Navarre Bible Commentary:Thursday, 5th Week in Lent

Source: Heartbeats of Hope

John 8:51-59

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)

51 Truly, truly, I say to you, if any one keeps my word, he will never see death.” 52 The Jews said to him, “Now we know that you have a demon. Abraham died, as did the prophets; and you say, ‘If any one keeps my word, he will never taste death.’ 53 Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you claim to be?” 54 Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing; it is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say that he is your God.55 But you have not known him; I know him. If I said, I do not know him, I should be a liar like you; but I do know him and I keep his word. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced that he was to see my day; he saw it[a] and was glad.” 57 The Jews then said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”[b] 58 Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”[c] 59 So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple.

Footnotes:

1. 8.56 he saw it either in prophetic vision while on earth or by some special privilege after death.
2. John 8:57 Other ancient authorities read has Abraham seen you?
3. 8.58 The present tense indicates Christ’s eternal existence as God.

Cited in the Catechism:  In promulgating the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Blessed John Paul II explained that the Catechism "is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium."  He went on to "declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion" (Fidei Depositum). Passages from this Gospel reading are cited in the Catechism, paragraphs 473, 574 and 590 [see link below; we are having tech trouble with links]

http://www.catholiccrossreference.com/catechism/#!/search/John 8:51-59

Commentary

“Before Abraham was, I am” (8:52–59)

8:51–53. “He will never see death”: our Lord promises eternal life to those who accept and remain faithful to his teaching.

Sin, as the Fourth Gospel teaches, is death of the soul; and sanctifying grace, life (cf. Jn 1:4, 13; 3:15, 16, 36; etc.). Through grace we enter eternal life, a pledge of the glory we shall attain beyond this earthly life and which is the true Life. Blinded by their hostility, the Jews do not want to listen to the Lord and therefore they fail to understand him.

8:55. The knowledge our Lord is speaking about is more than intellectual knowledge. The Old Testament speaks of this “knowing” in the sense of love, faithfulness, generous self-surrender. Love for God comes from the certain knowledge we have of him, and the more we love him, the better we get to know him.

Jesus, whose holy human nature was intimately united (though not mixed) with his divinity in the one Person of the Word, continues to assert his singular and ineffable knowledge of the Father. But this accurate language of Jesus is absolutely incomprehensible to those who close themselves to faith: they even think he is blaspheming (cf. v. 59).

8:56. Jesus presents himself as the fulfilment of the hopes of the Old Testament patriarchs. They had stayed faithful, eager to see the Day of Salvation. Referring to their faith, St Paul exclaims: “These all died in faith, not having received what was promised, but having seen it and greeted it from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth” (Heb 11:13). The most outstanding of those patriarchs was Abraham, our father in faith (cf. Gal 3:7), who received the promise of being father of an immense people, the chosen people from whom would be born the Messiah.

The future fulfilment of the messianic promises was a source of great joy for Abraham: “Abraham, our father, who was set apart for the future accomplishment of the Promise, and who hoped against hope, receives when his son Isaac is born the prophetic firstfruits of this joy. This joy becomes transfigured through a trial touching death, when this only son is restored to him alive, a prefiguring of the resurrection of the one who was to come: the only son of God, promised for the redeeming sacrifice. Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing the Day of Christ, the Day of Salvation: ‘he saw it and was glad’ ” (Paul VI, Gaudete in Domino, 2).

Jesus moves on a plane superior to that of the patriarchs, for they only saw prophetically, from “afar”, the Day of Christ, that is, the actual event of the Redemption, whereas it is Christ who brings it to pass.

