This 108-part expository study of the gospel of John was preached at Flagstaff Christian Fellowship from 2013-2015. Audio and manuscripts are available for each lesson.
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February 17, 2013
I’ve often said that the most crucial question that any person needs to answer correctly is the one that Jesus asked His disciples (Matt. 16:15), “Who do you say that I am?” On that occasion, Peter by divine revelation answered (Matt. 16:16), “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
If Jesus is who the Bible portrays Him to be and who He claimed to be—the Christ (Messiah), the Son of the living God—then the only sensible response is to trust Him as your Savior from sin and judgment and to follow Him as your Lord. If He is not who the Bible portrays Him to be, then you’re wasting your time being a Christian, because you’re following a fictional character. “Who do you say that I am?” is the crucial question in life!
The apostle John was perhaps thinking of Peter’s confession when he told us why he wrote his gospel (John 20:30-31): “Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”
John is not trying to persuade you to believe in some general notions about Jesus, such as, He was a good man, a great teacher, or even a prophet of God. John wants you to believe specifically that Jesus is the Christ—the Jewish Messiah (Anointed One)—who was prophesied of in the Old Testament. And he wants you to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, which means, He is God in human flesh (5:18-29). The pinnacle of faith in John’s gospel is when Thomas sees the risen Jesus and proclaims (20:28), “My Lord and My God!”
John wants us to know that in Jesus, we see the unseen God. In John 1:14, John declares of Jesus, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” In 1:18 he adds, “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” Or, as Jesus tells Philip (14:9), “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”
So John wants his readers to know who Jesus is and to believe in Him as He is. The result of believing in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, is that you will have life in His name. By “life,” John means “eternal life.” Since the alternative to eternal life is eternal judgment, it is crucial that you know who Jesus is and that you put your trust in Him as Savior and Lord.
I’m going to use John’s purpose for writing as the framework to give an overview of the book. There are thousands of pages of background information on John, which I encourage you to read if you want more depth and detail. Here, I’m going to limit our study to this statement:
The Gospel of John is a selective, symbolic, eyewitness account of the person and ministry of Jesus, written so that you may believe in Him as the Christ, the Son of God, and thus have life in His name.
There are many different ways to outline John’s gospel, but here is a broad outline that gives the flow of the text:
1. 1:1-18: Prologue: The Son of God, the object of belief: “The Word became flesh and dwelled among us” (1:14).
2. 1:19-12:50: Testimony for belief in the Son of God: “We have found the Messiah” (1:41).
A. 1:19-4:54: Initial belief in the Son of God
B. 5:1-12:50: Subsequent unbelief in the Son of God
3. 13:1-17:26: The teaching of the Son of God for His followers: “He loved them to the end” (13:1).
4. 18:1-19:42: The tragedy of unbelief in the Son of God: “We have no king but Caesar” (19:15).
5. 20:1-31: The triumph of the Son of God: “My Lord and my God!” (20:28).
6. 21:1-25: Epilogue: The restoration of Peter and the role of John: “Tend My sheep” (21:17).
Many authors mention that the Gospel of John is like a pool in which both a child can wade and an elephant can swim. It is both simple and profound. On one level, a child can understand and respond to John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” But on another level, scholars have written articles and even books that grapple with some of the issues in John. So wherever you’re at spiritually there will be something for you in John. If you’ve never investigated who Jesus is or put your trust in Him, John writes for you so that you will believe and have eternal life. If you’re a new Christian, there is much in John to strengthen your faith. And if you’ve been a Christian for many years, there are deep pools for you to dive into.
Maybe you’ve wondered why we have four gospels rather than one. None of the four are what we would call biographies of Jesus (in the sense of covering all of His life from birth to death), but rather are selective and interpretive accounts of His person and ministry. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called the synoptic (presenting the same view) gospels, because they have much that is similar, although each has a different slant. Matthew, one of the twelve, wrote primarily to Jews, emphasizing that Jesus Christ is the King of Israel. Mark, the shortest gospel, probably wrote from Rome under Peter’s influence. He emphasizes Jesus as the Son of Man who came to serve and give His life a ransom for many (10:45). Luke (the longest book in the New Testament by volume) was written by a physician and a co-worker with the apostle Paul, who also wrote the Book of Acts. His gospel is aimed at Gentiles and emphasizes Jesus Christ’s humanity.
But John has 93 percent original material in comparison to the synoptics (Edwin Blum, The Bible Knowledge Commentary [Victor Books], ed. by John F. Walvoord & Roy Zuck, 2:269). As we’ve seen (20:30), John acknowledges that there were “many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book.” John ends his gospel by stating (21:25), “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written.” So John is selective. Most scholars think that he wrote his gospel sometime in the 80’s or early 90’s A.D., and so he most likely knew about the other gospels and did not feel the need to duplicate what they had written.
John begins in eternity, identifying Jesus as God and Creator (1:1-3). He omits many important things that the other gospels contain. There is no mention of Jesus’ birth, His baptism, or His temptation. There is no list of the twelve disciples. There are no stories of Jesus casting out demons and no parables (except perhaps 10:1-6). John tells us that he saw Jesus’ glory (1:14), but he doesn’t mention the transfiguration, even though he was one of the three eyewitnesses. He includes Jesus’ promise that He is preparing a place for us in heaven and that He will return for us (14:1-3), but he omits Jesus’ lengthy prophetic discourses. John gives us the longest and most detailed account of events in the Upper Room on the night Jesus was betrayed, but he never mentions the Lord’s Supper. He doesn’t tell us about Jesus’ agony in the garden, although from John we learn that it was Peter who whacked off Malchus’ ear. And, although John records the risen Jesus telling Mary to tell the disciples that He will ascend to the Father (20:17), there is no account of Jesus’ ascension.
Some of the features that are unique to John include his direct assertion that Jesus is the eternal God who created all things (1:2, 3). He alone says that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God (3:16, 18). John tells us of the first miracle of turning the water into wine (2:1-11). He alone includes the interviews with Nicodemus and the woman at the well (3 & 4). He tells us of Jesus’ healing the nobleman’s son (4:46-54), the lame man by the pool of Bethesda (5:1-15), and the man born blind (9:1-41). John alone records Jesus’ raising Lazarus from the dead (11:1-44). John tells us of Jesus’ washing the disciples’ feet (13:1-20) and of His teaching in the Upper Room, where He gives the promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit (14-16). John records the longest prayer of Jesus (17). He tells us of Thomas’ doubts (20:24-29) and of the disciples’ encounter with the risen Lord on the beach in Galilee (21). John carefully chose all these events and much more to give us this selective insider’s portrait of our Savior.
John is full of symbolic language that makes you stop and think about the deeper meaning of what he is saying. This does not mean that John bends the historical truth into fiction for the sake of his story. What John reports actually happened (21:24), but there is often a deeper significance behind the historical facts. Rather than referring to Jesus’ “miracles” or “wonders” (terms the other gospel writers use), John calls them “signs,” as we saw in 20:30: “many other signs Jesus also performed.” A sign points to something beyond itself. John wants us to perceive the deeper meaning behind the miracle itself.
Out of hundreds that he could have chosen, John picked seven signs, not counting Jesus’ resurrection and the miraculous post-resurrection catch of fish (21:1-14): (1) Changing the water into wine (2:1-11); (2) Healing the nobleman’s son (4:46-54); (3) Healing the lame man by the Pool of Bethesda (5:1-9); (4) Feeding the 5,000 (6:1-14); (5) Walking on the water (6:16-21); (6) Healing the man born blind (9:1-12); and, (7) Raising Lazarus from the dead (11:1-46).
In at least three of these miracles, we don’t have to guess as to their significance, because Jesus tells us. After He feeds the 5,000, Jesus proclaims (6:35), “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.” Before opening the eyes of the man born blind, Jesus asserts (8:12), “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” Before He raised Lazarus from the dead, Jesus told Martha (11:25), “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies.”
By the way, these are three of seven “I am” claims that Jesus makes in John. The others are, “I am the door of the sheep” (10:7); “I am the good shepherd” (10:11, 14); “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (14:6); and, “I am the true vine” (15:1, 5). In each case we need to think about the symbolism of what Jesus is saying about Himself and how it relates to us.
John also uses a number of key words that have symbolic significance. John wrote so that you may have life in Jesus’ name (20:31). Life is in Jesus (1:4) and He Himself is the life (11:25; 14:6). Related to that is the concept of the new birth, which Jesus presents to Nicodemus (3:3-7). Physical life is a picture of the spiritual life that Jesus came to give to those who believe in Him. The opposite is that those who do not possess new life in Jesus are spiritually dead. They need Jesus’ resurrection power to receive life.
Another symbolic picture is that of light and darkness. John says (1:4) that the life in Jesus “was the Light of men.” Jesus is “the true Light” (1:9). He is (8:12) “the Light of the world.” But (3:19) “men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.” Jesus proclaimed (12:46), “I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness.” When Judas left the Upper Room to betray Jesus, John was obviously reporting more than the time of day when he adds (13:30), “and it was night.” And yet oddly, John does not mention the three hours of darkness as Jesus hung on the cross (Matt. 27:45; Mark 15:33; Luke 23:44)!
Another key symbolic word is world, which occurs 78 times in John. John 1:10 states, “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.” In the first two uses, it refers to the earth and all that is in it, including the people. But in the third instance, it carries the nuance of sinful people who rejected Jesus. These people are under the dominion of Satan, “the ruler of this world” (12:31; 14:30; 16:11). In this sense, the world hates both Jesus and His disciples (7:7; 15:18; 16:20). “World” can also refer to the people of the world in general, as when John states (3:16) that “God so loved the world,” or when the Pharisees express their frustration (12:19), “the world has gone after Him.” Jesus asks the Father (17:15) not to take His followers “out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one,” adding (17:16), “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.”
There are a number of other key words that John repeats for emphasis to make us think about their significance. John uses witness 14 times as a noun and 33 times as a verb (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 89), while the other gospels combined only use the noun four times and the verb twice. He begins by saying (1:7) that John (the Baptist; this gospel always calls him simply “John”) “came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him.” (See also, 1:8, 15, 19, 32, 34; 3:26; 5:33.) There are seven witnesses to Jesus Christ in this gospel (Morris, p. 90): (1) the Father; (2) Christ Himself; (3) the Holy Spirit; (4) Jesus’ works; (5) the Scriptures; (6) John the Baptist; and, (7) a variety of human witnesses, such as the disciples, the Samaritan woman, and the multitude. These witnesses establish the truth, another key concept that John hammers on (25 times, over against once in Matthew and 3 times each in Mark and Luke; Morris, 294).
Two further concepts that have significance due to their repetition are that Jesus was sent (33 times referring to Jesus’ mission from God) to this earth by the Father to do His will at the appointed hour (12 times with reference to the cross). He told the disciples (4:34), “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.” He emphasized to the unbelieving Jews that the Father had sent Him and that His works testified to that fact (5:23, 24, 30, 36, 37, 38). But although these evil men refused to believe in Jesus and finally succeeded in killing Him, John emphasizes that it was all done in accordance with the Father’s sovereign timetable. When the hostile Jews sought to seize Jesus, they could not do so, “because His hour had not yet come” (7:30; 8:20). But as the crucifixion drew near, Jesus proclaimed (12:23), “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.”
If time permitted, I could also comment on other significant words, such as “flesh and spirit,” “love and hate,” and “knowledge and know.” I’ll comment on the key word “believe” in a moment. So John is both selective and symbolic.
John (20:30) states, “Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples….” John himself was an eyewitness to these events that he reports, plus many others whom John knew. This establishes the truth of these events. It’s not surprising that liberals dispute that John wrote John, just as they dispute that Paul wrote many of his epistles. J. Vernon McGee (John [Thru the Bible Books], pp. 5-6) in his humorous manner says that he took a class in seminary on the authorship of John. The professor finally concluded the course by saying that he thought John was the author. A wag in the class said, “Well, I believed John wrote it before I started the class and I believe it now; so I just wasted the semester!”
You can read many pages of arguments on the issue, which I don’t have time to recount here. Suffice it to say that there is credible internal and external evidence that John the apostle wrote the Gospel of John. The internal evidence refers to the many indicators in the book itself that it was written by an eyewitness and that the eyewitness was John, who refers to himself as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (21:20, 24). The external evidence refers to the early church fathers, such as Irenaeus, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria, who attest that John wrote this gospel. Irenaeus said that in his early days he used to sit in Polycarp’s house and listen to him tell about his talks with John and others who had seen the Lord. So when Irenaeus declares categorically that after the other Gospels were written, John also wrote his while living in Ephesus, it’s pretty solid evidence that John wrote John (Everett Harrison, Introduction to the New Testament [Eerdmans], pp. 207-208). Finally,
John wants you to believe, not in generalities, but in specific, true content: that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of God so that you will have eternal life in all that He is (His “name”). But John makes it clear that the proper response to the truth about Jesus is not automatic. In spite of the strong evidence, people divide over Jesus. Even after He raised Lazarus from the dead, many believed, but others went away to the Pharisees to report on what Jesus had done, with the result that they increased their efforts to kill Him (11:45-53). The raising of Lazarus clearly proved that Jesus is the resurrection and the life, but that didn’t stop the Pharisees from wanting to kill Him! Sin is not rational!
John uses the verb, believe, 98 times, but strangely he never uses the noun. For John, faith must have content that is true. You must believe certain truths about Jesus. But faith is also personal commitment to the person of Jesus Christ, where you enter into a relationship with Him. To believe in Jesus is to trust Him as your Savior and Lord and walk in obedience to His commands. As we’ll see, it’s possible to have a superficial belief in Jesus that does not result in eternal life (2:23-25; 8:31-59).
For John belief in Jesus is both initial and ongoing as a person learns more about who Jesus is. The disciples initially believed in Jesus when they first met Him, based on the testimony of John the Baptist (1:7, 49-50). But they also believed when they saw Jesus perform His first miracle, turning the water into wine (2:11). But they (11:15; see, also, 13:19; 14:1, 10, 11, 29; 16:27, 30-31) and Martha (11:27, 40) still needed to believe before they saw Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead. Yet John reports that when he went into the empty tomb and saw Jesus’ grave clothes, he believed (20:8). Obviously, Thomas had believed in Jesus before the resurrection, but his faith was shaken by the crucifixion. He had to see the risen Savior so that he would not “be unbelieving, but believing” (20:27).
So the first crucial question is, “Who do you say that Jesus is?” After you’ve answered it, the second crucial question is, “Have you believed in Him so that you have eternal life?” If not, why not? If so, you still need to believe further in Him as you get to know more of who He is. Ask God to reveal more of Jesus to your heart as we study the Gospel of John.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
February 24, 2013
In the movie, Ben Hur, Ben Hur had been imprisoned by the Romans and was being taken to a galley ship where he would be forced to row. He was tired and thirsty and had dropped to the ground from exhaustion. He cried out, “God, help me!”
At that moment Jesus (the film never showed His face, but only His back) reached down to give him a drink. When the Roman soldier in charge saw this, he yelled at Jesus to leave the man alone and raised his whip. Jesus turned and looked at the soldier, who stood there immobilized in awe as he looked at Jesus’ face (which the camera did not show). He lowered his whip and turned away. The effect that the film wanted to convey is that an encounter with Jesus Christ would stun and perhaps even soften the hardest of men.
John begins his Gospel by stunning us with his description of Jesus Christ. He never mentions Jesus’ name until verse 17, but it becomes clear right away that he is talking about Jesus. Rather than beginning with the story of His birth, John confronts us with His deity in eternity. Moses begins Genesis (1:1) by confronting us with the majesty of God, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” In the same way, John 1:1 confronts us with the majesty of Jesus Christ, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John wants us to stand in awe of Jesus as God and as the One who reveals the unseen God to us, just as a word reveals an unseen thought.
It is foundational to the Christian faith and crucial to your personal faith that you understand and embrace the truth that Jesus Christ is fully God. Bishop Moule once stated (source unknown), “A Savior not quite God is a bridge broken at the farther end.” John Mitchell put it (An Everlasting Love [Multnomah Press], pp. 13, 14), “If Jesus is not God, then we are sinners without a Savior…. If Jesus were only a man, then He died for His own sins. And we are still in our sins. We have no hope.” In order to reconcile sinful people to the holy God, Jesus must be God in human flesh. John skillfully presents this in the prologue (1:1-18) of his Gospel. Colin Kruse (John [IVP Academic], pp. 59-60) points out:
The Prologue … introduces the main themes that are to appear throughout the Gospel: Jesus’ pre-existence (1:1a/ 17:5), Jesus’ union with God (1:1c/8:58; 10:30; 20:28), the coming of life in Jesus (1:4a/5:26; 6:33; 10:10; 11:25-26; 14:6), the coming of light in Jesus (1:4b, 9/3:19; 8:12; 12:46), the conflict between light and darkness (1:5/ 3:19; 8:12; 12:35, 46), believing in Jesus (1:7, 12/2:11; 3:16, 18, 36; 5:24; 6:69; 11:25; 14:1; 16:27; 17:21; 20:25), the rejection of Jesus (1:10c, 11/4:44; 7:1; 8:59; 10:31; 12:37-40; 15:18), divine regeneration (1:13/3:1-7), the glory of Jesus (1:14/12:41; 17:5, 22, 24), the grace and truth of God in Jesus (1:14, 17/4:24; 8:32; 14:6; 17:17; 18:38), Jesus and Moses/the law (1:17/1:45; 3:14; 5:46; 6:32; 7:19; 9:29), only Jesus has seen God (1:18/6:46), and Jesus’ revelation of the Father (1:18/3:34; 8:19, 38; 12:49-50; 14:6-11; 17:8).
Kruse compares the Prologue in John to a foyer in a theater, where you can see various scenes from the drama that you are about to see inside. Kruse and several other writers point out a chiastic structure in the prologue, with the center of it on verses 12 & 13, which is the central theme of John, that when we believe in Jesus we are born of God and become children of God. But today we have to limit ourselves to 1:1-5, where John shows us that…
Jesus Christ is the eternal Word, the Creator of everything, who reveals the life and light of God to this dark world.
We cannot know God, who (1 Tim. 6:16) “dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see,” unless He chooses to reveal Himself to us. John’s point is that God has revealed Himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ.
John 1:1-2: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” We need to be clear on what John is affirming here, because it is foundational for the Christian faith. Four things:
“In the beginning,” as I said, takes us back to Genesis 1:1, when God created the heavens and the earth. The verb “was” indicates that at the beginning of the universe, the Word already was in existence. John wants us to see that he is writing about a new creation that centers in the eternal Word, who is also the Creator of all things (1:3). Both statements (Gen. 1:1 & John 1:1) don’t let you debate the question, “Does God exist?” They don’t ask for your opinion, “What do you think about it.” Rather, before you have time to duck, they hit you right between the eyes: “In the beginning, God….” “In the beginning was the Word…” John means that there never was a time when the Word was not.
Whenever Scripture makes such a bold declaration of Jesus’ deity, you can be sure that the enemy will attack it. Virtually all heresies down through history to the present deny either the full deity or the true humanity of Jesus Christ. The heretic Arius and his modern disciples, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, argue that Jesus was not eternal; rather, He was the first created being. The Jehovah’s Witnesses base this in part on Paul’s statement (Col. 1:15), “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” But if they would read the very next verse, Paul explains what he means by “the firstborn” (1:16-17): “For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether throne or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” If all things have been created through Him, then clearly He is not created. He is eternal.
In our text, John emphasizes the same thing (1:3), “apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” Obviously, if Jesus is a created being, then He came into being and verse 3 is false. But John denies this and asserts that everything that had a beginning (that came into being) came into being through Jesus. He is eternal. There never was a time when the Word was not in existence. Jesus is eternal God!
John continues, “and the Word was with God.” Leon Morris (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans, 1971], p. 76) explains the preposition (“with”): “The whole existence of the Word was oriented towards the Father. Probably we should understand from the preposition the two ideas of accompaniment and relationship…. Not only did the Word exist ‘in the beginning,’ but He existed in the closest possible connection with the Father.” This shows that the Word is not an impersonal idea or philosophy, but a Person. This Person is distinguishable from God, although (as the first and third phrases of 1:1 show), He is eternal God.
In verse 2, John repeats the first two phrases of verse 1, both for emphasis and to make sure that we understand what he is saying. The Word was in the beginning with God. While the Word is God (1:1c), the Word is distinct from God.
Although our finite minds cannot comprehend the mystery of the Trinity, Scripture is clear that God is one God who exists in three distinct persons. Each person is fully God and yet He is not three Gods, but one God (see Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology [Zondervan, 1994], pp. 226-258).
The third phrase is, “and the Word was God.” As Morris states (p. 76), “Nothing higher could be said. All that may be said about God may fitly be said about the Word. This statement should not be watered down.” He clarifies (p. 77), “John is not merely saying that there is something divine about Jesus. He is affirming that He is God, and doing so emphatically as we see from the word order in the Greek.”
If you’ve had an encounter with the Jehovah’s Witnesses, you know that they claim that the Greek text (and their New World Translation says, “the word was a god,” because there is no Greek definite article before “God.” How should you answer their claim?
First, this is the only way in Greek to say, “the Word was God.” If John had put the definite article before God, it would have equated the Word totally with God, thus negating the distinction between the Word and God that he made in the second phrase. It would not have allowed for the Father and the Holy Spirit to be God (another serious heresy).
Second, you could say, “While neither of us understands the technicalities of Greek grammar well enough to discuss the matter intelligently, knowledgeable Greek scholars point out the inconsistency of the New World Translation and they affirm the translation as it appears in every literal modern translation.” (See Daniel Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics [Zondervan], pp. 266-269.) Wallace (p. 269) argues that the Greek construction here emphasizes the qualitative aspect of the Word, which means that He had all the attributes, qualities and essence of the Father, though they differed in person. He states (ibid., italics and bold type his), “The construction the evangelist chose to express this idea was the most concise way he could have stated that the Word was God and yet was distinct from the Father.”
Third, there are many other Scriptures that clearly proclaim Jesus as God, even within John’s Gospel. In John 5:18, the Jews sought to kill Jesus because He was making Himself equal with God. In response, Jesus doesn’t correct them by saying, “I didn’t mean to imply that I’m God!” Rather, He claims (5:22b-23a) that the Father “has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father.” That’s a bold claim to deity! When, at the climax of John’s gospel (20:28), Thomas sees the risen Jesus, he proclaims, “My Lord and my God!” He was not making an exclamation, as the Jehovah’s Witnesses claim, which would have used God’s name in vain. Surely, Jesus would have rebuked him. Instead, Jesus affirmed Thomas’ confession. (Also, see John 8:58; 10:30; 14:9.)
Years later, on the Isle of Patmos, the apostle John had a vision of the risen Lord (Rev. 1:17-18). John fell before Him as a dead man. Jesus said, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.” Isaiah 44:6 says, “Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: ‘I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God besides Me.’” In light of Isaiah, clearly Jesus was claiming to be the Lord of hosts, the only living and true God! C. K. Barrett (cited by Kruse, p. 59) comments on John 1:1, “John intends that the whole of his Gospel shall be read in the light of this verse. The deeds and words of Jesus are the deeds and words of God; if this be not true the book is blasphemous.”
Thus verse 1 affirms, Jesus is eternal; He is the second person of the Trinity; and, He is God. Also, it affirms that…
John 1:14 clearly makes this identification: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
Many pages have been written on the possible links between John’s concept of “the Word” in relation to how it was used in Greek philosophy. They viewed the “logos” as the rational mind that ruled the universe. The problem is, we can’t really know to what extent John may or may not have had the Greek concepts in mind when he called Jesus “the Word.” Perhaps John, aware of the Greek ideas, used this term to show them the true meaning of the “logos.”
But I think the clear link in John 1 with Genesis 1 primarily roots his meaning of “logos” in the Old Testament (Andreas Kostenberger, John [Baker], p. 27). Genesis 1 repeatedly states, “and God said ….” Psalm 33:6 states, “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made….” Verse 9 repeats, “For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.” Psalm 107:20 declares, “He sent His word and healed them ….” God’s word accomplishes the purpose for which He sends it forth (Isa. 55:11). There is creative power in the word of God and Jesus is that Word. So when John calls Jesus “the Word,” he means that God has spoken to us and revealed Himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ, the eternal Creator of all things. Also, consider these two things:
You cannot know my thoughts unless I put them into words. God is spirit, and thus invisible to our finite senses (1 Tim. 6:16). John (1:18) says, “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God [some manuscripts read, “Son”] who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” Jesus Himself asserted (John 14:9), “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” Thus it is only through Jesus that we can know God personally (Luke 10:22).
Hebrews 1:1-2 asserts, “God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.” If God has spoken to us through Jesus, His Word, then we had better listen to and obey Jesus! John 3:36 draws the line, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” To ignore God’s word to us in Jesus is a serious mistake! Jesus is the eternal God, the authoritative Word of God. Ignore Him to your eternal peril! Thus in verses 1 & 2, John asserts that Jesus is the eternal Word of God, distinct from the Father and yet equally God with the Father. The Father has spoken to us in Jesus Christ.
John 1:3: “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” I’ve already pointed out that if everything that has come into being came into being through Jesus, then clearly Jesus never came into being. He has existed eternally.
The Bible teaches that all three members of the Trinity were involved in creation. God the Father created everything, but He did it through Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 8:6; Col. 1:16-17; Heb. 1:1-3). Also, the Spirit of God participated in creation (Gen. 1:2). God’s statement (Gen. 1:26), “Let Us make man in Our image” implies the involvement of the trinity in the creation of human beings.
As with the person of Christ, it is not just a coincidence that Satan has so strongly attacked the biblical doctrine of creation. If God created everything that exists out of nothing by the word of His power, then contrary to what atheists claim, matter is not eternal. Only God is eternal. Creation also points to the amazing power and intelligence of God. It shows us that we are finite, limited creatures and thus we must submit to God and depend on Him. In other words, if Jesus is the creator, then He is God, which means, I am not God! And that is a fundamental lesson in all of life!
John 1:4: “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.” John uses “life” 36 times in his Gospel, more than any other New Testament book. D. A. Carson (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 119) argues that in light of verses 1-3, “the life inhering in the Word is related not to salvation but to creation.” The next phrase, “the life was the Light of men,” then either points to the fact of man being created in the image of God or to the way in which God’s invisible attributes, eternal power and divine nature are revealed in creation (Rom. 1:20). But since John goes on to develop the truth that Jesus came to earth to bring spiritual life to those who are dead in their sins and spiritual light to those who live in darkness, verse 4 may have a dual meaning, pointing back to creation, but also ahead to the salvation Jesus brings.
So the application is, those who are spiritually dead in their sins need life and Jesus is the source of that life. They are spiritually in darkness, but when they are born again, the light goes on. As Paul puts it (2 Cor. 4:4, 6), referring to those who are perishing, “in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God…. For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” Finally,
John 1:5, “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” The word translated “comprehend” can have two meanings, much like our word “grasp.” It can mean to comprehend or grasp mentally, or it can mean to overcome or take hold of something in the sense of mastering it physically. If it refers to creation, then John’s meaning is that when God said, “Let there be light,” it overcame the darkness. If you turn on a light in a dark room, the darkness loses and the light prevails. But John uses the present tense here, which probably focuses on Jesus’ coming to earth and the conflict between Him and the powers of darkness that unfold in this Gospel. They crucified Him, but He arose and conquered the darkness. His salvation conquers the spiritual darkness in every heart that trusts in Him.
But the word may also be translated “comprehend,” and this meaning also fits a theme in this Gospel. In 1:10b, those in the world “did not know Him.” In 1:11b, even His own people “did not receive Him.” Jesus points out (3:19-20) that those in the darkness love the darkness and hate the Light because their deeds are evil. Thus they didn’t “comprehend” Jesus. Because sinners walk in darkness (8:12), they fail to see who Jesus really is. In John 8:48, they actually accuse Him of having a demon! So perhaps John’s use of this ambiguous term has both meanings: the darkness will not overcome the Light as it comes through Jesus. Also, the darkness cannot comprehend the Light, unless Jesus opens their blind eyes to see.
So John’s point in this opening stunning description of Jesus Christ is to tell us that He is the eternal Word, the Creator of everything, and that He reveals the life and light of God to this dark world. Have you ever been stunned like that soldier in Ben Hur because God opened your eyes to see who Jesus really is? Because He is the eternal God, we should believe in Him and submit everything in our lives to Him as the Sovereign Lord. Because He is the Creator, we should worship Him as we see His handiwork in what He has made. If His life is in us, our salvation is secure. Because He is our life, we should be filled with hope because we will spend eternity with Him. Because He is our light, we should let Him shine into every decision we make and into every area of our lives. To know God, look to Jesus, the eternal Word of God!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
March 3, 2013
The evening news has recently been carrying the story of two courtroom dramas. The first, in Phoenix, is the story of a young woman who killed her lover and claims that she acted in self-defense. The other is the story of the Olympic “blade runner” in South Africa who shot his glamorous girlfriend but claims that he thought she was an intruder in his apartment. In both of those stories, it is very difficult to get to the truth, because there were no eyewitnesses to the killings. The defense can bring in witnesses to testify to basic “good character” of the killers, while the prosecution brings in witnesses to undermine their character. But without any credible witnesses of the killings, the juries are going to have a difficult time deciding the truth.
But what if the case had one witness who was actually sent by God in fulfillment of prophecies written hundreds of years before he arrived on the scene? The other witness, who is the one on trial, shines with a light that is brighter and purer than any other person who has ever lived? With these two exceptional, truthful witnesses, it shouldn’t be very hard to come to a verdict. But when you go into the jury room to deliberate, you are stunned that quite a few reject the testimony of these two sterling witnesses.
That’s the scene that John paints for us in our text. He has already (1:1-5) given us a description of Jesus Christ as the eternal Word, the second member of the trinity, and the creator of all that is. He has said that in Jesus is life and that life was the light of men. But even though that Light shines in the darkness, the darkness did not comprehend (or overpower) it (1:5). This implies the conflict between light and darkness that unfolds in this drama. In chapters 1-4, there is initially belief in Jesus, but in chapters 5-12, there is subsequent unbelief, leading up to His mock trial and crucifixion.
In our text, John introduces the witness of John the Baptist to Jesus (1:6-8) and the witness of Jesus Himself, “the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man” (1:9). There is more than adequate testimony in Jesus’ favor. But what will the jury decide? While as I said, this plays out throughout the entire story, John shows here that many who should have decided favorably sadly rejected the witness to Jesus Christ, whereas others welcomed the witness by receiving and believing in Him. But John isn’t just reporting a courtroom drama for your entertainment. He wants to draw you into the story and elicit your personal verdict on the witness to Jesus Christ:
God’s witness to His Son, the true Light, demands your verdict of faith in Him.
Our text falls into two parts: In 1:6-9, John shows that God has given adequate witness to His Son. In 1:10-13, he shows that this witness to God’s Son demands a verdict of faith in Him. But in spite of the solid evidence, that verdict isn’t guaranteed. Many of those who should have decided in favor of Jesus did not know Him or receive Him. But those who did are born of God and become His children.
The point of witnesses in a courtroom is to establish the truth beyond a reasonable doubt. As I pointed out in our first study of John, he marshals at least seven witnesses to Jesus Christ (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 90): (1) the Father; (2) Christ Himself; (3) the Holy Spirit; (4) Jesus’ works; (5) the Scriptures; (6) John the Baptist; and, (7) a variety of human witnesses, such as the disciples, the Samaritan woman, and the multitude. In our text, we see two of the witnesses: John the Baptist (1:6-8) and Christ Himself (1:9).
John 1:6-8: “There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light.”
John the Baptist is the only person in human history of whom it is said that he was filled with the Holy Spirit while still in his mother’s womb (Luke 1:41). His birth itself was miraculous, in that his aged parents had previously been unable to conceive. God sent John in fulfillment of Isaiah 40:3, “A voice is calling, ‘Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness; make smooth in the desert a highway for our God.’” Also, in Malachi 3:1a, God said, “‘Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me.”
John’s purpose was clear (John 1:7): “He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him.” (“Through him” refers to John.) Verse 8 clarifies that John himself was not the Light and repeats that his role was to testify about the Light. John may have simply added this to make it crystal clear, or it could be that there were still some in Ephesus in John’s day similar to those whom Paul found there, who held to the baptism of John, but had not believed in Jesus (Acts 19:1-7).
C. H. Dodd (cited by James Boice, The Gospel of John [Zondervan], one-volume ed., p. 49) observes that the apostle John’s three points in 1:6-8 outline the development of the rest of the chapter. First, John the Baptist is not the light (developed in 1:19-28). Second, John was sent to bear witness to the light (1:29-34). Third, John’s aim was that all may believe through him (1:35-51).
Those three points are helpful to keep in mind whenever you have an opportunity to bear witness of Christ. First, the message is not about you. It’s fine to give your testimony, but keep the focus on Christ. Second, tell people who Jesus is. John testified that Jesus is the Lord (1:23). John said that he wasn’t worthy to untie the thong of Jesus’ sandal (1:27). He said of Jesus (1:29), “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” He said that Jesus was of higher rank than he (John) because He existed before John, even though John was older than Jesus (1:30). He testified that he saw the Spirit of God descending on Jesus as a dove out of heaven (1:32). He said (1:34), “I myself have seen, and have testified that this is the Son of God.” He said (3:30), “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Tell people who Jesus is. Third, seek to bring people to faith in Jesus. Don’t just have a nice discussion and leave it at that. Encourage people to put their trust in Jesus Christ for salvation before it is too late.
John 1:9: “There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.” “True” here means genuine as opposed to counterfeit. D. A. Carson (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 122, italics his) explains, “Johns point is that the Word who came into the world is the light, the true light, the genuine and ultimate self-disclosure of God to man.”
But we need to sort out a couple of interpretive matters in 1:9. First, does “coming into the world” modify “man,” as in the New King James, “That was the true Light which gives light to every man who comes into the world”? Or, (as with the NASB, ESV, CSB, and NIV) does it refer to the Light coming into the world? Grammatically, it could refer to either. But in this gospel, coming into the world or being sent into the world is repeatedly said with reference to Jesus (6:14; 11:27; 16:28; 18:37). And, the following verses (1:10-11) talk about Jesus being in the world and coming unto His own. So the best way to take it is that Jesus, the Light, comes into the world and enlightens every man.
That’s the other question: How does Jesus’ coming into the world enlighten every man? There are several views. (1) Some argue that this refers to the light of general revelation that God gives through creation (Rom. 1:20). Included in this may be the light of conscience that bears witness of God (Calvin’s view; Rom. 2:14-16). (2) The Quakers say that this refers to an “inner light” that God gives to all people. (3) Some (Augustine) say that “every man” only refers to those who have been born again. (4) Others say that it means that Jesus would “give the light of truth to all whom his ministry would affect, whether in greater or lesser degree” (Merrill Tenney, Expositor’s Bible Commentary [Zondervan], ed. by Frank Gaebelein, 9:31; also, Colin Kruse, John [IVP Academic], p. 67). (5) Wesleyans argue that this verse teaches that God has given all people “prevenient grace,” which gives them to ability to choose or reject salvation. But that view contradicts the many verses that declare fallen man’s inability to choose God (Luke 10:22; John 8:43; Rom. 3:10-18; 8:7-8; 9:16; 1 Cor. 2:14; 2 Cor. 4:4; see Thomas Schreiner, Still Sovereign [Baker], ed. by Thomas Schreiner & Bruce Ware, pp. 229-246).
The best view is that John 1:9 refers to the exposure that light brings when it shines on something. The Greek verb means to shed light upon or to make visible. This isn’t referring to inner illumination, but to the objective revelation or light that came into the world through the incarnation (Carson, p. 124; Schreiner, p. 240). Carson explains (ibid.),
It shines on every man, and divides the race: those who hate the light respond as the world does (1:10): they flee lest their deeds should be exposed by this light (3:19-21). But some receive this revelation (1:12-13), and thereby testify that their deeds have been done through God (3:21). In John’s Gospel it is repeatedly the case that the light shines on all, and forces a distinction (e.g. 3:19-21; 8:12; 9:39-41).
John’s point here is that the witness that comes from the Light (Jesus) demands a response. When the Light exposes the corruption and sin that’s in everyone’s heart, some will react like cockroaches when the light is flipped on: they run for cover to hide their evil deeds. But others welcome the light, knowing that it’s for their healing and good. John goes on to show these opposite responses in 1:10-13):
First, John shows the wrong verdict:
John 1:10-11: “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.” These verses show the tragedy of sin and the terrible wickedness of the human heart. Sin is utterly irrational. If God loves sinners enough to send His own Son to pay for their sin and offer them eternal life as a free gift, it’s insane for them to scream, “Get out of here! Turn off that light! I love my sin so much that I’m willing to face eternal judgment rather than to receive the right to become God’s child!”
First (1:10) John says, “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.” As I said in the introductory message, “world” is a key concept in John. He uses it 78 times, often with reference to the evil system that is under Satan, “the ruler of this world” (12:31; 14:30; 16:11). It is hostile both toward Jesus and His followers (7:7; 15:18; 16:20). John heightens the irony here by noting again (as in 1:3) that Jesus made the world and yet, “the world did not know Him.”
Knowing Jesus (or not knowing Him) is another major theme in John. When the Samaritans believe in Jesus through the witness of the woman at the well, they say to her (4:42), “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world.” In like fashion, Peter testifies (6:69), “We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” But in 8:19, Jesus says to the hostile Jews, “You know neither Me nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also.”
Why didn’t the world know its Creator and Savior? One reason is that it is spiritually blind (John 9:39-41; 2 Cor. 4:4). Another reason is that they love their sin (“darkness,” 3:19-21). In many cases, the cause is just indifference. People are immersed in their own things and don’t have the time or desire to know Jesus in a personal, saving way.
Then John heightens the irony of the world not knowing Jesus (1:11): “He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.” There is a word play in Greek: the first “His own” is neuter and refers to “His own property or home.” The second “His own” is masculine and refers to His fellow Jews, the people of Israel. The two phrases both may refer to Israel, with the first emphasizing that Israel belongs to the Lord as His inheritance (Ps. 78:71), and the second emphasizing that they were His own kinsmen. They should have recognized Jesus as their promised Messiah, prophesied of in their Scriptures. But He wasn’t the kind of Messiah that they envisioned or wanted. They were hoping for a political Messiah who would deliver them from Rome’s power and provide peace and prosperity. They didn’t see their need for a Savior from sin. And so they rejected the true Light who made them and who rightfully owned them.
There are two applications for us: First, make sure that you’re not rejecting the true Light in spite of the solid testimony that He is the eternal Word in human flesh. It’s easy to be disappointed with Jesus because He didn’t give you quick relief from all your problems. It’s a short step from there to turning your back on Him altogether. Second, don’t be surprised when people do not respond positively to your witness for Christ. People still love the darkness because their deeds are evil. But, not all reject Him:
John 1:12-13: “ But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” These verses state the purpose for which this Gospel was written and thus form an inclusio (like “bookends”) with 20:30-31. They also strike the balance between human responsibility (we must receive Christ by believing in His name) and divine sovereignty (those who believe in Him were not born of human decision, but of God).
To receive Christ is the opposite of not knowing Him and rejecting Him (1:10-11). It means to welcome Him into your life. John further defines it as believing in His name. “His name” refers to all that Jesus is in His person as the eternal Word made flesh. It refers to all that He did by dying on the cross as the substitute for your sins. Believing in His name means that you stop relying on your own merits and works as the way to approach God and instead you rely totally on what Jesus did for you on the cross. It means that when you stand before God, your only hope for heaven is not your good works, but rather that Jesus died for your sins and you are trusting in Him alone.
Often when you share the gospel with people from a Roman Catholic background, they will tell you that they have received Christ, because they think that they are receiving Christ when they eat the communion wafer. But when you question them on why God should let them into heaven, they will say that they have gone to Mass and confession, they have lived a good life, etc. So you need to make it clear to them that receiving Christ means to rely on Him totally as the payment for their sins. Taking communion or going to mass or doing penance can never qualify us for heaven.
John says that when we receive Christ or believe in Him, He gives us the right or authority to become children of God. The “right” means a legitimate claim, much like a birth certificate proves that you are the child of your natural father. The fact that those who believe “become children of God” means that all people are not God’s children by natural birth. To become God’s child requires a spiritual new birth (1:13; 3:1-8).
Maybe you’ve daydreamed about what it would be like to be the child of a wealthy family, where you could have everything you ever wanted. Or maybe you never had parents who loved you and you wish that you could have been born into a family where you were loved and cared for. We get all of that and more as God’s children! In 1 John 3:1, the apostle exclaims, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.” What a wonderful privilege!
Verse 13 describes those in verse 12 who believe in Jesus and become His children. They were born, but it was not a natural birth. “Blood” (lit., “bloods”) refers to human ancestry. “The will of the flesh” refers to the decision of human parents to have a child. “The will of man” refers to human willpower. John probably piles up these phrases to counter the Jewish pride of race (Morris, p. 101). Ed Blum explains (The Bible Knowledge Commentary: New Testament [Victor Books], ed. by John F. Walvoord & Roy Zuck, p. 272), ““The birth of a child of God is not a natural birth; it is a supernatural work of God in regeneration. A person welcomes Jesus and responds in faith and obedience to Him, but the mysterious work of the Holy Spirit is ‘the cause’ of regeneration (3:5-8).” Just as we had nothing to do with our physical birth, so we had nothing to do with our spiritual birth. We can’t take credit for it. We can’t boast in our wise decision to believe in Christ. All glory must go to God.
The question comes up, “Do we first believe and then are born again, or are we born again and then believe?” They both happen at the same instant, and so it’s a question of logical, not chronological, order. The clearest verse for answering the question is 1 John 5:1, which is literally translated, “Whoever believes [present tense] that Jesus is the Christ has been born [perfect tense] of God.” In other words, believing in Christ is evidence that God has given you new life through the new birth. John Stott comments on that verse and its verb tenses (The Epistles of John [Eerdmans], p. 172), “It shows clearly that believing is the consequence, not the cause, of the new birth. Our present, continuing activity of believing is the result, and therefore the evidence, of our past experience of new birth by which we became and remain God’s children.”
There is a mystery here that we can’t fully resolve. Suffice it to say that your responsibility is to believe in Christ for salvation and to urge others to believe in Christ. But whenever we believe in Christ, we can’t take credit for our faith or our wise decision. All we can say is, “If God had not graciously chosen me and imparted new life to me, I would still be in my sin. All glory goes to Him!” (See 1 Cor. 1:26-31; Eph. 2:1-10; Acts 13:48.)
So now you’ve heard the witnesses. John has testified that Jesus is the Light. Jesus Himself shines as the true Light. It’s time for your verdict. Will you ignore Him as you pursue your own agenda? Will you flat out reject Him because He confronts your pride? Or, will you receive Him by believing in His name so that you become His child, born of God?
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
March 10, 2013
I spent the summer of 1970 working as “Charlie Chaplin” at the Movieland Wax Museum in Buena Park, California. Each day I would dress up as Charlie Chaplin, and impersonate him for the guests. It was the most fun job that I’ve ever had.
The museum also employed several security men who were dressed as Keystone Cops. One of these men was a roly-poly man named Walter. One day Walter in his Keystone Cop outfit and I in my Charlie Chaplin outfit were sitting in the break area when he said to me, “Charlie, what do you want to do with your life?”
I responded, “Walter, I’ve given my life to Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord, so I’m going to spend it serving Him in some way.” Walter’s reply jarred me. First, he took the Lord’s name in vain. Then he said, “Am I glad to hear that!”
While I was trying to reconcile his response in my mind, he proceeded to tell me his religious odyssey. He had started off as a young man with a Pentecostal group in Los Angeles. He had a vision of “the Christ” (as he called it) where he woke up in the middle of the night and saw “Jesus,” whose heart came out of His chest and was beating in front of him. After a few days in a trance, Walter began preaching on the streets of Los Angeles.
I’ve forgotten what order or how many other things he had been into since those early days, but they included Science of Mind, Theosophy, Rosicrucianism, some weird group that studied the “silent years of Jesus” (just how, I was afraid to ask!), Mormonism, and at the time I was talking with him, the Self-Realization Fellowship of Yogi Paramanda Yogahanda. He was speaking at their center in Laguna Beach and invited me to come hear him. Thankfully, I was working then and so I had a good excuse not to go!
What was Walter’s problem? How could a man who seemingly began as a Christian end up so fouled up in his beliefs? There were two basic reasons: First, he accepted as his basis of truth and knowledge his own subjective experiences rather than the propositional truth as revealed in the written Word of God. Second, stemming from that wrong foundation, he developed faulty views of the person of Jesus Christ. Without the objective truth of the written Word of God, we cannot develop correct views of who Jesus truly is. At best, we’ll come up with our subjective preferences, but they will not be based on the eyewitness testimony of the apostles.
It’s safe to say that every major cult and heresy has deviated from the biblical revelation of who Jesus Christ really is. They have erred either with regard to His deity or His humanity or the relationship between His two natures. John MacArthur (“Jesus: Glory, Grace, and God,” on gty.org) says, “It is as damning to believe in the wrong Jesus as to believe in no Jesus.” Saving faith is certainly more than believing correct statements about Jesus, but it cannot be less. In our text, John gives us one of the most succinct statements of the unfathomable doctrine of the incarnation:
Jesus, the eternal Word, is God in human flesh, glorious as the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Verse 14 reconnects us with verse 1 and is the last time John uses “the Word” as a title for Jesus in this gospel. The Word who was in the beginning with God, the Word who was God, the Word who created everything that has come into being, “became flesh, and dwelt among us.” Wayne Grudem (Systematic Theology [Zondervan], p. 563) says of the incarnation,
It is by far the most amazing miracle of the entire Bible—far more amazing than the resurrection and more amazing even than the creation of the universe. The fact that the infinite, omnipotent, eternal Son of God could become man and join himself to a human nature forever, so that infinite God became one person with finite man, will remain for eternity the most profound miracle and the most profound mystery in all the universe.
Leon Morris puts it (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 102), “In one short, shattering expression John unveils the great idea at the heart of Christianity that the very Word of God took flesh for man’s salvation.” As we tread on such holy ground, I especially identify with Paul’s rhetorical question (2 Cor. 2:16), “And who is adequate for these things?” Let’s proceed reverently and ask the Holy Spirit to teach us.
John now definitely identifies the eternal Word of verse 1 with Jesus Christ, whom he will first name in verse 17. He affirms two truths about Jesus Christ that are essential to the Christian faith:
We saw this clearly in verse 1. John asserts that Jesus is eternal. He does not say, “In the beginning, God created the Word as the first and greatest created being.” But rather, “In the beginning was the Word.” The sense of the verb is that He was already existing at the beginning of time because He has no beginning. He is one in essence with the Father (John 10:30) and the triune God is the only eternal being.
Of course, Satan hates the truth of the deity of Jesus Christ, because it spells his doom. And so he has always attacked it. One of the most substantial attacks on the deity of Christ came from the heretic Arius in the early fourth century. He taught that the Word was the first and greatest created being. He gained a large following, but was refuted at the Councils of Nicea (325 A.D.), Constantinople (381 A.D.), and Chalcedon (451 A. D.). The latter two councils also clarified the relationship of the two natures of Christ to correct several other heresies that had sprung up. But the attacks on Christ’s deity have continued through the Unitarians, liberal theologians, and the modern cults, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons.
But the New Testament clearly affirms the deity of Jesus Christ. He Himself claimed to be God. In John 5:23, He said that the Father had given all judgment to the Son “so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father.” In John 8:58, He asserted His eternal existence when He claimed, “Before Abraham was born, I am.” (The Jews would have recognized “I am” as a reference to God’s name as revealed to Moses in Exodus 3:14.) In John 10:30 He asserted, “I and the Father are one.” In John 14:9 He told Philip, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.”
Also, Scripture directly states that Jesus is God. There are several such references (John 1:1; 20:28; Rom. 9:5; Titus 2:13; 1 John 5:20), but I think the clearest is Hebrews 1:8, which applies Psalm 45:6 to Jesus: “But of the Son He says, ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever….” Also, many titles that apply only to God are applied to Jesus. “Lord” is the same as Yahweh of the Old Testament (Isa. 40:3 with John 1:23; Jer. 23:5, 6; Joel 2:32 with Acts 2:21; 4:12; Rom. 10:9-10, 13). He is “the Lord of glory” (1 Cor. 2:8). In Revelation 1:8 God says, “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.’” Then just a few verses later (Rev. 1:17), Jesus proclaims, “I am the first and the last.” In Revelation 22:13 (in case we missed it) he reaffirms, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.” (See Isa. 41:4.)
Also, Jesus displayed many of the incommunicable attributes of God: He is eternal (John 1:1); omnipresent (Matt. 28:20); omnipotent (Phil. 3:21); immutable (Heb. 1:10-12; 13:8); glorious (John 1:14; 1 Cor. 2:8; Rev. 1:13-16); and sovereign (Phil. 2:10). Paul put it (Col. 2:9), “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form.” Plus, Jesus did works that only God can do, such as creating all that is (John 1:3, 10; Heb. 1:2); raising the dead (John 5:25-26); overpowering Satan and all spiritual forces (Eph. 1:21); judging all people (John 5:22-23, 27); forgiving sins (Mark 2:5-7); and receiving worship (John 9:38; 20:28). You cannot believe the New Testament and deny the full deity of Jesus Christ.
John could have said, “The Word became man,” or, “The Word took on a human body.” But the word “flesh” jars you with its bluntness (Morris, p. 102). Probably John was confronting another early heresy, Docetism, which said that Jesus only appeared or seemed to be human. But John wants us to know that Jesus took upon Himself our full human nature, except for sin. From that miraculous moment when Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the virgin Mary, He will never cease to be human. He is forever both God and man in one person.
“Became” does not mean that Jesus ceased to be what He was before. Rather, to His eternal deity, He added perfect humanity. He temporarily laid aside the use of some of His divine attributes and the full display of His glory (Phil. 2:5-8; John 17:5). It shone forth on occasions, but not always (John 2:11; 18:4-6; Luke 9:28-36). But He did not lay aside His deity or cease to be God. Rather, He added complete humanity to His eternal deity. Jesus’ human nature was subject to hunger, thirst, weakness, tiredness, temptation, and death, but He was without sin.
Again, Satan hates the truth that Jesus, the eternal God, took on human flesh, because it qualifies Jesus to be our Savior. So he has attacked this doctrine, too. The Apollinarians acknowledged Christ to be God and man. But they held that Jesus did not take on the soul of a man. The Logos took the place of the rational soul. The Nestorians believed Christ to be both God and man, but they conceived of Him as two persons, thus dividing His unity. The Eutychians held to one person in Christ, but they mixed His two natures, saying that it produced a third thing. They said that Jesus’ humanity was absorbed into His deity, and thus that He only had one nature. This error persists today in what is called Monophysitism, which is held by the Coptic Church in Egypt and Ethiopia, plus other groups in Syria. Another form of it recently was taught by Witness Lee (“the Local Church”), who used the analogy of a tea bag and water. When you mix them, you have a new substance, “tea-water.” Thus in his view, Jesus is a hybrid “God-man.” (A helpful book that explores the practical damaging results of these and other heresies is, The Cruelty of Heresy [Morehouse Publishing], by C. FitzSimons Allison.)
The Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D.) produced a comprehensive and definitive statement on the person of Christ, which is worth pondering (Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom [Baker], 6th ed., p. 62). But you can sum it up by saying, “Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man united in one person forever, without confusion of His two natures.” While it is an incomprehensible mystery how the two natures of Christ interact, we must accept the truth of Scripture, “The Word became flesh.”
John could have said, “The Word lived among us,” but instead he used the unusual word, translated dwelt, which means “to pitch a tent” or “to tabernacle.” It is used of the tabernacle in the Old Testament, where God dwelt with His people in the wilderness. John does not mean by this term that Jesus’ humanity was temporary, but rather, His stay on earth was temporary.
By using the word that was used of the tabernacle, coupled with seeing Jesus’ glory, John wants us to make some connections. Just as the tabernacle was the place where God dwelt with His people and manifested His glory, so Jesus is Immanuel, God with us. Just as the tabernacle was at the center of Israel’s camp, so Christ is to be at the center of the church. Just as sacrifices and worship were offered at the tabernacle, so Jesus is our complete and final sacrifice, and we have access to God through Him.
Every aspect of the tabernacle speaks of Christ. The bronze altar for sacrifice and the bronze laver for cleansing point to Christ. The table of showbread in the holy place speaks of Christ, the living bread. The golden lampstand points to Christ, the light, who illumines the things of God. The altar of incense reminds us of Christ’s making intercession for us. In the holy of holies, the ark of the covenant, made of wood covered with gold, points to the two natures of Christ. On top of the ark was the mercy seat, where the blood of atonement was sprinkled. Inside were the tablets of the law, pointing to Christ, the fulfillment of God’s law for us; the jar of manna, pointing to Christ as our sustenance; and Aaron’s rod that budded, pointing to Jesus as “the branch,” who was raised from the dead and gives new life to those who were dead in their sins. Jesus, our tabernacle, “dwelt among us”!
God’s glory is the sum of all His attributes and perfection. It is sometimes displayed as a bright or overpowering light. When John says, “We saw His glory,” he may have been referring in part to the transfiguration, when he and James and Peter saw Jesus in His glory. John could not have forgotten that event, although he doesn’t tell about it in his gospel!
But he is also referring to Jesus’ glory as revealed in His miracles, but only to those who had eyes to see. After Jesus turned the water into wine, John reports (2:11), “This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him.” Before Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, He said (John 11:4), “This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it.” And yet, even after that amazing miracle, the Jewish leaders increased their efforts to kill the one who is the resurrection and the life!
But John also shows that Jesus’ glory was supremely revealed in the cross. When Judas went out of the Upper Room to betray the Savior, Jesus said (John 13:31), “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him.” The cross displayed God’s perfect justice and amazing love like no other event in history. In our text, John elaborates on Jesus’ glory with two phrases:
The NASB translates, “glory as of the only begotten from the Father.” The term, “only begotten,” while a part of the historic creeds, can cause some confusion, namely, that Jesus came into being at a point in time. The Nicene Creed clarifies, “begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father ….” Sometimes it is said that Jesus is “eternally begotten,” so that He is the eternal Son of God.
But most modern scholars say that the Greek word does not refer to the “begetting” aspect of Jesus’ sonship, but rather to His uniqueness. It could be translated, “one and only.” It’s used of the widow of Nain’s only son (Luke 7:12), of Jairus’ “only daughter” (Luke 8:42), and of a man’s only son who was afflicted by an evil spirit (Luke 9:38). Hebrews 11:17 uses it to refer to Isaac, who was not Abraham’s only son, but his unique son, the son of the promise. John is the only New Testament author to use the term of Jesus (John 1:14, 18; 3:16, 18; 1 John 4:9). He means that Jesus is the only or unique Son of God in a way that no one else is. Jesus has no equal among men. We become sons of God through the new birth, but Jesus is the eternal Son, co-equal with the Father in His essence. If you don’t understand how Jesus could be an eternal Son, remember the comment of Augustine, “Show me and explain to me an eternal Father and I will show to you and explain to you an eternal Son.”
Sadly, many supposedly evangelical missionaries to Muslims are producing and endorsing translations of the New Testament that replace the terms “Father” and “Son” with other terms that are less offensive to Muslims. They argue that Muslims wrongly think that Christians believe that Jesus is the result of God having sexual relations with Mary. To remove that stumbling block, they change the terms. But in so doing, they change the very nature of God as He has revealed Himself to us in Scripture. God is the eternal Father and Jesus is His eternal Son. The Holy Spirit is also eternal God; three persons but one God. While it is humanly impossible to fully understand it, we dare not tamper with it to somehow make the message less offensive.
John is probably referring back to Exodus 33 & 34, where Moses asks to see God’s glory. God explains that he can’t see His face and live, but He will hide Moses in the cleft of a rock, cover him with His hand, and pass by so that Moses can see “His back.” Then we read (Exod. 34:7), “Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.’” In that profound experience, we hear of God’s grace and truth. He is “abounding in lovingkindness” (“grace”) for many, but true to His holiness, He still punishes the guilty.
Jesus was full of grace and truth. His grace offers love and compassion to guilty sinners (John 4:1-26). His truth means that He warns of God’s judgment if sinners do not repent and believe in Him (John 3:16, 18, 36; 5:27-29; 8:24, 40, 45-47). Grace and truth reach their culmination at the cross, where the truth of God’s holiness and justice was satisfied in the death of the perfect Substitute, so that He now can offer grace to guilty sinners who trust in Jesus. It is only by believing the truth as it is in Jesus that you can experience God’s grace and forgiveness. Since Jesus is full of grace, you can come to Him and know that He will welcome you (John 6:37). Because He is full of truth, you can trust His promises.
J. C. Ryle, in his wonderful Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], 3:26-27) draws several practical lessons from John 1:14. He points out that the constant undivided union of two perfect natures in Christ’s person gives infinite value to His mediation for sinners, to His imputed righteousness to believers, to His atoning blood, and to His resurrection. Then he adds (pp. 27-28),
Did the Word become flesh? Then He is One who can be touched with the feeling of His people’s infirmities, because He has suffered Himself, being tempted. He is almighty because He is God, and yet He can sympathize with us, because He is man.
Did the Word become flesh? Then He can supply us with a perfect pattern and example for our daily life…. Having dwelt among us as a man, we know that the true standard of holiness is to “walk even as He walked” (1 John 2:6). He is a perfect pattern, because He is God. But He is also a pattern exactly suited to our needs, because He is man.
Finally, did the Word become flesh? Then let us see in our mortal bodies a real, true dignity, and not defile them by sin. Vile and weak as our body may seem, it is a body which the Eternal Son of God was not ashamed to take upon Himself, and to take up to heaven. That simple fact is a pledge that He will raise our bodies at the last day, and glorify them together with His own.
As Charles Wesley put it (“Hark, the Herald Angels Sing”), “Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see; hail the incarnate Deity.”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
March 17, 2013
Suppose that you have an opportunity to share Christ with a friend or family member and that person says, “I’m relatively happy just as I am and I really enjoy not having anything to do (like going to church) on Sunday mornings. Why should I believe in Jesus?” What would you say?
There are many different things that could be said. It would seem that anyone who gave such an answer has no idea of his precarious standing before the Judge of the universe. He’s one breath away from eternal condemnation and yet he thinks things are going well and he sees no need to be reconciled with God. He has no idea of the magnitude of his own sin and guilt or of the absolute holiness and justice of God. So you may need to explore those issues before your friend would appreciate the message of our text.
But at some point, as I’ve pointed out in our previous studies in John, the issue becomes, “Who do you say that Jesus is?” If He is who He claimed to be and who John presents Him to be in this gospel, then it would be extremely foolish not to believe in Him as your Savior and Lord. In our text, John builds on the wonderful truths in verse 14 to give four more reasons to believe in Jesus:
You should believe in Jesus because He is greater than all the prophets; He provides abundant grace; He is greater than Moses and the law; and, He is God’s ultimate revelation to us.
In verse 14, John says, “and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” In our text, he continues to unfold the glory of Jesus Christ, the eternal Word. Someday when we see Jesus in the fullness of His glory that sight will transform us to be like Him (1 John 3:2): “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.” (See, also, 2 Cor. 3:18.) So our text has practical value, not only for pointing others to Christ, but also for transforming us into the image of Jesus Christ as we see more of His glory now.
As I said last week, the background behind our text is probably the encounter that Moses had with God in Exodus 33 & 34. After Moses secures God’s promise to go with them on their journey to the promised land, he boldly asks (33:18), “I pray You, show me Your glory!” God responds (33:19), “I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.”
Then God explains to Moses that he cannot see God’s face and live, but He will show him “His back.” So Moses returns to Mount Sinai, the Lord descends in the cloud, and we read (Exod. 34:6-7), “Then the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.’”
So Moses asks to see God’s glory and God responds by showing him His sovereign grace, compassion, and truth. In our text, John wants us to see that in Jesus, we see God’s abundant grace and goodness far more than Moses saw it, because Jesus is God’s ultimate revelation to us.
John 1:15, “John testified about Him and cried out, saying, ‘This was He of whom I said, “He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.”’” Since verse 16 seems to explain verse 14, verse 15 may be “a planned parenthetical remark” (D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 130). If the prologue is arranged in a chiastic structure, then verse 15 corresponds to verses 6-8, which also report John’s witness to Jesus. And, it also sets the stage for the extended section on John the Baptist’s witness that immediately follows the prologue.
What does John the Baptist mean by his statement, “He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me”? It could be translated, “He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me,” or “he was first with respect to me” (Carson, p. 131). John was six months older than Jesus (Luke 1:24-31) and he began his public ministry before Jesus’ ministry. So by the first part of that declaration, John was dispelling the common cultural view that the older man had greater honor than the younger one. He is saying that Jesus is the greater one.
But what does he mean by the last phrase, “because he was first with respect to me”? It’s unlikely that John the Baptist was clear from the outset of Jesus’ eternal existence as the Word. After all, it took the disciples until after the resurrection for the fog to lift so that they understood the truth that Jesus is God. So it may be that the Baptist meant, “He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was always greater than I.” But as Colin Kruse explains (John [IVP Academic], p. 73), “The evangelist may have introduced a note of ambiguity into the way he has reported John’s words so that his readers will recognize that John spoke better than he knew.” Later in this gospel (11:50-52; 18:39; 19:14-15, 19, 21-22), both Caiaphas and Pilate spoke better than they knew (ibid.).
So, the apostle John wants us to see that Jesus is greater than John the Baptist and all the other prophets because, whether the Baptist fully recognized it or not, Jesus is the eternal Word. He had a higher rank than John because He existed before John, although he was younger than John. Jesus said that there were none greater than John the Baptist (Matt. 11:11). So if John himself testified that Jesus was greater than he, and if John’s words about Jesus may be taken to point to His preexistence, then Jesus is greater than all the prophets. Thus we should believe in Him.
John 1:16, “For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.” As I said, verse 16 seems to be explaining verse 14, which said that Jesus is “full of grace.” Verse 17 will elaborate on the fact (from 1:14) that Jesus is also full of truth.
Paul wrote (Col. 2:9), “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form.” So there is an infinite fullness, the very fullness of God, in Jesus Christ. When we receive Christ by trusting in Him (John 1:12), we become children of God and thus heirs to all the riches of heaven (Eph. 1:3; Rom. 8:16, 17; Eph. 2:7). So in verse 16, John means (as J. C. Ryle explains, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], 3:38), “All we who believe in Jesus have received an abundant supply of all that our souls need out of the full store that resides in Him for His people. It is from Christ and Christ alone, that all our spiritual wants have been supplied.”
I hate to burden such a wonderful verse with a technical interpretive issue, but we do need to consider what John means by the phrase, “grace upon grace.” John uses a Greek preposition, anti, that means that one thing is replaced by another or put in the place of another. In light of verse 17, many reputable commentators understand it to mean that the grace of the law was replaced by the grace of Jesus Christ (Carson, p. 132; Andreas Kostenberger, John [Baker], pp. 46-47; this view goes back to several early church fathers). They contend that if John had meant “grace upon grace,” he would have used another preposition, epi. In light of God’s revelation to Moses of His grace in Exodus 33 & 34, this may be what John means for us to understand. But it strikes me as a bit subtle, especially since the law itself was not noted for dispensing grace.
The Bauer-Arndt-Gingrich Greek-English Lexicon [University of Chicago Press], 2nd ed., p. 73) says that in John 1:16, anti means “grace pours forth in ever new streams.” (In the same vein, see A. T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament [Broadman Press], p. 574.) Another scholar, Murray J. Harris (The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology [Zondervan], ed. by Colin Brown, p. 1179) says that the preposition in this verse “denotes a perpetual and rapid succession of blessings, as though there were no interval between the arrival of one blessing and the receipt of the next.” When you add in the idea of Jesus’ fullness, at the very least John wants us to see that in Him we get all the grace that we need. It’s an inexhaustible supply.
John Calvin (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 50) applies verse 16 in three ways. He says that first it shows us that while we’re all spiritually destitute, the abundance that exists in Christ “is intended to supply our deficiency, to relieve our poverty, to satisfy our hunger and thirst.” Second, if we depart from Christ, “it is in vain for us to seek a single drop of happiness” elsewhere. The world can never give us the lasting joy we find in Christ. Third, we have no reason to fear lacking anything if we draw on Christ’s fullness, because He is “a truly inexhaustible fountain.” He points out that John includes himself in verse 16 to make it plain that no one is excepted. All who believe have received grace upon grace.
But it’s easy to say that Christ satisfies our every need with His fullness and grace, but it’s another thing really to experience it. It’s so easy when problems hit to turn to other things than Christ for relief. Even many Christians turn to worldly techniques or to tranquilizers or even to alcohol to reduce stress and “calm their nerves.” But here is Jesus’ prescription for peace in a troubled world (John 16:33): “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
Paul said that the way to overcome anxiety is to seek the Lord in prayer (Phil. 4:6-7): “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Maybe you’re thinking, “I tried that, but the problems didn’t go away.” Well, Paul tried it, too, and his problems didn’t go away. That’s when the Lord told him (2 Cor. 12:9), “My grace is sufficient for you, for [My] power is perfected in weakness.” The key to peace is not the absence of problems, but the presence of the all-sufficient grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
John 1:17: “For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.” Why does John introduce the law and Moses here? For one thing, in Exodus 34, when God called Moses back to Mount Sinai to reveal His glory, He instructed him to cut out two stone tablets like the former ones that he had broken in anger when he went down the mountain and found the people worshiping the golden calf (Exod. 34:1). God re-issued the law on that occasion of showing Moses His glory. The law, as summarized in the Ten Commandments, manifested God’s grace (“lovingkindness”) and truth (Exod. 34:6). If that passage is the backdrop for these verses in John, then he is showing that as great as the law and Moses were, someone who embodies grace and truth had now “tabernacled” among us.
Andreas Kostenberger (ibid., p. 47) points out, “Rather than offend the Gospel’s Jewish audience, this verse is designed to draw it in: ‘If you want an even more gracious demonstration of God’s covenant love and faithfulness,’ the evangelist tells his readers, ‘it is found in Jesus Christ.’” So John is saying, “If you thought that God’s gift of the law through Moses was a great thing (and it was), He has given us a greater gift now through Jesus Christ.”
But it seems to me that John is at the same time drawing a contrast between the inferiority of the law and the superiority of Jesus Christ. Leon Morris (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 112) points out, “The contrast of the Christian way with the Jewish and the function of Moses as subordinate to and pointing forward to the Christ is a recurring theme in the Gospel (see 5:39, 46; 6:32; 8:32ff.; 9:28ff.).” J. C. Ryle (Ibid., 3:40) puts it this way:
By Moses was given the law—the moral law, full of high and holy demands, and of stern threatenings against disobedience;—the ceremonial law, full of burdensome sacrifices, ordinances, and ceremonies, which never healed the worshipper’s conscience, and at best were only shadows of good things to come.
By Christ, on the other hand, came grace and truth—grace by the full manifestation of God’s plan of salvation, and the offer of complete pardon to every soul that believes on Jesus,—and truth, by the unveiled exhibition of Christ Himself, as the true sacrifice, the true Priest, and the true atonement for sin.
Augustine, on this verse, says: “The law threatened, not helped; commanded, not healed; showed, not took away, our feebleness. But it made ready for the Physician who was to come with grace and truth.”
Also, note that this is the first time that John has used the human name, Jesus, or His designation as Christ, or Messiah. He uses “Jesus” 237 times, more than any other gospel and more than a quarter of all New Testament uses (Morris, p. 112). He also uses “Christ” more often than any other gospel, although he only uses “Jesus Christ” together one other time (17:3; but see 20:31). In 1:17, John is making it clear that the Word who was in the beginning with God, the Word who was God, and the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us, is none other than Jesus the Messiah of Israel.
As I pointed out in our last study, God’s grace and truth reach their apex at the cross. His truth demanded that the penalty for sin be fully paid. His grace provided Jesus, the eternal Son of God, as that payment for sin for all who believe in Him. So make sure that you have received God’s gift of eternal life by trusting in Jesus Christ as your sin-bearer.
Thus John says that you should believe in Jesus because He is greater than all the prophets, including John the Baptist; you should believe in Him because He provides abundant grace for all who believe; you should believe in Him because He is greater than Moses and the law. Finally,
John 1:18: “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” At first glance, this verse seems to come out of nowhere. Why would John abruptly bring up the fact that no one has seen God? There may be two reasons: First, if Exodus 33 & 34 is the backdrop for these verses, when Moses there asked God to show him His glory, God responded that no man could see Him and live (Exod. 33:20). Second, verse 18 wraps up the chiasm of the prologue by tying back to verse 1. We cannot know the invisible God unless He reveals Himself to us, which He has done in the Word. Jesus, the Word, who is the only Son of God, the one who was “with God” (1:1), “in the bosom of the Father” (1:18), “He has explained Him” to us.
You may wonder why Exodus 24:10 says that the leaders of Israel saw God and Isaiah saw God (Isa. 6:1) and yet God Himself says that no one can see Him and live; John says that no one has seen God at any time; and Paul says that no man has seen or can see God (1 Tim. 6:16). The answer is that no one has seen the essence of God in His unmitigated glory. Those who got a vision of God either saw Christ in His preincarnate glory (John 12:41) or they had an obscured vision of the glory around God’s throne. Almost always, those who got such a limited vision of God were terrified by the experience. But now Jesus has revealed God to us, especially His abundant grace and truth.
Some of you have a translation that reads, “the only begotten Son” rather than “the only begotten God.” The earliest and best manuscripts favor the reading “only begotten God.” Since it is a unique phrase and is more difficult to explain than “only begotten Son,” a scribe probably changed the original to “only begotten Son” to correspond to John 3:16 & 18. Thus translated literally, the verse in the original probably read, “the unique Son, God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” As Jesus will later say (6:46), “Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father.” And (14:9), “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.”
So verse 18 again (as in 1:1, “the Word was God”) affirms Jesus’ deity, but at the same time distinguishes Him from the Father (as in 1:1, “the Word was with God”). He is the eternal Son of God, always in intimate relationship with the eternal Father. The phrase “in the bosom of the Father” corresponds to “the Word was with God” (1:1) and points to the close and unbroken fellowship that Jesus enjoyed with the Father, as seen in His prayer in chapter 17. It also shows us the horror of the cross for Jesus, when as He bore our sins He cried out (Matt. 27:46), “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
The word “explained” is the Greek word from which we get our word “exegete.” It is parallel to “the Word” in 1:1. Just as a word explains an unseen thought, so Jesus, the Word, explains the unseen God to us. The only way that you can know the Father is through Jesus His Son (Luke 10:22; John 14:6). Elsewhere John writes (1 John 2:23), “Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.” In John 5:23 Jesus states, “He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.”
This means that the cults, which all deny the deity of Jesus, cannot bring anyone to God. It also means that the Insider Movement, which has changed the terms “Father” and “Son” because they are offensive to Muslims has perverted the core of the gospel. It’s fine to explain what the terms mean, but it’s not fine to change the terms that God has used to reveal Himself to us in His Son.
John didn’t write these things to satisfy our curiosity or to stimulate intellectual discussions. Rather, he wants us to know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, so that we will believe in Him for eternal life (20:31). Why should you believe in Jesus? John says that you should believe in Jesus because He is greater than all the prophets; He provides abundant grace for all that trust in Him; He is greater than Moses and the law; and, He is God’s ultimate revelation of Himself to us.
If you turn away from faith in Jesus Christ, you are rejecting the witness that God has given concerning His Son. If you believe, then you can say with John (1 John 5:20), “And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Hi m who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
March 24, 2013
Several decades ago, “All in the Family” poked fun at the red-neck, blue-collar, bigots of America through the lead bigot, Archie Bunker. On one show, Archie told his wife Edith that he wanted to be on the bowling team so bad that he could taste it! He described the bowling shirts that the Cannonballers wore: All yellow silk, with bright red piping on the collar and sleeves. And on the back, there’s a picture of a cannon firing a bowling ball at the set of pins. He said, “When you got something like that on your back, Edith, you know you’re somebody!” (Raymond Gibson, Minister’s Annual [Abingdon, 1987], ed. by Jim & Doris Morentz)
That show was satirizing that a man could gain a sense of identity and importance from being a part of a bowling team and wearing a gaudy shirt. But that anecdote raises the questions, “Who are you? What is the source of your identity? How should your sense of who you are before God as a Christian shape how you live and what you do?”
Our text shows us that John the Baptist was a man who was clear on who he was not and who he was. He was also clear on who Jesus is. So he was able to point others clearly to Jesus as the only Savior whom they desperately needed.
At this point, we leave the prologue and begin a long section (1:19-12:54) that amasses testimony for Jesus as the Son of God, the one in whom all should believe. The rest of chapter 1 presents the witness of the forerunner, John the Baptist, to Jesus. Andreas Kostenberger (John [Baker], p. 53) points out two purposes for this section: “(1) to show John’s witness to Jesus at the inception of [Jesus’] ministry; and (2) to clarify John’s relationship to Jesus as one of witness rather than rivalry or antagonism.”
Back in 1:6-8, we saw three aspects of the Baptist’s testimony to Jesus: (1) he was not the Light; (2) he was sent to bear witness to the Light; (3) his aim was that all might believe through him. Those three points outline John 1:19-51: In 1:19-28, John testifies that he is not the Light; in 1:29-34, he bears witness to the Light; and, in 1:35-51, we see John’s witness bear fruit as several of his disciples believe in Jesus and begin to follow Him (C. H. Dodd, cited by James Boice, The Gospel of John [Zondervan], one-volume ed., pp. 49, 94; also noted by Kostenberger, p. 53). In this message, we will cover the first point, which we can state as it applies to us:
We need to be clear on who we are in God’s kingdom so that we can effectively point others to Jesus for salvation.
To appreciate this section, you have to use some holy imagination to put yourself in John’s sandals. God has called you to preach, even though you haven’t had any formal training. To be honest, you’re a bit different in how you dress and in what you eat. Rather than the common linen tunic, you wear a camel’s hair garment with a leather belt and your diet consists of locusts and wild honey (Matt. 3:4). You don’t quite blend in with the mainstream of your culture! You don’t go to the capital to launch your ministry, but are out in the tules. Your message isn’t exactly user-friendly or sensitive. Your opening line is (Luke 3:7), “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” A ministry consultant might tell you that you need to improve your public image!
But surprisingly, thousands are flocking out there to hear you preach. You’re baptizing many who repent for the forgiveness of their sins. And then, one day a delegation of nicely-dressed fellows from the religious “big boys” in Jerusalem arrives to check you out. They take you aside and ask, “Who are you?” It could be a bit threatening if you weren’t sure of your calling and your message! But John was clear on who he was not and on who he was. And because of that, he clearly pointed the religious bigwigs to Jesus.
In this section, the apostle John sets up the tension that will mount between the religious crowd versus Christ and His true followers. In 1:19, he first mentions “the Jews.” John will use this term about 70 times (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 130). Sometimes he uses it in a neutral sense (e.g. 2:6); sometimes in a good sense (e.g. 4:22); but, more often he uses it to refer to the Jewish people and especially the religious leaders from Jerusalem who are hostile toward Jesus (ibid., 130-131). Because of John’s frequent use of this term, some have accused him of being anti-Semitic. But we need to keep in mind that John himself was a Jew (as was Jesus). John was not attacking Jewish people or what was right and good in Judaism. Rather, as D. A. Carson points out (The Gospel According to John [Apollos/Eerdmans], p. 142), he was trying “to controvert those who have so failed to appreciate their own heritage that they have failed to see its fulfillment in Jesus Christ.”
Messianic expectations were running high in Israel as people longed for deliverance from Roman rule. Based on different promises in the Hebrew Scriptures, the people were expecting that one day God would send an especially great person, a mighty deliverer, who would represent God in a unique way and usher in an age of righteousness and peace, including deliverance from foreign rule.
So when the religious leaders in Jerusalem heard about John’s popularity, they decided that they had better check him out. He was a puzzling man to them. He was of priestly descent and he could have been a part of their crowd—living comfortably in one of the cities, dressing in conventional robes, and functioning as a part of the religious establishment. But instead he was living out in the wilderness in a very unconventional way. His message wasn’t friendly toward the establishment. He seemed a bit odd!
Apparently the religious delegation asked John if he were the Christ (the Messiah), or at least John sensed that it was implicitly behind their question, “Who are you?” The apostle John piles up phrases to indicate that the Baptist vigorously denied that he was the Christ (1:20): “and he confessed and did not deny, but confessed, ‘I am not the Christ.’” It’s as if the apostle John is saying, “I myself heard him confess and not for one instant deny, and this is what he confessed, that he is not the Christ.” The Baptist’s strong reply left no room for further questioning along those lines.
The delegation tried a different tack (1:21): “What then? Are you Elijah?” It was a good guess. John looked like the description of Elijah, both in his rugged wilderness lifestyle and in his fiery message of judgment (1 Kings 17:4-6; 2 Kings 1:8-10). Malachi (the last O.T. prophet, 400 years before) states (4:5) that before the great and terrible day of the Lord, God would send Elijah the prophet to restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers. This was taken to mean that before Messiah came, Elijah would come. But again, John’s answer was not ambiguous: “I am not.”
This denial seems to contradict what Jesus later stated, that John was the Elijah of Malachi 4 (Matt. 11:14; 17:11). Also, the angel who predicted John’s birth to his father Zecharias, cited the same prophecy and said that John would go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah (Luke 1:17). So why does John deny that he is Elijah?
There could be several answers. First, John probably knew that some Jews were expecting the literal Elijah, who did not die but was carried to heaven in a fiery chariot, to return in a spectacular way from heaven. John denied that he was this literal Elijah. But Jesus was not speaking of the literal Elijah, but of John coming in the spirit and power of Elijah. Also, John had a humble opinion of himself. He may not have seen as much significance in his ministry as Jesus did (Carson, p. 143). Leon Morris (pp. 135-136) observes, “Jesus confers on John his true significance. No man is what he himself thinks he is. He is only what Jesus knows him to be.” John was not interested in building a following after himself as a latter-day Elijah, but rather in pointing others to Jesus as the Christ. So John denied that he was Elijah.
The delegation tries a third possibility: “Are you the Prophet?” John’s answers are growing increasingly short: “No.” He wants to cut off all this misleading speculation about himself. The religious leaders were referring to the prophet that Moses had predicted in Deuteronomy 18:15, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him.” The Jews distinguished between this latter-day prophet and Messiah (John 6:14; 7:40-41), but early Christian preachers equated the prophet that Moses predicted with Messiah (Acts 3:22; 7:37). But John doesn’t want to go there, so he just gives the terse reply, “No.”
At this point the delegation has nothing positive to put in their report to the leaders back in Jerusalem, so they repeat their question (1:22): “Who are you, so that we may give an answer to those who sent us? What do you say about yourself?” This leads to John’s plain statement of who he is:
John was clear on who he was and on what his role was in God’s economy. His interchange with these leaders brings out three positive ways that John viewed himself:
John 1:23: “He said, ‘I am a voice of one crying in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord,” as Isaiah the prophet said.’” He was citing Isaiah 40:3. The point of the quotation is that it gives no prominence to the preacher whatever (Morris, p. 137). He did not say, “I am the great voice referred to by Isaiah in the Scriptures!” He did not say, “I am the important voice, the voice that will forever change world history. That is my exalted role!” Rather, he is just a voice, calling attention to the coming of the Lord. The imagery was that before a king would visit a town, a messenger would go before him to announce his coming. The townspeople would hurry out to clear away the obstacles and fill in the washed out parts of the road to smooth the way for the king’s coming. The messenger didn’t call attention to himself, but to the coming king. And John here makes it clear that the coming King is none other than the Lord. Messiah is God!
“Wilderness” here may have a spiritual allusion to the barren state of the Jewish religion (J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], 3:51). It had degenerated into religious ritualism and legalism, rather than a personal relationship with the living God. It is the tendency of all religions, including Christianity, to devolve from knowing God and walking with Him on the heart level into outward observance of rituals and rules. Whenever that happens, God raises up spokesmen to call people back to walking with Him. To do that, we have to clear away the obstacles of sin and fill in the ruts of ritualism that have robbed us of reality with God.
Some Pharisees in the delegation were still not satisfied with John’s answer. So they ask (1:25), “Why then are you baptizing, if you are not the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” At this point, John could have gone into a lengthy discussion of himself and his role as the baptizer. But again, his reply with regard to himself is as brief as possible and then he directs things to Christ (1:26), “I baptize in water, but among you stands One whom you do not know.” John waits until the next day to draw the contrast between his baptizing in water and Jesus’ baptizing in the Holy Spirit (1:29, 31-33). In verse 28, John identifies the location where John was baptizing as “Bethany beyond the Jordan” (the NJKV follows an inferior textual variant, “Bethabara”), distinguishing it from the Bethany that was near Jerusalem.
John’s baptism was unique. It was common for Gentile proselytes to Judaism to be baptized. And some Jewish communities practiced self-baptism for cleansing. But John was doing the baptizing and he was doing it on Jewish people, even calling on the Jewish religious leaders to repent and be baptized (Matt. 3:7-12). This surely would have been offensive to the racially and religiously proud Jews.
His baptism seemed to have two facets: First, it was a baptism of repentance in which those being baptized confessed their sins and prepared themselves for the coming kingdom of God (Matt. 3:2, 6; Luke 3:3). He exhorted those being baptized to bring forth fruits in keeping with repentance, as opposed to relying on their Jewish heritage for right standing with God (Luke 3:8-14).
Second, his baptism anticipated the coming Messianic baptism with the Holy Spirit and fire (Matt. 3:11-12; Luke 3:16-17). It was a sign to point people to the coming of the Messiah (John 1:31). John may also have seen his baptism as a rite of prophetic symbolism. The Old Testament prophets often performed symbolic acts to make their message more vivid. John may have been symbolizing through baptism the Old Testament prophecies that spoke of God cleansing His people before the coming of Messiah (Ezek. 36:25; 37:23; Zech. 13:1). But as with his role as a voice crying out in the wilderness, so with his role as baptizer: He was preparing people for the coming of the Lord, the Messiah. He was not building up his own following. The third way that John saw himself lines up with the first two:
After telling the religious leaders that they did not know the One standing among them (1:26b), John continues to describe Him (1:27): “It is He who comes after me, the thong of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.” Rabbi Joshua ben Levi (A.D. 250) taught, “All manner of service that a slave must render to his master, the pupil must render to his teacher—except that of taking off his shoe” (cited by Kostenberger, p. 65). So John saw himself as a lowly slave and Jesus as such a worthy Master that John wasn’t even worthy to untie His sandal strap. To point people to Christ, we need to join John in esteeming ourselves less and exalting Christ more. People don’t need to be impressed with us, but with Jesus!
The world will always give us opportunities to esteem ourselves more highly than we ought, but those who are growing in godliness see themselves as unworthy slaves (Luke 17:10). The world will ask, “Are you the Christ?” While they may not go so far as to answer “yes,” there are plenty of self-inflated preachers who will say, “No, I’m not the Christ, but I’m glad that you noticed the resemblance!” “Well, then, are you Elijah or the Prophet?” “Well, you could say that I’m a lot like them. Yes, if Elijah were here now, I’m sure that we’d be best of friends because we’re so much alike!” Many of the TV preachers reek of pride. But genuine prophets, like John, don’t call attention to themselves, except to admit, “I’m just an unworthy slave. Jesus is the only worthy Master. Follow Him!”
We’ll see more of how John pointed these religious leaders to Jesus in our next study. In the study following that, we will see how he pointed his own disciples to Jesus. He wasn’t trying to hang onto them for himself or to build a following or a legacy to “John the Baptist Ministries, International.” John’s motto was (John 3:30), “He must increase, but I must decrease.” It’s a good rule to keep in mind when you get a chance to talk about spiritual things. Ask, who do you think Jesus is? Have you considered His claims? Have you read the gospels to learn about His supernatural life? Everything hangs on who Jesus is and what He did for us on the cross.
Also, the need of every sinner is to know Christ as Savior and Lord. That’s especially true of religious sinners. John easily could have thought that these religious leaders had it together spiritually. After all, they meticulously kept the Law of Moses. They went beyond the Law by tithing their table spices and keeping rituals of cleansing and other outwardly observable religious duties (Matt. 23). But their hearts were far from God (Mark 7:6-9). Religious sinners are often the most difficult to reach for Christ, because they are proud of their religion and blind to their pride. But they need to be confronted with the fact that in their midst stands One whom they do not know (John 1:26).
Here are four lessons from John the Baptist on how to evaluate accurately who you are so that you can point people to Christ:
First, if you’re only into religion rather than Christ, you will flatter yourself with your religious performance rather than humble yourself in the holy presence of Christ. These religious leaders didn’t go out to hear John preach so that they could repent and come to know God better. They were quite satisfied with their religious performance, thank you! They were there to bring John under their control so that more people didn’t follow him, because he threatened their comfy religious establishment. Their religion filled them with pride and kept them from knowing the Messiah and Savior. Religion is always the enemy of reality with God.
Second, you can only evaluate yourself correctly and point people to Jesus to the extent that you truly know Him. Ask yourself, “Do I have reality with God? Do I walk daily with Christ? Do I repent of my sins on the heart or thought level?” J. C. Ryle (3:48) observed, “It will be better at the last day never to have been born, than to have had Christ ‘standing among us’ and not to have known Him.”
Third, humility is essential for a correct view of yourself, but self-esteem is detrimental. That may shock you since self-esteem is viewed in evangelical circles as foundational for the Christian life. But that “doctrine” has only flooded into the church in the past 40 years thanks to Christian leaders importing it from worldly psychology.
When you read the godly men from the past, they consistently pit self-esteem against the self-denial and humility that Jesus commanded. John Calvin (The Institutes of the Christian Religion [Westminster Press], ed. by John McNeill, trans. by Ford Lewis Battles, 2:1:2) observed, “There is, indeed, nothing that man’s nature seeks more eagerly than to be flattered.” He goes on to point out that self-love is innate in us all and that people will flock to preachers who tickle their pride and build their self-esteem. But such talk only deceives us and drives us into utter ruin (see also, Calvin, 2:8:54; 3:7:5; 3:8). In commenting on John’s humility, J. C. Ryle (3:44-45) said, “Never shall we feel the need of humility so deeply, as when we lie on our deathbeds, and stand before the judgment-seat of Christ. Our whole lives will then appear a long catalogue of imperfections, ourselves nothing, and Christ all.”
Fourth, whatever your gifts and calling, you can do as John did and point people to Jesus. John’s aim was to deflect attention from himself and to exalt Christ as the one worthy of all glory. As we’ll see in verses 29 & 36, he pointed everyone to Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Sinners need their sins forgiven. By offering Himself as the substitute for sinners, Jesus will forgive the sins of all that trust in Him. Tell people that wonderful news!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
April 7, 2013
I was listening to NPR last week as I was getting ready for the day. They were interviewing a screenwriter who has a new movie coming out. He mentioned to the interviewer that he was brought up as a Catholic and he views himself as a sinner. The radio host was surprised at this, as if viewing one’s self as a sinner were a quaint hang-up from a bygone era, which this young man needed to put behind him.
I was also listening when NPR gave a synopsis of the new Pope’s first Easter message. Their report said that it was basically a message calling for peace all around the world. I thought that maybe the press missed something, so I went online and read the full text of the Pope’s message. While he did mention Jesus’ resurrection (after all, it was Easter!), in the entire message, which millions around the world would either hear or read, the Pope never presented the gospel, that Christ died for sinners so that whoever repents of sin and trusts in Him will have eternal life. He did say that God wants the Good News to enter every heart, but then he told his hearers (huffingtonpost.com, 3/31/2013), “Jesus is risen, there is hope for you, you are no longer in the power of sin, of evil! Love has triumphed, mercy has been victorious!” He made it sound as if Jesus’ resurrection means that everyone has already been freed from the power of sin and can love others.
Those NPR reports show that we live in a world where the notion that we are sinners needing a Savior from God’s judgment is really out of sync. The same idea came through in a tribute that Frank Schaeffer wrote about his late mother, Edith Schaeffer. He said (huffingtonpost.com, 3/30/2013), “Mom first introduced me to a non-retributive loving Lord who did not come to ‘die for us’ to ‘satisfy’ an angry God but came as a friend who ended all cycles of retribution and violence.” Really? Having read many of her books, I can’t imagine Edith Schaeffer approving of that statement. But the statement fits with the spirit of our age.
I share those stories to illustrate that we live in a time when few understand the biblical gospel or the need for that gospel. If we aren’t sinners, then we don’t need a Savior. If God isn’t absolutely holy and just, then we don’t need a Savior who died to satisfy God’s wrath against our sin. If He is “non-retributive” and “loving,” then we don’t need to fear His judgment. All we need is a “friend” who can urge us all to be more loving to each other.
John the Baptist did not preach that kind of message. His message was (Matt. 3:2), “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” His opening line to the religious leaders was (Matt. 3:7), “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” And his description of Jesus, as reported in John’s Gospel (1:29) was, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” In other words, in contrast to the stories that I just mentioned, John preached that we are all sinners and that we need a Savior to atone for our sin so that we do not face the wrath of God. John pointed people to Jesus as that Savior, and so should we. John’s witness to Jesus tells us that…
To be faithful witnesses, we need to tell people clearly who Jesus is.
From our text’s description of John the Baptist’s witness to Jesus we can learn five things about who Jesus is that will help us point others to Him:
John 1:29: “The next day he saw Jesus coming to him and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!’” That verse is so familiar that it doesn’t shock us, but it should. That was a radical thing for John to say about a young Galilean carpenter to a bunch of Jewish people who for centuries had offered their sacrificial lambs at the temple! “This man is the One whom God has sent to be what all of those thousands of lambs over hundreds of years have symbolized! And He is not only the Lamb that God sent for Israel, but also for the whole world!”
But although the title, “the Lamb of God,” is familiar to us, it is used only here (and in 1:36) to describe Jesus and so scholars debate exactly which lamb John was referring to. In Revelation (5:6, 9, 12; 7:17; 12:11; 13:8; 17:14; 19:7; 21:22-23; 22:1-3), John often refers to Jesus as the Lamb, but he uses a different Greek word. Some think that in our text he was referring to the Passover lamb, whose blood spared the Israelites from the loss of their firstborn (John connects Jesus with the Passover lamb in 19:36). It could refer to the lambs that were offered as morning and evening sacrifices at the temple (Exod. 29:36-42). Others say that it refers to the lamb of Isaiah 53:7, who died to bear the sin of many (see Isa. 53:3-12). Or, it could refer to the lamb that God provided as a substitute so that Abraham did not have to sacrifice his “only” son Isaac (Gen. 22:7-13).
Leon Morris is probably correct when he states (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 147), “He used an expression which cannot be confined to any one view. He is making a general allusion to sacrifice.” He adds (p. 148), “All that the ancient sacrifices foreshadowed was perfectly fulfilled in the sacrifice of Christ.” J. C. Ryle (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], 3:55) wrote, “It meant that Christ was the great sacrifice for sin, who was come to make atonement for transgression by His own death upon the cross.” He adds (3:57), “He is describing our Lord’s official character as the great propitiation for sin.”
Let’s consider verse 29 phrase by phrase. We’ve already considered “Lamb.” “The Lamb of God” means that Jesus is the supreme Lamb and the only Lamb that God has provided to take away our sins. There is no other. “Of God” means that God sent Jesus to bear our sins. He is God’s gift to us (John 3:16). “Takes away” signifies “atonement, and that by substitution” (Morris, p. 148). He was made sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21). He died so that sinners who trust in Him will not incur God’s judgment. Jesus’ sacrifice of Himself put an end once for all to all of the Jewish sacrifices (Heb. 9:24-10:18). “Takes away” is also in the present tense, signifying the ongoing sufficiency of Jesus’ sacrifice and the fact that it is available at all times for every sinner who will trust in Him.
“Sin” is singular, heaping together all the trillions of sins in human history into one gigantic pile. It also means that Jesus not only took away the guilt of our many individual sins (1 Pet. 2:24), but also the guilt of the inborn sin that we inherited from Adam (Rom. 5:18). “Of the world” does not mean that Christ paid the penalty for every sinner who has ever lived, because then all would be saved. It refers to people in general, both Jews and Gentiles, not to people without exception. As John puts it (Rev. 5:9), You “purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.” “Of the world” also points to the adequacy of Christ’s atonement for any person, no matter how terrible that person’s sins may be. Christ invites all to come to the feast that He has prepared (Luke 14:16-24; Rev. 22:17).
There is one more word in John’s proclamation: “Behold.” It’s a command to look to Jesus. John doesn’t say, “Look at me! I’m a great prophet!” He doesn’t say, “Look at your good works; they will save you.” He doesn’t say, “Look at your religious rituals; they will put you in good stead on judgment day.” He doesn’t say, “Look at your religious heritage or your church attendance.” He says, “Look to the Lamb of God!” Jesus saves sinners who look in faith to Him.
This reminds me of the story of Charles Spurgeon’s conversion. He was 15 years old and both his father and grandfather were pastors. Young Spurgeon had read many solid Puritan books that presented the gospel, but it didn’t get through to him. He agonized over his sins so much that if a 15-year-old did this today, we’d consider him mentally unbalanced!
Then one snowy day, Spurgeon could not get to his normal church, so he turned down a side street and came to a small Primitive Methodist Chapel. There were about 12-15 people there that day. The minister didn’t make it because of the snow, so a man from the church went into the pulpit and began to preach on Isaiah 45:22, which in the King James Version reads, “Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.” He began (C. H. Spurgeon Autobiography [Banner of Truth], 1:87),
“My dear friends, this is a very simple text indeed. It says, ‘Look.’ Now lookin’ don’t take a deal of pain. It ain’t liftin’ your foot or your finger; it is just, ‘Look.’ Well, a man needn’t go to College to learn to look. You may be the biggest fool, and yet you can look. A man needn’t be worth a thousand a year to be able to look. Anyone can look; even a child can look.”
Then he pointed out that the text says, “Look unto Me,” not to yourself. He went on about ten minutes or so telling everyone who Christ was that they were to look to. He seemed to be at the end of his tether when he looked directly at young Spurgeon and said (1:88), “Young man, you look very miserable. And you always will be miserable—miserable in life, and miserable in death—if you don’t obey my text; but if you obey now, this moment, you will be saved.” Then he shouted, “Young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look! Look! Look! You have nothin’ to do but to look and live.” Spurgeon said that he had been waiting to do fifty things, but that word “look” cleared away the clouds. He looked to Christ and the boy who would go on to become the greatest preacher of the 19th century was saved! And you will be saved too, if you look in faith to Jesus, the Lamb that God provided to take away your sins.
I’ve spent the most time on verse 29 because it is the most crucial verse for everyone to understand. I’ll be briefer on the rest.
John 1:30-31: “This is He on behalf of whom I said, ‘After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’ I did not recognize Him, but so that He might be manifested to Israel, I came baptizing in water.” We already considered the first part of this verse when we studied 1:15. As I pointed out then, the phrase, “for He existed before me,” could be translated, “because He was first with respect to me.” We don’t know whether John the Baptist was aware that Jesus was the eternal Son of God in human flesh, but he may have spoken better than he knew. The apostle John came to know that Jesus is the eternal God. In John 8:58, Jesus told the skeptical Jews, “Before Abraham was born, I am,” which clearly refers to His eternality as Yahweh (Exod. 3:14). So verse 30 reinforces both Jesus’ humanity (He was born after John) and His deity (He existed before John).
When John says, “I did not recognize Him” (1:31, 33) he means, “I did not recognize Him as the Messiah and Lamb of God who is to be manifested to Israel until I came baptizing in water.” God had revealed to John that the One on whom he saw the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven would be the Messiah. It’s interesting that John does not report the actual baptism of Jesus, but rather focuses on the purpose of John’s baptism, which was to reveal Jesus to Israel as her Messiah. And our purpose when we have opportunities to talk to others about Jesus should be to let them know that He is eternal God in human flesh, the promised Messiah of Israel, who came as the Lamb of God to bear our sins.
John 1:32: “John testified saying, ‘I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him.’” The other gospels (Matt. 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22) report that this happened when John baptized Jesus. Some argue that because it is said that the Spirit descended as or like a dove, that it wasn’t an actual dove that came down on Jesus. But if that is so, I don’t understand what John and Jesus saw, since the Holy Spirit is invisible. Luke (3:22) says that “the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove.” So there was some visible manifestation of the Spirit that looked like a dove to those who saw it.
The meaning of why the Holy Spirit appeared as a dove is not clear. A rabbinic tradition links the dove with Genesis 1:2, when the Spirit of God hovered over the waters in creation (D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Apollos/Eerdmans], p. 153). The dove may point to the gentleness and purity of the Spirit (William Hendriksen, John [Baker Academic], p. 100), but we can’t be sure.
But the Old Testament was clear that the Messiah would be anointed by the Spirit. Isaiah 11:2 states, “The Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.” Isaiah 42:1 prophesies, “Behold, My Servant, whom I uphold; My chosen one in whom My soul delights. I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the nations.” Or, Isaiah 61:1-2a (which Jesus quoted of Himself, Luke 4:18-19), “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted; He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to prisoners; to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord ….”
Jesus was not destitute of the Holy Spirit before His baptism, but the revelation of the Spirit coming on Jesus and the voice from heaven affirming that Jesus was God’s beloved Son, in whom He was well-pleased, was a revelation of the Trinity at the outset of Jesus’ ministry (Ryle, 3:64). John’s statement that the Spirit “remained upon Him” shows that this was not a temporary arrangement, but that Jesus’ entire ministry would be characterized by the fullness of the Holy Spirit. By living as a man in dependence on the fullness of the Holy Spirit, Jesus showed us how we should live. He is uniquely God’s anointed one (= “Messiah” or “Christ”).
John 1:33: “I did not recognize Him, but He who sent me to baptize in water said to me, ‘He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining upon Him, this is the One who baptizes in the Holy Spirit.’” John’s baptizing in water, which was symbolic, is contrasted with Jesus’ baptizing in the Holy Spirit, which is the real thing. Jesus promised the disciples that it was to their advantage that He go away so that He could send the Holy Spirit to be with them and to dwell in them (John 14:16-17). That promise was fulfilled on the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples and empowered them to bear witness to the risen Lord Jesus Christ. This fulfilled several Old Testament prophecies that God would pour out His Spirit on His people in the last days (Isa. 32:15; 44:3; Ezek. 36:25-27; Joel 2:28-32 [see Acts 2:17-21]).
Since Jesus promised to send the Spirit from the Father (John 15:26), it attests to Jesus’ deity as the eternal Son of God. While all three persons of the Trinity are equally God, there is a hierarchy in which the Son submits to the Father and the Spirit to the Son to carry out the divine plan for the ages.
There is debate among Christians as to whether all believers receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit at conversion or whether we should seek it as a second blessing. J. C. Ryle (3:66) argues that the baptism of the Spirit refers to the Spirit’s imparting new life at the moment of regeneration, and I agree with him. Paul told the carnal Corinthians (1 Cor. 12:13), “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” When God saves us, He imparts new life through the Holy Spirit, who comes to dwell in us (Rom. 8:9). “Baptism” pictures total identification with Christ and an abundant supply of the Spirit for our every need.
So I think that it’s incorrect to teach that believers should seek to be baptized in the Spirit. But I also think that we’re wrong if we do not continually seek the Spirit’s fullness in greater measure. The baptism of the Spirit is once-for-all, when He imparts new life to us and comes to dwell in us. But the filling of the Holy Spirit is not a once-for-all done deal. We need repeated fillings of the Holy Spirit to resist temptation, to grow in godliness and the fruit of the Spirit, and to bear witness for Christ. I think it was John MacArthur who was asked why we need to be filled with the Spirit over and over again and he said, “Because I leak.” Yes! Finally,
John 1:34, “I myself have seen, and have testified that this is the Son of God.” Several early, important manuscripts read, “This is the chosen one of God,” referring to Isaiah 42:1. Because it is less likely that a copyist would have changed the familiar, “Son of God,” to the less familiar, “chosen one of God,” Leon Morris and D. A. Carson think that “chosen one” was the original reading. Both are true of Jesus, of course, but the critical Greek texts and almost all modern translations adopt “Son of God” as original. This is the first of many references in John that “state either explicitly (1:49; 5:25; 10:36; 11;4, 27; 19:7; 20:31) or implicitly (3:16, 17, 18, 35, 36; 5:19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 26; 6:40; 14:13; 17:1) that Jesus is the Son of God” (Colin Kruse, John [IVP Academic], p. 84).
While believers are children of God through the new birth, Jesus is the eternal Son of God. He stands in a unique relationship with the Father. The Jews recognized that when Jesus called God His own Father, He was making Himself equal with God (John 5:18). To be faithful witnesses, we must show people that Jesus is the eternal Son of God in human flesh, the Lamb of God who atoned for the sins of all who believe in Him.
Knowing who Jesus is can keep us strong when difficult circumstances may cause us to doubt. Later, when John the Baptist was in prison, he began to doubt whether Jesus was the Messiah. Jesus didn’t seem to be the kind of Messiah that John had envisioned. He probably thought, “If He is the Messiah, then why doesn’t He get me out of prison? Why doesn’t He judge the wicked Herod for his sins?” Jesus answered those doubts by referring to how He fulfilled the prophecies of Isaiah 35. He said (Matt. 11:4-6), “Go and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who does not take offense at Me.”
We need to know for ourselves and then proclaim to our world the good news of who Jesus is and what He came to do. We are sinners and He is God’s only Savior from sin. We dare not compromise those truths to fit in with our adulterous and sinful generation (Mark 8:38).
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
April 14, 2013
If you’ve never watched “The Gospel Blimp,” I encourage you to do so (you can watch a fuzzy version of the 1967 film at vimeo.com/45680269). It’s a hilarious satire of some well-meaning but misguided Christians who want to share the gospel with their neighbors. They get together to strategize about how to do it, a blimp flies over, and someone comes up with the idea of getting a blimp and using it to preach the gospel to the entire city.
So they raise the money, buy some land for the hangar, and get the blimp. The whole operation requires a corporation, a board of directors, an office, and much more. The guy who came up with the plan quits his job and goes full time with the blimp. Eventually he hires a PR agent who outfits him in a uniform and promotes his image as “the Commander.” He has to neglect his family to play golf with important contacts, but the cause is worth it!
They finally get the blimp airborne and it rains down cellophane-wrapped tracts all over the city. But the people in the town are annoyed at having their yards littered with these droppings from the sky. Next they outfit the blimp with a loud PA system and make themselves even more obnoxious to everyone.
But one guy decides to leave the board of the blimp. Meanwhile, the board sees him going to the beach on Saturday with his beer-drinking neighbor. They’re concerned that he’s becoming “worldly.” By the end of the movie, he and his wife have led their neighbors to Christ. But the blimp crowd still doesn’t get it.
The message of that movie is that the best way to share the gospel with your neighbors is to befriend them and tell them about Jesus. That’s the message of John 1:35-51:
Because Jesus is the Savior that everyone needs, friends bring friends to Him.
John the Baptist points two of his disciples (Andrew and probably John) to Jesus as the Lamb of God (1:35-36). They follow Jesus and Andrew finds his brother Simon Peter and brings him to Jesus (1:41-42). Jesus finds Philip and says to him (1:43), “Follow Me.” Philip quickly finds Nathanael and tells him (1:45), “We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote.” Although Nathanael was skeptical, Philip simply replies (1:46), “Come and see.” And so Nathanael met Jesus. All of these men’s lives were drastically changed because they met Jesus.
The Gospel of John is all about who Jesus is and the first chapter gets a running start in telling us. We have seen that He is the eternal Word who was in the beginning with God and who was God (1:1). Jesus has life in Him and that life is the light of men (1:4). He is the true light that enlightens every man (1:9). He gives to all that believe in Him the right to become children of God (1:12). The Word also became flesh and dwelt among us, glorious as the only begotten or unique Son of the Father (1:14). He is full of grace and truth (1:14). He is greater than John the Baptist, who testified of Him (1:15). He is greater than Moses and the Law (1:17). He is the only begotten God who explains the Father to us (1:18). He is the Lord (1:23). He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (1:29). He is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit (1:33). He is the Son of God (or, chosen One of God; 1:34).
Our text repeats some of these for emphasis, bringing out no less than 12 truths about who Jesus is as John shows us five men who meet Jesus and follow Him. Remember, John’s overall purpose for writing is (20:31) “so that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”
John 1:35-37: “Again the next day John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as He walked, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God!’ The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.” John has mentioned and will continue to mention a sequence of days. Some have suggested that since John 1:1 begins the same way as Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning,” that John is outlining a new creation that centers in Jesus Christ. It has also been pointed out that the sequence of days in John 1:19-2:1 parallels to some degree the last week of Jesus’ life introduced in John 12:1 (see Merrill Tenney, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. by Frank Gaebelein [Zondervan], pp. 38-39). At the very least, it conveys a vivid recollection of an eyewitness who remembered this life-changing week when he and some others, who eventually became Jesus’ apostles, met the Savior.
Last week we looked in detail at John’s proclamation in 1:29, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” We saw that it focuses on Jesus as the supreme and final sacrifice for sinners that all of the Old Testament sacrifices pointed toward. Whether the two disciples, Andrew and John, were not present the day before when John made that proclamation or whether it took the second time on the second day to sink in, we don’t know. But they knew that they were sinners who needed Jesus as their Lamb, so they followed Jesus.
John translates the term for his Greek readers. “Rabbi” was an honorary title that students would use to address their teachers. Even the Pharisee, Nicodemus, addressed Jesus as “Rabbi” (3:2). Of course, Jesus is the Teacher, par excellence (13:13-14). We all should be students of His teachings and His example.
Again John translates the term. “Messiah” (used only here and in 4:25 in the NT) means “Anointed One” in Hebrew; in Greek, Anointed One is “Christ.” In the Old Testament, “Anointed One” is used of the king of Israel (1 Sam. 6:16; 2 Sam. 1:14), the high priest (Lev. 4:3), and of the patriarchs (Ps. 105:15). Daniel (9:25, 26) refers to “Messiah the Prince” in his prophecy of the 70 weeks. It’s a title for the one prophesied of in the Old Testament who would be supremely God’s anointed prophet, priest, and king.
Andrew found first his own brother Simon and brought him to Jesus. Then we read (1:42), “Jesus looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon the son of John; you shall be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter).” “Cephas” (which John again translates for his Greek readers) comes from the Aramaic word for rock, and Peter is the Greek word for rock. But John’s focus here is not so much on the meaning of the name, but rather on Jesus’ authority over people and His power to change them into what He wants them to be so that He can use them in His sovereign purposes.
It would be rather unnerving to meet a man only to have the first words out of his mouth be the audacious declaration that he is changing your name! Our name is our identity! Jesus didn’t ask Simon if it would be okay with him if He changed his name. He didn’t suggest it as a possibility and say, “Think about it for a while; maybe it will grow on you.” Rather, Jesus declares authoritatively, “You are Simon; you shall be called Peter.” Got it? As the Sovereign Lord, He has that kind of authority over us!
“We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote.” The Law and the Prophets is a common term to refer to all of the Old Testament. There are over 300 prophecies plus many types in the Old Testament that point to Jesus (Luke 24:25-27, 44-46).
John often uses irony and this is probably an instance of it. Actually, Jesus was born in Bethlehem and was not the biological son of Joseph. He grew up in Nazareth and was “as supposed the son of Joseph” (Luke 3:23). It was commonly rumored that Jesus was born of fornication (John 8:41). But Philip’s description of Jesus brings out His humanity: He was a man who came from a small town in Galilee, raised by Joseph who was married to Mary. John Calvin (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 75) points out that although Philip erroneously thought that Jesus was a native of Nazareth and the son of Joseph, he led Nathanael to the Son of God who was born in Bethlehem. Sometimes God overrules our inaccurate witness to bring people to the truth about Jesus!
When Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him, He said (1:47), “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no deceit.” Nathanael was startled that Jesus seemed to know him even before they met, but then Jesus adds to it (1:48), “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Apparently, Nathanael had been sitting under a fig tree, meditating on the story in Genesis 28 about Jacob’s ladder (1:51). Jesus’ supernatural knowledge of Nathanael’s character and his private activity was enough for him to declare (1:49), “Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel.”
Jesus has a way of unmasking us and boring into our souls to reveal what we really are. He later reveals that He knew what Thomas had said privately to the other disciples about touching Jesus’ wounds (20:25, 27). Hebrews 4:12-13 says, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” Jesus (the Word) knows all about you, so it’s pointless to try to hide from Him. The good news is that He loves you in spite of knowing all about you, and He wants to change you for the good!
This is a Messianic title. In the Old Testament, Israel is God’s son (Exod. 4:22-23; Deut. 1:31; 32:6; Jer. 31:9, 20; Hos. 11:1), and in John, Jesus is presented as the true Israel (D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 162). But “Son of God” also refers to God’s promises to David that one of his sons would sit on the throne of Israel forever (2 Sam. 7:12, 16; Ps. 2:7; Matt. 22:42-45). Nathanael was probably referring to this Messianic designation of “Son of God.” But as John’s Gospel shows, the title also describes Jesus as the eternal Son of God, in intimate relationship with the Father as the second person of the Trinity. Thus, “Nathanael spoke better than he knew” (Carson, ibid.).
This was also a Messianic term, related to the Davidic Covenant (2 Sam. 7:12). At this point, Nathanael and the others who meet Jesus and proclaim Him to be the Messiah and King have a political understanding of those terms. They think that He will free Israel from Roman rule and usher in a new Davidic age of peace and prosperity. They still need to learn that His kingdom was not of this world (6:15; 12:13; 18:33-37; 19:19). But at least at this point, by acknowledging Jesus as the King of Israel, Nathanael is acknowledging Him to be his own King (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 168). So should we!
Jesus tells Nathanael (1:51), “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.” In 1:50, the pronouns (“you”) are singular, but in 1:51, “you” is plural. Jesus addresses this promise to these five disciples. This is the first time Jesus uses the double affirmation, “Truly, truly,” which occurs only in John and points to a significant truth to follow. As I said, Nathanael had probably been meditating on Jacob’s dream about the ladder between heaven and earth with the angels ascending and descending on it. But here, they ascend and descend on Jesus. He is the only way to the Father (14:6), the only link between heaven and earth. By seeing the heavens opened, Jesus is promising the disciples that they will have greater visions of divine truth (Carson, p. 163). We can only know the Father through believing in Jesus the Son.
This also stems from the imagery of 1:51, relating to Jacob’s dream. After his dream, Jacob declared (Gen. 28:16), “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” He added (28:17), “This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” So he named that place “Bethel” (“House of God”). Jesus is the new dwelling place of God with man (14:23). We are to abide in Him (15:4).
“Son of Man” was Jesus’ favorite way to refer to Himself (12x in John; 66x in the Synoptic Gospels). The term comes from Daniel 7:13-14, where Daniel sees one like a Son of Man who approaches the Ancient of Days, who gives to Him an everlasting kingdom. Since Jesus refers to these verses at His trial to testify to the high priest that He is coming again in power and glory (Matt. 26:64), there may be an allusion in John 1:51 to the second coming (J. C. Ryle and James Boice both take it this way).
Leon Morris (pp. 172-173) points out four reasons that Jesus adopted this term for Himself. First, it was a rare term without nationalistic associations. People would not view Him as a political Messiah. Second, it had overtones of divinity (because of its connection with Daniel 7:13-14). Third, He adopted it because it implies the redeemed people of God. Fourth, it had undertones of humanity. Morris says (ibid.) “He took upon Him our weakness. It was a way of alluding to and yet veiling His messiahship, for His concept of the Messiah differed markedly from that commonly held.” He adds (p. 173), in the Gospel of John “the term is always associated either with Christ’s heavenly glory or with the salvation He came to bring.”
All of these gloriously piled up terms to describe Jesus show us that He is the only Savior that everyone needs. I had hoped to go through these verses and elaborate more on these five men who found Jesus, but I’ll have to do that next time. But to conclude, note that …
One striking thing in the Gospel accounts about how people met Jesus as Savior is the variety of circumstances and the variety of gospel presentations. The gospel message is always the same, but there was no uniform, memorized gospel presentation. While it’s not wrong to learn a gospel presentation, such as the Four Spiritual Laws or the Evangelism Explosion outline or the Way of the Master approach, we need to be careful to tailor it to each person as best we can. Notice the different ways these men came to Jesus:
The first two, Andrew and presumably John, were disciples of John the Baptist. They heard him declare Jesus to be the Lamb of God and they followed Jesus (1:36-37). John means that they followed Jesus literally, walking after Him (1:38), but he probably also means that they began to follow Jesus as His disciples. Jesus’ opening words to Philip were, “Follow Me!” There is no such thing as truly believing in Jesus as your Savior and not following Him obediently as your Lord.
John the Baptist was content to let his disciples go after Jesus. The goal of every disciple-maker is not that his disciples would follow him, but that they would follow Jesus. Also as I mentioned, there is no indication that these men followed Jesus the first time when John declared Him to be the Lamb of God. But the second time, the message hit home. Studies have shown that on the average, it takes seven times for a person to hear the gospel before he believes. So keep telling people about Jesus, even if they’ve heard it before. You may or may not see the person respond, but the seed of the gospel may eventually sprout.
Note also that it is by exalting Christ that people are drawn to Him (J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], 3:68). John proclaimed Jesus to be the Lamb of God, and that resonated with Andrew and John who felt the need for a Savior from their sins. Andrew told Peter that they had found the Messiah, which intrigued Peter enough to go see for himself. Philip extolled Jesus to Nathanael as the one about whom Moses and the Prophets wrote. Although Nathanael was skeptical at first, Philip’s gentle invitation, “Come and see,” drew Nathanael to the Savior. Jesus called Philip directly and with authority: “Follow Me!” We have no idea how much Philip knew about Jesus before this, but something about Jesus’ manner and command drew Philip after Him.
Also, you never know how God may use your witness. Andrew’s witness brought Peter to Christ. Andrew never preached to large crowds (so far as Scripture records), but his one on one witness to Peter led to thousands coming to Christ when Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost. Peter became the leader of the twelve and Andrew was apparently content to let him take that role. Every time we encounter Andrew in John’s Gospel, he is bringing someone to Jesus (6:8; 12:22). That’s not a bad legacy!
Few people would know the name of Edward Kimball. He was a Sunday School teacher who led one of his pupils, D. L. Moody, to Christ. Kimball was a timid, soft-spoken man. He decided to talk with Moody, who was a 19-year-old shoe salesman, about his soul. Moody was untaught and ignorant about the Bible at this point. When Kimball got near the store where Moody worked, he almost chickened out. But he finally went for it, stumbled over his words, and said later that he never could remember exactly what he said—just something about Christ and His love. He admitted that it was a weak appeal. But Moody gave his heart to Christ then and there. Later God used Moody mightily to lead thousands to Christ in America and England. His impact continues today through Moody Bible Institute, where thousands of Christian workers have been trained and sent out all over the world (from John MacArthur, Twelve Ordinary Men [W Publishing Group], pp. 69-70).
But the point is, Jesus didn’t launch His kingdom through a mass mailing or by preaching to large crowds at an evangelistic campaign. There was no corporate headquarters or organization. There was no Gospel Blimp! It began quietly with two of John the Baptist’s disciples. Andrew told his brother. Probably, John also later told his brother, James. Philip told Nathanael. All of them recognized in Jesus the Savior that they needed. They all got excited about who Jesus was and that excitement spilled over into telling their relatives and friends.
That’s how the Lord wants the good news to spread out from us. If you’re excited about Jesus, then tell your family and friends about Him. Make a list of the 8-15 people with whom you have regular contact, who don’t know the Lord. Begin praying for opportunities to talk to them about their need for Jesus. Because everyone is a sinner alienated from God and because Jesus is the only Savior who bridges the chasm between us and God, friends want to bring their friends to Him.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
April 21, 2013
It would be a wonderful experience to go around the room and let each person tell how he or she came to know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. We all have different stories and experiences.
Some of you, like me, grew up in the church. My parents had grown up as “cultural Christians” from the Midwest, but they came to personal faith in Christ in the first year of their marriage. One of my earliest memories is when I was three-years-old. My mother was ironing and my dad, who was going to school full time plus working a full time job, was still in bed. I told my mom that I wanted to ask Jesus into my heart. So we woke up my dad and knelt by the bed while I prayed. Was I saved then? Probably not, but it was a beginning on the path toward Christ. Other commitments to Christ followed over the years. I can’t say exactly when I was born again. But during my first two years of college, I made a commitment to follow Jesus as my Savior and Lord.
Others of you came from unbelieving homes, where the name of Christ was only used as a swear word. Perhaps your home had constant fighting, abusive speech, and multiple divorces. You lived in fear that your parents (or the current boyfriend) would fly into a rage and hit you. You didn’t know what love and kindness were. But then you heard about the love of the Savior, who gave Himself on the cross to redeem you from all your sins. You came to Him and found the love that you had never known.
Probably some of you were going full-bore in sin. You lived to do whatever felt good at the moment. But there was always an emptiness of soul that these momentary pleasures could not satisfy. Someone shared with you about the lasting peace and joy that only Christ can give. You turned from your sin and asked God to apply the blood of Christ to your guilty soul.
There are probably as many stories as there are people here, because we’re all different and we met Christ in different circumstances and through different means. But if you truly know Christ as your Savior and Lord, you know that there is a vast difference between knowing about Christ and knowing Christ personally. If you grew up in a religious home, you knew about Christ, but that didn’t change your life. But coming to know Christ personally changes you. Your desires and focus for life change. As Paul put it (2 Cor. 5:17), “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”
Meeting Jesus personally will change your life forever.
In John 1:35-51, we read the story of five men who met Jesus at the start of His ministry, as told by one of the men, the apostle John (probably the unnamed disciple mentioned in 1:35-40). The firsthand nature of his account is seen in his mention of the successive days of these events (1:29, 35, 43, 2:1) and the time of day when he met Jesus (1:39, “the tenth hour,” probably about 4 p.m.). All of these men met Jesus personally and began to follow Him. Eventually He called them to be His apostles. But here, they meet Him and He invites them to follow Him as disciples (or learners).
Last week, we looked at these verses from the standpoint of how Christ’s kingdom began simply and expanded when friends told their friends about Jesus and brought them to Him. But I couldn’t cover everything in that message, so today we’re going to work through it again from the perspective of how when we meet Jesus personally and begin to follow Him, He changes us and uses us for His kingdom purposes. If I skip over something in this message, hopefully I covered it last week, so I refer you there.
Last time we did an overview of what John 1 tells us about Jesus. Without going through the wonderful testimony of John 1:1-34, in 1:35-51 we saw that Jesus is proclaimed as the Lamb of God (1:36); the Teacher (1:38, 49); the Messiah (1:41); and, the authoritative Lord who changes people for His sovereign purposes (1:42). He the one of whom the Old Testament speaks (1:45). As a man, Jesus is of Nazareth, the son of Joseph (1:45); He is the omniscient one who knows each person (1:47-48). Jesus is the Son of God and the King of Israel (1:49); He is the only bridge between heaven and earth; the dwelling place of God with us; and, He is the coming Son of Man (1:51). This bears repeating because seeing the wonderful person of the Lord Jesus Christ draws us to Him. As we see more of who He is, we are changed into His likeness (2 Cor. 3:18).
That’s just a summary of who Jesus is from our text! When you realize that all of the Old and New Testaments proclaim who Jesus is, you can see that there are far more glorious truths about Jesus than we can ever know. When you meet a new friend, you begin with an introduction and then you spend time over the years getting better acquainted. So it is with Jesus (except that the years will continue throughout eternity; Eph. 2:7). But the question is, are you spending consistent time alone with Jesus now, getting to know Him through His Word, so that He might dwell in your heart through faith (Eph. 3:17)? Relationships take time and effort!
Andrew and John were already disciples of John the Baptist, who was preaching a message of repentance and baptism for the forgiveness of sins (Luke 3:3). Although they had grown up in good Jewish homes and had practiced all of the prescribed rituals and sacrifices, these two young men came under the conviction of the Holy Spirit that they were sinners. They knew that their religious activities and heritage could not atone for their sins. And so they were baptized by John.
But John kept speaking of the One who was coming after him, the thong of whose sandals he was not worthy to untie (1:27). John denied being the Messiah, but said that he was merely a voice crying in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord” (1:23). When John saw Jesus and proclaimed, “Behold, the Lamb of God” (1:29, 36), that was all that Andrew and John needed to say, “We’re going to follow the Lamb! We need Him to be our Lamb, to take away our sins!”
To become a Christian you must become aware that you are a sinner in the sight of holy God and that all of your good works can never atone for your sins. You can never work your way to heaven by your good deeds. You need a Savior and Jesus is that Savior, the Lamb of God, whose death on the cross was the culmination of the entire Jewish sacrificial system. God didn’t sacrifice His own dear Son as an example so that basically good people could learn how to be even better. God gave His Son to save sinners who cannot in any way save themselves. Just as the Jews in the Old Testament looked in faith to their sacrifices as God’s ordained means of forgiveness in that era, so we must look in faith to Jesus as the Lamb of God who died to pay for our sins.
When Andrew and John began to follow after Jesus, He turned and saw them and said (1:38), “What do you seek?” This is the same Jesus who, a few verses later, tells Nathanael that He knew his character and his actions before He ever met him! So Jesus didn’t ask Andrew and John what they were seeking because He lacked information. Rather, He asked them the question so that they would think about it. “What are you seeking by following Me? Do you want status and power by being on the inside circle when I come into My kingdom? Do you want Me to give you a comfortable life with plenty of material benefits, free from pain and sorrow? Do you want Me to forgive your sins and give you inner peace? What do you seek?” He asks you the same question!
I remember that when I confirmed my commitment to Christ as a teenager, one of the things that I sought was a happy marriage. The assistant pastor in our church was in his late twenties and happily married. I thought, “If the Lord can give me a happy marriage like that, then it’s worth it to follow Him.” That was an immature and self-centered reason to follow the Lord! He rightly could have said, “Get lost kid! Come back when you have some better reasons for following Me!” But, He graciously took me in at that infantile stage of faith and began to work with me.
Andrew and John answer (1:38), “Rabbi, where are You staying?” It seems like an odd reply to Jesus’ question. Probably they wanted more time with Him than a roadside talk would provide (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 156). John Calvin (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 71) saw in their reply the lesson that “we ought not to be satisfied with a mere passing look, but that we ought to seek his dwelling, that he may receive us as guests.” He explains, “For there are very many who smell the gospel at a distance only, and thus allow Christ suddenly to disappear, and all that they have learned concerning him to pass away.” The point is, if you have met Christ as your Savior, then you’ll want to spend more time with Him to learn more about Him. It was only after Andrew and John spent that evening with the Lord that they became witnesses to the others.
Jesus’ reply is always His invitation to all seeking hearts (1:39), “Come, and you will see.” If you’ve never met Jesus as your Savior, He invites you (Matt. 11:28-30), “Come unto Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” If you’ve met Him as Savior, His invitation to you each morning is (John 21:12), “Come and have breakfast.” Find in Jesus each morning nourishing food for your soul.
After their evening with Jesus, Andrew immediately found his brother Simon and said to him (1:41), “We have found the Messiah,” which John translates for his Greek readers as “the Christ.” As we saw last time, it points to Jesus as God’s anointed prophet, priest, and king, prophesied of in the Old Testament.
You may wonder how the disciples knew at this early stage that Jesus was the promised Messiah when the Synoptic Gospels indicate that they didn’t seem to understand truly who He was until much later. It wasn’t until Matthew 16:16 when Peter confessed, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” But here Andrew is proclaiming Jesus as the Christ from the outset.
The answer is probably that the disciples, like many in that day, were looking for the Messiah. But they had a different idea of what that Messiah would be and what He would do for them than what Jesus came to do (Morris, p. 160). You’ll recall that even right after Peter gave his great confession of Jesus as the Christ, he rebuked Jesus for saying that He was going to be killed and raised up on the third day (Matt. 16:21-23). That didn’t fit with Peter’s expectation of the Messiah as a conquering King whose rule would usher in a golden age for Israel. The disciples had to learn that He was the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 before He would return as the King over the nations (Rev. 19:11-16).
But Jesus took Andrew and John and Peter where they were at and began immediately to mold them into what He wanted them to be. As we saw last time, Jesus’ opening words to Peter must have been a bit jarring (1:42), “‘You are Simon the son of John; you shall be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter).” How would you feel if the first words out of the mouth of someone you just met were to change your name? Peter may have thought, “I need to run for cover!” But there was something so captivating about Jesus that Peter submitted to Jesus’ agenda for his life.
Jesus has that kind of authority and power. He begins with us right where we’re at, but He changes us into what He wants us to be. If I were Jesus and knew what He knew about Peter, I might have said, “Nice to meet you, Simon,” and left it at that. Jesus knew beforehand that Peter would fail Him miserably, but He also knew how He would change Peter into the bold apostle who preached on the Day of Pentecost when 3,000 were saved.
In the same way, Jesus knows all about you and your future before you ever meet Him. He graciously begins with you in your immaturity and selfish reasons for following Him, but He gradually begins to teach you that following Him means denying yourself and taking up your cross (Matt. 16:24-27). He shows you how much you must suffer for His name’s sake (Acts 9:16).
We’ve seen that there is far more about Jesus than we can ever know. We begin with Him by trusting Him as our Lamb that God has provided to take away our sins. Jesus begins with us where we’re at, but He begins to change us into what He wants us to be.
In 1:43, “he purposed” could refer to Andrew or to Peter. D. A. Carson (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 157) argues that it is Andrew because it enforces the point “that everyone else who comes to Jesus in this chapter does so because of someone else’s witness.” This supports John’s practical emphasis on the importance of our witness for Christ. But most commentators and translations (NASB, ESV, NIV, NKJV) understand “he” to refer to Jesus. At any rate, as soon as Jesus and Philip meet, Jesus says, “Follow Me.”
All that we know about Philip (apart from his name in the lists of apostles) we learn in the Gospel of John. We don’t know how much he knew about Jesus before this initial encounter. Either before or shortly after he knew that Jesus was the one about whom Moses and the Prophets had written (1:45). But he also describes Jesus as being from Nazareth and the son of Joseph, so he probably didn’t understand that Jesus was from Bethlehem, born of the virgin Mary. All we’re told is that Jesus commanded Philip to follow Him and based on Philip’s excited words to Nathanael, he obeyed. There must have been something about Jesus’ authority and presence that caused Philip to respond to Jesus’ command.
We’re also told here (1:44) that Philip, Andrew, and Peter were all from Bethsaida. Calvin (p. 74) points out that this demonstrates God’s grace, since Jesus later pronounced judgment on the people of that city because they had rejected the witness of His miracles and had not repented of their sins (Matt. 11:21). But where sin abounded, God’s grace super-abounded. He chose these three disciples from that faithless city.
When Christ calls us to salvation, He also calls us to follow Him as Lord wherever He chooses to lead us. Marla and I just read Evidence Not Seen [Harper], an autobiographical account by Darlene Deibler Rose of her time in an awful Japanese prisoner of war camp in Indonesia during World War II. She and her husband had gone there as missionaries to reach some of the primitive people in the interior of Papua. But the Japanese imprisoned them, along with all foreigners. Her husband was taken away without warning, and she never saw him alive again. She endured time on death row in solitary confinement in a bare cell, subsisting on a meager bowl of worm-infested rice each day. It’s an amazing story of the faith and endurance of a woman who followed Christ as Lord.
While the Lord doesn’t call us all to that kind of life, He does call us all to follow Him wherever and however He commands. He is the Lord and we’re His slaves. While He always has our ultimate good in mind, the path sometimes is pretty rough! The call to be a Christian is the call to follow Jesus wherever He commands.
We looked at Jesus’ encounter with Nathanael last week. He is probably the same as Bartholomew, who is linked with Philip in all three Synoptic lists of the apostles (Matt. 10:3; Mark 3:18; Luke 6:14; but not in Acts 1:13). His initial response to Philip’s statement that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, was not enthusiastic (1:46): “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” But Philip convinced him with the simple reply, “Come and see.”
Jesus instantly let Nathanael know that He knew him inside and out. He knew that Nathanael was a man without guile or deceit (1:47). He told it like he saw it. Jesus’ words to Nathanael are a play on Jacob’s name and character. Jacob was a deceiver, whose name was changed to Israel. Here, it’s as if Jesus is saying of Nathanael, “Look, Israel without a trace of Jacob left in him!” (L. Trudinger, cited by Andreas Kostenberger, John [Baker], p. 82.) Jesus apparently knew that Nathanael had been sitting under a fig tree, meditating on Jacob’s dream of the ladder coming down out of heaven (1:51). So He said to him (1:50), “Because I said to you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these.”
Nathanael is the first man in John’s gospel who is said to believe in Jesus and he is the first to receive a promise from Christ. His testimony teaches us that there are degrees of growth in coming to know Christ. Nathanael was already a student of the Scriptures, searching them to know who the Messiah would be (1:45). But he needed to meet Jesus in person. That meeting brought him to believe in Jesus as the Son of God and the King of Israel (1:49). But Jesus would reveal still more to Nathanael in the future. As we’ve seen, Jesus is far greater than any of us realized when we first came to believe in Him. So the Christian life is a wonderful relationship in which we come to know Jesus in a deeper and deeper way (Phil. 3:8-14).
Each of these five men had different personalities and gifts. The Lord would use each of them in different ways. Peter and John were more well-known than the others and both men would write inspired Scripture. Peter was changed from an impulsive, speak first and think later, man into a solid, faithful leader in the early church. John, originally a “son of thunder,” became the apostle of love. Andrew is always listed fourth in the lists of apostles. He was content not to be first or to preach to large crowds. But in John’s Gospel, he is always bringing someone to Jesus.
Philip seems to have been a man of somewhat limited ability, focusing on the negative (John 6:7; 14:8). But he was a faithful servant of Christ. Tradition says that he later had an effective ministry in Asia Minor and died there as a martyr. We know almost nothing else about Nathanael. He is in the group of apostles that goes fishing after the resurrection and encounters the risen Lord on the shore of the Sea of Galilee (John 21:2). Listed as Bartholomew, he was with the apostles waiting in the Upper Room for the Day of Pentecost (Acts 1:13). Early traditions say that he ministered in Persia, India, and Armenia and probably was martyred (John MacArthur, Twelve Ordinary Men [W Publishing Group], p. 147).
But each of these men met Jesus and He changed their lives drastically for time and eternity. Whatever your personality or background, if you will come to know Jesus personally as your Savior and follow Him as Lord, He will use your life for His eternal purpose.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
April 28, 2013
A little girl from a poor section of a large city became ill on Christmas Day and was taken to the hospital. Lying in her bed, she heard carolers singing and listened while someone told how Christ had come to redeem a lost world. With childlike faith, she received the gift of salvation by trusting Jesus. Later she said to a nurse, “I’m having a good time here. I know I’ll have to go home as soon as I’m well, but I’ll take Jesus with me. Isn’t it wonderful why He was born? He came to save us!”
“Yes,” the nurse said wearily, “that’s an old story.”
“Oh,” said the girl, “do you know about Him too? You didn’t look like you did.”
“Why, how did I look?” she asked.
“Oh, like a lot of folks—sort of glum,” replied the girl. “I thought if you really understood that He came to bring us to heaven, you would be glad!” (“Our Daily Bread,” Dec., 1985)
I wonder how many of us by our demeanor communicate to others that we know the Savior in whose presence is fullness of joy and at whose right hand are pleasures forever (Ps. 16:11)? How many of us experience the fact that Jesus came so that we would have life and have it abundantly (John 10:10)? He wants His joy to be in us and our joy to be made full (John 15:11).
If we’re lacking in the “fullness of joy department,” we might benefit by meditating on the story of Jesus’ first miracle, when He turned about 150 gallons of water into wine at a wedding in Cana of Galilee. He didn’t say, “They’ve had enough fun. Let them drink water.” No, He made wine, and lots of it! While there is much more to this story, one obvious lesson is that Jesus was not a killjoy! He wanted this young couple and their guests to enjoy the wedding festivities. He wants us to enjoy the blessings of salvation.
It’s an interesting story in that there is no mention of who the groom or bride or their families were. There is no mention of how the wedding party or the guests responded to the miracle, if they even knew about it. John doesn’t even tell us how the miracle was done. It was very low key. Jesus didn’t call all the guests around and like a magician have someone confirm that it was only water in the pots. Then, “Abracadabra,” He had them taste it again. Everyone marveled, “Wow! How’d He do that?” In fact, so far as John reports, Jesus didn’t even touch the waterpots or pray. The focus in the account is not on the spectacular part of the miracle, but on Christ and His glory. Those who had eyes to see knew what He did and believed in Him.
John calls this miracle a “sign” (2:11): it pointed to something beyond itself, namely, to Jesus and what He came to do. It was an actual historical event—if you had been there you could have tasted the new wine after the miracle. But the miracle is like a parable, in that you have to think about the meaning behind it. With some of the other miracles that John reports, the significance is more obvious. In chapter 6, Jesus feeds the 5,000 and then proclaims (6:35), “I am the bread of life.” In 8:12 He claims, “I am the light of the world,” and then in chapter 9 He opens the eyes of a man born blind. In 11:25, He asserts, “I am the resurrection and the life,” and then He raises Lazarus from the dead.
But here there is no explanation to tell us the significance or deeper meaning of the miracle. Some well-meaning commentators read all sorts of fanciful meanings into the text. To determine the intended meaning, we need to consider the context as well as some clues in the account itself. In John 1:16-17, we read, “For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.” The contrast with Moses and the Law puts the focus on the new covenant blessings that Jesus provides. “Fullness” emphasizes the abundant blessings that Jesus bestows. Here He gives an abundance of wine, a symbol of the Messianic kingdom.
In the context following this miracle, we read of Jesus cleansing the Jewish temple and proclaiming His risen body as the new temple (2:13-22). In chapter 3, we see Jesus teaching a leader of the Jews about the new birth that He came to bring. Nicodemus had the rituals and the commandments down pat. What he lacked was new life. In chapter 4, instead of the water of Jacob’s well, Jesus offers a sinful woman living water that will quench her thirst forever. Instead of the worship at Gerazim or Jerusalem, Jesus talks about worship in spirit and in truth (see D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 166). And here, in the story itself, we see the empty waterpots that were used for the Jewish custom of purification filled with the new wine that Jesus gives. And, we have John’s statement (2:11) that this sign manifested Jesus’ glory with the result that His disciples believed in Him.
Also, to interpret the miracle properly, we need to understand that in their culture, the Jews viewed wine and weddings as times of joy and celebration, and even as symbolic of the future Messianic kingdom. The rabbis could say, “There is no rejoicing save with wine” (cited by Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 179, note 15). Morris adds that this does not indicate drunkenness, which was strongly condemned. Also, the wine was usually diluted with one part of wine to three parts of water. It was not as strong as our wine or beer are.
But wine was associated with joy and gladness (Ps. 104:15; Judges 9:13). Isaiah 25:6 promises, “The Lord of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain; a banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow, and refined, aged wine.” Joel 2:19, 24, promises, “The Lord will answer and say to His people, ‘Behold, I am going to send you grain, new wine and oil, and you will be satisfied in full with them; and I will never again make you a reproach among the nations.... The threshing floors will be full of grain, and the vats will overflow with the new wine and oil.’” (See, also, Jer. 31:12; Joel 2:19, 24; Amos 9:13-14.)
So we can sum up the significance of this miracle:
Jesus’ first miraculous sign should cause us to see His glory and the superiority of the joyous salvation that He brings so that we believe in Him.
I’m going to explain the text by looking at the situation (2:1-2); the sign (2:3-10); and the significance (2:11).
“The third day” (2:1) probably refers to the third day after Jesus’ encounter with Nathanael (1:43). Cana was probably about 8-9 miles from Nazareth, where Jesus grew up. We don’t know the social connection, but apparently Mary and Jesus knew the family (Joseph may have been dead by this time; but, see 6:42). John never uses Mary’s name, but refers to her as “the mother of Jesus.” The disciples at this point would probably be just the five men mentioned in chapter 1. John doesn’t mention “the twelve” until 6:67; he never tells us how the other seven came to be disciples.
To run out of wine at a wedding was a major social blunder that would have been very embarrassing and even could have led to legal action against the groom’s family, which had failed to provide the proper wedding gift (Morris, p. 179). It may mean that they were poor. But in a shame-based culture, this social mishap would have been hard to live down.
Jewish weddings had three stages. First was betrothal, which took place at least a year before the wedding celebration. This could not be broken except by divorce. When Joseph first learned that Mary was pregnant with Jesus, they were betrothed and so he sought to divorce her for unchastity (Matt. 1:18-19). The second phase was the procession, where the groom and his friends would go to the bride’s house and joyously lead her and her friends back to his house. The third stage, which is described in our text, was the wedding feast, which could last for as long as a week. It was a major social event for the community.
The story proceeds by narrating the counsel of Mary to Jesus, the commands of Jesus to the servants, and the comments of the headwaiter.
Mary may have had something to do with catering the food and drink. Commentators differ over exactly what she was asking Jesus to do. Some argue that since Jesus had not yet performed any miracles, she was merely asking Him to use His resourcefulness to come up with a solution (Carson, pp. 169-170). But the problem with that view is: short of a miracle, what could He do? He didn’t have access to funds to run out and buy more wine. Keep in mind that Mary knew that the angel had spoken to her about Jesus’ birth, announcing that He would be the Son of the Most High and would reign on the throne of David forever (Luke 1:32-33). She knew that she had conceived Him while she was still a virgin. She remembered the prophecies of Simeon and Anna over the baby Jesus in the temple (Luke 2:28-38). She treasured in her heart the incident with Jesus in the temple when he was twelve (Luke 2:41-51). And so it seems likely that here she is suggesting to Jesus that He do something to demonstrate that He was the Messiah (Morris, pp. 179-180, following Godet).
Jesus’ reply strikes us as abrupt and rude (2:4), “Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come.” “Woman” was not rude in that culture. Jesus used the same word to speak tenderly to Mary from the cross (19:26). So it was a term of respect, although it wasn’t a customary way for a son to address his mother.
The next phrase is literally a Hebrew idiom, “what to me and to you” (Judges 11:12; 2 Sam. 16:10). In the gospels, on several occasions the demons address Jesus with these words (Matt. 8:29; Mark 1:24; 5:7; Luke 4:34; 8:28). It serves to put some distance between the two parties. It may be translated (Carson, p. 170), “What do you and I have in common (so far as the matter at hand is concerned)?” It was a rebuke of Mary’s suggestion that He do something to demonstrate that He was the Messiah. Also, Jesus was indicating to Mary that there was now a new relationship between them as He entered His public ministry. He was now out from under her authority and was totally under the authority of His heavenly Father. Thus she must not presume upon Him or dictate to Him how He must act. She must allow Him to minister in His own timing and way. D. A. Carson (p. 171) observes regarding Mary,
She could no longer view him as other mothers viewed their sons; she must no longer be allowed the prerogatives of motherhood. It is a remarkable fact that everywhere Mary appears during the course of Jesus’ ministry, Jesus is at pains to establish distance between them (e.g., Mt. 12:46-50). This is not callousness on Jesus’ part: on the cross he makes provision for her future (19:25-27). But she, like every other person, must come to him as the promised Messiah, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
Jesus explains His comment by adding, “My hour has not yet come.” Jesus’ “hour” refers to the time for His glorification, especially as culminated in the cross (see 7:6, 8, 30; 8:20; 12:23, 27; 13:1; 17:1). But how was this comment an answer to Mary’s statement about the wine? Jesus means that it is not the time to reveal His identity publicly by performing a miracle that would show Him to be the Messiah. (There is a similar situation in 7:1-10 with Jesus’ brothers.) Here, He denies Mary’s request, but then fulfills it on His own terms, more discreetly and behind the scenes. Mary must have taken some hope from His answer, because she tells the servants (2:5), “Whatever He says to you, do it.” That’s not bad advice for any situation: Whatever Jesus tells you to do in His Word, do it!
The six stone waterpots would have held between 120-180 gallons. The Jewish purification rituals were extensive. The last book of the Mishnah contained 126 chapters with 1,001 separate items of purification. There are two special tractates with instructions about purifying hands and vessels, the latter containing over 30 chapters! Judaism had become a religion that emphasized external cleansing and rituals, but often their hearts were far from God (Mark 7:6-8). John notes that the servants filled the waterpots to the brim, so there would be no room for wine to be added. We’re not told how Jesus did the miracle. He simply told the servants to draw some water out of the pots and take it to the headwaiter. Somewhere in the process, the water had become wine.
Was it real wine? In a word, yes. The word used means wine. Verse 10 implies that it was alcoholic. The headwaiter is not endorsing drunkenness, but is simply stating the common practice. A host would serve the best wine first and hold the cheaper wine for later when the guests’ palates would be deadened and they wouldn’t notice the difference. Also, while the Bible strongly condemns drunkenness (Prov. 20:1; 23:29-35; Hab. 2:15; Luke 21:34; Rom. 13:13; Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:18), it does not command total abstinence. It may be wise to abstain from all alcohol for several reasons. First, it’s easy to get addicted to alcohol, especially if you begin to depend on it to relieve stress or block out your problems. Before you know it, you can’t get along without a daily drink or two. I’ve read that if you have two beers a day, you’re an alcoholic. So, be careful! Second, if a brother who has a problem with alcohol sees you drinking and is led to go back to drinking himself, you have caused him to stumble, which is sin on your part (Rom. 14:21). But at the wedding, since the wine was diluted and since drunkenness was condemned in the Bible, Jesus was not endorsing drunkenness, even though He made alcoholic wine.
The headwaiter didn’t know where this wine had come from and we’re not told whether he (or the bridegroom) ever did know. But he attests to its superb quality. It was better than the good wine that the host had served earlier in the wedding feast. Several commentators note that the world always gives its best things first and saves its worst things for last. Sin draws you in by its instant gratification, but it hides the painful long term consequences until later. Jesus’ servants, on the other hand, may have to suffer hardship and trials in this life, but He saves the best for last. We’re promised eternity with Him, with no sorrow or pain or death (Rev. 21:4).
Remember John’s purpose for writing these “signs” (20:30-31): “Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” The result of this miracle is that His disciples (the five men from chapter 1) believed in Him. They had already believed, but for John faith isn’t a “one-time and you’re done” sort of thing. You believe in Christ at the moment of salvation, but you go on believing more and more as you see more of who He is.
I’ve already commented on the main significance of this miracle. Wine is a symbol of joy, especially of joy in the coming Messianic kingdom. The six stone waterpots that were for the Jewish custom of purification point to the old rituals of Judaism that could not completely satisfy. Jesus fulfilled those ceremonial rituals with the abundant joy of salvation and new life in Him. He is the Son of God who brings the transforming joy of salvation to all that believe. Leon Morris states (p. 176): “This particular miracle signifies that there is a transforming power associated with Jesus. He changes the water of Judaism into the wine of Christianity, the water of Christlessness into the wine of the richness and the fullness of eternal life in Christ, the water of the law into the wine of the gospel.”
Also, John says that Jesus manifested His own glory, not God’s glory, showing that He is the Son of God. R. C. Trench (Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord [Baker], p. 73, italics his) observes, “Of none less or lower than the Son could it be affirmed that He manifested forth his glory; every lesser or lower would have manifested forth the glory of God.” After Isaiah wrote (40:3), “A voice is calling, ‘Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness,’” he adds (40:5), “Then the glory of the Lord will be revealed ….” John the Baptist has already referred to himself as clearing the way for Jesus as the Lord (John 1:23). So here the apostle John is saying, “The glory of Jesus that we saw in this first miracle is none other than the glory of the Lord.” Jesus is God.
This miracle also reveals Jesus as the Creator: “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being” (John 1:3). Just as He transformed the water into wine He also can change sinners into saints. He transforms the deadness of religious ritualism into the new wine of a relationship with Him. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature” (2 Cor. 5:17). Jesus has the power to change your heart!
This miracle also emphasizes the abundant provision of Christ for our needs. The wine had run out. There was no way to get more to supply the need of the guests and to save the groom from social disaster. But it’s when we come to the end of ourselves that the Lord displays His power. It was when there was no way to feed the hungry multitude that the Lord provided enough bread to satisfy everyone’s need, with 12 baskets full left over. It was in Paul’s weakness that he came to know the sufficiency of the Lord’s power (2 Cor. 12:9). If we think that we’re rich and have need of nothing, we will not experience the Lord’s sufficiency. It’s only when we recognize that we are “wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked” (Rev. 3:17) that we will hear Jesus knocking, open the door, and enjoy dinner with Him (Rev. 3:20). And He brings all the food!
Some of you may be like these waterpots: empty or only partially full with the water of religion, but you’re lacking the joy of knowing Jesus as your Savior from sin and judgment. The solution is to believe in Him as your Savior and Lord.
Others of us may have believed in Christ as Savior, but we’re not experiencing the abundant joy of the salvation He has given to us. We need to see more of His glory so that we believe in Him again and again.
John Stott (Christianity Today [June 12, 1981], p. 19) told of a Salvation Army drummer in England who was beating his drum so hard that the band leader had to tell him to tone it down and not make so much noise. In his Cockney accent the drummer replied, “God bless you, sir, since oi’ve been converted, oi’m so ’appy, oi could bust the bloomin’ drum!” That’s the kind of joy that Jesus wants us to have. He wants to change the water of dead religion into the joyous, abundant wine of His kingdom rule.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
May 5, 2013
Probably most of us do not enjoy cleaning our houses or apartments, but if you don’t do it regularly, pretty soon you’re living in a pigsty. When I was a pastor in California, I once visited the home of a couple from the church there. When I walked in the door I saw boxes and piles of stuff stacked everywhere. The place was a disaster! I almost said, “Oh, are you moving?” Thankfully, before I said anything I realized, “This is the way they live!” I’ve been in other homes where there was so much clutter that there was literally no place to sit down. I was in another house where the shower was unusable because it was piled high with stuff!
Imagine how those people would have reacted if I had walked in and started throwing their stuff into the trash can! They would have shrieked, “What do you think you’re doing?” After all, it wasn’t my house or my stuff. Even though it needed to be cleaned up, I had no right to do it because it wasn’t mine.
In our text, Jesus goes into the temple in Jerusalem and starts cleaning house. He didn’t begin by opening Scripture and teaching everyone the proper use of the temple. He wasn’t polite, either. He didn’t ask, “Would you mind moving your animals outside the temple? Could you please carry your coin boxes and tables outside the gates?” Rather, He saw what was going on, made a scourge of cords, and drove the animals and their owners out of there. He dumped out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those selling doves, He commanded (2:16), “Take these things away; stop making My Father’s house a place of business.”
As could be expected, the Jews asked Him, in effect, “What right do you have to do these things?” In the vernacular, “Who do you think you are? Do you think you own this place?” John wants us to understand, “Yes, Jesus owns this place! The temple belongs to Him.” Thus,
As the Lord of the temple, Jesus has authority to cleanse it and restore it to its proper use.
In our last study, the disciples got an initial glimpse of Jesus’ glory when He turned the water into wine and they believed in Him (2:11). They had already believed in Him, but when they saw more of who He really is, they believed in Him again, in a deeper way. After Jesus’ resurrection when the disciples remembered this incident, the result was the same: “they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken” (2:22). And John writes these things so that we might get a deeper understanding of who Jesus is so that we might believe in Him as the Christ, the Son of God, and through believing, we might have life in His name (20:30-31).
Before we look at the main event in our text, note that verse 12 is a transitional verse from the last incident: “After this He went down to Capernaum, He and His mother and His brothers and His disciples; and they stayed there a few days.” Capernaum was on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee, about two miles west of where the Jordan River flowed into the sea. It was the home of Peter and Andrew. After John the Baptist was imprisoned, Jesus moved there from Nazareth (Matt. 4:13).
This is the last time that Jesus’ mother is mentioned in this gospel until she is at the cross (19:26). We will encounter Jesus’ brothers again in 7:3-10, where John informs us that they did not at that point believe in Jesus. Some (usually Roman Catholics) believe that these could not be Mary’s children because they assert that she was perpetually a virgin. They say that these were either Jesus’ cousins or else Joseph’s children from a previous marriage. But there is no biblical reason to deny that these were the children born to Joseph and Mary after Jesus was born. Matthew 1:25 states that Joseph kept Mary a virgin until she gave birth to Jesus, implying that after that time they had normal marital relations.
Regarding the cleansing of the temple, most liberal scholars and even a few conservative ones argue that there was only one cleansing of the temple, not two. The Synoptic Gospels all report that Jesus cleansed the temple after His triumphal entry during the last week of His ministry (Matt. 21:12-13). John alone reports this cleansing at the outset of Jesus’ ministry. William Barclay (The Gospel of John [Westminster], 1:107) makes the ridiculous statement, “John is more interested in the truth than in the facts” (as if we can have truth based on factual error!). Some say that John puts the event out of chronological order at the beginning for theological reasons. But the chronological sequence of 2:11-13 is pretty tight (D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/ Apollos], p. 177). Other than a liberal bias, it is most natural to conclude that there were two cleansings.
All Jewish males were required to go up (Jerusalem was at a higher elevation than the surrounding territory) to the temple three times a year for the great feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. On this occasion, Jesus went up for Passover.
Within the temple compound was a spacious courtyard called “The Court of the Gentiles.” Gentile proselytes could worship in that area but were threatened with death if they went beyond the four and a half foot dividing wall (Paul refers to this in Eph. 2:14). It was in this area that the merchants and money changers had set up their operation. As Jesus approached this area, which was to be a place of worship and prayer (Isa. 56:7; Matt. 21:13), He would have heard the commotion of the marketplace, with merchants crying out to hawk their wares and the smell of animals.
The pilgrims who walked great distances to Jerusalem to worship needed sacrificial animals—sheep, oxen, and doves. They could bring their own animals from home, although it would not be easy to do. But, the animals had to be without blemish and had to pass an official inspection, which cost money. So to avoid the hassle of bringing their own animals and the risk of having the animals rejected, a person could simply buy one of the already certified animals from a vendor at the temple. These vendors paid the high priest for the privilege of selling at the temple. So it was a nice business for the high priest and the vendors. And, it provided a convenient service for the worshipers.
Also, foreign money was not acceptable in the temple. To buy their animals or to pay the half-shekel temple tax, worshipers had to get their money changed into the proper coinage, again for a fee. If you’ve ever traveled overseas, you know how this works. In every foreign airport and city, money changers will trade your American currency for the local currency for a nice fee.
There is scholarly evidence that these merchants and money changers had operated around the Mount of Olives, outside of the temple precincts, under the jurisdiction of the Sanhedrin for some time. But just prior to Jesus’ ministry, Caiaphas, the high priest, had brought some of them into the Court of the Gentiles to compete with those outside. Jesus’ indignation was not necessarily against selling these animals or changing money per se (although gouging people with exorbitant rates for personal profit was wrong), but rather at the audacity of bringing these merchants into the only place where the Gentiles could worship (William Lane, Commentary on the Gospel of Mark [Eerdmans], pp. 403-404). Their business should have been carried on outside the temple.
Why didn’t the temple officials arrest or physically restrain Jesus from carrying out this extreme action? There were probably several factors. First, there was a general public outrage against this corrupt and evil system. The people knew that they were being charged exorbitant rates. The high priest and the vendors knew that there was only so much that the public would bear. If they had used force against Jesus, they might have faced a public rebellion. Second, the consciences of the vendors themselves may have been a little uneasy. Their setting up shop in the temple precincts defiled the temple because it brought animal excrement into that sacred space. Also, Jesus’ action could have been viewed as a fulfillment of Malachi 3:1-4, which prophesied that Messiah would come to His temple and purify the people like a refiner’s fire.
Leon Morris points out (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 194) that it was not so much Jesus’ physical force that drove these merchants out of the temple, but rather His moral power. So rather than physically arrest or restrain Jesus, the authorities challenge His authority or right to do what He did (2:18). We will have to wait until next time to examine Jesus’ reply and the disciples’ response (2:19-22). For now, let’s look at five lessons from Jesus’ housecleaning of the temple:
Several things in the text establish Jesus’ lordship and thus His authority over the temple. First, He calls it “My Father’s house,” not “our Father’s house.” Morris notes (ibid., p. 195, note 66), “Jesus never joins men with Himself in such a way as to indicate that their sonship is similar to His (cf. 20:17).” He adds, “Jesus’ words are a claim to deity.” If Jesus is the unique Son of God, the heir of all things (Heb. 1:2), then He is the rightful Lord of the temple.
Also, the citation of Psalm 69:9 shows that this “action is not merely that of a Jewish reformer: it is a sign of the advent of the Messiah” (Hoskyns, cited by Morris, p. 196). John is showing us that Jesus is the Christ (20:31). Morris adds, “It is one of John’s great themes that in Jesus God is working His purposes out.”
John Calvin (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 91) raises the question, “Why didn’t Christ begin with teaching before He took this drastic action?” He answers that Jesus wished in some way to take possession of the temple and to give a proof of His divine authority. Also, this dramatic action would awaken everyone to pay attention when He later began to teach.
This reminds me of a story that P. G. Wodehouse told (America, I Like You, cited in Reader’s Digest [July, 1984], p. 113). A member of the British Parliament was standing in the lobby of the House when a tall, distinguished-looking old gentleman asked for a moment of his time. He said, “I have heard of you as one who takes up unpopular causes and I should be extremely grateful if you would listen to my story.”
It was a sad story. By hard work and thrift, he had amassed a large fortune and now his relatives had robbed him of it and, not content with that, had placed him in a mental home. This was his day out. “I’ve put the facts in this document,” he concluded. “Study it and communicate with me at your leisure. Thank you, sir, thank you. Good day.”
Much moved by the old man’s exquisite courtesy, the Member of Parliament took the paper, shook hands, promised that he would do everything in his power, and turned to go back into the session of Parliament. As he did so, he received a kick in the seat of the pants which nearly sent his spine shooting through his hat.
“Don’t forget!” said the old gentleman.
So after Jesus “kicked the vendors in the seat of their pants,” they wouldn’t forget Him or His teaching!
It’s easy to sit here and enjoy the story of Jesus cleaning house on the temple, but it gets a bit uncomfortable when we remember two things. First, the church is now the temple where God dwells. In 1 Corinthians 3:16-17, Paul writes, “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are.” The context indicates that Paul is speaking of the church. Also, in Ephesians 2:21, he states that the church is growing into a holy temple in the Lord.
Second, every believer individually is a temple of the Lord. Paul writes (1 Cor. 6:19-20), “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.”
This means that Jesus has authority over this church and over every individual in it. He is the rightful Lord of the church. He owns each member because He purchased each one with His blood. Thus He has the right to cleanse the church and to cleanse every person in it. Everything else that I’m going to say applies both to the whole church and to each of you individually.
Jesus knew that the temple was not to be a place for business (2:16). It was a place for worship, for prayer, and for offering sacrifices. It was the place to meet with God and seek His face (see 1 Kings 8:22-53; Isa. 56:7). It was the place to gather for the three annual feasts (Deut. 16:16). The Passover, which Jesus here went up to celebrate, was a time to remember God’s miraculous deliverance of Israel from 400 years of slavery in Egypt. But it had degenerated into a business opportunity for the high priest and all of the merchants and money changers. No doubt they rationalized their activities: It was a useful service for the worshipers. But they were prostituting God’s purpose for the temple.
God’s purpose for His church is that we would glorify Him by growing in fervent love for Him and for one another (the two great commandments) and by proclaiming the gospel to the lost (the Great Commission). We need to keep on task by evaluating all that we do in light of these purposes. Individually, each of us should seek to glorify God by everything we do (1 Cor. 6:20; 10:31). If we live for anything else, the Lord of the temple will examine us and purge out that which has diverted us from His purpose for us.
Jesus is zealous for God’s house and that zeal means that sometimes He is not “nice.” He didn’t politely go around to each stall and suggest to the proprietors that perhaps they should move outside the temple precincts. Rather, He made a whip and drove them out with force. He angrily upended their money tables and scattered their coins.
Does that fit with your picture of Jesus? Yes, He was gentle toward sinners (Matt. 11:29; 12:20). He gives “grace upon grace” (John 1:16). He so loves us that He gave Himself for us on the cross (John 3:16). But He also baptizes with fire. “His winnowing fork is in His hand to thoroughly clear His threshing floor” (Luke 3:17). “It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Heb. 10:31). As we’ve seen (1 Cor. 3:17), “If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are.”
Jesus hates sin because sin destroys people He loves and sin among God’s people drags God’s holy name through the mud. This means that first, we should hate our own sin and be quick to repent of it so that He doesn’t have to clean house for us (Rev. 3:19). Judge, confess, and forsake your sin on the thought level and it won’t go any farther. If you’ve already sinned in word or deed, turn from it, ask God to forgive you, and ask forgiveness of those you’ve sinned against.
Also, if you know of a brother or sister who is in sin, zeal for God’s house should override your fear of man and your aversion to confront anyone. After prayer, in humility, go to your brother and seek to restore him to the Lord (Gal. 6:1). It is the Christlike thing to do. Jesus never avoided confrontation if it was necessary to do the will of God. Don’t dodge your responsibility. It’s a necessary part of biblical love to hate sin.
A sober question to ask is, “What would Jesus do if He visited our church?” Would He be pleased with our worship? Would He smile as He looked at our relationships? Would He approve of our heart for the lost? Would He commend our giving and the way that we use the church’s funds? Would He say that our prayer life reflects our total dependence on Him?
Ask the same question on an individual level: Lord, is my life pleasing to You? Is my love for You genuine? Do I reflect the fruit of the Spirit? Is my thought life pure in Your sight? Where would You clean house in my life if I gave You full rein?
Note that Jesus didn’t work out a compromise with the stall owners and money changers: “If you guys will tithe your profits, I’ll let you keep doing business in the temple.” He cleaned out the entire operation. He doesn’t let us keep a little bit of sin if we’ll just give up a few other sins. Jesus cleans it all out. And, yes, it’s painful and costly. I’m sure that the whip stung when it hit. The money changers probably lost a few coins. Their future business suffered. It may cost you in many ways to do business with Jesus. But the long term benefits are worth it.
Hebrews 12:6 reminds us, “For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives.” He adds (12:11), “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.” And so we should not regard His discipline lightly or faint when we are reproved by Him, but rather be subject to the Father of spirits and live (12:5, 9).
Also, once Jesus has cleaned our house for us, we need to keep it clean so that He doesn’t have to do it again. Not long after this first cleansing, they set up shop again, so that Jesus had to do this a second time three years later. Then His zeal for God’s house did consume Him—it led to His death.
It’s good every so often to examine yourself to make sure that you’re in the faith (2 Cor. 13:5):
Paul says that if we clean house ourselves, the Lord won’t need to do it for us. Before we partake of the Lord’s Supper, he instructed us (1 Cor. 11:28), “But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup.” He adds (1 Cor. 11:31-32), “But if we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are disciplined by the Lord so that we will not be condemned along with the world.” So if you need to clean house, don’t procrastinate! The Lord doesn’t want you to live in a spiritual pigsty!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
May 12, 2013
You’ve probably had the experience of talking to a skeptic about Christ only to have him say, “If I could see a miracle, I’d believe.” But that’s not true. The problem with the skeptic is not a lack of evidence, but rather his love of his sin. He suppresses the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18).
Years ago, the most popular course on a college campus was a first-year chemistry class, taught by a renowned professor, Dr. Lee. Each year before Thanksgiving, Dr. Lee would lecture against prayer. He would conclude the lecture with the challenge: “Is there anybody here who still believes in prayer?” He would add, “Before you answer, let me tell you what I’m going to do and what I’m going to ask you to do. I will turn around, take a glass flask and hold it at arm’s length. If you believe that God answers prayer, I want you to stand and pray that when I drop this flask, it won’t break. I want you to know that your prayers and the prayers of your parents and Sunday school teachers and even the prayers of your own pastors cannot prevent this flask from breaking. If you wish to have them here, we will put this off until you return after the Thanksgiving recess.”
No one had ever stood up to Dr. Lee’s challenge until a Christian freshman learned about it. He sensed that God had given him the conviction to stand up to Dr. Lee. When the skeptical professor threw out the challenge, this brave young man stood up.
“Well,” said the professor, “this is most interesting. Now we will be most reverent while this young man prays.” Then he turned to the young man and said, “Now you may pray.”
The young man lifted his face toward heaven and prayed, “God, I know that You can hear me. Please honor the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ, and honor me, Your servant. Don’t let the flask break. Amen.”
Dr. Lee stretched his arm out as far as he could, opened his hand, and let the flask fall. It fell in an arc, hit the toe of Dr. Lee’s shoe, rolled over and did not break (Richard Harvey, Seventy Years of Miracles [Horizon House], cited by Bill Thrasher, A Journey to Victorious Praying [Moody Publishers], pp. 48-50).
The book where I read that story doesn’t report the professor’s response, but I seriously doubt that he fell to his knees, repented of his sins, and trusted in Jesus Christ as His Savior and Lord. Skeptics who demand a miracle don’t need a miracle to come to faith. They need to repent of their sins.
Our text reports the aftermath of Jesus’ confronting the sin of those who authorized the selling of sacrificial animals and the changing of money inside the temple precincts in Jerusalem. They came to Jesus and demanded a sign (John’s word for “miracle”) to validate His right to cleanse the temple. In effect, they challenged Jesus, “Who do you think you are to do what you just did? Do you think that you own this temple?” John wants us to see, “Yes, Jesus owns the temple. He is the rightful Lord of it. He has every right to cleanse it from corruption.”
Our text shows us how not to come to Jesus when He confronts your sin and how to come to Him:
When Jesus confronts your sin, don’t challenge Him, but believe in Him as the crucified and risen Lord as the Scriptures testify.
God created us to glorify Him in all that we do, but especially when we gather in worship. All sin may be summed up as falling short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). As we saw last week, Jesus confronted the merchants and money changers in the temple because they were perverting God’s purpose for the temple, which was that His people might worship Him. It was to be a house of prayer for the nations (Mark 11:15), but they had turned the only part of the temple where Gentiles could worship into a place of business.
Jesus was especially incensed with religious sin because these people professed to know the Scriptures. They purported to be obedient to God and to worship Him, but their hearts were far from Him (Mark 7:6-8). No doubt they would have rationalized their temple business by arguing that it provided a needed service for the worshipers. But they were using religion as a cloak to cover their greed. So Jesus zealously drove them out of His Father’s house and upended their money tables.
If you want to stir up someone’s zeal, offend what he loves. If you want to get me stirred up, offend my wife. Because I love her I will defend her if you put her down. Jesus loved the Father and the Father’s house, where true worship was to take place. So when He saw this perversion going on in the temple, it stirred up His righteous zeal (John 2:17), so that He drove them out.
But in so doing, He offended what they loved, namely, their money (Luke 16:14) and their position of authority in the temple (Matt. 23:6-7). So they responded to Jesus’ confrontation by challenging His authority to do what He had done. But that was the wrong way to come to Jesus!
Before we look at their challenge to Jesus, let me ask: Has Jesus confronted your sin? You can’t walk with Jesus, who is holy, without at some point having Him confront your sin. He does it gently with those who are weighed down with the burden of their sin. But with self-righteous religious hypocrites, He gets pretty tough. But wherever you’re at on the spectrum, there is no such thing as having real contact with Jesus without having Him confront your sin. When He does, don’t respond as the Jews did when He cleared their business out of the temple:
John 2:18: “The Jews then said to Him, ‘What sign do You show us as your authority for doing these things?’” Note 3 things:
The reason the Jews challenged Jesus was that He had just upset their nice little corner on the religion market. There is no sign of repentance on their part for how they had defiled the temple. They didn’t come humbly and say, “Jesus, you were right. We were wrong to sell our goods in the temple. Thank you for helping us correct that.” They knew that He was right, but rather than face their sin, they dodged it by challenging Jesus’ right to do what He did.
When skeptics say, “Show me a miracle and I’ll believe,” they’re dodging their sin. They don’t need more evidence to believe, because they aren’t seeking to believe. They don’t want to believe in Jesus, because they know that He would confront their sin.
A campus worker talked with a student who claimed that the Bible was packed with mythology, although he admitted that he had never read it. So the worker challenged him to read Isaiah, which contains prophecies concerning Christ, and Matthew, which records the fulfillment of those prophecies.
He thought that he would never see him again, but the next day he came up and said, “I read Isaiah and Matthew. It was interesting literature. I think it speaks the truth.” “That’s great!” said the worker. “Are you ready to trust Christ for eternal life?”
“No way,” said the student, “I have a very active sex life. I know Christ would want to change that. I don’t want anyone to change that.” (Cliff Knechtle, Give Me an Answer [IVP], pp. 88-89, cited by Lee Stroebel, Inside the Mind of the Unchurched Harry & Mary [Zondervan], p. 113.)
Jesus was the Lord over the temple. It was His Father’s house and He is the heir of all things (Heb. 1:2), so He owned it. By cleansing the temple and calling it His Father’s house, Jesus demonstrated His deity. Jesus’ reply to them (John 2:19) shows that He knew that He would be killed and raised up the third day. He knew His own future before it happened.
You don’t come to the omniscient Lord of the temple as if you are the lord of the temple, demanding answers from Him or implying that you know more than He does. You must assume the position of a subordinate in the presence of Jesus or you will not receive anything from Him except judgment. The problem with skeptics who challenge the truth of the Bible is that they set themselves up as lords over the Word of God. But Jesus doesn’t respond kindly to such critics:
On at least two other occasions, the Pharisees asked Jesus for a sign, and both times Jesus gave them basically the same answer that He gives here. Matthew 12:38-40 records,
Then some of the scribes and Pharisees said to Him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from You.” But He answered and said to them, “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and yet no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”
Again in Matthew 16:1, “The Pharisees and Sadducees came up, and testing Jesus, they asked Him to show them a sign from heaven.” He replied (16:4), “‘An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah.’ And He left them and went away.”
Both times, Jesus gave the same reply: a cryptic reference to His upcoming death and resurrection. So in John 2:19, “Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’” They thought that He was speaking literally of the Jerusalem temple, but John clarifies (2:21), “But He was speaking of the temple of His body.”
Rather than humbly admitting that they didn’t understand and asking Jesus to explain, they challenged Him again (2:20), “It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?” Some reputable scholars (Andreas Kostenberger, John [Baker], pp. 109-110; Daniel Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics [Zondervan], pp. 560-561) argue on grammatical, linguistic, and historical grounds that this should be translated, “This temple was built forty-six years ago.” The point then was, “This impressive building has stood the test of time here for 46 years. How could you possibly rebuild it in three days?” But however you take it, it’s clear that these men were not humbly seeking truth from Jesus. Rather, they were challenging His authority.
But Jesus never threw His pearls before swine (Matt. 7:6). When the disciples asked why Jesus spoke to the multitudes in parables, He said (Matt. 13:13), “Therefore I speak to them in parables; because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.” His parables served to reveal truth to those who humbly sought it, but also to conceal truth from skeptics. He gave such critics enough truth to condemn them on judgment day, but not enough to open their eyes and save them (Matt. 13:14-15).
It’s interesting that at Jesus’ trial, the false witnesses who obviously didn’t understand Jesus’ words here tried to use it against Him. They stated (Matt. 26:61), “This man stated, ‘I am able to destroy the temple of God and to rebuild it in three days.’” Then as Jesus hung on the cross, Mark 15:29-30 reports, “Those passing by were hurling abuse at Him, wagging their heads, and saying, ‘Ha! You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save Yourself, and come down from the cross!’” But Jesus had never said that He would destroy the temple. Rather, He made a statement of future fact: “[You will] destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”
What did Jesus mean? His reply had a double meaning. On one level, they would destroy the temple of Jesus’ body and He would raise it up in three days. Scripture indicates that all three members of the Trinity had a part in Jesus’ resurrection (Acts 2:24; Rom. 1:4; 6:4; 1 Cor. 6:14; 15:15; John 10:17-18), just as they did in creation. But on another level, through their unbelief and rejection of the Messiah, they would destroy the Jerusalem temple (fulfilled in A.D. 70). It would be replaced by the risen Savior, who is our new temple or dwelling place of God with men. Our worship now centers in Him, not in any building. The sign that these things are true is the bodily resurrection of Jesus on the third day, which is the supreme authentication of His person and work.
Thus, Jesus is in the business of confronting all sin that undermines the true worship of God. When He confronts your sin, don’t come to Him by challenging Him, asking for a sign. Rather,
The Jewish skeptics and the disciples both saw the same person, heard the same teaching, and were given the same sign of Jesus’ resurrection. But the skeptics refused to repent of their sins and eventually crucified the Lord of glory. The disciples’ response was quite different (John 2:22): “So when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.” That’s the response that John wants us to have. Note four things:
John doesn’t specify exactly which Scripture the disciples believed after Jesus’ resurrection. He could have been thinking of Psalm 16, Psalm 22, and Isaiah 53. But I think he wants us to realize that all Scripture points to Jesus as our sacrifice for sin, whom God raised from the dead. After the resurrection, Jesus encountered the two men on the Emmaus Road. Luke 24:27 states, “Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” Later, Jesus said to the disciples (24:44), “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Luke adds (24:45), “Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.” Being there would have been worth more than all the seminary courses in the world!
The point is, to believe in Jesus, look for Him in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. You need to read the entire Bible, asking God to reveal Christ to your soul (see my message on Rom. 15:4, “Why You Need the Old Testament”).
Beware of conjuring up a “Jesus” of your own liking! Many do that. They pick their favorite verses or stories about Jesus and His love, but ignore the parts that show Jesus in His holiness and wrath against sin. The Bible is our only source of God’s revelation concerning His Son, and we need the balance of taking it all in.
Here’s one example: In Matthew 11:28, we all love Jesus’ invitation, “Come unto Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” But some don’t like what He said just before that. First, He pronounced judgment on the unrepentant cities that had not believed in Him (Matt. 11:20-24). Then He thanked the Father for hiding spiritual truth from the wise and intelligent and revealing it instead to infants (11:25-26). Then, just before the invitation that we love, He asserted His sovereignty (11:27): “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” My point is, we need to embrace these difficult verses just as much as we embrace our favorite verse of invitation. God inspired all Scripture for our spiritual good.
I already mentioned this, but we need to understand: since the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, there are no “sacred” buildings or places. Jesus Himself is our temple, not a cathedral or church building. We meet with God in Jesus. We dwell in Him and He dwells in us. The church (people, not the building) is growing into a holy temple in the Lord (Eph. 2:21).
Believing in Jesus is not a blind leap, where you vaguely hope He catches you before you hit the bottom. Rather, faith in Jesus is a step (not a leap) where you put your trust in the credible witness of Scripture and the apostles to the person and work of Jesus Christ. They were eyewitnesses of His glory (John 1:18). Peter testifies (2 Pet. 1:16), “For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.” The apostolic testimony is recorded for us in the New Testament, corroborated by the Old Testament.
Also, as we’ve seen, faith in Christ is not a once-for-all decision in the past. Rather, the disciples believed in Christ when they first began to follow Him (John 1:50). They believed again when they saw His glory when He turned the water into wine (2:11). Now, after the resurrection they reflect back on Jesus’ words here and “they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.” John puts Jesus’ words on a par with Scripture. What Jesus said, God said. The point is, as we understand more and more from the Scriptures of who Jesus is, our faith in Him grows.
Note also that it takes time for spiritual truth to sink in. The disciples didn’t connect all the dots at first. They couldn’t understand Jesus’ predictions about His death and resurrection (Luke 9:44-45; 24:45). But later they remembered what Jesus had said and it all made sense. So if you don’t understand something in the Bible, don’t give up. Keep asking, seeking, and knocking, and eventually the door will be opened for you.
A story is told of a godly but poor old Christian woman who lived in a run-down house. But she was always praising the Lord. An old atheistic man lived next door, who was always trying to prove to her that there is no God.
One day as he walked by the house, he saw through an open window that the woman was kneeling in prayer. He crept near and heard her pray, “Lord, you’ve always given me what I’ve needed. Now you know that I don’t have any money, I’m out of groceries, and I won’t get another check for a week. Somehow, Lord, can you get me some groceries?”
The atheist had heard all that he needed to hear. He ran down to the store, bought several bags of groceries, set them down on her doorstep, rang the bell, and hid beside the house. When the old woman saw the groceries, she threw her hands over her head and began shouting, “Thank you, Jesus! I was without food and you provided the groceries! Praise the Lord!”
At that point, the old man jumped out and said, “I’ve got you now! I told you that there is no God. It wasn’t Jesus who gave you those groceries—it was me!”
“Oh, no,” the woman said. “Jesus got me these groceries and He made you pay for them!” There are two ways of looking at things, aren’t there! The point of our text is, when Jesus confronts your sin, don’t challenge Him. Rather, believe in Him as the One who was crucified for your sins and raised for your justification.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
May 19, 2013
It seems to me that there is an epidemic of superficial or false faith in America. Over the last few decades, polls have indicated that between 30 to 40 percent or more of Americans claim that they have been born again. If one third of our nation was truly born again, the moral condition in our land would be vastly different!
While only God knows the true condition of people’s hearts, Jesus said that we can know a tree by its fruit (Luke 6:43-44). We should be able to spot a Christian by his godly behavior and lifestyle. Genuine faith results in good works (James 2:14-26). As 1 John 2:3 states, “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.” He does not mean that Christians never sin (see 1 John 1:9; 2:1). But his point is that the overall pattern of a true Christian’s life will be one of obedience to Jesus Christ, not a life of sin (1 John 3:4-10).
I bring up these matters because in our text we read about a situation where many believed in Jesus, but Jesus didn’t believe in them. The word translated “entrusting” (2:24, NASB) is the same Greek verb as “believed” (2:23). We could rightly translate it, “Many believed in Jesus, but Jesus didn’t believe in them.” While I found a couple of commentators who argue that these people had genuine faith, I agree with the overwhelming majority of scholars who argue that John intends for us to understand that these people had superficial faith.
As we’ve seen, John’s purpose for writing was (20:31), “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” In the prologue (1:1-18), John immediately sets forth the glory of Jesus Christ as the eternal Word, the Creator of all that is. He is the source of light and life. We saw in 1:12, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.” In 1:14, John writes, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”
In 1:50, Nathanael is the first one in this gospel who is said to believe in Jesus. In 2:11, the disciples, who had already believed and followed Jesus, believed again when they saw His glory when He turned the water into wine. In 2:22, John tells us that after Jesus resurrection, “His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.” So John is drawing a portrait of Jesus as the glorious manifestation of God with us, the one in whom everyone should believe for eternal life. He has given us examples of early faith in the disciples.
But now we read (2:23), “Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing.” You would expect John to move on, leaving this as another example of saving faith following the earlier examples that he has given. But instead we read (2:24-25), “But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.” Why would Jesus refuse to entrust Himself to those who believed in Him? I agree with John Piper, who explains (desiringGod.org, “He Knew What Was in Man”):
What it says, in essence, is that Jesus knows what is in every heart, and so he can see when someone believes in a way that is not really believing. In other words, Jesus’ ability to know every heart perfectly leads to the unsettling truth that some belief is not the kind of belief that obtains fellowship with Jesus and eternal life. Some belief is not saving belief.
So while most of us (I hope) would say, “I believe in Jesus,” we all need to ask, “Does Jesus believe in me? Has He entrusted Himself to me?” (We’ll look at what that means later.) These verses teach us that…
We need to believe in Jesus in such a way that He believes in us.
These verses conclude the story of Jesus’ first ministry visit to the temple, but they also introduce us to the encounter with Nicodemus. John 2:25 emphasizes “man” (used twice) and then in 3:1, we read, “Now there was a man….” Also, 2:23 mentions the signs that Jesus was doing in Jerusalem during the feast, and in 3:2 Nicodemus acknowledges the signs that Jesus was doing. It’s obvious as the interview progresses that Jesus knew what was in Nicodemus’ heart and what he needed, namely, the new birth. So the story of Nicodemus helps us to understand these verses (and vice versa).
The disciples may have been initially enthused over the response of the people and then puzzled by Jesus’ seemingly aloof response to them: “If He’s the Messiah, why doesn’t He welcome all of these people who are believing in His name?” The reason was that He could see their hearts. He knew that their faith was based on seeing the miracles that He performed, but they weren’t repenting of their sins and trusting in Him as their Savior from sin.
Chapter 6 reports a similar incident. After Jesus fed the 5,000 with five loaves and two fish, we read (6:14), “Therefore when the people saw the sign which He had performed, they said, ‘This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.’” “The Prophet” was a Messianic term (Deut. 18:15). The disciples no doubt thought, “Great! These people get it! They’re acknowledging Jesus as the Messiah!” But the next verse says that Jesus perceived that the people were going to take Him by force to make Him king, so He withdrew to the mountain by Himself alone. Jesus knew that the people superficially believed in Him, but He didn’t entrust Himself to them. Let’s look further at superficial faith:
These “believers” (in 2:23) were impressed with Jesus. They had seen Him clear out the merchants and money-changers from the temple. During the visit to Jerusalem, He had performed some other signs that John doesn’t specify (2:23). Maybe some of them had been healed or knew those who had been healed. They were ready to sign on with Jesus.
But they really didn’t understand the truth about who Jesus is and what He came to do. Like Nicodemus, they probably thought, “We’re good Jews. We’re God’s chosen people. We keep the Law of Moses. We just observed Passover.” They didn’t understand that they were sinners who needed a Savior. They didn’t know that Jesus is the Lord and that He commands His followers to take up their cross and follow Him. They were amazed at His signs, but they weren’t committing themselves to Him as Savior and Lord, so He didn’t commit Himself to them.
We see an example of superficial faith in Acts 8. A magician named Simon had built quite a following in Samaria, claiming to be someone great (8:9). When he saw the miracles that God was working through Philip, Simon believed and was baptized. He continued on with Philip, being constantly amazed by the miracles that he saw (8:13). Then, when Peter and John arrived and prayed for the people to receive the Holy Spirit, Simon was impressed. He offered money to the apostles so that he could obtain the same powers. But Peter strongly denounced him (8:20-23), “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! You have no part or portion in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. Therefore repent of this wickedness of yours, and pray the Lord that, if possible, the intention of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bondage of iniquity.” Clearly, Simon’s faith was not saving faith.
These people were impressed with Jesus. They had seen Him cleanse the temple and thought, “He must be a great prophet!” They had seen Him do miracles and thought, “He must be a great man of God!” Nicodemus is an example of this. He calls Jesus “Rabbi,” acknowledges that He has come from God as a teacher, and that God is with Him (3:2). But he didn’t understand that Jesus came to impart the new birth or that he even needed the new birth. He didn’t understand that Jesus would die as God’s provision for sinners to receive eternal life (3:14-16). While I believe that he later came to faith, at this point his view of Jesus was high, but not high enough.
We see the same thing in John 10:31-33, where Jesus’ critics acknowledged that He did good works, but they were ready to stone Him for blasphemy, because He made Himself out to be God. They had a high view of Jesus as a good man, but not high enough. They didn’t see Him as God.
Muslims have a high view of Jesus as a great prophet, but their view is not high enough, in that they think that Mohammad was a greater prophet and they deny Jesus’ deity. The Jehovah’s Witnesses affirm that Jesus is the greatest of all created beings, but their faith is not saving faith because they deny His deity, which also denies His ability to atone for our sins. The same is true of the Mormons. Their “Jesus” is not the Jesus presented to us in the Bible, who is fully God and fully man. Superficial faith thinks highly of Jesus, but not highly enough.
Believing on the basis of signs (miracles) is better than not believing at all. In John 10:37-38, Jesus tells His Jewish critics, “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.” But believing because of miracles will not result in salvation unless it is accompanied by repentance. Simon the magician believed, but he had not repented of his pride and love of power over the people. He was not saved. In the parable of the sower, it is only the seed that endures and bears fruit that is genuinely saved. (See, also, Matt. 24:13; Rom. 11:22; 1 Cor. 15:2; Col. 1:23; Heb. 3:12-14; 1 John 2:18-19.) Faith that perseveres sees with growing clarity the glory of Christ and what He did for us on the cross so that it perseveres when trials or persecution hit.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones (The Path to True Happiness [Baker], pp. 159-161) points out that there are some who “believe” in Jesus intellectually, but their hearts and their wills have never been touched. They may be scholars, but their knowledge has never changed their lives. Others have their hearts touched, but their minds have not been in operation. In fact, they have been told that they should not try to understand. Often, they have not submitted their wills to Christ. Experience is everything. There is a third group where their Christianity is almost entirely a matter of the will. They don’t bother to understand and they aren’t interested in their feelings. They just want to be doing things to serve God.
Lloyd-Jones argues that all three types have superficial faith because they have only picked out what appeals to them and believed in that. They haven’t seen themselves as lost sinners and Christ as the only one who can save them. Their faith is partial, based on what they like about Jesus. But when things don’t go the way that they envisioned, they fall away.
Many of us believed in Jesus with a shallow or superficial faith. We trusted Him because we wanted healing or success or something other than salvation from sin. But to go on and develop into genuine saving faith, you have to see yourself as the Bible portrays you and see Christ for who He is.
The reason that Jesus didn’t entrust Himself to these “believers” was that He knew what was in their hearts. But the implication is that they didn’t know their own hearts. Since this section serves to introduce the interview with Nicodemus, he is an example. He thought that he was a good Jew, but Jesus stunned him by telling him that he needed to be born again. His goodness was not good enough to get him into the kingdom of God. Note two things:
In 1 Samuel 16:7, the Lord tells Samuel, “For God sees not as a man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” Solomon prays (1 Kings 8:39b), “For You alone know the hearts of all the sons of men.” (Also, see 1 Chron. 28:9; Ps. 139:1-18, 23-24; Jer. 17:10; Heb. 4:13.) So when John tells us that Jesus knew all men and knew what was in man, it is a witness to His deity. Jesus could peer beneath the surface and evaluate the thoughts and motives of hearts (1:47-48; 4:17-19, 29; 6:15, 64 16:30; 21:17; Luke 16:15). Now, here’s the scary part:
Proverbs 21:2 states, “Every man’s way is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the hearts.” Jeremiah 17:9 says, ““The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” When the Lord saves us, He gives us a new heart (2 Cor. 5:17), but the old man or flesh is not eradicated. There still lurks within us the bent to do evil. The problem is, we don’t realize just how powerful and deceptive this monster within really is.
That’s why Peter denied the Lord. He thought that he was stronger than he was. In fact, he denied the Lord’s prediction of his denial because he thought he knew more than the Lord did! Later, when the Lord restored Peter with His threefold question, “Do you love Me?” the third time, Peter replied (21:17), “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” The Lord knows our hearts better than we know our hearts. We have to allow Him to reveal our hearts to us. He does this gradually (thankfully—we couldn’t bear it all at once!) as we read and study God’s Word. The more you see how weak and prone to sin you really are, the more you’ll trust in the Lord to deliver you from temptation and sin.
If you’ve never done so, you must ask God to change your heart through the new birth. Christianity is primarily a matter of your heart before God, not of rituals or keeping rules. As you walk openly before the Lord, letting His light shine into the dark places of your heart, you will grow in grace. If you’re hiding some secret sin from others, remember, you aren’t hiding it from the Lord. But you won’t gain the victory over it until you expose it to Him. Until then, you’re just playing games with yourself, because God knows the true condition of your heart.
So, we need to be careful because there is such a thing as superficial faith that does not result in salvation. Saving faith begins with accepting God’s evaluation of us on the heart level.
Many people make a decision to follow Christ, but that decision is not an indicator of the new birth unless it springs from the right motive, namely, a desire to have our sins forgiven through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. R. V. G. Tasker (The Gospel According to St. John [IVP/Eerdmans], p. 65) wrote, “[Christ] regarded all belief in Him as superficial which does not have as its most essential elements the consciousness of the need for forgiveness and the conviction that He alone is the Mediator of that forgiveness.”
So, what does it mean for Jesus to believe in you, or to entrust Himself to you? It has to do with a personal relationship. Trust is at the heart of all relationships. If you don’t trust someone, you will not be close to him. You will keep him at arm’s length, or just cut off all contact. To entrust yourself to someone, you must trust him. For Jesus to entrust Himself to you, He must trust you.
But how can He do that in light of our propensity to sin? First, there has to be the new birth where He imparts new life to us through the Holy Spirit. Only then is there anything in us worth trusting. Jesus did not entrust Himself to these superficial believers because He did not see their faith as the work of God stemming from the new birth.
Then, we need to walk in obedience to Him. In John 14:21, Jesus states, “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” He adds (14:23), “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” The Lord entrusts Himself to those who obey Him and it is only those who have been born again who are able to obey Him from the heart (Rom. 6:17).
Some of the scariest verses in the New Testament are Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:21-23: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’” These people professed faith in Jesus. They called Him “Lord.” They were even involved in impressive ministries. But Jesus didn’t know them personally. Their disobedience showed that although they “believed” in Jesus, He didn’t believe in them. At the final judgment, Christ’s evaluation of us will be the determinative factor.
My aim in this message is, I hope, the same as John’s aim for including these verses in his Gospel: to get us all to believe in Jesus in such a way that He believes in us. Or, in Paul’s words (2 Cor. 13:5), “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?”
Some people were touring a mint where coins are made. In the smelting area, there were caldrons of molten metal. The tour guide said that if a person dips his hand into water, someone could then pour the molten metal over his hand and he would not be injured or feel any pain. He asked a couple if they would like to prove the truthfulness of what he just said.
The husband quickly replied, “No, thanks, I’ll take your word for it.” But the wife said eagerly, “Sure, I’ll give it a try.” Putting her words into action, she thrust her hand into a bucket of water and then held it out as the molten metal was poured over it. The hot liquid rolled off harmlessly, just as the guide had said it would. He then turned to the husband and said, “Sir, you claimed to believe what I said. But your wife truly trusted.” (Adapted from, “Our Daily Bread,” 12/84.)
You don’t want to stand before the Lord and hear Him say, “Your faith was only superficial; I never entrusted Myself to you.” Genuine saving faith means having a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, trusting Him as the One who saves you from your sins.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
June 2, 2013
One of the greatest lies that Satan has foisted on the human race is that religion can save you. By “religion,” I mean adherence to the beliefs and practices of a religion in the hope that your performance will gain you right standing with God. Whether it is Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, or even Christianity, there have always been millions who mistakenly thought that obedience to their religion would earn them eternal life.
The four Gospels make it clear that the most difficult people to reach with the gospel are not the notoriously wicked, but rather the outwardly religious. There are numerous accounts of corrupt tax collectors and immoral people coming to salvation. They knew that they were sinners and that they could not save themselves. But it was the religious crowd that opposed Jesus and eventually crucified Him. They were blind to their own sins of pride and self-righteousness. Their religion served not to save them, but to condemn them.
But Jesus Christ did not come to promote religion. He did not flatter those who were religious by saying that He was glad to see their religious activities and that He, too, was a religious person. When the religious leaders complained that Jesus socialized with sinners, He replied (Luke 5:31-32), “It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” He was not saying that some are righteous enough to get into heaven by their own good deeds. Rather, by the “righteous,” He meant the self-righteous. Their pride blinded them to their sin and kept them from coming to Jesus for forgiveness and salvation.
In our last study, we looked at John 2:23-25, where many believed in Jesus as they saw the signs (miracles) that He was doing, but Jesus didn’t believe in them, because He could see the true condition of their hearts. As I explained, those verses serve as an introduction to the story of Jesus and Nicodemus. John connects the stories by using the word “man” (or “men”). John says (2:24) that Jesus “knew all men,” and then adds (2:25), “and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.” Remember, there were no chapter breaks in the original text, so the next verse (3:1) continues, “Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus….” There is also a connection between the people who observed Jesus’ signs (2:23) and Nicodemus’ opening statement to Jesus (3:2), “no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” A further connection is that Jesus’ knowing all men and what was in man is evident in His reply to Nicodemus. Jesus could see beneath Nicodemus’ religious veneer. He knew that Nicodemus’ religion could not save him. He needed the new birth. This encounter teaches us that…
Religion can’t save you because to enter God’s eternal kingdom you need the new birth by the Holy Spirit.
