28+++So Jesus said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me.
29+++“And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.”
Then said Jesus unto them---
Upbraiding them with their ignorance, and giving them a sign, as well as pointing out the time when they either, by good or sad experience, should have knowledge of him:
when ye have lift up the son of man; meaning himself, who was to be lifted up upon the cross, as the serpent was upon the pole, in the wilderness; and which signified the manner of death he should die, the death of the cross; and suggested, that what the Jews designed for his reproach, shame, and abasement, would be the way and means of his rise and exaltation; and this lifting him up, or crucifying him, he ascribes to them, because they would deliver him to Pontius Pilate to be condemned, and stir up the people to ask, and be importunate themselves for his crucifixion:
then shall ye know that I am he; the Son of God, and true Messiah, as the centurion, and those that were with him, did, when they observed the earthquake; and the things that were done at his death; and after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, and the pouring forth of his Spirit, many of the Jews had not only a notional, but a true and spiritual knowledge of Jesus, as the Messiah; and upon the destruction of their temple, city, and nation, and their disappointment by false Christs, they doubtless many of them must, and did know, that the true Messiah was come, and that Jesus of Nazareth was he:
The Father hath not left me alone---
The Greek words mean exactly, the Father (HE) left Me not alone, and they are sometimes taken to refer to the time of His mission into the world. The context rather points to their application to every moment of life. He was ever conscious of a Presence which they knew not of, but which the future should reveal to them. We shall find Him resting in this consciousness again when He looks on to the dark hour when the disciples shall be scattered every man to his own, and He shall be left as men would think alone; John 16:32.
The words furnish the reason for the presence of the Father in every act and moment of His life. All things done by Him at all times were in accordance with the Father’s will. In His human nature perpetual communion is conditioned by perpetual obedience. The same thought recurs in His words to the disciples in John 15:10. Comp. also, on the relation of the Son to the Father, John 5:19.
Emphasis should be laid here upon the pronoun, “for I do always.” It was true of His human nature, as distinct from all others, that no act, at any moment of life, had cast its shadow on the brightness of the vision of the Father’s presence. Later in this same discourse; John 8:46, He appeals to their knowledge of His holy life. Here, in words that none other in human form could ever utter, He appeals to His own consciousness of a life, every act of which was pleasing in the presence of God.
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