Christians to search the Scriptures. Not only read them, and hear them, but search them; which denotes diligence in examining and studying them. We must search the Scriptures for heaven as our great end; For in them ye think ye have eternal life. We must search the Scriptures for Christ, as the new and living Way, that leads to this end. To this testimony Christ adds reproofs of their unbelief and wickedness; their neglect of him and his doctrine. Also he reproves their want of the love of God. But there is life with Jesus Christ for poor souls. Many who make a great profession of religion, yet show they want the love of God, by their neglect of Christ and contempt of his commandments. It is the love of God in us, the love that is a living, active principle in the heart, which God will accept.

They slighted and undervalued Christ, because they admired and overvalued themselves. How can those believe, who make the praise and applause of men their idol! When Christ and his followers are men wondered at, how can those believe, the utmost of whose ambition is to make a fair show in the flesh!

John 5:43 . ἐγὼ ἐλήλυθα … It is just because I have come in the Father’s name that you do not receive me. Not really loving God, they could not appreciate and accept Jesus who came in God’s name, that is, who truly represented God. But ἐὰν ἄλλος ἔλθῃ … λήψεσθε , “if another come in his own name,” and therefore seeking only such glory as the Jews could give, him ye will receive; cf. Matthew 24:5 ; Matthew 24:23-24 . “He did not say, ‘If I had come in my own name,’ because the thing was so inconceivable.” Mason, Conditions of our Lord’s Life , etc., p. 90. Possibly Jesus had here in view Antichrist (see Bousset’s Antichrist , 133); but neither Bar Cochba nor any other definite Pseudo-Christ. Schudt mentions sixty-four.

I am come clothed with an authority from my Father, sent by him for this very purpose, to reveal his will to men for their salvation; I speak, I do nothing but by the authority of my Father which sent me; nor do I aim at my own glory, but the glory of him that sent me: yet you give no credit to my words, nor embrace me, as him whom God hath sent for the Saviour of man. If another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive; through the corruption of your hearts, and the just judgment of God, giving you up to strong delusions to believe lies, 2 Thessalonians 2:11 . If any seducers come, without any authority from God, never sent of him, nor speaking his words, nor seeking his glory, or your good, you will readily enough receive them.

43 . and ye receive me not ] The tragic tone as in John 5:39-40 , ‘I come with the highest credentials, as My Father’s representative (comp. John 8:42 ), and ye reject Me.’ come in his own name ] As a false Messiah or as Antichrist. Sixty-four pretended Messiahs have been counted. Comp. Matthew 24:24 .

John 5:43 . Οὐ λαμβάνετέ με ) ye receive Me not , through [in] faith.— ἄλλος , another ) Any false Christ and Antichrist that may arise. From the time of the true Christ down to our age, sixty-four false Messiahs are reckoned up, by whom the Jews were deceived. See John Jam. Schudt, Jüdische Merkwürdigkeiten , [111]. 6, c. 27, § 30. [111] Cod. Reg., Paris, of the Gospels: the text akin to that of B: edited by Tisch.

(43) I am come in my Father’s name. —So far from self-assertion or honour-seeking, He came in the name of, as representing, the Father, guided only by His will, doing only His work ( John 4:34 ). Had they loved the Father, they must have received and reverenced His Son ( John 8:42 ; Matthew 21:37 et seq. ) . The absence of love is at the root of the rejection. The true Israelite became the true Christian ( John 1:47 ), but these were not true members of the Old Covenant, and could not therefore pass into the New. If another shall come in his own name.—Comp. the direct prophecy of false Christs and prophets in Matthew 24:24, and see Note there. The word “come” in this clause links the meaning with that of the “come” in the previous clause, and is to be understood of a false Messianic claim in opposition to the true. Sixty-four false Christs have been enumerated as appearing after the true Christ, and these words are often taken as a prophecy of one of the most famous of these, as Bar-Kochba. Not a few of the Fathers have understood the words of Antichrist. Perhaps the only definite reference is to the mental condition of the Jews. They would receive any other who came in his own authority, and seeking his own glory. There would be no higher principle to which everything must yield. The seeker of power would fulfil their carnal interpretation of Messianic hopes. He would flatter and honour them, and therefore they would receive him.

I am come in my Father's name - By the authority of God; or giving proof that I am sent by him. If another shall come in his own name - A false teacher setting up himself, and not even pretending to have a divine commission. The Jews were much accustomed to receive and follow particular teachers. In the time of Christ they were greatly divided between the schools of Hillel and Shammai, two famous teachers. Ye will receive - You will follow, or obey him as a teacher.

Verse 43. - I have come in the name ( i.e. in the power, with the credentials, with the encompassing revelation) of my Father, and ye receive me not. Your idea of the Father's glory is so profoundly different from the reality, that you do not recognize it when it is offered you and shining over you. Christ did not profess to have come in his own name. He was not a mere evolution of humanity, or of Israel, or of the house of David. He was the Only Begotten of the Father, born from above, sent down from heaven. The language of the world was, "This is not Divine;" "It is too gentle, too gracious, too sympathetic for God!" The religious world listened eagerly for some echo of the trumpet peals of Sinai. It desired a king greater than Solomon, a prophet more terrible than Elijah. When he came with the real glory robes of the love of God, and with the majesty of the Name of the Lord, there was widespread disappointment and cruel rejection of his commission. Should another come in his own (proper, peculiar) name , that is, with no testimony from heaven, seeking "honour ( δόξα , glory) from men," creating a sovereignty by enlisting the voices of men, compromising with evil, making no warfare against the power of the world, allowing the legitimacy of the throne of the prince of this world; - should he come in his own name, alas! him (that one) ye will receive.

The eagerness on the part of the Jews to find the Messiah has led them to accept in some sort no fewer than sixty-four false Christs (Schudt, 'Judische Merkwurdigkeit,' 6:27-30; Bengel and Meyer). Nor must the Christian Church take the flattering unction that it is free from this charge. The teacher that can utilize to the widest extent the fashionable worldliness, and can mingle the pungent human condiment with the princely food of the King's banqueting house, is he who at the present hour meets with the loudest response and the readiest reception. There is solemn warning here for statesman and author, artist and preacher. John 5:43