“He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.”
My Notes
What Does John 8:47 Mean?
"He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God." Jesus draws the sharpest possible line: hearing God's words is determined by being of God. If you're of God, you hear. If you don't hear, you're not of God. The equation allows no middle ground: the hearing IS the evidence of the identity. The not-hearing IS the evidence of the absence.
The accusation "ye are not of God" is the most devastating thing Jesus says to people who claim God as Father (v. 41). Their self-identification is contradicted by their hearing deficit. They claim divine origin while demonstrating divine estrangement. And Jesus names the gap with surgical directness: you don't hear because you're not his.
Reflection Questions
- 1.Can you genuinely hear God's words — not just comprehend them but receive and be changed by them?
- 2.What's the difference between intellectual comprehension of Scripture and the spiritual hearing Jesus describes?
- 3.How does the equation (hearing = evidence of being God's) challenge the assumption that church attendance or Bible knowledge proves anything?
- 4.Where are God's words bouncing off your defenses rather than penetrating your interior?
Devotional
If you were God's, you'd hear God's words. You don't hear. Therefore: you're not God's. Jesus reduces the entire debate to one diagnostic: can you hear?
The simplicity is the severity. Jesus doesn't evaluate their theology (it's mostly correct). He doesn't evaluate their morality (they're among the most disciplined people alive). He evaluates one thing: can you hear God's words? And they can't. The words enter their ears and don't register. The truth is spoken in their presence and doesn't land. The hearing mechanism is intact — they can hear sounds fine. The spiritual receiving mechanism is broken — they can't receive God's words through Jesus.
Ye are not of God. The conclusion follows the evidence with merciless logic. God's children hear God's words. You don't hear God's words. Therefore you're not God's children. The syllogism is airtight. And the people caught in it have no escape — because the evidence (their inability to hear Jesus) is publicly demonstrated in the very conversation where the verdict is delivered.
The verse should terrify every person who claims to belong to God: can you hear his words? Not: can you recite them? Can you hear them — receive them, internalize them, let them change you? Because the hearing that Jesus describes isn't intellectual comprehension. It's spiritual reception. The Pharisees comprehended every word Jesus spoke. They just couldn't receive it. The comprehension was intact. The hearing was dead.
The test isn't: do you go to church? Do you read the Bible? Do you know the theology? The test is: do you hear God's words when they're spoken? Does the truth register? Does the word of God penetrate past your defenses and change your interior? Because the person who is of God hears. And the person who doesn't hear has a problem that theology alone can't diagnose — a problem of origin, not of education.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
I seek not mine own glory,.... In his doctrine, or in his miracles; which showed that he was no impostor, but a true,…
He that is of God - He that loves, fears, and honors God. Heareth God’s words - Listens to, or attends to the doctrines…
He that is of God - Meaning probably himself: he who came from God, or was born of God - heareth the words of God - has…
Here Christ and the Jews are still at issue; he sets himself to convince and convert them, while they still set…
Christ answers His own question and at the same time gives a final disproof of their claim to call God their father (Joh…
Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture