Clough John Lesson 41

Freedom and Sanctification – John 8:20-47

In John 8 we have the continuation of the violent confrontation between Jesus Christ and the authorities on the day of the Feast of Tabernacles, during that week. And remember, confrontation after confrontation proceeds and gradually becomes more and more violent, until the last verses that we will study today. I hope that some of you who have come out of a pietistic background will view this chapter as one area of being Christ-like. Christ called these people every name under the sun and He did it with the filling of the Holy Spirit, and the reason why is because these people rejected the authority of the Word of God and these kinds of people have to be dealt with severely and they were.

Now in this section we notice in John 8:30-31 that while this confrontation was going on, many hundreds of people were looking on, and they began to believe. And then Jesus turns to those who had believed on Him in verse 31 and he gives them a test, “If you continue in My word, then you are My disciples indeed.” But it turns out in the ensuing dialogue that they are nothing more than religious hecklers. And in verse 43 Jesus said you do not understand my speech, and you can’t hear My Word. [44] “You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do.” This was spoken to those who had believed. And He says, finally, in verse 46-47 that you do not believe. Verse 45, “you do not believe.”

So we have a little problem to deal with in this passage. How can it be that Jesus turns to the people who have apparently believed and He calls them Satan worshipers. What is going on, and I can tell from the feedback cards that we are due for a review of a very interesting point of doctrine. One of the feedback cards, a good question, but it just shows that we haven’t yet got the point across: Isn’t the present tense intensive in Ephesians 2:8, (this is where you have believed) stating that it’s by grace that we’re saved with the result that we continue to be saved by faith. Also in John 11:25-26 Jesus says that whoever believes in Him shall never die. So if your exegesis is correct in John 8, doesn’t this present a contradiction. If salvation depends on us, then how can we be saved. That was exactly what I didn’t say. It was precisely what I said, that salvation does not depend upon us and this precisely why Jesus gives the test that He does. The test isn’t my exegesis, I think it’s very clear from verse 31 what the test is. I have nothing to do with it, Jesus gave that test. He says, and I repeat: “If you continue in My Word, then you are My disciples indeed.” Now what He is simply saying is the doctrine of persevering.

The doctrine of persevering. This is a doctrine that is new by title to you but it shouldn’t be new in content to any of you. The doctrine of perseverance is nothing more than what you have previously learned under the label of eternal security, except that the doctrine of perseverance is a more complete form of that truth. Many of you have learned a little piece and you are unbalanced because you have just learned a little piece called eternal security. So I’m going to take time to once again trace the outline of this doctrine of perseverance. Many of you asked questions last week after I got through, and that’s okay, I encourage that. But I noticed from your questions that you thought, some of you, that I was denying eternal security. The same with the feedback card that I just got. Now that’s not the case at all; that’s precisely opposite to what I am saying; I am teaching the doctrine of eternal security but what is that which eternally secure but the one who genuinely believes.

So let’s look at the three points in the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. The first point, perseverance is the revelation of election and justification; perseverance is the historic revelation of election and perseverance. Now let me give you a picture of what we mean by that, a historic picture. The question would be who are the true Israelites; who are included in the election of Abraham and his seed. Now you know as well as I do, if you studied the Old Testament, that is not an easy question to answer and wasn’t answered for centuries. Why? Because it took Abraham having two sons, Ishmael and Isaac, and we had to find out which one is his real seed and it turned out that it was Isaac that was real; Ishmael doesn’t come under the election of Abraham. And then in the third generation you have Esau and Jacob and Esau doesn’t come under the election of Abraham, he’s only the physical seed, he’s not a spiritual seed of Abraham, only Jacob is a spiritual seed of Abraham.

So what have we noticed? We’ve noticed that the true seed will reveal itself by persevering faith. Now we’re not saying that Jacob is earning his salvation; we’re not saying that Isaac is holding on to his salvation. That’s not what we’re saying. Persevering doesn’t mean that as we’re using the word persevere. All it is is an external observation that yes indeed, Isaac showed a regenerate nature; Ishmael did not. Jacob showed a regenerate nature, Esau did not. And as you down through the corridors of time of the Old Testament you come down to Elijah’s time and in Elijah’s day in the northern kingdom there were thousands of people who did not worship Baal and God said Elijah, these are My people, they have not bowed the knee to Baal. And what was the sign that they were generally saved? That they did not bow the knee to Baal. And then in Jesus day, just before He began His ministry John the Baptist comes into Israel and he says, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” and the sign was will you or will you not submit to the ordinance of baptism. And if you were a true saved individual you would; if you were not a true saved individual you wouldn’t. So the baptism of John became a litmus paper, it became a test to find out whether or not we have an elect people here or whether we have the unregenerate people.

And so down through history Abraham’s seed revealed themselves by their response to the Word of God. Now that shouldn’t be a foreign truth because common sense tells you, if you’re in an evangelistic context and someone professes to become a Christian, you kind of sit back and wait to see what’s going to happen in their life. And then you make your judgment whether they became a Christian or not. That’s all you’re doing, you’re making use of this very truth; perseverance is the revelation of election and justification.

