Thomas Aquinas Commentary John 15:22-27

"If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no excuse for their sin. He that hateth me hateth my Father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. But [this cometh to pass], that the word may be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause. But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, [even] the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall bear witness of me: and ye also bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning." — John 15:22-27 (ASV)

1. Previously, when our Lord said that the Jews would persecute His disciples, He gave the reason that they did not know the One who sent Him. Now, since ignorance usually excuses a person, He shows here that they are inexcusable. He does this in two ways:

   First, because of the things He personally did and taught them;

   Second, because of what will occur when He is no longer present: but when the Paraclete comes.

   In regard to the first, He does two things:

   First, He shows that they were without excuse because of the truth He taught;

   Second, because of the witness of the works He performed: if I had not done among them the works that no other man has done.

   Regarding the first of these, He does three things:

   First, He shows what could have excused them;

   Second, that they did not have this excuse: but now they have no excuse for their sin;

   Third, He shows the real source of their persecution: he who hates me, hates my Father also.

2. He had said, but all these things they will do to you for my name’s sake (John 15:21). Yet they might have had an excuse. If I had not come and spoken to them—that is, if I had not shown Myself personally and taught them personally—they would not have sin.

3. How does this reconcile with, all have sinned and need the grace of God (Romans 3:23)?

   We should say that our Lord is not speaking here of just any sin, but of the sin of disbelief, that is, that they did not believe in Christ. This is called here simply sin because it is a prime example of sin; as long as this sin lasts, no other sin can be remitted. For as we read in Romans, no sin is remitted except by faith in Jesus Christ, through whom we are justified (Romans 5:1).

   Consequently, they would not have sin means that they would not be charged with not believing in Him. This is primarily because faith comes from what is heard (Romans 10:17). So, if Christ had not come and had not spoken to them, they could not have believed. And no one is charged with a sin for not doing what he cannot do at all.

4. Yet some could say that they were bound to believe and could have believed even if Christ had not come, since He had been foretold to them by the prophets: which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures, the Gospel concerning his Son (Romans 1:2). I answer that of themselves the Jews could not believe and understand the words of the prophets unless they were shown by divine help: the words are shut up and sealed until the appointed time (Daniel 12:9). Thus the eunuch said, How can I understand, unless someone guides me? (Acts 8:31).

   Therefore, if Christ had not come, they would not have this sin—the sin of disbelief—although they would have had other actual sins for which they would have been punished. A similar reasoning holds for all those whom the preaching of God’s word could not reach. For this reason, they cannot be charged with the sin of disbelief for their condemnation; but deprived of God’s favors because of their other actual sins and original sin, they will be condemned.

5. Note that Christ’s coming and teaching resulted in good for many, that is, for those who accepted Him and kept His word. For many, however, it turned out badly, that is, for those who decided neither to listen to Him nor believe Him. He will become... a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both houses of Israel, a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem (Isaiah 8:14); this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel (Luke 2:34).

6. He has just stated what could have excused them from unbelief. But they do not have this excuse, because Christ showed Himself to them in person and taught them. Thus He says, but now, since I have come and spoken to them, they have no excuse—that of ignorance—for their sin. So they are without excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor him as God (Romans 1:20). But they did know Christ, as is clear from, This is the heir; come, let us kill him (Matthew 21:38). However, they knew that He was the Christ promised in the Law, but they did not know that He was God, because if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory (1 Corinthians 2:8). And so their ignorance is no excuse, because they did not do this from ignorance but from another root: from hatred and a certain malice.

7. This is why He adds, he who hates me hates my Father also. This is like saying, “Their sin is not ignorance of Me, but hatred for Me, and this involves hatred for the Father.”

   Since the Son and the Father are one in essence, truth, and goodness, and since all knowledge of anyone is through the truth which is in him, whoever loves the Son loves the Father also. Whoever knows the one knows the other also, and whoever hates the Son hates the Father also.

8. Two problems arise here. First, can anyone hate God?

   We should say that no one can hate God as God. Since God is the pure essence of goodness, and since this is lovable in itself, it is impossible that God be hated in Himself. This is the reason why it is impossible for an evil person to see God. For it is impossible for God to be seen without being loved, and one who loves God is good. Therefore, these two things are incompatible: to see God and to be evil.

   Yet one can hate God from a particular point of view. For example, someone who loves lustful pleasures hates God as forbidding the enjoyment of lust, and someone who wants to be free from all punishment hates the justice of God when it punishes.

9. The second problem arises because no one can hate what he does not know. But the Jews did not know the Father: they know not him who sent me (John 15:21). Therefore, it does not seem true that, as was said, he who hates me, hates my Father also.