The story of Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus runs from 3:1-21, but somewhere after 3:12, Nicodemus fades out as John records Jesus’ words about the Son of Man being lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness. Probably the direct words of Jesus fade away after 3:15 and John’s commentary runs from 3:16-21. Today we can only look at 3:1-7.
John begins by telling us that Nicodemus was a Pharisee and adds that he was a ruler of the Jews. This means that he belonged to the Sanhedrin, the ruling council in Jerusalem that consisted of 71 members from the Pharisees and Sadducees. The Sadducees were almost all from the aristocracy and were more political than religious. They held to some heretical religious beliefs. The Pharisees were largely middle class businessmen who were concerned about following the Jewish law and had separated themselves (the word Pharisee probably comes from a word meaning to separate) from the common people by their strict adherence to their many regulations and rules (Donald Hagner, The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible [Zondervan], ed. By Merrill C. Tenney, 4:747). Nicodemus was apparently a leading Pharisee, because Jesus calls him “the teacher of Israel” (3:10). He must have been a recognized religious authority.
John reports that Nicodemus came to Jesus by night. There have been many speculations about why he did this. Perhaps the most likely is that he was afraid of what the other members of the council would think of him. He seems to have been a rather timid man (John 7:50-52; 19:39). Some suggest that since most of John’s references to “night” have a spiritual symbolism, he may be hinting at Nicodemus’ spiritual condition. Although he was a religious leader, he was in spiritual darkness (D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 186).
Nicodemus seems to have been impressed by Jesus and the signs which He was doing. For a leader of the Sanhedrin to come to the quarters of an uneducated Galilean carpenter, address Him as “Rabbi,” and acknowledge that He had come from God was no small matter. Perhaps Nicodemus uses the plural “we” to refer to a few of his colleagues, but he may also be hiding behind them a bit so as not to signal too much interest on his own part (ibid., p. 187). But in spite of his complimentary greetings, Nicodemus’ view of Jesus fell far short of acknowledging Him as the Christ, the Son of God, which is necessary to receive eternal life (20:31).
The basic error of the Pharisees was to externalize religion (William Hendriksen, (John [Baker], 1:131). They invented all sorts of manmade regulations to add to the Law of Moses and took pride in their observance of them. Jesus blasted them for their hypocrisy as they fastidiously cleaned the outside of their cups and dishes, but neglected to deal with the sin in their hearts (Matt. 23:25-28).
As we saw in John 2:23-25, the important thing with the Lord is what is in our hearts. He sees and judges “the thoughts and intentions of our hearts” (Heb. 4:12-13). Later, when the Pharisees questioned Jesus about why His disciples did not wash their hands according to their traditions, He blasted them (Mark 7:6-8):
“Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me. But in vain do they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’ Neglecting the commandment of God, you hold to the tradition of men.”
Those who are into religion deceive themselves by thinking that their outward rituals and rules will impress God, while at the same time they dodge dealing with the sin that is in their hearts. But, of course, God sees right through it all. He requires “truth in the innermost being” (Ps. 51:6). So religion cannot gain anyone access to heaven because it only deals with external matters. No amount of rule-keeping or adherence to religious rituals can reconcile a sinner to the holy God.
You would think that Jesus would be elated at the prospect of winning a member of the Sanhedrin as one of His followers. This guy could be a key disciple! Think of his influence! Think of how his testimony would impress the other religious leaders, not to mention the common people. But Jesus showed no excitement, no deference, and no eager politeness. There was not even any attempt at persuasiveness or accommodation. Jesus was no respecter of persons. Rather, He cut to the quick by telling Nicodemus:
John 3:3: “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’” Jesus “answered,” but Nicodemus hadn’t asked a question! B. F. Westcott (cited by Andreas Kostenberger, John [Baker], p. 121) remarked, “The Lord answered not his words, but his thoughts.” Jesus knew what was in Nicodemus’ heart and answered him accordingly.
Three times (3:3, 5, 11) in this interview Jesus uses the phrase, “Truly, truly.” It transliterates the Aramaic, “Amen,” which came from a verb meaning “to confirm.” It was used to give assent to the words uttered by another, as we still use it today. Jesus used the phrase to give added significance and attention to what follows. Leon Morris explains (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 169), “It marks the words as uttered before God, who is thus invited to bring them to pass.”
The point that Jesus wanted to hammer home to Nicodemus is, “You don’t need further instruction in religion. You need to be born again! You need to see yourself as a sinner who needs more than moral or religious improvement. You need nothing less than new life from God!” As Jesus will go on to say, in effect (3:14-16), “You need to see Me as more than a religious teacher. You need to see Me as your Savior, lifted up on the cross to bring salvation to sinners.” Morris puts it (p. 212), “In one sentence He sweeps away all that Nicodemus stood for, and demands that he be re-made by the power of God.”
“Born again” is ambiguous and may also mean “born from above.” Both are true and John may intend that we understand both meanings. William Barclay (The Gospel of John [Westminster], 1:120) captures both meanings with “reborn from above.” The idea is that just as we were born physically, so we need to be born spiritually. Such a birth requires the power of God. Nicodemus, as a Jew and a Pharisee, would have been proud of the fact that he was not a Gentile, but had been born as a Jew. But Jesus shows him that being a Jew, even a religious Jew, is not enough. He needed a new birth as a spiritual child of God (John 1:12-13).
Jesus says (3:3) that we must be born again to “see the kingdom of God.” These verses (3:3, 5) are the only reference to the kingdom in John (except 18:36, with Pilate; 6:15, “king”). It’s a major theme in the Synoptic Gospels. Here it refers to the Messianic kingdom for which all Jews hoped. Ed Blum explains (The Bible Knowledge Commentary, ed. by John F. Walvoord & Roy Zuck [Victor Books], 2:281), “The kingdom is the sphere or realm of God’s authority and blessing which is now invisible but will be manifested on earth (Matt. 6:10).” To see the kingdom (3:3) is basically equal to entering the kingdom (3:5), with the slight difference that “see” implies spiritual perception (1 Cor. 2:14). Carson (p. 188) explains, “To a Jew with the background and convictions of Nicodemus, ‘to see the kingdom of God’ was to participate in the kingdom at the end of the age, to experience eternal, resurrection life.”
To be a proper subject in God’s kingdom, you have to be subject to the King, and that subjection begins here and now, not in the distant future. The problem is, those who are in the flesh are by nature hostile toward God and not able to subject themselves to God. As Paul explains (Rom. 8:6-8), “For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” John Calvin (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 108) infers that since our whole nature needs the new birth, there is nothing in us that is not sinful. Corruption has spread throughout.
Thus all the religion in the world cannot resolve our basic problem of being alienated from God, because religion is based on human works that stem from the flesh and feed our pride. To be subject to the King, we need the new birth that gives us a new nature that delights in obedience to God from the heart (Rom. 6:17-18). We need a radical transformation, not just some behavior modification. We need something that the natural man cannot produce. We need nothing less than to be reborn from above.
Nicodemus was amazed (3:7) at Jesus’ radical statement that he needed to be born again. He replies (3:4), “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” It’s difficult to understand what Nicodemus meant by this question. Obviously, he did not believe that Jesus was suggesting that a person go back to the womb and be reborn physically. John MacArthur (The Gospel According to Jesus [Zondervan], p. 40) thinks that Nicodemus was really saying, “I can’t start all over. It’s too late. I’ve gone too far in my religious system to start over. There’s no hope for me if I must begin from the beginning.” He says that Jesus was demanding that Nicodemus forsake everything he stood for, and Nicodemus knew it.
That may be, but I think D. A. Carson may be more on target when he suggests that Nicodemus did not understand what Jesus was talking about at all. His amazement (3:7) at Jesus’ words that he must be born again may indicate a degree of bewilderment. In verse 12 Jesus indicts him for not believing what He has just told him. So Carson says that Nicodemus’ answer reflects incredulousness, which prompted him to answer with a crassly literalistic interpretation of what Jesus said to express a degree of scorn. R. C. Sproul (John [Reformation Trust], p. 38) goes so far as to suggest that Nicodemus was insulting Jesus by his reply: “What are you talking about? Are you suggesting that a man has to enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born? What a ridiculous idea that is.” So Jesus (in verse 5) further explains verse 3:
John 3:5-7: Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’”
The phrase, “born of water and the Spirit,” has been subject to numerous interpretations. I used to think that “born of water” referred to physical birth, so that Jesus was responding to Nicodemus’ question in verse 4, “Your physical birth as a Jew, Nicodemus, is not enough. You must also be born spiritually.” The problem with that view is that Nicodemus probably would not have understood “water” in this way. And, the Greek construction points to one birth, not two. “Water and the Spirit” (3:5) is the equivalent of being born “from above” (3:3; see Carson, p. 191).
Some think that it refers to Christian baptism. But Christian baptism didn’t exist at that point. Jesus was trying to explain things to Nicodemus, not confuse him with a doctrine which he knew nothing about. Also, to teach that sprinkling water on an infant causes the new birth would be to say that religion saves a person, which is the opposite of what is being said here!
Some say it refers to John the Baptist’s baptism. This is a possible interpretation if Jesus was referring to what John’s baptism signified, namely, repentance from his sins. In addition to the repentance of John’s baptism, a person must receive what John predicted of Messiah, that He would baptize both with water and with the Holy Spirit (1:33). But that seems like a subtle meaning that Nicodemus may easily have missed.
Others argue that “water” represents the Word of God (John 15:3; Eph. 5:25; James 1:18; 1 Pet. 1:22-25). But, would Nicodemus have understood it in this way?
Others say that “water” is a symbol for the Holy Spirit, so that both terms mean the same thing. This is Calvin’s view (p. 111): “By water, therefore, is meant nothing more than the inward purification and invigoration which is produced by the Holy Spirit.” He would translate and as, that is, which is sometimes the meaning.
Since Jesus reproaches Nicodemus for not understanding these things (3:10), He was probably referring to the promise of Ezekiel 36:25-27:
Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.
Ezekiel predicted a time when God would cleanse His people from their sins and give them a new heart and new spirit and put His Spirit within them so that they would walk in obedience to His Word. That promise was fulfilled in Jesus when He ratified the New Covenant with His blood and sent the Holy Spirit to dwell in all that believe in Him. Nicodemus, who knew the Old Testament, should have connected Ezekiel’s prophecy with Jesus’ words (3:3), “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Jesus is saying that there is a fundamental divide between the physical and the spiritual (3:6). Being born physically as a Jew, or in our terms, being born into a Christian family, is not enough. There must be a second birth that cleanses from sin and creates new life through the power of the Holy Spirit. As Carson puts it (p. 197), “What is in view is a new nature, not turning over a new leaf.”
Just as physical birth happens at a point in time, so with spiritual birth. But just as we don’t remember our physical birth, so we may not remember or be able to pinpoint the time of our spiritual birth. The way we can know that we’re born again is that we observe signs of new life in our hearts: faith in Christ and His promise of eternal life; love for God; a new desire for the things of God; thankfulness to God for His abundant mercy in Christ; hunger for God’s Word; love for God’s people and for all people; mourning of and hatred of sin and a desire for holiness. In short, you will have new desires for God that you did not have before the new birth. It is not that you will never desire again to sin, but rather that the new direction of your life will be marked by these new desires that come from the new birth.
Years ago, Bishop John Taylor Smith, a former chaplain general of the British army, was preaching in a large cathedral on the text, “You must be born again.” He said, “My dear people, do not substitute anything for the new birth. You may be a member of a church … but church membership is not new birth, and ‘except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’” The rector was sitting on his left. Pointing to him he said, “You may be a clergyman like my friend the rector here and not be born again, and ‘except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’” On his right sat the archdeacon. Pointing at him, he continued, “You might even be an archdeacon like my friend here and still not be born again, but ‘except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’” You might even be a bishop like myself and not be born again, but ‘except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’”
Several days later he received a letter from the archdeacon which read, in part, “My dear Bishop: You have found me out. I have been a clergyman for over 30 years, but I have never known anything of the joy that Christians speak of. I never could understand it…. But when you pointed at me and said that a person could be an archdeacon and not be born again, I understood what the trouble was. Would you please come and talk with me?” Of course, Bishop Smith did talk with him and the archdeacon responded to Christ’s call to salvation (H. A. Ironside, Illustrations of Biblical Truth [Moody Press], pp. 49-50).
What about you? You may be religious, but religion can’t save you. You must be born again. Don’t settle for anything less. Cry out to God that He would cause you to be born again (1 Pet. 1:3).
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
June 9, 2013
It would be a tragedy to spend your life studying the Bible and yet end up perishing on judgment day. What a waste to be a Bible scholar and yet miss the central message of the Bible! James Boice (Does Inerrancy Matter? [International Council on Biblical Inerrancy], p. 9) told of a gathering of ministers where an evangelical pastor argued a point based on the Bible’s teaching. He referred to Jesus’ words and to His promise to return.
When he had finished, a professor from a leading Protestant seminary stood up to counter what the pastor had said. He said, “You cannot appeal to the teaching of Jesus Christ, because we do not know what Jesus really taught. The Gospels are contradictory at this point. Each of them has been written to correct the others. So far as Christ’s return is concerned, we have simply got to get it into our heads that Jesus is never coming back and that all things are going to continue on as they have from the beginning.”
Dr. Boice added that it would be nice to think that such views are held only by a few liberals. But he cited a survey of over 7,400 clergymen in five major denominations. One question was, “Do you believe the Bible to be the inspired Word of God?” This was not asking whether they believed the Bible to be without any error, but rather only if they believed the Bible to be inspired by God in some undefined sense. But in spite of the level at which the question was asked, 82% of the Methodists, 89% of the Episcopalians, 81% of the United Presbyterians, 57% of the Lutherans, and 57% of the Baptists answered, “No”! Dr. Boice wrote that booklet in 1979. I would guess that things have not improved much, if at all, in the three postmodern decades since then.
In our text, Jesus is talking with a leading religious teacher in Israel (Jesus calls him “the teacher of Israel in 3:10) who does not understand the basics of spiritual truth. Nicodemus had devoted his life to the study of the Scriptures, and yet he did not understand Jesus’ words (3:3), “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” To gain entrance to God’s eternal kingdom Nicodemus was counting on the fact that he had been born as a Jew and that he was not just an average Jew, but a Pharisee. But Jesus yanked the rug out from under his feet and said, in effect: “Your natural birth, your religious devotion, and your religious studies mean absolutely nothing. You must be born again!”
The main reason you need the new birth is so that you can see and enter God’s eternal kingdom and avoid His judgment (3:3, 5). Without the new birth you’re spiritually dead and cut off from God. If you die without the new birth, you will perish (3:16, 36). But the verses that we are considering today also teach that …
You need the new birth so that you can understand and respond to spiritual truth.
Nicodemus had studied the Old Testament and yet he didn’t get what Jesus was saying because he was not born again. Most scholars agree that by the time of Jesus’ crucifixion, Nicodemus had come to faith, as evidenced in his courage in helping with the burial of Jesus (19:38-42). But at this point, he had not been born again and so he was spiritually confused, in spite of his years of religious studies and devotion.
Perhaps the apostle Paul (a former Pharisee) had talked with Nicodemus or knew about this story when he wrote (1 Cor. 2:14), “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.” We can learn four things:
John 3:6: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” Jesus draws a sharp line between physical birth and spiritual birth. By “flesh,” He is referring to human nature or the natural man. As we saw in Romans 5:12-19, because of Adam’s sin, we’re all born in sin, separated from God, and unable to submit to God (Rom. 8:6-8). Cute as they are, little babies are not born spiritually neutral, much less with an inclination toward God. We’re all born alienated from God and so we need God’s Spirit to impart spiritual life to us so that we can become God’s children. As John 1:12-13 says, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
So there is this divide between what is born of the flesh and what is born of the Spirit. As Jesus says (John 6:63), “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”
“O Lord,” muttered Alexander Pope one day, “make me a better man!” His spiritually-enlightened servant replied, “It would be easier to make you a new man!” (In A Frank Boreham Treasury, compiled by Peter Gunther [Moody Press], p. 67.) God must intervene to give new life. Otherwise, all you have is the flesh trying to improve itself. But the flesh can never give itself new life that comes only from God. Thus,
John 3:7: “Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’” “Must” is a strong word of necessity. It’s not an option. Genuine Christianity is, as Puritan Henry Scougal titled his book, nothing less than The Life of God in the Soul of Man [Sprinkle Publications]. Scougal wrote that book in 1677 when he was 27; he died of tuberculosis when he was 28.
In the early 1700’s, a 21-year-old Oxford student realized that his debauched, wicked life needed to be reformed. He resolved to change. He denied himself every luxury; he wore ragged clothes; he ate no foods except those that were repugnant to him; he fasted twice a week; he gave his money to the poor; and he spent whole nights in prayer, lying prostrate on the cold stones or the wet grass. But he felt like he was putting a coat of paint on rotten wood. His outward deeds only hid his inward corruption.
Then a college friend, Charles Wesley, gave that struggling young man, George Whitefield, a copy of Scougal’s book. Whitefield read Scougal’s book with amazement and delight. It told him that true Christianity is the union of the soul with God. It is Christ formed in us. Whitefield said (In A Frank Boreham Treasury, p. 66),
When I read this, a ray of divine light instantaneously darted in upon my soul; and, from that moment, but not till then, did I know that I must become a new creature. After having undergone innumerable buffetings by day and night, God was pleased at length to remove my heavy load and to enable me, by a living faith, to lay hold on His dear Son. And oh! with what joy—joy unspeakable and full of glory—was I filled when the weight of sin left me and an abiding sense of the pardoning love of God broke in upon my disconsolate soul!
Whitefield’s favorite Scripture became John 3:3 (KJV), “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” He went on to preach more than 18,000 sermons, often on that text, sometimes to outdoor crowds of over 20,000 people (with no microphone!). He made many trips to America and was used greatly in the First Great Awakening. In one of his final sermons, he said (ibid., p. 70), “I am now fifty-five years of age and I tell you that I am more than ever convinced that the truth of the new birth is a revelation from God Himself, and that without it you can never be saved by Jesus Christ.”
A friend asked him one day, “Why do you so often preach on Ye must be born again?”
“Because,” replied Whitefield solemnly, looking full into the face of the questioner, “because ye must be born again!”
How can a person know if he or she has been born again?
John 3:8: “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Jesus and Nicodemus may have been sitting on the rooftop to catch the cool evening breezes. Perhaps as they felt the wind blow gently, Jesus said, “Did you feel that, Nicodemus? You can’t see the wind, you can’t control it, and you can’t understand it. It goes where it pleases. But you can observe its effects. See the curtains moving and the leaves rustling? So it is with the Holy Spirit. You can’t control Him, because He works according to His sovereign will. You can’t understand Him. But you can see His effects when He brings the new birth to a soul. The changes aren’t external, like wearing certain garments or phylacteries. Rather, it’s an internal change brought about by new life within. Where the Spirit works, the effects are plain to see.”
What are the effects of the new birth? John wrote his first epistle to show the early church some genuine marks of salvation, so that they could be on guard against many false teachers. Here’s what he says:
1 John: 2:29: “If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him.”
1 John 3:9: “No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.”
1 John 3:14: “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death.”
1 John 4:7: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.”
1 John 5:1: “Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him.”
1 John 5:4: “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.”
1 John 5:18: “We know that no one who is born of God sins; but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him.”
John is not referring to a sinless life, but to a life that sins less. In other words, all whom the Spirit saves, He sanctifies. It takes a lifetime, but they progressively grow in holiness, without which no one will see the Lord (Heb. 12:14). Those born of the Spirit develop the fruit of the Spirit as they learn to walk in the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23).
J. C. Ryle, a 19th century Anglican Bishop, observed the thousands of nominal cultural “Christians” in his day. He asked (A New Birth [Old Paths Gospel Press], p. 88),
What do they like best, when they have a choice? What do they enjoy most, when they can have their own way? Observe the manner in which they spend their Sundays. Mark how little delight they seem to feel in the Bible and prayer. Take notice of the low and earthly notions of pleasure and happiness, which everywhere prevail ….
Then he asks his readers to ponder this question: “What would these people do in heaven?” In other words, if you don’t delight yourself in God now, you would not know what to do with yourself in heaven!
Jesus has shown Nicodemus that there is a fundamental divide between the physical and the spiritual. Thus it is absolutely essential that you experience the new birth. Though you may not understand exactly how it happens, when it happens you can see the effects of the new life in the one who has been born again.
Jesus makes two main points here:
John 3:9-10: “Nicodemus said to Him, ‘How can these things be?’ Jesus answered and said to him, ‘Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?’” Several commentators prefer the translation, “How can these things happen?” For years, Nicodemus had taught others that the way into God’s kingdom was to keep the commandments and the traditions of the elders. But now Jesus is telling him that this is the wrong approach. A person needs nothing less than new life imparted by the Spirit of God.
Jesus’ retort to Nicodemus makes it clear that he should have known these things from the Scriptures. As we saw last week when we considered Jesus’ meaning for “water” in 3:5, He was probably referring to Ezekiel 36:26-27: “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.” In Ezekiel 37, the prophet has the vision of the dry bones taking on flesh and coming to life when God’s Spirit breathes upon them. God says (37:14), “I will put My Spirit within you and you will come to life….”
Also, in Joel 2:28-29 (which Peter cited on the Day of Pentecost, Acts 2:17ff.), the Lord says, “It will come about after this that I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; and your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.” The prophet Isaiah often prophesied of the time when God would pour out His Spirit (11:2; 32:15; 44:3 59:21).
So Nicodemus should not have been amazed at Jesus’ teaching. But the point is, apart from having God’s Spirit dwelling in you through the new birth, you can study the Bible for years in the original languages and still miss the main point of the Bible. As Jesus later rebuked the religious leaders (John 5:39-40): “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.” Jesus then makes a second point:
John 3:11-13: “Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man.” For the third time, Jesus introduces his statement with, “Truly, truly.” He is emphasizing the fact that His testimony is absolutely reliable and true. If you reject what Jesus is saying about your need for the new birth, you’re arrogantly asserting that you know more about spiritual things than He does, even though He came down from heaven and knows what He’s talking about.
But that was precisely the problem with the Jewish leaders: Jesus’ testimony about God and the only way to have sins forgiven and get eternal life was an affront to their religious pride. They did not see themselves as sinners who needed a Savior (John 8:33, 41; 9:34). And so they rejected the true testimony of the only One who has come from heaven to earth to tell us how to be right with God.
There are a couple of difficulties to try to resolve in these verses. First, why does Jesus shift from the first person singular (“I say to you”) to the plural (“we speak of what we know…”)? Probably it was because in Jewish thought, true testimony is established by two or three witnesses. In John 5:31, Jesus tells the Jews, “If I alone testify about Myself, My testimony is not true.” He meant that it would not be admissible as legal evidence. But He goes on to say that the Father testifies of Him, John the Baptist had testified of Him, Jesus’ works testified of Him, and the Scriptures testified of Him. Here in John 3, Jesus may have been referring to the witness of John the Baptist or of the Father. But since He is rebuking Nicodemus for not knowing these things, I think that He is referring to the witness of the Old Testament prophets.
A second difficulty is, what does Jesus mean by “earthly things” and “heavenly things” (3:12)? I think that Calvin is on target when he says that Jesus is referring to His manner of teaching. He used two earthly illustrations, birth and the wind, to explain basic spiritual truth about receiving new life from God. If Nicodemus couldn’t understand these simple illustrations, how would he ever be able to understand if Jesus explained the Trinity or His incarnation or His substitutionary death for sinners?
A third difficulty is how do we read and understand verse 13: “No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man”? Some translations accept a textual variant that adds to “the Son of Man” the phrase, “who is in heaven.” Some scholars argue that it was in the original text because it is a difficult reading that no later scribe would have added. They contend that a later scribe may have dropped it to avoid the suggestion that Jesus was at that moment in heaven. But the majority of scholars think that a later scribe may have added it to reflect later Christological development (Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament [United Bible Societies], pp. 174-175). It seems unlikely to me that Jesus would have told Nicodemus that He was currently in heaven as He spoke to him on earth.
By His words in verse 13 Jesus is asserting that no one besides Him has ever ascended into heaven to be able to report heavenly truth on earth. He alone has come down from heaven. By the “Son of Man,” He is saying that He is the one Daniel prophesied of in Daniel 7:13-14, whom he saw in heaven with the Ancient of Days. Thus Jesus uniquely understands and can reveal heavenly mysteries. To reject Jesus’ witness is to reject God’s primary source for spiritual truth. We have that witness in the entire Bible, which tells us about Christ and points us to Him (Luke 24:27, 44).
The late Bible teacher, H. A. Ironside, told of visiting a godly Irishman, Andrew Fraser, who had come to California to recover from tuberculosis. The old man could barely speak because his lungs were almost gone. But he opened his worn Bible and, until his strength was gone, he simply, sweetly opened up truth after truth in a way that Ironside had never heard before. Before he knew it, Ironside had tears running down his cheeks. He asked Fraser, “Where did you get all these things? Could you tell me where I could find a book that would open them up to me? Did you learn these things in some seminary or college?”
Fraser answered, “My dear young man, I learned these things on my knees on the mud floor of a little sod cottage in the north of Ireland. There with my Bible open before me, I used to kneel for hours at a time, and ask the Spirit of God to reveal Christ to my soul and to open the Word to my heart. He taught me more on my knees on that mud floor than I ever could have learned in all the seminaries or colleges in the world.” (H. A. Ironside, In the Heavenlies [Loizeaux Brothers], pp. 86-87.)
That’s a major reason why you need the new birth. When God’s Spirit takes up residence in your heart, He will open up to you the sweet truths about Jesus as you read and study the Word in prayerful dependence on Him. As David said (Ps. 19:10), these truths are more desirable than gold and sweeter than honey to your soul.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
June 16, 2013
If I were to compare the Prophet Mohammed to a snake, Muslims who heard of it would be out to kill me for blasphemy. It would be an insult to their revered Prophet. The same would be true if I said it of any religious leader. And so it sounds like blasphemy to say that Jesus is like a snake—except for the fact that Jesus Himself drew that comparison!
At the end of Jesus’ interview with Nicodemus (most scholars think that Jesus’ words to Nicodemus end at 3:15 and 3:16-21 are John’s words), Jesus answers Nicodemus’ question (3:9), “How can these things be?” Or, “How can these things happen?” Nicodemus doesn’t understand how the new birth can happen or how it can gain a person entrance into God’s eternal kingdom. So Jesus tells Nicodemus (3:14-15), “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.”
Jesus is saying that the Spirit of God cannot just brush away sin when He grants the new birth. For sin to be dealt with, God’s justice must be satisfied. The Son of Man must be lifted up to satisfy God’s wrath on behalf of sinners who believe in Him.
The background for these verses is Numbers 21:4-9. Edom had denied Israel permission to cross its land on their way to Canaan (Num. 20:14-21). God told Moses not to fight against Edom (Deut. 2:4-5). So, Moses turned the people southeast (the Promised Land was northwest) to make a long, difficult journey around the land of Edom.
At this point, the Israelites grew impatient. They had just seen a victory over some Canaanites (Num. 21:1-3). Why couldn’t they march through Edom and kill any Edomites that opposed them? So as they turned southeast, they grumbled against God and Moses (Num. 21:5), “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this miserable food.” As a result of their grumbling and despising God’s gracious provision of manna and His taking care of them in the wilderness all these years, the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people as judgment, so that many died. I understand the “fiery” serpents to be snakes whose bite burned like fire before you died.
This time the people acknowledged their sin, came to Moses and asked him to pray for a remedy. People were dying. They needed relief. God told Moses to make a bronze serpent and put it on a pole. Everyone in Israel that had been bitten would live if they would look to the serpent.
You have to admit, that’s a strange story! After all, one of God’s Ten Commandments was that His people should not make any graven images. Didn’t Moses remember how Aaron had fashioned the golden calf and the awful judgment that came from that terrible episode? These people knew the story of the detested snake in the garden that had tempted Eve and was at the root of all evil. But now God commands Moses to make an image of a snake and put it on a pole. Some must have thought, “Did God really command Moses to make a bronze snake? Had Moses lost it? What was he thinking? Of all the dumb ideas, this one takes the cake!”
But Jesus took that strange story and applied it to Himself, telling Nicodemus …
Just as those who looked in faith to the serpent in the wilderness were healed, so those who look in faith to the lifted up Son of Man will have eternal life.
As we think about how Jesus was like this snake in the wilderness, we can learn five things about why we need the new birth and how Jesus provides it for us.
The people in the wilderness were dying because of their sin. They did not deserve to live, because they had rebelled terribly against God and His goodness toward them. They had a track record of 40 years of grumbling in spite of God’s gracious faithfulness. He had delivered them from Pharaoh’s army. He had provided water and protection in that barren desert. He had given them food every morning with the manna. But in spite of God’s abundant goodness, they grumbled at Him about their circumstances. And so He sent these deadly snakes among them as a judgment because of their sin.
Have you ever grumbled against God about your circumstances? Maybe right now you aren’t happy about some difficult things in your life. Perhaps you’re facing overwhelming financial problems. Maybe you’re battling a health problem. Perhaps you’re lonely and praying for a mate, but there aren’t any prospects on the horizon. Or, you may be complaining about the mate that you have! Perhaps there are issues with your children or parents that grate on you every day. The list could go on and on.
It’s proper to bring these things to the Lord in prayer and even, like the psalmist, to complain to the Lord in prayer—as long as you’re careful to acknowledge His goodness, give Him thanks, and submit to His sovereign hand. But if in your complaint, you rebel against Him and take charge of things yourself, at that point your complaining becomes sin.
But whether it’s grumbling against God or having other gods before Him or failing to love others or pride or lust or greed or selfishness, we’ve all sinned against God more times than we can count. As Paul argues (Rom. 3:10), “There is none righteous, not even one.” And (Rom. 6:23), “The wages of sin is death.”
As the story of Nicodemus illustrates, even good, religiously zealous people are under the curse of sin and death. Nicodemus thought that his Pharisaic righteousness would get him into the kingdom of God. But Jesus shocked him by saying (3:3), “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Why did a good, religious man like Nicodemus need the new birth? Weren’t his good works enough to get him into the kingdom? No, he was a sinner. He needed a Savior. He needed the new birth. His good deeds were no cure for the snake bite of sin.
This story brings out a great contrast between religion and Christianity. Religion either ignores human sin and says that God is so loving that He just overlooks our sin; or, it says that we can pay for our sins through good works or penance. But biblical Christianity recognizes that God cannot overlook sin or He would not be holy and just. And, we cannot pay for our own sins, because our good deeds are filthy rags in God’s sight. Our good deeds cannot erase the penalty for our sins, which is the second death.
The snake-bitten people could not do anything to save themselves. They were dropping like flies. God had to provide a way for them to be healed or they all would die. When they confessed their sin and asked Moses to intercede for them, God provided this strange remedy: Make a bronze snake, put it on a pole, and whoever looks at it will live. Even so, we’re all under the condemnation of eternal death because of our sin. No human remedy can help. God graciously provided the way of salvation for us. He sent His own Son to be like that snake, lifted up in the wilderness.
Note several things about this remedy of the snake and how it compares to the cross of Jesus Christ. First, it’s a supernatural remedy. It came from God. Moses didn’t say, “Give me a few days to think about this.” After consulting with the smartest leaders in Israel, he announced, “We’ve got it, people! I just made this bronze snake that’s up on that pole. Whoever looks at it will live!” Everyone would have thought that he was nuts!
Even so, Paul wrote (1 Cor. 1:18), “For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” The cross is God’s remedy. It didn’t come from the world’s most brilliant philosophers or religious geniuses. It came from God, who devised His plan of salvation before the foundation of the world.
Also, the snake on the pole was a sufficient remedy. Moses didn’t say, “Look at the snake, go home and take two aspirin, and you’ll feel better in the morning!” He didn’t say, “Look at the snake, rub some of this special oil that I’ll sell you on your wound, and you’ll be cured. We’re offering a special discount if you buy it today!” He didn’t say, “Bring your own offerings to the pole and offer them up to the snake.” There was nothing to add to it. God would heal you if you didn’t do anything except to look at that bronze snake.
In the same way, the cross of Christ is sufficient for the salvation of the worst of sinners. You don’t have to add anything to it. You don’t have to give money to the church. You don’t need to do penance to help pay for your sins. You don’t have to join the church. You don’t need to add your good works to what Christ has done. Jesus paid it all! There’s nothing for you to do, except to look unto Him in faith and He will save you.
The snake was also a sure remedy. Everyone who looked was cured on the spot. No one who looked died. It was a perfect, sure-fire cure for everyone who looked.
Even so, Jesus saves every sinner who believes in Him. As He says (John 3:15), “Whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.” There aren’t any cases too difficult for God! Maybe you’re a notorious sinner. So was Paul! So was Matthew, the tax-collector! So was the woman at the well! So was the Gerasene demoniac! So was the thief on the cross! The Bible is filled with terrible sinners who looked to Jesus and were saved. If you will believe in Jesus, the remedy is 100-percent effective. He says (John 6:37b), “The one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.”
Also, this snake was a simple remedy. As I said, it was sufficient so that there was nothing else needed. Its sufficiency made it extremely simple. You didn’t have to crawl on your hands and knees over broken glass to go and look at the snake. You didn’t need to learn a difficult mantra that you had to recite perfectly as you looked at the snake. You didn’t need to take special classes to learn how to fight the snakes. No, all you had to do was to look and live. And all you need to do is believe in Jesus as the One who paid the penalty for your sin and you will have eternal life.
Also, this snake was a self-effacing remedy. You couldn’t take any credit for your cure. You couldn’t boast that you had fasted for days or deprived yourself of anything or done any good works or brought any offerings to the snake. You just needed to realize that you couldn’t cure yourself. You were doomed if God didn’t intervene. That was humbling to your pride!
Ichabod Spencer, a 19th century Brooklyn pastor, was gifted in evangelism. In A Pastor’s Sketches ([Solid Ground Christian Books], 1:152), he tells how he was going down a line of about 70 people who wanted to talk with him about salvation. He came to one young man and asked him, “What is the state of your feelings on the subject of your salvation?” The man replied, “I feel that I have a very wicked heart.” Spencer perceived, though, that the young man had not gone deep enough in feeling convicted of his sin. So he replied, “It is a great deal more wicked than you think,” and went on to the next person.
A few days later the young man came to him to tell him that he had found peace with God through faith in Christ. But he said that at first he was very angry at Spencer for his remark. He thought that he had been cruel. He felt that he didn’t care whether he was ever saved or not. But he couldn’t get his comment out of his mind. He finally realized that even though he thought his conviction of sin was very deep, it actually was very slight. If Spencer had agreed with him, his burden of sin would have been lightened, but he wouldn’t have realized how terribly sinful he was. Spencer’s comment served to drive the arrow deeper so that he realized his desperate need for Christ alone to save him.
The cross of Christ is a humbling remedy for your sin. First, you have to admit that you’re a hopelessly lost sinner. That’s a huge stumbling block for “good” people like Nicodemus. “I’m not like these publicans and prostitutes, am I? Sure, I have my faults, but I’m not a bad sinner! I’m a basically good person!” It’s humbling to realize that you are far more sinful than you ever imagined! It’s humbling to admit that you can’t do anything to save yourself. Jesus did it all. All you have to do is trust in Him. His salvation is by grace (undeserved favor) through faith so that no one can boast (Eph. 2:8-9).
Thus, because of sin, all are under the curse of death. God graciously provided the remedy for our curse.
John 3:14: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” John uses this phrase of Jesus three other times and each time it refers to the cross: John 8:28: “So Jesus said, ‘When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me.’” John 12:32: [Jesus said], “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.” John 12:34, “The crowd then answered Him, ‘We have heard out of the Law that the Christ is to remain forever; and how can You say, “The Son of Man must be lifted up”? Who is this Son of Man?’” Must occurs in two of those verses. It points to the fact that the cross was absolutely necessary to atone for our sins. If there had been any other way, Jesus would have taken it, as He prayed in the garden (Matt. 26:39). But the only way to satisfy God’s perfect justice was for the sinless Son of Man to be lifted up on the cross as our substitute.
But in his typical fashion, John sees a double meaning in lifted up. It also means to exalt or lift up in majesty. Both Peter and Paul use it this way to refer to Jesus after His resurrection and ascension (Acts 2:33; 5:31; Phil. 2:9). And, Isaiah used it of Messiah (52:13) just before the well-known chapter 53, where he describes Messiah’s being despised and forsaken of men as He bore our sins on the cross. So just as the despised snake had to be lifted up in the wilderness, so Jesus would be despised and lifted up on the cross. “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf” (2 Cor. 5:21). He became a curse for us when He was hanged on the tree (Gal. 3:13). But God didn’t leave Him there, but raised Him from the dead and exalted Him to His right hand in glory.
Thus Jesus prophesied of His death and resurrection at the outset of His ministry. He also answered Nicodemus’ question (3:9), “How can these things be?” Or, “How can these things happen?” The new birth happens when sinners look in faith to the crucified, risen Son of God. Just as the snake in the wilderness gave “new life” to those who were about to perish, so the lifting up of the Son of Man will give eternal life to those who are perishing.
God could have removed the deadly snakes, but instead, He left the snakes, but provided a remedy: Just look to the snake that Moses put up on the pole and you will live. That seemed absurd. It didn’t require anything for them to do except to look in the faith that they would be healed. Even so (John 3:15), “whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.” Verse 15 shows us that believing in Him is equivalent to looking at the lifted up snake in the wilderness. The best translation has “believes” without an object and “in Him” is connected with eternal life. But in verse 16 John clarifies that our faith is to be in Jesus, the Son of God.
A couple of months ago (“Who is Jesus?” April 7, 2013) I shared with you the story of Charles Spurgeon’s conversion. A Methodist layman preached on Isaiah 45:22, which in the King James Version reads, “Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth.” He made the point that looking doesn’t take any effort or any special status. Anyone can look. He exhorted young Spurgeon directly to look to Jesus Christ. Spurgeon says that he looked and God saved him.
But we need to be clear that looking to Christ or having faith in Christ is not faith in an idol of Jesus as a good luck charm. In the wilderness, the Israelites had to believe in God’s promise that whoever looked to the serpent would be healed. In the same way, we need to believe God’s promise that whoever looks to Jesus and His death as the just payment for his sins will be forgiven and granted eternal life. But we need to be careful not to fall into idolatry by making a charm or magic token out of the cross.
About 700 years after this incident in the wilderness, King Hezekiah had to destroy this bronze serpent because it had become an object of idolatry to the Israelites (2 Kings 18:1-4). That took some courage on the king’s part! This snake had become a sacred object of worship, but he saw that it had degenerated into idolatry. At the risk of offending, but in the sincere desire to help you understand what faith in Jesus means, if you view a statue of Jesus on the cross as a good luck charm or a sacred object that you pray to, you are not believing in the risen and exalted Savior. You’re practicing idolatry. Destroy your idol and put your trust in the living Lord Jesus to save you.
Whoever looked in faith at the snake lived. Whoever believes will in Jesus have eternal life. This is John’s first of ten references to eternal life (although he has already said in 1:4 that in Christ was life, which refers to eternal life). Eternal life is not only life forever, but abundant, joyous, life in the presence of God forever, without any sorrow or pain or death or sin (Rev. 21:4). In the words of Psalm 16:11, it is to enjoy pleasures forever from God’s right hand. As Jesus says (John 17:3), “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
In his Exposition of the Gospel of John (on monergism.org) A. W. Pink wrote:
Man became a lost sinner by a look, for the first thing recorded of Eve in connection with the fall of our first parents is that “The woman saw that the tree was good for food” (Gen. 3:6). In like manner, the lost sinner is saved by a look. The Christian life begins by looking: “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else” (Isa. 45:22). The Christian life continues by looking: “Let us run with patience the race which is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of faith” (Heb. 12:2). And at the end of the Christian life we’re still to be looking for Christ: “For our conversation (citizenship) is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ” (Phil. 3:20). From first to last, the one thing required is looking at God’s Son.
So the question is, “Have you looked to the crucified, risen, and exalted Lord Jesus to save you from the curse of sin?” Are you still looking to Him as you run the race of faith?
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
June 30, 2013
Some things in this world should strike us with amazement and maybe even shock. When you look up at the dark sky from 7,000 feet elevation in Flagstaff, you should stand in awe of the Creator who spoke and billions of galaxies with trillions of stars came into existence (Ps. 33:6, 9).
Although there are thousands of visitors from all over the world at the Grand Canyon, a week ago last night, Marla and I were the only people camping at Point Sublime on the North Rim. As we drank in the scenery and watched the full moon rise, we were awed at God’s handiwork in that amazing place.
But not everyone is amazed by the beauty of God’s creation. Years ago in California, some people from our church were going to Yosemite for the first time. We had been there many times and had spent hours drinking in the grandeur of that place. So we raved to them about what they would see. Later, we asked them about their trip and the wife said, “We drove into the valley, stayed an hour or so, saw everything, and left.” We were stunned!
Later I read about an old ranger in his eighties who had spent most of his life in Yosemite. On one occasion a citified woman saw him in uniform, breezed up, and asked, “Sir, if you only had one hour to see Yosemite, what would you do?” He thought about that question for a few seconds and replied, “Ma’am, if I only had one hour to see Yosemite, I think I’d go sit on that rock over there and cry!” Even though he had spent his lifetime there, he was still awed by the spectacular beauty of that place.
They say that familiarity breeds contempt, but it also can breed boredom. That means that when we come to a verse like John 3:16, which has been called the most familiar verse in the Bible, we who have known this verse from childhood are in danger of going, “That’s nice. Ho hum!” Or, as Americans who have been steeped in self-esteem, when we hear that God so loved us that He sent His only Son to die for our sins, we think, “Yes, thanks for reminding me of how lovable I am.”
We think too highly of ourselves and too lowly of God, so we lose the shock that God who is absolutely holy would love sinners like us enough to send His only Son to die to redeem us. We forget Paul’s wonder (Rom. 5:8), “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Paul never lost the shock of God’s love in Christ (Gal. 2:20; 1 Tim. 1:15). Neither should we.
There is debate about exactly where Jesus’ words to Nicodemus end and John’s comments begin. Probably, verses 16-21 are John’s comments about Jesus’ words that end at verse 15. In 3:16, the cross seems to be in the past (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 228). Jesus often refers to Himself as the Son of Man (3:15), but never as God’s “only begotten Son,” which is John’s way of referring to Jesus. Also, Jesus does not normally refer to God as “God,” but rather as “the Father” (D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 203). But even if these are John’s words, they are nonetheless inspired by the Holy Spirit. He is explaining why God sent His only Son to this world:
God’s shocking love for this sinful world is so great that He gave His unique Son so that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.
My prayer for this message is that if you have never responded to God’s shocking love, the Holy Spirit would jolt you with it and bring you to faith in Jesus Christ and eternal life. And, if you have known and believed this verse since childhood, my prayer is that God would bring the wonder of His shocking love to you in such a way that you would renew your first love for the Lord Jesus.
“For God so loved the Jews” would not have been shocking to a Jew. The Jews knew that they were God’s chosen people and that He had set His special love on them (Deut. 7:6-8; 10:14-15; Mal. 1:2-3). So there was nothing new or shocking to the Jews about the fact that God loved the Jews.
“For God so loved sinful Jews” might have been a bit more of a stretch, but if a religious Jew thought about it, he might concede the point. Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so that the sinning Jews who had been bitten by the fiery serpents could look to it and live. So, even though the self-righteous Pharisees thought that they were above common sinners (John 9:34), they might have agreed that God loved even sinful Jews.
But, “God so loved the world” was just plain shocking! By world, John’s Jewish readers would have immediately thought, Gentiles. Also, John often uses the word to refer to sinful people who were hostile toward Christ and eventually crucified Him (1:10; 7:7; 14:17; 15:18-19; 16:8, 20, 33; 17:6, 9, 14, 25; 1 John 5:19). John wants us to understand that God’s love goes beyond the Jews to Gentiles from “every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9). And, His love extends even to those who are His committed enemies (Matt. 5:43-45; Rom. 5:6-8, 10).
But this raises a difficult theological issue: If God loves even His enemies, why didn’t He choose to save everyone? This conundrum has caused people to go in two erroneous directions, as I understand it. Some have said that since God hates the wicked (Ps. 5:5; 11:5), world in John 3:16 must be limited to the elect. If God loves the wicked, then it seems reasonable that He would have chosen to save them. So these Calvinistic brethren try to explain world as the elect from all over the world. But they deny God’s love for all sinners.
On the other hand, some take John 3:16 to mean that God loves every single human being in exactly the same way. These Arminian brethren deny that God could have a special love for some whom He chose for salvation. They say that salvation depends on the will of man, not on the will of God. Thus they err by denying or dodging the many texts that speak of God’s sovereign election.
So how do we resolve this tension? D. A. Carson wrote a helpful little book, The Difficult Doctrine of the Love of God [Crossway]. He explains (pp. 16-21) that the Bible speaks of the love of God in at least five distinguishable ways. (1) There is the peculiar love of the Father for the Son, and of the Son for the Father (John 3:35; 5:20; 14:31). (2) There is God’s providential love over all that He has made (Gen. 1; Matt. 6). (3) There is God’s salvific stance toward His fallen world (John 3:16; Ezek. 33:11). (4) There is God’s particular, effective, selecting love toward His elect (Deut. 7:7-8; 10:14-15; Mal. 1:2-3; Eph. 1:4-5; 5:25). (5) There is God’s conditional love toward His own people, based on their obedience (John 14:21; 15:10; Jude 21; Exod. 20:6; Ps. 103:9-11, 13, 17-18).
Carson argues (pp. 74-77) that if you take any one of these aspects of God’s love and try to force all the other biblical references into that one mold, you will sacrifice sound exegesis of those texts. He concludes (p. 77, italics his):
I argue, then, that both Arminians and Calvinists should rightly affirm that Christ died for all, in the sense that Christ’s death was sufficient for all and that Scripture portrays God as inviting, commanding, and desiring the salvation of all, out of love (in the third sense…). Further, all Christians ought also to confess that, in a slightly different sense, Christ Jesus, in the intent of God, died effectively for the elect alone, in line with the way the Bible speaks of God’s special selecting love for the elect (in the fourth sense…).
John MacArthur argues in the same fashion in The Love of God ([Word], pp. 12-20). He points out (p. 15) that as humans, love and hate toward the same person are not mutually exclusive: “We often speak of people who have love-hate relationships. There is no reason to deny that in an infinitely purer and more noble sense, God’s hatred toward the wicked is accompanied by a sincere, compassionate love for them as well.” In an endnote (p. 228) he clarifies, “What I am saying is this: God in a real and sincere sense hates the wicked because of their sin; yet in a real and sincere sense He also has compassion, pity, patience, and true affection for them because of His own loving nature.”
In practical terms, this means that we can tell unbelievers that God loves them so much that He sent His only Son to die for their sins, if they will repent and believe in Christ. At the same time we should warn them that if they do not believe in Christ, they are under God’s righteous judgment and wrath (John 3:18, 36), which will be finalized for all eternity if they die in unbelief. And, since we know that none are able to repent and believe in Christ unless God grants it (John 6:44, 65; Acts 11:18), we should be praying as we proclaim the gospel that He would be merciful in opening their blind eyes and imparting new life to them so that they can repent and believe.
In other words, we can and must offer the gospel freely to all sinners. It’s shocking, but true, that God loves even the worst of sinners so much that He sent His unique Son to make provision for their salvation. But at the same time that we tell sinners this good news, we must also tell them the bad news:
Consider two things here:
God did not send His unique or only (better translations than, “only begotten”) Son into the world so that He could just teach us about how to live rightly. Jesus didn’t have to die on the cross to teach us morality. God sent His only Son to die because that was the only way that He could uphold His holiness and justice and at the same time forgive sinners.
Sometimes people ask, “Why can’t God just forgive us apart from the death of Christ? When someone wrongs me, I just forgive him. Why can’t God do that, too?” The answer is, because God is absolutely holy and just. If He brushed away sin without demanding that the just penalty be paid, it would compromise God’s very nature. He would cease to be God!
Although the analogy breaks down, it would be like a human judge who told a drug addict who murdered your mother so that he could get enough money for his next fix, “The court forgives you. Try not to do that again.” You would be outraged at the miscarriage of justice. The judge’s action would render human responsibility meaningless. That judge would not be just.
And so to uphold His holiness and His justice, and also to uphold the dignity of human responsibility, God must judge all sin. But because of His great love, He sent His only Son, who is eternal God in sinless human flesh, to bear the penalty that we deserve. In that way, as Paul put it (Rom. 3:26), God can “be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”
Many years ago, I conducted a funeral for a man from my church in California. On the brochure that the funeral home prints for such occasions was John 3:16, cited as follows: “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall have eternal life.” But they left out some crucial words: “shall not perish but have eternal life”! I don’t know whether the family or the funeral home was responsible for the omission, but I didn’t let it go. I pointed out during the service that while God has provided forgiveness of sins and eternal life for all who believe in Jesus, the verse also warns that all who do not believe in Jesus will perish.
God doesn’t save the world by His love. The text does not say, “God so loved the world that He overlooked our sin.” Rather, He so loved the world that He sent His only Son to die for our sins. But His love does not eradicate the reality of hell. If Jesus’ words are true, hell is real and it is awful (Mark 9:47-48). As 3:18 states, the one who does not believe in the Son of God is under condemnation. As 3:36 states, “the wrath of God abides on him.” So contrary to a well-known book, God’s love does not win over His justice. Those who do not believe in Jesus will perish.
The cross draws a distinct line. There are two and only two alternatives: either you believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior from judgment and have eternal life or you do not believe in Him and you perish. God’s great love does not override or negate His perfect holiness and justice. So the message is both comforting for those who believe, but disturbing for those who do not want to come to the light because they love their sin (John 3:19-20).
This means that when we share the gospel, we should not focus on all of the present benefits to the neglect of the eternal consequences. Yes, Jesus can give you peace and joy. Yes, He can give you a happy marriage. Yes, the Bible gives many helpful principles for successful living. But many unbelievers are content, have happy marriages, and are successful in life—but they’re going to perish! The main reason Jesus came to this earth was to die on the cross to rescue sinners from God’s eternal judgment. God’s love does not negate His righteous judgment.
So, God’s love for this sinful world is shocking. He would be perfectly just and righteous to condemn us all to hell, because we all have sinned. But He didn’t do that. At great cost, He sent His own Son to bear the penalty that we deserve. But there is one other crucial fact in our text:
Both verse 16 and verse 18 make it clear that the crucial issue on our part is to believe in Jesus. Those who believe have eternal life; those who do not believe are currently under God’s condemnation and ultimately will perish. Consider four things:
John 3:17: “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” This purpose reflects God’s shocking love. We could not fault Him if He had sent His Son to clean house on this wicked world. In fact, when He comes again, He will do just that (Rev. 19:11, 15): “In righteousness He judges and wages war…. From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty.” But in His first coming, He came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10).
But, in John 9:39, Jesus says, “For judgment I came into this world ….” How do we reconcile that with John 3:17? The Gospels make it clear that Jesus’ presence always drew a line that divided people (Matt. 10:34-37). As the Light, Jesus’ purpose was not to cast shadows, but to bring light. But the presence of the light inevitably casts shadows. Also, as Carson points out (The Gospel According to John, p. 207), Jesus didn’t come into a neutral world in order to save some and condemn others. He came into a lost world to save some. Not all will be saved (3:18-21). But God’s purpose in sending His Son was to bring salvation to all who will believe.
“Perish” does not mean that they will be annihilated or cease to exist. In Matthew 25:46, Jesus says that some “will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” If eternal life lasts forever, then so does eternal punishment. Jesus referred to it as the place where “their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:48). If you ask whether the fire is literal or figurative, my reply is that it doesn’t matter—you don’t want to find out personally! Jesus’ story of the rich man and Lazarus makes it clear that hell is a place of awful torment (Luke 16:23-24).
J. C. Ryle comments on John 3:18 (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], 3:163): “Nothing is so provoking and offensive to God as to refuse the glorious salvation He has provided at so mighty a cost, by the death of His only begotten Son. Nothing is so suicidal on the part of man as to turn away from the only remedy which can heal his soul.”
Eternal life does not only mean life without end, although that is one part of it. It refers to entering into a personal relationship with the living God and His Son (John 17:3): “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” Eternal life with God in heaven will be perfect life, without any of the consequences of sin. It will be “abundant life” (John 10:10). It will be “fullness of joy” and “pleasures forever” in God’s presence (Ps. 16:10). It begins the moment you believe in Jesus, but it gets infinitely better when you go to be with Him. So the final matter to be clear on is: What does it mean to believe in Jesus?
Believing in “the name of the only begotten Son of God” (3:18) means believing in all that He is and all that He came to do. Thus, believing in Jesus requires understanding who He is (the unique Son of God) and what He came to do through His death and resurrection. Based on that knowledge (which we get from the Bible), believing in Jesus means to entrust your eternal destiny to all that He did in dying for your sins on the cross. It means that you cease trusting in your own goodness or good deeds as the way into heaven. Rather, you trust entirely in Jesus and His shed blood.
A helpful illustration that I’ve used before is that of the famous tightrope walker, Blondin. Perhaps you can relate to this story in light of Nik Wallenda’s walking across the Grand Canyon on a cable last week. Blondin would walk across Niagara Falls on a tightrope. He did it blindfolded! He did it on stilts! Once he carried his manager across on his shoulders. After they got safely to the other side and the applause died down, he turned to a man in the crowd and said, “Sir, do you believe that I could do that with you?”
The man was about the same build as the manager who had gone across on Blondin’s shoulders, so he shrugged, “Yes, I believe that you could do it.” Blondin said, “Fine, hop on!” The man quickly replied, “No way!” He “believed” intellectually, but he wasn’t willing to commit his life to Blondin.
In the same way, many say that they believe in Jesus, but they have not committed their eternal destiny to what He did for them on the cross. Some want to try to help Him out by adding their good deeds to Jesus’ shed blood. But that’s like telling Blondin that you want to help him out by holding his hand as you walk behind him! It doesn’t work! Faith that brings eternal life responds to God’s shocking love by entrusting yourself totally to what Jesus did for you when He died on the cross.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
July 7, 2013
Picture a guy floating downstream on a raft on a hot summer day. He’s having the time of his life, enjoying the ride as the cool water gently splashes on him. You’re on the shore and you know that there’s a deadly waterfall not far downstream. This guy is floating blissfully and ignorantly toward certain destruction! So you yell to warn him. You throw him a rope. But he rejects it and keeps floating toward certain death. Why won’t he grab the life preserver? Because he loves what he’s doing and he doesn’t want to believe your warning.
Why do people reject God’s wonderful offer of salvation through Jesus Christ? You would think that everyone would eagerly grab the life preserver that God has thrown out through the gospel (John 3:16): “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” Why would anyone reject such a wonderful offer? Why would anyone want to keep heading for eternal destruction? In our text, John shows us:
People reject Christ because they love their sin and they hate having it exposed by God’s light.
People don’t want God interfering with what they consider “a good time,” and they don’t believe the warnings of Scripture that they are under God’s judgment now and will face it eternally when they die. People think that they’re basically good and that God will overlook their faults and give them credit for their good deeds on judgment day. So they don’t repent of their sin and believe in Jesus Christ to save them from God’s judgment. The Greek philosopher, Plato, observed (source unknown), “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark. The real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” John makes four points here:
John 3:19a: “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world ….” John has already introduced Jesus as the Light (1:4-5): “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” Later (8:12; also, 9:5; 12:46), Jesus states, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”
In the Bible, light is used symbolically in two main ways: First, it refers to God’s absolute holiness and, by extension, to the holiness of His people; whereas darkness symbolizes Satan’s domain and sin (Col. 1:13; Acts 26:18). Paul says (1 Tim. 6:16) that God “dwells in unapproachable light.” In 1 John 1:5, the apostle declares, “God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” In this vein, Paul exhorts us (Eph. 5:7-10):
Therefore do not be partakers with them; for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.
Second, light refers to the spiritual illumination or understanding that we get when we are born again, whereas darkness refers to our natural spiritual blindness before we are saved (2 Cor. 4:3-4, 6):
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God…. For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
In that sense, God’s Word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path (Ps. 119:105). Proverbs 6:23 says, “For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching is light; and reproofs for discipline are the way of life ….” God’s Word gives spiritual light so that we understand God’s truth and how He wants us to live.
God’s light is embodied in Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God who took on human flesh. John has told us (1:9), “There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.” When Jesus came into the world, His very presence exposed the world to who God is as holy and to the fact that we are not holy. D. A. Carson explains John 1:9 (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 124):
It shines on every man, and divides the race: those who hate the light respond as the world does (1:10): they flee lest their deeds should be exposed by this light (3:19-21). But some receive this revelation (1:12-13), and thereby testify that their deeds have been done through God (3:21). In John’s Gospel it is repeatedly the case that the light shines on all, and forces a distinction (e.g. 3:19-21; 8:12; 9:39-41).
Leon Morris (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 233, italics his) explains John 3:19,
The word translated “judgment” here denotes the process of judging, not the sentence of condemnation…. It is not God’s sentence with which [John] is concerned here. He is telling us rather how the process works. Men choose the darkness and their condemnation lies in that very fact…. They refuse to be shaken out of their comfortable sinfulness.
As we saw in 3:17-18, even though Jesus did not come for the purpose of judgment, because of who He is, His very presence brought judgment and divided people. Have you ever been in the presence of a very godly man, so that his very presence made you uncomfortable? R. C. Sproul (The Holiness of God [Tyndale], pp. 91-92) tells about a leading professional golfer years ago who was invited to play in a foursome with Gerald Ford, Jack Nicklaus, and Billy Graham. He had played with Nicklaus before, but he was in awe of playing with President Ford and Billy Graham.
After the round was finished, one of the other pros came up and asked, “Hey, what was it like playing with the President and with Billy Graham?” The pro unleashed a torrent of cursing, and said in a disgusting manner, “I don’t need Billy Graham stuffing religion down my throat.” With that he turned and stormed off, heading for the practice tee.
His friend followed the angry pro and watched him take out his driver and beat ball after ball in fury. The friend said nothing, but just sat on a bench and watched. After a few minutes, the pro had calmed down. His friend said quietly, “Was Billy a little rough on you out there?” The pro heaved an embarrassed sigh and said, “No, he didn’t even mention religion. I just had a bad round.”
Billy Graham’s presence made that golf pro feel condemned, even when Billy didn’t say a word about God! How much more would we all have felt condemned to be in the presence of Jesus Christ! Do you remember one of Peter’s early encounters with Jesus, when Jesus caused the miraculous catch of fish? Peter fell down at Jesus’ feet and said (Luke 5:8), “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!”
Have you had that experience with Jesus Christ? Have you seen who Jesus is and instantly recognized, “He is holy and I am not holy! I am under God’s judgment because Jesus is Light and I am darkness!” When you’ve that kind of encounter with Jesus, you can go one of two ways. First, John presents the negative reaction:
John 1:19b: “… men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil.” This phrase contains several significant truths about sin. First, sin is far deeper than outward deeds; sin is a matter of our affections or desires. “Men loved darkness.” The past tense (Greek aorist) could be translated, “Men set their love on darkness” (Morris, p. 233). Loved indicates that this was not a cool, rational decision: “Having weighed all the factors involved, I think the best decision is to love darkness rather than light.” No, it was in large part an emotional choice that stems from desires that dwell in our hearts due to the fall. We love darkness rather than light.
This leads to a second significant truth about sin: Our sin problem is far deeper than we ever imagined. The Bible does not teach that we are basically good people who need to overcome a few flaws in our character. We’re not merely in need of more education or learning some anger management skills so that we can develop better relational skills. We don’t need to go through therapy to explore our pasts and figure out why our parents treated us as they did so that we can now understand why we are the way we are. All of these approaches to sin are too superficial from a biblical standpoint. The Bible shows that our root problem is that we love our sin rather than God’s holiness. It’s a matter of the heart, and the only remedy that goes deep enough is the new birth, which gives us new hearts that hunger and thirst after righteousness.
This phrase also shows us a third truth about sin: The reason that people reject Christ is not primarily intellectual, but moral. Unbelievers do not love darkness rather than light because they have thought it through carefully and concluded that darkness makes more sense. No, unbelievers love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. The light exposes their evil deeds and convicts them of their true moral guilt before the holy God. But, frankly, they like sinning!
Aldous Huxley, the famous atheist of the last century, once admitted that his rejection of Christianity stemmed from his desire to sin. He wrote (Ends and Means [Garland Publishers], pp. 270, 273, cited in James Boice, Genesis [Zondervan], 1:236):
I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently assumed that it had not; and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning for this world is not concerned exclusively with the problem of pure metaphysics; he is also concerned to prove that there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to…. For myself … the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation, sexual and political.
This means that when you’re sharing the gospel, don’t be intimidated by a Ph.D. who argues in favor of evolution or who cites arguments from the latest popular atheist. Don’t panic if someone says, “I don’t believe in the Bible because of its contradictions.” You can give philosophic arguments for the existence of God or scientific arguments against evolution all day long, but even if you were to convince the unbeliever intellectually, you have not dealt with his main problem. His main problem is that he loves his sin and he stands guilty before the holy Judge of the universe.
I’m not saying that we should not have good answers to these intellectual questions. But I am saying that they are usually not the real issue. You can ask the person raising the objection, “Are you saying that if I can give reasonable answers to these questions, you will repent of your sins and trust in Christ as your Savior and Lord?” Invariably, the answer will be, “Well, I have other objections, too.” The objections are smokescreens to hide the fact that unbelievers love their sin.
This phrase shows us a fourth truth about sin: Sin must be determined by God’s absolute standards of holiness, not by men’s relative standards of goodness. When John says that men’s “deeds are evil,” we may recoil and think, “Terrorists and drug dealers and pedophiles and pimps are evil. But most people are not evil. Just look at all the good people in this world!”
The Bible acknowledges that there are unbelievers who are relatively good people. Because of God’s common grace, all people are not as evil as they could be. The human race would have self-destructed millennia ago if everyone acted as badly as they could. God restrains outward evil through civil government, through social disapproval, and through the fear of shame and the desire to look good to others. But God looks on the heart. Hebrews 4:13 reminds us, “And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” When God looks at our hearts, even the best of people, humanly speaking, are filled with pride, selfishness, greed, lust, and other sins that may never come into public view.
But the situation of loving darkness rather than light is far worse than just loving sin:
John 3:20: “For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” Unbelievers do not just love their sin; they also hate Jesus! They hate the One who out of love offered Himself on the cross so that every sinner might not perish but have eternal life simply by believing in Him! They hate Him because He exposes their evil deeds.
A teacher assigned his fourth-grade students to write a topic sentence for the following phrases: “Sam always works quietly. Sam is polite to the teacher. Sam always does his homework.” The student’s topic sentence? “I hate Sam.” (Reader’s Digest [November, 2007], p. 59)
We need to understand several things about this verse. First, John does not mean that all sinners do their evil deeds in secret. Many do, of course. Many otherwise respectable men would never frequent a strip club in their own city, for fear of being seen. But if they’re traveling far from home, where they think they’re safe, they might yield to that sin. But in our day, when people call good evil and evil good (Isa. 5:20), it’s cool to flaunt your sin. Movie stars and other celebrities go on television to tell about their immoral behavior. We have “gay pride” celebrations to boast in what God condemns as evil. John is merely pointing out that such sinners do not come to the Light (Jesus) because they know that He would condemn their behavior as evil.
Second, John does not say that those who practice evil are neutral toward Jesus; rather, they hate Him. Many unbelievers would object. They would say that they don’t have anything against Jesus; they’re indifferent towards Him. They think that Jesus was a good man. Some may think that He was a prophet. They may say that He was a good moral teacher. They might even feel bad that He got crucified for His teachings and beliefs. They recognize that that was a miscarriage of justice. But they would protest if you said that they hate Jesus. They’re just indifferent. But John says that they hate Jesus. Jesus Himself told His then unbelieving brothers (John 7:7), “The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil.”
Third, John gives the reason why unbelievers hate Jesus: they fear that He will expose their evil deeds. It’s like the golfer playing with Billy Graham: just being around a guy like that makes you nervous because you’re always afraid that you’ll slip and utter a swear word or say or do something that will expose your evil heart.
When I was a new pastor, Marla and I went to look at a house that was for sale. The owner was an old codger who was smoking a cigarette as he talked with us about his house. He got around to asking me what I did for a living and I told him that I was the pastor of the church nearby. He got all agitated, threw down his cigarette, stomped on it and rubbed it out with his foot, and exclaimed, “Look at me! Look at me! Smoking in front of a reverend!” He must have thought that his smoking was a sin. But it never occurred to him that he always smoked in front of the living God!
The word translated “exposed” means to be convicted in a court of law. It was used of an attorney proving his case. Jesus uses it in John 16:8 when He says that the Holy Spirit “will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.” Guilty criminals hate judges who convict them of their crimes, even though it’s not the judges’ fault. Guilty sinners hate Jesus because He convicts them of their sins.
But, because of God’s grace, not all reject Christ:
John 3:21: “But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” John does not mean that some have a natural bent toward practicing the truth or that doing so brings salvation. He has just made it plain that we all need the new birth and that salvation comes through believing in Jesus Christ (3:1-16).
Rather, John is describing two types of people in the world: Those that have not believed in Christ avoid the light and hate it, because it exposes their sinful deeds. Those that have believed in Christ gladly come to Him and give Him all credit for their good deeds, because they know that those good deeds came from God, who caused them to be born again (1 Pet. 1:3; James 1:18).
“Practicing the truth” is a Semitic expression which means to act faithfully or honorably (Carson, p. 207). But it also shows us that the truth is to be lived, not just spoken (1 John 1:6). “Truth” is an important concept for John He uses the word 25 times in his gospel and 20 more times in his epistles. Truth is embodied in Jesus Himself, who said (14:6), “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” Jesus told Pilate (18:37), “For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” This has two implications:
First, there is such a thing as absolute truth in the spiritual and moral realms and you can spot believers by their obedience to that truth. Contrary to the postmodern mindset, truth is not relative to the culture or situation. All truth is in Jesus (Eph. 4:21) and He declared that God’s Word is truth (John 17:17). This means that believers are committed to the truth. We seek to understand the truth more deeply. We hold to the truth of God’s Word even when our culture goes against it.
Second, believers willingly, gladly, and repeatedly come to the light of God’s Word in order to grow in holiness and to give God glory for His work in their hearts. True believers read God’s Word over and over, allowing it to shine into the dark corners of their lives and expose the sinful thoughts and intentions of their hearts (Heb. 4:12). False believers avoid the Word and they find churches that don’t preach the Word to expose sin. False believers try to keep up a good front to impress others, but they don’t live openly in the light of God’s presence on the heart level.
J. C. Ryle (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], 3:164) points out that eventually sinners will get what they desired while on earth: they loved darkness; they will be cast into outer darkness. They hated the light; they will be shut out from the light eternally. God will be perfectly just in condemning those who rejected Christ. They saw the Light, but hated it and turned away from it because they loved their sin.
John Piper summarizes our text (DesiringGod.org, “This is the Judgment: Light has come into the World”): “The coming of Jesus into the world clarifies that unbelief is our fault, and belief is God’s gift. Which means that if we do not come to Christ, but rather perish eternally, we magnify God’s justice. And if we do come to Christ and gain eternal life, we magnify God’s grace.”
I pray that we all will believe in Jesus and rejoice in His light, so that we magnify God’s grace!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
July 14, 2013
In a “Peanuts” cartoon, Linus tells Charlie Brown, “When I get big, I’m going to be a humble little country doctor. I’ll live in the city, see, and every morning I’ll get up, climb into my sports car, and zoom into the country! Then I’ll start healing people… I’ll heal people for miles around!” In the last frame, he exclaims, “I’ll be a world famous humble little country doctor!”
Charles Schultz, the cartoonist, was poking fun at how difficult it is for us to be humble. We may start out with the goal of being a humble little whatever, but before we know it, we’re into being a world-famous, humble little whatever!
Pride is arguably the most deadly and evil of all sins because it’s at the root of all other sins. Pride was probably Satan’s original sin, when he said, “I will make myself like the Most High” (Isa. 14:14, assuming that this in some sense is describing Satan). Pride was the bait Satan used to tempt Eve, when he set aside what God had said and assured her that if she ate of the forbidden fruit, she would be like God (Gen. 3:1-6). Whenever I sin, I am arrogantly asserting that I know better than God knows what is best for me. Thus, as Christians we must constantly battle pride and grow in humility. And if you think you’ve attained any measure of humility, you’ve got to be on guard against being proud of your humility!
If anyone easily could have fallen into the trap of pride, it would have been John the Baptist. Who else in human history (apart from Jesus Himself) could claim to have been filled with the Holy Spirit while still in his mother’s womb (Luke 1:15)! No one else in human history had the important role of being the forerunner of Messiah (Luke 1:17, 76). John enjoyed immediate popular success, as all Jerusalem, Judea, and those from surrounding areas were going out to him in the wilderness to confess their sins and be baptized (Matt. 3:5-6). Even Jesus testified of John that he was the greatest man in human history (Matt. 11:11). All these things could have fed the pride of this young prophet, barely in his thirties.
Yet in our text John gives his disciples and us a basic lesson in humility. In the face of Jesus’ growing popularity and his own waning popularity, John gives us a one-liner to live by (John 3:30): “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Those words are a convenient outline in reverse of John 3:22-36: “I must decrease” sums up 3:22-30; “He must increase” sums up 3:31-36. To the extent that John’s motto is true of us, we are growing in humility.
The story begins by describing two thriving ministries that were taking place close to one another. We don’t know the exact location of Jesus and John as described here, but both were somewhere along the Jordan River, which they were using for baptisms. As John clarifies in 4:2, Jesus was not actually performing the baptisms, but His disciples were. These were not Christian baptisms at this point, but rather public confessions of sin followed by immersion in water, which symbolized cleansing from sin. It’s interesting that even John Calvin, who practiced baptism as sprinkling, admits that the reference to “much water” indicates that Jesus and John were “plunging the whole body beneath the water” (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 130)!
The apostle added the comment (3:24) that John had not yet been thrown into prison because he knew that his readers would have read Mark’s gospel, which makes it seem that Jesus’ ministry began after John the Baptist was arrested (Mark 1:14). The apostle John wants us to know that the events recorded here happened before John the Baptist’s imprisonment.
At this juncture (“therefore” in 3:25 is better translated “now” or “then,” indicating a transition to something new), John reports that a dispute or discussion arose between John’s disciples and a Jew (some early manuscripts read “the Jews,” but the singular is probably original) about purification. The apostle does not give us any further clarification, so we can only guess at the nature of the discussion. Probably it had to do with whether John’s baptism was superior to the Jewish rites of purification. John mentioned those Jewish rites with the water pots at the wedding where Jesus turned the water into wine (2:6). In the present context, Jesus is the bridegroom (3:29). He comes to bring people into a joyous relationship with Himself, not to haggle over Jewish ceremonies. It’s not outward Jewish ceremonies that purify one’s heart, but rather, the new birth from above. So John may want us to see here that Jesus’ ministry went beyond the ceremonial legalism of Judaism.
At any rate, the debate between John’s disciples and this Jew may have included the Jew’s comment that the Baptist’s ministry was being eclipsed by Jesus’ growing ministry. This led John’s disciples to come to him with their concern (3:26), “Rabbi, He who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you have testified, behold, He is baptizing and all are coming to Him.” Their exaggeration, “all are coming to Him,” was no doubt spawned by resentment or jealousy (D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 210). They were jealous on John’s behalf against Jesus’ growing ministry. This sets the stage for John the Baptist’s reply (3:27-30), which is a great lesson in humility. We learn:
Humility stems from understanding who God is and who we are.
John the Baptist clearly understood God’s sovereignty, who Jesus is, and who he (John) was. Thus he didn’t have inflated views of himself. He wasn’t out to build his self-esteem or to promote his own ministry or reputation. His aim was to exalt Jesus. He found great joy in his role of handing off the bride to the bridegroom.
We see this both with reference to John’s view of the Father and his view of Jesus Christ:
John replies to his disciples’ worried report (3:27), “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven.” That truth applies to all spiritual matters, including our salvation (Luke 10:21-22). As Jesus emphasizes (John 6:65), “No one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.” But here it has special reference to our ministries and the relative fruitfulness of those ministries. He is saying that his role as the forerunner was given to him by God, and he must stay within that role. His words also apply to Jesus: Any popularity or success that He enjoyed in ministry came from the Father.
Paul applies this to us as gifted members of the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:4-6): “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons.” He adds (12:11), “But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.” In other words, God gives different spiritual gifts, ministries, and results according to His sovereign will. Humility stems from recognizing that this is God’s prerogative as God and bowing before His sovereign will.
In 3:28, John reminds his disciples that he has said, “I am not the Christ, but I have been sent ahead of Him.” Clearly, John knew that Jesus was the Christ, the promised Messiah. Then in 3:29, John uses an illustration from a Jewish wedding: “He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. So this joy of mine has been made full.” John knew that Jesus was the promised bridegroom and that the bride belongs to Him. John’s role was that of the friend of the bridegroom, sort of like our “best man.” His role was to take the bride to the bridegroom and then get out of the way. The focus of the wedding was not on the best man, but on the bridegroom and bride.
In the Old Testament, Yahweh is often pictured as the bridegroom (or husband) and Israel as His bride. For example, in Isaiah 54:5, the Lord tells Israel, “For your husband is your Maker, whose name is the Lord of hosts.” Isaiah 62:5b declares, “And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so your God will rejoice over you.” In Hosea 2:16, the Lord tells Israel that in the future, they will call the Lord, “My husband.” He promises (Hos. 2:19), “I will betroth you to Me forever….” Jesus used this analogy of Himself when He explained to some of John’s disciples why Jesus’ disciples did not fast (Matt. 9:15): “The attendants of the bridegroom cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.” The same analogy carries over to the New Testament epistles, where Jesus is the bridegroom and the church is His bride (2 Cor. 11:2; Eph. 5:25-27; Rev. 19:7; 21:2; 22:17).
Now, if Yahweh is Israel’s bridegroom in the Old Testament and John the Baptist proclaims Jesus as Israel’s bridegroom here, then it’s an affirmation that Jesus is Yahweh. Jesus is God. Whether or not John the Baptist put the two halves of this equation together, it is evident that the apostle John through the Holy Spirit wants us to put them together: If God is the bridegroom and Jesus is the bridegroom, then Jesus is God. (James Boice makes this point, The Gospel of John [Zondervan], one-volume edition, p. 223.)
The lesson in humility for us is: humility stems from knowing who God is. The clearer our vision of His majesty and greatness and power and glory, the more we will be humbled in His presence. As I’ve said before, this is one of the main lessons that I came away with the first time I read Calvin’s Institutes [Westminster Press]. He presents such an exalted view of God, whom he often calls “the Majesty,” that you just bow yourself in the dust before Him. In Calvin’s words (1.1.3), “Man is never sufficiently touched and affected by the awareness of his lowly state until he has compared himself with God’s majesty.” You realize how little you are in His holy presence. That’s the second lesson that John the Baptist teaches us:
Calvin begins The Institutes (1.1.1) with the profound sentence, “Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.” John McNeill, the editor, explains (p. 36, note 3), “These decisive words set the limits of Calvin’s theology and condition every subsequent statement.” Calvin expounds on our knowledge of ourselves (1.1.2): “It is certain that man never achieves a clear knowledge of himself unless he has first looked upon God’s face, and then descends from contemplating him to scrutinize himself.” He goes on to say that pride is innate in us all and cannot be dealt with until we look to the Lord.
In our text, we see that John was clear about who he was in the presence of Christ:
People were wondering if John was the Christ, which he emphatically denied (1:20), “I am not the Christ.” Now he reminds his disciples of what he has repeatedly said (3:28), “You yourselves are my witnesses that I said, ‘I am not the Christ,’ but, ‘I have been sent ahead of Him.’”
You may think, “Well, there’s not much danger that I’m going to start thinking that I’m the Christ.” But as I’ve often said, one of the most basic lessons that we all have to learn—and learn again and again—is that God is God; I am not God. When things don’t go the way I’d prefer, I have to learn to bow and acknowledge, “God, You’re God; I’m not God.” Also, although I’ve never had to deal with it (and probably never will), when your ministry is popular and you’ve got crowds of people thronging to hear you speak, you need to keep in mind, “I’m not the Christ; I’m just His lowly slave, sent to point people to Him.”
This lesson stems from John’s comment (3:27), “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven.” John recognized that his unique role in history was not something that he had achieved by his own brilliance or hard work. Rather, God had graciously given it to him so that he could point people to Jesus. It had nothing to do with anything good in John. It had everything to do with God’s sovereign, gracious purpose for John.
The apostle Paul reminded the arrogant Corinthians (1 Cor. 4:7), “What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” When Pilate, frustrated that Jesus would not answer him, told Jesus that he had authority either to release Him or crucify Him, Jesus replied (John 19:11), “You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above ….”
This is such an important lesson to keep in mind at all times: All of my gifts, abilities, and opportunities come from God by grace alone. Everything! Do I have a sound mind? That came from God, who wants me to use it for His purpose and glory. Do I have money? That came from God, who wants me to use it for His purpose and glory. Do I have a ministry or place of service? That, too, came from God, who wants me to use it for His purpose and glory. John knew that he was the forerunner of the Messiah, and he sought to fulfill that ministry which God had given him.
A. W. Pink (Exposition of John, online at monergism.com) points out that John continued preaching and baptizing, even as he saw his influence waning in comparison with Jesus’ ministry. The point is that humility does not mean that we slack off and then blame our lack of results on God’s sovereignty. We should seek to use to the fullest what God has entrusted to us to the best of our ability, giving all glory for any results to Him.
There are two things here:
John’s disciples were concerned because the numbers in his following were going down, while the numbers following Jesus were going up. And John didn’t seem to be doing anything to correct the situation. But when they talk to John about their concerns, he explains that their cause for concern was his cause for great joy. John wasn’t trying to build a following for John, but rather a following for Jesus.
Sometimes a man’s disciples are more zealous for his reputation than he is. On one occasion when the Spirit came on two young men in the camp of Israel so that they prophesied, Joshua, who was Moses’ helper, said (Num. 11:28), “Moses, my lord, restrain them.” But Moses replied (11:29), “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!” A similar thing happened when the apostle John saw someone casting out demons in Jesus’ name and tried to prevent him, because he wasn’t part of their group. But Jesus replied (Mark 9:39), “Do not hinder him, for there is no one who will perform a miracle in My name, and be able soon afterward to speak evil of Me.”
The lesson is, we aren’t in competition with other churches or other ministries. If they’re preaching the gospel and teaching God’s Word, then we’re on the same team. We can rejoice that the Lord’s work is prospering, even if our work is not as large as the other work. Our responsibility is to be faithful with what the Lord has given us to do.
John’s aim and his joy was to bring the bride to the bridegroom. By the way, you probably don’t think of John the Baptist as a joyful man. He was the austere prophet who thundered (Matt. 3:7), “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” He was angry when the religious hypocrites did not follow Jesus. But he was full of joy when he heard the bridegroom’s voice and could bring the bride to Him. If people followed after Jesus, John’s purpose had been fulfilled. His joy was full.
Under the glass on my desk I have this quote from Robert Murray McCheyne: “I see a man cannot be a faithful minister, until he preaches Christ for Christ’s sake—until he gives up striving to attract people to himself and seeks only to attract them to Christ.” We always need to keep in mind that it’s all about the bridegroom and not at all about the best man. “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Finally,
This is implicit in John’s motto, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Like the morning star, John was fading from view as the sun rose in the sky. John’s being expendable also implicit in the parenthetical comment (3:24), “For John had not yet been thrown into prison.” When you get thrown into prison, it’s easy to wonder about God’s sovereignty and about your role in His plan. John himself began to wonder as he sat in prison, “Was I mistaken? Is Jesus really the Christ?” He sent some of his disciples to ask Jesus (Matt. 11:3), “Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?” In other words, “If You’re the Messiah, why don’t You get Your forerunner out of this miserable jail?” Jesus replied (Matt. 11:4-6), “Go and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And blessed is he who does not take offense at Me.”
It’s important to remember that being a faithful servant of the Lord does not guarantee a trouble-free life. John the Baptist was the faithful, God-appointed forerunner of Messiah, but he got thrown into prison and had his head cut off in his early thirties. We aren’t guaranteed long lives or impressive results in our ministries. The Lord could take me out of the picture today and His work would go right on according to His plan. He owes us nothing. It is our great joy if He uses us in some way to exalt Christ and to bring others to exalt Him, too.
Andrew Murray (Humility: The Beauty of Holiness [Christian Literature Crusade], p. 12) writes,
Humility, the place of entire dependence on God, is, from the very nature of things, the first duty and the highest virtue of the creature, and the root of every virtue. And so pride, or the loss of this humility, is the root of every sin and evil.
Are you working at growing in humility and pouring contempt on all your pride (to use Isaac Watt’s line, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”)? If I’m growing in humility, Christ is increasing and I’m decreasing. If I’m growing in pride, self is increasing and Christ is decreasing.
I recommend three short books: Andrew Murray, Humility (75 pages); C. J. Mahaney, Humility ([Multnomah], 172 pages); and, Stuart Scott, From Pride to Humility ([Focus Publications], 31 pages, which is a chapter from his book, The Exemplary Husband.) Or, if you’re up for it, read Calvin’s Institutes ([Westminster Press], the first three books, which are the most spiritually rich, are 1008 pages). He favorably quotes (2.2.11) Augustine, who cited a public speaker who said the chief rule in eloquence is “Delivery.” The second rule is, “Delivery.” The third rule is, “Delivery.” So Augustine said, the three precepts of Christianity are first, second, and third, “Humility.” Make John the Baptist’s motto yours: “Jesus must increase, but I must decrease.”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
July 21, 2013
I’ve been grieved lately to hear of several young adults who formerly were a part of this church, who professed faith in Christ and in some cases served in this church, but now do not go to any church. I’ve heard that some of them have renounced their faith in Christ. One of them that I recently had lunch with now claims to be an atheist.
What a tragedy! Why does it happen? The reasons are probably as varied as the individuals who fall away. Behind it all is the enemy of our souls, who prowls about as a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour (1 Pet. 5:8; Luke 8:12). Sometimes the person believed in Jesus for superficial reasons: he hoped that Jesus would give easy relief from some problem, but it didn’t happen. In the parable of the sower, Jesus told about those who believed and found sudden joy, but they didn’t have roots, so that when the hot sun of trials came out, they wilted and died. Others, He said, seem to grow for a while, but the thorns of worries and riches and the pleasures of this life choked them out (Luke 8:13-14).
I think that there are also two common problems behind those who make a profession of faith and then fall away. First, they have a shallow understanding of their true moral guilt before the holy God. They don’t understand that as sinners they are under His wrath and that their good deeds will not erase or ease His judgment against their sins. So they don’t see their desperate need for salvation. Second, they don’t understand who Jesus is and what He did for them on the cross. As I’ve often said, the entire Christian faith rests on the correct answer to Jesus’ question (Matt. 16:15), “Who do you say that I am?” If you get that question right, everything else is secondary. If Jesus is who the Bible proclaims Him to be, then you must believe in Him as your Savior and Lord or you will face judgment. Either Christ died for your sins and is risen from the dead or not. If He is not who He claimed to be, then you’re wasting your time being a Christian (1 Cor. 15:13-19).
John is clear about why he wrote his Gospel (20:31): “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing, you may have life in His name.” I titled an earlier message from John 1:15-18, “Why You Should Believe in Jesus.” In our text, John hits it once more (and it won’t be the last time!): Why believe in Jesus?
Because Jesus is God’s Son from heaven who testifies to God’s truth, your eternal destiny hinges on believing in Him.
As I said last time, these verses expound on the first half of John the Baptist’s motto, “He must increase.” Although some Bible scholars think that verses 31-36 continue the words of John the Baptist, I’m inclined to side with those who argue that they are the words of John the apostle. The original text did not have quotation marks. As we saw earlier in this chapter, probably Jesus’ words end at 3:15 and John’s comments follow in 3:16-21.
A couple of things point us in this direction here. First, the Christology (view of Christ) seems to be more in line with later, more developed understanding than with that which John the Baptist would have had. Also, these verses are clearly Trinitarian. It would be highly unusual for a Jew like John the Baptist at this point in history to have had such well-defined views.
But, whether these are the words of John the Baptist or John the apostle, they are equally inspired by God, given for our spiritual profit. John makes four main points to show why we should believe in Jesus:
John 3:31: “He who comes from above is above all, he who is of the earth is from the earth and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all.”
John seems to be commenting on Jesus’ words to Nicodemus (3:11-13): “Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony. If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man.”
John is repeating the point that Jesus’ existence did not begin when He was born to the virgin Mary. The eternal Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). Jesus came to this earth from heaven, where He dwelt eternally with the Father. Through the virgin birth Jesus took on human flesh so that He could bear the penalty for our sins. But now He is again exalted on high, “above all,” a point that John repeats twice for emphasis (some manuscripts omit the second repetition, but it is probably original).
John is not the only apostle to affirm that Jesus is now above all. In Ephesians 1:20-22a, Paul says that after God raised Jesus from the dead, He seated Him “at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet ….” The apostle Peter affirms (1 Pet. 3:22) that Jesus “is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him.” And, the author of Hebrews spends the entire first chapter of that letter asserting that Jesus, the Creator of all things, is over all the angels.
In our text (3:31) John contrasts Jesus with John the Baptist, “who is of the earth, is from the earth and speaks of the earth.” He is not nullifying the testimony of John, but rather pointing out its limitations by contrasting it with the superior testimony of Jesus. While John the Baptist was a faithful witness of all that God entrusted to him, he was nonetheless human. He only had a limited understanding of the things of God, as all humans do to one extent or another. But Jesus dwelt eternally with the Father (17:5). Because Jesus came to earth from heaven and is now back in heaven, exalted above all others, we must believe everything that He has told us about God and heavenly things.
John 3:32-34: “What He has seen and heard, of that He testifies; and no one receives His testimony. He who has received His testimony has set his seal to this, that God is true. For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God; for He gives the Spirit without measure.” John affirms three things in these verses:
John 3:32a: “What He has seen and heard, of that He testifies ….” We hear stories these days of people who supposedly went to heaven, came back, and wrote a book about it. A lot of what they write contradicts what the Bible says about heaven, but people buy their books and receive it as true because the authors claim to have eyewitness testimony. It’s interesting that none of the people in the Bible who were raised from the dead wrote books or set up speaking tours to tell everyone what they saw up there! The apostle Paul had a vision of heaven (some think it may have been when he was stoned and left for dead), but he only spoke about it hesitantly 14 years after it happened (2 Cor. 12:1-10). And he adds that because of the surpassing greatness of that revelation, God gave him a thorn in the flesh to keep him humble. Paul missed a huge opportunity to cash in with a best-selling story about what heaven is like!
But John’s point in our text is that Jesus can testify truthfully about heaven because He is telling us what He has seen and heard. He wasn’t speculating or philosophizing about heaven. He was speaking the very words of God, telling us what the Father is like and how we can have eternal life. His witness is reliable and certain.
This isn’t the only time that John asserts this. In John 7:16, Jesus said, “My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me.” In John 8:28, He said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me.” In John 14:10, after telling Philip that if he has seen Jesus, he has seen the Father, Jesus adds, “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.”
D. A. Carson (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 213) sums it up: “Jesus so completely says and does all that God says and does, and only what God says and does … that to believe Jesus is to believe God.” The converse is also true: To reject Jesus’ testimony about God is to reject God (see John 12:44-50). Even worse, to reject God’s testimony about Jesus is to call God a liar (1 John 5:10): “The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning His Son.” So it’s a very serious matter to set aside Jesus’ testimony as recorded in the Bible!
John 3:32b-33: “and no one receives His testimony. He who has received His testimony has set his seal to this, that God is true.” Obviously, in context, the first half of that statement is a generalization, because the second half indicates that some do receive Jesus’ testimony. It’s similar to what we saw in 1:11-12: “He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.” The general response to Jesus when He came to this earth was rejection. John 3:19, “Men loved darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.” But, by God’s grace alone, there have always been some who have responded by believing. These affirm (“set their seal to this”) “that God is true.”
It’s interesting to contrast John’s statement in 3:32, that “no one receives His testimony,” with the report of John the Baptist’s disciples (3:26) that “all are coming to Him.” Jesus had a large popular following because He healed people and they found His teaching fascinating. They enjoyed His stories. They liked the fact that He spoke with authority, not like the scribes and Pharisees (Matt. 7:29). But, the same fickle crowd that shouted “Hosanna” on Palm Sunday on Friday shouted, “Crucify Him!” Their views about Jesus changed with the popular tide of opinion.
The point for us is: the reason we should put our trust in Jesus is because we have come to the firm conclusion, based on the apostolic witness, that God is true and that Jesus spoke the words of God. He is who He claimed to be. He is the Christ, the Son of God, sent from heaven to redeem us from our sins. By setting your seal to this, John means that you fix in your mind and heart that Jesus is the promised Redeemer, your personal Savior and Lord. Even if all others forsake Him, you will be faithful even unto death.
The truth is, it’s easy to ride on the coattails of your parents’ faith or your friends’ faith or of popular opinion. Perhaps you went to an evangelistic meeting and all of your friends went forward at the altar call as the congregation sang an emotional hymn and the preacher pled for everyone to come forward. Under a flurry of emotion, you went forward. You felt great about it at the time and even shed tears of joy as the counselor shared with you that you now have eternal life and that it can’t be taken from you.
But, then a few weeks or months later, the glow faded. Stubborn problems reared their ugly head. Rather than answering your prayers for deliverance, things got worse than they were before you went forward. Meanwhile, a lot of your friends who are not religious are saying, “I told you it wouldn’t work!” An atheistic professor gave a lecture ridiculing Christianity. If your faith rests on popular opinion, it will crumble in time.
I grew up in a Christian home and made a profession of faith at a young age. But I remember that when I got to college, I realized that there are a lot of other options out there on what to believe. As I thought it through, I realized that if my faith was going to endure, it had to be my faith, not my parents’ faith and not my friends’ faith. It had to be based on the truth about Jesus.
John 3:34: “For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God; for He gives the Spirit without measure.” The truth that God sent Jesus to this earth is repeated about 39 times in John’s Gospel, which affirms His deity and His heavenly origin (Ed Blum, The Bible Knowledge Commentary, ed. by John F. Walvoord & Roy B. Zuck [Victor Books], 2:283). It also underscores Jesus’ authority, which John emphasizes in the next verse (3:35).
“For He gives the Spirit without measure” explains why Jesus spoke the words of God: During Jesus’ earthly ministry, God the Father gave Him the full measure of the Holy Spirit (Isa. 11:2; 42:1; 61:1; Luke 4:18). As John the Baptist testified (John 1:32), “I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him.” This brings out the full humanity of Jesus. As a man, He had to rely constantly on the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth (John 14:17; 15:26), which enabled Him to speak the true words of God. In this, He modeled for us how we are to live in dependence on God’s Spirit.
There are two applications for us in this verse. First, while only Jesus could infallibly speak the very words of God, every pastor and Bible teacher should strive to be faithful to the Word of God. My aim in every sermon is that when I’m done, you should be able to look at the biblical text and understand what it means and how it applies to your life. This means that sometimes I have to teach some difficult truths (as I will do in a moment when we get to the subject of God’s wrath in 3:36). If I water down or dodge the difficult truths, as many pastors do, I am not being faithful to God. And if you sit for very long under a pastor who waters down the Word, you won’t be faithful to God.
Second, while Jesus is unique in having the complete fullness of God’s Spirit, we all should repeatedly ask God for more and more of the fullness of the Spirit. Early in my Christian life, I was taught that I could claim the filling of the Holy Spirit by faith. The implication was that either the Spirit fully controlled my life or I was in control. But the reality is, we grow in our capacity to be filled with the Spirit and in this lifetime, we never will experience the complete fullness of the Spirit that Jesus experienced. While the fruit of the Spirit can be evident in our lives, there is always room for more love, more joy, more peace, more patience, more kindness, more goodness, more faithfulness, more gentleness, and more self-control (Gal. 5:22-23). Thus I need constantly to entreat God for more fullness of His Spirit.
Thus, Jesus has a heavenly origin and a heavenly message.
John 3:35: “The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand.” The love between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit is eternal and perfect. At Jesus’ baptism, the Spirit descended on Him and the Father proclaimed (Matt. 3:17), “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.” Because the Father loves the Son, He has given all things into His hand. Jesus affirmed (Matt. 11:27), “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” Just before He ascended into heaven, as He gave the Great Commission, He again affirmed (Matt. 28:18), “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.”
That’s an astounding claim! If any mere man said such things, we would know that he was crazy. But Jesus could make such a claim with full credibility, because of who He is. This means that as we proclaim the gospel, we can appeal to Jesus to open blind eyes and reveal the truth to those who are lost. He alone has the sovereign authority to fulfill His Word with power. Finally,
John 3:36: “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.” There are two and only two options: Believe in Jesus and have eternal life; or, do not obey Jesus and be under God’s perpetual wrath. Both options are present realities that extend into eternity. Right now, you either have eternal life or you are under God’s wrath. Whatever state you are in when you die continues forever after you die (Matt. 25:46).
You might expect that John would say that whoever believes in Christ has eternal life, but the one who doesn’t believe is under God’s judgment. But instead, he uses a different word, saying, “he who does not obey the Son will not see life.” He does this for two reasons. First, not to believe in Jesus is to disobey God, who calls on all to repent and believe. Second, genuine saving faith is obedient faith, whereas false faith claims to believe, but denies that claim by disobedience (Matt. 7:21; Luke 6:46; Titus 1:16; James 2:18-24; 1 John 2:3). Of course, none of us can obey God perfectly, but the overall direction of our lives should be that of obedience to Christ.
This is the only mention of God’s wrath in John’s Gospel, but it’s a frequent theme in his Revelation (6:16-17; 11:18; 14:10; 16:19; 19:15). God’s wrath is His settled, holy hatred and opposition to all sin. All sin must be punished, or God would not be holy and just. As Jonathan Edwards argued so forcefully in “The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners” (The Works of Jonathan Edwards [Banner of Truth], 1:669), sin against an infinitely holy God is infinitely heinous and thus worthy of infinite punishment. Those who refuse to believe in Christ are presently under the curse of sin and death. If they die unbelieving, they will experience the fullness of God’s wrath throughout eternity. Thus our eternal destiny hinges on believing in Christ or disobeying Him.
I am greatly concerned that all of you believe in Jesus for the right reasons: Because He has a heavenly origin—He came from above and is above all; because He has a heavenly message—He testifies of the Father; and, because He has heavenly authority—the Father has given all things into His hand. Because of who Jesus is, your eternal destiny hinges on believing in Him.
I close with this quote from J. C. Ryle (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], 3:172), which sums up why we should believe in Jesus: “We can never make too much of Christ…. We can never have too high thoughts about Christ, can never love Him too much, trust Him too implicitly, lay too much weight upon Him, and speak too highly in His praise. He is worthy of all the honor that we can give Him. He will be all in heaven. Let us see to it, that He is all in our hearts on earth.”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
July 28, 2013
One of the wonderful things about the good news that Jesus brings is that it meets the basic need that all people have. You can go to the highest halls of learning and talk with a man with multiple Ph.D.’s. Although he is highly educated, the message he needs to hear is that Christ died for his sins and was raised from the dead, and that he can trust in Christ and receive eternal life as a free gift. Take the message to the most primitive, illiterate tribesman in some remote jungle and he needs to hear the same good news. Since all people are sinners who need to be reconciled to the holy God, the same gospel applies to all: Jesus saves sinners who trust in Him.
John 3 gives the account of Jesus’ interview with the Pharisee, Nicodemus. As a religious leader and a moral man, he was no doubt shocked by Jesus’ opening words (3:3), “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus’ religion was not sufficient. He needed the new birth. John 4 gives the account of Jesus’ encounter with the immoral Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. Jesus skillfully shows her that she needs the living water that He can give. It’s the same basic message with a different metaphor.
Nicodemus and the unnamed Samaritan woman are as different as they could be. He was a Jewish man; she was a Samaritan woman. He was educated and orthodox in the Jewish faith; she was uneducated and heterodox. He was an influential leader; she was a nobody. He was upper middle class; she was lower class. He was morally upright; she was immoral. He sought out Jesus because he recognized His merits; she had no idea who the stranger at the well was, who sought her out. He came to Jesus at night; Jesus and the woman met at noon. Nicodemus responded slowly and rationally; she responded quickly and emotionally. But Jesus loved both of them. He came to seek and to save all types of people.
In 2010, I did two messages from John 4 from the perspective of how Jesus teaches us to witness, which you can access online if it would be helpful. But in this and the next few messages, I’m going to work through the text section by section, trying to bring out whatever lessons are there. In John 4:1-14, we learn that…
Jesus is the Savior who can give living water to all thirsty sinners.
Background: In 4:1-3, John gives us the reason why Jesus left Judea and headed toward Galilee, namely, to avoid any conflict with the Pharisees, who were closely monitoring the ministries of both John the Baptist and Jesus. Jesus was never one to avoid conflict if it was in the Father’s will, but He knew that the time was not yet right for direct conflict, so He left (the Greek word means “abandoned”) Judea in the south and headed north toward Galilee until He knew that it was the hour for the cross.
John 4:2 clarifies that Jesus was not actually baptizing people, but His disciples were. This baptism was based on repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as practiced by John the Baptist. Frederick Godet (Commentary on the Gospel of John [Zondervan], 1:418) observes, “By baptizing, He attested the unity of His work with that of the forerunner. By not Himself baptizing, He made the superiority of His position above that of John the Baptist to be felt.” Also, perhaps Jesus knew that if He actually did the baptizing, people would later boast, “I was baptized by Jesus Himself!” So He let His disciples do the actual “dunking.”
We can draw three main lessons from John 4:4-14:
John 4:4: “And He had to pass through Samaria.” This was the shortest route from Judea to Galilee that many Jews used, but it wasn’t the only route. Some strict Jews, who didn’t want any contact with the despised Samaritans, would take a longer route, crossing the Jordan River to the east, traveling north, and then going back west into Galilee. Since Jesus was probably already at the Jordan River, where they were baptizing, He could have taken that route, but He didn’t. So the word translated “had to” probably indicates more than geographic necessity: Jesus had a divine appointment in Samaria. (John uses the word of Jesus’ divine mission in 3:14; 9:4; 10:16; 12:34; 20:9.)
Sychar was located about 30 miles north of Jerusalem, approximately half-way between Jerusalem and Nazareth, at the base of Mount Gerazim, the Samaritans’ “holy mountain.” Jacob’s well was about a half mile outside the village. John mentions that Jesus was weary from His journey, so He was sitting by the well at about the sixth hour. The disciples had gone into the city to buy food. The distance from where Jesus had been baptizing to Sychar was about 40 miles by road. Jesus and the disciples had walked a full day and a half to arrive there about noon (Colin Kruse, John [IVP], p. 129). Some scholars, to avoid a chronological problem in John 19:14, argue that John followed Roman time, which began at midnight. But there is scant evidence for that view. We’ll wrestle with the chronological problem when we get to chapter 19. But here, John almost certainly means noon, not 6 p.m.
The hostilities between the Jews and the Samaritans went back centuries. After the Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 722 B.C., they deported most of the Jews and replaced them with foreigners, who intermarried with the remaining Jews. Their religion was a mixture of their foreign gods with Judaism (2 Kings 17:24-41). When the exiles from the Southern Kingdom of Judah returned from Babylon, the Samaritans offered to help them rebuild their temple, but the Jews viewed them as foreign enemies and refused their offer (Ezra 4:1-5). The same thing happened later when Nehemiah was rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem (Neh. 4:1-3).
Then, in about 400 B. C., the Samaritans built a rival temple on Mount Gerazim. The Jewish leader John Hyrcanus burned it down in 128 B.C., which didn’t improve relations between the two groups! Also, the Samaritans only accepted the Pentateuch (the first five books of Moses), not all of the Jewish Scriptures. So the Jews viewed the Samaritans as biological and religious half-breeds. All of these events and factors had led to intense hostility between the Samaritans and the Jews by Jesus’ day. We can’t properly understand this story unless we keep this hostile history in mind.
The normal time for women to get water was either early morning or later in the afternoon, when it was cooler. The well was a place where women gathered to talk as they filled their water pots. We can’t say for sure why this woman came to the well at noon, but it may be that because of her immoral life, she was not liked by the other women. She wanted to come when she would be alone. But she encounters this Jewish man, who has the audacity to ask her for a drink of water. It would be like a white man in the South years ago, where they had separate drinking fountains for whites and “coloreds,” asking a black woman if he could have a drink from her canteen! Add to this that it wasn’t socially acceptable for a Jewish man, much less a rabbi, to speak to any woman in public. The rabbis thought that even Jewish women should not be taught the Scriptures. So for Jesus to go beyond asking for a drink, which was shocking enough, and direct the conversation into spiritual things with this Samaritan woman was off the charts (4:27)!
It wasn’t that this woman said, “Sir, you look like a Jewish rabbi. I’m hungry to know your God. Can you tell me how to do that?” She was just going about her daily chores, minding her own business, when this stranger asked her for a drink and then steered the conversation into spiritual matters. She wasn’t seeking to know God. Her guilt over her current live-in boyfriend and her five marriages, which had probably ended because of her multiple adulteries, caused her to keep her distance from God. The only explanation for this story is that Jesus was seeking a sinner who wasn’t even seeking Him.
The application for those of us who know Christ is: If we want to be like our Savior, we should be seeking out unlikely candidates for salvation and try to turn the conversation to spiritual matters so that they can come to know the Savior. I confess that all too often, I size up someone who seems to be far from the Lord and think, “He wouldn’t be interested in spiritual things.” So I don’t attempt to steer the conversation to the place where I can tell him the good news.
But maybe I’m speaking to someone who has a notoriously sinful past and right now is living in sin. The application for you is that Jesus seeks after just such people as you to be His disciples. Jesus said (Luke 19:10) that He came “to seek and to save that which was lost.” He saved the thief on the cross. He saved the chief of sinners who was persecuting the church. He saved this immoral Samaritan woman. He wants to save you!
Note three things here:
Note the emphasis on gift or give here (my italics): John 4:10: “Jesus answered and said to her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, “Give Me a drink,” you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.’” John 4:14: “But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” It’s a gift, not a reward!
One of the most common spiritual errors is that we get into heaven by our good works. Every religion, except for biblical Christianity, operates on the principle that you must work for or earn salvation. This is the official teaching of the Roman Catholic Church (in the Councils of Trent): “If anyone says, that by faith alone the impious is justified, in such wise as to mean, that nothing else is required to cooperate in order to the obtaining the grace of Justification, ... let him be anathema.” (Session 6, Canon 9, in Philip Schaff, The Creeds of Christendom [Baker], 2:112; English updated.)
In total contrast, the Bible states (Rom. 4:4-5): “Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.” Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
The gospel is not good news if it requires that you must do penance, reform your life, keep a bunch of rules, do an unspecified number of good deeds, and hope that someday God might let you into heaven on that basis. But it is wonderfully good news if God offers it to you as a free gift, which He does!
But, maybe you’re thinking, “Because of my many sins, which I’d be embarrassed to make known, I’m not worthy of such a gift.” True, you’re not worthy. No one is. But …
In the eyes of most Jews, including the disciples at this point, this woman was not worthy of Jesus’ time. Just being a Samaritan excluded her. Being a woman was strike two. But being an immoral Samaritan woman struck her out: “Jesus, why don’t we move on to more important, better qualified, people who have more potential?” But Jesus took the time and the initiative to talk with this sinful woman about living water. He didn’t exclude her from offering her this gift. And He doesn’t exclude you, either!
Actually, it’s often good, religious people who exclude themselves from receiving this gift. They’re proud of their accomplishments and want some reward for what they’ve done. They don’t want to associate with people like this sinful woman or admit that they need living water from Jesus just as much as she did. But the gift is freely offered to notorious sinners and to self-righteous religious sinners. Both equally need the gift.
Jesus tells this woman (4:14): “But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” By “living water,” Jesus is referring to the eternal life that the Holy Spirit gives. As Jesus said (John 7:37-39a), “‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, “From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” But this He spoke of the Spirit….” “Living water” is the same thing as the “new birth,” but just a different analogy. In that hot desert climate, water was essential for life. It was always welcome and refreshing. “Living” water referred to water flowing from a spring or fountain, as opposed to that which was collected in a cistern.
Jews familiar with the Scriptures knew that the Lord Himself is the spiritual fountain of living water. In Jeremiah 2:13, the Lord rebukes His sinning people: “For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” Or (Jer. 17:13), “O Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake You will be put to shame. Those who turn away on earth will be written down, because they have forsaken the fountain of living water, even the Lord.” (See, also, Isa. 12:3; 44:3; 49:10.)
Jesus told this woman that the water that He gives “will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” In him shows that true Christianity is not primarily a matter of rituals and ceremonies, but rather an inward, personal relationship with the living God. It must be in each person’s heart. The picture of this living water springing up points to the continual source of life that the indwelling Holy Spirit supplies to believers. It’s active and always flowing. There may be times of greater and lesser flow, but it never dries up, as so many Arizona rivers do.
When Jesus says that “whoever drinks of the water that I give him will never thirst,” He means that we who have drunk this living water are satisfied with Him in the sense that we know that He has rescued us from sin and judgment (Rom. 8:1). He has given us eternal life and that nothing can separate us from His love (Rom. 8:31-39). We’re His children, under His loving care in every situation (1 John 3:1). He has given us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Eph. 1:3). We have His Word, which is like water to our soul.
Jesus does not mean that our thirst is forever quenched in the sense that we cease to long for more and more of Him. We still hunger and thirst after righteousness (Matt. 5:6). Our hearts still pant after God like the thirsty deer for the water brook (Ps. 42:1). We still pray (Ps. 63:1), “O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; my soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” John Calvin sums up both sides of this (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 151): “Although we thirst throughout our whole life, yet it is certain that we have not received the Holy Spirit for a single day, or for any short period, but as a perennial fountain, which will never fail us.”
So, how do we get this living water of salvation that Jesus freely offers to all?
John 4:10: “Jesus answered and said to her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, “Give Me a drink,” you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water.’” These words would have provoked her curiosity about three things: (1) What is this gift of God? (2) Who is it who is talking to me? (3) Maybe I should ask Him for this living water.
We’ve already seen that the gift of living water is the salvation that the Holy Spirit imparts. It is the Lord Himself, dwelling in believers. To Nicodemus, Jesus spoke about being born of the Spirit (John 3:6, 8). At the Feast of the Tabernacles, He invited the crowds to come to Him and drink, which John explains was a reference to the Spirit (7:37-39). Here, He invites this sinful woman to ask Him to give her this living water that will forever quench her spiritual thirst. Again, it’s important to know that salvation is not a matter of keeping rules and rituals, but rather of new life through the Spirit that brings us into a relationship with the living God. And it’s important to know, as Jesus emphasizes, that it’s a gift.
The woman needed to know something about this one who claimed that He would give her living water. This underscores the fact that faith is not a blind leap in the dark. Faith is only as good as its object. To have faith in an airplane, you need to know that it has flown recently and that it seems to be trustworthy. To have faith in Christ, you need to know something about who He is. This doesn’t require a seminary degree, but it does require basic information. In this story…
The fact that Jesus was tired and thirsty shows that He is human. Jesus didn’t perform a miracle to quench His thirst, although He had that power. As a man, He can sympathize with our weaknesses (Heb. 4:15). He asked this woman for a drink. By being willing to drink out of her container, He was putting Himself on her level. He didn’t make her feel that He was superior as a Jew. He didn’t put her down as a woman, as many Jewish men would have done. He came across to her as He truly was, a tired, thirsty man.
The fact that Jesus is able to give living water to thirsty sinners shows that He is God. The woman asked (4:11) how Jesus could get this living water out of the well, since it was deep (over 100 feet) and He had nothing to draw with. Then she challenged Him (4:12), “You are not greater than our father Jacob, are You …?” The answer, of course, is, yes, He is much greater than Jacob! He is probably the angel of God who wrestled all night with Jacob! And the answer to where He can get the living water is, He has it within His own divine nature to supply it to as many sinners as ask for it. He has an endless supply of grace for all. Finally,
Jesus says (4:10), “If you would have asked, I would have given it to you.” To ask, you have to recognize that you’re thirsty and that you can never satisfy that thirst by yourself. But if you come to Jesus and ask, He will give it. All you have to do is drink and drink of Him until you’re satisfied. But the only condition that Jesus states is, “Ask.” If you ask, He will give you an endless supply of living water.
So, have you asked Jesus for the living water of eternal life? Do you have the evidence of being satisfied with Jesus? You can continually drink from the world’s sources, but you’ll thirst again (4:13). But one drink from Jesus and you’ll never thirst again. So, why don’t you ask?
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
August 4, 2013
If I were to ask each of you, “How did you come to Christ?” the stories would probably be as varied as each of you are. We’re unique individuals with different personalities and backgrounds. Each of us would have a slightly different story to tell about how we met the Savior.
But probably after we’d heard all the stories, we could identify some common elements in each one. We all came to a point of sensing our need for the Lord. We all recognized that we are sinners and that our sin has separated us from the holy God. We realized that we could not play games with God, who looks on our hearts. We had to deal with Him on the heart level. And, we had to believe in Jesus as the One who died to save us from our sins.
The story of Jesus’ encounter with this unnamed Samaritan woman by Jacob’s well and how she came to believe in Jesus is unique in all the Bible. And yet it has some common elements with all who come to salvation. This woman moves from the beginning of her encounter with Jesus, where she seems to have no interest in spiritual things, through a gradual process to the point of believing in Him as the promised Messiah. By studying these verses we can learn how to help others come to salvation. And, if you’ve never tasted the living water that Jesus offers, I hope that you will see how you can do so.
To drink the living water of salvation, acknowledge your need, confess your sin to God, bow before Him on the heart level, and believe in Jesus for who He is.
As we saw last time, the living water that Jesus offers to give this woman (and all who thirst for God) is symbolic of the eternal life that the Holy Spirit imparts to all that believe in Jesus Christ. In John 4:13-14, Jesus tells this woman, “Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” The world and the things in the world might quench your thirst for a short time, but you’ll get thirsty again. But when you drink of the water of salvation that Jesus gives, you’re satisfied! I didn’t mention it last time, but verse 14 also shows that the salvation that Jesus gives is not temporary. Jesus says that it will permanently satisfy your spiritual thirst, which would not be true if you could lose your salvation. Let’s work our way through this story:
There is a subjective element in interpreting this woman’s request (4:15), “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.” Some think that she was being sarcastic. She has just pointed out that Jesus has nothing to draw with and the well is deep. She has expressed her doubt that He is greater than Jacob. So perhaps now she is taunting Him or viewing His offer as amusing, but not serious. Others think that she was only thinking in material terms. She was interested in the living water if it would spare her the trouble of coming each day to draw and haul water from this well.
I understand her response to reflect sincere interest in what Jesus is offering, but she’s still confused. I think that she recognizes that this unusual Jewish stranger might be talking about something more than physical water, but she’s still thinking on too literal of a plane, like Nicodemus when he equated the new birth with returning to his mother’s womb (3:4). She was a woman looking for love, but she had failed in her relationships with men. She probably had a vague discontent with her Samaritan worship, which had not satisfied her spiritual thirst. So she responds to Jesus’ invitation to ask for the living water, but she’s still mixed up in thinking that it will also satisfy her physical thirst.
J. C. Ryle (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], 3:217) observes wisely that it is useless to analyze too closely the first imperfect desires in the hearts of those in whom the Spirit is beginning to move. We should not demand that a person’s early motives in coming to Christ must be free from all imperfection. He says (ibid.),
Material water was not out of her thoughts, and yet she had probably some desires after everlasting life. Enough for us to know, that she asked and received, she sought and found. Our great aim must be to persuade sinners to apply to Jesus, and to say to Him, “Give me to drink.” If we forbid them to ask anything until they can prove that they ask in a perfect spirit, we should do no good at all. It would be as foolish to scrutinize the grammatical construction of an infant’s cries, as to analyze the precise motives of a soul’s first breathings after God. If it breathes at all and says, “Give,” we ought to be thankful.
The point is, this woman recognized some sort of inner need for the living water that Jesus offered, even if she didn’t completely understand what that living water was. If you want to drink the living water of salvation, you have to acknowledge your need for God, even if you’re not totally clear about what salvation means. Being self-sufficient will not bring you to Jesus. You have to recognize that you have needs that only God can satisfy.
The woman has asked Jesus to give her this living water, even though she is still thinking too much on a material level. If Jesus had led her in a prayer to receive the living water at this point, she would have been a false convert, because something crucial was missing. So Jesus abruptly changes direction (4:16-19):
He said to her, “Go, call your husband and come here.” The woman answered and said, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You have correctly said, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one whom you now have is not your husband; this you have said truly.” The woman said to Him, “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet.”
This is an example of Jesus, the Light, shining in the darkness and exposing the evil deeds of this woman (1:5; 3:19-20). Jesus shows her that He supernaturally knows all about her past and present. Jesus knew about Nathanael even before He met him (1:48). He knew what was in the hearts of the superficial believers in Jerusalem, so that He did not entrust Himself to them (2:24-25). We will see Jesus’ omniscience on other occasions in John’s Gospel (6:6; 6:64; 11:14; 13:38; 18:4).
It would be more than a little unnerving to have a perfect stranger uncover the sins of your past and present! But Jesus wasn’t doing it to be mean. He did it to show her that her real need was spiritual, not material. He was helping her come to terms with the nature of the gift that He was offering (D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 221). As Ryle observes (p. 218), “No one values the physician until he feels the disease.”
It’s possible, but not likely, that this woman’s first five husbands had died. Jesus would not have needed to mention that, since there is nothing wrong with a widow remarrying. Jesus could have simply pointed out her current live-in boyfriend to zero in on her sin. Since divorce in that culture was usually not done just for incompatibility, it’s likely that this woman had been unfaithful to her previous husbands, which caused them to divorce her. In her current situation, she hadn’t bothered to make it official. Perhaps at this point, she didn’t expect this one to last, either.
I’ve had couples tell me that the fact that they were living together or having sexual relations meant that they were married in God’s sight. They didn’t “need a piece of paper” to be married. But Jesus makes it clear that living together is not the same thing as being married in God’s sight. Marriage is a formal covenant commitment before God and witnesses to be faithful to one another until death (Mal. 2:14). Moving in together or sleeping together is not biblical marriage. Even our State views marriage as a legal contract and we are to be subject to the laws of our land.
I read about a young man whose father did not approve of the fact that he was living with his girlfriend. But the young man argued that marriage was “just a piece of paper.” His father went to a file drawer, pulled out his will, and told his son that he had willed his entire estate to him. Then, to the young man’s horror, his father tore up the will. The boy shrieked, “Dad, what are you doing?” The dad shrugged and said, “It’s just a piece of paper.”
But to come back to the point: Before you can drink the living water of salvation, you have to acknowledge or confess to God that you’re a sinner. He knows that, of course, so there’s no point in trying to hide it. But he wants you to admit it. Jesus didn’t die on the cross just to give you some helpful hints for happier living. He died on the cross to pay the penalty for your sins. To come to Him for salvation, you must realize that you are a guilty sinner. Like the prodigal son, you have to say (Luke 15:21), “Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight!”
Granted, this woman did not explicitly confess her sin to Jesus, but I think it may be implicit in her droll reply (4:19), “Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet.” She was admitting that His analysis of her life was accurate!
At this point (4:20), she brings up a point of tension between the Samaritans and the Jews regarding whether people should worship at Mount Gerazim or in Jerusalem. As with verse 15, so here commentators differ in interpreting the woman’s reason for bringing this into the conversation. Some say that she was trying to divert the conversation from her sins, which made her uncomfortable, to a safer topic: “Let’s talk about the religious controversy between the Samaritans and the Jews.” Others argue that Jesus’ exposing her sin made her realize that He truly was a great prophet, so she brought up to Him a sincere, nagging question about the proper way to worship God. Ryle (p. 221) goes so far as to say that her words are just another form of the Philippian jailor’s question, “What must I do to be saved?”
I think that the truth is somewhere in the middle. She probably was uncomfortable with Jesus’ penetrating gaze into her secret life, as we all would be. So perhaps she was trying to divert the conversation to a safer topic. But also, she probably was sincerely confused about whether the Samaritan or the Jewish way of worship was correct. So the issue she raises in 4:20 was not insincere. She wanted to know from this prophet which way was right. Jesus’ reply leads to the third aspect of coming to salvation:
John 4:20-24:
Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe Me, an hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
These are important verses that merit an entire sermon! In the context, Jesus is making the point that outward religious rituals and ceremonies are not at the heart of salvation. Eternal life is a matter of knowing and worshiping the living God on the heart level. As Jesus told Nicodemus (John 3:6), “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” We must be born of the Spirit to worship God in spirit. But at the same time, worship is not just an internal matter based on your own feelings. Worship also must be in line with the truth.
The issue that the woman brings up focuses on the externals of this centuries-old controversy (4:20): “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain [Gerazim], and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” But Jesus cuts through the external aspects of that controversy to say that very soon neither place will be the official place to worship. Both places will be surpassed by those who worship God truly in spirit. He is referring to the new age of the Spirit, based on His finished work on the cross. The woman had talked about the worship of her fathers, but Jesus directs her to the worship of the Father, which suggests a personal relationship as opposed to ritualistic ceremonies.
Note that Jesus does not gloss over the errors of Samaritan religion. It is false to say that every religion is equally valid and that we should not judge other religions as false! Jesus bluntly states that the Samaritans worshiped what they did not know. They were spiritually ignorant and wrong. The Jews worshiped what they knew, because “salvation is from the Jews.” Jesus does not mean that all Jews were saved or worshiped properly by virtue of being Jews. Rather, He is pointing out the historical fact, revealed in the Pentateuch (which the Samaritans accepted), that God chose Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and promised to bring the Messiah and Savior through their descendants. God promised to bless all nations through the seed of Abraham, which is Christ (Gal. 3:8, 16).
When Jesus states (4:23, italics mine), “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth,” He is referring to Himself as the catalyst for this dramatic shift in focus. Through His death on the cross and His sending the Holy Spirit to dwell in His church, the Jewish system of worship would become obsolete (Heb. 8:13). Jesus is the new temple (2:19) that would replace the Jewish temple in Jerusalem.
To explain why we must worship God in spirit, Jesus states (4:24), “God is spirit.” While it is true that God is a spirit, Jesus does not mean here that God is one spirit among many. Rather, He is emphasizing the kind of being God is: He is spirit. He is not material. He does not exist in a body that can be seen or touched, like our bodies. Any physical representation of God, whether by an idol or by a picture (as a white-haired old man), is a misrepresentation of God. While the Bible sometimes uses human terms to refer to God (the eyes of the Lord, the arm of the Lord, etc.), these are only analogies to help our limited ability to grasp what God is like. As Paul describes Him (1 Tim. 1:17), He is “the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God.” Or, again (1 Tim. 6:15-16), He “is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see.” God is spirit.
Therefore, Jesus twice repeats, true worshipers must worship the Father “in spirit and in truth.” “Spirit” here refers to the human spirit, which is the immaterial part of our being. Of course, we worship through the Holy Spirit, who imparts new life to us (John 3:6) and dwells within us. We can only worship God in spirit when the Holy Spirit has caused us to be born again.
But here Jesus is referring to the human spirit. Sometimes the Bible distinguishes “spirit” from “soul” (1 Thess. 5:23; Heb. 4:12); but sometimes they are used interchangeably to mean the same thing (Luke 1:46-47). The Bible uses “heart” and “soul” and “spirit” to refer to our innermost being (Ps. 51:17). Here Jesus means that true worship must come from the depths of our being, as opposed to just going through external rituals or ceremonies. To worship God in spirit means to worship Him with complete sincerity, not with outward show or profession when our hearts are far from Him (Mark 7:6-7).
To worship God in truth means to worship Him as He has revealed Himself to us in His Word. If you worship God as you conceive Him to be, apart from the truth of His Word, you are worshiping an idol, a figment of your imagination. We cannot know the invisible God except as He has chosen to reveal Himself, and we have that revelation in His written Word. Jesus Christ, the eternal Word of God made flesh, is the supreme revelation of God to us (John 1:1, 14; Heb. 1:1-2; Luke 10:22). He is the way, the truth, and the life; no one can come to the Father, except through Him (John 14:6). If we have seen Him, we have seen the Father (John 14:9). To worship God in truth is to worship Him in accord with how He has revealed Himself in His Word.
Charles Spurgeon (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 12:333) describes true worship: “True worship lies in your heart paying reverence to him, your soul obeying him, and your inner nature coming into conformity to his own nature, by the work of his Spirit in your soul.” So to drink the living water of salvation, you must deal with God on the heart level. As He opens your eyes to see who He really is and to see your own desperate need as a sinner before Him, you must bow in submission to Him.
Thus, to drink the living water of salvation, acknowledge your need to God; confess your sin to Him; bow before Him on the heart level. Finally,
John 4:25-26: “The woman said to Him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming (He who is called Christ); when that One comes, He will declare all things to us.’ Jesus said to her, ‘I who speak to you am He.’” Some think that the woman is still trying to divert the conversation from her own sin to a safer theological topic. But it may be that she was legitimately confused over the matters that Jesus has just stated. But she recognized that when the Messiah came, He would resolve all these issues. The Samaritans believed that the coming Prophet would declare all things (Deut. 18:15).
Jesus, who concealed His identity as Messiah from the politically-oriented Jews, declares openly to this Samaritan woman, “I who speak to you am He.” He has been added by the translators. Literally, Jesus said, “I who speak to you am.” Some argue that Jesus is not here referring to Himself in the language of Exodus 3:14, where God identifies Himself to Moses as “I am.” But John may intend for his readers to pick up on that reference, which is clearly behind Jesus’ declaration in John 8:58, “Before Abraham was born, I am.” As Jesus confounds the Pharisees (Matt. 22:42-45), the Messiah is both David’s son and David’s Lord. He is God.
The point is, we must believe in Jesus as the Bible reveals Him: He is the eternal God, creator of all that is, who took on human flesh and died as the supreme and final sacrifice for our sins. He is risen from the dead and exalted on high. To deny either His true deity or humanity is to believe in a false Christ.
Jesus told this woman that the Father is seeking those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. Jesus was seeking this sinful, confused, emotionally wounded woman so that she would become one who would worship the Father in spirit and in truth. He is seeking you, too, as one who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. To drink the living water of salvation, acknowledge your need to God; confess your sin to Him; bow before Him on the heart level; and believe in Jesus for who He is, the only Savior, the Christ of God.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
August 11, 2013
Years ago when the billionaire Howard Hughes died, his company’s public relations director asked the casinos in Las Vegas, where Hughes owned multiple casinos, to show him respect by giving him a minute of silence. For an uncomfortable sixty seconds, the casinos fell eerily silent. Then a pit boss looked at his watch, leaned forward, and whispered, “Okay, roll the dice. He’s had his minute.” (From the book, Howard Hughes: The Hidden Years, cited in “Our Daily Bread,” 11/77.)
I wonder if sometimes we treat God as those gamblers in Las Vegas treated Howard Hughes. We interrupt our busy schedules once a week, rush into church, give God “His hour,” and then forget about Him and get back to what we’d rather be doing.
John MacArthur was certainly correct to title his book on worship, The Ultimate Priority [Moody Press, 1983]. God created us for the ultimate priority of worshiping Him. As the Westminster Shorter Catechism puts it, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” Or, as John Piper modifies it, our chief end is “to glorify God by enjoying Him forever” (Desiring God [Multnomah Books], 1996 edition, p. 15).
It’s no accident that the longest book in the Bible, Psalms, is all about praising and worshiping God. When we get to the end of the Bible, we see the saints and angels in heaven falling on their faces and worshiping God (Rev. 4:10-11; 5:8-14; 7:9-11). Since worship will be our ceaseless activity and greatest joy in heaven, we ought to be practicing it now.
Here are a few definitions of worship:
John MacArthur: “Worship is our innermost being responding with praise for all that God is, through our attitudes, actions, thoughts, and words, based on the truth of God as He has revealed Himself” (The Ultimate Priority [Moody Press], p. 127). Or, he gives a simpler definition: “Worship is all that we are, reacting rightly to all that He is” (ibid., p. 147).
William Temple: “To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, and to devote the will to the purpose of God” (cited in MacArthur, ibid., p. 147).
My definition is not so eloquent: Worship is an inner attitude and feeling of awe, reverence, gratitude, and love toward God resulting from a realization of who He is and who we are.
Also, John MacArthur gives this helpful clarification (on gty.org, “Messiah: The Living Water,” part 2): “Worship, by the way, is not music. Worship is loving God. Worship is honoring God. Worship is knowing God for who He is, adoring Him, obeying Him, proclaiming Him as a way of life. Music is one way we express that adoration.” As Paul states (1 Cor. 10:31), “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” Thus all of life is to be oriented “God-ward,” permeated with a sense of His majesty and glory.
Jesus’ words about worship to this unnamed Samaritan woman occur in the context of His witness to bring this woman to saving faith. We might not think that witnessing is the right context to talk about the priority of worship. But Jesus takes her implicit question (4:20) about whether Samaritan worship or Jewish worship is correct and uses it to zero in on the aim of the gospel: to turn sinners into true worshipers of God. We learn:
Since God is seeking true worshipers who worship Him in spirit and truth, we should make it our priority to become such worshipers.
Jesus tells this woman that a significant transition is about to take place (4:23), “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.” Jesus’ presence began this change from the old covenant to the new. Under the old way of worship, place was significant: all Jewish males had to appear before God in Jerusalem for the three annual feasts (Deut. 16:16). But in the new way which Jesus inaugurated, He is the new temple (John 2:19-21). Believers are being built into a holy temple in the Lord (Eph. 2:21; 1 Pet. 2:5). Thus where we gather to worship is secondary. How and whom we worship is primary.
Unbelievers, such as the Samaritan woman at this point, often mistakenly think that if they go through the proper externals of “worship,” then things are okay between them and God. As long as they go to a church building and go through the weekly rituals, they figure that everything is fine. But they haven’t dealt with God on the heart level. They haven’t repented of their sins of thought, word, and deed. So Jesus tells her that it’s not the externals that matter as much as the internal. We must make it our priority to become true worshipers of God in spirit and truth. Note three truths from these important verses:
As Jonathan Edwards argued, God created the world for His own glory (see John Piper, God’s Passion for His Glory [Crossway Books]). Everything, including the salvation of His elect and even the damnation of the wicked, will result in glory to God. So God now is seeking worshipers who will bring Him glory, not just for an hour on Sunday, but every day through all their activities. We can’t properly worship God on Sundays if we’re not worshiping Him throughout the week. You begin that process by repenting of your sins and trusting in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord. You grow in that process as you bring every thought, word, and deed under His lordship. Note two things:
False worshipers either worship something other than God or they may attempt to worship the true God, but do it in ways that actually dishonor Him. But either way, sincerity is not the only criterion for measuring true worship. All true worshipers are sincere, but all sincere worshipers are not true. For example, there are devout, sincere worshipers of Allah or Krishna or Buddha or the Mormon god or the Jehovah’s Witness god. But they are sincerely wrong, because they are not worshiping the only living and true God, who has revealed Himself in the Bible.
There are also Christians who are sincere, but their worship is man-centered. Sometimes it’s patterned more after the entertainment world than after the Bible. It draws attention to the performers, but not to the Lord. Or, on the other end of the Christian spectrum, some go through ancient liturgies week after week, but their hearts are not in submission to God. They mistakenly think that because they went through the rituals, they’re good for another week. They’re like the Jewish leaders of whom Jesus said (Matt. 15:8, citing Isaiah 29:13), “This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me.” So we need to be careful not to fall into the category of false worshipers.
In verse 24, Jesus says that these true worshipers “must worship in spirit and truth” (italics mine). It’s a necessity. It isn’t optional; it’s essential. A. W. Pink (Exposition of John, online at monergism.com) points out that there are three musts in John: “You must be born again” (3:7); the Son of Man must be lifted up (3:14); and “those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (4:24). The first concerns the Spirit, who imparts the new birth. The second concerns the Son, who was lifted up on the cross as the atonement for our sins. And the third concerns the Father, the object of our worship. And the order is important. First, you must be born again by trusting in Christ’s death for you. Only then can you worship God properly.
So the first point is that God is seeking you as a true worshiper. If you haven’t yet put your trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, start there. If you have trusted in Christ and perhaps have drifted off course, come back to this as your priority: God wants you to become a true worshiper.
Jesus repeats this twice so that we don’t miss it (4:23-24): “But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” To be true worshipers, we must worship both in spirit and in truth. To worship in spirit without truth is to worship false gods. To worship in truth without spirit is to fall into dead orthodoxy. We may be doctrinally correct, but we’re lifeless. And, the Father must be the focus of our worship.
Jesus emphasizes three times to this Samaritan woman that it is the Father that we are to worship (4:21, 23 [2x]). And, He explains to her that God is spirit. This is His essential nature. We looked at this last time. It means that God does not have a material body. He is invisible to human eyes (John 1:18; 1 Tim. 1:17; 6:16). The fact that He is spirit means that He is not confined to one locale at a time. He is omnipresent. He has existed as spirit for all eternity, before He created the material universe. When we’re born again, we possess human spirits (John 3:6), which can worship Him. Because He is the only omnipresent spirit, we can worship Him anywhere and know that He is there.
Through Jesus, we come to know God as our Father, whom we worship. John Piper (“Not in This or That Mount, but in Spirit and Truth,” at desiringGod.org) suggests three reasons that Jesus emphasizes the Father to this Samaritan woman: First, God is the Father of the Samaritans. This woman mentions “our father Jacob” (4:12) and “our fathers worshiped in this mountain” (4:20). So Jesus shifts the focus from these human fathers to the Father, who alone is to be worshiped.
Second, Jesus is pointing out that the Father has spiritual children. Having children is what makes one a father. We become God’s children through believing in Jesus and being born of the Spirit (1:12-13; 3:5-7). Being children of the Father implies that we have a personal relationship with Him.
Third, God is the Father of His unique Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. This does not mean that Jesus became the Son at a point in time. There never was a time when He was not God’s Son. The relationship of God as the Father of Jesus the Son points to Jesus’ sharing the same essential nature as the Father. Jesus is God. John 5:18 states, “For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.” In John 10:30, Jesus stated, “I and the Father are one.” In John 17:5, Jesus prays, “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” God the Father and God the Son have always been equal as God.
I’m not suggesting that Jesus intended for the Samaritan woman to grasp the mystery of the trinity in this first encounter! But the Holy Spirit inspired these words so that we would come to worship God in His triune nature. As Jesus says (John 5:23), the Father has given all judgment to the Son “so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.” True worship worships the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit (Phil. 3:3).
To worship in spirit is to worship from the heart or from within. It’s opposed to formal, ceremonial, external worship by those whose hearts are not right with God (Matt. 15:8). Thus the most important factor in becoming a worshiper is to guard and cultivate your heart for God. John Calvin (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 161) says that worship in the spirit is the inward faith of the heart which produces prayer, purity of conscience, and self-denial, leading to obedience.
I believe that worship in spirit is, in part, emotional or felt. This is not to say that we should pump up our emotions with music or crowd fervor. Genuine emotions for God stem from focusing our minds on the truth of who He is and what He has done for us at the cross. But if your worship never touches your emotions, something is wrong. It’s like my love for my wife. My relationship with her is not built on my feelings, but rather on my commitment to her. But when I think about all that she means to me, I feel love for her and I ought to express that love in some outward manner that shows her that I love her.
God has revealed Himself to us in His Word of truth and supremely in His Son, who is the truth (John 1:18; 14:6; 17:17). To worship God in truth means that we worship Him for all that He is in the majesty of His attributes as revealed in all of Scripture. We worship Him for His love, but also for His justice and righteousness. We worship Him for His kindness, but also for His severity (Rom. 11:22). We worship Him for His sovereignty and for His grace. We worship Him when He gives, but also when He takes away (Job 1:20-21). We worship Him for all His ways. The Bible is our only guide for worshiping in truth. As I said, worship in spirit flows out of worship in truth. Feeding your mind on the truth of God moves your spirit to praise and love God.
Since God is seeking true worshipers who worship Him in spirit and truth …
This applies in three directions:
As we’ve seen, personal worship is not restricted to a few minutes on Sunday mornings. In the context of 1 Corinthians 10:31, where Paul mentions glorifying God through eating and drinking, he is talking about relationships that do not cause offense to others, whether to unbelievers or believers (10:32). So how we treat others should be a matter of worship. Evangelistic or missionary efforts are a matter of worship (Rom. 15:16). Giving to support Christian workers or to help fellow believers is a matter of worship (Phil. 4:18; Heb. 13:16). Godly behavior is a matter of worship (Eph. 5:10; Phil. 1:11). An attitude of praise and thanksgiving is a matter of worship (Heb. 13:15). The point is, you can’t live a self-centered, worldly life all week long and then come to church on Sunday and worship.
Why do you come to church? If your focus is to get something out of the church service, you’ve got it wrong. Your focus should be to give praise and honor and thanks with all the saints to the God who gave His Son for you. Soren Kierkegaard pointed out that often a congregation views itself as an audience, watching the worship leaders and the pastor give their presentation or performance. But the truth is that the congregation is actually the cast of actors, with the worship leaders and the pastor acting as prompters, giving cues from the wings. The real audience is God and the entire presentation is offered to Him, for His pleasure and glory. So the issue when you come to church is not, “Did I get anything out of it?” but, “Did I give God the heartfelt praise and thanks and glory that He deserves?” That’s our aim as a church.
John Piper wrote (Let the Nations be Glad [Baker], p. 17), “Missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man.” His words apply not only to missions in other countries, but also to our efforts to reach the lost in Flagstaff. Our aim is to turn sinners into worshipers. That was Jesus’ aim with this sinful Samaritan woman.
Here are seven practical suggestions on how to grow as a true worshiper of the Father:
You don’t worship to gain eternal life; you worship because God has given you eternal life. Worship is your response after you have believed in God’s grace through Christ’s death on your behalf.
I cannot over-emphasize this. Worship is your response to the truth that God has revealed in His Word. Prayer is a response to the truth of the Word. Without spending consistent time alone with the Lord, your soul will shrivel up. You won’t worship.
The world is constantly competing for our worship. It bombards us daily through the media. If a TV show or movie defiles you or crowds out your daily time with the Lord, cut it out. If the computer gobbles up your time, you’ve got to restrict it. If you’re yielding to the temptation to view porn on your computer, you’re in serious spiritual trouble (Matt. 5:27-30)! You cannot glorify God with your body unless you flee from immorality (1 Cor. 6:18-20). You’ve got to discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness (1 Tim. 4:7), because true worship is inseparable from godliness.
I have an advantage on you, in that to survive in the pulpit on Sundays, I have to prepare my heart Saturday evenings. I don’t go to social events on Saturday evenings. I’m not suggesting that you do as I do in that regard, but I am suggesting that you should get home early enough to spend some time before the Lord, making sure that your heart is right with Him and praying that He would be honored by our worship as we gather on Sunday.
Don’t read the bulletin during singing or the sermon. If you have a medical condition that requires you to use the restroom during the worship service, sit near the back and on an aisle so you don’t disturb others. If you’re thirsty, you can wait until the service is over to get a drink. If your child is a distraction to others, take him to the nursery or out of the service.
There is a balance here. We should feel free to express our love to God outwardly without worrying about what others think of us. David danced before the Lord even though it embarrassed his wife, but God sided with David (2 Sam. 6:14-23). On the other hand, if you’re so demonstrative that you’re distracting others and calling attention to yourself, you’re out of balance. “All things must be done properly and in an orderly manner” (1 Cor. 14:40).
If you live in a big city, you’ll have to work harder at this than we who live in beautiful Flagstaff do. But wherever you are, pay attention to what God has made: the night sky with its stars; the sun to warm the day and give light (Ps. 19:1-6); the flowers, the birds, the butterflies, and even the bugs; your body, which is fearfully and wonderfully made (Ps. 139:14). In Romans 1:18-21, Paul indicts ungodly people who have ignored the evidence of the Creator that is all around them in His creation. Their sin was that they did not honor God or give thanks. In other words, they didn’t worship the Creator. But that’s our ultimate priority!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
August 18, 2013
If you’re anything like me, you struggle at being an effective witness for Jesus Christ. I’ve prayed about it for decades, I’ve read many books, gone to different training seminars, and even taken a seminary class in evangelism, but still I often fail at being a good witness. An hour or two after an opportunity, I think, “I should have said such and such,” but I didn’t think of it at the time.
Our text gives us some help in being the kind of witness that God uses from an unlikely source: A woman who is a brand new convert, who is still living with a man outside of marriage, who knows almost no sound doctrine, and who has not had a training course in how to share her faith. Yet she effectively evangelizes her entire village for Christ!
When Jesus tells her that He is the Messiah (4:26), she gets so excited that she leaves her waterpot, goes back to her village, and tells the men, who normally would have laughed at anything she said (4:29), “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?” As a result, they streamed out of the city to meet Jesus. They invited Him to stay with them. He spent two days there, during which time many more Samaritans came to believe in Him. At the end of that time, they proclaimed (4:42b), “This One is indeed the Savior of the world.” This narrative teaches us that…
God uses witnesses who are excited about Jesus, have a harvest perspective, and invite others to come to Him.
When Jesus told this woman that He is the Messiah, she had to decide: Is He or isn’t He? Although a few commentators question whether she believed in Christ (John never states this explicitly), the great majority believe that she did. How do we know? We know because of her response to Jesus’ self-revelation and because of the result that came from her witness: She immediately went to tell others about Jesus resulting in their believing in Him. We learn three things about becoming more effective witnesses for Christ:
Just as (or after) Jesus told this woman that He was the Messiah, the disciples returned from the village with the food that they had bought for their lunch. John says (4:27) that “they were amazed that He had been speaking with a woman.” Their amazement stemmed from two sources: cultural conditioning and they didn’t understand Jesus’ mission (4:31-38).
Culturally, it was taboo for a Jewish man to speak with a woman in public, much less with a Samaritan woman, especially a Samaritan woman who had questionable morals. Some (not all) Jewish leaders taught that it was at best a waste of time to talk with a woman, even with your own wife, and at worst a diversion from the study of the Torah that could possibly lead one to hell. Some rabbis went so far as to suggest that teaching your daughter the Torah was as inappropriate as selling her into prostitution (D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 227). To speak with a woman in public, even with your own wife, could lead to gossip and should be avoided. Some Jewish leaders taught that Samaritan women were perpetually unclean (Colin Kruse, John [IVP], p. 137). Thus the disciples were amazed to find Jesus speaking with this Samaritan woman by the well.
But in spite of their shock, the disciples did not question Jesus about why He was speaking to her. Some say that they were silent out of deference to Jesus, but at other times they didn’t hesitate to question Him. Maybe they were struck speechless by their shock and when that wore off, Jesus was already teaching them about His mission. But John tells us what they were thinking (4:27b): “What do You seek?” “Why do You speak with her?”
John Calvin (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 167) offers two helpful insights on 4:27. First, he says that if the disciples marveled that Jesus spoke with such a sinner as this Samaritan woman, they should have looked at themselves and marveled. None of us are any more worthy of heaven than this sinful woman was. Second, the fact that they did not question Jesus should teach us that if anything in God’s Word is disagreeable or puzzling to us, we should not murmur against God, but rather wait in silence until He reveals the matter to us more clearly.
John continues (4:28-30), “So the woman left her waterpot, and went into the city and said to the men, ‘Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done; this is not the Christ, is it?’ They went out of the city, and were coming to Him.”
John does not tell us exactly why she left her waterpot, but I think that she was so excited that she couldn’t wait to tell her village about Jesus. She wanted her people to meet this remarkable man before He slipped away. Carrying a heavy waterpot would have slowed her down. So she rushed back to the village to tell everyone who would listen about her amazing encounter with this stranger who had uncovered her past. I think that her exaggeration, that Jesus had told her all the things that she had done, also reflects her excitement. Normally, she would never have brought up anything about her sordid past. But the encounter with Jesus had changed her. Now, she wanted everyone to meet Him, too.
We need to understand that in that culture, the testimony of a woman, much less a woman of ill repute, was disregarded. The Jews would not accept the testimony of a woman in court. This woman was notorious in such a small village for her string of divorces and her current live-in boyfriend. Most of the men in the village would have avoided having any contact with her at the risk of raising suspicions that they were wrongly involved with her. If word got back to their wives that they had spoken to this woman, they would be in trouble when they got home! Yet, they listened to her and responded to her invitation to go and see whether Jesus might be the Messiah.
With all of this against her, why was her witness so effective? I think that part of the answer lies in her careful way of speaking to these men. Her question (in Greek) implies a negative answer: “This is not the Christ, is it?” If she had stated boldly that she had met the Christ, they all would have had a good laugh and gotten back to their conversation. But her question, framed as a tentative suggestion, piqued their curiosity. She deferred to the self-assumed wisdom of the men by letting them come to their own conclusion (C. H. Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 18:305).
This teaches us that to be effective witnesses, it’s often good to ask questions rather than make pronouncements. Bill Fay (audio recording) suggests asking these questions: “(1) Do you have any kind of spiritual belief? (2) To you, who is Jesus? (3) Do you think that there is heaven or hell? (4) If you died, where are you going? (5) Why would God let you into heaven?” Then, after listening to the person’s answers, ask, “(6) If what you believe is not true, do you want me to tell you?” Fay says that in thousands of encounters, he’s never had a firm “no” to that last question. Then you can show the person the Bible verses that explain the gospel.
But I think the main reason that this woman’s witness was effective was that she was excited about Jesus and these men who knew her could see the change in her. Before, she would not have spoken to any of them. She didn’t even want to speak to the other women in the village, which is probably why she was getting water at noon, when no one else would be at the well. But here she was, willing to bring up her own notoriously sinful past, exuberantly telling about this man whom she had met. The change and her excitement about Jesus were evident.
Evangelism and sales have many differences, but there are some parallels. One common feature is that the most successful salesmen are those who are excited about their product. They think that what they’re selling will solve your problems. If a salesman is apathetic about his product, you’re not likely to buy it. But if he tells you how the product changed his life and he wants you to experience the same thing, you just might be interested.
So here we have a woman who knew far less than Nicodemus did and she had a far worse background than his. But she was far bolder and did far more good than he did because she was excited about Him as the Messiah and she testified about her own experience with Jesus. God will use your witness if you’ve had a genuine encounter with the Lord Jesus and you’re excited about Him. And if you’re not excited about Him, you need to figure out why not.
Verses 31-38 are a “meanwhile, back at the well” scene that shows us a second reason the disciples were amazed that Jesus was talking with this woman: they were clueless about Jesus’ mission. The disciples arrive back at the well with their Big Mac and fries for Jesus, but He isn’t interested in eating. They urge Him to eat, but He tells them (4:32), “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” They don’t get it! So they wonder among themselves (4:33), “No one brought Him anything to eat, did he?”
Chances are that they had passed this woman as they were going in to buy their lunch. Perhaps they took a wide path around her; surely, they did not speak to her. Now they come back to find Jesus speaking to her, much to their shock. She leaves, so they want to get on with their mission, namely, getting Jesus to eat lunch so that they can get back on their journey north. But Jesus clues them in on His mission (4:34): “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.” Then as the villagers begin streaming out in their white robes to meet Jesus, He tells the disciples (4:35), “Do you not say, ‘There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest.”
The disciples needed to develop a harvest mindset. They needed to understand what God was doing in this situation. I’ve often been just like these clueless disciples, focused on the natural when I should have been awake to what God was doing spiritually around me. Like them, I needed to develop a harvest mindset.
The disciples were focused on eating lunch; Jesus was focused on doing the Father’s will and accomplishing the work that the Father had sent Him to do. We don’t know whether Jesus ever got His drink of water or whether He ever ate the lunch that the disciples had brought back. But He saw a whole village of Samaritans come to faith in Him as they discovered that He is the Savior of the world. Jesus came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). Food and drink were secondary; reaching lost people was primary. So in three short years, Jesus could pray (John 17:4), “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do.”
So often we’re like the disciples, focused on the temporal, but clueless as to the spiritual and eternal. A neighbor kid annoys you by cutting across your yard and stepping on your flowers. Rather than seeing it as an opportunity to show this boy the love of Christ, you chew him out and tell him that if he does it again, you’ll tell his parents. You’ve just put your yard above God’s work. A person at work grates on you with her obnoxious personality. You avoid her and tell the boss how annoying she is. You’ve just put your comfort above God’s work. A harvest mindset puts the will of God and His work above everything else.
Jesus makes four points in this short lesson on sowing and reaping:
Jesus seems to be quoting a familiar saying that means something like, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” You don’t sow seed and expect to go out the next day and reap a harvest. It takes time for the crop to grow. But in this case, the spiritual harvest was instant.
This Samaritan woman was an unlikely prospect for evangelism if there ever was one! She wasn’t interested in spiritual things when Jesus turned the conversation in that direction. She had all kinds of mixed up ideas due to her Samaritan religious beliefs. She was an immoral woman, not a “key” person and potential leader, as Nicodemus was. But by crossing cultural taboos and taking the time to talk with this messed up Samaritan woman, Jesus ended up reaping a harvest with the entire village.
You never know how God may use your witness with someone whom you consider to be an unlikely prospect for the gospel. I would have zeroed in on Nicodemus, but he proved to be a bit slow in responding and we’re not told that he ever reached anyone else with the gospel. Like the disciples, I probably would have kept my distance from this immoral Samaritan woman, but she proved to be the key to reaching an entire village.
Jesus says (4:36), “Already he who reaps is receiving wages and is gathering fruit for life eternal; so that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.” Earthly wages are of no value after you die, but wages that pay rewards for eternity are worth working for! A billionaire on his deathbed who has not laid up treasure in heaven is like the man in Jesus’ parable who planned to build bigger barns, but was not rich toward God (Luke 12:15-21). He was a fool. But the one with a harvest mindset who labors for souls is storing up eternal joy. We don’t know for sure, by the way, to whom Jesus is referring when he mentions the one who sows. It could be the Old Testament prophets and John the Baptist. Or, it could be Jesus and the woman. But the fact that someone sowed before Jesus reaped leads to a third lesson:
John 4:37-38: “For in this case the saying is true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored and you have entered into their labor.” To state the obvious, there is no reaping without prior sowing. But we often forget this. We expect to reap without sowing. We wonder why we don’t see people coming to Christ. Often the answer is simple: Because I haven’t been sowing any seed! At the very least, begin praying for opportunities to share the gospel with others. Jot down a list of those that don’t know Christ with whom you regularly have contact and begin praying for their salvation and for God to give you an opportunity to talk to them about the Savior. To reap a harvest, we have to sow the seed.
“One sows and another reaps” (4:37). We need to keep in mind that we never labor alone. If you lead someone to Christ, probably you’re reaping where someone else has already sown. It’s rare for someone to come to faith the first time he hears the message. And, if you share the gospel and the person does not respond, don’t get discouraged. Pray that God would water the seed that you’ve sown and bring along someone else who may reap the fruit. As Paul said (1 Cor. 3:6), “I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth.” J. C. Ryle (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], 3:246) observes:
Let it be noted, that in doing work for Christ, and laboring for souls, there are sowers as well as reapers. The work of the reaper makes far more show than the work of the sower. Yet it is perfectly clear that if there was no sowing there would be no reaping. It is of great importance to remember this. The Church is often disposed to give an excessive honor to Christ’s reapers, and to overlook the labors of Christ’s sowers.
Adoniram Judson labored his entire lifetime in Burma with much hardship, many disappointments, and little visible fruit in terms of converts. But today there are over a million Christians in Burma who trace their roots back to Judson’s labors. Your sowing is not in vain if others reap the fruit. Be faithful in sowing the seed!
Thus God uses the witness of those who are excited about Jesus, who have a harvest mindset. Finally,
John 4:39-42: “From that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him because of the word of the woman who testified, ‘He told me all the things that I have done.’ So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. Many more believed because of His word; and they were saying to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world.’”
In light of the centuries of hostility between Samaritans and Jews, the Samaritans’ warm acceptance of Jesus is amazing. The Holy Spirit can break down barriers that the world has erected. Just as Nathanael had to “come and see” Jesus for himself (1:46), so now at the woman’s invitation to “come,” the Samaritans came to Jesus and came to believe that He is the Savior of the world. Note two things:
The woman came to know Jesus as the Messiah who could give her the living water of eternal life. She told the men of her village about Jesus as she had come to know Him. And, her statement, “He told me all the things I’ve done” showed Jesus to be at the very least a prophet, but we know, as the omniscient God.
After spending two days with Jesus (a privilege that no Jewish village ever had) the Samaritans came to know that Jesus is indeed more than any other prophet; He is “the Savior of the world.” He is not only the Savior of the Jews, but also of any person of any nationality who believes in Him. That He is Savior means that people are lost and need saving. They don’t just need a few helpful hints for happy living. They need to be raised from the dead and given eternal life. In your witness, focus on who Jesus is. Encourage people to read the gospels and answer Jesus’ crucial question (Matt. 16:15), “But who do you say that I am?”
The woman invited the men of the village (4:29), “Come, see a man who told me all the things that I have done.” They went, they saw Jesus, and they believed in Him. Jesus invites those burdened with sin (Matt. 11:28), “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” The entire Bible ends on this same note (Rev. 22:17), “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.”
That’s God’s invitation to you: “Come to Jesus!” Are you burdened with sin? Come! Are you thirsty for the water of life? Come! Jesus gives living water freely to unworthy sinners like this Samaritan woman who come and ask Him for it. Then when they have come, He uses them as effective witnesses, inviting others to come to Jesus and live.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
September 1, 2013
We’ve all heard stories of men who had “foxhole” conversions. The man was on the front lines in battle. Bullets were flying and mortars were exploding all around him. He feared that he would die. Suddenly, his partner was hit and killed right next to him. In his panic, he flashed back to the Sunday school upbringing from which he has strayed. He thought about his godly mother, who prays for him every day. He cried out, “God, get me out of here safely and I will follow You the rest of my life!” The Lord answered his prayer and brought him safely through the battle.
The real test of that man’s faith, however, is not how sincere he may have been in crying out to God in the heat of the battle. The real test of his faith is rather measured by what he does when the pressure is off. Will he forget God and go back to his old ways? Or, will he go deeper and develop genuine faith in the person of Christ that is not just a response to his immediate need? Will he repent of his sins, trust in Christ as his Savior, and follow Him as Lord after his crisis is over?
This also applies to everyone who has cried out to God in an emergency. Maybe you or a loved one was facing a serious health problem. You cried out to God and promised that if He brought healing, you would follow Him. Maybe it was a financial crisis or the need for a job. Perhaps you were lonely and praying for a wife or husband. The Lord does not want us to seek Him merely for deliverance from some crisis, and then to put Him back on the shelf until we need Him in the next crisis. Rather, He wants us to go deeper in our faith and to trust and follow Him because of who He is, not just because of what He can do for us.
This is the central point in John 4:43-54, where Jesus heals the son of a royal official who is near death. The lesson is:
The Lord wants you to move from the foxhole faith that solves your crisis to the mature, saving faith of eternal life.
The Lord often graciously meets us at our point of crisis, but that’s just the beginning. He wants us to believe in and follow Him not only because He delivered us from our crisis, but also because He is the only Savior and Lord. He is worthy of our trust because of who He is.
Verses 43-45 form the background to the narrative that follows. After two days of fruitful ministry in the Samaritan village of Sychar, Jesus and the disciples headed north into Galilee. John adds (4:44), “For Jesus Himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his own country.” This statement occurs in the other gospels in connection with Jesus’ visit to Nazareth (Matt. 13:57; Mark 6:4; Luke 4:24), to explain His rejection there. But here John does not mention Nazareth, but only Galilee. And, why does he introduce the verse with “for”? It’s not easy to see how verse 44 explains verse 43.
Perhaps the sense is that after His unexpectedly warm reception in Samaria, Jesus went into Galilee to show that His own people did not receive Him, illustrating John 1:11, “He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.” Leon Morris (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 285) explains,
He had come unto His own, not under a delusion that He would be welcomed, but knowing full well that He must expect a rejection. This would not take Him by surprise, for it was in the divine plan. So, to fulfil all this implies, He went to Galilee.
John wants us to understand that Jesus went to Galilee because He was following God’s will. In spite of knowing that He would not be honored in his own country, He went. But then we would expect verse 45 to say that when Jesus came to Galilee, He was rejected. But instead, John adds (4:45), “So when He came to Galilee, the Galileans received Him, having seen all the things that He did in Jerusalem at the feast; for they themselves also went to the feast.” Why does he say this?
There are two clues to interpreting verse 45. The first is the phrase, “having seen all the things that He did in Jerusalem at the feast.” This takes us back to 2:23-25, where many of the Jews at the feast were believing in Jesus because they saw the signs (miracles) that He did. But Jesus was not entrusting Himself to them, because He could see that their faith was shallow. Then John tells the story of Nicodemus, who was impressed with the signs that Jesus was doing (3:2), but who did not understand his need for the new birth through faith in Jesus as his sin-bearer (3:3-14).
The second clue is Jesus’ rebuke in 4:48, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe.” “You” is plural in this verse. Jesus was not just rebuking the man who was asking Him to heal his son. He was rebuking the Jewish people because of their superficial reasons for seeking Him. They sought Him for the miracles He did, but they didn’t understand that they should seek Him because He is their Messiah and Lord.
So in verse 45, John is using irony. He doesn’t stop here to explain that the Galileans’ reception of Jesus was superficial, but that’s his point. Neither they nor the royal official recognize and honor Jesus as the Savior of the world, as the Samaritans did. They believed in Jesus without any miracles, except for His words to the woman unmasking her past and present immorality. They believed in Him because of His word (4:41-42). But the Galileans only sought Him because of the signs which He performed. John wants us to go beyond the shallow Galilean “faith,” which receives Christ because of the miraculous. He wants the signs that Jesus did to lead us to believe in Him for who He is, the Christ, the Son of God, so that we might have eternal life in His name (20:31).
That background brings us to the story in 4:46-54, which illustrates the point of 4:43-45. This royal official comes to Jesus with Galilean “faith,” looking for a miraculous sign, but ends up going deeper to believe in Jesus as the Christ. Note the emphasis on “life” in the story: In 4:50, Jesus tells the man, “Go; your son lives.” In 4:51, as the man was returning home, his slaves met him, “saying that his son was living.” In 4:53, the father came to know that his son had been healed in the same hour when Jesus had said to him, “Your son lives.” As a result, both he and his whole household believed. Thus they serve as an illustration of John’s purpose for writing this gospel (20:31), “these [signs] have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”
John notes (4:46) that Jesus came again to Cana of Galilee, where He had done His first miracle of turning the water into wine at the wedding feast. Then he concludes the story by linking this second miracle or sign to the first (4:54). Why does he make these connections here?
A. W. Pink (Exposition of John, on monergism.com) says that John wants us to compare the two miracles. He draws seven comparisons, which I can’t mention for sake of time. But the most significant comparison is that the result of the first sign was that the disciples believed in Jesus (2:11); the result of this second sign was that the royal official and his household believed (4:53). That’s the response that John wants all of his readers to make: These signs are written so that you will believe in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, and thus have life in His name (20:31).
But as James Boice (The Gospel of John [Zondervan, 1-vol. ed.], p. 293) points out, there is also a great contrast between the two stories. The first is a scene of joy and happiness; but the second is a scene of sickness, desperation, anxiety, and the shadow of death. Boice says that by comparing the two stories, we are to see that life is filled with both kinds of situations and that Jesus is the One that we need to trust in all the joys and sorrows of life.
John describes the man as a royal official. We don’t know whether he was a Jew or a Gentile, but he probably had some post in Herod’s court. He could have been Manaen, who is mentioned in Acts 13:1 as having been brought up with Herod the tetrarch. Or, he may have been Chuza, Herod’s steward, whose wife Joanna contributed to Jesus’ support (Luke 8:3). But we don’t know. We can be sure that between John the Baptist’s witness and the report of this miracle on his official’s son, Herod had more than adequate witness about Christ. And yet he refused to believe. This official probably had heard of Jesus’ first miracle in Cana and also of the miracles that He had done in Jerusalem at the feast.
But he probably never would have come to Jesus if it hadn’t been for this personal crisis: His son was sick and at the point of death (4:47). He probably had sought all of the physicians in Capernaum, but they had not been able to help. So in desperation, the man makes the 15-20-mile walk from the north shore of the Sea of Galilee up to Cana to find Jesus. The verb tense that John uses indicates that he was repeatedly imploring Jesus to come down and heal his son. Every parent who has had a very sick child knows the anxiety that this father was feeling.
God often uses the crises in our lives to get us to seek Him in ways that we never would have done if the crisis had not occurred. But we need to understand that seeking the Lord in a crisis is not automatic. Many curse God and grow bitter when trials hit. We should follow this man’s example by seeking the Lord when trouble strikes.
Probably the man was fairly well-off, but his position and his money could not save the life of his son. All of us, whether rich or poor, will face afflictions and eventually death. Being young does not guarantee many more years of life. This young boy was dying. The story shows our helplessness without God. The time to seek Him is now, when you have the opportunity, not later.
Jesus’ reply to this man’s desperate cry for help seems harsh (4:48): “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you simply will not believe.” But Jesus knew that the man was not seeking Him because he wanted to worship Him or follow Him for who He is. He wasn’t coming as a sinner seeking forgiveness and eternal life. Rather, he was like the soldier in the foxhole. He desperately needed immediate help. And so Jesus’ rebuke, which as I said was directed both at the man and at the Galileans who were there, was a gracious rebuke intended to help the man see his greater need. Jesus wanted him to move from his foxhole faith to genuine saving faith. We should learn that the Lord never rebukes us to hurt us, but always for our good, so that we might grow in faith and holiness.
Note also that the man’s faith at this point was quite limited. He thought that Jesus had to make the journey to Capernaum in order to heal his son. And it never occurred to him that even if his son died, Jesus could raise him from the dead. But it was sincere faith, even though limited. He didn’t try to convince Jesus that he was worthy of this miracle because he was a royal official or a man of means. He didn’t take offense at Jesus’ rebuke. He just pathetically cried out (4:49), “Sir, come down before my child dies.”
Before we leave this point, even those of us who have believed in Christ as Savior need to look in the mirror. All too often, we’re just like this royal official. We don’t pray unless we’re in a crisis. We keep Jesus on the shelf, like Aladdin’s lamp. When we need Him, we pull Him off the shelf, try to rub Him the right way, and ask for His help. But after the difficulty passes, we put Him back on the shelf and get on with life virtually without Him.
But Christ wants to be worshiped as Lord, not used as Aladdin’s lamp. He wants us to believe in Him for who He is and to fellowship with Him at all times. He doesn’t just want us to seek Him when we need something or we’re in a jam. Any father can identify with this. What if your son only talked to you when he needed money or wanted to borrow your car? Well, that’s better than no communication at all. But it would be far better to hear, “Dad, I love you because you’re such a wonderful father.” And it would be nice if he wanted to talk to you at times when he didn’t need anything, just because he liked being with you.
The story moves from foxhole faith to the next stage:
As I said, the man had it fixed in his mind that Jesus had to accompany him back to Capernaum to heal his son. Often, we have a preconceived idea of how the Lord must work to solve our crisis. Jesus could have gone with the man and healed the boy in his presence. He did this with Jairus’ daughter when He raised her from the dead (Luke 8:41-56). That would have been more dramatic, but it wouldn’t have developed the man’s faith.
So, instead, Jesus puts the man in a curious dilemma: The man said, “Come!” but Jesus said, “Go; your son lives.” By doing this, Jesus forced the man to believe without a sign. Either he had to doubt the word of the One in whom he had placed all of his hopes for his son’s recovery, or he had to believe Him and go. So Jesus very skillfully drew this man into a deeper level of faith: Faith in Christ’s promise or word.
Here, the man has nothing but Jesus’ “bare word” to go on, but John reports (4:50), “The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and started off.” Note that the Lord answered the man’s desire (to heal his son), but not his request (to come down to his house). So the man had to put aside his expectations of how Jesus would work and just take Him at His word.
This story reminds us of the story of the Syrian army captain, Naaman, who had leprosy (2 Kings 5:1-19). His servant girl, a Jewish slave, told him about Elisha the prophet, who could cure him of his leprosy. He was desperate, so he put together a nice reward and went to the prophet. He expected Elisha to come out to him, stand and call on the name of the Lord, wave his hand over him, and heal him. But instead, Elisha didn’t even come out of the house. He sent his servant out to tell this important man to go and wash in the Jordan River seven times and his leprosy would be cured. Naaman was furious. This wasn’t what he expected. Besides, the rivers in Syria were better than the lousy Jordan. So he went away in a rage.
But then his servants appealed to him and said (2 Kings 5:13), “My father, had the prophet told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” So Naaman went and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan River and was cured of his leprosy. He believed the word of the prophet, obeyed, and was healed.
J. C. Ryle points out that Christ’s word is as good as His presence. He says (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], 4:254-255):
What Christ has said, He is able to do; and what He has undertaken, He will never fail to make good. The sinner who has really reposed his soul on the word of the Lord Jesus, is safe to all eternity…. In the things of this world, we say that seeing is believing. But in the things of the Gospel, believing is as good as seeing.
So this royal official believes Christ’s word that his son was healed and he demonstrates his faith by starting off for home. This leads to the third level of faith:
The official probably had to spend the night somewhere on his return journey. The following day, as he was on the way home, his slaves met him with the wonderful news that his son was living. The man was no doubt overjoyed, but he wanted to make sure that this wasn’t just a coincidence. So he asked them at what hour “he began to get better.” They replied (4:52), “Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him.” Left is the same word used when the Samaritan woman left her waterpot. It wasn’t just a slow, natural recovery. It happened instantly. The man then knew that it was the same hour when Jesus had spoken the word, “Your son lives.” As a result, the man and his entire household believed in Jesus.
At this point, he entered into a deeper faith in Christ’s person. C. H. Spurgeon calls it the “full assurance of faith” (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 6:249). His faith has grown from the initial foxhole faith when he sought Christ to get him out of a crisis, to the stronger faith of taking Christ at His word, to this mature faith in Jesus for who He is, the Christ, the Son of God. He and his family recognize that Jesus is no ordinary prophet, but one who can speak the word and heal at a distance. He is God in human flesh.
John Calvin (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], pp. 182-183) realistically acknowledges that God doesn’t often give us immediate answers to our requests, as Jesus did to this man. But even then, we must trust that He has a good reason for His delays and that He waits for our good. Calvin applies this by saying that while we wait, we should “consider how much of concealed distrust there is in us, or at least how small and limited our faith is.” Ouch! But Calvin’s point is on target. How often I expect God to answer in my way and my timing; but when He doesn’t, I doubt His love or His care. I need to trust that in His way and His timing, He will work all things together for my good, even if I don’t see it in my lifetime.
I conclude with two other applications. First, if you have believed in Christ, entreat the Lord for the salvation of your entire household. Throughout the Book of Acts, as here, there is a sequence of entire households coming to saving faith (Acts 11:14; 16:15, 31; 18:8). It may not happen instantly with your family, as in these cases. But if the Lord has done wonders in saving your soul, begin to pray for your family. Live a gospel-transformed life in front of them every day. Let them see the love of Christ in you. Ask the Lord to save your family from their sins.
Second, if you have never believed in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord, then you’re under the sentence of death—eternal separation from God. But just as Christ instantly granted life to this dying boy, so He will instantly give you eternal life, if you will call on His name. You cannot do anything to save yourself, but Christ can and will save you if you cry out in faith to Him. This sign was “written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name” (20:31).
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
September 8, 2013
There are billions of people around the world seeking salvation through religions that cannot save anyone. With sadness in my heart, I’ve watched Buddhists in Asia offering sacrifices, spinning prayer wheels, and going through other religious rituals in the hopes of attaining Nirvana. We have quasi-Buddhists in Flagstaff who fly prayer flags in the hopes that it will bring them good karma. I’ve seen Hindu holy men at the temple in Kathmandu who think that by looking weird and meditating every day, they will gain salvation. When we were in western China last year, our driver stopped the bus at sundown, got out his prayer rug, and said his prayers toward Mecca before we could resume our trip. We were there during Ramadan, when the Muslims think that fasting during the daylight hours will help get them into heaven.
I watched a woman in an Orthodox cathedral in Romania weep as she prayed to an icon of some “saint.” I’ve seen Roman Catholics kneel before statues of Jesus and Mary, praying their rosary beads in their attempt to be right with God. Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses canvass our neighborhoods every weekend, thinking that their efforts will earn them salvation. And—let’s be honest—there are people in Protestant churches every Sunday who mistakenly think that their church membership and good deeds will get them into heaven when they die.
But the Bible is clear that religion is impotent to save anyone. By religion, I mean any humanly devised system of belief that teaches that by keeping their rules, rituals, and requirements, a person can gain eternal life. Jesus consistently confronted the Jewish religious leaders of His day, even though they claimed to be following the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They thought that by adhering to the Law of Moses, they could commend themselves to God. Over the centuries, they had added to that Law many of their own traditions. But Jesus deliberately confronted these religious leaders. Eventually, they were the ones who put Him to death.
In our text, we move from a section in John’s Gospel where we saw initial belief in Jesus as the Son of God to a section of mounting unbelief and opposition to Him, originating with the Jewish leaders (whom John often calls, “the Jews”; 5:10), leading finally to the cross. At the root of their hostility toward Jesus was that He confronted their man-made religious traditions, especially their Sabbath laws. Jesus never broke the Sabbath as God intended for the Jews to keep it. But He deliberately violated the human traditions that had grown up around the Sabbath, because many of the Jews mistakenly thought that by keeping these traditions they could be right with God. But no one can gain eternal life by keeping God’s law, because no one can keep it perfectly from the heart, which is the requirement.
And so Jesus deliberately did things on the Sabbath to confront the Jewish leaders. After all, He could have waited 24 hours to heal this lame man by the Pool of Bethesda. He had been paralyzed for 38 years; what difference would one more day make? And, Jesus could have told him to leave his mat there by the pool and come back and get it the next day, so as not to provoke the religious leaders. They had taken the Sabbath stipulation not to carry any burden on the Sabbath (Jer. 17:21-22) so far as to say that you could not carry a handkerchief from one room to the next. But to get around this rule, if you tied it on, then you could wear it into the next room! Jesus could have told this healed man not to do anything that would violate these Jewish traditions, but He did not. He told him to pick up his mat and carry it.
The great contrast that comes through in this miracle is the impotence of religion versus the mighty power of Christ. Neither the Jewish leaders nor the superstition about the angel healing the first person into the water after it was stirred up had helped this man in 38 years. But in one crisp command, Jesus brought instant and complete healing to him. The lesson is:
While religion is impotent to save, Jesus is mighty to save.
Let me explain that I do not see any evidence that this man whom Jesus healed was saved spiritually. In saying this, I am disagreeing with the venerable C. H. Spurgeon, who thought that the man exercised faith to obey Jesus’ command to get up, pick up his pallet, and walk (see, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 13:201; 21:22). But John never hints that the man believed in Christ. At first, he didn’t even know who Jesus was. He never thanked Jesus for healing him. And when he found out who Jesus was, he went to the Jewish authorities to report Him, even though he surely knew that they were hostile towards Him.
So while I do not believe that this healed man believed in Jesus and was saved spiritually, I do think that this miracle illustrates Christ’s power to save, as contrasted with the impotence of religion to save anyone. And so I hope that you understand that coming to church, serving the church, being baptized, taking communion, or any other religious activities can never forgive your sins or gain you eternal life. But Christ is powerful to save you and will save you instantly if you will believe in Him. Note three things:
The pathetic scene around the Pool of Bethesda (the most likely reading, which meant, “Pool of Mercy”) must have been a sight to behold! It was a large pool surrounded by five porticoes, and, “In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered” (John 5:3). These people in various states of physical impairment are a picture of the human race maimed by sin. While not all sickness is a direct result of sin (although this man’s condition did seem to stem from his sin, 5:14), all sickness and death is a result of Adam’s fall into sin. Those awful effects of sin will one day be removed in the new heaven and earth (Rev. 21:4).
Do you ever look at people whose bodies are impaired and grieve over the toll that sin has taken on the human race? In 1987, Marla and I were walking on a very crowded street in Guangzhou, China in the rain. We were moving along with the crowd when I almost stepped on a man who only came up to just above my knees. He had no legs and no wheelchair. He was using his arms and hands to propel his torso along the muddy street. He probably often got stepped on or knocked over. A wave of horror swept over me and I immediately thought of the rest of the people around us, who were just as impaired spiritually as that poor man was physically.
The scene by this pool must have become even more grotesque when the water bubbled up. Verses 3b-4 are not in the original text of John, but were added by a later copyist to explain the man’s comment to Jesus in 5:7. Occasionally the water would bubble up, probably from a spring below, but the people superstitiously thought that it was an angel causing the disturbance and that the first one into the water would be healed. Perhaps someone had once been healed of some psychosomatic disorder after the bubbling of the water, and it led to this myth. So there was probably a mad scramble of these blind, maimed, and crippled people, clamoring over one another to be the first into the water after it bubbled. It’s a tragic picture of helpless, sin-wounded people, putting their faith in some religious superstition that cannot save them, rather than trusting in Jesus Christ, who can save the worst of sinners.
Religion has no power to save anyone, but it is powerful in one way: it is powerful to enslave those under its influence.
The Pharisees were the religious police of the day, much like the Taliban in Muslim countries today. When they saw this man carrying his mat on the Sabbath, they pounced (5:10), “It is the Sabbath, and it is not permissible for you to carry your pallet.” When the man explains that he has been healed and that it was the one who made him well who told him to carry his pallet, the religious police didn’t rejoice at his healing or praise God for such a miracle. Rather, they wanted to know who had healed him, so that they could go after him. We’ll see the same thing with the blind man whom Jesus heals in John 9. Impotent religion emphasizes outward conformity to its rules, but it can’t change hearts.
We watched the movie, “The Kite Runner,” because it was filmed in some of the areas where we traveled last summer. It exposes the hypocrisy of the Taliban in Afghanistan. In one horrific scene, they stone a woman accused of adultery. But the leader who carries out the stoning also takes children from an orphanage to use for his own evil sexual pleasure, and then disposes of them like so much trash. That’s the impotence of all religion: it focuses on outward conformity to its rules, but it ignores its own lack of conformity to God’s holy standards on the heart level (Mark 7:6-23).
Jesus sought out this man after he was healed and warned him (5:14), “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.” As I said, not all bodily sickness is directly linked to sin (see John 9:2-3), but sometimes it is. This man’s 38 years of being crippled was due to his sin! Sin never gets us what it promises! Jesus lets him know that He has healed him, but that now he needs to stop sinning. Going to the temple and keeping the Jewish traditions will not deal with his heart. God is not fooled by those who are religious outwardly, but whose hearts are full of lust, greed, pride, and selfishness. The “something worse” that Jesus warns the man about is not another 38 years of sickness, but the eternal judgment of God, which is far worse. Religion can’t save because it focuses on external conformity. It can’t deal with our sin on the heart level.
These religious leaders surely had seen this man lying helplessly by the Pool of Bethesda over the years. Now they see him walking around in the temple. You would think that they would be rejoicing with him over this amazing miracle and giving glory to God. But all they could do was rebuke him for carrying his mat on the Sabbath and track down the healer who had told him to do it! John says (5:16), “For this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath.”
You would think that they would recognize that Jesus could only do such a miracle by God’s power. Later, when Jesus healed the man born blind on the Sabbath, the healed man pointed this out to the Jewish leaders (9:30-33). The climax of their spiritual blindness was when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, but rather than repenting and believing in Jesus, they sought to kill both Jesus and Lazarus (11:53; 12:10)! So the religious leaders were enslaved to their own system, which could not save them from their sins.
But they also sought to enslave the people under them. Here, they threaten this man for carrying his mat on the Sabbath, which was their manmade tradition. He apparently was afraid of their threats and wanted to put himself in good standing with them, because when he later found out who Jesus was, he informed the Jews, knowing full well that it would put Jesus in jeopardy (5:15). Rather than worshiping the One who had healed him (9:38), the man was afraid of offending the religious leaders. He was in bondage to their damning religious system.
All human religions work the same way: they use fear and threats to keep people in submission to the system. The Roman Catholic Church held power over most of Europe for a thousand years by threatening people with torture, imprisonment, death, and eternal hell if they dared to challenge the Pope. They did not teach that God graciously forgives all the sins of the one who believes in Jesus apart from works. Islam is even worse for holding people in bondage to their system by brute force.
But this miracle contrasts the impotence of religion with the mighty power of Jesus:
As I said, there is no indication in the text that Jesus saved this man spiritually. To the contrary, the evidence points to the fact that he was not saved. But all of Jesus’ healing miracles are illustrations of spiritual salvation. They display Jesus’ mighty power, not just to heal bodies that will eventually die, but to heal souls that will live forever with Him in glory. Note three things here:
John 5:6: “When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, He said to him, ‘Do you want to get well?’” We are not told whether Jesus asked someone nearby about the man’s situation, but we’ve already seen that Jesus knew about Nathanael before He met him (1:47-48). He knew the hearts of the people in Jerusalem who superficially believed in Him (2:24-25). He knew the sins of the woman at the well in Samaria (4:17-18). So it’s likely here that Jesus’ knowledge of this man’s condition was supernatural. He may have picked him out of the crowd to heal because He knew that he was the most pathetic case there. He had 38 years of frustration and discouragement in his attempts to be healed. Jesus knew.
Jesus also knows everything about you. He knows all of your thoughts and secret sins. He knows all of your disappointments and discouragements. There is nothing hid from His sight (Heb. 4:13). And He not only knows, He also cares!
You may wonder, “If Jesus knew all about this man, then why does He ask him (5:6), “Do you wish to get well?” At first glance, it’s a strange question to ask a man who has been sick for 38 years! Didn’t Jesus know the answer to that question? Of course He did! Jesus never asked questions to gain information! He asks questions to get us to see our need for Him. He may have wanted the man to recognize his own helplessness and to look to Jesus for healing. Or, He may have wanted the man to recognize how discouraged and lacking in hope he was, as seen by his complaining answer (5:7).
Also, the question uncovers the fact, as strange as it may seem, that some people do not want to get well because it means that they will have to be responsible. As James Baldwin observed (in Reader’s Digest, 1/83), “Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch.” If he became well, the man would have to stop begging and start working for a living. If he got well, he couldn’t complain about his circumstances. He couldn’t blame those who didn’t care enough to help him into the water. And, he may not have wanted to be healed because, as Jesus later tells him, he then needed to stop sinning so that nothing worse would happen to him. Some people actually love their sin so much that they are willing to risk going to prison or contracting a disease like AIDS or to go on suffering rather than give up their sin!
Jesus didn’t reply to the man’s complaint about nobody caring for him (5:7). Rather, He said (5:8), “Get up, pick up your pallet, and walk.” With the command, Jesus imparted the power. The man’s atrophied legs were instantly strengthened (5:9): “Immediately the man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk.” It’s the same as when He told the man with the withered hand (Luke 6:10), “Stretch out your hand.” But that was the problem—he couldn’t stretch out his hand. But with the command, Jesus imparted the power. Even more dramatic was when Jesus spoke to the dead Lazarus (John 11:43), “Lazarus, come forth.” Dead men aren’t known to respond to commands! But because of the power of Jesus’ word, Lazarus came forth after four days in the tomb. It’s like His future command at the end of the age (5:28-29): “All who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth,” either for a resurrection of life or of judgment.
As I said, this isn’t just a story of a physical miracle, but a picture of what Jesus can do for you spiritually. He commands you to do something that you cannot do for yourself, any more than this crippled man could obey Jesus’ command to walk. He says to you, “Believe in Me and you will not perish, but have eternal life.” No matter how long you’ve been crippled by sin, if you will respond to Christ’s command, your response is not from your sinful heart. It’s the gift of God. When you obey His command, He imparts His power to give you eternal life.
Why didn’t Jesus clear out the Pool of Bethesda by healing everyone there? He had the power to do it. But it wasn’t His purpose to do so. He only chose to heal this one undeserving man. Why didn’t the Lord choose everyone in Ur of the Chaldees to follow Him, but just chose Abram? It wasn’t His purpose to do so. Why didn’t He choose both Ishmael and Isaac and both Esau and Jacob? It wasn’t His purpose to do so. Why doesn’t God save everyone? It’s not that He lacks the power. Rather, it isn’t His purpose to do so. Jesus makes this clear (John 5:21): “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes.” Jesus is sovereign in imparting salvation to whomever He wishes (Luke 10:22). The rest are responsible for their damnation.
Many Christians stumble over the doctrine of election, which runs from Genesis to Revelation. They want to attribute their salvation to their own “free will.” But the Bible is clear that before we are saved, we are spiritually dead, blind, and crippled. Romans 3:11 says, “There is none who seeks for God.” If you’re saved, it’s not because you were smart enough to choose God. It’s because He was gracious enough to choose you. That way, He gets all the glory and you get none (1 Cor. 1:26-31)!
Some of you may be thinking that I’m contradicting myself. On the one hand, I say that you must repent and believe in Jesus to be saved. On the other hand, I say that you cannot repent and believe in Jesus unless He has chosen you for salvation and He works in your heart to bring you to repentance and faith. So you’re saying, “Come to Christ,” but, “You cannot come!”
Asahel Nettleton, a great revivalist preacher (1783-1843) raised this seeming contradiction in a sermon and then said (Asahel Nettleton: Life and Labors [Banner of Truth], by Bennet Tyler & Andrew Bonar, p. 216, italics his):
A celebrated preacher, in one of His discourses used this language: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” In another discourse, this same preacher said: “no man can come unto me except the Father which hath sent me draw him.” Now, what think you, my hearers, of such preaching, and of such a preacher? What would you have said had you been present and heard Him? Would you have charged Him with contradicting himself?
Then he adds the obvious, that this preacher was none other than the Lord Jesus Christ! Religion cannot save you. Christ is mighty to save you. He invites you to come to Himself. But if you come, it’s because the Father graciously drew you.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Editor's Note: Apologies for the audio quality. The recording encountered technical difficulties. Please bear with the inconvenience, thankfully the manuscript is also available below.
September 15, 2013
The Christian faith rests entirely on the correct answer to Jesus’ question (Matt. 16:15), “Who do you say that I am?” If Jesus is the promised Messiah of Israel, the eternal Son of God in human flesh, who died on the cross in the place of sinners, who was raised bodily from the dead, and who is coming again in power and glory to judge the living and the dead, then everything else is secondary.
There may be difficulties in the Bible that you cannot resolve, but that’s secondary. You may struggle with hard questions, like, “Why do little children suffer and die?” or “Why do some people never have the chance to hear the gospel?” but those questions are secondary. You may struggle with doubts because of personal trials or unanswered prayers, but those struggles do not undermine the truth of Christianity. If Jesus is who He claimed to be and who the Bible proclaims Him to be, then the entire Christian faith stands. If He is not who He claimed to be, then our faith in Christ would be in vain (see 1 Cor. 15:13-19).
You’ve probably heard liberal professors or theologians say that Jesus never claimed to be God. The Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons hold Jesus in high esteem and even claim to believe in Him, but they deny His true deity. There are many others who think that Jesus was a great moral teacher and example, but they do not affirm that He is God.
But C. S. Lewis slammed the door on that option in an often-quoted statement. He said (Mere Christianity [Macmillan], p. 56):
A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic … or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
So you’ve got to decide: Is Jesus crazy or is He God? And that decision will have drastic effects on how you live your life and on where you spend eternity.
We’ve just studied the story of Jesus healing the man at the Pool of Bethesda (John 5:1-16). It’s an interesting miracle for John to use in his Gospel of belief, because there is no indication that the man believed in Jesus. He didn’t even know who Jesus was when He did the miracle. When he found out, he never thanked Jesus for healing him. Rather, he went to the Jewish authorities to report Jesus, so that they could go after Him for violating their Sabbath traditions. Since John wrote his Gospel so that we would believe in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, you have to ask, why did he include this miracle where the healed man did not believe?
John included this story because it illustrates the irrational but growing hostility of the Jewish leaders toward Jesus that led to His crucifixion. They began to persecute Jesus because He was doing these things on the Sabbath (5:16). But also, the confrontation between the Jews and Jesus that erupted because of this event set the stage for Jesus to make some of the strongest statements for His deity in the Bible (5:17-47). J. C. Ryle states (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], 3:283): “Nowhere else in the Gospels do we find our Lord making such a formal, systematic, orderly, regular statement of His own unity with the Father, His Divine commission and authority, and the proofs of His Messiahship, as we find in this discourse.” The practical bottom line for us is:
Christ’s amazing claims to be God demand that we honor Him as God and submit to Him as Lord.
When the Jews accused Jesus of breaking the Sabbath, He could have pointed out their error in interpreting the Sabbath laws, as He did on other occasions. He could have said that it was right to do good on the Sabbath. But rather, He put His own activity on the Sabbath on a par with God’s activity (5:17). When they then accused Him of making Himself equal with God (5:18), rather than denying it with horror, as even the greatest of the Old Testament prophets would have done, Jesus goes on to affirm it emphatically. Our text reveals six ways in which Jesus is equal with God:
In response to the Jews’ accusation that Jesus was breaking the Sabbath and to their persecution, Jesus answered (5:17), “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working.” John explains (5:18), “For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.”
First, Jesus calls God, “My Father.” The Jews would sometimes speak of “our Father,” or if they used “my Father,” they would add, “in heaven,” or some other expression to remove any suggestion of familiarity (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 309). But Jesus speaks of God as His Father in the most intimate of terms. Leon Morris (p. 310, italics his) states,
He was claiming that God was His Father in a special sense. He was claiming that He partook of the same nature as His Father. This involved equality.
Later, Jesus explicitly stated (John 10:30), “I and the Father are one.” As a result, the Jews again sought to kill Him. When Jesus asked for which of the many good works from the Father they were stoning Him, they replied (10:33), “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.” They understood His claims! The problem was, they didn’t accept His claims.
While Jesus is equal with God in sharing the same nature, He is also distinct from the Father as the Son. Jesus’ existence as the Son of God does not imply that there was a point in time in which He did not exist, and then He was created as the Son of the Father. That was Arius’ heresy, whose modern followers are the Jehovah’s Witnesses. John has already made it clear that the Word existed in the beginning with God and that He created all things that have come into being (1:1-3). If Jesus came into being at a point in time, that verse would be false. Nor did Jesus become the Son of God when He was conceived in Mary’s womb by the Holy Spirit.
Rather, Jesus has existed eternally as the Son of God in relation to God the Father. Just as a human son shares his father’s nature, so Jesus shares the same nature as God the Father. But just as a human son is a distinct person from his father, so Jesus is distinct from the Father as the second person of the Trinity. In John 5:19-26, Jesus refers to Himself as “Son” nine times; He is emphasizing His divine Sonship. As the Son, Jesus is equal to and yet functionally subordinate to and distinct from the Father (as the following verses show). God is one God who exists as three Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
By saying (5:17), “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working,” Jesus links His own activity directly with God’s activity. As D. A. Carson points out (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 247), “For this self-defense to be valid, the same factors that apply to God must apply to Jesus ….” The Jews acknowledged that after creation God worked on the Sabbath to sustain His creation. Jesus is saying, “To accuse Me of Sabbath-breaking is to accuse God of Sabbath-breaking, because He is My Father and I work exactly as He works. The Father works continuously, including on the Sabbath; so do I.”
Also, implicit in Jesus’ statement that He is working right alongside the Father is that He always has been working alongside the Father. The Bible is clear that all three members of the Trinity were involved in the work of creation. John has told us specifically that Jesus, the Word, was involved in creation. Since He and the Father are one, Jesus has been working with the Father since the beginning of time. Clearly, Jesus was claiming to be God!
The Jews got it. They sought all the more to kill Him because He was making Himself equal to God. Jesus responded (5:19), “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.” Jesus uses “truly, truly” three times in this discourse (5:19, 24, 25) because He wants us to take special note of what He says.
The first thing he affirms is that “the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing.” This is not a statement of weakness or limitation, but rather of His absolute unity with the Father in nature and in will. He is saying that it is impossible for the Son to act independently of the Father because they share the same nature. What the Father does the Son does and what the Son does, the Father does. There is a complete correspondence in their actions. In Jesus, we see God. When Jesus worked, it was God working. Whatever Jesus did was an act of God; whatever He said was the word of God. There was no moment of His life and no action of His which did not express the life and action of the Father.
Yet at the same time, these verses reveal that as the Son, Jesus is always subordinate to the Father in terms of carrying out the divine will. The Father commands and the Son obeys. Jesus was sent to this earth by the Father (5:23) to accomplish the work that the Father gave Him to do (4:34), especially the work of redemption on the cross (3:14; 12:27). But subordination in the hierarchy of the Trinity does not in any way imply inferiority. All three Persons of the Trinity are equally and eternally God. But for the sake of carrying out the divine plan, the Son is subject to the Father and the Spirit is subject to the Father and the Son.
The last part of verse 19 explains why it is impossible for the Son to do anything of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing: “for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.” Carson (p. 251, italics his) explains the thought: “It is impossible for the Son to take independent, self-determined action that would set him over against the Father as another God, for all the Son does is both coincident with and co-extensive with all that the Father does.” So John’s point is that while Jesus as the Son of God is subordinate to the Father and carries out His works in obedience to Him, He is at the same time fully equal to the Father as God. No lesser being could make the claim of verse 19.
In verse 20, Jesus explains how the Son can do whatever the Father does: “For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel.” The Father’s love for the Son is seen by His disclosing to the Son everything that He is doing.
In a recent sermon, John MacArthur pointed out the startling implications of this verse (“The Most Startling Claim Ever Made,” Part 1, on gty.org):
It might shake you up to hear this, but at the heart of God’s redeeming work is not God’s love for you, not God’s love for me. Not God’s love for the world. Not God’s love for sinners. At the heart of redemption is … the Father’s love for the Son and the Son’s love for the Father.
You say, “Didn’t Jesus die because He loved us?” In a secondary sense, but in a primary sense, Jesus died because He loved the Father. “Didn’t the Father send Jesus to the cross because He loved us?” In a secondary sense. In primary sense He sent the Son to the cross because He loved the Son. You say, “How am I to understand that?”
You’re to understand it this way, that the whole purpose of redemption, the whole purpose of creation, the whole purpose of the world, the universe, human history is so that God can collect a bride to give to His Son a bride that’s an expression of His love…. The Father … will give to the Son a redeemed humanity, collected one day in heaven forever and ever and ever to praise and serve and glorify the Son and always be an everlasting expression of the Father’s love.
Jesus’ point in 5:20 is that the Father’s love for the Son is displayed by the fact that He shows Him all that He Himself is doing. I understand that to refer to the time when Jesus was on earth, since before He came to earth, Jesus and the Father possessed all knowledge inherently, so that there would have been no need for disclosure. In Colossians 2:3, Paul says that in Christ “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” These treasures are disclosed to us in God’s inspired Word, which is sufficient for all of life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:3). We don’t need to turn to the “wisdom” of the world for answers to our personal and relational problems. The answers are in Christ and in God’s Word.
The “greater works” that Jesus refers to in 5:20 are in the next two verses: Giving life to whom He wishes and judging all people. We’ve seen that Jesus is equal with God in His nature, His works, and in His love and knowledge.
John 5:21: “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes.” This verse is an example of how Jesus does the works of the Father: He gives life to whom He wishes. It’s a startling claim! What mere man could claim that he could give life to whomever he wished? Either Jesus is crazy or He is God!
