They
said therefore to him, “Where is your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither me, nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” Jesus spoke these words in the treasury, as he taught in the temple. Yet no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come. Jesus said therefore again to them, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sins. Where I go, you can’t come.” The Jews therefore said, “Will he kill himself, that he says, ‘Where I am going, you can’t come’?” He said to them, “You are from beneath. I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world. I said therefore to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.”
John 8:19-24
John 8 [14.] Jesus answered them, “Even if I testify about myself, my testimony is true, for I know where I came from, and where I am going; but you don’t know where I came from, or where I am going. You judge according to the flesh. I judge no one. Even if I do judge, my judgment is true, for I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent me. It’s also written in your law that the testimony of two people is valid. I am one who testifies about myself, and the Father who sent me testifies about me.”
John 8 [19.] They said therefore to him, “Where is your Father?”
Jesus answered, “You know neither me, nor my Father. If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” Jesus spoke these words in the treasury, as he taught in the temple. Yet no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come. Jesus said therefore again to them, “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sins. Where I go, you can’t come.”
John 8 [22.] The Jews therefore said, “Will he kill himself, that he says, ‘Where I am going, you can’t come’?”
John 8 [23.] He said to them, “You are from beneath. I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world. I said therefore to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.”
John 8 [25.] They said therefore to him, “Who are you?”
Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been saying to you from the beginning. I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you. However he who sent me is true; and the things which I heard from him, these I say to the world.”
Meaning:
Jesus had told the Pharisees that his testimony was confirmed by a second witness: “the Father who sent me testifies about me” (John 8:18). This passage continues the debate in the temple. It moves from a sharp question about his Father to one of the most solemn warnings in John’s Gospel: those who refuse to believe in Jesus will die in their sins.
- “Where is your Father?”
The Pharisees ask him to produce this second witness. Their question may also carry a sneer about Jesus’ birth, a charge that seems to surface later in the chapter (John 8:41). Either way, they were thinking only of a human father.
- “You know neither me, nor my Father”
Jesus answers that they cannot see the Father because they do not recognise the Son. To know Jesus is to know the Father. He later told Philip, “He who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). The religious leaders claimed to know God well, but in rejecting Jesus they showed that they did not know him at all.
- “Jesus spoke these words in the treasury”
The treasury was in the temple courts, where receptacles stood for the people’s offerings. Mark tells how “Jesus sat down opposite the treasury, and saw how the multitude cast money into the treasury” and praised a poor widow’s gift (Mark 12:41). Jesus was teaching in the busiest public area, close to the council’s own meeting place, yet “no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come” (John 7:30).
- “I am going away, and you will seek me, and you will die in your sins”
Jesus repeats what he had said during the feast (John 7:34), but now adds a grave warning. To “die in your sins” is to die unforgiven, with sin still standing against you. John the Baptist had said, “One who believes in the Son has eternal life, but one who disobeys the Son won’t see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:36).
- “Will he kill himself?”
Earlier some had wondered whether he would go to the Greeks (John 7:35). Now the guess is darker: perhaps he would take his own life. The words are mocking, but they contain an unintended truth. Jesus would indeed go to his death, not by suicide, but by laying down his life of his own accord (John 10:18).
- “You are from beneath. I am from above.”
Jesus explains the gulf between them. They belong to “this world”, the realm of human life organised apart from God. He comes from heaven. John the Baptist said the same: “He who comes from above is above all. He who is from the earth belongs to the earth” (John 3:31).
- “Unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins”
The PIB footnote notes that “I am he” can be read “I AM”. Jesus uses the words by which God revealed himself. God told Moses, “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:14), and through Isaiah he said, “that you may know and believe me, and understand that I am he” (Isaiah 43:10). Believing that Jesus is who he claims to be is the way out of death. The same words return in John 8:28 and reach their climax in “before Abraham came into existence, I AM” (John 8:58).
The Significance of John 8:19-24
- Knowing God through Jesus
No one can truly know the Father while rejecting the Son. Jesus is the way to know God.
- The urgency of faith
Jesus’ warning is sobering: it is possible to die in one’s sins. But it is also an invitation, because faith in him brings forgiveness and eternal life.
- Heaven come down
Jesus is “from above”. He came into our world so that people “from beneath” could be forgiven and become God’s children (John 1:12).
Cross-References:
John 14:9: "He who has seen me has seen the Father." To know Jesus is to know the Father.
Isaiah 43:10: "that you may know and believe me, and understand that I am he." God’s self-revelation.
Exodus 3:14: "I AM WHO I AM," The divine name.
John 3:31: "He who comes from above is above all." Jesus comes from heaven.
Conclusion: When the Pharisees asked, “Where is your Father?”, Jesus replied that they knew neither him nor the Father. Teaching openly in the treasury, he warned that he was going away and that they would die in their sins, because they were from beneath and he was from above. Only by believing that he is “I am he” could they be saved. The passage presents Jesus as the one through whom we know God and as the only rescue from sin.
PIB Scriptures are derived from the World English Bible