John 8:52-59

Good morning friends,

The Jews said to him, “Now we know that you have a demon! Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, ‘If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.’ Are you greater than our father Abraham, who died? And the prophets died! Who do you make yourself out to be?” Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’ But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

The Jewish leaders react to the audacious claim that keeping Jesus “words” were somehow better than Abraham’s and the prophets. They now insist that Jesus is demon possessed. Jesus claim is interpreted by the Jews as an attempt to promote Himself above Abraham and the prophets. Jesus, however, seeks not His own glory, for there is no true honor or glory in that, His glory comes from God alone. I have to actually wonder at what that would actually look like. In a culture that thrives on self-promotion and self-assertiveness it is hard for me to imagine. Even in “ministry” resumes we are told we must self-aggrandize our abilities if we want to get the “job”.  The issue of knowing God is at the root of this discussion. The Jews claimed to know God, but in actuality did not. The reality of knowing God is in keeping His word. Jesus points out that their claim to knowing God is actually a lie. Jesus interjects the eschatological reality that looked forward to the advent of Christ. Abraham we are told in Hebrews 11 looked forward to that day. The center point of history is in Christ, the fulfillment of the OT prophets, the promised blessing and the blessing yet to come at the culmination of history. The Jews quickly display their inability to understand the magnitude of who Jesus really is and it shows   in the statement “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?”  The reality of Jesus divinity, of which he has all but plainly stated until now, is plainly stated in Jesus words, “I am.” The statement is clearly understood, Jesus was equating Himself to God, but their hearts could not believe, for we read; “the picked up rocks to stone Him.”  Again I am struck with the depravity of heart that could not accept Jesus own testimony. I would think (now from a Christian perspective) that anyone who listened to Jesus could not have helped but truly believed in Him. It is here that we are again treated to the necessity of the wondrous and superfluous grace in God’s in effectual calling. Praise be to God.

Bill

Heidelberg Catechism

Q. 7.Whence then proceeds this depravity of human nature?

A.From the fall and disobedience of our first parents,

Adam and Eve, in Paradise; (a)hence our nature is become so corrupt, that we are all conceived and born in sin. (b)(a) Gen.3; Rom.5:12,18,19. (b) Ps.51:5; Gen.5:3.

John 8:48-52

Good morning friends,

The Jews answered him, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” Jesus answered, “I do not have a demon, but I honor my Father, and you dishonor me. Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and he is the judge. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.” The Jews said to him, “Now we know that you have a demon! Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, ‘If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.’

 The Jews obviously could not argue against the truth, so once again they are reduced to committing the Ad Hominem Abusive. We see as well the fallacy that might makes right. The Jews are saying “collectively we do not like your truth and you are such and such, thus we speak the truth.” 51 percent of a populous does not decide what truth is no matter how many times we are told it – as now the case for many laws in our country. Now they could think of nothing lower than what the Jews attributed to Jesus at this point. “You are a Samaritan” is the same as saying “you are no Israelite at all.” It would carry the idea of a pretender or one having no matter of claim. The Jews had an extremely low view of the Samaritans. The bitterness that existed between the Jews and the Samaritans could not have been any higher than at this point in history. We are told by Josephus that the Samaritans were cursed in the temple, their food was considered unclean, even swine’s flesh. Then there is the racial slur that Samaritans have demons. A demon of course would be the antithesis of God therefore by extension the idea would include the immoral and evil nature. Notice the calm dignity of Jesus’ answer at this point. When reviled He did not revile. Jesus refuses to even acknowledge the racial slur. He refuses to partake in their contempt for the people He had already exhibited a love for and who had honored Him.  I tend to see Jesus response more on the side of a deep sorrow.  How many times do we read that Jesus had “compassion” on them? Consider Psalms 69:7-9 where we read: For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach, that dishonor has covered my face. I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s sons. For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. Yet even in the midst of being dishonored and reviled Jesus continues to proclaim the gospel.

 Bill

Heidelberg Catechism

Q. 7.Whence then proceeds this depravity of human nature?

A.From the fall and disobedience of our first parents,

Adam and Eve, in Paradise; (a)hence our nature is become so corrupt, that we are all conceived and born in sin. (b)(a) Gen.3; Rom.5:12,18,19. (b) Ps.51:5; Gen.5:3.

