We continue this week with our study of John 8, completely excluded from the three-year Lectionary, despite Jesus’s important words to the Pharisees.
Because of its exclusion from the Lectionary, John 8 is a perfect candidate for my ongoing series Forbidden Bible Verses, equally essential to our understanding of Scripture.
Today’s reading is from the King James Version, with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur (see list at the end of the post).
21Then said Jesus again unto them, I go my way, and ye shall seek me, and shall die in your sins: whither I go, ye cannot come.
22Then said the Jews, Will he kill himself? because he saith, Whither I go, ye cannot come.
23And he said unto them, Ye are from beneath; I am from above: ye are of this world; I am not of this world.
24I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.
25Then said they unto him, Who art thou? And Jesus saith unto them, Even the same that I said unto you from the beginning.
26I have many things to say and to judge of you: but he that sent me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him.
27They understood not that he spake to them of the Father.
28Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things.
29And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him.
30As he spake these words, many believed on him.
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Before going into this passage, one thing has disappointed me whilst reading Christian blogs over the past few years. This is the tendency for a number of pastors to continually point to their confessions of faith to support everything about which they write.
I read on certain blogs a constant barrage of ‘The confessions clearly say …’ or ‘X [theologian] believed …’ One quickly gathers the impression that the confessions and theologians are more important than the source of their writings: Scripture.
‘How do I become a Christian?’ people ask. Have a look at the Bible. Then find some good sites (you don’t need to shell out on a book) which explain what the books of the Bible are really saying. I try to feature a number on this blog in order to help people avoid opposite extremes of literalism and ‘liberalism’.
There are many Christians who prefer not to read the Bible. ‘I did that in Sunday School’ or ‘My confessions of faith / liturgy suffice’. Yes, one’s confessions help to explain the Bible. Yes, orthodox liturgy helps us to offer praise and honour to God and His Son in an appropriate way. Yet, at the end of the day, it is Scripture which informs both. So, why don’t we focus on it more?
I mention this because this passage reflects on Jesus’s experience with mockers and scoffers. Today’s parallel — somewhat — is that of godly modern-day evangelists, who must become discouraged now and then when their preaching falls on stony ground. It is incumbent upon us to know the Bible as best we can, no matter where we are in life. The Bible is there to comfort us, to give us hope and to convict us. Where can we do better in our lives? On what can we improve? What more can we learn about God and Christ Jesus? For what or whom can we pray — for ourselves, our families and friends or for our nation? We shouldn’t receive complete comfort from Scripture. Nor should we receive complete conviction from it. Instead we should be receiving both — a divinely inspired lesson in every reading.
In case you missed last week’s post, it has a resumé of Jesus’s words so far in St John’s Gospel. His addresses to the Jewish hierarchy carry common themes. These are well worth reading before continuing with today’s passage from John 8.
In verse 21, Jesus continues to address the second group of Pharisees who accused him of falsehood. (They approached him after the first group with the accused adulteress walked away, convicted of their hypocrisy.) Jesus informs them that He has His mission and a clear destination after His time on Earth. He adds that the Pharisees will die in their sins and be incapable of following Him.
Ancient Greek translations used ‘sin’ in place of ‘sins’ in that verse. ‘Sin’ in this sense refers to the greatest of them all: unbelief in Jesus Christ. Other sins stem from that unbelief, that hubristic ignorance of His eternal truth.
The Pharisees — ‘the Jews’ — begin to mock Him amongst themselves. They wonder whether our Lord will commit suicide (verse 22). This is a highly serious accusation to make. Suicide has been anathema in Jewish teaching since the beginning. But why would they think Jesus would commit suicide? Because — in their pride — they believed they would sit at God’s right hand, resting in Abraham’s bosom. Someone as ‘unknown’ as Jesus could never end up there.
John MacArthur explains (emphases mine):
The Jews believe the suicide was the worst sin and that the blackest part of Hades was reserved for suicide victims, people who killed themselves. They had this in their principle so that when somebody committed suicide they went the blackest part of the pit permanently with no possibility of ever entering Abraham’s bosom. That’s what they believed. So for someone to commit suicide would be to go the blackest Hades …
They didn’t even understand what he was saying. They were so self-righteous, so self-satisfied, so self-sanctified, so self-reconciled, so self-forgiven. They had systematized their religion so carefully that they could see it all worked out in their little rules and they believed that they were the ones who were the population of Heaven on the way home and if Jesus was going somewhere where they weren’t he’d have to be going to the blackest part of Hades.
To their sarcasm Jesus responds by telling them how earthly and mortal they are (verse 23). Once again, He tells them that He comes from above — Heaven — but that they are firmly rooted on Earth with all of its carnal hubris.