   We can say, according to Augustine, that a person can love or hate something that was never seen or truly known. This can happen in two ways. In one way, I can hate or love a person according to how I know him, or according to what I am told about him. For example, if I hear that someone is a thief, I hate him—not because I know or hate this very person, but because in general I hate all thieves. So, if he were a thief and I did not know it, I would hate him without realizing that I hated him. Now the Jews hated Christ and the truth that He preached. Since the very truth that Christ preached and the works He performed were in the will of God the Father, then just as they hated Christ, so also they hated the Father, even though they did not know that these things were in the will of the Father.

10. Now He shows they are without excuse because of the witness of His signs. They could say that they were not convinced by the words He spoke in opposition to them. So He corroborates His words with marvelous actions, saying, if I had not done among them the works that no other man has done, they would not have sin.

    First, He shows that they could be somewhat excused;

    Second, He reveals the root of their sin;

    Third, He cites an authority.

    He does the second at, but now they have both seen and hated me and my Father; and the third at, that the word may be fulfilled which is written in their law.

11. There are two questions about the first point. One is about the truth of the antecedent statement, if I had not done among them the works that no other man has done. Did Christ perform certain good works among them that no one else had done? It seems not. If we say that Christ raised the dead, Elijah and Elisha also did this. If Christ walked on the water, Moses parted the waters. Again, Joshua did something greater, for he made the sun stand still. So it seems that Christ should not use this as an argument, and thus the conclusion is not true.

    I answer that we can say, according to Augustine, that our Lord is not speaking of the miracles He worked among them—that is, merely in their sight—but of those He worked on their very persons. In curing the sick, although others did it, no one did so as much as Christ, because no other was made God, and no one but Christ was born of a virgin.

    So in healing the sick, He performed among them works which no one else performed, and this in three ways. First, because His works were so great: for He raised a person who had been dead for four days; He gave sight to a man who was born blind, which had never been heard of before, as we read above (John 9:32). Second, because of the great number of His works, for He healed all who were sick (Matthew 14:35), and no one else did this. Third, because of the way He did these works: others did these things by praying for help, which showed that they were not doing this by their own power. But Christ did it by command, for He did it by His own power: What is this? A new teaching! With authority he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him (Mark 1:27).

    Therefore, although others have raised the dead and have accomplished other miracles which Christ did, they did not do it in the same manner as Christ, nor by their own power, as Christ did.

    Furthermore, making the sun stand still is less than what the dying Christ did, when He made the sun darken and changed the whole course of the heavens, as Dionysius says.

12. The second question is about the truth of the conditional statement, that if Christ had not done among them works which no one else did, the Jews would not have the sin of disbelief.

    My reply is that if we speak of any of the miracles indiscriminately, the Jews would have been excusable if they had not been done among them by Christ. For no one can come to Christ by faith unless he is drawn: no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him (John 6:44). So the spouse says, draw me after you, we will run to the odor of your ointments (Song of Solomon 1:3). Therefore, if there were no one who had drawn them to the faith, they would have an excuse for their disbelief.

    Note that Christ drew by words and by signs, both visible and invisible—that is, by inciting and stirring hearts from within: the king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD (Proverbs 21:1). And so an inner impulse to act well is the work of God, and those who resist it sin. If not, Stephen would have no reason to say, You always resist the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:51); The LORD has opened my ear—that is, the ear of my heart—and I was not rebellious (Isaiah 50:5). When our Lord said, if I had not done among them the works that no other man has done, we have to understand this as referring not only to visible works but also to the interior impulses and attractions to His teaching. If these had not been done among them, they would not have sin.

    It is now clear how they could have been excused: that is, if He had not accomplished miraculous works among them.

13. Now He shows the root of their sin of disbelief—namely, their hatred—because of which they did not believe the works they saw. He says, but now they have both seen—the works He did among them—and hated both me and my Father. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD (Proverbs 1:29). As Gregory says, There are some in the Church who not only do not do good works, but they even persecute those who do, so that what they fail to do they detest in others. Thus their sin is not one of weakness or ignorance, but is committed of set purpose.

14. Yet some could say: if it is true that the Jews hated You and Your Father, why did You perform miracles among them? He answers and says, but that the word may be fulfilled which is written in their law.

    Here we could ask why He says that this was written in their law when it was written in the Psalms.

    We can say to this that the ‘Law’ is understood in three ways in Scripture. Sometimes it is taken for the entire Old Testament, and this is how it is understood here, because the entire teaching of the Old Testament is directed to the observance of the Law: Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom (Luke 23:42). Sometimes it is taken as distinguished from the histories and the prophets: that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled (Luke 24:44), in which are included the histories. And sometimes the Law is taken as distinct only from the prophets, and then the histories are included in the prophets.

