rectified blunder about the Messianic office, it was an alienation in
heart from a spiritual conception of God. And accordingly in depicting
the climax of unbelief John is careful in this chapter to bring out that
our Lord traced His rejection by the Jews to their inveterate repugnance
to spiritual life, and their consequent blinding of themselves to the
knowledge of God. "He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore
hear them not, because ye are not of God" (ver. 47). "Ye seek to kill
Me, because My word hath no place in you [finds no room in you]. I speak
that which I have seen with My Father; and ye do that which ye have seen
with your father" (vers. 37, 38).

2. Here, as elsewhere, therefore, our Lord traces the unbelief of the
Jews to the blindness induced by alienation from the Divine. They do not
understand Him, because they have not that thirst for truth and
righteousness which is the best interpreter of His words. "Why do ye not
understand My speech? even because ye cannot bear My word." It was this
word of His, the truth regarding sin and the way out of it, which sifted
men. Those who eagerly welcomed salvation from sin because they knew
that bondage to sin was the worst of bondages (ver. 34), accepted
Christ's word, and continued in it, and so became His disciples (ver.
31). Those who rejected Him were prompted to do so by their indifference
to the Kingdom of God as exhibited in the person of Christ. He was not
their ideal. And He was not their ideal, because however much they
boasted of being God's people God was not their ideal. "If God were your
Father, ye would love Me; for I proceeded forth and came from God" (ver.
42). Jesus is conscious of adequately representing God, so that to be
repelled by Him is to be repelled by God. It is really God in Him that
they dislike. This is not only His own judgment of the matter. It is not
a mere fancy of His own that He truly represents the Father, for
"neither came I of Myself, but He sent me." He was sent into the world
because He could represent the Father.

The rejection of Jesus by the Jews was therefore due to their moral
condition. Their condition is such that our Lord does not scruple
pungently to say, "Ye are of your father the devil." Their blindness to
the truth and virulent opposition to Him proved their kinship with him
who was from the beginning a liar and a murderer. They are so completely
under the influence of sin that they are unable to appr