Now the Scripture, a Scripture, many Scriptures, but a Scripture for perseverance would be James 2:18 where it talks about Abraham being justified by works. James 2:18-23 and in that passage of Scripture it speaks of the offering of Isaac, the offering of Isaac was in Genesis 22 and the justification of Abraham was in Genesis 15, but yet in James it says by the offering of Isaac Abraham was justified. But it says it very carefully; it says the justification of Abraham was fulfilled. Now we know from the Old Testament text that Abraham was justified at least by Genesis 15, so then what’s James giving us all this stuff about he had to be justified by works back in Genesis 22 years later. Simply this, that God knew that James was justified in Genesis 15 but there was no true, as far as God was concerned, historic manifestation of Abraham’s faith. The great manifestation of Abraham’s faith was in chapter 22, the offering of Isaac, his son. So this again demonstrates this first truth that perseverance is the revelation of election and justification.

The second point to the doctrine; not only is perseverance a revelation of election and justification but perseverance therefore is the way to conclude someone is saved. Now every believer has the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit in his heart but unfortunately an external observer can’t see that. So you have to judge by the fruit, and that’s all that perseverance is saying; perseverance becomes a test, a picture. It’s very related to the first on except the first point is that it’s a revelation; the second point is the conclusions you can draw from it. Israel has persisted in history. Part of the election is that Israel would persist in history. And so for centuries Israel has persisted in history.

There was a man by the name of Nikolai Berdyaev who wrote the book, The Meaning of History, and here’s a man who looked upon the testimony of the nation Israel and said this, (quote): “I remember how the materialist interpretation of history, when I attempted in my youth to verify it by applying it to the destiny of people, broke down in the case of the Jews, where destiny seemed absolutely inexplicable from the materialist standpoint. And indeed, according to the materialist and positivist criterion, this people ought long ago to have perished. Its survival is a mysterious and wonderful phenomenon, demonstrating that the life of this people is governed by a special predetermination, transcending the process of adaptation expounded by the materialist interpretation of history. The survival of the Jews, their resistance to destruction, their endurance under absolutely peculiar conditions, and the faithful role played by them in history, all these point to the peculiar and mysterious foundation of their destiny.” (end quote). So an external observer, watching history says I noticed perseverance and I began to conclude certain things from that observed perseverance.

Now let’s look at a string of verses just to show you that John 8:31 is not an isolated verse. Notice again what it says, “”If you continue,” the original Greek verb, meno, it’s abide, same word abide in the vine concept, he says, “If you continue in My Word, then” not “you will be My disciples,” not “you will be,” but “you are My disciples,” notice that. See, this is the difference, one of you asked, doesn’t this mean that you’re saying that salvation depends on the individual. It would if there was a future tense to the verb in verse 31, if verse 31 said, “if you remain in My word you will become My disciples,” yes, you’d be right, that would mean that salvation is a product of human effort. But if you look carefully that is not what verse 31 says. What verse 31 says, “if you remain, you already are,” “if you remain you already are My disciples.”

Let’s look at another verse, John 15:6, A very famous, well-known passage, from the same author, same vocabulary. “I am the vine, you are the branches. He that abides in Me,” that word “abide” is the same verb translated continue, “if you continue in Me and I [continue] in him, the same brings forth much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” [6] If a man does not continue in Me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned,” obviously showing that the person who is not a Christian is going to someday be eliminated from the system. They will not stick with it.

Another verse, Colossians 1:21, it says in this epistle by a different author, Paul, “And you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled,” in other words, you are saved. [22] “In the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblamable and unreprovable in His sight, [23] “if you continue…” “if you continue in the faith, grounded and settles, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which you have heard….”

Hebrews 3:14, again these verses are not teaching that you’re going to desperately hold on with human effort to your salvation. That is not what they are teaching. They are teaching that the true faith will always exist, that’s what they’re teaching. So you look at Hebrews 3:14 and in the Greek the tenses are very specific. “For we have already become partakes of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.” It doesn’t say you’re going to become partakers of Christ if you “hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end,” but you already have become, time past; if it is true that your faith keeps on going, because that shows that it was true all along.

Hebrews 6:12, a statement again of perseverance, “That ye be not slothful,” or lazy, “but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” Obviously insinuating that those without faith and without patience don’t inherit the promises. Perseverance taught again.

Hebrews 10:39, same doctrine once more, taught a different way by a different author but it’s the same doctrine, “But we are not of them who draw back unto perdition, but we are of them that believe to the saving of the soul.” Now notice that; the unbeliever will eventually draw back and he’ll be repulsed by the Word of God but those who are genuinely saved will continue to believe unto the saving of the soul.

Finally, one other reference, 1 John 2:19, written by the author of John 8, “They went out from us,” who went out from us? The antichrists went out from us, “but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would not doubt have continued with us; but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.” Now what’s that saying? The very word “continue” in the middle of verse 19 is exactly the Greek verb meno, to abide. And all he’s saying, once again, for the tenth time in this series, “if they had been of us,” if they had been genuinely saved people, “they would have continued with us,” and “us” is the apostles, “us” is the Word of God, therefore. And if they were genuinely saved people they would continue in the Word. If they’re not genuinely saved they’re going to flake out.