“Life” here refers on one level to Jesus’ ability to raise the dead physically, as He did on three recorded occasions: The widow of Nain’s son (Luke 7:11-17); Jairus’ daughter (Luke 8:49-56); and Lazarus (John 11:1-44). Also, at the end of the age, Jesus will give the command and all the dead from all ages will arise, either for judgment or eternal life (John 5:28-29).
But Jesus’ miracles were illustrations of spiritual truth. His power to give physical life to whomever He wills and to raise the dead physically at the end of the age show us that He also has the sovereign power to give spiritual life to those who are spiritually dead. In John 5:24 he says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”
As with many aspects of salvation, we see all three members of the Trinity involved in the giving of life. Here we see that both the Father and the Son raise the dead and give them life. In John 6:63 Jesus says, “It is the Spirit who gives life.” But clearly the giving of life is an activity that only God can do (1 Sam. 2:6).
And, Jesus asserts His sovereignty in the giving of life. Leon Morris (p. 315) says, “Men may not command the miracle. The Son gives life where He, not man, chooses.” As verse 24 states, to have eternal life we must hear Jesus’ word and believe in Him. But He initiates the process. We cannot believe in Him or know the Father unless the Son wills it (Luke 10:22). That way we can’t take any credit for our salvation. He gets all the glory.
John 5:22: “For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son ….” In verse 21, the roles of the Father and Son are parallel in giving life. But here, the Father has delegated all judgment to the Son, because (as Jesus explains in 5:27), “He is the Son of Man.” Because He took on human flesh and died for the sins of the world (1:29), the Father delegated all judgment to Jesus (Acts 17:31).
In John 3:17, we saw that Jesus did not come “into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” His purpose for coming was to provide salvation. But those who reject Him are already under condemnation because they have not believed in the only provision for their sins that God graciously provided (3:18). If they die in that condition, they will face His eternal judgment.
Also, to be a just and fair judge, Jesus has to possess all knowledge of all people who have ever lived. If an earthly judge is missing key facts, he is likely to make an erroneous judgment. To judge every person, Jesus has to know all of their circumstances, their thoughts, and their motives. So again, to make this claim, Jesus either was crazy or He was God. Finally,
John 5:23: “… so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.” If Jesus is not fully God, then His words in verse 23 are nothing short of blasphemy! What created being could say that we should honor him just as we honor the Father? Clearly, Jesus is claiming to be God.
This means that you can test anyone’s claim to believe in God by their views of Jesus. If they claim to believe in God, but they think that Jesus was just a good man, they do not believe in the living and true God. They only believe in a god of their own making. If they do not honor Jesus, they do not honor the Father.
John MacArthur (“The Most Startling Claim Ever Made,” Part 2, on gty.org) recalls a conversation that he had with Larry King after he had taped a TV show one evening. Larry said, “You know, John, I’m going to be okay…going to be okay.” John said, “What do you mean you’re going to be okay?” “I think I’m going to make it to heaven.” John said “Based on what, Larry?” He said, and he named a certain evangelist and said, “He told me because I’m Jewish, I’m going to be okay.” John concludes, “That may be the worst thing that anybody told him. But to come from a Christian evangelist to tell him that?”
No one will be okay on judgment day who has not honored and loved and worshiped Jesus Christ as God! As Calvin puts it (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 202), “The name of God, when it is separated from Christ, is nothing else than a vain imagination.” As John puts it (1 John 2:23), “Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.” Jesus is equal with the Father in belief and in worship.
Polls have shown that a majority of Americans believe that Jesus is God, but that belief has not changed the face of America. It’s not enough to believe that Jesus is God intellectually. You must also trust in Him as your Savior from sin and judgment and live in submission to Him as Lord of all your life. Remember, to believe in Jesus as merely a great moral teacher is not an option. Either He was crazy or He was God in human flesh. Believe in Him as your God and Savior and you have eternal life!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
September 29, 2013
George Bernard Shaw had it right when he observed, “The statistics on death are quite impressive: one out of one people die.” In light of the certainty of death, you would think that everyone would be very concerned to prepare for what lies beyond. And yet many push it out of their minds and focus on other things that really won’t matter on the day of death. The evangelist, George Whitefield, told of seeing some criminals riding in a cart on the way to the gallows. They were arguing about who should sit on the right side of the cart, with no more concern than children today arguing about who gets to sit in the front seat of the car.
In our text, Jesus is replying to the Jews, who accused Him not only of breaking the Sabbath, but also of claiming to be equal with God (5:19). Rather than responding with horror to such a charge and backing off, Jesus intensified His claims to be God. As we saw in our last study, He claims to be equal with God in His nature (5:17-18), His works (5:17, 19), His love and knowledge (5:20), His sovereign power (5:21), in judgment (5:22), and in worship (5:23). No mere man and no created being could make these claims unless he was crazy. Jesus is clearly claiming to be God!
Now Jesus continues to hammer home His amazing claims. In 5:24, He asserts that there are two categories of people: those who have eternal life and those who are spiritually dead and under judgment. The difference between these two groups is that those who have life have heard Jesus’ words and believed in the One who sent Him, whereas the latter have not. Jesus goes on (5:25-26) to state that He inherently has the power to impart eternal life to dead sinners. Then (5:27-30) Jesus claims that in the future He will raise from the dead everyone who has ever lived and judge them for all eternity. These are mind-boggling claims! Since death and judgment are absolutely certain, our text screams at us:
Since Jesus can impart eternal life and since He will judge all people, make sure that you are right with God through faith in Jesus Christ.
Before we work through the text, note that in 5:20, Jesus said that the Father would show Him greater works than these, “so that you will marvel.” But in 5:28, He tells the Jews not to marvel at what He has just said. Why does He tell them that they will marvel and then turn around and tell them not to marvel? I understand Jesus’ words in verse 20 to be an invitation to the skeptical Jews to believe in Him when they observe the miracles that He would perform. But in verse 28, He is warning them not to be amazed in the sense of scoffing at His claim to judge all people. In other words, amazement at the signs that Jesus did should lead to faith in Him and His claims, not to scoffing. Our text makes three main points:
John 5:24: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” Clearly, when it comes to being alive or dead, there are two and only two categories of people. Maybe some of you would qualify for being half-dead, but technically, you’re alive! What is true physically is also true spiritually: Everyone is either spiritually dead or spiritually alive. There is no in-between category.
What distinguishes these two groups? The difference is that those who have eternal life have heard Jesus’ word and have believed the One who sent Jesus, whereas those who are spiritually dead have not heard or believed. Jesus’ word stands for His entire message or teaching. Hearing Jesus’ word is the same thing as hearing God’s Word, since Jesus only did what He saw the Father doing (5:19) and spoke what He heard from the Father (8:38). And the Father testified of His Son (5:37-38). God sent His Son to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (1:29). He sent Him to be the Savior of the world (4:42).
Hearing Jesus’ word referred to more than just hearing the sound of His voice. Obviously, the Jewish leaders who were challenging Jesus heard the sound of His voice, but they didn’t accept or submit to what He was saying. In spite of witnessing the amazing miracles that Jesus did, the Jewish leaders opposed Him and rejected His claim to be sent to earth from God. In John 10:27, Jesus said, by way of contrast with these unbelieving Jews, that His sheep hear His voice and follow Him. And so to hear Jesus’ word means to hear with faith and obedience. It means to believe that what Jesus says is true and to submit to His lordship.
Jesus adds (5:24) that those who have eternal life also believe “Him who sent Me.” As Leon Morris points out (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 316), it is more common to have a reference to “believing in,” rather than just believing and to have Christ as the object of belief, rather than the Father. But, he adds,
All those who believe the Father, who really believe the Father, accept Christ. It is not possible to believe what the Father says and to turn away from the Son. The theme of this whole passage is the unity of the Father and the Son.
Jesus says that the one who hears His word and believes in the One who sent Him “has eternal life.” In 5:21, we saw that Jesus gives life to whom He wishes. That statement emphasizes Jesus’ sovereignty in the matter of salvation, which theologians refer to as the doctrine of election. We are saved because God chose us to be saved. That doctrine gives God all the glory for our salvation.
But I’ve had people ask me, “How can I know whether I am one of the elect?” The answer is in 5:24: Do you believe in Jesus Christ as your Savior from sin and judgment? Do you believe the biblical witness to Jesus as the eternal Son of God who was sent to this earth to bear your sin on the cross and who was raised from the dead by the power of God? If so, you are one of God’s elect, because none but the elect truly believe in Christ.
The Lord here also gives those who believe in Him great assurance. He says that the one who believes “has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” Judaism in that day believed that the attainment of eternal life was a future event, not a present reality (Andreas Kostenberger, John [Baker], p. 188). But here Jesus says that eternal life is the present possession of the one who believes His word. That person has moved from spiritual death to spiritual life. And if the life that God gives to those who believe is eternal life, then it isn’t temporary life. Or to put it another way, if you can lose it, then it isn’t eternal. God wants those who believe in Jesus to have the assurance, as Paul put it (Rom. 8:1) that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
Assurance of salvation is in part a feeling, but it’s a feeling based on fact. The fact is Christ’s promise that those who believe have eternal life and will not come into judgment. Note that Jesus prefaces His words with, “truly, truly,” to underscore what He is saying. Either we trust His word or we don’t.
A man once came to the famous evangelist, D. L. Moody, and said that he was worried because he didn’t feel saved. Moody asked him, “Was Noah safe in the ark?” “Certainly he was,” the man replied. “Well, what made him safe, his feeling or the ark?” Our salvation doesn’t rest on our feelings, but on Christ our Savior. If we’re in Him, we’re secure and protected from the storm of judgment that is coming on the world. Our feelings rest on the absolutely truthful promises of Jesus.
As Leon Morris points out (pp. 316-317), verse 24 is more than a statement of fact. It’s also an invitation or call to hear the words of Jesus Christ and believe in Him. Have you put your trust in Him? If not, why not do it now?
From our Lord’s next words we learn…
John 5:25: “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.”
Jesus again prefaces this statement with “truly, truly,” to affirm the importance and truth of what He is saying. He used the same phrase, “the hour is coming and now is” with the woman at the well when He spoke about worshiping the Father in spirit and truth (4:23). He meant that it was a present reality, but also that there was more to come. In this case, the “more to come” would be the cross, Jesus’ resurrection, His ascension, and the sending of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. But “now is” meant that as He spoke, Jesus had the power to speak so that the dead would hear and live.
Jesus demonstrated that power physically at the tomb of Lazarus when He called out (11:43), “Lazarus, come forth.” With the command, Jesus imparted the supernatural power for that dead man to hear and obey. Only God has such power (Deut. 32:39; 1 Sam. 2:6; 2 Kings 5:7). But that miracle or sign pointed to the spiritual truth that Jesus has the power to speak to those who are spiritually dead in such a way that they receive eternal life. That is the main focus of 5:25-26. While we all would have been amazed if we had been there at Lazarus’ tomb, we should realize that the miracle of the new birth is just as great, if not greater, than the raising of a dead man. Just as Lazarus was raised instantly at the command of Christ, so dead sinners are instantly saved when they truly hear the voice of the Son of God. With the command to believe comes the power to believe.
In verse 26, Jesus explains why He can impart life to those who hear His voice: “For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself ….” Life is inherent in God. He spoke all life into existence in the original creation. Even so, Jesus says, the Father “gave to the Son also to have life in Himself.”
But what does this mean? No less a theologian than John Calvin understands that the Father granted this power to Jesus in His incarnation (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 207). But in John 1:4, John said, “in Him was life,” in His pre-incarnate state as the eternal Word. Thus this act of the Father granting life to the Son must, as D. A. Carson puts it (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 257), “be an act belonging to eternity, of a piece with the eternal Father/Son relationship ….” Jesus doesn’t say that life comes from the Father through the Son, but rather that just as the Father inherently has life in Himself, so also He granted or ordained that the Son has this same inherent power of life in Himself. It is another claim that Jesus shares full deity with the Father.
At the same time, the verse distinguishes the Father and the Son and shows that the Son is eternally subject to the Father. Through the centuries a heresy called Sabellianism, monarchianism, or modalism has denied the Trinity. It teaches that there is no distinction of persons between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God projects Himself at times as the Father, at other times as the Son, or again as the Spirit. These are just three modes revealing the same divine person (C. A. Blaising, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology [Baker], ed. by Walter Elwell, p. 727). The error persists today with the “oneness Pentecostal” movement.
But Athanasius, an early defender of the faith, used verses such as John 5:26 as proof that the Father and the Son are two distinct persons (J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], 3:297-298). The Athanasian Creed puts it, “We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons nor dividing the Substance [Essence].”
Thus Jesus is teaching that there are only two groups of people: Those who are spiritually dead and those who have eternal life. Also, He is the only one powerful enough to impart life to those who are dead. Thirdly,
By the way, for Jesus’ claims here to be true, He had to be raised bodily from the dead. Our entire faith rests on the fact of Jesus’ resurrection (1 Cor. 15:1-19). There are five important truths here, which I can only touch on:
John 5:27: “…and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man.” Along with 5:26, this verse explains 5:25. The reference to the Son of Man goes back to Daniel 7:13-14, where the prophet saw one like a Son of Man coming up to the Ancient of Days. He was given everlasting dominion, glory and a kingdom so that all the peoples and nations might serve Him. Jesus is that Son of Man, eternal God in human flesh. He is uniquely qualified to judge humanity because He is both the all-knowing God and at the same time a man who understands by experience what it is like to be human (Heb. 2:17-18; 4:15).
John 5:28-29a: “Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth ….” I take it that Jesus’ hearers were scoffing at His amazing claims to have life in Himself and to judge all people. So Jesus warns them not to scoff or marvel at this. Then He adds a further claim of His divine power: In the future He will give the command and every dead person from every people group from all ages will arise from the dead! Whether their bodies were drowned or burned or eaten by scavengers or blown apart by a bomb, all will be raised to face judgment.
Other Scriptures indicate that there will be two resurrections. Believers will be raised at the second coming of Christ (1 Thess. 4:13-18; Rev. 20:4). They will not face judgment for condemnation (John 5:24), but they will be judged for rewards in heaven (Rom. 14:10; 1 Cor. 3:13-15; 2 Cor. 5:10). Unbelievers will be raised at the end of the millennium (Rev. 20:11-15). But no one will escape this final roll call.
John 5:29b: “… those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.” Jesus is plainly teaching that this life is not the end of our existence. Either there is life beyond the grave for every person—both the righteous and the wicked—or Jesus is wrong. He says that both those who did good and those who did evil will be raised. The teaching that the wicked will be annihilated contradicts Jesus’ teaching. They will be raised for judgment and then “go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matt. 25:46). If eternal life is forever, then so is eternal punishment.
John 5:29b: “… those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.” I had a Roman Catholic friend in college who was very interested in spiritual things. At my urging, she bought a Bible and began reading the Gospel of John. One day she told me that she had been wondering how a person gets to heaven. Then she said that she had come across a verse that told her how. I thought, “Praise the Lord, she has read John 3:16!” But she turned to John 5:29 and said, “It’s by good deeds!”
So I had to explain to her that verse 29 is describing the lives of those who have received new life from Jesus by faith as opposed to those who have not trusted in Him. She had missed John 1:12, which says that the children of God are those who believe in Jesus’ name. She had missed John 3:16, which says that whoever believes in Jesus has eternal life. She had missed John 3:36, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life….” She had missed John 5:24, “He who believes Him who sent Me has eternal life.” Leon Morris (pp. 321-322) explains verse 29 well:
Judgment, as always in Scripture, is on the basis of works…. This does not mean that salvation is on the basis of good works, for this very Gospel makes it plain over and over again that men enter eternal life when they believe on Jesus Christ. But the lives they live form the test of the faith they profess. This is the uniform testimony of Scripture. Salvation is by grace and it is received through faith. Judgment is based on men’s works.
John Calvin (pp. 209-210) comments on 5:29, “For without the pardon which God grants to those who believe in Him, there never was a man in the world of whom we can say that he has lived well; nor is there even a single work that will be reckoned altogether good, unless God pardon the sins which belong to it, for all are imperfect and corrupted.” He goes on to refute the Roman Catholic error that we gain eternal life through the merit of our works. Then he concludes (p. 210), “And indeed we do not deny that the faith which justifies us is accompanied by an earnest desire to live well and righteously; but we only maintain that our confidence cannot rest on anything else than on the mercy of God alone.”
John 5:30: “I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” He not only said that He did not do anything on His own initiative, but that He could not. This goes back to the theme of the entire section, His unity with the Father in all things. Jesus will be impartial and completely fair in His judgment of all people. No one will be able to complain that he or she was judged unfairly. Jesus will be completely just or fair when He judges everyone. But you never want to ask God to be fair with you! Plead rather for His mercy!
You’ve probably heard the expression, “going first class on the Titanic.” It describes those who foolishly devote themselves to seeking after pleasure in this life only. This world and all who live for it are headed for judgment. Going first class on a ship that is certain to go down is not wise! Rather, get in the lifeboat while you can! There’s plenty of room for everyone, but you’ve got to get in.
Jesus claims that He can give eternal life to those who are spiritually dead and that He will raise all people for judgment. Either He is crazy to make such claims or He is God and He will do it. Make sure that you have passed out of death and into life because you have put your trust in Jesus Christ and His substitutionary death as your only hope for eternal life!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
October 6, 2013
How can you know for sure that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God? An old hymn put it, “You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart.” Okay, but that’s pretty subjective. A Buddhist might say that Buddha lives within his heart. How can you verify such a thing? A critic might say that Jesus is just a legend or myth. Or, maybe the apostles embellished stories about Him so that what we read is far from the actual truth. Perhaps He was just a great religious teacher who was tragically murdered because of jealous men who felt threatened by Him.
If you’ve ever sat on a jury or watched a courtroom drama or followed a trial on the news, you know that having multiple witnesses of reputable character who all say the same thing independently of one another is crucial to prove a case. Those who are called on to bear witness in court must swear to tell the truth or be liable for perjury. A witness is not free to make up his own story; he must report the facts as he saw them. If the witnesses are credible people who give consistent witness, the case is pretty secure.
In our text, Jesus continues His defense to the Jews, who were accusing Him of breaking the Sabbath and of making Himself equal with God (5:18). Instead of backing off and responding with horror to such charges, Jesus sets forth His case in even stronger terms by showing that He is one with the Father in all of His actions. He asserts (5:22-23) that the Father “has given all judgment to the Son so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father.” He asserts that He has life in Himself and that in the future He will speak and all who have ever lived will come forth from the tombs for a resurrection either of life or of judgment (5:26, 28-29). Clearly, Jesus is claiming to be equal with God.
But, how do we know that these claims are true? What evidence backs them up? Would they hold up in court? In answer to these questions and in deference to Jewish law, which required at least two or three witnesses to establish any legal matter, Jesus gives a number of witnesses to verify His claims.
“Testimony” or “witness” was an important concept to John. He uses the noun and verb 47 times in this Gospel and 30 more times in his epistles and in Revelation (Edwin Blum, The Bible Knowledge Commentary [Victor Books], ed. by John F. Walvoord & Roy Zuck, 2:291). We don’t need to take a blind leap of faith. God has provided adequate testimony that Jesus is the truth.
Actually, there is one main witness, the Father, who uses these various witnesses to testify to the truth of who Jesus is. As John argues (1 John 5:9), “If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater; for the testimony of God is this, that He has testified concerning His Son.” Every day we accept the testimony of men. When you go to the store, you don’t run a chemical analysis of every item that you buy, to make sure that it isn’t contaminated. You trust that the company has followed basic health procedures and that the store has kept the goods from spoilage or contamination. You go to the bank and hand over an endorsed paycheck to a teller whom you don’t know and trust that she really put it into your account. I could go on and on with examples of how you accept the testimony of fallible men, even men that you do not know, every day. So, John argues, why do we not accept the testimony that God has given concerning His Son?
In our text, the Father is the “another” (5:32) who testifies in conjunction with Jesus Himself. Also, the Father used John the Baptist to bear witness to Jesus (5:33-35). The Father used Jesus’ works (miracles) which He gave Jesus to do to bear witness of Him (5:36). The Father used the Scriptures to bear witness of Jesus (5:37-47). Since all of these witnesses line up, the case for Jesus is solid: He is the Christ, the Son of God (20:31).
But before we look at these witnesses to Jesus, I need to touch on two other important matters. First, although we should not have to debate the point, I need to make it clear that there is such a thing as absolute truth in the spiritual realm. Postmodernism argues that either there are no absolute truths, or if there are, we can’t know these truths with any degree of certainty. But that philosophy is self-refuting, because then we can’t know whether postmodernism is true or not!
But John repeatedly emphasizes “truth” in this gospel. As Leon Morris states (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 293), “Truth is characteristic of God, and it is only as we know God that we know truth.” He points out (p. 294) that John uses the Greek noun for “truth” 25 times in his Gospel, plus 20 more times in his epistles (as against only once in Matthew and three times each in Mark and Luke). He also uses two other Greek words meaning “true” far more than other New Testament authors do.
Here in our text (5:32, 33), Jesus asserts that the Father’s testimony about Him is true and that John has testified to the truth. Jesus later claims that He is the truth (14:6). He affirmed in His high priestly prayer (17:17), “Your word is truth.” He told the cynical Pilate (18:37), “For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” So there is absolute truth in the spiritual realm and there is damnable error. The truth centers in the person of Jesus Christ as revealed in the Word of God.
Second, note that Jesus’ aim in this defense of His deity was not to win an argument, but to win souls. He tells the Jews (5:34), “I say these things so that you may be saved.” He laments (5:40), “You are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.” When we have opportunity to bear witness, our aim should not be to win an argument, but to win the person to Christ. If he isn’t trusting in Christ, he is spiritually dead and under condemnation. He needs eternal life and that life comes by believing in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. The point of these witnesses to Christ is to testify to who He is so that people (including you!) will be saved. So the point here is:
The Father bears witness to Jesus through Jesus’ testimony, John the Baptist, Jesus’ works, and the Scriptures so that we may come to Jesus for eternal life.
As we’ve seen, in 5:19-29 Jesus bore witness of Himself. In 5:19, He made the point that it is impossible for the Son to do anything on His own initiative apart from the Father, because the two share the same nature. Now (5:30) He repeats that point to sum up His testimony: “I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” In God’s eternal plan, the Father sent the Son to bear our sin and the Son submitted to the Father’s will. Everything that Jesus did while He was on earth He did in submission to the Father. Thus He wasn’t bearing witness of Himself independently of the Father.
But a Jewish lawyer would have said at this point, “Yes, but self-evidence is not admissible in a court of law. There must be outside testimony.” Jewish law required the testimony of two or three witnesses to establish the truth (Deut. 19:15). Jesus condescends to this point in 5:31: “If I alone testify about Myself, My testimony is not true.” Jesus is acknowledging that His testimony would not be valid if He were acting independently of the Father. So He goes on to give other witnesses to His claim. Behind all these witnesses is the Father, to whom Jesus refers in 5:32: “There is another who testifies of Me, and I know that the testimony which He gives about Me is true.”
Later (John 8:13), the Pharisees said to Jesus, “You are testifying about Yourself; Your testimony is not true.” On that occasion, Jesus replied (8:14), “Even if I testify about Myself, My testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I come from or where I am going.” So even though self-testimony may not be sufficient in a court of law, it does not follow that it’s not true. This is especially so when it came from Jesus, who was sent to earth by the Father and knew that He would return to the Father after He accomplished the Father’s will. But then Jesus added (8:17-18), “Even in your law it has been written that the testimony of two men is true. I am He who testifies about Myself, and the Father who sent Me testifies about Me.”
A man’s self-testimony depends heavily on his character. If a man is known for lying and manipulating the facts to serve himself, you’re not going to believe him even if he really is speaking the truth. But everything that we know about Jesus points to His integrity. At His trial, the Jewish authorities couldn’t find witnesses to agree about the charges they were leveling at Him. After examining Jesus, Pilate said (18:38), “I find no guilt in Him.” The men who were closest to Jesus, who spent three years watching Him in all sorts of situations, all testify to His sinless character. So Jesus’ point in 5:30-32 is that His self-testimony is true because He never acted independently of the Father. The Father bore witness to Jesus through Jesus’ own testimony about Himself.
John 5:33-35: “You have sent to John, and he has testified to the truth. But the testimony which I receive is not from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved. He was the lamp that was burning and was shining and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light.”
God sent John the Baptist in fulfillment of His promise (Isa. 40:3; Mal. 3:1) to bear witness of Jesus (John 1:6-8, 23). But John was not Jesus’ “key witness” in that he was human. Jesus’ main witness was the Father. But Jesus mentions John here because for a while the Jews were flocking out to hear him and Jesus wants them to be saved. If they would have believed John’s testimony that Jesus was the Lamb of God, sent to take away the sins of the world (1:29), they would have been saved. John was a lamp, not the light, but he bore witness to the Light.
So God had given illumination through John, but the Jews had rejected it. Jesus hits the main problem with the Jews and John with the phrase, “for a while.” John was probably now in prison, so his ministry was over. There was a window of opportunity for the Jews to believe John, but now that window had closed. The Jewish leaders were interested in John when he was popular, but they never took his message to heart. They were like a bunch of moths who hovered near the lamp while it was burning, but flitted back into the darkness after it was extinguished. They should have followed the One to whom John had pointed. The lesson is: Don’t miss the opportunity to be saved when God is speaking His truth to you through His messenger! Today is the day of salvation!
John 5:36: “But the testimony which I have is greater than the testimony of John; for the works which the Father has given Me to accomplish—the very works that I do—testify about Me, that the Father has sent Me.”
By His “works,” Jesus mainly meant the miracles that He did. His miracles were unique signs that He had been sent by the Father. When the Jews said to Jesus (10:24b), “If You are the Christ, tell us plainly,” He answered (10:25), “I told you, and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father’s name, these testify of Me.” Later, He said (15:24), “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.” Jesus’ miracles gave abundant testimony that He is the Christ, the Son of God.
J. C. Ryle (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], 3:308) points out five distinctive features of Jesus’ miracles:
(1) Their number: they were not a few only but very many indeed. (2) Their greatness: they were not little but mighty interferences with the ordinary course of nature. (3) Their publicity: they were generally not done in a corner but in open day, and before many witness and often before enemies. (4) Their character: they were almost always works of love, mercy, and compassion, helpful and beneficial to man and not mere barren exhibitions of power. (5) Their direct appeal to men’s senses: they were visible and would bear any examination.
Ryle also points out that the Jews never attempted to deny that these miracles had occurred. Rather, they tried to attribute them to Satan (Matt. 12:22-30). Many skeptics today would deny the possibility of miracles because they have never seen one. I just read a Reader’s Digest cover story on “amazing facts” about the human body. The story uses words like “incredible” and “magical” to describe the way the body works. But it never alludes to the Creator. The evidence for miracles is literally right under their noses, but they’re blind to see it!
Thus the Father bears witness to Jesus through Jesus’ testimony to Himself, through John the Baptist’s testimony, and through Jesus’ works.
John 5:37-40: “And the Father who sent Me, He has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His form. You do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.”
Jesus continues this point through verse 47, but we only have time to work through verse 40 today. Scholars debate (in 5:37) exactly how the Father had testified of Jesus. It may be a reference to the voice from heaven at Jesus’ baptism (Matt. 3:17), but John does not record that event. The Father also testified of Jesus as His Son on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matt. 17:5), but again that’s not recorded in John. I think that the answer is in the following context, where Jesus mentions God’s Word and indicts them for studying the Scriptures but missing Jesus as the promised Christ. All of the Father’s revelation from the beginning of Creation had pointed to Christ and that revelation is contained in Scripture.
Just after Adam and Eve fell into sin, God promised that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head (Gen. 3:15). God killed an animal and clothed Adam and Eve, giving an object lesson of how the Lamb of God would be slain to cover their sins. God promised Abraham that in his seed, all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 12:1-3). The sacrificial system that was instituted in the Law of Moses pointed ahead to Jesus, the complete and final sacrifice (Heb. 10:1-14). Many of the Psalms, such as Psalm 22 and Psalm 110, point to Jesus. Isaiah 53 specifically predicts Jesus’ death on behalf of His people at the hands of sinners. As Luke 24:27 describes Jesus’ conversation with the two dejected disciples on the road to Emmaus, “Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” How I wish that that conversation had been recorded for us! But the Lord leaves us to dig out those treasures for ourselves as we study the Bible.
Jesus indicts the Jews for three things (Morris, p. 329): (1) “You have [not] heard His voice at any time” (5:37). Moses had heard God’s voice (Exod. 33:11), but Jesus’ hearers were not true followers of Moses (5:46). If they had been true followers of Moses, they would have recognized God’s voice in Jesus (3:34; 17:8). (2) You have not “seen His form” (5:37b). Jacob saw “the face of God” when he wrestled with the angel (Jesus in preincarnate form), but the Jews were not true sons of Jacob or they would have seen God’s form in Jesus (1:18; 14:9). (3) “You do not have His word abiding in you” (5:38). Although they studied the Word (5:39) and many of the rabbis had memorized most of the Word, they had studied it wrongly, because their study had not pointed them to the Word who took on human flesh and dwelt among them (1:1, 14).
Jesus’ last phrase in 5:38, “for you do not believe Him whom He sent,” may be either the evidence for Jesus’ threefold indictment or the cause of it, or both. The reason they did not hear God’s voice or see God’s form or have His Word abiding in them was that they did not believe in Jesus, who was sent by the Father. And their unbelief was evidence that Jesus’ indictment was correct.
Jesus’ words in 5:39-40 show that it is possible to study the Scriptures in the wrong way. If you approach the Scriptures from an academic perspective only, it can lead to tragic results. It can fill you with intellectual pride about how you know more than others. It can lead you to the false hope that you have eternal life because of your great knowledge. The Jews thought that in their knowledge of Scripture they had eternal life. But they missed Jesus! The point of the entire Bible is to lead us directly to Jesus, who alone can impart eternal life (5:21). That leads to the last point:
Tragically, Jesus says of the Jews (5:40b), “You are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.” C. H. Spurgeon has two sermons on John 5:40, which I encourage you to read (online at www.spurgeon.org/sermons). In the first one, preached when he was only 21 years-old (“Free Will a Slave,” Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 1:395-402), he develops four points: (1) Men by nature are dead. (2) In Christ Jesus there is life. (3) Eternal life is given to all who come for it. (4) By nature, no man will come to Christ, because they are unwilling. On this last point, he explains that no one can come to Christ unless the Father draws him (John 6:44). He argues that no true Christian will say that he came to Christ of his own free will apart from God’s first seeking him and drawing him to the Savior.
Don’t miss Jesus’ point in this discourse (5:34): “I say these things so that you may be saved.” Are you saved? Do you have eternal life? If not, search the Scriptures and look for Christ. Come to Jesus and He will give you eternal life.
I know a man who used to profess to believe the gospel. He was a good Bible teacher. He went on to earn a Ph.D. at Harvard. He is a far more brilliant and accomplished scholar than I am. He is now a professor of New Testament at a liberal graduate school of theology. But in reading the descriptions of his three scholarly books on Amazon.com, I seriously question whether he knows Jesus in a saving way. Like these Jews, he has studied the Scriptures, but he missed coming to Christ so that he may have life.
Don’t be like that! The testimony of the witnesses to Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, is solid. Jesus spoke these words so that “you may be saved” (5:34). Come to Him so that you may have eternal life.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
October 13, 2013
What keeps people from believing in Christ? Why would anyone not want to have his or her sins forgiven and to have eternal life as a free gift so that they do not come into judgment? There are many reasons. For example, many Muslims reject Christ because they have misconceptions about who He is and what He claimed. Also, if they were to believe in Him, it would bring shame on their family, resulting in their family disowning them. Even worse, they could be targeted for death. So the social pressure against believing in Christ is tremendous.
Others reject Christ because they have been wounded by professing Christians or by the church. Maybe a priest or minister abused them, causing them to conclude that Christianity is a sham. Perhaps their parents professed to be Christians and yet were abusive and didn’t live out the faith at home. Or, the parents were overly strict and tried to force the child into believing. Others get into college and their faith is undermined by atheistic professors. We could multiply many more reasons why people do not believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.
In John 3:19-21 we saw that people reject Christ because they love their sin and they hate having it exposed by God’s light. Now Jesus directly confronts the religious Jews who were opposing Him, who were unwilling to come to Him for eternal life (5:40). He asks them rhetorically (5:44), “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?” Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Evangelistic Sermons [Banner of Truth], pp. 39-51) points out how Jesus saved many unlikely and notorious sinners, but these guys were hard cases! He despairs about these religious Jews. He asks (5:44), “How can you believe …?” The Greek verb points to their inability to believe.
He has just given them adequate witnesses to back up His claim to be equal with God, so they didn’t lack evidence. They were zealous students of Scripture, so they didn’t lack knowledge. What was their problem? What kept them from believing in Christ? Why did they eventually murder the Savior whom the Father had sent? I think that we can boil down Jesus’ indictment of their unbelief to one root cause: the pride of outward religiosity:
The pride of outward religiosity as opposed to seeking inward reality with God will keep you from believing in Christ.
Pride is the root sin of all sins. Pride makes us think that we know what’s best for us so that we rebel against God and His ways. Pride deceives us into thinking that we can be good enough to get into heaven. Pride causes us to put up a good outward front to impress others, while we hide the way that we really are in our hearts. It was pride that kept these Jewish religious leaders from believing in Jesus as their Messiah and eventually led to their murdering Him. Their pride comes through in four ways in these verses:
John 5:39-40: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.”
The Jewish rabbis were legendary in their study of the Scriptures. They memorized large portions (sometimes all) of the Hebrew Bible. They copied it with extreme care, for which we can be thankful. Many of them counted the words and letters and could tell you the middle letter of a book or even of the entire Bible!
But the problem was, they took pride in their great learning. We can see this in John 9, with the man born blind, whose eyes Jesus opened. He argued with the Jewish leaders that if Jesus were not from God, He could not do such a miracle. Their response was (9:34), “You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?” That statement reeks of pride! They knew the Bible, but they missed Jesus because they had used their great knowledge to feed their pride.
Jesus confronts their pride here when He adds (5:41-42), “I do not receive glory from men; but I know you, that you do not have the love of God in yourselves.” The transition between verse 40 and verse 41 is puzzling unless you see that Jesus is contrasting His humility with their pride. When He says, “I do not receive glory from man,” He means that He is not a man-pleaser, seeking everyone’s praise so as to build up His image (as they were). Rather, Jesus always lived to please the Father and do His will (5:19, 30). While He was on earth, He always sought to glorify the Father (17:4). But these Jewish leaders were using their knowledge of Scripture to impress others, not to glorify God.
Note Jesus’ words, “I know you.” He could rightly judge their inner thoughts and motives. He knew that they were studying the Scriptures to increase their own glory, not to grow in love for God. When He says, “You do not have the love of God in yourselves,” He means that they did not love God. The connection with receiving glory from men is, “If you loved God, you would seek His glory, as I do. As it is, you love yourselves; you’re seeking your own glory.” They were breaking the first great commandment, to love the Lord with all their heart, soul, and strength (Deut. 6:5).
These verses bring out some reality checks for us. First, are you studying the Scriptures at all? Jesus didn’t need to rebuke these Jews for not studying the Scriptures, but rather because they studied them wrongly. But He might rebuke many modern Christians because they don’t study the Bible much at all!
Second, are you studying the Scriptures to reveal Jesus Christ to your soul? There is nothing wrong and everything right with sound academic knowledge of the Bible. Without it, you’ll be tossed around by every wind of doctrine (Eph. 4:14). Sound biblical scholarship is crucial. But, the ultimate point of Bible study should be to reveal more and more of who Christ is and what He has done for you.
If someone set a fresh peach pie in front of you and you proceeded to run a chemical analysis on the crust and the peaches, you would be missing the point! Taste it! Or, if you went to a lodge that had a magnificent picture window looking out on a spectacular scene and you spent your time analyzing what company made the glass and how it was installed, you’d be missing the point. Enjoy the view! The point of the Bible is to reveal the beauty of Christ to your soul.
Third, is your study of the Bible leading you to greater humility or to greater pride? Studying the Bible properly will show you how great your sin is and how holy God is. It will show you His majesty and His great power. It will humble you as you realize His amazing grace. But if you start thinking that you’re better than other Christians because you know theology and you delight in proving that you’re right and others are wrong, look out! I’ve been around guys who use their knowledge of the Bible like a club. They try to dominate others through their scholarship. Studying the Bible rightly will lead to more humility and graciousness, not to pride.
Fourth, is your study of the Bible causing you to love God more and more? Jesus hits these Jews because they did not love God. They were not seeking His glory and living to please Him. Proper study of the Bible will show you more of His grace. It will reveal His great love in sending His own Son to die for your sins. It will cause you to love Him more and more. But the pride of using the Bible to impress others will keep you from faith in Christ.
John 5:43: “I have come in My Father’s name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, you will receive him.” Jesus came in His Father’s name, which means that He came in the Father’s authority and He proclaimed who the Father is. He never pulled His punches to please the crowd. He didn’t use the Scriptures to flatter His hearers or to make them think that God was pleased with them if He was not. As the Light, He exposed their sins. Jesus gave them the truth without sugar-coating it.
Also, Jesus never played to the crowds by being the kind of Messiah that He knew they wanted. They wanted a political Messiah who could deliver them from Rome and provide peace and prosperity. If He had pandered to their tastes, Jesus could have been a popular Messiah. After He fed the multitude, He knew that they wanted to come and take Him by force to make Him king. But rather than accept that superficial allegiance, Jesus withdrew to the mountain by Himself alone (John 6:15). He could have ridden that wave of popularity, but He refused. Jesus would not falsely convey who God is or who He is to gain a following.
Keep in mind that Jesus is here addressing a group of Israel’s religious leaders. They knew the Scriptures well. They were devoted to their religion. Yet Jesus is warning them that their rejection of Him made them susceptible to follow false Messiahs who come in their own name. In Deuteronomy 13:3, God told Israel that He permitted false teachers to test their love for Him. Elsewhere, as Jesus spoke about the end times, He warned of false prophets who will arise and lead many astray. Accompanying this deception will be that people’s love for God will grow cold (Matt. 24:11-12).
Why were these religious leaders prone to follow false teachers? It’s because people will follow false teachers who tell them what they want to hear but avoid telling them who God really is. People will follow a man who doesn’t confront sin and who tells them that they’re okay just as they are. Jeremiah (6:14) confronted the false prophets of his day who healed the brokenness of God’s people superficially, saying “‘Peace, peace,’ but there is no peace.” After telling Timothy to preach the Word, which included reproving, rebuking, and exhorting, Paul warned (2 Tim. 4:3-4), “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.” We see the same thing today: Focus on the positive, never confront sin, and you’ll have a large congregation.
When you’re reading the Bible, make sure you read all of it, not just the parts you like! If you only read the parts about God’s love, but skip the parts about His holiness, His judgment, or His sovereignty, you’ll fall into error. Or when you’re looking for a church to attend, look for a pastor who teaches all that the Bible teaches about God and Christ. If he goes along with popular cultural trends, you can fall into pride that your church is “with it.” But the question is, is your church faithfully representing the name (the authority and the character) of the Father? Does the teaching promote godliness on the heart level?
John 5:44: “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?” As I said, the word can refers to inability. Jesus was saying that as long as they sought glory from one another, rather than seeking God’s approval, it was impossible for them to believe in Him. Later John (12:42-43) mentions that some of these Jewish leaders “believed,” but their faith was not genuine for reasons similar to the problem that Jesus uncovers here: “Nevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.”
In Matthew 23:5-7, Jesus also unmasks these religious hypocrites: “But they do all their deeds to be noticed by men; for they broaden their phylacteries and lengthen the tassels of their garments. They love the place of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues, and respectful greetings in the market places, and being called Rabbi by men.” He charges (Matt. 23:25), “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence.” Their religion was an outward show to impress others and to gain recognition. But the Lord was not fooled. He knew their hearts. Inside these religious men were full of self-indulgence.
The pride that is innate in all of us lures us into religious hypocrisy. We want others to think that we’re better than we know ourselves to be. So we focus on appearances. We’re concerned about what others may think of us and we forget that the most important thing is what God thinks of us. Many pastors fall into this sort of thing. They want the church to think that they have a perfect family. Maybe they’ve just had a major blow-up at home on Sunday morning, but they put on their happy faces as they drive into the church parking lot. And their kids can smell the hypocrisy. When they’re old enough, they walk away from the faith.
I’m not suggesting that we hang our dirty laundry out for all to see, but I am saying that we need reality with God and the humility to be genuine about our failures and shortcomings. I don’t quote William Barclay without a disclaimer, since he was heretical on some major issues. But on this point, he is right on. He writes (The Gospel of John, The Daily Study Bible [Westminster Press], rev. ed., 1:199-200):
So long as a man measures himself against his fellow men he will be well content. But the point is not: “Am I as good as my neighbor?” The point is: “Am I as good as God? What do I look like to him?” So long as we judge ourselves by human comparisons there is plenty of room for self-satisfaction, and that kills faith, for faith is born of the sense of need. But when we compare ourselves with Jesus Christ, we are humbled to the dust, and then faith is born, for there is nothing left to do but trust to the mercy of God.
The antidote to the deadly sin of hypocrisy is to deal with God every day on the heart level. Don’t harbor secret sins, as if God doesn’t see them. He knows our every thought (Ps. 139). Don’t put on false spirituality to try to impress others. If you’re struggling, be honest enough to ask for prayer. If you’re angry, don’t pretend that you’re not. Go before God and deal with it before it conquers you (Gen. 4:5-7). If you’re depressed, tell God about it and ask Him to restore your joy (Ps. 42 & 43). If you’ve sinned, confess it to God and ask forgiveness of any that you’ve wronged (Ps. 51, 1 John 1:9; Matt. 5:23-24). If you’ve lied, go to the one you lied to and ask forgiveness. If you’ve yelled at your kids or hit them in anger, humble yourself, ask their forgiveness, and ask God for self-control. In other words, in every area of life deal with God and others so that you can say with Paul (Acts 24:16), “I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men.” Don’t use religion to try to impress others. Do business with God on the heart level.
Thus, the pride of outward religiosity as opposed to inward reality with God will keep you from faith in Jesus. This may involve using the Bible to impress others, rather than growing in humility and love for God. It can stem from making God what you want Him to be rather than submitting to Him as He is. It can take the form of using religion to try to impress others outwardly, rather than seeking to please God on the heart level. Finally,
John 5:45-47: “Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?” (By the way, note that Jesus, unlike many liberal Old Testament scholars, believed that Moses wrote the Pentateuch [Genesis-Deuteronomy]! To attack the Old Testament is to attack Jesus, because it all points to Him.)
Ironically, these Jews claimed to believe in Moses and they studied Moses extensively, but they missed what Moses was writing about! Jesus says that Moses wrote about Him (see John 1:45; Luke 24:27, 44). As we saw last time, God’s promise in Genesis 3:15 that the seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head was about Jesus conquering Satan at the cross. God’s clothing Adam and Eve with animal skins was a picture God covering our sins through the death of His Lamb. God’s promise to Abraham that in his seed, all the nations would be blessed, was about Christ. His command for Abraham to sacrifice Isaac and then providing the ram was a picture of God sacrificing His own Son as our atonement. The Passover was about Christ. The tabernacle is an elaborate picture of Christ. The rock that provided water in the wilderness and the manna for food were pictures of Christ (1 Cor. 10:3-4; John 6:31-35). We could go on and on.
The Law of Moses, in which these Jews professed to believe, should have convicted them of their sins and caused them to long for the Savior who would be pierced through for their transgressions and crushed for their iniquities (Isa. 53:5). It should have served as a tutor to lead them to faith in Christ (Gal. 3:24). As Paul wrote (Rom. 10:4): “For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” But because they focused on their outward performance of only certain aspects of the law rather than on the essence of the law, which was to love God from the heart, they missed Jesus. The very Law, which was one of their greatest privileges (Rom. 9:4) and in which they took great pride, became the source of their condemnation at the judgment.
If you take pride in your Christian performance, rather than glorying in Christ Jesus and putting no confidence in the flesh (Phil. 3:3), you will miss faith in Christ. John Calvin puts it (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 222): “He who in reality presents himself before God as his Judge, must, of necessity, fall down humbled and dismayed, and finding nothing in himself on which he can place reliance.” All our hope must be in Christ, not in our religious performance.
I don’t know your heart, but God does. I do know that the sin of pride resides in us all and it often seeks to contaminate the spiritual life. So, as Paul put it (2 Cor. 13:5), “Test yourself to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?” Here are four tests:
All of these things can keep us from genuine faith in Christ.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
October 20, 2013
Over 36 years ago when I began as a pastor (at age 30), I was extremely unsure about whether I could do the job. I didn’t know whether I could come up with new sermons week after week without running dry. I wasn’t sure about whether I could adequately shepherd God’s flock or fulfill the other demands of the position. So I told the Lord, “I’ll try it for three years and see where I’m at.”
Although many weeks I still feel so overwhelmed with inadequacy that I think about quitting, by God’s grace alone, I’m still serving as a pastor. No text in the New Testament has helped me do what I do as much as the story of Jesus’ feeding of the 5,000. It might better be called the feeding of the 20,000, because there were 5,000 men, plus women and children. It’s not just a literal miracle witnessed by thousands of people. It’s also a parable with many lessons about the all-sufficiency of Jesus Christ to meet the vast needs of the world through His inadequate disciples. Although they were completely inadequate to meet the needs of this hungry crowd, they gave the little that they had to the Lord, who blessed it and multiplied it so that they could distribute it to the people. That’s been my experience for 36 years now.
This is the only miracle recorded in all four gospels, which shows its significance. C. H. Spurgeon (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 37:419) says that it’s in all four gospels so that we won’t forget how much the Lord can do with little things that are yielded to Him. The feeding of the 5.000 precedes Jesus’ discourse on being the living Bread that comes down out of heaven to give His life for the world (6:32-58). So it’s also a miracle that points to salvation. John wrote this sign “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name” (20:31).
John begins the story (6:1): “After these things Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee (or Tiberias).” The last time note in John (5:1) mentioned an unnamed “feast of the Jews.” If it was the Feast of Tabernacles, five to six months have passed. The other gospels inform us that Jesus has sent out the twelve on a ministry tour. They have come back and reported their experiences to Him. Meanwhile, they got word that Herod had beheaded John the Baptist. Jesus and the disciples were so busy with all the needy people that they didn’t even have time to eat. So Jesus invited them to get away to a desolate place for some much needed rest.
So they took a boat across the northern end of the Sea of Galilee to a spot in the country north of Bethsaida (home of Philip, Andrew, and Peter). The problem was, the crowds saw them go, ran around the lake on foot, and greeted them as they disembarked (Mark 6:33). The disciples must have thought, “Oh no! We can’t get away from these needy people!” But Jesus felt compassion for them, taught them, and healed their sick (Mark 6:34; Matt. 14:14).
John (6:2) notes, “A large crowd followed Him, because they saw the signs which He was performing on those who were sick.” These people weren’t following Jesus because they recognized Him as the Son of God who could save them from their sins. Some were fascinated just seeing the miracles. Others needed miraculous healing for themselves or their loved ones. But overall their reasons for following Jesus were misguided and superficial.
John adds (6:3-4): “Then Jesus went up on the mountain, and there He sat down with His disciples. Now the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was near.” I’m not sure why John reports the detail of Jesus going up on the mountain. But coupled with the mention of the Passover, he may want us to draw a parallel with Moses, who led the people out of Egypt after the Passover. Later, he went up on the mountain receive the Ten Commandments. God also used Moses to give manna to the people in the wilderness. So the mention of the Passover being near is probably more than just a time notice. John wants us to see Jesus as the new and better Moses. He fulfilled what the Passover lamb typified. He gave Himself as the permanent manna or bread of life. He is the Prophet of whom Moses wrote (Deut. 18:15; John 6:14).
But in this case, although Jesus could have called for manna to float down from heaven, He didn’t do that. Why not? Jesus used this miracle and those that follow to train the twelve. John shows this by Jesus asking Philip (6:5), “Where are we to buy bread, so that these may eat?” The other gospels report that the disciples had asked Jesus to dismiss the multitude so that they could go buy their own food. But Jesus pointedly told the disciples (Mark 6:37), “You give them something to eat!” Here, John adds (6:6), “This He was saying to test him, for He Himself knew what He was intending to do.” Jesus was showing Philip and the other disciples their woeful inadequacy to meet this need, along with His all-sufficiency. So this miracle teaches us that …
Christ uses inadequate people who surrender what they have to Him to meet the overwhelming needs of others.
Note four main lessons:
There were about 20,000 people out in a remote place (Luke 9:12), with many needing healing. They were hungry and there was no place nearby to buy food. Their physical hunger and their inability to satisfy that hunger pictures the spiritual needs of this sinful world. As Jesus will later tell them (6:26-27), they were following Him because they ate their fill of the bread, but they should have been focused on the food that endures to eternal life.
They are typical of so many in this world who are living for material things that will shortly perish, but they don’t see their need for the food that endures to eternal life. While it is right for Christians to engage in ministries of mercy to meet the physical needs of the poor, our ultimate goal should be to introduce them to the Lord, who can save them for eternity. So we need to pray that the Holy Spirit will convict them of their sin so that they will see their true need for Christ to rescue them from judgment before they die.
Evangelist Ray Comfort helps people see their need for Christ by walking them through some of God’s commandments that they have broken. He asks, “Have you ever lied or stolen anything?” “Yes.” “What do you call someone who lies and steals?” “A liar and a thief.” “Have you ever taken God’s name in vain?” “Yes.” “The Bible calls that blasphemy. So you’re saying that you’re a liar, a thief, and a blasphemer!”
“Have you ever been angry with anyone?” “Yes, many times.” “Jesus said that God views such anger as murder.” “Have you ever looked on someone with lust?” “Yes, of course.” “Jesus said that to do so is to commit adultery in God’s sight. So you’re saying that you’re a liar, a thief, a blasphemer, a murderer, and a multiple adulterer! How do you think it will go when you stand before the holy God at the judgment?” It’s only when people see how spiritually needy they are that they will cry out to Jesus to save them.
As I said, the other gospels report that the disciples’ easy solution to this multitude’s need for food was to send them away so that they could buy their own food (Mark 6:36). Problem solved! Well, at least it was solved as far as the disciples were concerned! But Jesus told them (Mark 6:37), “You give them something to eat!” Specifically, the Lord asked Philip (John 6:5), “Where are we to buy bread, so that these may eat?”
It would have been great if Philip had responded, “Lord, I’ve seen You turn water into wine. I watched You heal the royal official’s son from a distance. I saw you heal the man who had been unable to walk for 38 years. I’ve watched You perform dozens of miracles. Surely, You can provide bread for this hungry multitude, even as God provided manna in the wilderness!” I’d like to think that that’s how I would have responded. Ha!
No, I would have responded just as Philip did. He started calculating, but he calculated without Christ. He did the numbers without considering the Lord’s power and concluded with businesslike efficiency, “Eight months’ salary of a working man (200 denarii) is not sufficient for each one to receive a little.” The problem was, they didn’t have 200 denarii and even if they did, it wasn’t enough. And even if they had more, there weren’t supermarkets just down the road that had enough bread on hand to feed 20,000 hungry people. But how often we throw up our hands and conclude that we can’t do something for the Lord because we calculate based on our inadequate resources!
Then, along comes Andrew who says (6:9), “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish ….” So far so good. But then he adds, “But what are these for so many people?” I’m not sure why Andrew even bothered to bring this boy and his little lunch to Jesus. Maybe the boy had offered and Andrew felt obligated to acknowledge the boy’s good intentions. But his comment, “But what are these for so many people?” seems to reflect his embarrassment to bring this pitiful lunch to Jesus. The loaves were not the size of our loaves of bread. They were small, flat barley cakes, probably about the size of a small pancake. Barley was the food of poor people and animals. The two fish were either pickled or dried small fish, like sardines. But Andrew’s comment accentuates the obvious inadequacy: “What are these for so many people?” So people are needy, but the Lord’s people are inadequate to meet those needs.
Jeremiah prayed (32:17), “Ah Lord God! Behold, You have made the heavens and the earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm! Nothing is too difficult for You.” If Jesus is the Lord God in human flesh, Creator of heaven and earth, then nothing is too difficult for Him! John brings out Christ’s all-sufficiency in at least five ways:
John 6:6: “This He was saying to test him, for He Himself knew what He was intending to do.” Jesus never tested anyone in the sense of tempting them to do wrong. But He does test His servants so that they can learn to trust Him more. As someone has observed, “It was not bread that He was seeking from Philip, but faith.” John’s comment, “for He Himself knew what He was intending to do,” shows that Jesus wasn’t stumped and asking the disciples to brainstorm on how they could solve this perplexing problem. Rather, Jesus was in complete control. No problem that you or I ever face takes Him by surprise or causes Him to wonder, “How in the world am I going to solve this one?”
The disciples wanted to solve this problem by sending the multitude away to buy their own bread. They were more focused on their own need for a break than they were with the multitude’s need for food. They viewed the hungry multitude as a bother. But Christ was concerned for them. He wants us to learn to look at needy people through His eyes. He has compassion for them and delights to meet their needs.
When Philip came up with his 200 denarii estimate (that he didn’t have), Jesus didn’t say, “Go take a collection from the crowd and see how much we can get.” When Andrew offered his apology, “But what are these for so many people?” Jesus didn’t say, “I’ll bet there’s more food in this crowd. Let’s get everyone to share!” Jesus wasn’t limited in any way by this meager lunch. And, He isn’t limited today by the fact that we don’t have enough money or time or talent to get the gospel to the whole world. As Watchman Nee put it (Twelve Baskets Full [Hong Kong Church Book Room], 2:48), “The meeting of need is not dependent on the supply in hand, but on the blessing of the Lord resting on the supply.”
John draws a contrast between Philip’s “for everyone to receive a little” (6:7), Andrew’s “but what are these for so many people?” (6:9), and Jesus’ distributing to the people “as much as they wanted” (6:11). It reminds us of when God sent manna to the Israelites in the desert and we read (Exod. 16:18), “Every man gathered as much as he should eat.” To emphasize the sufficiency of the manna, the text repeats (16:21), “They gathered it morning by morning, every man as much as he should eat.” Nobody went hungry. When Jesus fed the 20,000, everyone was satisfied and there were 12 baskets full of leftovers. Paul wrote (Phil. 4:19), “And my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”
This isn’t just a story about feeding hungry stomachs. This is about the spiritual satisfaction that Jesus brings to all who feed on Him as the bread of life. As He says (John 6:35), “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.” As Paul put it (Eph. 1:3), God “has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” Are you satisfied with Jesus as your living Bread?
When Jesus was dealing with the Samaritan woman at the well, the disciples were focused on the physical: “Rabbi, eat the lunch that we brought to You!” But Jesus was focused on the spiritual food of doing His Father’s will. Here, the disciples are still looking at things on the physical plane: How much money will it take to buy bread for this many people? The multitude was also focused on the physical. After this miracle, they wanted to take Jesus by force and make Him king (6:15). “This man can solve our economic problems!” But later (6:26-27), Jesus rebukes them because they were only interested in filling their stomachs. They had no concern about the food that endures to eternal life.
Even so, today people come to Jesus because they need physical healing or they need a job or they need Him to solve some pressing problem. He can meet those needs and He often does. But He wants us to see that we all have a deeper need: We need to be reconciled to the holy God. Jesus provided the only way for that to happen by giving Himself on the cross (6:51). No matter how great your sin may be, Jesus is more than sufficient to forgive your sin and save you from God’s judgment.
So this miracle shows us that people are needy and the Lord’s people are inadequate to meet those needs. But Jesus Christ is powerfully sufficient to meet the needs of all people, especially their need to be reconciled to God. How does He do it?
Briefly, here are four ways that Christ meets needs:
John does not specifically state what the other gospels state, that Jesus used the disciples to distribute the bread and fish to the people. But he does show how Jesus involved Philip and Andrew and it’s only from John that we learn that the five loaves and two fish came from a boy’s lunch. As I said, Jesus easily could have prayed and called down bread from heaven without involving anyone else. But He used people, including a boy and his lunch, to meet the needs of other people. If you know Him, He wants to use you to meet others’ needs.
Jesus could have looked around the crowd for the obviously rich and appealed to them for the funds to feed the crowd. He could have asked those with plenty of food to share. But instead, He used people who were painfully inadequate to meet this overwhelming need. If you think that you’re adequate or competent to serve the Lord, you’re not ready to serve Him.
Someone asked Robert Morrison, the first Protestant missionary to China, “Do you really expect to make an impact on that great land?” “No, sir,” Morrison replied, “but I expect God to.” Hudson Taylor, who followed in Morrison’s footsteps, said, “All God’s giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on God being with them.” God only uses inadequate people.
The boy had to give up his lunch, not knowing for sure whether he would go hungry or not. He ended up eating more than he gave up! But we can only give to others what we have first received from God ourselves. We can’t give and the Lord won’t use the 200 denarii that we don’t have. But He will use the inadequate resources that we do have if we yield them to Him. What has the Lord given you? Remember, it was the slave who only had one talent who buried it and didn’t use it for his master. If you think that you’re just a “one-talent” Christian, make sure that you yield it to Christ and use it for His purpose.
Unlike the manna, which spoiled if they gathered too much, in this miracle the Lord directed the disciples to gather the leftovers, so that nothing would be wasted. We should learn from this to be frugal with what the Lord supplies. Even though He can provide far more than we need, we shouldn’t waste it. But this also shows how the Lord provides for those who serve Him. There were 12 disciples and there were 12 baskets full of leftovers.
We hear a lot about “burnout” today, especially among pastors and missionaries. While we all need adequate rest and time off, if we’re feeling burned out in serving the Lord, it’s likely that we’ve been trying to meet others’ needs in our own strength. We’re trying to feed the multitude with the 200 denarii that we don’t have, and it isn’t sufficient even for everyone to have a little. But if we come away tired, yes, but with the satisfaction of the fullness of Christ in our souls, then the Lord’s blessing was on us. Remember, the bread is a picture of Christ. When we yield to Him our inadequate abilities and gifts to use as He pleases, He will satisfy us with a full measure of Himself. We’ll have food to eat that others know nothing about (John 4:32).
I have two concerns in this message. First, if you’ve never tasted Christ as the living bread to give you eternal life, then that is your main need. Your main need is not for Jesus to heal you or give you a job or provide you with a mate. Your main need is to come to Jesus for eternal life. Just as you eat bread to sustain your physical life even though you don’t understand exactly how it works, so you need to trust in Christ for eternal life. He promises (John 6:35), “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and He who believes in Me will never thirst.”
Second, if you have trusted in Christ, my concern is that you offer yourself to Him to use to meet the needs of others. We always have many ministry needs in the church. Some are behind the scenes, servant-type jobs. But also, the Lord wants to use you to give out the bread of life to others, whether to fellow believers or to those who don’t know the Savior. Don’t live for yourself. Live to be used of God and you’ll be satisfied with a basket full of the Living Bread for yourself.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
October 27, 2013
Many people come to Christ in the hopes that He will make them happy. They struggle with personal problems and they hear that Jesus can help, so they trust in Him to gain the peace and joy that they long for. Or, they’re in an unhappy marriage or having problems with their kids and they heard that Christ can help, so they decided to “try Christ.” Whatever the need, they want Christ to make them happy.
But after they come to Christ, they find that the problems get worse, not better. Things aren’t exactly like the salesman—I mean evangelist—promised! They feel like when you sign up for some offer, only to find that it was a bait and switch. If you had known what you were in for, you never would have signed up.
As I’ve often said, the crucial question in life to answer is Jesus’ question to the disciples (Matt. 16:15), “But who do you say that I am?” If Jesus is who He claimed to be and who the Scriptures show Him to be, then we must follow Him as Savior and Lord, even if it results in being tortured and killed. The Bible is quite clear that many godly saints have suffered terribly because of their faith. In fact, Paul promises (2 Tim. 3:12), “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” The main reason for following Christ is not because He can make you happy—although He can, even in your suffering—but because He is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). He is the eternal Son of God, sent from the Father to provide the only way to heaven through His death and resurrection.
Thus, as we’ve seen, John wrote his Gospel, and especially the miracles or signs that Jesus did (20:31), “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.” It’s important that we believe in Jesus for the right reasons and that we grow to know Him as He is, not as we might wish for Him to be.
John (and Matthew 14:22-33; Mark 6:45-52) follows the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000 with the miracle of Jesus walking on the water, but he gives a compressed version of the story. For example, John doesn’t tell us that Jesus compelled the disciples to get into the boat. He doesn’t tell us that Jesus sent the multitude away or that He was praying on the mountain. He omits Mark’s comment (6:48) that Jesus saw the disciples straining at the oars or that He intended to pass them by when He came to them on the water. He doesn’t say that the disciples thought that they were seeing a ghost (although he does say that they were frightened). He doesn’t mention Peter’s walking on the water (Matt. 14:28-31). He doesn’t tell us that the storm was instantly stilled when Jesus got into the boat. And it’s puzzling why John, who wants us to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, omits the disciples’ worshipful response, “You are certainly God’s Son!” (Matt. 14:33).
Also, John doesn’t offer any comment on why he includes this story. He just gives it in this compressed form and then the following narrative goes back to the feeding of the 5,000, as Jesus expounds on His being the bread of life. So you have to ask, “Why did John include this sign in his Gospel? What does he want us to take away from meditating on it?”
One clue to these questions is what John told us back in 1:14, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John reports this miracle so that we, too, will see Jesus’ glory and trust Him in life’s storms. Also, this miracle was private; only the disciples saw it. Thus it was for their training (and ours).
We’re not reading too much into this story to say that the disciples were confused and disappointed with Jesus’ response to the multitude after He fed them with the loaves and fish. (R. C. Trench, Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord [Baker], p. 173, and G. Campbell Morgan, The Gospel According to John [Revell], pp. 102-103, point this out.) The crowd proclaimed Him to be the prophet of whom Moses spoke and they wanted to take Him by force and make Him king (John 6:14-15). The disciples had placed all of their hopes in this Galilean carpenter-prophet as the promised Messiah-King, who would deliver His people. They had given up their livelihoods to follow Him. Jesus has sent them out on a mission to proclaim that the kingdom of God was at hand. They were expecting Him to establish that kingdom at any moment.
And now, after Jesus has shown Himself to be the new Moses by providing bread for this crowd in the wilderness, the people want to make Him king. This was what the disciples had been waiting for!
But rather than capitalizing on the mood of the crowd and moving ahead with their desire to see Him enthroned, Jesus forced the disciples to get into the boat and head back toward Capernaum, while He sent the multitude away and went up on the mountain by Himself. What was He thinking? And then, to make matters worse, after Jesus forced them to get in the boat and put out on the lake without Him, a strong wind came up against them. They had already been in one storm on that lake when Jesus had been asleep in the boat with them. He woke up, rebuked the storm, and the sea was instantly calm. But now He wasn’t even with them!
So it’s reasonable to assume that the disciples were confused and disappointed as they were trying to row against this storm. Here they were, trying to help bring in God’s promised kingdom and to help people see that Jesus is the promised Messiah-king. In obedience to Jesus, they had set out across the lake without Him. But now, they were caught in this storm. In that setting, Jesus came to them walking on the water to teach them that even though He wasn’t the kind of Messiah-king they may have hoped for, He still is the Lord of all creation. They needed to get to know Him as He is, not as they had hoped that He would be. The lesson for us is:
Jesus does not want followers who use Him for their own purposes, but followers who grow to know Him and trust Him for who He is.
John 6:14-15: “Therefore when the people saw the sign which He had performed, they said, ‘This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.’ So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone.”
Moses was the revered leader who had led Israel out of bondage in Egypt. Through him, God gave the law and provided manna in the wilderness. If Jesus was the prophet of whom Moses had prophesied (Deut. 18:15), then maybe He could deliver Israel from Roman domination! Maybe He could usher in God’s kingdom where Israel would enjoy peace and prosperity. So they wanted to make Him their political king.
But they didn’t want to repent of their sin and submit to Him as Lord. Rather, they wanted a king who would improve their living situation. They wanted a king who would usher in peace and prosperity. In short, they had misconceptions about who Jesus is and they wanted to use Him for their own purposes.
Even the disciples fell into this wrong way of thinking about Jesus, as you know. Right after Jesus asked them that crucial question (Matt. 16:15), “But who do you say that I am?” Jesus told them that He had to go to Jerusalem, where He would suffer many things, be killed, and be raised up on the third day. But (Matt. 16:22), “Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, ‘God forbid it, Lord! This shall never happen to You.” But Jesus rebuked Peter (16:23), “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.” Peter had a wrong conception of Jesus that didn’t include the cross.
I hope that that doesn’t describe you, but it would not be uncommon if it describes some of you. One Sunday several years ago a woman who was visiting here for the first time came up for prayer after the service. She and her husband had moved here for a good job that she had been offered. But after a short while on the job, she had been terminated. She was very angry at God for leading them here, only to lose her job. I wasn’t able to help her see that this trial was from God’s loving hand for their good, but that she needed to trust Him, submit to Him, and even give Him thanks for this opportunity to grow in her faith. She had misconceptions about who Christ is and she wanted to use Him for her own happiness. When that didn’t work out as she envisioned, she grew angry and bitter.
In Isaiah 55:8-9, the Lord says, “‘For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” Part of growing to know the Lord is growing to know His ways and to submit thankfully to His ways when they run counter to my ways. One test of whether I am truly submitting to God’s ways with me is whether I am grumbling or giving thanks when things don’t go the way that I wanted them to go. If I’m trying to use Him then I’m acting as lord and He’s just my servant. Biblical Christianity means that I submit joyfully to Him as Lord and I’m His servant. John’s account of Christ’s walking on the water brings out five ways that we grow to know and trust Jesus for who He is:
John tells us that Jesus withdrew to the mountain by Himself alone. The disciples got into the boat and started to cross the sea without Him. John adds the puzzling statement (6:17), “It had already become dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them.” Not all agree, but I take it to mean that John anticipates the rest of the story: Jesus would shortly come, but He hadn’t yet come. So the disciples were on the lake in the dark in this storm, without Jesus.
Not only was Jesus not with them, He also let them struggle against this storm for many hours. John says that they had rowed “25 or 30 stadia,” which was about three and a half miles. The other gospels say that it was in the fourth watch of the night (between 3-6 a.m.) that Jesus came to them. They were probably exhausted and perhaps wondering whether they should turn around and let the wind blow them back to their starting point. At that point of great need, Jesus came to them, walking on the sea.
If we could interview John as he recalled this event, he would probably say, “It was an awful thing to be on the lake in the dark in a storm for that long without Jesus in the boat. But if He had not sent us into that situation, we would not have seen His glory and power when He came to us, walking on the water. The fresh vision of who Jesus is made it worth all the toil and anxiety.”
Although such trials are never enjoyable at the moment, as the author of Hebrews tells us (12:11), “Yet to those who have been trained by it [the trials of God’s discipline], afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.” The late Malcolm Muggeridge wrote (A Twentieth Century Testimony [Thomas Nelson], cited in Reader’s Digest, Jan. 1991, p. 158):
Contrary to what might be expected, I look back on experiences that at the time seemed especially desolating and painful with particular satisfaction. Indeed, everything I have learned, everything that has truly enhanced and enlightened my existence, has been through affliction and not through happiness.
Also, that storm kept them from joining the crowd in their error of wanting to make Jesus a political king. I think that when we’re in heaven, we’ll look back and see many instances in our lives where some trial or situation that didn’t go as we had wished actually kept us from some temptation that we would have fallen into. If I may use a rather homely personal example, when I was a teenager, I had a bad case of acne. Also, like most teenage boys, I struggled a lot with lust. I’ve thought that maybe the Lord used my bad complexion to keep me from getting involved immorally with girls at that vulnerable time of my life.
So one result of this miracle was that through it, the disciples grew to know Jesus’ person in a way that they never would have if they had not been in this storm. Jesus often sends us into storms so that we will grow in our understanding of who He is when He comes to us in a powerful way in the midst of the storm.
A. W. Pink (Exposition of the Gospel of John, on monergism.com) points out that these people proclaimed Jesus as their prophet and were willing to make Him their king. But they were omitting the other office that must come before He is crowned as king: He is the priest, who offered Himself as the final sacrifice for our sins. The disciples did not learn that lesson until after the cross and resurrection. But this miracle was one of the many times that Jesus had to repeat this lesson before it finally sank in.
One of the main lessons of the Christian life is that God’s purpose is not centered on me and my glory. It’s about Jesus and His glory! God’s purpose is to sum up all things in Christ (Eph. 1:10). To that end, He is working all things in our lives for His glory. Maybe you’re thinking, “I thought he was working all things together for my good, as Romans 8:28 says.” He is, but your greatest good is bound up with Jesus’ glory. Your greatest good and your ultimate glory is to be conformed to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29-30). When we’re perfectly conformed to His image in heaven, it will be to the praise of His glory (Eph. 1:6, 12, 14).
The disciples here went from the mountaintop experience of the feeding of the 5,000 to the valley of the violent storm as they struggled to cross the sea without Jesus being with them. Just as Jesus knew what He would do with the feeding of the 5,000 (6:6), so He knew that He was sending the disciples into a storm and that He would come to them to calm their fears and to increase their understanding of who He is. Mark 6:48 says that Jesus saw them as they rowed against the winds. They were at least 3-4 miles away, so Mark is referring to Jesus’ omniscience. Also, Jesus had to know exactly where they were on the stormy sea to walk to them. They thought that they were alone, but they were really not alone. They learned that even though they didn’t know it, Jesus was fully aware of their circumstances and He would come to them in His time. And, as the other gospels state, He was praying for them while He was on the mountain. But they didn’t know that until later.
God’s providence means that nothing happens to us apart from His sovereign, loving will. Jesus isn’t asleep in heaven; He is there praying for us, even as He was praying for the disciples while they were fighting against this storm. In His perfect time, He will come to us. But we’ve got to trust Him when we can’t see Him or figure out any reason for why we’re in the storm.
The disciples had just seen Jesus create bread and fish to feed the large crowd. Now they saw Him as the Lord over His creation, as He walked on the water. Our trials cannot prevent Him from coming to us, even if we can’t imagine how He will do it.
At the same time, it is not always His will to use His power to deliver us from trials. Here, He stilled the storm and the disciples got safely to the shore. But He didn’t deliver John the Baptist from Herod’s sword. He didn’t call legions of angels to spare Himself from the cross. He later delivered Peter from prison, but not James. As Hebrews 11:33-37 shows, by faith many experienced powerful deliverances from their trials, but also by faith others were tortured and suffered martyr’s deaths. But whether it’s God’s will to deliver us or to take us to glory through death, we should know and trust His mighty power in the trials He puts us through.
One of John’s main emphases in recounting this miracle is that Jesus’ presence with them in the boat got them immediately to their destination (6:21). This may have been another miracle or John may mean that with Jesus in the boat, they quickly got to their destination (solid commentators hold to both views). But at any rate, Jesus’ presence with the disciples calmed their fears in this storm. As Jesus says (6:20), “It is I; do not be afraid.” When we experience Jesus’ presence in the middle of life’s storms, it calms our fears.
“It is I” is literally, in Greek, “I am.” Some commentators say that this is the only way that a person could identify himself in Greek, so Jesus is not claiming to be Yahweh, who identified Himself to Moses as “I am” (Exod. 3:14). But perhaps John, in light of his overall purpose, wants his readers to at least see a hint of this here. It is obviously Jesus’ point in John 8:58, where He says, “Before Abraham was born, I am.” Because of who He is, Jesus’ presence with us gives us comfort.
When the Lord gave the Great Commission, He also gave the reassuring promise (Matt. 28:20), “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” That was David Livingstone’s verse as he endured countless hardships in the 19th century, trying to open the interior of Africa to the gospel. He said (A Frank Boreham Treasury, compiled by Peter Gunther [Moody Press], p. 107), “On those words I staked everything, and they never failed! … It is the word of a gentleman of the most strict and sacred honor, so there’s an end of it!”
So, why do you follow Jesus? Is it so that you can use Him to make you happy? Or, is it because He is the sovereign Lord of creation, who demands your submission and loyalty, even if His ways are not what you expected?
Another underlying current of this story is Christ’s patience and grace toward the disciples. Mark (6:51-52) reports that they had not gained any insight from the feeding of the 5,000. Later, they were still clueless about how to feed the 4,000 (Mark 8:4, 16-21). But the Lord did not give up on them. Even though we’re slow to learn, He is gracious with us as we struggle to know Him and trust Him for who He is. Even when things do not go as you expected or hoped, you can know that Jesus is still the Lord over all. Through your trials you can grow to know His person, His purpose, His providence, His power, and His presence. You will look back and say, “The storm was worth it because I grew to know more of who Jesus really is!”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
November 3, 2013
What are you seeking for in life? We all seek happiness, but where are you looking for that happiness? Some think that they will find it in financial success or a satisfying career, and so they devote themselves to those pursuits. Others think that they will find happiness in sex. They become enslaved to pornography, or they go from one partner to the next. Many try to find that pleasure in alcohol or drugs, only to destroy their lives. Some seek happiness through marriage and children. While a happy family is a blessing from God, it should never become our main source for happiness, because we can easily lose it through death. And often our families can be the source of great pain. As Solomon makes clear in Ecclesiastes, any earthly thing that you seek to satisfy the inner void is like chasing soap bubbles. You catch one only to have it burst in your hand.
The Bible is clear that our ultimate source of happiness and pleasure is found only in God. David wrote (Ps. 16:11), “In Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever.” Jesus told the disciples (John 15:11), “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.” We will find fullness of joy and pleasures forever when we seek God.
A. W. Tozer begins his spiritual classic, The Pursuit of God ([Christian Publications], p. 11), by pointing out “that before a man can seek God, God must first have sought the man.” As Paul says (Rom. 3:11), “There is none who seeks for God.” Tozer adds (ibid.), “We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit.” Thus we can’t take credit for our pursuit of God.
And yet at the same time, the Bible clearly exhorts everyone, including the ungodly, to seek the Lord. Isaiah 55:6-7 calls to us,
Seek the Lord while He may be found; call upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts; and let him return to the Lord, and He will have compassion on him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.
So there is a mystery here: no one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws him (John 6:44), and yet we are commanded to come to Jesus and to seek Him diligently. We begin by seeking Him for the mercy of salvation and we keep seeking Him for the grace to live in a manner pleasing to Him. It’s a lifelong quest. The prophet Hosea said (6:3), “So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.” The apostle Paul echoes that (Phil. 3:7-11), where he says that he has counted all of his former gains as loss for the surpassing value of knowing Christ. Even though he had known Christ for about 25 years when he wrote that letter, he admits that he had not yet attained what he desired. Then he added (Phil. 3:14), “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Tozer put it like this (ibid., p. 14, 17),
Come near to the holy men and women of the past and you will soon feel the heat of their desire after God. They mourned for Him, they prayed and wrestled and sought for Him day and night, in season and out, and when they had found Him the finding was all the sweeter for the long seeking…. Complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth.
In our text (John 6:24), many of the people whom Jesus had fed with the loaves and fish “came to Capernaum seeking Jesus.” The morning after the miracle, they couldn’t find Jesus. They knew that He had not left in the boat with the disciples and that there had not been any other boats there the night before. But they couldn’t find Him. So when some small boats from Tiberias came there, these people got into the boats and went to Capernaum in search of Jesus. Their question when they found Him (6:25), “Rabbi, when did You get here?” shows that they couldn’t figure out how He got there because they didn’t know about His walking on the water to the disciples.
Jesus could have replied, “I got here early this morning after I walked on the water to the disciples and joined them in the boat.” That answer would have caused some jaws to drop! But Jesus didn’t answer their question. Instead, He confronted them because even though they had gone to a good bit of trouble to seek Him, they were seeking Him wrongly. They sought Him because they wanted a political Messiah to bring peace and prosperity. By reversing their negative example into a positive one, we can learn how to seek Jesus rightly:
Seek Jesus for the right reason, by the right route, and through the right relationship to give you eternal life.
These Jews were seeking Jesus for the wrong reason: They wanted Him to provide them with material comfort, not with eternal life (6:22-27). They were seeking by the wrong route: works, not faith (6:28-29). And, they were seeking Jesus as the new Moses, to provide them with what they wanted, but not as the satisfying bread of life whom they could know personally (6:30-36).
Jesus confronts the multitude (John 6:26): “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.” He means that they had missed the true significance of the miracle that He had just performed. Rightly understood, the miracle of the loaves and fish should have turned them to Christ as their Messiah, who could satisfy their spiritual hunger for time and eternity. But, as one commentator put it (Lange, cited by F. Godet, Commentary on the Gospel of John [Zondervan], 2:18), “Instead of seeing in the bread the sign, they had seen in the sign only the bread.” Their minds were on the temporal and material, rather than on the eternal and spiritual. They wanted their stomachs filled, but they weren’t seeking Jesus for eternal life. They had no sense of their sin or their need to be reconciled to the holy God. They sought Jesus only for what He could do for them materially.
Jesus’ words here obviously refute the popular heresy that it is God’s will for every Christian to be financially prosperous. The false teachers who promote this damnable teaching are preying on people’s greed. Sadly, this teaching is rampant in many poor countries, as well as in the United States. It deceives people into thinking that their real need is more money, when in fact their real need is the eternal life that Jesus offers. So, Jesus becomes Aladdin’s Genie to help you get what you want out of life. But He isn’t the Savior from sin, who satisfies your soul whether you are rich or poor, living in a nice home or locked up in a cold prison cell.
So Jesus exhorts (6:27), “Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.” Jesus doesn’t mean that you should quit your job and take a vow of poverty. The Bible commends hard work and commands us to provide adequately for our families (Col. 3:23; 1 Tim. 5:8). It does not condemn having earthly riches, although it does warn about the dangers of riches (1 Tim. 6:8-10, 17-19).
Rather, Jesus is showing us by way of contrast where to put our focus. As He said in Mark 8:36, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?” Or, as Jesus graphically illustrated with the parable of the man who wanted to build bigger barns to store his wealth, but who died that very night, to end up rich in this world’s goods, but to die poor toward God, is a huge mistake (Luke 12:15-21). We should not be so caught up with working to put food on the table that we neglect working for “the food which endures to eternal life.”
I’ll comment more on this when we look at 6:28-29, but note the irony of Jesus’ statement that we should work for this food that endures to eternal life, and yet at the same time, the Son of Man gives it to us. It’s the same as when Jesus exhorted His hearers (Luke 13:24), “Strive to enter through the narrow door.” Or (Matt. 11:12), “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force.” There is a lot of effort involved in “striving” and “taking the kingdom by force.” And yet at the same time, Jesus gives living water to the spiritually thirsty and the true bread of eternal life to the hungry (John 4:10; 6:27, 32, 35).
What does it mean to work “for the food which endures to eternal life”? J. C. Ryle (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], 3:347) sums it up well:
How are we to labor? There is but one answer. We must labor in the use of all appointed means. We must read our Bibles, like men digging for hidden treasure. We must wrestle earnestly in prayer, like men contending with a deadly enemy for life. We must take our whole heart to the house of God, and worship and hear like those who listen to the reading of a benefactor’s will. We must fight daily against sin, the world, and the devil, like those who fight for liberty, and must conquer, or be slaves. These are the ways we must walk in if we would find Christ, and be found of Him. This is “laboring.” This is the secret of getting on about our souls.
As always, Ryle cuts to the quick! Evaluate yourself in light of his words and put them into action. Figure out how to rearrange your busy schedule so that you take the time and effort to work for the food which endures to eternal life.”
Before we leave these verses, note three important truths here about Jesus. First, Jesus knows your motives. He saw right through this crowd that was seeking Him for the wrong reasons and He lovingly confronted and exhorted them in the way they needed to change. When Jesus confronts your wrong motives through His Word, pay attention and respond with repentance. He’s doing it because He loves you, not to hurt you.
Second, Jesus gives spiritual food to those who seek Him properly. He could not do this if He were not God. He knows exactly what you need to grow in Him and He will give it to you when you diligently seek Him for it.
Third, Jesus is God’s only approved source of spiritual blessing. He says (6:27b), “For on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.” A seal in that day authenticated a document and showed that the owner of the seal approved of it (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 359). D. A. Carson explains (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 284), “The idea is that God has certified the Son as his own agent, authorizing him as the one who alone can bestow this food.” So don’t fall prey to any false teaching that diminishes the full deity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Seek Him for the food that endures to eternal life.
John 6:28-29: “Therefore they said to Him, ‘What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.’” Their question picks up on Jesus’ command not to work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life (6:27). John Calvin explains (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 243), “By the works of God we must understand those which God demands, and of which he approves.”
Again, Jesus is using irony here. He does not mean that faith is a meritorious work on our part that somehow commends us to God. The Bible is clear that faith itself is a gift from God (Eph. 2:8-9; Phil. 1:29). Rather, Jesus is picking up on their question about works and saying, in effect, “The only ‘work’ that you can do is not to work, but rather to believe in Me, the one whom the Father has sent to provide salvation through My death and resurrection.” As Calvin again explains (ibid., p. 245),
Now faith brings nothing to God, but, on the contrary, places man before God as empty and poor, that he may be filled with Christ and with his grace. It is, therefore, if we may be allowed the expression, a passive work, to which no reward can be paid, and it bestows on man no other righteousness than that which he receives from Christ.
Seeking to be right with God by works rather than by faith alone is probably the most common spiritual error in the world. All false religions, including some that go under the label of “Christian,” teach a works-approach to salvation. They may teach that we are saved by faith, but not by faith alone, but by faith plus works. But if that is true, then we have grounds for boasting in ourselves. And, the question is, how many works do you have to add to your faith to be saved? The Bible is clear that those who are saved by faith in Christ always produce good works as a result (Eph. 2:8-10; James 2:14-26). But it is faith in Christ alone that saves. As Paul put it (Rom. 4:4-5), “Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.”
So to seek Jesus and the food that endures to eternal life, come to Him as a guilty, helpless sinner and trust entirely in what He did for you when He died on the cross. If you want to fly somewhere, you’ve got to entrust yourself totally to the pilot and the airplane. It would be ridiculous to insist on going into the cockpit and helping the pilot fly the plane, especially if you are not a trained pilot. Even so, it’s crazy to tell God that you’re going to help Jesus save you by your good works when He has said that He will save all that trust in Him. Don’t trust in your own good works to justify you when you stand before God someday. Rather (Acts 16:31), “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved.”
Thus there is nothing more important to seek for in life than to seek for Jesus and the eternal life that He can give. Seek Him for the right reason: you need eternal food, not temporal food. Seek Him by the right route: by faith and not by works.
These Jews, who have just the day before eaten the miraculous loaves and fish, ask Jesus an incredible question (6:30): “What then do You do for a sign, so that we may see, and believe You? What work do You perform?” They go on (6:31) to mention that their fathers ate the manna in the wilderness. Behind this request for a sign was the Jewish expectation that when the Messiah came, He would renew the miracle of the manna (Morris, p. 361).
So in spite of Jesus’ miraculous feeding the 20,000, they’re asking for more: Jesus fed a large crowd; Moses fed the entire nation. Jesus did it once; Moses did it for 40 years. Jesus provided ordinary bread; Moses gave them “bread out of heaven.” So they’re saying, “Okay, Jesus, you gave us a little sign. Let’s see You do a big one, like Moses did! Then we’ll believe in You!” Ryle (pp. 361-362) astutely comments,
They were always deceiving themselves with the idea that they wanted more evidence and pretending that if they had this evidence they would believe. Thousands in every age do just the same…. The plain truth is that it is lack of heart, not lack of evidence, that keeps people back from Christ.
Jesus responds by correcting them. He says (6:32-33), “Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.” He is saying, first, that it wasn’t Moses who gave them the manna; God did. And, second, the manna wasn’t the true bread, because people who ate it still died. But Jesus, whom God sent, gives eternal life to the world, that is, to all people everywhere who believe in Him.
The Jews’ reply focuses on the material, “Lord, always give us this bread.” (“Lord” here should properly be translated, “Sir.” They were not acknowledging Jesus to be Lord, as 6:36 makes plain. They just wanted Jesus to be their free meal ticket.) Jesus’ reply tells them who the true bread is and how to get it (6:35): “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.” This is the first of seven “I am” metaphors in John (8:12; 10:7; 10:11; 11:25; 14:6; 15:1). I’ll say more next time, but for now note what an astounding claim this is. Jesus is saying that He is the source of eternal life and the sustainer of that life for whoever comes to Him and believes in Him.
These Jews were satisfied with their religion and rituals that had come down to them from Moses, so they had no hunger for the living bread that Jesus offered. Before you are hungry to eat of the living bread God has to open your eyes to your true condition: Without Christ you are spiritually starving. In Christ’s day, bread was the main staple in their diet. You could not live without bread. In the same way, you cannot live eternally in the presence of the holy God without Jesus Christ. The Father sent Jesus to this world to bear the sins of all who believe in Him. Without Him, you’re under God’s righteous judgment.
“Coming to Jesus” and “believing in Jesus” are parallel here. They explain what Jesus means in 6:53 when He talks about eating His flesh and drinking His blood. It means to trust in Jesus’ death as the complete and final payment for your sins. Jesus says that the result of coming to Him is that we will not hunger and the result of believing in Him is that we will never thirst. This does not mean that we will not still long to know more and more of the riches of Christ. Rather, it means that when we truly believe in Jesus, we are satisfied with Him. We have all spiritual blessings in Him (Eph. 1:3). We are complete in Him (Col. 2:10).
Sadly, these Jews were seeking Jesus for the wrong reason: They wanted Him to provide for their material needs, but they didn’t see their spiritual needs. They sought Jesus by the wrong route: works, but not faith. They sought Him through the wrong relationship: They wanted Him to be the new Moses, the new political leader to bring in peace and prosperity, but they didn’t want to come to Him personally in faith to satisfy their spiritual hunger. Jesus states the tragic result (6:36): They had seen Him and yet they did not believe.
What are you seeking for in life? Jesus is the only one who can provide true soul satisfaction, both in this life and for eternity. But perhaps you’re seeking Jesus wrongly: You want Him to provide for your temporal needs, but you don’t sense your desperate spiritual need for Him as the living bread to give you eternal life. Even worse, maybe you aren’t seeking Jesus at all. You’re a heartbeat away from standing before God in judgment, and yet you don’t even see your desperate condition. Cry out to God to open your eyes to your greatest need. Come to Jesus and you will not hunger. Believe in Him and you will never thirst.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
November 10, 2013
Although it sounds heretical to ask, have you ever wondered whether Jesus failed in His mission? His mission was to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). And yet, Jesus left this planet with only a small band of followers compared to the vast numbers, both in Israel and around the world, who remained lost. After 2,000 years of church history, there are still thousands of people groups that have not heard the gospel, and even among those who have heard, the majority of the world’s population remains unbelieving. So did Jesus fail? Has God’s purpose failed?
I would hesitate to raise the question at all, except that the apostle Paul raised it in Romans 9. In light of the Jews’ widespread rejection of Jesus as their Messiah and Savior, Paul deals with whether God’s promises to Israel have failed. He answers that God’s promises have not failed, because God never determined to save all Israel, but only an elect remnant. Also, the salvation of that chosen group does not depend on the fallen will of man, but on the sovereign working of God. As Paul says (Rom. 9:16), “So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.” And, God does not have mercy on all (Rom. 9:18), “So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires.” Paul shows that God’s purpose to glorify Himself by saving His elect and judging the wicked cannot fail.
That is Jesus’ point in our text. These verses occur in the context of those who ate the miraculous meal of the loaves and fish asking Jesus to do a greater sign so that they may believe in Him (6:30). They want Him to go one up on Moses, who gave them the manna (6:31). Jesus corrects their impudent demand by pointing out that it was the Father, not Moses, who gave them the manna. Also, the bread that God is giving now is not just temporary food to satisfy their stomachs, but the true bread out of heaven to satisfy their souls (6:32). And, unlike the manna that God gave Israel in the wilderness to sustain life for a few years, the true bread out of heaven gives eternal life to the whole world (6:33).
But these Jews were still focused on the temporal when they asked Jesus to give them this bread (6:34). They wanted a lifetime supply of food. Jesus replies by offering Himself as the bread of life who satisfies everyone who comes to Him and believes in Him (6:35). But even though they had seen Jesus, they still did not believe in Him (6:36). That’s the context for Jesus’ words in 6:37-40, where He takes comfort in God’s sovereignty over the salvation of sinners (cf. Luke 10:21-22). The point is, those who reject Jesus do not thwart God’s sovereign plan.
Also, note that after Jesus gives this extended discourse on being the bread of life, some who had professed to be His disciples stumble over what He says and stop following Him (6:60, 61, 66). If Jesus had been trying to build a large following, He could have become discouraged over this. But His focus was on the Father’s will and the fact that He had come to do that will (6:38). There is nothing more certain than that God will accomplish His purpose (Isa. 46:10; Job 42:2). That purpose centers on the fact that He has given a large number from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation to His Son. Jesus will see the result of the anguish of His soul because He poured out Himself to death and bore the sin of many (Rev. 5:9; Isa. 53:10-12). So when people rejected Jesus, even those who had professed to be His disciples, He rested in God’s sovereign plan for the ages.
As a teacher of God’s Word, I must do the same. I hope not, but it’s possible that some of you will hear this message and say, “I’m out of here!” I’d appreciate it if you’d talk to me about what Scripture teaches on this, but usually people just leave. Many who profess to believe in Christ do not like the biblical truth that God sovereignly chose some, but not all, for salvation. They say, “That’s not fair!” They believe that God wills to save everyone, but people by their free will cast the deciding vote. God’s hands are tied to actually save anyone, because He can’t override man’s free will. So according to them, the success of God’s eternal purpose rides on whether sinners choose to respond to Jesus.
But Jesus soundly refutes that error in our text. God’s sovereign plan to glorify His Son does not rest on the sinful will of man, but on God’s mighty power to save all whom He chooses to save. If sinners have a part in their salvation, then they can share the glory with Christ. But as Paul argues in Ephesians 1:3-12, God chose to save us so that we would be “to the praise of the glory of His grace” (1:6). God predestined us “according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory” (1:11-12). By the way, if God cannot override the fallen human will, you should give up praying for the salvation of the lost. Why pray if God can’t do anything about it?
So while it may be hard to get our finite minds around it, the doctrine of God’s sovereignty over our salvation runs through all Scripture, alongside the doctrine of human responsibility. God determined before the foundation of the world to put Christ on the cross, and yet the evil men who did it were responsible for their sin (Acts 2:23; 4:27-28). God determined before the foundation of the world to give a chosen bride to His Son, and yet all people are invited and commanded to believe in Jesus. Remember, this doctrine is a part of God’s inspired Word, which is for your spiritual benefit (2 Tim. 3:16-17). If you resist it or dodge it or try to explain it away, you’ll be spiritually impaired. Even if you don’t understand it, you need to submit to it (Rom. 9:19-20). While all Scripture is equally inspired by God, our text reports the very words of the Lord Jesus. His point here is:
Jesus’ mission to save and keep all whom the Father has given to Him will certainly succeed.
Christ offers eternal life to all (6:35), but not all believe (6:36). All those whom God has given to Jesus will come to Him (6:37a). He will save them and keep them for all eternity (6:37b-40).
John 6:35: “Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.” As Leon Morris points out (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 366), Jesus’ words are not an abstract statement, but rather an appeal for people to come to Him and believe in Him. As I mentioned last week, this is an astounding claim that no mere man could make. Jesus says that if we will come to Him and believe in Him, He will eternally satisfy and sustain us spiritually.
It’s important to affirm that the doctrine of election does not in any way restrict offering the gospel freely to all. Whoever believes in Jesus will have eternal life (John 3:16). The Bible ends with this open invitation (Rev. 22:17), “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.” The Bible never says, “If you’re one of the elect, come.” It invites every sinner to come to Jesus just as you are and know that He will welcome you. But …
I might add, “Even religious, morally upright people are so hopelessly lost in sin that they will reject even the best reasons to believe.” Jesus was speaking to religious, moral Jews. They were zealous about keeping the Sabbath and the many Jewish rituals. Yet here they’ve seen Jesus miraculously provide bread and fish for a huge multitude and they’ve watched Him heal many of their sick, but Jesus’ tragic assessment is (6:36), “But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe.”
People do not reject Christ because they lack solid evidence for believing in Him. Sometimes skeptics will say, “Show me a real miracle and I’ll believe.” No, they wouldn’t. People reject Jesus because they love darkness rather than light (3:19-21). People apart from Christ are spiritually dead in their trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1-3). They cannot understand spiritual truth (1 Cor. 2:14) because Satan has blinded their eyes (2 Cor. 4:4).
In John 8:43, Jesus asks the unbelieving Jews, “Why do you not understand what I am saying?” He answers His own question, “It is because you cannot hear My word.” He did not say “because you will not hear My word,” but “because you cannot hear My word.” That’s why He says (John 6:44), “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him” (also, 6:65). Because of sin, it’s impossible for anyone to believe in Jesus apart from God’s opening their blind eyes (Rom. 3:10-18). In the words of Charles Wesley’s hymn, before Christ sends His “quickening ray,” we are “fast bound in sin and nature’s night.” Leon Morris writes (ibid., p. 367), “People do not come to Christ because it seems to them a good idea. It never does seem a good idea to natural man. Apart from a divine work in their souls (cf. 16:8) men remain contentedly in their sins.” Yet at the same time, we are responsible for our unbelief. So, then, how can anyone be saved?
John 6:37a: “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me ….” This refers to the elect, whom the Father chose before the foundation of the world to give to His Son. Jesus refers to those the Father has given Him in 6:39 and in 10:29 (see, 18:9). He repeats it five times in His prayer in John 17:
John 17:2: “… even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life.”
John 17:6 [2x]: “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.”
John 17:9: “I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours ….” (Note that the Father has not given everyone in the world to Jesus, but only some.)
John 17:24: “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.”
Many argue that the elect, whom the Father gives to the Son, are those whom God foreknew would believe in Christ by their own free will. But as we’ve seen, left to their own fallen will, none would choose to believe in Christ. Furthermore, the foreknowledge ruse robs God of His sovereignty and makes man sovereign. But the Bible is clear that God did not make up His plan for the ages after He saw what sinful people would do!
John Bunyan wrote a wonderful book on John 6:37, “Come and Welcome to Jesus Christ” (in The Works of John Bunyan [Baker], 1:240-299). He makes the point (pp. 256-257) that Jesus’ statement here is unconditional. It will happen without exception because it rests on God’s will, which He is able to accomplish. It’s sometimes called “irresistible grace.” This does not mean that God drags people to Christ kicking and screaming against their will. No one comes to Christ unwillingly. Rather, it means that God makes sinners willing to come to Christ (Ps. 110:3). When Paul preached the gospel to Lydia, we read (Acts 16:14), “And the Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul.” If God had not opened her heart, she would not have responded favorably.
If you have believed in Christ, it’s because the Lord opened your heart to believe. You believed because the Holy Spirit imparted new life to you, apart from anything in you. You believed because in His sovereign grace, before the foundation of the world the Father chose you in love to give to His Son. All whom the Father has given to Jesus will certainly be saved. No sinner can thwart God’s mighty will to accomplish His purpose (Ps. 115:3).
These verses are a wonderful foundation for assurance of salvation for all who have come to Jesus and believed in Him. Note four things:
John 6:37b: “… and the one who comes to Me, I will certainly not cast out.” That phrase is often understood, even by the greats like John Bunyan and Charles Spurgeon (who has at least seven sermons on this verse), to mean that Christ will welcome all who come to Him. That is certainly true, whether it’s the thief on the cross or Paul, the persecutor of the church. But I agree with D. A. Carson (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 290) that that is not the meaning of this phrase in its context. Rather, what Jesus is saying is that all that the Father gives to Him (who will surely come to Him) He will certainly keep or preserve unto eternity. In modern terms, He won’t “kick out” any whom the Father has given to Him.
There are two reasons that this is what Jesus means here. First, the Greek verb translated “cast out” in almost all of its parallel occurrences refers to casting out something that is already “in.” For example, John uses it (9:34) to refer to the Pharisees expelling the man born blind from the temple (cf. 3 John 10). Second, the next three verses show that this is Jesus’ meaning. He repeatedly emphasizes that He will eternally keep all whom the Father has given Him.
At Christmas, you may receive a gift that you have absolutely no use for (except for a white elephant gift to unload on some poor victim at next year’s Christmas party). Jesus doesn’t do that with the gifts that the Father gives Him. He uses a strong double negative (in the Greek text) to underscore that He will keep every gift from the Father. If you have believed in Jesus, you’re one of God’s gifts to His Son. (Don’t let that go to your head!) As a member of Christ’s body, He will tenderly nourish and cherish you (Eph. 5:29).
John 6:38: “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” Jesus bases the success of His mission not on whether or not people respond to Him, but rather on the fact that He came down from heaven (John 6:33, 38, 41, 42, 50, 51, 58), where He shared the glory of the Father (17:5), to do the Father’s will, which is absolutely certain. If any whom the Father gave to the Son do not make it to heaven, it would mean either that Jesus was incapable of performing what the Father commanded Him to do or that He was flagrantly disobedient, both of which are unthinkable (Carson, p. 291). But what is the Father’s will?
John 6:39: “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.” “The last day” is a phrase that occurs only in John (5:28, 29; 11:24; 12:48). It means that Jesus will keep us until we’re in heaven. Morris states (ibid., p. 368), “This thought is of the greatest comfort to believers. Their assurance is based not on their feeble hold on Christ, but on His sure grip of them.”
You may wonder, “What about Judas or what about the disciples in John 6:66 who turned away from Jesus?” The answer is, they never truly believed in Jesus. In John 17:12, Jesus prays with reference to the twelve, “While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.” There are many like the seed sown on the stony ground or the thorny ground, who spring up and at first look genuine, but when trials and temptations hit, they wither and die (Matt. 13:20-21). They never truly believed in Christ. But those to whom Jesus gives eternal life will never perish (John 10:28).
John 6:40 sums up what Jesus has been saying: “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” Again, this is a staggering claim that Jesus has already made (5:28-29), that He will raise us from the dead on the last day so that we will be with Him forever.
Note that rather than referring to those whom He will raise up as those whom the Father has given to Him, here Jesus goes back to the invitation mode of 6:35. There it was “he who comes to Me” and “he who believes in Me.” Here, it is “everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him.” “To behold” implies knowledge of who Jesus is. You can’t believe in one you know nothing about. John wrote this gospel to show us who Jesus is—the Christ, the Son of God—so that we may believe in His name and have eternal life (20:31). It’s interesting that none other than John Calvin (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 254) here calls “madmen” those who seek salvation in what he calls “the whirlpool of predestination,” rather than by faith in Christ. He’s saying, to be saved, don’t probe into whether or not you’re one of the elect. Rather, focus on answering the question, “Who is Jesus?” and on the basis of the apostolic witness, put your trust in Him.
Some preachers do not teach on God’s sovereignty over our salvation because they say that it’s too controversial or divisive. Some argue that these doctrines are just theoretical theology that have no relevance for how we live. I’ve heard seminary professors say that you should never talk about the doctrine of election with unbelievers, because it will drive them away from Christ.
Yet here Jesus speaks plainly about election as He confronts these unbelievers (He will do it again in 10:26). The thought that you may not be one of God’s elect should drive you in panic to believe in Jesus! Also, God’s sovereign election is a comforting doctrine for us who truly believe in Jesus because it’s the foundation for our eternal security. Jesus will keep all whom the Father has given Him. His mission will not fail.
God’s sovereign election the only doctrine that produces true humility in us as we give all glory to God, who graciously saves unworthy sinners (1 Cor. 1:18-31). The doctrine of election encourages us to share the gospel even with immoral, idolatrous “Corinthians” (Acts 18:9-10), because God will save all whom He has purposed to save. And, Jesus’ words here give comfort to preachers who preach on God’s sovereignty, only to have people leave the church, which I hope that none of you will do!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
November 17, 2013
When I’ve received training in how to share my faith, the instruction has often been along the lines of showing unbelievers how easy it is to trust in Christ. Give them examples of how every day we trust in people we don’t even know: “You trust the companies that make your food. You trust your doctor and the pharmacist. You trust the mechanic who fixed the brakes on your car. So now, just trust in Jesus. It’s easy!”
Some of these evangelistic methods also advise not to focus on the person’s sin and his need of repentance or on God’s wrath and the judgment to come. That might scare away a potential convert. Rather just tell them about God’s love and faith in Christ. Keep it positive: focus on how Jesus will meet his needs for a happy marriage, a successful career, and a life free of trouble and pain. After you “close the deal,” you can talk about the hard stuff.
But have you ever noticed how Jesus often took the opposite approach? When the rich young ruler asked what he needed to do to inherit eternal life, Jesus simply could have said, “It’s easy: God loves you, man, and I love you too! Just believe in Me and you’ve got it.” Instead, He told him to keep the commandments. When the young man claimed that he had done that, Jesus replied (Luke 18:22), “One thing you still lack; sell all that you possess and distribute it to the poor, and you shall have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” Not so easy!
Jesus told the unbelieving crowd (Mark 8:34-35), “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it.” Death to self! Not so easy! Jesus often seems to have made it hard to believe. He never softened His demand for total commitment in order to win more followers.
To understand John 6:44, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him,” we have to view it in its context: Jesus is talking with unbelieving skeptics. They ate the miraculous bread and wanted to make Jesus king. But He didn’t come to be the kind of king that they were looking for, so He withdrew from them. They later sought Jesus in Capernaum, but for the wrong reason. They wanted Him to be the new Moses, who could provide them with a lifetime supply of bread. They had a wrong expectation for who the Messiah should be and what He should do for them. So Jesus corrected their errors and asserted that He is the true bread out of heaven who could satisfy their spiritual hunger.
Then Jesus confronted their unbelief (6:36): “But I said to you that you have seen Me, and yet do not believe.” He then brought up the sovereign plan of God, who had given some to Jesus, whom He would certainly save and keep for all eternity (6:37-40). His mission would certainly succeed even if these Jews rejected Him, because Jesus came to fulfill the Father’s sovereign will. In this context these Jews were grumbling about Jesus (6:42-43): They thought that they knew His origin as the son of Joseph and Mary. How then could He be the bread of life that came down out of heaven? They challenged Jesus’ claims.
Sometimes Jesus followed the principle of not casting your pearls before swine (Matt. 7:6) by just ignoring such critics. But here, He witnesses to them, although not in the way many modern evangelism courses would advise. Rather than defending Himself or correcting their misunderstandings or telling them how much God loved them, Jesus restated His teaching about God’s sovereignty over our salvation. He showed them their inability to come to Him apart from God’s sovereign grace. That’s a subject which, as I said last week, some pastors won’t bring up at all, but especially they would advise that you never bring it up with skeptical unbelievers. But Jesus breaks that rule here by telling these skeptical Jews that they cannot come to Him unless the Father who sent Him draws them. In so doing, Jesus gives us a lesson in how to witness to skeptics:
Christ witnessed to skeptics by confronting their attitude, showing them their spiritual inability, and pointing them to faith in Himself as their only hope of eternal life.
John 6:41-43: “Therefore the Jews were grumbling about Him, because He said, ‘I am the bread that came down out of heaven.’ They were saying, ‘Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does He now say, “I have come down out of heaven”?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Do not grumble among yourselves.’”
John uses the word “Jews” consistently to refer to those who were hostile toward Jesus. In this context, he also may want us to think back to the Jews who grumbled in the wilderness under Moses and brought judgment on their own heads (Exod. 15:24; Num. 11:1; 14:2-5, etc.).
The cause of the Jews’ grumbling here was Jesus’ claim to be the bread that came down out of heaven. They thought that they knew Jesus’ origin as the son of Joseph and Mary. So they couldn’t understand how He claimed to come down out of heaven, which He repeats over and over in this chapter (6:32 [implied], 33, 38, 50, 51, 58). So they were setting themselves up as capable of judging Jesus’ repeated claim because they did not know about His virgin birth. John is again using irony here, because he has already told us that the eternal Word became flesh and dwelt among us (1:14). If these Jews only knew the truth (as we, the readers, do), they would have known that Jesus’ claim was absolutely true.
Jesus did not correct their misunderstanding about His coming down out of heaven. Rather, He confronted their attitude (6:43): “Do not grumble among yourselves.” Grumblers invariably set themselves up as sovereign over God: “If God only saw things my way, we wouldn’t be in this mess!” “If God only took account of my insights, this problem would get cleared up right now!” Grumblers are not in submission to God’s sovereign rule. They want to tell God how to run the world so that things will go the way that they want. Grumblers arrogantly imply that they know more than God knows. These grumblers thought that they were competent to pass judgment on Jesus. So He confronted their grumbling attitude.
The point is, grumblers will not believe in Jesus even if they’ve seen Him feed 20,000 people with five loaves and two fish and they’ve watched Him heal the sick, unless they repent of their grumbling attitude. At the root of unbelief is not a lack of evidence, but an attitude that wants to tell God how to run the universe, at least my corner of the universe! In John 7:17, Jesus states, “If anyone is willing to do His [the Father’s] will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.” At the root of correct understanding about Jesus that leads to faith in Him is whether we are willing to be obedient to God’s will.
As I’ve said before, a good approach when a skeptic raises an objection to the faith (evolution, the problem of suffering, errors in the Bible, etc.) is to reply, “Are you saying that if I can give you reasonable answers to that issue, then you will repent of your sins and follow Jesus?” Invariably, the skeptic will say, “Well, there are other issues, too!” In other words, the issues are not the issue. The issues are smokescreens to hide the fact that the skeptic doesn’t want to submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ. If he can “control” Jesus to provide him with what he wants out of life, he might profess to “believe.” But then he’s not believing in Jesus as Lord, but rather in Jesus as Aladdin’s Genie. So in witnessing to such grumbling skeptics, confront their underlying attitude of not wanting to submit to Jesus.
Before I move on to 6:44-45, I need to mention that grumbling is not just a problem for unbelieving skeptics. It’s also a problem for many that profess to know Christ (1 Cor. 10:10; Phil. 2:14). If you’re grumbling about your circumstances, you’re not giving thanks in all things. And if you’re not giving thanks, you’re not trusting in the Lord and submitting to His sovereign hand over your circumstances. So we all need to apply Jesus’ words in 6:43 to ourselves as often as needed: “Do not grumble among yourselves.”
John 6:44: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.” Note, also, that Jesus basically repeats verse 44 in 6:65, except that there He changes the Father’s drawing with His granting coming to Jesus as a sovereign gift.
Why would Jesus tell unbelieving skeptics that they are unable in and of themselves to come to Him? I can see why He would talk privately with His disciples about such a profound theological truth. But why would He bring this up with these skeptics?
I think that this is the main reason Jesus tells these skeptics that no one has the ability to come to Him unless the Father who sent Him draws them. Skeptics invariably are proud of their mental ability. They view believers as uneducated simpletons: “If they had half a brain, they could see how unreasonable it is to believe that this carpenter from Nazareth came down from heaven!”
Skeptics think that their intellect is sovereign over God. They base their understanding of God (if He even exists) on evidence and logic. But if a skeptic were able to come to Christ through his own intellect or will-power or decision, he would come in pride, which is antithetical to gospel repentance. The Bible yanks the rug of pride out from under us all: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” J. C. Ryle comments on 6:44 (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], 3:385):
Our Lord … desired to magnify their danger and guilt and to make them see that faith in Him was not so easy an affair as they supposed. It was not knowledge of His origin alone, but the drawing grace of God the Father which they needed. Let them awake to see that, and cry for grace before it was too late.
The general lesson of the sentence … is one of vast importance. Our Lord lays down the great principle: “That no man whatsoever can come to Christ by faith, and really believe in Him, unless God the Father draws him so to come and inclines his will to believe.” The nature of man since the fall is so corrupt and depraved that even when Christ is made known and preached to him, he will not come to Him and believe in Him without the special grace of God inclining his will and giving him a disposition to come….
This is, no doubt, a very humbling truth, and one which in every age has called forth the hatred and opposition of man. The favorite notion of man is that he can do what he likes—repent or not repent, believe or not believe, come to Christ or not come—entirely at his own discretion. In fact, man likes to think that his salvation is in his own power. Such notions are flatly contradictory to the text before us. The words of our Lord here are clear and unmistakable and cannot be explained away…. Man never of himself begins with God. God must first begin with man. And this beginning is just the “drawing” of the text.
So Jesus is saying to them (in 6:44), “I know why you’re grumbling. I know why you don’t believe in Me. You’re got a desperate problem that only God can solve. You cannot come to Me unless the Father draws you.” He’s stripping them of their proud spiritual self-confidence, which is the opposite of trusting in Christ for salvation.
Some who argue that God does not force Himself on anyone, but that we all must make our own decision to believe in Jesus, say that God’s “drawing” means that He woos sinners, much as a young man woos a woman to decide to marry him. But the Greek word is used in John 21:6 & 11 of the disciples dragging the net full of fish into the boat and then to the shore. They didn’t woo those fish to please decide to jump into the net and then to cooperate by wiggling their way onto shore! The word is also used of Paul and Silas being dragged to the authorities in Philippi after they cast the demon out of the slave girl (Acts 16:19). And, Paul was dragged out of the temple by the angry mob in Jerusalem (Acts 21:30). Obviously, they weren’t “wooing” him!
Leon Morris (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 371, note 110) points out that there is always the idea of resistance with the use of this verb, but that there is not one example in the New Testament where the resistance was successful. He says, “Always, the drawing power is triumphant, as here.” A. W. Pink (Exposition of John, on monergism.com) describes this drawing:
It is the power of the Holy Spirit overcoming the self-righteousness of the sinner, and convicting him of his lost condition. It is the Holy Spirit awakening within him a sense of need. It is the power of the Holy Spirit overcoming the pride of the natural man, so that he is ready to come to Christ as an empty-handed beggar. It is the Holy Spirit creating within him a hunger for the bread of life.
Note that the drawing of which Jesus speaks here is effectual. It results in the sinner actually coming to Jesus in saving faith. Jesus states in 6:44 that He will raise up the one who is drawn to Him on the last day (6:40 shows that He means, “raise up to eternal life”). And, in 6:45 Jesus reinforces that this is effectual when He says, “Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me.” It is the same unbroken chain of redemption that Paul outlines (Rom. 8:29-30): “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.”
Jesus makes a third point here:
John 6:45: “It is written in the prophets, ‘AND THEY SHALL ALL BE TAUGHT OF GOD.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me.” Jesus is referring to Isaiah 54:13 (and perhaps also to Jeremiah 31:34) to show these proud skeptics that their own Scriptures supported Jesus’ point in 6:44. The “all” in the quote refers to true believers, as the second half of the verse shows. God draws all whom He draws to believe in Jesus by teaching them through His Word. The Holy Spirit uses God’s Word to open blind eyes to see the beauty of Jesus so that formerly resistant sinners are drawn to Him. You can know that you’ve been taught of God when you lay aside all self-confidence and come in faith to Jesus as the Savior of whom all Scripture speaks.
Again, Jesus is stripping these proud skeptics of their own intellect or power of reason as the basis for salvation. If someone can reason his way to salvation, he will take pride in his reason. But Jesus is saying that the truth about Him is contained in God’s written Word and that no one has the mental capacity to understand that truth unless God teaches it to him. As John the Baptist said (John 3:27), “A man can receive nothing unless it has been given him from heaven.” Or, as Jesus told Peter after he made his famous confession of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matt. 16:17), “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.”
If you’re proud of your spiritual knowledge, even if you are truly born again, you don’t know what you think you know. Genuine spiritual knowledge always humbles you in the presence of God and causes you to wonder why He ever chose to reveal Christ to your soul. The more you know, the more you realize how little you really know.
Thus Christ witnessed to these skeptics by confronting their attitude and by stripping them of all spiritual self-confidence.
Briefly, there are two points here:
John 6:46: “Not that anyone has seen the Father, except the One who is from God; He has seen the Father.” This repeats the truth that John stated in the prologue (1:18), “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” Jesus is the only one who can reveal and mediate the Father to us (Luke 10:22; John 14:6, 9). We cannot come to the Father through mysticism, philosophy, or human reason. We can only come to the Father through Jesus.
John 6:47: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life.” (The earliest manuscripts omit “in Me” after “believes.”) By again saying, “Truly, truly” (6:26, 32), Jesus was calling their attention to His next words. He is describing those who have eternal life: They believe in Him. I agree with D. A. Carson (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 294),
Notwithstanding the strong note of predestinarian thought in the preceding verses, this is an implicit invitation to believe, and an implicit warning against unbelief. In this context, it strips the would-be disciple of all pretensions, of all self-congratulation, of all agendas save those laid down by Jesus himself. Those who believe … cannot approach Jesus as if they are doing him a favor …. They must believe—but they do so on his terms, and by his grace.
“Believes” is a present participle, which indicates that we don’t just believe in Jesus at the point of salvation, but as an ongoing, daily matter. The moment you believe you have eternal life (John 3:16). Jesus says of His sheep, who hear His voice and follow Him (John 10:28), “I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.”
That invitation extends to you. You don’t have to put your brain on the shelf to believe in Jesus. But you do have to confront your arrogant, grumbling, skeptical attitude. You do have to be stripped of all self-confidence that you are able in and of yourself to make a rational decision to come to Christ. There is more than sufficient apostolic testimony to the truth about Jesus. But to come in faith to Him, you must cry out to the Father to do a sovereign work of grace in your heart. He must draw you to Jesus.
C. H. Spurgeon wrote (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 6:259:
The doctrine which leaves salvation to the creature, and tells him that it depends upon himself, is the exaltation of the flesh, and a dishonoring of God. But that which puts in God’s hand man, fallen man, and tells man that though he has destroyed himself, yet his salvation must be of God, that doctrine humbles man in the very dust, and then he is just in the right place to receive the grace and mercy of God. It is a humbling doctrine.
Has God humbled your heart and drawn you to Jesus? If not, stop grumbling and start praying that He will do it soon!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
November 24, 2013
Perhaps the Sunday before Thanksgiving is not the time to ask, “What are you eating?” The holidays are the most difficult time of the year to stick to a diet. You say, “Ask me in January!”
But that’s the question that our text implicitly wants us to consider: “What are you eating?”—not physically, but spiritually. We hear a lot these days about the importance of a healthy diet. You are what you eat and a lot of Americans eat a lot of junk food, resulting in a lot of serious, but avoidable health problems. Most of us could benefit by being careful about what we eat.
It’s the same spiritually. If you gorge yourself on the latest movies or on the fare that is offered every night on TV, and you seldom feed on the Bible, don’t be surprised if you’re not spiritually healthy. If your spiritual intake consists of a sugary devotional that you grab on the run, like a donut, and an occasional sermon when you aren’t doing something else on Sunday, don’t be surprised if you’re feeling kind of spiritually sluggish. You are what you eat.
In John 6, after He fed the 5,000 with five loaves and two fish, Jesus repeatedly offers Himself as the spiritual food that gives eternal life and eternal satisfaction to all who eat:
John 6:27: “Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.”
John 6:32: “Jesus then said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven.’”
John 6:33: “For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world.”
John 6:35: “Jesus said to them, ‘I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.’”
John 6:48: “I am the bread of life.”
John 6:50: “This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.”
John 6:51: “I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.”
In 6:52, the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” Rather than softening the analogy so as to be less offensive, Jesus goes on to make it more offensive! He changes the bread analogy to His flesh and, in a statement that would have grossed out just about every Jew, He added that not only did they need to eat His flesh, but also they needed to drink His blood!
John 6:53-57: “So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me.’”
Then He goes back to the bread analogy (John 6:58): “This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.”
Then John mentions (6:59) that Jesus spoke these things (probably from 6:41 on) as He taught in the synagogue in Capernaum. At another time, Jesus lamented of Capernaum (Matt. 11:23-24), “And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will descend to Hades; for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day. Nevertheless I say to you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for you.”
That’s an awful warning! It’s going to be worse for Capernaum on the day of judgment than for Sodom because the people of Capernaum did not eat Jesus’ flesh or drink His blood when it was offered freely to them. So we need to be clear about what Jesus means here and we need to take it to heart so that we don’t follow Capernaum into judgment. The lesson is:
Feeding on Jesus by faith is necessary for eternal life, for temporal sustenance, and for temporal and eternal satisfaction.
This is an eternal life or death matter. In 6:50, Jesus says that if you eat of Him as the bread from heaven, you will not die. He states the converse in 6:51, if you eat of this bread, you will live forever. In 6:53, Jesus warns the Jews that unless they eat His flesh and drink His blood, they have no life in themselves. In 6:54, He again states the converse of 6:53, namely that the one who eats His flesh and drinks His blood has eternal life. He reinforces it again in 6:57, “He who eats Me, he also will live because of Me.” And in 6:58 he again contrasts Himself with the manna, which the Israelites ate and died, by saying that the one who eats this bread (probably pointing to Himself) will live forever. Thus …
Some interpret these verses to refer to partaking of communion, or the Lord’s Supper. The Roman Ca1tholic Church and the Orthodox Church also base their views of transubstantiation (the view that the communion elements actually become the body and blood of Christ) in part on John 6:53, where Jesus says that we must eat His flesh and drink His blood to have eternal life. So before we examine what Jesus means, we need to look at what He does not mean:
A. W. Pink (Exposition of John, on monergism.com) gives four reasons that John 6 does not refer to communion. First, communion had not yet been instituted. Jesus instituted it on the night He was betrayed. Second, Jesus was speaking here to unbelievers and communion is for believers. Third, the eating here is unto salvation or eternal life, while eating the Lord’s Supper is for those already saved and points to fellowship. Fourth, the Lord’s Supper does not produce the results that are here attributed to eating and drinking Christ. If Jesus’ words here refer to communion, then you gain eternal life by partaking, which contradicts many other Scriptures that show that salvation is through faith in Christ, not through participating in a ritual. So, as J. C. Ryle puts it (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], 3:393), “We may eat the Lord’s Supper, and yet not eat and drink Christ’s body and blood. We may eat and drink Christ’s body and blood, and yet not eat the Lord’s Supper.”
The main problem with the Catholic and Orthodox view of transubstantiation (the communion elements actually become Christ’s body and blood) is that it takes literally words that were obviously meant as symbolic. True, Jesus said (Matt. 26:26), “This is My body.” But He also said (John 10:9), “I am the door.” John 15:1, “I am the true vine.” Nobody takes those statements literally. Jesus clearly meant them symbolically.
There are other reasons for rejecting the view that the communion elements actually become the body and blood of Jesus. But it’s obvious that Jesus’ words in John 6 to these unbelieving Jews, spoken at least one year before He instituted the Lord’s Supper, have nothing to do with that ordinance. True, there are parallels that we can draw between the Lord’s Supper as later instituted and Jesus’ words here. As Colin Brown puts it (The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology [Zondervan], 2:535), “John 6 is not about the Lord’s Supper; rather, the Lord’s Supper is about what is described in John 6.” By comparing parallel verses in John 6, we can determine what Jesus meant by the metaphor of eating His flesh and drinking His blood:
Note these parallels: In John 6:40, Jesus says, “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.” The requirement for eternal life is to behold the Son and to believe in Him. The promised results are that a believer has eternal life and Jesus will raise him up on the last day. In 6:54, “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” These are exactly the same results as in 6:40, but instead of beholding the Son and believing in Him, Jesus substitutes eating His flesh and drinking His blood. Since things equal to the same thing are equal to each other, eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking His blood refer to believing personally in His death on the cross as your only hope for eternal life.
Why would Jesus use such graphic language as eating His flesh and drinking His blood to describe believing in Him? Perhaps one reason is that He was making it clear to these Jews who wanted Him to be a political Messiah that He wasn’t that kind of Messiah. He came the first time to give His life as an offering for our sins. He will come the second time as the conquering King to rule in power and judge the nations (Rev. 19:15).
But the first time, He was the Passover Lamb of God (John 1:29), offered up so that His blood would protect those who applied it to their lives. The Jews were very familiar with eating the Passover lamb. By shocking them with this graphic language and applying it to Himself, those who were true seekers for eternal life would be jarred into realizing that their main need was not for a Messiah to give them literal bread, but for one to give them the bread of eternal life. They needed Jesus as their Passover Lamb.
In 6:51, Jesus says, “I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.” By giving His flesh, Jesus was referring to His upcoming death. No one took His life from Him; rather, He gave it on His own initiative (John 10:18). Also, the bread analogy pictures death. As Jesus says (John 12:24), “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” To make bread, the grain of wheat had to die. Then, the fruit of the grain had to be plucked, crushed, and made into flour before it was baked into bread. Even so, Jesus had to die in order to be the bread that gives eternal life to those who eat it in faith. Pink suggests that “eating” looks back to Adam and Eve. Their eating the forbidden fruit plunged the human race into sin and judgment. Now, eating Christ, the “tree of life,” liberates us from the curse that came on us with Adam’s fall.
Perhaps another reason that Jesus uses the graphic language, especially the part about drinking His blood, is that it puts the offense of the cross in full view. Drinking or eating blood was highly offensive to a Jew (Gen. 9:4; Lev. 7:26-27). But when they start arguing among themselves about how “this man” (probably a derogatory term) can give them His flesh to eat (John 6:52), which was offensive enough, Jesus doesn’t explain it in less offensive terms. Rather, it’s like He pokes them in the eye by adding to eating His flesh the gross picture of drinking His blood!
But the Bible is clear (Heb. 9:22), “Without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” Have you ever thought about how bloody the Jewish religion was, with the slaughter of bulls and goats and rams? We got a little glimpse of that when we visited our daughter and her family in a Muslim area of Central Asia, where they were slaughtering sheep on the sidewalk as we walked by. It isn’t pretty! But to be the complete and final sacrifice for our sin, Jesus’ blood had to be shed. If Jesus is just your moral example, but not your sacrificial Lamb, then He is not your Savior from sin.
So, to be clear: Eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking His blood refer to believing in and personally appropriating His death on the cross as your only hope for eternal life. Thus,
This is not just a matter of how to have a happier life. It’s a matter of eternal life or eternal death. In 6:49-51, Jesus contrasts the manna, which only fed the people physically for a while and then they died with Himself as the living bread that came down out of heaven to give eternal life to people through His flesh. Religious rituals cannot not bring eternal life to anyone. Apart from Jesus’ sacrificial death, He cannot be the bread that gives eternal life to us. So to gain eternal life, you must eat Jesus’ flesh and drink His blood, which primarily means, to believe in Him personally.
But let’s think about the eating and drinking analogy further so that we understand what saving faith means (Pink develops some of these points).
First, eating is a necessary response to a felt need. You eat when you feel hungry and you drink when you feel thirsty. If you go long enough without eating or drinking, you will die. But, the world feeds us with all sorts of things that mask our true hunger and thirst. It feeds us with money and possessions and sex under the illusion that these will satisfy us, but those things get left behind at death. Sometimes the world deceives us with legitimately good things, like family and friends, to make us feel full and happy. But the best family and friends will not do us any good when we stand before God at the judgment. Those are not true food. Jesus says (6:55), “For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink.” The Holy Spirit has to impress on us the vanity of life apart from God and convict us of our true guilt before God so that we will hunger and thirst for the eternal life that only Jesus can give.
Second, eating and drinking only benefit you when you actually eat and drink. It doesn’t do you any good to smell a good meal or to analyze it chemically or to write flowery poems about how wonderful it is. You’ve got to eat it. Also, it must be personal. I can’t eat it for you. Your parents can’t eat it for you. You must eat your own food. In the same way, you have to appropriate Christ for yourself by faith. You must not only believe that He is the Savior. You must believe that He is your Savior. You must trust in His death on the cross as the penalty for your sins. You must receive or appropriate Him into your innermost being, just like you eat food and drink water to live. Feeding on Jesus by faith is necessary for eternal life.
In 6:56, Jesus states, “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.” Here Jesus mentions the intimate union that takes place between Him and the one who feeds on him by faith. (He will explain this further to the disciples in 15:1-11.) The Greek verb for “eats” is a present participle, looking at the ongoing, close relationship between Jesus and the one who feeds on Him. When you eat food, it literally becomes a part of you. When you feed on Christ by faith, you become more like Him and you enjoy a close relationship with Him.
Also, in 6:57 Jesus emphasizes the intimacy that we enjoy with Him: “As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me.” J. C. Ryle explains (ibid., 3:404),
It is as though our Lord said: “Just as the Father sent Me into the world to be born of a woman and take the manhood into God—and even though I am among you as man, I live in the closest union and communion with God—even so the man that by faith feeds his soul on my sacrifice for sin shall live in the closest union and communion with Me.” In a word, the union between Christ and the true Christian is as real and true and close and inseparable as the union between God the Father and God the Son.
The implication here is that we should eat often. Most of us eat three meals a day, sometimes with snacks in between. If you were a prisoner of war, you might survive on a cup of rice or a piece of bread and some water every day. But if you survived, you would come out of that camp emaciated, weak, and vulnerable to disease. To be healthy, you have to eat nutritious food several times a day.
Do you feed your soul on Christ every day? “Well, I try to read ‘Our Daily Bread’ once in a while.” Okay, but you need more than that. You need a consistent diet of reading and meditating on God’s Word, praying as you read, “Lord, reveal Yourself to my soul.” Or, as Moses dared to pray, even after all of the amazing miracles that he had seen (Exod. 33:18), “I pray You, show me Your glory!” Feed on Christ often in His Word. Don’t be satisfied with the fact that you ate last week or yesterday. You need manna for your soul today.
Also, it is helpful to eat at regular times. Don’t wait until you’re starving to eat, but eat at set times. Dietary experts say that breakfast is the most important meal not to skip. Likewise, it’s spiritually healthy to spend at least a short time each morning feeding your soul on Christ. I’m not a morning person, so it’s hard for me. But I set my alarm a half hour earlier than I need to and spend that time reading God’s Word and often praying it back to Him.
One final thought: You can’t overeat when it comes to feeding on Jesus! When we sit down to a holiday feast, it all tastes so good that it’s easy to eat more than you should. But with Jesus, you can eat and eat and eat, and it won’t adversely affect your health. In fact, the more of Jesus that you feed on, the healthier you will be!
Thus, feeding on Jesus by faith is necessary for eternal life and for temporal sustenance.
In Matthew’s account (14:20) of the feeding of the 5,000, he says, “And they all ate and were satisfied.” There is a satisfaction factor about eating, isn’t there? That’s why we overeat—because it tastes so good and it’s pleasurable. Good bread nourishes and sustains life, but also it’s enjoyable. To smell bread baking in the oven and then to butter and eat a warm slice—ah! Even so, feeding on Jesus by faith is enjoyable in this life and it will continue in His eternal presence, where, as David exults (Ps. 16:11), “In Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever.”
Yet, as John Calvin laments (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 261), “How few are there who are satisfied with Christ alone!” How about you? Are you satisfied with Christ alone? Do you feed on His death for you as your only hope of eternal life? Do you feed on Him daily in His Word as nourishment for your soul? Do you enjoy all that He is for you, both now and for eternity? If not, the answer is fairly simple: Change your diet!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
December 1, 2013
If you’ve been a Christian for a while, you’ve known people who professed faith in Christ, who seemed to follow Him for some time, but then they fell away. In some cases, they have even served in the ministry. I’ve known pastors, including the pastor who baptized me, who have left the ministry, turned away from the Lord, and lived as unbelievers.
Often, the cause of spiritual defection is moral failure, as it was with my former pastor. In other cases, the defection may be due to unresolved doubts or unanswered hard questions about the Bible, such as: How do you resolve the seeming contradictions in the Bible? How can you reconcile the creation account with modern science? How can a loving and powerful God permit all the evil that goes on in the world? If God loves everyone, why doesn’t He let them all hear the gospel? If God is sovereign, then aren’t we just a bunch of robots with no free will? We could go on and on with the difficult issues that cause some to defect from the faith.
But let’s bring it a little closer to home: If you’ve been a Christian for any length of time, you have faced difficult issues that have challenged your faith. Maybe it was some of the hard questions that I just mentioned. Or, maybe you prayed for something that seemed to be in God’s will and for His glory, but He did not answer favorably. Perhaps you trusted some promise in the Bible, but it didn’t work out the way that you had expected. Maybe you’ve had to suffer some illness that has greatly hindered your ability to serve the Lord. Perhaps a spouse or Christian friend betrayed you. Maybe your children, whom you love sacrificially and taught God’s ways, have rejected both God and you.
How do you handle these kinds of hard trials and disappointments? What do you do when those you love turn away from Christ? In short, how do you persevere in your faith when you encounter things in the Bible or in your own experience that don’t make sense? What is the antidote to spiritual defection?
Our text reports the aftermath of Jesus’ feeding the 5,000 and His discourse in the synagogue in Capernaum on being the bread of life (6:60): “Therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this said, ‘This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?’” Jesus’ reply to their grumbling (in 6:61-65) did not placate them (6:66): “As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.” Also, John twice (6:64, 70-71) mentions Judas, one of the twelve, who would soon betray Jesus. So there were many spiritual defections among those who had professed to be disciples of Jesus, including Judas.
But in contrast, when Jesus asks the twelve (6:67), “You do not want to go away also, do you?” Peter gives a great reply (6:68-69), “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” So we have here the antidote to spiritual defection:
Persevering faith in God’s Word and in God’s Son is the antidote to spiritual defection.
In Hebrews 10:36, the writer tells his readers, who were enduring severe trials as Christians and were tempted to go back to Judaism, “You have need of endurance.” Then he proceeds to give them an entire chapter that shows how the saints of old endured by faith. We need faith in God’s Word and faith in His Son if we want to persevere and not fall away. In this message, I can only deal with faith in God’s Word. We’ll look at faith in God’s Son next time.
But to begin, we need to acknowledge:
The Jews in John 6 had eaten the miraculous bread and fish. As a result, they sought out Jesus after He returned to Capernaum, but they sought Him for the wrong reason. They wanted a political Messiah who would provide freedom from Rome’s yoke, peace, and prosperity. But they stumbled over Jesus’ claim that He was the bread of life that came down out of heaven (6:35, 41). They knew Him as the young man that grew up in Nazareth, the son of Joseph and Mary. So they couldn’t accept His claim to have come down out of heaven.
Jesus confronted their grumbling and told them that they were unable to come to Him unless the Father drew them (6:43-44). He proceeded to emphasize repeatedly that He was the bread out of heaven and that He would give His flesh for the life of the world (6:48-51). But this caused more grumbling (6:52): “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” In response (6:53-58), Jesus didn’t back off, but in graphic language He told them over and over that they must not only eat His flesh, but also drink His blood to have eternal life.
This led to the response of many of His disciples (6:60), “This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?” As good Jews, they were grossed out over the thought of eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking His blood. They thought that their Jewish religion and heritage were good enough to commend them to God. They didn’t see their need for a Savior from sin, who had to die as their Passover lamb. So they grumbled. But Jesus didn’t back off. He was saying, “You must trust in My sacrificial death on your behalf.”
Note that they didn’t come to Jesus with teachable hearts, saying, “Lord, we’re confused. Can you help us understand?” Rather, John says (6:61) that Jesus was conscious that they were grumbling at His teaching, implying that it was among themselves. But He doesn’t soften His earlier statements or explain things to them, because they didn’t have teachable hearts, seeking to understand these truths that they didn’t like so that they could obey. Rather, they were sitting in judgment on Jesus: “He’s that kid from Nazareth, whose parents we know! How can He gross us out with all this talk about eating His flesh and drinking His blood? Our views are what normal people think; it’s Jesus who is crazy!”
In the same way, I’ve seen people who get offended by something that I say, but they never come and talk with me to get the matter cleared up. They don’t want to change their minds or learn new things from God’s Word. They don’t have a teachable heart in submission to God’s Word. Rather, they sit in judgment on what they heard, leave, and go find a pastor who agrees with them.
If you come to God’s Word with that kind of attitude, you won’t grow in your walk with God. You may not like what the Bible says about God sovereignly choosing some for salvation and passing over others, but Jesus repeatedly teaches that in this chapter and it’s taught from Genesis to Revelation. The starting place for growing in the Lord when His Word confronts you with things you don’t like is to humble your heart before the Lord and ask Him for understanding. If you reject it because you don’t like it, you’re sitting in judgment on God’s Word and you won’t grow.
This applies to many difficult areas where the Bible goes against our culture or against our preferences: the role of women in the home and in the church; homosexuality; sexual purity; divorce; hell; etc. But if we accept only the parts of the Bible that fit with what we like, then we’re not following Jesus as Lord, but rather ourselves as lord. We’re just using certain parts of the Bible that we agree with to support our own biases. To be a Christian is to submit to the teachings of Jesus and Jesus believed in God’s Word as truth (John 17:17). But, how do we submit to hard truths?
In 6:63, Jesus says to these fair-weather disciples, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” Jesus here confronts the root problem of these grumblers: They were not born again. Jesus’ opening words to Nicodemus were (3:3), “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” In other words, “All your religious learning and religious activities are incapable of getting you into heaven. You need the new birth.” Jesus explains further (3:6): “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
In 6:63, Jesus is teaching the same thing: “The Holy Spirit imparts life to dead sinners. Human religious effort will not get you into heaven. Apart from the new birth, you can never understand why it is necessary to eat My flesh and drink My blood.” As we saw in our last study, eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking His blood mean that we must trust His sacrificial death on our behalf as the only way to have eternal life. But Jesus confronts these fair-weather followers (6:64), “But there are some of you who do not believe.” The Spirit had not given them new life and so they did not believe.
The crowd thought that Jesus’ words were hard (6:60), but actually, He says (6:63), His words “are spirit and are life.” This means (D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 302) that His words “are the product of the life-giving Spirit,” and “rightly understood,” Jesus’ words in the discourse that He just gave are the source of life for the one who believes. Carson adds, “One cannot feed on Christ without feeding on Christ’s words, for truly believing Jesus cannot be separated from truly believing Jesus’ words (5:46-47).” The Holy Spirit uses the Word of God to impart new life to sinners so that they can understand it (James 1:18; 1 Pet. 1:23; 1 Cor. 2:14).
A. W. Pink (Exposition of John, on monergism.com) points out the balance in 6:63-64: “It is the Spirit who gives life,” points to God’s sovereignty. He must impart new life to us. But, “the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life” are addressed to human responsibility: we must believe Jesus’ words, as 6:64 shows: “But there are some of you who do not believe.” Jesus was pressing on these superficial disciples the need to truly believe in Him.
In 6:64, John adds, “For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him.” This anticipates 6:70-71, “Jesus answered them, ‘Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?’ Now He meant Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray Him.” The defection of these “disciples” and of Judas shows us how hard the human heart is and how desperately we need God’s sovereign grace and the new birth. These disciples had seen Jesus and yet did not believe (6:36). Jesus had chosen Judas as an apostle. He was with Jesus for three years. He saw His miracles and heard His teaching. He was friends with the other apostles, with whom he could discuss the things of God. He went out on a mission and saw God work miracles through him. Yet he did not believe and he was lost!
These superficial disciples were grumbling because they could not imagine a Messiah who would give His flesh for the life of the world (6:51). Their view of Messiah was that He would conquer Israel’s enemies and usher in an age of peace and prosperity, not that He would die. Also, “the world” meant Gentiles, and they didn’t like the idea of Messiah including those “dogs” in the kingdom! And their religion said that it was abominable to drink blood, but this carpenter from Nazareth who claimed to have come down from heaven was saying that to have eternal life, they needed to eat His flesh and drink His blood. Wasn’t being a good Jew enough to get them into heaven? So all of these things confronted their culture and religion and went against their preconceived ideas of Messiah and His kingdom.
Jesus asked these unbelieving “disciples” (6:62), “What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before?” He was confronting their mistaken expectations. They thought that the Messiah would remain forever to reign (12:34). But here Jesus was talking about giving His flesh and drinking His blood. Later, He talked about being lifted up (12:32). After the cross, He would be raised from the dead and ascend again into heaven.
Just before His ascension, even His loyal disciples asked (Acts 1:6), “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” They still thought that He might set up His earthly kingdom at that time. They needed to confront their preconceived ideas and submit to God’s plan for Jesus to ascend to the Father and to return to reign at a later time.
I think that in part, wrong expectations about Jesus were why Judas betrayed Jesus. At first, he thought that Jesus would set up His earthly kingdom and he (Judas) would be one of the top officials in that reign. He liked that idea. He could get into sitting on one of the twelve thrones of Israel, reigning with Jesus (Matt. 19:28). But to his alarm, Jesus seemed fixated on dying! That didn’t fit Judas’ vision for the future!
When we begin to follow Christ, most of us have many wrong expectations and preconceived ideas about Him and the Christian life. Some of those ideas come from our cultural or religious backgrounds. Some may come from the “pitch” we heard for the gospel: “Come to Jesus and He will give you peace, joy, and an abundant life.” While that statement is true, it may not be true in the sense that we envisioned. He may give us peace, joy, and an abundant life in a prison cell where we are tortured and eventually killed because of our faith. Ask John the Baptist or the pastor in prison in Iran about that “abundant life”!
Thus, we’ve acknowledged that there are hard truths in God’s Word that we need to submit to. To submit to them, we need the new birth from the Holy Spirit. And, we often must go against our cultural and religious backgrounds by confronting our preconceived ideas.
Jesus again brings up to these unbelieving “disciples” the truth that He stated in 6:44, which was also implicit in 6:37. He says (6:65), “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.” As we saw when we studied 6:37 & 44, each time that He states this truth, it’s in response to unbelief or skepticism. In 6:36, He tells His critics, “You have seen Me, and yet do not believe.” Then He immediately adds (6:37), “All that the Father has given Me will come to Me.” In 6:43, Jesus confronts their grumbling about Him and then adds (6:44), “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws Him.” Here, Jesus again confronts their unbelief (6:64) and then adds (6:65), “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.” Then, in 6:70 Jesus again mentions His sovereignty in choosing the twelve in the face of Judas’ impending betrayal.
What’s the point of this repeated cycle of unbelief countered by God’s sovereignty? As I explained when we studied 6:37-40, Jesus is showing us that we can take comfort in God’s sovereignty even over the forces of evil and unbelief. If you’re not careful, the spiritual defection of your close friends or loved ones can be contagious. You can easily start thinking, “If he was such a strong Christian and he fell away, maybe I should re-examine my faith.” Or, if evil people do bad things to you, you can begin to wonder, “Where is the sovereign and loving God? Why didn’t He protect me from their evil deeds?” (See Matt. 11:2-3.)
But Jesus shows repeatedly in this chapter that even when people who saw His miracles and heard His teaching reject Him, it has not thwarted God’s sovereign plan in the slightest. The flaky disciples turned away from Jesus because God had not drawn them or granted for them to come to Him (6:44, 65). Judas, one of the twelve, was chosen as an apostle even though Jesus knew from the beginning that he would betray Him (6:64).
So even if difficult things happen to you, even if close friends betray you or turn away from the Lord, God is still the sovereign God “who works all things after the counsel of His will” (Eph. 1:11). He still “does according to His will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of earth; and no one can ward off His hand or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’” (Dan. 4:35). You can persevere in faith when you accept that God is sovereign, even over evil and unbelieving people. And yet they are responsible for their unbelief and will come under God’s judgment if they don’t repent.
In the face of this widespread defection by these professed followers, Jesus turns to the twelve and asks (6:67), “You do not want to go away also, do you?” Wow, what a question! The way the question is stated indicates that Jesus did not expect them to say, “Yes, we’re out of here, too!” He said it to test their faith.
Peter, speaking for the group, gives the great confession (6:68-69), “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” We need to wait until next week to look more closely at this confession. But for now, I want to look at the part where he says, “We have believed and have come to know.” The terms are roughly synonymous, but the order is important. First, we believe and then we come to know.
The world says, “Seeing is believing,” but God’s Word tells us, “Believing is the way to seeing.” Hebrews 11:3 affirms, “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.” Faith yields understanding, or knowledge.
Faith is not a blind leap in the dark, because our faith is based on God’s testimony to His Son through trustworthy eyewitnesses. But this means that you will never attain complete knowledge apart from believing. The main reason people do not believe in Christ is not because they have intellectual problems with God or the Bible, even though they claim that’s the reason. They do not believe because they love their sin and they don’t want to submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ. It’s only after we believe in Jesus as Savior and Lord that we will come to the full assurance of knowing that He is the Holy One of God.
Next time we’ll look at persevering faith in God’s Son as the antidote to spiritual defection. But for now, note that there are three groups represented in our text: (1) There are those who were initially interested in Jesus and followed Him until He started teaching some things that they didn’t like. Then they defected. (2) There are those, represented by Judas, who seem fully committed to Jesus. Judas kept up such a good front that the other disciples did not suspect that he was the betrayer. But his life ended in tragic rejection of Christ. (3) There are those, like Peter, who submit with persevering faith even to the hard teachings, because they know who Jesus really is and they’re committed to follow Him.
Which group are you in? Your perseverance unto eternal life depends on being in that third group. Make sure that your faith is in God’s Word and in His Son!
[Next week: Part 2]
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
December 8, 2013
It’s always distressing for pastors when people leave the church. It’s one thing if they get involved in another church where God’s Word is taught, but it’s grievous if they move to a liberal church or drop out of church completely.
While I realize that we always have room to improve and that we should try to learn from the reasons why people leave the church, at the same time I take comfort in the fact that Jesus lost people who at first professed to be His disciples. At the start of John 6, Jesus has 20,000 people singing His praises after He fed them the loaves and fish. By the end of John 6, He has twelve, and one of them is a traitor! Maybe Jesus needed to read some books on how to grow your ministry! Things weren’t looking good!
Probably the twelve were deflated. Earlier, it seemed like Jesus was on the brink of widespread success. The wave of popular support was building. The people wanted to make Jesus king (6:15). Wasn’t that God’s plan, for His Messiah to reign over Israel? But then Jesus’ shocking comments about eating His flesh and drinking His blood drove away almost everyone. And then He asks the twelve (6:67), “You do not want to go away also, do you?”
So we’re looking at the problem of spiritual defection and how to avoid it. The overall message is:
Persevering faith in God’s Word and in God’s Son is the antidote to spiritual defection.
Last week we saw:
1. Persevering faith in God’s Word is the antidote to spiritual defection.
A. There are hard truths in God’s Word that must be submitted to, even if you don’t understand them.
B To submit to hard truths, we must be born of the Spirit.
C. To submit to hard truths, we often must go against our cultural and religious backgrounds by confronting preconceived ideas.
D. To submit to hard truths, we must accept that God is sovereign, even over evil and unbelief.
E. When we submit in faith to the hard truths of God’s Word, we gain the foundation for knowledge.
This week our focus will be on how persevering faith in God’s Son is the antidote to spiritual defection. But, first, note:
Peter asks the haunting question (6:68), “Lord, to whom shall we go?” I’ve often thought about that question when I’ve encountered difficult issues. Before you turn away from Jesus because of hard truths or difficult circumstances or disappointed expectations, stop and ask yourself, “Lord, to whom shall I go?” There just aren’t a lot of other viable options.
Comfortable religion will ultimately fail if you turn to it. These fair-weather disciples who couldn’t handle Jesus’ statements about eating His flesh and drinking His blood as the requirement for eternal life went back to their Jewish heritage and religion. They thought that being the physical descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and following the Jewish religious rules and ceremonies was good enough. They had hoped at first that Jesus would be the Messiah who would deliver them from Roman rule and usher in an age of peace and prosperity. But, when they heard His shocking teaching about giving His flesh for the life of the world and the need to eat His flesh and drink His blood, they just turned back to the religion that they always had known.
That was a comfortable option for them, but it was spiritually ignorant and stupid because it ignored the serious reality of their sin and guilt before the holy God and their desperate need for a Savior. When the Holy Spirit convicts you of your sin and guilt, you realize that no amount of religion or good deeds on your part can atone for your many sins. You realize that your best deeds are worthless as a defense against your true guilt before God (Isa. 64:6). John Owen (Apostasy from the Gospel [Banner of Truth], p. 90) comments on those who turn away from Christ:
If they had had a true conviction of their need of Christ and had experienced his power in meeting that need, why do they now forsake him? A person who has been truly convinced of his need of Christ for forgiveness and salvation and has, as a result, received him by faith will never forsake Christ. To be truly convinced of our need of Christ, we must first be convinced of the nature, guilt, pollution, power and punishment of sin, for he came to save us from our sins.
Money and power will ultimately fail if you turn to them. John twice mentions Judas (6:64, 70-71) in the context of these disciples who turned away from Jesus. Later (12:6) John explains that Judas was in charge of the disciples’ money box and that he used to steal from it. Arguably, Judas had accepted the invitation to become an apostle because he saw it as a good career move. If Jesus was the promised Messiah who would conquer Israel’s enemies and reign on David’s throne, then being in the inner circle meant financial security and powerful influence.
But when Judas heard Jesus talking about giving His flesh for the life of the world and how the Jewish leaders would put Him to death and how those who followed Him must take up their cross and die, he started backpedaling. That wasn’t what he had signed up for! So he betrayed Jesus for the measly sum of 30 pieces of silver. When he realized that he had betrayed innocent blood, he threw the silver down in the temple and went and hanged himself (Matt. 27:3-5). Money and power never bring us into right standing with God. They fail all who trust in them for satisfaction.
Education, saving the environment, the arts, sexual pleasure, drugs, and alcohol will ultimately fail if you turn to them. These are some of the things that King Solomon tried (Eccl. 2:1-16) to alleviate the vanity of life (he didn’t know about drugs, but he did try alcohol, and he probably would have smoked some marijuana if he had known about it!). But his conclusion was (Eccl 2:17), “So I hated life, for the work which had been done under the sun was grievous to me; because everything is futility and striving after wind.” Some of the things he did are legitimate enterprises in the proper sphere and in balance, but none of them provide eternal life.
So it’s not wrong to do well in your career and to provide adequately for your family. It’s not wrong to run for public office and use your power to better society. It’s not wrong to help save the environment as a good steward of God’s creation. It’s not wrong to study and learn all that you can. But the point is, if you put your faith and effort in anything other than Jesus Christ, it will evaporate the second you stand before God for judgment. Even legitimate things will be vanity if your faith is not in Christ to save you from your sins.
But that leads to a question: If all else fails us at death and death is 100 percent certain, why do people turn away from Christ to these vain things?
(C. H. Spurgeon develops some of these in his sermon, “A Mournful Defection,” Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 50:602-609.) More could be added, but here are nine:
These “disciples” turned away from Jesus because they found His teaching about eating His flesh and drinking His blood to be difficult (6:60). Also, they stumbled over His teaching that He had come down from heaven (6:41-42), which implies His divine preexistence. They knew Him as the son of Joseph and Mary. They had watched Him grow up. So His implicit claim to deity grated on them.
They also didn’t like Jesus’ repeated statements (6:37, 44, 65) that they were unable to come to Him unless the Father drew them. After all, they were good Jews, not Gentile dogs. They followed Moses and the Law. So they didn’t like Jesus’ assertion that they were spiritually unable to come to Him. It implied that they were helpless sinners! How dare Him say such a thing!
There are many today who profess to be disciples of Jesus but they don’t like certain doctrines or commands in the Bible. They don’t like the doctrine that God predestines some, but not all, for salvation. They don’t like the doctrine that He will punish the unrepentant in hell for all eternity. Some don’t like the doctrine of the Trinity. Others don’t like the biblical teaching on the role of women or homosexuality or sexual purity. So they turn aside from the only Savior to things that they like. But those things can never save.
These people wanted a lifetime supply of bread, but they were not laboring for the food that endures to eternal life (6:27). They wanted Jesus to be their king if He would usher in an age of peace and prosperity, but not if He had to die to atone for their sins. But if we start thinking that more stuff and a better house and career success and a comfy investment portfolio will bring ultimate satisfaction, our priorities are wrong. We fall into the trap of Solomon, Judas, and Demas, who deserted Paul because he loved this present world (2 Tim. 4:10).
The recipients of the Letter to the Hebrews were tempted to return to their former Judaism because they were suffering for their faith as Christians. Perhaps one reason for Judas’ defection was that he wanted to be on the good side of the Jewish religious leaders. But when he saw that Jesus was always clashing with them and that to be Jesus’ follower would mean alienation from the Jewish leaders, he decided to ingratiate himself with them by betraying Jesus.
Many young people fall into this trap. They think that if they follow Jesus, they’ll have to give up everything enjoyable and fun and start doing all sorts of things that sound perfectly dreadful. I used to worry as a teenager that if I yielded my life to the Lord, He would send me to some jungle to live as a missionary. But it finally dawned on me that if He is a loving and all-wise Father, He would only ask me to do what would be for my ultimate good.
Like Judas, you think that “signing up” with Jesus means financial prosperity and the abundant life. But then you realize that the “abundant life” may include persecution and martyrdom, so you turn away to other things.
Seeking after the Lord and walking with Him require time and effort. But we’re all prone to drift into other things that fill our time: TV, computer games, sports, social networks, and many other things can easily crowd out seeking first God and His kingdom.
Paul tells us to discipline ourselves for the purpose of godliness (1 Tim. 4:7). By definition, discipline means denying yourself some immediate gratification for a more worthwhile long-range goal. It implies that the long-range goal won’t happen by default if you kick back and cruise through life doing what feels good. If you don’t want to drift away from Christ, you have to confront your laziness and discipline yourself for godliness.
Following Christ is a rational decision based on the evidence about who He is and what He did for us on the cross. But the problem is, sin is always irrational and it causes us to become mixed up in our thinking. Sin skews our judgment and causes us to make other wrong choices to cover up or justify our sin.
You don’t see what Peter saw, that Jesus is the only one worth following. Where else or to whom else can you go that even begins to compare with Jesus? That leads us to the main point:
Peter sums it up (6:68-69): “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” We could be here all day and then some if we were to catalog the many wonderful qualities of Jesus Christ, but here are four:
Life is extremely short and uncertain, but eternity is forever. Jesus is the only one who came from heaven to earth to tell us how to go to heaven when we die and to provide the atonement for sin that we need in order to stand in God’s holy presence. Jesus put it in perspective (Matt. 16:26), “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” Think about the shortness of life, the certainty of death, and the reality of eternity and you will not defect from Jesus Christ.
(The King James Version’s, “You are the Christ, the Son of God,” is based on inferior manuscript support. The copyist was trying to harmonize John 6:69 with Matt. 16:16.) “The Holy One of God” is an unusual designation for Jesus. It only occurs one other time in the New Testament, when a demon-possessed man in the synagogue in Capernaum addressed Jesus with this title (Mark 1:24; Luke 4:34). In the Old Testament, it is used of Aaron (Ps. 106:16). “Your Holy One” is used of Messiah (Ps. 16:10). But Isaiah often refers to the Lord as “the Holy One of Israel” (Isa. 1:4; 5:19, 24; 10:20; etc.). Leon Morris comments (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 390),
There can be not the slightest doubt that the title is meant to assign to Jesus the highest possible place. It stresses His consecration and His purity. It sets Him with God and not man.
Your faith is only as good as its object. You can have all the faith in the world in a faulty airplane, but your faith won’t make it fly. On the other hand, all you need is enough faith to get on board a mechanically sound plane, and it will get you where you’re going. If Jesus is not who the Bible shows Him to be, then faith in Him will not get you to heaven. But if He is the Holy One of God, then you should trust in Him and persevere even when He says hard things or takes you through hard times.
John repeatedly emphasizes this truth in our text. Jesus knew when the fair-weather disciples were grumbling among themselves (6:61). He knew those who did not believe (6:64). He knew from the beginning who would betray Him (6:64). He knew that He would give His life on the cross, be raised again, and ascend to the Father (6:51, 62). He chose Judas as an apostle although He knew that he was a devil (6:70). And, of course, He knows all whom the Father has given to Him and He knows that He will not lose any of them (6:37, 39; 17:9, 12). He is omniscient and sovereign.
But, you may wonder, why did Jesus choose Judas when He knew that he would betray Him? A. W. Pink (Exposition of John, on monergism.com) suggests seven reasons: (1) It furnished an opportunity for Christ to display His perfections. Christ came to do the Father’s will and to accomplish the work on the cross that the Father gave Him (John 4:34). That required choosing the disciple who would betray Him. (2) It provided an impartial witness to the moral excellency of Christ. Judas later testified (Matt. 27:4), “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” (3) It gave occasion to uncover the awfulness of sin. Judas shows us the heinous nature of the sin from which we have been saved. Apart from His grace, we all would be traitors against Christ. (4) It supplies sinners with a solemn warning. Judas shows us “how near a man may come to Christ and yet be lost.” (5) It tells us we may expect to find hypocrites among the followers of Christ. (6) It shows us that a devil is to be expected among the servants of God. (7) It affords one more illustration of how radically different are God’s thoughts and ways from ours.
“Lord, to whom shall we go?” I’ve thought about that question many times when I’ve faced hard things. “Lord, to whom shall I go?” Jesus Christ is far and away supreme over all other options. He alone has words of eternal life. He alone is the Holy One of God. He alone is the omniscient, all-wise sovereign of the universe. “Lord, to whom shall we go?”
To the extent that we are tempted by the world, the flesh, and the devil, we do not realize or have forgotten the supreme beauty and glory of Christ. John Owen wrote (ibid., p. 93), “The whole foundation of all gospel faith rests in the glory of Christ’s person and offices…. It is this knowledge of him alone that will make us despise all other things in comparison with him.” Jesus is the pearl of great price. He is the treasure in the field. Sell everything and buy that pearl! Buy that field!
I like the way Juan Carlos Ortiz tells the story of the pearl of great price (adapted from The Disciple [Creation House], pp. 34-35). A man sees this pearl and says to the merchant, “I want this pearl. How much is it?”
The seller says, “It’s very expensive.” “How much?” “A lot!” “Well, do you think I could buy it?” the man asks.
“Oh, yes,” says the merchant, “everyone can buy it.”
“But I thought you said it was very expensive.” “I did.” “Well, how much?” “Everything you have,” says the seller.
“All right, I’ll buy it.” “Okay, what do you have?”
“Well, I have $10,000 in the bank.” “Good, $10,000. What else?” “That’s all I have.” “Nothing more?” “Well, I have a few dollars more in my pocket.” “How much?” “Let’s see … $100.” “That’s mine, too,” says the seller.
“What else do you have?” “That’s all, nothing else.” “Where do you live?” the seller asks. “In my house. Yes, I own a home.” The seller writes down, “house.” “It’s mine.”
“Where do you expect me to sleep—in my camper?” “Oh, you have a camper, do you? That, too. What else” “Am I supposed to sleep in my car?” “Oh, you have a car?” “Yes, I own two of them.” “They’re mine now.”
“Look, you’ve taken my money, my house, my camper, and my cars. Where is my family going to live?” “So, you have a family?” “Yes, I have a wife and three kids.” “They’re mine now.”
Suddenly the seller exclaims, “Oh, I almost forgot! You yourself, too! Everything becomes mine—wife, children, house, money, cars, and you, too.” Then he goes on, “Now, listen, I will allow you to use all these things for the time being. But don’t forget that they’re all mine, just as you are. And whenever I need any of them, you must give them up, because I am now the owner.”
Everything in the Christian life depends on Jesus Christ and whether He is who He claimed to be. If He’s not, then go follow someone or something else. Maybe there is someone better to follow or something better to live for. But if Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the one with words of eternal life, the Holy One of God, the omniscient, sovereign God, then where else can you go? Even when He says hard things or takes you through hard times, you’ve got to follow Him. There just aren’t any other options that even come close!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
December 15, 2013
Dr. James Boice, the late pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, tells (The Gospel of John [Zondervan], 1-vol. ed., p. 471) of when the staff of his radio program went out on the streets of Philadelphia to ask people, “Who is Jesus Christ?” Sometimes they asked, “Do you think Jesus Christ is God?” The answers they received revealed the confusion that many have with regard to those crucial questions.
One young woman responded, “Jesus Christ was a man who thought He was God.” Another young woman, a biology student, replied, “Jesus Christ is pure essence of energy. God to me is energy, electric energy because it’s something that’s not known.” A man answered, “I think that’s something you have to decide for yourself, but He had some beautiful ideas.” Others replied, “He is an individual who lived 2,000 years ago who was interested in the betterment of all classes of people.” “He was well liked; He meant well; He was a good man.” But most people were just confused. They answered, “I haven’t any idea…. I don’t know.”
It’s sad that in a country like ours, where anyone can easily hear about Jesus Christ, there could be so many people who don’t know who He is. And if a person does not have a basic knowledge of who Jesus is, then he cannot trust in Him as Savior and Lord. He would be believing in a Jesus of his own imagination. A correct knowledge of who Jesus is must underlie saving faith in Him. And so as John labors to make clear in his Gospel, the crucial question for every person to answer correctly is, “Who is Jesus Christ?” You need to get that one right!
But this is also an important question even for those of us who have already believed in Jesus as Savior and Lord. Just as in human relationships such as marriage there is always room to grow to know the other person more deeply, so it is in our relationship with Jesus Christ. At least 25 years after his conversion, the apostle Paul said that his aim was still, “that I may know Him” (Phil. 3:10). The more deeply we know Jesus Christ for who He is, the more quickly we will submit to Him as the Lord of our every thought, word, and deed and the more readily we will trust Him in all the daily matters of our lives.
John 7 & 8 relates some incidents at the Feast of Booths in Jerusalem that show the mounting opposition to Jesus. It would be about six months after this feast that Jesus was crucified. “After these things” (7:1) reflects a gap of six months from the events in chapter 6, which took place near the time of the Passover (6:4). John fills in the gap by adding (7:1), “Jesus was walking in Galilee, for He was unwilling to walk in Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill Him.”
There were three great Jewish feasts in Jerusalem that every male was expected to be at: Passover (in the spring); Pentecost (50 days after Passover); and Booths (or Tabernacles, in the fall; Lev. 23:33-44; Num. 29). Passover pictures the Lord’s death for our sins as our Passover Lamb. Pentecost foreshadowed the outpouring of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2). Booths pictures Christ’s coming again to joyously gather the harvest of His people and dwell permanently with them. Colin Kruse explains the Feast of Booths (John [IVP Academic], p. 181):
The feast had a double purpose: to remember Israel’s time in the wilderness when they lived in booths, and to rejoice before the Lord after harvest (in particular the grape, olive and fruit harvests). It also involved looking forward to a new exodus, the time when the kingdom of God would be brought in with all its attendant blessings.
He adds that it was the most joyful of the three pilgrim feasts. In Jesus’ time it included pouring out water as a remembrance of the water from the rock that sustained Israel in the wilderness, and a candle-lighting ceremony that commemorated God’s presence with Israel through the pillar of cloud and fire. Jesus plays off these two ceremonies when He invites those who are thirsty to come to Him and drink (7:37), and when He proclaims (8:12), “I am the Light of the world.”
On one level, John 7:1-13 functions to set the stage for the rest of chapters 7 & 8. But it also reveals to us some wrong views about Jesus that the Jewish people, including Jesus’ own brothers, had about Him. But a careful look at these verses also reveals that Jesus is both Messiah and Lord, which fits in with John’s purpose that we would believe in Him as the Christ, the Son of God, so that we may have eternal life in His name (20:31). So the main point is:
Believing in Jesus for salvation depends on having the right view about who He is.
The dominant focus of these verses is on those with wrong views about Jesus.
There are three groups pictured here, all of which to one degree or another have wrong views of Jesus: His brothers, the Jewish leaders, and the multitude at the feast.
The reference to Jesus’ brothers (7:3) refers to other sons that Mary and Joseph had after the birth of Jesus (Matt. 1:25, “until”; Luke 2:7, “firstborn”; Mark 3:31-35; 6:3). The Catholic Church believes that Mary was a perpetual virgin, but the biblical evidence is against that view. These brothers were Jesus’ half-brothers, born to Joseph and Mary after Jesus’ birth.
Although they were unbelieving at this point, we know that at least two of the brothers, James and Jude, later came to believe in Jesus. He appeared to James after His resurrection (1 Cor. 15:7). James later became the leader of the Jerusalem church and wrote the Epistle of James. Jude, who humbly identifies himself (Jude 1) as “a bond-servant [slave] of Jesus Christ and brother of James,” wrote the short Epistle of Jude.
In 7:3-4, Jesus’ brothers offer Him some unsolicited “career” advice: “Leave here and go into Judea, so that your disciples also may see Your works which You are doing. For no one does anything in secret when he himself seeks to be known publicly. If you do these things, show Yourself to the world.” John explains (7:5), “For not even His brothers were believing in Him.”
We cannot say for sure what motives lay behind the brothers’ comments. Some say that they were sarcastically ridiculing Jesus: “You want to be famous. Go to Jerusalem, do some miracles, and you’ll hit the big time!” Or, they could have been motivated by family shame: Jesus, at first popular, was now losing disciples. If He went up to Jerusalem for this big feast, perhaps He could gain back some of them and save the family name. Or, at best, they were offering sincere, but worldly advice: “If you want Your Messianic claims to be made known, You need to go prove Yourself to the religious authorities in the capital city.”
My understanding is that probably the brothers thought of Jesus in line with the multitude, that He should be a political Messiah who could deliver Israel from Rome. If Jesus’ miracles meant that He was this promised political savior, then He needed to establish His claim in Jerusalem with the Jewish authorities and with the masses there, not in the obscure villages in Galilee. They may have been embarrassed over Jesus’ strange claims that people had to eat His flesh and drink His blood to have eternal life. But, since He was their brother, they didn’t turn away as the offended disciples had done. Rather, they gave Him their opinion of how He could best establish His claims if they were true. But their advice was based on a complete misunderstanding of Jesus’ divine origin and His mission.
The brothers’ advice to Jesus was similar to the temptation that Satan put before Jesus to jump off the pinnacle of the temple and let the angels carry Him safely to the ground so that everyone who saw it would be astonished and bow before Him as the Son of God (Matt. 4:5-7; Luke 4:5-8). The brothers here are saying, “Go up to Jerusalem and do a few more spectacular miracles and everyone will follow You.” It was a worldly-wise publicity and marketing strategy, but it was satanic at its core.
There are plenty of people today who try to build their ministries or churches through worldly methods of publicity and marketing. A few years ago, I was making a hospital visit and a woman who was visiting the same patient introduced herself to me and added, “I’m the pastor of marketing at [such and such] Church.” It was the first time I had ever heard about, much less met, a “pastor of marketing”! While there’s nothing wrong with letting the community know that your church exists and when its services are, the whole concept of using worldly marketing methods to promote a church strikes me as wrong-headed. If the Holy Spirit is moving in our midst, the world will hear about it!
Jesus replied to His brothers (7:6), “My time is not yet here, but your time is always opportune.” I’ll comment on 7:7, where Jesus mentions the world’s hatred, in a moment. But then He tells His brothers (7:8), “Go up to the feast yourselves; I do not go up to this feast because My time has not yet fully come.” So He stayed in Galilee, but after His brothers left for the feast, Jesus went up, “not publicly, but as if, in secret” (7:10).
Note first that Jesus obviously was not lying to His brothers. Some early manuscripts, to alleviate the difficulty of Jesus saying that He wasn’t going, but then He went, report Jesus as saying, “I do not yet go up to this feast,” rather than “I do not go.” But even if the original was, “I do not go,” the context (7:6) makes it clear that He meant, “I am not going with you because it is not the Father’s time for Me to go. You can go any time, but I must go at the time and in the manner that My Father directs Me to go.” So John is showing Jesus’ firm resolve to do the Father’s will, not the will of His unbelieving brothers, even if they meant well.
Also, don’t miss the sober truth that it’s possible to be in close proximity to Jesus, to know Him as few others do, and yet still be unbelieving and lost! Jesus’ brothers had grown up with Him. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to have a sinless brother, but they must have sensed that Jesus was very different than they were. Probably they resented His sinless life because it convicted them of their own sins. They had undoubtedly heard His teaching and they knew that He performed many miracles (“if” in 7:4 does not express doubt, but has the nuance of “since”), but they still did not believe. The application is: You can grow up in a Christian home and go to church every week and know a lot about Jesus, but not personally believe in Him as your Savior and Lord.
By “the Jews” (7:1, 11, 13), John means, “the Jewish leaders.” They were seeking Jesus, but not so they could learn from Him and believe in Him, but so they could kill Him (7:1, 19, 25, 30, 32, 44; 8:37, 40, 59). Jesus threatened their power, which they used to control the people through fear (7:13). He didn’t fit their idea of a political Messiah who would play their political game and reward them all with nice positions in His kingdom. When He upset the money-changers’ tables in the temple (2:14-16), He threatened their income. So they didn’t carefully listen to Jesus’ teaching or think rationally about the amazing miracles that He was doing. Rather, they reacted emotionally because Jesus threatened their comfortable way of life.
Even so, there are many today who do not believe in Christ because they react emotionally rather than rationally. They sense that to come to Christ would mean the end of their plans, their prestige, and their control over their lives. They like the comfortable lives that they have and they don’t want to face the truth that they are rebels against the Holy One of God.
John 7:12-13: “There was much grumbling among the crowds concerning Him; some were saying, ‘He is a good man’; others were saying, ‘No, on the contrary, He leads the people astray.’ Yet no one was speaking openly of Him for fear of the Jews.” “Grumbling” here means “quietly debating among themselves,” since as John notes (7:13), they were afraid to speak openly. “Big brother” (or the National Security Agency) might be listening!
The multitudes were divided into two camps, both of which were wrong. Some said, “He is a good man.” That was true as far as it went, but it didn’t go anywhere near as far as it should, as John’s Gospel demonstrates. John Stott points out (Basic Christianity [Eerdmans], rev. ed., pp. 23-26) that if Jesus was not God in human flesh, His claims would have meant that He was not a good man, but a very self-centered man. He was always talking about Himself and telling people that they should believe in Him as the only way to have eternal life. He claimed that the Old Testament was written about Him (5:39, 46). He claimed to be the bread of life, who could satisfy the hunger of all who come to Him (6:35). He claimed that whoever believes in Him would have rivers of living water flowing from his innermost being (7:38). He claimed to be the Light of the world (8:12). He claimed that before Abraham was born, He existed (8:58). No good man, who was not God in human flesh, could say such things without being considered a deluded megalomaniac.
The other camp thought that Jesus was leading the people astray. They were the traditionalists, who thought that the ways of the fathers were good enough. But if Jesus was a deceiver, He was a very good one! He got many fiercely monotheistic Jews to believe His claims to be God to the extent that many of them eventually suffered persecution and martyrdom because of their belief in Him. But He also would have been a very evil deceiver, because if He deliberately led people to believe in Him, knowing all the time that He was not the true way to eternal life, He condemned them to a godless eternity. Nothing could be worse than knowingly to deceive people with regard to their eternal destiny.
So both camps were in error and both errors would result in people still being under God’s righteous judgment, because neither camp believed in Jesus as Savior and Lord. But why did these Jewish people, who had the Scriptures, who heard Jesus’ claims and who saw His miracles, not believe?
John gives us two reasons why these Jews at the feast did not believe. First, they hated Jesus because He confronted their sins (7:7). Second, they were ambivalent about Jesus because they feared the religious leaders, who would put them out of the synagogue if they believed (7:13; 9:22).
Jesus tells His brothers (7:7), “The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil.” As we saw (3:20), “For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” To come to Jesus, you have to let Him confront your sins. You have to turn from your deeds of darkness and learn to walk in the light, as He Himself is in the light (1 John 1:5-7).
Also, implicit in Jesus’ words is the truth that if you follow Him, the world will hate you because of your holy life. You will not be the most popular person at the office or at school if you don’t join the world in its sinful ways. James (one of Jesus’ brothers who later believed) draws the line (James 4:4): “You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” You have to choose sides. Which side are you on?
Coupled with wanting to blend in with the world is the fear of what people will think if you follow Jesus. It was the fear of the Jewish leaders that kept many in the multitude from openly believing in Jesus (7:13). So if you want to cover up your sins and blend in with the world, you will not truly believe in Jesus.
This is not stated directly in our text, but it comes through pretty clearly:
We see this by the fact that Jesus did not “do His own thing,” but rather He lived in obedience to the Father’s plan. If Jesus had chosen to do so, He could have been the popular, political Messiah that the people wanted. They wanted to make Him king (6:15). He could have gone up to Jerusalem, much like political candidates today do, worked out a few backroom compromises and given some promises for political favors, and He would have been swept into office.
But Jesus was operating on God’s timetable, which ultimately led to the cross. Here, Jesus tells His brothers (7:6), “My time is not yet here.” He was probably referring to His time to go up to the feast, as well as to the manner in which He would go there, not openly, but at first in a quiet, undramatic way. He knew that He had come to die for our sins, but at the proper time, not in response to His brothers’ worldly advice. He came to lay down His life for His sheep in obedience to the Father’s will.
Jesus testified to the world that its deeds are evil (7:7). Of course, many of God’s prophets down through the centuries had done the same thing. But those prophets always identified themselves with the sins that they preached against. Their message was always, “We have sinned against the Lord!”
But Jesus came as the Light shining in the darkness. He could ask (John 8:46), “Which of you convicts Me of sin?” As Peter testified (6:69), Jesus is “the Holy One of God.” Jesus rightly could call on all people to follow Him with the promise that He could give them eternal life. As the officers who were sent to arrest Jesus, but came back without Him, testified (7:46), “Never has a man spoken the way this man speaks.” Jesus is the Lord God in human flesh. To be saved, you must believe that Jesus is the Christ (the promised Savior), and that He is the eternal Son of God.
To sum up, there are several important applications that we should take away from these verses:
First, if you grew up in the church and have been familiar with Christian teaching all your life, do not be fooled into thinking that you are saved by your familiarity with Jesus. If Jesus’ own brothers were not saved by their connection, it shows that no one is saved by familiarity alone. You must personally believe in Him as your Savior from sin, the one who bore your penalty on the cross.
Second, if you have believed in Christ, you must let Him confront your sin so that you forsake it and walk in the light. Through God’s Word, Jesus tells us how to think, speak, and act in a godly way. If you are not letting the Word confront your sins, you are not walking with Jesus.
Finally, if you believe in Jesus as Savior and Lord, you must be at war with the world. You are either a friend of the world and an enemy of God or a friend of God and an enemy of the world. As John wrote (1 John 2:15), “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
December 29, 2013
A young man came to W. E. Gladstone when he was Prime Minister of England and said, “Mr. Gladstone, I would appreciate your giving me a few minutes in which I might lay before you my plans for the future. I would like to study law.” “Yes,” said the great statesman, “and what then?”
“Then, sir, I would like to gain entrance to the Bar of England.” “Yes, young man, and what then?”
“Then, sir, I hope to have a place in Parliament, in the House of Lords.” “Yes, young man, what then?” pressed Gladstone.
“Then I hope to do great things for Britain.” “Yes, young man, and what then?”
“Then, sir, I hope to retire and take life easy.” “Yes, young man, and what then?” he tenaciously asked.
“Well, then, Mr. Gladstone, I suppose I will die.” “Yes, young man, and what then?” The young man hesitated and then said, “I never thought any further than that, sir.”
Looking at the young man sternly and steadily, Gladstone said, “Young man, you are a fool. Go home and think life through!” (Told by Leonard Griffith, This is Living [Abingdon Press], pp. 48, 49.)
Since the old year is almost gone and the New Year is upon us, I thought it may be profitable to revisit the same text that we studied last time from a slightly different perspective, considering the topic of God’s time versus man’s time. In John 7:6, Jesus says to his half-brothers who advised Him to go up to the Feast of Booths and do some miracles to make Himself known, “My time is not yet here, but your time is always opportune.” Jesus was drawing a contrast between how He lived in view of God’s time versus how His brothers lived their lives. I want to develop the thought:
Since life is short and eternity is forever, live by God’s time, not by man’s time.
The first point is obvious, and yet worth thinking about often:
Billy Graham was once asked what he was most surprised by in life. He answered, “Its brevity.” (Christianity Today, 10/06, p. 90) An older man gave this perspective on how he viewed time differently as he aged (Dewey Gill, Reader’s Digest [5/83]):
Days were plentiful and cheap when I was young. Like penny candy. I always had a pocketful—and spent them casually. Now my supply is diminished, and their value has soared. Each one becomes worth its weight in the gold of dawn. Suddenly I live in unaccustomed thrift, cherishing hours the way lovers prize moments. Even at that, when the week is ended, it seems I’ve gone through another fortune. A day doesn’t go as far as it used to.
I can relate to those thoughts! We just came from being with my Dad on his 90th birthday. It was sad to see his declining physical and mental condition. But it was also sobering to think that in just over 23 years, if I’m still alive, I will be that old! Life is short and then eternity is forever!
If Jesus had been born in our times, His parents would have recognized that He was an unusually gifted child. They would have begun His education early, put Him on the gifted child track, and had Him preaching by age 12 when He made an impression on the scholars in the temple. By the time He was 20, He would have a huge international following. With a good public relations man, He could have learned to tone down some of His more offensive comments so that the religious leaders would not have plotted to kill Him. Think how much more He could have accomplished if He had lived to 70 or 80!
But Jesus, living by God’s time, didn’t begin His ministry until He was about 30 and after three short years He could pray (John 17:4), “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given me to do.” Amazing!
If we want to think like Jesus, we need to live with the awareness of how short life is and that one day we will give an account to God for how we spent our lives. In Psalm 90, as Moses thought on these things, he concluded with the prayer (90:17), “Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us; and confirm for us the work of our hands; yes, confirm the work of our hands.” If none other than Moses had to ask God to confirm the work of his hands, how much more do we need to pray that prayer repeatedly!
Jesus told His brothers that they could go up to the feast whenever they wanted to go, because their time was “always opportune” (7:6). The implication is that they were not living under God’s time, as Jesus was. D. A. Carson (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 308) says that Jesus meant “that what they did was utterly without significance as far as God was concerned.” We can draw three implications about what it means to live by man’s time:
As John 7:5 adds, “For not even His brothers were believing in Him.” As we saw in our last study, Jesus’ brothers had grown up with Him, so they knew Him better than most people would have. They had heard His teaching and seen some of His miracles. They were good, religious Jews, who observed the various feasts in Israel, such as this Feast of Booths. But they didn’t believe in Jesus as Savior and Lord. They probably did not see their need for a Savior from sin, because they thought of themselves as good, religious Jews in comparison with the pagan Gentiles.
So if you want to live by God’s time and not waste your life living by man’s time, the first order of business is to trust in Christ as Savior and Lord. When you are born again, you repent of the sin of living for yourself and you begin to live for the glory of your wonderful Savior and Lord. You realize that if He is Lord of all, then He is Lord of your time. So you begin to seek Him earnestly to figure out how He wants you to spend your life. If you determine your goals and priorities apart from submission to God and His Word, then you’re living by man’s time, not by God’s time. Such living is ultimately futile.
Jesus draws a sharp contrast here between His brothers’ time and His time. If you’re using your time as our culture does, you aren’t living by God’s time. The brothers went up to this religious feast but they went without Jesus. They went because it was the thing that all Jewish men did at that time of the year. It was a God-ordained ritual, but they did it without reality because they did it without Jesus and without faith in Him. They were living by man’s time, not by God’s time.
We, of course, live in a godless, corrupt culture that exalts selfish pleasure and materialism as the ultimate aims in life. To go along with our culture and live for those fleeting pleasures is obviously to waste your life. But it’s possible to be a part of the Christian wing of our culture, to go to church and go through Christian rituals (such as communion) and yet leave Jesus out. You’re just doing it because it’s the thing that other Christians do. But that is to live by man’s time, not by God’s time.
As we saw last time, Jesus’ brothers offered some worldly-wise advice on how He could advance His “career.” They may have meant well, but as I pointed out, their advice was in line with Satan’s temptation for Jesus to jump off the pinnacle of the temple, have the angels float Him gently to the ground, and impress everyone with His miraculous powers. The brothers’ advice was, “For no one does anything in secret when he himself seeks to be known publicly. If You do these things, show Yourself to the world.” (7:4).
As Carson points out (ibid., pp. 306-307), by the world, Jesus’ brothers meant, “to everyone,” but John no doubt saw irony in their comment. We already know that such a display of Jesus’ miraculous powers would have the multitude clamoring to make Him a political Messiah (6:14-15), but it would not have resulted in genuine faith (2:23-25). In one sense Jesus had no intention of showing Himself to the world (14:22). And yet in another sense (Carson, p. 307), “it is in Jerusalem where Jesus reveals himself most dramatically—not in the spectacular miracles the brothers want but in the ignominy of the cross, the very cross by which Jesus draws all men to Himself (12:32) and becomes the Savior of the world (4:42).” The cross is foolishness to the wise of this world, but to us who are called, it is God’s power and wisdom (1 Cor. 1:23-24).
One of the books that has most impacted my life is Shadow of the Almighty [Zondervan], by Elisabeth Elliot. It’s the story of her first husband, Jim Elliot, who was martyred at age 28 in Ecuador (along with four other young men) by the fierce Auca tribe that they were seeking to reach with the gospel. When he was a college student, Jim had written (p. 15), “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”
Recently the news featured the story of chemistry teacher Ronnie Smith, a young husband and father who was shot to death by Muslim radicals while he jogged in Benghazi, Libya. He was there to show Christ’s love to those lost and hopeless people. I saw an interview with his wife, who said that she loves and forgives those who murdered her husband. The world would say that to go to a fierce, primitive tribe or to a dangerous place like Benghazi to share the gospel, is not wise. But God’s ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. In the epilogue to Shadow of the Almighty (p. 246), Elisabeth Elliot wrote,
W. Somerset Maugham, in Of Human Bondage, wrote, “These old folk had done nothing, and when they died it would be just as if they had never been.” Jim’s comment on this was, “God deliver me!”
May He deliver us all from living by man’s time, in worldly wisdom, rather than by God’s time, in His wisdom. To understand how to live by God’s time, we must look at how Jesus lived:
Throughout John’s Gospel, there is the repeated theme of Jesus’ “hour,” which refers to the cross (2:4; 7:30; 8:20; 12:23, 27; 13:1; 16:32; 17:1; see Luke 22:53). But here (7:6, 8) John uses the Greek word that refers to an opportune time. Jesus means that the God-appointed time for Him to go up to Jerusalem and reveal Himself was not yet at hand. In other words, in contrast to His brothers, who lived by the world’s agenda, Jesus lived by God’s agenda. This meant five things:
Jesus always had a sense of obeying the Father with regard to His use of time. He did not allow His own mother to determine when He should turn the water into wine, but He did it as the Father directed Him (2:4). Here, He does not allow His brothers’ advice to govern when He went up to the feast, but went in response to the Father’s timetable. He was accountable to the Father to do everything in His life and ministry as the Father directed.
I’ll grant that it’s not easy to determine God’s will for the specifics of our schedules, whether it concerns the major decisions in life or the daily and weekly schedules that we all must make. But we can determine our overall priorities and goals from the wisdom of God’s Word and prayerfully seek to use our time with the awareness that we will give an account to God for how we spent the time that He gave us. If I may be gently blunt, to spend countless hours watching TV or playing computer games is not a godly way to spend your life.
One New Year’s Day when I was in college, I spent the entire day watching all the college bowl games. By the end of the day, I felt rotten, as if I had stuffed myself on junk food all day. I realized that I had just wasted a precious day of my life. I swore off my TV addiction and have never gone back.
Jesus came to do the Father’s will and to accomplish the Father’s work (4:34). He finished it in three years, as we have seen (17:4). Jesus’ purpose should be our purpose, namely, to glorify God on this earth and to accomplish whatever it is that He has given each of us to do.
Obviously, God does not call everyone to be a foreign missionary or to serve full time in ministry here at home. But He does call us all to live in such a way that we glorify Him in everything we do (1 Cor. 10:31). All behavior begins in our hearts or thoughts (Mark 7:21), so begin there, by ordering your thoughts in line with God’s Word (Phil. 4:8). All our behavior is to be governed by God’s love, which seeks the highest good for others (Rom. 12:9-10; 1 Cor. 13; 16:14). Also, God has uniquely gifted each one for service so that we might glorify Him (1 Cor. 12; 1 Pet. 4:10-11). So figure out what He has gifted you to do and structure your schedule so that you can do it.
As we saw in the story of Jesus with the woman at the well, the disciples had a temporal mindset. They were focused on getting Jesus to eat His lunch so that they could get on with their journey. But Jesus had a harvest mindset. He turned their focus toward what God was doing with His encounter with the woman and the Samaritans in that village (4:31-38). Jesus was aware of God’s perspective in every situation. He never acted out of selfish motives, but only for the purpose of furthering God’s kingdom. He told us that in contrast to seeking all the things that the world so eagerly seeks, (Matt. 6:33), “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
You’ve got to figure out how that verse applies to your sphere of influence. It may apply to rearing your children to know and follow Christ. It may apply to helping a family member, friend, co-worker, or stranger whom you meet come to know the Savior or to grow in Him. Ask the Lord to give you a harvest mindset.
Jesus stayed in Galilee because the Jews were trying to kill Him (7:1), but when it was God’s will for Him to go to the feast, He went. We see the same thing in John 10:39-11:15: Jesus was ministering out of the reach of the Pharisees who were seeking to kill Him, but when it was God’s time, He went to Bethany, just outside of Jerusalem, to raise Lazarus from the dead.
Jeremy Lundgren, our former youth pastor, is writing his master’s thesis on the theology of risk and safety: when is it right to protect yourself from possible harm versus expend yourself for the sake of the gospel? On some occasions, the apostle Paul escaped impending threats to his life (2 Cor. 11:32-33; Acts 17:10, 14; 22:18), but at other times, he was willing to walk into what almost certainly would result in either persecution or death (Acts 19:30-31; 21:11-13). I can’t give you a hard and fast rule for determining when to risk your life for the sake of the gospel and when to use caution and escape. But we all should have the mindset that our highest aim is to glorify God through the gospel. Sometimes that may entail exposing ourselves to substantial risks.
Here, Jesus confronted His brothers’ worldly perspective. He never backed away from confronting the worldly or godless views of those He came into contact with, even though it inevitably led to His death. When He went to have lunch with a Pharisee, Jesus deliberately did not follow their custom for ceremonial washing before the meal and then He laid into the Pharisee for his hypocrisy in cleaning the outside of the cup, while inside he was full of wickedness. When one of the lawyers present heard Jesus’ condemnation of the Pharisees, he said (Luke 11:45), “Teacher, when You say this, You insult us too.” Did Jesus reply, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean any offense”? No, rather He said (11:46), “Woe to you lawyers as well!” And He proceeded to expose their many sins. Jesus always confronted the godlessness around Him.
This doesn’t mean that we should be rude or insensitive. Paul tells us that our speech should be both gracious and seasoned with salt (Col. 4:6). He tells us not to be quarrelsome, but to be kind to all and to correct with gentleness (2 Tim. 2:24-25). But probably most of us need to be a bit bolder than we are to speak out against godlessness when we encounter it. I appreciated reading that Rick Warren recently told Piers Morgan on CNN with regard to Warren’s opposition to homosexual marriage, “I fear the disapproval of God more than I fear your disapproval or the disapproval of society.” (http://piersmorgan.blogs.cnn.com/2013/12/06)
To review and offer some specific action points, here are some steps to help you live by God’s time so that your life counts for eternity and isn’t wasted because you lived for man’s time:
(1) Make sure that you have trusted in Jesus Christ as Savior and that you are fully submitted to His lordship. Apart from that, anything that you do will be empty and vain at the judgment.
(2) Write out a one-sentence purpose statement for your life and two or three short-term goals that will help move you in that direction in the coming year. Granted, Jesus probably didn’t write out His life purpose in a single sentence, but He was clear enough about it that He knew when He had accomplished the Father’s work (John 17:4). The same could be said of the apostle Paul. He said (1 Cor. 9:23), “I do all things for the sake of the gospel.” He said that his aim was (Phil. 3:10), “That I may know Him.” He told Timothy (1 Tim. 4:7), “Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness.” Those aims are all in line and show that Paul lived with God’s purpose in mind.
(3) Clear your life of clutter and busyness that do not relate to your overall purpose. Kevin DeYoung’s recent short book, Crazy Busy [Crossway] is helpful in this regard.
(4) Figure out what God has gifted you to do and begin serving Him now. Don’t wait until some “better time” in the future. You may never get to such a time. Start now. What is your “mission field”? Who are the 8-15 people with whom you have regular contact that you can influence for Christ? God wants all disciples of Jesus to help make disciples who make disciples.
(5) Don’t despise the mundane as the place where God wants you to serve. You don’t have to go to the mission field or go into full time ministry to serve the Lord. You can serve and glorify God daily in your present circumstances. As Peter puts it (1 Pet. 4:11), “Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
January 26, 2014
Cary Grant once told how he was walking along a street and met a man whose eyes locked onto him with excitement. The man said, “Wait a minute, you’re … you’re—I know who you are; don’t tell me—uh, Rock Hud—no, you’re….”
Grant thought he’d help him, so he finished the man’s sentence: “Cary Grant.”
And the fellow said, “No, that’s not it! You’re….”
There was Cary Grant, identifying himself with his own name, but the fellow had someone else in mind! (Leadership Journal [Fall, 1990], pp. 48-49)
The apostle John wrote of Jesus (1:10-11), “He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.” So throughout his Gospel John sets forth both the tragedy of unbelief along with the triumphs of belief. He wrote his Gospel to show who Jesus is so that (20:31) “you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” To have saving faith, it’s crucial that you understand correctly who Jesus is.
In our text, Jesus is at the Feast of Booths in Jerusalem, six months before He would be arrested and crucified. Before He showed Himself publicly at this feast, the crowds were debating, with some saying (7:12), “He is a good man”; [but] others were saying, “No, on the contrary, He leads people astray.”
John wants us to see that neither of those are viable options. Jesus could not have been merely a good man and said the things that He said. If a mere man claimed that he could give living water so that the one who drank it would never thirst again; or if he claimed to be the bread of life, so that whoever ate of him would never hunger and would have eternal life; or if he claimed to be the way, the truth, and the life and said that he was the only way that people could come to God; you would not say, “He’s a good man.” You would say, “He’s a crazy megalomaniac!” And, at the same time, Jesus was obviously too good of a man to be a deliberate deceiver. So John wants us to see that Jesus is the eternal Son of God in human flesh. He wants us to see Jesus’ glory so that we might believe in Him as our Lord and God (20:28).
But John knows full well that believing in Jesus isn’t the automatic response to Him. There is always division: some believe, some are indifferent, and others reject Him vehemently. So here John shows us the reaction of the Jewish leaders and the crowds to Jesus when He went into the temple in the midst of the feast and began to teach. Although Jesus was sent from God, taught God’s truth, sought God’s glory, and did God’s miraculous works, people rejected Him because they valued the wrong things; they were not willing to obey God; they were legalistic hypocrites; they were under satanic influence; and, they were judging by outward appearances. Or, more briefly,
Although Jesus is the true and righteous one, people reject Him because of their many sins.
The Holy Spirit did not see fit to tell us the content of Jesus’ teaching on this occasion, but rather had John record the reaction of the people to Jesus’ teaching. But in the narrative, he gives us four solid reasons that Jesus is, as He claims (7:18), “true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.”
When Jesus claims to be “true” (7:18), He means that He embodies all that is true. He adds, “and there is no unrighteousness in Him.” Jesus is claiming to be absolutely true, with no hint of deception (7:12) or sin in Him. Also, as Leon Morris points out (The Gospel of John [Eerdmans], p. 406, n. 39), in the only other places in John where a person is said to be “true,” it is used of God (3:33; 8:26). Thus John wants us to see that Jesus alone shares this quality with God. Four facts support Jesus’ claim to be true and righteous:
Jesus emphasizes this twice here. In 7:16, He says, “My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me.” And, in 7:18, He says, “He who is seeking the glory of the One who sent Him, He is true….” He will mention it again in 7:28-29, “I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know. I know Him, because I am from Him and He sent Me.” It is a major theme in John that Jesus is the one sent to earth by God the Father.
Why did Jesus emphasize this so often? It’s a matter of His preexistence and authority. If He was a religious upstart, who came up with His own ideas and promoted Himself alone, then why believe in Him? But if the one true God sent Him and He is also true, then we had better believe in Him and obey Him. To reject Jesus is to reject the God who sent Him.
