John 10:36

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?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(36) Whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world.—Better, Whom the Father sanctified, and sent into the world. The tense refers to the time of His consecration to His Messianic work, and to the Incarnation, which was the commencement of it.

Because I said, I am the Son of God.—He had not said this in express words, but, as we have seen, it is directly implied in John 10:29-30, and the Jews had so understood what He said (John 10:33).

So far, then, the argument is simply a technical one, such as formed the staple of those customary in Rabbinic schools, and based on the letter of the Scriptures. The law (Psalm) applied the term “Elohim” (gods) to men representing God; no word of that Scripture could fail to hold good; how much more, therefore (a minori ad majus), could the term Son of God be applied to Him who was not a man consecrated to any earthly office, but consecrated by God, and sent into the world to represent God to man. (Comp. Note on John 1:18.) Their charge of blasphemy is, on their own principles, without the shadow of foundation. But in these words there is a deeper meaning than this technical one. When we speak of “men representing God,” we are already in thought foreshadowing the central truth of the Incarnation. Priests who offered sacrifices for sins, and kings who ruled God’s people, and prophets who told forth God’s will, were consecrated to their holy office because there was the divine in them which could truly be called “god.” Every holy life was in its degree a type of the Incarnate life of the Son of God. But He was the ideally true Priest sacrificing Himself for the world, the ideally true Prophet declaring God’s will in its fulness, the ideally true King ruling in righteousness. Every holy life was as a ray of the divine glory manifest in human flesh, but all these rays were centred in the nimbus of glory which rested as a crown on the head of Jesus Christ.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

10:31-38 Christ's works of power and mercy proclaim him to be over all, God blessed for evermore, that all may know and believe He is in the Father, and the Father in Him. Whom the Father sends, he sanctifies. The holy God will reward, and therefore will employ, none but such as he makes holy. The Father was in the Son, so that by Divine power he wrought his miracles; the Son was so in the Father, that he knew the whole of His mind. This we cannot by searching find out to perfection, but we may know and believe these declarations of Christ.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Whom the Father hath sanctified - The word "sanctify" with us means to make holy; but this is not its meaning here, for the Son of God was always holy. The original word means to set apart from a common to a sacred use; to devote to a sacred purpose, and to designate or consecrate to a holy office. This is the meaning here. God has consecrated or appointed his Son to be his Messenger or Messiah to mankind. See Exodus 28:41; Exodus 29:1, Exodus 29:44; Leviticus 8:30.

And sent into the world - As the Messiah, an office far more exalted than that of magistrates.

I am the Son of God - This the Jews evidently understood as the same as saying that he was equal with God. This expression he had often applied to himself. The meaning of this place may be thus expressed: "You charge me with blasphemy. The foundation of that charge is the use of the name God, or the Son of God, applied to myself; yet that same term is applied in the Scriptures to magistrates. The use of it there shows that it is right to apply it to those who sustain important offices (see the notes of John 10:34-35). And especially you, Jews, ought not to attempt to found a charge of blasphemy on the application of a word to the Messiah which in your own Scriptures is applied to all magistrates. And we may remark here:

1. That Jesus did not deny that he meant to apply the term to himself.

2. He did not deny that it was properly applied to him.

3. He did not deny that it implied that he was God. He affirmed only that they were inconsistent, and were not authorized to bring a charge of blasphemy for the application of the name to himself.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

35, 36. If he called them gods unto whom the word of God came … Say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest—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. 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 there is also a 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," which 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, as John the Baptist (Lu 3:2). The reason is that given by the Baptist himself (see on [1825]Joh 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.

