The Great Commentary of Cornelius a Lapide: S. John
It may be added that Christ in a proper and theological sense uses the word see, because He proceeds from the Father as the Word, which is the term of the vision and the notional cognition of God the Father. For the Father, as seeing and understanding Himself and all things, produces and begets the Word, and by this communicates to Him His own vision and action. Therefore the Son neither seeth, nor doeth anything except what He seeth the Father see, or do. For He Himself is the Word and the Idea, in whom, as a Term, the Father expresses and imprints all His own vision and cognition, both speculative and practical. The meaning then is this, “ Whatever I work, the Father worketh the same, and the same vision, cognition, will, power, and action. Wherefore if ye accuse Me because I have healed one paralysed on the Sabbath day, ye accuse God the Father also. For He hath wrought this with Me, because He in Me and by Me worketh all things. Indeed, I have received all My work from the Father. Wherefore, if ye believe that God the Father works all things rightly, wisely, and holily, ye ought to believe the same of Me, and therefore that this healing on the Sabbath was a work prudent, holy, and Divine.”
Doth likewise: altogether in the same manner, with the same liberty, the same power, the same authority. So S. Gregory Nazianzen (Orat. 2, de Filio). S. Cyril says, “They do likewise , or work in like manner, who are altogether of the same nature: but as to things which have a diverse essence there cannot be in them the same mode of working. As therefore He (the Son) is God of true God, He is able to do likewise the same things as the Father.”
Ver. 20. — For the Father , &c. Showeth , not as a master to a disciple, says Euthymius, but as a father to a son, as God to God. Showeth therefore means gives, communicates , especially because, as I have said, the Son by demonstration , by understanding and vision , proceedeth as the Word from the Father. To show in the sense of give, exhibit, attribute, is used in 1 Sam. xiv. 12 ; Exod. xxxiii. 19; Ps. iv. 6, &c. That this is the meaning here is plain from what follows. Moreover, the Father showeth, i.e., communicates all things to the Son in that He is God, not by free love, but by nature, out of the fecundity of the Divine Essence, of which the greatest sign among men is love. For he who among men communicates all things to his son, by so doing gives an eminent token that he loves him in the highest degree. Moreover, the Father communicates all things to the Son in that He is Man, of which communication love is not the sign, but the cause. “For the Father to show to the Son,” says Bede, “is by the Son to do what He doeth.”
Admirably does S. Athanasius say (Disp. cont. Arium , lib. 1), “The Almighty Father hath given to the Son omnipotence, majesty to majesty, to virtue He has given virtue, to the prudent one He has given prudence, foreknowledge to the foreknowing, eternity to eternity, Divinity to Divinity, equality to equality, immortality to immortality, invisibility to invisibility, to a king a kingdom, life to life ; and He hath given not something other than that which He hath ; and as much as He hath, so much hath He given.”
You will ask why to manifest and to show here and elsewhere are put for to give and to communicate. I reply (1.) because God by showing Himself and His works to the Son, communicates to Him His own knowledge, and consequently His essence. For God’s knowledge is the same thing as His essence. (2.) By showing , He illuminates the Son, i.e., He communicates His own light of wisdom, and of all good, and Himself, wholly to Him. For God is the uncreate and infinite Light, as S. John shows (1 Epist. i. 5). Lastly, by showing ; i.e., by understanding , He produces the Word, i.e., the Son. For in God the most noble thing is understanding, and the most noble action is to understand , to illuminate , to show. For the noblest and chief power of the soul is intellect and reason. These command the will, and guide it as it were blindfold ; and by it they rule and move all the other senses and powers of the soul. Hence comes the axiom of the wise, “ Mind effects all things : ” it is the part of reason to govern. Just as strong as any one is in intellect, so far is he able to command. For the intellect in conceiving and understanding, by means of conception and intelligence, in a lively manner incorporates all those things into itself, and as it were possesses them. For it conceives all things in itself in a certain lively manner, and forms an appearance of them in itself which presents to it all the goodness and beauty of things. Wherefore the understanding is the eye of the mind. As in the body the eye is the noblest and most efficacious sense, which incorporates into itself the forms of all things, far more does the understanding do this in the mind. Wherefore the blessed in heaven, by means of the understanding, in understanding and seeing God, incorporate Him into themselves, possess Him, and are blessed by Him.
This then is the reason of this mode of speech by which to show is taken for to give , to communicate , to bring one into possession of the thing shown. This is what Aristotle says, “The intellect by understanding becomes all things,” because by a lively conception of things it assimilates itself to them, and them to itself. Thus it seizes and holds them, and makes them to exist in a nobler and better manner in itself than they are in themselves. For in themselves they are often dead and inanimate, but in the intellect they are living and animated. They live in the highest and most excellent vital act.
And will show greater things: by showing will give and communicate . These greater things are more illustrious mysteries and miracles, especially the raising of the dead, and the authority to judge all men ; of both which Christ proceeds to speak.
That ye may marvel. He does not say that ye may believe, for the scribes and the Jews, when they saw so many miracles of Christ, wondered at His power, but yet were blinded by envy and hatred, and would not believe in Him as the Messiah. Still Christ did those things with the intention that they should believe in Him. The heretics act in just the same way even now. They admire the wisdom, holiness, and miracles of the orthodox saints, but will not follow their faith, nor imitate their manner of living. Such is heresy, and the blindness, obstinacy, and malignity of error.
Ver. 21. — For as the Father , &c. Behold here is the first greater work which Christ said the Father would show , that is, communicate, to the Son. As S. Cyril says, “ Marvel not that one who was utterly weakened by long disease was strengthened by a word, and took up his bed, and went away, for I am about altogether to destroy death, and to judge the whole world.”
So also the Son, &c. He tacitly signifies that He is God, equal to the Father in power and liberty to raise and quicken whom He will.
Whom He will. It is not that the Father wills to quicken some, and the Son wills to quicken others, but the same, because His will is conformable, yea, the same as the will of the Father. So Augustine.
Quickeneth, i.e., raiseth from the dead, both in this life, as He raised Lazarus, and in the day of judgment, when He will raise all mankind.
Ver. 22. — For neither doth the Father judge , &c. The Arabic omits for , but the Greek has it, and appositely. For this is the second reason by which Christ proves that He is God, and the second greater work which He said the Father would show Him. As Cyril says, “He brings forward another Divine and excellent argument, by which He shows that He is by nature truly God. For to whom else does it belong to judge the world but to God only?”
To His Son . One God with Himself, but by His Incarnation made man. As S. Austin says (lib. 1, de Trin., c. 13), “ No one shall see the Father at the judgment of the quick and the dead, but all shall see the Son, because He is the Son of Man, that He may be seen by the wicked also, when they shall look on Him whom they pierced.”
You will say, Christ has been created Judge as man, according to the words (Acts x. 42), “ Who has been constituted by God the Judge of quick and dead,” therefore Christ cannot prove from His being Judge that He is God. I answer, that this correctly proves it, because the power of judgment is a thing peculiar to God : it is a matter of the highest and most ample right. Wherefore neither would God communicate it, nor could it be fittingly communicated to a mere man, but to Christ alone, who is both God and man. For He as God has the supreme authority to judge, but as man, He is able to exercise this judgment visibly before men, to acquit, or to condemn. For a judge ought to be seen and heard by those who are accused.
Ver. 23 . — That all, &c. For the Jews who would not then honour the Son of God, or acknowledge Him to be such, when they shall see His Divine power and majesty in the day of judgment, will be compelled to acknowledge, honour, and adore Him as God.
Like as they honour the Father : the words like as signify equality, not similitude.