Jesus did not go up to the feast with His brothers to make a grand entrance, because the people wanted to make Him a political king. But sometime in the midst of the feast, He went into the temple and began to teach. A crowd quickly gathered around Him. Probably, the charge in 7:15 is coming from the Jewish leaders and addressed to the people listening to Jesus (R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of John’s Gospel [Augsburg Publishing House], p. 541). Their “astonishment” did not mean that they were favorably impressed by Jesus’ teaching. Rather, they were amazed at His audacity to take on the role of a religious teacher in the temple when He lacked the proper credentials from the Jewish authorities. They were trying to discredit Jesus in front of the crowd by alleging that “this man” (a derogatory term) purports to be learned, but He has never been educated in our schools. John is again using irony: Here are these proud Jewish leaders calling the eternal Word who created the world (1:1-3) an uneducated fellow (Morris, p. 405)!
Jesus responds to their challenge by asserting (7:16), “My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me.” Jesus is saying, “I don’t need your education and humanly-conferred degrees because I am speaking truth directly from the living and true God who sent Me here to teach.” In spiritual matters, the ideas of philosophers and religious teachers are mere speculation. Such thinkers have not come from God and they can only guess at what He is like. But since Jesus came from God, He could authoritatively teach us about God, man, sin, and how we can have eternal life.
I’ll say more on 7:17 in a moment, but for now note what Jesus says about how a person can know whether His teaching originated with Him or with God: “If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.” When you’re witnessing to an unbeliever about Christ, you should challenge him to read the gospels, paying attention to the teaching of Jesus. But many have read and even studied the gospels and come away as unbelievers. The key is to tell the unbeliever, “As you read, tell God that if He will show you that Jesus is true, you will be willing to obey Him.” If the person comes to the gospels as a scoffer, he will read them and go away a scoffer. If he comes with a willing heart to obey God’s will, then God will show him the truth about Jesus.
Jesus continues (7:18): “He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who is seeking the glory of the One who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.” When Jesus came to this earth, He voluntarily laid aside the glory that He had shared with the Father from all eternity and took on the form of a slave, becoming obedient even to death on the cross (Phil. 2:6-8). He is now risen, ascended, and restored to His rightful full glory at the Father’s right hand (John 17:5). He will come again in power and glory to judge the living and the dead.
But when He was on earth, Jesus’ aim was to glorify the Father. He states that this, not rabbinic credentials from the accredited schools, is the test of a true teacher. That is true of all who purport to teach God’s truth: If a man glories in his academic degrees and seeks to exalt himself, he is not a true teacher of God’s truth. When you have any idea of the righteousness and majesty of God, you’ll be painfully aware of your own inadequacy and unworthiness. You’ll cry out (Ps. 115:1), “Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to Your name give glory because of your lovingkindness, because of Your truth.”
Thus Jesus is true and righteous because He was sent here by God, He taught God’s truth, and He sought God’s glory. Finally,
John 7:19-23: “‘Did not Moses give you the Law, and yet none of you carries out the Law? Why do you seek to kill Me?’ The crowd answered, ‘You have a demon! Who seeks to kill You?’ Jesus answered them, ‘I did one deed, and you all marvel. For this reason Moses has given you circumcision (not because it is from Moses, but from the fathers), and on the Sabbath you circumcise a man. If a man receives circumcision on the Sabbath so that the Law of Moses will not be broken, are you angry with Me because I made an entire man well on the Sabbath?’”
Jesus draws a contrast between Himself and the hypocritical Pharisees. There was no unrighteousness in Jesus (7:18), but the Jews, who boasted in the Law, didn’t actually keep the Law, as seen by the fact that they were trying to kill Jesus. The crowd, which consisted of Jews from all over Israel as well as from other countries, may not have been aware of the evil intent of their leaders. So they accuse Jesus of demon-induced paranoia.
Jesus responds (7:21) by referring back to the incident in John 5:1-15, where He healed the man by the Pool of Bethesda and told him to carry his mat on the Sabbath. As a result of this one deed, the Jews were persecuting Him and seeking to kill Him (5:16, 18). It’s not easy to understand what “for this reason” (7:22, which the ESV and NIV omit) refers to, but the thought seems to be (loosely paraphrasing F. Godet, Commentary on the Gospel of John [Zondervan], 2:66), “The reason Moses gave you the law that requires circumcising a baby on the eighth day even if that day is the Sabbath is that he was pleading My cause in advance. Moses was requiring you to commit the same Sabbath transgression that you are seeking to kill Me for. If it’s lawful to purify one part of the body by circumcision on the Sabbath, then why was it wrong for Me to heal an entire man on the Sabbath?”
But the point is, as Nicodemus told Jesus (3:2), “No one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” Or, as the man born blind whom Jesus healed told the hostile Jewish leaders (9:33), “If this man were not from God, He could do nothing.” Or, as Jesus tells the same religious leaders (10:37-38), “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.”
So there is solid evidence for believing that Jesus is the true and righteous one: He was sent here by God; He taught God’s truth; He sought God’s glory; and He did God’s miraculous works. So, with all this evidence, why do people still reject Jesus as Savior and Lord?
The text reveals five sins that caused these religious Jews to reject Jesus:
As we’ve seen, these Jewish leaders valued their rabbinic training. They had a “good ol’ boy club” of those who had graduated from their schools. When they taught in the synagogues and in the temple, the rabbis would cite the proper rabbinic authorities. But here was this young upstart from the insignificant town of Nazareth teaching the people without citing the esteemed rabbis. He would say, “You have heard it said, … but I say unto you” (see Matt. 5:21-22, 27-28, 31-32, 38-39, 43-44). Matthew (7:28-29) concludes the Sermon on the Mount by noting, “When Jesus had finished these words, the crowds were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes.”
While there is nothing wrong per se with academic degrees, if we put such a premium on degrees that we disregard or belittle a godly man who lacks such degrees, we will miss some deep spiritual blessings. John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress, did not have any formal training, but he had deep insight into the Bible and he could preach it with power. The king of England once asked John Owen, the learned Puritan theologian who was the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, how he could go and listen to a tinker prate (Bunyan’s trade was to fix pots and pans). Owen replied (John Owen: Prince of the Puritans, by Andrew Thomson [Christian Focus], p. 125), “May it please your majesty, could I possess the tinker’s ability for preaching, I would willingly relinquish all my learning.” If we value the wrong things, we will miss Jesus.
We’ve already looked at 7:17, “If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.” But note further what Jesus is saying here: The reason that people do not recognize Jesus for who He is does not hinge on having enough evidence, but rather on having enough obedience. If a person is willing to obey God, he will know that Jesus was sent by God and speaks God’s truth. As Augustine put it (cited by Morris, 406, n. 37): “Do not seek to understand in order to believe, but believe that you may understand.”
In other words, if you come to the Bible as a scoffer, you’ll go away a scoffer. Jesus never committed Himself to unbelief (2:24). That’s a basic principle of human relationships. If someone comes to you with a critical, hostile attitude, you’re not going to commit yourself to him. But if he comes wanting to be of help to you, you’re more likely to open yourself up to him. Similarly, Jesus said (John 14:21), “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” The opposite is also true: If you don’t obey Christ, He won’t disclose Himself to you.
The Jewish leaders prided themselves on obeying the Mosaic Law, but Jesus unmasks them by stating (7:19), “Did not Moses give you the Law, and yet none of you carries out the Law? Why do you seek to kill Me?” The scribes and Pharisees meticulously tithed their table spices, but they neglected the weightier provisions of the law (Matt. 23:23). Here, they want to break the sixth commandment by killing Jesus. Legalism is when a person keeps certain manmade rules or parts of God’s Word that he can do externally, so that everyone will notice how “righteous” he is. But he doesn’t deal with the sin in his heart.
Since the Lord knows every private thought that you have, it’s foolish to try to put on an outward show of “righteousness,” while at the same time you neglect judging sinful thoughts, such as pride, greed, lust, selfishness, and jealousy. You may impress others, but God isn’t impressed at all! Legalistic hypocrisy will cause you to reject Jesus, the righteous one, who sees right through you.
The crowd may have been ignorant of the leaders’ intent to kill Jesus, but their response of accusing Jesus of having a demon was evidence that they themselves were under demonic influence. Since they thought that mental illnesses, such as paranoia, stemmed from demonic activity, they may have only been accusing Jesus of being crazy. But, still, to charge the true and righteous one of having a demon can only come from satanic influence.
It’s interesting that in John, there are no stories of Jesus casting out demons, as in the Synoptic Gospels, but there are several occasions where Jesus is accused of being demon-possessed (here; 8:48-52; 10:20-21; Morris, p. 407). The apostle tells us (1 John 5:19), “We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” Or, as Paul states with reference to those who are perishing (2 Cor. 4:4), “In whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” For people to receive Christ, the Holy Spirit must open their eyes to see something of His glory.
Thus, people reject Jesus in spite of who He is because they value the wrong things, they are not willing to obey God, they are legalistic hypocrites, and they are under satanic influence. Finally,
Jesus exhorts these scoffers (7:24), “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.” The Greek here may be translated, “Stop judging according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.” They were judging Jesus because He healed a man and told him to carry his mat on the Sabbath, which was a violation of their legalistic additions to the Sabbath commandment. But at the same time, they were rejecting the true and righteous one and seeking to kill Him!
Perhaps one of the most misunderstood and misapplied verses in the New Testament is Jesus’ command (Matt. 7:1), “Do not judge so that you will not be judged.” If people would bother to read just a few verses further, Jesus commands not to throw your pearls before swine (He was talking about people who are swine, not pigs!). He goes on to warn about wolves in sheep’s clothing. Obviously, to obey those commands you have to make some judgments! The Bible commands us to be discerning with regard to false teaching and demonic activity (Pastoral Epistles; 1 John 4:1).
The point here is that if you judge who Jesus is superficially, you’ll end up rejecting Him as He really is. There are many who think that Jesus was always gentle, kind, and nice. I’m not sure how that myth ever got started! Read the Gospels and you’ll see Jesus strongly confront sin, as He is doing here. You can’t trust in Him and walk with Him without Him confronting your sin. He always does it in love, because sin destroys us. But He does confront it. If you truly believe in Jesus, you will let His Word confront your sin regularly.
That brings me back to 7:17 again. If you want to know who Jesus is and whether He is the true and righteous one, sent by God, you have to be willing to obey God’s will as revealed in His word. The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote, “It is difficult for us to believe because it is difficult for us to obey.” If you’re willing to obey, God will show you that Jesus is God’s true and righteous one. He is worthy of all your trust!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
February 2, 2014
A story is told of two old ladies who lived together. One summer evening they were sitting on their porch, enjoying the peaceful scene. One woman was listening to the sound of a church choir a few doors away as they practiced. The other woman was listening to the sound of the crickets chirping. The woman listening to the choir said, “Isn’t that a lovely sound?” The woman listening to the crickets replied, “Yes, and I understand that they do it by rubbing their legs together.”
Sometimes confusion can be humorous, but at other times it can be disastrous. That’s especially true when it comes to spiritual matters. Contrary to the prevailing popular view, spiritual truth is not whatever each person prefers it to be. There are not many ways to God, so that you can just pick whatever suits your fancy. Jesus was very exclusive when He said (John 14:6), “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” Either He was right or He was wrong. You must decide. Spiritual truth is quite narrow. Spiritual confusion is eternally fatal!
In our text, we see different groups of religious Jews who are confused about Jesus. There is the group that John calls “the Jews” (7:1, 11, 13, 15, 35). This refers to the Jewish religious leaders, whom John also identifies as the Pharisees and chief priests, who were Sadducees (7:32). These groups were often rivals, but they viewed Jesus as a common enemy. So they joined together to try to seize Him (7:30, 44, 45). But they knew that many in the crowd liked Jesus. They also remembered Jesus’ disrupting their business by cleansing the temple. So they had to proceed cautiously.
Also, there is a larger group whom John calls “the crowd” (7:12, 20, 31, 32). This would include Jewish pilgrims who had come up to Jerusalem for the feast from all over Israel and from other countries. Many of them were not aware that the Jewish leaders were seeking to kill Jesus, so when He mentioned this, they accused Him of having a demon (7:20).
Then there is a narrower group that John calls “the people of Jerusalem” (7:25-27). They were confused both about who Jesus was and about why their religious leaders were not arresting Him. Because of misunderstanding both about the origins of the Messiah and Jesus’ origins, they concluded that He could not be the expected Messiah.
So the overall feeling of our text is that a lot of people were confused about who Jesus is. But John (20:31) wants us to know the truth about who He is so that we “believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing [we] may have life in His name.” So John is showing us that …
While there are many confused opinions about who Jesus is, your eternal destiny depends on believing the truth about Him.
Some of the people of Jerusalem wondered out loud whether Jesus might really be the Christ and whether the Jewish leaders were not arresting Him because they thought that He was the Christ (7:25-26). But they quickly dismissed this idea because, as they said (7:27), “However, we know where this man is from; but whenever the Christ may come, no one knows where He is from.”
These people mistakenly thought that the Christ would suddenly come on the scene unannounced, with a dramatic flash. They may have based this on Malachi 3:1, where the Lord says, “Behold, I am going to send My messenger, and he will clear the way before Me. And the Lord, whom you seek, will suddenly come to His temple; and the messenger of the covenant, in whom you delight, behold, He is coming.” Jesus actually fulfilled that prophecy when He went into the temple and cleansed it at the beginning of His public ministry (John 2:13-16). But all these Jerusalem residents knew was that Jesus was from Nazareth and He had been around for some time, which didn’t fit their ideas of how the Christ would come and from where He would come. Others, however, knew more accurately that the Christ would come from Bethlehem (7:42; Matt. 2:4-5), but since they didn’t know that Jesus was born there, they also rejected Him as the Christ.
As we’ve seen, the crowd was confused about who Jesus was. Some said that He was a good man; others said that He led the people astray (7:12). Some in the multitude thought that He had a demon because of His comments about the Jews seeking to kill Him (7:20). In response, Jesus had told them (7:24) not to judge according to appearance, but to judge with righteous judgment. But John is showing us the general confusion that resulted from people judging Jesus superficially by appearance. Such superficial judgment resulted in misinformation, open hostility, and mocking unbelief, although many did believe (7:31).
Of course, at the heart of all confusion about Jesus Christ is the great deceiver, Satan, the enemy of all souls. One of the early deceptions that he foisted on the church was that of Arius, who taught that Jesus was the greatest of all created beings, but He is not eternal God. Although Athanasius stood firmly against Arius and the church finally adopted the Nicene Creed, affirming that Jesus is “eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father,” we still have Arianism with us today under the name of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. As if that were not bad enough, the Mormons have still a different view of Jesus, but one that denies the New Testament witness to His deity.
Other false cults talk about “the Christ within us all,” or “the Christ principle.” Liberal theologians deny the possibility of the miraculous, so they have to attribute all of Jesus’ miracles to the gullible imaginations of the apostles. They try to figure out which words attributed to Jesus in the Bible are His true words, and which were invented by the disciples or later followers. Of course, such speculations are just that—speculations based on the liberal theologians’ subjective assumptions. And then there is the confusion of the population at large, which thinks of Jesus as a great moral teacher or a religious reformer, but not as God in human flesh. But they have never carefully examined the Gospels to think about who Jesus claimed to be and who the apostles affirmed Him to be. So there is no end to the confusion about who Jesus is.
Jesus Himself warned with reference to the end times (Matt. 24:23-24, “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Behold, here is the Christ,’ or ‘There He is,’ do not believe him. For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.” So it’s very important that we not be confused about who Jesus is. Rather,
We don’t know whether Jesus overheard the confusion of the people in the temple or whether He knew supernaturally what they were thinking. But He “cried out in the temple” (7:28, 29; the word refers to a loud shout, so that all would hear), “You both know Me and know where I am from; and I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know. I know Him, because I am from Him, and He sent Me.” Jesus’ stating that the Jews did not know God must have shocked them. The Jews prided themselves on knowing God, in contrast to the Gentiles, who worshiped many false gods.
But what does Jesus mean when He tells them, “You both know Me and know where I am from”? If they didn’t know God, how could they know Jesus and His origin? In 8:19, He tells them, “You know neither Me nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also.” So what does Jesus mean when He tells them that they both know Him and where He is from?
It seems that Jesus was speaking with irony, so as to say, “You think that you know Me and where I’m from. I’ll grant, in a superficial sense, this is true. You know that I’m from Nazareth. You know My relatives according to the flesh. But you really don’t know Me at all, as evidenced by the fact that you don’t know God. You don’t know anything about My divine nature and My unity with the Father.” (I am combining the second and third views as explained by J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], 3:33.) Jesus here is testifying to the truth of who He is. To know Him rightly, we must understand and believe His testimony.
John 7:28b-29, “I have not come of Myself, but He who sent Me is true, whom you do not know. I know Him, because I am from Him, and He sent Me.” Jesus again affirms the repeatedly stated truth that He had been sent here by the Father. As I mentioned last time, this points both to Jesus’ eternality and to His authority. There is here the additional thought that since Jesus was sent by God, He was under His providential protection.
He did not begin His existence when He was born to the virgin Mary. Jesus existed forever with the Father in glory before He came to this earth. In John 8:58, He tells the hostile Jews, “Before Abraham was, I am” (not, “I was”). They picked up on His identifying Himself with Yahweh who told Moses that His name is, “I AM” (Exod. 3:14). In John 17:5, He prays, “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” Or, as John begins his Gospel (1:1), “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Jesus is the eternal God in human flesh.
Contrary to the Arians (and Jehovah’s Witnesses), there never was a time when Jesus did not exist. When He took on human flesh, His deity was not diminished or mixed together into a hybrid form that was less than God. Witness Lee, who was the main leader of “The Local Church” sect, wrongly used the analogy of a tea bag and water to explain Jesus.* Before they come together, you have two substances, but once they come together you have a new substance, “tea-water.” Even so, he taught, Jesus is now the God-man, a hybrid of both. But that is heresy, because it confuses both Jesus’ full deity and His perfect humanity. Through the virgin birth, Jesus’ deity was not diminished or changed in any way. Rather, to His full deity, He added sinless humanity.
He didn’t come on His own initiative or make up His own stuff. As He says in 7:16, “My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me.” Back in 5:19, Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.” In 5:30, He stated, “I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” He relayed to us exactly what the Father told Him to say. Thus to reject Jesus or His teaching is to reject the Father who sent Him. Also…
In 7:30, we read, “So they were seeking to seize Him; and no man laid his hand on Him, because His hour had not yet come.” We’ve already encountered in John the concept of “Jesus’ hour” (2:4) and we will see it again (8:20; 12:23, 27; 13:1; 17:1). It refers to the cross, which was the ultimate reason that Jesus came to this earth. But the point John makes by using the phrase here is that no one could touch Jesus until the hour that the Father had providentially determined before the foundation of the earth.
We can apply the concept of being sent by God to ourselves. In John 20:21, Jesus told the disciples, “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.” That applies to all of us who have believed in Christ. He sends us into this world as His ambassadors to appeal to unbelievers to be reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:20). As we represent our Divine King, He assures us that He will be with us, even unto the end of the age (Matt. 28:20). As His ambassadors, we can know that He has an appointed hour for each of us and no one can touch us until that hour. For John the Baptist and for Jesus, that hour came when they were in their early thirties. For the apostle John, the hour was when he was about 90. He has a different purpose for each of us. But we can know that we will not die until the hour appointed by our sovereign King (Ps. 139:16).
Although Jesus’ hearers for the most part did not know God (7:28), Jesus plainly stated (7:29), “I know Him, because I am from Him, and He sent Me.” Jesus had a unique and thorough knowledge of the Father because He is one with the Father (10:30) and He alone existed with the Father from all eternity. Thus Jesus can uniquely reveal the Father to us. As John said (1:18), “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.”
In John 17:3, Jesus describes the essence of eternal life as knowing God: “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” In Luke 10:22, Jesus makes this profound statement: “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” The only way that we can know the Father is through the Son when the Son wills to reveal Him to us. Are you asking the Lord Jesus to reveal the Father to you so that you might know Him more deeply?
Jeremiah 9:23-24 declares: “Thus says the Lord, ‘Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,’ declares the Lord.” Regarding unbelievers, Paul said (Eph. 4:18) that they are “darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.” But the goal of the Christian life is that (Eph. 4:13) “we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” Or, as Paul stated his goal in life (Phil. 3:10), “that I may know Him.”
Is that your aim in life? If so, you are reading and meditating on God’s Word daily with the prayer, “Lord, reveal Yourself to me so that I may know You.” If you’ve never done so, I encourage you to read some books where godly teachers expound on the attributes of God. J. I. Packer’s Knowing God [IVP] is a classic. A. W. Tozer’s Knowledge of the Holy [Harper & Row] is short, but deep. So is A. W. Pink’s The Attributes of God [Baker]. Deeper yet (and much longer at two-volumes) is the Puritan Stephen Charnock’s The Existence and Attributes of God [Baker]. Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology [Zondervan] has an easy-to-read treatment of God’s attributes (as do other systematic theologies). But you will only be able to digest these books if you come to them through faith in Christ as your Savior and with the prayer that the Holy Spirit will teach you.
But I remind you that this knowledge of God is not just so that you can have a cozy “personal relationship” with Him. Knowing God will change you so that you become more like Him. This affects your relationships with others, so that the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—become more evident in your relationships with others (Gal. 5:22-23). Also, the better you know God, the more effectively you can represent Him as His ambassador to lost people. The more you have personally “tasted the kindness of the Lord” (1 Pet. 2:3), the more readily you will be able to “proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Pet. 2 9).
So while there are many confused opinions out there about who Jesus is, we need to believe the truth about Him, which we have in His own testimony about Himself. He was sent here by God and He knew God in a unique way. We can only know God through faith in Jesus. But the final verses of our text give us a solemn warning:
In John 7:31 we read, “But many of the crowd believed in Him; and they were saying, ‘When the Christ comes, He will not perform more signs than those which this man has, will He?’” Some connect the belief of these people with those that we encountered in John 2:23-25, who believed in Jesus because of the signs that He was doing. But Jesus for His part did not entrust Himself to them. But John here does not say anything negative about their faith, although it seems to have been based on somewhat shallow reasoning: “This guy seems to be doing enough signs to qualify as the Messiah, so we’d better believe in Him.”
But it seems to me that the Lord takes most of us at a pretty shallow level and then graciously deepens our faith as we come to understand more of who He is. I committed myself to Christ as a teenager because I saw a godly couple who had a happy marriage and I thought, “If Christ can give me that kind of marriage, I need to follow Him.” That was totally self-centered and immature! But, He took me in at that point and helped me to grow. The important thing is truly to believe in Christ as Savior and Lord while you have the opportunity.
But some miss the window of opportunity and end up facing God’s awful judgment for rejecting His Son. In 7:33-34, Jesus tells the crowd that He will be with them for a little while longer, but then He would go to the one who sent Him. He knew that His hour was rapidly approaching. But then, after He was gone, they would seek Him, but not find Him. And they could not come where He had gone. They would not be able to go to heaven because they missed the day of salvation.
In typical fashion, the Jewish leaders misunderstand Jesus’ statement. In 7:35-36, they seem to be mocking when they speculate that “this man” (a demeaning way of referring to Jesus) may leave Jerusalem and go among the Greeks. Jesus does not respond to their confusion, but leaves them wondering about what He means. It’s a terrible thing to walk away from the day of salvation and then be left in your confusion about Jesus!
It’s kind of funny when someone is confused about a church choir making music by rubbing their legs together! But it’s really tragic when someone is confused about Jesus and rejects His testimony of who He is. God has given you a measure of light, even through this message. He says (2 Cor. 6:2), “Behold, now is ‘the acceptable time,’ behold, now is ‘the day of salvation.’” Don’t miss the opportunity to trust in Christ as your Savior and Lord today!
*I could not find the tea water illustration’s source in Lee’s writings, although in The Economy of God [Living Stream], p. 12, he mentions the mingling of Christ’s two natures. I got it from a Local Church elder who tried to defend the analogy. The Local Church now has an orthodox statement of the person of Christ, although I cannot recommend many other aspects of their teaching.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
February 9, 2014
When you read Jesus’ words here, where He promises that from the innermost being of the one who believes in Him will flow rivers of living water, you have to stop and ask, “To what extent is that true of me? Since I trusted in Christ as my Savior, has it been my experience that ever-flowing, abundant rivers of living water have gushed up inside of me and flowed out of me?”
Those questions are both convicting and hope-producing. They are convicting because none of us, if we’re honest, can say, “Yes, those words nail it! That’s exactly how to describe my life since becoming a Christian!” Honesty forces me to say, “Well, there has usually been a trickle of living water, although there have been some droughts where even it has dried up. Occasionally, there has been a creek of living water. But ever-flowing, abundant rivers (plural)? It would be a stretch to describe my Christian life like that!” So Jesus’ words convict me with the barrenness of my walk with Him.
But Jesus’ words also give me hope. If my life doesn’t match His description here, it can! So can yours! This is a promise from the Son of God to all who will come to Him and drink: Out of your innermost being will flow rivers of living water. It describes, as Calvin points out (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], pp. 308-309), an ideal that none of us can possess perfectly in the present life because of indwelling sin and because of differing measures of faith. But it’s an ideal in which we can make progress as we walk with the Lord. We really can experience consistent fullness of joy in Him that flows from us to others. And so we should have hope because He who began the good work of salvation in us will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus (Phil. 1:6). But we need to press on toward the goal (Phil. 3:12-16). Here is Jesus’ promise to all:
Jesus Christ blesses all who believe in Him with rivers of the living water of His Spirit so that we will bless others.
There is the promise, an implicit requirement, and the result:
Note five things about this wonderful promise:
To appreciate Jesus’ claim here, we need to note the setting. It is the Feast of Tabernacles (or Booths), the third important feast in the Jewish calendar (after Passover and Pentecost (or Weeks). Tabernacles was a harvest feast of thanksgiving to God. The Israelites lived in booths to remind them of God’s care for them in the wilderness, when He provided manna and water from the rock. The feast also looked forward to the final harvest and ingathering of the nations during Messiah’s kingdom.
During Jesus’ time, the feast was also characterized by a daily procession led by a priest carrying a golden pitcher of water drawn from the Pool of Siloam. The water was poured out at the base of the altar at the same time that another priest would pour out a pitcher of wine on the other side of the altar, which pointed to the future outpouring of the Holy Spirit as predicted by Isaiah (Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services [Eerdmans], pp. 280-282). Isaiah 12:3 says, “Therefore you will joyously draw water from the springs of salvation.” And Isaiah 44:3 states, “For I will pour out water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring and My blessing on your descendants.”
John wants us to see that Jesus Himself is the fulfillment of the Feast of Tabernacles. In 1:14 he told us that (literally), “the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.” Paul tells us that Jesus is the rock that supplied Israel with water in the barren desert (1 Cor. 10:4). He is also the bread of life, the fulfillment of the manna that sustained Israel in the wilderness (John 6). So now, on the last day of this feast, Jesus claims to be the source of living water to all who will come to Him and drink. In other words, He fulfills all that the feast symbolized.
The water pouring ceremony took place every day for seven days, followed by an eighth day when a holy convocation was held. Scholars disagree on whether Jesus made His offer on the seventh day, when the final pitcher was poured out, or, more likely, on the eighth day, when His offer of living water showed that He was the fulfillment of the pouring ceremony of the previous seven days. John says (7:37-38) that Jesus stood and cried out, or shouted in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’”
That’s an astonishing claim! No mere human could make such a promise: “Come to me and drink and I’ll fulfill the Scriptures by causing rivers of living water to flow out of your innermost being!” Who, except God in human flesh, God “tabernacling” among us, could legitimately make such a claim? Note, also …
“Anyone” is as broad as you can get! It extended to Jesus’ enemies, who were trying to kill Him. They could come and drink. It later extended to a man who described himself as the chief of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15), the apostle Paul. By giving the offer in the temple, it extended to the religious Jews, who had come to Jerusalem from all over to celebrate this feast. Even though they were going through all of the prescribed Jewish rituals, those rituals could not save them. Religious observances cannot save anyone, then or now. Everyone needs to come to Jesus and drink.
Because the Spirit inspired John to record Jesus’ words here, the offer extends to each of us. Whether you grew up in a Christian home and have always gone to church or whether you are a complete pagan or a convicted criminal, the offer is for you: Come to Jesus and drink. No one is excluded. To underscore this truth, the Bible virtually ends by repeating Jesus’ offer (Rev. 22:17): “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.” Note, also:
Jesus cries, “If anyone is thirsty….” You have to be thirsty for God. The Bible often uses that kind of language (as we just saw in Rev. 22:17). Isaiah 55:1 proclaims, “Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.” The psalmist cries out (Ps. 42:1), “As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God.” David cries (Ps. 63:1), “O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly; my soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” And in Revelation 21:6b, Jesus says, “I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost.”
At first glance, being thirsty for God seems easy enough. But the problem is, because of sin people either don’t recognize their thirst or they seek to satisfy it in wrong ways. John Piper’s dad, who was an evangelist, told him that the most difficult thing was not getting people saved, but getting them lost. In other words, people don’t sense their desperate need for Christ. They don’t feel thirsty for Him. Instead, they try to quench their thirst with many wrong things. They think that success, money, fame, sexual pleasure, or other things will satisfy the inner thirst. But thirsting for things other than God and His glory is the root of all sin. J. C. Ryle observed (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], 3:40):
The beginning of all true Christianity is to discover that we are guilty, empty, needy sinners. Till we know that we are lost, we are not in the way to be saved. The very first step toward heaven is to be thoroughly convinced that we deserve hell.
But once you recognize your thirst for God, the good news is that the offer is a free gift. You don’t have to work all your life to earn it. You don’t have to clean up your life first to qualify for it. This points to…
Isn’t that great! Jesus didn’t say, “If anyone is thirsty, keep digging and eventually you’ll hit water!” He didn’t say, “If anyone is thirsty, let him join the church, get baptized, take communion, do penance, give money to the church, clean up your life, and attend church every Sunday!” Jesus simply said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.” “Me” implies that it is a personal relationship with Jesus, not a bunch of religious rules or rituals.
What could be more simple? You’re outside working in the yard on a hot day and your wife comes out with a pitcher of ice cold lemonade and says, “Come and drink!” It doesn’t take a lot of effort or will power or a college degree to come to her and drink.
To come to Jesus is to come to the One who loved you so much that He came to this wicked earth and suffered the horrors of the cross to pay for your sins, if you will believe in Him. That’s what drinking of Jesus means, as the parallel comment in verse 38 makes clear: “He who believes in Me ….” (John repeats “believe” in the clarifying statement of verse 39). To receive the living water that Jesus offers, come to Him and drink, or believe in Him. Make Him your own by faith. Appropriate what He did on the cross for your sins. A river running through the desert does you no good if you don’t drink from it. If you feel thirsty, ask Jesus to satisfy your thirst with His abundant, free salvation.
So the person of the promise is Jesus, the eternal God in human flesh, who gave Himself on the cross for our sins. The breadth of the promise is as wide as humanity. The condition of the promise is that you must be spiritually thirsty. The simplicity of the promise is that all you have to do is come to Jesus and drink.
John 7:39 explains, “But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” The Greek text is literally, “the Spirit was not yet,” but clearly John does not mean that the Holy Spirit did not yet exist! As early as Genesis 1:2 we meet the Holy Spirit, moving over the waters in creation. There are repeated references to the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament (e.g., Ps. 51:11; Isa. 11:2; 42:1; 61:1; 63:10, 11).
Rather, John means that the Spirit was not yet manifested on earth as He would be on and after the Day of Pentecost, after Jesus was crucified, raised from the dead, and ascended into heaven (“glorified”). In the Upper Room on the night He was betrayed, Jesus said to the eleven (John 14:16-17), “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.” (See, also, John 15:26; 16:7.)
Then, after Jesus was raised from the dead and just before He ascended, Acts 1:4-5 reports, “Gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, ‘Which,’ He said, ‘you heard of from Me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.’” On the Day of Pentecost, they all were baptized with the Spirit who came on them with power, they spoke in tongues, and they became powerful witnesses for Christ.
Some say that we, too, need to experience what the disciples experienced at Pentecost: Subsequent to salvation we need a dramatic experience of the baptism of the Spirit, where we receive the Spirit and speak in tongues. But that is to misunderstand that Pentecost was a one-time historical event where the risen and ascended Lord Jesus sent His Spirit to dwell with His church. If anyone would seem to lack the Holy Spirit, it would be the immature Corinthians. But Paul told them (1 Cor. 12:13), “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” (See, also, Gal. 3:3.)
So all believers in Jesus Christ in the church age are indwelled by the Holy Spirit. Paul wrote (Rom. 8:9), “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” The Holy Spirit is the seal of our redemption (Eph. 1:13-14; 4:30). He gives spiritual gifts to all believers (1 Cor. 12:7-11). The Spirit reveals to us the riches that God has prepared for us who love Him (1 Cor. 2:9-10), which include every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ (Eph. 1:3) and all that we need for life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:3-4).
But maybe you’re wondering, “If the Holy Spirit is living in me, then why don’t I experience the rivers of living water inside of me and flowing from me? Why is my life more accurately described as a trickle of water, not rivers?” Other Scriptures teach that …
He does not control us automatically. In Galatians 5:16, Paul writes, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.” He goes on to list some of the deeds of the flesh and the contrasting fruit of the Spirit. Then he repeats (5:25), “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.” That is, if the Holy Spirit gave us new life, then we need to rely on the Spirit step by step, day by day.
Walking is something we have to learn how to do as children. At first, we fall a lot. But after a while, we hardly think about it, unless we’re on a slippery surface. Walking is not spectacular. Paul doesn’t say, “Leap by the Spirit or fly by the Spirit.” It’s a slow, step by step process that will gradually get you where you’re going if you keep at it. To walk by the Spirit means that each day in every situation you yield yourself to Him, relying on Him to work in and through you. If during the day the flesh rears its ugly head with impure thoughts, selfishness, anger, or whatever, you immediately confess it to the Lord, turn from it, and ask the Holy Spirit to control your thoughts, words, and actions again. As you learn to walk this way consistently, slowly the fruit of the Spirit will grow in your life: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23).
But, why does the Lord give us the Holy Spirit, portrayed here as “rivers of living water” flowing from our innermost being?
“Innermost being” is literally, “belly.” The belly is the inner part of us that is always craving something (Phil. 3:19; this insight from A. W. Pink, Exposition of John, on monergism.com). But here, rather than craving earthly things, the implication is that our inner cravings are abundantly satisfied through the indwelling Spirit.
There are many Old Testament Scriptures that link water to God’s abundant blessing on believers (e.g. Ps. 78:15-16; Prov. 4:23; Isa. 44:3; Ezek. 36:26-27; 47:1-9; Joel 3:18; Zech. 13:1; 14:8). But D. A. Carson (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], pp. 325-328) argues that when Jesus here says, “as the Scripture says,” He was referring primarily to Nehemiah 8 & 9. In Nehemiah 8, the returned remnant listens as Ezra expounded the Law and encouraged them that “the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Neh. 8:10). Then they discovered the command about the Feast of Booths and they celebrated it with great joy (8:17). Then (chap. 9), Nehemiah prays and recounts Israel’s deliverance from Egypt and their time in the wilderness, mentioning God’s provision of manna and water (9:15). He repeats (9:20), “You gave them Your good Spirit to instruct them, Your manna You did not withhold from their mouth, and You gave them water for their thirst.”
The picture is that God sustained and satisfied the needs of His people through His Spirit, even when they were in a barren land. That’s the picture Jesus uses here: Jesus supplies us with the abundant, soul-satisfying rivers of living water of His Spirit, who reveals to us the riches of Christ for our every need. We should follow George Muller’s example and begin every day by seeking to be truly at rest and happy in God (A. T. Pierson, George Muller of Bristol [Revell], p. 257; see also, p. 315). But it doesn’t end there:
The rivers flow out of us to others who are thirsty. The world is a barren desert, and people are dying of thirst. You and I are to be the rivers of living water that these dying people need. As they see Christ in us (the fruit of the Spirit) and want what we have, we can tell them how they can come to Jesus and drink. Lost people desperately need what only we who have believed can give them.
But the rivers should also flow from us to other believers, especially to those who may be going through a dry spell. Even Paul and Titus were refreshed by other believers (1 Cor. 16:18; 2 Cor. 7:13). As you’re filled with the Spirit and satisfied in Christ, you can overflow to those around you, beginning in your home. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control should be flowing daily from husbands to wives and from wives to husbands, from parents to children and from children to parents. These qualities should be flowing between us in the church, even if you find a fellow believer difficult to be around.
If you only come to church to get something for yourself, you’ll be like the Dead Sea. It’s so salty that nothing can live in it because it has rivers flowing into it, but nothing flows out of it. When you come to church, come with the prayer, “Lord, fill me with your Spirit and flow out of me toward those who may be thirsty.” As you allow the rivers to flow out of you to others, you’ll discover that you’re actually more filled than before you gave out! That’s the key to preventing burnout: Be satisfied in Christ and let His fullness flow through you to others.
What should you do in response to Jesus’ promise here? First, honestly assess the degree to which “rivers of living water flowing from your innermost being” describes you. If it doesn’t describe you at all, then come to Jesus and drink! If you have to admit that it’s more like a trickle, then make it your priority to be satisfied daily with the riches of Christ. Walk in the Spirit and ask Him to fill you. Then get your focus off yourself and onto those you can bless. Pray that your normal experience would be that from your innermost being rivers of living water would flow to a thirsty world.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
February 16, 2014
As a preacher, it’s easy to become disappointed or discouraged when people do not respond to your teaching as you had hoped and prayed. That’s especially true when I’ve preached a clear, compelling gospel message, but no one asks for prayer or counsel on how he or she can trust in Christ as Savior.
But no less a preacher than the Lord Jesus Christ often experienced negative and hostile reactions to His preaching. As we saw in John 6, after Jesus gave the wonderful message about being the bread of life, offering that whoever was hungry and ate of Him would never hunger and would have eternal life, even some who professed to be His disciples walked away. They just couldn’t handle His comments about eating His flesh and drinking His blood.
Now, after Jesus gave the open appeal of John 7:37-38, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water,’” the crowd’s response was both mixed and mixed up. Some thought that He was the promised Prophet. Others went so far as to venture that He was the Christ, while others disputed that idea. The Jewish leaders wanted to arrest and execute Jesus. But the officers that they sent to arrest Him came back empty-handed, saying (7:46), “Never has a man spoken the way this man speaks.” Then Nicodemus, whom we met in chapter 3, tries to check the murderous intent of the Sanhedrin, only to be rebuked. John 7:43 sums up the overall flavor of this section: “So a division occurred in the crowd because of Him.”
Do you think of Jesus as being divisive? We like to think of Jesus’ words in John 13, where He says that by our love the world will know that we are His disciples. Or we think of His prayer in John 17, that His followers would all be unified so that the world would know that the Father has sent Him. So we join hands and sing, “We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord.” Jesus and division don’t seem to go together.
But Jesus Himself said (Matt. 10:34-36), “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household.” (See, also, Luke 2:34.) So we don’t have a true perspective of who Jesus is unless we see Him, in part, as one who divides people.
Why does Jesus cause division? One reason is that He is the truth and truth necessarily divides. Although the postmodernists today want us to think that there is no such thing as absolute truth in the philosophic or religious realm (which means that postmodernism is not absolutely true!) or that if there is truth, we can’t know it, Jesus drew a distinct line in the sand when He said (John 14:6), “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” Or, as Peter boldly proclaimed (Acts 4:12), “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” There aren’t many different ways to God. The familiar slogan, “It doesn’t matter what you believe, just so that you are sincere,” is patently false. Faith in Jesus Christ, as revealed in the apostolic witness of the New Testament, is the only way to God. That is inherently divisive! Here we learn:
Because Jesus claims exclusive allegiance as the truth, He inevitably causes division among people.
Satan hates the truth about Jesus and so he makes sure that there are always many, often within the church, who oppose the truth. We see this even in the pages of the New Testament. In Acts 20:29-30, Paul warned the Ephesian elders, “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them.” There are many other warnings in the letters of Paul, Peter, and John about false teachers plaguing the church. We are not to forge a bond of unity with such teachers, but rather to draw clear lines of division. And, no matter how lovingly we act and how pure our motives, we will often face opposition, even from those in the church, when we separate from those who oppose the truth. But to be like Jesus, we must sometimes do it.
I’m going to walk you through the text, showing how Christ caused division both among religious people (7:40-44) and among religious leaders (7:45-52). Then I’ll draw some practical lessons.
There are three different views among the crowd:
This refers to the prophet that Moses predicted (Deut. 18:15), “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him.” In Jesus’ day, the common view was that the Prophet and the Christ were two separate persons. As we saw in John 1:20-21, John the Baptist denied that he was the Christ. But then the delegation from Jerusalem asked him, “Are you the Prophet?” In John 6:14, after Jesus fed the multitude with the five loaves and two fish, the people connected the dots with Moses giving the Israelites manna in the wilderness and proclaimed, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.” So they wanted to take Jesus by force and make Him king.
Certainly, Jesus was the Prophet of whom Moses spoke. He was much greater than Moses, both in the signs that He performed and in the teaching that He gave. But by itself, to believe that Jesus was the Prophet was an inadequate view. A prophet, no matter how great, could not authoritatively claim what Jesus just claimed, that whoever would come and drink of Him would have rivers of living water gushing up inside of him and flowing out of him. Only God in human flesh could make such a claim.
There are many people today who think highly of Jesus and His teaching, but they do not believe that He is God. They do not submit their lives to Him as their Lord and God. They have correct, but inadequate views of Jesus.
“The Christ” was God’s promised “anointed one,” the redeemer and king who would reign on David’s throne (Psalm 2). While that view is absolutely correct, and a step up from viewing Jesus only as the Prophet, it is inadequate because it does not reflect any personal commitment or submission to Jesus as Lord and Christ. The text seems to indicate that they held their views as a point to debate with others, but not as disciples willing to follow Him no matter what the cost.
As Jesus pointed out to the Jewish leaders, the Christ is both David’s son and David’s Lord (Matt. 22:41-46). Psalm 2 is clear that God sets His Christ upon His throne and that He rules over the nations (2:6, 8, 9). Thus the bottom line in that psalm is (2:12), “Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry, and you perish in the way. For His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!” God’s salvation is only for those who bow before Jesus as their king and trust in Him as their refuge.
But there are many who say, “I believe in Jesus as my Savior,” but they don’t live in submission to Him as their Lord. They don’t bow before Him as their king. C. H. Spurgeon (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 47:27) says that these Jews who thought that Jesus was the Christ had orthodox heads but heterodox hearts. A. W. Pink (Exposition of John, on monergism.com) says, “Unless our hearts are affected and our lives molded by God’s Word, we are no better off than a starving man with a cook book in his hand.” In other words, intellectual belief in Christ without the accompanying obedience to Him is useless. Saving faith is obedient faith (Rom. 16:26; Heb. 3:18-19).
This group denied that Jesus was the Christ because they knew that the Christ was not going to come from Galilee, but rather from the lineage and city of David, from Bethlehem. Here we have another example of John’s tongue-in-cheek irony. He assumes that his readers either know that Jesus really was born in Bethlehem and that He came from the lineage of David or that if they don’t know, they will dig a little deeper to try to resolve this seeming problem. But if his readers adopted the same approach as this group of critics, they would end up rejecting Jesus for a flimsy reason that was really nothing but an excuse.
These critics took pride in their theological knowledge. They loved to point out their knowledge of the truth. Their syllogism was, “The Messiah does not come from Galilee. Jesus comes from Galilee. Therefore, Jesus cannot be the Messiah.” That’s airtight—if the two premises are true. The first one is true, but the second one is not true in terms of Jesus’ birth and lineage. Therefore, the conclusion is false.
To hold to this sort of reasoning, these critics had to ignore Jesus’ many miracles, some of which they had no doubt seen with their own eyes or heard credible reports of. They had to dismiss Jesus’ powerful teaching, which even the arresting officers admit is like no other teaching they’ve ever heard (7:46). They had to shrug off Jesus’ astounding claims, such as the one He just issued, to be able to give rivers of living water to all who believed in Him. But the truth is, they weren’t interested in believing in Jesus. If they had been interested, they could have cleared up the question of His origins very easily. But they didn’t want to believe; they just wanted a comfortable excuse to reject Him. They would have seized Jesus if they could, but they could not lay their hands on Him, because God is sovereign over His enemies (7:30, 44; Dan. 4:35).
Like these critics, many liberal theologians today come up with all sorts of reasons why Jesus could not have done the miracles that the eyewitness accounts of the New Testament attribute to Him. Their syllogism is, “Miracles contradict modern science. Thus miracles are not possible. Therefore, Jesus’ miracles could not have happened as reported.” Such critics also reject Jesus’ teaching. They debate over which words in the Gospels Jesus may really have spoken and which were put in His mouth by later redactors. With these flimsy reasons that are really excuses, they do not believe in Jesus as Savior and Lord.
So Christ caused division among these religious people. Also,
Again, we encounter three parties of religious leaders:
The temple guards, who were Levites, came back from their mission to arrest Jesus (7:32) empty-handed, so the chief priests and Pharisees asked them (7:45), “Why did you not bring Him?” The guards easily could have said, “Because the crowd would have been upset with us!” But instead, they candidly admitted (7:46), “Never has a man spoken the way this man speaks.” Although the guards did not intend this meaning, John probably wants his readers to think, “Precisely! Jesus is not merely a man! He speaks as He does because He is the eternal Word of God made flesh!” But the impression is that these temple guards were too fearful of the chief priests and Pharisees to take a bold stand with Jesus. That would have meant their jobs! So they fade from view.
In the same way, there are many in our day who are impressed with Jesus’ eloquence or His wisdom. They think He was a great man and a brilliant religious teacher. But they don’t see Him as the eternal Word of God in human flesh and so they don’t believe in Him as their Savior and Lord. Out of fear of what others may think, they don’t take a bold public stand of faith in Christ.
The arrogance and contempt of the Pharisees for anyone who was even remotely supportive of Jesus is not disguised here! They incredulously ask the temple officers (7:47-48), “You have not also been led astray, have you? No one of the rulers or Pharisees has believed in Him, has he?” (Again, with some irony, John is setting the stage for Nicodemus’ protest in 7:51.) But then, referring to the general crowd that was thronging the temple for the feast, the Pharisees arrogantly pronounce (7:49), “But this crowd which does not know the Law is accursed.” John wants us to see that it is really the proud Pharisees who are under a curse because the wrath of God abides on all who do not obey the Son (3:36).
By virtue of their position as religious leaders, the Pharisees should have been loving, caring shepherds over God’s people, teaching them His Word, binding up their wounds, and leading them by example in the ways of the Lord (Ezek. 34). But here they show their true colors. They despised the common people as a bunch of ignoramuses. Even when one of their own, Nicodemus, pointed out how they were violating the Law that they proclaimed to know by judging a man without hearing his case, they reviled him as being a Galilean (7:52). These Pharisees lived in Jerusalem, the capital, and they viewed the northern Galileans as a bunch of ignorant hicks from the sticks. They hated Jesus because He repeatedly confronted their hypocrisy and challenged their manmade traditions. He threatened their power and made them look bad in front of the crowds. So their pride blinded them to the truth about Jesus that their own Scriptures testified to (5:39).
We see this same sort of arrogance today among supposed intellectuals who proclaim evolution as the only scientific view and ridicule anyone who believes in the Bible as being a “flat-earth,” uneducated country bumpkin. In the recent debate between Answers in Genesis founder, Ken Ham, and Bill Nye, the so-called “Science Guy,” Nye often disparagingly referred to “your scientists,” as if Ham hired them to support his “unscientific” views! Even though Ken repeatedly pointed out that there are many men with Ph.D’s who believe in the biblical account of creation, but have no connection with Answers in Genesis, Nye persisted in his put-down. But Nye is the true fool, who attributes God’s intricately designed creation to pure chance (Ps. 14:1; Rom. 1:19-22).
Nicodemus, whom John reminds us had come to Jesus before, who was one of them (a Pharisee), said (7:51), “Our Law does not judge a man unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing, does it?” This led to their put-down (7:52), “You are not also from Galilee, are you? Search, and see that no prophet arises out of Galilee.”
A few commentators argue that we can never be sure that Nicodemus came to genuine faith in Christ, but most hold that his courageous act of helping Joseph of Arimathea bury Jesus (19:38-40) indicates that he did finally believe. But here we cannot be sure where he’s at in the process. He was at least sympathetic towards Jesus and concerned about the irrational hostility that he saw the Jewish leaders taking towards Him. So he registers this mild objection to their murderous intent. But when they vilify him as being a Galilean, he says no more. He could see that they weren’t in the mood for a rational discussion.
But his point was valid: In contradiction of the law that they purported to uphold, they were judging a man without hearing his case (Deut. 1:16-17). Also, their put-down (7:52), “Search, and see that no prophet arises out of Galilee,” was incorrect. Jonah, Nahum, and perhaps other prophets had arisen out of Galilee. But they were so upset with the direction that they saw things going that they were not using sound reason, but just illogical ridicule.
I still remember an incident from when I was in college (back in the Dark Ages!). An agnostic philosophy professor told our class that Jesus never claimed to be God. I raised my hand and said, “What about when He said, ‘I and the Father are one’? Or what about when He told His disciples, ‘He who has seen me has seen the Father’?” But rather than deal honestly with my objection, she ridiculed me by asking, “Which Bible are you reading—the Catholic Bible or the Protestant Bible?” The class laughed and my point was brushed aside. Even though this professor taught us the logical fallacy of ad hominem arguments, she used one against me to dodge the uncomfortable truth that Jesus did in fact claim to be God.
I conclude with five practical lessons that we can glean from these divided responses to Jesus’ clear gospel invitation:
Jesus here had not said anything gross or controversial, like in chapter 6. True, His claim to be able to cause rivers of living water to flow from those who believed in Him was a claim that only God could make. But it was a wonderful, open invitation to all and was not inherently divisive. But while there was some mild intellectual agreement (“He is the prophet”; “He is the Christ”), some amazement (“Never has a man spoken the way this man speaks”), and even hesitant support (from Nicodemus), there is no clear response of faith in Jesus. There still was confusion, misunderstanding, and even aggressive hostility. Satan blinds people to “the light of the gospel of the glory Christ” (2 Cor. 4:4). So saving faith is always a God-thing. Pray for Him to open blind eyes!
Pride is often the main sin that keeps people from Christ, as was true of these Pharisees. Learning and knowledge are good if they point you to the majesty and greatness of God, thereby humbling your heart. But they are dangerous if they lead you to pride over how much you know. Because they suppress the truth in unrighteousness, even so-called intellectuals are futile in their speculations and their foolish hearts are darkened (Rom. 1:18, 21). So salvation is always the gift of God’s grace.
You will be accused of being narrow-minded, bigoted, homophobic, anti-intellectual, unscientific, and probably more pejorative labels. If they treated Jesus that way, they will treat His servants the same. Count it as an honor!
People don’t want to face their sin and rebellion against God. So rather than investigating the truth about Jesus, they’d rather hide behind flimsy excuses: “Evolution proves that the Bible is not true.” “The Bible is full of contradictions.” “How can a good God allow innocent children to suffer?” The list goes on! Ask the critic, “If I can give you a reasonable answer to that problem, will you submit your life to Jesus?”
These people who held to favorable opinions about Jesus (“He is the Prophet; He is the Christ”) were on the side of the truth, but there’s no indication that they were committed to Him. Nicodemus would eventually come out of the closet for Christ. So must you! Jesus warns (Mark 8:38), “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.” But He promises the suffering church of Smyrna (and us, Rev. 2:10), “Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
February 23, 2014
Our text is a difficult portion of John, not because it is hard to understand, but because it is hard to know whether this incident should be included in John’s Gospel as an authentic part of inspired Scripture. Many versions put these verses in brackets, with a note explaining that it is not included in the earliest manuscripts of John. So I must give you a mini-lecture on textual criticism.
As you probably know, we do not possess any of the original copies of the New Testament books. Our New Testament is based on the translation of thousands of Greek manuscripts that are, for the most part, remarkably close in their readings. When there are variations between the manuscripts, they are usually only of minor significance. For example, in our text last week in 7:40, some manuscripts read, “when they heard these words.” Others read, “these words of His” or “His word,” or, “the word,” or, “this word.” Obviously, it doesn’t make much difference which reading is adopted.
Textual criticism is the discipline where scholars evaluate both external and internal evidence to try to determine which reading is most likely the original. External evidence refers to weighing the various manuscripts in light of their age, how widespread is their distribution, and what text type they represent. Internal evidence refers to evaluating the probabilities of what a scribe might have done, whether intentionally or unintentionally, to result in the various readings. Both internal and external evidence have to be compared and evaluated.
There are two longer texts where the manuscript evidence is so varied and late that many scholars question their authenticity: Mark 16:9-20 and here, in John 7:53-8:11. Let me add that there are no major doctrines at stake in these or in any other textual variants. With rare exceptions, we can be sure that what we read is what the original authors wrote.
The problem is that John 7:53-8:11 is not found in any of the earliest manuscripts or versions (translations into other languages). The earliest manuscript to contain it is from the fifth century A.D. All the early church Fathers omit this narrative in their commentaries on John, moving from 7:52 to 8:12. No Eastern Father before the tenth century cites the text. Many later manuscripts that include the passage mark it off to show that it’s of doubtful authority. Among those that include it, there are many textual variants. And some manuscripts put it at other places in John (after 7:44; 7:36; 21:25) or after Luke 21:38. Also, although it should not be regarded with as much weight as the external evidence, most scholars argue that the style, Greek constructions, and vocabulary of the story differ significantly from the rest of the Gospel of John. And, they assert that the story interrupts the flow of the narrative from John 7:52 to 8:12. (This paragraph taken from D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Apollos/Eerdmans], p. 333; and Andreas Kostenberger, John [Baker], pp. 245-247.)
These reasons cause many reputable evangelical scholars to conclude that this story is not a part of John’s original Gospel. Among these are: Leon Morris, Merrill Tenney, D. A. Carson, Ed Blum, Andreas Kostenberger, Colin Kruse, John Piper, R. C. Lenski, R. V. G. Tasker, B. F. Westcott, Alfred Edersheim, Frederic Godet, G. Campbell Morgan, and A. T. Robertson. However, these scholars generally hold that it reports an authentic historical event that is true to the character of Jesus.
Some scholars, however, argue that in spite of the weak textual support, this story should be included in John’s Gospel and treated as inspired Scripture, based largely on internal evidence: R. C. Sproul, John MacArthur, James Boice, William Hendriksen, A. W. Pink, J. C. Ryle, David Brown (in Jamieson, Fausset, & Brown) and John Calvin. They argue that the story fits the flow of John’s Gospel at this point and the pattern that John follows of a story setting the stage for the theme to follow. They also point out that both Augustine and Ambrose in the late fourth and early fifth centuries believed that the story may have been omitted because it seems to suggest that Jesus condoned adultery. So, there are solid men on both sides of this issue.
So, how should we view this story? I can’t dodge the weight of the textual evidence. Bruce Metzger, who edited A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament ([United Bible Societies], 2nd ed., p. 187), wrote, “The evidence for the non-Johannine origin of the pericope of the adulteress is overwhelming.” Leon Morris agrees (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans, 1971], p. 882): “The textual evidence makes it impossible to hold that this section is an authentic part of the Gospel.” But Morris adds (p. 883),
But if we cannot feel that this is part of John’s Gospel we can feel that the story is true to the character of Jesus. Throughout the history of the church it has been held that, whoever wrote it, this little story is authentic. It rings true. It speaks to our condition. It is thus worth our while to study it, though not as an authentic part of John’s writing.
So while I cannot agree with John MacArthur that the story is original to John’s Gospel, I appreciate some questions that he asks of this story (on gty.org):
Question number one, do these verses teach truth that violates other Scripture? The answer is no, they do not. Question two, do they in fact corroborate other Scripture and substantiate it? The answer is yes they do.
So I will proceed by showing some lessons that this text gives us, which can be supported by other undisputed texts, on how God deals with sinners who have been caught in the very act of sin. In case you’re half-asleep by now, that means all of us, because God knows every sin of thought, word, and deed that we have ever done! The overall lesson is:
God deals with guilty sinners on the basis of the grace and truth of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In other words, this story beautifully illustrates John 1:17, “The Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.” The scribes and Pharisees judged this woman according to the Law, which clearly condemned her. Jesus showed her both grace and truth.
To catch someone in the act of adultery so that it would hold up in a Jewish trial for execution was no small feat. The witnesses actually had to have seen the couple going through physical movements that could be capable of no other explanation (Morris, p. 885, note 12). Compromising circumstances, such as seeing a couple coming from a room where they had been alone, or even seeing them lying on the same bed, were not sufficient. The witnesses had to have seen the same acts at the same time in the presence of each other for their testimony to hold up in a Jewish court.
So it’s very likely that the scribes and Pharisees had set a trap to catch this woman so they could trap Jesus on the horns of a dilemma and accuse Him. Either He would agree that the woman must be stoned, thereby undermining His reputation as the Savior of sinners and probably getting Him into trouble with the Roman authorities, who didn’t give the Jews the right of capital punishment; or, He would show her mercy, thus proving that He did not uphold the Law of Moses and was soft on sin. That this was a deliberate trap is also seen by the fact that they only brought one sinner to Jesus. You don’t commit adultery all alone! So where was the man? Probably he was on their side in the trap and thus was allowed to escape. But, note that, like this woman…
We’ve all had the humiliating experience of getting caught doing something that we knew was wrong. Maybe you were checking out the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue on your phone or I-pad when another believer looked over your shoulder to say hello. Or perhaps on a summer day with the windows and doors open you and your spouse were in a loud argument when the doorbell rang and it was someone from church. No matter what the sin, it’s always embarrassing.
In this story, the woman had not only been caught in the act of adultery, but then she was dragged (probably barely clothed) by the religious authorities into the temple where there were always crowds of people, many of whom would have known her. To make matters worse, they accused her before the godly religious teacher, Jesus of Nazareth. And her accusers were pushing for the ultimate penalty of execution. It was both humiliating and frightening!
But even if we manage to keep our sin hidden from fellow Christians or from public view, every single sin that we have ever committed is open and laid bare to the eyes of the living God (Heb. 4:13). He knows every sinful thought that we secretly entertain. He knows every swear word that we mutter under our breath. He knows the hatred that simmers in our hearts towards those who have wronged us. He knows every deceptive word that we have ever spoken to try to cover our tracks. He knows the sins that we commit when we’re alone or when we’re away in another city where we don’t know a soul. Like this woman, we’ve all been caught in the act of sin.
We tend to look on the woman in this story as the great sinner, while overlooking the fact that the scribes and Pharisees were just as evil, if not more so, in God’s sight. They were callously sinning against this woman. We can’t say for certain, but probably she was a young girl. In the Law of Moses, the penalty for adultery was death for both partners, without stipulating the means of death. But if the girl was engaged to be married, the penalty was specifically stoning to death (Deut. 22:22-24). Since Jewish girls were often engaged as young as 13 or 14, this girl may have been a frightened teenager. Clearly, they didn’t care about her at all. If they had cared about her, they could have held her in private custody until they brought formal charges against her. But they didn’t care about her feelings or about humiliating her in public. She was just a pawn for them to use and discard in their attempt to trap Jesus.
But, even more seriously than sinning against this woman, these religious leaders were also sinning against the sinless Son of God. Their aim was to destroy Jesus and they were using both this woman and the Scriptures to do it! They weren’t concerned about God’s honor or about holiness among God’s people. It just so happened that the Law gave them ammunition to use against this woman and against Jesus. They were using Scripture to judge others, but not to judge themselves.
That’s very common in Christian circles. People use the Bible for their own selfish ends, to judge others or to bring down their enemies. But they never apply it to themselves. And so it is often religious people—those professing to know Christ—who are just as guilty of sin as openly immoral people are.
Paul builds this case in Romans 1-3, where he shows that both pagan Gentiles and religious Jews are guilty of sin. His conclusion is (Rom. 3:23), “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” So whether we fit more with the immoral woman or with the self-righteous, unloving Pharisees, who used the Bible for their own sinful purposes, we need to see ourselves in this story. It convicts us all of our sin and guilt before God.
This story sets up an important question: If God is full of love and grace, how can He show mercy to sinners and yet uphold His holiness and justice?
Nowhere in this story does Jesus excuse this woman’s sin or condone what she had done. And yet He showed her grace.
The scribes and Pharisees came armed with the Law as a weapon to use against this woman, but as the text says, mostly to use against Jesus (8:5): “Now in the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women; what then do You say?” But they were saying this to test Him. Jesus responded by stooping down and writing on the ground with His finger. This is the only instance in the Gospels where Jesus wrote anything, but the big question that you’re all wondering is, “What did He write?” Here’s the answer: Nobody knows! Some have said that He was stalling for time so that He could think of what to say, but that demeans our all-wise Lord. Some say that He was writing the Pharisees’ sins in the dust, like people today write, “Wash me” in the dust of a dirty car. Others say that He was writing the Ten Commandments, which God wrote with His finger on the tablets of stone. Calvin (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], pp. 319-320) suggested that He was shaming His enemies by ignoring them, showing that they were unworthy to be heard. But, the bottom line is, the text doesn’t tell us and so everyone is just guessing.
Jesus may have been giving these hypocritical accusers enough rope to hang themselves, because the next verse (8:7) says that when they persisted in asking Him, He straightened up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” Jesus wasn’t saying that human judges in a court of law have to be sinlessly perfect before they can judge others, because then no law could ever be upheld. Rather, Jesus was applying what He taught in Matthew 7:1-5 to them:
“Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
In other words, these hypocrites had a huge log in their own eyes: They were sinfully using this woman and using Scripture to try to trap Jesus. They came to condemn her and accuse Jesus; but they ended up being accused and condemned. The Law is like a boomerang: You aim it at others and it comes back and conks you on the head. The starting place for receiving God’s mercy is to be convicted by God’s holy law that you are the chief of sinners.
But, rather than falling at Jesus’ feet and asking for mercy, they left Him and went out. Perhaps the oldest left first because they had the most sins of which to feel guilty. But none of them repented, because as a group they kept pressing for Jesus’ death until they finally succeeded. But, maybe you’re wondering, “Why didn’t Jesus apply the Law to this guilty woman?”
The Law can reveal your sin (Rom. 3:20), but it can’t offer grace and forgiveness. But Jesus came to reveal both grace and truth (John 1:14, 17). Throughout the Gospels, Jesus confronted the self-righteous with their own sins, but He showed mercy to those who were convicted of their sins and were repentant. Granted, in this story there is no direct statement that the woman was repentant, but I think we can infer that by Jesus’ gracious words to her. He knew what was in every heart and He was always quick to offer grace to the broken. By not stating that she was repentant, the story illustrates the truth that God first revealed to Moses (Exod. 33:19b, cited in Rom. 9:15), “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.” It is God’s privilege and His delight to show grace to undeserving sinners.
But it isn’t cheap grace. God’s justice must be upheld. He can be both gracious to sinners and yet uphold His justice because Jesus came to this earth to offer Himself as the perfect and final sacrifice for sin that God’s justice demanded. As Romans 3:26 states, God’s righteousness is displayed in that He is both “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus,” whose death satisfied God’s wrath against our sin. Or (2 Cor. 5:21), “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” The only sinless person in the temple that day who legitimately could have thrown a stone at the adulteress showed her mercy. And if you are heavy with your load of sin and guilt, come to Jesus and cry out for mercy and He will not condemn you. Like the publican in Jesus’ parable (Luke 18:14), you will go to your house justified, declared righteous before God!
Jesus said to this guilty woman (John 8:11), “I do not condemn you, either. Go. From now on sin no more.” He did not say, “Go your way and sin no more and then I will not condemn you.” Her pardon was not dependent on her behavior. Rather, her pardon was the motivation to change her behavior. If forgiveness depends on having a perfect track record, no one could obtain it, because we all sin. So God grants forgiveness as a free gift to all who put their trust in what Christ did in dying on the cross for their sins. His free grace then becomes the motive to live in holiness to please the one who gave Himself for us.
As Paul says (Rom. 6:1-2), “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” Or (Titus 2:11-12), “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age ….” God’s amazing grace is the motivation to life a holy life.
I’ve shared this with you before, but it has stuck with me all of my life and God has used it to help me walk in holiness before Him. When I was in high school, like any high school student, I was tempted by many sins. I knew many guys who were involved sexually with girls, which tempted me to do the same. Also, many of my friends would get drunk at parties and I had many opportunities to join them. I think that I was a Christian at that time, but I wasn’t walking closely with the Lord. But, in spite of my weak spiritual life, I never got involved in those sins.
Why not? I distinctly remember thinking on many occasions when those temptations came along, “I can’t do that because it would hurt Dad and Mom if I did it.” I knew that my parents loved me and trusted me. I didn’t want to violate their love and trust. Their love motivated me to want to please them.
That’s how God’s grace should work in our hearts. Like this adulterous woman, I was guilty and condemned before Him. But rather than condemning me, because of His sovereign grace He loved me enough to die in my place and offer me a full pardon. And since it cost Him so much, I can’t take His grace cheaply. I can’t sin and shrug it off by saying, “I’m under grace.” I want to please the one who loved me and gave Himself for me (Gal. 2:20). That same grace is available to every sinner who has been caught in the act! Receive it and then go and sin no more.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
March 2, 2014
One summer day in 1969 I was sitting on the lawn at U.C.L.A. reading my Bible when a barefoot young man came up and began to talk to me. I eventually asked what his name was and he said, “Thomas.” That’s a common enough name, of course. But with all sincerity, this fellow informed me that he was none other than the apostle Thomas, the one who had at first doubted Christ’s resurrection! He said further that Christ had sent him on a mission to proclaim, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand!” So, without money, sandals, or staff, he was going around U.C.L.A., walking up to Jewish-looking “lost sheep of the house of Israel,” and announcing, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand!” Then he would walk away.
Having grown up in California, I knew that it was “the land of fruits and nuts,” and it didn’t take extraordinary discernment to figure out that this guy was a true native! I assure you that I did not, even for a fleeting second, wonder, “Could this really be the apostle Thomas?” I shrugged him off as a nut case, as I’m sure everyone else did.
What if a man proclaimed (John 8:12), “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life”? Would you believe him? What if this same man had already proclaimed (6:35), “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall not hunger, and he who believes in Me shall not thirst”? He also said (7:37-38), “If any man is thirsty, let Him come unto Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.’” Would you not have to conclude, either, “This guy is a deluded religious nut”; or, “This is no mere man; this is God in human flesh”? Jesus’ bold claims to deity demand a response!
Note that in John 6, Jesus is the manna in the wilderness who provides for His people’s hunger. In John 7, Jesus is the water from the rock in the wilderness, providing for their thirst. In John 8, Jesus is the pillar of fire in the wilderness, providing protection and guidance by His presence with them. Thus Jesus is the all-sufficient Savior, providing for His people’s every need, even when they are traveling through a barren wilderness on their way to the Promised Land.
Jesus’ claim to be the Light of the world demands that you respond by following Him.
Background: Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Feast of Tabernacles. During that feast, as we’ve seen, the Jews performed a ceremony where a priest went to the Pool of Siloam, drew water in a golden pitcher, and returned in procession to the temple, where he poured it out at the base of the altar. It commemorated God’s provision of water from the rock that sustained Israel in the wilderness. It was in connection with that ceremony that Jesus proclaimed whoever drank of Him would have rivers of living water flowing from his innermost being.
At that same feast, the Jews performed another ceremony where they lit four huge candelabras or torches in the Court of the Women in the temple, commemorating the fact that the Lord had been a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night to protect and guide Israel in that desolate desert for 40 years. That cloud appeared on the day when Israel left Egypt, standing as a barrier between them and Pharaoh’s armies on the night before they crossed the Red Sea. Then as it went with them in that wilderness, it was a graphic symbol of the fact that the Lord God was with His people.
If, as we saw last week, the story of the woman caught in adultery (7:53-8:11) was not a part of John’s original Gospel, then the incident before us, where Jesus claims to be the Light of the world, took place either during or just after the Feast of Tabernacles, when the spectacle of these huge torches being lit in the temple would still be fresh in people’s minds. John 8:20 tells us that Jesus spoke these words in the treasury, as He taught in the temple. The treasury was the place, in the Court of the Women, where people could put their offerings into some trumpet-like receptacles. So, in the same courtyard where the torches were lit, Jesus boldly proclaimed, “I am the Light of the world.” How would you have reacted if you had been a Jew listening there? How should you respond to this astounding claim today?
Note four things about this remarkable claim:
I had a letter last week from a Jehovah’s Witness man in Georgia who said that he has enjoyed my sermons and that they have helped him understand the Word in preparing for his teaching assignments in his congregation. He claimed that Jesus is his Lord and Savior, but then proceeded to try to convince me that Jesus is not God. He felt that my lumping his group with the cults and accusing them of heresy is unkind. He views the Jehovah’s Witnesses as the true remnant and the rest of Christendom, which affirms Jesus’ deity, as being deceived by Satan!
Well, of course, I beg to differ vigorously! The whole point of the Gospel of John, is that we all would join Thomas in proclaiming the risen Savior as “my Lord and my God” (20:28). Contrary to the explanation of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Thomas was not swearing! Jesus would have rebuked him for that. Instead, Jesus commended him for believing the truth.
As I said, in the Old Testament, the Jews recognized the pillar and the cloud as the Lord (Exod. 13:21; 14:19-25). Furthermore, light is often used as a metaphor for God. Psalm 27:1 proclaims, “The Lord is my light and my salvation ….” In a prophecy about Jesus Christ (Matt. 4:16), Isaiah 9:2 predicts, “The people who walk in darkness will see a great light; those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them.” In Isaiah 42:6 & 49:6, the Lord tells His Servant, the Messiah, that He has appointed Him to be “a light to the nations” (or, “world,” in John 8:12).
In Isaiah 60:19-20, God says to His people, “No longer will you have the sun for light by day, nor for brightness will the moon give you light; but you will have the Lord for an everlasting light, and your God for your glory. Your sun will no longer set, nor will your moon wane; for you will have the Lord for an everlasting light.” This is fulfilled in Revelation 21:23-24, where instead of the sun and moon, the nations have the Lamb as their lamp, and that Lamb is identified as “the Lord God” (22:5). Also, 1 John 1:5 tells us, “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” This reveals that God is absolutely pure and holy. Since Jesus is the light, He is without any sin (John 8:46; Heb. 7:26). Jesus’ claim to be the Light of the world is a claim to be the Lord God in human flesh.
As Jesus states (John 8:14), He has come from the Father and He is returning to the Father. As He will further reveal, He and the Father are one (10:30). The one who has seen Him has seen the Father (14:9). John 1:18 put it, “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” Thus Jesus uniquely reveals to us the truth of who the Father is and what He is like. If you have trouble getting your brain around the fact that God is invisible and that He “dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see” (1 Tim. 1:17; 6:16), then look to Jesus. He reveals the truth about God to us. We can only know the Father through the Son (Luke 10:22).
As we saw in John 2:24-25, Jesus knew all men and He knew what was in man. The fact is, apart from Jesus Christ, we don’t even know ourselves. The fallen human heart is deceptive and desperately wicked (Jer. 17:9). When we do not know God, we call evil good and good evil, substituting darkness for light and light for darkness. We are wise in our own sight (Isa. 5:20-21). Jesus says here that if we do not follow Him, we walk in the darkness. We think we know where we’re going, but we’re wrong. We deceive ourselves and end up ruining our lives and the lives of those around us.
Jesus also implies here the truth that other Scriptures plainly state, that apart from Him we’re dead in our sins (Eph. 2:1, 4). Paul combines the imagery both of darkness and spiritual death when he says (Eph. 4:18) that unbelievers are “darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.” Jesus states it positively, if we follow Him we “will have the Light of life.” This means the Light that imparts life (see 1:4).
When you’re spiritually dead, you need God’s resurrection power to impart new life to your soul. Exhortations on how to improve your morals are of no use to a corpse. He needs life! Jesus promises that if you follow Him, you will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light that gives life.
Jesus is not just the light of the Jews, but of the world. And He is the only light of the world. Other religions claim to enlighten and give spiritual insight, but they don’t deliver. Philosophers speculate about the great questions of life, but they can’t offer any true insights, because they’re in the dark. Paul says (Col. 2:3) that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ. That wisdom and knowledge applies to all people, whether to primitive, illiterate tribes or to highly educated intellectuals.
When Jesus says that He is the light of the world, He does not mean that all people innately have enough light to respond to Him. Apart from Him, people are in spiritual darkness. Neither does He mean that people can figure out spiritual truth apart from His followers taking the gospel to them. As you know, just before He ascended, the risen Savior gave the Great Commission, telling us to make disciples of all nations. As Paul said (Rom. 10:14-15a), people can’t believe unless we go and tell them the good news. But when we go with the gospel and pray that God will open spiritually blind eyes, He does so as He reveals the glory of Christ (2 Cor. 4:4, 6).
The Bible says that we who know Christ shine as lights in the world (Matt. 5:14; Phil. 2:15; Eph. 5:8), but only Christ is the true light. We just reflect Him. He’s like the sun; we’re like the moon. He is the source of light; we only shine as we reflect His image. As people see Christ reflected in us, we can point them to Him.
So Jesus makes this astounding claim: “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” That claim inherently calls for a response:
First, we need to understand what it means to follow Jesus:
You won’t follow someone you don’t trust. Suppose that we’re hiking in the woods and there are many trails going in different directions. I say to you, “Follow me; I know the way out of here.” The key issue is, do you trust me? Do you trust that I know what I’m talking about? If I have a track record of getting lost or of getting confused about directions, you’re not going to follow me. But if I’ve been in these woods many times and have guided people out of them successfully every time, and you know my reputation, you’ll follow me. If you say that you’re following me, but wander off in another direction, you’re not really following me. To follow someone means to trust him and to obey him.
So do you trust Jesus and obey Him? Do you trust His many claims about Himself? Do you trust the apostolic witness to Jesus? Do you trust that He died for your sins and was raised from the dead? Do you trust His promise to come again in power and glory and to judge the living and the dead? And does your trust translate into obedience to His commands?
When you trust in Jesus as your Savior and obey Him as your Lord, there are many benefits:
If I listed all the benefits of following Jesus, we’d be here all week. But limiting myself to the picture of the pillar of fire and cloud that’s behind Jesus’ claim here, we see these three benefits: His presence, His protection, and His guidance.
Exodus 13:21 states, “The Lord was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on the way, and in a pillar of fire by night to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night.” Throughout the time that Israel was in the wilderness, the cloud hovered over the tabernacle and symbolized God’s presence with His people.
In the same way, Jesus promised us His presence, especially as we take the gospel to the ends of the earth (Matt. 28:19-20). The Bible tells us that we’re in Christ, but also that He is in us. Jesus promises (John 14:28), “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” He also promises (Heb. 13:5), “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you.”
Also, the cloud and the fire protected Israel both from Pharaoh’s advancing army and later from the fierce desert sun by day and the dark and cold at night. In the same way, Jesus is our protection. He shelters us from the wrath of God that is coming on unbelievers. He protects us from the spiritual enemies that wage war against our souls. Just as He protected Jesus here, even though His enemies wanted to seize Him (8:20), so He protects His children until it’s our time to be with Him.
Also, the cloud guided Israel through that harsh, untracked wilderness. When the cloud moved, the people followed (Num. 9:17-23). He guided them to springs of water. He charted their course to the Promised Land. And, the Lord guides us through His Word, His Spirit, and the wise counsel of mature believers. He gives us wisdom in trials as we ask Him in prayer (James 1:3-5).
I wish I could end the message here and we could all go our way basking in the goodness of the Lord toward those who follow Jesus as the Light. But our text (in fact the major part of it!) shows us that the right response to Jesus isn’t the only option.
The Pharisees retorted to Jesus’ astounding claim (8:13), “You are testifying about Yourself; Your testimony is not true.” They were ignoring Jesus’ many miracles, His amazing teaching, the witness of John the Baptist, and the many Old Testament prophecies that pointed to Jesus and rejecting Him based on the superficial reason that the law stipulated that to be valid in court, a claim had to be backed by two or three witnesses (Deut. 19:15). I can only skim these verses, but note two things:
The Pharisees are going back to Jesus’ statement in John 5:31, “If I alone testify about Myself, My testimony is not true.” The translators have added alone; Jesus actually said “If I testify about Myself, My testimony is not true.” In the context, He meant that if He acted independently of the Father, His witness would be invalid. But in that same context, He showed that the Father testified of Him through the witness of John the Baptist, Jesus’ works (miracles), and God’s Word. But here, the Pharisees are not raising honest questions. Rejecting the witness that they had been given, they were desperately looking for any excuse they could find to reject Jesus’ claims. Jesus replies (8:14-18),
“Even if I testify about Myself, My testimony is true, for I know where I came from and where I am going; but you do not know where I come from or where I am going. You judge according to the flesh; I am not judging anyone. But even if I do judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone in it, but I and the Father who sent Me. Even in your law it has been written that the testimony of two men is true. I am He who testifies about Myself, and the Father who sent Me testifies about Me.”
Jesus came from heaven and He was returning to heaven. That’s why He can claim to be the Light of the world. But the Pharisees were in the dark. They judged Jesus outwardly, according to the flesh. He did not judge people that way. When He judged people, He did it in truth because He depended on the Father who sent Him. Conceding their point about two witnesses, Jesus claims that He has not only His own witness, but also that of the Father.
Then the Pharisees retorted (8:19), “Where is Your Father?” They were probably thinking of Jesus’ human father, and may have been questioning His paternity based on rumors of His mother’s pregnancy before she was married (8:41). But Jesus answers (8:19), “You know neither Me nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also.” The only way anyone can know the Father is through the Son (Luke 10:22). By refusing to follow Jesus, these religious leaders remained in spiritual darkness. But in their minds, they had “biblical reasons”! Unbelievers always come up with “reasons” why they don’t follow Jesus. Sometimes, as in the case of the Jehovah’s Witness who wrote to me, they’re even “biblical” reasons. But they’re always superficial excuses, not valid reasons.
As we saw in John 3:19, “men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.” Those who do not follow Jesus are living in spiritual and moral darkness. The evidence of spiritual darkness is that you want to get rid of Jesus from your life (8:20). But eliminating Christ from your life does not eliminate God as the sovereign of the world. He is sovereign over all things, including the timing of the death of His Son (Acts 2:23; 4:27-28). One day every knee will bow before Jesus, either for rewards or for condemnation (Phil. 2:9-11). The root reason that people reject Jesus is that they love their sin. They don’t want the Light to expose their evil deeds.
So Jesus’ astounding claim (8:12), “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life,” draws a line and asks, “Which side are you on?” With the Pharisees, will you reject Jesus’ claim for some superficial reason because you don’t want the Light exposing your sin? Or, will you follow Him by trusting Him as your Savior and obeying Him as your Lord? He is either a religious crackpot or He is who He claimed to be. There is ample evidence that His witness is true, which means that you should follow Him.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
March 9, 2014
Thomas Fuller (cited by C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David [Baker], 4:328) said, “You cannot repent too soon, because you do not know how soon it may be too late.” As long as you’re alive and mentally competent, you have the opportunity to believe in Christ for eternal salvation. But the second you die, it’s too late—you’ll be lost forever.
That’s not just my opinion, but something the loving Savior says over and over to warn us to believe in Him while there is still time. Three times in our text (8:21, twice in v. 24) He warns the Pharisees that they will die in their sins. This means that they will face God’s judgment for their sins. But Christ’s final warning contains a word of invitation and hope (8:24b), “For unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” (He is not in the original; it was added by the translators.) The invitation is, if you will believe that I am the Lord, who I claim to be, you will not die in your sins.
And so it’s crucial that we understand clearly who Jesus claimed to be and that we believe in Him before we die and face God’s eternal judgment. Our text tells us:
To go to heaven, believe the truth about yourself and the truth about Jesus while there is still time.
Jesus is interacting with the Pharisees at the end of the Feast of Tabernacles. At that feast, in conjunction with a ceremony that commemorated the water that God provided for Israel in the wilderness, He has claimed to be able to give living water that flows out of the innermost being of those who believe in Him (7:37-38). In conjunction with a lamp-lighting ceremony that remembered God’s presence in the pillar of cloud and fire in the wilderness, Jesus has claimed to be the light of the world and promised that the one who follows Him will not walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life (8:12). These were astounding claims that you can’t just shrug off. They grab you by the lapels and demand that you respond.
But, sadly, the Pharisees responded with hostile challenges, not with faith in Jesus. In 8:13, they claimed that His testimony about Himself was not valid. In 8:19, they sneered, “Where is Your Father?” which was probably a slur about the rumor that Jesus’ mother conceived Him before she was married. In our text, they continue throwing out comments that reflect their hardened hearts. But, rather than trying to take the speck out of the Pharisees’ eyes, we need to take the logs out of our eyes by recognizing that by virtue of our fallen nature, we’re just like them. Thus …
In 8:19, Jesus pointed out the root problem with the Pharisees: “You know neither Me nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also.” This is the root problem with the entire human race: We’re born as sinners, alienated from God. We don’t know Him or the one He sent to bear our sins on the cross. We have no idea of the holiness of God, who is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29), who dwells in unapproachable light (1 Tim. 6:16). And, since we don’t know how holy God is, we don’t see how sinful we are. Rather than comparing ourselves with the holy God, we compare ourselves with people who are outwardly more wicked than we are, so we think we’re not so bad.
But we’re using the wrong measuring stick! Jesus draws a line between Himself and the Pharisees by saying (8:21), “I go away, and you will seek Me, and you will die in your sin; where I am going, you cannot come.” He was going back to the Father in heaven and they would not and could not go there as long as they remained in their proud self-righteousness.
But they mistook His words, saying (8:22), probably in a deliberate put-down, “Surely He will not kill Himself, will He, since He says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come’?” The Jews thought that a person who killed himself would go to the worst place in hell (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 446). So they may have been saying, “Well, if He kills Himself and goes to hell, at least we won’t have to listen to Him there, since we’ll be in heaven!” But they were sadly mistaken. Jesus came from heaven and was returning to heaven, but in their sinful condition, they would never see heaven.
So Jesus continues (8:23), “You are from below, I am from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.” There is a humanly unbridgeable chasm between the holy God in heaven and all of us who were born in sin on this earth. We can try to compile good deeds to bridge the chasm, but that’s doomed to fail. All our good deeds are like filthy rags in God’s sight (Isa. 64:6). And all the good deeds in the world cannot pay for all the sins that we’ve committed. Just a single sin would be enough to condemn us to hell, but we’ve all piled up thousands of sins. To go to heaven, we first have to recognize our true condition before the holy God as rebellious sinners.
Furthermore, our sinful condition has rendered us blind to spiritual truth unless the Lord opens our eyes to see. John explains (8:27), “They did not realize that He had been speaking to them about the Father.” You would think that Jesus had made this point pretty clearly back in 5:18-47, where the Jews knew that by calling God His own Father, Jesus was making Himself equal with God. The only way that I can explain John’s comment in 8:27 is by Paul’s comment in 2 Corinthians 4:4, “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (See, also, 1 Cor. 2:14.)
Jesus will go on to explain to the disciples (John 16:8) that one role of the Holy Spirit is to convict the world of sin. The word “convict” means “to convince,” as a lawyer convinces a jury of his case. Before we will turn from our sin and trust in Christ as our Savior, we have to be convinced that we are sinners who cannot save ourselves. So to go to heaven, we must believe the truth about ourselves, that we are guilty sinners before the holy God.
As I’ve often said, the crucial question in all of life is Jesus’ question to the twelve (Matt. 16:15), “Who do you say that I am?” There is no more important question in the world! Everything about your eternal destiny depends on believing the right answer to that question. Here, the Jews ask (8:25), “Who are You?” But before we yell, “Yay, they’re finally asking the right question!” we need to understand that they were not asking the question sincerely, with a desire to know the truth about Jesus. Rather, their question could rightly be translated (according to several commentators), “Who do you think you are to tell us that we will die in our sins?” They were challenging Jesus, not seeking to know the truth about Him.
Jesus’ reply (8:25) is difficult to translate, but the sense is probably either a statement (ESV), “Just what I have been telling you from the beginning,” or a rhetorical question (NASB), “What have I been saying to you from the beginning?” Their problem was not that they had not heard what Jesus was saying from day one of His public ministry, but that they didn’t believe Him. Our text contains four important truths about Jesus that we must believe if we want to go to heaven:
As Jesus said in 8:14, “I know where I came from and where I am going.” In 8:23 He asserts that His origin is from above, not from this world. He repeatedly emphasizes (8:16, 18, 26, 29) that He came to earth because He was sent by the Father. And, He says (8:24), “unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” He repeats (8:28), “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He….”
The translators have added “He” to complete Jesus’ “I am” statement. The legitimate sense may be, “I am who I claim to be,” or “I am the Messiah.” But given the Jewish audience, and especially the Pharisees, who knew the Old Testament well, Jesus was probably referring to the “I am” statements of Yahweh in Isaiah 40-55, which in turn allude to God’s disclosure of His name to Moses (Exod. 3:14), “I am who I am.” (See D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], pp. 343-344.) So Jesus was probably saying, “Unless you believe that I am the Lord God, you will die in your sins.”
In Isaiah 41:4, God says, “I, the Lord, am the first, and with the last. I am He.” The Greek LXX translates “I am He” with “ego eimi,” the same Greek phrase that Jesus uses in John 8:24 & 28. In Isaiah 43:10, the Lord says, “‘You are My witnesses,’ declares the Lord, ‘and My servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe Me and understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, and there will be none after Me.’” (It’s more than ironic that the Jehovah’s Witnesses take their name from Isaiah 43:10, but deny the deity of Jesus. They fail to see that, in part, Jesus bases His claim to be God on it!)
Then in Isaiah 43:13 the Lord adds, “Even from eternity I am He, and there is none who can deliver out of My hand; I act and who can reverse it?” In Isaiah 48:12, the Lord says, “Listen to Me, O Jacob, even Israel whom I called; I am He, I am the first, I am also the last.” (In Revelation 1:17 & 2:8, Jesus claims to be the first and the last, a clear assertion of His deity.)
So when Jesus tells the Pharisees, who knew Isaiah well, “I am He,” using the same phrase that the Lord repeatedly uses in Isaiah, He was claiming to be the eternal God. Yet at the same time, here and throughout John’s Gospel, He frequently distinguishes Himself from the Father. He makes it clear that the Father sent Him to this earth to be our Savior. To believe in a “Jesus” who is not God in human flesh will not get you to heaven. As Bishop Moule once said (source unknown), “A Savior not quite God is a bridge broken at the farther end.”
In John 8:29, Jesus makes another astounding claim that no one else can legitimately make: “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.” In a similar vein, Jesus asks these same critics (8:46), “Which of you convicts Me of sin?” No one, not even Jesus’ enemies, could convict Him of sin because as a man He always lived in total dependence on the Father, being obedient to His will. If Jesus had sinned, then His death could not have atoned for others, because He would have had to pay for His own sin. He was the Lamb of God, without spot or blemish, who alone could take away the sins of the world (John 1:29).
In John 8:21, Jesus again (7:33-34) tells the Jews that He is going away and that they will not be able to come where He is going. He’s referring to His upcoming death, when He would willingly lay down His life for His sheep. Then in 8:28, Jesus tells them, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me.” “Lift up” also refers to His upcoming death on the cross (3:14; 12:32).
John intends some irony here, in that the verb usually means “to exalt.” To be put on the cross as a public spectacle was the most degrading and humiliating thing that could happen to a man. But the cross above all else revealed Jesus’ glory. The night before He was crucified, Jesus prayed (17:1), “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You.” The cross reveals the holiness and justice of God, who cannot allow any sinners to go unpunished. But it also reveals His abundant love and mercy, in that through the death of His Son, He can save sinners and clothe them with Jesus’ righteousness.
Satan hates the cross and is always trying to distort its meaning or eradicate it from any teaching about how a person gets to heaven. But any teaching that diminishes or denies the centrality of the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross for our sins is heretical to the core. To teach that Jesus died as an example of love is correct; but if it stops there, it’s heretical. He is the greatest example of love that the world has ever known. But you can try all your life to imitate His example of love and you will still go to hell when you die if you have not trusted in His death for your sins.
The same thing applies to trying to get to heaven by good works. If we can get to heaven by our good works, then Jesus didn’t have to die on the cross for our sins. Or if we can get to heaven by combining our works with His death on the cross, it still diminishes the centrality of the cross and allows sinners to share His glory, which can never be. Paul wrote Galatians to combat the Judaizers, who claimed to believe in Christ, but argued that you must also add keeping the Law of Moses to faith in Christ to be saved. But Paul called their view a different gospel which is not a gospel and said that they would be damned for believing it (Gal. 1:6-9).
Thus to go to heaven, we must believe that Jesus is the eternal God, sent to earth by the Father; that He lived a sinless life in total dependence on the Father; and that He was lifted up on the cross to die as the substitute for our sins. Also,
Jesus knew that He would soon die on the cross, but He also knew that that wasn’t the end of things. Rather, He would be returning to the Father in heaven (8:21, 22). This anticipates both His bodily resurrection from the dead and His ascension into heaven. Believing in Jesus’ bodily resurrection and ascension is absolutely essential to saving faith. As Paul argues (1 Cor. 15:14, 17), “And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain, your faith also is vain…. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.”
God has given much evidence that Jesus was raised from the dead. There was the empty tomb. If Jesus’ body was still in the tomb, His enemies gladly would have taken people there and refuted the disciples’ claims that He was risen. There were the many independent eyewitnesses, who saw Jesus alive in different settings. There is the fact of the changed lives of the witnesses, who did not expect the resurrection and were fearful and depressed after the crucifixion. But they went on boldly to proclaim the resurrection, even when it cost them their lives.
So, if you don’t want to die in your sins and face God’s judgment, or to put it positively, if you want to go to heaven, you must first recognize your true condition before God as a sinner. Also, you must believe in Jesus as He is revealed in Scripture. But there is one other crucial matter:
The loving Savior says some terrible, terrifying words (8:21): “I go away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin; where I am going, you cannot come.” Then in 8:28 He says, “When you lift up the son of Man, then you will know that I am He ….” The implication of these words is not that these religious leaders would seek Jesus after His death and come to know Him through saving faith, but rather that they would seek Him and know Him too late. The door of mercy would be shut because they had rejected the Light of the world when He was with them.
So while Jesus appealed to them to believe in Him (8:24), He was also warning them that even though they would seek Him later, they would still die in their sin, which is to face judgment and eternal punishment in hell. So I think He means that they would seek Him and come to know Him when it was too late, at the judgment. In the story of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man in hell cried out to Abraham in heaven for mercy and relief from his suffering. But Abraham tells him (Luke 16:26), “Between us and you there is a great chasm fixed, so that those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able, and that none may cross over from there to us.” Those in hell now want to go to heaven, but it’s too late!
Also, it’s possible to harden your heart against the light that God has given you to the point where you cross a line in this life and you can’t go back. Like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal, when he later sought for repentance with tears, he could not find it (Heb. 12:17). You ask, “Where is that line?” That’s like asking, “How close to the edge of the Grand Canyon can I go without falling over?” That’s a bad question! You don’t want to find out the answer. If you don’t want to fall over, stay back from the edge!
Jesus told the story of the ten virgins who were waiting for the bridegroom. Five were wise, but five were foolish. The wise virgins had prepared for the event and had plenty of oil, but the foolish virgins did not have enough oil. While they were away buying more oil, the bridegroom came and took the five wise virgins into the wedding feast. But when the foolish virgins came later, they were shut out. Jesus’ application was (Matt. 25:13), “Be on the alert then, for you do not know the day or the hour.”
Also, it’s possible to seek Christ now, but for the wrong reasons. Maybe you want some blessing or you want to get out of a crisis, so you start going to church, praying, and trying to reform your life so that God will give you what you’re after. But you aren’t seeking salvation because you know that you’re a guilty sinner who has offended the holy God. You aren’t seeking Christ because He is the eternal God who took on human flesh to die for your sins. And so after your crisis blows over or you figure out how to get what you’re after, you go back to your old ways.
But to go to heaven—to not die in your sins—you must see yourself as a sinner deserving of hell and believe in Jesus Christ as He is revealed in Scripture while you still have time. That time is now!
Some may think that it’s unloving to talk about hell and judgment. But if the words of Jesus are true, then the most loving thing anyone can do is to warn you to flee from the wrath to come. Frances Quarles wrote (cited by C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David [Baker], 4:328, English updated), “He that has promised pardon on our repentance has not promised to preserve our lives till we repent.” Or, to repeat Thomas Fuller’s wise words (ibid.), “You cannot repent too soon, because you do not know how soon it may be too late.”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
March 16, 2014
As Americans, we value freedom. Our nation was founded on the principle of “liberty and justice for all.” Our First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom to assemble, and freedom to petition the government for redress. While our freedom of religion is under assault today more than ever before, it is the foundation of our nation.
Political freedom is a wonderful thing, but spiritual freedom is even better, because you can experience it no matter what sort of government you live under. And true spiritual freedom lasts forever. But what is it? John Piper (“You Will Know the Truth and the Truth Will Set You Free,” on DesiringGod.org) describes true freedom: “You are fully free when you have the desire, the ability, and the opportunity to do what will leave you with no regrets forever.” He explains,
If you don't have the desire to do a thing, you are not fully free to do it. Oh, you may muster the will power to do what you don’t want to do, but nobody calls that full freedom…. And if you have the desire to do something, but no ability to do it, you are not free to do it. And if you have the desire and the ability to do something, but no opportunity to do it, you are not free to do it. And if you have the desire to do something, and the ability to do it, and the opportunity to do it, but it destroys you in the end, you are not fully free—not free indeed.
He illustrates this with an example of skydiving. Say you want to experience the thrill of the freedom of skydiving, but on the way to the airport you have an accident and can’t get there. You lack the freedom of opportunity. Or, suppose you get there, but you didn’t take the required class, so you don’t know how to operate your parachute. You lack the freedom of ability. Or, you get to the airport, you took the classes, and you go up in the plane. But when they open the door and you look down, you’re paralyzed with fear. You lack the freedom of desire, so you don’t jump.
But there’s one last requirement for true freedom. Suppose you get to the airport (freedom of opportunity), you took the classes (freedom of ability), and you go up in the plane, look out the door, and can’t wait to jump (freedom of desire). So you jump and are enjoying the freedom of falling through the air. But your parachute is defective and you’re going to smash into the ground. You are not truly free because what you’re doing is going to destroy you. To go back to his definition: “You are fully free when you have the desire, the ability, and the opportunity to do what will leave you with no regrets forever.”
So, how do we get that kind of freedom spiritually? The Jews with whom Jesus was speaking in our text thought that they were spiritually free through their descent from Abraham (8:33): “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, ‘You will become free’?” Jesus explains that even though they don’t see it, they are actually enslaved to sin. He shows them (and us) the way to true spiritual freedom:
True freedom comes from knowing Christ through genuine faith and abiding in His word.
Jesus gives these arrogant Jews both a warning and an invitation. After stating that they are slaves to sin (8:34), He gives the warning (8:35), “The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever.” He means, “As descendants of Abraham, you’re in God’s household, but because of sin, you’re in His household as slaves, not as true sons. Slaves don’t enjoy the full privileges of sons. Slaves can be expelled from the household at any time, especially if they’re not faithful. You’re currently enjoying the privileges of being in God’s household, but you could lose this status if you continue in your sinful ways.”
Since they had mentioned Abraham, the story of Ishmael, the son of Hagar the slave, is behind verse 35. When Ishmael taunted Isaac, Abraham was forced to expel him from his household. The Jews who were threatening to kill Jesus (8:37, 40) were in danger of losing the privileges of being in God’s household (Rom. 9:4-5). But Jesus didn’t leave them with a warning only. He gave them an invitation (8:36), “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” He’s saying, “Come to Me; I will give you true freedom.”
John 8:30 tells us, “As He spoke these things, many came to believe in Him.” Verse 31 states that Jesus was addressing the following comments to the Jews who had believed Him. So you would think that these people had come to know Christ through faith. But as the dialogue continues through the chapter, we learn that not only were they slaves of sin (8:34), also they were seeking to kill Jesus (8:37, 40); God was not their Father (8:42); in fact, they were children of the devil (8:44); they accused Jesus of having a demon (8:48); they were liars (8:55); and they attempted to kill Jesus (8:59). So why does John say that these Jews believed in Jesus?
Some have tried to resolve this by saying that 8:30-31 speaks about true believers, while “they” in 8:33 refers to the hostile Jews that we encountered earlier in the chapter. But the text does not indicate that there is a change of subject. Others argue that there is a difference in meaning between the Greek construction used with the verb “to believe” (in 8:31), but this distinction doesn’t hold up in other places (D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], pp. 346-347). Other solutions have been proposed.
The best interpretation is that the “believers” in 8:30, 31 are like those back in 2:23, who believed in Jesus after seeing some of His miracles, but Jesus didn’t entrust Himself to them, because He knew that their faith was superficial. We saw that same false faith in 6:60, when many of Jesus’ disciples turned away from Him after He said some difficult things that they didn’t like. False faith is implied in 8:31, where Jesus says that if they continue in His word, they are truly His disciples. And so we should conclude that it’s possible to have a superficial, false faith in Christ that does not save from sin.
Other New Testament texts support this view. Jesus’ parable of the sower (Luke 8:5-15) mentions the seed that was sown on the rocky, thin soil. These people received the word with joy, but they had no root. They believed for a while, but in a time of temptation or trial, they fell away. The same was true of the seed sown among the thorny ground. Eventually the thorns choked out the word, so that it did not bear fruit. We see the same thing in the warning passages in Hebrews (6:4-8; 10:26-31) and in John’s mention of the false teachers who went out from the church, but never were genuine believers (1 John 2:19). Paul mentions false apostles who disguise themselves as workers of righteousness (2 Cor. 11:13-15).
I’ve seen the same thing many times, even with some who have served for a while in some capacity in the church. Perhaps they came to faith at a time when many of their friends were professing faith in Christ. It was the cool thing to do. Or, maybe they came to Jesus because they were told that He would give them some blessing or solve some difficult problem that they were wrestling with. But when things didn’t go as they had hoped, they fell away. Some now even deny the faith that they once professed.
How can we know that our own faith is genuine? I’ll say more about that in a moment, but for now, note two marks of false faith that we see in these “believing unbelievers”:
After Jesus tells them (8:32), “And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free,” they react defensively by asserting that they are Abraham’s descendants and they have never been enslaved to anyone. They couldn’t be referring to political slavery, since the nation had been enslaved in Egypt for 400 years, plus to many other foreign powers, such as Babylon, Greece, and (as they spoke) Rome. So they must mean that they were spiritually free and, as Jews, always had been free.
But they were blind to their self-righteousness and spiritual pride. Their religion was externally impressive, but their hearts were far from God (Mark 7:6-7). In Matthew 23:27-28, Jesus, who knew their hearts, reams them out: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” They thought that they were righteous, but their sin deceived them so that they didn’t see their own slavery to sin.
As I said last week, the starting point for going to heaven is to recognize that you are a guilty sinner in God’s sight. If you think that you’re good enough to go to heaven, or that by adding a few more good deeds, you’ll merit eternal life, you don’t understand God’s absolute holiness and justice. If our good deeds could get us into heaven, then Christ did not need to die on the cross. Invariably, those with false faith do not see their own slavery to sin. They brush it off by thinking that they just have a few faults.
These Jews were trusting in their religious heritage as descendants of Abraham to put them in right standing with God. John the Baptist had already hit them with this when he called them to repentance (Matt. 3:9): “And do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’; for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham.” If you think that going to church or going through religious rituals or giving money or any religious activity will commend you to God, you do not have genuine saving faith in Christ. You aren’t truly free spiritually. False faith does not save from sin.
In 8:31, Jesus says, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine.” The mark of genuine faith is not just mental or verbal profession that you believe in Christ. The mark of true faith is to continue (or, “abide”) in Jesus’ word. This is not the condition for getting saved; rather, it’s an evidence that you are truly saved. It’s the evidence that your faith in Christ is genuine. So, we need to understand what Christ’s word is and what it means to continue or abide in it.
Christ’s word is everything that He taught, summed up in all that He is and all that He did for us on the cross. Jesus said that all of Scripture speaks of Him, His suffering, and the glory to follow (Luke 24:25-27, 44-46). Jesus told the Jews (John 5:38-39), “You do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me.”
To continue in Christ’s word implies that you first started in His word. The starting point for saving faith is when you recognize from God’s Word that you’re a sinner and that Christ died to pay the penalty for your sin. God saves you when you stop trusting in your own good works and instead rely totally on what Jesus did for you on the cross and believe that God raised Jesus from the dead. Christ’s word is the same as God’s Word. The central message of God’s Word is how we can be reconciled to God through faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection.
“Continue” translates the Greek word that the NASB translates as “abide” (15:4, 6, 7, 10). It means to dwell or be at home in God’s Word. You don’t just visit the Word as an occasional guest. You move in and live there. You wake up there and you return there every night. The Word shapes your worldview. It governs and guides your thinking, your attitudes, your speech, and your behavior. There isn’t any area of your life that is not subject to God’s Word or influenced by it. Continuing or abiding obviously implies time spent in the Word over the long haul.
Are you abiding in God’s Word? Do you “live” there? Are you comfortable there? Do you know its rooms? Do you enjoy its many amenities that are for your blessing? Do you seek to obey it? Let me suggest a radical idea that could transform your life: Turn off your TV, computer, and phone for between one half to one hour each day and spend the time reading, meditating on, and memorizing God’s Word with the prayer that you might know Christ better. God’s promise in Joshua 1:8 applies to us: “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.”
We’ve seen that it’s possible to have false faith that does not save. True freedom comes from knowing Christ through genuine faith, which means to continue in His word.
Rather than being a slave of sin (8:34), “you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (8:32). “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” So, how does abiding in Christ’s word of truth set us free?
Jesus emphasizes truth in this dialogue (8:32 [2x], 40, 44 [2x], 45, 46), which refers especially to saving truth. Those who do not know God are in spiritual darkness (Eph. 4:18). They cannot understand the things of the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2:14). They do not know why they’re on earth or what will happen after they die. But when we come to know the truth through knowing Christ, all the riches of God’s grace are opened to us (1 Cor. 2:9-10; Col. 2:2-3).
This is illustrated even in the natural realm: truth liberates, but ignorance keeps people in bondage. A person who can read is much freer than an illiterate person. He is free to study medicine or law or finance or whatever field interests him. But the illiterate person is severely restricted in what he can do.
In the same way, spiritual ignorance keeps a person from knowing the living and true God and from being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. Ignorance cuts a person off from enjoying the many blessings that are ours in Him. Abiding in Christ’s word opens the treasure chest and frees us to enjoy Him.
This is the primary focus of Jesus’ words (8:34), “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin.” Jesus does not mean that committing a single act of sin enslaves a person (although one sin is the first step to slavery), but rather that a person who continues in sin is under its domination (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 458). But as we abide in Christ’s word, we can experience consistent victory over sin, beginning on the thought level (where all sin begins).
Note that religion can’t free a person from slavery to sin. These Jews were as religious as they could be and yet Jesus asserts that they were slaves to sin. They were trying to kill the sinless Son of God, but they thought that they were spiritually free! The first step to being free from sin is to recognize your slavery to it.
True spiritual freedom is not the freedom to sin, but the freedom not to sin. Let me illustrate how abiding in Christ’s word sets you free from slavery to sin. Say that a young man from a pagan, immoral background becomes a Christian, but he doesn’t know what the Bible says about how to resist temptation. He still feeds his mind on gross TV shows and movies where couples quickly jump into bed. So he has professed faith in Christ, but he hasn’t learned to abide in Christ’s word. Meanwhile, a cute girl where he works flirts with him every day. She invites him over to her apartment where he yields to her advances. Soon, he’s living the same way he used to live, in slavery to sin.
But take the same young man and say that after he trusts in Christ he begins to abide daily in God’s Word. He reads the Word often and begins to memorize key verses. He listens to sound preaching of the Word. In the process, he reads the story of Joseph and how he resisted the advances of Potiphar’s wife, even though he could have found many excuses for yielding. He learns from Joseph’s Godward focus when he says (Gen. 39:9), “How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?”
He also reads the Book of Proverbs, with its many plain warnings about the dangers of sexual sins. He reads Jesus’ warnings about lust beginning in the heart (Matt. 5:27-30). He memorizes Paul’s warning (1 Cor. 6:18), “Flee immorality,” and the promise in 1 Corinthians 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.” So when the young woman at work acts seductively toward him, he is able to resist and remain pure. Abiding in the Word set him free from his former slavery to sin.
You can apply this to any sin: anger, jealousy, bitterness, drunkenness, selfishness, or whatever. If you abide in God’s Word, you will be freed from bondage to those sins. If you do not abide in the Word, you will be enslaved to various sins.
Paul wrote (Gal. 5:13), “For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.” Before we were saved, we lived to serve ourselves. We indulged the flesh, thinking that it would satisfy. But Christ saved us and set us free from selfishness so that we can serve others in love. As Jesus said (Mark 10:44-45), “Whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
Let’s come back to John Piper’s description of true freedom: “You are fully free when you have the desire, the ability, and the opportunity to do what will leave you with no regrets forever.” When you truly believe in Christ, He gives you the desire to please Him who lavished His grace upon you. He gives you the ability to obey Him as you walk in the Spirit who lives in you. He gives you opportunities daily to say no to sin and selfishness and to serve others in love. And you will dwell with Jesus in heaven forever, with no regrets that you left your life of sin to follow Him.
That’s the true freedom that comes from knowing Christ through genuine faith and abiding in His word! If you’re still a slave of sin, Jesus offers you true freedom: “If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed” (8:36).
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
March 23, 2014
Some of the scariest verses in the Bible are Jesus’ words in Matthew 7:21-23:
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’”
Here are people who call Jesus “Lord.” They have served Him in some impressive ways by prophesying, casting out demons, and performing miracles in His name. And yet they will be turned away from heaven at the judgment because they were false children of God, as revealed by their lawless lifestyles. Since you and I will dwell forever in either heaven or hell, you want to make absolutely sure that you are a true child of God, headed for heaven, and not a false child of God, who will spend eternity in hell.
The dialogue in our text follows John 8:30-31, where we saw that although many professed faith in Christ, it was not genuine, saving faith. This is first seen in 8:33, where it becomes clear that these “believers” were trusting their Jewish lineage for right standing with God. They mistakenly thought that being Jewish by birth automatically made them spiritually free. But Jesus said that actually they were slaves of sin. Only those who abided (“continued”) in His Word were truly His disciples. In 8:34-36, Jesus dealt with their claim to be spiritually free by showing them that they were only free if He set them free. Now He deals with their claim to be children of Abraham by showing that their claim was false as seen in their deeds. Their murderous intentions toward Jesus revealed that they were not children of God, as they thought, but of the devil.
Jesus is teaching here what He taught elsewhere, that conduct stems from one’s nature. Good trees produce good fruit; bad trees produce bad fruit. Children of God produce good deeds; children of the devil produce bad deeds. But it’s not quite so easy to tell which are which, because often bad trees seem to us to produce good fruit. For example, we see many people who are not believers in Jesus Christ, but they’re “good” people. They’re caring and kind. They give generously to charitable foundations that help the needy. They’re the type of people that you want to have as neighbors. And, on the other hand, there are some who sure seem to be children of God, and yet they do some horrible things that sometimes even land them in prison.
Only God knows what is in human hearts, so we always have to be a bit tentative when determining whether someone else is a true or false child of God. And sometimes we don’t even know our own hearts! We fluctuate in our desires from loving God to loving this world (which are mutually exclusive, 1 John 2:15). So to the best of our ability, we need to apply the tests that we see in our text, first to ourselves; and then, with a bit more hesitation, to others whom we are trying to help spiritually. The principle is:
False children of God follow Satan and his evil deeds because they have not been born of God;
true children of God love Jesus and obey His Word because they have been born of God.
The text reveals a number of characteristics of both false and true children of God:
What makes this dialogue scary is that these Jews who were actually children of the devil were very religious people who professed to believe in Jesus. In other words, they weren’t raw pagans, avowed atheists, Muslim terrorists, or Hindu idolaters. These people professed to believe in the God of Abraham and outwardly they were zealous for their religion. But Jesus plainly tells them that they were deceived. They actually were in Satan’s camp. And so we who profess to be Christians and perhaps even are zealous about our faith need to think carefully through these five characteristics to make sure that we’re not deceiving ourselves!
This theme is repeated here so that we don’t miss it. In 8:33, they tell Jesus, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone.” In 8:37, Jesus acknowledges that they were Abraham’s descendants physically, but He contends that they were not Abraham’s descendants spiritually. But they still repeat (8:39), “Abraham is our father.” When Jesus points out (8:39b-41a) that their deeds were not in line with Abraham’s, but indicated a different father, they retort (8:41b), “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father: God.”
There could be a couple of things behind that comment. It could be a subtle slur against Jesus’ birth, alluding to the fact that His mother conceived Him out of wedlock. Rumors about Mary’s pregnancy with Jesus had circulated for decades. So the Jews may be putting Jesus down by saying, “You’re illegitimate because Your mother was immoral, but we’re not!” Or, it could be an assertion that they were not like Gentile idolaters. Often idolatry in the Old Testament is described as spiritual adultery. So the Jews’ retort here could mean, “We were not born like idolatrous Gentiles; rather, as Jews, God is our Father.”
But however you take it, it’s clear that these Jews were counting on their Jewish heritage and religion to put them in right standing with God. The apostle Paul did the same thing when he was a Pharisee. He boasted in his Jewish credentials (Phil. 3:4-6). But after God saved him, he counted all of that as loss. He wrote (Rom. 2:28-29), “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh. But he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that which is of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter; and his praise is not from men, but from God.” And (Gal. 3:7), “Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham.”
It’s a great blessing to be born to Christian parents and reared in the church, as I was. But that blessing increases your accountability to respond to the light that you’ve been given. Your religious upbringing will do you no good and will only increase your culpability on judgment day if you do not respond to the gospel with repentance for your sins and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
These Jews claimed that Abraham and God were their spiritual fathers (8:39, 41), but they were blind as to who their real spiritual father was, namely, the devil! In reply to their contention that Abraham was their father, Jesus said (8:39, 40), “If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham. But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do.” Then, in response to their claim that God was their Father, Jesus replies (8:42), “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come on My own initiative, but He sent Me.”
So they were claiming to be devoted followers of their religion, but at the same time they were trying to kill God’s unique Son, whom He sent to earth for their salvation. Their actions revealed their true nature, that they were children of the devil.
Jesus goes on (8:44) to explain that Satan is both a murderer from the beginning and the father of lies. He murdered the entire human race by lying to Eve about what God had said. As such, he is the author of all the murders and lies ever since that tragic incident in the Garden. Since these Jews were seeking to murder Jesus (8:37, 40) and since they were liars (8:55), they were reflecting their true nature as children of the devil. As they say, “He’s a chip off the old block.” Or, “Like father, like son.” But tragically, these Jews didn’t see how deceived they were. They thought that they were the righteous ones and that Jesus was the liar and deceiver.
Here’s the hard question that each of us needs to ask ourselves, so that we don’t end up being deceived: “Whose child do my actions reveal me to be?” There are far more tests than the two in verse 44, but take them: Do you have murderous intents for others? You say, “Whew, I’m off the hook on that one! I don’t want to kill anyone!” But not so fast! Jesus said (Matt. 5:21-22):
“You have heard that the ancients were told, ‘You shall not commit murder’ and ‘Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.”
Whoa! If you’re an angry person, you need to get radical in eliminating that sin from your life or at the very least, it indicates that the devil has gotten a foothold in your life (Eph. 4:26-27). At worst, it indicates that you may not be a true child of God. But in either case, anger is not a “minor fault.” It’s a major sin!
Or, take the other test in verse 44: Lying. Jesus says of Satan, “[He] does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” Are you committed to being a truthful person, or do you bend the truth when it’s to your advantage? Do you put on a “Christian” front so that you look good at church, but you actually live in violation of God’s Word at home or when you’re in private? Hypocrisy is lying. Being truthful is a mark of God’s true children, but lying is a mark of the devil’s children.
These Jews were seeking to kill Jesus because His Word had no place in them (8:37). Jesus tells them further (8:40), “But as it is, you are seeking to kill Me, a man who has told you the truth, which I heard from God; this Abraham did not do.” In 8:45, Jesus adds, “But because I speak the truth, you do not believe Me.” The truth threatened them because it exposed their sinful hearts. Rather than believing the truth and repenting of their sin, they were trying to eliminate the messenger.
Again, keep in mind that we’re not talking here about atheists or agnostics. We’re talking about outwardly religious people. In modern terms, they were active church members, some of whom served on the governing board. Some were even ministers. So you have to ask, “How do professing Christians today try to eliminate Christ and His Word from their lives?”
Some liberal “Christians” do it by undermining the authority and inerrancy of Scripture. It often starts by rejecting the early chapters of Genesis as history so that they can accommodate evolution. It moves on to eliminating the miracles in the Bible as mythical stories. Then they distance themselves from the parts of the Bible that don’t align with our modern “enlightened” understanding of things. For example, they argue that the biblical roles for men and women are culturally antiquated and not binding on us today. They argue that the Bible’s view of homosexuality is “homophobic.” The overarching virtue in the Bible is love and tolerance for everyone, so we can’t condemn as wrong any behavior or belief, no matter how unbiblical it may be.
But, it’s easy to throw stones at the liberals and ignore how we as evangelicals may be eliminating Christ and His Word from our lives because we don’t want to hear the truth about our sin. One way we do it is simply by neglecting the Word. We don’t read it and seek to obey it. We’re ignorant of what it says because we haven’t taken the time to read and meditate on it.
Another way that we eliminate or at least dilute Christ and His Word from our lives is by mixing it with worldly ideas, such as modern psychotherapy. The widespread self-esteem teaching flooded into the church, not because it was discovered in the Bible, but because it came in through worldly psychologists, such as Carl Rogers. It flies in the face of biblical teaching on humility and it serves to build our pride, which is the root of all sins.
Another way that we eliminate or dilute Christ’s Word so that we can do what we want, rather than what God commands, is by putting other “revelations” alongside the Word, which in effect supersede the Word. I’ve heard Christians say that God told them that it was okay for them to marry an unbeliever. A Christian man once told me that God had told him that he could divorce his wife. A charismatic pastor was separated from his wife, but the elders of his church had not asked him to step down. When I asked why they had not done this, one of the elders replied, “The Lord hasn’t told us to do that.” I persisted, “But the Lord has told you to do it. He told you in 1 Timothy 3.” But he kept saying, “No, the Lord hasn’t told us to do that.” So unbiblical “revelations” take precedence over God’s Word, allowing us to do what we want when it isn’t convenient or easy to do what God commands.
This is behind the Jews’ comment (8:41), “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father: God.” As I said, that either was a slur against Jesus so that they didn’t have to listen to Him, or it was a derogatory remark about Gentile idolatry. But either way, it diverted the issue from their need to confront their own sin by pointing at others and their supposed faults. Invariably, false believers do not let God’s Word confront their sins (John 3:19-21). True believers allow the light of God’s Word to expose their sins so that they can turn from them and grow in holiness.
This gets to the root of their problem. It comes up twice here. In 8:43, Jesus asks, “Why do you not understand what I am saying?” He answers His own question, “It is because you cannot hear My word.” He does not say, “You do not hear My word,” but rather, “You cannot hear My word.” The Greek word refers to inability. They lacked the spiritual ability to hear Jesus’ word, which primarily means, to obey it. Then, in 8:46 He asks, “Which of you convicts Me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe Me?” Then He again answers His own question (8:47), “He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.” In other words, they were not born of God.
The Bible is clear that because of sin, unbelievers cannot do anything pleasing toward God (Rom. 8:8). They are unable to understand the gospel or other spiritual truth (2 Cor. 4:4; 1 Cor. 2:14). And yet, God holds them responsible for their unbelief (Acts 2:23). If you say, “That’s not fair,” then you’re contending against the Sovereign of the universe! Be careful! Rather than rail against Him, cry out to Him for mercy! “Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Rom. 10:13). But when you get saved, remember (1 Cor. 1:30), “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus ….” The reason that false children of God follow Satan and his evil deeds is because they have not been born of God.
Briefly, here are four marks of true children of God:
This is the converse of what Jesus said about these false believers (8:37), “My word has no place in you.” The word translated “no place” can mean, “My word makes no progress in you.” Or, as we saw in 8:31, they did not continue in Jesus’ word, which is the mark of His true disciples. As I said last week, continuing or abiding in Jesus’ Word is the key to experiencing consistent victory over sin. True children of God can say with the psalmist (Ps. 119:11), “Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against You.”
Jesus says (8:47), “He who is of God hears the words of God; …” “Hears” does not mean just hearing the words audibly; the Pharisees did that. Rather, it means to hear so as to obey. In 8:39, Jesus says that if they were Abraham’s true children, they would do the deeds of Abraham. Abraham was noted both for believing God so that he was justified by faith (Gen. 15:6; Rom. 4:3); and obeying God, which demonstrated that his faith was genuine (Gen. 26:5; James 2:21-23). As John says (1 John 2:3), “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.” Is your life marked by obedience to God’s Word?
Jesus says (8:42), “If God were your Father, you would love Me ….” Jesus repeatedly asked Peter when He restored him after his denials (21:16), “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” Paul shows the importance of this (1 Cor. 16:22), “If anyone does not love the Lord, he is to be accursed.” Love is a commitment to seek the highest good of the one loved. Love for Christ is a commitment to seek His glory through all that I do. It certainly involves my feelings, in that I am most happy when I see my Lord most glorified. But the basis of biblical love isn’t feelings, but the commitment to seek His highest good. Have you made that commitment? Do you love Jesus enough to forsake your sin?
As we saw, at the heart of why false children of God are not able to understand or obey Jesus’ Word is that they are not of God. The flip side of this is (8:47), “He who is of God hears the words of God; …” Being “of God” means being “born of God” through the new birth. The reason that we now love Jesus and obey His Word is that we have a new nature. The Spirit of God dwells in us and opens up to us the treasures of God’s Word (1 Cor. 2:9-10). So it’s the reality of the new birth that distinguishes the true children of God from the false.
In 2 Corinthians 13:5, Paul writes, “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?” It’s possible to go too far and become overly introspective, so I don’t want anyone to do that. But it’s also possible to go glibly through life, assuming that you’re a true child of God because you go through the outward motions of Christianity, while your heart is far from God (Mark 7:6). It would be utterly tragic to hear the Lord say (Matt. 7:23), “I never knew you, depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.” Make sure that you’re a true child of God!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
March 30, 2013
Rudolf Virchow (1821-1902) was a German pathologist and politician (interesting combination!) who openly opposed the German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck. On one occasion, Bismarck was so enraged at Virchow that he challenged him to a duel. Virchow replied, “As the challenged party, I have the choice of weapons and I choose these.” He held up two large and apparently identical sausages. “One of these,” he continued, “is infected with deadly germs. The other is perfectly sound. Let His Excellency decide which one he wishes to eat, and I will eat the other.”
Almost immediately the message came back that the chancellor had decided to laugh off the duel. (The Little, Brown Book of Anecdotes, ed. by Clifton Fadiman [Little, Brown, & Co.], p. 565.) The moral of that story is that if you’re going to challenge someone, you had better know your opponent and know when to drop the challenge before you lose more than face.
In John 8, the Pharisees have been challenging Jesus ever since He proclaimed (8:12), “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” They contended that His testimony about Himself was not true (8:13). They sneeringly asked (8:19), “Where is Your Father?” After Jesus told them that they would die in their sins, they scoffed (8:25, giving the sense of the Greek), “Who do you think you are?”
After Jesus told them that the truth would make them free, they retorted that they were Abraham’s descendants and had never been enslaved to anyone (8:32-33). After Jesus countered by saying that their deeds showed that Abraham was not their father, they again sneered (8:41), “We were not born of fornication; we have one Father: God.” Jesus responded (8:44) by telling them that their real father was the devil, who is a murderer and liar. The reason that they could not hear God’s word through Jesus was that they were not of God (8:47).
Well, if you can’t win the argument, you can always attack your opponent. That’s what these Jewish leaders did (8:48), “Do we not rightly say that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” After Jesus replies to these insults with an explanation, a warning, and an invitation (8:49-51), they repeat the challenge with more conviction (8:52), “Now we know that You have a demon.”
They can’t believe that Jesus would claim to be greater than Abraham. They ask again (8:53), “Whom do You make Yourself out to be?” Jesus counters by claiming that He is far greater than Abraham, who rejoiced to see His day (8:56). Then He goes further and claims to be the eternal God (8:58): “Before Abraham was born, I am.” By this time, the Jews had heard enough. They picked up stones to kill Jesus. But, since Jesus’ hour had not come, He hid Himself and went out of the Temple. Their challenge to Jesus had failed. That’s an inviolable principle to always keep in mind: challenges to Jesus always fail!
If you challenge Jesus you will lose, but if you keep His word you have His sure promise of eternal life.
Jesus and His Word still challenge those who oppose Him. He also challenges His followers when they’re out of line. The crucial thing is how you respond when Jesus challenges you. Do you get defensive and hostile, as these Jews did? The result of that response was that Jesus left them to die in their sins (8:21, 24, 59). That’s a terrible place to be! But, Jesus says (8:51), “If anyone keeps My word he will never see death.” To state it another way, you will have eternal life. So let’s learn from these hard-hearted Jews not to challenge Jesus when He challenges us!
It’s a fight that you don’t want to pick! And yet, people still do it. It’s like getting in the ring with a world champion boxer. You’ll get knocked out!
These Jews resorted to name-calling and blasphemy when they said (8:48), “Do we not say rightly that You are a Samaritan and have a demon?” For a Jew to call someone a Samaritan was a degrading put-down. It was both a racial and a religious slur. The Jews despised the Samaritans, whom they considered half-breeds and heretics. They would often walk miles out of their way if they were traveling from Jerusalem to Galilee just to avoid contaminating their feet with Samaritan dust. Jesus chose not to respond to that charge, perhaps because He did not want to implicitly support their racism by insisting that He was not a Samaritan.
But He did respond calmly to their more blasphemous charge that He had a demon (8:49): “I do not have a demon; but I honor My Father, and you dishonor Me.” Dishonoring Jesus is a serious matter, because as He said (John 5:22-23), “For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.” To dishonor Jesus is to dishonor the eternal Sovereign of the universe! It is to dishonor the One before whom you will stand one day for eternal judgment! If you’re going to court on a charge for which you could be executed, it’s not wise to spit in the judge’s face! But that’s what the person who dishonors Jesus is doing!
Jesus replies with a warning and a gracious invitation. The warning is (8:50), “But I do not seek My glory; there is one who seeks and judges.” God the Father seeks Jesus’ glory and He will ultimately judge all who reject His Son. But then Jesus issues an invitation (8:51), “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he will never see death.” I’ll say more about that in a moment, but for now note the abundant grace of our Lord. Rather than striking dead on the spot these arrogant Jewish leaders, who should have recognized Jesus as their Messiah, Jesus promises eternal life to any of them who would keep His word. But they respond with more blasphemy (8:52-53),
“Now we know that You have a demon. Abraham died, and the prophets also; and You say, ‘If anyone keeps My word, he will never taste of death.’ Surely You are not greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets died too; whom do You make Yourself out to be?”
Then, after Jesus’ clear claim to be the eternal God (8:59), they picked up stones to kill Him. It never occurred to them that His claims might be true. Because they challenged Jesus rather than believed in Him, they would die in their sins.
Those who challenge Jesus in bold, blasphemous ways often die in their sins. There are exceptions, like the apostle Paul, so that there is hope for all. But the Lord had to deal with Paul in a pretty forceful way, knocking him to the ground and blinding him for a few days, to bring him to salvation. With King Herod Agrippa, who blasphemously allowed people to attribute divinity to him, God directed His angel to strike him so that he was eaten by worms and died (Acts 12:23). It’s safe to say that challenging the Lord of the universe is not a wise thing to do!
This is probably the most common response to Jesus and His claims: People just ignore Him and go on about their lives as if He didn’t exist and as if He had not died so that they could have eternal life. They would say that they don’t have anything against Jesus. He was probably a good man who helped a lot of people. But they have other more “important” things to tend to. Like those in Jesus’ parable who were invited to the feast, some beg off because they have just bought a piece of land and need to go look at it. Others just bought some new oxen (in our day, a new car) and need to go try them out. Another just married a wife and can’t come (Luke 14:17-20). But they all dishonored the host and missed out on his banquet.
So, any rejection of Jesus and His claims, whether a bold, blasphemous challenge or a quiet, polite excuse from those who ignore Him and move on with their own agendas, is a serious matter. Here’s why:
Jesus warns (8:50), God is the judge of all that dishonor His Son. Leon Morris comments (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 468), “Jesus’ hearers may act as though they are supreme and dispense justice. Actually they are men under judgment.” Ironically, although the Jews sought Jesus’ death and finally succeeded in killing Him, this brought His greatest glory. You cannot win if you oppose God. He uses even the wicked to accomplish His sovereign plan and then He judges them for what they did (Acts 4:27-28; cf. Habakkuk). Those who crucified Jesus only brought about God’s predestined purpose. Then they faced judgment for their horrible crime.
John 8:59 states, “Therefore they picked up stones to throw at Him, but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple.” We don’t know whether this was a miraculous hiding or whether Jesus simply blended in with the crowd. But I do know that it’s always tragic when Jesus hides Himself from you and leaves you to die in your sins. Jesus left the temple, where these Jews purported to worship God. This reminds us of Ezekiel’s vision, when the glory of the Lord left the temple (Ezek. 10:18, 11:22-23). The Jews had their religion, but they didn’t have God’s glory. To have religion without the Lord of glory is to have nothing. Whether you challenge Jesus boldly as a blasphemer or subtly by ignoring Him, the final result will be that He will leave you to die in your sins and face judgment. When you challenge Jesus, you lose!
But, even to these blasphemers, who should have known better, Jesus issues a gracious invitation. He still does that. It applies to you if you will respond:
Rather than face God in judgment (8:50), Jesus extends this gracious promise:
John 8:51: “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he will never see death.” “Truly, truly,” means, “Listen up! This is really, really important!” The one speaking is the eternal Word who became flesh. The promise extends to all (“anyone”). It would be a ludicrous promise on the lips of anyone other than the Lord God: “If anyone keeps My word he will never see death.”
In typical fashion, the Jews understand Jesus in earthly, physical terms, pointing out that both Abraham and all the prophets died (8:53): “Surely You are not greater than our father Abraham, who died? The prophets died too; whom do You make Yourself out to be?”
John again is using irony. His readers know that Jesus is far greater than Abraham, as He Himself will state in 8:58. If the Jews’ question about whom Jesus made Himself out to be had been asked sincerely from seeking hearts, it would have been valid. But as it is, it misses the point that both Jesus and John’s Gospel have been making. D. A. Carson puts it (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 356), “Jesus does not make himself or exalt himself to be anything. Far from it: he is the most obedient and dependent of men, uniquely submissive to his Father.”
But, what does Jesus’ promise mean?
If the Jews truly had been seeking to know if Jesus was who He claimed to be, they would have asked for clarification. Instead, they confirm their charge that He had a demon (8:52). Jesus here means the same thing that He said in 5:24, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.” He repeats the same truth to Martha in 11:25-26, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?”
Obviously, all people die physically. Jesus died; all the apostles died. In human history, the only men never to die were Enoch and Elijah. The believers who are living when Jesus returns will not die (1 Thess. 4:15-17). But other than that, all people, including believers, face physical death. But believers are kept from the second death, which is to spend eternity separated from God in the lake of fire (Rev. 20:14). Believing in Christ means that we will not come into judgment, but have passed out of death into eternal life.
What does that mean? Does it mean that if you ever disobey Jesus, you do not have eternal life and will face judgment for your sins? If so, there won’t be anyone in heaven, because we all sin (1 John 1:8)! Rather, Jesus means the same thing as He said in 8:31, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine.” He said that in response to the Jews who professed to believe in Him, but (as the subsequent dialogue shows) did not truly believe in Him. Jesus wasn’t describing the condition for becoming His disciples, but rather the result of genuinely believing in Him. Those who truly believe in Him abide in or keep His word. It doesn’t refer to perfection, but to direction. The new direction of a person who truly believes in Christ is to keep His word.
C. H. Spurgeon (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 36:566-568) developed several characteristics of the one who keeps Christ’s words. He has close dealing with Christ. He hears what Christ says and clings to it. He accepts Christ’s doctrine. Whatever Christ teaches is the truth. He trusts Christ’s promises, especially the promise that whoever believes in Him has eternal life. And, he obeys Christ’s precepts. Jesus promises that the one who does these things has eternal life.
But, how do we know that Jesus’ promise is true?
We’ve already seen that Jesus claimed that whoever keeps His word will not see death. There is no middle ground with a claim like that. Either Jesus is deluded and you should not trust Him, or He is God and you had better trust Him. Here are 5 more claims:
John 8:49-50: “Jesus answered, ‘I do not have a demon; but I honor My Father, and you dishonor Me. But I do not seek My glory; there is One who seeks and judges.’” Jesus is here identifying Himself closely with the Father so that He seeks the Father’s glory and the Father seeks Jesus’ glory. John Calvin (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 355) paraphrases Jesus’ statement here, “I claim nothing for myself which does not tend to the glory of God; for his majesty shines in me, his power and authority dwells in me; and therefore, when you treat me so disdainfully, you pour contempt on God himself.” You have to decide: Was Jesus deluded or lying, or was He uniquely one with the Father, so that they could promote each other’s glory?
John 8:54: “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.”’” Jesus is saying that if He were just promoting Himself, His claims would be invalid. But when the Father glorifies the Son, if we oppose the Son we oppose God Himself.
Although these Jewish leaders claim that God is their God, Jesus plainly tells them the truth (8:55): “And you have not come to know Him, but I know Him; and if I say that I do not know Him, I will be a liar like you, but I do know Him and keep His word.” Jesus calls them liars for claiming to know God. By way of contrast, Jesus claims both to know the Father and to keep His word. He could authoritatively tell them that they did not know God because He knew what was in every heart (2:25). And, as Jesus has just claimed in 8:46, He keeps God’s word perfectly. No one could convict Him of sin. Was He deluded or did He speak the truth?
John 8:56: “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” Jesus’ “day” refers to the time of His incarnation and the whole of His work (Morris, p. 471). It probably also refers to His coming day, when He will judge the world in righteousness (Acts 17:31). The Jews responded with incredulity (8:57): “You are not yet fifty years old, and You have seen Abraham?” They were not suggesting that Jesus looked like He was fifty. Rather, they were just picking a round number that obviously was older than Jesus (who was in His mid-thirties) and asking, “How can a man who isn’t even fifty claim to have seen a man who lived 2,000 years ago?” Notice, also, that Jesus did not claim to have seen Abraham (although He saw and talked with him; Gen. 18:13, 17, 20). Rather, He said that Abraham saw His day.
Scholars debate what that refers to. I think that it refers to all of the revelation that God granted to Abraham regarding the coming Messiah and His death on the cross. God promised to bless all nations through Abraham’s seed and that kings would come forth from Sarah’s womb (Gen. 12:1-3; 17:16-17). When Abraham met the mysterious Melchizedek, the priest of God Most High, who gave him bread and wine (Gen. 14:18), God could have revealed to Abraham something of the coming priest according to the order of Melchizedek (Heb. 7). On Mount Moriah, where God told Abraham to sacrifice the son of the promise, He provided the ram as a substitute (Gen. 22). God showed Abraham there how His own Son would be the sacrifice for sins, but also how He would be raised from the dead (Heb. 11:17-19).
Note in passing that if with Abraham you see Christ’s first day, when He came as the offering for sinners, and rejoice in it, you will rejoice to see His second day, when He comes in power and glory to judge the earth. But if you have not rejoiced in His first day, His second day will be a day of dread and gloom for you.
John 8:58: “Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.” Jesus did not merely say, “Before Abraham was born, I was.” That would point to His preexistence, but not to His eternity. But rather, He says that before Abraham was born, He was continuously in existence. He was claiming to be eternal. Also, the Jews instantly recognized “I am” as a reference to the name of God given to Moses at the burning bush (Exod. 3:14). Since the penalty for blasphemy was stoning, the Jews picked up stones to kill Jesus. But His hour had not come, so He left them.
The point is, Jesus’ claims are so radical that either He was a deluded crazy man, or He was who He claimed to be. And His claims are backed up by the many Scriptures that He fulfilled, by His sinless life, by His many miracles, and by His resurrection from the dead. Thus we can rely on His promise that whoever keeps His word will never see death.
You face the same choice these Jews faced: Either Jesus was a blasphemer or He is God. He could not have been just a good man. If you challenge Jesus by shrugging off His claims, you will lose big time. If you bow before Him as the Lord God and obey His word, you will see the day of His coming and be glad.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
April 6, 2014
I once heard comedian Bill Cosby tell how he was staying in the same hotel as the blind singer, Ray Charles. He decided to stop by Ray’s room and say hello. He knocked and then entered as Ray yelled, “Come in.” Cosby walked in the door and heard Ray shaving with an electric razor. There were no lights on and the room was pitch black. Without thinking, Cosby blurted out, “Hey, Ray! Why are you shaving in the dark?”
Then it hit him and Cosby thought, “Dumb! Dumb! Dumb!” Ray good-naturedly replied, “I do everything in the dark, brother!”
I heard that story decades ago and it has always stuck with me because I’m often like Bill Cosby on that occasion. I forget that unbelievers are spiritually blind and that they live every day in that dark world. And so I relate to them as if they can see.
As we’ve seen in our studies in this Gospel, John was fond of symbolism. He often uses the imagery of light and darkness. In 1:4-5, he refers to Jesus as “the Light of men” that “shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” In 3:19, he said, “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.” Then in 8:12, in connection with the Jewish ceremony of lighting bright torches at the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus boldly proclaimed, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”
Now, in 9:5, as Jesus and the disciples encounter this man who had been born blind, He proclaims, “While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.” (See, also, 12:35, 36, 46.) Then the Light of the world proceeds to give sight to this man who has lived in total darkness all his life. But by way of contrast, at the end of the chapter the proud Pharisees, who thought that they could see, are left in their spiritual blindness.
A. W. Pink (Exposition of the Gospel of John, on monergism.com) points out a number of contrasts between John 8 & 9. In John 8, we see Christ as the Light exposing the darkness; but in John 9 He imparts sight (both physically and later spiritually) to one in darkness. In John 8, the Light is despised and rejected; in John 9, He is believed in and worshiped. In John 8, the Jews stoop to pick up stones to kill the Light; in John 9, the Light stoops to make clay to bring light to the eyes of the blind man. In John 8, Jesus hides Himself from the Jews; in John 9, He reveals Himself to the blind beggar. In John 8:37, Jesus’ word has no place in the Jews; in John 9:7, the blind man responds obediently to Jesus’ word. In John 8, Jesus is called a demoniac; in John 9, He is worshiped as Lord. In John 9:1-12, the message is:
Since Jesus is the almighty Savior who can open blind eyes for God’s glory, we should labor to point people to Him.
We see four things here: the great need; the great Savior; the great purpose; and, the great urgency.
This blind man is a picture of the condition of everyone since the fall: everyone is born spiritually blind. This man lacked the ability to see Jesus physically, just as unbelievers lack the ability to see Jesus spiritually. The apostle Paul put it this way (2 Cor. 4:3-6):
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your bond-servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
Lost people don’t need just a little more information so that they can make an informed decision to get saved. Rather, they need the miracle of spiritual sight that only God can give.
The disciples viewed this man as an interesting theological case study (9:2): “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he would be born blind?” Since blind people usually have an acute sense of hearing, it was insensitive and cruel of the disciples to say this within earshot of this poor beggar. Behind their question was the common Jewish view that there was always a direct correlation between sin and suffering. That was the view of Job’s “comforters”: if Job was suffering, it must be because he had sinned. It’s true that all suffering in the world can be traced back to Adam and Eve’s original sin. And sometimes there is a direct correlation between sin and suffering (John 5:14; 1 John 5:16). But the Bible is clear that often even the righteous suffer apart from any specific wrong that they have done.
But the disciples bought into the popular view. Since this man had been born blind, either he or his parents must have sinned to result in this difficult trial. As to how they believed that the man could have sinned, there are a couple of possibilities. Based on the account of Jacob and Esau struggling in the womb, some rabbis taught that babies could sin in the womb. Also, many Jews bought into the ancient error that the soul preexists birth. Some even held to reincarnation, the view that we can come back in different lives (see Matt. 16:13-14). But Jesus replied that this man had not sinned as the direct cause of his blindness.
The Bible does teach that children can suffer on account of their parents’ sins (Exod. 34:7; Jer. 32:18). We see this principle all around us. Kids born to a drug-addicted or alcoholic mother, or to a mother with AIDS, suffer physical and mental impairment. Children whose parents are verbally, physically, or sexually abusive suffer terrible trauma. The examples are endless.
But in this case, Jesus said, this blind man was not suffering because of his own or his parents’ sins. But he was still very needy. He pictures all who are born in sin and spiritual darkness. We need to see all people who do not know Christ, even those who present an image of being successful and happy, as being spiritually blind and needy. For all such people, there is only one solution:
This blind beggar did not take the initiative to cry out to Jesus for healing (in contrast to Mark 10:47-48). Rather, Jesus saw Him, and although John does not say it, I’m sure that He saw him as He saw all hurting people, with compassion. Since He came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10), He reached out to this helpless man and granted him the gift of sight. Think of how this man must have felt: He began the day as he had begun every other day of his dark existence, making his way to a busy thoroughfare where he could beg for alms. We don’t know how the disciples knew that he had been born blind, but it’s likely that to garner sympathy the man cried out all day, “I was born blind; please help!” But he ended that day seeing for the first time in his life!
Why did Jesus heal the man in this unusual way, by spitting and making mud, applying it to the man’s eyes, and telling him to go wash in the Pool of Siloam? Why didn’t Jesus just speak the word, as He did with the man at the Pool of Bethesda or at Lazarus’ tomb? John doesn’t tell us, so we don’t know for sure. Some early church fathers speculated that the mention of clay made from the ground recalls Genesis 2:7, where God formed man out of the dust of the ground. Thus this miracle would illustrate John 1:3, that Jesus is the Creator (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], pp. 480-481). Other suggestions have been made.
It seems that John wants us to see some symbolic significance in the name of the pool, since he translates it for his Greek readers (9:7, “Sent”). As we’ve seen (e.g., 8:16, 18, 26, 29, 42), John puts a big emphasis on the fact that Jesus was sent by the Father. As we’ve also seen, at the Feast of Tabernacles the priest would get water from the Pool of Siloam and pour it out at the base of the altar in commemoration of God’s providing water from the rock when Israel was in the wilderness. That water also pictured the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the all-sufficiency of Christ (7:37-39). So this blind man had to wash in the Sent Pool to gain his sight. If the spiritually blind wash in the One sent by God, they will receive their sight.
The unique way that Jesus performed this miracle also teaches us that each person is an individual and therefore requires an individual approach with regard to how we deal with them spiritually (J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], 3:136-137). There’s nothing wrong with using means or methods in presenting the gospel. Jesus here used the clay and the pool as a means toward healing. But Jesus never used the same means or method twice. While it’s helpful to memorize a basic presentation of the gospel, be sensitive to tailor it to each person.
But there is another reason that Jesus performed this miracle in this manner. We read in 9:14, “Now it was a Sabbath on the day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes.” By doing this, Jesus deliberately violated several of the manmade additions to the Law of Moses that the Jews had invented (Morris, p. 480, note 17). Making clay was a breach of a prohibition of kneading on the Sabbath. Placing the clay on his eyes violated a regulation about prohibited anointings. Healing on the Sabbath was forbidden unless it was to save one’s life. So I think that Jesus made clay, anointed the man’s eyes, and instructed him to go and wash on the Sabbath deliberately to poke His finger in the eyes of the legalistic Pharisees. They cared more about keeping their rules than they did about this poor, blind beggar receiving his sight.
As we’ll see, they got into an argument about whether Jesus was sent from God or a sinner because He broke their Sabbath rules (9:16, 24)! They should have instantly recognized that opening the eyes of the blind was a Messianic activity.
In the Old Testament, there are no stories of sight being restored to the blind. But there are numerous verses that show that only the Lord can cause the blind to see and that the Messiah, who is the Lord, would do this. Psalm 146:8 proclaims, “The Lord opens the eyes of the blind.” Isaiah 29:18 states, “On that day the deaf will hear words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness the eyes of the blind will see.” In Isaiah 35:5, after saying that God will come to save His people, the prophet says, “Then the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped.”
When John the Baptist was languishing in prison, he began to wonder, “If Jesus is the Messiah, then why am I, His messenger, in this dungeon?” So he sent messengers to Jesus to ask (Matt. 11:3), “Are You the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?” Jesus answered (11:4-5), “Go and report to John what you hear and see: the blind receive sight and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them.” Jesus was referring to Isaiah 35, which He fulfilled.
Also, in Isaiah 42:6-7, God is speaking to His Servant (42:1), the Messiah: “And I will appoint you as a covenant to the people, as a light to the nations, to open blind eyes ….” It’s interesting that of all the recorded miracles that Jesus performed, giving sight to the blind has more than any other category. The Jewish leaders, who knew the Old Testament, should have concluded, “Jesus is the promised Messiah.”
But the point is, it takes a great Savior to open blind eyes physically. But the great physical miracle points to the greater spiritual miracle. He opens spiritually blind eyes through the gospel as God shines “in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). If you get an opportunity to share the gospel with someone, keep the focus on Jesus. People will try to divert the conversation to all sorts of peripheral issues, like evolution or why God allows suffering or whatever. While you may need to respond briefly to those issues, steer things back to who Jesus is. He is the mighty Savior who can open their blind eyes. And, as you’re sharing, pray that He will do that with the person you’re talking to.
So this story shows us the great need: the world is born into spiritual blindness. But we also see the great Savior who can open blind eyes.
In response to the disciples’ theological question, Jesus answers (9:3), “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Some have a problem with the view that God would allow this man to be born blind and suffer all these years just so that his healing would display the works of God. But I think that those people have too big a view of man and too little a view of God. If our suffering can bring glory to God and display His infinite worth to others, then it takes on ultimate meaning and significance. Paul put it like this (2 Cor. 4:17), “For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison.”
Jonathan Edwards argued that God created the world for His own glory (“The End for Which God Created the World,” The Works of Jonathan Edwards [Banner of Truth], 1:94-121; see John Piper, God’s Passion for His Glory [Crossway Books]). Since He is infinitely glorious, it would be wrong for Him not to seek His own glory. Also, as Edwards argues, there is no disparity between God’s seeking His own glory and at the same time seeking our ultimate happiness. As John Piper has pointed out, we glorify God the most when we are most satisfied in Him. God may be glorified in us through physical healing (as with this blind man) or through our experiencing the sufficiency of God’s grace through our suffering, as was the case with Paul’s thorn in the flesh (2 Cor. 12:7-10).
But the healing of the blind man pictures what happens whenever God saves a soul through the gospel of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 4:4-6). He gets the glory and we get the blessing. Our happiness in what He has done for us contributes to His glory. But my point is, the gospel isn’t mainly about how Jesus can give you a happy life for your own sake. It’s about how He can give you a happy life so that you can proclaim His excellencies as you tell others how He called you out of darkness and into His marvelous light (1 Pet. 2:9).
This blind man did that. He was obviously a changed man. In fact, some of his neighbors thought that he must be someone else who looked like the blind man (9:9). But he kept saying, “I am the one.” So then they wanted to know how it happened. He didn’t know much at this point. He refers to Jesus as “the man who is called Jesus.” Remember, he still hasn’t even seen Jesus and he doesn’t know where He’s at. He will argue with the Pharisees that Jesus is a prophet (9:17). Later, when he sees Jesus, he will believe in Him and worship Him as Lord (9:38). But his obviously changed life and his simple witness brought glory to God (9:24). So should our changed lives and our verbal witness. That leads to the last point:
The best manuscripts of John 9:4 read, “We [not I] must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work.” Jesus includes the disciples among those who must work God’s works. That includes all of us who have put our trust in Christ. This is the harvest mindset that we saw Jesus emphasizing with the disciples back in chapter 4, when He was talking with the woman at the well. Their focus was on getting Jesus to eat His lunch so that they could get on the road. His focus was on doing the Father’s will and accomplishing His work (4:34). And that should be the focus of all who follow Him.
Note the little word “must” in 9:4. It’s a word of divine necessity. We saw it back in 4:4, where it says, “And He had to pass through Samaria.” “Had” is the same word in Greek: It was necessary for Him to go through Samaria so that He could give living water to the immoral woman and to her entire village. Here, although the Pharisees were threatening to kill Jesus and His death was just months ahead, He must work the works of the Father who sent Him.
Do you sense that necessity in your life? It’s not just that the Lord would like to use you to accomplish His works if you’ve got some spare time and don’t have anything better to do. Serving the Lord is not only for the super-dedicated. It’s a necessity for all who have been bought with the blood of the Lamb. If you belong to Jesus, you’re a member of His body and every part has a necessary function for the proper working of the whole body. And if you think, “Well, I’m not a very important part,” remember the parable of the talents. It was the guy who was given just one talent who buried it and didn’t use it for his master’s purposes. The master had some rather frightening things to say to him (Matt. 25:26-30)!
But note, also, the urgency of doing the Lord’s work: Jesus says (9:4), “Night is coming when no one can work.” He was referring to death. His “night” was coming soon, when He would be betrayed into the hands of sinners (13:30). But night is coming soon for all of us. None of us are guaranteed of even another day. But even if we live a long life, it goes by all too quickly. As James 4:14 says, “You do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away.” Paul says (Eph. 5:15-16), “Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil.” “Making the most of your time” could be translated, “Buying up the opportunities.”
My parents had a familiar plaque on the wall when I was growing up: “Only one life, ’twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last.” Are you looking for and taking advantage of the opportunities that the Lord gives you to point people to Jesus and to help them grow in Him?
When he was twelve, Robert Louis Stevenson was looking out into the dark from his upstairs window, watching a man light the street lanterns. His governess came into the room and asked what he was doing. He replied, “I am watching a man cut holes in the darkness.”
That’s our task in this dark world. Point blind people to the Light of the world who can open their eyes for God’s glory. Tell them what Jesus has done for you. He can use you to do His works before night comes, when no one can work.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
April 13, 2014
Every college philosophy major has to take epistemology, which deals with the questions, “How do you know what you know? How can we be sure about what we think we know?”
One day one of my philosophy professors pontificated, “We all know, of course, that Jesus never claimed to be God.” By adding that little phrase, “of course,” she was insinuating, “Anyone with half a brain would know that what I am saying is true.” Or, perhaps you’ve heard a professor state, “We know, of course, that evolution is a fact.”
When anyone authoritatively states, “We know,” the obvious question is, “How do you know?” Often, when you examine the evidence, you discover that there are knowledgeable people on both sides of the issue. So the obvious question remains, “How do you know what you think you know?”
When it comes to spiritual truth, the common view today is that there is no such thing as absolute truth in the spiritual realm, and so any spiritual views that you hold are just a matter of your subjective opinion or personal experience. But there isn’t universal, absolute spiritual truth. If you claim that you know the truth and that all other views are wrong, you’ll be labeled as a narrow-minded bigot. Tolerance and open-mindedness, especially on spiritual matters, are the prevailing values of our day.
In the story of Jesus’ healing the man born blind, there are a number of comments about what the various characters claimed to know or not know. When the Pharisees called in the man’s parents to try to discredit the account of his healing, they answer (9:20-21a), “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but how he now sees, we do not know; or who opened his eyes, we do not know.” John explains (9:22) that their evasive answer stemmed from their fear of the Jewish leaders, who had threatened to excommunicate anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Christ.
In 9:24, the Jewish leaders state, “We know that this man is a sinner.” The healed blind man dodges that issue for the moment and replies (9:25), “Whether He is a sinner, I do not know; one thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” In 9:29, the leaders come back with, “We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where He is from.” The former blind man retorts (9:31), “We know that God does not hear sinners….” He concludes (9:33), “If this man were not from God, He could do nothing.” At this point, the exasperated leaders have heard enough. They throw the man out of the temple.
But the dialogue raises the question, “How do you know what you know, especially in the spiritual realm?” We learn that…
True spiritual knowledge is founded on Jesus Christ opening our eyes, but sin hinders us from true spiritual knowledge.
When it comes to knowing God, there is only one sure basis, namely, His choosing to reveal Himself to us. Anything else is just speculation. For example, we could sit around and speculate on whether men from Mars have blue eyes. But we wouldn’t have any basis for knowing. We’re just stating our subjective opinions. But if a man from Mars came to earth and revealed himself to us, then we could say with some certainty, “I met a man from Mars and he had blue eyes.”
Jesus claimed (Luke 10:22), “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” In John’s Gospel, Jesus repeatedly claims to have been sent by God the Father to reveal the Father to us. In 1:18, John stated, “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” In 14:9, Jesus tells Philip, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” God’s revelation of Himself to us centers in the person of Jesus Christ, which we have in the written eyewitness testimony of the apostles. So true spiritual knowledge of God is founded on knowing Jesus Christ, whom the Father sent to reveal Himself to us. Anything else is mere speculation.
But sin hinders us from true spiritual knowledge. This is illustrated in this story both by the former blind man’s parents and by the Pharisees:
We sometimes hear, “If I could just see a miracle, I’d believe in Jesus!” But these Pharisees saw all sorts of miracles and yet hardened their hearts against Jesus. The blind man’s parents had just seen their prayers answered, in that their blind son had been miraculously healed. And yet they were afraid openly to confess Jesus as Lord. The Pharisees and the blind man’s parents reveal four factors, which are either sinful in themselves or they stem from sin, that keep unbelievers from true spiritual knowledge. These factors also can hinder growing in spiritual knowledge among us who do believe in Jesus.
In the context, “they” (9:13) seems to refer to the man’s neighbors. We’re not told why they brought him to the Pharisees, but here’s my guess: In that culture, the religious leaders exercised control over the people through intimidation. We read (9:22), “For the Jews [the religious leaders] had already agreed that if anyone confessed Him to be the Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.” In a culture of fear, people keep their distance from anything that would get them in trouble with the authorities. That’s how Communist regimes operate. If you know that your neighbor is criticizing the government and you don’t report him, the authorities will come after you. If you do report him, you’ll get extra credit for supporting the state. So the neighbors hear that Jesus, whom the religious leaders were trying to get rid of, has healed this beggar. They think, “We need to take him to the Pharisees so that we don’t get into trouble!”
The Pharisees ask him how he received his sight and he tells them how Jesus applied clay to his eyes, he washed, and he now sees (9:15). This sparks a debate among the Pharisees (which we’ll look at more in a moment), but in frustration they turn again to the blind man and ask for his opinion about this Sabbath-breaker, Jesus, hoping that he may have changed his mind or his story. But he ups the ante by replying (9:17), “He is a prophet.”
At this point, they wonder if this is a hoax. So they call the man’s parents and ask (9:19), “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? Then how does he now see?” They reply (9:20-21), “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but how he now sees, we do not know; or who opened his eyes, we do not know. Ask him; he is of age, he will speak for himself.” Their answer was not truthful. It’s inconceivable that their son had not told them what he had told the neighbors, namely, that Jesus had healed him and how He had healed him. But John explains (9:22) that they replied as they did because they feared the Jews, who had threatened to put out of the synagogue anyone who confessed Jesus as the Christ.
There were different levels of excommunication, and we can’t be sure which level is indicated here (see Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah [Eerdmans], 2:183-184). But being excommunicated at any level was a serious penalty in that tight-knit, religious community. Eventually it would have meant being cut off socially from your neighbors, who would also be kicked out of the synagogue if they associated with you or helped you in any way. You couldn’t buy or sell, because if your neighbors engaged in business with you, they would get into trouble. You couldn’t escape by moving to the next town, because the rabbis there would enforce the Sanhedrin’s ban. For a poor family, being excommunicated would result in social and financial devastation.
So while we can understand the intense pressure on the man’s parents, it’s too bad that they feared these spiritual bullies more than they feared God. They could have let the facts speak for themselves by saying, “Jesus opened the eyes of our son, who has been blind from birth.” But instead, they dodged the issue.
It’s a problem that has plagued many down to our day: People fear what others will think more than they fear what God thinks. Perhaps a family member has met Jesus and is obviously changed. But it embarrasses or threatens the other members of the family. They’d rather not talk about it. Or, if it comes up and Jesus is named as the cause of their loved one’s change, they downplay it by saying, “Yes, that seems to work for him!” Then they change the subject. They’ve received a powerful testimony of the power of Christ, but as long as they fear what others think, they will not experience Christ’s power in their own lives. The fear of men hinders true spiritual knowledge.
Here we move from the parents to the religious leaders, whom John calls “the Jews.” John almost offhandedly mentions the crux of the problem (9:14), “Now it was a Sabbath on the day when Jesus made the clay and opened his eyes.” As I mentioned last time, this violated at least three rabbinic Sabbath regulations: (1) You could not knead on the Sabbath, but Jesus kneaded the saliva and dirt into clay; (2) there were rules against anointing on the Sabbath; (3) you could not heal on the Sabbath, unless it was to save a life. These rules were not in the Law of Moses, but had been added by the religious leaders.
Their wrong presupposition was: “Our rules are equal to God’s law.” The minor premise was, “Jesus violated our rules.” Their conclusion was, “Thus Jesus violated God’s law, and He is a sinner.” But their presupposition was faulty.
Some of the Pharisees disagreed with this reasoning, so a debate ensued among them (9:16). This may have been Nicodemus or Joseph of Arimathea, both of whom were on the Council, but later took bold action to provide for Jesus’ burial. Earlier (3:2) Nicodemus had admitted to Jesus, “No one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.” So, here they register disagreement by asking (9:16), “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” But their view did not prevail.
It’s easy to confuse religious traditions or rules with biblical mandates to the point where you assume that your traditions or rules are equal with Scripture. But you can end up denying a miracle, even if he’s standing right in front of you! Back in the hippie era, when most people dressed up in their nicest clothes to go to church, many older church members could not accept that a bearded, long-haired guy in tattered jeans, a T-shirt, and bare feet had really been converted. Why doesn’t he look like us and dress like us? But they never stopped to question what the Bible says about how a Christian should look and dress. Wrong presuppositions based on religious rules hinder true spiritual knowledge.
The Pharisees had the evidence of the neighbors, the parents, and the man himself that he had been born blind and that Jesus had healed him on the Sabbath. But they still wanted more evidence, or more truthfully, they wanted evidence that would refute the evidence that they had been given, which they didn’t like. So, they called the man a second time and said (9:24), “Give glory to God; we know that this man is a sinner.”
What they’re saying is, “Come on, your story must be wrong! Tell us the truth! We know for a fact that this man is a sinner!” (See Josh. 7:19 for the expression, “Give glory to God,” meaning, “Tell the truth.”) But John wants us to see that the man really is glorifying God by testifying to the truth about Jesus. He won’t change his story. So, they ask him again (9:26), “What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?” They aren’t looking for more evidence so that they can believe. Rather, they’re trying to find something to discredit the evidence that they have.
Now the man reveals both his sense of humor and his fortitude to stand up to these feared religious leaders. He says (9:27), “I told you already and you did not listen; why do you want to hear it again? You do not want to become His disciples too, do you?” They revile him and take their stand as disciples of Moses. They state what they know (9:29): “We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where He is from.” Back in 7:27, they had written off Jesus by claiming that they did know where He was from, namely, from Nazareth. But here they’re discrediting Jesus as a religious upstart from who-knows-where. I love the former blind man’s reply (9:31-33):
“We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He hears him. Since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, He could do nothing.”
At this point, the Pharisees are so beside themselves that they put the man down and then put him out (9:34). They weren’t genuinely seeking evidence to clear up their doubts. Rather, they were just looking for ways to discredit the evidence that they already had been given. They would not come to know the truth. Always seeking more evidence while discrediting the evidence you already have hinders true spiritual knowledge.
The Pharisees put down this man’s testimony (9:34), “You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?” They held to the view that the disciples reflected (9:2), that either the man or his parents must have sinned for him to be born blind. But they prided themselves on their spiritual knowledge because they thought that they knew the Scriptures. So how could this former blind beggar, who was probably illiterate, teach them anything? Again, John is using irony: He couldn’t teach them anything and neither could Jesus, because of their spiritual pride.
In 9:40, these Pharisees challenge Jesus by asking, “We are not blind, too, are we?” Jesus replies (9:41), “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” He means, “If you would admit your spiritual blindness, I would forgive and heal you. But because you arrogantly insist that you can see, you remain in your sins.” Spiritual pride is one of the main reasons people do not come to Christ. They think that their good works will commend them to God, so they don’t see their need for the Savior. But the starting point for true spiritual knowledge is to admit that you’re a sinner and need Jesus to save you.
So, the fear of men, wrong presuppositions based on religious tradition, always seeking more evidence while discrediting the evidence you already have, and spiritual pride, will hinder true spiritual knowledge.
Unlike his parents and the Pharisees, who both begin by claiming certain knowledge, the man begins by admitting that there is much that he doesn’t know. He didn’t know where Jesus was when his neighbors asked him (9:12). He didn’t know much about Jesus at the point of his healing, although he soon came to surmise that He was a prophet. He didn’t know enough to comment on the theological debate about whether Jesus was a sinner or not because He had broken the Sabbath (9:25). But there was one thing he knew for certain, and it was a glorious fact (9:25): “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.”
In this, the man is a type of everyone who truly knows Jesus. A new believer doesn’t know much. He probably can’t state the biblical doctrine of the trinity. He won’t understand how God’s sovereignty and human responsibility tie together. He may not be able clearly to articulate the two natures of Christ. There are many theological controversies that he is clueless about. But one thing he knows truly: I was blind, but now I see!
To put it another way, when God causes you to be born again, He changes your heart and you know it. He changes your desires. Formerly, the Bible was both confusing and boring if you ever tried to read it. But now, it’s food for your soul. You long for it like a newborn baby longs for his mother’s milk (1 Pet. 2:2). Before, you shrugged off sin as no big deal. Many sins you didn’t even recognize as sin. “Everybody does that! Every guy looks at porn sometimes! Everyone loses his temper! Everyone uses swear words at times! Everyone cheats on his taxes!” Etc.
But after God opens your eyes and you begin to feed on the Word, the Holy Spirit begins to convict you of things that you formerly did without a twinge of conscience: “The way you just spoke to your wife was not loving. The way you looked at that woman was lustful. The way you covered your tracks was not truthful.” So you begin to call sin what it is and to walk in daily repentance. You begin to want to know Christ more deeply. The foundation for this new desire for spiritual knowledge is that Christ opened your eyes to your own sin, to God’s absolute holiness, and to the provision that Christ made for you at the cross.
The man begins by only knowing Jesus as “the man who is called Jesus” (9:11). He progresses to calling Him a prophet (9:17). Later he acknowledges Him as one worthy of being followed (“disciples,” 9:27-28). He moves on to argue that Jesus had to come from God (9:33). And finally, when he sees Jesus for the first time, he believes in Him and worships Him as Lord (9:38).
The Bible pictures the Christian life as a growth process from birth (John 3:3) to infancy (1 Cor. 3:3; 1 Pet. 2:2), childhood, young adulthood, to spiritual fatherhood (1 John 2:12-14). But time alone does not insure spiritual growth. We have to be actively engaged in the process. Daily we need a healthy diet of spiritual food from the Word. We need to talk with our Heavenly Father and take all our cares to Him in prayer (1 Pet. 5:7). We need to spend time with our brothers and sisters in the family of God, helping each other to grow. We need to be judging and turning from the sins that hinder spiritual growth.
When it comes to true spiritual knowledge, we still need to be careful. As Paul warned (1 Cor. 8:1, my translation), “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” Or (1 Tim. 1:5), “The goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.”
Billy Graham told the story of an English actor who was honored with a banquet. In the course of the evening, he was asked to give a reading, and he chose Psalm 23. He read it in a moving way that brought out the beauty of the Psalm. His friends applauded. Later in the evening, an aged pastor was asked to speak. He too quoted Psalm 23. His voice rang with assurance and was vibrant with love. When he concluded, there was no applause, but there were not many dry eyes in the room. The actor stepped over to the pastor, grasped his hand, and said, “Sir, I know the Psalm—but you know the Shepherd!”
So what do you know? I hope that you know the Shepherd and that He has opened your eyes to the truth of who He is. I also hope that you want to know Him more. Let’s press on to know our risen Savior (Phil. 3:8-14)!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
May 4, 2014
We’ve all heard “good news, bad news” jokes. Here are a couple aimed at me as a pastor (from cybersalt.org):
Good News: The Women’s Guild voted to send you a get-well card.
Bad News: The vote passed 31-30.
Good News: Church attendance rose dramatically the last three weeks.
Bad News: You were on vacation.
Our text gives us good news and bad news, but it’s not a joke. It’s deadly serious! The best possible news is: Jesus! The worst possible news is: Jesus! For many, Jesus is good news because He opens their blind eyes and gives them eternal life. For many others, Jesus is bad news because they reject His gift of sight and they will face eternal judgment (see 1 Pet. 2:6-8 for the same truth).
In other words, Jesus always divides people into one of two camps: Those who believe in Him for salvation receive eternal life; those who reject Him are hardened in unbelief and face eventual eternal punishment (Matt. 25:46). There is no third category. So, be very careful how you respond to Jesus!
We come to the conclusion of the story of Jesus healing the man who was born blind. As we’ve seen, this miracle, which Jesus performed on the Sabbath, caused a division among the Pharisees: Some said (9:16), “This man is not from God, because He does not keep the Sabbath.” But others argued, “How can a man who is a sinner perform such signs?” The prevailing group were those that contended that Jesus was not from God, who in a few months succeeded in crucifying Him. They couldn’t refute the reasoning of the blind man, so they threw him out of the temple (9:34). Our text picks up the story when Jesus found the rejected man and asked him a crucial question, bringing him to solid faith. The story concludes by contrasting the blind man’s faith with the hard hearts of the unbelieving Pharisees. The lesson is:
Jesus came to give sight to the spiritually blind, but also to bring those who think they see without Him to judgment.
To quote Jesus (9:39), “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.” Our text falls into two sections: (1) The blind see (9:35-38); (2) The seeing are blind (9:39-41).
Jesus heard that the Jewish leaders had kicked this man out of the temple, which was a serious matter in that society. His neighbors would have shunned him out of fear of having the religious police target them. Although now the man was physically able to work for the first time in his life, no one would hire a man who had been excommunicated by the religious authorities. Probably many in the marketplace would also refuse to do business with such an outcast. But it was at this time, perhaps as he was standing in bewilderment outside the temple precincts, that Jesus found him and asked him the most important question in the world (9:35), “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” (The KJV and NJKV read, “Son of God”; but “Son of Man” is almost certainly the original text.) These verses contain five important lessons:
“Finding him” (9:35) implies that Jesus was looking for him. Jesus said (Luke 19:10), “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” The religious crowd had rejected this poor man. He was an outcast from society. But at that very moment, Jesus went looking for him and brought him to solid faith by asking, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” The former blind man asked (9:36), “Who is He, Sir, that I may believe in Him?” (The same Greek word may be translated either “sir” or “Lord,” depending on the context. In 9:36, the blind man does not yet know Jesus as Lord, so it should be translated, “sir.” In 9:38, he recognizes Jesus as the Lord who opened his eyes, so there it should be translated, “Lord.”). Jesus’ reply must have thrilled his soul (9:37): “You have both seen Him, and He is the one who is talking with you.” The man had not yet seen very many people, but now he saw Jesus and he recognized his voice as that of the man who had healed him. And so he instantly believed in Jesus.
The Bible repeatedly stresses that if you believe in Jesus, it’s not because you came up with the idea first and went looking for Him. Rather, God chose you in Him before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4). He sought you when you were dead in your trespasses and sins and granted saving faith to you as His gracious gift (Eph. 2:1-9). Thus our salvation is “to the praise of the glory of His grace” (Eph. 1:6). If you chose Him by your own free will, then you can share the glory for your salvation. But if He chose you apart from anything meritorious in you, then He gets all the glory (see 1 Cor. 1:26-31).
Opening blind eyes is a God-thing (Ps. 146:8). As the former blind man pointed out to the Pharisees (John 9:32-33), “Since the beginning of time it has never been heard that anyone opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, He could do nothing.” As Jesus’ dialogue with the Pharisees at the end of this chapter shows, this miracle was also a parable about salvation. Just as opening the eyes of one born blind is something that only God can do, so saving a soul is something that only God can do. It takes His mighty power to impart new life to those who are spiritually dead in their sins.
While (as we’ll see in a moment) to be saved, sinners must believe in Jesus, they cannot believe simply by exercising their own will power. As John 1:12-13 states, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”
Or, to use the blindness and light metaphor (2 Cor. 4:4, 6), Satan “has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” Then, how can we gain spiritual sight? Paul continues, “For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” Just as God’s power spoke light into existence, so His power opens blind eyes when He saves a soul.
Of course, the man who was born blind had no problem admitting that he could not see. That was obvious. But the proud Pharisees thought that they were the only ones in Israel with spiritual sight. They imply this when they railed against the former blind man (9:34), “You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?” And they imply it in their sarcastic question to Jesus (9:40), “We are not blind too, are we?” But Jesus replied (9:41), “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” In other words, if they would have admitted their blindness, Jesus would have healed them by forgiving their sins. But since they insisted that they could see, they remained in their sins.
One of the main things that keeps people from gaining spiritual sight is that they refuse to admit that they’re blind. They think that they’re good enough to qualify for heaven. They may admit that they need a little boost from God. But they minimize their sins. They won’t admit that they’re totally blind and that they don’t just need bifocals; they need sight! As the old hymn, “Rock of Ages,” put it:
Not the labors of my hands can fulfill Thy law’s demands;
Could my zeal no respite know, could my tears forever flow,
All for sin could not atone; Thou must save and Thou alone.
So, to move from spiritual blindness to sight, admit that you’re blind.
Jesus’ question to this formerly blind man is the most important question you can ever answer: “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” You must answer that question, either now or at the judgment, when it will be too late. Your eternal destiny hinges on answering that question rightly: “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” To answer it rightly, answer these three questions:
The former blind man asked Jesus (9:36), “Who is He, Sir, that I may believe in Him?” That question parallels Jesus’ question to the twelve (Matt. 16:15), “Who do you say that I am?” It’s the most important question in all of life to answer correctly. Faith is only as good as its object. If you believe in a false Jesus, you cannot be saved, any more than if you believed in an idol. So this question is crucial so that you believe in Jesus for who He is.
The title “Son of Man” is used over 80 times in the Gospels, including 12 times in the Gospel of John, plus four other times in the New Testament (The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible [Zondervan], ed. by Merrill Tenney, 4:203, 5:485-486). It almost always occurs on the lips of Jesus referring to Himself. It was not an accepted or widely used messianic designation in Jesus’ day. He may have used it because it avoided the political overtones that “Messiah” carried at that time. It was a way of alluding to and yet veiling His messiahship. It shows Him to be the representative man, the last Adam, and thus has nuances of humanity in it.
But it also has overtones of deity, stemming from Daniel 7:13-14, where the Son of Man receives an everlasting kingdom where all people serve Him. At Jesus’ trial, the high priest commanded (Matt. 26:63), “I adjure You by the living God, that You tell us whether You are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus replied, alluding to Daniel 7 (26:64), “You have said it yourself; nevertheless I tell you, hereafter you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.” In John’s Gospel, the term is always associated either with Christ’s heavenly glory or with the salvation He came to bring.
D. A. Carson (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 376) argues that in light of John’s usage of the term, “Jesus is inviting the man to put his trust in the one who is the revelation of God to man…. Jesus himself is the Word incarnate, the one who uniquely reveals God.” Carson also points out that the term in John is connected with Jesus’ role as judge (5:27), which relates to John 9:39-41.
So the correct answer to “Who is the Son of Man?” is, “He is the eternal Word who took on human flesh and offered Himself as the sacrifice for our sins (John 1:14, 18; 3:13; 12:23, 32, 34). He is risen from the dead and one day He will judge all the living and the dead (5:27). He is the one in whom we must believe.
In a nutshell, it means to trust Jesus to do what He promised to do. He told the woman at the well that if she asked, He would give her living water (4:10). She asked and He gave! He told the royal official whose son was sick (4:50), “Go, your son lives.” He believed Jesus and left for home and found his son healed. Here, He told the blind man to go to the Pool of Siloam and wash. He went and washed and came away seeing. Jesus promises to give eternal life to whoever believes in Him (3:16). To believe in Him means that you stop believing in your own good works as the way to heaven (as the Pharisees did). To believe in Him means to admit that you’re a sinner and to trust that His death on the cross will atone for all of your sins. Trust Him as you would trust a doctor by taking the prescribed medicine. But there’s a third question that you need to answer to move from spiritual blindness to sight:
This blind man had obeyed Jesus implicitly by going to the pool and washing. He miraculously experienced having his eyes opened. He had borne witness before the hostile Sanhedrin to the point that they kicked him out of the temple. But he still needed to answer this question: “Do you believe in the Son of Man?”
So, don’t take the question for granted! You may think, “I grew up in the church. I’ve always believed in Jesus.” But, do you trust in Him personally as your only hope for heaven? Perhaps you have always tried to obey the Bible’s teaching and lead a moral life. Great, but do you believe in Jesus as your Savior from your sin? Maybe you’ve even preached the gospel to others. Charles Spurgeon (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 36:232) tells of a preacher he knew who got saved while preaching his own sermon! Finally, a saved person in the congregation recognized the change that had come about during the sermon and he cried, “The parson’s converted. Hallelujah!” Everyone broke out in cries of praise and they all joined in singing the doxology! So each of us needs to answer the question, “Do I believe in Jesus?”
But, how can you know if your belief is genuine? After all, we’ve seen several instances in John where people professed faith in Jesus, but it wasn’t genuine saving faith. There are other signs of new life in Christ, but this former blind man reveals these:
He was blind, but now he saw (9:25). He testified of Jesus as Lord as best as he knew how to these intimidating Jewish leaders. As I mentioned, the Greek word in 9:38 should be translated, “Lord, I believe.” He confessed Jesus as Lord. And, he bowed before Him in worship. At this point, he may not have fully understood that Jesus was God manifest in the flesh. But he was giving Jesus far more honor than one would give to an ordinary man or even to a prophet (John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 389). Carson (p. 377) says that while it is not clear that he was yet addressing Jesus as “my Lord and my God,” as Thomas did after the resurrection, it is likely that he was “offering obeisance to Jesus as the redeemer from God, the revealer of God.”
Can you say, “One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see”? Do you openly confess Jesus as your Lord? Do you bow before Him in worship, not just outwardly, but in spirit and in truth (4:24), and not just on Sundays, but all through the week? Those are some of the marks of genuine saving faith.
But, sadly, the story does not end there, with the blind man seeing. It goes on to warn us by showing that there are some who think they see, but they’re really blind:
While the blind man illustrates those who progress in faith to the point of worship, the Pharisees show us that some regress irretrievably in unbelief to the point of judgment. Jesus has already warned them (8:21, 24) that unless they believed in Him, they would die in their sins. Now, He says (9:39), “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.” When they sarcastically retort, “We are not blind too, are we?” Jesus answers (9:41), “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” Briefly, note three things:
As we’ve seen, the way to see is to admit that you’re blind. Jesus is in the business of opening blind eyes. But if you assert that you see quite well without Jesus, then He will leave you in your blindness. In other words, pride keeps you from grace. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble (1 Pet. 5:5).
Verse 41 is a gracious offer of salvation: “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but since you say, ‘We see,’ your sin remains.” Jesus is saying, “If you would admit your blindness, I would heal you and you would not come into judgment. But your stubborn rejection of Me keeps you in your sins.” Rejecting the light that God graciously gives leads to further hardening and judgment.
There is a scary principle in the Bible: If you reject the light that God graciously gives you, He will confirm your rejection and leave you in your blindness. In Matthew 13, the disciples ask Jesus why He spoke to the people in parables. He responds (13:14-15) by citing the prophecy of Isaiah 6:9:
“In their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says,
‘You will keep on hearing, but will not understand;
You will keep on seeing, but will not perceive;
For the heart of this people has become dull,
With their ears they scarcely hear,
And they have closed their eyes,
Otherwise they would see with their eyes,
Hear with their ears,
And understand with their heart and return,
And I would heal them.’”
This means that the way you respond to the question, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” has huge consequences! If you shrug your shoulders and say, “I don’t know,” or “I don’t care,” or “I’ll think about it later,” you’re closing your eyes to the light that God is offering you. He is not obligated to give you any more light. If you keep on rejecting His gracious offer of salvation, you may keep on hearing without understanding and keep on seeing without perceiving. Your heart may grow dull and you may die in your sins, only to face eternal judgment.
Maybe you’re wondering, “How can Jesus say here, ‘For judgment I came into this world,’ when John 3:17 states, “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world would be saved through Him”? If you keep reading John 3:18-21, the concept of judgment is implicit in Jesus’ coming, although it wasn’t His primary purpose for coming. John 3:18-19 states, “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.”
The purpose of the sun is to give light, but light by its very nature casts shadows. Jesus’ coming as the Light of the world means that the shadow of judgment is necessarily cast on those who reject Him. So by His very nature Jesus divides all people into two camps. Some allow the light to expose their sin and ask Jesus to cleanse them and give them sight. Others hate the light because they love their sin. They reject Jesus and come under His judgment.
So Jesus is either good news or bad news for you, and I assure you, He is no joke! Your eternal destiny hinges on your response to Jesus’ question, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” Join the former blind man by responding, “Lord, I believe.” And fall at His feet in worship!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
May 11, 2014
When I was in seminary, my professors in preaching classes all strongly emphasized the need to be clear when you preach. One professor often repeated, “A mist in the pulpit is a fog in the pew.” In other words, if you’re slightly fuzzy in your preaching, your congregation will be completely lost in the fog.
While I agree with that and I work hard to be clear, I sometimes wonder what kind of grade in preaching class the greatest preacher who has ever lived would have received. And I wonder whether He would be well-received as a preacher in modern evangelical churches. The reason I say that is that Jesus often left His audience—including His inner circle of followers—confused about what He was saying. It’s not that Jesus was unclear, of course. He knew the truth of God as no one else has ever known it. But often He deliberately spoke in cryptic language, leaving His hearers scratching their heads about what He meant. That was the case in our text, as verse 6 shows: “This figure of speech Jesus spoke to them, but they did not understand what those things were which He had been saying to them.”
This text is the closest thing to a parable in John’s Gospel. It’s more like an allegory or a symbolic illustration. But Jesus often spoke in parables. Matthew 13:34 says, “All these things Jesus spoke to the crowds in parables, and He did not speak to them without a parable.” Parables revealed the truth to those who really sought it, but it also concealed the truth from scoffers and those who were ambivalent about it. In verse 6, “they” refers to the Pharisees, with whom Jesus was speaking in John 9:41. They didn’t get it. But there are still a lot of divergent opinions among commentators today on the exact interpretation of the details here.
One key to understanding this passage is to view it in its context. John did not divide his Gospel into chapters and verses, so we should not draw a line between the end of chapter 9 and the beginning of chapter 10. There is no transitional phrase, such as “after these things,” or other time markers. When we get to 10:22, John designates the time as the Feast of Dedication, which took place in the winter. But verses 1-21 were probably connected with the Feast of Tabernacles (or Booths, 7:2), where the events of chapters 7-9 took place. John 10:21 refers back to the healing of the blind man in chapter 9. And, Jesus’ words, “Truly, truly,” which begin chapter 10, are never used elsewhere to begin a new discourse (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 501).
So we should understand John 10:1-21 as being closely related to the events in John 9, where Jesus healed the man born blind. The connection is: The Pharisees, who were the religious leaders in Israel, should have been faithful shepherds over God’s flock, but they had failed. The story of the blind man illustrates this when they get frustrated with his testimony concerning Jesus and throw him out of the temple. Not once did they rejoice over the wonderful fact that this man’s eyes had been opened. Rather, they were more concerned that Jesus had violated their legalistic Sabbath rules than they were about this man.
We saw the same thing in chapter 5, when Jesus healed the lame man by the Pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath. The religious leaders didn’t rejoice that this poor man had been healed. Rather, they wanted to get Jesus for violating their Sabbath rules. They also reveal their contempt for the people they should have been tenderly shepherding when they say (7:49), “But this crowd which does not know the Law is accursed.” As shepherds they should have taught the people, but instead they ridiculed them for their ignorance. They used their power to keep the people in fear, threatening them with excommunication if they confessed Jesus to be the Christ (9:22). And we see their arrogance and lack of concern for the flock when they told the blind man (9:34), “You were born entirely in sins, and are you teaching us?” These Pharisees were not faithful shepherds over the Lord’s flock.
So in John 10, Jesus draws a sharp contrast between them as false shepherds, whom He calls thieves and robbers (10:1), and Himself as the true shepherd. Many Old Testament passages picture the Lord as the shepherd over His people (notably, Psalm 23). If in the Old Testament the Lord is the shepherd of His people and in the New Testament, Jesus is the shepherd, it shows that Jesus is the Lord.
Probably Jesus paints the picture in John 10 against the backdrop of Ezekiel 34, where the Lord castigates the religious leaders of Israel for being self-centered, greedy shepherds who used the flock for their own comfort and gain, but failed to care tenderly for the hurting. The Lord pronounces judgment on those false shepherds and promises (Ezek. 34:23), “Then I will set over them one shepherd, My servant David, and he will feed them; he will feed them himself and be their shepherd.” That prophecy was fulfilled by the Son of David, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the good shepherd of His sheep (John 10:11).
So John 10 gives us a symbolic picture of what has just happened in John 9. It also affirms the blindness of the Pharisees, who don’t understand this picture (9:40-41; 10:6). John 10:1-18 falls into three sections: In 10:1-6, Jesus contrasts Himself as the true shepherd with these self-centered false shepherds. In 10:7-10, He portrays Himself as the door of the sheepfold, who, in contrast to these false shepherds, came to give abundant life to His sheep. In 10:11-18, He explains how as the good shepherd He lays down His own life to provide life for His sheep. Today we can only look at 10:1-6, which shows Jesus to be the true shepherd of Israel in contrast to these self-centered false shepherds. The point is:
Jesus’ credentials and His qualities prove Him to be the true shepherd, whom His sheep follow.
We’ll look first at Jesus’ credentials, then at His qualities, and finally at what He says about His sheep.
“Truly, truly” (10:1) alerts us that this is something that we need to perk up and pay attention to:
John 10:1: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber.” Jesus was both rebuking the Pharisees who were listening to Him and warning His followers, including the former blind man, not to follow these false shepherds, whom Jesus calls thieves and robbers.
I read once about a seminary class that spent a semester searching the New Testament to discover which truth is emphasized more than any other. To their surprise they found that warnings against false teachers top the list, ahead of love or any other virtue. Jesus Himself warned (Matt. 7:15), “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.” The metaphor pictures the deceptiveness and the self-centered destructiveness of false prophets. They fool the sheep into thinking that they are sheep, and thus gain access to the flock. But their aim is not to build up and care for the flock, but to ravage them for their own selfish purposes (see also, 2 Cor. 11:13-15; 2 Peter 2; and 1, 2, & 3 John).
Satan’s aim is never to build up or care for people! He always seeks to destroy (John 10:10; 1 Pet. 5:8). And he often uses as his agents men or women who pose as true believers to cause destruction in the church. They seem to know the Bible and teach the Bible, which gains them a hearing among those who profess to know Christ. But their teaching and their practices do not lead people toward godliness, but toward destruction.
“Thieves” and “robbers” have slightly different meanings. Thieves tend to use cunning and deception. They break into your house when you’re gone or are asleep and steal without your knowing it. Robbers are more aggressive. They hold you up at gunpoint and force you to give up your valuables. But in both cases, they don’t care about you. They only want to profit at your expense. They want to use you to further their own selfish ends.
Note two important lessons here: (1) Being grounded in sound doctrine is essential, not optional. False teachers do not wear blinking neon signs saying, “I’m going to lead you astray!” They’re subtle and just slightly off. You have to know and be able to defend from Scripture the core doctrines of the faith. And you need to know how to distinguish the core doctrines, where compromise is fatal, from secondary doctrines that are not as essential for spiritual health.
(2) Christlike shepherds warn their flocks about false teachers. If Jesus, the true shepherd, warned about false teachers, then His undershepherds must also warn about false teachers if they are faithful to Him. To put it another way, Jesus was not always “nice” and “positive.” Read Matthew 23, where He pronounces woe after woe on the scribes and Pharisees, whom He repeatedly calls “hypocrites.” Both Paul and John pointed out false teachers by name (1 Tim. 1:20; 2 Tim. 2:17; 4:14; 3 John 9-10). People have criticized me because at times I have named false teachers or heretical groups. But if I leave it vague and general, people don’t connect the dots. I would not be a faithful shepherd if I didn’t specifically warn you about false teachers.
John 10:2: “But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep.” The Greek construction warrants the better translation, “is the shepherd of the sheep” (Morris, p. 502). Jesus was referring to Himself as the legitimate shepherd of God’s flock because He entered the fold by the door. Some (e.g. J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], p. 175) jump down to 10:7 and identify Jesus as the door. While that’s true in 10:7, importing that identification back into 10:2 is to confuse two different metaphors. In 10:1-6, Jesus is the true shepherd who enters the fold by the door. In 10:7-10, Jesus is the door with no reference to the shepherd. Then in 10:11-18, Jesus is again the good shepherd.
To understand 10:1-5, you need to have a mental picture of a sheepfold in that day. Each village would have a common walled-in fold where every evening the different shepherds from the village would bring all their sheep. There was one door or entrance to the fold, which often was just an opening. The doorkeeper would guard the door by lying across it, making sure that wild animals or robbers would not enter to harm or steal the sheep. In the morning, the shepherds would return, the doorkeeper would open to them, and they would call their sheep out to lead them to pasture during the day.
Some commentators (e.g. Calvin) hesitate to get specific about what each figure in this allegory represents, but I think we can make some helpful identifications. The fold is Judaism or Israel. Jesus is the true shepherd, who enters the fold to lead His genuine sheep, those whom the Father has given to Him (10:27-29), out to pasture. The man born blind is an example of this. The Pharisees are the thieves and robbers, who are not genuine shepherds.
But, what does the door represent? While in 10:7, the door is Christ Himself, in 10:2 the door is the Messianic office as described and prophesied in the Old Testament, which sets forth the credentials of the coming Messiah. He would be born of the tribe of Judah (Gen. 49:10), a descendant of David (Isa. 9:7; Jer. 33:17). He would be born in Bethlehem (Mic. 5:2) to a virgin (Isa. 7:14). He would give sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and cause the lame to walk (Isa. 35:5-6). He would be the prophet greater than Moses (Deut. 18:15). He would be a light to shine on all who are in darkness (Isa. 9:2; 42:6; 49:6). He would provide the water of God’s Spirit to thirsty souls (Isa. 44:3). John has shown us how Jesus fulfilled many of these and other Old Testament prophecies.
In his amazing little book, Science Speaks ([Moody Press], pp. 99-112), math professor Peter Stoner takes just eight Old Testament prophecies about Christ and assigns to each one conservative odds with regard to the question (p. 106), “What is the chance that any man might have lived from the day of these prophecies down to the present time and have fulfilled all eight?” He comes up with the answer of one in 1017.
Then he helps us picture this huge number. If you take 1017 silver dollars and spread them all over Texas, they would cover the entire state two feet deep. Mark one of the silver dollars, mix it into the whole, blindfold a man and tell him that he can go as far as he wants, but he must pick the one marked dollar. That is the same chance that Jesus could have fulfilled just eight Old Testament prophecies. But the reality is, Jesus fulfilled over 300 Old Testament prophecies (p. 108)! The point is, Jesus’ credentials show that He is the only person who could enter through the door of the Messianic office as prophesied in the Old Testament.
Again, some reputable commentators (Calvin, Morris) think that we are going too far to assign anyone specifically as the doorkeeper. Others say that it refers to God or the Holy Spirit or Moses. But in light of John’s Gospel, I think it is reasonable to view the doorkeeper as John the Baptist. He opened the door for Jesus to enter the fold of Judaism as their true shepherd. He was the predicted messenger, who cried out in the wilderness, “Make straight the way of the Lord” (John 1:23; Isa. 40:3; Mal. 3:1). John pointed to Jesus and said (1:29), “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” He opened the door for Jesus to enter the fold of Israel.
Thus Jesus came to Israel through the door of prophetic Messianic Scripture and the doorkeeper opened to Him as the true shepherd so that He could call His sheep out of the fold. His sheep are all from Israel whom the Father had given Him (6:37, 39, 10:29). He also has other sheep (the Gentiles), whom He would gather into one flock under Him as shepherd (10:16). Thus Jesus’ credentials prove Him to be the true shepherd.
Of course, all of Jesus’ attributes show that He is the true shepherd of His sheep. As He will go on to say (10:11-18), the sheep belong to Him because He gave His life to purchase them. But here I can only point out two of the true shepherd’s qualities:
John 10:3b: “The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name ….” The picture here is of a Near Eastern shepherd who spent much time with his flock and who knew each sheep personally. One writer gives an account of this sort of thing (H. V. Morton, cited by Morris, p. 502, note 17):
Early one morning I saw an extraordinary sight not far from Bethlehem. Two shepherds had evidently spent the night with their flocks in a cave. The sheep were all mixed together and the time had come for the shepherds to go in different directions. One of the shepherds stood some distance from the sheep and began to call. First one, then another, then four or five animals ran towards him; and so on until he had counted his whole flock.
Another writer tells of three or four shepherds separating their flocks solely by their different calls (ibid.).
Isn’t it nice when someone knows your name or sends you a personal note? I realize that form letters are necessary and I try to read form prayer letters from missionaries. But if I get one that has a personal note at the bottom, I always read that first. We all appreciate it when someone recognizes us personally.
Jesus does that with His sheep. If you belong to Him, He knows you by name. Unlike me as a pastor with limited storage space in my computer (brain), Jesus never forgets a name. More than that, He not only knows your name, but He also knows everything about you, yet He still loves you and wants to fellowship with you! He is your caring shepherd.
These blessings are implied in John 10:3b-4: [He] “leads them out. When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.” Jesus was probably alluding to Numbers 27:16-17, where Moses prayed, “May the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation, who will go out and come in before them, and who will lead them out and bring them in, so that the congregation of the Lord will not be like sheep which have no shepherd.” Jesus was leading His true sheep out of the barren fold of Judaism and into the rich pastures of abundant life that He provides.
Note, too, that Jesus doesn’t drive His sheep from behind. He leads them by going ahead of them. He makes sure that the way is safe from predators. He takes them where He knows there are rich pastures for them to feed on. He never takes them where He has not gone Himself, including the valley of the shadow of death. He has been tempted in all the ways we are tempted, yet He was without sin (Heb. 4:15). With such a caring, personal Savior who always has our best interests at heart, we can submit to and follow Him, trusting Him even in life’s most difficult trials.
John 10:4b-5: “… the sheep follow him because they know his voice. A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.”
Jesus repeats that His sheep hear and know His voice in verses 3 & 4. He is not referring to hearing an audible voice, as when people say, “The Lord spoke to me.” Rather, we hear His voice through His written Word, properly interpreted and applied. Granted, sometimes the Holy Spirit impresses a particular verse on our hearts as we read the Bible or through a sermon or a book or a word from another brother or sister in Christ. But it should never be some screwy interpretation of a verse taken out of context. The Lord’s sheep know His voice through His Word because they graze often in it.
