I can of my own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not my own will, but the will of the Father who has sent me.
All Commentaries on John 5:30 Go To John 5
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
I cannot, &c. Christ shows that His judgment, by which, as Prayer of Manasseh , He will judge all men, will be a last judgment, for his reason that He cannot either judge or will any other thing than that which the Father judges and wills. For Hebrews , in that He is God, has the very same judgment, the very self-same Divine mind and will that the Father has. But in that He is Prayer of Manasseh , He is wholly governed by the Divinity and the indwelling Word, so that He can neither judge nor will anything but that which the Godhead judges and wills. So S. Augustine.
As I hear, so I judge: always, and especially in the judgment day. I hear, i.e, I know, I understand. As S. Chrysostom says, "By hearing nothing else is meant than that nothing else is possible but the Father"s judgment. I so judge as if the Father Himself were judge."
Because I seek not Mine own will, i.e, Mine own alone, or diverse from the Father"s will, for I have no such will, but the will of Him that sent Me: for My Divine will is identical with the Father"s, and My human will is wholly conformable to the Divine will. As S. Augustine says, "not that He has no will of His own in judging, but because His will is not so His own as to be diverse from the Father"s will." He gives the reason priori why His future judgment should be just, because, indeed, His will is altogether subject and conformed to the Divine will, because it subsists in the Divine Person of the Word, and is ruled by it. For the will bends and rules the intellect and its judgment in whatever direction it pleases.