 

John 8:42-47

Good morning friends,

Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.”

The “works” if you will are the indicator of parentage, they point decidedly to who we have come from. Those who are “of God” cannot help but love the Son, but those that are not, will not. Again Jesus speaks of His submission to the will of the Father. In this is the reality that He was sent for the sake of God’s people, He was sent for the sake of truth. This truth they both could not and would not understand. The concept in the statement “you cannot bear to hear my words” carries with it both the “desire” to give audience and the “ability” to understand it. Unregenerate man has neither desire to attend to truth, nor an ability to heed it. It is here we see that the unregenerate person’s will is, as Luther put it, in bondage. Yes the will is “free,” but it only will to do the bidding of the devil. The “proof” that unregenerate man’s father is the devil lies in the fact that he seeks suppresses the truth. The idea that truth is based on my subjective experience is nothing short of the lie of Satan himself; it is nothing short of the suppressing of the truth. Truth is the objective reality that exists outside of myself which is evident in Jesus statement “I tell you the truth.” In other words Jesus is telling them – “you may think you know the truth, you may “feel” the truth, but the truth is something you do not know.” If we take Isaiah 14:12-14 as a description of Satan’s fall we can see the subjective “truths” (better known as lies) that filled his heart “I will make myself like the most high,” and this is the very lie he passed on to our first parents. Again we see the outworking of this subjective truth on the part of the Jews. Jesus asks which one could convict Him of sin. It is needless to even say that not a single soul could convict Christ of sin, but still their “truth” wanted Jesus put to death. As children of God we must not waver on our understanding of truth, we must exhibit to the world that we are people of truth and that we tenaciously hold to it – because we are of the Father.

Bill

Heidelberg Catechism

Q. 7.Whence then proceeds this depravity of human nature?

A.From the fall and disobedience of our first parents,

Adam and Eve, in Paradise; (a)hence our nature is become so corrupt, that we are all conceived and born in sin. (b)(a) Gen.3; Rom.5:12,18,19. (b) Ps.51:5; Gen.5:3.

John 8:37-41

Good morning friends,

I know that you are offspring of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father.” They answered him, “Abraham is our father.” Jesus said to them, “If you were Abraham’s children, you would be doing the works Abraham did, but now you seek to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. This is not what Abraham did. You are doing the works your father did.” They said to him, “We were not born of sexual immorality. We have one Father–even God.”

 Straight off here Jesus points out their incongruence in claiming to be “Abraham’s offspring.” If they were truly the offspring of Abraham they would act like Abraham’s children. Abraham in a sense was “waiting” for Jesus. Abraham’s faith enabled him to see, if you will, Jesus day. In 8:58 we will read Jesus saying: “Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” Jesus points out that their hearts are full of something Abraham would never have thought of – killing Him. The works of Abraham was that he accepted by faith the Word of God – “and Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.”  We must notice that they were not even denying their wicked desire at this point. This is again a truth issue at its very core. Abraham believed the truth, he did not suppress it. The Jews however, when confronted with the truth in Christ sought to suppress it – by killing Jesus. Jesus says that they are doing the works of their father, and that was not Abraham, but the devil (we will see this in a few verses). Jesus is in essence saying that they are the very antithesis of Abraham’s offspring. This must have been a slap in face because at this point the Jews were reduced to committing the Ad Hominem Abusive. Their argument turned to sarcastic attempt to demean Jesus birth – in essence they were reduced to calling Jesus a bastard. We see this same spirit alive and well today. How many times when confronted with the truth does the world respond in similar fashion? To be sure our witness for Christ will be met with no less hatred than Jesus received himself. We cannot become defensive when we are dismissed or worse. We must not be surprised that the world is doing the works of their father – the devil. And in the same way they rejected Jesus own words, they will reject His words spoken through His imperfect servants. Nonetheless, we have been given the blessed privilege in doing just that.

 Bill

 Heidelberg Catechism

 Q. 7.Whence then proceeds this depravity of human nature?

A.From the fall and disobedience of our first parents,

Adam and Eve, in Paradise; (a)hence our nature is become so corrupt, that we are all conceived and born in sin. (b)(a) Gen.3; Rom.5:12,18,19. (b) Ps.51:5; Gen.5:3.