One mark of the Lord’s genuine sheep is that they persevere in sound doctrine. In Matthew 24:24, speaking of the end times, Jesus predicts, “For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect.” There will be many false teachers, but it is not possible that they will deceive God’s elect. As Jesus said (John 6:39), “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.” (See also, John 10:27-30.) But these promises do not absolve us of the responsibility to grow stronger in sound doctrine so that we will not be deceived. Dig deeper by studying God’s Word and by reading some solid theological books. Then when false teachers try to seduce you, you will flee.
But the bottom line is, it’s not how much you know, but who you know. The Pharisees knew far more theology than the man born blind, but they didn’t know the true shepherd. But the healed blind man now knew Jesus as his shepherd. Do you? Jesus prayed (John 17:3): “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
May 18, 2014
The “American dream” is to pursue what is called “the good life.” This usually means owning your own home, having a couple of late model cars in your garage, taking nice vacations, and retiring to a comfortable life of doing whatever you like. The rich and famous, who supposedly enjoy this good life, are splashed across the pages of magazines like People so that we all can vicariously enter their lives and dream about striking it rich ourselves.
But while many Americans who are financially comfortable may have achieved “the good life,” most of them have missed the abundant life that Jesus promised to all who follow Him. But what is the abundant life? Many who follow the “prosperity gospel” have just baptized the materialistic American dream with some Christian labels. Except for their outlandish hairdos and Christian jargon, the prosperity preachers look pretty much like unbelieving Americans in their pursuit of stuff.
But the abundant life that Jesus promised has nothing to do with collecting more stuff. It has everything to do with being right with God through faith in Christ and having the hope of eternity spent in His presence. The apostle Paul wasn’t rich in this world’s goods, but he enjoyed the abundant life that Christ offers. He was content with just food and covering (1 Tim. 6:8), but he was rich toward God (Luke 12:21; Eph. 2:7). He gained those riches by coming to know the Lord Jesus Christ (Phil. 3:8).
In our text, Jesus claims to be the door through which His sheep enter to experience the abundant life. This is the third of Jesus’ seven “I am” statements (for the others, see John 6:35; 8:12; 10:11, 14; 11:25; 14:6; and 15:1, 5). This means that the Lord’s message is Himself. Christianity is not primarily a bunch of rules or rituals; Christianity is Christ Himself. Our text teaches us that…
Jesus is the only door to abundant life for all who enter through Him.
Jesus again uses “truly, truly” to alert us that what follows is important (John 10:7): “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.” We have four verses with four important truths:
In John 10:2-3, the scene was a common sheepfold in the village where the different shepherds would bring their sheep each night. There was a hired doorkeeper to guard the entrance. But now, the scene probably has shifted to the country, where the shepherd would take his sheep for summer pasture (William Barclay, The Gospel of John [Westminster], rev. ed., 2:58). The shepherd would build a protective enclosure for the sheep so that they could go in for protection and go out to feed. The shepherd himself would lay across the opening to the shelter at night. Thus Jesus could be both the shepherd and the door. Any intruders had to get by him to get to the sheep. As the door, He let in the true sheep, but He excluded predators or thieves that would harm the sheep.
G. Campbell Morgan (The Gospel According to John [Revell], p. 177) tells of a conversation he had with Sir George Adam Smith, a scholar who had spent much time in the Near East. Smith told of meeting a shepherd there who showed him the fold where the sheep were led at night. It consisted of four walls with a way in. Smith asked, “That is where you go at night?” “Yes,” the shepherd said, “and when the sheep are in there they are perfectly safe.” “But there is no door,” said Smith. “I am the door,” the shepherd replied. He was not a Christian man, but rather an Arab shepherd. But he was using the same language that Jesus used. He explained further, “When the light has gone, and all the sheep are inside, I lie in that open space, and no sheep ever goes out but across my body, and no wolf comes in unless he crosses my body; I am the door.”
Jesus is the only door of the sheep. J. C. Ryle (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], 3:184) points out that no apostle or prophet could make such a claim. Only Jesus the Messiah could legitimately claim, “I am the door.” It’s the same thing that He later claims (14:6), “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” Jesus was claiming to be the exclusive, only way to God. Just as there was only one door into the ark and only one door into the Tabernacle, so Jesus is the only door to salvation and God’s presence. The apostle Paul put it (Eph. 2:18), “For through Him we both [Jewish and Gentile believers] have access in one Spirit to the Father.”
Unbelievers are okay with it if you say, “Jesus is a door to God.” They think, “That’s fine! Mohammad is also a door and Buddha is a door and nature is a door. All religions lead to God. There are many doors.” But when you draw the line that Jesus drew and insist, “No, He is the only door,” you get accused of being intolerant and bigoted. Even C. S. Lewis, in his otherwise mostly helpful Mere Christianity ([Macmillan], pp. 176-177) wrote,
There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. For example, a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist teaching on certain other points.
But Lewis is missing the fact that all people, whether Buddhists “of good will” or “good” Catholics or “good” Baptists are all sinners by nature and can only be saved through faith in the death of Christ to atone for their sins. As Peter put it to the “good” Jews of his day (Acts 4:12), “There is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” Since Jesus is the only door …
John 10:8: “All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.” Obviously, Jesus was not saying that godly men like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and other prophets were thieves and robbers. In the context, He is referring to those who preyed on the sheep and used them for their own selfish ends. And, He was especially speaking of the thieves and robbers who were standing before Him, the Pharisees who were not godly shepherds over Israel. They were like the false shepherds that Ezekiel 34 castigates. Or, as the Lord says (Jer. 23:1-2):
“Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of My pasture!” declares the Lord. Therefore thus says the Lord God of Israel concerning the shepherds who are tending My people: “You have scattered My flock and driven them away, and have not attended to them; behold, I am about to attend to you for the evil of your deeds,” declares the Lord.
The Lord goes on to describe how He will re-gather His flock and raise up a righteous Branch for David, adding (23:6):
“In His days Judah will be saved,
And Israel will dwell securely;
And this is His name by which He will be called,
‘The Lord our righteousness.’”
In John 10:8, Jesus repeats the truth that He stated in 10:5, that His true sheep will not hear or follow a false shepherd. They will persevere by following Jesus. Sometimes, the Lord’s true sheep may be led astray by a false shepherd for a while, but as Jesus promises (10:27-28), He will keep them: “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.” John indicates that if people are not true sheep, eventually they will leave the church (1 John 2:19): “They went out from us, but they were not really of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us; but they went out, so that it would be shown that they all are not of us.”
So, Jesus is the only door of the sheep. All others who claim to be the way to God are thieves and robbers. But, what are the spiritual implications of Jesus’ claim to be the door?
John 10:9: “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.” There are two things to consider here:
Jesus says that whoever enters through Him will be saved. “Going in and out” pictures safety. And, “finding pasture” pictures the sustenance our good shepherd provides.
In the context of the sheep analogy, being saved refers to protecting the sheep from predators that would kill them. But Jesus obviously has the idea of spiritual salvation behind His words. As we saw (John 3:17), “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” (See, also, 5:34; 12:47).
As I’ve often said, we often toss around the word “saved” without thinking about just how radical it is. If you’re doing basically okay on your own, you may appreciate a helpful word of advice or a bit of encouragement, but you don’t need to be saved. You only need to be saved when you are helplessly, hopelessly lost. Instead of being saved, maybe we should use the word “rescued.” You don’t need to be rescued if you’re doing fine on your own. You only need to be rescued when you’re unable on your own to get out of a situation that will soon lead to your death.
In spiritual terms, the Bible is clear that before you believe in Christ, you’re not just going to die; you were already dead in your trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1). As such, you were what Paul calls a child of wrath (Eph. 2:3). In John’s terms (3:36), the wrath of God was abiding on you. You were under God’s righteous condemnation for your sins. Being spiritually dead, there was no way that you could rescue yourself or do anything to help out with your own rescue. You required God’s intervention.
That’s exactly what God did when He sent His unique Son into this world. Jesus came to seek and to save lost sinners (Luke 19:10; John 12:47). On the cross, He bore the wrath of God on behalf of all who believe in Him. Using the shepherd and sheep analogy, 1 Peter 2:24-25 puts it like this:
He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.
Have you taken refuge in Jesus as your Savior? He is the only source of salvation because no one else can bear God’s wrath on our behalf. No one else can pay for our sins.
This is the main idea behind the picture of sheep going in and out to find pasture. Barclay (ibid. p. 59) says that this “was the Jewish way of describing a life that is absolutely secure and safe.” If the country was under siege, people had to stay inside the city walls. But when they were at peace and the ruler was upholding law and order, people were free to come and go as they wished. Moses used this language in praying for his successor (Num. 27:16-17), “May the Lord, the God of the spirits of all flesh, appoint a man over the congregation, who will go out and come in before them, and who will lead them out and bring them in, so that the congregation of the Lord will not be like sheep which have no shepherd.” (See also, Deut. 28:6; 1 Kings 3:7; Ps. 121:8.) So when Jesus, the good shepherd, guards the flock, they are secure to go in and out and find pasture.
The term also was a Hebrew expression that connoted familiar access. In Acts 1:21, Peter mentions “the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us.” Acts 9:28 mentions how after Paul’s conversion, when Barnabas introduced him to the apostles and they came to trust that he really was converted, Paul was with them, “moving about freely in Jerusalem.” Literally, the Greek reads, he was “going in and out” in Jerusalem.
So the spiritual picture is that if you have entered the fold through Jesus, who is both the shepherd and the door, He provides safety and familiar access. He is guarding all of your ways. You can go out to the rich pasturelands that He provides and come into the safety of His fold as you please.
This is the picture behind “pasture,” as well as the idea of “abundant life” (10:10). It’s not pointing to having an abundance of material goods, but rather to the soul satisfaction that comes when you know that the Lord is your shepherd. You know that He is caring for you and He prepares a table before you even in the presence of enemies, so that your cup overflows (Ps. 23:5). He goes with you even through the valley of the shadow of death. In other words, Jesus isn’t promising an easy life where there are no trials or where you get instant deliverance from your trials. Rather, He is promising to meet all of our spiritual needs if we will enter through Him as the door. John G. Mitchell (An Everlasting Love [Multnomah Press], p.193) once asked W. R. Newell, who wrote a commentary on Romans, how many times he had taught Romans. He answered, “I have taught the book of Romans some eighty times, and the pastures are still green.”
As you may know, I’m not a fan of those who mingle psychology with the Bible. Nor am I favorable toward the popular 12 Step programs. Sometimes I’ve been asked, “If psychology or 12 Step groups help people deal with their problems, what’s wrong with that?”
In a nutshell, what’s wrong is that these approaches “help” people without directing them to Christ alone for salvation, safety, and sustenance. I used to be supportive of these methods, but then I read a book where the author, a well-known Christian psychologist (Henry Cloud, When Your World Makes No Sense [Oliver Nelson], pp. 16-17), states that he had tried the “standard Christian answers,” by which he means, faith, obedience, more time in the Word and prayer, etc. But he calls these things “worthless medicine” and then turns his readers toward his approach, which he claims, works. But his approach is essentially developmental psychology, not the all-sufficiency of Christ for our souls.
The same is true of self-help programs, such as the 12 Steps. They are not Christ-centered. Their approach is not to bring people under the lordship of Christ. Rather, they just “use” Christ (however you define Him) or, if you wish, some other “higher power,” to get what you want. “Do you want sobriety? Work the Steps—the Steps will give you sobriety. Are you dealing with an alcoholic family member? Try the Steps—they will give you the stability you’ve been looking for.” So “Christ” (however you conceive Him to be) becomes merely a means for you to achieve your agenda. But He is not the source of your salvation, your safety, and your sustenance. As the door, Jesus provides salvation, safety, and sustenance. He meets all of our spiritual needs. But, it’s not automatic.
The condition is (10:9), “if anyone enters through Me.” The invitation is open to “anyone” and everyone, but you must enter through Jesus alone. Any other way is illegitimate.
How do you enter? Well, that’s the theme of the entire Gospel of John. He wrote these signs that Jesus did (20:31), “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” Or (1:12), “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.” Or (3:16), “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
To enter through Jesus the door means to believe in Him as the Christ, the Son of God, who died for your sins and was raised from the dead. Have you done that? Have you put your trust in Jesus as your only hope for eternal life?
Maybe if you’re a young person you’re thinking, “I’ll probably do that someday, but I want to have some fun first. I want to enjoy some of the pleasures that this world offers while I can. Later, maybe I’ll trust in Jesus.” But that is a serious mistake.
John 10:10: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” There are only two ways to live your life: You can pursue this world for satisfaction, or you can seek after God to satisfy. The world, under the dominion of Satan, will rob, kill, and destroy your soul. Jesus offers life, and that more abundantly.
The Eskimos have an interesting way of killing wolves. They take a sharp knife, dip in in seal fat, and plant it blade up in the snow. A hungry wolf will smell the seal fat, which he loves, find the knife, and begin to lick it. As soon as he licks it, he tastes blood—his own blood. But he loves the taste of blood, so he licks more and more, until he finally kills himself. What he thought at first was really living was actually killing him.
Gorging yourself on the world and its sinful pleasures is like that. At first it tastes good, but it’s really destroying you. Only Jesus ultimately satisfies the soul. Only Jesus can reconcile you to God and give you real life—abundant life—that begins now and continues through all eternity.
Matthew Henry, the well-known pastor and Bible commentator, was on his deathbed in 1714, at age 52. He had suffered the loss of his first wife and of three children. He was relatively young. He could have complained about his early death. But he said to a friend, “You have been used to take notice of the sayings of dying men. This is mine—that a life spent in the service of God, and communion with Him, is the most comfortable and pleasant life that one can live in the present world” (Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible [Revell], p. 1:xiv).
Years ago there was a TV game show called, “Let’s Make a Deal.” The contestants had to choose between a prize that was visible to them or another prize that was concealed behind a curtain or door. The visible prize was usually a nice item, like an expensive stereo or TV set. Sometimes the unseen prize turned out to be a joke, such as 10,000 boxes of toothpicks. But at other times the person chose the visible gift and discovered to their horror that they had passed up, behind the curtain, a new car worth thousands of dollars. Whenever that happened, you felt with the contestant that awful feeling in the pit of your stomach that comes from making a major wrong choice.
Don’t make that mistake spiritually. The visible prize is all the stuff you see in this world. But when you enter through Jesus as the door, you gain things that eye has not seen and ear has not heard, which have not entered into the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him (1 Cor. 2:9).
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
May 25, 2014
Have you ever felt like it’s not worth it to follow Jesus? Perhaps you were going through a severe trial and you wondered, “If Jesus is the Lord and He loves me, then why is He allowing me to go through this trial?” You thought, “Life was better before I believed in Christ. Then I didn’t have all the problems that I’ve had since I became a Christian.” Perhaps you struggle with disappointment because your Christian experience isn’t all that you thought it would be or all that others seem to experience. So you wonder, “Why should I follow Jesus?” Our text answers that question simply and forcefully:
Since Jesus is the good shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep, you’d be crazy not to follow Him.
Jesus is still speaking to a mixed audience. The Pharisees were there, and Jesus’ teaching here will again result in a division among them (10:19-21; see 7:43-52; 9:16). Also, the man born blind, who Jesus healed, was there, along with other believers. Jesus’ words here were aimed at warning, instructing, and assuring them. He warns them about false shepherds so that they will not follow them. He instructs them about Himself as the good shepherd and what He provides for His flock. And He assures them of His sacrificial care for them and of the fact that He will accomplish His purpose with them. I will point out five truths here about Jesus, the good shepherd:
Jesus contrasts Himself with these self-centered religious leaders:
John 10:11: “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” This is Jesus’ fourth “I am” claim in John’s Gospel. “I am the bread of life” (6:35). “I am the Light of the world” (8:12). “I am the door of the sheep” (10:7). “I am the good shepherd” (10:11, 14). Four times in these verses Jesus repeats that He lays down His life (10:11, 15, 17, 18). In the first two He repeats that He lays down His life for His sheep. The last two times, He emphasizes that He lays down His life so that He may take it up again. I could spend the entire message here, but let me point out four things:
While Jesus set His sights on the joy set before Him as He faced the cross (Heb. 12:2), at the same time His giving Himself for us as sinners was the greatest act of selfless love in the history of the world. As Paul says (Rom. 5:7-8), “For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” Jesus died voluntarily, in obedience to the will of the Father (John 10:18). He wants us to know and to feel His deep, selfless care for us. The word translated “good” has the nuance of excellence or beauty. The beauty of Jesus, the shepherd who gave Himself to rescue us from God’s judgment, should draw our hearts in love to Him.
He laid down His life “for the sheep.” He died in our place. We should have faced God’s righteous eternal judgment because of all our sins. But Jesus intervened with His own blood to pay the debt on our behalf. Jesus is the only one who has ever lived who did not have any sins of His own to die for. So He alone was qualified to die for us who deserved to die. As Paul wrote (2 Cor. 5:21), “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” God imputed our sins to Christ and Christ’s righteousness to us.
He laid down His life “for the sheep.” Paul expressed this in other terms (Eph. 5:25, emphasis added): “Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her.” The sheep are those whom the Father gave to the Son (John 10:29), whose names were written in the book of life before the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8). In John 6:37, Jesus said, “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.” He added (6:39), “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.”
In 10:26, He tells the Pharisees, “But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep.” He does not say, “You are not of My sheep because you do not believe,” but rather the reverse: “You do not believe because you are not of My sheep.” The determinative factor is whether they were Jesus’ sheep, whom the Father gave to the Son. It was these that Jesus came to die to redeem. He did not fail in His mission!
This truth is often misunderstood and attacked because it is alleged that if Jesus died only for His sheep, then we can’t offer the gospel to all people. But that is a false allegation. Jesus is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” Jesus is the Savior of the world (John 4:42). The almost final verse of the Bible appeals (Rev. 22:17), “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.” So this truth in no way limits the invitation to all people to be saved. God pleads with all to be saved.
Rather, this truth looks at the death of Christ from the standpoint of God’s intent or purpose. Jesus died actually to pay for all the sins of His sheep, whom the Father had given Him from all eternity. And He promises that He will not lose even one of them (John 6:39; 10:28). So this truth should assure us: If you believe in Christ, you’re one of His sheep for whom He died. And He promises to keep you unto eternity. His purpose will not fail (Eph. 1:11).
We just saw this (John 6:39), “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.” It’s also in our text (10:17, 18) where Jesus repeats twice that He not only will lay down His life, but also that He will take it up again. Many may claim that they will lay down their lives, but Jesus is the only one who legitimately could claim that He would take it up again. His resurrection verifies that the Father accepted His sacrifice (Rom. 4:25). So as the good shepherd, Jesus lays down His life for the sheep.
John 10:12-13: “He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep.”
Jesus is contrasting His own sacrificial love and care for His sheep with the false shepherds of Israel, whom He here calls “hired hands,” who only cared for themselves. The difference is that Jesus owns the sheep because He bought them with His blood. But when predators come, the hired hands are more concerned about saving their own lives than they are about saving the sheep. It’s no great loss to them if the sheep perish, as long as they escape with their lives.
The contrast means that if you follow the good shepherd, you can be assured that He cares for you more than for His own life. If you’re one of His sheep, He promises (10:28), “I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand.”
John 10:14-15: “I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.”
We saw the same truth in 10:3-4, where Jesus said that He calls His own sheep by name and they follow Him because they know His voice. Each night as the sheep would re-enter the fold, the shepherd would examine each one, to see whether there were any injuries or problems that needed his care. He knew every sheep in an intimate, personal way, and the sheep knew the shepherd so well that they would not follow the voice of a stranger (10:5, 8).
Jesus does not mean that our relationship with Him is just as intimate as His relationship with the Father, which would be impossible. The Father and the Son know each other perfectly with no barriers between them. Jesus knows us perfectly, of course, but our finiteness and sin create barriers on our end to our knowledge of Him. So the comparison means that our relationship with our good shepherd is reciprocal, just as the relationship between the Father and the Son is reciprocal. Knowing God and His Son is the essence of eternal life (17:3). And the crucial matter on the day of judgment will be whether Jesus knows you (Matt. 7:23). He knows all people, of course, but He was talking about knowing you in a personal, intimate way.
The apostle Paul, who knew Christ more deeply than almost all other believers, made it clear that knowing Him is a lifelong quest (Phil. 3:8-14). As Hosea (6:3) exhorts, “Let us press on to know the Lord.” So each of us needs to ask, “Is that my quest? Am I seeking to know my good shepherd better each day?”
John 10:16: “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.”
This is also a remarkable verse that we could spend an entire message on. Jesus was referring to the Gentiles, who were at that time outside the fold of Israel. He states the necessity (“must”) to bring them and the certainty that they will hear His voice and become one flock with one shepherd. This is the missionary mandate that Jesus later gave in the Great Commission to take the gospel to all nations (or people groups; Matt. 28:19; Luke 24:47; Acts 1:8). And, Jesus promises the success of the mission: “They will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.”
This ties in to what we saw in verse 11, “the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” Jesus did not die in vain. He died to secure the salvation of His sheep and He strongly asserts that He will succeed. There is no uncertainty or desperation in His voice: “I hope that these other sheep will listen to My voice, because I really want them in My flock. But it’s up to them to decide.” No, it is certain: The Father gave them to Jesus, He died for them, and they will hear Him and they will come into His flock.
Sometimes those who deny the biblical truth of God’s sovereign election and effectual grace argue that this teaching will stifle evangelism and missions. They charge, “If all the elect will be saved, then why witness? Why send out missionaries?” The biblical answer is, “Because God ordained the means as well as the end.”
Paul was in Corinth and he was fearful. He was thinking about leaving when the Lord appeared to him in a vision and said (Acts 18:9-10), “Do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent; for I am with you, and no man will attack you in order to harm you, for I have many people in this city.” Paul didn’t yet know who the Lord’s “many people” were. But the Lord knew and He assured Paul that they would come to faith as Paul preached the gospel. Paul later said (2 Tim. 2:10), “For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.” They were chosen before the foundation of the world, but they obtained salvation when Paul endured hardship to preach the gospel to them.
And the Lord still has people whom He purchased for God with His blood “from every tribe and tongue and people and nation” (Rev. 5:9). But to gain eternal life the Lord’s people must go and tell them about Jesus. The truths of election and effectual calling assure us that our efforts will not be in vain.
John 10:16 also shows us the true unity and diversity of the church. We are one body in which there is no distinction between the races (Col. 3:11). Gentiles are now fellow-heirs with the Jews of the promise in Christ through the gospel (Eph. 3:6). The glory of the church is when those from diverse racial and social backgrounds join together in harmony to praise God for His great salvation. That’s part of the glory of heaven (Rev. 5:9)! Remember, in Jesus’ day the Jews hated the Gentiles, whom they viewed as unclean dogs. They couldn’t conceive of them as being on equal standing before God. Peter had to overcome his racial prejudice to go and give the gospel to the Gentile Cornelius and his guests (Acts 10). He later got called on the carpet by other Jewish Christians for doing so (Acts 11).
But God gets more glory when those who are enemies in the world become one flock in harmony in Christ. For that reason, we should labor to make this church as racially diverse as our city is. In 2005, Flagstaff was about 70% white, 16% Hispanic, 10% Native American, 1.8% black, and 1.2% Asian. My understanding is that unless there are language barriers, the church should not divide along racial lines. I’ve always felt great joy when I meet believers from other races and cultures and even in spite of our language and cultural differences, there is an instant bond of love in Christ. We are one flock with one shepherd!
One other truth in verse 16 is that the Christian life is not to be lived in isolation, but in community with other believers. Sheep aren’t independent creatures. To thrive, they must be part of a flock under the protection of a shepherd. Sheep that stray from the flock get eaten by the wolves. So even though you may not like some of the sheep that the Lord has brought into His flock, you need to work hard at harmonious relationships. The second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as much as you do in fact love yourself (Matt. 22:39). If you just come to church and leave, without getting to know well some of your fellow believers, you’re missing one of the main sources for growth and encouragement in your Christian life.
Thus the good shepherd lays down His life for His sheep. He knows them personally and they know Him. He brings all of His sheep from different races and backgrounds into one flock under His care.
John 10:17-18: “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”
Verse 17 is difficult to understand, but Jesus did not mean that He earned the Father’s love by laying down His life. The Father and the Son always loved one another with infinite love (17:24). D. A. Carson (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 388) explains the thought this way:
It is not that the Father withholds his love until Jesus agrees to give up his life on the cross and rise again. Rather, the love of the Father for the Son is eternally linked with the unqualified obedience of the Son to the Father, his utter dependence upon him, culminating in this greatest act of obedience now just before him … [the cross].
There could also be the thought that Jesus’ willing sacrifice elicited the Father’s eternal love in a fresh way. For example, I have loved Marla for over 40 years now. But perhaps she does something that reflects her love for me and my love for her wells up in a fresh way so that I say, “I love you for doing that for me.” The love was there before her deed, but her deed called forth my love once more. (I’m indebted for this explanation to a message on valleybible.net.)
But the main point Jesus is making is that His death was not a tragic accident where He was a helpless victim. As Acts 4:27-28 puts it: “For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.” The sinners who crucified Jesus were responsible for their sin, but at the same time, God used them to fulfill His purpose to save Jesus’ sheep from their sins.
Jesus’ teaching again caused a division. Some blasphemously argued that He had a demon and was insane (10:20; see, also, 7:20; 8:48, 52). Others countered (10:21), “These are not the sayings of one demon-possessed. A demon cannot open the eyes of the blind, can he?” They may not yet have come to saving faith, but they were moving in the right direction. They saw that Jesus could not be demonic or insane. The only other option is that He is the Christ, the Son of God (20:31). He is the eternal Word in human flesh (1:14).
Two things prove that Jesus could not have been crazy or demon-possessed: His words (“These are not the sayings of one demon-possessed”); and His works (“A demon cannot open the eyes of the blind, can he?”). Study Jesus’ words and His works as recorded in the Gospels, with the prayer, “Lord, show me the truth about Jesus and I will obey You,” and He will answer. Jesus said (John 7:17), “If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.” But you can’t play games with God. The key factor is, are you willing to follow Jesus if the evidence reveals that He is of God? John is saying that since Jesus is the good shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep, you’d be crazy not to follow Him.
To come back to the original question, “Why follow Jesus?” Following Him may result in more trials, maybe persecution, or even martyrdom. The author of Psalm 73 was honest about struggling with the same question. Since he had begun to follow God, he had experienced increased trials. He looked at the wicked who seemed to be prospering and thought (73:13a), “Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure ….” His answer came when he went into the sanctuary of God and considered eternity. The wicked would come into judgment; but of himself he remembered (73:26), “My heart and my flesh may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
The abundant life that Jesus gives consists in having God Himself as our portion, both now and forever. That’s why you should follow Jesus as your good shepherd.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
June 1, 2014
All people, but especially children, have the basic need of feeling secure and loved. Kids need to grow up in a family where the parents love one another and where the children feel safe and are assured that their parents love them no matter what they do. If the parents threaten to withhold their love as punishment for disobedience, the children will not feel secure and will strive to earn their parents’ love. That’s always tragic!
The same thing is true spiritually. God wants His spiritual children to know that He loves and accepts them through the death of Jesus Christ on their behalf, not because of their performance. He wants us to know that we are eternally secure in our salvation even when we fail and sin. As a loving Father, He will discipline us for our good, so that we may share His holiness (Heb. 12:10). But He will not withdraw His love or cast us off as His children. It’s important for our spiritual growth that we know and feel that our salvation is secure forever.
So it’s sad that many teach that Christians can lose their salvation if they sin. Granted, there are some difficult texts in the New Testament that seem to teach that, such as the warning passages in Hebrews (see my Hebrews sermons). But it’s much easier to explain those texts from the foundation of texts that give solid assurance of eternal security than vice versa. Concerning our text, A. W. Pink (online at monergism.com) says, “No stronger passage in all the Word of God can be found guaranteeing the absolute security of every child of God.” Our text teaches …
Jesus’ sheep are eternally secure because the Father gave them to Jesus, Jesus gives them eternal life, and both the Father and Jesus keep them.
There is a two or three month gap between the discourse in 10:1-21 and that in our text, although the subject matter ties in with the theme of Jesus as the good shepherd of His sheep. The Feast of Tabernacles, which took place in the fall, was the setting for 7:1-10:21, but now it is winter, when the Feast of Dedication took place. This feast was not prescribed in the Old Testament, but rather it began when the temple was rededicated in 165 B.C., after the Maccabean revolt threw off the rule of the evil Antiochus Epiphanes. It is still celebrated today as Hanukkah.
John, who loves symbolism, may want us to see that Jesus fulfills all that this feast stands for. He is the new temple (2:19). Just as God delivered His people under the Maccabeans, so He delivers His people under Jesus. John’s mention that it was winter may also hint that for the Jewish leaders who were rejecting Jesus as their Messiah, it was spiritually winter.
In this context, as Jesus was walking in the temple, the Jewish leaders circled around Jesus and were saying to Him (10:24), “How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ, tell us plainly.” From Jesus’ reply we learn the first basis of our security as Jesus’ sheep:
At first you might wonder if the Jews’ request was sincere, but I don’t believe that it was. They were not coming to Jesus with the attitude, “We’re willing to bow before You as our Messiah, but could You just clear up a few questions?” Rather, they were blaming Jesus for their unbelief, saying in effect, “If You would just make Yourself clear, maybe we would believe in You. It’s Your fault that we don’t believe in You.”
Jesus, who knew the hearts of all people (2:24-25), knew that these men were not seeking answers to legitimate questions. So He replied (10:25-26), “I told you, and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father’s name, these testify of Me. But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep.”
When had Jesus told them that He was the Messiah? The only time that He had clearly stated that was to was the Samaritan woman by the well (4:26). Because the Jewish leaders had a political idea of the Messiah as one who would free them from Rome, Jesus had not told them directly that He was the Messiah because they would have misunderstood.
But if they only had ears to hear, they could have recognized who Jesus was through John the Baptist’s testimony about Jesus as the Lamb of God and the Son of God (1:29-34). They could have heard it in Jesus’ astounding words in 5:19-47, where He claimed to have equal honor with the Father and to be able to give life to whomever He wished. He claimed that the Scriptures testified about Him and that if they came to Him, He would give them life (5:39-40). They should have heard it in Jesus’ claim to be the bread of life and in His promise to raise up all whom the Father had given Him on the last day (6:35, 39). They should have heard it in Jesus’ claim to be able to satisfy the thirst of all who believed in Him (7:37-38) and in His claim to be the Light of the world (8:12). They especially should have heard it in His claim (8:58), “Before Abraham was born, I am.”
They not only had Jesus’ words, but also His works that He did in the Father’s name (10:25). The Jewish leaders had seen and heard about many healings, including the lame man by the Pool of Bethesda (5:2-16) and the man born blind (9:1-34). He had miraculously turned the water into wine (2:1-11) and fed the 5,000 (6:1-14). But none of this resulted in their believing. Rather, they were becoming increasingly hardened in their rejection of Jesus to the point that when He raised Lazarus from the dead (11:1-53), they were even more determined to kill Jesus.
So, why, in spite of all this evidence, were the Jewish leaders so adamantly opposed to Jesus as their Messiah? Jesus tells them (10:26), “But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep.” He did not say (as we might have expected), “You are not of My sheep because you do not believe.” Rather, He plainly tells these unbelieving Jews, “You do not believe because you are not of My sheep.” He was emphasizing their inability to believe.
We saw the same thing back in 6:43-44, where speaking to His unbelieving opponents Jesus said, “Do not grumble among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.” In case they didn’t get it, He repeated (6:65), “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.” We saw it again (8:43), “Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear My word.” He further explained (8:47), “He who is of God hears the words of God; for this reason you do not hear them, because you are not of God.”
In each case, Jesus emphasized to unbelievers their inability to believe in Him. Why would He do that? As I explained when we studied 6:44, the main reason that Jesus told these unbelieving Jews that they lacked the ability to come to Him is that skeptics need to be stripped of their proud self-confidence. Skeptics are proud of their knowledge and mental abilities. They even think that they have the ability to believe when they choose: “Just tell us plainly if you’re the Messiah, Jesus, and then we’ll believe!” But if a skeptic were able to come to Christ through his intellect or by deciding to believe of his own free will, he would come in pride, which is opposed to gospel repentance. And so Jesus tells them again (10:26), “You do not believe because you are not of My sheep.”
You may be thinking, “Well, if unbelievers are not capable of believing and if God has not given them the ability to believe, then He can’t hold them responsible for their unbelief, can He?” Yes, He can! As D. A. Carson puts it (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 393), “That they are not Jesus’ sheep does not excuse them; it indicts them.”
R. C. Sproul (Chosen by God [Tyndale], pp. 97-98) gives a helpful illustration of why God can hold unbelievers accountable for their unbelief, even though they are incapable of believing. He pictures God saying to a man, “I want you to trim these bushes by 3 p.m. But be careful. There’s a large pit at the edge of the garden. If you fall into the pit, you won’t be able to get yourself out. So stay away from the pit.” As soon as God leaves the garden, the man runs over and jumps into the pit. At 3 p.m. God returns and finds the bushes untrimmed. He goes over to the pit and sees the man at the bottom. He can’t get out. God says to the man, “Why haven’t you trimmed the bushes?” The man replies angrily, “How do you expect me to trim these bushes when I’m trapped in this pit? If you hadn’t left this pit here, I wouldn’t be in this predicament!”
Sproul explains that Adam jumped into the pit and in Adam, we all jumped in with him. God imputed Adam’s sin to the entire human race. We’re helplessly incapacitated by our sin, but at the same time God holds us responsible to repent and believe.
Twice in these verses (10:25, 26) Jesus confronts the unbelief of these Jewish religious leaders. But at the same time, He tells them that the reason they don’t believe is that they were not of His sheep. In 10:29, He says that His Father gave the sheep to Him. He said the same thing in 6:37: “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me….” It’s in 6:39: “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.” In His high priestly prayer, Jesus repeatedly refers to those whom the Father gave Him (17:2, 6, 9, 24; also, 18:9).
So the point for us is that as Jesus’ sheep, we are secure because the Father gave us to Jesus before the foundation of the world. Our salvation is not our doing. We are not Jesus’ sheep because we decided to believe. We decided to believe because we were Jesus’ sheep. As the apostle Paul wrote (Eph. 1:4-5):
Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will.
That’s the basis of our security: Our salvation, including our faith, is totally from God. We didn’t help Him out in the process!
Consider two things:
John 10:28a: “And I give eternal life to them ….” First, note that this is a claim to deity. No one but God can give eternal life to anyone else. Also, the fact that it is a gift shows that it was not merited or earned. It’s an undeserved gift, not a wage in payment for good works (Rom. 4:4-5; Eph. 2:8-9). Because of our sins, we deserved His wrath, but He gave us eternal life. So, it’s important to answer the question, “How can we know if we have received this gift of eternal life?”
Ask yourself three questions:
I am inferring this from Jesus’ indictment of these Jewish leaders (10:26), “But you do not believe because you are not of My sheep.” The implication is that His sheep do believe in Him. To believe in Jesus means more than intellectually believing that He is who He claimed to be. The demons believe in Jesus in that sense, but they are not saved. To believe in Jesus means to commit your eternal destiny to what He did for you on the cross. Rather than trusting in your own good works (as these Pharisees were doing), you must see yourself as a guilty sinner and trust that Jesus’ death paid the penalty for your sins that you deserved.
John 10:27: “My sheep hear My voice ….” Jesus was not referring to hearing an audible voice or to a mystical inner “voice.” He meant that the testimony by Him and about Him in the Bible rings true in your heart. When you read what the Word testifies about Jesus, you say, “Yes!” It means hearing in the sense of obeying. You desire to please the shepherd who gave His life to make you His sheep. You don’t just say, “Lord, Lord,” and then keep doing your own thing. You become obedient from the heart to His teaching (Rom. 6:17).
John 10:27: “I know them, and they follow Me.” As God, Jesus knows everyone, of course. But this refers to an intimate knowledge, to a personal relationship (see Matt. 7:23; 2 Tim. 2:19; Ps. 1:6; Exod. 33:12, 17; Amos 3:2). We saw this in 10:3, where Jesus says that the shepherd calls his own sheep by name. He repeated (10:14), “I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me.” Because the sheep are known by the shepherd and they know Him, they trust Him and follow Him wherever He leads.
So, do you have a close personal relationship with Jesus? Does He know you and do you seek to know Him better? Do you obey His Word? You can know that Jesus has given you eternal life if you have received it as a gift through faith in Him and if you obey His voice, have a relationship with Him, and follow Him.
So Jesus’ sheep are eternally secure because the Father gave them to Jesus and He gives them eternal life.
Note four things here:
Eternal life by its very description is not temporary life—it is eternal life. Jesus indicated that there are two and only two eternal destinies (Matt. 25:46): “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” If it is eternal life and if God gave it to us and Jesus says that we will never perish, then it is eternal life. If you could lose it, it wouldn’t be eternal.
John 10:28: “I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.” If Jesus’ sheep could perish, it would mean that He failed in His mission not to lose any of those the Father gave to Him (6:37-40). Jesus indicates that some thieves and robbers will try to snatch sheep out of His hand. But as the omnipotent Savior, Jesus prevails. To use another biblical analogy, we are members of Christ’s body. No one is able to cut off a member of Christ’s body. Or, He has caused us to be born again. We can’t get unborn!
No doubt all of us know people who seemed to be Jesus’ sheep, but they fell away. In some cases, they now deny the Savior that they once professed to believe in. You may wonder, “Are they saved?” Only God knows their hearts, but we can know this: If they truly possess eternal life, they will be miserable in their sin and unbelief. If they can be comfortable in sin and be indifferent about denying Christ, they do not give evidence of being His sheep. We should not give assurance of salvation to people in that condition. If they’re miserable, then urge them to repent and receive God’s forgiveness. The minute they do, they can be assured that they are Christ’s sheep and that He will keep them unto eternity.
John 10:29: “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” Jesus’ sheep have double protection: Jesus has them in His hand and the Father has His hand around Jesus’ hand. So a thief would have to get through these two omnipotent layers of protection to steal Jesus’ sheep.
Some argue that a believer can remove himself from Jesus’ or the Father’s hand. But that subverts Jesus’ promise here, “They will never perish.” Surely He knew that our greatest enemy is ourselves. If believers could lose their salvation by sinning, then every believer who has ever lived would be lost, because we all have sinned after coming to faith in Christ. That would leave a gaping hole in the promise of salvation. Rather, Jesus’ point here is that if the Father gave us to Jesus before the foundation of the world and Jesus gave eternal life to us as a free gift, apart from anything in us, and if He and the Father promise to keep us from every enemy, then our salvation is secure. It doesn’t depend on our performance, but rather on His promise and on His and the Father’s power.
When Jesus says, “The Father is greater than all,” He means that there is no power in the universe more powerful than the Father, including our stubborn flesh. Satan and his demonic forces are powerful, but they are no match for the Father. Jesus was not denying His own deity by stating that the Father is greater than all. There is a hierarchy in the trinity, where the Father commands, the Son obeys (10:18), and the Holy Spirit carries out the divine plan (16:13-15). But Jesus’ point is that His sheep are secure because both He and the Father keep them.
John 10:30: “I and the Father are one.” Some commentators (including even Calvin!) say that Jesus only means that He and the Father are united in their resolve to keep all the sheep. But that view doesn’t take into account the Jews’ reaction (10:31-33) of trying to stone Jesus because, as they charge (10:33), “You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.” They got the point: Jesus was claiming to be one with the Father in His divine essence. As John began (1:1), “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This strengthens the last point, namely, that if both the Father and the Son promise to keep Jesus’ sheep, then our salvation is eternally secure.
So here’s the deal: If your salvation was based on anything in you, then you can undo it. If you sin or lose your faith, you lose your salvation. But if your salvation rests on the fact that the Father gave you to Jesus before the foundation of the world, and that Jesus freely gave you eternal life apart from anything that you can do, and if Jesus and the Father are guarding you and promise that you never will perish, then your salvation is secure forever.
Some say that if we are eternally secure, it will result in Christians living in sin. C. H. Spurgeon (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 35:695-696) replies to that charge:
Shall I come … to your house, and tell your children that, if they do wrong, you will cut their heads off; or that, if they disobey you, they will cease to be your children? If I were to propound that doctrine, your children would grow angry at such a slander upon their father. They would say, “No, we know better than that!” Far rather would I say to them, “My dear children, your father loves you; he will love you without end, therefore do not grieve him.” Under such doctrine true children will say, “We love our ever-loving father. We will not disobey him. We will endeavor to walk in his ways.”
Understanding the biblical doctrine of eternal security will lead to a holy life. Stand firm in it!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
June 8, 2014
Sometimes we think that if we could have been on earth to have seen and heard Jesus when He lived, our faith would be stronger. Maybe, but maybe not! John shows us that some who saw Jesus’ miracles and heard Him teach still wanted to kill Him (and finally succeeded), while some others believed. Both groups saw the same evidence, but they went in totally opposite directions. A positive response to Jesus depends on more than solid evidence. It also requires a heart that the Spirit of God has opened to the truth (Acts 16:14). And so as we come to the Bible, our prayer should always be, “Lord, open my heart to Your truth!”
This is the end of Jesus’ public ministry in John’s Gospel. Opposition has been mounting since chapter 5, when He healed the man by the Pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath. The Jews wanted to kill Jesus then because (5:18), “He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God.” Now, they pick up stones to stone Him (10:33), “because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.” But because Jesus’ time had not yet come, He leaves them and returns to the place beyond the Jordan where John the Baptist had baptized both Jesus and many others (10:40). There, in contrast to the hostility in Jerusalem, Jesus saw many believe in Him.
In our text, John is repeating some of the reasons to believe in Jesus that we have already seen (see 5:31-47). Keeping in mind his overall aim for writing (20:31), “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name,” John here shows:
Jesus’ words, His works, His person, John the Baptist’s testimony, and the Scriptures all show Him to be God.
Everything in the Christian faith depends on the correct answer to Jesus’ question (Matt. 16:15), “Who do you say that I am?” John hammers on that issue from every angle. If Jesus is not the eternal Word made flesh, who gave Himself on the cross for our sins, then there is no basis for Christianity. But if Jesus is who John proclaims Him to be, then you must submit your life to Him, no matter what hardships that may entail. There are five lines of evidence here:
In 10:30, Jesus states, “I and the Father are one.” “One” is neuter in Greek, not masculine, indicating that Jesus and His Father are not one person, but are one in essence. John 1:1 showed us that Jesus is fully God and yet distinct from the Father: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Jesus could not be “with God” if He were the same person as the Father, and yet He “was God.” John consistently shows this throughout his Gospel. Jesus repeatedly claims to have been sent to earth by the Father, which indicates a distinction of persons. Also, He prays to the Father, which would be pointless if He and the Father were the same person. Yet Jesus is God.
You need to be clear on this because there are a couple of churches in Flagstaff that deny the trinity, while still purporting to preach the gospel. One states in their beliefs (lifechurchflagstaff.com): “Everyone has sinned and needs salvation. Salvation comes by grace through faith based on the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ.” No problem there! But regarding God they state: “There is one God, who has revealed Himself as our Father, in His Son Jesus Christ, and as the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ is God manifested in flesh. He is both God and man.” Again, the last part of that statement is true: Jesus Christ is God manifested in the flesh, both God and man. But the problem is, God has not just “revealed Himself” as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That is the ancient heresy called Modalism (also called “Monarchianism” and “Sabellianism”). Rather, God exists eternally as one God in three distinct persons, each of whom is fully God (see Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology [Zondervan], pp. 226-261). Jesus’ statement that He and the Father are one does not mean that they are one person.
Some say that Jesus’ statement here only means that He is united with the Father in their purpose and actions of keeping the sheep from the enemy. But, Jesus’ claim that He gives eternal life to His sheep (10:28) and His claim to be able to keep them from all predators unto eternity are claims to deity. Also, the Jews clearly understood Jesus to be making the claim to be God. They state as their reason for attempting to stone Jesus (10:33), “because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.” They got it backwards, didn’t they? The truth is, Jesus, being God, became a man, not vice versa. But at least they understood His claim to be God.
Back in chapter 5, when the Jews accused Jesus of making Himself equal with God, He did not tear His garments in horror and cry, “God forbid that you would think such a thing!” Rather, He went to great lengths to affirm the charges. So here, rather than deny the Jews’ accusation, Jesus proceeds to defend His claims to be God (10:34-36):
“Has it not been written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), do you say of Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?”
This is a rabbinic form of argument that some (including the Jehovah’s Witnesses) misunderstand. They claim that Jesus was toning down His claim to deity by showing that the term “gods” can legitimately be used of men in certain ways. Thus He, a man, may be called “the Son of God.” But if Jesus had been toning down His claim to deity, the Jews would not still have tried to seize Him (10:39) after His explanation.
The quote comes from Psalm 82, which condemns corrupt judges in Israel. Their proper role should have been to act as God under His authority in the administration of justice. The psalmist referred to them as “gods,” not because they were divine in some sense, but because they were acting as God in their role as judges (see, Exod. 7:1; 21:6; 22:9). Jesus’ argument is from the lesser to the greater: “If mere men can be called ‘gods’ because of their position as judges, then how much more should I, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, be called the Son of God?” Leon Morris (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 528) adds, “Jesus is not classing Himself among men…. He separates and distinguishes Himself from men.” So both here and consistently throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus’ words show that He is God.
Jesus repeatedly appealed to His works, which backed up His words. Replying to the Jews’ demand that He tell them plainly whether He was the Messiah, Jesus states (10:25), “I told you, and you do not believe; the works that I do in My Father’s name, these testify of Me.” When the Jews picked up stones to stone Jesus after His claim to be one with the Father, He answered (10:32), “I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?” Then after His verbal defense to be God, He again adds (10:37-38), “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.” In each case, He pointed out that His works backed up His verbal claims.
The term “works” in John refers to all that Jesus did to promote the Father’s purpose, but often specifically to the miracles that He did (see Morris, pp. 688-691). In the general sense, Jesus told the disciples (4:34), “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.” After He healed the paralyzed man by the Pool of Bethesda, in defending His equality with God, Jesus referred both to the totality of His works and to the miracle of healing that man (5:19-20):
“Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. For the Father loves the Son, and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing; and the Father will show Him greater works than these, so that you will marvel.”
In the same discourse, He added (5:36), “But the testimony which I have is greater than the testimony of John; for the works which the Father has given Me to accomplish—the very works that I do—testify about Me, that the Father has sent Me.” Later, in the Upper Room, after Philip asks Jesus to show them the Father, Jesus replies (John 14:9-11):
“Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.”
Later in the same discourse, Jesus indicts the Jewish leaders for rejecting both His words and His works (15:22-24):
“If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates Me hates My Father also. 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.”
So, all that Jesus said and did, but especially His miracles, confirm that He is God in human flesh. In our text, Jesus appeals one last time to these hard-hearted Jewish leaders (10:37-38), “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.” “Know and understand” are the same Greek verb, but with different tenses. The idea is (Morris, p. 529), “Jesus is looking for them to have a moment of insight and then to remain permanently in the knowledge that that moment has brought them.” He wants them to come to full faith in Him as they consider His works and then to understand His unity with the Father. They are two distinct persons, and yet, with the Holy Spirit they comprise the one true God.
It’s no accident that liberal theologians and skeptics invariably attack the miracles in the Bible, including the miracles of Christ. Sometimes they sneer, “Just show me a miracle and I’ll believe.” But these Jews saw many miracles, yet they did not believe. In chapter 11, they will witness Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, but their response is not to fall before Jesus in faith and worship, but rather to intensify their plans to kill Him. You have to ask, “Why is this? Why did people in Jesus’ day reject miracles that they witnessed with their own eyes? Why do people in our day reject the eyewitness testimony of credible witnesses who reported the miracles of Jesus?”
I think the only answer is that they realize that if Jesus really did these things, then He is Lord and they will have to repent of their sins and submit their lives to Him. In the case of the Jewish leaders, they liked their place of power, so they didn’t want to yield to Jesus as Lord. In the case of modern liberal scholars, they take pride in their intellectual abilities and in the recognition that they get by writing books that attack the credibility of the New Testament. But in both cases, the skeptics don’t want to repent of their sins and bow before Jesus as Lord. So they attack His miracles. But those miracles are a powerful witness to Jesus’ deity.
The Jews put on hold their attempt to stone Jesus until He finished speaking. But they did not accept His testimony to His words and works. So we read (10:39), “Therefore they were seeking again to seize Him, and He eluded their grasp.” This could have been a miracle, where God blinded their eyes long enough for Jesus to escape. But rather, I think that Jesus’ person was so commanding and in control of the situation that His enemies dared not to lay a hand on Him. As we’ve seen repeatedly in John, no one could harm Jesus until His hour appointed by the Father (5:13; 7:30, 32, 44-46; 8:20, 59; 12:36).
I read recently that someone is going to do a remake of the movie “Ben Hur.” I hope that it’s as well-done as the first one. It’s been years now since I watched it, but I appreciated the way that it portrayed Jesus and His commanding presence. Ben Hur had been imprisoned by the Romans and was being taken to a galley ship to become a slave. He had dropped to the ground from exhaustion and was thirsty. He cried out, “God, help me!”
At that moment, the film showed Jesus from behind (the film never showed His face), stooping to give Ben Hur a drink. The Roman soldier in charge yelled to Jesus to leave the man alone and raised his whip. Jesus turned and looked at the threatening soldier, who just stood there in awe as he looked at Jesus’ face (which, as I said, the camera did not show). Slowly, he lowered his whip and turned away while Jesus gave Ben Hur a drink of water. That scene effectively communicated that Jesus’ commanding person showed Him to be God. As Jesus stated (10:18), “No one has taken it [My life] away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.” Jesus was not a helpless victim. He was always in control, even over His own death and resurrection. His words, His works, and His person all show Him to be God.
John concludes this section about Jesus’ public ministry by reporting that Jesus left Jerusalem and went away beyond the Jordan, where John was first baptizing. By this time John had been executed, but the effects of his ministry lingered on, as we read in 10:41: “Many came to Him and were saying, ‘While John performed no sign, yet everything John said about this man was true.’”
We first encountered John’s witness in 1:6-8: “There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light.” In 1:15, John testified of Jesus, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’” Although Jesus was six months younger than John, the prophet recognized Jesus’ pre-existence.
There follows an extended section where the Jews sent to John to ask if he was the Messiah, which he denied. Rather, he identified himself as the prophesied forerunner of Messiah. Pointing to Jesus, John proclaimed (1:29), “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” After stating that Jesus would be the one who baptizes in the Holy Spirit (1:33), John added (1:34), “I myself have seen, and have testified that this is the Son of God.” Later, when some of John’s followers were concerned because of Jesus’ growing popularity, John stated that Jesus was the bridegroom and he (John) was only the best man. Then he added (3:30), “He must increase, but I must decrease.” Jesus told His Jewish critics (5:33), “You have sent to John, and he has testified to the truth.” So if John was mistaken about who Jesus is, then Jesus was also mistaken, because He affirmed that John spoke the truth.
Note that John never performed a miracle, but he testified faithfully to the truth about Jesus. The result was that even after John was beheaded, these people in this region believed John’s testimony and through him came to believe in Jesus. That’s a great legacy to leave behind: Tell people the truth about who Jesus is so that they come to believe in Him. We’re like those pointing tubes at the Grand Canyon that are fixed on a point of interest. Our job is not to point people to us, but through us to Jesus.
So, Jesus’ words, His works, His person, and John the Baptist all give sufficient reasons to believe in Jesus as God and Savior. But the response is not automatic:
We have already seen this from Jesus’ citation of Psalm 82:6, which He uses to support His claim to be the Son of God. But here I want to focus on the parenthetical remark that Jesus throws in (10:35): “(and the Scripture cannot be broken).” This is a remarkable, comment! Morris (p. 527) says, “It means that Scripture cannot be emptied of its force by being shown to be erroneous.” Scripture, in its original languages, is authoritative and inerrant.
But even more noteworthy is the fact that Jesus picks a rather obscure psalm and then picks a single word in the psalm, “gods,” to make His point. This means that the very words of Scripture are true and authoritative. Some argue that only the ideas in Scripture are inspired, but not the exact words. Others say that we can’t determine the meaning of words, because meaning is always filtered through our subjective interpretations.
But all such caviling goes against the Savior’s high view of inspired Scripture. Jesus often appealed to Scripture as the final, infallible authority, sometimes basing His argument on a verb tense (Matt. 22:31-32). He defeated Satan by quoting Scripture three times (Matt. 4:1-11). He often cited Scripture as the basis for His actions (Matt. 13:14-15; 21:13, 16, 42; Mark 7:6-13; 14:27; Luke 4:18-19; etc.). Jesus said that the Scriptures testify about Him (John 5:39, 46; Luke 24:25-26, 44-47). The inspired, inerrant, authoritative Scriptures show Jesus to be God.
In spite of all this evidence, some reject Jesus while others believe in Him (10:39-42). Note the contrast between 10:39, “Therefore they were seeking again to seize Him, and He eluded their grasp”; and 10:42, “Many believed in Him there.” That last word, “there,” emphasizes the contrast: In Jerusalem, where you would have thought that Jesus would be welcomed as Messiah, He was rejected. But “there,” outside of Judea, many believed in Him through the witness of the martyred forerunner coupled with the presence of Jesus Himself. There seems to be a parallel here with chapter 4, where the despised Samaritans believed in Jesus, not only because of the woman’s witness, but also because of direct contact with Jesus.
There are several practical lessons here. First, you may never live to see how God uses your witness, but you should faithfully try to point people to Jesus anyway. John did not live to see these people come to faith, but his witness was a key factor in their faith. Second, we learn how hard the human heart is apart from God’s grace. These Jewish leaders had more than sufficient reasons to believe in Jesus, but they still were intent on murdering Him. When you get opportunities to tell people about Jesus, pray that God will soften their hard hearts and open their blind eyes. Finally, if some reject your witness, don’t give up. Some seed falls on the road and doesn’t even sprout. Other seed sprouts up, but quickly dies because it has no root. Still other seed gets choked out by the weeds. But some seed bears fruit to eternal life (Matt. 13:1-8). Keep sowing the seed and pointing people to Jesus! He is the Lord!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2013, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
June 15, 2014
In Jesus’ parable of the sower (Matt. 13:1-9, 18-23), it’s clear that how a person handles trials is a test of genuine faith. The seed that fell on the rocky ground sprouted up quickly, but it quickly faded when the sun, representing trials or persecution, beat down on it. The seed sown among the thorns lasted a bit longer, but eventually the worries of the world choked it out, so that it did not bear fruit. The only seed that represented genuine faith was that which persevered to bear fruit.
But trials can be a source of doubting, even for strong believers. In difficult trials, our emotions flood us with questions like, “If God loves me and He is all-powerful, then why am I going through this terrible trial?” As he languished in prison, even the godly John the Baptist seemed to question his faith in Jesus. He sent messengers to Jesus to ask (Matt. 11:3), “Are you the Expected One, or shall we look for someone else?” In other words, “If You’re the Messiah, why am I, Your appointed messenger, still in this stinking prison?” If even a great man like John could doubt in a time of trial, it’s important for all of us to think biblically about trials, both before they hit and also in the midst of them.
John 11 gives the account of Jesus’ most dramatic and powerful miracle in His entire ministry: raising Lazarus from the dead after he had been in the tomb for four days and his body was beginning to decompose. Because this miracle is not mentioned in the synoptic gospels, liberal critics have argued that it is not genuine.
While it may be difficult to explain why the other gospels omit this important miracle, it also creates huge difficulties to explain why John included it if it was not genuine. As one commentator wrote (G. R. Beasley-Murray, cited in D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 404, italics his), “One should … keep steadfastly in mind that he who wrote the Gospel of the Word made flesh viewed history as of first importance; he would never have related a story of Jesus, still less created one, that he did not have reason to believe took place.”
The story reads like an eyewitness account. It’s absurd to think that John would have fabricated such a fantastic story and presented it as a true event, knowing that others easily could have refuted it. The synoptic gospels relate two other resurrections from the dead that Jesus performed which John omits (Matt. 9:18-26; Luke 7:11-17). So we can’t know exactly why the inspired writers included some incidents and omitted others. But we do not need to conclude that the events were fabricated.
Jesus had left Jerusalem because the Jews were seeking to kill Him and was ministering across the Jordan River, where John was at first baptizing (10:40), when word came to Him from Mary and Martha that their brother and Jesus’ friend Lazarus was sick. John emphasizes more than once that Jesus loved Lazarus, as well as his sisters, Mary and Martha. But then, contrary to what we would expect, rather than rushing to Lazarus’ side to heal him, Jesus stayed two days longer in the place where He was. By the time He arrived in Bethany, about two miles outside of Jerusalem, Lazarus had been in the tomb for four days, setting the stage for this miracle.
Some commentators think that Jesus was only one day’s journey away from Jerusalem. In this scenario, Lazarus would have died shortly after the messengers left to go to Jesus, so even if He had gone immediately, Lazarus still would have died. But He stayed where He was for two days. Then on day four, He arrived at Bethany and performed the miracle. But that reconstruction of events seems at odds with the sisters’ complaint that if Jesus had only come sooner, their brother would not have died. So others think that Jesus was much farther away. Lazarus was still alive when the messengers got to Jesus, but he died just before Jesus left to return, which Jesus knew supernaturally (11:14).
In either case, Jesus could have spoken the word and healed him from a distance (as in 4:50). But Jesus makes it clear that He has some higher purposes for this sickness and death, namely, for God’s and His own glory and for the disciples’ and the sisters’ increased faith (11:4, 15, 26, 40). So He delayed going immediately, which resulted in Lazarus’ death and in the sisters’ grief over the loss of their brother. Because He loved them, He allowed them to suffer for greater purposes that they did not understand until later. To summarize the lessons for us:
Although we often can’t know why we’re suffering, we always can take our troubles to Jesus and know that He loves us and will work for our good in His time, not our time.
There are five practical lessons about suffering here:
Three times here John either directly or indirectly emphasizes the close, loving relationship that Jesus had with these three. In 11:2, John identifies Mary as the one who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped His feet with her hair. Interestingly, John doesn’t relate this event until 12:3. Perhaps, writing decades after Matthew (26:6-13) and Mark (14:3-9) reported this event and it was widely known (Luke 7:37-39 refers to a different incident), John assumed that his readers were aware of it. But, Mary’s anointing the Lord showed her love for Him and Jesus’ tender feelings for her.
Also, in 11:3, the messenger reports to Jesus, “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.” And, John adds (11:5), “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.” But then follows the surprising connection (11:6), “So when He heard that he was sick, He then stayed two days longer in the place where He was.” (The NIV’s “Yet when He heard…” mistranslates the Greek text.) John is saying that Jesus’ special love for these three was His reason for letting them suffer. His love did what was best for them.
But Jesus’ delay in coming didn’t feel like love to Mary and Martha, much less to Lazarus. (They hadn’t read this chapter yet!) We don’t know the cause of Lazarus’ death, but it probably involved pain and discomfort. The sisters helplessly watched their beloved brother go downhill. But their suffering did not mean that Jesus did not love them, but the reverse: He loved them, so He stayed two days longer where He was.
This refutes a popular, but spiritually destructive, heresy of our time: the teaching that it is God’s will for every believer to be healthy and wealthy. This falsehood is flooding into many poor nations, where it entices those who are suffering from disease or poverty with the false promise that if they will believe in Jesus, He will give them miraculous healing or financial success. The false teachers themselves flaunt their wealth, which they have gained from the gullible who contribute to their coffers. When health and wealth don’t happen, they teach that it’s because of your lack of faith. It’s hard to imagine a more heartless and cruel doctrine! Of course, the false teachers don’t mention the fact that they get sick and die with the same regularity as everyone else!
But the Bible is clear that the godly suffer and their suffering is not due to a lack of faith or to the lack of God’s love for them. But, you may wonder, why does He allow difficult tragedies?
“Why?” is often the first question that pops into our minds. Why this? Why me? Why right now? Did I do something to deserve this? Is God punishing me?
Several years ago in a letter to supporters, John MacArthur told about a pastor and his wife from Utah who traveled to The Master’s College to enroll their oldest daughter. Their second-oldest daughter planned to attend also in a year or two, so she was on the trip, along with their younger son. They had also brought two Italian foreign exchange students with them, hoping to have some opportunities to witness to them on the trip.
They looked around the campus and planned to attend Grace Church, where MacArthur is the pastor, the next morning. But as they drove away from the college, their car was broadsided at an intersection by a large van traveling at full speed. The force of the impact catapulted the two girls out the back of the car, killing them both instantly. The car quickly caught fire and their son and the two exchange students were badly injured and rushed to the hospital. The van had struck them on the driver’s side, just behind the front seat, so the pastor and his wife only had minor injuries.
MacArthur hurried to be with the couple at the hospital. They were shocked and shattered by their sudden loss, of course. But the father amazed and encouraged MacArthur when he said, “My sweeping thought is this: isn’t God good, that He took my two daughters who knew Christ and loved Christ, and spared these two Italian boys who are not saved? Isn’t God good?”
I’m sure that those parents didn’t have the “why” question answered then, and now, more than 25 years later, they probably still don’t know why that accident happened. But in that moment of tragedy, they were able to trust in God’s sovereignty and goodness.
Someone has said that rather than ask, “Why?” a better question is, “What?” What can I learn from this trial? Or, to ask, “How?” How does God want to use this trial? We can’t always know the answer to these questions, since God often works in ways that we don’t know about. But consider three avenues:
God-ward, the suffering may be to display God’s glory. Jesus says (11:4), “This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified by it.” We saw the same thing with the man born blind (9:3), “It was neither that this man sinned, nor his parents; but it was so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” Does it shock you that God would allow a man to be born blind and live many years in that condition so that God would receive glory through his eventual healing? What about God taking all ten of a man’s children, all of his material possessions, and his health, so that God would be vindicated before Satan and the angels? That’s the story of Job.
If that sort of thing bothers you, then you don’t have a big enough view of God. That was the answer that God finally gave to Job: for several chapters God hits Job with questions like (Job 38:4), “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?” And (40:2), “Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty?” Job’s final reply was (42:6), “Therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes.” Although Job was the most righteous man on earth in his day, he had to learn that God’s glory and God’s purpose was far greater than any suffering or loss that Job endured. John Piper (desiringGod.org, “This Illness is for the Glory of God”) writes:
Love means giving us what we need most. And what we need most is not healing, but a full and endless experience of the glory of God. Love means giving us what will bring us the fullest and longest joy. And what is that? … The answer of [John 11:4] is clear: a revelation to your soul of the glory of God—seeing and admiring and marveling at and savoring the glory [of] God in Jesus Christ.
Self-ward, the suffering may be either constructive or corrective. When I first preached through John, 37 years ago, I came to this text the week after our six-month-old daughter had been diagnosed with a congenital hip problem that required being hospitalized in traction and then put into a body cast for several months, followed by a couple of years in a harness to correct the problem. She hadn’t done anything wrong—she was just a baby. And as far as we knew, we hadn’t sinned so as to incur God’s discipline. But because we loved our little girl, we had to correct her problem even though it was painful for her and she didn’t have a clue why we were doing all that to her. Hebrews 12:10 says that God “disciplines us for our good, so that we may share His holiness.” He adds (12:11), “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”
Other-ward, the suffering may be to bring comfort to other Christians or to be a witness to non-Christians. In 2 Corinthians 1:4, Paul says that God “comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” Also, our suffering may be used as a witness, as happened in the death of Lazarus. Many of their friends who were there to comfort Mary and Martha saw the miracle that Jesus performed and believed in Him (11:45). Even later, many of the Jews who heard about this miracle and saw Lazarus were putting their faith in Jesus (12:9-11).
In her first book (Joni [Zondervan]), Joni Eareckson [Tada] tells of the tragic diving accident that left her paralyzed from the neck down. She chronicles the agony she went through in the aftermath and how eventually she came to trust in Christ and submit to Him. She ends the book by telling of speaking at a rally to hundreds of young people and her hope that scores of them would come to faith in Christ. Then she adds (p. 228), “But I will be pleased if only one person is drawn to Christ. Even one person would make the wheelchair worth all that the past eight years have cost.” That was many years ago and she is still using her suffering to bring others to faith in Christ.
So, this story teaches us that the Lord allows those He loves to suffer. Also, we can’t always know the “why” of our sufferings, although we sometimes can figure out “what” God wants to teach us or “how” He can use the suffering for His glory.
I don’t know how the sisters knew where Jesus was, but somehow they got word to Him (11:3), “Lord, behold, he whom You love is sick.” Note three things regarding their message: First, they didn’t demand that Jesus come and heal their brother. In fact, they didn’t ask Him to do anything. They just humbly presented the need to Jesus and left it up to Him what to do about it.
Second, they didn’t “claim Lazarus’ healing by faith” and command Jesus by a word of faith to do as they said. The “health and wealth” heretics tell people that we can command God: “Just speak the word of faith and it’s already done.” That’s nonsense and presumption, not to mention the height of arrogance! God is the sovereign of the universe and He has plans and purposes that we cannot begin to fathom. I’ve heard such false teachers say that we should never preface our prayers with, “Your will be done,” because that reflects a lack of faith. No, it reflects submission to the sovereign God.
Also, note that the sisters did not say, “Lord, he who loves you is sick.” That was true, of course. Lazarus loved Jesus. But rather they said (11:3), “Lord … he whom You love is sick.” They didn’t appeal to the Lord on the basis of anything in them or in Lazarus, but rather on the basis of His great love. George Muller, the godly man of faith and prayer, set forth these conditions for prayer that I have found helpful (from George Muller of Bristol [Revell], by A. T. Pierson, combined from pp. 170, 455, 456):
So, take your troubles to Jesus.
I’ve already pointed out the emphasis here on Jesus’ love for Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Love always seeks the highest good of the one loved, and the highest good for all of us, as John Piper pointed out, is not that we be healthy or wealthy, but that we get a bigger vision of God’s glory in Christ. Joni Eareckson made this amazing statement about her accident (ibid., p. 154):
God engineered the circumstances. He used them to prove Himself as well as my loyalty. Not everyone had this privilege. I felt there were only a few people God cared for in such a special way that He would trust them with this kind of experience. This understanding left me relaxed and comfortable as I relied on His love, exercising newly learned trust. I saw that my injury was not a tragedy but a gift God was using to help me conform to the image of Christ, something that would mean my ultimate satisfaction, happiness—even joy.
She was interpreting her suffering by God’s love, not interpreting His love by her suffering. So should we!
The sisters did not understand the Lord’s delay. Both of them blurted out the same complaint that they must have said to one another over and over (11:21, 32), “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” They couldn’t figure out the reason for the delay that had resulted in their brother’s death.
But as we’ve seen, the reason for the delay was Jesus’ love. By delaying, they would see more of God’s glory in Christ and know more of His power. They would grow in their faith in Him. The Lord’s deliberate delay was out of love, although they didn’t understand it at the time. Romans 8:28 is always true: “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
There is much in Scripture about waiting on the Lord. If He answered us instantly every time, we would not recognize our need to depend on Him. God never delays because He is indifferent to our need or too busy or away on vacation! Peter exhorts us to cast all our anxiety on Him and then reassures us (1 Pet. 5:7), “because He cares for you.” So never doubt His love, even though you don’t understand His reasons for delaying.
Here, we learn from the delay that Lazarus’ resurrection was a prototype of ours. Through it we see that although we all die, one day we all will be raised. If Jesus could raise a decomposing body from the grave, He won’t have any problem raising our bodies from the grave (1 Cor. 15:52-53; 1 Thess. 4:14). We also learn that Jesus Himself is the resurrection and the life and that by believing in Him, we will never die eternally (11:25-26).
A woman still overwhelmed with grief approached her church on the Sunday after her mother had died. Just outside the door, a 7-year-old boy met her. With tearful eyes he looked up at her: “I prayed for your mother,” he said, “but she died.” For a moment, the grieving woman wanted just to hug him and cry with him. But she could see that he was seriously disturbed because he thought his prayers had not been answered. So she silently prayed for wisdom and then said to the boy, “You wanted God to do His best for my mother, didn’t you?” He nodded slowly. “Well, God answered your prayer. His best for her was to take her home to live with Him.” The boy’s eyes brightened as he replied, “That’s right, He did!” Then he ran off to meet his friends, content that God had taken her to heaven. (Adapted from “Our Daily Bread,” 5/77.)
So although we often can’t know why we’re suffering, we always can take our troubles to Jesus and know that He loves us and will work for our good in His time, not our time.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
June 22, 2014
In a conversation with Woody Allen, Groucho Marx said he was often asked what he’d like people to be saying about him a hundred years from now. “I know what I’d like them to say about me,” Woody replied. “I’d like them to say, ‘He looks good for his age.’” (Reader’s Digest, exact issue unknown)
We chuckle, but we all know the reality: None of us (except perhaps a few babies) have any chance of being here a hundred years from now. But our main aim should not be to live a long life, but a life that counts in terms of eternity.
For many people, life consists of getting up, going to work, coming home, eating dinner, spending a couple of hours watching TV or being on the computer, going to bed, and repeating that cycle for 40 years or so. Their goal is to save up enough money to buy an RV so that they can travel around taking videos of the National Parks before they die. But to live like that is to waste your life. As believers, we have a higher purpose. Jesus said (Matt. 6:33) that we are to seek first His kingdom and righteousness. Whether God grants us a relatively long life or a short one, our focus should be on using the time, abilities, and resources that God entrusts to us to seek His kingdom.
When you think about the life of Jesus, it’s amazing that in three short years He chose, trained, and equipped the disciples to carry on what He began. To do that, He had to use His time rightly. Our text gives us a glimpse of how He used His time rightly and taught His disciples to do the same.
Jesus was ministering on the far side of the Jordan River to avoid the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, who were seeking to kill Him (10:39-40), when word came that His friend Lazarus in Bethany, near Jerusalem, was sick. John says that because Jesus loved Lazarus and his sisters, Martha and Mary, He stayed two days longer in the place where He was (11:5-6). Jesus knew that the highest good for them was not just for Lazarus to be healed, but for them to get a bigger vision of God’s and His own glory so that their faith would grow.
But then, after the two days, He said to His disciples (11:7), “Let us go to Judea again.” By saying “Judea” rather than “Bethany” or “to Lazarus,” Jesus triggered a shocked response from the disciples (11:8), “Rabbi, the Jews were just now seeking to stone You, and are You going there again?” Note that Jesus said, “Let us go” and the disciples replied, “Are You going there again?” Their reply reminds me of the joke about the Lone Ranger and Tonto, his Indian sidekick. The Lone Ranger said, “Tonto, we’re surrounded by hostile Indians. What are we going to do?” Tonto replied, “What do you mean ‘we,’ White Man?”
Well, with Thomas’ glum resignation (11:16), they all go back to Judea with Jesus, but they probably thought that it was a suicide mission. But Jesus’ reply shows how, in spite of the threats against His life, He used His time rightly to further God’s purpose. Applied to us, the principle is:
We use time rightly when we make wise decisions in light of eternity, fully surrendered to doing God’s will.
Consider three main factors:
To the disciples’ incredulous question Jesus replied (11:9-10): “Are there not twelve hours in the day? If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble, because he sees the light of this world. But if anyone walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.” There were no clocks back then, but they divided the day into twelve equal “hours” from sunrise to sunset, no matter what time of year it was. I’ll say more about what Jesus meant by this as we go, but for now note that one point of having twelve hours in a day is that we all have only so much time allotted to us to do what we’re supposed to do for God. We should take advantage of the time we have, because night is coming, when we cannot work for God (9:4). There are four things to note here:
The disciples were concerned that returning to Judea would not only get Jesus killed, but they’d probably die with Him. But Jesus is saying, “A day’s time is fixed. Nothing you do can lengthen it or shorten it.” He was constantly aware of the hour that the Father had fixed for Him (12:27). As we’ve seen repeatedly, until that hour came, no one could lay a hand on Him. Or, as David said (Ps. 139:16), all our days were written in God’s book before we were born. We won’t live a day longer or shorter than He has ordained. While that’s a great comfort, there is another side of it to consider:
J. Vernon McGee once told of a man who had been studying the doctrine of predestination and he had become so convinced of God’s sovereign protection of the believer under any and every circumstance that he said to Dr. McGee, “You know, sir, I’m so convinced that God is keeping me no matter what I do that I think I could step out right into the midst of the busiest traffic and if my time had not come, I would be perfectly safe.” In his folksy manner, Dr. McGee replied, “Brother, if you step out into the midst of busy traffic, your time has come!”
In other words, as believers we’re invincible until it’s our time to die, but at the same time we shouldn’t take foolish chances with our lives and expect God to protect us. Jesus had left Judea because the Jews were seeking to kill Him and He did so wisely in the will of God. But now He knew that God wanted Him to return to Judea, where shortly after raising Lazarus from the dead, His hour would come to go to the cross. We see the same thing with the apostle Paul. There were times in his life when he wisely escaped from dangerous situations. But at other times, he risked his life to take the gospel into dangerous places. So we need the balance between trusting God to keep us all the days that He has ordained for us and yet at the same time, being prudent and sensible.
Although Jesus was sometimes so busy that He didn’t have time to eat (Mark 3:20), He never seemed rushed or stressed out. Sometimes He left the needy crowds to get alone for prayer (Mark 1:35-37), but He always had time to do the Father’s work. As I said, it’s remarkable that at the end of three short years He could pray (John 17:4), “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do.” When life gets hectic it’s helpful to remember that God never gives us more to do than the time that we have to do it.
As Jesus said (John 9:4), “Night is coming when no one can work.” Just as there is a balance between God’s sovereign protection and our being prudent and sensible, there is also a balance between using our time wisely in light of eternity and knowing your limitations. I’ve known of people who are driven to make every minute count for eternity. The famous missionary, C. T. Studd (1860-1931) was so consumed with reaching the lost that he left his wife, who was suffering from a heart condition, in England while he went to Africa. When he received word there that she had suffered further heart complications, he refused to return home. He worked 18-hour days, took no time off, had no time for diversions, and expected all his fellow workers to do the same (see Ruth Tucker, From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya [Zondervan], pp. 265-266)! I think he was way out of balance.
On the other hand, some Christians live with no thought of making their lives count for eternity. Except for going to church on Sundays, they live just as the world lives: to accumulate enough money to retire and then to live their final years for personal enjoyment. They don’t give any thought to how God may want to use them in His purpose. They don’t commit to serve Him because they don’t want to be tied down. They aren’t living wisely in light of eternity.
So, the first point that we can glean from Jesus’ resolve to return to Judea to raise Lazarus is that we all have been given a certain amount of time to be used in light of eternity. But how we use our time depends on the decisions that we make. Thus,
How we spend our time depends in large part on our priorities and the decisions that we make in light of our priorities. Jesus’ priority was to glorify God by accomplishing His work (4:34; 17:4). To consider how Jesus used His time, it’s helpful to note both how He did not make decisions and how He made them. To limit ourselves to John 11, note the following:
We saw this in the account of Jesus’ first miracle, when His mother subtly suggested that He do something about the lack of wine at the wedding, but He replied (2:4), “Woman, what does that have to do with us? My hour has not yet come.” That comment was not impolite in that culture, as it sounds in English, but Jesus was making it clear that He would not act unless it was the Father’s time for Him to act. We saw the same thing in 7:3-9, when Jesus’ brothers advised Him to go up to the Feast of Tabernacles, but He refused to act on their timetable.
So here, even though Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus, He didn’t drop everything and rush to their side the moment He got word that Lazarus was sick. Rather, He acted in a way that would display the glory of God and His own glory so that the faith of His friends and the disciples would grow.
No doubt in His humanity, Jesus was moved and concerned for the grave situation facing His good friends. But He didn’t act on the basis of His emotions, but rather, as I said, on what would glorify God and accomplish His purpose in the lives of others. Usually, it’s not wise to make decisions based on the emotions that flood in when a crisis hits. It’s best to pause, pray, and think through the situation in light of Scripture before you act.
Jesus knew that His enemies were plotting to kill Him, but that didn’t deter Him from doing the will of God. While, as I said, there is a place for caution and prudence, it’s also true that it’s safer to be in the will of God in a place of danger than to be outside His will in a place of seeming safety.
We saw this in 11:4, where Jesus said: “This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it.” (Note that Jesus put Himself on the same level as God and His glory, which is a clear claim to deity.) Of course, Jesus raised Lazarus to relieve Martha’s and Mary’s sorrow and grief. I don’t know whether or not Lazarus was excited about leaving heaven to come back to earth with all of its sorrows and problems! But Jesus acted on the principle that God’s glory takes priority even above our relief from trials. The highest good for everyone is to gain a greater vision of God’s glory in Jesus Christ.
This is the point of Jesus’ word picture of walking in the day rather than at night (11:9-10). Jesus says (11:9) that the one who walks in the day “sees the light of this world.” There is a double reference here. On one level, Jesus is saying that those who walk during daylight hours do not stumble in the dark. But on a deeper level, since Jesus is the Light of the world (8:12), those who walk in the light of His presence and His purposes do not stumble. It’s always wise to make decisions based on whether you can do it with the assurance of God being with you because you are seeking to do His will.
This story is all about building each person’s faith in Jesus. The disciples already believed in Jesus, but their faith needed to grow. So Jesus makes what at first sounds like an outrageous statement (11:14-15), “Lazarus is dead, and I am glad for your sakes that I was not there, so that you may believe.” Jesus wasn’t glad that Lazarus was dead, but He was glad for this situation because it would result in greater faith for the disciples.
Also, to the grieving Martha, Jesus states (11:25-26), “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” Jesus knew that Martha already believed in Him, but He wanted her faith to grow so that she believed in Him as the resurrection and the life.
Also, when Jesus prays aloud at the tomb of Lazarus (11:42), He states plainly that He did so in order that the people standing around the tomb would believe that the Father had sent Him. Thus one of His main aims in waiting before coming to raise Lazarus was to bring some to saving faith and to strengthen the faith of those who already believed in Him. That should be a factor in our decisions about how to use our time: will it increase our faith and the faith of other believers? And, will it help bring others who do not yet believe to saving faith?
So, to use your time rightly, recognize that God has given you a certain amount of time to be used in light of eternity. To use your time rightly, you have to make wise decisions, as Jesus did. Finally,
Again, Jesus is our example here:
We saw this when Jesus was talking with the woman of Samaria and the disciples were trying to get Him to eat the lunch that they had brought from the village. He replied (4:34), “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work.” In other words, He was saying, “Doing God’s will and accomplishing His work is better to Me than eating!”
To do the Father’s will and accomplish His work, we must be fully surrendered and committed to that goal. You must give God a blank check with your life. As Paul wrote (Rom. 12:1-2),
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
You’ll only know God’s will when you’re fully surrendered to Him and committed to do it, no matter what the cost. Thomas here was committed, although not excelling yet in faith. He glumly says (11:16), “Let us also go, so that we may die with Him.” The other disciples went along, too. Although they all fled in fear when Jesus was arrested (Matt. 26:56), their defection was temporary. All of them later went on to be bold witnesses for Christ and most suffered martyr’s deaths.
Jesus was concerned about relieving Martha’s and Mary’s suffering in the loss of their brother, but He was more concerned that they and the disciples grow in their faith and that the unbelievers who witnessed the miracle of raising Lazarus come to faith (11:42).
Note that Jesus uses the common biblical metaphor of sleep when He refers to Lazarus’ death (11:11): “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I go, so that I may awaken him out of sleep.” The disciples misunderstood, probably because they really didn’t want to go back to Judea where their lives would be endangered, so they said (11:12), “Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” Sleep is good for those who are sick! But Jesus was speaking of Lazarus’ death, which He goes on to plainly state (11:13-14).
The “sleep” of death refers to the body, not to the soul. The Bible is clear that at death, the soul goes immediately to be with the Lord in “paradise” (Luke 23:43; 2 Cor. 5:8; Phil. 1:21-23), but the body “sleeps” in the grave until the day when Christ returns. At that point, the dead in Christ will rise (1 Thess. 4:16) and receive perfect eternal bodies suited for the new heavens and earth (1 Cor. 15:35-54). The wicked will also be raised for judgment and cast into the lake of fire forever (Rev. 20:5-15). Because life is short and eternity is forever, doing God’s will and God’s work must always keep the eternal in focus. We should help people with their earthly problems, but the main thing is to help them believe in Jesus so that they go to heaven.
This is implied by the metaphor of walking in the day or light. God’s will is our sanctification, or growth in holiness (1 Thess. 4:1-8). In typical fashion, John doesn’t offer a mediating position, where you can walk in the twilight. Either you walk in the light with Jesus or you walk in the darkness and stumble, because you have no light. John wrote (1 John 1:6-7), “If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” (See, also, Eph. 5:3-10.) Doing God’s will requires walking in the light.
As I’ve said, Jesus’ aim here was to increase the faith of the disciples and of Martha and Mary. Faith often requires taking risks in obedience to God to further His kingdom. It’s not always easy to know when it’s wise to flee danger and when faith would stay and face danger, since godly men (including Jesus) did both at different times. Jim Elliot and his four companion missionaries believed that God wanted them to risk their lives making contact with the fierce Auca tribe, and it cost them their lives. But God used it to open up that tribe to the gospel. J. C. Ryle observes (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], p. 42), “To make us believe more is the end of all Christ’s dealings with us.”
Probably this message applies to each of you in different ways. Some may need to surrender your life to Jesus. That is the starting point of using your time rightly so that you don’t waste your life. Others may need to sort through your priorities. What does it mean for you to seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness? Jot down a few goals that will help move you in that direction. Don’t waste your life. Make it count for eternity.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
June 29, 2014
How do you deal with grief? If you haven’t had to deal with it yet, you will, because, as George Bernard Shaw put it, “The statistics on death are quite impressive: one out of one people die.” So how will you deal with it? How should you deal with it?
In her famous 1969 book, On Death and Dying, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross identified five common stages of grief. While not everyone goes through all five stages in order or in equal intensity, often grieving people encounter one or more of the stages when they face a significant loss: (1) denial; (2) anger; (3) bargaining; (4) depression; and, (5) acceptance. Although these stages have been challenged and misapplied, most of us can identify with some of them if we have lost a loved one. But what’s missing, as we should expect from a secular source, is an eternal, God-centered perspective: How should believers in Christ deal with grief?
Some Christians think that since we’re to be filled with joy and praise, we shouldn’t grieve much, if at all. On my 36th birthday, I conducted a funeral for a 39-year-old man who had died of cancer, leaving a wife and two children. Two and a half years later, I conducted the wife’s funeral after she also died of cancer. But at his funeral, I was consoling the weeping wife when their former pastor from another community where they had lived came bouncing up with a big smile on his face and exclaimed, “Praise the Lord! Scott’s in glory now!” He was implying that this grieving widow should stop crying and start praising God! I wanted to punch him! But many Christians think that if you have really strong faith, you won’t grieve much, if at all. Put on your happy face and praise God!
On the other extreme, some believers grieve just as unbelievers do, who have no hope. They just can’t come to terms with their loss. Paul wrote to some relatively new believers (1 Thess. 4:13), “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope.” He went on to tell them about the coming of the Lord and the resurrection of the dead in Christ when He comes. His point was that while believers do grieve, their hope in Christ’s coming and the promise of the resurrection should make our grief different than the world’s grief.
Our text relates the interview between Jesus and Martha after her brother Lazarus died. In her characteristic, take-charge manner (see Luke 10:38-42), when Martha heard that Jesus was coming she went out to meet him, while her sister Mary stayed in the house. The sisters and their deceased brother must have been a prominent family, since many of the Jews had come to console them over their loss. As Martha and Jesus talk, Jesus makes a tremendous statement about being the resurrection and the life. Then He pointedly asks Martha (11:26), “Do you believe this?”
James Boice points out (The Gospel of John [Zondervan], 1-vol. ed., p. 736) that Jesus did not ask her, “Do you feel better now, Martha? Have you found these thoughts comforting? Do you feel your old optimism returning?” Then Boice observes, “According to Jesus it was not how she felt that was important, but what she believed.” Jesus wanted this grieving woman to come to a higher level of faith in who He is. He knew that faith in Him is a major component for us in dealing with our grief and with other major trials.
I’m calling this “overcoming faith,” because it enables us to overcome grief and loss. After the apostle Paul mentioned tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, and sword (Rom. 8:35), he added (8:37), “But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.” Implicit in that overwhelming victory is overcoming faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
God wants us to face life’s overwhelming trials with overcoming faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
There are seven qualities of overcoming faith here that will help us work through life’s overwhelming trials and losses so that we grieve, but not as unbelievers who have no hope:
The setting for this miracle (11:17-20) presents us with an overwhelming situation: Lazarus was dead and had been in the tomb four days. His body was beginning to decompose, as Martha pointed out to the Lord when He ordered that the stone be removed (11:39). There were no human solutions for this situation. The sisters had been on track when they had sent word to the Lord that Lazarus was sick. But when He delayed coming for two days, Lazarus had died. So now things were beyond all human hope.
We all know that God is the author and giver of life and that He alone has the power to raise the dead physically. But we also know that both in the Bible and in human history, resurrections from the dead are rare. There are a few in the Old Testament (1 Kings 17:17-24; 2 Kings 4:17-37; 13:21). The Gospels record that Jesus raised three people from the dead: The widow of Nain’s son (Luke 7:11-17); Jairus’ daughter (Luke 8:41-56); and Lazarus. Notably, He did not raise John the Baptist when he was martyred at a fairly young age. The Lord didn’t raise James, the brother of John, when Herod executed him. Peter raised Dorcas and Paul raised Eutychus (Acts 9:35-41; 20:9-12). So we can’t know why God raised a few and not others, even though He has the power to raise anyone He pleases.
But the rare examples that we have are pictures of what God does spiritually every time He saves a sinner. Paul says that all of us by nature were dead in our trespasses and sins, but that God graciously made us alive together with Christ (Eph. 2:1-5). The salvation of a sinner is no less a miracle than the raising of a dead body. It requires the same power that God used when He raised Christ from the dead (Eph. 1:19-20). And if God can do that, then He can come to our aid and work according to His sovereign purpose when we are in overwhelming situations. So, we should follow the example of these friends of Jesus by taking our need to Him.
Martha and Mary both said the same thing to Jesus (11:21, 32), “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” Commentators differ over whether the sisters were complaining or expressing strong faith by their comments. They obviously had faith in Jesus’ ability to heal their brother, if only He had been there.
But mixed with that faith is some unbelief. Surely Martha and Mary had heard how Jesus had healed the royal official’s son from a distance (4:46-54). Jesus didn’t have to be physically present to heal Lazarus before he died. So the sisters’ comments reflect a failure to recognize that God was in control of where Jesus was when Lazarus got sick and how quickly or slowly Jesus responded when He got the news.
But most of us have thought just as Martha and Mary thought in this trial: If only things had been different! We replay in our minds: “If only I had not done what I did, the accident would not have happened!” “If only the timing had been different, the tragedy would not have happened!” But it’s really a contradiction to say, “Lord, if only things had been different.” If He’s the Lord, then He is in control of all our circumstances. Surely, He wasn’t asleep or distracted when our tragedy happened!
The Bible repeatedly affirms that God is in control of all things, including tragedies (Job 42:2; Ps. 103:19; 115:3; Isa. 46:10; Eph. 1:11). Psalm 135:6 declares, “Whatever the Lord pleases, He does, in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps.” It goes on to talk about mist and lightning and wind all over the earth and then moves on to the plagues of Egypt and the conquering of the Canaanites. In other words, from relatively minor processes of nature to major, nation-changing events, God is in control.
I trust that most of you believe that, but there are some who claim to be evangelicals, but they deny that God is sovereign over evil or tragedies that happen. Their view is called “open theism.” (At least one Flagstaff church holds this view.) John Sanders, an open theist, has written (The God who Risks: A Theology of Providence [IVP], p. 262; cited by John Piper, The Hidden Smile of God [Crossway Books], p. 24):
God does not have a specific divine purpose for each and every occurrence of evil…. When a two-month-old child contracts a painful, incurable bone cancer that means suffering and death, it is pointless evil. The Holocaust is pointless evil. The rape and dismemberment of a young girl is pointless evil. The accident that caused the death of my brother was a tragedy. God does not have a specific purpose in mind for these occurrences.
In my estimation, that view not only denies what the Bible repeatedly affirms, namely, the absolute sovereignty of God. Also, it robs believers of the comfort of knowing that God is in control of all our circumstances, even when we can’t make sense out of them. As we’ve seen, Jesus was in control of Lazarus’ death. He deliberately remained two days longer where He was, resulting in Lazarus’ death, so that this miracle would display God’s and His own glory and so that His followers would grow in their faith (11:4, 15). So even though we often don’t understand the reason for our trials, we can know that the Lord wants us to trust Him and to gain a bigger view of His glory.
Martha’s opening comments to Jesus are a bit mixed up, although true to life when someone is grieving (11:21-22), “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died. Even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.” In verse 21, she limits the Lord’s ability to heal by His physical presence and with regard to time (He could have done something, if only He had been there four days sooner); but in the next verse she affirms His ability to ask God for anything and receive it.
At first glance, verse 22 seems to indicate that Martha believed that even now Jesus could ask and God would raise Lazarus from the tomb. But 11:23-24 & 39 indicate that she was not thinking of that. Those verses may reflect the fluctuating emotions of a woman bouncing between grief and hope (William Hendriksen, John [Baker Academic], p. 148). Or verse 22 is probably a more general affirmation that in spite of her brother’s death, Martha has not lost her faith in Jesus and His intimacy with the Father (D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 412).
It’s often hard to know how to pray in a trial because we don’t know God’s sovereign will. It may be His will to heal miraculously or it may be His will to be glorified as we trust Him during and after our loss. But we can and should pray (in line with Eph. 3:20), “Lord, I know that You are able to do far more abundantly beyond all that I can ask or think. If it’s Your will, I ask for healing [or, whatever the need]. But in any case, I ask that You will be glorified in this difficult situation.”
So, overcoming faith takes overwhelming situations to the Lord, realizing that He is in control. Also, it does not limit God.
After the Lord tells Martha that her brother will rise again (11:23), she replies (11:24), “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Although she missed the drift of Jesus’ promise to raise Lazarus that very day, Martha did express her faith in God’s promises regarding eternity. There are several Old Testament promises regarding the future resurrection of the dead (Ps. 16:9-11; 17:15; 49:15; 73:24, 26; Job 19:25-27; Isa. 26:19; Dan. 12:2). And the New Testament even more clearly affirms that the dead will be raised (1 Cor. 15). Jesus taught (John 5:28-29), “Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.”
The Bible is clear that all wrongs will not be made right in this life, but they will be made right in eternity. Herod could execute the godly John the Baptist and go on living in luxury for a few years. But Herod died and faced judgment, whereas John went to be with the Lord. Years ago, I read about a godly family that was heavily involved in the cause of world missions. One evening, their adult daughter went to a Southern California mall to buy a gift for a friend’s upcoming wedding. She was abducted by two thugs who raped and murdered her. The only way to get through that kind of tragedy is to trust in God’s promises regarding eternity.
As we’ve seen, Martha should be commended for believing God’s promises regarding eternity. But Jesus meant for her to apply that promise to the present situation. He wanted her to believe that He could and would raise Lazarus that very day.
General faith for the future is easier than specific faith for the present trial. It’s easier to believe that someday God will work all our trials together for good than it is to believe that He is presently working this trial for good. C. H. Spurgeon (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 30:494-495) tells about a poor older French couple who had framed on their wall a note worth 1,000 francs. A traveler saw it and asked about it. They said that they had taken in a dying French soldier and he had given them that little picture when he was dying as a memorial of him. But they didn’t realize that it was worth a small fortune if they would take it to the bank. Spurgeon applies it by exclaiming, “Oh that we had grace to turn God’s bullion of gospel into current coin, and use them as our present spending money.”
Jesus said (11:4) that this miracle would result in “the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it.” Jesus revealed His glory both by showing His power in calling Lazarus from the tomb and also by His words to Martha (11:25-26): “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” This is the fifth of Jesus’ “I am” statements in John. It is clearly a claim to deity; no one other than God in human flesh could say what Jesus says here. He does not merely say that He can impart resurrection and life, which would be amazing enough. He says that He is the resurrection and the life. Those qualities are part and parcel of His being.
In claiming “I am the resurrection,” Jesus was referring to what He said in 5:28-29, that one day He will speak and all the dead from all times will arise, some to eternal life and others to judgment. Jesus further explains this when He adds (11:25), “he who believes in Me will live even if he dies.” “Live” has the sense of, “come to life” and refers to “the final resurrection of believers at the last day” (Carson, p. 413).
Jesus’ words, “I am … the life” are further explained by the clause, “everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.” Jesus does not mean that believers will never die physically, since He just referred to believers dying. Rather, He means that those who believe in Him will never die spiritually. They receive eternal life from Jesus. In 5:21, Jesus said, “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes.” This eternal life begins the instant we believe in Jesus and is not interrupted by physical death. Rather, death ushers us into the presence of the Lord, where we will await the resurrection of our bodies when Christ returns.
Martha already had believed in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God (as she goes on to affirm in 11:27). But Jesus challenges her in her time of grief to believe specifically in Him as the resurrection and life (11:26): “Do you believe this?” In other words, “Do you believe these specific truths about Me?” Faith that overcomes life’s trials must have specific doctrinal content about the person and work of Jesus Christ. It’s not enough to have a vague, general faith in Christ. You need to know Him as He is revealed in all of God’s Word. That kind of faith will sustain you in a time of trial.
Overcoming faith takes overwhelming trials to the Lord. It realizes that God is in control of all your circumstances, including the present trial. It does not limit God. It trusts in His promises regarding eternity, but also it applies those promises to the present trial. It centers in the person of Jesus Christ. Finally,
Martha affirms her faith in Christ (11:27): “Yes, Lord; I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, even He who comes into the world.” This is a tremendous confession of faith, on a par with Peter’s great confession (Matt. 16:16), “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Martha realized that Jesus was the promised Messiah. “He who comes into the world” clarifies or re-emphasizes His messianic role.
We can’t know for sure how much theological truth Martha, Peter, John the Baptist (John 1:34), and Nathaniel (1:49) knew when they confessed that Jesus was the Son of God. At the very least, they were connecting it to God’s promise to David, that God would be a Father to his sons and that they would sit on his throne forever (2 Sam. 7:13-14; Psalm 2:7). But as John’s Gospel shows, “Son of God” depicts “a unique relation of oneness and intimacy between Jesus and his Father” (Carson, p. 162) that is ontological, not merely messianic. Martha was believing what John wants his readers to believe, that “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,” so that we might have life in His name (20:31).
But while Martha’s confession was solid and deep, she probably didn’t yet understand fully that Jesus was eternal God in human flesh. Her reply does not seem to relate directly to what Jesus affirms in 11:25-26. In her grief, she probably couldn’t immediately sort out what Jesus was claiming about being the resurrection and the life. But she affirmed what she did believe and from there she probably later did grow to understand what Jesus had told her. She knew what she believed, confirmed that, and grew from there.
In a time of overwhelming trials, come back to what you know for sure: Jesus is the Messiah promised in the Old Testament, He is the eternal Word in human flesh who died for your sins, and He was raised from the dead. Camp on those truths and you can overcome your present difficulties.
Alan Redpath wrote (Victorious Christian Living [Revell], p. 166):
There is nothing – no circumstance, no trouble, no testing – that can ever touch me until, first of all it has gone past God and past Christ, right through to me. If it has come that far, it has come with a great purpose which I may not understand at the moment. But as I refuse to become panicky – as I lift up my eyes to Him – and as I accept it as coming from the throne of God for some great purpose of blessing to my heart, no sorrow will ever disturb me, no trial will ever disarm me, no circumstance will cause me to fret – for I shall rest in the joy of what my Lord is. That is the rest of victory.
That is overcoming faith! The Lord wants each of us to look through our grief and tears to Him as the resurrection and the life and answer His question: “Do you believe this?”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
July 20, 2014
Several years ago a young couple that visited our church wanted to talk with me after the service. They had moved here from out of state because the wife had landed a good job. But after a short time on the job, she was terminated, from her perspective, without cause. She was angry and bitter towards God because they thought that they had followed Him in moving here. Now they were without work and without funds to move back home.
I shared with them that the Lord was in control of their difficult situation and that He had many lessons to teach them if they would trust Him. The husband had a good attitude and seemed teachable, but the wife wouldn’t listen. She kept insisting that God had let them down. Later the husband came for further counsel because she angrily left him to return to their former location.
That woman was a sad example of how we as Christians should not respond when sudden trials come into our lives. The Bible gives us another option: Rather than growing angry and withdrawing from the Lord, we can draw near to Him in submission to His sovereign hand, knowing that He cares for us. It’s okay to draw near to Him with tears of grief and confusion. The main thing is to draw near with a submissive heart, trusting in His sovereign love and care for you.
Mary, the sister of Martha, did that when Jesus came to Bethany after the death of their brother, Lazarus. Martha first went to the Lord as He came into their village, but Mary stayed in the house. Then after her interview with Jesus, Martha came and whispered to Mary (11:28), “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.” Mary did not say, “I’m too angry right now even to talk to Him!” Rather, she did what we should do in our times of trouble: She got up quickly and went to Jesus (11:29). She fell at His feet weeping and repeated what Martha had said (11:32), “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.”
The significant thing is that Jesus did not rebuke her for her tears or her lack of faith. Rather, we read in the shortest verse in the English Bible (11:35), “Jesus wept.” While commentators differ in interpreting Jesus’ emotions here, as I’ll explain, I believe that John wants us to see Christ’s compassion for these sisters in their loss. This story pictures what Hebrews 4:15-16 declares,
For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Our text teaches us that …
The call and compassion of the Teacher should cause us to draw near to Him in our trials.
In difficult times, John wants us personally to apply Martha’s words (11:28), “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.”
Martha did not say, as she easily could have, “Jesus is here and is calling for you.” Rather, she calls Him, “The Teacher.” Jesus is the Teacher par excellence and His most effective lessons are often when we’re hurting the most. We all tend to be rather self-sufficient. Many years ago there was a TV commercial (I can’t remember what it was advertising) where mother was trying to give advice to her young adult daughter and the daughter would reply in frustration, “Mother, please, I’d rather do it myself!” We’re often like that with the Lord—we think that we can do it by ourselves, without His help.
But then trials hit and we realize the truth of Jesus’ words (John 15:5), “apart from Me you can do nothing.” It’s at these overwhelming times that we can learn the most about Christ’s all-sufficiency, if we draw near to Him.
Dr. William Coltman, the pastor of Highland Park Baptist Church in Michigan from 1914-1956, wrote (source unknown):
Until I learned to trust, I never learned to pray;
And I did not learn to fully trust ’til sorrows came my way.
Until I felt my weakness, His strength I never knew;
Nor dreamed ’til I was stricken that He could see me through.
Who deepest drinks of sorrow, drinks deepest, too, of grace;
He sends the storm so He Himself can be our hiding place.
His heart that seeks our highest good, knows well when things annoy;
We would not long for heaven if earth held only joy.
And so, in a time of trials or grief, realize that you’re enrolled in the school of Christ and He has just given you a great opportunity to learn more about His all-sufficiency.
Martha was the take-charge, get things done, sister. She was the one (Luke 10:38-42) who was busy getting the meal prepared when Jesus visited their home, while her sister Mary sat at Jesus’ feet, listening to Him teach. She scolded the Lord on that occasion because He didn’t tell Mary to get up and help her. But the Lord gently rebuked Martha for being worried and bothered about so many things, while Mary had chosen the better part.
In John 11, when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she got up and went to Him. Jesus dealt with her on a doctrinal level, claiming to be the resurrection and the life, and then challenging her (11:26), “Do you believe this?” He knew that she needed this doctrinal foundation so that she would glorify Him in this trial.
But when Mary fell at Jesus’ feet in tears, He sympathized with her and wept, without any discussion of biblical truth. He knew that she needed to feel His compassion and that she later would glorify Him because He entered into her sorrow.
Two applications: First, recognize that the Lord always deals with you according to your personality to teach you what you need to grow in every trial. All parents who have more than one child know that each child is different. You can’t deal with them in exactly the same way because they are wired differently and they learn differently. The Teacher does that with His children. He tutors you individually, in a way that you can best learn the lessons. But you need to try to understand, through prayer and the Word, “What does the Teacher want me to learn through this trial?”
Second, we should be sensitive to the unique personalities of others when we try to comfort or help them in difficult situations. Some may need a word of encouragement, whereas others don’t need any words, but just for you to be with them and cry with them. There is no “one size fits all” when it comes to helping others in their time of need. So pray for sensitivity and wisdom as you try to help.
But for us to trust Jesus as our Teacher in times of trial, we have to know Him. The more we know who He is, the easier it is to trust Him. Thus John shows us that…
This chapter shows us both Jesus’ humanity and His deity. We see His humanity very plainly in 11:34-35, where Jesus asks the location of the tomb and then He weeps. But we see His deity earlier in the chapter, when He knows that Lazarus is dead and that He is going to raise him from the dead (11:11, 14); and when He tells Martha that He is the resurrection and the life and that whoever believes in Him will live even if he dies and will never die (11:25-26). Many years ago, I read this paragraph by Alfred Edersheim, (The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah [Eerdmans] 1:198), and I’ve always remembered it as I read the gospels:
It has been observed, that by the side of every humiliation connected with the Humanity of the Messiah, the glory of His Divinity was also made to shine forth. The coincidences are manifestly undesigned on the part of the Evangelic writers, and hence all the more striking. Thus, if he was born of the humble Maiden of Nazareth, an Angel announced His birth; if the Infant-Saviour was cradled in a manger, the shining host of heaven hymned His Advent. And so afterwards—if He hungered and was tempted in the wilderness, Angels ministered to Him, even as an Angel strengthened Him in the agony of the garden. If He submitted to baptism, the Voice and vision from heaven attested His Sonship; if enemies threatened, He could miraculously pass through them; if the Jews assailed, there was the Voice of God to glorify Him; if He was nailed to the cross, the sun craped his brightness, and earth quaked; if He was laid in the tomb, Angels kept its watches, and heralded His rising.
The fact that Jesus is fully man means that He can identify and sympathize with our problems. The fact that He is fully God means that He is sovereign over and can help with them. (Of course, the God who made us completely understands us and is full of compassion towards us; Ps. 103:13-14. But Jesus’ humanity especially qualifies Him to sympathize with us; Heb. 4:15.) Three aspects of Jesus’ humanity shine from our text (I’m drawing these headings from James Boice, John [Zondervan], one-vol. ed., pp. 749-753, who seems to be following C. H. Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 35:338-346):
Isaiah (53:3) prophesied that Jesus would be “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” The fact that Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus shows that whatever our grief may be, Jesus knows it and He enters into it with us.
But at this point, we encounter some difficult interpretive matters. The world translated “deeply moved” (11:33 & 38, NASB, ESV, NIV; “groaned, NJKV) is difficult to understand. It’s only used three other times in the New Testament and in those places it has a meaning that does not seem to fit here. In Matthew 9:30 & Mark 1:43, it means, “strictly charged” or “sternly warned.” In Mark 14:5, it refers to the scolding of the woman (Mary) who anointed Christ with expensive ointment. The parallel (Matt. 26:8) uses a different word to say that they were indignant with her. In the LXX, the word refers to anger or being indignant (Dan. 11:30; noun in Lam. 2:6). Thus many commentators think that in John 11:33 & 38, Jesus was angry or indignant (The New Living Translation). Some think that He was indignant with the unbelief expressed by Mary and the others (11:32, 37); or He was angry with the death that God decreed because of man’s fall into sin.
But S. Lewis Johnson (sermon on this text, online at sljinstitute.net) mentions a Professor Black from the University of St. Andrews who studied this word thoroughly and concluded that it does not have the nuance of anger. And since anger does not seem to fit the context here, some argue that the word can refer to being deeply moved (as the NASB, ESV, & NIV translate it). The word was used in extra-biblical Greek to refer to the snorting of a horse preparing for battle. Calvin (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 442) views it as Jesus gearing up for the conflict as our champion in the battle against sin and death.
One other suggestion is worth considering. F. Godet (Commentary on the Gospel of John [Zondervan], 2:184) questions why Jesus didn’t feel the same emotion towards death at the other two resurrections that He performed. He says that here Jesus realizes that raising Lazarus will precipitate the hostility of His enemies that will lead to His own death on the cross. The accompanying verb (11:33, “troubled Himself”) is also used as Jesus contemplates His impending death in John 12:27 & 13:21. Thus perhaps Jesus is deeply moved both by the sisters’ grief and by what He knows will happen after He raises Lazarus. R. H. Lightfoot (cited by Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 557, n. 69) commented, “The expression used here implies that He now voluntarily and deliberately accepts and makes His own the emotion and the experience from which it is His purpose to deliver men.”
So while we cannot be certain of the exact meaning of John’s word, we can know that our Savior was not a Stoic. Even though He knew that He was going to raise Lazarus, it didn’t prevent Him from entering into the sisters’ grief. He experienced deep feelings and grief, just as we do. And even though He knows that one day He will wipe away all of our tears (Rev. 21:4) He still sympathizes with us in all of our sorrows.
Jesus could have restrained His tears. After all, He knew that He would soon raise Lazarus. Besides, His tears could be misinterpreted as weakness or frustration on His part, as some of the Jews surmised (11:37). But Jesus did not worry about that. He was completely human (without a sin nature) and His tears show that it’s not wrong to express our feelings as long as our hearts are submissive to God. The NT states three times that Jesus wept (here; Luke 19:41, over Jerusalem’s unbelief; and Heb. 5:7, in the Garden of Gethsemane), but never that He laughed (but, see Luke 10:21).
It’s worth noting that John uses a different word (11:33) for weeping to describe the loud wailing of Mary and the mourners than the word in 11:35, which could be translated, “Jesus burst into tears.” Jesus wept, but He was not wailing in despair. In the words of Paul (1 Thess. 4:13), believers are to grieve, but not as those who have no hope. It’s interesting, also, that while the shortest verse in the English Bible is John 11:35, “Jesus wept,” the shortest verse in the Greek NT is 1 Thessalonians 5:16, “Rejoice always!” Those verses are not contradictory! As Paul put it (Rom. 12:15), “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.” Jesus entered into the sorrow of these sisters. As we become more like our Savior, we should not become more stoical, but rather people who express godly emotions.
In 11:36 we read in response to Jesus’ weeping, “So the Jews were saying, ‘See how He loved him!” And they were right, because John has previously underscored Jesus’ love for Martha, Mary, and Lazarus (11:3, 5). In fact, Jesus’ love for these dear friends was the reason He stayed two days longer where He was, allowing Lazarus to die (11:6). Love always seeks the highest good for the one loved, and the highest good for anyone is that he or she gets a greater vision of God’s glory and thus grows in faith. Both of these aims were behind Jesus’ delay in going to Bethany (11:4, 15, 40).
But some of the Jews questioned both Jesus’ love and His power when they said (11:37), “Could not this man, who opened the eyes of the blind man, have kept this man also from dying?” They couldn’t reconcile Jesus’ love and power with Lazarus’ death. And in a time of severe trials, the enemy may whisper to you, “God must not love you or He isn’t able to prevent trials like you’re going through. You shouldn’t trust Him!”
But at such times, never interpret God’s love by your difficult circumstances, but rather interpret your circumstances by His love (modified from, C. H. Mackintosh, Miscellaneous Writings [Loizeaux Brothers], vol. 6, “Bethany,” pp. 17-18). He could have prevented your trial. But as H. E. Hayhoe wrote (“Sentence Sermons,” exact source unknown), “He will never allow a trial in your life without a needs be on your part and a purpose of love on His part.”
Thus, Christ is the Teacher and He calls you to come to Him and learn from Him in your trials. And, the Teacher who calls us to Himself is fully God and fully man; thus He can help us in our trials. Finally,
Martha’s words to Mary (11:28) are the Lord’s words for us when we’re hurting: “The Teacher is here and is calling for you.”
Jesus was there, but Mary had to get up and go to Him. And even though you may not feel His presence, He is always present and available to give grace if you go to Him in your trials.
Mary went immediately when she heard that the Teacher was there and calling for her. She didn’t say, “I’ve been crying for four days. My mascara is streaked, my eyes are red and swollen. I can’t go to Jesus like this! I need to go and make myself presentable!”
But we often do that with the Lord. We’re in the midst of a trial or problem and we think, “I can’t go to the Lord until I get myself more together. I’ll wait until I’m calmer and more in control of my emotions.” But grace is for the undeserving, not for the deserving. Go to Jesus with your tears and He will weep with you.
If you’ve never come to Christ for salvation, the only way that you can come is just as you are. If you try to clean up your life or make yourself more presentable to Him, you don’t understand His grace. As the old hymn (by Charlotte Elliott) goes,
Just as I am, without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bid’st me come to Thee,
O Lamb of God, I come! I come.!
Mary “got up quickly and was coming to Him” (11:29). She had friends at her side who were consoling her. She could have thought, “What will they think if I leave them and go to Jesus?” Or, she could have thought that their consolations were enough. But as comforting as our friends may be, they are no substitute for the Teacher who calls us to Himself. Don’t delay: Go to Jesus quickly! The sooner you go, the sooner you’ll experience His comfort and compassion.
Mary went and fell at Jesus’ feet (11:32). Every time we encounter Mary in the Gospels, she is at Jesus’ feet. In Luke 10:39, she was “seated at The Lord’s feet, listening to His word.” In our text, she pours out her grief at Jesus’ feet. In John 12:3, she anointed Jesus’ feet with the expensive ointment and dried them with her hair, as she prepared Him for His burial. In this, she is an example for us: First, learn God’s word about Jesus. Then you’ll know Him so that you can take your sorrows to Him in a time of grief. That will lead you to worship Him as the one who died for your sins.
A mission executive from the United States was visiting a school in Kenya where he was listening as teenage girls shared how they had been blessed by hearing the Bible in their own language. One girl testified that the verse that had the greatest impact on her was Matthew 5:4, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Another said that the verse that had the greatest impact on her was John 11:35, “Jesus wept.” She said that when she wept in the night, she knew that Jesus was weeping with her.
The mission executive wondered why these two girls were mourning and weeping. He thought that maybe they had chosen these verses to share because they were short and easy to remember. But the school’s teacher leaned over and whispered to him that both of these girls had lost their parents to AIDS. Jesus’ compassion comforted them in their losses. In the same way, the Teacher calls you to come to Him with your tears. He cares for you and He will cry with you. Come to Him!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
August 10, 2014
There is a familiar saying, “Seeing is believing,” but in spiritual matters that is not necessarily true. Sometimes skeptics will say, “Show me a miracle and I’ll believe.” But even if they saw a genuine miracle, they’d still doubt it or look for a naturalistic explanation and find other reasons to continue in their unbelief.
As we’ve seen repeatedly, John wrote his Gospel, and especially the seven miraculous signs that Jesus performed before His death, “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name” (20:31). But not all who saw Jesus’ miracles in person believed in Him, just as not all today who read the eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ miracles in the Gospels believe in Him. The barrier to faith is that we love our sin. As Paul points out in Romans 1:18-20, all people have adequate evidence of God’s eternal power and divine nature through creation, but they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. If God exists and created all things, then sinners know that they’re in big trouble. So they invent myths, like evolution, to dodge the reality of God so that they can continue in their sin.
If any miracle should have resulted in every person present falling on his face and worshiping Jesus as God, it would have been the raising of Lazarus from the dead. He had been dead four days, so that his body was beginning to decompose. But when Jesus cried out (11:43), “Lazarus, come forth,” life returned to his dead body, he was completely restored, and he walked out of the tomb, still bound with the grave wrappings. As a result, many did believe in Jesus, but in an amazing display of the hardness of unbelieving hearts, others went to report to the Jewish leaders what had happened. And, rather than acknowledging their mistaken views of Jesus, they intensified their efforts to kill Him.
In the narrative, Jesus tells Martha (11:40), “Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” Believing would result in seeing. But (in 11:45-46) others who saw this stupendous miracle did not believe, and their foolish hearts were darkened (Rom. 1:21). The lesson is:
If we believe in Christ, we will see the glory of God; but if we see miracles without believing we will be hardened in our sin.
Jesus’ comment to Martha (11:40) that if she believed, she would see the glory of God, probably refers to His earlier comment (11:4), which would have been reported to Martha and Mary, “This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it.” Jesus’ aim in all that He did was to glorify the Father (17:1-5). Jesus is the revelation of God’s glory to us. As John said (1:14), “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” In heaven, we will see Jesus’ glory in all its fullness (17:24).
God’s glory is His essential and intrinsic splendor. The Hebrew word has the notion of weight or heaviness, and thus refers to God’s worthiness, reputation, and honor (M. R. Gordon, Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible [Zondervan], ed. by Merrill C. Tenney, 2:730). The emphasis in the Bible is on glory as the manifestation of His attributes. Thus Calvin wrote (ibid. 2:732), “The glory of God is when we know what He is.” He also observed (ibid. 2:733), “We never truly glory in Him until we have utterly discarded our own glory … whoso glories in himself glories against God.”
In this case, Martha’s faith would result in her seeing God’s glory as seen in Jesus’ intimacy with the Father and in His power to call Lazarus from the tomb. This miracle validates Jesus’ astounding claims in John 5:21, “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes.” He added (5:28-29), “Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; …” Because Jesus raised Lazarus, we can know that He will make good on His promise to raise all the dead someday, either for eternal life or for judgment. So this miracle should result in our seeing the fact that Jesus is the author and giver of both physical and eternal life and that He has all power over death.
We should apply Jesus’ words to Martha (11:40), “if you believe, you will see the glory of God.” First, we should always join Moses in his prayer (Exod. 33:18), “I pray You, show me Your glory!” That was a bold prayer! Moses had already seen the Lord at the burning bush. He had seen God’s power in the ten plagues on Egypt. He had seen the Lord deliver His people through the Red Sea, provide water from the rock, and manna from heaven every morning. I’d be satisfied to see any one of those displays of God’s glory! But, Moses wanted more, and so should we! As we see more of God’s glory, it transforms us into His image (2 Cor. 3:18). So, always pray that God will grant you more faith so that you will see more of His glory.
Also, C. H. Spurgeon (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 59:87) applied this verse by challenging his congregation to believe God for the conversion of sinners who were as corrupt in their morals as Lazarus was in his body. We sometimes see people who are debauched sinners and think, “There’s no way that that person could ever get saved.” If salvation comes from human will power, that’s true. But if salvation is of the Lord, then He is mighty to save the chief of sinners.
John calls Jesus’ miracles “signs” (11:48). Signs point to something beyond themselves. The physical miracles point to deeper spiritual truth. As a dead man whose body was undergoing corruption, Lazarus is a picture of sinners who are dead in their trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1), cut off from the life of God, and morally corrupt in His holy presence. As a dead man, Lazarus had no power to raise himself from the dead. He needed the new life that comes only from God (John 6:63). It required the life-giving word of Jesus to call him from death to life. That’s true every time a sinner is born again.
You may ask, “Doesn’t the sinner have to choose to believe?” The Bible is clear, yes, the sinner must choose to believe. But no one who is dead in their sins is able to choose to believe until the Spirit of God quickens them from the dead. We saw this in John 1:12-13, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” Those who believe didn’t do so because of their will (which is not “free,” but bound in sin), but rather because God caused them to be born again (1 Pet. 1:3).
So go to the Father in believing prayer and ask Him to save those who are so dead in sin that they stink! And, Jesus’ words apply to any who have not yet trusted in Him for salvation: If you will believe in Him, you will see the glory of His love, grace, and justice at the cross. If we believe in Christ, we will see the glory of God.
First, we need to affirm that…
John reported this miracle so that you would believe in Jesus and have eternal life in His name. But Satan always attacks essential truths. So, it’s no accident that liberal critics dispute that this miracle really happened. They argue that John presents the raising of Lazarus as a crucial event that precipitated Jesus’ death at the hands of the Jewish leaders. If this is so, they say, why do the other three Gospels omit this important event? They conclude that John fabricated this story to illustrate some spiritual truths about Jesus. For example, William Barclay concludes (The Gospel of John [Westminster Press], 2:103), “It does not really matter whether or not Jesus literally raised a corpse to life in A.D. 30, but it matters intensely that Jesus is the Resurrection and the Life for every man who is dead in sin and dead to God today.” Strange reasoning!
That’s like saying that it doesn’t really matter whether Jesus was raised bodily from the dead, as long as we learn the spiritual lessons from the story. Paul refutes that nonsense by arguing that if Christ is not literally raised from the dead, our faith is worthless (1 Cor. 15:1-19). If Jesus did not literally raise Lazarus from the dead, then John’s credibility as an eyewitness of Jesus’ glory is worthless. His entire Gospel becomes just a clever fable, alongside Aesop’s fables, but not worth staking your life and eternal destiny on.
It’s clear that John is narrating an event that he saw take place in actual history. The story does not read as a concocted fable or myth. It is straightforward and realistic, with many factual details. Even Jesus’ enemies acknowledged that He was doing many miracles (11:47). They couldn’t question that Lazarus had been dead and now was alive. So Jesus’ critics who lived at that time didn’t doubt the fact that Lazarus was raised from the dead, but modern critics, living 20 centuries later do doubt it!
Thus what we have here is not a parable or a fable making some moral point. Rather, it is a historical account of Jesus raising a decomposing corpse to life. But John wants us to apply this actual miracle to our lives:
John views faith in Christ as both initial and ongoing. The disciples believed in Jesus in chapter 1, but in chapter 2, after Jesus turned the water into wine, we read (2:11), “This beginning of His signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee, and manifested His glory, and His disciples believed in Him.” In 6:69, Peter affirms, “We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” But here in chapter 11, Jesus tells the disciples (11:15), “I am glad for your sakes that I was not there [before Lazarus died] so that you may believe.” Martha clearly confesses her faith in Christ (11:27): “Yes, Lord; I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, even He who comes into the world.” But (in 11:40) Jesus still challenges her to believe.
Apply this to yourself: If you have never repented of your sins and put your trust in Christ as Savior and Lord, that’s where you begin a relationship with Him. That’s when you move from spiritual death to eternal life. If you do not believe in Jesus as your Savior and Lord, you are still under God’s wrath (3:36). The Bible commands you to believe in Jesus and be saved (Acts 16:31).
But, you don’t stop with that initial belief. Your faith in Christ needs to grow and it will grow as you see more and more of who He is. This miracle shows that Jesus is the Messiah promised in the Old Testament. He is, as He told Martha (11:25), the resurrection and the life. He is the eternal Son of God who took on human flesh and laid down His life willingly on the cross so that whoever believes in Him has eternal life (3:13-17).
This miracle shows that Jesus can do what mere men cannot do. Religion could not raise the dead. All that the Jews could do was offer consolation to Mary and Martha. The scribes and Pharisees could not raise the dead. Even modern medicine, with all of its advanced knowledge, cannot raise to life a body that has begun to decompose. But Jesus could do what no mere man could do. He spoke the word and Lazarus instantly came to life.
This miracle illustrates our insufficiency and Christ’s all-sufficiency. One reason that we don’t trust the Lord in our daily lives is that we feel sufficient or adequate in ourselves. We may ask Him for a little help now and then, but we don’t acknowledge what He told the disciples (15:5), “apart from Me you can do nothing.”
In commenting on Jesus’ prayer life, Paul Miller observes (A Praying Life [NavPress], p. 44), “If you know that you, like Jesus, can’t do life on your own, then prayer makes complete sense.” He goes on to devote a chapter to “learning to be helpless.” When we recognize our own insufficiency and helplessness, then we cast ourselves on the Lord and our faith grows as He answers. As Hudson Taylor, the great pioneer missionary to China, said, “All God’s giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on God being with them.”
But this story is not just about believing in Christ so that we will see God’s glory, or about how seeing miracles should result in our growth in faith. It’s also a warning against seeing God’s mighty works without believing:
This account of Jesus’ raising of Lazarus is a case study in the frightening nature of unbelief. We can learn three lessons:
What further proof of God’s power could you want than to smell the stench of the rotting body as they rolled the stone from the tomb, hearing Jesus’ loud command, and then seeing the formerly dead man stumble from the tomb, still bound in his graveclothes? Yet, some who witnessed this spectacle went away to inform Jesus’ enemies so that they could intensify their plans to have Him arrested and executed!
Of course, this wasn’t the first miracle that these enemies of Jesus had witnessed. They acknowledge that He is performing many signs (11:47). They had seen the man who had been paralyzed for 38 years, who used to beg at the Pool of Bethesda, now walking because Jesus healed him (5:1-14). They knew that the man born blind, who used to beg by the temple gate, now saw because Jesus healed him (9:1-34). But they rejected both of these miracles because Jesus had done them on the Sabbath. And now, Jesus does the ultimate miracle by commanding Lazarus to come out of the tomb. What further evidence could they ask for? But their unbelief was not based on insufficient evidence.
The same is true today. We have the evidence of fulfilled prophecy, including over 300 prophecies that Jesus fulfilled. We have the eyewitness accounts of His teaching and miracles. There is the evidence of Jesus’ empty tomb, backed up by the changed lives of the witnesses, who all at first doubted His resurrection, but later were willing to suffer and die because they knew that He was alive. There is the evidence of intricate design in all of creation, from the molecular level up to the global level. But unbelief due to the hardness of human hearts suppresses the evidence.
The real heart of unbelief is seeking your own way while you leave God out. There are two groups here, representing two levels of unbelief.
First, we see the unbelief of Caiaphas and the chief priests and Pharisees (11:47-53). The basis for their unbelief is clear (11:48): “If we let Him go on like this, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.” They had a vested interest in the system as it was and they were afraid of losing it. If the people believed in Jesus as Messiah, they feared that the Romans would intervene and they would lose their power and their comfortable living through controlling the temple. Ironically, by killing their Messiah, the very thing that they feared came on the nation as God’s judgment when Titus destroyed Jerusalem and the temple in A.D. 70.
Caiaphas, who was the high priest, was a shrewd, calculating politician. First, he discredits what everyone else had said by flatly stating (11:49), “You know nothing at all.” Then, he postures himself as being concerned for the people (11:50), “… it is expedient for you that one man die for the people, and that the whole nation not perish.” He meant, “If we really care for our nation, we’ll eliminate this rabble-rouser, Jesus.” But he wasn’t really concerned for the nation, but for his own self-interest and power.
But John shows the irony in Caiaphas’ words: as high priest he was unwittingly prophesying that Jesus would die for the nation, and (11:52), “not for the nation only, but in order that He might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.” John is referring to all of God’s elect around the world. They were not yet children of God, but as God told Paul in Corinth (Acts 18:10), “I have many people in this city.” They were not yet saved, but they would be saved through Paul’s preaching, because they were God’s chosen ones. As Jesus said (John 6:39): “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.”
The lesson that we should learn is that you cannot frustrate God and His sovereign purpose. You can oppose Him and for a time it may seem that you are succeeding. They killed Jesus. But, in the end, God always wins. That’s the message of the last book of the Bible: God is going to win and all who oppose Him will lose.
The second group that did not believe was the common people (11:55-57), who went up to Jerusalem for the Passover. They were not openly hostile toward Jesus, but neither were they committed to follow Him. They were just curious onlookers on the conflict between Jesus and the Jewish leaders. They were content to go on with their religious festival while they discussed whether or not Jesus would show up and what would happen if He did. But they didn’t dare take a stand for Jesus, because that would put them on the bad side of the religious authorities. So their interest in protecting themselves caused them to be passive while the religious leaders murdered an innocent and good man.
The lesson here is that to be neutral towards Jesus is to be unbelieving. Self-centeredness is the heart of unbelief. The result of their self-interest was counter-productive, in that Jesus went away, because His time had not yet come (11:54). To have Jesus withdraw from you is the ultimate tragedy! The third lesson is:
Again, there is an ironic warning in 11:55: “Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up to Jerusalem out of the country before the Passover to purify themselves.” This refers to the second group of unbelievers that we saw. They weren’t openly hostile toward Jesus, but neither were they committed. They were “good church-goers,” who went through the outward rituals, but they weren’t willing to stand openly for Christ.
I hope that that doesn’t describe you! It is possible to be devoutly religious, to attend church regularly, to partake of the Lord’s Supper, and yet not to be fully committed to Jesus Christ, especially when that commitment might cost you something.
So I conclude with the warning of Hebrews 3:12: “Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God.” The Jewish leaders asked (11:47), “What are we doing (about this miracle-worker)?” It’s a good question to ask yourself: “What am I doing with Jesus?” The options are: (1) Oppose Him; (2) be neutral toward Him as you practice your religion; (3) believe in Him as Savior and Lord, no matter what it may cost you. If you believe, you will see the glory of God in Christ. But if you see the miracles reported in God’s Word and do not believe, you’ll be hardened in your sin and the Savior will withdraw from you. You don’t want to go there!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
August 17, 2014
This story of Mary anointing our Lord shortly before His death has had a profound influence on my walk with the Lord for over 45 years now because of a sermon I read and have re-read many times by the late Chinese preacher, Watchman Nee. It’s the last chapter of his book, The Normal Christian Life [Christian Literature Crusade], titled, “The Goal of the Gospel.” It’s also in a pamphlet titled, “Why This Waste” (you can find it online).
Nee points out that in the parallel accounts in Matthew (26:6-13) and Mark (14:3-9; Luke 7:37-39 is a different incident), all the disciples joined Judas in scolding Mary for wasting this expensive perfume on Jesus when it could have been sold and the money given to the poor. But Jesus defends Mary by replying (Matt. 26:13), “Truly I say to you, wherever this gospel is preached in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be spoken of in memory of her.” Nee says (p. 186) that Jesus “intends that the preaching of the Gospel should issue in something along the very lines of the action of Mary here, namely, that people should come to Him and waste themselves on Him.” Or, to state it another way (p. 187), the gospel is “to bring each one of us to a true estimate of His worth.” If Jesus is the pearl of great price and the treasure hidden in the field, then it’s not a waste to sell everything you have to buy that pearl or buy that field. Jesus is worthy for you to devote all you are and all you have to Him.
So this is a story about how not to waste your life. It’s also a story about motivation: why do you do what you do for the Lord? Do you serve Him for the satisfaction you get when you see results? It is satisfying to see Him use you, but that’s the wrong motivation. Do you serve Him because it helps others? Again, it’s gratifying to see others helped, but that’s the wrong motivation for serving Him. The true motive for serving Christ is because He is worthy of everything you can do for Him and because you love Him and want to please Him because He gave Himself for you on the cross. We learn this from Mary’s act of devotion.
But John contrasts Mary’s act of devotion with Judas’ self-centered focus and with the evil plans of the chief priests, who now not only want to kill Jesus, but also Lazarus, whose resurrection was resulting in many believing in Jesus. So the story’s lesson is:
A life spent in selfless devotion to Jesus is not wasted, but a life spent on self is totally wasted.
This story illustrates Jesus’ words in Mark 8:35-36:
“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?”
Jesus repeats this idea (John 12:25), “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.” Mary denied herself and “hated her life” for Jesus’ sake by her extravagant act of devotion to Him, and she gained that which would not be taken from her (Luke 10:42). Judas greedily wished that he could have pocketed some of Mary’s gift. In a few days, he would sell Jesus for a paltry sum. But he forfeited his soul.
To put it another way, to “waste” your life on Jesus is to save your life. Mary’s act reflects four components of selfless devotion:
Mary’s anointing Jesus with this perfume was costly in at least three ways:
Pure nard was a spice that came from the Himalaya Mountains in the far north of India. It had to be imported to Israel at great cost. We don’t know where Mary got this 12-ounce jar of perfume. Perhaps it was a family heirloom. Judas estimates that it could have been sold for 300 denarii, which was equivalent to about 300 days’ pay for a working man (Matt. 20:2). Figuring $10 an hour, 300 eight-hour days adds up to $24,000! Any way you figure it, Mary’s action was extravagantly costly! Judas and the disciples, who according to the other Gospels joined him in scolding Mary, were only being sensible: She could have sold this jar of perfume, given 90 percent of the money to help a lot of poor people, and still had a sizeable amount to give to the Lord. But were they really sensible?
The Lord rebukes them (John 12:8), “For you always have the poor with you, but you do not always have Me.” He was not saying that we should not help the poor, but He was saying, “I am more worthy of your unselfish devotion than all the world’s poor put together!” He was accepting the worship that Mary gave Him because she rightly saw that He is worthy of all that we can give Him and even more. As Isaac Watts put it (“When I Survey the Wondrous Cross”):
Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small:
Love so amazing, so divine
Demands my soul, my life, my all.
The point is, devotion to Christ will cost you financially. If He bought you with His blood, you don’t own anything. It’s all His and He can direct you to give some or all of it for His kingdom purposes. Probably, most of us would have sold the perfume, given ten percent to the Lord, and pocketed the rest to spend on getting a later model mule! But Mary gave it all because she knew that Jesus is worth it.
Many years ago, a pastor went down from the pulpit one Sunday and watched what each person put in or didn’t put in the offering plate as it was passed. Some of his people were angry, others were embarrassed, but all were surprised. Then he went back to the pulpit and preached on the Lord standing near the treasury in the temple and watching what each person put in, including the widow and her two mites. He reminded them that the Lord watches the collection every Sunday to see what His people give.
So let me ask: Is your devotion to the Lord costing you financially? If others looked at how you spend your money, would they conclude that you must love Jesus a lot?
Matthew and Mark say that Mary anointed Jesus’ head, but John says that she anointed His feet. There is no contradiction if she anointed both. Matthew and Mark mention Jesus’ head because anointing the head signified kingship. John mentioned her anointing Jesus’ feet because it was the lowly task of a servant to wash a guest’s feet. In the next chapter John tells how Jesus washed the disciples’ feet as an act of great humility that we should follow.
But Mary didn’t use a towel. Rather, she wiped the Lord’s feet with her hair. Respectable Jewish women never let down their hair in public. In fact, it was considered a mark of a woman of loose morals (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 577). But Mary was so caught up with her devotion to Christ that she didn’t stop to consider what others might think about her. Like David dancing before the Lord wearing only an ephod (2 Sam. 6:14-23), Mary cast public opinion to the wind, let her hair down, and wiped Jesus’ feet. David’s fervent devotion embarrassed his wife, but the Lord stood with David. Mary’s action made the apostles uncomfortable, but Jesus sided with Mary.
So ask yourself, “Do I treasure Jesus more than my pride?” Or, am I more concerned about what others think about me? People may think you’re a zealot or a religious fanatic. But what matters is what Jesus thinks about your selfless devotion to Him.
Judas led the attack, but the other disciples echoed his criticism. Matthew 26:8 reports, “But the disciples were indignant when they saw this, and said, ‘Why this waste?’” They were only being pragmatic and sensible. The money could have benefitted many poor families. But instead, it was all wasted on Jesus. Or, was it wasted?
Count on it: If you give yourself without reserve to Jesus, you will be criticized and the loudest criticism will come from some church members who will say that they’re only using common sense in how the Lord’s resources are spent. When Jim Elliot set his sights on going to the unreached tribes of Ecuador, his Christian parents asked him to consider whether his gifts could be better used among young people in the United States. He replied with a scathing denunciation of the lukewarm American church (Shadow of the Almighty [Zondervan], p. 132). He went to South America, where he and four others were murdered trying to tell a lost, savage tribe about the love of Jesus. They “wasted” their lives for Jesus!
When John Paton let it be known that he planned to move with his new bride to take the gospel to the cannibals in the South Sea Islands, an old man in his church would say, “You’ll be eaten by cannibals!” Finally, Paton grew exasperated and replied (modified from John G. Paton Autobiography [Banner of Truth], ed. by his brother James Paton, p. 56), “My dear sir, you’re getting up in years and soon will be laid in the grave and eaten by worms. If I can but live and die honoring the Lord Jesus, it doesn’t matter to me whether I’m eaten by cannibals or by worms, and on resurrection day, my body will arise as fair as yours!” Selfless devotion to Christ involves personal cost.
Although the text doesn’t state it directly, Mary’s action obviously stemmed from her love for Jesus and her gratitude for His raising her brother from the dead. Jesus loved Martha, Mary, and Lazarus (John 11:5) and they loved Jesus.
Love for Christ should be the motive in all that we do for Him. Judas postured himself as being concerned for the poor, but even if he had given some of the money to the poor, he would not have been motivated by love for Christ. People can give great sums of money to the Lord’s work, but their real motive may be that they want others to know how generous they are. Some Christian organizations cater to this by naming a building after a generous donor, or telling potential donors that they will have a plaque put on the wall letting everyone know that they donated this room.
But the Lord looks on the hidden motives of our hearts, not on our outward actions. As Watchman Nee points out (ibid., pp. 189, 190), the first question we must ask in all we do is, “Has the Lord been satisfied?” Did I do what I did because I love Him and I wanted to please Him?
We’ve seen that selfless devotion is costly; it stems from love and gratitude toward Jesus.
John 12:7 is difficult to interpret: “Therefore Jesus said, ‘Let her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of My burial.’” Mary had just poured out the precious perfume, so she couldn’t keep it to anoint Jesus after He died. And, how much did she understand about Jesus’ impending death when none of the disciples saw it coming? The meaning may be that Mary had not sold this perfume, as Judas and the disciples had proposed, so that she could keep it for this anointing of Jesus’ body in anticipation of His death. Perhaps from her time of sitting at Jesus’ feet, Mary had some sense that Jesus was about to die. Or, in the providence of God, she may have anointed Him unwittingly.
But in either case, Mary knew more about the infinite worth of Jesus than even the apostles did at this point. Her personal knowledge of Jesus, gained by sitting at His feet, led her to this act of selfless devotion.
If you want to follow Mary’s example of devotion to Jesus, you have to follow her example of sitting at Jesus’ feet, listening to His word (Luke 10:39). Every time we encounter Mary in the Gospels, she is at Jesus’ feet—first, learning from Him; then, pouring out her sorrow to Him; and now, expressing her love and devotion to Him. You won’t love the Lord as you should unless you’ve spent much time at His feet. You do that by spending consistent time in the Word and in prayer.
Mary didn’t just think about this radical display of love, but then allow reason to prevail and not do it. Rather, she did it! Good intentions are nice, but it takes good actions to produce results. This story highlights three results that flow from selfless devotion: one from Mary, one from Martha, and one from Lazarus:
John 12:3 says, “And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” If you had walked in the door or stood outside near an open window, you would have smelled the wonderful fragrance of that expensive perfume. It was in Mary’s hair, so that everywhere she went, the fragrance went with her.
Can people smell the fragrance of Christ on you? You ask, “What does it smell like?” It smells like the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22, 23): Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Does your home smell like that? Do others sense from the fragrance of your life that you spend much time at Jesus’ feet, worshiping Him in selfless devotion? Do your relationships at church smell like the fragrance of Christ? I am often saddened when I hear about strained or broken relationships between believers. People who come into this church should smell the sweet fragrance of our Savior on us.
Here we’re looking at the simple statement in John 12:2, “and Martha was serving.” In Luke 10:38-42, Martha was serving, but she was hassled by trying to do it all herself and she complained to Jesus because her sister wouldn’t help. Also, as G. Campbell Morgan observes (The Gospel According to John [Revell], p. 207), in Luke she was fixing dinner for four people and was hassled by her work, but here she is fixing dinner for at least 17 people and there is no word about her being hassled. Martha had learned from the previous incident to serve out of selfless devotion to Christ. If you love Him, you serve others for His sake without complaining.
Here, we’re looking at Lazarus. The text tells us three things about him: First, Jesus had raised him from the dead (John 12:1). Second, he was reclining at the table in fellowship with the Lord who had raised him from the dead (John 12:2). Third, his resurrected life resulted in many coming to see him and believing in Jesus as a result (John 12:9-11). Some scholars say that these were just curiosity seekers and not genuine converts. But John doesn’t say that. He just says (John 12:11), “on account of him many of the Jews were going away and were believing in Jesus.”
In this, Lazarus is an example for our witness: First, Christ has to give you new life before you can be a witness for Him. Granted, our transformation is probably not as dramatic as a physical resurrection from the dead! But people should see a definite change in your life after you’re born again. Second, you must spend time in fellowship with Jesus, learning from Him. Then, because our Savior came to seek and to save the lost, as you grow to be like Him, pray that God will use you to seek and save the lost. Wouldn’t it be great if we all could put our names in verse 11 and say, “On account of [Steve] many were going away and believing in Jesus”?
But this story isn’t only about how to “waste” your life by giving it in selfless devotion to Christ. The other side is here, too:
Judas and the Jewish leaders who sought to kill both Jesus and Lazarus were acting out of selfish interests. Judas thought that more money would bring him more happiness. The Jewish leaders wanted to hang onto their power. But both parties wasted their lives because they spent them on themselves.
John tells us about Judas’ greed in verse 6: He really wasn’t concerned about the poor, but he was a thief. He had the money box and used to help himself to the funds. If Mary had given her perfume to sell and give to the poor, some of that money would have ended up in Judas’ pocket! Perhaps Judas had joined the apostolic band because he thought that if Jesus became the King of Israel, he would enjoy a nice position in Jesus’ kingdom.
But now the future looked dim. Jesus kept talking about His death, not His reign. This incident pushed Judas over the top. When Jesus came to Mary’s defense with more talk about His death, Judas decided to go to the authorities and betray Jesus. (Both Matthew and Mark place this event out of chronological sequence to connect it with Judas’ betrayal.) So for a measly thirty pieces of silver, Judas sold his soul. And, the chief priests irrationally wanted to kill both the author of life and the man who was raised from the dead because they both threatened their hold on power. Judas and the Jewish leaders wasted their lives because they spent them on themselves. As Jesus states (John 12:25), “He who loves his life loses it ….”
Mary’s action reveals the proper basis for evaluating your actions: Did you do what you did because you love and treasure Jesus? She didn’t do this out of duty or pragmatism, but out of sheer devotion for Christ. Mary did what she did because she had a perception of Christ that even the apostles at this point lacked. She knew that He was worthy of extravagant love. She gained this knowledge of Christ by sitting at His feet. When Jesus is your treasure, you will spend your life in selfless devotion to Him.
At a pastors’ conference, Bill Mills told about a time when he was speaking to a group of Wycliffe missionaries in South America. On the last evening as he ate dinner with the director and his wife, she told him how years before they had been assigned to translate the Bible into one of the Indian tribal languages. This is a lengthy and tedious process. Before computers, it often took as long as twenty years.
During the process, the translators were teaching the Scriptures and seeing a new church emerging among the tribe. But as they came toward the end of the translation project, the tribal people were becoming more and more involved in selling their crops for the drug trade and less and less interested in the Scriptures. When they finally finished the translation of the New Testament and scheduled a dedication service, not even one person came!
This missionary wife was angry and bitter. She had given twenty years of her life so that these people could have the Scriptures, but they didn’t even want it! Then with regard to Bill’s ministry of the Word that week, she said (in, Finishing Well in Life and Ministry [Leadership Resources International], p. 190.):
It is as though God has been washing His Word over my soul and healing me, and He has opened my eyes to see this all from His perspective. I am just beginning to realize now that we did it for Him! That is the only thing that makes any sense in all of this. We did it for God!
Mills concludes, “That is the only thing that makes any sense in ministry. We do it for Him.” The world may scorn us and reject our message. Other believers may criticize us and not appreciate what we’re doing. But we aren’t wasting our lives if we spend them in selfless devotion for Jesus.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
August 31, 2014
The longer that I’m a Christian, the more often I’m saddened to see people who made a profession of faith in Christ and began to follow Him, but later fell away and now are far from God. In some cases, these people have even been involved in serving the Lord in full time ministry. But something went wrong and now they are not only out of the ministry and away from the church, but they’re not even professing to believe in Jesus.
There are many causes for such spiritual failure. Sometimes, things in life or ministry did not go as they had hoped. Perhaps they got burned by other believers who violated their trust. Some had nagging doubts or difficult questions about the Bible that were fed by skeptics. In many cases, the person fell away because of serious sin.
We should not be surprised by such cases, since the Bible contains many examples of spiritual failure. Our chapter (John 12:4) mentions Judas, one of the twelve, who would betray Jesus. In Acts (5:1-11) Ananias and Sapphira, members of the early church, were struck dead for their duplicity. Then there is Simon the magician (Acts 8:9-24), who professed faith in Christ and was baptized, but who tried to buy spiritual power from the apostles so that he could impress the crowds with miracles.
Later (Acts 20:30), Paul warned the Ephesian elders that from their midst some would arise, drawing away the disciples after them. Paul warned Timothy about several men who had turned from the faith (1 Tim. 1:20; 2 Tim. 1:15). He lamented Demas, a former fellow worker, who had deserted Paul because he loved this present world (Philemon 24; 2 Tim. 4:10). Later, both Peter (2 Peter 2) and John (1 John 2:19; 3 John 9-10) warned about false teachers, who probably once were sound, but now were preying on the flock.
While there are different reasons that these and others fall away from the Lord, at the root of every case is that the person either never knew or else lost sight of who Jesus is. Understanding Jesus’ identity is crucial because your eternal destiny rests on believing the truth about who Jesus is and what He did on the cross. That’s why John wrote this Gospel (John 20:31), “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” If you understand and believe in who Jesus is, you will have eternal life. But if you have false notions about who Jesus is or false hopes about what He will do for you in this life, at some point you will be disappointed and will fall away from your initial profession of faith.
Jesus’ so-called “Triumphal Entry” into Jerusalem at the beginning of Passion Week should perhaps be called His “Tragic Entry,” because it triggered events that led to His death. Luke (19:41) reports that when Jesus approached Jerusalem, He wept over it. The crowds lined the street and cheered for Jesus as the long-expected King of Israel, but they were hoping for a political king, who could lead a military victory against Rome and provide eventual peace and prosperity for their nation. They were not so interested in a Messiah with a spiritual kingdom, who would provide forgiveness for their sins and who would be Lord of every aspect of their personal lives. So within a week, the shouts of “Hosanna!” turned to “Crucify Him!” The fickle crowd was following Jesus for the wrong reasons. Such a faulty foundation inevitably collapses.
Jesus’ Triumphal Entry is reported in all four Gospels. To understand it properly, you have to recognize that it is a complete reversal of all that Jesus has done in His ministry to this point. Up till now, Jesus has mostly kept veiled His identity as Messiah. When a demon proclaimed Him to be the Holy One of God, He told him to be quiet (Mark 1:24-25). When He healed people, Jesus commanded them not to tell anyone (Mark 1:44; 7:36). Even when He raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead, He gave strict orders that no one should know about it (Mark 5:43)! When the disciples gained insight into His identity as Messiah, Jesus told them not to tell anyone (Mark 8:30; 9:9). The only exception in John so far was when Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well that He was the Messiah (John 4:26).
But now Jesus deliberately stages a public demonstration to proclaim Himself as Messiah in Jerusalem at the most widely attended feast of them all. There were perhaps a million pilgrims in the city for the Passover (Andreas Kostenberger, John [Baker], p. 368). The other Gospels make it clear that Jesus set up this event by sending two of the disciples to get the donkey and her colt. When some of the Pharisees in the crowd objected to the people’s shouts of, “Hosanna!” rather than quieting the shouts, Jesus affirmed them by saying (Luke 19:40), “I tell you, if these become silent, ‘the stones will cry out!’” So there is a dramatic shift in Jesus’ ministry at this point. We need to understand why.
The answer lies in the Jewish concept of Messiah in Jesus’ day. “Messiah” comes from a Hebrew word meaning “to anoint.” “Christ” comes from the Greek word “to anoint.” Thus the Messiah or Christ is the one whom God anoints, sent to deliver His people from sin and rule over them as King and Lord. The kings of Israel were God’s anointed rulers of His people, but they always fell short. Even David, the greatest king in Israel, made some serious mistakes. But God promised to send one of David’s descendants to reign on his throne, who would rule in absolute righteousness and justice, crushing all opposition under His feet (Ps. 2). This political aspect of Messiah as King dominated Jewish thought in the first century as the nation chafed under Roman rule. This political aspect of Messiah’s reign is behind Psalm 118:26, which the people cite in John 12:13, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord….” They added, “even the King of Israel.”
But the Old Testament presents a second aspect of the Messiah, namely, that He would be the suffering servant who would bear the sins of His people, deliver them from God’s judgment, and establish a kingdom of righteousness. He would not only be the King, but also Israel’s prophet and priest. This is the theme of Psalm 110, which proclaims Messiah not only as a conquering warrior, but also as a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. The suffering servant is a theme in Isaiah 40-55, especially the great prophecy of Isaiah 53. It is also implicit in the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9 (cited in John 12:15), which presents Messiah not as a warrior mounted on a powerful horse, but as humble, mounted on the foal of a donkey. This idea of Messiah as the humble sin-bearer of His people was not dominant with the Jews in Jesus’ day. They were looking for a political Messiah.
In the Triumphal Entry, Jesus was declaring Himself to be Israel’s Messiah, but not the kind of Messiah that they expected. He did not ride into Jerusalem on a powerful war horse to lead the charge against Rome, but on the foal of a donkey, which was not thought of as a kingly animal in Jesus’ day, to offer Himself as the sacrifice for our sins. By this public demonstration, Jesus deliberately provoked the Jewish leaders. They wanted to kill Him, but not at the Passover, lest there be a riot among the people (Matt. 26:3-5). But for Scripture to be fulfilled, Jesus needed to die as the Passover lamb for His people (1 Cor. 5:7). So Jesus, knowing that His time had come, staged this Triumphal Entry to trigger the events that would lead to His death coinciding with the Jewish Passover. The Jewish leaders did not take Jesus’ life against His will; rather, He laid it down willingly for His sheep (John 10:17-18).
With all of that as a foundation for understanding this pivotal event in Jesus’ ministry, let me turn to how it applies to us:
Make sure that you follow Jesus because of who He is, not because of what you think He might provide for you.
Let’s think about the negative side of this first:
John presents various groups that took part in this Triumphal Entry. The crowd who had come to Jerusalem for the feast took the branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him (John 12:12-13). John is the only Gospel to mention the palm branches that we now associate with “Palm Sunday.” Two centuries before Christ, Judas and Simon Maccabaeus had driven the Syrian forces out of Israel. Their victory was celebrated with music and the waving of palm branches (1 Macc. 13:51), which also had been prominent at the earlier rededication of the temple (2 Macc. 10:7). Thus palm branches were a symbol of Jewish nationalism and of victory over their enemies. The crowd was hopeful that Jesus was the messianic liberator who would free them from Rome’s domination (D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 432).
Their cry (John 12:13), “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord,” comes from Psalm 118:25-26, which is the climax of the Hallel (Psalms 113-118), which was sung at the Feasts of Tabernacles, Dedication, and Passover (Carson, ibid.). “Hosanna” meant, “Save now!” It may have been a prayer or just a cry of praise to God. The next line (in John 12:13), “even the King of Israel,” is not from Psalm 118, but rather shows that the crowd understood Psalm 118 as referring to the Messianic King. This group largely consisted of those who gave acclaim to Jesus because they thought of the temporal benefits that He could provide for them. They thought that He would usher in the age of peace and prosperity.
Their hopes were fueled by those who had seen Jesus call Lazarus from the tomb, who were telling others about this spectacular miracle (John 12:17-18). If Jesus had done this for Lazarus, surely He could meet their needs as well. John adds (12:16) that even the disciples did not understand these things at first. It was only after Jesus was raised from the dead and ascended into heaven (“glorified”) that they connected the dots between the Old Testament prophecies and what the crowd had done to Jesus. So even the disciples were pretty much in line with the crowd that day, viewing Jesus as the political savior. As a result, their faith in Him was severely shaken until they saw Him after He was raised from the dead.
The application is that your faith will be shaken and perhaps even destroyed if you follow Jesus because of what you think He can give you in terms of financial prosperity, good health, and other temporal benefits. But what if you contract a serious illness? What if you suffer a severe financial loss? What if your marriage isn’t the storybook, ideal romance that you thought He would give you? What if your children don’t follow the Lord or if they turn against you?
As Hebrews 11:29-35a shows, God can and does give dramatic victories to His people. But right in the middle of verse 35, it shifts, as verses 35b-38 show people who trust in God but are mocked, scourged, imprisoned, and martyred. The reward is not in this life, but in the life to come. The health and wealth teaching is heresy that leads people into disappointment and destruction of their faith when things don’t turn out as the false teachers said they would. We shouldn’t follow Jesus because we think He will give us all the goodies we want in this life.
Well, then, why should we follow Jesus?
If your faith rests on the person of Jesus Christ as revealed in Scripture, then you will not be shaken whether you go to prison or are blessed with prosperity. You may suffer terrible health and die young or you may enjoy good health, but your faith does not rest on happy circumstances, but on who Jesus is and on what He has promised His children throughout eternity. Our text reveals several lines of proof that Jesus is God’s Messiah and King:
John mentions two Old Testament prophecies that Jesus fulfilled on Palm Sunday. We have already looked at the first, Psalm 118:25-26:
O Lord, do save, we beseech You;
O Lord, we beseech You, do send prosperity!
Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord;
We have blessed you from the house of the Lord.
The Jews understood this to refer to Messiah (Carson, ibid.). Just before these verses the psalm cites the lines that Jesus applied to Himself (Ps. 118:22-23; Matt. 21:42):
The stone which the builders rejected
Has become the chief corner stone.
This is the Lord’s doing;
It is marvelous in our eyes.
John also refers to the prophecy of Zechariah 9:9:
Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout in triumph, O daughter of Jerusalem!
Behold, your king is coming to you;
He is just and endowed with salvation,
Humble, and mounted on a donkey,
Even on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
John (12:15) cites an abbreviated form of the quote: “Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your King is coming, seated on a donkey’s colt.” “Fear not” replaces “Rejoice greatly.” Perhaps John wants to assure his Jewish readers, living after the destruction of Jerusalem, not to fear in spite of that disaster, because Jesus still is the King of Israel. John Calvin (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 23) applies it to us: “Never is tranquility restored to our minds, or fear and trembling banished from them, except by knowing that Christ reigns amongst us.” He goes on to say that now that our King has come, we ought to contend with our fears, so that “we may peacefully and joyfully honor our King.”
John’s point in referring to Zechariah’s prophecy is to show that Jesus in His first coming was not the conquering King, riding on a war horse, but a humble King, offering Himself as the sacrifice for our sins (Carson, p. 433). Later (Rev. 19:11), John sees Jesus coming again on a white horse to judge and wage war. But in His first coming, Jesus was the suffering Messiah-King, offering peace and salvation. Psalm 118 and Zechariah 9 are just two of many prophecies that confirm Jesus’ identity as Messiah and King.
John does not mention that the young colt on which Jesus rode was unbroken, which was a miracle. If you don’t think so, try riding an unbroken colt sometime! But he does again mention (12:17) that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. In all, John gives seven of Jesus’ miracles (or signs) that He performed before His resurrection, plus the miraculous catch of fish (John 21). John reported these signs (John 20:31), “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”
John does not elaborate in this story as the other Gospels do that Jesus deliberately arranged for the colt to ride on. But throughout his Gospel, he has repeatedly shown that Jesus was in control of all His circumstances, under the Father’s sovereign timetable. Since John 5, the opposition to Jesus has been mounting, with repeated attempts to kill Him, but in every case, Jesus was protected, because His hour had not yet come. After Jesus’ claims to deity in John 8, the Jews picked up stones to stone Him (John 8:59), but Jesus went out of their midst unharmed. Again in John 10, the Jewish leaders accused Jesus of blasphemy and tried again to stone Him, because He claimed to be one with the Father. But (John 10:39), “He eluded their grasp.”
After Jesus raised Lazarus, the Jewish leaders intensified their attempts to kill Him (John 11:53), but Jesus withdrew, because His time had not yet come. But now, six days before the Passover, Jesus knew that His hour had come to offer Himself as the Lamb of God (John 12:23). So, He changed His ministry strategy and openly presented Himself as the Jewish Messiah, even though He knew that the crowds had a mistaken view of their Messiah. He forced the Jewish leaders to go against their plan not to kill Him during the feast. They inadvertently killed the true Passover Lamb even as the other Passover lambs were being killed. Acts 4:27-28 sums it up well: “For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.” Jesus was in control even over His own death. He did not die as a helpless victim, but as the willing sacrifice for our sins.
So the applied message of Jesus’ Triumphal Entry is: Make sure that you follow Him because of who He is, not because of what you think He might provide for you in this life. He does provide forgiveness of sins and eternal life to all who believe in Him. But with that gift may come hardship and persecution. But there’s one final thought in our text:
John 12:19 mentions the frustration of the Pharisees as they saw the crowds exalting Jesus as He rode into Jerusalem: “So the Pharisees said to one another, ‘You see that you are not doing any good; look, the world has gone after Him.’” This is another example of John’s irony. The Pharisees meant, “Everyone is going after Jesus. Our efforts to get rid of Him have failed!” But John wants us to see that although by the end of that week, the tide had turned and Jewish leaders were gloating in their victory, it was short-lived. Jesus arose from the dead and when John wrote, the gospel was going out to the whole world, to Jews and Gentiles alike. This anticipates the next paragraph, where the Greeks want to see Jesus.
Interestingly, in Revelation 7:9-10, John reports another scene with palm branches (the only other time palm branches are mentioned in the New Testament):
After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could count, from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, and palm branches were in their hands; and they cry out with a loud voice, saying, “Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”
That scene shows us the ultimate triumph of the Lamb! The Jewish leaders succeeded in crucifying Him, but He will reign over all throughout eternity. John is making the point that you can oppose Jesus and in the short run, it may look as if you’ve succeeded in your rebellion. But in the long run, Jesus will win and you will lose if you have not yielded to Him before He comes again.
So, why do you follow Jesus? Someone may say, “I am following Jesus because I want Him to give me a godly marriage partner.” That’s a legitimate need that He can supply, but that shouldn’t be your main reason to follow Jesus. Or, you may follow Jesus because you want Him to heal your marriage. Again, He can do that, but that’s not the main reason you should follow Him. Some may say, “I follow Jesus because I have many deep emotional hurts from my past, and I want Him to heal me.” Again, He can do that, but it’s not the main reason to follow Him.
The right reason to follow Jesus is because of who He is: God’s Anointed One, the rightful King over every heart and life. He died for your sins, arose from the grave, and is coming back in power and glory to reign over all. So whether you struggle with tribulation, distress, persecution, poverty, health issues, or death itself, you can overwhelmingly conquer if your faith is in Him as your Lord and Savior (Rom. 8:35-37)! Follow Jesus because of who He is, not for the temporal benefits that He might give you.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
September 7, 2014
When the historic Church of the Open Door was in downtown Los Angeles, I heard that if you stood behind the pulpit you looked out into a massive auditorium consisting of a large first floor, a large balcony, and even a second balcony. Although I never stood there, I was told that it gave you a feeling of importance just to stand there and look out at the large crowd that had gathered to hear you speak. But just as your ego might begin to inflate, you quickly came down to earth when you looked down at a little plaque fixed to the pulpit with the words of John 12:21, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.”
“We didn’t come here to see you! We don’t want to be impressed with your brilliance or eloquence! We want to see Jesus!” Those are appropriate words for every preacher to remember and, for that matter, for every Christian to keep in mind. In 1 John 3:2, the apostle tells us, “We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.” Seeing Jesus will transform us. And so, even though now we “see in a mirror dimly” (1 Cor. 13:12), our aim should be to see more and more of Jesus. As we grow to see more of His glory now, it progressively changes us into His image. As Paul says (2 Cor. 3:18): “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.”
So the question is, how do we see Jesus and His glory now? Then, what difference will seeing Jesus and His glory make in our lives? That question is answered in John 12:25-26, which we will look at next week. But this week we want to focus on how do we see Jesus and His glory now? John 12:20-24 tells us:
To see Jesus and His glory, look to the cross.
In response to the Greeks’ request to see Jesus, He announces that the hour has now come. This is the hour of the cross. Jesus is the grain of wheat that falls into the ground and dies so that it bears much fruit (v. 24). Then Jesus applies this to us (vv. 25-26): His followers must also lose their lives even as Jesus would lose His. But, there are great rewards for those who do.
This is an interesting text for several reasons. First, it seems a bit unexpected to find Greeks in Jerusalem at this Jewish feast. These were probably Gentiles who were proselytes to Judaism. It’s also rather odd that John tells us about their request to see Jesus, but then they pass off the scene and we never learn whether their request was granted or what came of it. My guess is that Jesus granted their request, but we aren’t told. John just uses their request to turn the corner towards the cross. Philip seems rather confused by their request and talks to Andrew. Then the two of them come to Jesus with the Greeks’ request. But it’s not obvious on the surface how Jesus’ reply relates to the Greeks’ desire to see Him.
It is clear, however, that Jesus sees this request as a pivotal point in His ministry. Up till now, there has been a repeated theme in John’s Gospel that Jesus’ hour or time has not yet come. When His mother came to Jesus at the wedding in Cana and informed Him that they had run out of wine, He replied that His hour had not yet come (John 2:4). When His brothers, who were not yet believing in Him, advised Him to go to the Feast of Tabernacles and make Himself known, Jesus replied that His time was not yet here (John 7:4). Later, at that feast, when the hostile Jews tried to seize Him, they were unable to lay a hand on Him, because His hour had not come (John 7:30). When Jesus taught openly in the temple, again His enemies could not seize Him, because His hour had not yet come (John 8:20).
But now, in response to the request of these Greeks to see Him, Jesus announces (John 12:23), “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” Why? What was the significance of these Greeks and their desire to see Jesus? The answer is that these Greeks signaled a turning point in which the Jewish people have rejected Jesus as their Savior and so now the gospel would go out to the Gentiles as well as the Jews. Salvation would now be proclaimed to the whole world.
This worldwide scope of the gospel was telegraphed in John 3:16-17, “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.” We also saw it in John 4:42, when the Samaritan people told the woman who had met Jesus by the well, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves and know that this One is indeed the Savior of the world.” The gospel came to the Jews first, but now that they have largely rejected it, the message goes out to the whole world. (Paul develops that theme in Romans 9-11. He practiced it in Acts 13:45-46.)
John makes this point in a subtle and skillful manner. First, he contrasts the Pharisees with the Greeks (John 12:19-20). The Pharisees were the religious leaders in Israel. They should have accepted Jesus as their Messiah and Savior. But instead, they rejected Him and were seeking to kill Him. In contrast, the Greeks were seeking Him. John wants us to see that the Jews’ rejection of Jesus did not thwart God’s plan of salvation; rather, it means good news for the world (Rom. 11:15).
Also, John uses irony to report the frustrated words of the Pharisees as they saw the crowds shouting “Hosanna” as Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the donkey’s colt (John 12:19): “You see that you are not doing any good; look, the world has gone after Him.” John’s irony is, “Yes, in fact the world is going after Jesus.” He is the Savior not only of the Jews, but of all people who seek Him.
I want to draw two important truths from these verses:
Jesus says (John 12:23), “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” “Son of Man” was Jesus’ favorite way to refer to Himself. It had overtones of His deity, but undertones of His humanity (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 172). Morris says (pp. 172-173), “It was a way of alluding to and yet veiling His messiahship, for His concept of the Messiah differed markedly from that commonly held.” He adds that in John’s Gospel, “the term is always associated either with Christ’s heavenly glory or with the salvation He came to bring.”
In the last chapter, when Jesus looked ahead to raising Lazarus from the dead, He said (John 11:4), “This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it.” This means that to glorify the Son is tantamount to glorifying God, which was Jesus’ aim in all that He did. As we have seen (in my message on John 11:38-57, p. 2), God’s glory is His essential and intrinsic splendor. His glory is displayed in all of His attributes and works. Since God’s ultimate aim is to glorify Himself through His Son, our chief aim is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever (Westminster Shorter Catechism).
Back in John 5:22-23, Jesus made a statement that would be blasphemous on the lips of anyone who is not equal to God: “For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son, so that all will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.” In His prayer just before going out to Gethsemane, Jesus prayed (John 17:1), “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You ….” He added (John 17:5), “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.”
The apostle Paul repeatedly made the same point. After mentioning how Jesus humbled Himself by being obedient to death on the cross, Paul added (Phil. 2:9-11):
For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
In Ephesians 1:10, Paul said that God’s purpose is “the summing up of all things in Christ.” In Colossians 1:18, Paul said that Christ “will come to have first place in everything.” In Revelation (21:22-23), John describes the New Jerusalem:
I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb.
So throughout eternity we will live in the light of the glory of God and His Son, the Lamb who was slain for us! Paul sums up the application for us (1 Cor. 10:31): “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” To state it negatively: If something doesn’t glorify God (make Him look good, as He truly is), then don’t do it. The battle begins on the thought level: Do your thoughts glorify God? Do your attitudes glorify the Savior? (Hint: Grumbling does not glorify God! Thankfulness does!) It extends to your words: Does what you say to your mate or your children glorify God? Does what you say about another person behind her back glorify God? Paul says that we shouldn’t use rotten speech that tears someone down, but only words that edify and give grace to others (Eph. 4:29). Then it flows out to our behavior: Did your actions this week glorify God? Did your actions make God look good so that others will be drawn to your Savior? Since God’s aim in history is to glorify His Son, our aim every day should be to glorify our Lord and Savior.
When Jesus said (John 12:23), “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified,” He was referring to the cross. The same is true when He prayed (John 17:1), “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You ….” Jesus glorified the Father and the Father glorified Jesus through the cross. How? Here are three ways (there are many more):
G. Campbell Morgan explained (The Gospel According to John [Revell], p. 215), “Jesus said in effect, ‘These Greeks cannot see Me. There is only one way by which they may see Me, know Me, apprehend Me; and that is through the “hour” that has now come, and that is through the way of the Cross.’”
So, Jesus is the grain of wheat that falls into the ground and dies, thus producing much fruit (John 12:24). Augustine explained (cited by Morris, p. 593, note 69), “He spoke of Himself. He Himself was the grain that had to die, and be multiplied; to suffer death through the unbelief of the Jews, and to be multiplied in the faith of many nations.” A grain of wheat by itself, sitting on the shelf, remains alone. But if it falls into the ground and that outer shell “dies,” the life inside is released and produces a plant containing many grains of wheat. Through the cross, the gospel was opened to all peoples.
Jesus is the Savior for the Jews first, but also for the Gentiles (Rom. 1:16). But whether Jew or Gentile, all must come through Jesus and His substitutionary death alone. There are not many ways to God. Jesus is the only way. He said (John 14:6), “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” Peter echoed this when he proclaimed to the Jewish leaders (Acts 4:12), “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”
But when these Greeks approached Philip at the feast, he seemed a bit hesitant to bring them to Jesus. We don’t know, by the way, why they went to Philip. Perhaps it was his Greek name or maybe, as John here reminds us (12:21), he was from Bethsaida of Galilee, which was near Gentile provinces. But before Philip went to Jesus with the Greeks’ request, he conferred with Andrew and then together they went to Jesus.
Probably Philip’s hesitation stemmed from Jesus’ earlier instructions to the twelve before He sent them out on a preaching tour (Matt. 10:5-6), “Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any city of the Samaritans; but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Jesus’ mission, in line with the Abrahamic Covenant to bless all nations through his descendants, was first to offer Himself to the Jews as their Messiah. He opened the door of salvation to the Gentiles only after Israel rejected Him. Now the gospel goes out to the nations through those who through faith are Abraham’s true spiritual children (Gal. 3:7).
In the Great Commission, just before He ascended, Jesus plainly commanded (Matt. 28:19), “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations ….” Luke (24:47) reports Jesus as telling His disciples “that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations ….” In Revelation (5:9; 7:9), John sees a great multitude in heaven from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation, whom Jesus purchased with His blood. So the cross reveals Jesus’ glory by having all people come to Him alone for salvation. There is no salvation outside of faith in Jesus’ death for our sins.
This is Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 1:18-31. He shows how God sets aside the so-called “wisdom” of this world and replaces it with Christ crucified. He states (1 Cor. 1:22-24), “For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” He goes on to show that God did not choose the Corinthians for salvation because of their wisdom or earthly status, so that no one may boast before the Lord. He sums up (1 Cor. 1:30-31): “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, ‘Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.’”
Paul has a similar argument in Galatians, where he refutes the proud claims of the Judaizers, who said that in addition to faith in Christ, people had to keep the Jewish law, especially the rite of circumcision. But if sinners can commend themselves to God on the basis of anything that they can do, then they have grounds for boasting in their good works (Gal. 6:13). But Paul concludes (Gal. 6:14), “But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”
The cross means that Jesus did everything necessary for our salvation. He paid in full the debt that we owe. He satisfied God’s righteous judgment against our sins. There is nothing that we can do to qualify for heaven. All we can do is to repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; but repentance and faith are His gifts, so that none can boast (Acts 11:18; Eph. 2:8-9). Thus He gets all the glory for our salvation and we get none. That’s the practical point of the doctrine of election: God gets all the glory for our salvation. If He had not chosen us, we never would have chosen Him.
The cross showed God’s love, not just for the Jews, but for the world (John 3:16). It reveals God’s great love for us, “in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8). John declares (1 John 4:10), “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” Jesus didn’t love us because we were worthy. He loved us in spite of our rebellion against Him. As Charles Wesley wrote, “Amazing love, how can it be, that Thou, my God, shouldst die for me!”
But that word “propitiation” points to another aspect of God’s glory as seen in the cross: His perfect justice. God didn’t love us so much that He just said, “I’ll overlook your sins.” If He had done that, He wouldn’t be just and righteous. A judge who dismissed murderers and rapists with no penalty would not be just. The requirement of the law must be upheld. So God’s gracious solution was to send His Son as the propitiation (a sacrifice that satisfies God’s wrath) for our sins. Hebrews 2:17 says that Jesus had to share our human nature “so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.” So at the cross Jesus bore the wrath of God on behalf of all whom the Father gave to Him.
Leon Morris (The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross [Eerdmans], p. 211) sums up an exhaustive study of the Greek words for “propitiation:” “Thus the use of the concept of propitiation witnesses to two great realities, the one, the reality and the seriousness of the divine reaction against sin, and the other, the reality and the greatness of the divine love which provided the gift which should avert the wrath from men.” The cross shows Jesus’ glory by being the supreme revelation of God’s perfect love and justice. If you have not fled to the cross for mercy, you’re still under God’s terrible wrath (John 3:36). But God invites all sinners to come to Jesus and be saved (Rom. 10:12-13).
Thus, God’s ultimate aim in history is to glorify His Son. The cross reveals God’s glory in Christ by having all people come to Him alone for salvation; by nullifying the boastful works of sinners; and by displaying God’s perfect love and justice. If I had time, I could develop the point that the cross reveals Jesus’ glory by bearing much fruit through His death, as John 12:24 shows. As Jesus said (John 6:39), “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.” He did not shed His blood in vain, hoping that some might be saved. He shed His blood effectually to save all whom the Father had given Him.
So to see Jesus and His glory, you don’t need to have a mystical vision. Rather, look to the cross. The cross reveals Jesus’ glory. Ask God to open your eyes to the glory of Christ and Him crucified! Meditate often on the cross. It will humble your pride, which is your biggest impediment to loving God and loving others. It will stir your heart with love and worship for the Savior, who gave Himself for you when you were a sinful rebel. It will give you compassion and hope for the lost, who can be saved by looking in faith to Jesus as the substitute for their sins. And, as we’ll see in our next study (of John 12:25-26), seeing Jesus’ glory in the cross will transform you so that others will see Him through you.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
September 21, 2014
If I wanted to preach a sermon that appeals to a wide audience, I probably should come up with a different title than, “Why You Should Hate Your Life.” For one thing, it’s a downer. It’s not a happy title. There’s already enough doom and gloom in this world, so why preach a sermon about hating your life? For another thing, not many people wonder about, “How can I hate my life?” It doesn’t help build self-esteem and we all know that building our self-esteem should be one of our main goals in the Christian life, don’t we? (In case you can’t tell, I was being facetious!)
But here’s why I think “Why You Should Hate Your Life” is a good title for a sermon: Because Jesus said that we should do it! And it’s not something that you will fall into naturally without thought or effort. To do it, you’ve got to think carefully about what it means and work at it daily. It’s not a “do it once and you’re done” kind of thing. Also, Jesus said that if I hate my life in this world, I will keep it to life eternal. So this isn’t just some self-help advice about how to have your best life now. It’s about your eternal destiny! So we need to be clear on what Jesus meant and how we should apply it!
We shouldn’t brush aside any of Jesus’ teachings, but when He repeats a message often, we really need to pay attention. He gives us a “heads up” when He begins (12:24) with, “Truly, truly ….” That means, “Wake up! Don’t miss this! Think carefully about this because it’s important!” He proceeds to talk about Himself—He is the grain of wheat that dies so that it will bear much fruit. But in that, Jesus is also our example. We are to die to ourselves so that we bear much fruit. Then He applies it directly to us in verse 25 in the form of a paradox, followed by a motivational promise as to why we should do this (verse 26).
Jesus taught the same truth with slight variations in Matthew 10:37-39; 16:24-27; Mark 8:34-38; Luke 9:23-26; 14:27; & 17:33. To cite Mark 8:34-38:
And He summoned the crowd with His disciples, and said to them, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? For what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”
Jesus’ words apply to everyone who wants to follow Him. He assumes that we all want to save our lives. But He tells us that the way to save our lives is to lose them for His sake and the gospel’s. And, He’s talking about saving or losing our lives eternally, as the comment about coming “in the glory of His Father with the holy angels” shows. So it’s vitally important to understand and apply Jesus’ words in our text. The message is:
You should hate your life in this world because you want to follow Jesus, serve Him, and be with Him forever.
We see: The servant’s model: Jesus (12:24); the servant’s mandate: to hate our lives in this world (12:25); and, the servant’s motivation: to be with Jesus and to be honored by the Father (12:26).
Jesus said (John 12:24), “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” Jesus was referring to the cross. He is the grain of wheat that fell into the ground, died, and bore much fruit. By giving His life as a ransom for many, Jesus “brought many sons to glory” (Mark 10:45; Heb. 2:10). He bore much fruit.
We can never imitate Jesus in His substitutionary death for the sins of others. His death was unique because Jesus is unique. He is the only God-man. He is the eternal Word made flesh, who came as the Lamb of God to take away the sins of the world (John 1:14, 29). Only Jesus could do that.
But in another sense, His death was an example for us all. During His short ministry on earth, Jesus was constantly dying to Himself as He loved others. We see a graphic example of that in John 13, where Jesus took a towel and a basin of water to wash the disciples’ feet. That was the job of a servant. But Jesus did it as an example of how we are to lay aside our lives to serve one another (John 13:15). The culmination of Jesus’ dying to Himself was when He literally laid down His life on the cross for us. That’s how He bore much fruit. When we follow Him by daily dying to ourselves to serve others, we will bear much fruit, and so prove ourselves to be His disciples (John 15:8). Jesus applies His example to us in verse 25:
John 12:25: “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.” In the Greek text, the first two words translated “life” are psyche, which is often translated “soul.” The last “life” comes from zoe, which refers to the eternal life that God gives. Jesus assumes that we all want to keep our souls (or lives) to life eternal. But here’s the paradox: the way to keep your life is to hate it. The way to lose it is to love it. Also, this isn’t just aimed at the dedicated few who want to go to the mission field or become martyrs for the sake of the gospel. This is a mandate for all who follow Jesus (Mark 8:34). All that follow Him are in the daily process of hating their lives in this world. They are the ones who keep their lives eternally.
So, what does it mean to “love your life in this world” and “to hate your life in this world”? Let’s look at both sides of it:
Note three things about loving your life in this world:
That’s what Jesus means by “in this world.” It’s to live as if this world is all there is, so get all the gusto you can now. It’s to live for “your best life now.” That’s the stupidest title for a supposedly Christian book that I’ve ever heard of! Did Jesus enjoy His best life now as He endured the hostility of sinners against Him and went to cross in His early thirties? Did Paul enjoy his best life now as he suffered beatings, imprisonments, a stoning, shipwrecks, and frequent dangers for the sake of the gospel (2 Cor. 11:23-27)? Did any of the martyrs enjoy their best life now as they had their heads cut off or their bodies burned at the stake? If that book is telling you how to have your best life now by laying it down for the sake of Jesus and the gospel, “Amen!” But if it’s telling you how you can have health and wealth and a comfortable lifestyle now, then it’s completely opposed to Jesus’ teaching!
Jesus told about a man who was enjoying his best life now. He said to his soul (Luke 12:19), “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.” But God said to him (Luke 12:20), “You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?” Jesus concluded (Luke 12:21), “So is the man who stores up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.”
Those in the world live as if this life is all that there is. Their aim in life is to accumulate as much money and stuff as they think will make them happy. Their motto is, “He who dies with the most toys wins!” But Jesus says, “He loses.”
What do people without Christ in this world live for? John tells us (1 John 2:15-17):
Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.
If greed and accumulating this world’s stuff is a temptation for you (as it is for me), I urge you to memorize those verses and rehearse them often in your mind! The merchants of this world bombard us daily with the message, “To be happy, you need the stuff that I’m selling. Buy this stuff and you’ll be happy!” I’ll be honest: I like a lot of the stuff they’re selling. And, some of it does make life more comfortable and easy to navigate. I’m thankful for computers and the Internet, which make preparing my sermons and making them available worldwide much easier. They have many other wonderful features. I’m sure that someday I’ll join the rest of the world in getting a smart phone and once I learn how to use it, I’ll like the way it makes life easier. The same can be said for many other things in the world. But, I’ve got to be on guard against loving those things. If I love those things as opposed to doing the will of God, John says, the love of the Father is not in me.
John 12:25a: “He who loves his life loses it….” That’s the same thing as Mark 8:35a, “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,” which is the same as, “to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul” (Mark 8:36). Let me put it nicely: People are crazy! A story that I’ve used many times in funeral messages illustrates why:
In 1981, a man was flown into the remote Alaskan wilderness to photograph the natural beauty of the tundra. He had photo equipment, 500 rolls of film, several firearms, and 1,400 pounds of provisions. As the months passed, the entries in his diary, which at first detailed the wonder and fascination with the wildlife around him, turned into a pathetic record of a nightmare. In August he wrote, “I think I should have used more foresight about arranging my departure. I’ll soon find out.”
He waited and waited, but no one came to his rescue. In November he died in a nameless valley, by a nameless lake, 225 miles northeast of Fairbanks. An investigation revealed that he had care-fully provided for his adventure, but he had made no provision to be flown out of the area.
That was a bit shortsighted, wasn’t it? And yet, how many people live their lives without making any plans for their departure to face eternity? The statistics on death are quite impressive! You know for certain that you will be departing. And you know that you won’t be taking any of your stuff with you when you go. I read about a rich guy once who was buried in his Cadillac. But he’s not driving it now! As they say, you never see a hearse towing a U-Haul!
So why don’t more people—including the Lord’s people—think more seriously about Jesus’ words (John 12:25a): “He who loves his life loses it…”? Our goals, our desires, the way we spend our money and our lives, should not be focused on this life only. Loving your life in this world is the sure way to lose it. Let’s look at the flip side:
You ask, “Am I supposed to become a monk, take a vow of poverty, wear hair shirts, have no contact with the outside world, and spend hours singing Gregorian chants?” Is it wrong to enjoy life? What does it mean to hate my life in this world?
To “hate” our lives (John 12:25) is the same thing as denying ourselves and taking up our cross daily to follow Jesus (Luke 9:23). It means that we must daily repudiate a self-centered life. It means living for God’s glory and His purpose by submitting every thought, word, and deed to the lordship of Jesus. It means moment by moment seeking to love God and love others for Jesus’ sake by saying no to my inherent selfishness and pride. Here are two things to consider about hating your life in this world:
When Jesus says (John 12:25b), “he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal,” He is not describing how to obtain eternal life, unless we understand hating our life in this world to mean denying all trust in our own good works and trusting in Christ alone for salvation. But I think rather by “hating his life,” Jesus is referring to the daily, lifelong process of dying to self as we live for Him. That process is characteristic of all who have truly trusted in Christ for salvation. If you’re not engaging in the daily battle of fighting your own selfishness and pride, you may need to ask, “Have I truly repented of my sins and trusted in Christ as my Savior and Lord?”
“Hating your life in this world” is the same thing as “taking up your cross daily” to follow Jesus (Luke 9:23). Many Christians think that to bear their cross means putting up with a difficult mate or with a painful malady, like arthritis or back pain. But taking up your cross is not an unavoidable trial that you must endure. Jesus says that it is a daily activity that you choose to embrace. In Jesus’ day, the cross wasn’t an implement of irritation, inconvenience, or even suffering. The cross was an instrument of tortuous, slow execution. Jesus’ hearers knew that a man who took up his cross was, for all practical purposes, a dead man. A man bearing his cross gave up all hope and interest in the things of this world, including self-fulfillment. He knew that in a very short time he would be leaving this world. He was dead to self.
Taking up your cross or hating your life in this world is not something you achieve in an emotional moment of spiritual ecstasy or dedication. You never arrive on a spiritual mountaintop where you can sigh with relief, “I’m finally there! No more death to self!” Nor are there any shortcuts or quick fixes to this painful process. The need to hate my life or die to self is never finished in this life; it is a daily battle. A. T. Pierson said, “Getting rid of the ‘self-life’ is like peeling an onion: layer upon layer—and a tearful process!”
Jesus’ death on the cross was the supreme act of love in human history. While, as I said, we can’t die to pay for others’ sins, to the extent that we follow Jesus’ example by dying to our own selfishness for the sake of others’ ultimate good, we are imitating His example of love. In other words, self-sacrifice for others’ highest good is the essence of biblical love. In Ephesians 5:2, Paul exhorts, “Walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.” Later he applies it to husbands (Eph. 5:25), “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her….” Love is a self-sacrificing commitment that seeks the highest good of the one loved. And love is the supreme mark of the Christian, the first fruit of the Holy Spirit (John 13:35; Gal. 5:22).
I’m a husband and I see a lot of Christian husbands who fail to apply this on a daily basis with their wives, so I’m going to talk about that for a moment. If you’re in a different role, it applies to you, so you can adapt the application for your situation. But I see a lot of husbands who think that being the head of their homes means being the king of their homes. And kings don’t serve others. Kings are served by others. So they don’t serve their wives and kids; they expect their wives and kids to serve them. If they want to do something, they do it without a thought about how it may affect their wife and kids. If they want to buy a new toy, they buy it without talking to their wife about her needs. In other words, they’re living selfishly. They’re not hating their lives in order to love others for Jesus’ sake. But hating your life in this world means dying to selfishness in order to love others for Jesus’ sake.
Maybe by this point you’re wondering, “Why would I want to die to myself and live for Christ and others?” That leads to:
John 12:26: “If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.” Two brief comments:
Jesus assumes that all His people will serve Him. And all who serve Him must follow Him. This means obeying His teachings and commandments, of course. But in the context, it especially means following Him by dying to self so that we might, like Jesus, bear much fruit. As He will tell the disciples (John 15:16), He chose them so that they would bear fruit. If the Lord has chosen you, then that’s your purpose. Fruit refers to all character qualities, behavior, and service that He produces in and through us as we abide in Him. Then comes the motivation:
Jesus here doesn’t say that He will be with us, although that is true (Matt. 28:20). Rather, He says that we will be with Him. In John 14:3, He promises, “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.” “Where I am” refers to heaven. To be with Jesus in heaven throughout eternity is more than sufficient reward for all of the trials and persecution that we may go through in this life! And on top of that, Jesus promises that the Father will honor us! I’m sure that we can’t imagine what that entails, but all the honors that this world can give will pale by comparison to the honor that the Father will give to those who have faithfully served His Son.
One writer (Luccock, cited by Ralph Earle, The Gospel According to Mark [Zondervan], p. 108) observes that a mummy is the best preserved thing in human history. If you want to make yourself a spiritual mummy, then try to preserve your life. Jesus says, “You’ll die alone.” But if you die to self for Jesus’ sake, you’ll bear much fruit. So why should you hate your life in this world? Because you want to follow Jesus and be like Him. You want to serve Him and be with Him forever. Remember the famous words of missionary martyr Jim Elliot: “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
October 5, 2014
If you’re like me, you hate to trouble someone on your behalf. I don’t like to ask for help or inconvenience another person unless it’s absolutely necessary. But in one instance, I’m very grateful that another person was troubled on my behalf. I’m not glad that he had to be troubled, but I am glad that willingly he was troubled for me when I didn’t even know that I needed his help. I am speaking of the Lord Jesus, for whom the thought of going to the cross to bear my sins caused Him to say (John 12:27), “Now My soul has become troubled ....” You and I were the cause of Jesus’ trouble. As He states, He came for the very purpose of being troubled by being lifted up on the cross to die for our sins.
We’re in the last week of Jesus’ life before He was crucified. He is in Jerusalem at the Feast of the Passover. Some Greeks came seeking Jesus, which caused Him to say (John 12:23), “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” That hour was the hour of the cross. The gospel would now go out from Israel to all peoples. As Paul explains (Romans 11), Israel’s rejection of their Messiah resulted in the good news going out to the Gentiles.
The main theme of our text is the uplifted Christ, by which Jesus meant, as John explains (12:33), Jesus’ death on the cross. Jesus used the same term as He spoke to Nicodemus (John 3:14), “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.” He used it again (John 8:28), “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me.” Usually the verb means to exalt someone (e.g. Acts 2:33), and I think John wants us to see a double meaning: Jesus’ being lifted up on the cross, which was the ultimate in shame, resulted in His being exalted as the Savior of the world. It resulted in God’s glory and Satan’s defeat. The cross became the watershed event in human history and it’s the watershed in your history. How you respond to Christ lifted up on the cross determines your eternal destiny. So the message applied is:
Christ’s being lifted up on the cross should cause you to believe in Him while you still have time.
We see here the anguish, the aim, the aftermath, and the appeal of Christ’s being lifted up on the cross:
Jesus said (John 12:27), “Now My soul has become troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour.” As Jesus thought about the approaching hour when He who knew no sin would become sin on our behalf, His soul was deeply troubled. This causes Him to ask hypothetically, “And what shall I say, ‘Father, save Me from this hour’?” This is similar to His agony in the Garden when He prayed, (Luke 22:42), “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me.” But there He added, “Yet, not My will, but Yours be done.” Here He adds (John 12:27b-28a), “But for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify Your name.”
Here we peer into the deep mystery of the two natures of Jesus Christ. Being one with the Father from all eternity (John 10:30), He had never experienced even a split-second break in their perfect fellowship. As a sinless man, His time on earth was marked by that same unbroken fellowship. But when He went to the cross, there was that humanly incomprehensible moment when He cried out (Matt. 27:46), “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” At that moment, God “made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf” (2 Cor. 5:21). He bore the awful punishment of God’s wrath that we deserved. That’s why Jesus’ soul was troubled as He thought about the cross. Consider three applications:
First, the doctrine of justification by faith alone means that our sins were imputed to Him and His righteousness was imputed to us the instant that we believed in Him. We stand totally forgiven and righteous before God, not because of any works that we have done, but only because Jesus’ blood and righteousness have been imputed to our account through faith alone. Because Jesus was troubled for our sins on the cross, we don’t need to be troubled on judgment day! He bore all our guilt on the cross so that we can enjoy peace with God!
Second, since our sins caused our loving Savior so much anguish and pain, we should hate our sins and fight every day to kill them. All too often, we flirt with our sins or we try to manage them. But you can’t flirt with or manage an enemy that seeks to kill you. It would be like our country trying to flirt with or manage the Islamic extremists who want either to convert us or kill us. The only way to deal with such an ominous threat is to fight it to the death. The only way to deal with your sins is to put them to death by the Holy Spirit’s power (Rom. 8:13).
Third, when you’re struggling with powerful emotions, it is always right to submit your feelings to God’s purpose to glorify Himself. Our Lord is our example here in how to deal with our feelings. Jesus had human feelings, but He was free from all sin. Here, He honestly expresses His revulsion at the thought of the cross, but He quickly submits to the will and glory of God. We should do the same. If you’re facing a difficult trial and you’re overwhelmed with powerful feelings so that you don’t even know what to pray, you can always pray, “Father, glorify Your name.” Your aim, like Jesus’ aim, should be to glorify the Father in all that you do.
The Psalms offer a lot of help here. Often David was overwhelmed with anxiety or fear or despair over some life-threatening situation. His enemies were hot on his trail, threatening his life. But he honestly poured out his complaint to God and then cried out (Ps. 57:11), “Be exalted above the heavens, O God; let Your glory be above all the earth.” So, you can be honest with your feelings before God as long as you submit them to His purpose to be glorified through all that you endure for Jesus’ sake. Follow our Savior’s the example, who felt such powerful anguish as He faced the cross.
Jesus prayed (John 12:28a), “Father, glorify Your name.” John adds (12:28b), “Then a voice came out of heaven: ‘I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.’”
If I were to ask, “Why did Christ die?” you would probably answer, “Christ died to save us from our sins.” That is correct, of course. But that isn’t the main reason Christ died. He died first and foremost to glorify the Father. Jesus was willing to endure the awful agony of the cross in order to glorify the Father’s name. The cross showed the angels and principalities in heavenly places, along with the whole world, the unfathomable riches of the love and grace of God. Jesus was willing to bear that horrible punishment because He loved us even while we were yet sinners.
The cross also displayed God’s infinite holiness and justice. He could not just brush away our sins without the penalty being paid. His righteous wrath has to be poured out on sinners. The wages of our sin is death, or eternal separation from God. That penalty is either on you or on Jesus because you have trusted in Him. Through the cross, God can be both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Rom. 3:26).
John (12:28b) reports that a voice came out of heaven, “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” God had glorified His name through Jesus’ life and ministry to that point; He would be glorified again through Jesus’ death, resurrection, ascension, and His second coming in glory.
But then John (12:29) adds, “So the crowd of people who stood by and heard it were saying that it had thundered; others were saying, ‘An angel has spoken to Him.’” John added this verse to illustrate what he will explain further in verses 37-40: the spiritual blindness of those who reject Christ. Some took a naturalistic approach to the voice from heaven, saying that it had thundered. Others took a spiritual approach, saying that an angel had spoken to Jesus. But they all missed the point that God was authenticating Jesus and His ministry.
Then John (12:30) adds, “Jesus answered and said, ‘This voice has not come for My sake, but for your sakes.’” There were three times in Jesus’ ministry that the Father spoke out of heaven: His baptism, transfiguration, and here. Each time He endorsed Jesus and His ministry. Jesus didn’t need the Father’s approval, because He knew that He always had it. The voice was for the sake of those who heard it. They should have realized that God set His seal of approval on Jesus.
But, you may wonder, how could the voice from heaven have been for the sake of the crowd if they couldn’t understand it? I take it to be similar to Jesus’ admonition, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Matt. 11:15). In other words, if Jesus’ hearers would ask God to open their ears and give them a heart to obey, they would know the truth. But, tragically, most of them shrugged off Jesus’ words and missed their Messiah.
But it’s no different today: God has spoken clearly through His Word, giving testimony to Jesus as the only Savior. Yet some explain Christianity in completely naturalistic terms, like those who said that it thundered, while others launch off into mystical spirituality, like those who said that an angel had spoken to Jesus. But both sides miss God’s testimony to His Son. They don’t have spiritual ears to hear spiritual truth, even when God speaks clearly.
We’ve seen that the anguish of Christ’s being lifted up was because He would bear God’s wrath for our sins. The aim of His being lifted up was to glorify the Father.
In these verses, Jesus elaborates on the aftermath or results of the cross: The world is judged; Satan will be cast out; and all men will be drawn to Jesus. But at first glance, these do not seem to be true. The world has gone on in its sinful ways for two thousand years without judgment. Satan seems to be alive and well on planet earth. And obviously, all people are not being drawn to Jesus. So, what did Jesus mean?
In one sense, the world has been under judgment since Adam’s sin. Except for Jesus, every person has been born in sin, under God’s wrath, headed for eternal condemnation unless God’s grace breaks into his life. But the death of Christ represents a decisive judgment on this sinful world. I understand this to mean that now that Jesus has come, He is the absolute standard of judgment. He is the Light to which people either come for salvation or run from because they love their sin (John 3:19-21; 12:35-36).
