Jesus’ third public announcement at the Feast of Tabernacles took place on the last and greatest day of the Feast (v. 37). It is perhaps the most remembered and certainly the most widely discussed saying in Jesus’ temple discourse if not in the entire Gospel. Of the nineteen articles on John 7 listed in the bibliography of Raymond Brown’s major commentary, seventeen deal with verses 37–39! (The Gospel According to John, AB 29A [New York: Doubleday, 1966], p. 331). This is attributable both to the intrinsic appeal of Jesus’ words and to the unique combination of difficulties in knowing how they should be heard or read. Verses 37–39 might be plausibly understood in any of at least three ways:
1. Jesus … said … “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” By this he meant the Spirit … (NIV).
2. Jesus … said … “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me. And let him drink, who believes in me. As the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.” By this he meant the Spirit … (NIV margin).
3. Jesus … said … “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me. And let him drink, who believes in me.” [It was] as the Scripture said, streams of living water will flow from within him. But by this it meant the Spirit …
In the interpretation of this text two issues present themselves: the issue of punctuation and the issue of whether Jesus or the narrator is represented as introducing the scripture quotation of uncertain origin. The first rendering connects the phrase, whoever believes in me, with the scripture quotation so that the believer (any believer) is the one from whom the streams of living water are to come. In version 2 the punctuation is different: The phrase “If anyone is thirsty” stands parallel with “him … who believes in me,” and the scripture quotation follows as Jesus’ comment on the whole preceding sentence. In both versions, the Scripture is Jesus’ text and not the narrator’s. But as soon as the scripture quotation is set apart from the phrase “Whoever believes in me,” it is no longer obvious that the quotation is being attributed to Jesus. The third rendering attributes it instead to the narrator.
The effect of this shift is significant. According to version 3, Jesus extends an invitation to the spiritually thirsty to come and drink, but without an explicit promise attached. The Gospel writer takes the opportunity to state that this appeal by Jesus fulfills a particular text of scripture. The one from whose heart the living water flows is now Jesus himself, not the believer. This rendering of the passage has certain considerations in its favor. It is more natural to think of Jesus than of individual Christian believers as the source or wellspring of the life-giving Spirit of God. Verse 39 mentions the Spirit whom believers in Jesus were later to receive (not dispense to others). It is Jesus who dispenses the Holy Spirit as the very breath of his mouth (20:22). At his crucifixion, in a scene rich with symbolism, water as well as blood flows from his pierced side (19:34).
The real choice in the interpretation of verses 37–39 is not between versions 1 and 2 (i.e., the NIV text and the NIV margin), but between either of them and version 3. The real issue is whether Jesus or the gospel writer is quoting Scripture. In favor of 1 and 2, it can be said that Jesus is freely represented as quoting scripture in this Gospel, and there are hints, as we have seen, that the exposition of scripture may have played a larger part in the temple discourse than first appears (cf. vv. 15, 22–23). Verse 39 is a comment of the narrator in any case, and such a comment makes good sense on the assumption that Jesus himself is still the speaker in verse 38.
If, on the other hand (as in version 3), the narrator is already responsible for most of verse 38, then in verse 39 he is commenting on his own appended words (i.e., the scripture quotation), not the words of Jesus. The subject of verse 39 is not Jesus (“he meant”) but the Scripture (“it meant”). The same Greek verb, eipen, is translated “said” (in reference to the Scripture) in verse 38b and “meant” in verse 39.
It is difficult to decide among the three alternatives, and the modern reader is perhaps inclined to ask how necessary it is to decide. The weight of tradition favors version 1, and to a lesser extent version 2, yet an appreciation of version 3 sheds its own light on the text’s meaning. Here, as elsewhere (e.g., 3:11–21), Jesus’ words have merged so closely with those of the narrator that all three renderings of the passage convey broadly similar meanings. In all three, Jesus invites the thirsty hearer to come and drink from the water he has to give. All three attach to the invitation a promise of living water. All three interpret the water as the Spirit, and in all three the qualification of v. 39 that this gift of the Spirit was some thing believers were later to receive is decisive. It is clear in any case that the invitation and the promise were future from the standpoint of the events just recorded at the Feast of Tabernacles. The Spirit, after all, had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified (v. 39). Verses 37–39 belong with those references within and just before the temple discourse that keep emphasizing that the time for Jesus’ decisive and final self-revelation is not yet (i.e., 7:6, 30; 8:20, 28). Jesus’ announcement on the last and greatest day of the Feast is an invitation to faith and a promise of life, embedded within a discourse focused primarily on unbelief and judgment. It is a joyful announcement whose time has not yet come. Yet for the narrator and his readers the time has come: Jesus has been raised to glory and the Spirit has been given. The invitation and the promise are now in effect.
