What Does John 8:17 Mean?

(17) **It is also written in your law.**—He now proceeds to show again that the technical requirement of the Law was satisfied by His witness. The term *“your* law” is material, as addressed to those who were professed expounders of it and accused Him of being a transgressor of it. (Comp. the parallel reference to the Law in John 10:34; John 15:25.) To assert that Jesus placed Himself in a position of antagonism to the Mosaic law, is to forget the teaching of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:17); and to assert that the Jesus of the Fourth Gospel differs in this respect from the character as portrayed by the earlier Evangelists, is to forget the teaching of the last verse of John 5, and, indeed, to miss the whole force of these very passages. He does not, indeed, say “our law,” as it was for them what it could not be for Him; but He mentions it to show in each case that He fulfilled it. **That the testimony of two men is true.**—See Deuteronomy 17:6; Deuteronomy 19:15, and comp. Notes on Matthew 18:16 and Mark 14:55-56. The words are here quoted freely, and “two men” is substituted for “two or three witnesses,” which we find in both the passages in Deuteronomy. This prepares the way for the full thought of the “witness,” in the next verse. The requirement of the Law would be satisfied with the evidence of two men: He has the witness of two Persons, but each is divine.