Charles Ellicott Commentary John 8:38

"I speak the things which I have seen with [my] Father: and ye also do the things which ye heard from [your] father." — John 8:38 (ASV)

I speak that which I have seen with my Father.—Some of the older manuscripts read “the” for “My,” but without change of sense. For the thought, compare John 8:28, where we have the same connection between doing and speaking. He is the Word, and His work is to speak what He had seen in His eternal existence with the Father.

And ye do that which ye have seen with your father.—For “seen,” the better reading is probably heard. Here, as in the previous clause, some manuscripts omit the possessive pronoun with “father,” but it is rightly inserted to express the meaning. The clauses are in direct opposition to each other, and this is shown by the emphatic personal pronouns—“I, on My part . . . My Father.” “You, on your part . . . your father.”

The tenses of the verbs, too, are to be distinguished: “That which I have seen” (during My whole existence in eternity), and “That which you heard” (when you became servants of sin). The cases of the nouns are also different: “I have seen with My Father” (signifying existence with), and “You heard from your father” (what he directed).

Again, there is a word in the original text which is hard to represent in English, and which our version altogether omits. It is not simply “and ye do,” but “and ye therefore, or accordingly, do.” It is the same principle of union between Father and Son which directs His work, which is to reveal God, and their work, of which their seeking to kill Him is an instance.