Back to John 8, that’s exactly what Jesus Christ is saying, He is not arguing that salvation depends on perseverance; He is saying that perseverance is the result of genuine salvation, exactly the opposite. Said another way, to try to come at this from a different angle, all this doctrine of perseverance is saying is this: real saving work of the Holy Spirit has to show itself in space/time history. The genuine product has to show that it’s a genuine product. That’s all it’s saying, nothing harder than that. A genuine work of the Holy Spirit will show up as a genuine work of the Holy Spirit, it won’t be flakey, it’ll be genuine if God’s really at work. So we have two points in the doctrine of perseverance. (1) that perseverance is a revelation of the election and justification and (2) therefore it becomes a way to conclude that someone is saved, and finally, (3) perseverance results from present grace not past grace… present grace! And this is the major point of weakness of those of you who have just learned the doctrine of eternal security in its abbreviated form. Here’s a weakness that you have. The weakness is that you think of the plan of salvation as having a past, and as having a future. You think of the past, Jesus Christ has died for my sins; I have trusted in Jesus Christ, therefore I am born again. Fine. You think of the future, I’m going to die and I’ll receive a resurrection body. That is a point in time but the gap in your knowledge is what about the present. That’s missing from that picture.

So the doctrine of perseverance of perseverance says something about the present, as well as the past and as well as the future. And what does the doctrine of perseverance say about he present? It says that Jesus Christ keeps us saved in the present tense. Verse references, Romans 8:34, Hebrews 7:25. In Romans 8:34 Jesus Christ lives and He makes intercession for us in order that we stay saved. Hebrews 7:25 says He is able to save them to the uttermost that come to Him by His intercession. So the point is that in the present tense it does not depend upon our persevering, our persevering is the result of Christ’s persevering. The actual work is being done by our persevering high priest. And that’s why we persevere, because He perseveres, and if He didn’t persevere we wouldn’t persevere. If Christ stopped making intercession for you and for me we’d go to hell. That’s the point of the plan. Now obviously you can’t fracture God’s plan so a decree in the past that He is going to justify us is going to be carried out perfectly by our persevering high priest and so there’s not a danger of Him stopping to pray for us.

But the point is, that you have got to see that every moment of every day requires effort for you stay saved, not your effort but Christ’s effort. And when you sit and pray and you can’t think of anything to thank God for, you just thank God for the Son for just maintaining His prayer life for you for the last 24 hours because all of us, with our sweet little depraved natures cranking out sin all the time in history, would have absolutely not standing before God apart from this persevering work of Jesus Christ. This is a sign that Jesus Christ loves you. He keeps at it, keeps at it, keeps at it, keeps at it, keeps at it, keeps at it, day after day after day after day after day, that’s the present tense in Romans 8:34. Jesus Christ ever lives and He continues, continues, continues, continues, continues, to make intercession for you personally. That is the doctrine of perseverance.

Now Jesus Christ is simply arguing in this passage in John 8 that if you folks really believe you’ll continue in My Word. If you do, that will show you have really believed and obviously they don’t continue more than five minutes with the Word of God. For the kind of vigorous follow up that Jesus Christ pressed upon those who were supposed converts to the faith, they flake out. They flake out within a matter of minutes of their professed faith in Him.

So beginning in John 8:48 we have the conversation resumed, and is it a conversation. “Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil?

[49] Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honor my Father, and ye do dishonor Me. [50] And I seek not Mine own glory: there is one that seeks and judges. [51] Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep My saying, he shall never see death. [52] Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou say, If a man keep My saying, he shall never taste of death. [53] Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom do you make yourself to be?

So one would say that being Christ-like in this situation involves a little vigorous conversation. Let’s look at this vigorous conversation. First in verse 48, “Do you not say that you are a Samaritan and have a devil?” Now you notice that Jesus doesn’t reply to the accusation, “you are a Samaritan.” All He says is “I have not a devil,” in verse 49. Now the strange thing is, how come He doesn’t reply to both accusations, He only replies to one of the accusations. And the answer was suggested a long time ago by Dr. Alfred Edersheim, a Hebrew Christian studying at Oxford University who wrote the magnificent work, “The Life and Times of the Messiah.” And in this work he devised an argument based on Jewish tradition, to show that in fact what they were saying is that the words “Samaritan” comes out of a Hebrew thing that looks like this, Shomron, from which we get the word Samaria. That’s what it looks like in the Hebrew, Shomron. Now it turns out that at this time in Jewish history that Shomroni was the name for the head demon of the earth, and so what they have just said is that you are Shomroni, you have a demon. You are not only one who has a demon, you are the arch demon. That’s who they’re saying Jesus Christ is.