These features that the three renderings have in common far outweigh the points on which they differ. The principal difference is simply that version 3 makes Jesus the source of the life-giving Spirit, whereas versions 1 and 2—version 1 clearly and version 2 more ambiguously—assign this role (at least derivatively) to the believer. Yet in neither case is the believer viewed as a source of life, or of the Spirit, to others. The image of streams of water from the believer’s heart (if that is intended) is akin rather to 4:14, where Jesus promises to whomever drinks of the water he gives “a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” That the believer in Jesus will become a channel of God’s life to others is implicit in the total message of John’s Gospel, but is not the point of either 4:14 or 7:37–38 in particular. The accent is on the rich abundance of the Spirit’s life and power in the heart of the believer, like a self-replenishing and overflowing stream. The source of the stream is Jesus, no less in versions 1 and 2 than in 3, for he alone can say come to me and drink.
Most of the “I am” statements in John’s Gospel are accompanied by a corollary of some kind—an invitation or a promise or both (e.g., 6:35: “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty”; cf. 8:12; 10:9; 11:25–26; 14:6; 15:5, etc.). Verses 37–38 have the appearance of one of these statements in which the “I am” saying proper has been omitted, and only its corollary remains—as if Jesus had said, “I am the fountain of life”; if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink (cf. Rev. 21:6).
Whether this is the case or not, the passage invites comparison with 8:12, in which Jesus’ self-disclosure and confrontation with the religious authorities continues: I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. Each of these pronouncements takes on special meaning against the background of a daily ritual at the Feast of Tabernacles—the pouring of water from the pool of Siloam into a bowl beside the altar in the temple and the lighting of giant lamps in the Court of the Women, respectively (cf. the Mishnah, Sukkah 4.9–5.4). On the last day, when these rituals had ceased, Jesus proclaims himself the true source of water and of light—for Jerusalem and for all the world. In 8:12 he again extends an invitation and a promise, but again the note of hope is submerged in a context of rejection and judgment (8:12–20).
The parallelism between 7:37–38 and 8:12 suggests that the scene of the action has not changed. The smaller units comprising 7:37–8:20, loose-knit though they may be, are legitimately treated as one unfolding drama in the temple on the last and greatest day of the Feast. Jesus’ self-revelation in 7:37–39 provokes a division in the crowd (vv. 40–43) or, rather, brings to a head the division that has existed all along (cf. v. 12). The events of verses 30–31 seem to be happening again, but with more intensity. This time some actually confess Jesus as the Prophet or the Christ (vv. 40–41), but others raise theological objections: Jesus the Galilean cannot be the Messiah because the Messiah must come from Bethlehem in Judea (cf. Micah 5:2). An attempt is made to arrest Jesus, but no one laid a hand on him (v. 44; cf. v. 30). The narrator might have added, “because his time had not yet come,” but there was no need to labor the point.
Instead of describing in detail the second unsuccessful effort to arrest Jesus, the narrator simply chooses this as the place to give the outcome of the first attempt. Verses 45–52 are the sequel to verses 32–36. The temple guards who are abruptly mentioned as returning to the chief priests and Pharisees in verse 45 are the same guards sent out in verse 32. Their testimony to the power of Jesus’ speech and presence (v. 46) refers to his baffling pronouncement in verses 33–34. The guards can only carry their bafflement back to the religious authorities who sent them.
From verse 47 at least through 8:20, the Pharisees move center stage. Jesus will confront them directly, but first their attitudes and their character will be demonstrated. It is probably to be assumed that they speak for the chief priests as well as themselves. They are intensely conscious of their own status, in contrast to that of the crowd, which knows nothing of the law—there is a curse on them (v. 49). The Pharisees’ implication is that Jesus and his followers fit this description as well. It was probably common knowledge that Jesus’ disciples came mostly from the social class known as the ‘Am Ha-’aretz, or “people of the land.” Because they had neither studied the law systematically nor been brought up to obey it in anything but a very general way, they were regarded by some of the pious as cursed of God (for illustrations of this in rabbinic literature, see the Mishnah, Aboth 2.6; 3.11). The authorities’ first impression of Jesus when he appeared at the festival was that he was unschooled in the law (cf. v. 15), and despite all that had transpired since then the Pharisees persisted in keeping this impression alive. Their scornful question in verse 48 implies that none of their number has believed in Jesus, and that no one who truly knows the law would ever do so.
