John 5:30

Ver. 30. “ I can do nothing of myself; as I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek not mine own will, but the will of him who sent me. ”

Can John 5:30 be connected with what immediately precedes, by the idea of judgment which is common to this verse and John 5:29 ? But the present tense: I judge (John 5:30) does not suit the idea of the future judgment (John 5:29); and the first clause: I can do nothing of myself, impresses at once on the thought of John 5:30 a much more general bearing. We are evidently brought back to the idea of John 5:19, which served as the starting-point of the preceding development: the infallibility of the Son's work finding its guarantee in its complete dependence on that of the Father. As Reuss well says: “The last verse reproduces the substance of the first; and the discourse thus is rounded out even externally.” After having ascribed to Himself the most wonderful operations, Jesus seems to feel the need of sinking again, as related to the Father, into a sort of nothingness. He who successively accomplishes the greatest works, is powerless to accomplish by Himself the humblest act.

The pronoun ἐγώ (I), positively applies to that visible and definite personality which they have before their eyes the unheard of things which He has just affirmed, in a more abstract way, of the Son. This is the first difference between John 5:30 and John 5:19; the following is the second: In order to describe the total subordination of His work to that of the Father, Jesus made use of figures borrowed from the sense of sight: the Father shows, the Son sees. Here He borrows His figures from the sense of hearing: the Son hears, evidently from His Father's lips, the sentences which He is to pronounce, and it is only thus that He judges. Moreover, of the two divine works which He accomplishes, raising from the dead and judging, it was especially the first which Jesus had in view in John 5:19, in relation to the miracle wrought on the impotent man; He here makes the second prominent, in connection with the supreme act indicated in John 5:29. The sentences of which He speaks are the acts of absolution or of condemnation, which He accomplishes here on earth, by saying to one: “ Thy sins are forgiven thee,” to the other: “ Thy works are evil. ” Before declaring Himself thus, Jesus meditates in Himself; He listens to the Father's voice, and only opens His mouth after He has heard. It is upon this perfect docility that He rests the infallibility of His judgments, and not upon an omniscience incompatible with His humanity: “ And that is, and thus my judgment is just. ” But there is a condition necessary for listening and hearing in this way; it is to have no will of one's own; hence the ὅτι (because), which follows. No doubt, Jesus, Himself also, has a natural will distinct from that of God; His prayer in Gethsemane clearly proves it: “ Not my will, but thine be done. ”

But, in a being entirely consecrated to God, as Jesus was, this natural will (my will), exists only to be unceasingly submitted or sacrificed to the Father's will: “ I seek not mine own will, but the will of Him that hath sent me.” From the ontological point of view, the Monothelites, therefore, well deserved to be condemned; for in denying to Jesus a will distinct from that of God, they suppressed the human nature in Him. And yet morally speaking, they were right. For all self-will in Jesus was a will continually and freely sacrificed. It is on this unceasing submission that the absolute holiness of His life rests, and from this holiness it is that the infallibility of His knowledge and His words results. He declares this here Himself. The τοῦ πέμψαντός με of Him who sent me, is not a mere paraphrase of the name of God. It is argumentative: the one sent does the work of the sender.

What an existence is that of which this passage, John 5:19-30, traces for us the type! Such a relationship with God must have been lived, in order to be thus described: to act only after having seen, to speak only after having heard, what a picture of filial consciousness, of filial teaching, of filial activity! And all this attaching itself to a mere healing, accomplished on the initiative of the Father! Do we not see clearly that the essential idea of John 5:17 is that of the relation of dependence of the Son's work towards the Father's, and by no means that of the Sabbath, of which not the least mention is made in all this development? At the same time, this passage gives us, so to speak, access even to the inner laboratory of our Lord's thought and allows us to study the manner in which His word was produced. The miracle performed and the accusations which He excites awaken His reflection. He collects Himself, and the profound relation of His work to that of His Father formulates itself in His consciousness in the form of that simple, summary, oracle-like thesis of John 5:17. This is the theme which He develops afterwards. At the first moment (John 5:19-20), He remains in the highest generalities of the paternal and filial relation. Then there are precisely formulated in His thought the two essential works which result from this relation: making alive, judging (John 5:21-23); finally, those two works themselves are presented to His mind in a more and more concrete form, in their progressive historical realization; first in the moral domain (John 5:24-27), then in that of external realities (John 5:28-29). Where in this incomparable passage is what is called religious metaphysics? From the first word to the last, everything breathes that sentiment of filial abnegation which is the heart of Jesus' heart.