At this point let’s review a few things about demon power. The Jews were not wrong in their belief of demons; a few modern people and maybe some of you are wrong when you demean this subject. Turn to Ephesians 2 people show their ignorance in their attitude toward this subject. In Ephesians 2:1-3 we have one of the key passages in the New Testament that outlines the tremendous power of the demonic forces, the powers of darkness. Paul says in verse 2, “Wherein in times past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience.” Now “you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air,” now there’s a hierarchy here. Satan, and under him “the power of the air,” and it’s “the power of the air,” not Satan, who is the spirit that works in the children of disobedience.

Now obviously Satan works but he works through a command structure, a hierarchy, and this verse is arguing that the entire social life of mankind is under demonic control. This isn’t going to be removed until Christ returns. If we had a special magic pair of glasses we could put them on and see demons all through this room, probably scare the life out of most of us and for that reason God does not permit us to look into the unseen realm. But demonic powers are all over the place and they are regularly involved in sowing dissension among Christians, they are regularly involved in working their way into distortions of theology and doctrine and so on. They are regularly involved in blinding people. Demonic forces have a tremendous power and they’re very much alive.

To show you some verse that show how far demon powers can influence believers we will look at some verses. Turn to Matthew 16:23; this is not to scare people, this is simply to show you realistically how open we are all to demonic influence. The only power that you have against demon forces is your trust in the Word of God, your submission to the Word of God, nothing else, no psychiatry, no shock treatments, no chemo therapy or anything else is going to solve the problem. It’s only submission to the Word of God that solves this particular area of evil. After Peter has just gotten through confessing the Messiahship of Jesus he begins Christ going to the cross. That’s verse 22, and you’ll notice he says, Lord, far be it that You should go to the cross and die. And Jesus Christ turns around to a known believer, a man who is regenerated, a man who is positionally in the kingdom of light, and what does He say to him? “Get they behind me, Satan. You are an offense unto Me;” and he’s looking at Peter. Now that does not argue that Satan at that moment was somehow present in Peter, present enough in Peter for Jesus to rebuke Satan directly through Peter? Obviously it does, and it obviously argues that satanic forces can be this involved with believers.

Turn to another key passage, Acts 5:3; in Acts 5:3 you have an expression used, and you’re familiar with it mostly from Ephesians 5:18, “Be filled with the Holy Spirit,” but in Acts 5:3 you’ve got two believers, Ananias and his wife and Ananias has his heart filled by Satan. Notice what it says, “But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit.” There’s no cheating, that word “fill” is the same word “fill” used in Ephesians 5:18 for the internal working of the Holy Spirit. And obviously this verse is teaching the internal working of Satan in a believer’s life. And notice from both of these events, both Peter and Ananias, in both cases the problem is not a moral sin. The problem is NOT a moral sin; the problem looks very innocent; the average person would walk right by, well I think that’s very good of Peter to say, he just loves the Lord, he just wants to protect the Lord from the cross, he doesn’t want the Lord to die. And Jesus doesn’t have that at all, he says you’re a liar, that’s satanic. And here this man just kind of cheated a little bit, he had approbation lust and he wanted to give a big contribution to the collection plate and he wanted everybody to see it; the only thing was, the check wasn’t quite as big as it appeared to be to everybody that was looking on when he was giving it. So what Peter argues in this case, even though it’s not a moral thing, it’s just a matter of personal stewardship of your Christian resources, he said Satan’s controlled you Ananias; Satan has filled you.

Let’s look at another passage of Scripture. 1 Corinthians 5:5, all these verses are intended to do is not to produce morbid introspection where we go around looking for demonic influence. What we’re looking for is to show you that you don’t stand with God apart from His grace. If this has any effect on your soul it should be to drive you further to trust the Lord’s sustaining grace. In 1 Corinthians 5:5, Paul dealing again with a believer, not an unbeliever, a believer who has persistently violated the apostle’s authority, not that this guy fornicated and that was so bad, that wouldn’t have been so bad, he could have confessed it, moved on and straightened out his life. But he kept on this after rebuke and so therefore they couldn’t do anything else but excommunicate him. And when they excommunicate them they use this language. “To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh that the Spirit might be saved.” And the word “deliver” means put under the power of. And the apostles had a very interesting technique they used on wiseacre believers that couldn’t get with the system. They just turned them over to the authority of Satan and let Satan take care of them for a while. And this man changed his mind and trusted the Lord and 2 Corinthians is written to back off this sentence because he did come around.

2 Corinthians 11:4, again we’re not dealing with unbelievers, we’re dealing with Christians, a warning given to Christians, a warning to be careful. “If he that comes preach another Jesus whom we have not preached,” that is a distortion in the area of Christology, “of if you receive another spirit which you have not received,” now you just look at that one and you think of the charismatic movement, these people getting slain by the Spirit and the Holy Spirit raised my knee two inches and added on a half inch to my right leg and all the rest, and I stood there and I was slain by the spirit and knocked on the floor and I received this great spirit of love, blah, blah, blah, blah.

