Christ-like Confrontation; John 8:21-30
Starting in chapter five through
the end of chapter twelve we have a series of head-on confrontations between
Jesus and the Pharisees. There is one confrontation after another and what we
are seeing is a court room scenario. On one hand there is the prosecutor and on
the other hand there is the defence. The prosecutor is the Lord Jesus Christ
representing the kingdom of God
and He is bringing a charge against the human race represented by the
Pharisees. The Pharisees are the defence attorneys in a sense. So there is this
clash as the prosecutor is laying out His evidence for who
He is and what God is doing in human history, and in opposition we have the
Pharisees. It is a very antagonistic and controversial situation.
All the events of chapter
seven took place during the feast of tabernacles. Then there was the interlude
after the end of the feast when we saw the episode of the woman taken in
adultery which, as we have seen, fits dynamically within the development
because it uses various terms related to the courtroom scenario and it brings
to focus the fact that the Pharisees don’t care anything about the law, which
is just what Jesus had accused them of at the end of chapter seven. What Jesus
is saying is that even though the Pharisees are religious, have memorised the
Old Testament and know it backwards and forwards, are involved in all sorts of
ritual day in and day out, go to the temple and pray three times a day, but
they don’t know God at all. He is saying that they are negative to God. Just
because someone is involved in religious activity does not mean that they are positive
toward God. In fact, one of the clear evidences of negative volition to God is
positive volition toward religiosity and religious activity and all the ritual that
goes with it, because that is where the emphasis is. It is a rejection of
teaching in favour of ritual and experience.
Jesus is confronting the
Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Sanhedrin which makes up the governing body of Israel, and these are used as representatives of the leaders
of the nation. Now some people have said that perhaps as many as 30 or 40 per
cent of Jews at the time of the incarnation accepted Jesus Christ as Saviour.
We don’t know how they make that claim. We know from passages that “many
believed on His name,” so we know that many are truly saved. But the majority
do not and the leadership does not, and because the majority reject Christ and
because the leaders reject Christ, this gospel also stands as an indictment the
nation Israel for their rejection of the Messiah. And John is marshalling
all of this evidence to show that there was more than enough evidence to
demonstrate that Jesus was who he claimed to be, that He was the Messiah, that
He fulfilled all the Old Testament prophecies, and that He was qualified to go
to the cross to die as our substitute. There is more than enough evidence but
in spite of it He is rejected.
John 8:19 NASB “So they were saying to Him, “Where
is Your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither Me
nor My Father; if you knew Me, you would know My Father also.” The Pharisees
don’t have a clue as to what or who Jesus is talking about, they are in
complete darkness. John is making us aware of the fact that there are two
realms of activity here, light and darkness. There’s no middle ground.
John 8:21 NASB “Then He said again to them, ‘I
go away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your
sin; where I am going, you cannot come’.” The subject here now is going to be
the second death. Jesus is going to explain to them the issues related to
eternal condemnation and to His own plan and purposes. This verse takes us back
to verse 14. He keeps on going back and unpacking what he has already said and
giving us a little more information. Back in v. 14 Jesus said: “I know where I came
from and I know where I am going, but you don’t.” Now He is says: “where I am
going, you cannot come.”
When Jesus says “and will
die in your sin” we have to understand this whole context. The unbeliever has a
sin nature. On the cross Jesus is going to pay the price for every single sin
so that sin is no longer the issue. But because the unbeliever does not accept
the payment of Jesus Christ on the cross the problem of the sin nature (and
that is the thrust of “sin” in the singular here) they cannot go to heaven. So
Jesus is saying if you don’t accept the penalty then you are going to die in
your sin. He is not saying they are going to be judged eternally for their
sins. At the cross he paid the penalty for all sins so that the only issue left
over is human good, but the unbeliever because of the sin nature is in bondage
to that sin nature he is a slave to sin. That is what Paul teaches in Romans
chapter six. This is exactly where Jesus is going. Down in verse 31, 32 Jesus
is going to start teaching the disciples a few basic principles, and He makes
the statement: “So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you
continue in My word, {then} you are truly disciples of
Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you
free.” When we read this we have to ask what kind of freedom Jesus is talking
about. He is talking about spiritual freedom. In v. 34 Jesus explains: “Jesus
answered them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone
who commits sin is the slave of sin’.” That is a present active participle of poieo [poiew] which means to continually practice sin, and that
represents the person who has a sin nature, is not a believer, and is in
complete bondage to that sin nature. When we trust Christ as our Saviour we
still have a sin nature but we are going to be set free from the power of the
sin nature.
