The Pulpit Commentary on John 7:16

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

Jesus therefore £ answered them and said, etc. He met this particular allegation as follows: My teaching is not mine. The "my" refers to the teaching itself, the "mine" to the ultimate authority on which it rests.

I am not a self-taught Man, as though out of the depths of my own independent human consciousness I span it. I do not mean you to suppose that my mere human experience is the sole source of my instructions (John 5:31).

If you have sat at the feet of those who taught you, I, too, am a Representative of another; but (the ἀλλά after οὐκ is not equivalent to tam … quam. It introduces here the absolute source of all his teaching) it is the teaching of him who sent me.

I have not learned in your schools, but am uttering the thoughts that come from an infinitely deeper source. "He who sent me" gave them to me. I have been in intimate communion with HIM. All that I say is Divine thought.

I have drawn it all from the Lord of all. I came from him, and represent to you the will of God. This is a lofty prophetic claim, more urgent, more complete, than that made by Moses or Isaiah. Special messages, oracles, and burdens were delivered by the prophets with a "Thus saith the Lord."

But Jesus says his thoughts are God's thoughts, his ways God's ways, his teachings not his own, but altogether those of him who sent him.

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