Out of nowhere, and as if in reply to this claim, Nicodemus (who has not been heard from since chap. 3) speaks up. Introduced as a “member of the Jewish ruling council” and a Pharisee (3:1), Nicodemus had functioned as an individual example of those in Jerusalem who had “believed” in Jesus but whose faith Jesus did not accept as genuine (2:23–25). Formally, at least, he is a living refutation of the sweeping judgment the Pharisees have just made on Jesus and his followers (cf. also 12:42). Yet the genuineness of his faith remains in doubt. His remark (v. 51) is no ringing confession, but merely a plea for fairness. He appears in the narrative more to demonstrate the Pharisees’ intransigence than to mark a stage in his own spiritual development. When their opinions are gently questioned even by one of their own, they are quick to brand the questioner, half in mockery, as a Galilean (v. 52). The intent is not to probe seriously Nicodemus’ family background but to rebuke his apparent sympathies with Jesus the Galilean. The Pharisees’ parting shot is a corollary of verses 41–42: If the only prophet expected is the Messiah descended from David and born in Bethlehem, then there are no authentic Galilean prophets. Only those ignorant of the Scriptures will follow a Galilean.
Nicodemus disappears as abruptly as he appeared, and the stage is now set for Jesus to confront the Pharisees again (8:12), this time not through emissaries but directly. Yet his pronouncement I am the light of the world …, the sequel to 7:37–38, is not for them exclusively but for whoever follows me. It is universal in scope and probably, like 7:37–38, future in its orientation. The desire of Jesus’ brothers that he “show himself to the world” (7:4) is coming to realization but with the outcome Jesus foresaw, that the world “hates me because I testify that what it does is evil” (7:7). Only when the Spirit comes will the outcome be different.
The world’s representatives immediately challenge Jesus’ authority. The ensuing debate is a virtual re-enactment of 5:30–38. Jesus’ claim to be the light of the world is invalid because he is testifying on his own behalf (8:13). The Pharisees have in mind the principle of the oral law that witnesses were not to be believed when testifying on their own behalf (the Mishnah, Ketuboth 2.9). Jesus had acknowledged this very principle in 5:31, but here he takes exception to it (v. 14). What is different is not the conclusion toward which he is moving but the logic by which he will reach it. His testimony on his own behalf is valid, he says, for I know where I came from and where I am going. The reason the Pharisees question his authority is that they do not know these things (v. 14b).
It is not clear how such knowledge validates Jesus’ testimony until, in subsequent verses, Jesus makes the same point again in different words: where I came from and where I am going, it appears, is an indirect way of referring to the Father. Jesus’ testimony is valid because he knows the Father. The Father, in fact, is speaking in and through the testimony of Jesus. Verses 14, 16, and 18 are three progressively clearer ways of saying that there are actually two witnesses, Jesus and the Father, speaking through Jesus’ lips. That is why his testimony is self-authenticating. The reader understands this because the same point emerged from the earlier discourse in 5:30–47, but here the Pharisees are baffled by it. A major difference is that the earlier discourse began with a systematic presentation of the relation between the Father and the Son (cf. 5:19–29), whereas here the Pharisees seem to be hearing of the Father for the first time. Not once has Jesus referred to God as his Father throughout this discourse, using instead circumlocutions such as “the one who sent me,” or where I came from, or where I am going. Now he unveils this mysterious Source and Goal as his Father, and the Pharisees do not understand. Even later, in 8:27, it has still not dawned on them that “the one who sent me” means the Father.
Why this apparent regression in terminology? Had the Pharisees forgotten that the very reason Jesus was a wanted man was that he was “calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God” (5:18)? It is not likely. The intent of the narrative is rather to dramatize the Pharisees’ ignorance of what it means for God to be Jesus’ Father, that is, their ignorance of all that Jesus taught in 5:19–47. That earlier discourse, though clear and decisive to the readers of the Gospel, was lost on its immediate hearers. A monologue from beginning to end, it is intended by the narrator more for Jesus’ followers and would-be followers than for the Jewish authorities. The temple discourse, on the other hand, is punctuated by sharp exchanges between Jesus and his opponents. Because it aims at actual communication within the actual literary setting, the breakdowns in communication, when they occur, are painfully evident—as, for example, in the Pharisees’ question, Where is your father? (v. 19).