2 Corinthians 11 says if you receive another spirit which you have not received, that is, you received the Holy Spirit, you don’t need another spirit, so you be careful of that little pitch that you need an extra spirit. And obviously Paul wouldn’t be warning us against something that would never happen. Obviously the first one happened many times in church history, people coming to your door preaching a different Jesus than the one you believe in. Any person from some of these cults, they always believe in an Arian Jesus, that is a Jesus who does not have a proper divine nature. They always believe in a man or an angel who somehow is deified, but they never believe in the hypostatic union, undiminished deity, true humanity united in one person without confusion forever. That is not part of their Christology, so that’s another Jesus, and here is another spirit, and then there’s another gospel. Well, obviously if we agree that the Jesus is real and the gospel is real, continuity tells you that you’ve got to agree that this other spirit is real too.

One other passage, 2 Corinthians 12:7, this is really a lulu, some of you who do not respect the influence of demon powers on believers ought to faint when you read this one. “Lest I should be exalted,” this is Paul speaking, “Lest I should be exalted through the abundance of the revelation, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh,” (comma), “an angel of Satan to buffet me.” Now what was Paul’s thorn in the flesh? It was a demon power indwelling his body, that’s what it was, causing a certain peculiar physical characteristic or a weakness in him that would always remind him of the grace of God. Paul had to be chastened… God assigned one demon to Paul and every where Paul went the demon went the demon went and the reason for this was that Paul just had a tendency in his area of weakness to become a fathead, and so therefore God had to have some demon power around to suck off some of the fat, and he regularly did this, and Paul says he beseeched the Lord three times, in verse 8, that He’d get rid of this demon force that was acting on his physical body, and God said no, you’ve just got the kind of makeup Paul that you’ll never learn this unless you get chastened. So you’re going to have this demon power the rest of your life.

Now don’t take this to mean that every Christian has to have a demon power chasing him around. The reason that Paul had this problem was in the context in verses 1-4 he had such a vision that no man ever had, other than maybe Moses and maybe the Apostle John. But some day when Paul was being stoned or something, either he died, he doesn’t know whether he died or not, but he was caught up into heaven, verses 2-3, and because this actually happened to Paul, and he came back, the tendency was in his own soul to magnify this over other believers. So he had to have a demon deflater stuck to him for the rest of his life because of this thing. I hope these verses will show you the extent to which the Bible warns us about demonic influence upon the lives of believers. Don’t think you’re free.

John 8:49, here’s how Jesus answered, “Jesus answered,” He said, “I have not a demon; but” and He uses alla, which is the Greek conjunction of contrast which means that the last part of verse 49 is the opposite of the first part of verse 49 which means we now can explain what Jesus means, how He denies that He has a demon, what empirical evidence does Jesus offer His accusers that in fact He does not have a demonic power. The obvious evidence goes back to the fundamental reason of all history which is to glorify God. That beautiful confession of the Christian faith that the Presbyterians developed centuries ago: Man’s purpose on earth is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Excellent statement of the purpose of history! And so what Jesus said here, I don’t have a demon, alla, “I honor my Father,” and if I had a demon I wouldn’t be honoring the Father. How do you honor the Father? By showing forth the attributes of God in the life. Jesus Christ constantly showed the Father’s nature by how He lived, and therefore He argued, this is empirical evidence that I do not have a demon power; I honor My Father, “but you dishonor Me.”

And notice now He moves from the defense to the offense; He doesn’t allow Himself to be pinned down in a defense position, He begins to attack them. I know some of you, when you get into apologetics, you don’t like to attack the unbeliever because you’ve always been brought up to believe that it’s not Christ-like to attack the other side. Listen, what have you get here, Jesus attacking; look what’s going to happen in this passage. He’s already called them… their father is the devil, now watch what He’s going to do.

John 8:50, “I do not seek” He says in verse 50, “My own glory:” and then He adds this little cryptic phrase, “but one is seeking and one is judging.” Now here’s John’s irony again in reporting this; here’s how it looks in the original language: There is one seeking and judging. And he doesn’t explain it at all. He just says there is one seeking and judging. Now this is one of those beautiful little phrases that John is filled with that can be taken four or five different ways and they’re all true. Now it’s true that one is seeking and judging in the sense that the mob is seeking and judging; they’re seeking to trap Christ because they’re judging Him, they want Him judged. There is one that seeking and judging; you could argue that Satan is seeking and judging. But Jesus means more than just that, He’s referring too to His Father; His Father is seeking and judging, and who is God the Father seeking but those who will respond to His Son; that’s who the Father is seeking. He looks through the land, He looks through that temple courtyard, on that day when thousands of people are gathered together and Christ screams out the word across the mob. And God looks, who is responding to My Son, I am seeking those who respond to My Son. And Jesus says the Father is judging.

A theme in the Gospel of John is judgment in the present tense, not the future. What is this judgment in the present tense? It means that those people who reject the Word of God go into darkness; at the point of their rejection of the Word they become spiritual cripples; they have an opportunity to hear and if they don’t take advantage of that opportunity to hear then they are cast away. That judgment is explained in John 3 and we explained that when were in John 3, about 16-22, the present judging work. But the irony is that all of these seekings and all of these judgings are going to come together. The mob seeks in order to judge; Satan seeks in order to judge; the Father seeks in order to judge, and so Jesus seeks, and it all comes together at the cross because the mob in seeking to judge brings Christ to crucifixion. And at the crucifixion that’s where the Father maximizes His search and maximizes His judgment. So again these many simple statements have many, many complex meanings, all true. This is not allegory, this is all true.