In verse 24, He repeats what He told them earlier (verse 21): ‘If you do not believe in Me, you will die in the sin of unbelief’. No matter what atheists, emergents or New Agers say, we are not the great I AM. And these Pharisees were little different from today’s atheists and heretics. Nor are today’s self-righteous Christians, those from fringe groups and congregations who condemn everyone other than themselves, much different from the Pharisees. May they come to read and understand the Bible more thoroughly.
Still mocking, the Pharisees ask (verse 25), ‘Who are you, anyway?’ Here before them stands the Messiah, humbly dressed and gently spoken. He is not their political go-to man to save them from the Romans. No. As Jesus said in verse 23: ‘I am not of this world’. Jesus came to save us from Satan’s wiles, not our political masters — wherever they may be.
Jesus responds that the answer is the same and refers them to His earlier answer. Matthew Henry unpacks the profundity of what Jesus says of His identity:
Do you ask who I am? [1.] I am the same that I said to you from the beginning of time in the scriptures of the Old-Testament, the same that from the beginning was said to be the Seed of the woman, that should break the serpent’s head, the same that in all the ages of the church was the Mediator of the covenant, and the faith of the patriarchs. [2.] From the beginning of my public ministry. The account he had already given of himself he resolved to abide by; he had declared himself to be the Son of God (ch. 5:17), to be the Christ (ch. 4:26), and the bread of life, and had proposed himself as the object of that faith which is necessary to salvation, and to this he refers them for an answer to their question. Christ is one with himself; what he had said from the beginning, he saith still. His is an everlasting gospel.
In verse 26, Jesus announces that He could judge the Pharisees of many things. Right now, He comes to redeem them, if they would only open their minds. However, if they do not come to believe in Him, then He will judge them and condemn them. He adds that God the Father has sent Him, therefore, they can — and should — believe that what He says is true. Jesus could easily pass judgment on the Pharisees now: better to convict them of their sin of unbelief in the present and help them come to faith than to judge them on the final day and determine that they should lose their souls.
Henry explains:
[1.] He suppresses his accusation of them. He had many things to charge them with, and many evidences to produce against them; but for the present he had said enough. Note, Whatever discoveries of sin are made to us, he that searches the heart has still more to judge of us, 1 Jn. 3:20. How much soever God reckons with sinners in this world there is still a further reckoning yet behind, Deu. 32:34. Let us learn hence not to be forward to say all we can say, even against the worst of men; we may have many things to say, by way of censure, which yet it is better to leave unsaid, for what is it to us?
[2.] He enters his appeal against them to his Father: He that sent me. Here two things comfort him:-First, That he had been true to his Father, and to the trust reposed in him: I speak to the world (for his gospel was to be preached to every creature) those things which I have heard of him. Being given for a witness to the people (Isa. 55:4), he was Amen, a faithful witness, Rev. 3:14. He did not conceal his doctrine, but spoke it to the world (being of common concern, it was to be of common notice); nor did he change or alter it, nor vary from the instructions he received from him that sent him. Secondly, That his Father would be true to him; true to the promise that he would make his mouth like a sharp sword; true to his purpose concerning him, which was a decree (Ps. 2:7); true to the threatenings of his wrath against those that should reject him. Though he should not accuse them to his Father, yet the Father, who sent him, would undoubtedly reckon with them, and would be true to what he had said (Deu. 18:19), that whosoever would not hearken to that prophet whom God would raise up he would require it of him. Christ would not accuse them; “for,” saith he, “he that sent me is true, and will pass judgment on them, though I should not demand judgment against them.” Thus, when he lets fall the present prosecution, he binds them over to the judgment-day, when it will be too late to dispute what they will not now be persuaded to believe …
Even then, the Pharisees refused to believe (verse 27). Remember that they had no idea that the Romans would destroy their temple in 70 AD. They were in many ways on top of their world. They had earthly power and temporal glory. They made the rules through their interpretations of Mosaic Law. Why worry?
In verse 28, Jesus warns them that when they have ‘lifted’ Him up — meaning lifting Him onto the Cross — then they will understand who He is. No, not all will, but some will come to believe. Better late than never, certainly during their lifetimes, when they still have the opportunity. The gift of the Holy Spirit to the Apostles enabled the ministries written about in Acts and the Epistles. These would prove to be a powerful witness for Christ’s Church to those who had not personally seen His Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension.
Note Jesus’s words in the second part of verse 28: He does nothing of His own volition but everything which He has learnt from God the Father. In verse 29, Jesus adds that His heavenly Father is with Him even during His earthly ministry. Jesus states that everything He does is in perfect obedience to God. To an observant Jew, this should be significant — the Old Testament consistently illustrates God’s mercy and blessings on an obedient people. However, in the Pharisees — as with the rest of the Jewish hierarchy — we find another spirit consuming their thoughts and actions.