The Pharisees are not questioning the legitimacy of Jesus’ birth, as some commentators have suggested, but responding to his mention of the scriptural principle that two witnesses are necessary to validate a statement in court (v. 17; cf. Deut. 19:15). There are two witnesses, Jesus says: He himself is one, and his Father is the other (vv. 16, 18). Where is your father? is the Pharisees’ challenge to Jesus to bring on this second witness. They have not yet grasped the point that the second witness speaks not as an identifiable external entity but only through Jesus himself (cf. 5:31–40). To hear Jesus is to hear the second witness as well. To know him is to know his Father. But Jesus’ grim verdict in the present case is that you do not know me or my Father (v. 19). The summary statement that “he spoke these words while teaching in the temple area” (8:20) corresponds in form to the ending of the synagogue discourse two chapters earlier (“He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum,” 6:59) and so gives the impression that the temple discourse is now concluded. In fact, the discourse continues to the end of the chapter. What is concluded is merely one stage of the debate between Jesus and the Pharisees, in the Court of Women on the eighth day of the festival. The allusion in verse 20 to the offering boxes (and thus, implicitly, to the Court of the Women) suggests that the festival is now over, yet Jesus does not leave the temple until verse 59. At some point in the collection of this material, verse 20 may have served to terminate the temple discourse, but the phrase once more (v. 21; cf. v. 12) allows the Gospel writer to append further discussions probably remembered in connection with the same visit of Jesus to Jerusalem. The seams that are now and then visible in the fabric of the narrative only highlight the Gospel writer’s intention to weave a single continuous account of Jesus’ temple ministry from 7:14 to 8:59.
The festival ends with Jesus still at large. The Pharisees are no more able to arrest him than the guards they sent out earlier, for still his time had not yet come (v. 20).
Additional Notes
7:37 On the last and greatest day of the Feast: The last day of the festival proper was the seventh day, but the eighth day was a distinct celebration in its own right, a time to rejoice and sing the Hallel (i.e., Psalms 113–118). The special festival of the eighth day is discussed at length in the fifth-century midrash, Pesikta de-Rab Kahana 28 (ed. W. G. Braude and I. J. Kapstein [Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1975], pp. 424–44). In the Mishnah (Sukkah 4.8) the eighth day is called “the last Festival-day of the Feast,” while Josephus (Antiquities 3.245) clearly refers to the Feast of Tabernacles as an eight-day festival. These considerations suggest that v. 37 indeed refers to the eighth day, which, if not most important to everyone, was at any rate a day set apart from all other days for special observance.
7:38 As the scripture has said: The passage of scripture being cited remains unidentified. On the assumption that Jesus himself is the source of the water, two of the commonest suggestions have been Ps. 78:16 (“He brought streams out of a rocky crag and made water flow down like rivers”—referring to the incident described in Exod. 17:1–7) and Zech. 14:8 (“On that day [i.e., the day of the Lord], living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half to the eastern sea and half to the western sea”; cf. also Ezek. 47:1–12, and the NT use of the theme in Rev. 22:1–2). A metaphorical identification of Jesus either with the life-giving rock in the Sinai desert (cf. 1 Cor. 10:4) or with the city of Jerusalem itself and its temple, must be presupposed.
On the assumption that the believer is the source of the water, suggestions include Prov. 18:4; Isa. 58:11; and especially (in the Apocrypha) Sir. 24:28–31: ‘Now I, like a rivulet from her [wisdom’s] stream, channeling the waters into a garden, said to myself, “I will water my plants, my flower bed I will drench’; and suddenly this rivulet of mine became a river, then this stream of mine, a sea. Thus do I send my teachings forth shining like the dawn, to become known afar off. Thus do I pour out instruction like prophecy” (NAB).
None of these texts comes close to providing a source for any kind of exact quotation. It is likely that the passage the Gospel writer (or Jesus) had in mind contained the striking phrase, from within him (lit., “out of his stomach”; Gr.: ek tēs koilias autou), and there is no biblical passage that combines this phrase with the imagery of streams of water. Justin Martyr in the second century (Dialogue with Trypho 135.3) identified Christians as “the true Israelite race” because they were “quarried from the heart” [Gr.: ek tēs koilias] of Christ like rock from the heart of the earth (cf. also Dialogue 114.4). It may be that both he and John were aware of already existing applications to Christ of such texts as Zech. 14:8, Ezek. 47:1–12, and Ps. 78:16, and that John is quoting just such a Christian midrash, or paraphrase, as his Scripture.