Now John 8:51, having said that Jesus then moves to a very important statement, third class “if,” “Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep My saying, he shall never see death.” Now be careful and watch how John reports the mob in their response to this one. All through this there are these subtle indicators and if you’ve been a Christian for any length of time and you’ve grown in the Word, you will have this experience happen to you; you will be in a group of people and they’ll profess to be saved people. And you listen to them and their conversation about anything, it could be anything, but you notice as you begin to talk with them there’s no sensitivity to doctrine in their conversation. And you mention something about relating a particular thing that happened, say in the news, to a point of prophecy and they’re just kind of uh-huh, and go on talking about the weather or something. In other words, there’s just a failure to perceive. John the Apostle picks this up and this is why in these little quick dialogues that he has in his Gospel he’s watching these people, they’re not sharp, they don’t catch things. And I want you to catch this when this mob replies to what Jesus said. Watch what they don’t catch.

It sounds very simple, “If a man keep My saying, He’s never going to see death.” And in the Greek it’s very strong, he’s never, never going to see death. Now in the New Testament when a Christian, in fact, dies, that’s not called death, it’s called sleep; death has been softened for the Christian. One of your greatest things, if you’re here tonight and you’ve personally trusted in Christ you do not have to fear death. People get all bent out of shape about death; you don’t have to fear death, you can be relaxed in the face of death. [?] doesn’t go into a panic because he was dying of cancer, he was relaxed in the face of cancer. Why? Because he knew the Word and God used his trust to lead many men in the VA hospital in Houston to Christ through him. This is new to the doctors, you know the doctors have grown up in a generation now where everybody that’s going to die goes into a tizzy about it and so the doctor no longer tells the patient, hey, you’ve got cancer, you’re going to drop dead in three weeks. Should we tell him, do you think we should break the news… of course you should, not to tell a person he is dying is one of the most cruel jokes you could ever pull off on someone because you are robbing that person of preparation for death. You are being a sneak not to tell someone who’s dying and I hope there’s no one here in this congregation that will do that to your loved one. That is not the Christian thing to do; you speak the truth in love and that is not speaking the truth in love. A person wants it straight and don’t think you’re going to fool them because a person who is dying is eventually going to figure it out anyway and when they figure it out that you haven’t told them, you’ve just severed some vital communication links with that person, they’ll never trust you again. So be careful about getting around people who are dying; you just give it to them straight; give it to them gently, give it to them meekly in the framework of the Word of God, but you don’t be afraid of sharing that truth with them. That has got to come out and if the person falls apart then let’s pick up the pieces and work with them spiritually so they can handle the thing but don’t use deception and fraud and lying. That is very immoral and the medical practice is full of it. Nurses are full of it, doctors are full of it. Hospital administrators are full of it. If I was a doctor I’d probably have the same attitude after a while, meet 5,000 people and they all fall apart, it’s not a very pleasant thing so I can understand the medical profession. But if you’re in the situation you go to that person in charge, the doctor, the nurse in charge, say you want some straight scoop and we’re equipped to take it, we believe the Word of God around here and we’re not going to take this fuzzy-minded slop that’s handed out when someone is dying; we want to know the truth, our Lord is bigger than the truth and we don’t need to pussyfoot around, He can take care of the situation. Now that’s what you have to say and sometimes you have to carry on an argument before you can get the truth but you go ahead and do it; it’s very vital that this kind of thing happen.

So Jesus Christ says this business about death, He says you’re never going to see death. Now obviously what Jesus Christ is talking about is death in its final form of separation from God for all eternity. That’s what Christ is talking about and these clods that profess to be Christian converts came forward at the great crusade in the middle of the temple, raised their hand and Jesus raised His hand too, and He showed their hand. Look at John 8:52, “Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and You say, If a man keep My saying, he shall…” never see death? Huh-un, “never taste of death.” Why is there that significant change between verse 51 and verse 52? Because the word “taste death” is an idiom, it’s a collective idiom, popular expression in the day for physical death. Jesus was more cryptic, when He said “you’ll never see death,” He was very sneaky in the way He used the word death. You could take that two or three ways and this unregenerate group, this mob of hecklers that are after our Lord at this point cannot distinguish between these fine points, and so…oh, well, You said he couldn’t die. No, He didn’t say that. He said death, in its ultimate form. So again they miss the boat completely because they’re unregenerate people or if some of them are believers mixed in, scattered among the crowd, they just haven’t grown too far.

John 8:53, “Art You greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? and the prophets who are dead: who do you think you are? [54] Jesus answered, If I honor Myself, My honor is nothing: it is My Father that honors Me; of whom ye say, that he is your God.” Now this is again a cryptic statement by John, full of irony. See that phrase, it’s present tense, it is the Father who is right now honoring Me. Honoring? Honoring Christ now? Yes, present tense, right now. Well how is the Father honoring Christ in the middle of this donnybrook they’re having in the middle of the temple? How’s that honoring the Father, or how is the Father honoring the Son? Well you remember how this whole scene was set up? Remember what’s been emphasized about every fifth verse? Fear, fear that somebody is going to kill Jesus Christ here, there’s a tremendous hushed fear in that crowd. Where are the police? Are they going to arrest Him? Is someone going to kill Him? And Christ Himself mentions this. At least three times in this speech He says you’re about to kill Me, I know, I know you’re about to kill Me.