John 8:34-36

Good morning friends,

  Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

 The Christian, is as Luther put it, “Homo simul iustus et peccator” – simultaneously sinner and saint. We will make a distinction here between “acts” of sin and a “life of sin.” Jesus was not speaking that we will come to a life of sinless perfection. Nor is individual acts of sin necessarily slavery. We can be beset by a particular sin that is a form of bondage, but this is not the “slavery” that Jesus was talking of. I wish, as I am sure you all do, that John Wesley was correct in his book A Plain Account of Perfection.  That by some kind of second blessing we could become sinless in this life. I actually had a man come up to me after I preached one Sunday and bald faced tell me that he had not sinned since becoming a Christian. I should have asked his wife. Yes it is true that we are justified and righteous before God. God looks on us as if there was no sin – however that is because it is Christ’s righteousness that has been reckoned to us, but I do not believe that is what Jesus is saying. We sin so regularly that we are not even aware of it. Our hearts are so easily deceived. After we are regenerated we are now free to not sin, before we had no option but to sin. Jesus frees us from sins bondage, but we know the awful reality that like Paul I am still a wretched man and waiting to be set free from this body of death. Yes we are free because Jesus has set us free. We can now do something we formerly could not – pursue righteousness – and that is indeed now our precious freedom. We fail at times to exercise our freedom. We at times try to return to our chains, but when we do we cannot – we are free. We must understand that what we are now in Christ can never be a slave again to sin and ultimately we will be conformed to the image of Christ. It is here we must reckon ourselves dead to sin and alive to Christ.

 Bill

Heidelberg Catechism

Q. 7. Whence then proceeds this depravity of human nature?

A. From the fall and disobedience of our first parents,

Adam and Eve, in Paradise; (a)hence our nature is become so corrupt, that we are all conceived and born in sin. (b)(a) Gen.3; Rom.5:12,18,19. (b) Ps.51:5; Gen.5:3.

John 8:33

Good morning friends,

 They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”

 Now the response of these non-regenerate Jews is nothing short of total absurdity. The suppression of truth here takes the form of convenient lapse of memory. Had they forgotten that they were under the oppressive thumb of Rome? Was there not an eager anticipation of a political messiah? Had they forgotten their history of captivity in Egypt?  How about the Babylonia and Syrian captivity?  While heritage and national identity carry a lot of significance, they had forgotten that their heritage and national identify was as the covenant people of God and not merely the children of Abraham.  No, they did not want the “freedom” that Jesus was offering. As we will see it was freedom from the bondage of sin. I have often wondered, given the rich history of Israel, why their identity in Abraham would eclipse having the identity as the people of YHWH. Now it would be really cool to find out that I was in the linage of say John Calvin or John Knox. It would be something fun to chat about, but no matter how cool it would be, being one of God’s people is what I want to have as my identity. Didn’t God say to them “I will be their God and they will be My people?” Was their identity in Abraham an effort to escape their identity as the people of God? Was it that the covenant requirements as God’s people was impossible to keep and that there were no requirements, other than being born a Jew, to be the offspring of Abraham? 

 Have a blessed Lord’s Day

 Bill

Heidelberg Catechism

Q. 6. Did God then create man so wicked and perverse?

A. By no means; but God created man good, (a) and after his own image, (b) in true righteousness and holiness, that he might rightly know God his Creator, heartily love him and  live with him in eternal happiness to glorify and praise him. (c)

(a) Gen.1:31. (b) Gen.1:26,27. (c) Col.3:9,10; Eph.4:23,24; 2 Cor.3:18.

John 8:30-33

Good morning friends,

As he was saying these things, many believed in him. So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

 This is sort of a difficult passage to understand. We see the use of belief in the form of a true belief here and then a bit further they seem to exhibit a superficial faith. I want to suggest that there were both present, those who had become truly regenerate and those who were not, but “professed” a belief.  Jesus words here separate, if you will, the sheep from the goats. Here He is specifically addressing the regenerate because it says that “Jesus said to the Jews that believed.” And Jesus says that a true disciple will abide, and I believe we can use every synonym the Greek expresses; to stay (in a given place, state, relation or expectancy): – abide, continue, dwell, endure, be present, remain, stand, tarry, in Christ’s word. It is as we will see later in chapter 15 about abiding in Christ as a branch in the vine. This abiding in His word is a natural outgrowth of being in Christ. It is, if you will, the watershed between belief and non-belief. Now mind you this is not a legalistic group of verses to make sure you do your devotions. Being in the Word is important, but that’s not what Jesus is saying here. I know of people who devoutly read their “bible” every day. They are, if you will, “abiding” in the “word,” but are not (and I say this with deep sorrow)  disciples of Christ. Abiding in Christ’s word is to abide in who He is. Jesus goes on to tell us that when we abide in His word we can no longer “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” for we know it. We can think of it as intimately knowing the truth and to intimately know it, means we can no longer suppress it.