The purpose of the light is not to cast shadows, but light inevitably does cast shadows. Jesus’ purpose for coming was not to judge the world, but to save it (John 3:17). But His coming drew a line that divides all people. What people do with Jesus determines their eternal destiny. As John 3:18 states, “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
The Jewish leaders thought that they were judging Jesus by crucifying Him, but by rejecting Jesus they pronounced judgment on themselves. Even so today, people judge themselves by how they judge Jesus. If they trust in Him as Savior and Lord, they will be saved. But if they ignore Him or demote Him to being just a great religious teacher, they do so to their own condemnation. As 1 John 5:9-10 makes clear,
If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater; for the testimony of God is this, that He has testified concerning His Son. The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning His Son.
By “the ruler of this world,” Jesus was referring to Satan (John 14:30; 16:11). The cross seemed to be a victory for Satan, but it actually was the moment of his defeat, because Christ triumphed there over sin and death. Satan is active today, as Paul shows when he says that we must put on the full armor of God so that we can withstand Satan’s attacks (Eph. 6:10-20). Peter warns us that the devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking to devour us through trials and persecution (1 Pet. 5:8-10). My understanding of Revelation 20:1-9 is that Satan is not bound now, but he will be bound during most of the millennium. At the end of that time, he will be released briefly to deceive the nations. Then his final judgment will come, when he is cast into the lake of fire forever (Rev. 20:10).
But Jesus’ death and resurrection sealed Satan’s doom. He is now a defeated foe in the sense that through the gospel, the worst of sinners can be delivered from his domain of darkness and transferred to Christ’s kingdom of light (Col. 1:13). Because of the cross, Satan can no longer successfully accuse those who are in Christ (Rev. 12:10). Through the cross, Jesus robbed Satan of the power of death, so that we who believe are freed from the fear of death (Heb. 2:14-15). We can resist the devil and overcome him through Christ’s victory on the cross (1 Pet. 5:8-10; James 4:7).
Sometimes preachers use Jesus’ words in verse 32 to mean that if we exalt Jesus (“lift Him up”), He will draw people to Himself. That is true, and as I explained, John probably intended a double meaning. But in verse 33, John makes it clear that by “lifted up,” Jesus primarily was referring to being lifted up on the cross. His death on the cross would draw all men to Himself. But, what does that mean? Obviously, not even close to a majority of people who have lived since the cross have been drawn to Jesus.
The context helps us interpret this point. The Greeks have just come to Philip asking to see Jesus. At this point, Jesus announces that the hour has come for Him to be glorified. Part of His glory (as I explained in the last message) is that after the cross, the gospel would now go out to the whole world. So by “all men,” Jesus does not mean all without exception, but all without distinction. As Paul put it (Rom. 1:16), “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”
The word “draw” is the same word that Jesus used in John 6:44, “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.” This points to the fact that people lack the spiritual ability to come to Christ unless God powerfully works to open their blind eyes and soften their hard hearts so that they can believe (John 12:39-40). But when He does draw them, they will come to Jesus. As He said (John 6:37), “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.”
We’ve seen that the anguish of Christ’s being lifted up on the cross was because He would bear God’s wrath for our sins. The aim of His being lifted up was to glorify the Father. The aftermath of His being lifted up was that the world was judged, Satan was cast out, and Jesus would draw all people to Himself. Finally,
(By “appeal,” I mean “entreaty,” but that doesn’t alliterate with anguish, aim, and aftermath!) We should understand the crowd’s response in verse 34 to be a defiant challenge, not a sincere question. (Their “we” and “You” are emphatic in the Greek text, pitting them against Jesus.) They answer Jesus, “We have heard out of the Law that the Christ is to remain forever; and how can You say, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this Son of Man?”
Apparently, they understood Jesus’ words about being lifted up to refer to His death. Their challenge to Jesus could have been based on several Scriptures. Psalm 110:4 says that Messiah is a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Daniel 7:13-14 says that the Son of Man will receive an eternal kingdom. It’s interesting that Jesus did not call Himself the Son of Man when He referred to being lifted up, but perhaps the crowd had heard Him say that the hour had come for the Son of Man to be glorified (John 12:23) and connected the dots.
Jesus realized that answering their question would not get to their root problem. If their problem had been theological, Jesus could have replied, “Haven’t you read Isaiah 53, about Messiah dying for His people’s sins? Haven’t you read Psalm 22 about Messiah’s death or Daniel 9:26, which says that Messiah will be cut off?” But the Jews’ problem was not theological, but moral. They were walking in spiritual and moral darkness. So Jesus replied (John 12:35-36a): “For a little while longer the Light is among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes. While you have the Light, believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light.”
Note that Jesus emphasizes “light” five times. He is the Light of the world, but in just a few days, He would be gone. They had a narrow window of opportunity to give up their preconceived notions about Messiah being a political savior and to act on the truth that He had given them about Himself. But that truth centered on the fact that they were sinners, walking in darkness, and they needed to come to Jesus as the Light, which implied turning from their sins. The main issue was (and still is), “While you have the Light, believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light” (John 12:36a).
I conclude with three applications:
First, be careful how you ask questions of the Lord. Don’t be like these Jews, who challenged Jesus defiantly. Their minds were made up: “We know, based on Scripture, that the Christ is to remain forever.” And so they missed the Light who was standing right in front of them! Ask your questions submissively, prayerfully, and with a heart to obey the truth.
Second, believe in Christ while you still can! There is an urgency about the message you have just heard. Tomorrow may be too late! The second half of verse 36 says that after Jesus spoke these things, He went away and hid Himself from them. That is a great tragedy, to have Jesus withdraw from you! Now is the day of salvation!
Third, be willing to let God change you by confronting your sins. I’ve seen Christians who love to debate theology, but they don’t allow the light of God’s Word to confront their sins. While it’s good to gain more theological light, we need to focus on living by the light that we have. Come to God’s Word with the prayer, “Lord, where do I need to change?”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
October 12, 2014
A familiar wall plaque motto reads, “Jesus never fails.” I like that reminder. It tells me that Jesus is always trustworthy and consistent in His faithfulness toward us. Indeed, “Jesus never fails!”
But if we honestly were to evaluate Jesus’ ministry to this point in the Gospel of John, we might wonder, “Has Jesus failed in His ministry?” The picture John gives us just a few days before Jesus’ crucifixion is rather dismal. Granted, He has a few faithful followers here and there. But even the twelve weren’t very solid. Judas would soon betray Him; Peter would deny Him; and all would desert Him in His hour of need. Thomas at first would doubt Jesus’ resurrection. They didn’t seem like a promising group to which to entrust the entire future of the faith!
As we see in our text (12:42-43), there are a few of the Jewish leaders who profess to believe in Jesus, but they’re afraid to take a public stand for Him. The majority of the Jewish leaders were intent on killing Jesus. Most of the Jewish people would not commit themselves to Christ for fear of being excommunicated (John 9:22). Besides, they wanted a political Messiah who would deliver them from Rome, and Jesus didn’t seem to fit the bill.
So as John ends this long section that has shown mounting opposition to Jesus, we may wonder, “Did Jesus fail in His ministry? If not, why didn’t the Jews accept Jesus as their Messiah?” For that matter, why haven’t most people down through history believed in Jesus as Savior and Lord?
The question of why most Jews in Jesus’ day and most Jews down through history have rejected Jesus as their Messiah probably isn’t keeping you awake at night. We’re used to the fact that the church consists mostly of Gentiles. But to the apostles, who were all Jewish, this was a huge concern. It threatened the credibility of who Jesus claimed to be. They lived in light of the Old Testament prophecies. They knew that the Jews were God’s chosen people and that God would send His Messiah to bless them. They also believed that Jesus was the promised Messiah. But, if that was true, then why didn’t Israel welcome Jesus joyfully? Why did they not only reject Jesus, but consent to His crucifixion? Why were more Gentiles than Jews responding favorably to the gospel?
Those questions caused the apostle Paul “great sorrow and unceasing grief” (Rom. 9:2). He devoted Romans 9-11 to answer the question of why Israel had rejected Jesus. In his answer, he emphasized God’s sovereignty even over people’s hardness of heart to show that human sin cannot thwart God’s purpose (Romans 9). He always accomplishes His will. Paul also emphasized human responsibility, both our responsibility to preach the gospel and sinners’ responsibility to respond to it (Romans 10). He concluded that a partial judicial hardening had happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles had come in. Then God would fulfill His promises to Israel (Romans 11).
Our text is John’s contribution to the same difficult question of why the Jews rejected Jesus as their Messiah. John’s answer is not as comprehensive as Paul’s, but like Paul he emphasizes both God’s sovereignty and human responsibility. He shows us that human sin never derails God’s sovereign purposes, but at the same time, people are responsible for their sin and they will be judged if they refuse to believe in Christ. John’s message is:
People do not believe in Jesus because they reject the light that God has given them, resulting in God’s judicially blinding them; but some see Jesus’ glory and believe.
We’ll divide the text into four parts:
John 12:36: ‘“While you have the Light, believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light.’ These things Jesus spoke, and He went away and hid Himself from them.”
Jesus is the Light of the world (John 8:12). He exhorted the Jews to believe in Him as the Light while they had the opportunity. But then, realizing their determination to reject and kill Him, Jesus went away and hid Himself from them. We don’t know where He went, but perhaps it was Bethany to stay with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. But His departure symbolized the judicial judgment that was about to fall on Israel. It was a prophetic drama acted out to say to Israel, “If you reject Me, I will withdraw and you will not have the Light among you.” Hiding Himself also reflects the truth that John has repeatedly shown, that Jesus would die in accord with the Father’s timetable, not whenever the Jews wanted to kill Him. His death would be at the Passover, because He is the Lamb of God (John 1:29).
Then John (12:37) adds his commentary, “But though He had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him.” John has presented seven signs (his favorite term for miracles) that Jesus has performed: turning the water into wine (John 2:1-11); healing the royal official’s son (John 4:46-54); healing the lame man by the Pool of Bethesda (John 5:1-9); feeding the 5,000 (John 6:1-14); walking on the water (John 6:16-25); opening the eyes of the man born blind (John 9:1-7); and raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11:38-44). But John (20:30) states that there were many other signs that Jesus performed which are not written in this Gospel. But the ones that he wrote should have been more than sufficient to lead people to believe in Jesus (John 20:31). Yet for the most part, the Jews did not believe.
But why would people reject Jesus as the light that God gave them, especially when that light was authenticated by these powerful miracles? John 3:19-20 answered that question:
This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.
People reject God’s light because they love their sin. Paul said a similar thing in Romans 1:18-21, where he shows that God has clearly revealed His eternal power and divine nature through creation. But people suppress the truth in unrighteousness. They want to hold onto their sins, so they hold down the truth of God as the almighty Creator and believe in ridiculous myths, like evolution, so that they can continue in their sins. This repeats the truth that I mentioned last time, that when people reject Christ, usually their main need is not to get their theological questions answered, but rather to repent of their sins.
So I will often ask a skeptic, “Are you saying that if I can give you a reasonable answer to this question, you will put your trust in Jesus as your Savior?” The one who is suppressing the truth will invariably reply, “I have a lot of other questions, too!” He’s not looking for answers; he is rejecting the light that God has given him. John 12:36-37 focuses on human responsibility for unbelief. People do not believe in Jesus because they reject the light that God has given them. And they reject the light because they love their sin. But this leads to something scary:
John 12:38-40: “This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet which he spoke: ‘Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?’ For this reason they could not believe, for Isaiah said again, ‘He has blinded their eyes and He hardened their heart, so that they would not see with their eyes and perceive with their heart, and be converted and I heal them.’”
By citing these verses from Isaiah 53:1 and Isaiah 6:10, John makes two startling claims: (1) The Jews’ rejection of Jesus was in order to fulfill prophecy; (2) The Jews were incapable of believing because God had blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts. There is a third startling claim for liberal critics who say that Isaiah didn’t write all of Isaiah: The first quote comes from so-called “second Isaiah,” while the second quote comes from “first Isaiah,” but John, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, affirms that Isaiah wrote both quotes. Isaiah wrote all of Isaiah!
But, to go back to John’s first two claims, that the Jews’ rejection of Jesus was in order to fulfill prophecy, and that they were incapable of believing because God had blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts: D. A. Carson (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 447) calls those claims, “unambiguous predestinarianism.” John is saying that the Jews’ unbelief was “not only foreseen by Scripture but on that very account necessitated by Scripture” (ibid., italics his). Further, the cause of their final unbelieving rejection of Jesus was that God had judicially blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts so that they could not believe. Because the Jews would not believe, God judicially blinded them so that they could not believe. By the way, Jesus cited the same text (Isa. 6:9-10) to explain why He spoke to the multitudes in parables (Matt. 13:14-15). And Paul quoted the same verses to the unbelieving Jews who visited him in Rome to justify why he had turned to the Gentiles (Acts 28:25-27).
John’s first quote (from Isa. 53:1), “Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” is in the context of Isaiah’s prophecy of the suffering Servant, who like a lamb led to the slaughter, would bear the sins of His people. The “arm of the Lord” refers to His mighty power. You would think that everyone who saw a miracle would believe. But John says that the arm of the Lord must be revealed. If God doesn’t open people’s eyes, they will not see that Jesus’ miracles authenticate Him as God’s Messiah. They will explain them away by natural means. This reveals the condition of people fallen in sin, who are (Eph. 4:18) “darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart.”
The same thing had happened when Moses led Israel out of bondage in Egypt as God performed mighty miracles. You would think that the Jews would have seen the plagues in Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the pillar of cloud and fire, the provision of water and manna in the wilderness, and the many other miracles as manifestations of God’s mighty power. But Moses said (Deut. 29: 2-4), “You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt to Pharaoh and all his servants and all his land; the great trials which your eyes have seen, those great signs and wonders. Yet to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to know, nor eyes to see, nor ears to hear.” The arm of the Lord must be revealed. People are spiritually blind unless God opens their eyes!
In John 12, the idea is that in spite of the many mighty miracles that Jesus performed, people would not believe in Him as their Messiah because He didn’t fit their expectation of a mighty, conquering political Messiah. Rather (Isa. 53:2-3), “He has no stately form or majesty, that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him. He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” Since Jesus didn’t fit the Jews’ expectations for their Messiah, they rejected Him even though He had performed so many signs before them.
There is an application here for us who have believed: At some point, Jesus probably won’t fit your expectations of what you thought He would be when you trusted in Him as your Savior. You may have thought that He would fix all your problems, but your problems have grown worse. You may have expected Him to save all your family and resolve all your family conflicts. But instead, your family members have hardened themselves in unbelief and they oppose you because you believe. Be careful not to fall away from Jesus when He doesn’t fit your expectations!
Dr. Carson (p. 448) acknowledges that a superficial reading of John 12:38-40 may find it “harsh, manipulative, [and] even robotic.” He offers (pp. 448-449) four things to keep in mind (which I’m paraphrasing and supplementing here): (1) “God’s sovereignty in these matters is never pitted against human responsibility.” The Bible often puts God’s sovereignty and human responsibility side by side (Acts 4:27-28): “For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.” God predestined the cross; but those who killed Jesus were responsible for their sin (see, also, Acts 2:23). In a way that we cannot understand, God is sovereign over evil and yet never responsible for it.
(2) God’s judicial hardening is not the capricious manipulation of an arbitrary Sovereign toward morally neutral or good people, but rather His holy condemnation of guilty people who are condemned to the judgment that they themselves have chosen. There are many examples of this in the Bible (Deut. 2:30; Josh. 11:20; 1 Sam. 2:25; 1 Kings 22:19-23; Rom. 9:18; 2 Thess. 2:11-12).
(3) God’s sovereignty in these matters is actually a cause for hope. If He is not sovereign over evil people, then there isn’t much point for our prayers for Him to do something when evil seems to prevail. But if the Lord truly reigns, then we can rejoice (Ps. 97:1).
(4) God’s sovereign hardening of people in Isaiah’s day so that Isaiah was commissioned to an apparently fruitless ministry (Isa. 6:8-11) was a stage in God’s “strange work” (Carson’s words, based on Isa. 28:21-22) that brought His ultimate redemptive purposes to pass. Paul argues somewhat similarly in Romans 9:22-33.
The application is that the unbelief and evil deeds of sinners never frustrate the purposes of our sovereign God, but actually fulfill His purposes (1 Pet. 2:8). While many details in the Book of Revelation are hard to understand, one clear point is that even the worldwide evil and deception of the antichrist fit into and accomplish God’s purpose for the ages. Like those who killed Jesus, the antichrist will only “do whatever [God’s] hand and [His] purpose predestined to occur.” Then God will judge him and cast him into the lake of fire. To the persecuted church, the Lord commands (Rev. 2:10), “Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, so that you will be tested, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.”
Thus we’ve seen that people do not believe in Jesus because they reject the light that God has given them, resulting in God’s judicially blinding them even more. In the next three verses we see that some see Jesus’ glory and believe in Him, whereas others profess to believe, but their focus is not on Jesus’ glory.
John 12:41: “These things Isaiah said because he saw His glory, and he spoke of Him.” That’s a remarkable statement! John is probably referring both to Isaiah 53, where Isaiah saw Jesus’ glory as the suffering servant; and to Isaiah 6, where Isaiah saw God in glory on His throne. John is saying that Isaiah saw what the Jews of Jesus’ day missed, namely that He would be glorified by His suffering for our sins (John 12:23), but He is also the exalted One whom Isaiah saw, high and lifted up in Isaiah 6. But the remarkable thing is, John identifies Jesus with the Lord (Yahweh) on His throne! In 2 Corinthians 4:4, 6, Paul writes,
“…the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God…. For God, who said, “Light shall shine out of darkness,” is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
Paul is saying that Satan has blinded unbelievers so that they cannot see the glory of Christ. But when we believe, it is because God has shone in our hearts to reveal His glory in Christ. Tying in with John, Isaiah was granted a vision of Jesus’ glory. While our vision of His glory will not compare with Isaiah’s vision, or John’s (Rev. 1:12-18), or Paul’s (2 Cor. 12:3-4), the beginning of faith is when God opens your eyes to see something of Jesus’ glory. When you see His glory on the cross, you believe in Him for eternal life.
But there is one sticky matter left in our text:
John 12:42-43: “Nevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.”
The sticky issue is whether John is describing true believers or not. Some emphasize “believed” and argue that John is talking about men like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, who were secret believers for fear of the Jews (John 19:38-39). They would say that they were saved, although their faith was defective.
But I would contend that while these rulers later may have come to saving faith, at this point John is describing men who were not yet saved. We saw this “non-saving belief” back in John 2:23-25, where many believed in Jesus but He didn’t entrust Himself to them. Those verses set the stage for Jesus’ interview with Nicodemus. We saw the same thing in John 8:31-59, where John says that the Jews believed in Jesus, but they clearly do not believe in a saving way. John’s comment here about these men loving the approval of men, not of God, goes back to John 5:44, where Jesus asked His opponents, “How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God?” (The word translated “approval” in John 12:43 is literally, “glory,” which stands in contrast to John 12:23, 28, & 41.)
Added to this are Jesus’ words in Mark 8:38, “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.” These Pharisees would not confess Jesus because of their fear of being put out of the synagogue and their love of man’s glory over God’s glory. Unless they later became willing to confess Christ whatever the cost, I contend that their faith was not saving faith.
Why does John include verses 42 & 43? Perhaps to warn those who say they believe, but are afraid to confess Christ, that they will face Jesus in judgment someday (John 12:48). He wants us to see that true faith sees Jesus’ glory and confesses Him, no matter what the cost. True Christians are not ashamed to confess Christ before this adulterous and sinful generation. Man’s approval may last a few years; God’s approval lasts forever.
Here are four summary applications:
(1) Are you obeying the light that God has given you or could you be suppressing the truth because you love your sins? This is a danger both for those who haven’t trusted in Christ, but also for those of us who have. It’s easy to dodge the truths in Scripture that confront your sins, but doing so will stall your growth.
(2) Are you trusting the Lord even when He does things that don’t fit your expectations? Evil men may wrong you, but God’s sovereign purpose will prevail.
(3) When you share Christ, pray that God will open blind eyes. Apart from His grace, the human heart is blind and hardened. Salvation is from the Lord.
(4) If you have not believed in Jesus to save you from your sins, you can’t blame God. Cry out to Him to open your eyes to the glory of Jesus crucified for sinners. Beg God to give you saving faith.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
October 19, 2014
A wife opening the mail said to her husband, “The bank says that this is our last notice. Isn’t it wonderful that they’re not going to bother us anymore?” (Michael Streff, Reader’s Digest [5/92])
It’s never wise to ignore final notices! That’s true of bill collectors, but it’s especially true if you ignore God’s final notice. You may think that it’s wonderful that God won’t bother you anymore. But as Paul warned the Athenians (Acts 17:31), “[God] has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.” So when God sends a final notice, it’s best to pay attention!
Our text represents Jesus’ final notice to the Jews who had not believed in Him. We don’t know when He spoke these words. There is nothing here that He has not already said. His words serve as a review of some of the key truths that John’s Gospel has emphasized to this point. But these are His last words to unbelieving Israel before He was crucified. The next five chapters are spoken privately to His disciples. Since this is Jesus’ final notice, we all should pay attention! He gives four reasons why we should believe in Him. In His words:
Believe in Me because I am one with the Father, I am the light, My words will judge all that reject them, and I speak the Father’s commandment that is eternal life.
Note that “Jesus cried out” these words (John 12:44). John used that verb of Jesus when He cried out in the temple at the Feast of Dedication (John 7:28, 37). It means to shout in a loud voice. It’s more than simply teaching. It’s an exhortation or strong appeal to His hearers to pay attention to these truths. He didn’t want them (or us!) to miss the message.
John 12:44-45: “And Jesus cried out and said, ‘He who believes in Me, does not believe in Me but in Him who sent Me. He who sees Me sees the One who sent Me.’” Jesus is affirming His essential unity with the Father. In John 10:30, He plainly told the Jewish leaders, “I and the Father are one.” In John 10:38, He said that they should “know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.” In John 8:19, Jesus rebuked His critics, “You know neither Me nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also.” There is an essential unity between the Father and the Son.
This does not mean what those who hold to modalism teach, that Jesus and the Father are merely different modes of the same God. (The modern “Jesus only” teachers, of whom there are several in Flagstaff, teach modalism.) Throughout John we have seen that Jesus distinguishes Himself from the Father, while yet asserting their essential unity. Here He affirms again (John 12:44, 45, 49) that the Father has sent Him, which would be nonsense if they are the same person. But He also affirms that He and the Father are so closely identified that to believe in Him is to believe in the Father and to see Him is to see the Father. By these words, Jesus clearly is claiming to be God, yet distinct from the Father.
We can never fully understand the doctrine of the trinity, which is why several of the cults deny it. They want a “god” that they can logically understand. But the trinity is clearly taught in the Bible (Matt. 28:19; 1 Cor. 12:4-6; 2 Cor. 13:14; Eph. 1:3-14; 4:4-6; 1 Pet. 1:2; Jude 20-21). We can summarize it by three statements (Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology [Zondervan], p. 231; I encourage you to read his chapter on the trinity): “(1) God is three persons. (2) Each person is fully God. (3) There is one God.”
Grudem amplifies and supports each of these points from Scripture. The first point means that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are distinct from one another. They are three persons, not three manifestations of the same person. We saw this distinction between Jesus and the Father in John 1:1-2: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.” The fact that Jesus was “with God” distinguishes Him from the Father. But the statement that “the Word was God” shows that Jesus is fully God.
The Bible also shows that each person of the trinity is fully God (see Grudem, pp. 233-238). Obviously, the Father is God. Jesus prayed to Him as the only true God (John 17:1-26). There are many proofs that Jesus, God’s Son, is fully God (see Grudem, pp. 543-554). John 1:1 asserts this, as well as John 1:18, where Jesus is called “the only begotten God” (according to the best manuscripts; “only begotten” is better translated “unique” or “only”). In John 20:28, Thomas exclaimed to the risen Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” If he had been mistaken or swearing (as the Jehovah’s Witnesses claim), Jesus would have strongly rebuked Him. But rather, Jesus affirmed Thomas’ faith and affirmed that his confession should be the confession of everyone who believes. And, Scripture also teaches the full deity of the Holy Spirit (in the trinitarian verses listed above; also, Acts 5:3-4; Ps. 139:7-8; 1 Cor. 2:10-11; John 3:5-7; see Grudem, pp. 237-238).
But the Bible not only affirms that God is three persons and that each person is fully God. It also affirms that there is only one God (Deut. 6:4): “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one!” (See, also, Isa. 45:5-6, 21-22; 44:6-8; Rom. 3:30; 1 Cor. 8:6; 1 Tim. 2:5; James 2:19).
When Jesus says (John 12:45), “He who sees Me sees the One who sent Me,” He is affirming what John 1:14 states: “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Also, John 1:18 states, “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” Jesus repeats this in answer to Philip’s request for Jesus to show them the Father (John 14:9), “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” So to know God, you must know Jesus. As 1 John 2:23 affirms, “Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.”
Thus the first reason that we should believe in Jesus is because He is one with the Father. You cannot deny Jesus’ deity and at the same time believe in the one true God. And to deny Jesus’ distinction from the Father (as in modalism) is to deny the one true God. To believe in Jesus as God is to believe in the Father who sent Him, which is the only faith that results in eternal life (John 17:3): “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
John 12:46: “I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness.” Again, this is a restatement of a truth that has been repeated throughout John. John 1:4-5 affirms, “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” John 1:9 calls Jesus “the true Light, which coming into the world, enlightens every man.” John 3:19-21 refers to Jesus as the Light:
This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.
In John 8:12, Jesus proclaimed, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” In John 9:5, just before He opened the eyes of the man born blind, Jesus repeated, “While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.” And in John 12:35-36, Jesus again taught:
“For a little while longer the Light is among you. Walk while you have the Light, so that darkness will not overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes. While you have the Light, believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light.”
This means that the world without Christ is in spiritual and moral darkness. They do not understand the things that the Spirit of God has revealed in God’s Word (1 Cor. 2:14). They are darkened in their understanding and excluded from the life of God (Eph. 4:18). This does not mean that unbelievers lack all wisdom about how to live or that they do not at times hold to some valid truths about God. Due to common grace (so that the world does not self-destruct!), God grants even to unbelievers some wisdom and some light. But any light that they may possess is hopelessly mixed up with spiritual and moral confusion.
For example, unbelievers typically believe certain truths that they like, but reject other truths that are offensive to them, even though Scripture clearly teaches both truths. They will believe that God is love, because we all like that truth, but they reject that He is absolutely holy and righteous and that He will judge sinners, because they don’t like that. But God cannot be loving without also being just and righteous. An unjust judge who lets rapists go free because he “loves” them is neither righteous nor loving. If God is God, then He must be both loving and just.
The same applies to the way the world constructs its view of morality. If we abandon God’s Word, which is the only reliable standard for morality, we’ll grope in the darkness. For example, according to a 2013 Gallup poll (gallup.com/poll/162881/ older-americans-moral-attitudes-changing), among 18-34 year-old Americans, 49% think that pornography is morally acceptable; 72% say that sex between an unmarried man and woman is acceptable; 74% say that gay or lesbian relations are acceptable; and 71% say that having a baby outside of marriage is acceptable. And it would be naïve to think that those views stay outside of the church! A 2009 Barna survey (barna.org/barna-update/21-transformation/252-barna-survey-examines-changes-in-worldview-among-christians-over-the-past-13-years#) showed that only 46% of “born again” Christians believe in absolute moral truth!
As D. A. Carson points out (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 337), “The light metaphor is steeped in Old Testament allusions.” Psalm 27:1 declares, “The Lord is my light and my salvation ….” The psalmist begs God (Ps. 44:3), “O send out Your light and Your truth, let them lead me.” Psalm 119:105 affirms, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Isaiah (60:19-22) predicts a glorious future (fulfilled in Rev. 21:23-24) when believers will not have the sun for light, because (Isa. 60:19) “you will have the Lord for an everlasting light.”
In 1 John 1:5, the apostle declares, “This is the message that we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” Thus for Jesus to state (John 12:46), “I have come as Light into the world, so that everyone who believes in Me will not remain in darkness,” is to claim to be God. He is claiming to be just as holy as God is. He is claiming to have the power to deliver those who believe in Him from Satan’s domain of darkness (Col. 1:13). Either His claims are false, in which case He is a deluded man or a deceiver. Or His claims are true, in which case you should believe in Him.
Thus Jesus says, “Believe in Me because I am one with the Father. Believe in Me because I am the Light of the world.”
John 12:47-48: “If anyone hears My sayings and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. He who rejects Me and does not receive My sayings, has one who judges him; the word I spoke is what will judge him at the last day.” Again, Jesus is stating truths that have repeatedly been taught in this Gospel:
John 3:17-18: “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
John 5:22: “For not even the Father judges anyone, but He has given all judgment to the Son ….” In verse 27, Jesus repeats that the Father “gave Him [the Son] authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man.”
John 5:45-47: “Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?”
John 8:15-16: “You judge according to the flesh; I am not judging anyone. But even if I do judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone in it, but I and the Father who sent Me.”
John 9:39: “For judgment I came into this world, so that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.”
John 12:31: “Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out.”
There is no contradiction between Jesus’ statement in John 3:17 that He did not come to judge the world and His statement in John 9:39 that for judgment He came into this world. He means that the primary purpose in His first coming was not to judge the world, but to provide for the world’s salvation through His substitutionary death on the cross. But as John 3:18-21 shows, the concept of judgment is implicit in Jesus’ coming, because the light divides people into those who come to it and those who hide from it. Christ’s second coming will be for judgment, as the Book of Revelation makes clear. On that day, all who have rejected Jesus will cry out to the mountains and the rocks (Rev. 6:16), “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.”
Please note that Jesus says plainly (John 12:48) that there will be a “last day” and that it will be a day of judgment. But Jesus also offered a sure way to escape that awful day (John 5:24): “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life.”
But we need to be very clear about what Jesus means by hearing His word and believing in Him. In John 12:47, He describes the person who will eventually come into judgment as one who “hears My sayings and does not keep them.” In verse 48, He says that this person “rejects Me and does not receive My sayings.” Genuine saving faith is obedient faith. Jesus warned (Matt. 7:21), “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.”
So there is a last day and it will be a day of judgment. But here Jesus is giving a final notice to those who were rejecting Him that His first coming was a day of grace. Both the warning of judgment to come and the appeal to believe in Jesus now are expressions of God’s great love for sinners.
John Calvin is often caricatured as a cold-hearted theologian who denied human choice and believed that God chose the elect and damned the rest, so there’s nothing you can do about it. But listen to Calvin’s comments on Jesus’ appeal to His enemies here (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], pp. 50, 51):
Why then does Christ not choose to condemn them? It is because he lays aside for a time the office of a judge, and offers salvation to all without reserve, and stretches out his arms to embrace all, that all may be the more encouraged to repent…. No man, therefore, is condemned on account of having despised the Gospel, except he who, disdaining the lovely message of salvation, has chosen of his own accord to draw down destruction on himself.
Calvin paraphrases Jesus saying (in John 12:48; ibid. p. 51):
“Burning with ardent desire to promote your salvation, I do indeed abstain from exercising my right to condemn you, and am entirely employed in saving what is lost; but do not think that you have escaped out of the hands of God; for though I should altogether hold my peace, the word alone, which you have despised, is sufficient to judge you.”
So Calvin here pictures the Savior stretching out His arms to embrace all sinners who will repent and believe in Him. (I might add that those who rail against Calvin have seldom read Calvin!) Jesus gives one last appeal:
John 12:49-50: “For I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father Himself who sent Me has given Me a commandment as to what to say and what to speak. I know that His commandment is eternal life; therefore the things I speak, I speak just as the Father has told Me.” Here, again, Jesus repeats truths that we have already read in John:
John 5:19: “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.”
John 7:16: “My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me.”
John 8:28: “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me.”
John 8:38: “I speak the things which I have seen with My Father….” (See, also, John 8:26, 40; 14:10, 24, 31; 15:15).
Jesus is asserting that He was not an original religious genius who dreamed up His own message. Rather, He was the faithful messenger of the Father who sent Him.
Note, also that Jesus emphasizes twice that the Father gave Him a commandment as to what to say and speak and that this commandment is eternal life. This underscores that God is the ultimate and final authority. He doesn’t give divine suggestions or helpful hints for happy living. So in one sense, while Jesus is giving a passionate appeal for His enemies to believe, in another sense He is giving them God’s commandment to believe. And this commandment focuses on the most important matter of all, namely, eternal life: Believe in Jesus because He is one with the Father; He is the light; His words will judge all that reject them; and He gives us the Father’s commandment that is eternal life.
A man received a “Second Notice” from the IRS that his tax payment was overdue and that unless it was immediately forthcoming, he would face legal action. He hurried to the IRS office with his payment in hand and said, “I would have paid sooner, but I never received your First Notice.”
The clerk replied, “We ran out of ‘First Notices.’ Besides, we discovered that the ‘Second Notices’ are much more effective.” (Source unknown)
Jesus’ words here are God’s Final Notice. It’s a call to believe in Him for salvation before that coming last day. Don’t ignore the notice!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
November 9, 2014
We all can relate to Linus in the “Peanuts” cartoon strip when he shouts in frustration, “I love mankind; it’s people I can’t stand!” It’s easy to love the human race in the abstract, but when it comes to loving specific irritating people that I can’t avoid, the process becomes a lot more difficult!
In our text we see the Lord Jesus loving men who did not deserve it. Luke (22:24) tells us that at the Lord’s Supper, just after Jesus announced that one of them would betray Him, the disciples got into a dispute about which of them was the greatest. For reasons that we cannot know, John omits Jesus’ instituting the Lord’s Supper during this Passover meal. Some speculate that perhaps by the time John wrote towards the end of the first century, Christians had elevated the rite too highly, where it had even become magical (D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 458; J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], pp. 5-6).
But sometime during the supper, Jesus got up and performed this task, which normally was the job of slaves. Since the foot washing came before Jesus mentioned the betrayer (John 13:26), the dispute among the disciples about which of them was the greatest probably came after the graphic lesson they had just observed. Not only were the disciples bickering; also Jesus knew that Judas was about to betray Him, Peter was about to deny Him, and all the disciples would desert Him (John 13:2, 38; 16:32). All of these sins show that the disciples did not deserve Jesus’ love.
Also, the fact that they needed to have their dirty feet washed pictures their need for cleansing from sin. And, we’re just like them. We all have dirty feet that Jesus needs to wash. In fact, the very reason Jesus came was to die in the place of dirty sinners so that they can be cleansed. Also, His example of humility in washing the disciples’ feet gives us a practical example of how we can love those who do not deserve it, even as He has loved us. So our text brings together these three themes: Jesus’ love for those who do not deserve it; His example of demonstrating His love through humble service; and, our need for Jesus to cleanse our sins.
Christ’s love, His humble service, and His cleansing your sins should be realities in your life.
John emphasizes through repetition Jesus’ love for His own (John 13:1): “Now before the Feast of the Passover, Jesus knowing that His hour had come that He would depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” That last phrase seems to be deliberately ambiguous. It can mean that Jesus loved the disciples up to the end of His life. Or, it can mean that Jesus loved them totally or to the uttermost. Both are certainly true.
John’s mention of the Passover draws attention to the fact that Jesus is our Passover lamb. Just as the Jews put the blood of the Passover lamb on their doorposts and lintel to protect them from the angel of death, so Christ’s blood, applied to our hearts by faith, protects us from the wrath of God. The mention that Jesus knew that His hour had come reminds us that God ordained the cross. While the sinful men who crucified Jesus were responsible for their awful deed, at the same time the cross was predestined by God (Acts 4:27-28). It didn’t take Jesus by surprise. He deliberately laid aside His glory, just as here He laid aside His garments. He took on the form of a slave and became obedient to death on the cross (Phil. 2:5-11). Then, after His resurrection from the dead, He returned to the Father in glory. But don’t miss the point: Unless Jesus is your Passover lamb, unless you have applied His shed blood to your heart by faith, then you are under the curse of death, which means, eternal separation from God.
John also emphasizes that Jesus’ disciples were “in the world.” Jesus was about to depart from this world, but His disciples were still in it. As Jesus will pray (John 17:15-18), He doesn’t ask the Father to take these men out of the world. That is the sphere of ministry to which He sends them. But they are to be distinct from the world. But walking in this world means that you get your feet dirty. Thus the need for cleansing.
John (13:1) states that Jesus “loved His own.” John 3:16 states that God loves the world, but here the emphasis is on Jesus’ love for His own, not for the world. God loves the world by making provision for the sins of all that will believe in Jesus. The invitation goes out to all: Come and take the water of life without cost (Rev. 22:17). Yet at the same time, Jesus has a special love for His own that He does not have for the whole world. As Paul writes (Eph. 5:25), Christ “loved the church and gave Himself up for her.”
You understand this principle. As a Christian, I’m commanded to love all my sisters in Christ, but I have a special love for my wife. I’m commanded to love all God’s children, but I have a special love for my own children. In the same way, Jesus has a special love for His own, whom the Father gave to Him (John 6:37). If you have put your trust in Christ, He wants you to know and to feel His special love for you. He loves you “to the end.”
John contrasts Jesus’ love for His own with Judas’ satanic treachery (John 13:2): “During supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon, to betray Him …” Jesus loved Judas, even though he was not one of His own. He washed Judas’ feet before he went out to betray the Lord. Jesus had known all along that Judas would betray Him in fulfillment of Scripture (John 6:71; Luke 22:22). And, while Satan was the immediate force behind Judas’ betrayal (John 13:2, 27), yet at the same time, Judas was responsible for his awful sin. He rejected the love of Jesus, whereas the other disciples knew it personally.
So John wants to ask you: In spite of being painfully aware that you don’t deserve it, do you know the love of Christ as a reality in your life? Does His love humble you before the cross? Does His love cause you to hate your sin? Does His love motivate you to serve others in love, even as He has loved you? And, if you’ve never experienced His love, will you respond now to His love?
But John doesn’t just tell us about Jesus’ love. He also shows it in a dramatic, shocking way:
Sometimes actions speak louder than words. Jesus’ actions here show us both how He loved us when we were unworthy of that love and how we can love others who may not be worthy of it. John (13:3-5) paints the picture like this:
Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God, got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself.
Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.
By the first phrase, John shows us Jesus’ authority over all of heaven and earth: “The Father had given all things into His hands.” The hands that control the universe, including all the angelic host, humbly washed the dirty feet of twelve undeserving apostles!
To understand this incident, you need to know that washing someone’s feet was the task for the lowest servants (Carson, p. 462). Friends did not wash their friends’ feet. There are no examples in ancient literature of a superior washing the feet of an inferior (ibid.). And so the disciples would have been shocked to have their Teacher and Lord (John 13:13) wash their feet! Apparently, they were so shocked that they sat in stunned silence, until Jesus came to Peter. He probably verbalized the thoughts that the others had been afraid to say when he protested (John 13:8), “Never shall You wash my feet!” But as Jesus will go on to explain (John 13:14-15), He did this to give us an example of how we should humbly serve one another. This humility has at least four practical aspects:
I got a lesson on this early in my pastoral ministry. A young woman whose husband had a violent temper called me in tears and asked if I could come over after they had had a bad quarrel. She had a young baby and no means of child care or transportation to come to my office, so I went. When I walked in, I could see beans all over the wall and floor, where the husband had angrily thrown the pot off the stove. But it was the stench of vomit that quickly drew my eyes to the floor in front of me. The woman had vomited all over the floor and was too sick to clean it up. So before I could talk to her about her soul and her marriage, I had to clean up her vomit. Welcome to the ministry!
I’m not suggesting that a pastor’s main role should be to clean up vomit or do other jobs of service. Pastors should devote themselves to the ministry of the Word and to shepherding the flock. Those gifted to serve should devote themselves to service (1 Pet. 4:10-11). But at the same time, never think that a task is beneath your dignity or calling. You’re Christ’s slave. Sometimes He asks His slaves to clean up vomit out of love for Him.
The disciples hadn’t washed one another’s feet because they were arguing about who was the greatest. But after pointing out that seeking dominance over one another is the way of the world, Jesus said to them (Luke 22:26-27),
“But it is not this way with you, but the one who is the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like the servant. For who is greater, the one who reclines at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at the table? But I am among you as the one who serves.”
Two women in the church in Philippi were having a dispute. Paul wrote to that church (Phil. 2:3-4), “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.” He went on to cite the example of Christ, who willingly took on the form of a servant and went to the cross for our sakes. So many quarrels in the church and in our homes would evaporate if we would, with humility of mind, regard the other person as more important than ourselves! Related to this…
As the eternal Son of God to whom the Father had given all things into His hands, who had come forth from God and was going back to God (John 13:3), Jesus certainly had the right for the disciples to wash His feet. I’m sure that His feet were as dirty as theirs. But He wasn’t focused on His needs or His rights, but rather on their needs. They not only needed their dirty feet washed, but they also needed this lesson in humble service.
Again, how many quarrels at church and in our homes would stop before they started if we would take our eyes off ourselves, our rights, and our needs, and instead think about the other person’s needs! A husband thinks, “I’ve worked hard all day, putting up with hassles at work so that I can provide for my family. Don’t I have a right to some peace and quiet when I come home at night?” Maybe, but that’s the wrong focus. Your focus should be on how you can serve your wife and children. The wife thinks, “I’ve been changing diapers, shopping for groceries with screaming kids, cleaning up messes all over the house, and trying to get dinner in time. Don’t I have a right for a little time by myself?” Maybe, but that’s the wrong focus. Humble service requires getting your focus off yourself and onto others’ needs.
It’s easy to serve or to give to those in need out of pride. Peter’s unwillingness at first to let Jesus serve him did not stem from humility, but from pride. It embarrassed him to think of Jesus washing his feet. That implied that his feet were dirty and in need of washing! It would have served Peter’s pride much more if he had washed Jesus’ feet. But Jesus explained that if He didn’t wash Peter’s feet, then he had no part with Him.
Many people are offended by the gospel or don’t see their need for it because they’re proud of their good works. They’re proud of all that they do for others. They view themselves as having clean feet. It would embarrass them to admit that their feet are dirty and that Jesus needs to wash them. But to receive the gospel, you’ve got to recognize that your feet are filthy and that no one gets to heaven by washing his own feet or by washing others’ feet. You only get to heaven when you let Jesus wash your feet. That leads to the third theme:
His undeserved love should be a reality in your life. His example of humble service should be true in your experience. But foundational to everything else is your need to have Jesus wash away your sins. So Jesus’ action here foreshadows the cross. One writer, A. M. Hunter, (cited by Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 613) observes, “The deeper meaning then is that there is no place in his fellowship for those who have not been cleansed by his atoning death.” He points out that this episode pictures the truth of 1 John 1:7, “the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” Hunter adds (ibid.),
Many people today would like to be Christians but see no need of the cross. They are ready to admire Jesus’ life and to praise the sublimity of his moral teaching, but they cannot bring themselves to believe that Christ died for their sins, and that without that death they would be lost in sin.
There are at least three reasons that we all need Jesus Christ to cleanse our sins:
As John begins his gospel (1:1, 14), Jesus is the eternal Word who is God, who took on human flesh. He shared the glory of the Father, but willingly laid that aside so that He could come to bear the penalty for our sins on the cross. He is the Light of the world, absolutely pure, just as God is light (John 8:12; 1 John 1:5). He spoke the very words of the Father to us (John 7:16; 8:26, 28, 38). He lived a sinless life, so that He could rhetorically ask His critics (John 8:46), “Which of you convicts Me of sin?”
Limiting ourselves to our text, we see that Jesus is the eternal, omniscient one. He knew that His hour had come and that He would shortly be returning to the Father, with whom He had dwelled before the foundation of the world (John 13:1). He knew that Judas would betray Him (John 13:11). He knows each of us thoroughly.
Also, Jesus is the loving one. In spite of our failures and sins, which He knows in advance, He loves us as His own children.
Further, Jesus is the sovereign one. The Father has given all things into Jesus’ hands. He was in complete control of His own death. Neither Satan nor Judas could thwart God’s sovereign plan through the cross, but rather inadvertently fulfilled it.
Lastly, Jesus is the suffering servant who died for our sins. His example of humble, self-sacrificing service identifies Him as the servant of Isaiah 53. The Passover connection identifies Him as the Lamb of God who takes away our sins. When you come into the presence of the Holy One of God, you instantly recognize your need for cleansing. With Peter, you fall down at His feet and cry out (Luke 5:8), “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!”
We all are guilty sinners in need of cleansing: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). Contrary to some (R. C. Sproul, John [Reformation Trust], pp. 242-243), this text has nothing to do with baptism. Nor is it instituting a third church ordinance of foot washing. Rather, Jesus meant, “I must wash away your sins by My atoning death or you have no part with Me.”
Jesus mentions two types of cleansing (John 13:10): “He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you.” The bath refers to the once-for-all washing of regeneration (Titus 3:5), when God cleanses us from all our sins through the blood of Jesus (Rom. 8:1; Heb. 10:10, 14). All the disciples, except Judas, were clean in this sense.
But the foot washing refers to the ongoing application of that once-for-all cleansing to our daily lives. We can compare it to a boy who is adopted into a family. He becomes a full member of the family by virtue of his adoption. He can’t lose that standing. But in his daily relationship with his father, he may disobey or wrong his father. He doesn’t lose his sonship, but he does need to ask his father’s forgiveness so that their relationship can be close. In the same way, we stand before God completely forgiven through faith in Jesus and His shed blood. But in our relationship with God, we often fail Him by sinning. We need to receive the ongoing cleansing for those sins that is symbolized by Jesus washing our feet.
Thus cleansing is necessary because of who Jesus is and because of who we are. Finally,
We walk in this sinful world, so our feet get dirty. Again, if you have trusted in Christ, you are never so dirty that you need a complete bath again. But at the same time, although you have trusted in Christ, you are never so pure that you don’t need to get your feet washed again. It’s an ongoing process to maintain your relationship with the Lord.
Sometimes, your feet get dirty because of deliberate sin. You choose to do what you know God’s Word forbids you to do. At those times, you need to confess your sin and appropriate the forgiveness that Christ secured for you by His death. At other times, you just feel defiled because of contact with this cruddy, dirty world. Maybe you’ve been bombarded with sensual advertisements or just the magazine covers at the supermarket checkout. Perhaps you’ve had to deal with worldly people at work, so the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life (1 John 2:16) have left you feeling defiled. Those are the times to open your Bible and let “the washing of water with the word” (Eph. 5:26) cleanse and refresh your soul. Let Jesus wash your feet!
So ask yourself three questions: (1) Do I consistently experience Christ’s undeserved love? If not, you need to figure out why not and get that problem resolved. (2) Do I consistently follow Christ’s example of humble service? If not, jot down some specific ways that you can begin this week. (3) Do I consistently come to Christ for cleansing from my sins and from the crud of this dirty world? If not, He’s waiting with the basin and the water of His word to wash your feet!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
November 16, 2014
Robert Service begins his well-known poem, “The Cremation of Sam McGee”: “There are strange things done in the midnight sun, by the men who moil for gold….” If I may take off on that line, there are strange things done under the sun by the men who claim to be Christians. And one of the strangest was the story of Simeon the Stylite.
Simeon was born about 390 A.D. He lived in different monasteries in northern Syria. Then around 423 he started to live on top of a platform on top of a pillar. Gradually he increased the height of the pillar until it was about 60 feet off the ground. Simeon lived up there by himself as an ascetic for 36 years! Don’t ask how he took care of basic bodily functions! I’m reasonably certain that the pillar was not equipped with modern plumbing! But he thought that he was being holy by being separate from the world. People flocked from miles around to listen to him preach from the top of his pillar. His example led to a movement that lasted for centuries, where others dwelled on top of their own pillars.
Strange! But, maybe Simeon was onto something! Think how much less conflict there would be in the local church if we all built our own pillars out of shouting distance from each other (with no phone or email)! But, seriously, how did such a bizarre idea ever take hold in the Christian world?
Yet, while we aren’t living on top of our own respective pillars, sometimes Christians, at least here in America, are an independent, isolated bunch. We view the Christian life as each of us having our own relationship with God, which is essential. But then often we isolate ourselves from other believers. We go to church on Sundays like we go to the movies. We walk in, nod to others we don’t really know, sit through the program, and go home. Except on a superficial level, we have little personal contact with other believers throughout the week. It’s not unusual for me to counsel someone about a personal problem. After listening, I’ll ask, “Do you know any other believers closely enough with whom you can share these things and pray?” Often the answer is, “No.”
But if we’re not close to one another, we can’t obey Jesus’ command (John 13:14-15), “If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you.” To wash someone’s feet requires pretty close personal contact!
Now right away my thought is, “Foot washing is something I can do quite well by myself, thank you.” In fact, I’d rather do it myself! It’s kind of personal, especially if my feet are really dirty! So, please, just let me do it myself. And, I’d really prefer not to wash your dirty feet either. I’ll give you the basin, the water and the towel and let you do it. But I’d rather not wash your dirty feet, either.
But that’s not what Jesus said. He didn’t say, “Provide the basin, the water, and the towel so that everyone can wash their own feet.” He said, “You wash one another’s feet.” But that’s asking us to get a bit too close for comfort, isn’t it? Yet, down in verse 35, Jesus says, “By this all men will know that you are my disciples”—not by you all living sanctified lives by yourselves on top of your own pillars. “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” And so this act of washing one another’s feet is certainly a picture of the love that we should have for one another in the body of Christ. The main idea is:
Jesus commands us all to wash one another’s feet.
But that raises some questions: What do you mean, “wash one another’s feet”? How do we do it? And, why should we do it?
What does it mean to wash one another’s feet?
As you know, some churches take Jesus’ words literally by conducting a foot-washing service. You can always be sure that when they have such a service, nobody actually needs to have their feet washed! Everyone washes their own feet at home just before the service and puts on clean socks! So those who take it literally aren’t washing dirty feet! They’re washing clean feet!
There’s nothing wrong with having such a ceremony, but I don’t believe that is what Jesus was talking about. In verse 12, He asked the disciples, “Do you know what I have done to you?” Obviously, they all knew that He had just washed their feet. But He was pointing to a symbolic meaning behind what He had just done. If this is supposed to be a church ordinance, added to baptism and the Lord’s Supper, you would think that somewhere in the New Testament it would be enjoined on the church. Paul commends widows who have washed the saints’ feet (1 Tim. 5:10), but he wasn’t referring to a church ordinance, but to the widows’ humble service toward other believers. Peter is silent on this in his letters, but he does instruct us to clothe ourselves with humility toward one another (1 Pet. 5:5). I believe that that is the overall idea here, which we can view in four parts:
As we saw in our last study, Jesus’ washing the disciples’ feet pictured the relational forgiveness between each of them and Himself. It is paralleled by 1 John 1:7, “… the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.” This refers to a repeated application of God’s once-and-for-all forgiveness to our ongoing sins. We confess our sins to God and ask His forgiveness, not to secure our position with Him as His children, but to restore our relationship with Him as our Father.
Ephesians 4:32 commands, “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.” We are to extend the forgiveness that we have received from God through Christ to those who have wronged us. In that way we symbolically “wash their feet.” It makes me sad when I see believers who do not forgive other believers who have wronged them. Granted, the other person needs to ask for forgiveness before you extend it verbally. But we are required to root out all bitterness and forgive the offender in our hearts so that we are ready to extend forgiveness verbally the instant the offender repents. When you forgive, you wash the offender’s dirty feet.
In Ephesians 5:26, Paul talks about Christ cleansing the church “by the washing of water with the word.” When we share the Word with one another, we wash off the sin and crud of this world. Sometimes a brother has fallen into some sin. When that happens, Paul instructs (Gal. 6:1), “Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted.” One of the most effective ways to restore a sinning brother is to use God’s Word.
At other times, maybe a brother has dirty feet not because of sin, but just because he’s been walking in this dirty world. To share a verse that God has used in your life or a verse that you’ve memorized and applied to some problem can be a source of cleansing.
But as someone has pointed out, when you wash someone’s feet with the water of the Word, make sure that the temperature is right! Some sanctimonious believers love to wash their brothers’ feet with scalding water! “Here, brother, stick your feet in this basin!” “Yeoww!” That’s why Paul says that we are to restore in a spirit of gentleness. Don’t blast someone with the Word. Restore him so that he will feel cleansed, not scalded! That leads to…
When you came in off the dusty roads with dirty feet, it was refreshing to get them washed. In 1 Corinthians, Paul mentions three men who had come to him from the Corinthian church. He adds (1 Cor. 16:18), “For they have refreshed my spirit and yours.” He tells Philemon (1:7), “… the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, brother.” Have you ever known someone like that? A person who is always fresh with the Lord, so that when you get around him, you feel refreshed.
I used to have an older pastor friend like that. He had met Christ at age 41, when he was a drug-using, alcoholic night club singer. Every time I got together with him he was rejoicing in some new experience of God’s grace or some new insight in God’s Word. I always came away refreshed. In that way, he washed my feet. Do you do that with others? Do they feel refreshed in the Lord after being with you? What about at home? That’s the test!
So, washing one another’s feet is a ministry of forgiveness, cleansing, and refreshment. Also…
Having a foot-washing ceremony where you wash already clean feet is relatively easy. But Jesus’ command here to wash one another’s dirty, smelly feet is not so easy. He meant that we should do unpleasant tasks that serve others in their area of need. As I said last week, this means that no task should be beneath us as we serve others for Christ’s sake.
Years ago, a man went to hear Dr. Alan Redpath speak. Dr. Redpath was the pastor of the large Moody Church in Chicago and was a widely known Christian speaker and author. But the man didn’t know what Dr. Redpath looked like. He got there early and he saw two men setting up chairs before the meeting. One was the janitor, but the man didn’t realize until Dr. Redpath got up to speak that the other man was Dr. Redpath. He was there early helping the janitor set up chairs. He wasn’t advertising it. If this guy had not gotten there before the meeting, he wouldn’t have known what Dr. Redpath had done. But, that kind of humble service is what Jesus was talking about.
One practical way that we all can serve here on Sundays is to pick up litter that you see around the building. Maybe you’re thinking, “Doesn’t our custodian do that?” Yes, he works hard at it. But it shouldn’t be his job only. He’s got a lot to do. What if a visitor walks in before the custodian has had a chance to pick up the litter and the visitor thinks, “This place is a dump. I’m going to find a church that is clean!” You can serve the Lord and that visitor by picking up the trash that you see. Another way you can humbly serve others is, if you’re healthy, don’t grab the closest parking spot unless you have a lot of stuff to carry inside. Leave the closest spots for visitors and get some exercise!
Well, I’m already answering the second question, but let me address a couple of other aspects of it:
How do we wash one another’s feet?
Being humble servants of Christ deals with our focus and motivation; being in close relationships looks at the practical requirement for obeying Christ’s command.
In verse 16, Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor is one who is sent greater than the one who sent him.” Clearly, Jesus is the master (“Lord,” John 13:13, 14) and we are His slaves. He gives the commands and we are to obey without questioning or grumbling. No task was beneath a slave’s dignity to do. As Jesus taught (Luke 17:7-10):
“Which of you, having a slave plowing or tending sheep, will say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come immediately and sit down to eat’? But will he not say to him, ‘Prepare something for me to eat, and properly clothe yourself and serve me while I eat and drink; and afterward you may eat and drink’? He does not thank the slave because he did the things which were commanded, does he? So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.’”
So here He states (John 13:17), “If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.” “These things” refers back to the example and commandment that He has just given, that we are to wash one another’s feet. We are humbly to serve one another in ways that may be unpleasant to us. But obedience requires more than just doing it while you grumble under your breath. Obedience requires doing it cheerfully and thankfully, out of love for Christ, who gave Himself on the cross for you. It’s all about your mindset and your motivation.
One other thing that Jesus’ example shows us is that we need to wash one another’s feet without looking for or expecting a favorable response from others. In other words, we don’t serve others hoping that they will reciprocate or express their deep gratitude. Often they don’t. Jesus washed Judas’ feet, but he went out and betrayed Jesus. He washed Peter’s feet, but he denied Him that night. He washed Thomas’ feet, but he doubted Jesus’ resurrection. He washed all the disciples’ feet, but they all deserted Him and ran when He got arrested.
If you humbly serve Christ in any capacity, I can guarantee that you will not receive the appreciation you deserve from those you serve. You’ll probably get some appreciation, but you’ll also catch some undeserved criticism. And it won’t come from those outside the church. It will come from believers. So you have to keep your focus on your Master. You are His slave because He bought you with His blood. You serve others for His sake.
As I mentioned earlier, foot washing can’t be done if we’re all sitting on top of our individual pillars, with no contact with one another. It can’t be done by sending a robot across the room to wash others’ feet. It requires a rather uncomfortable closeness to wash someone’s feet and to allow them to wash your feet. It requires being vulnerable and honest. You have to let the other person see just how dirty your feet really are.
It’s easy to come to church, smile at everyone and say hello, and go home without ever divulging to anyone that your feet are dirty. I’m not suggesting that you share your innermost struggles with everyone you meet. There needs to be an appropriate relationship of trust before you share where you’re hurting. But the point is, we need to be developing some close, trusting relationships so that we can serve one another by washing each other’s feet. Get involved in a home fellowship or small group. Ask God for a godly brother or sister in Christ that you can get to know well. You can’t wash others’ feet or have your feet washed from a distance.
But then, once you’ve grown close to someone, you’ve still got to do it. You’re blessed not just by knowing that you should wash one another’s feet, but by doing it (John 13:17). It’s not enough to find out that the other person is hurting, and then to say, “I’ll pray for you,” and walk away. You’ve got to get your hands dirty by trying to help. Do it gently, not with boiling water, as I said. But, do it! You can ask, “May I share from God’s Word some ways that I’ve been helped?” Pray with the person. Don’t judge or condemn. Remember, you’ve got dirty feet, too! But the point is to grow close enough in relationships so that we can offer genuine encouragement, help, and refreshment through God’s Word.
So washing one another’s feet is a ministry of forgiveness, cleansing, refreshment, and humble service. We do it by being humble servants of Christ and by being in close relationships with one another.
Why should we wash one another’s feet?
Jesus said (John 13:14), “If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” In other words, because Jesus has cleansed your sins by His death on the cross, because He is the Lord of all, and because He is the Teacher from whom you learn how to live, you serve others in love because He commanded you to do so. Or, more succinctly, your salvation is the reason why you serve Jesus Christ. He bought you with His blood. Now you’re His slave.
But Jesus makes an exception for His commandment (John 13:18): “I do not speak of all of you. I know the ones I have chosen; but it is that the Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘He who eats My bread has lifted up his heel against Me.’” The Scripture is from Psalm 41:9 and refers here to Judas. Although Jesus had chosen Judas as an apostle, Judas had never submitted to Jesus as Lord. He had heard His teaching and seen His miracles. He had preached to others about Jesus. He even had his feet washed outwardly. But Judas wasn’t clean all over (John 13:10). Jesus hadn’t cleansed Judas inwardly. So Jesus warns the other disciples of Judas’ defection in advance so that it wouldn’t shake their faith (John 13:19-20):
“From now on I am telling you before it comes to pass, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am He. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who receives whomever I send receives Me; and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me.”
The connection between verses 19 & 20 is difficult to understand, but verse 20 seems to be a word of encouragement to the disciples in view of the prophecy about Judas’ defection. Jesus is saying, “Don’t despair when Judas betrays Me and I am crucified. Remember that I told you this in advance. Keep believing that I am He (John 14:19). You will be My ambassadors and whoever receives you receives Me; and “he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me” (John 13:20).
But Judas’ example is a warning: You can be closely associated with Jesus and His followers and you can even serve in ministry, and yet you’ve never had Jesus cleanse your sins. You’ve never come to Him with your dirty heart and said, “Lord, I need You to wash me! I trust in You as God in human flesh who died on the cross for my sins.” He is not your Savior, your Lord, and your Teacher. Until you’ve experienced the salvation Jesus alone can give, you can serve Him by doing good deeds all your life, but it won’t get you into heaven. The only basis for serving Christ is to know that He, your Lord and Teacher, has truly washed your feet.
I heard about a successful doctor in Southern California who met Jesus Christ and left his lucrative practice to serve in a primitive country. His non-Christian partner couldn’t believe that he would do this. On one of his trips around the world, he stopped by to see his former partner. The Christian doctor was performing surgery on a poor woman in very primitive circumstances. The non-Christian said, “Don’t you remember how much you would have made doing this surgery in Southern California?”
“Yes, many thousands.” “Then why are you doing it?”
“Several reasons: See her clenched fist? In it are several coins that she will give to our mission. See those kids in the other room? They will be forever grateful if I can save their mother’s life. But there’s one more thing: I hope to receive from my Lord someday the words, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’”
That’s why you should wash others’ dirty feet. You do it because the Lord and Teacher washed your feet. You do it for Him.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
November 23, 2014
I’m not a country music fan, but sometimes when I’m driving for long distances, it’s the only thing on the radio, so I’ll listen for a short time. Invariably, you’ll hear a song around the theme, “I loved her but she didn’t love me; now I’m as sad as I can be.” We may chuckle at the songs, but if it’s ever happened to you, you know that it’s really painful to love someone but not to have your love returned; or, even worse, for the one you love deliberately to hurt you.
That’s true not only for romantic relationships, but also for friends of the same sex. If you’ve ever had a trusted friend turn on you and attack you, it hurts! It’s surely one of life’s most emotionally painful experiences.
To relate to that emotional pain is to understand, in part, why Jesus became troubled in spirit as He thought about Judas in the Upper Room on the night of the betrayal (John 13:21). There were other things, besides Judas’ calloused heart, which troubled Jesus that evening. (We’ll consider those things later.) But Jesus was troubled not only with the personal pain of Judas’ betrayal, but also because He knew that Judas was leaving the Light of the world and stepping into the darkness of hell. When John states (John 13:30), “and it was night,” he means more than the fact that it was dark outside. It is always night when a person rejects God’s love and goes into the darkness of eternity without God. It was especially “night” when the “son of perdition” betrayed the spotless Son of God into the hands of evil men.
To understand our text, you need to realize that Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting of the Last Supper, where the men are seated next to one another on the same side of a long table, is historically incorrect. Rather, the men were reclining at a low U-shaped table. They leaned on their left elbow with their feet going out from the table so that they could eat with their right hand. Jesus was at the bottom of the U. John was to His right, so that it would have been easy for him to lean back on Jesus’ chest and whisper in His ear (John 13:25), “Lord, who is it?” Peter was sitting across from John so that he could gesture to him to find out who the betrayer was.
Judas was probably at Jesus’ left, in the seat of honor, as one last gesture of love from Jesus toward Judas. After Jesus announced that one of the twelve would betray Him, Judas asked (Matt. 26:25), “Surely it is not I, Rabbi?” Jesus replied, “You have said it yourself.” That conversation had to be whispered in private as Jesus leaned back toward Judas. Otherwise, the other disciples would have known that Judas was the betrayer and they would not have thought (as John 13:28-29 reports) that Judas went out either to buy food for the feast or to give some funds to the poor.
If Judas was reclining immediately to Jesus’ left, He easily could have handed Judas the morsel of bread that was dipped in a sauce and handed to the guest of honor as a gesture of love and friendship. So Jesus was reaching out to Judas right up till the end. There is a mystery here in that Judas was betraying Jesus in fulfillment of Scripture (John 13:18; cf. Ps. 41:9). In that sense, Judas’ sin was foreordained. And yet, Judas was fully responsible for his sin. He couldn’t blame God for predetermining it. He couldn’t blame Satan, who entered into his heart immediately after he received the morsel from Jesus (John 13:27). Although Satan empowered Judas to carry out the betrayal, Judas was responsible for doing it. After Satan entered Judas, Jesus ratified the evil choice that Judas had made by saying (John 13:27), “What you do, do quickly.”
Two themes emerge from John’s portrayal of these events: the light of Jesus’ glory and the awful darkness of human sin:
Judas’ betrayal of Jesus gives us deeper understanding of Christ’s glory and also of the depths of human sin.
Judas’ betrayal is like the black velvet against which the diamond of Christ’s glory shines all the brighter.
There are at least five sides of Jesus’ glory that shine through in this story:
In the aftermath of Judas’ treachery, the other disciples must have wondered, “Why did Jesus choose Judas to be an apostle?” Did He not know the corrupt heart and the character flaws that would cause Judas to do such a thing? If He didn’t know, it would seem to undermine His credentials as the Messiah. But if He did know, then why would He pick such a despicable character?
We know that before Jesus chose the twelve, He spent the night in prayer (Luke 6:12). Knowing fully the Father’s plan for the cross, which He came to fulfill, He picked Judas as one of the twelve. Also, we saw in John 6:70-71 that Jesus knew all along that Judas would betray Him: “Jesus answered them, ‘Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?’ Now He meant Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray Him.” In John 13:18, Jesus indicates that Judas’ betrayal was so that the Scripture may be fulfilled, “He who eats My bread has lifted up his heel against Me.”
As we’ve seen throughout John’s Gospel, the Father sent Jesus to earth to do His will. At the center of that will was our salvation, where Jesus would offer Himself as the sacrifice for our sins. So Jesus’ choice of Judas as an apostle, knowing full well that he would betray Him, shows Jesus’ full obedience to do the will of the Father, even when that will led to the cross.
None of the disciples understood the necessity of the cross until after Jesus’ resurrection. So they couldn’t understand at the time why He would have chosen Judas, who played a key part in the events leading toward the cross. Jesus’ choosing Judas to be an apostle underscores the truth of Isaiah 55:8, that God’s thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways. There is an application here for us: Many times we do not understand why God does what He does or allows certain trials into our lives, but we have to trust Him. Maybe a close friend or even your mate has betrayed you. Perhaps part of the reason God allowed it was so that you could enter more deeply into understanding the sufferings of Christ. Jesus’ choice of Judas displayed Jesus’ glory, even though the other apostles may not have understood it at first.
Judas’ defection later provided an impartial witness to Christ’s moral purity (some of these points are from A. W. Pink, Exposition of John [on monergism.com], on John 6:60-71). Judas later testified in his remorse (Matt. 27:4), “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” Judas had known Jesus closely for three years, and yet he couldn’t come up with a single reason to justify his own treachery against Him. As Jesus rhetorically asked His enemies (John 8:46), “Which one of you convicts Me of sin?” No one could because Jesus was without sin.
We see Jesus’ deity in that He was in sovereign control over all the events surrounding His death. As He said regarding laying down His own life (John 10:18), “No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.” He was in control over the Jews, who didn’t want to crucify Him at the Passover because of their fear of the crowd. But it was God’s will for His Passover Lamb to be sacrificed during the Passover. And He was in control of when Judas would betray Him, as seen in His words (John 13:27), “What you do, do quickly.”
But we also see Jesus’ humanity in that Judas’ defection deeply troubled Jesus (John 13:21). Even though He was sovereign over all these events, Jesus wasn’t a stoic actor, just playing a role but detached from the real emotions of what was happening. As Hebrews 5:7 says, Jesus “offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears ….” He was fully God and fully man.
John MacArthur (sermon, “Jesus and Judas,” on gty.org) lists many reasons that Jesus was troubled in spirit on this occasion:
He was troubled because of the unrequited love of Judas; He was troubled because of the ingratitude in Judas' heart; He was troubled because He had a deep hatred of sin and it was sitting right next to Him, sin incarnate; He was troubled because He was shrinking about from contact with the one about to betray Him; He was troubled because He knew of the eternal destiny in Hell; He was troubled because He could see with His omnipotent eye Satan moving around Judas; He was troubled because He had a knowledge of the sin of the betrayer and the terrors of his eternal punishment; He was troubled because He sensed all that sin and death meant; He was troubled because He had an inner awareness that Judas was a classic illustration of the wretchedness of sin, sin which He would have to bear in His own body on the next day, sin for which He would be made responsible, and would die for.
To make it personal, Jesus endured all of that trouble and more to secure your salvation.
Even though Jesus knew that Judas was going to betray Him, He did not remove him from the apostolic circle. As I said, it’s likely that here at the Last Supper, Judas was seated in the place of honor, where Jesus honored him by giving him the morsel. Jesus didn’t reveal what He knew of Judas’ evil heart to the other disciples to try to get them to take action against him. He treated Judas with the same patience and grace as He treated the other disciples, since none of them suspected that Judas was the betrayer. Again, there is a divine mystery that we cannot comprehend, how Jesus knew that Judas was predetermined to be the betrayer (Matt. 26:24), and yet He genuinely loved Judas and held out to him the offer of salvation right to the end.
We see Jesus’ glory in the same way today. He endures the hostility of sinners against Him (Heb. 12:3) with amazing patience and love. When I see the wickedness of this world, especially the blasphemies that are brazenly spoken against Jesus, I want to cry out, “Lord, just blast these evildoers off the planet!” That day will come. As Peter points out (2 Pet. 3:10), “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.” But to back up one verse, Peter explains why that day is delayed (2 Pet. 3:9): “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” If you have not yet repented of your sins and trusted in Christ, He is patiently, lovingly entreating you to come to Him for eternal life while you still can.
So as we see Jesus and Judas we should grow deeper in seeing the glory of our Savior. But there is another side to the story:
Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Darkness and Light [Baker], p. 52) observed,
It is people who have the deepest understanding of sin and what it means who have the greatest understanding and appreciation of the love and the grace and the mercy and the kindness of God. A superficial view of sin leads to a superficial view of salvation, and to a superficial view of everything else.
In a similar vein, he wrote elsewhere (God’s Way of Reconciliation [Baker], p. 201),
In order to measure the love of God you have first to go down before you can go up. You do not start on the level and go up. We have to be brought up from a dungeon, from a horrible pit; and unless you know something of the measure of that depth you will only be measuring half the love of God.
So let’s “go down” by learning five lessons from Judas’ sin so that these lessons will give us a greater understanding of God’s love and grace:
Before we start throwing stones at Judas and saying, “How could he do such a thing?” we need to realize that apart from God’s grace, we’re all just like he was. We all had the seeds of betraying Christ in our hearts before God graciously saved us.
Think of what Judas had witnessed in his three years of close association with Jesus! He had heard Jesus’ teaching, both in public and in private. He had witnessed most of Jesus’ miracles. He had seen Jesus’ grace and love toward the ungrateful and unlovely. He had never seen any hint of sin in Jesus, whether in public or in private. And yet he betrayed Jesus to the Jewish leaders for a few lousy pieces of silver!
James Boice (The Gospel of John [Zondervan], 1-vol. ed., p. 894) points out that Judas teaches us that sinners need more than a good example to be saved. Judas had the best example who has ever lived, but he was still dead in his trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1). Unless the Holy Spirit imparts new life, sinners are not capable of repenting of sin, believing in Christ, and reforming their lives. That is why Jesus told the religious Nicodemus (John 3:7), “Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’”
Judas is one of many warnings in the Bible that especially apply to religious people. Religious people are often blind to their need for the new birth. They grew up in the church. They know all the religious jargon. They can quote Scripture. They have served in various ministries. Perhaps they even have theological training. But, like Judas, they have never repented of their sins.
The apostle Paul was like that before his conversion. He took great pride in his religious heritage. He was more zealous than many of his contemporaries in persecuting the church, which he considered to be apostate from the Jewish faith. But God had to strike Paul down on the Damascus Road and bring him to see that all of his religious self-righteousness was garbage compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ (Phil. 3:1-11).
So if you grew up in the church (as I did) and are familiar with religious matters, the warning is for you: You need the new birth just as much as Judas did. You need to repent of your self-righteousness and come to God as a guilty sinner to receive the mercy that is offered at the cross.
Often skeptics will say that they don’t believe in Jesus because of all the hypocrites in the church. You should answer them, “Yes, and there are hypocrites in the world, too. There was a hypocrite among the original disciples. But that doesn’t invalidate who Jesus was. The key issue is who Jesus is, not whether some of His professed followers are hypocrites. Just make sure that you’re not a hypocrite!”
Keep in mind that Judas didn’t look like a villain in a dark coat, gloating over how he was going to profit at Jesus’ expense. When Jesus announced that one of the twelve would betray Him, the other eleven didn’t all turn toward Judas and cry out, “There’s the dirty rat!” Rather, each one was deeply grieved and said (Matt. 26:22), “Surely not I, Lord?” Even when Judas left the room to do his dirty deed, the others did not suspect him. John, who had just found out, was probably too shocked to say anything. If Peter understood that it was Judas, he was too stunned to say anything. The rest thought that Judas was just going out to buy more food or to give alms to the poor. Judas had played his role beautifully!
Hypocrites can fool other people, but they never fool God, who looks on the heart. We shouldn’t be shocked, although we often are, when a respected church leader turns away from the faith. It doesn’t shock the Lord, who knows and keeps all who are truly His. He warns the disciples in advance so that Judas’ defection will not shake their faith. Keep your focus on Jesus, not on those who fall away.
Why did Judas become a disciple of Jesus? Probably he thought that Jesus would set up a political kingdom and Judas would be in line for a top job in the new administration. Even James and John had aspirations about sitting at Jesus’ right and left in the kingdom (Matt. 20:20-23). But things weren’t going quite as Judas had hoped. Jesus was talking more and more about His death. The religious leaders weren’t lining up behind Him to support His claims to be the Messiah. And so in disappointment, Judas bailed out by betraying Jesus for a few pieces of silver.
The application is, “Why do you follow Jesus?” Most of us would have to admit that we came to Jesus for selfish reasons. We had some needs or desires and we hoped that Jesus would meet those needs. But what do you do when things don’t go as smoothly as you had expected? What do you do when rather than more blessings, you have more trials? What do you do when you discover that the path Jesus has called you to walk leads to a cross before it leads to a crown? Do you still follow Him and seek to glorify Him? Or, at such times do you turn back in disappointment or, even worse, turn against Jesus?
Jesus loved Judas. He washed Judas’ feet. He offered Judas the opportunity to repent right up to the end. But Judas walked away from the love of Jesus. Later, like Esau who could not find repentance though he sought for it with tears (Heb. 12:17), Judas felt remorse, but not repentance. He threw down his betrayal money in the temple, went away, and hanged himself.
Don’t reject the love of Christ! No matter how badly you may have sinned, the Lord Jesus graciously reaches out to you, even right now through this message, with His love. He invites all thirsty sinners to come and take the water of life without cost (Rev. 22:17). Let Judas teach you the bitter end of those who walk away from the love of Jesus. Come to Him now and you will be satisfied with His grace.
Alexander Whyte was a great Scottish preacher (1836-1921) who magnified the awfulness of sin and the graciousness of Christ in his sermons. But He was always more aware of his own sins than those of others. An evangelist once went to Edinburgh and criticized the ministers. A friend told Whyte, “The evangelist said last night that Dr. Hood Wilson was not a converted man.” Whyte jumped from his chair. “The rascal,” he cried. “Dr. Wilson not a converted man!”
Then the friend reported that the evangelist also said that Dr. Whyte was not converted. At that, Whyte stopped short, sat down, put his face in his hands, and was silent for a long time. Then he said to the visitor, “Leave me, friend leave me! I must examine my heart!” (In Warren Wiersbe, Walking with the Giants [Baker], p. 92.)
That’s the effect that the story of Judas should have on us. We should soberly examine our own hearts before God.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
November 30, 2014
A preacher once asked a class, “What do you do with the commandments in the Bible?” A little old lady raised her hand and answered, “I underline them in blue.”
Okay, but then what do you do with them? Underlining all the commandments in blue may help you spot them as you read your Bible. But the point of the commands in the Bible is that we obey them, not just underline them in blue.
If we all were to rate ourselves on a scale of 1-10 on how well we obey the biblical command to love others, probably most of us would put down a 7 or 8. Maybe a few would dare to score a 9. A 10? Hey, no one’s perfect! But I have a hunch that most of us think, “You know, I’m a basically loving person, but I sure wish my mate (or kids or roommate) would be more loving.”
But when you stop to think about the fine print in Jesus’ command, your ratings will plummet. He said (John 13:34), “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” The “fine print” is that phrase, “even as I have loved you.” That bumps His command up to a Mt. Everest kind of command! A very few may make the summit of Everest, but no one lives up there. On rare occasions, we may succeed in loving others as Christ loved us, but none of us live there consistently. It’s the same as Paul’s command (Eph. 5:25), “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her.” You never reach a point where you can say, “I’ve got that one down! Let’s move on to other things!” These are commands that we’ve got to keep working on.
You may wonder, in what sense is Jesus’ command a new commandment? After all, Leviticus 19:18 commands, “… you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” The entire Old Testament law is summed up by the two commandments, love God and love your neighbor. So how is Jesus’ command new? I agree with most scholars who say that the newness of Jesus’ command is the new standard that He gives, “even as I have loved you.” Jesus’ sacrificial love in going to the cross for us is the new standard. So the main idea of our text is fairly simple to state, but impossible to live out consistently apart from the power of the Holy Spirit:
Jesus commands us to love one another even as He loved us.
The crux of this command is to understand how Jesus loved us. Our text reveals five aspects of this love:
John 13:31-32: “Therefore when he had gone out, Jesus said, ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him; if God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and will glorify Him immediately.’” This statement takes us back to John 12:23, where after hearing that some Greeks were seeking Him, Jesus said, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” As the context there makes clear, He was referring to His death on the cross. The cross glorified both Jesus and His Father (John 12:28).
On one level, the cross was the epitome of humiliation and shame. There was no worse way to die than to be stripped naked, flogged, and then nailed to a splintery cross and hung up to suffer a slow death as a public spectacle. But in another superior sense, the cross was the epitome of glory both for the Father and the Son. To glorify God is to magnify or display His perfect attributes. At the cross, God’s love, righteousness, justice, mercy, and grace were magnified as at no other occasion in history. At the cross, God’s justice was upheld as His sinless Son bore the awful penalty that His justice demanded for all sinners. But His love and grace shine forth as He offers eternal life to all who will repent of their sin and trust in Jesus alone.
John 13:32 refers to Jesus’ resurrection and ascension: “… if God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and will glorify Him immediately.” The resurrection was God’s stamp of approval on Jesus’ death. Jesus’ ascension into heaven exalted Him again to God’s right hand, “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come” (Eph. 1:21).
But the point is, Jesus’ love as seen at the cross was costly. That theme is repeated over and over in the Bible:
John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”
Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”
Ephesians 5:2: “… walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.”
Ephesians 5:25: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her ….”
1 John 3:16: “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.”
I realize that it was for the joy set before Him that Jesus endured the cross (Heb. 12:2). Through the cross, He would bring many sons to glory (Heb. 2:10). But still for Jesus to go to the cross was an act of supreme self-sacrifice. It was costly.
John 13:33: “Little children, I am with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’” We see Jesus’ tender care for His disciples here in two ways. First, He addresses them as “little children.” This is the only time that this word is used in the Gospels. It is only used elsewhere in 1 John, where the apostle whom Jesus especially loved uses it seven times (2:1, 12, 28; 3:7, 18; 4:4; 5:21). It was a word of tender feelings, much as a father has toward his little children who need his help and protection.
Second, we see Jesus’ tender care for His own in that He explains to them that He will be leaving them soon. They could not follow Him to heaven at that time, although, as He explains to Peter (John 13:36) and to all (John 14:1-3), they will follow later. The picture again is of a caring father explaining to his children that he has to go away for a while, and they can’t accompany him. But he promises that they will be reunited later. The point is, Jesus’ love was filled with tender feelings for His disciples.
There used to be a popular Bible teacher who emphasized knowing Bible doctrine above all else. He taught that biblical love is not a feeling, but rather a mental attitude. But in practice, he was rude, insensitive, and arrogant. Jesus’ love was not like that, and neither was Paul’s love. He wrote (1 Thess. 2:7-8), “But we proved to be gentle among you, as a nursing mother tenderly cares for her own children. Having so fond an affection for you, we were well-pleased to impart to you not only the gospel of God but also our own lives, because you had become very dear to us.”
John 13:34: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” In going to the cross, Jesus was obeying the Father’s commandment (John 10:18). Now He commands His followers to love one another, even as He has loved us.
The fact that Jesus commands us to love one another means that you can do it. There are no excuses if you fail to love another believer. You can’t do it in your own strength, of course. Love is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, produced in us when we walk in dependence on the Spirit’s power (Gal. 5:16, 22). But just as Jesus obediently sacrificed Himself to go to the cross for our salvation, so we are obediently to sacrifice ourselves for others’ ultimate good.
I’ve had husbands come to me and say, “I don’t love my wife anymore! We’re going to get a divorce.” But the wedding vow wasn’t, “as long as we both shall love.” It’s “as long as we both shall live”! The biblical command is, “Husbands, love your wives….” If you don’t love your wife, you’re being disobedient. Figure out some practical ways that you can show her God’s love and start doing it!
He may protest, “But I don’t have any good feelings toward her. All of the years of anger and bitterness have just drained the feelings of love that I once had.” But lacking the feelings of love is never a valid excuse for neglecting the actions of love. You’ve probably seen the train diagram in the “Four Spiritual Laws” tract. The engine is God’s Word. The coal car is faith. The caboose represents feelings. The train will run only if you put your faith in God’s Word. Then good feelings will follow. But you can’t run the train on good feelings. When we obey God’s Word and begin to love others sacrificially, feelings of love will follow. But you can’t bail out on the commandment to love others because you lack feelings for them. I’m sure that if Jesus had followed His feelings, He would not have gone to the cross! His love was costly and caring. But it also was based on obedience to His Father’s commandment.
John 13:35: “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” Jesus wasn’t just talking about having nice thoughts toward others, which no one else can see. He was talking about love that can be seen. It stems from the heart, but it’s seen in outward actions. It’s the sort of love that stands out conspicuously in this self-centered world. They should see the way that we Christians love one another and say, “They must be followers of Jesus!”
Sadly, the church is often known more for its fighting and divisions over petty issues than it is for its love. Back in the 1970’s some church growth gurus observed that Christians like to go to church with others who are just like they are. Whites like to be with whites. Blacks like to be with blacks. Rich college graduates like other rich college graduates. Rednecks don’t like going to church with long-haired liberals who favor gun control. Rednecks use long-haired liberals for target practice! So these church growth gurus gave us the homogeneous unit principle: If you want your church to grow, you’ve got to target the niche that you’re trying to reach and market your church to those folks.
The problem is, that principle is completely contrary to the New Testament! Paul wrote (Gal. 3:28), “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” In the church (Col. 3:11), “there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.” The church is the family of God and God has designed families so that there are young and old together.
Have you ever thought about the diversity among Jesus’ apostles? He chose Simon the Zealot. Zealots were a radical political group that used intrigue, violence, force, and deception to try to achieve its goal of liberating Palestine from Roman rule. They refused to pay taxes and they attacked and murdered government officials, especially the hated tax collectors.
And then He chose Matthew, the tax-collector! The tax-collectors had sold their souls to Rome. They milked the Jewish people of their money in order to line their own pockets. You could not have put two men of more diverse backgrounds into the same group if you had tried! These are the men that Jesus is telling to love one another! That kind of love would be conspicuous!
This has several practical implications. For one thing, I refuse to have a contemporary service for young people, who prefer rock music and a casual format and a separate traditional, more formal service for the older folks, who prefer hymns with organ accompaniment. That wrongly divides the church along age lines. The older folks need the fresh enthusiasm of the young people and the young people need the wisdom and stability of the older folks.
Also, the church should reflect the racial and socio-economic diversity of our community. The world can understand when churches divide along racial lines. But our love for one another should conspicuously cross divisions that we see in the world. Flagstaff is approximately 64% white, 18% Hispanic, 12% Native Americans, 2% black, and 2% Asian. I want this church to reflect that mix and show the love of Christ to the world.
When Marla was a new Christian, she attended a church that met in a park. It consisted predominately of “hippies,” most of whom were under 30. The way the church got its start was another sad example of Christians violating Jesus’ command to love one another. A youth pastor at a Baptist church started seeing a number of young hippies come to Christ, so he started bringing them to church. But the people in the church protested. They didn’t want kids looking like that coming to their church! What would people think? For starters, they might have thought, “Those people must be Jesus’ disciples!” That youth pastor went to several churches and tried to get them to accept his group, but was turned down at every church. He finally was forced to start his own church.
So, Jesus’ love was costly, caring, commanded, and conspicuous. Finally,
John 13:36-38: “Simon Peter said to Him, ‘Lord, where are You going?’ Jesus answered, ‘Where I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you will follow later.’ Peter said to Him, ‘Lord, why can I not follow You right now? I will lay down my life for You.’ Jesus answered, ‘Will you lay down your life for Me? Truly, truly, I say to you, a rooster will not crow until you deny Me three times.’”
I have preached other messages that focus on Peter’s failure and restoration (“Failure and Hope,” Luke 22:31-38; “Spiritual Failure and Restoration,” Luke 22:54-62; “Hope for All Who Have Failed,” Mark 16:7; “Hope for All Sinners,” Mark 16:7, all on the church web site). I’m not going to focus here on the many lessons that can be gleaned from that poignant story, except to say that while Peter thought that he was fully committed to Jesus and in many ways, he was, his failure stemmed from not recognizing his own weakness. Trusting in his own loyalty rather than in the Lord set him up for his colossal failure.
But here I want to focus on Jesus’ commitment to Peter and to the other ten disciples in spite of their failure. Jesus knew that Peter would deny Him and He predicts it here. He knew that all the disciples would flee for their lives when He would be arrested later that night, in spite of their protests to the contrary (Matt. 26:31, 35, 56). But, He didn’t cast them off because of their failure. He loved them to the end (or uttermost; John 13:1) and He showed that love by restoring them and using them after His resurrection.
Love means being committed to the other person’s highest good. The highest good for all people is that they would become more like Jesus Christ by growing in holiness and living to glorify Him. That commitment to the other person’s highest good is the glue that holds a marriage together. As Paul says (Eph. 5:26-27), a husband’s love for his wife should aim at sanctifying her so that she would be holy and blameless. That same commitment should cause church members to work through conflicts and seek to preserve the unity of the church in the bond of peace.
Bringing together these five elements of Jesus’ love, we can hammer out a definition of biblical love: Love is a self-sacrificing, caring commitment which, in obedience to Jesus, shows itself in seeking the highest good of the one loved.
The costliness of love means that we have to sacrifice our selfishness for others. The caring aspect of love means that we should never be calloused or rude. Love is kind. The commandment facet of love means that we do it in obedience to our Savior, who gave Himself for us. The conspicuous part of love means that it doesn’t consist just of nice thoughts, but of visible actions. And, the commitment of love is to see the other person become more like Christ, which is his highest good and for God’s glory.
I recognize that this kind of love is the ideal and we live in a sinful world that presents us with many difficult situations that require prayerful wisdom to obey Jesus’ command. I can only offer a few seeds for thought here on how to apply this.
Does loving someone require that I like that person? Does it mean that I must become a close friend with a difficult person? By looking at Jesus’ example, I have to say, “Not necessarily.” While He loved all people, He did not give His time equally to all. He spent the most time with His disciples, but even among the twelve, He was closer to Peter, James, and John. And John is the only one called, “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 13:1, 23).
Jesus didn’t even spend time with His half-brothers when He had the opportunity. He could have gone up to the feast with them (John 7:1-10), which would have meant several days of traveling together. He could have used that time to influence them, since they were not yet believing in Him. But He let them go alone and then He went later by Himself.
Jesus also loved His enemies, the Jewish leaders, but He constantly provoked and confronted them. He instructed His disciples to shake the dust off their feet and move on if people rejected them and their message (Matt. 10:14). Apparently, that was the loving thing to do, since Jesus never would have commanded them not to love their enemies (Matt. 5:44).
Also, since biblical love seeks the highest good for the other person, namely, that he become more like Christ, love sometimes requires confronting the person with his sin or letting him experience the consequences of his sin so that he learns to hate it (Acts 8:18-24; 13:6-12). Love does not enable a person to continue in sinful or irresponsible ways. Love tries to help a person learn to be obedient to God and responsible to “bear his own load” (Gal. 6:5).
I don’t say any of this to give you a cop out from loving difficult people, but rather, as Paul put it (Phil. 1:9), my aim is “that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment.” I encourage you to meditate often on the characteristics of love (1 Cor. 13:4-7): “Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” Then go through Paul’s letters and his actions in the Book of Acts and see how he worked out those qualities in real situations.
Growing in love requires lifelong effort. You will experience many failures. But your aim should be to love others even as Jesus loves you.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
December 7, 2014
According to U.S.A. Today (11/16/11), “More than 20 percent of American adults took at least one drug for conditions like anxiety and depression in 2010 … including more than one in four women.” The Anxiety and Depression Association of America reports (adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics, bold type theirs), “Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults in the United States age 18 and older (18% of U.S. population).”
I realize that some of you have taken or are currently taking medication for anxiety or depression. I am not a doctor and I recognize that there are complex factors that affect our mental condition. I would not recommend that you go off any medication without your doctor’s consent. But at the same time, I would urge you to think carefully about whether or not you have truly laid hold of the cure for troubled hearts that Jesus promises in our text:
Faith in Christ’s person and hope in Christ’s promise will comfort your troubled heart.
You may think, “That’s overly simplistic! That’s a nice thought, but it’s impractical and out of touch with reality!” But these are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ to troubled hearts. Either His words are true or they’re not. So I would ask you to consider whether perhaps you just haven’t applied these words before you conclude that they are simplistic or impractical. And I also point out that Jesus’ words have given genuine comfort to countless believers in the midst of horrible trials over the past 2000 years of church history. So before you shrug them off, consider whether or not you have truly applied them to your troubled heart.
Jesus is in the Upper Room with the eleven disciples after Judas has left to betray Him. Except for John and perhaps Peter, the others didn’t know yet who the betrayer was, but they were troubled by the news that one of the twelve would betray Jesus. The Lord has also announced that He is leaving them and that they cannot follow Him. These are men who had left their jobs and families to follow Jesus in the hope that He was the promised Messiah. They were ecstatic a few days before when He rode into Jerusalem to the cheers of the crowd. But now He was talking about His death, not about His messianic kingdom. And to top it off, He had just told Peter that before daybreak, he would deny Jesus three times. So these men were anxious and troubled! And so the Lord’s emphasis in of all of John 14, not just in our text, is to comfort their troubled hearts, especially as they witnessed His brutal execution the next day. If you apply them, these words will also comfort your troubled heart.
Faith is only as good as its object. Trusting in a faulty airplaine won’t make it fly! As we’ve seen repeatedly, everything in the Christian life depends on the correct answer to Jesus’ question (Matt. 16:15), “Who do you say that I am?” If Jesus is who He claimed to be and who all of Scripture proclaims Him to be, then He is absolutely trustworthy in every trial that you encounter. If He is not who He claimed to be, then eat and drink, for tomorrow you will die (see 1 Cor. 15:12-19, 32). Or, as church historian Jaroslav Pelikan said just before he died, “If Christ is raised, nothing else matters. If Christ is not raised, nothing matters.” (Cited by David Calhoun, in Heaven [Crossway], ed. by Christopher Morgan and Robert Peterson, worldmag.com/2014/11/the_hope_of_heaven.) In our text, Jesus makes four claims that show that He is trustworthy:
John 14:1: “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me.” There are several legitimate ways to translate that verse because in Greek, “believe” in both instances can be either indicative or imperative. A few versions translate the first verb as indicative, “you believe in God,” and the second as imperative, “believe also in Me.” But most versions translate them both as imperatives: “believe in God, believe also in Me.” Since Jesus’ opening words are an imperative, “Do not let your heart be troubled,” it’s likely that He is commanding them both to believe in God and to believe in Him.
But either way that you translate it, Jesus is claiming to be on exactly the same level as God when it comes to trusting Him! What mere man could claim, “You need to trust in God, and to the same degree, you need to trust in Me”? Alexander Maclaren wrote (Expositions of Holy Scripture [Baker], on John 14:1, p. 257, italics his):
The peculiarity of His call to the world is, “Believe in Me.” And if He said that, or anything like it … then, one of two things follows. Either He was wrong, and then He was a crazy enthusiast, only acquitted of blasphemy because convicted of insanity; or else—or else—He was “God manifest in the flesh.”
As Jesus will go on to affirm, because to see Him is to see the Father, you cannot separate faith in God from faith in Jesus. And since Jesus is the eternal Son of God, who created all things (John 1:3), and who was in control over all the events surrounding His death, then you can trust Him in whatever overwhelming circumstances you are facing. Nothing is too difficult for Him and no one can thwart His sovereign will (Jer. 32:17; Job 42:2).
We’ll come back to verses 2 & 3, where Jesus promises that He is going to prepare a place for us and that He will come again. Then, He says (John 14:4-6),
“And you know the way where I am going.” Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, how do we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”
I’m glad for the disciples’ dense comments and questions (we’ll see another one from Philip in verse 8), because they resulted in some wonderful answers from Jesus that we otherwise might not have! The word “way” is emphasized by being repeated in verses 4, 5, & 6; it refers to the way to heaven or to the Father (John 14:3, 6). Significantly, Jesus doesn’t say, “I know the way to heaven and I can point you to it.” Rather, He says, “I am the way.”
A missionary hired a guide to take him across a vast desert. When they arrived at the edge of the desert, the missionary saw before him trackless sands without a single footprint or road of any kind. He asked his guide with a tone of surprise, “Where is the road?” With a reproving glance, the guide replied, “I am the road.” Jesus is the way to heaven. We must trust Him to take us there.
This is the sixth of Jesus’ seven “I am” statements in John (6:48; 8:12; 10:9, 11; 11:25; 15:1). It’s another claim to deity. Jesus is saying that we can have access to God only through Him. Just as in the Old Testament, the only way for the Jews to come to God was through the high priest, who could only enter the holy of holies on the Day of Atonement, so Jesus is our high priest through whose sacrifice of Himself we can come into God’s very presence without fear of being consumed. He Himself is the way.
Jesus also claimed, “I am the truth.” Again, He did not say, “I can teach you the truth,” although He did that. He said, “I am the truth.” In this context, He means not only that He is totally dependable, but also that He Himself is the only true way of salvation (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 641). He alone is the manifestation of the eternal God of truth. We can only know ultimate reality through knowing Jesus as Savior and Lord.
Jesus also claimed, “I am the life.” Again, He doesn’t say, “I can tell you how to have life,” but rather, “I am the life.” In John 5:26, Jesus claimed, “For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself.” Having life in Himself, Jesus “gives life to whom He wishes” (John 5:21). Because of sin, the entire human race is under the curse of eternal death, or separation from God. We can have eternal life only in Christ. Eternal life means knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom He sent (John 17:3).
The three articles, the way, the truth, and the life imply the exclusivity of Christ’s claims. But His final statement cinches it (John 14:6b): “no one comes to the Father but through Me.” He is the only way to God. Peter underscored this fact to the Jewish Sanhedrin (Acts 4:12), “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.” (See, also, 1 Tim. 2:5).
Jesus’ claim to be the way, the truth, and the life, the only way to the Father, confronts our postmodern era in two ways: First, there is such a thing as absolute truth in the spiritual realm; second, Jesus only is the absolute truth; all other ways are wrong. People today don’t have a problem if you say that Jesus is a way to God or that you personally believe in Him, as long as you don’t say that all other beliefs are false. But when you claim that Jesus is the exclusive way to God; that He is the only spiritual truth, so that all other beliefs are false; and that He alone can impart eternal life—you will be accused of being intolerant and arrogant!
R. C. Sproul (in Tabletalk, date unknown) points out that the notion that all religions are valid is logically impossible because, if all religions are valid, then Christianity is valid. But Jesus said that He is the only way to God, which eliminates all other ways. So either He was right or He was wrong. Sproul concludes, “If He was wrong, then Christianity has no validity at all. If He was right, then there is no other way.”
Here’s how Jesus’ claim in verse 6 can comfort you when you’re troubled: Believing that Jesus is the way will comfort your troubled heart because you have access to the gracious Father through Him. Through Jesus you can bring all your troubles into the very presence of the God who spoke the universe into existence. Believing that Jesus is the truth will comfort your troubled heart because all else is subjective, shifting, and uncertain. You can stand securely in the truth of who Jesus is. Believing that Jesus is the life will comfort your troubled heart because trusting in Him gives assurance of eternal life and escape from the second death.
Thus Jesus claims to deserve equal faith with God. He claims to be the exclusive way to God.
John 14:7-9:
“If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.” Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”
There is a variant in verse 7 supported by some early manuscripts, which reads, “If you have come to know Me [as you do], you shall know My Father also.” If this is the original reading, then Jesus is emphasizing the truth of John 1:18, “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” To know Jesus is to know the Father. Jesus alone reveals the Father to us. Jesus’ words, “from now on,” refer to the events that will transpire shortly, especially to the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. The Spirit will guide them into all the truth (John 14:17, 26).
But Jesus’ comment that the disciples have seen the Father prompts Philip to ask (John 14:8), “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” He may have been thinking that if Jesus was going to leave them, some vision of God such as Moses had on Mount Sinai would sustain them in Jesus’ absence. Jesus’ reply is a rebuke that reflects some personal grief (John 14:9), “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?”
Again, I’m thankful for Philip’s inappropriate request, because Jesus’ reply is another clear claim to be God. As Leon Morris states (p. 644), “These are words which no mere man has a right to use.” Jesus is the visible representation of the invisible God. As Paul wrote (Col. 2:9), “For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form.” This claim of Christ can comfort your troubled heart because often in a time of trouble, God seems distant. The fact that He is invisible makes it difficult to trust in Him. At such times, look to Jesus, who was tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin (Heb. 4:15). He reveals to us the tender mercies of the Father.
John 14:10-11: “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.”
This brings us back full circle to verse 1: To believe in Jesus is to believe in the Father, because the two are in inseparable union. God is one God who subsists in three co-equal, eternal persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (John 14:10, 17). Jesus reveals the Father to us. The Spirit reveals Christ to us (John 16:13-15). To know Jesus is to know God.
Jesus gives two reasons to believe that He is in intimate union with the Father: His words and His works. Jesus says that He didn’t make up what He taught, but rather His words came directly from the Father. This is a repetition of Jesus’ earlier claims. In John 8:26, He told His enemies, “I have many things to speak and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true; and the things which I heard from Him, these I speak to the world.” He repeated (John 8:28), “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me.” (See, also, John 5:19, 30.) Jesus’ words confirm that He is in intimate union with the Father.
But also Jesus’ works prove that He is in intimate union with the Father. This refers to all that He did, but especially to His miracles. Skeptics, of course, challenge Jesus’ miracles because they claim that they have never seen a miracle. But Jesus’ miracles are reported by credible eyewitnesses, most of whom were willing to lose their lives because they believed Jesus to be the truth. At the heart of a skeptic’s rejection of Jesus’ miracles is not science, but rather his love of his sin and his refusal to submit to Jesus as Lord.
Note that Jesus challenges us (John 14:11), “Believe Me that …” Faith in Jesus isn’t a vague, “I believe for every star that falls, a flower grows.” Rather, we are to believe specifically what Jesus claimed: that He deserves equal faith with God; that He is the exclusive way to God; that He is the unique revealer of God; and that He is in intimate union with the Father. Jesus adds that if you can’t believe His words alone, at least believe because of His works. Believing in the person of Christ will comfort your troubled heart.
John 14:2-3: “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”
Biblical hope is closely allied with faith. Someone has described it as faith standing on tiptoe. It looks ahead to the promised, but yet unrealized future. It’s not like saying, “I hope my favorite team wins their big game today.” You don’t know whether they will win or lose. Biblical hope is like watching the video replay of the game after your team won. You know the outcome, but you eagerly watch the game unfold. Here Jesus makes two promises that are certain because He is the truth:
The picture is an Oriental house where the father would add rooms to accommodate his grown children and their families so that they all lived in the same compound. There are several comforting truths in this picture. First, heaven is a real place, not just an immaterial state of being.
Second, going to heaven is like going home. It’s not like traveling to a foreign country, where you don’t know the language, geography, people, or customs. It’s like going to a familiar, comfortable place where you are welcomed by a Father who loves you and by brothers and sisters whom you know.
Third, Jesus is there right now preparing a place for us. This doesn’t mean that He is working with His carpenter’s tools to add rooms for us. Rather, it looks at His present ministry of intercession for us, of being our advocate, and of keeping us for that day.
It’s always comforting when you travel to know that you have a confirmed reservation when you arrive. Jesus promises that if you believe in Him, you have such a reservation in heaven.
He promises to come again and receive us to Himself, that where He is, there we will be also. When Christ comes or when we go to heaven, we will be reunited with our loved ones who have gone before us. But being with Jesus Himself will be the best part of His coming and our going to heaven. As Martin Luther said (cited by Randy Alcorn, Heaven [Tyndale], p. 187), “I had rather be in hell with Christ, than be in heaven without him.”
The certainty of Christ’s bodily return means terror for those who reject Him, because He will come to “tread the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty” (Rev. 19:15). But His return means comfort for all that believe in Him, because we will always be with the Lord. Paul concludes his discussion of Christ’s return by saying (1 Thess. 4:18), “Therefore comfort one another with these words.”
Jesus’ words (John 14:1), “Do not let your heart be troubled,” mean that we can do something about our troubled hearts. It’s a command, indicating that we have volitional control over our emotions. We don’t need to be victimized by our feelings. We can do something to deal with anxiety or a troubled heart, namely, believe in Jesus as God and hope in His promise of heaven. As the psalmist told himself when he was in despair (Ps. 43:5), “Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God.” And, since Jesus was troubled on our behalf (John 14:21), we don’t need to be troubled by life’s problems. God is now on our side!
So the next time you’re troubled and anxious, before you do what the world does and pop a pill to calm your soul, do something radical: Believe in God; believe also in Jesus Christ. Faith in His person and His promise will comfort your troubled heart.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
December 14, 2014
These verses on prayer are some of the most difficult in all of Scripture for me to understand. They occur in the context of Jesus giving encouragement and comfort to the distraught disciples, who were troubled by the news that He was leaving them; that one of them would betray Him; and that Peter would deny Him. Jesus tells them that after He is gone they will do greater works than He did and that He will do anything that they ask in His name. So Jesus’ promises in these verses should encourage and comfort us as well.
But the problem is, these verses do not seem to be true in my experience. I’d be hesitant to say that I’m doing greater works than Jesus did. He has never used me to perform a miracle. And I can’t say that whatever I ask Him to do, He does it every time. So we need to think carefully about what these verses mean. (We will encounter similar verses in John 15:7, 15:16, and 16:23-24; also, see 1 John 5:14-15 and Matt. 21:22 [parallels, Mark 11:24; Luke 16:6]).
My problem is compounded by the fact that of the 20 or more commentaries and sermons that I read on these verses, not one even mentions that there are any difficulties! I have over two dozen books on prayer on my shelf, and only one acknowledges that these are difficult verses, but he doesn’t answer my questions.
Another problem is that the “health and wealth” preachers use these verses to teach people to “name it and claim it” in prayer: “Give me a mansion and a new car!” “Heal my cancer!” They tell people to “claim it by faith.” When it doesn’t happen as the people requested, these cruel false teachers then tell the disappointed person that the reason he didn’t receive what he asked for is that he didn’t ask in faith!
The main idea of our text is easy to state (even if not so easy to understand!):
When we believe in Jesus and pray in His name we will do greater works than He did.
First, let’s try to understand the “greater works”; then we’ll look at prayer in Jesus’ name.
John 14:12: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.”
Note that Jesus is the head of His body, the church. As His body, we are to carry on the works that He did when He was on earth. This is implied in Acts 1:1, where Luke refers to “all that Jesus began to do and teach…” He goes on to show how Jesus continued to work through the apostles and the early church as they were filled with the Holy Spirit.
In John, Jesus’ works include His miracles (John 5:20; 7:3, 21; 10:25, 32, 33, 37, 38; 14:11; 15:24), but extend to all that He taught and did in obedience to the Father (John 5:36). In John 17:4, Jesus sums up His ministry when He prays, “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do.” So if we are doing the works that Jesus did, and even greater works, it would seem that we should be doing miracles, living in complete dependence on the Father, obeying Him in all things, demonstrating the Father’s love and mercy, and confronting the religious errors of our day. Jesus did all these things and more.
One clue to Jesus’ meaning in our text is His explanation of why His disciples should do greater works: “because I go to the Father.” As John 14:16-17, 26; 15:26; 16:13-15 make clear, Jesus promised that after He returned to the Father, He would send the Holy Spirit to indwell them. And so the greater works that the disciples would do were the direct result of the Spirit’s working in and through them.
But, does this mean that we should be doing the same and even greater miracles than Jesus did? A “yes” answer to that question was why the late John Wimber founded the Vineyard Christian Fellowship churches. He was convinced that we should be seeing God work miracles today as a common experience. But the fact that Wimber’s good friend, David Watson, died of cancer in his early 50’s in spite of Wimber’s praying in faith that he would be healed; and the fact that Wimber himself died of heart disease in his early 60’s; and the additional fact that none of the Vineyard Churches that I know of are seeing consistent miracles on a par with Christ’s miracles, should give us pause.
In the Bible, miracles occur mostly in clusters, mainly at times when God’s message needed to be authenticated. These include the times surrounding the exodus; the times of Elijah and Elisha; Daniel’s time; and the time of Christ and the apostles. In Acts, we see some pretty spectacular miracles, such as Peter’s shadow falling on the sick and healing them and his raising Dorcas from the dead (Acts 3:1-9; 5:12-16; 9:36-41). Acts 5:16 reports, “Also the people from the cities in the vicinity of Jerusalem were coming together, bringing people who were sick or afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all being healed.” Note, they were all being healed.
Paul also saw some spectacular healings. Acts 19:11-12 reports, “God was performing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that handkerchiefs or aprons were even carried from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out.” But later in his ministry, Paul advises Timothy to drink a little wine for his frequent stomach problems, but not to claim healing by faith (1 Tim. 5:23). In his final letter, Paul reports (2 Tim. 4:20), “Trophimus I left sick at Miletus.” Why didn’t Paul heal him if he was still doing the miraculous works of Jesus? And, although it would have freed him for wider ministry, Paul never claimed deliverance from prison or from execution by faith.
The author of Hebrews, writing to the second generation of Jewish believers, reminds them how God testified to the truth of the gospel by performing signs and wonders and miracles through the first generation of believers in Christ (Heb. 2:3-4). He was trying to convince them of the truth of the gospel so that they wouldn’t go back to Judaism. If those early miracles were still commonplace, the author would have had a stronger argument by pointing to the very miracles done every day in their midst.
So I conclude that while God at times does spectacular miracles to authenticate His word, we are not living at a time where miracles are as commonplace as they were in the days of the early church. We should never doubt that if it is God’s will, He can miraculously heal or do other miracles through His people. But I do not know of anyone in our day experiencing near the same or greater miracles than Christ did. So the “greater works” that Jesus promised cannot refer to greater miracles than He did.
What, then, are the greater works that Jesus’ followers are to perform? D. A. Carson (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 496) argues that the greater works are those done on the basis of Jesus’ death, resurrection, and exaltation. The greater works point to the power of the gospel to transform lives as it spread through the apostolic witness. Through Peter’s preaching on the Day of Pentecost, 3,000 were born again, probably more than Jesus saw converted during His entire ministry! The Book of Acts tells how the message kept spreading, first around Jerusalem, and eventually to the Gentiles around the Roman Empire. J. C. Ryle succinctly observes (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], on John 14:12, p. 67), “There is no greater work possible than the conversion of a soul.”
Thus as the Lord uses us to spread the good news of Christ’s death and resurrection, we are doing the works that He did and even greater works in the sense that the new covenant is better than the old (Heb. 8:6). And our works collectively are greater in number and greater in geographic extent than Jesus did in three years in one small part of the world. I might add that there have been and continue to be times and places where God’s Spirit works in unusual ways to bring thousands of people to Christ in a relatively short period of time. These are called revivals and it is thrilling to read about them. We should pray that God would do a work of revival here and now. But, there are other times and places where in spite of faithful witnesses and much prayer, few have come to Christ. With that, I turn to the subject of prayer:
John 14:13-14: “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.” In these verses, we see the extent, the basis, the objective, and the result of Jesus’ promise:
The context is important! Jesus isn’t promising that He will do any crazy thing you ask, as long as you tack on, “in Jesus’ name, Amen” to your prayer! The context of “whatever you ask” is tied into doing Jesus’ works. So to think that you can pray, “Jesus, give me a nice mansion and while You’re at it, throw in a new Mercedes,” is to completely misapply Jesus’ promise.
John Piper argues that instead of using prayer as a wartime walkie-talkie to call in supplies for the battle, we have turned it into an intercom to ask for more comforts in the den (Let the Nations be Glad ([Baker Academic], p. 49). But prayer isn’t a means of getting God to give us what we want so that our lives can be more comfy. Rather, prayer is the means by which we ask God to extend His kingdom and do His will on earth as it is in heaven (Matt. 6:10). True, there is a place to ask God to meet our needs. But the center of all that we pray should be, “Lord, do Your work through Your people! Bring sinners to genuine conversion! Sanctify Your people so that we will be faithful representatives of Jesus on earth!”
So in prayer, we are to submit to God’s will and to ask Him to accomplish His will through us and through His people. But, the difficulty is, how do we determine what God’s will is so that we pray in line with it? His will is not always obvious! God denied Moses’ request to enter Canaan (Deut. 3:23–27), even though Moses could have argued that the people needed his leadership after they entered the land. Paul prayed for relief from his thorn in the flesh, which was demonically caused and hindered his ministry, but God had a higher purpose, namely, to be glorified as Paul depended on Him in his weakness (2 Cor. 12:7-10). Paul’s prayers for the salvation of his fellow Jews largely went unanswered, not only in his lifetime, but down to the present day (Rom. 10:1; cf. 1 Thess. 2:14–16; Col. 4:7)! Even Jesus in the Garden prayed, if it was the Father’s will, to be delivered from the cross (Matt. 26:39). But He submitted to the Father’s will.
So there is a tension here: We should ask God to extend the gospel and glorify His name around the world. We should ask Him “to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think” (Eph. 3:20). And yet, we need to keep in mind that His ways are not always our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts (Isa. 55:8-9). He sometimes puts His greatest servants in chains or allows them to be killed for His sake (Rom. 8:36). So although we often don’t understand why God doesn’t do exactly what we ask, we should pray big prayers for His kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. The extent of, “Whatever you ask,” is pretty unlimited!
As I said, this isn’t a formula to tack onto your prayers, although there’s nothing wrong with closing your prayers, “in Jesus’ name,” as long as you think about what that means. “Jesus’ name” refers to His person and work. It refers to all that He is and all He has done for us on the cross. While we must be obedient to Christ if we expect Him to answer our prayers (John 14:15), we don’t ask on the basis of our obedience: “I’ve been really good, so You need to answer this!”
Rather, to ask in Jesus’ name means that you come to the Father through the Son as your high priest. To ask in Jesus’ name is to recognize that His name is above every name that is named, both in this age and in the age to come (Eph. 1:21). He has the power to answer! You ask what you think Jesus would want in terms of carrying out His work. You ask God to be gracious because you are in His Son and you are seeking to do His will. And, you ask submissively, acknowledging that you may not understand His perfect will. But you trust that if your request is His will, He will do it, no matter how difficult.
This is a further condition that must govern the “whatever” we ask: Our desire is to see God glorified through the Lord Jesus. This may include the salvation of a loved one or of an enemy of the gospel (such as Paul before his conversion). This extends to praying for the gospel to penetrate unreached peoples around the world. It includes praying that troubled marriages may be healed. The main objective is not that they would be happy (although they will), but that God would be glorified through Christ being seen in that marriage. God’s glory is the main objective of our prayers.
Sometimes people will ask me to pray for someone who is in the hospital and I ask, “What should I pray?” The person asking will often look at me dumbfounded, thinking, “Pray that he will be healed, of course!” But healing may not be God’s way of being glorified. What does God want to do in this person’s heart? Maybe the sickness is to teach the person the brevity of life so that he will live in light of eternity. God may be glorified by teaching the sick person to trust Him through bodily weakness. He may be glorified through the person’s joy in Christ as he dies. Our aim in prayer should be that the Father would be glorified in His Son.
Jesus repeats this in verses 13 & 14 so that we can’t dodge it. The result of our praying should be that Jesus does it. This implies Christ’s deity: He has the power to answer whatever we ask. But this is where it gets really difficult, because many of our prayers would seemingly further God’s kingdom and glory, but He has not done it. I have prayed for the salvation of loved ones, but they have died unbelieving. I have prayed for the healing of Christian marriages, but they have ended in divorce. Many godly parents have prayed for their prodigal children to return to Christ and to be reconciled with the parents for God’s glory, but it hasn’t happened. Many faithful missionaries have prayed and labored for the gospel to take root among peoples that are still mostly pagan after decades of labor. The list could go on and on.
So, how do we reconcile Jesus’ seeming blanket promise to answer prayers in His name for God’s glory with the fact that many such prayers go unanswered? I can’t totally resolve this problem, but I offer some concluding thoughts that may help.
First, the tension we experience stems from the fact that we can know God’s will of desire, but we can’t know His will of decree. God desires that all people would repent of their sins and be saved (Ezek. 18:23; 33:11; 1 Tim. 2:4), but He has not decreed the salvation of all (Acts 13:48; Rom. 9:15-18, 21; 2 Tim. 1:9; 2:10). God desires that we all glorify Him by holy lives, but He also permits sin and will be glorified by His righteous judgment on sinners who do not repent. So we should pray as best we know in line with His revealed will of desire, while at the same time submitting to the fact that we don’t know His will of decree.
Second, Jesus’ promise to do whatever we ask does not undermine the many Scriptures that exhort us to wait on the Lord. Jesus doesn’t say when He will do it. God may be glorified as we faithfully wait on Him for years for answers to our prayers. He may be glorified by answering at a distant time even beyond our lifetimes for reasons that we cannot fathom at the moment. So we must join David who exhorts (Ps. 27:14), “Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; yes, wait for the Lord.” God’s purposes will surely be fulfilled, but not necessarily in our timing or in ways that we envision.
Third, God often accomplishes His purposes in ways that seem backwards to us. We pray for the gospel to spread, so God sends persecution. The late Chinese Pastor Samuel Lamb spent 33 years in prison for his faith. After he was released for the final time, he called the authorities and asked them to re-arrest him. When they asked why, he said, “Every time you arrest me, my church doubles in size. I want to see my church grow.” We pray for strength, and God makes us weak so that we will rely on His strength (2 Cor. 12:9-10). Jesus told Peter that Satan had demanded permission to sift him like wheat, but that Jesus had prayed for Peter (Luke 22:31-32). I would have prayed that Peter be spared from denying Jesus, but Jesus didn’t pray that. Rather, He prayed that after Peter was restored, he would strengthen his brothers. Countless Christians who have failed have been strengthened through Peter’s failure and restoration.
Finally, we do not understand all that God is doing, so we may go to our graves not knowing why He seemingly didn’t answer our prayers. I wonder whether John ever understood why God delivered Peter from prison, but allowed John’s brother James to be executed (Acts 12:1-17). Couldn’t James have been used greatly to extend the kingdom if he had been delivered? Yes, but that wasn’t God’s will. John the Baptist’s disciples probably never understood why God allowed a drunken king to execute a godly prophet like John.
I read once about a businessman who picked up a hitchhiker and drove with him for several hours. The hitchhiker was a Christian and he shared the gospel with the businessman. Before he dropped him off, he put his trust in Christ as His Savior and Lord. He left his business card with the hitchhiker and said, “If you ever come to Chicago, drop by and see me.”
Several years went by before the hitchhiker was in Chicago. He stopped by the man’s office and handed the card to a woman and asked if the man was in. The woman’s face froze and she asked, “Where did you get this card?” The man used the question to tell the woman the story of how the man had become a Christian that day. She broke down in tears and said, “He was my husband. I had prayed for years that he would come to Christ. But he never made it home from that trip. He was killed in an accident after he dropped you off. I’ve been bitter at God all these years because I thought that He didn’t answer my prayer.”
Not all stories end that way, but the point is, we don’t have all knowledge about how God may be working in response to our prayers. So be active in doing Jesus’ works. Pray that He would do far more through you than you can ask or think. But if things don’t go exactly as you had prayed, trust Him that if not in this life, at least in eternity you will understand how He answered and used you to do even greater works than He did.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
December 28, 2014
In John 14:12, Jesus makes the amazing promise that whoever believes in Him will do not only the works that He did, but even greater works. As we saw in our last study of John 14, this could not refer to greater miracles, since no one including the apostles has done greater miracles than Jesus did. Besides, to heal a body that is going to die in a few years anyway is not a greater work than to save an eternal soul. Thus, I conclude that these greater works must refer to works that we do on the basis of Jesus’ finished work, especially the proclamation of the gospel to all the nations.
But, the huge question then is, how do we accomplish this overwhelming task? How do we do greater works than Jesus? We saw in our last study that a major way that we do those greater works is by prayer in Jesus’ name (John 14:13-14). Prayer is how we wage spiritual warfare to conquer the enemy (Eph. 6:10-20).
In our text, I understand Jesus to be continuing His explanation of how we can do greater works than He did. In addition to prayer, He gives us three more essential tools that we must utilize if we want to see the Lord use us in His kingdom purposes: obedience (v. 15); dependence on the Holy Spirit (vv. 16-17); and, living in union with our risen Savior (vv. 18-20).
We can do greater works than Jesus as we obey His commandments, depend on the Holy Spirit, and live in union with our risen Lord.
You may be thinking, “If ‘the greater works’ refers to evangelism, sorry, but that’s not my gift! So this message doesn’t relate to me!” But not many of us are gifted evangelists. I’m certainly not! But however God has gifted you, your aim in life should be that Christ would be exalted or glorified through you in everything that you do. As Paul says (1 Cor. 10:31), “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” In Philippians 1:20, as Paul faced possible execution, he wrote that whether he was released or killed, his aim was “that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.” That should be the aim of every Christian: to exalt Christ. As you live to exalt Him you will be a vital part of His worldwide body in doing these greater works. These three factors will help you in that lifelong process.
John 14:15: “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” This is so important that Jesus repeats it in verses 21 & 23, and states the negative side of it in verse 24. Love for Christ will result in a life of obedience to Him. If you claim to love Him, but do not keep His commandments, you’re either lying or self-deceived. All who love Jesus seek constantly to obey Jesus.
Verse 15, as I said, is closely linked to verses 13 & 14. If you are not living in obedience to Christ, you cannot pray properly for His work to spread. You can’t be disobeying Christ and at the same time rightly pray, “Lord, use me to do the greater work of spreading Your gospel to those around me.” People will see the disconnect in your life and think, “If this guy is a Christian, thanks, but no thanks!” Your hypocrisy will turn others away from Christ. So obedience to Christ is essential to having your prayers answered.
Note also that the fact that Jesus can refer to these commandments as “My commandments” shows that He is God (J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], p. 72). He has the authority to command how we should live. Also note that all three persons of the Trinity are in the context here: the Father and the Son (John 14:13); and, the Holy Spirit (John 14:16-17).
But, what are Jesus’ commandments? They include everything that He taught. He summed up all the commandments of the Law with the two great commandments, to love God and to love our neighbor. In John 13:34 Jesus applied the second great commandment to His disciples as His “new commandment”: “that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” As He goes on to explain, our obedience to that commandment will impact the world (John 13:35): “By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” If the greater works center on the spread of the gospel, then our relationships with one another in the body of Christ are crucial.
If you’re married and have children, you have a built-in laboratory where you can practice obeying Jesus’ commandments every day. Husbands: Do you selflessly love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her? Wives: Do you love your husband? Parents: Do you show your children the love of Christ through your kindness, patience, and gentleness with them?
The same applies to our relationships in the local church. When someone at church offends you or gossips about you or hurts your feelings, do you work at reconciliation and mutual understanding, or do you go find another church? If you claim to love Jesus, whom you have not seen, then you must love your brother in Christ, whom you have seen (1 John 4:20). To do the works of Jesus, which includes seeing the gospel spread through us, we must obey His commandments because we love Him.
John 14:16-17: “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”
In John’s Gospel, we first encountered the Holy Spirit in John 1:32, where John the Baptist testified, “I have seen the Spirit descending as a dove out of heaven, and He remained upon Him.” (See, also John 3:34.) Jesus referred to the Spirit several times in His conversation with Nicodemus, leading off with (John 3:5), “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” Jesus told some superficial “disciples” (John 6:63), “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing ….” But now, in this farewell discourse, Jesus puts a major emphasis on the ministry that the Holy Spirit will have in our lives and in the world after He is gone (John 14:16-17, 26; 15:26; 16:7-11, 13-15). Our text teaches us several vital truths:
First, Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the “Helper” (some versions have “Counselor”; the KJV used “Comforter”; Greek = Paraklete). Scholars recognize that it’s a difficult word to translate. It occurs only in John 14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7, with reference to the Holy Spirit; and in 1 John 2:2 with reference to Christ.
The Greek word is a compound word meaning literally, “to call alongside.” In extra-biblical Greek, it refers to an attorney who was called alongside the accused to defend his case. In the 1 John 2:2 reference, this meaning seems to fit Christ’s role of advocating for us when we have sinned. If we understand “counselor” to mean “legal counsel,” then that word captures part of the meaning (but not if you think of a therapist who offers advice). For the King James translators, “Comforter” did not mean what it means now, someone to console you when you need cheering up. Rather, it meant someone to come alongside to give you strength.
In the Upper Room Discourse, the function of the Helper is to sustain and strengthen the disciples after Jesus’ departure (John 14:16-17); to teach them and bring to their remembrance all that Jesus said (John 15:26); to convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:7-11); and, to guide the disciples into all the truth, disclose to them the things to come, and to glorify Jesus (John 16:13-14). Jesus calls the Holy Spirit another Helper. Jesus was the first Helper; the Spirit will continue Jesus’ work in, to, and through His disciples.
The New Testament teaches that the Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force, but rather a divine person. In Acts, Peter confronted Ananias by asking why he had lied to the Holy Spirit. Then he added (Acts 5:4), “You have not lied to men but to God.” You can’t lie to an impersonal force! The New Testament writers attribute the inspiration of the Old Testament to the Holy Spirit (Acts 28:25; Heb. 10:15; 2 Pet. 1:21). They ascribe divine attributes to Him, such as omniscience (1 Cor. 2:10); the power to effect the new birth (John 3:5-8); the power to cast out demons (Matt. 12:28); the ability to baptize believers into the body of Christ and to bestow spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 12:4-13); and the power to sanctify believers (2 Thess. 2:13; 1 Pet. 1:2). Also, the Spirit is linked with the Father and the Son in trinitarian texts (Matt. 28:19; 2 Cor. 13:14; 1 Cor. 12:4-6; Eph. 1:3-14).
Here, Jesus promises the disciples that the Spirit (“the Helper”) will be with them forever. They would not lose Him when they sinned. We are never commanded to be baptized by the Spirit or to receive the Spirit as a second work of grace, because all believers have been baptized by the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13): “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” But we are commanded to be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18), or to walk by the Spirit (Gal. 5:16). Both of those metaphors mean that we are to depend constantly on the Holy Spirit so that He controls or governs our lives.
Jesus repeatedly refers to the Spirit as “the Spirit of truth” (John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13). God is the God of truth (Ps. 31:5; Isa. 65:16). This means that He is the ultimate reality, because He created all that exists. It means that He speaks the truth and cannot lie (Titus 1:2). Since Jesus is the truth (John 14:6) and came into the world to testify to the truth (John 18:37), the Spirit of truth continues His work by testifying of Him (John 15:26). This also means, contrary to the prevailing view of our day, that there is such a thing as absolute, knowable truth in the spiritual realm (John 8:32) and that truth is found only in Jesus (Eph. 4:21), who is revealed in the Spirit-inspired written Word of God, which is truth (John 17:17). When people turn away from God, they turn away from the only source of truth to the lie (Rom. 1:25).
Paul says that we cannot know spiritual truth unless the Spirit of God reveals it to us (1 Cor. 2:10-14). Thus we need to ask the Spirit to teach us when we read and study the Word. We need to ask His insight in applying the Word, so that we can rightly evaluate the philosophies and events going on in this world. But the primary source for the Spirit’s revelation of God’s truth is in His written Word. Some argue that God’s revelation through the natural world, which we learn through science, is equal to His revelation through His written Word. But the problem is, science is subject to error and always changing. So the insights of science have to be evaluated by the clear teaching of the written Word.
Also, the Spirit never leads believers contrary to the Word of God. I’ve had young women tell me that the Spirit was leading them to marry an unbeliever. My response is, “No, the Spirit-inspired Word of God is clear that you should not be unequally yoked with an unbeliever (2 Cor. 6:14).” They will protest, “But I’ve prayed about it and I feel peace about it.” But, their inner peace is not from the Spirit of God. He doesn’t contradict Himself. He has spoken in His Word.
Also, note in our text that Jesus contrasts the disciples’ reception of the Spirit with the world (John 14:17). He promises to send the Spirit to the disciples, but then He explains, “whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him.” Of course, no one can see the Spirit physically. Jesus means that the world cannot perceive or understand the Spirit because the world operates on a materialistic basis. The world is in spiritual darkness due to sin, and thus not able to comprehend spiritual truth (John 3:19-21; 1 Cor. 2:14; Eph. 4:18).
But why does Jesus even mention the world in this context? He has just promised that the disciples would do greater works than He did and that whatever they ask in prayer, He will do it. So they may have been thinking, “Let’s go! We’re going to go out and win the world for Jesus!” But Jesus is warning them here, as He specifically states later (John 15:20), “If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also.” Don’t expect a warm welcome when you take the gospel to the world! Not everyone will respond favorably!
Then Jesus adds that in contrast to the world, which cannot receive the Spirit because it does not know Him (John 14:17b), “but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.” Jesus seems to be drawing a contrast between the Spirit’s present abiding with the disciples, but in the future being in them. In John 7:38, Jesus promised that those who believe in Him would have rivers of living water flowing from their innermost being. Then John (7:39) explained, “But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”
That great change in spiritual history took place on the Day of Pentecost, when the Spirit was poured out on the early church. Although it is not totally clear, apparently the saints in the Old Testament did not enjoy the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He would come on them and empower them for specific tasks, but it seems that He did not dwell in them as He dwells in believers since Pentecost. Since then, as we saw (1 Cor. 12:13), all believers are baptized by the Spirit into the one body of Christ. Paul further affirms (Rom. 8:9), “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” We receive the Spirit when we hear the gospel and respond in faith to Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:2, 5).
Jesus tells the disciples (John 14:17) that they knew the Spirit. This raises the questions, “Do you know the Holy Spirit? Do you know that He indwells you? How do you know that you know Him?” In John 3:8, Jesus told Nicodemus that the Spirit is like the wind: You can’t see it, but you hear its sound and you see its effects. So we don’t know the Spirit by subjective inner feelings alone. There is no way to judge whether your inner feelings stem from your hormones or the weather! You can only judge the reality of the Spirit’s presence in your life by His effects.
These would include: The Spirit has changed your heart and your desires. You used to hate God and His truth and either fight Him or ignore Him. But now you love God and His truth. You seek Him. He is life and light to your soul. You used to be confused or bored by the Bible, if you bothered to read it at all. But now you delight in God’s Word. It nourishes your soul. You used to hate it when the Bible confronted your sins. Now you welcome that confrontation, because you realize that sin destroys you and your relationships. You now welcome the healing that comes through God’s Word. You used to be indifferent to Christ and to His death on the cross. But now you love Christ because He died on the cross to pay the penalty for your sins. You used to yield often to sin and even to revel in it. But now you hate your sins and as you grow in Christ, you experience increasing victory over it.
Your life used to be marked by hatred, depression, anxiety, frustration, indifference to others, selfishness, unreliability, insensitivity, and yielding to any temptation. These are opposite to the fruit of the Spirit, which now are growing in you: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23). You used to live for the things of this world. But now your focus is on eternal rewards in heaven. These and many other evidences in your life show that you know the Holy Spirit and that He is dwelling in your heart. He empowers us to do even greater works than Jesus did.
Thus we do the greater works than Jesus by obeying His commandments and by relying on the indwelling Holy Spirit. Last,
John 14:18-20: “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. After a little while the world will no longer see Me, but you will see Me; because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.”
Commentators hold differing views of what Jesus meant by, “I will come to you.” Some say it refers to coming to the disciples after His resurrection, since in the next phrase He tells them that in contrast to the world they will see Him. Others argue that it refers to coming to them in the person of the Holy Spirit, because He promises not to leave them as orphans. He did leave them physically when He ascended into heaven, but they weren’t left as orphans because He sent the Spirit to be with them forever. A few take it to refer to the second coming in light of John 14:3. I think that there may be a double reference to Jesus’ coming to the disciples after the resurrection along with His promise to send the Spirit to remain with them after His ascension.
Jesus promises, “Because I live, you will live also.” His resurrection guarantees our eternal life. It secured both the continuance of our spiritual life in that it obtained our forgiveness of sins once for all; and the certainty of our future resurrection on the last day.
Commentators also differ on the meaning of “in that day” (John 14:20). It probably refers to the Day of Pentecost, when the Spirit came upon the church. The Spirit would reveal what the disciples still didn’t yet seem to know (John 14:10-11), that Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in Him.
The Spirit would also reveal the union that we have with Christ: “you in Me, and I in you.” Jesus will further explain this great truth in the metaphor of the vine and the branches (John 15:1-6). This truth is central to Paul’s understanding of the Christian life (Col. 1:27-28). We have “every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (Eph. 1:3). God chose us “in Christ” (Eph. 1:4). “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses” (Eph. 1:7). “In Him also we have obtained an inheritance” (Eph. 1:10-11). In Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. We have been made complete in Him (Col. 2:3, 10). The list goes on and on. As we learn to live in the reality of all these wonderful treasures that we enjoy in union with our risen Savior, we can do the greater works that Jesus promised we would do.
So join me in praying that the New Year be one in which both corporately and individually we all see the Lord do His greater works through us as we obey Him out of love, depend on the indwelling Holy Spirit, and live in union with our risen Savior!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2014, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
January 4, 2015
In one of my more profound theological books, Lucy says to Charlie Brown, “Life is a mystery, Charlie Brown … Do you know the answer?” Charlie lifts his finger and pontificates, “Be kind, don’t smoke, be prompt, smile a lot, eat sensibly, avoid cavities and mark your ballot carefully… Avoid too much sun, send overseas packages early, love all creatures above and below, insure your belongings and try to keep the ball low…”
In the last frame, Lucy says, “Hold real still because I’m going to hit you a very sharp blow on the nose!” (You’ve Got it Made, Snoopy, by Charles M. Schulz [Fawcett Crest], no page numbers.)
None of us likes simplistic answers to deep questions. And for every Christian, one of the deepest questions is, “How can I experience a deeper, closer, more intimate relationship with Christ?” Although all Christians believe certain core doctrines, Christianity is not merely intellectually believing doctrines. And although all Christians hold to common moral standards, Christianity is not primarily following a moral code. Rather, at the heart of what it means to be a Christian is to enter into a personal relationship with Christ through faith in His atoning death and resurrection. And as you know, personal relationships are not static. Even those of us who have been married for decades and know our mates very well can always grow closer.
And so one of the most important questions for all Christians is, “How can I know Christ more intimately?” In our text, Jesus answers that question. But at first, you may think that His answer is rather simplistic. His answer is:
We will grow to know Christ more intimately by obeying Him.
You may be thinking, “Huh? That’s it? The key to knowing Christ more deeply is just to obey Him?” That’s what He says. If we have His commandments and keep them, both the Father and Jesus will love us and Jesus promises that He will disclose Himself to us. And further, both the Father and the Son will make their home with us. The key to an ever-deepening relationship with Jesus Christ is to obey Him.
Before we look at this in more detail, let me make it clear that this is instruction for believers in Christ only. If you have not come to Christ and trusted in Him to forgive your sins and give you eternal life, this does not apply to you. You cannot get saved by keeping God’s commandments, because no one can do that perfectly. No one can love God with all of his heart, soul, mind, and strength. No one can love his neighbor as himself. We all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory (Rom. 3:23). So we can’t be saved (delivered from God’s judgment) by obedience.
Rather, as Paul states (Eph. 2:8-9), “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Faith brings us into a love relationship with Jesus, who died for our sins. Obedience is the fruit that results in knowing Him in a deeper way.
Jesus is giving these words about obedience to His disciples to comfort and encourage them on the night before He died on the cross. He knew the trials that they would face after His departure. He knew that they would be sustained through those trials by entering into a closer relationship with Him. Here He tells them (and us) how to do that.
I realize that by using the word “obedience,” I may be accused of being legalistic. It has happened in the past. Years ago someone gave me a book about God’s grace by a popular preacher and told me that I needed to read it because I tend to be legalistic. When I asked for clarification, the person said, “You’re legalistic because you emphasize obedience.”
But may I point out that Jesus emphasizes that we need to keep His commandments in verses 15, 21, 23, and 24. He will hit it again in John 15:7, 10, 12, 14, & 17. Of course, Jesus was not being legalistic! To say that God’s grace and our obedience are at odds is to misunderstand God’s grace. Titus 2:11-12 states, “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age ….” In other words, God’s grace instructs us to live obediently.
I just cited the wonderful promise of Ephesians 2:8-9, that we are saved by grace through faith apart from works. But don’t forget Ephesians 2:10: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” God’s grace produces a life of good works.
The key that keeps obedience from becoming legalistic is to love Jesus Christ. He hammers on this: John 14:15: “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” John 14:21: “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; …” John 14:23: “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; …” John 14:24: “He who does not love Me does not keep My words; …” Love for Christ motivates us to obey Him.
Keep in mind that biblical love is not just feeling the “warm fuzzies” for someone. Biblical love is a self-sacrificing, caring commitment that seeks the highest good of the one loved. If we love Christ, the highest good we seek for Him is to glorify Him. Jesus glorified the Father by obeying all that the Father commanded Him (John 15:10; 17:4). We glorify Christ (make Him look good) when we obey Him. When we sin, we dishonor Him (make Him look bad). If we love Christ, our aim should be to glorify Him. Jesus indicates that there are two parts to obeying Him:
John 14:21: “He who has My commandments ….” We can’t obey what we don’t know or understand. I once read a campus minister who told about a young college student whom he led to Christ. A short time later, this new convert excitedly told the campus worker of how God had blessed his weekend by giving him and his girlfriend the most wonderful time in bed that they had ever enjoyed! Obviously, he did not have Christ’s commandments! You can’t keep commandments that you don’t even know about!
To have Christ’s commandments you need to be in God’s Word consistently. Read it over and over until it shapes your worldview. If your worldview is shaped by the world and its media, you will think that it’s acceptable to have sexual relations outside of marriage, as long as you love each other. You will think that living together before you’re married is a good way to discover whether you’re compatible with each other. You will think that homosexual relations are okay because that’s just the way some people are wired. You will think that cheating on exams or lying to cover your tracks are normal, because that’s what everyone does. But when you begin to read God’s Word, you discover that much that you thought was right is wrong and many things that you thought were wrong are right (Isa. 5:20-21).
One of the best ways to begin to experience victory over temptation and sin is to memorize God’s Word. As Psalm 119:11 states, “Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against You.” You will seldom have a Bible and concordance at hand when you are tempted to sin. Perhaps you’re ready to let fly with some choice words to cut someone down. But God brings to your remembrance Proverbs 12:18, “There is one who speaks rashly like the thrusts of a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” Because you memorized that verse, you’re able to speak words that heal rather than wound.
Or, you’re tempted to look at pornography when 1 Corinthians 6:18 flashes across the screen of your mind: “Flee immorality.” You don’t even need the entire verse or those that follow, although they are helpful. All you need to remember is, “Flee immorality!”
But I’ve known some who have Christ’s commandments through Bible study. They have even been to seminary and know Greek and Hebrew. They know the Word, but they don’t keep it.
Obedience is not a matter of lip service, but rather of doing what He commands, not just outwardly, but from the heart. In Mark 7:6, Jesus condemned the Pharisees, who knew the Scriptures well, because they honored God with their lips, while their hearts were far from Him. God looks on our hearts. Obedience begins on the heart or thought level.
Also, we can’t pick and choose which commands we obey, based on our individual preferences. We all tend to do this. You may pride yourself that you don’t drink and look down on all those who get drunk, while at the same time you tolerate your own sins of grumbling and complaining. Or, you wonder how anyone can be tempted by homosexual sin, yet at the same time you often look at pornography. But Jesus didn’t say, “Keep My commandments that fit with your preferences.” He said, “Keep My commandments.”
At this point, you may be getting panicky. You may be thinking, “I try to obey the Lord, but I often fail. Does this mean that I don’t love Christ and that I’m not His true disciple?” In this regard, we need to keep in mind that this isn’t about perfection, but rather, direction. It’s instructive to note that in John 17:6, Jesus prays with regard to the disciples, “They have kept Your word.” Really? These are the guys who at the Last Supper were arguing about which of them was the greatest. Later that night, they would all desert Jesus. Peter would deny Him and Thomas would doubt His resurrection. And yet, knowing all this, Jesus says that they have kept God’s word. He was looking at the overall direction of their lives, not at perfection. A. W. Pink (Exposition of the Gospel of John, on monergism.com) has some helpful words:
Two things are true of every Christian: deep down in his heart there is an intense, steady longing and yearning to please God, to do His will, to walk in full accord with His Word. This yearning may be stronger in some than in others, and in each of us it is stronger at some times than at others; nevertheless, it is there! But in the second place, no real Christian fully realizes this desire. Every genuine Christian has to say with the apostle Paul, “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may lay hold of that for which I am laid hold of by Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:12).
I’ve already mentioned that to keep Christ’s commandments, we need to have them in our hearts. In addition, there are four things in our text and in the wider context that will help us keep Christ’s commandments:
I’ve already mentioned the importance of keeping our love for Christ as the driving force that keeps obedience from becoming legalistic. But behind our love for Christ is His great love for us. “We love, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19). This is one benefit of partaking of the Lord’s Supper often: it reminds us of the love of Christ that caused Him to endure the agony of the cross. As Paul says (Gal. 2:20), “… I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”
In John 14:23, Jesus promises that if we love Him and keep His word, both He and the Father will come and make their abode with us. This is the only verse in the New Testament that says that the Father indwells us. So all three members of the Trinity take up residence in our hearts: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (John 14:17). “Abode” is the same Greek word that Jesus used in John 14:3, where He promises that He is preparing a dwelling place in heaven for us. Until then, the triune God Himself lives within us! Is your heart a suitable home for God?
If we would only remember that wonderful truth, it would keep us from sin! How can you sin when you realize that God Himself is living in your heart as His home? If you’ve never read the wonderful little booklet, “My Heart, Christ’s Home,” by Robert Boyd Munger, I encourage you to do so (you can read it online). He shows how Christ moved into his heart as His home and began cleaning and remodeling each of the rooms.
In one of his books, Watchman Nee illustrates how an awareness of God’s presence will cause us to walk more carefully in this evil world. He says that if you have a quarter in your pocket, you can walk down the street rather carefree. If you lose it, it’s no big deal. But if you have $1,000 in your pocket, you walk more carefully. Every once in a while, you’ll reach into your pocket to make sure that it’s still there. You guard the treasure. Of course, we’ll never lose God’s indwelling us, but we do lose the sense of His nearness when we sin. If we treasure His presence, we’ll be careful to walk in obedience.
Jesus just promised the disciples that the Helper, the Holy Spirit, would soon be in them forever (John 14:16-17). Paul makes it clear (Gal. 5:16-23) that the way not to carry out the desires of the flesh but rather to develop the fruit of the Spirit is to walk in dependence on the Spirit.
In John 14:31, Jesus says, “But so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me.” Jesus’ love for the Father was at the heart of His obedience to the Father’s commands, which in this case refers to the cross. Any way you cut it, the cross was not enjoyable or easy. It was horrific, not only because of the physical suffering, but also because of the spiritual reality that Jesus bore the Father’s wrath against our sin. He did it to show that He loves the Father.
The real test of obedience is when you don’t feel like it. “Kids, eat your ice cream,” is easy. “Kids, eat your spinach,” may not be so easy or pleasant, but you’re better off in the long run when you do it. Sin always promises short term pleasure, but it hides the long term pain. Obedience may require short term pain or self-denial, but it yields long term pleasure. It is the evidence that we love Jesus Christ. Loving obedience results in three wonderful benefits:
John 14:21: “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” You’re probably thinking, “I thought that God’s love is unconditional. But this sounds as if it’s something we earn or merit.”
As Paul makes plain (Rom. 5:8), God loved us and Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. God so loved this evil world that He gave His only Son to die for it (John 3:16). But in our text, Jesus is talking about a deeper experience of His love. It’s parallel to what Paul prays in Ephesians 3:17-19:
… that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
If we have trusted in Christ, He already dwells in our hearts and we already know His love. But Paul prays that we will experience His presence and His love on deeper and deeper levels. Jesus is saying that we will experience these things by obeying Him.
Jesus says that when we obey Him, He will disclose Himself to us. He isn’t talking about a mystical vision or appearance where we see Him physically. Rather, He reveals Himself by giving us deeper insight into knowing Him through His Word.
We see the principle that Jesus states here in our relationships with others. You don’t reveal yourself to just anybody, but only to those whom you trust. If a person you don’t know starts telling you intimate details about his life, it makes you uncomfortable. You only share the personal stuff with those you trust. Even so, Jesus is saying that when we obey Him, then He will share more of Himself with us. Again, this isn’t mystical, extra-biblical knowledge, but rather the knowledge of Him through His Word.
Just as Jesus spoke these words to comfort the disciples in their time of trouble, so a deeper revelation of Christ to our souls through the Scriptures will comfort us in our trials. If you’ve never read the life of Hudson Taylor, the courageous pioneer missionary to China, you’re missing a life-changing experience! His close relationship with Christ enabled him to endure overwhelming trials, including the loss of his first wife and of several children. He wrote to a fellow worker who was going through a difficult trial (Hudson Taylor and the China Inland Mission: The Growth of a Work of God, by Dr. and Mrs. Howard Taylor [The China Inland Mission], p. 236, italics his), “The one thing we need is to know God better. Not in ourselves, not in our prospects, not in heaven itself are we to rejoice, but in the Lord.” His favorite hymn was, “Jesus, I am resting, resting, in the joy of what Thou art. I am finding out the greatness of Thy loving heart.”
In John 14:22, Judas (not Iscariot) thought about Jesus’ statement that the world would no longer see Him and that He would reveal Himself to those who obey Him. So he asked, “Lord, what then has happened that You are going to disclose Yourself to us and not to the world?” The Jews thought that the Messiah would reveal Himself openly and rule over a political kingdom. Jesus’ triumphal entry had given the disciples hope that He would soon be on the throne. But they didn’t understand that in His first coming, Jesus’ kingdom was not of this world (John 18:36).
Jesus seemingly ignores Judas’ question and repeats pretty much what He has just said in verse 21: He will not reveal Himself to the rebellious world, but only to those who obey Him (cf. Matt. 13:10-13). His final warning in verse 24, “and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me,” underscores the enormity of the world’s sin in rejecting Christ. They are not only rejecting Him, but also God Himself. How could the living God make His home with such rebels? Obedient believers enjoy a relationship with God that the world cannot know.
There may also be a hint in Jesus’ answer that He will reveal Himself to the world through those who obey Him. As people see Christ in us, many will be drawn to our Savior. The fact is, we’re the only Bible that many people read. If we joyfully obey Christ and enjoy His abiding presence, we will be His channel for revealing Himself to this disobedient world.
So if you want to grow to know Christ more intimately in the coming year, figure out where you’re not obeying Him and begin to obey Him at those points. You may have some dirty closets that you need to let Him clean out. You may need to prioritize your list and begin with one or two changes before you tackle others. It sounds simplistic, but Jesus promises that we will grow to know Him more intimately by obeying Him.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
January 18, 2015
Please understand that I wasn’t reading this on my study leave last week, but in one of my “Peanuts” books, Charlie Brown and Linus are looking very serious. Violet asks, “What are you two standing here looking so worried about?” Charlie replies, “We’re afraid of the future!” She asks, “Are you worried about anything in particular?” Charlie says, “Oh, no, we’re worried about everything!” Linus adds, “Yes, our worrying is very broadminded!” (You’re a Winner, Charlie Brown! By Charles Schulz [Fawcett Crest])
It’s not news that we live in a world that gives us much to worry about. A hundred years ago, a tragedy could wipe out thousands of people on the other side of the world, and you might never hear about it. But now we hear about terrorist atrocities and other tragedies almost instantly and can watch what happened on our phones. Living in such a stressful world, we need a way to experience genuine joy and peace.
And joy and peace, which are fruits of the Spirit, should mark us as Christians. But our main reason for seeking joy and peace should not be because these qualities make life more pleasant, but rather because we want our lives to glorify God. When people ask why we’re so joyful or so calm in this troubled world, our reply should point them to the Lord Jesus Christ.
In our text, the Lord continues to give encouragement and comfort to the disciples just hours before His arrest and crucifixion. Their whole world would soon be turned upside down. Rather than being focused on Himself, the Lord’s focus was on equipping them for the trials that they would face. His words show us how to have His joy and peace in troubled times:
We can rejoice that Jesus returned to the Father, sent the Holy Spirit to teach us, and gave us His peace for our troubled times.
Jesus gives a gentle rebuke to the disciples, who were understandably troubled over the news that He was leaving them. He says (John 14:28), “You heard that I said to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.” Jesus doesn’t mean that the disciples did not love Him at all. Rather He is exposing their self-focus and their lack of understanding.
Heretical groups such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses cite Jesus’ words, “the Father is greater than I,” as proof that Jesus is not God, but their reasoning is faulty. First, you have to interpret Jesus’ meaning in light of the rest of John’s Gospel, which begins by asserting (John 1:1), “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In John 5:18-47, when the Jews accused Jesus of making Himself equal with God, He didn’t back off or correct them. Rather, He went on at length to make claims that only God can rightly make. In John 8:58, in response to the hostile attacks of the Jews, Jesus asserted, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am.”
In John 10:30, Jesus plainly asserted, “I and the Father are one.” This led the Jews to pick up stones to stone Him, charging Him with making Himself out to be God. Again, Jesus didn’t correct them, but affirmed their accusations. In John 14:9, after Philip asked Jesus to show them the Father, He replied, “Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?” In John 20:28-29, after Thomas exclaimed to the risen Savior, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus didn’t rebuke him for blasphemy, but rather commended his faith.
So to interpret correctly John 14:28, “the Father is greater than I,” we must interpret it in light of these and other affirmations of Jesus’ deity. Also, if I were soberly to say to you, “God is greater than I,” you would rightly think that I had become delusional! Just to make that comparison would be ludicrous! For Jesus even to make such a statement assumes the essential oneness between Him and the Father that He directly stated in John 10:30. (This paragraph was adapted from D. A. Carson, The Farewell Discourse and Final Prayer of Jesus [Baker], p. 80.)
So why does Jesus tell the disciples here that they should have rejoiced at the news of His departure, “for the Father is greater than I”? In His incarnation, Jesus temporarily laid aside the glory that He shared with the Father from all eternity (John 17:5). He took on the form of a servant and became obedient to death on the cross. After His resurrection, He would be restored to His glory with the Father, seated at His right hand over all authority in the universe (Eph. 1:20-22; Phil. 2:5-11), and He would send the Holy Spirit to indwell them. If the disciples had understood all of this and if their focus had been on loving Jesus rather than on themselves, they would have rejoiced over His return to the Father.
Also, even in heaven there is a hierarchy of authority. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all eternally and equally one God. Yet at the same time, the Son submits to the Father and the Spirit submits to the Father and the Son in order to carry out the divine plan. The Athanasian Creed stated that the Son is eternally begotten of the Father and the Spirit is eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son. And yet all three members of the trinity are co-eternal and co-equal, although distinguished from one another.
The practical application for us is: if Jesus is the eternal Son of God, now sitting at the Father’s right hand, then He is sovereign over all the troublesome events in this world and in your life. He has promised to work all these things together for good for those who love Him (Rom. 8:28).
In John 14:30-31, Jesus makes it clear that He was also sovereign over Satan and over His own death. Although Satan was behind the events that culminated in the cross, Satan was not over Jesus. He had nothing on Jesus because Jesus was sinless. Rather, Jesus went to the cross to show the world that He loves the Father. He had the authority to lay down His own life and to take it up again (John 10:18). This means that Satan can only touch us to the extent that Jesus allows him to do (Luke 22:31; Job 1:12).
Also, as Jesus repeats again (John 14:28), He will come again to us. This could refer to His second coming (John 14:3), to His resurrection appearances (John 14:19), or to coming to us in the person of the Holy Spirit (John 14:18, 26). All three are a source of joy for us as we face troubling times. But in light of Jesus’ mentioning His return to the Father, the reference here is probably to His promise to send the Holy Spirit.
John 14:26: “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” As the last part of that verse shows, this promise applied first and foremost to the apostles to whom Jesus spoke. Although they did not have electronic means to record Jesus’ words and play them back later, Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit would perform that function. He would bring to the disciples’ remembrance all that Jesus said to them and He would give them understanding by teaching them what these things meant. In this chapter, we have seen how Thomas, Philip, and Judas (not Iscariot) all lacked understanding (John 14:5, 8, 22). But after the Day of Pentecost, the Spirit would give them understanding and cause them to remember Jesus’ teachings. We have the apostolic testimony and understanding in the New Testament.
This means that we can have confidence that the New Testament is inspired by God. As Peter states (2 Pet. 1:16), “For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.” And, although Paul’s words (2 Tim. 3:16-17) refer primarily to the Old Testament, they also apply to the New Testament, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” The more you study the Bible, the more you realize that it is a supernatural, Spirit-inspired book.
But there is a secondary application of verse 26 for us: The indwelling Holy Spirit will teach us the meaning of Scripture and will bring that meaning to our minds at the times when we most need it. But this isn’t automatic! We have to study the Scriptures diligently and memorize as much of it as we can. We must interpret the Bible properly, comparing Scripture with Scripture in light of the context and the author’s intended meaning. We should compare our studies with that of gifted, Spirit-filled scholars to make sure that we aren’t out of line, especially on difficult texts.
But as Paul put it (1 Cor. 2:12), “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God ….” So dig into the Word and ask the Spirit to reveal to you “the things freely given to us by God.” Ask Him to bring to your remembrance the Scriptures that you have studied at the times when you need to apply them.
We can rejoice in this troubled world because Jesus has returned to the Father, where He is enthroned as Lord of all. We can rejoice because He sent the Holy Spirit to teach us.
John 14:27: “Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” What a wonderful promise from our Lord! I want to answer two questions to help us understand and apply it: What is Jesus’ peace? How can I get it when I need it?
The Lord makes it clear that His peace is different than the peace that comes from the world. The world has its own ways of attaining peace. I recently saw a news report about a middle school in San Francisco that does a half hour of transcendental meditation with all the students every day. They claim that grades have gone up and problems in the school have gone down since they began the program. So you can’t pray or read the Bible in public schools, but it’s mandatory to practice Hinduism! The cover story on last week’s Parade magazine called meditation “The #1 health-booster in 2015.” It said, “Politicians, children & celebrities are doing it—shouldn’t you?” Others seek peace through exercise, counseling, false religions, prescription drugs, illegal drugs, alcohol, or other means. But whatever the means, the world’s peace does not come from Jesus Christ or depend on Him.
“Peace” comes from the Hebrew “shalom,” which refers to general well-being or contentedness which comes from God (The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, ed. by Colin Brown [Zondervan] 2:777). D. A. Carson points out (The Gospel According to John [Apollos/Eerdmans], p. 505, “Peace is one of the fundamental characteristics of the messianic kingdom anticipated in the Old Testament (Num. 6:26; Ps. 29:11; Isa. 9:6-7; 52:7; 54:13; 57:19; Ezek. 37:26; Hag. 2:9) and fulfilled in the New (Acts 10:36; Rom. 1:7; 5:1; 14:17).” This peace is three-dimensional.
First, we enjoy peace with God because Christ bore the penalty for our sins on the cross. As Romans 5:1 states, “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” If you have trusted in Christ to save you from God’s judgment, you have eternal peace with God.
Second, we can enjoy the peace of God in the midst of life’s difficult times. This peace only comes to those who first have peace with God through faith in Christ. And, obtaining it is not automatic or effortless. Even Jesus had to wrestle to obtain it. As we have seen, Jesus was troubled as He saw the weeping at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:33). He was troubled again as He recognized that the appointed hour of the cross drew near (John 12:27). He was troubled a third time as He testified that Judas would betray Him (John 13:21). This means that the peace Jesus gives is not detachment, indifference, or aloofness from life’s problems. Jesus experienced real human emotions as He faced the cross. But through prayer (John 17 and in the Garden) and through knowing that He was doing the Father’s will, Jesus wrestled through to the place of inner peace as He faced horrific suffering and death for our sins.
So although it sounds contradictory, you’ve got to fight for this inner peace that comes from God. That’s why Jesus commands (John 14:27), “Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” You have to take control over your emotions. We see this often in the psalms, where David’s life is threatened, but he firmly fixes his heart on the Lord, even if he has to do it more than once. In Psalm 57, he was in a cave, hiding from Saul and his army that was combing the countryside looking for him to kill him. After crying out for God to be gracious to him, David affirms (Ps. 57:7), “My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises!” He has to state his resolve twice because his fears were so very real! Part of the fight also involves reciting God’s promises to give us peace (such as John 14:27 & 16:33).
The third form of God’s peace is peace with others. In Ephesians 2:14, Paul wrote, “For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall.” “Both groups” refers to the Jews and Gentiles, who, outside of Christ, were despised enemies. The dividing wall alludes to a literal wall in the temple that kept Gentiles out of the inner courtyard upon threat of death. But in Christ, both groups are now one body.
But as with inner peace, so peace with others is not automatic or effortless. It often requires a lot of time and emotional energy to work through differences and misunderstandings. It requires death to self to humbly ask forgiveness when you’re in the wrong. It can be a difficult struggle to root out bitterness and to be kind to those who have wronged you. But as Paul enjoins (Rom. 12:18), “If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.” He later adds (Rom. 14:17), “For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” And (Rom. 14:19), “So then we pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another.” So the Lord grants us His peace as a gift, but we have to pursue it to experience it!
I’ve already mentioned several ways to obtain Christ’s peace: You get peace with God through faith in Jesus Christ. You get the peace of God by taking control of your emotions through prayer and obedience to God’s will. You get peace with others through the commitment to work through relational difficulties. But let me expand briefly on some of these.
Joy and peace are fruits that grow in your life as you walk in the Spirit (Gal. 5:16, 22). But you’ve got to be cultivating these fruits before you get into life’s storms. As Proverbs 1:20-33 makes clear, wisdom cries out, calling us to learn from it. But if we refuse to listen, calamity will hit and then it will be too late to gain the peace that we desire. The time to study God’s Word and hide it in your heart is before you get into a crisis.
At the end of verse 31, Jesus says, “Get up, let us go from here.” Some think that at this point, Jesus and the disciples left the upper room and started walking towards Gethsemane. Or, as often happens when we say to our mates, “Let’s go home,” we stay and talk for another half hour. If that’s what happened, they may not have actually left the room until after Jesus’ prayer (chapter 17; cf. John 18:1). But Jesus could have said, “Get up, let’s run for our lives while we can!” Instead, He calmly went to Gethsemane and the cross because He knew that He was doing what His Father had commanded (John 14:31). The point is, if you know that you’re doing what God has commanded, you can stand firm and be calm even in the midst of fierce opposition or difficult trials.
A command and promise that you should memorize is Philippians 4:6-7: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
As many of you know, when I first came here over 22 years ago, a difficult conflict erupted between me and some elders (who are no longer here) who were pro-choice on the matter of abortion. Stan Johnson, who was then the youth pastor, stood with me against them. It all came to a head at a meeting in January, 1993, where they would have preferred to force me out of my job. I spent that day fasting and praying and the Lord gave me some assurances that He stood with me.
But as I walked up the sidewalk towards the door for that meeting, my stomach was in knots. I was reciting Philippians 4:6-7 to calm my anxiety and asking the Lord why I wasn’t experiencing His peace when two words in the verse jumped out: “with thanksgiving”! I realized that I hadn’t thanked the Lord for that trial. I stopped, bowed my head, and said, “Thank you, Lord, for this opportunity to trust You.” Immediately I had His peace. So take your anxieties to the Lord in thankful prayer!
Jesus says (John 14:29), “Now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe.” Jesus is a proven Prophet, whose every word is true. He is now exalted to the right hand of the Father, sharing again in the Father’s glory which He had with Him before the foundation of the world (John 17:5). He has authority over Satan, who is temporarily the ruler of this world (John 14:30). He has promised that He will come again in power and glory to strike down the nations with the sword that comes out of His mouth, to tread the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, and to vindicate all of His servants who have suffered for His name (Rev. 6:10; 19:15). Either you trust Him and enjoy His peace or you don’t! Which is it?
Anxiety has been described as “a thin stream of fear trickling through the mind. If encouraged, it cuts a channel into which all other thoughts are drained.” (Arthur Roche, Reader’s Digest, [6/88], p. 159.) Does that describe you? It doesn’t have to! The Lord Jesus who ascended to the Father and sent the Holy Spirit wants you to believe in Him and experience the joy and peace that He gives for all your troubled times.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
January 25, 2015
A while back someone emailed me a link to a funny video that was in German; but you didn’t need to know German to get the point. A young woman asks her father how he likes the new iPad she gave him for his birthday. He says, “Good.” But then she watches him use his iPad as a cutting board for chopping his vegetables. She is horrified as he rinses it off in the sink and puts in the dishwasher! A caption in English informs us that no I-Pads were harmed in filming the episode.
In real life, it’s no laughing matter when you see something costly not being used to fulfill its intended purpose, or even worse, being used for something contrary to its purpose. In Buena Vista, Colorado, there is an old church building that is now being used as a visitor center and museum. How sad! A place that was built so that God’s people could gather to sing His praises and to hear His Word proclaimed is now being used for a far lesser purpose!
But the saddest of all is when people who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ fail to live for the purpose for which He saved them. They drift through life like the unredeemed people around them, living to accumulate more stuff that they think will make them happier before they die. But they never stop to consider what God wants them to do with the few precious years and the gifts that He gives them.
In our text, Jesus gives the disciples an extended allegory that reveals God’s purpose in saving them: He wants them to bear much fruit. Jesus pictures Himself as the true vine, the Father as the vinedresser, and the disciples as the branches. A man plants a vineyard for a different reason than he plants a flower garden. We plant flower gardens so that we can enjoy the beautiful flowers. But if you plant a vineyard, your purpose is to harvest a crop of grapes. Your goal is that your vineyard would bear a lot of fruit. If all it produces is flowers and leaves, your efforts in planting it have failed. So the Lord’s point in John 15:1-6 is:
Christ’s true followers abide in Him as branches in the true vine and so bear much fruit.
John 15 falls into three sections that reflect our priorities as a church and as individual believers. Our first priority is God-ward, and verses 1-11 focus on our relationship with Christ. Our second priority is to love one another, which is the point of verses 12-17. Our third priority is to proclaim the good news to the world, which is the focus of verses 18-27. But the point of the allegory of the vine and the branches is that we who follow Christ would abide in Him and bear much fruit. That’s our purpose as redeemed people. So we need to understand the parts of the analogy so that we can understand how to fulfill our God-given purpose.
John 15:1: “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.” This is the seventh and final “I am” claim of Jesus in John’s Gospel (John 6:35; 8:12; 10:7, 11; 11:25; 14:6). Why would Jesus use this analogy? What would the disciples have thought when they heard Jesus make this claim?
In the Old Testament, Israel is often referred to as God’s vine that He planted. It became a national symbol that was on some of their coins. There was a golden vine over the entrance to the temple. In Isaiah 5:1-7, the prophet paints a picture of the Lord planting a vineyard and expecting to find good grapes at the harvest, but it only produced worthless grapes. As a result, the Lord threatened to destroy the vineyard because it did not fulfill His intended purpose. Psalm 80 uses a similar analogy. God removed a vine from Egypt, planted it, and for a while it was prospering. But now the hedges that protected the vine are broken down and wild animals were ravaging the vineyard. So the psalmist cries out for God to turn again and take care of this vine that He planted so that it will again be fruitful. Other Old Testament prophets use the same analogy (Jer. 2:21; 6:8-9; Ezek. 17:6-10; 19:10-14; Hos. 10:1-2). In each case, Israel was God’s vine that He planted with the intention that it would bear fruit. But, they were disobedient and unfruitful.
But now Jesus claims to be the true vine. In John’s Gospel, we have already seen that Jesus is the true temple, the dwelling place of God with His people (John 2:13-22). Also, Jesus gives living water that Jacob’s well cannot give (John 4:1-42). Further, Jesus is the new Moses who supplies God’s people with true bread that comes down from heaven to give life to all that eat of it (John 6:32-58). In John 7, Jesus fulfills and supersedes the Feast of Tabernacles. John 8 & 9 picture what John 1:9 declared, that Jesus is the true light of the world. Thus when Jesus tells the disciples that He is the true vine, He means that unlike faithless Israel, Jesus is the ideal realization of all that God intended for His people. He is the epitome of what God wanted His people to be. Jesus brought forth the fruit that Israel failed to produce.
Then Jesus adds (John 15:1b), “My Father is the vinedresser.” He owns the vineyard and He takes care of the vines. He cuts off the dead branches and prunes the ones that bear fruit so that they will bear even more fruit. He is in control of the whole process and As the owner, He expects fruit from His vineyard and He does what is necessary for it to bear fruit.
Bearing fruit is a main theme in this analogy. We see it both negatively and positively in John 15:2: “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.” The Lord also mentions bearing fruit in John 15:4 (2x), 5, 8, & 16 (2x). So, to understand this allegory, we need to know what Jesus means by fruit.
While the word is used widely in the New Testament, in this context it primarily refers to whatever the life of Christ produces in and through the believer who lives in close fellowship with Him. That includes obedience to Christ’s commandments, especially the command to love one another (John 15:10, 12). This extends to all godly behavior (Matt. 7:20; Rom. 6:21), such as repentance (Matt. 3:7) and conduct that is pleasing to the Lord (Eph. 5:9-10). It encompasses experiencing Jesus’ peace and joy (John 14:27; 15:11). Since love, joy, and peace are the first three fruits of the Spirit, we can extend the list to include the other fruits (Gal. 5:22-23): “patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” It also refers to seeing people come to Christ through your witness (John 4:36) and seeing them grow in Christ through your influence (Rom. 1:13). To sum it up, fruit is Christlike character, Christlike conduct, and Christlike converts.
Obviously, it takes time for fruit to grow. So don’t despair if you don’t see all of these qualities fully developed in your life yet. But if you are a Christian, you should see growth or progress in these things. You should be in the habit of obeying Christ. You should see the fruit of the Spirit increasing in your conduct. You should be hungering and thirsting after righteousness with increasing intensity. You should be looking for opportunities to tell others about the Savior. If you’re not seeing these fruits growing in your life, you need to figure out why not. Growth in Christlike fruit should be the normal experience of every Christian.
Also, the fruit that we produce will vary in amount and in kind according to our spiritual gifts. In the parable of the sower (Matt. 13:3-8), the good soil representing true believers bore fruit, but it varied: some bore a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty. The soil that didn’t bear any fruit represents those who did not truly believe in Christ. Also, we’re all given different spiritual gifts and so our fruit will vary in kind. Determining your spiritual gift helps you to know where you should concentrate your efforts in serving the Lord. Those gifted in service will bear fruit that is different than those with speaking gifts. Both are vital. But we all should exercise our gifts to glorify God (1 Pet. 4:10-11).
So the overall point is both clear and important: God saved you to bear fruit for Jesus Christ. If you profess to be a Christian, but you aren’t bearing fruit, you need to examine yourself and make some course corrections before it’s too late. Here’s why:
Two verses teach this: John 15:2a, “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away….” And, John 15:6, “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.” But there is debate over the meaning of these verses, so we need to examine them more carefully.
Some understand verse 2 to teach that believers may lose their salvation. I hope that I don’t need to spend much time refuting that view, since it contradicts so many clear Scriptures. After all, eternal life is eternal, not temporary. In John 6:39-40, Jesus makes it clear that He will not lose any that the Father has given to Him, but will give them eternal life and raise them up on the last day. In John 10:28-29, Jesus said of His sheep, “I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.” Other Scriptures strongly affirm that God keeps all whom He saves unto eternal life (Rom. 8:28-36; Phil. 1:6, etc.).
Others interpret John 15:2 by emphasizing the phrase, “in Me.” They understand Jesus to be referring to true believers who are in Him. They interpret the verse in one of two ways. Some say that it refers to the sin unto death, where God disciplines sinning believers by removing them from this life (1 Cor. 11:30; 1 John 5:16). The problem is, Jesus says that the Father removes every branch in Him that doesn’t bear fruit, and that doesn’t seem to happen with sinning Christians. Others point out that the verb translated “takes away” also can mean, “lifts up.” They argue that it pictures a vinedresser propping up a branch that is drooping in the mud so that it gets light and air to help it begin to bear fruit. I used to hold that view, but now in light of verse 6, I don’t think it is what Jesus meant.
In the allegory, there are two types of branches: Some do not bear fruit and some bear fruit. Those that do not bear fruit are not fulfilling their purpose. They’re dead wood. They get cut off and thrown into the fire. They represent those who profess to believe in Jesus, but their lives give no evidence of saving faith. They don’t bear fruit. In the context, it would refer to Judas Iscariot, who professed to believe, followed Jesus for three years, and went out preaching in His name, but whose real god was greed.
In support of this, in verse 3 Jesus tells the eleven, “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” That takes us back to John 13:10, where after the foot washing, Jesus said, “and you are clean, but not all of you.” John explains that He was referring to Judas as the unclean one. Judas was the unfruitful branch that was taken away and whose final end was to be cast into the fires of hell.
But then, what about the phrase “in Me”? That sounds like it describes someone who is a true believer. But this is an allegory or analogy, and you can’t press every point in such figures of speech. Also, in Matthew 3:7-10, John the Baptist reams out the Pharisees who thought that being children of Abraham would get them into God’s kingdom, even though their lives did not bear the fruit of repentance. He tells them (Matt. 3:10b), “Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
Also, in Romans 11, the apostle Paul pictures Israel as an olive tree, where some branches were broken off because of unbelief, while the believing Gentiles were grafted in. The Jewish branches who thought that they had a sure place in God’s kingdom because of their Jewish religion, but who rejected Christ, would be cut off. Only those who truly believe in Him will be saved.
Since Jesus is the true vine, the fulfillment of how Israel is pictured in the Old Testament, the branches in Him that are taken away and cast into the fire do not represent true believers, but rather those who think that they’re Christians because they go to church. But they lack the genuine evidence that they are believers; they lack the fruit of Christlikeness in their lives. They are like those that James speaks about who say they have faith, but have no works. Their claim is bogus.
But, what about the branches that do bear fruit?
Note the progression: In verse 2, the Father prunes the branches that bear fruit so that they will bear more fruit. In verse 5, the branches that abide in Christ bear much fruit. This points to the process involved in bearing fruit, which takes time. At first, you will bear some fruit. But as time goes on, you should bear more fruit. Finally, the vinedresser wants you to bear much fruit.
To accomplish this, Jesus cleans you with His word and the vinedresser prunes you. Jesus says (John 15:3), “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.” “Clean” is the noun in Greek related to the verb “prunes” in verse 2. As I understand it, Jesus is saying that the word He has spoken to them has already “cleaned” them in the sense of salvation. Their sins are forgiven. It’s comparable to the bath in John 13:10, which cleansed them all over. But the Father further “cleans” (or prunes) them repeatedly, so that they will become more fruitful. This is comparable to the repeated foot washing that is necessary to walk in fellowship with the Lord. The pruning is the essential discipline that all true children of God must experience if they are to grow “the peaceful fruit of righteousness” (Heb. 12:11).
I’m not much of a gardener and apparently neither is Bruce Wilkinson. In his book, Secrets of the Vine ([Multnomah Publishers], pp. 55-57), he tells about moving to the country one spring. The fence that he shared with his neighbor had a large grape vine on it and he and his family were looking forward to enjoying some nice grapes that fall. But a few days moving in, he noticed the neighbor out there hacking away at the vine with some large shears. He was worried that his neighbor was going to kill the vine!
Trying to be diplomatic, he walked over and asked the neighbor, “You don’t like grapes, I guess?” “Love grapes,” he replied. Bruce tried to express his hopes that they could share some of the grapes, but his confusion and disappointment over what the neighbor was doing was obvious. After observing that he was a city boy and surmising that he didn’t know much about grapes, the neighbor explained, “Well, son, we can either grow ourselves a lot of beautiful leaves filling up this whole fence line. Or we can have the biggest, juiciest, sweetest grapes you and your family have ever seen. We just can’t have both.” He knew that to bear good fruit, that vine had to be pruned.
And you can’t bear fruit for the Lord unless the heavenly Gardener prunes your life. Pruning isn’t very pleasant when it happens, but it yields a bigger, better crop of fruit in the long run. The fact is, when we come into the Christian life, we all bring a lot of the flesh and the world with us. God is gracious not to hack it all away at once, or we’d bleed to death! But if you want to be like Christ, it’s got to go. If that sounds unpleasant, keep in mind that His aim is that His joy would be in us and our joy would be made full (John 15:11). But you’ve got to submit to the pruning process, trusting that the Father knows what He’s doing.
But there’s one other key concept in these verses that shows our responsibility if we want to bear fruit:
The verb “abide” (or, “remain”) is used 11 times in John 15, 40 times in John’s Gospel, and 27 times in John’s epistles (Edwin Blum, The Bible Knowledge Commentary, ed. by John Walvoord and Roy Zuck [Victor Books], 2:325). The sense of Jesus’ words (John 15:4), “Abide in Me, and I in you,” is probably, “Abide in me, and see that I abide in you” (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 670). In other words, “Live in such a manner that you are at home in Me and that I am at home in you.” It’s much the same as in John 14:23, where Jesus said that both He and the Father would come to the one who keeps His word and make their home with him.
Inherent in that concept is that we are in a long-term, close, growing relationship with Jesus Christ (see James Rosscup, Abiding in Christ [Zondervan], pp. 108-109). Jesus is looking at the overall direction of our lives. To know Him as Savior and Lord means that we invite Him to move into our lives and live there as the permanent Lord of all we are and do (Eph. 3:17). As He lives there, we don’t do anything that would make Him uncomfortable to be there. We let Him clean out the garbage that offends Him. The longer He lives with us, the closer we grow to know and love Him. As we saw in John 14:21, Jesus promises to love and to disclose Himself to the one who has and obeys His commandments.
The abiding relationship also implies dependence on Christ, as His words (John 15:5) indicate, “For apart from Me, you can do nothing.” He means that apart from dependence on Him, we can’t bear good fruit that remains (John 15:16). But abiding is not an effortless, passive matter, as it sometimes is taught: “Just as the branch effortlessly lets the life of the vine flow through it, so you are to do nothing.” I’ve heard it said, “If you’re striving, you’re not abiding.” That kind of teaching is out of balance. The Bible talks about the need to strive against sin (Heb. 12:4). Paul said that he labored and strived for Christ, but added that he did so “according to His power, which mightily works within me” (Col. 1:29). He pictured the Christian life as a battle, a fight, and an athletic contest (Eph. 6:10-12, 1 Cor. 9:26-27; 2 Tim. 4:7).
The New Schofield Reference Bible ([Oxford University Press], p. 1148) helpfully explains what it means to abide:
To abide in Christ is, on the one hand, to have no known sin unjudged and unconfessed, no interest into which He is not brought, no life which He cannot share. On the other hand, the abiding one takes all burdens to Him, and draws all wisdom, life, and strength from Him. It is not unceasing consciousness of these things, and of Him, but that nothing is allowed in the life which separates from Him.
So our Lord’s words should cause us all to ask, “Am I bearing fruit for His kingdom? Am I joyfully submitting to His loving pruning in my life? Am I daily abiding in Christ, making Him at home in my heart?” That’s the purpose for which He saved you. Don’t live for anything less!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
February 8, 2015
Every Christian longs to know Jesus Christ more intimately. The apostle Paul said that he counted everything else as rubbish so that he could know Christ (Phil. 3:7-10). Although he had been a believer for about 25 years when he wrote that, he added that he had not yet obtained his goal, but he pressed on toward the mark. If Paul still needed to grow after 25 years as a believer, then certainly we all need to work at growing closer to Jesus Christ.
That’s the topic that our Lord covers in our text on the night before He died. The overall theme is “abiding” in Him. We could call it dwelling in Him or making Him at home in our hearts. The idea is to grow closer to Christ, where we live daily in fellowship with Him. In John 15:1-5, Jesus used the analogy of the vine and the branches to teach that His true followers abide in Him and so bear much fruit. Now He fleshes out five aspects of how we can grow closer to Him:
To grow closer to Christ, abide in Him, in His word, and in prayer; live to glorify the Father by bearing fruit; abide in His love; obey His commandments; and stay focused on His joy.
John 15:7: “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” We saw Jesus’ similar promise in John 14:13-14, “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.” To ask in Jesus’ name means to ask on the basis of who He is and what He has done for us on the cross. It assumes that we’re seeking to do His will and to promote His kingdom purposes.
In John 15:7, rather than asking in Jesus’ name, the condition that Jesus lays down is that we must abide in Him and His words must abide in us. While similar to asking in His name, the nuance is slightly different.
In our last study, I cited this description of abiding in Christ (The New Scofield Reference Bible [Oxford University Press], p. 1148):
To abide in Christ is, on the one hand, to have no known sin unjudged and unconfessed, no interest into which He is not brought, no life which He cannot share. On the other hand, the abiding one takes all burdens to Him, and draws all wisdom, life, and strength from Him. It is not unceasing consciousness of these things, and of Him, but that nothing is allowed in the life which separates from Him.
Dr. James Rosscup wrote an entire book, Abiding in Christ [Zondervan]. He notes (pp. 106-126) that it includes both the concept of time and that of quality. The time factor means that this isn’t a quick fix to solve all your problems. It isn’t a remedy to pull off the shelf when things aren’t going well, only to be put back on the shelf once life is back on track. Abiding in Christ is a lifelong relationship with Him. You’re in it for the long haul.
The quality factor means that the relationship grows more intimate over the years. Just as marriage is a lifelong relationship where both partners should grow closer to one another over the years, so it should be with Christ. But as those who have been married for very long know, growing closer isn’t automatic. It requires purposefully spending time together. You have to keep working through issues that come up. If you don’t work at it, it’s easy to drift apart. The same is true of abiding in Christ. There will be times when you feel closer and times when you feel more distant. But the key is to keep coming back to Him and to keep working on your relationship with Him. You can’t put it on autopilot.
“My words” refers to all that Jesus taught. But since all of the Old Testament was written to point to Christ (Luke 24:27, 44) and all of the New Testament points to Him, letting His words abide in us means being at home with the Bible. The primary way that Christ reveals Himself to us is not through dreams and visions, but through the written Word of God. If a dream or vision contradicts what the Bible says, then it is not from God. So if you want to grow closer to Jesus Christ, spend much time in His word, asking the Holy Spirit to reveal more of Christ to you. To grow closer to Jesus Christ, read your Bible over and over until you are at home with it.
Jesus says that if we abide in Him and His words abide in us, then “ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” The context here is bearing fruit for His kingdom purposes. So “whatever you wish” is not a blanket promise that covers, “Lord, I wish for a million dollars! I wish for a happy, trouble-free life!” Rather, Jesus is talking about whatever we wish to help further His kingdom purposes through us.
But, as I pointed out when I spoke on John 14:13-14, these seemingly blanket promises that Jesus repeats (also, John 15:16; 16:23-24; Mark 11:24) are not easy to understand and apply, even if we limit them to prayer for His kingdom purposes. I’ve prayed for the salvation of some who died without Christ. I’ve prayed for healing for Christian marriages that ended in divorce. I’ve prayed for restoration for believers who are sinning, but they haven’t come back to Christ. In that message (12/14/14, on fcfonline.org), I offered the following thoughts on how to wrestle with this problem:
First, the tension we experience stems from the fact that we can know God’s will of desire, but we can’t know His will of decree. While God desires the sanctification of all believers (1 Thess. 4:3), He also permits sin and can even use our sins for ultimate good. Jesus prayed for Peter, not that he wouldn’t fall, but that his recovery from that fall would be used to strengthen others (Luke 22:31-32). We should pray that God would further His kingdom purposes, but we also need to submit to the fact that we don’t know His will of decree in any situation.
Second, Jesus’ promise to do whatever we ask does not negate the many Scriptures that exhort us to wait on the Lord. Jesus doesn’t say when He will do it. Paul’s longing and prayer for his fellow Jews was for their salvation (Rom. 10:1), but he never saw that prayer answered.
Third, God often accomplishes His purposes in ways that seem backwards to us. We pray for the gospel to spread, so God sends persecution. We pray for power, so God makes us weak (2 Cor. 12:9).
Fourth, we do not understand all that God is doing, so we may go to our graves not knowing why He seemingly didn’t answer our prayers. We only see a tiny fraction of what God is accomplishing in His eternal purpose. Somehow, though, He uses our prayers in that process, even when we don’t know how to pray as we should (Rom. 8:26).
But Jesus’ point in John 15:7 is that if we live closely with Him and His word governs our requests, we should be asking and receiving answers from Him on a regular basis. One of the most helpful treatments of prayer that I’ve read is that of John Calvin in The Institutes of the Christian Religion [Westminster Press]. Here is one rich quote that you can chew on for a long time (3:20:1):
But after we have been instructed by faith to recognize that whatever we need and whatever we lack is in God, and in our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom the Father willed all the fullness of his bounty to abide [cf. Col. 1:19; John 1:16] so that we may all draw from it as from an overflowing spring, it remains for us to seek in him, and in prayers to ask of him, what we have learned to be in him.
So to grow closer to Christ, abide in Him, in His word, and in prayer.
John 15:8: “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.” As we saw in our last study, the purpose for which God saved us is that we would bear much fruit. The point of planting a vineyard is not to grow pretty leaves, but to grow fruit. While God has given each of us different gifts, we are to use those gifts to bear fruit for His kingdom.
I’m not much of a gardener or botanist, but I can identify some types of trees. We were driving in Phoenix recently and I saw a tree loaded with round orange things and I concluded, “That’s an orange tree!” I’ve seen trees with round red things on them and I correctly concluded, “Those are apple trees!” You say, “Well, duh! Anyone can identify a tree by its fruit.” Yes. As I recall, Jesus said something like that (Matt. 7:20; Luke 6:44). It’s true, but it’s also kind of convicting! Someone should be able to look at your life and say, “Aha! That’s a Christian!” They should know by our fruit that we follow Jesus.
Since God saved us so that we would be fruitful for His purposes, it’s important to know what fruit is. Generally, fruit is Christlikeness produced in us as we rely on the Holy Spirit. Just as an orange tree bears oranges, not thistles, so a Christian produces Christlikeness. At the root of this is not just going to church or serving in the church or being a moral or religious person, but having Christ dwell in you through the new birth. If you haven’t trusted in Christ to save you from your sins, you can’t bear fruit in your life that glorifies Him.
I trust that you know: the chief end of man is that we glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Jesus says that we will glorify God when we bear much fruit. As others see what God produces in and through us as we live closely with the Lord Jesus, they will get a glimpse of what He is like. More specifically, when people see the fruit of the Holy Spirit, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control,” in us (Gal. 5:22-23), God will be glorified.
To bear fruit that glorifies God, it’s important to keep two things in mind: First, check your motives. Why do you want to bear fruit? It’s easy to fall into the trap of serving the Lord so that others will say nice things to you and about you. If you feel hurt when people don’t give you enough praise, it probably indicates that you were not serving for God’s glory, but for your own glory. Or, if you want to build an impressive ministry so that others will say, “What a great man of God!” your motives are wrong, because you’re seeking your own glory, not God’s glory.
Second, check your source of power. If you’re serving the Lord in your own strength and just asking Him for a little help now and then, you’re not serving in His power. Serving in His power doesn’t mean that you don’t work hard, but rather that you work hard as you rely on God’s power. Paul put it (Col. 1:29), “For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.” If you feel burned out, chances are you were serving in your power, not in God’s power.
But there’s a benefit when you glorify God by bearing fruit: Jesus says (John 15:8b) that you “so prove to be My disciples.” J. C. Ryle applies it (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], p. 105), “Fruitfulness in Christian practice will not only bring glory to God, but will supply the best evidence to our own hearts that we are real disciples of Christ.” He means, when you see God work through you and you realize that the results are not because of your cleverness or hard work, but rather, because God worked through you, it assures your heart that you are a true disciple of Jesus Christ.
Thus, to grow closer to Christ, abide in Him and in His word, asking and receiving from Him through prayer. Live to glorify the Father by bearing much fruit.
John 15:9: “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.” What a staggering statement! Just as the Father has perfectly loved the Son throughout all eternity, never wavering in His love, so Jesus loves His people! That’s the greatest motive for why we should want to grow closer to Christ: He loves us with infinite, inexhaustible love! As the hymn puts it, “O, the deep, deep, love of Jesus!” Or as Paul puts it (Gal. 2:20), “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”
Abiding in Christ’s love is absolutely essential if you want a genuine, fresh, and fruitful Christian life. If your experience of His love fades, His commandments will seem burdensome, serving Him will become drudgery, and you’ll become vulnerable to all sorts of temptations. Remember how the Lord confronted the church at Ephesus? They were serving Him. They were persevering under persecution. They were upholding sound doctrine. But the Lord said, (Rev. 2:4), “But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.” He was probably referring to their love for Him. But the way you keep your love for Christ fresh is to remember His great love for you. Never get over the wonder that the eternal Son of God loved you and gave Himself for you! As Paul prayed for the Ephesians (Eph. 3:17-19):
… that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
But we need to think this through a bit more carefully. Often Christians doubt Christ’s love when they go through difficult trials. They mistakenly think, “If God really loved me, He wouldn’t allow these awful things to happen to me!” But Jesus says here that just as the Father loved Him, so He loves us. Did the Father’s perfect love for the Son mean that He spared Him from trials? No, He came to do the Father’s will, namely, the cross. So, does the Lord’s perfect love for you mean that He will spare you from all trials? No, because it’s usually through such trials that we come to know Him more deeply. It’s what Paul called “the fellowship of His sufferings” (Phil. 3:10). So as someone has said, “Never interpret God’s love by your circumstances; rather, interpret your circumstances by God’s love.”
John 15:10: “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” Jesus doesn’t let us think that abiding in His love is just a warm, fuzzy feeling. He plainly states that to abide in His love, you must keep His commandments. The flip side is, you’re not abiding in His love if you’re living in disobedience to His commandments.
It’s relatively easy to obey the Lord when things are going well. But the test of obedience is when He takes you through difficult trials. At such times, you may not understand why these trials are happening, but like Abraham walking to Mount Moriah to sacrifice Isaac, you have to trust Him and obey.
Elisabeth Elliot lost her first husband, Jim Elliot, to Auca Indian spears. She lost her second husband, Addison Leitch, to cancer. In an address to the Urbana Missions Conference (December, 1976), she told of being in Wales and watching a shepherd and his dog. The dog would herd the sheep up a ramp and into a tank of antiseptic where they had to be bathed. The sheep struggled to climb out, but the dog would snarl and snap in their faces to force them back in. Just as they were about to come up out of the tank, the shepherd used a wooden implement to grab the rams by the horns, fling them back into the tank, and hold them under the antiseptic again for a few seconds.
Mrs. Elliot asked the shepherd’s wife if the sheep understood what was happening. She replied, “They haven’t got a clue.” Mrs. Elliot then said, “I’ve had some experiences in my life that have made me feel very sympathetic to those poor rams—I couldn’t figure out any reason for the treatment I was getting from the Shepherd I trusted. And He didn’t give a hint of explanation.” But, she pointed out, we still must trust our Shepherd and obey Him, knowing that He has our best interests at heart. It’s through obedience in times of suffering that we grow closer to our Savior, who suffered and died for us.
So, to grow closer to Christ, abide in Him, in His word, and in prayer; live to glorify the Father by bearing much fruit; abide in Christ’s love; and obey His commandments. Finally …
John 15:11: “These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.” If I were to ask, “What word pops into your mind when I say, ‘obedience’?” what would you say? Duty? Drudgery? Rules? No fun? What about, “joy”? What about “fullness of joy”? Jesus associates obedience with our experiencing full joy in Him (John 15:10-11). If you don’t associate obedience and fullness of joy, maybe you need to change your thinking!
It’s interesting that in John’s Gospel, the word “joy” has only been used once so far (in John 3:29 by John the Baptist). But in the upper room as Jesus faces the cross, He uses it seven times (twice here; John 16:20, 21, 22, 24; 17:13; Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 674). The world can only offer joy when things are going well. It’s relatively easy to be full of joy when you have a happy marriage, beautiful children, a satisfying, well-paying job, and good health.
But it’s only those who know Christ who can say (Rom. 5:3), “We exult in our tribulations”; or (James 1:3), “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials”; or (1 Pet. 4:13), “To the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation.” This doesn’t mean putting on a happy face when you’re hurting inside. Hebrews 12:11 realistically says that God’s discipline for the moment does not seem joyful, but sorrowful. The Bible acknowledges that there is a time for tears and grieving (Rom. 12:15; 1 Thess. 4:13; John 11:35). But John Newton said it well (“Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken”):
Fading is the world’s best pleasure,
All its boasted pomp and show;
Solid joys and lasting treasure
None but Zion’s children know.
I want you to think about your relationship with Christ. If you don’t have one, you can begin by coming to the cross as a repentant sinner and believing in His death and resurrection for you. If your love for Jesus has grown lukewarm or cold, get back into His Word and prayer this week. Make it a daily priority. Make it your aim to live to glorify the Father by bearing much fruit. Dwell in Christ’s love; obey His commandments; and stay focused on His joy. These are Christ’s prescription for you to grow closer to Him.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
February 15, 2015
Friends are an important and wonderful part of life. In seminary, Dr. Howard Hendricks told us, “Two things will most influence where you’ll be at ten years out of seminary: the books you read and the friends you make.” He added, “Choose them both very carefully!” Of course, that was long before Facebook came into existence, where you can “friend” just about everything and everyone you want!
But by far, the most important friend that you can have is the Lord Jesus. A number of hymns celebrate this wonderful truth:
“What a friend we have in Jesus!”
“Jesus! What a friend for sinners, Jesus lover of my soul!”
“I’ve found a friend, O, such a friend! He loved me ere I knew Him.”
“I’ve found a friend who is all to me, His love is ever true.”
“There’s not a friend like the lowly Jesus, no not one, no not one!”
But as D. A. Carson cautions (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 522), we need to be careful about being too chummy in calling Jesus our friend. In the Bible, God and the Lord Jesus call certain ones their friends, but no human ever refers to God or Jesus as their friend. It’s not a mutual, reciprocal friendship. The Bible refers to both Abraham (2 Chron. 20:7; Isa. 41:8; James 2:23) and Moses (Exod. 33:11) as friends of God. Jesus here calls the disciples His friends. But He is still their Lord and Teacher (John 13:13, 14). Although at the last supper, the apostle John laid his head on Jesus’ breast, years later when John saw Jesus in His glory, he fell at His feet as a dead man (Rev. 1:17). So as we consider whether or not we are friends of Jesus, we need to maintain John’s reverence.
The question I’d like you to think about and ask yourself is, “Would Jesus call me His friend?” Our text reveals four characteristics of those whom Jesus calls His friends:
Friends of Jesus love one another, obey His commandments, understand His truths, and are chosen to bear fruit that remains.
(For a somewhat similar treatment of this text, see John MacArthur on gty.org. I read his sermon after developing my own outline and content.)
Before we look at these characteristics, you need to know that Jesus is not automatically your friend or everyone’s friend. You especially need to know this if you’re inclined to think that you’re His friend because you’re a good person. The Bible teaches that by nature we’re all God’s enemies because He is holy and we all have sinned (see Rom. 8:7; James 4:4; 1 Pet. 5:5). The bad news is that you can’t have a worse enemy than God, because He always wins!
