No one taketh £ it away from me, but I lay it down of myself. Should the aorist be the true reading, then the whole of the Incarnation must have been regarded by the Lord as already accomplished, as a completed fact.
The οὐδεὶς, "no one" neither God, nor man, nor evil spirit—taketh it, i.e. my life, away from me, from myself, in the exercise of my sovereign will, in the full consciousness of spontaneity. I am laying it down, not in consequence of my impotence before the powers of darkness, but "from myself."
This proceeding is in perfect harmony with the will of God the Father; but it is Christ's free act notwithstanding, and of all things the most worthy of the Father's love (cf. here John 5:30, which appears at first to be in contradiction with the statement of this verse; but the closing words of the verse rectify the impression; see also John 7:28; John 8:28).
Christ justifies his extraordinary claim to lay down and after his death (retaining then the full possession of his Personality), to reassume the life which for a while, in submission to the doom on human nature, he had resolved to sacrifice, tie says, I have ( ἐξουσίαν) right—or, power and authority combined—to lay it down, and right to take it again.
This commandment received I from my Father. I have power to do both these things. No other has ever put forth such a claim, and the discharge of it "from himself," i.e. spontaneously, is stated to be in consequence of an ἐντολή, an appoint-merit, an ordinance, he had received from the Father.
The Divine purpose was realized in his perfect freedom and his perfect and absolute fulfillment of the Father's will. The narrative of the agony in the garden, given by the synoptists, confirms the blending of his own freedom with the Divine order; but the language of this Gospel (John 18:6 (cf.
Matthew 26:53), and John 19:11), and the best researches into what is called "the physical cause of the death of Christ" (see Dr. Stroud's valuable work on that subject), all confirm the voluntary nature of our Lord's suffering and death.
"To cover this incomparable privilege with a veil of humility, he thought good to call it a command. The Father's mandate was, Thou shalt die or not die, thou shalt rise again or not rise again, according to the free promptings of thy love" (Godet).
It was, however, the Father's appointment that Christ should freely exercise this stupendous consequence of his perfect obedience. So that all the assurances that God raised him from the dead are confirmed by the mode in which he speaks of his Divine right.