7:40–41 The Prophet … the Christ: cf. 1:20–21. The real dispute is not between those who say Jesus is the Prophet foretold in Deut. 18:15–18 and those who say he is the Messiah descended from David but between both groups and those who ask, How can the Christ come from Galilee?
7:52 A prophet does not come …: Every tribe in Israel had had its prophets (cf. Babylonian Talmud, Sukkah 27b), and it was not strictly true that no prophets had come from Galilee (Jonah, e.g., came from Gath-hepher in Galilee, 2 Kings 14:25). Because of this, the reading of the NIV margin (“the Prophet,” based on one very early papyrus manuscript, P66) is an attractive one, for it would create a parallel with v. 41: “the Prophet,” since he is in fact the Messiah, will not come from Galilee but from Bethlehem in Judea. But there is no evidence that in Jewish expectation there was such a complete merging of the Mosaic Prophet with the Davidic messianic king. More likely, the Pharisees are saying that a prophet is not arising out of Galilee now, i.e., this Galilean called Jesus is no true prophet.
8:1–11 This section (designated as 7:53–8:11 in standard editions of the Greek text and in most English versions) is not found in the earliest manuscripts, and therefore cannot be regarded as an original part of John’s Gospel. Most of the later manuscripts that do contain the passage place it here, but some place it in Luke’s Gospel (after 21:38), and some at the end of John’s Gospel; one manuscript places it after John 7:36, and in one ancient translation it is found after John 7:44. Though it is undoubtedly a true incident in Jesus’ life, the story of the adulteress does not belong in the New Testament and specifically does not belong here, where its presence divides one day’s action into two and interrupts the narrator’s development of 7:37–8:20. Its more appropriate historical setting is that described in Luke 21:37–38, in which Jesus, during the last week of his ministry, spent his nights on the Mount of Olives and his days teaching in the temple (cf. vv. 1–2), answering questions from the Pharisees and chief priests about the law.
This helps explain why some late manuscripts insert the passage after Luke 21:38 but not why so many more place it here. Two factors seem to have been at work in this: (a) The story illustrates with respect to one woman Jesus’ statement to the Pharisees in 8:15: You judge me by human standards; I pass judgment on no one (cf. v. 11). (b) At the same time it illumines the Johannine theme that judgment nevertheless emerges from Jesus’ ministry. By refusing to condemn the adulteress, he condemns the religious establishment before which she stands accused. This implicit theme of judgment on Jerusalem and the temple may be what impelled later copyists to place the story within the temple discourse at the Feast of Tabernacles. Even the detail that it was the older ones [or “the elders”] first who were put to shame recalls the ancient example of judgment on Jerusalem’s first temple in Ezek. 9:6 (where the “leaders” who are judged first are literally the “elders” of Israel).
8:17 Your own Law: It is sometimes urged that Jesus is represented as speaking here as if he himself were not a Jew (cf. the same phrase in 10:34 and the phrase “their Law” in 15:25). This is said to reflect the Gentile, even anti-Jewish, perspective of the author of this Gospel.
Two other factors, however, more plausibly explain Jesus’ language in these places. (a) The pronouns strengthen his argument by making it ad hominem. Jesus’ opponents are refuted by the very scripture that they themselves acknowledge and proclaim to be true; the fact that Jesus also acknowledges it is assumed but is not crucial to the argument. (b) Jesus may be speaking in the style of OT prophets who at times, in the name of God, stood over against Israel and pronounced judgment on Israel’s institutions (e.g., Isa. 1:13–14: “your incense … your evil assemblies … your New Moon festivals … your appointed feasts”).
8:20 Near the place where the offerings were put: lit., “in the treasury.” The reference is not to the actual chambers used to store the temple treasure but probably to the place of access to these chambers, i.e., the Court of the Women (so called to distinguish it from the holy precincts where sacrifices were offered and women were not permitted). Because the Court of the Women was where the lamp-lighting ceremony of the eighth day took place (cf. the Mishnah, Sukkah 5.2), it is the natural setting for the accompanying discourse. That it is called the treasury rather than the Court of the Women may simply echo other narratives in which “the treasury” is the scene of Jesus’ temple ministry (e.g., Mark 12:41–44 and Luke 21:1–4, where contributions to the treasury actually figure in the story).