But the good news is that God sent Jesus to reconcile rebellious sinners to Himself (2 Cor. 5:18-19). The self-righteous, religious crowd scoffed that Jesus was a friend of sinners (Luke 5:29-32; 7:34; 15:1-2). But He gladly accepted that label, explaining that He didn’t come to call the righteous (in the context, He means “self-righteous”), but sinners to repentance (Luke 5:32). So the first step to being called the friend of Jesus is to come to Him as a helpless sinner, asking Him to save you. Once you’ve done that, then you can consider these characteristics of Jesus’ friends and seek to grow in them.
John 15:12-13, 17: “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends…. This I command you, that you love one another.”
If these commands sound vaguely familiar, it’s because Jesus already said (John 13:34-35), “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” Why would Jesus repeat this command on the same night? He repeated it because He was the master teacher and He knew that repetition is the key to learning, especially learning something that isn’t easy. It takes more than one hammer blow to sink a nail. It takes more than saying it once for us to learn to love one another!
During the last supper, the disciples got into an argument about which of them was the greatest (Luke 22:24). While we can sit as armchair quarterbacks and say, “What a petty squabble!” the embarrassing truth is that many of our conflicts stem from the same self-centered motives. As James (4:1-2) says, “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel.” The Lord knew our propensity towards selfishness, so during His final hours with the disciples He hammered on this command to love one another. He wanted them to remember this one thing, because love is not optional for those who follow Jesus (1 Cor. 13). Note three things:
Just as He stated when He gave His new commandment (John 13:34), so here Jesus repeats, “… just as I have loved you.” Jesus’ love for us is most vividly seen at the cross, where He offered Himself as the sacrifice for our sins (Gal. 2:20; Eph. 5:2). We can define Jesus’ love as “a self-sacrificing, caring commitment that shows itself in seeking the highest good of the one loved.” The highest good for all people is that they would have their sins forgiven and receive eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. And, once a person has come to know Christ, his highest good is that he be conformed to the image of Christ. Those goals should be our aim in all of our relationships.
Because love is primarily a commitment and not a feeling, it can be commanded. The Bible does command certain feelings, for example, “Rejoice always” (1 Thess. 5:16). Or, “Be anxious for nothing” (Phil. 4:6). And love should not be devoid of feelings. It is a caring commitment; people should feel our genuine feelings of love for them. But even when we don’t feel especially loving, we need to obey God by sacrificing ourselves for the sake of others. I’m sure that the cross didn’t feel good at the moment, but Jesus endured it because He was focused on the future joy of having us with Him in heaven for all eternity (Heb. 12:2).
In verse 13, Jesus says, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” Some have said, “To lay down your life for your enemies is greater than doing it for your friends.” Paul points out (Rom. 5:8-10) that this is in fact what Jesus did: He died for us while we were still His enemies. And in another context, Jesus commanded that we love our enemies (Matt. 5:44). But in this context, Jesus is speaking about love among friends. He will demonstrate His love for the disciples the next day on the cross. That’s the high standard for our love for one another. Of course, we can never die as a substitute to save others from their sins, as Jesus did. But He sets the standard for our love as laying down our lives for one another.
Every once in a while I’ll read a story about someone who literally sacrificed his life to save someone else, maybe on the battlefield or to rescue a drowning person or to save someone inside a burning building. While not giving their lives, I’ve read about people who have donated a kidney for a perfect stranger. And I’ve thought, “Would I do that?”
You can sit around and speculate about whether you would do such heroic deeds if you were thrust into those situations, but the place we all need to apply this is by confronting our selfishness in small, daily matters. Husbands are commanded to love their wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her (Eph. 5:25). Do you? You say, “Oh, sure, I’d die to save my wife from an intruder that was trying to kill her.” But do you die to yourself so that you can serve her? Do you turn off the TV or leave the computer and help her clean up the kitchen or get the kids into bed? Do you give up your own pursuits because you delight to be with her? It’s in these small, daily ways that we should be practicing sacrificial love for one another.
In John 15:9, Jesus said, “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.” Now Jesus applies abiding in His love to our relationships to one another. Abiding in His love is the key to loving our brothers and sisters in Christ. These, of course, are the two great commandments that sum up the law and the prophets (Matt. 22:37-40), that we are to love God and love our neighbor. But the point here is that it is God’s great love for us, as seen in giving His own Son while we were yet His enemies, that motivates us to love others.
Also, note that in John 15:17, Jesus repeats the command for us to love one another immediately after He has repeated the concept that He saved us so that we would bear fruit. The two are intertwined. When He gave His new commandment (John 13:35), Jesus said that others would know that we are His disciples by our love for one another. Here, He ties our ability to bear fruit with His command that we love one another. As people see the love between Christians, they will be drawn to the source of our love, our Savior who gave Himself for us on the cross.
But sadly, the church has often failed on this matter. I never read it, but years ago Leslie Flynn wrote a book with an intriguing title, Great Church Fights. I’m sure that he had to choose his material selectively, because there have been thousands of “great” church fights! And on a lesser scale, there have been tens of thousands of conflicts among believers over relatively petty matters. It’s always grievous and a black eye for the name of Christ when believers don’t judge their selfishness and work through conflicts out of obedience to Christ’s command to love one another.
“But,” you say, “you don’t know how difficult that other person is to love!” That leads to the third thing here:
It is both interesting and instructive that Jesus did not pick a homogeneous, cohesive group for His apostolic band. Most glaringly, He picked Matthew the tax collector and Simon the Zealot! The Zealots were a radical political party whose main objective was getting Roman rule out of the Holy Land. And they viewed tax collectors as despicable traitors who had sold their souls to Rome. They took advantage of their fellow Jews by milking them for excessive taxes that they pocketed. I don’t know whether Jesus picked Matthew first or Simon the Zealot first, but it’s humorous to think of what the one who was already an apostle must have thought when Jesus picked the other one! “What was He thinking?” And then Jesus commanded them to love one another!
He still does that, you know! He picks people for His church that I never would have picked and He commands me (and you) to love them. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to like them, but you do have to say no to your selfishness to help them become what the Lord wants them to be. Friends of Jesus love one another, just as He loved us.
John 15:14: “You are My friends if you do what I command you.” This repeats the thought of John 15:10, “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” It doesn’t mean that obedience makes you Jesus’ friend, as if it were earned. Rather, it describes what Jesus’ friends do: they obey Him. He isn’t friends with any who live in disobedience or self-will. As we saw in John 14:21, 23, the Lord will disclose Himself to and make His home with those who keep His commandments.
On one occasion, Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived to see Him at a time when people had crowded into a house to listen to Him. When someone told Jesus that His mother and brothers were outside looking for Him, He gave an answer that must have jolted them (Mark 3:33), “Who are My mother and My brothers?” Then, looking around at those who were listening receptively to His teaching, Jesus continued to shock by answering His own question (Mark 3:34-35), “Behold My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is My brother and sister and mother.” Jesus’ true friends are those who obey Him. Do you qualify?
John 15:15: “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.” Even though Jesus here elevates the disciples from being slaves to being friends, the master-slave relationship is not eradicated. Just a few sentences later (John 15:20) Jesus implies that He is the master and they are His slaves. Paul, James, and Peter later delighted to call themselves “slaves of Jesus Christ” (Rom. 1:1; James 1:1; 2 Pet. 1:1; “bond-servant” is literally, “slave”).
A master could command a slave, “Fix dinner for 50 guests tomorrow,” but he didn’t need to explain why he was having so many for dinner. But a master who viewed himself as a friend to his slave would have explained the situation behind such a large dinner party. Jesus’ point in our text is that He has openly shared with the disciples the things that He has heard from the Father. By “all things,” He means all things necessary for them to know at this point. He later (John 16:12) tells them that He has many more things to tell them, but they could not bear them yet. After the resurrection, He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures in ways that they could not understand before His death (Luke 24:45).
Now we have the Holy Spirit and the Spirit-inspired Word of God to reveal to us all that we need to know for life and godliness (John 14:26; 16:13; 1 Cor. 2:9-13; 2 Pet. 1:3-4). If you know Christ, you know things that the most brilliant scientists and philosophers in the world don’t understand! You know the living and true God, who spoke the universe into existence! You know His plan for history. You know how to have your sins forgiven. You know why He put you on this planet. You know that you will spend eternity with Him in glory. You know how He wants you to conduct yourself in all of life’s difficult situations. All of this and more is revealed to us in God’s inspired Word!
So, friends of Jesus love one another, just as He loved us. They obey His commandments. They understand the truths that He has made known to us from the Father. Finally,
John 15:16: “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.” Note three things:
Probably Jesus’ primary reference here is to choosing these men as His apostles, not to their election to salvation (even Calvin says so!). But the Bible is abundantly clear that God both chooses us for salvation and also sovereignly determines our spiritual gifts and station in life (1 Thess. 1:4; 2 Thess. 2:13; 1 Cor. 12:11, 28). If it had been left up to us, none of us in our proud, fallen, rebellious state would have chosen Christ. Rather, the Father graciously drew us to Him and opened our blind eyes to see the glory of Jesus (John 6:44, 65; 2 Cor. 4:4-6).
But why does Jesus mention this truth here? D. A. Carson (The Farewell Discourse and Final Prayer of Jesus [Baker], p. 107) points out that “often in John’s Gospel election is introduced just at the point where human arrogance may need a gentle lesson in humility (e.g., 6:70; 13:18).” He adds, “This truth is of overwhelming importance if we hope to escape the puffy spiritual arrogance that talks almost as if Jesus has been blessed by our presence, as if we have done him a favor by choosing him.” He adds that while we are responsible to repent and believe the gospel, no one in heaven will be able to claim that he made it because he made the right choice. As Paul told the proud Corinthians, God chose them as foolish, weak, unimportant people, “so that no man may boast before God” (1 Cor. 1:29; cf. 1:26-31). If you’re a friend of Jesus, it’s because He chose you. That’s why you chose Him.
“Fruit” here mostly likely refers to converts who come to Christ through the proclamation of the gospel. They will remain because Jesus promises to keep them (John 6:39, 40). A main reason that God chose to save you is that you would help bring others to know the Savior. As Paul put it (2 Tim. 2:10), “For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.” Paul suffered so that God’s elect would hear the gospel and be saved. That should be our aim as well.
In the Greek text, there are two parallel clauses. The first shows why God chose and appointed the disciples; the second shows how that purpose would be fulfilled. We could paraphrase it, “I chose and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, abiding fruit, which you will do by asking the Father in My name.” While it’s good to receive training in how to share your faith, we always need to keep in mind that making converts who go on with Christ is not dependent on our methods or on using sales techniques to close the deal. Only God can produce a convert who abides and He does it through the supernatural new birth. He has to give life to the spiritually dead. So prayer is the God-given necessity behind evangelism. Before you talk to a person about God, talk to God about the person.
If you haven’t done so, make a list of the people in your daily life who don’t know Christ and begin to pray for their salvation. Understand that you may be the means that God uses to bring them to salvation! So always be alert for opportunities to turn the conversation to eternal issues. Be equipped to know some verses to explain the gospel clearly. But prayer is the foundation for bearing fruit that remains.
So, would Jesus call you His friend? He would if you are loving others, especially those in your home and in the church. He would if you are seeking to obey His commandments. He would if you are growing to understand the truths revealed by the Holy Spirit in God’s Word. And He would if you know that He chose you to bear fruit that remains and you’re seeking to bear that fruit through prayer. And if you wonder, “How do I know if God has chosen me?” the answer is, “Have you believed in Jesus as your Savior and Lord?” If you have, that didn’t come from you! You believed in Him because in love He chose you before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4). That way, He gets all the glory!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
February 22, 2015
If you know that you’re going to face a difficult situation, it’s helpful to have some idea in advance of what you’ll be in for. I’ve told you before about a funny event that happened when I was in Coast Guard boot camp. A guy showed up for boot camp with his water skis and fishing pole because a recruiter had told him that boot camp was on an island (true) and that you could water ski and fish in the estuary surrounding the island (true, if “you” is understood to mean, “a person technically could do those things”). But if “you” meant “you personally,” it was about the furthest thing imaginable from the truth!
The recruiter conveniently failed to tell this naïve recruit that the first day of boot camp, they issued your uniform and made you ship home all of your civilian clothes, including your underwear, along with your comb, shampoo, and all toiletries, except for a razor and shaving cream. You wouldn’t need your comb and shampoo after they gave you the boot camp haircut, which came next, because you would have no hair! Also, they controlled your life all day and all night. If they wanted to wake up everyone at 2 a.m. and have you march or stand in formation in the cold, they could do that. For the next nine weeks, you were not in control of your life—they were! If that recruit had been told anything close to the truth, he might not have signed up. (I joined because it was better than being drafted and sent to Viet Nam.) But for sure, he wouldn’t have shown up with his water skis and fishing pole!
The problem is, some Christian “recruiters” (also called, “evangelists”) entice you to sign up by describing all the wonderful benefits that you’re going to receive: “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life!” That sounds pretty good! And, Jesus promises an abundant life to all who follow Him! “Yeah, I could use more abundance in my life!” And so you sign up for the program, not realizing that while there are many benefits in following Jesus, there are also many trials and persecutions (Mark 10:28-30).
Jesus knew that after He left the disciples to return to heaven, they would face some difficult opposition from the world. Maybe, because He had just told them that they would do even “greater works” than He did (John 14:12), they were envisioning receptive crowds and smooth sailing ahead. But the reality was, they would face some severe persecution, not just from the pagan world, but also from the religious crowd. The Lord wanted them to know what to expect from the world and how to respond to the hostility that they would experience. His message is:
While the world hates believers, we should testify to the world of the truth about Jesus Christ.
These verses present a sober, even grim, picture, except for what has gone on before: Because we enjoy Christ’s love and joy (John 15:1-11) and because we are members of the loving family of God (John 15:12-17), we can endure the hostility of the world. But we need to be prepared for it so that we’re not shocked when it happens. Our text falls into two sections: The world’s hatred of Christians (John 15:18-25); and our responsibility to the hostile world, namely, to bear witness of Christ (John 15:26-27).
There are five things to note about the world’s hatred:
Note the contrast between verses 17 & 18: Christians are to be known for their love, but the world is known for its hatred. Jesus emphasizes “world,” using it six times in verses 18 & 19. The world refers to the organized system under Satan’s domain that is opposed to God and His rightful King, Jesus Christ. In 1 John 5:19, the apostle draws the contrast: “We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.”
Of course, if you were to go out and ask people on the street, “Do you hate Jesus Christ?” most would answer, “No, I don’t have anything against Jesus. He was a great moral teacher.” If you asked, “Do you follow the devil” they would strongly exclaim, “There’s no way that I follow the devil! I’m not a Satan-worshiper!” They don’t follow Jesus, but they aren’t openly opposed to Him, either. And they aren’t aware that they’re following the devil, even though they are. They subscribe to godless values. They ignore God in their daily lives, unless they get into a crisis where they suddenly decide to pray. But the average unbeliever isn’t going to say, “I hate Jesus and I hate Christians!” He’s just living his life as he sees fit and is content to let religious people follow Jesus if they want to.
But Jesus says (John 15:18), “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you.” “If” is not uncertain; it’s a Greek construction that means, “If the world hates you, and it will”. The Lord wants us to know that behind the world’s hatred for us is its hatred for Him. And, as He adds (John 15:23), “He who hates Me hates My Father also.” You can’t separate Jesus from the Father.
But, you may wonder, why does Jesus say that the world hates both Him and the Father, as well as all believers, when most unbelievers would say that they don’t have anything against Jesus or against Christians? In Matthew 12:30, Jesus draws a similar line: “He who is not with Me is against Me.” He paints the contrast in black and white to draw a distinct line to show that you must take sides. There is no gray zone. Either you love Jesus and His Father and all who follow Jesus, or you hate them all, whether you admit it or not! The boat is leaving the dock. Either you’re on board or you’re not, but you can’t straddle both!
D. A. Carson (Jesus’ Farewell Discourse and Final Prayer [Baker], pp. 116-117) points out that we see the world’s hatred in those who claim to be liberal and tolerant of differing viewpoints, but who are not so tolerant when it comes to Christian absolutes. He states,
They demonstrate their forbearance and large-hearted goodness when they confront diverse opinions, varied lifestyles and even idiotic practices. But if some Christian claims that Christianity is exclusive (as Jesus insisted), or that moral absolutes exist because they are grounded in the character of God (as the Bible teaches), or that there is a hell to be shunned as well as a heaven to be gained, the most intemperate language is used to excoriate the poor fool. The world hates.
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.” Jesus adds (John 15:24): “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.”
What does Jesus mean? Obviously He doesn’t mean that those who have never heard of Him or His miracles are sinless. The Bible is clear that all people, even those who have never heard of Jesus, are guilty sinners before God (Rom. 3:10-18). All people have evidence that there is a Creator by looking at His creation, but they “suppress the truth in unrighteousness … so that they are without excuse” (Rom. 1:18-20). Also, all people have violated their consciences, doing what they instinctively know is wrong (Rom. 2). And so, all have sinned and thus are guilty before God (Rom. 3:23).
Rather, Jesus means that His coming and the many miracles that He did increased people’s responsibility and guilt when they did not submit to Him as Savior and Lord. In Matthew 11:20-24, Jesus denounced the cities where He had done most of His miracles because they did not repent. He made it clear that it will be more tolerable even for the pagans in Tyre and Sidon and for wicked Sodom on judgment day than for these cities. In other words, increased light rejected means increased sin and guilt.
When Jesus exposes people’s sin, unless the Holy Spirit is convicting them and drawing them to Christ, they react defensively. As Jesus told His then unbelieving brothers (John 7:7), “The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil.” Or, as John 3:19-20 states, “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.”
Also, note that unbelief is not due to a lack of solid evidence. These people heard Jesus’ words and they saw His many miracles that no one else had done (John 15:22, 24), but they still rejected Him because He exposed their sin. It’s still true today: there is more than enough evidence to believe in Jesus Christ, but people reject that evidence or bring up other excuses for their unbelief because they enjoy their sin and they don’t want to repent.
Two applications: First, if you live in obedience to Jesus Christ, you will threaten unbelievers in your family, at school, or at work, because your godly life will expose their sin. As a result, they will try to get you to sin so that you’re just like they are; or they will attack you falsely. Be ready for the onslaught!
Second, if you go to church but you don’t submit your life to the lordship of Christ, you’re exposing yourself to greater judgment! To put it another way, going to a church where the Bible is taught is dangerous! There will be degrees of punishment in hell. There’s a point where you have more than adequate evidence to believe that Jesus is Lord. But if you reject that evidence and don’t repent of your sin, you will incur a stricter judgment.
Let me make it clear: You should not be the source of offense by being insensitive, rude, or obnoxious. We need to conduct ourselves with wisdom, grace, and sensitivity toward unbelievers (Col. 4:5-6). But here’s where you will catch flak: Unbelievers will be tolerant until you tell them that Jesus is the only way to God. Then they will accuse you of being intolerant. They will be friendly until you make it clear that God has absolute moral standards and that our culture’s standards are wrong. Then they will accuse you of being self-righteous and judgmental. They will be tolerant of your Christianity until you refuse to lie to cover their wrongdoing or cheat in favor of the company. At that point, they will turn against you and go behind your back to turn others against you.
But if you state or imply to unbelievers that all good people will go to heaven, you laugh at their dirty jokes, you go to the same filthy movies that they go to so that you can be in the know with all the office chatter, and you lie for the boss, the world will think you’re wonderful; but you’ve compromised your witness for Christ. You may think, “But if I don’t go along with the world like that, I’ll lose my job!” Well, we have brothers and sisters in Iraq who are losing their lives because they won’t deny Christ. As Jesus said (Matt. 5:11-12), “Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
Jesus says regarding the world’s hatred of both Him and His Father (John 15:25), “But they have done this to fulfill the word that is written in their Law, ‘They hated Me without a cause.’” He is citing Psalm 69:4 to show that unbelievers can rage against God, but they don’t have any basis for their hatred and they’re inadvertently fulfilling God’s word. God is sovereign and no one can thwart His will (Ps. 103:19; 115:3; Job 42:2; Dan. 4:35). The application is that when unbelievers seem to win, don’t fret. God is still in control and He will ultimately judge all unbelievers who wrong you and He will vindicate His people who have been persecuted for His name’s sake.
We’re different in many ways, but there are three in the text:
John 15:19: “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.” Jesus again brings up a theme that upsets many: divine election. Proud people like to think that they have the ability to choose Christ, but He taught that no one can come to Him unless the Father chose him and draws him. When Jesus taught that in John 6:37-40, 44, & 65, we read (John 6:66), “As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore.”
The world, even many in the religious world, will say that if God chose only some, He is not fair. But, as I pointed out when we studied John 6, Jesus taught God’s sovereign election to the unbelieving Jews who were grumbling against Him (John 6:41ff.) to humble their pride. And, I must add, don’t ever ask God to be fair with you! Plead with Him to be merciful to you, the sinner!
In verse 20, Jesus implies that we are His slaves and He is our Master. But Satan is the ruler or god of this world (John 12:31; 14:30), who has blinded the eyes of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel (2 Cor. 4:4). Before God rescued us, we all lived in Satan’s domain of darkness (Col. 1:13), but now we live in Christ’s kingdom of light.
This means that the world does not understand our thinking or our behavior. The world thinks that people are basically good, whereas the Bible says that all are sinners in rebellion against God. People in the world live for themselves and their own agendas, whereas the Lord’s people live for Him and His purposes. The world makes up its own relative moral standards, whereas God’s people obey His moral absolutes. So misunderstanding and hostility from the world are inevitable.
John 15:21: “But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me.” The fundamental problem of people in the world is that they do not know the living and true God. Instead, they make up their own gods. Even atheists worship their own intellect as supreme, refusing to acknowledge that all that they have comes from God (1 Cor. 4:7) and that they will give an account to Him when they die (Heb. 9:27). But knowing God is the essence of the eternal life that Christ gives to all who believe in Him. As He prayed (John 17:3), “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
But in spite of the world’s hatred, we should never respond with retaliation or hatred. There may be times to ask God to judge the wicked. There are times to shake the dust off your feet and move on (Matt. 10:14). There are times to be silent rather than to cast your pearls before swine (Matt. 7:6; Luke 23:9). But our normal response should be:
Jesus leaves us in this world to proclaim His glory (1 Pet. 2:9). But how can we bear witness in the face of such a hostile world? Jesus shows that we can do so only through the Spirit of truth.
John 15:26: “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me….” As you may know, that verse sparked a controversy that split the Eastern and Western churches over whether the Spirit eternally proceeds only from the Father (Eastern) or from the Father and the Son (Western).
But in the context, Jesus was not referring to the ontological nature of the trinity, but rather to the mission of the Holy Spirit, whom He calls the Spirit of truth. But we can know that the Holy Spirit is a person. A mere “force” cannot testify to the truth. And, the fact that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and is sent by Jesus, who Himself was sent by the Father, implies the deity and the distinctiveness of all three persons of the trinity.
But the point here is that the Spirit will continue the witness to Christ after He returned to heaven. How does He do that? He does it through the Word of God, which He inspired, but also through believers. As Peter testified (Acts 5:32), “And we are witnesses of these things; and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him.” The Spirit testifies through us.
John 15:27: “… and you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.” This refers in the first place to the apostolic witness, because they were with Jesus from the beginning of His ministry until He ascended into heaven. They testified about what they had seen and heard (Acts 4:20). They didn’t make up cleverly devised tales, but were eyewitnesses of Christ’s majesty (2 Pet. 1:16). We have their factual testimony in the New Testament. So our witness is not just true for those who choose to believe it. It’s always true whether people believe it or not.
So the Holy Spirit uses believers to testify to others about the truth of Jesus. As Merrill Tenney puts it (The Expositor’s Bible Commentary [Zondervan], ed. by Frank Gaebelein, 9:155), “Without the witness of the Spirit, the disciples’ witness would be powerless; without the disciples’ witness, the Spirit would be restricted in his means of expression.” We can’t just relax and trust the Spirit to do His thing apart from us. We have to give verbal witness to the truth about Jesus Christ as the Spirit gives us opportunities.
Three applications: First, some of us (like me!) need to have more contact with the world. We are not to be of the world, but we are to be in the world (John 17:14-18). If you’re always surrounded by Christians, ask the Lord for opportunities to rub shoulders with people who need the Savior. You can’t testify to the truth about Christ if you don’t have contact with the world.
Second, pray for alertness to opportunities and boldness when you speak. I often think about what I could have said about an hour after the opportunity has passed. And, most of us do not err on the side of being too bold. None other than the apostle Paul said (Eph. 6:19-20), “Pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.”
Third, expect from the world what Jesus received from the world: mostly hatred, but some fruit. He says (John 15:20), “If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also.” If you expect everyone to respond favorably, you’ll be discouraged when they don’t. But if you expect everyone to respond negatively, you won’t even try to bear witness. Jesus promises that some will believe through your witness (Acts 18:10). So keep proclaiming the good news!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
March 1, 2015
Two unpopular themes in modern evangelical Christianity are the need to suffer for the sake of the gospel and the certainty of God’s judgment. Rather than suffering, the evangelical church is into how Christianity can help you have a successful, happy life. Of course, the Bible does give wisdom and guidance on how to live happily and it is proper to understand and apply its teaching.
But, the Bible also teaches (Acts 14:22), “Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” Paul said (2 Tim. 3:12), “Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.” Jesus said that all His followers must take up their cross (an implement of a slow, tortuous death) in order to follow Him (Matt. 16:24).
In its extreme form, the de-emphasis on suffering has veered into the heretical teaching that it’s always God’s will for you to enjoy financial prosperity and physical health. You’re supposed to rebuke any sickness or suffering it in the name of the Lord. If it continues, you must not have enough faith.
Regarding God, we focus on His love and grace rather than on His judgment. Many go so far as to say that because God is love, no one will suffer in hell. In his popular book, Love Wins, Rob Bell argued that a loving God would not punish people in an eternal hell. While that book was rightly denounced as heretical, it resonates with many. We’d rather think of God as love than of His wrath and judgment.
So Jesus’ words in our text are not going to be popular in today’s Christian world. He continues to prepare the disciples (and us) for what we will face after He is gone. The world often will hate us, but…
Our task is to witness in the power of the Spirit to a hostile world concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment.
John MacArthur shows (“The Holy Spirit Convicts the World,” on gty.org) how in the upper room discourse Christ promises to counter the problems that we will encounter in this evil world: “The world hates you, but I love you. The world is your enemy, but I am your friend. The world gives you trouble and anxiety, but I give you My peace. The world will cause you sorrow, but I give you My joy. The world may kill you, but I give you eternal life. The world is under Satan’s power, but you will have the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling in you.”
Jesus spoke these things so that the disciples would be kept from stumbling or falling away (ESV) when they encountered the opposition of the world (John 16:1). The Greek word means to be caught in a trap and has the nuance here of being taken by surprise (John [IVP/Eerdmans], R. V. G. Tasker, p. 181). Their task (and ours) is to go to a self-seeking, pleasure-oriented world and proclaim that the Holy God is going to judge all sinners, but that He has provided the way of escape through the Savior. This message is sure to stir up derision and hostility. Just the people of Noah’s day rejected his message of righteousness (2 Pet. 2:5) and the people in Sodom thought that righteous Lot must have been joking (2 Pet. 2:6-9; Gen. 19:14), so sinners today will not respond favorably to a message about sin, righteousness, and impending judgment. If you expect that everyone in this hostile world will welcome your message, you’ll be in for a rude awakening.
Sometimes we may be surprised because persecution often comes from the religious world, where you would expect a receptive audience (John 16:2): “They will make you outcasts from the synagogue, but an hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he is offering service to God.” Before his conversion, the apostle Paul thought that he was being faithful to his Jewish faith by imprisoning and killing Christians. After his conversion, the Jews persecuted him and other early Christians (2 Thess. 2:14-16). Centuries later, the Roman Catholic Church instituted the Inquisition to try to stop those who preached the true gospel. Religion has always been a major perpetrator of persecution. Jesus pinpoints the heart of the problem (John 16:3), “These things they will do because they have not known the Father or Me.”
The key to enduring persecution is to trust in the Lord Jesus. Thus in verse 4, He gives us a solid reason to trust Him: He knows the future. He knows the trials that we will face as we serve Him and He warns us in advance so that we will trust in Him. When Jesus was with the disciples, He was the lightning rod for persecution. But after He returned to the Father, they would catch the brunt of the opposition. So the Lord speaks these prophetic words so that we will be forewarned and thus forearmed. It will not be easy to be a faithful witness to Christ in this hostile world.
John 16:5-6: “But now I am going to Him who sent Me; and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.” My point about the Lord’s glory may not be immediately obvious, so let me explain. The disciples were not thinking about Christ’s returning to His glory with the Father and what that would mean, but rather on their own sorrow that Jesus would not be with them any longer. They were focused on their needs, not on Jesus’ glory and His kingdom purposes.
At first glance, Jesus’ words, “none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’” seem to contradict John 13:36, where Peter asked, “Lord, where are You going?” Also, in John 14:5, Thomas said, “Lord, we do not know where You are going …” But neither man was really interested in learning where Jesus was going as much as in protesting that He was leaving them. So the Lord is saying, “None of you is really interested in knowing where I am going. You’re just focused on your own sorrow over My leaving.”
D. A. Carson (The Gospel According to John [Apollos/Eerdmans], p. 533) explains this by telling of a little boy who is disappointed that his father is suddenly called away for an emergency meeting when the boy and his dad had planned to go fishing. The boy says, “Aw, Dad, where are you going?” But he really isn’t interested in where his dad is going, as much as he is focused on his own disappointment. So, although the disciples have asked about where Jesus was going, they were really just self-absorbed in their own loss at His leaving them. They didn’t have the big picture of the Lord’s returning to the right hand of the Father and of His sending the Holy Spirit to empower them for the task of the great commission.
The application for us is, to be effective witnesses in this hostile world, we need to take our focus off of our feelings and needs and focus rather on the Lord’s glory through the spreading of the gospel to all peoples. Even if we are persecuted, His glory should be our aim. But we can’t accomplish that task in our own strength. Thus the Lord adds …
Jesus makes a claim that would have startled the disciples (John 16:7): “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.” We often think, “Oh, how wonderful it would have been to have been on earth with Jesus.” That’s true, but Jesus says that we have it better because we have the Helper, the Holy Spirit, with us. He lives within us to comfort us, encourage us, and empower us to bear witness for Christ. As we saw in John 15:26-27, the Spirit bears witness, but He does it through us. Here, Christ sends the Spirit to us and when He comes, He will convict the world through our witness.
This verse indicates a major change in the ministry of the Holy Spirit to and through believers. We saw this in John 7:37-38, where Jesus promised that rivers of living water would flow from the innermost being of those who believe in Him. John (7:39) explained, “But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive; for the Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.” Jesus also told the disciples (John 14:16-17), “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”
That change occurred on the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended on the church. As the risen Lord made clear, a major role for the Spirit is to empower us to bear witness of Christ (Acts 1:8), “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” In our text, we first need to understand what Jesus means by the word “convict”; then He breaks the witness of the Holy Spirit through us into three parts:
The Spirit obviously does not convict every person in the world. Even to this day, many have never even heard of Christ and so are not convicted of their sin. Rather, “world” refers to unbelievers in general, both Jewish and Gentile. It means everyone without distinction, not everyone without exception.
The Greek word translated “convict” means to expose or to convince. It’s a legal term used when an attorney presents his case in such a clear light that the truth of his client’s position becomes obvious. Dr. Ryrie explains (The Ryrie Study Bible [Moody Press], NASB, p. 1632), “To convict means to set forth the truth of the Gospel in such a clear light that men are able to accept or reject it intelligently; i.e., to convince men of the truthfulness of the Gospel.” R. C. Trench (Synonyms of the New Testament [Eerdmans], p. 13) states, “It is so to rebuke another, with such effectual wielding of the victorious arms of the truth, as to bring him, if not always to a confession, yet at least to a conviction, of his sin.”
The word is used in the sense of “expose” in John 3:20: “For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” Jesus used the word in the sense of “convict” when He challenged His Jewish critics (John 8:46), “Which one of you convicts Me of sin?” One function of God’s Word is that it is profitable for “reproof” (2 Tim. 3:16; a noun derived from this verb). In this regard, a major role for the pastor is that he is to preach the word so as to “reprove, rebuke, and exhort” (2 Tim. 4:2). Elders are to be able to “exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict” (Titus 1:9).
Although the word is not used, we see an example of conviction when Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost and his hearers were “pierced to the heart” (Acts 2:37). His message exposed their sin of rejecting Christ and it convinced them that they were wrong. But such conviction is not always effectual in the sense of bringing a person to saving faith. In other words, it is necessary for salvation, but not sufficient: All who are saved have been convicted of their sin, but not all who have been convicted are saved. Salvation requires the Father’s drawing the sinner to Christ (John 6:44) and the Spirit’s imparting new life to the convicted sinner (John 3:5-8). A truly saved person is marked by genuine repentance for sin.
It seems to me that conviction of sin is often missing in our evangelistic methods today. We’re quick to get people to pray to receive Christ even when there is no indication that they are under conviction for their sin. I realize that a sense of conviction deepens after we’re saved. As we’ve seen, that’s the role of God’s Word. I am far more convicted about my past sins now than I was when I came to Christ. And, through God’s Word, I am aware now of sins in my life that I formerly would not even have noticed. But to trust in Christ for salvation there must be some sense that I am guilty before God and that I need a Savior. Without that conviction of sin, conversion will be for superficial reasons.
We see an example of shallow conviction when Samuel confronted King Saul with disobeying the Lord because he did not kill all of the Amalekite sheep and oxen as God had commanded. Under the pretext of saving them for sacrifice, Saul at first proclaimed (1 Sam. 15:13), “I have carried out the command of the Lord.” When Samuel further confronted him with his disobedience, Saul still insisted that he had obeyed, but he blamed the people for bringing back some of the sheep and oxen. When Samuel persisted with his charge, Saul finally reluctantly admitted that he had sinned, but then he wanted Samuel to return with him so that he might be honored before the people. His “repentance” was superficial.
By way of contrast, when the prophet Nathan confronted David (who was a true believer) of his sin with Bathsheba, David responded (2 Sam. 12:13), “I have sinned against the Lord.” He didn’t dodge his sin or make excuses for it. So, when the Holy Spirit convicts sinners, they can respond negatively; or in an outwardly positive, but superficial way; or through genuine repentance.
Jesus says (John 16:9), “concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me.” When the Spirit exposes your sin, you can run from the light (John 3:20), like a cockroach, trying to escape. Or, you can come to Christ, the Light, to save you. If you truly believe in Him, you will begin a lifetime of acknowledging or confessing your sin when the Spirit convicts you through God’s Word.
Jesus identifies the root of all sins when He says “because they do not believe in Me.” It is striking that the world generally would not view unbelief in Jesus Christ as a sin at all. If you asked people on the streets to give you a list of what they thought were sins, you’d probably hear, “Murder, child abuse, lying, and (perhaps!) adultery.” But I doubt if you’d hear, “Not believing in Jesus.” Yet Jesus names it as the sin that the Spirit will convict the world of. That’s because if you truly believe in Jesus as Savior and Lord, you will not be committing those other sins. They stem from unbelief in Christ. And, those other sins ultimately are not the issue between the sinner and God. The issue is, they have rejected His Son, whose death is the only remedy for our sin problem.
If a man went overboard in the middle of the ocean, it wouldn’t matter if he was a good swimmer or whether he couldn’t swim at all. It would only be a matter of time until he drowned, because no one is good enough to swim thousands of miles to shore. But if a rescuer threw him a life preserver, the issue is no longer whether he can swim or not, but will he grab the life preserver? If he says, “I’m a good swimmer; I don’t need a life preserver,” he will drown. Or, the fact that he can’t swim doesn’t matter. The only issue is whether he will grab the life preserver.
Jesus Christ is the life preserver that God has provided for the world. Self-righteous people may object that they don’t need a Savior; they’re good enough to save themselves. But, they will perish if they do not believe in Christ. Notorious sinners may think that they’re not worthy to be saved, which is true. No one is. But the same life preserver is offered to them as to the self-righteous. Rejecting Jesus Christ will damn either type of sinner equally. Or, believing in Christ will save either one. It is the issue! If you do not believe in Jesus Christ, you will perish.
John 16:10: “and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me.” Jesus Himself is the standard for righteousness. He never sinned and He always obeyed God. He is the only one who could die in the place of sinners, because He had no sin of His own. When the Father resurrected Jesus from the dead, He put His stamp of approval on Christ’s death. Jesus could not have returned to sit at the right hand of the Holy God if there had been even the slightest taint of sin in Him.
Also, the Bible is clear that God now imputes the very righteousness of Christ to every sinner who trusts in Him. As 2 Corinthians 5:21 states, “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” Romans 4:5 states, “But to the one who does not work, but believes in Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.” At the moment any sinner trusts in Christ, his sin is charged to Christ and Christ’s righteousness is put on him.
So the message that we are to proclaim to the world is that they are never good enough to qualify for heaven. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). But, God has provided a means by which we can be covered with the perfect righteousness of His Son, namely, by believing in Him. But our message has one other vital element:
John 16:11: “and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.” Where sin and righteousness meet, judgment follows. Satan is the ruler of this world and he was judged at the cross (John 12:31). Here Jesus speaks of it as done, even though it would take place the following day. At the cross, Satan’s doom was sealed. He still roams about, carrying out his evil schemes. But the sentence has been passed, both for him and for his subjects. John 3:18 states, “He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
This means that our witness to unbelievers must include sin, righteousness, and judgment, along with faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, as the only remedy for our helpless condition. It’s always intrigued me that when Paul witnessed to the Roman governor, Felix, he didn’t say, “Felix, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life! He offers you an abundant life. He can help your marriage. He will give you peace and joy.” Rather, Paul spoke to him about faith in Christ Jesus, along with righteousness, self-control, and the judgment to come (Acts 24:24-25). In other words, he spoke to him about sin (“self-control,” or his lack thereof), righteousness, and judgment, along with faith in Christ.
So to be effective witnesses for Christ, we need to recognize that many people will not like our message and therefore they may not like us. If we are faithful, we may suffer persecution or even death. Given that unpleasant prospect, what should motivate us to bear witness? The Lord’s glory: He is now risen from the dead, at the right hand of the Father, returning soon to judge the world in righteousness. He has entrusted to us the message of salvation through the cross. But we can’t compromise the message by hiding the reality of judgment if people do not repent. Don’t be judgmental, but do tell the truth about God’s coming judgment. Our task is to witness in the power of the Spirit to a hostile world concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
March 8, 2015
Since the Pentecostal movement began a little over 100 years ago, there has been a lot of emphasis in evangelical circles on the ministry of the Holy Spirit. But there has also been a lot of confusion and error. Pastor John MacArthur wrote (Strange Fire [Thomas Nelson], p. xiii),
It is a sad twist of irony that those who claim to be most focused on the Holy Spirit are in actuality the ones doing the most to abuse, grieve, insult, misrepresent, quench, and dishonor Him. How do they do it? By attributing to Him words He did not say, deeds He did not do, phenomena He did not produce, and experiences that have nothing to do with Him. They boldly plaster His name on that which is not His work.
He goes on (p. 6) to cite many examples, which you can see on You Tube: “Whole congregations doing the ‘Holy Ghost Hokey Pokey,’ people ‘tokin’ the Ghost’ (pretending to inhale the Holy Spirit and get high, as if He were an invisible reefer), and women writhing on the floor, miming he process of childbirth. Old-fashioned snake handlers look tame by comparison.” He cites several Pentecostal preachers who say that the Holy Spirit told them to punch, kick, and violently assault people in an attempt to heal them. An elderly woman died at a Benny Hinn “miracle crusade” when he pushed her over backwards (p. 7). Hinn’s wife made such ludicrous, vulgar statements about the Holy Spirit that her antics were later mocked on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show (p. 8)!
Because of this widespread confusion about the ministry of the Holy Spirit, it is essential that we learn from our Lord as He teaches how the Holy Spirit will work in the disciples and, by extension, in the church, after Christ’s ascension into heaven. It is important to note that Jesus’ words here apply first to the apostles. They were the ones whom the Spirit would guide in all the truth and bring to their remembrance all that Jesus had said (John 14:26). We have the Spirit’s inspired teaching through the apostles in the New Testament. But in a secondary sense, our Lord’s words here apply to us, in that the Holy Spirit opens up the truths of the Bible to us as we diligently study it in dependence on Him (1 Cor. 2:9-13). In our text, we learn that …
The ministry of the Holy Spirit is progressive, personal, truth-centered, and Christ-centered and Christ-glorifying.
Before we look at Christ’s teaching here, I need to clear up one other error that the Pentecostal movement has promoted, namely, that believers need to receive the Holy Spirit. They base this on a mistaken interpretation of Paul’s question to some followers of John the Baptist in Ephesus (Acts 19:2), “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” When they replied that they did not even know that there is a Holy Spirit, Paul gave them further instruction and laid his hands on them. The Holy Spirit came on them and they began speaking with tongues and prophesying. Based on that model, believers are urged to receive the Spirit (or be baptized in the Spirit) and speak in tongues. If you have not had this experience, then your spiritual life is deficient.
But that teaching fails to recognize that the Book of Acts is a transitional book from the Old Testament era to the age of the Holy Spirit. Under the apostles, in Acts the ministry of the Spirit spreads in line with the pattern of Acts 1:8 from Jerusalem (Acts 2), to Judea and Samaria (Acts 8), to the Gentiles (Acts 10), to the uttermost parts of the earth (Acts 19).
But in this church age, Paul states emphatically (Rom. 8:9), “But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” He writes to the carnal Corinthians (1 Cor. 6:19), “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?” He didn’t tell them that they needed to receive the Spirit or be baptized in the Spirit, but rather, to recognize that He indwelled each of them. To the same church, he said (1 Cor. 12:13), “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” Paul told the Galatians (3:1-5) that we receive the Spirit by believing the gospel. He makes the same point in Ephesians 1:13-14,
In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.
This means that receiving the Holy Spirit is not an experience that you’re supposed to have subsequent to salvation. You may not even be aware of the Spirit’s presence in your life until you are taught about it. Receiving the Spirit is not connected with speaking in tongues. It is definitely not evidenced by writhing on the floor, barking like a dog, or laughing uncontrollably!
Rather, the Holy Spirit is God’s gift to all who believe in Jesus Christ. You must learn to walk in dependence on the Spirit so that you do not carry out the lusts of the flesh (Gal. 5:16). Another way to describe this is that you need to be filled with or controlled by the Spirit (Eph. 5:18). But if you have believed in Christ, you do not need to receive the Spirit, be baptized in the Spirit, or seek some dramatic experience with the Spirit.
With that as an introduction, let’s look at our Lord’s important teaching on how the Holy Spirit works:
John 16:12-13a: “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; …” The Lord knew that the disciples were not ready at that point to bear all that He could teach them. This may have been due to their slowness to believe all that the prophets had spoken, especially the truths related to Messiah’s suffering (Luke 24:25-26). Jesus had repeatedly told the disciples that He was going to die and be raised from the dead, but they didn’t get it until after His resurrection (Luke 9:22, 44-45; 24:45-46). And there were other truths that they could not comprehend until the Holy Spirit came to dwell in them permanently. Here Jesus promises that the Spirit would guide them into (some good manuscripts read, “in”) all the truth.
“All the truth” does not mean “all the truth about science or math or world history.” It refers to all spiritual truth that the apostles and the church needs for growth in godliness. As Paul writes concerning the glorious things that God has prepared for those who love Him (1 Cor. 2:10-12):
For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God ….
The point in our text is that the Lord doesn’t dump the whole thing on us at once. As a loving Father, He knows how much His children can bear, and so He patiently teaches us what we need for the stage of growth that we are in. A wise father doesn’t teach nuclear physics to his five-year-old. He teaches him the A-B-C’s, simple arithmetic, how to read, and other basic truths. As he grows, you take him deeper. The Holy Spirit does that with us spiritually. A young believer needs the milk of the Word: to understand what salvation means, who God is, how to live by faith, how to read and study the Bible, how to pray, etc. Later, he can begin to digest some meat (1 Cor. 3:1-3; Heb. 5:11-14; 1 Pet. 2:2).
“Guide” suggests that this is a process and since the subject is “the unfathomable riches of Christ” (Eph. 3:8), it is a never-ending process. Years ago, we took a tour through the fabulous Hearst Castle in central California. They don’t just turn you loose to wander around on your own in that mansion. You have to go with a guide, who takes you from room to room, revealing to you the riches of that mansion. On our tour, there was a woman whose mother had been a personal guest of William Randolph Hearst at the mansion, and our guide was eager to talk more with her to gain some inside knowledge about the history of that place that he may have lacked.
There is so much to see that there isn’t just one tour of the castle, but three separate tours. So if you go through once, you can’t rightly say, “I’ve seen all there is to see at Hearst Castle.” Even after taking all three tours, you could go back many times and still not see it all. Our guide told us that even though he had conducted that tour many times, nearly every time he discovered something new that he had never noticed before.
That’s how your study of God’s Word should be. The Holy Spirit is the divine guide, who takes you from room to room, revealing the riches of Christ to your soul. Sometimes, you’re on your twentieth trip through a book and you see something that you’d never seen before, so you stop and revel at the glory of God in Christ. At other times, you make a connection between one part of God’s Word and another part that lets you see afresh that this book is not a product of human genius, but rather the inspired word of the living God. But you’ll never get to a place in this lifetime or even in all eternity (Eph. 2:7) where you can say, “I know it all; there’s nothing more for me to learn from the Bible!” So keep reading your Bible over and over, asking the Holy Spirit to reveal more of Christ to your soul.
Jesus says (John 16:13), “When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.” The combination of “He” and “the Spirit” an unusual grammatical construction in Greek, because “Spirit” is a neuter noun that normally would take a neuter pronoun, but the pronoun is masculine, “He” (literally, “that One”). The Holy Spirit isn’t a force; He’s a person, the third person of the eternal Trinity, fully God in every way.
This is important because false cults, like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, deny the personality of the Holy Spirit (because they deny the Trinity). But as we’ve seen (John 15:26), the Spirit testifies about Christ; a force cannot testify. Here, the Spirit guides the disciples; a force cannot give guidance. He speaks, He hears, and He reveals what He has heard to the apostles. Beyond this text, Peter told Ananias that he had lied to the Holy Spirit, whom Peter calls God (Acts 5:3-4). You can’t lie to an impersonal force. Paul commands us not to grieve the Holy Spirit by our sin (Eph. 4:30); you can only grieve a person who loves you. Paul talks about the fellowship of the Holy Spirit (2 Cor. 13:14); you can’t enjoy fellowship with a force.
The comforting truth is, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit dwells in you and tailors His ministry to you personally. He knows what you’re feeling and ministers His comfort to you through the Word or through other believers or sometimes through your unique circumstances. As Jesus says here, the Spirit guides you in the truth, but He does that as you study the Word of truth. He knows what you need to know and when you need to know it. His aim is to make you holy in thought, word, and deed. When you don’t know how to pray as you should, the Spirit prays for you in ways that you don’t understand (Rom. 8:26). So it’s important that we don’t grieve or quench the Spirit through sin, but rather yield every area of our lives to the Spirit’s control.
Jesus repeatedly refers to the Spirit as “the Spirit of truth” (John 14:17; 15:26). Here, He says (John 16:13), “When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.”
The designation, “the Spirit of truth,” implies, of course, that there is such a thing as knowable, unchanging truth in the spiritual realm. The fact that the Spirit communicates this truth by speaking shows that the truth is expressed by words and sentences that can be understood. That should not need to be affirmed among evangelicals, but the spirit of postmodernism has infiltrated the church so that fewer than one out of three who claim to be born again believe that there is such a thing as absolute moral truth. Among Christian teenagers, only 6 percent believe in absolute moral truth! (www.barna.org/barna-update/article/5-barna-update/67-americans -are-most-likely-to-base-truth-on-feelings#.VPYpZy7QOaY).
This de-emphasis on truth has also led to a de-emphasis on doctrine. The common refrain is, “They will know that we are Christians by our love, not by our doctrinal agreement!” A shorter version is, “Doctrine divides; love unites.” So we’re being encouraged to set aside the areas where we disagree with other Christians and come together around the things that unite us. Many even apply this to justification by faith alone and other vital truths that divide Roman Catholics and Protestants.
Of course there have always been cantankerous believers who pride themselves on being right about every fine point of doctrine. They rail against those who don’t agree totally with them. But the enemy has used that error to cause many to swing into the opposite error of tolerating damnable error under the banner of unity and love. But a major portion of the New Testament is written to warn us about false teaching. For example, Paul warned about the antichrist, who will come (2 Thess. 2:10-12) “with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.” Not believing the truth of the gospel results in judgment!
When Jesus says that the Spirit will reveal to the apostles “what is to come,” He probably includes prophetic teaching. But in this context, it mainly refers, as D. A. Carson explains (The Gospel According to John [Apollos/Eerdmans], p. 540, italics his), “to all that transpires in consequence of the pivotal revelation bound up with Jesus’ person, ministry, death, resurrection and exaltation.” Leon Morris (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 701) says, “‘the things to come’ is a way of referring to the whole Christian system, yet future when Jesus spoke, and to be revealed to the disciples by the Spirit, not by natural insight.”
The Holy Spirit has not given new, authoritative revelation since the completion of the canon of Scripture. As Jesus affirmed (John 17:17), God’s Word is the truth. Psalm 119:160 puts it, “The sum of Your word is truth.” That truth is sufficient for life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:3). We need to ask the Holy Spirit to give us understanding and illumination as we study the Scriptures, but He is not giving new revelation on a par with that given to the apostles and prophets as contained in the Bible.
Also, the Spirit does not reveal anything to anyone contrary to Scripture. For example, I’ve had young women tell me that the Lord told them that they could marry an unbeliever. But that’s contrary to His written Word (2 Cor. 6:14), and so it was not the Holy Spirit who revealed that to them. The Holy Spirit guides us in all the truth, which is now contained in the written Word of God.
Thus, the ministry of the Holy Spirit is progressive, personal, and truth-centered. Finally,
John 16:14-15: “He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.” Jesus implicitly affirms His deity in these verses. No mere man and not even the greatest created being (as the Jehovah’s Witnesses erroneously think Jesus is) could say that the Holy Spirit will glorify Him or that all things that the Father has are His. But Jesus said it.
The Holy Spirit’s role is not to glorify Himself, but Christ. He does not call attention to Himself, but to Christ. He does not lead us to focus on our experiences, but on Christ. When people continually emphasize the Holy Spirit and their supposed experiences in the Spirit, they are not filled with the Spirit. The Spirit exalts Jesus Christ. Dr. Carson (The Farewell Discourse and Final Prayer of Jesus [Baker], p. 151) states: “Nothing brings more glory to our exalted Lord Jesus than for his followers to become steeped in all truth concerning him…. Glory comes to Jesus as the truths of the gospel are established in the lives of men.”
When Jesus says, “All things that the Father has are Mine,” and that the Spirit will take these things and disclose them to the apostles, He is referring to all the glorious truths about Himself that are written in God’s Word. As I mentioned, it’s what Paul called (Eph. 3:8) “the unfathomable riches of Christ.” If the Holy Spirit is working in your life, you will be reveling in Christ, exalting Christ, loving Christ, and telling others of His glory.
These verses can also be plumbed for their insights on the nature of the Triune God. The three persons are distinct and yet each is fully God. Each person has different roles or functions. The Father sent the Son and the Son sent the Spirit. The Spirit does not act independently (“on His own initiative,” v. 13), but rather in submission to the Father and the Son. Just as the Son only speaks what He hears from the Father (John 3:34; 5:19, 20; 7:16-18; 8:26-29, 42-43; 12:47-50; 14:10), so the Spirit only speaks what He hears. He completes God’s revelation of His Son to us. The three members of the Trinity are co-equal as God, distinct in their functions, and yet one God.
The Lord wants us to apply His teaching here to our walk with God: Is the Holy Spirit progressively guiding you in all the truth, especially the truth about Christ, as you study His Word? Do you see His personal ministry in your life as He works to conform you to Christ? Are you growing to understand more deeply the great truths of Scripture, centered in Christ and the gospel? And, is your life increasingly Christ-centered and Christ-glorifying?
If you honestly can’t answer “yes,” there could be two causes: First, you may not be walking in the Spirit or be filled with the Spirit. To walk in the Spirit means to depend on Him, not yourself. To be filled with the Spirit means to yield completely to Him, so that He controls your life. It’s a lifelong process, but you should be practicing it every day.
Second, it is possible that you do not have the Holy Spirit because you have never trusted in Christ. The Spirit is given to those who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ to save them from God’s righteous judgment. Here is the Spirit’s invitation to you (Rev. 22:17): “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come.’ And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost.”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
March 15, 2015
The late Scottish preacher, Alexander Whyte, observed that we all tend to hang heavy weights on the thinnest wires (source unknown). He meant that we hang our happiness on fragile things that easily and quickly can be taken from us: health, mates, children, jobs, homes, or possessions. These are all good blessings from the Lord. But they’re inadequate as a foundation for lasting joy, because they’re all so uncertain and transitory.
While any major loss is emotionally painful, it’s crucial that we learn how to work through such losses biblically, because we’re all going to face them. Peter (1 Pet. 5:8-9) indicates that it is precisely in times of suffering that the devil seeks to destroy our faith. I’ve seen many believers who have wiped out spiritually because they didn’t know how to face suffering biblically.
For example, some have the mistaken notion that because they believe in Jesus, He will protect them from major suffering. When tragedy hits, they feel that God had abandoned them. Others were taught to claim healing by faith. When that didn’t work, they were told that they didn’t have enough faith. Others have been under the impression that it is unspiritual to grieve or shed tears. So they tried to smile and say, “Praise the Lord,” around other Christians, but they were dying inside.
In our text, Jesus is preparing the disciples for the overwhelming sorrow that they would experience in the next few hours as they watched Him be arrested, mocked, scourged, and crucified. Their world would come crashing down around them. They had put their hopes and staked their futures on their belief that Jesus was the promised Messiah of Israel. The previous Sunday, their hopes were high as Jesus rode into Jerusalem to the “Hosannas” of the crowd. But now, everything that they had hoped for would come to a sudden, shocking end as they watched their Lord suffer and die. Jesus prepares them (and us) for suffering by teaching that:
The risen Lord Jesus will turn our sorrows into lasting joy as we look to Him in faith and prayer.
Jesus says (John 16:16), “A little while, and you will no longer see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me.” This caused confusion among the disciples, and it has caused confusion among Bible commentators! Some argue that the first “little while” refers to His ascension, whereas the second “little while” refers to His second coming. Others take the second “little while” to refer to the disciples “seeing” Jesus spiritually when He sent the Holy Spirit to them on the Day of Pentecost.
But it seems obvious to me from the context that the first “little while” refers to Jesus’ death, whereas the second “little while” refers to His resurrection. When Jesus was crucified, the disciples would weep and lament, while Jesus’ enemies would rejoice. But after the disciples saw the risen Lord, their sorrow would be turned to lasting joy, which no one could take from them (John 20:20). But we need to face reality:
God decreed death as the penalty for sin. Although Christ has taken away the sting and victory of death (1 Cor. 15:54-57), He has not yet taken away the fact of death and the emotional pain that we feel when someone that we love dies. So we need to recognize:
The deeper that we have loved, the deeper our sorrow will be when the loved one is taken from us in death, especially when the death is unexpected. But the point we all need to understand is that there is nothing unspiritual about feeling deep sorrow and grief at a time of loss. True, our grief is different than that of the world, in that we have ultimate hope in Christ (1 Thess. 4:13). And yet, we still grieve. Isaiah 53:3 describes our Lord Jesus as “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” It is not ungodly to grieve.
G. Campbell Morgan was a godly pastor and Bible teacher. When he was 30, he and his wife lost their little daughter in death. Forty years later, when he was preaching on Christ’s raising Jairus’ daughter from the dead, he made reference to the loss of their little girl, who in spite of their prayers, was not healed. He said (A Man of the Word [Baker], by Jill Morgan, p. 83), “She has been with Him for all those years, as we measure time here, and I have missed her every day; but His word, ‘Believe only,’ has been the strength of all the passing years.” Six months after his daughter’s death he wrote in his diary (ibid.), “Today I am thirty-one years old. Surely goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life! There have been no accidents. All under the Father’s government, and all best.”
So he knew the sustaining grace of the Lord, but he also felt his loss every day for the rest of his life! Although he was a godly man, he wasn’t insulated from experiencing deep sorrow over his loss. Like him, we should seek comfort in the Lord, but recognize the reality of our sorrows.
There are far more causes than I can list here, but in our text we see several sources for the disciples’ sorrow:
The comment of the men on the Emmaus Road to the risen Lord (whom they did not yet recognize) was no doubt one that all the apostles would have agreed with (Luke 24:21): “But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel.” They thought that the Messiah would come and establish His reign over Israel, bringing in times of peace and blessing, as prophesied in the Old Testament. The disciples had forsaken everything to follow Jesus in the hopes that He was this promised Messiah. But now, contrary to all their hopes, He was falsely accused and executed. They were deeply disappointed. In the same way, when you have hoped and prayed and worked for something that you believed to be God’s will, but it didn’t happen, you will experience sorrow.
The disciples were confused over what Jesus was telling them, but they would be more deeply confused in the next few hours as they watched their beloved Lord suffer the most shameful, painful death imaginable. In spite of Jesus’ repeatedly telling them that He was going to Jerusalem to suffer and die, the disciples didn’t get it. They couldn’t conceive of a Messiah who did not come to establish His kingdom and reign (Ps. 2:6-9; 68:18; 110:1). They understood part of the Scriptures, but not all of them (Ps. 22; Isa. 53). In the same way, it’s easy for us to get confused because we do not understand the totality of the Bible’s teaching on something. We have our preconceived ideas about how things should turn out and when they don’t go that way, we are confused and sorrowful.
People with perverted values seem to prevail, while the righteous suffer. Jesus tells the disciples that the world would rejoice over His death. The smug religious leaders congratulated one another over finally getting rid of this pesky preacher from Galilee who threatened their power. In our day, when we see the horrific evil of the Muslim extremists as they gloat over killing innocent men, women and children, we feel deep sorrow and grief.
Because of Adam’s sin, the whole creation was subjected to futility and death (Gen. 3:17-19; Rom. 8:20, 22). Although Christ conquered sin and death at the cross, we still live in a fallen world in bodies that are subject to disease and death. We still have to fight against the flesh, which is prone to sin, with its painful consequences. When others sin against us, we suffer sadness and sorrow. Sometimes the deep pain takes years to work through. Being Christians does not insulate us from experiencing such sorrow and pain. But …
I want to ask and answer three questions: (1) What kind of Savior is He? (2) How does He turn our sorrow into joy? (3) Why does He turn our sorrow into joy?
Limiting myself to these verses, we see that …
He knew that the disciples were confused about His comments. Even though He rightly could have chewed them out for being so slow to understand what He had repeatedly said, He graciously and patiently acknowledged their confusion and assured them that after a short season of sorrow, they would soon experience His lasting joy. Even though the Lord knew the future before it happened, He didn’t deal with the disciples in a cold, mechanical manner: “Buck up, guys, it’s all predestined to work together for your good!” As Psalm 103:13-14 states, “Just as a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him. For He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust.”
In just a few moments, Jesus would sweat great drops of blood in the garden as He agonized in prayer over the thought of bearing our sins. Hebrews 5:7 says that “He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears ….” On the cross, He cried out in great agony the words of Psalm 22:1, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” He willingly “endured such hostility by sinners against Himself” (Heb. 12:3) on our behalf for the joy set before Him of bringing many children to glory (Heb. 2:10; 12:2). So (Heb. 4:15), “We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.”
Jesus says (John 16:22), “Therefore you too have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.” The dramatic change in the disciples from grief to lasting joy was founded on seeing the risen Savior. Everything about the Christian faith—everything—rests on the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead. As Paul boldly states (1 Cor. 15:17), “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.” The apostles were transformed from fearful, defeated, confused men into bold witnesses who were willing to suffer and die because they saw the risen Lord Jesus. Since He has been raised from the dead and ascended into heaven, He is coming again to conquer and reign. At that moment, all our sorrows will instantly be turned into eternal joy!
Briefly, in four ways:
To have seen their beloved Lord beaten and bloodied, hanging on the cross, was the most horrible and shocking event of the disciples’ lives. I deliberately have not seen the popular movie, The Passion of the Christ, because I read a review by the late film critic, Roger Ebert, in which he said that it was by far the most violent movie he had ever seen. Since he had reviewed some pretty violent movies, I thought, “I don’t want that graphic violence burned into my brain!” But the disciples saw it in person and it must have sent them into deep shock.
But the amazing truth is that in all of their writings, they didn’t portray the cross in depressing, mournful tones, but rather as something glorious and triumphant. It was the center of their apostolic preaching because it was the basis upon which God could forgive our sins (Acts 2:23; 3:15; 4:10; 5:30; 1 Cor. 2:2). Paul even wrote that he gloried or boasted in the cross (Gal. 6:14).
The significant thing here (John 16:20) is that Jesus doesn’t say that the disciples sorrow would be replaced by joy, but rather that He would turn their sorrow into joy. He uses the analogy of a woman in labor (John 16:21). In that day before anesthesia, you could hear a woman crying out in anguish one minute and a few minutes later she was beaming with joy over the very thing that had caused her such anguish, namely, her newborn baby.
Paul wrote (Phil. 3:10-11) that our sufferings bring us into fellowship with Christ in His sufferings and so we attain to the resurrection of the dead. He said (Rom. 8:18) that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that will be revealed to us. Hebrews 12 tells us that as we fix our eyes on Jesus and His suffering, we can then submit to God’s discipline in our lives, which yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. The Lord turns our present sorrow into joy as we get a deeper understanding of the glory of His cross.
The Lord didn’t answer the disciples’ question on the spot, so that they then faced the cross the next day with clear understanding. But He did give them instruction that enabled them later to look back on this traumatic event with clarity and understanding. After the resurrection, as He opened the Scriptures to show them how the Messiah needed first to suffer and then enter His glory (Luke 24:26, 46-47), they got the big picture of what God was doing in history. That eternal perspective enabled them later to endure suffering for the sake of His kingdom.
In Psalm 73, the psalmist was confused and depressed as he saw the seeming prosperity of the wicked, while at the same time he was chastened every day. He was about to despair until he went into God’s sanctuary. Then he perceived the end of the wicked and how God was the eternal portion of the godly. That eternal perspective turned his sorrow into joy.
Jesus repeats (John 16:23-24) the promise to answer the disciples’ prayers offered in His name (see John 14:13-14; 15:7, 16). As we’ve seen, to ask in Jesus’ name is to ask in line with His will for that which will further His kingdom and His glory. It is to ask for what Jesus would want, based not on our merit, but on His blood and righteousness. When we ask and He answers, our joy will be made full.
As I explained when I spoke on John 14:13-14, there will be many times when you ask for something in Jesus’ name that you think will further His kingdom and glorify His name, but He doesn’t answer as you asked. At such times, we have to trust that He will work in ways that are beyond what we could ask or even think (Eph. 3:20). He often accomplishes His purposes in ways that seem backwards to us. Since we don’t understand all that God is doing and He doesn’t usually explain it to us, we may go to our graves not knowing why He seemingly didn’t answer our prayers. But when we pray and He answers, it floods us with great joy.
Jesus said (John 16:16, 17, 22) that the disciples would see Him again and then their hearts would rejoice and no one could take that joy away from them. They saw the risen Lord physically, which we can’t do. But we can see Him spiritually as we believe the apostolic witness. Peter wrote to suffering Christians (1 Pet. 1:8), “And though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory ….” It’s often in times of suffering that you see the Lord Jesus more clearly as the Holy Spirit opens up the riches of Christ to your soul in fresh ways. And, of course, our ultimate, eternal joy will sweep all of our sorrows away forever the instant we see Christ return in power and glory!
Thus Jesus is the sensitive, suffering, and risen Savior. He turns our sorrow into joy by showing us the glory of the cross; giving us an eternal perspective; being our Mediator to the throne of grace; and letting us see Him risen from the dead through eyes of faith. Finally:
James (1:2-5) exhorts us to consider it all joy when we encounter various trials because through those trials, we will become more like our Savior. Paul says something similar in Romans 5:3-5, where he says that he exults in his tribulations, knowing that they produce perseverance, proven character, and hope. You might say, “Couldn’t we just skip the sorrow part and move directly into the joy?” But Hebrews 5:8 says that even our Lord learned obedience through His sufferings. It’s not that He (like us!) was disobedient and had to learn to be obedient. But through suffering, He experienced what obedience is all about. Through our sufferings, we learn to be more like Him if we trust Him through the process.
It is only when the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies that it brings forth much fruit (John 12:24). Paul said (2 Cor. 1:4) that God comforts us in our affliction so that we will be able to comfort others in their afflictions with the comfort with which we are comforted by God.
Many years ago, a Salvation Army officer was preaching in Chicago when a man spoke out in front of the crowd, “You can talk about how Christ is dear to you, but if your wife were dead, as my wife is, and you had babies crying for their mother, you couldn’t say what you are saying.”
A few days later, that preacher’s wife was killed in a tragic train accident. At the funeral service, the grieving husband stood beside her casket and said, “The other day when I was preaching in this city, a man said that if my wife were dead and my children were crying for their mother, I couldn’t say that Christ was sufficient. If that man is here, I tell him that Christ is sufficient! My heart is crushed, bleeding, and broken. But there is also a song in my heart and Christ put it there. The Savior speaks comfort to me today.” The man who had raised the objection was present, and he surrendered his life to Christ. (From, “Our Daily Bread,” 1980.)
I conclude with two applications and a final observation:
First, in times of suffering, spend more time in God’s Word. A time of sorrow and grief is not the time to neglect your Bible. Of course, you should be seeking the Lord before such trials hit, so that you’ll already have the wisdom you need to get through the storm (see Prov. 1:20-33). But you also need to increase your time in the Word when you’re in the midst of the trial.
Second, in times of suffering, spend more time in prayer. It’s in the context of suffering that James (1:5) says, “But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” Here, in the context of the disciples’ sorrow, Jesus again tells them to ask the Father in His name, promising that He will answer.
Finally, note that the flip side to these verses is that the world’s joy that comes from things that perish is temporary. Their joy will be turned to sorrow when those things perish and they face God in judgment. But when our risen Lord returns, our temporary sorrows will be turned to eternal joy!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
March 22, 2015
It’s a tribute to a musician when he can take an imperfect instrument and use it to play great music. It’s a tribute to a surgeon when he can perform a difficult operation in primitive conditions at a remote mission station without all of the sophisticated medical devices that are available in America. Even more so, it’s a tribute to our Lord that He uses imperfect instruments to establish and build His kingdom. Even the apostles, who were the foundation of the church, were not strong, brilliant, unusually gifted, men. They were weak men who often failed. Sometimes they are so spiritually clueless that when you read the accounts in the Gospels, you wonder, “How could they be so dull?”
But, as C. H. Dodd observed (cited by D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 549), “It is part of the character and genius of the Church that its founding members were discredited men; it owed its existence not to their faith, courage, or virtue, but to what Christ had done with them; and this they could never forget.” I would modify his comment by saying that it is not the church that should get the credit, but rather the Lord Jesus Christ. The fact that the church still exists today, in spite of the many failures of its members, is to the glory of our Lord.
Our text contains Jesus’ final teaching before His arrest to His disciples, all of whom are about to fail spiritually. As He tells them (John 16:32), “Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home, and to leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me.” The disciples were about to desert Jesus in His moment of greatest need.
But they didn’t even see it coming. Earlier in the evening, Peter had declared that he was ready to lay down his life for Christ, but Jesus had predicted that before the night was over, Peter would deny Him three times (John 13:37-38). Now, the disciples all think that they understand Jesus clearly and believe in Him (John 16:29-30). But Jesus knew otherwise and let them know that they all will desert Him.
But He tells them these things so that their spiritual failure would not be final. He’s equipping them to overcome their failure and go on to serve Him. They would lose the battle that dark night, but they wouldn’t lose the whole war. His encouraging theme is (John 16:33), “In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” We can sum up His message:
To overcome spiritual failure, be encouraged by God’s love and grace that is found in Jesus Christ.
We can be encouraged by five aspects of God’s love and grace that our Lord outlines in this text:
John 16:25: “These things I have spoken to you in figurative language; an hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but will tell you plainly of the Father.” “These things” refers to the upper room discourse as a whole, and perhaps to His entire three years with them. The word translated “figurative language” (used elsewhere in John only in 10:6) refers to language where “the meaning does not lay on the surface, but must be searched for and thought about” (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 709). So the Lord recognizes their confusion over many of the things that He had said, and promises a time in the near future when He would speak about the Father in a way that they would understand. So in spite of their present spiritual confusion, He is giving them hope for future spiritual growth.
In John 2, after Jesus cleansed the temple, the Jews challenged Jesus for what He had done. He answered (John 2:19), “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” John explains that Jesus wasn’t talking about the temple in Jerusalem, but rather about the temple of His body. He adds (John 2:22), “So when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.” They were confused, but later gained spiritual understanding.
There are other instances where Jesus’ words and action were a mystery to the disciples at the time, but later they understood. For example, when Jesus washed the disciples’ feet and Peter protested, Jesus said (John 13:7), “What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter.” They didn’t grasp the spiritual truth that Jesus was teaching at that moment, but later it became clear to them.
When Jesus refers to the hour that is coming (John 16:25), He may be speaking about the time after the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit would indwell them permanently and guide them into all the truth about Christ (John 16:13-14). But more immediately, He was referring to the 40 days after His resurrection, when (Luke 24:45), “He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.” This was especially true with regard to the Scriptures about His suffering before He returned to His glory with the Father (Luke 24:26). Before the cross, the disciples couldn’t conceive of a crucified Messiah. Afterwards, God’s whole plan of salvation opened up to them.
But, you may wonder, why does the Lord speak in mysterious terms so that we’re left in the dark for a time? Why doesn’t He just make everything in the Bible clear to begin with? John Calvin (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 156) remarks that the Lord allows us to “be stupefied for a time” so that we will learn our own spiritual poverty, before He brings clarity to us. If it were all easy, we’d take credit for our own brilliance, rather than humbly seek the Lord for understanding. When we recognize our own spiritual dullness and seek the Lord for insight, then, when the Lord gives us light, we glorify Him, not ourselves. Also (as we saw in John 16:12-13), the Lord knows how much we can bear at whatever stage of growth we’re in. As a patient father, He teaches us gradually as we’re able to learn.
Also, note that Christ promises to tell the disciples plainly of the Father. Calvin (ibid.) observes that Christ’s aim is “to lead us to God, in whom true happiness lies.” The only way we can know the Father is through His Son. As Jesus said (Matt. 11:27), “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” John 1:18 states, “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” So we need the Holy Spirit to disclose the things of Christ to us (John 16:14) and we need Christ to reveal the Father to us. We are dependent on the Triune God for all spiritual understanding.
So, speaking to men who were confused and whom He knew would fail spiritually before that night was over, the Lord promises hope for future spiritual growth. And for all who have failed spiritually (which is all of us!), the Lord gives us hope for future spiritual growth. If we seek Him, He will tell us plainly of the Father.
John 16:26: “In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I will request of the Father on your behalf; …” Jesus has repeatedly (John 14:13; 15:16; 16:23-24) told the disciples that now they are to ask the Father in His name. Here, He is clarifying further what that means. It does not mean that the Father will be distant and removed from the disciples, so that they have to work their way up the chain of command before He will listen to their requests. Rather, it’s quite the opposite. Because they now can come to the Father in Jesus’ name, they have direct access to the Father who, as Jesus adds, loves them because they love His Son.
There is no contradiction here with the passages that speak of our Lord’s perpetual intercession on our behalf (Rom. 8:34; Heb. 7:25; 1 John 2:1; cf. Morris, p. 710). Our approach to the Father rests on Christ’s finished work on our behalf, which He continually pleads on our behalf. To pray in Jesus’ name means to come to the Father on the basis of all that Jesus is and all that He has done for us on the cross. It means to ask in line with His purpose and for His glory.
But what Christ here is teaching is that He doesn’t have to persuade a reluctant Father to be gracious to us. Rather, the Father Himself loves those who love and believe in Jesus. So through Christ, we now have direct access to the throne of the loving Father. Calvin exclaims (ibid., p. 158), “This is a remarkable passage, by which we are taught that we have the heart of the Heavenly Father as soon as we have placed before Him the name of His Son.”
If you fail spiritually, it may be because you haven’t prayed. But even when you’ve failed, you can still come to the Father and ask in Jesus’ name, not on the basis of your performance, but for His purpose and glory. Satan will come to you at a time of spiritual failure and tell you, “You have no right to pray! God is sneering at your hypocrisy! Don’t bother Him with your phony prayers!” Those are lies! Jesus encourages these men who are about to fail with the promise that they can go directly to the Father who loves them and He will hear them because of Christ’s finished work on the cross. That’s His promise to you when you fail spiritually!
John 16:27: “For the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from the Father.” Note that love for Christ and faith in Him are inextricably bound together. At first glance, this verse sounds as if God’s love for us is conditioned on our love for Christ and our faith in Him. But many other Scriptures contradict such a notion. First John 4:10 states, “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” First John 4:19 adds, “We love [some manuscripts add, “God,” or “Him”], because He first loved us.” Paul states (Rom. 5:8, 10) that God loved us when we were still sinners and His enemies. So our love for Him is the result of His prior love for us.
The thought here is the same as we saw in John 14:23, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” Or, as Jesus said (John 15:10), “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” He’s talking about a special love relationship that the Father has with all who love His Son. God loves the whole world (John 3:16), but He especially loves those who love His Son.
To illustrate, if my father had met Marla before I met her, he would have loved her as a younger sister in Christ, as he would have loved any Christian woman. But after Marla married me, my Dad had a special love for her because she loved his son. And if you love Jesus and believe in Him as the One sent from the Father, then the Father has a special love for you.
In this context, the Father’s special love is for men who were about to fail spiritually. So the encouragement for those who have failed is: Be encouraged by the Father’s special love and grace for you. Like the father of the prodigal son, the heavenly Father is eagerly waiting for you to return to Him. When you come home, you don’t get a lecture; instead, He throws a party!
Thus, to overcome spiritual failure, be encouraged that there is always hope in Christ for future spiritual growth; be encouraged by your privilege in prayer; and, be encouraged by the Father’s special love and grace.
John 16:28: “I came forth from the Father and have come into the world; I am leaving the world again and going to the Father.” Christ here succinctly summarizes God’s sovereign plan of salvation. Leon Morris (ibid., p. 711) states,
Here we have the great movement of salvation. It is a twofold movement, from heaven to earth and back again. Christ’s heavenly origin is important, else He could not be the Savior of men. But His heavenly destination is also important, for it witnesses to the Father’s seal on the Son’s saving work.
“I came forth from the Father,” points to Christ’s eternal glory with the Father before the world began (John 17:5). As John (1:1) begins his Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” Jesus told Nicodemus (John 3:13), “No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven: the Son of Man.” (See John 6:38; contrast with John 8:14; 9:29.)
“I have come into the world.” Jesus came into the world to reveal the Father to us (John 5:19; 8:38, 40; 14:24). As we saw (John 1:14), “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Jesus testified to Pilate (John 18:37), “For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth.” (See John 6:14; 11:27.)
“I am leaving the world again ….” He left the world by way of the cross. He went to the cross voluntarily, not because the Jewish leaders forced it on Him (John 10:17-18). The cross was the very reason that He came into this world. As He told Nicodemus (John 3:14), “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up.”
“I am going to the Father.” This points to His resurrection from the dead and His ascension into heaven. Jesus would not have been raised from the dead and He could not have returned to the Father if the Father had not approved of His finished work on the cross.
How does this encourage us when we’ve failed spiritually? It helps us realize that the entire plan of salvation did not originate with us, but with the Triune God before the foundation of the world. As Paul states (Eph. 1:4-6),
He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.
From start to finish, our salvation does not depend on our perfection, but rather on God’s sovereign love and grace. Again in Paul’s words (Phil. 1:6), “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.” Finally,
The disciples mistakenly thought that they understood now, but Jesus gently challenges their presumption. (The NIV’s translation of John 16:31, “You believe at last!” is not correct in light of the context.) But in spite of their lack of understanding and in spite of the Lord’s knowledge that they will shortly be scattered and leave Jesus alone, He concludes with a wonderful promise (John 16:33): “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
When the Lord chose you, He knew everything about you. He knew all of your secret sins. He knew all the awful thoughts you’d ever have. He knew all of the rotten words that you’d ever say. He knew all of the times when you’d arrogantly think that you knew, but you really didn’t know. He knew the times when you should have stood boldly for Him against the forces of darkness, but you’d turn and run. And yet He still chose you to be His child and He still offers you His peace in this troubled world!
With one exception (when the multitude spoke to blind Bartimaeus to encourage him that Jesus was calling for him; Mark 10:49), every time the words, “Take courage,” appear in the New Testament, they come from the lips of our Lord. In Matthew 9:2, He tells a paralytic, “Take courage, son; your sins are forgiven.” In Matthew 9:22, He tells the suffering woman who touched the hem of His garment, “Daughter, take courage; your faith has made you well.” In Matthew 14:27, He tells the frightened disciples who see Him walking on the water, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid.” After Paul’s arrest in Jerusalem, when he didn’t know how his future would turn out, the Lord appeared to him and said (Acts 23:11), “Take courage; for as you have solemnly witnessed to My cause at Jerusalem, so you must witness at Rome also.” And, here He tells the disciples, who are confused and about to fail, to take courage because in Him they have peace.
We could sum up these instances by saying that we can be encouraged by our Lord’s pardon (Matt. 9:2); His power (Matt. 9:22); His presence (Matt. 14:27); His purpose (Acts 23:11); and, His peace (John 16:33). Even when we fail, we can experience peace in our Savior who has overcome the world!
One reason I have gained so much by reading Christian biographies (and encourage you to read them, too) is that so many of the saints who did heroic feats for the kingdom also failed miserably at times. In my article, “Mining for Gold” (on the church web site), I mention that some of the greats, such as John Wesley and William Carey, had difficult marriages. David Livingstone was a loner who had numerous conflicts with fellow workers. He virtually abandoned his wife and children, who suffered greatly without him. Yet God used Livingstone to open Africa to the gospel!
C. T. Studd, famous for the quote, “If Christ be God and died for me, no sacrifice is too great for me to make for Him,” left his wife in poor health and went to Africa, returning to see her only once in the final 16 years of her life. He worked 18-hour days and expected everyone else to do likewise. His intense dedication to the cause of Christ made him intolerant of anyone who wasn’t equally committed. He alienated everyone around him, including his daughter and son-in-law. The mission that he had founded finally dismissed him.
Bob Pierce loved the world but abandoned his family. He was gone in ministry an average of ten months each year! He preached the gospel to huge crowds in the Far East and saw thousands respond. He founded World Vision to help the many hurting children he encountered. Yet his oldest daughter committed suicide. He and his wife were separated at several points in their marriage. He never tamed his explosive temper. Eventually, World Vision fired him. Yet he loved and served the Lord to the end of his life.
My point is not to take pot shots at these servants of the Lord nor, by pointing out their sin, to excuse my own. But seeing their shortcomings and failures helps me to realize that when I’ve failed spiritually, I can be encouraged by God’s love and grace that are found in the Lord Jesus Christ. If you’ve failed, there is hope for you if you take refuge in the loving and gracious Savior!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
March 29, 2015
I hope you left your shoes at the door when you came in today, because we’re on holy ground. Every week I feel overwhelmed with inadequacy when it comes to preaching God’s Word. But when I come to a chapter like John 17, I’m almost paralyzed! We’re entering the holy of holies and so we must tremble as we come in (Isa. 66:2). “Who is adequate for these things?” (2 Cor. 2:16)
Scottish minister John Brown (cited by A. W. Pink, Exposition of John) wrote: “The seventeenth chapter of the Gospel by John, is, without doubt, the most remarkable portion of the most remarkable book in the world.” We often read in the Gospels that Jesus prayed. Sometimes we can read short snippets of His prayers (e.g., John 11:41-42; 12:27-28). But here, just hours before Jesus was arrested, we get to eavesdrop on His prayer, the longest recorded prayer in the New Testament. Jesus prays for Himself, that He would be glorified (17:1-5); for His disciples, that they would be sanctified (17:6-19); and for the church, that it would be unified (17:20-26).
This prayer teaches us about prayer, about God’s sovereign purpose and our place in it, and about the relationship between the Father and the Son. The Lord Jesus views Himself equal to the Father in terms of glory (John 17:5), and yet distinct from the Father and subject to Him in their relationship. John G. Mitchell (An Everlasting Love [Multnomah Press], p. 321) wrote, “If there is any chapter in the Bible that would reveal the deity of the Son of God and His equality with the Father, it would be this chapter.”
This prayer, along with His subsequent prayer in the garden, steeled Christ to endure the hostility of sinners against Himself (Heb. 12:3). To be faithful witnesses in a world that is hostile to the gospel, we learn from our Lord that …
To do God’s will in this hostile world, understand and submit in prayer to God’s sovereign plan to glorify Himself through the cross.
This prayer reveals Christ’s raw courage in facing the cross! He was resolute because He knew God’s plan and He submitted in prayer to that plan. What we learn here will help us to do God’s will when we face the hostility of this evil world.
God’s sovereignty is not an impractical theological subject for debate, but rather a practical truth to be applied, especially when we face major trials. We see four aspects of this truth here:
John 17:1: “Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You ….”
“These things” refers to the upper room discourse. Jesus spoke the words of this prayer out loud, so that the disciples could learn from it and record it for our instruction. “Father” shows the close relationship between Jesus and the Father. He uses it six times in this prayer (here; John 17:5, 11 [“Holy Father”], 21, 24, & 25 [“righteous Father”]). There is an eternal relationship between God the Father and God the Son, reflecting their intimacy and love for one another. But God is also the Father of Jesus when He took on human flesh (Luke 1:35). The Lord instructed us to pray, “Our Father, who is in heaven …” (Matt. 6:9). This reveals the amazing truth that we can approach the Sovereign Creator of the universe as our loving Father, who cares for us as His children. But it also shows that we always must come to Him in submission, recognizing His sovereign authority over us.
“The hour has come” points to the God-ordained hour of the cross. Five times in this Gospel Jesus referred to His hour or His time as not having arrived (John 2:4; 7:6, 8, 30; 8:20). But when the cross was immediately ahead, Jesus said that the hour had come (John 12:23, 27; 13:1; 16:32). It was the hour determined before the foundation of the world between the Father and the Son when the Son would make atonement for our sins. Peter referred to it in his sermon on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:23), “This Man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.” God sovereignly determined the plan for our salvation, but those who carried out the plan by crucifying the Lord were responsible for their awful sin.
God’s sovereign plan is also seen in Jesus’ repeated references to being “sent” to earth by the Father (here in John 17:3). John refers to Jesus’ being sent 41 times, more than any other Gospel, which shows that “the thought of mission is important to John” (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], pp. 230-231, note 78). Jesus lived with that sense of coming to earth to accomplish the work that the Father had given Him to do (John 17:4).
Of course, we cannot know God’s sovereign plan in advance, as Jesus did; He knew when that predetermined “hour” was upon Him. But we can know that God is sovereign over every trial that comes into our lives. Jesus endured the cross by trusting that the Father had determined the hour. You can endure trials in your life knowing that God is in control of history and that He is directing your history. He wants to be glorified as others see you trusting Him in prayer as you go through difficulties and trials.
Jesus refers to this in verse 1, “Glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You”; and in verse 4: “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do.” The cross was the primary work that Jesus came to accomplish. In verse 4, Jesus views the cross as already finished.
The cross was an unlikely place to find glory. In that day, they didn’t make jewelry to display the cross attractively on a necklace. That would be like wearing a hangman’s noose around your neck in our day! The cross was a place of shame, humiliation, and the most excruciating form of execution known to man. But the cross is where God’s glory was supremely displayed.
To glorify God is to display His perfect attributes so that others will marvel at who He is. It means to make Him look good, as He truly is. And nothing glorifies God like the cross. It displays both God’s power and His wisdom, as Paul writes (1 Cor. 1:23-24): “We preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.” The cross is God’s power because the gospel is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes (Rom. 1:16). It is God’s wisdom, because it removes human works and human “goodness,” which bring glory to man, as the means of salvation.
In every religion except biblical Christianity, salvation is based at least partly on human works or merit. But the gospel of the cross brings everyone before God as guilty sinners, so that when He saves them, He gets all the glory. That’s why Satan is relentless in opposing the message of the cross, sometimes blatantly, but often more subtly, by blending human works with Christ’s death, in an attempt to dilute God’s glory.
The cross also shows God’s supreme sovereignty. God sovereignly used the choices of sinners to fulfill the Old Testament prophetic details of Christ’s death. The Jewish leaders did not want to crucify Jesus during the Passover, because they feared a riot among the crowd (Matt. 26:5). But Jesus was God’s Passover Lamb whose blood applied in faith would protect from God’s judgment. And so He was sacrificed during the Passover. The pagan soldiers divided His garment among them and cast lots for His tunic (John 19:23-24), as Psalm 22:18 predicted. Although the soldiers broke the legs of the two criminals on either side of Jesus, they did not break His legs, in order to fulfill Scripture (John 19:36). He was crucified with common criminals, and yet laid in the tomb of a rich man, as Isaiah 53:9 prophesied. The cross shows that God is sovereign over all things, including the so-called “free will” of sinners.
The cross also displays God’s holiness and justice. Sometimes unbelievers ask, “Why can’t God just forgive our sins? If someone wrongs me, I forgive him. Why did Jesus need to die for God to be able to forgive us?” The answer is, because God is absolutely holy and just. If He did not impose the legal penalty for sin to be paid, He would be like an unjust human judge, which is to say, He would not be God at all. As the Holy One, He has decreed that the wages of sin is death, which means eternal separation from Him in hell. On the cross, Jesus, as the unique God-man, bore that awful penalty for every sinner who trusts in Him. Thus God can be both just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Rom. 3:26).
The cross also demonstrates God’s love, mercy, and grace. He doesn’t show His love to pretty good people who deserve it. Rather, to display His grace, He justifies the ungodly (Rom. 4:5). “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).
Christ’s aim in His earthly ministry was to glorify the Father by accomplishing the work which He gave Him to do (John 17:4). Now, He prays that the Father would glorify Him with the eternal glory that He shared with the Father before the world was, so that He in turn would glorify the Father (John 17:1, 5). That prayer assumes Jesus’ deity and His full equality with the Father (John 10:30), who does not share His glory with any creature (Isa. 42:8; 48:11). As Jesus boldly claimed (John 5:23), “All will honor the Son even as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him.”
While none of us can do what Jesus did when He glorified God by offering Himself on the cross, we can learn from His example. The apostle Paul said that his aim was that Christ would be exalted in his body, whether by life or by death (Phil. 1:20). He said that our aim in whatever we do should be to glorify God (1 Cor. 10:31). To make God’s glory your aim means dethroning self and enthroning God. It means submitting to His mighty hand in all that happens, including persecution (1 Pet. 5:7-10). Contrary to the false “prosperity gospel,” God doesn’t exist to make you happy. Rather, you exist to glorify Him. Adopting that mindset will strengthen you to do His will in this hostile world.
Jesus prays that the Son may glorify the Father and then shows how that will be worked out (John 17:2), “even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life.” Jesus is saying that He has authority over all people to give eternal life to some of them. That’s an amazing claim, which no mere man could make (see, also, John 3:35)!
I realize that what I’m going to say here will go against what some of you believe, but I urge you to meditate prayerfully on what Scripture says and to submit to it. Jesus could have said that the Father gave Him authority to give eternal life to all who believe in Him, which would have been true (John 1:12; 3:16). But that’s not His emphasis here. Rather, Jesus says that He has been given authority to give eternal life to all whom the Father has given Him. He repeats this designation in John 17:6 [2x], 9, & 24. The emphasis is on God’s sovereign choice to give some to the Son and on the Son’s authority to give eternal life to these people. As Jesus said (John 5:21), “For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom He wishes.”
Christ uses similar language in John 6:37, 39: “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out…. This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.” Those whom the Father has given to the Son are responsible to come to Him; but Jesus says that there is no doubt that they all will come and that He will keep them, because their eternal destiny ultimately rests with God’s purpose, not with their will.
I’ve heard Bible teachers say that Christ will not override man’s free will, which of course makes man, not God, sovereign. They portray Christ as impotently pleading with sinners, “Oh, please, won’t you come to Me?” He isn’t actually able to save anyone, because He can’t violate their free will. He can only save those who choose to cooperate with His offer. One false teacher actually argued that if God is able to save everyone, but chooses only to save some, then He is immoral! That’s blasphemy! That view exalts proud man and it dishonors our Lord. It means that He failed in His mission to give eternal life to all whom the Father had given Him. And it means that you’re wasting your time to pray for the salvation of anyone, because God isn’t able to save him because of his stubborn free will!
So, why does Jesus in His prayer here emphasize His sovereign authority to give eternal life to all whom God has given to Him? He emphasizes it to teach us that His work on the cross is not in vain. Sinners crucified Him, but they could not thwart, but rather inadvertently fulfilled, God’s plan to give some to His Son so that He could give eternal life to them. God didn’t send His Son to die, hoping that somewhere, somehow, some would chose to believe in Him. Rather, God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4) and predestined us according to His purpose, “who works all things after the counsel of His will” (Eph. 1:11). So if we proclaim the gospel faithfully, we may suffer rejection and hostility, as Jesus did. But we can know that God will use the message preached to save all whom He has given to His Son.
Thus God’s sovereign plan centered on the cross, which glorified Him. That plan included giving Jesus authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom the Father gave Him.
In verse 2, Jesus states that eternal life is a gift, not something that we earn. The verb, “to give,” occurs 17 times in Jesus’ prayer in John 17 and more often in John than in any of the other gospels (Morris, p. 718, note 6). It puts the focus on God’s grace.
Then Jesus defines eternal life, drawing together verses 1 and 2 (John 17:3): “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” The essence of eternal life is to know the only true God and to the extent that we know God, we see Him in all His glory. But we can only know God through His Son. Christ was sent to reveal the Father to us. As John 1:18 states, “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.” In John 14:9, Jesus told Philip, who had asked Jesus to show them the Father, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” In Matthew 11:27, emphasizing His sovereign choice again, Jesus claimed, “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.”
Eternal life is not just quantitative (lasting forever), but also qualitative (the wonder of knowing the only true God and His Son, Jesus Christ). This knowledge of God and Christ is a personal relationship that begins the moment you believe, but deepens over time and throughout eternity. And so our aim should be that of the apostle Paul (Phil. 3:10), “that I may know Him.”
Jesus said that the world would crucify Him and persecute His people because “they have not known the Father or Me” (John 16:3). But Jesus could submit to the cross because He knew the Father perfectly. To the extent that we know God, we will be able to do His will, even when the world is hostile toward us.
Our Lord did God’s will in this hostile world because He recognized and submitted to God’s sovereign plan to glorify Himself through the cross. But there is one other crucial ingredient:
The prayer recorded in this chapter, plus Christ’s agonizing prayer in the garden (of which we only have a summary), show us that He was able to do God’s will in this hostile world through prayer. We’ll be examining this prayer more in the weeks to come. But for now, note that Jesus prayed for something that He knew the Father had ordained to happen. Before the foundation of the world, God ordained that He and the Son would be glorified through the Son’s death, resurrection, and exaltation. Now Jesus says, “It’s time! Do what You have ordained to take place!”
Some people mistakenly conclude, “If God is absolutely sovereign and has promised to work all things after the counsel of His will, why pray? What will be, will be!” They use the same fallacious argument against evangelism: “If God has chosen who will be saved, why preach the gospel? Everyone who is elect will be saved!” But both of those erroneous conclusions overlook the fact that God ordains the means as well as the ends. His sovereign purpose comes to fruition as His people rely on Him in prayer and as they preach the gospel to all people.
Let me show you two examples, one regarding evangelism and the other regarding prayer. Regarding evangelism, in the context of talking about suffering hardship including his imprisonment for preaching the gospel, Paul said (2 Tim. 2:10), “For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.” They were chosen (the Greek word means, “elect”), but Paul had to suffer and preach the gospel so that they could “obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus.”
Regarding prayer, Daniel was reading the prophet Jeremiah, where God revealed that 70 years were determined for Israel’s captivity. He did the math and realized that the time was drawing near. But rather than saying, “Cool!” and sitting back to watch it happen, he said (Dan. 9:3), “So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes.” The rest of the chapter records his heartfelt prayer that God would do as He promised to do.
In Revelation 5:9-10, John sees the four living creatures and the 24 elders holding up bowls of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. They sing a new song, “Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to our God; and they will reign upon the earth.”
But just because God prophesies that that will happen doesn’t mean that we are to sit back and say, “Cool!” Rather, it will happen when we pray and give and send out workers and preach the gospel and willingly suffer for the sake of the gospel. God will be glorified through the cross, but we need to understand His sovereign plan and submit to it through prayer and obedience.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
April 12, 2015
Have you ever marveled at how the Lord launched the worldwide movement called “the church”? If He had only asked me, I would have advised Him to do things differently! I would have asked, “What were You thinking when You came up with these men to launch this movement?”
I would have said, “In the first place, if You want to launch a movement that is going to impact the world for centuries to come, You need to pick men with the proper education and experience. They should be graduates of the most prestigious theological institutions in the world. They need to have a track record of impressive results in the ministry. After all, their past performance indicates their future potential. But these guys have no degrees and no achievements!”
“Furthermore, You need men of influence who have connections with important wealthy, powerful people. They need to know how to network with the movers and shakers. No offense, but these men have accents that make them sound like hicks from the sticks. They’re Galileans! The religious elite in Jerusalem are going to laugh them out of town if they try to persuade them that You are the Messiah.”
“Also, You need to pick some men who know how to grow a business. They need to know how to recruit and manage a competent team. They need to know how to read a spread sheet. A Galilean fishing business doesn’t cut it! At least get someone with an M.B.A. on the team! Too bad about that guy, Judas! He would have been a real asset to the cause!”
But to launch the church the Lord chose a bunch of uneducated, unsophisticated Galilean fishermen, who would have been laughed out of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. To use Paul’s words (2 Cor. 4:7), He picked a bunch of earthen vessels in which to put His treasure, so that the surpassing greatness of the power would be of God and not from any man. The fact that He used such humanly unimpressive men should give us hope that perhaps He can use common people like us to help further His kingdom.
In John 17:1-5, Jesus prays for Himself, that He would be glorified through the cross so that in turn He would glorify the Father. In John 17:6-19, He prays for the disciples, that they would be kept and set apart from the world as they remain in the world. In John 17:20-26, He prays for future believers, that they would be unified so that the world may believe that the Father sent Jesus. And He prays that all whom the Father gave Him would be with Him to see His glory. Today we’re focusing on verses 6-12, where we learn:
To reach the world God uses people whom He has given to His Son, who know and obey Him, whom He keeps while they’re in this world.
As we work through these verses, note how God-centered they are. The church first and foremost belongs to God, not to any man. God planned it; He sent His Son to redeem it; He will keep it by His power.
Also, when Jesus excludes the world from His prayer (John 17:9), we would be mistaken to conclude that He doesn’t care about the world. It was because God loved the world that He sent His only Son (John 3:16). In John 17:18, Jesus says that He is sending these men into the world, just as He had been sent. His aim is (John 17:21, 23) that the world may believe in Him. But at this point, although Jesus had come into the world which He Himself made, the world did not know either Him or the Father (John 1:10; 17:25). But His way of reaching that hostile world was to call these men out of the world, share His life with them, and send them back into the world. That’s still His strategy. Note three things:
Jesus uses the verb, “gives,” 17 times in this prayer; 13 of those times refer to the Father giving to the Son. He has already (John 17:2) referred to believers as those whom the Father had given to Him. He mentions it again three times in our text:
John 17:6: “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.”
John 17:9-10: “I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours; and all things that are Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I have been glorified in them.”
In verse 10 Jesus claims to share all things with the Father. The object of the first clause, “all things that are Mine are Yours,” “is to show that the Father assuredly will listen to him” (John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 173). Jesus is pleading for those whom the Father acknowledges to be His already. In the second clause, all things that are “Yours are mine,” Jesus shows that He has good reason for caring about these men, because they belong to Him since He purchased them with His own blood. This verse is similar to Jesus’ claim to deity in John 10:30, where He said, “I and the Father are one.”
When Jesus says that these men were the Father’s, He is referring to the fact that God had chosen them in Christ before the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4). God chose not only the apostles, but also all whom Christ would die to save. The elect belong to the Father before they come to faith in Christ and His prior choice of them is the reason they eventually trust in Christ.
We see this truth in other Scriptures. When Paul was in Corinth and was afraid that if he kept preaching there, he would be persecuted by the resistant Jews, the Lord appeared to him and said (Acts 18:9-10), “Do not be afraid any longer, but go on speaking and do not be silent; for I am with you, and no man will attack you in order to harm you, for I have many people in this city.” Paul didn’t know who these people who already belonged to God were, but God knew. Through Paul’s preaching, they would come to faith.
The same idea is in 2 Timothy 2:10: “For this reason I endure all things for the sake of those who are chosen, so that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus and with it eternal glory.” Paul knew that God had chosen many who had not yet believed. To bring them to salvation, Paul endured much suffering.
The biblical doctrine of election is not, as many believe, that God merely foreknew who would believe and chose them because He foresaw their faith. That would make God’s plan of salvation depend on the will of fallen people, who are incapable of believing the gospel apart from God’s grace (Rom. 8:7-8; 2 Cor. 4:4). And it would make grace no longer be grace, because it would be based on something good foreseen in sinful people. But grace is unmerited favor, shown to those who deserve God’s wrath.
Based on verses like John 17:9, some have taught that since Jesus excluded the world from His prayer, we should not pray for the salvation of lost people. But that is erroneous because Jesus’ focus here is on the divine plan for reaching the world. He is praying for these men whom He is leaving behind and sending into the hostile world so that many in the world would believe the gospel that these men would preach.
Also, in the context of telling us that God our Savior “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4), Paul tells us to pray for all men (1 Tim. 2:1). The fact is, we don’t know in advance whom God has chosen. None of us would have expected a violent persecutor of the church like Paul ever to get saved, much less to become God’s apostle to the Gentiles. So we should pray for the salvation of all with the confidence that through our prayers and witness, God will save all whom He has given to His Son.
Before we leave this subject, we need to ask, “Why did the Lord emphasize God’s sovereignty so heavily in this prayer?” It’s in the repeated references to the disciples being given to Him by the Father. It’s in the prayer that the Father would keep the disciples in His name. It’s in the reference to Judas fulfilling Scripture by being the “son of perdition” (John 17:12). The answer is that Jesus is about to go to the cross. When you face difficult times—and there has never been a more difficult situation than that of Jesus facing the cross—it’s important to focus on the fact that the Father is in control of all things. Through prayer, Jesus gained peace and courage to face the cross because He knew that before the foundation of the world, the Father had given a chosen people to the Son, and that His mission to save them would not fail (John 6:37, 39).
There are also some practical applications of this teaching for us. First, the fact that we now believe in Christ gives us absolutely no grounds for boasting in ourselves, but only in God’s grace. We can’t boast in our intellect or our spiritual wisdom or in our religious heritage; we can only boast in the Lord (1 Cor. 1:26-31).
Second, the fact that the Father gave us who believe to His Son means that we are treasured by the Lord Jesus. If someone gives you a valuable gift, you protect it and keep it in a safe place, because you treasure it. The fact that the Father chose you and gave you to Jesus and He purchased your salvation with His blood means that He isn’t going to lose you. Christ didn’t die for you because you were valuable (as I’ve heard some teach); rather, you’re valuable because Christ died for you. You can be secure in your salvation because you are the Father’s gift to His Son.
Third, the fact that you belonged to the Father and He gave you to His Son means that you are not your own. Paul puts it like this (1 Cor. 6:19-20): “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” In the context, he’s talking about sexual purity. Because you belong to God and His Holy Spirit dwells in you, you must keep yourself morally pure.
But it applies to every area of life. You don’t own your money, your time, or your thought life; God owns it all. He gave you to His Son and gave you certain gifts so that you will use them as part of His plan to reach the world with the good news of Jesus Christ.
Fourth, because God gave us to Christ, our aim should be to glorify Him. We see this both in 1 Corinthians 6:20 (above) and in John 17:10: Jesus prays, “And I have been glorified in them.” How was Christ glorified by His disciples and how can we glorify Him? (C. H. Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 510-513, suggests many of these.) He is glorified by saving sinners such as the disciples and us. He didn’t save us because we deserved it. He saved us while we were yet sinners. He is glorified when we live holy lives and display the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. He is glorified when we trust Him, especially in our trials. He is glorified when we are full of His joy. He is glorified when we tell others about Him and see them trust in Him through our witness. To reach the world, God uses people whom He has given to His Son for His glory.
John 17:6-8: “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You; for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me.”
These verses are packed, but I can only skim the surface here. The question is, in light of Jesus’ prediction that the disciples would all desert Him and be scattered (John 16:32), and in light of their frequent misunderstandings, how can Jesus pray as He does in verses 6-8? Consider the following:
First, Jesus isn’t comparing the disciples’ weak faith and shallow understanding before the resurrection with what they would become after the resurrection. Rather, He is contrasting their current faith and understanding with the unbelief and spiritual darkness of the world that had rejected Jesus as their Messiah (D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 559). Their faith was often weak and their understanding was often lacking. But at least they had not walked away when Jesus taught hard truths (John 6:68-69). They had expressed their commitment to die with Jesus, if need be (John 11:16; 13:37). The fact that Jesus goes on to pray for the Father to keep them (John 17:11, 15) shows that He is not oblivious to their many weaknesses.
Second, Jesus’ prayer gives us a glimpse of His intercession for us as our High Priest in heaven. As Paul exclaims (Rom. 8:33-34), “Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.” He goes on to affirm that nothing can separate us from God’s love for us in Christ. Marcus Rainsford wrote (Our Lord Prays for His Own [Moody Press], p. 129):
Let us evermore remember this most precious fact, that however in His wondrous grace our blessed Teacher may [show us] our deficiencies; however He may correct and rebuke us, [showing] us in our daily experience how needy, how feeble we are, and of how little faith—yet our standing before God is in the fullness of our Head and Representative; and He will never allow us to appear before His Father otherwise than as endued with all the completeness of His own righteousness.
That is our exalted position in Christ! Even now we are seated with Him in heavenly places (Eph. 2:6). We’re accepted in Christ (Rom. 15:7). But, should be in practice what we are in our position. Because we are in Christ (Ephesians 1-3), we are to walk in a manner worthy of Him (Ephesians 4-6). Jesus manifested the Father’s name to the disciples (John 17:6). His name refers to His attributes or all that God is. While we know God if we have believed in Christ (1 John 2:13-14), we also should be growing to know Him more deeply (Phil. 3:10; 2 Pet. 3:18). And as 1 John 2:3 reminds us, “By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments.” To reach this lost world, God uses people who know Him through Jesus Christ and who keep His Word.
John 17:11-12: “I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are. While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.”
These verses anticipate verses 13-26: in verses 13-19, Jesus prays that the disciples will be kept in holiness; and in verses 20-26, He asks that future disciples will be kept in unity. There is a textual variant here: the King James Version (and New KJV) in verses 11 & 12 refers to keeping “those whom You have given Me,” whereas other versions follow the more likely original reading, keep them in “the name which You have given Me.” This means, “Keep them in full adherence to your character” (Carson, ibid., p. 562).
Jesus calls special attention to God’s character or name when He addresses Him as “Holy Father.” It is blasphemy for the pope to accept that title for himself! Only God is the Holy Father! This is the only time that Jesus uses this title. “Holy” points to God’s separateness from His creation and from all sin. “Father” points to His nearness and approachability. We can come to Him as our loving Father. Peter combines both of these truths (1 Pet. 1:14-16), “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” He goes on (verse 17) to mention that we address God, the judge, as Father.
To keep us in holiness is both God’s job and our job. God keeps us from stumbling and will make us stand blameless in His presence (Jude 24); but we are commanded to “cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Cor. 7:1). God can’t use us to reach the world if we wallow in the filth of the world.
Also, God uses people whom He keeps in unity. I’ll say more about this when we get to the final part of Jesus’ prayer. But for now, note that Jesus prays (John 17:11) that the Father will keep the disciples so that “they may be one even as We are.” This is not organizational unity, but rather intrinsic, organic unity that stems from sharing the same nature. All true believers possess it because through the new birth we all share the same Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13). Paul calls it, “the unity of the Spirit.” It is a fact, and yet He exhorts us to be diligent to preserve it (Eph. 4:3). Like holiness, unity is both something God does and something we must work for.
Thus to reach the world, God uses people whom He has given to His son, who know and obey Him, whom He keeps while they’re in this world. But the text ends on a somber note, as Jesus mentions Judas (John 17:12), “the son of perdition,” who perished “so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.” God does not reach the world through people like Judas, who never was given to Jesus, who didn’t know and obey the Father, and who wasn’t kept in holiness and unity.
“Son of perdition” is a Hebrew expression that points both to Judas’ character and his destiny. There is an inexplicable mystery here, in that Judas played a role in God’s sovereign plan to put His Son on the cross. (Judas fulfilled Ps. 41:9; see John 13:18.) And yet Judas was not a robot who had no choice in the matter. Although Satan entered Judas’ heart to cause him to betray Jesus (John 13:27), Judas did it willingly because of his greed. So God ordained it, but Judas was responsible for what he did (Acts 2:23).
Why does Jesus mention Judas here? He is assuring His own heart and the disciples’ hearts that God is in control of the awful events of that night. Evil people cannot thwart God’s sovereign purpose; in fact, they inadvertently fulfill it. Jesus knew when He chose Judas to be a disciple that he was a devil (John 6:70). But it was part of God’s sovereign plan of salvation.
The application is, if you want God to use you in His plan to reach this world, don’t be a hypocrite like Judas. You don’t have to have impressive qualifications for God to use you. Rather, truly believe in Jesus as your Savior and Lord. Grow to know God and obey His word. Put yourself under God’s protective keeping, walking in holiness and in unity with other believers.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
April 26, 2015
What in the world is worldliness? That issue has spawned confusion, legalism, division, and just plain weirdness among Christians down through church history. Some have thought that the cure for worldliness is isolation from the world. In the 5th century, Simeon the Stylite tried to escape from worldliness by living for 36 years on a platform on top of a pillar. Thousands flocked to see him perched up there and to listen to his preaching. He spawned a movement of other pillar-dwellers that lasted for 500 years!
In modern times, the Amish and some sects of the Mennonites are known for their distinctive clothing and lifestyles that separate them from American culture. Many of them think that it’s worldly to own or drive cars. Some, known as black bumper Mennonites, can drive black cars as long as they paint all the worldly chrome black! My parents used to know a German Christian woman who was disgusted with American Christians who judged her for drinking beer, while the American Christians went to bowling alleys, which she regarded as worldly! My parents grew up in the era when Christians thought that you were worldly if you did any of the “filthy five”: smoking, drinking, dancing, going to movies, or playing cards. I never went to a movie until I was 16 and I never have learned to dance.
On the other side, some Christians have reacted to separation from the world by becoming so much like the world that there are no noticeable differences. They claim that they’re trying to reach the world for Christ, but all too often their attempts to relate to the world end up compromising biblical absolutes. First John 2:15-17 commands:
Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.
John doesn’t let us love the world a little bit, while we still claim to love God. He draws the line: either you love God or you love the world. Take your pick, because you can’t have both!
So it’s important to understand biblically what worldliness is and what it is not. “World” (Greek = cosmos) is a favorite word for John, who uses it 78 times in his Gospel (including 9 times in our text), 24 times in his epistles, and 3 times in Revelation. It’s only used 85 other times in the New Testament, 47 of which are in Paul’s writings (Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 126). It originally meant “order,” and it came to refer to the universe as the well-ordered creation of God. It may refer to the physical world (John 1:10) or to the people of the world (John 3:16; 1 John 2:2). In those senses, there is nothing wrong with loving the world. We should enjoy God’s creation and we should love worldly people who need to know the Savior.
But John also uses the word to refer to the evil, organized system under Satan, which operates through unbelieving people who are opposed to God. He writes (1 John 5:19), “We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in the power of the evil one.” Jesus spoke of the world hating both Him and those who follow Him (John 7:7; 15:18-19). The world operates on the basis of ungodly thoughts, attitudes, motives, values, and goals. It does not seek to promote God’s glory or to submit to His lordship. It’s in this sense that we must not love the world. Here in Jesus’ prayer we learn that …
Christians are to relate to the world as Jesus did: to be in it, but to be distinct from it.
Note three things:
The Pharisees of Jesus’ day thought that to be holy, you had to avoid all contact with sinners. So they were shocked when Jesus chose a tax-collector named Levi (Matthew) as one of His apostles and then went to a dinner party where Levi invited all of his notoriously sinful friends (Luke 5:29-32). Another time, a Pharisee named Simon invited Jesus for dinner at his house. A well-known sinful woman came in uninvited, anointed Jesus’ feet with her tears and some perfume, and dried His feet with her hair (Luke 7:36-50). Simon was shocked. He thought that if Jesus were a true prophet, He wouldn’t let such a woman even touch Him.
But Jesus’ philosophy was (Luke 5:31), “It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick.” What good is a doctor who never sees sick people? So Jesus was known as a friend of sinners (Matt. 11:19). If we want to be like Jesus, we also need to be in the world, not isolated from sinful people.
This refutes the idea of monasticism as the model of unworldliness. Perhaps we Protestants aren’t tempted to join a monastery or convent, but we often have our own form of isolationism. I’ve heard Christians happily exclaim, “All of my work associates (or all of my neighbors) are believers!” Great! But then where is your mission field? I confess that one of my problems as a pastor is that I don’t have many natural contacts with unbelievers.
Another problem is that we have often reversed what Paul commanded. The Corinthian church was boasting in their tolerant spirit of accepting a man who was sleeping with his father’s wife! Paul was horrified and wrote to clarify (1 Cor. 5:9-11):
I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one.
I’ve known Christians who have no contact with unbelievers, but they’re friends with professing Christians who are living in sin. Even when a church disciplines a sinning member, these Christians continue friendly contact with the disciplined member. But Paul says we are not to associate with such a one.
But before you head out to befriend worldly people, a word of caution is in order. Paul warned (1 Cor. 15:33): “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company corrupts good morals.’” So how do we befriend worldly, sinful people without being corrupted ourselves? The answer lies in the second way that Jesus was in the world:
Jesus came into this world with a clear purpose: to testify to the truth (John 18:37) and to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). John has repeatedly emphasized this by saying that Jesus was sent into the world (John 17:18): “As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” The Father had sent His Son into the world with the message of salvation through faith in Him (John 3:16-18). He sends us with the same mission.
Jesus’ mission is behind His prayer in verse 19, “For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.” To sanctify means to set something apart for its God-intended use. In the Old Testament, the sacrificial animals had to be sanctified or set apart before they could be killed and offered to God. In prayer Jesus here is setting Himself apart for the cross. His mission was that as a result of His death, His disciples would be set apart in truth. D. A. Carson explains (The Farewell Discourse and Final Prayer of Jesus [Baker], p. 193), “Jesus sets himself apart to perform his redemptive work on the cross, in order that the beneficiaries of that work might set themselves apart to the work of mission.”
So the way to be a friend of sinners without being corrupted by them is to stay focused on your mission. Your aim is not to carouse with them as you may have done in the past, but rather lovingly to warn them of the judgment to come and to tell them the good news of the Savior (1 Pet. 4:1-6). But, don’t expect them to welcome you and your message with open arms! This leads to the third way that Jesus was in the world:
To be in the world and yet distinct from it because you hold to biblical truth will result in hostility from the world. Jesus prays (John 17:14), “I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” God’s word, as Jesus says (John 17:17), is truth. The world can tolerate us if we water down the truth. But even if we say it graciously, if we proclaim God’s word as the absolute, unbending truth for all people, we’ll catch the world’s hostility. As Jesus told His still unbelieving brothers (John 7:7), “The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil.” The minute you say that certain behavior is evil, you will be accused of being intolerant and judgmental. If you go into the world expecting to be popular and well-liked, you’ll be in for a rude awakening. By all means, be in the world as Jesus was in it. But go with a realistic attitude: you will not be welcomed by all.
To review: Jesus was in the world, not isolated from worldly people. But He was there with a mission, to testify to the truth. He knew that while some would receive Him, many others would not. We are to be in the world in the same way that our Savior was. We are to relate graciously to sinful people with the mission of testifying to the truth. But go with the realistic understanding that while some will respond favorably to the gospel, others will not.
Twice (John 17:14b, 16) Jesus states, “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” The first time, He is explaining why the world will hate His followers. The second time, He is giving the reason why He asks the Father to keep them from the evil one. The repeated emphasis shows that we are to be distinct from the world as Jesus was. Consider these five things:
Jesus prays (John 17:13), “But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves.” Be honest: When you think of holiness, do you think of genuine joy, or do you associate it with being deprived of a good time? Satan’s perpetual lie is that sin will bring you lasting pleasure, while holiness deprives you of having fun. The truth is, sin often brings immediate pleasure, but it always results in long-term pain and destruction. Holiness may be more difficult in the short-run, but it always results in lasting joy and pleasure. As David exults (Ps. 16:11), “You will make known to me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever.”
Here, Jesus prays that we would be holy or distinct from the world so that we may experience the fullness of His joy. Jesus’ joy was that of unbroken fellowship with the Father and delight to do the Father’s will (John 4:34; 8:29). To be distinct from the world, you’ve got to keep in mind that holiness is the path to genuine, eternal joy, not the path to depriving you of fun.
Jesus was not of this world because He came from above. We are not of this world because we have been born from above through the Holy Spirit (John 3:1-8). The new birth sets us apart from the world that does not know God.
Through the new birth, we have a new nature that desires to please God. We have a new Master, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We have a new power to overcome sin, the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. We have a new purpose in life, to glorify our Savior in all that we do and to tell others the good news of His salvation. We have a new identity as the people of God, members of Christ’s body, the church. We have a new destiny; we will be in heaven with our Lord throughout eternity. (Some of these points are from A. W. Pink, Exposition of the Gospel of John, online at pbministries.org.)
So the crucial question is, have you been born again? Has God changed your heart and your desires? Have you trusted in Jesus Christ and His shed blood as your only hope in life and in death? Apart from the new birth, every attempt to be distinct from the world will be legalism or asceticism, neither of which result in genuine holiness or lasting joy. As Jesus said to the legalistic Nicodemus (John 3:7), “You must be born again.”
In John 17:14, Jesus prays, “I have given them Your word.” Again in verse 17, He prays, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” And again in verse 19 He prays “that they themselves may be sanctified in truth.”
Marcus Rainsford (Our Lord Prays for His Own [Moody Press], p. 216) observed, “If there is one thing more remarkable than another in the recorded life of the Lord Jesus Christ, it is His constant endorsement of Scripture, and His evident faith in, and constant use of Scripture.” He adds that if anyone was ever qualified to speak on his own apart from Scripture, it was Christ. And yet He never did so.
In John 5:39, He told the hostile Jewish leaders, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me.” He said (John 7:38) that “the Scripture said” the Holy Spirit would be given to those who believe in Him. He later called the Scriptures “the word of God” and asserted that they cannot be broken (John 10:35). When He predicted Judas’ betrayal, He explained that it was “that the Scripture may be fulfilled” (John 13:18). After His resurrection, He told the disciples (Luke 24:44), “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” Luke (24:45) adds, “Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.” Jesus was saturated with the Scriptures.
And here (John 17:17) He calls God’s word “the truth.” He doesn’t say that God’s word contains the truth or that it is one truth among many. Rather, its very essence is truth. It is the absolute, final, and eternal source and standard of truth against which all else is to be measured. God’s truth does not vary from culture to culture or from age to age. All spiritual and moral truth is contained in God’s written word.
Jesus says that God’s word will sanctify us or set us apart from the world for God’s purpose. Whether you are worldly or godly is primarily a matter of how you think. In Romans 12:2, Paul tells us how not to be worldly: “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” Our minds are transformed and renewed as we saturate them in God’s word so that we think biblically about all of life.
Thus to be distinct from this world, realize that it is the path to genuine joy, not the path to depriving you of fun. Make sure that you have been born again. Develop a separate mindset that comes from God’s Word.
Knowing God’s Word is foundational; you can’t obey what you don’t know. But I’ve known many Christians who know the truth, but they don’t obey it. Personal application is always the goal of Bible study. As you read and study the Word, always ask, “So what?” How does this Scripture apply to my life? Do I need to change the way I think? Do I need to change my attitude? Is my speech pleasing to God and edifying to others? Are there sinful habits that I need to destroy? Are there godly character qualities that I need to develop? Do I need to adjust my priorities and change my daily schedule? Do I need to be a better steward of the resources that God has entrusted to me?
Becoming an obedient, godly person is related to our mission of testifying to the truth of Christ. Andreas Kostenberger (John [Baker], p. 496) observes, “Personal holiness is not to be an end in itself but a means to an end: reaching the lost world for Christ.” J. C. Ryle (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], 4:195) comments, “Holy living is the great proof of the reality of Christianity. Men may refuse to see the truth of our arguments, but they cannot evade the evidence of a godly life.”
For example, when people at work are complaining about the boss or the lousy pay, you are cheerfully thankful because you’re obeying Philippians 2:14-15: “Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world.” When someone cuts you down with an unkind remark, you respond with grace and kindness, because you’re obeying 1 Peter 3:8-9: “To sum up, all of you be harmonious, sympathetic, brotherly, kindhearted, and humble in spirit; not returning evil for evil or insult for insult, but giving a blessing instead; for you were called for the very purpose that you might inherit a blessing.” You’re distinct from this evil world because you’re obedient to God’s Word. Finally,
Jesus prays (John 17:15), “I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.” This may be translated, “keep them from evil,” but the definite article indicates that Jesus was referring to Satan, the evil one. Peter warns (1 Pet. 5:8), “Be of sober spirit, be on the alert. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” In the context, Satan especially is prowling when you’re going through difficult trials. That’s when you need to be on special alert, resisting him by being firm in your faith. If a real lion was on the loose in Flagstaff, you’d be especially careful when you walked to your car after church. A real lion is on the loose in Flagstaff! Walk carefully!
Again, this relates to our mission of testifying to the truth. Peter himself had succumbed to the enemy’s attack when he denied Christ three times on the night of Jesus’ arrest (Luke 22:31). But thankfully, because of God’s grace, Peter was restored and God used him to preach powerfully on the Day of Pentecost, resulting in 3,000 being saved.
Each of us needs to apply our Lord’s words in our text according to our own needs. Some, like me, need to be more in the world. I’m too isolated. I can’t bear witness if I don’t have contact with worldly people. Others may need to be more distinct from the world. You can’t bear witness if you live just as the world lives. We should relate to the world as our Savior did: to be in it, but distinct from it.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
May 10, 2015
Our subject is Christian unity: Jesus hits it three times in these four verses (John 17:21, 22, 23), so we can’t miss it. Ironically, there are widespread differences of opinion on the subject of unity among those who profess to follow Christ. This is evident by the fact that there are approximately 40,000 Christian denominations, and the number grows annually.
When the subject of unity comes up, I always think of the familiar chorus, “We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord,” and why I can’t stand that song. First, the song comes out of the Catholic Charismatic movement, which taints it with all sorts of serious doctrinal problems. Are we really “one” with every group that claims to be Christian, even if they claim that we must add our good works to faith in Christ to be saved? That’s the issue that Paul confronts in Galatians. The Judaizers claimed to believe in Jesus as their Savior. But they also insisted that in addition to faith a man must be circumcised and follow the Law of Moses to be saved. Paul didn’t say, “Let’s set aside the areas where we don’t agree and come together where we do agree.” He said, rather, that those teaching this false gospel were accursed (Gal. 1:8-9).
A second reason I dislike that chorus is more personal. When I was in Coast Guard boot camp, as far as I could tell, none of my fellow recruits in my company were believers. They consistently used foul speech and bragged about their sexual exploits. But every week, they’d march to the chapel and join together, under the liberal chaplain, singing, “We are one in the Spirit.” I attended once, but after what I saw and heard, I couldn’t go again. I’d take my Bible and sit outside the chapel and read, while I listened to them proclaim their unity in Christ. So now you know why that won’t be our closing song today!
I want to try to help you understand what true Christian unity is by answering three questions: What is Christian unity? Why is it important? How is it expressed? To sum up:
Christian unity is based on shared life in Christ; is a major source for witness to the world; and is expressed through common love, purpose, and mission.
What is Christian unity?
It is important to understand that there are two types of unity in the Bible. In Ephesians 4:3, Paul says that we are to be “diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” The unity of the Spirit is already a fact for believers, but we must be diligent to preserve it. Then in Ephesians 4:13, after talking about the ministry of pastors and teachers who equip the saints for the work of ministry, Paul adds, “… until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” This unity of the faith is not yet a reality, but is attained to as we grow to maturity in Christ. (See, also, Eph. 2:14-22.) We might call these “positional unity,” which is a fact; and “practical unity,” which is a work in progress.
We see the same thing in our text: In verses 21 & 22, Jesus prays that those who believe in Him would be one, even as He and the Father are one. That prayer was answered when the Holy Spirit baptized all believers into the one body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13). Yet Jesus also prays that believers may be “perfected in unity” (John 17:23), which implies a process of growth. So it’s much like sanctification: We are positionally sanctified in Christ (1 Cor. 1:30; 6:11); yet, we must grow in sanctification (2 Cor. 7:1; 1 Thess. 4:3).
Organizations such as the World Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches are prominent in promoting organizational or external unity among various denominations. The idea is to set aside the areas we differ and come together on common ground. But both councils are notoriously theologically and politically liberal and inclusive of denominations that deny or compromise the gospel. Christ was not praying for a one-world church organized under one leader and church government.
Being one body in Christ does not mean that we all must look alike, talk alike, and enjoy the same kinds of activities. Back in the early 1970’s, I knew many “hippie” young people who got swept up in the “Local Church” movement under the Chinese leader, Witness Lee. Overnight, they cut off their long hair and beards and started wearing white shirts with narrow black ties, just as Witness Lee did. They even gestured and sounded like him when they talked. It was kind of eerie, but it had nothing to do with true Christian unity! The very analogy of being members of Christ’s body implies that all the members do not look the same or serve the same function. The beauty of the body is that it functions as one body although it consists of many different members.
We need to think carefully here! There are three broad levels of Bible doctrines: (1) Essential truths, necessary for salvation. To deny any of these would be heresy and a denial of the faith. All true Christians agree on these truths. These include: The inspiration and authority of Scripture; the Trinity; the full deity and humanity of Jesus Christ; His substitutionary death on the cross; His bodily resurrection; His bodily second coming; and, salvation by grace through faith alone, apart from works.
(2) Important, but non-saving, truth. These truths affect how we live as Christians, the way we understand God, man, salvation, the Christian life, etc. But genuine believers differ on these matters. Some examples: Biblical prophecy; Calvinism vs. Arminianism; views of baptism; charismatic gifts; roles of men and women in the church and home; church government; Christians and psychology; and, views of creation. Some of these issues are more important in that they border on essential doctrines (e.g., some issues in Calvinism vs. Arminianism deal with salvation and the gospel). So there are gray areas between each of the categories.
(3) Interesting, but not essential or important matters. These issues won’t affect the way you live your Christian life. They include minor interpretive issues on difficult texts; some methods that are not mandated by Scripture; and other issues. For example: Who were the sons of God in Genesis 6? When does the battle in Ezekiel 38 take place? Did Christ descend into hell (1 Pet. 3:19-20)?
So it’s important to discern the level of importance of a doctrine before you debate it with another Christian or divide from him over it. Paul instructs Timothy (1 Tim. 1:4-5) not to pay attention to myths or endless genealogies, which only give rise to speculation, but to focus on teaching that leads to love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith. Christian unity is not organizational or external unity. Then, what is it?
If you have put your trust in Jesus Christ, then He is praying for you in these verses. He says (John 17:20), “I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word.” Note two things:
Jesus is not praying for the entire world here (John 17:9). He is not praying for inter-faith unity among all Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, and Muslims, as promoted by many inter-faith prayer services this past week. Rather, He is praying specifically for those who believe in Him through the apostles’ word. That word is recorded for us in the New Testament, which the Holy Spirit inspired them to write (John 14:26; 16:13, 14).
The core message of the apostolic witness centers on salvation through faith in the life, substitutionary death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. As we saw (John 1:12-13), “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” The new birth is the basis of our unity in Christ.
Jesus compares this unity with that which exists between Him and the Father (John 17:21): “that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, …” Jesus and the Father are eternally one in their shared nature as God. When we are born again and become children of God, we share in the divine nature (John 1:12-13; 2 Pet. 1:4). So in this sense, Jesus’ prayer was answered on the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came on all believers, uniting them in the one body of Christ. Since then, all who believe the apostolic witness to Christ share new life in Him (1 Cor. 12:13): “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” This is the unity of the Spirit that Paul talks about (Eph. 4:3). It is a fact, and yet we must be diligent to preserve it.
Jesus prays (John 17:22), “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one.” What does Jesus mean? Godly commentators differ, so I can’t be dogmatic. We know that Christ has an incommunicable glory, which He did not receive and He does not bestow. In that sense, God does not share His glory with anyone (Isa. 42:8). But we can piece together several verses that steer us in the right direction. John (1:14) testifies, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Then John 1:16 adds, “For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.” So in part, the glory that Christ has given us is the glory of our salvation, received and sustained by abundant grace.
Also, for Christ, the epitome of His glory was displayed at the cross (John 12:28; 13:31-32), which supremely shows His love, justice, holiness, and grace. This leads Leon Morris (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 734) to interpret the glory that He gives to all of His disciples: “… just as His true glory was to follow the path of lowly service culminating in the cross, so for them the true glory lay in the path of lowly service wherever it might lead them.” (D. A. Carson, The Farewell Discourse and Final Prayer of Jesus [Baker], p. 198, concurs.) Morris (p. 735) and Carson (ibid.) cite William Barclay (The Gospel of John [Westminster], 2:219):
We must never think of our cross as our penalty; we must think of it as our glory…. The harder the task we give a student, or a craftsman, or a surgeon, the more we honour him…. So when it is hard to be a Christian, we must regard it as our glory, as our honour given to us by God.
Also, Jesus explains what this glory entails in John 17:23: “I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.” There are two parts to this: First, “I in them and You in Me” points to Christ’s indwelling us through the Holy Spirit, who is given to all who believe. Through the Spirit, the triune God dwells in every believer! Even though the world may not see it very clearly, as we are perfected in unity, they will get a glimpse of the glory of God (e.g. the fruit of the Spirit) in us.
Second, Jesus says that the Father has loved us, even as He has loved Jesus! What a staggering statement! The love of the Father for the Son is eternal and infinite. There is no way to measure it. It surpasses all comprehension (Eph. 3:18). The best picture we have of the Father’s love for us is when He sent Jesus to die on the cross for our sins. Have you experienced the love of God for you in Christ at the cross? That love is your glory and the common glory of every true believer. It brings us together into the one worldwide family of God. Our unity is based on our common salvation in Christ and our common glory in Christ.
Why is Christian unity important?
Jesus mentions this twice: In John 17:21, He prays that we all may be one … “so that the world may believe that You sent Me.” In verse 23, He prays that we may be perfected in unity “so that the world may know that You sent Me.” Note that faith is not nebulous or subjective. Rather, faith centers on the truth that the Father sent Jesus, His Son, to earth. As John repeatedly emphasizes, He sent Him to be the Savior of all who believe in Him. But, how can the world believe in Jesus? Paul explains (Rom. 10:14-15),
How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!”
We are often the only Bible that people read. By our godly lives, by our verbal witness to the person and work of Christ, and by our visible unity with all true believers, we proclaim to the world the truth that God sent His Son to pay for the sins and give eternal life to all that believe (John 3:16). That leads to the third question:
How is Christian unity expressed?
Jesus makes the staggering statement that the Father has loved us even as He loved Jesus! While we will spend eternity trying to fathom the depths of the Father’s love for us, it should be increasingly influencing our daily lives. Perhaps it is nowhere expressed more eloquently than in Paul’s conclusion of Romans 8, where he says that nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I remember holding our firstborn child in my arms and feeling my love for her well up as I gazed into her tiny face. Suddenly, it dawned on me, “My parents must love me as much as I love my baby daughter!” Then it further hit me, “The heavenly Father loves me far more than any earthly father can love his children!”
John applies this wonderful truth (1 John 4:11): “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” The logic of that is so simple, and yet it is often so difficult to obey! But after loving God, the second great commandment is that we love others even as we do in fact love ourselves (Matt. 22:39).
It’s relatively easy to love folks who are just like you. But the church is to show Christ’s love across racial, cultural, generational, and economic divides as we worship together and care for one another. There was no greater divide in Paul’s day than that between Jews and Gentiles. But Paul emphasized that the glory of the church is that Christ removed the barrier between those two diverse groups and made them one (Eph. 2:14-22). He insists (Col. 3:11) that in the church, “there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.” When people who are divided in the world display their love for one another in the local church, the world takes notice.
In the early 1970’s, I had the privilege of visiting the “Body Life” service at Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto, California, where the late Ray Stedman was the pastor. There were little white-haired ladies sitting next to long-haired hippies. Through the stories shared, it was evident that although they were from very different segments of American life, both sides loved each other. That display of Christ’s love resulted in many unbelievers coming to see what was going on and eventually coming to faith in Christ.
Although we have different gifts and different callings, our common purpose is to glorify God in all that we do (1 Cor. 10:31). We glorify Him by living in obedience to His commands and by bearing much fruit (John 15:8, 10). We glorify Him as we are more and more conformed to the image of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 3:18).
In urging the Philippian church toward unity, Paul put it like this (Phil. 1:27): “Only conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or remain absent, I will hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel.” Our common mission is to fulfill the Great Commission, to make disciples of all the nations (Matt. 28:19). Again, while we may differ with other believers over secondary matters, as long as they proclaim the truth of the gospel, we should rejoice that Christ is being proclaimed (Phil. 1:15-18).
I could spend several more messages on some of the practical ramifications of our Lord’s teaching here, but I’ll try to list a couple of things that you can explore further (see, also, my article on the church web site, “Separation Versus Cooperation”).
First, while we must strive to love and accept all whom Christ has truly saved, we also must be careful not to compromise essential biblical truth. The more common danger, I think, is not the failure to love, but rather the failure to hold to sound doctrine. This was illustrated in the “Evangelicals and Catholics Together” statement that was signed by many prominent Christian leaders in the 1990’s. That statement confused and compromised the essential truth of the Reformation, that we are justified by grace through faith in Christ alone, apart from works. The Catholic Church teaches that we must add our own works or merit to God’s grace to be saved. But that’s the same as the Galatian heresy. We are not one with those who deny the apostolic gospel. As I said, Paul did not come together on common ground with the Judaizers. Neither should we!
Second, while we need walls of separation both as individuals and as a church, those walls may be different on the individual and corporate levels. For example, if in private conversation with a Roman Catholic priest, I determine that he truly has trusted in Christ as his Savior and is not trusting in his own good works, I can have a degree of fellowship with him based on our common salvation. Of course, as our relationship deepened, I would challenge him to leave his affiliation with an apostate church.
But I could never do anything publicly to imply that our church is one with the Roman Catholic Church. I would never endorse a unity or prayer service that included churches that deny the gospel. New life in Christ is the only basis for true unity. Let’s pray for discernment and graciously strive for unity and love with all that know Christ without compromising the gospel or minimizing important truth!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
May 17, 2015
With all of the wonderful blessings we enjoy as Christians, I often wonder why people aren’t beating down the doors of every evangelical church to beg, “What must I do to be saved?” Even when we face difficult trials, we have Christ’s presence in the flames to comfort us, as He was with the three men in the fiery furnace (Dan. 3). He is there to comfort us when we lose loved ones. He is there to sustain us when we face death. And when we leave this life, we are with Him in glory forever, with eternal happiness. What is there about the Christian life not to love! The fact that unbelievers are not actively seeking to know God only confirms their spiritual blindness and hardness of heart, as the Bible declares.
As our Lord wraps up His high priestly prayer, which we are privileged to listen in on, He reveals the blessings that all who believe in Him enjoy in this life, plus the incomparable blessing of being with Him in heaven forever. He’s saying …
If you have come to Christ as Savior and Lord, you have wonderful blessings now plus the certainty of being with Him in heaven to see His glory.
Although Jesus mentions heaven in verse 24 followed by our present blessings in verses 25 & 26, I’m going to look first at the blessings we enjoy now and then look at the promise of heaven.
Jesus enumerates two main blessings here:
John 17:25-26a: “O righteous Father, although the world has not known You, yet I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me; and I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known ….”
If you’ve never read J. I. Packer’s, Knowing God [IVP], you should put it on your spiritual “bucket list.” He begins that book (pp. 13-14) by quoting at length the first sermon that the 20-year-old C. H. Spurgeon preached at the New Park Street Chapel in London on January 7, 1855. The young preacher began:
It has been said by someone that “the proper study of mankind is man.” I will not oppose the idea, but I believe it is equally true that the proper study of God’s elect is God; the proper study of a Christian is the Godhead. The highest science, the loftiest speculation, the mightiest philosophy, which can ever engage the attention of a child of God, is the name, the nature, the person, the work, the doings, and the existence of the great God whom he calls his Father. There is something exceedingly improving to the mind in a contemplation of the Divinity. It is a subject so vast, that all our thoughts are lost in its immensity; so deep, that our pride is drowned in its infinity. Other subjects we can compass and grapple with … and go our way with the thought, “Behold I am wise.” But when we come to this master-science, finding that our plumb-line cannot sound its depth … we turn away with the thoughts that vain man would be wise … with the solemn exclamation, “I am but of yesterday, and know nothing.” No subject of contemplation will tend more to humble the mind, than thoughts of God….
But while the subject humbles the mind it also expands it. He who often thinks of God, will have a larger mind than the man who simply plods around this narrow globe…. Nothing will so enlarge the intellect, nothing so magnify the whole soul of man, as a devout, earnest, continued investigation of the great subject of the Deity.
And, whilst humbling and expanding, this subject is eminently consolatory. Oh, there is, in contemplating Christ, a balm for every wound, in musing on the Father, there is a quietus for every grief, and in the influence of the Holy Ghost, there is a balsam for every sore. Would you lose your sorrows? Would you drown your cares? Then go plunge yourself in the Godhead’s deepest sea; be lost in his immensity; and you shall come forth as from a couch of rest, refreshed and invigorated. I know nothing which can so comfort the soul, so calm the swelling billows of grief and sorrow; so speak peace to the winds of trial, as a devout musing upon the subject of the Godhead.
I can’t begin to compare with Spurgeon’s eloquence, but the topic that our Lord here addresses is that of knowing God. At the beginning of His prayer, Jesus said (John 17:3), “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” Knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ is the very definition of eternal life! So here, Jesus draws a distinction between the world, which has not known the Father, and those who know the Father through faith in Jesus.
It is important to understand that we cannot know God through philosophy. Philosophers may speculate, “I think God is like this,” but they don’t know anything about God. The natural man, who has not been born of the Spirit, cannot know God, whether by studying philosophy or even theology. His natural mind is darkened so that he cannot understand spiritual truth (Rom. 1:21; 1 Cor. 2:14; Eph. 4:18).
We can know God only through revelation, not speculation. In Luke 10:22, Jesus claimed, “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” In the same vein, earlier in this prayer Jesus said (John 17:6), “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; …” Here He repeats (John 17:26), “I have made Your name known to them ….” The only way that we can know God is through Jesus Christ, who was sent to this earth to manifest God’s name. Through faith in Christ we receive the Holy Spirit, who gives us understanding into the things of God. We know something of God’s name.
God’s name refers to His attributes and character. Here, Jesus addresses Him as “Righteous Father,” which is unique in all of Scripture. Unless you had a stern, rules-oriented Dad, you probably wouldn’t connect righteous and father in the same breath. When I think of God as my Father, I think of Psalm 103:13, “Just as a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.” It makes me want to draw near to feel His love. But when I think of righteous, it causes me to draw back, because I instantly recognize that I am not righteous. Like Isaiah when he saw the Lord and heard the angels proclaiming (Isa. 6:3), “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts,” I want to cry out (Isa. 6:5), “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”
But here Jesus brings together righteous Father. He is not unrighteous when He withholds the revelation of His name from the sinful world that rejected His Son. Their punishment is just. And He can righteously impute the very righteousness of His Son on all who believe in Him, because He bore their just punishment on the cross (Rom. 3:21-26). To them alone He is the righteous Father. To cite Dr. Packer again (Knowing God ([IVP], p. 182),
If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all. For everything that Christ taught, everything that makes the New Testament new, and better than the Old, everything that is distinctively Christian as opposed to merely Jewish, is summed up in the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God. ‘Father’ is the Christian name for God.
Knowing God as the righteous Father, along with all of His other attributes, begins at salvation, but it continues as a lifelong quest. Jesus adds (John 17:26) that He “will continue to make it [God’s name] known.” This began with His love that would be supremely demonstrated on the cross the next day and extends to the ongoing ministry of the Holy Spirit, who pours out the love of God in our hearts as we grow to know Him more deeply (John 16:12-15; Rom. 5:5; Gal. 2:20). As John exclaims (1 John 3:1), “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.” The prophet Hosea (6:3) exhorted, “So let us know, let us press on to know the Lord.” About 25 years after coming to know Christ, Paul stated as his constant goal that he kept pressing toward (Phil. 3:10), “that I may know Him.”
If you know someone who is famous or important in the world, you would count it as a great privilege and you would take advantage of every opportunity to spend time with him so that you could know him better. As believers, we know the living and true God, creator of heaven and earth. We should spend time in His Word every day seeking to know Him better. Knowing God is the very essence of eternal life. Related to this:
Jesus says (John 17:26), “I have made Your name known to them, and will make it known, so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” As we saw (John 17:23), Jesus says that the Father loves us even as He loves His own Son! What a staggering, life-changing truth! Paul prays (Eph. 3:17-19), “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.”
So as Christ dwells in our hearts, we enjoy both His presence and the ever-deepening experience of God’s love. On the heart level, not just intellectually, we ought to know, “Christ lives in me and through Him I am growing to experience the unfathomable love of God more and more!”
Maybe you’re thinking, “If God loves me that much, why am I having so many difficult trials?” But remember, God loves His own Son with eternal, infinite love, and yet He sent Him to earth to bear the reproach of sinners and to die a horrible death on the cross. God’s great love does not mean that you will be spared from difficult trials or that He will bless you with health and wealth, as many false prophets in our day promise. We may face tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, and even martyrdom for Christ’s sake. But none of these things can separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. 8:35-39).
In fact, it is especially when you’re going through trials that you can experience the comforting presence of Christ. It was when the disciples were in the storm that Christ came walking to them on the water. Late in his life, the pioneer missionary to Africa, David Livingstone, received an honorary doctorate from Glasgow University. As he rose to speak, he was gaunt and haggard as a result of the hardships he had gone through in Africa. His left arm, crushed by a lion, hung helplessly at his side as he announced his glad resolve to return to Africa. He added, “Would you like me to tell you what supported me through all the years of exile among a people whose language I could not understand, and whose attitude toward me was often uncertain and often hostile? It was this: ‘Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age.’ On these words I staked everything, and they never failed!” (“Our Daily Bread,” Fall, 1984.)
You may be thinking, “I know that God loves me and that Christ is always with me, but I don’t experience His loving presence very often. Is there anything that I can do?” The Puritan, Thomas Manton, has some practical advice (in J. C. Ryle, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], 4:207):
If an earthly king lie but one night in a house, what care there is taken that nothing be offensive to him and that all be neat and sweet and clean. How much more careful ought you to be to keep your hearts clean, to perform service acceptable to Him, to be in the exercise of faith, love, and other graces so that you may entertain, as you ought, your heavenly King, who comes to take up His continual abode in your hearts.
If your heart is cold and you feel distant from the Lord, I always find encouragement in the invitation of Isaiah 55:6-7:
Seek the Lord while He may be found;
Call upon Him while He is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
And let him return to the Lord,
And He will have compassion on him,
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon.
Knowing the righteous Father and enjoying His infinite love, along with the indwelling presence of Christ, are just some of the innumerable blessings that we enjoy in this life. But, as the saying goes, “You ain’t seen nothing yet!” The best is yet to come!
Here we move back to John 17:24: “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” Note three things:
When Jesus says, “Father, I desire …” He uses the Greek verb meaning, “I will.” In the garden, Jesus prayed (Luke 22:42), “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” But here, Jesus expresses His will, namely, that all whom the Father has given Him be with him in heaven to see His glory. Of course, Jesus’ will and the Father’s will are in complete agreement. In John 6:37-40, Jesus said,
“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”
How can you know if you’re one whom the Father gave to His Son? Jesus says that all whom the Father has given to Him will come to Him. Have you come to Jesus? If you’ve come to Jesus and put your trust in Him as your Savior, you’re one of those whom the Father gave to His Son. And this means that you can be certain that you will be with Christ in heaven!
The best part about heaven will not be golden streets or being with your loved ones or meeting all of the great saints from the past or even having a new resurrection body, as wonderful as all those things will be. The best part of being in heaven will be to be with Jesus forever and to see His glory. This wonderful truth is repeated often in the New Testament:
Luke 23:43: “And He said to him, ‘Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.’”
John 14:3: “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”
Philippians 1:23: I have “the desire to depart and be with Christ, for that is very much better ….”
2 Corinthians 5:8: “We … prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.”
1 Thessalonians 4:17: “Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.”
Revelation 22:3-4a: “There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; they will see His face ….”
The well-known evangelist D. L. Moody said that when he got to heaven, he wanted to sit with Jesus for 1,000 years and then he would ask, “Where is Paul?” He meant, the greatest thing about heaven will be to be with Jesus.
Do you long to be with Jesus and see His glory? If you don’t enjoy spending time with Christ in His Word now, you probably aren’t real excited about being with Him in eternity. I can’t answer how billions of saints will be able all to be with Jesus in a personal way, but somehow the Lord is able to deal with that conundrum. But however it happens, it will be the ultimate experience of all experiences! The old hymn (by Carrie Breck) puts it,
Face to face with Christ my Savior,
Face to face—what will it be—
When with rapture I behold Him,
Jesus Christ who died for me?
Jesus says that the glory which the Father gave Him stems from the fact that He loved Him before the foundation of the world. Here we are peering into the mystery of the Trinity and their eternal relationships. While I cannot plumb those depths, for our purposes note that heaven will be a place permeated by love. We will see the love that the Father has eternally for the Son and the Son for the Father. That love will be perfected in all of the saints. Jonathan Edwards has a wonderful sermon (www.biblebb.com/ files/edwards/charity16.htm) where he explores in depth what it will be like to be in that world of love. The Upper Room scene began with John 13:1, “having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.” It ends (John 17:24, 26) with Jesus’ mentioning the Father’s eternal love for Him and with His prayer that, “the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”
The Heidelberg Catechism begins: Question: What is your only comfort in life and in death?
Answer: That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death—to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.
As those whom the Father gave to His Son, we enjoy the blessings of salvation now and the joys of heaven ahead! What more could we ask for!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
May 24, 2015
When tragedies hit, there are two opposing views among professing Christians. One view, called Open Theism, is that God had nothing to do with the tragedy. He doesn’t know the future in advance and so there is nothing that He could have done to prevent your tragedy. He hurts with you about what happened; He wishes that it wouldn’t have happened; but, He was as surprised over the event as you were.
So Open Theism tries to get God off the hook for all the suffering and tragedy that goes on in the world. It arose from the theological position of taking Arminianism to its logical conclusion. The open theists recognized that if God foreknows everything, then everything is foreordained, which is unacceptable to them. So they had to eliminate God’s foreknowledge. And they couldn’t reconcile the terrible suffering in the world with God’s love. So they jettisoned both His omniscience and His sovereignty.
The other view is that God is sovereign over everything that happens, but He is not responsible for evil. Evildoers are responsible for their sins and will face judgment if they do not repent. Yet at the same time, their evil deeds do not frustrate God’s good and loving purpose. As Job (42:2) affirmed after all of his suffering, which was caused by Satan, “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.” Or as the early church prayed (Acts 4:27-28), “For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur.” God predestined the death of Jesus, but those who did it were responsible for that terrible sin.
I believe that Open Theism is heretical and the second view is the biblical truth. It’s also the only view that gives us comfort and hope in the midst of suffering. Although we may not in our lifetimes understand why God allowed our suffering, we can know that He will work it together for good because He is sovereign and He loves us (Rom. 8:28-39; John 17:23).
This view of God’s sovereignty over tragedy permeates John’s account of the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of Jesus. Commentators agree that what John uniquely omits and includes in his account of Christ’s passion has the overall effect of emphasizing Christ’s control over His death. For example, John omits Jesus’ agonizing prayer in the Garden, where He asked repeatedly that, if possible, the cup of suffering on the cross be removed from Him. But John includes Jesus’ resolve to obey the Father’s will when He rebukes Peter (John 18:11), “Put the sword into the sheath; the cup which the Father has given Me, shall I not drink it?”
John omits Judas’ betrayal kiss, but he includes something that the other gospels omit: When Judas and the armed cohort came to Him, Jesus took the initiative in greeting His persecutors! John 18:4: “Jesus, knowing all the things that were coming upon Him, went forth and said to them, ‘Whom do you seek?’” Only John tells us that when Jesus answered them, they all drew back and fell to the ground. John alone reports Jesus’ command to the soldiers to let His disciples go their way (John 18:8). And from John we learn that Peter was the impetuous disciple who swung his sword and Malchus was the slave who got his ear cut off. Probably John could mention their names because both men were dead when John wrote. Revealing their names would not embarrass either man or subject Peter to legal prosecution.
The overall impression that John conveys through his narrative is that Jesus was in complete control of His arrest and crucifixion. Although Judas and the armed soldiers succeeded in arresting Jesus and although Peter by human force vainly sought to protect Him, Jesus was calmly in control of the events leading to His death. He was not a tragic victim, but rather the good shepherd who willingly laid down His life for His sheep. The lesson is:
In spite of rebels who oppose Him and disciples who fail Him, Jesus is Lord over every situation, including His own death.
Sometimes when you look at all the evil in the world, with Islamic terrorists boasting in their gruesome conquests, you may wonder, “Where is God in all of this? Is God’s side losing the battle?” Here you have the Jewish religious leaders, who should have welcomed their Messiah, the betrayer who is under the direct influence of Satan himself (John 13:27), and the Roman military, representing the world-dominating Roman Empire, all aligned against Jesus. So we see all the evil powers of darkness and the world coming against this humble, innocent teacher from Galilee. And from outward appearances, they easily triumph, while Jesus is brutally murdered.
But from God’s perspective, it is laughable for anyone, no matter how powerful in this world’s eyes, to oppose the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth. Psalm 2:1-4 pictures it:
Why are the nations in an uproar
And the peoples devising a vain thing?
The kings of the earth take their stand
And the rulers take counsel together
Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying,
“Let us tear their fetters apart
And cast away their cords from us!”
He who sits in the heavens laughs,
The Lord scoffs at them.
Christ’s opponents in our text fall into three categories:
John (18:3) mentions that the chief priests and Pharisees sent officers (the temple police) as part of the contingent to arrest Jesus. During His three years of ministry, the Jewish religious establishment was Jesus’ main source of opposition. They knew the Old Testament well. They heard Jesus’ teaching and saw His miracles. Of all people, they should have known that Jesus uniquely fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah. But they not only rejected Him; they also stirred up the people against Him and instigated His arrest and crucifixion (John 11:53).
Why did they do this? For one thing, Jesus threatened their comfortable grip on power over the people and the prestige they enjoyed. They made a nice profit selling animals for sacrifice in the temple. They loved the places of honor at banquets and the chief seats in the synagogues and the respectful greetings in the market place (Matt. 23:6-7). All of that would be gone if their religion was proved to be false.
Also, Jesus confronted their root problem, which was pride. They were proud of their religious practices. They were meticulous about tithing (and letting everyone know that they tithed!). They were fastidious about keeping themselves ceremonially pure, adding many manmade rules to the ones prescribed in the Law of Moses. They despised the “Gentile dogs,” but were proud that they were children of Abraham. They thought that their racial identity and their many religious practices guaranteed them a place in the kingdom of God.
But like the Old Testament prophets before Him, Jesus showed them that God looks on the heart, not on outward religious performance. He exposed the sin in their hearts (Matt. 23:25): “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence.” In Mark 7:6, Jesus hit the scribes and Pharisees, “Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors Me with their lips, but their heart is far away from Me.’”
God always looks on the heart. Since religion is always based on a system of works, it never deals the death blow to pride. People who are into religion make two fatal errors: First, they overestimate their own goodness, mistakenly thinking that their good works will outweigh their “few” shortcomings on judgment day. Granted, some are relatively better than others when you look at outward good deeds. But God judges the thoughts and intentions of our hearts. Every wrong thought that we’ve ever had is open and laid bare before Him (Heb. 4:12-13). The Bible declares plainly (Rom. 3:10, 23), “There is none righteous, not even one…. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”
The second error of people who are into religion is that invariably, they underestimate the absolute holiness of God, whose eyes are too pure to approve of evil (Hab. 1:13). “God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). If God were to allow any sinner into heaven without having his sin atoned for, it would compromise His very nature. So religion invariably lifts up proud man and pulls down the holy God. Because of that, if you hold on to your religion, you will be opposed to God in His holiness.
This is Judas’ final appearance in the Gospel of John, which does not report his subsequent suicide. John describes Judas in two ways. First, after mentioning the garden, John 18:2 states, “Now Judas also, who was betraying Him, knew the place, for Jesus had often met there with His disciples.” What a great privilege, to have sat in the garden with Jesus, listening to Him “make known the Father’s name” (John 17:6, 26)! Judas had seen Jesus’ many miracles, including the raising of Lazarus from the dead. Here, he saw the flash of Jesus’ glory, and most likely was thrown to the ground along with the soldiers. (They were not, by the way, “slain in the Spirit”!) But Judas had never truly repented of his sins. He professed to know Christ, but by his deeds he denied Him (Titus 1:16).
We can’t peer into Judas’ heart, but John (12:6) does tell us that Judas was a thief and that he used to pilfer from the money box over which he kept charge. That unjudged greed eventually led Judas to betray the Lord of glory for 30 measly pieces of silver, which were useless to him after he got them. Unjudged sins in the heart are like an unseen crack in a dam that eventually results in total loss and destruction.
John’s last mention of Judas is in verse 5, “And Judas, who was betraying Him, was standing with them.” He was standing with the enemies of Jesus, not with the eleven, who were at risk of arrest because they were standing with Jesus. But Judas was at the greatest risk, eternal risk, of his soul. To stand with the world against the Lord Jesus is to put your soul at risk. To stand with Jesus against the world is the place of eternal safety (Luke 12:4-5).
We should learn from Judas to make sure that our faith is not external only, but rather a matter of our hearts. It’s easy to fake out other Christians. When Jesus told the disciples at the last supper that one of them would betray Him, they didn’t all look knowingly at Judas. They didn’t have a clue at that point that he was the betrayer. So our prayer should be (Ps. 139:23-24):
“Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me and know my anxious thoughts;
And see if there be any hurtful way in me,
And lead me in the everlasting way.”
So we see the religionists, who opposed Jesus because of their spiritual pride. We see Judas the hypocrite, who seemed to follow Jesus, but who harbored secret sin that led to his downfall.
The Roman cohort, which joined the Jewish temple police, could have numbered as high as 600 men, but probably here was far less. But they, along with the temple police, all fell backward when Jesus answered, “I am He.” Apparently, Jesus’ reply was accompanied by a momentary, miraculous flash of His glory, perhaps like the flash that knocked Paul to the ground on the Damascus Road. For hundreds of fully armed soldiers to fall to the ground in the presence of this unarmed man shows that He could have obliterated them as Elijah called down fire on the cohort sent to arrest him (2 Kings 1). He was not merely “Jesus the Nazarene”; He was God in human flesh!
The fact that they ignored this flash of Jesus’ glory and got up and proceeded with the arrest shows their “dreadful stupidity” (John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 192). How much more evidence did they need to conclude that this was no mere man that they were arresting? Yet how many times has God struck you down, only for you to get up and sin again! Unbelievers typically think that they’re sitting in judgment on God when they smugly challenge the way He runs the world. But even when they think that they have “bound” God (John 18:12) by their skeptical arguments, they’re only condemning themselves. It is they who are really bound. There are no chains strong enough to bind the Lord of glory! So rebels who oppose Jesus do not in any way thwart His lordship, but rather condemn themselves.
After the soldiers got up and asked the second time for Jesus the Nazarene, Jesus answered (John 18:8), “I told you that I am He; so if you seek Me, let these go their way.” John (18:9) adds, “to fulfill the word which He spoke, ‘Of those whom You have given Me I lost not one.’” This refers back to John 17:12, where Jesus said that He had guarded them and that none, except Judas, had perished. Although the preservation in John 18:9 refers to keeping them from arrest, it is symbolic of His keeping them spiritually. And (as Calvin points out, p. 194), the disciples were not yet spiritually strong enough to endure persecution or martyrdom. So keeping them from physical arrest also kept them spiritually.
In typical fashion, Peter impetuously draws his sword and wildly swings at Malchus’ head. Malchus ducked and instead of having his head split in two, he just lost his right ear (which Luke 22:51 reports, Jesus healed). I don’t know, but I wonder whether John gives Malchus’ name because as Malchus reflected on the Lord’s mercy in healing him, he later came to faith.
While Peter was loyal and committed enough to try to defend Jesus against hopeless odds, his action stemmed from misunderstanding God’s purpose for the cross. He was still trying to keep Jesus from the cross (Matt. 16:21-23) Although Jesus had repeatedly told the disciples about His impending death, they just didn’t get it. Peter’s sword-swinging shows that zeal without spiritual knowledge can lead to tragic actions.
The Lord’s intervention to let the disciples go and Peter’s failure show that in spite of our weakness and failure, Jesus keeps all whom the Father has given Him (John 6:39, 40, 44; 10:28; 17:12). He intervened for us and bore the penalty of our sin on our behalf. And, having saved us, He keeps us, not by our weak grip on Him, but by His powerful grip on us. Calvin (p. 193) applies these verses: “Whenever, therefore, either wicked men or devils make an attack upon us, let us not doubt that this good Shepherd is ready to aid us in the same manner.” Even when we fail Him or do stupid things, His promise still holds: His sheep will never perish (John 10:28)!
Thus, rebels who oppose Jesus do not in any way thwart His lordship. Disciples who fail Him are still under His protective care and redemptive purposes. Finally,
It was in a garden that the first Adam succumbed to the tempter’s snare. Here in another garden, the second Adam triumphs over Satan (who is controlling Judas, John 13:2, 27), even though on the surface it looks as if He is defeated. The Lord’s calm control over all of the tumultuous events surrounding His death shows that He was obedient to the divine plan to bear our sins. Even though He could have escaped, Jesus deliberately went to a place where Judas and the soldiers would find Him. He knew all things coming upon Him and boldly stepped out of the darkness to ask this mob, “Whom do you seek?” (John 18:4). His reply, literally, “I am,” was used previously to affirm His deity (8:28, 58). Although the soldiers didn’t get it, John wants us to get it. Jesus is the Lord God! He rebuked Peter for his attempted rescue, because He was resolved to drink the cup which the Father had given Him. Nothing took Him by surprise. He was in total control.
The cup which the Father gave Jesus to drink was the cup of His wrath for our sins (Ps. 75:8; Isa. 51:17, 22; Jer. 25:15; Ezek. 23:31-34). Because God is holy and just, the penalty for all sin must be paid, either by us or by a God-approved substitute. Because Jesus drank it for us, we don’t have to drink it. Rather, we drink the cup of His salvation (Ps. 16:5; 116:13). As we sing:
Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe.
Sin had left a crimson stain; He washed it white as snow.
While Christ’s suffering was unique, we can learn from how He suffered how to think when we suffer. Matthew Henry (Matthew Henry’s Commentary [Revell], 5:1174) points out how our suffering is only a cup, not an ocean. It is light and only for a moment. Also, like Jesus’ suffering, our suffering is a cup given to us. It’s a gift for our good. Third, our suffering is given to us by the Father, who does us no wrong and who loves us for our good. The application is that just as Jesus was in control even over the events surrounding His own death, so He is Lord over every difficult circumstance that we face. And even if, like the disciples on this occasion, we fail Him terribly, He still keeps all whom the Father has given Him. After our failures, He restores and uses us, even as He did with Peter and the other disciples.
The main application of this story is that since Jesus is Lord, even over His own death, we can trust Him for our salvation and we can trust Him when we go through trials, including facing our own death. The “God” of Open Theism is not the God of the Bible and it would be useless to trust Him. One prominent open theist, wrote (John Sanders, The God Who Risks [IVP], p. 100, cited by Bruce Ware, God’s Greater Glory [Crossway], p. 233),
Although Scripture attests that the incarnation was planned from the creation of the world, this is not so with the cross. The path of the cross comes about only through God’s interaction with humans in history. Until this moment in history other routes were, perhaps, open.
He later states (Sanders, pp. 276-277, in Ware, p. 237):
It is God’s desire that we enter into a give-and-take relationship of love, and this is not accomplished by God’s forcing his blueprint on us. Rather, God wants us to go through life together with him, making decisions together. Together we decide the actual course of my life…. To a large extent our future is open and we are to determine what it will be in dialogue with God.
In other words, Jesus isn’t the sovereign Lord over our lives! He’s trying to figure things out in conjunction with us as we go through life and see what happens!
I prefer the biblical view that in spite of rebels who oppose Him and disciples who fail Him, Jesus is still Lord over every situation, including His own death. He is Lord over every situation in our lives. At all times we can trust that He is in control!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
May 31, 2015
If you’ve never failed the Lord, you may leave now, because this message has nothing to say to you. But for the rest of us, I trust that it will be helpful and encouraging. The truth is, whether by un-Christlike words or behavior, we’ve all joined Peter in saying, “I am not a disciple of Jesus Christ.” When it comes to opportunities to speak boldly for Christ, I feel like I fail more often than I succeed. Usually about an hour after the opportunity has passed, it dawns on my slow brain what I should have said! If you can relate to such failures or even if you’ve failed more seriously in a way that has disgraced the name of Christ, the account of Peter’s failure should be of help.
John weaves the story together with the arrest and trial of Jesus before the high priest, Annas, in a way that contrasts the faithful, calm, courage of Christ with the cowardly compromise of Peter, along with the awful sinfulness of the Jewish leaders. (Harmonizing the different gospel accounts of Peter’s denials is not easy, but I can’t deal with that here. See John MacArthur, One Perfect Life [Thomas Nelson], pp. 437-444, for a suggested harmonization.) The overall effect of John’s account is to show the glory of Christ in contrast to the sinfulness of human hearts.
Historical background: To understand the account of Jesus’ trials, we need some historical background. There were two trials: one before the Jewish religious authorities and the other before the Roman civil authorities. Both trials had three phases and both were filled with illegalities. The Jewish trial began with an initial arraignment before Annas, who tried unsuccessfully to get Jesus to incriminate Himself. He then sent Jesus to Caiaphas, who illegally in the middle of the night brought false witnesses who contradicted one another (Matt. 26:57-68). In desperation, Caiaphas intervened and got Jesus to state openly that He was the Christ, the Son of God, resulting in the Jewish leaders declaring Him guilty of blasphemy (Matt. 26:63-66). Then in the early morning, Jesus stood before the full Sanhedrin, which formally condemned Him to death (Matt. 27:1-2). (John 18:24 is John’s only reference to the second and third Jewish phase of the trial.)
Since the Jews did not have the right of capital punishment, they had to get the Roman authorities to convict Jesus on charges of insurrection. So they sent Him to Pilate (John 18:28-38a). When Pilate heard that Jesus was a Galilean, he sent Him to Herod, the Tetrarch over Galilee, who was in Jerusalem at the time (Luke 23:6-12). Jesus remained silent before Herod, who sent Him back to Pilate for the final verdict (John 18:38b-19:16). Although Pilate found Jesus to be innocent and tried to find a way to release Him, he finally capitulated to the pressure of the Jewish mob and handed Jesus over to be crucified. Both trials were a mockery of justice.
Annas was high priest from AD 6-15. Pilate’s predecessor had deposed him, but after him five of his sons, plus Caiaphas, his son-in-law, had held that office. Caiaphas was high priest from AD 18-36, which included “that year” (John 18:13), the year of Jesus’ trial and crucifixion. Both Annas and Caiaphas were referred to as “high priest,” much like our former president is still addressed as President even though his term has expired.
Since the Jews did not accept Roman rule over Israel’s religious matters and since the office of high priest was supposed to be for life, Annas was still the most politically and religiously influential man in Jerusalem. As a Sadducee, he was the equivalent of modern religious liberals, denying what Scripture plainly teaches. The Sadducees did not believe in angels or spirits or in the resurrection of the dead (Acts 23:8). So the office was more political than spiritual.
Annas controlled the lucrative business that went on in the temple. When pilgrims came to Jerusalem for the three annual feasts, they had to offer sacrifices which were approved by the high priest’s officers. If you brought your own animal and it was rejected, you would have to buy officially approved animals at a marked up cost. So rather than go through all that hassle, it was just easier to buy your sacrificial animal there.
Also, if you came with Roman or other foreign currency, you had to have it changed into temple currency, at an exchange rate that made a nice profit for the money-changers, who paid a percentage to the high priest. Since there were usually hundreds of thousands of pilgrims in Jerusalem for the feasts, the high priests were getting fabulously wealthy through the temple business. So when on two occasions this radical upstart prophet from Galilee upset the vendors’ tables in the temple and drove them out, it didn’t sit well with Annas and his conniving son-in-law, Caiaphas!
They were not seeking to learn the truth about Jesus, as John 18:14 reminds us: “Now Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it was expedient for one man to die on behalf of the people.” This refers back to John 11:49-53. After Jesus raised Lazarus, the Jewish leaders were concerned that many would believe in Jesus, resulting in the Romans taking away the Jewish nation. Caiaphas interjected that it was expedient that one man (Jesus) die for the nation so that it would be spared (John 11:49b-50). John (11:51) explained, “Now he did not say this on his own initiative, but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was going to die for the nation.” So Caiaphas was an unwitting prophet!
But both he and his father-in-law hated Jesus and wanted to find a way to kill Him because He threatened their power and financial interests. But at the same time, because of Jesus’ overall popularity, they feared a riot among the people. So they had to be careful about how they got rid of Him.
There is one other historical note before we look at how the story applies to all of us who have failed our Lord. In verse 12 and again in verse 24, John notes that they bound Jesus. This was probably customary with prisoners, but there is irony in this when you consider that moments before in the garden, Jesus had just spoken a word and with a flash of His glory knocked to the ground more than a hundred fully armed soldiers! To get up and bind Jesus after this dramatic encounter shows the spiritual blindness of those who are held captive by Satan (2 Cor. 4:4), as well as the glory of Christ. John Calvin put it (Calvin’s Commentaries [Baker], p. 197), “The body of the Son of God was bound, that our souls might be loosed from the cords of sin and of Satan.”
Also, just before Abraham intended to sacrifice his son, Isaac, in obedience to God, he first bound him before putting him on the altar (Gen. 22:9), which was a type of Christ. Psalm 118:27 states, “Bind the festival sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar.” Just as the Jews would bring their sacrifices to the priest, so Jesus was led to the high priest, who inadvertently would bind and kill Him on behalf of the nation, and (John 11:52), “not for the nation only, but in order that He might also gather together into one the children of God who are scattered abroad.” With that historical background, let’s look at the spiritual lessons for us:
Even when you fail the Lord, you can trust in the faithful Savior, who never fails.
John interweaves Jesus’ calm, faithful witness with Peter’s failed witness. One commentator put it (Brown, cited by D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Apollos/Eerdmans], pp. 585-586), “Jesus stands up to his questioners and denies nothing, while Peter cowers before his questioners and denies everything.” Another (Stibbe, cited by Andreas Kostenberger, John [Baker], p. 519) notes that Jesus’ twice-repeated self-identification in the garden, “I am,” contrasts with Peter’s twice-repeated denial, “I am not” (John 18:5, 8, 17, 25). But Peter is not alone in denying Christ!
Our failures may not be as dramatic or as well-known as Peter’s failure, but whether by our words or our actions, we’ve all denied Christ as our Savior and Lord. If Peter, the leader of apostles (Matt. 10:2-4 & parallels), who obviously was a committed, loyal follower of Jesus, failed by denying Christ three times, then we are not immune! “Let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall” (1 Cor. 10:12)! We can trace four steps that led to Peter’s failure, which are often involved in our spiritual failures:
Peter could not wrap his mind around the concept of a Messiah who would suffer and die. After Peter’s God-inspired confession of Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God (Matt. 16:16), Jesus began to explain to the disciples that He must go to Jerusalem to suffer and die. But Peter took Jesus aside and rebuked Him for saying such a thing, which caused Jesus strongly to rebuke Peter (Matt. 16:23), “Get behind Me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests, but man’s.” Although Jesus several times repeated the same message about His impending death, the disciples just could not conceive of such a thing. They envisioned the Messiah as one who would conquer Rome and rule over Israel on the throne of David (Psalm 2). But they could not picture the Messiah as a lamb who would die for our sins (Isaiah 53).
It was that persistent failure to understand God’s way of the cross that prompted Peter to draw his sword and attempt to defend Jesus in the garden. He probably felt hurt and confused when the Lord rebuked him and then meekly submitted to arrest. In that state of confusion, misunderstanding, and hurt feelings, Peter was off guard for Satan’s subtle attack through a servant girl’s question.
When you think that God has to work in a certain way, but He doesn’t conform to your expectations, you are spiritually vulnerable. Maybe you’ve prayed fervently for something, but it didn’t happen in line with your prayers. Look out! It’s easy in your disappointment, confusion, and hurt to succumb to temptation! When we dictate our plan to God rather than submit to His plan, we’re setting ourselves up for spiritual failure.
When Jesus warned Peter of Satan’s demand to sift him like wheat, Peter protested that he was ready to go to prison and death for Christ’s sake (Luke 22:31-33; John 13:37). He put himself above the other disciples by protesting (Matt. 26:33), “Even though all may fall away because of You, I will never fall away.”
Trusting in your own commitment and devotion to the Lord is a sure way to fail Him! Pride goes before a fall (Prov. 16:18), but when we are weak (and know it!), then we are strong (2 Cor. 12:10), because then we trust in the Lord and His strength.
It was probably Peter’s lack of awareness of his own weakness that drew him into the snare that Satan had set for him. We don’t know who the other disciple was (John 18:15-16), who was allowed into the high priest’s house and who arranged for Peter to come in. I tend to think it was John, although others disagree; but the focus is not on him, but on Peter. As soon as he walked through the entrance, the slave-girl who kept the door said to Peter (John 18:17), “You are not also one of this man’s disciples, are you?” Peter was immediately caught off guard and replied, “I am not.” Perhaps at this point he was mentally kicking himself for his failure, but he may have justified himself by thinking, “She’s only a slave girl. What difference does it make?”
But next we find him warming himself by the fire along with the slaves and officers of the temple guard. These were not aggressive enemies of Christ, out for His blood. They were just employees, doing their job. They were probably more concerned about getting a raise in their wages or other trivial news than they were about the death of this Galilean preacher (Charles Spurgeon, Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 56:38). But their indifference to the most important spiritual event in the history of the universe while they warmed themselves by the fire was a subtle danger that Peter didn’t detect. In the course of their small talk, one looked at Peter and said (John 18:25), “You are not also one of His disciples, are you?” Peter denied it and said, “I am not.”
Be on guard when you’re around worldly people! Keep your purpose in mind: You’re not there to warm yourself by their fires and banter with them. You’re there as a witness. If you’re not careful, at an unguarded moment, it’s easy to deny your Savior.
Peter didn’t understand that Satan was out to get him and that this hour belonged to the power of darkness. Thus he failed to pray at that crucial time in the garden (Luke 22:31, 46, 53). This caused him to react to Jesus’ arrest by swinging his sword, rather than with weapons for spiritual warfare. Then he blindly wandered into the path of temptation in the courtyard of the high priest’s house.
So often, like Peter, we react to difficult situations from the physical or human perspective, rather than realizing that we’re in a spiritual battle with the unseen forces of wickedness in heavenly places (Eph. 6:11-12). Someone says something against you at work and you react in anger by putting him down or getting back at him. By not praying and seeing it as a spiritual attack, you missed the opportunity to bear witness for Christ!
The fear of man was behind Peter’s third denial (John 18:26), “One of the slaves of the high priest, being a relative of the one whose ear Peter cut off, said, ‘Did I not see you in the garden with Him?’” Peter panicked! This guy could get Peter in big trouble for what he had done in the garden! So Peter denied Christ again. Then the rooster crowed to remind Peter of Christ’s words! Luke (22:61-62) tells us that at that moment, the Lord turned and looked at Peter. That look pierced Peter’s heart! I’m sure that he never forgot it. He went out and wept bitterly.
To some extent, we all want the approval of others. But when we worry about what others think, our focus is wrong and we forget the most important thing: what does God think? Our aim should be to please Him. Proverbs 29:25 warns, “The fear of man brings a snare, but he who trusts in the Lord will be exalted.”
In Matthew 10:33, Jesus warned, “Whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.” Those are scary words, but thankfully, we see Peter restored at the end of John and then used greatly for the Lord in the Book of Acts. So if you have denied Christ by your words or actions (and we all have!), there is grace if you repent and trust in Christ.
It’s interesting that the Greek word used for the charcoal fire (John 18:18) is only used one other time in the New Testament, in John 21:9, where the risen Jesus had kindled a charcoal fire to cook breakfast for the disciples. At the first fire, Peter denied his Lord. At the second fire, the Lord restored Peter to fellowship and service. If you’ve failed Him at the fire of temptation, He invites you to come to the breakfast fire of fellowship and trust in His grace!
Briefly note how Jesus’ calm courage stood in contrast to Peter’s cowardly compromise on each of the four points:
Peter failed because he did not understand God’s ways. But Jesus knew that He was sent to this earth to go to the cross. This was the cup that the Father had given Him, and so He courageously faced it (John 18:11). As He said (John 6:38), “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.”
Peter failed because he did not recognize his own weakness and thus trusted in his commitment. But as a man, to show us how we should live, Jesus did not trust in Himself, but in the Father. He said (John 5:19), “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.” Thus Jesus conquered the enemy.
Peter failed to recognize the spiritual battle and so he failed to pray. But Jesus won the victory in the garden as He overcame the powers of darkness through prayer.
Peter feared man, not God, and thus failed as a witness. But Jesus feared God, not these in power, and thus bore faithful witness. When Annas asked Jesus about His disciples and His teaching, he wasn’t seeking the truth. Rather, he was illegally trying to get Jesus to incriminate Himself. Under Jewish law, a defendant was not required to testify against himself. Rather, other witnesses were called to testify. So Jesus’ reply (John 18:20-21) was a rebuke, exposing Annas’ illegal approach. Christ in effect says, “If you were really interested in My teaching, you’ve had plenty of opportunity to hear it. But you’re proceeding illegally by not calling witnesses. You’ve already prejudged My case.”
The officer standing near Jesus recognized this as a rebuke. Trying to ingratiate himself with his boss, he illegally hit Jesus in the face. Needless to say, he was siding with the wrong boss! But Jesus didn’t retaliate. Rather, He calmly replied (John 18:23), “If I have spoken wrongly, testify of the wrong; but if rightly, why do you strike Me?” Christ’s fearless witness to these hypocrites was aimed at convicting them of their sin, without which they would not see their need for the Savior.
The measure of effective witness is not whether it produces converts, but rather that it is faithful to God. As far as we know, neither Annas nor the one who hit Jesus in the face ever repented (see Acts 4:5-22). But Christ bore faithful witness to them and they will have no excuse on judgment day. Because Jesus was faithful and He never fails, we can trust Him when we bear witness in this hostile world.
There is no guarantee that if we bear faithful witness, God will protect us. Jesus was faithful, but died a horrible death. The Lord tells the church in Smyrna (Rev. 2:10), “Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, so that you will be tested, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.” When we bear witness for Christ, we must remember that unconverted people are hardened in their sin. Only God can break through to bring the light of the gospel into their darkness (2 Cor. 4:4-6).
Unlike this conniving, self-serving high priest, Annas, Jesus is a faithful High Priest who sacrificed Himself willingly for His sheep. Know that when you fail, you can draw near to Him to find grace to help in your time of need.
In addition to Peter and Jesus, there is a third group in this story, namely, those who put Jesus on trial. Unlike Peter, they did not believe in Christ at all. They thought that they were putting Him on trial; but really they were the ones on trial, because when you encounter Jesus, you’re the one on trial. The question you must answer is the one Pilate asked the Jews (Matt. 27:22), “What shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?” Their tragic answer was, “Crucify Him!” Will you prejudge Him and reject Him as Annas did because He threatens your comfortable way of life? Or will you bow before Him as your Lord and Savior?
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
June 7, 2015
A legend tells of an Irish king who disguised himself and went into the banquet hall of one of his barons. He was escorted to a lowly place among the throng who sat at the feast. The brilliance of his conversation and the nobility of his manner soon attracted the attention of someone with sufficient authority to escort him to a higher table. The same thing occurred again, and soon he was seated among the nobles of the realm. After another display of great wisdom, one of the lords spoke out, “In truth, Sir, you speak like a king. If you are not a king, you deserve to be one.” Then the king removed his disguise and took his rightful place among his subjects (Let Me Illustrate [Revell], Donald Grey Barnhouse, pp. 180-181).
That’s what should have happened when Jesus Christ, the eternal Word, laid aside His glory, took on human flesh, and dwelt among us. Although He was a common carpenter from the despised town of Nazareth, by His words and His deeds, including His miracles, the Jews should have recognized Him as their promised Messiah and King. But the Jewish leaders were so blinded by their sinful pride that even the stupendous miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead only hardened their resolve to kill Jesus.
In John’s portrayal of Jesus’ trial before Pilate, he wants us to see that even though Jesus was despised and rejected by the Jews, mocked by the soldiers, and finally condemned by Pilate, the man on the cross is the King. John wants us to see the majesty of Christ as He faced this suffering on our behalf. He also wants us to see the depth of sin that resides in every heart. Apart from God’s grace, we would have responded to Jesus as the Jewish leaders or Pilate or the Roman soldiers did. But also, hidden in this story is the way that we all should respond to Christ:
You can reject Christ for many reasons, but His kingly majesty calls you to trust in Him as Savior and Lord.
I’m going to spend more messages from different angles on these verses, but today I want to focus on the question that Matthew 27:22 reports that Pilate asked the Jews: “Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called the Christ?” That’s the crucial question that every person must answer. You can’t remain neutral about Christ. To ignore or disregard Him is to decide against Him. Our text reveals four possible responses to Jesus Christ:
This was the tragic response of the Jewish leaders. It was the worst choice possible because they knew the Old Testament with its prophecies about the Messiah. They knew about Jesus and His ministry. They had seen His miracles and heard His teaching, as He spoke openly in their synagogues and in the temple (John 18:20). But in spite of this, they led the attack against Him.
So, referring to Caiaphas, the high priest, Jesus tells Pilate (John 19:11), “He who delivered Me to you has the greater sin.” (Note that there are gradations of sin and guilt! There will be gradations of punishment; Matt. 11:22, 24.) When Pilate presents the bloodied Jesus with His crown of thorns and sarcastically says to the Jews (John 19:14-15), “Behold, your King!” they cry out, “Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him!” Pilate asks, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests tragically and hypocritically answer, “We have no king but Caesar.” They hated Caesar, but they spoke more truly than they intended! The Lord God was not their king, as He should have been. If they had been subject to the Lord, they would not have rejected Jesus as their rightful King. Although Pilate knew and they knew that they despised Roman rule, the truth was that their only king was Caesar.
Why did the Jewish leaders reject Jesus as their Messiah? There are many reasons. For one thing, He didn’t fit the image that they had of Messiah as a mighty warrior who would free Israel from her political enemies. This was a major reason why even the disciples could not conceive of a suffering Servant as the Messiah. He didn’t fit their expectations. In a similar way, I’ve seen people who initially profess faith in Christ, but they expect Him to solve all their problems and to protect them from trials. When things don’t work out that way, they reject Him.
Matthew 27:18 tells us that even Pilate could see that the Jewish leaders had handed Jesus over because of envy. He was stealing their following. Large multitudes followed Jesus because He healed their sick and He taught them with authority, not as their scribes taught (Matt. 7:29). After Jesus raised Lazarus, the chief priests and Pharisees convened a council and were saying (John 11:47-48), “What are we doing? For this man is performing many signs. If we let Him go on like this, all men will believe in Him ….” He threatened their grip on power.
But underlying all of the reasons why the Jewish leaders rejected Jesus was that He threatened their religious pride and self-righteousness. John (18:28) brings this out with exquisite irony: “Then they led Jesus from Caiaphas into the Praetorium, and it was early; and they themselves did not enter into the Praetorium so that they would not be defiled, but might eat the Passover.”
For sake of time, I cannot deal here with the question of why Jesus and the twelve ate the Passover the night before, while the Jews seemingly were going to eat it after Jesus was crucified. (Good commentaries offer several possible solutions.) But I point out the gross hypocrisy and religious pride of the Jewish leaders. They didn’t want to be defiled by setting foot inside a despised Gentile residence so that they could observe their religious ceremony; but they had no scruples about murdering an innocent man who had done nothing but good for three years!
But before we condemn the Jewish leaders, we need to make sure that there are no logs in our own eyes (Matt. 7:1-5)! Religious pride and hypocrisy are not the exclusive sins of the Jewish leaders. How often we as Christians think like the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable (Luke 18:11), “God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.” It’s so easy to take pride in our church attendance or our morality or good deeds and look down on those who are not outwardly as good as we think we are! It’s even easy to take pride in your Bible reading or Bible knowledge! As Paul said (1 Cor. 8:1, my translation), “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”
A true understanding of what the Bible teaches about God’s holiness and your sinfulness and God’s grace as demonstrated at the cross leads you to “pour contempt on all [your] pride.” It leads you to view people who have not trusted in Christ with love and compassion, as you realize that, except for the grace of God, you would be just like they are, or worse. Religious pride and self-righteousness will keep you from the Savior. But there’s a second character in this drama who teaches us that…
Here we’re looking at Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea from AD 26-37. He was a weak leader who made some serious blunders early in his rule. He had his soldiers march into the temple area with shields bearing the image of Caesar, which to the Jews was idolatrous desecration. Caiaphas called out 2,000 Jews who surrounded Pilate’s house in protest. He foolishly threatened to slaughter them, a threat that politically he couldn’t carry out. When he had to back off, he lost face and undermined his leadership.
Later, he built an aqueduct to bring water into Jerusalem, but he used funds from the Jewish temple tax to pay for the project. The Jews rioted and this time Pilate did slaughter many of them. The Jewish leaders protested to the Emperor Tiberius, who issued a scathing rebuke to Pilate for his poor leadership. Since Tiberius was notoriously paranoid and had executed many for trivial reasons, Pilate couldn’t risk another complaint to Rome by his subjects. He hated the Jews, but he knew that they held the upper hand over him.
When the Jews brought Jesus to Pilate, he asked them what the charges were (John 18:29). Their reply no doubt angered him (John 18:30), “If this Man were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered Him to you.” They expected Pilate to do whatever they wanted. In turn, he taunted them by saying (John 18:31), “Take Him yourselves, and judge Him according to your law.” He knew that they did not have the authority to execute Jesus, which his taunt forced them to admit. After questioning Jesus, Pilate concluded that He was not a threat to Rome’s power. Next week I plan to look further at Pilate’s exchange with Jesus about His kingdom, where Pilate scoffs, “What is truth?” But for now, note that Pilate’s conclusion was (John 18:38), “I find no guilt in Him.”
But at this point, he begins to compromise his integrity in an attempt both to placate the Jews and to free Jesus. He brings up a custom to free a prisoner for them at the time of the Passover. He suggests a notorious robber, murderer, and insurrectionist (Luke 23:19) named Barabbas. Pilate was hoping that the Jews would not want such a dangerous man back on the streets and would agree to release Jesus instead. But, if Pilate thought that Jesus really was innocent, he should have stood on principle and released Him.
When the Jews insisted that he release Barabbas, Pilate tried another ploy to get Jesus released: He had him scourged, thinking that this punishment would satisfy the Jews (John 19:1; cf. Luke 23:22). There were three levels of Roman scourging: a less severe whipping for lesser crimes; a more brutal flogging reserved for more serious criminals; and a horrific, sometimes fatal beating that preceded execution. This extreme scourging was done with a leather whip containing pieces of metal or bone and it could leave its victim with his bones or entrails exposed. Because this severe scourging was only carried out after the death sentence had been pronounced, some reputable scholars think that John 19:1 refers to the lighter form of scourging, which was followed by the brutal scourging after Pilate condemned Jesus to death.
But whatever the case, if Pilate really thought Jesus to be innocent, he should not have scourged Him at all. After the scourging, Pilate repeats (John 19:4), “I find no guilt in Him.” When the angry mob cries out (John 19:6), “Crucify, crucify!” Pilate asserts Jesus’ innocence a third time: “Take Him yourselves and crucify Him, for I find no guilt in Him.”
At this point, the Jews take another tack to get Pilate to comply with their illegal wish. They say (John 19:7), “We have a law, and by that law He ought to die because He made Himself out to be the Son of God.” Now Pilate is spooked! As a superstitious Roman, he believed that sometimes the gods came incognito to earth. If you treated them well, they would look out for you in the future. But if you treated them badly, they would make life miserable for you. To increase Pilate’s fear, his wife sent word to him as he examined Jesus and said (Matt. 27:19), “Have nothing to do with that righteous Man; for last night I suffered greatly in a dream because of Him.”
So, Pilate questions Jesus further (John 19:9): “Where are You from?” This time, Jesus doesn’t answer him. He knows that Pilate is morally vacillating and has already compromised judging truthfully. Jesus’ silence angers Pilate, who threatens (John 19:10), “You do not speak to me? Do You not know that I have authority to release You, and I have authority to crucify You?” Jesus calmly puts Pilate in his place by answering (John 19:11), “You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above; for this reason he who delivered Me to you has the greater sin.” He is reminding Pilate that he is not the absolute power; he will answer to God, who is over all authority and rule.
Pilate again tries to release Jesus, but the Jews then pull out their trump card (John 19:12): “If you release this Man, you are no friend of Caesar; everyone who makes himself out to be a king opposes Caesar.” If word got back to Tiberius that Pilate had released a man who was a threat to Rome, his career and perhaps his life would be over. The Jews have him cornered, but he’s frustrated with them, so puts in three more digs. He stands Jesus, beaten and bloody, with the crown of thorns, in front of them and mockingly says (John 19:14), “Behold, your King!” When they still demand Jesus’ crucifixion, Pilate taunts (John 19:15), “Shall I crucify your King?” The Jews utter the insincere, blasphemous, but true words, “We have no king but Caesar.” God was not their king, as seen in their rejection of King Jesus. So Pilate, weak and defeated, handed Jesus over to be crucified. But his last dig was to write on Jesus’ placard (John 19:19), “Jesus the Nazarene, the King of the Jews.”
It’s easy to take potshots at Pilate. He was morally weak and self-serving. He was not a strong or wise leader. But put yourself in his place. Would you risk losing your job, your comfortable way of life, and perhaps your life to defend an innocent man? Have you ever compromised your integrity at work to keep your job? The boss asks you to falsify some records and lie to cover his wrongful actions. When you balk, he suggests that if you don’t comply, he can find someone else to take your job who will comply. What do you do? Pilate didn’t have anything against Jesus and he thought that Jesus was innocent of the charges; but to do the right thing and free Jesus would have cost Pilate dearly. So he rejected Christ thinking that he was protecting his own interests. But in reality, he lost his soul! But there’s a third option in this drama:
Here we’re looking at the Roman soldiers. They not only scourged Jesus, they also made sport of Him by pushing the crown of thorns on His head, putting a purple robe on Him, mocking Him by calling Him the King of the Jews, and hitting Him in the face (John 19:1-3). While this was sickening, we’ve witnessed the same kind of thing repeatedly in the news, where American prison guards or soldiers treat prisoners in brutal or degrading ways.
But before we judge them, we need to admit that if we were in similar circumstances, we might want to inflict vengeance on those who had killed our buddies and who would kill us if they got the chance. These Roman soldiers didn’t willfully reject Jesus, as the Jews did. They hadn’t investigated who He was. They weren’t into religion. And their job required them to scourge and crucify prisoners regularly. They were just “having fun,” trying to relieve the boredom of their jobs.
While I hope that they wouldn’t stoop to this level of brutality, there are people like these soldiers today. They don’t hate Jesus or have anything against Him. They’re just living for their jobs and some good times. When you try to tell them about Jesus, they’re indifferent: “If religion is your thing, that’s fine. But it isn’t for me.” Even if you tell them that Christ suffered and died for their sins, they don’t care. They reject Christ because they’re not concerned about eternal matters. They’re living for good times.
But there’s one other character in this story who represents the proper response to Jesus Christ, even though there’s no indication in the story that he actually did respond rightly.
The character here is Barabbas, the robber, murderer, and rebel who was freed instead of Jesus. While at first you may not see yourself in Barabbas at all, he represents each of us in at least three ways (several sources make these points, but I first read them in Leonard Griffith, Gospel Characters [Eerdmans], pp. 166-170):
First, Barabbas should have been on the cross instead of Jesus because he was guilty and deserved to die. You may protest, “But I’m not a robber!” But we’ve all robbed God of His rightful glory and lordship over our lives. You may come back, “But at least I’m not a murderer!” But Jesus said that if we’re wrongfully angry with our brother, we have murdered him in God’s sight (Matt. 5:21-22). “But,” you still protest, “I’ve never led an armed rebellion against the government.” True, but we’re all rebels against the King of the universe. We’ve all sinned many times over against God and His rightful rule.
Second, Barabbas did nothing to earn his pardon. He wasn’t pardoned because of his good behavior or promises to reform. If anything, he was pardoned because of how notoriously evil he was. He couldn’t brag after he got out about how he deserved to be pardoned. He couldn’t claim that he was pardoned for his exemplary behavior. In the same way, Paul says (Rom. 4:4-5) that God justifies the ungodly not through their good works, but by faith alone.
Third, Jesus died in Barabbas’ place. Barabbas, whose name means “son of the father,” should have been on the cross that day. Instead, one who is the eternal Son of the eternal Father hung there in Barabbas’ place. Jesus died in his place—and in your place.
But Barabbas’ pardon was not automatic. He could have spit in Pilate’s face and said, “I don’t need your pardon! Crucify me!” And, he would have been crucified, while a different prisoner would have gone free. In the same way, the pardon that Christ offers to all is only effective for those who receive it. The Bible promises (John 3:16), “Whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.” Like Barabbas, the guilty rebel, you’ve got to accept the pardon that Christ’s death offers you.
Besides saving yourself from God’s judgment, why should you trust in Christ?
Even though Jesus was spit upon, hit in the face, scourged, crowned with thorns, mocked as king, and unjustly crucified, John shows His glory and majesty. Jesus could have called 12 legions of angels and annihilated His persecutors. But He bore all of this abuse at the hands of sinners for the joy set before Him of bringing many sons and daughters to glory. J. C. Ryle points out (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], pp. 271-272) that Jesus, the innocent, wore the crown of thorns so that we, the guilty, might wear a crown of glory. He was clothed with a robe of shame and contempt so that we might be clothed with His spotless righteousness and stand before God’s throne in robes of white. He bore contempt so that we might receive praise and glory at the last day.
