=37, 38. And he which hath sent me, the Father himself, hath borne witness of me.= The past tense of the verb indicates a completed testimony, borne in past time, but accessible to present hearers. The meaning therefore cannot be the witness of the Spirit to Christ’s character and mission, a continuously fresh testimony, which is however borne only to those that are already the sons of God, through a measurable faith in Jesus as Saviour and Messiah. The reference is possibly in part to the testimony which the Father had borne at the baptism to Christ as his well-beloved Son (Matt. 3:17), a testimony repeated on other occasions (Matt. 17:5; John 12:28); but the primary reference is to the testimony borne to God in the O. T. Scriptures, which were to the Jewish nation witnesses to the Messiah, whose coming they heralded, and whose work they described (Luke 24:27-44; Acts 13:27).--=No voice of his have ye ever heard, no appearance of his have ye ever seen, and his word ye have not abiding in you.= This gives as nearly literally as is possible the meaning of the original. Two interpretations are possible. One is that indicated by our English version. According to this interpretation Christ declares the general philosophic truth, that the Father is a Spirit, and therefore invisible and inaudible, to be spiritually discerned; and since the Jews have not spiritual discernment, since they have not God’s word abiding in them, they are without any knowledge of God or understanding of his witness. The other interpretation is that indicated by the more literal translation given above. According to this translation it is the language of “reproach for want of susceptibility to this (divine) testimony” (_Meyer_). This was the view of Calvin, who here, as in the interpretation of so many other passages, anticipated the results of later criticism. “When he says that they had never heard the voice of God or seen his shape, these are metaphorical expressions, by which he intends to state generally that they are utterly estranged from the knowledge of God.” This last I believe to be the correct interpretation, both because it more nearly accords with the literal rendering of the original, and because, according to the other interpretation, Christ inserts in the midst of his discourse an abstract statement of philosophic truth, in a manner which, if not absolutely artificial, is at least quite unlike his usual method. _His word abiding in you_ is the word of the O. T. This they had; but it was external to them. They did not believe it “with the heart unto righteousness” (Rom. 10:10). It was not an abiding force in the shaping of their conduct or the formation of their character. He only can truly comprehend what the Scriptures teach concerning God, who yields obedience to whatever they teach concerning duty; for it is only as the divine attributes are reproduced in us that we can approximate an understanding of them in