 Bill

Heidelberg Catechism

 Q. 6. Did God then create man so wicked and perverse?

A. By no means; but God created man good, (a) and after his own image, (b) in true righteousness and holiness, that he might rightly know God his Creator, heartily love him and  live with him in eternal happiness to glorify and praise him. (c)

(a) Gen.1:31. (b) Gen.1:26,27. (c) Col.3:9,10; Eph.4:23,24; 2 Cor.3:18.

John 8:28-30

Good morning friends

So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.” As he was saying these things, many believed in him.

 Jesus is quite plain at this point. He says that they will “lift Him up.” This would have been understood by those listening. Jesus indicates here how He was going to die and by who’s hands. The death and resurrection of Jesus most certainly is the penultimate “proof” of what He spoke. Jesus clearly states that He was not one to self-aggrandize. What He said and did was never by His own authority, no, He was one under the authority of the Father.  This is a picture not of inferiority, but of submission and dependence.  It is a picture of how we must be before God. Christ’s suffering was not an abstract thing. We cannot look at Christ’s life and say “well of course, piece of cake, He was God.”  Christ is fully God and fully man united forever in one body. He was man in all his emotions and struggles – yes without sin! – but his sufferings and temptations were real. We of course read in Hebrews 5:8 that “Although He was a son, He learned obedience through the things He suffered.”  Sometimes we circumvent fully understanding such verses by wandering off into the abstract. We debate “could Christ sin” when God is really trying to get us to grasp the reality that Christ learned obedience and that His submission was a true submission. We see that Christ was dependent on God and the Holy Spirit during His earthly stay. Christ’s had a single minded passion to do the Father’s will. Christ taught His disciples of this submission, when He taught them to pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is done in heaven. We need to develop the same passion as Christ. We must not say “well that was easy for Christ because He was God.” We must look at His human experience and realize that submission and obedience can be ours in the same manner as Christ. No there is no perfection this side of heaven. We will not do it perfectly as Christ did, but we must never use that as an excuse either. We must develop a passion for obedience and submission, because as with Jesus, it pleases the Father. 

 Bill

Heidelberg Catechism

Q. 6. Did God then create man so wicked and perverse?

A. By no means; but God created man good, (a) and after his own image, (b) in true righteousness and holiness, that he might rightly know God his Creator, heartily love him and  live with him in eternal happiness to glorify and praise him. (c)

(a) Gen.1:31. (b) Gen.1:26,27. (c) Col.3:9,10; Eph.4:23,24; 2 Cor.3:18.

John 8:25-27

Good morning friends,

  So they said to him, “Who are you?” Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning. I have much to say about you and much to judge, but he who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.” They did not understand that he had been speaking to them about the Father.

 In effort to maybe procure a simple answer the Jews ask Jesus “who are you?” They were sorely disappointed however as Jesus began to speak. Jesus emphatically reminds them that time and again He has told them who He was and Where He had come from in no uncertain terms. We have all experienced such hard heartedness in our witness. We, with loving care, painstakingly explain the gospel to lost friends and relatives time and again only to have it ignored at best. Jesus says He had been telling them who He was from the gitgo. He then turns them on their ear. Jesus “knowing the hearts of all men” could have openly exposed the sins of each of those in earshot and I am sure that many of them believed He could. We read in John 15:22 “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.” John continues in verse 24: “If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would not have sin; but now they have both seen and hated Me and My Father as well.”The promise of God was not to send a judge, for the world was already under God’s condemnation, but a savior. Jesus came in to the world and spoke into the world the things that man had and continues to suppressed in unrighteousness – truth. When we speak of “truth” here we are not speaking of some abstract philosophical word. We are speaking of that which corresponds with reality. Jesus came into the world to reveal the truth of the Father. He came to reveal the truth about sin. But the spiritually appraised could and would not accept the truth. Spiritually appraised man continues to suppress the truth, particularly the truth about Christ in unrighteousness.  It is frightening to read the statistics of those who are “Christian” that do not believe in absolute truth, or that truth is somehow relative. George Barna has noted that; “only 9 percent of born-again adults and 2 percent of born-again teenagers have a biblical worldview.” This translates to this reality; for many Christians the claims of  Jesus are merely one in a string of truths, instead of the truth by which all of life has to be determined.

