Charles Ellicott Commentary John 8:55

"and ye have not known him: but I know him; and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be like unto you, a liar: but I know him, and keep his word." — John 8:55 (ASV)

Yet you have not known him; but I know him.—The frequency of lip-assertion was not accompanied by any true heart-knowledge. The Father who glorified Him was the God whom they professed to serve. Their question, “Whom do you make yourself?” has its explanation in the fact that this service was independent of any real knowledge of God. The two verbs “know” and “known” here do not represent the same Greek word. More exactly the rendering should be, And you have not come to know Him: but I know Him. The one clause expresses acquired recognition; the other expresses immediate essential knowledge. (Compare the note on John 14:7.)

If I should say, I know him not.—The thought of their lack of perception of God has led to the assertion by contrast of His own full intuitive knowledge of God. To assert this knowledge is to make Himself greater than Abraham and the prophets; but there is untruth in silence as well as in utterance, and His very truthfulness demands the assertion.

But I know him, and keep his saying.—Or better, His word, as in John 8:51-52. Again the positive statement is made in the certainty of His full knowledge, and this is followed by a statement of the observance of the same condition of communion with the Father which He had made necessary for communion of the disciples with Himself.