John 12:38

(Hom. lxviii. 2) But why then did Christ come? Did He not know that they would not believe in Him? Yes: the Prophets had prohibited this very unbelief, and He came that it might be made manifest, to their confusion and condemnation; That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which He spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?

(Hom. lxviii. 2) That the saying of Esaias might be fulfilled: that here is expressive not of the cause, but of the event. They did not disbelieve because Esaias said they would; but because they would disbelieve, Esaias said they would.

What did he see? In the spiritual vision, in the revelation of divine nature, which is incomprehensible, Isaiah saw the glory that, since it is common to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Scripture cannot establish precisely whether it is the glory of the Son or the Holy Spirit, and therefore neither the Evangelist nor the apostle are in contradiction by saying that it is the glory of the Son or of the Holy Spirit.

(Tr. liii. 2) It is evident here that the arm of the Lord is the Son of God Himself. Not that the Father has a human fleshly form; He is called the arm of the Lord, because all things were made by Him. If a man had power of such a kind, as that without any motion of his body, what he said was forthwith done, the word of that man would be his arm. Here is no ground to justify, however, the error of those who say that the Godhead is one Person only, because the Son is the arm of the Father, and a man and his arm are not two persons, but one. These men do not understand, that the commonest things require to be explained often by applying language to them taken from other things in which there happens to be a likeness, [cand that, when we are upon things incomprehensible, and which cannot be described as they actually are, this is much more necessary. Thus one man calls another man, whom he makes great use of, his arm; and talks of having lost his arm, of having his arm taken away from him.]

"But though He had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on Him: that the saying of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?" Where he makes it sufficiently plain that the Son of God is Himself the arm of the Lord; not that the person of God the Father is determined by the shape of human flesh, and that the Son is attached to Him as a member of His body; but because all things were made by Him, and therefore He is designated the arm of the Lord. For as it is with thine arm that thou workest, so the Word of God is styled His arm; because by the Word He elaborated the world. For why does a man, in order to do some work, stretch forth his arm, but because the doing of it does not straightway follow his word? And if he was endowed with such pre-eminent power that what he said was done without any movement of his body, then would his word be his arm. But the Lord Jesus, the only-begotten Son of God the Father, as He is no mere member of the Father's body, so is He no mere thinkable, and audible, and transitory word; for, as all things were made by Him, He was the word of God.

When, therefore, we hear that the Son of God is the arm of God the Father, let no carnal custom raise its distracting din in our ears; but as far as His grace enables us, let us think of that power and wisdom of God by which all things were made. Surely such an arm as that is neither held out by stretching, nor drawn in by contracting it. For He is not one and the same with the Father, but He and the Father are one; and as equal with the Father, He is in all respects complete, as well as the Father: so that no room is left open for the abominable error of those who assert that the Father alone exists, but according to the difference of causes is Himself sometimes called the Son, sometimes the Holy Spirit.

(Tr. liii. 2) But some mutter, and ask, What fault was it of the Jews, if it was necessary that the sayings of Esaias should be fulfilled? We answer, that God, foreseeing the future, predicted by the Prophet the unbelief of the Jews, but did not cause it. God does not compel men to sin, because He knows they will sin. He foreknows their sins, not His own. The Jews committed the sin, which He who knows all things foretold they would commit.

There are some, then, who mutter among themselves, and sometimes speak out when they can, and even break forth into turbulent debate, saying: What did the Jews do, or what fault was it of theirs, if it was a necessity "that the saying of Isaiah the prophet should be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?" To whom our answer is, that the Lord, in His foreknowledge of the future, foretold by the prophet the unbelief of the Jews; He foretold it, but did not cause it. For God does not compel any one to sin simply because He knows already the future sins of men. For He foreknew sins that were theirs, not His own; sins that were referable to no one else, but to their own selves. Accordingly, if what He foreknew as theirs is not really theirs, then had He no true foreknowledge: but as His foreknowledge is infallible, it is doubtless no one else, but they themselves, whose sinfulness God foreknew, that are the sinners. The Jews, therefore, committed sin, with no compulsion to do so on His part, to whom sin is an object of displeasure; but He foretold their committing of it, because nothing is concealed from His knowledge. And accordingly, had they wished to do good instead of evil, they would not have been hindered; but in this which they were to do they were foreseen of Him who knows what every man will do, and what He is yet to render unto such an one according to his work.

Who, i. e. so very few believed.

In the words "they did not believe in Him, that the word of Isaiah might be fulfilled," what is expressed is not the cause, but the event. For they did not disbelieve in Christ because Isaiah had foretold it about them, but the prophet foretold it about them because they would not believe.
Let us also examine the words of Isaiah: "Lord, who has believed our report?" (Isa. 53:1). This means the same as "no one believed." For the word "who" is used in many places of Scripture in place of "no one." The prophet said this as if speaking in the person of Christ. Christ speaks thus, as it were, to the Father: "Lord, who has believed our report?" — that is, no one has believed Our word and My preaching, which He called "report." For He says: "What I have heard from My Father, that I speak" (John 8:26).
"And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?" — that is, the mighty working of miracles, which He called "the arm," was not revealed to any of the senseless Jews, but they slander Me even when I perform so many miracles.

