John 10:34 Commentary and Bible Study

So Christ embarks upon yet another line of reasoning. Not to save his own life, he is going to go voluntary to Calvary in his time, but to persuade them. Such repeated, patient remonstration! Look at the argument; this requires just a little explaining – ‘Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law’, and these are the words of God. It is the Psalm 82:6: ‘I have said, Ye are gods’The psalmist under inspiration is reproving the judges of Israel of 1000 BC, those elders of the people who were given the law. Moses received the law; he passed it to the elders, the judges. They held their courts and governed the people, and they were supposed to govern strictly according to God’s law. And because they are the representatives of God, administering the sacred law of God, God says to them, you are gods. You are to be revered, and especially respected because although you are mortal men, you are the representatives of God. So people look up to you. What a scandal that you are bad judges, that you take bribes, that you corrupt the people.Now Christ quotes this, and he reminds them that the Old Testament calls the judges ‘gods’ simply because they are special people, representing God and administering his sacred law. Now Christ argues like this – if the word of God calls them ‘gods’, who are only men representing God and handling the sacred word, how much more important it is that you honour me, who is plainly appointed by God and endorsed by God as divine and working great miracles. ‘Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified.’ Sanctified means separated, distinguished, clearly commissioned in a distinctive way. The point is that, even though they have rejected his first line of reasoning – consider the miracles – he now embarks on a second line of argument related to his miracles: you should respect me far more than your judges because I am distinguished from men in a special way. God has proved that I am his Son and commissioned.