because, I said, I am the Son of God—It is worthy of special notice that 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 got 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 indefeasible 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 (Joh 10:35), "and the Scripture cannot be broken," referring to the terms used of magistrates in the eighty-second Psalm, has an important bearing on the authority of the living oracles. "The Scripture, as the expressed will of the unchangeable God, is itself unchangeable and indissoluble" [Olshausen]. (Compare Mt 5:17).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Suppose I were no more than a mere man, yet being sanctified, that is, set apart of God for the special work of man’s redemption, and sent of God into the world with commission both to reveal and to do his will, yet dare you say that I blaspheme,

because I said, I am the Son of God? In the place {viz. Psalm 82:6} where God said of magistrates, Ye are gods, he also added, all of you are children of the Most High; you have therefore no reason to rage at me, though I did say I was the Son of God; being one whom the Father hath in his eternal counsels set apart for this great and special work, and actually by his providence sent into the world for the finishing and despatching of it. But we must take heed that we do not understand our Saviour here, as if he in another sense assumed to him the title of the Son of God; it was enough for him at present to assert, that the title well enough belonged to him, if he indeed had been no more than the Son of man, as they said.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Say ye of him whom the Father hath sanctified,.... Not by making his human nature pure and holy, and free from all sin, and by bestowing the holy Spirit on him without measure, though both true; but these were upon, or after his mission into the world; whereas sanctification here, designs something previous to that, and respects the eternal separation of him to his office, as Mediator, in the counsel, purposes, and decrees of God, and in the covenant of his grace, being pre-ordained thereunto, before the foundation of the world; which supposes his eternal existence as a divine person, and tacitly proves his true and proper deity:

and sent into the world; in human nature, to obtain eternal redemption and salvation his people: to save them from sin, Satan, the world, law, hell and death, which none but God could do:

thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God; for what he had said in John 10:30 is equivalent to it; and in it he was rightly understood by the Jews, and what he here and afterwards says confirms it: the argument is what the Jews call , "from the lesser to the greater", and stands thus; that if mere frail mortal men, and some of them wicked men, being made rulers and judges in the earth are called gods, by God himself, to whom the word of God came in time, and constituted them gods, or governors, but for a time; and this is a fact stands recorded in Scripture, which cannot be denied or disproved, then surely it cannot be blasphemy in Christ, to assert himself to be the Son of God, who existed as a divine person from all eternity; and was so early set apart to the office of prophet, priest, and king; and in the fulness of time was sent into this world, to be the author of eternal salvation to the sons of men.

Geneva Study Bible

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?

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

36. Say ye] ‘Ye’ with great emphasis, ‘Do ye, in opposition to the Scripture, say?’

of him, whom the Father hath sanctified] Omit ‘hath;’ both verbs are aorists. This also is emphatic, in opposition to ‘them unto whom the word of God came.’ Men on whom God’s word has conferred a fragment of delegated authority may be called ‘gods’ (Elohim) without scruple; He, Whom the Father Himself sanctified and sent, may not be called Song of Solomon of God (no article before ‘Son’) without blasphemy! By ‘sanctified’ is meant something analogous to the consecration of Jeremiah before his birth for the work of a Prophet. (Jeremiah 1:5). When the Son was sent into the world He was consecrated for the work of the Messiah, and endowed with the fulness of grace and truth (see on John 1:14), the fulness of power (John 3:35), the fulness of life (John 5:26). In virtue of this Divine sanctification He becomes ‘the Holy One of God’ (John 6:69; Luke 4:34). See on John 17:17; John 17:19, the only other passages in S. John’s writings where the word occurs.

