There is further to remark on John 8, although the Lord refers to whence He came, and whither He went, to characterize fully the position and place of which He was witness on earth (and both were necessary to this, for He took man's place in it as going back). Yet after this, when speaking of His witness, He only refers to His coming from heaven, because He is the Word, and speaks the word of truth, and as such He comes from heaven. His connection with the Father is orderly brought out (vv. 16-18): “The Father that sent me." If He judged (which He did not, but only witnessed, though His words were the same as the judgment), He judged just because He and His Father were there; but then as witness He is sent (His Father's was distinct); His words ever the expression of His very nature (that is the true sense of verse 25). He had heard them from His Father (vv. 26, 28) that the Father was with Him here; for He always did what pleased Him. But it was not only what He had heard of the Father, but what He had seen with Him. Thus He passes plainly to their true nature and paternity, while He honors the Father, and the Father honors Him; and He is " I AM." This blessed truth could be met only by enmity by those who there spoke with Him.
Further, remark that legalized men, even natural conscience, can judge the outward sin. This is what is brought before us here, but as the divine life in man would always feel what the world was, so Christ, in whom that divine life was, made the opposite clearly manifest. He gives first by the divine presence what is called its spirituality to the law. As an outward system it was an arrangement to bring to light if flesh could be associated with God. But it contained the germ of what creation ought to be. The divine presence gives power to this in the conscience, sanctions the judgment of evil, but makes all evil to be judged in the conscience, but judges now no man.
But then, if God be thus manifested, He is not to set up the mere claim of His law on conscience. Being love, and the source of blessing, He could not merely do this; but He is the light of life. This, as we have seen, begins verse 12, and the word and witness of Christ as divine and heavenly comes out, giving the light of life, according to the place He came from and went to. Then we have, as accessories, slavery to sin and slavery to the law; the same thing, man being in flesh. This could not stay in the house; that is, in relationship with God. But truth and the Son would make free. The other point is that, though Abraham's seed according to the flesh, they were not Abraham's children. These accessory points bring the Lord, as He had first spoken of the direct source of blessing, to tell them plainly what they were.