“Propterea ergo magis quærebant eum Judæi interficere : quia non solum solvebat sabbatum, sed et patrem suum dicebat Deum, æqualem se faciens Deo. Respondit itaque Jesus, et dixit eis :”
“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.”
“Because of this, the Jews tried all the harder to kill Him. Not only was He breaking the Sabbath, but He was even calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.”
“For this cause therefore the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Sabbath, but also called God his own Father, making himself equal with God.”
“For this cause therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only brake the sabbath, but also called God his own Father, making himself equal with God.”
That God was his Father,[4] making himself equal to God. In divers places of the Old Testament, God is called the Father of the Israelites, and they his children: but here, and on several other occasions, the Jews very well saw, that he called God his Father in a quite different sense from that in which he could be said to be their Father; that his words made him equal to God, and that he made himself God. See John x. 33; John xix. 7; Luke xxii. 70; &c. And therefore St. Augustine says on this verse: (Trac. xvii. in Joan.) Behold the Jews understand what the Arians do not. (Witham)
Verses 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.