made Himself equal with God. But He well knew that He was equal, but wherein they saw
not. For that which they saw they wished to crucify; by That which they saw not, they were
judged. What did the Jews see? What the Apostles also saw, when Philip said, “Show us the
Father, and it sufficeth us.”3699 But what did the Jews not see? What not even the Apostles
saw, when the Lord answered, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet have ye not
known Me? He that seeth Me, seeth the Father also.”3700 Because then the Jews were not
able to see This in Him, they held Him for a proud and ungodly man, making Himself equal
with God. Here was a troubling, the water was troubled, the Angel had come. For the Lord
is called also the “Angel of the Great Counsel,”3701 in that He is the messenger of the Father’s
will. For Angel in Greek is in Latin “messenger”. So you have the Lord saying that He an-
nounces to us the kingdom of Heaven. He then had come, the “Angel of the Great Counsel,”
but the Lord of all the Angels. “Angel” on this account, because He took Flesh; the “Lord
of Angels,” in that by “Him all things were made, and without Him was nothing made.”3702
For if all things, Angels too. And therefore Himself was not made, because by Him all things
were made. Now what was made, was not made without the operation of the Word. But the
flesh which became the mother of Christ, could not have been born, if it had not been created
by the Word, which was afterwards born of it.
4. The Jews then were troubled. What is this? “Why doeth He these things on the sabbath
days?” And especially at those words of the Lord, “My Father worketh hitherto, and I
work.”3703 Their carnal understanding of this, that God rested on the seventh day from all
His works,3704 “troubled them.” For this is written in Genesis, and most excellently written
it is, and on the best reasons. But they thinking that God as it were rested from fatigue on
the seventh day after all, and that He therefore blessed it, because on it He was refreshed
from His weariness, did not in their foolishness understand, that He who made all things
by the Word, could not be wearied. Let them read, and tell me how could God be wearied,
who said, “Let it be made, and it was made.” To-day if a man could so do, as God did, how
would he be wearied? He said, “Let there be light, and the light was made.” Again, “Let there
be a firmament, and it was made:”3705 if indeed He said, and it was not done, He was
wearied. In another place briefly, “He spake, and they were made; He commanded, and they
were created.”3706 He then who worketh thus, how doth He labour? But if He labour not,
3699 John xiv. 8.
3700 John xiv. 9.
3701 Isa. ix. 6, Sept.
3702 John i. 3.
3703 John v. 17.
3704 Gen. ii. 2.
3705 Gen. i. 3, 6, 7.
3706 Ps. xxxii. 9, Sept. (xxxiii. 9, English version).
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Again in John v. 2, etc., on the five porches, where lay a great multitude…