That the word of Isaiah the Prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke: Lord, who has believed: as if to say: few, or none: our report? That is, that which we have heard from the Lord: or that which one hears from us prophesying, because "faith comes from hearing," Romans 10. And the arm of the Lord, to whom has it been revealed? The arm of the Lord, as Augustine says, is the Son of the Father. "For just as your arm is that by which you work, so the arm of God is called the Word, by which he made the world. This arm is neither stretched out when extended nor drawn in when gathered." Nor was it only foreseen, but it also came about by the just judgment of God.

Then, the testimony of the prophet on this point is cited. First, the prophecies are mentioned; secondly, it is shown that they refer to Christ (v 41). He does two things about the first: he cites the prophecy foretelling their unbelief; secondly, he adds the prophecy foretelling the reason for their unbelief (v 39).

He says: I say that they did not believe in him that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled. Here we should note that in Sacred Scripture the word "that" sometimes indicates a cause, as in "I came that they may have light" (10:10). But at other times it just indicates a sequence of events, and signifies a future event; and that is how it is used here. These people did not believe, but it was not because Isaiah predicted this. Rather, Isaiah predicted this because they were not going to believe. And so this saying of Isaiah is fulfilled from the fact that they did not believe. "Everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled" (Lk 24:44); "Not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished" (Matt 5:18).

But if it was necessary that the saying of Isaiah be fulfilled, it seems that the Jews should be excused for not believing, for they could not act contrary to the prophecy. I answer that the prophecy took account of their freedom. For God, knowing the future beforehand, foretold their unbelief in the prophecy, but he did not bring it about; for God does not force one to sin just because he already knows one's future sins. And so our Lord, from whom nothing is hidden, predicted that the Jews would commit the sin which they did commit.

Now the Evangelist states what the prophet said, Lord, who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? Here we should note that belief comes in two ways. Sometimes by instruction from another; and this is the usual way: "So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ" (Rom 10:17). Sometimes it comes by a divine revelation; and this is the special way, spoken of by the Apostle: "For I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ" (Gal 1:12).

Isaiah foretold that there would be few believers. First, as to those who would believe in the usual way, by instruction, he says, Lord, who has believed our report? This can be understood in two ways. In one way, the meaning is: who has believed our report? That is, what you reported to us, what we have heard from you. "We have heard tidings from the Lord" (Obad 1:1); "Let us hear what the Lord will speak" (Ps 85:8). It is like they were saying: "Lord, we have heard these things from you. But who will believe us when we tell what we have heard from you about your birth and passion?" This entire chapter of Isaiah (ch. 53) is speaking of these things.

Prophets are said to hear in order to suggest the way in which the prophets are instructed. By sight, a person receives an immediate knowledge of the thing seen, but by hearing he does not have an immediate knowledge of what he hears, but he gains his knowledge from certain signs of the thing. And so because the prophets did not immediately see the divine essence, but only certain signs of divine realities, they are said to hear. "If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make myself known to him in a vision, I speak with him in a dream," by certain signs (Num 12:6). The Son, however, eternally sees the divine essence itself: "No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known," as was said above (1:18). Who has believed our report? That is, who has believed in the things we have heard and preached? "What I have heard from the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I announce to you" (Is 21:10).

The second way of understanding who has believed our report? is to take it as meaning the things we report to them, what they have heard from us. "They hear what you say but they will not do it" as Ezekiel (33:31) says.

As to the special way belief comes, by revelation, he says, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? The "arm" refers to the Son, through whom the Father does all things, just as we accomplish things through our arm. And if we accomplished things only through an interior word, then this word would be called our arm. And so the Son is called the arm of God not because God the Father has a human shape and a physical arm, but because "all things were made through him," the Son (1:3). "Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his?" (Job 40:9); "He has shown strength with his arm" (Lk 1:51).

Here we should note that Sabellius misunderstood this passage and said that the Father and the Son are the same person; and Arius also did when he said that the Son is inferior to the Father. The reasons for this were that a person and his arm do not form two persons, but only one, and an arm is not equal to the person. The answer to this is that in expressions of this kind the similarities are not really adequate, for what we find in creatures does not perfectly represent what is in God. Thus Dionysius says that symbolic theology is not argumentative. Thus the Son is not called an arm as though he is the same person as the Father or inferior to the Father, but because the Father does all things through him. When he says, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? it is like saying, only to a few, that is, to the apostles: "God has revealed to us through the Spirit" (1 Cor 2:10).