*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
And you have not his word abiding in you. This is the true way of profiting, when the word of God takes root in us, so that, being impressed on our hearts, it has its fixed abode there. Christ affirms that the heavenly doctrine has no place among the Jews, because they do not receive the Son of God, on whom it everywhere bestows commendation. And justly does he bring this reproach against them; for it was not in vain that God spake by Moses and the Prophets. Moses had no other intention than to invite all men to go straight to Christ; and hence it is evident that they who reject Christ are not the disciples of Moses. Besides, how can that man have the word of life abiding in him who drives from him the life itself? How can that man keep the doctrine of the Law who destroys the soul of the Law, as far as lies in his power? For the Law without Christ is empty and has no solidity. Just in proportion, therefore, as any man knows Christ, is the proficiency which he has made in the word of God.
His word abiding in you - His law does not abide in you - that is, you do not regard or obey it. This was the "third" thing that he charged them with.
1. They had not obeyed the command of God.
2. They had not regarded his manifestations, either in the times of the old dispensation, or now through the Messiah.
3. They did not yield to what he had said in the revelation of the Old Testament.
For whom he hath sent - God had foretold that the Messiah would come. He had now given evidence that Jesus was he; but now they rejected him, and this was proof that they did not regard the word of God.
Ye have not his word abiding in you - Though ye believe the Scriptures to be of God, yet ye do not let them take hold of your hearts - his word is in your mouth, but not in your mind. What a miserable lot! to read the Scriptures as the true sayings of God, and yet to get no salvation from them! Thy word, says David, (Psalm 119:11), have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee. This, these Jews had not done. Reader, hast thou?
And ye have not his word abiding in you,.... Which some understand of Christ himself, the Logos, or word: who, though he was now with them, being made flesh, and dwelling among them, yet would not long continue with them: though rather this designs the written word, or the Scriptures of truth; and especially that part of them, which contains prophecies concerning the Messiah, which did not dwell in them richly, nor they dwell in their meditation on them, as was requisite. Or rather, it may intend that word of God expressed in the testimony he bore to the sonship of Christ at his baptism, by a voice from heaven, which made no lasting impression upon the minds and hearts of the Jews that heard it; as appears by what follows:
for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not; meaning himself; for if they had had either a due regard to the sacred oracles, or to that voice from heaven at his baptism, they would have received and embraced him as the Messiah, and sent of God, and not have disbelieved and rejected him, as now they did.
not his word abiding in you--passing now from the Witness to the testimony borne by Him in "the lively oracles" (Acts 7:38): both were alike strangers to their breasts, as was evidenced by their rejecting Him to whom all that witness was borne.
Ye have not his word - All who believe have the word of the Father (the same with the word of the Son) abiding in them, that is, deeply ingrafted in their hearts.
*More commentary available at chapter level.