Now the Father honors the Son in this passage by preserving His life and in the middle of the threats and the middle of this tremendous hatred for Jesus Christ, the Father is faithful to His Son; He will not permit a person in that crowd to pick up a rock and you look at the end, how this is going to end, “They took up stones to cast at Him; but Jesus hid Himself, and went out of the temple,” the rest of it isn’t in the original. He just walked out. How did Jesus ever physically get out? And don’t think this is a defitic disappearance, where Jesus just went boing into the invisible realm or something. Like Mr. invisible man or something that’s on TV and you see these pair of shoes walking out of the room. That wasn’t how Jesus got out of here. It was rather the situation that these people were there physically, Christ may have turned and looked at them and He walked right through them, get out of My way, I’m getting out of here.

Now who restrained the crowd? This crowd was filled with a group of demon possessed demon controlled people who were bent on the destruction of Jesus Christ. The Father honored the Son. And then to even make matters in more contrast, notice what Jesus says, He apologetic strategy of divide, not unify, divide. He says I want to put a distance between the black and the white; we want to erase the gray. So He says, the Father “of whom you say, that He is your God.” In other words Jesus polarized the two pictures. He said you people stand here and I stand here; He did not go along and say well now folks, you know, we both have common ground, we both accept the existence of God and we both talk about the Torah and let’s get together. Not at all. Jesus said you worship a different God than I worship; your law’s a different law. We differ on every point. Your truth isn’t even My truth, there is no common ground between us. Now how’s that for an apologetic evangelistic winsome approach. But that’s the way the Lord works. There comes a time when to be Christ-like we have to show the humanists, the Arians, the apostates that He is a humanist Arian and apostate and he does not share the orthodox faith. There is a time and a place when after you have sought to link communications with somebody and they have rejected the authority of the Word that you have to come right out and say you different God and a different set of truths under a different system and our systems don’t even touch at any point. You have to show this great diversion. This is being Christ-like.

In John 8:55 look what he says to even make matters worse, you say that He’s your God, “Yet you have never known Him;” perfect tense, never in a time in the past with results that continue down to this present moment, you people have never known Him, “but I know Him: and if I should say, and if I should say I don’t know Him, I’d be a liar like you are, [I know Him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know Him, and keep His saying.]” that’s being Christ-like. Now look what He’s doing to this people, I hope this pricks some balloons in some of you, some of your preconceived notions of what the Lord was like, nice sweet little man, walking around Palestine picking up little lambs; that’s the picture you’ve got from this ridiculous Sunday school literature that half the denominations crank out. A bunch of pansies back home draw those pictures, they don’t study the Word. They have this little fruity concept of what Jesus is, and don’t you think this doesn’t rub off because the non-Christian… when I was a non-Christian I used to laugh at Christians and the reason I did is because their Christ looked so emaciated and puny, fairy, little fairy Jesus. And that’s exactly the image that Christian literature portrays our Lord. He was no fairy, look at this. He calls these people liars, He says if I didn’t know God I’d be a liar like your, and He looked them right in the eye and said it.

Now that doesn’t mean that everyone of us is called to that kind of approach all the time. But it does mean, because John is writing this for a model, this isn’t just an evangelistic document, the Gospel of John, this was written close to 90 AD, close to the death of John and it was written to give the Church a model of what being Christ-like was. And remember that martyrs would die under very similar situations and these men who were about to die in the Roman Empire could look back and read that 8^th chapter of John and they’d say yes, I remember when Jesus Christ was faced with a mob and they were ready to kill Him, Christ went on witnessing, in the face of mob pressure and that’s what we’re going to do. And if that mob picks up those rocks and they kill us or as the Romans later did to Christians, tie them to lamp posts and burn them, if they do that to us then so be it, glory to God, but we are going to teach the Word of God, period.

This is the model of what being Christ-like was and that’s why this chapter is recorded, for us, and not just for the first century. It’s recorded to vivify in our minds the model of what Christ was when He was doing His job in the face of mob pressure. We hope we never have to face this kind of thing, and probably most of us would say I couldn’t do that. Well, if you were walking with the Lord you’d find the strength when the time came that you could do it too. Lesser people, far lesser people than most of you people here have had to do this in history in the past. If you don’t believe me pick up the book, Fox’s Book of Martyrs and just read a couple of chapters, it’s a nice good devotional book for some of you. And you read how early Christians had to face it on down through history. When the time comes we will be able to do it too.

All right, John 8:56, “Your father Abraham” now here’s where the conversation is just minutes from a close and a very violent close, because Christ, as He finally sees these people reject and reject and reject, instead of compromising He turns on the heat and turns on the heat and makes more dogmatic claims. They didn’t like the little claims, then Christ is going to drop some bigger ones in their lap, “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day: and he saw it, and was glad.” How’s that for a claim to angry Jews who have rocks in their hands.