Jesus and the Unbelievers
Verses 21–29 serve to document Jesus’ indictment of the Pharisees in verse 19, “You do not know me or my Father.” The Father is Jesus’ past and his future. Jesus has come from God and is going to God again, but his hearers understand neither of these things. The earlier bewilderment about where Jesus is going (cf. 7:32–36) is echoed here as well (vv. 21–22), but with the somber added note that you will die in your sin (v. 21). His words should be taken not as an absolute pronouncement of doom but as a warning. The Jewish authorities (like everyone else) will die in their sins if they do not believe that I am the one I claim to be (v. 24). The reverse side of this warning is the promise of life in verse 51: “If anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.” Even in the nearer context, Jesus can speak more positively: When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am the one I claim to be (v. 28).
Which is it then? Will they die in their sins, or will they come to believe in Jesus and know who he is? The dialogue presupposes the same gulf between the world below and the world above that governed the conversation with Nicodemus in chapter 3. The Jewish authorities are of this world (v. 23) and cannot begin to understand Jesus without a new birth from above. When he says he is going away where they cannot follow, they can only think he is planning suicide (v. 22)! Yet just as a similar misunderstanding had earlier pointed to the profound truth of a mission to the Gentiles (7:35), so here the mention of suicide points forward to Jesus’ voluntary death on a cross to take away sin. Not until they have lifted up the Son of Man on that cross will they know who Jesus is and realize that he has spoken the very words of God (v. 28). The reference to a future moment of understanding only serves to accent their present ignorance. Who are you? they ask Jesus (v. 25), and they are told that all along from the very beginning of his ministry he has been making himself known, if only they would listen (v. 25). There is much he could say now in condemnation, but Jesus refuses to be drawn into bitter argument (v. 26). His intention is rather to deliver the message the Father has given him (vv. 26, 28b).
Insofar as this revelation is a self-revelation, it centers on the strange phrase, I am the one I claim to be (vv. 24, 28). Literally, the phrase in Greek (egō eimi) is “I Am” with no predicate (cf. v. 58). Is a predicate to be supplied from the context—for example, in verse 23, “I am from above,” or in verse 28, “I am the Son of Man”? Or does the point of the self-disclosure lie precisely in the absence of a predicate? The latter is more likely. Jesus’ identity is not linked to a particular predicate but emerges from all his words and actions up to this point in the Gospel. What the hearers must accept, and what the “lifting up” on the cross will verify, is that he is indeed who he claims (explicitly and implicitly) to be.
Additional Notes
8:25 Just what I have been claiming all along: The Greek is obscure (lit., “the beginning, what I speak to you”). It has been translated, “Primarily just what I tell you” and even (as a question), “Why do I speak to you at all?” One ancient papyrus has a longer reading: “I told you in the beginning what I speak to you now,” and although this reading is probably not original, it may represent an early paraphrase that captured the intended meaning.
8:28 When you have lifted up the Son of Man: For “lifting up” as an allusion to crucifixion, cf. 3:14. The apparent implication that the Jewish authorities themselves crucified Jesus is surprising in light of 18:31 (which seems to focus on crucifixion as a Roman method of execution), but the present passage anticipates, instead, 19:16: “Finally Pilate handed him over to them [the Jewish priests] to be crucified.” The assumption is that in some sense the Jewish authorities (though not the Jewish people) did crucify Jesus.
Then you will know: Alongside the striking claim that the Jewish leaders themselves would crucify the Son of Man is an equally surprising note of hope. As a result of Jesus’ death, they will come to realize who he is and on whose authority he speaks. The emphasis, however, is not on the faith or repentance of these religious leaders in particular but simply on the fact that Jesus and his claims will be vindicated before the whole world by what happens after he is “lifted up” (i.e., by his subsequent resurrection).
Though this vindication is future, the verse as a whole (together with v. 29) intends primarily to affirm something about the present: Jesus is who he is now; he does nothing on his own, but speaks now what the Father has instructed him; God is with him, and he lives to please God now and always.
8:29 He has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him. The argument of the previous section that in the words of Jesus both the Father and the Son speak is here presupposed and continued (cf. v. 16). The reason Jesus is not alone is that he does what pleases the Father (cf. 4:34; 5:30; 6:38). The same terminology is used of Christian believers in 1 John 3:22.
