Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?
Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world. The whole force of this reasoning, which has been but in part seized by the commentators, lies in what is said of the two parties compared. There is both a comparison and a contrast. The comparison of Himself with mere men, divinely commissioned, is intended to show, as Neander well expresses it, that the idea of a communication of the Divine Majesty to human nature was by no means foreign to the revelations of the Old Testament; but the contrast between Himself and all merely human representatives of God-the One, "sanctified by the Father, and sent into the world," the other, "to whom the word of God" merely "came" - is expressly designed to prevent His being massed up with them as only one of many human officials of God. It is never said of Christ that "the word of the Lord came to Him;" whereas this is the well-known formula by which the divine commission even to the highest of mere men is expressed, such as John the Baptist (Luke 3:2): and the reason is that given by the Baptist himself (see the note at John 3:31). The contrast is between those "to whom the word of God came" - men of the earth, earthy, who were merely privileged to get a divine message to utter, if prophets, or a divine office to discharge, if judges-and "Him whom (not being of the earth at all), the Father sanctified (or set apart), and sent into the world" - an expression never used of any merely human messenger of God, and used only of Himself.
Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God? Our Lord had not said, in so many words, that He was the Son of God, on this occasion. But He had said what beyond doubt amounted to it-namely, that He gave His sheep eternal life, and none could pluck them out of His hand; that He had gotten them from His Father, in whose hands, though given to Him, they still remained, and out of whose hand none could pluck them; and that they were the indefensible property of Both, inasmuch as "He and His Father were One." Our Lord considers all this as just saying of Himself, "I am the Son of God" - One nature with Him, yet mysteriously of Him. The parenthesis, in John 10:35 - "And the Scripture cannot be broken" - `dissolved' or 'made void' х lutheenai (G3089)] - referring as it does here to the terms used of magistrates in Psalms 82:1-8, has an important bearing on the authority of the living oracles. The Scripture, says Olshausen, as the expressed will of the unchangeable God, is itself unchangeable and indissoluble. (Matthew 5:18.)