For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God.
All Commentaries on John 16:27 Go To John 16
Cyril of Alexandria
AD 444
And by the words I came out from God, we must surmise that He means either I was begotten from, and manifested Myself out of, His Substance (the words being taken with reference to what goes before as to His existing in a sense independently of His Father but not altogether separately from Him; for the Father is in the Son, and the Son again by Nature in the Father); or we must take the words "I came out from," as meaning I became even as you are; that is, a Man, endued with your form and nature. For the peculiar nature of any being may be conceived of as the place from which it proceeds, when it is transformed into anything else and becomes what it was not before. We are indeed far from asserting that when He took the form of man even as ourselves, being at the same time truly the Only-begotten, He divested Himself of His Godhead. For He is the same yesterday, and today, yea and for ever. But when He took upon Himself a nature that was not His own, while at the same time He retained His peculiar attributes, He may be conceived of as having come forth from God, in a sense appropriate to this passage. You may take, if you choose, the words I came forth from the Father, in yet another sense, as follows: The Pharisees, only apt in error, as I have already said, thought that Christ came before the world like one of the false prophets, with no mission from God, but of His own motion; inasmuch as they were accustomed to point out to those that went to Him, that Christ's teaching conflicted with the Law. And for this reason they considered Him guilty of disobedience, declaring that the keeping of the Law is most acceptable to God the Father, but it was broken by His teaching. They therefore rejected Christ as an enemy of God, and as having chosen to oppose the dispensation given to them from Him through Moses, and argued that He was for this reason an alien from God. But not so the blessed disciples. For they loved Him, and had their minds exalted above the madness of the Jews, and they had a genuine faith that He came out from God, as we have just been told. For this cause then were they beloved of the Father, and were requited, as it were, by receiving equal favour from Him. And if they who believe that the Son came out from God are very dear and acceptable to God the Father, surely they who are diseased with the contrary opinion are accursed and abominable in God's sight. And if God is very ready to hearken to those who love the Son, clearly He will not accept the prayers of His enemies; and this is what is said by the mouth of Isaiah to them: And when ye spread forth your hands to Me, I will hide Mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.