When Jesus says “I go
away, and you will seek Me,” He is talking about two
things. “I go away,” # 1, I am going to go to the cross, and # 2, I am going to
ascend to heaven. They are going to look for Him and are not going to know
where to find Him in their antagonism to Him. And Jesus say,
“and you shall die in your sin.” You are going to die in bondage here because
you never trusted Me as your Saviour. Your whole life
is going to be in bondage from the sin nature, you are never going to be free
from the sin nature, never have salvation, so you are going to die in the sin
nature. In terms of the second death, at the great white throne judgment which takes
place at the end of the Millennium all unbelievers are brought before God. The
books are taken out: the book of life and the book of works. This is not the
book of sins. Why? All sins were paid for at the cross. They are not penalised
in eternity because of their sins, they are penalised because when all of their
works are added up they still equal –R. So because they do not have +R
which is required to have eternal fellowship with God they are sent to the lake
of fire. That is what Jesus means when He says, “You will die in your sin.”
They were never freed from the sin nature and that death he is talking about is
the second death.
John 8:22 NASB So the Jews were saying, “Surely He
will not kill Himself, will He, since He says, ‘Where I am going, you cannot
come’?” It is an interesting way they put this in the Greek. They ask it in
terms of a negative question: He will not kill Himself, will He? The negative
in the Greek is a me [mh], which means they expect a negative answer. And they
are hinting: Why don’t you go kill yourself? There is a subtle innuendo here:
If you are going to go somewhere, why don’t you just take yourself out of the
picture? So there are really in heresy, in absolute darkness, are very sarcastic
in this whole interchange. Then Jesus is going to illustrate the point of light
versus darkness even more.
John 8:23 NASB “And
He was saying to them, ‘You are from below, I am from above; you are of this
world, I am not of this world’.” They are earth-bound with human viewpoint knowledge;
they are in darkness. He is explaining that there is a vast difference. They
are darkness, they are from below, they are from this world, all of which peaks
of the limitations of human knowledge. Jesus is Light, He is from above, and He
is not from this world but from heaven. Jesus has come to declare truth and
they are rejecting it.
John 8:25 NASB “So they were saying to Him, ‘Who are
You?’ Jesus said to them, ‘What have I been saying to
you {from} the beginning?’” Haven’t you gotten the point yet? Let’s stop a
minute and recognise that Jesus has continually been making the claim to be
God, but they don’t hear it. This is the blindness of spiritual death. He claims
in many places to be deity by the use of the phrase “I AM.” Jesus
claimed to be the identical function of God the Father in John 5:17 NASB
“My Father is working until now, and I Myself am
working.” He uses the same verb both times, energeo
[e)nergew] which
emphasise the fact that He is performing the identically same work as God the
Father. This means that He is claiming full deity. In John 5:19, 25 Jesus claims full deity by calling Himself the
Son of God. In John 5:21, 28 Jesus claims to be the source of life and to give
life like God the Father. In John 5:22
Jesus claimed to have the same right to judgment as God the Father, that he
could judge just as God the Father does. He can be given the same honour as God
the Father, John 5:23. He claimed to give life to the dead just as God the
Father could give life to the dead, John 5:21. He claimed to be sent directly
from heaven, John 6:29, 38, 51, 57; 7:28,
29. In John 6:46 He claimed to be the only one who has seen God, and
therefore the only one who can reveal God. When we look at this we realise that
it is absurd for anyone to say Jesus never claimed to be God.
John 8:26 NASB “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.” Notice that He
goes back to the theme of truth. He is the Light of the world, He is revealing
truth. The Father sent Him in order to communicate truth to mankind, “and I am
speaking what He told Me to speak.” That is
revelation; that is the light; that is His function as the Light of the world.
And look at the reaction. John 8:27
NASB “They did not realize that He had been speaking to them about
the Father.” They are in darkness because they are negative to God.
John 8:28 NASB “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’. [29] 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’.”
And look at the result of what He has just said. John 8:30 NASB “As He spoke these things, many came
to believe in Him.” That is the statement we have in the Greek again and again
in the Gospel. The verb is pisteuo
[pisteuw] which means to believe, to accept something as true,
and to rely upon it. The object is expressed by the preposition eis [e)ij], which expresses the object of faith which is Jesus
Christ; they believed in Him. So they are saved at this point in time. The
Pharisees for the main part are dark but there are some in the crowd who are
responding to the illumination of the Light of the world and they are putting
their faith alone in Christ alone.
Verse 30 forms an interesting
transition because at this point after making these claims, explaining who He
is and that He is fulfilling the plan of the Father, and just as the Father was
communicating these things to Him He is communicating them to the human race, there
is the response of many in the crowd for salvation. He changes His focus now.
There was the confrontation with the religious leaders and now He is going to
turn and address the believers. This is a mini sermon, it will last two verses,
because then the hostile Jews who are still there are going to interrupt Him.
They do not understand spiritual truth or what He is saying.
John 8:31 NASB
“So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, ‘If you continue in My
word, {then} you are truly disciples of Mine; [32] and you will know
the truth, and the truth will make you free’.” Now He turns His focus to those
who had believed in Him and now He makes this profound statement about abiding
in His Word and knowing the truth.