He said to them again, “I am going away and you will look for me, but you will die in your sin. Where I am going you cannot come.” 22 So the Jews said, “He is not going to kill himself, is he, because he said, ‘Where I am going you cannot come’?” 23 He said to them, “You belong to what is below, I belong to what is above. You belong to this world, but I do not belong to this world. 24 That is why I told you that you will die in your sins. For if you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins.” 25 So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “What I told you from the beginning. 26 I have much to say about you in condemnation. But the one who sent me is true, and what I heard from him I tell the world.” 27 They did not realize that he was speaking to them of the Father. 28 So Jesus said [to them], “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM, and that I do nothing on my own, but I say only what the Father taught me. 29 The one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, because I always do what is pleasing to him.” 30 Because he spoke this way, many came to believe in him.
Jesus continues speaking to those who oppose Him and says plainly that He is going away, that they will look for Him, and that they will die in their sin because they cannot come where He is going (v. 21). In this passage, the problem is not that Jesus is hiding Himself. The problem is unbelief. To “die in your sin” here means to remain in the sin of refusing to believe in Him (v. 24). His opponents hear His words, but they do not grasp who He is.
When they ask whether He intends to kill Himself (v. 22), they once again misunderstand Him. As earlier in John, His hearers take His words at an earthly level and miss their deeper meaning. Jesus is not speaking of self-destruction. He is speaking of His departure to the Father, as He had already said before: “I am going to the one who sent me” (Jn. 7:33; cf. 13:3; 16:5, 10). There is irony here: they guess that His words refer to His death, but they do not understand that He will freely lay down His life rather than take it from Himself: “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down on my own” (Jn. 10:18). Their misunderstanding shows the distance between Jesus and those who judge only by earthly standards.
Jesus then states that they are ‘from below’ and ‘of this world,’ while He is ‘from above’ and not of this world (v. 23). ‘From below’ here means from the earth. Man was formed from the dust of the ground (Gen. 2:7), and fallen man easily thinks in earthly ways. Jesus, however, is the one who comes from above (Jn. 3:31). The contrast is between Jesus’ heavenly origin and the earthly way His opponents think and judge. They see Him only at the level of His visible humanity and so fail to recognize the One who has come from the Father. They judge by appearances rather than by the truth of His Person, which is demonstrated by His works (cf. Jn. 7:24; 8:15). That is why they cannot go where He is going (v. 21). The barrier is not lack of intelligence, but lack of faith.
The center of the passage is Jesus’ solemn statement: “if you do not believe that I AM, you will die in your sins” (v. :24). These words carry great weight. The expression “I AM” is not just a way of saying, “it is I.” It recalls God’s own words in Is. 43:10: “that you may know and believe in me and understand that I am he.” It also recalls the divine name revealed to Moses in Ex. 3:14: “I AM WHO AM.” Jesus is not simply identifying Himself as a teacher or prophet. He is speaking in a way that points to His divine identity. This fits with what He said earlier to the Samaritan woman when He revealed Himself directly: “I am he, the one speaking with you” (Jn. 4:26). Salvation and judgment meet here. To reject Jesus is not a small mistake. It leaves a person in sin and its consequences.
So when they ask, “Who are you?” (v. 25), it shows that, despite all He has already said, they still do not understand. Jesus’ reply is difficult to translate exactly, but the sense is clear in context: He is not introducing something new. He has been telling them who He is from the beginning. John’s Gospel has already been unfolding this steadily: “the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (Jn. 1:1). The Word became flesh (Jn. 1:14), and the Son reveals the Father because He comes from the Father (Jn. 1:18). Their problem is not that He has failed to speak. Their problem is that they have failed to receive what He has said.
Jesus then says that He speaks what He has heard from the One who sent Him (v. 26). They do not realize that He is speaking about the Father (v. 27). This is another sign of their blindness. Throughout this section, Jesus presents Himself as the Father’s true envoy, speaking not His own message but the Father’s word. This agrees with what He said earlier: “My teaching is not my own but is from the one who sent me” (Jn. 7:16), and later, “I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and speak” (Jn. 12:49). He is not offering private religious opinions. He reveals God because He comes from God.
Then Jesus says, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I AM” (v. 28). In John’s Gospel, being “lifted up” refers to His Passion and, in a fuller sense, to His death, resurrection, and return to the Father. Jesus had already said, “And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up” (Jn. 3:14; cf. Num. 21:8–9). As those who looked upon the lifted serpent in faith were spared death, so those who turn in faith to Christ lifted up on the Cross find deliverance from sin. Later John will say this again: “And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself” (Jn. 12:32–33). The Cross is presented both as humiliation and revelation. It is there, when the Son of Man is lifted up, that His identity will be shown more fully. Even in His crucifixion, the Father has not abandoned Him. Rather, the Cross reveals His unity with the Father and His obedience to the Father’s will (vv. 28–29).
That is why Jesus immediately says that He does nothing on His own, but speaks only what the Father taught Him, and that the One who sent Him is with Him (vv. 28–29). He is never separated from the Father. His words and actions are in full harmony with the Father who sent Him. The final statement in this section is especially important: “He has not left me alone, because I always do what is pleasing to him” (v. 29). Jesus’ perfect obedience reveals His unique relationship with the Father. He is not one messenger among many. He is the Son who speaks and acts in complete union with the Father (cf. Jn. 5:19; 10:30; 14:10).
The passage ends by saying that many came to believe in Him (v. 30). That is an important note of hope. Even in the middle of conflict, Jesus’ words bear fruit. Some begin to believe. At the same time, the verses that follow show that this belief is still incomplete and will be tested (Jn. 8:31–32). Still, John wants us to see that Jesus’ words are not powerless. His warning is severe, but it is given so that people may believe and live. That has been John’s purpose all along: “that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through this belief you may have life in his name” (Jn. 20:31).
This passage fits Lent well because Lent calls us to face the truth about sin and to turn back to God before it is too late. Jesus’ words are a warning, but also a mercy. He tells the truth plainly: to refuse Him is to remain in sin; to believe in Him is to begin to step into the light (Jn. 3:19–21). Lent is a season of repentance and faith (Mk. 1:15), a time to return to the Lord with all our heart (Joel 2:12–13). As the Cross draws nearer in the Gospel, this passage teaches us to look at the One who will be lifted up and to believe (Jn. 8:28; 12:32).
Lord Jesus Christ, you spoke the truth even when many refused to hear you. Open our minds and hearts to believe that you are truly the one sent by the Father. Keep us from the blindness of unbelief, lead us out of sin, and draw us more deeply to yourself as we follow you in this Lenten season. Amen.
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Sources and References
- New American Bible, Revised Edition. Washington, DC: Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, 2011.
- José María Casciaro, gen. ed., The Navarre Bible: New Testament, Expanded Edition (Dublin: Four Courts Press; New York: Scepter Publishers, 2008), comments on Jn. 8:21–30, p. 397.
- Scott Hahn and Curtis Mitch, Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010), note on Jn. 8:23–24, p. 178.
- Raymond E. Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, and Roland E. Murphy, eds., The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1990), 965–66, pars. 117–119.
- José Enrique Aguilar Chiu et al., eds., The Paulist Biblical Commentary (New York: Paulist Press, 2018), comment on Jn. 8:21–30, p. 1145.
- John J. Collins, Gina Hens-Piazza, Barbara Reid, and Donald Senior, eds., The Jerome Biblical Commentary for the Twenty-First Century (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2022), comment on Jn. 8:21–30, p. 1413.
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