As John’s portrayal of Jesus’ trial before Pilate shows, He really is the King of the Jews. Pilate presented Him bloody and mocked, wearing the purple robe, and said (John 19:5), “Behold, the Man!” He uniquely is the representative man, the Son of Man, the second Adam. Pilate scoffs (John 18:38), “What is truth?” Jesus is the truth and came to bear witness of the truth. The Jews accused Him of making Himself out to be the Son of God (John 19:7). He didn’t just make Himself out to be the Son of God (John 5:18); He really is the eternal Son of God! Three times Pilate declared Jesus to be innocent (John 18:38; 19:4, 6). He truly is the lamb without blemish, sacrificed for our sins!
Like the Irish king in the legend, Jesus’ true identity was somewhat disguised. But if you consider His sinless life, His profound teaching, His many attested miracles, His amazing claims, and His bodily resurrection from the dead, you will see that He is the only rightful Lord and King. So I ask again, “What will you do with Jesus, who is called the Christ?”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
June 14, 2014
In 2007, John MacArthur wrote a very important book, The Truth War [Thomas Nelson], that began (p. ix), “Who would have thought that people claiming to be Christians—even pastors—would attack the very notion of truth? But they are.” After citing some specific examples, MacArthur wrote (p. xi):
The idea that the Christian message should be kept pliable and ambiguous seems especially attractive to young people who are in tune with the culture and in love with the spirit of the age and can’t stand to have authoritative biblical truth applied with precision as a corrective to worldly lifestyles, unholy minds, and ungodly behavior. And the poison of this perspective is being increasingly injected into the evangelical church body.
He goes on to show how God and truth are inseparable. Satan tempted Eve with the lie that undermined God’s truthful word. Ever since, the enemy has attacked the truth, because truth is inextricably bound up with God (John 8:44) and His Son, who speaks the truth and who is the truth (John 8:45; 14:6). So if we love God and love Christ we must love the truth and defend the truth when it is under attack. One characteristic of those who incur God’s judgment is that “they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved” (2 Thess. 2:10). All will be judged who “did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness” (2 Thess. 2:12).
In John’s account of Jesus’ trial before Pilate, he emphasizes two important truths about our Savior: First, He is the King of the Jews, and by rightful extension, of all people, because His kingdom is not of this world, but is spiritual. Second, John underscores the Lord’s emphasis on truth. Jesus tells Pilate (John 18:37), “For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” To which Pilate scoffs, “What is truth?” and walks away. Bringing these two points together, we can say that…
Jesus is the King of truth and everyone who is of the truth hears His voice.
Pilate’s question, “Are You the King of the Jews?” was probably incredulous. You is emphatic, so the sense is, “You! You’re the King of the Jews?” If Pilate’s question had been sincere in terms of determining who Jesus really is, he would have been on the right path, because the most important question for every person to answer correctly is, “Who is Jesus Christ?” If He is who He claimed to be, then He is worthy of your trust and submission. If He is not, then no one should waste their time being a Christian.
Jesus could not answer Pilate’s question without further clarification. If Pilate meant, “Are you the political king of the Jews who is usurping authority from Rome?” the answer is, “No.” If he meant, “Are You the Messianic King of Israel, promised in the Old Testament?” the answer is, “Yes, but not in the way that most Jews envision that kingdom.” So Jesus’ question (John 18:34), “Are you saying this on your own initiative, or did others tell you about Me?” is asking, “Have you personally investigated My claims and are wondering if I am the Jewish Messiah; or are you relying on the secondhand charges of the Jewish leaders?” Pilate’s contemptuous reply is (John 18:35): “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests delivered You to me; what have You done?” Pilate assumed that there must be something behind the Jewish leaders’ accusations, but he wasn’t sure exactly what.
Jesus does not reply to Pilate’s question, “What have You done?” Instead, He elaborates on the nature of His kingdom. We can learn two things from His reply:
Unlike the Synoptic Gospels, where the concept of the kingdom is prevalent, John only mentions the kingdom here and in John 3:3, 5 (but, cf. John 6:15). John 18:36-37: “Jesus answered, ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.’ Therefore Pilate said to Him, ‘So You are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.’” Jesus’ reply was literally, “You say that I am a king,” but the expression is “unambiguously affirmative” (D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Apollos/Eerdmans], p. 594; cf. Matt. 26:63-65).
When Pilate asked, “So You are a king?” he wasn’t looking for spiritual answers regarding Jesus’ identity. He was just trying to navigate through the Jews’ accusations to get to the bottom of why they really had brought Jesus to him. Jesus plainly let Pilate know that politically, His kingdom was no threat to Rome. If His kingdom were political, Jesus would have had soldiers defending Him from arrest. As anyone who had been in the garden could testify, Jesus in fact had rebuked one of His followers who had taken up arms to defend Him. As seen in his answer (John 18:38), “I find no guilt in Him,” Pilate discerned that Jesus was not a political threat.
But at the same time, Jesus makes it clear that He is a king, just not the kind that Pilate might envision. Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world, but is spiritual. The kings or rulers over earthly kingdoms rule by coercion over geographic territories and seek to conquer other territories through military might. They force their subjects to pay taxes so that they can live in luxurious palaces while they build and sustain their armies. But Jesus’ kingdom is different. As He explained to His disciples (Matt. 20:25-28):
“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
In His first coming, Jesus came as a humble servant to establish His spiritual kingdom in the hearts of those He came to ransom from their sins. He came to offer salvation freely to all who willingly submit to Him. But at His second coming, He will forcefully subdue all opposition and judge all who have rebelled against Him. Daniel 7:13-14 describes it:
I kept looking in the night visions,
And behold, with the clouds of heaven
One like a Son of Man was coming,
And He came up to the Ancient of Days
And was presented before Him.
And to Him was given dominion,
Glory and a kingdom,
That all the peoples, nations and men of every language
Might serve Him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion
Which will not pass away;
And His kingdom is one
Which will not be destroyed.
The apostle John pictured it like this (Rev. 19:11-16):
And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. His eyes are a flame of fire, and on His head are many diadems; and He has a name written on Him which no one knows except Himself. He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following Him on white horses. From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.”
So Pilate saw a man who outwardly did not look anything like a king. He looked like a common Galilean working man. He wasn’t wearing expensive clothing or jewelry. He wasn’t surrounded by servants. But Jesus was and is the King of kings and Lord of lords. He is presently at the Father’s right hand, awaiting the day when He will make His enemies a footstool for His feet (Ps. 110:1). Someday, Pilate, Caiaphas, Caesar, and every person who has ever lived, will see Jesus coming in the glory of His Father with the angels and bow before Him as King before He sentences them according to their deeds (Matt. 16:27; Phil. 2:9-11)! The clear application is: Make sure that your heart is in subjection to Jesus as your King now, so that you are not terrified by His coming later.
In John 18:37, Jesus testifies, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” This is the only reference in John to Jesus’ birth, which points to His humanity. But Jesus has repeatedly made reference to His coming into this world, which points to His pre-existence and deity (John 3:13, 31; 8:42; 9:39; 16:28). Here Jesus indicates that He has been born and come into the world to be a king, but the way He establishes His kingdom is not by military force, but by bearing witness to the truth. Mohammed established his kingdom with the power of the sword, which his most ardent followers still use: convert or be killed. In contrast Jesus set up His kingdom by the power of the truth and His love as seen at the cross.
Jesus’ claim shows that, contrary to the prevalent postmodern philosophy of our time, there is such a thing as absolute, objective, knowable truth in the spiritual realm. Such truth is true whether you feel it’s true or not. It’s true whether you like it or not. It’s true whether you believe it or not. Spiritual truth is not determined by pragmatism, or what works. Some methods and techniques seem to work in terms of success in business or relationships, but they aren’t spiritually true in light of eternity because they do not bring people into submission to Jesus Christ. Spiritual truth applies to all cultures and all people in all times. All spiritual truth comes from God, revealed to us in His Word, which points us to Jesus Christ. Spiritual truth is centered on the gospel, which transforms our hearts and brings us under Christ’s lordship so that we will not face His judgment on the last day.
It’s important to understand that truth is inextricably linked to the eternal God. To answer Pilate’s question, “What is truth?” John MacArthur offers this definition, drawn from Scripture (ibid., p. 2, italics his):
Truth is that which is consistent with the mind, will, character, glory, and being of God. Even more to the point: truth is the self-expression of God…. Therefore God is the author, source, determiner, governor, arbiter, ultimate standard, and final judge of all truth.
He adds (p. 1), “Every idea we have, every relationship we cultivate, every belief we cherish, every fact we know, every argument we make, every conversation we engage in, and every thought we think presupposes that there is such a thing as ‘truth.’”
The Bible calls God “the God of truth” (Ps. 31:5; Isa. 65:16). It is impossible for God to lie (Titus 1:2). Since God is the only eternal being, who created all that exists, and since He is spirit (John 4:24), we cannot know Him by human reason or speculation, but only as He has chosen to reveal Himself to us, which He has done supremely through Jesus Christ (John 1:1; cf. Luke 10:22; Heb. 1:1-3). John 1:14 affirms that Jesus, the Word who is God, is “full of grace and truth.” Jesus also referred to the Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of truth,” who would guide His followers into all the truth by disclosing the things of Christ to us (John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13). Thus truth characterizes each person of the triune God.
Since we are to glorify God by being conformed to the image of His Son, truth should characterize every believer in Christ. We are to “practice the truth” (John 3:21). We are sanctified by God’s Word, which is the truth (John 17:17). We are to worship God in spirit and in truth (John 4:24). Since Satan is a liar and the father of lies, in contrast to Jesus who always spoke the truth (John 8:44-45), all who want to be like Jesus must strive to be truthful both in word and in behavior. As Paul put it (Eph. 4:15), we are to speak the truth in love. He added (Eph. 4:25), “Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth each one of you with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.” This encompasses not only truthful speech, but also speaking that which is in line with biblical truth or sound doctrine.
The fact that there is absolute spiritual truth also means that there is absolute spiritual error. Some spiritual error is relatively minor in its effects, but some is devastating and damnable (Matt. 23:23, 24). Thus in Paul’s final three pastoral letters to Timothy and Titus, he exhorts them repeatedly to teach sound (= “healthy”) doctrine and to refute those who teach harmful doctrine (1 Tim. 1:3-11; 4:1-3, 7, 11, 16; 6:20-21; 2 Tim. 1:13; 2:14-18, 23-26; 3:1-17; 4:1-5; Titus 1:1, 9-14; 2:1; 3:9). The church is “the pillar and support of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). Jude 3 exhorts, “Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.” He goes on to warn about false teachers who threatened the church. Also, 2 Peter and 1, 2, & 3 John all have strong warnings against false teachers and exhortations to hold to the truth.
To say that something is absolutely true is to say that anything contrary to it is a lie. But if you say this in today’s tolerant, postmodern culture, you will be labeled as a narrow-minded bigot. Over 100 years ago, C. H. Spurgeon (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 49:174) said that in his day, you would get three cheers if you went into the world and said that you were an agnostic—that you didn’t know anything or believe anything. Others say that it doesn’t matter what you believe, as long as you’re sincere. This, Spurgeon said, is like believing that you can drink acid without harm or go without food and not starve. But, Spurgeon concluded, “Our blessed Savior is honestly intolerant.”
In our text, there are two responses to the truth that Jesus proclaimed: Pilate scoffed; but those who are of the truth hear Jesus’ voice.
I believe that Pilate’s reply, “What is truth?” was said with a cynical sneer. If he were asking sincerely, he would not have immediately walked away. When Jesus said (John 18:37), “Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice,” He was extending an implicit invitation to Pilate to respond: “Pilate, will you hear My voice? Will you listen to Me as I speak the truth to you about your soul?” Really, it was Pilate, not Jesus, who was on trial, because whenever a person comes in contact with Jesus Christ, his sins are exposed in the light of Christ’s holiness and he has a decision to make. Will he hear Jesus’ voice calling him to come to the light? Or will he walk away because he is uncomfortable in the presence of such light?
Apparently Pilate didn’t give much thought to his decision to scoff at Christ’s words and go back out to the Jews, but that was a spiritually fatal decision. On the surface, it seemed like a little thing. Pilate probably thought, “I need to get this case resolved so I can go have breakfast and get on with my day.” But sometimes seemingly small decisions have major eternal consequences: Will you go to church and hear the gospel preached or will you stay home and enjoy a leisurely breakfast while you read the paper? When you hear the gospel preached on the radio, will you listen and respond to Christ or will you hit the button for your favorite music station?
The apostle Paul said (1 Tim. 6:13) that Jesus “testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate.” So Pilate’s skeptical response was not because Christ’s witness was somehow lacking. You can give the gospel as clearly as you know how, and yet people scoff and walk away. Why do they do that?
The comprehensive answer is, “Sin.” And probably the major sin that keeps people from faith in Christ is pride. They think that they know more than God and so they sit in judgment on the Bible, rather than letting it sit in judgment on them. Pride keeps them from asking God to reveal the truth to them. Pride makes them think that their good works will qualify them for heaven.
Also, often as people get older, they often become cynical of any religion that claims to be exclusively true. Perhaps they’ve been ripped off financially by professing Christians. They’ve seen Christian leaders who preached holiness while they were secretly engaging in sexual sins. At the same time, they’ve met unbelievers who were decent, good people. So they wrongly conclude that no one can know spiritual truth and anyone who claims to have the truth is arrogant and narrow-minded.
Another reason people scoff at the truth in Jesus is laziness and resistance to change. They don’t diligently seek truth in God’s Word, because it takes effort. It’s easier just to live as they’ve been living and not do the hard work necessary to change old habits. Plus, they love their sin and the truth makes them uncomfortable. So, like Pilate, they scoff at the notion that there is truth in the spiritual realm. But by God’s power, some do respond:
Being “of the truth” suggests spiritual origin. As Jesus told Nicodemus (John 3:6-7), “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’” Those who have been spiritually reborn by the Spirit of truth are “of the truth.” They become seekers of the truth in Christ. So the crucial question is, “Have you been born again?”
If you wonder, “How can I know whether I’m of the truth? How can I know whether I’ve been born again?” Jesus gives the answer: You will hear His voice. Jesus often cried out (Matt. 11:15; 13:9), “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” He was challenging people to ponder the meaning of what He proclaimed and apply it to their hearts. Hearing Jesus in this sense means not only listening, but also obeying what He commanded. The fact that spiritual truth is knowable and objective means that, like science, it must be studied. God’s truth is like precious metal or hidden treasure that must be diligently sought after (Prov. 2:1-6). If you are “of the truth,” you will be a truth-seeker by studying God’s Word. But the aim is not just to acquire knowledge, but to apply that knowledge wisely so that your life is pleasing to God.
Years ago on a TV talk show, the Archbishop of Canterbury was speaking with actress Jane Fonda. He said, “Jesus is the Son of God, you know.” Fonda replied, “Maybe he is for you, but he’s not for me.” To which the Archbishop wisely answered, “Well, either he is or he isn’t.”
Although most Americans and even a large percentage of evangelical Christians reject the idea of absolute truth in the spiritual realm, that doesn’t undermine the fact of it. Jesus is the truth and He testified to the truth. And He is the King. If you are of the truth, you will hear His voice and submit your life to Him.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
June 21, 2015
It’s a common saying that you can’t choose your relatives, but you can choose your friends. And the friends you choose affect the direction of your life. In my fourth year of seminary, Dr. Howard Hendricks told us, “Two things will determine where you’re at ten years from now—the books you read and the friends you make.” After a pause to let that sink in, he added, “Choose them both very carefully!”
The best friend that anyone can have is the Lord Jesus Christ. But to be His friend, you must stand with Him against those who oppose Him. In John 19:12, Pilate had to make a choice between friends. The Jewish leaders who had brought Jesus to Pilate for judgment said, “If you release this Man, you are no friend of Caesar; everyone who makes himself out to be a king opposes Caesar.” That cinched it for Pilate. When he heard these words, he brought Jesus out and handed Him over to the Jews to be crucified. Pilate chose friendship with Caesar over friendship with Christ. In going for that short-term gain, he lost his eternal soul. The lesson is:
If you choose to be the friend of Caesar, you’ll lose your soul; but if you choose Christ over Caesar, you’ll gain your soul.
When I talk about being the friend of Caesar, I’m not talking about being the friend of the President or of any other powerful political figure. Rather, by “Caesar,” I’m referring to all that he represents, namely, this present world system and all that it dangles in front of us to tempt us. As 1 John 2:15-17 warns,
Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.
Or, as James 4:4 bluntly draws the line, “You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.” Or as Jesus said (Luke 16:13), “You cannot serve God and wealth,” where wealth (“Mammon”) represents the heart of the world system. So you’ve got to choose: Caesar or Christ? Pilate’s tragic story brings out five contrasts between being a friend of Caesar or a friend of Christ:
One of Pilate’s glaring character flaws was that he compromised his integrity in a futile attempt to keep both Caesar and the Jews as his friends. As I explained in a previous message, Pilate made some serious blunders early in his rule over Judea that weakened his leadership. First, he had sent soldiers into the temple area with shields bearing images of Caesar. The Jews saw this as blasphemy and staged a major protest. Pilate threatened to slaughter them, but they didn’t back down. Politically, he couldn’t murder that many Jews so early in his term as governor, so he had to back down. Score: The Jews, 1; Pilate, 0.
Then, he built an aqueduct to bring water into Jerusalem, which was good. But he used temple funds to pay for the project. The Jews rioted and this time, Pilate did kill some of them. (Jesus may be referring to this incident in Luke 13:1-2.) The Jews complained to Caesar, who gave a scathing rebuke to Pilate. Score: The Jews, 2; Pilate, 0.
So by the time the Jews brought Jesus to Pilate for judgment, they held the advantage. When Pilate asks them (John 18:29) “What accusation do you bring against this Man?” they answered (John 18:30), “If this Man were not an evildoer, we would not have delivered Him to you.” In other words, “We’re in charge here! You don’t need to question us or hold a trial. Just do as we say!”
After they joust back and forth and Pilate hears Jesus affirm that His kingdom is not of this world (and thus no threat to Roman rule), Pilate concludes (John 18:38), “I find no guilt in Him.” If Pilate had been a man of principle, that should have been the end of it. Pilate had the authority to acquit or condemn accused prisoners (John 19:10). If he believed that Jesus was innocent, he should have let Him go. But he was afraid of the Jews. If they sent another bad report to Caesar, Pilate’s career as governor and perhaps his life would be over.
So, to save his career and his neck, he compromised his integrity. Rather than doing the right thing (letting Jesus go), he offered the Jews the choice of releasing the notoriously violent prisoner Barabbas or Jesus. Pilate thought that they wouldn’t want a dangerous character like Barabbas out on the streets. Surely they’d pick Jesus. But Pilate was wrong. The Jews chose Barabbas.
His next ploy was to scourge Jesus, an innocent man, with the hope that the Jews would say, “He’s suffered enough. Let Him go.” But they cried out all the more for Jesus’ crucifixion. Twice more (John 19:4, 6) Pilate tells the Jews that he finds no guilt in Jesus. Obviously, if Jesus was innocent, Pilate shouldn’t have put Him forward as a prisoner to release and he shouldn’t have scourged Him. But when you compromise your integrity at one point, you often have to do it again to try to get out of the hole you’re in. But you’re only digging yourself in deeper.
Next, the Jews accuse Jesus of making Himself out to be the Son of God, which spooks Pilate (John 19:7-8). In Roman mythology, sometimes the gods came to earth. Pilate is worried that he has scourged a “god”! Adding to his anxiety, his wife sent word about her dream, warning Pilate to have nothing to do with “that righteous Man” (Matt. 27:19). So Pilate attempts again to get Jesus released, which leads the Jews to cry out (John 19:12), “If you release this Man, you are no friend of Caesar; everyone who makes himself out to be a king opposes Caesar.” At this point, Pilate feels trapped. He suppresses his conscience and condemns an innocent man to a cruel death.
But the conscience is not quieted so easily! Even though Pilate was a ruthless, self-seeking military man, who had killed many to get to where he was at, this victim was different. Pilate could tell that not only was Jesus innocent; He also spoke as no man spoke (John 7:46). This man claimed to have come into the world to testify to the truth (John 18:37). He spoke with calm authority, not with the desperation of a man trying to save Himself from execution. Pilate had condemned an innocent man who was not your run-of-the-mill prisoner. This was not Jesus’ condemnation, but Pilate’s. By choosing Caesar’s approval over God’s, he turned away from the light that he had. Pilate’s conscience must have nagged him.
Like ignoring the warning light on your dashboard, any time you compromise your integrity to follow the world, your conscience blinks and says, “You shouldn’t be doing this.” But the problem is, if you don’t fix the underlying problem, it keeps blinking for a while. If you keep ignoring it and doing what you know to be wrong, after a while your conscience becomes insensitive to sin, a fearful condition to be in (1 Tim. 4:2)!
If Pilate had responded to Christ’s invitation when He told him (John 18:37), “Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice,” he would have experienced forgiveness and a clean conscience. He would have had the strength to act with integrity because he would have been right with God and trusting in Christ (Acts 24:16).
By the way, even though Acts 4:27-28 says that Pilate, Herod, the Gentiles, and the Jews crucified Jesus because God predestined it to occur, they were not pre-programmed robots who had no choice in their sin. They were slaves of sin, as all unbelievers are, but being in bondage to sin does not exempt anyone from being accountable to God for their sin. Although we can’t totally understand it, God is sovereign but people are responsible for their sin.
Pilate viewed the Jews as thwarting his career goals. They had already caused him some major headaches because of their religion and their complaints to Caesar about his heavy-handed leadership. And now, because of their religious self-righteousness, the Jews wouldn’t even set foot in his residence, so that they wouldn’t defile themselves during their religious festival (John 18:28)! It’s easy to see why Pilate felt nothing but contempt for the Jews! If you’ve ever been around people who make you feel like they’re “holier-than-thou” because of their religion, it doesn’t exactly warm your heart toward them! The tragedy is that God intended for the Jews to be a light to the Gentiles. Instead, all they did was make Pilate feel beneath them, so that in turn he felt contempt for them.
So part of Pilate’s contempt stemmed from the Jews’ self-righteous attitude toward him. But part of his contempt stemmed from the fact that his focus was to please Caesar so that he could advance his career, and the Jews were hindering his career. Those who are friends with Caesar use people to further their own aims. If people get in their way, they feel contempt for them.
But friends of Christ, like Him, feel compassion for people, even for those the world despises. Jesus felt compassion for the hurting people in Israel (Matt. 9:36; 14:14). His compassion extended an invitation to Judas to repent right to the end. Although He knew that the cross loomed ahead, He thought of His disciples’ needs and addressed those needs in the Upper Room discourse. He prayed for them in His high priestly prayer. He extended the invitation to Pilate to listen to the truth. As He hung on the cross, He granted mercy to the repentant thief and prayed for forgiveness for His persecutors. And He thought about His mother’s needs and entrusted her to John. Our Lord was always full of compassion for people. Those who are growing to be like Him will also look for the needs of others and seek to show them God’s compassion.
Pilate was living in fear of the threat that the Jews would report something else to Rome, so he had to be careful not to offend or anger them, even though he despised them. This is why he didn’t just release Jesus, even though he knew that He was innocent. He was afraid of the Jews.
Also, when the Jews tell Pilate that Jesus should die “because He made Himself out to be the Son of God,” Pilate “was even more afraid” (John 19:7-8). Since there is not any mention of Pilate already being afraid, some commentators translate it, “he was very much afraid.” As I just explained, this was probably due to his Roman mythological beliefs, compounded by the warning from his wife not to have anything to do with “that righteous Man.” Pilate had just had Jesus scourged, even though he knew that He was innocent. That creates a guilty conscience, which always results in fear. What if Caesar finds out what he had done? What if Jesus really was a “god” who had come to earth?
So, when you’re living to please everyone and you violate your conscience so that you can get ahead, you’re always fearful. What if you offended that person? What if word gets back to the boss about how you lost that key client? What did that person think about what you said?
And then there’s the fear of God and judgment. Most unbelievers hope that they’re going to heaven, but there is that nagging fear that they may be wrong. They base their hope on the fact that they’re not as bad as terrorists, murderers, and child molesters. But what if God’s standard is straight A’s and they’re only B+? It’s like one guy said (Reader’s Digest, 9/89, p. 67), “My greatest fear is that I will be standing behind Mother Teresa in the final judgment line and I’ll hear God tell her, ‘You know, you should have done more.’” If you’re living to be friends with Caesar, you’ll always be anxious about how it will go with God at the final judgment.
But friends of Christ, those who have put their trust in Him as Savior and Lord, don’t need to fear people or God’s judgment. David, who had many enemies seeking his life, sang (Ps. 56:11), “In God I have put my trust, I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?” Psalm 118:6 echoes this: “The Lord is for me; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” As friends of Christ, our concern is to please Him out of love, because He first loved us. If He is pleased, then whatever people may think about me is secondary.
Also, friends of Christ know that He has forgiven all their sins through His death on the cross and that they now enjoy peace with God. As Paul wrote (Rom. 5:1), “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Or again (Rom. 8:1), “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” We who are friends of Christ do not need to fear death, knowing that it ushers us into His loving presence forever (2 Cor. 5:1-8: Phil. 1:23; Heb. 2:14-15).
Thus friendship with Caesar (the world) results in compromising your integrity and a guilty conscience; friendship with Christ results in forgiveness and integrity. Friendship with Caesar goes along with contempt for people who thwart your agenda; friendship with Christ results in compassion for people. Friendship with Caesar puts you in bondage to fear and anxiety; friendship with Christ frees you from fear and gives peace with God.
For Pilate, “right” was whatever advanced his career and got the Jews off his back. Sure, it was unfortunate that an innocent man got scourged and crucified, but sometimes you’ve got to do some unpleasant things to take care of business. He just wanted to be done with this messy trial and get on with his day. “Besides,” he could have rationalized, “if executing Jesus is right for the Jews, maybe it’s okay. That many Jews can’t all be wrong, can they?”
Pilate not only had relative moral standards, he also was cynical about knowing the truth about spiritual matters, if there even was such a thing as spiritual truth. Some people found that allegiance to one of the Roman gods worked for them, whereas others found help through following another god. Some believed in the Stoic philosophy; others found the Epicureans more to their liking. Who is to say that only one way is right? Who is to say that there is absolute truth in the spiritual realm? So when Jesus said (John 18:37), “For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice,” Pilate scoffed, “What is truth?” and walked away.
A Barna Research Group survey from over a decade ago revealed that only 15 percent of those who did not claim to be born again Christians believed in absolute moral standards. But the shocking thing is that among those who said that they were born again, only 32 percent believed in absolute moral standards. The article reporting these statistics (www.barna.org/barna-update/ article/5-barna-update/67-Americans-are-most-likely-to-base-truth -on-feelings#.VXthxvlVhBc) said that in a public forum:
Barna noted that substantial numbers of Christians believe that activities such as abortion, gay sex, sexual fantasies, cohabitation, drunkenness and viewing pornography are morally acceptable. “Without some firm and compelling basis for suggesting that such acts are inappropriate, people are left with philosophies such as ‘if it feels good, do it,’ ‘everyone else is doing it’ or ‘as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else, it’s permissible.’ In fact, the alarmingly fast decline of moral foundations among our young people has culminated in a one-word worldview: ‘whatever.’”
But Jesus didn’t come to testify to “whatever”! He came to testify to the truth (John 18:37). God’s moral truth is not based on how you feel or what everyone else is doing or if it doesn’t hurt anyone else. As friends of Christ, we must obey what He commanded (John 15:14). His truth isn’t subjective or based on what the Supreme Court decides is right! His truth is in His Word (John 17:17), which shows us how to live distinctly from this world. When you become a friend of Christ, you know the truth and that truth doesn’t change with every cultural trend that comes along!
Pilate decided to be the friend of Caesar and the Jews rather than the friend of this mocked, despised Galilean Jew. It was a bad choice! In AD 36, a Samaritan man claimed that he knew where Moses hid the golden objects from the tabernacle on Mt. Gerazim. Moses had never crossed the Jordan, so no one should have believed him. But he gained a following of armed people and tried to find the treasure. Pilate viewed it as a rebellion and sent troops to slaughter the Samaritans. The survivors complained to Pilate’s superior, who deposed him and ordered him to Rome to stand trial before Caesar. Fortunately for Pilate, Caesar died before he got there. The historical record beyond that is unclear, but probably he was banished to Gaul where he eventually committed suicide.
Even if Pilate had gained the favor of Caesar and even if he had become the next Caesar, Jesus’ words expose the folly of that course (Mark 8:36): “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?”
If Pilate had chosen Jesus over Caesar, he would have gained a faithful friend, who promises never to leave or forsake those who follow Him. Being a friend of Jesus doesn’t mean that He will protect you from trials. The disciples were His friends (John 15:13-15) and yet He promised them trials and persecution (John 15:20-21, 16:2). As He said (Matt. 5:10-12):
“Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you and persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
With the way things are going in America, friends of Jesus may soon experience insults and persecution when they stand for biblical standards of morality. Even now, if you say that homosexual marriage is an abomination in God’s sight, you will be called a homophobic bigot and you could likely lose your job. But even if you lose your life, you’ll be welcomed into the eternal presence of the best friend you can ever have, the Lord Jesus Christ!
During a Naval War College course known as Fundamentals of Command and Decision, the instructor was stressing the importance of being able to make sound decisions under pressure. A visiting officer from a small foreign navy spoke up. “Talk about decisions!” he said. “I was 700 miles out to sea in my destroyer when I received a dispatch from my base: ‘We have just had a revolution. Which side are you on?’” (Reader’s Digest [5/83])
Deciding to be on the side of Caesar or Christ isn’t that difficult! But you must decide: whose friend are you—Caesar’s or Christ’s? You can’t be a friend of the world and a friend of God at the same time (James 4:4). If you choose to be the friend of Caesar, you’ll lose your soul. That’s the default mode if you do nothing. But if you choose Christ over Caesar, you’ll gain your soul.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
June 28, 2015
Donald Grey Barnhouse (Let Me Illustrate [Revell], p. 245) tells about visiting a 16th century Augustinian monastery and palace near Madrid, Spain, called El Escorial. It is a magnificent building where the kings of Spain have been buried for centuries. The architect who built it made an arch so flat that it frightened the king. He ordered the architect to add a column that would uphold the middle of the arch. The architect argued that it was not necessary, but the king insisted. So the column was built. Years later, the king died and the architect then revealed that the column was a quarter of an inch short of the arch, which had not sagged in the slightest. Barnhouse said that guides pass a lath between the arch and the column to show that in over 400 years, the arch has not moved.
That arch is like our salvation in at least three ways. First, there is a master designer or planner behind it. It did not just happen, but was carefully planned and carried out by God. Second, it is totally sufficient in and of itself. Just as the arch didn’t need the help of a column to stand, so our salvation as provided in Christ is perfect and sufficient without human works needed to supplement it. Third, there is a practical aspect or function to it. The arch wasn’t just for looks, but to support that building. Our salvation isn’t just for looks, but is to result in a life of good deeds to glorify our Lord. These three points are brought forth in John’s account of the death of our Savior. The lesson is:
Through Christ’s death God planned and provided totally for our salvation, which results in good works.
The title of this message, “So Great a Salvation,” is from Hebrews 2:3, which rhetorically asks, “How will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?” From John’s eyewitness description of Jesus’ death we learn three things about our great salvation:
John wants us to see that the cross was no accident. From start to finish it was in accordance with God’s foreordained purpose, even in the seemingly minor details. John shows this through Jesus’ fulfillment of types and prophecies; through Pilate’s inscription; and through the soldiers’ gambling.
John 19:17: “They took Jesus, therefore, and He went out, bearing His own cross, to the place called the Place of a Skull, which is called in Hebrew, Golgotha.” (The Latin for “Skull” is “Calvary.”) The phrase, “He went out,” points back to the Old Testament sacrificial system, where the sin offering was taken outside the camp. Leviticus 16:27 states, “But the bull of the sin offering and the goat of the sin offering, whose blood was brought in to make atonement in the holy place, shall be taken outside the camp, and they shall burn their hides, their flesh, and their refuse in the fire.” Hebrews 13:11-13 applies this type to Jesus:
For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy place by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned outside the camp. Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate. So, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach.
Also, John notes that Jesus bore His own cross. This probably refers to the horizontal crossbeam, not to the entire cross. The upright portion was already put in the ground. The other Gospels (Luke 23:26, parallels) report that the soldiers forced a man named Simon of Cyrene to bear Jesus’ cross. There is no contradiction: Jesus carried His cross from the place of judgment as long as He was able. But His bodily weakness due to the scourging and other mistreatment caused Jesus to stumble under the load. At that point, the soldiers conscripted Simon. But John wants to emphasize that Jesus bore the cross to show the Father’s sovereign plan and the Son’s obedience to that plan (D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 609).
Also, when God gave the startling command to Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac was a type of Christ. In that moving story, we are told that Abraham put the wood for the sacrifice on Isaac his son, who submitted to his father (Gen. 22:6). Even so, John wants us to see that Jesus, the Son of God, bore His own cross in obedience to the Father.
Also, Jesus was crucified between two others. John does not mention specifically the fact that they were criminals or tell us as Luke does about the repentance of the one thief. But still, in dying between two thieves, Jesus fulfilled Isaiah 53:12, which predicted that Messiah would be “numbered with the transgressors” as He bore the sin of many and interceded for the transgressors. This brings out “the truth that Jesus was one with sinners in His death” (Leon Morris, The Gospel of John [Eerdmans], p. 806).
The other gospels report that when they arrived at Golgotha, just before they crucified Jesus, they gave Him wine to drink mixed with myrrh (Mark 15:23; or gall, Matt. 27:34); but after tasting it, He refused to drink it. It is often said that this was a narcotic to ease the pain, but D. A. Carson (Expositor’s Bible Commentary [Zondervan], ed. by Frank Gaebelein, 8:575) argues that it was a form of torment that amused the soldiers, because the myrrh made the wine so bitter that it tasted like gall and was undrinkable.
John 19:28 reports that later, as He hung on the cross, Jesus cried out, “I am thirsty.” This time someone gave Him some sour wine (or vinegar) on a sponge to drink. The two references together (to gall and sour wine) fulfilled the Messianic Psalm 69:21, where David complained, “They also gave me gall for my food and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” Also, in Psalm 22 David depicts the details of a death by crucifixion hundreds of years before that cruel punishment was devised. In Psalm 22:15 the sufferer describes his thirst: “My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws; and You lay me in the dust of death.” John 19:29 also says that they used a stalk of hyssop to lift the sponge to Jesus’ lips. Hyssop was what Israel used to put the blood on the doorposts of their homes at Passover (Exod. 12:22).
Jesus’ thirst not only fulfilled Scripture, but it also shows His full humanity. His suffering was not mitigated by the fact that He also is God. Docetism, a heresy that plagued the early church, taught that Jesus wasn’t truly human. He was God, but just seemed to be human. But as John 1:14 states, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Hebrews 2:17 explains, “Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.”
Dr. S. Lewis Johnson (www.sljinstitute.net, sermon “Pilate and the Jews”) suggested that Jesus’ thirst also represented His spiritual condition as He who knew no sin was made sin on our behalf. Like the psalmist whose soul was parched as he felt separated from God (Ps. 42:1-2; Ps. 63:1), so Jesus was spiritually thirsty as He cried out (Matt. 27:46), “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” How ironic that the One who promised the woman at the well living water that would quench her thirst forever died crying out, “I am thirsty”! So Jesus’ fulfillment of types and prophecies shows that His death was no accident. God predicted it and planned it all for our salvation. (I’ll treat one other fulfilled prophecy, that of the soldiers’ gambling, in a moment.)
None of the gospels, including John, describe the horrific details of death by crucifixion. It is one of the most tortuous forms of execution ever devised. After the brutal scourging, which killed some before they were crucified, the victim was forced to carry his own crossbeam to the site of execution. A man would walk ahead carrying the placard stating the charges, which served as a solemn warning to others not to commit the same crime. The victim was stripped naked and laid out on ground, where his hands or wrists were fasted to the crossbeam with large nails. The crossbeam was then hoisted up and fastened to the upright. The man’s two feet were forced together and nailed with one nail. There was sometimes a peg used as a supporting seat, not to alleviate pain, but to prolong it, as it allowed him to push up to gasp for air. Sometimes a man would suffer on the cross two or three days before expiring.
The placard would be attached to the cross for all to read. Only John mentions the three languages that Pilate had the charges written in: Hebrew (or Aramaic); Latin, and Greek. Hebrew was the language of the Jewish people in Israel. Latin was the language of the ruling Roman government. Greek was the lingua franca of commerce and trade. John wants us to see that Jesus’ death was not just for the Jews, but for the whole world, a theme that he has emphasized throughout his Gospel (John 1:29; 3:16; 4:42; 12:20-21).
The charge that Pilate wrote was (John 19:19), “JESUS THE NAZARENE, THE KING OF THE JEWS.” Pilate wrote the inscription to mock the Jews: “This is what we Romans do with you Jews: We crucify your king. This miserable man on the cross is a fitting king for you despicable Jews!” The chief priests felt the barb and objected (John 19:21), “Do not write, ‘The King of the Jews’; but that He said, ‘I am King of the Jews.’” But at this point, Pilate had been manipulated enough by the Jews, so he retorted (John 19:22), “What I have written I have written.”
But what Pilate meant in sarcasm, God meant in truth. Jesus really was the promised King of the Jews. When He was born, magi from the east came to Jerusalem asking (Matt. 2:2), “Where is He who has been born King of the Jews?” When the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary to tell her that she would be with child through the Holy Spirit, he said regarding Jesus (Luke 1:32-33), “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end.” Although in His first coming, He died as the sacrifice for our sins, in His second coming, He will rule the nations with a rod of iron as King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev. 19:15-16). So, like Caiaphas who inadvertently prophesied that Jesus should die for the nation, so Pilate unknowingly proclaimed the truth that Jesus is the King of the Jews and of all nations. Make sure He’s your king!
John 19:23-25a:
Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His outer garments and made four parts, a part to every soldier and also the tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece. So they said to one another, “Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, to decide whose it shall be”; this was to fulfill the Scripture: “They divided My outer garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots.” Therefore the soldiers did these things.
The prophecy that the soldiers inadvertently fulfilled was Psalm 22:18, “They divide my garments among them; and for my clothing they cast lots.” None of these pagan soldiers were aware of that psalm or of the fact that they were fulfilling a prophecy made 1,000 years before. But John points this out to let us know that these were not random happenstance. Although these soldiers were not pre-programmed robots and were only doing what soldiers tend to do, the sovereign hand of God behind the scenes was controlling even these minor details surrounding Jesus’ death. While Jesus died naked to bear our shame, He clothes us who believe with His robe of perfect righteousness!
Perhaps as Mary and the other women stood there in horror and grief watching these events unfold, they thought, “Some of us made those garments for Jesus and now these heartless men who do not know God and do not care at all about Jesus are gambling for them. Where is God in all this?” But if they knew and could recall the Scriptures, they would have marveled at God’s sovereign hand fulfilling even these peripheral details at this horrible scene!
As I mentioned recently, some theologians and pastors (called open theists) try to absolve God of the problem of evil and suffering by arguing that He is not sovereign and omnipotent over the evil things people do. Rather, He is as surprised and upset by it as you are. Years ago I attended a funeral for a young woman at another church here in town where the pastor said, “This tragedy was not in the will of God.” He meant to offer comfort by saying that God had nothing to do with her death, but he really robbed the grieving family of the only comfort we have in such difficult circumstances, namely, that the sovereign God who cares about every sparrow that falls to the ground cares for you in your troubles (1 Pet. 5:6-7).
The way that the minute details of Jesus’ death fulfilled these many types and prophecies teaches us that we can trust the Bible, even when we don’t fully understand it. I’m sure that David and Isaiah and many other Old Testament authors did not fully understand the things that they wrote which later would be fulfilled specifically in Christ’s death for our sins. As 1 Peter 1:10-12 explains:
As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things into which angels long to look.
But even when we don’t understand why God is allowing our suffering, we can trust in the promises of His Word. Someday in heaven we will look back even on the puzzling minor details and see how He worked them together for our good.
We also can rest in God’s faithfulness as we realize that there is no such thing as luck for us as God’s children. The soldiers believed in good luck as they cast lots for Jesus’ garments, but as believers we know that God was working even the rolling of the dice to accomplish His sovereign purpose (Prov. 16:33). They were responsible for their sin, but God overruled it for His purpose.
Also, when we submit to God’s mighty hand through the trials He brings into our lives, He uses them to conform us to the image of His Son, who learned obedience through the things that He suffered (Heb. 5:8). God uses tribulation to produce in us perseverance, proven character, and hope (Rom. 5:3-4; see, also James 1:3-4). Just like that arch that had a wise architect who planned it, so the Father planned our salvation.
The arch that that architect so carefully designed did not need a column to support it. The column only detracted from the sufficiency and beauty of the arch. In the same way, the salvation that God provides through Christ’s death is complete and sufficient. Any attempts to add human merit or works only detracts from the wisdom and glory of its architect.
As the cross loomed ahead of Him, Jesus prayed the night before (John 17:4), “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do.” Here, just before He utters His final words (Luke 23:46, citing Ps. 31:5), “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit,” Jesus cries out (John 19:30), “It is finished!” (The Greek verb for “accomplished” and “finished” is the same.) Then (John 19:30), “He bowed His head and gave up His spirit.” No one took His life from Him; as the good shepherd, He laid it down on His own initiative for His sheep (John 10:11, 18).
The fact that Jesus finished or accomplished our salvation on the cross means that we cannot add anything to what He did. To add human works or merit to the finished work of Christ is like building a column to support an arch that doesn’t need any support. It detracts from the architect’s design and skill, as well as from the beauty of the arch he made. As Paul put it (1 Cor. 1:30-31), “But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption, so that, just as it is written, ‘Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.’” Or (Eph. 2:8-9), “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” The only way to respond to God’s gift of salvation through Christ’s finished work is to receive it by faith alone.
But while we are saved by faith alone, the faith that saves always produces fruit. Through Christ’s death God planned and provided totally for our great salvation. But, also …
Just as the arch in the Escorial served a practical function, so our salvation is not just for looks. God designed it to bring Him glory as we engage in good deeds. As Ephesians 2:10 adds, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
This is exemplified in our Lord’s compassion for His mother as He hung on the cross. Although He was going through unimaginable agony and understandably could have thought only of Himself, He tenderly committed His mother’s care to the apostle John (John 19:26-27). Apparently Joseph had already died, leaving Mary as a widow. In that culture, widows had difficulty supporting themselves. Jesus’ brothers, who were not yet believers, were probably not present at the cross. John was Mary’s nephew and had the special designation of being the one whom Jesus loved. Jesus knew that John would be responsible to take care of Mary. So He demonstrated from the cross both the need to honor our parents and also to care for widows (Exod. 20:12; 1 Tim. 5:3-16).
The Bible is full of commands which show that our salvation is not just for our personal benefit, but is to work itself out in practical good deeds:
Philippians 2:3-4: “Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.”
Titus 3:1: “Remind them to be subject to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good deed.”
Romans 15:1-2: “Now we who are strong ought to bear the weaknesses of those without strength and not just please ourselves. Each of us is to please his neighbor for his good, to his edification.”
Commenting on John’s account of our Savior’s suffering here, J. C. Ryle remarks (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], pp. 290-291):
He that can read a passage like this without a deep sense of man’s debt to Christ, must have a very cold, or a very thoughtless heart. Great must be the love of the Lord Jesus to sinners, when He could voluntarily endure such sufferings for their salvation. Great must be the sinfulness of sin, when such an amount of vicarious suffering was needed in order to provide redemption.
I conclude by going back once more to Hebrews 2:3: “How will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?” Answer: We won’t escape! Make sure that you do not neglect the great salvation that our gracious God and Savior provided at the cross! Trust in Him and serve Him with all your heart!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
August 9, 2015
A hen and a pig saw a church sign announcing the sermon: “What Can We Do to Help the Poor?” The hen suggested that they feed them bacon and eggs. The pig thought about it and replied, “There’s one thing wrong with your idea: for you it requires only a contribution, but for me it requires total commitment!”
When I saw the photos a few months ago of the 21 Egyptian Christians who were beheaded on the beach in Libya or when I read stories about our brothers and sisters who are asked by Muslim extremists on threat of death, “Are you a Christian?” I wonder, “What would I do?” Perhaps we can never know for sure in advance how we would respond if we were faced with martyrdom. God would have to give special grace at that moment. But we all should be concerned about how we can deepen our commitment to Christ now so that we can be faithful to Him in this increasingly hostile world. Two minor characters in John’s Gospel, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, offer a lesson on how to deepen our commitment to Christ.
When I was in college, there was an ad for Clairol hair-coloring that had the tag line, “Only her hairdresser knows for sure.” You couldn’t tell by looking whether she dyed her hair or not. So we used to refer to certain Christians, who were quiet about their faith, as “Clairol Christians,” because only God knew for sure that they were believers.
Up to this point, both Joseph and Nicodemus had been “Clairol Christians.” Nobody except God knew that they were followers of Jesus. John (19:38) says that Joseph was “a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one for fear of the Jews.” From the other gospels, we learn that he was a prominent member of the Council (the Sanhedrin) who was waiting for the kingdom of God and that he had to gather up courage to ask Pilate for Jesus’ body (Mark 15:42). Luke (23:50-51) adds that he was a good and righteous man who had not consented to their plan and action to crucify Jesus.
We have encountered Nicodemus twice before in John’s gospel. In John 3, he visited Jesus by night, acknowledging that He was a teacher who had come from God as evidenced by His many miracles. Jesus startled Nicodemus, a Pharisee and “the teacher of Israel” (John 3:10), by saying (John 3:3), “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” All of Nicodemus’ religious activities and scrupulous obedience to the Law of Moses would not qualify him for God’s kingdom. Rather, he must be born of the Spirit.
We don’t know how Nicodemus responded to that meeting with Jesus. But in John 7, after the Pharisees were frustrated because their officers had not arrested Jesus, they scornfully ask (John 7:48), “No one of the rulers or Pharisees has believed in Him, has he?” Nicodemus weakly defended Jesus by stating (John 7:51), “Our Law does not judge a man unless it first hears from him and knows what he is doing, does it?” His colleagues put him down by replying (John 7:52), “You are not also from Galilee, are you? Search, and see that no prophet arises out of Galilee.” Both Joseph and Nicodemus may have been among those whom John 12:42-43 negatively refers to: “Nevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.”
But now, after Jesus has been crucified, Nicodemus joins Joseph in giving Jesus a proper burial. Joseph went to Pilate to ask for the body, while Nicodemus provided about 65-70 pounds of myrrh and aloes to fold in with the linen wrappings to offset the stench of the decomposing corpse. The two men took Jesus’ body from the cross, prepared Him for burial, and laid Him in Joseph’s personal new tomb, a cave near Golgotha hewn out of the rock, where no other bodies had yet been placed (Matt. 27:60; Luke 23:53; John 19:41).
So you have this odd situation where the disciples, who had followed Jesus when He was alive, and had expressed their willingness to die with Him (John 11:16; 13:37), all fled when He was arrested and crucified. It seems that only John dared to come back to the scene at the cross. But Joseph and Nicodemus, who had hesitated to confess Christ publicly when He was alive, now risk their positions on the Sanhedrin and take this bold, open stand for Christ after He has died. Although a few commentators question whether these two men came to saving faith on the grounds that John never directly states this, it seems to me that the fruit of their bold actions here testifies to their underlying faith.
So you have to ask, “Why the change?” Why did these men now come out boldly for Christ when they easily could have reasoned, “He must not have been the Messiah or He would not have been crucified”? Why risk the wrath of Pilate and rejection from their fellow members on the Council now to join what seemed to be a lost cause? Why didn’t they just shrug their shoulders and say, “Oh well, I hope that His disciples give Him a decent burial”?
I believe that the answer lies in the way that John juxtaposes the final scene at the cross (John 19:31-37) with the actions of these two men (John 19:38-42). These men had watched Jesus die and it deeply affected them. Seeing Christ crucified solidified their commitment to Him. Thanks to them, Jesus’ body was not thrown on the ash heap where they burned the bodies of other crucified men. Of course, God could have raised Jesus from the dead even if He had been burned to ashes. But then we wouldn’t have the evidence of the empty tomb, which had been secured by the Roman guard. So God used these two men’s late, but costly, commitment. The application for us is:
Looking on the crucified Christ deepens our commitment to Him.
First, let’s look at the crucified Christ; then we’ll look on the commitment that results from looking to Him.
Note three things:
Maybe you’re thinking, “Well, duh! Of course He died!” But that seemingly obvious fact has been denied down through the centuries. Late in the first century, Docetists denied that Jesus was truly a man. They asserted that He only seemed to be a man. Thus it only seemed that He died. Mohammed, whose knowledge of Christianity came through Docetist sources, wrote in the Quran (Sura 4.156), “They did not kill him, neither did they crucify him; it only seemed to be so.” (D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], pp. 623-624, footnote 3) Note the devastating impact of false teaching, with over a billion Muslims today believing that fatal error! More recently there have been attempts, such as Hugh Schonfield’s, The Passover Plot, to revive the theory that Jesus didn’t die on the cross; He just swooned and was placed in the tomb, where the cool air revived Him.
But if Jesus didn’t die, then He didn’t atone for our sins. If He didn’t die, then He was not raised from the dead, which means that our faith is worthless and we are still in our sins (1 Cor. 15:17). If Jesus didn’t die, you have to throw out the entire gospel record, which is the only eyewitness testimony that we have about Jesus.
John establishes the fact of Jesus’ death in three ways. First, in John 19:31 he reports: “Then the Jews, because it was the day of preparation, so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath (for that Sabbath was a high day), asked Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.” It was a “high Sabbath” because it immediately followed the Passover. Deuteronomy 21:22-23 states that if a man was condemned to death and hung upon a tree, his corpse should not hang on the tree overnight so as not to defile the land. So the Jews wanted these crucified men’s bodies removed from the cross so that they would not defile their land at the same time that they had crucified an innocent man who was, in fact, their Messiah!
So, Pilate gave the order to break the crucified men’s legs, which would result in quick death. If you’ve ever hit your shin hard on something, you know how painful it is. Well, after these men had already suffered for hours on the cross, the soldiers would come and shatter their shins with a heavy mallet, disabling them from using their legs to push up for another gasp of air. The shock and pain of the broken legs along with the lack of air would quickly result in death. So the soldiers smashed the legs of the two thieves, who were on either side of Jesus, but when they came to Jesus they saw that He was already dead and so they did not break His legs (John 19:33). They would not have ignored Pilate’s orders unless they were absolutely certain that Jesus was, in fact, dead.
The second way that John shows that Jesus was dead is that he reports how one of the soldiers, presumably to make sure that Jesus was dead, pierced His side with a spear, resulting in blood and water gushing out (John 19:34). Medical experts disagree on exactly what happened (Carson, p. 623, cites the two most common theories), but it’s obvious from the flow of blood and water that Jesus was dead before the spear thrust. But even if He hadn’t already died, this spear thrust would have finished the job. It wasn’t a minor puncture wound—it left a scar large enough to put your hand into (John 20:27)! John (19:35) underscores his eyewitness testimony of the truth of the piercing of Jesus’ side: “And he who has seen has testified, and his testimony is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe.”
The third way that John proves that Jesus was dead is that Joseph and Nicodemus prepared Him for burial by wrapping His body with linen and spices (John 19:40). If there had been the slightest evidence of breath or of a pulse, they would not have continued with the process. So we can be certain that Jesus died and was buried, which are essential to the gospel we believe in and proclaim (1 Cor. 15:3-4).
Jesus’ death was unique among all human deaths that have ever occurred because Jesus was unique. As fully God, His death satisfied God’s righteous requirement. As fully man, His death atoned for human sins. He paid in full the debt for the sins of His people (Matt. 1:21). As He proclaimed just before He expired (John 19:30), “It is finished!” The Greek word means, “Paid in full.”
But also, John wants us to think about the significance of the flow of blood and water from Jesus’ side as it relates to our salvation. Through his eyewitness testimony to the truth of this event he wants us to believe (John 19:35). Beyond the fact that the flow of blood and water certify Jesus’ death, John, who loves symbolism, most likely wants us to think about the symbolic meaning of this. But the problem is, commentators differ on what it means. The most common suggestion from Chrysostom on has been that the water represents baptism and the blood represents the Lord’s table, but most modern commentators view that as reading something foreign into the text (Carson, p. 624).
It is more likely that the blood and water point to the eternal life and cleansing that flow from Jesus’ death (ibid.). J. C. Ryle (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], p. 331) believed that John had in mind Zechariah 13:1, “In that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for impurity.” That verse occurs just five verses after Zechariah 12:10, which John (19:37) quotes with reference to the piercing of Jesus’ side. So the blood refers to the fact that Jesus’ blood cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7). The water also pictures cleansing, as well as eternal life and the Holy Spirit (John 4:14; 7:37-39; Carson, p. 624). Several beloved old hymns express this. William Cowper wrote,
“There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins;
And sinners plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains.”
Augustus Toplady’s “Rock of Ages” put it:
“Let the water and the blood,
From Thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure;
Cleanse me from its guilt and power.”
Fanny Crosby sings,
“Jesus, keep me near the cross;
There a precious fountain
Free to all, a healing stream,
Flows from Calv’ry’s mountain.”
The important thing is that you don’t just say, “That’s interesting,” and move on without being moved. Jesus’ death on the cross should be real and personal for you! John testifies that he saw the blood and water flow from Jesus’ side, and he reports it “so that you also may believe.” Through the blood of Jesus there is a full pardon for all the sins of everyone who puts his or her trust in Jesus as Savior and Lord.
Before we move on, there is one more thing to note in looking at the crucified Christ:
Although Jesus’ crucifixion must have been a horrifying sight, especially for those who knew Him and loved Him, John wants us to know that God sovereignly ordained it. He uses even the wicked to fulfill His purposes (Acts 4:27-28). John has already shown this in his narration of Jesus’ crucifixion (see my previous message), but he continues to drive home this point.
First, he writes (John 19:36), “For these things came to pass to fulfill the Scripture, ‘Not a bone of Him shall be broken.’” John is probably combining three Old Testament Scriptures: Exodus 12:46 & Numbers 9:12, which prohibit breaking the bones of the Passover lamb; and, Psalm 34:20, which refers to God protecting the righteous man from his enemies breaking his bones (Andreas Kostenberger, Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament [Baker Academic], ed. by G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, p. 503). It’s significant that these soldiers who were under orders to break the legs of the crucified men would skip Jesus, who was in the middle! Even when they saw that He was dead, it would have been normal for them to break His legs, too, so that they didn’t get in trouble. But God sovereignly prevented the soldiers from obeying their orders so that Jesus would fulfill Messianic prophecy!
Also, a soldier thrust his spear into Jesus’ side, probably to make sure that He was dead. He wasn’t under orders to do this; it was just something that he did on a whim. But John (19:37) points out that this fulfilled Zechariah 12:10, “They shall look on Him whom they pierced.” That prophecy will have its final fulfillment when Jesus returns (Rev. 1:7), but it had its initial fulfillment here. It also fulfills Isaiah 53:5, which says that the Suffering Servant “was pierced through for our transgressions.”
The third prophecy that Jesus’ burial fulfilled was Isaiah 53:9, “His grave was assigned with wicked men, yet He was with a rich man in His death, …” Normally, a crucified man’s body would be left on the cross until the vultures had eaten it and then taken down and thrown on the ash heap called Gehenna. But because God always accomplishes His purpose (Isa. 46:8-11), Jesus was buried in this rich man’s tomb. One writer (cited by J. C. Ryle, p. 344) observes that Jesus was rich twice: once at His birth, when the wise men brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh; and again, at His death, when He was buried in the rich man’s tomb.
So looking at the crucified Christ should lead us to commitment because He died for our sins to provide a full salvation and He is the fulfillment of God’s prophetic promises. God planned every detail of His death and resurrection for our salvation. Let’s look briefly at …
Salvation in Christ is free, but costly!
By burying Jesus, Joseph and Nicodemus would have incurred the wrath and rejection of the other Council members, who would have viewed them as traitors. Their reputation with the influential men of Jerusalem was ruined because they now identified with this despised, crucified Galilean.
Commitment to the crucified Christ will also cost you rejection. People don’t mind if you say that you admire Jesus as a great moral teacher. They’re okay if you say that He is a way to God. But when you say that Jesus was crucified for sinners and that He is the only way to God, you will feel their rejection: “Are you saying that I’m a sinner who needs a Savior?” That’s offensive! Prepare to be rejected.
The Jewish leaders wouldn’t set foot in Pilate’s dwelling so as not to incur defilement for the Passover. They wouldn’t dare touch a dead body, especially during the Feast of Unleavened Bread! But Joseph walks into Pilate’s presence to ask for Jesus’ body and then he and Nicodemus defile themselves by preparing that body for burial. In so doing, they lost their religion, but they gained Christ!
By “religion,” I’m referring to those who are scrupulous about outward appearances, but don’t deal with God on the heart level (see Mark 7:1-23). Religious people are fastidious about cleaning the outside of the cup, while inwardly they are full of sinful self-indulgence (Matt. 23:25). Religious people do things to look good before people, but they don’t come to Christ as needy sinners to receive mercy and to live in holiness on the thought level. To be committed to Jesus Christ, you’ve got to give up religion and replace it with reality with God.
Both Joseph and Nicodemus were fairly well off. To bury Jesus, Joseph had to give up his personal tomb (remember, he wasn’t expecting the resurrection!). Nicodemus supplied a lot of costly spices for Jesus’ burial. If both men later joined the early church in Jerusalem, they may have been among those who sold their properties to provide for the needy saints (Acts 4:34-35). Jesus made the radical claim (Luke 14:33), “So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.” God doesn’t just own a tenth of your income; He owns it all!
So commitment to Christ is costly. But, do you gain anything?
Joseph and Nicodemus were rejected by the Jewish leaders, but by confessing Christ on earth they gained eternal acceptance in heaven (Matt. 10:32-33). They lost their rules-keeping religion, but they gained an eternal relationship with the risen Savior. They lost their earthly riches, but they gained treasures in heaven. Remember Jesus’ words (Matt. 16:25-26): “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?”
Of course, there are also temporal benefits that accompany commitment to Christ. Peter said Jesus (Mark 10:28), “Behold, we have left everything and followed You.” Jesus replied (Mark 10:29), “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life.” There may be persecutions, but the Lord always takes care of His children!
So to deepen your commitment to Christ, meditate often on His death for you. Isaac Watts captured it well:
When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
August 16, 2015
I always am fascinated to watch footage of engineers taking down an old building by placing dynamite charges at strategic points so that the building implodes. By finding just those few load-bearing points in the foundation, the entire building collapses into a heap of rubble.
The entire Christian faith rests on one historically verifiable point: the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. The apostle Paul says (1 Cor. 15:17), “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.” Everything in the Christian faith rests on the historical truth that Jesus was raised from the dead. If you can explode that one truth, the Christian faith collapses.
But I need to clarify that we’re talking about objective truth. We live in an age that holds to a subjective, experience-oriented view of truth. But if Jesus was raised bodily from the dead, then He is the only truth and the only way to the Father (John 14:6). And this truth applies to every person. As Paul proclaimed to the Athenian philosophers, they should repent because (Acts 17:31), God “has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”
Jesus’ resurrection was at the center of the apostles’ witness. On the Day of Pentecost, Peter preached (Acts 2:32), “This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses.” He told the crowd that gathered after God used him and John to heal the lame man at the temple gate (Acts 3:14-15), “But you disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, but put to death the Prince of life, the one whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses.” When the apostles were dragged before the Jewish Sanhedrin, Peter boldly proclaimed (Acts 4:10), “Let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by this name this man stands here before you in good health.” (See also, Acts 4:33; 5:30; 10:40; 13:32-37; 17:18, 31; 26:23).
The emphasis on Jesus’ resurrection led church historian Philip Schaff to conclude (History of the Christian Church [Eerdmans], 1:173, cited by Josh McDowell, Evidence That Demands a Verdict [Campus Crusade for Christ], p. 190), “The resurrection of Christ is therefore emphatically a test question upon which depends the truth or falsehood of the Christian religion. It is either the greatest miracle or the greatest delusion which history records.”
At the same time, we must acknowledge that there are some difficulties harmonizing the gospel accounts of the resurrection. John lacks stories that the other gospels have and he includes stories that they lack or do not report exactly as he does. For example, Luke 24:12 mentions Peter’s visit to the tomb, but doesn’t mention that John went with him. John tells of Mary Magdalene’s early morning visit to the tomb, but doesn’t mention the other women who accompanied her. More differences could be cited. But as Leon Morris explains (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p. 828), “The differences between the Gospels amount to no more than a demonstration that here we have the spontaneous evidence of witnesses, not the stereotyped repetition of an official story.”
Eyewitnesses report what they have seen and heard, but different eyewitnesses to the same event can report seemingly contradictory details that still are all true. For example, the late theologian Kenneth Kantzer had a friend whose mother was killed. Kantzer first heard about her death through a trusted mutual friend who reported that the woman had been standing on the street corner, was hit by a bus, and died a few minutes later. Later he heard from the dead woman’s grandson that she was riding in a car that was in a collision, she was thrown from the car and killed instantly. The boy was quite certain of his facts. Which story was correct?
Dr. Kantzer later learned from the dead woman’s daughter that her mother had been waiting for a bus, was hit by another bus and critically injured. A passing motorist put her in his car and sped off to the hospital. En route, he was in a collision in which the injured woman was thrown from the car and killed instantly. Although the accounts seemed contradictory, both were true! (Christianity Today [10/7/88], p. 23.) So while there are harmonistic problems, we can trust the different resurrection accounts.
John’s purpose for writing what he saw concerning Jesus’ resurrection, as well as all of the other miracles he reports, is (John 20:31), “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” Thus,
The evidence for Jesus’ bodily resurrection should lead us to believe in Him as Savior and Lord.
So let’s consider five evidences in John’s Gospel for Jesus’ bodily resurrection from the dead.
John (20:1) reports that Mary Magdalene came early to the tomb “and saw the stone taken away from the tomb.” This was a large, round stone placed in a groove in front of the tomb to secure it from grave robbers. It would have taken several strong men to roll that stone out of the groove. The Jewish leaders feared that the disciples would come and steal Jesus’ body and claim that He was risen. So they went to Pilate and got a Roman guard to secure the tomb (Matt. 27:63-66). They set a seal on the stone and were there guarding the tomb when an angel came and rolled away the stone (Matt. 28:1-4)—not so that Jesus could get out, but so that the witnesses to the resurrection could get in to verify that the tomb was empty! The guards reported what had happened to the Jewish leaders, who gave them a large sum of money and told them to tell anyone who asked that the disciples came at night and stole Jesus’ body while the guards slept (Matt. 28:11-15).
There are several problems with that story. The Roman guards would have faced the death penalty if they had fallen asleep while on guard. Even if they had dozed off, the sound of a group of men moving the heavy stone would have awakened them. Besides, after the crucifixion, the disciples were too depressed and fearful to pull off a grave robbery. And even if they had stolen Jesus’ body or bribed the guards to take it away, they wouldn’t then have endured persecution and eventual martyrdom to proclaim what they knew to be a hoax.
In addition to the stone being rolled away, the tomb was empty. Mary Magdalene was not expecting the resurrection, but when she saw that the stone was rolled away, she assumed that somebody had taken Jesus’ body. She immediately ran to the disciples to report (John 20:2), “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.” This caused Peter and John to run to the tomb to see for themselves. John outran Peter, but he hesitated to go into the tomb. He stooped and looked in, seeing the grave clothes. Typically impetuous Peter brushed past John and went in. Then John went into the tomb and they both confirmed that Jesus’ body was not there.
If the Jewish leaders knew where Jesus’ body was, they would have produced it the instant that the apostles began proclaiming the resurrection. So the stone rolled away and the empty tomb both bear witness to Jesus’ bodily resurrection from the dead.
John goes into more detail concerning the grave clothes than the other gospels do. In telling the story, John uses three different Greek words meaning “to see.” When John first arrived at the tomb, he stooped and looked in and saw the linen wrappings lying there, but he didn’t go in (John 20:5). He uses the common Greek word that suggests nothing more than sight. But when Peter got there, he entered the tomb and saw the linen wrappings (John 20:6). Here the Greek word has the nuance of looking carefully or examining something. We get our word theater from it. Audiences at a theater watch carefully so as not to miss any part of the play. Finally, John went in, saw, and believed (John 20:8). Here John uses a word that means to see with understanding.
What did Peter and John see? Jewish burials involved wrapping the corpse with linen strips and tucking spices into the folds to offset the stench of the corpse. The head was wrapped separately. Peter and John saw the linen wrappings with the face cloth rolled up by itself in an orderly manner, but Jesus’ body was gone. Grave robbers would not have taken the time to remove the grave clothes at the scene, but would have grabbed the body with the grave clothes and left. Or, if they had removed them, they would have left them scattered in a disorderly fashion. D. A. Carson (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], pp. 637-638) observes, “The description is powerful and vivid, not the sort of thing that would have been dreamed up; and the fact that two men saw it (v. 8) makes their evidence admissible in a Jewish court (Dt. 19:15).”
When Jesus raised Lazarus, he was raised in his old body which was still subject to disease and death. So Lazarus couldn’t pass through the grave clothes, but had to be unbound by bystanders (John 11:44). But Jesus was raised with a resurrection body that is no longer subject to death. That new body is physical, yet could pass through the grave clothes, leaving them lying there intact. He later could pass through closed doors without opening them, as well as appear and disappear suddenly at will (John 20:19, 26; Luke 24:15, 31).
Here I’m looking ahead to the rest of John’s narrative. He cites four post-resurrection appearances of Jesus: To Mary Magdalene (20:11-18); to the disciples except Thomas (20:19-23); to the disciples, including Thomas (20:24-31); and, to seven of the disciples, by the Sea of Galilee (21:1-25). Paul mentions several other appearances, including one to over 500 people at one time, many of whom were still alive when he wrote (1 Cor. 15:6-8). The varied circumstances of the appearances and the different personalities of the witnesses militate against hallucinations or visions. Even Thomas, who at first was skeptical, became convinced when he saw the risen Lord (John 20:27).
John Warwick Montgomery (History and Christianity [IVP], p. 19, cited by McDowell, ibid., p. 233) commented:
Note that when the disciples of Jesus proclaimed the resurrection, they did so as eyewitnesses and they did so while people were still alive who had had contact with the events they spoke of…. It passes the bounds of credibility that the early Christians could have manufactured such a tale and then preached it among those who might easily have refuted it simply by producing the body of Jesus.
A skeptic might counter that the reports of Jesus’ resurrection are all given by believers. Why didn’t Jesus appear to any unbelievers so that they would come to faith? Peter alludes to this when he preached to the Gentiles gathered in Cornelius’ house (Acts 10:40-41): “God raised Him up on the third day and granted that He become visible, not to all the people, but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God, that is, to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead.”
But the risen Savior did later reveal Himself to one militant unbeliever: Saul of Tarsus, later known as the apostle Paul. The only way to explain Paul’s dramatic conversion is that he saw the risen Lord Jesus. But he was shown unusual grace. Normally, God doesn’t reveal Himself to proud skeptics, especially when they have already rejected the light that He has given them. The Jewish leaders had rejected many witnesses to Christ (John 5:31-40), so He did not show Himself to them after His resurrection, except through the witness of the apostles, which they also rejected. They refused to come to Jesus to receive life, so they were given over to judgment. But for those willing to submit to Jesus as Lord, His post-resurrection appearances are a strong evidence of His resurrection.
John shows that none of the witnesses was expecting a resurrection. Mary Magdalene thought that someone had taken Jesus’ body (John 20:2, 15). Neither John nor Peter at first understood the Scripture that Jesus must rise again from the dead (John 20:9). All the disciples were fearful and confused. Thomas was depressed and doubting. But all were transformed into the bold witnesses of the Book of Acts because they became convinced that Jesus rose bodily from the dead. They were so convinced that the resurrection was true that many of them went on to die as martyrs.
John calls attention here (John 20:8) to his own change of belief when he saw the empty tomb and the grave clothes: “So the other disciple who had first come to the tomb then also entered, and he saw and believed.” John and the other apostles obviously had already believed in Jesus, as evidenced by their following Him. So what did John here believe? He believed in Jesus’ resurrection from the dead (see John 20:25, 27, 29). Dr. Carson (p. 638) points out that most of the early witnesses came to believe the resurrection after they saw Jesus alive from the dead, but John came to such faith before he saw Jesus in resurrected form.
Also, John 20:9 explains, “For as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.” The apostles’ understanding of the Old Testament prophecies about Jesus’ resurrection came later. What Scripture was John referring to? Isaiah 53:10-12 speaks of the Messiah alive and seeing His offspring after He has been led like a sheep to the slaughter. Psalm 22 describes Christ’s death by crucifixion, but in verse 22 the mood shifts abruptly as He proclaims, “I will tell of Your name to my brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will praise You.” And in Psalm 16:10 Messiah proclaims, “For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.” On the Day of Pentecost, Peter cited that verse and explained that it could not refer to the author, David, who was still in his tomb. Rather, it spoke of Jesus, whom God raised from the dead (Acts 2:25-32).
Also, there is another subtle change in the lives of the witnesses alluded to in our text. John 20:1 mentions that Mary came to the tomb on the first day of the week (Sunday). Church history affirms that the early church gathered for worship on Sunday, not on the Jewish Sabbath (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2). Why would they change an institution that had been in place for centuries? They did it to proclaim and celebrate the Lord’s resurrection from the dead.
Thus the stone rolled away and the empty tomb; the grave clothes; the post resurrection appearances; and the changed lives of the witnesses, are all evidence that Jesus is risen. Finally,
Study the Gospel accounts of who Jesus was, what He taught, His astounding claims, the miracles He performed, and the prophecies He fulfilled. On more than one occasion He predicted His own death and resurrection (Matt. 16:21; Luke 9:22; John 2:19-22; 16:16-20, 28). His encounter with doubting Thomas shows that His purpose was to bring Thomas into a place of full faith in His deity. When Thomas exclaimed, “My Lord and my God,” Jesus did not rebuke or correct him for overstating things. Rather, Jesus commended Thomas’ correct perception and faith (John 20:27-29). A merely good teacher, especially a devout Jewish rabbi, would never accept such worship from a follower.
Everything in the Gospel accounts about Jesus’ person and teaching argues against His being a charlatan or lunatic. The only sensible option is that He is who He claimed to be: the eternal Son of God in human flesh, the Messiah of Israel. He offered Himself for our sins and God raised Him bodily from the dead. He wants those of us who have not seen Him to believe in Him (John 20:29).
The British New Testament scholar, B. F. Westcott (cited by Josh McDowell, More Than a Carpenter [Living Books], pp. 96-97) said, “Taking all the evidence together, it is not too much to say that there is no historic incident better or more variously supported than the resurrection of Christ.” You may wonder, “If the evidence is so convincing, why don’t more people believe it?” The answer is: people refuse to believe in Jesus’ resurrection because it has personal implications that they do not want to face. If Jesus is risen, then He is the rightful Lord of all and I must turn from my sin and live under His lordship. Because people don’t want to do that, they refuse to believe in Jesus in spite of the evidence.
Here are four concluding applications:
Faith in Christ is not a blind leap in the dark. It is based on the apostolic witness, which is to say, the eyewitness testimony of credible men. I’ve always been bothered by the line in the hymn, “He Lives”: “You ask me how I know He lives; He lives within my heart.” That is completely subjective. The reason I know He lives is that he predicted His resurrection and the apostles and many others saw Him after He arose.
Wilbur M. Smith concluded (Therefore Stand [Baker], p. 419, cited by McDowell, Evidence, p. 187): “If our Lord said, frequently, with great definiteness and detail, that after He went up to Jerusalem He would be put to death, but on the third day He would rise again from the grave, and this prediction came to pass, then it has always seemed to me that everything else that our Lord ever said must also be true.” When you tell people about Jesus, emphasize that they need to believe in Him because He truly is risen and He is coming again to judge the living and the dead.
The demons believe that Jesus is risen from the dead, but such faith does them no good. Saving faith in the risen Savior means repenting from sin and bringing every area of life under His rightful lordship (Acts 17:30-31).
Mary did not yet expect the resurrection, but she loved the Lord and wanted to give Him a proper burial. Peter’s and John’s faith and understanding were very weak at this point, but the Lord graciously nurtured them along and later used them mightily. We serve a gracious and loving Savior who can sympathize with our weaknesses. Draw near to Him, especially when you’re confused or doubting (Heb. 4:15-16).
It is not news, especially to us who are getting up in years, that our bodies are subject to aging, sickness, and death. But the promise of Scripture is that since Jesus is risen, all who believe in Him will be raised and given new resurrection bodies that are not subject to sickness and death (1 Cor. 15:12-58; 1 Thess. 4:13-18; Rev. 21:3-4).
The evangelist D. L. Moody told of a 15-year-old girl who was suddenly hit with an illness that left her paralyzed on one side and almost blind. As she lay in bed one day, she heard the family doctor say to her parents, “She has seen her best days, poor child.” But she was a believer and she quickly responded, “No, doctor, my best days are yet to come, when I shall see the King in His beauty.” (In James Boice, The Gospel of John [Zondervan], p. 1,400.) Her hope is your hope if your trust is in the risen Savior!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
August 23, 2015
The current “Voice of the Martyrs” magazine tells about a 13-year-old Nigerian boy who was critically wounded during a January 28th attack on his village by the Islamic terrorist group, Boko Haram. They slashed his head with a machete, hacked at his left arm, cut out his right eye, and cut off his genitals. Thankfully, he only remembers the first slash of the machete to his head. But although he is permanently disfigured and has to carry around a catheter bag that collects his urine, the boy is full of joy in the Lord. He wants others to know that Christ can get them through any trial if they will embrace God and trust in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.
That remarkable boy has the joy and hope in the midst of overwhelming trials that we all need, although few of us experience it. I confess that often I’m prone to complaining even about minor trials. So I need—we all need—joyous hope in the Lord to sustain us through our trials. We need hope that faces reality, not hope in wishful thinking or positive thinking. We need hope that sustains us in the most difficult times.
The news of Jesus’ resurrection brought hope to people who were overwhelmed by despair and grief. You can hear the deep disappointment in the words of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Concerning the crucified Jesus, they said (Luke 24:21), “But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel.” “We were hoping ….” But their hopes had been dashed.
The disciples were engulfed by gloom. They had left everything to follow Jesus, pinning all of their hopes on Him as the Messiah. But now, He was dead. On top of the shock of watching Jesus’ grisly death on the cross, Peter was wrestling with his own failure in denying the Lord. All of the disciples were guilty of abandoning Him and fleeing in fear.
We also see grief and despair in the tears of Mary Magdalene. The Greek word used to describe her weeping means loud, uncontrollable wailing. She was despondent that not only had Jesus died, but now she thought they had taken away His body so that she could not give Him a proper burial.
It was to people overwhelmed by such a dark cloud of grief that the fact of Jesus’ bodily resurrection broke in with life-changing hope. The fact that Jesus is risen and ascended into heaven, soon to return for His own, can break into your life with genuine hope in the midst of your worst trials, if you will learn the lessons from this true story.
It’s significant that Mary Magdalene was the first person to whom Jesus revealed Himself after His resurrection (Mark 16:9). She was not an especially important person, and she was a woman. In that culture, women were not considered reliable witnesses in court. You would think that the Lord would have picked maybe Peter, James, or John as the first witnesses of His resurrection. Or if it was a woman, I would have thought that He would have picked His mother, Mary, or perhaps Mary of Bethany, who anointed Him just before His death. But Mary Magdalene was first.
That fact is even more arresting when you recall that Mary had a rather seamy past. Jesus had cast seven demons out of her (Luke 8:2). Seven is the biblical number of perfection, so perhaps we are to understand that Mary was under the total domination of satanic power. While there is no biblical evidence for the commonly held notion that she had been a prostitute, we can surmise that a woman under demonic power did not have a squeaky clean past. Jesus had rescued her from a horrible life of sin.
The fact that the Lord revealed Himself first to Mary Magdalene shines a ray of hope for every person struggling with sin and guilt. If the Savior rescued this insignificant, demon-possessed woman from her life of sin and chose her to be the first witness of His resurrection, then He can save you from your sin and use you to serve Him! This story teaches us that…
Sorrows are turned to hope when we seek the risen Savior.
The background of the story is in verses 1-10. Mary had been to the tomb and discovered that the stone was taken away. She ran to Peter and John and excitedly reported (John 20:2), “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.” Peter and John immediately ran to the tomb. John got there first, but just looked in. In his usual blustery fashion, Peter entered the tomb and discovered the grave clothes without Jesus’ body. Then John went in, saw, and believed that Jesus was risen (John 20:8). But Peter went away still pondering what had happened (Luke 24:12). But neither man understood yet from the Scriptures that Jesus must rise from the dead (John 20:9). After viewing the empty tomb, both men returned home.
Meanwhile, Mary Magdalene had come back and she remained by the tomb, weeping. She wanted to find Jesus, although at this point she was just trying to find His corpse. In her thinking, someone had added insult to injury by robbing the grave.
In this state of confusion, she stooped and looked into the tomb, where she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and the other at the feet of where Jesus’ body had been lying. They asked Mary (John 20:13), “Woman, why are you weeping?” (Dr. S. Lewis Johnson observed that even angels are puzzled by women’s tears!) Jesus repeats the same question and adds another (John 20:15), “Whom do you seek?” Neither Jesus nor the angels asked those questions to gain information! Rather, they wanted Mary (and us) to think about the implications of those questions, because in doing so we will learn how seeking the risen Savior will turn our sorrows into hope. So let’s explore these questions:
“Why are you weeping?”
The point of this repeated question was to get Mary to process her sorrow in light of the fact that Jesus was now risen. Yes, watching the crucifixion had been horrific. You have to work through the emotional shock of such an event. But, Mary was now weeping from sorrow because the tomb was empty, whereas that fact should have caused her to weep for joy! Mary’s experience reveals three reasons why we often go through sorrow, which we need to process in light of Jesus’ resurrection.
Mary was deeply disappointed, first by the shock of the crucifixion, but now by the fact that she wanted to finish embalming Jesus’ body. She was thinking, “If only I knew where they laid Him, I could finish embalming His body!” But she didn’t understand the big picture, which included Jesus’ resurrection.
So often, we’re just like Mary. We’re disappointed because we don’t understand the big picture of what God is doing. We’re disappointed because God isn’t working as we think He needs to work. It seems that His promises aren’t true! But from God’s perspective, we’re asking the wrong questions and trying to accomplish the wrong tasks! We need to process our disappointments in light of the risen Savior’s love and care for us. We often don’t understand His sovereign perspective.
Mary thought that evil men had triumphed over God’s sovereign purposes. They had killed Jesus and now they had stolen His body. Twice she laments (John 20:2, 13), “they have taken away my Lord….” It’s an ironic complaint. If He is the Lord, no one could take Him anywhere without His consent! If God gives His angels charge to guard His Messiah in all His ways (Ps. 91:11-12; Luke 4:10-11), then surely God would not permit the crucifixion and then allow the body to be stolen against His sovereign will.
We often suffer needless sorrow because we forget that God is sovereign and that evil men can’t do anything to thwart His eternal purpose. I realize that some horrible atrocities take place. I’m not denying the emotional struggle of working through the aftermath of those atrocities if you or your loved ones are the victims. Often, we will not understand in this lifetime why God allowed such suffering to take place. But there is no comfort apart from the facts of God’s sovereignty and Jesus’ resurrection. If those facts are true, then someday God will work it all together for good (Rom. 8:28). Although evil men crucified Jesus, they were only inadvertently fulfilling God’s sovereign purposes (Acts 4:27-28).
Of course we grieve when we lose a loved one. In many cases, we will feel the loss every day for the rest of our lives. It’s not wrong to weep over such losses (John 16:20). But the Bible says that although we grieve, we do not grieve as those who have no hope (1 Thess. 4:13). The hope that Jesus is risen and that He is coming again to take us to be with Him and with our loved ones who have died in Him, comforts us through our tears (1 Thess. 4:14-18). While we may never understand why God allowed a loved one to die, we can know that the risen Savior has a greater purpose and He sympathizes with us (John 11:1-15, 35). Whatever our loss, we must process our sorrow in light of the sure fact that Jesus is risen and thus His promises are true! Those promises give us hope in our sorrow.
Perhaps the risen Lord is asking you the same question that He asked Mary: “Why are you weeping?” Maybe, like Mary, you’re inclined to think, “That’s a dumb question! Lord, don’t You see what they have done? I’m weeping because they….” The Lord gently says, “Wait a minute! The tomb is empty because I have risen. Now, why are you weeping?”
But, there’s a second important question that the risen Lord asks Mary (John 20:15): “Whom are you seeking?” He asks it even before she has a chance to answer the first question, because the answer to why she is weeping is found in the answer of whom she is seeking.
Clearly, Mary was seeking a dead Lord (John 20:13, 15). Her love for Jesus is commendable, but really, what good would it have done for Mary to haul off Jesus’ dead body and add a few more embalming spices? A dead religion that dresses up the corpse of a dead prophet is worthless! Only a living Savior who has triumphed over the grave offers hope for our sorrows.
Mary knew that, of course. But she had forgotten that Messiah’s death was prophesied in the Scripture hundreds of years before He came. Isaiah 53 predicted in miraculous detail Jesus’ death as a lamb led to the slaughter. It says (Isa. 53:5-6), “But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.”
David is equally explicit in Psalm 22, which begins with the haunting words that Jesus cried from the cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?” It goes on to describe in detail death by crucifixion, hundreds of years before that was a known means of execution.
Jesus Himself said that He came to this world to lay down His life for His sheep (John 10:11-18). If you do not know Jesus Christ, crucified for your sins, you do not know Him at all. You must come to God as a guilty sinner and trust in Jesus as the only perfect sacrifice. If you trust in His shed blood, God will forgive your sins because of what Jesus did on the cross.
Just as the Scriptures predicted that Jesus would die, so they predicted His resurrection. In Isaiah 53, the prophet goes on to tell of how the One who was pierced through for our transgressions would also divide the booty with the strong. A dead Messiah who stayed in the grave could not do that! Only a risen Savior could.
In Psalm 22:22, after describing death by crucifixion and talking of God’s deliverance, Messiah proclaims, “I will tell of Your name to my brethren.” Only a risen Savior could do that! Note Jesus’ words (John 20:17), “go to My brethren ….” It is significant that this is the first time Jesus refers to the disciples as His brethren. Why did He do that? Clearly, He said this to fulfill Psalm 22! He is telling Mary to proclaim to His brethren that God has not left Him in the tomb. He is risen and He will ascend to His Father!
Jesus told Mary (John 20:17), “Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.’” This verse raises difficult questions that I can only touch on here: Why does Jesus ask Mary to stop clinging to Him, when He accepted the touch of the other women on resurrection morning (Matt. 28:9) and He invited Thomas to touch Him a week later (John 20:27)? Why does He mention His ascension? Merrill Tenney explains (The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, ed. by Frank Gaebelein [Zondervan], 9:191),
He was not refusing to be touched but was making clear that she did not need to detain him, for he had not yet ascended to the Father. He planned to remain with the disciples for a little while; she need not fear that he would vanish immediately. Ultimately he would return to God, and he urged her to tell the disciples that he would do so.
So He was signaling a new relationship with Mary and with His disciples: “After I ascend, you will have My presence spiritually, but not physically.” He didn’t leave the grave to stay with them on earth, but so that He could ascend to the Father where He would intercede for them and ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit. But the fact that Mary was clinging to Jesus shows that He was not a phantom. He was raised bodily from the dead and He ascended bodily into heaven, and He will return bodily in power and glory.
Note also that Jesus both links and yet distinguishes His relationship with the Father and theirs. Jesus by nature is eternally the Son of God, whereas we are only sons of God by adoption. By His incarnation as the Son of Man, Jesus could call the Father, “My God.” We can only do so by grace through faith in Christ as our Mediator. But, in our deepest sorrows, it is a great comfort that we have access to the Father through our risen Lord Jesus Christ!
These two questions, “Why are you weeping?” and “Whom are you seeking?” raise two further questions. First, “What results from seeking the risen Savior?” The answer to this question is stated in my second main heading, and so I include it here:
At first, Mary didn’t recognize Jesus, but mistook Him for the gardener. We aren’t told why she didn’t recognize Him. Perhaps, like the two on the Emmaus Road, God prevented her. Or, perhaps it was because she wasn’t expecting to see the risen Lord. But Mary’s gloom was turned to joy when the Lord spoke one word: “Mary!” Her eyes may not yet have recognized Jesus, but her ears knew that voice speaking her name! Jesus said that He is the good Shepherd, who calls His sheep by name. He knows each one and they know Him (John 10:3-5, 14, 27). He still seeks individuals. He still calls His sheep by name. You can take your sorrows to Him and have a private audience with the good Shepherd who knows your name. He can sympathize with all of your sorrow and pain!
And, He calls us His brethren! As I said, this is the first time Jesus has called the disciples His brethren (fulfilling Ps. 22:22). But it’s helpful to note that when He sent this word to them, they were still reeling from their failure and guilt. Peter had failed most prominently, but all the disciples had abandoned Jesus and fled in fear. Although Thomas is the most well-known for his doubting, all the disciples ridiculed the early reports from the women about the resurrection (Luke 24:11). Yet it was these men that had failed and sinned that Jesus calls brethren. When they heard that word from Mary, I can imagine them asking, “What did He call us?” When she affirmed it, their sorrow would have been turned to hope.
Perhaps in your sorrow, you have doubted or even denied the Lord. If you will seek Him as Mary did, you will hear Him call your name and your sorrow will turn to hope.
Finally, “How shall we seek the risen Savior?”
Don’t try to cover your tears or get yourself together first. Mary didn’t. Jesus knows your every struggle. Come to Him just as you are: misunderstanding, tears and all.
Mary was the first at the tomb and she stayed after everyone else had gone home. She diligently sought Jesus because she loved Him. The Savior rewarded her desire to find Him. Later, Thomas was not with the other disciples when Jesus appeared, so he had to wait a week. Probably, he was too depressed to be around others, but he missed seeing the Savior. Maybe you’re depressed, but don’t let that keep you from showing up where you might find the Savior. Seek Him diligently and you will find Him.
Note verse 13, “my Lord.” The closeness of Mary’s fellowship with Jesus comes through in the way she recognized Him the instant He spoke her name. The only way you will ever find hope in your sorrows is to seek Jesus personally. There is no group plan. Your mate’s seeking Him won’t do for you. You must seek Him yourself. You don’t have to be anyone special—maybe just a demon-possessed girl from an insignificant town—for Him to save you and turn your sorrow into hope.
He isn’t an Aladdin’s genie, to meet your every wish. He won’t necessarily solve all your problems the way that you think He should. He is the Lord. He commands and His servants must obey. When Jesus told Mary to stop clinging to Him and go to His brethren, I’m sure that she would rather have stayed right there with Jesus. We don’t know whether He vanished before she left, but if He didn’t, it would have been difficult to obey His command. Leave this encounter with the risen Savior to go to a bunch of depressed men who wouldn’t believe her anyway? But, Mary obeyed.
Often, when you seek the Lord, He will not grant your request directly. Instead, He will command you to do something you may not want to do at first. But as you obey Him, He will turn your sorrow into hope.
During World War II, a secret message got through to some American prisoners in a German concentration camp that the war was over. But it would be three more days before that word got to their German captors. During those three days, nothing changed in terms of their hardships in the prison. But their attitude changed from despair to hope. They knew that soon they would be released because the Allies had won the war.
Whatever your sorrows or trials today, you can have hope because Jesus won the victory over death. He has risen and He asks you the same questions that He asked Mary: “Why are you weeping?” “Whom are you seeking?” If through your tears, you will seek the risen Savior honestly, diligently, personally, and obediently, He will turn your sorrows into hope.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
August 30, 2015
Years ago there was a TV show called “Mission: Impossible.” A current movie is based on that show. I haven’t seen the movie, but the TV show used to start with a supervisor telling an agent, “Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is ….” Then he described what sounded like an impossible challenge.
The Great Commission which the risen Lord Jesus gave to His followers sounds like mission impossible. We have slightly different variations of it in Matthew, the longer ending of Mark, Luke, and Acts, plus in our text. The mission is to proclaim the good news about salvation through faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection to all people. While only some can go to other cultures as missionaries, every believer has a part in the overall cause. And you don’t have the option of not accepting the assignment! If you follow Jesus, then you’re on the team! You may never go to seminary or join a mission organization. But you should figure out what role the Savior wants you to play in His worldwide mission.
John 20:19-23 tells about our Lord’s appearance to the apostles and probably other disciples (Luke 24:33-49) as they met behind locked doors for fear of the Jews on the evening of the first day of His resurrection. Thomas, who was brooding over his doubts about the resurrection, was not present. The mission is summed up in John 20:21, where Jesus says, “… as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”
If you can think about those words and not feel inadequate for an impossible task, you are not thinking clearly enough! How can I possibly go out into this world just as the Father sent Jesus into this world? Jesus was God in human flesh; I am not. Jesus never sinned; I often sin. Jesus walked in unbroken, intimate fellowship with the Father; I do not. Jesus never made mistakes; I make them all the time. So with the apostle Paul, I often feel (2 Cor. 2:16), “And who is adequate for these things?”
But in our text, our Lord turns mission impossible into mission possible. Paul followed up his feelings of inadequacy with the triumphant explanation (2 Cor. 3:5), “Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.” Here our Lord gives us five ways that He equips us so that mission impossible becomes mission possible:
Because the risen Savior has called and equipped us, we can confidently proclaim the gospel to all people.
John 20:19: “So when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’” Then after He showed them His hands and side, He repeated (John 20:21), “Peace be with you.”
“Peace be with you” was a common Jewish greeting wishing overall well-being on the other person. But in the context here it surely means far more than just a perfunctory greeting. These men were in hiding behind locked doors because of fear of the Jewish leaders who had just crucified their Lord. It was not far-fetched to think that they might be next. They may have been discussing how they could sneak out of Jerusalem without being arrested.
Suddenly, with no knock at the door or no one opening the door, the risen Lord Jesus stood in their midst. While His resurrection body is a physical body, it also has the ability to appear or disappear at will. You can imagine how startling it would be to have the risen Lord suddenly appear in a locked room where you were already afraid! Luke (24:37) says that they were frightened and thought that they were seeing a ghost. John (20:20) reports the outcome after Jesus showed them His hands and His side, “The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord.”
Keep in mind that these are men who all had fled in fear for their own lives when Jesus was arrested. Peter had denied the Lord three times. They all had doubted the initial reports of Jesus’ resurrection (Luke 24:11). It would certainly be understandable if Jesus had greeted them, “You unbelieving, thick-headed excuses for disciples! When are you going to get it together?” But rather than rebuking them, the Lord graciously extended and then underscored His peace to them.
Peace with God is foundational for your mission for Him. You can’t begin to serve the Lord unless you first are reconciled to Him through the peace that Christ accomplished on the cross. Before you believe in Christ, your sins alienate you from God (Rom. 8:7-8). But when you trust in Christ, you enter into a new relationship of peace with God (Rom. 5:1). Then and only then does God appoint us as ambassadors of His mission of reconciliation with this world that is hostile toward Him (2 Cor. 5:18).
Not only does Christ give us peace with God through His blood, but He also gives us the peace of God through His abiding presence with us as we seek to accomplish the gospel mission. As Jesus concluded the Great Commission (in Matt. 28:20), He gave the assurance, “And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Note, “I am with you always”! As we proclaim the gospel to this hostile world, the Lord’s presence gives us “the peace of God, which surpasses understanding” (Phil. 4:7).
The peace that the Lord gives also extends to our relationships with one another. One of the main reasons missionaries come home early from the field is conflict with their fellow workers. And when churches get into internal conflicts, they sabotage their witness to the watching world. That’s why many passages in the New Testament exhort us to work for peaceful relationships. The risen Christ is the basis for resolving relational conflicts. As Paul said with reference to the deep divide between the Jews and the Gentiles (Eph. 2:14), “For He Himself is our peace, who made both groups into one and broke down the barrier of the dividing wall ….” Christ has given us peace with God, the peace of God, and peace with one another, so that we can carry out His mission.
John 20:20: “And when He had said this, He showed them both His hands and His side. The disciples then rejoiced when they saw the Lord.” Our resurrection bodies will be perfect in the sense of not bearing any scars that we incurred during our lifetimes. But Jesus’ resurrection body still has the scars to remind us of the great price that He paid to save us from our sins (see Rev. 5:7).
But on that first resurrection Sunday, Jesus showed the disciples His hands and side to convince them of the truth that He was risen bodily. Luke (24:39, 41-43) adds that He invited them to touch Him and then He asked for a piece of broiled fish, which He ate as they watched. As I explained when I covered John 20:1-10, the Lord has given us convincing proof that He is risen.
That historical fact should be at the center of our witness for Christ. While it’s true that Christ can help people with their personal problems and struggles, that’s not the message of the gospel. The gospel is that Christ died for our sins and was raised again according to the Scriptures (1 Cor. 15:3-4). In other words, don’t believe in Jesus in the hope that He will solve all your problems. Believe in Jesus because you’re a sinner and He is the only Savior and He is risen from the dead and is coming again to judge the living and the dead (1 Thess. 1:5-10)! We can proclaim the gospel with confidence because we have great proof of His resurrection.
John 20:21: “So Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you; as the Father has sent Me, I also send you.’” This applies Jesus’ prayer in John 17:18 to the disciples, “As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” John’s Gospel frequently emphasizes the theme of Jesus being sent by the Father. He was sent to do the Father’s will (John 4:34; 6:38-39); to speak the Father’s words (John 3:34; 12:49); and to perform the Father’s works (John 4:34; 5:36). He was sent to bring salvation to the world (John 3:17). In John 18:37, Jesus told Pilate, “For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth.” In Luke 19:10, Jesus said, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost.” The apostle Paul put it (1 Tim. 1:15), “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all.”
Jesus taught us to pray (Matt. 6:10), “Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” He came to establish the Father’s kingdom by bringing people under His lordship to do His will. By sending us in the same way that He was sent, His purpose becomes our purpose. We should live in obedience to Christ and teach others to do the same (Matt. 28:19-20).
But so often the church collectively and we as individuals lose sight of our purpose. We get distracted with other things. A few years ago, I read about Sohan Singh, a grocery store owner in England, who banned customers from his store. He said that he had to take such drastic action because of people’s bad manners. First he banned smoking, then crude language, baby strollers, pets, and finally the customers themselves. Shoppers had to look through the window to spot items they want, then ring a small bell to be served through a small hatch in the door. “I have lost business, but I cannot say how much,” Singh said. “I am a man of principles, and I stand by my decision.” That’s pretty silly for a storekeeper to ban customers in order to stand by his principles!
But what about a church that bans sinners or makes them feel unwelcome because they contaminate the church? What about church members who cut off all contact with lost people? We’ve had families pull their kids out of Sunday school or the church youth group because (gasp!) worldly kids have attended those activities. The families were afraid that their kids might pick up bad language or be enticed to join the sinful activities of the worldly kids.
I’ve told you before the story of Gib Martin, a pastor who was led to Christ when he was a 27-year-old atheist by a man named Charlie. Charlie had been an alcoholic carpenter for many years before he met Christ. After he got saved, he had a burden for the men who were just like he had been. So every day after work, he would stop at the bar where Gib also went after work. Charlie would drink coffee and share his life with those who would listen. Eventually, that’s how Gib came to faith in Christ.
But the sad part of the story is that none of the local churches would allow Charlie to associate with them because he went to the bar every day. Even though he wasn’t getting drunk—he wasn’t even having a beer—they didn’t like what he was doing. Even the church where Charlie directed Gib to go after his conversion wouldn’t allow Charlie to join (from A Theology of Personal Ministry, by Lawrence Richards and Gib Martin [Zondervan], pp 44-45).
But if our Savior was known as a friend of sinners, and He said (Luke 5:32), “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance,” shouldn’t we be hanging out with sinners to befriend them and tell them about the Savior? If Jesus’ purpose was to seek and save the lost, shouldn’t that be our purpose? To tell people the good news about eternal life is the greatest purpose that anyone can have, because that was our Savior’s purpose.
So the risen Savior has given us great peace, great proof of His resurrection, and a great purpose, which was His purpose.
John 20:22: “And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” To attempt to serve the Lord in any capacity, but especially in proclaiming the gospel to the lost, without relying on the power of the Holy Spirit would be futile. As Zechariah 4:6 reminds us, ‘“Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts.”
But scholars wrestle with the exact meaning of verse 22 in light of the subsequent outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. As I understand it, it could mean one of two things or possibly both. Some (D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], pp. 648-655) argue that this was a symbolic action on Jesus’ part that anticipated the imminent outpouring of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. They argue that if the disciples actually received the Spirit when Jesus breathed on them here, the results are disappointing. They did not begin preaching the gospel with power until after the Day of Pentecost. In fact, they went back to fishing (John 21). So they see this as a symbolic provision of the Spirit that is still yet to come.
Others would agree that this is obviously a symbolic gesture on Jesus’ part. His breathing on the disciples reflects God’s breathing life into Adam so that he became a living being (Gen. 2:7). Also, it pictures Ezekiel’s vision of the dry bones, where God told him to prophesy to the breath (the word also means “spirit”) so that the corpses would come to life.
But beyond the merely symbolic gesture pointing ahead to Pentecost, Jesus’ action here would also seem to be a temporary imparting of the Holy Spirit to strengthen the disciples during the 40 days of Jesus’ time with them so that they could understand and remember His teaching, which some later recorded in the New Testament. It also served to revive the disciples after their failure. In Acts 1:14, we find the disciples gathered together with one mind, devoting themselves to prayer, and eagerly waiting for the promised Holy Spirit to come. That unity and fervent prayer may be attributed to this temporary imparting of the Holy Spirit.
Just before Jesus ascended, He directly linked the power of the coming Spirit to the disciples’ future witness (Acts 1:8): “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.” The Bible never commands us to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, because that is a one-time action that takes place at the moment of salvation (1 Cor. 12:13). But it does command us to be continually filled with the Spirit and to walk in the Spirit (Eph. 5:18; Gal. 5:16). Since the Spirit of God must open blind eyes and impart new life to sinners when they hear the gospel (2 Cor. 4:4-6; John 6:63), we must especially rely on the Spirit when we talk to people about the Lord.
The risen Savior has equipped us for proclaiming the gospel by giving us great peace, great proof, a great purpose, and great power through the indwelling Holy Spirit. Finally…
(I mean, a great message, but message doesn’t alliterate with all the other “p’s”!) John 20:23: “If you forgive the sins of any, their sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been retained.” The gospel that we proclaim is not so much about Jesus helping people with their personal problems but rather about God forgiving their sin through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. G. Campbell Morgan (The Gospel According to John Revell], p. 321) wrote, “The ultimate reason of the mission of the Church in the world, is to deal with sin.” Romans 3:23 declares, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Jesus didn’t die to save us from personal failure or shortcomings, but from the just wrath of God against our rebellion and sin.
But the Roman Catholic Church uses John 20:23 to support some false teaching, which I must address. They interpret it to mean that ordained priests have the authority to forgive or retain the sins of people contingent on private confession and penance. They base this on their doctrine of apostolic succession through Peter and the popes, on their distinction between clergy and laity, and on their view that penance is necessary for forgiveness. But there are many reasons to reject their view.
First, there is no biblical warrant for apostolic succession. The apostles had authority to found the church (Eph. 2:20), but once the church was founded, that authority ceased. Also, the New Testament is clear that there is no distinction between ordained clergy and laity. While there is warrant for ordaining men to ministry, this does not make them mediators between believers and God. Jesus is the only mediator (1 Tim. 2:5). All believers are priests before God, with equal access to His throne of grace (1 Pet. 2:9; Heb. 4:14-16).
Second, only God can forgive sins, which He does the instant a person repents and believes in the Lord Jesus Christ (Luke 5:21; 24:47; Acts 2:38; 16:31; 26:18). To add penance as necessary for forgiveness is to add human works to the finished work of Christ.
Third, there is no example in the Bible of the apostles forgiving or retaining the sins of anyone. For example, when Peter proclaimed the gospel to Cornelius and the others gathered in his house, he did not say, “I forgive your sins in Jesus’ name.” Rather, he said (Acts 10:43), “Of Him [Jesus] all the prophets bear witness that through His name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins.” Paul never instructed Timothy or Titus to perform this function, which is a glaring omission if this is the way that God’s people obtain forgiveness of their sins.
Finally, in the Bible, proclaiming something may be viewed as the same thing as doing it. God tells Jeremiah (1:10), “See, I have appointed you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.” Jeremiah didn’t actually do those things, but rather he proclaimed these things in the name of the Lord. Peter didn’t actually forgive the people in Cornelius’ house. Rather, he proclaimed forgiveness to them if they would believe in Jesus.
So the meaning and application for us is that we have the authority to proclaim to those who repent and believe in Christ, “Your sins have been forgiven you.” Or, if a person hardens his heart and refuses to believe, we must solemnly proclaim, “You are still in your sins” (see Acts 8:20-23).
Years ago, I heard Pastor Ron Blanc tell how he visited a 14-year-old boy who was in a catatonic state in the psychiatric ward of a hospital. The boy was lying on his bed as stiff as a board. Nothing had helped. The nurse, thinking Ron to be a doctor, said, “I think the boy is suffering from too much religion.” (Ron let her get both feet in her mouth and then told her that he was the boy’s pastor.) He went in and began to talk and the boy finally began to open up. He was under a pile of guilt.
Ron shared the forgiveness Christ offers. Before he could invite the boy to pray, the boy began to pray on his own. Ron bowed his head. The boy asked Jesus to come into his life and forgive his sins. When he finished praying, Ron looked up to find the boy sitting on the edge of the bed, freely swinging his legs. Ron asked, “What’s this?” The boy exclaimed, “I’m free, man! Jesus has forgiven me!” They walked out to a little patio area to chat some more. Ron got great delight in watching the surprised expressions on the doctors’ and nurses’ faces as they saw the boy moving around.
That’s our mission: To proclaim forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name to all who will believe. That mission is possible because the risen Savior has equipped us for it by giving us great peace, great proof, a great purpose, great power, and a great proclamation.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
Editor's Note: Due to a recording glitch the audio for this message is not available.
September 6, 2015
Years ago the British agnostic Thomas Huxley had to leave early one morning to go from one speaking assignment to another, so he got into a horse-drawn taxi to go from his hotel to the train station. He assumed that the hotel doorman had told the driver of the carriage that they were to go to the train station. So when he got in, he simply said to the driver, “Drive fast.”
Off they went. After a short while, Huxley, who was familiar with the area, realized that they were actually going in the opposite direction from the train station. He yelled to the driver, “Do you know where you’re going?” Without looking back, the driver replied, “No, sir, but I’m driving very fast.”
Obviously, it doesn’t do much good to go fast if you’re going in the wrong direction! Yet, many people, even Christians, are like that. They’re going full speed, but they haven’t stopped to evaluate where they ought to be going. Before you know it, life has whizzed by, but you haven’t spent it aimed in the right direction. As Christians, we all would agree that to live properly, we must live in line with God’s purpose.
Our text brings us to John’s purpose statement for writing his gospel. First, he illustrates his purpose with the story of Thomas having his doubts cleared up as he sees the risen Lord Jesus Christ and exclaims (John 20:28), “My Lord and my God!” Then John states his purpose plainly (John 20:30-31): “Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” To sum up:
The aim of the gospel is that we would believe in and worship the risen Savior.
Thomas moved from doubting Jesus’ resurrection to believing in and worshiping Him as his risen Lord and God. John wants all his readers to come to that same point of belief in Jesus Christ as Lord and God. Or, to put it another way, John wants us to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, so that we may have life in His name. All who have life through believing in Jesus’ name worship Him as Lord and God. But to come to that place, we have to join Thomas in overcoming the enemy of faith called “doubt.”
We all struggle at times with varying degrees of doubts, which cloud our faith in the risen Savior. Thomas, though, has the distinction of being “doubter-in-chief”—everyone knows him as, “Doubting Thomas.” That may not be entirely fair, in that Luke 24:11 tells us that when the women first brought reports of Jesus’ resurrection, none of the apostles believed them. But Thomas’ persistent doubts put him at the head of the pack.
There are different kinds of doubters. Some use their doubts as a cover so they can go on sinning. They smugly say that they’re being “intellectually honest” or they “can’t put their brains on the shelf.” But they aren’t interested in getting those doubts cleared up, because they don’t want to submit to Jesus as Lord. Doubting gives them an aura of intellectual honesty, but when you peel away the veneer, their doubts really serve only as a cover-up for their sins.
Others—and I would put Thomas in this category—hate their doubts. Their doubts make them miserable. They want to believe, but they’re plagued by honest questions. They can’t just close their minds, and take a leap of faith. They need credible answers to clear up their doubts.
In previous messages, I’ve gone into more detail than I can here about the reasons for Thomas’ doubts (see “Dealing With Doubt,” [04/04/1999]; “Overcoming Doubt,” [04/16/2006]; and, “Defeating Doubt,” [03/31/2013]). But to summarize, I think that Thomas’ doubts stemmed from at least four factors.
After promising their loyalty, all of the disciples had deserted Jesus on the night He was arrested (Mark 14:31). But Thomas had been outspoken in his loyalty. Shortly before, when Jesus wanted to go to Bethany to raise Lazarus from the dead, the disciples objected that it was too dangerous. But Thomas said (John 11:16), “Let us also go, that we may die with Him.” He was a pessimist, but at least he was loyal. But then he had joined the others in running away when Jesus was arrested. That failure, coupled with Thomas’ rather gloomy personality, plunged him into depression and doubt when he failed Jesus.
We’re all wired differently and so it’s important to know yourself so that you can be on guard against your weaknesses. Usually our areas of greatest strength are also our areas of greatest weakness. A man like Thomas, who is loyal and conscientious, who takes commitments seriously, is also more prone to depression and doubt when he fails. So if you’re struggling with doubts, think about whether your doubts may stem from a recent failure.
None of the disciples understood Jesus’ repeated disclosures that He was going to be killed in Jerusalem and rise again the third day. They pictured a conquering and reigning Messiah, not a suffering and dying one. So when Jesus died, they didn’t understand what was going on. John (20:9) acknowledges that even after seeing the empty tomb, they still didn’t understand the Scripture that Jesus must rise again from the dead.
Some of my bouts with doubt have stemmed from not understanding the Scripture. Maybe it’s a difficult doctrinal matter. Sometimes it’s because I don’t understand the ways of God. In John 6:60, we saw that many of Jesus’ wider company of disciples turned away from Him when He taught some hard things about eating His flesh and drinking His blood and about the doctrine of election. On that occasion, Jesus asked the twelve if they would turn away also. Peter gave the great answer (John 6:68-69), “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. And we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” I’ve come back to that answer many times when I’ve struggled with doubt due to a lack of understanding. Jesus is the truth. Where else can I go?
Thomas especially seems to have been shocked about the grisly details of Jesus’ suffering and death. His fixation on Jesus’ wounds (John 20:25) shows how deeply it affected him. He couldn’t get those gory details out of his mind. He probably was thinking, “I knew that this would happen!” And yet at the same time, he was disappointed and shocked when it did happen.
When God doesn’t work in the way that you had thought He should or answer your prayers as you had hoped, you’re susceptible to doubt. That’s especially true when you or a loved one goes through a time of suffering or a shocking experience. Your confusion and shock can plunge you into a sea of doubts.
We don’t know why Thomas was absent that first Sunday night when Jesus appeared to the other disciples. But a likely reason was his depression over the crucifixion. The last thing he wanted at a time like that was to be around other people. So he wandered off by himself to brood over the horrible events of the previous few days.
Thomas’ doubts probably grew even deeper when he heard the other disciples tell him that they had seen the risen Lord (John 20:25). Think how you would feel if you missed church because you were depressed and doubting and we all told you, “Hey, you missed a blessing last Sunday! We all felt that Jesus was right there in our midst!” Great! That really encourages you, doesn’t it!
Thomas may have thought, “Why would the Lord appear to them when I wasn’t there? Doesn’t He know that I’m wrestling with doubts? Why didn’t He appear to me?” That line of thinking could have led to thoughts like, “It just isn’t fair! He must not love me!” Those thoughts would have led to deeper doubts.
But even though you’re depressed and other believers may bug you, you still need to hang out with the saints. While our faith must be personal, it should never be isolationist. Your hand only functions when it’s connected with the rest of your body. It’s the same spiritually: you won’t overcome your doubts brooding by yourself. You need to gather with the church for worship and teaching. In that context, the Lord often manifests Himself in a way that will alleviate your doubts. Jesus didn’t appear to Thomas while he was off brooding by himself. He only revealed Himself when Thomas was gathered again with fellow believers. So the first step toward believing in and worshiping the risen Savior is to analyze and overcome your doubts.
As we saw (John 20:19, 21), Jesus’ first words to the fearful disciples was, “Peace be with you,” which He repeated so that they would get it. He could have reamed them out for their fear and slowness to believe, but He spoke graciously to them.
If Jesus rightly could have chewed out the ten, Thomas really deserved a scolding! He had adamantly rejected the testimony of the other disciples. Then he put the Lord to the test by demanding to touch Jesus and feel His wounds. And yet when Jesus appeared again to the disciples on the following Sunday evening, Jesus graciously said the same thing (John 20:26): “Peace be with you.” As I said last week, it was the usual Jewish greeting, but in these circumstances, it was far more than just a greeting. The risen Lord was extending His grace to these men who had failed.
Then He piled on more grace when He invited Thomas to touch His hands and His side. True, Jesus both rebuked and exhorted him by saying (John 20:27), “Do not be unbelieving, but believing.” But the rebuke stemmed from love. It didn’t negate the abundant grace that Thomas experienced. We don’t know whether Thomas actually did it. At that point, he didn’t need to touch Jesus, because He knew that He really was alive. I’m inclined to think that Thomas didn’t touch Him, since Jesus replied (John 20:29), “Because you have seen Me [not touched Me], have you believed?” Although Jesus rightly could have disowned Thomas as a disciple, He lavished His grace on him.
Thomas’ spontaneous confession, “My Lord and my God,” takes us back to John 1:1, 14, & 16: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth…. For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.” Thomas knew that Jesus was God and also that He was full of grace toward him in spite of his sinful doubts. And now he was awash in the riches of Christ’s grace.
Have you experienced God’s abundant grace in Jesus Christ? You taste it first when the Holy Spirit convicts you of your sin and you realize that you rightly deserve God’s judgment. But then He opens your eyes to the good news that Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners, including you (1 Tim. 1:15). And you hear the great news that He doesn’t save sinners after they’ve worked hard to clean up their lives and earn it. Rather, He saves sinners by His grace through faith in Him (Eph. 2:8-9).
I recently had a lengthy email exchange with a man who was reading my sermons online. He took issue with my teaching that salvation is by grace alone through faith in Christ alone. He argued that we must add baptism and obedience to faith. He cited James 2:24, “You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone.” Although I have a sermon on that text explaining how James and Paul are not at odds, he kept insisting that we are not saved by faith alone. I asked, but he never answered, “How many good works do you need to pile up before you’re saved?” Does one get you in? Two? Two thousand? When does the scale tip so that you will get into heaven? I also told him, “There is no good news in your ‘gospel,’ which is no gospel at all.” But there is wonderfully good news if any sinner can believe in Him who justifies the ungodly and be counted righteous in God’s sight (Rom 4:5)!
But then after believing in Jesus, we’ve all failed miserably, as Thomas did when he doubted the resurrection. We’ve all sinned repeatedly when we knew better. What should we do then? Do we need to do penance? Do we need to crawl on our knees on broken glass to demonstrate our contrition? Do we need to join a monastery or convent and deny ourselves common comforts to merit forgiveness? No, because then grace would not be grace (Rom. 11:6). We should mourn over our sins, because they grieve our Savior. We should confess our sins to the Lord (Ps. 51:17; Matt. 5:4; 1 Cor. 5:2). But when we do, He promises to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). So as Paul told Timothy (2 Tim. 2:1), “Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” Experiencing His grace leads you to believe in Him and to worship Him!
As Paul emphasizes (1 Cor. 15:17), Jesus’ bodily resurrection is the foundation of our faith: “And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.” As we’ve seen (my message on John 20:1-10), there is solid historical evidence that Jesus is risen. In fact, we can be thankful for Thomas’ doubting the resurrection, because his entrenched doubt never would have changed to solid belief unless he had been convinced by the strongest proof. Tradition tells us that he later went to India and was martyred there. He never would have given his life in service to Christ if he had been unsure about Jesus’ resurrection.
Here’s how this applies: After you trust in Christ as your Savior and Lord, you will still face doubts over difficult problems in the Bible and in the world. Sometimes I struggle with how a loving God can allow all of the evil that goes on in this world. How can He allow little kids to be abused or sold into the sex trade or murdered? I struggle with the fact that millions live and die and then face judgment without ever hearing about the Savior. I struggle with the doctrine of eternal punishment. The list could go on.
But if Jesus is truly risen from the dead, then His claims are true and all of those issues become of secondary importance. I can work on them over time. Some problems I may not resolve until I meet Jesus in glory. But I can trust in Him because He was raised bodily from the dead and that fact is attested to by many faithful witnesses whose lives were dramatically changed when they saw Him. So I rest my faith on the sure foundation of His resurrection.
Maybe you’re thinking, “If I could have been there with Thomas and seen Jesus risen from the dead, it would be easier to overcome my doubts. But I’ve never seen Him.” For you, Jesus speaks to Thomas the words of verse 29: “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.” That’s us! Jesus pronounces a blessing on us who believe the apostolic witness. If you’re struggling with doubt, go back to the foundational truth, substantiated by many eyewitnesses, that Jesus is risen. It gives you the footing to work on the problems that cause your doubts.
So, to believe in and worship the risen Savior, analyze and overcome your doubts; experience His abundant grace; go back to the foundational truth of His resurrection and stand there. Finally:
Throughout the Bible, worship happens when people get a glimpse of who God is and at that same moment, inevitably they see who they are in His holy presence. When Isaiah saw God on His throne surrounded by angels proclaiming (Isa. 6:3), “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory,” Isaiah instantly cried out (Isa. 6:5), “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” That was a moment of profound worship.
When Peter had fished all night and caught nothing and Jesus, who was in the boat, provided the miraculous catch of fish, Peter’s spontaneous response was (Luke 5:8), “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” Peter saw who Jesus was and who he was and the result was worship. Later, when Jesus instantly stilled the raging waves that threatened to sink their boat, the disciples were fearful and amazed. They said to one another (Luke 8:25), “Who then is this, that He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey Him?” They saw Jesus’ mighty power and their own weakness, and they worshiped Him.
Here Thomas has the same experience: He sees the risen Lord Jesus, who in His resurrection body could appear to them behind locked doors. He hears Jesus quote what Thomas had said to the other disciples when Jesus was absent. He instantly realized that not only was Jesus risen, He also was omniscient! At the same moment, Thomas recognized his own sinful unbelief in doubting the resurrection. He spontaneously cried out, “My Lord and My God!” He now was believing in and worshiping the risen Savior.
Some (such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses) claim that Thomas was exclaiming in shock something like the common American expression, “O my God!” But that is to take the name of the Lord in vain and Jesus surely would have rebuked him. And, like Peter when Cornelius fell at his feet and worshiped him (Acts 10:25-26), Jesus would have said, “Stand up; I too am just a man.” But rather, Jesus commended Thomas’ worship as an example of the faith that all should have. We all should believe in and worship Jesus personally as “my Lord and my God.”
How can you get this understanding of who Jesus is and who you are, so that you worship Him? It doesn’t come from a mystical or miraculous vision, but rather from the Holy Spirit giving you understanding and insight into God’s Word. I once heard John MacArthur tell about a pastor friend of his who told John that he saw Jesus every morning while he was shaving. John incredulously asked, “And you keep shaving?” If the man really saw Jesus, like John (in Rev. 1:17) he would fall at His feet as a dead man!
God reveals Jesus to us through His Word. When the risen Savior spoke to the disciples on the Emmaus Road, we read (Luke 24:27), “Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” Later, probably on this occasion when He revealed Himself to Thomas and the other disciples, we read (Luke 24:45), “Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.” As you read the Scriptures, ask the Holy Spirit to reveal Christ to your soul. (I’m assuming that you do read the Scriptures frequently!)
Finally, note that faith is Christ is not vague: it has definite doctrinal content. John wants us to believe specifically that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. He wants us to believe that the risen Jesus is “my Lord and my God.” If Jesus is anything less than the eternal Lord and God, it would be a horrible sin to worship Him. If He truly is Lord and God, it would be a horrible sin not to worship Him.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
September 13, 2015
A question that I often ask couples who come to me for counsel is, “Do you want God’s blessing on your marriage?” It’s a no-brainer, of course. I’ve yet to have a couple say, “Nah! We’re not interested in having God’s blessing.” But the second question gets a bit stickier: “Are you willing to obey God’s Word as it pertains to your marriage?” Obviously, to enjoy God’s blessing, we have to live in obedience to His Word.
His blessings are gracious, in that we can’t earn them. He gives His greatest blessing of salvation freely to the undeserving. But if we reject that blessing or respond to His kindness with defiance or disobedience, we can’t expect His blessing. He blesses those who obey Him.
By God’s blessing, I’m referring to His favor, goodness, joy, or well-being bestowed on us. The Old Testament priests would bless the Israelites (Num. 6:24-26):
The Lord bless you, and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine on you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance on you,
And give you peace.
God’s blessings encompass the total well-being that comes from being the object of His favor. They may be material blessings, such as good health and adequate financial provisions. They include harmonious relationships in our families and peace with others, including living in a country that is free from war. But the greatest blessings are spiritual, because they are eternal. In that sense, Paul exults (Eph. 1:3), “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” If we have eternal spiritual blessings, then we are blessed even if we suffer. As 1 Peter 4:14 says, “If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.”
During His ministry, Jesus pronounced a number of blessings in different settings. The most well-known are the Beatitudes (Matt. 5:3-12; Luke 6:20-22). He told the apostles they were blessed because they had the privilege of seeing and hearing spiritual truth that was hidden from others (Matt. 13:17). He blessed Peter when he made his famous confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God (Matt. 16:17). When a woman pronounced a blessing on Jesus’ mother, Mary, Jesus corrected her by saying (Luke 11:28), “On the contrary, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” He blessed the little children who were brought to Him (Mark 10:16). He pronounced a future blessing on those who obediently wait for His return (Luke 12:37-38). And, He blessed the apostles just before He ascended into heaven (Luke 24:50).
John’s Gospel only records two times that Jesus pronounced a blessing. In the upper room, after He washed the disciples’ feet and commanded them to follow His example, He said (John 13:17), “If you know these things, you are blessed if you do them.” And in our text (John 20:29), Jesus tells Thomas, “Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed.” That includes all who have believed in Christ since He ascended into heaven, including you and me:
Those who believe in Jesus Christ through the apostolic testimony will be blessed.
We tend to think that if only we could have been there in the first century to see Jesus in person when He was on the earth, we’d be really blessed. Especially those who saw Jesus risen from the dead must have been blessed. But Jesus draws an implied contrast between Thomas, who saw Jesus after His resurrection, and all who would later believe the witness of Thomas and the other apostles. The implication is that while they all were blessed, we’re really blessed if we believe in Jesus whom we have not seen. I want to explore that blessing and the means to obtaining it.
After reporting Jesus’ commendation of Thomas’ faith and of the faith of all those who believe without seeing Him, John 20:30-31, “Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”
The only source that we have for knowing about Jesus Christ so that we may believe in Him is the written testimony of the apostles contained in the New Testament. Of course, the entire Old Testament pointed ahead to Christ (Luke 24:27, 44), but those truths can be understood adequately only through the lens of the New Testament testimony to Christ. The Holy Spirit inspired the biblical writers to record truthfully all that we need to know about Jesus Christ so that we may believe in Him and be saved.
This means that your feelings about Jesus Christ are not reliable as the source for your faith. You may feel that Jesus is always kind and loving, but that is only true in the sense that the New Testament shows Him to be kind and loving. He was kind and loving when He pronounced woes on the Pharisees and called them hypocrites (Matthew 23). He was kind and loving when He called Peter “Satan” and told him to get behind Him (Matt. 16:23). If your mental picture of “kind and loving” doesn’t fit that image of Jesus, then your mental picture is wrong. The written Word, not our feelings, is the source of truth about Jesus.
This also means that experiences, such as dreams or visions are not a reliable source for learning the truth about Jesus Christ. I realize that God is using dreams and visions to bring many, especially in the Muslim world, to faith in Christ. I am not discrediting this. But I am arguing that if these folks or anyone else want to grow to know Jesus more deeply, the only source for such growth is the written Word of God that tells us about Him.
I am also aware that there is a strong movement today to get the gospel to oral cultures by telling Bible stories. These cultures do not learn primarily through reading printed material, so giving out gospel tracts or Scripture portions is not an effective means of reaching them. It’s certainly wise to reach these people through means that they understand and relate to. But after these people come to faith in Christ, they will not grow to know Him as they should unless someone teaches them the many didactic portions of Scripture. God saw fit to leave us His written Word so that we may believe in His Son. Our faith will not be properly informed apart from such knowledge.
At the same time, there are Bible scholars and theologians who study God’s written Word in depth, but they don’t believe in or know the Savior whom that Word proclaims. That is really tragic! The goal of John’s writing these truths about Jesus is so that we may personally believe in Him unto eternal life. If we miss that, we miss everything!
John here gives us three testimonies to who Jesus is:
John’s word for Jesus’ miracles is “signs.” This means that we should look beyond the miracle itself to what it points to. Jesus’ signs tell us something important about His person and work. John acknowledges that Jesus performed many other signs which he did not include in his Gospel. In the last verse of his Gospel he adds that if everything Jesus did were written in detail, the world itself would not contain the books that would be written. But John selected seven signs, plus the eighth sign of Jesus’ resurrection, to paint his portrait of the eternal Word made flesh.
Note also that these signs were performed “in the presence of His disciples.” They were eyewitnesses to all of these signs and they are credible men. As Peter testifies (2 Pet. 1:16), “For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.” They weren’t making up good stories. They actually saw these things before their very eyes. Here are John’s eight signs:
(1) Jesus turned the water at the wedding of Cana into wine (John 2:1-11). This shows that Jesus is Lord over His creation and that He provides abundant, joyous salvation for His people. It revealed His glory to the disciples (John 2:11).
(2) Jesus healed the royal official’s son (John 4:46-54). Here we learn that Jesus is the Lord who can heal from a distance. And He wants us to move from the foxhole faith that solves our crisis to the saving faith of eternal life.
(3) Jesus healed the lame man by the pool of Bethesda on the Sabbath (John 5:1-16). This shows that He is Lord over the Sabbath. And it exposes the impotence of ritualistic religion, while showing that Jesus is mighty to save.
(4) Jesus fed the 5,000 men, plus women and children, with five loaves and two fish (John 6:1-14). This pictures Jesus as the new Moses, who gives the satisfying bread of life to those who are spiritually hungry. Since Jesus used the disciples to distribute the food to the people, this sign also has a profound lesson about how the Lord uses us to meet the needs of the spiritually hungry.
(5) Jesus walked on the water to the disciples as they struggled against the waves (John 6:15-21). They couldn’t understand why He had just sent away the crowd who had eaten the multiplied loaves and fish, especially since they wanted to make Him king. So this sign tells us that Jesus is Lord over His creation, including every trial, even when we don’t understand His ways.
(6) Jesus healed the man born blind (John 9:1-41). This sign followed His discourse in chapter 8, where He made the astounding claim (John 8:12), “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.” So we learn that Jesus is the Light of the world, who imparts spiritual sight to the spiritually blind.
(7) Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11:1-44). Jesus stated the meaning of this sign in His words to Martha (John 11:25), “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” Note that Jesus’ pointed question, “Do you believe this?” is the reason why John included this sign: So that you will believe in Jesus and have life in His name.
(8) Jesus Himself was raised from the dead (John 20-21). This capstone of all the signs gives irrefutable proof that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, so that we may believe in Him for eternal life. If Jesus is not risen, our faith is worthless (1 Cor. 15:17).
As we have seen, Thomas was entrenched in his doubts about Jesus’ resurrection to the point of demanding to touch His wounds before he would believe. But when he saw the risen Savior and heard Him quote words that Thomas had spoken privately to the other disciples, he spontaneously blurted out (John 20:28), “My Lord and my God!” He wasn’t swearing, or Jesus would have rebuked him. Rather, Jesus accepted Thomas’ confession and his worship and commended him for it. His confession is the model of faith that John sets before his readers. We all should personally confess Jesus as our Lord and God. John began his Gospel by stating that Jesus, the Word, is God. Thomas’ confession brings that opening statement to its climax. It’s the personal faith that every person who considers John’s Gospel should possess.
John 20:31: “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.” As the Christ, He is the Messiah or Anointed One promised repeatedly in the Old Testament. He is the One whom God sent to be the Savior of the world (John 3:17; 4:42; 12:47). He is (John 1:29) “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”
As the Son of God, He is not the Son in the sense of human sons, who begin their existence at conception. Rather, He is the Son of God by nature, one with the Father from all eternity (John 10:30). He shares all the attributes of Deity, although these were often veiled in His humanity. The Father sent His Son to reveal Himself to us (John 5:19-47). As Jesus told Philip (John 14:9), “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” Concerning these two terms, the Christ, the Son of God, Leon Morris (The Gospel of John [Eerdmans], pp. 856-857) states,
The combination of terms indicates the very highest view of the Person of Jesus, and it must be taken in conjunction with the fact that John has just recorded the confession of Thomas which hails Jesus as “My Lord and my God.” There cannot be any doubt but that John conceived of Jesus as the very incarnation of God.
Thus the apostolic testimony about Jesus that we should believe is contained in the written Word of God. The object of our faith is the Lord Jesus Christ, revealed in the signs that John has recorded, in Thomas’ testimony, and in John’s purpose statement.
Briefly, note four things:
Many saw Jesus and His miracles during His earthly ministry and heard His teaching, but they rejected Him (John 6:36). In Matthew 11:21-24, Jesus upbraids these seers who did not believe:
“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Nevertheless I say to you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will descend to Hades; for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day. Nevertheless I say to you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for you.”
You’ll hear skeptics say, “If I could just see a miracle, I’d believe.” But that’s not true. Many in Jesus’ day saw His miracles, but they did not believe. Saving faith has three components: First, there must be knowledge of basic facts about Jesus and about human sin. Jesus is God in human flesh. He alone could atone for sins by satisfying God’s judgment, which He did when He died on the cross. We all are sinners who are justly guilty before God. Second, we must give assent to these facts as true. We cannot believe if we knowingly deny these truths. But the demons know these facts and believe that they are true.
So, there must be the third element: We must personally apply these facts by abandoning trust in ourselves or in our good works and trusting in Jesus and His death and resurrection to save us from God’s judgment. This saving faith necessarily includes repentance, or turning from our sin. It requires commitment and submission to Jesus as Lord.
To illustrate, you may know intellectually that airplanes can fly and you may agree that statistics show this to be true. But you won’t get to your destination unless you trust the pilot and the plane and commit yourself by getting on board.
You must approach the biblical witness to Jesus Christ with a teachable heart, being willing to obey God if He shows you that the witness is true. Jesus said (John 7:17), “If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.” Here, the Lord graciously met Thomas’ skeptical demands by appearing to him and inviting him to touch Him. That gives hope to all doubters that He will be gracious to you if you seek Him. But if I may put it in non-theological language, don’t push your luck! You have the testimony of this doubter turned believer so that you will believe without seeing. Peter wrote to believers who had not seen Jesus, but were suffering persecution for their faith (1 Pet. 1:8-9): “And though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.” The blessing is for those who have not seen Jesus, but believe the apostolic witness.
John could have written much, much more. But he selected these signs as adequate to convince us to put our trust in Jesus Christ. As we’ve seen (my message on John 20:1-10), there is solid evidence to believe in Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. Thomas’ conversion from adamant doubter to worshiping believer to eventual martyr shows that the evidence is trustworthy. Unbelief does not stem from faulty evidence, but from a heart that is in rebellion against the holy God.
There are many blessings for believers that John has already mentioned: We become children of God (John 1:12). We drink the living water that quenches our spiritual thirst (John 4:14). We escape from God’s future judgment (John 5:24). We are satisfied with Jesus as our Bread of life (John 6:35). We walk in His light so that we don’t stumble in the darkness (John 8:12). Our lives can be fruitful in light of eternity (John 15:1-8). We enjoy God’s love through Jesus, which fills us with joy (John 15:9-11). But all of these blessings and more that could be added are summed up in the term, “eternal life.”
We all will die physically (unless Jesus returns first), but as we’ve seen, He promises that whoever believes in Him will live, even if he dies (John 11:25). Eternal life is God’s life imparted to our souls. It means that we will never perish (John 3:16): “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” It means that we know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He sent (John 17:3). The blessing of eternal life is given “in Jesus’ name,” which means, in all that He is in His divine-human person and in all that He did in dying on the cross in our place.
In a sermon on these verses, Charles Spurgeon (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit [Pilgrim Publications], 27:653-664) pointed out that John sticks faithfully to his purpose. He omits some stories about himself which would have made him shine, such as being with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. As John states in verse 30, he left out many things that he could have written.
Rather, he gives a series of testimonies of people who were led to believe in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. In chapter 1, Andrew finds his brother Peter and exclaims (John 1:41), “We have found the Messiah (which translated means Christ).” Then Philip finds Nathaniel and announces (John 1:45), “We have found Him of whom Moses in the Law and also the Prophets wrote—Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.” And so it goes throughout the book: Nicodemus (chapter 3); the woman at the well (chapter 4); numerous witnesses in chapter 5; in John 6:69, Peter testifies, “We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” John wrote so that you “may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”
So the question is: Have you believed in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God? Is He your Lord and God? Do you have life in His name? To go back to the airplane illustration, it’s not enough to believe the plane can fly; you’ve got to get on board. It’s not enough to believe that Jesus is Lord. You’ve got to get on board by trusting in Him as your Savior and Lord.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
September 27, 2015
My desire for this church is that everyone who comes would know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and that each of you would grow in the character qualities and skills that will make you effective as you serve the Lord. This church will be healthy only to the extent that every person walks closely with Christ and serves Him as a member of His body, the church. As Paul says (Eph. 4:11-16), the job of pastors and teachers is to equip the saints for the work of service (or ministry), so that when every part works together, the whole body will build itself up in love. So, the pastors equip, but the saints do the work of the ministry. That means that we’re all in the ministry! There is no spiritual gift of “bench-warmer”!
This means that the body will only fulfill its purpose when each individual part is working properly. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve compared my body to an old car. When you drive an old car, certain parts stop working. If it’s not too serious, you can keep driving the car, but it isn’t as functional as it used to be. Well, I’ve noticed that certain parts of my body don’t work so well anymore! When that happens, my body is hindered from doing everything that it’s supposed to do. And when certain parts of the body of Christ don’t work properly, the church is hindered in its mission.
I’m concerned that some parts of this church body aren’t working. They aren’t serving the Lord. They may be official members of this church, but they aren’t doing anything to help the body be healthy. They usually attend services, but that’s about it. They hear about opportunities to serve, but they don’t respond. They’re broken parts of the body!
Other parts are serving in ministries of helps. That’s good, because ministries of helps are vital for the body to function. We need faithful ushers, people to help out at socials, and people to help keep our facilities and equipment in good shape. If these types of ministries don’t get done, the church will not function well.
But beyond these helping ministries, Scripture is clear that every believer should be serving in ministries that impact others spiritually. Scripture commands us to “admonish one another” (Rom. 15:14) and “bear one another’s burdens” (Gal. 6:2). Paul exhorted Timothy (2 Tim. 2:2), “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” That command doesn’t just apply to pastors or those in “full-time” ministry, but to every believer. We all have a responsibility to make disciples of others (Matt. 28:19).
Spiritual ministry involves imparting what you have received from Christ to others. This may include sharing the gospel with those who do not know Him. It also includes helping newer believers get grounded in their faith. If the Lord has helped you to grow in Him, you should be helping younger believers to do the same. If Christ has helped you overcome temptation or work through conflict in your marriage, He wants you to link up with others whom you can help. Christ didn’t save you so that you can be an isolated Christian, but so that you can be in relationship with other members of the body to help them grow in Him.
Here’s the convicting question: Are you doing that? In whose life are you having a spiritual impact? You may say, “I’m too busy to do that!” Seriously? You may need to rearrange your priorities. Christ saved you so that as a member of His body, the church, you can help in the cause of making disciples for His kingdom. But to do that assumes that you are walking closely with Christ. You can’t impart what you do not possess.
By this point you may be asking, “What does all this have to do with our text, which is the story of a bunch of guys going fishing?” The theme of John 21 is service for Christ. It follows John 20, where the disciples come to full faith in the risen Christ. The question then is, “What do you do with that faith?” You serve Him! Merrill Tenney (John: The Gospel of Belief [Eerdmans], p. 287) explains, “The purpose of the Epilogue is to show how the belief which the disciples had achieved should be applied.” It shows that service in dependence on the risen Savior is always fruitful and will always have His presence and support.
Seven of the disciples were in Galilee waiting for Christ to meet them after His resurrection, as He had directed them to do (Matt. 28:7; Mark 14:28; 16:7). We aren’t told where the other four were. At Peter’s initiative, they decided to go fishing. Some say that they were wrong to do this. Others say that they were right, working to support themselves. Dr. Tenney (ibid., p. 289) says that they weren’t sinning, but they were exposing themselves to danger: “They might forget … the life of which Jesus had spoken, and they needed to be recalled to it.” Leon Morris (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans], p 862) observes: “The general impression left is that of men without a purpose.” D. A. Carson (The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 669) concurs: “This fishing expedition and the dialogue that ensues do not read like the lives of men on a Spirit-empowered mission.” This incident would have reminded them of the earlier miraculous catch of fish, after which Jesus called them to be fishers of men. And this story is followed by Jesus deliberately restoring Peter to ministry. So the theme is:
Our faith in the risen Lord should lead to effective service for Him.
Note how John introduces this incident (John 21:1): “After these things Jesus manifested Himself again to the disciples at the Sea of Tiberias [Galilee], and He manifested Himself in this way.” By repetition, John wants us to know that this story was a manifestation or revealing of the risen Lord. But it was a manifestation with a purpose: to call the disciples (and us) back to the purpose for which He saved us. He wants His followers to be fishers of men. And, as the story of Peter’s restoration shows, He wants us engaged in tending His lambs. In other words, He wants us serving Him in spiritual ministries by making disciples. This story reveals five qualifications that we must have to serve Christ effectively:
The foundation for chapter 21 is chapter 20, where Thomas and the other disciples came to full faith in the risen Lord. I include this point because invariably there are people in evangelical churches who come regularly and even serve in some capacity, but they have never been born again. They would profess that they believe in Jesus, but they never have trusted in Him personally to forgive their sins and give them eternal life. Often these folks are “good” people, but that’s the problem—good people don’t need a Savior. If you’re swimming laps at the pool, you don’t need the lifeguard to jump in and save you. You’re doing just fine by yourself. But if you’re drowning, you desperately need that lifeguard!
The Bible teaches that we’re all worse than drowning—we’re spiritually dead! In God’s sight, no one is righteous; no one does good (Rom. 3:10-18). Romans 3:23 sums up, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” But Romans 6:23 gives the good news: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” If you will come to Christ as a guilty sinner and trust in His death on the cross for you, He forgives all your sins and gives you eternal life as a free gift! So the first point that you must understand is that good people can’t serve Christ; only forgiven sinners can serve Him. Make sure that you have put your trust in Him alone to save you from your sins.
But, maybe you have trusted in Him, but you feel inadequate to serve Him. The next point is for you:
The disciples were experienced professional fishermen, but we read (John 21:3b-5), “… that night they caught nothing. But when the day was now breaking, Jesus stood on the beach; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. So Jesus said to them, ‘Children, you do not have any fish, do you?’ They answered Him, ‘No.’” Their one-word answer may reflect their frustration: “No.” Whenever you read that Jesus asked a question, you need to understand that He wasn’t looking for information. He knew that they had not caught anything, but He wanted them to recognize and acknowledge their insufficiency.
Andreas Kostenberger (John [Baker], p. 590) observes, “Remarkably, the disciples never catch a fish in any of the Gospels without Jesus’ help.” Jesus wanted to remind the disciples of what He said in the upper room in the context of bearing fruit for His kingdom (John 15:5), “Apart from Me you can do nothing.” In the Greek text, “nothing” means “nothing”!
The fact is, we only trust in Christ to the extent that we recognize our own insufficiency, as well as His all-sufficiency. The apostle Paul reflected this when he was talking about the serious responsibility of preaching the gospel and he asked rhetorically (2 Cor. 2:16), “And who is adequate for these things?” But then a few verses later he elaborates (2 Cor. 3:5), “Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God ….”
But there are two dangers to avoid. When you feel your own inadequacy (and I feel it every time I prepare or deliver a sermon or whenever I have an opportunity to talk to someone about Christ), the first danger is that you will be paralyzed and do nothing. Moses fell into that danger when the Lord called him to deliver Israel from slavery in Egypt (Exod. 4:1-17; see, also, Gideon, Judges 6:11-16). But note that here the Lord didn’t tell the disciples, “Stand back!” while He made all the fish jump into the boat without any effort on their part. They had to cast their nets as He told them to do and use their strength to haul the catch to the shore. The lesson is: Use what the Lord has given you to serve Him. Don’t let a sense of inadequacy immobilize you. If He wants you to tell someone about Him, He won’t use you like a ventriloquist uses a dummy! You’ve got to trust Him and then open your mouth and talk!
The second danger is that you will get some training and then fall into the trap of thinking that your training or experience makes you adequate in yourself. Peter and the other disciples could have thought, “We’re professional fishermen! You don’t need to tell us where to cast our nets! We know what we’re doing!” But they would have missed experiencing the Lord’s miraculous power. I believe that it’s helpful to get trained in how to share your faith, or if you’re called to preach, to be trained in how to do it. I keep reading books in both of those areas to help me learn and grow. But techniques or methods are never adequate substitutes for trusting in the Lord. So get all the training and expertise in whatever the Lord has called you to do, but never trust in it. Rely on Him through faith and prayer.
Granted, the disciples did not yet know that it was the Lord. John doesn’t explain why these tired, seasoned fishermen would have obeyed some stranger giving advice from the shore. But his point in telling the story is to show that if you do what Jesus commands, He will give the blessing. Also, I’m sure that their experience reminded them of that night on the front end of Jesus’ ministry, when He told Peter to put out into the deep water and let down their nets for a catch. But Peter protested (Luke 5:5), “Master, we worked hard all night and caught nothing, but I will do as You say and let down the nets.” When Peter obeyed, the Lord almost sank their boat with the miraculous catch of fish.
It was on that occasion that Jesus told Peter (Luke 5:10), “Do not fear, from now on you will be catching men.” This post-resurrection repetition of the miracle would have refreshed their memories of that first catch of fish and reminded them that people, not fish, was now to be their focus. In that first miraculous catch, Jesus was in the boat with the disciples, picturing His presence with them when He came into this world. Now, He is on the shore, picturing Him in heaven as He directs and provides as they fish for men. But on both occasions, the abundant catch came when they obeyed the simple command of Jesus.
Think of the excuses that they could have used: “Are you kidding me? We’ve been out here working all night. Don’t you think that we’ve already tried casting the net on the right side of the boat? It didn’t work! Besides, we’re professional fishermen. We know our business. This just wasn’t a good night.” But if they had made up excuses, they would have missed the catch that the Lord wanted to bless them with.
If you make up excuses for why you can’t serve the Lord, you’ll never see Him work in a mighty way. J. C. Ryle commented (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels [Baker], p. 437), “Our Lord’s object was to show the disciples that the secret of success was to work at His command, and to act with implicit obedience to His word.” The Lord blesses our obedience, not our excuses.
Many years ago, I was shopping for a winter coat at a mall in Southern California. I paid for the coat and walked out into the mall when I got a very strong impression from the Lord, “I want you to go back into the store and tell that salesman about Me.” I almost never get such impressions! So at first I shrugged it off and started to walk away. But the impression didn’t go away: “Go back and talk to that salesman about Me!” I went and sat down on a bench outside the store and prayed about it. It seemed crazy. He was helping another customer. He would think that I was really weird! After I ran through all of my excuses, I realized that if I walked away without going back in there and talking to that salesman, I would be disobedient.
So, I prayed and went in and said, “When you’re through helping those people, I need to talk to you.” He thought that something must be wrong with the coat he had sold me. But I said, “No, the coat is fine. But I’m a Christian, a follower of Jesus, and I had a strong sense that He wanted me to talk to you about Him.” His eyes got big and he said, “Really?” He went on to tell me that he had made a decision to follow Christ a few months before, but he had fallen away. My taking just a few minutes to talk to him in obedience to the Lord impressed him to get right with the Lord and go back to church. God blesses our obedience, not our excuses! And when God blesses, don’t take the credit yourself, but acknowledge, as John does here (John 7:7), “It is the Lord.”
So to serve Christ effectively, put your trust in Him as the risen Savior. Realize your insufficiency and His all-sufficiency. Obey His commands.
The disciple whom Jesus loved (John) first recognized the Lord, but it was Peter who couldn’t wait for them to row to shore, but jumped in the water to get to Jesus. It’s significant that Peter did this in spite of his recent failure in denying the Lord. The Lord had met privately with Peter on resurrection day (Luke 24:35) to restore him in his relationship with Him. But sometimes we allow previous failures to keep us from wanting to be with the Lord, even after He has assured us of forgiveness. We think that we need to do penance or feel guilty for a while before we come back to Him. But grace means that we must accept His forgiveness freely. Grace doesn’t lead us to sin more, but to sin less. A person who has experienced God’s grace will have an impact on others. A guilty person or one prone toward legalism, will not be effective serving Christ.
Also, Peter’s eagerness to be with the Lord is significant in light of his present companions. He had boasted before them that he would follow Christ, even if they did not. But then he failed miserably, denying Jesus before a servant girl. When Peter jumped into the water, his friends could have thought, “What a hypocrite!” But Peter didn’t care what they thought. He just wanted to be with the risen Lord.
Sometimes your friends or your family will try to dampen your enthusiasm for the Lord because it makes them look bad. Graciously, politely ignore them! Get up early and spend time with the Lord because you want to be with Him. When He invites you to come and have breakfast (John 21:12), don’t miss the opportunity!
John’s comment (John 21:12), “None of the disciples ventured to question Him, ‘Who are You?’ knowing that it was the Lord,” sounds a bit strange. D. A. Carson (ibid., p. 674) explains that we need to put ourselves back into their situation. They have already seen several proofs that Jesus was risen, including the appearance to Thomas in chapter 20, so they knew “that it was the Lord.” But even so, after Jesus’ resurrection, He appeared and disappeared suddenly. They had last seen Him in Jerusalem, but now here He was in Galilee. Where had He gotten the fish that were on the fire or the firewood? It all seemed strange and made them feel a bit uneasy. But in spite of their uneasiness, no one dared to ask, “Who are You?” because they knew it was the Lord.
Jesus’ invitation to the disciples to come and have breakfast is similar to His invitation to the lukewarm church of Laodicea (Rev. 3:20), “Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.” It’s His standing invitation to all of His people: “Come, dine with Me.” Fellowship with the Lord is necessary if you want to serve Him effectively.
Jesus already had some fish prepared on the charcoal fire, but then He took some of the fish that He had just provided for them, cooked them, and served them breakfast. By the way, although some commentators come up with some fanciful allegorical significance to the 153 fish they caught, it’s probably just an eyewitness account that shows that John wasn’t making up this story. Like all fishermen, they counted the fish.
Peter didn’t protest having Jesus serve him breakfast, as he had done when Jesus took the servant’s role and washed the disciples’ feet. But the point here is, have breakfast with Jesus and let Him minister to you before you try to serve Him. Ministry occurs when you’re full of Jesus and spill Him over onto others. So let Him fill you by eating what He has provided in His Word and then you’ll have the strength and resources to minister to others.
I come back to my earlier question: Are you being used to impact others spiritually? I’m not asking whether you’re busy in serving the Lord. Rather, is the Lord using you to tell the good news of salvation and to help others grow in Him? To be effective, first make sure that you have trusted in Him as your Savior and Lord. Then recognize your insufficiency to serve Him, but trust in His all-sufficiency. Obey His commands. Be eager for fellowship with Him. Let Him first minister to you. Then, make it your purpose by His grace to impact those around you by spilling your full cup of Jesus onto them. Begin with your family. Pray that your children will come to genuine faith and seek to lead them there. Pray for opportunities in the neighborhood, your workplace, or at church to be God’s channel for spiritual blessing to this needy world.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
October 11, 2015
Having served as a pastor for over 38 years, I’ve seen many people who serve the Lord for reasons that are sometimes noble, but yet inadequate to sustain them over the long haul. Some are so-called “laymen” (although I hate that term), while others are full-time pastors, church workers, or missionaries. But they serve the Lord for inadequate reasons.
Sometimes people serve because they want to help advance Christ’s kingdom. That’s a noble, but inadequate reason for serving Christ. Some pastors serve the Lord because they love studying theology and teaching the Bible accurately. While that is a vital task (Titus 1:9), by itself it’s an inadequate reason for serving Christ. Sometimes pastors and others in the church serve because they genuinely want to help people with their problems. Again, that’s a noble, but inadequate reason for serving the Lord. Sometimes people serve because they get a sense of satisfaction from serving. While it’s legitimate to be pleased when God uses you, that’s also an inadequate reason for serving.
On a carnal level, some serve the Lord because it makes them feel important when they help people and those people sing their praises. But these people often get wounded and quit serving when they don’t receive the applause that they think they deserve. Some pastors serve because they like being the center of attention. Some enjoy the power or the feeling of importance that comes from being in leadership. The worst pastors are in the ministry to get rich at the expense of the people they are supposedly serving or to prey on the women who look to them for spiritual leadership. The Bible strongly condemns such evil men (2 Pet. 2:14-15).
In our last study, I asked the question, “In whose life are you having a spiritual impact?” I pointed out that every member of Christ’s body should be serving Him by helping make disciples. But beneath the question, “Are you serving Christ?” is the more fundamental question, “Why do you serve Him?” What is your motivation for serving? In our text the Lord Jesus drills home to Peter and to us the foundational motive for serving Him:
Loving Jesus because He has graciously forgiven all your sins is the foundational motive for serving Him.
Behind that statement are the two great commandments: to love God and to love others. If we love God because of His love and grace toward us, we will serve Him by loving others. So loving Jesus, the eternal Son of God, who gave Himself on the cross to rescue us from God’s judgment, is the essential motive for serving Him. If that motive is not central in your heart, you will burn out or blow out in your service for the Lord.
This short exchange between the risen Lord Jesus and Peter represents Peter’s public restoration to his apostolic ministry. On the day Jesus arose, the angel at the empty tomb told the women (Mark 16:7), “But go, tell His disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see Him, just as He told you.’” Those words, “and Peter,” would have rang in Peter’s ears and lifted his depressed spirit after his miserable denials of his Lord. I think that Peter would have asked the women, “Did the angel say, ‘and Peter’?” It assured him that the Lord had not rejected him because of his failure. That same day, Jesus met privately with Peter to reassure him and restore him personally (Luke 24:34; 1 Cor. 15:5). But now the risen Lord restores Peter to his apostolic office in front of these other six disciples.
Peter had denied the Lord three times and so three times Jesus repeats the essential question, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” These three questions hit Peter like repeated hammer blows to drive the point home. Three times, the third time with grief because it reminded him of his threefold denials, Peter affirmed, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” And, three times the Lord responded to Peter’s affirmation of love, “Tend My lambs. … Shepherd My sheep. … Tend My sheep.” The point is, loving Jesus because He has forgiven all your sins is essential for serving Him.
To paraphrase Paul (1 Cor. 13:1-3), you may be the world’s most eloquent speaker, but if you don’t love Jesus you’re just a noisy gong or clanging cymbal. You may have impressive spiritual gifts and great theological knowledge and faith that can remove mountains, but if you don’t love Jesus, it’s all worth nothing. You may give away all your possessions and even suffer martyrdom, but if you do it without love for Jesus, it profits you nothing. Love for Jesus is the essential motive for all you do for Him.
When Christ saves you, it’s always on a personal basis. The good shepherd “calls His own sheep by name” (John 10:3). If Jesus has saved you, it’s not because of anything in you, but rather because your name was written in the Lamb’s book of life from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8; 17:8; 20:15; 21:27). Jesus died on the cross for you because He loved you (Gal. 2:20). He desires your love in response to His great love for you. Thus…
Jesus’ repeated question to Peter hits each one of us: “Do you love Me? Do you love Me? Do you love Me?” It reminds me of the Lord’s rebuke to the church in Ephesus (Rev. 2:2-4):
“I know your deeds and your toil and perseverance, and that you cannot tolerate evil men, and you put to the test those who call themselves apostles, and they are not, and you found them to be false; and you have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.”
They were doing well in many areas. They were working hard for the Lord. They would have protested, “Lord, look at how we’re serving You!” But He said to them, “I have this against you, that you have left your first love.” They were holding to sound doctrine and putting false teachers out of the church. That’s essential, because without sound doctrine, we may be following a false gospel which is no gospel at all, or a false Christ of our own making (Gal. 1:6-9; 2 Cor. 11:4). But sound doctrine alone is hollow if it does not rest on genuine love for Jesus. The Ephesians were persevering and enduring hardship for Jesus’ sake, which is commendable; but only if it is done out of love for Jesus. The Lord said, “I have this against you, that you have left your first love.”
The Ephesians probably could have added, “But Lord, we’re faithful in church attendance, we celebrate communion often, and we give generously to Your cause!” But Jesus said to them, “I have this against you, that you have left your first love.”
At this point, I need to comment on the familiar point that John uses two different Greek words for “love” in this dialogue. The first two times that Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love Me?” He uses the Greek verb agapao. Peter replies using the Greek verb phileo. But the third time, Jesus uses phileo and Peter replies again with phileo. Based on this, some argue that Peter’s love doesn’t come up to the higher word that Jesus uses, so finally the Lord comes down to Peter’s lower word. But the problem is, sometimes the two words are used synonymously (John 3:35; 5:20; 11:5, 36; 16:27) and some scholars argue for opposite nuances of the two words. And Paul elevates phileo to a very high plane when he says (1 Cor. 16:22) that if we don’t phileo the Lord, we are accursed.
Generally (but not always) agapao refers to God’s love for people or our love for Him, whereas phileo is used of love between people. Agapao has the notion of committed love that sacrifices itself for others: Christ’s love for us; a husband’s love for his wife; the church’s love for one another (Eph. 5:2, 25; 1 Cor. 13). But John often uses synonyms for stylistic variation. In our text, he uses two different words for “know,” two for “feed,” and two for “sheep” (Colin Brown, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology [Zondervan], 2:542-543). For these and many other reasons, hardly any scholars see any practical difference in John’s use of these two words in our text (see D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], pp. 676-678).
Our love for the Lord must encompass both aspects of agapao and phileo. It’s like my love for Marla. Over 41 years ago, I committed myself to love her exclusively until death parts us. That agape commitment is the basis for the phileo relationship that we have built over the years. And while our relationship is not built on feelings, but rather commitment, I do have strong feelings of love for her. If the feelings were never there, something serious would be wrong with our relationship. The same should be true of your love for the Lord. It’s based on commitment, it consists of a growing relationship, and it often involves strong feelings.
But don’t wrangle about words and miss the main point: loving Jesus from the heart is the main thing to focus on in your relationship with Him. Peter’s comment (John 21:17), “Lord You know all things; You know that I love You,” shows that it’s not enough to say or sing that we love Jesus. Anybody can do that. Rather, love for Jesus must come from the heart, which only God knows. So the question arises, “How do I develop and maintain genuine love for Jesus from the heart?”
When Peter first encountered Jesus’ power in the miraculous catch of fish, his immediate response was to cry out (Luke 5:8), “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” When you encounter Jesus’ purity and power, you instantly recognize your own sinfulness. But Jesus graciously responded to Peter on that occasion (Luke 5:10), “Do not fear, from now on you will be catching men.” John 1:42 records that when Andrew brought his brother to Jesus, “Jesus looked at him and said, ‘You are Simon the son of John; you shall be called Cephas’ (which is translated Peter).” (Cephas and Peter both mean “rock.”) By God’s grace, Simon the sinful man became Peter the rock.
So Peter experienced the Lord’s grace when he first met Him, but here he experiences it again. Jesus underscores His grace by calling Peter by his original name, “Simon, son of John.” It reminded Peter of who he had been when Jesus first met him. In the upper room, Peter had boasted that even if the other disciples denied Jesus, he wouldn’t (John 13:37; Matt. 26:33). But although all the disciples fled in fear when Jesus was arrested, Peter had failed worse than the others by denying three times that he even knew Jesus. When Jesus asks (John 21:15), “Do you love Me more than these?” He was probably referring to Peter’s earlier boast. But then, rather than removing Peter from his apostolic office, the Lord graciously restores him and entrusts the care of His sheep to him. So Peter painfully knew his own sinfulness and failure, but he also knew God’s forgiveness and grace.
Coming to Jesus as a guilty sinner and receiving not judgment and rejection, but forgiveness and grace, is the source of loving Him. When the sinful woman anointed Jesus’ feet with her tears and anointed Him with perfume as He dined with Simon the Pharisee, Jesus said that she loved much because she had been forgiven much, but the one who is forgiven little, loves little (Luke 7:47). It’s not that anyone is forgiven “little,” in that we all have sinned repeatedly and flagrantly. But not all realize how much they’ve been forgiven. Like Simon the Pharisee, many think that they’re basically good people who don’t need much forgiveness. Such people love Jesus little. But when God opens your eyes to the depths of your sin, but then says, “Your sins are forgiven,” you love Jesus much. So to keep fervent in your love for Jesus, remember how much you’ve been forgiven. His grace fuels the fire of love for Him.
Peter denied Jesus by a charcoal fire; here the Lord restores him to ministry by a charcoal fire (John 18:18; 21:9; the only two times this noun is used in the NT). Peter had denied Jesus before others three times; so three times Jesus asks Peter to confess his love for Him before others. Peter had boasted that he was a notch above the other disciples in his commitment to the Lord. But now he is humbled, so that he doesn’t say, “Yes, I love You more than these,” but simply (John 21:15), “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” Looking back on your sin is always humbling, but necessary.
Although the Lord knew that His questions would cause Peter to be grieved, the Lord also knew that grieving over our sins is a necessary part of being restored from those sins to a place of useful service for Him. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matt. 5:4). No one can properly serve the Lord who shrugs off sin as no big deal. And no one can have the deep love for Jesus that sustains ministry who doesn’t appreciate the awful price that He paid to redeem us from our sins. So when we do sin, we need to confess it to the Lord and feel the grief that our sin causes Him.
But the Lord doesn’t restore us just so we can enjoy our relationship with Him, although that is primary. The result of our love for Jesus is that we will serve Him:
In other words, if your cup is full to the brim with His love and grace, slop it over on those around you. Three times the Lord drives home to Peter that if he loves Him, he is to tend or shepherd His sheep. We learn:
“Tend” means to feed a flock (Matt. 8:30; Luke 15:15). To “shepherd” refers to all of the activities of that job, including feeding, guarding, guiding, and caring for the well-being of the flock. The word “pastor” means “shepherd” and is used interchangeably with “elder” and “overseer.” Later Peter reflects the Lord’s charge to him when he writes (1 Pet. 5:1-3),
Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock.
Shepherding the Lord’s flock is primarily the job of the elders in each local church. Paul exhorted the Ephesian elders (Acts 20:28), “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.” Some of you men in the church should desire the office of elder or overseer (1 Tim. 3:1) because you love Jesus and therefore you love His sheep. A man should not be appointed as an elder before he begins to shepherd the flock. Rather, he should be engaged already in shepherding the flock, and then the church recognizes that the Holy Spirit has appointed him as an elder.
The main job of a pastor should be to feed God’s flock from His Word. Paul stipulates that some elders are to be supported financially so that they can labor hard at preaching and teaching (1 Tim. 5:17). He says that the elders must “be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict” (Titus 1:9). The sheep are vulnerable to attacks from deceptive false teachers, who try to lead them astray from the truth (Matt. 7:15; 2 Cor. 11:13-15). A pastor who doesn’t feed the flock on sound doctrine is not doing his job!
Three times Jesus refers to the church as His: “My lambs, My sheep, My sheep.” They don’t belong to any pastor, but to the Lord. And since they belong to the Lord, who bought them with His own blood, pastors should be diligent to care for each one and love each one because each one is precious to Jesus.
It always bothers me when I see Christians despise or put down other Christians. Granted, some of the sheep can be obnoxious! Yes, they can be self-centered, stubborn, and difficult to be around. But if Jesus loved them enough to die for them, then we all have to love them, too. They’re His sheep!
But you may be thinking, “Thankfully, that’s your job, not mine! I’m not called to be a pastor.” But not so fast!
Granted, shepherding the sheep is primarily the job of the elders. But the elders can’t possibly do it alone. The “one another” passages in the New Testament show that shepherding the Lord’s flock is the responsibility of every maturing member of the church. Older believers should shepherd those who are younger in the Lord. Husbands must shepherd their families and feed them from God’s Word. Mothers should teach their children the ways of the Lord. If you’re further along than another believer, then you have something to contribute to him or her. You can teach the newer believer how to feed himself from God’s Word. You can warn him of spiritual dangers that he may not be alert to. Even if you’re both at the same place spiritually, you can help each other grow in following Christ.
After the Lord delivered the Gerasene demoniac, he wanted to accompany Jesus. But even though he was a brand new believer, the Lord told him (Luke 8:39), “Return to your house and describe what great things God has done for you.” Luke adds, “So he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him.” So if you love Jesus because He has changed your life, you have something to contribute to others.
Yes, you should love the sheep because Jesus loves them and gave His life for them. But sometimes the sheep aren’t all that lovable. Your love for Jesus has to undergird your service to His sheep or you’ll get hurt or disgusted and quit serving. Love for Jesus is what keeps you going when the sheep are ornery or stubborn or disagreeable. I’m not serving the sheep for what they can give me. I’m just a sheep dog, and sheep dogs don’t get much from the sheep, except hassles and manure! In our case, we serve as sheep dogs because we were in the dog pound, headed for extermination, when the Shepherd rescued us and put us into service. While we want to help the sheep, we serve them because we love the Shepherd and want to please Him. He asks you, “Do you love Me?” If you answer, “Yes, Lord, You know that I love You,” He replies, “Tend My lambs.”
One of the main reasons that I felt called to be a pastor was that I couldn’t shake the implications of Ephesians 5:25: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her.” I thought, “If Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, and I love Christ, then I need to love His church and give myself up for her.” Love for Jesus who first loved me has kept me serving His flock, even though every week I feel overwhelmed by my inadequacy for the task.
Not everyone is called to be a pastor. But Jesus asks everyone who has experienced His love at the cross, “Do you love Me?” If you answer, “Yes, Lord, You know that I love You.” His reply is, “Tend My sheep.”
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
October 18, 2015
It’s not news that we live in troubled times. The atrocities committed by ISIS in the Middle East, the resulting refugee crisis, and the ongoing terrorism in Africa and around the world are enough to spawn anxiety in even the calmest people. Closer to home, the recent shooting death on the NAU campus showed how quickly and unexpectedly life can end, even for the young. And even if we never encounter terrorists or gun violence, we aren’t exempt from accidents, cancer, or other deadly diseases! As has often been said, “The statistics on death are quite impressive: one out of one people die.”
The only way that I know how to live calmly in such an anxiety-producing world is to trust in the Sovereign Lord, who even uses the wicked for His own righteous purposes before He judges them. It gives great peace to know that He has numbered all our days, even before we were born (Ps. 139:16). There are only two choices: either God is sovereign over everything, including Satan and his evil forces, or He is not. If He is not, then the alternatives are atheism, where impersonal random chance rules the world; or dualism, where Satan and God are fighting for control, but we don’t know for sure which side will win. Either one would be a scary world in which to live!
But if God is sovereign, even over all the evil in this world, then we have a basis for peace, comfort, and hope when we face difficult trials. We can affirm with Paul (Rom. 8:28), “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
As John brings his “Gospel of Belief” (as Merrill Tenney calls it, John: The Gospel of Belief [Eerdmans]) to a close, he mentions several things which seem thematically unconnected: In verses 18 & 19, Jesus predicts Peter’s future, including how he will die. Then (John 21:20-22), Peter asks Jesus about John’s future and receives a polite, “It’s none of your business!” reply. In verse 23, John corrects a misunderstanding that was circulating regarding Jesus’ reply to Peter. And in the final two verses, there is a testimony to John’s trustworthiness as a witness and an acknowledgement that John has left out of his Gospel many things that Jesus did.
I puzzled over how to tie all of these seemingly disparate strands together. It seems to me that the theme of trusting the sovereign Lord unites this final section. Twice (John 21:19, 22) Jesus repeats to Peter the command that He gave Him when He first called him as a disciple, “Follow Me!” (Matt. 4:19; see, also, Jesus’ initial command to Philip in John 1:43). But to follow Jesus, we have to trust in Him as the sovereign Lord, who both knows what is best for us and controls the events of our lives in line with His good purpose. So we can sum up our text:
We can trust the sovereign Lord and follow Him in everything, even when we don’t understand it all.
Jesus has just asked Peter three times, “Do you love Me?” Peter has replied three times, “Yes, Lord, You know that I love You,” to which Jesus replied three times by commanding Peter to feed or shepherd His sheep. But here the Lord lets Peter know that his professed love for Him will be tested. As Peter grows old, rather than playing golf or driving around to all the National Parks in his RV, Peter will face martyrdom. Thus we learn first …
John 21:18-19: “‘Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to gird yourself and walk wherever you wished; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will gird you, and bring you where you do not wish to go.’ Now this He said, signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when He had spoken this, He said to him, ‘Follow Me!’”
Here, Jesus proves true what Peter has just said (John 21:17), “Lord, You know all things.” Jesus knew Peter’s future, including when and how he would die, and He sovereignly determined that future. He tells Peter this, introducing it with the solemn, “Truly, truly,” so that Peter will be ready by counting the cost of following Jesus. Peter had to live the rest of his life, probably at least 30 years, with this prediction hanging over him! I’m not sure that I would want to know in advance, “You’re going to die by having your head cut off by ISIS”!
We don’t know whether Peter instantly understood Jesus’ words as a reference to his future death, but John (21:19) explains that that is what Jesus meant. The phrase, “stretch out your hands,” was commonly understood in the ancient world to refer to crucifixion (D. A. Carson, The Gospel According to John [Eerdmans/Apollos], p. 679). It referred to the prisoner stretching out his hands to be bound with ropes to the crossbeam before he was forcibly marched away to execution. Clement of Rome (AD 96) reports Peter’s martyrdom, although he doesn’t mention how he was executed. Later less reliable sources claim that he was crucified upside down, because he felt unworthy to die as his Lord did (Carson, p. 680). But whether Peter understood specifically how he would die, he couldn’t have missed the point of contrast that while his youth was relatively “footloose and fancy free,” his old age would be difficult and unpleasant.
We can learn four practical lessons: (1) While we are commanded to give thanks always and to count our trials as joy, we shouldn’t pretend that trials are pleasant at the time. Jesus tells Peter that others would gird him and bring him where he did not wish to go. In other words, Peter wasn’t seeking martyrdom and gladly marching to it thinking that it would be pleasant. He didn’t want to go there.
Some of the early Christians sought martyrdom as their goal in the Christian life. Eusebius (Church History [8:9]), describes how when one believer was condemned, many others would rush forward and declare themselves as Christians, so that they, too, would be condemned to torture and death. They would receive their death sentence with joy, laughter, and cheerfulness, going to their deaths singing praises to God.
As I’ll point out in a moment, we should seek to glorify God by our death. But that doesn’t mean that we should seek torture and death as a better way to die. God’s will for Peter was martyrdom, but His will for John was to live a long life and die a natural death. Hebrews 12:11 acknowledges, “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.” So by faith we can and should give thanks even in trials as we trust in our sovereign, loving Father. But we don’t need to seek trials and we should be honest in admitting that the trial itself is not pleasant. We can count it as joy, knowing that God is using it to produce maturity in us (James 1:3-4), but that doesn’t mean putting on a happy face through it all.
(2) Following Jesus does not guarantee an easy life or a peaceful death. The Bible has many examples of faithful saints who suffered short, difficult lives, terrible persecution, and painful deaths. Hebrews 11:36-37 testifies that by faith some were mocked, scourged, imprisoned, stoned, sawn in two, and put to death by the sword after a life of being destitute, afflicted, and ill-treated. But, they received eternal rewards in heaven. I’ve told you before about the Coast Guard recruiter who told a guy that boot camp was on an island and that you could fish and water ski there. Technically, true, if they let you, you could do those things! But they wouldn’t let you! Well, the Lord is an honest recruiter: He tells you up front to count the cost of following Him.
(3) Our aim should be to glorify God by our death. We all have to die (unless Jesus returns before then), so we need to determine in advance to glorify God. Paul’s aim was (Phil. 1:20) “that with all boldness, Christ will even now, as always, be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.” John Wesley said with reference to his Methodist disciples, “Our people die well.” John Calvin’s friend and successor, Theodore Beza, who was with Calvin as he painfully died, wrote, “We can truly say that in this one man God has been pleased to demonstrate to us in our day the way to live well and to die well” (Theodore Beza, The Life of John Calvin [Evangelical Press], p. 118).
(4) The way to glorify God in our death is to follow Him while we live. Twice (John 21:19, 22), Jesus commands Peter, “Follow Me!” To follow Jesus means bowing before Him as the rightful Lord of all that you are and have. It means seeking His will for the direction of your life and submitting to that will even before you know what it will be. And it means prompt obedience to His commands. If we yield our lives to Jesus as Lord, seek His will for how we spend our lives, and develop the habit of daily obedience to His Word, we’ll be prepared for death when and however it comes.
John 21:20-22: “Peter, turning around, saw the disciple whom Jesus loved following them; the one who also had leaned back on His bosom at the supper and said, ‘Lord, who is the one who betrays You?’ So Peter seeing him said to Jesus, ‘Lord, and what about this man?’ Jesus said to him, ‘If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!’”
We don’t know whether Peter asked out of curiosity or concern for John or the need to compare himself with John. But whatever his reason, Jesus in effect replies, “It’s none of your business what I do with John. Your business is to follow Me!” We can learn three practical lessons from these verses:
(1) Jesus is the rightful Lord of every person and He has the authority to determine how each one serves Him and how and when each one dies. Jesus bluntly tells Peter (John 21:22), “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!” He determined how Peter would serve Him and when and how Peter would die. He did the same for John; and, He does that for all who follow Him. And so one of the most important lessons to learn in the Christian life is what Paul states (Rom. 12:1), “to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual [or, rational] service of worship.” You can’t know God’s will for your life until you first yield yourself totally to Him, being willing to do whatever He wants you to do with your life.
(2) The Lord uses the different personalities of each person for His purpose and glory. Peter and John had very different personalities, but God used them both. Peter was the natural leader of the twelve. He often spoke when he should have held his tongue and thought more carefully before he opened his mouth. On the Mount of Transfiguration, he felt the need to say something, so he suggested building three tabernacles, only to have God say (Luke 9:35), “This is My Son, My Chosen One; listen to Him!” When Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, Peter was the one to protest. He was a man of action, again, often without thinking carefully first. He whacked off Malchus’ ear without considering that the Roman cohort there easily could have taken off his head. But that was Peter.
John, on the other hand, was more contemplative and introverted. Granted, at first Jesus called him and his brother James the sons of thunder (Mark 3:17), but he often referred to himself, as he does in our text, as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” He was close to Jesus in a more quiet manner than Peter was. We see these two men’s personalities when they went to the empty tomb. John stood outside, peering in, but Peter brushed by him and went inside. John saw the grave clothes laying there and believed, whereas Peter went away wondering about what he had seen. Then, when the risen Jesus provided the miraculous catch of fish, John was the first to recognize Him, but Peter impetuously jumped in the water to get to shore first. So they were very different men, but God was pleased to use both men in His service.
While God sanctifies our personalities, knocking off the rough edges as we mature in Christ, He doesn’t change our basic bent. Introverts grow into godly introverts, extroverts grow into godly extroverts, and both are okay. Before Paul met Christ, he was a zealous man of purpose, persecuting the church. After he met Christ, he was a zealous man of purpose, boldly preaching the gospel, even after he had been stoned or imprisoned. Paul’s dedicated zeal caused him to reject Barnabas’ desire of giving Mark a second chance. But later, Paul mellowed and said that Mark was useful to him for service (2 Tim. 4:11). So you don’t have to deny your personality to serve the Lord, but you do have to allow Him to build the fruit of the Spirit into your personality as you grow in Him.
(3) While it’s helpful to learn from those who are different than we are, it’s not profitable to compare our ministries to theirs. After the Lord told Peter that he would die a martyr’s death, Peter asked about John, “What about this man?” The Lord basically says, “That’s My business, not yours. You follow Me!”
As a pastor, it’s easy to compare myself to other pastors and wonder, “Why does God bless their ministries as He does, but not mine?” I’d love to have a tenth of the impact that men like John MacArthur and John Piper have! While I’ve learned much and can learn much more from these men and others, including the great pastors of past centuries, the bottom line is: I’m not who they are. They have unique gifts and abilities that I lack. While I rejoice at how God has used these men and I pray that He would use me, He is sovereign over whom He uses and how He uses them.
Over 30 years ago, I had been reading the autobiography of the famous British preacher Charles Spurgeon. As I was out jogging, I prayed, “Lord, bless my ministry like You blessed Spurgeon’s!” Since Spurgeon is often held to be the greatest preacher of the 19th century, that was a “hail Mary” kind of throw-for-the-goal line prayer! But as soon as I prayed that, the Lord put into my mind, “Which Spurgeon? Charles, or John?” The thought hit me so forcefully that I stopped jogging to let it sink in.
John Spurgeon was Charles’ father. He was a godly, faithful pastor, but he would have lived and died in obscurity, except that he had a famous son. In God’s purposes, the famous son was plagued with health problems and only lived to be 57, whereas the obscure father outlived his son and died at 90. But God used both men. The Lord was saying to me, “Your job is to be as faithful as John Spurgeon. My prerogative is to use you as I see fit. Learn all you can from Charles Spurgeon, but if I want to use you as I used John Spurgeon, that’s My business!”
John 21:22-23: “Jesus said to him, ‘If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow Me!’ Therefore this saying went out among the brethren that that disciple would not die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he would not die, but only, ‘If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?’”
John wrote this to correct a mistaken rumor circulating among the early church, namely that he wouldn’t die before the Lord returned. John clarifies, “That isn’t what Jesus said. He only said, ‘If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?’” Some scholars argue that John didn’t write this, but it was a postscript added, perhaps by the Ephesian elders (where John spent his last days) to clear up confusion among those who thought that Jesus should have returned before John died. I think it’s more likely that John knew about this rumor before he died and wrote this to correct it before the faith of some would be shaken after he died, because they thought that Jesus had to return before John’s death.
Even so today, people get carried away with mistaken claims that Jesus will return by a certain date. The late Harold Camping made several such wrong predictions. Back in the mid-80’s, I received a booklet titled, “88 Reasons Why Jesus Will Return in 1988.” Obviously, the author was mistaken! Peter predicted that in the last days, scoffers would mock believers, saying (2 Pet. 3:4), “Where is the promise of His coming?” But twice in our text (John 21:22, 23), John assures us, Jesus is coming!
I’m sometimes asked why I don’t preach through the Book of Revelation, and my honest answer is, “Because I don’t understand the details well enough to preach it.” I’ve read many books from many different perspectives, but none of them answer all my questions. But even though I don’t understand the details, I don’t doubt for a minute that Jesus will return! He must, or else He is a liar!
John 21:24-25: “This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true. And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written.”
Some conservative scholars think that the plural pronoun we indicates that this was added after John’s death, perhaps by the Ephesian elders, as their testimony to John’s trustworthiness. Or, it could be John himself using an editorial we, as he often does in 1 John (e.g. 1:4-9). In John 19:35, the apostle assured us of his eyewitness account of blood and water coming out of Jesus’ side after the soldier thrust in his spear. Here, John is testifying to the truthfulness of all that he has written in his Gospel concerning Jesus. He wants us to believe his testimony and put our faith in Jesus Christ.
John concludes by repeating his selectivity in what he has written. In John 20:30-31, he stated, “Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” Here, he says that if he had written all that Jesus did, even the world would not contain the books. He’s using hyperbole, of course. But as Dr. Carson points out (p. 686), if Jesus truly is the incarnate Son of God, as John claims in the prologue, then John 21:25 is not really an exaggeration.
And, while we may wish at times that Scripture had given us more details about some things (as in Luke 24:27!), we have to trust that the Lord gave us all that we need for life and godliness (2 Pet. 1:3-4). His Word is sufficient for us to come to salvation and to grow in holiness. We need to work at applying the Scripture that we have, not wish for Scripture that we don’t have!
So John leaves us with the crucial question: Have you believed in Jesus as your Savior and Lord? If so, are you trusting Him for your future, including the trials you’re now facing and the ones you will face? Are you faithfully serving Him? Are you living in light of His promise to return? And, are you trusting the reliability of His inspired Word? John wrote these things so that we would trust in Jesus, the sovereign Lord.
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation
October 25, 2015
When Marla and I have flown from Flagstaff to Phoenix, we have enjoyed looking down on all the trails in Sedona where we have hiked. When you’re hiking on a trail, you see details that you can’t see from the air. But when you fly over a trail, you see the big picture in a way that you can’t see from the ground.
We been “hiking” through John for the past two years, enjoying the details along the trail. But before we move on, I thought that it would be helpful to do a final flyover, getting the big picture of the whole, especially for those of you who were not here when I did an introductory flyover back in February, 2013.
John begins his Gospel by speaking of Jesus, the eternal Word of God who became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:1, 14): “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John ends his Gospel describing the encounter between the risen Lord Jesus and seven of His disciples, calling Peter (and through him, all disciples) to follow Him.
John’s Gospel is a testimony or witness to Jesus Christ. It begins with the testimony of John the Baptist to Jesus as the Light (John 1:6-8). John ends with an affirmation of the trustworthiness of his own testimony to Jesus (John 21:24): “This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and wrote these things, and we know that his testimony is true.”
The crucial question that John answers is, “Who is Jesus?” John’s answer (John 20:31): “He is the Christ, the Son of God.” But John also wants us to know who we are and what we should do in light of who Jesus is. John clearly states his purpose for writing (John 20:30-31): “Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” To sum up:
The Gospel of John is a selective, reliable testimony that shows us who Jesus is, who we are, and how we must respond.
I’m going to divide this into John’s method and his message:
We’ve already seen this in John’s purpose statement for writing, where he acknowledges that Jesus performed many other signs which His disciples witnessed. John repeats this in the final verse of his gospel (John 21:25): “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written in detail, I suppose that even the world itself would not contain the books that would be written.” In other words, John did not intend to write a comprehensive biography of Jesus, but rather a selective account for the purpose of leading his readers to the personal faith in Jesus that brings eternal life.
John omits any mention of Jesus’ birth. He does not cover Jesus’ baptism, His temptation by Satan, the transfiguration, the Lord’s Supper, Jesus’ agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, or His ascension. Writing toward the end of the first century, John probably assumed that his readers had access to the other gospels, as well as to the Book of Acts. Here is a broad outline that we have followed, centered on the idea of “belief”:
1. John 1:1-18: Prologue: The Son of God, the object of belief: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).
2. John 1:19-12:50: Testimony for belief in the Son of God: “We have found the Messiah” (John 1:41).
A. John 1:19-4:54: Initial belief in the Son of God.
B. John 5:1-12:50: Subsequent unbelief in the Son of God.
3. John 13:1-17:26: The Son of God’s teaching for His followers, that they might believe: “Believe in Me” (John 14:1).
4. John 18:1-19:42: The tragedy of unbelief in the Son of God: “We have no king but Caesar” (John 19:15).
5. John 20:1-31: The triumph of belief in the Son of God: “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).
6. John 21:1-25: Epilogue: The consequence of belief in the Son of God: “Tend My sheep” (John 21:17).
Although as I will mention, John is symbolic, it is not a myth or fable. John emphasizes that he and the other disciples were eyewitnesses of the events that he reports. Other than having an a priori bias against miracles, there is no reason to doubt John’s testimony. Skeptics sometimes say, “If I saw a miracle, then I’d believe.” But that’s not true. John makes it clear that being present as a witness of some spectacular miracles does not automatically result in faith in Jesus. Those who saw the lame man whom Jesus healed did not believe in Jesus, but sought to kill Him (John 5:1-18). The religious leaders who talked with the man born blind, whom Jesus healed, did not believe in Jesus as a result (John 9). After Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, some reported it to the Jewish leaders. Instead of repenting and believing in Jesus, the leaders plotted how they could kill Him (John 11:46-53).
We’ll look in a moment at why otherwise rational people reject these factual accounts of Jesus’ miracles. But the point here is that John wasn’t making up fabulous stories. He was reporting what he and many other witnesses saw happen. These historically verifiable accounts testify to who Jesus is.
John is full of symbolic words and events that cause you to think about the deeper meaning of what he is saying. This does not negate the factuality of what John reports. Rather, John wants us to look beyond the words or events themselves to discern their true significance with relation to Jesus. John uses the word “signs” to refer to Jesus’ miracles: they point us to something deeper. Out of hundreds of miracles that he could have chosen, John picked seven signs, not counting Jesus’ resurrection and the miraculous post-resurrection catch of fish (John 21:1-14): (1) Changing the water into wine (John 2:1-11); (2) healing the nobleman’s son (John 4:46-54); (3) healing the lame man by the Pool of Bethesda (John 5:1-9); (4) feeding the 5,000 (John 6:1-14); (5) walking on the water (John 6:16-21); (6) healing the man born blind (John 9:1-12); and, (7) raising Lazarus from the dead (John 11:1-46).
In at least three of these miracles, their significance is obvious, because Jesus tells us. After He feeds the 5,000, Jesus proclaims (John 6:35), “I am the bread of life ….” Before opening the eyes of the man born blind, Jesus asserts (John 8:12), “I am the Light of the world ….” Before He raised Lazarus from the dead, Jesus told Martha (John 11:25), “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies.”
These are three of seven “I am” claims that Jesus makes in John. The others are, “I am the door of the sheep” (John 10:7); “I am the good shepherd” (John 10:11, 14); “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me” (John 14:6); and, “I am the true vine” (John 15:1, 5). Obviously, Jesus is not literally bread or a door or a vine. Rather, these symbols tell us something important about who Jesus truly is.
John uses many other words that are loaded with symbolic significance: “life” (e.g. John 1:4; 11:25; 14:6; 20:31); “the new birth” (John 3:3-7); “light” and “darkness” (e.g. John 1:4, 9, 3:19; 8:12; 12:46); “the world” (78 times, e.g. John 1:10; 3:16; 12:31; 14:30; 16:11; 17:15, 16); “witness” or “testify” (14 times as a noun, 33 times as a verb, e.g. John 1:7, 8, 15, 19, 32, 34; 3:26; 5:31-34, 36, 37, 39); “truth” (25 times, e.g. John 1:14, 17; 5:33; 8:31-32, 40, 45-46; 14:6); “sent” (33 times, e.g. John 4:34); and “hour” (e.g. John 7:30; 8:20; 12:23).
On one level, John is simple enough for a child to understand, yet on another level, John is so deep that you can study it all your life and never get to the bottom of its riches. Children can understand the simple message of John 3:16 so as to believe and be saved: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” And yet the theological concepts which that verse raises are deep enough for scholars to debate: Does God love everyone in the world equally? If so, why didn’t He devise a way of getting the gospel to everyone? What does it mean that Jesus is God’s “only begotten Son”? What does it mean to believe in Jesus? What does it mean to perish or to have eternal life? The same could be said of many texts in John that on one level are fairly simple, but on another level are deeply profound.
We have already seen that John’s purpose is that his readers may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, so that we may have life in His name (John 20:31). In other words, John didn’t write so that you could say, “How interesting!” and go on with your life as usual. He didn’t write so that scholars could write volumes debating his meaning or theology. He wrote so that everyone who reads his testimony about Jesus would personally believe, receive eternal life, and spend eternity in heaven, not in hell. So his purpose is the most serious purpose that you could imagine! Don’t leave John’s Gospel without applying it!
Thus, the Gospel of John is a selective, historical, symbolic, and purposeful testimony to the person and work of Jesus Christ.
There are three parts of this:
John opens with this essential truth (John 1:1): “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” He quickly adds that Jesus is the Creator of everything (John 1:3), “All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.” This means, of course, that contrary to the Arian (or Jehovah’s Witness) heresy, Jesus Himself could not be the first created being. Three lines of evidence establish the deity of Jesus: His words, His works, and the witness of others to Him.
*Jesus’ words show that He is God. He told Nicodemus that He had come down out of heaven and that whoever believes in Him has eternal life (John 3:13, 15). No mere man or created being could make such a claim. When the Jews accused Him of making Himself equal with God, Jesus didn’t correct them, but rather went on to make a string of claims that only God could make (John 5:18-29). He said that all will honor Him, even as they honor the Father (John 5:23). All who believe in Him have passed out of death into life (John 5:24). He claimed to have life within Himself and to be able to give it to whomever He wishes (John 5:21, 26). He claimed to have the authority to judge all people (John 5:22, 27). He claimed that someday He will speak the word and all who have died will come forth, either to eternal life or to judgment (John 5:28-29).
He also claimed (John 10:30), “I and the Father are one.” He said (John 14:9), “He who has seen Me has seen the Father.” Many other claims, such as to be the bread of life, the light of the world, and the resurrection and the life, are clear claims to deity.
*Jesus’ works reveal that He is God. As already mentioned, John selects seven signs (or miracles), plus Jesus’ resurrection and the miraculous catch of fish (John 21:1-14), to show that He is God. As Paul later contended (1 Cor. 15:1-19), if Jesus is not risen from the dead, the entire Christian faith is worthless. As I said, it’s not just the miracles themselves—other men of God performed some amazing miracles—but also the significance behind the miracles, that testify to Jesus’ deity. He not only fed the 5,000, but He also claimed to be the bread of life who gives eternal life to all who eat His flesh (John 6:35, 54). He not only opened the eyes of the man born blind, but He also claimed to be the light of the world (John 8:12; 9:1-41). He not only raised Lazarus from the dead, but He also claimed to be the resurrection and the life, able to give life to all who believe in Him (John 11:25).
*The witness of others to Jesus shows that He is God. It is remarkable that John, a Jewish monotheist, a man who knew Jesus intimately as a man during His three-year ministry, would begin his Gospel by affirming that Jesus is God! He also reports the witness of John the Baptist to Jesus as the Light (John 1:7-9; see, also, John 5:33-35). Nathaniel testifies (John 1:49), “Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel.” Peter confesses (John 6:69), “We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.” At the climax of John, the formerly doubting but now believing Thomas exclaims (John 20:28), “My Lord and my God!”
As John 1:14 declares, “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us….” Jesus often refers to Himself as “the Son of Man,” a phrase from Daniel 7:13-14 that emphasizes both His humanity and His deity (John 1:51; 3:13; 6:62). John shows that Jesus was weary (John 4:6), hungry (John 4:8, 31, 33), and thirsty (John 19:28). He had genuine human emotions (John 11:35; 12:27). And He was subject to death (John 19:30). As God in human flesh, Jesus is the only one who could bear our sins. Thus …
“Christ” refers to God’s Anointed One, the one promised in the Old Testament as the Son of David who would bear our sins and eventually reign over all the world (Psalms 2, 110; Isaiah 53). John the Baptist announces (John 1:29), “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” The jubilant Samaritans proclaim (John 4:42), “This One is indeed the Savior of the world.”
But why do we need a Savior? Why not just someone to be our moral example? John’s Gospel not only reveals who Jesus is, but also who we are:
The reason that the Jews needed a sacrificial lamb was to atone for their sins. Jesus is that lamb, not just for the Jews, but for the whole world. John begins by testifying, however, that the world did not know Jesus (John 1:10). Even His own Jewish people rejected Him (John 1:11). The reason is plainly stated (John 3:19-20), “This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.”
As I have often mentioned, “Savior” is a radical word. You don’t need a savior if you’re doing okay by yourself or if you just need a little help. You only need a savior if you’re helplessly lost and unable to do anything about your desperate condition. Nicodemus was a good religious man, “the teacher” in Israel. Yet Jesus told him (John 3:3), “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” In John 5:24, Jesus talks about those who believe in Him as having passed “out of death into life.” Those who are dead in sin cannot do anything to save themselves. They need a God-sent Savior, and Jesus is that Savior.
So John tells us that Jesus is God in human flesh, the Christ, the only Savior. He shows that we are sinners who love darkness rather than light; dead in our sins, needing new life from God.
John 3:16 does not say that God so loved the world that He saved everyone. Rather, it clearly limits salvation to those who believe in Jesus Christ. Those who do not believe will perish. John’s purpose in writing (John 20:31) is “so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” The verb “believe” occurs 11 times in Matthew, 14 times in Mark, 9 times in Luke, and 98 times in John. Clearly, John wants you to believe in Jesus so that you may have life in His name!
Such saving faith is not generic; it has specific content: You must believe the truth about Jesus: that He is the Christ, the Son of God, the Savior who died to pay the penalty for your sins. Saving faith also involves personal commitment to Jesus Christ. It’s not enough to believe intellectually (John 6:64, 66; 8:31-58). You must personally trust in Christ as your only hope for eternal life.
For example, you probably believe that airplanes can fly. You’ve seen them fly and you know that they’re very safe. But that sort of belief won’t get you anywhere. To get to a destination, you have to commit by getting on board. To get to heaven, you must commit your eternal destiny to Jesus. You trust in His shed blood to pay the penalty that your sins have incurred. You don’t trust in your good deeds or anything else, but only in Jesus Christ.
John shows that belief in Jesus Christ is both initial and ongoing (John 1:50; 2:11; 11:15; 14:1; 20:8, 27). Our faith in Him grows stronger as we abide in Him and obey His commandments (John 15:1-11). Just as knowing another person is a process, so knowing Christ requires time spent in His Word, learning to obey His commandments, and deepening your love for Him (John 14:21, 23). Growing in Christ is a lifelong process that begins when you trust in Him as your Savior and Lord.
This is obvious in the analogy of the vine and the branches, where Jesus says that we are to abide in Him and bear much fruit (John 15:2, 5, 8). It is also the point of John 21:15-17, where Jesus restores Peter by asking three times, “Do you love Me?” and by responding to Peter’s affirmation of love by commanding, “Tend My sheep.” Jesus didn’t save us to live for ourselves, but to glorify the Father by bearing much fruit.
John’s Gospel gives us the wonderful news that God loved us and sent His Son to die for our sins. But it also warns us that some who saw God’s Son, heard His teaching, and witnessed His miracles, still did not believe in Him. Some of Jesus’ disciples turned away from Him because they could not accept His hard sayings (John 6:66). Some of the Jews seemingly believed in Jesus, yet they were still of their father, the devil (John 8:31-58). Judas Iscariot, one of the twelve, was a devil who betrayed Jesus for thirty pieces of silver (John 6:70-71; 12:4-6; 13:21-30; 18:2-3). John gives us these negative examples so that we will not make the same eternally fatal mistake! John draws the line in the sand: Believe in Jesus Christ so that you will not perish, but have eternal life!
Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2015, All Rights Reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation