John Calvin Commentary John 8:24

"I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for except ye believe that I am [he], ye shall die in your sins." — John 8:24 (ASV)

You shall die in your sins. Having formerly employed the singular number, in your sin, he now resorts to the plural number, in your sins; but the meaning is the same, except that in the former passage he intended to point out that unbelief is the source and cause of all evils. Not that there are no other sins but unbelief, or that unbelief alone subjects us to the condemnation of eternal death before God, as some people too extravagantly talk; but because it drives us away from Christ, and deprives us of his grace, from which we ought to expect deliverance from all our sins.

That the Jews reject the medicine with obstinate malice is their mortal disease; and from this it arises that the slaves of Satan do not cease to heap up sins on sins, and continually bring down upon themselves fresh condemnations. And, therefore, he immediately adds, —

If you do not believe that I am. For there is no other way for lost people to recover salvation but to turn to Christ. The phrase, that I am, is emphatic; for, in order to make the meaning complete, we must supply all that the Scripture ascribes to the Messiah, and all that it instructs us to expect from him.

But the sum and substance is — the restoration of the Church, the commencement of which is the light of faith, from which proceed righteousness and a new life. Some of the ancient writers have deduced from this passage the Divine essence of Christ; but that is a mistake, for he speaks of his office towards us.

This statement is noteworthy; for people never sufficiently consider the evils in which they are plunged. And though they are constrained to acknowledge their destruction, yet they neglect Christ and look around them, in every direction, for useless remedies. Therefore, we ought to believe that, until the grace of Christ is manifested to deliver us, nothing but a boundless mass of all evils reigns perpetually in us.