ACC ~ John 6 v40

WILLS IN CONCERT

CHRYSOSTOM: But what do you mean? Do you have one will and he has another? No, certainly. Look at what he says afterwards: “And this is the will of him who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him should have everlasting life.” Is not then this your will too?… For the Son quickens whom he will. [1] … He says then, I came to do nothing but what the Father wills, for I have no will distinct from my Father’s. All things that the Father has are mine. But he does not say that here. He reserves these higher truths for the end of his ministry. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 45.3. [2]

[1] See Jn 5:21.

[2] NPNF 1 14:162**.

WHOEVER SEES AND BELIEVES

AUGUSTINE: He has said two things: “This is the work of God that you should believe in the one whom he has sent,” while here he added, “whoever sees and believes.” The Jews saw but did not believe; they had the one condition, lacked the other. How could they attain to eternal life without the other? The reason those who saw did not attain eternal life was because they did not also believe. If so, what about us who have believed but have not seen? If it is those two things that earn eternal life, seeing and believing—and whoever is lacking one of them cannot attain to the reward of eternal life—what are we to do? The Jews [who saw him] lacked the one; we the other. They had seeing but lacked believing. We have believing but lack seeing. Well, as regards our having believing and lacking seeing, we have prophetically been declared blessed by the Lord himself just as Thomas, one of the Twelve, was blessed when he felt his scars by touching them. SERMON 14A.5. [1]

[1] WSA 3 11:27*. See also Tertullian On the Resurrection of the Flesh 34 (ANF 3:570), where he too discusses seeing and believing.

FAITH LEADS TO PERFECTION AT THE RESURRECTION

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: Faith, so to speak, is the attempt generated in time; the final result is the attainment of the promise secured for eternity. Now the Lord himself has most clearly revealed the equality of salvation when he said, “This is indeed the will of my Father, that all who see the Son and believe in him may have eternal life; and I will raise them up on the last day.” As far as possible in this world, which is what he means by the last day—and which is preserved till the time that it shall end—we believe that we are made perfect. Wherefore he says, “The one who believes on the Son has everlasting life.” [1] If then, those who have believed have life, what remains beyond the possession of eternal life? Nothing is lacking in faith as it is perfect and complete in itself. CHRIST THE EDUCATOR 1.6. [2]

[1] Jn 3:36.

[2] ANF 2:216*.

THE RESURRECTION FULFILLS THE PRAYER “THY KINGDOM COME”

CHRYSOSTOM: No one who has lived correctly disbelieves the resurrection, but every day they pray and repeat that holy sentence, “thy kingdom come.” Who then are the ones who disbelieve the resurrection? Those who have unholy ways and an unclean life. As the prophet says, “His ways are profane at all times. Your judgments are removed from before him.” [1] For one cannot possibly live a pure life without believing in the resurrection, since they who are conscious of no iniquity both speak of and wish for and believe in it, that they may receive their reward. HOMILIES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 45.3. [2]

[1] Ps 10:5 (9:26 LXX).

[2] NPNF 1 14:163-64*.

THE OPERATION OF THE HOLY TRINITY

CYRIL OF ALEXANDRIA: The Father then brings to the Son, by knowledge and God-befitting contemplation, those to whom he decreed the divine grace. The Son receives and revives them, and engrafting his own good into those who are of their own nature apt to decay and shedding on them as a spark of fire the life-giving power of the Spirit, reforms them throughout unto immortality. But when you hear that the Father brings them and that the Son gives the power of renewed living to those that run to him, do not go off into absurd fancies, as though each were supposed to do individually and severally what belongs appropriately by nature to each. The Father is co-worker with the Son, and likewise the Son with the Father, and our salvation and recuperation from death to life is the work, so to say, of the whole Holy Trinity. COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 4.1. [1]

[1] LF 43:394-95*.

THE TWOFOLD RESURRECTION

AUGUSTINE: “Whoever sees the Son and believes on him should have everlasting life,” that is, by believing, by passing over to life, as at the first resurrection. But this is only the first resurrection. He alludes to the second when he says, “And I will raise him up at the last day.” TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 25.19. [1]

[1] NPNF 1 7:167*.