THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JOHN - Chapter 5 - Verse 30

Verse 30. Of mine own self. See Joh 5:19. The Messiah, the Mediator, does nothing without the concurrence and the authority of God. Whatever he does, he does according to the will of God.

As I hear I judge. To hear expresses the condition of one who is commissioned or instructed. Thus (Joh 8:26), "I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him;" Joh 8:18, "As the father hath taught me, I speak those things." Jesus here represents himself as commissioned, taught, or sent of God. When he says, "as I hear," he refers to those things which the Father had showed him Joh 5:20—that is, he came to communicate the will of God; to show to man what God wished man to know.

I judge. I determine or decide. This was true respecting the institutions and doctrines of religion, and it will be true respecting the sentence which he will pass on mankind at the day of judgment. He will decide their destiny according to what the Father will and wishes—that is, according to justice.

Because I seek, &c. This does not imply that his own judgment would be wrong if he sought his own will, but that he had no private ends, no selfish views, no improper bias. He came not to aggrandize himself, or to promote his own views, but he came to do the will of God. Of course his decision would be impartial and unbiased, and there is every security that it will be according to truth. See Lu 22:42 where he gave a memorable instance, in the agony of the garden, of his submission to his Father's will.

{c} "the will of the Father" Ps 40:7,8; Mt 26:39; Joh 4:34; 6:38