Bengel's Gnomen

John 10:36. Ὃν ὁ Πατὴρ ἡγίασε, whom the Father hath sanctified) This sanctification is mentioned in such a way as to be prior in time to His being sent into the world (see by all means John 17:18, “As Thou hast sent Me into the world, so,” etc.: comp. John 10:19; John 10:17, “For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also,” etc. [sanctify = set apart as holy, and for a holy end]; “Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth;” 1 Peter 1:20, “Who verily was fore-ordained before the foundation of the world”): and it implies, in conjunction with it, the inference of Christ’s Godhead, at an infinite interval before those to whom only the word of God came. Although as dignity is that on account of which they are called gods; so sanctity is that on account of which Christ is called the Son of God. Christ therefore is holy, as He is the Son of God;[290] He is sanctified, as ὁρισθείς, defined [declared and marked out] to be the Son of God, Romans 1:4; and σφραγισθείς, sealed, John 6:27, “Him hath God the Father sealed.” That is evident in this passage from the appellation, ὁ Πατήρ, which He applies to God, with the greatest force. He shows that there was no need that the word of God should at some particular time come to Him:[291] comp. John 10:30, “I and the Father are one.” We must understand to the whom, the word I [Him, namely I, whom], with which the verb I said [below], in the first person, is in connection.—ἀπέστειλεν, hath sent) This sending presupposes the Godhead of the Son, and so confirms it. [The Haphtara, or appointed portion of Scripture, for the Feast of Dedication contains (John 10:22) these words, Jehovah Sabaoth, the Lord God of hosts hath sent me unto you: Zechariah 6:15.—Not. Crit].

[290] Luke 1:35, “Therefore that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” Gabriel to the Virg. Mary.—E. and T.

[291] As to those alluded to in Psalm 82:6. For the Word of God was always with Him, as being the Word.—E. and T.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 36. - If it be so, Say ye of him whom the Father sanctified (or, consecrated), and sent into the world. The order of these words requires us to conceive of this consecration as occurring previously to the incarnation of the eternal Son. Before his birth into the world he entered into relations with the Father to undertake a work of indescribable importance. He was destined, or designated, or appointed, and then sent to do this sublime deed of redemption. Unlike those to whom the eternal Logos came, conferring thereby honorific titles, and calling them to occasional and alas! His discharged duties, he was the eternal Word himself, and he was moreover (as those old judges (lid) "to die like men," to lay down that life in order that he might take it again; consequently, he asks, with sublime self-consciousness, "Say ye of him, thus consecrated, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am Son of God?" It is remarkable that Christ should, instead of repeating the phrase, "I and the Father are one" - one as we have seen, in power and purpose and attribute - imply that in that former saying he had but told them he was "Son of God," in a sense to which the old Hebrew kings, notwithstanding their theocratic symbolism and mysterious names of honor, could not aspire. This is clearly a bold utterance of the Messianic dignity (cf. John 1:49; John 5:19, 20). The fact that he continually treated the two ideas of Father and Son as correlative (John 8:19; cf. John 9:35-37; John 14:7-13, etc.) makes the one assertion an equivalent of the other. This is a much greater claim than that yielded to the judges of old, and it is a new revelation of the Father and of the Son. Moreover, he showed them that there were many anticipations, foreshadowings of the incarnation of God in their own Scripture. We have an argument from the less to the greater, but one which, while it technically freed him from the charges of blasphemy, revealed the age-long preparation that had been made for the union between the Infinite and finite, between the Creator and creature, between the Father and his child, which was effected in himself. Some may have supposed that in the leveling up of the theocratic adumbrations of the Incarnation, he was virtually relinquishing the uniqueness of his own; but the following words, and the interpretation put on them by his hearers, answer such a charge. John 10:36

Vincent's Word Studies

Sanctified (ἡγίασεν)

Better, as Rev., in margin, consecrated. The fundamental idea of the word is separation and consecration to the service of Deity. See note on Acts 26:10, on the kindred adjective ἅγιος, holy or consecrated.

The Son of God

There is no article. Its absence directs us to the character rather than to the person of Jesus. The judges, to whom the quotation in John 10:35 refers, were called gods, as being representatives of God. See Exodus 21:6; Exodus 22:8, where the word rendered judges is elohim, gods. In Exodus 22:28, gods appears in the A.V. Jesus' course of reasoning is, if these judges could be called gods, how do I blaspheme in calling myself Son of God, since the Father has consecrated me and sent me on a special mission to the world?