John 8:18 - Exposition

I am the ( one ) that bears witness concerning myself —I have said it, and abide by it, and I know what I say and how fully I am fulfilling these words— and the Father that sent me heareth witness concerning me . His words reflected his own Divine self-consciousness. They bore one witness to his unique position. They brought out the inner thoughts of Christ, and revealed the life that was light. The word, the speech, of Christ was a fire kindled which would never be extinguished—it was the formal utterance of the eternal reality but it did not stand alone. The Father that sent him, by a long chain of events and revelations, by miracles and mighty energies, by the conference of the spirit of conviction upon the minds that gave candid attention to his verbal testimony, by the providential concurrence of facts with prophetic anticipation, was bearing witness concerning him. The argument is sufficient, so soon as we admit the terms used by Jesus, so soon as we recognize the ideas of the Son of God and of the Father, both alike revealed in the Person of Christ. We can understand, and to some extent sympathize with, the perplexity of the Pharisees. Later experiences have made it easier for us to understand the testimony of the Father, the presence and witness of God over and above the testimony of men and coincident with it (cf. John 15:27 ; Hebrews 2:4 ). All great spiritual revivals have given ample proof of the twofold testimony (see 1 Thessalonians 2:13 ; Romans 8:17 , where Paul, the writer of the Epistle, shows himself familiar with this "Johannine" thought; cf. Hebrews 2:4 ).