Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.

Jesus therefore said to them: If God were your Father, you would indeed love me. For from God I proceeded, and came; for I came not of myself, but he sent me:

Jesus said to them, If God were your father ye would have loved me, for I came forth from God and am come from him; for neither am I come of myself, but he has sent me.

Jesus then said to them, 'If God were your father, ye were loving me, for I came forth from God, and am come; for neither have I come of myself, but He sent me;

"If God were your Father," said Jesus, "you would love me; for it is from God that I came and I am now here. I have not come of myself, but *He* sent me.

"If God were your Father," Jesus replied, "you would have loved me, for I came out from God, and now am here; and I have not come of myself, but he sent me as his messenger.

If God were your Father, you would love me. Christ's argument is this: "Whoever is a child of God will acknowledge his first-born Son; but you hate me, and therefore you have no reason to boast, that you are God's children." We ought carefully to observe this passage, that there is no piety and no fear of God where Christ is rejected. Hypocritical religion, indeed, presumptuously shelters itself under the name of God; but how can they agree with the Father who disagree with his only Son? What kind of knowledge of God is that in which his lively image is rejected? And this is what Christ means, when he testifies that he came from the Father. For I proceeded and came from God. He means that all that he has is divine; and therefore it is most inconsistent that the true worshippers of God should fly from his truth and righteousness. "I did not come," says he, "of myself. You cannot show that anything about me is contrary to God. In short, you will find nothing that is either earthly or human in my doctrine, or in the whole of my ministry." For he does not speak of his essence, but of his office.

If God were your Father - If you had the spirit of God, or love to him, or were worthy to be called his children.
Ye would love me - Jesus was "the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of his person," Hebrews 1:3. "Everyone that loveth him that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him," 1-John 5:1. From this we see:
1. that all who truly love God, love his Son Jesus Christ.
2. that men that pretend that they love God, and reject his Son, have no evidence that they are the friends of God.
3. that those who reject the Bible cannot be the friends of God. If they loved God, they would love Him who came from him, and who bears his image.

If God were your Father, ye would love me - I came from God, and it would be absurd to suppose that you would persecute me if you were under the influence of God. The children of the same father should not murder each other.

Jesus said unto them, if God were your Father,.... By adoption; and this was discovered by the grace of regeneration; or in other words, if they had been born of God,
ye would love me; for in regeneration love to Christ is always implanted: it is a fruit of the Spirit, which always comes along with the superabounding grace of God in conversion; whoever are begotten again, according to abundant mercy, love an unseen Jesus; and where there is no love to Christ, there can be no regeneration: such persons are not born again; nor is God their Father, at least manifestatively:
for I proceeded forth; and came from God; the former of these phrases is observed by many learned men to be used by the Septuagint, of a proper natural birth, as in Genesis 15:4; and here designs the eternal generation of Christ, as the Son of God, being the only begotten of the Father, and the Son of the Father in truth and love; and the other is to be understood of his mission from him, as Mediator:
neither came I of myself; or did not take the office to himself, without being called unto it, and invested with it, by his Father:
but he sent me; not by force, or against the will of Christ, or by change of place, but by assumption of nature; he sent him at the time agreed upon, in human nature, to obtain eternal redemption for his people: and upon both these accounts Christ is to be loved by all regenerate persons, or who have God for their Father; both on account of his being the Son of God, of the same nature and essence with him, see 1-John 5:1; and on account of his mission into this world, as Mediator, since he was sent, and came to be the Saviour of lost sinners.

If God were your Father, ye would love me--"If ye had anything of His moral image, as children have their father's likeness, ye would love Me, for I am immediately of Him and directly from Him." But "My speech" (meaning His peculiar style of expressing Himself on these subjects) is unintelligible to you because ye cannot take in the truth which it conveys.

If God were your Father, ye would love me. They made this claim (John 8:41). Their hatred of the Son was proof that they were not God's children.

I proceeded forth - As God, and come - As Christ.