MacArthur says:
So these sinful, selfish, earthbound souls who lived under the control of the dictates of the evil system run by Satan had separated themselves from Jesus Christ with a gulf in between that was impassible. He was heavenly. They were from the places called Hades, the occupation of Satan. Absolute opposites. Jesus was not of this world. They were of this evil system. Even though they were religious and maybe they were humanitarian they were part of the system.
Yet, even as Jesus speaks, more people in the temple treasury (see last week’s post), come to believe that He is, indeed, the Messiah.
Before I began writing this post, I had been reading one on another blog about a possible link between autism and atheism, which may pop up here at a future date. I could only read through one-third of the comments before moving on. So many people are self-professed atheists, yet they are the same people who find so many flaws in the human systems of government and family. They frustrate themselves in finding ‘freeman’ solutions or in their pleas for more liberty. In that, they are entirely correct — don’t get me wrong. But in all their carping, they still refuse to believe — in their unending hubris and wilful ignorance — that there is a better life ahead outside of manmade systems which is redemption through Christ Jesus. Admittedly, I find it hard to pray for militant atheists, who seem to have to announce their unbelief at every turn. However, I do hope that the eternal truth dawns on them during our lifetime — somehow, some way.
In closing, let’s look at a few brief remarks from John MacArthur. He says:
Hell is not for people who are all criminals. Hell is not for the bad guy on the block. Hell is for everybody and anybody who refuses Christ.
When God said his name he said “My name is I Am,” and throughout the gospel of John, Jesus kept repeating it. “I am the bread of life. I am the water of life. I am the light of the world. I am the good shepherd. I am the door. I am the resurrection. I am the life. I am the way. I am the truth.” He kept saying that again and again and again. He was identifying himself with God, with deity. You see it’s a son question, not just a sin question. It’s a question of believing that he is who he claimed to be.
If you’re going to believe the truth about Christ, here’s what it includes…first of all, you have to believe in an eternal trinity because Christ said He was one with the Father and that He was eternal and before Abraham was ever created He existed. So you must believe that He is part of an eternal trinity. Anything less than a trinity makes Christ something other than who He is …
Secondly, you must then believe that He is incarnate in human form. That this member of the trinity entered into human history in time and space in a human body. You must believe then in the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ and that encompasses the virgin birth which is God’s definition of how this incarnation took place so that the Christ could be born into this world sinless …
And then you must believe that He died on the cross as a sufficient substitionary sacrifice an atonement for sin and that He died there and paid the penalty for the sins of all who would ever believe because that’s indeed who He is, the Lamb of God. You must believe that His death satisfied God completely and that full atonement was made and that that’s why God raised Him from the dead the third day and then took Him and seated Him at His right hand where He sits as Lord. He gave Him a name above every name which is the name Lord. He sits at the right hand of the Father interceding for His own and ruling and some day will come again and establish His Kingdom on earth and bring eternal glory to His own beloved, redeemed people. That’s the heart of Christian faith. Take anything out of that and you’ve got some other Jesus …
How do we have any difficulty understanding that this is the Christ whom we must believe? This is the truth and this is what Christians believe. If you don’t believe that, you’re not a Christian. You say, “Well what about people who believe in God?” They’re not Christians, they will die in their sins … Christ alone and Christ completely is the sacrifice for sin to which nothing can be added. It is by grace through faith alone. And any attempt to add anything to it negates it, grace is no more grace. Anything you try to do to earn any part of your salvation misunderstands the sacrifice of Christ. And any misunderstanding of the meaning of Christ in His sacrifice is something less than the gospel. Believe it, Christianity or Christendom, as such, is full of people who have a lot of information about what I’ve just said regarding the gospel but who do not have that total trust in Jesus Christ alone being who He is and being the only and the complete sacrifice for sin, therefore trusting in nothing of their own efforts or works. Sad to say, many, many who name the name of Christ and say, “Lord, Lord, we did this, we did that,” are not known to Him and will die in their sins and where He has gone they will never come.
On dying in the sin of unbelief:
Well, how do you die in your sins? Be self-righteous, don’t ever face your sin, be earthbound, be unbelieving, be willfully ignorant and I’ll promise you beyond a shadow of a doubt you’ll die in your sins, that’s what Jesus says. But remember, to do it you’ve got to stumble over the cross, refuse the love of Jesus Christ, trample His precious bloodshed for you. And if you do it, you’ve got nobody to blame but yourself.
Maybe there are some of you this morning, you don’t want to do that. Look at verse 30. There were some there who didn’t do. “And as He spoke these words…what?…many believed on Him.” See, there’s always those few, always those few who don’t want to die in their sins, they want Jesus Christ. You know what happened to that many? They lived, they’re living now, they’ll live forever in the presence of Jesus Christ. The choice is yours, as it was theirs. You will know that Jesus is who He claimed to be, I pray, God, you know it in this life.
Further reading — John MacArthur’s sermons:
Next week: John 8:31-37
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