    He says, that... may be fulfilled which is written in their law, that is, They hated me without a cause (Psalms 35:19). Their hatred was not to gain some benefit or avoid some trouble, for it is for reasons like these that a person might hate something—but such reasons were not found in Christ. Indeed, Christ gave them opportunities to love Him when He healed and taught them: he went about doing good (Acts 10:38); Is evil a recompense for good? They have dug a pit for my life (Jeremiah 18:20); What wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me? (Jeremiah 2:5).

15. Now He shows that they are inexcusable because of what would happen after He was gone, for they would have other testimonies: namely, those of the Holy Spirit and of the apostles.

    First, He states what was to come from the Holy Spirit;

    Second, from the apostles: and you will give testimony because you have been with me from the beginning.

    He indicates four things about the Spirit:

    First, His freedom,

    Second, His tenderness,

    Third, His procession,

    and, fourth, His activity.

16. He indicates His freedom, or power, when He says, but when the Paraclete comes. Strictly speaking, a person is said to ‘come’ who comes willingly and on his own authority. This is true of the Holy Spirit, because the wind blows where it wills (John 3:8), and, I called upon God, and the spirit of wisdom came to me . Therefore, in saying, whom I will send, He does not suggest force but origin.

17. He touches on His tenderness when He says, the Paraclete, that is, the Comforter. Since the Paraclete is the love of God, He makes us scorn earthly things and cling to God. Thus He takes away our pain and sadness and gives us joy in divine things: the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace (Galatians 5:22); and the church... was filled with the comfort of the Holy Spirit (Acts 9:31).

18. Third, He touches on the twofold procession of the Holy Spirit. First, He mentions the temporal procession when He says, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father.

    Note that the Holy Spirit is said to be sent not because the Spirit is changing place, since the Spirit fills the entire universe . Rather, it is because by grace the Holy Spirit begins to dwell in a new way in those He makes a temple of God: Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? (1 Corinthians 3:16). There is no disagreement in saying that the Holy Spirit is sent and that He comes. In saying that the Spirit ‘comes,’ the grandeur of His divinity is indicated: the Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills (1 Corinthians 12:11). And He is said to be ‘sent’ to indicate His procession from another. For the fact that He sanctifies the rational creature by indwelling is something He has from that other, from whom He has His very being, just as the Son has from another whatever He does.

    The Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son together. This is indicated in he showed me the river of the water of life—that is, the Holy Spirit—flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb—that is, of Christ (Revelation 22:1). Therefore, when speaking of the sending of the Holy Spirit, He mentions the Father and the Son, who send the Spirit by the same and equal power. Thus sometimes He mentions the Father as sending the Spirit, but not without the Son: the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name (John 14:26). At other times He says that He Himself sends the Holy Spirit, but not without the Father, as here: whom I will send to you from the Father, because whatever the Son does He has from the Father: the Son can do nothing of himself (John 5:19).

19. He mentions the eternal procession of the Holy Spirit when He shows in a similar way that the Spirit is related both to the Father and the Son. He shows the Spirit as related to the Son when He says, the Spirit of truth, for the Son is the Truth: I am the way, and the truth, and the life (John 14:6). He shows the Spirit as related to the Father when He says, who proceeds from the Father. So to say that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth is the same as saying the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Son: God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts (Galatians 4:6). And because the word ‘spirit’ suggests a kind of impulse, and every motion produces an effect in harmony with its source (as heating makes something hot), it follows that the Holy Spirit makes those to whom He is sent like the One whose Spirit He is. And since He is the Spirit of truth, he will teach you all truth (John 16:13); the inspiration of the Almighty gives understanding (Job 32:8). In the same way, because He is the Spirit of the Son, He produces sons: you have received the spirit of sonship (Romans 8:15).

    He says the Spirit of truth as contrasted with the spirit of lying: the LORD has mingled within her a spirit of error (Isaiah 19:14); I will go out, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets (1 Kings 22:22).

20. Because He says, who proceeds from the Father, and does not add, “and from the Son,” the Greeks say that the Holy Spirit does not proceed from the Son but only from the Father. But this absolutely cannot be.