8:58. Jesus’ reply to the sceptical remarks of the Jews contains a revelation of his divinity. By saying “Before Abraham was, I am” our Lord is referring to his being eternal, because he is God. Therefore, St Augustine explains: “Acknowledge the Creator, discern the creature. He who was speaking was a descendant of Abraham, but that Abraham might be made, before Abraham he was” (In Ioann. Evang., 43, 17). The Fathers recall, in connexion with the words of Christ, the solemn theophany of Sinai: “I am who I am” (Ex 3:14), and also St John’s distinction, in the prologue to his Gospel, between the world which “was made” and the Word which “was” from all eternity (cf. Jn 1:1–3). The words “I am”, used by Jesus so absolutely, are the equivalent therefore, of his affirming his eternity and his divinity. Cf. the note on Jn 8:21–24.

Source: The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries. Biblical text from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.

"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." St Jerome

Navarre Bible Commentary:Wednesday, 5th Week in Lent

Entrance Sign at Southwest Junior College, Uvalde, TX

John 8:31-42

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)

True Disciples

31 Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham, and have never been in bondage to any one. How is it that you say, ‘You will be made free’?”

34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, every one who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not continue in the house for ever; the son continues for ever. 36 So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. 37 I know that you are descendants of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me, because my word finds no place in you. 38 I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.”

Jesus and Abraham

39 They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do what Abraham did, 40 but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God; this is not what Abraham did. 41 You do what your father did.” They said to him, “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.”[a] 42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I proceeded and came forth from God; I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.

Footnotes:

1. 8.41 They mean, “We are not idolaters,” and protest their fidelity to God their Father; see notes on Rev 14.4 and 17.2.

Cited in the Catechism:  In promulgating the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Blessed John Paul II explained that the Catechism "is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium."  He went on to "declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion" (Fidei Depositum). Passages from this Gospel reading are cited in the Catechism, paragraphs 89, 549, 588, 601, 613, 1741 and 2466.

Commentary

“The truth will set you free” (8:31–38)

8:30–32. Of those Jews who do believe in him Jesus asks much more than a shallow faith resulting from superficial enthusiasm: they should be true disciples; Jesus’ words should imbue their whole life. That kind of faith will bring them to know the truth and to become really free persons.

The knowledge of the truth which Christ is speaking about is not just intellectual knowledge; it is rather the maturing in the soul of the seed of divine revelation. That revelation’s climax is to be found in Christ’s teaching, and it constitutes a genuine communication of supernatural life (cf. Jn 5:24): he who believes in Jesus, and through him in the Father, receives the wonderful gift of eternal life. Knowing the truth is, in the last analysis, knowing Christ himself, God become man to save us; it means realizing that the inaccessible God has become man, our Friend, our Life.

This is the only kind of knowledge which really sets us free, because it removes us from a position of alienation from God—the state of sin and therefore of slavery to the devil and to all the attachments of our fallen nature—and puts us on the path of friendship with God, the path of grace, of the Kingdom of God. Therefore, the liberation we obtain is not just light which shows us the way; it is grace, which empowers us to keep to that way despite our limitations.

“Jesus Christ meets the man of every age, including our own, with the same words: ‘You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free’ (Jn 8:32). These words contain both a fundamental requirement and a warning: the requirement of an honest relationship with regard to truth as a condition for authentic freedom, and the warning to avoid every kind of illusory freedom, every superficial unilateral freedom, every freedom that fails to enter into the whole truth about man and the world. Today also, even after two thousand years, we see Christ as the one who brings man freedom based on truth, frees man from what curtails, diminishes and as it were breaks off this freedom at its root, in man’s soul, his heart and his conscience. What a stupendous confirmation of this has been given and is still being given by those who, thanks to Christ and in Christ, have reached true freedom and have manifested it even in situations of external constraint!” (John Paul II, Redemptor hominis, 12).

“Christ himself links liberation particularly with knowledge of the truth; ‘You will know the truth and the truth will make you free’ (Jn 8:32). This sentence testifies above all to the intimate significance of the freedom for which Christ liberates us. Liberation means man’s inner transformation, which is a consequence of the knowledge of truth. The transformation is, therefore, a spiritual process, in which man matures ‘in true righteousness and holiness’ (Eph 4:24). […] Truth is important not only for the growth of human knowledge, deepening man’s interior life in this way; truth has also a prophetic significance and power. It constitutes the content of testimony and it calls for testimony. We find this prophetic power of truth in the teaching of Christ. As a prophet, as a witness to truth, Christ repeatedly opposes non-truth; he does so with great forcefulness and decision and often he does not hesitate to condemn falsehood” (John Paul II, General Audience, 21 February 1979).

