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.

His word

Emphatic, commencing the sentence. Compare John 17:6 sqq.; 1 John 1:10; 1 John 2:14.

And ye have not his word abiding in you: for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not.

5:38 Have not his word abiding in you. If they had they would believe upon him of whom that word did speak.

5:38 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.

38. not his word abiding in you-passing now from the Witness to the testimony borne by Him in "the lively oracles" (Ac 7:38): both were alike strangers to their breasts, as was evidenced by their rejecting Him to whom all that witness was borne.

5:30-38 Our Lord returns to his declaration of the entire agreement between the Father and the Son, and declared himself the Son of God. He had higher testimony than that of John; his works bore witness to all he had said. But the Divine word had no abiding-place in their hearts, as they refused to believe in Him whom the Father had sent, according to his ancient promises. The voice of God, accompanied by the power of the Holy Ghost, thus made effectual to the conversion of sinners, still proclaims that this is the beloved Son, in whom the Father is well pleased. But when the hearts of men are full of pride, ambition, and the love of the world, there is no room for the word of God to abide in them.