Now what is this business about Abraham? And notice, by the way, the mob is going to get this one all screwed up, like they did the first one. Here’s Abraham, Jesus says what Abraham was projected ahead in time, Abraham lived about 2,000 BC, and Abraham looked ahead and saw My day. And that word “My day” includes not just the ministry of Christ on earth but it includes the Messianic kingdom. The Jews at this time had a tradition. The tradition had four opinions. We don’t care about which opinion is right or they may all be wrong, we don’t care but I’ll just recite the four different rabbinic teachings about how Abraham saw Jesus.

One rabbinic tradition says in Genesis 12:3 when God spoke, “and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed,” God opened heaven up and He showed the families of history to Abraham. And Abraham visually saw all the families of the earth being blessed through his seed. That’s one theory. Another one says that in Genesis 15:6 when Abraham was put to sleep, as God went between the halves of the bullock, that during that deep sleep God told Abraham all of history. Another theory says that in Genesis 17:17 when Isaac, when his wife and he were laughing in unbelief, it wasn’t laughing in unbelief at all, it was simply laughing for joy at this future Messiah that we’re borne through. We would argue with that one, obviously, exegetically, and there’s another one, Genesis 24:1 where it says Abraham died but in the Hebrew it says Abraham went into the day, and rabbis taught that that was when he saw this.

But we don’t care when he saw it, we just have to know that in Jesus’ time it was current information, that Abraham saw the Messiah, and when Jesus says this in verse 56, that is a clear declaration of His Messiahship. So that wasn’t enough, and the Jews said, Huh, you’re not fifty years old, and this is typical Jewish humor, the way it comes across in the Greek it says: “fifty years you don’t have, and Abraham you’ve seen.” [“Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?” Well, the point here is that they have mixed it up. What did Jesus say? He didn’t say anything about Him seeing Abraham, did He? He said, “Abraham saw My day,” not I have seen him, Abraham saw Me. So see, they can’t even get that straight, a very spiritually out of it group of people.

So in effect what Jesus says in John 8:58, well now that you’ve brought up the subject, let me really lay one on you. [“Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.”] And this is the most astounding statement, I think, in the New Testament. If you ever have any doubts that Jesus ever claimed to be God, just remember one verse in all the Bible, this is it, this is THE verse to prove the deity of Christ. There are two verbs to be in the Greek, ginomai and eimi. The first one means come into historic existence; the second one means to exist. And Jesus uses these two verbs in this verse. He says, “Before Abraham ginomai,” “Before Abraham came into existence in history, I AM.” And the word “I AM” of course is the name of Jehovah in the Old Testament. That’s what God told Moses at the burning bush, and the burning bush, and Moses wasn’t talking about this himself, I understood this is what Burt Lancaster does in this movie Moses, this is a good humanist interpretation of Revelation, Moses wasn’t talking and projecting his voice out of the bush. God was speaking from the bush, and it’s a case of real revelation when God says tell them, Moses, that My name is “I AM.” And as we’ve studied it on numerous occasions, what God was saying is I am the One who is with you.

All right, what is Jesus saying in verse 58? “Before Abraham came to be I existed in history and was there.” Now some modern people still can’t get the message out of verse 58, they still want to angle around and say Jesus never claimed to be God, but the final proof of the fact that we’re right and we’re not just interpreting this is verse 59. The people who were there, give them credit for one thing, they finally got this one right; that’s why they were picking up rocks. So it is not our fundamentalist interpretation of Scripture. It is the Jewish traditional interpretation of Scripture that to make such a claim was blasphemy. And this is why rocks were picked up. Now John is going to conclude this, again with his tantalizing and very cryptic way that he has of moving us from one scene to the other.

[59, “Then took they up stones to cast at Him: but Jesus hid Himself, and went out of the temple…”] And what does he say, and what does he do? He has Jesus turn, as they pick up the rocks. Remember, they’re in the process of picking up the rocks. It says “Jesus hid Himself, the idea is He moved from sight, He got down from where He was teaching, He walked down through the crowd and He went out of the temple. But John doesn’t leave it there. Remember John arranges his incidents to tell a story. These literally happened, John isn’t making up the story, but thinking back as an old man, he says you know that day that they almost stoned Jesus, a funny thing happened. After they picked up those stones and after he got down from the temple and walked down from the temple, I remember what He did. He went outside of the temple, He left those people in the temple and He went out of the temple. The great “I AM” left His own temple when the people were about to kill Him and where did the great “I AM” go? He went to people who were blind, outside His temple, and He healed them.

See what a tremendous picture of the gospel, that Jesus Christ is going to die shortly as a result of that same violence that you see now brooding inside the temple. He’s going to leave Jerusalem and He’s going to the world of darkness to win men to the light, because He’s the light of the world. And so significantly that old apostle John remembers the first thing that happens the day He left the temple is He came to a blind man; a blind man whose blindness we are going to study next week.