St Thomas Aquinas says: “In this passage, being made free does not refer to being freed of every type of wrong […]; it means being freed in the proper sense of the word, in three ways: first, the truth of his teaching will free us from the error of untruth […]; second, the truth of grace will liberate us from the slavery of sin: ‘the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and death’ (Rom 8:2); third, the truth of eternity in Christ Jesus will free us from decay (cf. Rom 8:21)” (Comm. on St John, in loc.).

“The truth will set you free. How great a truth is this, which opens the way to freedom and gives it meaning throughout our lives. I will sum it up for you, with the joy and certainty which flow from knowing there is a close relationship between God and his creatures. It is the knowledge that we have come from the hands of God, that the Blessed Trinity looks upon us with predilection, that we are children of so wonderful a Father. I ask my Lord to help us decide to take this truth to heart, to dwell upon it day by day; only then will we be acting as free men. Do not forget: anyone who does not realize that he is a child of God is unaware of the deepest truth about himself. When he acts he lacks the dominion and self-mastery we find in those who love our Lord above all else” (St Josemaría Escrivá, Friends of God, 26).

8:33–34. For centuries the people of Israel were ruled by other nations (Egypt, Babylon, Persia …), and now they were under the dominion of Rome. The Jews think Jesus is referring to political bondage or dominion—which in fact they had experienced but never accepted. In addition, since they belong to the people chosen by God, they regard themselves as free of the moral errors and aberrations of Gentile nations.

They thought that true freedom was a matter of belonging to the chosen people. Our Lord replies that it is not enough to belong to the line of Abraham: true freedom consists in not being slaves of sin. Both Jews and Gentiles were subject to the slavery of original sin and personal sin (cf. Rom 5:12; 6:20 and 8:2). Only Christ, the Son of God, can liberate man from that sorry state (cf. Gal 4:21–31); but these Jews do not understand the redemptive work which Christ is doing and which will reach its climax in his death and resurrection.

“The Saviour”, St Augustine comments, “is here explaining that we will not be freed from overlords, but from the devil; not from captivity of the body but from malice of soul” (Sermons, 48).

8:35–36. The words “slave” and “son” are reminiscent of the two sons of Abraham: Ishmael, born of the slave woman Hagar, who would be given no part in the inheritance; and Isaac, son of the free woman Sarah, who would be the heir to God’s promises (cf. Gen 21:10–12; Gal 4:28–31). Physical descent from Abraham is not enough for inheriting God’s promises and attaining salvation: by faith and charity one must identify oneself with Jesus Christ, the true and only Son of the Father, the only one who can make us sons of God and thereby bring us true freedom (cf. Rom 8:21; Gal 4:31). Christ gives “power to become children of God [to those] who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God” (Jn 1:12–13). Thus, a person who identifies himself with Christ becomes a son of God and obtains the freedom proper to sons.

“Freedom finds its true meaning when it is put to the service of the truth which redeems, when it is spent in seeking God’s infinite Love which liberates us from all forms of slavery. Each passing day increases my yearning to proclaim to the four winds this inexhaustible treasure that belongs to Christianity: ‘the glorious freedom of the children of God!’ (Rom 8:21). […] Where does our freedom come from? It comes from Christ our Lord. This is the freedom with which he has ransomed us (cf. Gal 4:31). That is why he teaches, ‘if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed’ (Jn 8:36)” (St J. Escrivá, Friends of God, 27 and 35).

