(25) I told you, and ye believed not.--Better, and ye believe not, as all the best MSS. Here, as in John 8:25, where a similar direct question was put to Him, the answer is indirect. It could not be otherwise. Their misconception of the Messianic work had made the very word Messiah an impossible one for Him to utter to them. To have said He was the Messiah would have been to sanction their thought of Him as a temporal prince; to have said that He was not would have been to contradict the essential truth. He refers them, then, to His earlier words and deeds in proof of what He was. To inquirers of simpler hearts, as the woman of Samaria and the man born blind, He had used the word Messiah. To them He had again and again told the same truth, though the actual word had never crossed His lips while speaking to them.

The works that I do in my Father's name.--Comp. Note on John 5:36. This appeal to His works, and the assertion that they were done in His Father's name, is itself an answer in word and in deed that He was the Messiah.

Verse 25. - Jesus answered them. The reply of Jesus is full of wisdom. If he had at once given an affirmative answer, they would have misunderstood him, because he was not the Christ of their expectations. If he had denied that he was the Messiah, he would have been untrue to his deepest consciousness of reality. The answer was: I spake with you - told you what I am - and ye believe not. To the woman in Samaria, to the Capernaites, to the blind man, to Peter and the other apostles, and in several emphatic forms, he had admitted his Messiahship. In John 8. he had claimed the highest honors and announced his [Divine commission, and appealed to his great Messianic works, but his endeavor to rectify their Messianic ideal had, through their obtuseness, failed of its purpose. So now once more he referred them to works done in his Father's name, which hitherto had failed to convince them: The works that I do in my Father's name (John 5:19, 36), they bear witness concerning me.

10:22-30 All who have any thing to say to Christ, may find him in the temple. Christ would make us to believe; we make ourselves doubt. The Jews understood his meaning, but could not form his words into a full charge against him. He described the gracious disposition and happy state of his sheep; they heard and believed his word, followed him as his faithful disciples, and none of them should perish; for the Son and the Father were one. Thus he was able to defend his sheep against all their enemies, which proves that he claimed Divine power and perfection equally with the Father.Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not,.... He had often said, what amounted to it, in his ministry and doctrine; as that God was his Father, and he was the light of the world, and the good shepherd, and the like; but they gave no heed nor credit to his words, even though he told them, that unless they believed he was such a person, they should die in their sins:

the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me; such as healing the sick, dispossessing devils, cleansing lepers, giving sight to the blind, causing the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, and the lame to walk, and raising the dead to life; suggesting, that besides his words, his doctrine and ministry, they had his miracles before them, which plainly showed who he was; so that they need not have been in any doubt of mind, or suspense about him; nor had they any reason to complain of his hiding himself from them, or depriving them of the knowledge of him.