The Lord, still preserving the consciousness of his own ego, continues to speak through human lips to human ears. He deprecates the criticism, "Who and what canst thou be, that thou shouldst execute judgment, or bring us to thy bar, or compel us to come from our hidden places to thy judgment seat?"
It is not as mere man that he will judge the world; God will judge through trim. Moreover, the equality of "life" and "honour" and "authority" that he has with the Father, as the veritable Son of God, is nevertheless a life derived, a being generated, an honour given.
He here opens up on this basis a new class of instruction, and proceeds to explain the threefold nature of the testimony borne to his present claim to be the Representative and coAgent of the Father.
He goes back in these words to the great text of the discourse, viz. "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work" (John 5:19). I (the ἐγώ is very emphatic, the individual standing before them associates himself, and is identified, with the one Being who, as Son of God and Son of man, has done, is doing, and will yet do, wonderful things)—I can of mine own self, from any separate or self-originating source in myself, apart from the Father, do nothing.
He subsequently said to his disciples, "Without me ye can do nothing." He claims a higher source than himself for all his own power ( δύναμις). When referring to the same subject (John 5:19, John 5:20), he drew his illustration from the sense of sight.
The Father "shews" to him, and he "sees" all things that the Father doeth. Here he adds, with special reference to the last and consummating manifestation of relation with the Father, As I hear, I judge: and my judgment of men is righteous; because I seek not my own will, but the will of him £ who sent me.
Christ refers to his judgments of absolution or condemnation upon things or men, positively declaring them to be either right or wrong; e.g. he claimed the power to say, "Thy sins be forgiven;" "The faith hath saved thee;" "It is better for this man that he had never been born;" "Come unto me;" "Depart from me;" "I never knew you."
These and all his other judgments on scribes and Pharisees, on devils and hypocrites, on Pilate and Herod, on Jerusalem and the world, are revelations of the Father's mind—are in themselves just judgments, absolutely free from any selfhood, from any reflex influence or reaction from men to himself.
They are the true and infallible expression of the Divine will. Because of the entire conformity of his will and himself to the Divine will, the judgment must correspond to that which is, in its very nature, right and true.
If this be so, we can scarcely refrain from asking, "Wherein, then, lies the consolation and encouragement derivable from the fact that the execution of judgment is placed for man's sake in the hands of the Son of man?"
It lies here, that the Incarnation is perfect; that the manhood has not obliterated the Divinity, nor the Godhead absorbed the manhood, of the Christ. The human consciousness of the Son becomes the basis for the Father's judgment, which is uttered thus absolutely and finally through human lips.
It is impossible to imagine thoughts like these arising in the mind of some thinker of the second century. Great as the prologue to this Gospel unquestionably is, this unveiling of the heart of the Son of God incarnate is immeasurably greater.
The consciousness of Christ is unique. Neither legend nor imagination, to say nothing of history, has ever transcended it. Here, too, the enormous difference between the Johannine Christ and the Philonic Logos comes into startling prominence.