ACC ~ John 3 v35

THE FATHER’S LOVE FOR HIS SON IS UNIQUE

AUGUSTINE: He added “has given all things into his hands” so that you might know also here with what distinction it is said, “The Father loves the Son.” And why? Doesn’t the Father love John? And yet he has not given all things into his hand. Doesn’t the Father love Paul? And yet he has not given all things into his hand. “The Father loves the Son,” but as a father loves, not as master loves a servant. He loves him as the only Son, not as an adopted son, and so he “has given all things into his hand.” What does “all things” mean? That the Son should be such as the Father is. He begot him to equality with himself—he in whom it was no robbery to be in the form of God and equal to God. [1] “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into his hand.” Therefore, having deigned to send us the Son, let us not imagine that it is something less than the Father that is sent to us. The Father, in sending the Son, sent his other self. TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 14.11. [2]

[1] See Phil 2:6.

[2] NPNF 1 7:98*.

THE SON HAS ETERNALLY WHAT THE FATHER HAS ETERNALLY

ATHANASIUS: This passage does not demonstrate that the Son, at one time, did not have these prerogatives [that were given him by the Father]. For he who is the only Word and Wisdom of the Father in essence has eternally what the Father has. For doesn’t Christ elsewhere say, “All that the Father has are mine,” [1] and whatever things are mine are the Father’s? For if the things of the Father are the Son’s and the Father always has them, it is plain that what the Son has, being the Father’s, were always in the Son. This is not because there was a time when he did not have them, but because, even though the Son has eternally what he has, he still has them from the Father. DISCOURSES AGAINST THE ARIANS 3.27.35. [2]

[1] Jn 16:15; 17:10.

[2] NPNF 2 4:413**.

THE SON, AS MAN, RECEIVES ALL THINGS AT SECOND COMING

AMMONIUS: The Father loves the world too, but not in the same way as he loves the Son, whom he loves exceedingly because of his incarnation as his own Word and Wisdom and Holiness. [His giving all things over to his Son] will be fulfilled at the time of his second coming when “every knee will bow to him,” as everyone rejects the evil to which they are now clinging. Here he calls his power his “hand.” The Son has this power by nature and not just to a certain degree. That is because every good thing really belongs to the Father and the Son is perceived to have this full power. And he will also receive as a man the authority which he had also had before his incarnation. FRAGMENTS ON JOHN 105. [1]

[1] JKGK 224.