The true children of Abraham (8:39–51)

8:37–41. Our Lord replies to the Jews’ objection: yes indeed, they are Abraham’s children, but only in a natural sense, according to the flesh; that does not count any more; what matters now is acceptance of Jesus as the One sent by the Father. Jesus’ questioners are spiritually very far away from being true children of Abraham: Abraham rejoiced to see the Messiah (cf. Jn 8:56); through his faith he was reckoned righteous (cf. Rom 4:1ff), and his faith led him to act consequentially (cf. Jas 2:21–24); this was how he attained the joy of eternal blessedness (cf. Mt 8:11; Lk 16:24). Although those Jews “derived from him the generation of the flesh, they had become degenerate, by not imitating the faith of him whose sons they were” (St Augustine, In Ioann. Evang., 42, 1). Those who live by faith are the true sons of Abraham and like him they will be blessed by God (cf. Gal 3:7–9). In fact, the people who are arguing with our Lord have not only rejected his teaching: their own deeds indicate that they have a radically different affiliation: “You do what your father did” is a veiled accusation that they are children of the devil (cf. v. 44).

The false security Jews felt in being descended from Abraham has its parallel in a Christian who is content with being baptized and with a few religious observances, but does not live up to the requirements of faith in Christ.

8:42–44. In claiming to be children of God, the Jews appeal to statements in the Old Testament (cf. Ex 4:22; Deut 32:6; Is 63:16; Jer 3:4; 31:9; Mal 1:6). However, the attitude they adopt towards Jesus is in contradiction with this condition of being children of God—for that should lead them to accept Jesus, since he is the One sent by the Father. Because they reject the Only-begotten Son they are acting like partisans or sons of God’s enemy, the devil. The devil, because he opposes our Lord, who is the Truth, is the father of lies: by lying he seduced our first parents and he deceives all those who yield to his temptations.

Source: The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries. Biblical text from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.

"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." St Jerome

Navarre Bible Commentary:Tuesday, 5th Week in Lent

The Passion of the Christ by shirley85

John 8:21-30

Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSVCE)

Jesus Foretells His Death

21 Again he said to them, “I go away, and you will seek me and die in your sin;[a] where I am going, you cannot come.” 22 Then said the Jews, “Will he kill himself, since he says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?” 23 He said to them, “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world. 24 I told you that you would die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he.” 25 They said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “Even what I have told you from the beginning.[b] 26 I have much to say about you and much to judge; but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.” 27 They did not understand that he spoke to them of the Father. 28 So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority but speak thus as the Father taught me. 29 And he who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him.” 30 As he spoke thus, many believed in him.

Footnotes:

1. 8.21 die in your sin: Theirs is that sin against the truth which is the sin against the Spirit; cf. Mt 12.31.
2. John 8:25 Or Why do I talk to you at all?

Cited in the Catechism:  In promulgating the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Blessed John Paul II explained that the Catechism "is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium."  He went on to "declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion" (Fidei Depositum). Passages from this Gospel reading are cited in the Catechism, paragraphs 211, 603, 653, 1693, 2812, 2824 and 2825.

Commentary

Jesus says he has been sent by the Father (8:21–30)

8:21–24. At the outset of his public ministry, Jesus could be seen to have all the features of the promised Messiah; some people recognized him as such and became his followers (cf. Jn 1:12–13; 4:42; 6:69; 7:41); but the Jewish authorities, although they were expecting the Messiah (cf. Jn 1:19ff), persisted in their rejection of Jesus. Hence the warning to them: he is going where they cannot follow, that is, he is going to heaven, which is where he has come from (cf. Jn 6:41ff), and they will keep on looking out for the Messiah foretold by the prophets; but they will not find him because they look for him outside of Jesus, nor can they follow him, for they do not believe in him. You are of the world, our Lord is saying to them, not because you are on earth but because you are living under the influence of the prince of this world (cf. Jn 12:31; 14:30; 16:11); you are his vassals and you do his deeds (cf. 8:44); therefore, you will die in your sin. “We were all born with sin”, St Augustine comments, “all by our living have added to what we were by nature, and have become more of this world than we then were, when we were born of our parents. Where would we be if he had not come, who had no sin at all, to loose all sin? The Jews, because they did not believe in him, deserved to have it said to them, You will die in your sin” (In Ioann. Evang., 38, 6).

