John 7:16 - Exposition

Jesus therefore £ answered them and said , etc. He met this particular allegation as follows: My teaching is not mine. The "my" refers to the teaching itself, the "mine" to the ultimate authority on which it rests. I am not a self-taught Man, as though out of the depths of my own independent human consciousness I span it. I do not mean you to suppose that my mere human experience is the sole source of my instructions ( John 5:31 ). If you have sat at the feet of those who taught you, I, too, am a Representative of another; but (the ἀλλά after οὐκ is not equivalent to tam … quam. It introduces here the absolute source of all his teaching) it is the teaching of him who sent me. I have not learned in your schools, but am uttering the thoughts that come from an infinitely deeper source. "He who sent me" gave them to me. I have been in intimate communion with HIM . All that I say is Divine thought. I have drawn it all from the Lord of all. I came from him, and represent to you the will of God. This is a lofty prophetic claim, more urgent, more complete, than that made by Moses or Isaiah. Special messages, oracles, and burdens were delivered by the prophets with a "Thus saith the Lord." But Jesus says his thoughts are God's thoughts, his ways God's ways, his teachings not his own, but altogether those of him who sent him.