Charles Ellicott Commentary John 7:28

"Jesus therefore cried in the temple, teaching and saying, Ye both know me, and know whence I am; and I am not come of myself, but he that sent me is true, whom ye know not." — John 7:28 (ASV)

Then cried Jesus in the temple as he taught.—The word rendered “cried” always implies an elevation of voice corresponding to the intensity of the speaker’s feeling. (Compare in this Gospel John 1:15; John 7:37; John 12:44.) Here this feeling has been roused by another instance of their misapprehension, because they think of the outward appearance only, and therefore do not grasp the inner truth.

They know from where He is; they had been taught that no one should know the Messiah’s origin, and therefore they think He is not the Christ. And this technical reason, the meaning of which they have never fathomed, is enough to stifle every growing conviction and to annul the force of all His words and all His works! St. John is impressed with the fact that it was in the very Temple itself, in the presence of the priests and rulers, in the act of public teaching, that He uttered these words, and he again notices this, though he has told us so before (John 7:14; John 7:26).

Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am.—He takes up their objection in order to refute it. There is, indeed, a sense in which it is true. Those features were well known alike to friend and foe. With minds glowing with the fire of love or of hate, they had gazed upon Him as He walked or taught, and His form had fixed itself on the memory. They knew about His earthly home and early life (John 7:27), but all this was far short of the real knowledge of Him.

It is but little that the events of the outer life tell of the true life and being even of a fellow man. Little does a man know even his bosom friend; how infinitely far were they, with minds which did not even approach the true method of knowledge, from knowing Him whom no mind can fully comprehend!

And I am not come of myself, but he that sent me is true.—Once again He asserts that He claims no position of independence. He is the first great Apostle , but He is not self-commissioned. Had He not been the Christ, their objection that they knew His origin might have had force. But sent by Him who is the really existent One, and whom they did not know, His origin is unknown to them, and their technical test is fulfilled. In the fullest sense, they neither knew Him nor from where He came.

For the meaning of the word “true,” see Note on John 1:9. It is almost impossible to give the sense of the original except in a paraphrase. We must keep, therefore, the ordinary rendering, but bear in mind that it does not mean, “He that sent Me is truthful,” but “He that sent Me is the ideally true One.”

“You talk of person, and of origin, of knowing Me, and from where I came, but all this is knowledge of the senses, and in the region of the phenomenal world. Being is only truly known in relation to the Eternal Being. He that sent Me to manifest His Being in the world is the truly existent One. In Him is My true origin, and Him you know not.”