John 5:43

Ye receive me not. See ch. 1:5, 10, 11.

If another shall come. Some commentators have understood this as a direct historical allusion to Bar Cocheba, the Jewish insurgent leader who was hailed as the Messiah during the Second Revolt, A.D. 132-135 (see p. 79). Rejecting the possibility of an actual prophetic forecast, they have advanced their interpretation of this verse as an indication that the Gospel of John could not have been written before the Second Revolt. Such an interpretation is to be rejected on two counts: (1) The evidence is clear that John was written before that time (see on v. 39; see also pp. 179, 181); (2) Jesus’ statement is in no way a declaration that someone would come claiming in his own name to be the Messiah, but rather a hypothetical statement that if anyone did, the Jews would be willing to receive him. At the same time, it is true that Bar Cocheba was accepted as the Messiah, even by the Jewish leader Akiba, and in this way the truth of Jesus’ proposition was demonstrated.