    For the Holy Spirit could not be distinguished from the Son unless He either proceeds from the Son, or, on the other hand, the Son proceeds from Him (and no one claims this). For one cannot say that among the divine persons—who are entirely immaterial and simple—there is a material distinction based on a division of quantity, which requires underlying matter. Thus, the distinction of the divine persons must be a formal distinction, which has to involve some kind of opposition. For if forms are not opposed, they are compatible with one another in the same subject and do not diversify a supposit (for example, being white and being large). Thus, among the divine persons, since the properties of not being begotten and of fatherhood are not opposed, they belong to one person. If, then, the Son and the Holy Spirit are distinct persons proceeding from the Father, they have to be distinguished by some properties that are opposed. These properties cannot be opposed as affirmation and negation or as privation and possession are opposed, because then the Son and the Holy Spirit would be related to one another as being and non-being, or as the complete to the deprived, and this is repugnant to their equality. Nor can these properties be opposed as contraries are, where one is more perfect than the other. What remains is that the Holy Spirit is distinguished from the Son only by a relative opposition.

    This kind of opposition rests solely on the fact that one of them is referred to the other. For the different relations of two things to some third thing are not directly opposed, except accidentally—that is, by some incidental consequence. So in order for the Holy Spirit to be distinguished from the Son, they must have relations that are opposed, by which they will be opposed to each other. No such relations can be found except relations of origin, insofar as one person is from the other. Thus it is impossible, granting the Trinity of persons, that the Holy Spirit not be from the Son.

21. Some say that the Holy Spirit and the Son are distinguished by the different ways they proceed, insofar as the Son is from the Father by being born and the Holy Spirit by proceeding.

    But the same problem returns which arose from the previous opinion, as to how these two processions differ. One cannot say that they are distinguished because of the diverse things received by their respective generations, just as the generation of a human being and a horse differ because of the different natures that are communicated. For the same nature is received by the Son by being born from the Father and by the Holy Spirit by proceeding. So we are left with the conclusion that they are distinguished only by the order of origin, that is to say, insofar as the birth of the Son is a principle of the procession of the Holy Spirit. And so, if the Holy Spirit were not from the Son, the Spirit would not be distinguished from the Son, and procession would not be distinguished from birth.

    Thus, even the Greeks admit some order between the Son and the Holy Spirit. For they say that the Holy Spirit is ‘of the Son,’ and that the Son acts ‘through the Holy Spirit,’ but not the other way around. And some even admit that the Holy Spirit is ‘from the Son,’ but they will not concede that the Holy Spirit ‘proceeds from’ the Son. Yet in this they are obviously imprudent. For we use the word ‘procession’ in all cases in which one thing is from another in any way. And so this word, because it is so general, has been adapted to indicate the Holy Spirit’s existence as being from the Son. We do not have any examples of this in creatures that would lead us to give it a specific name, whereas we do have examples that give us the special term ‘generation,’ which is applied to the Son. The reason for this is that in creatures we do not find a person proceeding from will, as love, while we do find a person proceeding from nature, as a son. Thus, however the Holy Spirit is ordered to the Son, it can be concluded that the Spirit proceeds from the Son.

22. Nevertheless, some of the Greeks assert that one should not say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son because for them the preposition ‘from’ indicates a principle which is not from a principle, and this is so only of the Father. This is not compelling, because the Son with the Father is one principle of the Holy Spirit, just as they are one principle of creatures. And although the Son has it from the Father that the Son is a principle of creatures, still creatures are said to be ‘from the Son’; and for the same reason it can be said that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son.

    Nor does it make any difference that we read here, who proceeds from the Father, instead of ‘from the Father and the Son,’ because in a similar way it is said, whom I will send, and yet the Father is also understood to send, since there is added, from the Father. In a similar way, because it says, the Spirit of truth—that is, the Spirit of the Son—we understand that the Spirit proceeds from the Son. For, as has been said, when the procession of the Holy Spirit is mentioned, the Son is always joined to the Father, and the Father to the Son; and so these different ways of expression indicate a distinction of persons.

23. Fourth, He mentions the activity of the Holy Spirit when He says, he will give testimony to me. This happens in three ways. First, the Spirit will teach the disciples and give them the confidence to bear witness: for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you (Matthew 10:20). Second, the Spirit will communicate His teaching to those who believe in Christ: God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit (Hebrews 2:4). Third, the Spirit will soften the hearts of their hearers: when you send forth your Spirit, they are created (Psalms 104:30).

24. Finally, He mentions what lies ahead for the disciples when He says, and you will give testimony, inspired by the Holy Spirit: you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:8). We read of this twofold testimony in Acts: We are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him (Acts 5:32).

    He adds why this testimony is appropriate when He says, because you have been with me from the beginning—that is, the beginning of my preaching and working of miracles—and so you can testify to what you have seen and heard: that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you (1 John 1:3).

    We can see from this that Christ did not perform miracles in His youth, as some apocryphal gospels relate, but only from the time He called His disciples.