John 8:42

But this claim Jesus explodes by the same argument: Εἰ ὁ θεὸς … ἀπέστειλε. Were God your Father you would love me, for I am from God. ἐξῆλθον ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ expresses “the proceeding forth from that essential pre-human fellowship with God, which was His as the Son of God, and which took place through the incarnation,” Meyer. The meaning of the expression is fixed by that with which it is contrasted in John 13:3; John 16:28. ἥκω is added, as ἐλήλυθα εἰς τὸν κόσμον in John 16:28, almost in the sense in which it is used in the Dramatists, announcing the arrival of one of the “personae” on the stage, “I am come from such and such a place and here I am”. The coming itself was the result of God's action rather than of His own: οὐδὲ … ἀπέστειλε. This is His constant argument, that as He came forth from God and was sent by Him, they must have welcomed Him had they been God's children. Their misunderstanding had a moral root. διατί … ἐμόν. They did not recognise His speech as Divine, because they were unable to receive the message He brought. “In λαλεῖν (= loqui) the fact of uttering human language is the prominent notion; in λέγειν (= dicere) it is the words uttered, and that these are correlative to reasonable thoughts within the breast of the utterer” (Trench, Synonyms, 271). All His individual expressions and the very language He used were misunderstood, because there was in them a moral incapacity to receive the truth He delivered.