John 8:38-47 I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and you do that which you have seen with your father.… "Which of you proves Me mistaken in My language about sin?" What had He said of sin? It is the prophet's place to rouse the conscience of the sinner, to show him his guilt in its true light. And this Jesus had done. He had striven, alas! for the most part in vain, to clear away the film from the eyes and hearts of these self-righteous, self-deceived Jews, who would have all men to be sinners save themselves. He had charged them, using the pitiless logic of facts, with being neither true descendants of upright Abraham, nor genuine children of God, but in reality the devil's brood, and the natural heirs of his false and murderous disposition and designs. For sin is of the devil; and "the works of your father ye do" (ver. 41). Moreover, He had spoken to them of sin's necessary issues. Like an echo of the old prophet's sentence (Ezekiel 18:4, 20), had rung out His awful warning, "By (means of) your sin ye shall die"; and "Ye shall die by your sins; for if ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die by your sins" (vers. 21, 24). But not only had He warned them. He had also made known to them the one possible means of escape from the threatened fate (vers. 34-36). Sin brings death in its train. Freedom from sin, and so from death, is the gift of Jesus Christ to all who put their trust in Him. It is with such declaration as to sin, its nature and genesis, its consequences, its cure, still sounding in their ears, and their own self-accusing conscience ready, unless silenced, to bear Him witness, that Christ asks the Jews: Which of you proves Me wrong in My account and judgment of sin? If I say truth, why do ye not believe Me?" No answer to this appeal is possible. They know that He is right, but decline to own that they are wrong. (W. S. Wood, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father. |
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