John Chapter 8 verse 55 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 55. - And (i.e. while you thus speak, and though you call him your God; cf. a similar use of καί, very nearly expressed, but not exactly, by the "yet" of the Authorized Version) ye have not come to know him by all the experiences through which you have passed (cf. John 7:29; John 17:25; and ver. 19). You do not know the only true God, you have not the knowledge which is life eternal. But I know him, absolutely, intuitively, by the open eye of clearest consciousness, with invincible and perfect assent. The use and contrast of the two verbs ἐγνώκατε and οϊδα, here and elsewhere, is very striking (see John 3:10; John 21:17). When our Lord, however, was broadly contrasting the Jewish knowledge of God with that of the Samaritans, and identifying himself with the Jews (John 4:22), he uses οϊδαμεν. If I should say that I know him not - which I do not and dare not say. Christ could not admit that his absolute knowledge was a delusion. The reality of the Father in his Divine-human consciousness, expressing itself through his human thought and word, was supreme, overmastering, sublime - I shall be, like you, a liar; I should deceive you wilfully, as you are deceiving yourselves. We cannot fail here again to observe the severity of Jesus as portrayed in this Gospel. (There is nothing surely here, or in other numerous utterances in this discourse, inconsistent with the Son of Thunder.) No cowardly modesty (Lange) is possible to him. He knows, and must speak. He cannot, dare not, be silent, or allow these bitter enemies, with their ready malice and perverse and continuous misinterpretation of his words, to be ignorant, either of the ground of his self-consciousness or his penetration of their flimsy excuses. So once more he adds, But I know him, and keep (τηρῶ) his word. He will not allow this Divine consciousness to be taken from him, even by the shame and agony of the cross (Lange).

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(55) Yet ye have not known him; but I know him.--The frequency of lip-assertion was not accompanied by any true heart-knowledge. The Father who glorified Him was the God whom they professed to serve. Their question, "Whom makest Thou Thyself? "has its explanation in the fact that this service was independent of any real knowledge of God. The two verbs "know" and "known" here do not represent the same Greek word. More exactly the rendering should be, And ye have not come to know Him: but I know Him. The one clause expresses acquired recognition; the other expresses immediate essential knowledge. (Comp. Note on John 14:7.)If I should say, I know him not.--The thought of their want of perception of God has led to the assertion by contrast of His own full intuitive knowledge of God. To assert this knowledge is to make Himself greater than Abraham and the prophets; but there is untruth in silence as well as in utterance, and His very truthfulness demands the assertion.But I know him, and keep his saying.--Or better, His word, as in John 8:51-52. Again the positive statement is made in the certainty of His full knowledge, and this is followed by a statement of the observance of the same condition of communion with the Father which He had made necessary for communion of the disciples with Himself.