Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
Of mine own self - See John 5:19. The Messiah, the Mediator, does nothing without the concurrence and the authority of God. Such is the nature of the union subsisting between them, that he does nothing independently of God. Whatever he does, he does according to the will of God.
As I hear I judge - To "hear" expresses the condition of one who is commissioned or instructed. Thus John 8:26, "I speak to the world those things which I have "heard" of him;" John 8:28, "As the Father hath taught me, I speak those things." Jesus here represents himself as commissioned, taught, or sent of God. When he says, "as I ' hear,' " he refers to those things which the Father had "showed" him John 5:20 - that is, he came to communicate the will of God; to show to man what God wished man to know.
I judge - I determine or decide. This was true respecting the institutions and doctrines of religion, and it will be true respecting the sentence which he will pass on mankind at the day of judgment. He will decide their destiny according to what the Father wills and wishes - that is, according to justice.
Because I seek ... - This does not imply that his own judgment would be wrong if he sought his own will, but that he had no "private" ends, no selfish views, no improper bias. He came not to aggrandize himself, or to promote his own views, but he came to do the will of God. Of course his decision would be impartial and unbiased, and there is every security that it will be according to truth. See Luke 22:42, where he gave a memorable instance, in the agony of the garden, of his submission to his Father' s will.
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing John 5:30:
Ezekiel 9:2
Ezekiel 34:20-31
Nahum 1:3
Zechariah 6:13
Malachi 3:1
Matthew 20:20-28
Matthew 24:30
John 6:38
John 9:39
John 12:44
John 15:15
John 16:13
John 17:8
Acts 2:22
Romans 15:3
1 Corinthians 8:6
Revelation 11:3
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