But Jesus answered them,
My Father works still, and I work.
All Commentaries on John 5:17 Go To John 5
Cornelius a Lapide
AD 1637
But Jesus answered, &c. "The Father worketh," says S. Augustine (lib4. de Genesis , cap12), "both affording suitable government to things created and having in Himself eternal tranquillity:" for, as he says elsewhere, "being still He worketh, and working He is at rest." And after an interval, "The power and virtue of the Creator is the cause of existence of every creature. And if this virtue were ever to cease from governing created things, their forms (species) would cease at the same time, and all nature would come to an end." Like as the light in the air vanishes if the sun withdraw his rays, by which light is produced. The meaning Isaiah , "You, 0 ye scribes, object against Me the law of Sabbatical rest, which God commanded you because He Himself rested on the Sabbath from all His work. But I answer that God on the Sabbath only rested from producing new species of things. But He did not rest in such a manner that He is not every Sabbath continually working, that is to say, governing and preserving the world, and all the things that are in it, moving the heavens, bringing forth one thing out of another, feeding and healing all living things, &c. This, which is work of the highest beneficence, is not servile work, but pious and Divine. Such work is indeed lawful; yea, it adorns and hallows the Sabbath. So too I, who am the co-equal Son of the Father, always work, and always have wrought the same things with Him. For neither do I work without the Father, nor the Father without Me." So S. Augustine and others.
Observe the Hebraism: and I work, that Isaiah ,, Song of Solomon , or in like manner, I work. For the word and, when it is the mark of conjunction, since it joins like things, is a sign of comparison and similitude, and means the same thing as thus, as is constantly the case in the Book of Proverbs.
