John 8:19 Commentary and Bible Study

The essence of the problem is that the Pharisees are just materialistic people; they have no personal religion; no personal walk with God; no real faith; they don’t trust Him, or his word, and that is the vital thing for us also. ‘He saying things which we do not want the people to hear. In reply to our heckling, he is once again asserting his divinity, that he is God, that he is from heaven and going to heaven, that his life witnesses and the Father witnesses. We have got to stop him saying these things.’ And their ploy, their method of dealing with this, and trying to dilute the words of Christ is to put a purely human interpretation on everything that he says. ‘Where is thy Father?’ They reduce Christ’s words to the supposition that he is speaking only about an earthly father. And you can see them in the gallery there, as some of the old commentators used to say, looking round – Where is your father? We cannot see him. Produce him, your second witness. If they can pour scorn on Christ and reduce his statement to the level of the earthly without any spiritual, heavenly dimension – on the spur of the moment that is the only way they can think of preventing the vast audience of hearing Christ’s statement.And the Lord replies with a terrible indictment – they did not know God. Those clergy, at that time among the Jews, did not know God. They had no personal relationship, no walk with him. It was all supposition. They thought they earned his favour, but they did not know him. ‘Why, if you knew the Father, if you had spiritual life in you, you would immediately know that I was the promised Messiah, and that all that I do and all that I teach is authentic. You would really understand the ancient prophecies.’ And so their attempt to take the spiritual meaning out of Christ’s words only results in his asserting them, the spiritual sense, even more.