Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me.
Jesus answered, I have not a devil. What calm dignity is here! Verily, "when reviled, He reviled not again" (1 Peter 2:23). Compare Paul before Festus, "I am not mad, most noble Festus" (Acts 26:25). Our Lord adds not, 'Nor am I a Samaritan,' that He might not even seem to partake of their contempt for a race that had already welcomed Him as the Christ, and begun to be blessed by Him.
But I honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me. This is the language of wounded feeling. But the interior of His soul at such moments is only to be seen in such prophetic utterances as these, "For thy sake I have borne reproach: shame hath covered my face: I am become a stranger unto my brethren, an alien unto my mother's children. For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up, and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me" (Psalms 69:7-9).