John 5:18

Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(18) For “had broken,” read did He break, and for “His Father,” His own Father. They recognise as beyond doubt what He means by the term “My Father,” and the attribute of ceaseless energy. It was a claim which none other had ever made, that God was in a peculiar sense His own Father. They feel it is a claim to divinity, a “making Himself equal with God.”

The more to kill him.—This implies what is included in the persecution of John 5:16. (Comp. Matthew 12:14; Mark 3:6; Luke 6:7-11.)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

5:17-23 The Divine power of the miracle proved Jesus to be the Son of God, and he declared that he worked with, and like unto his Father, as he saw good. These ancient enemies of Christ understood him, and became more violent, charging him not only with sabbath-breaking, but blasphemy, in calling God his own Father, and making himself equal with God. But all things now, and at the final judgment, are committed to the Son, purposely that all men might honour the Son, as they honour the Father; and every one who does not thus honour the Son, whatever he may think or pretend, does not honour the Father who sent him.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The more to kill him - The answer of Jesus was suited greatly to irritate them. He did not deny what he had done, but he "added" to that what he well knew would highly offend them. That he should claim the right of dispensing with the law, and affirm that, in regard to its observance, he was in the same condition with God, was eminently suited to enrage them, and he doubtless knew that it might endanger his life. We may learn from his answer:

1. that we are not to keep back truth because it may endanger us.

2. that we are not to keep back truth because it will irritate and enrage sinners. The fault is not in the "truth," but in the "sinner."

3. that when any one portion of truth enrages hypocrites, they will be enraged the more they hear.

Had broken the sabbath - They supposed he had broken it.

Making himself equal with God - This shows that, in the view of the Jews, the name Son of God, or that calling God his Father, implied equality with God. The Jews were the best interpreters of their own language, and as Jesus did not deny the correctness of their interpretations, it follows that he meant to be so understood. See John 10:29-38. The interpretation of the Jews was a very natural and just one. He not only said that God was his Father, but he said that he had the same right to work on the Sabbath that God had; that by the same authority, and in the same manner, he could dispense with the obligation of the day. They had now two pretences for seeking to kill him - one for making himself equal with God, which they considered blasphemy, and the other for violating the Sabbath. For each of these the law denounced death, Numbers 15:35; Leviticus 24:11-14.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

18. God was his Father—literally, "His own [or peculiar] Father," (as in Ro 8:32). The addition is their own, but a very proper one.

making himself equal with God—rightly gathering this to be His meaning, not from the mere words "My Father," but from His claim of right to act as His Father did in the like high sphere, and by the same law of ceaseless activity in that sphere. And as, instead of instantly disclaiming any such meaning—as He must have done if it was false—He positively sets His seal to it in the following verses, merely explaining how consistent such claim was with the prerogatives of His Father, it is beyond all doubt that we have here an assumption of peculiar personal Sonship, or participation in the Father's essential nature.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

This yet enraged the Jews more: they had before against him a charge of breaking the sabbath, or, at least, teaching another to break it (in their opinion); but now he had (as they judged) spoken blasphemy, calling God

Father; not in the sense the Jews so called him, and all good Christians are licensed to call him; but patera idion, his proper Father, or his own Father; by which (as they truly said) he made himself

equal with God. Nor did he by that alone make himself equal with God, but he ascribed also to himself a cooperation with God, in works proper to God alone: nor did he think this any robbery, Philippians 2:6. This was their charge; we shall now hear how our Saviour defends himself against it.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him,.... They were the more desirous to take away his life, and were more bent and resolute upon it, and studied all ways and means how to bring it about;

because he had not only broken the sabbath; as they imagined; for he had not really broken it: and if they had known what that means, that God will have mercy, and not sacrifice, they would have been convinced that he had not broke it by this act of mercy to a poor distressed object:

but said also that God was his Father; his own Father, his proper Father, his Father by nature, and that he was his own Son by nature; and this they gathered from his calling him "my Father", and assuming a co-operation with him in his divine works:

making himself to be equal with God; to be of the same nature, and have the same perfections, and do the same works; for by saying that God was his Father, and so that he was the Son of God, a phrase, which, with them, signified a divine person, as they might learn from Psalm 2:7, and by ascribing the same operations to himself, as to his Father, they rightly understood him, that he asserted his equality with him; for had he intended no more, and had they imagined that he intended no more by calling God his Father, than that he was so by creation, as he is to all men, or by adoption, as he was to the Jews, they would not have been so angry with him; for the phrase, in this sense, they used themselves: but they understood him otherwise, as asserting his proper deity, and perfect equality with the Father; and therefore to the charge of sabbath breaking, add that of blasphemy, and on account of both, sought to put him to death; for according to their canons, both the sabbath breaker, and the blasphemer, were to be stoned (d).

(d) Misn. Sanhedrin, c. 7. sect. 4.

Geneva Study Bible

Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was {c} his Father, making himself equal with God.

(c) That is, his alone and no one else's, which they gather from his saying, And I work, applying this word work to himself which properly belongs to God, and therefore makes himself equal to God.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Meyer's NT Commentary

John 5:18. Διὰ τοῦτο] because He said this, and ὅτι as in John 5:16. “Apologiam ipsam in majus crimen vertunt,” Bengel.

μᾶλλον] neither potius nor amplius (Bengel: “modo persequebantur, nunc amplius quaerunt occidere”); but, as according to its position it necessarily belongs to ἐζήτ., magis, “they redoubled their endeavours.” It has a reference to ἐδίωκον in John 5:16, so far as this general expression includes the desire to kill. Comp. for the ζητεῖν ἀποκτεῖναι, John 7:1; John 7:19; John 7:25, John 8:37; John 8:40, John 11:53.

