The Jews answered him, saying
As follows;
for a good work we stone thee not:
they could not deny, that he had done many good works; this was
too barefaced to be contradicted; yet they cared not to own them;
and though they industriously concealed their resentment at them,
yet they were very much gravelled and made uneasy by them, but
chose to give another reason for their stoning him:
but for blasphemy;
which required death by stoning, according to ( Leviticus
24:16 ) , and according to the Jews' oral law F17:
and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself
God;
which they concluded very rightly, from his saying, ( John 10:30 ) , that God
was his Father, and that he and his Father were one; that is, in
nature and essence, and therefore he must be God; but then this
was no blasphemy, but a real truth, as is hereafter made to
appear; nor is there any contradiction between his being man, and
being God; he is truly and really man, but then he is not a mere
man, as the Jews suggested; but is truly God, as well as man, and
is both God and man in one person, the divine and human nature
being united in him, of which they were ignorant: two mistakes
they seem to be guilty of in this account; one that Christ was a
mere man, the other that he made himself God, or assumed deity to
himself, which did not belong to him, and therefore must be
guilty of blasphemy; neither of which were true: the phrase is
used by the Jews, of others who have taken upon them the name and
title of God; as of Hiram king of Tyre, of whom they say,
(hwla wmue hvev) , "that
he made himself God" F18; the same they say of
Nebuchadnezzar; and the modern Jews still continue the same
charge against Jesus, as their ancestors did, and express it in
the same language, and say of him, that he was a man, and set
himself up for God F19.