And the Father (himself £), who sent me. (he) hath borne witness concerning me. If the "himself" be the genuine reading (and it is defended by Godet, M'Clellan, and Meyer), there would seem to be a special or direct and additional form of the Father's testimony.
And several ancient and modern critics (Chrysostom, Bengel, Paulus, Godet) have seen in it a reference to the special "voice and shape" which were heard and teen by John and Jesus at the baptism, when heaven was opened, when a voice from heaven proclaimed him to be the well beloved and only begotten Son of God, and when the Spirit of God descended as a dove and abode upon him.
This testimony was only given to the world through the consciousness and word of John, who, after receiving it, bore record that this was the Son of God. Meyer and many others, rather following the suggestion of De Wette that the inward drawing of the Father to the Son was that to which the Lord referred, would thus complete the testimony of the "works."
This testimony, then, which is cited against the challenge, "Thou bearest witness concerning thyself," would be a purely subjective one. Westcott thinks it refers to the whole of the Old Testament ministry and prophetic and typical anticipation of the Christ, culminating in John the Baptist.
This particular series of testimonies is referred to in verses 39 and 47, etc. Moulton, who rejects the αὐτὸς sees no new, no direct, testimony in addition to that of the works, but the assertion that they are the voice of the Father—in a sense the very form of the Father, for the conviction of those who might if they would come to him.
If the αὐτὸς must be retained, I think that we must suppose our Lord referring to the whole of those objective manifestations of the Father's will and mind concerning Christ which were outside of his own act or work; and all that shining through his face, that whispering through his word of what was the eternal Father's face and voice, and plainly distinguished from the work of the Son; e.
g. the angels' song, the miraculous providence which protected his childhood, the opening of heaven at his baptism, the Divinity which attended him and which made his ministry so strange and strong an influence.
Nor could he who had the whole of his life before him fail to be conscious of further testimonies from heaven and from Providence which, though unrecorded, would continue to set their seal upon his character and work.
We must never forget that our Lord himself was a revelation of the Son. But the revelation of the Son in his ἔργα was accompanied throughout with another manifestation—that of the Father. The glory of the Lord shone round about him.
Nevertheless, a difficulty is conceded as arising out of the unsusceptibility and limited opportunities of his hearers. Never have ye heard a voice of him, or seen a form of him. These voices and these sounds need opened ears and unsealed eyes.
You (says Christ) have not heard that which you might have heard. You have not seen that which you might have seen. On a subsequent occasion he said to one of his disciples, "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip?
He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. How sayest thou, then, Show us the Father?" So that there was, indeed, the condition of adequate revelation of the Father provided for the disciples in the life of Christ, in the ministry of the Son of the Father.
Moreover, it far exceeded the vision of God which was granted to patriarchs and prophets under the Old Testament dispensation. Doubtless the voice of Jehovah had been heard (Exodus 20:19; Deuteronomy 4:12), the face of Jehovah had been seen (Genesis 32:30; Exodus 24:10; Numbers 12:8; Deuteronomy 5:4, Deuteronomy 5:24).
Isaiah saw the glory of the Angel of the Lord (6; cf. John 12:41), and Ezekiel likewise by the river of Chebar (Ezekiel 3:23). Nevertheless, the evangelist, on the credit of the great utterance before us, has laid down, as the very climax of the prologue, "No man hath seen God at any time ( πώποτε); the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him."
This language of the prologue shows that the true revelation of the Father's heart was not even granted to the noblest of the seers and patriarchs. Such manifestations as the visions of the Old Testament saints were not the veritable voice or form of the Father.
Should mankind ever obtain vision or audition of the Father, it must be through the presence among them of him who had been forever in the bosom of the Father. Though these captious critics were in a position to have received this revelation of the Highest, they had not done so.
"Ye hare neither heard a voice of him, nor seen a form of him. You might have seen and heard and handled if you had chosen, but You will not come to me, you will not believe me, you will not yield to my claims as One sent to you from the Father!"