The salvation which Christ brings will be applied to those who believe in his divinity. Jesus declares his divinity when he says “I am he”, for this expression, which he repeats on other occasions (cf. Jn 8:28; 13:19), is reserved to Yahweh in the Old Testament (cf. Deut 32:39; Is 43:10–11), where God, in revealing his name and therefore his essence, says to Moses “I am who I am” (Ex 3:14). In this profound way God says that he is the Supreme Being in a full, absolute sense, that he is dependent on no other being, that all other things depend on him for their being and existence. Thus, when Jesus says of himself “I am he”, he is revealing that he is God.

8:25. A little before this Jesus had spoken about his heavenly origin and his divine nature (cf. vv. 23–24); but the Jews do not want to accept this revelation; which is why they ask him for an even more explicit statement: “Who are you?” Our Lord’s reply can be understood in different ways, because the Greek text has two meanings: 1) our Lord is confirming what he has just asserted (cf. vv. 23–24) and what he has been teaching throughout this visit to Jerusalem—in which case it may be translated “precisely what I am telling you” or else “in the first place what I am telling you”. This is the interpretation given in the New Vulgate. 2) Jesus is indicating that he is the “Beginning”, which is the word St John also uses in the Apocalypse to designate the Word, the cause of all creation (Rev 3:14; cf. Rev 1:8). In this way Jesus states his divine origin. This is the interpretation given in the Vulgate. Either way, Christ is once more revealing his divinity; he is reaffirming what he said earlier, but without saying it all over again.

“Many people in our own days ask the same question: ‘Who are you?’ […] Who, then, was Jesus? Our faith exults and cries out: it is he, it is he, the Son of God made man. He is the Messiah we were expecting: he is the Saviour of the world, the Master of our lives; he is the Shepherd that guides men to their pastures in time, to their destinies beyond time. He is the joy of the world; he is the image of the invisible God; he is the way, the truth and the life; he is the interior friend; he is the One who knows us even from afar; he knows our thoughts; he is the One who can forgive us, console, cure, even raise from the dead; and he is the One who will return, the judge of one and all, in the fullness of his glory and our eternal happiness” (Paul VI, General Audience, 11 December 1974).

8:26–27. “He who sent me”: an expression very often found in St John’s Gospel, referring to God the Father (cf. 5:37; 6:44; 7:28; 8:16).

The Jews who were listening to Jesus did not understand whom he was referring to; but St John, in recounting this episode, explains that he meant his Father, from whom he came.

“He spoke to them of the Father”: this is the reading in most of the Greek codexes, including the more important ones. Other Greek codexes and some translations, including the Vulgate, read “he was calling God his Father”.

“What I have heard from him”: Jesus had connatural knowledge of his Father, and it is from this knowledge that he speaks to men; he knows God not through revelation or inspiration as the prophets and sacred writers did, but in an infinitely higher way: which is why he can say that no one knows the Father but the Son and he to whom the Son chooses to reveal him (cf. Mt 11:27). On the type of knowledge Jesus had during his life on earth, see the note on Luke 2:52.

8:28. Our Lord is referring to his passion and death: (see Jn 12:32–33). Rounding out the Synoptics and the letters of St Paul, the Fourth Gospel presents the cross, above all, as a royal throne on which Christ is “lifted up” and from which he offers all men the fruits of salvation (cf. Jn 3:14–15; Num 21:9ff; Wis 16:6).

Jesus says that when that time comes, the Jews will know who he is and his intimate union with the Father, because many of them will discover, thanks to his death and resurrection, that he is the Messiah, the Son of God (cf. Mk 15:39; Lk 23:48). After the coming of the Holy Spirit many thousands will believe in him.

Source: The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries. Biblical text from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and by Scepter Publishers in the United States. We encourage readers to purchase The Navarre Bible for personal study. See Scepter Publishers for details.

"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." St Jerome