πατέρα ἴδιον, κ.τ.λ.] patrem proprium. Comp. Romans 8:32. They rightly interpreted ὁ πατήρ μου as signifying peculiar and personal fatherhood, and not what is true also with reference to others, “sed id misere pro blasphemia habuerunt,” Bengel. Comp. John 10:33.

ἴσον ἑαυτὸν, κ.τ.λ.] not an explanation, nor exactly (B. Crusius) a proof of what precedes, which the words themselves of Jesus, ὁ πατήρ μου, supply; but what Jesus says of God’s relation to Him (πατέρα ἴδιον), declares at the same time, as to the other side of the relationship, what He makes Himself out to be in His relation to God. We must translate: “since He (at the same time) puts Himself on the same level with God” i.e. by that κἀγὼ ἐργάζομαι of John 5:17, wherein He, as the Son, claims for Himself equality of right and freedom with the Father. Comp. also Hofmann, Schriftbeweis, I. p. 133. The thought of claiming equality of essence (Php 2:6), however, lies in the background as an indistinct notion in the minds of His opponents.

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

18. Therefore] Better, For this cause. See on John 5:16, John 6:65, John 7:21-22, John 8:47, John 9:23, John 10:17, John 12:39, John 13:11, John 15:19, John 16:15.

the more] Shewing that the persecution spoken of in John 5:16 included attempts to compass His death. Comp. Mark 3:6. This ‘seeking to kill’ is the blood-red thread which runs through the whole of this section of the Gospel: comp. John 7:1; John 7:19; John 7:25, John 8:37; John 8:40; John 8:59, John 10:31, John 11:53, John 12:10.

had broken] Literally, was loosing or relaxing; i.e. making less binding. As in John 5:15, the A. V. puts pluperfect for imperfect.

making himself equal] They fully understand the force of the parallel statements, ‘My Father is working; I am working also.’ ‘Behold,’ says Augustine, ‘the Jews understand what the Arians fail to understand.’ If Arian or Unitarian views were right, would not Christ at once have explained that what they imputed to Him as blasphemy was not in His mind at all? But instead of explaining that He by no means claims equality with the Father, He goes on to reaffirm this equality from other points of view: see especially John 5:23.

Bengel's Gnomen

John 5:18. Διὰ τοῦτο) on account of this, on account of which they ought to have been satisfied. They turn His very defence into a ground for greater accusation.—μᾶλλον, the more) There is a gradation: lately they were persecuting Him; now further they seek to kill Him.—ἔλυε, He was breaking) by act, John 5:8, “Take up thy bed;” and by word, John 5:17, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.”—ἴδιον· ἴσον, His own: equal) His own Father’s own Son: Romans 8:32, “He that spared not His own Son.” The Only-begotten alone can say, My Father: of the Only-begotten alone the Father saith, My Son. Not only has Jesus most frequently repeated the names of Father and Son, but even has mentioned the intimate equality and unity of the Father and Himself: and I [work]: John 5:17, We are in unity, etc.; ch. John 10:30; John 10:38, “I and My Father are one;—the Father is in Me, and I in Him.” All these declarations conjointly the Jews assailed.—ἔλεγε, was saying) In reality Jesus did say that which the Jews were now supposing He said;[105] but that they, sad to say, esteemed as blasphemy.

[105] As for instance two men, of whom the one is father of the other, are of an equal nature: so that One, whose own Father peculiarly the supreme GOD is, and who is own Son peculiarly of the supreme GOD, is equal to GOD.—V. g.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 18. - On this account (the διὰ τοῦτο is still further defined by the ὅτι) therefore the Jews were seeking the more (μᾶλλον, i.e. more than they had sought before he made use of this sublime expression) to slay him, because not only in their opinion, though very falsely, he was violating (i.e. dissolving the authority of) the sabbath. Jesus was actually placing the sabbatic law where it has remained ever since, giving it sanctions, beauty, and hold on conscience it had never known before. He was abrogating the petty restrictions and abolishing the unspiritual somnolence by which it had been characterized and misunderstood. But there was another and more staggering charge which they were not at that moment able to condone. They sought the more to slay him because he was calling God his own (ἴδον) Father, making himself equal to, on a level with, God. He did use the phrase, "my Father," with a marked emphasis. He did not say, "our Father, or your Father;" he assumed a unique relation to the Father. The inmost centre of the Divine consciousness in him thrilled through the human. Though he did not wear now the "form of God," but the "form of the Servant," yet the Servant knew that he was Son and Lord of all. The Divine Personality which had always wrought out the eternal counsels of the Father's will was working now on identical and parallel lines in the human sphere. There were senses in which the Lord Jesus was the own and only begotten Son of God. This was a hard saying. This placing of himself on a level with God was the blasphemy which the Jews resented. Jesus knew what he said, and saw the impression his words produced, and took no steps to correct it. Two classes of result naturally followed. Some said, "He blasphemeth," "He hath a devil," and the high priest subsequently, in reply to a similar utterance of the Lord, rent his clothes; but other some felt concerning him that the relation between him and the Father was, so far as they knew, absolutely unique. The author of this Gospel exclaimed, "He who 'was with God and was God' has been manifested in the flesh, and we saw his glory, the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father." John 5:18

Vincent's Word Studies

Had broken (ἔλυε)

Literally, was loosing: the imperfect tense. See on He did, John 5:16. Not, broke the Sabbath in any particular case, but was annulling the law and duty of Sabbath observance.

His Father (πατέρα ἴδιον)

Properly, His own Father. So Rev.