Schaeffer noted: “Before a man is ready to become a Christian, he must have a proper understanding of truth, whether he has fully analyzed his concept of truth or not. All people, whether they realize it or not, function in the frame work of some concept of truth. Our concept of truth will radically affect our understanding of what it means to become a Christian. We are concerned, at this point, not with the content of truth so much as the concept of what truth is. …Accept Christ as savior can mean anything. We are not saying what we are trying to say unless we make completely clear that we are talking about objective truth when we say Christianity is true and therefore that “accepting Christ as savior is not just some from of upper-story leap.”

Jesus came to speak truth, not situational ethics, or truth that is relative to each individual. He came to speak THE TRUTH, or as Schaeffer put it True Truth, that which corresponds to reality.

Bill

Heidelberg Catechism

Q. 6. Did God then create man so wicked and perverse?

A. By no means; but God created man good, (a) and after his own image, (b) in true righteousness and holiness, that he might rightly know God his Creator, heartily love him and  live with him in eternal happiness to glorify and praise him. (c)

(a) Gen.1:31. (b) Gen.1:26,27. (c) Col.3:9,10; Eph.4:23,24; 2 Cor.3:18.

John 8:23-24

Good morning friends,

He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins.”

 When my son was four years old he one day asked his mother if she would take up the heater vent from the kitchen floor (after watching Sesame Street he was looking for the letter “R” or something). When she replied “no, not now,” his response was “are you afraid the devil will get out?” When Jesus says “you are from below and I am from above” we should not think of this in physical direction. We are talking in the sense of “realms”, sort of like Lucy slipping in and out of Narnia. Jesus was not making a distinction between the secular and sacred, or stating that the physical world is evil and the spirit world is good.  Many have tried to suggest that this is what Jesus is saying here, however, Jesus is actually referring to the worlds “system.” The creation of course was pronounced “very good” by God and while the creation suffers under the effects of the curse, it is not evil, in fact besides fallen angles, man is the only thing in all creation that rebels against God’s will. It is the world system that is evil as Gill notes: they were, as they were born into the world, sinful, carnal, and corrupt; they were in it, and belonged to it, had never been chosen, or called out of it; they had their conversation according to the course of it, and conformed to its evil customs and manners; they were under the influence of the God of the world, and were taken with the sinful and sensual lasts thereof; they were men of worldly spirits; they minded earth, and earthly things, and had their portion in this world, and might be truly called the men of it.“ As we saw last time, belief in Christ, as the one sent by the Father, is the watershed of whether one dies in sin or not. When Christ says they are “from below” he is saying they are tied up in the worlds system. We who are in Christ on the other hand, are with Christ, from above.  Christ has left us in the world, but not to be of the world, therefore, we have the responsibility of learning discernment. FA Schaeffer wrote: “If we are to resist being dirtied by the spirit of the world, we must not only reject its essential characteristic, but also search out and resist the special form it is taking in our own generation…..We are naïve if we do not realize that we too are surrounded by a uniform culture (I sometimes call it a monolithic culture), which claws at us from birth until our death. Not only in obvious ways we can easily comprehend, but also in subtle ways, a thousand voices express its mentality. Yet when we translate what we hear, we discover that there is really only one voice, the spirit of the world, and the particular form that world spirit takes in our day.”

 Bill

Heidelberg Catechism

 Q. 6. Did God then create man so wicked and perverse?

A. By no means; but God created man good, (a) and after his own image, (b) in true righteousness and holiness, that he might rightly know God his Creator, heartily love him and  live with him in eternal happiness to glorify and praise him. (c)

(a) Gen.1:31. (b) Gen.1:26,27. (c) Col.3:9,10; Eph.4:23,24; 2 Cor.3:18.