John Chapter 8 verse 17 Holy Bible

John 8 : 17 Bible Verse Songs

• I Will Listen by Twila Paris

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 17. - Having laid down the principle on which he was justified in maintaining the truthfulness of the assumption which the Pharisees impugned, he proceeded to vindicate, for these Jewish legalists, its agreement with the very letter of the Law. He adopted here the identical ground which was taken by him when first of all he claimed this fellowship with the Father. Yea, and in your Law it has been written, that the witness of two men is true. Many have said that here Jesus puts himself on one side as in hostility to the Law; Baur and some others plead, from the very phrase "your Law," that Jesus could not have used such an expression, and that John could not have recorded it; and Reuss urges that this expression agrees with the "standpoint of the gospel,which aims at lowering and degrading the old dispensation." Nothing could be less in harmony with the facts (see Introduction, § VII. 2). Even Meyer says, "The words are anti-Judaic... though not antinomian." Surely our Lord was simply appealing to his bitter enemies to recognize the application of the principle found in their own Law, of which they were continually making a proud boast. He simply goes to common ground of argument, and is ready to show that even the letter of the Law sustains his claim for the sufficient reason that he is not alone, but the Father is manifestly with him. Just as he never said "our Father" when addressing his disciples, but either "my Father" or "your Father" (John 20:17), because God is not the Father of men in the full sense in which he was Father to the only begotten Son; so he could not say "our Law" or "Moses gave us the Law" without derogating from the unique relation he sustained to the Law (compare Paul's language, Romans 2:17, 21, 23). The quotation from Deuteronomy is not verbally exact; it even carries the statement of Scripture to a broader generalization, and is so worded that it applies to the case in point, by carrying the position to a legitimate consequence - "the witness of two men is true." By using the word "men," Christ suggests the contrast between two men on one side and the God-Man and the Father on the other. Lightfoot ('Horae Hebraicae') quotes 'Rosh-Shanah,' 1:2, 3, "that two persons well known must testify to the supreme court that they had seen the new moon! If these were unknown persons, they must bring proof that they were credible witnesses." Upon these common principles of jurisprudence the Lord was willing, in purely Jewish fashion, to rest his claim.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(17) It is also written in your law.--He now proceeds to show again that the technical requirement of the Law was satisfied by His witness. The term "your law" is material, as addressed to those who were professed expounders of it and accused Him of being a transgressor of it. (Comp. the parallel reference to the Law in John 10:34; John 15:25.) To assert that Jesus placed Himself in a position of antagonism to the Mosaic law, is to forget the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:17); and to assert that the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel differs in this respect from the character as portrayed by the earlier Evangelists, is to forget the teaching of the last verse of John 5, and, indeed, to miss the whole force of these very passages. He does not, indeed, say "our law," as it was for them what it could not be for Him; but He mentions it to show in each case that He fulfilled it.That the testimony of two men is true.--See Deuteronomy 17:6; Deuteronomy 19:15, and comp. Notes on Matthew 18:16 and Mark 14:55-56. The words are here quoted freely, and "two men" is substituted for "two or three witnesses," which we find in both the passages in Deuteronomy. This prepares the way for the full thought of the "witness," in the next verse. The requirement of the Law would be satisfied with the evidence of two men: He has the witness of two Persons, but each is divine. . . .