Tuesday of the Fifth week in Lent
John 8:21-30
“Where I am going, you are not able to go.”
Therefore, Jesus again spoke to them: “I am going, and you shall seek me. And you will die in your sin. Where I am going, you are not able to go.” And so the Jews said, “Is he going to kill himself, for he said: ‘Where I am going, you are not able to go?’ ” And he said to them: “You are from below. I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world.
Therefore, I said to you, that you will die in your sins. For if you will not believe that I AM, you will die in your sin.” And so they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them:” What I told you from the beginning .” I have much to say about you and to judge. But he who sent me is true. And what I have heard from him, this I speak within the world.”
And they did not realize that he was calling God His Father.
And so Jesus said to them: “When you will have lifted up the Son of man, then you shall realize that I AM, and that I do nothing of myself, but just as the Father has taught me, so do I speak. And he who sent me is with me, and he has not abandoned me alone. For I always do what is pleasing to him.”
As he was speaking these things, many believed in him.
What do the Fathers say?
St AUGUSTINE. You shall seek Me, then, He says, not from compassionate regret, but from hatred: for after He had departed from the eyes of men, He was sought for both by those who hated, and those who loved Him: the one wanting to persecute, the other to have His presence.
And you shall die in your sin. To die in one’s sin is to hate Him, from Whom alone comes salvation. He pronounces sentence on them prophetically, that they shall die in their sins.
Our Lord expresses His meaning in the words, You are of this world, i. e. you are sinners. All of us are born in sin; all have added by our actions to the sin in which we were born. The misery of the Jews then was, not that they had sin, but that they would die in their sin.
Amongst the multitude, however, who heard our Lord, there were some who were about to believe; whereas this most severe sentence had gone forth against all: You shall die in your sin; to the destruction of all hope even in those who should hereafter believe.
So His next words recall the latter to hope: For if you believe not that I AM, you shall die in your sin: therefore if you believe that I AM, you shall not die in your sin.
ORIGEN. As long as we preserve the seeds of truth implanted in our minds, the Word of God does not depart from us. But if we fall into wickedness, then He says to us, I go away; and when we seek Him, we shall not find Him, but shall die in our sin.
And this is evidently the meaning of the words, Where I go you cannot come. For when a man dies in his sin, he cannot go where Jesus goes.
Where the treasure of each is, there is his heart also. If a man then lay up treasure upon earth, he is beneath: if any man lay up treasure in heaven, he is above; he ascends above all hearers, and attains a most blissful end.
The love of this world makes a man of this world: whereas he who loves not the world, nor the things that are in the world, is not of the world.
There is beyond this world of sense, another world, in which things are invisible, the beauty of which the pure in heart shall behold.
It is manifest, that he, who dies in his sins, although he may say that he believes in Christ, does not really believe. For he who believes in His justice does not do injustice; he who believes in His wisdom, does not act or speak foolishly; in like manner with respect to the other attributes of Christ, you will find that he who does not believe in Christ, dies in his sins: inasmuch as he comes to be the very contrary of what is seen in Christ.
St John CHRYSOSTOM. If Christ came in order to take away sin, and a man cannot put that off, except by washing, and cannot be washed unless he believes; it follows, that he who does not believe must pass out of this life, with the old man, i. e. sin, within him: not only because he does not believe, but because he departs hence, with his former sins upon him.
See here the madness of the Jews; asking after such a long time, and after all His miracles and teaching, Who are You?
What is Christ’s answer? What I told you from the beginning as if to say,Ye do not deserve to hear any thing from Me, much less Who I am. For you speak always, to tempt Me. But I could, if I would, confound and punish you: I have many things to say, and to judge of you.
He says this, so that they may not think that He allows them to talk against Him with impunity, from inability to punish them; or that He is not alive to their contemptuous designs.
St THEOPHYLACT. Or having said, I have much to say about you, and to judge, thus reserving His judgment for a future time, He adds, But He that sent Me is true: as if to say, Though you are unbelievers, My Father is true, Who has appointed a day of retribution for you.
St ALCUIN. They did not understand however what He meant by saying, He who sent Me is true: they did not understand that He spoke to them of the Father. For they had not yet the eyes of their mind opened, to understand the equality of the Father with the Son.
St John CHRYSOSTOM. The connection is this: When His miracles and teachings had failed to convert men, He spoke of the cross; When you have lifted up the Son of man, then you shall know that I Am:
as if to say, You think that you have killed Me; but I say that you shall then, by the evidence of miracles, of My resurrection, and your captivity, know most especially, that I am Christ the Son of God, and that I do not act in opposition to God; But that as My Father has taught Me, I speak these things.
Here He shows the likeness of His substance to the Father’s; and that He says nothing beyond the Paternal intelligence.